4746/Germination: Let there be Light, pt 1

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Germination: Let there be Light, pt 1
Date of Scene: 26 June 2018
Location: Space
Synopsis: Thor engages the space invading fungoid, with mixed results
Cast of Characters: Iron Man, Thor
Tinyplot: Germination


Iron Man has posed:
    "Thor. Thor, responding would be good. It's Tony."

    The messages are sent, persistent.

"The Oomycetan woke up and is on the move. It's coming back this way. On current course, it'll come through you."


    The massive alien creature is coming back. Hundreds of hours soaking in the sun, it has become a bloated horror of itself. The 'mushroom' section is now the smallest of its parts; the large tuber, bloated tentacle-like sections that twist and wind around the heavy lower portion of the ship pulse like exposed intestines of gray and white. And it is doing something new and frightful: it is moving.

    How is it moving? It has appeared to have created thousands of little spawn, and is releasing them, to propel itself, expending energy almost carelessly, wasting them as if they were minor skin cells. And it is gaining speed, turning away from the Sun where it has hung in loose orbit near Venus, and has now broken orbit, to start to head back.

    "Present speed suggests it'll be here in less than a day."

Thor has posed:
    The ship's communications aboard /Frigga's Mercy/ are still inefficient things, but with the influx of aid to the Asgardians from across the world and Alpha Flight in particular it has at least covered some of their disadvantages. As evidenced when the small comm system that's been freshly installed in the observation deck squawks into life with the voice of none other than Tony Stark.
    "Stark?" At first Thor's voice is a little distant, and then it's much closer as he leans over the table and speaks into it. "What is this Oomycetan? The mushroom creature?" He straightens up and frowns, looking distantly in the direction of the hangar bay and then back to the commlink. "A day? That is most unfortunate, Stark."
    Then, loudly and likely overheard by the comm he shouts, "HARALD!" For intercoms aren't operative on the ship either. But the summons goes out via loud bellowing lungs.

Iron Man has posed:
    "Eeeeeyeah, and /I/ was going to take a vacation day," Tony sighs in answer. He jumps a little bit on his end at the sudden bellowing, startled, and winces, immediately buffering the volume levels automatically. He should have done that in the first place, but his hangover won't seem to hang ITSELF.

    "That's what we heard the mushroom creatures are called. That specific one might have some other name, like Murray, but I'm not on a first name basis with it yet," Tony continues.

Thor has posed:
    There is the sound of a damaged door squeaking on its railing as it's pushed open and the rustle of armored plates as someone shuffles into range of the speaker is heard. Then there's a quick, "Yes, your majesty?"
    "Bide."
    Then to the speaker, Thor's voice returns. "Stark, our thrusters are not strong, but we have a plan in case of such an emergency. I would hear your words on its soundness for it seems we must enact it." If they had less than 24 hours it's likely it would already be placed into action, but with this time they at least have some buffer to go over it. "We have managed to repair two of the three shuttles in our bay. We can attach them to our hull and gain extra thrust in that manner though it will take a long burn to reach an appreciable speed. My plan is thus, I shall sally forth and attempt to dissuade this creature from further harm while my people attempt to evade its approach. What say you?"

Iron Man has posed:
    "Too many damn unknowns here," Tony complains. It doesn't come through the voice exchange, but Tony does rub his face with a hand and sadly puts the drink he'd started aside. But then relents, and finishes it.

    "Well. We don't know if it'll chase you if you move, but you sure don't want to just sit there and get eaten. They do a lot of that from what we HAVE seen: eating whatever's in front of them. I'd move no matter what: whether it listens to you or not, you don't want to sit there."

    "By the way, I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but they consume electricity and gain power from it. May be useful to try to lure it off course, but compared to the meal it was probably having out with that suntan, might not even matter to it."

Thor has posed:
    Tony will likely hear the grunt on the other end of the line as Thor absorbs the words granted. He shakes his head and then turns back towards Harald. "Put matters into motion, Harald. Our time may be short. Affix the shuttles and set course for these coordinates." He reaches over and touches a screen imbedded in the table itself and causes it to spring to life as a flight model flickers into being there. He gestures towards the end point and then turns back to the comm to speak.
    "I shall leave immediately. Thank you, Stark."

Iron Man has posed:
    "We don't know /how/ it communicates, if it even will do so. The bigger they are, the smarter they are, is a trend we HAVE seen. I've had some of the smaller ones flash in patterns along their stalks, in our tests. Try some emissions of energy. I'll be on standby if you get anything," Tony says, frustration at bay: his tone seems relaxed enough, but it is the same tone of someone trying to troubleshoot something that they can't see or interact with.

    The creature is still moving as described, though it has stopped speeding up: it is just drifting, pulsing slowly: a strange organic mass.

Thor has posed:
    Once away from the comm array, Tony loses contact with Thor for a handful of minutes. But they are minutes spent well as the ship comes to life. The people of Asgard are hailed as voices shout throughout the halls, summoning the people to their task and setting them to it. Inside the hangar deck the warning lights come on as those shuttles are attached to the loading cranes and moved into launch position while on the outside of the hull of the ship Asgardians race across it trailing life-lines and carrying large packs of supplies.
    It is all a bustle, and Stark might have some insight into it from the monitoring satellites near the ship. But then he'll get another feed sent to him from one of the Alpha Flight comm arrays that transmits visually as well.
    "Stark? Are you there?" Thor's voice comes across a little raggedly from the transmission but the visual is clear showing Thor's visage as he holds up the camera facing him. The Sakaar helmet rests on his head with the chin pulled down into place while a thin slice of forcefield flickers over the front of it providing some hint of atmosphere. He's fully armored and the backdrop of space is behind him. "You think these creatures may be intelligent?"
    There's a steady whum-whum-whum-WHOM as Mjolnir's spun off screen and then suddenly the image jolts as Thor takes off. The camera jostles and shifts, then seems to have been placed aside as it steadies and now displays the earth passing far below.

Iron Man has posed:
    "Yeah, I'm here. With the amount of them I've dealt with now, it's clear there's something to them. And besides, I don't often make a habit out of being wrong," Tony answers back easily. He's adjusted some, but only a little bit, having gotten a sandwich - some personal assistant of a particularly smart sort came in and put it in front of him, requiring that he care for himself as well as the Asgardians and the planet. He does, at least, chew fully before his answers.

    "Doctor Strange mentioned this one, when he tossed it out here originally, was giving off the emotion of superiority over us," Tony adds, a little skeptically. "Try compliments, if it /does/ get chatty."

Thor has posed:
    The earth continues to flicker by as the distance is covered quickly. From far below he might be little more than a silverish blur, but from the point of view of that camera is might seem as if someone were barely turning the globe beneath him. "Compliments?" Will be Thor's response at first, then he frowns. "For a mushroom?" He says that with the appropriate level of incredulity.
    And yet when he gets close enough to see the creature and the size of it he adds lightly. "Perhaps I shall." For it is a truly large creature and seemingly all the more ominous depicted against the slice of the Earth that one can see.
    Coming within range and stopping some distance away, Thor seems to float there for a time even as Mjolnir whirs slowly in one hand. "I bid you greetings, Largest of the Oomycetans. I am Thor." There's a pause as he seems likely to attach a proper title, but instead he lets that remain.
    "Can you understand me?" The gift of All-Speak allows one to speak all languages as if it were their own, at the least all languages in the Nine Realms. Perhaps the thing will not understand him. But at the least he can say he tried.

Iron Man has posed:
    "/We/ were told somebody calls them the Oomycetan. I'm unsure that's what they'd call themselves," Tony says in a way that probably isn't all that helpful. He then quiets though, because he's fiddling around with what he can see of the thing, watchful of any changes. "I'm not getting any reaction or response," Tony says.

    Indeed, that does seem to be the truth of it: the Oomycetan isn't doing anything new. It looks less like a mushroom now, particularly from this front side: any mushroom formation is on the other end. This is just bloated, tightly coiled tentacles. They are truly massive, though, but bundled like moist ramen. It doesn't reach for Thor. It just continues to come, silent. There are some of the smaller monster creatures resting on the surface of the thing; they seem dormant, as well.

Thor has posed:
    "Are you certain they are intelligent creatures?" He says with that wariness in his voice which, dubious of the possibility since the creature seems rather... loathsome. But he shakes his head and floats slowly to the side as he tries to perhaps get a better view of the monster's bulk, looking for what points of it are likely sensory organs or some aspect he can recognize.
    "Creature, make yourself known if you are able." He says, and of course it doesn't carry. But Tony can hear the impatience in his voice as the angle shifts upwards some and then there's a low growl from the Asgardian, "Damn you, answer!" And as he says that last his voice rises and there's a palpable /FLASH!/ and a flicker of lightning roiling over him and leaping in jolts and starts over Mjolnir.

Iron Man has posed:
    "I'm not sure that ignoring you isn't a sign of intellect," Tony says mildly, amused, but it doesn't last. This is, of course, serious. But humor is a comfortable diffusion on a tense situation. At least it isn't trying to eat Thor, yet.

    "Wait. Something changed; I'm getting patterns, after you did that. Trying to make sense of it," Tony says suddenly.

    There's something happening. The tubers along the front and sides pulse. Bits of glowing energy flutter through the outsides of the tentacles and across the stalk surface of the mushroom stalk. It has a sense of a visual language to it, like watching sound appear as wave forms.

Thor has posed:
    Behind the glow of his helmet's field, Thor frowns severely and furrows his brow. He looks to the side at the seeming shift and pulses of the color and light along the creature's form and tries to make sense of it. He tries. But fails. Mjolnir whirls again and then pulls him to the side, "Perhaps I can draw it away, off course." He says as he moves across the vacuum, placing the emptiness of space behind him and attempting to get the creature to turn away from the earth.
    The heavy hammer is held aloft above him and then there's a ragged flicker and flash of energy from it that causes lightning flashes to dance up and down the Thunderer's form and play about his eye as he tries to gain its attention again. "Stark, give me a direction to travel which would take it away from us and other habitable lands?"

Iron Man has posed:
    "Sure. Actually, straight from where you are now, that'll lead out parallel and also not directly into Venus," Tony describes, sounding distracted. "I'm working on this, and pulling in the data we already have. But yeah, see if you can coax it while I work," Tony continues, in his way that suggests Thor has maybe ten percent of his total attention.

    The Oomycetan doesn't deviate or slow, though it does bulge slowly outwards on Thor's side, one tentacle starting to unfurl.

    "I have a guess. Something along the line of accepting. A positive answer," Tony provides. "It's close to a response from when food is placed near it."

Thor has posed:
    "I think I may have an idea, Stark." Thor says as he twirls Mjolnir in a smooth circle, the hammer blurring with the movement. This assuredly can't go wrong. He floats in the direction away from Earth and the Asgardian ship, then holds the hammer aloft and allows a single arc of electricity to sizzle and blast across the distance between them, feeding a short jolt of the power to the creature in that direction...
    Then, lest he is stopped, he will have himself drawn over to the direction of the Earth and the Asgardian ship. He shakes his head, as if the creature could read the body language of a biped, and then holds out Mjolnir and wills it to instead of releasing the power of the storm... to draw it back within itself and try and take the energy back from the great creature before it.

Iron Man has posed:
    "Whoa, lots of patterns. This'll help," Tony reports. "I think I might have something for you now. I'll try to get some quicker translation..."

    While Tony's chatting, the creature doesn't seem to have actually deviated or moved: it's on that same drift towards the Earth. However, there's different responses fluttering along the strange blob 'limbs'.

    "The message as close as I can get is that it is glad you're welcoming it back, and it knows the route. It's changed, to simpler patterns now. It's adapting. Looks like 'I am coming', or similar." Tony is clearly thinking fast. "We need some way to talk back to it. I think I can rig some similar energy fields, but we'll need to project it --- give me a minute."

Thor has posed:
    While floating there just at the edge of the creature's reach, Thor lifts a hand to his ear as if that would help him receive the signal better and he nods... as if Tony could see him do so. Then the camera feed will shift more to the space creature as the Asgardian twists in the solar wind. "I am afraid I have exhausted my vocabulary, Stark." He holds up a hand to the creature. Assuredly that helps.
    But then when Tony elaborates on what the thing is saying or thinking, he grimaces and answers with some annoyance. "That is not at all what I was implying. Are you /certain/ this creature is intelligent, Stark? I am beginning to have my doubts." E'er the judge of sentience.

Iron Man has posed:
    "It's responded to sonics and now your energy display. I'm going to my lab to test on one of the ones we have here," Tony says, amid the sounds of him traveling out of the room he was in swiftly. "I suggest you go back to your people and help them. I'll see if I can get something for you in, say, three hours, and we can try again."

    During this time, the creature does seem to light up with rotating spirals of violet light that shimmers through the long stalk and across the lower bulbous parts. On the side away from the sun, it's beautiful, in a strange way, like neurons firing little messages.

    "JARVIS is suggesting a translation--I'm not going to middle man this. Go ahead and patch through, JARVIS," Tony's voice begins, and then JARVIS picks up from there. "Greetings, Thor. My translation is as follows: 'I return a god; I know the way: prepare for me, tiny food, I accept your devotion.'"

Thor has posed:
    Those three hours pass as Thor continues with it, staying nearby as the two creatures float in the void and mostly in silence. It is a time for pondering, self-reflection, and that time alone allows the Thunderer to let his thoughts drift inwards. Then the comms key back to life with sound of Tony Stark. "A translation?" Eyebrows lift in appreciation at such an effort in such a short amount of time. "Excellent. Yes please, go on Jarvis." He floats there with Mjolnir in hand, turning his features to look towards the great Mushroom creature. "I have a good feeling about this, perhaps we can form some kind of..." Thor's voice upon the speakers is heard actually with a touch of optimism, for once things might well be going in a positive way. He holds up a hand nodding towards the creature as if to say, 'yes, we are friends now, yes?'
    And then the translation comes through.
    Far below on Earth above the Atlantic, a storm cloud billows into life. "I see. Excuse me, Tony."
    The audio feed disengages for a moment and he'll see the abrupt blur of movement as the Squid Mushroom creature blurs closer and then suddenly there is a brief image of Mjolnir /slamming/ hard square into the closest thing that one could imagine would be its face.
    And then the video feed dies.