Official RP Thread: The Evolutionist's Stone (5)

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Something round and red. Something square and blue. Something soft and green. Something yellow and unique. Something orange (but not an orange). And something pretty in pink. The young supers looked at one another, and then at their older contemporaries. Wayne, Jack, Flores and Damien expected them to find no two things in the same place, and whoever got back first won. No time limit, but undoubtedly they were expected to get back quick.

It might be trouble, and would definitely be work, but nobody would admit their dread aloud. It ruined the air of competition.

"All right, then. Sounds like a challenge." Tom rubbed his hands together with a smug grin, "C'mon Bobby, let's get a move on."

Nick crossed his arms and glared at Tom, "Yeah, sounds good to me. C'mon, guys, we should hurry up so we don't fall behind these two douchebags..."

Seth sighed, "Right. And that leaves me by myself. As always. Figures--"

"No." Wayne put up a hand, "You're not picking teams."

Jack crossed his arms, "That's right. We are. Bobby, Delia and Seth are a team. Jessica, Cassie and Ben are a team. Tom, Nick and Danny are a team."

Wayne gathered Flores, Damien and Jack close to him, before the four vanished, and Wayne added, "And we'll be watching your progress, to make sure that nobody cheats. Got it?"

The young supers agreed. And so it was decided. With a little less gusto than before, and a little discomfort from their new team arrangements, they were off to begin their training missions.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

==First Team==

The streets of New York were ripe with colors. There were colors dancing around left and right, side to side, like handsome, gritty a menagerie of art and culture. Unfortunately, the colors that were obvious were either not colors they were looking for, not shapes they were looking for, or too far out of reach to be of any use.

"Real clever, that Wayne is." Delia chuckled to herself, "Real clever."

"Why do you say that?" Bobby asked.

Seth shook his head and sighed, "Isn't it obvious what she meant? In order for us to find the objects on our list, we won't just be able to easily pick out any old object; we'll have to put some thought into where we look."

Bobby glared at Seth, who scowled at no one in particular as they walked, "It was just a question."

Seth turned sharply, "I'm aware of that, which is why I answered. Ya know...I'm starting to understand why you don't talk so much. You should stick to letting Tom shove his arm up your a** and do the talking for you."

Bobby balled his fists and gritted his teeth--no one had ever so cleverly called him a dummy before-- but Delia looked at him. Maybe now wasn't the time to start a fight. Bobby's expression softened. Delia was probably right. Whether it was powers or old-fashioned fists, they would only be wasting daylight by getting into a brawl. So he'd settle for steaming quietly behind Seth, imagining how much trash Seth would be talking if he had a black eye and a fat lip. Surely, his imaginary fighting skills were way better than his real-life ones.

Delia spoke up, "Oh, hey! There's a convenience store! That's gotta have somethin' on our list, right?"

Seth looked back, realizing he had missed it in his brooding, "Oh, hey, yeah. I'll head in and get an apple or something for our 'round and red'."

"Even maybe something soft and green." Bobby volunteered.

Seth turned back for a second, looking a mix of confused and disgusted, "Dumba**, Jack said we couldn't get more than one from the same place. Seriously, Bigfoot, leave the thinking to the higher primates."

Seth didn't care if Bobby had a snappy comeback or not; he just entered the store, without another word, and held the door open for Delia to follow.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

==Second Team==

Jessica could find no words. She could only watch with a tinge of eyebrow-raised amusement as Cassie and Ben chatted with one another about potential places to find the items on the list. There was a grocery store up the street; there they'd probably pick up a blue floppy disk or something for their 'square and blue'. For their 'round and red', they'd hit a convenience store for gumballs. Then, they'd look around for an orange banner, or an orange flyer or something. Then, maybe, they'd head to the park for some "soft and green" grass or moss.

"And then maybe we can go to the mall." Jessica mused aloud to no one in particular, "I'm sure Victoria's Secret has something skimpy and lacy for our 'pretty in pink'."

Ben turned back to her, "Um...you're gonna go in and get that, though, right?"

"What? Me? Oh, no." Jessica chuckled, "When I go in, I can't resist buying something for myself."

"You, um..." Ben's breath was growing shallow, "You...go in there often?"

Jessica grinned to herself, growing even more amused, "Oh, sure...they have the only stuff I'll ever wear. Ya know...when I choose to wear any panties at all."

"Oh...oh, God..." Ben blinked nervously, breath growing shallower; he walked forward to keep the girls from seeing his sudden...'excitement'.

"Jessica!" Cassie shot Jessica a glance of playful disappointment, "Leave Ben alone!"

"Oh, relax..." Jessica laughed, "I'm sure Ben knew I was just playing. Didn'tcha, Ben?"

She smacked Ben square on his butt, causing him to gasp in surprise, and then walked ahead of him, sharing a good laugh with Cassie for the rest of the way.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

==Third Team==

Naturally, Tom walked ahead of his 'teammates', Nick and Danny. He'd have as little to do with them as possible. It was sad enough he was stuck with them, and now he'd have to talk to them, and listen to them, too? That would be a no. No, instead, he'd find all of the objects on the list for himself. He was sure that Bobby would do the same. And then Jack and Wayne would see that he and Bobby were better off as a team. No need for brain and brawn. Brawn was just fine by itself.

"Crap." Tom complained, "I don't see anything that fits the descriptions! I'm startin' to think Jack and Wayne were trying to lead us off on a wild goose chase..."

"We've barely passed two blocks, Tom." Dan rolled his eyes, "And besides, have you even been looking?"

Tom turned back, glaring, "Have you been looking anywhere other than at my a**, fag?"

Danny groaned; he was so sick of Tom! But Nick flicked him off in Danny's defense. They'd get into it with him later. Now, they had objects to find. And if they found stuff before Tom did, they might be able to pick their own teams, so they wouldn't have to worry about Tom or Bobby anymore. Now all they had to do was find something that was square and blue...

"Hey, wait!" Nick whispered suddenly, into Danny's ear, while Tom's back was still turned, "What if...we found a way to, um, speed up our search?"

Danny blinked, not getting the idea Nick had in mind, "What? Like how?"

"You have color-based powers, right?"

"What the hell are you two talkin' about, jerk-offs?" Tom called back behind him, "You ditch me, or make me look bad in front of Wayne and Jack and Overlord Parker, I'm kickin' both your a**es..."

Another defiant middle finger was Nick's only response to Tom, before turning back to Danny and whispering in his ear, "You have color-based powers, right? Well, what if we just looked for something square, and you colored it blue? Found something round, and you colored it red, and on and on, til we find everything on the list?"

[Celadon's Penultimate]

==First Team==

Everything the group had gone to search for, they found. Or, at least, most of it. Despite having rather simple (yet clever) solutions as to where they would find their other scavenger hunt items, it seemed that they had absolutely no idea where they could locate a free-floating orange item that wasn't an actual orange!

Sure, there were orange signs, but they were all stationary (and illegal to remove). And there were orange clothes and undergarments in various stores, but those things cost way too much (and taking them off of people was out of the question). And orange hair? Yeah, right. Try taking that without a fight.

Naturally, their options left the young supers rather perplexed.

"Maybe we can get a tangerine?" Delia mused, "I mean...I'm pretty sure that counts as 'not an orange'."

Seth sighed, "That's true...but what if they think it's an orange we're trying to pass off as a tangerine? It sounds like unnecessary confusion to me."

"Well, good thing there's more than just you to make the decision, huh?" Bobby retorted, "I think that's actually not a half-bad idea. We can maybe take a pic of us next to a tangerine stand, too, for proof."

Seth stopped, and turned. His automatic response would have been a 'shut the hell up', followed or preceded by some some attempt to belittle Bobby's obvious insecurity: his enormous, size 26 feet. But, he was sad to say, expert faultfinder though he was...

"That idea...actually doesn't sound stupid." Seth blinked.

Bobby crossed his arms, a bit proud of himself, "And there's a fruit stand, just up this street."

The big-footed Bobby walked ahead of Seth triumphantly, with Delia close behind, and eventually Seth. Hopefully, he thought to himself, this would be the first of many times that he manage to prove naysayers wrong.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

==Second Team==

"Okay, so we have everything we looked for." Ben looked down at the list, "And we're making pretty good time, too."

"Yeah..." Cassie smiled, wiping her nose with a tissue, "Looks like we might be the first ones--HEY!"

Before she could even finish her sentence, there came a super whizzing past; he bumped into her without stopping, and was gone through the crowd, which seemed to grow ever-denser. Jessica, Ben and Cassie exchanged glances.

"Quick!" Cassie looked to either sides of her, frantic, "He has my bag, with all our scavenger hunt stuff!"

Cassie's teammates didn't need that to spur them on, but it certainly increased the urgency of their hustle. For all the three of them had just gone through, there was no way they'd go back out to re-gather all the items they'd just gotten. And so through the crowd the three of them bounded.

Around ugly people, through stinky people, around fat people, past very strange people, and finally escaping the thickest wave, into a much thinner concentration of much easier-to-weave-around people. It would be much easier to organize some plan of attack now. Jessica scanned the crowd, and then quickly called her orders out to her teammates.

"Cassie, go that way. See if you can clear some of these people out of the way. Ben, go that way. I'll try to make it through the center, okay? Go!"

The three nodded at one another, split up, and got to work.

Cassie was up first. She wiped her nose with a tissue, stifled a sneeze. A simple sneezing fit would do. And so she extended her hand, letting the bacteria move from her body, into the bodies of these pesky passersby. The bacteria flew through the air, just wafted a second, and then found themselves new homes. Still under the control of the human who had once been their first home, they proliferated into tens, hundreds, thousands of themselves, in a matter of seconds, dispersing the crowd the crowd, one by one, with violent sneezing fits.

Ben fell back from the diseased mongrels, covering his face. Cassie, nice girl though she was, had a power that was truly disgusting. Ben felt, at that moment, that he would willingly take nearly any other partner--even maybe Tom. But, Cassie and Jessica were expecting him to play his part. No time to balk at Cassie's awful effects. Ben reached to his left arm, and yanked. The newly loosened arm wiggled its fingers aimlessly for an instant, and then he willed them to straighten, to be more aerodynamic. Ben cocked back, and let fly.

With the crowd subjugated, and the thief distracted by Ben's disembodied arm, Jessica pushed her way through the bystanders, hurrying to grab the thief before he could get free of Ben's feisty limb and escape. She cursed. Still too far away. At this rate, neither she nor Cassie nor Ben would reach him in time. Unless...

"What the hell???" The thief cried out suddenly, looking down, "What happened to my--?"

He stopped abruptly, bumping into a thick wall of some material. He turned, and found that the material was police officer. The officer looked down and knew immediately to take the thief in, but...not for stealing.

"...You mind tellin' me what you're doin' out in public with without pants on, boy?"

"No, wait! I can explain!" The thief exclaimed, "I have pants on! See? They're just invisible, er, um, see-through!"

The cop grimaced, as he had a second look, "Well, I'll be. So they are. Looks like I'll be changing that public nudity charge will just have to be changed to indecent exposure. And, uh, nice bag, by the way. Now, c'mon. Let's go get you some normal pants."

And as the officer hauled away the protesting thief, Cassie finally saw fit to release her viral hold on the crowd, run up to the officer and thief, and retrieve her bag. If they hurried, by Ben's estimation, they could still make it back first.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

==Third Team==

Tom couldn't believe it. Nick and Danny kept finding all the stuff before he could spot it! How were they doing it? What were they up to? It was unbelievable how good they both seemed to be. After they found that one fluke orange flyer, from a stack that seemed to be the only one in a pile of blue and green ones, Tom decided he had had it. He'd walk in the middle of them. Whatever perspective they were getting, he wanted, too.

"Hey, what gives?" Danny frowned, "Didn't you wanna walk ahead of us?"

"Yeah, you said you didn't want people to think you were dating one of us..." Nick chuckled.

Tom crossed his arms, grudgingly, "Shut up, I know what the hell I said. But even Wayne has to put up with a dork like Damien. I just gotta make use of what resources I got. And that means you two losers."

Danny's expression fell, "Gee, thanks..."

"So!" Tom roughly clapped Danny and Nick on the shoulder, with a grin, "You guys see anything 'yellow and unique'? Or maybe 'soft and green'?"

Nick scowled in annoyance, and Danny groaned in dismay. If Tom wasn't busy ignoring them, it was gonna be a long time before they actually found anything else. Add to that, the extra annoyance of Tom's fake chumminess, just like right before a test in class, and Danny knew he just had to do something.

"Bee!" he cried out suddenly, "Oh, crap, there's a huge bee!"

"What? Bee? Where?" Tom looked around, "I don't see a bee--oh, f**k! I can't see! Everything is tye-dye! What the hell is going on???"

As Tom panicked about his colorful color-blindness, Danny took Nick by the hand, and yanked him aside. The two ambled to find something unique, for Danny to turn yellow. Looking all around, finally Nick dug into his backpack, and pulled out a rabbit's foot keychain he stole from a girl in class. Danny zapped it, orange, purple, green, ladybug pattern, cow pattern, chartreuse, pink and purple polka-dot and finally yellow. Tom's eyes unclouded, and he could see again.

"Oh, hey, sorry, Tom..." Danny chuckled nervously, as Tom recovered, "Swatting away that bee musta caused my powers to act up...luckily, in my panicking, I found this here rabbit's foot. It's even yellow! And up there is a hot-dog stand. Let's ask for a sample of relish for our 'soft and green', kay?"

[Celadon's Penultimate]

==New York==

Fortunately, the day had gone mostly without a hitch. No one had been injured (though a couple times, they came close to injuring one another), and Wayne returned he and his teammates to visibility, which left only for their items to be reviewed, to see what good came of the exercise.

Round and red was a cinch. Square and blue, slightly less easy, but no daunting task. Soft and green, another easy one. Yellow and unique...a bit of a problem (after all, what was the criteria for unique?). Nonetheless, they found those, and the something orange that wasn't an orange. And the pretty in pink. For some reason, though, the supers didn't seem satisfied with their findings.

"...Is there something wrong, Jack?" Danny asked, a mix of nervous and eager.

Jack looked over everything a second time, and then turned to Damien, "Hm...I dunno. Do you think they did good?"

"Well, they could have done worse." Everybody was relieved, and then Damien continued, "But, they could have done better, too. Says here on this paper that for your yellow, you chose this rabbit's foot. I think I have a problem with that."

A brief pause; Danny dug his hands into his pockets, almost nonchalant, "Well, you asked for something yellow. And unique. What's more unique than a rabbit's foot somebody dyed yellow?"

Nick glanced at him, relieved; maybe he wouldn't crack, after all.

"Sure. You got a point." Damien replied, "It's just...I didn't notice any of these things before you picked them up on your list. Then again, with your Chromokinetic powers, I'm sure you can probably perceive colors better than I can. Is that right?"

Danny's eyes widened, his mind quickened, "Well, I guess...I mean, uh...ugh, crap, you saw me, didn't you? I mean, Nick suggested we do it the right way, but I really wanted to win. And Tom was being Tom, so I wanted to show him up, and I--"

Jack put up a hand, with a smirk, "It's cool, kid. Really. We got no problem with you using your powers. If we had a problem with it, you'd know by now. And I know it was Nick's idea; Damien was there, remember? Just...if you're gonna lie, be ready to stick to your story. Oh...and lie to anybody except the ones here to help you. Family? Teammates? The Overlord? Us? Never lie to us. It'll only end bad for you. Alright? Alright. Now...who else is hungry? I got a taste for Chinese."

[Celadon's Penultimate]

==Government Compound, Washington, DC==

The hanging ceiling light shone uncomfortably in Alex's eyes. He put up a hand to shield his face, and it let him clearly see the expression on Delia Drummond's and President Masterson's face. He decided it was better that he simply put up with the glare.

"So...Ansel." The President began.

"You can call me Alex, sir." The shapeshifter hated when the President addressed him by his true name; it usually meant trouble.

"Ansel." The President repeated, "I...I thought that you were the best. You graduated at the top of your class in the Academy, I thought. Highest marks we had seen in years. Even scare a few of my Secret Service men. And yet...you don't seem able to handle some simple rebels."

The shapeshifter fidgeted, "Sir...I...I don't know why. Maybe they have luck manipulators on their side or something. I know I can do better. Really. Just give me one more chance, and I know I can get--"

"Get what?" The President interrupted, "I assigned you to get the power-booster, Jack. You failed. I assigned you to get the power-negator, Fitz. You failed. You even got a second chance to go directly for the Evolutionist's Stone, and failed at that, too. I'm beginning to see a pattern that I do not like."

Alex sunk into his seat, and shifted his gaze to Delia. No doubt, behind that annoying light glare, she was smiling at his miserable failures. He crossed his arms. He'd never hear the end of this.

"...I mean it. I can get them. All of them. All I need is a bit more time." the shapeshifter assured, "They aren't such difficult targets. I just...I need more time."

"Well, that's too bad, Ansel." Alex winced at his name; the President continued, "Time is something that we do not have. My power came with a rather hefty price, in case you've forgotten. I may be immortal, but Eternal Youth is not part of the package sorry to say. So I'm giving you a last chance to be redeemed unto me. You see, Jolyne's work has been a big flop, too. And I imagine that letting you go off on your own will only yield more of the same. But, together--"

"Aw, hell!" Alex groaned, rolling his eyes and throwing up his hands, "Anybody but her, Mr. President! Really! I mean, literally, I could take ANYBODY as a partner but her! Even...even--even Delia! Anybody!"

Delia glared at the shapeshifter, and he gave her the finger.

"No." The President huffed, "No. Not this time. You don't get to decide this time. You forfeited that right the last time you failed me. I was beginning to suspect you were failing on purpose; you should be glad I haven't decided to have you beheaded (mostly because I wasn't sure it would even be effective to kill you). No, not this time. This time, you take Jolyne, and you take the assassin Archer. And if you don't apprehend the targets this time, don't bother coming back, or you'll regret it."

The President stood, straightening his suit. He headed out of the room, with Delia following closely behind. Alex let out an exasperated groan. There was no way he would be living this down any time soon...

[Celadon's Penultimate]

==New York==

Egg foo young sounded absolutely awesome, and so Jack told the lady at the counter he would have that. For everyone else, Wayne ordered lo mein and chicken, beef and vegetables and soup and dumplings. Courtesy of the Overlord, they would have Lee's all to themselves for an hour. That, combined with the fun of their scavenger hunt, and late lunch was abuzz with excited chatter, in between gobbling down what Damien promised would be a bottomless supply of any food they chose.

They congratulated one another on their efforts. They asked questions and commented about the food. They asked one another to pass this dish, or that. They joked about their powers, and exactly what the cooks meant by Chinese food--dog and rat were implied a couple times. Flores snorted, and remarked; if it was dog, it was the best damn dog he'd ever eaten. He'd have to start shopping at that kennel. His serious expression made it even more hilarious.

Though, Tom and Seth didn't seem to be in the mood to laugh.

"...So, Jack." Seth could finally hear his own voice, as the other young supers lowered their heads to eat again, "Who won?"

The supers stopped eating.

Jack looked up from his bowl, a noodle dangling stupidly from his mouth, "Huh?"

"I was just wondering." Seth continued, "Since you had us go through that whole wild goose chase, looking for different stuff for that scavenger hunt...was there a winner?"

Jack looked to Wayne, who just shrugged, and went back to eating; in response, Jack could only manage, "Well...it was more like an exercise, than a competition. You guys were the ones that made stuff competitive. All we wanted was for you guys to learn a lesson. Values and stuff."

Seth scoffed, and shook his head; taking Seth's cue, Tom spoke up, "So...what lesson were we supposed to learn? Cause all I learned was that my so-called teammates are cheaters. And that they wanted to make me look like a dumba**."

Nick smirked, "Too bad God beat us to it."

Tom erupted from his seat, and Nick rose slow and defiant to meet him. Flores stormed over from the opposite side of the table, and stepped between them.

Looking to either side of him, he snarled, "I am not...in the mood for this bulls**t. Stop being petty. Sit down. Eat. Now."

"Yeah, make him sit down." Nick narrowed his eyes at Tom.

Tom retorted, "Lot of big talk for a guy with back-up. We'll see how tough--hey!"

He was cut off mid-sentence, when Flores suddenly yanked him and Nick up by the backs of their necks. The two struggled helplessly in his grasp, and it was the first time Flores has chuckled a real chuckle in weeks. Damien worried aloud to Jack; Jack assured Damien that he knew what he was doing. He was an excellent conflict mediator.

"All right, now that I got your attention," Flores growled with menace, "You better listen, and listen good. This little rivalry crap is gettin' old. And I ain't gettin' paid to let you two wank-socks ruin my perfectly good Chinese food lunch. In fact...I ain't gettin' paid at all. And ask my boys there...me not gettin' paid means I don't handle fragile s**t with caution. Got me?"

The boys quickly nodded, wide-eyed, answering simultaneously, "Gotcha."

"Good." He dropped them on their behinds, and returned calmly to his food, "Now, you two little girls play nice. Next one to catch an attitude is gettin' that big fat Buddha statue shoved up his a**. If anybody's got any right to be pissed, it's me."

The two wouldn't exchange another word, for the remainder of lunch.