big bad beetleborg [video] [locked]

[beetlebutt]

[ooc: This is set just slightly before people return from the plot, so that people on the rig can see it before everyone returns and people in the plot can see it after they return.]

[Jaime is definitely thrown by finding himself here and he already earned himself a few shocks trying to fight his way out. Fortunately, they were only the short zappy kind, not Violations. Eventually he simmered down and thought about what Ted had taught him, about keeping his cool and playing the long game. But even now after getting the talk about where he is, he's feeling suspicious.]

[What if this is some weird game the Regime is playing? What if they're doing...something that they think will help coerce him to work with them long term? Ted had made it clear to him how manipulative and controlling they could. What if this is some kind of set up to try to convince him to join them?]

[That had always been Ted's fear. That Jaime would be strong-armed or manipulated into working for the bad guys - possibly even with threats to his family - or that Batman would recruit him because his people were dropping like flies. So he's feeling slightly suspicious when he gets on the comms, and his frown is pretty cranky.]

[He figured out that encryption pretty fast, enough with the Scarab poking around the comms. He's already told the Scarab to stay quiet and keep his head down.]

Okay, so apparently if you're kidnapped by people from another dimension, you get a free smartphone. Cool.

[It's not cool.]

[He drags a hand down his face.]

My name is Jaime. Just Jaime, that's all you get.

[He might have to use the suit, so he doesn't want his name associated with it. There are plenty of black-haired teenagers named Jaime out there.]

How many other people are in this place? And did anyone get powers or get changes in their powers?

[A squint.]

Also, that slideshow, does anyone know who made that? Because it was either parody meant to insult us or the person who made it was like super old. Like "uses internet explorer" old.

Comments

[prairietroubador]

Greg Saunders. Also the Vigilante, if'n that means anything to ya.

[Greg had a famous face back home, and so didn't see much point in hiding things. Not if he wanted to help, anyways.]

As for powers?

[Greg strums a few notes of Dueling Banjos on his guitar, and the response comes from nowhere right on cue.]

I think that answers your question.

[beetlebutt]

[The name doesn't ring any bells but it does make it clear the guy is a superhero. Probably.]

You got the power to manipulate reality be...extra folksy?

Exactly how folksy were you before?

[prairietroubador]

I'm a cowboy-themed crimefighter and a country singer, so a fair bit folksy, if I'm honest.

The invisible band is still a new one though.

Little bit of a letdown, really. Some people get superspeed, or flight, or willpower-fueled space rings, and I get this.

[beetlebutt]

Willpower-fueled space rings...

[Jaime tilts his head and if anything his expression gets more cautious, not relieved at someone possibly from home..]

You have Green Lanterns where you're from?

[runes_brand]

You don't trust us with your full name, but you trust us to do your homework? That's a ████ing choice.

[Not necessarily a bad one in Brand's opinion, but c'mon kid.]

Counting you, there's forty-two 'new hires'. 'Power' alteration has been discussed several times, most people have either gained or lost something. Can't speak much to either myself.

[beetlebutt]

You can't use my "homework" to hurt the people I love. If certain people from back home were to show up here I don't want them to find out my full name.

[His family is vulnerable and they might threaten or kidnap them to control him.]

Forty two. They've got forty-two people.

[Fuck. That's a lot of people with powers to successfully control. This really is an organized group holding them.]

[He rubs the bridge of his nose.]

[runes_brand]

[Brand sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. So dramatic.]

Keep whatever secrets you like, I don't ████ing care.

[Maybe the more annoying werewolf will show up and give the new kid secret-keeping lessons. Or maybe picking at him will distract her from picking at Brand. A man can dream.]

Yeah, forty-two. If you want someone to hand-hold you through those feelings, you're going to want to wait for the Easter Bunny to come back.

[beetlebutt]

I don't expect hand-holding. You'd probably be better off not doing it anyway or I'll jinx you.

[Maybe it's a bad idea to accept any new guidance or adult support that the universe might interpret a mentoring for a little while. So no one else falls to the Jaime Reyes Mentor curse.]

[His train of though screeches to a halt and then slowly chugs backward to the station.]

...The Easter Bunny? [flat] He is real. And they kidnapped him.

[fromfryingpantofire]

Free flying smartphone, even. Believe it or not, the flying part comes in handy.

[Sam's back in his favorite part of the library. Which absolutely shouldn't have wifi, but always does for him. And the flying part is being demonstrated while he takes a few notes on pieces of...likely printer paper.]

A few dozen of us, at least. Numbers fluctuate a bit. And a few people have had changes in their powers or now have powers that they didn't before. Telekinesis for me, for example.

[Which may be a power he had sometimes back home, but it's a lot steadier here and easier to call up. And doesn't need to be primed with demon blood. Always a plus.]

As for the rest? I'm Sam. And I'm pretty sure that Jorgmund probably don't use IE. They probably have a proprietary web browser that's built on the same base code or something similar, though. And is the only thing anybody is allowed to use.

[beetlebutt]

Ooh hands free. Nice.

[Jaime starts playing around with it on his own comm.]

My parents only let me have a flip phone because money but also blah blah "Being all over the place online can get you bullied and you don't need to take pictures of your food, miho" blah blah blah. And I do get it, but man does it look super lame.

And it's nice to meet you, even if it's crappy that we got to meet here.

[A pause.]

Number fluctuate? Do they let people go? Or do they like... let them go?

[They apparently kidnapped the Easter Bunny, he wouldn't put it past them to commit murder.]

[fromfryingpantofire]

[Sam gives the quick directions to find the hands-free mode. It really is useful.]

I had a flip phone for a while, but a smartphone is more useful in a lot of ways. A lot easier to Google something or do a quick bit of research without needing to pull the laptop out in the middle of a wherever you're at, you know?

[Said like somebody who has had to do that a time or two himself. And he has.]

[He looks up, considering how to say the next thing.]

It's a weird one, but we might never have met if it wasn't for this place. People get pulled here from all over the multiverse, it seems. Which is probably why the numbers fluctuate. Whatever brings us here can send us back the same way.

[A pause.]

Or they're being hidden somehow. However, I don't think Jorgmund is good enough to be able to keep that up.

[beetlebutt]

Mmm.

[It's a skeptical noise.]

You don't have to hide someone you've taken off the rig.

[walkingballpit]

Hey, Jaime. I’m Robbie Baldwin. Or Speedball.

[ He doesn’t hold back on names, but he’s not about to press for anyone else’s.

Especially not when it’s clear that someone comes from a world with powers. Robbie checks that this is locked. ]

I’ve definitely got something holding mine in check, but they’re still there.

[beetlebutt]

[Jaime opens his mouth, then shuts it.]

I was about to rag on Speedball as a superhero name but then I remembered my world produced "Booster Gold" as one.

[He words the sentence to avoid having to use the word "had." Past tense. He's still not ready.]

[walkingballpit]

[ Booster Gold is vaguely familiar, and Robbie mumbles it and is clearly looking around to try and jog his memory.

Of course, he’s heard hundreds, if not thousands, of code names, and that’s before world hopping took him to the 31st century superhero museums in another universe. It’s a cromulent code name. Probably the X-Men, they wear gold. ]

Yeah, yeah. I didn’t pick it. I just stuck with it when some reporter wrote me up in the paper. It’s hard to come up with unique names. I know at least three people with Spider in their name. I think “Marvel” is up to five now? Six? Do secondary nicknames count?

[beetlebutt]

My world had a lot of legacy cases, so a lot of superheroes get a hand-me down.

[He doesn't say that he's one of them.]

So at least they aren't getting it from some rando. It's more like "I, Sir Punchington the First, dub thee Squire Punchington the Second, next in line to someday been the next Sir Punchington."

video;

[tr1xx]

[ The notification comes as soon as her comm. reconnects to the Rig network, but Cammie barely gets to glance at it before she's being rushed through returning her mission-only equipment with the others.

One of the staffers tries to get her to turn her ears over, until she proves they're sanctioned on the rig. It's an ordeal. This whole thing's been an ordeal and frankly, she's exhausted, but things turned out... about okay as they could have, she thinks.

She stops in a hall to take a minute to herself and pulls out her comm., finally actually looking at the new post that's apparently been made whilst they were gone. Not long before they got back, actually. Another new arrival, huh? And wait, is that—

Finally, she starts her actual response (and gods, if it isn't still a relief to hear her actual Scottish accent again): ]

Hullo, Just-Jaime. Name's Cammie, and that's ma jacket behind ye. So I think we're gonna be seein' a lot of each other.

[ She waves at the camera. ]

Pretty sure the slideshow's a bit of both, if I'm honest.

[beetlebutt]

[Jaime squints.]

But you're a girl.

[A pause.]

I mean, I assume. Sorry if I assumed wrong. I'm all about making sure to use people's pronouns and stuff.

But do they do a coed thing?

[tr1xx]

[ Cammie snickers a little. ]

Ye got it right, don't worry.

Aye, we wouldn't be the first either. Least a couple others who've been paired up co-ed, don't think Jorg really care much.

[ She shrugs. ]

Doesn't bother me. I was roomin' with a woman, a genderfluid person an' a dude back before I came here. Least you look like you're my age.

[freakenstein]

Welcome to the crew, fellow civvie.

I'm Merton, and I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few people here without powers that didn't gain any. For the record. [Not that he knew of, anyway. And he'd certainly been testing himself for them ever since he'd heard that was a thing that could happen.]

Little tip for the future. If you want to keep something secret, don't tell people you're keeping a secret. Most people won't question it if you don't tell them something, but they'll definitely bug you if you say you don't want to tell them a thing. [There's no sarcasm as he says that, and he's trying not to sound condescending, though it could still easily come across that way. His speech has a snappy, buzzy energy to it, and he can barely seem to sit still, fidgeting on his bunk and letting his free hand mess through his hair or gesture to put emphasis to certain words. After getting back from his first mission and making it into the relative safety of his room, he had a lot of nervous energy left over.]

Human nature and all that.

[He adds a shrug to that. Then seeming to realize, that might be insensitive, he attempts to put on a more sober tone and adds-] Not that I can't understand why you don't want to say your whole name given the circumstance. That sounds...awful.

[beetlebutt]

Never giving your last name gets noticed eventually and I'm not giving a fake name because if this was all some weird game being played by the bad people back home, they're the types to go off and find some random dude with the fake name and mess with him and maybe his family just as a "that's what you get for lying about who you are."

[He waves a hand vaguely, the one with the clunky bracelet.]

"Just Jaime" means they only deal with just Jaime.

To deal with those kinds of people you gotta get creative when thinking about how low they might stoop.

[freakenstein]

[He cringes, looking down, away from the screen, and nodding.]

I...can see how that would definitely be a problem. It's admittedly a tactic that doesn't take vengeful, calculating, former superhero lead fascist regimes into mind.

[Chewing on the edge of his lip, he goes quite for a moment, mulling over whether the rest of what he wanted to say was worth saying at this point. On one hand he didn't want to sound like he was trying to keep pushing the "you shouldn't making it so obvious you don't want anyone to know you last name" when that cat was already out of the bag and he had a good reason for doing it. On the other hand, it still felt important to know.

Eventually he squeezes his eyes shut, makes a decision, and pushes forward, fumbling to choose his words carefully.]

For any other stuff though...If you just don't offer information about yourself...to the company I mean, they won't go looking for it. They don’t want to humanize us or know who we are beyond what we can do for them and what kind of threat level we are. But if you make them think you have a good reason for not telling them something, they might start wanting to know. Or forcing you to say. If you have something to hide, you have something to take.

Subtle evasiveness can get you surprisingly far with people who don't care about you as a person.

Not to say you won’t still occasionally have to put your foot down and say "it's none of your business" but the fewer people you have to say that to, the better your chances of slipping under their radar.

[As soon as it's out of his mouth, it instantly felt like a mistake, and he quickly tries to change the subject as if that will be enough to move the conversation past it.]

That bracelet...was that something they put on you?

[kingofneworleans]

Bonjour, Jaime. Name's Remy, though I go by Gambit as well.

[May as well give both the names. Though he'll match the kid by not giving his last name.]

Seem to be one of de few folks here dat ain't had deir powers messed wit' too bad. Can't seem to tell any difference, really, ot'er dan de fact dat I pro'ly need more calories dan dey're servin' up.

[beetlebutt]

There's a biiiig difference for me.

[He briefly tilts his head to the side, as if listening to something just under the range of normal hearing and snorts, then seems to remember he's being watched.]

[kingofneworleans]

[He's been around enough psychics to recognize that sort of head tilt.]

[He's also been around enough psychics to know it's not something you call out.]

[Which is why he simply raises an eyebrow enough to let Jaime know he saw it before rolling on.]

Same for Rogue. Ma...ah. [He takes a moment, double and triple checking the lock.] My girlfriend. She's from de same world, slightly different time. Comin' here knocked her power set down a lot. She might be able to help you out, if you need it.