revivalproject

Entry tags:

Shock

WHO: Tony, Cayde, Jan, Cap
WHERE: In the Tembubble
WHAT: Tony's trying to fix some cameras, but keeps running into curiosities
WHEN: During the mermay event
WARNINGS: Everyone being fish-people and potentially doing offputting creature things.

A natural affinity for electric currents didn't always translate to reliable craftsmanship. Only one camera in the city square remained alert, watching Tony curiously as he held one of its brethren, perched together on the roof of the hotel where they were close to the sun and could overlook the gently sifting sand below. DATA bubbled occasionally with a burst of jetstream to keep himself stable, but Tony's windingly long tail draped down the facade of the building to twine into the open windows and root him while he worked. It was so smooth and matte black that it could have disappeared into the covered murk inside, but for the occasional spark that arced across it while Tony concentrated, casting small glints into the darkened rooms below. That leathery hide spreading up his body only made the tail look dangerously longer yet, snakelike even on his arms up to his elbows like he had been dipped in ink. Only flecks of yellow on his palms and the softest slope of his belly broke up that subtle colour, and the scars that stood out on his scalpel delicate hands. They were mostly faded burns and nicks, and none so starkly white as the perfect rings around several of his sharp fingers. Probably because he used them to work his way into the broken camera, forgoing any more cumbersome tools, and barely flinched when the device sparked and left the water smelling burnt. He had clearly taken more care with his unblemished tail, maybe thanks to the sheer ripple of his single, silken fin that traced a sensitive line straight down his front to his pointed tip. Even a bubble breaking from between the brickwork near it had his tail flinching away to loop again restlessly. His only scales were as synthetic as the broken camera, flashing gold covering him from chest to jaw, the edges precise, minuscule hexagons where the nanoweb blended along his skin.

"This one's fried," he murmured to DATA, who dutifully recorded the state of the final camera in the area. "The glass needs to be recast, too, just like the others. Can probably salvage the case, but..." He had ejected a computer chip, warped to itself like the device had overclocked and burst from the inside out. This was going to take some time, and the glass was going to take the forge which--...Donnie wasn't there anymore. Tony pursed his lips, the room below lighting up in a pop like a camera flash, and leaned over DATA with a gentle brush over its top like Tony was stroking his head with a free hand. "Guess that's not a problem," he mumbled, to the blank stare of the robot.

a. the outpost [cayde??]
A lobster clung to the side of the tower from which Echo had once set himself to guard over this city. As it slowly lifted a pointed leg to lodge into the next stone, so did DATA, and they watched each other intently in their measured, sideways ascent. Inside, in the cooler water and only the sunlight lingering by the windows to see by, Tony turned slowly in place, floating bonelessly. He hadn't made it to the forge. He could see it easily as he swam overhead, feeling dread slowly tighten around his heart. Glancing down at the outpost made that dread feel like a stone, dragging him down and impossible to get his arms around. He might have stayed there in the sand, until he found he was staring at the curious line held taut between the outpost and the clock tower, and frowned. It was enough to send him swimming inside, slowly making his way up the way his robot did on the exterior, and was distracted once more as he found the remnants of a cozy corner long abandoned. He had to shake himself back into focus, and by the time he finally made it to where that line was mounted into the wall, he was holding a limp, hurriedly stitched stuffed animal, its tiny limbs bright blooms of colour drifting from between his black fingers. With the other hand, he strummed curiously on the wire, watching the vibration ripple and letting his gaze roll across to the clock tower like he could see that turbulence cross the open stretch of water.

b. a much deeper pool [jan???]
The forge would have to wait. A later project, further along in the schedule. It would be pointless, after all, to do all of that work without solving the cause of the disruption. Talking directly to Billy was out of the question, too; a distraction really, and he didn't deserve to feel interrogated, he needed some time. No, Tony would have to go to where he understood the source was. Even several feet above the wide, black mouth of the mine, the water was cold. He stared down into it, waiting for movement, and starting to shiver, expecting tentacles to unfurl from the rocky sides, pull him in, hold him down until the sun was a pinhole high above him. He went darting back to the ledge of the hole, where a sticky residue remained, staining the rock in drips and keeping him circling it to avoid touching the discoloration. It had been intended to keep the threat contained, he vaguely recalled. That didn't explain the pitons he found driven into the stone, both on the ground and barely hidden by the sand, and the wall inside the pit. He had to dig his fingers into the ground to try to work one free, throwing bolts of static into the water around him while he hauled up on the rusting metal. At the edge of the pit, a pair of funfronds floated up out of the darkness, watching curiously and flipping energetically at each other.

c. the civic centre [steve???]
Tony's tail was a black banner, ribboning through the water over the roofs of Temba for DATA to track and try his best to scuttle after through the purple streets. Tony swam with the piton clutched in one hand, looking like he moved with confident aim, and feeling entirely the opposite. Who was he supposed to ask? If Jon knew what it was doing out there by the mine, would he think Tony had just been out looking for an excuse to talk to him? Was Tony out looking for an excuse to talk to him? In that case, he should have been collecting flowers, about ten hours ago to accumulate a bouquet that neared big enough to justify himself. He slowed over the greenhouse, peering down through the glass and feeling reluctant to go inside even if it would help make up for the lost time. Cutting any flowers from there had felt like a violation ever since Lauri-Ell had been so gently intent on correcting the one time he had made that mistake. In his minds eye, she practically glowed, blue skin that should have melted into the water instead shining like the colours vibrated in conflict. Tony's focus darted toward the civic centre then, only for his brow to furrow with a new question, that strange image of Lauri-Ell fading. The answers weren't any more forthcoming the closer he got, and still nothing as he sank into the strange bowl of the pool on the roof of the centre. It was half filled with purple sand, and teeming with lobsters, more secure up here than on the ground, but it didn't exactly look like a lobster sanctuary. Tony's free hand and a loop of his tail wound around a ladder bolted to its side. To help the lobsters? One of them pushed up from the sand and helicoptered its way out of the depth of the pool, onto the roof, as if to prove otherwise.

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"I'll keep 'em off you, how bout that, Sweetheart?" she teased lightly, swimming round to press a kiss to his cheek and then darted off, shrinking down to explore a curious series of holes in far whole.

The tunnels she found we definitely home to the bugs, some debris and dried out husks of its former residence littering the space, and startling her enough to make her yelp, hidden away in the wall where Tony couldn't actually help.

The kiss only kept Tony's anxious frown at bay for a moment, up until Jan was out of sight and he had to feel his way long the wall where she had disappeared, winking one eye shut to try to see into the burrowing holes. He would rather not have come this far into the cave at all, it was dark and cold and now he felt very alone. When she cried out, he was pressing both hands against the wall like he might break through himself, flicking his tail all along it to find another route around as he demanded, "I take it back, you can make friends, don't be dying in there!"

"I'm not dying!" she called back, straining briefly to navigate the corpse back through the tunnels. "This one's dead though, so don't freak-" Jan warned, hauling it out, and returning to her usual size, holding the bug out for Tony to confirm or deny she'd found what they were looking for.

"It looked pretty abandoned in there, but they might have just moved deeper?"

There couldn't be enough warning for Tony to not recoil, both hands up and tight to his chest with his fingers curled into delicate claws, lip raised in a scowl at the sight of that thing. Even then, when he risked lifting his chin to give it a cursory examination, he had to admit, "Bit smaller than I remember..." It was possible the bugs were exaggerated in his memory, though he didn't need them to be any more heinous than the thing Jan should have been more bothered by touching. Maybe it wasn't a corpse, exactly. And looking at it was not inspiring Tony to press on; he had to take a steadying breath, which only went out of him like a deflating balloon as he nodded and readied himself to take on the darker depths. "We should make sure," he had to acknowledge. "Can't leave them down here if they are." As he moved down the tunnel, he strained to hear their shuffling over the crackle of his current bouncing off of the wall, illuminating their progress in short pulses.

The recoil prompted an apologetic (and slightly amused) smile from Jan. "Maybe it's a baby," she said, even as she carelessly dropped the thing, not wanting to hold it any longer than necessary now that they had confirmation.

"Or maybe it's like one of those leeches?" she posed, swimming after him and dusting off her hands, like it could purge them of the essence of that thing.

Tony must have been very distracted by his hunt for the last thing he wanted to see, because he could only answer, "Leeches...?" He was sure he could hear something now, though, making him stop and go dim to listen, and only hear the echo of the water deeper in the tunnel. When he slithered further ahead, sliding his tail along the wall to send sparks up the stone, he was sure it was there again, and he held his breath this time.

"They get bigger don't they? When they suck up your blood?" she started, but broke off at Tony's sudden push for silence.

She waited a beat, ears straining to hear whatever it was that had Tony spooked.

"...What is it?" she whispered abruptly, far too close to Tony's ear.

Straining to hear made the sudden noise right in Tony's ear startle him into a yelp, and he was flattened against the wall with his hands clutched over his heart before he had even processed that those were words and not the chattering of a bug. "Are you trying to kill me? I have a heart problem, this is ridiculous," he accused, as though that could possibly justify his girly panic.

Eyes wide, Jan held up her hands in surrender, stifling a laugh with her knuckles and apologetically shaking her head.

She pointedly drew her fingers across her lips, 'zipping' them shut. Though a moment later she couldn't help but interject again with- "Shutting up."

Zipping, good, they were listening, and Tony unpeeled his hands from his heart to signal that everyone keep still while he cocked his head and could faintly hear--Jan talking again. Immediately in return, he was hissing, "That's not shutting up, that's explicitly still talking, they're going to hear us well before we can hear any of them," and would have committed to a whispered slap fight on the spot like they were back in the overdressed corridor of an event hall standing over a broken vase with their parents shaking hands in the next room. Neither of their parents ever managed to sneak up on them and pinch the end of Tony's tail, though. Very suddenly and in quick succession, Tony was squeaking again, whipping his tail against the wall to knock whatever had grabbed it loose, and discharging a crackle of energy that lit up the dark cavern in a camera flash that revealed at least a dozen creatures clinging to the walls and ceiling, staring intently.

"Well you're not shutting up either. You're talking just as much-" Jan argued in her own hiss, talking over him in a familiar bickering until that squeak ad jolt snapped her out of it.

Her fins flared out in alarm, and she tried to place a protective arm in front of Tony, bickering immediately forgotten.

"...those aren't bugs," she whispered out of the side of her mouth, and then shrieked as that broke the starring spell, tugging Tony into a sprinting pace as the creatures began coming after them en masse.

Every flash of electricity felt like a warning that one of those things that lived in the dark had gotten to close as Tony grew hot with the charge in his panic and it jumped to every near surface. At first, Jan was dragging him, faster to jump to action, then Tony was pushing with his shoulder against her with his stronger tail propelling them powerfully with a wake that was trapped in the claustrophobic tunnel starting to shake the stones loose. The jostling pressure didn't do much to discourage the crawling things. They must have been hungry, Tony thought, only making his own stinging electricity surge against Jan's back.

She might have been built to take a sting but it still felt strange. It was the least of her worries for the moment at least, gritting her teeth and shooting stings blindly behind them.

"What the fuck aaaaare they?" she panted, ready to go back in time and take it all back. She could be quiet. She could.

Something grabbed her fin and Jan yelped, the space growing suddenly claustrophobic as she went big.

These definitely weren't the beetles that Tony had encountered down here before, so he could only wail back at Jan, "I don't know!" Maybe they could have found out in a methodical and rational way, if they hadn't been swarmed, and Tony wasn't suddenly being shoved back the way they had come and closer to those pinching claws as Jan expanded. The sudden change in the water pressure deafened Tony to his own plea, "Stop, stop!," but he had already twisted around by then to brace his flat back against the much more unwieldy mass of Jan to keep pushing with his tail lashing an electric storm of bubbles.

The large mass was suddenly gone as Jan shrunk back down with a panicked variant on a sheepish expression.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry-" she panted as the pair of them tumbled forward...or up...away, that was the important direction, away from their pursuers.

She shot a few of her stings towards the walls, rock crumbling and stopping a few of them in their tracks.

They came bursting out into the open void of the hole drilled down into the earth, where it suddenly seemed to bright at this depth after the close darkness of the tunnel. Tony had plenty of room then to twist back around, circling an arm around Jan's waist to let her keep firing over his shoulder as he launched them up and out and away from the nest they had disturbed.

Eyes squeezed shut against the sudden brightness, Jan fired blindly, trusting Tony to get them away from whatever they'd woken up down there.

Whatever they were, they didn't seem to like the light, cowering back and reluctantly giving up on their meals with angry screeching sounds echoing after them.

"...We should just seal that place up." Clearly nothing good lived in that place.

The sound was still unnerving, making Tony throw a cautious look back to make sure they really weren't being pursued. Seeing a few of the creatures retreat and lurk angrily at the edge of their dark hole wasn't encouraging enough for him to stop until they were well clear of the mine itself and skimming across the patchy weeds and grasses of the untended, open field. "Yeah, sure, I'll make some calls," he was saying while he swam, "get that hole thing filled in, not a problem." Maybe that really was what the pitons were for after all. Someone else had already been down there. When he did finally slow, it was with a twist in the water to face back the way they had come, and shift on his hold around Jan to let her slide down into a cradle so Tony could raise his eyebrows at her inquisitively. She didn't look too much worse for wear.

Once things slowed down and the danger was...mostly gone, Jan laughed, still thrumming with adrenaline, and she grinned at Tony before swimming around him in a few laps.

"That was not what I was expecting down there," she said, finally slowing to give Tony a hug and a once over, examining his tail with scrutiny and little mind for personal space. "They didn't hurt you, did they?

"Me, neither," he agreed, glad to stop anxiously watching her do her laps to gather her close again, not terribly eager to reclaim that personal space even in the expanse of the empty field, leaving sparks jumping between them wherever his fingers alighted restlessly. With his tail curled up where both of them could see, it didn't look like it had been too badly abused, at least with any broken skin. If the first good pinch they got on him did any damage, the bruise was going to be hard to see under the black skin. "Of course not, good as new," he insisted, and was quick to jump back to, "I'll see what I can do about covering it. Those things might get bold about coming out at night."

Hugging him tight, the crackling tickled more than anything, making her shiver and flutter her fins. The concerned look she leveled him with said she didn't believe the bravado, eyeing his tail with a frown.

"Wonder why the never have...?" It seemed strange. They didn't like the light, but apart from that...she would have expected to see swarms of the things hunting at night.

That was a difficult question to answer, not the least of which because animal behaviour was not Tony's area, so he wasn't very confident as he proposed, "Maybe they had enough to eat down there, making their way through the bugs I thought we were going to find. Or they do come out, they just head for the woods, there's more there to eat than the ten people in town." If either of those were true, it did feel like there was less of a problem to solve, and Tony maybe could sleep tonight without worrying about what was coming crawling out of the dark.

"That would explain the lack of bugs." Both theories were good, and neither Avenger really wanted to dwell on the possibility that those things would come crawling out after them.

"Any of the Peters leave behind some of their webfluid? That might work as a sort of net until we can figure something more permanent out?"

Edited 2024-06-05 16:58 (UTC)

Tony was touching his nose, then Jan's for the fantastic idea before any of the potential ways this could go horribly wrong could occur to him. Having a clear direction was enough to get him back up in the open water, ready to dart away with the promise, "I'll check their stuff. Even if there's a little bit, I can probably give it to Jon, he'll figure out how to make more."

"Can he do that?" Jan didn't actually know Jon's background of expertise, so if Tony was ready to swim off all excitedly, he probably could.

"I'll um- I'll make sure none of them come out in the mean time. You know...any super brave ones or whatever."

(no subject)

in_extremis - 2024-06-07 18:47 (UTC) - Expand

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