[video] Show Me Your Moves

[whyarewehere]

[The camera bobs and judders as someone sets it up, catching flashes of a scruffy, unkempt face and pale arms and the sky for a moment.]

Okay so I've been thinking, we've got super powers here, right?

[The picture steadies pointing out at what appears to be a beach, but is more likely to just be a simulated section of beach on the Legion World. It falls over, and Grif swears as he rights it again.]

...Anyway. By super powers I mean amazing things you couldn't do before, because otherwise you're just from some world where you can do cool stuff most of us can't and that's not superpowers, that's just life being unfair to the rest of us.

[Satisfied that the comm is stable, Grif steps out in front of it as he continues.]

So, I want to see what you guys can do. And because I am all about being fair, I'm going first.

[He swings his arms a little, takes a couple breaths, then bolts to the waterline. He's nothing but a speed blur followed by a trail of thrashed sand. He stops at the surf and charges back just as quickly. At the end he's doubled over in front of the camera, hands on his knees, huffing and wheezing.]

Whoo!

[He laughs as he catches his breath, which makes it somewhat harder, and is grinning despite how much that tiny display of super speed seems to have taken out of him. In good shape, this guy is not.]

It's like... it feels like everything's normal speed to me when I do it and everything's all slowed down. It's crazy shit, man.

[Grif plunks down heavily in the sand and picks up the comm again, still visibly panting.]

So. That's me. Show me what you got.

((OOC: Feel free to threadhop each other and talk about powers if you like! Grif is encouraging sharing.))

Comments

[whyarewehere]

[Grif frowns.]

I think that's normal. I don't know, can anybody else do that? I think it's just part of the power.

[And not that he would cheerfully exist on a diet of oreos and corndogs.]

[enthraller]

You don't know. [Huh.] So it really is entirely new to you.

[He sounds mildly surprised, eyebrows raising slightly over the rim of his tinted glasses.]

[whyarewehere]

Oh yeah, I could not do this back home.

I mean there was a guy who could go back in time a little bit to fix things that didn't go his way, but that was technology and not magic.

[enthraller]

[And the brows raise higher. Wow. That sounds so much more useful than running fast. Why couldn't they have gotten that guy?

Politely, he doesn't actually say it.]

And I saw someone else commenting that they actually lost powers upon waking up here. I have to wonder what the logic behind it all is...

[whyarewehere]

You think this is somebody's plan?

[He shakes his head.]

Not me. This isn't even close to organized. And not naming any names, but some of us? Lets' just say I wouldn't pick 'em.

[Not that he could possibly be among those poorly suited to the job. No sir.]

[enthraller]

I've no idea what could be the reason behind it all. A person, some natural phenomenon, something else entirely...

[It's space and the future and shit. He has no idea what to expect from anything here, to be honest.]

If it was organized, then one has to question why and by who or what. Who benefits from this?

[He won't say it. A kind, trusting person wouldn't doubt those who took them in like that. But still, he can't help but probe subtly and see if anyone else has their suspicions.]

[nerdninja]

[Well, there's the obvious question of their hosts - but that one, Donatello isn't putting words to either, because he figures that's the one that's probably occurred to everyone, and if he's honest with himself, he doesn't think they're in a position to burn any bridges too early.

Especially when they haven't had the chance to make contact with anyone outside of the Legion yet. Outside confirmation of the Legion's intentions isn't airtight, but it'd help put things into perspective.

In the meantime, if they're just spitballing ideas anyway -]

There's always someone who benefits from a distraction, right?

I'd say a bunch of interdimensional refugees is a weird enough occurance to make for a pretty good one.

[enthraller]

[He opens his mouth--

and then just pauses like that for a moment, because okay yeah that's like a giant talking frog or something.

But, ever the diplomat, his visible surprise lasts only a second before he pushes on, expression kept determinedly neutral.]

True enough. But that only raises more questions.

[whyarewehere]

For what it's worth, I get the feeling that not everybody here is that thrilled to see us anyway. Like that green guy.

[He eyes Donatello, then adds,]

The other green guy, I mean. There are so many weird people here I swear.

[Diplomatic, Grif is not.]

I think they might be telling the truth about it being an accident, but still. What the hell kind of thing do you have to be doing for this to be your accident? You don't exactly tear up the space time continuum by running a red light.

[He pronounces the "uum" in "continuum" like the one in "vacuum".]

[enthraller]

By what?

[Sorry Grif, your example is less than helpful for those from worlds without cars or traffic laws.]

[whyarewehere]

What do you mean by what? Have you never been in a car?

[It's such a universal and age-old experience for him that he can't even imagine someone wouldn't have it.]

[enthraller]

A what?

[whyarewehere]

You know, four wheels? You drive it and go places? Beep beep?

Are you from the anti-car dimension?

[enthraller]

You mean a carriage?

[Except for the "beep beep" part. No idea what that means.]

[nerdninja]

Hey. Think about what you guys look like to me.

[...which is actually a bluff since human is the norm in his own world, too, but come on, man.]

But in a place with this level of technological advancement, there's a lot of ways for things to go wrong. Intradimensional teleportation, for example - a couple variables off could make that go interdimensional...

I'm a little more concerned about all of this superpowers business.

[He's landed in the wrong dimension by accident. These things happen.

Getting superpowers out of nowhere? Definitely did not happen, the last time.]

[whyarewehere]

I'm not too concerned about the super powers thing, because mine's not... I don't know, "bleeding a lot while dying".

I'm gonna put myself down as first to not be surprised if that happens to someone, though. This is all looking pretty unplanned and things go awful enough when you have a plan.

[nerdninja]

Well, the way I see it, anything capable of altering basic genetics - since that's what I'd assume that powers like this are attached to - is more to worry about than picking someone up and dropping them in the wrong place.

[whyarewehere]

The wrong place did have air we couldn't breathe and we're lucky these guys picked us up.

[Grif shrugs.]

Who knows, maybe we just got a blast of atomic bullshit on the way in. Like in the comic books.

[Because that is totally how radiation works in the real world. Definitely. One hundred percent.]

[googledox]

The...incident that made our teammates disappear was due to our attempt to banish a very powerful enemy of ours to another dimension.

My calculations should've been accurate. They were -- they still are accurate. Every time I've recalculated the readings and collated the data, I've come to the same conclusion, that the device should have successfully pushed our enemy back into the other dimension it was trying to escape from and left everyone in our universe unharmed.

However, that isn't what happened. Most of the team disappeared.

[Or, according to official UP reports and eyewitnesses, 'were vaporized,' but he refuses to believe that.]

A few of us were able to shield one another with our powers to avoid a similar fate.

The...incident couldn't have done this to you, but given that you appeared at the site of the Legion's last battle as a full team, where the others disappeared, it is possible that damage to the spacetime continuum there left a rift or tear that's now become exploited by a force or entity acting according to its own purposes.

Part of why we've taken responsibility for getting you home -- aside from the UP's suspicious behavior regarding the last group of dimensional displacees -- is because it's possible that whatever is behind this is exploiting what remains of my mistake.

And if that's the case, the least I owe you is a dedicated effort to get you all home or to the dimensions of your choosing.

[whyarewehere]

[Grif would normally take this moment to continue giving Brainy shit for it probably being his fault, standard Grif procedure, but he gets distracted by something more immediately relevant to his continued health and wellbeing.]

Nobody's really told me anything about what happened with the last guys, actually. You think it was a government coverup?

[He also loves a conspiracy.]

[googledox]

The full extent of the UP's involvement is unknown. All we know is that the first group of dimensional displacees was a group of Legionnaires from alternate dimensions. A UP survey team was studying the planet and managed to save them from dying from the planet's hostile conditions when they first arrived.

Then instead of respecting their rights as sentients, they brought them in secret to a holding facility where they studied them and refused to let them go free. The alternate Legionnaires managed to break loose from containment and put out a distress call, after which we liberated them, took them under our protection, and started working on a solution to get them home.

However, the quantum ties to their home dimensions proved stronger than the forces holding them here, so they disappeared. We believe they were successfully pulled back to their home universes without our intervention. Due to our concerns that it might not be an isolated incident, we established a base in orbit around the planet with an intervention team with long-range scanners that could threshold down to the surface if more people appeared, so they could be rescued from the planet's hostile conditions. We'd establish one on the surface itself but the frequent windstorms would demolish any permanent base there.

What remains in question is whether the discovery of the first group by the UP survey team was incidental or if there was a concerted effort on the part of the UP to meddle with any residual damage to spacetime at the site where our teammates disappeared. Given that their behavior regarding the first group of dimensional displacees was suspiciously disrespectful of their rights, we're still uncertain of the extent of their involvement.

[whyarewehere]

"Studied". Like lab rats? And you guys... what, elect these people?

The high ups are always objectively terrible people, but damn.

[nerdninja]

[Nicer response than he's used to, albeit not as nice as how the natives of this dimension all seem to be totally down with turtle-people.

Whatever, he'll take it.]

A lot of which would be easier to answer after going planetside somewhere and mingling with the natives, I think. Here, we're getting the Legion perspective - obviously - but getting a feel for the galactic situation means we ought to be talking with whoever else is out there, too.

[enthraller]

[Hey man, for all he knows, everyone where you come from is a giant talking turtle thing. Who is he to question the way things work in other worlds?]

We aren't prisoners here. Surely they'd let us have a proper look around.

[nerdninja]

I'm pretty sure they would. I'd like to be conversant enough in how things work here to not stand too far out before I try feeling out the populace, though.

[Even if the fact that aliens are everywhere is already starting off better than he could be.]