strangetrip | GP: April Fools!

It didn't take any sort of precognitive abilities to predict some kind of shenanigans on the first of April. Many of the people stuck in the bubble world of the Madonna Inn were from times and places where April Fools' Day pranks were normal, expected... (in many cases) minor annoyances. And then there were the residents who remembered the strange egg hunt from a year ago, and the sometimes confusing explanations of the two holidays falling on the same day and how that related.

Also, life at the inn could be interminable. After a while, people started hoping for some kind of strangeness to happen, just to break up the monotony of being trapped in a kitschy no-snow globe.

So, no. You didn't have to be a mutant fortune teller to expect some kind of joke being pulled. But Emma was, and even she had no idea what was coming, other than it was going to be frustrating and topsy-turny, and the visions she'd been getting from the tarot – and way more reversals than was usual or healthy in her experience – were even less clear than usual.

She definitely didn't foresee waking up without the powers that were as much a part of her as her heart. Or just as suddenly having powers she had no idea how to control. But she did, and she had*, and she was far from the only one. The same thing was happening to people all around the inn.

(*Not to worry. The singe marks should be gone in a day or so. Right?)

[Powers swap GP! Tag in. Tag around. It's a time for out and about at the inn coping (or not) with powers gained (or lost).]

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Bucky looks down at his arm, then back up at Thor. "Yeah, I..." He laughed. "It's gone. Woke up this way. Came out here to play around with it and, well, that happened."

He's on the border of okay and tense, a bit of anger inside of him. He's trying not to show it to Thor, but he is not okay with this situation. He knows things happen here, and he's had to come to terms with that, but this? This is just like promising something to him. Something that he should not get used to because soon, he's sure it will be gone and the metal arm will be back. He won't get his hopes up.

And that's what makes him angry. The hint of being normal again, only to have it snatched away. "Woke up like this. Thought I would come see what else is wrong." The more angry he gets, the more things seem off. Above them, dark clouds start appearing in the sky.

Thor's eyes turn skyward as clouds darken the sky. This isn't a natural storm; he can tell the difference. This is exactly how it feels when he is manipulating the weather -- or Storm.

Thor looks around. Storm isn't here, though; all there is is Bucky. He tries to push the weather gently back into its proper place -- dissolving the dark clouds looming above them.

"You're not the only person who woke up with something different about them," Thor says, thinking back to Val. As far as he knows, nothing's changed about himself, but he has seen how something has changed inside of Valkyrie. She's not made of the same durable stuff she had been before today.

"Yeah, well, this place, it fucks with you." Bucky frowned, turning away from Thor to look back at the tree he'd punched. The tree that he'd risen out of the ground and flown a few feet just from the intensity of his punch. He hadn't even realized he was doing it. "Why can't they just leave us alone. Whoever they are, they're punks."

He began to pace back and forth, occasionally glancing up at Thor. "And this?" He held up his human hands to Thor. "Why? Why tease me with this. Tomorrow? Tomorrow I'll wake up and my metal arm will be back. Why??"

Taking a deep breath, Bucky let it out slowly, trying not to let the anger overtake him. Around them, he thought he heard thunder crackles, but he didn't pay any attention to it. He just assumed a storm was coming, not that he could be causing it. "Who else? Wait, have you seen Steve? He's not hurt, is he?"

Thor shakes his head. "No, Steve's fine." As far as Thor knows, anyway. "My lieutenant, Valkyrie. We were sparring this morning and she was injured. Something was changed about her, too."

What, though? Thor wasn't sure.

"Wait. Valkyrie. I think I've seen her around. The really tough girl with the bottle attached to her hand?" Bucky sighed, turning away from Thor and staring at the tree he'd punched so violently. "If they do anything to Steve, I..." His hands formed into fists and he growled a little. "This... Messing with people? Fine. Not Steve. Not Cap..."

Suddenly, a lightning bolt came down from the sky. The whole sky crackled as the lightning struck the tree and suddenly set it on fire. Bucky's eyes widened and he jumped back a few feet, almost stumbling onto the earth beneath him. "What the..." His jaw hung open a little as he stared at the burning tree in front of him.

"Did... Did I do that?"

Thor blinks.

And then he blinks again.

"What did you..." Thor trails off, and spins a finger at Bucky, then at the still-burning tree. "Do that again."

Bucky stares at the tree, his jaw dropping open a little. "Do it again?" He swallowed. He wasn't even sure that he could do it again. "What, the lightning thing?" He bit his bottom lip.

His head tilted down and he looked at his hands. "Well..." He'd been angry. His hands had been in fists. Maybe he had to be angry again? He swallowed, balling his hands back into fists and taking a step closer to Thor. "Steve. I'd been thinking about Steve. And the idea of him being hurt." He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

The last thing he wanted was to imagine anyone hurting Steve. "Steve is my friend. I care for him. If someone hurt him..." His fingers began to twitch. Above them, thunder began to crackle in the sky. "No. Nobody can hurt Steve. they'd have to go through me." He turned to Thor, lightning crackling around his knuckles. "Thor... What's happening?"

Thor holds his hands in front of him, as if in surrender.

"Stay calm," he says. "Take deep breaths and center yourself. No one is going to hurt Steve. All of us would protect him."

"They did this to me. What did they do to him? Did they do anything?"

Bucky was feeling the anger move through him. His shoulders tensed. "They took my arm. They took..." He sighed. "Why would they do this to me," he growled. Bucky turned and began to pace. "This hotel, this inn, it plays with us. Why, Thor?"

"None of us actually knows that," Thor says, hands still up. "We all wish we knew. There's a chance we might not ever know."

And Thor hated it just as much as Bucky.

"We can't change what they're doing. The only thing we can change is how we choose to respond to it." That was a lesson hard-learned by the God of Thunder.

GP: April Fools!

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