<> <> <> <> (And the ship is in what direction...?) <> <> (And good luck finding us by the giant swath of destruction that's about to result.) * Rochelle looks at him for a moment, then backs away and behind, oh... Demetreia. <> * Leopoldo eyes the psycho and looks at the others. "I don't know what's going on, but I really want to take him down." * Vera draws her gun. Space station? Eh, worry about that if she misses. "Ok." * Threnody blinks, eyes wide, hand on the 'hilt' of his bokken. "It's the same. Whatever it was that in Leo's sisters' minds, this is the same thing..." (SETI@Home eat your heart out.) * Rochelle looks around/over Demetreia at him. "You probably don't wanna kill him, then." * Leopoldo nods. "Just knock him out, right?" Yeah. * Katherine says in annoyance, "Good luck on that." She tosses the bag she was carrying off to the side. * Demetreia has a blank expresssion on her face, but is not moving other than to tremble very slightly. Probably only Roch is close enough to tell. <> * Katherine snarls. "If you're not gonna fight, you should back away. Spread so we don't get zapped." * Rochelle looks at Demetreia for a moment, then grabs her by the arm and tries to drag her to cover. * Katherine starts running diagonally towards him. A loping strafe. * Demetreia bites her lip, but follows Roch. * Threnody stays back, drawing the bokken and holding it horizontally in front of him. * Vera runs after. "And I thought I was the one who preferred the direct approach." * Rochelle glances around as she looks for a good place to hide. * Leopoldo moves to the side, getting ready to tackle the psycho. (I said spread, luv.) (Stop saying luv. I have bad associations. I may have to kill you.) * Fitzroy backs away from the crazy, looking just a tad spooked. <> d6+6 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Leopoldo (d6+6) and gets 10. (ALL HAIL KING ASSHAT) d6+7 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Katherine (d6+7) and gets 11. * Threnody looks at Fitzroy, then starts moving between the non-combatants and Electrostatic Lad. "You can hack in from here, right? Find out what you can about him. Maybe we can do the same as we did with Leo..." d6+6 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Vera (d6+6) and gets 11. d6+6 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Threnody (d6+6) and gets 11. (Woo triple tech.) d6+3 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Demetreia (d6+3) and gets 8. (Dem is FAST.) ( Oh, never mind. ) <> ( Ignore that actually-somewhat-decent-for-Deme number. Forgot the thingy. ) <> * Threnody continues playing the knight for Roy/Roch/Deme. (Full defense) * Fitzroy responds to Thren, "I.. I can try to find something on him." * Katherine smirks, and goes for a nice shiny black boot to the groin. (Probably called shot?) * Threnody nods without taking his eyes off the crazy. "Please do. Hurry." * Vera doesn't. She darts straight for the crazy, then suddenly skips sidways and fires. (Called shot.) 2d6-2 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Vera (2d6-2) and gets 4. (Groin - 4, Arm - 2) ( Oh ) ( In that case, my roll is 3 ) 2d6-1 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Katherine (2d6-1) and gets 7. (Just got it.) <> < (... How do the physics of that work? @_@) (Shut up and roll, it's sci-fi.) ( MAGIC. ) ( Oh, right, sci-fi. ) 2d6-4 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Katherine (2d6-4) and gets 4. ( SCIENCE. ) (I meant, how can it arc to and from me if I dodge like that.) (Because it would take a billion years to run it the other way.) (*snickers*) 2d6-4 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Vera (2d6-4) and gets 3. <> 2d6 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Rochelle (2d6) and gets 5. Name's Warren Warren the Third.. uhmm. (What, not Warren Worthington the Third?) 2d6-4 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Demetreia (2d6-4) and gets 0. ( Twoot. ) <> Maintenance engineer from another sector. <> <> (Save a puppy! Er, I mean, people!) * Demetreia looks at the crazy then at the people, sets her jaw, and makes her way over to them. ( Puppy people? Like potato people? ) * Leopoldo gets behind the psycho and tries to tackle him to the ground with a short running start. (Tackle!) (Roll it.) 2d6 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Leopoldo (2d6) and gets 6. (Made it.) <> <> (Woot! Grapple initiated.) * Threnody continues to 'guard' Roy. "Can you get his family here somehow? Pipe in his favorite song? Something?" (Full def) umm.. He moved recently from a chem station here on Venus. .. No living relatives that I can find. * Rochelle tears her attention from the fight to notice the fire and the people. She looks at them blankly for a moment, but once lightning guy's tackled, starts running over. ( A-hem. Has Deme got the puppy people out yet? ) <> * Threnody winces. "How about contacting ATC somehow? Vernon, maybe... he's going to need to be contained." ( I mentioned it like--oh. Right. *shifty-eye* ) * Katherine stands back a bit, giving Leo room to grapple. "Normally I'd bet on Leo, but he just threw lightning, so I'll save my money." (Holding action, since nobody will tell me if I have an angle to, like, stomp on his foot.) * Demetreia gets them to safe-ish looking place. * Rochelle looks around for something to smother the fire with. Hey, Deme. (You can't smother the fire with Deme!) I only have e-mail addys for his co-workers.. I see if I can find Vernon. ( You're going to smother the fire with Deme? ) (That's what you think!) ( Wah....@_@ ) * Vera hides behind something which lightning probably won't go right through (and which won't explode) and aims at the guy. * Demetreia looks at Roch! "Yes?" ( And is aiming a -1 or -2 bonus? I forget. ) * Rochelle reaches over. "Gimme your cloak, okay?" (-1, -2 with scope.) ( Actually, you probably CAN. But it'd be mean. Poor Deme! ) * Demetreia shrinks back a little. "But...I...but..." C'mon, it's just clothes. (PLus if they burn: dress-up mini after!) * Demetreia looks at the fire and sighs, unwrapping the cape/cloak sadly and thrusting it at Roch. "Here." (Yeah, you don't need any of those pesky clothes. *porn groove starts*) ( It's made of vinyl-like-stuffies anyway. It's the trashieset thing ever. ) * Rochelle takes the cloak and proceeds to smother the fire with it. (Which is why Deme loves it.) (...oh yes. Smother fire with vinyl. Goodbye, Roch's hands. The clientele of Momo's will miss you.) <> ( Yay science! :D ) (You'd think, but it's vinyl of THE FUTURE!) (DUNNOVinyl.) (Less vinyl, more roleplay. c.c) Well.. Vernon says to knock him out and the ATCcops will be here soon. (Conditions for Victory: Survive three rounds!) * Threnody smiles. "Thank you, Roy." <> * Fitzroy scratches his head. "I think that's the best I can do. There's not much on this guy." <> * Leopoldo tries to pin the guy's hands so he can't do *anything* but wait for one of the ladies to kindly knock him out. (Going for a total pin) 2d6 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Leopoldo (2d6) and gets 6. ( What happened to Vera's shot? ) (She's aiming.) (She was just aiming.) ( She didn't fire. ) ( Ohh. ) (She's aiming, and I'm standing there, because we have no angle on the man who's _crushed against the ground by a giant lizard_) <> Can one of you knock him out? ( Sucks to be Warren Worthington the Third too. People are prejudiced against you just because you have wings. ) (I don't know, Cham. Can I?) <> * Leopoldo is using his hands to keep Warren trussed. * Vera keeps her aim, just in case. ( *WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAMWHAMGUN ON HEAD* .... uh.) <> * Threnody breathes out once he sees Leo pin the guy down, and slips the bokken back into his belt loops, looking thoughtful. "It's clearly one of the aliens in there. It's almost like one of them is *following* us." * Katherine frowns, goes for a blunt object, since there are so many, pulls the guy's head forward, and just bashes him across the back of the head. * Rochelle shrugs at the people. It's like they've never seen fire before. Tell me about it. What's going *on* with this? What aliens? <> * Vera glances out of the corner of her eyes at Thren. "Since when were there aliens?" * Fitzroy nods at Vera, "That's what I'm wondering" * Threnody frowns and knits his brow. "I'd say they were trying to hurt us, but... I don't think that's it. What's in his mind is just... unfocused, primal anger. Unless of course they just assumed he would hurt us in the process." * Katherine tosses the generic blunt object aside, and goes to grab her bag up again. "The ones in the other dimension? It did look sorta like that one space warp that Anders showed us." * Leopoldo nods. "Yeah... I saw them behind Laura's eyes too..." Wait. Wait. You're sayin' one of those things are out here? * Demetreia looks confused. "What aliens?" * Katherine grabs the bag. "The ones that the Concordat were trying to release? It's not a bad guess. Would make sense, if one somehow got out. Maybe there was an artifact that did a little more than just let you take a look." You mean you guys know what was going on all along and you didn't bother to tell us? <> Look, I just know there's something screwed up going on. * Rochelle blinks at Vera. "I think Thren's talking about the alien thing Anders showed us." * Threnody nods and walks over, kneeling by the unconscious person. "It was in his mind. I'm not even sure it was manifesting, so to speak." He stands up. "Plus it's only been 24s. Maybe there's something in the twenty-fourth chromosome that lets them in?" I doubt it. * Vera stows her gun away and walks out. "It's probably because... well, what the heck would they do with a 'normal' human body?" * Threnody blinks and tilts his head. "A good point." * Katherine frowns at Vera for a second, then glances around. <> * Threnody breathes out, then closes his eyes. "I really didn't want to do this, but I need to know. I'm really sorry, Mr. Warren." * Leopoldo gets off the mook and picks him up single-handedly. Literally. * Rochelle looks back at them. * Vera does what she does best: Smokes. * Katherine 's ears twitch. "Are those cops going to get here anytime soon?" I hope so. * Threnody blinks and opens his eyes. Something *is* following us. * Fitzroy shrugs, "He said they'd be here as soon as possible." ...what? Great. <> "What do you mean?" You gotta be kidding me. * Threnody looks down at Warren, then up at Warren, then at the cop, then at the party. "It all started when he saw *us*. Then it all goes... askew. He's definitely not responsible for what happened." ( Oh, great, Thren. Now they're gonna lock *us* up. ;P ) (They can certainly try.) <> "We've got orders to haul him to the Foxhole. You're to follow us with the polymers." <> "If you don't mind." Big surprise. * Threnody nods a little, looking around. "It's better than staying here, I think..." * Katherine says, "Depends on whether we're riding with you." "Your own transportation. Marcus says you're heading in the front door this time." (See him in four days, then!) "But we'll be towing you. Faster that way." ... You sure my ship can take that? (Well, if it can't, what's the worst that can happen? The hull boils away and exposed to vacuum we all pop like balloons in depressurization.) (I'm sure your insurance covers it.) ( Ah, Thren. Always such a ray of sunshine. ) * Katherine shrugs. She just looks annoyed at this point. ( Well that's nothing new :P ) (Not really.) "It'll manage. We'll hook you up in an hour. Be ready." <> ( He is now a poet. ) * Leopoldo hmfs. "Nice to meet you too." * Threnody blinks as they walk off. "Not very personable, are they?" That's efficiency. * Vera shrugs. <> * Threnody lets out a long breath, then rubs his temples. "I'm going back to the ship. I have a headache all of a sudden." * Demetreia scoots towards everyone else and away from the people. * Rochelle switches the blank look to a glare at the people nearest to her. "What?" * Katherine glances around, and rubs her neck. "Yeah, good call Thren." * Fitzroy looks around at the crowd. "Yeah, lets go." * Demetreia looks at the crowd. "I...I will go also..." * Vera shrugs and follows. "Guess that's decided." * Leopoldo looks around. "Yeah, let's get going." He looks at Roy. "You remember how to get back to the ship?" * Threnody blinks halfway away from the group, then starts walking at a considerably more brisk pace. <> (guess so. ;) ) * Leopoldo starts walking after Thren. * Ian waves to people as they arrive. He's sitting on the floor in a lifelike aardvark costume, playing Monopoly. "...something happen?" (Dunnopoly!) * Demetreia blinks at Ian. "Er. Yes." * Katherine drops the bag of whatever the hell she was carrying around and scoops up Eck. "Routine posession by strange possibly-alien thing." She pets Eck. "Lots of people died. Everyday thing." * Threnody sits down and rubs at his temples. "Don't forget the Europists." The who? * Ian blinkblinks, and gets up. "Well, crap. Did you knock whoever it was out?" * Threnody opens one eye. "The crowd. At least some of them were Europists." He smiles a little and closes said eye. "'When danger threatens, so shall they again appear', after all." * Katherine smirks thinly. "They were? Well, Europists are everywhere, you know." Uhh... Eh, whatever. (Europists: Church of Europa. Worshippers of the original Europa Team. They liek drugs.) (I must say, you're all taking the aardvark very well. I must kick the weirdness level up a notch.) (You're a moron, Ian, and a bunch of people died. It doesn't take much to deal. ;P) * Katherine sits down, and babbles a bit. "It's popular with poor people. A little more hopeful than Space Jesus, I guess." * Leopoldo blinks at Thrnody. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?" * Vera shrugs. "Not into religion much. Wouldn't know." * Threnody tilts his head and looks at Leo without opening his eyes. "How do you mean?" * Katherine eyes Vera with that same thin smile. "I'm with you on that." * Ian sighs, and sits back down. Not much he can do. (Except play Dunnopoly with himself. c.c;) (Was it Ian versus Vwoof and Eck, tag team?) <> Uh, nevermind. * Fitzroy finds a spot to relax. (Are we at the ship already?) (...Yes.) (You have been for a while?_ (Oh, I thought he was- nevermind. ^^;) * Leopoldo goes through the procedures to set up the cables. * Ian blinks. "ATC's towi - oh, I see." <> (And thanks to the whisking, we are now fluffy and ready to be made into cake.) <> <> * Demetreia nervously goes onward. * Katherine smirks. Now she is wearing her guns, as per normal. "Red Marion. That's pretty funny." * Katherine goes into the elevator. * Leopoldo walks to the elevator. * Threnody gets into up and down moving room thingy. <> * Ian heads on in! Before the rocketing downward bit. (*waves flags half-heartedly* Yay.) ( Vernon was behind it all along. ) (I am the Vernon. I builds the gadgets that makes the peoples fall down!) (*cracks knuckles* Please let that be true.) <> * Vernon sees Ian for the first time, and: "...a!" * Rochelle looks around, since she didn't see this place the first time. * Leopoldo waves at Trish and Laura. * Vera nods. Nod. * Threnody smiles at Leo's sisters, but has a very distracted air. * Katherine taps her foot, and looks at the distracted Vernon. "Back again." (A is for Aardvark and that's good enough for me. o/~) * Ian grins. "You must be Vernon Marcus. Nice to meet you." * Vernon shakes hands with Ian, speechless. "..." ...O...okay, we did find some things out. The situation looks unpleasant. First of all, could you all tell me exactly what you saw this time? <> Guy zapping people. And there was a thing behind his eye. And a very hairy associate of yours. (Did we drop the package off with someone?) <> (I'd assume so.) * Vernon hmms. "What sort of thing?" * Rochelle shrugs. "It was like a worm, or something." * Vernon nods. "Thanks. Anyone else? You're really the only witnesses we have." * Leopoldo looks over at Vernon. "Black, it was in the white area of the eye." * Ian shrugs. "I wasn't there at the time..." As a scientist, I hate to say "whoa, that's messed up," but.. Well, there was something else. He kinda contorted and started floating. He was a 24, but he couldn't float on his own. Sorta like space warping around him, or something, when it happened. * Vernon nods. "That's good to know about...do you know what kind of 24?" It wasn't in his record over there in Avalon. Hmm, we'll have to look into that. All it said was that he could release lightning bolts. Guess you could ask him. * Leopoldo rubs his head. "If it means anything, I saw a similar thing in Laura's eye when we found her..." * Vernon nods. "Thanks, everyone. What we've found, well...whatever it was, Leo, left a dimensional trail all over your sisters' heads. They're going to be fine; nothing odd remains, though we will have to hold them for a while longer." Given that, and what you've told me, it's almost definitely the Elder Race. What you saw was, I'd say, the visual sign of a multidimensional being." * Demetreia looks confused. "I do not understand. Why would they do this?" * Katherine nods slightly, then says with a note of sarcasm. "Revenge? Revenge is good. We didn't exactly help them by stopping the Concordat." * Leopoldo blinks. "I got no clue. But... As you said, if Laura and Trish won't need to be here much longer, that's taking a big load off my mind." * Vernon shrugs. "We can only guess at the motive. The good news, sort of, is that it only seems to affect 24s." They're multidimensional, so I doubt we'll ever have any idea *why.* What if it tries affecting one of us? * Ian shudders. I meant...why us? Simply because we stopped the Concordat? Probably. We stopped the guys who were bringing them back here. How would they know that? Although... If you think about it, it was ATC that did that. * Vernon sighs. "No idea. You may well be right, though. If it comes after you guys...all I can really say is 'good luck.'" * Demetreia nods at Leopoldo's question. * Katherine rolls her eyes. "However they wanted? We have a bunch of artifacts, one of them saw most of us, and Kant could have fingered us. Does it really matter?" * Ian sighs. "We never did get Kant..." Should we? * Rochelle opens her mouth to say something, then closes it. * Threnody opens his eyes and looks around; he's been sitting with them closed for a while now. "I feel like... I want to find Anders. And beat the truth out of him if I have to. I want to know what he saw." That's great and all, but how do we do that? * Vernon nods. "I'm out of ideas right now, myself." * Threnody looks at Leo, then at Vera, then back at Leo. "Hire a detective, maybe?" He's probably back on Earth. ... Dude. I AM a detective. (...) I could...if I could find some psychological records I could...oh. (Vera said dude! Hehe.) (A detective who uses slang decades out of date!) ( Dunnodude. :P ) ( With an outfit even more out of date? :P ) * Vernon hmms. "I would suggest, however, that you all lay low for a little while." * Threnody sighs and rubs his temples. "Yes, Vera, that was in fact my point." I'd like to lay low. I'd like to just go about my business as usual, actually... * Rochelle rubs at the back of her head. "It'd take a while to find him anyway, right?" Probably. But I'd find him. I can find anyone. * Rochelle nods. * Katherine smirks. "Then you're hired? Take some initiative, woman. It's not like laying low ever actually works. We need to put together the goddamn pieces." We could try the direct route. I still have the contact info he gave me a while back. I haven't had much time to. * Threnody smiles at Roy. "It's worth a shot." * Ian nods. "That's definitely worth a try." Hmm, can you give us that info, too? I'm sure we can dig up something on our end. I'll send a note to him and see if he responds. (See? You all just want your Anders fix.) (Oh, shut up. c.c;) (Vernon Loves Mambo.) * Fitzroy digs around in his pockets and finds a chip or three for contact-info, puts Anders' stuff on there and gives 'em to whoever wants 'em. * Vernon nods. "Thanks." * Vera takes one. "Could come in handy." * Ian shrugs, and takes one just in case. * Leopoldo takes one as well. Everyone's doing it! * Rochelle doesn't. She rubs some nailpolish off instead. <>