2013.07.27 - I Want My MojoTV - Part 2: Chicks for Free

PREVIOUSLY ON I Want My MojoTV:'''

"This is not an alternate Earth. It is a separate dimension." "That thing knew my name. It has to be related, but I don't know WHY!" "I think we're about to get some company..." "Mistress Spiral has been waiting for you."

FADE TO BLACK

--

FADE IN:

'''EXT. MOJOWORLD BATTLEFIELD - DAY'''

"I'll give you a two-minute head start, worms."

Spiral's voice thrums through the air, her smirking visage on the enormous television screen looming through the mist, high above. The image winks out with a *CLICK* and the monitor starts to recede, swallowed up by the lemon-yellow clouds of this strange world.

Booster Gold and Missy Cramer still remain where they'd dropped, like discarded dolls, eyes vacant as they both stare at nothing. The former is wearing a white, unconstructed but boxy suit over a blue and gold t-shirt with a star on his chest rather than his usual power suit; the latter has an enormous grin on her face despite being unconscious. Dotting the area are the still forms of the robot creatures, like metallic statues in various states of repair. All around them, the glassy-eyed humanoids who had been on the battlefield--whether grievously wounded or not--are shuffling towards Xavin, and Vorpal, and even towards the transmission building, currently housing Doug.

Vorpal narrows his eyes and bends down to pick up Booster, "A little help here, guys..." he says, nodding to Missy. "Looks like we're getting a welcome wagon, and we need to get these two to safety before we have to fight it out..." he looks at the shuffling extras "...considering that they could be used aginst us in a fight, I'd rather prefer not fighting against friends or innocents..." the cat summons a purple platform and hops onto it. "I can get us to travel by air, we'll make faster progress... dump these two through the portal and then we look for Booster's suit?"

He had been experimenting with creating platforms in mid air, creating a series of them as he stepped forward and disintegrated the ones behind him. It wasn't as elegant as flight, or actual moving platforms, but it was a way to get around his limitations. "Unless someone else has a better plan before the Thriller gang gets here?"

Xavin's eyes grow wide as the refugees make their shambling approach; they also flick towards the flaming half of her body for a lingering moment before squaring on the repurposed masses.

"Yes," she says to Vorpal as fire races backwards along her limbs and eventually extinguishes itself. "Containment."

And with that, she puts her palms forward, takes a small step backwards--and squints really, really hard at the space in front of the extras. Electric blue briefly shimmers in the air between the two parties soon afterwards, serving as the only perceptible proof of the wall she's hastily erecting to slow the zombified extras down. After a few more small, slow steps backwards, she glances behind herself, sees the platform, and hops back to board it herself.

"Still working on reprogramming the bots," Doug replies over the intercom. "They're limited to action and defense. We've got more issues with our own friends here... they've been hypnotized or something."

Pausing, as he considers methods of hypnotism, Doug's fingers dance over trying to set up a program that could flash through the various little monitors all over the place.

C'mon, all these things...? The 80s shows? Doug'd caught a good deal many of them over the years on the nostalgia channels, and... well...

What did that show call them? Blipverts? Just ... set up a few, flashing on the monitors, lots of minor subliminal messages, all going "Be yourselves", bombing the screens. If it works? Call out to get the zombified allies to look into the screens.

"Yeah, about that," comes the voice of a dripping and somewhat scorched man in his thirties, who's coming abreast of the floating platforms, accompanied by an also dripping and singed young woman; they're both wearing battered Unstable Molecule Edna Mode Type outfits, they both have that L* symbol on them. "Finding his stuff's probably not going to be a problem. Sorry, hi, I'm Cos, this is Kid Quantum, we're Booster's teammates. Jaz, give the cat a hand getting them out -- it should be relatively free of sharknado, but you're the expert on those guys -- and then come back, I'm sure we'll need our zooties pulled out of the fire."

He glances to Xavin, hand up as he has a look at the energy shield she's erected, and his eyebrows go up in respect. "Powerful punch you got there. I'll keep track of where his stuff is until they get back; I can hold stuff off if you can get that blond kid out of wherever he is so we all get to go home when we're done?" he offers.

"Well, that's a relief," Ricochet Rita says, running a hand through her long, dark hair. The stuntwoman has been doing her best to keep up, but it's obvious all this superpowered hijinks is sort of beyond even her highly-trained normal human capacity. "I was beginning to think we might stay stuck here. I can't imagine anything worse... than a life in this horrible place!"

ELSEWHERE:

"The drama!" Mojo squeals, clapping his jaundiced claws together. "Look at them, Spiral my beauty. So fresh, so hip, so ready for primetime!"

The Mistress of the Wildways folds her six arms across her chest. "They're trying to destroy us. Destroy what we've built."

Mojo narrows his beady eyes. "Yes, yes, true enough. But think of the ratings!" A long tongue lolls out of his mouth, pointed and dripping with cosmic ichor. Slurpity-slurp, licking his rubbery lips. "Get the cameras rolling! Get the action going!" He raises his talons to the heavens. "And wake up our stars!"

Rolling her eyes, Spiral begins to dance.

THE BATTLEFIELD:

The hovering cameras, stationary since being disabled, bob inertly in the air. Then, audible clicks and whirs come from them and they start to turn, focusing on the action.

The little monitors are everywhere, and they start flashing their rapid-fire messages--because enough of these floating televisions exist, many of them are within eyeshot of the mind-controlled minions, and this seems to confuse them. Whether or not it is snapping them out of their zombie state is a moot point, because it is causing them to hesitate, and therefore they are not pressing the attack. Others continue forward, pawing now at the wall of force that has been erected by Xavin.

Much like the cameras, Booster and Missy seem to reboot as well. Both of them twitch and blink rapidly, and cognition returns to their eyes. They seem confused for a moment, and then look around. A few of the cameras bob in, clearly focused on them. On the various monitors, there is a struggle with the signals--some of it is now a live feed of the situation, some of it is the rapidly flickering override hacked together by Doug.

Several of the previously inert robots whir back to life, although not all of them. Those that are not being tampered with rise into the air, although they do not attack, not yet; they seem to be forming up with silent menace between the exit portal and the heroes.

Vorpal narrows his eyes, bloody murder in his eyes as the cameras whirr back to life. The squadron of robots impeding their path? He wasn't a fan of that, either. "Looks like we're going to have to fight our retreat. And someone's putting us live..." the cat says, looking at the cameras.

And then an evil grin crosses the Cheshire cat's face. "Well... that's what they want, anyways. Let's give them a little change in their programming, shall we?"

The cheshire cat focuses. Yes... that should be just fine.

Suddenly, a baroque orchestra starts blasting the Rondeau by Jean-Joseph Mouret (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ8QVKOWbPU) and, before each camera, an illusion appears of a rather ornate study with a wall lined with books as far as the eye can see. An elderly gentleman (resembling but not quite managing to look like Vincent Price) sits on an elegant wingbacked chair, holding a book over his crossed legs.

"Welcome to Masterpiece Theater." He says in deliciously mellifluous tones, "Today we have a treat for you, dear viewers... Shakespeare's immortal Troilus and Cressida, as adapted by Kyoto's Minamiza Kabuki Theater..."

It truly is an evil move. But cats are thorough bastards. "Stay put, Michael..." he hisses as Booster regains consciousness and starts moving "...we're doing a rescue scene. Stay still or you'll ruin it all." To the others he says "...okay... if anyone has firepower and a plan, I'd love to hear it."

"I have plenty of firepower," Xavin hisses through clenched teeth. She's grateful that Doug's transmission seems to be keeping the extras somewhat calm; she can feel all the fingers(and hooves, and talons, and paws) scraping across her barrier like wool scratching across her brain and forcing her to think of little but maintaining the wall. "I just--" She squints at the (for now) confused masses, studies them through her wall; at this point, the robots are a greater threat, and if the extra-horde does regain its purpose, she can worry about keeping them safe from the crossfire then.

"I'm going to let them go, as soon as we engage the drones; be mindful." Being that her best plan at the moment is 'blow up all of the robots between Point A and Point B', she glances towards the newcomers to see if they have any insights on that front.

"Shouldn't it be Monsterpiece Theater?" Jazmin asks with a quirk of a smile as she makes her damp and somewhat bedraggled way up in the direction of the cat and the robots and all the action. She glances briefly to Booster and Missy and then back to Vorpal. "Hi. I think the plan is to grab and/or encourage and/or whatever and then fight out way back out. Which may or may not fit with the plot."

"Anyone who hasn't seen the screens not occupied by Masterpiece... whatever that is," Doug announces, "please guide them towards that, and then heads up... we've got visitors." Hopefully, Xavin, instead of trying to hold them back, would reconsider re-directing the hordes towards the screen with that comment.

Still trying to tamper with more and more robots, the young mutant re-direct his efforts. All he was getting were very simplistic commands with those robots, which made for for an interesting option. Well then.

Trying to get the robots he did have in control to coordinate, he tries a simpler approach - destroy all cameras.

"Somebody get the blond kid if you know where he is," Cos says irritably, landing lightly on the floor and bringing both hands up. "I can take out the robots and the cameras but it'll take out the screens too, so whatever's gumming up these people's heads may act unpredictably. And the two minutes to get out before the crazy chick gets here? Are ticking down. Jaz, can you keep your eye out for her, and bring up Booster's locational beacon? Vincent Twice Vincent Twice, can you give us a brush-up on our Shakespeare?"

This he asks as he sweeps his arms up and together like the conductor of an orchestra implying it's time for cymbals; he's shoving at the robots lining up between them and the exit, trying to crash them together hard enough to take each other out. "Plan is: keep anyone who didn't sign up for this from getting hurt. Get as many people out as fast as possible. She is coming for us, and we will have to fight her, so everything we can do before that? Makes less to worry about in... one minute two seconds."

"Wh...what?" Booster is still trying to shake off the daze induced by whatever had shut him down, earlier. Vorpal's words to him cause him to frown, however. "Stay still? Hey, I'm the hero of this show, citizen... if there's any rescuing going on, I'm always a part of it!" He is jerking a thumb towards his own chest as he jumps to his feet, and then he looks sidelong to the nearest camera and gives it a wink and smile. Brainwashed or not, some aspects of Booster's personality are clearly fundamental and unchanging.

Missy Cramer has regained her pastel pink blazer, which has enormous shoulderpads, and has pulled it on over her gold and white skin-tight power suit. The look in her eyes says she has misgivings, but her mouth is still pulled into a bright smile. She huddles. "I don't know, Michael, I wouldn't mind sitting still for at least a little while..."

Despite any recalcitrance on the part of the 'stars', things seem to be turning in favor of the heroes. The expected programming is getting disrupted by the intrusion of another, ostensibly more highbrow 'channel' by Vorpal; some of the hijacked robots are forced into attacking the cameras by Doug, smashing into them as if they were sworn enemies; the other robots are being swept around and smashed together mercilessly by Rokk.

This simply will not do.

A voice comes from above, feminine and neutral in tone. "Scene change in 3... 2... 1. Scene change NOW."

Shadows can be seen in the clouds above during the count-down, and suddenly the mists part. Rapidly descending platforms are visible, and upon these enormous plates are various buildings. The platforms come crashing down, causing the ground to tremble, although they seem curiously careful to not land on any of the heroes or still-standing Extras. The battlefield is otherwise obliterated, including any of the fallen humanoids; if they weren't dead before, they certainly are, now. Metallic extensions fold out and clank into place, linking the various pieces into one big, unified cityscape with skyscrapers and roads, all around the heroes. The Extras no longer seem ready to attack, they seem inclined to run away and take cover in the buildings, if they are allowed to do so.

The sweet voice announces, "Cut to. Exterior. MojoWorld city. Day."

"Cripes," Rita says, looking around at their new surroundings. "This is... unreal. Is it magic? It feels like magic, but these robots, all these machines..." She shakes her head. "Do you guys deal with stuff like this all the time? Being a superhero must be crazy."

Vorpal smirks at the scene change-- "I know your number now..." he mutters. He was not powerful by conventional means, but his gift of the illusion gave him a little edge in a world that seemed to be geared towards creating content. He thought up another illusion... and decided to keep that one under his sleeve. He had the impression that the upcoming confrontation was meant to be the money shot.

He becomes frustrated when Booster does his thing. "Michael, for crying out loud!" He says, attempting to tap into the narrative once more and derail it, "Something bad is coming and you need to escort us citizens to safety before it gets here. Otherwise we're all going to be killed. The stars always survive... not so much the support." Redshirt philosophy.

He could have manifested a purple baseball bat and attempted to smack Michael over the head with it while he was mugging for the camera. I mean, he 'could' have done that, but he got the impression that people had messed enough with his head as it was, and he didn't want to make it worse unless he absolutely had to.

~Goddamnit, how I wish I had actually useful powers.~

He gives Cos the 'I don't think they're going to cooperate' look concerning Booster and Missy. Craycray Lady was coming, and there was nothing they could do about it.

~Like mind control. Or telekinesis. Cheshire cat, would that have been too fricking much to ask?~

Xavin tenses up at the sight of the looming city and starts to pull an arm upwards with intentions on repurposing the crowd control barrier into a 'keep herself and her pals from being crushed' barrier.

Which, let's be real, would be about as effective as an umbrella in a hurricane; luckily, a closer examination of the descending platforms tells her that she needn't bother, and so she lets the energy dissipate entirely with a drawn out exhalation as the city settles around them.

She doesn't get any less tense, though; new surroundings mean new tactics, and all the urban combat training in the world is poor preparation for engaging a foe like Spiral.

"You," she tersely says, turning towards Michael to jab a finger towards his chest. "If you'd like to be a hero, you're about to have your chance, because a villain is coming to murder us all in less than a minute. If you want to survive her, and see any of the rest of us survive, you can work and fight alongside us; otherwise, we're going to need to leave you." It's less nuanced than Vorpal's approach, but the message, at least, is similar.

"On it, Cos." Jazmin pulls up her omni to keep track of where, exactly, the beacon is currently and how, if at all, it might be moving. She glances around as the scene changes around them. "Okay that.. that is freaky. And yes.. being a superheo is kinda crazy, no arguments there. You get used to the crazy though. Mostly."

She mmms, her focus upon her omni for long moments after the scene change. "Uh.. it popped in close, disconcertingly so, but no movement at the moment on the beacon." She looks up again, looking around as if trying to match up the surroundings with the information on her omni. "I am so not playing damsel in this little play, just for the record."

The city stacking up and altering was frightening in its way - it implied that the whole environment was under control of... well, whoever it was.

And people were living in this place.

Checking further, Doug discovers that there is a wi-fi network (or at least the equivalent) beyond the building he was in. Trying to access it, deciphering the various languages involved in it, he seeks for just where the city 'transformation' code was, and for who controlled it. Because the best thing he could do was wrest control over it... ... did it have anything like TRON reality? He'd been working on that a while, and so... well, if he had to challenge the person in charge, the... 'Megabyte', as it were...

And of course, there was that woman, who had to be his Hexadecimal. What information was there on her?

Spread hands at Vorpal, and Cos shrugs. "She looks ready to go home," he says, pointing at Missy. "Booster! Stop being retarded. You're the hero but you're also the McGuffin. We gotta get your stuff, and then you gotta save our lives, okay? Do you know how to get the kid out? Because that's the part I'm actually worried abo--"

YEARS AGO: "No one can just change the stage, Cos! It's not like this is some kind of sprockin' holovid!" complains Garth Ranzz, slouching in the copilot's seat in a Legion cruiser, arms crossed. "Grife, this is reality. You're being paranoid and weird again."

NOW: Rokk Krinn looks up in startlement as buildings fall into place, getting the sudden sense that they're a startled group of people all dynamically posed and looking up. "Well, shit." He looks over to the direction the portal was. "Okay. I'm gonna make a big target. Kid Quantum, you herd these cats."

That said, Rokk also has a go at changing the setup-- by changing genre. He flies up and away from the others, ripping up streetlights and girders and car parts and monorail tracks and a train car, assembling it around himself like he's a big damn flying mecha, and lands with an echoing boom and starts stomping back toward the portal.

ELSEWHERE (BUT FAR NEARER):

Mojo wiggles about on his mechanical spider-walker legs like a bloated yellow child. "Look at them! These guest stars, they're making it perfect! We'll use this footage for sweeps!"

Spiral says nothing, voguing into a series of poses as she turns in a centrifugal motion. Her many hands are like knives cutting through air, framing her face and her white, contemptuous eyes.

"Yes," Mojo purrs, watching her now. "Dance! Dance your sweet spirals! Together we will make the most memorable show of all!"

IN THE CITY:

Booster and Missy barely seem to notice the city crashing into place around them; they must be used to this. The citizens in their program rarely behave the way these heroes do--that seems to be the thing that is unsettling to them. "Uh..." Booster lifts a hand, as if to try to quell some of the comments coming his way.

"First off," says Booster, with his index finger pointing upwards. "Why are you calling me 'Booster'? My name is Michael. Secondly," he holds up another finger, "My 'stuff' was S.K.E.E.T.S., that sweet looking car that apparently got wrecked and squashed when you guys started busting stuff up. I'm all for a team-up, but that's left me without any powers. Even so, we'll do our best. Come on, Trixie..." He takes Missy's non-injured arm by the elbow.

The faces of the nearest skyscrapers around the heroic group are shifting now, and large panels flip to show various clock-faces. Some are analog, some are digital, some are in formats that are uncommon on Earth. All of them are counting down, however, and as they hit their equivalents of 'zero', that neutral female voice announces, "Time is up."

Taking cues from Rokk, some bits of detritus and scenery start to pull together, building a similar bulky, mecha-type robot that stomps towards him, every step ringing like a half dozen gongs. Closer to the rest of the group, the bases of the buildings are sprouting techno-organic tentacles that are reaching for the heroes. This is going on within the building Doug is in as well, the very floor is erupting and reaching for the young blond man as he scours the local computer networks.

If Vorpal could admit to having a secret wish, it wouldn't be too far from Billy Kaplan's 'I want to be a better person' mantra. As the world around them erupts into insanity, the young hero feels thoroughly inadequate to respond in kind. The buildings are too pervasive and all-encompassing for his constructs to be of any use at the moment. He lacked super strength or decent flight abilities, and he had no projectiles. Booster wasn't going to cooperate as long as he was brainwashed... he was at a loss for what to do..

~Time to make like a coward and try deceit, at least until someone else has a better idea.~

He fades from view as his invisibility kicks in and he pushes off from the ground, floating high up into the air. As he floats upwards, however, he creates multiple illusory clones of everybody, spread across a wide area to try and confuse the tentacles into going for the dupes instead of his teammates. He was seething with fury at feeling so impotent and wished he had someone to squarely punch in the jaw and take out his frustration. If only Spiral could read minds, she might read some very atrocious words being directed at CrayCray Lady. Most of which would have caused Mama O'Neil to wash her son's mouth with soap for at least a month, and one or two might have caused her to faint.

When the city itself makes arms to raise against them, Xavin breaks off from frowning at Michael to watch the surroundings shift as fire consumes the right half of her body. Before engaging their metropolital foe, she quietly says, "If you can find a safe place to take them," she flicks her eyes across Missy and Rita both, "do so; do what you can to protect them without your powers. Do not get burned," to the man she just threatened to leave behind, then takes to the air.

Not that there's a ton of room for aerial maneuvering, of course; being above street level just seems smart, what with the building's foundations being weaponized. She doesn't fly too high, either--maybe a few dozen feet up, enough to (hopefully) keep her out of tentacle's reach as she strafes past one of the writhing thickets and bathes the ground/building in jets of superheated plasma.

Out of nowhere, thrumming, thumping music rises, clearly meant to be an action soundtrack to the activity going on out in the streets.

"Story of my life." Jazmin mutters as Rokk directs her to make with the cat herding. "You. Cat. Bugger where'd the cat go?" She gestures towards others. "Anyone who isn't up for fighting big baddie, head for the portal. I'm going to go get the hacker dude, because he's screwed by himself, unless one of you has reliable communication with him to tell him to get his ass out here, we're past the point of being split up as a good plan."

Jazmin can, and does, take to the air, also not too high, but high enough to keep out of tenticle grasp as she heads to go and, ideally, grab Doug before anything else grabs Doug.

And then, at Jazmin's comment, comes some laughter--again, out of nowhere, as if someone were maniuplating a real-time laugh track.

"All right. Can someone come get me?" a plaintive voice replies over the intercom.

Given that it was time to get out, Doug does one last quick scan. The city is being controlled from within the city itself, and grabbing the location would be useful. Transferring it quickly to the GPS attachment, Doug grabs as much information code as possible - although the code is odd. A binary machine code, and then... well, Doug would have sworn there was some sort of electronic equivalent of DNA, but he didn't have the time to sort this out.

Doing a quick final command to have the robots destroy each other after all the cameras were taken out, Doug grabs the laptop, and hurries out the building to meet... apparently, Jazmin.

TENTACLES?! MechaRokk is Not Amused. He stomps toward the oncoming EvilMecha like a giant weird-looking Transformer, giant armor hands in fists, raised at his sides like COME AT ME BRO-- and stops short. It's like a taunt. LIKE a taunt. The fact that the piece of car he managed to swipe as a chestplate is the hood of a pink pickup truck, he could possibly be slightly more intimidating, but if mecha can look cocky, this one does. "YOU! CITY!" he yells, thumping his chest with a resounding CLANG, "PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE!"

And then he pulls the EMP.

Still on the ground, Booster Gold has not only dragged Missy Cramer along, but now he has Rita Wayword as well. Missy has that power suit on but seems unable to utilize it now, for reasons unknown. Fortunately, both Missy and Rita are athletic women, so they can keep up. Tentacles are lashing out at them, although in a more systematic way, and at one point Booster actually grabs both women by the waist, leaps, stomps on top of a questing tendril, and is able to vault all of them over it. Something about the timing of the attacks might remind one of a cat with a mouse; death is a very real possibility, but it is being dragged out as much as possible. Every time they make headway in the direction of the portal, tendrils erupt like a thicket from the ground and block them, as if they were being herded away from escape.

The last of the original floating cameras is taken out by the hijacked robots. These robots, in turn, are crushed by tentacles as they flail around stabbing and grabbing. The curling, probing arms slither around, and when they target the illusionary people they smash into the street, or through lamp posts or other scenery on the increasingly damaged sidewalks. Some tentacles are reduced to slag, twitching as if they were alive things now slain, by those jets of plasma.

Here and there, jointed arms unfold from the sides of building and on the ends of these arms are rough spheres with multiple lenses--even more cameras to take in the action, to ensure that everything remains televised at all times. A new fleet of flying cameras is incoming, hovering around to get pick-up shots from all angles. When Rokk releases his EMP, these new cameras fall out of the air, smashing to the ground like enormous and technologicaly advanced hail stones. They are not still, however; parts of them are still moving, as if these things were not entirely mechanical, and partially alive. This seems to be the theme for everything around Rokk Ground Zero; the foe-Mecha does not collapse completely but starts to jerk and move in a strange way, as if it had been woefully crippled. The tentacles nearby twitch and flop around, like blind worms.

It is also starting to become apparent to the heroes who have flown up into the air that there are people inside these buildings--they must have been living there, or working there, and were braced for getting dropped from the sky. With their homes and businesses shifting and attacking and being attacked in return, some of them are screaming in terror and this can now be heard over the exciting action music. No citizens seem to have been hurt in this melee. At least, not yet.

Fighting a city. Everywhere he looked, Vorpal saw people in those buildings. Innocents being put at risk by... whomever ran this place.

~What can you do? What 'can' you do?~

He looked at the cameras all over the place. All of this place was geared towards sick spectacle, capitalizing on taking people and twisting them into some sort of story, with real blood and tears. And filming that.

~You're out of your league here. What 'can' you do?"~

He looked at the circular cameras on the joints of the buildings. Eyes, eyes everywhere. ~I'm going to do what I'm beast at. Ruining the show.~

Floating while invisible, he closes his eyes for a second and grasps something in his mind. A memory. Something he had seen with his mother when he was little. Got it?....got it... good.

Opening his eyes, he looks at the camera, and he repeats the performance he had done earlier, sending a direct image and sound right in front of the camera lenses so that it looks like it is the real world being filmed. Music began playing, and a woman in robes appeared... and then, there was singing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ2L_B7VOWs)

He focuses and maintains that illusion, forcing it on as many cameras as he can see appearing.

~...let's... force their ... hand. Time to stop.. the signal...~ he feels the strain, but he fights it, keeping his focus.

Xavin does a double-take when she thinks she spies a head ducking down beneath window-level in one of the buildings, then hits the brakes and circles back around to peek inside. "There's some--" she begins to report before distant screams interject to do it for her--and fill her with dread for the fate(s) of whoever happened to be inside.

Viewers might get a few snatches of the horror creeping across her features from various angles before the illusory soprano threatens to overtake their screens.

Rokk's EMP seems to have tamed the tentacles for now, at least, and Vorpal seems to have a solid angle on dealing with the cameras; thus, after swallowing the lump forming in her throat, she knocks on the window with her non-firey hand in the hopes of gaining entrance so that she can handle evacuation while there's an opportunity.

And if knocking on the window doesn't work? She'll just try again, only with an invisible morningstar; her conscience can handle accidental lacerattions and property damage much better than accidental fatalities.

"Hi, I'm your ride. Unless you fly, and then this'll be WAY easier." Jazmin notes to Doug, offering him a hand just in case he doesn't fly of his own accord. "We've got some things to pick up first, while ideally, people start grabbing civilians and distracing the big bitch, but who knows at the moment." She has excellent control over her emotions, her voice sounding almost upbeat about the next tasks on the to-do list, regardless of the hell breaking loose all around them. "Communication, not this group's strong suit. Shall we?"

With Doug, one way or another, the next spot on the round the area flying tour is heading for that blinking on her omni, where the locator is waiting. A flick of Jazmin's hand gathers up enough time energy to give her and Doug (if he's coming with her) a little extra speed getting there.

"Not really, no," Doug smiles wryly as he accepts the ride. "I suppose it would be a good idea to show you where all the signals are coming from? "

Hauling his tracking unit, the young man shows the Legionnaire where everything was. And coincidentally enough, it happens to match where Booster's flight ring was.

The rest of the flight is spent trading what information there was, as well as doing short introductions until...

"The longer we stay here, the MORE THEY'RE IN DANGER!" Rokk yells backward, letting all his armor fall with a horrendous clatter and clanging of distressed metal. "PORTAL! GO!" He hovers above the street, opening his arms wide and pushing at the metal things on the street, the twitching half-alive cameras and tentacles and assorted robot debris. And there are like six million extra copies in the air and it's awfully confusing. So Rokk just shuts his eyes and only looks with his magnetic senses. "Hey CAT GUY! Make an announcement! 'Hide in your bathtubs or run for the portal, civilians' or whatever! Michael, they wiped your memory! You're SECRETLY A GREEK GOD and you're MAKING IT WITH WONDER WOMAN! Your STUFF is the RING she gave you as a token of her undying love, and a suit of god-clothes in your colors, and a belt that grants you even more extra powers, IN ADDITION to your rad car! Are you gonna let that stand? Get the girls out and FOLLOW THE CUTE BUTT IN SPANDEX!"

With the little floating cameras twitching around, and now most of the larger spherical cameras being treated to an operatic performance, the 'show' is relying on cameras that are much further away; this means a lot of aerial and far away shots, nothing more up-close and personal, removing the fun of seeing expressions of pain and terror and determination. When Xavin knocks on a window and looks inside, she does see a family in there. They are humanoid, although the father has ram horns and the mother has some cat-like features. They have two young children who are crying in fear and huddled in the far corner of the room with their parents. This is not particularly unique as a cursory peek into nearby apartments shows different familial configurations, with and without children, but everyone is afraid. They do not seem inclined to leave their homes, however, as the streets seem a lot scarier to them right now.

At this point, Booster has physically picked up Missy, who has never trained to run for this far and this long; with her injury her stamina is lower than it usually would be. Rita is still with him, the stalwart stuntwoman matching the ex-quarterback's pace. They are still dodging the occasional tentacle, but now it is clear they really are being herded; as it happens, they are being coaxed in the same direction as the location that has been ascertained by Jazmin and Doug. This is only a couple of blocks from where the chaos began.

The location in question is another building, although it has a far more organic look to it than some of the tall skyscrapers that surround it. It looks much like a folded lotus flower surrounded by praying mantis arms, all depicted in material that might be milk-glass, or chitin, or something in between. Traceries of silver wire depict panels or veins, depending upon how one views the structure.

Rokk's shouting causes Booster, Missy and Rita to skid to a stop, tentacles poised around them but not striking. And then one of the 'mantis' arms from the flower building plucks Missy right out of Booster's arms, and another snatches Rita right off of the street.

As though fed by the crackling static-sun high above Mojoworld, the 'flower' that is at the heart of this twisted urban landscape begins to open. Techno-organic petals reach for the light, blossoming open to reveal intricate walls of machinery, whirring blades, hanging racks of vacuum-packed flesh... and SPIRAL, Keeper of the Body Shoppe, who levitates from within, up into the air in a shimmering circle of sparks. "This is what we call the final act," she says, her voice carrying easily no matter how far away the heroes are. This is her demesne, and reality bends to kiss her feet.

Curse not being able to fly.

Vorpal has tried to stay in step with the progress of Booster and company, but since he can only float at a walking pace, it is pretty much useless. From his vantage point high in the air, he can, however, see the petals open..

~Now what?~

Keeping all of those consecutive illusions at once isn't easy for a master magician like Zatanna, and it is very much at the breaking point of someone with lesser gifts. The strain builds up until it feels like a needle of ice going through his brain. He doesn't even get a chance to shout as the pang of pain goes through- and every single illusion collapses into absolute nothingness and a swirl of purple light. Floating in midair, Vorpal rubs at his forehead as the mother of all migraines makes its presence known. He'd done this before and he knew what it meant- the end of illusions until he had time to rest and sleep. The worst possible time for his power to be stretched to the point of breaking.

~Goddamnit... what do we do?~ he looks down at the team members. Xavin is trying to evcuate the families, Rokk is doing his thing, Jaz is flying with Doug... he can't communicate with them. Were he to speak, it'd break his invisibility and he wouldn't be able to become invisible again. At this point, it's not something he can afford to do. So he does the next best thing--- a large glowing arrow in the direction of the building where it is the most visible, and he lands himself on one of the rooftops. The cat then takes off like a bat out of hell, jumping over rooftops in his invisible state to get close to the building.

Goodness knows what the hell he was going to do when he got there, though.

And just like that, the time for evacuation is over; Xavin wouldn't dare lead bystanders anywhere with Spiral on the prowl. She'd gotten as far as offering them a hand out, which she turns around into a brief 'STOP' gesture before finally pressing her index finger to her lips, as Spiral makes her proclaimation. Once her game of Bystander Charades is complete, she twirls higher into the air to check on everyone else's positions, then jets towards the blossoming Body Shoppe.

"By rights, I'd rather drop you off at the portal. Is there any hope whatsover that you could perhaps start kicking people in that direction?" Jazmin asks Doug as they get closer. "The whole 'tactics' thing that I think we have decided that we're entirely too cool for." She does settle Doug not quite in the middle of it all before she gathers up a bit more energy and rather than throw it anywhere, simply settles it around herself.

Kid Quantum zips off, darting in and around and past and into the building. ZOOM! She's back, not so much later, with a bundle wrapped up in her arms, glinting golden yellow.

"I'll try," Doug replies, as he settles in at the portal. Trying to pick up languages as he goes along, he begins shouting 'Exit!' in multiple languages, including motioning with his hand. And even gestures that otherwise might be considered rude in different human dialects, but meant something else in other languages.

Something about the alien technology speaks to him, though, and it was catching his attention, but as Kid Quantum is quick to go in, and quick to exit, there Doug is, starting to prod at the machinery out of a sense of 'is it trying to communicate something?'

Furious back-and-forth muttered into flight ring as Rokk whips around to start for Point A -- the Body Shoppe and the lurid exhibition of raw reality-holding power going on over there -- and he doesn't immediately join them, he's veering off slightly in the direction of Booster and the girls caught by the buildings. Apparently, Legionnaires plot moves like a boss. Or. Bosses? Something.

Rita Wayword screams, kicking and trying to fight her way out of the building's clutches.

Missy Cramer cries, her mouth still forcibly pulled into a toothy rictus grin even as the salt tears streak bitter down her face.

Time stops.

Spiral is everywhere, all at once.

Cat-like Keith O'Neil feels one of Spiral's nimble hands wrap about his throat. She is behind him, atop him like a spider atop its prey. "Here, pretty kitty. A saucer of milk for you, Spiral has. Step inside the Body Shoppe, and I can make you brand new. Give you a people-face, a people-smile, a humanshape. No more whispers, no more derision. A handsome not-cat-man, you would be."

Jazmin Cullen and Rokk Krinn each get the tip of a gleaming silver sword pressed directly at their throats. A Spiral for each of them, and both offer the same sing-song in unison: "I am Spiral, the Time-Dancer. You need merely wish it, and I will send you home."

Xavin De'zeanspawn finds Spiral beneath her, scooped up onto the sorceress's shoulders like a child riding piggyback. Six steel-strong hands grip her limbs tightly. "You, noble star-child. Spiral knows your people. Seen them before, I have, through the vicissitudes of time and mist and memory. Enter my parlor and I shall make you the strongest of them all."

Doug Ramsey touches the techno-organic magical machinery of the Body Shoppe, and the code sings to him, high and fluted like a coloratura at the opera. All at once it fractures, turns into something from a nightmare, a music beyond music that the mortal ear cannot bear to witness. Spiral appears to him in the zeroes and ones, an echo among the din. "I could open your eyes to all things," she says to him inside the code he's trying to break. "Language would be but a pittance. You would see star-stuff. You would know all time, all space, all that has been or could be or will be. I could go in your head, rewire your pretty brain, make it feel what I feel, perceive as I perceive." Her voice is like nails on the chalkboard of his heart. "Come find me again, if you desire. For now..." For now it is to much. Even a brain as vast as Douglas Ramsey's cannot contain the infinite madness of the Wildways. The psychic discharge hits him all at once, like an aneurysm bursting.

Time whirs to a start again, and Spiral -- the only Spiral, now -- spreads her six arms wide. "The Body Shoppe guarantees satisfaction. Look what I have done for Michael, and for Missy. He wanted to be a star. He wanted to be someone else, a person without failure, a person without kinsblood on his conscience. I made him everything he longed to be. Missy never smiled, always suffered in silence hating her work, the love interest to a fool on a program no one liked. I made her a hero. I gave her power. I gave her a beautiful smile the world will never forget."

Booster Gold is standing before the Body Shoppe with his hands slightly raised, staring at it with an odd expression on his face. It is not blank, nor angry, nor even afraid. His eyes narrow slightly, and the muscles in his jaw twitch as his teeth clench. He is finally trying to fight Spiral's hold on him, but he cannot break free as long as he is in her presence. She is too strong here. The benefit, however, is he is now no longer fighting against being rescued by the others. That is something, at least.

The manhandling. Then the 'offer'.

And this kitty has had 'enough'.

When time resumes and Spiral is in one place, the cat (visible now, since Spiral detecting him broke his invisibility) Sidesteps into the vicinity of the Body Shoppe and snarls, looking as if he is out for blood.

" $&#*@$&@ you!" he curses at her, hissing as he does and landing on the floor. No more running. " you think you can 'fix' me, and yet you can't afford goddamned dehodorant, you malodorous harridan? I'd go out of the Television business if I were you, you have a body for radio. Do they call you 'Spiral' because that's the way your career went down the toilet?"

Xavin's blazing flight through the ersatz city comes to an abrupt halt when she inexplicably finds herself seated on the mad sorceress' shoulders. The infinite whorls of frozen fire wreathing half of Xavin's body do little more than brush harmlessly across Spiral's skin in that timeless moment, while Spiral's poisonous promises conjure images of noble conquest in the young Skrull's mind.

When time resumes, Xavin finds herself flying again--for about 0.4 seconds, into a bakery near the Body Shoppe.

All in all, though, she's fairly sure that she's better off than she was moments ago, locked up in Spiral's implacable embrace--though that might be the possible head injury talking as she groggily picks herself up off the debris-strewn bakery floor and stumbles outside.

"We can't--we can't just keep trying to fight her," she gasps to--well, anyone in earshot of her, at this point; Spiral's chronal interference threw her bearings completely off. "Not this way--not unless someone's been hiding a--a trick, a secret weapon..."

"Tempting.. but sorry. The to do list is just crazy." Jazmin quips lightly, perhaps entirely out of context to those who didn't enjoy that whisper in her ear, tempting her and Rokk both. She tosses the bundle in her arms through the portal before gathering up another collection of energy into herself to add to her speed, again. Flying has it's privledges and she takes to the air again to swoop up and over and then dive bomb the gathering. In specific, she swoops in, her arms outstretched to quite literally snatch up Booster from where he's standing, much like a bird of prey snatching up a mouse, save for the whole size difference. Her speed wobbles, slowing as she tries to get a grip on him, flying back towards the portal. "Yep, secret weapon. Totally. It's called leaving, we're not fighting her on her turf, that's just suicidal."

The psychic discharge tosses Doug away from the Body Shoppe, and while it frees him from the contact, it also leaves him well and truly unconscious, trying to process the wildways. The possibilities...

"Aw, sprock you," says Cos, half aggravated, half irritated, to the whispering spectre very real knife to throat. Yeah, it's silver-- but Jazmin's pulling something, so he does what he does best: taunt while moving things with his powers. "You're Spiral, the Time-Dancer? Lady, you're nuttier than a fruitcake!" Catch hold of one girl, pry the metal free of her, all while talking. Move on to the other one. "You might be in charge here, but all you do in time is dance and make with the Delphi commentary. Even Glorith vamps better than you do. Besides, my wife's coming to get me." He's also floating backwards-- she's only in one place, isn't she, and it's not really in front of him. Missy over one shoulder, he wrenches Rita free of the thing what grabbed her, and then makes for the portal with all due speed.

"Spiiiral!" Mojo trills, appearing on a small holographic screen beside the time-dancer's ear.

"What is it, boss?" Spiral says, her distaste for his interruptions evident in her tone.

"A daring escape! Surely you must allow this, my beautiful Spiral." Mojo is doing his best to be quiet so the others don't hear, but he is positively delighted at the excitement.

"If I let them go, we'll lose all our--"

"Oh, don't be like that. You know such a daring derring-do would be ratings gold!!" Mojo claps his massive claws together. "Make it so!"

"Fine!" Spiral snarls, turning to hurl six swords at the retreating heroes -- the better to give them something to run away from.

"I hope you know where you're going," Booster Gold says, to Jazmin, after she nabs him from the ground to fly him away. It really is so much easier to rescue someone who is not actively fighting against it, although it would seem he is not free of whatever Spiral did to his mind; he does not seem to actually know who any of these people really are. "Although at this rate, I think I'll soon be out of a job..."

After overtaxing his illusion powers, Vorpal feels as if he has a whole forest's worth of gnomes riverdancing on his skull. It makes things like reflexes a little clumsy- he manages to avoid the sword head-on, but it manages to stab rather prettily at his left arm, which gets more profanity from the cat. As he clenches his arm, he gives Spiral a glare, and then extends his hand upwards at her.... essentially giving her a gesture that would have to be pixelated out on broadcast. But that's not all... he conjures something over that hand... a fifteen-foot tall recreation of that very sign. That's a lot of area that's going to have to be pixelated out. After giving Spiral the Fifteen-foot Bird, he pushes himself as hard as he can mentally--- because, if you're going to have the mother of all migraines, you might as well just go for broke and squeeze some more kids out.

He looks towards the portal and suddenly it is as if he is torn apart.. or rather, as if he were an image being torn apart by some sort of fragmentation or glitch, and then there's a bright purple explosion of energy as he pushes himself beyond his limits. He appears next to the portal... and that's when the portal acts upon his Dimensional Sickness, causing him to lose his lunch right then and there by the portal.

He was conscientious enough to turn away from the unconscious Doug, though. Then, once the rescued ones had gone through, he grabs Doug, feeling like hell warmed over, left to freeze, reheated, and then abandoned on a picnic table on the hottest day of summer, and walks through the portal.

Xavin traces the pathways of the patchwork city on her flight back to the portal, wobbling the whole way as if she's just finished going shot for shot with Spiral rather than 'merely' being exposed to the sorceress' lies. She doesn't look behind herself, because that would mean thinking about the people still trapped in the city - future extras for the ''next' Mojoworld blockbuster, at this point, more than likely.

As eager as she was to lend her flames to the task at the outset of this adventure, she seemingly can't wait to extinguish them upon landing near the portal. "Somehow, we have to come back," she lowly says as she steps through to return home. "As soon as we're recovered--as soon as we're ready."

"Dont worry, Boos.. Michael. I know where I'm going." Jazmin assures him as she hauls him over to the portal, setting him down there, away from Vorpal's addition to the landscape. "I just need to make sure the others are coming too, and then I'll be right behind you. Then we can talk jobs.. a little later, kay? When we're not all quite so busy." Jazmin leaves off the part about 'not quite so brainwashed' for his sake. She reaches out, and gives Booster a shove, pushing him through the portal before he can protest that he's not going through. Once she's certain everyone's headed out, but not before, she'll follow though as well.

Girl under one arm, girl over one shoulder, and flyin' them electromagnetic ley lines or whatever, whoooosh-- and Spiral's throwing sharp things at them. With an aggravated look over his shoulder, he sends them veering to the ground behind him. "Go go go go-- oh gross, cat guy--" And he and Jaz are basically the last through to the other side. "Close it close it CLOSE IT!"

Once the heroes have gotten through the portal, it is shut down post-haste. There are still some SHIELD personnel nearby, just in case something horrible comes through as well, but this does not happen. The heroes are all home, the rescued people are rescued, and everyone is safe and mostly unharmed! On a physical level, at least. The warehouse where the portal was set up is chilly and a little dark and grey, but compared to MojoWorld it is delightfully normal.

"Sir! It is so good to see you again!" Skeets flies up, almost vibrating with excitement as he hovers before Booster.

"Uh..." Booster gives the little robot a polite but uncomprehending look. "Hey there. ...S.K.E.E.T.S.?" He smiles in a faintly puzzled way, and then wonders, "Why are you so small?"

ELSEWHERE:

As the portal closes, Mojo appears, stepping through a door of the Body Shoppe and doing a little happy jig on his robot spider-legs. "Oh, what fun! What a thrilling adventure! I simply cannot wait for the next episode!"

Spiral flexes her hands as her magic swords reappear in her grasp. "Well, you're going to have to."

Mojo frowns. "What do you mean?! Start the next one immediately! I want more kabooms! More yowches! More crunches!!"

"They're gone," Spiral says, gesturing at where the portal had been. "You told me to--"

"SPIRAL!!!! How COULD you?!" The fetid fat creature is in a towering rage now, waving his talons furiously at his six-armed servant. "Letting all my favorite stars ESCAPE!! I've never been so disappointed in you!!!"

Same Mojo Time, Same Mojo Channel.

Such is the way of the Wildways.

But Spiral knows, as she eyes a scrap of Rita Wayword's shirt still caught in the wriggling tentacle arms of the Body Shoppe, that this serial is far from over.