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Entry tags:
Jingle Bells
Who: Closed to Brainiac 5 and Bruce Banner
What: Someone trips the alarm one night and Bruce and Brainy work together to disarm it.
Where: One one of the quieter floors
When: At night, Week 2
Warnings: Possible bleeding from orifices.
It was impossible to tell who had done it. It was probably even an accident, given how easily someone might have jostled one of the gates to the closed shops. In any case, it had happened, the alarms had gone off and now a section of the mall - one that had some people in it - was filled with an out of control screeching. The noise was the aural equivalent of a vice, something meant to crush the brains of anyone that was close with compressed agony.
Fortunately, it was a section of the mall relatively far away from the rest of the mall rather than a central location and the farther away someone was, the less terrible the effects were but unless someone disabled it, there were lots of people that wouldn't sleep tonight.
With all the other misery in this place, Brainy thought they deserved to be spared this particular evil. It was easy to justify without much explaining. After all, villains needed to sleep too, right? He could just pretend he was risking getting close for his own peace, not for everyone else's.
Fortunately, he didn't have to tackle it alone.
What: Someone trips the alarm one night and Bruce and Brainy work together to disarm it.
Where: One one of the quieter floors
When: At night, Week 2
Warnings: Possible bleeding from orifices.
It was impossible to tell who had done it. It was probably even an accident, given how easily someone might have jostled one of the gates to the closed shops. In any case, it had happened, the alarms had gone off and now a section of the mall - one that had some people in it - was filled with an out of control screeching. The noise was the aural equivalent of a vice, something meant to crush the brains of anyone that was close with compressed agony.
Fortunately, it was a section of the mall relatively far away from the rest of the mall rather than a central location and the farther away someone was, the less terrible the effects were but unless someone disabled it, there were lots of people that wouldn't sleep tonight.
With all the other misery in this place, Brainy thought they deserved to be spared this particular evil. It was easy to justify without much explaining. After all, villains needed to sleep too, right? He could just pretend he was risking getting close for his own peace, not for everyone else's.
Fortunately, he didn't have to tackle it alone.
no subject
Bruce was grumbling, possibly too softly to hear above the din, and stuffing balled up cloth ripped from clothes into his ears. It wasn't ideal, but it was the only way he could remove his hands from his ears and get close to the alarms without going completely deaf.
"I hope you're not planning on going near that thing without plugs." He had a poor abused dress on the ground, and he tore off two more thick strips from it to offer to the strange green man.
no subject
"We need to disable it!" he called out over the din and partly because his ears were now plugged up. "For all we know, it'll simply increase in volume and vibrational frequency until the sonic effects start to become fatal! The Capitol's done similar things before."
That at least made it seem like it could be passed off as a self-serving action.
"You're one of those ridiculous superhero types aren't you? I can possibly assist you if you're planning on disabling it. I'm no engineer, mind you, but I'm my ship's mechanic and a fairly gifted saboteur."
no subject
But now wasn't the time for corrections.
"Then let's do it before everyone's deaf!" he shouted, struggling to be heard over the horrible noise. He showed off his bandaged hands, grimacing at them. "You'll need to do most of the delicate work. I can't do delicate work." Then he reached into his pocket, taking out a quarter he had taken from one of the cash registers. "But we can use this to undo the screws!"
no subject
He took the quarter in one hand and took out two makeshift tools out of a pouch on his belt, clearly meant to finagle with any technology he saw. Then he started to move. As he walked forward, it started to feel as if they were walking into a solid wall of sound, vibrating around them. A crushing pain gripped his skull like some monstrous hand and started squeezing, refusing to let go.
Something felt like it burst in his sinuses and he cried out, reaching a hand up when he felt something start to trickle down his face from his nose.
His nose was bleeding green blood. Gushing, rather.
Yet he kept moving forward, not even bothering to look and see if Bruce was still with him. Despite the fact that many would've been curled on the floor from the onslaught - or at the very least slowed down - he chugged along like a freight train, determination filling every stalwart step forward.
no subject
"Damn." Bruce could only try to catch his blood in his palm, soiling his bandages. He follows the green man, trying to ignore the blinding roar in his head, the Hulk trying to rip itself out even though the Capitol has trapped it indefinitely. It feels like his body is going to try tearing itself apart.
"Just--get the top off of it. I'll be able to tell the wires apart."
no subject
"Which wires?" he yelled over the din, facing Bruce so that his lip movements were visible, to help him understand if he couldn't hear him. Not that they had much light to work with anyway.
Blood dripped steadily down his face and he kept blinking hard as if trying to focus.
He couldn't work too swiftly here, couldn't give away that, like Bruce, he could figure out how it worked just by looking at it. A mechanic would known how to replace components, what was burned out or malfunctioning, but a mechanic would know his engine. A mechanic would know his ship. That wouldn't make them an engineering genius and this wasn't just a simple circuit that needed to be broken. It was a weapon, meant to project sound in a way that caused harm. That meant he had to slow things down, take instruction from Bruce, and make it appear that he knew how to work with his hands but not with his brain.
no subject
"Separate the blue wire and pull it to the side! You don't want to accidentally cut that one!"
It looked like it was connected to the rest of the alarm system. That could potentially set off the rest of the arena. What a hell of a way to end the games.
"Now unplug the yellow and red ones! Don't cut them!"
no subject
He knew what to do here and the ringing inside his head made it easy to forget he was supposed to wait.
On the other hand, the ringing in his head made it a good thing he had a second pair of eyes. The pain and confusion caused by the alarm was almost too much for even his vaunted mental control. Having someone reinforce the right actions made it easier to not make a mistake.
no subject
In the back of his head, Bruce noticed that, noticed that a mechanic who asked for his help shouldn't know that the fuses were the next step, but the ringing was so loud that he hardly thought about it. Anything to make the alarm shut up faster.
no subject
The blood from his nose started to drip into the circuitry and he quickly wiped at his face with his arm, looking at Bruce with a level of commitment and intensity he was supposed to not be capable of.
The alarms were starting to make an odd screeching noise that wasn't quite the same as before.
"I think it's working! What next?"
They were almost finished...