1964-03-10 - W-ILD Investigations
Summary: Domino and Hope go to see what they can find at W-ILD, and find more than they expected
Related: If there are no related logs, put 'None', — please don't leave blank!
Theme Song: None
hope domino mojo cable 


Welcome to W-ILD!

Or what was once W-ILD. The building's seen better days, after having been hit by Hurricane Lorna a few weeks ago; but the most frightening part about its current state, at least to those who know the true nature of what lies inside? It's under /repair./ The horrors that may have happened here, or at least started within those walls may be well on their way to starting anew…. or it may just be going back to 'normal', with a proper owner and boring television shows to accompany it.

The building which once had only one entrance now has two; the front door as normal leading into the Green Room where Minor Domo greeted visitors… and a giant hole in the wall leading to the sound-stage where the rebuilding of that section of the building continues. Since it's night, there's no people around, although construction equipment has been left behind.

*

Even at night, with no one else around, going through the front door is never the best option. Domino didn't bother to tell anyone else where she's going or what she's doing tonight. Frankly she feels like there are some very important details being kept from her about this bizarre operation. That, and it never hurts to do some of your own intel.

Given that this is a studio, a place known to be full of cameras and recording equipment, she's gone for the full-on whiteout look. They probably have full color cameras which will make the disguise completely useless, but on the chance that any security cameras are still oldschool monochrome…

The rebuilding efforts are underway a little too quickly for her liking. It also means that the chances of finding any useful intel at this point are slim to nil. Fortunately for her, those are the chances she happens to be the best with! Rule #1: Don't be seen. Rule #2: Don't engage. She wants to keep this one strictly stealth. Completely off of the records.

Of course, as with any situation there is -always- a wildcard.

*

For the past two or three nights, a girl has been staked out on various rooftops watching the W-ILD studios come back to shape under their sheeting and scaffolding. In her reconnaissance, she has taken note of the comings and goings, the various residents, and general routines performed all too frequently to be anything natural. These are things one noticed when raised by a cybernetic bear for a father, and particularly when said cybernetic bear landed on the roof of an adjacent building not so many hours ago. Hope's here for the long haul, a sandwich consumed and crackers nibbled on, lying on her stomach. The rifle she brought is with her, set up and trained on the great big hole where people with anticipated agendas other than good might go. It's not an especially tall building and some of the sight lines are obstructed, but no one occupies this one at this hour, maybe evacuated thanks to a call about a gas leak. Or something convenient, such as it goes.

The redhead swears under her breath when someone marching towards the building shows up beyond what's in the crosshairs of her scope, hitting her skull and ricocheting through every corner of her being. In another future, a girl very much like her is used to successfully hunt down mutant kind. The Messiah could have that same role; it's a dangerous one, to say the least, and detecting Domino's signature has her gritting her teeth. She could just be a bystander, but then she wouldn't be a Summers, anyways. Quick disassembly follows, tripod collapsed, things changed. Everything thrown into a bag, the bag is slung over her arms, adjusted with a quick cinch on metal links and straps. Then she goes over the side of the building, rappelling without a rope, launching herself down onto a fire escape, swinging off it to hit the wall. Momentum is her friend and ally, something used to correct her direction, giving her the means to hit a lower roof, the distance of a storey, at a run and a roll. In any situation, there is always a wildcard, and the Queen of Swords free-running to the hole in the wall might be part of it. Though she's not going directly in; she's not stupid. Not after spending this long in surveillance, and besides, there's possibly a trashcan with some special tech in it.

*

If not the front door, than in through the hole in the wall we go! Which leads Domino onto the sound stage… the… spectically empty sound stage. What was once dotted with higher-tech security cameras has become a rather blank room, with the features presented being the hole in the wall leading now to the exterior of the building and a door at the far end of the large room that leads to parts unknown to the Albino. At least the building's stable once again and not threatening to collapse!

The redhead who tails her could tell her that said door would lead to a hallway where all sorts of trouble could be found, however, or once was at least! Her surveillance would have spied the construction workers leaving and arriving at the same times each night and day, occasionally some delinquent coming by to peek in the hole, get bored by the emptiness and wander off. Well. Except for the other day when one of the 'windows' on the side of the building — fakes — was broken by a well-aimed rock. The next day? Fixed. The workers used are far from inefficient, to be sure.

While there /is/ a trashcan — a dumpster rented out by the construction company — as this is now weeks, plural, after the initial incident? Sadly the tech that once lined the walls of the soundstage is long gone. Alas!

*

ROLL: Domino +rolls 1d10 for a result of: 8

*

It's supposed to be a quiet night. No personnel around the building. No one lurking about outside (aside from the albino, that is.) No cops, no security, nada. Thus, it comes as a complete surprise to Domino that there's the sounds of someone moving very quickly over very rough terrain just outside of the hole in the wall.

And getting closer. Fast.

She's quick to duck around the inside of the wall, keeping herself hidden from view and far enough away from said hole so that whomever comes rushing in from the other side won't be able to reach the gun which she now has leveled at roughly head height as she lies in wait. She knows someone is there and that they're coming closer, she just doesn't happen to know -who- it is. Running is often a bad sign, too.

And there's people actively hunting her down in the area, apparently. So, yeah, she's a little on edge these days. Tailing her is not so good for the health.

Once all of this is sorted out the door is naturally what holds her interest. They wouldn't keep anything incriminating by the front desk, that would just be silly. As strange as Mojo seems to be, she has to believe that he knows what he's doing to have gotten this far.

*

When it comes to free-running, Hope is pretty quiet, and definitely quick, though those two don't overlap on the Venn diagram without 'telekinetic' or 'acoustic silencers' in the middle. Those she does not have, at least on the outset. One building to another leads her gracefully to capture her newest vantage, an adjacent single-storey place that overlooks the W-ILD studios. She could just be prone to checking out the air compressor or the air conditioner in the middle of the night. Someone's really impressed by the need to make those repairs when it will not harm anyone, or interfere with business. Totally.

Still… up there, Hope keeps a very low profile, rolling to move and continuing forever in motion, sliding across the flat shingles up to the lip. She avoids puddles where she can, and anything possibly noxious, leaving no footprints other than those scarred on the hearts of speedsters and thermal imaging cameras everywhere. But, no, wait; they probably don't have the latter, so no love gone to waste.

Thus, she halts and hunkers down, directly opposite the hole in the next door building. What she might give to see through walls. Well, not happening; improvise. A bit of fishing around in her pocket produces… a mirror, the round sort girls use to check out their powdered noses and cheeks. She edges it just so, stopping any glare from flashing, and starts to tilt it to get a view of the road below. Clear, not clear, dumpster, garbage, plastic ghost: maybe a person. Maybe not. For the time being, she'll wait.

*

When the sounds fall silent Domino counts the seconds which pass in her head. She has her own range of time to wait if she suspects that someone heard her skulking about. Most people don't have much patience, either.

That said, she can't wait around all night for what -might- be.

Time passes, no more sounds are made. Unless the mirror happens to creep around the edge of the wound within the wall then she's not going to see anything at all. Someone is out there, yes… But she can't afford to wait this one out. Besides, there's a closed door -right there!- All she has to do is close it behind her and boom, there's another barrier for any would-be pursuer to have to go through. Another ambush point for the albino. Win-win.

With a frown, and a continued hold of her one sidearm, she slips away from the ruined wall and goes to check out the door. Time waits for no lady, and given her reaction time? She'll take her chances with whatever's yet lurking outside. She's here to do a job, darnitall.

*

The standoff between the albino and the redhead will not reach a happy conclusion in the next five minutes. Why?

Patience, grasshopper. As well as several crackers and patiently waiting to see if anyone gets uncomfortable, shoots a bunch of bullets, or pulls out a flashlight and starts muttering about union rights. She's learned a thing or two about patience, and Hope snaps away her compact mirror where it came from.

Stage two: get to the ground. She'll be careful to slip herself down from there, hanging off the rooftop, feeling around for the nearest window sill if any. Failing that vantage, she can run down the wall, using the intersecting corners as a way to slow her route.

*

On the other side of the door? Lies a hallway; a somewhat short hallway with six doors. Well… six doorways. Five doors. One of the doorways has had its door ripped right from the hinges and still lies on the floor; which is worth noting. The damage done is /still there./ Maybe the construction crews haven't gotten here? Given the otherworldly connection, maybe they haven't even been /allowed/ this far? Worth consideration. There's one unmarked door, three doors lining the sides of the hallway marked 'Makeup Department', 'Control Room', and 'Dressing Room', and of course, the one that Domino may or may not close behind her once she gets past.

On the outside of the building? Nope, no other people running around other than the redhead and the albino — and there are windowsills, attached to closed windows ('windows' may be a bad term, as they're technically thick panes of glass with realistically painted designs suggesting that there's something on the other side… except that the side of the building is all that lies behind them).

*

The door behind Neena is definitely closed. In fact, if there's something she can wedge beneath it then she'll put that into play, too! Unknown people sneaking up on her from behind, not something she much enjoys.

The doors are mentally prioritized by their labels. Dressing rooms are the last on the list, immediately followed by the makeup department. The control room ranks high, but of course there's the air of mystery surrounding the one door which isn't labeled at all. So many decisions, so little time.

Since one of the doors is already lying on the ground Dom will take a quick look around through there first. Convenience, and all! The rest she marks for further investigation on the return trip. If living in a secret concrete facility deep underground for most of her life has taught her anything it's that the more doorways you pass through the more impressive the secrets which lie beyond…

*

Inside the door that Neena enters… is a personal dressing room. Fancy place, too! At least it was before a certain magnetic mutant (and not the one you think) got to it. There's a cracked mirror, a wardrobe full of indentical costumes that, if Neena's done her research, Seth was spotted wearing in his appearances on W-ILD's promos… but little else. It was where the star was being held until the next time he was needed. All this time, so close… but so far away.

*

Pity, that. But, them's the breaks. There was no rallying cry from the mutants Domino hangs out with to find and rescue the guy, nor was there a cash reward for finding him. Not her job! Though odd that he would have his own dressing room at the far end. With no name on the door. Could be that the studio had planned on going through 'key' stars fast enough to not even bother with name plaques? It seems like a reasonable enough assumption.

What remains doesn't seem to suggest anything forced, either. No empty chemical bottles. No physical restraints. Maybe a heavy lock on the door..? Had Seth decided to be a part of this on his own free will? Maybe Brainfreeze had coerced him somehow? Or maybe there's something else going on…

The control room is next on her list. The door's still closed, it probably hadn't been trashed after the previous encounter. Once again, experience has taught her that the word 'control' can refer to a great many different matters. It may not all be studio gear inside.

*

Give her time and Hope can sneak into just about anything. A big hole in the wall hardly makes for much of a challenge, but she goes ahead carefully, reaching out with her senses to determine if anyone other than Domino's signature resonates in the building. That's not perfect, but it gives her a bit of a head's up just in case, because the last thing she needs is being the star of a show she never signed up for. Footsteps go light along the margins of the hallway, assuring no cameras are peering into the dark. Even if they are, it's not like there is much to see: a boyish winter coat, a hat, face hidden some. She rolls off her feet and, where possible, climbs or shimmies along the wall.

Hope has a good idea of layout, and she keeps a bead on any moving targets. Moving targets are bad things, generally.

*

Mojo leaves, heading towards Queens [out].

*

Mojo has left.

*

Mojo arrives from Queens.

*

Mojo has arrived.

*

Mojo

*

Big. Yellow. Cables for hair. Awesome floating chair. You wouldn't understand.

*

Contents:

*

Shezni(#1035Tn)

*

Banzai(#755Tn)

*

Mojo took you.

*

Mojo drops you.

*

+==~~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~=====~~~~=====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~~==+
RP Room 6 Temporary
Fri Mar 10, 1964 — Fri Mar 10 12:14:25 2017


*

The walls of the room shimmer. They are shapeless, malleable, almost waiting to be given form. With a little imagination, the room can become anything, from an abandoned mining tunnel to an ornate ballroom.

This is a TinyPlot Room which you can use to simulate any room not actually coded on the MUSH. The room's commands allow you to change the description to suit your needs, even storing multiple descs if you so desire. You can also lock the room for privacy, and request that it be linked to the IC world for special TPs.

This room is currently UNLOCKED.

See +lhelp for local help files.

*


Contents:
Cable - A man as large as he is temporally displaced.
Domino - Black haired albino, with a spot.
Hope - Toned redheaded girl with hypnotic green eyes. Wary.
Mojo - Yellow jello. Metal hair, metal chair.
Ed - is currently ON - SCENE IS BEING LOGGED.

*

Exits:
[O] RP Nexus

Special: +lhelp - Local Help Available
+==~~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~=====~~~~=====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~~==+

*

The interesting thing about that control room? The door doesn't have a handle. No control panel to open it with. In fact, it may well take objection to every single attempt to breach it that Domino makes, such a guarded room it was… at least until she turns away from it. at which point the door simply falls inwards as if knocked off the hinges, as the vibration caused by Domino's foots on the ground just HAPPENED to be the exact frequency required to inferfere with the atoms holding the door together.

Must've just been lucky, huh?

Nonetheless, the inside of the Control Room is… actually surprising(?)ly alive compared to the rest of the studio. A room lit only by the lights of various monitors that appear to be broadcasting episodes from the W-ILD lineup — all cartoons — along with various buttons all over a control board. Off to the side, there's a small black box with a number of buttons and little lights on it, too… and even a couple of those spinning leather chairs. One of them may even be occupied, or maybe not. We'll see.

As for Hope? She'll find three signatures. Her own. Domino. And something else. Something /very,/ very familiar. But where exactly is it? The answer lies below.

*

This was a surprise for Cable. He will never admit it, but he's been stuck in here for awhile. Although he waylayed Hope by stealing her away for dinner, the true reason was so he could investigate this place on his own. Reducing her personal threat has always been his primary goal, after all, and where this unknown Mojo is concerned, he has never felt more personally ill at ease. Much like Domino and Hope, he made his way into this particular room. Then the door shut. …and that's that. He's not entirely sure how long it's been, beyond quite a while. But his telepathy could not breach it, his molecular telekinesis could not get through the surroundings, and Graymalkin is completely out of contact. Such explains why Hope had no idea he was present… she can't sense his mind, but she knows his signature as a mutant very well. He's gone through most stages of grief already. Anger, denial, bargaining. Now he's just sitting in a chair, slowly spinning, trying to piece together more clues from his omniversal trek. There's no way Mojo has never meddled with Earth before. If that's the case, why is there not multitudes of him that have been countered or dealt with? Then the door falls inwards, and the chair circles one more time. In that instant, he knew who it was. Utter surprise ended in a lack of action. The chair comes to a stop.

"…hey."

*

NopenopedammitnopeFUCK.

Domino's just turning away from the door in frustration and contemplating introducing it to something explosive in nature when something falls, loudly, causing her to duck and spin about with her suppressed 1911 snapping up at the ready. There's a long, silent pause before she points the gun down at the door and hisses "That's what you get."

Now she knows that she's on the right track, too. Clearly no one else has managed to breach this doorway until—

"-Cable?-"

Once more her large pistol droops, this time out of sheer confusion mixed with a healthy dose of surprise. "The hell are you doing here?"

Since the big guy -is- here then she can go ahead and assume that the room itself is secure, letting the pistol hang loose within one hand at her side. "You keep turning up like a bad penny, you know that?"

That's three, three questions at once! Only one of which any real sort of answer is desired. Hopefully he picks the right one to answer.

*

Is anybody ever going to get used to the cybernetic-enhanced soldier being father to the most unlikely of figures, the redheaded fireball who could be the spitting image of his genetic mother? Probably not. Hope's inward progress has the advantage of familiarity right up until it doesn't, and that's about the time she draws the smaller of the guns she tends to carry, and a particularly interesting knife gets patted to assure nothing hinders her drawing it immediately from the sheathe. That's before something familiar traverses the inner veins of her forearms and tickles down her spine, races up into her skull, and wants to raise her a good inch off the ground. She reflexively pushes back against the crushing weight, which means her rather quiet footfalls pause for a moment until she can get herself back on the floor properly.

Then she simply slips through the doorway and leans against it for a moment. Her arms cross under her chest, gun propped easily there, looking cool as a cucumber. Nothing is said because nothing needs to be said, though her eyes are slightly narrowed and most definitively a very intense shade of green usually achieved by holding up a 7-Up bottle to the sunshine and staring into the glare.

Fluctuations ripple around her, possibly difficult to detect at first. Ripples that run in concentric rings, eddies within the disturbed rise and fall of energy. Brainwaves won't like what they're feeling past a certain point, as jagged edges and colliding sensory impressions start crashing together, as though someone threw several Mentos into a bottle of pop, capped it, and shook it up… with a paint mixer. Rocking her foot above the ground, the kinetic and psionic friction twitches and rattles the entire atmosphere, though it certainly doesn't seem to shake up the couple in their happy reunion.

*

Breach isn't the right word for it. Mojo let Cable in then trapped him, probably for this exact situation to play out. But he'll go along with the idea that it was the result of personal competence. "What do you think? Isn't it pretty obvious? I'm spinning in an office chair!!" He does one more rotation, expression sheerly painted with rare frustration before he pushes up to his feet and kicks the latter away. If there's one thing he cannot stand, it's a lack of control. It's wasting his time. Mojo expertly did both of these things, and the normally precisely controlled machine-Nathan is gone. Damn his machinations. "Do I?" He suddenly scrunches up his brows, thoughtfully. Domino's a hard one to figure out. For a few moments he tries to wrestle with it. He looks at Hope, and makes a gesture that clearly means something inappropriate, before gesturing towards the albino, as if hoping she can confirm something for him. The fact he's not using telepathy for this probably has some deep and meaningful reason.

"Well, I can confirm you can't do a damn thing in this room. And that there was some kind of phenomenon I couldn't detect that sealed me in. Overall, I don't think it was worth the effort. We're following a dollar on a string, right now. If this has a purpose, I think we're living it right this second."

*

The addition of the proverbial third Musketeer brings Domino about one more time for a quick pivot on the balls of her feet. Her reaction is lacking the surprise and confusion from a moment ago. "-Hope.- Should have assumed it was you."

Domino closes her eyes and ducks her head, lightly resting the metal tube making up the pistol suppressor against her forehead. Partly from her own growing frustration. Partly because of Cable's initial response.

"Y'see, -this- is why I like to work alone. If anyone pops up unexpectedly, they're just another target. Seriously, what the hell, you two!"

Hope's little psionic trick isn't anything which she can properly identify. Most of it she can't even -detect.- There's just enough strangeness going on to raise the hairs at the back of her neck, resulting in a narrow-eyed stare at the redheaded girl.

Psychics, man… Dom's not a fan of those, either.

"You just keep yourself on the outside, Chili Bean."

Back to Mister Timelord Summers, his next comment immediately draws her attention around in search of any cameras placed about the area. Despite Cable's training she presses "Are you sure you scoured the room?" Because she wasn't the one investigating it! Instead she has to trust the word of a man she barely knows! There's a muttered curse as she lowers her weapon again. "There's gotta be something we missed, aside from you being an idiot and getting yourself locked inside of a recording studio."

*

From the monitors, which have suddenly turned to display the /same/ cartoon, two mice can be seen near the leg of a table. One — a female one with green hair — is pacing around said leg while the other — a male blonde mouse covered in way too much dirt — watches her.

"I am not doing this! I am not a mouse, I am /Lorna/ /Dane./ I go to the Frost Academy. I know the Brotherhood! I have a big family that loves me and I might never see again!"

"You have to play along, Lorna!"

"Seth?!"

*

"Mmhmm," says Hope, and that alone should be enough to warn Cable how much effort she's currently weaving in and out like a master programmer, consecutively designing, testing, coding, and refining her processes at the same time. Running one track telekinetically, she continues the psionic disruption, fixing her execution on the fly and hopefully inducing so much biofeedback that any observers externally are left with a crippling migraine. Even better if that makes the machines recoil and people crawl around, whining at the furious mental vibrations puncturing their sense of the normal.

"Lorna," she grits out the name, the nasal whine from the mouse enough to catch her attention. A monitor is going to crack at this rate, the circuitry inside forced to carry an energy load it probably wasn't designed for, particularly as the aim is to gut wires, inverse charges, whatever. Hope is playing mad scientist at the moment, minus labcoat and prerequisite cackling. "The other mouse have a sword? That's the friend and friend of a friend. She's totally a mouse. A conniptic blow your face off crying mouse."

Probabilities are in her fingertips, tugged this way, teased that, seeking the point of least resistance to let her work.

*

Cable is still fairly frustrated, although attempting his best to come back into control. He's investigated everything here, and although there's a bevy of cameras and other items concealed, they appear to be mostly for show. At least, to him. He might be from a super future, but cross-dimensional electronics are well outside his skillset at the moment. The background buzz of dimensional activity has been happening since he got here, and if that's the recordings, he's well fooled. "Yes, we're potentially being watched. As far as I know they shouldn't work, but this is obviously a bit beyond that. So don't say or do anything you don't want someone to see or hear. Hope can set up a telepathic network if you want to exchange surface level thoughts beyond her countermeasures. Which I'd normally say are more than sufficient. Normally." He tries to ignore the insult. Mostly because he doesn't have a counter to it. She pretty much hit the nail on the head, which she has a frustrating ability to do to him regardless of timelines.

Also, what's that mmhmm? Is that Hope saying she's busy, or that Cable banged Domino in this timeline, so their relationship's had some terrain? He's going to assume it was yes to the latter. Which is absolutely incorrect, so that can't cause any complications in the future. When the cartoon turns on, he twists to observe it. Despite how irrevocably valuable it is, he still annoyedly tries pressing the power off button multiple times. "Testing if it works." he promises. "Calm down, Hope. What's happening in your mind is what they want to have happen. Don't play their game." He says while dangerously close to doing exactly that.

*

One could turn a drinking game out of startling the albino lately. When the monitors come to life she's not only got the bigassed .45 up and leveled at one screen but she also has a much smaller .308 Colt coming out of nowhere to draw at -another- one of the screens. Arctic pale eyes dart from one monitor to the next as she does a quick pivot upon the ground. Screens..screens everywhere…

Of cartoon mice..?

It's perhaps the first time that an animated show causes her blood to run cold. The turning about comes to a halt. Then her expression changes further. "Fuck me, that's not a good sign," she mutters under her breath. "We've gotta get out of here. Right now. Like -Right The Hell Now.-" They've been made. Like days ago someone had been expecting them to be here. Who knows what else might be waiting for them?

With Cable mucking about with the power button Domino promptly levels her suppressed 1911 at the screen and puts a big scary hole through the glass, not all that far away from Cable's head. "That still works. Can we go now?"

*

Kapow! Bullet hits glass — or whatever the material is — and leaves a horrible hole in one screen. But in other screens, the cartoon continues. The camera pans over to a cat. Well, no, not a cat, more like a /lion./

A /brown/ lion. With a black mane. A funky looking scar over one eye.

And a metal arm.

"Where IS she?! Just give her up, and I'll let you live! It doesn't have to be like this!"

Nonetheless, the cartoon lion roars and charges towards the mice, who freak out cartoonishly and run into a mouse hole.

*

The scarred lion showing up on the screen does not even begin to terrorise her. One, because Hope has no idea what the Lion King is, and what that portends for the king or the pride. What she does understand is the parallel, and that gut reaction kicks out something like a wave that starts to cause everything around her unsecured to jitter, tumble, and float with a heave. Because there comes a point when you are beyond fear, beyond wrath, and the system cannot take much more of an overload. Danger fatigue, by any other name, or everything is keyed up to high alert. Seeing that rapidly escalates matters from laugh worthy to stone cold sober.

"You want to go now? We can go now, " Hope says, her head tilted slightly as she measures something known only to her. "Stick closer together. I can't do thirteen things at once. Closer." She gestures towards them and hastily walks into the middle of the storm churning around them. "Dom, escape driver here. Nay-nay, I'm going to regret that steak restaurant being closed. This'll be like what I did to the Nur, and that Dutch tavern. Except that guy in a blue coat and hat isn't going to be yelling at you for upsetting his stupid horse." Her hands are open, gun stowed back in her back, because there's no point. Her hands are held out to her sides, reaching for them if she can. Presuming no one pushes her away, she'll stand in between them, and stares up at the ceiling, collapsing the psionic and telekinetic white noise into a ball. A ball around them, a compressing globe of force as she shunts all that energy down and up, like the Dow Jones index. First it's pulling them collectively out into the hallway through the atomized door, and then away via more or less direct evacuation. Holding on for dear life is going to be necessary because she hurtles the ball of force straight up, meaning they go up, and floors, walls, and concrete are objects of no particular concern. Ground level, that's much more helpful, out in the clear.

Her own survival being relative, at the moment.

*

The splash of glass into Cable's cheek isn't appreciated, even if it doesn't really hurt him. He put up a mild sheen of telekinetic injury to save his pretty mug, hearing the ignition of the bullet before it bothered leaving the gun. Stepping back, he watches every television at once, turning slowly. If there's even a single pixel out of place between them, some clue they might not be an identical broadcast, he'll find it. The leonine version of himself doesn't get any meaningful reaction. "Cute. Oh, you wanna leave? Obviously we can. I mean, we've not stumbled into some kind of ridiculous trap. Bodyslide by three." Nothing happens. "What do you know, my spatial teleport that no current technology can interfere with failed. You can make a show of running back down the hallway if you want to make the highlight reel. I'm going to watch for clues." It's going to take more than cartoon caricatures to affect Cable. To him, this is obviously being done in real time through some manner. Technology exists in the universe to do it, as does methods of stopping Graymalkin. But is this alien? Or something greater? That's what he's trying to pinpoint.

Hope still seems to want to try, though. He doesn't object, though. Given he's seen that Mojo can make the room indestructible, his main fear is that Hope's going to slam into it with the force of a dying sun and knock everyone unconscious only to wake up surrounded by even weirder cartoons. But who knows? It'll be a learning experience. He wouldn't die, and… well, Domino's pretty lucky, right?

*

'Where is she?' "Who—?" Domino quietly asks in confusion with the change of monitors. Part of her is freaking..the hell..OUT over this creepfest.

The other part is trying so very hard not to snicker at LionCable. "Well look at that," she teases the guy. "You're famous." Pause. "Does anyone know who 'she' is?"

Then the room is shaking, and everything within it by proxy. "Please tell me one of you is doing that," Dom says in a low, concerned tone. Oh, and the bodyslide thing isn't working! Though the look that she pins Cable with next… "-Yes,- I would like us to be leaving now," she repeats while snapping her arm out to shoot one of the other (further away) monitors. "This is going from 'weird' to 'what the fuck' very quickly and I fail to see how we can accomplish anything useful without putting ourselves at risk of who the hell knows what, so -yes,- I'd say that it's time for us to go. Or stay!" she counters while shooting out the third screen. "I can show myself out. Flexible like that."

Hope is still doing very weird Hope-ish things over there, like charging up some massive capacitor. "..Um." Neena is so very much out of her league! All that's left is to take one of Hope's hands then get the single most disorienting and gut-wrenching trip of her life, and she's been on some VERY colorful trips in her time.

She'll have ample opportunity to vomit her guts out and swear up a storm once they've landed.

*

Thanks to the Double-Domino effect, Hope ends up accidentally taking something /else/ along with her as she gets out of dodge and drags Neena along for the ride — successfully. What, exactly? That little box with the buttons and lights on it that nobody noticed earlier.

Meanwhile, Cable continues watching the cartoon as about twelve guns spring out of the lion's metal arm and are aimed at the mouse hole. There's the sound of weapons charging then…

Mojo's face taking over the screen. "I hope you had fun, kids! Will the little mice survive, or will the big, bad lion eat them alive? You'll see more next week, as we bring you the next episode of the Wildways Fun House, LIVE from Disneyland!"

…and then cut to commercial.

"Are you going gray prematurely? You're in luck, with Just For Men…"

*

Dust is likely flying in the air, crumbling drywall and splintered bits of wood blasted aside when they plunge out from the bowels of the recording studio. The brunt of the battery goes right to the telekinetic bubble, reinforced along its topside to account for pulverising a path straight out of Dodge. Add a few flaming bats, and the analogy is complete. Let it be said speed is something of a valuable factor where the redhead is involved, and she swings the trio away from the building, down the road, skimming above the pavement, and shunting them into an alley. Suspiciously the same alley with the same trashcan where, at one point in the not so distant twenty-four hours past, Nathan Summers availed himself of its storage capacity.

Floating object of buttons and beeps is stowed right along, a mechanical familiar dumped at Cable's feet. It sticks there, waiting for him to drop kick it or propose marriage.

"Bishop," she says in two flat syllables, emphasis given at a whisper. And then the floating walls around them collapse and she goes with it, right into the wall, her arms raised weakly to brace for the sheer amount of finesse and brute force were planned, braided together, and slammed through who knows how much of a foundation. With any luck, the building will cave in on itself, and be purchased by a plucky property developer working mostly out of Queens and Brooklyn, confounded by why his child is the same colour as a tangerine.

*

Well, color Cable a big ole cybernetic color of surprise. Hope hurtles through the ceiling, and he was so expecting it to fail that he's momentarily caught off-guard. It's easy to forget how powerful Nathan is without the techno-organic virus reeling him backwards, after all. Immediately he gestures towards Domino, and she might be happy to find that all of the fluids in her ears and body orient immediately. Her brain would stop freaking out over what just happened, and she shouldn't end up throwing up as a result. Isn't she lucky she knows him? Hope's left on her own, though. She needs to learn to deal with unexpected telekinetic forces.

"Yeah, Bishop." he agrees, without seeming all that bothered. "Ole Bishop the Lion. I'm not sure what the symbolism of him attacking those two was. Maybe he hates mice. Listen, this may have been a mindfuck, but it also confirmed some ideas I had. I'm almost certain we're dealing with a reality manipulator. I can detect phenomenon as a result of reality, like a wormhole, but not… that kind of tampering. Number two… he knows about us. Things that never happened in this universe. Think. Think on that, Hope! Not him trying to jarr your mind!!"

*

"I'm actually thinking about how many ways I can make him jealous I have a spine. Maybe acrobatics and dancing." Is Hope laughing? She's silently trying to keep it in, all said and done.

*

Remember the days where 'escape' involved running, flying, falling, or driving, with or without yelling and shooting involved? Yeah..Domino misses those days. Now it's teleportation or levitation or warping clean out of reality or whatever the heck it is that these damn kids are doing nowadays. To her a 'bodyslide' is what happens when you toss someone off the hood of your car at ninety.

Now they're all over here, and the building is falling in upon itself yet again over..there. The only missed detail which could have added to the moment is seeing Mojo for the first time on the screen, a moment which has been quite decisively passed. Had Cable not have reoriented all of her innards there would have been something fairly disgusting waiting to take place of Mojo's missed mugshot.

If Mojo knows things about them then Dom might be in a lot of trouble.

*

Vomitting everywhere isn't pleasant. That's less helping Domino honestly and more not having to put up with that. If Hope puked, he'd shame her for years, so it's a risk he's willing to take. "Great. Last time you looked like this—" No. He looks to Domino, and is serious. They joke about their life, but another person hearing it makes it far, far different. "Nevermind. Well, Domino. Let's grab a drink soon and catch up, alright?" He puts an arm around Hope's shoulder, glancing at the beeping electronic scathingly before glancing skywards again. "Bodyslide by two." This time, the spatial crack works. The pair of them vanish, leaving only some disturbed debris behind. And a poor mutant girl near an exploded building to deal with her own personal fallout. A successful investigation, indeed.

*

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License