Whodunnit?

[ihatefire.livejournal.com]

It was time to get a little more organized, share some information with each other. She had a talk with that bigface kid, Jaime, to see if he could do anything to shield them from Stacy's prying eyes and he said he had a few ideas, so a meeting place was chosen, and it was time to gather.

Cybil had a good authoritative, shouting voice.

"Everyone, listen up! We're meeting down in the city near that big tree. Grab whoever you see and get down there."

Indeed they were. People were starting to gather there.

[ooc: Instead of little subthreads, everyone post in one thread as people arrive. Try to keep the convo general, like everyone talking to each other, instead of devolving into private conversations.]

Comments

[waylostandfound.livejournal.com]

Nathan knew about the importance better than most, and he was among the first to arrive. He stood near the tree, his hands on his hips, and keeping an eye to the others as they arrive.

Kate had her bow on her back as she arrived, her eyes scanning around for familiar faces like Paco. She was also keeping a watchful eye on who was arriving since been some new faces around lately.

Xander was just hanging back, idly shifting his weight from one foot to the other before standing still. He scratched his nose, and then quickly moved his hand into a friendly wave to anybody near by as though he meant to greet the whole time.

[likeapoison.livejournal.com]

Pat frowned slightly as he looked around, more keeping an eye out for anything odd than the rest of the crew. Toxin had told him about what he and Red had run across, after all, and he wanted to be on alert if it decided to show again.

Toxin, meanwhile, was more distracted by the crowd and snaked out, snuffling around curiously.

[ssstinker.livejournal.com]

2 had come too, skirting around the edges of the group.

Not because she knew there was a meeting, just because she was bored and was wondering what everyone was up to.

[maninthemachine.livejournal.com]

Bri arrives as well, and looks down when the local cat-borg brushes past his leg.

...that gets him to stare a bit. Even his world didn't do cyborg cats.

"...What the fuck, man?"

[lytaalex.livejournal.com]

Lyta stood next to Nathan, her arms folded across her chest as she watched with a wary eye as the members of the so-called crew began to assemble near the tree—the very tree where she’d met Ax earlier. As each one approached, she couldn’t help but notice—more so now after the incident at the gate—just how young most of them appeared to be. Some, amazingly, seemed to be even younger than Ax. This wasn’t going to be easy, especially if any more of them turned out to be as impetuous as the captain, Cybil, had claimed the ‘superhuman’ one had been.

[mynameisax.livejournal.com]

Paco approached the tree, with Ax a few steps behind. Paco had nearly tripped over him just as he finished morphing human. At least he had managed to incorporate the clothing that Stacy had provided into his human morph, so he didn't have to explain why he had taken off his suit while alone in one of the empty buildings.

Paco, upon seeing Kate, grinned and waved. "Hey chica. 'Sup?"

[vincent-amora.livejournal.com]

Vincent teleported in, finally confident enough in the nature of the ship that he believed it wouldn't scatter his aura across the cosmos. He surveyed the gathering carefully, reflecting on his latest surveillance findings. The cyborgs and the symbiote were here as well.

He still wished he had any idea of how to turn this whole setting to his advantage. For now, he folded his arms across his chest and settled at a suitable vantage point.

[ihatefire.livejournal.com]

When everyone was gathered, Cybil turned to Jaime, currently suited up.

"Reyes, do your thing."

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"You got it boss-lady," said Jaime, holding up his hands, his fingers glowing with a blue energy that spread out around them in a large flattened sphere--it even slipped under their feet.

"Ladies and gentlemen, do not be alarmed by the glowy energy thingy. This is is cloak us from Stacy's sensors so we can talk without her knowing what we're saying. This is NOT the most effective telepathic block, though, so if anyone else can do something to help with that, or offer more shielding than this, it'd be appreciated."

[ihatefire.livejournal.com]

"Lyta?" Cybil asked. "Can you help shield us from Stacy?"

[lytaalex.livejournal.com]

Lyta's brow creased, a little surprised by the captain's request. "She's not scanning anyone," she began to explain, but interrupted herself when she saw the looks on some members of the group, suggesting some of them weren't 100% comfortable with her assurance.

Sucking in deep breath, she nodded. "Yeah. I can. Just give me a minute."

Her eyes narrowing slightly, Lyta focused her mind on the wall she kept around her own thoughts and pushed it outward, stretching it to shield the whole group from Stacy's prying mind. In all honesty, she wasn't completely positive how long she'd be able to keep the ship from breaking through, but it would at least give her time to warn the captain if Stacy did decide to to poking around.

Once it was complete, she turned back to Cybil. "Ok. She's out."

[ihatefire.livejournal.com]

"Alright, we have to make this fast. We don't know how long we have until Stacy starts poking around or the kid gets tired and runs out of juice."

She looked around at all of them.

"What I need is for everyone to think of everything they've discovered or noticed in the time we've been here--anything unusual, any clues about who's taken us--so we can put it all together."

She went on, "I'll start. Lyta, Nathan, and I were poking around at one of those huge gates in the city, and I shit you not--I got possessed, by some...thing. The ship's holographic doctor even picked it up one scans and Lyta had to force the damn thing out of me. When it was in there, I...saw things. Things that seemed like memories. They were fuzzy, but I remember being tortured, and these voices saying something about brain-altering and that they were trying to do it because I was the captain. I screamed something to them about my crew. I don't know if it was some vision of the future or a trick, or...something, but it certainly calls into question why I started out listed as the captain. If something happened before we all woke up. If our memories are right, and our own."

She went on, "And that question-mark, question-mark hologram--it keeps talking in riddles, but some of them sound like warnings or dropped information. After that thing possessed me, the hologram said something like 'He'll come for them, one by one, until the dams break and the flood scours the earth.'"

[thenameissam.livejournal.com]

Sam stared up at the captain like she were completely off her rocker. He glanced around the room, at the crowd of people, once more before finally speaking. "I think I saw the Ghost of Christmas Future down the block, thatta way," he said, pointing in the direction of the building with staircases on the ceiling.

[ihatefire.livejournal.com]

"We don't know what we're up against, and someone likely just got picked off alone. We're not splitting up."

That's what you do in horror movies. And then die.

(One could say she knows this from personal experience).

They rounded a corner and--

There he was.

"Fuck!"

Hudson's body had been fairly shredded.

[anoldtrickster.livejournal.com]

Wednesday's already moving forward to investigate the body, though his sword stays at the ready. He looks a bit upset about... something. It may not actually be the matter at hand.

[st-veritas.livejournal.com]

Connor and Murphy gave out identical disgusted shouts.

"Oh- Fuck! Unholy fucking fuck, what the fuck could do something like that? That's...Jesus!" Connor looked utterly horrified.

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

Kate stared in horror for a moment.

God... something really dangerous. Could be any number of beings or machines even.

She moved closer despite her discomfort at the stench of blood and human flesh.

"Any ideas? We have to stop it whatever it is."

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

That was...

Well, not the grossest thing he'd ever seen, actually. That wasn't even the grossest thing he'd seen in the last week.

Superboy felt bad for the guy certainly, but barely took a moment to boggle at the corpse before floating a little bit higher in the air and looking around--

--his eyes popping open a little as he suddenly went: "SSSSSH!"

Then he tilted his head as if listening for something.

[vincent-amora.livejournal.com]

"Grow up, or shut up. Or both, preferrably." Vincent snapped at Connor. he had seen worse than what had happened to Hudson.

Heck, Vincent had committed worse than what had happened to Hudson; but he was going to make damned sure it didn't happen to any potential minions assets in the area.

He crouched by the remains and started prodding at what was left of the skull cavity, trying to pick up the aural residue of the last thing Hudson had seen.

[ihatefire.livejournal.com]

First, she'd gone temporarily deaf. The whole world had gone silent, all sound being replace with a dull thrumming noise. Mouths moving with no sound, people getting dragged away. She'd been too close to the kid, couldn't cover her ears if one hand was holding a gun.

Then they'd taken advantage of the silence. She'd gotten half dragged off, then swarmed.

Sound rushed back in as she fought them, scrabbled to get her dropped gun, kicking and fighting until her fingertips reached it.

There was a mass of swarming bugs. One bug fell, twitching--not dead, but wandering blindly--then another, and Cybil appeared, bloody, suit torn, dragging herself out of the mess.

"The cluster on the head near the eyes is the weak point! It doesn't kill, but it disorients them, if you hit it! Bricker! Help Lyta carry Nathan!" She shot another bug in the face, then went to reload, muttering to herself:



Another loomed up, but as it dropped in to grab her, she held the clip in her hand and proceeded to punch it in the eyes which made it reel back long enough for her to reload and shoot it in the "head," destroying both of those eyes and its antenna.

Taking her place protecting Pat, she shouted, "Bri! Cover the rear! Heaviest artillery you've got! Zuko, Will, I need flames and electricity covering our left flank! Vincent, magical girl--" that'd be Traci, she was too new for Cybil to have gotten her name, "--you have the right flank! Ghost-kid, you said you had energy blasts--stay up in the air and cover any fliers dropping in overhead, and take out any that break through the lines! Reyes, you do the same! Chamber, blast away up front, so we can move forward! Everyone else, if you see a hole, and have a weapon or power, fill it! Otherwise, stay in the center of the group--now, fall in!"

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

Have no fear, ladies and gents, your knight in denim armor is here!

A red line arced across the bugs, severing...no burning them in half. Heatvision. He was angry. They were non-sentient--therefore they got to feel the burn. (And he sure was feeling it. With the current state of his eyes, it was agony).

"Ladies and gentle-roaches--you know you can't get this handsy, this fast, right? You haven't even bought any of these fine people a drink. Not even a lunch. And you do seem hungry."

Crashing heavily, cracking the stone inlaid as part of the city street as he landed, a fist was planted on the ground.

"So why don't you snack on this?"

A wave of energy spread out from his hands and destroyed a good chunk of them--and a good chunk of the stone street.

"It's good for you. Full of Vitamins T, T, and K."

All he could do was joke. Blue Beetle was right. Robin was going to be fine. He was Robin. He'd dealt with alien invasions before, parademons, crazy nutjobs like the Joker...

It wasn't that he worried that much--he just didn't like that it was his fault. He ignored a warning, made a stupid mistake, put Robin in a bad spot...

[ihatefire.livejournal.com]

Well, the idiot was back. Might as well make him useful.

"Super-t-shirt! You've got super strength, right? Carry Pat here and help Bri cover our asses at the rear!"

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

He could hear the ire in her voice.

"That's Super--never mind."

He deserved the ire.

So he listened, grabbed the dude, and helped cover the rear.

[mynameisax.livejournal.com]

< AHHH! >

Ax wasn't stunned any more. He was buried under at least a half-dozen giant roaches, who had clearly decided that he was too much of a problem to leave alive. They were ripping at him, just like they had shredded Hudson.

< AHHH! AHHH! AHHH! >

Morph you idiot! he screamed at himself, trying to concentrate while suffocating underneath giant roaches that were trying to rip him to pieces.

Small. He had to get small, too small for them to notice. Some--

House fly he decided as one of the roaches ripped off his stalk eyes. Morph morph morph shrink shrink shrinkshrinkshrink--

YES! He was shrinking! Shrinking away from their mouths and their claws, and there was more and more room to breathe!

He morphed as fast a possible, his tail and its blade sucked right up his backside and his arms and legs became the many-jointed legs of a fly. Compound eyes blossomed from his sockets, allowing him to see entirely too much of the roaches, and two gossamer wings sprouted and buzzed to life on his back. And all the while, he kept shrinking. Until finally--

Out! Out out out out out!

[vincent-amora.livejournal.com]

Vincent didn't like this woman thinking she could order him around, but for now, her advice was sound. He slipped into position, dropping his invisibility so he didn't risk any of his 'teammates' running into him, now that they were closer together.

The others seemed to be complying nicely though, clearing the field of any minions. He grinned sadistically as he unloaded with a volley of wide-range fire and lightning attacks. The temperature in the area began to rise and people's hair may have been standing on end as his attacks saturated the air.