revivalproject | Strange Noises & Too Many Legs

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Strange Noises & Too Many Legs

WHO: Jon, Tony, Cal, Cayde & probably YOU? (some closed and an open prompt in here)
WHERE: Not!Library, Safehouse, Control Shed
WHAT: Giant spiders are invading the city and one Archivist doesn't have a good time.
WHEN: Spider Invasion Event thingie
WARNINGS: violence, injuries, idiocy, possibly huge spiders? No mothcats are being hurt.

Day 1 - Not!Library [ closed to Cal, later Tony ]

"Countess! S-stop it-- C-Countess!! I- OW!" Jon tries to duck from a set of clawed paws coming down on his head again, carried by a pair of fluttering wings before the winged feline with its long, feathered tail pushes away again with an agitated hiss and lands on the side of a nearby shelf, wings and feathers spread open wide while she hisses in a display of intimidation and fury. Jon looks up at the animal from where he has tried to crouch down in confusion, unsure what to make of the situation.

And he thought it would just be another, well... Day. But apparently the creature that has taken to live in the library as well has decided it doesn't agree with his presence or something. Haven't they been getting along just fine?

He carefully raises a hand towards the mothcat, attempting to calm her down again. "Look. I- I know you like to nap between these shelves, but I- W-well. Sometimes I have to walk between them? We both live he--AHHH!!" No, he doesn't even get to finish his sentence before the Countess pounces onto his hand and arm and sink claws as well as teeth into it viciously and tearing that scream of shock and pain from the Archivist.

Day 2 onward - Safehouse [ OPEN ]

When Jon wakes up, everything hurts. His head, his toes and everything between those parts. Heck, even his teeth hurt. It takes him a moment longer to realize another thing: He is alive. And that's the thought that really pushes itself into the foreground when he finally opens his eyes to figure out where exactly he is waking up.

The following days Jon remains at the safehouse. To recover and also gather information about what is going on, whether it be over the network by replying to people, or from those stepping by the safehouse themselves. Even though it quickly becomes obvious that its service is only really needed during the night. At the same time it's winter in Temba and the nights are clearly longer than the days and even the strongest among their group will need a night without having to deal with massive spiders every once in a while.

And so Jon will offer company for now. And maybe information. And maybe, maybe he can figure out what's the reason for all these spiders to suddenly attack the city...

Towards end of event - Control Shed [ closed to Tony & Cayde ]

It has been a quick audio message: 'I believe this is our fault. Has either of you noticed the countdown stopping? Meet me at the control room.'

Sending the message has been quicker than walking all the way back to the tower while still not fully recovered. Jon does his best to hide the limp, though, and he hopes they can get this fixed before it gets dark again and they end up getting attacked while stuck in that little shed that hardly offers any protection at all.

Jon makes a point to carefully avoid the nearby tower's area of effect when heading back to the hidden little building, pretty much expecting the other two to already be there by the time he arrives.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The suggestion that the animal might be in pain makes Jon cast a concerned look up and delays his response a few moments. Yet he still nods his agreement. "...yeah. That may be for the best for now."

He dislikes the notion of leaving the animal to potentially suffer, but their presence seems to upset her and there is a chance they can figure out more while not having to dodge her attacks. So with his attention on the mothcat as well, Jon backs away towards the exit, one hand up against Cal's shoulder for guidance, muttering, "I have never seen a cat act like this unprovoked. Also, thanks, Cal. I'm not sure she would have let me go if you had not shown up..."

"Wild animals are unpredictable. I've run into more than a few on the planets I've been to. Most of them were pretty hostile. This? It seems different. A reaction, maybe, but to what, I'm not sure," Cal frowns, eventually turning once they've gotten closer towards the door.

"Glad I got here when I did. I sensed your panic." He looks at Jon as they step outside. "You all right? She got a pretty good hold of you there."

"A reaction..." Jon echoes with one more thoughtful look back into the building. It certainly seems to fit with how upset the mothcat has appeared all of the sudden. "Maybe a scent... Or a sound." The Archivist offers, mostly since these are more things animals tend to react to. "I will check on her again later. Not unprepared this time, don't worry." A blanket may be useful...

Jon's attention returns to Cal for a moment, then drops down to his hand, which he turns before himself with a small sigh. Most of the scratches are already healing up again. "Yeah, I suppose I'll be fine. I heal quickly enough."

Cal nods thoughtfully at that. "Even before I found you two, I've just been having this...feeling that something's wrong." He shakes his head. "Be careful when you do. Even healing fast doesn't make things less painful."

He does have to arch a brow at Jon's hand when he glances at it. It's so strange to see how quickly the lines left by claws and teeth have begun to fade already.

Jon's attention is with Cal again, letting his hand fall to his side again. "I know. And I certainly don't look forward to the potentially painful part of checking on her. So... I will be careful. But- You say you feel like something is wrong?How? Can you explain- I mean-- I don't think we should ignore that."

At this point it's getting hard to keep any accidental compulsion out of his voice and words. Jon is familiar with similar feelings. Most of them regarding feeling watched, of course. But he has been picking up other things as well the longer he has been the Archivist. In many cases he can't put a finger to it, and right now he is debating if there is something going on he should be picking up on as well and simply has been too preoccupied so far.

There's a slight twitch to his brow before it furrows at the questions that spill forth, not that any such questions would be unexpected.

"It's like... Well, I explained the Force a bit, right? Sometimes there are things that just...cause ripples, disturbances. It might be easier to pick out here because usually it's pretty calm. Like that time when Altair had been angry, and even just now when you were in danger."

Cal casts a look around, as though to pinpoint the cause in the deceptively quiet surroundings. "Some kind of undefined tension, like something's just waiting to happen."

"You have spoken of the Force before, yes..." Jon says with a nod. "I believe I- I understand what you mean by these... Ripples. There were things, back home, that would have such an effect. Though those were all fear-related. I... Can pick up on the anxieties and apprehensions of beings. If something makes them uneasy. Which may only be tangentially comparable, but- I believe I get the idea."

He takes a moment to glance up and around, frowning a little. "So a tension, you say. Do you think that, maybe, this might be the brewing of an upcoming storm?" It's not unheard of animals picking up on such things much earlier than humans.

"Occurrences of that kind of nature are stronger to pick up on," Cal says, head tilting at the Archivist. He frowns a little as he nods, uncertain, but at the same time convinced something must be amiss.

"Possibly. Unfortunately I don't have much else to go on, but I think we'd better be on our guards- more so than usual," he suggests.

If there was a noise in the air that any of them could sense, it was soon drowned by the approaching murmur and eventual roar of propulsion, not unlike the sound of the gauntlet Jon had been using while he blasted away rubble in the halls of the building. The sound gathered swiftly, arcing rapidly from across the city and bouncing between the tall, hollow towers before cutting off abruptly overhead, punctuated by a loud thud and scrambling slide across the library rooftop.

From above, the sunlight glinted erratically off of their visitor as he vaulted over the edge of the roof to pitch straight down into the entranceway, just shy of where the two men stood, landing heavily enough to crack the already worn stone beneath him. As Iron Man straightened to his full height, gleaming silver from head to toe save for a single golden hand that had made this arrival much less easy to control than he was hoping, clutching a slick looking hilt, and a tear rending up his back that looked suspiciously like a swipe of very deadly claws, he glanced between them with a completely unreadable, unforgiving faceplate until he sighed, breathless and surprised, "Oh, good, I thought I was going to have to make another stop."

Jon gets about as far as to give a nod of agreement towards Cal when the noise picks up in the distance and quickly draws closer. The nod of agreement morphs into an expression of concern - Being on guard, indeed. And Jon is, indeed, about ready to start running, but then the figure starts to land rather than attack them and he catches sight of the unarmored hand.

His posture remains guarded, even when he opens his mouth to speak. But all that comes out is a baffled, "...Tony?"

Behind him, BD-1 twitters a warning at the incoming, and even as Jon looks ready to bolt, Cal's doing the opposite, tensing as though ready for a fight. Except this isn't some kind of security droid, and the sense he gets is vaguely familiar.

He blinks confusedly at the armored figure, and then again once the other speaks, and Jon's the one who voices as much as Cal had been about to say. "New outfit?" he offers instead, smiling crookedly.

He feels BD-1 bounce excitedly on his shoulder before jetting down to scramble over to the armored one's feet, circling like a hyper baby shark. It's when the droid lets out a bleep of concerned alarm that Cal
frowns, starting closer himself. "What happened? You're hurt?"

Waving his free hand in a gesture that suggested they should be at ease, Tony insisted, "Please. Don't address me directly when I'm in the suit." His expression was difficult to discern, but he tilted his head slightly at Cal's smile, his hand flipping up and hip cocking to welcome any sartorial admiration. It didn't last long, his head dropping and twisting over his shoulder to track BD with a strangely hollow chuckle, modulated and not quite Tony's in the mask, followed by a mechanical noise of concern of his own reflected back at the droid. "It's fine," Tony insisted so BD didn't freak, though what damage Catra had done to his back must have looked pretty bad for her to have broken skin. Tony had quickly shunted away the breach warning the suit was trying to give him.

"We do have a problem, though," he continued, head turning to glance between the two men, trying to pick where to start. "I think I might have driven Catra crazy," he decided, and must have known that wasn't enough because he twisted his hand again to try to elaborate, "Also, she's very fragile, did you know that? Can't take a hit, that one, uh, but she's fine, I think, still walking..." All of that evidently was enough context for Tony to brandish the lightsaber he had brought, or whatever object of destruction it was that he had made, for Cal to take.

BeeDee's alarmed beep and Cal's words have Jon stepping forward with a frown and around Tony, getting himself a look at what injury the droid may have spotted only to frown sternly up at the armored man, tone shifting from started surprise to a chiding huff. "Right. We will just address this ghost standing next to you and inform them that this wound should be treated - Or at the very least disinfected. If this gets infected you won't be having a great time!"

Jon keeps his berating short, though and looks back to Cal for a moment before concern yet again dominates his scowl. "...and you say Catra did this." It's not a question. He looks towards the door of the library while Tony hands over the weapon. "Cal just had to keep the Countess from tearing apart my arm."

There is a pause. And Jon's attention snaps back to the armor that doesn't want to be referred to as Tony, scowl back to scolding. "You hit Catra?!"

BD-1 scoots over for Jon with a pointed beep as he gives a most decidedly judging look in Tony's direction. That doesn't look fine!! He tweedles a reprimand and then beeps at Jon before popping a tiny cylindrical vial from the top of his head. Don't drop it Jon!

Cal nods at a glance from the droid before looking back at Tony as he tries to unpack everything that's been said, taking the saber hilt in hand. "You finished it," he says, allowing for at least a brief look of excitement. It's hard to temper everything when there's also the fact that Catra's apparently gone crazy and attacked Tony, and the look from Jon isn't missed, not with the coincidental timeline.

"What do you mean that you may have made her crazy?" he asks, looking over at Tony again, even as he turns the lightsaber in his hands. It's such a foreign feeling compared to the grip of the broken one his master had left him, but the weight is good, and the design sleek and functional. "Like Jon said, his mothcat friend has been acting very strangely today, and we're not sure why, save that it might be in reaction to something." But what is that something?

"Do you think I'm having a great time now?" Iron Man huffed back, still apparently incapable of taking Jon's fussing graciously, but at least had the problem of the lightsaber to quickly redirect to before Cal got too excited. Finished might not have been the exact state Tony would claim the thing was in, so he cautioned, "Yeah, not quite, something..." with a hand twisting in the air to produce the disappointment.

Jon's cat-like little roommate having a similarly touchy morning was unnerving, so Tony was going to have to find the words quickly because the effect he had produced had evidently spread much farther than he had anticipated. First, he had to quickly defend, "I only hit her a little bit, she was trying to kill me, I didn't have a lot of options, and, listen, I probably wouldn't have done it again, looking back on it, if we're being honest--" Okay, this was a waste of precious time. "She said something about a noise," he clarified instead. "It was really pissing her off, I didn't get it, I can't hear anything, but maybe it's like a dogwhistle--catwhistle. And I think maybe that thing did it, because as soon as I turned it on, my whole workshop lit up like Christmas." He was looking again toward the hilt in Cal's hands that he must have put together backwards.

Having stepped closer to inspect the wound, Jon looks down at the droid with a small nod of approval for BD-1 also having some words for Tony. Jon pauses for a moment at the appearance of the vial, but it's easy enough to figure out what it is the little robot is offering, earning himself a smile and a thankful nod form the Archivist.

"Don't move." He informs Tony gently while the man converses with Cal, keeping an ear on the exchange of words while lightly pressing one of his forearms and hand against Tony's back, just above where the scratches end. He takes a moment to find the most suitable spot and waits for a pause in any of Tony's shifting before quickly jabbing the flat top of the vial between the gash in the metal and against the wounded flesh beneath. The pressure releases a tiny needle within the top part of the vial and the injection itself takes less than a moment.

Jon still keeps an eye on and a hand on and on Tony's back while contemplating the new information. "...I didn't hear anything, either. But if that- That... Thing... If it caused a noise both Catra and the Countess reacted to..." And he lets this hanging in the air while considering his own words.

It's not a permanent solution but the injection is meant to be a quick fix on the field when you're nowhere near a proper medic. The initial pain would vanish and chase away most of the lingering pain from the wound sustained, detoxing and giving the body's natural defenses a needed boost to jumpstart the healing process. BD-1 beeps his approval of one less thing to worry about, given that what Tony tries to expound upon sounds like plenty of trouble on its own.

Cal frowns, studying the inactive saber in his hands. "I've been sensing something off since this morning, but I haven't been able to place it." He closes his eyes, trying to get a sense for the components and the crystal, its connections, housed within the metal casing. It's easy to feel the crystal, its faint pulse of power making it somehow easier to tap into the Force.

"...it seems like everything's connected right," he says as he opens his eyes and turns the saber to the side, away from his friends as his thumb rests on the activation switch. He looks at Jon, Tony and BD-1 before flicking the lightsaber on.

The timeline certainly lined up, and Cal having a certain sense for whatever this was made sense to Tony if it was his strange creation that was causing the problem, but why it would cause this particular cat-based problem was mystifying enough for Iron Man to be nodding thoughtfully, watching Cal with his hilt with one hand raised to his chin. He could sense Jon leaning against him, or whatever weird thing he was doing back there now, but was in no way prepared to be stabbed in his already tender cat-scratch, making him jump and complain, "Jesus Christ, boss, is it contagious, are you all going crazy?" He braced his hands behind his hips and tried to crane his neck over his shoulder as though he could stretch either way to check the damage as the diagnostic flashed up before his eyes, but besides being alarming and non-consensual, it didn't seem like Extremis wouldn't be playing nice with whatever this new foreign body was.

This grace did not extend to the concentrated power of the crystal. The gold that covered his exposed hand immediately retreated as Cal activated the lightsaber, slithering up his arm and out of sight, and the light obscuring his eyes in his mask flickered with strange static, making Tony squint against the overloaded HUD. "Yeah, I can see how this could be irritating," he reported.

Before Tony can move, Jon has the small injection device safely withdrawn and is keeping it out of potential harm's way just in case BD-1 needs it back. He looks over to Cal in time to see the young man turn the construction Tony has handed him on, the bright energy blade in itself being distracting enough even without Tony's armor to start... Glowing?

"What the..." Jon mutters, first taking a step back, then slowly circling back around Tony and to Cal, eyes stuck on the glowing man's form. "D-did your weapon do this, Cal...?" He asks, wondering, but also worried.

There's a surprised and maybe even half-gleeful squawk coming from the ground by Jon's feet as BD-1 bounces, his own little metal frame glowing, the status lights at the back of his head even brighter than usual. Cal looks between Tony and his droid buddy, startled.

"-it's not supposed to," the padawan insists, even as he watches the strange metal sheath that had coated Tony's hand start to recede. He looks at the lightsaber, giving it a slight turn this way and that. With his free hand he draws over a fist-sized rock from nearby, jerking it through the air with a twitch of his wrist, and he brings the brilliant light blade around to slice at it, severing the rock in two. Cal thumbs the weapon off again.

"It must be the crystal. It's from the caves by the beach, possibly the raw form of the rods the Agrii used to power things here."

While Cal tested his blade, Iron Man was twisting his gloved hand before his eyes, then looking down at the equally luminescent droid with a bobbing nod of potential approval for this trend they were setting. As long as it wasn't doing any lasting damage--and as the light beam retreated and Tony could check the diagnostics again, it didn't seem like that was the case--Tony didn't mind a little dazzle. It definitely wasn't the immediate problem to be solving.

"So, then--what, cats are allergic to them?" he said, hands out skeptically. The case wasn't helped by the strange effects from the lightsaber that Tony could perceive immediately halting the moment the blade was inactive. "Listen, Catra's still out there, and hurt, and--" He twisted toward Jon, who he thought he was coming here to talk to in the first place. "You've got my glove. It's hard to fly in this thing without it, if we're going to find her. And I was hoping, you know, the same way you pulled whatever that was out of Billy's head when he was freaking out, maybe you could..."

The little display of what that blade can do is impressive enough to leave Jon pensive and only glancing back over to Tony once the glow stops along with the weapon being deactivated. Huh. So that's obviously connected, but how could a technical device affect felines?

Jon has yet to find an answer by the time Tony asks for his glove, which leaves Jon to frown first, then look past the armored man and towards the entrance of the building behind him. "It's... In the basement." He says, remembering what waits between them and said basement. "As for Catra, I- I believe I can try? Though the bugs were parasites. We don't know yet how Cal's sword may be affecting her. If it is the sword..."

BD-1 seems slightly disappointed once the glowing ceases, but he shakes himself out before skittering back over to Cal, the padawan automatically leaning towards the little droid to offer him a hand up.

"If it's because of the power source then its effects should stop once it's not on, if it is," Cal surmises. He looks over the lightsaber, seeming reluctant to power it on again.

"You mentioned Catra said something about a noise? It would have to have a good range if it's affected both her and Countess. But once it's off it should have stopped, right?"

Jon's trepidation about retrieving the glove had Iron Man twisting toward the door, then turning his impassive faceplate back on Jon, barely saving him from the judgmental posture for being afraid of one animal. In the meantime, though, Cal was asking questions that Tony didn't really have an answer for, only empty hands that he opened apologetically. "If I had something that helped this make sense, I would have fixed it by now. What I know is, I turned that thing on, then Catra came stomping in telling me to turn it off, and tried to kill me. You do look incredibly cool, by the way, maybe that's a tradeoff we're willing to accept," he said, one hand twisting this tale before it landed with a point toward Jon. "Maybe you can get her to tell us why. I'm going to get my stuff." With that, he turned, heavy boots ringing against the stone as he made his way into the library.

That judgemental posture earns Tony little more than a stubborn little pout. If Jon were the one wearing some heavy armor, he would be less worried about heading back in there. But he isn't. He's wearing a simple, somewhat worn shirt sporting more than one set of claw marks.

"Be careful." Jon finds himself left to call out after the armored man. "And- Please try not to hurt my cat if she gives you trouble."

He then looks over to Cal and his attention drops down to the lightsaber in his hand. "You have mentioned being in those caves. So this is what you went there for... Do you think it's-" But he cuts off his own question to shake his head and sigh. "I mean. I suppose I will go to try and find Catra."

Strange Noises & Too Many Legs

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