| "Approaching target. Prepare for dimensional rift transfer."
He had heard the stories, of course: during his training, during his travels, during his countless adventures throughout galaxies, time periods and even universes. And yet, there was not one time when Amrick Ukihara didn't think that the one method of traveling he was allowed to use was best left for either crude, novice magicians or masochists. The irritating feeling of being pulled from the stomach out and then sucked into the trademark silver portal that he had seen so many times throughout his career as a High Magic Knight of the Time and Space Administration Bureau was as sickening as usual-- he just gritted his teeth and shut his eyes, waiting for the motion to finish and his body to arrive at the next destination.
But this time, something was definitely amiss.
He felt a wrack in his body, one that was definitely not related to his violent traveling and he shuddered involuntarily. 'Now what?' he thought irritably at the anomaly. He hated these kind of delays: sometimes, shakeups such as these would propel the silver-haired man to as far as another universe entirely, where he would have to spend a couple of hours to open up another portal to get back into the 'flow', or the paths that united the worlds. Not that he couldn't just jump back into the portal he came from in the first place, but more often than not, his landing spots were points where conflict, in one form or another, was rather... rife. Not to mention they all seemed to target him at the worst possible moment, so he naturally had to spend some time defending himself. Or slaughtering the battleground, depending on the case.
Thus, he was extremely irritated as his body was being jerked toward *another* unknown destination, as if the 'flow' determined where he went as opposed to simply direct him from point A to point B. Such irregularities in time and space travel always got the best out of Amrick every single time: how long had he been appealing for a renewal in the system, to use a free-roaming system much like the Time Cops he had heard about in another universe? He figured that, well, maybe the Bureau was just being cheap.
Today, however, that cheapness by the Bureau's part would cost the magic knight dearly, as the 'flow' landed him rather forcefully through a massive gate, and straight into the vicinity where a certain steel giant stood. The magic knight's legs buckled under the sudden pull of gravity, but he regained his composure rather quickly, silver eyes open and alert as he gasped and looked around. Usually, Amrick could handle forceful landings such as these with relative ease, yet today there was... something. He didn't know what it was, or perhaps he wasn't even aware of it yet, but in the back of his head, there was a feeling... a certain something. Maybe he was confused by the place where he was, or how he got there, or maybe...
Maybe he was just shocked at how there was a steel humanoid beast pointing a gun straight to his face.
"What the--" was Amrick's first verbal reaction as he blinked, then tried to talk to this... metallic drone. The shake-up form his travel lingered still in his eyes, preventing him from taking in the finer details in the metal man, such as his Time Cop badge or the full length of his gun, but still he tried to talk: "Hey, where is this place?"
It was a pretty basic (and somewhat stupid) question, sure, but under the current situation, Amrick wasn't finding much sense by his own. Asking for some help wasn't that crazy... or was it? |