vignette March Vignette (Hot Zone)

[Ari]

El Heraldo

Etemenanki

March 8th, 2012, 4.18 P.M.,

Subito wandered casually down the street a few blocks from Claremont, enjoying the setting sun as the winter finally began to depart, a sense of deep peace and contentment seeping into him as the chill of night began its return, a sip of water from a convenient fountain, and he began quietly humming "Acangana" and running the song over and over again in his head. It was only by the time he'd gotten to the small convenience store at the corner that something struck him as odd.

Humming the song still, he noticed to his surprise that several of the customers were shaking their heads with puzzled expressions, and was dumbfounded when an old man of Japanese descent asked the teller uncertainly "Beg pardon, but are you playing some Mexican music in here?" at the teller's definite negative, the old man wandered out with his purchase, muttering to himself about leaving the radio on at night. When the teller asked Subito if he was playing a song on "Your iPod or something?" a feeling of definite unreality settled upon him, and he quickly left the small shop to get back to school so he could potentially figure out what was going on. He suspected there was a plot afoot to pirate radio stations by psychics, though for what purpose he couldn't have guessed.

It was when a thickset man started singing the same song under his breath as he passed by that a suspicion began to grow in his mind that he might be the cause of this. This was confirmed momentarily as simply thinking of another song not only thinking of a different song caused the other man to switch also, but he could see several other people stopping in surprise and looking around for the source of the song in their heads. Seized by an unthinking panic, he dashed to school, noticing to his horror people from even blocks away starting at some noiseless intrusion of their thoughts. He was almost within sight of the extranormal institute when a speeding van crashed nearby him, which he only barely managed to dodge before it came to a halt in a pile of dented metal and shattered glass.

The three who piled out were shouting at each other over both the ringing in their ears and..something else.

"WHY ARE YOU SPEAKING IN SPANISH?" hollered the first in the ear of the second "WHAT?" was the second's erudite and reasoned response "I SAID-" began the first, only to be struck smartly the third, who evidently wasn't as bothered by a sudden torrent of music in his head interspersed with random thoughts bubbling up from the young herald's brain. "Okay!" he shouted unnecessarily "We need to get the stuff out and move it, or..." the three(Robbers? thought Subito) stared at the stocky teen in front of them, before as one they shouted out furiously "Hey! We're no-" they looked at each other in confusion "...robbers?" offered the third at length, but it was clear that they at least suspected the boy in front of them as the source of the random bursts of sound, and now they had heard a clear word they all understood that was NOT from any of them. "You're the dirtbag psychic who made me crash that car!" exploded the first "I'll get you for that!" he yelled, leaping forward to punch the youth with all his strength.

He was very surprised when Subito caught his hand and he heard, clear as day <Niza telegrafo, Senor Ladron> before a fist pushed the wind out of his lungs and an elbow sent him out of consciousness. The brief burst of violent imagery that succeeded the thwarted attack was almost enough to discourage the other two as their comrade dropped.

Almost.

Twenty Minutes later...

Officer Cesar carried the last of the three men the anonymous caller had reported into the ambulance. Whoever had knocked the men out had been quite strong, powerful enough to bend an axle around them as a binding method. He scowled at the wrecked van, his mind had been recently overrun with music and thoughts he had hoped to be done with ages ago, and it was with a certain emphasis that he went over the abundant clues that linked the three badly bruised men to the recent robbery of a townhouse further east in Bayview. He almost snarled as "Acangana" started up again, the thirty year-old long ago having started hating that song. He jotted down some final notes as he got back into his cruiser, glancing up at the sky just in time to see an odd blue and yellow bird up in the sky.

Meanwhile, several hundred feet in the air...

"Hey! Stop that!"

"Turn that crap off!"

"That's not what I think about her, I'd.."id never think that!"

"Who said that? Who's there?"

"Mommy! Someone was talking to me in my head!"

<"Lazy?! I'll show YOU lazy!">

Subito crushed his hat over his ears, the wind buffeting him, and doing nothing to block out the slowly increasing scenes of confusion, fear, anger and suspicion playing out below and being carried into his ears.

What did I DO?! How did this happen, and how can I stop it? he thought wretchedly, not daring to descend in case he began causing even more trouble in his search for an answer and cure.

He looked around, and saw to his surprise a blockade being constructed several miles away Another mystery he thought glumly "and one I bet I'll regret investigating"

For lack of any better ideas coming to mind, he hung in the air, clouds passing around, above and below, and always the distant sound of his wandering thoughts spreading confusion below...

[Aoiroo]

Trial and Error

March 7th

Jasmine yawned slightly as she filled the spray bottles in the labs sink, it had been a long night, and a longer day, it was a little after noon but still not time for her lunch break. Not that she could leave until they finished testing. They just got a new contract for making waterproofing seals for a boating company, and each batch sent out needed to be thoroughly tested. For the moment it was testing the seals on fabric by spraying them with water and seeing if it was wet on the other side. It was simple, but effective in seeing if water got to the other side. She wiped her hands absently on her lab coat of the excess as she handed it off to her coworker and tried spraying the first coat, until she heard her a scream and saw her coworker had started sinking into the floor.

"WHAT?!"

Her voice echoed and boomed as the section of the floor under her coworker crumbled, as did the wall behind her. Every beaker and test tube shattered under the vibrations of the destructive outburst and as the dust settled Jasmine's ears rang as she looked out into daylight to the street below at the hole she had blown straight through the wall to the outside.

It took a few minutes for her ears to stop ringing, her coworker apparently still couldn't hear though she continued to have trouble not sinking into the ground. The building was almost immediately in panic, and Jasmine sort of stepped aside not risking saying anything as her mind raced.

Accident in a chemical lab, the coating? No, we were wearing gloves and masks when we sprayed, that can't possibly cause this. This is a industrial chemical lab, this is a biological change, a biological change like, Motely! He had gotten away, and now, now this, but how, what's the common factor here, no one else was....

She stopped as she looked down at spray bottle,

That's it.

Jasmines thumbs flew as she massed texted everyone she could, The Water's Been Drugged, in big bold letters she sent it to whoever she could think of, as well as twitter, facebook, tumbler, whoever could see it. She did so while running to her van, she was given immediate sick leave (well more like they were scared stone cold of her leave), as she ran to her van only to be stopped by, Hazel? The light skinned dark haired girl hugged onto Jasmine,

"Your okay, things are going crazy. Everyone at my schools gone all freaky, Amber burst into flames, Will grew gills and started gasping for air, then one of the lunch ladies turned into a giant flower monster, and them, I wished I was home, and poof I was home, then I wanted to find you so I went to your condo and you weren't there, then I remembered where you worked, and yeah, now I'm here."

Jasmine had already typed out the words on her phone and held it to her sister's face,

Teleportation,

She typed more quickly,

Can't talk, my voice is destructive, did you get my text.

Hazel dug into her pocket and pulled out the phone,

"Ohh yeah, wait the water was drugged, but I didn't drink any water,"

Did you was your hands? Anyway, go find mom and dad.

"Right, let me try something."

Hazel grabbed Jasmine and off they were, it was disorienting but useful. They found their parents about twenty minutes later after dodge and sorting through an entire Freshman year of college students with superpowers going wild. They were already infected, her day was bent over his desk, literately bent and dropping down like taffy. Their mom had shrunken down to the height of a pencil roughly. It didn't take long for them to agree it was time to go home.

When they got home, Jasmine used a laptop to explain the situation. It was a contagious mutation it seemed, and likely not very safe, but she had seen something similar and she would work on an antidote. When it was all said and done, that's what she needed to do, work on an antidote, so she asked her sister and she took her back to her work to get proper supplies. Except when Hazel left she went right for her van, this wasn't a job for Jasmine it was a job for Catalyst.

__________

The extensive work she did on finding a cure didn't yeld as much results as she had liked. Some willing testing from her family (mostly her mom, who wanted to be normal sized again rather badly) and the samples from the water bottle she concocted an antidote but it didn't last very long because this wasn't just a poison, it was a virus. It could quell it for a few seconds, minutes at the most but the virus would regain control and reinforce the mutation. Catalyst may of been a chemist, but what they needed was a vaccine and she wasn't a doctor.

The antidote did prove useful regardless, both as research and as ammo. She traveled to every lab she could to deliver her progress, and inbetween she stopped many would be villains and new metahumans even if temporarily. The villains reinforced a good bit of fear in the fact that their powers could be taken away, those who were less in control found comfort in the temporary normalcy. It was a small comfort, the entire time, she never dared speak. It made things harder, but her intent came through as she worked to take the city back.