15491/IT'S A TRAP!

IT'S A TRAP!
Date of Scene:	30 July 2023
Location:	Main Room - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Terry comes back to the tower with a bad case of the glows, and a rude missive from beyond the grave. Shenanigans ensue.
Cast of Characters:	Terry O'Neil, Yaretzi Acama, Rachel Roth, Kaida Connolly

---

Terry O'Neil has posed:
It is a quiet Saturday night at the Titan enclave, the to-

"RAAAAVEEEN!"

... the Tower is surprisingly mellow for a Saturday ni-

"RAAAE-VEEEN!"

You could practically hear a PIN dro-

"RAE! ARE YOU HERE?"

Sigh.

The Cheshire cat has a problem. Admittedly, that seems to be part and parcel of his raison d'etre, his existential quandary and the baseline radiation of his life. However, this time, that seems to be amplified tonight. Vorpal walks into the living room, positively glowing.

This is not to say that he is so happy that he figuratively glows, but rather that he /is/ glowing. Visibly. Palpably. Brightly. And he is glowing bright green, which isn't a color usually associated with his own brand of magic. "Has anyone seen Rae?" he calls as he arrives at the living room, his bare feet leaving green, glowing paw-prints as he walks. They vanish after a few seconds, but the important thing is that they are /there/ in the first place.

"I'm having... some difficulties."

Yaretzi Acama has posed:
Golden Eagle was shown to the room earlier in the day, being as it's her most recent visit to the Tower. She's been hanging out, having made the excuse to her parents that she was visiting a library here in Metropolis for the day, just hoping she'll get a chance to meet with other members of the team. She's been waiting all of about fifteen minutes, watching some show or another on the big screen, when... a felinoid walks in, glowing, leaving glowing footprints...

Golden Eagle can't help but just stare from where she sits on the big sofa, eyes wide.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven is not to be found in the main room.

    However, her presence is the Tower's presence, so woven is her magic and her soul-self within its walls that she can hear the cat's yowling from the shared room of herself and Troia.

    It causes a physical cringe.

    The second call is not so dramatic in its effect, but she has begun debating whether or not she should heed it.

    For a while, the debate is firmly in the realm of leaving Terry there and perhaps exploring Gotham, or Metropolis, or paying her father a visit. Temporarily, all better options.

    Instead, after a palpable wait, Raven arrives in the main room, a swirl of paradoxically visible nothingness from which she steps appearing in the air. Her hands are in the pockets of her hooded sweater. Her face has the typical disaffected neutrality, but there is a... Discernable air of distaste.

    As if, despite the lack of visible emotion, it is still easy to tell that Raven is, to put it mildly, displeased.

    "I'm here, Vorpal. You stay /exactly/ in that spot. Not another step."

Kaida Connolly has posed:
    Frankly, it's rather unusual thing to see. Terry all glowing and stuff. I mean, that's saying a lot for Terry. He's usually unusual which is the usual course of things. That being said, he's rather unusually usual right now and the usualness of things definitely makes things seem not so usual. Now, what might be unusual to some is that there's a mouse on the ceiling but to most it's not unusual. Not in Titan's tower. A mouse on the ceiling is the usual course of things as is the usual nature of one Rachel Roth not wanting to be usually here and usually instead in her room by herself.

    Frankly, this whole situation is usually unusual. Usually.

    "Ya know." A crunching sound as Kaida bites into the chip she's holding upside down on the ceiling, "This is unusual even for you, Terry. Hi, Rae!"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal first stares at Golden Eagle, and gulps. "Er... so-orry... I didn't know one of our prospects was... visiting." This is why we can't keep them, Terry. Wiccan still hasn't been seen. "Hello! I'm Vorpal! Um... er, does anyone know where r-"

Rae.

Vorpal doesn't move. Not one muscle. Not an eyelash. He stays exactly in the spot. But he does take time to acknowledge Kaida's observation.

"That's because I got cursed. Or hexed. Remember that... spirit or whatever it was that got released at the museum, Rae?" the cat says, looking up at the sorceress. This time, he can't be blamed. Can he? It wasn't his fault!

Was it.

Yaretzi Acama has posed:
Golden Eagle's eyes stay wide as Raven makes her appearance... and then she looks up when she hears the voice above her. It actually doesn't take her long at all to spot the tiny person up on the ceiling. Still, it might be understating it a bit to say she looks surprised. This girl has *no* poker face whatsoever, it seems like. She doesn't say a thing, just staring at each Titan in turn... though her eyes go back to the glowing felinoid whose appearance first made her look so shocked.

At least she's not hanging her mouth open.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven stands there impassively.

    Were this some couple hundred years ago, give or take, a tumbleweed would be rolling through the room. Raven would not have hesitated to shoot Terry. All would be well. Instead, we have a staredown in the modern era, where Raven cannot commit the murder she wishes to. In silence, she allows Terry to freeze uncomfortably for longer than it should take.

    Even as he explains, she says nothing. She is a statue, cut of marble and curt displeasure. "And how, pray tell, did you get cursed by the spirit from the museum? What were you doing that caused this?"

    She has already blamed Terry.

Kaida Connolly has posed:
    "Hey hey now, I'm kinda with Rae on this one." She points at Terry and nods her head, "I mean, getting cursed doesn't just happen. Ya gotta be messing with stuff to get cursed. Like, you gotta steal a slab or something and then a mummy shows up in a fog and starts declaring, 'Return the slab!' at you." She nods her head.

    "Oh and hi!" Kaida waves at Golden Eagle and then finishes off the chip she had.

Yaretzi Acama has posed:
Golden Eagle still sits there, eyes wide, but she hears the greeting from overhead and looks back up at Kaida. "Uh... hi", she says, after a moment, lifting a hand to waggle her fingers. She puts her hand back down into her lap and looks over at Raven, then at Vorpal... back and forth. She seems to be a little less 'surprised', now, than simply watching to see what happens.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"... Rae, please, not in front of the children," Vorpal says, trying to lighten the mood. It goes as well as you might imagine. So he simply sighs.

"Well, that thing apparently took a liking to you. She said something in German. YOU knew what it was." Raven spoke German, apparently. He didn't. Or maybe she claims to speak German just to screw with Terry.

"Well. There was a parcel that got delivered to the Library today. Funny thing is the handwriting was all... squiggly. But that's what Gar's handwriting looks like. You know. Like a murder scene. So I thought 'oh, how sweet, my boy sent me something at work.'"

He gives Rae a deadpan stare. "Only it /wasn't/. And long story short..." he clears his throat. "There's a poltergeist at the Themysciran Center library. And it cursed me. And she said I should say something to you. It was in German. And I am not going to repeat it because I don't want to die... but..." he gestures to himself. "She also did this and-"

Suddenly, a blast of green light shoots from his aura. It hits a chair.

That chair begins to move across the room, seemingly without anything else moving it.

"Yeah. That."

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven maligns Terry with her gaze for some time, before letting out this long, exhasperated sigh. Her shoulders slump, and she watches the unintended vanadlism with a small twitch in her left eye.

    "So you got a package at work, that you couldn't identify, that kind of looked like it was sent by Beast Boy, or a Doctor, at the Themysciran Embassy. You were not expecting this package. You did not think for a moment that it could have been a bomb, or suspect ill of it in any fashion. In this moment of blissful ignorance, you were cursed by this specter. Have I recounted events accurately?"

    This is not something she needs to do, but something she feels that she /must/ do. Terry needs to understand where things went wrong.

    "Now you need to deliver a message, you are breaking things around you, you are glowing green and trailing green footprints, and before I teleport you out of the Tower, you have either forgotten or cannot bring yourself to repeat the message that you were sent to give?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal sighs. "Rae, c'mon. The center scans packages for bombs before bringing them in. I am not a /complete/ idiot. And besides, with the proposal thing and all, you have to admit my scenario is plausible."

Here it comes. "Well... the package had... a thing. It looked like an old compass. I guess that's what /she/ inhabited after you ran her out." There is no way to beat around the bush. He rolls his eyes and, in a rather terrible attempt to pronounce the message, he says: "She said... er... 'Kommen Sie, Du Stinkstiefel Kotzbrockenooc' ... or something like that."

He crackles again. This time, the remote. It starts switching through channels.

"... can I please get unhexed? And will you help me kick it out of the library? Diana is going to be miffed..."

Kaida Connolly has posed:
    Through an act of sheer speed, Kaida has another chip from a bag that was on the counter nearby. She lept down, got the chip, lept back up and was eating it rather quickly. Still, she was listening and she shakes her head as she watches a chair go flying, "Alright, that's enough for me. Clearly this isn't something I can help with and I don't wanna dodge chairs." She then considers, "Or be used as a weapon."

    "So, because of that I'm leaving. All I know is it sounds like Terry is trying to blame you, Rae." She shrugs, "Just saying..." And with that she zips out.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raising a single brow, Raven slips her hands out of her pockets. "Well." she begins, "I am not going to unhex you in the tower. I would rather not do any more to bring the spirit here than you have already done. Instead, I am going to take you back to the library. I will have Cyborg prepare an informational pamphlet on what a phone is, for your reference the next time you've angered the otherworldly."

    One could argue that Terry does know how to use a phone, but one cannot argue that he will not anger the otherworldly another time.

    "Rabbit Hole back. I'll follow. The spirit is trying to be cute. I am not happy with the idea."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal sighs. "I'm sorry, Rae, Kaida's right." he says. "... I guess I am a little sleep deprived. Between the wedding and the opening of the library, I haven't been getting as much sleep as I should. I got careless. It won't happen again."

He opens the Rabbit Hole to the library and shudders. He knows what can happen with ghostly apparitions and libraries. He's seen Ghostbusters.

He knows that Rae has respect for the content of the Themysciran archives not to do something drastic. But the polter? Well, that's another thing altogether.

And, he suspects, he is the one who is going to end up getting slimed at the end of the night.

As he walks towards the Rabbit Hole, he asks, "So, what /did/ she say?"

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven slides her hands into the pockets of her hoodie. She offers a sigh, and there's a moment where she looks like she might continue the barrage, but instead she offers some sympathy. "Don't beat yourself up. It's a simple mistake. You just need to be a little more careful when you're as public as you are."

    Then, she starts summoning up the shadows that will transport her to the library. As she does, she looks to Terry for a moment. "She wants me to come to her, as well as some pejoratives. So, congratulations. We're walking into a trap."

    Then, she's gone.