"Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating..." (Part 4: The Best-Laid Plans)

[meat_mooks]

At some time during the night, while some were still sleeping, and some were awake and wandering around the hotel common rooms--a massive explosion rocked the hotel the group was staying in

Comments

[things_go_boom]

At the Doctor's last comment, Lash couldn't help but twitch a bit, knowing full well that the timelord would have found the place rather ransacked and devoid of food. That quickly passed as she returned to her first impression upon waking up here after initial confusion of how the heck she had even ended up in this situation; anger.

Lash had never been tied up before, and this was made worse but not knowing how they had done it in the first place. Her! Black Hole's Wunderkind! Tied up like an amateur. She hated being helpless and loathed that feeling with every fiber of her being. Lash kept trying to subtly get out of her bounds when Guy wasn't looking at her, and when he did, she looked like she'd try strangle him if she got the chance. You've had others pretend to be on your side and screw you before? Well if you tied them all up like this, no wonder they betrayed you, you dumb oaf!

Still, it was with a surprisingly amount of restraint when she spoke, knowing full well that there there only seemed to be a group of four of them here. Moreover, she had been a commanding officer on her homeworld. They'd been trained to resist interrogation against opposing fractions. Here it might be more of a neutrality, but she figured the same rule applied. Dick had already given most of what he needed to hear anyway. A way of showing good faith, maybe, but nothing that she wanted to do. And what did he mean by that history comment?

When Fawkes finally looked at her waiting for her to speak, she didn't drop her gaze.

"Lash," she replied back through grated teeth. "I'm an Ensign on the ship." Just enough information for him to get her rank, and nothing else. "The others better be safe."

Not that she cared or anything.

[i_am_the_bafo]

He was the strongest creature in the cosmos! The badass freaking Overlord! Escaping from these pathetic restraints would be nothing!

...if he had arms, damn it.

Well, they'd blocked his ability to Invite, which wasn't surprising, but they couldn't block his DEF stat from being awesome, so he wasn't particularly concerned.

"Huh, and here you all thought I was gonna be undiplomatic and cause an incident," he said to his colleagues.

To the guy who had the general opinion he was calling the shots, Zetta continued, "The name's Zetta. I'm the most badass freakin' Overlord in the cosmos. I'm going to be honest here. I am slightly less inclined to friendliness with you guys than I was before you kidnapped me. Out of curiosity, how did we end up being your top choices to sack-and-grab, and not the guys with the dollar coins in their foreheads who are probably the most likely to be on your side sight unseen?"

In a stunning feat of diplomatic maneuvering, the Overlord had NOT pointed out that he was on the government's side to begin with out of pure expedience.

[galilee_npcs]

Guy didn't lower the gun one centimeter, eyes narrowing.

"Your people. Who do you count as your people, Lt. Commander? You have people on your ship that are clones. You brought some of them here, and allowed them to be branded." He knew the truth, actually, that the branding had been unexpected by the entire group and not very well received, but he wanted to test their reactions to the accusation.

"We're not here to talk about Davin or cake, and I don't give two shits about how 'badass' you claim to be. The others are alive. All of them. And as for why we grabbed you, you're the influential ones. You should thank us for that, by the way." He rolled one shoulder, almost casually. "You'd be dead otherwise."

"Someone blew up the hotel you were staying in. Negotiations with the government not going so well?"

[goddamnwingman]

Getting angry wasn't going to help. Dick had his training to fall back on in that respect, at least.

"I didn't allow my crew mates to be branded," Dick said, narrowing his eyes slightly and unable to quite keep a growl out of it. "They were pulled aside, the same as other members of the crew at the same time. It didn't occur to me that any group was different from the others.

"It probably should have. But it didn't click until we learned more about this planet and the government."

Then the rest of it sunk in and Dick stared before his brain kicked in. "What's the casualty report like? Are our people safe? What of the others? The staff and other guests?" Another moment, then, "And how can we be certain that you weren't behind it? You talk about not trusting us, but you've not exactly given us reason to either trust or believe you, either."

Camille asked me for us to skip her for this turn

[things_go_boom]

Lash also had her training to fall back on, but HA HA HA keeping her cool wasn't how she usually reacted. Still she was marvelously calm (were you taking notes about her behavior, Dick), grating her teeth and looking more like an angry, wild animal that was all bark and no bite. When she spokes it was polite, well thought out and-

"Hey, HEY! News check for you, moron." Okay, none of those things, really. It hadn't taken too long for her to throw all her interrogation training out of the window, and just flare up at his words. "We actually asked what to expect before we went down on the planet and the details were kept vague to us as much as possible. They distracted us while they did the branding. What, did you honestly really think we'd be the type to waltz over here and let some of our crew be pissed off for no reason? Yeah if you thought that, you're just as stupid as you look. And I sure as hell am not going to thank someone like you for tying me up and hoping we'd be happy to join your cause, idiot. And one more thing-" she took a pause to catch her breath, her eyes narrowing even more at him. Somehow.

"-Dick's right. How do we know you didn't cause the explosion? Oh look at me, I'm Guy Fa-Fal--Fasomethingorother and I'm pointing a gun at a bunch of captives, twitching possibly thinking they'd be afraid of me. Man, it sure is a good reason because I'm hoping they'll all just suddenly want to join my cause and together we'll put down the government, give it to THE MAN, down with the system and then we can all be happy and free and bunnies."

Dick you could stop taking notes. Actually, just forget about this part, okay?

"You're just lucky I've been asked to be good on this trip." Idle threats that were probably not very truthful but heck if they didn't make HER feel better. That and knowing everyone was safe did keep her from continuing her stream of insults as she got quiet again.

"Your planet sucks."

Lash: the world's worst diplomat.

[i_am_the_bafo]

Zetta will just let Lash's venom hang there for a moment.

While he appreciated it.

"I'd like to state for the record that I didn't blow up a damn thing, and I'd like my freaking medal now," he said for general consumption. "Look, if you think this is the best way to win us 'influential' people over to the cause, you might want to, oh, I don't know, think? You're not preventing us from betraying you! You're just making it more likely to happen later! Our damn group spent I don't know HOW long yelling about people getting kidnapped and branded against their will, and now you think kidnapping MORE of us is somehow going to inspire us to put aside our differences of opinion and unite behind your glorious freaking banner of revolution?!"

Despite being restrained, the book could get amazingly animated while ranting.

"Either you extend some trust or you don't. Whether you do or you don't, you're wasting our time and yours with this whole Master Villain I Have You Now My Pretties routine."

[galilee_npcs]

A young man walked into the room. He had a scar and a scowl on his face.

Silently, he walked over, deftly removed the gun from Guy's hands, careful to point the muzzle away from the group as he did it in case he accidentally let off a shot, then proceeded to slap Guy upside the head.

"You! Are! An imbecile!"

Either this anger of his was real or he deserved an Oscar.

"Can you fire someone from a resistance? Is that allowed? Because if so, it's an option I'd like to explore. What were you thinking? I explained how our guests were to be treated, and I trusted you to handle this with some--some moderation for once!"

[galilee_npcs]

"What would we have to gain by killing any of you? By blowing up a hotel? Nothing. We-"

Guy was stopped by Moses grabbing his gun and slapping him. He rounded on the man immediately. "What the hell are you doing, Moses? You know what happened last time we were so trusting. You remember the ones that got killed. I'm not about to let that happen again."

[galilee_npcs]

"You're also not going to get them to listen to a word we say. And look at them. Look at who we're dealing with here, with these people. Superboy, Fate T. Harlaown, Gaignun Kukai Jr.--from classic clone media--Nightwing, even Power Rangers. They say anything's possible with the Bleed, that everything's real somewhere, and here some of them are in the flesh. Real. Real people. People that might help us or at least not harm us if we just talk to them."

[galilee_npcs]

Guy crossed his arms over his chest, "Might. We don't know for sure, and we can talk to them just fine like this. If they're really willing to even consider helping us, they should understand the safety precautions we have to take."

[galilee_npcs]

"Right, except for that part where all anyone understands when they're being held at gunpoint is that they might get shot."

[galilee_npcs]

Guy opened his mouth as if he was about to continue his argument, but then he closed it, and scowled. Moses had him there.

The expression on his face was a strange one. There was anger, yes, but a bit of sadness, and frustration. It was obvious from his bitter tone, when he did speak, that arguments were a very common thing between them.

"Alright, fine, we'll do it your way. I sure as hell hope you're right about them."

[galilee_npcs]

There was a similar expression on Moses' face. It hinted at the fact that they both didn't seem to want to be arguing with each other.

Moses turned to the captured party.

"My name is Moses, I'm the leader of this outfit, and as such, you have my deepest apologies for your treatment."

Slinging the gun over his shoulder so it was no longer pointed at them, he tapped a few keys on the controls, and suddenly they were free of the restraints.

"You were meant to be treated as guests here, but my lieutenant is...not the most trusting. And seems to think my orders are open to creative interpretation."

A rueful glare was directed Guy's way.

"I can answer any questions you have, but to answer the ones you asked as I was walking in: Casualty reports say two hotel guests dead, unfortunately--but none of them your crew. Either we have the rest--and they're fine, I just spoke with some of them and you'll get to after we've talked--or they were still back at the hotel and reported into the authorities alive. No, we didn't cause the explosion--we ported as many of you out as we could earlier than we planned to try to keep you from getting blown up as soon as we got wind of the attack from one our our contacts. The government did it, likely to try to kill some of you and turn the others against us. No, we can't prove it, because our only proof is that we know we didn't do it, and said contact who is one of our people, but they can't prove it was us, either. I'm hoping--somewhat desperately, at this point--that you'll believe me after we've talked for a bit and given our side of the story."

[ooc: Back to your regularly sheduled posting order, starting with Nightwing.]

[goddamnwingman]

The exchange was interesting and definitely told Dick some about how things worked here. It also made him unexpectedly homesick. Or, actually, Stacy-sick.

The moment the bonds were released, Dick got to his feet smoothly. "Actually, I'm reminded of one of my brothers." It seemed so much like some of his conversations with Jason back on the ship. "I think, if I'd allowed myself to hope and been betrayed as many times as you guys seem to have been, paranoia might be expected." He'd seen that chase of emotions a few times too many himself, after all.

He nodded at the casualty report, taking a breath. "I'd introduce myself, but you seem to already know quite a bit about our people. Including our stories, it would seem." He'd named 'classic clone media', after all. "I can only promise to hear you out myself, Moses. I won't make any promises for the others that you've brought here, however many that may be." Moses had said that they'd teleported as many as they could, after all. "Nor can I make any promise of aid."

Though he would like to. Dick's gut felt this was truer than what they had seen before from the council. But there was still a lot that they didn't know and he couldn't put the crew out there when so much was unknown as yet. "Could you bring us to the others?"

Tagging one action, out of order, because this had to happen. Don't mind me. :)

[i_am_the_bafo]

As soon as the restraints fell away, the book fell face-first to the floor with a heavy thud. After a moment of horrified indignity it began to flop ineffectually.

[makeherblue]

The Doctor reached over and righted the talking book...thing. Grumpy fella, wasn't he? He even dusted him off, how about that! Doing what he could to make sure he was comfortable -- however you were supposed to make a book comfortable in the first place was one of those new, interesting things -- the Doctor brushed himself off, fiddling with his bowtie and straightening it.

"Much better!" the Doctor held up his freed wrists.

This was generally how he liked it to go -- everyone keeping their heads (Fawkes aside), and there didn't really need to be ropes or dank underground caverns and okay, so maybe Moses here was still set on his cave, but at least they could see agree on the no ropes thing.

"Now," the Doctor said. He got to his feet and it wasn't quite like Dick -- it was a bit more wobbly, all knobby knees and legs. He adjusted his jacket and glanced over at Dick. Dick, it seemed, was proving himself to be a reasonable human and not in the Rory Williams Leadsworth-y way, either. The Doctor could see why he'd taken it upon himself to speak for the group, a small smile crossing his face. "He's right. Listening, we can do that. Have a listen, work from there. Possibly come up with a Thing."