video; un: fiona

[cachemoney]

[Fiona is a little out of breath, like she just hustled very quickly away from somewhere. Which she did, but that's neither here nor there. The background behind her is some innocuous wood panelling; she's in a house.]

Okay. So. Crunch time. Things are getting nuts out there, if you didn't notice. We are gonna wind up super screwed if we don't hop to figuring out what the hell to do.

[She holds up a vial. It has some alien writing on it, as well as a familiar symbol on the label.]

We found this inside the hospital. A shit-ton of them, actually. So who wants to find out what Zymandis asshole is responsible for this mess and beat an antidote out of them?



[ ooc. PS, maya, hanzo, and mccree might show up in your threads. feel free to threadjack as well! ]

Comments

video; un: white_lotus

[pummelling]

Hang on. I'm not saying we shouldn't head after them and get with the beating, but that is definitely not subtle when everything else these guys have done has been.

What if they wanted to be found? We've gotta watch ourselves here.

video; un: man of still

[figureitout]

I'm with you on this, man. If we consider how well our last attempt at "let's just blindly go after Zymandis agents" went... a little more planning might be required this time. I mean, I don't know about everyone else, but I'd like this to not end in alien invasion and the complete destruction of this city.

[ which..... is a possibility. if they so much as spook the agent into fleeing, they're left with no one to question and no cure to save the people and half of their team, so it seems. ]

[pummelling]

Yyyyeah, we should definitely try to avoid the alien route, especially since the people here aren't like the Qorral. [he continues, taking on an even more sober tone:] I've seen what happens when humans take on the otherworldly without being prepared. We can't afford to let that many people die.

[Years after the initial invasion, some Earthrealm cities still lie in ruin, never to truly recover: no one needs to fear for their lives like people in his realm did twenty years ago.]

Peter suggested that we cut Zymandis off at the head: find HQ.

[figureitout]

... yeah. I get what you mean.

[ it may not be the same thing as an entire realm being destroyed, but he does know what it's like, to face the supernatural without a single idea of how to actually fight back.

despite the serious tone of the discussion, he still smiles slightly. ]

His ideas are usually pretty good, and effective. Instead of all of us going on a manhunt for someone we might not even find, which is probably what they expect us to do, jumping ahead to finding where their base is — sounds worth trying to me.

[ only, as the eternal pessimist, he's already seeing several ways in which this won't work out at all... ]

video; un: urahara

[predomination]

Not to mention this seems to be coming from the hospital, itself. Any obvious attempt to drive them into a corner might cause harm to the people who are working here.

[he's not worried about himself so much as he is Sonia, Olivia, and Sieglinde.]

[pummelling]

Right. We can't risk hurting the native doctors and patients, they've had to put up with enough. And you guys, of course.

[stay safe team science and friends 8(]

They could already be suspicious, since there were so many of us snooping around.

[predomination]

I think there's at least a good chance they've always known, but that plays into the idea of it being a trap, which is a good theory, but can be tricky to act on as a solid fact.

[pummelling]

Then if it isn't a trap...

Are they just sloppy, or underestimating us, or what?

[predomination]

It's not unheard of, but given they're the mother organization, I can't really say I believe any of that. Especially since everything in Perdition's Rest was extremely well-calculated and we only got lucky.

[pummelling]

[Well, Urahara's always been right before. He doesn't feel too bad about leaning towards the man's theory, in the end.]

Guess we're going to figure out the truth sooner or later, anyway.

[predomination]

It's something I wouldn't mind being wrong about, but people are getting too riled up for me to just wait it out and see which theory holds true before making a move. We need to keep our guard up.

[pummelling]

So what is your move going to be, anyway?

[very frankly:]

I can't actually predict anything you're going to do. Ever.

[predomination]

That's because whatever move I'll make greatly depends on how the situation plays out. [smirk] I just plan for every potential.

[in the future, Quincy Jesus will fear his strategical skills.]

[secondnature]

You realize that they might be getting what they want just through a bunch of us getting sick, right?

[Keith isn't saying that the other plan isn't viable, but he doesn't think it's likely. They're already one step ahead. Why would they need to be even more ahead? They clearly don't have to worry about the ALASTAIR threat, at least not overly much.

It's a harsh truth—and one that Keith isn't a big fan of, honestly.]

[pummelling]

[The scope of how small ALASTAIR-- and Audentes, for that matter-- is in the face of Zymandis hasn't quite settled for Jin just yet. He's used to this arrangement: a handful of people up against whole worlds.]

Maybe. That'd be the better outcome for us, anyway: if they underestimated us.

Whatever the case, if we drove them off one world, we can drive them off one more.

[secondnature]

We need to worry about driving off their disease first.

audio; un: mccree

[flashbanging]

Whaddaya mean, wanted to be found? Way I see it, this ain't hardly different from last time. They were carrying out their business and we happened to interrupt. If you got some info suggesting otherwise, I'd love to hear it.

[ Swear to Christ, some of y'all are just confusing as hell. ]

[pummelling]

[For a second Jin almost forgets who he's speaking to, then he remembers: he hasn't been in Outworld for nearly half a year. That resemblance is just uncanny, man.]

Call it an educated guess. If we messed with their toys once, who's to say they didn't want to put good ol' meddling Audentes out of commission the second they figured out we were on planet?

[flashbanging]

I ain't seein' the education, there. This fella is bumblin' around--he don't know his up from his down, going by what we got from the sewer. Them books were marked up like a kindergartener was trying to puzzle'em out.

[ He just hasn't observed any concrete evidence of an organized--or even terrifically aware--force in operation here. Not yet, anyway. ]

[pummelling]

Theeeen... you're thinking this is some kind of lone agent.

[Which he isn't going to discount, yet. But it hadn't occurred to him at all.]

[flashbanging]

That's where it's all pointin' to, so far.

[ He could be wrong, of course. When it comes to something serious--like a mission--McCree always keeps an open mind. He draws conclusions from what's in front of him--what he can empirically observe. ]

Christ's sake, the fella was drawing little pictures on his patient files. He just don't strike me as somebody who's part of a well-oiled machine.

[pummelling]

Wait, what the hell? I didn't hear about the doodles. Just the notes on human biology themselves.

[READ THE MANUAL, KUNG JIN]

But where's all the Zymandis information supposed to come into account, in that case? Is our guy a copycat or some sort of Zymandis flunkie?

[flashbanging]

Widowmaker dug it up.

[ Guess she's good for something, his tone suggests. ]

Oh, I don't doubt he's one of theirs. Flunkie sounds about right. Not a high-status type.

[pummelling]

[massages his temples....]

Gods.

So our theories so far are one, business as usual for the big bad timepolice tripping us up; two, a trap we're waltzing headfirst into; and three, some enterprising Zymandis crony with half a brain is still causing this much damage.

Am I missing anything?

[cachemoney]

What the hell are you talking about? We wouldn't have had to dig around in a goddamn sewer if they wanted to be found.