2662/Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

Empty Chairs at Empty Tables
Date of Scene:	01 October 2017
Location:	Mutant Town
Synopsis:	Vorpal, Timber Wolf, and Speed cross paths in a damaged Mutant Town and strangeness follows, namely in the pulling up of bad memories.
Cast of Characters:	87, Speed, Timber Wolf

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Vorpal (87) has posed:
The fury and the speed of the invasion attempt had taken most by surprise. You couldn't swing a cat around without bumping into a building that had been damaged by the fighting, or in various cases several buildings (and in worst cases, some blocks). There have been concentrated efforts to rescue anyone trapped in the rubble and by now most of the emergency crews have fenced away most buildings that were deemed a danger to the public. Rebuilding had begun in some areas, with many volunteers lending a hand.

Today, due to the weather and the hour, most efforts had stopped. It had rained intermittently for several hours, a clear sign that Autumn was here to stay, and by the time five o'clock rolled around, the light was growing dim. There weren't any crews working on the collection of buildings (four total) had had been gutted by some form of energy attack.

However, to any observant eyes, there was movement among the shadows, figures moving along the debris cloaked in darkness, in areas that were clearly too dangerous for anyone to be rummaging through, due to the unstability of the buildings.

Vorpal was sitting across one of those buildings right now, focused more on his coffee and sandwich (because even on patrol, you need a snack now and then) now that the rain had let up and he could afford a moment of rest. The figures in the buildings had gone unnoticed, for now.

Speed has posed:
Metropolis - Fifteen Minutes Ago

After the battle with Darkseid, Tommy Shepherd had been taken to the Hall of Justice for medical attention. Though, sixteen hours later, or to Tommy's skewed internal clock: FOREVER! It was time to get out and go anywhere else; besides he had people to see and money to account for. He scrawls a quick thank you in Sharpie on his chart then with a crack of teenager breaking the sound barrier he's gone.

Now - Mutantown NYC

Tommy tumbles to a stop in front of the broken buildings, clutching his side. "Owww," he moans as he lets go of his ribs to try and pick himself up. Running after a god battle... 0/10, would not recommend. He manages to get to his feet but when he does something much worse than the throbbing pain in his ribs is waiting for him. His building, or well, the place he'd been crashing, was gone, blasted away and left as nothing more than fenced off ruins. He runs a hand through his silver hair and sighs. "What the hell am I going to do now?"

The shadows continue to go unnoticed.

Timber Wolf has posed:
There was the encounter with some of Darkseid's forces at Coney Island. Others took place as well, and Brin certainly didn't shy away from the fights. If anything, he lived for them, for the chance to bust some heads. Helping others may have been the main point of it, but he couldn't recall the last fight he ran away from. It was probably before he became what he is.

It happens that Timber Wolf strides down the middle of the street in Mutant Town, going through one of the areas that's been blocked off to vehicular traffic. With no danger of being run over or getting honked at - and people do so love to honk in New York City - why bother being limited to a sidewalk? The way he walks, the positioning of his shoulders and overall body language, it suggests he's just looking for an excuse, any reason to act. Prowling might be the best description, a few fingers flexing in anticipation of something, anything, anyone.

As he comes upon the blasted-out buildings, he slows to a stop and scans them speculatively, tilting his head in order to listen a little better. Something's going on around there. He's sure of it. But, Speed's sudden arrival steals some of his attention and a brow goes up. It wouldn't be the first time he's seen someone that fast.

In a costume of some sort, Timber Wolf does stand out as unique.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Someone in distress. Or, at least, severely inconvenienced. The Cheshire cat puts his snack aside and leaps down from the building, for all the world looking like he had just become tired of the world at large and wanted to end it all. The Rabbit Hole opens under him, though, and safely deposits him not too far from Speed's location. And Timber Wolf's.

"Ahoy there," The Cheshire cat says, landing in a crouch. "I couldn't help but overhear your moment of existential crisis," because those big ears *are* good for something, after all. He peers at Timber's belt buckle, and a spark of recognition comes across his eyes. "You are Legion, aren't you? How's Brainy?"

At least, he hoped he recognized the insignia. It has been a bit...

Speed has posed:
Tommy misses the death jump but he can't miss the cat jumping out of a hole in front of him no matter how much of his stuff just blew up. He takes a step back blinks at Vorpal then nods, "Uh, hey," he greets. "And yeah, it's been a bit of a day," he says as he turns to look at Timber Wolf. "Who's Brainy?" he asks the two of them then.

Timber Wolf has posed:
Now, a third joins the pair, though they weren't really a pair just yet. Timber Wolf was just beginning to sniff things out with Speed when Vorpal simply appears. Teleportation? This also might not be the first experience he's got with one of those types.

"Hm?" A brow slides upward at the feline characteristics he spots, looking between Vorpal and Speed while a mildly unamused expression settles in. He comes off as..serious.

"Legion, yes. And..that's complicated right now. You know him?" The matter of Brainy is not an easy one to explain, nor does he seem open to simply doing so at the outset. "You lived there?" he asks Speed, gesturing toward the rubble with a claw-tipped hand.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Complicated? "Yeah, I know Bee Five. Sort of. He saved my life, we hung out a couple of times, then he got busy with you guys... is he alright?"

Vorpal glances over to Speed, and frowns. Uh oh.

"This your place, like big tall and serious said?"

There is a rustling sound coming from within the ruins of the place. This time, it was more audible. Vorpal's ear twitches, but his attention is still on the two others.

Speed has posed:
"Ah, still no idea who that is, but I heard of the Legion, heroes of tomorrow and all that, right?" he asks looking between Timber Wolf and Vorpal before his attention turns back to the ruined building when he's asked about it. "Yeah, a friend of a friend's place really, they let me crash on the couch and most of my stuff was there," he frowns at that last part, remembering that he's in his costume. He adds: "Also, my street clothes." In a blink he's at the fence peering through the mesh. "Think there's a chance any of it survived?"

Timber Wolf has posed:
"More or less. We're basically stuck here for the moment," Brin explains, the gesturing hand now showing palm-up as he talks, then the expression turns more into a frown at Vorpal's question. "I don't know right now. Something's going on and I'm trying to sniff out a few answers."

While he squints at Vorpal's description of him, he's blunt in saying, "If your clothes are ruined, you can always get more. There are more important--" A hint of a snarl follows. If nothing else, the curling of his upper lip and wrinkling of his nose suggest a sudden shift in him as he strides purposefully toward the ruins.

"Someone's in there. Might need help." But, might not. He's going to find out.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
The Cheshire cat doesn't like the news that the man has to give, vague as they are, but he can ask about them later. Right now, they have someone who is, more or less, disposessed to help.

"Probably a snowball's chance in hell, but there's nothing-"

He stops and Timber copletes his thought.

"What he said. We might as well look for your stuff and whomever is in there," he says to Speed. "I'm Vorpal, by the way. I don't think I know either of you."

The Cheshire cat begins to move towardss the building.

This is when something interesting begins to happen. The closer they get to the building and the closer they get to the opening on its side, the dimmer the light gets. It's still relatively early enough for there to be some sunlight left, but it's almost as if there is an early dusk as they approach the building.

There is also a heavy sense of *grief*, the kind that you feel aching in your chest. A sense of loss and regret, of passing and unfinished things. Depending on each of the people involved, this may bring up different memories related to loss and grief, with no real reason for them to come up just now.

Vorpal doesn't say anything, although he is puzzled by the sudden stream of memories that suddenly take a hold of him. His grandmother's death, which was long and protracted, and fractured his family for a while. Why would he think of this now?

Probably the ruinous state of things. Yeah. That's probably it.

Inside, it is very hard to see... as if there were a haze of smoke covering everything. But the senses reveal no scent of smoke. It's more like a visual haze than anything else. Even Vorpal's night vision isn't picking anything up.

"Uh... this is a little... unusual."

He begins to say something, when suddenly there is the sound of shifting to his right, and then ahead as well. Several sounds, as if there were several people.

"Crap..."

Speed has posed:
Speed barely glances over his shoulder when he gives his name. "Speed," he says distractedly. He listens when Timber Wolf mentions others might be inside and hears something... "Yeah, I think you're right," he says then leads the way to the building, seeming to blur from the fence to the doorway and then heads inside. He doesn't get too far before the growing darkness slows his steps to a walking pace and the odd pull of grief tugs at his mind, remembering the day his parents let him be taken away to the Facility. He lifts his goggles to rub his eyes, but stops when he hears the noises around them. "What the hell is that?!" he shouts his head swiveling from the front to the right and back again trying to see the source of the noise.

Timber Wolf has posed:
"Timber Wolf," is Brin's simple answer, the Legionnaire advancing cautiously just in case there's danger up ahead. "It's getting darker in here," he reports for the benefit of the others. "Unnaturally darker." That should be their first clue that all is not quite what it ought to be.

It's the next thing he actually feels that gives him reason to pause. "Grife..no..don't make me watch that again!" For a few seconds, his hands clasp over his ears, as if he's hearing something nobody else can, a pained look in his face as his jaw sets tightly, fangs bared as he growls aloud. Initially, he even hesitates to continue ahead, shaking his head back and forth as if having an internal battle with someone, perhaps himself.

Then, "Sprock!" The growl is back, Timber Wolf coming off as more than a little angry. "Whoever's in there, stay out of my head!" He must think someone's trying to dig around in his thoughts. Since Speed's easily beat him inside, by the time he catches up to him he'll use a hand at the shoulder to indicate his intent on moving ahead. "Out of my way," he says, his tone one of warning.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"I don't know if that's a good..." Vorpal trails off, as he senses Timber passing by them. He reaches over and tries to find Speed's hand, shoulder, wrist, anything that he can hold on to in order to avoid getting split up.

"Am I to assume I wasn't the only one who just had a kick to the guts back there?" he asks quietly about the emotion he just felt. In fact, it's still going on. The surprise had dulled the sense of loss, but now it was coming back stronger than before.

It was draining, it made his body feel heavy the way that emotional exhaustion does. It wasn't natural.

The rustling again. As Timber begins to move, the scurrying sound is back again, always ahead of him.

"Let's stick together," he says, trying to move forward while keeping a hand on Speed. It wasn't a good idea to split up the party- that's how bad things happened. It doesn't occur to him that they could just go back out. It doesn't even cross his mind.

Speed has posed:
Speed closes his eyes trying to fight the weight of his grief. His body already hurt his soul didn't need to join that party. Vorpal's hand finds his face before he finds his shoulder and Speed opens his eyes, saying "Hey! What are you doing?" he shoves the hand away. "And yeah, if you mean someone's messing with our heads. This is Mutant Town , maybe there's a telepath down here?" he doesn't sound at all convinced though. Something is definitely off about all of this.

When Vorpal reaches for him again, he puts out a wrist. "Here, and yeah I'm with you, stick together, I've seen enough slasher flicks to know what happens when the group splits up."

Speed has posed:
"Timber, you out there too?" he asks their more taciturn companion.

Timber Wolf has posed:
Timber Wolf glances behind him. "Of course it's not a good idea," he finishes to Vorpal's concern. Does that slow him down? Not at all. "If it's a telepath, I'll make sure this stops." He's not in a great place right now, what with certain memories being pushed back to the front of his mind, but he's not one to retreat from something like that. The wolf in him won't have it.

Regardless of what he feels mentally or physically, Brin continues on. "Don't fall behind, then," he tells Vorpal and Speed. "Whoever's in there, you're not going to scare us off!" he warns, short of issuing an actual threat. "Show yourselves!"

Vorpal (87) has posed:
It almost seems like the inside is bigger than the outside, by how much they walk following that rustling sound. Vorpal, holding on to Speed's wrist, does offer a quick apology for almost clawing at his face. Groping around in the dark can be hazardous, but it could have been worse: He could have been with Marie. If he had pawed at her face, he'd be a dry husk right now, twitching on the floor.

"We really shouldn't-"

Vorpal's words are interrupted when the dark haze suddenly lifts and they are able to see where they are. Brin, of course, is the first one to see since he is Super Trooping ahead of them.

This once was the place Speed knew. In fact, here and there he might see some things of his that he recognizes, but barely- everything is thoroughly blackened and destroyed except for a few possessions here and there that escaped the touch of the Apokaliptic struggle.

But most importantly of all, in the middle of the charred floor there is something that, by all rights, shouldn't be there: A picture, set in a mostly intact frame with a cracked glass. Vorpal doesn't really notice it, as he is looking at the sheer level of destruction and the eerie quality of the place, there is something about it that goes straight through Tommy, a fresh sting of sorrow that pulls at him.

"So," he says, letting go of Speed's wrist now that the darkness has lifted and waling up to Timber, "Where did that scurrying sound *go?*" he points out. Because there is nothing but wall ahead of them. To the left, the building continues on through a doorway, but those areas *are* pitch-black thanks to several parts having collapsed. Still, if they press on, thre should be a workable route.

Of course, right outside of normal hearing range, there is that scurrying sound again, faint in the distance through that door.

The Cheshire cat frowns and looks at Timber, while wiping his eyes again. He really is trying not to mind the deep sadness welling up inside of him. It's not easy. "I get the impression someone is playing cat and mouse with us. And that's very awkward for me."

Speed has posed:
"Happens," Speed says to Vorpal's apology but his eyes are now fixed on their surroundings. This was Steff's place, where he'd been crashing. Holy shit, it was just gone. "Steff?" he calls out on the off chance his friend was still here. His foot steps on something hard and there's the sound of shifting glass. He looks down and sees the picture, a brown-haired boy around eight posed with two adults, one a woman hugging him close, while a man stands with a hand on her shoulder smiling into the camera, Meisel Park on a bright sunny day provides the backdrop. Tommy chokes back a sob, "Mom, Dad," he says as he reaches down to snatch up the picture and clutch it to his chest.

Prize reclaimed he moves to the couch as if in a daze and sinks down on it uncaring of it's burnt and dilapidated state. Once he's seated he holds the picture away from his chest to look at it. "Why can't I go back," he murmurs, tracing the image of the boy with his finger.

Timber Wolf has posed:
Timber Wolf's got a good pair of eyes, better for dark conditions than most, but even he has to slow it down a bit and feel ahead of him from time to time. It's not the most comforting feeling, already accounting for the conditions of this venture into the unknown. "We shouldn't, but we are. If there's anyone still alive in here, they may be in danger," Brin responds, a notable edge in his words. The proverbial hackles are most certainly up, each step forward a wary one.

But, darkness gives way to some light, at least in the room they've entered. "Grife," he says again, voice more hushed than before, some of that grief rising higher once more. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say.." Then he reconsiders. "Nevermind. We keep going." Which way, though? "I don't do the whole 'being hunted' thing, and I'm feeling that in a big way right now."

That's when the photo draws Speed's attention and he stops to watch whatever comes of it, and in a moment of vulnerability he mutters, "I lost my parents when I was just a pup, too. You have to keep going on and do something they'd be proud of you for." It seems to be the best the Wolf can offer, especially as the sounds from the door he points to reach his ears. "That way." He isn't waiting any longer, back in motion.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Maybe it's the fact that he's already grief-laden, or maybe he genuinely feels for the other guy, seeing him so miserable. Vorpal walks over to the couch and nods at what Timber says. He reaches out a hand and puts it on Speed's shoulder, squeezing gently. "... I'm sorry," he says, not really knowing what to say.

He'd normally tell Speed to take a moment and then join them in the search when he felt better, but he doesn't feel right leaving him here, alone. Not under these very strange circumstances.

He tries very hard not to think of his grandmother, wasting away on that bed while his mother and her sister fought in the other room about whether it was right or not to shorten her agony, knowing she was never going to wake up again.

He sniffs and ends up sitting down next to Speed, one arm around his shoulders, a small cloud of soot rising as he sits down. "H-hey... I know it's hard, but we've gotta move..."


Brin's ears pick something up. A sound coming right through the door, into the darkness:

"-properly motivated!"
There is the sound of a beam weapon going off, a cry, and then the smell of burnt flesh, strong, through the portal.

None of these reach Tommy and... well, Tommy. It's almost as if they can't hear or smell them.

Speed has posed:
Brin's words, Tommy looks up. "Sorry to hear that, man, but stay out of my business," he tries to snap but it lacks fire, he just turns back to his picture. When Vorpal sits Tommy shifts away shrugging free of his arm. He does talk however. "I'm fine, really, I'll move in just a moment. I just need a moment, man." He doesn't look up from the picture.

Timber Wolf has posed:
The reaction from Speed leaves Brin to grunt something wordless in response. He isn't the best when it comes to sympathy, and as far as he goes what he said was about the most sincere he can be. His golden-hued eyes shift away toward Vorpal then on to the doorway again, but as he gets to the point of being a few steps away another low but very audible growl rises, his body going rigid and taut.

It comes out almost like a thunderclap:

"VYKOR! I'll kill you!"

Some deal with grief and bad memories in different ways. In Timber Wolf's case, this particular one brings forth the rage of the beast, leading to him charging ahead for that doorway - and, if the door is still in place, likely through it.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Vorpal frowns and lets Speed have his room when he suddenly looks up just in time to see Timber charging through the door, and into the darkness with a shout.

"Who- Wait!" the cat springs up from the couch and dashes towards the door. They can't, musn't separate! Ironically of course, that is exactly what happens as the Cheshire cat charges through the door and falls into shadow after Timber.

The picture that Tommy is holding in his hands begins to shift, slightly. The glass begins to mend itself before his eyes, and the boy in the picture changes and ages until he is eighteen, with silver hair. It's almost taunting, showing a present that could have been instead of what it was, together with his parents.

The darkness in the room begins to grow again, slowly edging towards Speed so that it almost seems as if he were in the center of an ever-shrinking spotlight.

In the darkened tunnels that once were the hallways of the house, Brin has little trouble navigating thanks to his instincts. Vorpal is following behind him, but with some trouble. When the hallway finally ends, it does so into another room where the crumpled body of a blond woman is lying on the floor, covered in her own blood. There is no sign of anyone else.

When Vorpal emerges, several seconds after Brin, he does not appear to be himself. It is Vykor, with a cruel smirk on his face, and a blaster in his hand.

Speed has posed:
Tommy looks up sharply at the shout "Shut up!" he shouts back at Brin before he turns back to his picture. As it changes before his eyes Tommy lets it slip from his hands it lands on the floor by the couch with a thud, but lands face up. He stares at it still, though as the darkness begins tighten noose-like around him he looks away from the picture at last and finds himself alone in the growing dark. He ducks down quickly to pick the picture up again, "Vorpal? Timber? Where the hell are you guys?!" he calls as he swivels his head around looking for them or an exit.

Timber Wolf has posed:
Timber Wolf is having trouble telling fact from fiction right now. What he sees, hears, even smells..it's like he's been transported back to that moment in time when he witnessed his mother killed before his very eyes, he and his father helpless to stop it. He was too young then. He didn't have the abilities he does now, and it took him years to track Vykor down.

Suddenly, the man he thought he'd put away for good after turning him over to the Science Police is back, against all logic and reason, but those things aren't at the front of Brin's thoughts right now. Whatever's causing this memory to feel like it's happening here and now, he growls and bares his fangs and claws at 'Vykor'/Vorpal, tensing up. "You killed her!" he roars. He won't make the same mistake of letting Vykor get away the first time around..or /is/ this the first time now?

Either way, he leaps forward, arms outstretched to lead the attack. "Now you pay!"

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Vorpal doesn't see the body. The room is emtpy, completely empty to him. Imagine his surprise then, when a tentative ally (because a friend of Brainy in his book is a friend of his) turns and LEAPS at him!

Normally his feline reflexes would help him avoid the attack, or at least defend himself, but his limbs feel like they are made of lead and the weight in his chest has been dragging his whole body down. Timber's claws find Vorpal's chest and rend the spandex right across the Cheshire cat logo- and soon blood is on the ground.

"Augh! What the hell is WRONG with you?" Vorpal says, trying to get away but he stumbles and falls on his side. He does manage to roll away, as far as he can get from Timber.

The moment Speed drops the portrait, the shadows pull back and the passageway through the door is no longer covered in absolute darkness. At that very moment he can see Timberwolf leaping at Vorpal at the very end of the hallway, and Vorpal's cry comes through as well-

The moment the portrait is in his hands again, though, darkness begins to encroach upon him again and the sounds become muffled, just as the hallway beyond the doorway becomes dark and hard to see. Sorrow wells up like a fountain.

"Tommy..." the voice is sad and tragic, and it is his mother's. Or, rather, his mother's voice in a weakened whisper. "You need to come... there isn't much time left."

In the demi-light, there is another door that is now more apparent, where it was clearly just regular wall before. Tommy has been to this place, and there was no door there, at all. But at that door is his mother, looking haggard and aged, and behind her there is a green-blue light that faintly outlines her and a shape laying on a gurney that vaguely resembles his father, except that this man is haggard and aged well beyond his years. The equipment around him is clearly helping him breathe where he no longer can... and goodness knows what else.

Speed has posed:
"Hey! What's going on?!" Tommy shouts as he watches Timber Wolf leap at Vorpal as the shadows part. Then like that they're gone again and he hear's his mother's voice. He whirls around as quick as a heartbeat. "What's going on," he repeats shaking his head. He looks down at the picture again, then up at his parents through the phantom doorway. Somewhere in the back of his mind a voice repeats 'they let them take you' and that pain returns as well. "Why did you let them take me?" he begs of the spectre. "We could have had more time!" he says holding out the picture. His body begins to vibrate at molecular level, first it only makes him blur then the motion spills out into the molecules of the floor as well, his molecules are stable, though the ones in the floor? They just need a little push to become explosive. All of it happens without Tommy noticing, he's fixated on the image of his parents. He's done this before, used this power without even thinking about it, and that time it blew apart his school's gymnasium.

Timber Wolf has posed:
Timber Wolf seems unaware of what's around him, including their actual location and who's nearby. He doesn't appear to believe Vorpal or Speed are still with him, only Vykor and the dead body of his mother nearby. Revenge is on his mind, even though he already dealt with Vykor in the past. Maybe this is another version of that past, for all he knows.

When he makes contact with Vorpal, actually cutting into the material he wears to draw blood and fur (?), he lands in a crouch, one hand to the floor, snarling viciously. "You killed her! All because you could! You won't get away with it, Vykor!"

That should be enough of a clue to Vorpal that something is not right at all here, even beyond whatever they've faced so far. Brin hesitates for a moment, something causing him to question what he's doing, and instead of another leap forward he prowls closer, shortening the gap.

This goes on while Speed faces more problems of his own.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"We had no choice!" Tommy's mother pleads, holding out her hands to him. "They told us we had no other choice. We did it to protect you..."

Behind her, the beeping becomes more urgent.

"Tommy... please!" she pleads.

Vorpal gets up onto a crouch and winces. He hasn't looked to see how deep the wound is, he's got other priorities at the moment.

"I didn't kill anyone! It's this place! It's getting to you, Timber! It's me, it's-" and his voice suddenly is drowned out and dim, as if it were underwater, the better to keep him from saying anything.

Speed has posed:
"Protect me!" the floor jolts the vibrations increase. The soot that covers it begins to bounce like it's on the head of a drum. "They made me a lab rat!" Another jolt. The vibrations intensify and Tommy takes notice as his battered ribs begin to ache from the strain. "What? No. Mom, get Dad out of here!" he shouts as he tries to still the vibrations running through him and out into the building. He tosses the picture to the couch for safety and squeezes both hands closed into fists. "Calm, calm," he tells himself trying to bring the vibrations under control.

Timber Wolf has posed:
Timber Wolf bares his teeth again, a snarl showing both in his expression and in the sounds he makes. The things he's hearing don't sound like what Vykor would say, and the man definitely didn't have..fur. The more rational side of Brin tries to make himself focus on these facts more than the bloodlust that's rising, and he buys himself some time by pacing back and forth mere feet away from Vorpal.

Whether or not he can even feel or sense what's going on with Tommy, within moments he can no longer hear Vorpal clearly at all. But, the whole situation is getting to him in a way that actually causes a sense of panic to rise. He turns away and goes for the closest wall or door he can find, trying to create an opening, bashing into it with a shoulder, resorting to simply clawing at it if that's what it takes.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Unfortunately, it is already too late- the explosion comes, but it doesn't bring the expected ruination. Tommy's 'mother' does let out a scream of rage, though, as reality itself around Tommy seems to light up and burn away as his powers trigger what, under normal circumstances, would have been an acceleration of molecules in matter and an explosion. But here? It's as if reality had been overlaid with a film of *something* and Tommy had just set it alight. Like watching a strip of old-fashioned film burn away while projecting and leaving nothing behind but a pristine silver screen.

The building is now just a regular, ruined building, all ghostly and gloomy guises gone as if they had never been- as is the overwhelming sorrow.

Where Tommy's mother was, there is now a pale creature that lingers against a wall. She is transluscent, now, and fading quickly, with large wholly black-eyes and a long, slender mane of black hair that matches the darkness of her attire.

The look she gives Tommy is one of sheer malice, and she says something... but it is whispered. The kind of whisper that comes from nightmares and that one dreads to hear in dark graveyards...

And she is gone. And with that, the last sense of dread and gloom from the place.

Brin will find it very easy to make his way back to the wrecked living room, now that sunlight can be clearly seen.

And Vorpal comes in shortly after, bleeding from his chest, but the wounds at least do not prove to be *that* serious. Or at least, it seems so.

"Speed?" he says, panting. "Timber... are you guys okay?" He wipes away some blood from his uniform.

Speed has posed:
"Mom!" Tommy calls as his 'mother' screams. He rushes towards her only to veer sharply away as he form shifts and he spills in a startled heap onto the floor. Looking up, he watches the thing that had worn his mother's shape a moment ago discorporate with that baleful stare fixed on him and until it vanishes utterly and he finds himself sprawled on a burnt out floor. The chill brought on by that look and that final whisper, leaves him chilled though and he remains staring at the space she had been until Vorpal speaks. "What?" he says blinking. He turns his head towards Vorpal, processing the question. "Not even a little bit, but I'll live. Are you guys alright, last I saw Timber was about to rip your throat out?" He tries to stand but doesn't get too far before he flinches and settles back down. "Little help?" he asks the others extending a hand.

Timber Wolf has posed:
Just as Timber Wolf is about to punch a hole in the wall, all the darkness, the bad memories, the very realistic image of Vykor..it's just gone. It leaves him disoriented, confused, looking down at his hands briefly. There's no blood on them, no further attacks made since the initial swipe at Vorpal, but as he looks over that way he frowns.

"What the sprock just happened? Why are you bleeding?" Did he cause that? He sniffs in Vorpal's direction, aware of that blood scent. Even now, he's moving about with an uncertainty about it all, especially when Speed says what he does. "I was about to do what? I saw...sprock it all. Nevermind what I saw. There's something wrong about this place. I'm getting out of it right now." Sure enough, the nearest doorway is what he seeks.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
The Cheshire cat's nose wrinkles, and then he frowns.

"This stinks of Unseelie..." he mutters. There are some things he remembers from being the Cheshire cat, and the smell of the winter court is one of them. He curses himself- had he been purely himself, he wouldn't have fallen into such a trick. Being diminished into a mortal, however, means that suddenly there are a lot more beings capable of pulling the wool over his eyes than back when he was nearly-omniscient and mostly-omnipotent.

But that was Wonderland. And this was here. And he was now mostly made up of human boy, and his name was Tommy Hunter.

"Don't mind it, Timber. You get to a safe distance. Meet me at Joe's diner tomorrowish at one and you can catch me up on Brainy," he says, walking over to Speed and helping him up, letting him lean on him as well, as it looked like it was a sprain. "We'll take a look at that sprain, we can go over to my secret hideout- ay kay ay my apartment. I've got some bandages and hot and cold packs, you'll be good as new."

The Rabbit Hole opens up to Vorpal's apartment. It's a modest studio apartment, but at least it's not burned to the ground in the invasion (although he had to replace every window in the damned place) which was a plus. He might invite Speed to stay over until he could find a place of his own to crash.

And he needed to get himself bandaged and cleaned, to boot. Because getting blood out of fur was a b-

"Let's get out of here before one of those things comes back."

Speed has posed:
"Not a bad plan," Tommy says as he watches Timber Wolf go. He takes Vorpal's offered hand up but begins to balk at the prospect of further charity, until Vorpal mentions those unseeilie things coming back. "Yeah, sounds good," he says before stepping through the portal double quick.

Timber Wolf has posed:
Timber Wolf clearly has no idea what 'Unseelie' is supposed to mean, but he doesn't seem to be in the mood to go asking questions about that right now. What at least looks like an apologetic expression flashes over him as he says, "I didn't mean to do that. Thought you were someone else." Right. Definitely someone else.

Shaking his head, he only adds, "That's if there's more to catch you up on." He doesn't think to ask where this diner is, but he should be able to figure out the technology here in order to locate it. Rather than sticking around for a repeat of anything, he vaults his way out of the building, using a pile of rubble to help do it. He needs some alone time now as much as ever.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"That's ok," the Cheshire smirks in answer to Timber's apology, "I prefer it that way rather than if you had attacked me for being myself."

He gives the Timber Wolf a salute and steps through the portal. Just in case, he watches very, very fixedly in case anything shadowy follows.

When nothing does, he closes the Rabbit Hole and turns around.

"Go ahead and sit on the couch. I'm gonna go and get the Friday the Thirteenth special effects off my chest and we can take a look at that ankle." Because his landlord was going to kill him if he got blood on the carpeting.