COME ON AND SLAM

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

WHO: Everyone! Especially YOU!
WHERE: The International Moon Research Base, Mare Nubium, THE MOON
WHEN: April 18th, all day
WHAT: Aegis Force, the government-funded imPort peacekeeping team, is hosting this month's Swear-In to promote their ideals of teamwork and cooperation! Come compete and spectate in the SPACE SLAM, the sporting event that's out of this world! Also featuring a LUNAR DISCO, a DIPLOMATIC EVENT, and a BATTLE AGAINST ATTACKING ROBOTS! Wait, what was that last one?
WARNINGS: Violence, awkward locker rooms. Any questions or issues, hit up the OOC post!

PART I: THE SWEAR-IN

Welcome to the Moon, imPorts! You arrive through the Porter in the base's atrium dome, designed in a futuristic style that emphasizes sleek, spotless white surfaces. You will immediately notice how much less you weigh here in the Moon's low-gravity environment- be careful jumping, or you may hit the ceiling!

Before you can get to the main event, you'll have to pass through strict security comparable to an airport experience (if the airport was surrounded by merciless vacuum and filled with flammable oxygen). Any weapons will have to be surrendered and locked up by base personnel during the event, unless you can convince officials to make an exception. Once past security, airlock tunnels will lead to the Base's other domes, where the main body of the Swear-In will be today.

The RESIDENCE dome is the largest of the interlinked habitable bubbles that make up the main Moon Base, holding tourist hotels, staff apartments, restaurants, and even a grassy park beneath a glass dome offering a view of the Earth above. Crowds are thick today, as plenty of people have flocked to the Moon to behold the heavily-advertised SPACE SLAM. The Slam is an Aegis-sponsored live-streamed sporting event, game show and fundraiser where imPorts assemble themselves into teams of 2 - 6 characters and compete in different challenges, held in hotel gyms and in the park. Giant screens and bright holo-displays notify of the different causes benefiting from today’s event, including the Endeavor Centre, SELF, and HOPE. Participating characters can choose any or all of:

1. Basketball - but of course. A court has been set up, and the stands are packed with cheering fans. Two teams face off and try to get the ball through each other’s hoops!
2. Battle Royale - the obligatory superhero sparring fight, available in free-for-all and team-vs.-team editions. Square off against with your rivals in an open arena and show the world who’s the toughest- just don’t kill or seriously maim anybody in the fray, or you’ll be disqualified!
3. Low-gravity laser tag - the less violent alternative to the Battle Royale, again in free-for-all or team-vs-team options. Grab your vest and plastic light gun and bounce your way into the neon-lit Zap Zone for a match!
4. Irritation Lane - a particularly challenging event, part demolition derby, part go-karting race. Your team must choose and customize their own ground vehicle(s) in a garage with sixty minutes to spare, working from pre-existing chassis like rugged old-fashioned moon buggies, light and fast hover cycles, and the massive heavy-footed Lunar Construction Mech. Decorate and modify your creations as you please and outfit them with nonlethal weapons like glue-foam missiles, EMP mines, net launchers, and smoke screens. Then put on a space suit and face your rivals in a thrilling race around the track that’s been constructed outside the base, complete with soaring low-gravity jumps and daring shortcuts through twisty, narrow canyons!
5. Charades - livestreamed to the entire planet so EVERYONE can see you choking as you try to think of how to mime a banana without looking like a pervert.
6. Competitive karaoke - livestreamed to the entire planet so EVERYONE can see you choking as you try to hit those high notes on ‘Don’t Stop Believing.’
7. Cooking contest - hop into a futuristic, well-stocked kitchen in one of the hotels with your team and roll up your sleeves. You’ve got an hour to whip up a dish that will impress, after which you’ll share your creation with other Swear-In attendees. The more delicious your cooking, the more votes you’ll get when it comes time for judging!
8. Dance-off - does your team have the moves to win over the audience? Put together a killer routine and show what you’ve got!
9. Bouncy castle endurance contest - A massive bouncy castle awaits in a huge room on one of the lower floors of the dome, with protective pads covering the walls and floors and ceilings. Get on the castle with your teammates and jump, jump, jump sky-high in the lowered gravity! Keep jumping no matter what, even if the opposing team tries to knock you off the castle. The team with the last people still bouncing wins this contest!
10. Lunar volleyball - the moondust on the moon’s surface is kind of like sand, isn’t it? At any rate, someone has set up a net outside the Residence dome and space suits are available for those who want to see how hard they can spike a ball in low-gravity.

Holographic and force field technology is in play during these events to ensure everyone's safety in the fragile environment of the Moon Base. Teams of metahumans are also competing, if you want to play out your team playing against NPCs. Before and after your matches, you may want to huddle with your team to discuss strategy and get psyched, engage in some trash talk with your rivals to get in their heads, and give interviews to clustering reporters about how you and your teammates are going to play hard, you know, just give it your very best. Locker rooms are also available for you and your teammates to get changed and shower in, which may or may not be excruciatingly awkward for you. Good luck and have fun, imPorts!

Once you’ve had your fill of the adrenaline of the Space Slam, why not move into the Embassy Dome for a more relaxing and mingle-friendly time? A LUNAR DISCO is happening in the gorgeous Grand Ballroom at the dome’s top level, with huge windows offering a gorgeous view of the cosmos, music to groove to across the marble floor, and a spread of free appropriately-themed snacks and drinks. Among the refreshments is finger food from The Nickel, and Abigail Hobbs will be playing the harpsichord. If you feel like you need to get outside for some (lack of) air, you can also step away for a moonwalk tour, ambling across the desolate gray lunar landscape in a space suit or a clear sealed 'hamster ball' under the supervision of base staff.

You may also find yourself on the Earth Viewing Deck, an elegant lounge dominated by a vast window view of the Earth, with soft music, low lighting, and private alcoves for personal conversation. Here is where the political aspect of the Swear-In comes into play. Not only is there a desk staffed by a government official where you can declare yourself Registered or Unsettled, but there are also optional conversation-starting name tags available with prompts like ‘I’m (INSERT FACTION/ALLEGIANCE HERE), ask me why’ or ‘I am a (INSERT SPECIES/PROFESSION/OTHER RELEVANT IDENTITY HERE), ask me anything’ or ‘I’m (REGISTERED/UNSETTLED), change my mind!’ The goal of this event is encouraging imPorts to talk to each other and resolve issues within their community peacefully and proactively, easing possible disputes before they end up making more work for Aegis.


PART II: ROBOT ATTACK!!
Things run smoothly until late in the evening of the event, when the buzz is immediately killed by a shrill siren, cutting through conversation and competition alike. A hushed silence falls over the gathering, broken by nervous murmuring. Those with experience in these things already know what’s happening: a Swear-In is about to go to hell again.

An eerily calm announcement sounds over the base’s PA system: ”Red Alert. Red Alert. Hostile forces closing on base perimeter. Lockdown protocol now in effect. All civilians are directed to proceed in a calm and orderly manner to the Atrium Porter for evacuation to Earth. All security staff and heroes to your emergency stations. This is not a drill.”

The announcement repeats once, and then the siren resumes. Time to make a decision, imPorts. Are you a civilian who will be evacuating with other noncombatants? Or are you a hero who will stay behind and defend the Moon Base from the oncoming assault?

If you’re evacuating, you can still help to guide and assist the streams of civilians- scientists, VIPs, reporters, tourists, some of them panicking- back to the overcrowded Porter. Once you’re safely back on Earth via the Porter base of your choosing, there’ll be little left to do but huddle with others and wait for news of the crisis unfolding far above the sky, as bits and pieces of information trickle in from the news and social media.

Those of you who choose to buy time for the evacuation by staying to defend the base will find yourselves in a dire situation. Because the Moon Base was built for tourism, science, and diplomacy as a symbol of peace, and thus has no real defenses. It has sensors though, and base staff report at least fifty contacts approaching from all around the base, most of them headed for the Science Dome, home of the base’s labs, lecture hall, and archives, with maybe ten minutes before they arrive. Barely enough time to retrieve your gear (if any) from security and come up with a plan!

First, you’ll have to decide where to make your stand. Will you don a space suit and venture onto the lunar surface in unarmed buggies and shuttles, trying to intercept the enemies before they reach the base itself? Your daring may spare damage to the base and its inhabitants, but out there on the bleak grey dust of the Moon most of you will be only one suit rupture away from a terrible death! You’ll be safer defending from within the base itself, where at least there’s shelter.

The oncoming robots come in two varieties: beefy KILLER ROBOT SPACE LIZARDs, and more subtle COPYCAT DROIDS. The lizards are seven feet long, tough and armoured, equipped with razor teeth and claws, an electric tail, and laser-beam eyes. They also lay ACID-BOMB EGGS that characters will have to disable or dispose of before they burst, corroding the Moon Base still further and causing structural damage. But they're really just the demolition crew for the base, and not that dangerous to imPorts compared to the smaller cats.

These bad kitties are prowling for imPorts, and will fire energy beams at them from their heads, attempting to steal their talent powers. If the beam strikes true, not only is the imPort de-powered until the Copycat is destroyed, but the Copycat will also morph into liquid metal and shift into a metallic copy of the imPort in question, complete with their powers and any specialized gear they may have, which they'll immediately use to wreak havoc on imPorts and natives alike. Get ready to experience firsthand what it’s like to be powerless in the face of a superpowered attacker!

As lasers flash, heroes smash, and robots explode, the Moon Base will begin taking damage despite the best efforts of characters. Injured staff will cry out for assistance and rescue, falling debris will threaten to pin people to the floor, hull breaches will threaten to drain the base’s oxygen and blow people out into space, and fires and explosions will wrack the Science Dome in particular as the robots try to detonate its volatile experiments and power sources to wipe out the entire base!

By the end of the fray everyone at the Moon Base will have been evacuated alive if not necessarily uninjured while all robots are disabled. However, there will have been heavy damage to the Science Dome in particular. Your characters can get started on repair and recovery if they want to stick around. Either way, the bravery shown by imPorts defending the Swear-In will result in EVERYONE being declared a winner at the Space Slam!

In the aftermath, characters will be able to glean more information about what just happened and why. It appears the robots ‘hatched’ from pods buried around the perimeter of the base in response to an activation signal. Apparently these pods have been lying in wait for over a year, while the Moon Base itself was still under construction as a highly-public imPort-led project! Those who are familiar with the history of the Otherworld Technologies Organization (OTO) may find familiarity in the design of the robots and pods. It would hardly be the first time the more extreme OTO elements were alleged to have pitted their killer machines against imPorts and civilians alike…

Comments

luther hargreeves | now registered | ota

[obediences]

[ note: i’ll match prose or brackets, so no worries re: switching! ]

When Luther steps through the Porter, he’s instantly hit by the familiar sensation of of lessened gravity, and the ungainly bulk of his body just becoming lighter. This lunar base is large and sprawling compared to the cramped, claustrophobic base he’d lived in, and as a result, he’s left wide-eyed and awed. (Like a small kid all over again, starry-eyed at space.)

So he’s determined to wander and see everything. He spends some time at the Earth-viewing dock: signing the paperwork to get registered; distracted by staring at the planet below them, lost in his thoughts; keeping an eye open for people wearing the Aegis Force insignias; and eventually donning a tag saying I’m a former child superhero, ask me anything.

He takes refuge in front of screens and watches a few of the space slam events with other spectators, particularly the battle royale, thoughtfully sizing up others’ capabilities.

During his roaming, he accidentally winds up in the lunar disco and absolutely panics and sticks to the side of the room like glue, aggressively nursing a (totally ineffectual) drink before fleeing. (You can’t convince him to dance, but pls do mingle!)

For the robot attack!!, he jumps into action more out of muscle-memory than conscious decision — his childhood was spent fighting murderous robots, after all — and with no gear. He just punches them and they go flying, far further than a regular human should’ve been able to do. He would shelter and protect any civilians or less-powered folks around, and team up with anyone around who’s also fighting... and seems kinda weirdly gung-ho and happy about it?

Re: luther hargreeves | now registered | ota

[by_candlelight]

Among the list of people being sheltered during the attack is Ruby. Once she was sure the majority of people were evacuated she decided to go deeper in and see if she could help out any stragglers. For the most part she'd been fine, avoiding the robots at the best of times, and distracting them just long enough to let a hiding bystander escape before she sped away from danger herself.

Her luck ran thin when two things occurred. First she found a civilian who had apparently sprained their ankle pretty badly - though it was lucky they were petite enough it wasn't a pipe-dream for Ruby to act as a living crutch. The second thing that happened was that the moment she looked up from the civilian in question she found one of the copycat robots stalking her way.

She could make all the excuses to herself that she wanted for why she hadn't scouted the immediate area before taking the time to help the person practically hanging from her neck, but that did nothing to change the fact that she was in immediate danger. When the person beside her noticed the robot they clung even harder to Ruby, making it unlikely she would be able to de-tangle herself from them in time to lead the damn thing away.

Ruby braced herself for the attack as the false-feline leapt.

Then came the punch, causing the thing's trajectory to change drastically. Instead of hitting Ruby, it met with a nearby wall.

"Ne! Thanks!" Ruby shouted to her ally (not rescuer, no, she was the one doing the rescuing and anyone else doing the same thing or aiding in any sort of way was simply on the same side). "Can you cover me until I get this person to someone who can take them the rest of the way?"

[obediences]

"You got it," the stranger said, and automatically moved between her and the next set of robots -- lizards, this time. He clenched and unclenched his gloved fists, limbering up an arm, a shoulder. Stirring up old muscle memory.

And then their group started moving: the small girl hustling the wounded bystander along, and the massive blond covering their retreat, knocking robots aside, driving a shoulder into a metal spine. He didn't linger while grappling them, just did his very best to slam them down the hallway and away from the evacuation, while Ruby and her charge scurried along behind him.

It wasn't the same as the easy synchronicity that came with fighting alongside his siblings in combat, but the teenager wasn't screaming or panicking or dissolving into hysterics, which was a relief -- she was keeping a level head, a pragmatic focus on the things that mattered. (And that, in its own way, was oddly familiar. The Academy had been like that in their teens too.)

As they reached a bend in the hallway, the man paused. Looked down at the two of them, at the flurry of people moving in the distance. To the civilian leaning on Ruby's shoulder: "How's your ankle?"

[by_candlelight]

For Ruby's part she's fast, and she's working in sync with the civilian. She's done this once or twice before (albeit with people a lot closer to her size) so she's pretty efficient. She calls out locations to Luther whenever it looks like one of the robots might be about to pounce at him from an odd location, or if it looked like they were getting ready to scan him.

Despite being someone recently met, she was definitely someone who was doing her best to work with everyone involved, and if she was nervous she wasn't showing it.

When Luther came to a stop, so did the other two. The civilian looked up at him and smiled, looking grateful and very relieved. "It-It's still in a lot of pain. But I think I should be able to stand long enough on my own once I get to the porter."

As the civilian and Luther spoke, Ruby kept her eyes open, scanning the area for potential threats. She was not in the mood to be caught unawares, especially if doing so could end up with a super powered robot breathing down her neck.

[obediences]

The bank of security machines and the halls leading back to the porter were within view, now. Luther stood watching as their charge hobbled off; he was tall enough to look over the panicked crowds, enough to ensure that someone else caught their arm, helped them to the porter through the steady flow of people moving towards the exit and evacuating. He breathed a little easier once they were safely chivvied off.

Most sane, regular people would be headed in that direction. But he wasn't moving, and Ruby was still looking behind them too, keeping watch for more of the robots. (He suspected more would be along shortly; but rather than fear or apprehension, he felt an odd thrill at the thought of it. A shiver of adrenaline. Eagerness.)

Then the man looked down at her, met her eye. Bemused: "Aren't you going to the porter?"

Assuming, off the bat, that she should be evacuating too; incorrect as that assumption might be.

robot attack!!!!!

[isthatyou]

[Fern, luckily, doesn't have to try and grab anything when the robots attack, because his powers have everything covered for him. His main weapon is part of his body. He's a person who became swords in the form of a plant person.

It doesn't take long for one of the robot lizards to take notice of him.]

Uggggggggggggh, I'm starting to really freaking hate the moon!

[Fern summons the Grass Sword from his palm. It probably doesn't look very formidable, seeing as it is literally a blade of grass, but it is a lot sharper than most people would expect. He notices someone coming towards him out of the corner of his eye--that's his new roommate, right?--as he lunges at his foe, aiming to find a weak spot to stab into.]

I hope you're the herbivore kind of lizard, 'cause you're gonna eat this!

[obediences]

[ At the sight of one of his new housemates caught in the fray, Luther had instinctively started making his way over like he was on autopilot. Because these robots are made of spiked edges and claws and teeth, and Fern is just a child made of grass. So it's an easy mental calculation: Fern needs to be protected. Luther barely knows him, but he needs to be protected.

Just as he's charged full-tilt across the hall, though, he screeches to a halt as the kid literally yanks a sword out of his own hand and starts stabbing. Luther blinks, baffled. ]

Your... hand is a sword.

[ and somehow, incomprehensibly, the first thought that occurs to him is: holy shit Diego would love that power ]

[isthatyou]

My whole dang body's the sword. Well, two swords. Kinda. Long, crazy story.

[Fern was aiming for joints, or anything else he can wedge his sword into, but with Fern distracted by Luther, it moves fast enough for his sword to end up just hitting the armor with a loud clang. It really does sound like this sword is made of metal instead of grass, for some reason, but it's 100% plant matter.

He quickly readjusts and prepares to try again, but as the beast swipes at him with its claws he opts to roll out of the way instead. He's pretty agile.]

[obediences]

[ Luther, on the other hand, is a little slow and ungainly -- but strong. As Fern rolls out of the way of one robot, another comes charging down the hallway towards them, trying to take advantage of the distraction. But Luther plants himself in front of it, catching the lizard like grabbing an unruly puppy by the scruff of its neck; he slams the creature into the wall, digs his hands into the joints as well and rips off a limb. There's a casual, inhuman strength to his fighting. An ape tossing around full-sized logs, if those logs were murderous metallic lizards. ]

I'm gonna have to ask you for that story sometime. I thought you were just... grass. That was already pretty unusual.

disco

[cannotrest]

Between being in space, laser tag in the Space Slam, and the lunar disco having music much more like what she's used to from the clubs and bars back home, Ashley's having a good day, even if she's working and so is sadly avoiding the cocktails. She opts instead for some snacks from the Nickel (familiar fare for her considering the owner's her best friend), stepping back from the dancefloor to eat them.

Out of the corner of her eye she spots a man who looks A) even more like a human krogan than James, catch her making that comparison again and B) like he's not having such a good time. She adjusts the Aegis insignia next to the Alliance one on her jacket and turns to him, hoping the green glow through the circuitry in her skin won't be off-putting too.

"Hey," she says. "You okay?"

[obediences]

The last time he'd been in a club, he'd been grieving and drunk and high out of his mind. So that doesn't translate into familiarity; leads, instead, to Luther freezing up and trying his damndest to finish his drink before he has an actual honest-to-god panic attack. And he jolts slightly at the new arrival, but turns to look at her. Recognises the Aegis insignia, but not the other one. Notices the flicker-glow of strange shapes under her skin; which gives him pause, curious, wondering if it's like the glowing tattoo on everyone’s wrist. (Technology in this world is wild. What does he know?)

Luther chews over his response. Social anxiety feels like such a tame, toothless term. He's squared off against supervillains, killer clowns and murderous robots. So why does a stupid disco make him feel like he can't breathe?

Finally: "Yeah," he says. "I'm just not... used to so many people around. Kind of a homebody."

The noise buzzing in his eardrums, the crowds around them, the sheer number of people, the people. But with just one person beside him, he can narrow down his attention to this one woman, this one conversation. It gives him an anchor to block out the rest. His fingers twitch against his glass, though he's stopped sipping the scotch. "You're Aegis?"

[cannotrest]

Ashley waits patiently, then nods in understanding to his claim of being a homebody.

"My sister's like that," she says. It isn't just pistols that make Lynn nervous. "And I'm Ashley, but yeah, I'm part of Aegis Force."

Which is how she knows to point out as she offers her hand to shake, "There are quieter spaces on the Earth Viewing Deck if you need it."

[obediences]

"Nice to meet you. I'm Luther," he says, stirring out of his concentration to shake her hand. His dwarfs hers, all massive palm and an odd delicacy in his movements to not squeeze too hard and accidentally crush bone.

"And thanks-- yeah, I was there earlier, actually. Met Jacob. Wandered in here while taking in the moon base for the first time, and figured I should stay for at least one drink." And had been too stubborn to leave; too set on proving to himself that he could conquer this particular fear and muscle through it with sheer bloodymindedness. It hadn't worked, exactly.

A beat, because he isn't sure what to say next, hasn't mastered the art of conversation at all, but he adds: "That deck is beautiful. I could've stayed there all day."

Luther & Allison ☂ Of a stolen place, caught in silence

[numberthree]

It's weird. It's definitely weird. But weird is rather the ley line of this place, and it doesn't stop her from politely finishing her conversation and then sliding away from the crowd with a quick, definitive step clicking her heels as she goes. Allison knows where she's going before she leaves the room, who she's looking for as she scans above crowds more than through them. Passes rooms easily in her search.

Until she finds Luther.

Head and shoulders above anyone in a room she'd least expect to find him in. This one most filled with loud music, boisterous people, and dancing. She can't help judging the room, even if she tries to remind herself she supposed to not-be. But she can't check the helplessly almost-pitying smile at how out of place he looks on closer focus. Impossible to miss and yet pinned to a wall as if he'd rather sink into it than leave it.

That's the Luther she knows.

(That's the one she's more relieved to see than any phantom of a completely different, completely changed person she has no real clue how to begin to pretend she could adjust to him suddenly being.)

Her hands come together and clasp a little, mouth pressing, everything catching up in her shoulders with a breath in, the tap of one set of toes. It wasn't like she came with a plan. Just the absolute impulse that he's the one she wanted to tell -- show? -- first.

Even if he hasn't at all lately,

Allison can't think of anyone else she would.

[obediences]

Luther's trapped like a fly on that wall, watching everyone else dance and cut loose, and kicking himself for stumbling in here. (Somewhere, faint, he thinks he remembers something like it. Sweat and warmth and movement. But then the memory slides away, back into the blurred haze it had come from, and it's like a slippery elusive thread that he can't catch the end of and unwind. He doesn't actually want to, either. So he just takes another deep sip of his drink for fortitude and tells himself, I can leave as soon as I finish this. Feeling nerves prickling at his palms.)

But then his gaze drifts and he catches sight of, of all things, Allison. Again. Their gazes lock, and there's something new in her eyes: questioning, insistent. She's too far away, so they can't hear each other over this synth and throbbing bass anyway.

His shoulder tips, a half-shrug in return.

[numberthree]

She could do it from right here. At least as much as she understands. From anywhere, if it holds true to being like the communicators. But Allison's stands there, thoughts that are comments that aren't even truly considerations flickering in and out with the lights from the ceiling. When he happens to look up and in her direction almost like he somehow knew she was there, watching him, waiting, and it makes her straighten a little.

Heels against her shoes, spine closer to a line, shoulders set. But it's all just the touch of focused awareness, barely a shepherd on the impatient, slightly, excited, thrill it pushes up and out and along all her bones. As he gives that little bit acknowledgment, little bit a shrug, and little to her like this strange, depreciating what-can-you-do and i-had-to-try about the room, and everyone, and everything around him. Maybe even a little something about it screaming stubbornness about the longing to be saved and the refusal to run from anything that made him, any of them, want to.

Allison really can't stop the smile or the thought, mouth pressing a second as she shook her head, a little quiet disbelief, a little too easy amusement -- How did he even end up in here?

(How did he ever end up high at a rave?)

But a week in, it's easier to push past thoughts like that. (At least a little easier. At least to not feel slammed by it.) Especially when there's something more important on the table and Allison nods to a side, looking toward a different part of the room, as direction and suggestion. It's not coming any closer to the door, but there's definitely some patches of space that aren't filled with people. Which she starts to make her way toward one of.

[obediences]

She’s harder to keep track of in the seething crowd compared to him, but Luther has a lifetime of practice — first, always aware of his teammates’ positions on the battlefield, an intrinsic piece of attention and focus permanently filed away for where they are, what angles they’re covering. Then, too, picking Allison out of crowd photos from publicity events, press junkets and red carpets; those glimpses in magazines were all he’d seen of her, for so long.

So. He follows her lead, and it’s easy enough for him to make his way through the club, people instinctively making way without him even trying. Having something to concentrate on makes it easier to handle the chaos of the crowd, too, and press down that squirming discomfort he’d been fighting off for the past several minutes. By the time he moves into the oasis she’s cleared, it’s like Allison is the only person in the room, everything else draining away; even now, he only has eyes for her.

“Is everything okay?” His voice pitched loud, loud enough to be heard. And of course he automatically goes to worst-case scenarios: an attack, one of their siblings in trouble, one of the games going awry and Ben pinwheeling endlessly into space.

[onlydoubts]

He's not here to dance. Observation is fine, but dancing - no. As with most of the activities, they're not really the kinds of things that Bodhi thinks he excels at. If his friends are here to participate in the sports, then he's cheering them on.

And partake in the food. It's usually pretty good food with these things.

Here it's more of a matter of lingering, drink in hand ...

... and ducking out of the way out a much larger man, in an obvious hurry to leave.

"Whoa, sorry. Alright there?"

... there's no fire, is there.

[obediences]

There isn't a fire (yet), but there's a briskness to the man's steps now that he'd finally finished his drink and set it aside, having reached the point of giving himself permission to leave. In his speed, and how he's still not quite accustomed to how much width he takes up, Luther accidentally runs into a woman carrying an over-full martini glass; he backpedals, apologising, and in doing so almost collides with Bodhi. It's only through the other man's quick reflexes that he steps out of the way of an actual collision.

"Yes," Luther says, automatically, though it's an obvious lie. Then he pauses, glances down at the gin-and-tonic dampening the shoulder of Bodhi's shirt. Embarrassed: "Oh, shit. Did that drink get on you? I'm sorry, that was my fault—"

earth viewing dock

[choosetruth]

[Georgia doesn't bother with a tag. Her press pass says it all as far as she's concerned. She asks the questions.

And boy, does Luther's tag raise a lot of questions. She has to admit his physique certainly does seem like something more out of a comic book than real life. She didn't think human shoulders actually came in that size. Not that she'll say as much or let her feelings show at all under her sunglasses. All he gets is a raised eyebrow.]

So are you an adult superhero now, or just an adult?

[obediences]

[ It's a fair question, and it's what Luther gets for phrasing the tag like that. It catches him off-guard and he lets loose a small, rueful bark of a laugh. ]

Just an adult. Wound up retiring the cape and mask a few years back. We used to be celebrities for it, though, as kids.

[ He automatically, instinctively steers the subject towards the more-distant (and more colourful, more vivid, more interesting) past. It's safer to talk about the celebrity, less so about why he retired. ]

[choosetruth]

[She raises an eyebrow.]

Wow. And the adults in your life were okay with this? Cause being a child star is fucked up enough when you're not throwing child endangerment in the mix. How are you alive?

DISCO TIME

[hellogoodhigh]

Discos and dance halls are where Klaus practically lives. The vibrant music, the hum of people talking, dancing with the music, is what makes him feel at home. And the six or seven drinks he's already had to help numb the amount of information he's getting from the people around him certainly isn't hurting.

So imagine his surprise when he sees Luther- Luther- sticking to the side of the room.

It's impossible to miss him, really. Between the bright rainbow pants, vintage crop top, and Vietnam era jacket-turned-vest, it's not like he's blending in even with this mass of people.

"Luther! Hey big guy!" He grins as he shouts over the music, moving to lean against the wall next to him.
"Bet you never thought the Moon would be this fun, huh, Spaceboy?"

[obediences]

Luther is clutching his own drink like a lifeline, and doesn't look miserable but also doesn't exactly look like he's having fun -- it's a far, far cry from the last time they were in a club together, since Luther is back to his straightlaced and desperately sober and socially anxious self. But at the sudden arrival of Klaus' freewheeling energy, he unclenches and loosens somewhat. It's at least a familiar face, someone he knows, someone he can better-predict.

(And the sight of him still tickles some distant, hazy memory: Klaus trying to get to him on a dance floor. Shouting to be heard. Bodies, moving.)

He blinks away the memory. "It's... not exactly what I expected," he half-shouts back, head craned towards his brother's. "The moon, I mean. I didn't think there'd be dancing up here."

[hellogoodhigh]

This isn't the kind of place Luther needs to be, not yet. An echo of Ben's statement- about Luther not being ready for the 'real world' is in the back of his head as he reaches out and rubs Luther's arm, an attempt to get him to loosen up.

"What? I can barely hear you-" It's an excuse, because the last time he tried to drag Luther out of a dance hall, it ended with him dead- literally dead- on the floor and Luther making all sorts of bad decisions.
"Come on, let's grab some fresh air-"

He takes Luther's hand, yanking him towards the direction of the nearest exit with as much strength as he has.
"You look like you could use it-!"