Athwart History (Closed)

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Jenna had half been expecting pigman to take a swipe at her-but he doesn’t. It’s a beat or two as he seemingly tries to puzzle her out-Jenna slowly lifts her right hand-and waves her fingers at him. Maybe he’s not a bad guy. Maybe an escaped experiment? Dundee had been whipping him, after all.

Pig Man seems intent on making introductions, and hey, she’s always up for those.

“Velocity.” The petite speedster offers in a sincerely genial fashion, hooking her thumb beneath the nose piece of her goggles and sliding them up and past her hairline. There’s something childish about the guy. He’s ugly sure, but that’d be a book by it’s cover thing, wouldn’t it?

He’s healing just as quick as she would have been-faster in fact. Good-lashings hurt.

"My taste don't run to no chink bitch,"

Jenna’s eyes cast down with a bit of a frown on that bow of a mouth, the heroine flitting back off of his shoulder-she doesn’t actually have the weight to keep him pinned under her boot, and it’s better not to try.

And then-ugh. Ugh! That’s gross, and hella unfortunate-but he was the type to use slurs and whips, so...

“Think the word you’re looking for is ‘flip’ Dundee, but hey-points for trying!” Jenna cuts a glance towards the hole that the...thing had disappeared back through, then refocuses on the monster, who...likes her costume.

Her cheerful disregard for Crocodile Dundee melts into a more sincere smile for Dum, and Jenna starts to pull off one of her gloves-and offers it over much like she would have done for a little kid. “I like it too.” Where had Ellie gone? Had her friend just freaked out or something? What could even get to Dee given he lived in mirrors?

“What’s your name?”

~*~

“That’s Tweedle Dum. He’s a counterpart to Dee.” Marie cuts in, interrupting the marrying of her two current headaches. The goggles are currently pointed at the ceiling-she takes the opportunity to rewind the footage on another screen, try to get a look at the ‘other thing’ Jenna hadn’t recognized. “Leave Cossack on the floor, grab him and Sanderson, and get out.”

She’d like to advise kicking him in the face a few dozen times, but refrains.

“I’m here for Dee.”

“Dum IS Dee.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Really?”

Marie gives a sharp shake of her head, and keys Axiom instead. “Velocity currently at the second facility, encountered second stringers.” She lets that sit a moment. It’s mostly bad news-you don’t post low tier metas to guard someone like Daybreak.

It’s another dead end on a promising lead.

“Apparently working with Sanderson.” Marie says to Elias with a shrug he can’t see. It’s hypocritical, but she’s annoyed by the prospect of an independent investigation. An undisciplined kid opting out of available resources, with a powerset Marie’s not sure she has the full scope of and wire with several of her agents. “We need a handle on that kid before she drags one of ours into something they can’t get out of.”

It’s annoying, but beneath that it’s immensely troubling even if she’s loath to admit it. A lot can-and has-gone wrong out there.

“Doesn’t know any better.” Marie relents, a concession provided only to and for Elias.

And then something bluish green cuts across the screen, just a blur of it. Marie pauses the recording with a narrowing of her eyes, tries to figure out what exactly she’s looking at.

Well whatever it is, she doesn’t like it. Days after the murder of those two kids-

“Return to base.” Marie directs in a flatline to Peter, excising weakness for ruthlessness as she switches over to her tablet, pulls up available drones. She calculates coords based on Jenna’s and deploys two of them to standby hovering in the preserve.

She's not fucking around with this shit any-goddamned-more.

 

[Obuzeti]

Cossack does not respond. Cossack is too busy trying not to exist. The phlegm covering the entire upper half of his body quivers as he finally has to take a breath, then he chokes wetly. It looks miserable, but to be fair, he really had asked for it. The enormous pigman - Tweedledum, apparently, some kind of alter-ego like Jekyll and Hyde? - leans forward to sniff at the glove, when the worm-looking thing surges back up out of the ground, taking advantage of the pause to snip away Cossack's bindings with its melting bite, and in the same long, swimming stroke, takes off Tweedledum's foot at the ankle, shearing the entire thing off. The severed limb splashes away into a muddled mess, and Dum falls with an agonized roar, his eyes going bloodshot as he catches himself on his hands.

The racist villain immediately rolls backwards in a joint-twisting roll that takes him right out of his coat, which he immediately snatches up and uses to clean off his face first, coughing and spitting as he does so. Then he tries to toss it at Jenna as he kips back onto a severed loop of the whip - which immediately comes to life and bears him off like an overloaded snake, twisting across the ground. His other hand dives for a knife hilt at his belt.

The worm-looking thing tries to breach again, this time coming right up for Tweedledum's face out of the ground like a bobbit worm. It doesn't work out this time at all, because Tweedledum's head twists and those big tusks flash, and the worm splits open along one side as the big teeth tear a gouge right through that pale flesh for two or three feet. The worm writhes aside and warbles, arcing to dive back into the pavement, but the beast-man's hand closes around its tail before it can retreat to safety.

~*~

"Roger," Peter says, frustration bleeding across the line. "Nothing here, anyways. Some doctor receipts, but no legitimate licenses on the other end. Empty medication bottles, saline drips, sterilized equipment. If something was here, it's been moved out."

"If that's a trap, it's one with no real teeth, and with some high tech equipment left lying around," Elias muses. "If it was evacuated, how much did they miss them by? Or are we missing something?"

He shakes his head. "Either way, get the kids out, I'll drop by and check it instead."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Oh no-” Jenna’s horrified at the unexpected amputation, flitting back and briefly uncertain-when Dundee moves.

Everything slows down.

“I’m so sorry Dum, just a-just a second!” But all he or anyone else would hear was a long string of nearly incomprehensibly fast syllables. “I’msosorryDumjustajustasecond-”

The balled up coat flies at a mirage of Jenna-she’s already gone, darting through numerous walls, labs, business offices and an examination room of some kind-she finally finds some cloth, but it’s just crappy shop towels. Could Dum regrow bodyparts? Could she? In the very least he shouldn’t bleed out, right? Not with how quick those wounds had closed-

She doesn’t run across Ellie, but she also doesn’t find any sign of an infestation. Well, good-

And then she’s back. Dundee is rising up off the floor with the help of that stupid whip-his hand moves in slow motion for his hip. He’s off the ground, but not quite high enough-Jenna takes the knife and throws it down one of the holes-a deadly projectile if she’d been thinking about it.

Kinda looks like Dum didn’t need the help, though. He’s not even bleeding, and he’s just done a number on the worm, has a hold of it-

“Yeahpleasekillthatthing.” The shimmering blur requests as she flits through a pile of rubble and scoops several handfuls into a towel. She flings it in Dundee’s direction-releasing one side of it to essentially pelt the man with a bunch of fast moving rocks. As brutal as a shotgun? Not even close. Painful and distracting?

Oh yeah.

“Tied you up once already Dundee, probably should’ve taken your lumps!” She wishes she had found some soap-then again, dude might choke on it, probably not the best of ideas.

~*~

“Roger.”

Frustration. Marie doesn’t blame him, but she’s also worrying about other things. At least he won’t be one of them; he comes home when she tells him to come home. He keeps himself safe. “Thanks.”

Marie blinks-then shakes her head, refocuses.

Jenna’s moving too quickly for her to make much sense of the video feed, she focuses on whether or not exterior structural damage has taken place yet, a way in for the drones as Elias muses on the other line. It softens a bit of the offness-he’ll go in after, mop up.

“Missing something…” Marie repeats slowly as she pilots the drones. Something does seem off here, but...no? Former, supposedly reformed second stringers would not be guarding Daybreak. El Cid could hire better...unless he had insurance of some kind already in place? A comatose Sarah wouldn’t be enough however-he had to have known they’d come looking for her. That Elias would.

“Be careful when you do-some kind of glowing worm-thing. Singular so far.”

Jenna’s delivering a one liner and standing still for some reason-Cossack was on his feet being a tool.

Marie frowns, instantly irritated.

“Just put him down and get moving. Where’s Sanderson?”