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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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[ 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.

( She bites back a groan -- man, she had a talent for putting her foot in her mouth when she really wasn't trying! Redirecting her attention to the building, she recognizes it for what it is. )

The scenic route?

( And it is... a stables.

Of course it's a stables. She talks about turning into a horse, and Alfie's staying at a stables. Collette tries very hard not to laugh out loud, but it's next to impossible to stop herself from quaking in restrained laughter. )

You're not just stalling for time, are you? I mean, if we're both horsing around...!

( Okay on she has to stop. She turns her head against her shoulder just to keep herself from laughing out loud, trusting his whole scenic route thing is like. The back door. Or a skylight, at this point she has no idea. )

[ Yup. Stables. He'll let her have her moment, grinning a bit himself. ]

Don't hurt yourself. And you might wanna hang on.

[ She's half right about the skylight. It's a little more difficult carrying a human than a coyote, but he grabs the grappling hook and shoots it off. It's a short quick flight half way up, from there he swings the both of them through the window of the loft about the stalls. It's. Kind of a room. If a room didn't really have walls and was mostly willed with bales of hay and a cot in one corner. ]

Be it ever so humble, huh? I think my old apartment in Crime Alley was nicer than this.

[ He moves to the cot and kneels to set her down on it. ]

( His suggestion is almost met with a protestation that she was already hanging on, coming on the heels of realizing what he meant as he went for his grappling hook. She's not sure if what he was expecting is a grin, but this is pretty much as stupidly exciting to her as it wasn't able to be when he'd been hauling her bleeding coyote butt around town.

She did tighten her hold on him for the moment, head turned back in toward him for the safety of her neck. )

Okay.

( She admits under her breath, after he lands: )

That's way more fun than I realized.

( Which might account for some of her breathlessness over a relatively short jaunt he did most the work for. Collette helps him settle her down on the cot, more used to the idea of this movement transaction than she thinks he is. Once she's down, she immediately looks around -- there's a pang of weird familiarity that makes her smile. )

Reminds me of HQ.

( Keeping her voice low, she looks back to examine his face, curiosity evident on hers in spite of the shadows. )

Crime Alley? Sounds like a rough place.

[ He appreciates the help. He's not really used to helping someone move around like that. He has helped Bruce and the occasional civilian, but the situation was usually a whole lot more urgent, where speed was more of a necessity than comfort. ]

Yeah? Your homebase was a barn?

[ Granted his was a cave, even if it was a fancy cave. He settles back on his heels a little, keeping his face turned towards hers and letting her examine it. It's a show of trust, even if he's not sure she'll see it as one. He's been sans mask for just about the entire mission and having someone actually look directly at him shouldn't make a difference. It does. He gets it. Not everyone is as fucked up about identity as Batman and by extension he and Nightwing are.

He offers a slight smile. ]

Roughest part of Gotham, yeah. 's where I grew up.

Edited 2013-02-06 05:44 (UTC)

( It's nice to have the chance to just look at him, no mask, no sun glasses. Collette's been busy with her own errands since showing up, tangled up in whatever catches her interest and gets her a chance out in the sun and away from the politics they were supposed to be engaging in.

She smiles in return. )

On your own?

( She's more or less asked before, months ago, but it feels like the sort of thing she wants to ask while she can really see his face. She watches him all the more closely, curious and considering in turns. )

For the Animorphs, yeah. Cassie, she's one of the first six, they'd meet up in her parent's barn. Her parents ran a sort of wild animal recovery center out there. Pretty neat connection when you do what we do.

For some of it, yeah. Till my boss took me in.

[ The smile falters a little. He's still not sure how much of this he can tell her. ]

Changing into animals and saving the world, right?

[ It's a guess, but he is starting to get the idea that there's way more to her than he'd originally thought. ]

A vigilante's boss. Sounds like someone does apprenticeships.

( She wonders, thinking on Robin's reaction, and the first Robin she knew as Robin. Hard not to string all three together and wonder how much they did and didn't follow the same patterns. )

Kind of a one on one thing, if the feeling I get is right.

( If Robin's visceral reaction to having there be any possibility of any other meant something more than stricter standards in the 90's. Or more alternative timelines. It's a confusion she sidesteps mentally, laughing softly at his exact summation of what she did. )

Right! More like stalling a take-over, but saving the world sounds better. It's not all that glorious! I mean, tonight's a pretty tame example, in a way.

( She's not doing a good job explaining, but she's not sure she wants to, right now. It gets into complex places she's only explored in fits and starts, with blurted questions to Caesar, or upset entreaties made to Barnaby. Some of her talks with Edgeworth danced around the subject, but she felt it was much the same as with any of her adults friends: easier to pretend she exaggerated than to think, for a moment, her implications might be true.

She shifts, brushing one hand off on her upper thigh. She ends up outlining the nebulous space around one of her eyes, mimicking the usual pattern of the domino mask he tended to favor. )

We don't wear masks so much as whole new faces. And I can get the secret identity thing, even if the one I know is pretty literally for survival.

( Everyone's survival. Still, for having said that, she sounds calm, almost borderline cheerful, if one can be cheerful talking about things of this nature. )

It's not exactly an internship, it's more like.

[ Family. But he can't actually bring himself to say that. The smile drops entierly and he ducks his head a little, breaking eye contact with her for the first time. Talking about this with someone who just doesn't know anything about them is strange. ]

You met the others, right? The guy who just showed up is the one who came before me, before I was even part of the equation. I dunno where the girl fits in, our timeline's are all fucked up.

[ He looks up again to watch her trace the outline of a mask on her own face, studying her. ]

Real fighting's never all that glorious.

[ He looks down at her other hand. She reads like a civilian, but isn't. Sort of like how he knows he's supposed to read to others. ]

Too bad we can't cross back into our own dimensions... I'm not much good, but I know a few guys back home who're pretty good at dealing with take-overs.

I knew it.

( It's little more than a quiet exclamation, but it's something like vindication that she wasn't totally imagining the Robin line-up was all linked together.

She figures his statement on the timelines being screwy is an understatement, since boy Robin had said he was from her decade, and girl Robin was from like the 2030's. Alternate realities were a doozy. )

Guess even if you weren't going by Robin at the time, that still makes you my first.

( Her brow furrows, unsure that came out right. She turned the hand on her thigh over, uncurling her fingers to leave an empty, open palm. Watching his line of sight, she hums something of an agreement before speaking. )

That's what Hollywood's for! But it's not a big deal. I mean, we were wrapping things up as it was, so... wouldn't want to borrow anyone who'd be better off keeping your home safe.

( She means home in the larger sense. Not Gotham, but the world. Maybe larger, though that'd require more introspection than she's indulging in right now. )

It's just nice knowing that somewhere out there, there really are superheroes.

( Collette finds herself smiling again, warm and subdued as she brushes a few stray tendrils of hair behind the shell of her ear. She means him as much as the unnamed 'guys' he knew back home. She feels a little unsettled, not sure after the fact she should have admitted as much. It makes her think she may be overstaying her welcome, considering it might be time to rally herself and fly away.

She runs her fingers down the length of her thumb at the thought. )

[ It gets a smile out of him, regardless. It feels like a good smile, not exactly as flirty as it maybe could have been, and he tries not to make his hesitation obvious when he lightly settles his hand over her upturned palm. His looks different, even if that makes sense. They wear the proof of their fights 24/7. ]

Yeah? Well. I'm glad.

[ About all of it. And meeting her, even if it got both of them stuck in a war that neither of them belong in. He's not really sure how to express that. He's nothing like Dick, he doesn't know how to communicate as clearly just through touch, but he tries anyway, squeezing her hand lightly. ]

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whatsupcroc - 2013-02-14 01:37 (UTC) - Expand

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