Xaviers!

Based on Tosh and Nailah's deductions, a detachment of the X-Teams traveled up the road to Cambridge, stopping just outside the Centre for Mathematical Sciences. This is where their deductions had led to,where Captain Cosmos must be hiding.

Now, if only they could figure out where, exactly.



((Open thread for anyone who wants to be involved in some punchin'))

Tosh eagerly jumped out of the van and froze, staring bright-eyed at the building like it was the home of some movie star.

Nerd.

“Focus up, and stop drooling, man,” Trev smirked, looking around as he hopped out after his friend.

"Well, at least this is the appropriate destination for the Dork Squad." Nailah says as she carefully steps out of the van, holding on to the doorframe until she has her cast firmly on the ground.

Charles was the last member of Dork Squad to exit the van after Nailah had lowered herself to the ground.

"Kinda hard to avoid drooling over all this," Charles said with a smile.

"Come on, let's go. People are probably scared." Nailah says as she makes her way towards the main building. It's hard to lead the charge with a cast and a cane.

The Centre for Mathematical Sciences was hallowed ground for the nerdset. It was where Wiles discovered Fermat's Last Theorem. It was home to the Isaac Newton Institute and the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology. Maybe it wasn't quite nerd Mecca, but it's definitely a place math and science nerds would love to be able to attend.

Inside, the lobby was moderatley busy for a weekday, with students and professors milling about. None quite so...standing-out-ish as the X-Teams, and their entrance would cause at least a few heads to swivel in their direction, from the students, the faculty and the receptionists.

Nailah suddenly feels out of place. She expected... well she's not sure. A gloating villain waiting for them maybe? Instead she's standing in the middle of a room of people who are much, much smarter than her, looking at her weirdly as opposed to gladly, which makes her white-and-gold superhero get-up feel... inappropriate somehow.

"Uhm... Hi." she waves slightly. "Is there somebody here who's an expert on... shockwaves? Or doomsday devices?"

The receptionist blinked, nonplussed.

"What...are you talking about? A doomsday device?"

"Yes! Did you not see the message on TV?" she says, realizing that this might not have been the best approach to take. And pointing out that they suspect whatever Captain Cosmos was planning might go down here would cause a panic. "We... uhm... need somebody who might know what sort of device Captain Cosmos was talking about. So we can stop him!"

"....Riiiight.

An expert on...shockwaves, did you say. I suppose you're looking for the theoretical physics department then. I'm sure a few of our more...eccentric professors wouldn't mind talking about shockwaves and doomsday devices. Heck, they might have built a few of them themselves in their younger days. The Fluid Dynamics department is that way, or perhaps you're looking more for relativity and gravitation, which is the other way," she said pointing in both directions.

Nailah frowns a little at the drawn out 'Right' but decides to let it go.

"Think we should split up maybe?" she asks her team-mates. "Or does any of them sound more promising than the others?"

“Splitting the party is usually a bad idea. I say we pick one. My votes for gravitation, but I’m shitty at science.”

"Gravitation would make sense," Will chimed in, "considering the nature of the clues that led us here. Right?"

"I also vote gravitation," Charles said, "I have a feeling we're not going to have the element of surprise."

"Yeah, that's more in line with the Hawking clue."

"Oh!" he said, turning to the receptionist, "Do you know if any of them are experts on Hawking's work?"

"They all claim to be an expert on Hawking's work. You should see the battles as to who will get Hawking's old office."

"Ooh! Ohh! Where is that? The office?"

"Down the hall, on your left. You can't miss it; it's roped off as something of a tourist attraction."

"Let's check that first real quick." Nailah says, making her way down the hall. "I got a hunch."

Hawking's office was kept just as he had left it, a tribute to the departed genius. The books were the same, the computer was the same. Even the mementos, tchotchkes and action figures on the desk remained the same -- everything appeared to be left exactly as it was.

"So does your hunch say where it might be in here?" Charles asked moving to unclip the rope meant to keep people out.

"No. I just thought it'd... I dunno, be obvious?" she says, a bit of doubt creeping into her voice.

"Maybe a hidden door or switch or something?" Charles asked as he began to shift. His head distended becoming more serpentine. Charles' eyes changed as well his goal to be able to see well more, into the infrared and ultraviolet. In order to perhaps see something the others simply couldn't see.

Most of the room hadn't been touched in a while -- that was the point of a rope, right? People don't go past the rope; that's the rule of rope.

With his advanced senses, however, Charles would notice that the Simpsons statue of Hawking, on his desk, had been moved, ever so slightly -- and recently, too.

"Well, Bruce can't freak anyone out more than that... provided he doesn't touch anything," Tosh said before moving to an open space to shift.

Bruce focused the best he could and attempted, as he had only recently begun to practice, to use his electroreception to feel for unusual electrical activity.

There was a not insignificant amount of electrical energy in the area -- there were labs around, after all -- but there seemed to be quite a bit below this building.

Charles walked as carefully as he could towards the Simpsons statue of Hawking.

"Somebody moved this statue recently," Charles said picking up the statue and examining it.

As Charles touched the statue, one of the bookshelves behind him silently slid open, revealing a ramp heading down.

There was some electric-type noise coming up from the revealed passageway.

"I dunno how you did that, but good job!" Nailah says as she peers down the ramp. "I should probably go last, huh." she adds, glancing down at her walking cast.

"Just lucky," Charles said sheepishly as he headed towards the ramp. "Probably better if people who are more... bullet proof led the way anyways, right?"

Charles began shifting again as he moved to the frunt. His body increased in muscle mass, chitinous plates growing from his skin, he grew additional limbs ending in clawed hands (Just ignore the weird biogun and shield thing).

The path wound it's way down, underneath the bowels of the university proper. It was a fairly easy path to follow, even with a bum leg -- the walls were illuminated; this was clearly an access path that was intended to be traveled, if not necessarily known about by the public at large.


It eventually opened up into...well, a laboratory would be the best way to describe it. Not a mad-scientist laboratory, with electricity arcing along the walls or anything like that; nothing so crude. At the same time, this wasn't your standard, boring, university laboratory either. Large generators powered some huge machines, the purpose of which were not immediatley apparent but were probably very scientific.

Of course, those machines could wait, because standing in front of those machines, tinkering at a workbench, was the man from the television broadcast.

Bruce had become the less loud and stompy Tosh again as they traveled. Peeking around his large and hideous friend, he whispered, "This must be what Bruce sensed. So... stealth or fisticuffs?"

Trev kept quiet, following the group and keeping his ears open for anything that sounded out of the ordinary.

“Stealth,” he whispered back, though Tosh was t near him. He’d been practicing using his power like this to carry the sound waves of his voice to his teammates ears and not much further.

Charles began trying to sneak with the others, his chitin changed colors as he did so trying to blend in with the machines around him. Well, however well a clawed chitinous horror can blend in even with seemingly adaptive camouflage.

"Stealth," Charles hissed quietly the vocal chords of this form not really well suited for talking.

Nailah frowns a little and decides to hang back, at least until something inevitably goes sideways. Sneaking with her cast seems like a bad idea, so she anxiously waits at the entrance to the room, pressed against the corner of the doorway.

At first, the sneakiness strategy seemed to be working. The Captain was busy fussing at the workbench and seemed lost in his little world, apparently working on the finishing touches on some sort of...raygun. Thing. Lost in his work, he didn't notice as the group entered the laboratory and started creeping towards.


Until, that is, they crossed a certain threshhold. As they approached the Captain, all of a sudden, a proximity alarm of some sort started blaring, jerking the Captain out of his concentration as he whirled to face them.

"Who?"

Cover blown Charles switched from stealth to a rapid advance toward Declan his active camo making him a slightly muddled looking angry insect monster... thing.

His only response to Devlan was a loud hissing noise. Charles tried to grab the scientist with his four different sets of claws while Declan was still unarmed or at least appeared to be unarmed.

"Appeared" was the operative word.

As Charles approached the Captain, Declan raised his right hand, revealing some sort of small box-like contraption strapped to his palm.

The next thing he knew, Charles was falling up towards the ceiling of the room, as gravity seemed to flip the other way around him. Anyone close to Charles would find themselves heading towards the ceiling, as well.


"Vermin! I shall have to call the exterminator!"

The large ferret crouched behind a science box of unknown purpose smirked and dive-rolled like an action star and sent a pressurized spray of water at Declan's hand device. It was supposed to be a perfectly aimed jet, but then it was his first rodeo.