trans_9 | Hail the Conquering Heroes

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Hail the Conquering Heroes

Things can happen without Stacy knowing, that much is apparent now. The damage to her sensors is significant. But the fighting clued her in.

After it's all over, after those captured have been rescued, after the injured have been tended to, only the nest is left, and Stacy takes care of it.

||Infestation of Cluster 42, Level 4, Sector 7, Sublevel 12, Zone 37 has been detected. Triggering internal defenses. Decontamination commencing.||

There is a pause.

||Decontamination complete.||

Simple as that, once she knows the problem was there. Her internal sensors are damaged, especially in the city, and so are some of the systems monitoring them. You have to know what's broken to know to fix it.

Such a simple thing and it only took one man dying to make it happen. (His body is gone, by the way, ripped to shreds and eaten. There's not even a spot of blood on the floor. That's the bugs' doing. The bugs' bodies are gone too--that's Stacy's doing).

||Any injured personnel that still have not received medical attention, report to the nearest lift, and you will be transported to the MedBay. Any uninjured personnel, report to the Living Area, to the restroom facilities to undergo decontamination of xenobiological material. Then report to the Obs Deck to meet your new crew-mates.||

Said crew-mates--and the Doctor, who'd skipped out and miraculously ducked and weaved his way to the lift when he'd realized the Master was there--are there and waiting, and just a tad confused.

[ooc: read this first]

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Toxin hisses again, showing his teeth and leaving bits of saliva and giant roach parts on the floor.

"Tox! Settle!" Pat tugs Toxin back, and the symbiote squalls in annoyance for a moment, snapping his teeth.

He pauses, then adds, sounding angrier,

"That doesn't mean you can maul him; either settle down or get back in here."

Brainy gets a glare and a low growl from Toxin, but soon enough he's wrapped loosely around Pat's shoulders again. Pat just sighs. "That's a no. And don't call him that?"

"The usual pronouns don't usually apply with species that lack a set form. I've known several individuals that took offense at being assigned a gender."

"He doesn't like to be called 'it'."

Toxin mutters, extending a few tendrils and flipping them slowly.

"...Anyway, that probably means I should do a real introduction. I'm Pat, he's Toxin, yes, he bites, no, I can't get him off without hurting both of us. Hi."

"Brainiac 5," he says, without really giving anymore than that, as he looks over the results of his scans.

"I'm guessing you're some kind of alien, too...or that's one hell of a tattoo." Or possibly the kid took a dive into some food coloring. He's just dealt with giant roaches from hell; just about anything sounds plausible at this point.

Toxin lifts his head up again, eyepatches still narrowed as he eyeballs Brainy's device.

"He wants to know what that says."

"Data," he says simply. "Not that you'd be able to understand it."

Pat pauses, while Toxin just huffs again, coiling in on himself. "Could you translate it?" he asks, hoping to defuse things before Toxin attempts to eat Brainy's head.

...of course, depending on what the data says, that might happen anyway.

A long-suffering sigh. "I suppose I can engage the translation function, and switch it from Interlac to English."

Which he has been speaking perfectly all this time, rather than relying on the ship's translators.

He hits the translate function and holds it out for Pat and Toxin to see. It's likely still incomprehensible.

Both Pat and Toxin peer at it, with Toxin finally looping back after a moment to look at his host.

"No, I don't get it either." Pat frowned at the data again. "Could you translate it for the biology-impaired?"

He looks annoyed, but complies.

"My scans indicate your...friend is a superdense, amorphous biological construct comprised least partly of complex amino acids and other organic compounds. It's nervous system lacks a central structure and is instead threaded throughout its body, largely via what I suspect may be solid, but flexible microstructures, folded in on themselves, much like the sulci and gyri on the surfaces of the brains of most sentients."

Toxin's eyepatches widen for a moment as he tries to follow, then narrow into a squint.

"No biting," Pat grumbles at Toxin, only getting a huff in return. His attention returns to Brainy again. "Doesn't really explain why he's so good at looking like clothing, but it's...interesting, I guess." Even if he barely understood any of it.

"If I had a tissue sample, I could give you a much more in-depth analysis..."

Obviously, this Brainy guy isn't getting the message. Before Pat can protest, Toxin suddenly takes suit form and yanks control away for a moment, showing his suddenly much larger teeth.

"Dude, what is the obsession with tissue samples?" Danny asks Brainy.

Brainy's eyes go wide and he takes a step back, but he puts his forcefield up.

"I've encountered a new lifeform and I'm merely curious about its biology," he says to Danny.

Yes. 'It's.'

To Toxin. "I'll assume you're the symbiote, yes? I'm sorry you find scientific inquiry so offensive."

"I think he's more offended by the fact that you keep referring to him as an it when you've been told otherwise. Y'know, that and the fact that you've just met the guy and are asking to sample tiny bits of him. Anyone ever told told you that's slightly creepy?" Danny says irritatedly, his "Wacko Mad Scientist" alarm on full alert.

"Tox, don't you-" Apparently Pat is back in control.

For a just a moment before the suit suddenly twitches and Toxin snarls at Brainy, advancing on him.

"Dammit, kid!" And there's Pat again, taking control again. There's a brief fight for who's in charge, with the suit's tendrils snapping and a definite clenching of claws. Finally, Pat says, "Jesus, stop calling him an 'it' before he tries to eat your head!"

Apparently, Danny's gotten the picture, at least. Once is understandable. Continually calling Toxin that is asking for trouble.

"You needn't worry. He can't harm me while my forcefield is active," he informs Pat.

To Danny, who he starts scanning, he says, "Besides satisfying my own curiosity, I'm trying to gain a full understanding of why we've all been abducted. Since that reason, at this juncture, appears to perhaps be because of our various preternatural attributes, understanding the full capabilities for every member of the crew is essential to gain insight on our captors--after all, they likely have identical information."

He frowns, looking at his omnicom. "These readings make absolutely no sense whatsoever."

"Probably because I'm half-ghost. And would you knock that off! Needing info or not, some people have serious problems being studied. Especially by people they DON'T KNOW."

"I'm more worried about what happens when it isn't active and he's still angry," Pat shoots back, then turns his attention to the said symbiote. "Tox, settle down."

"That doesn't mean you get to eat him. Put the teeth away."

Toxin stubbornly keeps them out, while Pat just sighs and peers at the pair. Maybe if he's lucky, Danny will distract Brainy's attention away from Tox... But he has to agree with Danny. "Toxin's one of them. And I'd bet there's some others here, too."

"There's no such thing as ghosts and even if there were, there's no way someone could be half," Brainy asserts and he doesn't put the omnicom down. He's too busy frowning at the readings.

"As for the rest, I am Brainiac 5, and I'm a member of the Legion of Superheroes. I never share my data, nor do I use it for any purposes other than theory when doing so would involve applications that could violate basic scientific ethics. Furthermore, I have seven medical degrees and have taken, and abide by, the Hippocratic oath. Primum Non Nocere. 'Above all, do no harm.' Part of my reason for scanning crew members is also to have baseline scans in case anyone takes ill or is injured, as I'm unfamiliar with some of the species present."

Which is true. That's actually a very large reason he's doing it besides his own curiosity/trying to figure out things about their captors by examining who they've kidnapped/seeing if anyone has any latent abilities he can use to get them all out of here in tandem with his scientific genius.

They're in an uncertain situation and he may be called on to be the genius doctor/geneticist that's been needed time and time again. Or even just a medic.

"Now you know me."

"Well, obviously there are such things, and there is a way, or else I wouldn't be standing here talking to you and you would be able to understand the readings on that stupid thing. Which, by the way, I am going to bash into tiny little pieces if you don't quit pointing it at me!"

Newsflash Brainy: Danny doesn't like you very much.

However, Danny is gaining Tox-approval, despite the whole incident with the sonic screaming. (And the attempted head-eating.)

Pat rubs at his forehead with his oversized claws, sighing. "Could we stop threatening to mangle or annoy each other for a minute?"

"I've threatened no one, I'd like to point out." Brainy finally stops scanning Danny and starts tapping at the screen, looking through the readings. "I have enough data--though I'm going to have to sift through these anomalous readings and try to discern the cause of the irregularities."

"Or, you know, could just have LISTENED when I told you the reason. Has anyone ever told you you have a stick up your ass that's roughly equal in length to the height of Olympus Mons?"

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