Basilisk

Obviously shocked at the sudden appearance of the Guard, Corvus took several quick steps away. Composing herself, she addressed the newcomer.

"Corvus Corax. Unless you can get us out of this reality, or you can get rid of that crap," she motioned to the ooze a few feet away, "I'm not sure you can, Heaven or no Heaven."

At Mystic's heads-up, Corvus stood at the ready, preparing herself for any possible attack. Thinking to provide illumination for her colleagues to attack by, she readied her radiant aura. Small sparks of green light appeared once again at her hands and her chest, but were quickly quashed by the darkness.

"Jason, this would be VERY good time to stop this..."

She squinted in the darkness, trying to find his form.

"Ummm... Has anyone seen Jason?"

In an effort to avoid the oozing blackness, Corvus once more took to the air, hovering a few feet from the ground.

"I'm not exactly a healer, but I'll see what I can do."

A green glow began to radiate from Corvus' hands and chest. The glow increased until it finally burst out as a bright green flash. As the flash suffused the room, a soothing warmth enveloped everyone exposed. When the glow dissipated, the light left wounds healed.

"Unfortunately, that's about the best I can do. If that hasn't stabilized her, I have one other option, but I hesitate to use it. It leaves people... changed."

As the moan sounded through the room, Corvus blanched. She looked at Mystic.

"How strong you feeling? Because it sounds to me that this floor is getting ready to collapse. If that happens, you and I seem to be the only ones who are able to fly and are healthy enough to lend a hand. If the floor collapses, we might have to fly everyone else to safety. I think i can take Cowman and Tick-Tok. Do you think you can handle Jason and Melissa?"

Eyeing the device nervously, Corvus just shook her head.

"Handle what? We don't even know what the heck is happening. How would we know if we can handle it?" She motioned to the blast door. "Besides, I don't think you'll be able to get out anyway."

Corvus watched the device, readying herself for anything.

"If it weren't for the fact that we don't know who'd come along and get their grubby little hands on it, I'd be in complete agreement with you. Too bad life's not perfect like that. We may well have opened a Pandora's Box here, but unfortunately, I'm not sure we can just close it and forget about it." Corvus paused for a moment to think. "Either we make good and danged sure that whatever's in there can't get out with someone else's help, or we find some way to blow it to hell without letting our little friend out."

This sounds neat. Count me in!

Dark Basilisk

In the 1980's, the growing prevalence of the drug Supes led to panic amongst the world governments. The ability for some addicts to gain super-heroic powers deeply concerned the leaders of capitalist governments. Seeing this as a potential chance for the USSR to get a one-up ons such nations as Canada, the United States, Mexico, France, Britain, West Germany, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Italy, these countries co-operated one massive effort to create their own minor superheroes.

This led to the formation of the "Noah Project". They assembled 3000 of their best military, police, and special service officials, and in co-operation with Crey Industries, developed the "Noah Treatment". This treatment fused together the DNA of two distinct creatures, granting the host creature various abilities such as enhanced strength, speed, dexterity, or resistances to the elements.

For 2 years, these soldiers operated as an elite strike team known as "Task Force Noah". However, a stabilizing agent in the treatment began to break down, leading all of the subects to begin a secondary mutation. For all but 1% of the subjects, this mutation proved fatal. For those who did not die, the mutation granted unexpected powers.

Not wanting to be associated with the deaths of so many people in an experiment as controversial as the Noah Project, the government and Crey all agreed that it would be best to simply release the remaining subjects to their own devices.

David Drake, originally from Calgary, Canada, was selected as subject #0238. His DNA was fused with that of a South American lizard known as a basilisk. The mutation which granted him his abilities to petrify enemies, breathe poisonous gases, and run at super speeds, also caused him to grow scales all over his body, and he has grown a reptilian tail. Blaming Crey for turning him into a "freak," David adopted the persona of the Dark Basilisk, and has vowed revenge against them.

David is very cynical, but is usually very personable with those he likes. He does not believe that simply arresting criminals is the solution to fight crime, but will not use lethal force unless he has no other choice. However, he has no compunctions about roughing up his enemies before sending them off. Particularly if those enemies are Crey operatives. He is a natural leader, but doesn't like the responsibility involved with leading, so he will leave the task to anyone else who chooses to step up.

Once again, Mystic Inferno began his preparations, focusing instead on the device itself, rather than any particular sphere. Completing his incantation, the whole device began moving, each layer of spheres rotating in opposite directions. The arcing energy turned its focus and all began accumulating in the centre of the bowl. Slowly, images began to form within the energy, faces of people both familiar and foreign.

Gradually, the images within the device began to coalesce, until they formed a single image; the very room in which everybody was standing. However, the room was empty, save for the device.

A bright flash issued from the device, blinding everyone temporarily. When vision cleared, there were twice the number of people in the room. Each person had an exact duplicate standing opposite the room from them.

One of the Corvuses spoke.

"Well, that was neat."

"You know it's the official definition of insanity to do the same thing and expect different results, right?" Corvus remarked, "Before we rush headlong into another dance with this creature, maybe we should at least plan something out in case things go sour. Obviously our negative energy based attacks don't do a whole lot to this thing. We should probably make sure that Mystic can stick around for more than target practice this time."

Corvus approached the buffet table and began gathering anything with a sharp end which could be used as a projectile, and began tucking them under her belt, securing a few which wouldn't fit with tape taken from a drawer in her console.

"Anyone else handy with throwing weapons? You should take a few, just in case."

Corvus frowned as she looked around, trying to find the woman.

"I don't see her... Is it possible that she was only here as a product of us jumping through possible universes?"

Without missing a beat, Corvus stopped Mystic Inferno, and explained to him what had happened in the past few minutes. When she had completed her explanation, she turned to the rest of the group.

"Well, I guess we know now what it's for... The question is: What do we do with it?" She crossed her arms and continued, "It may be that the device has more uses than just this, but I would hate to think that there is one of those things inside of every sphere. Can you imagine what would happen if the 5th Column, or Crey, or any other group like that got their hands on this? The worst part, though, is that whatever that thing was, it probably remembers us. If we were to simply launch it into space, we'd be risking someone else opening it, and having that thing return. Seems we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't."

Corvus focused her attention on Jason, a smirk turning up the corners of her mouth.

"'Course it didn't seem all bad for you. Who was that? You and she seemed to have more than a casual relationship."

Seeing the ineffectiveness of Melissa's attack, Corvus decided to use a different tactic. She quickly fired off a jet of dark matter. The attack hit the creature square on, but did no damage. However, an inky black smoke began to rise from the ground around the creature. Tendrils of the darkness began to wrap the creature's legs, holding it fast. The smoke obscured the creature's vision even further, rendering it virtually blind.

Seizing the opportunity, Corvus sprinted across the room to the buffet table. Grabbing a knife from the tray of chicken, she quickly turned and threw it at the creature. The knife flew end-over-end, hitting the creature squarely in the chest. Howling in pain, the creature grabbed at the handle protruding from itself, and tore the knife from its body. Rivulets of blackness dribbled down the blade, corroding the metal into nothingness.

Unsure of the success of her attack, Corvus once again took cover, as the creature launched beams of blackness randomly around the room.

[ooc: Fixed my previous post. That's what you get for RPing on an empty brain. Oh well. In my defense, technically Corvus didn't mention a thing about Nightingale... just nodded to her. ]

Within an instant of Mystic Inferno's death, Corvus was in action, taking cover behind one of the consoles. She concentrated for a moment, and summoned a cloud of radioactive gas around the creature.

Now partially blinded, the creature focused its attack on Corvus. It launched a second dark beam towards her. The beam bored easily through the console, and grazed her arm.

Fiery white sparks flew from the damaged console, which was now leaning at a precarious angle. Seeing no further use from the console as cover, Corvus launched herself into the air, wincing slightly as the her injured arm moved, and flew directly over the creature and behind the device, using it as shelter.

Corvus nodded a welcome to Melissa, then turned to Jason.

"Ready when you are." She smiled. "I just hope that your Axiom works. I'd hate to come back to find a lot of nothing. I'm rather fond of this universe, all my stuff is here."

She finished the last bit of food from her plate, then left it on the edge of her console.

Corvus stood and began to load up a plate with potato salad, biscuits, assorted crackers, and small amounts of meat and cheese. At Mystic Inferno's inquiry, she looked at him quizzically.

"I didn't hear anything. Why, what did you hear?"

After he described the situation, she began to look somewhat concerned.

"Anywhere else, I might dismiss that as just a voice travelling through an air duct or something. Here, though, this could be something more significant. You say it came from the spheres?"

She approached the device once again, nibbling thoughtfully on a cracker topped with cheese and some chicken. Stepping up, she began climbing into the air as if on an invisible elevator, and drifted to roughly the same position which Mystic had recently departed. She looked down and around, then, apparently satisfied, she left the centre of the device and landed once more on the ground.

"I didn't hear a thing. Maybe it's your connection with magic which is allowing you to hear and see these things." She sounded vaguely disappointed.

Corvus sat down in her chair and pinched the bridge of her nose. Frustration was evident in her voice.

"So, what we've got right now is a device which radiates magical energies in incredible amounts, has deleterious effects on metals and flesh, is practically made of negative energy- which it seems to absorb, by the way, and it warps and twists space-time like rubber. Plus we have no idea where it's from, what it does, or how it got here, just that it seems to be calling for us specifically. Well, it's good that we've got experts on the job, otherwise we wouldn't know anything about it."

Corvus sat back up and returned her gaze to the device in the middle of the room. "For all we know this could be a portal, a weapon- hell, it could be a giant blender, for crying out loud. You know, for making giant, trans-dimensional omelettes." She released a deep breath and composed herself again. Looking over the device, she frowned.

"I can't shake the feeling that we're missing something obvious here... For example, it's generating huge amounts of energy, and is warping the fabric of reality- either as a side-effect, or by design- and I can't think of many things that might require that much energy. As I mentioned before, the first thing that comes to my mind is 'portal'. That would explain the shielding. What if, and I realize this is quite a jump, but what if it's some form of portal to an alternate universe? Given its predilection towards negative energy, maybe some kind of 'anti-universe'?"

Corvus paused in her inspection of the spheres.

"You say it generates magical energy? And each sphere has a different kind? Correct me if I'm wrong, but magical energy operates basically the same as regular energy, right? Various energies with different wavelengths, each having a different effect. Mrs. Reynolds even mentioned that the spheres have a resonance to them. So, what if we find the wavelength of the resonance, and expose it to energy with the exact same wavelength, but with an inverse frequency. We might be able to annul the resonance and possibly examine the spheres more closely."

She turned and winked. "I may not have done well in chem, but I aced physics. Do you think you could identify the magical energy well enough for us to try?"

Corvus stood. A hint of a smile touched her lips.

"None so modest, either, hmm?"

She proceeded to the spheres once again and began to look into the reflective surface, trying to verify Mystic's vision.

"So, a mythology and anthropology expert, eh? What's your spidey-sense tell you about this, then?" She motioned at the device dominating the room. "Any myths or historic artifacts which might give us a clue about what this thing is? Where was it found, anyway?"

Having paused in her sketches, Corvus looked up at Mrs. Reynolds.

"One thing confuses me. Why have you chosen this particular group? Certainly there are other heroes with some kind of specialization in crypto-science. I mean, I barely passed High School chem, for crying out loud."

Frowning slightly at the interruption in her work, Corvus looked up from the paper, now covered in sketches, circuit diagrams, and calculations, and turned her attention to the newcomer. She spent a moment carefully studying the man, then returned her gaze to the sheaf of paper, half-listening in case something important was mentioned.

After having taken a seat at her console, Corvus oriented herself with the design of it. Pressing a few buttons, she mentioned; "Well, the technology of it is unfamiliar, but it's not emitting any radiation. Trust me, I would know. What concerns me, however is the idea that it was locked from the outside. That might suggest a portal, or perhaps a transportation device of some kind. Allowing for use from one side, but not allowing unauthorized access from the other. Have any attempts been made to run it?"

Without really waiting for an answer, she once again got up, and proceeded to study the device. "Four columns, seven spheres each... That might be significant." She turned to Mrs. Reynold. "May I have some paper and a pencil, please? I think better if I can sketch along to my thoughts."

Accepting the proferred hand, Corvus replied, "Corvus Corax, at your service. I don't mean to be rude, but I'm afraid you haven't answered my question. Why am I needed here?" Impatience was obvious in her voice.

Once more, the Iris spun open. A tall woman, dressed in black spandex, with black iron wings protruding from her hair, walked into the room. Emblazoned on her chest was the head of a raven. She looked around dispassionately then finally focused her gaze on the two figures at the centre of the room.

"Hello. The young man told me that I would find someone who could explain all this in here." Her voice had a slight lyrical quality to it, accentuated by the hint of a French accent. She nodded and spoke again.
"I am Corvus Corax."