5104/Insidious

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Insidious
Date of Scene: 05 August 2018
Location: Unknown
Synopsis: Summary needed
Cast of Characters: 87, Brick, Stardust, Robin (Wayne), Raijin, Breath




Vorpal (87) has posed:
The Lobby is unusually cluttered, as loose pieces of papers are strewn about every which way. The aforementioned pages are smuged with charcoal, in a way that might suggest a shpe here and there, but nothing quite coherent.

Vorpal is sitting at one of the tables, sketchbook and a charcoal stick in hand. Each piece of paper is ripped after a few seconds of frustrated scrawls on the page, usually accompanied by a grumble.

"Not like that, goddamnit..." he mutters, starting work on yet another page. The charcoal stick describing squiggly shapes against the paper.

Brick has posed:
Lobby. Not the place one usually hangs around in the tower, but Brick's room is full of STUFF being staged to the remaining outposts of where the unwanted funguses were/might be hiding. Not that he sleeps there in any case. He comes in carrying a handful of data-sticks in one hand and a huge mug resembling a keg with a drinking-tap top, in the other hand. He's gliding on his gravity skates, and looks up with surprise at VOrpal and his collection of false starts.

"... and the psionic amplifier was successful at ... three point ... two ... pause transcription. Vorpal? Where you been?"

Stardust has posed:
    The doors swing open and in walks Colette, carrying a stack of bio-containment pods containing mini Steves. As providers of the main weapon to fight the fungal threat, the Titans have been busy moving the things around. Colette's making sure there are a few kept back for storage.

    "What we ought to do," Colette starts saying on seeing there are people in the lobby already, "Is implant a cannister of the toxin into each Steve. Like right in the base, so that if we need to we just press a... button... and..." She drifts into silence as she sees Vorpal's mess, kicks a crumpled up piece of paper, and wanders over, putting the containers down to lean on them.

    "Vorp?" Colette peers over his shoulder to try to make out what he's trying to draw. "What are you doing, and why is it so messy?" She picks up one of the rejected sheets and attempts to make sense of it. "Well. At least it doesn't say 'All work and no play makes Vorp a dull kitty.'"

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Robin had of course been here, there, and everywhere lately. Since the battle of Steve, Robin had been helping with the Gotham clean up. Of course, the Titans knew how to reach him should they have needed.

  Robin had come to replace his used equipment, carrying an attache case full of birdarangs and various bat-tech consumables. He was about to head to the empty shaft before he'd seen all the papers strewn about. "What the f$&! happened in here?" he asks, looking to the now three other Titans in the lobby. Almost skimming over that Vorpal was back, but he soon does a double take. "Vorpal." He says, his own little way of saying hi.

  A moment passes, the awkward in the air may still be palpable. "My question still stands."

Raijin has posed:
Rayner was there too, already in the Lobby with computer in front of him as he settled a business dispute by just using that technological device. Seems Vasusena Enterprises is going to experiment with renewable and clean energy. But alas, he looks to Colette with a small smile on his face. Oh, the Steves. Then he looks to Robin as he speaks. "Well...." a look to Vorpal, but he says nothing at the moment.

"It took a great deal of sonic emission to stun that massive monster that we faced down. I could probably tone that down from say, six cannons to one if I adjusted the rate of compression for the sound waves." His eyes then shifting to his other teammates. "But, using the toxin is a far better strategy." But for now, he seems to look at Vorpal.

"what...are you doing?" he finally asks, just like pretty much everyone else.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Vorpal looks up, clearly annoyed as questions are asked. "What am I doing?" rip. Scribble. "What does it look like I am doing?"

He doesn't even give Brick his customary greeting, and he only gives Colette and Damian the most cursory of looks.

"I'm trying to get it out of me. But I can't remember the right shape, it keeps messing up. It's all fuzzy inside." He sighs and tears another page, and closes his sketchbook rather loudly. He seems to focus on the moment and rubs the bridge of his nose- leaving a trail of charcoal on his fur.

"What's going on? Why is Stardust carrying champignons around?"

Having been gone from the world for three weeks, he has missed out on all of the excitement... and since his return, he hasn't left his room, so it is unlikely he is up to date.

Brick has posed:
"You do realize that they're sentient and sapient, and putting toxin in their pots is like installing cyanide bombs in the chests of newborn humans, right?" Brick grumbles, annoyed once more at the blatant speciesism. Yeah, they're mushrooms, but they're NOT the bad kind.

*PING* Maire Boit disagrees. *PING* <more like strapping explosive bolt collars around their necks.>

"Getting WHAT out of you?" Brick says. Because Cat Boy has left out a few parts of speech.

Stardust has posed:
"They're not THAT sentient," Colette argues. "And they're prone to eating planets. These guys can be taken over. It seems like a sensible precaution." As she speaks, she turns the paper around, trying to figure out what's drawn on it.

    "The Mexico Monster was huge, Rainman." Colette doesn't look up from the paper as she speaks, just keeps turning it. "Most aren't gonna needs six. By the way, if your company makes a fortune selling those as anti-mushroom devices, I want a cut. They're alien mushrooms, Vorp. We got them from space. Because the world was being eaten by other alien mushrooms. So we got alien mushrooms to fight the alien mushrooms."

    Colette turns the piece of paper seven more times, then gives up and drops it again. "Trying to draw something you can't quite remember, Vorp? Ask Brick to help. He can turn your memories into video. It's pretty cool."

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Robin marches up to the table where Vorpal was drawing, papers crunching beneath his boots.

  The question had already been asked, it would be redundant to ask it again. Though the mention of war profiteering gets a slight scowl from Damian. "No one will profit off the toxins Father came up with..." Was true, Stark said it was Batman that helmed that little project.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner sighs, lifting a hand to both Damian and Colette. "My company isn't going to make a product out of the mushroom toxin and anti-mushroom devices. So....nope." he chuckles lightly. Though he does nod lightly to Colette. "True, it was a huge monster. But it would likely be better if the sonic cannons even had the OPTION for more juice in 'em." he shrugs.

Before he looks at Vorpal. "What out of what now?" he tilts his head at Vorpal. "If you need help remembering..." yeah, Letty finishes that one.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"I don't want more people in my head, okay?" Vorpal says, speaking with an underlying hiss. Almost as if looking for something else to discuss, he focuses on Damian. "Speaking of which, aren't there some things we should talk about, about getting into people's minds?" He grips his sketchbook and fidgets a little.

Brick has posed:
"Do you really think I'm prone to exaggeration?" Brick says flatly. "Steve the Larger was very laid back but his lack of sophistication was purely a matter of inexperience. And since when was 'not that sentient' a valid response? Your head-passengers have said the same thing about you."

Maire Boit pings faintly, noticing that Vorpal is trying to deal with something. She pings at him, then at Brick because he's wasting his time arguing with StarDUST.

<Just port them to a safe place, there's no reason why the Titans should hang onto anything other than a spore, and with their enemies that's probably too dangerous>

*ping PING PING* Maire Boit says to Vorpal, a distinct "do you need help, kitten?"

Stardust has posed:
    "It's a joke, Damian." Colette arches an eyebrow at him, a little surprised that he took it seriously. Rayner's technical objection doesn't get a serious response either. "You must construct additional pylons, Rainman."

    Colette turns to Brick and looks at him wearily. "So basically you're defending their rights to possessed and eaten by evil killer mushrooms. Gotcha." Still looking at Brick, she points towards Vorpal. "Mushrooms aside, he hissed. The cat hissed. And said 'more' people in my head. Someone broke the cat. Someone's been poking around in his head. Unless... Damian? Have you been surprising him with cucumbers again?"

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian recalls that Vorp wasnt at the Tower when he opened up the 'come yell at me' challenge. "If you want. I thought you had worked it all out of your system." He offers.

  Robin sets down the attache case and joins the rest of them. "That is a terrible thing to do to a cat and I do not condone it. Giving a housecat a small heart attack 'for the lulz' is animal cruelty."

Raijin has posed:
Rayner looks at Colette. "As long as we don't cross the streams then." he gives a definitely not serious answer. With a small shrug, he simply looks to Vorpal as he seems to hiss in response to people suggestion head things, before perhaps a shot at Damian is made. Rayner just whistles and looks to Brick.

"fair enough..."

Breath has posed:
Breath wanders in, drawn by the flutter of insane scribbling and overflowing madness art. She looks around at the papers, holding a handful of papers. "Are you okay?" She eyes the papers dubiously. "Because this looks a little bit south of okay."

She eyes the papers with a bit of concern, then glances around the others. "I met Aquaman the other day. Just in case it comes up later. He didn't want his name mentioned, so I didn't." She sighs a bit and listens to everyone.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
He is making a conscious effort to focus. Vorpal stares right at Colette as she makes her comment, followed by Damian's rebuttal. Then, with a slow and deliberate voice, he addresses her:

"Colette. I dated Beast Boy. Rest assured that I have no reason whatsoever to feel fright or surprise at the sight of cucumber."

That is clearly an attempt to embarrass her for making that joke. But he shudders when more questions are asked.

"No, I'm not okay. I was gone for three days but apparently I was actually gone for three weeks. I can't remember anything, except this..."

He holds his hand in front of his face, fingers curled, "Shape. Thing. It keeps- *He* keeps pushing it in my face. When I don't concentrate it pops up all over the place. I can see it, but I can't remember it. There's always something off... not quite how..." he trails off and looks at his sketchbook. His fingers peel back the cover, as if debating whether he should go back to drawing or not... and then drops the sketchbook onto the floor.

At Maire Boite's interjection, he looks up again. "... maybe I do need help remembering..."

Brick has posed:
"You know that the toxin will kill them as easily as it kills the big shrooms. You're suggesting that we make them into kinderbombs instead? I went along with creating the big guy because I was positive we could protect him long enough, and we did so. I'm very hesitant about treating them like tools or soldiers rather than as partners in taming the killer shrooms. I was connected to the psionic interface on Giant Steve, Stardust. I can play that back for you if you really want."

Not to mention being attached to the sensory feed that fastened Peck to the Source's judgement subroutine. That stung quite a bit. But Brick isn't planning to share that to anyone who doesn't deserve to be seriously unsettled.

*PING* Maire Boit replies to Vorpal. Something ... moves ... but the shape doesn't change or become more clear. But Maire Boit says something to Brick, who is talking to Breath.

"I don't understand. He didn't want you to tell us? Or to tell anyone at all? Or the Press?^

Stardust has posed:
    Colette stares at Damian for a few moments, then turns her head to stare out of the windows and blows out a slow breath. "I kinda thought people might be in a good mood. I mean what with us saving the world and all that stuff. I guess not." When Breath enters and makes her pronouncement, Colette just assumes Breath is being as weird as she's convinced everyone else is being. She turns to stare at her, and says "You just did. Mention his name. Aquaman. I heard you." Without even turning, she points a finger at Vorpal. "I was listening very closely when you said it, Breath. That's why I didn't hear a single word the cat just said."

    Colette promptly disproves that. "Who's the 'he', kitty cat? Someone was shoving something in your face? Was it a broken beer bottle? This was Scotland you went to, right?" She frowns. "No wait, you said something about elves. Did an elf shove something in your face? Want me to go punch him for you? I've never punched an elf. I think they're worth double points."

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian stares back at Colette. "I am in a good mood. I just dont like scaring animals." Yes, That was his limit.

  Robin is certainly out of his element when it comes to...'Vorpal stuff'. So the talk of elves and such kinda goes over his head, so he doesnt make much of a comment, rather than look...unintelligent.

Breath has posed:
Breath shrugs a little. To Brick, who actually seems to care, or.. well.. Maire Bolt more likely, and trying to catch Robin in the vocal range, she calmly states, "Not the press or police. He was sighted stopping the ship, but not identified, then he turned up on the bridge where I was and asked me to keep it hush and take his part of the credit. He was impressed because I knew who he was and how to address him. Then the sailors woke up and started yelling that they were knocked out by the guy from the sea, but they were saying it in German that I don't know, so I didn't know about that until later. I don't know if they meant the same guy, but I don't have any leads either, so just in case it comes up, I kind of want somebody else on team to know."

Then she looks at the papers again. "Isn't there some other way to get this? Maybe Raven would know how to see things you can't think about right."

Raijin has posed:
Rayner simply takes a moment to just whistle peacefully. Not seeing too much of a reason for him to speak at the moment. Though what he does do is run an algorithm on his computer.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Vorpal frowns and shakes his head. "It's blurry. It's... It was Scotland, then it wasn't." He sighs and rubs his forehead. "I appreciate the suggestion, Breath, but I'm not sure we should bother Raven right away with this..."

He trails off as Colette asks a question, and he thinks long and hard about it. "He. I just... know he was a he. But... who?"

He exales with exasperation, and looks at Brick. "Okay. Let's do it. I can't stand this any longer!"

Brick has posed:
Maire Boit runs a quick scan over the feline Titan, and pings in frustration.

"It's an energy blockage," Brick says. "She hasn't seen that particular kind of energy before, and it's slippery. We'll need to compare it to other energy patterns, possibly do some new research. It'll take a day or two, if you can wait that long."

*PING*

"It might be magic. We can't tell."

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Robin regards Breath's story. "He did not want the credit?" Then a quick introspective, attenpting to understand why he would want to do that.

  Damian looks to the group, then to Colette. Perhaps the announcement should wait. "Its Vorpal. Its probably magic."

Stardust has posed:
Colette goes back to staring at Damian, then to staring at Breath. "Uh. File a report, Breathy? I mean I'm not sure what you even don't have leads on, to be honest. Back to Damian. No, back to everyone. Stare at everyone. They all need staring at. Back to Damian. "Yes. I agree. It's mean to scare dumb animals. I wasn't actually suggesting you did it, but I think there was a lighten up dude error. "

    Speak slowly and simply to everyone, Colette decides. C'est ca. Why's everyone being so... slightly odd? Is everyone high? Have the mushrooms been leaking some mildly hallucinogenic spores? Is some psychic working a subtle effect on the tower? Is Raven having a bad dream and it's leaking?

    Colette ponders. Her pondering drives her to the conclusion Brick's not being too un-Bricklike. If you don't speak forty-nine languages and have a PhD in theoretical physics, she thinks, you're probably not going to quite understand what he says beyond the 'hello'. Robin takes everything too seriously. Vorp being odd is normal for Vorp, plus he's a bit traumatized by something, so that's understandable. Rayner... Rayner is whistling. Okay. Uh. Well he has his nose in a computer, so Rayner. And Breath's always incomprehensible. This. Is. Normal.

    "This is normal," Colette mouths silently to herself. How has she put up with this so long without going completely insane? No wonder Robin wants to stab everyone all the time. "Magic would be a good bet. I'm with Robin. I mean if it's an elf, doesn't that pretty much seal it? Some elf wizard cast a spell of Forgetfulness on him, probably. They can probably do that. My bet is that Vorp attempted to open a rabbit hole somewhere he shouldn't. There's probably, I don't know, faery mounds or something. Accidentally wandered into the wrong dimension. Saw something he shouldn't."

Breath has posed:
Breath nods at Colette. "That sounds totally reasonable. Brick? Don't you deal with that sort of thing all the time? Does that sound like something you have to, you know, analogy analogy, worry about and stuff? I mean, you ended up in my sim because of the stick figures somehow, right?

Brick has posed:
"There's more than one Man From the Sea, and if Aquaman didn't want to be known to be present, he had a good reason."

"I wonder if he tried to go home to Wonderland," Brick says to himself, while still scanning, because the more information the better. "There's a town in the north of England that has a major Alice in Wonderland fan-site, another in Scotland, one in Ireland, one in Germany. Not to mention the ones in the US."

Maire Boit attempts one last time, not by pushing or tugging or channeling the block itself, but by feeding energy to Vorpal directly, channeling some of Brick's Zero Energy in a random pattern into his energy-field. At the very worst it could just explode, right?

Raijin has posed:
Rayner is being completely normal, thank you very much! Though eventually he looks to Colette, nodding lightly. "Elf? Well...that's way out of my depth. Raven would know." he shrugs lightly, before he looks to Vorpal. "Hmmm...." he starts looking up locations then for specific locations in those nations.

But....when Brick and company keep attempting to help bring out the memory from Vorpal, Rayner returns his attention to the present.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     The conversation wuickly turns to Wonderland, and Robin is entranced. "You didn't try to find Jervis Tetch, right? He's most definitely not your Mad-Hatter. Just a kook with mind controlling technology."

  For now, Robin just stays available if hes needed. Magic and...Vorpal stuff was way out of his area of expertise.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
The memory that unfolds, projected, is a strange one. There is a snipped of running through a field at night. There are no cities nearby and the full glory of the starry sky can be seen, as well as a sickly green glow that highlights the contour of a hill, up which the viewer is running.

"Where is that coming from?"

That's Vorpal's voice. Of course, he'd talk to himself in a situation like this.

The viewer comes over the hill and suddenly there is a blur of motion , and the sound of falling and rolling. Then, there is darkness for a second, until the eyes open again.

Only this time they are indoors, somewhere. A cave. No, something much smaller, but still under the earth. The grensh light is the only source of illumination, but the dirt wlls are esily distinguished by it. The viewer pans around, looking at his surroundings, until he finds the source of the glow.

There is a cat sitting on a table. It is a large cat, quite large, and humanoid like Vorpal- although not *quite* as human. Its hands aren't hands but massive paws, and the face is much more animalistic.

It is jet black, except for a bit of white at its chest. There is also a small crown on its head, which is the source of the glow.

Words are exchanged, but it is hard to hear- the memory seems to become hazy at this point, but the general gist of the words that are heard comprise a beckoning, and Vorpal moves to the table.

The memory keeps coming in and out, almost as if the viewer had fallen asleep several times, until everythign becomes extremely focused.

"Mark ye this sign, for ye'll need it. They're devising to come before the frost, out of turn. Mark well, and warn. Ye'll need friends, when they come for ye-"

The feline begins to scrawl something on the table, on a piece of parchment that has either just appeared, or hadn't been noticed by Vorpal.

"It goes just so-"

As the claw traces lines that entwine and begin to form shapes, the focus of the memory becomes hazy again. It comes in and out of focus for a few seconds...

And then Vorpal cries out, holding his hands up to his head and wincing. The memory winks out.

Without a word, the CHeshire cat grabs his sketchbook and bolts towards the elevator at an alarming speed.