Tolkien has some explaining to do. (Closed to Valk)

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvelous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.
— Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

There is the multiverse, a concept known only to highly intelligent scientists studying the concept of reality and anyone who has watched any sci-fi series ever made. But what few people include or note is the fact that the multiverse is really just Inside. We live in a part of the multiverse, which can be likened to being a really, really big house. However, there are those living Outside, and they want to get In, and they try breaking the walls separating Inside and Outside.

Sometimes they find a crack...
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It was cold in Seattle. This didn't require much of a stretch in the imagination, but it was the middle of May, and temperatures had been expected to be record heights in the 80s and 90s. Instead, a cold snap happened and the temperatures went down the flipping 40s! Sachin was gravely offended by this, as though the universe had done the Indian young adult a great insult. He had come to Seattle expecting warm and happy times, and then this happened.

Also, the mood in general seemed depressed in parts of the town. Twenty high-school children and three middle-school children had gone missing last week. On that very day, this cold snap had started, causing many religious fundies or conspiracy theorists to claim it was God or the aliens. Or both. Or the sins of mankind had led to the youth being taken and caused such horrid weather. Sachin considered their claims, but decided to try masturbating less. He started up after one day when he realized the weather was clearly not getting warmer.

He shivered, and then entered a McDonalds. The heat immediently was thankful, and he sighed happily. The McDonalds was packed, it being about eight in the evening, on Friday, so many people were going out to eat fast food, or just looking for a place to stay away from the hellish cold outside.

Sachin ordered his burger, which was actually quite simple, but somehow unable to be understood by the McDonald's guys. "Wait, you don't want ANY meat whatsoever?" they kept asking, as if they were unable to believe that vegetarians existed in the world. Eventually, they gave him the burger, no meat whatsoever, and the large-size fries he had also requested. And the Coca-Cola. Sachin was a Coke addict, considering it far superior to Pepsi, and was able to easily tell the difference between any soda you wanted to name. He was pretty sure his liver would kill him someday for his Coke addiction, but he didn't care.

He looked for a empty seat, and found none. This place was PACKED. He sighed, and walked over to the nearest table, with a young girl around his age or maybe a year or so younger. "Er, can I sit here?" he asked.

(Just setting it up, rather rushed. Action will start later. I know you wanted to rp with Nightkill, but I couldn't work up inspiration as NK right now.)

[[ Its all good ^_^ ]]

Nina looked up as she spooned another helping of ice cream into her mouth. ''Mmn.'' She nodded to the man, setting her pack on the floor to give him more room.

She looked him over, sizing him up as newbie heroes tended to do with strangers. Valkyrie had already made a few enemies, and since she didn't wear a mask, she couldn't afford to let her guard down, even in this dive of an eatery.

Out of respect, she looked at the table while she ate, gently nudging the burger wrappers and empty french fry cups to the side. Another cursory glance, and back down. He wasn't half bad, and she decided he was no threat. He looked cold, young, and a little too thin to really be considered an immediate danger to her. ''Have a seat.'' she said, swallowing the mouthful of melted ice cream as she gestured to the seat beside her.

(My OCD will still force me to change that post later...)

Sachin nodded, and sat down and raised an eyebrow when he saw her eating ice cream. "Ice cream? When the weather is in the low forties?" he asked in surprise. "I get cold just thinking about someone eating ice cream in this temperature." he grinned, making a mock shiver for effect.

He took the burger wrappings off, and began eating his burger, occasionally actually wiping his mouth with a napkin, something few people actually did at a fast food store. "I'm a bit of a neatness freak." he explained after wiping some sauce off the corner of his lip.

Outside, it started to rain, and the people in the McDonald's groaned. "Quite crappy weather." Sachin noted. "Some would say it borders on the shitty. Perhaps you could conclude it is indeed rather fucked up." he said in a mock calm and professional voice. "Now, seriously, the weather is just messed up." he continued in a normal voice. "Along with those kids disappearing. My vacation here hasn't been going well." he grumbled. "You live around here, or you visiting too?"

Nina licked the last swaths of ice cream from the spoon before setting it and the cup aside, leaning back and licking her lips. She listened to him calmly, folding her hands in her lap.

''I'm.... visiting.'' she concluded. If visiting means looking for whatever sick fuck is stealing these kids She thought offhandedly. ''I'd never live here voluntarily.'' A few of the cities residents cast her a look, she let it slide past without a fuss. She was here to work, nothing more. It was already bad enough she was getting rained out, but the last thing she would tolerate is ire from the people she was trying to save.

She noticed his burger was meatless; her brow furrowed. ''You, uh... vegetarian?'' she inquired, leaning forward a bit. This guy was strange, but harmless. She filed him under Possible Friend in her mind, giving him some leeway to act before she left to continue her search for the children.

Sachin nodded. "The weather isn't this crappy. I've visited before. I lived in Cali for a while, I know most of the West Coast pretty well." he said. He took another french fry, swallowed it, and then took a sip of the Coca Cola. Ah, Coke, how I do love you. he thought to himself. You truly are one of the greatest American creations.

"What, assuming all Indians are vegetarians?" he joked. "Yeah, I am. Part of my religious viewpoint and such, but also because I personally don't like meat. Could never get the flavor for it, even though I've tried pork and chicken a few times. Not a vegan though, so I can still have my daily glass of milk and the occasional omelet." he grinned, making a mock sigh of relief.

"So, why are you visiting here anyway?" he asked her curiously, taking a small bite of his burger. He filed her under "possible friend, maybe possible sex." Sachin was a Hindu, but not a very good one in some aspects. He glanced at the TV, which was stating that the weather was now 31 degrees fahrenheit, with a clearly upset weatherman on the screen. "Son of a gun. It's cold." he said depressed as the weatherman said that even colder weather could be expected.

The question caught her off-guard. ''Uhh...''

She thought quickly about how to word it. ''Job opportunity.'' Technically she wasn't lying, and with that, she smiled. ''I heard there was work to be done, so here I am.'' She gestured to the area around her, leaning back in the plastic seat. ''The job market for me has been a little slow lately, but I guess that's a good thing...'' she mumbled, cleaning the undersides of her nails on the edge of the table.

''How about you?'' she piped up, ''If you don't like the weather, why visit?''

Sachin sighed. "I thought it would BE good weather. That's half the reason I came. The other half is my job of comic book writer, which is the best job in the universe. I can go wherever I want and claim it's so that I can get inspiration for my book." he said, taking another sip of his Coke.

Then shit broke loose. Dozens of arrows broke the glass of the McDonalds, and hit many people, who fell to the ground. An arrow jutted through a vital organ or another did that sort of thing to you.

Sachin gaped, uncomprehending that something like this happened. He wasn't a trained superhuman. He had never even been in a situation like this. He did some stuff in LA because of that one shapeshifter, but in general dangerous situations avoided him.

Nina grunted as an arrow collided with her temple; the arrowhead shattering as the wood of it splintered in a puff of busted weaponry. ''Ow...'' she said flatly, her gaze turning steely as she looked out the window, rain and wind pouring into the eatery. Her mind flickered over the gratitude of having impenetrable skin, but logic was soon snuffed out as she heard the pained cries and sobs from the normal folk around her.

No pain had been felt, and she rose with a start, cracking her knuckles in a quickly roiling rage that threatened to spill out of her in a stream of curse words and overpowered punches. '''Scuse me.'' she growled to her companion, and with a few ample strides, she stood in front of the gaping window frame.

''Alright!'' she called out in a bitter roar, ''Who tha fuck did that?'' She had to squint as the rain struck her like chilled needles, wind teasing at her hair. ''Best own up to it before I go outside and find ya!''

Sachin gaped. "You just-the arrow-it-" Words were failing him, so he seemed to settle briefly for shocked sputtering noises as his brain tried to comprehend what his eyes were seeing. An arrow zooming less than a centimeter from his nose knocked him out of that state.

"Why arrows?" he muttered out loud as he stood up. "Really backward in technology, a nice gun would be better..." the brown boy noted to himself as he pulled out his own handgun. A law had been hotly debated in Washington, but it was eventually decided that guns could stay. Good thing too, considering what was happening today.

Then it started to snow. Snow. In the middle of May. Sachin, who rarely saw snow anywhere and anytime outside of Christmas specials, having grown up in India, and after that, LA, just stared for a few moments. The snow was flying into the McDonald's as the window had shattered.

It was too snowy to see where the arrows were coming from, but they seemed to have stopped. Then a bright flash of light blinded his eyes and everyone in the city fell unconscious.
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"This is KGW, Portland news. An amazing, and quite frightful event has recently occurred in Seattle, less than two hundred miles away from where we are reporting. The city of Seattle had been overtaken by bad weather for a week now, along with several disapperences of children. But now not only have the few children vanished off the face of the Earth, so has the entire population of Seattle. This means that 700,000 people have simply disappeared. The current president is expected to give a speech on this matter shortly, and as superhumans are heavily suspected, many feel this increases the political chances of Adam Jones for the presidental campaign. We hope for the people of Seattle. Now we go to Jones for the weather."
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Sachin woke up with a pounding headache. "Where the hell am I?" he grumbled, and then he stood up. He was in a snow-covered forest, the most beautiful he had ever seen. Enchanting...

He had the groans as many other people got up as well, and reconogized some as the people who had been in the McDonald's. He saw the girl he had been talking with, and he ran over. "You alright? You know where the hell we are?" he spoke the last line pleadingly.

(Plot twist, eh?)

Nina felt cold. She didn't like that.

Immediately, she decided that anger would be the best way to go, and as she felt a slight breeze bite at her face, she screwed it into a pinched expression of frustration. As the stranger she had been eating with spoke to her, she turned in his direction without opening her eyes, still sprawled on the ground.

''I'm upset.'' she stated bluntly, allowing one eye to peek open before snapping shut once more. ''And now I'm in snow.'' Her expression of anger melted into one of a saddened frustration, and she let out a whimper as she rose to her feet. ''I'm in snow...'' she muttered, shouldering her pack that had been close by before hugging herself. She turned to her companion and raised an eyebrow.

''This wasn't you, was it?''

Sachin stared at her in disbelief. "Me? Do something like this?" He asked as the crowd began to disperse into other parts of the forest, wondering where they were. Sachin laughed. "Trust me, I don't even have the power to do anything like this. I figured it was you, since you seemed superhuman and all." he said.

He kneeled down and looked at the ground curiously. "You know, I really don't understand how we got here." said the young Indian, standing back up. "And everyone from that McDonald's showed up here...You think all of Seattle came with us as well?" The sheer shock and impossibility of the situation hadn't set in yet.

Nina grunted as she stretched her arms and neck, ''Wasn't me, don't know who did it, and don't much care.'' Her joints gave protesting pops, and with a shake of her head, she exhaled and took up a fighting stance as her eyes glanced around her; They landed on her associate, and begrudgingly, she admitted her identity.


''Th' names Valkyrie, and yes, I'm a super.'' She seemed to almost visibly swell with pride as she jammed a thumb at her chest. ''One of the good guys. You're a super too, I take it?'' she queried, taking a cautious step back just in case the man was dangerous.

Sachin sighed. "Barely think I count. My power isn't too special, I can just heal really quickly. I wish I had something like laser beams from my eyes, or super speed like the Flash or something. But I get healing." he grumbled. "I spend more of my time making comic books about superheroes and villains. I think they work out well."

He looked around. "I think we should see where we are..." he mumbled, suddenly walking right, having seen something. After a bit, he stopped, and pointed. "Look!" he said, pointing upwards...to a massive tower made of bricks. "Let's head there, it's probably connected to some sort of castle." he said. Stories worked like that.

Nina blinked. ''Uh huh.'' she said flatly, tromping through the snow bitterly. She hated the cold, and this fresh powder was thick enough to chill her bare calves and soak into the socks that usually remained protected in the leather of her combat boots. Here, they were going to quickly become a freezing wet nuisance.

''Healers...'' she mumbled, casting him a glance. It was easy to walk into random situations when you couldn't really be adversely affected by them. Though her skin was tough, she was still just as vulnerable to pain, gas, drowning, electric shocks... In all the experience she had gleaned from working with these injury-free folk had led her to always second guess their plans. They rarely accounted for dangerous things.

''Come on.'' Nina waved him over and continued her trek through the snow. ''I don't wanna wait for you.''

They started trekking, and soon after a tall old man appeared in the middle of the path. And by this description the narrator does not mean the man walked out of the shadow of a tree or something. The narrator would like to stress that the man simply materialized in the middle of the path. No flashly noises, sparkles or anything of the sort. He wasn't there one moment, and then he was.

He was a tall man with a long white beard. He wore blue robes decorated with mystic runes, and his hat (and what a hat it was! Pointy and easily as tall as the man's head itself) followed the same theme. He wore tinted glasses, making it impossible to see what color or shape his eyes were. Despite all this, he wore a kindly expression, perhaps that of a nice, but a bit eccentric, grandfather.

"Hello." the man said, in a slight British and Celtic accent. It was a strange mix of the two. "Have a seat." A table with three chairs appeared next to them in the same manner the man himself did.

"You just teleported and then created some furniture out of nothing." Sachin said, his voice emotionless as though his brain hadn't fully understood the concept.

The man laughed. It was a hearty laugh, and though most hearty laughs are when people are trying to fake cheeriness for children, this one seemed genuine. "Well, you see, I'm a wizard." the man said. And waited for their reaction.