2013-02-11 Titans Go!

Twas brilig and the slithey tove did gyre and gimble in the wabe--No, wait, wrong thing. It was late-afternoon, and Cassie Sandsmark was walking home while reading the Jabberwocky poem because she had to write a report on Lewis Carol's works, and she picked one that sounded fun. Now she is wishing she'd picked a different one. Her phone's text-search function is not helping her find definitions for any of these words. She happens to be passing by a park as she reads -- the same park she usually passes by after school most days. So she notices something out of place readily enough. This is mostly due to slipping in some mud and having to sudden struggle to maintain her balance and not do the splits unintentionally. She is helped along by her foot impacting something hard buried in the muck. Once she is sure she isn't going to fall down, Cassie frowns down at the mud puddle and sees the corner of something poking out of it."What the frick?" she mutters. The blonde teenager puts away the book and her phone in her bag and then pries the strange object up as carefully as she can -- so as to avoid getting mud all over her hands. "--Ooo! Ooo! This is just like that movie!" she says excitedly. But, no, it's not some weird board game. Just a chess board. Fooey. Well... Someone clearly left it here quite awhile ago. Maybe she can turn it in to a lost and found or something. For now, she simply brings it with, deciding to clean it up.And that's how Wonder Girl wound up sitting at a table in the rec room with a recently-cleaned chess board laid out, trying to get anyone she sees to play against her. She's not necessarily GOOD at chess, but she's not bad either. "Hey, hey! Want to play a game?" "Hey, you like chess--Okay. Okay, cool. It's not for everyone." "Hey! H--Okay! Yeah, you do look busy! I'll catch you later! Okay? Okay? Okay."
"What are you doing, Cassandra?"
Suddenly, Raven's there, looming up behind Wonder Girl with one dark eyebrow raised in her pale face. She'd spent most of the day, like most days, locked in her room. She kept her new tattoo healed and lubricated with some kind of ointment given to her at the shop, and was keeping the studs in her ears there so the holes wouldn't close up. So after quite a bit of meditation, reading, and then more meditation, she'd set out to find her 'first friend', Cassandra Sansmark.
And she'd just found her in the rec room.
She leans over to peer at the chessboard slightly, frowning just a tad as she does so, her her cloak bending with her to make it look like she was some kind of pod person without arms or legs. "I... was not aware that you enjoyed chess. It is a game that we had in Azarath. One of the few 'games' I was allowed to play, as it helped to strengthen the mind. If you are looking for a match, I could..." She tilts her head minutely towards one of the other chairs.
Mend wanders in carrying, suspended from its straps on one hand, what looks like a jet pack. Yeah. That's the kind of thing that happens when you have an engineer on the team. "Hey, girls," she greets, cheerfully, before settling down near the chess board and examining it. "Hrm. Yeah. No wonder this let down its previous owner. You'd never get a good intermix." She carries on, murmuring to herself, in much that vein.
A green blur whips its way into the rec room and lands up against the table, hovering and leaning in over it. "Ooooh, chess!" Megan declares excitedly. "Chess is the game of kings! And crazy people who flee to Japan, I've heard. I don't want to be one of those. More like kings!" Megan decalres with a clap. She tugs a chair over and takes a seat. "Hi Raven!" the Martian pumps out with a full perkiness assault towards Ravens. She can't stop trying, just because she's so dour. Not that she doesn't have good reason... "What's the horsey do?" M'gann asks, stretching an arm far across the table to pick up a knight.
Cassie looks up happily. "Yeah, I've played before! I'm not too great at it, but I won't get better by not practicing, right? I'd love to play you!" She sits up in her chair and scoots in close to the table. As Mend walks in, the blonde glances over and waves. "Hey! ...That thing's not going to explode or anything, is it?" Malfunctioning jetpacks do not sound safe to her. And when there's a green blur zipping and being all EXCITABLE right next to her, Cassie blinks rapidly until she's sure her eyes are working properly. "Oh, the Knight? It moves in an L-shape! I think it's two forward and one to either side. Or was it three forward?" Something strange starts happening with the board once Raven is seated. The board starts to tremble. Cass starts to look to make sure M'gann isn't doing something to the table, but the table is actually remaining stable.Moments later, a line of bright line splits the board in half and then flares outwards, blinding everyone...!
...The next anyone knows, they are standing in some new place. A wide, open, flat place. The tower is gone. Instead there is a vast night sky of sorts all around, and they're standing on a... Chess... Board. Raven appears to be on the far end in the place of a Rook. Marissa appears to be a Bishop. Cassie is in the Knight's place. M'Gann is standing next to the King.Cassie blinks, looks down at herself, and then around, and then blinks some more. "What."
Raven looks up as they're greeted by the engineer, offering a dip of her head by way of greeting. "...Marissa." Then she looks back down at the chessboard everyone else seems to be staring at. Who knew such a simple device would bring all the girls in the Tower, with a few exceptions, together to view it? Then M'gann happens and suddenly there's a green woman in their midst. She too gets the head-bob greeting. "...Megan."
When invited, the dark-haired Titan seats herself, spreading open her cloak just enough so that one hand can emerge free as she begins to touch the pieces to make sure they're all where they need to be. That's when the trembling and the bright light starts. She sits back abruptly in her seat, first trying to figure out if HER power is to blame. "Look ou-"
But before she can finish the warning there's a flash of lights and she's throwing up an arm to shield her eyes. By the time she's lowering it and blinking away the bright spots, they're somewhere else. It doesn't take her long based on their surroundings to put two-and-two together.
"I believe the game was... some sort of transportation device. I guess the real question is 'where'?"
"Ooooh! Can you teach me?" M'gann asks, with a huge smile. More human things to learn, this will be fun. Humans seem to take the game very seriously, so that'll be a good thing to learn, especially. "Do you need help Mend? I don't think I could tele-catch you from here. It's hard to do through solid walls."
Megan tilts her head and looks strangely at Raven. "Is this not a costume even?" she asks. There's a rumbling and Megan sits up stock-straight. "Marsquake!" she yelps, gripping the table. No, no, that's not what it is at all. It's...something else. Megan turns around in her spot slowly. "Cassie?" she asks. "Raven? Is...chess supposed to work like this?"
Mend frowns. "I don't like this. It's Wizard Chess and somebody's going to end up getting taken." Transportation device? She's more worried they're IN the chess set. "And a bishop? Really?" Oddly, or not, the jet pack has not been transported with her...probably a good thing given what she was saying about it. She doesn't step off her square for now, but rather tries to look around. And at herself. "Why is the girl who doesn't know what to make of god the bishop?" She's trying, perhaps, to lighten the mood.
The blonde scratches her head and says, "Uh... I guess this really IS like that movie with the magic board game then. Huh." Pause. "But seriously? Chess? Not, like, Jungle Fever or Candy Land or something?" Cassie sighs, and once she is sure everyone is okay, she looks at their positions, and off across the board in the distance. She turns around to look behind her, walking to the edge of the board and peering over. What she sees is an endless drop into infinity. She quickly backpedals, deciding not to test if she can fly back to the board if she falls off or not. "Uh, becareful around the edges, everyone! They don't look safe!" Cass then sighs and rubs her forehead. "I found this chess board buried in the mud at the park. I'm ASSUMING it's responsible for us being here, but it might be a coincidental attack by some kind of chess-based villain."Yeah, right."...I don't suppose anyone here has a spell or teleporter or anything to get us back?" As Cassie speaks, she notices movement in the distance. On one side of the board, pieces are starting to flicker into existence. Black shapes solidifying out of nothing. Eventually both rows are filled. Then pieces start appearing on the Titans' side as well. White pieces. Hm! Who'd have thunk it? As the other pieces appear, the Titans get a wardrobe change. Megan gets a fancy dress fit for a queen, along with a large scepter of some kind. Raven's clothing shifts to take on the appearance of a castle, with battlements about a high collar. Stone armor forms over her arms and legs that seems not to weight anything but feel very, very solid.Marissa's clothing shifts into a generic religious robe of some kind without distinguishing holy symbols, but also a white hood with a cut-out over her face. Cassie gets... A helmet."...Oh, c'mon!" Cassie yells out at the endless night sky. The rest of her outfit morphs into a heavy suit of knight's armor moments later, along with gaining a lance roughly three times as long as she is tall. She nearly tips over. "Sigh!" Yes, she said 'sigh'. "I'm guessing we have to beat the game to win--" Then the pieces all around scream out a battlecry that has Cassie nearly jumping out of her skin. These pieces look like people of a sort, similar to the Titans -- just made entirely of artificial materials instead of flesh. And they are charging forward without regard for the rules, just as the black pieces do the same! What the frick!"Oh, man, these guys are wigging out bad!" Cassie laments before charging along after them. "New plan: Don't get killed!"
"Not that I've ever played," Raven says. She takes a few steps within her little square, scowling down at the board, before she turns a glance Mend's way. "Probably because it's better than the child born of evil being the bishop." She mutters sardonicly. This was not the way she had planned to spend her day! She wanted to show her friends her new tattoo, show Cassandra how she'd followed her example and gotten her ears pierced. She was trying new things to better fit in with the only friends she's ever known, and now instead of that, she was stuck in a CHESS SET!
Raven closes her eyes, reaching up and behind her to pull up her hood, taking a deep healing breath to try and calm the anger and frustration at their situation from overtaking her. When she opens her eyes again, she begins heading for the center of the board about the time the blonde is trying not to fall over the edge of it. "I can teleport us out of here... providing something does not block our travel."
But then the wardrobe change happens, and it causes her to stop, looking down at herself with mild surprise. "I... do not like this." Says informs, examining the coverings over her arms and legs and such, which was definitely NOT her cloak. The pieces begin to appear, and then... they start to charge.
It's beginning to feel less like Wizard's Chess and more like Alice in Wonderland!
Raven tries to throw up a shield made of her Soul-Self, a solid wall of darkness before her to stop any rampaging chess-monsters. But who knows if her powers even work here or not, or if she was supposed to be some sort of super-strong stone golem-thing now.
Megan's outfit shifts, and she eeeks in a yelp, twisting to tug at it. It results in her her just twisting around and around, like some sort of dancer. "I can't shift out of this!" she declares with surprise. "Neat stick!" she says, swinging the scepter like it were a sword and mimicing gestures she's seen from the movies.
"Don't be a poop, Raven!" Megan calls to her compatriot. "Nobody's born to be evil!" She giggles at Raven's wardrobe change. She's tried to get Raven to change for weeks, although she was rather impressed at her never-ending supply of the garments. Miss Martian looks for her counterpart across the board and focuses in, trying to give her a high quality blast of Martian Vision!
Mend grumbles. "How am I supposed to move in these robes?" she complains as she tries to dive aside from a charging knight, waving her staff. Probably mostly by accident, a blast of light comes from it. "Oh. That way." She's defending herself. Beyond that, she's not about to do anything. They're probably under some kind of curse or something. The staff spins again, to face anyone else who wants to take her on. This might be fun, if it wasn't real. Cursed chess set. Typical.
Raven's powers work fine. The black chess pieces don't quite seem to be sure what to do about the barrier other than to batter at it or just avoid it, but the black queen seems to be preparing a spell of some kind. Since when do Queens cast spells!? Well, either way, she is preparing something nasty looking with crackling energy and swirling power above her head, when she gets struck with Miss Martian's force blast and hurled right off the board! She explodes instantly upon entering the void. Good thing no one tested that earlier after all!Cassie hurls her lance with all her strength, smashing through several pawns in a row. The Knight blasted by Mend leaves his armor behind. Because he's smoke now. The Knight has turned into SMOKE. Bishop's have vaporization powers now!? This is just... All kinds of wrong! Cassie draws a sword that appears at her side and a shield appears to match it, once her lance is done smashing things. She isn't entirely comfortable killing things that look humanish, but for all she knows they're just golems of some kind with no awareness at all!Eventually, the Titans are likely to notice that the kings are staying right where they are and overseeing the battle. Even... Directing it to a degree. The white king doesn't seem to have any influence over the Titans, and that fact seems to be making him very curious about these strange new pieces. So curious, infact, that he calls for a time out. "Time out!" he yells, and the black king waves a hand. Suddenly all the remaining pieces stop frozen where they are. All of them except the Titans. The white king turns to look at the four girls carefully. The black king also seems to realize something strange is going on. Eventually, the white king asks, "Who are you?"So much for just being golems.
"I am not being- NNNNGH! -a... EEYAAAAAH!" One of the enemy Rooks has taken to pounding on her shield with excessive force. The shield made out of part of her soul. And, unlike most things, she FEELS its effects and reels back from the blows, falling to her knees and placing a hand up to her temple, the other used to catch herself as she pants from the mental exertion. The black shield protecting her dissipates.
And the stone castle-monster homes in. With a stubborn growl of defiance, Raven lets her emotions show briefly, rising up and running between the things legs as it reaches for her. Her hand lashes out at one of the stone legs, but her powers do not come when called, not with her emotions in disarray. Instead, her fist smashes into stone... and breaks it.
The opposing Rook's leg shatters and it falls as Raven passes it, only to be charged by a pair of pawns. The first she takes in the chest with her newfound strength, causing the 'person' to cry out and crumple to the ground. The other she smashes downward on the helmet... causing his entire body to compact into the headpiece with only his feet sticking out as he waddles about.
And then the battle is paused. Raven stands there for a moment with her hands held up in a defensive position as an enemy bishop had just been about to blast her. Then comes the question, but Raven doesn't answer, merely turns to look at the White King. She wasn't good with people anyway, best to let the others answer while she got her emotions under control.
Crap. She was only defending herself, but she doesn't want to have killed anyone. Not knowing how it feels. Mend turns to face the King. "*Somebody* teleported us here into the middle of this battle." She doesn't call it a game. For all she knows it's something like the Aztec battle of flowers - a ceremonial combat to settle an argument with less bloodshed. That happens to look like chess. Right. She's pissed, but it's very clear it's not aimed at the king, but at whoever brought them there. The staff is eyed suspiciously, then leaned against her shoulder. Lethal weapons, not something she wants to carry.
Ka-BAM! Yeah! Took out that damn Black Queen! Miss Martian hovers above the board by a couple inches. "Wow! I didn't expect that! I hope she's okay!" Megan says with concern. She lifts up higher and flies towards the other side, until everything pauses.
Meg stops in mid-air and huhs. <<Is everybody here? Does anybody know who that is? Is there a White King supervillain?>> Megan asks into the mind of the other three women.
The White King looks baffled. The Black King also seems perplexed over on his side as he tilts his head and cups a hand around his ear to listen in. The White King says, "...Well, that is certainly unusual. This is the first time that has happened in..." He stops to think. Then he turns and calls out, "Has it been eight-hundred and thirty-seven thousand, nine-hundred and forty-two games or eight-hundred and thirty-seven thousand, nine-hundred and forty-one games?" The Black King thinks and then calls back, "Eight-hundred and thirty-seven thousand, nine-hundred and forty-one games! This one would be the eight-hundred and thirty-seven thousand, nine-hundred and forty-second if we manage to complete it without further interruption!" The White King 'ah-hah's, and turns back to the others, "Well, I suppose that's that. We can resume now," he says calmly as he seems to be settling himself back in.Cassie calls out, "Hey, wait a second! What is this place? How do we get back!?" The White King pauses and the Black King looks annoyed at the continued interruptions. "Like... Like, this isn't where we belong, you know!? So we should be able to go back!" The White King shrugs. "I have no idea. My brother and I have been here for... Err... Was it eight-hundred--" The Black King interrupts, "Eight-hundred and thirty-seven thousand, nine-hundred and forty-ONE! We are on the eight-hundred and thirty-seven thousand, nine-hundred and forty-second right NOW, if we can just CONTINUE!" Cassie rubs her forehead, looking in Raven's direction to see if she's okay. She says, "Look, let me put it like this: If you don't help us figure out a way to get home, we won't help either one of you guys!"The two brotherly Kings seem to take that into consideration as they glance at each other. The White King sighs as she looks to Megan next to him. "What do you propose we do?" Cassie lacks telepathy, so she just tries to think to Miss Martian, <<We're all here, it looks like. And I don't know of a super villain like that, but this guy doesn't really seem to be very villainous.>> The king adjusts his crown and says, "We have been playing thi game for... Err--" The Black King glares from across the board, and the White King just continues on with, "--Many, many times. I can't even remember how I got here or when we started anymore. If you're like my brother and I, I'm not sure if it's possible to return. We just have our pieces battle each other for supremacy. We were generals back home, you know."Cassie blinks at that. That seems... Odd. Not kings, but generals? Cassie waves a hand to Raven to call her over, as she moves closer to Mend. "Hey, have you noticed these guys aren't playing by the rules of chess?"
Well that's certainly... odd. Raven manages to get her emotions of suprise and anger back into their little boxes where they belong. ONce her head is in order, she's able to pay attention to what's being said, though it makes as little sense to her as it does to everyone else. How long would it take one to complete that many games of chess? Well, to know that, she'd need to know the average time per game and the time intervals between games and that's not really all that important right now.
"Are you not then... tired of chess?" Raven inquires. She certainly would be after eight-hundred-plus thousand games of it straight. Maybe that's why they ignored the rules altogether: it had gotten BORING the right way.
The dark-haired empath moves to stand next to Cassandra, a frown of mild confusion on what's visible of her face between the ramparts of her collar. "It seems they are trapped here just as we are. The question is how long, and would they agree to a chance to go back?"
She glances from one queen to another before lowering her voice further. "Our powers seem to work still, but... I am not sure if I should try to bring us all into my Soul-Self for teleportation. The Black Queen did not survive leaving the board. I cannot garauntee we would, either."
Miss Martian twists as she lands, looking between the brothers. "Oh, hey, yeah, you do look really similar. Awh, brothers," she says with a smile, hugging her scepter to her chest. "We're all trapped here?" Megan walks across the board towards the others. Megan looks upward, trying to look into the void above them. "Was she a real person?" she asks the others with some real concern.
"If the games keep restarting, I'd kind of assume she isn't. Or she isn't actually gone." Mend sighs. "If they've been trapped here for that number of games...and...why not stop playing?" she asks the brothers, suddenly. "Why not just stop. I'm sure you're great entertainment for whoever brought us all here." Or maybe they really are inside the chess set. Or something. Either way, stopping playing strikes her as a very, very good idea.
Cassie isn't sure, really. The kings look about as 'fake' as the other pieces, but they seem to be the only ones acting like people. The White King assuages that fear by saying, "They are restored every time it restarts. But, err..." The Kings look at each across the board as they listen in on what these strangers have to say. Then the White King asks a very important question. "What is... 'Chess'?"Cassie stares."What." "There are rules we are supposed to be following, yes? This is the first I have heard of it. We were hoping perhaps after one million games we could stop, but--" "I wasn't!" the Black King yells from afar. The White King stoically ignores his brother, and continues on. "But to be honest if I could leave sooner, I would sorely love to. What are the rules of 'chess?'"Cassie turns to look at Mend, then at Miss Martian, then at Raven. "Guys, this is just like that OTHER movie, where the same day repeats. I think these brothers are trapped here until they play the game right! ...Maybe." She isn't quite sure. She's more of a puncher than a thinker. "Someone needs to teach them the rules of chess so they can play it right. Then maybe we can all go home!" Cassie stands there with plated gauntlets on her armored skirt and then turns to Raven and asks, "Raven, can you teach them the rules of chess?"
"Groundhog Day!" Megan yelps excitedly. "I love that movies! It's funny!" She nods emphatically. "If we do what we're supposed to, it should all end and let us free."
Mend can't help but laugh. "So...we need to play a good game of chess. I'd rather not be a piece, though. The pieces might reset, but I don't think even I can survive being vaporized." The others, certainly can't. Mend lets out a breath. "Let's do this, I guess. Get them and hopefully us out of here.
"...Great." Raven mutters as the discussion goes on. One wanted to leave, the other wanted to be stuck here playing forever. Ugh. And THEY were probably stuck here until these brothers played the danged thing RIGHT! Frustration was an easy temptation to fall into, and Raven has to throttle back the urge to give in. Finally, she opens her eyes and looks at Cass as she mentions it. Then she turns towards the black king and nods in his direction.
"I will explain to that one." Probably because black was much more her color than white. For while she dearly loved white, it was darkness that was a part of her. "Between you and Marissa," She looks from one Titan to the other. "You should be able to explain it to the other. I only hope we do not have to... play afterwards."
Mostly because she doesn't want to put her life in the White King's hands!
And then... she melts into darkness, a large shadow swallowing Raven up! She steps from the shadows right at the Black King's side and begins to point out the various pieces and explain their functions, and general stratagems to him, whatever surprise he might have at her teleportation act nonwithstanding.
The blonde teenager salutes Raven and then tries to do her best to explain to the White King, with the help of Mend, the rules of Chess. She might not be as much of an expert as Raven, but she as least does her best! With Megan providing moral support in the background to keep anyone from strangling anyone else, eventually the two Kings are ready. They both raise their hands simultaneously, and the board is reset. This time, the 'foreign' pieces are left on the sides of the board, terribly close to the edge. Normal pieces fill the former position of the Titans. Gradually, with the Kings get used to playing by the rules. They are amateurs, to be sure, but they finish. The White King is the victor. As the white pieces cheer out alongside their King, a wave of light splits the board across the middle.The light flares blindingly and... Everyone is back in the Rec. Room of Titans Tower. Including the two Kings. They are dressed in rather ancient-looking armor and look nothing like their kingly selves. They actually look like they're from somewhere far to the east. China? Mongolia? The brothers are clearly twins. The Black King seems annoyed to have lost, even if he's out of there now. So as the White King looks around in amazement, the Black King takes a seat on one side of the board... Calls out to his brother, and gestures to the game. What he says next is in some tongue that Cassie can't understand. But the message is clear. 'How about a rematch?'Cassie just groans and rubs her face. At least the curse has been lifted.
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