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Date & Time: Jan 12th to Jan 19th (real time), July 11th to July 18th (historical time), 1884
Location: Black Rock, New Mexico, USA
Characters: All transports
Summary: Fearing UE reprisal, the Initiative corrals all transports and shoos them onto a mission back to the Wild West, to vote Gerald "Moony" Jackson in as Mayor of Black Rock. Transports are encouraged to used all their wiles to encourage townsfolk to vote in favor of him, too. Other than that, they're free to roam as they will for 7 whole days! Good luck finding food and shelter, masses. (See the OOC post for more information.)

The Initiative had been terse and rushed as they gathered the transports into the Transporter room, and anyone unwilling to participate will have been forcibly hurried along. The Initiative employees had seemed distracted and worried, and unwilling to stand around and debate. It was time to move. The teleportation had gone off without a hitch, and a roomful of transports have been treated, quite suddenly, to a broad and sunny blue sky, and especially to the heat of mid July in the American West.

Enjoy your weeklong stay in Black Rock, New Mexico! The town is small and sleepy, with just 3 good saloons and one questionable (but considerably cheaper) one. There are a few inns, but these inns aren't quite prepared to room a sudden influx of over 300 travelers, and some people might have to bunk up or get creative with their sleeping arrangements. If you sleep in an inn at all, of course. There's plenty of unexplored wilderness out there to sleep in instead, isn't there? Just make sure to check your boots for scorpions in the morning.

The only instructions are "vote for Gerald "Moony" Jackson for Mayor, and try to convince others to do the same", and you've been given just enough money to cover a very sparse room and board for 7 days, if you don't spend it in anything else.

So, how do you spend your time?

Edit: Overflow log!

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[ This is probably the weirdest fight Jason's been in in a while, which is saying something. He misses Beast Boy for a weird moment and then he's back in the fight, hitting harder than before.

You'd think these guys would learn to stay down after he was nice enough not to break their nose. He turns to the one left standing and lays him out, feeling a really satisfying thud and a sharp pain in his knuckles that means this dude's gonna need to see the dentist.

Then he catches sight of the guy taking a swing at the dog and steps forward just enough to catch him around the back of the leg, unbalancing him. ]

Hey! Didn't anybody ever tell you not to hit girls!

[ He can hear scrambling behind him and he actually kind of hopes it's those bozos gettin' the hell out. They couldn't be that lucky, right?]

( No, they couldn't. Jason's assist sends the guy Collette was trying to turn into a 19th century sunscreen model stumbling back, and with her still in the way, unbalanced becomes ground-embracing. )

< Nice one. >

( She says, before those scrambling noises hit a certain metallic click she's immediately moving toward.

Whirling around, Collette doesn't check the scene before bounding toward the man who was back up and preparing to shoot his gun off at Jason's back -- her switch in direction and sudden threat has the gun shifting direction enough that the man curses as he pulls the trigger, shooting at the crazy animal looking far more like a coyote than a proper dog coming at him with fangs bared. )

< Oh no you don't! >

( The shot hits target, tearing through the flesh on the left side of her face. Collette's eye closes in reflex to the blood that splashes up into it, the yelp of pain involuntary as she didn't change course. Dogs were simply more vocal than crocodiles; if she'd been a croc, they wouldn't have heard an exhalation for the pain. )

What the hell!

( Seems to be his estimate as he prepares to shoot again, the second round taking her in the shoulder as she does what no sane, thinking animal would do in pressing her attack after the first shot hit. The third flies wild. She knows she can't let him have a fourth.

At this range, and with this desperation, the fourth would be in her head if she guesses based on the first two. Evisceration, nearly bleeding out, she could survive all sorts of injuries, but nothing close to a one shot kill.

He stumbles back, focused on Collette as shock at what he was seeing wears off. He curses as she's faster than he is. This time, when her jaws close over his wrist, there's no hesitation in biting down. She's no wolf -- this isn't bone crushing force -- but it's skin puncturing, and that gun doesn't remain in hand for long. Nor does the man stay entirely silent.

This is bringing them far more attention than they'll want, and part of her even recognizes this. )

[ He turns to respond, ready for the guy he knows is going for the gun.

And really not ready for the sight of the dog (coyote Collette) taking the first shot. He's moving now, the sound of the second ringing in his ears. The man's shouts get cut off real fast when he's got a fist slamming into his jaw at force and then again. Jason lets himself loose, letting all the force and violence he knows he's supposed to keep on a leash go. Mother fucker's gonna hurt long after all of them are gone, Jason's gonna make sure of that. ]

( Blood doesn't taste any better than usual when it floods her mouth with that particular tang she identifies as iron for a lack of better words. She feels where she's been shot, the pain and bleeding and shoves it back and out of the forefront of her mind.

What's that quote? This too shall pass. Truer for her than most people, but it won't be true for the guy they're now doubled up on, and it won't be true for Alfred if the people she hears stirring after the shout and sudden silence get out here, or if this guys friends have stuck around and decide to take it personally how everything's going down.

She opens her jaws, dropping their target's arm, but Alfred's still there, and she hears another thud of bone and flesh against bone and flesh and she jerks back, pressing off their shooter with one leg and back into Alfred with the back of her head. )

< Al! >

( One of the other goons is talking, starting to shout something, and she knows they need to get out of there. Animorphs survived because they got in and out of fights, not because they got lost in a fight before it was too late to pull out of. )

< Alfie! >

( Not to mention, Alfred wasn't an Animorph. He wasn't a bouncer, either, but that'd been the lie he sold her, and it was good enough to keep along as a joke until he gave her something different. )

< Alfred, knock it off! We have to get out of here! >

( She needs to demorph, and he needs not to get caught and dragged into a prison cell, or shot by one of the other idiots who'd thought picking a fight tonight was a good idea.

Or before someone else gets better at aiming and does her damage she can't out-morph. She knows what death feels like. She doesn't want to follow it through to the end, not yet, and sure as heck not back in the Wild West. )

[ He hears her the first time. It doesn't really connect till the second, but he's not finished yet. He's not angry anymore. He feels all cold and clear and thinking maybe he did make a mistake.

He should have taken out those other guys too, so they couldn't start making all that fucking noise.

When Collette presses back in him, he swears he can smell the blood.]

Yeah. Sorry about this.

[ He's not apologizing for beating the shit out of the guy, he's apologizing for scooping her up. Never mind the blood. Not yet.

There's a grapple gun tucked under his shirt and he can fucking well use it even if he's carrying a bleeding fucking coyote who's actually a girl. He curls his body around hers as they swing up, the rooftops lower than anything in Gotham, but a rooftop is a rooftop and he knows how to use the shadows and darkness.]

Can you get out of that form without dying?

( Some part of her registers what happens next as a collection of disjointed responses: ouch this hurts along with is he picking me up? and oh my god are we flying this is awesome. She tenses at first, but tells herself this isn't so much different than from when she's been carried by her mom or nurses in the past. Don't fight it, and don't struggle. Let whomsoever's helping you have control for the moment.

It's still strange as hell to have been on the ground one moment, and then have no contact with it at all in the next. )
< No need to apologize -- >

( -- comes out as a mental rush as she breathed shallowly, turning her attention inward to figure out just how badly injured she was. Not too bad, she decides. Blood's not exactly pumping out of her chest with an artery's viscious flow, and her face hurts -- she can't use one eye -- but even that is such a mass of pain it's hard to think about.

Or around, she figures, responding a beat late to his question. )

< When you set me down. >

( It's not a question of being carried, but morphing is a haphazard, unpredictable occurrence. She makes her mental tone light again. )

< Trust me, you don't want your hands on me when I'm demorphing. You think this looks bad, morphing looks worse! >

Roger.

[ It just comes out. He figures his cover is blown, but then, he never had much cover here to begin with.

It's kinda hard carrying her and the rooftops here are spaced differently and it's just a few minutes before he drops them back onto street level, crouching down in the shadows of a stable.]

Sure you're gonna be okay?

[ He's a little scared to stop touching her, now that he's giving himself time to think. Like maybe she'll flop over and die the second he puts her down.

Stupid. He sets her down as gently as he can and moves his hands.]

We could go find one of the healers.

( She's closed her eyes somewhere along in the process of them moving to focus on a mantra of just a little longer. Her reponses are still a beat late, but she's keeping conscious. That's the most important part. )

< I'll be fine! >

( Part of her notes he's surprisingly gentle, while a larger part of her feels a good, sturdy bit of ground beneath her body and pushes for the demorph. )

< That'd just be a waste of -- >

( Her Thought Speak cuts off as her body contorts, shoulders moving up and back as her chest broadens, still covered in fur. Popping sounds that aren't really sound at all accompany the shifting of joints, the widening of the pelvis and the change in the spine as the coyote becomes less canine and more Homo sapiens in disjointed, disturbing, random ways.

Her toes extend, thinning out and losing the fur as her nails retract, giving her human fingernails in a thick, strange black before the color fades. Her muzzle pulls in toward her face, nose losing its wet sheen as the red, ragged flesh shows pink underneath, then slightly darkened tan.

Having bled enough to leave the ground decorated even as the coyote fur pulled back into her skin, wounds knitting over and disappearing as human stamped out canine, Collette finds she's flopped down on her stomach in a puddle of blood and the usual dirt, wearing her not so pristine tank-top, her bra, and her underwear.

That's it, she vows to herself. I'm fixing that stupid morph suit as soon as we get back from this place!

The last thing to normalize is what used to be the coyote's tail, sucking back up and joining the rest of her spine as she pushed herself up, attempting to not so gracefully sit up and prove that she was totally okay and also entirely not embarrassed at all.

She's just glad it's probably dark enough he can't tell she's blushing. )

It'd just be a waste. See?

( She holds up her hands, ignoring the fact they're both stained with coyote blood, that she's not exactly dressed for polite company, and also that there is no simply easy explanation for what'd just happened.

So she smiles, waggling her fingers. )

Totally fine! A little dirty, but 100% healthy, hale, and whole. I promise.

[ Watching as she morphs is maybe one of the strangest things he's seen. He's tense until she moves and smiles at him. All of the tension seeps out of him all at once, his shoulders dropping. ]

Holy fuck, Collette.

[ She's okay. Somehow. He doesn't even remotely get it, but he's so relieved he moves without really thinking, leaning over to give her a quick, fierce hug.]

You scared the shit out of me. I thought that guy killed you.

( Vanadi's the only one who's been scared about her like that while she's been here. He's also been the one pulling her behind out of bad places she's gotten into, from the cave in she couldn't get out of to being cornered by more mutant beasts than she could outrun when already run down after they'd gotten back from Russia.

She'd almost forgotten what it can be like when you don't know if people are going to be okay. More surprising than that is getting hugged out of the blue. Her initial response is to automatically return the gesture, quick as it is, even if the angle is slightly awkward. )

I'm pretty hard to kill!

( She laughs, a light sound, glad again it's dark out to better hide her face.

It could have been much closer. She's lived through worse. She wants this to sound light and dismissible. )

I'm the one who should be worried about you. Are you okay?

( Then added softly, running one hand through her hair to push it back off her face: )

Bouncer my butt.

( Not that she'd put much faith in that before, but there is no bouncer who uses a grappling hook to dance on rooftops, which she can reflect on with greater clarity now. )

[ He grins. Cover blown, huh? Not that it had really been much of a cover.]

Hey, you don't know my world. I coulda been a bouncer. Anyway, I'm not the one who got shot.

[ The grin changes to a frown and he leans in a bit, studying her face in the dark.]

You sure you're okay, though? You took two slugs and I'm not so sure that those passed all the way through.

( Collette doesn't know so much the specifics for how and why this works like it did -- she's also not been shot by something as relatively painless (haha) as a gun with bullets over what the Yeerks use in possibly forever -- but she assumes they go the way of all morphs: into Z-Space.

Which she can simply say and be done with it, but she's not so nice as to not admit she's enjoying the attention, and glad she's coming down from that particular adrenaline high. Which means she leans a little toward him, smile lopsided. )

You're welcome to conduct a personal check.

( Though she can relent: it's just different to feel like someone other than Vanadi is worried about her in this way.

... Okay, so she'll relent and be serious in just a few more seconds. )

[ He narrows his eyes. Not that he minds her flirting, but it's harder for him to come out of the headspace he lives in when he's trying to hurt people as much as possible without actually killing them. Not that he could put that into words even if he was in the right state of mind to explain why he needed Collette to be serious for a freaking minute.

Instead he mirrors his lean and moves one hand to rest the tips of his fingers lightly on her ribcage.]

I just might.

[ He's bluffing, for the most part. If he was ever going to try and cope a feel, it sure as hell wouldn't be kneeling in blood soaked dirt. He did have some sense of decency. But he also wanted to see if he could call Collette's bluff, determined to fake her out.]

( She barely feels his fingers before her own hand moves, looking to capture his with her own. Should he not draw away, she'll redirect his fingers to her face, the side where she'd been shot and torn apart while a coyote. If he does pull his hand away, she allows her own fingers to brush across her cheekbone. )

Then you should start with what you can see, silly.

( She smiles, hesitates, and lets her eyes fall away for a beat. Maybe she should try this whole explanation business. Cassie was the best at this: James and Jake could make you understand something behind it.

She sort of fumbled through and tried to explain DNA to elves.

Decision made, for better or worse, she offers a lopsided smile as she looks back to his face. )

When I morph, I'm using another DNA set to, um.... okay, so there's a whole lot of alien science involved that I don't think anyone human even gets yet. I acquire something, I morph it, I'm their genetic twin. Physical trauma doesn't leave a genetic impression, so when I switch what set I'm borrowing for a while...

( She shrugs. )

You kind of reset every time. Like a clock! Whenever you unplug it and plug it back in, or the power goes out, it resets to noon. Except I reset to a set of genes of whatever -- including me.

( It's a long way to say "I'm fine," but the short way wasn't really working out so well. She smiles, hoping that made some sort of sense to him, since otherwise... man, no way would it be as difficult as with Galadriel. )

[ He lets her guide his hand up to her face, letting his fingers slide over uninjured skin. He studies her intently through her explanation, letting the words sink in.

Probably not the weirdest thing he's ever heard. Probably he should move his hand now... ]

So, you're okay. [ He lets his hand drop down to his side with a soft, relieved sigh. ] Good.

I'm an Animorph.

( She's glad he seems to accept that she's fine. She forgets how unnerving it can be to see, mortal injuries, limb loss, corrected just like that. )

We're pretty hardy. What about you? Professional fight-baiting acrobats come pretty harder from your neck of the woods?

( She tries, again, to have her tone be light and teasing. She's genuinely concerned -- and, suppressing a shiver -- starting to feel some genuine cold. )

[ Well, the cat's out of the bag. It feels like she's told him something important and secret, he can return the favor. ]

Vigilante, actually. Not exactly a bouncer, but... [ He grins and shrugs. ] You've seen me in costume.

[ He's coming off the adrenaline high and is a little slow to pick up the details, but as he speaks, his mind clicks out of fight mode and focuses on where they are. ] ...We oughta get you out of the mud.

[ He'll move to lean down and pick her up unless she stops him. ]

( Costumed vigilantes? Plural, to account for whoever his boss was. Further plural to encompass both the teens who went by Robin.

... Yeah. For whatever reason, it prompts her into smiling in return. She rubs at her arm, smile settling into a more mischievous grin. )

Oh yeah. Yeah, I have.

( She's mildly surprised when he leans down, figuring he'd have done what she's expected more people to do to her once they know she morphs -- assume she'll make herself mobile. He reminds her of James in that moment, where more often no one really does. There's something warming in that unexpected reminder.

Not inclined to say no in the first place for reasons of personal practicality, Collette makes no objection to Jason picking her up. She does what she can to facilitate the process, used to it after fifteen years. A seven month break at the end none-withstanding. )

My hero.

( She jokes, partly sincere, partly for a wont of something to say. )

Now I've made a total mess of you. Is it blood that's supposed to wash out with baking soda, or was that wine?

[ He shrugs a little. ]

Hell if I know. Anyway, I got a spare shirt, so it's no big deal.

[ He can do his own laundry, yeah, but he's not a wizard at it the same way the real Alfred is. He didn't mind so much anyway. ]

Better question. Your place or mine?

( Her lips curl up into an amused smirk, considering exactly how far away "her" place is from where they are now. Teasing, she says: )

That depends on how much you like long, romantic walks under the desert moonlight.

( Not that she'll ask, anyway; she's not so tired that she can't morph again and get back to her campsite with Caesar in decent time. She can offer that information up as well, negating the whole need for this carrying thing, but it's simpler to conserve energy. (And that was just if she was going to stick to the vaguely practical side of things. Part of her admits to liking it; another part admits to finding a vague sense of comfort in something she's used to over all the course of her life. Neither's really worth mentioning.) )

But I'm going to bet that your place is a lot more appealing right about now.

[ He laughs a bit. ]

You say that now.

[ He figures she'd morph if it was easier. He's got no experience with shape shifters outside of Beast Boy and Gar always seemed to change into whatever happened to suit his mood at that second.

But fine. He heads towards the stable. It's not too far from where they are now anyway and he really doesn't mind carrying her. ]

Where are you stayin' anyway?

I'm camping around five miles south of town. There's a good series of rock clusters out that way, and Caesar seemed to like them. I think his idea was it'd keep people from seeing a campfire, once we figured the caves right there hadn't been used in months.

( She does realize it sounds absurd to talk about camping when, most things considered, she's still... who she is. It's more a merit of not talking about how morphing works that makes it probably sound more sane. Caesar's likely closest to guessing how much of an endurance run morphing and demorphing is in truth, seeing her collapse dead asleep by the time she got back to camp at night. )

More like after I figured that out! We were down half our funds in the first hour and a half of being here, so...

[ He pauses and turns his head to quirk up a brow at her. ]

Really. You didn't strike me as a gambling addict.

[ Not that he can tease too much. He's not exactly rollin' in dough, even if he does have his food expenses covered at least. ]

( She snorts, shaking her head and blurting out the truth: )

It was an investment opportunity! We went halvesies on a saddle.

( Which might have been fine, but adding in the rest without thinking: )

So I'd be easier to ride!

( Starts to veer off course, and it doesn't get better when she attempts to clarify with: )

Especially for people who have no idea what they're doing, since it's a whole lot of exertion on my part and keeping people on top is more of a challenge than you think when you're running the show from... underneath...

( Ahem ... This whole explanation sounded much better in her head than stated out loud, she decides, ad she's just hoping again that it's too dark out to really tell she's blushing. )

Have I mentioned that I can turn into a horse?

[ Jason had stopped moving and had been listening with a really avid level of interest. He grins, just a little shameless. ]

No, but hey, don't let me stop ya!

[ Stopping actually served two purposes, as they'd reached the stable that was Jason's temporary home. Inside, a few horses had stirred at the sound of voices and were starting to shift a little fitfully at the smell of blood. ]

Huh... Guess we better take the scenic route in.