Completely enclosed and with no windows, the only way into this area is through the elevator. The walls, ceiling and floor are all white and have lit-up lines along the top and bottom of the walls that lead towards other rooms. Depending on what is happening in the lab is what color those lines are.

The place has multiple rooms for various purposes. A science type person should be able to figure out most of those purposes, but the lab covers anything needed for tinkering with electronics, chemistry, biology, and some seemingly specialized things such as an air tunnel for testing aerodynamics. Notably, all of the rooms are super clean and organized as if the lab has yet to see use or was being presented to a new buyer.

The rooms all connect to a central room, though. The central room of the lab is circular, yet having four "corners" where large tesla-coil-looking things stand (one per "corner"). At the center of the room is a 7' x 4' table.

There are other doors here. Two of which are locked and labeled "Private. Please do not enter without permission."
This message was last edited by the player at 07:27, Fri 07 June 2019.

 He read as having had serious metabolic changes on ways that defied anything close to normal human physiology anymore.  He did (although Matt had this covered) emit gamma radiation, among other types, absorbing it from the atmosphere around him, somehow amplifying it internally to support his life functions, and then releasing the 'extra' wattage of whatever he absorbed as 'waste' energy much like a human emitted body heat as a slight side effect of the chemical processes which fueled the body itself.

  Matt is starting to guess that is a 'no' on the friends or loved ones front for John. You know, aside from the currently strained relationship with Reeve.

  He will save the 'Don't worry, turning into a Monster drastically increased my amount of friends' encouragement for now.

  "Hmm, while I'm just guessing at the moment.  You might want to hold off on firing huge death rays not simply out of concern for others, but because you may simply be topped off from the incident that cause this."

Seeing the information, Lifelight begins to correlate what The First was telling her earlier. This is all consistent both with how this man's powers were functioning as well as how they came about. Although Lifelight fully trusted Mr First's word (due to her naive nature), she is at least experienced enough to know even the most well-intentioned and intelligent of people can be misinformed. So she held off on saying anything about the nature of First's reassurances until she could have scientific backing. Besides; John probably would want to see the science behind his current situations, wouldn't he?

Lifelight looks back at John to see if he heard her question or was choosing not to answer. If he takes a while, she repeats the question of if he has family to contact.

John slowly shook his head. "No, there's no one. I was....trying to get further in my career before I worried about that. I worked a lot." He looked over at the readings, his transparent skin making it impossible to tell his facial expression.

  Well, at least John had narrowly avoided working himself to death in a very literal sense.  "It may be overly optimistic to expect you can get back to working long hours after a couple sick days." He turns towards Reeve, "But I expect that job will be waiting for you if you still want it, once awkwardness is the worst impact on handling any labwork."

  It's probably better for business if Reeve didn't have 'I fired the guy I turned into a skeleton' as your help wanted reasoning, anyways.  But there's only so far that goes if John doesn't stop emitting enough trace radiation to skew test results several rooms over.  Not exactly the same situation as waiting until you don't have a mouth to learn to cook on a professional level.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:05, Sun 23 June 2019.

So the guy is without family. Whether because he never had siblings, uncles, grandparents or because of some kind of estrangement. But that he has nobody is rather sad. Lifelight gives him a compassionate look and reaches her hand to gently pet him. "I am sorry."

She then looks at the instruments. She then looks back at him, still petting him if he lets her. "I have good news and bad news. The good news is; you are OK and healthy as far as I can tell. Second, I do have a way to make you look like you used to. Third, you can learn to control your new powers. Fourth, you now have a friend if you ever want to call me. The bad news is you will still be the way you are right now, regardless of how you appear."

(Side story arc taking place starts here)

The location seems to be something similar to the center square of Weston City, but with a cyberpunk feel to it. It is night time, or at least close enough to be dark. The stars can't be seen for all the city lights and the street gangs who seem to permeate the area all have that cyberpunk look; dyed hair, mohawks, the occasional cybernetic limb or cyber eye, and all of them on or near a futuristic motorcycle.

How you got here is unknown.

Dane noted the change of atmosphere, yet had no explanation for it.

He was neutral about the implants, mohawks, and motorcycles.
Cowards hunted in packs.
Soldiers hunted in teams.
The distinction mattered.

He wondered, in the back of his mind, how he came to be in this place, if it was indeed a place, and if he was indeed in it.
Yet, caution dictated that he assess the threats as if he was there, and that they were real. If the reality proved otherwise, he would adapt, improvise, and overcome.

He marked exits around him, shooting angles above, potential hostages, bystanders, obstructions, cover, and so forth.

And waited for purpose to be made clear.

Rodger Eskin looked up from the scholarly book he'd been reading, the odd scenery slowly registering. Perplexed, the ex-schoolteacher turned evil wizard looked left and right. He was seated on a bench that he did not remember having been in.

He blinked several times, noticing the folks around. Then looked more closely. Hmm. Dress and hairstyles were one thing, but that girl's artificial eye looked like the real thing more than like a cosplay prosthetic.

Having explored every inch of Weston City by now, Mittens is immediately discombobulated by the scene.  Maybe this was the set of a Bladerunner movie she hadn't heard was going to be shot in town and she'd been slipped a Mickey only to randomly portal onto the set?  Not actually the first thought that comes to mind.  First thought is that this is an alternate future to the ones she's experienced so far.  Much nicer than that post-apocolyptic future, or the one where the Fey had taken over.  Or maybe... experiencing another Quantum Leap story arc.  Not good.

"Not my fault this time," she whispers, fumbling for a mirror to check if Mittens is still Mittens, "Please don't take me to Eternity Jail."

Looking in the mirror, Mittens is still Mittens.  From the 21st century and all.  So... not as bad as if she'd body-jumped.  But still, the Time Cops'll probably be all, "Tell it to the judge," and "Everyone says it wasn't their fault."

"What a wonderful catch-22 they've set up!  Not allowed to time jump even if you're stuck in a time not your own!  Not that I'm terribly good at getting back to Prime Time.

"Pull yourself together, Mittens.  Step 1: disguise."

Poof.  Oh no!  Mittens' secret hide-out no am haz all her stuff!  Fine.  Poof.  'Borrow' a datapad to look up clothing donation center.  Poof.  Now wearing a mish-mash of random discarded clothes and looking much more like a 80's kid than a cyber-punk.  ( https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance....53.5c8fbb0b8c110.jpg )  Good enough.

"Step 2: Befriend the natives."

Mittens looks for a non-dangerous looking cyber-gal and approaches.  "Hieee!  Mittens the name, adventure's the game!  Not sure how I wound up here, but here I am!  Is this...  Weston City?"
This message was last edited by the player at 17:53, Tue 06 July 2021.

"Cowards hunted in packs. Soldiers hunted in teams. The distinction mattered."

It's true. Cowards will *always* flee when they are outnumbered. A soldier presses on to do what needs to be done, but are also smart enough to know when to call for backup to accomplish the mission.

Dane can see that there are three people out of place here: Rodger, Mittens, and Antoinette. Although Mittens is now suddenly wearing a cute 80's outfit, it is cute and therefor still out of place.

Antoinette is sitting on the same bench as Rodger. She sees Mittens and Dane and smiles, waving at them.

One of the nearby punks pulls his sunglasses down to stare in awe at Mittens. "Woah... did that chick just use magic?"

Another punk looks at him and nudges him. "Check it. She's not alone. Those two on the bench weren't here a second ago."

Apparently Dane is grizzled enough that the punks didn't realize he didn't belong.

One more thing catches Dane's watchful eye, though... one of the punks is apparently searching the area while trying to disguise the fact he is looking for something.

The girl punk Mittens addressed looks shocked that the magicat is headed her way. "Of course this is Weston... adventure, eh? Well you'll find plenty of adventure with these guys. Today, we were planning to go to the robot battle arena and place some bets."

Meanwhile, Antoinette looks over to Rodger, the smile still on her face. With a soft tone, she says, "Hi."

Rodger turns, and nods in greeting. "Hello," he replied to Antoinette politely. The open book still in his hand is a fairly thick paperback, much larger than a novel, and bears the markings of being from the public library. If the title can be seen, it is 'The History of THE BOOK in 100 Books.'

Dane slid back, panther-quiet, out of the light but into a better vantage point, maintaining a watchful eye on the punk who is searching for something. Dane is suddenly curious as to what that is.

Mits blushes and fidgets with her left pigtail when magic is mentioned.  "Yes!  Mittens knows many magic tricks.  Outfit quick change is just one of them."

Ear-twitch.  Glance over at sweet voice.  It's Antoinette!  And creepy professor turns-you-into-chocolate.  Technically legally somehow.

"That girl's a friend of mine.  Robot battles sounds epic!  But Mittens is completely broke.  How does a hyper magical catgirl scare up some money in this town?  Preferably without police butting in."

RODGER:
Antoinette just smiles at Rodger, seemingly not that curious about the book in his hands. She was more curious about the man holding the book. "My name is Antoinette." she then points to Mittens, "That's Mittens. What may I call you?"

---

DANE:
The man Dane is watching seems to be scanning everything. People, walls, the ground. But mostly the ground. He eventually makes his way to an alley where he tilts his head, examining a bum. The punk addresses the bum, "Hey you... you got something that belongs to me?"

The bum looks up from where he is sitting and says, "Eh? What? Oh... just a rock. You like rocks, huh?"

The punk says, "And what if I do? Give it here."

The bum is reluctant, but is clearly intimidated by the punk.

---

MITTENS:
The punk says, "Pff. Don't worry about money, babe. If money becomes an issue, I got you covered. Invite whatever friends you want! It'll be a fun time! And if you feel like payin' me back, well, I'll just ask to borrow some of that magic of yours." she winks.

Dane moved over toward the bum, whisper-quiet, and stepped into the light right behind him, facing the punk. He jerked his chin back toward the others. "On your way."

He quirked a slight smile down at the homeless man, and said, "I don't like bullies."

"Wowie zowie!  Thanks a zillion, babe!  Mittens go invite Antoinette.  Sweet as candy, she is.  BRB!"

Mits hurries over to Antoinette then has a record-screech sound-effect moment.  Some things make Antoinette too sweet.  Like, how would she react to battle bots?  Cry for the poor, hurt robots?  Buuut that's an unconfirmed assumption.  Maybe Ant has the requisite disposition for enjoying battle bots?  Only one way to find out.

"Hi, Antoinette!  Not sure how we wound up in this interesting alternate timeline, but...  (OK so Mittens is assuming you're not native to this timeline based solely on appearance.)  Inanycase got invited to battle bot arena by nice cyber-punk lady over there.  Care to join?  Would love your company.  Especially if you're the Antoinette that I know from the Yokai-Zord invasion timeline that gifted Maggie to Seraph.  (How does one word that in a way that it doesn't sound like the Yokai-Zords were gifting cute robo pups to Seraph?)"

"It is nice to meet you, Antoinette," he replied politely despite having a sneaking feeling that they had met in some capacity before - possibly in alternate identities? He wasn't sure, and his Mercurian resonance wasn't telling him much of anything at the moment.

"I'm Rodger," he introduced himself. He certainly remembered 'Miss Adventure' a.k.a. Mittens, and it looked to him like she was in fine form for her style of feline chaos at the moment. He privately hoped that he would not have to do any villainy needing her to thwart this evening.

OOC: Edited to fix an error. For some reason I forgot the correct name for Rodger's ancestral bloodline.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:43, Mon 19 July 2021.