Logs:Secret of the Ooze

Secret of the Ooze
Dramatis Personae AJ, Joshua, Matt, Scott
In Absentia Tian-shin	2023-08-24 "Frankly, we should have been able to guess that without so much as Googling it. It's basic science, no?"
Location Rhode Island
Thick grey smoke made visibility low among the tall green tops of the trees. It blanketed the white picket fences and cheerily-painted clapboard sides of houses with it. The smoke helped cast the winding asphalt street lined with rusty-red brick buildings in an eerie shade of orange from the blotted-out sun. An evacuation noticed had already been issued for the township of Glendale, Rhode Island as a wildfire had started three miles east at the nearby campgrounds. Most people had only just received the notification and were still packing, especially those just off of Main Street. AJ had no choice though, she had to press forward. The young teen girl with almond-shaped brown eyes and short, shaggy-cut glowing-green hair staggered into the town, coughing from the smoke she'd been breathing in for little over an hour. Her eyes stung from the substance as she staggered down the street, her hands cupped and arms bent up to try and keep the oozing sludge-like substance from dribbling onto the ground. Globs that hit the ground melted large holes, sizzling dangerously as the girl tried to find the quickest way out. But she was too close to people. Someone could step on some of her leftover ooze, or drive over it and their tires would blow out, or accidentally breathe in the fumes along with the smoke and never realize - ! Wayer, she needed to find water before it was too late ... before she suffocated or something worse. These are not firefighters emerging through the smoke, but Scott's X-suit is supplemented today with sturdy extra layers and reflective strips and a firefighter's gas mask, which -- with its opaque tinted window -- gives him an unsettling and insectoid appearance; the haze around his head is glowing with an eerie red miasma. He is moving cautiously, keeping his eyes low, one hand outstretched -- "I think," he is saying, only loud enough for his companions, "this is our stop." Joshua does have an FDNY gas mask on, no doubt pilfered from the job that pays him, together with similar protective layers. He's not glowing, perhaps to combo break this green-red contrast, and though he can't really see through the smoke he's still turned unerringly in AJ's direction. Then looks to their last teammate with -- okay, his hitch of brows is not visible, but probably Matt has known him long enough to assume it's there, behind his silence. Beside Scott, smaller and also sans eerie glow but otherwise similarly attired, Matt stops when his teammates do, head tilted slightly. "Yes." Decisively. "It's tied up with regular biological processes, I daren't quash it before I feel it out some more." He starts to move toward AJ again before stopping glancing aside at Scott. "It would help to get a bit closer." "STAY BACK!" The girl shrieks, and more of the brackish, neon-green-tinged sludge appears and burns holes in the ratty pair of gym shorts and tank-top she wears. Her bare feet sink a bit into the asphalt as her glowing hair eerily illuminates her wide, frightened eyes. "DON'T COME -cough! cough! - ANY CLOSER! IT - Cough! - it's not safe ... !" . Her voice falters into a slight rasp, keeping her gaze fixated on the strangely dressed pair standing close enough for her to make them out in the haze but far enough that she felt like she wasn't going to endanger them ... yet. Scott holds up one hand appeasingly, to show that it's empty, but keeps moving slo-o-owly toward the teenager -- "We'll be careful," he promises, his voice loud and a little crackly through the mask's speaker. "Don't worry. We're here to help." "Oh, goodness," Matt says mildly. "I still don't know if this will hurt them, but based on the fact they're melting the ground, neutralizing is the way to go." His power coils into AJ's and press down, careful but firm. The glands secreting the corrosive ooze shut down--for now. "I don't think they can...reabsorb that, unfortunately." He tactfully does not thank any deities the child isn't melting herself, once suppressed. "Should've brought Tian-shin." Joshua has tipped his face down towards a puddle of the neon ooze where it sizzles ominously on the ground. He's stepping carefully around it. "... some baby turtles, maybe." His own power is reaching out silent and insensible, flickering curiously around what he can feel of AJ's, of Matt's, of the entanglement of the two. "-- this happened to you before?" His voice has raised a little louder to pitch towards the child. "If you got a regular way to, uh. De-goo. We can help." She coughs, squinting watery eyes almost shut as she tries to comprehend how her powers ceased their function finally, until a third and previously unseen man speaks to her. AJ forces her eyes open and coughs more. "Water," She creaks, "I need water ... !" "Dale." Joshua vanishes. "Water?" Scott echoes at once. He sweeps a look left, then right, looking around the smoky street for anything useful -- perhaps this is a dead giveaway they're not firefighters. "...do we have water?" He is addressing this to thin air, but now he is nodding reassuringly(?) to AJ -- "We have water." "What he said." Matt's gesture is vague and might just as easily refer to Scott as the spot Joshua had just been. "Just hold on a bit longer, alright?" His tone isn't quite chipper, but he sounds remarkably confident. "What's your name, darling?" "... You're not firefighters," her voice sounded higher, and far more considerably afraid. "You're not firefighters! She backed up several steps, looking ready to turn and bolt back the way she came any second! "Who are you people?!" Scott stops walking, and his outstretched hand pulls back slightly -- "We're not firefighters," he agrees evenly. "We're mutants, like you. We won't hurt you. We won't come any closer if you don't want us to. But we can help you clean all this up. Get you somewhere safe. Out of the smoke." "We're superheroes." Matt adds, in profoundly unironic fashion. "Not the cool sort, mind you. We're teachers by day, except the guy who vanished--he'll be back. My name is Matt." He gives a little wave that looks faintly absurd in this getup. "You don't have to tell me your name, but please stick around just a while longer. If you go too far from me, you'll start dropping acid again." When Joshua returns it is, perhaps disappointingly, without any evident water in hand. What he does have is a clunky metal contraption and a rather large red oddly-shaped wrench. It might throw a little doubt on the Not Firefighters business, because when he moves to the nearest hydrant on the streetside he is definitely well practiced at fitting the hydrant wrench to it and ratcheting it carefully looser -- okay, that part could just be because he's lived through many New York summers, but the cap he fits on the hydrant to regulate the fierce gush of water is certainly Fire Department Approved. The hydrant spews -- heavy but safe in the rush of water that is spraying out and beginning to wash over the street. Joshua takes a step back, lifting his chin to AJ and gesturing toward the water -- with the heavy wrench. He seems to realize a moment later that this might not be reassuring. The wrench vanishes; he gestures considerably more invitingly to the water with an empty gloved hand. The water in AJ's eyes increases as her face wrists and a small hiccup leaves her. Then another. She then coughs, choking on the smoke before blurring our a weak, "Help me, please ...!" Right as Joshua returned. AJ looked frightened for a moment before she saw him release the water, it spraying across the street and cutting a sharp arc in the smoke-filled air. Immediately she lurched forward, rushing to get under the spray and threw her arms open as if inviting it to wash over her. When it hit the substance, the neon hue vanished and the viscosity altered, sloughing off of her and becoming harmless muck before dossipatibg all together! The fumes coming off of her also faltered and then began to fizzle out .. right as a front door opened nearby.! A couple of resints, peering through the smoke, were attempting to comprehend the scene they were just witnessing. Scott, evidently still leery of touching the rapidly-less-corrosive slurry, nabs a branch off the ground to test the water before he comes any closer. "There we go?" He doesn't sound totally certain that there they go, his tone tentative, but he doesn't formulate another question before the door opens. He raises one hand to the neighbors casually -- "Hey, folks," is in a confident broadcaster's affect, crackling suddenly louder through his mask. "Be sure your gas is off, close your windows and doors before you evacuate. -- Do you need anything else," this is quieter again, to AJ, "before it's safe to get you out of here?" He turns his face toward Matt and Joshua, then back to AJ, maybe taking in her bare feet and soaked gym clothes -- "Can we get her a blanket?" He doesn't know who he's asking about this. "Can we get her a blanket?" Matt is passing this along to Joshua, though he also passes it to AJ by way of "Would you like a blanket? It's a ways back to where we parked but..." He tips his head at the miraculously produced hydrant cap. "Frankly, we should have been able to guess that without so much as Googling it. It's basic science, no?" He approaches just to the edge of the still-gushing streak from the hydrant and takes a knee, so AJ can hear him better when he lowers his voice. "If you and your guardians are willing, we can take you to a special doctor for a checkup. Hospitals often aren't friendly to our kind even without the..." He gestures back in the direction from which AJ had come. "....that. And we really are from a school, for kids like you." He glance back at Scott. "More or less." AJ roughly coughed into the crook of her arm; her lungs felt uncomfortably tight and despite the refreshing cleanse, her eyes still burnt from the hazy air. Even still, she knew there were gaping holes burnt through the baggy clothes and at least for decency's sake, she ought to agree. " ... blanket, please - cough! cough!" She answered before covering her mouth again. The people who had stepped out slowly approached their vehicle, but didn't take their eyes off of the group as they packed in and started their engine. That's when AJ realized - "the road -- I - ! There's sludge - I was walking down - COUGH! COUĢH!" She gasped for air. "I'm sorry I didn't think I'm so sorry - !" "S'cool. Stand back." Joshua gestures out of the way of the fire hydrant's spray, and waits to be sure everyone is safely Away from the stream. His wrench reappears from -- who knows where. He pulls the hydrant cap off, ratcheting the spray fiercely, forcefully wider. He's disappeared again as the hydrant gushes powerfully, flooding the street and its ooze-coating with a shallow stream. When Joshua reappears very shortly, he's got not just a blanket (very large and very very soft, featuring a large emblem of Captain America's iconic shield) but a wide beach towel, offering these both to AJ. "Nothing to be sorry for," says Scott encouragingly, raising his voice over the sudden roar of gushing water, his head turned expectantly to wait for Joshua's return. Then he turns to survey the smoke, the distant flickering orange. "Does this happen a lot?" he says, then shakes his head -- "Actually. Let's go on and get out of here. One thing at a time. Do you have family around here that we should find before we evacuate?" Here -- though it doesn't quite come across through the gas mask filter -- his voice has gentled a little. He tilts his head at Joshua -- "He moves fast." AJ grabs the towel and furiously drugs herself off as much as she can. Shes thoroughly soaked from head to toe. As she lifts her leg to dry off her feet, she winces visibly and there are small cuts and bits of melted asphalt stuck to he'd skin. When she was relatively damp enough she wrapped herself in the blanket, pulling it over her head to hide her glowing hair ro the beat of her ability. Upon registering Scott's uestion, she shook her head and apoke with some visible irritation as she breathed, "No ... no. I don't." AJ knew she had to get out of the smoke soon. But she still wasn't sure who these mutants were she tried to look for identifiers of sone kind, checking Scott over before making a wild guess and assumed she was wrong; "Who - COUGH! - ugh, you guys r - wheeze- really?" Joshua waits, quiet, for AJ to dry off. Hands her the blanket. He gives one firm nod when Scott indicates him. The gas mask renders his expression somewhat blank and alien, accentuated by the filtered monotone of his voice when he answers for himself, at least: "Paramedic." His head tips in a nod to his companions. "They teach. Got oxygen in the jet, you want to breathe better." He's holding out a hand to AJ in uninsistent offering. "We're teachers," says Scott, simultaneously, then -- also concurrent with Joshua -- "He's a paramedic," then he lets out a slightly amused, faintly impatient breath (just short of a huff.) He's studying the horizon, hands on his hips, the eerie red glow of his mask reflecting continually less-distant orange and gold, but he doesn't rush either AJ or Joshua. "Superheroes," Matt repeats, in time with his teammates. "But yes, also what they said. We're pretty good at finding...solutions to power problems. Or at least keeping you off the evening ooze. I'm that teacher, they only bring me along because I can hit pause on powers just in the nick of slime." He hesitates, then pulls off his mask, short dark hair sticking all astray and pale face smudged with ash that make his bright green eyes look all the more uncannily luminous, if not literally glowing like AJ's hair. His smile is bright, too, and earnest. "We just want to help." He traces an X on his chest. "Cross my heart and hope to fly." AJ lifts her own hand towards Matt, then she hesitates and withdraws it. "S'not safe. If it -cough cough!- comes back ..." she instead offers the edge of the blanket for him to grasp instead so she'd stay close. Lots of people are leaving now but are in tookuch of a rush to notice or cre about the strangers. Cars start to pull into the flooded road, driving around and by them as they fled the incoming fire. It was pretty much time to go. "We're experts," Joshua replies, and then amends this lightly to -- "him particularly." He's nodding to Matt. "He won't let it explode." He's glancing back over his shoulder -- towards the people coming out of their homes. Towards the steadily approaching fire. His face tips just a little toward the heat that is rippling closer. His voice is as calm as ever, though. Hand still outstretched. "Fire's not safe. If you take my hand, I can get us all away quick." "We can sort everything else out later," Scott adds, his head still tilted watchfully at the oncoming fire. "I've got you, darling, and we'll get you properly cleaned up as soon as we can." Matt wraps the edge of the blanket gently around AJ's hand, his expression soft and distant. "See, you're all wrapped up, and I won't let any more stuff come out." He coughs into his arm, breath already sounding shallow from the exposure to smoke. "How about we all hold hands like in kindergarten?" He puts AJ's padded hand in Joshua's and reaches his other hand out for Scott. "And get while the getting is goo'd." To AJ he adds, in a slightly wheezy stage whisper, "There won't be any goo." Taking in a wheezing breath, this time there's little hesitation as AJ takes tge offered hand through the thick material of her blanket. Even though she wad beibg reassured, she remained stubborn and kept the blanket on. It vomforte her at least, and gave her a layer of protection. Joshua's hand closes around AJ's blanketed one. He's dropping his other hand onto Scott's shoulder. In the next moment, the world -- -- is considerably clearer. The fires are still visible, raging in the distance, but they're upwind of them, the smoke and residual scratchiness from the chemicals largely absent. The sudden teleportation doesn't feel like much of anything -- no nausea, no physical discomfort, though it may well be somewhat disorienting for those unused to it to have the world simply change like that. Just them is the Blackbird, sleek and futuristic. Joshua pulls off his mask -- behind it his face is kind of droopy, dour-looking. He's lifting his eyebrows to Scott. Miming a little -- beep-beep thumb motion as if the jet maybe has a car fob Scott can unlock for them. "Oxygen for everyone, soon," he's saying -- to AJ? To Matt and his wheezing? He's looking to Scott, despite his team leader being the only other person not wheezing, and offering solemnly, "As a treat."