Owner	Pose
Darcy Lewis	If having a S.W.O.R.D. SUV illegally parked in front of Ava's apartment was bad enough, now the place is swarming with agents. Well, not swarming. There's Agent Rod who is setting up some medical equipment and there's Dr. Jazuat staring with horrified wonder at the twitching movements of Agent Fry. Out of no where, too, Junior Agent Tate has appeared and placed a fresh coffee next to Darcy. She trains them that way. Agent Rod rubs the back of his neck and says to Dr. Jazuat, "Alright, I think the scanner is set up. Want me to help move him." Dr. Jazuat nods her head, "Yes.. and you," she says motioning to Agent Tate. The pair of them get to work restraining Agent Fry. Agent Fry was currently secured to a pole in the middle of the room with large metal chains; a mop head stuffed in his mouth. His face shows severe acid burns, but then so does Darcy's arm. The code red was sent out by Darcy less than an hour ago - it's good to know SWORD can hustle as well as SHIELD. But Darcy is really hoping for Carol Danvers asap.. and she knows Ava is really hoping for Finley Ellison asap.. either way, the warehouse is busy with people, with SWORD, with the purpose of a species recognising an imminent threat to their survival.
Carol Danvers	Sometimes Carol Danvers misses the roar of a jet engine that used to accompany zooming through the skies. Though her current means of flight pretty much wins out in all other categories other than that. Clad in her red and blue uniform with gold trim, she descends from the sky to land lightly on her feet at the door to the warehouse. One advantage of the flashy threads, no need to show ID to the agents outside. She heads in as one of the agents opens the door for her before resuming his post. Carol's gaze swings about, taking in everything quickly before giving the bound and gagged agent a more thorough scrutiny even as she is walking over to join Darcy and the medical arm of SWORD. "I got the notification but haven't had time to read the briefing yet," Carol says. Her gaze focuses on the bandaging around Darcy's arm. "What'd I miss?" she asks.
Ava Starr	To ensure Finley's timely arrival, Ava sent her partner a text: 'SOS. SWORD. HERE. NOW.' Not very informative, that. But it'll probably be motivating. Standing out of the way, arms crossed pugnaciously over her chest, she has taken time to change into her Ghost suit -- a much faster process, now that she has the q-bands to just 'summon' it -- and looks entirely ready for a fight. Unfortunately, unless Agent Drooler over there gets fiestier, the only people to fight with are the SWORD agents that have invaded her space. Her home. "Don't even *think* about going up those stairs..." she snarls at one of the agents. "You want the loo? There's one at the far end." They aren't permitted upstairs to her loft. She'll tolerate them in her workspace, the place is huge, after all, but that's as far as they get. Upper floors are off-limits. For now, anyway. When Carol arrives, she chuffs out another growl, though this time it's more relief than annoyance. She actually *trusts* Carol. She trusts Darcy. And Fin, of course, goes without saying... once she gets here. The rest of them? They're intruders and she's not happy. "Sparky thought bringing an acid spitting drooler here instead of the Triskelion was a good idea," she tells the Avenger and Senior SWORD Agent. It's clear she's speaking about Darcy. "And now there's an invasion." Whether she means of more acid spitting droolers or the agents that have taken over her space, she doesn't bother to clarify.
Finley Ellison	Groceries. Finley had gone out for groceries. Which was a perilous task in the first place, as Finley does not cook. And then she got the text. Which lead to a supermarket sweep style checkout. And means that the bags of foodstuffs are haphazard selections at best. And then there's a SWORD van outside of the loft. And so many people inside of the loft. She's barely adjusted to the two of them calling it home. And now it's a haphazard base of operations. "Um? Ava?" she calls out from the door. "I have stuff that's gonna melt." She holds up the bags. She stands, lost in the upheaval a space still under construction. "Wha-what's happening? Your text. There was a lot of punctuation."
Darcy Lewis	"Oh hey Carol. Just your run of the mill minor alien invasion," Darcy replies dryly and then notices the coffee. All the alien invasions so far have been big flashy affairs with blowhards like Zod or a giant Warzoon planet spaceship. This, this is clearly different and nothing about it is run of the mill. She takes a sip and lets out a contented sigh - temperature is juuust right. Agent Tate is a keeper. With Agent Fry unchained, puffs of smoke flow from his mouth as the two bigger agents struggle with him. They manage to tie him down on to the scanner bed. Flashy lights begin to strobe as the machine starts scanning his body up and down. Darcy is parked in front of her laptop and motions to an undramatic picture of the Earth and lots of tiny little dots converging on it from space like a swarm of locusts - but also the thousands of dots wrapped about the Earth on the ground. "What.., I needed a fancy custom quantum cosmic residual scanner made quickly and Quantum British here was teh fastest way to make that happen." She taps the device sitting on the table that Ava and Darcy made. It has a large rod like one pokes in to beef to make sure it's cooked all the way through - the tip of it is corroded from acid. "To catch you up, Fry and I were testing out our new 'small objects' sensor network for near-Earth and in atmosphere scanning called S.E.N.S.E. and we picked up something near here. We went to investigate and found this.." She motions to the computer screen and changes tabs to a picture of a slime from Minecraft. "A small sentient alien gelatinous cube filled with angry acid that could easily jump 10 feet in the air and moves way faster than you'd think." "After a small fight with the thing, it jumped in Agent Fry's mouth... since then, I recalibrated S.E.N.S.E. to look for these little buggers and ..." she changes back to the 3d model of Earth and all the dots, "this is what we found. Thousands of them all headed here, Earth." Seeing and hearing Finley, Darcy gives her a way.
Carol Danvers	Carol greets Finley and Ava with nods and looks of empathy about what their home is going through right now. She moves nearer to Agent Fry as he's put on the scanner in case a little extra brawn is needed. But once he's secured, she returns, crossing her arm as she watches Fry, giving Darcy glances as she listens to the tale. "Has Agent Fry managed any coherent communication of his own? Or has he seemed completely taken over?" she inquires, frowning a bit before looking back from Fry to examine the display with the dots approaching Earth. She checks the scale and any readouts on velocity to do some quick math in her head on timing.
Ava Starr	Punctuation? That's what she took from it all? Ava gives Fin a mildly incredulous look before she phases right through a couple of techs to get to her partner and the melting bags. "Lewis arrived with an alien. Now there's an invasion. SWORD's taking over," she tells Finley, her voice a controlled growl. Whether SWORD's the invasion or the alien is, she still doesn't bother to clarify. Because Fin will know what she thinks. There's tension in her form. She moves like a prowling cat, but takes the bags from Finley by phasing them right out of her hands. Then, she gives herself a quantum push and catapults up through a wall roughly ajacent to the kitchen above. The melty bags will be taken care of. She's a few minutes in returning.
Finley Ellison	Finley blinks. "D-do all of you need anything?" she asks the other SWORD agents. They'd already made themselves at home. And as soon as they get what they want and deal with the alien, they'll leave, Finley hopes. And once they do, Ava might phase back into tangentiality. Finley is very hopeful that they will all leave soon and Ava will stop walking through walls to avoid touching anyone.
Darcy Lewis	The tech that just got phased through looks briefly horrified as a ghost literally walked through him. He looks over at Carol as if that would some how make things okay, to get a nod from the senior agent or _something_. The offer from Finley has him asking, "Do you have any instant noodles? I'm starved..." and then he realises may be that was an inappropriate request of a special agent, "Ah. Never mind." Meanwhile, the scanner yields results. Terrifying results. The acid has not just burned through the mouth, but replacing his entire brain is a blob of sentient acid, with one of its six corners connected in to the spinal cord. The slime is 'piloting' the corpse - for however much longer it can last at least. There is nothing left of Fry's brain. Dr. Jazuat stares in disbelief and then looks over to Carol, "Captain could you do some of your scans perhaps? this is the stuff of nightmares." The mental calculations are easy enough.. at a rate of a few hundred or so slimes dropping every hour the slow march invasion, where-ever they are coming from, will take around a 140 years to take over every human on the planet - though society will collapse far sooner than that.. and these things can likely also take over other kind sof mammals. "Not a peep. Groans? he moves like a zombie and likes to spit acid," Darcy replies. Dr. Jazuat adds, "I'd estimate less than a day before the acid has eaten through the skull -" which changes the calculations. If the alien acid blobs eat through bodies the invasion rate becomes exponential instead of linear.. 140 years? more like 10.
Carol Danvers	Carol Danvers rests her hand on briefly on the back of the anxious tech, the touch intended to be reassuring. Though it has to be kept short with what else is going on around them. "Well," Carol says at the readout of the lack of a remaining brain. "Doesn't look like there's any chance of saving him. And anyone affected like that might not have long, either," she says. She moves over to Darcy first, rather than to the acidic bodysnatcher. Carol taps on the controls on the arm of her suit, as she says, "Would be better if I could put a sample in. But until we know more about the acid, not going to risk it taking out my uniform." The arm of the recolored Kree StarForce uniform is held over Darcy's burned arm, and a greenish-blue light emits, sweeping back and forth as Carol starts with scanning the damage done. "Let's see if we can figure out what kind it is, and a substance that can contain it then," she says. Only after scanning Darcy does she move over to scan the compromised agent directly.
Ava Starr	Ava returns in a manner fairly similar to how she disappeared -- through the walls. Yes, the SWORD personnel are learning just why her callsign is Ghost. (Not Quantum.) At least she hasn't gone invisible. If that happens, someone's gonna get hurt. She comes to stand near Finley, a scowl deep between her eyes. Even so, she pauses a moment to murmur, "Raw fish?" while Carol scans Darcy's raw arm.
Finley Ellison	"You like sushi. I like sushi. And it doesn't require turning on an oven. Or spices. You just cut it up. It seemed like a safe bet," Finley whispers back. "*You* made me go shopping! And it's not like I knew we'd have company."
Darcy Lewis	Darcy holds out her arm as Carol's Kree device sweeps back and forth over it. The read outs are fascinating. It's a very complex acid compound; small traces left behind even now after it's been cleaned - at least it isn't burning her any longer. It's life Jim, just not as we know it. Darcy's eyes dance back and forth between Ava and Finley though because the conversation is hard to miss, "I've made up my mind, I'm cooking you both dinner if the world isn't ending tonight." Because good golly these two are disaster lesbians. Though it is a nice distraction from the horror of losing her week-long SWORD partner today. What's surprising though is the life form does not come up in the Kree database at all. First contact. Not a good first contact, but still first contact. The analysis does reveal that the more of it there is the more likely it'll have more brain power. It's easy to imagine that out there somewhere is a giant cube of sentient acid thinking thoughts.
Carol Danvers	Carol stands stoically over the downed agent as she gathers the scans and then reads the results. They are in Kree, though chemistry is universal and Darcy can gain something from those without a doubt. "No record of a previous encounter with something like this before," she says. "It looks like the largest collection of it has not only an increase in this substance, but something more of a structure of it. I suspect that might be related to intelligence capability," Carol says. She turns to the other agents. "As in, the bigger it is, the smarter it's going to be. So there might be a 'mama' out there. And we're going to need to contain the spread, but also prevent them from gathering into larger masses, potentially." She moves over to get herself a cup of the coffee. "Never a big sushi fan. Reminds me of 'kerkapli' too much. Which tastes ok, but when you find out what they look like you're horrified because they are too cute to be made into food."
Ava Starr	"I did not make you go shopping," Ava retorts softly, ignoring the comments from the peanut gallery. "And I expected you to bring home beer and tv dinners, not the makings for sushi." Yeah, they already sound like an old married couple. Ava will blame it on the intruders. Everything is their fault, from now on. As she catches up on just what's happening, however, she frowns. It's less of an existential scowl and more of a hint of genuine concern. More mission oriented. She moves to look at the scanner and the arrangement of incoming dots. "We seriously need a planetary shield," she murmurs. And, for just a moment, she wonders if there are enough high-level, high-energy heroes in the world to jury rig a temporary defense while SWORD figures out something a little more permanent. It'd be a lot easier to burn it out of existence in space than hunt it down on Earth. (She'd consider asking Stark for help, but from what she's heard he'd probably imagine a suit of armour around the world, and that would go horribly wrong, leading to even worse problems... up to and including some sort of multiverse crisis to end all crises... not even the Flash could fix. Nobody wants that.) Still, if there's a sentient acidic mama cube out there thinking thoughts... does all this mean it sneezed its brains out at Earth and forgot to cover its nose when it did? She glances to Darcy. "You owe us *so* much more than dinner, mate."
Finley Ellison	"There was also beer and tv dinners, unless you lost that bag walking through walls," Finley hisses back. "Besides, your text kinda cut my selection process short." Finally, she takes the reason for 'SOS. SWORD. HERE. NOW.' was sent. The alien goo reminds her of her nanites in a way. A networked intelligence. "Is there any evidence of further contamination?" she asks. "Do we have a way of tracking the spread, yet?"
Darcy Lewis	"Uh, found an imminent threat to the survival of all of humanity, you're welcome," she rapid fires back at Ava when she suggests she owes them more than dinner. The coffee is sipped as a stare is maintained. Her wit hurts more than her bite that's for sure. She is an astrophysicist, not an assassin spy. Listening to Carol she huffs and says, "It figures. No one name this species after me. Next alien I discover better be a Thor level hunk. I'd even accept a goatee Zod," she adds dripping with sarcasm. Dr. Jazuat is not done. Now that she knows the patient is well and truly dead, she has out a laser cutter and with her assistant is carefully cutting open the skull. There's a glass container being set down, "Acids and glass mix well." She says that in the distracted way doctors do when they're focused on the task at hand. Darcy replies to Finley and motions to the map, "Well. They glow with cosmic radiation from their travel through space. So, in theory we can figure out exactly where they came from but - with SENSE we can also see where all of them are. It might be a lot of work, but we could capture and contain every single one. Stopping the tide might be the higher priority though."
Carol Danvers	Carol Danvers stands aside from the others, getting herself a good angle on the afflict agent in case something goes wrong and she has to try vaporize the acidic creature with photon blasts. Though she has some fear that could splash it around rather than vaporize. "If they are small, they can probably fall slowly enough to survive re-entry, so we have that going against us," Carol says. "But if they aren't capable of their own momentum to 'dodge' us, we could probably delay any reaching Earth at least for awhile. But I agree, the source needs to be dealt with. We also need to get some teams of space-capable individuals to start intercepting them," she suggests.
Ava Starr	If Carol starts throwing photon blasts around, it's almost guaranteed Ava will join her... if only to try to end things quicker and save a little more of her home. Nevertheless, Carol's words bring to mind images from an old book she read as a kid -- something about people blasting alien shit out of the sky with their firebreathing dragons. It was a neat story. It's not such a neat real world experience. Still, her squabbling is set aside as she becomes more focussed on the task. (The sooner they clean this up, the sooner SWORD leaves, right? Right?!?) "So... who does that include?" she asks Carol. "You. Me." (Unfortunately.) "The Supers?" She shakes her head. "Maybe get the JLA and Avengers to deal with that?" She's not trying to pass the buck. She's trying to figure out how to deal with what are effectively three threats: Space Mama, Space Snot, and the onworld Droolers. "Right... Mount a planetary defense, round up acidic alien zombies, and find their origin point to clean up the whole mess. We can't be in three places at once. What's the priority?" She's a weapon. You point her and fire. She's not the planner.
Finley Ellison	"I...guess I'm ordering dinner," Finley says. "For everyone. Then we can start planning what to do about alien snot monster zombies from space."
Darcy Lewis	Darcy considers the discussion for a moment. Carol has given the orders - now it's up to the specialists to figure out how to make it a reality. "A proper plan over dinner? sure. Basic sketch? SHIELD can round up acidic alien zombies. They have the manpower for that kind of thing." The Doctor cuts open the brain and the cube reforms its shape and wibbles like a jelly. She awkwardly scoops it in to the glass container and shuts the lid. It starts to jerk about inside the glass but like with regular acids it is neutral against the class. "The armada of acid slimes heading to Earth - we could get the space-junk-cleaner and send it out to scoop them all up. May be. Toss them in to the sun?," she smiles at the thought. Dark humour is her comfort food. "That just leaves the mama blob out there somewhere. I'll do the work to compute where it's coming from - and then we can all jump in the SQJ.. that's Space Quinjet for those who don't keep up with the latest lingo" Ava "and go out and, I don't know, talk it down? explode it? Easy," she says and dusts her hands, then finishes her coffee. "Tate, more coffee." The junior agent pushes off the wall, "On it ma'am!" Darcy grins, "Definitely a keeper."