Agents of the Multiverse

DATE: 05/15/Y2 - LOCATION: Main Lobby of the Omphalos

The lobby of the Omphalos hummed with its usual pulse of activity. In the soft golden light of the coming evening, dozens of souls wandered to and fro, coming and going to far away worlds, or conducting quiet business at the computer terminals near the lounge. An AotM agent, a tall, bearded creature, stooped down to give directions to human family trying to navigate their way to Gotham city. A centaur by the main door broke into laughter at a joke told by his avian companion, and his braying laughter could be heard all the way across the way to the elevators.

And in the center of the space, where fig and orange trees sprouted from concrete risers in a fragrant jungle, there was a very red, very angry dragon pacing, huffing and puffing about the planters and pottery.

Someone had brought back something they shouldn't have, and now it was Krepta's problem to deal with.

The creature she was tracking was about the size of a mouse-- and twice as fast. That was what she had been told, at least. She hadn't seen the damn thing herself. It also mightily enjoyed making meals out of the Omphalos's electrical systems. Krepta found herself wishing she knew exactly who had been responsible for this mess so she could thank them by chasing them around the atrium track for a few hours.

Could it have been an accident? Maybe. Once in a blue moon, things were known to slip through the Gates. But the sensors on those things were pretty good. And besides-- small, cute... secretly trouble? This had all the hallmarks of an escaped can-I-keep-it-mom?

Luckily, Krepta had a good nose, and while the animal liked to eat in the walls, it had been sleeping in the vegetation, and seemed to particularly like the orange trees. Infuriating, however, it was indeed fast.

Every time Krepta circled around one way, broad red nose pressed to its trail, it would circle back around the other. She had gone on several mad-scrabble chases around the central planter now, just as desperate to catch it as she was not to lose her temper at the concerned stares of the newfish from Sanctuary passing through.

Eventually, she had had to concede that she wasn't going to capture the little menace on her own. Practicality eventually won out over stung pride, and Krepta put out the call to any other available agents nearby via her gauntlet.

Pest problem, main lobby. If you're not currently doing something important, and you've got fast hands, get down here before I uproot the planter and traumatize our guests. Again. Please. Thanks.

- Agent Walker

Elphaba doesn't know if she'll ever get used to the Omphalos.

It's a bustling hub of life swarming with activity, and the people that inhabit this strange place are more varied and exotic than she can ever dream. Some look humanoid with extraneous bits and bobs like horns and tails and odd colors (like her) and others look to be a mash of human and plant or animal (or both) and others are so utterly bizarre and alien she has no idea what to make of them. She knows better than to stare, and she doesn't. She does not stare, staring is rude. She is simply observing, because it is always good to know of the company in your respective vicinity.

Right now, she was in the dining hall, slowly eating a hearty lunch--vegetarian, of course. Even if animals here weren't sentient like they were on Oz, Elphaba still could not bear the thought of consuming the flesh of another living thing. She couldn't look at an animal and not see a friendly face, whether that be her old nanny Dulcibear, or her professor Dillamond, or the countless other Animals she befriended while on the run.

They were all gone now. Just her, and her husband Fiyero, who was currently sitting across from her, feet kicked up on an empty chair and balling up a napkin.

He chucked it playfully at her. "You're thinking," he teased. "As adorkable as your face looks all scrunched up like that, you gotta stop doing it so much."

"Right, but if I don't think, then who's going to do the thinking for us? You?" she quipped right back. But Fiyero had a point. She tended to get stuck in her dark thoughts and spiral. Fiyero seemed to have some odd sense when she was doing that and help drag her to the present, something she appreciated more than words could express. No use dwelling over what they lost. They were here to help. Focus on that.

Suddenly, her Gauntlet lit up with a ping. She twisted her wrist, tapping her finger on the panel to read the message. Ah, her gauntlet, such a fascinating, ingenious invention of magic and technology. She picked up how to use it quickly, but the marvel of how this little thing work still endlessly fascinated her. One of these days, she will go down to the Research and Development departments and shadow the engineers. Her eyes glanced over the message, her lips twitching into a smile.

"What is it?" Fiyero asked, head tilting inquisitively.

"Pest problem. And from the tone of the message, our dear friend Krepta is about a hair's breadth from losing her mind," she said. "Well, perhaps I should lend a hand before she loses her head."

"And I will be sitting right here. Waiting. And keeping well out of a very pissed off Krepta's way," Fiyero said with a strained grimace.

Elphaba let out a breath. "She doesn't hate you, if that's what you're afraid of."

"I'm not afraid of her," Fiyero protested.

"Then walk with me. The main lobby's not far. Let's go," She said, and stood from her chair. Fiyero let out a small noise of protest but stood right with her, following her lead as they went to the main lobby and searched for Krepta.

She wasn't hard to find. Right there, dead center in a bunch of large orange trees, was a massive, red, pissed-off dragon.

Fiyero froze on the spot.

"Nope," he decided. He spun on his heels a full 180 degrees and started marching away. "Nope nope nope nope noooooooooope I'm not going anywhere closer to an Oz-forsaken dragon. I'm good. More than good. You know what, I think the cooks actually wanted my help peeling onions for dinner, I'm going to go do that, you have fun, love."

"Hey," Elphaba said, grabbing his arm. "Are you forgetting something?"

He paused, then smirked. He bent over and kissed her cheek. "I nearly did, how could I be so brainless? But a big red dragon? You have to admit, incredibly distracting."

"Indeed. I'll find you when I'm done."

"And I will be waiting far away from here!" he said and marched off.

Elphaba sighed, shaking her head, but she approached the red dragon, undeterred. She knew this was Krepta, her gauntlet indicated as such, but this was the first time she had ever seen Krepta in this form. It was striking, awe-inspiring. She had seen dragons before, but a human who could take the shape of a dragon was new. And it was rude to stare, so she approached calmly, clearing her voice loudly to get Krepta's attention.

"You said you needed some assistance?" Elphaba asked. "How can I help?"

Krepta lifted her head, nostrils flaring to take in the scent of the green skinned woman-- and the fleeting trail of her husband, who Krepta watched with an unreadable expression as he vanished around the corner.

"You must be Elphaba," Krepta said, returning her attention to the woman. A lot of the other agents had a habit of referring to people by their last names. Krepta supposed that 'Agent Thropp' would have been more proper, but outside of formal meetings and irritation, Krepta had never quite got into the habit.

"It's nice to meet you, and--- yes--" she said, her voice dropping into a growl. She turned to bring her great scaly head down to level with the foliage. One green eye rolled back and forth, searching. Behind her, that muscular, scarred tail swept slowly back and forth, like that of an agitated cat.

"Someone brought in a pest. A... mouse thing," she told her. "It drains electrical systems. Probably other forms of energy too, but I'd rather not give it the chance to sample and see what it likes. It's too--" Krepta sighed and pursed her lips, a curiously human expression on a draconic face, "-- fast for me," she finished reluctantly. The admission stung a little.

"I need you to stand on the other side, and then one of us needs to flush it towards the other. Can you do that?"

"I am," Elphaba said, nodding her head to the great dragon. Her eyes briefly scanned over Krepta's form, her expression neutral. Inwardly, Elphaba was doing everything in her power to contain her excitement of being this close to a dragon. Dragons were exceedingly rare and elusive creature, and now one was right in front of her face, so close she could touch one--

Stop it, that is your coworker. Get a hold of yourself, Elphaba Thropp.

"Someone brought in a pest."

Elphaba's attention diverted to the matter at hand. Right. The pest problem. Elphaba stepped next to Krepta, kneeling down to be more level with the ground herself. Her dark eyes narrowed as she scanned the vegetation, but nothing immediately jumped out at her. Krepta admitted that, whatever this creature was, it was too fast for the mighty dragon. Elphaba couldn't help but chuckle at that.

"Well, that's no surprise there. Dragons are meant to hunt much larger prey than mice. Even if you were fast enough to catch it, it'd likely slip between your claws or teeth. No offense, of course," she said. "Do we know if it is sapient? It could be a wayward refugee."

Nevertheless, she listened to Krepta when she asked her to stand on the other side of the massive jungle-like planter. Elphaba carefully walked around the perimeter, still scanning for anything that might be their slippery little culprit. She stood directly across from Krepta on the other side, kneeling back down. Suddenly, an idea came to her.

"You said it feeds on electricity?" she asked. She raised her hand, concentrating. In her hand, small electrical sparks began to dance in her palm. Admittedly, electricity wasn't her specialty, but it wasn't so dissimilar to fire as to be something beyond her capabilities. She stretched out her hand, lowering it into the planter, lightning crackling around her fingers.

"Perhaps instead of chasing it around like a couple of headless Hammerheads, we'll use some bait to draw it out instead?"

Krepta didn't notice Elphaba's brief fascination. She was far too engrossed in the problem at hand. This had already taken longer than she had wanted it to, and she had other things she needed to be doing!

"I don't think sapient creatures poop in the-- Oh hey, that could work!" Krepta brightened as electricity crackled over the other woman's palm. The light painted vibrant blue shadows across both of their faces as she leaned in-- though, not too close. Krepta didn't exactly fancy a zap to the snozz, no matter how small. Her nose was sensitive.

"I was gunna catch it in this," she said. She picked up a small box and held it out, the handle looped around one long talon. It was mostly clear, with a durable looking frame that might have been metal. There were tiny runes carved into the solid bits. "It's what we use to catch and study corrupted animals. Er--- the little ones, anyway. I figured it'd work just as well on something like our electric little friend."

Her eyes tracked the sparks as they danced just under the largest of the leaves of the planter, those huge shoulders tensed with the repressed urge to act. This was Elphaba's show now. Krepta knew if she so much as breathed wrong there was a chance of her scaring the animal off, and then they'd have to start all over again.

Sure enough, after another few minutes, a little, furry blue head poked out from the gloom beneath the plants, its whiskers twitching. It truly was a tiny little thing. It was amazing how much damage it could do. Four large ears swiveled about its head, taking in sounds from every direction at once.

No wonder I couldn't catch it, Krepta thought wryly. Thing's practically got little radar dishes for ears. Probably could hear me thinking.

Elphaba eyed the cage, bristling slightly as unpleasant memories flooded back to her. Animals being shoved in cages, locked away in confines so tight they could barely move, treated worse than the dirt on the bottom of their shoes and starved to near death. All so that their speech would be taken from them. All so they could never speak out against the cruelty enacted against them by the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Nothing unties the people better than a common memory.

Elphaba shook her head, snapping herself out of those dark thoughts. They weren't caging an Animal to torture it, they were capturing a wayward creature to prevent it from causing any more harm to the Omphalos. Steeling herself, Elphaba took the cage from Krepta, though a dark look flashed in her eyes as she swore to herself that, whatever this creature was they were intending to capture, it would not suffer the confines of a cage for a single second longer than absolutely necesary.

Elphaba crouched low, going so still she almost disappeared into the surrounding vegetation. One could even say she blended in with the foliage. Her patience was rewarded when their culprit finally emerged; a tiny, fuzzy blue thing that was indeed quite mouse-like, save for the extra pair of ears and a long bald tuft tail like that of a kangaroo mouse.

The green Witch froze completely, not even daring to breathe. The little mouse's nose twitched as it crept with agonizing wariness to Elphaba's crackling hand, its tiny little tail lashing wildly. Those beady little eyes--Elphaba could see six of them, two on each side with two more right in the center of its minuscule face--stared up at Elphaba.

She did not twitch a muscle. She was staying so very still--

With her other hand, she made a small gesture, really more of a small flex of her fingers to levitate the cage closer--

And the mouse took off.

It hopped over the planter's edge, scampering with shocking speed off to the nearest wall, and right into a sea of meandering people.

Elphaba cursed loudly as she burst from her spot, sprinting after it as fast as her legs could carry her. "Oh no you don't, you crafty little bugger--Lurline's piss, get back here, you squirrely little thing!"

The mouse moved, quick as the lightening it ran on, and Krepta's head snapped around to track it, pupils pinning, shoulders hunching. They rolled once, then her enormous frame was moving, thundering across the lobby before her mind could catch up-- a predator drawn to its prey like a magnet, an instinct that was amplified by Elphaba's own visible excitement and frustration.

Krepta's claws skittered against the smooth tile floor, and for a moment her hind end spun out before she reflexively dug in, leaving shallow grooves in the polished surface that Krepta knew she'd be getting flack for later.

By then Krepta's brain had caught up to the rest of her, and she had the presence of mind to shout a booming, "Move!" at their gawking audience, who scattered like a flock of startled birds. She pulled ahead of the mouse, who was a little blue comet heading towards the wall with purpose, and threw herself to the ground in front of it with a pained grunt. An old injury in her shoulder complained-- too many times dislocated-- but Krepta ignored it. It was fine. Pain was only a signal, and it wasn't important at the moment.

She slid across the floor like a baseball player sliding into home, forming a living, scaly wall of determined dragon in the mouse's path.

Now it would have to waste time going around her, or risk getting nabbed going over, and Krepta was very ready to snag it if it did. With Elphaba on its tail from behind, spitting curses that made Krepta like her just a little bit more, their furry stowaway's chances of freedom were looking grim indeed.

The massive dragon bounded after the mouse--somewhat clumsily, as the slick tiled metallic floor probably was not the best surface for such a beast to gain traction on. Krepta then threw her bulk against the floor with a great crash, sliding in the path of the mouse to divert it. Elphaba winced at the impact, but she didn't stop moving.

Krepta's plan worked well enough--now that the mouse-creature's path had been impeded by a massive wall of scales and sharp pointy things, the mouse was forced to go around, giving Elphaba a precious few seconds to catch up to it. She had her hand raised next to her with the cage hovering dutifully by her side, and with a wave of her hands, the cage shot forward, its front gaping open like the jaws of a hungry predator as she launched it directly in the mouse's path.

Please forgive me, Elphaba thought with another wince as the cage snapped around the mouse like a snare, trapping the mouse inside.

Elphaba let out a breath as she pulled the cage back to her, gripping it carefully in her hands as she eyes the little culprit. To her great relief, it appeared completely unharmed, just a bit frazzled and rattled as it shivered in the corner of its cage. Cute little thing, but who knows how much mischief this little rascal got up to before Elphaba came to Krepta's aid. Nevertheless, the ordeal was over and the chaos had ended.

She stepped up next to Krepta, ignoring the gawking crowd that had gathered to watch them. "Are you alright? You hit the ground rather hard there," she noted. She held up the cage, showing off the mouse but keeping a firm grasp on it. "Well, as far as plans go, went about as well as one can expect. Now let's get this poor little thing somewhere safe and somewhere well away from the sensitive electronics of this place, yes?" She held the cage closer to her face, a much softer, almost motherly expression crossing her face. "Oh, you poor thing, how did you end up here? You must be so frightened--well, fret not, we'll find somewhere safe for you to call home."

Was she alright?

Krepta rolled to her feet, though it took a few kicks of those powerful back legs to properly right herself first. She tested her wing, flexing the joint. It gave a leathery whisper against the scales of her side. Seemed fine. She gave her shoulders a little wiggle next.

Oof-- ouch, no, that one stung a bit.

But she kept the wince off her face, chuckling instead. "Me?" she asked. "Yeah, I'm fine." Krepta winked one great green eye at Elphaba. "Though maybe we don't mention my little leap of faith to the medical team, yeah? They might finally turn me into a rug this time."

Probably just irritated the rotator cuff, Krepta thought with a flicker of annoyance. It's never happy with me. Nothing some pain killers and rest won't take care of.

She turned her attention to the rodent in the cage, deftly distracting from any further questions about her arm. Krepta's head was nearly the size of Elphaba's torso, and as she lowered it to look at the lone mouse in its little container, it made the animal look truly tiny in comparison.

Krepta's head cocked left, then right-- a quick, bird-like movement.

"It is kinda cute, huh?" she asked, amusement coloring her rumbling tones. She hadn't missed the maternal expression that had crossed the green skinned woman's face. "Little bastard. Good catch. If he had gotten back into that wall we'd be spending another week chasing him all over creation."

Her eyes shifted up, considering. "You really like animals, huh?" she mused, something like approval entering her expression. "Y'know, I can't promise anything until the science team checks him out and makes sure he's not carrying... I dunno, some kind of interdimensional plague or something... But I'll bet they'll let you keep him if you can show them you can come up with a good setup."

Elphaba gave Krepta a skeptical look when she insisted she was fine, but did not press the issue. If Krepta wanted to be stubborn, that was up to her.

"You really like animals, huh?"

"For a very long time, Animals were my only companions," Elphaba said wistfully, getting lost in thought. She put a hard emphasis on the word, something intentional and unmistakable that sounded odd to someone not familiar with Ozian language. "They did not care that my skin was different from the humans around me--because they cannot see color like we can. I found camaraderie with them when the rest of Oz saw me as nothing more than an object of ridicule."

There was an old sting to her words, as years of harassment and cruelty were difficult things to shake oneself from, but also a melancholic note of resignation. At the moment, memories of all her Animal friends was all she had.

"I'll bet they'll let you keep him."

Elphaba lurched away from Krepta, gripping the cage tightly in her arms as she shielded the mouse from the dragon, her eyes blazing with emerald magic.

"Keep an animal locked away in a cage?! How dare you--!" she snarled venomously, but then stopped herself, remembering.

This isn't Oz. Animals are not sentient. She didn't mean it like that. Control yourself.

"No . . . I'm sorry, forgive my outburst . . . you didn't mean to imply--I'm sorry," Elphaba said, swallowing down an iron-hot lump of shame and embarrassment that began to well in her throat. She took a deep breath. Steady now.

"What I meant to say . . . it seems cruel to keep something locked up in a cage for my own personal amusement. It should be free to roam whatever land it calls home," she said, once more holding out the cage to look at the mouse with that same softness and care as before. Then her eyes lifted towards Krepta. "We can do that, can't we? Find some place this poor creature can live and release it? Is that something the Agency is capable of?"

Krepta recoiled, head drawing back sharply, nostrils flaring. Her jaw tightened.

Cripes, were all people from OZ so unhinged?

"It's fine," Krepta replied, but her voice had gone flat. Her gaze shifted to the mouse in the cage, wondering now if she should take it from Elphaba, less the woman release it in some misguided attempt at 'mercy' later. "Different folks, different strokes, I guess. Pets aren't that weird where I come from. They're companions, not amusement."

She shook her head, uncoiling slightly, though the set of her shoulders suggested that Krepta remained on edge.

"We don't know where it came from," she told her. "Not unless its species is logged in the database somewhere. Best case scenario on that front is we hold onto it for a while until we happen to stumble upon another one of its kind somewhere. Releasing it anywhere else could really mess things up for other plants and animals, and who knows if it'd even survive that long outside of its own habitat? At least here we could take care of it."

Krepta held out her hand for the cage, no longer trusting Elphaba to reliably deliver it to the Stables for processing.

"I'll bring it over, see what the egg heads say. I'm sure they'll have an answer in a few days."

Or they wouldn't. Either way, it wouldn't be Krepta's problem anymore, and the scientists down at the Stables could better weigh the risk of letting Elphaba be involved past this point. Krepta would make sure to bring up the weird little outburst though, just in case, for all their sakes. Who knew if the mouse needed more nutrients than it was getting from just their fruit trees and electric outlets? Maybe it was social, and needed company to stay happy. Maybe it would molt into some hideous abomination at the next phase of its life cycle. They had no way of knowing, and Elphaba's soft heart, though well intending, wasn't good for anybody in this situation.

Elphaba knew what pets were, at least in concept, but she still did not approve of it, or to be more generous, she did not fully understand it. She could listen to someone wax all day long about how keeping an animal confined in a person's home for companionship was actually a good thing, but it was still difficult for her to process or accept. She was still very much getting used to the fact that animals in other places were not intelligent, sentient creatures, after all.

And though Krepta assured Elphaba everything was fine, the Witch wasn't so easily fooled. She saw the tension in the dragon's shoulders, she saw the harsh, keen edge to her gaze. That little outburst had not gone unnoticed or unforgiven, and now there was an unspoken tension between them because of it.

Great. One of her first professional encounters with one of the head Agents and she completely bungled it. Just like Fiyero.

Years ago, Elphaba would have berated herself for causing such a scene, but she was older now. Wiser. More forgiving of herself. She had noticed her overreaction, she had corrected it, she had apologized for it, and if Krepta wanted to hold that against her, that was on her. It was out of Elphaba's hands and if Krepta wanted to hold a grudge, well, that spoke of her, not of Elphaba.

When Krepta held out her hand for the cage, Elphaba hesitated. But she knew better than to let her emotions cloud her judgment. This small creature was a hazard to the Omphalos and it needed to be handled by the professionals. So she handed it over, placing the cage delicately in Krepta's massive, scaled hand.

"I can accompany you to the Stables," Elphaba offered. "And perhaps I can lend them some assistance as well? As you've said, I'm very good with animals. Spent my whole life working with them and rescuing them. I'm sure we'll find a solution for this poor little stowaway here."

Krepta made a quiet noise. To be honest? She wanted to say no. Elphaba may have apologized, but it hadn't been the root of her disagreement that had bothered Krepta-- it had been the outsized reaction of it. Krepta was used to grouchy and grumpy. She worked with Batman after all, and she was guilty of it herself. She could handle scowls and glowers and passive aggressive mumbling all day. But raised voices set her off, especially when they came as a surprise. Krepta had been doing good lately, but if this kept happening, she wasn't sure that she could keep herself from snarling back.

And one of them had a lot more teeth than the other. These things tended to escalate.

Besides, informing the Stables crew of the possibility of potentially misguided rescue attempt of the mouse by Elphaba right in front of her would be awkward as hell. And if Krepta shooed her out for it, well-- the woman was a lot of things, but Krepta didn't think stupid was one of them.

"Eh... I think I'd better trot it over on my own," she said, tucking the cage up under one wing. "I need to clear my head after all that excitement anyway. The dragon likes it a little too much when little things run away, and it's good for me to let it get its energy out after stuff like this. But I'll tell them to ping you on your Gauntlet when they're done, and you can come visit the little guy once he's had his checkup. They all love animals over there. He'll be fine."

Krepta was correct in one regard--Elphaba was not stupid. She didn't miss the way Krepta was looking at her, the defensive posture of her body, the wary and distrusting look on her eye--

She knew exactly what Krepta was doing, albeit she was being far nicer about it than anyone else would be. She was telling Elphaba no, you're not wanted. You've proven to be a liability. You've shown I can't trust you. Go away, I don't want you anywhere near me right now.

Well. What else could she expect after her outburst?

Elphaba retained a calm, neutral expression, folding her hands in front of her and smoothing out her garments.

"Very well. If you need me for anything else, you know how to reach me," she said. As if Krepta would ask for your help again after making such a spectacle of yourself. She quickly purged that thought from her head. No more of that self-depreciating nonsense, she was working on being kinder to herself.

She opened her mouth to say something else--but what was there to say? Good job? Hope to work with you more in the future? All of those seemed like needless, empty platitudes, especially now. So she just gave Krepta a polite nod and walked away.

She went searching for Fiyero.

She found him in the lounge, sitting in a plush sofa doing nothing at all, which suited Elphaba just fine. She walked right up to him, collapsing in the sofa beside him, and he smoothly wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a kiss.

"So how'd it go?" he asked.

"Could have gone better. Could have gone worse," she said with a quiet sigh. "The matter has been handled, though I fear I made a poor impression on Krepta."

"Oh? What happened?" he asked.

"We captured the 'pest'--just a small rodent, really--and Krepta offered to let me keep it as a pet." Fiyero's eyes went wide at that. "Needless to say . . . I might have overreacted."

"We're both doing a terrible job of giving Krepta a favorable perception of Oz," Fiyero noted wryly. "But I'm with you on that one. Keeping a pet is just weird. That's like saying Feldspur is nothing more than my pet. Like, excuse you, mister, that is my best friend, what's wrong with you?"

Elphaba laughed. Fiyero always seemed to know just what to do and say to make her spirits brighter. "You have a point, but not all animals are as intelligent as your friend."

"Heck, I'm sure there's people who aren't nearly as smart as that Horse."

Elphaba laughed louder. "I just have to keep reminding myself this isn't Oz. Keeping animals in cages isn't a heinous crime. And neither is keeping a pet, as inconceivable as it is for us to accept."

"Are we the weirdoes, then?" Fiyero mused.

Elphaba looked pointedly at him, unamused. "Is the animated scarecrow who happens to be a prince and the green-skinned woman who can levitate things with her mind the weirdoes? Dear Oz, Fiyero, what a conundrum."

"Are you making fun of me, Miss Elphaba?"

"Just a little," she teased, tracking a kiss over his cheek.

[END]