AGE PLOT SHENANIGANS

[microbrobotics]

WHO: Everyone and anyone!
WHERE: De Chima, various
WHEN: Around 6 PM EST, March 25th
WHAT: Age plot kickoff!
WARNINGS: Cuteness.

[ LET'S GET THIS PARTY OFFICIALLY STARTED! Opening events so we don't do too much comm flooding (although people are welcome to make their own posts for the event). You're welcome to toplevel with your character if you'd like to have them show up somewhere else for this plot.

Current toplevels:
Spring Festival in a De Chima city park
De Chima #1
De Chima #1, later (Minato)

The age plot will run from March 25th through Sunday, March 29th. More deets available at the plotting post. ]

Comments

[khajidont]

[He laughs, and smooths down the lapels on his jacket.] Hey! I was always responsible looking. You just didn't notice yet.

[No, he looked scruffy and gangly. Whatever, man, you don't know what you're talking about!]

So if you know me, then I know you... [He squints at Hiro, assessing, trying to place his features on a younger - or older - face.]

Oh! Hiro?

[microbrobotics]

Uh huh. Sure.

[ But he grins when Jaime guesses it right. ]

Ding ding ding. Didn't recognize me either, huh?

[khajidont]

Not at first. Just a little more respectable than usual.

[Jaime grins, and it's certainly a more recognizable expression, even if his features are still a little too old for him.]

I see you got caught up in this mess too. Whatever it was, it hit a bunch of us. Definitely not what I was expecting outta my day.

[microbrobotics]

[ Ahaha. Aha. He looks kind of guilty at that. ]

Actually, uh ... It's my fault.

[khajidont]

[...Annnnnd there's Jaime's grin fading. Hiro! What did you do!]

Was this mad science gone wrong again?

[microbrobotics]

Yeeeees? Basically?

[khajidont]

Oh, man. [Jaime pinches at the bridge of his nose.] At least this is better than the memory thing, 'cause that seriously sucked.

[How many people got to see Jaime crying in space? Too many. No, shut up everyone, he's fine, he's totally fine, space is just terrifying.]

What were you even trying to do?

[microbrobotics]

[ And Hiro showed a lot of people why he's terrified of fire, so. He winces sympathetically. ]

Yeah no that one was worse. I dunno how I could have prevented it though...

[ A bit of a huff. Mostly he's irritated at himself for letting these things continue to happen. ]

Uh, this. Kind of. I wanted to try making myself older for a few hours.

[khajidont]

Yeah? [Jaime arches a brow at him. Much to his own gratification as he tests it out later in the mirror, it looks a heck of a lot more pointed on an older face than it does on his usual, moderately scruffy one.]

Why'd you wanna do that for?

[microbrobotics]

We were trying to test something, okay. And this was a harmless way of doing it. Or so we hoped.

[khajidont]

I think it's still pretty harmless as this stuff goes. It's not like anyone is actually hurt from it. Worst thing that's happened to me is that I get some time off school, [he says, turning his hand over in front of himself.

Other people will point out to him that his way of thinking isn't entirely accurate later, but what the heck? He's an optimist!]

I got that you were trying to test something. I'm just... still not totally clear on the why. [A beat.] Or the we.

[microbrobotics]

[ He opens his mouth to spout off his usual dodge about this subject ... then pauses. He likes Jaime quite a bit, and even not having made the Blue Beetle connection yet, he feel he can probably trust this guy. Plus they're in person, which means even if he screws up, it's not like there's a log of this conversation. ]

Can you keep a secret?

[khajidont]

I've been known to keep a few.

[Or not known, which is the whole point of keeping a secret, but... whatever, Hiro will get what he's talking about. He does occasionally try to nip his own pedantry in the bud. It can get kind of obnoxious.]

Go for it.

[microbrobotics]

[ Eh, who cares about the details anyway. Hiro steps back towards the garage door he came out of, beckoning Jaime to follow. If Jaime does so ... he'll see two of those Hornet generators sitting in his garage, one looking just the same as the ones they took apart while the other is totally busted. ]

You know what those are?

[khajidont]

I definitely know what these are.

[And he loathes them. But he sees the point in recreating them, and in experimenting on them, so long as they're careful about it. He and Hiro have already had that talk. He crouches beside one, happy to get a better look now that he's not worried about someone trying to take his head off. He whistles low, admiringly, like he's looking into the hood of a car instead of at something that very well could have gotten them all killed.]

How'd you manage to drag these all the way over here?

[microbrobotics]

[ They have indeed had that talk, though Hiro's implication at the time was for the nullifying collars and not the generators; the generators are kind of illegal so he's been real careful about what he's said on-screen and on-network. Hiro gestures to the busted copy. ]

We didn't. One of our friends recovered one during that whole Hornet mess and dropped it off at our front door in a van. So we copied it and tried to make it broadcast a different kind of code. The good news is, it worked.

[ The bad news ... well, that's obvious enough. ]

[khajidont]

The government must be pissed about this!

[Jaime doesn't actually sound like he's scolding Hiro at all, though maybe he ought to be. Still, he's no big fan of the government here, and besides, they've already got all the power nullifying technology they need. The Hornets have been more or less disbanded, which means that they really have no need to take this in as evidence, right?

It's best for Hiro to have it rather than some kind of supervillain. So long as Hiro doesn't go all surprise supervillain on them, they're good. He casts his gaze over to the replicated one with an appraising stare.]

You replicated it pretty good, too. But out of everything you could've done, why try and make it mess with our ages?

[microbrobotics]

Ohhhhh yeah. So, uh. Keep it quiet, yeah? We're gonna return the original one, I swear. As soon as we get everyone else back to normal.

[ Doesn't sound like supervillain talk so far, anyway. And Hiro just isn't the type to do that for real, especially not with his brother here and alive and well. Back home the line was a bit thinner, of course. At that second question though ... He looks a little embarrassed at that. ]

The whole idea was to try it out with something harmless. Proof of concept, y'know? And I wouldn't have minded being older for a few hours ... That was the whole point. But it backfired and went way, way too far.

[khajidont]

[Jaime flaps a dismissive hand in Hiro's direction.] Don't worry, I'm not about to tell.

[He is, technically, a friend of the government. They like him. He brought in a spy for them, saved their shuttle, registered and performed his duty to the full extent of his powers. This is a good thing. He wants to be on their good side.

It makes it easier to go behind their backs like this.]

It seems like a pretty big step for something that's supposed to be a tester, though. I mean, it did wind up being pretty harmless, but you're actually changing your body. That's a pretty big step!

[microbrobotics]

[ Hiro's on the side of good too, okay. He's just not always on the side of law, registered or not. Anyway, he shrugs a little at Jaime's comment. ]

We weren't gonna just dampen powers - not a good test and might hurt people. I wanted to boost powers, maybe, but ... Well, some people have really dangerous ones? That's real bad to spring on anyone. So, we decided to do this instead.

[khajidont]

Still a pretty big jump... though I can't really think of anything better. [He straightens up, dusting off his pant legs.] How about the memory thing, though? How'd you guys manage that?

[microbrobotics]

Dude, that wasn't us. I have no idea how it happened.

[khajidont]

Are you sure? We already know that the nanomachines can mess with our minds. It affecting our minds along with our bodies isn't such a far stretch... is it?

[microbrobotics]

The vaccine was totally different though. Trust me, you don't want it to be our fault. If it is, we're definitely causing brain damage.

[khajidont]

I'm not really hoping it's anyone in particular, but you gotta admit, it can't just be a coincidence. So? Do you think you can reverse it?

[A beat.]

And I hope that the mind thing reverses too, or else we're gonna have a bunch of nine year olds with the bodies of twenty year olds.