Know The World Is Waiting There For Me

[Samantha McManus]

"...looks like a phone. Is there supposed to be something else about it that I'm missing?"

[Ryn]

"No." Ryn says, shaking her head. Then she recognizes that this might need a little more explanation and hazards an approach that hopefully won't disturb Katarina's cover too much. She drops her voice and on a hunch switches to very old Irish, probably closer to some form of Proto-Gaelic and not something anybody speaks anymore. And yet Sam can glean the meaning from Ryn's mind without even having to try. She continues to move and act in perfect alignment with her own thoughts right on the surface, whether it's speaking a dead language or just walking along.

"<Unlike Agent Kane I have not spent much time around humans. She does not know what I really am, but you recognized your title. You know what we are. Deva, Sidhe, Danava, Æsir.>" she goes on expectantly. Many a god would (have tried to) strike her down simply for using the wrong kind of name for their divine lineage, but to Ryn the truth feels obvious. They are all the same, brothers, sisters and siblings all and any distinction as arbitrary as they are undeniable. But the one directing them towards lodgings now seems... not lesser but not as present. Manifest in human form maybe? Reincarnated? Whatever it is, she will find out, whether it has anything to do with the whirlpool or not

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina, puzzled, pulled out her own cell phone, and looked at it, trying to piece things together. She didn't speak ancient Irish or whatever the heck it was Ryn was doing, but this strange...beast...man seemed nice enough. Maybe she was going to ask for his number?

Or, well, that's what it would look like without context.

What she was actually doing was pulling out the small black box that had made it's way to Wyll Wyldclay's desk, that she had smuggled off of it when she had used the Voice to get some revenge on the imp. She could put two and two together, the devices clearly being the same sort of thing. If the apparent titled redhead said it was a phone, then this, too, must be a phone. And it's not like she had never seen a portable phone before. Her agent had one! A nice fancy one, too,, complete with the brass swivel antenna and leather case. This was a bit large for a LED screen, of course, but maybe this was something like a Watchman? This part must snap on to the phone bit. That's kind of convenient, though the battery life must be terrible.

"Well, yes, it's a phone display, of course. The rest of this one must have been lost in the river," she said, with a nod.

There. Solved it. Good one, Katarina. Gold star.

[Leo Eskandari]

He nearly broke out laughing at just how wrong she was. Holy shit, are they time travelers?! No, wait, they were confused by the word mutant. Another dimension then? Aliens?

Lifting his smartphone from his pocket, he turned it on and showed her the screen after turning it on. "It is the phone. And you'd know that if you were from this time. Though something tells me you aren't from our version of Earth either."

[Samantha McManus]

Sam's lips don't move, but Ryn 'hears' her nonetheless. What Sam says is beyond language, or perhaps it's the first language, before the great tower fell. Pure meaning and understanding, without the confusion of tongues, filtered down to what the settler of accounts knows.

"You recognized me, so you have me at a disadvantage. I could sense what you are, but sometimes it's hard to put a candle to a memory for me."

"Why are you working with her?"

[Ryn]

Ryn glances at Sam. Just because she's of the Tuatha doesn't mean she's trustworthy. In fact it probably means the opposite. But Ryn is many things and deceptive isn't really among them. At the end of the day, even if she's tricked and betrayed she knows what to do.

"<I am Erinyes, Implacable One and banished by you and yours, returned under mankind's law to civilized lands. Those who recruited her found me and on their authority I am free to do as I please. Hunt monsters. And protect her.>"

[Katarina Kane]

He nearly broke out laughing at just how wrong she was. Holy shit, are they time travelers?! No, wait, they were confused by the word mutant. Another dimension then? Aliens?

Lifting his smartphone from his pocket, he turned it on and showed her the screen after turning it on. "It is the phone. And you'd know that if you were from this time. Though something tells me you aren't from our version of Earth either."

"Oh, no, that's not it. I'm just not from around here," Katarina said, going through the excuses she had been trained from. "You can probably tell from my accent; I'm from Czechloslovakia. We may be a few years behind you in the West, technologically speaking."

[Leo Eskandari]

"Okay then, humor me. What year is it?" he asked with a very feline look of satisfaction at trapping her. Unless she was a lucky guesser, anyway.

[Katarina Kane]

"Okay then, humor me. What year is it?" he asked with a very feline look of satisfaction at trapping her. Unless she was a lucky guesser, anyway.

"Oh, that's classified information," Katarina said, trying to turn on the charm as a last resort. "Interpol stuff, you know," she said, with a wink and a grin.

[Samantha McManus]

"But it's not the laws of men or their authority you answer to, is it? You're not doing-as-you-please, you're serving an older law. Perhaps the oldest."

"You're hunting [Oathbreaker/Kinslayer/Defiler-of-sacred-breath], not [Aeolian harp whose song carries more leagues than man can fathom]."

[Leo Eskandari]

"The current year..." Leo asked incredulously, "... is classified?"

"Please tell me you don't think I look that dumb."

[Ryn]

"<Yes, but you truly must still be slumbering. Our laws are not written and followed but enacted.>" Ryn breaks into a grin that briefly flashes decidedly inhuman fangs. "<It exists because who I please to hunt is those whose soul is rot.>"

"<But you are right, it is very old indeed.>"

[Katarina Kane]

"The current year..." Leo asked incredulously, "... is classified?"

"Please tell me you don't think I look that dumb."

"I certainly will keep that information to myself, mister..." she trailed off.

[Leo Eskandari]

"Eskandari. Leo Eskandari," he answered before he thought better of it. This lady was definitely some variety of foreign element because nobody normal would be so cagey about such a fundamental question.

"But seriously, what else is classified? The color of the sunset?" He was just playing with her now.

[Samantha McManus]

"Still, I'm sure there's some things that just feel wrong sometimes. There certainly are with me."

She glances over to Leo and Katarina.

"...perhaps we should bail these two out."

[Katarina Kane]

"Eskandari. Leo Eskandari," he answered before he thought better of it. This lady was definitely some variety of foreign element because nobody normal would be so cagey about such a fundamental question.

"But seriously, what else is classified? The color of the sunset?" He was just playing with her now.

Katarina stopped in her tracks, the others getting a few steps ahead. "Leo Eskandari," she repeated. "Your name is Leo Eskandari?"

[Ryn]

Ryn thinks for a moment, then nods. She's not wrong, some things simply are. Then she hears the manticore mention his name and she knows Katarina's unexplained feeling after emerging from the whirlpool is right. She doesn't know how or what it means, but it is. She glances at Katarina as she repeats the name. A Morrigan that does not recognize her, much less seek to drive her out, a mirror of the Asura-ridden boy back home. It's all distorted echoes and for a moment that makes her very uncomfortable for reasons she can't discern.

[Leo Eskandari]

Leo looked back, briefly perplexed before remembering his theory. There could easily be another him if he understood how this multiverse stuff worked. "Yeah. Does that mean something to you?"

[Samantha McManus]

"...let me guess, you expected him to be shorter," she deadpans.

[Ryn]

"More legs." Ryn says and her matter-of-fact tone must surely be part of the joke.

[Katarina Kane]

Even the last horse has to return to the stable at some point.

The final puzzle piece fell into place for Katarina. This wasn't just some sort of...other world. If there was a Leo Eskandari here, even one as different as this one, this was something deeper. Some sort of parallel dimension? A mirror to their own?

And if this was a mirror to their own, that led to some disturbing conclusions.

Just like the Leo in her world was part of PATHS, this Leo may well be part of some sort of organization. He was clearly from the other side of the Veil, like the Leo at home. And this young Miss DeDanann, or whatever her name was, had done something to Ryn. She had never seen the girl quite so hesitant and unsure before. And while she presumed whatever she was prattling on about was just a different language, who's to say? She'd read enough files and been on enough missions with PATHS to have encountered some strange things to this point -- counts draining blood in Romania, shops that appear only on alternate Thursdays, tentacled beast that only exist when one is thinking about them -- that this could be anything.

And the first move? The first move they had made was to try to bring her to the medical center. Like PATHS before them. Some things, it seemed, were constants throughout the universes. Was it even a coincidence that two of them had been there to meet the two of them by the sea? Was the Manticore's quips because they were aware of their arrival before they came? They may well be responsible for the whirpool itself. But to what end?

But Katarina Strazds had not been trained by two separate intelligence agencies, one mundane and one supernatural, for nothing. Recon. Get out. Get to safety, assess the situation. They had the upper hand at the moment; flip it, reverse it.

She smiled again, replying to Leo. "I have a friend around here. Pytor Eskandari? Perhaps the two of you are related? Or perhaps this is a common English name I was not previously aware of?"

She stretched out, looking around, and spotted her move. "Ah, excuse me for one moment," she said, gesturing in the vague direction of the public toilets. "I must freshen up ever-so-briefly. I shan't be long," she said, with a wave as she started to head off.

[Leo Eskandari]

When she was gone, Leo looked at Sam and tapped the side of his head before loudly thinking: "Yeah... I'm pretty sure they don't know what mutants even are, let alone what smartphones are. I think we have ourselves some of that time-space bullshit here.

[Samantha McManus]

"This one's got more going on than I can explain all that easily. We should stick with them," she sends to Leo.

[Ryn]

Ryn is not good at discerning the meaning, but she's begun to pick up on when Katarina is employing clever-words. Part of her wants to follow her but nothing here screams outright danger to her. Other than the two beings right next to her and keeping an eye on them might not be a bad idea either. Not to mention that things between her and Katarina are still a little weird and chasing after her is probably something she should avoid. She just hopes she'll be okay.

Something passes between the Manticore and the Morrigan. She can't tell what but she sees it in his eyes even if the tapping of his temple doesn't mean anything to her. Humans (and human-adjacent things apparently) have so many ways to communicate that Ryn doesn't understand. But if they're plotting something she will know sooner or later and put an end to it. She watches the two intently though at least her tension does not give anything away, she's always somewhere between taut steel cable and bending reed. 'Relaxed' is not in the vocabulary of her body-language.

[Leo Eskandari]

"Agreed."

"So, uhh... What brings Interpol to Maldon, assuming that isn't also classified?" he asked, not expecting the truth or even an answer.

[Ryn]

Ryn is beginning to like that word. It seems a much more accepted method of saying 'No'.

"It is. Have you seen anything strange? Things being found in the mud at low tide?"

[Samantha McManus]

"What you showed us there isn't strange."

[Ryn]

"But have you seen anything that is?"

[Samantha McManus]

"...broad question. Think of who you're asking."

[Ryn]

"Things that don't belong."

[Samantha McManus]

"Still a long answer, and if you want that one we're going to have to wait for your partner to get back from the loo and find somewhere pretty private."

[Leo Eskandari]

"Well, I haven't seen anything strange in the mud but two supposed Interpol agents." Leo smirked playfully.

[Ryn]

Ryn gives him a tight-lipped grin. For someone he literally towers over by multiple feet, Ryn seems exactly zero percent intimidated. On one hand that's probably kind of a nice change of pace from the reaction he tends to get from the general public, on the other it's weird. Someone he could pick up in one hand and snap in half like a twig should be at least a little bit intimidated.

"I can wait." she simply says and seems to let her attention drift to their surroundings. She tries to find what Katarina seems to have realized on some level, looking for it in the sway of the trees, the way the wind dances across the now distant water and brings with it the smell of salt and the living ocean. But all she can tell is that it's off in some way she can't discern. Different. Not wrong but distorted. Like an echo in a cave. She shakes her head. She can't make sense of it.

To Leo and Sam Ryn looks almost zoned out as they wait. If she wasn't actively looking around, occasionally smelling the air or tilting her head to listen to the sound of nearby birds and the distant noises of the town it would almost seem like she's meditating. Either way the wait doesn't seem to bother her and it soon becomes clear that Katarina is probably not coming back and the woman is wasting their time or actively stalling.

[Samantha McManus]

Meanwhile, Sam's eyes unfocus as she subtly sends one of the flock out in the direction Katarina went.

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina, meanwhile, had gotten to work.

And, for that matter, had gotten a bit lucky, as well. The woman who was washing up on her way out was just about her size and build. Close enough for government work, or shady secret organization work, at the very least.

"Oh, I love your top," Katarina told her, with a smile. "We should swap outfits.".

Changing in a public bathroom would not go on the list of most glamorous things Katarina had ever done, but part of disappearing would be to blend in; look like a native. Her hair was still damp -- nothing to be done about that here and now, that' would have to wait -- but at least she'd be wearing dry clothes in the fashion of the time, if you could even call it that.

She made sure to transfer over her more important personal items. Her identifications. Her pistol, which she checked was still loaded, and was forced to strap around her ankle. A small vial with a green liquid in it, kept for emergencies. Things of that nature.

She looked over her counterpart, frowning for a moment. Needs must, she supposed. "Wet your hair, and then head directly for the river and watch it for a few minutes. Then forget this meeting ever took place.." There was obviously no way that whoever these people were would be confused for very long by a different redhead in her clothes, but by sending her walking away from the group, she might buy herself a minute or two of distance.

And, after the woman left, she took a breath, counted to 20, and ducked out herself, walking behind the back of the restroom building and into Prominade Park, planning to cut across it and get to where the town should be, if the map she had seen back in the House had any correlation to the actual location as it stood today. The Wyldclay would certainly point out, in their shitstirring way, that of course the Siren would pick a waterpark as her avenue of escape, but there was no time to worry about that now. She had to go get lost in the crowd.

[Ryn]

A single crow peeling off of an already ephemeral flock should be barely noticeable but unfortunately for Sam, Ryn is paying very close attention to her surroundings right now. Fortunately for her, Ryn cannot fly. Her eyes snap to the single escaping bird. Ryn tries to tell herself that Sam is wondering where Katarina has gotten off to, but a much deeper, much older part of her says something else entirely. The Morrigan is sending her harbinger for Katarina. She snarls and in the blink of an eye she has whirled around. Leo has ended up between her and Sam as they waited and she flips forward, hands land flat on the ground and her arms flex as fingers flex against the ground. Leo has seen some feats of strength and speed but Ryn moves as if she weighs nothing, fingers flicking her up high enough to clear Leo as she turns upright again in the air.

Her feet land on the back of his shoulder and rockets herself off of them with enough force to send him stumbling forward as she launches herself at Sam in a tackle aimed at her stomach that threatens to fold her in half before taking her to the ground.

[Leo Eskandari]

The world seemed to go by in slow motion as the small stranger leaped clear over his head. It wasn't as if he'd never seen anyone move like that in his time at XU, but the suddenness of her action left him reeling even before she sent him stumbling. As soon as he caught his balance, he spun around to see if Sam needed help.

And, of course, to ask, "... the fuck?"

[Samantha McManus]

While Sam wasn't looking at Ryn at all with her real eyes, that isn't the only resource she has at her disposal.

As such, and perhaps Ryn had reason to expect this as well, Sam is already shifting her stance as the kindly one springs into motion. Still, the body she's reacting with at the moment is largely just human, so while she manages to brace and bring her arms to bear, she can't quite grapple Ryn and her heels skid back.

"I don't suppose I'm getting a bloody explanation, am I?" She grunts.

[Ryn]

"Ill winds beneath the wings of the lone crow." she growls and her legs shift as soon as they touch ground. She pivots the both of them and plants one foot above Sam's knee and forces it inwards just enough to unbalance Sam at the same time as the butt of her hand slams into Sam's chest and flips her, driving her down until her back hits the ground and Ryn, in the same motion, flips through a handstand and plants both her feet on either side of Sam's head so she can keep an eye on Leo.

[Leo Eskandari]

Leo had already begun making his move. He let out a defiant roar as his thick arm swung through the air, bristling with quills that detached from the force and flew at Ryn. They weren't poisonous but they were big enough to cause serious pain.