Soldiers

December 26, 2015:

Slade, Bruce, and Melody finally find the engine room of the Resolve; bringing her to a total stop means ominous tidings ahead.

The Resolve

Characters

NPCs: Peabody

Mentions: Lunair, Lux, Steve Rogers, and Shift.

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

It's only a couple of hour's later that Slade's using the end of his staff to rudely poke Rant to wakefulness, "Get up." he says at her while he holds his phone out towards Bruce, a phone which plays the peaceful chirpping noises of morning birds but at a slightly higher volume then is likely natural. Different strokes, different folks. "We have what we need."

Bruce Banner rubs a hand over his eyes, slowly sitting up, "I promise you, Slade, you have no idea what my needs are. If you did, the pizza would be here already and Felicia Day would already be in the hot tub," he says. He pulls himself together, though, getting up to his feet and heading for the coffee pot. He's slept in the R&D labs plenty of times, so he's fully stocked in here for the morning rituals.

"Sorry, you can't use my toothbrush, you guys are stuck with bad breath. I have some frozen breakfast sandwiches if you want, I can nuke 'em up for ya," he says. Before he brushes, he goes over to an isolation booth, an old one that's fallen largely into disuse since the system's were upgraded, and closes the door behind him, lighting up a cigarette in the contained environment where it can't get to anybody else.

"Now, please, enlighten us," he says through the slightyl staticky speaker.

The rude jab caused Melody to jerk. She was still on edge even though the rest was something that was well needed. She rubs the spot that was briefly poked, her face a bit of a scrunch, hair every which way as she slowly sits up and remains upon the floor, yawning. So what.. she has bad breath, but surely there wer.. oh.. thin mints. Hidden beneath Bruce's chair.

That was going to at least provide a little chocolatey freshness as she glares daggers towards Bruce and Slade as a whole. She hates being awoken up. Mother Earth herself usually suffers the wraths of her rants when she tilts the earth to shine light upon her bedroom. The bitch. This is no different.

Deathstroke is wholly unimpressed with the pair of them, "I don't get morning breath." he says flatly. Healing factor. The bacteria that cause such things don't proliterate in him. Because of course they don't. "You have three minutes," he says, "then we head out." he jerks his head to the side where the prostrate forms of Lunair and Lux are currently enjoying a snooze of their own, "We have the information we need, debriefed them while you slept. We need to get going, we're back into Real Space and are moving in a direction but I've no idea where." because there are no windows on a ship liek this and they're not exactly certain where any of the places are on the ship that would allow them access to outside sensor data. So yeah. They've been kidnapped in space or time or both by a machine no one can understand. That's a thing that is happening.

Bruce Banner nods, "Well then you probably want me in a decent mood and not having a nicotine fit if you want me operable," he says. He finishes his smoke quickly, snuffing it out in the incinerating ashtray he designed, reducing even the butt to ash. He grabs his sandwich out of the microwave and starts to eat, meandering back over. Melody's grumpy stare is just responded to with a wave.

"Three min.." Nevermind, she wasn't even going to complain. Lunair and Lux's sleeping forms do bring out a touch of relief as the short-stack stands, moving slow as ever, bending just to grab her bottle of water to take the rest of it down with a tilt back of her head. Why, she even swishes first. But who cares, her germs. There was a slight limp that was worked out as she hits the fridge, taking out another bottle of water to drink from that as well, not wasting too much time in taking out a few more to shove within various hitches and pockets. She was after all, needing the liquids to keep her muscles hydrated. Does her good. Bruce's wave gets a stick out of her tongue as she hops along towards the door, waiting. "Wait a minute, what inf-.." Stop asking questions. She was ready.

Deathstroke nods his head at Bruce as if noting that is /why/ they get three minutes and aren't running out of the room right the fuck now. Cause smokes for the Hulk are better then no smokes for the Hulk. "Engineering is two clicks from us now, I'm assuming the designers didn't wany antyhing in the science labs that could explode kept near the engines so we're basically on opposite sides of the ship. It's not a straight shot, a lot of paths to take to get there, I think I've gotten the hang of the mapping system inside the ship however, for whatever good that'll do. It's not big on showing me anything I think it considers classified." like the engine room likely is. He heads for the door and hits the panel, eyeing the hall before moving out into it. "I'm down to fourteen rounds." he adds, as if this were also important, "and the staff." which his tone implies is more then enough for him.

Bruce Banner raises an eyebrow, "I feel like I should do some grinding to level up before we pursue this quest. I'll keep an eye out for any first aid kits hidden away in corners," he says. He doesn't exactly have a lot of gear to take along. He does have his Tech Killer glove he designed last night, just in case, but other than that, there's no point in him carrying a lot of gear. His best weapons are his brain and the violent other half of him which would make all other possessions just kindling that he'd leave behind.

"Fighter," he says, pointing to Deathstroke, "Wizard," he says, pointing to Rant, "And half-ogre cleric. Check."

Rant really didn't have anything. Whatever she did have was devoured or probably misplaced when the ship decided to relocate itself. At least she had her bottles of water, and the large blade that belonged to Slade upon her back. "I have a feeling we're going to run for it aren't we.." Not that she was complaining, outloud.. but she was sure that they probably were going to break out into a mad dash into whatever.

"I'm ready, I just got your blade." She pauses a little, reaching for it which was left upon the floor, holding the grip white knuckle tight in preparation. She even hops a little, shaking herself out, rolling her neck from left and right, rotating her shoulders as if she were preparing for a warm up.

She even waves the blade around like a wizard, but.. she cuts that right out.. and fast.

Deathstroke blinks at Bruce and decides it's not worth asking what the hell the other man is talking about, "Usually I would say yes, but I'm not certain how sudden intense cardio first thing in the morning would keep our friend here whole, healthy, and a size 28." he eyes Bruce questioningly.

Bruce Banner raises an eyebrow, "I am capable of running without transforming, Slade. I understand your concern. I also can't guarantee I wont' transform if we get into peril because, well, that's rather what I do. He's positively inclined toward Melody, though, so you'll probably be fine if he shows up. I'm not sure if bossing him around will do you much good, though," he says. "You guys should definitely take point, though…"

Melody laughs just a little, then decidedly puts the blade back upon the sheath attached to her back. There wasn't any running involved, so that just made her a little bit happy. Call it a Christmas gift. "Well, I'm ready as I'll ever be.."

Deathstroke snorts, "I'm a tactical savant Dr. Banner, the way you view code and genetics is, in some way, analogous to how I view combat. Trust me when I tell you I've only devised three ways of dealing with the Hulk. One involves out running him and another involves me merely pointing him in a direction and encouraging him to smash stuff in that direction." he shakes his head, "I'm only 50/50 on either one of those working." but he takes Bruce's word for it and heads out the door at what to him is a power walk and what to most people is a solid jog. Rant's hope was his to smash into tiny bits. Hulk gets to smash more physical things.

Bruce Banner follows along behind the other two, gesturing for Melody to go ahead in front of him. Really, that's all he does, he's not running this scene.

Melody heads out the door, directly behind Slade but.. as a person with her current stature, she's stuck with the itty bitty leg syndrome and forced to jog to keep up. At least there was a change that she could tell, little jogs and everything of that sort of ilk doesn't tire her out as it usually would have a few months ago. This was easy.. It was when he took off running at break-neck speeds is when things were hard. "What are we going to do when we get there? I know we just can't 'ask' the ship to transform itself back.."

Deathstroke's focus stays on the ground in front of them as if he cuold just intuit the direction they should be traveling, "I'm going to have you bleed on it." he says simply, "Assuming of course Dr. Banner can't genius us up some sort of solution from the pit of his stomach. Peabody has some thoughts about the tech, but he suspects the drive is beyond anything he's seen before," he pauses, "or in his exact words, 'I think if Luthor and Stark saw this at the same time their dicks would explode from their bodies with the force of their sudden erections.'" Slade grunts his disapproval of the analogy, "But he won't say what he thinks is going on, just that if he's right it's outside his wheelhouse." he finishes that up with, "He's talked me through disarming a nuke before." cause that's the sort of thing friends do. He hangs a right and continues on the way.

Melody Kenway comes into FRP Room #3 from FRP Ready Room.

Bruce Banner snorts, "Luthor and Stark do so much overcompensating, I suspect both to suffer from a medical condition colloquially known as 'needle dick'," he says, "But the point is taken. Essentially, we don't know what we're going to find until we find it, so we may as well head over there and start overturning the rocks," he says. "But if you need me cogent and capable of scientific analylsis, let's hope that we don't encounter anything that makes my ripping of my skin necessary."

Mel did not expect that one. For a moment, her stride breaks as a snap of a laugh is fired off, her hand immediately clutching her sude as she staggers just a touch. Bruce didnt help matters, for now she was cackling and snorting, starting up that little jog again but a bit slower than before.

"Sokay.. maybe if you communicate in a series of grunts and clicks we should be alright.." But then.. there was a silent worry. Before, he said to not bleed on anything, and now it just might happen..

Deathstroke's lip curls slightly, "Dr. Banner I have more active combat experience then fifteen Steve Rogers'. It won't be necessary, I'm more worried about it being acciden-" he stops talking as the next corner they round lands him jogging up on what appears to be a floating metalic skull of some sort. It spins to face them with glowing red eyes and the jaw clicks as it opens wide. The pistol comes from his hips and fires in a blur, something inside the mouth of the skull sparks, spits smoke, then the entire thing drops from the air with a heavy thudding sound, "Frikkin' Schott." he mutters under his breath as he continues to run on by, "He thought it would be funny to put clowns in the maze that floated like banshee's and screamed. I hated those things." The following corner leads him to a skittering stop, "Oh come /on/!" the giant collossus that Rant and her small band of potentials killed inside the crucible, crushing down with fervor, is laying curled up and still smashed in the hallway. Only it's sort of taking up /all/ of the hallway. He eyes it, trying to see a way for the others to climb over it with him.

Bruce Banner raises an eyebrow, "Somebody's got a sensitive spot about Captain America, it sounds like. Would he not give you an autograph? Did he call you a bad name?" he says with some amusement. "As for necessary, necessity will entirely be determined by how much my fight or flight response is activated by a given situation. This is why I'm partially framing it along the lines of an adventuring video game, to try and tune my reflexive responses to seeingn this as a simulation, so as not to initiate any potential for panic or survival instincts. So, use your vast fighting experience to help keep me calm and we'll all be fine and dandy," he says.

He cocks his head at the obstruction, 'Unless, of course, you need vast superhuman strength to toss giant obstacles out of our path."

Steve Rogers, the man that got the President killed, and probably Shift too by association. She probably would have hated the Star Spangled Jerk if Shift didnt magically appear alive and well.. for the most part. Which is something they haven't dealt with yet. Talk about unfinished business.

The skull would have been a source of contention if Slade hadn't shot it first, but her heart was already leaping out of her chest. "For fucks sake.." She breathes out, hand to her chest.

But further down the way? Memories of the proving grounds draw a chill up her spine.. her gaze turning away briefly as she looks towards Bruce… "Or he could put those muscles to use and throw you."

Deathstroke's eye twitches at the corner, "He's the reason they saw fit to stab me with one hundred and sixty four needles filled with DNA rewriting bioware in it. While I was awake." he says flatly, "And then there was that thing where he left twenty-seven Army Rangers to die by means of vivisection merely because he wouldn't work with a killer like me." he turns an flat stare on Bruce, though there's anger burning beneath the blue eye, "How lucky for them I was able to complete the mission on my own." he turns to look back at the giant robot, "Well, fourteen of them." he amends.

He tilts his head, "I could likely pitch you up to the shoulder," he admits, "but this isn't alien tech. Anything you can do?" he asks Rant, "Otherwise we cut our way through." his staff taptaps on the ground.

Bruce Banner shrugs at the flat stare. When you don't care that much if you live or die - and, whatever progress he was making relating to the Hulk, Bruce's fatalism largely remained - internationallyl renowned murderers giving you the stinkeye has less of an effect. Which is probably good because, if he were actually in any way frightened, he'd probably start developing the wrong kind of headache. He sits back and waits for the action figures to solve the problem.

"I don't like the guy." Melody states plainly, whether she voices her reasons or not is something that.. well, really doesn't matter at this point in time. They had a mission to complete, there wasn't a need to share feelings or experiences, especially as she takes a step up towards the large mechanical beast that lays as waste in the middle of the hallway. Anything she could do? Sure!

Her hand draws towards her back, her fingers touching along the exposed blade there, drawing it sharply down so that it could slice into the skin like butter. With a wipe of her thumb against the metal construct.. her eyes alight a glow that's red, sharp, and filled with purpose. "Step back.." She mutters to the two, her eyes darting left and right as she tries to manuver the nanites to search for the central hub of the unit before them.

At least she didn't sparkle like some weird ass Twilight Vampire.

The monstrosity jerks, its limbs dragging almost lazily as Melody's hands reach up, fingers playing against the air as she begins to try to puppet the beast into curling and rolling over towards its side. Just to get a tiny bit of room.

Deathstroke glances at Rant, "You keep up that streak of good judgement and I might actually stop hurling distain your direction." hooray for the big rewards! He watches her work, one hand resting on the holstered pistol on his hip, the other still wrapped tightly around the staff that rests with deceptive laziness against his thigh.

The giant creature groans. Loudly. The metal of it's form twisting with screams of steel and inside it come the pingpingping sounds of gears that don't quite fit together correctly anymore and are just spinning in place. Luckily however it manages to get a shoulder rolled up out of the way and it's arm flops up and then slowly teeters over to the other side, landing with a hollow metal boom, creating a passage way along it's back that will end with them crawling over it's ankle. Slade will have a hard time of it though, being the largest by far.

Bruce Banner still lets the other go before him, watching Rant do her thing. "Where were you when I broke all my toys as a kid," he murmurs. Of course, he actually repaired most of his toys himself, which was necessary given how often his father actually broke them in a drunken rage. Childhood memories aren't good for Bruce, though, so he quickly moves to scramble up and squeeze through as soon as he can, sliding down the other side.

"Bout time.." Rant murmurs to herself, waiting until Slade paves the way through to the other side, crouching down low to take a good hop up upon the ankle of the construct, sliding down and crawling as best she could. So easy, even a toddler could do it, the pint-sized little lady making her way out to the other side with a dust of her hands and a slight stagger, hop to her feet. "I wasn't born yet." She manages to say to Bruce, which was quite clearly obvious to everyone standing within the room. Instead of waiting, she just goes on ahead.. her hands looking down towards her cut thumb as the nanites work to sew and stitch herself together again like a patchwork doll.

Deathstroke manages to make it nearly all the way to the end of the leg before he growls in annoyance and puts his back against a wall and shoves with his shoulder. The big leg screeeeeeeeeetches across the floor as it's pushed bodily out of the way. Slade finishes the rest of the walk without having to pause to grease himself up. "Well." he says on the other side, "That just happened." he then continues on thier way, his face twitching lightly at the realization of lost time. He picks up the pace a bit, enough to make it a strain on anyone not used to this sort of activity. He's also aparently done talking, as he dosen't try to continue any of the conversations.

It takes another ten minutes or so and thankfully, other then a door that keeps opening and closing like a fun house haunted entrance, they run across nothing even remotely creepy. Slade comes to a stop in front of a pair of enormous metal doors with obviously thicker security style bolts in them then the rest of the more ordinaty doors they's seen. "Here's the hard part," he shoots Bruce a look, "you need to pick the lock. The ship wasn't letting Lux of Armory in, Armory even asked nicely." ignore the scortch marks to the side of the door. "Thoughts?"

Bruce Banner considers and looks closely at the doors himself, "Obviously, my other half could break them open but, again, we reach the point of you needing my brain functioning once we're on the other side. Not to mention he might break what's over there, too," he says. He considers, "Melody, do you have any sense of the systems around here? Is there a panel or anything I can hack into? I don't want you messing with it, because if it's infected, you'd be opening yourself up to getting tainted, but you should be capable of sensing anything," he considers, "The other option is trying to figure out if something triggers this kind of lockdown and somehow convincing the sensors that the conditions have passed."

With a hip cocked in front of the doors, Melody looks up.. then down.. then up again.. and then down. There really wasn't a way to find an access panel, the walls were smooth as a babys bottom. "I think even remotely connecting to any part of the ship is pretty much going to kill me." Though, would it? She didn't necessarily beat cancer and..

"We could always just shoot you in the head and go with the whole series of grunts and clicks like I suggested." She takes another step back, eyes closing as she lets out a little sigh, attempting to affix herself to the situation as she takes a step forward, her hand lifting to press into the door (the clean one), fingers curling against the surface and..

..she knocks. Hey. Why not? Besides, if she doesn't work she's bracing herself for one -helluva- punch from either of them.

Deathstroke eyes Banner, "I didn't hire the Hulk for this team, I hired Banner. I don't mind that you bring more to the table then other scientists, but that's just ancilary bonus material." he really doesn't need an uncontrolable smashy thing on his team, Slade's all about control, precision, and that's /not/ the Hulk. He hits his coms, "Peabody? We're at the engine room, you find anything in the bridge of any help?" the coms squack once, <I found a bunch of funky symbols, a big bubble that I think someone's supposed to float inside and what I think is a helmet with a neural link of some kind because there's a needle sticking inside the back end of it right where my brain stem would be. Ow. It's sharp. Honestly, this place is a lifes work worth of technological treasures I'm not sure I have the brains to disect. Any luck on your end?> Slade sighs, "Doors are closed, Banner's going to see what he can-" he stops talkign to stare at Rant. "Rant just knocked on the door." he says flatly. There's a long pause before Peabody responds, <Did it work?" another pause, "No." <Dammit.> "Get with Banner on his coms, see if you two can't figure out a way to open this thing. We need this ship stopped."

Bruce Banner considers for a long moment, consulting with Peabody on the comms, "Hey, Peabrain." <Frankenstein.> "Anything resembling a schematic on the door assemby?" <Not exactly. I know it's a combination magnetic and vacuum seal and that the alloy doors are made out of stuff that makes regular steel look like dollar store toilet paper> "Magnetic, huh? Gimme a second…"

He takes off his tech killer glove and takes a moment to fiddle with it. He starts crossing wires together and, humming something iunder his breath and then standing up. "YOu guys might want to stand back. Way back. Just in case," he says to Deathstroke and Mel.

He places the glove at the base of the doors and hits the button, taping it down with a spare bit of duct tape he had in his pocket (don't ask). He trots back himself to join them and there's a slow humming sound that starts to build and build.

"Basically, I'm messing with the polarity and causing a hyper-amplification of the magnetic resonance. Since I can't depower it from here or rip it open to get at the guts, I'm going to make it…"

There's a loud, violent groaning sound as the doors start to warp and flex. If you have any fillings or metal parts in your body, you can probably feel a vibrational tug, drawing you forward a little bit, but not enough to actually lift you off your feet at this range or force you anywhere. It probaby ldoesn't feel great, though. The doors strain and grind, gears inside popping until finallyl they start to tear free from the wall, crumpling in to wrap around the glove itself and sending sparks everywhere in a swift cascade and a loud THUD that fills the area with an echo…until the whole mess finally falls forward and leaves large spaces on either side, the glove crushed at the center and forever lost.

"Oh, and I just broke your Power Glove." <DAMMIT, BANNER, THAT WAS VINTAGE!>

"Hey. I ain't bleeding on this ship. I was just trying to be nice to her." Hey, her logic may not be sound but at least she's hoping she's won some brownie points with the alien.. type.. boat.. business. Her shoulders shrug as she listens in on the coms, resisting the urge to laugh at such a serious situation, taking a few paces back as directed, so much so that she plants herself against the wall.

She doesn't feel it, but she could see it, her eyes glowing a dull grey as she looks all around the area, the way the magnetics pull and tugs themselves in places which causes her eyes to close and fingers to press against the lids to rub it all out. Then.. the door snap, crackles and pops, her eyes snapping open as she lets out a little bit of a relieved sigh.

That totally went well.

"Hey, Peabody.. you know I can fix that, right? Right? Though I think it was all about the novelty.."

Deathstroke backs away with Rant and watches closely as the glove does it's work. He's quiet once it works, waiting a full second before he snaps his staff across both palms and leads the way back forward, "Well lets hope we don't have to close those doors anytime soon to contain a leak or something." he says quietly to himself. He also makes a mental correction about how Hulk is the only one of the pair that wrecks things. Good to know. Banner Smash too.

Past the doors is a well lit room with a series of stations located around a giant metal sphere nearly eighty feet across. There are holo panels up and active, showing various levels of … well something that's measured in levels clearly, and probably thousands of blinkie lights. Slade just stares, "So we got in." he says idely, <Okay… so… you want me to promise sexual favors or what? Was I right or not?!> Slade starts to walk slowly around one of the three levels of circular walk that is interspersed with random walkways that seem to attach to the sphere's outer shell, "I have no idea Peabody. It's a big metal bubble without windows or any sort of signs printed in any of the dozen or so languages I speak so… I don't fucking know." he looks at Banner, "Ideas?" he asks curiously.

Bruce Banner meanders around and starts to examine each of the holopanels closely. He's squinting as he tries to theorize exact meanings - the language is as much nonsense to him as anyone. But mathematics is a universal language, the constant which underlays the very fabric of reality, and the same principles applied. It would take a bit of deduction, though, for him to start parsing the various datapoints into some sort of internal pattern that he could begin to make sense.

"I'm working on it," he says in response.

"Woaaahhhhhhhhhh…." Rant echoes Knives Chau nearly perfectly as she follows the two men into the room. It was all rather unnerving, seeing everything there. The technology was something that only dreams were made of, why.. if she had it her way she'd curl up with the manual on how to even -begin- to grasp the knowledge found in here. Instead of sticking with the men, figuring the danger lay beyond the doors where they just entered.. she reverses and makes her own path to peek, not poke, but peek at the consoles there.. and the various blinking lights that'll make any gambling addict twitch.

"You guys watch television? This kind of reminds me of Defiance.. or maybe Stargate Atlantis, and these are like some weird alien chevrons that we probably would have to punch in order just to steer the ship." She soon mumbles to herself.. "Or stick someone onto that helmet thingy.. That has -got- to suck.. majorly.." Poor Bruce, Rant's already throwing him to the wolves, imagine the Hulk being hooked up to that thing, he'd trash the interspace and probably piss acid on the Milky Way from the docks. "Heh..hehehheh..eheh…phew… that was a dumb thought."

Deathstroke stares at all of this, the entire set up, and lets out a sloooooow breath. He has an enhanced mind, he thinks faster and more clearly then nearly everyone alive, his memory is eidetic, his ability to learn and understand new input is staggering… but he's never considered science as an option for him. It just isn't. He's starting to rethink the necessity of knowing, well, everything really. Focus Wilson. Do what you can. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

He turns away from his momentary awe and faces away from the sphere, focusing in on the panels instead, "Rant, see if you can figure anything out without getting a bodily fluid on it please. Peabody, stay on the bridge, report any changes you find and see if you can't suss out the use of any of that equipment." he stares at one of the panels in question, "I'm going to try to learn alien…" languages. Codes. Those are /far/ more in his wheelhouse. He parses his mind into sections and begins to recall his memories of the Antartica mission and what he learned there. He splits that into two sections of thought, written and verbal language, then he splits his mind again and focuses on the current room and it's layout, using these as cross reference he begins to decode the alien tongue. Or trying to at least. His eye snaps around in it's socket like he's having a seizure, flowing from place to place to thing to thing that only he can see. He lets Banner do Banner without issue. One does not poke the Hulk. Generally.

Bruce Banner considers, but is limited, to some degree, by his understanding of physics almost. His genius is such that he understands the intricacies of the rules of physics to intimately that something which, by extradimensional, magickal or whatever means, violates those rules, he simply discards it. He can go by the Sherlock Holmes maxim and eliminate the impossible to consider the improbable, but that makes it difficult for his logical mind when impossible is, in fact, the correct answer.

"I'm beginning to think, in my scientific opinion, that we may just need to fuck this thing up."

"That means I probably can't have sweaty palms if you want me touching anything!" Rant calls out. But yet.. for good measure, she does plants her hands against her pants to rub rather harshly. She glances towards the two men with a slight shrug, her hand hoovering over the console, tempted to touch it but that fear that begins to slowly build causes her hand to shake and fingers to close into a fist to bring it to a halt.

Bruce's summary of what they needed to do was understood clearly, Rant was good at fucking shit up. All she needed was a hammer or a knife and something to hit but.. this technology was glorious. "Considering there's a high chance that we're probably going to die here, I don't want to say by starvation unless we're almost our of our prepared meals but.. that's highly likely.." She was clearly on a muttered Rant. ".. maybe dehydration because I'm totally unsure of the plumbing system unless it's like recycled water from our showers or some really big arachnids that we have no business seeing.." Sleep deprivation! Which also has her pressing a button here and there, shifting through the screen as her hand slowly lights up like christmas in an attempt to bond without using her blood. Swipe swipe! ".. or maybe it's going to pull an Event Horizon and we're going to start hallucinating in which we'd get our heads lopped off because we saw the Twinky Man in a cowboy hat and thongs.." *beep beep* "Yeah, we're going to die.." *boop boop* "For some reason, guys.. I'm kind of okay with that."

Psycho.

Deathstroke's hand is gripping her wrist before she can complete her second swipe, "Panic later," he growls at her, his gaze intense and fierce, "when you quit the team and admit your failure, or when you're alone in your room and the mission isn't at stake. We've no time for that shit now, am I clear Private?" he asks, releasing her wrist as quickly as he snagged it up. He doesn't wait for a responce, "What do you need me to do Dr. Banner?" he asks curiously, heading towards the other man. He keeps a small portion of his mind crunching the language issue, but this takes precidence for now.

Bruce Banner turns his head with a crinkled brow, "Taking your hand off my friend would probably be a good start, if you want to continue to be in my good graces," he says. He has very low tolerance for gung ho military bullshit to begin with and he certainly doesn't any for people subjecting his friends to it, regardless of how necessary or productive they thought it might be. Abusive assholes pissed him off, period.

"Beyond that, I think these three boards," he says, gesturing to triangulated holo displays, "Likely are intended to be maintenance systems, tied into the interface there," he says, nodding towards the funky spinal tap helmet. "They're being kept equidistant to filter out any potential contamination and flush out particulates. If you notice these panels," he says, knocking on slightly oddly textured squares below one of the holopanes he pointed out, "You can feel a pressure if you touch it because it's absorbing ambient molecular drift - skin flakes, dandruff, dust, water vapor - and absorbing it to keep from tainting whatever it's doing, which must require a degree of sterility. So I would suggest finding a way to damage or pry out those panels or overload them, either one."

Her hand grows stiff, fingers splayed as she looks up towards Deathstroke with a shoulder raised, bracing herself. Sure, she was setting into that stage of panic, where she'd ramble and talk and never shut up which would soon be reduced to random screaming, crying, and throwing things because hey, they were totally going to die and she wasn't going to have any CHRISTMAS FUCKIN TURKEY!

She's calm!

She widens her eyes and nods rather quickly, blinking twice as she continues to punch buttons upon the screen, her body leaning back just a little to give a shake of her head towards Bruce. She's fine.. she's fine.. totally fine. "I'm okay Bruce.."

Looking up towards the helmet again, then back towards the panel, then back towards the helmet again.. her lips curl into a slight frown as she stops with the pressing of the buttons, growing completely.. eerily silent.. He did say he might make her bleed on it.. and it was obviously the easier and probably non-lethal way for everyone else to overload it. She presses one foot against the other, then decidedly takes a step away from the console, her quiet little march drawing her all around the platform as she stops at the gated path that would lead towards the spinal-tap device.

Deathstroke doesn't shy away from Banner's words, "She volenteered for the team, she can quit between any missions she likes but when we're active in the field I am the final and only say in how things are run. Your friend is weak and what's worse is she knows it." he shoots her a look, "But she's getting stronger. Slowly. I'm just hoping it's not so slowly someone kills her before she's good enough." he looks back to Banner, "She needs to learn control, dicipline, she finds them the rest comes easy." he walks over to the panel Bruce is poiting at as he speaks, "This one?" he asks, and the staff at his side has an end that suddenly sputters to life like a plasma torch, a white hot flame arcing up from it's tip angrily.

Bruce Banner stares for a long, long moment at Slade. He swallows hard, almost biting the inside of his cheek. He's encountered that kind of attitude before - my way or the highway. Bruce realized it was probably time to take him up on that. "Yes, that one and the corresponding pair at the other panels," he says. His voice is numb and cold, withdrawn as he shuts down a bit and tries to focus on his calculations, turning away because if he kept looking at Deathstroke, he really would lose his temper.

Coming close enough to the sphere, Melody studies the outside of it with a slight frown, leaning in just far enough to study but she doesn't see any way to get inside.. hm. With a look up, she lets out a slight sigh, drawing away from that little platform to head for the stairs to go up. Whelp, at least all of that running was going to pay off. She takes off in a little jog up the stairs, skirting around the edges, leaning in.. looking.. glancing up with a grumble, looking down with another slight grumble as she continues to go up. Leave the men to the breaking of stuff, burning and probably smashing. She herself was going to poke, prod and tinker.

He turns to look at the room, "Get out." he says, nodding towards the doors that lead into the massive engineering section, "Take cover behind the doors. Just in case." say what one wants to about his leadship style, he takes the big risks himself and always leads from the vanguard… He waits until they make the call to take him up on the offer or not, and then turns his back on them to face the panels. He glances, shifts over, trying to put himself in possition to get to each as quickly in turn as he can. He lifts the staff overhead and plunges it downward like a spear as he triggers the power node. The lance flashes bright white and the panel smokes as the staff makes the triangular panel glow then bow in the middle, just as it starts to sag in it's housing he turns to jam the staff into another panel. As it starts to glow the first panel falls out of it's housing, the heat turning the metal to a consistency to soft to maintain it's place. Lights begin flashing red. Soft warning chimes sound. When the second panel falls and he begins on the third the chimes become pulsing horn noises of concern and the flashing red lights become a somber dark consistent pink overhead, bathing the area in a pinkish hue. The third seems to hold a stronger shape and Slade has to lean into it, sweat dripping down his face from the heat there's a soft sizzle sound from where his hands are gripping the staff tightly, forcing it forward, "Yeild you peice of shit." he growls at the metal, twisting the weapon. The panel seems to hear him because it buckles at the last second, cracking down the center instead of buldging, and the pinks become deep reds and the horns become claxons.

Slade tosses the staff to the side, it's smoking and his hands show the black and red curls of charred flesh along his palms and fingers. He curls them in against his body for protection and turns to run for the door, "Go go go!" he bellows. His way or the highway while on mission? Absolutely. But he's never ordered someone take a risk he wasn't willing to take himself, never leads from the safety of an office or from behind a desk. He goes where his team goes, first through the door, last one out, leave no one behind. A moral man Slade Wilson is not, but he's not sadistic either.

As they pass through the door the ship begins to tremble beneath their feet and Slade looks around with a groan, "Oh you have /got/ to be kidding me! If you transform on me again you bitch I swear to-" but it's not transforming, not this time. It is however stopping. Suddenly. Inertial dampeners are magic, but they have limits, and as the ship drops out of it's passage it's as if the floor is yanked out from under all of them, sending them into a sudden tumble and roll down the long wide hallway. Not unlike stepping out of a car moving at roughly twenty miles an hour. Slade rolls and bounces and rolls some more before coming to a rest up against a wall with a heavy THUMP, a grunt forced from his lungs. When he opens his eye the first thing he recognizes is that the lighting has dimmed again and everything feels… still. Like it did before all this started. "We need windows." he mutters to no one as he tries to roll over and get to his feet, all without using his hands, "Sound off!" he calls out, looking for his people as he shoulders against the wall to get help him stand.

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