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It's a Jungle Out There (IC)


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Late one crisp Friday in January, the various members of Young Freedom sat around the conference table in their headquarters and listened to the Star of Africa. Edet Chereno was the only Claremont student from Dakana, the richest nation in sub-Saharan Africa, and as he spoke with his faint English accent the daka crystals embedded in his red-tinted body glistened in the light of the overhead lamps. "The White Lion has disappeared." He looked from one to the other of the students there before looking back at Mark, the Young Freedom member who knew the African student best.

"The great African hero," Mark murmured. "The King of Dakana. He's a friend of my family too," he added before letting the Star continue. Even Mark looked worried for this one, or at least as worried as Mark ever got.

"He was returning from a conference in South Africa, along with the Prime Minister and the Queen, when his plane disappeared completely from Dakanan radar. Two follow-up missions have failed to find him; indeed, one of the rescue missions has now disappeared." Edet swallowed hard. "My country is at peace, but we have many enemies. The other nations tell mad stories about us, that we harbor a secret cure for cancer that is only for the elite, that a king keeps a monster chained up in the mountains, that our wealth comes from trade with the Grue." He rubbed one of the crystals in his skin and said quietly. "We cannot win a war against all our neighbors while at the same time choosing a new king. Even a victory would mean the death of tens of thousands."

"And you came to us because teenage American heroes going to Africa will attract less attention than the Freedom League?" Mark had actually not wondered about that question at all; Edet had come to them because they were superheroes, naturally. But Edet had explained it when he'd first approached Edge, and so Mark had decided to bring it up himself.

"Yes," agreed Edet. "Even the news of the king's disappearance would be a disaster. We must do all we can to prevent that. And...because it will allow me to come with you," he added. "I would not see my mentor, my patron suffer and be unable to come to his aid. Please, help," he asked them. "Before my homeland falls into a war that none shall win."

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This really wasn't his thing. Hell, before the team he probably wouldn't have bothered. But now? If nothing else, he was going to be there for his friends. James nodded slowly. "So, do we know how he disappeared? And from where? Anything you can tell us about the situation? I'm guessing this will require some investigation on our part once we get there. Not exactly my forte but we've certainly got a few skills that would help." He figured if nothing else, with Mark along, they would probably just stumble into finding the guy. He looked at the others. "So, do we need to charter a plane and pretend to be on vacation or something or can Alex tweak the teleporter or something?" He'd have to give Taylor a call and let her know he was heading out of town for a couple days, just to give her a heads up.

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"Satellites, even the cameras on the Lighthouse, have been pointed at the area, but so far they've found no sign of either the White Lion's plane or the missing search patrol." Edet sighed softly, shaking his head. "UNISON knows; it was one of their planes that disappeared. All that is known is that a strange energy surge was detected just before they vanished..." He pulled out a printed sheet of paper and placed it on the table where all the heroes could see, the readout showing a complicated piece of super-scientific observation. "The UNISON flight disappeared nearly twenty miles from the last location of Lion-1." Mark had helpfully provided a map of Africa, with two dots visible on the northern part of the Congo. "Over the rainforests of the Congo."

"I think we may be better off teleporting in," said Mark with as much thought as we could muster. "I mean, it'll be a lot faster than grabbing a jet or seeing if we can get the use of the Pitchoo. If this is a rescue mission, time is of the essence. What's it like on the ground there, Edet?"

"Rough," said the Star of Africa. "The jungle there is very heavy, and the region has been torn by wars. The White Lion is not loved by the warlords of Africa, who hate him for his wealth and his honor. He would fare poorly as their prisoner."

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"Yeah, the Pitchoo doesn't do cross-Atlantic travel so well. Besides, I'm not taking it to the equator until the air conditioning gets fixed, it gets hot in there..." He pulled out a notepad and pencil from his belt. "Anyway, I figure Psyks can get the teleport targetted well enough to get us fairly close, and we've got luck powers anyway. Terrain'll be rough, we'll probably need to progress via flight or swinging on vines. Chest-beating entirely optional." To hammer home the point, he drew a stick figure swinging from a vine. "We gonna need a spare teleport beacon to pick up Lion-O? Oh, and I'll need one, I never got round to it. Now, I'm assuming some firearms will be involved. Won't affect most of us, but try not to get shot if you aren't invulnerable, bullet wounds hurt."

"We'll also need some Powerade. Hydration is essential."

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Erin listened to Geckoman's list with her brow furrowed. Chris generally had good ideas, even if they tended to be buried in nonsense a lot of the time. "I think we're all willing to help," she told Edet, looking around at her teammates, "but we're not exactly trained in working on the ground outside of Freedom City. You'll have to show us how to get around down there, and who to talk to. Do you expect there's going to be a fight, or do we have to try and find him, then sneak him away from wherever he is?"

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It would be easy to assume that Alex wasn't listening as her head was bent over the belt buckle she'd set on the table as she poked at it in a few places. Snapping it shut, she looked up finally and tucked the pencil she'd been using as an impromptu tool back behind one ear. "Yeah, no problem. I can get us there with the teleporter."

She reached out for the map and glanced over the readouts as well as the map, committing both to memory as she continued to speak, "Once we teleport in, I should be able to scan the surrounding area for visual and audio. Its certainly worth a shot, at least. I actually disagree with Geckoman on how much equipment we should take with us. If we really need anything above and beyond what's easy to carry, we can send Phalanx for it. With his speed and strength, he can bring anything we need in short order and it sounds like speed really is of the essence in this situation."

Alex frowned down at the energy readout and kicked her chair over to the computer console to begin depressing buttons on the keyboard, "This energy read out is strange, though..."

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Mike nodded his agreement, "Of course we'll help." He said with more confidence than he usually showed for this kind of work. Glancing down at Alex he chuckled softly, "And Psyche's right if we need anything heavy lifted up high I'm your man." He said with a smile.

As Alex puzzled over the readouts he looked to Mark as resident super hero expert. "So what kind of forces are we thinking it would take to capture the White Lion? He's pretty tough isn't he?"

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James shrugged. "We shouldn't need much. 'Sides, if the 'porter is working, we could just hop back for more I guess. We'll carry enough food and water though a couple of us don't need much. We can just consider it spares I suppose." He wondered idly if this jungle was going to have the same insanely large mosquitoes the last jungle they were in. Probably not thankfully. He glanced over at Alex. "So, what's weird about it? Besides packing some bug spray, I'm probably good to go with a couple minutes notice."

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"Well, if we're going soon, I'll go quickly restock my belt. And maybe get that jungle camo I have lying around. I think I put it on a suit, although unfortunately it's that one with all the armour plating. I'm gonna chafe tomorrow." He sighed as he went over to a cabinet on the far wall. "Oh, yay. It was the stupid armoured one.

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"There's no way to know exactly what could have happened to the White Lion," said Edet, unhappiness writ large on his red-skinned face. "His plane simply disappeared from the radar, with no trace of explosion or remains. As he is no ordinary man, and as one of the rescue planes vanished as well...we suspect super-powered involvement. If we could even find evidence of his disappearance, we could use it to bring in the Freedom League for the rescue itself. A battle will only be necessary to save lives."

"Okay, so you don't think we're likely to get into actual combat with super-mercs or something? That's a relief," said Mark with a grin. "So we go in, try and find him; if he looks saveable, we get him ourselves, if not, we call in the League?" He looked around at the others. "I think we can do that. If no one has anything else, I think I'm about ready to pack and get going."

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"Super powered or super science," Alex agreed from the console at the manor's computer terminal. She brought up several fluctuating bars on the screens flanking the table and held up the readout to them, making that thoughtful noise again before scooting her chair back to the round conference table. "Odd in that its some sort of dimensional corridor fluctuation although I couldn't tell you from where. Its not dissimilar from the teleportor's tesser technology but there's literally an infinate number of possible sources for that. Something would have to target a dimensional flux of that magnitude and I doubt that anything on the plane could have been used for a targetting system..."

Alex broke off, looking at the mixed expressions directed her way and blushed, before simplifying, "The plane was probably teleported. We should look for eye witnesses or any sort of tech around the site. We can probably narrow it down to something useful from there."

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"I understood maybe half of that. Do any of us actually have a mean to detect weird-ass energy wavelengths? Has this come up before and I didn't understand the ridiculously huge words?" said Chris, pulling on the armoured costume and grumbling about 'tightness is poor areas'. Then he suddenly whipped round.

"Weird idea, likely to be... unlikely to work, but do you have anything that would smell of Lion Dude? If we do and the energy fluctuating thing makes no sense, I can track him by scent. I think Hellion can too."

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"We can rendezvous with a search party," said Edet thoughtfully, "I know there are some still in the area. I will radio ahead so that they will have some mark of the king that we can follow." Looking well-pleased at the mission they'd put together, Mark took that opportunity to call an adjournment so everyone could pack and get ready for the mission. He'd thought about getting authorization from Mr. Summers for all this, but he was pretty sure it would all work out okay in the end. After all, they were superheros!

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Phalanx stared at Geckoman in mild confusion at his commentary about scent tracking then leaned in to ask quietly, "Wait you have a nose sensitive enough to track a guy across the jungle and you live with Eddie?"

He leaned back as Mark adjourned the meeting asking Psyche, "I'm gonna get some food and stuff together I guess you need anything?"

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James nodded. "If it's a dimensional shift, I should be able to detect that. I'm not great at it, but I'm learning. Same if it was magical in nature. Though if it was big enough to move a couple planes, it might make it easier." He chuckled at Mike's comment to Chris, pushing back his chair to stand up. "I didn't get the techo-speak either but I'll just go with it. So, go get some gear, food, water and meet at the 'porter in 10 minutes?"

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Mike took Alex's hand in his own and led the way up to the Manor proper, "So any other ideas bouncing around in there," He tapped her gently on the head, "about what's going on?" He asked. He wasn't sure but it seemed like there had been more to that technobabble than he first thought.

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"You know that I always have ideas bouncing around. Anything more than what I said is all just speculation. Dimensional energy signatures and pattern fluctuation isn't anything I've made a real study of." Alex replied soberly as they headed into the well stocked kitchen. She automatically went to the fridge and began putting together a quick sandwich for both of them. Being telepathic did mean you never had to ask what your boyfriend wanted for lunch. Well, that and fifteen years of friendship give or take.

Pushing the plate piled high towards him, Alex volunteered as he no doubt knew she would, "If I was going to speculate, I'd say it is possible that the plane is no longer in this dimension at all, considering the sheer size displaced. There just aren't that many devices capable of moving that much mass. But we should be able to tell when we get there."

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Mike took the offered plate with a nod of thanks and dug in as she explained her theory. "So would it even have had to be in this dimension? Like the main device was in Erde when we got sucked over right?" His knowledge of inter-dimensional physics was admittedly poor but he used what he had. "Or would they have had to have a big set up on this side?"

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"Again, I don't honestly know," Alex said apologetically, as if it was her fault for the gaps in her knowledge of advanced tesseracts and dimensional physics, "It really depends on what methodology that's being used to create the singularity. Something would have had to be in this dimension to use as a target, I assume, but there is always a possibility that there is some configuration that I am completely unaware of. As the plane vanished midflight, I imagine that we'll find something on the ground or in the air around there to help narrow our search. There must be some reason that the plane vanished at that exact instant in time and space, once we have that, everything else is cake."

After her mini speech, she quickly demolished her smaller sandwich and drained a glass of water, before neatly putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher.

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Bright and early the next morning, the team gathered together again in the Young Freedom headquarters for their teleportation to the jungles of equatorial Africa. In full costume with plenty of water bottles and smelling faintly of mosquito repellent, Edge was fully confident that he was ready and able for the quick jaunt ahead. The Star of Africa had come out to join them as well, his skin glowing faintly with the cosmic energy that was his to command. Mark waited for everyone to get on the teleporter pad before he joined them there, a look of determination on his face. "Okay, team, is everybody ready to go?" he asked around, having taken command of the remote. With no objections, he pressed a button and they were off to the jungles of Africa!

They reappeared in a clearing amid a high, humid tropical forest, a place bursting with life and energy, the air around them like a perpetual sauna. "Maybe we should get some cover," suggested Mark with a glance up at the sun overhead. "It is summer here." He led the way towards the trees, Edet taking to the air to act as their navigator as they headed for the last known location of the White Lion's plane.

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Phalanx arrived already in his blue and gold costume and jogged onto the platform at Edge's cue. When they arrived he shrugged and nodded agreement with Edge, not everyone was as unaffected by extremes as he was. He stepped to the front and carefully cleared a path in the direction indicated trying to make sure Edet was in sight as he cleared a path for the others.

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James showed up without costume, mainly because he hadn't gotten one yet. He really needed to get around to that at some point. Instead, James had settled on 'safari' clothes. Study pants, shirt, boots and some sunglasses of course. The multitude of pockets combined with the light backpack gave him plenty of carry space. And he didn't particularly mind the heat. The giant insects, ok, they sucked. But a little burst of flame when one got too close too care of that problem. He looked around as they started walking. Not nearly as bad as the last jungle they were in. He shrugged his shoulders a little to settle the backpack a bit and headed off after the group.

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Alex was in the red and white costume she usually wore. She was still coating her arms and legs in sunscreen as they teleported into the jungle heat. Unfolding an incongruous floppy red hat from her belt, she tucked it over her hair and loosely knotted the ties under her chin before launching herself after Edet, leaving a sparkling trail in her wake.

'Mental communication is going to be spotty while I'm esp'd out, so we're on verbal communication with Mike relaying up to me from the ground while I get a good look around.' Alex's serene mental 'tone' filled their thoughts briefly as she trailed after Edet, including him in the circle of communication. 'I'll warn before I project any rapidfire images.'

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Erin gaped a little as the teleporter dropped them off in the middle of a whole world she'd never been exposed to before. Even after everything she'd seen in the past six months, it was hard to believe that in one breath they were in Freedom City, and the next in the middle of Africa. She took a moment to stare around and absorb the place before hustling to catch up with the group. For today's excursion, she wore her typical gold and blue practice uniform, which was far sturdier than anything else she might have worn for a trip like this, and more importantly, would be replaced by the school if it was destroyed.

She didn't deploy her bat yet as she walked, but she checked it every so often, just to make sure it hadn't brushed up against a tree and been lost. She wasn't much of a diplomat and she sure wasn't much of an investigator, but if there was a fight, she wanted to make sure she was ready. A few of the approximately ten billion bugs tried to bite her as they went, but even jungle-superbugs had little luck with that, as Erin's winter-white skin was as immune to insects as it was to the sun.

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