17090/The Queen In Blue - Praesodynium Blue

The Queen In Blue - Praesodynium Blue
Date of Scene:	03 February 2024
Location:	Thrift Corp Security Warehouse
Synopsis:	Flatline kills the right people at the right time and learns about yet another attempt to end the world, this time of a lovecraftian variety. She also gets some neat goggles.
Cast of Characters:	Ben Grimm, Flatline
Tinyplot:	The Queen in Blue

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Ben Grimm has posed:
Praesodynium Blue started vanishing all over the state, then the country and now the world. The normal retail prive per pound was fifty cents per ounce, and now that price is going through the roof, about half the price of Gold. There are no known commercial values, and no more occult value than Quarts or Micah (you can find a magic property in nearly any rock if you look hard enough.) No one knows who is taking it, why they are stealing it, but speculators have begun to collect it just in case and minerology collections and schools have begun locking it up with the more valuable commodities like Gold or Platinum or even Uranium.

It doesnt help.

There is no camera record in any of the thefts, just pitch blackness as the lights fade and the mineral is gone. Nothing else is taken. At this point, thefts have occurred even in secure bank vaults. Thrift Corp Warehouse has a large stockpile, one of the largest in the country at this point in their highly secret and secure warehouses. There are, of course, many useful and secure cargos in such a facility, but a recent criminal power bought a complex analysis from an obscure mathemetician who thinks she has found a pattern to the attacks and thus predict where these theives might show up next.

An so said power has dispatched a thief to take form the tieves, potentially, and unwrap a curious mystery potentially valuable to the right buyer.

Flatline has posed:
    Flatline wasn't exactly your normal thief. Lord Death Man had dispatched his 'princess of pain disciple in order to satiate his curiosity from the seat of his power in Tokyo.

    Which means he probably couldn't be bothered himself to figure out what was going on.

    Flatline was wearing a black sweatshirt over her normal crossbones-geared jacket and a black watchcap over her white hair. Her pale violet-pink eyes look out over the Thrift Corp Warehouse, container of a stockpile of a largely useless blue rock, and she had one earbud in, her hand holding up her chin as she keeps watch.

    "I bet Robin never has to do this." she mutters crossly, her stomach giving a slight grumble as she waits for activity, poised up in the rafters of the warehouse.

Ben Grimm has posed:
There is no immediate reply. The facility is fairly secure as such things go, not Fort Knox, but medium high of the variety that would stop lesser thieves or even metahumans. The guards are armed with military assault rifles and she even spots a few higher tech items in their gear. There are a TON of cameras inside of warehouse and even a live guard on a chair with night vision goggles who has not yet spotted her.

Its boring.

For hours.

And then, around 235am exactly, right when the mathetician said it would be, the lights go out.

No, thats not right.

There is a blackness, palbable, thick and tangible that has descended around the ENTIRE warehouse and she hears a scream from the guards direction and senses through some footsteps at least six humanoids wangering moving from the far wall towards the rocks. It is pitch black.

Flatline has posed:
    No immediate reply works just fine. Flatline's used to solo ops. She's almost sure LDM hopes she eats it.

    2:35 ticks ove,r and the area goes black.

    Not normal black either. Her head tilts in the darkness, and Flatline registers the sound of five... six? Maybe more. She takes a deep breath, and from her back she draws out a couple of long knives, and she times herself.

    Three... two... one --

    Flatline drops down from above, She's timed it, aiming to land in the middle of the grou, black-on-black with the white skull of her face showing, her eyes closed to stop a flash.

    She swings one arm around, working on approximates. Approximately where is one person standing. Tap their chest with the butt-end of the knife, followed by her second knife coming around to hamstring them, going for the inner thigh as she breathes out.

    Nice and easy. Don't have to play by Batpeople rules tonight. Lord Death Man had to satiate his curiosity.

Ben Grimm has posed:
Some would call it luck but those who know would call it skill. Though she cannot see, she can hear and leaping down she is able to stab one in the heart. There is a cry that is quite human though with a haunted keening...

Images begin to flash in her mind. Its a lot, different, weird, human but almost a different species of human...from another world, called The Empire of America. Its a lot of details, taking its time to parse through but her experience with her power gives her the good stuff right away.

They are vulnerable to light. They can manipulate and travel through dark force with belts called Gene-Stealers, from a dopple of the royal family where they come from...someone from here. She gains an understanding of a tech that ...wait thats not right. These people arent right in the head. Mad. And the technology they use induces madness. ITs worse for their species, but even for normal humans it causes...a tick in her brain. They can see in the dark wearing goggles, so if she borrows a pair she is in like Flynn.

Oh yeah, and they want the rocks because in their own world a paint made from the ore called "HAint Blue" prevents them from phasing through walls of any building coated with it. Its all over in their world.

They want to summon....

And the info dump is interupted by a counter stab by a polearm made of darkness, the other five adapting quickly. They arent at her skill level, but they are all commandos. Of course, she knows all their moves, but she knows that together they are a deadly hand, larger than the sum of their parts. Holding her own, buts far more evne than it should be...especially since she cant yet see like they can.

Flatline has posed:
    Well, time to light things up then isn't it?

    She turns, bringing her knife up to deflect the blow from the attacker behind her. She ducks, and rolls forward, her hand snatching a pair of the goggles off her poor unfortunate subject and she comes to a wall at her back, hurriedly putting those goggles on -- hoping they're not going to need an adaption time for different folks -- and that they're not perscription!

    "All right, guys, let's play~" she chirps cheerily, stretching her hands as she holds her knives to her palms with her thumbs.

    There's so much more she could pick up. The more of them go down, the more she can bring back to Lord Death Man.

    ... and maybe the twerps in the Titans. Heroics are way more their bag.

Ben Grimm has posed:
The world is a chalk French Impressionist black and white sketch. Its the warehouse she saw but fluid as quantum bits of flurk...and she intuitively filters out the gibberish of the technical details of how it works since, it literally causes madness. She intuitively undersatns a problem. These guys are batshit...no literally, they want to summon someone they call the Queen in Blue, the consort of the King in Yellow....Carcosa, Cthulu end of the world shit...and they wnat to do it...

HERE.

These guys are mental and if she kills more, she learns more, but she also senses that their madness and the madness of what they know might melt her brain despite her powers. Their fighting style is familiar and yet weird. The good news, its a cool edge, it tweaks what she already knows in a way that no one else on Earth (literally) has but....evne though she KNOWS how to fight as a unit with them, there is only one of her and five of them.

On the other hand she is better, which lets her hold the line long enough to make a decision on whether or not to take the risk of going more bonkers killing more of them or take what she alraedy knows.

Intuitively, she also realizes she should steal a balt...that tech is more valuable than these goggles...even if anyone studying it likely to go nuts.

Not her problem of course.

Flatline has posed:
    NOW THAT IS WEIRD. Flatline has to blink behind the goggles. She tilts her hed a bit as she looks at all the details, the weird things -- and Flatline was already a little to the left of normal to begin with -- finding out your grand dad's a KGB experiment and absorbing his serial killer tendencies can do that to a twelve-year-old. Nevermind the whole obsession with Death.

    But the Queen in Blue, King in Yellow, Cthulu?

    That is ALSO not her bag.

    But she kinda digs their goggles. On emore's not going to hurt. Right? Right.

    So she moves. She ducks below one blow, comes in low. Slash with her knives upwards, along both sides of the person's stomach and chest. There's bound to be blood everywhere, but it's going to shock the body quicker -- if these guys are 'human enough'. On the other hand -- madness does *weird* things to people.

    Just one more. Just a little more information so she can take it back and let the Heroes deal with it.

Ben Grimm has posed:
At the end of the day, one on one, its not a contest and when she uses the knowledge of which of them is the leader (which is not easy, they all look alike but the leader has the key to open the portal to steal the rocks....) and STAB.

All hail the Queen in Blue. The devotion to Her Majesty is infectious. All Hail. All Hail. All Hail. Prepare for her arrival, light the beacon and sacrifice the souls. He doesnt know where, but he does know that in the weeks to come in five locations, vast sacrifices of human souls will be made in her honor.

Must hide from the Emperor. He already senses they are traveling the Great Dark, and he will kill them. He has already found his doppleganger....and learning about Earth. Time is of the essence...tick tock. Tick tock.

Ever get that feeling of not bathing for a week? Thats the way her mind is gonna feel for at least a week, but her harsh life and the nature of her power protect her somewhat. God help anyone trying to telepathically read the mind of one of these wackaloons.

The final life tips the balance; without the leader they know they cant beat her and are slipping back into the shadows

Though she could kill JUST one more likely if she wanted.....

Flatline has posed:
    Same game. Steal the goggles (always might need a pair). Leave the body for the police. He have a backpack? She's taking THAT too. Bastards. She knew she was bruised and probably bleeding somewhere.

    Queen in Blue. King in Yellow. Souls and Sacrifice and this is NOT HER BAG OH MY GOD. Flatline can feel her eyes twitching, and she ducks to the side, skidding her feet on the smooth floor and she considers -- could she take one more? She could. Could she stand one more?

    For once, Nika is not about to follow the killer instinct. She coughs, and then turns in the opposite direction of the thieves themselves, and makes like a tree to get out of there.

    She curses vehemently in Russian, swinging herself up over some shelves and back to the rafters.

    

Ben Grimm has posed:
The four invaders take their luck and scurry back into the darkness from whence they came. The lights come back on and the rocks are still there with three dead bodies on the floor. There is not a backpack but there is a rearpouch which is really a fanny pack sans weird alternate Earth names.