DeviousMe

((Actually, since there's no one that seems to be trying to stop me, I can. But okay. I'll give yalls another chance. Countdown started.))

"Yeah okay, this is getting lame." Acid remarked with a huff and a placed hand on Joy, stopping the composite elemental's repeatedly failing attempts to protectively pick up one of the spinderlings, "Leave it be. These guys can handle it."

"Rosie," he turned to the were-human, "call he once you guys finish up here and I'll bring Politicus Slimus back. You've got my number. Number Four, pickup please."

Nothing happened.

The reptilian raised an eyebrow, "Number Four?"

"The ship is currently nearing apoapsis." the protector bot to his left answered, declaring monotonously, "Fictive transmitter out of range. Teleportation will commence in seventy-eight seconds..."

((Should probably give him a little time to reply. And just to get this snippet in...))

This time, Acid couldn't help it. He facepalmed. With the characteristic sound of air collapsing into a vacuum, he then disappeared. About a second later, he was back having nabbed what he needed right in the wake of the first teleportation.

A whiteboard and corresponding marker.

A wipe of his hand and a few quick squeaks of the marker later, he set the thing against the detention field for all to see. Though he had a horrid claw when it came to his handwriting, it was fairly easy to make out what he's scrawled onto the board.

An arrow that pointed up.

And scraggly blue capital letters that ostentatiously proclaimed 'DET FIELD'...

Wow. Nice. But...has TA suddenly become this forum's whipping boy?

Acid quirked an eyebrow at the summonees, most notably at the spider attempting to crawl up the assault bot's leg, but not quite being able to do so due to some manner of unseen force that kept it from making contact with the machine. If the spiderling cared to pattern its attempts, it would eventually find said force to be roughly spherical in nature, encompassing the mechanoid upon which it was centered.

He didn't otherwise outwardly react, though covertly was performing an analysis of the summoned entities that complemented the same course of action taken by his entourage quite well. Their sensors could pick up some things his senses couldn't and vice versa, so among the lot of them, there were few things that could manage to hide their nature.

What did they find?

Joy meanwhile couldn't help herself, feeling appalled at the notion of what this...this lout dared call a game, and reached down to the spiderling closest to her in an attempt to pick it up and cradle it safely in her arms. Strangely enough, the fire that composed her head and torso wouldn't harm them even a lick so long as she didn't want it to, despite being a textbook example of a raging inferno...

Dire's magic tentacles could curl around the congressman all they wanted to - they still couldn't reach him. Acid's detention field was still up, and it wasn't going anywhere until he decided otherwise. Logically, the chances of him doing so while someone was actively trying to kill the guy were categorically low.

"Oy." the reptilian grumbled, somehow resisting the nearly insurmountable urge to facepalm. This really wasn't going where he wanted it to - and not just with the blood-soaked gal.

He looked to Joy, wondering if he should ask her to try and possess the spastic woman, then to the assault bot, playing with the thought of having it give her a hug and not letting go until this was resolved. In the end, he decided against it. The detention field prevented her from affecting the congressman, and with her present approach she wouldn't be getting through it, so what was there really to be concerned about? Okay, so maybe she'd cause trouble when Rosie got around to taking the guy in, but perhaps the were-human could talk her down as well.

Either way, it was worth a shot. The detention field wasn't going anywhere, and though the Khelari made preparations for it, he somewhat doubted she'd realize he was the force keeping the barrier in existence and attack him.

If not...well, then he'd just have to expand the force bubble again and go from there...

Acid sneered at the congressman with a baleful, sideways glare, remarking to him in a very cold tone, "You: quiet. Otherwise I make that thing airtight."

Indeed, it was well within his capability, and he and to admit that watching the guy squirm and turn purple would be amusing. Still, he didn't do it. At least not yet. Verily, outwardly he didn't seem to be doing much of anything, even as Dire landed in the middle of his robotic entourage. True, he had half a mind to put up another force bubble, but he figured if things resolved now - which did seem to be happening - it was worth the invasion of his personal space.

Well...until a certain spine shattered against his detention field, that was.

"Seriously?" he regarded the blood-spattered woman with a mix of displeasure and disappointment, "I mean...seriously? You're really lucky I'm feeling generous right now, or I'd tell the big guy here to just blow your head off."

The assault bot standing next to Dire turned its head and looked down at her as if to affirm that.

"Now please behave." the Khelari added, indicating Rosie by pointing the tip of his tail in her direction, "She's very right. He's gonna get his. And then some. So just chill, okay? the situation's resolved. Just let it be..."

Sweet. I really hope I get one too this time around.

*explosion sounds*

*hands OUT OF ORDER sign on time machine*

Sorry. Happy belated birthday.

Awesome, haha. Happy birthday, Juggy!

"Yeah, I think he's pretty miserable already." Acid couldn't help but give a light laugh at Rosie's remark, regarding the congressman with half a giggle, half a chuckle, "An' yeh, that's pretty much what's gonna happen to him once the SPC gets done. Right, Rosie?"

The Khelari didn't really react to Jase's shadow maneuver, the event (to him) more of an explanation than anything else. So that was why he couldn't quite place the little dude's scent. Now that he thought about it, it was obvious, really. Oh well. He was allowed a brain fart every now and then.

So now he had a decision to make, hmm? Dang. He hated being decisive in situations like this. It was always such a bother. On one hand yeah, the people that were the intended targets of killing here probably did deserve it. On the other...sigh...he really should do something about it, shouldn't he? Yeah...probably. Ugh. This was going to take effort; he just knew it.

Then again, perhaps he could appease his inherent laziness and minimize it.

"Pst." he whispered to the were-human, "You okay if we just let them beat the stuffing outta one another? We can always stop 'em once they've mashed one another silly, just before someone's about to get killed. Probably be easier too, rather than now..."

This time it was Acid who flashed the casual grin, though naturally in a much more toothy manner, "I'm an archvillain, my dear boy. It's what I do."

And as Jase drew the shuriken from his belt, the Khelari did the same with the fingers from his side.

...which was of course when a certain frigid femme fatale burst from the hospital doors, raging all the way to the moon and back.

The reptilian's eyes narrowed as he mumbled, "You know, I'm starting to get a good mind about the whole nuke the site from orbit deal. Fine. You know what? Fine."

Unwrapping his left arm form about the torso of the congressman, the reptilian dropped him roughly to the ground, a field of force strong enough to stand out visibly against the air forming about him in the process, placing the man in detention against the asphalt. At the same time, Acid snapped his fingers. And they came. From somewhere in the sky they came, on call and ready to serve.

The first were a trio of small mechanoids, spindly metal frames distending as they landed, shaping themselves into some grotesque knockoffs of the humanoid form, arranged before their master in a warding, obtuse triangle.

Bulwark.

The second were a duo of larger examples, their limbs more finely tuned for the tasks they performed, arcs of energy hovering between the antennae that jutted form their metal 'backpacks', seeming to carry the desire to leap upon anything those they belonged to disapproved of. One to the left, one to the right.

Keeper.

The last was a mechanical monstrosity, well over two meters tall and nearly as wide. Its crimson lenses shone most menacing of them all, slim and narrow, always shifting, always watching all that lay about with the cold, calculating stare of machine. Its bulk and prominent, active suite of destructive armament did nothing to assuage this notion, the mighty machine standing to the rear of its master, towering over even the tall and limber Khelari.

Force.

Meanwhile, the sizeable composite elemental seemed to be getting a few ideas of its own, stepping next to Jase with foreboding tone, even for the light, female voice that was Joy, "I wouldn't do that if I were you..."

For a few moments, Acid regarded Jase with one of those 'oh please' looks, then vanished with the characteristic clap of air collapsing into a suddenly appeared vacuum. He'd expected something like that. Okay, so not something like that - he'd expected some elaborate martial arts move, but the dispersive properties of the steps he'd taken to protect himself from that worked well enough against paralyzing enchantments.

Still, he hadn't much felt like having the congressman eaten by a shadow, so he'd teleported a few meters away, reappearing on the other side of Rosie in the same instant that he'd departed.

"I thought you said he was cool?" the Khelari remarked to her, though of course it was about then that someone else burst onto the scene with desire for the politician, causing the reptilian to give a sigh. It was always the same with these people. Give them a little power, and suddenly they think they're better than everyone else and can tell them what to do. Typical. Typical.

"Joy, you might wanna head out." he told the composite elemental, though that didn't mean he let his guard down against further would-be attempts to snatch the congressman, "I think I'm gonna have to teach some people how to say please..."

((So long as you don't try and auto things again, sure.))

"Right." Acid remarked in the same regard as Rosie, then returned to speaking with Joy. Some unfamiliar technical terms fell, but the general gist that the spirit had found roughly the same thing as Rosie was easy enough to distill. Whatever this infection the Khelari was looking for was, the congressman didn't have any on or in him.

"Well then, I guess that settles that." he looked in the general direction Jase and Rosie, "I guess things worked out well enough after all then. Think I'll be taking this guy to the hospital on Peregrine Island now. You guys wanna tag along...?"

"Well then." the Khelari remarked to more than one thing, wondering just what odd thing would happen next, as well as suppressing the desire to immediately toss at least a dozen questions at the composite elemental's head. After a few long moments, he realized he was just standing there, and with what could best be described as a brain-click turned to Rosie, "Oh. Right. Um, Rosie - Joy. Joy - Rosie. She's a were-human. She's a pnevma spirit. Kind of like the deal with Hawaii's volcanoes. Except different. I'll explain later. Right now..."

Acid held the congressman up to the amalgamation, "Could you give this guy a once-over, tell me what you find? I don't think he's been infected, but I'd like to make sure."

"Of course." Joy replied soft-spokenly, touching the human with the hand of wood, "Oh my..."

Acid couldn't help but laugh as Rosalind greeted the 'tree', remarking to her, "Rosie, that's not a tree. That's J...wait a sec. No, that's not James. The heck is that?"

As if to answer his question, the arm-shaped 'tree' gave a shake and the earth responded with a rock, the plant rising from the ground by virtue of a gob of - of all things - fire, which in the process of rising coalesced into a shape that could've been a rough torso. Indeed, that was the very final shape it assumed, thick and broad-shoudlered, and carrying a head that could've come from so many monsters of legend it was hard to describe. The spike-lined lower jaw that jutted forward beyond the noseless face was likely the only defining mark.

The tree seemed to be, and was indeed the thing's right arm, and the left one soon followed, formed by water that pooled from the soil and coalesced to shape in heedless defiance of gravity. This only continued further, for the creature then rose on one leg of loose, wind-swept sand, and another composed of large, dense, and murky-looking slabs of rock. In the end, it was easily three meters tall, its composite form of wood, fire, water, earth, and wind towering over all assembled.

"...Joy?" the Khelari finally managed to get out, having stared at the thing in silence for several long seconds, "Is that you?"

The flaming jaws of the creature only responded with a light-hearted, truly melodious giggle...

Nice.

Aiight, haha. Linky to reference sketch and linky to old thread for ya.

Whatever floats your boat, dude. I just hope Mr. Majesty gets away OK. Want a reference link, or you still got the ones from the other threads you made?

Already? Whatever happened to the summer swimsuit stuff you said you were gonna do?

"Well..." Acid remarked, still holding the congressman over his head like an umbrella, having initially thought himself the cake's target. True, using a slimy politician as a meatshield was a tad unorthodox, but it had been a snap reaction, "That was new."

In addition, as if to answer the stomping boy's question, the red hole in the sky suddenly disgorged something that resembled a meteor roughly a meter in diameter, which in turn crashed to the ground not ten away with decent enough cacophony to send dust every which way and make a small, yet respectable crater. It didn't take long for the cloud to clear either, revealing what had caused it as the Khelari lowered the congressman to his side again.

A roughly human-sized and very gnarled tree in the approximate shape of some inhuman arm.

"Okay...?" the scaleless reptilian performed the equivalent of quirking an eyebrow, then split off a bit of his attention to take the amulet's necklace from his tail and between his fingers, offering it to Rosie, "Extracted properly, yeah? Would you mind terribly...?"

...or rather, that was the plan. Regarding Jase as a nuisance or not, Acid wasn't about to let anyone he didn't approve of so much as touch the congressman.

"No." he stated curtly to Jase as he approached (assuming he got past a certain obviously super-powered young man who likely had a nasty bag of tricks all of his own, that was), moving the nude man to his opposite side and taking steps to keep him out of the guy's reach while he spoke with Rosie.

"So should I explode this then?" the Khelari asked her, regarding the pendant like one would a very unappetizing meal, "Or implode? Or do you want it...?"

"Not the word I'd use," the Khelari quirked an inquisitive eye at the Urban Fellow of Merry Wit. He'd have chosen 'spastic', but that was neither here nor now as he held the congressman up to Rosie, "Give this guy a whiff, would ya? Tell me if anything smells...off to you."

"Oh, that reminds me." he raised the amulet as well, "You wouldn't be able to track who or what this thing's linked to?"

He did indeed seem to be summarily ignoring Jase...

Sounds good to me. I'm not sure we really need a 'DM', though. We can probably get by by just trading plots back and forth like in most other RP threads. It generally works out well enough, and it makes people feel better about being involved in the thread too.

Also, I'm fervently against placing a limit on how many people can join. Yes, I know it can create a hassle, but leaving people out just ain't right. We can always just say 1 character per person if things get out of hand.

That's about it from me. Oh, wait, I remember now - why wait until after Thanksgiving? Go nao.