TDM 01: Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It

[dcparadoxmods]

Welcome to the Cloverfield Project: Dimensional Nexus Recovery! The CIA has recruited you to help fix dimensional shenanigans. Your missions, should you choose to accept them, are as follows:

1. Clever Girl

The setting: a paleontological theme park that's been closed for a number of years. Your mission: retrieve a hilariously ugly golden idol that's been dropped in the middle of the park. Hopefully a dinosaur doesn't eat it before you can find it - or, you know, eat you instead.

2. The School Is Not Going 65 MPH

The setting: a stereotypical high school. Your mission: find the literal ticking time bomb that's been pulled in from the action-packed climax of someone else's story before it blows the school - and all of its occupants - sky high. Your pre-mission briefing didn't tell you exactly how much time is left on the bomb, but you're pretty sure it's less than an hour.

3. Wild Card

Feel free to come up with your own combination! What person/object/etc are you rescuing from what world? What's the situation that needs fixing?

(A note: Creating/running your own missions is highly encouraged in the game itself; sample missions are to give you examples for the test drive.)

Comments

[signsthatidentify]

It’s been a long time since he’s been called that, and it stings.

Anyone who once used that nickname is either dead or in prison for their murders, and that certainly isn’t the voice of a ghost. In an instant he turns, wand aimed at his once-friend.

“Sirius.” His voice is quiet and calm, but his eyes are cold. “Never thought I would have to see you again.”

[lechiennoir]

He's not sure what he expected, here. Forgiveness? Understanding? How could Remus know; when they'd purposely left him out of the loop? He raises his hands, keeping his eyes carefully on the other young man.

'Have' to see him. As if Remus hated him. Maybe he did, with all that he knew had gone on. Perhaps he should have done a long time ago, a small, self-loathing voice deep inside offers.

"I'm as surprised as you are," he offers, with a slight twist to his mouth. "Before anything else, though: let's get this done so neither of us get eaten by who knows what foul creatures before I have a chance to say anything."

[signsthatidentify]

“Wouldn’t be much of a loss,” he responds, not taking his eyes off Sirius. A very strong part of him wants to attack Sirius right here and now, to kill him just like he killed Peter, but he unfortunately has a job to be doing. Not to mention any attack might draw the attention of a particularly hungry dinosaur, though that might be doing the multiverse a favor. One less murderer and one less monster.

“Why?” He knows he needs to shut up, to walk away and keep looking for this damn idol, but he has spent the past months wondering in anger how his Padfoot could have done something like this. He wants to hear it before Sirius dies, whether by dinosaur, Remus, or something else altogether.

[lechiennoir]

"Sure it would. The world would have an excess of old man sweaters with no one to fill them." Now is not the time for jokes, however. He recognizes that look in Remus' eyes, a quiet fury he's seen only a few times before. It usually doesn't end well for the person receiving the look.

"I didn't," is what he says, quiet and full of all the self-loathing that's been eating at him the last two years. Prison gives one a lot of time to think. "I wouldn't, you know that, Remus. We switched secret keepers. Didn't tell anyone, it was just-- you know how it was. I convinced James to do it; thought maybe Peter was less of a target."

[signsthatidentify]

At that last sentence Remus shoots a spell out from his wand, flicking it away so the spell would just graze Sirius’ cheek rather than hitting him full on. He’s not sure why he did that.

“How convenient then,” he says in a voice someone unfamiliar with him might mistake for conversational, “that he isn’t around anymore to back up what you’re saying.”

Little Peter who hardly even wanted to be part of all this mess, who they’d all grown up with, who had always looked up to James... He was gone now. They all were, because of Sirius. Remus has been trying to wrap his mind around how it could have happened ever since the night he found out. Nothing in his life has really made any sense these past months.

[lechiennoir]

“Convenient for him, yes,” Sirius replies lightly, though it’s full of an undercurrent of pure hatred, the sort which may sound uncannily like his mother. He doesn’t shy away from the spell, figuring he deserves what he gets at this point. “If he was, I’d kill him like I bloody meant to two years ago.” There it is, though not outright stated. Remus probably wants the full story, however, and so he continues.

“I found them, Moony. Popped over to check on Wormtail and he wasn’t there, no signs of a struggle; so I got worried and went to Godric’s hollow.” He takes a shaky breath. “He’d already been there. Hagrid came to get Harry, I went and tracked down Peter to give him what he deserved; but he changed before I could.”

[signsthatidentify]

“They found his finger, Sirius. I don’t recall that ever happening when he changed before.” Unless he did that on purpose to frame Padfoot, a quiet voice says in the back of his head. As much as it doesn’t mean ale sense for Peter to have been the spy, it also makes no sense for it to have been Sirius. And Remus has always been fairly decent at spotting whenever Sirius is lying... though if he was the spy then maybe he’s better at it than Remus ever thought.

He hesitates before finally lowering his wand. It isn’t like Sirius has one anyway he could do anything with if he wanted. “Why should I believe you?”

[lechiennoir]

“Why would I want them dead, Remus?” His voice is a little rough, shoulders shaking. “He cut his damn pinky off, I saw him do it. I wouldn’t kill them, you know I wouldn’t. They took me in. Lils and James were like my brother and sister. So were you, once. Would you want to find them dead; to be haunted by it every single night?”

[signsthatidentify]

“Of course not,” he snaps back, then sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “It doesn’t make any sense for you to have done it, but it also makes no sense for it to have been Peter.” Except that Sirius’ story does fill in some of the confusing holes in the official story. But he has had two years to come up with an explanation...

Remus catches movement out of the corner of his eye and reflexively shoots a hurried ’stupefy!’ over Sirius’ shoulder at a rather small dinosaur that had been about to jump on him. “Shit,” he mutters, noticing for the first time that there seems to be rather a lot of the little things around suddenly. “I think we should probably leave. Quickly.”

[lechiennoir]

“Right, there’s a job to be doing.” Sirius just looks tired for a moment, rather like Remus does after the full moon. “Don’t suppose you could accio the damn thing while Padfoot acts as a distraction? I haven’t got my wand.” For obvious reasons.

“I told you already, we switched secret keepers. On Dumbledore’s advice.”