"I am Doctor Fate, earthly host of the Lord of Order known as Nabu. The name of the host body is irrelevant."
Az cringes inside as he hears the voice speak from his mouth unbidden. Sometimes the things Nabu said were a bit...creepy.
"J'ohn, no, please don't- don' let it be you," The rookie hero mutters, focusing on obtaining his Kryptonian sight.
William focuses his senses on the charred husk that is J'onn J'onzz. Looking beneath the surface, he can see that J'onn is not actually dead. His basic biological processes are intact, but something is keeping him from regenerating or changing form.
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Kara nods appreciatively as Bill ties up Red Volcano effectively. "Oooo. nice one! Should we leave him like that? Or else...I guess we could just rip his arms off?"
She pauses and looks at Captain Attero for confirmation. The armored warrior nods slightly in the affirmative.
"Hey! Robo-Computer guy! Is Argus gonna be hear soon or do we need t' disarm RV in a more perm way?
So, D-R Fate, huh? You....you like this all the time or you got a day job too?"
"So, D-R Fate, huh? You....you like this all the time or you got a day job too?"
"The host form has business of its own, but it will not be allowed to interfere with the will of the Lords of Order."
Dammit, Nabu. Let me talk now and then. Az's thoughts, as usual, go unheard.
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As Dr. Fate gives his answer, Imagine stops her furtive never-stopping gaze at everything, and suddenly gets quite still. Her head rotates toward the doctor, and her eyes fall upon him like the infinite weight of never-ending black space. Her voice enters his head as Curiosity, ever a powerful councilor in Kara's internal court, gains sole control and pursues a penultimate lark.
'Oh...really...?'
A warm wave of thought-energy sweeps into Fate's head, like a bowl of warm milk spilled by some careless cat and getting your nice shoes wet. Like a liquid it pours over the Doctror's defenses, searching for some crack to weedle in to and explore.
'Hellooooooooooooo in theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere.....?'
Will Save:
Image of Imagine calling out against an impenetrable yellow wall.
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Imagine pouts as her good-natured attempt at reading someone else's diary goes poorly.
Meh. Then a minute passes and she forgets all about it.
After the minute, the injured troopers are brought back to functional, and they get up, flying back to the squad, witch is busily going about and cleaning up the last of the robots, if any are left. If none are left, then they put out fires and secure survivors, one of the primary standing order being: "In the absence of orders, find something and do good LexCorp PR to it."
As the dust settles, you hear the whine of engines familiar to anyone who has been in the hero game for long.
An image appears on the massive screen, accompanied by VICTOR's voice:
"ARGUS support has arrived, and it appears we have attracted the notice of the man, himself."
The outer doors open, and in storms a man in his late 40's, fit but worn. His eyepatch does nothing to take away from his attractive features, and under his sweeping gaze you have the disconcerting feeling of being called to the Principal's office.
"Gods of Apocalypse, Vic what happened here... and who are...Dr. Fate, Luthor, Gigabyte, thank you for your reponse. Without your help, who knows how bad things would have gotten. Unhuman, what's the situation with J'onn?"
As VICTOR frames a response, the electronics of the screen short in a massive arc of electricity and his voice is silenced.
This is Director Richard Grayson, retired superhero and "the guy who cleaned up ARGUS."
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Gigabyte nods and shruggs as Richard thank them [b]"Always ab pleasure to help around. But now I should help Victor run a thorough analysis... I don't like the part about that robot linking with the Hall's mainframe, and I do want to know what it looked for or wanted.[/ooc]
Having said that, Gigabyte cleans the dust on a decent sized piece of concrete and moves it to use it as improptu chair and starts working on it.
"He's-" William starts, voice shaky. "He's still alive at his heart, if just bare'y. There's... something stopping him from recovering like he should. I don't know what."
Dr Fate looks on, emotionless behind the golden helmet. A simple nod is his only acknowledgement to Grayson's comments.
Gigabyte reaches out to the mainframe. Communicating with VICTOR through his datalink sounds like talking through an old fashioned walky-talky with way too much squelch.
"Kyle, the robotic tank has inserted a virus into the Hall's kernel. Any assistance you could provide would be much appreciated. I am having a hard time isolating it."
Grayson continues, "Ms. Luthor, would it be possible for you to reach out to Martian Manhunter and attempt to determine his mental state?"
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As the ARGUS rep appears, Imagine doesn't acknowledged him immediately, as she and Captain Attero, and a few of the other LexSec, are turned toward each other, apparently in some mind-or-radio-based communication. A few nods, and the first Chinook, somewhat damaged and carrying precious cargo, peels off, heading back to base. Another helicopter, fresher but otherwise similar, takes it's place and begins orbiting the city, helping to coordinate recovery efforts.
At last Kara nods one last time and, smiling, turns to Agent Grayson. "Heya! Nice to meet you, Dick. LexCorp accounting will be getting your bill to you since we had to clean up your mess -again-. It's only fair that we get some remuneration for resources spent. I mean, you wouldn't want to be robin us, would ya?
Anyway, ya, I can dig around in MM's gray stuff see if he's still among the save-able.
One sec."
Imagine stares into space and tries to glean the thought-waves of the errant alien.
Normally, trying to read Martian Manhunter's mind would be like peeling an orange made out of titanium.
At the moment, however, his thoughts are pretty simple. His mind is screaming. All conscious thought is tied up with the sensation of being burned alive. It is almost certainly the most painful thing Imagine has ever experienced.
You are pretty sure, though, that if you could shut down that fire response, he would return to himself.
Gigabyte reaches out with his mind, accessing the mainframe through his cybernetics.
In his mind's eye, the mainframe is like a blue wireframe of a massive Watchtower. The tower is being assaulted by something like a red swarm or tornado, ripping off pieces of the tower and replacing them with itself. Kyle can see the work of VICTOR like a hundred white torsos with arms, hastily repairing the damage. It takes Kyle only a moment to evaluate the problem and launch his own attack on the virus. He reaches out with virtual hands, unraveling the virus like a sheet of delicate fabric.
'Pain,' Imagine mind-says to all gathered. 'He is on fire. The pain is...excruciating.
But he does not seem to be dying. It's as if whatever is doing this to him will not allow him to die, because that would make the pain end.'
"Good enough, Ms. Luthor." Grayson turns to the side and speaks into the air, "We're going to need Dubbilex to come take a look at J'onn. I doubt Imagine has the finesse to fix whatever is wrong with him."
Fate looks on, his presence felt as much by his silence as anything.
William hesitated, watching the others converse (or stand there intimidatingly) before he found his voice once more. "Is there- Is there a way that I can help? He was... is, he's my mentor. Or- if we worked together? Me, Imagine, and Dubbilex?"
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Kara raises and eyebrow as Grayson starts throwing around loose statement about finesse--and keeps it raised as Unhuman voices an option about working together. "Hey! I completely resent that statement that I'm in capable of finesse NO MATTER how accurate it is!
Eh what? Work together? Do you mean on a...more permanent basis?"
Exactly what she means by that is not entirely clear, perhaps not even to herself.
Grayson turns suddenly toward Fate: "Perhaps there is something to that, Unhuman. Fate, could your magic project the lot of you into J'onn's psyche? Gigbyte's understanding of data systems, Unhuman's personal familiarity with the subject, and Imagine's mental abilities, combined with Nabu's extensive experience. Maybe all of you working together could find a way to unlock whatever cage J'onn is trapped in..."
"I...I don't know," Az stutters, very un-Fate like, though the voice, filtered through the helmet, sounds the same as before.
"I shall attempt it. If this is within the fabric of the universe to accomplish, it will succeed. If not...we shall have to think of something else."
Magic check?
Unhuman is only just startinv to process... whtever it is Imagine's said this time when he felt the pull of magic. His father had told him once about how susceptible Kryptonians were to magic, but he himself felt more... normal, in that sense. Didn't mean he wasn't any less vulnerable to a mage of Fate's caliber however.
He looked over to Grayson as the rirual neared completion, "Wish us luck in there."
You have the sensation of falling. The same feeling you might have when you almost nod off or when you snap awake from a nightmare.
You find yourself standing in a stark but beautiful landscape. MARS. Red sand beneath your feet. Massive cliff walls of to your left and a mountain off to your right that dwarfs anything on Earth. There is no sun in the sky, not even the weak Martian sky, but there is light. On the horizon, fires burn. Fires reflected from the thin atmosphere above you.
"Interesting. I had not anticipated success."
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"What is goi-" says the augmented engineer as his point of view swaps from the mainframe's digital landscape to the red planet "Well, this is interesting... and scary, gotta admit. I don't like fire." he adds as he notices the distant fire and a shiver runs through his spine.
"Any of you eldritch buffs can please asure me this is only some sort of magical dream and I won't get burnt in Manhunter's memories of Mars?"
Unhuman shudders as reality becomes false and memories become tangible. He'd been here before, in this phantasmal image of Mars. One of several ancestral homes he could claim, and it pained him to see it wreathed in fire. "I... do not like fire either. No Martian does, green or white. It burns hotter for our kind, burns chaos into our minds..."
"Any of you eldritch buffs can please asure me this is only some sort of magical dream and I won't get burnt in Manhunter's memories of Mars?"
"As we are not suffering any of the other affects of Mars, we might assume that we are not vulnerable to the machinations of the musing Martian's mind. However, we should test that assumption gingerly, at best."
"One assumes that, attempting to save the Martian from the his fugue, we must approach the fire, no?"
You rise off of the Martian dust, flying at the relatively slow speed of Gigabyte, toward the fires glowing on the strangely close horizon.
As you soar over the Martian landscape, the fire seems to approach you, zig zagging across the ground, opening up massive rents in the ground. Mars lacks tectonic activity, so it seems strange that it is experiencing a Mars quake. J'onn's mind must have been influenced by his time on Earth.
All of the lines of fire lead to a central point, a shiny metallic platform about 20 feet across. On the platform stands a green martian in agony. The fire wraps around him in chains, and his skin blackens and peels away just as it reforms and blackens again.
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'Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, this is weird,' Kara calls out in her mind-speak, her mouth still unmoving.
'This...this is something that I should be able to explain, but--I can't. Not, not right now.
Um, do one of you wanna go down there? Kinda test the waters? Recon in force, as it were?
While...while I see if I can figure anything out?'
Kara retreats into her own thoughts, trying to get a handle on what's going on. Normally the mind is -her- realm, and most minds are open books; catalogs that she browses through and takes what she wants before discarding in boredom, but this...this is different.
First she looks around, are her LexSec with her?
Then she gently probes the burning figure, seeing if any of the normal-space mind-laws still apply.
Kara is like a two year old who has been told not to touch the stove. She must touch it herself. She opens her mind to the chaos that is all around.
Fortunately, she is wearing her mental ove glove.
Her mind reading in this mind space allows her to "see the code" as it were. This tortured Martian is not J'onn, but merely the part of his mind that freaks out around fire, his phobia embodied.
Imagine imagines that all one has to do is snip those chains and he would be able to recover, reboot, whatever.
William frowns at Imagine's odd, nonsensical speech. But he's intelligent enough to understand the gist of what she wants and approaches his tortured mentor. The imaginitive fire licks and burns at his own Martian skin, and he hisses in pain, but he tries to brave the flames and free the elder hero.
The fire is just too much, he can't seem to focus!
The beam from the cannon hits the fiery chains, chipping away. One massive link being quickly eaten away.
Somehow, the fire does not harm Unhuman. Must be something to do with being projected into the mind. The fire of the chains focuses its damage on the martian.
Taken advantage of the weakened link, Will rips the chain apart, and the chain collection unravels, coming undone and flying wildly about.
As the chains break away, the Martian figure bursts into flames and rises into the Martian air. The fire gathers around the Martian's head, gradually concentrating in his eyes before being released in a fan of energy that bathes each of you in a heat beam.