multiversallogs | adventures in monsterland

Entry tags:

adventures in monsterland

Who: Rex, Shrieky, Ana, Odessa and ~open~
What: Various things. Killing time, doing science, running away from murlocs, etc.
Where: Rex's lab in Brock Marsh, then open to anywhere
When: Various; any time during the plot
Notes: This is just a catch-all for Rex-things! If you want to run into Rex somewher ein the city after he's had to escape his lab, feel free to get in touch with me or toss in a new thread! Ana, Odessa and Shrieky can tag into the super detailed, lengthy threads I've established in the post :V
Warnings: Violence

This city's going to be leveled to the ground. If the monsters don't destroy it, then he certainly will. This is Dr. Rex Lewis's new resolution, after the all-too-familiar numbness of another loss, another case of his lover vanishing into thin air. As if Wichita's constant departures hadn't been bad enough, now Iago had to be taken from him, too?

Rex spent the first day after Iago's disappearance uselessly inert, half-heartedly going over schematics for new projects. More often than not, he would simply stare at one spot of paper and think about nothing.

And then, as usual, the quiet sadness passed, replaced with seething rage. Anger. Hatred. These were far more comfortable feelings for him. He took apart two of his personal projects, gathered what extra scraps he had lying around, and began to work on a new nanomite prototype. Larger, of course, than it should be-- hardly nano-- but right now, size wasn't as important as destructive capability. And this, after all, would be little more than a semi-functional model.

A preview of what he could accomplish if everything else fell into place. If he could ramp his work up to mass production levels. If he got a few like-minded magic users on board to help shrink and replicate his machines into a full-blown army.

Maybe this is just an elaborate revenge fantasy. Maybe it'll never get off the ground. Maybe he'll calm down and realize that attempting to blow up yet another prison will only end badly for him.

For now, though, Rex doesn't think about these things. Instead, he focuses on channeling his rage into his new project. Ana, Shrieky, or any intruders who manage to get in will find Rex in the basement, hunched over one of his work tables, lovingly installing saws onto the pincers of his large-scale "nanomite."

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[Science goes here]

[Board games and murlocs go here]

[IDK, ANYTHING YOU WANT GOES HERE.]

CRASH!

That's an adequate descriptor of the sound that comes from within the lab. "Who the fuck put that there?!" Odessa has teleported in...

...to a rolling cabinet from the sounds of it.

The blonde comes stumbling down the stairs with one hand pressed to her brow. "You rearranged," she remarks, accusatory. She's also got a line of blood down the side of her face, originating from somewhere beneath her palm. "I think I got hit in the head. How are you with stitches?" Then she grins.

"I got video of it. It was wicked." Priorities.

Rex very nearly throws his tiny circular saw across the room when that crash startles him out of his silent, rage-fueled concentration. Gingerly, he sets it down and swivels his chair around to watch the stairs, following the sound of footsteps. Maybe he shouldn't have sold the gun the vigilante...

He stands, reaching for a particularly sharp tool, then relaxes once he sees Odessa making her way down the stairs. A small smile quirks at the corner of his mouth, and he sets the makeshift weapon down on his work table.

"Change can stimulate the mind," he remarks, a forced lightness to his voice. His smile drops when he sees the blood, and Rex approaches Odessa to get a better look at the injury. He reaches out, as if he's going to move her hand to study the wound, but he stops himself.

"It's your lucky day. I've stitched up more heads than I can count." Then, his eyes seem to brighten, and he's barely holding back an excited grin. "What'd you see?"

Wait. Priorities. They can talk while he sutures. Rex goes back to his chair and rolls it over to Odessa. "Have a seat. I want to hear everything."

Science is the best distraction from misery. Science with Odessa, of course, is a dangerous combination, but Rex is willing to take that risk right now. He goes to his supply cabinet and starts looking around for the first aid kit-- ah. There it is. He brings it over to her and sets it on the table.

"How'd you get in, anyway? Don't tell me the security system's been disabled again..."

The nice part about the city being filled with monsters was that it was an excellent way to go about relieving some stress. It'd been a while since she'd gotten into a full-on fight, and an even longer time since she'd done it when she wasn't either escaping or attempting to escape from an awkward situation. There was something the smallest bit amusing about how she could kill these things and destroy a block of the city and people wouldn't be angry with her.

At least she wasn't legally liable for it. And this was a great way to make contacts.

However, too long couldn't go on without her checking in on her brother for her own mental wellbeing. All too well Ana remembered the sensation of 'losing' him in a different warzone, and she'd no intention of doing it again, not when she could save him if she needed too. (The idea of could or could nots when it came to saving him wasn't something that Ana even considered. She would save him, full stop.)

Seeing him toy with claws, Ana watched him for a moment, and then inclined her head. "That looks familiar." Like a non-nano-nanomite in fact.

"It's just a model," he answered sullenly, tightening a little screw. "If I'm going to be trapped here for the foreseeable future, then..." He shrugged. "I need to pass the time somehow."

Mostly true. He just left out the part about Iago disappearing, leading to his loneliness and anger, which tended to push Rex to do things that were, well, extremely dangerous for everybody around him. Like building dangerous robots with the intent to take over and/or destroy the city.

"How's the gun working out?"

"Awesome," Odessa beams to the assurance that Rex will have this under control. "Stitching my own head is such a bitch. Mirrors and all. Not fun." She flops down onto a chair and pulls her hand away. It's just a small gash above her eyebrow, but it's more than a simple bandage can handle. "Don't worry. You know how head injuries are. It's worse than it looks."

Wait.

"I mean, it looks worse than it is." Smooth, 'Dessa. "I'm fine. I didn't get hit that hard." She cranes her neck to peer around the lab. "Don't suppose you've got any vodka stored away?" To his question, she blinks. "Oh. I, uh... Did I forget to mention I have powers and abilities beyond that of your average human being? Specifically that I can manipulate kinetic energy and teleport? I meant to mention that over beers..."

Rex snaps on a pair of gloves and opens his kit, reaching for the basics-- gauze and alcohol, topical anesthetic, sutures...

He lets out a little laugh at her enthusiasm. Somehow, it's... contagious. He doesn't mind, however. Rex has a particular admiration for contagions and the efficiency with which they spread.

"Oh, I know. All that blood, and it's usually just a little gash." Which seems to be the case for Odessa, as well, although he does have to wonder if she's suffering from a mild concussion. Well. He'll test for that after.

Applying the alcohol to the gauze, he moves across from Odessa and begins to wipe away at the blood. When she admits to having special powers, he arches his brow, gives her a look, but doesn't seem shocked by it. Even if he hadn't been on the Barge for two years, these past few months in Baedal opened his eyes to even more genetic possibilities.

"You did forget," he murmurs, amused. "You'll have to demonstrate the kinetic energy one day. I'd love to see it."

He lightly presses the gauze against her forehead, trying to soak up as much blood as he can before getting the anesthetic ready.

"And drinks can come later. What did this to you?"

Edited (PUT SOME STERILE GLOVES ON, MISTER.) 2012-03-05 05:38 (UTC)

Ana watched her brother for a moment, when he was so sullen. In her experience, sullenness was never a good look on him. It tended to mean that things were bad. This situation was completely awful, she knew, but that was beside the point.

She looked around and realized that she hadn't seen or heard from Iago and that he still wasn't there.

Well, what the hell?

"It's working well. You should see what it does to a zombie." Deciding that his assistant was a safer question, "where's your little merman?"

When it came to games and game playing, Shrieky was pretty quick on the uptake. He liked the dice, he liked moving the pieces, he liked going up the ladders, he liked going down the snakes, and then, eventually, he figured out that when Rex looked away, he could usually just gently slide his playing piece forward a few spaces, and no one would ever be any the wiser.

He already had a strategy in place for when Rex inevitably caught him, and it was a strategy of pleading absolute ignorance, as if even the possibility that one could move their piece further than instructed by the dice was some kind of mad dream! If that failed, he'd just pretend that he was terrible at counting. People acted like he was an idiot anyway, so he saw no reason not to exploit this unfair perception in the name of board game victory.

Sadly, this turn, Rex seemed to be paying attention, so Shrieky dutifully moved his little yellow man as far as the dice instructed, before sliding the dice across the board to Rex.

"Your turn." He eyed the board, mentally noting the closest snake to Rex, "I hope you roll a four."

The solution when trying to find a safe place in a city filled with monsters would normally be to turn into his snake form and attempt to bite them. However, since most of these things appeared to already be dead, he doubted his venom would do any good, so currently his solution was to turn into a snake and slither through the nooks and crannies of the city. Fortunately, he'd managed to lose any monsters that had been pursuing him, and now he was slithering through the streets, when he spotted movement. He froze for a moment, worried that it was another creature. Even a human could have a concerning reaction to a seventeen foot long snake, but when he saw which human it was, and remembering the enthusiasm about snakes he'd expressed before, Jay decided it would be safe to start following him.

If Rex did react in a way that would lead to problems, he figured, he'd shift to become human enough so that he could explain that he wasn't a threat.

He smiled a little, half-heartedly, at the thought of his gun totally messing up a zombie. Well, that was good to know. It was a very brief distraction from the elephant in the room-- or the elephant that wasn't in the room. The cat sauntered around Rex's legs, rubbing up against his jeans, and he nudged it back with his foot. At least Iago had managed to bring the animal over before he... vanished.

"He's upstairs, raiding the fridge." Rex frowned. "We'll probably have to get more food soon. Or hope that this ends before we run out."

Mutant frogs. Mutant frogs. How the hell did mutant FROGS get into his lab? Even though it's been hours since he managed to escape, Rex can still remember their battle cry, vividly, as if they were right behind him.

Aarrghggbrrlrlrbrbrl!

For the first time since this mess started, Rex was thankful that Tiamat was still locked up in her terrarium in his... hopefully safe apartment. It was at least several storeys up from the ground, unlike his lab, giving the monsters less of a chance to get in there. Rex envied his snake right now. She could sleep soundly while he was running for his life with a hefty black cat in his arms. Thankfully, the cat didn't yowl or claw at him like he normally would if a human grabbed him and started sprinting.

Rex ducked into an alley and leaned back against the brick, taking in quick gasps of breath. Well, at least years of practice running away from fights came in handy. He'd managed to evade everything that's gone after him so far, but he wasn't sure how much longer his luck would hold out.

Maybe now was a good time to try praying to the gods. Surely, Shada owed him for all the rituals he had to participate in when he worked as a nurse. Right?

Rex's momentary crisis of faith was interrupted when he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head slightly, his eyes widened as he caught a glimpse of a... giant cobra. Larger than any king cobra he'd ever seen-- larger than they were capable of getting.

Well.

Rex may have an obsession with snakes, but he wasn't suicidal. Time to run in the opposite direction.

Shifting his head to be more humanoid so he could speak, not entirely surprised that Rex was running even though he liked snakes, considering he didn't know who Jay was or what his intentions were.

"Relax. I'm on your side," he said, hoping Rex would listen instead of running off when there was no need.

He hoped Rex would listen. There was little need for him to run from his cover and possibly into danger for no reason, after all, and Jay would feel more comfortable if he wasn't the only target should another monster come across him.

"At least, I'm on the side of escaping from all the things that have shown up."

Ana wasn't at all sure of that hope; she had decided that this was going to be happening for a while. If it was going to be something like a flood, it would have stopped already.

It seemed like it was only getting worse.

"I've got some supplies at my place I can grab, and there's always other options." Looting and stealing; when it came to her and her brother, Ana had even fewer scruples than normal.

But, the elephant not in the room was worrying her, and she asked. "How many am I feeding?" Easing into the conversation, hopefully.

Rex, for his part, wasn't paying too much attention to the game. He was trying to use it as a distraction from Iago's departure, but sadly, he was distracting himself from the distraction by fixating on the reason he was trying to distract himself in the first place.

Right.

He glumly rested his chin in one hand and looked away, as if expecting Iago to tromp down the stairs any second now.

"Me too," he murmured. A four would be fine. So his little board game avatar would ride a snake down to the depths of the board.

Fine.

It was only fitting.

Rex might have been a little drunk right now. He picked up the dice and rolled carelessly, nearly knocking his piece over as the dice tumbled next to it. Five. Rex sighed and shoved his piece forward five squares. Of course he couldn't land on the snake.

Rex paused, then set his tools down. "Three if you and the mermaid are staying. Four if you count the cat." No Iago. "That's it."

Rex stopped in his tracks to watch that head shift, but he wasn't about to let Jay get too close to him. He wasn't exactly a trusting person by nature, and he especially wasn't going to be when there was an apocalypse going on. "And why should I believe you?" He clicked his tongue, looking the snake... man up and down. Fascinating, but now wasn't really the time to admire it.

"Everybody's on the side of escape. Go and escape."

Bro, you are way too big for his tastes.

"Not everybody. Some people are actually fighting back, but I have little interest in that." He paused, then added, "And relax. If I planned to bite you, I would have tried by now. I simply thought we may be of use to each other, but perhaps not. I have to go back for my CiD, anyway."

He'd had to leave it behind earlier, stashed behind a dumpster, but he was a bit nervous considering how important that form of ID was in this place leaving it longer than needed. However, when he'd turned himself into a snake, there hadn't exactly been anywhere to put it.

Shrieky glances up from the board, peering at Rex searchingly. Was it possible that the two of them were playing vastly different games, in which Shrieky believed that success was earned by trying to clamber the ladders to victory, while Rex (knowing the true rules) was aiming to slither down to the safety of the bottom of the board, leaving him stranded on a building surrounded by snakes.

Rex looks unhappy, and Shrieky quietly concedes that it's possible that he's just troubled by the increasing number of monsters outside, and not paying the amount of attention to the game of snakes and ladders as it is clearly due. Taking up the dice, he rolls it for himself, and feels a small stab of glee when his little counter comes to rest at the foot of a ladder. It's only a short ladder, mind, but any ladder takes him closer to the top!

After scooting his piece up to it's triumphant height, he sits up a little straighter, and glances at Rex, "I'm going to make some coffee. Do you want some?"

He stands without waiting for an answer, backing towards the coffee pot while keeping one eye on his employer for signs that he wanted some. He turned to unscrew the tin of coffee, and the metal lid scraped softly as he opened it, then once the tin was open...

...it kept scraping.

Shrieky tilted his head, and glanced down at Rex again, "Do you hear that?"

For a moment Ana just pursed her lips, and then she moved closer to her brother, watching him. In someways, they were alike, and Ana thought that how they reacted to people in their life leaving was one of them.

Making a mental note to find the little Shakespeare villain and drag his ass back here, Ana finally asked the question that had been on her mind. "Iago?"

Rex watches the little figure move up the ladder, his eyes dull, as if he's resigned to losing this game. It's all chance and no skill, like so many children's games, and Rex knows now that chance is not something that works out in his favor. No, if there's even the slightest probability that something will go wrong, it will go wrong-- for Rex, at least. Always.

"Sure," he murmurs, giving a slight shrug. He rolls the dice and moves, landing on a snake. A short snake, but a snake nonetheless. With a sigh, he stands and stretches his arms. Even though he can spend days in his lab with no problems, now he's beginning to feel somewhat cramped and stir crazy. He knows why, but he doesn't want to think about it.

Rex is oblivious to the scraping at first. He just assumes it's Shrieky doing his thing with the coffee maker. Rubbing the back of his neck, Rex turns to him with an arched brow. "Hear what?"

He's quiet for a beat, listening for whatever it is that's caught the mermaid's attention. And that's when he realizes the scraping isn't part of the coffee-making process at all.

Rex rushes downstairs to the small console at the far end of the basement-level lab, leaning over to get a look at what the security cameras positioned in the ground-level and outside are picking up.

Static.

Something's killed the security system.

Slowly, cautiously, Rex moves up the stairs to rejoin Shrieky.

"We should go... down the, uh--"

There's a crash as one of the windows is shattered. Rex had the foresight to board each of them up, but now there's a frantic thudding, as something tries to break through the wooden boards.

Rex sucked in a breath, fingers clenching against his palm. "Gone," he said, trying to keep his voice even. "He just... Vanished." He clicked his tongue against his teeth, scowling, and glanced away. "As people do."

Ana didn't know what to say for a moment. She didn't know that the whole vanishing act was something that could be done here. A part of her wanted to find out if he was still here and hiding, and then Ana would personally feed him to one of the monsters who were out and about.

A part of her wanted to believe that Iago wouldn't have done that to Rex. After all, he'd come back to the Barge for him, hadn't he?

And then without even thinking about it, and the distance between when the two of them had been kids, teens against the world and now, Ana Lewis just reached out and hugged her brother tightly.

"Must've slipped my mind." That much is even mostly true, given that Odessa rarely feels the need to conceal her abilities, and is, in fact, rather proud of them.

She winces just faintly and rolls her gaze upward as if to watch what Rex is doing. It's not terribly effective. "For a minute there, I thought I was going to get it in the eye." Then she tugs her CiD from her pocket. "It's the damnedest thing. This is going to sound crazy, but stick with me here." Her brows start to arch, but she catches herself. Forehead movements are not conducive to stitching it up. "It was a monkey. With wings. At least, that's what it looked like. Fucker threw a rock at me!" The nerve of some creatures. "I'd have been able to stop it, but..." Odessa shrugs, sheepish, "I was too busy trying to get footage.

"Also there were giant robots." Naturally. "You don't have anything around here that'll cut through metal like butter, do you?"

Rex, for his part, hated himself for saying it. The moment those words left his mouth, everything became more... real. Iago was gone. Truly gone, just like Wichita, Harper, and everybody else he made the mistake of allowing near him. Ana was the only person he could ever count on, just as it had been when they were children. He kept still as his sister reached out to hug him, not protesting or pushing her away. After a moment, he shifted, relaxed, and began to reciprocate the hug.

"This is exhausting," he murmured. "I don't want to deal with... this... again."

No more dating for Rex Lewis. Now he remembered why he'd avoided it for the first 28 years of his life.

Rex sprays the anesthetic over the area surrounding the gash, then looks down to watch Odessa pull out her CiD. "I'm used to crazy," he remarks, pulling one corner of his mouth up just a touch. Between the Barge and his own home world, "crazy" was practically an every day experience for him. As he waits for her to explain, he begins to thread his needle, preparing for the actual suturing part of this whole process.

Then, Rex pauses, needle in the air. "A flying monkey threw rocks at you?" he repeats, as if to make sure that's absolutely what he heard. "A flying... monkey..." It's not that it's too strange to believe-- far from it. He can totally buy a flying monkey right now.

It's just that it's funny.

He leans back against the table and laughs, maybe a little more than the situation calls for. After all, the monkeys did nearly take out her eye and give her a concussion.

"Sorry-- I'm sorry--" he manages between chuckles. "It's not funny." Rex, ever the picture of a mature adult who doesn't laugh about rabid flying monkeys, clears his throat and stands up straight. "Thank you for getting the footage. I owe you, especially given..." he motions to her cut, "how you were injured in the line of duty."

Finally, Rex leans forward, looming over Odessa (he so rarely gets to loom) as he prepares to carefully stitch the split skin together. He pauses again as she mentions robots.

"Really." Now, that's certainly relevant to his interests. "What were they like?" After a beat, he considers her question, then shakes his head. "I used to have something better than that, something that could eat metal." Ah, nanomites. Perfect for every situation. "But the process is too... sophisticated to replicate here. At least for now."

He eyes the cut, wondering if the anesthetic has kicked in yet. "How does your head feel?"

"No, no it's not funny. It's fuckin' hilarious." Odessa can't help but laugh at it herself. "My hand to the supposed Gods," and she presses her right hand to the left side of her chest before holding it up as if to demonstrate her honour. "A flying monkey threw rocks at me." Her smile is bright as she shrugs. It's the truth! What can you do?

She doesn't quite settle back into seriousness. She's not always terribly good at that, truth be told. "They were humanoid, mostly. They seem to target Xenians. Reminds me of hunter bots back home, but those were like animals. And not several storeys tall, generally speaking." She flips through menu screens on the mobile until she finds the video she's looking for, holding it up for his inspection while she experimentally pokes at her forehead with the fingers of the opposite hand, checking for feeling.

True enough, there's somewhat blurry footage of what could actually be monkeys with wings that blinks out and in again, as Odessa teleports closer. Tinny running commentary is heard in the background with such observations as those are feathers!, aww, lookit his little face!. Clearly Doctor Wander is serious about her research. There's a long line of colourful and rather creative language as the rock plummets toward the lens, narrowly avoiding it, and the image skews to one side as Odessa apparently falls, then it cuts out entirely.

"If I had died, it would have been tragic." Hands folded in her lap now, she tips her face upward and closes her eyes, waiting obediently for the fun part to begin.

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adventures in monsterland

FOR ODESSA

FOR SHRIEKY

FOR ANA

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I can't remember if Rex knows about her powers or not, SO I'M ERRING ON THE SIDE OF CAUTION.

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FOR SHRIEKY

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sorry for the short crappy tag. I CANNOT THINK OF ANYTHING TO ADD FOR SOME REASON

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No worries, my friend.

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