epidemiology | EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

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EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

BENDED TIME

As outlined in the OOC post, things start to slow down and grow quiet in Oska for a few days as the bugs crawl away and slowly disappear. But then the cocoons hatch. Fully grown temporal insects claw their way out of them, each about the size and temperament of raging bulls.

They come out far more aggressive and eager to fight, are are willing to take on anything that moves with jaws and claws alike. Except, of course, another insect — when two of them encounter each other, they enter into a mating dance and then slip away into another dimension, leaving behind only the temporary ghosts of years gone by. If you can’t find a way to pierce that thick shell to take one down, better find another one to pair it off with instead. Just try not to get bit while leading them around and find yourself suddenly 5 years old again.

The insects aren’t the only thing going on in Oska, though. As it turns out, unicorns really hate this adult form of the temporal insects, and will start kicking their way out of their stalls in the stables to get at the insects in an attempt to impale or trample them. According to Uruz they’re gallant warriors, but not always quite cut out to take on a bug, and can easily get themselves hurt or killed. She would really appreciate recruits taking a moment to recapture any stray unicorns they may come across and leading them back to the stables. Try to avoid any insects on the way, or you’ll find yourself suddenly fighting insect and irate unicorn, which is no one’s idea of a good time.

The lake is getting more active, too. All the fighting has woken up something in the depths of it. Dark red tentacles sometimes creep up onto shore — and don’t worry, this time they don’t belong to a sea goddess. The tentacles don’t attack unless attacked, and can in fact be quite agreeable. Nodes along the length of them act as primitive eyes, which see well enough to interact with anyone nearby. They’re also all a little peckish. Toss a tentacle a bit of food and watch it curl around and ingest it using tiny mouths on the underside. It might even be willing to play a few rounds of fetch or slap a bug into the sky for you if you put it in a good mood with a morsel of food.

The senior ALASTAIR members can be seen out and about and doing their part, too. Uruz and Dagny fight as a team, centaur and elf, sometimes fighting back to back and sometimes as mount and rider. They’ll stop and lend a hand, but the cats are a little less generous. Cherenkov and Crowley fight inseparably and use magic and science in deadly combination to ward off and destroy the bugs, but can usually only be seen darting on their way from one place to another. They have a lot of magitek to repair in the destructive wake of the insects. Pomarr, neither as senior nor as invested in actively picking off the bugs, offers shelter near a tentacle-free portion of the lake, calling down storms to toss away bugs for her and anyone in the vicinity.

OOC NOTES

This log spans a week ICly. Characters will find themselves beginning to understand each other again as the bugs first vanish, as the effects of the cats’ work on the magitek pays off. The translation problem will be completely fixed by the time the cocoons hatch. All of the bugs will have been killed or shipped off by the sixth day, leaving the last day before their departure to the next mission blissfully relaxing. Any temporally misplaced recruits will be back to normal by the last day, as well.

A reminder to anyone still texting: the texting feature of magitek jewelry operates based on thought! There are no physical keyboards, recruits merely think the message that they’d like to send to another recruit.

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[And here Val was, minding her own business for once, gosh.

Keith has chosen to accost a human woman in some manner of skintight costume, who glances up from her book and promptly fails to be intimidated, a tolerant smile tugging at one corner of her mouth.]

Absolutely nothing.

[She says it amicably enough, though.]

... That can't be true. [That can absolutely be true. Speaking of, Keith previously knew very little about ALASTAIR outside of their penchant for stealing things that belonged to him.] I mean—uh—[Crap, he's terrible at this.]

Where'd you get that book from? I bet that could tell us something.

[It is immediately apparent that while Keith can do stealth, it largely involves silently entering a place and not having to interact with people outside of committing violence. Charming someone? Doing anything involving diplomacy?

Yeah, that's better left up to just about anyone else.]

"Us?"

[There is no us, awkward beast-teen. Either he means his organization, or he's assuming a total stranger is going to team up with him...which is hero behavior. Val props her chin on her hand and makes no move to either confront or disengage while she weighs the probabilities. Insufficient data to reach a conclusion.

Whichever, the kid is going to get himself hurt if he pulls this routine on someone with a shorter temper. Even if he's part of some vast evil space empire or some such, he's young and doesn't deserve to get pounded flat because he yelled at Namor on a bad day.

Val looks up at him, waiting for clarification. Franklin will be along sooner or later to get her and she's got nothing on her plate 'til then, so it's time for some Good Samaritan-ism.

What a lucky guy Keith is.]

Us—the people who don't know anything about ALASTAIR. That's why I'm asking. I need to know everything that you know. [It's amazing how a single syllable uttered can hit a nerve, but Keith is always at about thirty on the zero to one hundred chilless chart (zero being pretty chill actually, one hundred being no chill ever). It doesn't take very long to rev him up, and time as a Galra soldier has only encouraged that tendency.

After all, he's meant to be intimidating, and he feels awful about hurting people to carry out his mission. He's been asked to do that a lot, so much that it almost seems like some kind of joke to them.]

And if you don't know anything, then I bet your book does. [An annoyed sound follows.] I don't even know why I'm explaining this!

["Hero very badly trying to blend in with an evil organization," confirmed. Keith probably isn't used to people regarding him so...affectionately, but he's reminding Val of a younger Bentley.]

Seems unlikely.

[She holds up the book so he can read the cover: "A Concise History of Latveria" by one Victor von Doom.

Must be a pen name.]

But we can take a stroll to the library if you like.

[She stands, tucking the book under her arm, and starts for the library without checking to see if he's following.]

My name's Valeria, by the way.

[The fact that she's so calm seems to only irritate him further. A stroll to the library. Well, reason states that if he wants to figure out all of this, he'd probably have to do some reading.]

Valeria, huh? [He considers using a different name, something to differentiate himself. (And he will, on other occasions.)] I'm Keith. I'm a member of the Galra Empire. But last I checked, people around here don't ever know the things that they should.

[And Keith is being unreasonably petty, but also bad at finding things to be petty about.]

[Sorry buddy, she fought scarier stuff than you as a literal baby.]

"Keith?" That sounds a lot like a human name.

[She's not (entirely) being disingenuous; as perceptive as Val is, she's not a mind-reader and has no way of knowing his life story. Maybe he spells it funny or there's a phoneme in there she's not hearing.]

Never heard of the Galra. I guess you're not a going concern in my neighborhood at the moment. Should we be shifting to war production?

[Val's not worried and her conversational tone doesn't so much as waver. Every space empire out there takes its turn breaking itself against Earth. But every bit of data is useful. Wars are better ended before they start, after all.]

[Actually, is it so bad if anyone knows he grew up a human without knowing that they used alien space technology that would never be explained anyway to hide his furry complexion? Keith doesn't fully understand it himself, so it doesn't make a difference, anyway.]

Yeah, I was raised on Earth. I'm not sure if you've heard of it. [This sounds less judgmental and more like the verbal version of a shrug.] I'd say it depends on where you're from. We'd have more of a use for a place like this than most planets I've been to, but we took some of those places over anyway.

[It's like they treat solar systems like the're pokémon.]

[Val snorts.]

I was born in Manhattan.

[She sure doesn't look like she lives there anymore, what with the futuristic catsuit and all.]

It's probably not the same Earth. I'd have heard of the Galra if they existed in my universe.

[Time to see if he notices she's subtly excluding him from being a member of the Galra with that "they."]

[No, the exclusion doesn't occur to him. But then, if he had been defensive about it, wouldn't that have been obvious in its own way? Keith isn't being suspicious enough to think over every word out of her mouth—though he is suspicious for a different reason.]

Someone told me about the multiverse once. ["Once" in the regular calendar is two weeks ago, but it's a while ago for him.] I didn't really believe him then. Besides, we'd be able to take any Earth if we really wanted.

[With ... the technology in this place.]

[Enjoy Val not starting an argument over who'd win in a fight. This will be the only time it ever happens.]

You could assume I'm lying or crazy, granted. Either way, not much point in continuing to talk to me, is there? At least once I show you the library.

[She's still keeping it friendly and doesn't seem like she's trying to be rid of him.

It is very hard to have a fight with someone who refuses to ever take the bait. Sorry, Keith.]

Yeah, well, I could make you dig up important texts. You could be my minion.

[The Galra really should put together a handbook on how to be evil, because he's definitely failing.

He also doesn't know how outmatched his universe would be against pretty much any Marvel universe, but maybe Val and Loki can laugh about it one day.]

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EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

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