~Character Chat~

"Oh, right, sorry!" the first one said. "I'm Izzy!"
"My name's Karin," said the one who was previously on the ground.
"And I'm Elizabeth," spoke the tan one.
"Karin and Izzy are the researchers that we report to," Sarah explained. "Well, Peter's the one who actually does the reporting. Anyway, they give us missions, and they document our findings."
"Aw, it's not that formal," Izzy said. "We're friends and family! Isn't that right, little brother?" she asked, striding over to Peter and messing up his hair.
"Hey, cut that out!" he protested, batting her hand away and trying to undo the damage.

"So you're related to Peter?" laughed Ezra.

"Not by blood," Izzy said. "But Peter and Senet, they're both my little brothers! The three of us were what bonders call Children of the Research Center--kids who were forcibly orphaned by the workings of the multiverse. Since the kids end up spending so much time in research centers, the researchers usually end up raising them, hence the nickname. In our case, it was Karin and Elizabeth. They're both sorta like mothers to us. Anyway, C's of the RC almost always end up joining the Organization, since they have nowhere else to go. I eventually ended up finding my OP, or 'Origin Plane,' but I stayed anyway. I mean, hey, I like this job!"

"That's horrible." said Liz.

"That's just the way it is," Izzy replied with a shrug. "Some of 'em have nastier stories than others. Me, I fell through to the Center of the Planar Universe while riding on a boat over the area where my OP connects with it. I wound up on a B-Plane, luckily for me. The bonders found me quickly enough, and here I am! But their story," she said, jerking her thumb towards Peter and Senet, "is a lot more messy. And bomb-y. And really just horribly, dreadfully depressing. ...Wanna hear it?!"
"No they don't!" Peter said quickly.

" Yes we do," said Andrew.

"Wh-what the?!" Izzy exclaimed, turning and looking at Andrew for the first time.
"Yeah, he's a ghost," Peter told her. "Don't ask, and don't try to figure it out. ...And don't tell the story!"
"Mr. Ghost said he wants to hear it, so I'll tell him!"
"It's not your story!"
"It is two years after the start," Izzy said, placing her hands on her hips.
"Then you can't tell the first two years."
"Not happening! I'm telling the whole thing!"
"Oh, come on, you don't even know all the details!"
"Then I'm sure Senet will gladly fill in the missing parts. Won't you, Senet?"
"'Ey," Senet began, holding up his hands, "I may not mind shareeng, but eef 'e doesn't want ze stohry told, zen I won't 'elp you tell eet."
"Killjoy. So how to begin...?"
"How about you don't begin?" Peter asked hopefully.

"Look I'll make you a deal you tell me your depressing story and I'll tell you mine...and don't call me mister ghost," sighed Andrew.

"She'll make no such deal," Peter said.
"Nah, I won't," agreed Izzy. "You don't have to tell me yours for me to tell you theirs!"
Peter smacked his forehead.
"I give up..." he muttered.
"Good! Then we're settled."
"Not what I--! Agh, I don't know why I even try anymore..."
"Okay, story time!" Izzy declared, sitting down. Karin and Elizabeth had already sat, bemused looks on their faces. "It all started when a hoard of Sybek poofed into a C-Plane. The Sybek came to a little town, where they paid a visit to an elementary school that was just getting out for the day. One certain little brown-haired, brown-eyed eight-year-old attended this school. Now, on this same day, in this same area, a French mother and her son were visiting a relative who had become a French teacher in America."
"My cousin, Amélie," Senet put in.
"This Amélie Durand happened to teach in this elementary school where the brown-haired, brown-eyed kid was enrolled. Third-grader. Anywhoodle, while the bigger Frenchies were talking, the little Frenchie, also eight years old, got distracted by some weird lights. So he went to investigate! And that was where the Sybek came in. The Sybek were waiting outside the school for all the little kids, see. Bang! Bang! Bang! And they kidnapped all the children, including the small, French boy who was just trying to satisfy his curiosity."
"My fihrst treep to Amehreeca meant my last treep fhrom Fhrance," Senet said, somewhat wistfully.
"Hey! Who's telling the story, here?" Izzy demanded. "As I was saying, the Sybek took all the kids away to another plane. There, they shoved them all through a fenced-off Center connection point and let them run around until they were all gone. The brown-haired boy and the French boy crashed into each other, so they vanished together. They fell to the Center, and floooo! off they went to some random plane! They found themselves by the side of an old road, which they followed to a creeeeepy city not too far away. The city was creepy 'cause there were no people in it. And--"
"And that was were we stopped when we were telling Riddle and T.Mor before," Peter interrupted.
"But it doesn't end there!" Izzy protested. "That's actually where it starts getting really good! Oh, and really depressing."
"Well, since it gets so depressing, maybe you should end it there!"
"I also said that's where it gets good!" Izzy turned to the rest. "So, do you wanna hear more?"

"Yes!" The three echoed at once.

"Have you seen you parents since then?" asked Liz.

"Me?" Izzy asked. "Yes. Them? No. Not for nearly nine years now. It's very sad. So, more of the story! One thing I forgot to mention was that when the two little boys first arrived on the new plane, they saw some animals. One was a little barn-owlet with purple eyes, and the other was an amber-eyed filly. They also found out that they could talk telepathically with these animals! Only, they also also found that they couldn't understand a word that the other was saying. They at least managed to introduce themselves, at the same time teaching each other how to introduce oneself in each language.
"Anyway, the little boys made it to the city. The streets were empty, except for some abandoned cars left in the middle of the roads. The buildings were deserted, too. Even weirder was that the cars and the buildings were all covered with layers of glass; the ones on the cars weren't that thick, but the ones on the buildings were like, a foot thick! And a lot of the buildings were crumbling, or in pieces, more in certain sections of the city than others. The little boys looked everywhere for some people, but they couldn't find any. But they did find some wild, rabid dogs. Well...the rabid dogs found them. So the boys ran, but they weren't that fast. The French boy, however, quickly found that he could jump reeeeally far. Not normal far. Fast, too. Then the brown-haired boy tripped, and the dogs were quickly on him. So the French boy turned around, grabbed the other boy, and he jumped waaaaaaaaay into the sky! He also accidentally let go for a moment, but he grabbed him again. They landed on the roof of a building, and it was the start of a beautiful friendship! Also, it was a good thing that the brown-haired boy had his rabies shots."
"Alright, alright," Peter broke in, "you don't have to talk about every little event. You'll just bore them!" He turned to the others. "She's boring you, right?" He had a look on his face that clearly said, "Pleasesayyes!"
"But I haven't gotten to the part about the scary men in black, or the bomb raids, or the homicidal refugees! And next up was the part where you accidentally b--"
"They don't need to know what I accidentally did!"
"But the result was just so heart-wrenching!"
"She's boring you, right?" Peter asked the others again.

"Nope," said Ezra. "Continue on."

"So then...How did you get past the Despair Event Horizon? I mean...WAS THERE HEROIC BSODING?" Riddle asked. "ALSO...YOU." She talked to Izzy. "You and your shirt. I...You...you..."Riddle seemed to excited to fit it all into her poor vocabulary. "THE CAKE IS A LIE!" She finally blurted.

"What is she talking about?" asked Andrew, confused.

"I...I don't know," said Ezra.

"I know!" Izzy wailed. "She burned my poor companion cube to death, and then she did! Not! Give! Me! Cake! Anyway, speaking of mortal burning and the Despair Event Horizon...well, I won't give it all away right now! So the two little boys went into some random house and stayed the night there. The next morning, they decided to take food from the nearest food-store-place. It didn't seem like a problem, since everything was deserted anyway. They would teach each other words in their languages, pointing out objects and saying simple sentences and whatnot. They raided the nonperishables and started to return to the house that wasn't theirs when bad shiznit went down. The brown-haired boy happened to be walking a little bit in front of the French boy. All of a sudden, the sound of dropping food items was heard, and the French boy gave a muffled yelp! So the brown-haired boy whipped around, only to find that two scary tall dudes dressed in all black ninja'd into existence, and that one of them had grabbed the French boy. The other scary tall dude went for the brown-haired boy, who unsuccessfully dodged. The boys struggled, but since they were eight years old and very puny, they couldn't fight off the scary tall dudes. The brown-haired boy shoved uselessly against the one that grabbed him, until ploof! and then 'AUGH!' because the scary tall dude's shirt burst into flames under the brown-haired boy's hand. The scary tall dude dropped him, shouting in painful pain. The other guy sort of forgot about the French boy and let him go, because his friend kind of on fire. Actually, I don't know if they were friends. At the very least, they were coworkers.
"Anywhoodle, the burning guy started screaming, hit the deck, and began rolling around while the brown-haired boy stumbled backwards, shocked. He knew he had done it, because he had felt it. Problem was, he didn't know how. Meanwhile, the fires were spreading, and the guy was still shouting in pain--the rolling was plain ineffective. The brown-haired boy, both panicked and sickened, felt his power building and building. He tried to stop it, while simultaneously wondering how the hell he had set the man on fire. He tried to pull his power back, but the screaming was just getting worse and worse."
Peter, at this point, was looking pretty miserable. Izzy went on, regardless.
"While the French boy and the other scary tall dude were standing, frozen with fear, the brown-haired boy was getting desperate. 'Stop!' he cried to his power, trying to make it listen. 'Please, stop! I'm begging you, stop! Please! STOP!' Only the fire was being a jerk-ass and decided to keep growing instead. It engulfed the man, much to the horror of everyone present...and especially to the horror of the man. The scary tall dudes might have been attacking them, but the brown-haired boy hadn't meant to kill anyone. The little boy, tears streaming down his face, was screaming at his power to stop, and the guy was just screaming 'cause he was on fire... Anyway, the guy's painful, agonized screams died. The fire didn't. The brown-haired boy, cheeks wet with tears and mouth gaping in utter horror, crumpled to his knees. He'd officially hit the Despair Event Horizon, and was having a Heroic BSOD as a result of it. ...Well, I don't know if 'Heroic' is the right word for it, but it was still a BSOD. So the French boy, regaining his senses, ran over to the brown-haired boy, yanked him to his feet by his upper arm, and half-guided, half-dragged him back to their house that wasn't theirs. He didn't look back."
Here, Izzy paused for effect. She glanced at Peter, who was sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest.
"The little brown-haired boy didn't regain his own senses until a bit after the French boy took him back to their house that wasn't theirs," Peter added quietly in somewhat of a monotone, before Izzy could speak, "at which point he promptly threw up. And even after he didn't have anything left in his stomach, he continued to heave. He couldn't bring himself to eat anything for the rest of the day, even after the French boy had gone back alone to get food. That night, and for many nights afterwards, he couldn't sleep at all, because all he could hear in the silence of the dark was the tortured screaming, and all he could see when he closed his eyes was the image of the man whom he had burned alive."
For a moment, an eerie quiet pervaded the room. It didn't last very long, however; it was broken shortly by Izzy.
"...Would you believe that that isn't nearly the saddest point of the story?" Izzy asked the group. "It gets worse. If you want to hear more, I might suggest some tissues. However, I can occasionally be a sensitive person, so I'll leave it up to you. Do you want me to go on?"

"Peter! I'm so sorry!" said Liz, hugging him. "Are you okay?"

"That's terrible...but it wasn't your fault," Ezra said to Peter.

T.Mor didn't entirely know what to say. He had never accidentally killed someone before. "Well. Uhm...Yeah." He managed. "At least you didn't do it on purpouse. I mean...theoretically it's less bad then killing someone on purpouse who didn't deserve it...At least you were like...defending yourself from something..." It was quite clear that T.Mor was retreating back into his own little nightmare world.
"THAT WAS---" August slapped his hand over Riddle's mouth, preventing whatever unsympathetic comment was about to explode from her.

Ezra looked at T. Morr, "Try living with someone who took the souls of the dead, tortured them, and used them to make an army. That was my father."

"MY FATHER...." Riddle yelled in recognition.
"No- your dad just kills children to sacrifice to the internet so that he can chase his dreams of immortality." T.Mor corrected her.
"Same deal...BASICALLY....I mean..he's pretty much a complete monster." Riddle muttered.
"PRETTY MUCH?" August asked incredulously. "I have three 0's carved into my shoulder! WHO DOES THAT?"

"So is mine and my mother is completly oblivious to all this," Ezra said.

"Riddle has no biological parents...Actually." T.Mor said, trying not to make that sound really horrible.
"Yeah. I AM ERROR. Ok? Can we NOT bring that up? Couldn't we just Talk about how he does all that erm...BAD GOVERNMENT CRAP?" Riddle asked, sounding defensive for once.
"How do ALL of you have such bad childhoods? or insane family, or just plain...Bad stuff happening all the time to you? I mean that's some insane coincidence." August was constantly kept confused by the new information.

"I have a good family," said Liz. "My parents don't know about what I can do."

"I had a good family...we were just really poor and lived in a slum." mumbled Andrew.

"Oh...Ok then." August said.
T.Mor yawned. "You guys mentioned there was a mattress somewhere right? Could I maybe...Use that for a bit?"

"Yup!" said Liz. "Take your pick of any of the rooms."

"Great...thanks." T.Mor wandered up a crumbling staircase and threw open a door. "HOLY CRAP. YOU HAVE PILLOWS." He shouted downstairs before throwing himself onto the bed and quickly drifting off to a troubled sleep.
"So...Now what?" Riddle asked.