Collab post between myself, [@BlessedWrath] and [@MatthiasAngel] [hr]Nora froze at the high-pitched sound that was the response to her attempt at saying hello, the tentative smile on her face fading away in an instant at the sight of this girl’s reaction. There was such intense [i]anger[/i] in her eyes, and in her voice...anger, and a determination that Nora, who had been working around superheroes for much of her professional career, could recognize very clearly. On a very deep level, Nora knew that this girl would [i]die[/i] before allowing herself to...well, whatever it is she thought Nora was going to do to her. But what could it be? And why did she only have that reaction after her eyes had settled onto Nora - not the talking wolf, and Justin and Lady Jane hadn’t elicited that reaction, so why Nora?... Boxcar cringed at the noise of the girl’s gloves priming - unlike the others in the area, his wolf ears were sensitive to frequencies outside of the normal range of human hearing. His immediate response was to growl, though he had to close his eyes as he fought through a painful headache that had come on as a result of the whine of a weapon power-up. His sense of smell didn’t tell him the nature of the device, which meant it wasn’t anything based on a superpower or supernatural set of principles. So, besides being stunned by the noise, the wolf couldn’t tell when the weapon would discharge, though it reminded him of other devices he had heard powering up inside the labs he had been in before. It was a purely man-made device, whatever it was, and that was just as alien to Boxcar as a superhero was to an ordinary being. Justin didn’t move - not because he couldn’t, but because he decided it was better to stay close to Lady Jane at the moment, in case she decided to interrupt this tense moment by whipping out her sword again. That, and he recognized the sound from having heard it several times in the past, perhaps in different formats, nevertheless, it was familiar to someone who had been on both ends of similar devices in the past. If he tried to tackle the girl, he’d just get zapped for his trouble, and then she’d have even more justification for feeling the way she did about this situation...that she was trapped, and felt like she didn’t have a way out. Deep in his heart, he wanted desperately to throw himself in the way, but any fast moves might send the wrong message…and then sword. Some days… Speaking of Lady Jane, she was at a bit of a loss for words at the moment. She was beginning to tire of things interrupting other things, and having retracted her hand and settled her temper, she was all for returning to a more peaceful place, as Justin suggested. Her mind drifted back to the young lady, sprawled in the dirt not long ago. She had appeared to be in much better shape, what with her standing erect and conversing. Amie had been wondering if it was appropriate to formally introduce herself yet again when her two new acquaintances burst through the foliage into view. Amie clasped her hands and held her tongue as introductions were made and promptly ignored as the girl transformed from victim to threat. She gave the appearance of a wild animal, trapped in a corner and prepared to fight for its life. Instinctively her hand returned to her sword, and she only managed to stop and regain control of herself just as the blade came into view, about an inch past the mouth of the sheath. The encounter with Jaiden had expended an unnecessary level of adrenaline, and her body was not prepared to produce and utilize more of it. She calmed her mind and weighed her options, ultimately settling on remaining silent to let the others negotiate, though she kept the sword in hand. Before Boxcar could recover and throw himself in the way, before Justin could try to find something to say to defuse the situation, Nora spoke as she splayed her arms outward, showing she had no weapons and leaving herself vulnerable. “I-I am not your enemy,” she stammered, her light blue eyes looking back unblinkingly at the girl’s green ones. Sam angled her head, to keep Justin and Lady Jane in her peripheral vision. Her eyes kept flicking back and forth between the two pairs of unknowns, as if deciding what to do. Her posture betrayed a total lack of formal training, but much more than that a familiarity with defending oneself that no teenager should have had to develop. Whatever color her belt, there is a language spoken by stance, and hers loudly proclaimed a willingness to use force. She worked her lips a little, but when the words did not come, her right eye twitched and she began backing toward the ship; one foot at first, and a sidelong glance toward Justin, then the other. She held her hands out at midrange, palms down, ready to latch onto any limb they might give to her. “You use dogs now, doctor?” she rasped, eyeing Boxcar warily. “Tranqs aren’t good enough anymore?” She added, a bit more confidently, though her throat could not have gotten any less dry: “Worried I might have taken something that might prevent sedation?” It was all coming back to her again; the white walls and labcoats, the linoleum floors, the smell of...nothing. She could almost hear the clatter of plastic lunch trays and the whispering shuffle of brain-dead patients trudging by. She shook her head and forced herself to focus, but the memories kept clawing their way to the surface. “...not going back.” she repeated, barely more than a hoarse whisper. “I beat Don Mantovani, and the government, I can sure as [i]hell[/i] beat you…” Boxcar peeled open his eyelids, though he didn’t need to see the girl to tell just how utterly [i]scared[/i] she was. Now the anger, the defiance, made more sense to him. They were a cover, a reaction to a situation that was so horrible that it brought sudden and intense rage to the surface...humans had a phrase for it that sounded awfully clinical considering the trauma it usually described. But Boxcar couldn’t communicate this to Nora without more talking, and if this girl thought he was some kind of laboratory pet in Nora’s service… To be honest, it was kind of frustrating for the wolf. This was getting too complicated, the way that humans, two-leggers, always made things more complicated. A frown passed over Amie’s face as she considered the girl’s words. They made little sense. The only thing that was clear was a distinct misunderstanding. Either the girl was hallucinating vividly, or there was more to Nora than was immediately apparent. Amie cast a sidelong glance at the young scientist, wondering in what manner she would respond. Nora suddenly put the pieces together. Well, some of them, anyway, or so she thought. “I’m not a doctor,” she explained with a calmness that surprised even herself, though she felt her knees wobble underneath her. “And even if I was, I’m not going to hurt you.” “Psh,” Sam scoffed. “[i]Okay[/i]. This is the part where I decide to trust you and walk right into a wall of hospital security… Sorry, doc; not drinkin’ the koolaid.” She took another step backward, eyes flitting over to Justin and Amie, then back to Nora and Boxcar. Her head twitched backward ever so slightly, as if to afford her the extra angle of vision to check for the nose of the fighter. “Now here’s how this is gonna go...I’m gonna get back in my ship, and you’re gonna go back to Shady Pines or whatever, and I’m gonna fix this thing up and split. Whoever paid you to shoot me down will have to find another lab rat to play with.” Nora didn’t know what to say. She had dealt with people who were frightened by the machines she made before, or made assumptions about her because of who she worked for, but she had never met someone so utterly convinced that she was…[i]evil.[/i] “I-I only want to help,” she said, tears starting to come to her eyes. “I’m-” Justin couldn’t stand there much longer without doing anything. Just moments ago he managed to stave off an international disaster, and now he couldn’t think of what to say or do. There was a lot of baggage here that he didn’t understand, and whatever had happened before, he didn’t want to let this girl stay out here alone with a strange alien ship. He opened his mouth just as Nora started talking, and he was about to say something when someone shouted. “HEY!” Boxcar’s stomach growled in the brief silence that followed his outcry, and he felt everyone’s eyes on him. “Look, I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast,” growled the wolf as he glanced between each human in turn, “so, if we fix her ship, we can go to the lodge for lunch, right?” Sam heard that disembodied voice again; the one from before Dr. Devious tried to recapture her. She’d been looking in Justin’s direction when he spoke, but an eyeroll and a turn of the head brought her back to a search for her new adversary...which ended up being the wolf. She realized in mid-sentence that Boxcar had been the one talking. “Now you’re just being ridiculo-oooh SHIT!” Sam trailed off, eyes widening at the one thing she hadn’t seen before; a talking animal. An honest-to-goodness talking, sentient, fully self-aware animal. “WHAT THE SHIT.” she continued, her eye twitching again. “IT TALKED. WHY IS IT TALKING.” She stumbled backward as she tried to cope with the prospect of intelligent dogs. She’d meant to retreat into the hole in the side of the fighter, where Jaiden had ripped off the door to the cockpit, but her heel hit a patch of slick grass coated in that mysterious metal goo, and she pitched backward, arms flailing all the way in a vain effort to latch on to anything that might help her avert the fall. Her head slammed into the bottom of the door frame and she grunted as her lights went out. Just like that, the situation resolved itself, and just as well, too; in its current condition, Sam had no hope of repairing that fighter. An awkward silence fell over the group. Amie looked around at the bewildered faces, then slid her sword fully back into the sheath with a sniff. “Well that was...invigorating, though it looks as though the threat has passed. Will one of you be arranging transport for her to the local authorities? The poor girl is clearly in need of...help, and this seems to me to be a matter best handled by the law. And on that note, I bid you good afternoon.” Bowing her head respectfully to the trio, Amie turned and marched back into the forest in the direction of the lodge. She would have taken her time and enjoyed the walk back had she not suddenly remembered her dear assistant, who was no doubt very distressed. He may call the police. Worse, he may call her family. The thought of her mother requesting her presence was more that enough to prompt a sigh of frustration and a quickened pace, and soon Amie vanished from sight. Whatever else happened, she would not be participating. Nora was the first to recover and to dash over to Sam’s side. She was a little too stunned by the situation to take much stock of Amie’s words, and she focused her attention on the girl with a flick against her glasses to turn on a medical analysis mode. The glasses couldn’t scan for injuries actively, rather they took in everything Nora saw and drew conclusions from that. “She’s not too badly hurt, but she slipped in this silvery liquid,” Nora observed. “Her head fell back into-” Justin wasn’t there much later, and he quickly lifted the girl away from the silver liquid, then noticed that some of it had stuck to the back of her hood. “I’m pretty sure this stuff isn’t healthy,” he said as he hurriedly unzipped the girl’s hoodie and pulled it off of her. “Looks like it just got onto her hood, and her shoe...maybe we can just-” As the two of them discussed how they were going to bring the girl back to the lodge to recover and to wash her clothing, Boxcar watched Amie go with a curled lip. “‘And on that note, I bid you good afternoon,’” he mimicked with a snort. “What does that lady even [i]eat[/i] - ice cubes? That’s just cold…” Soon, the wolf was wrangled into providing a ride to the unconscious girl, and Justin handed off the glove sample he had retrieved to Nora - and then the three of them all headed back toward the lodge...