Summary:Hank brings in a knowledgeable outside party to discuss Domino's 'hellkitty' problem with the RESCUE folks. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Hank is in an awful frame of mind after his interview…interrogation really, by Posse earlier in the day. Half expecting to get his own Orange Badge, or possibly just the boot - he never the less reaches out to Toni and Roni, spilling what he knows, assuming Ava hasn't already done the same and asks them for a meeting. He also reaches out to Thea Harman, via a somewhat roundabout way she provided him in the wake of Domino's attempt to eat Spider-Woman's soul. Again. In the aftermath of that event he and she had patched up both the Hellbino and the spider, and then got them situated. Further, Hank had discussed seeking a cure for Dom's infestation, and promised he'd look into things on his end. Prior to the meeting he'd let Roni & Toni know there'd be an expert on the Hellkitty situation incoming, and setup a secure meeting room before reaching out to Thea and asking her help. The request was somewhat cryptic - a message:
A mutual friend, not the swinging type, is in dire need of help.
Your presence is requested at a meeting.
-Hank McCoy
It is followed with the address for the meet, and the time.
Hank is of course already in the small meeting room, setting up some coffee and finger foods, stuff that is not Cafeteria issue, he baked. Cookies. Brownies. Cinnamon Rolls. Because baking is what he does when stressed!
He'll have informed security already, and proceeds with a fair amount of nerves.
Thea doesn't waste time with replying, which probably only makes it harder on Hank. She'll just show up, suddently there at the meeting place and moving for the meeting room listed. Strawberry blonde is back in a tight french braid, hanging down over the back of her leather jacket. Black, as is her blouse and jeans, and even her boots. Black lines her eyes and thickens her lashes, but thankfully she's not gone full Goth. The rest of her looks natural, and the biokinetic is oddly without her usual understated sparkly accessories.
Instead she has deadly ones tucked all through her outfit, though the most deadly weapon she has may be herself. She'll knock at the door before stepping in, blinking several times. "Doctor McCoy. How nice to see you again." Her voice is bland, polite, and there is no mention that the man she met is now furry. She can still tell it is him, after all."
Things are very, very tense around RESCUE right now. They have ongoing problems with AIM. And now the REACT squads are deployed, along with the head of security, and the news coming back is Not Good (tm). Worse yet, further information incoming from the REACT squads includes news that there's no sign of Domino on-site, and that those responsible seem to have matter transmission capabilities: teleportation.
Faced with that level of tech, what can RESCUE do? Not much, most likely, but that doesn't mean they are going to quit.
Hank informs Veronica that he has a source who may know more about Domino's apparent 'hellcat' infestation, and Roni just shrugs. Hell? Seriously? Magic? Cripes, if they're really going to have to deal with this insanity there had better be some expert, because Roni is most definitely not it.
The only thing keeping the doctor from a breakdown right now is that Kelli and RESCUE need her to be at her best. But that isn't going to last long.
"Alright, Hank. I am here." Roni grouses as she comes rolling into the meeting room still wearing the more casual clothes she wears in the labs, her lab coat thrown over her lap rather than worn. "I'm not going to know whatever this person is saying. If you understand this madness, you should be taking this meeting yourself." That said, she pulls out her tablet and prepares to record the meeting for later review, even as she checks with Security to make sure they have a photo and ID on this person and are prepared to let them in, scan them thoroughly, relieve them of weaponry, and then escort them to this meeting room. And Veronica initiates the white nosie privacy fields, just in case. "How do you know this person?"
Toni wanders in dressed in jeans, a long blue t-shirt with a pink mustache under a stylized M, and a lab coat, her hair pulled back in a messy bun held in place with a pen, canvas sneakers worn on her feet. "I'm here, I'm here…" she grumbles, walking over to find a seat as she flops down in it. She has bags under her eyes and looks a bit frazzled as she immediately pulls out a tablet and starts messing with it.
"Thank you, Roni. I know it is weird, I don't know much about it myself, hence the need for an expert. I wanted you, and Toni both here in the interest of full transparency." He looks to Toni when she arrives, and does not like how frazzled she looks, hell, Roni too, and to be honest he's not in the best of shape himself! Stress is the fifth guest in the room it would seem. "Thank you for coming, Toni. So…to sum up - Domino is possessed by an entity referred to a Hellkitty. This creature apparently pushing her to eat, for lack of a better word, Souls. She and the lady I asked to join us were stuck in another dimension for a considerable span of time, and that's where the parasite infected Neena. I asked her here in the interest of securing her help, and gathering any insights she could offer."
When informed that Thea was at the security gates, it would be Hank who went to meet with her, and Hank who escorted her to the meeting place once divested of her weaponry. He hopes. "And it is good to see you too, Miss Harman." He escorts her in, and then introduces her. "Miss Harman, Thea…this is Doctor Veronica Kelsey…" He introduces her to the woman in the wheelchair. "And this is Doctor Toni Ho." The purple haired woman. "Ladies, Thea Harman, the woman I mentioned. Miss Harman, first…thank you for coming on such short notice. Neena…is presently missing. We're in process of hunting her down, but I wanted to see if you could help us understand anything you could about the Hellkitty. Is there context you can or are willing to offer?"
A nod. "When and if we do find her, your assistance would be welcome, unfortunately my research thus far has turned up no leads or means of curing her, but I did have an idea…please, sit, have some coffee and refreshments."
There is always hope, but Hank knows you can't take the most trusted weapon she has away from Thea. There is a hint of a smile for Hank, she does like the guy, after all. Been in the trenches together and all that.
She pauses, a stiffness to her shoulders at the introductions, nodding politely with murmured greetings. She glances at Hank. "Of course. You don't try to summon me often, so.." Then she goes still, eyes on Hank in a way that could give Arizona a cold snap. "Missing? Hunting her /down/?" Her voice is completely smooth and calm, no apparent riled emotions. "The Hellkitty? Is that what you're calling it?"
She will pull out a chair and have a seat, no move made towards coffee or baked goods. "You mean you need me to completely incapaciate her again, so we can do something with her."
The mention of a 'hellkitty' and other dimension creatures draws a look of interest from Toni, distracting her from her tablet as she pauses it and sets it down. "An…extradimensional hellkitty that eats souls." she repeats, her brow furrowing. A fan of magic bullshit that is not science, she is not. Mmmmm, yessss.
"So this…psionic entity has taken up residence in Neena." She frowns. "She neglected to mention extra-dimensional travel in her intake interview, but go on." She studies Thea quietly. "If we need to incapacitate her, and you can do that without harming her, yes. And hopefully with this entity not harming her either."
Veronica looks over the stranger uncomfortably, but nods at her questions. "Yes. Domino was tracking down intelligence on some creatures that have been posing a threat to the Disaster Zone and nearby bordering communities." There's an edge of anger in Roni's otherwise calm voice, there. "Apparently she, and some other associates, found a location. She called in some additional backup, including Hank." With that, Roni motions to Hank to pick up the explanation from there.
After he is finished, Veronica picks back up. "When Hank returned here, Posse debriefed him, and we spun up REACT to go in for search and rescue operations. They found the site, and have swept it and its surroundings very thoroughly. Posse found clear evidence of matter transportation tech used to teleport a spherical volume out of the central building, right where Domino would have been. She has also reported they found another beam-out site elsewhere. Someone tracked it down and told her where to find it." Who is that someone? Roni has no idea. The name 'Hunter' doesn't mean shite to her.
A nod to Toni when she indicates he sould speak.
"Apologies…hunt down her whereabouts, she is MIA, we'd found a rather nasty lab manufacturing monstrous hounds, the facility was destroyed, with her inside it." Hank shakes his head. "I am…more than a bit turned around by all this, I spoke poorly, thinking imprecise. Signs were found that support her not having been killed as Doctor Kelsey mentioned. We're not hunting her down so much as trying to rescue her from a dire situation of unknown scope but extremely dangerous and hostile malefactors."
Hank /is/ drinking coffee, and he'll provide for Toni and Roni if they need, shame to have that caffeine go to waste!
"At one point in a prior incident I /witnessed/ her, under the influence of the Hellkitty, name given by an ally named Hunter, devouring something from inside one of the mutated hounds, after which it was dead. Lifeforce, Ka, Soul, whatever word you wish to apply."
He shakes his head. "I truly don't know what you'll need to do, but this is a very nasty situation and right now we need to know more about the parasite. Do you know anything about its capabilities? It's nature? I have an idea that might allow use to free her from it…but it is not something /I/ can do without a lot of research, and considerable risk that with your powers you might just be able to do it, if you were willing."
Toni's response draws Hank's yellow eyed gaze to her. "Actually, it is magical, Toni, not astral. If it were an astral, or psionic creature I'd have more options and contacts I could reach out to. In truth now that the provervial cat is out of the bag, I could apprach SHIELD's WAND division. I didn't mention it either." He admits with a sigh. "The dimension travel thing." He grimaces. "I found it hard to believe myself, but I have known several people whose abilities and skills conform to the definition of magic, and you KNOW I'm a Scientist."
He looks then to Thea. "My thought…I have a sample of Dominoe's blood, it shows clear signs of physiological alterations, from that I think it possible to extrapolite a way to make her an untenable host, temprarirly, drive the creature out, and back into the amulet that used to house it. But for ME to do it would take a long time…can your abilities effect such changes?"
Thea drums fingers on the table, nails short, neat, and coated in a clear polish. "Hellkitty. Is that what we're calling it." Her amusement is dry, even as her head tips back to look up at the ceiling. "I do know it's magical. It… It took up residence inside her when we were trapped in that alternate reality we called hell four years. It started when she found an.. amulet of sorts, like you know. She did change physically, little by little, as such things apparently do."
She's silent a moment - she knows who 'Hunter' is, but like hell she'd ever say so. Honor among… whatever the hell they'd been that night taking down bad guys. She turns her gaze on Hank, " Well, she's susceptible to cold - hates it now. I suspect if I could work at lowering her core temperature, it certainly wouldn't like it. Don't know how low I could take her, though. IT might flee if it felt her dying, and I could handle that fakeout, of course." I
Toni frowns more at that "I don't know what I can help with that….I don't knwo anything about magic. Hell, I don't even know who to ask as further experts." she adds, nodding to Thea. "This thing has been in her four years and it hasn't shown any sign of leaving though, and I know for a fact Neena has been in situations that certainly seemed like she was about to die. It might not care of she does, it might just drift off looking for a new host at that point."
"But if it does that, then it will be outside of her." Veronica says. "I can bring cooling blankets. We have them for inducing hypethermia for certain medical procedures." So she can help with that. "I think the part other part we need to figure out is how one traps something like this, to keep it from re-infesting her." Or someone else. "Hank, our priority has to be her rescue. Getting her back. But I want you to call your contacts at SHIELD. See if one of their witch doctors can help us with this." Yeah. Sorry. Roni has no idea what else to call this.
"Whomever the baddies are, they are well funded, highly technologically capable and/or possess one or more metahumans in their employ—we don't know /how/ the transmat was achieved, after all. It could have been a mutant or other meta, Toni." Hank looks to Thea as she suggests the core temp thing, and nods. "Actually that's not bad. I would posit if the amulet held the entity before it should logically be able to hold it again. So…rapid core temp drop induced by Thea, cooling blankets to augment her efforts." He nods then when Roni suggests his contacts at SHIELD (WAND actually, that's the witch doctor division, with REAL witches, some with doctorates!). "I know just the man, two actually." He looks then to Thea. "Can I please borrow the amulet? I believe I can have it modified to become a Hellkitty Trap." Like a ghost trap from Ghost Busters, only totally different!
Hank is actually relieved, that sounds like very viable course for the parasite. "Now we just need to locate her and extract her from whatever ridiculously dangerous situation Neena's managed to get herself into."
Because: Neena.
"No. We were in that hell for a little over four years. It wasn't there until … the last nine months to a year? And Neena isn't easy to kill, that is something I know first hand." She's up out of her chair to pace, which is probably annoying, but she can't stop. She's trying to think, remember, turn over and over every last thing she knows since Neena got that damned necklace.
"Sure. I don't have it on me, it's locked up." Because like hell she's going to carry something like that around with her. "I guess I hoped if I took it away from her last time, that… this would sort of go away."
"I have some ideas what may have happened. I'll have to do some digging of my own with contacts I have." Which are not always nice. Or legal.
Toni rubs her face quietly. "Mm. Well, I don't know how magic works, but if it was stuck in this amulet thing before, it might be it can be used to put it back inside it and trap it there. It wasn't wandering around before Neena found it, at least, I assume. So seems to suggest it couldn't just wander on its own once it was in there."
"Well then, it is settled." Veronica offers. And then? Then she reaches into a pouch on the side of her chair, pulls out a phone, and tosses it underhand to Thea after noting the code on the back, which she promptly types into her tablet, activating the phone and assigning it to 'Thea Harmon' in her database. "Hank, you call the finger-wigglers. Thea, you get the amulet. And once we have Neena back, we'll call that number. And if you need to reach us to coordinate anything, you can use that phone." That way she doesn't have to give away her own number. "If there's nothing else, Hank, can you escort Thea out before you go get some sleep? Toni and I need to get back to finishing up the upgrades for her armor." The Iron Patriot will fly again!
Hank looks at all three women, and then boxes up the baked goods. Each one gets a sampler, darn it. "Right then. That does sound like a viable plan. Thea, if you'll come with me I'll escort you to get your belongings." He grips Toni's shoulder a moment, and looks to Roni too. "Maybe we should /all/ get a few hours sleep, then tackle the upgrades together and get them done fast, smooth, and efficient." A soft chuff of laughter. "I can't believe /I/ am suggesting people sleep, that's…Cat would be so proud."