[video] The Reject Pile [closed to those that have signed up for this part of plot]

[atippleoftransparency]

cw: for child death/harm

[When Invisible Kid shows up on screen there's something wrong. He's got a grin so big it looks like it could split his face, and there's something wrong with his eyes. They're glowing with a yellow glow and he has strange, oblong, almost cat-like pupils.]

[When he speaks, there's something wrong with his voice, too. It doesn't sound like Lyle, the cadence and tone are off. If anything, it somehow sounds the same as the villain who'd bragged about wearing a meatsuit that'd tried to blow everyone up during the fight with the Legion of Supervillains.]

Well well well, you Legionnaires sure seem to be rallying in the face of disaster. Guess I'll have to ruin it for you! Lucky for me the Brainiacs finally decided to make a mess of things! I've been looking over Brainiac 8's shoulder for a while now, waiting for her to do part of my work for me.

It wasn't easy being patient. After that big metal idiot prevented me from blowing you all up during the fight with the Legion of Supervillains, I've been dying for a chance to kill you all again!

[The grin somehow widens, even though it shouldn't be possible.]

You're probably wondering who I am. The accursed, fetid, incomprehensible monster from outside of time and space that's forced me to work for him as his Herald calls me The Devil, but his obsession with archetypes and the Tarot is stupid anyway.

The name's Bill Cipher.

A few of you have probably heard of me because of Pine Tree. He even wrote everything about me in this little book of his, figuring you might need it to fight me!

[He holds up a red notebook filled with notes and pictures of aliens and creatures.]

But don't expect him to help you. [The book starts to burn in his hand. Then he picks up...a utility belt.]

To make sure he wouldn't interfere, I put a power inhibitor on him, took all his gear, and shoved him out an airlock!

[To prove he's not lying, he tosses the utility belt away and picks up...a very familiar hat, placing it on his -- on Lyle's -- head.]

Don't worry about how hard it'll be to find his asphyxiated, lifeless body in the unforgiving void, though -- you're all going to join him soon! This invisible moron has access to Brainiac 5's rejected experiment vault. It's filled to the brim with unholy horrors and failed experiments capable of bending space and time itself.

Two years ago, I used this meatsuit to sabotage Brainiac's device, but Norg here fixed it in time to send the Legionnaires to a pocket dimension instead of vaporizing them -- but not this time. Thanks to Brainiac 5, this time I'll turn you Legionnaires inside out, strip away the information that makes you exist as matter, and pluck out your hydrogen molecules. That's if the Unmolded Ones don't erase you out of existence first!

[With that, he laughs, and behind him, a vault door opens, releasing...things. Terrible things. Machines that hover and emit shrieking sounds that cause the metal around them to oxidize. Floating vortexes that invert the structure of anything they touch. Rotating devices, meant to repair structures with a special adhesive, that spread their spider web like material over anything they perceive as broken, to fix it -- that unfortunately think organic life is so broken that it needs to be knitted together with other organic material.]

[This is all the stuff that was so dangerous Brainy didn't even try to keep making it work. It's the stuff that made him go "Oh, sprock!" and hit a panic button of some kind. Since not all of them could be safely deconstructed easily -- or needed some time for their dimensional half-life to pass before they faced decohesion -- the vault is where they're consigned until they can safely be taken apart or fade away on their own.]

[The rejected machines, anomalies, and ideological biohazards -- pour out around Bill and he fades away from view, using Lyle's invisibility. Even though he fades, a laugh remains.]

AHAHAHAHAHA!

[ooc: This is locked to anyone that signed up for "The Reject Pile." (You can jump in right after you sign up, as long as sign ups are still open.) Other characters can be handwaved as off on missions.]

Comments

[legionnpcs]

Nonononono!

[Yes, Ferro is panicking.]

The jello monster! The jello monster is going to get out again!

[legionnpcs]

I still don't know what jello is but it's not going to get you again, Ferro.

[legionnpcs]

You two are on your own, regretfully. The jello monster is immune to my karate.

[legionnpcs]

...How is it immune to your karate, you once threw M'Onel into space.

Ladies, gentlemen, assorted other sentients, please don't make me lick one of Brainy's experiments to pieces. You know I hate doing that to my tongue.

[bringinghopewithme]

Oi, Seppo. Y'ready to throw down against someone whose best sense ain't sight?

[For being as nerfed as he is, he manages to make a post while running flat out without sounding out of breath still.]

I'm comin' for ya. You're not ready.

[legionnpcs]

[Ferro shouts to Karate Kid, who is vaguely visible off screen. Val's also human, and therefore has a few of the same cultural touchstones, despite being from the 31st century when Ferro was originally from the 21st century.]

...Val, the Easter Bunny's a badass!

[Ferro doesn't curse often but there is no other word for this.]

[unrecovered]

Unless you can literally beat the demon out of him, temper it. We need Lyle intact.

[thedreamisdead]

They have good doctors.

[unrecovered]

Our medtech is down and we literally don't have the time for him to heal or for us to argue about it. Temper it.

[gonebyebye]

You're assuming that causing Lyle physical pain would encourage Cipher to vacate his body. He's not a corporeal being, he won't respond to sensory input the same way we would. From what we do know about him, I'd actually find it more likely he find the idea hilarious.

[relativityspeaking]

I'm sending everyone a manifest of the devices in Vault 4. The threats there are all at least known. We have protocols in place for whenever one of Brainy's experiments goes out of control.

[She sends it out. The good thing is this vault of nightmares isn't some deep, dark secret. She, Lyle, and Brainy all had security access, and Lyle and Brainy logged which failed inventions or dangerous experiment byproducts were put in, and which ones were finally safely decommissioned or disposed off. She at least has a list of what they are, what they can do, and possible counters or containment measures.]

[As for Bill...]

[It all makes sense now. Everything's clicking into place. Brainy had thought for over a year that he'd made a mistake in the device's design. Then, the Heralds had revealed that one of their number had sabotaged it -- but the question was how? None of the team had seen anyone near the device besides Lyle, who'd been asked to double-check Brainy's work. Lyle had a slight gap in his memories, true, but they'd assumed it'd maybe been some kind of telepathic interference so the saboteur could work unseen. But even that was just a guess.]

[Never, in their wildest dreams, had they imagined the saboteur was Lyle himself. Clearly, this monster had possessed his body, sabotaged the device, and then left Lyle's body. But he'd underestimated Lyle's intelligence, and Lyle had managed to make a quick fix just in time to cause the missing Legionnaires to be displaced and trapped rather than killed.]

[And now he's trying to destroy the team again, using other devices of Brainy's design.]

[There's the slightest quaver in her voice when Kid Q speaks again. It's not fear. It's because after Blue Rose, she was hoping she wouldn't need to commission another statue on Shanghalla anytime soon.]

Legionnaires, I know right now we all have plenty of reason to want to beat him down, but we need to get him out of Lyle first.

Anyone have any suggestions? Did -- [She has to steady her voice.] -- did Dipper tell anyone about something we could use?

[steelandtemper]

I've updated the encryption keys on the comms. Cipher can't see this. I'd blow his up, but if he's dumb enough to hold onto it, I can track him.

[They'll see.]

Cipher himself is outside my area of expertise [the supernatural is bullshit] but a normal, untrained human has 10 to 20 seconds of useful consciousness in vacuum. If the kid kept his head, he could have gotten a transuit on in time.

[Cortana doesn't think it's a high probability--her opinion of Dipper's coolness under fire is not a complimentary one--but everyone does better with hope, even misguided hope.]

External sensor data is patchy at best, but I'm looking.

[gonebyebye]

The kiddo's got a good head on his shoulders. He'd have to to come out of half of what he has still alive. He'll be fine.

[It's said more confidently than Ray entirely feels at this point. Still, Ray's always been good at hoping.]

[gonebyebye]

Not as such, no, but handling situations like this is what I do for a living. Mood slime should clean Lyle right out. I've got a slime-blower in the firehouse filled with the stuff and enough proton packs and traps to bag and tag the little evil Dorito once we do.

[unrecovered]

Thank God.

I'll meet you at the firehouse to help carry tech. Someone needs to corner Lyle and possibly keep Bunny from killing him - any volunteers?

[gonebyebye]

We'll need to grab some ecto-goggles while we're at it. Lyle might be invisible, but if Cipher's putting off even half the PKE valences I think he is, we can track him with those.

[steelandtemper]

Dr. Stanz, what are the odds we can actually hold him?

[gonebyebye]

Theoretically good. I've got megatraps that should be able to hold him more than long enough to shove him into the containment unit in the firehouse. Worst case scenario, we can use the book of spells to permanently banish him to an unpopulated universe.

I'd hesitate to actually try to kill him, though. Energy cant be destroyed, so he'd likely just reconstitute himself at some later date if we successfully vaporized his true form. We could potentially do it if we managed to bind him to a physical body, but that would be tricky at best.

Private to Kid Q

[unrecovered]

Hey. Don't give up on Dipper. He's survived Bill's apocalypse once - there's no way he'd go down that easily.

private

[relativityspeaking]

[She slowly nods.]

Even if Bill took his utility belt, Dipper is the kind of person to have an extra transuit tucked somewhere.

[Bill only held up his belt not the little utility sash Dipper's costume has. Maybe he had what he needed. Maybe.]

The external sensors are heavily damaged. I'll put the technicians are getting at least one up and running and have them start a scanner search outside the ship.

[Maybe, if they're lucky, they'll be able to find him and bring him in still alive.]

Assume private from here on in

[unrecovered]

Sounds good. Keep me updated.

[There's a pause, and when Wash speaks again, his voice is...flat. Calm, in the same way that surface tension could be considered calm. Some days, it's easier to be Recovery One than Agent Washington; this has officially become one of those days.]

A while ago, I promised I'd drag Bill to hell myself before I let him hurt Dipper again.

[He'd failed, and he hadn't even known until Bill got on the network to brag.]

Once we get him out of Lyle, I'm putting a knife in his eye.

[truefaceofthelaw]

First the droid, and now this? Was a proper psychological interrogation conducted, or was it let slide because of personal attachments? Don't you people even have psis? Weren't they checked for even the most basic sleeper protocols they could've been implanted with? Anything?

[This is ridiculous. He might not like the Justice Department, heavy handed with an iron fist, but at least this would never be allowed to happen.]

I don't have the best of faith in the Legion to deal with threats supposedly larger than this after finding out it's nothing but a ship of sinking holes.

[gonebyebye]

According to the reports we got when they returned? Yes to all of that. There's an entire planet of people capable of doing so. The problem is this is a psychokinetic organism. He doesn't have to be in a host, which makes it much easier to avoid detection.

[truefaceofthelaw]

All that means to me is that there's an entire planet full of simphead psis out there who couldn't tell a frontal lobe from a cerebellum. I doubt the Legion were as thorough as they could have been. Everything about this place indicates you're all too soft-hearted to go any further than a tickle.

[rokketmann]

Invisible Kid and I both cooperated with every kind of scan available on Legion World, and we were fully cleared to return to duty.

[ He will argue that the Legion of Superheroes is not a sinking ship when they're not navigating a compound crisis. There's a time and a place complicated discussions. ]

Faith in our teammates is what makes us the Legion.