Town meeting!

[punsofiron]

Characters: Iron Liz and everybody who hasn't been affected by the mirror universe.
Content: Liz calls a meeting to figure out what to do about this universe.
Location: The lab with all the animal cages
Time of Day: Night
Warnings: None thus far

It was tricky, and a bit risky, but Ammy, Liz and Aqua managed to sniff out who was still themselves in this universe, and sent a simple message to each of them personally; "Important meeting in the lab tonight. Liz will swing for Chinese."

Liz had spent the time before then sorting through the experimental weapons, testing them on a safe target and figuring out which ones could be used if they need to. Now as it was almost time for people to show up, she started setting up a circle for everyone, still in sight of the cage they threw Harvey in, but hopefully far enough away that they can keep him from hearing all their plans. This was already a tricky operation, hopefully it wouldn't be too much like herding cats in this group.

Comments

[sailorlaughter]

Pinkie may have been rather...unsubtle about her own allegiances, but she understands the danger well enough to come quietly and stealthily down to the lab.

Of course, she's still Pinkie. She brought cookies.

"Hey, Liz! Did you already order the Chineighese? Get me a veggie one, okay?" She slid the tray of cookies down off her head and into the middle of the circle, and tossed the cage in the corner a curious glance before her eyes went wide in realization. "Ohhhhhh. Did he do something bad?"

[punsofiron]

"I'll be passing the order list around when more people are here." she replied, grabbing a few more pillows from the corner. You'd think they were setting up for a slumber party or a D&D game.

At her second question, she followed Pinkie's gaze to the cage and frowned, looking down where she'd hastily wrapped some bandages around her leg, jeans and all, to dress the wound there.

"Yeah. We caught him trying to kill his rabbit."

[sailorlaughter]

"Okie dokie lokie!" Pinkie skipped after Liz, helping to retrieve some of the pillows. She dropped them in shock, however, upon noticing Liz's wound for the first time.

"That's terrible!" She hadn't said as much, but if she'd kept Harvey from killing the bunny, Pinkie could guess where she'd got her leg hurt like that. The mare cast a second, more frightened, glance at the cage before starting to pile more pillows up on her back, waving a forehoof at Liz. "You just sit down, Liz, I totally got this!"

[punsofiron]

"I'm fine," Liz replied at Pinkie's insistence, "It doesn't even hurt anymore."

Okay so she might have been limping just a little, but she took the fact that walking around wasn't making her scream in pain as a victory and a go to keep herself going. It was only a flesh wound. Honestly.

[sailorlaughter]

"No no no no no!" Pinkie might not have been Fluttershy, but even she knew that that wasn't how you dealt with a hurt leg. "You just sit down on that pillow, and I'll get the rest! I mean, if you walk around on it a lot, it might start hurting again, and then you couldn't help everyone with the evil people, and THEN what?"

"Besides, getting in a fight with a friend is never fun." She shoved one of the cookies lightly into Liz's mouth, then trotted past her to fetch more pillows. "Just take a quick little break before the party starts, okay?"

[punsofiron]

"Really, Pinkie, I'm alr--" and then there was a cookie in her mouth. She stumbled back off-balance, plopping onto the pillow behind her as Pinkie continued setting up. She took a moment to glance down at her leg; it still didn't hurt all that much but the bandages seemed a little more red than last she looked.

Welp.

Frank was sitting in a pile of blankets, much calmer than when they'd originally found him. Liz reached over to pet the bunny's soft fur, coaxing him a little closer to sit on her lap if he wanted.

LOL IGNORE HIM YOU KIDS JUST HAVE YOUR MEETING 8D

[milliondollarpipes]

Harvey, when he finally woke up, was in a world of pain. And no wonder - considering the last thing he remembered was Amaterasu gettin' her jaws on him, he was actually somewhat surprised he wasn't dead. There was a reason that wolf was usually kept in her cage. This cage, he realized with a feeling of dread quite foreign to him.

He writhed a little, grimacing in disgust at the dried blood down the front of his face. His arm hurt like hell too, but considering he was tied up there wasn't much shot of lookin' at that bite.

When twisting out of his bonds proved immediately unsuccessful, he instead rolled over, looking to find his captors. And there was one right there. "Well, geez Liz," he called, his voice tight with tension and anger despite his casual words, "If you wanted me tied up that bad, all ya had to do was ask."

[punsofiron]

Well crap. He's awake. Liz had been focusing on setting up for the meeting, and she didn't turn to him when he spoke, her scowl hidden from him.

"Shut up," she called back, "You're not going anywhere until we figure out what we're gonna do with you long term."

[milliondollarpipes]

"Long term?" Harvey rolled his eyes. "Bullshit. You think I don't know the wolf's cage when I see it?" Just because they'd stopped feeding the human subjects to her when they were through didn't mean she'd lost the taste for it.

"So what's your game here anyway? Gonna try to take out Nelson?" His tone was clearly mocking, but his next statement was quite serious. "C'mon, you know I'd be willin' to help out with that." It was true enough. He was always willing to back whoever he thought the winning side would be. Havin' that wolf under some measure of control was a damn good start.

[yabigfurball]

Amaterasu, of course, was present at the meeting, since she wanted to know who all was still normal down here. She often got a good idea of that just by smell, but it was good to be sure. And from the sound of what Harvey was saying...it would probably be a good idea for others that were still normal to know that she wasn't going to be a threat to them, either.

But for now, maybe hanging around would keep Harvey a little bit more in line. She walked in from the side and jumped up onto the roof of the cage, glancing down at Harvey from above, through the bars.

[punsofiron]

Liz watched Ammy jump onto the cage before looking back at Harvey with a soft glare.

"What we're doing is our business. I don't trust you."

[milliondollarpipes]

Harvey cringed as Amaterasu leapt on top of the cage, watching her with wide, wary eyes. He didn't look away from the wolf as he spoke.

"I'd say you made it my business when you all came runnin' down here to jump me. Lettin' her loose, though..." He gave a short laugh, with absolutely no humor in it. "Wouldn'tve thought you had it in ya, Liz." He'd always thought she was too weak to really do anything ambitious like that. Then again, he thought that about most people.

[verygassy]

Minako definitely came. Of course. She managed to sneak away from Evil Mike, and so she walks in, looking back and forth. At least there was some food to eat.

"Liz. What's going on?"

[wavesinherheart]

Given that she was one of the people who'd been present as of the first suggestion that perhaps they should all get together to see what could be done to get out of this universe in the first place, it was almost a foregone conclusion that she'd show up. After what she'd seen, both with Harvey and elsewhere, they couldn't leave fast enough.

Of course, there was also the matter of hoping that everyone present was, in fact, not an evil version of themselves, but there wasn't anything she could do about that. Not just at the moment anyway.

"Do we know how many people are going to be coming?"

[skysmirror]

Really, the sooner they got out of here, the better. At the rate they were going, somebody could get killed if they didn't leave soon, and while that wasn't permanent here, it was still something Xion would rather avoid. Seeing Liz's message had given her some hope that there were others aside from her, Namine, Roxas, and (obviously) Pinkie who were still themselves. She'd wanted to try to do more investigating, but hadn't wanted to leave either Namine or Roxas alone right now.

It was too good of a chance, though. They needed a plan, and more help. So she and Namine arrived not long after Aqua. "I'm not sure."

[wavesinherheart]

Aqua would be generally inclined to agree that avoiding any untimely deaths was far better than any of the alternatives. Actually figuring out how to leave the dimension that they were currently in, on the other hand, posed significantly more difficulty. Not that Aqua was going to let that keep her from trying. There had to be a way out. They just had to figure out what it was.

"I hope we have enough people, then."

[colorbymemory]

Just because something was difficult didn't mean they couldn't try. Namine didn't want anyone else to get hurt, and there had to be a way out of here. Even if there weren't very many of them, they could think of something. The question was how long before they did. The mirrored versions were catching on that some of them were acting "strangely," and it was only a matter of time before they acted on that.

"Me too, though there's more of us than I thought."

[wavesinherheart]

Of course it didn't. It merely meant that it would take a little bit more work, and no small amount of preparation in the meantime. But that was something that would be more than worth it, if it meant returning to a universe that wasn't full of evil versions of their friends.

"It seems that way, yes."

[skysmirror]

This meeting was at least a start on that work and preparation. Xion didn't know what ideas the others had, but she was willing to hear them and try to make a plan that would work.

"Roxas isn't feeling well, so he might not be here."

[itsjustthebots]

Gypsy arrived in short order...Tom wasn’t with her, mostly because he was goofing off somewhere. It was hard for her to get Crow or Tom to do anything they had to, especially when it was serious business.

“Ohh, I’m so glad that there’s a bunch of you here that haven’t gone evil! Mike and Crow have been acting terribly weird lately! All laughing evilly and stuff. Tom seems to be okay, but he’s not paying attention so much.”

She pulled out a bunch of charts and pages that likely no one but a robot could read, anyway. “I think we have an idea on how to get out of this universe. But we gotta do it quick!”

[sailorlaughter]

"Okie-dokie-lokie!" Pinkie planted her hooves on one corner of the chart, holding it in place as she studied it. And continued studying it.

"Soooooo...what do we gotta do?"

[itsjustthebots]

Gypsy pointed at some of her plans...or rather, it looked like all of her plans, since she didn't exactly have the ability to point. "We're gonna have to build and then send up a matter transferrence device that releases positively-charged ions so that it will create a fake ion storm while also transferring all matter connected between the SOL and Deep 13! It should act in much the same way as our normal dimensional engine, except this one we can actually kind of steer and stuff."

"However, we need to send someone up with it, or else convince anyone who's still good on the Satellite of Love to turn it on once it arrives! It's impossible to operate remotely! It also needs to be hooked into the SOL's primary power source before it can be turned on, otherwise it won't have enough power to work, cap'n! I can build the device in a day or two...but if we take too long, we'll lose our window of opportunity!"

It was likely that most of the people here didn't get all that, but Gypsy wasn't sure what other way to explain it all.

[colorbymemory]

Namine definitely didn't get all of it, but there was one point she understood and could comment on.

"Getting someone on the satellite to help us might be difficult. If we talk to them, any of the others could hear what we said and they'd know what we're planning."

[sailorlaughter]

"Oooh, oooh!" Pinkie immediately started bouncing about the circle, waving her hooves in the air. "Pickmepickmepickme! I already promised to send the Mads a care package, I've just gotta get it to them! Maybe we could talk in code or something? I'm really really REALLY good at codes!"

[punsofiron]

"First of all, do you even know how to make such a thing, Gypsy, let alone have the resources?" Liz interjected, still plopped down where Pinkie insisted she sat, black rabbit contently curled up in her lap.

"Second...isn't messing around with ion storms a little dangerous? For all we know we could come out on the other side all talking like Tommy Wiseu."