Double Features (IC)

[Aoiroo]

Greenbank at night was always frustrating, because no matter what you were looking for, you always found trouble. In this case, it had been a couple of dealers who were trying to regrab the market after the events of previous month had ultimately greatly crippled the industry. It helped greatly that this was one of the few nights she wasn't alone. She hadn't actually brought Vance along for most of her street level endeavors while he was adjusting to his powers, but it proved that his mere presence was enough to catch most of them off guard while she struck a knock out blow. Given, they weren't on the streets tonight to take out dealers. Sil was more or less trying to retrace her steps to a place she regret not getting a proper address to when she first found it. As a result it took about thirty five minutes of sheer wandering before she found the familar door. It was hard to confirm because of the fact that it looked like just about every other warehouse, but she was confident that if it wasn't she could always slip in and check. But first, she of course had to make good on a promise and knocked loudly and clearly several times.

[Carces]

Despite a newfound ability to change his form, Creature Feature was surprisingly inept at disguises. Many movie monsters were remarkably large, with a few exceptions, and most of them exist for the purpose of attracting the attention of the movie-going audience. As such, most of the forms Creature Feature had considered using were simply too large and too conspicuous to use when visiting a friend of Silhouette's.

It seemed like a silly choice, but the easiest form to disguise was the Beast from Black Lake - an amphibian creature that could easily be mistaken for a man, especially when garbed in a old, grey trenchcoat and worn hat Vance borrowed from his father. It wasn't long before the downsides of bringing an amphibic creature to land for so long became apparent to Vance.

Good grief. How did the Beast stalk its victims so much without *shoes*?

The beast's webbed feet slapped against the ground clumsily and another rock jabbed at the surprisingly delicate membrane, making Vance wince. The beast's dry scales had long since started to itch as well. Vance Malloy was far too distracted to notice that they had arrived at their destination until Silhouette had knocked on the door.

Creature Feature looked up, fixing his ill-fitting hat. "This is the place? A warehouse?" CF began looking everywhere, trying to find any hint of a sign or a logo that would identify the location to no avail.

[Fox]

Mara glanced up from some big machine or another at the knock, blinking as she was shaken out of her building-and-fixing-things-groove. A quick query to her computer brought up the image from the door camera, revealing Silhouette and...Abe Sapien?

Grabbing her visor and putting it on, she snagged a grease rag on her way to the door, too, wiping off her hands but not bothering to do much about her overalls or old, machinery-stained t-shirt. When she was close enough to be heard she extended what was, for her, a fairly welcome greeting. "Hello Silhouette," she said through the closed and locked door, her voice calm and level. "If your companion is forcing you to lead him here, say so and warehouse defenses will act quickly."

[Aoiroo]

Looking back at Vance she let out a snort,

"That's a good one. Nah, he's cool, he just has a thing for monster movies."

Reaching into the plastic bag on her side, she pulled out the VCR with both hands and held it out in front of her,

"Got an interesting piece of equipment here I'd like you to take a look at. Not exactly sure what it does, but it won't activate remotely nor does it have an internal power source so it's safe as long as you don't plug it in."

[Carces]

Feeling a little disconnected from the conversation between Silhouette and the door, Vance leaned sideways and gave a friendly wave towards the warehouse in general as he spoke in a parched, nervous voice.

"Hello... warehouse person. I'm Va... uh, Creature Feature. I'm with, uh, with Sil." He pointed a webbed finger at Silhouette with one hand while lifting his hat off of his head with another, attempting to grin harmlessly as he did so. Joyful expressions are usually quite alien to the Beast form, and Vance's attempts at being friendly were not particularly pretty.

"Is it okay for me to be here, Sil? 'cause I can totally leave if it means not seeing the, uh, 'defenses' in action."

[Aoiroo]

"You're fine, she's just a bit caucious is all. Can't really blame her considering where we are. Besides, you might want to hear what she has to say because your condition might have side effects you've failed to realize."

Not to mention your dad hasn't made any progress on the missing person's case regarding Ms. Lights.

That part was left unsaid because of how likely it was to make Vance feel bad. At this point, Sil wasn't sure of the fate of the owner of the Video Head because she had been greatly distracted. As the time where she was missing continued to grow, it became less and less likely that they were ever going to find her, and even less likely that they'd find her alive. It was a grim thought, but it was a thought exclusively reserved for herself until she had enough information for them to actually do anything about it.

[Fox]

She snorted, silently telling the security system to unlock the door as she reached for the handle and pulled it open, waving them inside. "Close the door behind you."

The far end of the warehouse was largely empty, containing a covered object that could only be a motorcycle and a large area with chipped and distorted concrete...some kind of testing ground, most likely. The rest of the building was mostly built-in or freestanding tables and shelves, most surfaces cluttered with tools and all manner of devices in some state of being assembled or disassembled. It was to this end that Dragonfly walked, still wiping grease off her hands as she made her way to a double-sized, extremely solid and heavy-looking workbench. The large computer screens that took up part of the wall in the workshop switched to meaningless numbers and shifting images, seemingly of their own accord.

When she talked it was over her shoulder. "Don't touch anything. Looked like a VCR? Can't be normal if you bring it to me." She tilted her head. "Or wouldn't be, afterwards."

[Carces]

"Whoa..."

As Vance stepped into the workshop his jaw hung open in amazement of the various devices and gadgets of all types. Despite his own inexperience with technology, each piece of technology fired up his young imagination as he puzzled together what purpose each gizmo might be for.

Naturally, Vance's eyes eventually wandered to the blanketed object, peering at the veiled vehicle with interest. Opting to stay where the concrete was not quite so decimated rather than venture all the way to the far end of the warehouse, Creature Feature squinted hard, trying to locate any hole or uncovered part that might shed some light on the mysterious object. When his idle search proved to be fruitless, he turned to look at the host of the warehouse, standing awkwardly in silence as he tried to come up with something appropriate to say.

"Uh, Neat place you have here..."

[Aoiroo]

She smiled as walked down the lengh of the warehouse bag in hand. She left Vance to his own devices if only because he was already weary of the defense system, and if not, probably still remember the concequences of touching stuff when he shouldn't. Pulling the VCR out of the bag she set it on a table before glancing over,

"It's definitely not normal. Though I haven't seen it in action, according to his testimony this device is the reason why Creature Feature over there, well goes by Creature Feature. Something about it gave him the ability to shapeshift into whatever he sees projected on a movie screen. For humans, the change is only superficial, he's a normal human, even if said human has powers. For fictional characters like movie monsters however, he retains the physical attributes created to whatever creature he's mimicing."

She glanced down at the box,

"If this device is in fact that cause of this change it's rather troubling because it could be greatly abused in the wrong hands."

[Fox]

"Mm. Interesting."

Dragonfly grabbed a tool or two, dropping them into her rather large overall pockets as she approached the table and gave the VCR a careful look, bending down and gently turning the device around to inspect it from all possible angles. "Solid design. Complex...dated. Older workings. Don't make them like they used to...70s, 80s...wrong size, shape for a VCR that old." She leaned back, biting her lip. "Questions...where did you find this? Unusual happenings when it changed you? Magic unlikely in machinery, possible...mm. Maybe lightning, or injection, or energy transference or bio-field generator...."

[Carces]

"Oh!"

Even out of the water, the Beast of Black Lake's hearing was phenomenal. Creature Feature perked up after hearing the conversation about his VCR.

"I brought a video if you wanted to test the VCR. It's just an old, taped version of 'Revenge of the Wolfguy' I found playing on the Shock'n Horror channel on Halloween. I, uh, didn't know if we were goin' some place with VHS-type things, y'know?"

Vance reached into one of the larger, inner pockets of the coat, pulling out a ratty, old blank VHS with a hastily-scribbled "Wolfguy" penned to the label. "I, er, don't have a TV or anything here though." Vance peered over at Dragonfly's giant, flashing screen. "I'd wager you might have that part covered, though."

[Fox]

Dragonfly started muttering something about security and isolated experiments, clearing a generous amount of space around the VCR and digging out a couple of oddball contraptions: one was a little stand supporting a sphere made of layers and layers of interlocking machinery, while the other looked like the guts of a wireless router, reconfigured and soldered with its wires hanging out. The former got the VCR plugged into it and received some fiddling as she muttered something about 80s power requirements; the latter got plugged into an adapter pulled off a shelf, which itself got plugged into the VCR's video output.

Gently taking the tape off Creature's hands, she put it in the VCR...and hesitated, leaning down to take a better look. "Needle?" she asked, turning her head to look at the fish-man. "Possible explanation of delivery system...mm. Curious." Carefully avoiding that part of the machine, she put in the cassette and flipped a little switch on the sphere's base.

Nothing happened.

always - design unstable - locking up - better fix it before it rips local space Sighing, she gave the thing a good whack and it spun to life, little bits of steel and glass whirring and sliding in constant motion, a soft blue light shining between the cracks when they lined up just right. The VCR hummed to life, a couple LEDs on the circuit board lit up, and with the push of a button the main screen started playing Revenge of the Wolfguy in all its grainy glory.

[Carces]

"Needle? Is that some sorta.. technical term?"

Creature Feature leaned over to see what it was the scientist was currently working on, and noticed the interest in the bulky add-on to the usual VCR.

"Oh, that needle! They usually put the option stuff in an out-of-the-way compartment on these old VCRs. But there was something really sharp an' pointy in there. I think something must've broken loose or something."

Creature Feature watched as the opening title sequence rolled for the grainy television version of "Revenge of the Wolfguy". He knew all the names off by heart, as he had seen his personal copy a dozen different times. As the corny, dramatic soundtrack started to play, he smiled a little to himself.

[Aoiroo]

Sil stayed back a few paces to give Dragonfly space to work while still watching intently and keeping an ear on the conversation. She was a bit lost, she only knew about as much about VCRs as it did to know how to program them, and this one was much older then the ones she grew up with, or the one she currently had back at her appartment. The needle was interesting, though it could just be a piece of internal pieces sticking out as Vance said. It seemed more information was in order,

"This piece of equipments previous owner was Ms. Lights who owns the Video Head. Creature Feature said that he found it in an underground base located directly underneath it that we explored when we first met. The base was probably Ms. Lights old one, it had several out of date gadgetry but I don't believe she made that particular piece since she also had weapons and devices on display that were probably confiscated from past enemies."

Reaching into her pocket she pulled out her sketch of the logo off of one of the devices and set it down next to the VCR.

"You wouldn't happen to recognize this logo would you? I haven't had much time in the last month to research it since I've been rather, busy."

[Fox]

"Hm...don't know a Ms. Light. Probably wouldn't. Several reasons to have a...stockpile...?" Dragonfly trailed off, glancing from SIlhouette down to the symbol on the table. no - couldn't be

Turning her attention back up to the screens, little lights danced behind her eyes. Revenge of the Wolfguy shrank and moved over to claim one of the smaller secondary monitors; the main screen was dominated by the symbol, pages and pages of news stories and image searches zipping by in the background until she found what she was looking for.

The symbol retreated to a corner to show the news clip - a pretty mundane story about some heroic exploits a few years ago. Mostly of interest was the center picture - a sorry-looking, scuffed-up agent in black with the symbol on his chest being led away by the police - and the headline: "SHADOW Foiled Again".

Tilting her head, Dragonfly let the screen speak for itself for a moment. "....well. Interesting. Didn't know Nazis made VCRs."

[Carces]

"Nazis?" Creature Feature scratched his head as he looked at the logo "I don't remember a logo like that in history class. Did they upgrade or somethin'?"

Vance's knowledge of history was admittedly foggy at best. Like most teenagers his age, his concepts of history were an odd amalgamation of what he managed to remember from school and what he managed to pick up from movies. There had been more than enough nazi monster movies that suggested that remnants of the nazi party could still be around, probably performing bizarre experiments doomed to catastrophic failure when they weren't getting beaten up by leather jacket-wearing pulp heroes.

"The guys in the store that night were wearing lots of black ninja-garb stuff and firing laser guns." Creature Feature couldn't help but shudder. The thought of nazi-hired laser ninjas was a surprisingly chilling one.

[Aoiroo]

"I think the word secret organization has some roots here, and honestly if we could trace this group via information you learned in a public high school we probably would of found them by now."

Letting out a sigh, she glanced at the sheet,

"It's not surprising if they were, they always want to make a better soldier, and even if the parimeters of your shapeshifting abilities are incredibly unusual it's got some very scary potiential in the hands of someone who's actually had combat experience. Or heck, just someone crazy enough to turn into the biggest scariest monster they can find and terrorize the populas."

She side glanced at Vance before saying,

"By the way, I heard some rumors that some giant monster with tentacles wrecked up the train yard. Anyone you know?"

[Fox]

Dragonfly waved a hand, shaking her head. "SHADOW. All capitals. Don't know them that well; nazi roots, want to take over the world...I think. Don't do much business here. Cause trouble sometimes. Saw the symbol a long time ago, was consu---not important." The young woman immediately clammed up, and was glad when the topic changed.

She side glanced at Vance before saying,

"By the way, I heard some rumors that some giant monster with tentacles wrecked up the train yard. Anyone you know?"

"Tentacle monster? Don't think I heard that story." Keeping half an ear on the conversation, Dragonfly turned back to the VCR and frowned at it, lights once again dancing behind her eyes. what do you have in there - VCR - standard interface - input output - nothing interesting in main body - assumed there'd be a- She frowned, leaning over to peer at the add-on. can hear you little things - what in the world are you

[Carces]

"W-well, it wasn't like that, see? There were demons comin' outta holes an' THEY were wreckin' up stuff and I was just... uh... well, it was sorta hard to stand up and everything and, well..."

Vance tried to explain the situation while trying to keep an eye on what it was that Dragonfly had discovered. Her intense focus on something in the device was difficult to ignore, even as the beginning of the Wolfguy movie began to play.

"Did you find something?"

[Aoiroo]

"You shouldn't transform into anything big, or with any extra limbs if you can help it. At least not until you get a handle on your semi humanoid forms."

Looking over at Dragonfly she noticed her attention was on the VCR, which probably meant she did find something. That reminded Sil that she never actually asked if her technologically gifted friend was actually a technopath. Given, it was pretty irreliavant because she obviously know what she was doing with her powers. Vance it was a bit more awkward, especially since he could so easily hurt someone without meaning too.

[Fox]

"Maybe...thought I heard...mm. Very quiet. Hard to tell." Dragonfly gestured to Silhouette while she poked around her shelves for something. "Should listen to her. Mass concerns, biological strain...too many variables." where is - know I kept it for fitting - should be around here somewhere

Finally she came up with, of all things, a mannequin's hand (which looked suspiciously like it had been violently sliced off the rest of the arm). It was a matter of moments to use it as a sampling device, and only a few moments after that to carefully put the hand, palm-up, under an obscene contraption of lenses and cameras. She peered into one of the eyepieces, finally remembering she had other people less than fifteen feet away. "Happen to hurt yourself on the 'broken piece' at some point? Bad enough to draw blood?"

[Carces]

"'Biological strain?' Is that an actual..." Creature Feature blinked hard as he tried to follow both the conversation and the scientist's investigation at the same time - a rather difficult endeavor, considering how fast both were going. "I'll try to keep things simpler."

"Happen to hurt yourself on the 'broken piece' at some point? Bad enough to draw blood?"

Vance nodded to no one in particular, since Dragonfly had her back to him.

"Uh, yeah, a little bit. I got stabbed pretty good by whatever it was, but I wasn't gushing out pints of blood or anything. When I looked again, I couldn't find whatever it was, so I figured it must have been some sort of broken piece."

Vance peered over again at Dragonfly without getting close enough to be distracting. This was likely somewhat moot, as the level of focus she demonstrated must come from an unnerving amount of concentration. Despite his desire to keep out of the way, Vance was uncomfortably out of the loop as to what was going on, and a dumb-sounding question was likely his only salvation.

"So... what's with the hand...thing...gizmo, anyway? Is it, like, a piece of a robot with some sorta crazy scanning apparatus? Or a virtual hand able to, like, interface with the VCR and read all of the secrets? Maybe, like, a hand probe?" Vance broke free of his somewhat depressing ignorance with a flight of imagination. He gasped with revelation.

"Could it be... a Power Glove?"

[Aoiroo]

Sil could see just fine without leaning in,

"It's just a mannequin hand, an oddly cut mannequin hand but not something you wouldn't see at a shop window. Besides, her power gloves are much cooler looking."

Glancing at the scanners she took a few seconds to realize what she did with it before saying,

"An injection? That's possible, but that's borderline fringe science to think he'd become a shapeshifter with just that."

She took a few steps back so as not to crowd the area around the table,

"What was he injected with?"

[Fox]

"Silhouette's correct," Dragonfly noted, pulling away from the lens to frown at the screen. "Technically a 'hand probe'. Went through a lot of mannequins. Mostly kindling now, but good to re-use some old parts. Anyway."

She leaned back against a workbench, looking up at the screen, which had settled on displaying an extremely zoomed-in look at whatever the hand had come away with. "Broken piece isn't broken - designed as a pressure-sensitive injection system of unknown volume, implying voluntary test sub--"

She paused, glancing at blank looks. right - simpler - collect thoughts "....sorry. Will - I will try to speak like a normal person." for given value of 'normal' "The 'broken piece' isn't...actually broken," she started, talking a bit slower and apparently concentrating on using simple, proper sentences. "It's a...needle. Someone - in this case, you - is supposed to put their finger in there and touch it; it then injects you with what I can only assume is that." She gestured at the image on the screen. "Making several assumptions, haven't - I haven't had the time to properly look at the sample. I'd have to take it apart to be sure. Maybe consult with a couple...mm. On the left there is a nanite - nanobot. A very small machine. Simple and specialized on its own, smarter in groups. On the right is a cell...not human. Probably...mm. Not my area. Probably a Grue cell...would explain the shapeshifting. Grue or something like them."

One or two of the little screens lit up with stock pictures of Grue, one of whom was in the middle of changing shape.

[Carces]

"Hey, I heard of those Grue guys!" Creature Feature said as he pointed towards the stock footage. "Those were those alien guys that just attacked Freedom City, right? I remember dad talkin' about it. There were fights on the news and everything."

Vance nodded to himself with some small amount of satisfaction. He remembered hearing about the Grue having some morphing powers, and the picture on the view screen confirmed it. Were the few Grue cells in the needle powerful enough to give humans shapeshifting abilities? There couldn't have been that many cells in the needle afterall - it would have taken an awfully long time to inject for starters!

"Wait... so somebody got some Grue samples from this Grue fight, made a VCR-needle-thing in a month or so, and then hid it in Ms. Lights secret basement lair just before an attack from those DARKNAZI guys or whatever? That doesn't seem right."