A Liar's Alliance (HIVE)

"...Operations Room under a swamp of grape jelly. Death toll still unknown. So until further notice, meetings will be held at a variety of locations across the base. Wherever is most convenient. A good opportunity to make use of these spare facilities that never get touched." Hugh kicked a medical gurney away with his heel. It bounced back across its prior trajectory, apparently affixed to the near wall by a mess of spider webbing. (0_0) "Err. You see! All this advanced medical equipment and you guys still choose to walk a fatal injury off. We already paid for the junk, we might as well use it."

Hopping onto the laminate worktop, Hugh wedged himself between a dust-matted white board and some dialysis machine. HIVE's medical bay hadn't seen a lot of action. Not since Gilda stood on Nina's tail last month. And even then she wouldn't allow them to open the operating theatre for an emergency urasectomy. It had just been on of those functionless frivolities. But not anymore! For today it was the site of Hugh's strategy meet. All non-dinosaur HIVE members were required to attend. By law of Pix! He didn't expect a full turnout.

Recent developments in HIVE's plans required they all be on the same page. The group had been rather informal before now. Members were given assignments, else did what they wanted, within set limits. Limits called for by TIBERIUS' code of ethics. But now Hugh needed his comrades to understand the nuances of the position he had placed HIVE in. The things he had to impart were essential to the success if the HIVE master plan. Because new players had entered into the fray. Zydons.

"This everyone? Should I just start?"

Nina raised her hand, still cuddling one of her tails that now had a bandage on it "question, why not just clean up the original meeting room? If its so full of jelly can we not just...eat it?" she said, seeing it as a logical option "also if we have so much technology why haven't we made a cleaning robot for the facility yet? Like a Rosie-bot or something" she said before suddenly sneezing, a cloud of dust forming in her wake before she sniffled and stared at Pix, wondering if anyone would agree with her on her points.

There was the familiar smell of cigarette smoke and ozone, a good old fashioned disregard for the medical bay as Ethan strolled in with a snort, chin rife with stubble and those eyes filled with that all too familiar sense of contempt he held everyone with. "There's more coming, but sure, start away." He spoke softly, as he fished a cigarette from his coat, stuck it between his teeth and stared at Pix. It wasn't that long ago that Ethan had his neck slit, some reward for being the hero and that left a sore sport with the aloof natured gentleman.

He wanted to end that electro spaz, this wasn't just a slap in the face. It was an outright insult to what he stood for. And he wanted blood. "So what's the news pixel punk."

Blake sat sat on the dusty hospital bed, reading Shakespeare contently. Then Pix had to start talking. Great, back to reality we go. He went on in his usual way about how the meeting room was in disrepair because of...a jelly incident...okay yeah, what do they do that's stupid when she ISN'T in the base to stop them?! Jelly? REALLY?

With a sigh she answered Nina. "If you want me to be honest, Pix is way too lazy to do anything like that and would rather walk us to the gates of Hell and befriend Lucifer himself. If you want his coverup, the technology and corpses, though nonexistant, would be in too horrible a condition to be recovered by any mortal. In short, Mario's full of crap." There was a certain part of making fun of Pix that made her cat ears twitch in pleasure, but only a little.

"Now carry on oh great idiotic overlord."

Kristoff walked into the medbay lazily, an ear bud in one ear and a pencil in his hand. He was just twirling the pencil between his fingers as he walked in, humming along to Good Riddance by Green Day. He tapped on Blake's head with the pencil playfully and flashed her a grin as he leaned against the wall. Kris was still amused by the thought of the Jelly mishap, if only he had been there to see it. Kris nodded at Nina and went to pull a cigarette out of his pocket when he realized he was out, so he looked at Ethan, "Yo, mind if I bum one?"

Dar stood at the back of the room with his arms crossed, waiting for things to get started. Actually, he was waiting for someone else to show up. Seriously, where was everybody? The meeting was supposed to have started already. Dar pulled out the slip of paper on which he had written the room number. Looking at the number above the doorway, he realized that he was in the wrong room, and also the wrong floor. He ran to the elevator.

A minute later, Dar confidently walked into the real meeting room. Pix wasn't talking at the moment, so Dar apparently hadn't missed anything important. He took his place standing at the back of the room and crossed his arms, acting as though he had intended to show up at this time.

He eyed the other HIVE members who were here. He knew Blake, the beautiful girl with beautiful swordplay, but everyone else was essentially a stranger. Dar had his claymore (a normal sized one, not that other, hulking piece of metal) hanging on his back. He didn't trust anyone here, and apparently the boss didn't either. Why else would the entire facility neutralize all super-powers? If a fight broke out, Dar was willing to bet he could take most of the people here, though Blake would be a problem.

He tried to think of something else, but it was getting harder these days. Violence was simply becoming the main focus of his mind, an unfortunate side-effect of channeling the cosmic power of rage. To be honest, simply being in this base, where his power was neutralized, was partially soothing. Or at least it would be, if there weren't all these other people here, most of them as crazy as he was.

"Thank you for waiting."

Gilda was late. The senior members of Hive would have known she was going to be late. She was late for every meeting, an impressive feat. Never once had she been on time, always at least a good 5 minutes behind everyone else. It was almost a talent. This time was an exception though, it was probably the closest she had ever been to being on time(3 minutes behind schedule), but it had a reason. She was here to show off her fancy new weapon, an Nth metal gauntlet that was a bright golden color. She had grown quite attached to it in a short amount of time. It was the first piece high quality of Nth metal that she had ever gotten for herself.

"No smoking in here dweebs, it's gross." she said as she waltzed in confidently. Though she wasn't really the leading type, all the senior members also would know she had trouble following most orders. If it didn't come from the top, it might not happen. This wasn't gonna keep her from bossing around the newbies though. Besides she did NOT need the base smelling like smoke. She not only hated the smell, but had been raised to be against smoking by her parents. She simply found it disgusting.

"Anyways, what the hell are we here for Pix? Ya gonna throw away more of Kitty Cat's toys? I wouldn't mind it, the distraught look is good for laughs."

A man walked in wearing a black button up shirt a red and black pin stripe vest and a pair of dress pants. His shoes were polished and shining. His eyes were inhuman rather than white they were black and colored a sinister red. A tattoo encircled his neck. He strode in with the utmost confidence and took a seat next to Pix as though he belonged there. Malan'tai was done playing around with disguises. He'd grown bored, it didn't matter if they knew who he was it's not like any of them would flip on him.

He leaned back with a sigh and said. "Ah a chair, now this is comfort. Thank you all for coming even though I didn't order it myself. I have some guys working on the normal meeting room." The way he spoke should have clued them in to the truth of who he was.

((OOC: Wanted to try something to spice up the posting order. New concept I'm calling 'queue cuts'.

Everybody in the thread has one chance to queue cut. They can, at any time, jump to the front of the posting order, thus posting next. This allows them to respond immediately to an event they think their charrie would react quicker than others to. For example, if their charrie was attacked. The new posting order will be set until the next person uses their queue cut.

Example: Posting order - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. [After player 1 posts, player 5 uses their queue cut and posts] New posting order - 1, 5, 2, 3, 4.

Please state in OOC whether you are using your queue cut for clarification. Remember you only have one. Use it wisely. This is a test to see if the concept can work since the thread is not heavy on action.))



Before he could respond to Nina, Blake cut in and covered the absurd excuses Pix was about to give. Honesty was the best policy sometimes. They weren't going to get a straight answer on that one. Best everybody forget who jellied what equipment in which secret base. Hugh met Blake's last remark with a sardonic smile, "Excellent. You cut a long conversation short. I really must be a busy man. Even my bulls*** is summarised and delivered by another." Now they could move on to the point of matters.

It surprised and secretly pleased Pix to see Gilda in attendance. Usually she was absent where he was involved. Naturally intimidated by his new found authority in the ranks of HIVE. Or so he assured himself. "No, Gilda. But we do have a feature length picture of various people stepping on rakes that you can watch later if none of us are yet in tears." Clasping hands, and meeting each of their eyes in turn, Pix began his opening remarks, "Needless to say, I am not wasting your time. I did not call you here under false pretences. It is important you hear what I have to say, for it will have great impact on your continued association with us. HIVE has a dark secret that shall finally be revealed."

It was roughly around that moment that the well-dressed stranger waltzed into proceedings. The sprite went from incoherency to realisation in a matter of seconds, "...TIBERIUS?!" He was... doing something different with his hair. Namely - having hair. A sudden thought made Pix wheel back on his audience, "Err. This wasn't what I wanted to reveal. This doesn't mean anyone gets to leave."

Nina watched everyone walk in, rolling her eyes when Ethan and Kris walked in, with the amount of dust in the room they could set the room on fire, but she assumed there was a sprinkler system in place for such an emergency. She watched everyone walk in and didn't say anything, going wide-eyed when she saw Tib 'hototototototototototototototot!' she thought as she just stared at him, was that really Tiberius their boss? Wow he cleaned up nice. She couldn't help but stare at him for a few moments, zoning out a little to Pix.

It had been two weeks now since Ixen had been vanquished by the Zydons, she had taken the vaporised ashes and scattered them in the forest, she knew he would have liked that, right now she wanted revenge, she had managed to hide her grief while with others from Hive, she hurt badly inside yet she hid it all behind her casual attitude. She wouldn't want to let the others see her in such a weak state.

Zoning back to Pix she just stared in silence at him, listening to the rest of what he was saying.

Blake shook her head. They really found this to be a shock? Maybe it was just her own enhanced senses, but this was definitely Tiberius. He smelled exactly like his armor. And did they REALLY think that armor was him? Despicable really.

As she was bopped on the head with a random pencil, her enhanced reflexes and superspeed kicked in and she grabbed it, breaking it in her hand and tossing it to the side of the room. Animal instinct, what are ya gonna do right? Instead of giving Pix the respect everyone else seemed to think he deserved, Blake went back to reading her book. "Nice to see you outside the armor for a change boss." She said, acknowledging the leader of her assassin guild and of HIVE itself.

The arrival of Tiberius didn't do much to change the attitude of Ethan, ever imperturbable and nonchalant in his general attitude. The short haired teen clenched the unlit cigarette between his teeth, switching and flipping it from the corners of his mouth, boredom on his face as he leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Well it seems everyone's here, so let's get the show going pix, I haven't got all day and I'd really like to head topside and relax at the mall, preferably sometime this year." He spoke with a cool disdain, Ethan never really liked Pix the little bastich was always scheming and plotting, and being a condescending know it all and that never sat right with Ethan.

Never did have a singe clause to trust a schemer and that wasn't going to change with teammates either. The big bug was here, the bird, the cat girl weeaboo anime freak and the fox and Kris. The only other person he had a little respect for.

Kristoff looked at his boss, letting out a whistle. He then over analyzed it, probably giving it more thought than any normal person should, "So, let me guess, this is some sort of symbolism stating that we are almost done hiding who we are from the world?" He walked to 'his' gurney, honestly Kris used the med bay as a chill out area, seeing as nobody had used it. Kris then laid on his stomach, to watch the meeting. It was apparent he was restless, all he wanted to do was go to the training room and work out, but he had to stay through this meeting. Kris took his fedora off and dropped it on the floor, his long black hair sitting messily on his head.

As the last people filed in, Dar recognized Gilda. After this meeting, perhaps he would say something to her.

Pix's speech was interrupted by a man entering the room. Another late-comer? No, it soon became apparent that this was their employer, the head of the HIVE, Tiberius. Everyone seemed impressed by the man in some way, either by his manner of dress, his attitude, or by his demonic looking eyes.

Dar was not impressed. While it was nice to know who he was working for (so far he had only interacted with this Tiberius over virtual communication), Dar was more concerned with why he was working for this man. He stayed standing with his arms crossed.

Since moving to Jump City, Dar had mostly been homeless. He had seen his dreams slowly slip away until it had become difficult to remember what they were. It had come down to a battle for survival against his pride. Dar was still alive, thanks to the resources of the HIVE, but was this truly victory?

Finally, he would get the chance to find out.

"You have wealth in abundance, Tiberius," Dar said. "That is clear, but it takes more than money to lead. We have gathered here perhaps the most powerful fighting force on the planet. What makes you worthy to command such an army?"

Dar drew the claymore from the sheath on his back. He didn't make any aggressive actions, however. He simply stood the sword up, holding the hilt in his hand and resting the tip against the floor. The blade had been a gift from the then mysterious, faceless leader. "I do not care what your cause is. I care who you are. Show me why I should carry this blade, and I will fight with it. Show me that you are a greater man than I, and I shall fight for you. Otherwise, I will do neither."

Dar was trying to not sound disrespectful. At the same time, he was standing his ground, and looking right into those inhuman red eyes. If Dar could find someone who held his full respect, then Dar would find purpose in his life.

Mal sat back and kicked his feet up looking straight at Dar. He turned his head to the side slightly then back and pursed his lips a moment. "Who am I? Well now that is a question isn't it? Honestly no one has ever asked. My wealth comes from my having been on this planet since it started cooling it honestly is a means to an end. That end is unity, all this is just a stepping stone. Who I am however is another thing entirely."

Mal hopped up and walked over to Dar putting his hand on Dar's and did have to look slightly down to look him in the eyes. He wanted the man to have no reason to doubt his words. "This is a courtesy I've never shown anyone, I'm going to tell you the truth. I am from a planet called Ixor. It's long destroyed don't worry about looking. But from it's destruction this world was born. I was the crown prince of Ixor."

He removed his hand and strode over to the white board and made a quick sketch of the planet. "My world was far harsher than this and I have done terrible things to live as long as I did. I have killed every inhabitant on 300 worlds. My title is 'The doom of Malan'tai, my name however is Dzvezdan. Now then when you want to know who I am, I am a destroyer, a teacher, a guide, a re-builder. I seek to make this world better than mine was and keep it from being destroyed as mine was. If you have more questions I'll be happy to meet with you after this privately. But this isn't the purpose of this meeting, is it Pix?"