[What the Vine reveals this time is quite a sight. A young woman stands, angrily tying a fur skirt around her waist over her pants, hair hanging messily in her eyes. To the side sits the white shift she doubtless woke up in, in a crumpled heap and smoldering in more than one place. Now dressed, she picks up a scroll, the edges signed, and wrenches it open only to let out a furious huff a few moments later.

Then she stomps closer to the mirror and reaches out to grab the edges, pulling it in close to her face. She does not look happy. At all.]

Hey! I don't know how this thing is supposed to work, but somebody out there had better tell me who this Queen is and where I can find her. I'm the Avatar and if she thinks she can just snatch me and put me in a dress? Oh, she has got another thing coming.

[Hi, Gardens! It's Feferi. She's looking pretty perturbed at the moment.]

One short question for everyone.

I think it's better if one is...intimate with someone else for the first time when you have strong feelings towards the other. SOMEONE is claiming it's just another option in a ruler's playbook.

What do you all think?

[ This place strikes her as being so very, very familiar to her. Yet, she cannot put her digit on it. Perhaps she took a vacation to this world? That would explain the itching familiarity. She has been to many worlds, after all.

A vacation is also something she has not had in a while!

How convenient!

She does not like being whisked away without her consent, but she is less furious about this whole matter than she had been the first time she arrived here--not that she remembers very well. Or at all, for the moment.

Ah--wait! The plant!

She toys with the Vine, which responds by opening its mirror and begins broadcasting the 'video'. She remembers now! At least, she remembers actually being here before for sure. She does not remember where 'here' is.

The video shows her floating in the fortress she built just weeks ago to everyone else--centuries upon centuries for herself. It is most definitely her work as she inspects it. What was it about this world? There had been some sort of gimmick, but all worlds have gimmicks, so that means nothing. ]

How exciting. Hee hee hee! Someone, do please come forth and tell me where I am. I get the distinct feeling I have been here before, but--well, ruling so many worlds makes them all bleed together, you see.

Hurry up! I may have all the time in the universe, but that does not give me infinite patience. Hee hee hee.

[Zinc is sitting at her kitchen table, looking a bit formal really. She has an announcement to make.]

Vitalia has not come back.

[She looks down at her hands folded on the table, frowning slightly. She is upset to have lost her new friend so quickly.]

Maybe lost, in the wild places, where time is... wrong. Maybe gone, it happens... often.

[She doesn't sigh, she doesn't breathe, but the idea of it is there.]

She has many plants. I will tend mine, but... the rest are outside. Outside my gate.

They should not be left, to die. Maybe... Himemiya and others, could tend them? I do not know if there are others.

[Tsukasa had been recording herself at the moment to show off her COMP's newly-unlocked fusion app. Her plan had been to bind a lower level demon to her Jack Frost to expand her magical abilities but, being nothing ever works in this place as it should, a very odd substitution had been made in the fusion formula without her knowledge. Several seconds later, a flash of dark energy fills the vine's view almost entirely, a sure sign that something was certainly amiss. After the eruption of demonic power dies down, Tsukasa can be laid out on the ground in front of her COMP, having been leveled by the explosion herself. However, her usual garb of a black sweater and jeans has been replaced by a strange blue gown with a snowflake motif. While her head phones has taken on a shape of a blue hat that may be familiar to those who know Tsukasa's demons well.

Though it takes a few moments for Tsukasa to regain consciousness, she seems no worse for wear. Save for her odd new attire.]

What the hee-ck happened to me?





[ooc: Tsukasa as accidentally fused herself with her Jack Frost. So she'll be cold to the touch and using Jack's usual Hee Ho speech pattern.]

Ah, guten tag. If it isn't too much trouble, ladies of the gardens, I have a bit of an inquiry. I'd like to know what nations exist in each of your worlds. I've noticed during my time here that some of you recognize me, or at least my name, as a nation, but some of you do not. I've found myself curious about the nations that presumably exist in the worlds in which they are unfamiliar to me. Also, I am curious as to the state of the nations I know in other worlds as well.

This is all just idle curiosity, but I would be grateful for it to be indulged. Thank you.

[The video feed opens up on the image of a katana being slid, slowly and deliberately into its sheath. Behind the Katana is the face of Amamiya Sakurako, her mouth set in a grim line and her eyes on fire with cold anger. The blade settles solidly into place, and she pulls away from the camera as she slides it into its place at her waist, revealing that she's standing in one of the Apartments.

She'd done a small amount of digging since Fionna had staggered home, and now knew exactly who had attacked her. And more importantly, where to find her.]

Tohno Akiha.

[She extends one hand to the side, and a closet bursts open as if of its own volition, and from it flies a kusari-gama, the sickle landing safely in her right hand while the other grasps the chain.]

You hurt my friend. I will not forgive you for that. I suggest you prepare yourself.

[She snaps her fingers, and the message ends.]

[There's the face of a very excited and very happy-looking troll girl appearing via the Vine today. Feferi doesn't really look like she knows how she activated it. But she's happy and it seems to be telling her she can speak into it.]

Oh my cod, this place is beautiful! I can't get over how lovely the forests are, and the flowers...and the purrbeasts and the slitherbeasts and the hopbeasts! They're so cute, I want to hug them all. Even the slitherbeasts. But especially the hopbeasts! They are just adorable.

...wait, I didn't introduce myshellf! How silly of me, I shrimply forgot my manners. I'm Feferi Peixes! It's nice to meet you. I am so excited!

[She sure has dragged that vine with her as she's dipping her feet into a nearby pond, letting the fish in it nibble at her toes.]

I think I like it here already.

[After the whole "I am the Queen of all Demons" incident, Tsukasa had been quite happy that her darker powers had laid dormant as of  late. With a tranquility in her heart, Tsukasa could currently be found training with her Jack Frost in the middle of one of the garden's many scenic grass fields.  However, in the middle of her elemental display, Tsukasa found herself inexplicably drawn in a random direction. Though she knew that the the Queen was likely responsible for the compulsion, the destination of her forced march was currently unknown..."

[ Let it be said that, for all her pride and vanity, Her Imperial Majesty was one far from lazy and one most certainly capable. She quickly learned of the 'magic dirt' and as foolish as the name was, she recognized its potential immediately. That was well over a month ago.

This is now.

Possessing tremendous brute strength as well as centuries worth of experience in all matters architectural and war-like, it took her an inhuman (as one may expect, due to being inhuman, and the adjective frankly means little here) amount of time to fashion her abode. That is, if one can call a tremendous aquatic fortress an 'abode'.

She has taken an entire lake as her own. It is a particularly enormous lake comparable to the depth and surface area of a certain Earth lake and conveniently resembling her favorite shape; here, she has constructed her center of operations. From the center of the the lake sprouts a black-and-red tower, like a bloodied spear thrusting out of the surface. On one side of the tower, at water level, is an open entrance. The inside is...filled with way too much crap worth describing here--at least beyond describing it as being fit for the most frustrating of endbosses, filled with traps, puzzles, treasure, and gratuitous booby-traps.

The entrance opens up to a long, long hall with a throne at the end; lining the sides are strange unmoving black and red statues, but it is otherwise empty and there seem to be no exits into other rooms.

Her Imperious Condescension's video is broadcast from somewhere inside the fortress, as she has deliberately allowed the Vine to grow within; wherever she is, it is a room filled with water. Everyone's favorite intergalactic mermaid is swimming gracefully about, looking very pleased with herself, before settling onto a throne. ]

After a frustratingly long fleeting moment in time, I have finished creating my new residence! That dirt is a bit useful; it almost has a chance of being compared to my empire's technology. I wonder, just what else can it do beyond building?

New things are always so EEEXCITING. So, without further wait, I will christen my new cozy hive. I introduce to all...

Bastille Condescension!

[a face appears in the mirror, a face that should be familiar to some. To those that it isn't, the young woman's features are distinctly feline, down to the cat ears and wide slit-pupiled green eyes. A small orange creature is perched on her shoulder, its tiny claws gripping the white fabric of her arrival dress.]

Hello? [her voice is a little unsteady with bewilderment.] Is this...I'm here! I'm back...this is just like a dream...

[she reaches up to pet the small animal's fur, and it chitters gently at her.]

It's all right, Zapie. Is everyone still here? Reno? Veigue?

[ When Dawn starts using the mirror, she's looking at it confused and quite baffled. However, she starts to speak in a soft voice - ]

This... definitely isn't Sinnoh, that's for sure. What do you think, Piplup? [ The sound of a "Pip!" is definitely heard, but it sounds different. She then stares at her Piplup, and just remains quiet for several seconds before speaking again. ]

A... Anyway! Can anyone hear me? I know that I was invited here by the queen, but I was on my way to the Hoenn region to challenge the contests there!

[ She then gives a sigh, before speaking. ] But if I'm stuck here, I might as well introduce myself, right? Hi! I'm Dawn from Twinleaf Town, and I guess it's nice to meet everyone -- even under these weird circumstances.