trans_9 | Phase 4 - The Mastermind Behind it All?

The key to a good introduction is timing.

And it's clear that said someone had been watching their every move. Currently playing on the viewing was them, he was replaying the battle they just had with HAL.

Oh, Paco, there goes your arm again, this time in full HD.

He was well aware they were there, and began slowly clapping, giving them a sardonic applause as they got closer. He finally stopped, and turned to get a better look at the group as he raised a martini glass in a toast to them.

"I see congratulations are in order. You all survived, despite your own immense stupidity. You may all prove to be useful to me yet." He raised his glass a little higher, then took a sip.

"Oh, where are my manners? Would any of you care for a drink?"

Oh hell. Wags recognizes you Lex. "Rif ris is rabout rand, rime ronna rip rour race roff."

There's a gasp, among them.

It's not him. It can't be him.

But it is him. Younger, maybe...

Before anyone can stop him, before it occurs to him he should hide or be afraid--and after a moment, when he remembers he's powerless, Kon will be afraid, because this man, as much as he tries to pretend he doesn't, terrified him--Superboy's already broken free from the crowd to go after him.

"LUTHOR! You were behind all this!"

The ship--some weird social experiment? Some plot, some plan--something. Maybe it was all an illusion, even if they were all real.

But for whatever reasons he did this to all of them, he's going to be stopped.

See this, Lex? This is Mai glowering at you. You're lucky looks can't kill.

In fact, she's already following Superboy's lead, running in step right behind him. Her knives already in her hands, ready to throw as soon as a threat shows up (or she gets in range to plink Luthor). She's had enough of this and there's something about this man which reminds her far too much of Azula towards the end.

"Are...um...are we supposed to know this guy?" Sokka has his ridiculous sunglasses back on, and has his shotgun pointed in the fellow's general direction. He's angry, sure. But he wants answers, too...

"Clark." The venom in his voice was palatable, but now wasn't the time for fighting them. He had managed to take a moment to swallow down is bile when he watched the fight live. it figured that Clark would be in the middle of yet another mystery.

Lex held up a hand signaling for ~~Clark~~ Kon to stop. Not that he could do anything else, but with HAL out of the way, Stacy was back in full.

"You always were one to jump to the wrong conclusions." Ironic that he just jumped to the wrong conclusion as well.

The name alone causes him to stop. That he knows that name at all, when he's not wearing the nerd glasses, when he's acting like he would with an S on his chest and it makes him think of that name...

He needs to correct him, but he's not sure how.

No, he won't let this be connected to anything super. Actually, instead of rushing in, he's going to do this...carefully.

"It's Conner. I'm his cousin."

"And this, everyone, is Lex Luthor. He's not a very nice man, and one that usually does bad things to good people. He's from the universe a lot of us are from--" He tilts his head as he looks at him. "--or at least one like it."

It's answers time.

"What's this about, Luthor?"

Mai isn't waiting to talk. She hurls a volley of knives - not aimed to kill, but to pin him down. She is not a happy camper.

Those blades? Stopped by an ecto-barrier courtesy of Danny.

"For Pete's sake. We can at least listen to the guy before we beat his shiny bald head in."

Lex tilted his head slightly, taking a better look at Conner. His eyes darted briefly towards Jaime, then Mai, then Danny when the knives stopped, then back to Conner. There were certain subtle differences, but the relationship was obvious.

"Apparently so. I'm sure Clark was thrilled to find a blood relative out there." What with Clark being adopted, and all.

He stood up to address the group, and they might notice that he was wearing the same plantsuit as the rest of them. Though he also had an Armani sport coat to go with it. He decided to address the whole group.

"Since my reputation seems to precede me," Lex is looking at you, kid who got half his face shot off, "I think its best we clear up a few misconceptions. I'm not the one who brought you to this ship, but I am the one you'll need to listen to if you want any hope of getting off it alive. Particularly since whoever planned your trip so far seems hell bent on seeing you all dead." A sharp barb, but still an honest evaluation of what he's seen from them so far.

"For the time being, you can get some more rest, further treatment for your wounds, and check your equipment. If you're hungry, there's plenty of food in the storage room there." Yes, food, people. Real food. "Nothing fresh, but canned goods tend to last a while. The bathrooms are through those doors." Yes, a bunch of non-meaty toilets that don't stick you with needles when you exit.

"There's also plenty of alcohol behind the bar. Don't get too happy with it, though. I'll need you at your best, because what you've been through so far is nothing compared to what's up next."

And compared to what you've been through, Lex has been living in the lap of luxury. Which is normal for him, mind you.

"Now which one of you used to be in charge of this group?" Because you all work for Lex Luthor now.

Edited 2009-11-03 09:30 (UTC)

Wags reverts to homid form for more ease of communication, a form which may or may not look like someone Lex would recognize.

"Dude, you're flipping Luthor. The reasons for not listening way outweigh any reason to do the opposite."

"Give me a reason to listen to you."

Mai's still glaring daggers at you, Lex. You're lucky that there's a shield to stop her from throwing more.

Lex looked over at Bart (well, actually at Wags, who ~~had the pb of~~ looked just like the Bart from his world) and raised an eyebrow. Interesting that the kid could turn into some kind of a wolf-beast. Interesting indeed.

He then sat down, and turned his attention Mai. At her question, he simply smirked, then leaned back in his seat.

"No," was his answer to her, plain and simple. "You can all continue to stumble along blindly if you want. I won't stop you.

"I'm a patient man. I've waited months for you to finally find your way here; I can wait several more for the next group to come looking for your corpses."

Kelly stood off to one side, away from the Chief, and close to a few members of her former ragtag band. They'd managed to work as a team before. And she knew their capabilities now. If it came down to a fight, they'd be able to coordinate better this way. Watching the young man from behind her visor, she placidly checked the sensor array she'd attached to her wrist.

It wasn't much help, but she could tell that at least most of Stacy's functions were back up and running. Good. Watching the others react to the man, she raised a bemused eyebrow behind her visor. Lex Luthor, huh? Well, if he had a plan, she'd listen for the moment. She wasn't overly concerned about food. But she made a mental note to stock up on some before they moved. And perhaps swap some weapons or ammo for medical supplies.

He notices the suit, and...well, he believes him. Or at least thinks it's best if they go along with it, but everything they've found out so far leads him to believe it's bigger than just him, as bad a villain as he is.

Sorry, Lex, Jaime knows in the grand scheme, that you're a small fish in a big sea.

"No, you can't wait for the next group. Because they're in danger, and we're in danger. We've healed up--we have to keep moving."

His fault, the first part. His fault, but he adjusts. That's what he does.

Now, how does he play this? He could just lay down the law--but like hell, that'll work. So he uses what he's got--the crew will still listen to him over Lex where needed, but there is something he needs from him.

"I was the one in charge, but... if you're anything like the Luthor from our world, you're smarter than I am, and you obviously were smart enough to get this far by yourself."

The funny thing is, for all Jaime isn't a liar or deceptive, his voice pretty much rings with honestly all the time, and it's something he knows he can use.

"If you know the best way to proceed, to take back the bridge, we'll follow through on it. Much as I really, really don't trust you, the Lex Luthor I know works with others if it benefits him."

He might mean that completely honestly. He might not.

Jean, scan him. Is he telling the truth about not being the one behind this?

Jean's stayed pretty quiet, though she is staring quite intently at you Lex Luthor!!!

Her gaze doesn't even flicker from Lex when she hears Jaime's thoughts. On it.

Her gaze becomes more intense and she slowly steps forward and focuses solely on Lex Luther. He's being truthful she telepathically tells Jaime. Though he's thinking we're mostly idiots, but despite that he really thinks he can work with us.

If there's one thing Lex knows ho to do, its negotiate. So it strikes him as something a surprise when their would be leader rolled over so quickly.

He didn't look like he lost confidence in himself, despite having half his face shot off, and its not as if the crowd was urging him to do so.

This kid might be trying to play him. Because, honest sounding or not, Lex does not trust you unless he knows your life inside and out. And he has never heard of a Blue Beetle. Not to mention he finds a teenager being in charge as rather absurd.

So, whatever the real leader of the group might have been planning, Lex decided to cut them off at the knees. And no better way to do that than to start undermining everyone's confidence at whoever used to be in charge.

"I'm a businessman," he stated truthfully. He was a ruthless businessman, and had aims to get to the White House one day, but he was a far cry from being some would be planet conquering megalomaniac. "And I'd be out of business if I didn't know how to make deals that benefited both me and the other party."

He could drag this out longer, but he did want to get off this ship.

"You'll all be getting to the bridge the way you should have come here, by taking the hub." He's looking just a touch smugly at you, Jaime. "The group of pirates at the helm shut it down and sealed off parts of it, but didn't add much security beyond that. It still has miles of maintainence tunnels and emergency ladders, though, and if you had cracked the hub, you could've walked, climbed, and crawled to anywhere on the ship with minimal risk of getting caught. You could've avoided HAL entirely, and not cost yourselves an arm and a le-- well, an arm."

He'll let you all think about that part for a moment. And you're free to look at the replay of yourselves fighting HAL as you think. Funny at how the volume on that seems to have gotten just a little louder...

"Taking down the pirates is going to be the issue, since they still have you outnumbered by about..." He did a quick head count and then did a little math after that "...fifteen to one, give or take."

By now Katara had caught up with the rest of them, but she had been listening quietly in the back, observing, watching what transpired between Jaime, this Lex guy, and the rest of the group. There was quite a lot to take in.

For instance, that replay of their fight. She couldn't imagine why anyone would want to just sit and watch all of them fight, lose limbs and possibly people, and then have the nerve to try and tell them that they had fought the wrong way. As far as she was concerned, Jaime had done everything that he could to help the crew and keep them safe, and she refused to hear anything remotely close to Jaime being at fault for the things that happened.

"If you'd told us that to begin with, this could have been avoided," Katara said, glaring. "If Jaime follows you because he thinks its a better plan, I'll listen to him. Don't expect to get much cooperation from us just by being smug. AS far as I'm concerned, you were just watching."

"...We would've had to build a platform to work from. We were already running out of time, and it looked like it had the same security, so I didn't--I didn't look into it as much..."

He holds a hand up to his mouth.

How upset he is is genuine. It's palpable. His reaction is genuine. That blow Luthor wanted to make? It did work.

He failed. He failed them all.

Jean, I'm going to look really upset. This is...partly because I am really upset.

He is.

But I need you to hook us all up telepathically. Minus His Baldness here.

The anger is real, too.

"You could have told us! Why didn't you tell us?! There are people that could be dying back there!"

Jean's jaw sets and it's taking just about everything she has to not knock Lex Luther right through a wall.

OK, Jaime, but I don't know how long I'll be able to keep us all linked.

She moves her gaze from Lex and closes her eyes, concentrating on everyone else in the groups BUT him. It's not as easy as it sounds but a few moments later she's hearing everyone's thoughts and surprise surprise EVERYONE, you hear each other's thoughts as well.

Static is not a happy man. He thought his best friend was dead, only to have him come back to life. Another guy, just a normal guyt he should have been protecting, has lost an arm. Another good friend, or would-be friend who views Static as more than a little crazy (like just about everyone else he used to know), has gone from being supremely powerful to naught but a mockery in front of a version of his worst enemy.

Static is very much not in a good place. But he's still trying. And as Jaime becomes visibly upset, it's his turn to step forward and put a hand on his best friends shoulder. He's there for you, man. It's what bros are for; even if his bloodlust and tormented memories are rising like bile.

"Luthor, Shut up. Stop playing games, man. Either you're here to help us, or you're just as evil as the Luthor I know. And if you're as bad as the Luthor where we're from, I could do your world a BIG favor right now." Electricity crackles off Static as he says his threat, but only a little. "People are dying, and it's on Your hands as much, if not more, than anyone else's."

Mai blinks, taken aback by her sudden ability to hear everyone elses' thoughts. She eyes Luthor, face set back into her usual impassive and bored expression. Her thoughts are a bit more troubled. Everyone who's listening in can probably pick up that she's thinking they should just ditch Luthor and figure it out on their own - she doesn't like him. He reminds her of Azula in the worst way possible

Jaime looks just about as upset as he honestly is.

His thoughts are something he works past that, the feelings of failure.

Everyone, we're going to argue with him. Briefly. We don't have time for more than briefly, but it's what he expects.

It's what he wants to do, so if that's his natural inclination, it's best to go with it.

He's going to make me look like an idiot--and I am an idiot. I'm going to act like that's crushed me. Then we're going to act like the nice bald man is in charge, like we have no other choices to listen to him, even though we hate it.

Even though they do have a choice. Mai is right. They could just walk away and ignore him, after all, but-- But his mind. He doesn't seem to be from his world or seems to be younger, but this is Lex Luthor. And Luthor is a schemer. A genius. The Brainys are smart, but this is "always one step ahead of you" smart. Turning their back and ignoring this is not to their benefit, not when they could be using his mind.

We're going to listen to him as long as it makes sense to. The second it doesn't, we break off and do what we need to do. He's a villain back home, but he's a smart villain. Like the type that can out-tactic any one of us here. He's useful. But he also doesn't care a lick for any person here but himself. So, we're going to use him for what he knows about our enemy, and for his tactics. The problem is he's not Captain Cooperation. only way he'll help us is if he thinks he's bossing us around, that everything is on his terms so we'll give in with a fight and play to his ego to get him to do that. One thing he doesn't know is how well some of us know a version of him.

Chief's the one in charge, though. We look to him over Luthor. Always. We follow his instincts. I'll help with tactical. Jean will let us occasionally check in.

And we knock the idiot unconscious if he does anything stupid.

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