closed to Dipper Pines and Lyle Norg

[captainbuzzkill]

Who| closed to Dipper and Lyle
What| Lyle asks for help fixing something
Where| Near one of the airlocks
When| After the crisis starts, before a lot of the missions happen, right before "The Reject Pile" part of "Resistance is Futile"
Warnings/Notes| possession, child endangerment

The ship is a wreck and that means that while Kid Q has everyone regroup, they have work to do to make Legion World a little more functional again, and ready to stave off a potential zombie invasion.

Dipper likes her sensibility. Instead of just worrying about fixing things up enough for missions to run like normal, Kid Q is having them create barricades, secure battle stations, and chokepoints inside the ship in case the threshold hub is overrun.

As far as zombie preparedness goes, it's about as good as it's going to get under the circumstances.

That said, he has like thirty pages of suggestions he plans to give her because he's put a lot of thought into this. (Well before the invasion, naturally, because it never hurts to have a zombie plan.)

Dipper finishes using his teke to set up heavy barricades to block up a damaged and unused sector on the level he's working on and turns to see Invisible Kid. He assumes he's just there to direct him somewhere else.

"Hey, do you know if Kid Q has a minute?" He pulls out his little red notebook (he chose red for sentimental reasons) and waves it at him, pages flipping to reveal notes and pictures of monsters and aliens -- including quite a few pictures of a triangle. "If she does, I have like a million suggestions. I've fought zombies before and I know these work under different rules, but after the last time, I put a lot of thought to possible defensive stuff."

Comments

[atippleoftransparency]

Lyle has clearly been hard at work himself, he's wearing a heavy apron over his uniform and a pair of protective goggles, and there's a smear of some kind of mechanical lubricant across his cheek.

"I just saw Cosmic Boy heading toward her last known location with his "You know you're more effective when you at least take catnaps" expression, so I'm betting 'no' on her availability right now," he says. "Fortunately, I've got something to keep you busy just long enough."

He jerks his thumb over his shoulder back the way he'd come.

"One of our busted airlocks only needs a few tweaks, but they're not tweaks I can do without digging into our dwindling transuit supply. I thought I might snag a telekinetic and see if we could avoid that. You in?"

[captainbuzzkill]

He hates goggles. It's a kneejerk thing, being anxious when people have their eyes somehow covered -- especially after his Bill-related freakout -- but he's learned to keep it under wraps. The last thing he needs is everyone thinking he's some paranoid lunatic.

So he stuffs it down, as usual.

What Lyle's asking for sounds pretty reasonable.

"Yeah, sure."

He tucks the notebook back into his utility belt and follows along.

[atippleoftransparency]

"Great!"

Lyle crooks his fingers for Dipper to follow and leads him down the corridor.

"It's some fairly delicate work, but it's not actually difficult," he says. "Just finicky. We'll both be able to see everything I need doing, and I can guide you through it no problem."

He's evidently feeling more talkative than usual today, maybe because he's trying not to think about what happened to Brainy. It's not a long walk, but he keeps up a steady stream of chatter the whole way there. It's mostly reassurances that the task is well-within Dipper's abilities and that if they can take care of this, it'll put an end to all of their airlock-based worries. He taps his fingertips against the viewscreen on the door, showing the airlock on the other side.

"Let's make this fun. Pop quiz, Pine Tree, look on through and tell me what you see."

[captainbuzzkill]

Invisible Kid is behind him when he says it.

"I see--"

Dipper's brain comes to a shuddering stop, and something starts screaming behind his eyeballs.

People have told him to stop being paranoid, told him that they're looking out for him, gotten him to calm down and breathe. They've made him feel safe, convinced him that even if Bill's out there, he won't have to face him alone. That's the only reason he doesn't immediately lash out with teke.

He doesn't want to look twitchy and scared in their eyes. He wants to be stoic about it all -- brave like they are. He wants to be seen a certain way -- like an adult. And he's already a little crazy. He knows it. He's tried to ignore it.

So, for a second, he doubts himself, doubts that he heard what he heard. Clearly, his overly paranoid brain is playing tricks on him, right?

He starts to turn.

"What did you just--" he doesn't get to finish because he's elbowed in the throat first, his head knocking back into the door of the airlock. While he's still reeling, something cold and metal is shoved around his neck and snaps into place.

He tries to lash out with teke but the moment he tries, there's a zap, and it feels like something shocking him in the base of the skull. But he doesn't get a chance to cry out. A hand wraps around his neck, above the strange metal collar now on it, and slams him back into the airlock door again, lifting him up so he starts blacking out and his feet start dangling off the deck.

"Bill!" he grinds out, kicking and fighting, scratching at Lyle's hand.

He's tried to move past that whole Yellow Lantern thing, but he should've trusted the fear.

[atippleoftransparency]

"Aw, you hesitated."

With the hand not pinning Dipper by the neck to the airlock door, Lyle -- Bill as Lyle -- takes off the goggles, revealing glowing yellow eyes with cat-like pupils.

"Long time, no see, Pine Tree! And I do mean a long time. After Stanley stamped me down through the floorboards of existence, I was trapped outside of time and space for eons -- until Chronoblivion forced me to start working for him. And while I've enjoyed obliterating nearly innumerable realities, I still have the Pines family to thank for making it so I've had to do it under his thumb."

He squeezes harder, ignoring the way Dipper is kicking and scratching and trying his damndest to wriggle free. Using his free hand, he unclasps and yanks away Dipper's utility belt -- with his omnicom and transuits still in the pouches -- and after tossing it aside, he grabs Dipper's hand, twisting his fingers until they almost break, so he can wrench off his flight ring, tossing that aside too.

"I wish I could draw this out and torture you just for the heck of it! But I've got places to go and people to destroy -- and it's not like you're important. I've got bigger fish to fry -- and some fellow sharks to set free!"

He jams his hand against the button to open the airlock and bodily tosses Dipper inside, then slams the button again to close the door.

"But I decided to at least have some fun by launching you out into the abyss! Have a nice trip to oblivion!"

As Dipper staggers up and races for one of the consoles to see if there's a wall comm to call for help or an emergency shut off, Bill slams his hand on the button to open the airlock.

"AHAHAHAHA!"

[captainbuzzkill]

The airlock is designed to open quickly. If it opens slowly, with just a crack, there's always the risk of the vacuum sucking what's in the airlock out through a very tiny opening, destroying it.

So as soon as the button is hit, there's a fwoosh and then Dipper's out into the void, tumbling end over end like rag doll. The last thing he sees through the window is Bill picking up his hat, which'd fallen off when Bill tossed him in, and putting it on his head with a grin.

He can't use his powers, he's already figured out that the collar around his neck is a power inhibitor.

Exhale, says the little rational voice in the back of his head that isn't shrieking in panic or screaming in rage. The voice is strangely calm, and yet somehow still his.

Dipper is the kind of person that reads about things like explosive decompression for fun and even if he wasn't, they learned about surviving in vacuum in Legion classes, in tech class. He remembers Brainy standing at the front of the classroom, explaining how the transuits worked and what to do if you got caught in an explosive decompression and had one close at hand.

First thing you had to do was breathe out and try not to hold your breath so the air in your lungs could escape without popping something.

He breathes out in time to feel all the air suddenly ripped from his lungs, violently.

You have a spare transuit, goes the weirdly calm voice again, and Dipper's hand goes to the one, tiny, little pouch on his sash -- which Bill hadn't thought to rip away.

Okay, so you can potentially survive 90 seconds but those 90 seconds will be useless if you're unconscious for most of them.

Really, he only has ten useful seconds before the lack of oxygen and loss of pressure to his blood vessels means he loses consciousness, with maybe a few tiny seconds more than that because of the air rushing out with him offering a little pressure before dispersing.

"Ten seconds is longer than you might think," he remembers Brainy saying.

It has to be enough. It's all he has.

Ten.

He unsnaps the pouch and gets out the transuit.

Nine.

Opens the outside wrapper.

Eight.

Gets one leg unfolded.

Seven.

Puts his foot in.

Six.

Unfolds the other leg.

Five.

Puts his other foot in.

Four.

Shrugs it up his body.

Three.

One arm.

Two.

The other arm.

One.

He gets the part that goes over your head up and that's when his vision starts to go red and then black.

C'mon, c'mon, c'mon...

His fingers -- now already swollen -- fumble for the armband, to turn the suit on, and right as he starts to black out, right as consciousness starts slipping away, he manages to hit it, causing the suit to fill up with air. It's only when he starts gasping in huge gulps of air that he realizes how horrible the suffocating feeling had been and how painful his skin feels from swelling up, even if it's going back to normal now.

Color comes back into his vision, enough for him to finally assess his situation, and he looks around as he tries to even out his breathing.

The good thing: he's not floating towards that weird energy thing connecting Colu, Earth, and Robotica, which he's pretty sure would just fry him. He's also not floating towards Earth or Colu, so there's no risk of him falling out of orbit, burning up in atmosphere, and going splat. He's also not drifting towards the Lunar Debris Field, where cascading asteroids and rocks could crush him.

No, he's just floating out into the empty void. With a shoddy bargain-bin transuit that only has an hour of life support.

Much better, he thinks sarcastically.

There's nothing he can do. He can maybe fight the inhibitor but he doesn't know if it'll make him pass out if it zaps him again, and he's terrified of just being unconscious for the hour he has left. He needs to be awake for --

For what? Fighting Bill?

That's not going to happen. That's not going to be his fight. All the rage, and betrayal, and the kicking himself for being tricked yet again, isn't going anywhere. It's not his fight, because even if the others find him it's probably going to be after Bill attacks. It sounded like he's planning something big.

Dipper has absolutely no control at all over any of this. Over Bill. Over his situation. Over all the stuff going on with the Brainiacs and the zombies.

He screams in frustration. It's a loud scream, even if only he can hear it. It's a few parts fear and a few parts anger. He thrashes around, like he's punching and strangling the air. He just needs to let it out.

But then, weirdly, all the anger and fear fades. The little thrashing temper tantrum stops.

Either they'll figure out you're missing, look for you, and find you in time, or they won't.

Just like maybe he'll survive the next mission, or he won't.

Just like he'll survive being a superhero long enough to make it to high school, or he won't.

So he breathes out and watches the stars spin and wonders why he's come to expect this. When did that happen? When did it become normal to expect that he might spin off into the dark somehow, somewhere, and die alone?

"I guess all you can do is think about your place in the universe or something," he says to himself.

So he folds his hands over his chest. The fingers of one of his hands draws the pink and purple bracelet he's wearing -- one that isn't his -- more firmly into his palm. And he waits.