The Coo-Coo's Nest [IC]

[Cyroa]

Dark Star never realized there were quite so many diapers and things that were needed along with them that fell into the 'toddler' range. The nice clerk at the store had been taken aback by his sudden arrival but was very understanding. Thankfully Dark Star had a good reputation (and had no physical body) or there might have been some rather odd rumors as a result. Still, by the end, Dark Star was 'pushing' a carriage overloaded with supplies. Diapers, wipes, powders and a whole host of other supplies in addition to the things they had asked for. They hadn't been specific about what was going on and he wanted to be sure they had everything they needed. The manager had been very understanding when Dark Star promised to return with money later on.

So Dark Star took the huge pile of supplies and flew upward. Once at a safe spot, he opened a portal and moved the entire host of supplies through. Moving through himself, he let it close behind him. "Hello? Anyone here?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Jack was gentleman enough to do no more than chuckle, sloshing over to try and distract Clingy before she sprayed Taylor again. "Hey hey! Bet you can't get me!" He gave the little girl-thing a splash, though smaller than the others. "Over here!" he teased, soon getting him a little monster kicking after him under the water like a shark. "Ready to swim?" he asked Gargoyle-Boy. "1-2-3!" And with that, they both dived underwater! Swimming around, he nearly missed Dark Star's arrival, belatedly popping his head up to yell "Hey Derrick! Over here!"

He caught up Gargoyle-Boy again as the little guy straggled his way, looking rather chagrined at his sudden dunking. Ah well, maybe he'd teach him later.

[Electra]

Stesha clambered up from the side of the pool and hurried to find Derrick. Her eyes widened a little at the giant pile of stuff. "Wow, you must've bought out the store," she said with a laugh. "But I guess you never know what you're going to need. Come on and see what Taylor found in the park. They're weird, but really cute." She led him back down towards the pool, tugging the straps on her borrowed swimsuit. "I don't even know what they are, but they're kind of like babies."

[alderwitch]

Taylor laughed at the sulky expression on the little bat-child's face. She didn't mean to, he just looked adorably bedraggled as he flopped through the water towards Jack. In halfway apology for her laughter, Taylor lifted her hand, floating the creature up with a burst of magic from her fingertips. "Wings aren't really made for swimming, are they, little guy?"

Three baby chubby heads swivvled towards Dark Star at his approach. They were indeed baby 'somethings'. Time with the humans had altered their physiology to echo back their current caretakers. A rather hefty toddler sized creature floated in an intertube. He looked much like a human baby, although far more heavily muscled than any normal human baby would be. His skin was faintly reddish in hue and the intertube strained under his weight. His sister was gliding through the water, light blue in color and gracefully seal-like in movement. The chubby hands she spread up were slightly webbed and she blinked golden yellow eyes that seemed to have a second inner eyelid before she gave Dark Star a toothless smile.

The most unhappy of the group was a dark skinned, bat winged sibling that Taylor was helping back up onto Jack's shoulder. The bat-child's eyes were a deep red and his rounded face was pinched in a scowl. They spoke in chatters and chirrups, occasionally trying to parrot one of the adults but it was clear that their mouth structure was somehow wrong for English. Their chitters were a juevinile version of a language Dark Star had heard before, in his many intergalactic travels. It belonged to a peaceful race of adaptive beings, light years away from this little blue planet. How the children got here was anyone's guess. Although intelligent, the species was backwards by most intergalactic standards. They'd never bothered with space travel or even most basic tech as their world provided everything they could need in abundance and their own adaptive physiology made their needs few.

[Cyroa]

Dark Star floated in after the others and into the pool room. "Nice place you have here. Very...palatial." He saw through the walls into the pool, and noted the three little ones before even getting to the room. He looked them over as he entered the room. "Where in the world did you find those little fellows? I never would have expected to see Ryterdians here. They're a happily peaceful race. Adaptive physiology. Their planet's maybe a couple hundred light years core-ward from here. Not too far but not exactly neighbors. The interesting part is they have no advanced technology at all. Which begs the question how three of their children got here."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Aliens, eh? Are you from another planet?" asked Jack, almost paternal with his bedraggled gargoyle buddy. "That explains a lot..." He cootched him under the chin, getting a noise like a purr in return. "I wonder if they were kidnapped here," he said worriedly. "Little guys like these would make great pets, especially if you didn't care that they were actually people-smart. What neighborhood did they turn up in, again?"

[Electra]

"Poor babies," Stesha said with concern. "There was nobody around in the park that I could see when we were there. If someone did bring them here, they either escaped or got dumped. Can you help them get home?" she asked Derrick. "We have to be able to find their families somehow." She was interrupted by the chiming of the front doorbell. "Sounds like the pizza's here."

[Cyroa]

Dark Star nodded, watching them curiously. "I could certainly take them to their home planet. But a planet's a big place. It would take quite some time to find their parents, even if I spoke the language, which I don't. I suppose I could check with some of my friends out there and get a translator but it is likely going to take some serious time unless we found out exactly where they come from. If we got that route, I will likely be gone for some time." He paused in thought. "In theory, if there are others on the planet, I might be able to find them. Their signatures are different then humans. I suppose if I pushed my sense and synched up with the gravity waves, I could filter out the multitude of others and hone in on any signatures similar to theirs. But that would only tell me if there were others of their species here. If they were taken by a different species that got them here, which is more likely I would think, it wouldn't help at all. And its been long enough that I doubt any gravitc wake would still be wherever you found them, again making it impossible for me to track them backwards." He turned his senses towards the door, checking through the walls.

[alderwitch]

"Aliens, of course! No wonderI didn't recognize them. I found them in the park, not too far from the apartment actually. They were up in a tree, oddly enough." Taylor looked vastly relieved that it was something out of her perview rather than a lack of knowledge. After not recognizing Jack as a vampire for so long, she was more than a little sensative to any gaps in her mystic knowledge. Swimming to the side of the pool, Taylor easily pulled herself out and grabbed up a towel that she quickly wrapped around her torso. She didn't want to leave wet footprints through the house that would just have to be cleaned up later.

"Well, I can cast a spell to translate just about any language," She volunteered as she headed past Stesha and Derrick, onward to get the pizza, "But it doesn't change the fact that even a small planet would prove difficult to search. The dimensional trail was faint when I was there but I look for magic, not science. We could check the park again, I suppose. Stesha and I were sort of focused on rounding them up, not looking for clues."

She headed through the house, leaving the trio outside do deal with the alien children while she paid for the pizza.

[Avenger Assembled]

"I don't know about the rest of you," said Jack as he pulled himself back up to sit on the tiled edge of the pool, "but I'm a little out of my depth with aliens." Gargoyle clambered up to join him, dangling his claws in the pool idly as he lay on his round little belly, wings flapping occasionally. "It's a good thing we've got Derrick around," he said, reaching down to skritch his little buddy behind the ears. "I still remember the last Grue invasion. Good thing we took care of that little problem." It had been several years earlier, before he'd even been a vampire, but he had been in Freedom City for that.

[Electra]

As Taylor left the pool area, there was a shriek of protest from the creatures still in the pool. Bitey began thrashing his way towards the side, while Clingy shot onto the tile walkway like a seal leaving the water. Both of them hastened to the door Taylor had gone through, creeling and hitting it with their little, though surprisingly strong hands. "Hey, she's coming back!" Stesha told them, hurrying over. "She only left for a minute to get more food." This reasonable explanation did not seem to resonate with them. It certainly didn't stop the yelling. Stesha scooped up Clingy, trying to reassure her, but it didn't seem to help much. "We better figure out something before they get any more attached here," she said wryly.

[alderwitch]

Derrick's senses found no others of the creatures here but there was some piece of tech at the base of the tree in the park, buried under a snow drift. It looked cobbled together using mostly earth based tech and components. It was burned out as if the one use had overloaded it, but further examination might yeild something like coordinates.

Taylor hustled back at the angry banging on the door. Rather than trying to juggle babies, door, pizzas, she phased through and quickly dropped the boxes by Stesha while Bitey began to scale her leg, still keening his outrage. "Hey, now. I didn't go far."

With a grunt of effort, she hauled the little caveman up before he reached her waist and plopped him on the lounge as she bent to start opening the pizza box. "Considering that the wood seemed to do you no harm, I can't see how grease will hurt."

Leaving the dispensing of the pizza to Stesha, Taylor went to pull things out of Dark Star's cart, pausing to pat Clingy's head on her way. All three of the tots had started to sniff the air at the presence of food and soon Stesha was ringed by softly keening crys. "Eeeze? Eeeze? Eeeeeeze?"

Although bat boy hadn't been there for the wafers as much, he was quick to pick on the chant as he scrabbled across Jack's lap, wings flapping comically in his wake. Only a quick hand from Jack kept him from careening back into the water in his sliding dash towards food.

[Cyroa]

Dark Star had flitted over to the sit and back within a few minutes, depositing the finding on their table (away from the food). "Actually, I'm quite good with aliens. But I'm not much of a tech guy. I'll take a look at this but I'm far from being an expert." He stood next to Taylor, pulling the devices about, trying to determine what he could from them.

[Electra]

"Here you go, here you go, no grabbing!" Stesha admonished, handing out slices of pizza as fast as she could and not bothering about the mess the alien children were making on the tiles, between water, cheese and tomato sauce. They were obviously very hungry, and not terribly concerned at all about what toppings were on the pizza. She was a little concerned that Bitey was going to choke himself in his greed, but by the time he was inhaling his second piece, his neck already seemed to be getting a little thicker beneath his square head. Clingy was eating with a smidgen more decorum, but still managed to smear her face, hands and front with tomato sauce, while Wingy was the only one who seemed to instinctively grasp the mechanics of pizza. Stesha picked up a piece and took a few bites from it the proper way, which seemed to help get the idea across.

"If anybody else wants some pizza, you better get it while the getting's good," she laughed, nudging the untouched box out of the way of hungry little hands. "And you might want to get a bucket or a hose or something, Taylor, I don't think you're going to want to let these guys back in the pool like this."

[Avenger Assembled]

Jack was alternatively amused and appalled at the mess the kidlings were making in his pool room, which he supposed was as healthy a reaction as anything else to the little monsters. "I'll clean up," he offered, watching the mess with a cocked head. "You guys have done all the heavy lifting." Cleaning up food waste wouldn't do much for him either way, but it beat the alternative. "So, uh, what do you think happens when these guys go to the bathroom?" he brought up.

[alderwitch]

"We hope they do it in a diaper," Taylor said wryly, tossing the largest size of disposables at Jack for after he'd cleaned the wriggly kiddos. "As I imagine that pizza, or even the woodchips, will be much less pleasant for us going out than it was going in."

She bent her head over the technology with Dark Star as they strayed into esoterica. Taylor understood dimensional openings, and Derrick knew at least where the planet was. Having the good Doktor there would have made it all go much faster but between the two of them, they managed to pull out the faded powersource and come up with a workable theory for how to at least power the thing up again, which should give them at least a starting location on the planet in question, powered by Dark Star's near limitless stores of energy.

That left Jack and Stesha to wrangle the alien trio while their partners worked. Spraying the kids down with water wasn't too difficult. Only bat boy took grave affront with that as he clung muttering to Jack's shoulder once more, complaining in bitter, outraged noises and flapping his wings. He appeared to blame Stesha for his dousing. Bitey was happily gnawing on one of the teething toys and didn't even notice the cleaning where as Clingey just tried to get in the way of the other two's dunking as clearly they were not properly enjoying the bath. Diapers, however, proved a much more daunting task as none of the kidlets approved of having their bits covered. There was outraged squawking and a good deal of fleeing from their caretakers with chants of, "No no no no!"

Apparently 'no' was the easiest word for any toddler to pick up, even alien ones.

[Cyroa]

He chuckled at Taylor, glancing over at the ruckus caused by the wee ones and happy he was working on the tech. Dark Star nodded. "Well, we've got the target location for the planet. Which might not really mean much I suppose. But it's something. I've no idea how this device would even be on that planet in the first place, let alone how these little fellows got here. I hope nothing happened to the planet," he said to himself, idly worried. "Perhaps I should just zip over there real quick. Make sure there wasn't a disaster of some kind? Such naturally destructive events are rare, but possible." He wasn't sure what to do but the thought of not being able to help in such situations certainly was not a pleasant one.

[Electra]

Stesha was an old hand at diapering wiggly babies, after an adolescence spent babysitting around her neighborhood, but these little guys were providing a special challenge. They were awfully strong, for one thing! She eventually wound up wrapping Bitey up like a present, securing the diaper on him and then wrapping him up in vines from shoulders to knees to keep him from wriggling it off again. He wasn't very happy about it at all, but could be bribed with a steady infusion of breadsticks. Not so with his sister, who not only refused the diaper but was slippery enough to escape back into the pool before Stesha could grab her. With a sigh, Stesha grabbed the skimmer net, waiting for her target to come back into range and letting Jack deal with the one who could fly.

[Avenger Assembled]

Jack was even more at sea when it came to catching his little menace, given his near-total lack of experience with babies and their ways. To be fair, he wasn't sure how much any kind of help normal experiences would be with these particular little guys. He wound up catching the baby in a thrown bathrobe, something that produced such outraged cries and wails that he quickly dug him out and cuddled him close again. "Sorry, sorry," he said, quickly wrapping the baby up in the first diaper he could grab. Luckily, it went on straight.

[alderwitch]

"I don't know. Alien things aren't exactly my baliwick, but this all looks like earth tech to me." Taylor flipped one of the pieces of the device in her fingers over and peered at the writing, a faint frown creasing her forehead, "This has been filed down but I can just make out some kind of writing on this piece here. It's only a few marks left legible but I can read it. It's Chinese."

Sadly it wasn't enough for Taylor to make out any useful information, just enough to identify the language. "If I was going to make a guess, I'd say this is a fire and forget sort of thing and these guys just happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time. But considering your speed, if you want to check first before we fire this back up, go ahead. Guys?"

Taylor glanced up to include the other two in the conversation of what to do now and blinked. Jack had managed to soothe the outrage of his winged charge. He was grumbling on Jack's lap and rustling his wings in agitation occasionally but relatively mollified by the offerings of a bread stick and watching the struggle of his sister with Stesha. The little brick had worked his way through another half of the pizza and most of its cardboard box while Stesha tried to collect the aquatic offspring from the water. "Uh, you need some help with that?"

[Cyroa]

Dark Star nodded. "I'll be right back." He flashed away, up into space, before opening a wormhole. He made a few circuits of the planets checking. And while he noticed some heavy activity in a small sector of the planet, everything else seemed fine. Within five minute, he was back in the apartment. "Everything is fine. Though given the activity I spotted in a one sector, I would say there is a search underway for the missing little ones. Or that is connected somehow seems logical." He looked around. "So are we ready?" For what, he wasn't entirely sure but he was trying to go with it.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Okay, well, are we taking these guys back?" said Jack with a little shrug, looking around at the others as he stood up. He'd settled in with a messy Gargoyle on his lap, dabbing at his face while the clawy little male fussed and scratched unhappily. It was hard for the little alien to be too upset, though, with all the food he'd gotten. Jack kept a secure grip on the little guy, balancing in his arms and scratching his belly.

[Electra]

Stesha gave Taylor a rather harried look. She was chasing after Clingy with the skimmer, but the little alien child was making a game of it, drifting just into reach and then darting off like a seal, burbling with laughter the whole time. Since Stesha was obviously unwilling to get back in the water, and would probably be just as unsuccessful if she did, it looked like a stalemate. "Yes, please," she told Taylor. "Otherwise we might not get this one home at all, let alone anytime today."