vestige network.

[The network signal is still a little rough, so at first it's just voice. Static and robotic sounding until finally the feed starts to work.

It's not perfect, but it's there.]

H-Hello?

[Sorry for the close up of glowing yellow orbs. They blink in concern that maybe his phone still isn't working well, before he pulls it back. Ah, there we go, a familiar black void face and glowing yellow eyes.]

If this is working, I hope everyone is okay. I've been trying to get rid of the snow in town as best I can.

[The feed flickers a lot, his words sound a bit choppy.]

Umm... the apartments are okay and I made sure people could get into Foodland, j-just be careful. I melted the snow with my fire magic, but it could turn to ice again cause of the cold.

I hope everyone is okay...

[ that’s cool. hours after being revived through what will only be referred to as space magic, shiro here has been abducted and unloaded for some good ol’ torture an’ death. hold up, let him get out his tally sheet:

abductions: III
fodder for ptsd: ∞
maiming: III
deaths: I

rookie numbers but chances for boosting those tallies are lookin’ good!

speaking of lookin’ good: the video feed opens to shiro’s face. a bit disheveled, a touch exhausted, a whole lot perturbed, he keeps it together for roughly two seconds before he breaks on a sigh. okay, maybe he wasn’t as ready to make an announcement as he’d originally thought. ]

I guess it was too much to hope that this time Earth’s welcome would be better than my last return.

[ dry, very dry, the humor helps dispel his spiking annoyance. ]

Points for originality. [ been there, done that comes to mind, nonetheless. just another dire circumstance to add to the pile. ]

Right. I’m Takashi Shirogane. I’m a new arrival.

[ features setting to an expression more neutral, it’s easy to fall into the more reliable routine of diplomacy. authoritative, matter-of-fact, he sums it all up rather quickly with: ]

I have the pamphlet. The archive. The general gist of what is… happening. [ supposedly happening - but he won’t voice that. it seems far-fetched… though, being abducted by purple aliens waging a ten-thousand year long intergalactic war to take over the universe would have sounded like a b sci-fi movie a couple years ago. so.

clears his throat, refocuses and-- there’s the slightest tell in the waver in his voice and the half-curl of his mouth, the wisp of a smile self-deprecating. ]

Anyway. I’m what you’d call… a little rough right now. [ and he angles the phone, the angle showing more of himself, namely the hub at his right shoulder. ] But even if I don’t have two working hands, I’d like to lend one, in any way to help.