trans_9 | [open, but single-thread]

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[open, but single-thread]

Will was not in the best state of mind.

Her planet destroyed, her family dead, if they weren't on this ship . . . and a whole bunch of people she didn't know, who'd just died what had to be the most horrible death it was possible for a person to have.

Zombies. Will was not equipped to handle zombies. Emotionally OR . . . well, superheroically. Especially not without the rest of her team.

What she COULD do, now that it was over, now that everybody was more or less reeling from the terrible things they'd learned, was put a little sunshine back into the people of Transmigration 9's lives. And so she waited in the Statuary, heart of Kandrakar out, trying not to be put too much on edge by the statues as she waited for anyone to take her up on her offer.

She hoped they'd come soon. Some of the ever changing statues were looking especially angry today, and they were kind of giving her the creeps.

"Maybe I should have picked somewhere else to do this."

[ooc: not a closed thread, but I do ask that everybody who tags on try and tag as a single thread rather than starting multiple ones.]

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"[The statues are a little unsettling,]" Jonas agreed, stepping around one of them and approaching the girl. "[Will, is it? My name is Jonas.]"

The collection is pretty reflective of the mood of most of the crew right now. Some of the statues are dismal, sorrowful things. Others are caught in poses of anger. One of them in particular (http://avalon.gargoyles-fans.org/ftp/pictures/disney/skyscraper.jpg) is offputting to Will. What artist needed to put that much detail into making an already scary-looking statue look that much like it wants to rip her face off?

"Yeah," she says, pulling out the Heart of Kandrakar. "They should change out sooner or later, though . . . just stay away from the big changing one towards the back." She shrugs. "Hi, Jonas. It's nice to meet you."

She kind of wants to thank him for coming. Now she can feel not as useless as she did during the zombie apocalypse. She holds the Heart in front of hers and wills it to begin glowing.

"Do you need to . . . I don't know . . . put out a screen or something?"

"[Not as such,]" Jonas said. "[I do not really have a screen, to be honest. It was not included in my predecessor's designs, and thus far I have been able to absorb sufficient energy without it. Solar energy is simply easier to absorb than the ambient energy produced by Stacy.]"

He squinted in the light, then glanced away to give his eyes time to adjust.

"[Hm, gargoyles. That seems odd, I wonder why it is in here instead of on the buildings.]"

Roxie shuffles in silently, watching the statues, Jonas, and Will.

She's going to observe a moment before speaking up, apparently.

Will shrugs. "Maybe somebody put a lot of effort into it."

Seriously. You can practically see the thing's pores.

"So . . . who built you?" She wonders if that's the polite thing to ask, but then, she's never talked to a robot before. She's not sure what to ask other than that. "And do you ever have to sleep?"

She waves to Roxie, when she notices the other girl there.

"Hey. Did you want some sunlight too?"

It was rather tacky, yes, but also understandable.

"[That is a rather complex question. My body was constructed by a different person than the one who created my programming, which was copied from my predecessor.]" That should hopefully answer her question sufficiently. "[And no, I do not require sleep. I spend a great deal of time reading.]"

He nodded in greeting to...Roxie? Yes, Roxie, according to the crew census.

"... I'd have to set up a little equipment, but it would be nice," Roxie says. "Without real starlight to use, some of my supplies are starting to go bad."

She steps forward, gaze sliding over to Jonas. An artificial being...?

"This IS starlight, sort of," Will says. "Concentrated starlight. You can set up if you want. I don't have to go anywhere."

And it'll make her feel better about being helpful and whatnot. So yeah, go ahead, set up.

"I've never met a . . . is it rude to call you a robot? Do you have a word for yourself I should use?"

"[I am not exactly a robot, no,]" Jonas said. "[My predecessor was what is known as a 'synthezoid' or a 'synthetic human', but that also had to do with the materials he was constructed from. My mind is human, and I believe that I have a soul, or the potential to have one. I am...]" he paused and considered. "[I have probably reached my first 'birth'day, by this point. It is hard to tell, with the time-dilation.]"

He made a face. "[So, essentially, 'robot' is inaccurate, but there is not technically a word to describe my particular manner of existence.]" He shrugged. "[I am still working on it.]"

Roxie sits, and starts removing things from her coat. Things that are too large to have really fit in there, it seems like—oh well.

First, a bowl that seems like it must have been crafted from or plated with silver, and she very carefully fills it from a vial of what looks like water...

"Well, you have a name, so that's enough, right?" Will smiles. "I mean, for me to know what to call you."

She's definitely getting some magical tinglies off of the stuff Roxie's setting out, too. "It's neat how you can fit more stuff in your coat than it looks like it can hold," she says, because that would be a really useful thing, if she could have one herself. Never have to pack a bookbag again. "Does it get heavier, or stay the same weight no matter what you keep in it? And what are they for?"

"[I have no complaints,]" Jonas said with a shrug and quirk of the lips. He too watched Roxie pull things out of her coat, idly attempting to identify the various objects. It turned out that having memories of the previous Vision's life had other uses besides granting him an uncomfortable breadth of knowledge about the Scarlet Witch behind closed doors...

"It weighs on the soul," she says, quite seriously. "I can only carry so much because I've spent a long time acclimating to it."

She retrieves a bag of what looks like marbles and carefully drops a few into the bowl, careful not to let any of the liquid splash. They fizz and bubble and start very rapidly dissolving in it. "I have a minute or two before it sets enough to start charging, and then I'll have to run the process in reverse to retrieve them again."

Watching Roxie work is always so . . . well, it makes Will feel like she does in school, watching the really studious kids go to work. In theory they can do the same sort of stuff, but in practice, Roxie's just a lot more . . . intent than she is.

"How do you . . . reverse dissolving marbles?"

"It's a thaumaturgical suspension. If you're very carefully you can run it as a transactional operation and do all the changes in reverse, decoupled from the energy status." Well, she's good with the gobbeldegook, at least.

"How do you produce the light?"

"I don't produce it. The Heart does. I just wield its power."

No such careful thaumaturgical stuff here. Just Heart and Soul.

Roxie gestures to the bowl. Time to go for it, clearly.

Once it's exposed to proper moonlight (however concentrated), the now-cloudy liquid thickens and turns completely solid.

And Will keeps up the light, illuminating the statuary until Roxie and Jonas have gotten the power they need.

"Is that enough for you guys? I can keep going if it's not."

But she's getting kind of bored, just standing around holding up the heart. And tired.

"[I believe so,]" Jonas said, checking his systems. They were back up to more comfortable levels, at least. "[Thank you very much, Will.]"

Roxie is fiddling with the bowl, doing strange things to it with a set of other vials, a small hammer, a strainer and a second bowl. She doesn't say anything, but whatever she's doing seems to be progressing smoothly.

Well, if Roxie's busy, Will's not going to disturb her. She didn't say no, anyway, so she lets the light fade.

"I'm glad I could help," she says, as the Heart dims in her hands.

She pauses.

"After what happened in the City, when I didn't really . . . I just felt like -"

She has more to say, but doesn't get it out before a sharp crack breaks the rest of the silence behind her.

Will whirls around just in time to see -

- the statue from before, cracks spiderwebbing across its stone surface as it starts to move, plates of stone bursting off as the statue caught in mid-roar becomes a living creature awake in mid-roar.

The breaking stone was loud. The roar is louder.

The living gargoyle stumbles, once - eyes glowing white with rage, disoriented, off balance, and looks - from the metal man, to the girl with the darkening piece of crystal jewelry, to the other with her bowl and her vials and her work spread before her, and the sight, and the smell, and the feeling that something has made him furious before he fell into sleep and found himself here - well, it does not endear any of them to him.

Wings spanning more than twenty feet snap open, but he is already nine feet tall and two grown men wide - he doesn't need much more emphasis on his size to be intimidating. And those claws - and those fangs - are very long, and at this distance, sharp enough.

His roar - with words this time - echoes through the statuary - "WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?!"

Jonas took flight, dialing his omnicomm to send out a message to the rest of the crew.

<< A gargoyle in the Statuary just came to life. It appears hostile. Back-up would be nice! >>

"[How about you tell us?]" he retorted, reaching level with the former stone-creature. "[Statues tend not to spontaneously come to life!]"

Something is wrong. This is not the time to be awake. This is not the place to be awake. There is no wind to take flight, and Goliath is unsteady enough on his feet as it is just now, so even if there were, he could not trust his wings to carry him. But he will hold his ground, he will have answers -

"I am no statue," he growls. "You, child of Oberon, you do not know my race from the statues that humans built?"

He breathes in deeply. His head is spinning. This is the wrong time. The wrong place. Everything smells of living flesh and leaves on the verge of going to mold.

"You have taken me from my city," he accuses. He is still furious, still restraining himself only barely. "Tell me for what purpose, and tell me where my clan is!"

"We didn't take you anywhere," says Will, already in her Guardian form. "We've been abducted here, just like you!"

Oh jeeze, please listen to her because EVERYBODY'S still on edge and the last thing they need is another fight if there doesn't have to be -

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