Wayward Transit (IC, Open)

[Ari]

At the arrival of Zap, the crowd had gone wild at the sight, as they often did when one of their protectors showed themselves. Seeing the camaraderie between Zap and Wisp, there was some nudging and whispering, but isolated and soon gone. What took more removal was the fact that the crowd had gone over greet and congratulate the young heroine at the first opportunity, with all the regular requests for autographs, critiques of costume choice, queries about the origin of her powers and so on. They mostly just wanted to thank her, as it was a rare day a Freedonian forgot that they didn't 'own' their heroes, and that they took them for granted at their peril, as the dark age under Moore had shown.

With a sudden growl of rubber over asphalt, the blue/golden chariot of the Freedom Transportation Authority came into view, the lull in gridlock allowing it ample room to slide smoothly up to the glittering stopping point, to its blazing gem of a waypoint on what was usually a dreary day of navigating the vast fleets of cars rushing about the city. The driver was a powerfully-built specimen, with a long and curly beard and immense muttonchops as black as night, that almost managed to distract from his monk-like balding head. The rest of him was Much less impressive, a mass of bulging muscle that he maintained by some ninja-esque technique of working out whenever nobody was looking, that made him look about eight inches shorter than he really was. He opened the doors to his wain of mass transport without a missing a beat as he slid the vehicle to a stop. He scanned the crowd, noting Zap and Jubatus with only a sigh of gloomy recognition, and waved the already-moving crowd to hurry up. Glancing at the road ahead he frowned as the weird figure from his comrade's rumor came back to his mind.

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"Well, Mr. Jubatus, I'm glad this is going to be more straightforward than I thought. There is one thing I need to know beforehand, though: how far can you extend the field? Knowing that in advance we can simply match, say, the temporal distortion caused by the tech Downtime uses and match that against the distortion you create, thus letting us know if the way you bend time is in any fundamental way different than the stolen tech" An annoyed look came over his face "I wish we could figure out how he keeps stealing it back from the A.S.T.R.O. Labs, at a tour my class took there once the place's janitor told me they only manage to get about four simulations of the suit's effects done before it's gone again" he shrugged it off " so, any places you definitely don't want wires placed? Like-oh!" his eyes, which had gone wandering off down the way the bus would soon be arriving, saw it come into view 'round the bend. "Well, sir, looks our ride's here. After you" and he stepped neatly to the side as the bus came to a halt a few feet from Jubatus.

[quotemyname]

Sam silently shouldered his backpack, place the earbud of his iPod back in one ear, and mounted the stairs on the bus. He dropped his tokens in the slot, and made his way down the isle. He stopped about halfway down the length of the bus, and sat in one of the seats that faced the isle. "Ahh," he sighed as he sat. Laying his head back against the window he closed his eyes momentarily.

Finally. That took long enough.

I'll say. I want my fish.

In time. In time. First this errand. Then the fish.

Why does the fish always have to come second?

Because you never remember that you're hungry until I say something about fish.

Oh right. There is that, isn't there.

[Cubist]

"...how far can you extend the field?" the geek said.

"Beats me -- don't know, and never tried to find out."

"Oh. Too bad. Knowing that in advance, we could've simply matched the distortion you create against, say, the temporal distortion caused by the tech Downtime uses..."

The technobabble-heavy conversation between Jay Xavier and The Geek From ASTRO Labs, like every other ongoing conversation, was cut short by the bus' arrival.

"Well, sir, looks our ride's here," the geek said, stepping to one side. "After you."

Jay accepted this gesture of respect as his due. He was, after all, 74 years old, cheetah or no.

[Lone Star]

She accepted the cheetah's handshake gladly, and smiled brightly at him, in the way that only she could. "Do you have slowed aging? You really don't look all that old. And I'm not just saying that to be polite." Before she could continue, a mass of people crowded about her, all asking for pictures of autographs. She chose not to answer any questions from the crowd, because most of them were none of their business. As she flipped back a lock of bleach blonde hair, her smile faltered briefly when she thought about the origin of her powers.

However, it quickly returned to her usual chipper grin as she smiled and signed autographs with a speedy hand (which did not take much, considering the lack of letters in her heroic name). She had been practicing her signature- a cursive flourish with a lightning bolt extending from the P. She managed to sign a few dozen, then kindly thanked the crowd when she saw her bus arrive. She waited for the older heroes to go first- after all, courtesy was courtesy.

[Azuth65]

At the whispers from some of the crowd, Vicky blushed a little. Though she wasn't worried about people thinking she was a lesbian, she'd long since come to terms with her own bisexuality. Instead, she worried about some opportunist snapping the wrong picture and making trouble for her roommate's costumed identity.

After the doors opened and people started climbing on board, she hopped onto the bus herself, followed by Brian and Zap. "Well, I have a couple of sketches with me," she said as she found a seat. Digging into her bag and pulling out a ringed book, the cover displaying a man holding a wooden staff stood over a craves and a woman in stormtrooper armor, minus the helmet, brandishing a lightsaber stood across the divide. Flipping through she turned the book so Brian could see her drawing of a gunslinger/wizard type character. "This is a character I ran in a Rifts game a couple years back. I'm now trying to build a comic around her."

[felicitousFolly]

Everyone here really is friendly. And I really like how everyone can be themselves, follow their own style without having to lower their eyes to anybody. Brian thinks to himself as he smiles and watches the crowed dote upon a favored champion. I know I am helping make Freedom City a better place because it's what I think is the right thing to do, but it's good its heroes are treated so well.

With a grin, Brian clapped Sovou on the shoulder as he followed Victoria on to the bus. "Thanks, man. For breaking the ice, and getting everyone talking."

It took Brian some juggling between his wallet, water bottle, and backpack to pay his fare, but fortunately no embarrassments occurred. The driver's extreme chops make Brian do a double-take, but after a very brief moment's consideration, Brian nods, deciding that the driver wears them well. Although.. he kinda reminds me of a large Flint Fireforge. Maybe he's a dragonlance fan?

Following the cute girls, Brian stood in the aisle holding a hand rail next to Vicky and offered Zap the seat next to her. "Who are those on the cover? I don't remember any storm troopers using light sabers." Brian stops talking and just watches, taking in the painstaking and skillfully drawn pictures. "It looks... well, kind of seems like you were in awe of her while you drew her, like she's her world's Centurion, you know; larger than life."

[Azuth65]

"Oh you're right about the lack of lightsaber trained 'troopers. This is another of my characters, played her when my group tried the Saga Edition of the Star Wars RPG," Vicky explained, "Heck, half the characters in this book are ones I've played at one point or another."

At his comment about her favorite character, her color rose a little. "Well, she's one of my favorites and is by far my longest played character. Though in terms of power, she's more on par with Harry Dresden than Centurion, but if I ended up stuck in my own work like some bad '90s video game, I'd want to be her."

Vicky was really enjoying getting to talk about her characters, Janis and Morgan had shown some interest but it was always nice hearing compliments from a new voice. She leaned back in the plastic seat and let her head rest against the glass.

[felicitousFolly]

"What other systems have you played?" Brian asked curiously, "And how often do you draw?"

At the Dresden files comment, Brian grins at Vicky and chimes in "Cool, I'm a fan too!"

When the conversation gets to Star Wars, Brian's face lights up. "Oh, I've played that one!" Brian exclaimed, excited, "Some guys at Bayview Public introduced me to it. We played .. the, uh.. a pre-made campaign I can't remember the name of, but arg gah, bad start." Brian takes a sip of water, clears his throat, and restarts. "It was right after the Empire took over and order sixty-six was carried out, humans were on the rise and aliens were viewed with apathy if not outright hostility. I was playing a gunslinger and grenadier quarren, a real soldier of fortune type who got stranded penniless on a space station because his employer felt he didn't have to pay for a verbal agreement. So I was wandering the space station, when I got attacked out of nowhere! So it was more a cry for help than an attack, but when someone lands on you from behind you really can't tell, right? It was really funny because my quarren Inked himself! Well, long story short it turned out it was a resistance spy for Senator Bail Organa and we pulled off the most amazing heist for him right under the imperials nose." Brian chuckles, reminiscing "For the 'bad-ass soldier' of the group, he did the least permenant damage... except against pirates. Almost everyone else he captured alive. It was great, he gave the jedi so much grief for wading through hordes of stormtroopers, when I just stun grenaded them and walked past"

[Azuth65]

"I've done third and three-point-five for D&D, tried fourth but felt sick by the end of the night so I haven't touched it since. I've also done GURPS and Rifts," she answered. "As for drawing, I try to set aside at least an hour or two every day, more when I have enough time. Though, if you asked either my roommate or my boyfriend, they'd tell you that on more than one occasion I've lost an entire afternoon working on a given drawing."

Vicky laughed at the story, "I can't say, given the entirely fictional setting, that more than a few Stormtroopers wouldn't find themselves missing limbs and then I'd offer the rest a chance to surrender."

Recalling for a second she shared the story of getting nicknamed Lefty, "During a softball game for gym class, I managed to break my right arm. When I showed up for D&D, I couldn't shake the dice well in my right hand because of the cast. But my first roll with my left hand, I rolled a natural twenty. When I confirmed the critical, I rolled another twenty. The third roll was another confirmed hit. My character, a 'soul archer', basically recreated that scene from Scanners on a very big, very angry green dragon. In the first round of combat. So, because these were the first rolls I'd made left handed, Lefty stuck."

[Lone Star]

Zap took the seat next to Vicky, and smiled at Brian. He was cute enough, sure, but she had zero interest in roleplaying games. She sat patiently while the two discussed their characters, humming a tune to herself. It was unknown what went through her mind, but it was safe to say she was probably zoning out. She tended to do that when others were talking about things she didn't known much about.

After letting the two talk for a minute, she did what she did best: say what was on her mind. "Y'all are nerds. No offense."

[Cubist]

Jay Xavier didn't bother to acknowledge Zap's inquiry about his aging. Unsurprisingly, this was something of a sore point for him; given the fact of his high-speed metabolism, he had to assume he was aging 6 times faster than normal. And cheetahs in captivity typically dropped dead before their 15th birthday...

Not a happy-making situation. But what could Jay do about it? Answer: Nothing. Nothing at all. So he just didn't think about it, and however much time Jay had left, he was damn well going to cram as much life into it as he could manage. Which might have been part of the reason he originally decided to get into the hero game, come to think of it.

Some people thought it wasn't possible to not-think of a specific topic. Those people were idiots. It was very possible, even easy, and the key to doing it was to focus on something else. And right here and now, on this bus, Jay was focusing on the conversation he was having with the geek from ASTRO Labs: "...pretty much any phenomenon whose governing equations include a term for Time, really," he said. "Current flow, motion, yada yada yada."

[Ari]

Marceau had started at Brian's cheerful shoulder-slap and thanks for breaking the ice. At the moment he had done so, Marceau had been deep in thought about which of the precious metals that covered his prized souvenir antique door would be easiest to pry off, and so he was thoroughly unprepared for the sudden interaction. "I, wha-qu'e-oh! No problem, Brian, glad to help with that. Usually these places are utterly dull to wait in, happy to relieve the boredom." smiling politely he had stood aside while he fumbled in his manifold pockets for his trusty bus tokens. Finding one, he leapt nimbly up the steps and dropped the token into the proper receptacle. A quick scan of the seats unfilled revealed one two rows down from where the reserved cheetah speedster and the now-voluble and eloquent undergrad were discussing the details of how to proceed with their experiments, one row up from the three teenagers and just across from the Russian emigrate with the bird on his chest. Seating himself as quickly as he was able, Marceau payed close attention to the conversations around him, knowing that it would be a while before he heard a clear and coherent discussion again. He had little knowledge whatever of what Jubatus and the undergrad were talking about, and had none of the cultural background to discern quite what Brian and Mz. Knight were talking about. Deciding he and the other displaced European would probably have the most to talk about, he turned to him and said "Excuse me, but I believe you mentioned you were from Nadhodka, right? I've been to Russia before, but mostly the south-western area and Chechnya, so I've never been there in particular. What's it like, if that isn't a rude question, that is?"

[felicitousFolly]

Brian laughs in appreciation at the story. "That's great. Lefty." Brian chuckles some more until it's out of his system. "Would you be interested in getting a game together sometime? Your group, mine, a combination, whatever works."

After letting the two talk for a minute, she did what she did best: say what was on her mind. "Y'all are nerds. No offense."

Brian paused abruptly, mouth mutely moving as her words sunk in. "Oh." Master of dialog that Brian is, he repeated himself. "Oh. I... I didn't mean to disturb you.

Crestfallen and embarrassed at making a nuisance of himself, Brian sheepishly turns back to Victoria, to quietly add. "This really isn't a good time to reminisce. I would like to continue... You can reach me at myspaceandroidclone, with the username 'Seacrest,' if you're interested."

With a quick and bashful glance at Zap, Brian staggers up the moving bus and takes a seat near the front.

[Lone Star]

Zap laughed and held a hand out. "I'm kidding, man. Come sit back down with us." She stood up and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back down into the seat. Zap looked into his eyes with a stern face, and he could see her brilliant blue eyes, and the Ziggy Stardust lightning makeup across her face. "It's cool, alright? I love my roommate, but God help her she's a geek sometimes. I'm a geek too, but in a different way. If I see a vintage Cadillac riding down the street, you'd better know I'm chasing after it."

With a flick of her wrist, she flipped her hair back, and smiled widely. "So, don't have a cow, man."

[felicitousFolly]

Hormonal and crazy that teenagers are, the seeming flip of a switch for his moods was the desperation of all teenagers to be normal and accepted, and it was especially hard and potent for Brian, whom had spent most of his life on a ship or at a dig site. At the comment of boredom, Brian's naive attitude took it from the lovely heroine as an expression of disapproval, and the seeming suddenness and severity made Brian feel like a child caught with his hands in a cookie jar, thinking he did something wrong but not knowing what, on the grander - and more important to a socially conscious teen - scale of in front of his peers and seniors.

More important than the words, the tone and acceptance reached Brian. His face no longer had that shameful embarrassment, but it was more... hopeful, the sort of embarrassment friends could tease each other about in good humor.

He reached out and accepted Zap's hand, and let her lead him back.

He stood there in front of them a moment, embarrassed and wondering if he should say anything at all, but their kindness and sincerity meant a lot to him. "Thanks. Sorry about wigging out on you, I... well, I made several severe etiquette mistakes when I was young, and each time the appropriate response was for me to apologize and leave, and that's... perhaps more ingrained in me than I thought."

[Ari]

As Brian returned to the seat he had left moments ago, a sudden jolt alerted those aboard the bus that they had stopped. Looking outside, the passengers could see with utter clarity a dozen figures like humanoid smoke, all surrounding the bus. They had their hands extended extended outward, and a large semi-opaque rope seemed to come from them, wrapping itself about the vehicle before them at greater and greater speed, shutting out the light and covering the windows it came through. Norman had tried, when he first felt the jolt, to open the door of the bus to let out those inside. It was wrapped too tightly even by then, however, and all efforts to do something about the fix they was in proved futile. From within the prison, most of the passengers began to panic until a blazing spear tore through the enshrouding coil with a force that sent the thing writhing like a dying snake, but this proved only a momentary respite. As Lady Liberty shot like an arrow towards the imperiled bus, the figures recovered from the pain her attack had caused and formed themselves into a gigantic hand and arm, rooted to the ground, that swung at the super heroine. Lady Liberty dodged with ease, and with a single blow smashed the structure, sending its components flying to the ground. All but one, who had remained behind while the others distracted the valiant defender of Freedom, and who had repaired the bond with its own body and dragged the bus through an enormous doorway that opened beneath them. They fell quite peacefully, with only a sudden and subtle change in pressure, and a cessation of all the sounds heard before the drop telling those on board the bus that they were no longer on Earth. All that could be heard was the sound of the other occupant's heartbeats, and the voices whispered in fear.

It had taken about half a minute all for this to happen.

[felicitousFolly]

Brian's. Jaw. Drops. In the scale of escalation, the preceding moments had gotten exponentially crazier, starting with the very pleasant conversations, arcing up in his silly misunderstanding, and skyrocketing at the appearance of the ghosts and Lady Liberty. "Are those Ghosts?!" Brian exclaimed in horror and surprise, the filter between his brain and mouth overwhelmed. "Lady Liberty, it's my first time seeing her up close!" Under less chaotic circumstances, Brian would have waved or donned his costume to become Malestrom to try and distract the strange creatures. But in that situation, as the creatures shrouded the windows and the bus rolled and sunk into the portal to Brian was literally flat-footed, overwhelmed with the rush of thoughts and emotions; fear, adrenaline, curiosity, shock, all balled up and overwhelming.

It was not until some fifteen seconds later than Brian was able to regain cognizance. Unlike his normal, polite, self, this was a moment of doing, and his first actions were not to check on what the experienced heroes said or did, but to step forward. Out here, it's our time. It's our time out here, and it's all over the moment we get eaten by the ghosts.

Since he had no way of knowing that it was the collective strength of the... entities that was preventing them from opening the doors or emergency exit before, that seemed like the first step to Brian. Moving over to an empty row of seats, Brian pulls the lever on the window enough it starts to crack open, but not enough for it to pop off and go flying. Hoisting his water bottle like a six-shooter, Brian squirts a little water through the window seal, careful to leap back if the water causes the mist to produce small swarms of furry little monsters.

[Cubist]

Neither Jay Xavier nor the geek he was conversing with (whose name was Martin Brandtford, as it happens) noticed when the pseudonatural entities showed up; both of the pair, human and cheetah alike, were simply too absorbed in their mutual conversation to take much notice of anything outside the bus' windows. However, even the geeks' obliviousness was no match for Miss Liberty's power bolt; not that the bolt inflicted any damage on anything but its intended target, but, rather, that said target shuddered when Miss Liberty tagged it, and the bus couldn't help but shake when the thing which held it shuddered.

"... of course, we might end up with a somewhat lower p-value if we do it," Brandtford said. "But that's a reasonable tradeoff, ri -- aahhh!"

Having grown up in earthquake country, Jay was better-prepared to deal with random shocks than many other people on the bus. He upshifted and zipped around the bus' interior, from end to end, making very sure that nobody hurt themselves falling over, and also ensuring that nobody's belongings got crushed or otherwise damaged by accident, for the duration of the vibrations. Truth be told, the vibrations were neither intense enough nor long-lasting enough for there to have been a serious chance of any harm being done... but that chance was still greater than zero, and that was too big a chance to suit Jay.

And when the bus finally came to rest, Jay returned to his seat, next to Martin, and inhaled a couple of strips of beef jerky from a convenient vest-pocket.

[Ari]

The air inside the bus was now much warmer, and Jubatus could smell easily the scent of fear(what does it smell like? They never do say, so we'll never know) and sweat increasing in the now claustrophobic confines of their metal prison. Several of the passengers were trying desperately to lever the doors open, and Norman was pulling ao hard on the door every single muscle on his body stood out like a mass of ropes, his face beet-red from exertion with sweat dripping down in slowly growing cascade. In fact, everyone was either huddled on their seat, trying to open the doors and windows of the bus, or otherwise occupied that Brian's firing out the window with water went entirely unnoticed.

Brian's shot went quite well, hitting the bizarre substance covering the bus squarely. However, instead of bouncing off, punching through or even being absorbed, a hand had formed from the stuff and caught the water! The hand neatly put the captured liquid into the water bottle, screwed back on the lid and formed itself into a series of letters in the air that read: Don't try that again, please. With that, the letters retreated into the main mass of the black stuff, which changed at Brian's window into a sort of crowbar that gently levered the window back into place. Just before the window was back into its groove, the tool outside the bus stopped moving just long enough to let in a stream of the substance, with one crucial difference between it and the mass covering the bus: the stuff inside the bus was like a cloud of liquid oil, shining and much less ghostly than what confined them. As well, this stuff quickly and smoothly transformed from an inchoate cloud into a definitely human-like creature, to the point where it had eyes and hair only barely identifiable as inhuman. The tell was that the eyes had no pupils, and the hair moved with a strange exaggerated motions, like it was made of gelatin. It looked carefully at the humans, its eyes stopping abruptly when it saw Jubatus and Zap. It walked slowly forward until it reached the mid-section of the bus, tendrils of blackness like that seen on the spectral abductors reaching out tentatively at its surroundings. It stopped suddenly, drew on a massive cloak from apparently nowhere, and put on a crown that reached past the roof of the bus, giving an effect like he was clipping through terrain in a video game.It bowed and watched them expectantly.

[Cubist]

The hand neatly put the captured liquid into the water bottle ... letters in the air that read: Don't try that again, please. ... gently levered the window back into place... quickly and smoothly transformed from an inchoate cloud into a definitely human-like creature... the eyes had no pupils, and the hair moved with a strange exaggerated motions, like it was made of gelatin. It looked carefully at the humans, its eyes stopping abruptly when it saw Jubatus and Zap. It... bowed and watched them expectantly.

Jay Xavier... no, this was pretty clearly a superhero thing... Jubatus didn't like this situation at all. The bus had been hijacked to Hermes alone knew where, by some sort of über-powerful whatzit with unknown motives/purposes. On the plus side (and it wasn't much of a positive, but the cheetah was going to take what he could get), whatever-it-was didn't seem to have mass murder on its immediate agenda...

"Raincheck on the rest of the conversation," Jube said to Brandtford. "This looks like a job for me." With those words, the fastest cat alike stood up and walked calmly down the aisle, maintaining a tempo of 1, until he reached the 'crowned' whatzit. You're paying attention here, he thought; you can understand English, written form at least; and violence isn't your first response when somebody does something you don't like. First, let's see if you're as good with spoken English as you are with written. "My name's Jubatus," he said, looking right at the whatzit's pupil-less eyes. "Who and/or what are you, and what did you grab this bus for?" He waited for the whatzit's response, ready to whip out his iPad, or even pencil-and-paper, if the whatzit didn't seem to notice audio...

[Ari]

[OOC Should at least get one reaction from Marcy, eh?]

IC:Marceau had been leaning slightly, in order to maintain eye-contact with Sam, and thus the jolt had rapped his head against the handle bar on the seat before him. Stunned for a moment by the pain, he hadn't seen the initial attack by the smoke-like creatures, but he had seen the lightning speed of Lady Liberty's attempt to free them. For the several seconds he had had to observe it, he was filled with a dizzying array of questions, identical to the ones rushing through the heads of the other passengers curious enough to spend time pondering the bizarre and potentially dangerous circumstances they were in. He had spent the time Brian had used to test the bonds their captors had bound them in nursing the bruise on his head, though at Jubatus's question(the oily thing didn't so much as rustle) he sprang to his feet, looking both determined and deeply uneasy. He decided that he could do worse than follow the more experienced hero's lead, and relaxed, though his legs remained tense for a sudden spring.

////////////////////////////////////////////

GM:The oily creature gave no immediate response, in fact he looked utterly shocked to heard the question, and looked carefully at Jubatus, as if to ascertain that the had indeed spoken. The words that came out of his mouth were as strange and alien as the rest of his appearance, he spoke with a quiet, almost kindly voice with a strong German accent, though his voice sounded as though many spoke at once: "Eech am der Half-Schatten, sunn aff de Emprer off dies d'menssionn. You alle ver chosen to be brought zu mine fatter's palsss, tsu antwort hees kestons. Many cr'mnalss half escpade to deine welt, aun meer fatter villt justiss t'be donn". That said, the thing then formed a throne from somewhere under his cloak, and seated himself upon it, looking as though he expected more questions, and was ready for them.

[Cubist]

The situation was not the least bit happy-making. Given a busload of civilians (plus a few heroes) spirited off to Ymir-only-knew which planet in Ymir-only-knew which dimension, the most sensible course of action was to play along with the entity which, as best Jubatus could tell, held everyone's ticket home...

"Eech am der Half-Schatten, sunn aff de Emprer off dies d'menssionn."

An Emperor, is it? Oh, joyous frigging day! Jubatus thought to himself, attempting to keep his cynical pessimism off of his face.

"You alle ver chosen to be brought zu mine fatter's palsss, tsu antwort hees kestons."

'Chosen', the... man? thing? ... whatzit says. Yyyyyeah, right. You betcha. Because any time you select specific targets, why of course they all just happen to end up riding on the same bus. Just because.

"Many cr'mnalss half escpade to deine welt, aun meer fatter villt justiss t'be donn".

And of course we can trust this Emperor to be a good and wise trier of fact. Because nothing, but nothing, says 'dispassionate, Solomonic judgement' like glomming onto a random collection of people who happen to live on the same [bg=black]xxxxixx[/bg] planet as your putative targets are alleged to have fled to.

Vunn-durr-barr.

This day just keeps getting better and better.

Since the Duke of Oily was clearly expecting questions, Jube supplied a few:

"These criminals you mentioned -- what crimes did they commit? Are we talking about jaywalkers, or serial killers, or what?" Because for all the red flags that're waving, I'd just as soon not let any real scumbags evade what passes for justice in their home culture.

"How did you confirm that all your targets are on this bus?" Whatever answer Duke here gives, it's sure to be instructive.

"The legal system back home has a concept called 'jurisdiction'. How does your legal system handle jurisdiction? Assuming it does, I mean, which it may not, for all I know..." Let's see just how presumptuous these guys are, thanks.

"What happens to anyone who's determined to have nothing to do with the criminals you're after?" If these geeks don't let innocent bystanders go free, us hero-types are gonna have to get friggin' medieval upside some extradimensional heads.

[felicitousFolly]

Listening to this guy speak and following the conversation gave Brian a headache, like a New Yorker and an N'awlin trying to converse; even though it's the same language, the accents just make it a headache. He could still keep up, barely, but the time it took for him to translate put his reaction times on par with an invalid, and that would not be good for the group's circumstances.

Seeing that Jubatus seemed to have this guys' attention as an equal, Brian decided not to upset the equilibrium and that perhaps it wasn't Quite his time out here.

Stepping next to Jubatus, Brian felt the need to point out what came to his inexperienced attention and was unaddressed, so he whispered to Jubatus. "We look nothing like this guy, so how is he mistaking us for his fugitives? Also, we don't know where we are so we've clearly never been here before. And is it possible his fugitives are shapechangers, and actually are on the bus?"

[quotemyname]

"Excuse me, but I believe you mentioned you were from Nadhodka, right? I've been to Russia before, but mostly the south-western area and Chechnya, so I've never been there in particular. What's it like, if that isn't a rude question, that is?"

"To tell you the truth," Sam responded, pulling one of the earbuds out of his ear, "I couldn't really tell you. I was there, recently. But that was only a brief stop on a long tiring trip and I had no chance to 'catch up' as they say. I left there when I was young, you see. I only stopped briefly because it was near the, ah, small airport I departed from for this country."

Sam pulled one of his legs up in front of him, crossing it, "Though from what I remember, there was a good deal of snow and rain. It was so close to the ocean, that the weather patterns were strange. Anyway, it is much less of a home than you would think. I haven't called it that for many years. What brought you to, Chechnya? And vhen vas that?" He asked, letting a little bit of his accent slip in near the end.

[Ari]

GM:The Duke of Oily was all too happy to answer, and indeed, his tone implied that he thought his answers obvious. "Die crm'nals wier seek, they Serienmuderors, seek th' Tot of ev'n th' allyies of the Third Reich! To yuur second keston, wier told a creature with comand Uber Blitzen and a one Mit weisse hair wood be on board. Asss tsu deine third keston, 'jurisdiction' ist nicht ein problaym. Th' sorcer's vee Spricht mit gaav full rights tsu hunting crm'nals off urr Folk ins yuuurr Welt. Tsu fiert one? Vee send du Alle back" the creature leaned back in the throne, looking even more impassive than it had at first "though Nicht ins grosse speed". It looked at each of the other passengers in turn, as if weighing them in its mind. Turning to Brian he added: "Eins eech

am sure tu Wisst, der valorus Natch-Krieger, who vee haff found was betrayed by the spirit that empowers him." he shrugged "Aus leasst, vier thinnk tsu".

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IC: Marceau hadn't realized until that moment that his question to Sam had been answered, and that he had been asked one himself. Turning to Sam he said "Well, I was wandering Eurasia, looking for some relatives of mine. Didn't find them, though".