16434/Sage Patrol

Sage Patrol
Date of Scene:	28 November 2023
Location:	17 Halloway st, New Jersey
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	Casey Brinke, Kay Challis, Larry Trainor

---

Casey Brinke has posed:
Kids riding on bikes tossing newspapers badly at mailboxes. Birds chirping in the trees. Orderly front lawns. It's suburbia in New Jersey. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Solar panels on the roofs tell a story of changing times and electric cars parked in drive ways plugged in to an open garage socket tell a story of low crime.

The Doom Patrol Van is the most conspicuous thing here. Casey puts it in park and leans back over the chair to look at Jane and Larry. "We're here. 17 Halloway st, New Jersey. Home of one Wally Sage, writer of some comic the chief thinks is important."

A wink. She gave a wink. "Doom Patrol is on the case." And she punned. If only that cheerful attitude could be turned down a million levels. Seat belt off, she pulls the lever to open the door, "Thank you for flying Air Case."

Kay Challis has posed:
    "If we were on the Case you'd be having a lot more trouble standing up," Jane says. "Especially with Larry's fat ass. No offense, Larry." It's definitely Jane again, Penny wouldn't dare say something like that. "So what is it we're doing here again? Kicking some comic book writer's ass?"

    Jane grabs a leather jacket that has seen better days from the seat beside her and slips it on before getting up from her seat and making her way to the door of the bus just behind Casey. "Kick the door in, punch him in the face, get the fuck out, is that the plan? Because it doesn't seem like the kind of plan we'd have. Normally we ask questions first, and then only punch them in the face if they deserve it. You're kinda bloodthirsty, Case. Larry could talk to the guy, he's good at doing that. Larry, you could talk to the guy, right? Ask him why he's drawing comics that are... doing whatever it that we've got a problem with them doing."

    It's possible that Jane has only been half paying attention to what this mission is actually about. "Coming to life, right? That was it. There was something about some comic book villain who was trying to become real by getting superheroes to take him seriously, and... fuck. Fucking fuck. Aren't we doing exactly that right now? Wouldn't we be a whole lot better off just staying at home, in that case, Case?"

Larry Trainor has posed:
"Excuse me?" Larry's voice is muffled by the bandages, but the sharp tone pierces through without issue. "My ass is not fat." He's wearing his bomber jacket- in fact, he seldom takes it off, even in Summer. It feels like an extra layer of protection that he carries around, silly though it might seem. Protection for /whom/, though? "I'm in exactly the same shape I was when I was flying."

He is the last one out of the bus, and he goes through a cursory check to ensure his goggles haven't slipped a little (they never do) and that everything is still perfectly covered (it always is), before finally straightening his bomber jacket and hooking his fingers under either side at chest level.

"We're aiming to not have violence be the first course of action here," he says, giving Jane a pointed goggle-look, following by a sigh. "Well. I would like to think that taking the creator seriously isn't the same as taking his creation seriously. But I guess we're going to find out, no?" He glances at the houses. "17 Halloway. That's... that one."

He speaks as if though he expects the naming of the address be enough to cause forward momentum. Ideally, with others first. But he knows Jane- letting her be the first is usually a bad idea. He takes a step forward. "Right, let's do this."

Casey Brinke has posed:
Casey double takes at Jane's suggestion that she wants to go in punching things. "But I..." There's really no use arguing with it. Jane is talking too fast to interject and who is she trying to make understand. Her hands go to her hips and she grins. "Jane you are a rascal."

Her nose crinkles with affection like she just saw a cute puppy or a cat's toe beans. "I still don't understand what any of this has to do with my father. But if somehow he's trying to use evil comic book characters to take over the past then we have to stop him."

She looks back at the bus, "Or it could be two totally different unrelated problems." Regardless, she moves after the other two towards the house.

Normally in these unnormal circumstances the person has already rushed to the door. Or there's a security camera and an ominous voice. But this is just a regular wooden door with the number 17 in gold plated steel letters screwed in. There is, however, a more than usual amount of mail piled up at the front of the door.

"Perhaps we should kno-" Casey begins to say as the door cracks open and a man peeks through the gap.

"Doooom Patrol," he says in hushed tones and shuts the door with a thunk.

"... that seemed a little odd. But he knows who you two are at least." It's hard to mistake Larry for anyone else if you know of the Doom Patrol. Jane could pass for any foul mouthed youth and Casey. Well, she's in the back.

"What did the chief think we'd find talking to this guy?" Casey is still trying to follow the logic on this one. "This guy wrote a comic and an evil character from it is trying to break in to reality? may be there is a connection here after all."

Kay Challis has posed:
"Jesus donkey-fucking Christ, Larry. It was a joke." Jane glares slightly back at the goggles. "I even said no offense. That means you're not supposed to take offense. You should pay more attention. I'm a rascal, that's all. You heard Casey."

    Fortunately Casey is driving, and therefore closest to the door. This forestalls any danger of Jane being first, and she doesn't seem to be in any particular mood to change that. As Larry knows and Casey will no doubt come to learn quite quickly, Jane is prone to bulling her way through situations out of a desire to get things done quickly so she can go home, and this often turns out badly. However this usually doesn't happen until she gets frustrated or bored or there's something on television she didn't want to miss, which happens a lot less these days since Chief gave in and got a number of streaming services for the manor.

    "It's not the past," Jane corrects Casey. "It's the present. I thought your father /was/ the evil comic book character? I mean he sure looked like one when he was drawn on that wall earlier. Maybe he got turned into a comic book character by this asshole who lives here, and he's met up with some other evil comic book character who is trying to become real, and they've teamed up so that he can become a real boy again too. Comic book characters are always teaming up, it's kinda what they do."

    Comic book artist / writer guy slamming the door seems to Jane like the kind of thing that is going to slow down the mission, and that's exactly the kind of provocation that encourages bulling. Not too much though, she's still going to knock.

    "Hey, fucknuts!" Jane calls in as she raps loudly at the door. "We didn't come here to admire your door, open the fuck up! We need to talk to you."

Larry Trainor has posed:
"And the way you deal with rascals is that you never do what they expect you to do, Jane. This isn't my first rodeo." Is that a smile in his voice? Well, it's hard to tell, what with the bandages and all.

Larry considers some of the pieces currently in play. Space Case, who is still an unknown quantity. Crazy Jane, who was many known quantities and a few still-unknown ones. Larry- he's just this guy. Their quarr-pre-subject has closed their door on them, creating an obstacle, making them very aware that he's aware of them, and therefore making them aware that he's aware that they're aware, and everybody's aware of it by this point. Larry is also aware of the fact that Jane's annoyance counter is going up.

This is a perfect moment to see how Space Case will react, as Jane begins to to react, and therefore his choice is simple: not to react. For now, at least, outside of crossing his arms and letting out a quiet 'huh'- as in 'huh, well, how about that?'

And, of course, observe.

Casey Brinke has posed:
Casey raises an eyebrow at Jane's curious vernacular. "That's.. just how my father looks. But something _is_ afoot," she states and then places a hand on Jane's shoulder to shuffle past Larry and Jane to the door. Opening up a pouch on her belt she takes out a small blue blob and presses it to the key hole.

The blue blob oozes in to the door lock and after a moment there's a ~click~ of the door unlocking. The blob oozes back out and she puts it back in to the pouch. "May be he's in trouble, or is the trouble, or confused. It's not trespassing if you're concerned for their wellbeing."

She turns the handle and opens up the door in to the three bedroom abode. The front door reveals a hallway which is covered in scribblings, paint. Some of it old, some of it fresh. Paint has splattered in to the carpet ruining it too.

There's two bowls in the floor - one with rotten food in it and the other with tepid water. A muffled voice calls out from a room farther away, "Go away!"

"Mr. Sage we just want to ask you a few questions," Casey says and takes a few more steps in to the place. Her eyes scanning from door way to doorway like she's expecting aliens to suddenly attack at any moment. With hand motions like she's on a swat team she indicators for one to go left in to the living room, one to go right in to the kitchen, while she moves forward toward the bedroom. Her foot steps are light and she calls out again, "We're not here to cause you any trouble Mr. Sage."

Kay Challis has posed:
    "Your dad looks like a drawing of some ugly-ass blue goblin dude?" Jane asks Casey, somewhat disbelievingly. "I mean like not just an ugly-ass blue goblin dude, but a drawing of one? Because that makes it sound like he may have been a comic book character all along. I'm kinda surprised you wouldn't have noticed, but maybe you were just too happy you inherited your looks from your mom instead not to think to much about it. I can get that."

    "Hey comic book dude!" Jane calls out as she strides rapidly towards the bedroom, entirely ignoring Casey's hand signals implying she should check out the kitchen instead. She has no interest in the kitchen. "We need to ask you some questions, that's all. Nothing to be scared of, just give us a few minutes of your time and then you can go back to wallowing in your own filth. No judgement! All you gotta do is talk to Larry a bit and we'll leave you alone."

    Jane signals to Larry, with much less subtle hand gestures than Casey's. "Larry! Come speak to this asshole so we can go home and leave him wallowing in his own filth."

Larry Trainor has posed:
Now Larry moves, taking the lead and making a beeline for the bedroom, trampling over everything that might be in his way- including Casey's carefully-laid-out plans. This is lesson one of working with Jane. Lesson two is that Jane taking the lead in any social interaction is an excellent way of making the alternative, no matter who it is most of the time, seem infinitely preferable.

"Mr. Sage," Larry says in his most pleasant voice, hands in his bomber jacket's pockets as he approaches, "We really only need to ask you a few questions. It's in your best interest to consider them. Otherwise I'm afraid my friend here will want to explain why they are important. Repeatedly. You won't have time to get anything done today. So let's just have a little talk-"

Boldly going to the bedroom which, from the state of the room, he is sure it is where no mop has gone before, he prepares for the worst.

Casey Brinke has posed:
No one has cleaned up in here in a while. The walls here too, once wallpapered, are now ruined. Clothes everywhere. The bed isn't made - instead a blanket fort of sorts behind the bed is where Wally Sage is hiding. He peeks out from his protective fort, sees them, then ducks back in. "Stay back!"

Casey is a little surprised as first Jane, then Larry, move on toward the bedroom. So much so she steps out of the way by stepping in to the study. She begins to look over the sketches she finds there - sketches of.. her? They're in various states of finish. This is the second time someone has drawn her in recent weeks.

"If he hears you he'll kill you!" mutters Wally. But since these people are clearly not going to go away he yanks a blanket over his shoulders and peeks back out again. "Okay fine but it's on your heads. I suppose you are here because of.. him." He holds out a comic book and tosses it at Jane.

The cover of the comic book has been painted over but the title is clear as day:

Space Case and the Attack of Torminox.

Kay Challis has posed:
    Jane glances at the comic book with every sign of being entirely uninterested in it, and tosses it over to Larry. "We're here because of you!" Jane contradicts Wally's suggestion. "We want to know why you've been turning people into comic-book characters. Specifically, ugly blue comic-book characters. Because someone's creating comic book supervillains that are trying to come to life and that kind of feels like it's going to be connected, you know?"

    Jane tilts her head sharply to one side, her dark eyes fixed firmly on poor Wally Sage with an intensity that wouldn't be comfortable even if her words didn't make her sound deranged. "You know who has to clean up the mess when this kind of crap happens? Us. That's who. The Doom Fucking Patrol. You think Superman's going to clear up this mess? You think Batman is going to take time out of punching clowns in the face to deal with a living comic book character? No. That's too fucking nuts for those guys. It's us. Me and Larry here. And Casey. We have to deal with your mess."

    She gestures at the room. "Not this mess. We're not a fucking cleaning service. The whole... turning real people into comic-book characters, and turning comic-book characters into real people. It's gotta stop, Wally. Right fucking now."

    Jane grabs the nearest sketchbook, thwaps Wally around the head with it, then flips the cover open and starts turning the pages, looking at the sketches inside with all the intensity she had previously aimed Wally-wards. She has apparently lost interest in the actual discussion, which is a blessing really as she had clearly not entirely grasped the purpose behind their visit.

Larry Trainor has posed:
"Whoa, whoa, whoa- no hitting!" Larry's hands go up- half in an attempt to prevent another sketchbook smack, and half in a pleading gesture to mollify Jane. This is usually a futile gesture, as Jane is not one to be mollified. Thankfully, she quickly loses interest and becomes absorbed in the sketches. This is good, just as long as she doesn't get literally absorbred into the sketches.

He reaches for the comic book that Jane had used as a projectile, noticing the fact that it had been painted over, and looks over the title and hmms.

"Tell me about 'him', Wally. You think you can do that? The sooner we know, the sooner we'll be gone and you can return to..." glances around. He then glances at the title again, his gloved and bandaged fingers tracing over 'Space Case'.

Casey Brinke has posed:
"Ow!" Wally exclaims as he's thwapped over the head with a sketchbook. Hands go up defensively and he waits for Jane to stop - which thankfully she does - before looking at Larry. "You're Larry Trainor!" he says as it dawns on him the only person who wanders around looking like a mummy is in the Doom Patrol.

"And you're.." he blanks on Jane, "Also in the Doom Patrol." He smiles a little more and then nods to Larry, "Yes. YES. I need you. Badly. Bad stuff is happening. It all started a year ago when they cancelled my comic."

He points to the comic in Larry's hands, "I thought, I could reboot it on the internet with a patreon and onlyfans. I just have to make it edgier. So I started writing this really meta story where Torminox becomes self aware that he's a comic book character in a comic and and.. and then he started talking to me."

He stands up now, "I thought I was going crazy at first. I was sure of it. But then he killed someone. A friend. The police did an investigation and I'm still a suspect but it was Torminox! He killed my friend."

He paces back and forth nervously, "He wouldn't do what I told him to do any more. No matter what I wrote he just rejected it. It's like he was alive- my beautiful monster. And the more we talked the stronger he got. So I had to erase him. But he was invading peoples homes from their copies of my comic! MY comic! ..."

"So I had to start a new story. A way to stop him. I took my favourite character Casey Brinke - that's Space Case in case you don't know the comics. And I tried to make her come to life too to stop him. She's the only one who knows how. But it didn't work."

He rounds back on Crazy, "Sorry did you say you're here with Casey?"

Casey pauses as she finds a sketch under several piles of her... of her dad. He stares back intensely at her and she looks down with sadness at him. She is about to cover him up again when suddenly he smiles, "Casey, my sweet daughter." Her eyes go wide and she rips the sketch in two.

Kay Challis has posed:
    Jane still has her nose in the sketchbook. When Wally actually tries to talk to her, she simply points a finger towards Larry. Jane has done her bit of 'Talk to the normie'. It's Larry's turn now.

    Because the mummy-looking guy is the ideal choice for helping keep panicking civilians calm.

    Jane's sole contribution to the conversation is directed right at Larry. "He's doing comic books on OnlyFans? Is that a thing? I thought OnlyFans was for amateur porn. Do you think he films himself drawing the comics using a Hunt 103 mapping nip shoved up his weiner? Sick fuck."

    Without waiting for or showing any interest in an answer, Jane turns her back to cast around the room for a mark-making implement, of which there are a fair number scattered around in the filth and detritus of Wally Sage's sad existence. Avoiding anything that has nibs, she finds herself a pencil. A wave of glowing light washes over her, though no visible change takes place. She flips a couple more pages in the sketchbook, then rests it on the inside of her forearm and starts drawing.

Larry Trainor has posed:
"The more you talked to him, the more alive he became, and the more powerful he became," Larry waves his fingers in the air, "Does it follow that the more we talk *about* him, the more we are feeding into his- what do we call it? metaphysical certainty? Bespoke existentialism?" he frowns. Not that anyone would be able to tell. "So -he- is out there, and you brought your favorite character to life to fight him. Because you can't just make people forget him... unless you could. But that would require-"

Yeah, asking a certain asshole to help them out with the Mento helmet is not something Larry wants to do at this moment, if he can help it. "Casey- yes. She's right over..." he glances over his shoulder and says, "Casey?"

Casey Brinke has posed:
Casey is suitable freaked out by her fathers incursions in to reality. How he's doing it she's not sure but it's getting very weird. She hears her name again and leaves the study to loiter by the door. "Yes Larry?" Her eyes fall on Wally but there's zero recognition from her.

He on the other hand squeezes his blanket faster and tap dances on the spot. It's a whiplash change from the insults Jane was throwing at her to seeing Casey in real life. "You're real! I made you! Now you can stop him. You can stop your father."

Casey nods her head, "Yepperoonie. That's what we're trying to do. How do you know about all of that?"

Wally realises quickly - "Oh.. OH.. Oh no." He comes around to Larry's side of the bed and whispers to him awkwardly, "She thinks she's real. Because in the story she came back in time to stop her father from breeching in to reality."

Casey puts her hands on her hips, "I can hear you whispering. I have perfect hearing thanks to future medicine." She narrows her eyebrows a touch as she thinks about his words. A glance at Larry and then Jane. "I don't understand. What's this got to do with comics?"

Kay Challis has posed:
    "If you made her, that makes you her father, not him," Jane suggests without looking up from her sketchbook.

    Except of course that it isn't Jane any more, it's the Hangman's Daughter. There's a soft melancholy to her voice that gives it away to Larry . She's around fairly often so that voice is recognizable, and whenever she is she is painting or drawing, which she is now. This is also the Jane who Casey first met, so Casey may have a hint of familiarity too.

    Not-Jane's hand moves fast at first laying down a web of bold pencil marks, structural lines that make little sense to anyone who might be looking over her shoulder as she blocks out an image. Then her hand slows a little; the movements are still bold and gestural, but shorter, as she starts working on structure. A face. A figure. A frame.

    "She seems real enough to me," The Hangman's Daughter tells Wally in a that melancholy, fatalistic voice. "The problem is, so's her father. How are you doing it? That's what we want to know." She stops making marks to study the page for a few moments before resuming drawing. "It's not usually the way things happen, Sage. There was... something about a disease, I think. Like, if you keep doing whatever you've been doing, people are going to get sick and die, from some future virus. You wouldn't want that to happen, would you? So you should tell... tell Larry what it is you've been doing. How you've been doing it."

    Not-Jane tucks the notepad in closer, shielding it with her body a little, drawing now mainly with slow, careful strokes. "Larry will fix it," she says. "Whatever it is, I'm sure Larry will know what to do about it. You can trust Larry." The pencil strokes speed up a little again, taking on a sinuous, sweeping motion of longer lines, occasionally punctuated with a tilt to the side and a vigorous back-and-forth shading motion. "He can trust you, can't he Larry?"

    A few more strokes, then the pad is held out at arms length for a few moments before she returns to fine detailed touches, darting strokes, a slow precise line with a flourish of the wrist. Finally the sketch is done to The Hangman's Daughter's satisfaction, and she tears the page from the sketchbook and hands it to Case.

    On the side of the page facing Casey as The Hangman's Daughter hands the sheet over are a series of studies of what must be Case's cybernetic leg. When she turns the sheet over to see Not-Jane's sketch, she sees a playfully cartoony drawing of herself standing in front of what appears to be a giant comic-book, knocking a fist against a panel as if attempting entry. In the panel is what looks like a reflection, roughly shoulders-up, of the cartoony Case figure, knocking on the panel from the inside, the two images of Casey fist to fist as they knock. In contrast to the full figure outside the frame, the image inside is very life-like. It's a little rough, but it was a quick drawing. There are blocks of shade done with the side of the pencil which look on their own very much just like pencil marks, but taken as part of the whole give a remarkably three-dimensional appearance to the sketch. All-in-all, particularly considering it was done from memory not life and it's a sketch rapidly dashed off in just a few minutes, it's a very accurate picture of Casey.

Larry Trainor has posed:
Lary will fix it.

You can trust Larry.

Larry will know what to do.

Uh-oh.

The mummy-man looks at Casey, feeling temporarily at a loss, which is a perfectly natural reaction when someone has been appointed with a great deal of responsibility. He squares his shoulders and sighs quietly to himself- Larry knows what to do, apaprently, even when he doesn't know what to do about his own problems most of the time.

"Look, Wally," he says, picking up his end of the conversation, "Let's focus on one thing at at ime so we can better get a grip on things. Prior to .... 'him' talking to you, had you experienced any strange sensations? Visions? Did you come into the possession of some strange artefact or the like? I don't suppose you have any theories as to how ... this-" he waves in the general direction of everything, "Is happening? After all, you did... bring Casey over."

Yes, let us not touch that particular subject just yet. He doesn't know if they are ready to handle an existential crisis about, well, existing just yet.

Casey Brinke has posed:
Casey is confused. And then Jane hands her yet another drawing of herself. It's a really good drawing but another one none the less. "Ahh thank you..." She guesses this mustn't be Jane. "Not-Jane. I'm sorry I forgot your name." She twists her lips. It was a good distraction.

Wally pushes past and goes to his study, "I don't know. I Just don't know. I did it like I always do it." He sits at his desk and pulls out a blank piece of paper and starts to sketch, "Just like this. Same seat as always, same paper, same room."

The pen, though, is a gnarly looking thing. twisted wood like a prop out of a Stephen King movie. He twirls it between his fingertips and then tosses the pen down on the paper, "No. I just won't draw any more. Who knows what might happen. I don't. I didn't know any of this was even possible."

Kay Challis has posed:
    The Hangman's Daughter does not seem upset about the fact that Casey has forgotten her name already. Perhaps because she's too concerned with discussing a different name. "Katy says that he can't escape from the comics if there are no comics," she tells Larry. "And she says that Space Case can't go back into the comics if there are no comics either."

    Her eyes flicker towards Casey, giving her a quick once over as if confirming some fact she'd heard, or having had Casey pointed out to her for the first time. "Katy says she likes Space Case and that it's best if there are no comics right away so that she can't go in, and her father can't go out," she says when her eyes return to Larry. "She says she thinks that her Space Case's father is too dangerous for us to wait around, and that she can fix it."

    Katy? Who's Katy? This is not one of Jane's more common personae. Nobody has mentioned a Katy to Casey before. The name rings warning bells for Larry though. "Katy wants to come and fix everything," she tells Larry, her voice tinged with worry. "But Jane doesn't think she should."