legionmissions | [MOD PLOT] A SCANDAL IN GALAXIA

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[MOD PLOT] A SCANDAL IN GALAXIA

Who| Saralegui, Hal Jordan, Dipper Pines, Hiccup
What| A diplomatic meeting with the peoples of the Wayhome is interrupted by the assassination attempt on Enkemet, the Kwai Elder
Where| The Wayhome, in the Second Galaxy
When| The same time as the Naltor Disaster
Warnings/Notes| N/A

The terms they're meant to offer the peoples of the Second Galaxy are very fair and good for both peoples. The UP is now trying to open up trade with the people's of the Second Galaxy and in exchange for things like the Kwai's use-weave technology, the UP is willing to offer medical tech far beyond what the Second Galaxy has.

It's also time to renegotiate the contract the UP has with the Kwai, so that they'll act as navigators for the threshold gates. While the Kwai have agreed to only short terms of 1-2 years in the past, they're usually willing to renew the agreement each time. The Legionnaires have been told to try to negotiate for a longer term this time, but the usual 1-2 years is acceptable.

After setting their telepathic earplugs to the common tongue of the Second Galaxy, Proverso, the Legionnaires are led by their Kwai guides through the Wayhome, the strange hodge podge of ships and species that share a nomadic life together. While life in the Wayhome isn't always the most idyllic due to everything being so makeshift, it still has its benefits. The markets are robust and full of goods and food from countless species, the art is beautiful and much of the makeshift architecture is colorful and folksy in design, and the culture is multicultural and largely accepting of differences. The public life here is a little more communal than that of the UP. The average neighborhood square is filled with elderly aliens playing strange board games, children playing with strange organic-looking toys, and sometimes dancing and singing and storytelling.

Even the Progeny, bug-like aliens once reviled because of their servitude to the genocidal dictator, the Progenitor, seem a little more accepted than they once were. They are clearly regarded coldly by some but no longer have to live in the bilgedecks and some of the other species seem more accepting of them.

The Legionnaires are made to wait outside the great hall for a little bit, until one of Enkemet's guards ushers them in.

"Enkemet will see you now, Legion," says one of her handmaidens.

The great hall is not a building. It's more of an open square -- or rather an open circle -- surrounded by high walkways and balconies and hanging pedestals where winged Kwai and other aliens can watch the proceedings. Enkemet is waiting for them when they arrive, wearing her fringes and scarves of many colors. She towers over them all where she sits, the largest being in the room at about 15 feet tall while seated. The Legionnaires are offered cushions to sit in a semi-circle around her.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Hail, Legion," Enkemet says, and while her voice is rough and weathered, it's very kind. "I am Enkemet, leader of the peoples of the Wayhome. We have been told that new faces would be sent to us for negotiations, that there are now Legionnaires who are not of our universe. We are honored by your presence."

She inclines her head in a slight nod.

"Tell me your names. They were given to us but I would like to know what faces they belong to."

[ooc: All four characters will be involved in this thread! Start in any order and then once one is established, we'll stay in that order for the rest of the thread.

It's not quite the same as home, but there's a level of familiarity in the communal nature of the Wayhome that wasn't present on Legion World or Metropolis. Hiccup finds he could very quickly get to like the people of the Second Galaxy.

"I'm honored to be here." Hiccup replied, taking a seat as Toothless curled up next to him.

"I'm Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, codenamed Forge, and my partner here is named Toothless."

Edited 2016-04-08 02:14 (UTC)

It wasn't precisely like any of the worlds he'd been to before, but there were enough bits and pieces of familiarity in the culture of Wayhome to add up to a picture that fit right in with the rest. And certainly their presence was being taken much better than the wary reception Hal had received from a few of those worlds.

So he was comfortable enough with the locale, if not necessarily the mission, but then, there was a real diplomat in the group anyway. They'd be fine.

"I'm Hal Jordan, or Green Lantern." He took his own seat, knees up in front of him to rest his elbows on. (Easier than getting up from being crosslegged, too. Habit.) "The Wayhome is impressive. There aren't many worlds with such diversity." He's always thought of that as a good thing, even if some of the Lanterns of his time were appalled at the divisiveness that Earth had along with it.

He'd developed a persona just for political matters over the years; intelligent and self-assured enough to avoid being walked all over, but with just a hint of the naive sweetness and uncertainty that made best use of his youth and delicate appearance. Respectable, but just endearing enough that others would often help him out more than they would any other ruler out of some instinctual need to be nice to the young and inexperienced. He was adaptable, of course, but with the limited knowledge he had so far of this place's situation and the major players in it, he fell back on that default image for now.

Saralegui settled himself down next to Hal, neatly with his feet tucked under him for lack of any definitively "correct" position to copy, and fussed idly with the ends of his hair as he greeted Enkemet.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Saralegui, or 'Sovereign' I suppose." He normally would have been sure to use all the right addresses and greetings and whatnot, but he could work around that limited knowledge. Saralegui smiled but let his gaze drop to suggest something like embarrassment. "Forgive me for not knowing your proper title. I'm ashamed to admit I didn't think to ask someone before we came."

Dipper was pretty sure he wasn't being sent on this mission for his diplomacy skills. Because that involved getting in front of people and talking to them and he wasn't exactly the kind of person that could always do that without sweaty palms and stuttering.

That said, he had already basically memorized tons of information on the Second Galaxy in Social Studies, to a degree that seemed to please Gates, their teacher. And they seemed to want to give him something they thought was mostly "safe" as his first mission. Normally, he would've bristled at them treating him like a little kid but then he remembered he technically was a little kid because he was lying his face off about his age and he stopped bristling. He really didn't hold the high ground there on being handled with kid gloves when he was technically going against the law in this universe by doing adult stuff when he wasn't one.

Also, going to the galaxy that the UP hadn't explored, that had a lot of unknowns was pretty exciting, if you really got down to it. Even the Legion didn't know everything there was to know about the Second Galaxy, and they'd been there.

"Um. Dipper Pines," he said, voice cracking. He cleared his throat. "Is my name. Or 'Captain Mystery.'" A pause. "Is also my name."

It's a cool guy name and he's a cool guy, shut up.

He rallied, trying to dig down and find the part of himself that kept things cool during all the craziness back home.

"We're honored to be here. The Legion -- I mean, the Legionnaires from this universe -- they have a lot of respect for the people of the Second Galaxy and how you all cooperate together, and felt like there was a lot we could learn from you as new Legionnaires."

There are many murmurs of assent from the crowds watching everything. Everything from Hiccup's close bond to a creature that's clearly alien to himself, to the way they all address Enkemet, to the compliments about their society are apparently hitting all the right notes.

"'Enkemet' will do," said the elder to Saralegui, with a polite nod of her head, to show her acknowledgement of his attempt to be respectful. "I'll confess that when word came that new Legionnaires would be sent to us instead of ones we knew that I had concerns they were not making this meeting a priority but I see now why they did. The Kwai navigators that serve the threshold gates of the United Planets see much. The people of the United Planets are a civilized people but they do not live the way we do. While their many species live in relative peace with each other, they are still sometimes deeply divided."

They were able to be civil with each other, but "cooperative" wasn't always a word that could be used.

"Our society has its problems and aggressive elements, but most of us wish our peoples to live in peace, and our version of 'peace' seems to be quite different from the United Planets. They aim for civility, but we aim for harmony. The Legion has always shown respect to our way of life; perhaps they wished you to see another possible path. While we cannot truly say one is better than the other, there is still much that can be learned from those who live differently than you."

"Civility's easier to achieve, but I'd say harmony builds a stronger foundation."

Harmony had to come from at least some degree of respect and understanding, and the most stable peaces came from people who had that kind of investment in protecting them. Civility, on the other hand, could be a mask over anything. In the military, then in civilian workplaces, and dabbling in intergalactic war and (when he couldn't avoid it) politics, Hal had seen plenty of cases where civility covered nothing but ill will, disrespect, and desires to reopen hostilities.

Not that he could really blame the UP, because just getting that many species in one room and talking to each other was a massive endeavor in itself, but it took a lot more than that to keep things together.

Saralegui nodded, but his smile slipped into a slight frown, somewhere between frustration and thoughtfulness. How intentional that was was anyone's guess.

"Civility is just another word for 'tolerance', in this case," he said carefully. "It's helpful to have, but I don't believe efforts should just end at that."

There, as close as he could come to promoting one view over the other without going so far as picking sides. And it does help that it's not all talk; it's a good view to have, and it's clearly been working well for them. The sort of thing he'd have been aiming for right now, if he'd still been home to finish taking over the majority of the human territories and making peace with the demons.

"It's nice to know something like this can even exist." Hiccup admitted.

"Civility's not exactly something most Vikings do well, let alone harmony, unfortunately. My people make an effort to reach out and befriend other tribes, but we're one of a very few who do."

"It takes hard work," says Enkemet. "And sacrifice. This is why we sometimes have concerns when it comes to our dealings with the United Planets. They are sometimes very...set in their ways. But come, let us speak of what they have offered. The Kwai do enjoy traversing the many pathways of the thresholds and for this gift we --"

There is a noise that comes from a ledge above the elder -- and then the blast of some kind of purple beam weapon just barely misses her head, hitting one of the horns of her headdress. The force of it knocks her down to the ground.

"Protect Enkemet!" her handmaidens throw themselves around her, protecting her with their bodies.

Screams fill the air and her bodyguards surge into the air, their bodies covered in chitin. Up on that ledge there is a ruckus, a fight going on.

Hiccup reaches out, and metal begins to peel from the walls, forming a domelike barrier around Enkemet and her handmaidens.

"I'll keep Enkemet covered! Someone get up there and find whoever shot at her!" He doesn't specify who, having long since become accustomed to commanding people who at least have a general idea of where their strengths lay.

Toothless growls, glaring around, ready to fire a plasma blast should anyone else get the bright idea to start shooting.

It's a good thing Hiccup's on the job, because Hal would've been going straight up without thinking anyway.

He flies upward, green energy coalescing into a transparent shield in front of him. As he's been a bit painfully reminded in one too many training sims, he doesn't have an automatic force field to cover his ass here, and if he wants to tank straight through things like usual, he's going to have to pay a little more attention to what he's doing.

Saralegui was more surprised by the sudden noise and laser beam than by the situation oneself. Being a ruler himself, he was unfortunately quite used to the reality of assassination attempts.

The others were already jumping into the fray in the obvious ways -- going after the assailant, shielding the alien lady whose death would be a political disaster -- so Saralegui settled for the subtle. He shifted close to the others who hadn't taken off into the air, slipping off his glasses and scanning the rest of the room for suspicious activity.

Sometimes assassins work alone. But sometimes they don't.

Dipper had the same idea as Saralegui. They definitely needed someone to head up to wherever the possible assassin was, and someone to protect Enkemet, but chances were that the attacker was already running away.

Dipper shielded himself with his telekinesis and floated into the air to try to get a better view of the crowd and see if anyone was running away from the commotion in a suspicious way.

He tried not to stray too far, though. With Hiccup focused on protecting Enkemet and her handmaidens, and Saralegui not having a power capable of shielding him, he didn't want to get too far in case they needed someone covering them.

"We've got him! We've got the attacker!" someone called out in the crowd and Dipper shook his head.

"Too easy," he muttered, mostly to himself, but loud enough for Saralegui and Hiccup to hear. "Way too easy."

There was no way an attempted political assassination was going to be that simple. An attempt and then 'Got him!'? Just like that? Nope.

When Hal got up to the level where the attack had come from, two Kwai bodyguards already had the accused culprit pinned to the ground.

It was one of the Progeny, a member of the insectoid race that had once served the Progenitor.

"Please," he begged. "Please let me go! It was not me! I saw someone. Cloaked with weapon. I tried to stop! Enkemet is great one, Enkemet is kind. I would never hurt Enkemet."

"Filthy Progeny!" called out the one bodyguard. "You betrayed her after all the mercy and kindness she's shown your undeserving people!"

"No, no, it was not me! Enkemet is great one. Enkemet is kind leader, greater one than Progenitor. Enkemet has been kind to Progeny when no one else would be! I see attacker! I try to save Enkemet!"

"Liar!"

"We should bring him before Enkemet," said the other guard, picking up the massive blaster that was on the ground next to the Progeny. "So she can decide what to do with him."

Hiccup silently agreed with Dipper as he pulled apart the dome and replaced the metal scraps. This was too easy. Nothing ever went this simply for him, and he doubted it was going to suddenly start now.

"Toothless, bud? Do me a favor and try and get a scent off him and the gun."

The dragon nodded, and moved alongside the guards, getting a good long whiff of both the weapon and the Progeny in the process.

Hal took a look around the balcony for anything else of note, staying up there even after the guards headed down with the suspect, though at this point, he wasn't expecting a trace of anyone else - the commotion with the guards would've been more than enough cover for someone else to slip out, and "cloaked" wasn't much of a description to find someone on, not when a cloak was easy enough to ditch along the way.

He really missed the scanning capabilities of his ring.

The blatant racism felt all too familiar, and Saralegui frowned as the guards returned down with the Progeny in tow. Too quick to make up their minds, and at a time where that could both condemn an innocent man and let a killer flee.

"Wait a moment," he said, stepping in front of the guards and their suspect and sliding his glasses off. "We can find out for sure if he's lying or not. If you waste time and it turns out he's telling the truth, then you're giving the real assassin time to escape."

Edited 2016-04-22 02:59 (UTC)

Saralegui had a point about a possible assassin running off.

"You guys have this. I'm getting up higher. To see if I can see anything strange from in the air," said Dipper, "like someone running away. Everyone else is running towards the trouble."

Someone running away was probably trying to escape, and would be cause for suspicion. Dipper went higher, and flew out over the rooftops of hodge podge buildings that made up the Wayhome. Hal was looking at the site of the attempted assassination, Dipper looked at where someone might have run away from that.

At the site of the scuffle, Hal would see something the guards glossed over -- a small chip of black exoskeleton, like the exoskeletons the Kwai had. The two bodyguards that pinned the Progeny weren't missing any parts of their carapace, so it didn't come from their short struggle with the Progeny -- that meant a possible other source.

Enkemet waits for everyone to gather around her again to speak. After the metal that's shielding her and her handmaidens was bent away, after the Progeny is put before her, she looks at the Progeny.

"Progeny, what is your name?"

"K'lk."

"K'lk, you claim you were trying to save me."

"Yes," says the Progeny. "Please, great Enkemet, have mercy. I see assassin! I try to save!"

"You're Progeny!" hisses the bodyguard. "Murder is in the filth you call blood!"

Enkemet raises a hand to silence the bodyguard.

"I never knew the Progenitor!" says the Progeny desperately. "I was born in the Wayhome. In the bilge decks. I do not care about the Progenitor. We have been taught that the old ways were death and suffering. Pointless. That Enkemet showed us mercy. I was able move to live in peace on the surface, because Enkemet is good. I don't have to live a life of death, under control of the Progenitor, or a life in the dark of the bilge decks. Thanks to Enkemet."

He holds his clawed hands towards her and tears pour down his face, snot dribbles from his nose.

"Enkemet is kind. Very few are kind to Progeny. I wanted to save. I wanted to save."

Enkemet looks at the Progeny and the weapon laid before her. Then she makes a very simple observation, one that should have been obvious.

"That weapon is nearly too large for him to have used," she says to her overzealous bodyguards. "How could he have carried it? Without being seen?"

A tall, cloaked person, on the other hand, could have perhaps hidden it under a cloak. She looks out to the crowd.

"The true path of the Wayhome is one of peace," she calls out to the crowd. "Without true justice, there can be no peace. Without fair judgment, there can be no justice."

"But Enkemet --" starts her bodyguard and she interrupts him.

"Something is not right. This Progeny may be innocent. It must be investigated. The Legionnaire is right that there may be another assassin, trying to escape." She commands her bodyguards, "Fan out! Search for anything you find suspicious."

All but the two bodyguards take to the air to start searching.

She turns to Saralegui. "And you, you said you have a way of telling if K'lk is speaking the truth?"

She uses his name. It's important to use his name, when many of her people see Progeny as nameless, evil hordes.

Edited 2016-04-23 06:49 (UTC)

Toothless bounds back over to Hiccup, and through a series of muttered growls, head gestures, and clarifications from Hiccup, communicated what he found.

"Toothless found two scents on the gun," Hiccup translated. "K'lk's and another. So his story adds up."

It wasn't enough to completely clear the Progeny, but Saralegui could handle that part.

Hal knelt to scoop up the piece of exoskeleton. Kwai, probably? Not undoubtedly, since he wasn't certain of every species to be found on the Wayhome, but -

There was a careful answer and a Hal answer to this, and as usual, the two had nothing to do with each other. He could go back down, put it forward with the rest of what they'd found so far. Get everyone else in on the fact that they might be looking for one of the Kwai, put everything together and see what that added up to before they started looking.

Or he could just hang onto that thought for later and see if there was anything else to be found before the trail got colder, and save the fact that they might be looking for a Kwai to bring up in a less public moment, lest word spread and tip their assassin off before they found him.

It wasn't really a question, in his mind. Hal stood up, palming the bit of exoskeleton. He thought he'd seen Dipper heading up and out, too - probably better not to let the kid get too far without backup, either. Everyone else seemed to have the situation covered on the ground well enough.

Find the kid, see what he'd found, and worry about reconvening later. Plan made.

Well, at least they had some way of tracking a possible fleeing assassin. That was helpful.

Saralegui stood silent through Enkemet's wise analysis, quietly approving, but stepped forward again when she addressed him. He smiled, and it was meant to be polite and pleasant, but he couldn't help the slight tinge of cool cockiness that slipped into it.

"Yes," he answered smoothly. "Any answers I get from him will be true." And he turned back to the Progeny, that eerie blow glow seeping into his eyes. When he spoke again, there was a feeling of command in his words noticeable even by those he wasn't targeting.

"The truth, please."

Edited 2016-04-24 03:36 (UTC)

Enkemet regards Hiccup's declaration that another scent is on the gun with a nod.

And then Saralegui uses his powers and K'lk goes into a trance.

"I was watching the meet from the high place on a roof. I was watching Enkemet, great one, meet with the Legion ones. I was curious about the Legion ones, because the Legion stopped my creator, the Accursed One. Then I saw a figure down below. A cloaked figure in the remote place, with no others around. They pulled out a weapon from under their cloak and I saw them aim it at Enkemet. I did not want great Enkemet to die, so I jumped on the cloaked one and I fought. I kicked and scratched and fought and the gun's blast missed Enkemet. I would not let go of the gun so the cloaked one could not use it. I did not see their face. The cloaked one gave up and ran away, ran towards the buildings in the high place. I could not chase them because Enkemet's guards came and thought I was the one who tried to kill Enkemet. But it was not I. It was not I! I would never hurt great Enkemet, kind Enkemet."

Enkemet inclined her head and set her shoulders back.

"How do we know this Legion's powers are true? That this is not a trick?" argued one of the bodyguards.

"The Progenitor was Legion!" said another guard. "All know this! Maybe they are just soft on the Progeny scum -- the other Legions always speak about them with sympathy, speak of how they should not live in the bilge decks. Maybe he lies about his power, maybe the other lies about a second scent on the weapon--"

"How dare you speak of the Legion in this way!" Enkemet reprimanded. "All know the story of the Progenitor's madness as he was lost in the beforetimes. All know how the Legion had to put down one of their own like a mad krevlik. The Progenitor was their pathkin, and though we curse his name, they stained their hands by killing their own pathkin to protect our galaxy."

"We...are not saying the Legions we know are liars, great Enkemet," said another guard diplomatically. "But we do not even know this particular Legion. Where is the Kid Quantum? Or Fair Legion, or Green Legion?"

"They bear the mark of Legion and they are sent with the blessings of the Kid Quantum. That. Is. Enough." said Enkemet, in a voice that silenced them all. "If this Legion, Saralegui, says his gift is to make others tell truth, then we will honor his words. And that means this Progeny is innocent. We will also honor that Toothless-Legion smelled a second scent on the weapon. We must find the true assassin that would leave an innocent sentient to die in their stead, because in doing this, they are not true! Their path is crooked and corrupt. They must be found and they must face justice. This is the true way of the Wayhome!"

That was was finally enough for them to listen.

"K'lk," Enkemet said to the Progeny. "I will honor the Legion's word about his power. His power made you tell the truth that you tried to save me. After this, you will be free. But stay at my side until we know who is the true assassin, so you do not come to harm."

"Yes, great Enkemet."

She reached a long arm down to rest her hand upon the Progeny's head.

"I owe you a great debt, small one. For if you had not fought the assassin, the blast would have hit me and I would have surely perished." She raised her voice. "Everyone should note this day. The Progeny have a history of bloodshed and death, but it is Progeny such as yourself that shows how your young race is capable of peace, is capable of living in true harmony with the other peoples of the Wayhome. And it must be given the chance to."

"Thank you, great one," K'lk says, weeping. "Thank you, merciful Enkemet."

Edited 2016-04-24 06:38 (UTC)

The corner of Saralegui's mouth twitched the faintest amount at the mention of "Green Legion". And it was certainly tempting to give those guards a more personal taste of how his powers worked, if they had so many doubts. But, ever the diplomat, he resisted those urges and kept a straight face, mindful of the serious situation.

"Thank you for your faith, Enkemet." Saralegui's smile was bright, and he inclined his head in what he hoped was an acceptable, universal gesture of gesture of respect. With an elegant gesture at the space above them, all balconies and hanging platforms, he added, "Now, it's a lovely spot for a meeting, here, but it will be difficult to defend if the attacker returns. Perhaps we should move you elsewhere while our teammates are on the hunt?"

Edited 2016-04-25 08:43 (UTC)

"I'd have to agree with him." Hiccup spoke up, over from where he'd kept a highly offended Toothless from pouncing on the Kwai who'd called the dragon a liar.

"Unless your traditions call for something else, and I know plenty that do, including mine," he added, a little wryly, "it's probably best if we go with Saralegui's plan. Are there any easily defended rooms near here?"

"We will take Enkemet to one of her chambers. It is very defensible," says one of the bodyguards and all of them and her handmaidens gathered around her to start moving her.

"You have already demonstrated great skill in finding truth so far. Can you continue to help us? The assassin must be found. We will patrol from the air, can you perhaps see if the assassin can be tracked from the ground? There are buildings up on that level that the assailant may have cut through."

Edited 2016-05-01 06:42 (UTC)

Dipper, like Hal, was the type to go running off alone to look into something -- or at least he was if his sister wasn't there. (And she wasn't). The first thing he thought, beyond "look for someone running away that's cloaked," was figuring out how they might hide in the crowd. While some people among the masses were cloaked in certain ways, very few were cloaked in the full-body way that could hide someone's identity and a weapon.

"If they wanted to disappear, really wanted to disappear, their best bet would've been hiding in plain sight," he muttered to himself. "Which means ditching the cloak and blending in with the crowd."

Hence the lack of some cloaked figure running away.

He flew through the streets a bit, then noticed something strange. Some kind of...tubes running along some areas. He tried to remember what he'd read about the Wayhome. He tended to absorb the most from Social Studies class because it was "Weird Aliens and Alien Worlds: The Class" so he remembered most of what Gates had taught them.

The Wayhome was a bunch of different ships and shelters all connected together into a huge nomadic colony. And the under-realm in it, the bilge-decks, were where the Progeny lived because of them being hated for serving the dictator that had messed everything in this galaxy up, the crazy former Legionnaire. Enkemet was trying to integrate the Progeny into society but the other people were resistant, so many of them still lived down there, with the waste and the trash chutes, as she slowly moved them to the surface.

"Trash chutes. Trash chutes!"

He had to find the nearest trash chute! They would be the most likely place someone had tried to toss evidence, so it'd go down to be...incinerated or vented into space. One or the other.

He found one right nearby and mentally tried to calculate how hard it would've been to get to it from the scene of the crime. Not far, if the culprit had cut through some buildings and back streets! And if it wasn't this one, he could just move on and search the next. He pushed open the door and squinted down into the darkness...and saw a lump, not that far down the chute. He accidentally knocked his own hat off and nearly bumped his head on the edge of the hatch as he snagged the very hem of it and pulled it back up.

It was a cloak! A brown hooded cloak, now soaked in a little bit of sludge, large enough to conceal a tall person and a weapon, with droplets of blue-black blood stained on it. It was wrapped around a bit of rubbish and tied with something that looked like...

Yes! If that was what he thought it was, that narrowed things down significantly. The culprit had probably tried to weigh it with the rubbish but it wasn't quite heavy enough to make it slide down as quickly as they might have liked. The slimy chute was all sticky with unidentifiable stuff. It probably would've slid eventually, but fortunately, it hadn't yet.

"Okay, so if they ditched it here, where did they go next?"

The thing that Dipper didn't consider was that he had come into the area pretty quickly after the attack happened.

Whiiiich meant the culprit hadn't left. They'd hid.

His powers were still new to him, being influenced by his emotions as they were, so right in this moment, as he was distracted by thought, as he was delighted by his discovery... his teke shield was down. Because he was in a good mood, not feeling threatened or aggressive.

It was right when Dipper picked his hat back up and was about to put it back on that he was slammed face first into the open door of the bilgedeck hatch, hard, once, twice, leaving a small spatter of red blood in the sand. His last shred of conscious thought was focused on the case. Naturally, it said:

Look! Get a look at their face!

But before he saw anything, before he even hit the ground, the world went black.

This time, the evidence was wrapped up in something properly heavy, something that would weigh it down enough for it to slide aaalll the way to where it would vent into the void of space. The wrapped lump was shoved into the hatch, onto the chute, where it started its slow slide down, and Dipper's hat was plucked off the ground and tossed haphazardly after it. Then the attacker heard the buzz of Kwai bodyguards searching. They ran off without closing the hatch or thinking to kick sand over the spattered blood on the ground.

Edited 2016-04-24 00:23 (UTC)

Okay. Think like a perp.

A garbage can wouldn't be enough to really dispose of evidence; better to get a direct line into the chutes. The layout of the Wayhome wasn't identical to anything he'd seen, but the general sense of how things were laid out reminded him of enough worlds he'd visited and ships he'd seen to give him a good guess as to where they'd probably run - which meant the closest one wasn't too hard for him to find, once he got in the general vicinity and started looking for it.

The fact that the hatch was open helped too, of course.

He flew in fast and landed hard, kneeling to inspect the bloodstains on the ground and swearing under his breath. Couldn't ask his ring to scan and tell him what species they'd come from. Getting an answer on that by any other means would take a little longer - which meant that once again, there was a careful answer and a Hal answer, and once again, the Hal answer was "keep following the trail now and worry about the consequences later."

He dove into the chute, sliding feet first and using his flight ring just enough to make sure he landed right side up, in a crouch, and his gaze swept further up, looking for whatever was already in there.

...the lump not too far ahead looked like a cloak, but it was way too large to be just a cloak. And sliding along just behind it -

"Hey! You in there, kid?" A large green hand shimmered into the air above the bundle, plucking it up before it got further down the chute. A second, smaller one followed suit grabbing the hat, almost as an afterthought.

It was a good thing he grabbed him because there was a steeper incline to the chute coming up. If Hal hadn't grabbed him right then...well, then it wouldn't have mattered that Dipper was slowly regaining consciousness.

"H-hal?"

It was hard for him to squirm out because the cloak had been wrapped tightly around him -- and tied with a long strand of beads and feathers. He managed to pull the cloak away from his face, which was bloody. His nose was still bleeding and he had a nasty gash on his forehead and a goose egg forming.

It looked worse than it was, though. The attempt to knock him out had been quick and sloppy and his attacker had been banking on the fact that there were drops in the chute system that would've finished the job had Hal not come along, long before Dipper even reached the airlocks.

Dipper peered around, trying to orient himself.

"Oh they did not -- they did." He looked down at the cloak still partly wrapped around him. "They knocked me out and used me as a weight."

He sounded scandalized. Not at the murder attempt, but at the indignity of what the murder attempt was for. The nerve.

"Rude. They couldn't just try to normal-kill me?"

Edited 2016-04-24 05:39 (UTC)

Still hovering in the trash chute probably wasn't the best place to try and orient themselves, so Hal flew back out the hatch, towing Dipper behind him, and landed them both in the alley.

"It's not actually the most embarrassing murder attempt I've seen," he said, reaching over to help untangle the cloak. "Remind me to tell you sometime about some of the wackos they arrest in Gotham."

That wasn't exactly the most pressing issue of the moment, but Dipper was conscious, coherent, and no longer bound on a course to swift death in vacuum, so it could've been a lot worse. "Hold still for a second." A green glow appeared around the gash on Dipper's forehead, coalescing into a bandage. "You'll want to get someone to look at that later, but there's no rush."

Hiccup and Toothless ducked into the Alley, having finally caught up.

"Good, we caught up with you. Saralegui stayed behind to keep an eye on things. What happened over here?", Hiccup said, looking over slightly concerned.

Toothless sniffed at Dipper, and gave a disgusted snort at the smell of garbage the boy had picked up.

Edited 2016-05-08 20:33 (UTC)

"Just attempted murder," Dipper said brightly. "I was searching one of the garbage chutes for evidence that might have been thrown away and someone hit me from behind and -- the evidence!"

He climbed to his feet so fast he wobbled and reached for the cloak in Hal's hand, pulling free the string of beads tangled in it.

"I found this." A pause. "It wasn't going down the chute. The assassin hit me in the head and wrapped it around me so I'd weigh it down. Which was ingenius, really. That would've gotten rid of it for sure and gotten rid of the only person that saw it."

He dangled the string of beads.

"Look familiar?" All of the warrior Kwai wore beads like that. No one else. "Only the Lonestars wears these. The Kwai warrior class. It looks like maybe they accidentally snapped it off when they pulled off the cloak."

Behind Dipper, a small, pale face peeked out from the hatch of the garbage chute, and then disappeared again.

"Are you sure you're not a Viking? Because otherwise you are way too unconcerned about the whole attempted murder thing."

Hiccup was a little too busy staring in disbelief at Dipper's reaction to notice the face sticking out of the chute. Toothless, however, did, bounding over to the hatch and crooning curiously at it.

"Hold that thought. What do you got bud?"

Hal eyed the beads and nodded. "I'd say that seals it. Up where the shooter was, I found a -"

And then he stopped mid-sentence, watching Toothless go to the hatch, and glanced to Hiccup. "So, for those of us who don't speak dragon...?"

"To be fair, neither can I. I'm just good at guessing." Hiccup explained, going over to the hatch. He might understand dragons better than anyone, barring his mother, but that didn't mean he always knew what was going through Toothless's head. This time, however, he did.

"I think he must've seen something. No clue what though," he translated, reopening the hatch, and looking back down it.

Dipper was Dipper, so he ran over next to Toothless, opened the hatch and stuck his head into it again, as if he was totally oblivious to the fact something might try to take his head off again.

He wasn't. He had a dragon standing right next to him. That was probably the safest circumstance to stick his head down a hole.

That was when he saw two little Progeny children. One was very small and holding a stuffed animal in a strange alien shape. The other was a little bit bigger and vaaaguely female? Maybe? He remembered the Progeny had two genders from class with Gates but couldn't tell from his or her ragged clothes.

"Hey, it's okay. He won't hurt you," he said gently to the two of them, giving them a gentle smile. "None of us will. You can come out."

He backed away to give them room.

Witnesses! They had possible witnesses!

Edited 2016-05-15 02:08 (UTC)

The two children climbed out of the hatch. The older one eyed Toothless warily, but the younger scurried over, looking delighted, reaching the clawed hand that wasn't holding the stuffed animal out to try to touch him.

The older looked at Dipper's ring and belt bucket and at his head injury.

"You are Leejon!"

She affected a little knee dip with her segmented legs that was similar to a curtsey, grasping the edges of her skirt.

"Dranee say she see a pink soft skin boy at the hatch, and bad person hurt. Dranee say she see you pushed down trash chute. She try to help so you not go to airlocks, but too small to lift so she get me to help. She did not say you were Leejun!"

The other little girl gave her a look that was possibly a Progeny pout.

"He is pink soft skin, Bralee!" said Dranee, her antennae waving in irritation. "Of course he Leejun. No pink soft skin ever come to Wayhome that is not Leejun. Guh."

One of the side effects of a long career as a space cop: you stopped thinking that hard about what people looked like. Kids were just kids, and kids were cute regardless of their species.

Hal moved in a little closer - not too quickly or suddenly, and outside of arm's length, in case they were still feeling wary - and crouched, because they didn't need to get neck strain (or whatever it came out to for them) looking at him. "Thank you," he said, giving the children a smile. "I'm glad someone else was looking out for him."

Toothless pushed his nose into Dranee's hand, and Hiccup couldn't resist smiling. Kids were apparently the same no matter where you went. He found it hard to understand why anyone would think the Progeny were monstrous when their children were this adorable.

He took Hal's lead on crouching. "That goes for both of us. But we could still use your help. We're trying to catch the bad person so they can't hurt anyone else. Dranee, did you see what they looked like?"

Edited 2016-05-15 05:51 (UTC)

Dranee's expression was delighted when Toothless pressed his nose into her hand and she rubbed it gently.

"He was a Fendyan. I see both times. First he throw cloth, then when cloth no fall and pink boy look down hatch, he hit from behind. Same Fendyan. He have a blue head-thingy."

She pointed to her forehead at the place most Fendyans had a head crest.

"And um, ugly. Scar face." She looked over at the beads in Dipper's hand. "Is strange. That is Kwai beads. And blue blood like Kwai." She pointed at the blood on the cloth. "But Fendyan bleed green. Icky icky. It was definitely a Fendyan. Definitely. Maybe he take from Kwai?"

Bralee smiled at Hal's gratitude over the two of them looking out for Dipper and moved closer, whispering, "There is no need for thanking. Dranee didn't say pink boy Leejon was so pret-ty."

Dipper, who'd been in the middle of putting his hat back on with his free hand, turned bright red and pulled the brim of his hat down a little bit, trying to hide his blushing face.

"Thank you for trying to help me and for the information. Your help was greatly appreciated. For our official Legion business. That we're on." He cleared his throat. "Yep, official business."

The rest came out in a rush. "Notmuchtimetowasteweshouldgetgoing."

Hal listened, nodding along to the information -

- and grinned when Bralee spoke up again.

"I'd be careful, Bralee. He's a heartbreaker."

"Quit spreading rumors, Hal." Hiccup admonished.

"He's not a heartbreaker, but he is at that age where he's going to stick his foot in his mouth nine times out of 10, so you're probably better off not pursuing anything." This Hiccup knew, largely because he had been the kid who stuck his foot in his mouth nine times out of 10 when he was Dipper's age.

All the talk about Dipper being a heartbreaker or a nerd didn't seem to dissuade her, it only made Bralee giggle, but now that Dipper was fine and the information had been given, she knew that they had to leave.

"Now that pink boy Legion is safe and Dranee tell about bad Fendyan, we need to be getting back to underground," said Bralee. "My Come-to-Surface day is soon! Next cycle and then I be old enough to be on surface. And they say I old enough to watch Dranee, so she will come with me! But not yet. Have to go back to Old-mothers and Old-fathers."

"Awwww," Dranee whined, "Can't we stay up more, please?"

"We can't risk staying or they might say no on Come-to-Surface Day. No trouble."

Bralee took Dranee's little hand in her own and waved shyly at Dipper as she led Dranee back to the hatch. "Bye, pretty boy, Legion!"

"Bye Legions!" said Dranee, also waving at them all.

Dipper pulled his hat down even more to hide his face, his cheeks even redder now.

"Don't. Say. Anything."

But embarrassment wasn't the only thing on his mind. As he watched the hatch close, he frowned.

"It's not fair that they make them live down there. We learned about the Progenitor and all the terrible stuff he did, but they were just kids like me -- I mean, not that I'm a kid-kid, since I'm fourteen, but they were too young to have been a part of anything bad that happened."

Hal only chuckled at Dipper's discomfort, waving to the children as they departed down the hatch, but his expression sobered along with Dipper's once they were gone.

"Some people have long memories and wide aim for their grudges." He thought of Katma, whose people had turned on her so quickly when she was chosen as a Green Lantern, because they couldn't believe that the problem might not be the ring, but solely the person who wore it. He thought of Soranik, who had tried to refuse the ring when it came to her because of that same fear.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[MOD PLOT] A SCANDAL IN GALAXIA

Assassination Attempt

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order disruption discussed on plurk...

assuming we're carrying on with the same order

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skipping Dipper because he don't know beans about governments

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Dipper and Hal

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