2013.04.19 - Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?

The audible sound of stone crushing under Superboy's feet heralds another landing. Magik and himself have been testing out the bulky circular object on the young man's shoulder for about thirty minutes now. It's large, awkward, round and easily weighs a quarter of a ton. It's purpose was to scan different sorts of energy patterns but right now it needed calibrated to filter out background emissions. This also ment it had to be moved close enough to where it could register and read these disturbances to document. They were told smaller modules were being made that didn't require the source machine being lugged around but Kon insisted he could carry it and they shouldn't have to wait. Impatience winning out again. Plus Superboy an excuse to 'patrol' and who better than Illyana to join him, also she was necessary for configuring the magical scans, something no one else in the team had any abilities dealing with.

Right now the two of them are standing on the sloped rooftop ledge of a brownstone building in Queens that looks like it was made back in the early 1900s. The Energy Spike & Waveform Detector making all kinds of noises. "Maybe I should have waited for Spartan to finish making the smaller ones. I forget how much of New York there is to cover."

"Especially with you hopping place to place." Illyana agrees, standing there with her white cape pulled around her and looking at Conner with some amusement. "You know, if we run into trouble you're gonna want to put that thing down. And if you do, it might go *through* some poor person's roof. The way you like to go through walls." She's frowning at the thing though. "I don't like those noises." She notes. Of course, Illyana's not all that keen on tech in general.

The machine situated between them Conner looks down at it and touches the top display like they'd been shown in their quick 'how to operate' briefing. "Says we have three kinds of energy sources picked up here, one of them magical, one /other/ and uhm, electrical? Is electrical one of them? I don't know what all these colors and numbers mean. Thing should have came with a manual, intuitive my ass, maybe for you Spartan." Language! That is perhaps one of the few times Superboy has cussed - something that is actually becoming more and more frequent. His teammates are rubbing off on him.

Now the fun part! They stand there and wait while it runs through the emissions data to sort them. Magic requires Illyana's own input which is harder than just hauling the object around, thankfully it is voice operated as well and Void can communicate to them through it.

Illyana lets her cloak fall back as she steps over, looking at the colors and symbols as they flicker across. Illyana does well in book-learning type stuff. One of the reasons she can get through her Metro U classes with all her 'extra curriculars'. "Yeah, I think it's electrical. As to the magical one..." She makes a drawing motion, and the Soulsword appears out of wherever she keeps it and she eyes the glowing length with narrowed eyes. "It might just be picking up on me again. I'm not sensing anything especially extraordinary. That 'other' though..." She moves to the edge of the roofline and peers about. W"hat did he say the range on the thing was about?

"Not a big deal then." Both of his hands place on the opposing side of the display as they both observe it. The range on it was around 300 yards while encountering disturbances, much more than that once everything is filtered out of the way which as far as NYC goes that is a lot of noise distortion and obstructions to clear out before it's readings are spot on. "Didn't it read this once before? When we first turned it on and it was just picking you up twice?" Meaning /other/ might be mutant energy emissions. Since it's not the same color as the one it designated for Conner. "I don't know, this isn't half as fun as I thought it would be."

Illyana gives Connor an amused Look. "You really thought that going around collecting readings would be fun?" She shakes her head. "You don't get out much do you?" She's teasing him, obviously by the way it makes her cold eyes glint and how she sliiides a step away from any potential swatting retaliation. "You'd think it'd have learned 'mutant' already though. We're all over the place. Could be something weirder. Time flux, dimensional pocket... You can do that 'see through things' bit right? Wanna give the place a quick look?"

"I figured we'd run in to something nasty or a crime or something." Superboy exhales and looks around his eyes flashing red as his brows furrow in concentration. "Clean up your house, dude." He murmurs then continues to move his head pausing at one point as his cheeks redden in a blush and he continues on, stopping finally.

"Okay. Think I found it."

The machine hefted up over his shoulder he springs from where they are to sail through the air and land two city blocks away, through a basketball court and now standing at the base of an apartment building. Sitting upon it's steps are a handful of kids probably four to five years younger than Illyana and Conner's age, playing with cell phones, handhelds and smoking. Only one of them manages to look up and stare openly at the duo. "It's in there." The bulky scanner dangling over one shoulder as he ignores the pack in front of them.

"It's telling, that you consider crime and nastiness 'fun'." Magik says with a shake of her head. "Maybe it's part of that whole invulnerable bit. When you're not..." And you have friends and family die, it's a lot less 'fun'. When Conner springs away, Illyana waits until he's coming down for a landing. A quick teleport has her appearing in a flash of light just as Connor's feet touch the ground. He may ignore the kids, but she looks down at the one that notices their arrival. She brings one gloved hand up to lay against her lips. Shhhh. Then she turns back to Superboy. "I think you get to go first. I'm way more squishy."

"Well, you know what I mean." Superboy says as he strides up the stairs brushing aside two of them who were in the way.

"Watch it fucker... "

The one who was staring only slaps that foulmouthed companion of his in the arm and pulls him aside as directed. His mouth still agape as from when they'd landed.

Once inside the stained walls, smell and run down aspect of the apartment complex becomes even more apparent. To the end of the hall and at the maintenance doorway Conner goes. "In here." The scanner set down at his feet he pushes the door open that leads to the basement below. "Gah, this place stinks so bad."

The scanner that Conner carries so easily makes a heavy *thunk* sound even if Connor puts it down carefully. That's a lot of weight in a small device. Relatively small, at any rate. As Illyana follows him in, her cape rides their wake, brushing the walls which leave dirty smudges on all of that pristine white. She wrinkles her nose a bit but doesn't seem to take it with the same grimace that Superboy does. "What, this isn't 'fun'? Adventures are usually smelly, you know." Limbo and demons don't smell particularly grand and she doesn't have any potential Super Smell, so the stink and the general ick doesn't bother her too much.

"It's something I suppose." Carelessly Superboy hops to the bottom of the stairs to land on the floor below. Wasn't far, only about fifteen feet but it descends in to darkness and he vanishes in to it. His rummaging can be heard until there is loud clattering and knocking around, "Found it!" More noises and sounds of carnage are audible.

"Got you, you disgusting... ack it's getting loose!"

Something about the size of a kitten flies up the stairwell at Illyana and lands on the steps near her feet, It's potato shaped pure white and illuminated like a glow stick, it's also wriggling and bouncing, hopping up the steps.

Magik steps to the threshold but doesn't go hopping down herself. She's the brains of this outfit. She'll stay in the back thankyouverymuch. She winces at the sound of crashing and then grimaces at a particularly loud clatter. "You're like a bull in a china shop, aren't you?" She calls down to him. Hands on hips, she waits, attention drawn to the glowing thing that's bouncing up the stairs. "What'd you find, a mutant maggot?" Lifting one hand she holds it out to the side, palm down and a stepping disk opens to drop a mass the size of a basketball to the ground with a *splat*. The thing slowly uncurls, the demonic form blinking overly large eyes and unfolding long, thin limbs. "Get that thing for me, would you?" Illyana tells the demonling of the bouncy glowy... potato.

"Did you find it!? I can't find it." More thrashing sounds as things are tossed about and very possibly smashed in the darkness below.

The small white glowing creature wriggles in an attempt escape away from the demon. It seems harmless and only attempting escape until it touches the light shed from the hallway then a psychic scream is emitted. One of absolute pain and terror.

The demon is quick and nimble, pouncing after the creature. It doesn't seem particularly viscous though and lacks the mouth full of serrated teeth and scarily long claws that a lot of them have. That psychic scream sends it backwards like it hit a wall and going ass-over-teakettle down the stairs. Illyana's right there and even though it doesn't help, both hands come up to her ears to try to block out the 'sound' as she falls to one knee with a shout. Her mental shields keep telepaths out of her head but doesn't provide as much defense against a pure attack.

Did she find it? Sure seems like it.

That pulsing scream emulates the worst Industrial style of music noise and clash anyone could fathom hearing, a sound that doesn't actually reach the ears though it was more like a psychic song, a violent ruckus that induced agony. The up and down pulse of it continuing in violent throbbing surges until the critter rolls out of the light the hallway has to offer and back in to the darkness under the stairwell.

"Yana? You alright?" Superboy is asking as he stumbles up the stairs holding his head, his hair spiked up between his fingers where he clutches his scalp. "That hurt. A lot."

It affected more than just them, upstairs a baby is wailing loudly, someone hit the floor and glass shattered, those kids out front on the stairwell had dropped on the ground and were kicking their legs back and forth like spastic animals, this was just to name a few of those in the vicinity of that psi-scream.

The upside of it having been a psychic scream is that means that nothing is wrong with Illyana's actual hearing, as might be the case with some kind of sonic attack. "Yeah, yeah I'm OK. I think our glow worm is a vampire. The light seemed to have hurt it." She pushes herself up to her feet and steps over a bit more to try to keep her eyes on the critter. "Looks like he's got some range on him. Give the building a look and make sure everyone's OK?" The demon's gotten back to its feet (well, all fours) and gives a growling shake of its head. "No." Illyana tells it as it turns those glowing eyes on the creature. Giving her head a shake of its own she goes down on one knee, still trying to watch the thing.

Carin had been dying to get out of the tower for a while, and thankful the nice hologram man had seen fit to agree that her hardware couldn't take a whole lot of down time. Happily it fell in line with something that Mr. Holo had needed taken out. A neatly wrapped package and a simple messenger bag had sat on the counter as she'd been guided down a side exit with a tracking device strapped all spy like to her wrist. One second to stretch and a snap of some goggles and then /boom/ she was zipping out the alley and tracking down the little green blips on her screen.

A few minutes later though, she came skidding to a stop before a mess of kids splayed out on the sidewalk under an apartment building. This was the spot, more or less, but apparently this wasn't going to be a social call. Pausing to check the distance she slowed to a more normal pace as she slipped inside and headed up with caution. Stairs later, she nudged open a door peeking her head around.. "...hello?"

Carin will find herself in a pretty straight forward hunt for Illyana and Conner, once inside the apartment straight down the hall and to the right there is a maintenance doorway, the large bulky Halo tech object sitting just outside of it. Magik is on the stairwell with one of her Limbo demons and Superboy is at the base of it.

"Good idea." Superboy responds before looking up and around, "A guy upstairs might need taken to the hospital, looks like he cut his arm up on a glass table. Everyone else seems alright." Looking back down he tries to peer under the stairwell, "We're down here Velocity."

The glowing furry potato looks like it is trying to burrow in to the corner of the basement while they watch it.

"Bad enough I should jump him there or just a call to the EMTs alright?" Magik asks Superboy without looking at-way from Potato. Reaching up to the brooch that holds her cape on, she undoes the red stone and pulls the fairly weighty material off. Slowly, she starts to move towards the glowing critter as Velocity comes up to join them. "OK, if this thing makes a run for it then it's on you to catch him, alright V?" Holding the cape out like a net she scoots forward. "Easy fella. This'll hopefully keep the light off you, huh?"

She just stood blinking that big piece of tech that seemed to take up a huge portion of the hallway. These guys really had ace toys! She for some reason was leery of touching the thing and side stepping down to join the other two. Just one thing, now the odd thing in the room was a ...was that pompom glowing? "Ok... you guys seriously have a weird idea of hanging out." Edging out to flank Magik she kept her eye on the bouncing ball.

"We'll call someone on our way out."

"Shh." Superboy whispers to Velocity as Magik prepares to capture the potato of glowing doom. Which successfully she manages to get bound up inside of the cape. The Boy of Steel wincing as if in preparation for another psychic barrage to nail them once she has it captive. Nothing.

"Whew. Okay lets get out of here."

Illyana is used to dealing with kinda skittish things on occasion and so she manages to get her cloak around the potato and then slowly lifts it into her arms. Tucking the edges around to make sure it's safe from the light she also makes sure it can see out until a fold of material is drawn down. Don't want it to think it's trapped and freak out again. The blonde nods to the other two. "Yeah. Let's get this back to Spartan and see what it is we've found, huh?"

"Good idea. Who knows what it is." Hefting up the Energy Spike detector Superboy leads the way out where he'll take off with a leap after a quick call for an ambulance. Halo Corp will be picking up that bill.

So that was simple enough and as the glow died down once inside of the cloth, Carin's hand rose tentatively.| |"Ok...what is it?"| |Moving closer to Magik as if to try and see what she caught before glancing to Superboy she only nodded. Anything that would make him edgy was probably something she didn't want to tangle with. So she simply pulled her hands back and moved toward the stairs.| |"The story of what happened should be interesting, there's like a bunch people half collapsed on the ground outside."| |With that she stepped up and zipped herself out of the building, all too happy to be out a place that had whatever the glowy thing was crawling around in it.

Illyana will get their first, even versus the megaleaper and the superspeedster. Some days, it's totally win to be a teleporter.