ic There Will Be Bees (IC, open)

[Tiffany Korta]

Bee

Melissa didn’t know what to expect from the lightening but this really wasn’t it in the slightest, she so wanted to spend a few moments trying to figure out how this piece of technological art work but people and giant bee’s were in danger.

 

“Get that thing out of the hive and contract the adults, I’ll try and buy us some time.”

 

With that she flew in front of the, mecha, robot, something else? And returned to her normal size, she then retracted her helmet (thankful her uncle had added the feature) hoping her appearance might cause it to pause for a few moments.

 

“Hello there and welcome to the Hive, I think there might be a misunderstand here? Maybe we can help you sort it all out?”

[Avenger Assembled]

Marcus blinked a few times, and said, "Ah." He stared off into space for a moment, and seemed to quote "'Thus violent deeds live after men upon the earth, and traces of war and bloodshed will survive in mournful shapes long after those who worked the desolation are but atoms of earth themselves."' He shook his head. "My...sainted mother forbade me to enlist, but I tended to the wounded at the Army hospital here in Freedom. I can believe we would make a war upon ourselves that would lead to our destruction, with or without the aid of beings from another world..." 

 

[quote]Her skills were on full display right now; the entire log wall behind her seemed to be attempting to come back to life. Besides the flowers and mushrooms, there were even a couple small leafy branches beginning to poke out of knots in the wood.[/quote]

 

"Is that..." He blinked, looking past Stesha, and said, "Do you see that too?" he asked, his face going white. "I saw such rapid plant growth...in the time sphere, but if I am seeing it now...?" 

[Fox]

Tarrant turned his head to look at the wall, eyebrows up in appreciation. "Don't worry, Marcus," he said, turning back with a chuckle, "you can trust your eyes there, and I promise it's normal, for a very given definition of 'normal'. I think she's about the only person I know who might have to trim her own house."

 

He reached into one of his pockets, pulling out a small piece of granite. He liked granite; hard, durable, and humble. "It's what I mentioned earlier," he said, bidding the small rock to lift off his open palm; it hung there for a moment, orbiting some unseen point, before gently reforming into a tiny replica of a familiar university - or, at least, the institute that once was. "It turns out that the universe - or, at least, the one we know, the one we came from - can be stranger than fiction."

 

He caught the little stone miniature and set it gently down on the table. "It's probably too late to ask, but I promise it's nothing to worry about. You already had so much to deal with; we didn't want to overwhelm you."

[TheAbsurdist]

Zenith's attention was drawn, as one could be expected to be, towards the massive robot, and she raced after Bee(atrice, was that her name? No, but that was playing in her head complete with laugh track). "_{Of course our humanitarian efforts are snarled by giant robots. I hate it when he is right!}" She grumbled to herself as she arrived next to Melissa, her hands up, bent at the shoulders and showing them to be empty, hoping a universal display of that wasn't aggressive to the friggin' Voltron before her.

"Hey, hey, yeah we're friendly! We're just fixing the mess. I like kitties." Even as she was focusing her efforts on the wall she'd to build a wall between the Battlezord and them, or just encase it.

[Avenger Assembled]

The lion mech seemed briefly indecisive, its head swiveling back and forth, though the weapon aimed at the time machine and the teens around it never lowered. In a sonorous mechanical voice, half-audible over the sound of a clanking engine from within, it declared "WHERE IS THE TRAVELER!?" 

 

Meanwhile, said traveler stared at Tarrant, then at Stesha, and said, "Well. Well. This is. This is just how the world is now, is it? Plants just...just growing everywhere, and dancing rocks. Why not? Why should these things not happen," he asked the universe in general, "when so many other things already have?"

 

He put his hands to the side of his head and asked, "Do you...happen to still have laudanum? Or at least something stronger than coffee if you catch my meaning?" 

 

Just then, Stesha and Tarrant's alarms both chimed; something was going on with the teenagers out by the hive that required their attention. 

[Electra]

Stesha turned at Marcus's questions and frowned at the wall sprouting behind her. Immediately the wild growth began to calm, the new growth shrinking back as though abashed to have been noticed. Rubbing one hand lightly over her stomach, she returned her attention to the time-traveler. "It doesn't happen in every world," she told Marcus. "In our world, the superheroes didn't really begin to show up in great numbers until the early 1900s, but there were a few before that, back thousands of years. It's possible that your world may not have superpowered people, or their superpowers may look different. Here, though, there are many different kinds of powers, though only a relatively tiny portion of the population has them." 

 

Her explanation was derailed by the beep of her communicator. "Uh-oh," she murmured, glancing at Tarrant. "I think we'd better go see what the kids are up to. Would you prefer to stay here," she asked Marcus, "or do you want to come with us? The means of travel will be strange to you." 

[Gizmo]

"Oh wow, now that is a design aesthetic!" Chitin enthused, hands on his hips as he looked up at the towering robot from beside Wainwright's time machine. Heeding Bee's words he guilelessly waved Horrowshow and Paper over to help extricating the contraction from the hive. The window for carefully examination seemed to have passed them by and the priority was moving things away from anyone's home, giant bees included.

 

Looking back to their unexpected visitor he called, "Hey pal! Appreciate you being willing to kinda deescalate and talk things out! I'm just a little bug themed armour guy, you're a big cat themed robot person, this is good! This is definitely cool!" He took a few steps to one side, not getting any closer to the mechanoid but watching to see if its weapon moved to follow him or stayed trained on the time machine. "Listen, though, before you go running off after anybody, do you know where you are? Or, like, when you are? It seems like there's a lot of room for confusion here and I'd feel better if I knew we were all on the same page, yeah?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Is it a dirigible?" asked Marcus hopefully. "Or one of Mr. Cayley's..." He looked from Stesha to Tarrant, then shook his head. "No, I don't suppose it is, is it? The world is so very big, isn't it...well. If there is some crisis with my machine, it is my responsibility to help in its repairs." He blinked, then focused on the communicator while the others were getting ready to go. "Is that a wireless telegraph? Amazing! How does it work?" 

 

- 

 

Up above Super-Bee had flown up to summon a swarm of her sisters and cousins, one that was relatively few in number but was thick enough to cast shadows below. There would still be trouble brewing if there was no further descalation. 

"THE TRAVELER CAME HERE!" declared the lion-mech, pointing in the direction of the time machine. "THAT IS HIS MACHINE! DOES HE LIVE?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HIM, AND WHAT ARE THOSE MONSTROUS BEES?" There was a strange series of muffled noises inside the machine, as if an argument was taking place, and then the machine spoke again, this time with a distinctly deeper tone that sounded as if another person was talking. 

 

"WE KNOW THIS IS OUR FUTURE. WE HAVE COME FOR WHAT IS OURS. <And as for you, sister, magnificent, though you may be our foe! Does our reach spread so far?>" 

[Fox]

"Full voice transmission," supplied Tarrant, pleased to see Marcus a bit more up-beat, "transmitted through the air on a frequency we can't see or hear without a paired device to receive it. Not a sound frequency, though - more like light. It's a little complicated to explain." He was already on his feet, grabbing his sword off the back of his chair. "Pure technology, too - I don't know if your scientific progress will track with ours, but if it does you're maybe a decade or two off from the underlying principles, if that. Ours are fairly cutting-edge, very small and secure and all that, but the underlying idea has been going strong for a century and more. And, speaking of..."

 

He held a hand to his ear for a moment, scanning what horizon was visible. "T, if you're near the hives, it couldn't hurt to get some backup. We'll be there shortly."

[Dr Archeville]

Horrorshow

 

While Davyd had not gained many of the psychic abilities of a Grue, he did have the potential for it, which Ms Grue had been helping him tap into.  First was communicating with animals, which he'd put to good use earlier while helping on the dairy farm.  But he'd eventually figured out how to communicate with any intelligent being.  Not true telepathy, but more like an instant translator, working around the limits of spoken language to get to the true intent of a speaker's words. 

 

And so, as a giant red-and-black striped bee flew towards the Professor's time machine, it did so knowing the last bit of what (one of) the pilots of the giant mech announced.  They think Bee might be one of them?  That could be useful!

 

HorrorBee turned from the machine and flew to Bee's side, and bowed slightly to her.  "Mizztrezz, they addrezz you in the Queen'zz tongue.  Are theez are your brotherzz?"

 

[Gizmo]

"Dav, you gotta stop giving time travellers anxiety like this," Chitin pleaded under his breath as his classmate buzzed closer in his newest form. If nothing else, though, the ruse bought a bit of time for him to split his attention monitoring the video feeds coming from Magenta, Yellow and Black as they surreptitiously breached the towering lion robot's exterior. Yellow lifted Black up to a gap near the thing's left knee joint, where the beetle used his horn to pry back the plating enough for Magenta to scuttle inside, slashing away with her forelimbs as needed.

 

Confirming that there were pilots inside rather than an autonomous intelligence was a good start; in a way he felt like he was looking at the conceptual ancestor of his own armour. It didn't look like it would be very hard to upset the balance of steam engine and dynamos but he wasn't so sure he could do so without endangering the people within. He was happier to talk than wreck somebody's hard work anyway.

 

"Do the three of you want to come on out to talk?" the teen engineer called, clear in his emphasis. "Even with those very fancy chairs it seems like it'd be pretty hot and uncomfortable in there, yeah? This really doesn't have to be like a whole thing!" He gave the archaic mech a pair of reassuring thumbs up.

[Spacefurry]

Leon chuckled as Brobee tried to help, spilling more honey on itself, until suddenly the ripple of lightning started acting up. From the lightning ‘door’ emerged a walking bus of a robot and Leon had a bad feeling about it. A feeling he felt confirmed when the noisy mechanized humanoid leveled an open palm at the small gathering around the time machine.

Paper had seen enough old sci-fi movies and reacted almost instinctively. He didn’t have much loose paper on him, but it would have to be enough. He pulled a hand full of loose index-sized sheets from his pockets and they stiffened under his power, gaining razor sharp edges. He was tensed to throw them when the bee girl, Melissa he thought her name was, flew out to talk to it, followed by the other girl he didn’t know.

“Damn it!” He thought. “They’re gonna get squished!” Leon pulled his arm back to throw but stopped in surprise. The thing actually started talking back.

Paper lowered his hand, but kept the papers ready as it seemed to not be as hostile as he had first assumed. He kinda suspected Davyd was a little… off, but he gave Ryder the side eye as he seemed to be taking this all in way too jovial a manner. Maybe talking to all those bugs too long had given him a complex as well.

When a new voice piped up from the mecha stepped forward and raised his own voice. “If you’re looking for the Jules Verne reject, he’s with a couple of the adults. But before we tell you where, how bout you tell us why you’re so keen on findin him? In fact, How bout you step out of the tin can and we do this face to face?”

[Tiffany Korta]

Bee

Melissa wasn’t as charming or as good with words as some here, but she (almost) always told the truth of things.

 

“We want to try and solve this peacefully, and we’re willing to discuss options. If it’s about the Daka crystal we’re more than happy to make sure that its to returned to Dakana.” it was weird to be the adult in the hive, but she was happy to step up as needed.

 

“Besides this is there home and I don’t think it’s fair to damage the place for a fight that's nothing to do with them.” true to her name she was concerned about the bee’s, a family legacy after all.

[Avenger Assembled]

The giant armor's expression was hard to read, since the lion-headed Victorian creation didn't have one. Instead it seemed to swivel its head around somewhat jerkily, limbs moving back and forth. Inside, Chitin could see what was indeed a heated argument between the occupants, one that came to an end only when the woman in the pilot's seat finally threw up her hands, rose from her seat at the controls, shoved aside her countryman, and took the microphone. 

 

Now a new voice sounded from the mech: 
 

ONE OF US WILL COME! 

 

It was neither the pilot nor the woman in safari dress (who protested this vigorously, even as she took up what appeared to be a Victorian rifle covered in copper tubing) who emerged from the craft, but the Dakanan man, his head and torso emerging from a cunningly concealed opening inside the lion's head. He peered at the assembled young heroes, the giant bees, and all around. 

 

In accented English, he called out "Gentlefolk and great insects! Is this the Christian year 2021, and is this the former site that the Americans once called Freedom City? We are seeking an eccentric inventor and a large quantity of daka crystals, both misplaced here from the year 1871!" He was speaking slowly and clearly, and obviously addressing Bee in particular. "If you have them, please bring them here. My partner and I would prefer to bargain with you but our fair-skinned companion below has waited some time to see her..." He looked down, seemed to have a conversation with someone they couldn't see, and added with the air of someone who had been told something firmly, "business associate! I fear she is somewhat more fiery in her disposition than we!" 
 

[Electra]

"Let's get a move on." With her utility belt slung over one arm like a purse, Stesha waved at the only-slightly-cowed wall of flowers. They obediently rearranged themselves into an archway that began glowing with a faint green light and emitting the smell of cut grass. She waved the two men forward ahead of her, and a brief rush of greenness later, they were all stepping out of the stem of a flower the height of an apartment building. It was clear there was a confrontation brewing, with machines, robots, robot bees, regular bees, strange humans and the teenage students all either facing up or flitting around madly, but it was hard to tell who was menacing whom.  For the moment, at least, nobody had thrown any punches. 

 

They had arrived just in time to hear the man make his speech. "There's no need for threats," she called up to him, her voice calm but laced with disapproval. "Marcus has been treated like a guest, despite the damage he did and the continued damage you are doing to a peaceful beehive. We don't want to keep him or you, but you're also not going to be allowed to scare the bees and children whose safety we are responsible for. I'm Fleur de Joie, this is Gaian Knight, and you know Marcus. Who are you?" 

[Avenger Assembled]

"My, ah, Christian name is Joseph," said the man with his head sticking out of the mech, "and we seek-say, is that-" 

 

There was the distinct sound of movement from inside the mech, and suddenly a door in the front of the left leg slid open. A woman in brightly colored safari gear, a copper-wrapped rifle over her shoulder stepped outside, took one look at Fleur, Gaian Knight, and their passenger - and declared "MARCUS!" 

 

"Louisa?" asked Marcus, who had gone from blank-faced bafflement at Fleur's teleport to a pleasantly surprised recognition. "Is that-" Not waiting for him to finish, Louisa had simply run across the field to take him in her arms, weeping. 

"Marcus! Oh, my God...you're alive!" She embraced him wordlessly, burying her face in his chest. Blushing, shooting a reflexive, startled look at Fleur and Gaian Knight, Marcus put his arms around the woman. 

 

"Ssh, d-er, Louisa, my dear, it has only been a few hours since I told you of my plans, you did not need to-" He blinked, staring up at the mech, and evidently did some math. "My God. How long has it been?" 

 

She looked at him, an ocean of pain in her voice, and said "It's been three years, Marcus."  At that he reeled backwards, looking as if he might faint dead away at any moment. 

 

-

 

Back in the mech, the teens and their adult escort could distinctly hear Joseph call down inside the machine, too distantly for Louisa to hear. "Well how about that! I was sure he was dead!" When his head popped back up, he too climbed out of the machine and began climbing down its side. 

 

"So this is the future! Things certainly have changed in 150 years!" He looked up at the circling bees for a moment, then headed over to join the group on the ground. "You'll pardon my sister if she stays close to the controls; she engineered this device behind us and has Bast's pride in the whole affair. Joseph Mandela," he added, crossing his arms in front of his chest and bowing. "Say are you magic?" he inquired. "I had heard the Christians still use such things. It would explain the bees!" he added. 

[Fox]

"We're not all one thing or another," said the Gaian Knight, chuckling. "A famous author once said that 'sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic', and that honestly holds true in any time I've seen or heard of...but there is some magic about, if we're honest."

 

He did not look up, but he did point up, just in time for a great shadow to pass across the ground - a very dragon-shaped shadow, cast by a very dragon-shaped creature flying high overhead.

 

"We sincerely hope you got as warm and friendly a welcome as possible, given the circumstances. It's awfully easy to get carried away when dealing with...ah, unusual surprises. We promise that the worst that's happened to Professor Wainwright is some culture shock."

[Gizmo]

"My armour's pretty much the same as your big lion guy just, y'know, more streamlined and power efficient and utilizing very few of the same underlying principles! Still, though! Powered armour with a naturalist aesthetic, always in style!" Chitin added cheerfully, instinctively drawn to Joseph's similar enthusiasm. "My sister hates when I mess with her stuff, too. Do you think maybe if I promised not to touch anything she'd be will to let me take a loo-- oh, jeez, I forgot about my guys!"

 

Indeed, still inside the operations chamber of the great mechanical man the Robugs tiptoed cautiously about, their stealth somewhat hampered now that some of the internal systems had quieted by Yellow's nervous buzzing and Magenta's gung-ho curiosity.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Three years?! Oh my sweet Lord in Heaven..." Marcus looked at Louise, his eyes wide as she steadied him, then asked "How did you - how did you come to be here after all that time?" 

 

Louise looked up at Marcus with tears in her eyes, looking very much the teary-eyed 19th century romantic heroine "I had your plans, Marcus. I built what I could, then I took a boat to Dakana to recover more of your time crystals." She smiled then. "There were many trials going there, and many more after - but they are a sensible people. Once I won the White Lion to my side, Joseph and Bubastis helped me build this new conveyance. We thought to fight a war against the people of the future to save you." 

 

Marcus blinked, staring at her with incomprehension mixed with admiration, then suddenly went down on one knee before her. "My dear M-Louise. Traveling in time has taught me only that I have been a fool. Will you - will you be my wife?"

 

Louise looked back suddenly at the lionmech, for a moment, a troubled look on her face, then back down at Marcus before she said, "Yes. Yes, I will." 

 

Marcus whooped as loudly as he had when he'd first confronted the bees. "She has agreed! Louise Morgan has agreed to make me the happiest man in America!" He jumped up and embraced Louise, then Tarrant, then Stesha before making rapid introductions of the latter two to the former. 

 

- 

 

"Hum!" Joseph considered Chitin's words. "I can see how that would be done. Is that electricity powering the suit?" he hazarded. "I am more of an adventurer than a builder, but Bubastis loves her great machines. When we were younger, it was all Father could do to persuade her not to attack those damned ignorant Boers." He laughed indulgently, then considered. "Your...guys?" 

 

Suddenly Chitin got a very clear signal from Magenta. Bubastis Mandela had spotted the little robot and grabbed a good-sized wrench from her control console. Yelling a Dakanan battle cry, or perhaps just an oath, she was swinging the wrench back for what looked to be a powerful downstroke... 

[Spacefurry]

Leon had watched the mecha , his left arm tensed and ready. When the man emerged and addressed them he relaxed a little, though not completely. It wasn’t until Fleur de Joie arrived that he stood down, but he kept his eyes on them.

When the lady emerged from the machine and rushed over to Marcus Leon was a little surprised, not that he would admit it. He averted his gaze back to the mecha but kept his ears open.

“I’ve read enough books to know time travel can be a real bitch.” He said off-handedly to no one in particular as he lazily laced his fingers behind his head. “And if you’re not lucky, pretty boring… Unless you get to fight dinos.” He smirked at Super-bee.

At least this had proven to be a distraction from farm work he bemused as Marcus made a fool of himself in his opinion.

”At least someone seemed to have made a new friend.” He thought glancing over at Chitin chatting it up with the one named Joseph.

Glancing around at the others he wondered idly how much longer this would get him out of chores.

[Gizmo]

"Ah, no!" Chitin cried out to what looked like thin air from the outside, waving his hands. "Quick, be cute! Be cute!"

 

Inside the control chamber of the time travelling lion mech the Robugs scrambled out of the way of the swinging wrench. Magenta hopped up onto the top of one of the unoccupied chairs and brought her folded forelimbs up toward her angular head in a motion uncannily like a cat cleaning itself. Yellow found a perch on a metal panel dotted with rivets and danced back and forth in a sort of six legged Charleston. Black scuttled leisurely into view and hunkered down, passively watching Bubastis with the same stoicism with he approached most things.

 

With a burst of light and rush of air the armour around Chitin vanished back into its dimensional pocket, Cyan leaping free of the helmet's faceplate and landing lightly on Ryder's shoulder as the teen sprinted back toward the towering steam and daka crystal powered suit. "Sorry, sorry! They're good, I promise!"

[Tiffany Korta]

Bee

With the more senior heroes seemingly taking control of the situation Melissa faded into the background. And whilst the familial stuff was fascinating, in a cross dimensional soap-opera kind of way, but how could a scientist turn down an opportunity to turn down a chance to examine Dakanian technology. Especially from over a hundred years ago.

 

So shrinking down she’d snuck in with the Robugs and began to poke around, just appreciating the very steampunk ascetics they had going on. Apparently though they weren’t as welcome as she thought, maybe they should have asked but so much was going on and it had slipped her mind.

 

Acting quickly she flew up and placed herself in the way of the wrench, Dyne particles luckily retained the mass so she could (if necessary) take a solid way.

 

“Whoa wait it’s all fine!” Melissa’s voice amplified by her helmet “We were just curious and all, no harm intended.”

[Avenger Assembled]

That got Melissa what was probably a Dakanan oath from the context, even if she wasn't necessarily familiar with the language - but the driver stayed her hand before hitting anyone or anything with a wrench. 

 

Luckily Bubastis, being flesh and blood, was not immune to the charms of the little robots once she realized they were actually trying to put on a show for her and not simply futuristic parasites. After a little while, she came out of the mech once she was sure the little robots would be accompanying her and not clambering around in "the greatest mechanical construction in the history of Dakana!" as she described it, with the help of a little translation from her brother. 

 

"She actually does speak English," said Joseph with a wink at the stocky, grease-spattered dynamo that was the great machine's pilot, "she is just very prideful in her language." Evidently she did, from the glare that got him. 

"Dinosaurs - oh yes! Like the Beast of Kilimanjaro," he added to Leon. "Does that still exist in this remarkable century?" 

[Spacefurry]

Leon gave Chitin a questionable look as she started yelling 'Be cute' to thin air. When the teen transformed back and took off towards the mecha at a dead sprint Leon just shrugged.

 

On 8/16/2021 at 10:40 PM, Avenger Assembled said:

"Dinosaurs - oh yes! Like the Beast of Kilimanjaro," he added to Leon. "Does that still exist in this remarkable century?" 

 

Leon grinned mischievously at Joseph. "I'm not sure about around here, but where I come from I've heard stories of vast hidden jungles in the far south. Said to be inhabited by strange and ancient creatures. They're said to be a real savage lands."

 

 

[Tiffany Korta]

Bee

Melissa sat on the edge of the mech and transferred back to her full size, making sure not to catch any of the Robugs. Indeed the first thing she did was give the nearest bug a playful little pat, much how you treat a puppy or kitten.

 

“I’m afraid I only know a few word of Dakanai, I’ve been trying to learned but it’s hard to find good sources outside of the country!”

 

Looking a little guilty at her lack of knowledge she glanced around at the mostly peaceful scene.

 

“We should probably work this all out outside, I think the bee’s are still a little edgy after all thats happened here.”