4149/The Big Wakeup

The Big Wakeup
Date of Scene:	26 March 2018
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	The Death of Victor Stone, and the rise of Cyborg!
Cast of Characters:	Cyborg, Breath, Power Girl, Stardust, Robin (Wayne), Raijin, Starfire

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Cyborg has posed:
     Another beautiful day the sun is shining the birds are singing and there's a fairly strong wind blowing through the trees. Cars roll past outside the building in the typical rush hour traffic. Cool blue waters of the river roll on past down the way trickling along the water level a bit high from the recent rain. And yet for once all seems peaceful with the world, as if today might just be a good day.

     Inside Star Labs it's a slightly different story Doctors and scientists and even a man in strange occult robes move about the halls bursting in and out of a pair of thick doors that connect to a decontamination chamber and then out to the rest of the facility. New medical equipment is rushed in at the last moment and row upon row upon row of screens feed a constant readout to the people working on the finishing touches on the room beyond.

     In a room familiar to Breath and Karren at least the curtain is drawn closed a number of chairs gathered for comfortable seating. There's been no word for some time from the other room, with a questionable possibility of the main event even taking place. Today was supposed to be the day they flicked the switch and powered up Victor Stone. Yet all that's managed to happen so far is a few fire-alarms, and a moment where facility power dipped out.

     Julia stands to a corner of the room talking on her phone in a quiet voice trying to figure out what is taking so long for them to be ready.

Breath has posed:
Breath tags along quietly, with more get well cards, more flowers.. Some people have great amazing cosmic powers, abilities to heal, to change the very fabric of reality... She has.. the ability to huff and puff and blow down straw and wooden houses. But she MEANS well.

And the way she thinks of it, she's probably one of the few people around who intimately knows what it feels like to look in a mirror and say "What the heck is THAT?" And to her, that counts for something. So darn it, here she is, being the cheerleader. And looking awkward, and tagging along trying to do her best to be, you know.. HERE. In case somehow, in spite of all odds, she can actually contribute without upsetting everybody.

She smiles in what she hopes is a friendly and helpful manner, stays out of the way, and waits patiently, trying to look encouraging. Hopefully it actually works.

Power Girl has posed:
    Karen Starr had spent more time as Karen Starr in the past few days than seemed reasonable. Even when she was punching the occasional supervillain into the sun- or jail, whichever was closer- she was considering alterations to some of the algorithms she'd written personally for the more alien technologies that wove their way through the body of the person that would hopefully still consider himself Victor Stone.

    She's in the room, next to Julia, with a tablet-sized workstation making some adjustments to the various semi-autonomous systems that make the building, well, run. The power goes out, and moments later, Karen is responsible for routing it in such a way that it won't happen again.

    The alarms are easier, those are just a switch, and Julia is faster on the draw than Karen is, if only because Karen can only afford to be so fast on the draw at the moment.

    To be fair, her hopes are pretty high- she's pretty sure that Victor should be awakening properly. She's convinced that he'll regain consciousness- but at the same time, she's also worried about what's going to happen when he did. They'd armed him- she didn't like that, but they did- and there's always the chance that as soon as he comes to, he'll start just... Popping off.

    The scenario where he just screams for minutes on end is so much better than him firing off whatever they've packed into him, weapons or not.

Stardust has posed:
It's not that the Titans send a team to visit the bedside of everyone who gets severely blown up in a mysterious explosion. That would take up too much time these days. However when the victim of said explosion became an explodee immediately after holding a party for, and making a donation to, said Titans? It would be rude not to.

Breath having made the first visit, a larger and somewhat more senior group has made the excursion this time. Whether or not this has anything to do with reports of that preliminary visit going less than entirely smoothly, nobody but Robin is likely to ever know. Colette - Stardust as she is known when dressed the way she currently is - is probably not along to improve the quotient of tact. Rather she's along because she insisted. Because she was chatting to Vic when he was mysteriously called away to said mysterious explosion. Because she feels a vague guilt about not having insisted on going along with him when he rushed off like that, on the basis that she's pretty good with surviving explosions. Because part of her wants to be there when he wakes up so she can punch him out for not saying something like 'hey, would you mind? There's a mysterious thing that might explode, and you're right here, I could do with a bit of help."

She probably won't actually punch him out though.

Stardust may not be the most tactful of Titans, but she doesn't normally punch out the bed-ridden. She's even doing a pretty good job - for her - of not barracking. There might have been the occasional distrustful look in the direction of the occult-looking figure with a whispered "We should have brought Raven along." There may be the occasional "Brick and Rainman would be good with this tech stuff." But she's not actually trying to tell anyone they're doing it wrong, that's good. However mostly she's just impatiently pacing, trying to keep out of the way, and being there to either say "Hi!" or, alternatively, try to punch Vic out if he wakes up /wrong/ and attempts to destroy the universe. Not knowing of Karen's alter-ego, she figures someone who's as near-indestructible as herself is badly needed on-site right now.

Stardust is hoping that doesn't happen though. She kind of liked him.

Oh, and she's brought him a teddy bear. Seeing as he's half-jock as well as half-geek, it's a rather impressively vicious looking plush grizzly, with realistic biting action.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Robin had heard of the incident at the Titans fundraiser. The young hero took his motorcycle out, in order to visit S.T.A.R. Labs and where the young man known as Victor Stone had been. Certain folk had mentioned to him that it would be 'nice' to make a visit. Though Damian was hardly the kind of kid that often did the 'nice' thing.

  With his hood down, Damian walked into the labs, almost at once being directed where the young man had been. He nods to Colette before joining. "What's the latest?" He asks, crossing his arms together, watching through a window.

Cyborg has posed:
     Of all things a small group of men walk into the room late to the party and set at the back of the room. A few of them are in military uniforms the rest in business suits. Karen hadn't exactly been informed of their attendance, as it was a bit of a last minute thing in the first place. However these somewhat suspect figures find themselves a comfortable spot to relax and wait for 'the show'.

     Finally Julia hangs up the phone, placing it back into the pocket of her lab-coat. She claps her hands together and turns to the group. "Alright, sorry to keep you waiting." She starts looking a brief moment over towards Karen, before looking over to the rest of the assembled group. Her heels are far too high for regular labwork, and her coat is a bit long for her but she still clearly fits the bill.

     Her Arms go out to the side. "Now I'm Julia, I'm a lab assistant here at Star labs." She introduces herself with a bit of a wave of the hand putting on a front to try and be a bit more appealing rather then using her actual self. "So, now I just got word that we're ready to proceed with the power up sequence, and I think everyone here is going to be impressed with the results." She claps her hands together with a smile.

Breath has posed:
Breath nods, "Oh, good. I hope in a good way, but I've seen enough of how sciency things works to know that you deserve a hand no matter what sort of, you know, crazy happens. Like, you must have been pulling an awful lot of overtime and stuff. Like, you are so awesome right now. Anyways, like... Yeah." She shuts up and inventories greeting cards awkwardly. She always sucks with things like this.

But she does note the people walking in. Surprise audiences are always meaningful. She looks for clues.. nametags.. things like that.. and smiles at them meekly.

Power Girl has posed:
    Eventually, Karen hooks the tablet-thing under her arm. She's watching the retinue of military officials enter the room with only a small amount of disdain- she doesn't know them, of course, but she's aware of what they represent. Part of her wants the soldier aspects of this particular experiment to fail- anything that makes Victor anything but an almost-college-aged football player does not have her approval.

    She didn't want her company to build a weapon out of what remained of a man. She wanted them to rebuild a man out of what remained of various weapons. One of her hands enters the pocket of the grotesque salmon-colored pantsuit. It idly fingers the surface of a small metallic disk, at the core of which was a Kryptonian microprocessor programmed with an image of Karen Starr huddled under a protective hardlight dome, the kind of self-protection that someone like Stark would have. The image could even react to basic stimuli, too.

    She really, really hopes she won't need it.

Stardust has posed:
Save the meek smiles for Breath, Stardust looks the newcomers up and down with a raised eyebrow, as if deciding which one gets punched first if needs be. There's nothing overtly hostile about it, just calculating. She even gives them a cheery wave and a quick "Hi, Goons!"

As she sizes the military group up, Stardust leans in to Robin and sidemouths in a not entirely quiet whisper "They've been trying to get things ready for a while, but the power keeps dipping. I think they're trying to break the power grid. Rainman could've sorted... Oh... heads up, we may be about to see some action."

Stardust gives Julia a big smile and a thumbs-up. "Ready when you are. Just yell if you need any help from us. Otherwise we'll be over here, trying not to break anything." She puts the bear down on a window ledge and cracks her knuckles. "If things start to explode, stand behind me," she whispers to the other Titans.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian seems to be doing his best Batman impression, his stern face doesn't ease off with the report from Colette. She would know its part of the drill when Robin is in uniform. "If the electric grid keeps dropping, that means the amount of electricity they are using is...massive." He says, hardly moving his mouth.

  Robin takes note of the gathered military personnel, he will send photos back to the Batcomputer for analysis.

Cyborg has posed:
     The military man appears to be a 5 star general from the looks. His uniform is the standard color for an army official and he takes his decorated hat off his head and puts it under one arm as he waits for the show to start. He's every bit the cigar chomping general one could come to expect out of an old movie. Did people like him actually exist? Well apparently so because you're looking at one. The only reason he doesn't have his cigar in his mouth would be because the last four times he tried to light it he was almost kicked out. He kicks back in the chair watching those curtains with a great deal of interest.

     "I hope this Frankenstein of yours pans out Starr" He speaks up in exactly the voice you'd think he would, that kind of hard line gravel filled tone that rattles the eardrums. "Don't want my boys to wind up putting your little abomination down when it goes haywire." More a promise then a threat before he laughs at the comment about goons. "I like this one, kids got a fight in her, that's for sure."

Breath has posed:
Breath's smile stiffens on her face as she ever so subtly mouths 'frankenstein'. The word 'abomination' actually makes her hands close into light, subtle fists.

She murmurs a soft "You do remember that Frankenstein wasn't the creature, right?" She tilts her head a bit. "Although really, he WAS the monster after all..." A brief glance at the operating theater, then back at Julia and Karen with a faint smile. She takes a small step to make sure that she is standing on the part of the room lower than the raised island where the chairs are, and slightly above Karen and Julia. "I don't see any monsters down there, though." She smiles with a slight bit more fierceness than she had planned.

Power Girl has posed:
    Karen turns her attention to the man that had declared Victor to be some modern interpretation of Frankenstein's monster. She idly adjusts the glasses on the bridge of her nose, her slouched and almost submissive demeanor allowing the flowing locks of her wig to settle about her front.

    "It'll work," she promises, hoping on the sly that Victor comes out of this... As Victor. Nothing more, nothing less. For her part, she's just waiting, and hoping that all they have to worry about is a mildly disturbed, but otherwise rejuvenated, teenager.

Stardust has posed:
If he goes on talking like that, the general might just find out how much fight Stardust has in her, though she's not making fists like Breath. Instead she just gives an eye roll at the General's 'abomination' talk, and replies sweetly, "If there's trouble, you and your boys just stay out of the way and leave it to us, okay? We'll make sure nobody hurts you." She beams a bright smile at him and turns away, concentrating on leaning against a wall and waiting for something to happen - which it seems it's about to.

"Yeah, lots of electricity," she agrees with Robin. "They're doing all kindsa hardcore sciencey stuff. Probably going to blow a hole right out the side of the universe. Where is Rainman anyway? I thought he was coming. He could boost their transformers or whatever. Actually scratch that, last time he zapped some machinery, it came to life. Uh. Well not actually came to... did I write a report on that one? No I didn't. Forgot. Never mind, it's sorted. "

Raijin has posed:
Rayner was totally here the ENTIRE TIME! totally. yup. don't ask questions. No, he did not hit up the bathroom real fast. He's here and he's present! showing up beside Colette as he cracked his neck some. "Whew, sorry about that." he smiles then softly, looking at all the hardcore sciency stuff that was previously mentioned.

"So...need me to zap something? Wiat....no, last time I did that I kinda-sorta brought it partially alive. Not really though, just some fat kid somewhere who dabbles in techno...mancy? I dunno, dungeons and dragons shit." he says then with a smile.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Fingers raised to his mask, and in the eyelets are flickers of light amongst the stark white concealing his identity. Robin calls back on subvocal comms, "Justin Hammer, one of WayneTech's competitors. Along various military Big Brass, seems Stone had some friends in high places if this is the response he garners." Robin remains steadfast, with an angry look on his face.

Cyborg has posed:
     Julia doesn't seem to happy but she's putting on the outer shell as Mr.Cultist robes peaks in, and gives a quick thumbs up before stepping back out. "Well without further ado, I give you the new" She presses the button on the wall trying to move on before a fight potentially breaks out. "And improved" The curtains begin to slide open. "Victor Stone!"

     Sliding fully to either side the operating theater becomes fully visible and on the table a figure takes center stage. Almost everyone clears out of the immediate area. No one seems to trust that the moment Victor wakes up he isn't going to start swinging. That is except for Silas Stone, the mans father. Instead of running away he stands right by the side of the table taking in a deep breath as he presses a button of his own that causes the table to flip up to a standing position.

     Victor Stone doesn't look anything like how he did the last time the Titans saw him. Where once was flesh is not sleek black chrome, and glowing red lights, the only part of him even recognizable is the right side of his face which looks to be that same youthful face melded with the pitch black chrome. He's completely bald, unlike the last time the group had their encounter with him, save for his eyebrows.

     The Entire left half of his face looks like a sleek black chrome skull with a single dimly glowing red eye, as the table finishes flipping him to a stand it pulses slowly from a dim right to a brighter slowly brightening up. He looks very much more obviously evil then one might expect, like almost comically so. Sleek pitch black edges and red glowing lights, what appears to be a full dark red glowing arc reactor mounted to the center of his chest. Even at a glance it's obvious there's a lot of 'borrowed' tech, some of which would be familiar to Robin as Wayne Tech, other bits and bobs 'borrowed' from all across the tech world.

     Silas looks very concerned, but he leans over and offers a single kiss onto the mans forehead whispering something. To those with superhuman hearing it would be "Please wake up, don't leave me alone." Before stepping back to hover his hand over the button that'll finalize the process, and turn his power on for the first time.

     The general leans forward on his chair, popping open a tin of chewing tobacco as he can't quite bring himself to go so long without his nicotine fix. He stuffs the chew right into the corner of his mouth a smile crossing his face.

     Another figure from the gaggle of military personnel, Justin Hammer steeples his hands together looking down the bridge of his nose. He seems to be absolutely loving what he's seeing if that glimmer in his eyes is anything to go by. Under his breath he mutters. "Son, you're going to make me a fortune on the black market." Clearly pleased with himself.

Breath has posed:
Breath facepalms a bit. "I think *I* wrote a report about it. Right before I took that one engineer out for coffee. Just friends, he's not my type. Not that I think I really have a type. He's cool though."

She looks up at the movement and stage placing activity, but tilts her head a bit to listen to mutterings of evil avarice from the peanut gallery. She bites her lip a bit, trying to decide which side of Stardust she should stand on for when the inevitable disaster breaks out, since she's not totally convinced it is going to come from the operating table anymore.

Stardust has posed:
Stardust elbows Rayner and hisses out of the side of her mouth. "Ixnay on the uh... echnomancy-tay. Our insurance probably doesn't cover that." She gives him a wink too, so she's probably not being entirely serious. "The Pakistani guy, Breath? He was cool," she confirms. "We shoulda recruited him."

When the big reveal takes place, Stardust shakes her head, just a little at first but increasingly vigorously. "That's the look they picked? The Robocop remake meets Terminator look? Does nobody watch movies? This has just stepped up three notches in the 'could go bad'. Why does nobody think... if you're gonna make someone into a cyborg, give 'em a friendly look. Maybe we can fix him up with a colorful paint-job. We got stuff in the garage level at the tower."

  It's not all quips though -- as she babbles, Stardust takes a few strides, putting herself between Vic and the rest of the watching group. As everyone but Silas steps back, she puts herself in the vacated space, making sure that if anything happens, it happens to her first. Well, second. Silas she can't really do much for.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner is elbowed by Colette, faking a grunt to make it seem more effective. Though his grin for her playfulness is evident as he gives her a small and playful nudge in return after her words, though his eyes looka t Victor as his table is flipped enough for him to see it's a...DUN DUN DUUUUN.

Cyborg!

"....No kidding. Though I WAS kinda hoping for a little more schwarzenegger if you know what I mean. Not that ttis isn't a nice alternative." His smile is evident afterwards though, "Gotta admit though, it's a -nice- paint job." he says then to Colette with a small grin, though he looks to Silas, sighing a small moment when he realizes it's probably the guy's dad. He's seen him in the news. Bigshot scientist right?

Though he looks to breath. "You dated the..oh, you didn't date him. Funny, I thought he'd be your type." of course, he's teasing. but he IS taking Victor seriously. "Alright...."

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian watches from the gallery, making note of Silas. He waits as everything is started, unsure of what is going to happen, and maintaining silence, despite Victor's appearance.

Cyborg has posed:
     Silas takes in a deep breath and says. "Please work." One last time before pressing the palm of his hand down onto the button. There's a huge arc of electricity to Victor from massive cables connected to the back of his table. For a moment it looks like the lights are going to go out again but instead that red eye glows bright as a lightbulb for a moment his 'human' eye shooting open and glancing around while the red eye's camera like lens zooms in and out.

     Silas looks a bit taken aback by it. He says a bit loudly. "Uh, I think we have a problem." Backing up slightly as Victor moves slightly on the spot. "I haven't actually enabled his motor functions yet." He admits, turning back to the console. "He's turning on his systems himself. I- He's breaking into our systems."

     "Shut it down!" The general shouts out as he slams his foot down as if that'll do anything. "It's clear as day your little tinker toy's going off reservation." Shouting over towards Karen, as he starts to walk up to the little intercom system to bark out more orders.

     "Hold on now general." Hammer says calmly with a smile coming to a stand himself. "I'd like to see how this plays out." Spoken with that all too kind and friendly sleaze he's known for.

     Julia blinks a few times looking back down to her own pad to try and get some semblance of an idea on what's going on.

     "Dad?" Victor says looking over towards him. "Where's mom?" As he begins to flex his hand in and out. "V-victor?" Silas asks turning back around. "Dammit man that's not your son, that's just a machine." The general barks.

Breath has posed:
Breath shrugs a little at Stardust. "I have his phone number." She glances over at Robin for a moment for any clues on who he is watching, so she can be ready to lay down a cover. She tries to casually roll and loosen her shoulders without making it obvious that it's the sort of thing she learned from her old cop friend to do before things go bad.

That comment by Ray gives her that cover. "Well, it COULD have been a date, but it was just the one, and it was coffee, and he didn't make any.. you know.. /moves/ that I noticed. And like.." She raises her hands to gesture in explanation, "I'm ace, And AMAB. So like, I'm basically nobody's type anyways." She leaves her hands steepled, softly knuckle to knuckle in front of her. The chatter is pretty much just cover for all those little glances around and preparation for things to go south in spite of fully expecting them to go south from basically anything but the obvious one. Robin probably appreciates the paranoia at least, even if nobody else notices.

Just on cue, things start going wrong. She spins and snaps at the General, "SHUT! UP! Jesus, if you treat your soldiers like that, it's a miracle they let you do any more than peel potatoes all day! NOT! HELPING!"

The questions being asked decide her on aiming herself at the peanut gallery. Her eyes flick over the people there, running quick scenarios through her head. Robin is probably going to dive in, but he has to accelerate, so maybe one to two seconds. It's hard to draw weapons when there's high speed air in your face, so that leaves cover, two steps to get behind Stardust.. hmm... Not that she has actually moved a muscle yet. Just that she has some contingencies already planned.

Power Girl has posed:
    Karen idly listens to the Titans' conversation as it goes on, somewhat bothered by how little it pertains to the situation. They are making a kind of smalltalk that Karen doesn't really appreciate all told, and in response to it, after a few moments, she tips her head, and offers a statement. "Kids, a little decorum please." The tone is actually -right- on the nail, there. The implication being that if people maintain proper decorum, they don't get called kids.

    However, Victor is turned on, like some sort of new machine that a techie just put together, fit with neat LEDs and this cool case or something. Her eyes narrow in a way that isn't necessarily befitting of a CEO, but at the same time, part of her is alleviated by the fact that Victor is asking for his mother.

    Then the General gets angry, begins shouting, barking orders at her and making his way for the intercom. Idly, she brings up her tablet, and begins tapping away on it. The intercom, when the general reaches it, will no longer function.

    When Breath shouts, Karen clears her throat, seemingly unamused by everything being said. Her nose wrinkles for a moment as she speaks. "I am the President and CEO of S.T.A.R. Labs, the building in which you are all standing as guests. If I am not shouting, I would expect that none of you should be, either."

    The most terrifying part of that should be that someone like Karen Starr is aggreeing with someone like Justin Hammer.

Stardust has posed:
"Don't shut anything down!" Stardust yells. Okay, the time for barracking is now. From her post by the glass screen, she quickly slaps a hand firmly down over the intercom. She's not actually wrecking the thing yet, but with her hand there that could happen at any second. She's making sure nobody can use it though - unaware that Karen has already done so. "You -- " she jabs her finger towards the general. "Sit DOWN and stop interfering. You have no idea what you are talking about. Leave it to people who do. Let the man do his science!" She turns her attention, and her finger-jab, to Hammer. "And you..." she stops a moment, suddenly realizing she wasn't really sure what she was about to say. "You got some kinda creepy vibes going on. Stop it."

Stardust realizes that yelling at the crowd in the viewing room means she has her back to action, so she tilts herself sideways a little, head darting from side to side as she attempts to watch what people on both sides of the glass are doing at the same time. "Use your brains people, this is not the time to be interfering. Clever people do not poke at a bear that's just woken up. Right this second the biggest danger is /you/ startling him while he's in shock."

Hey Karen, at least she didn't shout it.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner now looks to everyone as it seems that everything is getting underway, but then Victor wakes up and starts taking over systems and the like, with Rayner starting to buzz with electricity, getting ready to move at a moments notice. While Breath seems to be preoccupied with runing the numbers with chances of what she can do, Rayner looks to Colette then. "Well....we had to have seen that one coming, right?"

Then they are called children and the young Vasusena cracks his neck a little bit, elecetricity running along his arms. "Right then..." he says then, not having a solid comeback at the moment. "If he goes crazy though.." he looks at Colette then with a shrug in the 'I get to punch him first' kind of way.

But he raiss a hand to touch the glass, as if ready to try and shatter it the very moment this all goes to shit

Cyborg has posed:
     "Thank you." Justin politely chimes in as Starr agrees with him. He's calm and courteous even if there's an all too obvious level of sleaze. "I'm glad someone has a level head on their shoulders." The implication of the titans as well as the general and his men in that comment is all too obvious as he places a hand on the glass looking down. "I knew there was a reason I liked you Karen."

     The General is flabbergasted as the young woman blocks the intercom. He can't even find out the hard way that it doesn't work, he looks about ready to shout or draw a gun or something before Karen speaks up and instead he merely glares at the young woman. Daggers stared right at her before he moves back a little bit unsure of how to really handle being told no, or being disrespected like that.

    "Son, once you've had a taste of real combat in an actual war zone, you come back to me and we'll talk all about who's got the credentials to lead a squad." He pauses for a moment looking through the window and not at Breath. "I've lead more then my fair share of men to their deaths and victory in my time, so I wouldn't expect you to ever know what actual sacrifice looks like." He shakes his head. "Damn spoiled rotten brats are all the same." His arms are folded one over the other. "Still say we fry the damn toaster with an EMP," He thumps the glass refusing to call that thing down in the operating room a person. "Nice preemptive strike before he decides to rip off Silas' head and play hacky sack with it." He pauses. "If that man dies it's square on your head Starr." He points towards her firmly with his hand, before looking towards his lawyers. "I want it in writing that I asked this project to be shut down and was willfully ignored."

     Down on the floor Silas slowly moves forward holding out a hand towards his son. "Victor... I.. I'm sorry there was nothing I could do your mother she... she's gone." There's a pain visible on Victors face as the memories flow back to him. "But that doesn't matter." Silas says trying to force a smile. "I saved you." A pause. "That's what's important, you're safe now, we made you better then you ever were."

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     On the subvocal, Robin keeps things calm. "Do not engage, if anything we will only need to stop them from harming Stone." But in the vocal range, Robin gives stern words, clear and plain, with an authority much like the General's. "That's where you're wrong. I've led over two thousand active combat missions across the world, General. I'd dare say if you think friendly spilled blood is what qualifies a soldier for leadership, you're looking at the wrong qualifier. I measure my successes on how many men I brought back with me." Robin stands to join the others in front of the intercom. "This is where the United States Military has lost its power, you get all the big guns and you lose your edge in tactics. Why play the field when you can just unleashed an H bomb and win that way." A pause before he continues, finger pointed in the air. "I want it in writing that those stars on your epaulets do nothing but paint you a coward, /sir/." Of course, sir is given with as much sharpness as saying 'fuck you'.

Breath has posed:
Breath hears a sentence starting with 'son', and her eye twitches a little bit. Then Robin dishes out the rebuke she wishes she could make, and she smiles in satisfaction. She quietly mouths thanks, taking a soft subtle step to stand next to Stardust and stay facing toward the General in particular and the peanut gallery in general. She lightly licks her lips and very softly clears her throat, tilting her chin up subtly.

Power Girl has posed:
    Karen enters the kind of stare-down that you can only enter when you're either an alien that can fling solar entities, or a CEO. Karen is both, but the intensity can be scratched up as the latter. Either way, she stares back at the General until he engages Breath. She offers this sigh- but can't really be bothered by it, as Breath had freely offered up the information just a few moments before.

    Her attention is back on Victor's awakening after only a spare few moments. She's keeping an eye on as much as she can, hearing through the glass, and observing every movement of every piece on Victor's body. If even one weapon ends up deployed, things are going to get interesting- because of those in the room, Karen just might be the fastest.

Stardust has posed:
Stardust does not return the daggers. She does not even sneer, she just calmly watches the general make his way back to his seat, with a faint smile on her lips. When Robin speaks up, she nods her head in his direction. "He did say 'more than my fair share', Robin. I think that was his way of admitting he's not very good at it." Inside her head a clamor of voices mutters to each other about which of them have lead the most actions -- one claims he had lived over eight hundred years and probably has the record, but another argues the number of galaxies she fought in should count for something. Stardust isn't interested. Several of the voices are speaking in alien tongues, anyway. She's getting fairly good at ignoring them.

Staying close to the intercom, Stardust gives a quick pat on Breath's shoulder, then turns her back on the rest of the peanut gallery, and watches through the glass, arms folded firmly with a body language that says 'I ain't moving'. Just like Karen, her eyes are fixed on Victor, watching his face, and his servo-motors, for any tell-tale signs of which way he's going to jump. A flurry of expressions flitter across her face as she goes from annoyance at the general to caution at the events in the lab to worry for Vic, before it occurs to her to wonder if the glass is 2-way or not, and if they can be seen. In case they can, she settles for her best efforts at a reassuring smile instead.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner gives a proud look at Robin, nodding a few times. "Well said." the stormbringer says with a soft smile. Though his eyes shift to Karen, who's remarkably silent even as the general is still rampaging and getting that vein in his head so big that one more word could give him short term memory loss. Either way Rayner gives Breath a pat on her shoulder as well, before he looks to Stardust, moving nearby. "On a scale of one to ten.." he whispers, "How fast do you think this is gonna go south." While he likely wasn't as fast as Karen at her absolute best speed, it's possible he could keep up with her for a few seconds. after all, he -was- faster than a lightning bolt. But he sighs, deeply, just waiting now.

"Come on, Vic...say something..." he says under his breath as if to impatiently wait for the man to do something other than stare, which is just a -little- unsensitive perhaps, but all this silence from him was making him uneasy.

Cyborg has posed:
     "You never change do you." Victor says coldly down on ground level. "That all mom was to you?" The statement throws Silas back. He wasn't expecting it by a country mile. Then Victor slams his foot down and crashes it through the concrete flooring. "Answer me dammit." In one motion grabbing Silas right off the ground and holding him by the shoulders. "Answer me you bastard!" He shouts so loud is rattles the building the lights flickering off and on for a moment in spite of the precautions. "ANSWER ME!"

     The general had been in the middle of attempting to say something as a comeback clearly ready to pop a vein in his forehead when suddenly Victor snaps. His attention goes to the window and he shoves his way past getting ready for a bloodbath.

     All Silas can do is hang there in stunned silence not sure what to really say as he's shaken back and fourth. "You never cared about me or mom did you?" Screaming even louder. "DID YOU?" Then he finally notices his arms, and his eye goes wide, the color draining from his face. "Wh-what did you do to me.... What the fuck did you do to me?"

Breath has posed:
Breath is suddenly torn between an urge to comfort Victor, even though she has a good idea that that should probably wait a few seconds, and to pre-emptively blast the hell out of the General before he makes things a hundred times worse, which she also knows is probably a bad idea. So she waits for the moment at high alert...

Power Girl has posed:
    Karen Starr is the first to react. Colette and Rayner had claimed first dibs, but it's the long-haired blonde in the corner that actually -did- something. Sure, the others saw that Victor was overreacting, but Karen was the only person there that had a really, really good read on Victor, and his father, and their relationship.

    Time stops. From Karen's right hand, a small metallic trinket slips, pulsing light into the air around it. Encased in a bubble of hard light, the shape of Karen Starr is still visible right where she was standing, while Karen Starr is also visible- but only to those that can perceive time faster than nanoseconds- taking a few steps foward. The friction of the air moving around her, woven tightly to her body by the protective layer around her, incinerates the salmon pantsuit near instantaneously. It's not without evidence- and she knows that, but her only real concern is that Damian will figure it out, and that isn't -really- a concern.

    What is underneath is the white suit of Power Girl. What had looked moments before like tasteless blue loafers are revealed to be her armored boots, and clinging to her stomach, providing the proper padding that helped her maintain the 'softer' bodytype of Karen Starr, where her armoed gloves, which she is putting on mid stride.

    She's actually moving so fast that the rest of the people in the room are certain to be bowled over by the wave of air pressure- not harmful or dangerous, but certainly not pleasant.

    In bullet-time (or faster, really,) the glass buckles around her momentarily as she walks through it. Designed to withstand the weaponry they were testing down below (to some extent, it is alien after all, so Cyborg's armaments only have guesswork to their capabilities) it seems to pale in comparison to the might of a fully-realized Kryptonian stepping through it like a sheet of water.

    It all happens in an instant, and Power Girl is already making excuses up in her head to tell later, even as the last molecules of her Karen Starr pantsuit and wig become cinders on the floor. In the space of that instant, between Victor and Silas, there floats the strongest woman in the world. She says one word, not a threat, nor a promise, nor a plead.

    "Please."

Stardust has posed:
Oh let's be honest, Karen was the only person that that's Kryptonian. It didn't take a great reading of subtle signs only someone who knows the individuals involved would know when concrete has been stomped and people are being dangled by the shoulders. Stardust would have totally beaten Karen to it if... if she was Kryptonian and had fancy super-speed powers too. She does not. She's pretty good at resisting blasts of compression at least, though she does have a lot of broken glass in her hair. That's just /annoying/. She steps through the shattered remains of the window picking shards from her hair and flicking them onto the floor, sighing softly.

As she steps up alongside Power Girl, Stardust eyes her with suspicion. She kind of seemed to come from nowhere! Though the evidence of the broken glass indicates she was with them in the gallery all along. She glances back briefly, seeing who else has moved, then narrows her eyes, and gives a quick nod of her head. It's a puzzle to be solved another time, and she's pretty sure she's seen Power Girl before, while fighting Darkseid, so she's probably okay.

And so, moments rather than instants later, there stands, not floating which she totally could, but what's the point when there's a low ceiling (and Stardust is lazy) the most obstinate woman in the world. She is, inevitably, chattier.

"Hey Vic. It's me, Stardust. And a few more Titans" She raises her hands, and gives a finger wave. "We've been worried sick about you. Can you uh... put your dad down for a moment? I know it's a tough time, but there's a lot to explain."

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian is more than comfortable being the barrier right now, as Power Girl rushes to the others, he is blown down quite easily given his small frame.

  Damian brushes himself off as he stands back up, keeping an eye on the 'goons' in uniform, along with Hammer. He spies something on the floor in front of him as he stands, and manages to take a quick sample and place the vial in his utility belt. Robin maintains his watch on the others, letting his comrades handle the talking.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner uses his finger to burst through a section of glass because in super slow motion....he can see Karen start to shift persona's as it were. Because while he's not Kryptonian, he has the insane super speed powers down. Thank you whoever for striking this kid with lightning! That said, he raises a small brow a moment before in an instant he's with Colette and Power Girl, hood raised over his head as his body fluctuated with electricity for a brief moment. "Calm down man...breathe, breathe...we're friends here." he says with raised hands.

A side glance to Colette though before he gives her that look like 'told ya so!' before he looks back to Victor Stone. "Calm down...just put your old man down, yeah?" he says then as he keeps back, but he's ready to fight.

This should be interesting.

Cyborg has posed:
     Victor is still plugged in as he stands there holding up Silas with both arms and Power Girl in between the two. It's a long moments pause from him as the database is downloaded into his brain his body doing the hacking for him as he interfaces with the records. It wasn't intentional it was just his new body doing its thing while turning on more and more features along the way.

     "He made me a freak." Victor states finally finding his own verbal footing enough to speak without stumbling over himself it takes a moment but thankfully his robotic parts are doing a damn fine job of stabilizing him emotionally so he doesn't go into a full panic. Especially as he see's his own face in the reflection of Power Girls eyes. "Give me one good reason I don't just snap him like a twig." Without them he'd probably be doing a lot worse then he is which at the moment is still holding his dad by the shoulders and looking into Power Girl's eyes with his own. "Hell I can probably kill him right now easy as breathing."

     From up in the viewing platform it seems the general was right. He doesn't do much as he's under direct surveillance by Robin, so anything he tries is likely to blowup right in his face. Instead he simply stands at the edge of the broken glass and looks down a hand on his chin. Even still he chews away at his tobacco.

Breath has posed:
Breath is actually really used to getting slammed with sudden shockwaves of high speed air, since she's normally the one MAKING them... so she manages to still be somewhat standing, by generous definitions of 'standing', albeit in a much, MUCH deeper stance than before and with one hand bracing herself up when the boom of air explodes around her. Quite bluntly, the first thought through her head is confusion - because she doesn't remember doing that? Did somebody mind control her? Does she have any missing time? A window is blown out now, but that kind of thing happens when she coughs..? Alert level critical!

And now she's mostly alone with the really dangerous people. In a ready stance at least. Greeeat. Just great. She is needed down there with Vic and the others, not up here with the dangerous and unstable maniac!

Power Girl has posed:
    Power Girl is admittedly exploiting a factor of Cyborg's newfound anatomy- while Silas had been within 'arm's reach', the nature of that is different because of his metallic 'enhancements', and as a result, his arms are a fair bit longer than they used to be, on account of 'reaching' for his father. It's into this gap that Power Girl has placed herself.

    "I'm not the best with words," she begins, her voice commanding- resounding. She is large in every way that Karen Starr didn't seem to be. Six foot three inches, taller than any woman typically "should" be, even if she weren't floating an inch or two above the ground. "That's Superman. But I'll tell you this: There's a line. You're standing on both sides of it right now. On one side is a freak, a monster, a horror of science. Some of the technology inside you right now is from places that really want you to be all of that. On the other side of the fence is Victor Stone. A man that can hate his father. He's allowed. Nobody has to love anybody." There's a pause, then. "A freak doesn't get to choose, it abides by the nature. By the urge. A man named Victor Stone gets to choose. Which are you?" she asks, her arms folding. The sheer confidence- and, let's face it, the impossible power in her biceps- oozing off of her form gives off the idea that she'd help Victor Stone- but some freak who only wants to kill?

    She'd have to stop that, and she's probably fast enough to do so.

Starfire has posed:
Koriand'r flies in as fast as she can, carrying a platter, blinking as she arrives, just staring, dropping the platter. "Victor...?" she asks, the platter clanging on the floor. The lid is dislodged and a few items fall off the tray and ooze onto the floor... they appear to be some kind of purple slugs. "I was visiting my crew when I heard and came as quick as I could... sent them off... I was going to make some slurmstew..." She looks around at what's going on in the room, confused, as she bends down to pick up the platter, not noticing two of the purple slugs still on the floor. One of which seems to be moving.

Cyborg has posed:
Victor's eyes focus intently for a moment, he stands there in silence for what seems like a small age trying to calculate out what his next move is going to be. Finally he speaks. "Victor's dead." Getting a far off look in his eyes for a moment. "Dead and gone." He drops his dad hard.

     Silas grasps at his throat trying to catch his breath. Victor speaks up again. "The name's Cyborg." His arms shortening back to a more reasonable length as he takes a look at the people gathered around. "I'm not doing this because you asked me to, I'm doing this because I choose to." Then there's a loud KABOOOOM that suddenly fills the entire room with a deafening sound.

     The cable that had been hooked into his back falls down to the ground severed completely. There's no sign of where "cyborg" has gone, just the deep indentation in the concrete from where he' stomped his foot. Doctors run in from outside in the hall having been watching over the monitors as everything went down, and Silas clutches at his throat a moment longer before trying and failing to stumble to a stand only able to say. "Victor..." A look of depression in his eyes.

Breath has posed:
Breath frowns. "..Great. Not exactly unexpected. I think I did something like that, honestly.." She frowns and stands, staying on guard. To her teammates, "What's the next move?"

Starfire has posed:
Koriand'r just lbinks. "Ummmmm... what happened exactly?" she asks, glancing at the empty spot where the newly-named 'Cyborg' was - Cyborg's daddy, Breath... she doens't see the purple slug that's about to crawl onto Breath's foot...

Power Girl has posed:
    Incapable, temporarily, of turning back into the guise of Karen Starr- she has to go to her office or her apartment to get a new wig, after all- Power Girl watches Cyborg leave without a word. He likely doesn't want to chat with her regardless, and she's not about to apprehend him. Keeping tabs, though, is pretty important.

    At a point when nobody seems to be watching, she slips a finger along her palm, the image of Karen Starr still standing behind Julia disappearing, and the small metallic disc that had generated it remaining mildly hidden behind the potted plant where she'd dropped it.

    "Okay, I'll see if I can't catch up to him." she states, bolting through the halls of the building, and departing through the stairwells and roof. She doesn't seem to be interested in lingering, nor apparently did Karen Starr- who most people will assume ran away like a coward at the first possible opportunity.