bitten by a radioactive bear

aaron ehrenreich grizzly - he/him tier one ( 120 points )

[g-rzly]

blxckpaladin​:

Grizzly follows him like it’s second nature. It’s just upstairs, just toward his bedroom, but Pax likes to think that Grizzly would follow him anywhere, that he could lead Grizzly to the end of the world and that would be okay. It’s a nice idea. One that he would probably never act on, because he doesn’t really have an interest in any kind of dramatic request, doesn’t want to drag Grizzly through endless battles and fight for his own glory. It’s just nice to think that Grizzly would do it, and would come with him. It’s nice, because Pax would do the same. Pax would run after Grizzly at this point, wherever the other man went. 

It might be a little dramatic, but now that he has Grizzly, he doesn’t really want to let go. He wants to make sure they’re together, so they have the time to grow, so that they have time to find out what this can really mean, what they can be to each other. Pax thinks that they could be a lot. Pax thinks that they could be everything. Like his parents are, so utterly devoted, so happy together. He thinks that because he fits so nicely in Grizzly’s arms, because they’ve clicked together since the first time that they locked eyes. 

So he leads Grizzly upstairs, and into his bedroom, and lets out a relieved little hum when Grizzly confirms that he isn’t hurt. Pax would have had to raise those zombies back from the dead a second time to get his revenge, if they had put Grizzly through too much pain. “I’m glad Mimic was there for you,” He says, and finds that he really means it. Mimic has earned loyalty from Pax in turn, for all of that. He’s firmly in Pax’s good books now. He stands there and looks at Grizzly, in the dim light of his room. He reaches up and touches the man’s cheek, as if he’s making sure. “No, I’m good. Just a little bruised, and very very damp. If I catch a cold, I’m going to put you through hell though.” 

He pulls away then, because getting out of his wet clothes really should be a priority. So he strips his shirt off, and shivers a little at the touch of the cold air against his damp skin. “I’ve got a tshirt that will fit you,” he offers, if Grizzly wants to change as well. “Unless you think borrowing ex-boyfriends shirts is weird.”

He turns his head, when Pax is finished looking him over for cuts and scrapes, presses a kiss to the inside of Pax’s wrist, and then lets out a laugh, at the comment. Pax strikes him as the type who would be miserable when he’s sick, in a kind of cute way, with those big puppy dog eyes, and how much he enjoys bossing people around. He wouldn’t mind, he thinks; obviously he doesn’t want Pax to get sick, but there’s something nice about the idea, of being able to be there for him if he did. 

Pax pulls away, after a moment, starts pulling his costume off to get changed, offers him a shirt. And he’s already changed out of his suit and into clean clothes, did as soon as he got back thanks to his own costume being soaked through, not with water from the basement but with the rain from Tempest’s indoor storm. But thanks to Pax’s costume, his shirt is now thoroughly soaked through in several spots too, so he goes ahead and strips it off as well. 

     “I think it’d be weird if I had to borrow it from him,” he jokes, draping his wet shirt over the back of a nearby chair so it gets a chance to dry. And then he closes the distance between the two of them again, wraps his arms around Pax from behind, kisses the back of his bare shoulder. Pax is sort of freezing, his skin damp and a little clammy, so he runs his hands up and down his arms for a few seconds, rubbing a little warmth back into them, his chest pressed against Pax’s back. 

And there’s something funny, in the back of his mind, about the fact that Pax has an ex-boyfriend whose shirt would fit him. He’s not surprised to find out Pax has a type, and that said type is basically Grizzly’s entire deal. It makes a lot of things make a whole lot of sense, and Grizzly’s not complaining. 

     “I think Daydreamer would throw a fit if I interrupted his romantic evening to go find a dry shirt.”

[g-rzly]

blxckpaladin​:

He’s bone tired, when he finally makes it back to the manor. Exhausted isn’t even a good enough word for it. But pretty much everyone else in the Collective, who had been at the Tower tonight, is in the same boat. Pax has never minded exhaustion, either. It always meant that he had done something worthwhile, at the end of the day. It meant that he had pushed himself, that he had made himself worthwhile in a fight. It meant he made a difference to someone, somewhere, even just by doing a couple of flashy tricks with his sword. 

He didn’t have the same stakes that some of his other teammates did, walking in to that tower of terror. But he had done his part, and he hopes that none of them were too distressed by what had gone on in there. He makes a mental note, even as he’s dragging himself up the driveway, to check in on Prodigal Son and see how he’s doing.

He feels relief, when he walks through the door. And then a further burst of it, when he sees Grizzly waiting for him. Of course, there he is. Exactly where Pax wants him  to be. Waiting to see him, seeking him out. He lets Grizzly pull him into a hug and huffs out a breath of happiness, squeezing back and enjoying the warmth of him, the strength of his body. And he manages a soft laugh, at the words that Grizzly picks for their reunion.

“It’s got to say something fucked up about me that I’m actually jealous, right?” He says, slumping his shoulders, looking up at Grizzly with warm eyes. Punching a mobster sounded like fun. He’s sure there’s more to it than that, but it’s the detail that they can both latch on to as something truly kind of cool about this strange, strange night. “Got to fight Reptilian. It was pretty cool, actually. The whole room was slowly flooding around us.” He arches an eyebrow, manages a smile, even though it had been rather stressful at the time. “Very Indiana Jones, you know?”

He tugs a little bit, at the edge of Grizzly’s shirt, leading him out of the entrance hall and toward their bedrooms. He feels relaxed in the other man’s presence. And he wants to strip his costume off, fall into bed, pull Grizzly in with him so they don’t have to be alone for the night. “You didn’t get hurt, right? Do I need to play Florence Nightingale for you?”

He’s glad Pax is there. Glad Pax is amused, by the whole punching-a-mobster thing. Glad Pax wraps his arms around him and smiles, glad he looks like he’s all pretty much in one piece despite everything he’s probably been through. He’s spent enough of his life in life or death situations to not let himself worry, up front, about whether or not the people he cares about are going to make it out alive, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t let himself feel relieved, on the other side of things, when they actually do. 

     “You’d make a good Indiana Jones,” he says, pressing a kiss to the side of Pax’s head—his hair still wet from the apparently flooded part of the Tower he’d been in—as he says it, before he lets go from the hug.

And he lets Pax lead him back upstairs, following without resistance. He’s been making himself scarce around his own bedroom lately anyway, now that his roommate’s got a metaphorical sock on the door handle more nights than not, so much so that Pax’s room has basically become his, too. It makes things easier that Pax still doesn’t have a roommate, even though there’s a spare bed and everything in there. And he never seems to mind it when Grizzly shows up at his door. 

      “No, no injuries for me. Mimic is pretty good at this whole villain thing, it turns out. He can make forcefields, and...” He’s still not entirely sure what power Mimic was using, with the whole Roulette thing— “made it so bullets didn’t hit me. He’s a good guy.”

He feels a bit like there’s a bond, now, between him and Mimic that neither of them is going to be able to shake. Walking into hell together, facing off against the zombie of some dead villain Mimic had accidentally killed. Not to mention everything else. And that’s fine with him—of all of the people in this place to trauma bond with, Mimic seems like a decent one. Has a bluntness to him that Grizzly appreciates. 

     “What about you?” 

[g-rzly]

    the Manor, after the Tower attack, @blxckpaladin​

He and Mimic are some of the first to get back to the Manor, neither having much reason to linger at the meeting point once they’ve dropped off their zombies and fake hostage, and Geo Girl’s found another Guardian to stick with. Once he’s showered and changed, he posts up in one of the rooms at the front of the second floor, with a window that looks out over the entryway, watches the rest of their motley crew stagger back in, two by two, bloodied and limping but mostly in tact.

Pax is in the last contingent to arrive, late into the night. And he looks tired, but there’s a spring in his step that Grizzly recognizes, the energy that comes from a job well done. The look he always wore, when he’d won a hard-fought battle. As soon as he’s in view, Grizzly gets up from his chair, makes his way down the stairs, finds himself at the front door just in time to intercept him there, to pull him into a hug as soon as he steps through the door. 

     “Looks like you had a good time,” he says, before letting go of him. 

He’s sure there are others having far more heartfelt reunions, after the events of the night, but the two of them are still sort of outsiders in the whole thing, and aside from almost getting hit by lightning and temporarily losing the hearing he had left, he certainly hadn’t had all that rough of a night. Still, though, it feels right, to find him now that he’s back, to fall into step beside him as he starts up the stairs. 

       “I got to punch a 1920s mobster. What about you? Sword fight with anyone interesting?” 

[g-rzly]

darkxwing​:

They hold their breath as Grizzly takes over for the time being, hoping that somehow they can just talk the kid out of putting such a massive target on her back. For a moment they think they’ve lost her, especially since she immediately shoots down the one place they think she’d fit in best. But Grizzly manages to sway her it seems, as she pauses to actually think for a second just what they were saying here. 

“You got a deal,” they reply, once she’s given her set of conditions. They know they should probably ask Cat first before signing her up for such a meeting, but they know her well enough by now, that she’d be totally down to meet a fan of hers, especially when said fan’s claim to fame was blowing up the toilets at their school. 

“You better not pussy out on me, DW,” Replica cautions as she extends her hand out for them to shake, because clearly this deal wouldn’t be official without one. 

“I wouldn’t imagine it- here,” they start before grabbing their own phone. Moving so that Replica could see their screen, they shoot Cat a text about meeting up with the young would-be villain, before sending her a selfie of them and Replica together. 

Once it seems like everything was just about as smoothed over as they could make it, they look over to Grizzy and give him a small nod, letting him know they were ready to wrap this up if he was. 

“You be careful posting all that shit, yeah?” They turn back to Replica one last time before they head out. “You got the makings of fucking sweet future villain, but you gotta be smart about it.” 

Replica rolls her eyes at the comment, before giving him a salute in acknowledgement, a small grin tugging at her lips before as she replies with, “Yeah, yeah. I know. And don’t forget about this Catalyst thing, alright? It’s not a good look lyin’ to teenagers.” 

[g-rzly]

mcmic​:

Admittedly, he does feel a little shaken. The danger was never truly physical, no, that’s not where the feeling in the pit of his stomach has come from. Even if Grizzly and Geo Girl hadn’t been as efficient as they both were at dealing with Tempest, even if Grizzly hadn’t managed to get to them, and deal a more merciful blow to subdue them, Mimic knows logically that he could have managed it with his own powers, if it had come down to it. He’s glad it didn’t even if that’s the case, though, because he’s not sure he could have mentally handled having to deal with Tempest himself. Alone. There’s an odd feeling that’s settled in him now that their part of things is seemingly over. It feels invasive, wrong, to watch Tempest, now limp, passed from Grizzly to Geo Girl, as he gives her instructions on how to start back to the meetup point. It makes another image flash in his mind, seeing their lifeless body another time, doing what he could to try to resuscitate, perhaps not doing enough to make certain there wouldn’t be more blood on his hands, more death and pain caused for his selfishness. He had been too deep into things by the time he had gotten to Tempest, he had been careless, and they had suffered the consequences of that.

He has to tear his eyes away from them, as Geo Girl does finally leave with them in tow. It’s a small bit of peace, knowing that Grizzly was the one who managed to subdue them, that once Geo Girl brings them back to the spot, Lazarus will be able to give them real rest again, much more merciful than anything he could offer himself. But it doesn’t feel like enough. He’s all too aware that nothing could ever be enough to undo the harm he’s done, and perhaps it’s sign that he hadn’t truly changed over the past eight years that it’s taken him this long to fully admit to that guilt, even if only to himself.

Grizzly’s words make him frown, taking their meaning clearly enough, beyond just the physical, but down to the emotional strain of coming face to face with someone who was his victim, and not being able to offer anything to change or undo the harm done, much too late now. Unfortunately, as much as he knows he should be doing a good amount of self-reflection after this encounter, or at the very least take up Grizzly’s question as an opportunity to admit that perhaps he’s not completely alright, despite them all fairing well in the fight, there are other things to take care of before then. The first clearly being Doppelgänger’s apparently changing allegiances. 

It’s simpler than expected, really, but he has a strong feeling that they’re not the only one who might be thinking that this has gone much too far, if given the chance to step out of Judgement’s control. Grizzly answers their implicit question with ease, and while he’s not sure what the welcome will be in truth when they bring Doppelgänger back, the more people they can keep away from Judgement and Hourglass’s side of things, the better. 

“He’s right. You’ll have a few more of your friends staying in the same place, if all else has gone to plan. The story will be that we took you hostage,” Mimic says, although he doesn’t risk giving up identities now. That information seems to make the choice clear for Doppelgänger, though, understanding, then perhaps a hint of relief, knowing there’s a plan in place. He gives them a nod, before looking back at Grizzly again. “Yes, let’s get back. I’d rather not risk another run in just now…Thank you, Grizzly, for taking care of them. I don’t think I could have done it myself.” He reaches out briefly, squeezing Grizzly’s shoulder in thanks, despite not usually being one for physical touch, before he starts towards the door, more than ready to be done with this ordeal.

[g-rzly]

mcmic​:

Tempest’s focus immediately shifts to him from Geo Girl and Grizzly, and there’s a split second, when he finally comes face to face with them, when their eyes meet, that he worries he’s made the wrong choice by playing distraction here, that he should have just let them keep fighting, focused solely on convincing Doppelgänger to come with them willingly. It’s much too late for that thought, though, because as soon as they see him, the wind picks up, and they start hurling things at him, just nearly missing, Doppelgänger backing away from him, holding onto the doorframe to keep themself down.

And there is a sense of guilt there as he faces Tempest, even if it’s perhaps not exactly the sort of guilt that Doppelgänger seems to hope he’s feeling. Because he does regret what he did all of those years ago, the careless methods he took trying to collect and hoard powers that he hadn’t realized he could acquire without hurting anyone, without killing anyone. While he knows himself well enough to know that there’s no world in which he wouldn’t have gone after collecting those powers, he isn’t as cold-hearted as people believe, the harm he caused wasn’t out of malice, but greed, and while he knows that doesn’t change it, he does wish that he had realized sooner just how little his power required to mimic. 

So he allows their onslaught of attacks, creating another forcefield around himself to keep safe from the winds and the furniture being thrown around dodging when necessary to keep the invisible shield from wavering. He knows, in his mind logically, that they’re not able to think the way anyone else in this room can, that they’re operating on the commands of those who raised them, and perhaps pure animal instinct with the clear rage behind their attacks towards him, but looking at them directly, there’s the urge to try to offer an apology for things that no words could ever possibly heal, that nothing could change, even if by some twist of faith they were brought back fully as themself, not some no-minded undead soldier for egotistical plans and old, well-deserved vendettas. He wishes he could offer something to this husk of the old Tempest. But he’s well aware that in this state what they want is his death, that there are many, many people, the group of rouge villains included, who want the same, and that’s not something he’s willing to offer.

Still, he can’t keep himself from putting some of it to words, even as he notices Grizzly running at them, seizing the opportunity as he had hoped he would. “If I could undo all of the harm I caused, to you and to the others, I would do it, Tempest,” he calls over the chaos, the tornado speed winds, the banging of furniture being thrown around. And to admit that out loud feels important even just personally, even if Tempest themself is in no state to take those words and do what they will with them. The wind strengthens, though, and he thinks that’s something of a response, strong enough that the force starts to push him, too. Something keeps him from doing anything about it, though, perhaps a combination of curiosity and that guilt, to allow Tempest to get as far as they can with him before stepping in himself, banking on Grizzly managing it first, because it feels wrong to be the one to take them down again. They deserve mercy, and that can’t be dealt by the hands that set them up to be a victim of another horror.

He lets his forcefield down, just as the wind sends a stray chair hurling at him, ducking down to dodge it, keeping eye contact with Tempest, holding out for just a little longer. In the end, it’s the correct choice, as Grizzly makes it to Tempest and grabs them, managing to finally stun them with his gun, the wind ceasing immediately, everything falling to the floor. The sudden lack of force has him staggering, too, putting a hand on the wall behind him to keep himself steady, as a sense of relief that feels larger than just imminent danger being dealt with washes over him. No time to linger on that just now, though. He glances back at Doppelganger, who’s finally wearing their own face again, who still doesn’t seem intent on attacking, frown deep on their face.

“Do you want to come with us willingly, or do you want to continue the fighting?” he asks, although he thinks he knows the answer already just from the look on their face. Even if it wasn’t expressly apart of the mission, he has no intention of allowing any rouge villain he and Grizzly come in contact with to go back to Judgement and Hourglass. Luckily, it doesn’t seem they’re going to have to fight on this one. 

“It didn’t need to go this far…” they say, after a moment, shaking their head. And Mimic dares to reach out with his borrowed telepathy, just in case an extra push is needed to fight through Judgement’s own cloud of manipulated emotions, because he can still feel it there. But it seems to be waning. 

“I know it’s not my place to say it, but I agree. I don’t think causing more death and destruction is the solution to these problems,” Mimic says, before looking to Grizzly, and giving him a nod, as if to say they pose no danger to them now.

The second the wind dies down, the second Tempest is down for the count, it feels like the barometric pressure in the room stabilizes, and the cotton-feeling in his ear starts to ease, not all the way but enough let a little sound leak back in, and he breathes a sigh of relief. He holsters his gun again, and then picks Tempest’s limp body up, looking over at Geo Girl, who seems to have similarly recovered herself without the fucking hurricane force winds to contend with.

     “Can you carry them?” he asks here, nodding down to the body in his arms. “We’ve gotta get all of ‘em back, and there’s a zombie gangster in the hallway I need to pick up on the way back.” 

     “Um,” she starts, looking hesitant, but then she seems to steel herself, and nods. “Yeah, yeah of course. Where are we taking them?”

He passes the body over, quickly gives her directions to get back to the little home base Catalyst had set up, gives her a bare bones rundown of the plan—round the zombies up, everyone check in that they’re safe, all that stuff—before patting her on the shoulder and sending her on her way, and then turning his attention back to Mimic, crossing the room in a few quick strides to get to his side.

     “You alright over here, doc?” he asks, giving Mimic a once-over. He looks okay, doesn’t look injured in any way that will do any lasting damage. That force field thing seems to have done the trick again, keeping the worst of everything that Tempest was throwing at him from hitting its mark. But he doesn’t really mean physically. Because chairs and shit wasn’t all that Tempest was throwing at Mimic, he knows, given the brief explanation he’d given Grizzly as they walked into the room and saw them standing there. Whatever the full story is behind Mimic having killed Tempest, he can’t imagine that coming face to face with them again was easy. It sounds pretty fucking brutal. It sounds like a fucking nightmare he’s had, coming face to face with the zombified body of someone you killed. 

Before Mimic can answer, though, the other person over here—a shapeshifter, Grizzly has to guess, based on the fact that they were Catalyst a few minutes ago, and then Tempest, and now they’re someone totally different that he’s never seen before—speaks up. And Mimic seems to think they’re no danger, so Grizzly trusts that impulse, keeps his gun holstered and listens as they start to talk again

     “I don’t know where else to go,” they say, and they’re still looking to Mimic as they say it, but Grizzly shrugs.

     “Didn’t Catalyst say there’s some like... safehouse or something being set up? For the defectors? I’m sure she’d be happy to have you. Just come with us, we’ll figure it out.” He shrugs, at both of them, and then turns back to Mimic. “I’m gonna go pick up the gangster in the hallway. You ready to get out of here?” 

[g-rzly]

mcmic​:

Again, he finds himself grateful to have been paired with Grizzly of all people. There are very few others who he thinks would actually care to listen to his explanations, his plans for what’s to come, the way that Grizzly does, which isn’t a surprise, considering the very little he knows about him, but is still a comfort, as there’s no time for second-guessing, or in-fighting, when they’re faced with such a dire situation. Plan in place, at least as much as it can be when so much is unknown about what the situation is, beyond the very real need to subdue Tempest as quickly as possible, before they make the Tower even less stable than it already is, they both spring into action as planned.

As soon as the storm stops, his command calling on Dulce et Decorum’s power successful at least for the moment, he starts running towards Catalyst at the far end of the cafeteria, not paying any mind to Grizzly and Geo Girl for now, knowing that in this moment he needs to trust that they’ll be able to take care of Tempest as best they can, and focus on his own part in this. He does his best to stay to the side, step carefully, making sure not to slip in the puddles left behind from the storm, weaving around the furniture the wind has tossed, trying to make certain that Tempest doesn’t catch sight of him, not wanting to make this any more difficult than it already will be. 

As he approaches Catalyst, though, he can tell that something isn’t right. The way she looks at him, first in surprise, then something he can’t exactly read twisting on her face. He makes the active choice in this moment to attribute it to the stress of whatever it is that must have gone wrong to keep her here in the cafeteria, boxed in by Tempest’s storm, rather than back down in the basement at the core of the issue with the building. 

“What happened? How can I help?” he asks, as he comes up to her, immediately putting a hand to the wall next to her, to try to assess what it is she’s been dealing with on her own. But she’s not even touching the wall, doesn’t seem as concerned with that as he assumed she would be to be standing here. She simply looks at him for a second, before sneering.

“Oh? You want to help now? Is it because you’re finally starting to feel guilty, seeing Tempest here in their state?” she asks, tone so utterly unlike her it catches him off guard. The words sting, too, even if he’s well aware that it’s a fair assessment. It’s not something he would expect from her, though, given how well they’ve always gotten along, which is why it hits him differently.

It slowly dawns on him, though, just as a crash of thunder, and a flash of lighting shake the room signaling his command has worn off, that this isn’t Catalyst at all. All the more reason to work quickly to assess if they’re a threat here or not.

“Ah, I see,” he hums, taking a step back, before mimicking them, taking on the face that he can recall being their most common appearance when they were still at the manor as well. “I don’t need you to believe me. All I need to know is if you’re going to come with us willingly, or if I’m going to have to make you. You always struck me as someone to see logic. Certainly you realize that between Judgement and Hourglass you’re not exactly on the side of logic right now.”

Doppelgänger shifts, morphs into Tempest, as if to serve as a reminder of what’s happening just behind their backs, but even in the shift he can see a hint of recognition behind their eyes, even if it’s difficult to look at them in this form, difficult to stand face to face, back to back, with someone he killed. 

Before they answer, though, there’s another bolt of lightning, and he can’t help but look back around to see how things are going, which seems to be a bit rough, although both of them are at least still getting up to keep fighting. They need time, though, it seems, and even though Doppelgänger has a weapon, they haven’t raised it on him, which he has to bank on means they’re not a threat yet. 

“Think on it, on if you want to keep being used or not. If you do, feel free to try to shoot me while my back is turned,” Mimic says, before turning to the room at large, the fight happening. He drops the warp, becomes himself again as he raises his hands, although he doesn’t intend to do any harm this time, can’t bring himself to consider hurting Tempest, even if they’re already dead thanks to his hands once over. It feels like the right choice to give them an opening, play distraction for a moment and trust that Grizzly might find a way to take the opportunity. “Tempest. You’re focusing on the wrong people.”

Tempest doesn’t give them much time before they’re raising their arms, summoning the wind again, though thankfully this time no rain to accompany it. And wind he can handle, and apparently so can Geo Girl, both of them strong enough that the gale Tempest sends their way doesn’t knock either of them off their feet the way that it should. And the second Tempest lets up, he and Geo Girl seem to have the same though, both of them charging towards Tempest and taking advantage of the brief break in the wind to gain some ground—Geo Girl towards Tempest themself and Grizzly towards the gun that had been knocked from his grip several feet away from them. 

It’s disorienting, trying to navigate what’s happening without being able to hear any of it, though at least Geo Girl seems to have finally gotten the message that yelling at him isn’t going to do her any good and given up trying that tactic, instead communicating with a few mostly decipherable hand gestures — what he guesses is I’ll distract them so you can get a clear shot being the most important of them. He glances over to Mimic, who seems to be having some kind of conversation with the figure who was, a second ago, Catalyst, and is now no longer Catalyst but another version of Tempest, but all of that seems way above his pay grade at the moment, so he shrugs it off and charges for the gun.

The floor is slick, still from the earlier rain, and Tempest keeps summoning gusts of wind, most of them focused on blocking Geo Girl from getting close enough to hit them, so he has to be careful not to lose his footing. But he manages to reclaim the gun without too much trouble, taking cover behind a table that actually seems to be bolted to the floor and hasn’t been blown all over the place by Tempest’s storm.

He’s just getting a shot lined up, between Geo Girl’s dashing back and forth trying to get in past the barrier of wind Tempest has summoned—though he has his doubts about getting through that barrier, himself, even with a well-placed and well-timed shot—when Tempest suddenly seems to change their focus. 

They turn around completely, back to Geo Girl, as if they’ve forgotten she’s even there, and he can’t figure out what the fuck is happening until the wind starts to grow stronger, strong enough that even Geo Girl is having trouble keeping on her feet, and Tempest starts to move back towards the other side of the room—towards Mimic, and the other person he’s with, the tornado of wind swirling around them strong enough to pick up every piece of loose furniture in them wake, chairs and other debris whipping dangerously around them as they move determinedly forward.

And he doesn’t know what the fuck Mimic did to get their attention, but boy does it seem like a big fucking mistake. They’re on the warpath now, and he watches for a moment as a stay cafeteria tray is hurled towards Mimic with enough force to probably do some serious damage, just missing him as it whips past him, and Grizzly doesn’t have time to think about the best plan here, because now it’s time to act on sheer instinct.

He’s running almost before he realizes what he’s doing, and it’s probably a good thing Tempest is so focused on what they’re doing, because he can’t imagine he’s being quiet about it. But the first shot goes wide, its trajectory altered by the gusts of wind surrounding them, and he’s not going to be able to get a shot from this far, so he keeps running, pushing hard against the wind as it threatens to send him flying as well.

And he manages to do it, to catch them, to wrap an arm around them from behind so he can keep hold of them despite the wind, and put the gun directly against the back of their head, and shoot once, twice, until all at once the wind stops, the debris that was flying in it clattering to the ground, and Tempest, stunned, goes limp in his arms. 

[g-rzly]

mcmic​:

It always takes more concentration, and more effort to use two disparate powers at once, especially powers that are newer to him, those that he’s using on pure instinct of his own power, the innate ability for the basics, instead of something more refined, like those he’s possessed for years. But he’s confident in his ability to do so, nonetheless. Luckily, there’s only a finite amount of glass to shatter and turn to snow around them, and even as it stops raining down on them, Grizzly charges forward, and, with the expertise of only someone who’s been trained for years could manage, disarms one of Roulette’s guns, sliding it back towards him, before doing the same with the other. It’s a familiar gesture, but there’s no time to pinpoint exactly why it seems familiar. He simply kicks the guns into the nearest room, but keeps his focus on manipulating the probability. 

Luckily, the silent battle of odds seems to be more than enough to keep Roulette from being any real danger to Grizzly, considering his own powers, and he starts his own advance as he watches him take care of the old gangster easily enough with his super strength, the two well-placed punches enough to knock his lanky frame to the floor, unconscious. And before Mimic can even voice the concern, Grizzly takes care of it, hitting him with the stun ammunition, making certain he’s dealt with for now. 

Grizzly’s praise does bring a hint of a smile to his face, always a nice surprise when someone appreciates what he can do, instead of fears it. “Of course. And impressive punching, quite the hint,” he hums, finally coming to Grizzly, looking down at Roulette. The sudden sound of thunder nearby, though, makes him look up, immediately recognizing just what it means.

There’s a second of temptation, to just continue on without mentioning it, but it’s not fair for Grizzly to go in blind when it’s likely Mimic will need a bit of extra help in this fight, that it might end up targeted considering who they’ll be facing. He follows beside Grizzly as they approach the cafeteria, 

“Before we go in, you should know something. It sounds like we’re going to face Tempest,” he explains quietly, trying to keep his guard up nonetheless, even if it is important that Grizzly know what they’re potentially walking into. “I killed them. It wasn’t my intention, but that’s how things ended, in my selfishness. I have a strong feeling that, even in their undead form, they won’t be very pleased to see me…but I suppose none of the live villains we might find will be, either.”

He finishes as they make it to the doors to the cafeteria, one of which has been blown off of its hinges somehow, giving a better view of what’s going on inside. If the heavy rain blowing out into the hallway wasn’t enough along with the claps of thunder, the near tornado like gusts of wind tossing chairs and tables around the cafeteria are plenty. And there in the middle of the chaos is Tempest, facing down Geo Girl, who seems to be keeping up as best she can in the fight, but has clearly taken damage already. In the very back corner of the cafeteria against the wall, near another set of doors, he can just make out another figure but he can’t tell exactly who it is. 

As if answering his question, there’s another flash of lightning, and he can see the familiar blunt haircut, and suddenly he’s significantly more concerned than he was, Catalyst apparently somehow ending up keeping the building upright from the ground floor, instead of the basement. It doesn’t make sense, but there’s not time to dwell on it, they need to help.

“She’s not meant to be here…” he mutters, frowning, before looking back to Grizzly. “Something must have gone wrong, if Catalyst is here, instead of downstairs. I can help her keep things steady, if you can help Geo Girl take care of Tempest. I can stop them for a moment, but I have a suspicion their dislike of me might be strong enough to fight even Dulce et Decorum’s authority.”

Mimic gives Grizzly a nod, before stepping into the door way, raising an arm to keep the rain from his face, before commanding, shouting over the wind, “Stop the storm, Tempest.”

.

He listens to what Mimic tells him with focused intent, taking it in — and doesn’t ask questions, because there isn’t time for either of them to stand around and have story time when they’re in a collapsing building with a zombie creating a hurricane in the room next to them. He just files it away, takes note and plans accordingly, giving a nod to show Mimic he understands. He’s sure there’s a story there, but if he decides he cares when all of this is done, he can ask Mimic when there aren’t any lives on the line. He can keep Tempest away from Mimic and let Mimic do what he needs to do, regardless of the finer details. 

     “Got it,” he replies, as he looks inside, sees the chaos they’re about to walk into. He watches for a moment as Geo Girl gets hit with a flying chair and stands her ground, barely flinching at the impact. He’s heard about her: superhuman strength, impenetrable skin. It looks like she’s been weathering this storm for quite some time, holding strong against Tempest’s attacks, but the wind is keeping her at bay, stopping her from getting close enough to fight back, to do anything other than keep herself standing. 

Mimic might only be able to give them a moment, to get close enough to stop Tempest, but they’ll make the most they can out of it.

He watches as Mimic steps forward, shouts the command, watches the effect take hold of Tempest, their already dead eyes losing focus for a moment, their arms dropping as the wind slows to a stop, as the rain stops falling. And then, the second it seems safe, he charges in, towards them, shouting in Geo Girl’s direction as he goes.

     “This won’t last! Close distance while you can,” he barks at her, and her eyes go wide for a split second in confusion and surprise, before she nods, pushes aside some of the detritus of the cafeteria and begins moving in the same directions as him, across the wide room and towards Tempest. 

Grizzly reaches them a moment before Geo Girl does, using the momentum he’s built up to knock them to the ground. He wishes he knew how their powers worked, whether there was something they needed to do physically to summon them or if they’d still be able to use them restrained. The best he can hope for is to stun them before they’re able to regain focus. But for being undead, they’re quick to identify the threat he possesses, and shift their focus immediately to the gun in his hand, shifting out of the way underneath him as he fires at them and instead his the floor beneath them.

And Mimic’s hold on them doesn’t last long—or maybe the order wasn’t specific enough, because the storm doesn’t restart, but a bolt of lightning hits the ground next to them. It’s a small mercy that it doesn’t hit him, or Geo Girl, as neither of them seems to be electricity-proof, but the flash of light is bright enough to disorient him, and the boom of thunder on his right is loud enough to hurt. As he finds himself scrambling back away from the source of the light and the noise, he realizes that the noise of the chaos around him is muffled, distorted, hard to hear, his right ear ringing with a painful high-pitched noise that, with his left ear already long deaf, leaves him unable to hear anything going on around him. 

The first thing he notices, with the second flash of lightning, this one further from him but closer to Geo Girl, who is lying on the ground a few feet away, is that in the shock of it he’s dropped his stun gun. The second thing he notices is that Geo Girl doesn’t seem to be moving. And his brain is moving slower than it should, but it still only takes him a moment to realize that Geo Girl has been in here for who knows how long, costume and hair and everything soaked through from the torrential rain. And the floor is wet. And the lightning struck close enough to her that even if she didn’t get hit directly, it still shocked her.

Another bolt of lightning, this one closer to her. And, okay, fuck the gun, he’ll have to come back for it, he needs to get the kid out of the way now. 

He pushes himself to his feet, pushes past the unstable feeling of being off balance that the ringing in his ear is still causing, and rushes to her, putting himself between Tempest and her. She’s still breathing, which is good, and as he reaches for her she stirs, eyes opening.

       “You’ve got to get up,” he says, even though he can only hear the sound of his own voice through the vibrations the act sends through his own head. And she says something he can’t hear, but it seems like her words are probably slurred, because he can’t quite read her lips either. “I can’t hear you, but you’ve got to get up.”

He grabs her under the arms, helps her to her feet as quickly as he can. Gives her a quick once over for damage, and her impenetrable skin seems to have done the job: she seems disoriented, a little unsteady on her feet, but not terribly injured. Shaken more than anything. She could probably stay and help, but he wants to give her the opportunity to get out of here if she doesn’t feel up for it.

     “The hall between here and the entrance is clear,” he says, and it’s weird, not to hear the sound of his own voice as he talks. The ringing in his right ear has stopped, replaced with a cotton-stuffed feeling that he imagines can’t be good. If some zombie fuck makes him lose his hearing completely, he’s doing to be fucking pissed about it. 

She says something else he can’t hear, shakes her head. 

     “Still can’t hear you,” he says, just as another bolt of lightning hits, this one mercifully further away from the two of them. “But if you’re saying you want to stay and help, we need to get that gun and stun the shit out of them before they can do any more damage.” 

[g-rzly]

darkxwing​:

They have to bite their lip to hold back the laugh that threatens to spill out of them, when she chooses Kodiak of all names to bestow upon Grizzly. If her follower count was really what the mission file made it out to be, than they doubt this will be the last time anyone under the age of twenty shouts that name to him. 

Luckily though, Grizzly manages to convince Replica to put down her phone, that way they can finally get down to the business at hand. 

“You know what its about,” Dark Wing sighs, feeling like the mean old adult who ruined the kid’s fun, but they know it was needed here. She could get herself in some serious trouble throwing around the Collective’s name like she is, and they doubt the next people White sends her way will be as patient as they and Grizzly have been so far. 

They fix her a look then, trying to emulate every stern teacher or librarian they’d ever encountered in their life until finally she cuts the shit, and throws her hands up in surrender. 

“C’mon, you gotta admit, I seriously upped your guys’ street cred these last few months,” she chuckles. “The two of us were the only ones at our school who even followed some of you guys on Instagram. I’m pretty sure Daydreamer was the only one over five thousand followers before I came into the picture.” 

Not being on any kind of social media themself, they aren’t sure just how credible her claim is, but they could see what she was getting at. It still did nothing to change their mind though, that she shouldn’t be out there posting videos of her varying crimes then crediting the Collective as her home.

“You’re lucky you haven’t gotten yourself arrested yet,” they sigh, cringing at how grown up they sound. “You know they have teen villain organizations, right? There’s a reason why we belong to the Collective, other than cushy digs. They make sure we’re protected too- which right now you aren’t.”  

.

The kid looks visibly disappointed, as Dark Wing talks, genuinely fucking bummed, and it’s a little wild. He obviously doesn’t know what it’s like to be a teenager with super powers but he seriously doubts he would have spent his high school years idolizing super villains. Not because they were bad guys—hell, he joined the army when he was not much older than her, thought not because he respected military so much as it was just what kids like him with no prospects and no money did—but because he had a hard time imagining idolizing any adult at that age, even one like Dark Wing. 

     “Who, the fuckin’ Teen Terrors?” she answers, practically rolling her eyes. “They stopped being cool when Jetstream left. All the good villains are in the Collective, everybody knows that. No one takes the Terrors seriously, and every other group out there’s shit. Can’t I just be a Collective member? It’s not like I actually need to finish high school if I’m gonna be a super villain.”

Grizzly can’t help but snort at that. He’s really the wrong person to have been sent to talk this kid out of dropping out of high school, when he’d done the same thing. And he has a hunch Dark Wing didn’t make it to graduation either, if his best guess about how a kid with massive fuckin’ wings got bullied are anywhere near reality. 

     “You’re not getting an invite today, kid,” he says, instead of answering that. “Maybe in a couple of years. But not if you piss off our boss by lying about blowing up school toilets in the name of the Collective. You want to up your chances of joining up one day, you have to prove you know how to be smart about it, yeah?”

She seems to think about it for a second, and then looks up at the both of them, a look of resolution on her face.

      “Okay,” she says. “But only on one condition.” 

     “I wanna meet Catalyst.”

[g-rzly]

mcmic​:

Even he would admit that it’s a little satisfying to see that Grizzly seems a hint impressed with what he calls up, as it seems clear he had planned to duck into a room out of the line of fire, as any good solider would instinctually do. Mimic gives him a hint of a smile, as he shoulders his gun at the suggestion, and then cracks his knuckles. He’s as interested as seeing Grizzly’s strength in action, after all, as using his own abilities, knowing he might perhaps find another hint to lead to where his strength came from by seeing it in action. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not bulletproof, either, but if anything happens, I have a bit of healing somewhere in here to take care of us both,” Mimic assures him with a nod, tapping the side of his temple. He doesn’t plan on making that a necessity, but it’s a comfort to have in the arsenal, just in case something does go wrong, with so many unknown variables swirling around, and the odds currently stacked against them in favor of the undead gangster shooting at them. 

With the plan in place, though, he focuses on maintaining the forcefield as they start to advance forward down the hallway, watching closely as he can see the air waver where the bullets hit, as he can feel the pull of it, feel it weakening with every next hit. And it seems that this zombie version of the old Collective founder is intelligent enough to realize that his aim probability is going to waste all of his bullets before he can land a hit because of the forcefield. He stops shooting, simply looking at them as they continue towards him slowly, and Mimic knows full well he must be silently manipulating the odds of something else to try to take care of them instead. 

“In a moment, be prepared to go for him; I’ll have to let go of our shield, but no bullets will hit you,” he mutters to Grizzly, not certain just how much comprehension these undead might have. Even if he does understand, though, he doubts that Roulette might somehow know what his own strengths, or Grizzly’s are, which is one of several reasons he doesn’t explain exactly what he plans to Grizzly out loud. 

Sure enough, suddenly the bulbs of the emergency flood lights lining the halls, as well as the darkened fluorescent overheads start shattering one after the other, glass raining down on them. It takes him a second too long to shift his focus, to manipulate reality to turn the glass into snow falling over them in the now darkened hallway––no time to analyze why snow falling was the first instinct, likely thanks to something having to do with Daydreamer’s own warps–– and he feels a shard of glass cut his cheek, a few others hit his armor, slice through his gloves, but he ignores it, as he looks at Grizzly and nods, signaling that he’ll get him the rest of the way without getting hit.

As expected, Roulette uses that moment to start shooting again, but this time instead of a forcefield, he divides his attention, manipulating Grizzly’s odds to keep the bullets from hitting their target as the undead shoots at him. Probability against probability, though, has the bullets moving in odd, unnatural directions, ricocheting off doorframes, even in his certainty of holding on long enough for Grizzly to do just as they agreed. 

There’s something comforting, about this: about stepping back, out of his own head, and back into a long-ago learned pattern. When you walk into combat, you trust the man next to you, no personal feelings, not qualms, no hesitations. You trust him to have your back. He and Mimic seem to be operating under the same principles here, when it comes to that, and sure enough, when Mimic promises that none of the gangster zombie’s bullets are going to hit him, he means it: the forcefield drops, the glass some-fucking-how turns into snow, and when the zombie starts firing again, they keep the fuck out of Grizzly’s way.

It only takes a few seconds to close the distance when he doesn’t have to worry about getting hit, so he charges straight in, shoves the barrel of the gun to the side so Mimic won’t have to waste too much energy on whatever he’s doing to fuck with it, and twists it swiftly out of the zombie’s hands, flipping the safety off and sliding it back towards Mimic across the floor in one smooth gesture before wrestling the second gun of of the zombie’s other hand and disposing of that one in much the same way. 

And it seems like, in this close range, and without his guns, there isn’t much the fucker can do with however the hell his powers work. It takes one good right hook to the face to send him stumbling backwards, and a gut punch for good measure, both almost hard enough to splinter bone with the full force of Grizzly’s strength behind them, to knock him out cold. He slips his stun gun back from its holster and shoots him with it on the ground, just to make sure they won’t have to deal with him a second time, before turning back to Mimic.

     “Okay, doc,” he says. “That was sick as fuck. You’re gonna have to show me how you do that sometime, when we’re not, you know—” he gestures vaguely around at the collapsing tower around them and down at the stunned, zombified body on the floor. 

With the sound of gunfire now silenced, he can hear some kind of commotion further down the hallway, in what he’d guess is probably the cafeteria—what sounds like a clap of loud thunder, followed by a pained shout. 

Okay, he thinks. Deal with that, then come back and haul this zombie back to where Catalyst wants to round all of them up for Laz to take care of things. They can do that. This guy isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

      “This way,” he says, pointing in the direction of the sound, and then training his gun on the hallway ahead of them, in case any other fucking zombies want to jump out of the woodwork before they make it to whoever’s fighting in the cafeteria. 

[g-rzly]

mcmic​:

He knew that he could trust Catalyst not to put him in a position that would make it as likely that he may be shot with stun ammo, as he might be shot with any actual ammo the rouge villains might be using, but he appreciates it, nonetheless, that he’s been assigned Grizzly as his partner in this madness, instead of anyone else. In a way, he’s also pleased that something is happening, and others have made the decisions before he had time to do anything on his own about his part of this particular predicament. Yes, this isn’t necessarily how he would have chosen to go about things if he were doing it on his own, of course, but offering any little aid he can in the grand scheme of things feels like an obligation, as the cause of at least half of the initial unrest that lead them all to this apparently. And being asked to do so alongside someone who doesn’t think of him as more of a monster than Dr. Judgement, or any of the others for their parts, is a victory in his book.

Efficient is what he hypothesizes they’ll be, especially with no concern from Grizzly if he happens to mimic half the Collective’s powers to help them with whatever or whoever they run into on this half rescue, half clearing mission. He’s already prepared to aid Catalyst in keeping the building from collapsing in on itself, if need be, but for now he has a number of other abilities at the top of his mind, thoroughly planning on ignoring the weapon hanging at his side, useless compared to what he has at his disposal.

And he can’t help the little amused breath that escapes him as they move down the hallway towards their intended spot, as Grizzly asks a question thoroughly unrelated to the current circumstances. Everything is quiet for the time being, so he figures there’s no reason not to answer. “Plenty of guesses. Most of them hubris of man-related, although I’m certain it’s not your hubris. You seem like a fairly well-adjusted individual, unlike most of the people who end up in the Collective,” he remarks, drawing up a small ball of electricity, always a little fond of that particular act as the first ability besides his own he had acquired.

Before Grizzly has a chance to confirm or deny, though, a tall figure steps into the hallway from a room further down. Mimic doesn’t hesitate before sending the ball of electric energy hurling at the figure, aim perfect thanks to another of his powers. Except it doesn’t hit its target, the figure all too easily stepping just out of the way with no effort, the burst of energy instead hitting the wall in a shower of sparks, illuminating the man, his guns, and his hat. And Mimic instinctually throws up a forcefield, just as Roulette starts raining bullets on them, but he knows his own powers well enough, and has done enough reading up on the villains raised from their graves, to know he’s not enough of an expert as forcefield generation to keep it up for long against probability manipulation.  

“I’ve always hated probability calculation,” he says, looking over at Grizzly. “I can’t keep this shield up for long against him. Should we see how your strength fairs when the odds are working for both sides?”

Mimic is maybe the first person in... well, ever, that has considered him to be a well adjusted individual, which he thinks is pretty fucking funny, but then again, it’s a much different sample pool than he’s used to being compared against. You’ve got to be pretty fucked up to end up in a place like the Collective, most of the time, and he really does seem to be one of the more shockingly normal ones among the group. 

He’s just about to say something to that effect, and something along the lines of how, for a first guess, Mimic isn’t all that far off, though individual hubris isn’t really what’s behind it all, his or someone else’s. But before he can, they finally come face to face with what is, from the looks of him... such a stereotypical 1920s New York gangster that he looks like he stepped out of a movie screen and into the hallway, minus the part where he’s a fuckin’ zombie, and shooting multiple guns at them.

He’s about to duck out of the hallway and into cover through another door into an empty room when he sees the air waver in front of them and looks at Mimic, sees that he’s put some kind of forcefield up to stop the bullets from getting to them. And jeez, yeah, okay, if he can casually do shit like that, Grizzly’s not surprised that super strength was a little too run-of-the-mill to interest him.

He fights back the urge to dive out of the way as the bullets’ progress is halted and deflected by the forcefield in front of them, and forces himself to listen to what Mimic is saying. Probability. Okay, that’s pretty fucking far out of Grizzly’s depth, though apparently not entirely out of Mimic’s, but Mimic quickly suggests something that plays to both of their strengths, so Grizzly shoulders the stun gun, figuring it’s the less effective option here, and gives him a nod of agreement.

     “Might as well,” he answers, cracking his knuckles. “I’m not exactly bulletproof, but if you can get me within range of not getting shot, I’ll see what I can do.”

[g-rzly]

     ground floor of the tower, @mcmic

Something about this whole mission feels much more familiar to Grizzly than any of the other work he’s done since starting with the Collective. The whole plan, all of its tight interlocking pieces, set up to best prepare them all for whatever unknown they’re about to face—it reminds him almost viscerally of his days in the army, as does the heavy weight of the firearm in his hands, even if it’s loaded with stun ammo instead of lethal ammo. So he falls easily into the pattern, taking orders and following them, standing by as Catalyst checks in with Mimic for a moment before sending the two of them out and down the block to the tower under siege. 

The goal is pretty straightforward: keep the ground floor clear to make a path for those on the higher floors to get the fuck out of here as soon as they’re done their own little rescue missions and, if they can rescue anyone themselves, do it. It’s the kind of clarity he thrives on, so while for all intents and purposes he should probably feel something while walking into a skyscraper that already appears to be wobbling a little too close for comfort to collapsing, he doesn’t feel much besides the calm zen of the mission.

     “Any guesses?” he asks Mimic, as the two of them turn down a hallway in the direction of the cafeteria, away from the direction Reaper and Dulce et Decorum had gone moments before, and it’s clear from his tone that he doesn’t mean any guesses about what they’re about to face, but is instead referring to their previous conversation, a week or two ago, about Mimic’s attempt to uncover the source of Grizzly’s powers. 

It’s easy, casual conversation to make as they move down the long hallway — there are a few rooms off to the side here and there en route to the cafeteria, but he quickly looks in and clears them, all of them surprisingly empty as they go. 

[g-rzly]

darkxwing​:

They thank whatever gods are out there, that out of the numerous spots they could have scoped out, and the numerous teenagers they could have struck up a conversation with first, it was Replica’s best friend they managed to find. Or at least, according to the kid he’s her best friend, but no matter how close to the truth that was, the fact he knows of her means they were getting closer to finally tracking her down. 

“I totally know where she is,” the kid grins, “like I said I’m her PR person. She’s out filming behind the Save-on-Foods, I was just picking us up some iced coffee and timbits while she gets the gear set up. You guys can follow me there, I’m sure she won’t mind meeting fucking Dark Wing and…” the kid pauses as he looks over to Grizzly, clearly uncertain who in the hell he was, before adding, “and you!”  

With the plan seemingly set, Dark Wing orders themself a coffee, figuring when in Rome, before following the kid out of the coffee shop and towards the grocery store that fortunately wasn’t too far away. As they head there he blasts the both of them with question after question, eager to know everything from how their wings work, to if everyone has their own bathroom at the manor. Which they’ll hand it to him, they certainly were all the most important questions. 

When they finally reach the back of the store, they see Replica- all five current versions of her, as she’s performing some kind of dance routine in front of a phone on a tripod. The part of the routine they do see is pretty sick, they have to admit, considering the five performers were just one person, somehow being able to carry out a synchronized dance routine despite that fact. 

“Is she doing a live recording or…?” Dark Wing asks the kid next to them, just before one of Replica’s replicas spots them, and soon all five faces are staring in their direction before they all snap back into one. 

“Yooooo,” she blurts out to them before turning to the phone, and begins speaking to it, “guys, you won’t believe who has come to check out my next vid. I’ll give you two hints: they’re my second favorite villain- next to my villy, Cat of course, and always be drippin’ as fuck.” 

He follows after Dark Wing and the kid as they get their coffee and head to the grocery store he’d mentioned, a few steps behind, honestly a little bemused by the entire interaction. And that bewilderment only grows when he spots five identical copies of the same teenager doing some dance routine in the parking lot, then stopping, then turning to look at Dark Wing and letting out a string of entirely incomprehensible words that he genuinely cannot begin to figure out the meaning of. 

She begins to turn the camera on the two of them, and he instinctively puts his hand up between himself and the camera to block his face, but she goes on undeterred, keeps talking to the audience—live or otherwise—on the phone.

     “That’s right, you guessed it, it’s motherfuckin’ Dark Wing! Practically the sickest villain in history. And with them, no way, you’ll never believe—” 

She looks at him, for a second, and since her face isn’t on camera, he sees her let the persona drop for just a second as she tries to figure out who the fuck he is, and okay, he has to laugh at that, because there’s no reason she would know, but he has to hand it to her, she’s bold as hell, and keeps going right on as if she hadn’t paused.

     “The one, the only KODIAK!”

He shakes his head, still laughing. If that sticks he’s gonna be pissed, it’s a shitty fucking super villain name, but for having never seen him before, she got shockingly close to the real thing with her first guess.

     “Alright, alright,” he says, finally dropping his hand, still laughing slightly as he does. “You want to turn that thing off? We’ve got some Collective business we need to talk to you about.” He eyes the camera meaningfully, in case it is live, hoping the intentional vagueness here will endear her to them a little, make her more likely to listen. And sure enough, after a moment, she concedes, giving a last few parting words to her audience before tapping the phone screen and then slipping it into your pocket. 

     “When you say ‘Collective business,’ what are we talking here?”

.

[g-rzly]

mcmic​:

Grizzly seems a little impressed with his ability, and that makes him smirk just slightly. It’s nice to be acknowledged, every now and then, and it’s a rarity for it to happen in the manor, no surprises there. Most people seem more annoyed than impressed by the empathic replication part of his abilities, which he understands, but does get tiring sometimes, when there’s no arguing how extremely useful it is, especially out in the field. 

With that, though comes the clear indication that he’s not going to simply tell him, that he wants this to be a guessing game. And while he could easily find the truth in his mind with his own powers, he has no intention of doing that, either. Even with everything going on around them, the dire situation that he seemed to topple the first domino for nearly a decade ago, he’s never one to deny his curiosity. Having something a little more mundane to work on in the moments between, or when a pause is needed from that, and from the situation with Sebastian and Hyde, is welcome, especially if Grizzly is amused enough by it, too.

“I appreciate your certainty in my abilities, even though we only met moments ago,” he says, clearly amused by the prospects of this guessing game. “It’s only fair for me to promise not to use any telepathy to find the answers myself, in that case.”

Mimc regards him for a moment, as if he might find some clue about what it is that caused these manmade powers by simply looking at him. Of course, that’s not the case. It’s tempting to do a bit of verbal dissection, see how much he might tell him about his past to give him a hint, but he likes the idea of this being something he has to get more creative with, at least to start. He’s sure there’s plenty of gossip already around the manor, as there always is with new members, he just needs to listen. “Alright, you have yourself a game, then. I’m certain I’ll come find you later with my first guess,” Mimic says, taking a step back towards the door. “It’s been nice to meet you, Grizzly.”

[g-rzly]

darkxwing​:

They cringe when they hear the kid call out to them, they weren’t a high enough tier to be a household name quite yet, but for those who were into the villain thing, they had a bit of a cult following. Ordinarily they wouldn’t have minded the attention, this time though they wish they at least threw a beanie on to cover their hair, in case this might derail their investigation. 

“Yeah, sure thing,” they say to the kid, never being able to turn down someone who just genuinely thought they were cool. When he does find his phone, they pull their usual fan picture pose, which was throwing up the devil horns hand sign, and sticking their tongue out like they were backstage at a rock concert, instead of out front a Tim Horton’s. 

“Cat is pretty dope, so I can’t trash your friend’s taste there,” they say after the picture is taken. Even though they were nervous to draw too much attention to themself, they figure they might try to use the young fan to their advantage, and see if he knew anything about Replica. 

“I hear though, you guys got your own Collective member hanging around here- Replica I think she goes by,” they add casually, trying not to scare the kid off in case the secret of Replica’s identity was a well guarded one around there. “I’ve seen a few of her videos, she seems like the real deal.” 

The kid flips through the pictures on his phone as Dark Wing talks, like he’s trying to make sure he got a good enough photo to be satisfied with it before he lets Dark Wing get too far out of reach. And then he slips his phone back into his pocket, seemingly satisfied, just a moment before his eyes go wide at the mention of Replica.

     “Holy shit,” he says, looking a little awed, about as over-excited as a hyperactive golden retriever puppy chasing its own tail. “You’ve seen her videos, then? Fuck, she’s gonna lose her shit when she finds out that Dark Wing knows who she is.”

     “So you know her?” Grizzly asks, trying to steer him back in track into giving them information that will actually help them find her, instead of just hearing this kid ramble on for a while. It could be that he just knows of her, but he makes it sound like he knows her pretty well, which could be promising if he’ll actually spit it out.

     “Yeah, she’s— my best friend that I just mentioned. That’s her. Replica. Holy shit, dude, I’m kind of her PR person, you know? So, like... wow, I mean, I knew I was good, but I didn’t realize I was this good. Which video did you see? Was it the one with the billboards? I told her that was gonna be the one that did it.”

Grizzly looks over at Dark Wing. raising his eyebrows at them behind the kid’s back. He hates to look a gift horse in the mouth, but god this kid is annoying.

     “Uhh, no,” he says, trying to summon to memory any of the several short videos Daydreamer had made him watch before he left. “It was the, uh, toilets? That’s how we figured we’d find her here. Any chance she’s around? We’d love to hear how she did it.” 

[g-rzly]

mcmic​:

“Oh no, I tried that once, it doesn’t work like that luckily,” he says, giving him a hint of a smile, only half joking, although the truth of the matter isn’t something he likes to linger on, one several real regrets, the guilt, in what he had done on his tour of powers. Desperation was enough to make even him push past logic to extremes, and that’s not a place he ever wants to find himself in again. “You won’t even notice, it’s innate understanding, and you’ll still be just as strong afterward.”

The convenient thing about powers like his, even if it isn’t precisely original, is that those that are just as innate as his own aptitude are simpler to mimic, when it’s possible. He’s not certain of the parameters of Grizzly’s superstrength, but from the little he had observed and felt in that observation, it seemed standard, the sort of thing that is just a constant, not something that has to be called up, unlike many of the villains in the manor, and heroes they fight. Those he needs to witness to mimic, but something as innate as strength he can reach out and take by simply looking at the other person, although seeing it in action is, of course, usually the way it happens anyway.

But here, he doesn’t waste time, having been given permission from Grizzly to try to do so. There’s no noticeable difference as he looks at him, but Mimic can tell immediately that it’s not working, the usual feeling of that innate understanding not rising to the surface as it should be when calling on someone else’s power. After that, he does make the effort to push further, calls on some of the mimicked telepathy to skim the surface. It would be simple to push, to find the truth behind the powers, but he doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore, doesn’t use his mimicked abilities on those in the Collective unless there’s an agreement in place. And no surprise, it doesn’t help in the least, still unable to find a way to grab hold of his strength and take it for himself, but something about it does feel familiar, although he can’t put his finger on why.

“Hm, as expected, I can’t mimic them,” he says, looking back at him with interest. “So they are manmade, then. Should I start my guessing as to how you came to possess them now, or have I interrupted your workout for long enough already?”

.

It’s honestly a little impressive—not whatever Mimic does, which seems completely internal, has no showy superpower-y visible effect to however he does it, but how little time it takes him to pinpoint what Grizzly already knows and has been keeping back from him. So they are manmade, Mimic says, and he’s right, and Grizzly suddenly finds himself thinking of release forms, of blood tests, a strange kind of sense memory of things he doesn’t think much about, anymore, and hasn’t in a while.

     “You’re one for one so far, Doc,” he answers, giving him an impressed nod. “I’ll bet you could guess it if you gave it a shot.” 

And in the exact moment he says it, he also knows instinctively that he’s never going to just tell Mimic where his powers came from. Because oh, now it feels like a game. He’s always liked making people prove themselves, a little bit, a competitive edge to him that doesn’t so much like winning as it likes being beat, likes provoking other people into winning, stoking their competitive edges. Sure, this is different than a fight in the ring, but Mimic’s made this a challenge for himself, and Grizzly wants nothing more than to indulge. 

     “I think I should hit the showers, grab something to eat,” he says. “But when you come up with a guess you think is right, you come find me and I’ll let you know how close you are. Play a little hot and cold.”

[g-rzly]

blxckpaladin​:

Pax considers drawing this out, lingering in the moment, pulling Grizzly back down to kiss him messy and dirty again. And the second he considers it, he follows through, tugs a hand free from Grizzly’s grip to wind fingers into his hair and pull him down. His grip is firm, everything about him wanting and a little demanding when he pulls Grizzly to him, kisses him like he’s fighting again, like he knows that at the end of the day he’s going to win.

He’s so glad, distantly, that they both ended up here. He’s liked the Collective, but it was easy to feel like an outsider, like he was the only person in the whole team who didn’t have someone else to hold on to. But now he does, he has Grizzly. Someone who knows him, from before. Someone who it’s easy to talk to, easy to banter with. Even easier to kiss, and feel like the whole thing could consume him. Whatever brought Grizzly to the Collective, whoever gave him the idea to run away and end up here, Pax woudl like to give them a gift basket, to name his first born son after them, send them a card for every holiday. 

He enjoys the kiss, the feeling of it, the growing intensity. And getting to touch Grizzly, too. A hand in his hair, skimming down to rest at the back of his neck while they kiss. The other hand is still pinned there by Grizzly, against the floor. It’s the best of both worlds, everything he could ever want. He pulls back though, slightly. He wants more, he wants somewhere private, he wants to be able to do every filthy thing he’s been imagining since the day that he met Grizzly. He wants to take Grizzly by the hand and drag him upstairs, kick that blond haired pretty boy out of his room and push him back on the bed. So he shifts, pulls away enough to talk,  scattering words between lighter kisses. “How do you feel about bedrooms?”