trans_9 | Altercations Are Inevitable

Vincent felt the remnants of the spell shatter. He hadn't known the target had two minds. One of them was like nothing he'd seen before, but the other, definitely human, as he'd suspected.

If anyone asked, he'd suspected.

He was just ready to put a shielding spell around it, when another mage, a young girl, did it first. He scowled, but tried to step in regardless.

"Of COURSE it's a person! Why do you think I tried controlling it instead of just attacking?" Vincent yelled in exaggerated frustration, moving himself between the force field and the line of fire. "Now stop shooting!" Energy crackled in his hand threateningly.

"Excuse me! Coming through!" Lucca wasn't used to working with such a large group. When the commotion started she'd drawn her pistol, only to find she didn't have a clear shot. She threaded her way to the front, trying not to cross anyone's line of fire in the process.

She tried to assess the situation.Multiple gunshots, Will yelling for them to stop--then she realized that while the blue figure was pushing its way into the group, it wasn't striking back, despite having had every opportunity. Something didn't add up--

Even as Vincent tried to stop the others from shooting, Lucca took a deep breath and stepped forward, reholstering the Wondershot in the process. There were more than enough guns covering their mystery guest already. She tried to hide the slight tremble in her stride as she stopped just short of Will's energy field and faced the newcomer, hands at her sides, palms turned outward to show she wasn't a threat.

Jono'd had his hand at the edge of outfit, ready to pull down the high neck. It had been in reaction to everybody else's suddenly higher anxiety levels. He hadn't had a chance to do anything, though, which he was grateful for.

Frankly, if they reacted like that to this guy, who knew what they would have done if he'd opened up?

Gordon Bennet, he muttered, smoothing the cowling back into place. Anybody or anythin' we meet in this place is gonna be in the same mess we are. No reason to go 'round like fuckin' cowboys. We're all scared an' stressed. Get a grip.

They were right. Her gun was drawn and trained on the strange newcomer, but she hadn't fired a shot.

"Everyone, stop!"

"Are you crazy?! Look at it! Kill the fucker before he kills us!"

"I said STOP! EVERYONE, HOLD FIRE!" Her voice boomed in a way that, in most soldiers, would reach down somewhere at the base of their spines and grab hold.

Jono's not a soldier, but even he had to stop and listen. He narrowed his eyes at the soldier guy, fully ready to take him down telepathically if he had to.

The "fucker" had finally caught his breath back. He was holding out both hands in a placating 'stop pelting me with bullets, as they sting' gesture.

"Would people stop, you know, shooting at me and electrocuting me for five seconds and let me explain myself? I can barely catch my breath here."

Most mindless aliens were not so articulate.

Or capable of sounding just extremely annoyed over homicidal.

Or apparently (judging from the slight accent that came of growing up in a bilingual home) Latino.

It was a risk, but he did what he thought would diffuse the situation most effectively--and he was worried if they kept shooting, that while HE would be fine, a bullet might richochet. Which meant, yes, he would rather take a bullet than risk it bouncing off and hitting someone.

It was a superhero thing.

He also, in general, trusted people. That they would do the right thing. He was a smart kid, but sometimes it wasn't a smart thing to do.

"Look, look, see? I'm human. Peeerfectly normal human, just like...uh, most of you. I just have a little alien friend hitchhiking along that lets me do cool stuff."

The suit receded, pulled away, showing bare, tan skin underneath, though it looked like it was rubbed raw at first. It was, however, a rather alarming and unpleasant-looking transformation--which he knew, but he was hoping they'd chill out at least until the end 'Surprise! I'm a teenager!" part. At least he wouldn't be naked, because the scarab had gotten good at throwing out its made-from-waste-and-other-things-Jaime-didn't-want-to-know-about clothes as he transformed.

There was ONE problem though, and that was the scarab itself. It wasn't stupid, so much as very very focused. Khaji Da tended to have a one-track mind. Fortunately, that track was no longer 'Kill kill kill!' but Jaime sometimes had to lead it away from being TOO focused on something sometimes.

Jaime saw the bug skittering on a wall behind the crowd.

Therefore the scarab saw the bug skittering. Immediately, it reacted, forming a sort of narrow plasma rifle--kind of an alien sniper rifle--on one of Jaime's hands--one of the ones outstretched in peace towards the group.

It looked like he was taking advantage of the relative calm to fire at them, when the scarab wanted to fire PAST them.

It wasn't dumb. It just REALLY wanted to kill that bug. It seemed dangerous.

Jaime likely still seemed dangerous. He was mid-transformation. His eyes were GLOWING with what looked like quiet menace and there were tracks of black in the skin of his face.

"Scarab, no!" He immediately started recalling the weapon. "Bad timing! For God's sake, I'm trying to calm them down, not--"

Edited 2008-06-22 18:52 (UTC)

Lucca relaxed a little, when she saw their "unknown" complaining instead of attacking, then apparently powering down.

"Umm...that's fine," she started, forcing a smile. "It's just--"

Then she noticed the gun forming in his hand. Eyes going wide, she instinctively recoiled backwards and to one side, nearly falling over in the process, as she drew the Wondershot. In a split-second, she'd gone from "We come in peace" to pointing a gun that looked as if it could've walked off the Lost In Space set at him, and was actually starting to pull the trigger when she heard him call to...who? That reminder that there was more than one passenger on board, along with Cybil's order, were the only things holding her back.

"Put it down," she whispered, half-order, half-plea. "Or dispell it. Or something." She didn't ~~want to believe~~ think he meant them any harm, but his "alien friend" might have had other plans. And if the others started shooting again...

When the girl (hot girl, hot girl!) dive-tackled him, it had knocked the wind out of him. He finally struggled to his feet, pulling the girl up with him and holding his hands up.

"Can you guys not shoot us full of holes, please?" he suggested. "He's a super hero, he's a good guy, it's cool."

Are we done shooting? Oh good.

The Doctor glared around, but mostly at the people who'd been doing the shooting. And, unluckily for Harper, he'd been elected to take the brunt of the Time Lord's anger. "This is why we DON'T SHOOT PEOPLE! Because they turn out to be HARMLESS CHILDREN!"

"HARMLESS? You call that thing HARMLESS?"

Yeah, okay.

Cybil lowered her gun, though she didn't reholster it just yet.

"First of all, he's not a thing. Nobody here is. Second, calm the fuck down and be quiet while we sort this out."

Vincent was not a stable individual. Like his mother, the price he payed for his magic was nearly uncontrollable passions and impulses. Normally his intellect was able to temper them.

Normally he wasn't on an unexplored bio-mechanical entity who-knows-where in space.

Normally he wasn't denied his armor and forced into contact with individuals he didn't know from across multiple universes. With one of them apparently making herself de-facto leader.

He'd had enough, and was about to vent his frustration. He aimed a spell at Hudson and released it. Bands of force manifested, pinning his arms to his sides. "WOULD YOU SHUT UP, YOU GUN-TOTING IMBECILE?"

The Doctor was next. "And being a child does NOT make someone harmless, I think we can all agree on that. But in THIS case, it more than stands to reason that if this were a hostile intruder, the vessel would have alerted us, or supressed it." The second part was directed towards everyone.

He cleared his throat, still wild-eyed. "Now, will there be any FURTHER spontaneous outbursts, or need I take preventive measures?"

Kate straightened herself up and checked to make sure Paco was all right, "Most of us are heroes, right? Be nice to start acting like it, and Vincent calm down, you made your point."

She then glanced toward the one in the blue armor.

"Just take it easy, and tell us who you are, please. Nobody wants to hurt you. Right?" Sharp look at Hudson.

"WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?"

Cybil grabbed Hudson by his collar, yanked him close to her face, and said in a tone of voice that communicated quite clearly what she would do to his balls if he didn't listen:

He was bound already, so she simply shoved him down on his butt.

Meep.

Hudson sat there. Quiet. Finally. Staring at Jaime in horror, as if waiting for him to spring forward and bite his face off.

He may have been gibbering slightly to himself, but it was quiet gibbering.

All the chaotic and trigger-happy--this from the guy who shot a holographic Rommie earlier--'festivities' were starting to wear on Sam and all the panicked screaming, coupled with the gunfire, was starting to give him a headache. Sucking in a deep-breath, he counted counted to five in his head before stepping toward the police officer who had been assigned as their 'captain.'

"I think somebody 'requires a mild sedative,'" he said--sarcastically quoting the needle-happy Stacy--to Cybil, casting pointed looks down at Hudson and then across at Vincent.

"I'm not counting that out, but need to deal with our other new friend first."

Which was why her gun was still out, just not pointed at Jaime.

"You have a lot to explain, but I apologize for everyone firing at you. We're all spooked," she said to Jaime. She jerked her head towards Hudson. "And this yahoo didn't help any with his panicking. So start talking. Who are you? What are you? And why did you attack Will--that one you had better have a damn good explanation for."

The Doctor gave Vincent a look that was half incredulous and half dismissive. "Of course they aren't, never said they were. Now shut up so we can listen to what the boy says."

"Thank you."

Seriously, people, he would like to explain things to you.

"I'm a superhero--the Blue Beetle. My name is Jaime. This is Paco." Jaime was pronounced "Hy-meh." Paco was pronounced...Paco.

He wasn't telling them his last name. He still didn't know what was going on and he didn't want to be free and easy with the secret ID. Too many already knew it.

"I'm human. Perfectly normal human. Paco and I are from Texas. The techie suit of armor is from my scarab--he's an alien parasite--or was a parasite anyway, but now he's more like a symbiote kinda thingy. An artifact I found at a construction site--although 'artifact' is a bad word for him, because he's not a thing. He's alive. And not really a he, actually, but it's easier calling him that. His name is Khaji Da."

Jaime laughed a little laugh. "He wants me to tell you that he's a superhero, too."

Oh hey, another person who talks to machines! Will caught herself smiling before she remembered that this guy had been coming at her with razor-blade arms. She couldn't help it - he felt nice. And definitely like a superhero.

There was still the matter of the razor-arms, though.

"Okay, wait - If you're a superhero, what did you attack me for?" she asked, still conscious of the fact that she'd used her powers in front of everyone - and also that nobody seemed phased by it, so maybe if she was lucky, she wouldn't have to explain herself afterwards.

It looked like she was surrounded by people who ran across lightning-throwing girls all the time, actually.

"And why would you sprout a beam weapon in the middle of making nice?" Lucca sounded extremely vexed as she slowly lowered her Wondershot, her heartrate finally returning to normal. Her legs still trembled a bit.

"I have a very, very good explanation for both, I promise."

He pointed to Will. "There was some kind of giant bug that crawled up on your back--your back was away from the rest of the group so they weren't seeing it. We're talking..."

He held out his hands to show how big it was.

"Pretty big. And it had a very, very large stinger. I figured if I yelled 'Hey, you have a big stingy monster bug on your back!' you'd freak out--understandably--and get stung, so I jumped in and swiped it off and was trying to kill it. Then it skittered off while you were all trying to shoot me, and you knocked the wind out of me with that little lightning trick you did, so I was out of breath, since you actually shorted out some of the suit's systems and, um, it hurt. Which was why I couldn't talk at first. I spotted it again and the scarab reacted, wanting me to shoot it, because it's not the brightest bug sometimes when it's gunning for something."

There was the mental equivalent of a "hmph" from the scarab at that, but Jaime ignored it.

"...Annnd now I don't see it anywhere, so everyone should keep the Space-raid handy because that means it's running loose around the...whatever it is we're in."

Edited 2008-06-23 05:13 (UTC)

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