[Worm-verse RP] Heroes Die IC

[Madwand]

ARC 1 - DIVIDED WE FALL (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTs9SmhFBuA)

Two weeks later, the city still mourns.

….Lamplight. Simon Jester. Convoker. Taurus. Has it been half a month, already? Two weeks since these brave heroes fell giving their lives in fight against villain, who terrorized this city for two decades. So many heroes gone in one bloody night, entire team gone in the space of hours. Truly, the world is a darker place for their passing...

The weather was especially bad - and cold, as well. An arctic front had made it all the way down to the Great Lakes, and the wind roaring outside the tall glass windows of Cadillac Centre had an icy sharpness. The retaining PRT director Anderson stood at the top of podium in giant conference room occupying half of twelfth floor, looking down on dozens men and women armed with cameras, recorders and notebooks.

..but we are cannot, we will not give to despair..

Standing guard was an on-duty PRT squad and dozens of private bodyguards. It was more than press conference, a social event that let the rich, celebrities, CEOs and the local who’s who mingle with new Protectorate team.

..because new heroes will always rise to protect us. Please, welcome the Protectorate Team of Detroit!”

The six new or hasty transferred -last one this morning - were introduced to combination of reporters, the richest, the famous and the most powerful people in the city, their guests and those willing to pay the exorbitant prices for the tickets. Legend, only absence of note, left this morning to handle unexpected crisis in Mexico City.

From PR standpoint it was better, new heroes had their moment to shine, first chance to impress without being overshadowed by star power of the most popular member of Triumvirate.

Reporters started to ask questions the moment introductions were over.

Some questions were curve balls that needed to be handled delicately..

“Groundhog, given your power, what weaknesses do you see in your new teammates?

“Gauntlet, could you tell us what do you think about current Wards’ situation? Will you agree that Youth Guard and PRT have gone too far excluding them from active duty?”

“Valiant, there are rumors that your inclusion into Protectorate team is part of larger initiative similar to integration with Mexican teams, a cooperation between European Union and USA. Are all heroes going to form one pan-Western organizations?”

Some were expected, but dig in fresh wounds..

“Serph, please accept my condolences on the passing of your father. Could you share few words about his legacy and how his stellar life work influenced you? “

….other far from expected…

“Aspect, our sources inside PRT indicate that part of your power assessment was classified. Are your abilities dangerous to civilians or are they an ace in hole kept in reserve? “

..but at least one set of questions was vicious..

"Pulse, congratulation on becoming the youngest Protectorate team leader in major metropolitan area. How would you answer your critics pointing out that your nomination is PR stunt, a band-aid solution? What could you do when all other, more experienced heroes failed in such dramatic manner?”

[Bobbybobby99]

Groundhog (or Amaris, out of costume), was standing very straight, partially in an attempt to not make himself quite so obviously shorter than his compatriots, and partially because it was common sense to not slouch. Slouching led to hunching. He may have been something of a mad scientist, but he certainly wasn't that mad. On the outside, he was smiling both pleasantly and relatably, and it was only partially forced. He was, of course, wearing his particular russet brown costume, complete with tail and ears, very deliberately made to reflect his namesake. On the inside...

Amaris was, for lack of a better word, rather nervous. He was barely restraining himself from just blurting out the glaring personal flaws of every reporter that was pestering them. He was similarly having to contemplate precisely how to make the chandelier flicker out and hit the podium so that it would flip over the podium stand, which would then hurtle at the wall, and create a large crack and a damaged foundation which he could then exploit in order to-

He cut off that train of thought, though only barely; it was always difficult to keep himself from meandering when he felt stressed, and being in front of that many people was very, very stressful. Normally he wasn't the sort that minded that sort of thing; he wore a groundhog costume, for heavens sake; but it was different when other people that he had a vague sense of comraderie with were being scrutinized. He could control his actions; he was responsible. He couldn't, however, control their actions, and anything bad that happened would be his fault. He'd have to define the mood, give it an upbeat feeling- hope.

Given that he had heard his question addressed first, he stepped up to the stand, waving and trying to seem as friendly and cuddly as possible. He was quite good at being relatable, if he dare said so himself, but that was mostly just his universal concern for the wellbeing of mankind shining through. He beamed, and spoke in his normal, high pitched and cheerful tone "Well, I can only speak on what I see, and what I see is a very competent group of individuals. It would be something of a a bad idea to actually tell you precisely how to defeat the rest of my team. I'm fairly certain they cover that is superhero 101, actually." He paused and smiled some more as a break for laughter, before continuing in a strong voice "What I can tell you is that they're absolutely, positively terrified of asparagus, as I'm certain you all can relate. Further, if there are any villains with broccoli powers, we'll probably have to evacuate. " He paused again, before continuing "In all seriousness, I haven't really had the time to analyze them enough to tell you that in any detail. I can tell you a few things, though. They have a weakness for the needy, a weakness for the poor. They're heroes; they're quick to succumb to bravery, quick to fall to courage, quick to new by kindness. They feel deeply with their passions, fall by their ideals, are split by their compassion for their fellow man. They are decimated by their hope, and hope is a strong bedfellow, let me tell you that. Hope for a better tommorow, hope for a world where we can be safe as we cross the street at night; Hope. That is man's biggest weakness, and his biggest strength. Thank you." He gently returned to his position on the stage, motioning for another to take the microphone.

[n0ble]

Seraph waited for Groundhog to finish his speech before taking her turn. She had her silver armour on, wings folded neatly over her back. While her mask was featureless underneath she was smiling, in spite of the question. Look at me now dad. She paused before speaking, her voice slightly muffled by the face mask "My father once said that heroes die, but legends live forever. It's a simple idea, but a powerful one. People live on in their deeds, in their legacies. My father lives on in me. His goodness, his light? It's our cause and now. Most people would consider that a burden but I welcome it. Any chance to do good in this world is what my father would have done.So now it is our turn to live up to the ideals that he, Taurus and others set for us. We will carry their light." She punctuated her statement by holding out a hand, conjuring up seven spheres of light before sending each one to the shoulder of a different team member. The last two hovered over her shoulders. "And in doing so we will make this city a better, safer place for those who call it home. Thank you." She ended the brief speech by inkling her head towards the crowd, then stepped back into formation.

[Priest_Of_Banjo]

Valiant clapped politely at the end of his new teammates speech before stepping up. His newly fitted white armour felt comfortable against his skin as his sword clanked gently against his hip. His helmet left his lower jaw exposed for these moments.

"Heroes are going fight against villains wherever they are. Just because my place to do battle is here doesn't mean that we're going to be seeing anything like what you're talking about. Besides, the way things are now means each team can focus on protecting their cities in the best way they can." He grabbed his sword, allowing the twin fields to envelop him.

"I'm honoured to be one of the city's newest defenders and I'll do what i can to keep it safe. Thank you very much."
He sat down, allowing the fields to dissipate.

[GameOfChampions]

Jade fidgets as it came close to her having to answer the reporters questions and she feels like she was back in school again being forced to answer a question in front of the class. 'Public speaking is the worst...' She claps as her teammate finishes up their questioning and then gets up and forces a smile onto her face as she walks up to the podium. As the reporter asked the question about her powers Jade froze up.

She stammers for a second before gathering her thoughts "Well I can't give you any details, because as you mentioned it is classified but I can promise that the power I have is not a danger to anyone except villains everywhere." Jade then nods to the reporters politely and takes some deep breathes to calm her nerves as she walks back to her seat.

[Writtensanity]

Once the group was on stage Gauntlet was glad that she'd been convinced to wear her costume. She didn't hide who she was, but she always felt more power in the costume, it was the part that she was meant to play right now. She was a quiet girl when she wasn't talking shop, but Gauntlet? Gauntlet was a charismatic leader of the wards who'd been brought up without her allies.

Jade put down the microphone and Gauntlet stood up. It was her turn now. Before anyone could ask a question she smiled into the microphone, her teeth flashing under her white and gold mask. "Before anyone asks, I'm not allowed to say what her power does either." Lindsey did her best to cover a shiver, she wasn't used to her neckline being this low. Her new costume was the same white and gold jumpsuit that she'd worn during her time in the wards, but they'd been insistent that showing a little more skin would make her look older. At least she'd gotten to keep her flowing cape, and her right arm was still exposed.

"You're asking if I miss my friends?" Lindsey asked the man. He started to clarify and Lindsey continued over him. "Look, I know that it's a hard situation for a lot of people to grasp, but in the end all the PRT," Lindsey motioned to the group sitting behind her, "we want is for everyone to be safe. Sometimes that means we need to look at ourselves and evaluate how much danger we're putting our heroes in. A person to choose to fight for their country once their 18, before that they can train for what's coming, but 18 is that age because before then they need time to think about what they want to do with their life."
"There were people on the wards with me who were just as willing to keep fighting as I was, but sometimes you need to face that fact that we trust our lives with the triumvirate for a reason. They asked me if I wanted to go, and I said no because I'd seen enough of my life to make that decision. Every other member of the wards deserves to see more of their life before they put it on the line." Lindsey pulled off her mask. "In the end we're people just like you who have gained the power to change the world. They were a little too young, but that's why we're here, to keep the streets safe for everyone."

Lindsey tossed the microphone forward before activating the 2 void crystals that she had in her hand. The microphone snapped to a halt in the air and flew back to Lindsey. She caught it and said one last thing. "Shrike, Detroit doesn't bow."

[The_Snark]

Showtime.

Esperanza knew her family thought of her career as something respectable but dangerous, like being a soldier or a police officer. They weren't wrong, of course, but somehow it never occurred to them that at other times it was more like her sister's modeling career. Smile for the cameras; keep your back straight and your chin up; watch what you say; try to look nice, but don't look like you're trying. Image, branding, reputation. It had seemed like foolishness when she'd first started this job. On some level, it still did. But it made a real difference to the public, or so the experts assured her, and over the years she'd accepted it as a fundamental part of the job.

It was always easier to keep her smile-for-the-crowd face on while others spoke, but particularly so now. Groundhog, who'd first struck her as the retiring academic type, proved unexpectedly eloquent; Gauntlet was confident and outspoken, a marked contrast to the tongue-tied girl she'd met a few days ago. Aspect and Valiant, new to the hero scene, kept their comments short and upbeat, while Seraph handled the delicate subject of her father with practiced aplomb. Good.

"Of course it's a bandage solution," she said, deliberately misrepeating the phrase. In a setting like this, far more people would hear her answer than the original question. "I think a bandage is exactly what's needed at a time like this. The city has been wounded, and we're here to stop the bleeding and patch things up before it gets worse. For those of you out there who don't believe it's enough, well... all I can say is that I hope to prove you wrong in the days to come."

She paused to let that sink in before moving to the next question. "As for being a PR stunt, I'm afraid I don't understand the criticism. As you yourself point out, I am young for this position. I'm honored by the Protectorate's confidence in me, but I can't think that they chose me for my reputation - I haven't got one." She could almost hear the voice of the Denver PR consultant chiding her: careful there, Esperanza. Not too frank. "None of us are famous on a national level. Some of my team are veterans; others were picked from the most promising of the Protectorate's new recruits. What we have in common is that the Protectorate thinks we can do this job."

Privately, she thanked God that the reporter had not voiced the third common criticism being bandied about: that they were chosen because they were expendable. Losing a whole team of heroes all at once had been a disaster, and no doubt some in the PRT felt they couldn't afford to throw good money after bad. No big names, nobody critical in Endbringer fights... and of course, the appointment of a relative unknown to a leadership position, rather than someone more senior. The worst part was, she couldn't completely refute any of this. While she was certain the Protectorate hoped her team would succeed, she knew they had to prepare for other possibilities as well.

Fortunately, even reporters were still human. Nobody actively wanted to turn this event into a disaster for morale.

Best to finish on a high note, distract anyone in the audience who might be thinking along similar lines. She picked up on part of the question she hadn't quite answered before. "It’s always hard to follow in the footsteps of other heroes. We do it anyway. Heroes die, sometimes, and we can't let that stop us. We learn from their mistakes, and from their triumphs, and we keep going."

[Madwand]

As the joke went, PR was two third of PRT. The department directed conference, moved heroes and other personnel about and around, and made sure that every detail was right. It needed to be - the city was shocked by recent events and PRT planned to restore lost confidence.

It went smoothly through the director’s opening speech; the introduction of heroes and first official time they gathered in one room was impeccable. Legend wasn’t here, so his short speech (“Godfather’ blessings” as one of PR assistants half-joked) was removed from order without any problem.

The questions from press were only item on agenda that wasn’t a hundred percent accounted for.

Groundhog surprised with oratory skills, quick wit and humor; he elicited laughter and applause spontaneously, while steering clear from dangerous topic and building on right emotions. Seraph short but emotional speech was also applauded.

Valiant's answered with short and precise statement that put end to unfunded speculations. He was rewarded with polite round of applause.

Jade first stumble was minor one, the firm and confident statement denying and dismissing it’s as unfunded rumor would be better. Now everyone knows that there is part of her power kept away from public knowledge. Still, it was small mistake - PRT suspected that her power’s evolution won’t be secret forever.

Gauntlet answer, confident and charismatic, promised at first that everything else will again go smoothly.

Then in the middle of it, she pulled her mask off. In front of dozens cameras.

The fleshes were blinding, the questions from press incomprehensible for seconds, as everyone tried to speak at once. PRT director Anderson face lost its neutral expression, confusion and anger flashed on it.

“Gauntlet, what are you doing?” He screamed. But he was helpless in that moment. The press took control. The questions everyone asked could be summed as:

“Gauntlet, why did you unmask yourself?”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OOC
Spliting the scene, because, so not to keep all players without nothing to do, while press and PRT sorts out Guantlet's situation:smallsmile:.

Pulse, who was last to answer question, after Gauntlet upstaged all other heroes introduction, deftly handled her question, but after Gauntlet's stunt it almost felt forced; the press attention was elsewhere.

The order slowly returned to the conference hall. The hostess of the even, PR director of Detroit PRT department, Alissa Reinhold, tall and elegant, took control. Guided by her, heroes made introductions all around, and then she began working her magic. She led new team off in ones or twos to “see someone you have to meet,” pairing each of heroes conversationally with somebody important.

Pulse and Aspect found themselves herself in a group that among others included elderly and respected Judge Matthew Halder, the mayor of Detroit Dennis Alderman, a tall and heavy man and PRT Director Anderson. After initial pleasantries the topic of Shrike inevitably surfaced.

“So, what is the plan of dealing with the situation? The elections are soon, and I am not going to be first Democrat to lose to Republicans since 62’. “ Mayor said “when will I see results, director? and you... Pulse? I’ve heard you are some kind of anti-tinker super-weapon. Is Protectore finally going to do something with those arrogant bastards? “

“Dennis, for the love of God.” Judge said. “Young ladies, forgive the temper of my colleague. He will push and push for more action, politicians always do when cornered. Our streets must be kept safe, but the law must be preserved and civilian safety should remain the top priority. I will have you know that I take a rotation on the committee that reads reports about PRT activity. I shall take even greater interest in them, to make sure that Protectorate is overstepping the bounds of law. Am I clear, miss Pulse, miss Aspect?

Being fire-powered parahuman, Jade was prime suspect of being high risk of collateral damage and with her slip about part of her power classified.. The Judge probably thinks she was especially dangerous.

Way to go about first impressions.

Groundhog was soon surrounded by trio of tech CEOs, all of them not-so-subtly inquired about his power. Thinker, who could use his power in commercial activities, was in high demand in Detroit. Tinker-derived laser pistols were produced and cutting edge military hardware was developed by the firms.

Valiant got paired with older British banker named Alan Drummond and his much younger wife. The polite conversation started with topic of weather.. but soon turned to situation on the streets.

"Nobody feels safe anymore. I am going to tell you, Valiant, I am going back to Britain next week. You should leave the city too, you're young and probably have perspectives elsewhere. I could contact you with corporate interest in the London' City. They are always hiring."

Clare Genovese knew that her appearance is disconcerting for public, hitting uncanny valley and Simurgh's image too close. But it was still rude for the group of fashionable socialites, daughters of Detroit’s elite to exclude her so quickly.

But before she could move on, to participate in meet-and-greet dance with other people she spotted familiar face.

“Hi, Seraph.” Skuld, blonde assistant of Cauldron’s Doctor smiled “you look lovely today. What do you make of your new teammates?”

[n0ble]

You wouldn't be able to tell because of her mask, but Clare had a mournful look on her face. In simple terms, being excluded made sense, but it didn't exactly make her feel good. Sure it was needed, her new appearance was... unusual compared to everyone else. She would have to show that any comparisons between the end bringer and her stopped at similar appearances. She'd give them all hope.

That being said, she was glad for once. About her appearance. She found all of this hobnobbing unesscessary when she could be out there doing real work. It didn't help that no one seemed particularly interested in talking to the Simurgh-girl. On the other hand, from what she could hear the conversations sounded like a lot of upper class bureaucrat talk. Who would have thought that having an off-putting appearance would be a blessing in this situation.

She was so caught up watching the others that she almost didn't notice Skuld. Clare's expression changed almost immediately to a look of joy. "Oh hey you! Didn't expect to see you here aha." she glanced back over at her team mates "They're a good bunch. I'm looking forward to working under Pulse, she seems to really know her stuff when it comes to leadership. I feel like theres a lot I could learn from her and Groundhog. You'd love Aspect, she's awesome and we both love the same action moves. As for Valiant... well I think he's about the best person in this room for standing one on one with Mr. Drummond.And Gauntlet... say what you will about her but you certainly can't call her a coward right?" Clare stopped again before exclaiming as quietly as she could "God, this is so amazing! We finally get to make a difference! But how have you been? It's been a while."

[GameOfChampions]

Jade allowed herself to be steered through the crowd by Ms. Reinhold to Judge Matthew Halder, the mayor of Detroit Dennis Alderman, and PRT Director Anderson. She was also pleased to see her new boss, Pulse there as well, it would be nice to get to know her and get a feel for her leadership style. She listened in and, not surprisingly, the conversation did turn to Shrike 'I imagine there is lots of talk about Shrike going on these days, there probably will be for years to come. I don't envy Pulse the mess she has to handle.'

While the conversation turning to Shrike was not particularly surprising, the Judge's spiel was a little bit. Jade suddenly became acutely aware that her boss was with her as well and started to get slightly nervous again, as if on the podium again. 'Come on Jade you can deal with this, I gotta show Pulse that I can handle attention.' Jade straightens up and makes sure her speech is clear, no more stuttering at this conference hopefully "Well sir I can't agree more, the PRT will always put our citizen priority at the top of our list and don't worry about me because I'll make sure I watch out for them every time I'm in the field. I also have every assurance that Pulse will handle herself with aplomb in the field, and keep the issue of Shrike in mind." Jade clasps her hands behind her back, to hopefully hide the now sweaty palms that had come in force during the little talk, and lets out a breath to try and steady her nerves. 'Well those PR lessons in Houston haven't all gone to waste at least, now I just need to stop panicking and forgetting them when I have to talk in front crowds...' She gives Pulse a small smile trying to gauge her reaction, would she think that Jade was brown-nosing or insincere, hopefully not since she was sure that the older confident women could do that and more.

[The_Snark]

Most people, Esperanza found, didn't really know how to talk to superheroes. Hardly a surprise, given how much work the PRT put into putting them on a pedestal, but bemusing nevertheless. As a Ward she'd discovered that donning a mask was like putting on ten or twenty years of seniority; adults would talk to her as an equal, sometimes even an authority figure. The difference was less apparent as she grew older, but at the same time she’d grown better at spotting the signs. They stumbled over forms of address - Mr. and Ms. didn't quite seem to cut it, but more formal titles felt out of place or fawning - and held them in a sort of awe. It was the intimidation factor most people felt around law enforcement officers, blended with the star power of a Hollywood actor.

It was a not-entirely-pleasant surprise to find that Judge Halder was an exception, treating them the way he would anyone else. In principle she agreed, but there was such a thing as going too far; this wasn't a courtroom and they were not teenagers in need of a reprimand. It put her (and to a lesser extent Aspect) in an awkward position. She didn't want to look like she was caving at the first sign of pressure, that was a very poor trait in a leader, but arguing wouldn't leave a good impression either. Particularly since she happened to agree with him.

"Perfectly clear, Judge Halder," she said, doing her best to seem conspicuously unruffled. As was so often the case in public relations, this was best handled by ignoring it. "I have no intention of acting recklessly. We’re here to keep the peace, not escalate the situation. We need to convey a sense of stability, to make people feel that things can and will go back to normal; this is a tragedy, not a crisis."

That was as close as she (or anyone) would come to publicly criticizing her predecessor, the one who'd made the ill-advised decision to go after Shrike. It hadn't been authorized by the higher-ups, there'd been no PRT backup, and as far as anyone knew the mob tinker hadn't done anything in particular to provoke it. It had, she suspected, been exactly the sort of reckless move the judge was warning her against, a new leader trying to make a splash. A dangerous gamble, and he'd lost. If he'd survived, the blame would now be resting squarely on his shoulders; as things stood, he was untouchable. Nobody wanted to speak ill of the dead, even if that meant leaving a gaping hole where there should have been a fall guy.

Back to the mayor. "With that in mind, I'm afraid I can't give you a timetable, Mr. Mayor. It's true that my team and I were selected with an eye towards being able to neutralize tinkers in general and Shrike in particular, and we don't want to leave him at large any longer than we have to, but seeking him out right now would be foolhardy." Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... "It's my hope that he'll try to lie low for the foreseeable future; he has to know he's drawn more attention than he can handle. If he resurfaces, we'll handle him." This in a matter-of-fact voice, as if he were just one minor problem among many. Esperanza wasn't much good at projecting the kind of supreme confidence some heroes exuded, but she could pull off matter-of-fact. "Until then, he's not a priority."

She gave him a rueful smile. "Sorry. You'll have my vote, for what it's worth, but I can't promise a dramatic turnaround in time for election day."

[Bobbybobby99]

Groundhog gave a amicable smile at the... gentlemen. The three men were clearly from the upper crust of society, likely with large amounts of influence in every pie, and it would be unwise to seem disagreeable in front of them. That sort of thing could do more than a small number on one's reputation, and he preferred to remain seen as a fairly willing sort. That was, of course, excepting the fact that these people undoubtably crushed the soul of the common man, and were statistically likely to include a sociopath among them.

With a notable glance to the one on the left, he clearly identified it; sociopathic as it came. It had likely come in quite handy when crawling through the corporate ranks, even if he identified it as a weakness. There was an important distinction between that sort of thing and being psychotic, of course, but it was rather good to know when considering business relations. Judging by the fineness of their clothing, they each likely made more than twenty times the average worker in their company, which he found as a weakness of said company as a whole. Judging from the way the one on the right was holding his drink, and the way he glanced at it, his father (no, mother) had clearly been an alcoholic, leaving him with suppressed emotional scars relating to it. The one dead center... had a very, very dark little secret, likely including an affair with the clearly unmarried debutant over in the corner that he was trying very hard not to look at.

Goodness, his power was fun to use sometimes, even if he wouldn't dream of actually using any of that information. Particularly when he seemed to have actually been successful in his speech, a success he wholly attributed to having given it a once over with his particular state of mind. The relief of nervousness is an exaltation in and of itself, after all, and he was feeling quite good. The fact that one of his teammates had decided that going unmasked was a good idea was completely beside the point; he wouldn't even need his power to point out the flaws in that particular idea.

As the three not-quite gentlemen introduced themselves, Groundhog smiled even more, and gently replied in exchange "My power, as you may or may not already know, is a matter of seeing weaknesses and fault points, wherever and however subtle they might be. My primary duty remains to the people, but I would have absolutely no objections to aiding you in my free time, for a significant fee. If you simply wish for me to take a look at your designs, models, and product and point out any flaws therein, I am more than willing, and, I dare say, rather capable. I am also quite willing to aid in design, as my power makes me uniquely suited thereof. "

After all, you could never have to much spare money to donate to charity, and he didn't doubt that these fellows had more than enough money to collectively save the whales and other miscellaneous animals without making a dent. If he could help stop an extinction, where he failed before... that would be worth any expenditure of free time.

[Writtensanity]

Lindsey took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a bit longer than a standard blink. She'd been thinking about this but it was a spur of the moment thing. There wasn't a mask to let her be confident anymore. Gauntlet and Lindsey were going to be one person, she needed to face that.

"Lindsey Hail," she said as an answer to Anderson. The cameras continued to flash and she maintained her smile through the flashes. "Shirke needs to know that he didn't just piss off a bunch of masks or capes. We're people, just as much as anyone else. We aren't characters to be shipped around and treated as stats. We're just as angry and ready as any person who lost a loved one. Me being a frustrated hero doesn't get across what we lost that day. I guess um-" Lindsey's confident wavered.

"I'll guess I'll be seeing everyone around town right?"

[Priest_Of_Banjo]

"Pardon me for being a little blunt here sir, but do you really think leaving will make the city any safer? When people start seeing respectable influential individuals such as yourself leaving, all that happens is the... bolder elements of the villain community get bolder and our job becomes harder." Valiant gave a quick smile and shrugged his shoulders. He'd dealt with the type of man Drummond presented himself as long before he was a hero. A little bit of flattery went a good long way.

"The best possible investment for this city that anyone could give is people. Not just any people but "faces". At the moment, considering the PRT team change, a degree of stability would do a world of good for not only us but for the people as well. If high profile people such as yourself keep leaving, all there is going to be in the city is the PRT and the villains too stubborn to leave.

"I'm staying in Detroit. But, by all means tell your interests that if they want me, they can come over and get me here. I'll gladly sit down and co-operate and do all of that business deal stuff but it's got to be done over here." He smiled nicely, and held out his hand.

"Oh, and Mr Drummond? Consider staying in the city. I get the feeling the city could use a good British influence." Be charming they said. Well, hopefully he'd been at least social with that pompous butt.

[Madwand]

Gauntlet versus The Press

The press barraged the unmasked hero with questions; like piranhas sensing the blood, the journalists concentrated on sudden and unexpected revelation; and it was a frenzy of speculations, the vague answer of Lindsay fueling all of it.

“Are you directly challenging the Shrike? He did have habit of answering such call outs before his retirement. Is PRT planning to bait him into open? ”

“Using the girl that just graduated from Ward program?”

“Are you being pressured into it?”

“Isn’t it a desperate move?”

“Did you lost a loved one in Shrike attack? Are you saying that... Were you romantically involved with one of the fallen heroes?”

Gauntlet knew that the age of consent in Michigan is 16, except in cases where one person is an authoritative figure to the other (i.e. teacher). In those cases the age of consent is 18 - and those relationships include hero-wards.. If rumor was going to be spread into circulation, it could turn anywhere from ugly PR disaster into internal investigation with Youth Guard’ involvement.. That could get her out of action for weeks.

congratulation on your first PR disaster ;)

High Society Heroes

In the elegant hall of conference hall, the murmurs of dozens conversations fill the air backdropped by classical music. The most interesting of those involved heroes, politicians, multimillionaires, sociopaths and in one case - intern of inter-dimensional conspiracy.

“Work.” Skuld smiled enigmatically, she won’t tell Clare more “I love it, but I don’t have a lot of time. I wish we could become friends and chat from time to time as normal girls our age..” She trailed off and giggles as it was funny “ but big C comes first. So let’s talk your first assignment.

Aspect is potentially very valuable asset. She is unique parahuman, whose power grow over time , but no-one is sure how exactly and if she will develop any.. Handicaps or flaws along with it. Her power react to long-term emotional patterns and we are afraid that she may become mentally unstable. So, you first mission is to observe her. Watch over her, befriend her - make sure that she trust you enough to tell you about any problem that she wouldn't wish to report to PRT.
……

“I would consider it.” Alan Drummond said “but I am afraid, I do have legitimate obligations in London. If the situation get better I’ll be back in few months. I agree that this city do need British influence and I am glad it has heroes as brave as you, Valiant. “ Drummond smiled “but we can’t all be heroes.

“As for working on a deal here, in Detroit. Perhaps. “ he paused and lowered his voice to almost whisper. “Some interests groups I could contact are very private. Do you think we can organize more.. unofficial meeting? Off the PRT’s record? Dare I say, clandestine? “

…

Tech CEOs trio, Jason Marmon, Adam Munich, and Dale Stephens Junior - the sociopathic one - were excited.

It's good to hear. I am sure your expertise and skills will command the fees in millions of dollars. Dale Stephens said “and I am sure the Lockwood-Inglis Industries will outbid those two chumps” he waved to two other CEO with inoffensive smile on face - that Groundhog know was very good mask on predator.

“Those chumps” Jason rolled his eyes “are going to pay good price too and without associating your child-friendly image with the biggest arm dealers in Detroit. Can you image this costume with high-calibre rifles and land mines? Your PR department would sh*t themself.

"I need to ask, would you be willing to check our anti tinker-thinker software?" Jason addressed Groundhog “ The security against parahuman industrial espionage is true horror of this city.”

“Are you trying to get him killed, Jason?” Adam Munich asked.

…….

“I am sure of it, miss Aspect. I apologize for sounding too harsh. Everyone is understandably nervous and stresses. ” the Judge Matthew said to Jade, his stern expression mellowing as he spoke. He seemed to notice how nervous he made Jade and decided to put less pressure on her.

“Good answer, miss Pulse. Protectorate needs someone as level-headed as you in leadership position. Judge said. The unspoken part “we could avoid current mess..” was on everyone's mind. But Esperanza probably found a first political ally.

She didn’t have such luck with mayor Dennis Alderman.

“Anderson.” the mayor barked “how is Shrike not a priority? You said..”

The PRT director looked uncertain, old and tired. He sounded bitter too.

“What I said is not important anymore. This is between Pulse and my successor.”

Pulse knew that Director Anderson was resigning. He was not to blame, but his career in PRT was over - fresh start require new face in PRT Department and after losing entire team he won’t lead another big department. His career was over.

“I will speak with him then. And with you, Pulse. You said that PRT selected this team to neutralize tinkers. Shrike won’t hide and run, don’t be naive and hope for the best. He has a network of allies in place and apparently decided to get back from his retirement. If he left his home territory or hid then it would be a sign of weakness and he could lose his grip. And he won’t treat kindly your subordinate calling him out in public like she just did. It reflect badly on new team, very badly.“ Mayor said as if Gauntlet’ stunt was Esperanza' fault.

[n0ble]

"Sure! I mean we're already on our way there anyways. I'd be happy to make sure she's alright." For some reason Clare had thought that Cauldron's tasks would be... bigger. More grandiose in purpose, if not scale. Regardless she and Jade were starting to become friends. Hopefully the first of many movie nights had happened. It wasn't like Clare could exactly go out to a bar, given her appearance. Things like watching movies and staying at the headquarters reading were about all she could do in her free time. "Don't worry, I'll be the best friend she's ever had."

After finishing her conversation with Skuld, Clare made her way through the throng of Detroits upper class. She did her best to ignore their glances, but it was hard. People would stop mid-sentence and stare before realizing they were and going back to their cocktails. Or they'd make a point of giving her wings a wide berth. Regardless of their reactions, Clare only had one person she really wanted to talk to. She walked up next to Jade and Pulse, waiting for a lull in the conversation before addressing Director Anderson, "Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt. I was wondering if I could request permission to leave and go on patrol, Sir." It was hardly an unreasonable request, given that her presence here made people uncomfortable. Besides, she'd much rather be out in the city, making a real difference.

[Writtensanity]

Lindsey shook her head a little, what had he just said? Something about- and then there was another question, and then another. She hadn't had time to answer one before there was a dozen, and then two and then fifty. At least fifty if she kept counting, but she was a deer in the headlights at this point. She'd thought as far as 'I would like to take off my mask right now and I can make a speech,' but not 'lets answer a million questions at once. She had a super arm, not a super mouth.

Lindsey put up her hand to call for quiet, it took a minute but it at least seemed to somewhat work. People were waiting for her answers and keeping her from talking wasn't a good way to get them. Someone coughed and she tried to get herself back stable. She was still Gauntlet and Gauntlet was fine on stage.

"That's a lot of questions," she said, "I don't think I really heard any of them, but I don't think this is the time or place either. I'll um-" she thought about it, "sit down for an interview?" Had she just made things worse, she might have just made things worse.

___

Home:

"Heyyyyy," Lindsey said into the phone as she tied her hair back, if she let it loose it ended up getting everywhere in the morning, "how're you doin' Dad?"

"Do you know how many times I've called?"

"A lot?"

"Understatement of the year, what the hell were you thinking Lindsey?" she could hear the pain in the way her father spoke. He'd been worried before, now he was terrified. "Why did you take off your mask?"

"Dad I-"

"You KNOW that can't be safe. I didn't want you there in the first place and now- they're asking what's up with you on the news, saying you're too young and-"

"They are?"

"You are."

"I thought you were fine with me being here."

"Me being fine with it and wanting everyone to know your real name are different things," Lindsey's father cursed in the background and Lindsey sat down. Her phone buzzed against her ear, another friend request on social media. "Just tell them that you're moving cities and come home." The offer was more tempting than it had been yesterday when he'd said it.

"I can't now."

"You can."

"They need me here," Lindsey said. She wasn't sure of what she meant by it. "I can do a lot of good, how often do you meet a disabled hero? I could be a big deal to a lot of-" she trailed off, " I have patrol soon and-"

"I know when you're lying Lindsey."

"I know." Lindsey hung up the phone and let it fall onto her bed. She'd ignored a lot of messages already but it wouldn't stop buzzing. She shoved it under her pillow and then laid down on it. She was skipping the banquet tonight, she couldn't drink anyway. In the morning there would be interviews, and she had no idea what she was going to say, but the only thing she could find solace in right now was sleep.

Why the hell had she left Gauntlet behind?

[GameOfChampions]

Jade listens to the three men's conversation and while her heart starts to out to the poor Director she starts to fidget a little bit, she couldn't help but start to feel a little superfluous here. Pulse didn't really need her and the three men were far more interested in her boss then her right now what with the issue of Shrike 'I wonder how Pulse will handle Shrike? She seems capable and her power would seem to give her an edge.' Either way Jade starts to glance around the ballroom and as she sees Clare start to head over to them she waits to see what Clare was joining them for.

As Clare requested leave to go on patrol Jade couldn't help but perk up. "If you don't mind sir I would like to join her. It's always safer in pairs and I could use some fieldwork to get in sync with Seraph since we're still new to each other." As Jade waits for her answer she leans over to Pulse and whispers "Good luck in here Pulse." and gives her a small but friendly smile.

[Bobbybobby99]

Mr. Munich, in spite of not knowing the meaning of monogamy, seemed quite pleasant. Groundhog replied, in a soft tone of voice and with a gentle smile, "I admit, I'm not very interested in dealing with an arms dealer; while I'm certain you can pay better, I do have certain ethical restraints. While my power may make it seem foolish, I remain largely opposed to death, as you very well know. Unless the proportional lives saved by donating the extra money you offer to charity, outweighs the lives killed because of the increased efficiency of your designs, I'm afraid that it's quite out of the question. That isn't mentioning the PR nightmare, of course. As far as anti tinker-thinker technology, I'm uninterested in being a guinnea pig, and must (with all regard) suggest that you find someone more amicable to the concept. Mr. Munich? You seem to be quite opposed to the designs of the other two, and I'm curious to see what it is your company does, as I'm new to the city? I imagine it isn't arms dealing, or anti-thinker technology, so I should hope it wouldn't be something I would find similar reservation with? Though I would also be interested in any other ventures you posess, Mr. Marmon and Mr. Stephens. "

[The_Snark]

"We hope for the best," Esperanza replied placidly, "but plan for the worst. If Shrike doesn't lie low, he will quickly find himself becoming a priority. We can't afford to give the impression that he's operating unchecked." Careful, her inner PR consultant warned, admitting weakness. The mayor was not a member of the general public, he had a vested interest in the Protectorate's goals and reputation... but he was still an outsider, and losing his confidence could make her job harder. Best to wrap this up now, she judged. He wasn't going to back down right now, no matter what she said, and a drawn-out argument would not help. "I'll be happy to discuss details with you at some point, Mr. Mayor, but for now we have other obligations."

She returned Aspect's smile with a small nod. In truth, she wasn't sure it was a good idea for both she and Seraph to leave; with Gauntlet absent after the incident at the press release, that would leave only three heroes in the room. Not exactly a show of strength, and wasn't that the whole point of this evening? But they'd asked Director Anderson, not her, and she didn't want to undermine him.

[Priest_Of_Banjo]

"A shame to hear that, Mr Drummond. I'd rather hoped you'd stay. As to the other offer..." Alexander hesitated. He knew the PRT had particular rules on out of hours work, even more so in his unique case. On the other hand, he also knew that there weren't enough people to actually enforce these rules and that the "honour system," as one insufferable drawling berk had described it, was in full effect.

They couldn't really stop him. It was only one meeting. What could it hurt?

"As for the meeting,"Alexander said, lowering his voice."Set it up. Provided there's nothing too out of sorts, there should be a way to make a deal."

Alexander held out his hand once more, grin now firmly placed.

It'll be fine. It'll be okay.

[Madwand]

High Society Heroes

“Call this number.” Alan Drummond said and gave Valiant white business cards “ three day from now. Do not use any of PRT’ equipment, phones, or anything that they may know about or could be traced back to you. Your private number is wiretapped already. “

Banker steepled his fingers and lower his voice even further, barely audible above music and other conversations.

“Before you protest, permit me to be blunt: I am certain that senior figures within Detroit politics police, the PRT and Protectorate are collaborating with villains. How else do you explain the fact that Shrike has been at large for almost 20 years? And it’s not only him - Sub Rosa and Eden’s Gate have deeply corrupted this city too. Anything you do will be reported to super-villains, if you’re not discreet.

….

“He is referring to Sub Rosa” Adam Munich explained to hero “it’s villainous group focused on white collar crimes and industrial espionage and they have habit of.. eliminating corporate sponsored thinkers and tinkers, who may inconvenience them. They don’t like when corporations fight back. He doesn’t want you to be guinea pig, he wants you to check holes in security against parahuman threats. It may get you killed.

“You’re exaggerating. He is exaggerating, Groundhog.” Jason Marmon said.

“Am I? What happened to that last rogue who worked for you? Another suspicious accident or did he simply disappeared without trace one day? “

….

Pulse diplomatic answer aided by sudden arrival of winged heroine achieved what she hoped - the argument ended before she could make political enemy. The PRT Director excused them all and said that he need to talk to them all.

“You did good job there Pulse. I should have warned you about Mayor - he is not a big fan of Protectorate. He always believed PRT isn’t doing enough. He is civilian and he doesn't grasp how out-gunned and outnumbered we were and how really worse the situation has become. Mayor just see and care about crime statistic above national average. Whole PRT is hurting after last Behemoth attack, we had 40% loses among Protectorate heroes, but you know it.

First priority is not getting you killed. I won’t be PRT director for long, so you’ll need to make sure that mayor won’t get hold on my successor.

Then he addressed Aspect and Seraph.

“I know you may feel uncomfortable, Seraph. It seems that everyone will focus on Gauntlet, we are after PR disaster.. so you are free to go. Contact dispatch and go on patrol. Aspect, you may go with Seraph “

Director subtly weaved to Alissa Reinhold and she joined the group, then directed Aspect and Seraph to back exit in just right moment to not draw undue attention. She came back, asking Pulse to walk with her, then introduced her to one group of people, then another and another. Fourth group consisted entirely of women, socialites, a club of sort that organize debutante balls, dinner parties and charity events.

Pulse expected more polite small talk and possibly being asked for support of this and that cause.

Anna Wallenberg, Scandinavian wife of some important CEO, awkwardly started European’ greeting with a cheek kiss..

“Shrike want to talk. “ she whispered in Pulse ear “teleport on top of this building at midnight.”

Pulse noticed sudden flashes of confusion, disorientation and fear on Wellenberg face. She almost tripped, but Pulse caught her arms..


Anna Wallenberg is victim of parahuman mental assault. But will Pulse report all of it, part of it or keep silent:smallamused:?

Shrike gang have one - Carmilla, Master 8 with sub categorization in both Trump and Thinker. She could, at whim, with only a brief period between each selection, apply her power to a nearby human she is aware of. While under the effect of her power, the individual is attacked with an overwhelming admiration, love for her. She can see, use clairvoyance through their eyes. If she controls parahuman she can directly command their power..

Tinker vs Thinker

“We need to run damage control. “ Alissa Reinhold said. “Interview was a good idea, we will need to organize one with someone friendly. Andy Teller? Katy Steding?” She said more to herself than to Lindsey Hail and PR assistants. “Stay here Lindsey, I need to get back and talk to press.”

Soon Lindsay remained alone in room above the gala, not sure what to do and with no-one to talk to.

Minutes passed.

She looked outside the window, listening to winds and maybe because of this she was able to see it first.

White clad figure hovered behind the windows, carefully lowering itself to match the altitude to the windows below. He was almost imperceptible in dim lights of late evening. Gauntlet immediately recognized one of Shrike’ men - Arete, Thinker, whose power granted skills and reflexes that helped him in next 24 hours.

He had sniper rifle with him.

Guantlet is familiar with all Shrike' capes - they all have power armuors constructed by tinker, but usually they teleport, not fly or hover. It seems that Shrike is modifying their tinker-tech. You have few seconds to react.

OK, one output crystal on healing, two on gravity pull-push and last two? I can’t find it in PMs or in threads.

Aspect and Seraph

“Emergency call.” dispatch voice surprised both girls “ we have possible parahuman fight in..” voice in headset gave them address. Seraph could be there in less than five minutes.

It was large warehouse, close to the Detroit River. Police surrounded it. Aspect and Seraph were greeted by Detective Mike Greenwell, who was in charge on scene. They could hear gun-shots and screams coming from inside.

“We think we found illegal drug laboratory, but it seems that before we could take action, Skullcrasher get there first. There is at least dozen armed men inside and probably three times more involved in production. If there were only gangers I would hold till Skullcrasher kill them all, but some of people packing the product may be innocent slave labour. We are going in.“




Ok, so work out the plan - Detective is waiting on your input.

Skullcrusher Thinker 3/Brute 3
An independent agent in Detroit, Skullcrusher has established a reputation as someone too steeped in chaos and destruction to be anything but a parahuman, despite the fact that he avoid contacts with cape scene. Brutal vigilante targeting henchmen, unpowered gangsters and common criminals, he gained his moniker, because his victims skulls are almost always crushed with armored gauntlets. He primary kills gang soldiers, murderers, but also more common criminals like thieves.
- PRT analysts believe that he possess some form of enhanced senses or limited precognition in addition to low-lever brute powers, however sporadic and short encounters didn't allow assessing and analyzing his power in full or confirm it existence.

[Writtensanity]

"**** **** ****," Lindsey said looking at the door. She focused on her arm and felt the strange kinetic energy pumping through it as she put it into striker mode. He was one of Shrike's men. He was going to pay for what Shrike did. He was going to- She lost focus and her arm started to wind down. They were at a gala, She'd just caused a huge ordeal at the meeting. Lindsey didn't want to be another problem. She was probably already having her spot on the team reviewed. She couldn't just jump in. She needed time to think.

She couldn't. Someone was going to get shot if she didn't do anything. She opened the chat channel with the rest of the team. There was the white noise of static, the kind that told you to say something. She didn't. She closed it down again. Someone else would see if, wouldn't they? Someone else could take care of what was going on, she had time to wait so she wouldn't make a mistake. It would be okay.

She knew that was a lie.

"I've spotted one of Shrike's men with a gun, West side. Engaging." She did her best to sound official as she said it, but she was already running across the room to grab a table that was there. She drew it to her with mysterious energy, and then spun to the wall. She built up the kinetic energy again and pulled back her fist.

"I repeat, Arete is across from the gala, engaging!" Lindsey slammed her fist into the wall and her impossible tinker tech turned her punch into that of a monster. Furious energy tore through the wall and shattered it like it had never been there. Glass and bricks flew out into the street and she got her hands on the table. She used her slightly inhuman strength to throw it up in front of her.

"Take this you son of a bitch," she hissed with the comms still open. Lindsey used her void mode to kick the table away from her and send it flying at the hovering man. If she was lucky he would be too slow and it would be finished before anything needed to happen. Just in case he was quick, Lindsey brought a shield up around her. She'd never taken on anything as serious as a powered villain before, but he was just another thug with a gun.

She'd locked up dozens on those.

[n0ble]

The last of Seraph's orbs re-spawned as she touched down in front of the warehouse. And just in time to hear Gaunltet's voice over the com system. She looked over at Jade and gave her a curt nod. No sense in panicking. Keep calm. They're all good at what they do. For god's sake Gaunlet was a tinker 10. Even so, they'd need to finish this fast so that they could get back. "I'll 'port you in after sending in six of my orbs before you part in. You can get Skullcrusher, I'll keep the gunman occupied with the rest of the orbs. Sound good?"

She sent six of the orbs in through a window on the warehouse before closing her eyes. Multiple visions and points of view filled her head as her thinker power compensated for the vertigo. She positioned the orbs as best she could "Whenever your ready Aspect"

[GameOfChampions]

It had ended up being much much easier to get out of the event then Jade had thought, Seraph and Jade had checked in with dispatch and then hit the streets. It hadn't been long before they heard the call over the radio, Jade gives Seraph a nervous smile as they hear the call "Well it seems like this wasn't a waste of time, lets give this a shot." Seraph quickly makes her orbs and they quickly start to make their way through the city with Seraph guiding Jade through her orbs.

The detective gave the duo the info on what was happening and Jade starts to plan with Seraph, the two of them quickly drawing out a rough plan to handle the situation. Just as they were about to start the message comes through the comms and all Jade can think of is what could be happening to the rest of the team. She watches Seraph shoot her orbs through the window except for the one that's floating beside her and takes several quick breathes trying to get her adrenaline going, Jade lights her fists up before nodding to Seraph and getting telaported into the warehouse.

The second she is ported in near Skullcrusher she explodes into motion, taking a quick step in and throwing a heavy uppercut towards him and then quickly following up with a series of quick jabs aimed towards his head and upper torso, aiming to get more hits in to step up her power to offset his tank.

[Bobbybobby99]

Groundhog made polite small talk with the men, made it clear that he was absolutely uninterested in the other two men's proposals, and arranged an email session with Mr. Munich. He was aware that there were likely regulations on external employment, but working with someone that relatively innocuous, if cutting edge, was quite fine. What were they going to do, fire him? Dock his pay? He had absurd amounts of blackmail that he had never felt the need to use, if it came to that. Weaknesses, weaknesses, everywhere, but not a drop that thinks.

The Sub Rosa were concerning, but the overall impression that he had obtained was that they only made a point of targeting thinkers that got in their way, and he had no specific intentions to do that. If need be, he was reasonably confident that his team would be on his side. The fact that they had killed people was unacceptable, and he would most certainly be getting in their way indirectly. If he could just find a weak link in whatever their security was... In any case, being blatant about it was quite unadvised. He would make a report and do his best to subtly gather information.

As he firmly wrapped up the conversation he was having (they had stuck around a while), he heard the message over the communication link that he was hoping to not need used. A sniper rifle implied killing, and, since he was responsible for the well-being of the party, that was not allowed. The death would be his fault. Having murder on his conscious would be more than terrible, and it would create conflicts.

Thus the question became 'How do I minimize the negative utility of this function?"

Leaping with surprising agility (he was panting on the inside), he unsheathed his pickaxe, swinging it at a nearby table's candle holder. The pickaxe hit the candelabra at precisely the right angle to send it careening into a nearby chandelier. He had practiced very precisely with his precision strikes, and it payed off. The chandelier was hit at it's weakest point, groaned, and crashed down upon a table, lighting that table on fire, and setting other nearby tables on fire in a chain reaction. After a moment, there was a flaming wall separating the majority of the room from the sniper.

Okay, that might be deduced from his pay, but everyone had backed away in time to avoid getting anything but a first-degree burn, and even the best snipers had quite a bit of trouble shooting through fire. Above all, the heat haze would prevent him from getting a clear shot, making people less likely to die.

It was also slightly humorous that the sociopathic CEO almost had his toupee set on fire. That was collateral damage, and he would have sunburn, but it was also really amusing.

[Madwand]

Seraph

Her orb zapped through windows of the two-stories brick and concrete warehouse. Inside, near total darkness rules, it seems that Skullcrasher cut the electricity before his attack.

She tagged four gunmen spread around, hiding or terrified, unsure if they should run toward police or stay inside with maniac. None of them managed to dodge Serph’ concussive spheres, they won’t be a problem for this fight.

There were a fair number of people inside. Seraph realized the people gathered in the open area of the warehouse’s ground floor were naked. Stripped down not to steal any of the drug produced here.

Clear sent her last orb between shelf and boxes and up the stairs, following distinct blood trial and she found Skullcrusher in one of the offices. He was standing above headless corpse, blood and brain forming expanding patch on the floor.

Skullcrusher, covered from head to toe with black, heavy and almost featureless costume whirled with unnatural speed to face orb.

In the flash of brilliant light Clare teleported Aspect in.

Gauntlet

She tore the wall down in seconds, inviting the icy winds and threw table. She missed by meters, but it had an effect. Arete moved, distracted. In one fluid motion he aimed and fired at Gauntlet.

A small shower of sparks exploded as the bullet hit her shield and bounced, harmless. She noted that if not her forcefield, she would get hit in the leg, so Arete didn’t want to kill her. Who was his target?

She bought few more seconds for everyone and maybe they won’t find out.

Groundhog, Pulse, Valiant

"Take this you son of a bitch," Gauntlet voice announced, just before table flew outside the windows.

Groundhog had already reacted. Guided by his power he started fire on tables and panic between guests. He didn’t anticipated sprinkler system, but it was even better; everyone rushed to the doors, mixing and making sure that sniping right person would be almost impossible.

Only shame was that toupee of Dale Stephens Junior didn’t catch fire.

Valiant flared his force-fields, sword in hand and moved toward PRT troops, shouting orders, reacting like PRT director Anderson, who also tried to assume command of PRT’ squads.

Aspect

Flash of light and instant darkness. She instinctively switched to infrared vision. And she attacked, throwing punch after punch at Skullcrasher.

He dodged all of them, almost like Aspect was uncoordinated child trying to tag heavyweight champion. He was faster and stronger and by all accounts more experienced and skilled.

Aspect didn’t notice the kick, just the fading streak of heat left as after-image. She flew backward and crushed bookshelf full of binders, documents and ledgers. She wasn’t hurt; Seraph’ orb granted her invulnerability for few seconds.

“Call off police and Protectorate. All I need is ten minutes more.” Skullcrusher said, his voice electronically distorted, too low to be human “Those scums are not worth dying for, hero.”

Aspect isn't invulnerability anymore.

[Writtensanity]

"Hey!" Gauntlet shouted. She wasn't sure that was the right reaction to throw at a person who tried to shoot you, but somehow she felt less angry once he obviously tried to keep her alive. It was just one of the those endearing things. There was a commotion downstairs, and she didn't quite know what was going on. Either way a conversation might not be the worst thing. Nobody got shot during witty banter. "Looks like my table was about as useful as your sniper rifle for this."

The issue that came up was that Shrike's men weren't idiots, and she was only trying to buy time for the rest of her team to show up. She probably only had half a second to either fight him or get an answer from him. She settled on getting an answer, distance wasn't her thing. "Look," she asked, "what are you trying to do here? I don't exactly have an avenue of doing much more than furnature throwing, but the entire Detroit Protectorate is here."

The cold wind of the evening hissed between the buildings, barely audible above the sound of car alarms below. Lindsey hoped there weren't too many people watching her right now, talking politely wasn't usually the way you handled villains. She grabbed a chair just in case she needed to continue her furniture assault.

[GameOfChampions]

Jade grimaces as she gets up from the rubble, the hit hadn't hurt but it still hadn't been the most comfortable thing in the world and she was now acutely aware that her invulnerability was wearing off. She pauses for a second as Skullcrusher delivers his demand, chills shake her as asked her if they were worth dying for 'Are they? Would I give my life to save these drug dealers and slavers from this guy? I dunno...'

Hesitation aside she knows that it is her job to try at least, and as her eyes dart around she puts together a rough plan as she sees the last orb that Serpah had in the room. Jade quickly keys her comm to reach out to Seraph and keeps it low as she try's to cover it with her getting up "Seraph one more try." She calls out to Skullcrusher, trying to buy a few seconds to grab a few things and maybe distract him from killing the stunned gunners "Well you seem to think that they are! You're prepared to risk going to the Birdcage to kill these people." Her voice lowers to a whisper as she adds a little part just for herself, "I have to at least try..."

Jade pulls out three grenades from her belt as she talks, one smoke grenade and two incendiary, and just as she ends her piece she quickly pulls the pin of the smoke grenade before tossing it between her and the vigilante to try and give her some cover. With his unknown thinker power in the mix it was better to throw everything but the kitchen sink at him and see what works. As soon as the smoke grenade is out of her hand Jade is moving, running as quickly as possible across the room to the Seraph orb. As she runs she holds the grenades close to her body to try and hide them from Skulcrusher and then times it so that as she closes on the final orb she pulls both pins from the two grenades just seconds before touching the orb and getting pulled into it.

[n0ble]

" Understood. Let me know if you want backup." As much as she was probably more valuable out here part of Clare. She sees four versions of Jade run past her as she bolts past the four orbs that are heading towards Skullcrusher. She positions them all around and above him, yet close enough that Jade could touch anyone of them after she re-ports her in. Halo. Jade ran towards the fifth orb and touched it. Immediatley it and the one farthest from Skullcrusher wink out of existence as Jade was deposited in mid air, directly on top of the vigilante. Two orbs were already forming in her hands and being sent back in.

The first made its way back to the room with Jade and the vigilante, while the second would linger where the orb that Jade had touched was. Even as they sailed out, another one was forming in her hand for observation. Seraph took to the air, making her way to the warehouse window with a sense of urgency. If Jade needed her help it would be that much easier if she was closer.

[Bobbybobby99]

Now rather, well, damp (he hadn't anticipated sprinklers, in the moment, but it was a snap decision, Groundhog fiddled with his pouch. Out from it, he retrieved a sleek screwdriver, and quickly made his way over the smoking tables and burnt tablecloths. That done, he ran to the windows, throwing the screwdriver with pin-point precision at the closest window, and at it's precisely weakest point, aiming to shatter the modern plexiglass. That done, he took his pickaxe in both hands, and threw it angled at the ceiling, using precise force and his power to pop off one of the long ceiling tiles near the window. The tile, so chosen, fell at a distinct angle to the wall, forming a slope, while the pick clattered to the ground.

Picking up the pick and the screwdriver nearby, he carefully continued on, balancing upon the tile and walking up the window as might a beginning traipse artist. The title itself, notably, wasn't wet, which was part of why he had done it as he had, in addition to forming a slope with the now open window. With a sweeping motion of the pick, he swept off the remaining glass from the windowsill.

Cautiously stepping out onto the thin railing outside the window and thankful for his warm costume and a lack of rain, he quietly said "Don't try this at home, kids." Proceedingly, he set his pick and, aiming for the wall nearer to the window, wedged it into the brickwork by targeting the weaker points thereof (being very, very careful to minimize his inclination to collateral damage). Following that, and seeing the fellow involved, Amaris flicked his screwdriver several times, did his very best aiming effort, and threw it at the armed man, adjusting for wind resistance and updrafts accordingly. He was aiming for the man's right arm joint, and wasn't being very careful to avoid lethality at this distance and with a normally harmless (though sharp-edged) tool. That done, he ducked back inside, casually but lightly stepping down the ceiling tile.

"Okay, anything in particular you need me for, Gauntlet? I have access to Arête, if you need him distracted somehow. Also, if he reacts in pain right now, he isn't protected."

[Priest_Of_Banjo]

The rush of energy he felt that accompanied his powers activating was absent this time as he walked towards the PRT Troops.

“Move! We need to start doing damage control. Make sure the civillians evacuate ASAP so we can give these berks a proper fight!” Valiant shouted, going full on commander mode. “Move!”

Seeing their options between one shouting man and another wielding a sword that could cut through concrete like butter, the grunts of the PRT moved like lightning had been shot at them which it probably had now that Valiant thought about it. They spread out, leaving only Anderson and him in the area.

“Sir, I’ll be your protection detail for now. I thought it best to keep the guard around you minimal lest they treat the group as a bigger target. Plus, we can’t risk any Masters getting their hands on you.” His tone was confident, more confident than he had been the last time he’d met this pompous overblown bureaucrat.

“You’re not the worth the trouble, if I’m honest. You shouldn’t be here.”

Valiant’s hand clenched around the hilt of his sword, clutching it like a lifeline in the frantic chaos around him. He breathed deep and continued to move ahead of the Director.

“I need to stay here, Paras be damned. I’ll lead the troops, you go fight somewhere else.” That same tone again, like the Director had just stepped in something awful.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Sir, with all due respe-“

“No, damnit! You will listen to orders! I’m in charge here.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Get in the fight! Your defensive abilities are invaluable right now. You shouldn’t be here, you should be-“

The words stopped abruptly as Valiant swung his sword with electric quickness. Human flesh and bone slowed the edge of his sword no more than cold butter did. The head seemed to hover in the air before tumbling down to the ground with a dull echo.

The body hit the ground soon after and then the screaming began.

“Very good, lover boy. Have fun clearing *this* up.” A voice crackled over his comms unit. A suit of armour to his left waved and quickly left in the haze of battle.

The last few minutes came flooding back to him.

-
I hadn’t felt anything similar to this since my first few weeks in America. A connection so deep, it became a foundation of my very soul. She was somewhere close by but I could not see her. I felt all warm and fuzzy just knowing she was near.

“Carmilla,” I sighed, my last little bit of will fading with my words.

“Now now, lover boy…” came a smooth voice over his comms unit. It was her. “If you want to see me, you’ll have to do me a little favour. It’s not even hard…”

“Anything you ask, my love.” I sounded like a cheesy romance novel. I hoped she liked them.

“Just do what this man wants. Think you can do that?” Her voice was like silk, smooth and elegant.

“Yes.” She deserved to be happy. I could make her happy.

Another voice came over the comms. It was older, rougher but no less commanding. I felt my resolve come back to me for just a second before the words reverberated through me.

“Kill Director Anderson.”

My powers flared up and I turned to move towards the pompous git.

_

Valiant held his head in one hand, being sure to keep his fields up in this melee. The screaming died down.

He was a git to me sure, but why couldn’t I resist? What the hell was going on to make me do… that?!

I didn’t... I didn’t mean to… I didn’t want –

Yes I did. Deep down, I really, really did.

Valiant just stood there, catatonic with grief over what he’d done and, more importantly, how good it had felt to do.

[Madwand]

Gauntlet

“You’re right!” Arete shouted back. He slung the rifle over his shoulder. Guantlet didn’t see any holsters or gripping devices. Some kind of tinker-tech magnets?

Arete levitated toward her, but kept some distance. The armor didn’t seem to have any visible propulsion systems.

“The whole Protectorate, PRT teams with foam, no less than a hundred private bodyguards and some of them are rogues for hire.” Arete said "Quite the party if you ask me."

Aspect

“You can’t catch me.” Skullcrusher responded “You’ll never catch..”

Aspect pulled the pin from smoke grenade, letting it fall between her and villain. She lurched toward door.

Too slow. She was in the office doors, when he stomped on her leg, just below back of her knee. Excruciating jolt of pain shoot through Aspect mind, wiping out almost everything. She dropped incendiary shells. She almost didn’t felt when next hit caught her in the side of head, sending her into unconscious.

In this moment she could hear Hoyden screaming her first lesson on hand-to-hand combat at her “Never turn your back on an enemy.”


Aspect is out of fight. On the other hand, it’s nothing that minute of Gauntlet’ attention can’t fix.

Seraph

Her orb flew over stairs to reach Aspect, but she was seconds late. Aspect body lied on the floor, her visor cracked.

She teleported Aspect immediately outside the building, to her side.

“Oh my God!” detective Greenwell gasped “Call an ambulance!”

Her remaining orbs flew toward second floor office, but Skullcrusher vanished. She need to find him before he kills next person.

She had general idea of building layout. One vast storage space on the ground, containers and shelves full of packages, which limited her vision and created labyrinthine corridors -possibly arranged to mask chemist laboratory in the center - but with space between ceiling and shelves . Second floor full of small offices like that one in which Seraph found unconscious Jade.


I need description of search pattern. Do you still want to get closer to warehouse?

Groundhog, Pulse, Valiant

Groundhog was one man wrecking crew. Glass window and part of ceiling joined the list of demolished property. He measured Arete with glance and threw his improvised missile.

Pulse vanished, teleporting away. She probably thought she was target of assassin.

Valiant proved her wrong with one swing of the sword.

He didn’t pay attention, but someone broadcasted “Sh*t, it’s Carmilla! Master-stranger protocols. Disable or immobilize anyone who is acting uncharacteristically.”

Contamination foam engulfed him moment latter.

Guantlet

Windows below her broke. Arete turned his attention in an instant toward Groundhog . Thinker took time to aim..

And Arete snatched screwdriver turned projectile out of the air.

“Huh. So that’s why I get so good with catching knives today. I was afraid that Sub Rosa will send some funky knife-maniac after me this time. Nice talking to you, Guantlet, but it’s time for me to go. If you want, visit Hero&Harlequin and ask about me. It was neutral meeting place before and now, when the whole unpleasant business is behind us, we all need couple of drinks. “ “ Arete said and vanished, teleporting away.

[Writtensanity]

"Goodbye then," Lindsey thought before she put down her barrier. It had been quite the day already and she was ready to go to sleep. Did he know that she wouldn't be able to have a drink for three years? She'd had them before but now that she was unmasked sneaking a shot with the wards was... unlikely at best. She shoved the chair away from her using the void crystals in her hand. It love tapped the wall. She gave herself time to sigh before starting to climb out of the hole she'd made in the hotel. Groundhog had made a nice entryway below, and dropping in would be a more dramatic entrance for Gauntlet.

Her metal fingers dug into the brick like it was meant for climbing. She'd been upstairs to avoid the gala and now she was going down. Frankly the questions about her identity had almost stopped once she said 'interview' but she kept slipping back into Lindsey either way. Something about the public knowing had eroded the wall she'd set up between herself and Gauntlet. Lindsey flickered between reclusive and boisterous, the charisma had all be Gauntlet. Boisterous wasn't the right option, and reclusive involved not dropping into parties. She needed Gauntlet right now, and had to believe that the mask still mattered.

Lindsey dropped into the ballroom when most people where pointing guns around, containment foam was splattered across the floor mixing with the blood. She barely had time to mouth anything before there was a rifle pointed at her, and then there were ten. "What?" she asked, probably less shocked than she should have been. An itchy trigger finger sprayed containment foam at her, and her shield came up out of instinct. They hadn't meant to contain her, but it was a stark reminder that they might not be able to if something happened. "Guys guys, it's me." She dropped the shield, and the foam dripped onto the floor. Tensions were high, she didn't know why, but that was okay.

The emerald in her index finger started to glow as she set her arm to heal whoever'd been hurt in Groundhog's attempt to help her out. The sniper hadn't gotten a shot off so it couldn't have been anything serious. She followed the trail of blood as it wound toward the body contained on the blood. She saw the corpse of Anderson beside it, beheaded and dripping. She saw Valiant's sword, she saw who was missing. She tried to understand what had happened.

She couldn't she just felt sick and weak. She was too young for this sort of thing. She wanted to go home, she needed to go home, she- "Master-Stranger protocols, Arete escaped without firing a shot. Where do you need me?" she asked the random troops it the ballroom without Anderson to turn to. The red gem in her fingertips crackled as she prepared to hit anything she could. Gauntlet was here to make sure things got done.

Lindsey would be seen throwing up in her room to the image of Anderson burned in her skull.

[n0ble]

A momentary flash of panic shot through her mind as she saw Aspect. Focus. Gotta save the people who don't have immediate care. She steeled her nerves. I'm sorry Jade. I'll be the first one at your hospital bed. Cauldron might be mad. But if they really did want to help people then they'd understand.

Clare pulled back half of her orbs, using three of the remaining ones to teleport out the drug dealers that were still stunned from her previous detonations. As she did, she spawned more orbs and sent the last orb in the building through the labyrinth of crates and other holding items, looking for the Skullcrusher. Once that was clear she would send it up through the offices as well. While that was occurring she sent three more of her orbs back in again, looking for more people to rescue at the same time.

[Bobbybobby99]

Someone had died, as Amaris saw from across the room.

One little life... extinguished, snuffed out like a light. They couldn't even have the hope of cryonics, without having consented to it ahead of time. There was despair, a moment of weakness he allowed himself, a crushing burden of responsibility...

Then he went to work, and catalogued the changes he needed to make.

Change A: The enemy is intelligent. Do not assume that they will be predictable, and prepare for second level deceptions.

Change B. The enemy is cruel. Do not assume that they are evil mutants (they are human), but expect standard dehumanizations of the opposition of their part.

Change C. The enemy is collaborative. Do not rush off on the presumption that a single member has shown themselves. In fact, extend this in general; if one rat is seen, ten more live in the woodwork.

That done, he gently set aside his sorrow, his overwhelming sense of wrongness in the face of death, and tucked it firmly into a corner of his mind. He had been careless. He would be careless no more. Sorrow was not useless, after it had been considered. Sorrow would interfere with the rest of his work.

It was moderately absurd, to see a fellow in a groundhog suit with that sort of horror in his eyes, but there it was. He retrieved his pick, strapped it to his back, and calmly walked to the corpse, straightening a paperclip into a long line absently. When someone pointed their containment foam sprayer at him, he flicked the straightened paperclip into the barrel, causing it to fizzle, grind slightly, and cease to function properly. His gaze was absent, and he stared at the corpse and the sword and the scene.

"I'm ready to be deployed as needed, alongside Gauntlet," he softly spoke.

[The_Snark]

Pulse's voice crackled over the comm. "Master/stranger protocols means stick together, capes especially. I'll be with you in a moment."

A few seconds later she appears with a flicker of blue light by one of the walls, where she can take in most of the room at a glance. The dying fires Groundhog had set to distract the sniper, the PRT soldiers grouped loosely in the center of the room with Gauntlet and Groundhog (no Valiant). A few civilians still present, hunkered down behind tables or still scrambling for the exit. A pile of containment foam. A bloody sword lying on the ground, a crimson stain slowly spreading from... oh God. While she didn't understand exactly what had happened, her gut told her that Arete's attack had been a feint. And she'd fallen for it, with ugly consequences.

This did not bode well for her first day on the job.

Rumination later. Action now. "Groundhog, defense analysis - try and tell us how you think Shrike might hit us next. Gauntlet, sitrep. I didn't get an angle on Arete before he left."

[Madwand]

Pulse, Gauntlet, Valiant, Groundhog

Pulse took control of situation. She was a team leader and highest ranking officer on the scene.

It’s a shame that in the moment of distraction, Groundhog flipped paperclip and disabled one of the foam sprayers. PRT troops, already on edge, reacted quickly and predictably. Child-friendly and scenery-unfriendly hero was buried under foam from eight sides. He theoretically could get out, if he had proper chemicals and time, but even discounting lack of said chemicals, this would only provoke use of more lethal force against him.

Master-stranger protocols.

With one third of the team disabled and one third away, there was nothing more to do. The cleanup, initial investigation and witness interrogations all took several hours and on top of that psychological vetting of all parahumans to lift master-stranger protocols and de-foaming of Groundhog and Valiant. Pulse couldn't make it to midnight meeting with Shrike - she was constantly needed and there was no time to window to slip.


Did pulse told the PRT and cops about Shrike’ message and previous Carmilla victim?

Seraph

Next few minutes were frantic, but uneventful. She teleported three thugs. Then she rendered unconscious rest of them - finding four headless corpses in process.

Skullcrusher avoided all her orbs and slipped past the police cordon; Seraph saved at least eight lives and even if those belonged to criminals and Aspect got badly hurt. It was good first day on the job.

Gauntlet and Aspect

Thankfully, none of the guests or PRT staff required immediate healing. Shortly after intial round of tests and interrogation about event, she was re-called to the hospital.

Aspect’ knee and head were in bad shape. Gauntlet used an charge from healing crystal and in less than minute, Aspect was again perfectly unharmed.

Sitrep

From street level the Protectorate HQ looks more like a small modern day fortress then any sort high tech headquarters for the local branch of the Protectorate. It's squat one story concrete appearance actually hides a whirlwind of activity beneath the surface. The small one story building is merely the entrance to the large underground headquarters of the Detroit Protectorate branch, it has a series of elevators and two stairwells that lead down to the main area but all can be blocked or shut down by a passcode put into either the upstairs console or downstairs console. The building always has a squad of PRT officers on duty on top of ID and fingerprint scanners.

The underground section of the HQ is all thirty feet below ground and one level, since it is a single level it is also the size of two city blocks. It contains spaces for both the offices of the PRT and for the heroes of the Protectorate, as well as a training area and garage that is connected through a long tunnel to the surface in a hidden location. The underground segment also has four escape tunnels, one on each side, and they are all highly monitored and have the same defenses and precautions as the main entrance. This high-tech fortress, guarded by both PRT squads and their parahuman counterparts, is the place from where the Protectorate wage their war against the villains of Detroit.

In the morning the new Detroit protectorate team assembled in one of the rooms to discuss situation, consider options and decide their next move.


Avengers assemble:smallwink:. Chance to gather whole team and role-play. We will have few days of time-skip after few posts here and the arc will be finished.

[Bobbybobby99]

Groundhog, with a disagreeable nature in his step, was frowning, as he sat in his chair. He probably should have anticipated that they would lay on the foam, but goodness. He had replaced his stolen screwdriver and the paperclip, both at taxpayer expense, and had worked over the specifics of the deal with the CEO while he was immobilized, pouring over a mental construction for any flaw.

He had then emailed the plan to Mr. Munich, after typing it out, and it was likely to give him significant extra funds, while only taking perhaps an hour or two of his time each day. Given that he had never needed much more than five hours or so of sleep (which had come in handy when writing his PhD thesis, let him tell you), it was a simplicity. With some of his signing bonus, he proceeded to purchase a chemical kit, including some very strong bases and acids, which was sort of an obvious when he thought about it.

He surveyed his new headquarters, making a note to reinforce the weak points with titanium later; there were just so many. Heck, he could drive a broken stick into that one corner and it would make a gaping hole the size of a... okay, on topic.

Speaking, he said "Well, to continue from where I was interrupted, they've already cut the metaphorical head off of the metaphorical snake. After that, killing you, Pulse, seems the obvious weakness; the major, of course, is relatively well protected, but is the next best thing. The best course of action on their part is to isolate you where you don't have a ready method of escape, and stab you repeatedly. In terms of the mayor, they'll likely target him at his next public appearance. This building-" he waved his hand, "-is riddled with holes; I could tear it down with a stick and a bit of hot glue. If they find out where it is, and we don't do some serious reinforcement, it is falling in flames. Thinking practically of where they'll strike next... they clearly weren't interested in killing me, Gauntlet, or Valiant, to any particular extent. Pulse, most probably; Seraph and Aspect? Who knows. Aside from our leader, it would seem more their style to humiliate and defame us. Without that selective lack of killing intent, it would be rather clever of them to attack our next press conference, against a prominent public figure... Of course, wouldn't it be even more clever to do another feint? We're weak when we're apart, and weak when we're together; they'll target when we're entirely together, or entirely apart."

[n0ble]

Clare rode a warm air current down to the street level before walling into the PRT headquarters. She'd been on Patrol. Again. She took off one of her gloves and put all seven fingers on the scanner before going to the elevator. The guards didn't bother asking for her ID, it was obvious enough who she was. With that she went to the stairs and took them down. It gave her time to think.

Jade had been alright when it was all said and done, but even so she didn't like just leaving her like that. It wasn't even the fact that Cauldron had told her too that bothered her. She'd been the first person Clare had met after moving in. She was a friend. That being said, as long as they had Gauntlet on their side any real injuries were probably an afterthought. Plus she managed to save eight people which was nothing to sneeze at.

As she walked down the stairs Clare took off her mask. When she walked into the room with everyone she gave a curt apology to Pulse for being late before sitting. It was nice not to be stared at by everyone because of her appearance. In spite of the changes Cauldron had induced it still took some getting used to. Clare then replied to Groundhogs speech "I think your right. I wasn't there, for which I'm sorry, but humiliation does seem to be the main goal of that attack, based on the reports I've read. The other thing I was considering on my way here was that it could be a statement of power. A sort of sign that the Men of Steel could target us whenever they want." Her eye briefly flashed over to Valiant before looking away. He has to understand that it isn't his fault. She turned to Pulse instead "The higher ups are going to want some sort of retaliation for this right? Regardless of how we feel they can't let what happened at the gala go unanswered for can they?"

[Priest_Of_Banjo]

Well, you’re broken now. They’ll never trust you again.

Valiant had walked into the room with a blank stare on his face and by the time his teammates, not for long, had finished speaking, it hadn’t vanished. His armour was still on him except the helmet and his general appearance suggested a man under pressure.

“I don’t think they can.” It was small, contrasting with the more confident voice he’d had not more than a day ago. His hands were clasped tightly in front of him as he spoke. “There is no way we can let an attack like this go unanswered in any way. We’ve been cut down in front of the same people we were meant to protect and had our very goddamn thoughts shoved aside in favour of some Master’s damn whim.”

The blank stare had left, as had the cold shut off demeanour he’d been showing off earlier. “We need to hit hard, fast and with as little mercy as damn possible!” His hands were animated. “There is no reason why we shouldn’t! They have caused the deaths of several people, so many of them were OURS! They attacked us at a damn publicity event and shoved their damn suits where they did not belong! They… they…”


They made you realise you aren’t one of them. That you enjoyed what you did.

Just as quickly as it had arrived, the manic energy left Valiant and he reverted to his shut off demeanour. That animated light he’d had in his eyes had faded into that dead stare once more.The quiet voice from the metal clad man said one final thing

“How much force can we bring to bear against the Men of Steel within the next twenty four hours? Troops, weapons, and other paras we can call in from other areas. Anything and everything.”

[GameOfChampions]

Sit Rep

'These scum are not worth dying for, hero.' Jades eyes shoot open and she catches her breath. She looks around panicked, unsure what was going on since the last thing she remembered was the smoke from the grenade she had thrown and then a sharp pain in her right leg and head. The sight of the white walls of the hospital and medical equipment make her breathe out in relief, she was safe at the hospital. Soon after a nurse came in and filled her in on what had happened, from Seraph teleporting her out and then Lindsey stopping by to heal up her busted leg and cracked skull. 'I'll need to thank them later at some point, this could have been much worse without them. I should set up another movie night with Clare, it was a lot of fun last time and I dunno about Lindsey... I'll figure it out later.'

After an hour or so of tests to make sure everything was OK so she could leave, she heads out of the hospital and grabs a cab back to the HQ for a meeting with the rest of the team. She listened to everyone talk for a while. Groundhog seemed like he had some good points, Jade raised her hand then lowered it unsure exactly what the procedure for speaking out was and was a little nervous and in the end just decided to speak out. "Well it does seem that they'll be targeting us or more likely anyone left who had been associated with the strike of Shrike, they've got the team and the director already but who is left? Was the mayor associated with the mission in any way?" She shrugs unsure if he was or not, "Either way you're right Groundhog, it would pay to keep an eye on him since he seems the most likely next target."

Jade watches as Valiant goes off on his speech, he seemed very different from the confident clever man she had met in their apartment building and it was heartbreaking. She had heard what happened with the him and the director, while it scared her she was more worried for the man then she was scared of him. In this world of capes you just had to accept that things like this can happen and it wasn't anyone's fault except the cape who caused it. Jade scoots her chair over a bit and puts her hand on his arm, trying to comfort him, she murmers "It's OK Alexander, don't worry."

Jade then stands up to speak again, "While we should be aware and on guard against the Men of Steel and possibly more strikes from them, I don't think we should actively try and seek them out to fight them just yet... They're a powerful group and we're in a precarious position right now and if we try to fight them and fail then we'll look even worse and be in an worse position both in the cape world and in a PR situation. I think we should keep a constant eye on them and try to gather information as well as possible allies against them before acting against them decisively. We won't forget though when we strike against them then we can strike aggressively and successfully. We also have to remember that while the Men of Steel are a large part of the underworld they aren't all of it we do need to protect the city from the other gangs as well."

Training Room

Jade strikes the punching bag three times in quick succession before closing and kneeing the bag from up close. Sweat pours off of her as she tries her best to keep up the same level of activity for several minutes. She pants as she finally winds down and stops, she grabs her water bottle and a towel and leans against the wall for a few minutes to rest. The Skullcrusher fight runs through her head again and she closes her eyes with a grimace, it had been her big step onto the scene and she'd completely screwed it up. Jade pushes off the wall on jogs back onto the mat and begins her aggressive practice bout with the punching bag again.

While she was feeling good physically, like her new regime was strengthening her body and doing some good. However her mind was completely a complete mess, she wasn't sure if she had what it took to put herself on the line for random people like she should. She wanted to help people but she had had a leg broken and her head smashed trying to save drug dealers and it made her kind of hesitant, the idea of that much pain scared her. She struck the bag even harder trying to burn off her fear with exercise, 'I can work past this, I don't need to let get under my skin.'

[The_Snark]

Unmasked, Esperanza had to work to conceal the dismay she felt at Valiant's outburst. It was understandable: he'd just been forced to kill a man, after all. Worse than that, perhaps - he'd been forced to want to kill a man, a violation that went too deep to disentangle it from the self. Carmila did not literally puppet her victims (save when she seized a parahuman's power), merely twisted them until they willingly did as she asked. Understandable, even expected, but still unfortunate. That rapid switch from outspoken anger to dull silence was worrisome. She'd have to address that problem (she hated to think of a teammate that way, but problem it was) sooner or later.

She was glad Jade spoke up against that idea. It would not have gone well if she had been the only one to counsel caution. Lindsay would probably lean towards Valiant's way of thinking, if yesterday hadn't demoralized her too badly. Groundhog's power nudged him towards aggressive ways of thinking - he was too good at spotting flaws and weaknesses to be at ease otherwise. Seraph seemed neutral on the matter. They might end up taking the offensive after all - she honestly hadn't decided what she wanted yet - but it was important to consider their options carefully, not lash out.

Technically, it was her call regardless of what the team thought, but invoking authority before they’d had a chance to build up any rapport felt… heavy-handed. Much better to start as a mediator than a tyrant.

"Yes and no," she said, directing her reply to Clare. "Not retaliating will have... repercussions, in the long run. Bad for the city's morale, and if we can't turn the situation around we'll be held accountable for those repercussions. Right now, though, there are no PRT personnel in the city with the authority to make those decisions. Short of a direct order from the Triumvirate or the Chief director, we're free to plan our response without constraint."

"Going on the offensive has its merits. Letting Shrike move first means he decides the time and place of any confrontation, that he has time to plan while we're caught by surprise. However. Shrike knows all this too. He'll be expecting a response of some kind, and he’s proven himself very good at defending his territory in spite of those handicaps. I don't think it’s wise to rush. He's had plenty of time to prepare; we haven't."

She paused to let that sink in briefly, lacing her hands together on the table in front of her. "This is not a good position to be in. We need a victory of some sort to restore the public's faith in us" - and our faith in ourselves, she added silently - "but on the flip side, a third defeat now would be a disaster. We have to be careful."

"Groundhog, Seraph." Cape names, now. She'd never gotten in the habit of thinking of her teammates by cape name, as some of her old teammates had, but if there was ever a time it was now. "I agree with your assessment of Shrike's motives. A show of force for the public, a message or warning for us. I'll add a third reason: revenge. Director Anderson may not have condoned the attack on Shrike, but as PRT leader he was ultimately responsible for it. From what I know of Shrike, he would see that as a challenge that needed answering. Killing the heroes was self-defense; this makes it clear that he will not only defend but respond in kind."

There was another momentary pause. She was used to strategizing with a team, had overcome her initial reserve some years back, but leading the discussion was still new. "I'll be honest: I don't yet know what I think we should do. So I'll open up the table. If you have ideas, now is the time to speak up." Ah. And one of them had already done that, hadn't he... She shifted her attention to the British recruit. Focus on the tactical merits, not on his emotional state; nobody liked having their thoughts dismissed. "Valiant, I'm not confident we could muster the sort of assault you're suggesting. The team was inaugurated just yesterday, resources are always scarce, and frankly we haven't shown the PRT that we're worth that kind of investment. I'm going to see what aid I can get from the higher-ups - consultation with PRT thinkers, perhaps tinkertech to cover for some of our team's weaknesses - but I think the odds of that level of aid are low. The cavalry is busy elsewhere."

[Priest_Of_Banjo]

“So you’re just going to sit there? Watch at the PRT gets its name dragged through the mud?” That manic energy was back in Valiant’s eyes, fuelling his animated hand gestures. “I don’t care if I have to walk into that damn base by myself if it means we are seen to be DOING something!” He shook off Jade’s arm, quickly giving a glare at her seeming cowardice. It faded slightly as she left,


“But of course, you don’t care.” He turned his head towards Esperanza. “All you suffered was a small bit of embarrassment. Your big moment ruined by some supervillains. There are people at that damn event who won’t get to leave and you’re saying we should be patient.

“Screw. That.” He stood up, that energy charging his movements still. The look in his eyes clearly showed the conviction in what he was saying. He looked around the room, trying to catch the gaze of those still in the room. “Screw patient. Screw waiting. You have the luxury, the damn privilege, of getting to walk away from what happened unchanged. You honestly think that the people broken by Shrike are going to accept that? You can all watch, distant and cold, as the situation gets more and more damaged. Well I’m fixing this.” He walked with force in his steps out of the room, only to stop and whisper. “With or without you, I’m fixing this.”

- Nearby Corridor, PRT Base -
He screamed. He felt the raw hatred and stress flow through him like a torrent.

Broken little man. How are you going to fix this?

He didn’t know. He did not know and that *terrified* him.

The tears streamed down his face as he slowly staggered down the hall.

[Bobbybobby99]

"Well..." started Groundhog, with an abstract expression, "that's sort of disagreeable. If Pulse want's me to do anything about it, I'll go ahead and do so, but it seems that he simply needs to blow off some steam. Or a sauna, I think he may need to blow off a sauna. In other regards, if I could just find out where they're located, it becomes trivial, albeit somewhat underhanded, to flood them with sleeping gas and/or bury them under detritus. They have to have some sort of social media; if just one gang member posts a picture, I can trace the GPS metadata to their location. I'll have to check that out, actually; it's a common mistake. Where was I? Oh, right, our advisable strategy; I agree with you on the revenge component, but I suspect it is tied more to status based retaliations, than anything more emotional. This was too calculating for anger; angry people make mistakes. Valiant was angry, and... I probably shouldn't finish that sentence. While I'm tempted towards an aggressive stance, I'm quite amicable to the idea of something more passive. Either way, I should still get to that completely legal hacking I was talking about. Where are the computers in this place? Oh, I have a laptop."

On that note, he took out aforementioned laptop, searching the lines of Facebook, Twitter, and whatever else kids were chatting on these days. He didn't actually use them much himself, except in the most obviously G rated ways ("Hey kids! Don't forget to recycle today!"), but they were valuable sources of information. When someone posted a picture, they also posted a package of so called metadata, which including things like exposure. On the other hand, it also included miscellaneous data, which, nowadays, generally included GPS data. If someone in the gang was posting pictures, he could trace their location; if they were doing so through another account, he could systematically trace the locations of the usual suspects. He could also, given some time, obtain passwords easier than a cat obtains a mouse, which made other hacking absurdly easy. While he did this, attempting to find the location of the gang, he also made an effort to pay attention to the continuing conversation and respond where appropriate.

Training Room.

Amaris, with a certain dexterity, was throwing knives, screwdrivers, and improvised straight objects at a target in the corner. He was silent, pondering some problem or another, and had already gone through several targets that spontaneously fell in tatters or crumbled entirely. His accuracy with the knives was very impressive, his screwdrivers and improvised throwing weapons slightly less so. Every few minutes, he switched gears, utterly destroying blocks of granite, wood, and concrete with his pickaxe. It was superhuman in the destruction wreaked, but his aiming remained mostly mundane, if rather skilled, hence the need to practice.

He didn't initiative conversation, working in silence.

[The_Snark]

"I would appreciate if you'd check on him," Esperanza said after a moment. Her gut feeling was that Groundhog and Jade had the best chance at getting through to Valiant, and he'd volunteered. "Give him space if that's what he needs, but... try to make sure he doesn't do anything rash in the next few hours."

Sending the team's best (and only) thinker away from the planning session was unfortunate, but better safe than sorry. She wasn't sure if Valiant was the type to bluster, or if he really did mean to strike out on his own. She'd known men of both sorts.

[n0ble]

Clare had a pained expression on her face as Valiant left. "I can go instead if you'd like m'am. I've been finding I'm much less of a planner than yourself or Groundhog, more of a doer like him..." Clare jabbed a thumb in the direction that Valiant had stalked off in. She could tell that as soon as she spoke people got uncomfortable. More...tense? Maybe it was her appearance. It also could've been that she effectively questioned the team leader in front of the entire team. But she couldn't just sit there and listen to planning sessions while someone she worked with was hurting. Besides it wouldn't do any good to send Groundhog away when he was so busy, especially given how helpful he could be with planning things out. Maybe it was her appearance. Or maybe it was all in her head.

"I might be able to find common ground with him" With Esperanza's permission she left, trying to find him. After catching up to him in a hallway she stopped with a frown on her face. Quickly turning it into a small smile, she said "Pretty bada$$ speech back there." she stopped abruptly for a second. Is he shaking? "I'm guessing you don't want to talk about it... hell I don't want to either. I still don't" It wasn't that hard to figure out that she wast talking about something entirely different. She paused and looked down a her feet for a second. Dad.. Then she looked back up "I still don't really... But that doesnt change the fact that I'm here if you ever feel like talking about it. I'm here as a teammate and while we've really just met I'd like to think that I'm here as a friend because that loss of power and control? It's the worst feeling there is. It really really is. But you don't have to face it alone. We don't have to."

Training Room
Clare had really needed to practice using her powers since Cauldron had been fairly thorough with it's testing and training. So today was a fitness day. As she walked to the track she saw Jade hammering away on the punching bag. Clare approached and waited for a lull in her routine to talk to her "Hey. I'm uh-sorry I kind of ditched you after you got knocked out during the fight with that Skullcrusher guy I was wondering if... Ah jeez-um, wana go for race around the track?" her transitioned from a nervous frown into an equally nervous grin, "Might be a good way to test out your leg maybe." And then back to a frown again. Way to go Clare.

[Writtensanity]

Lindsey had been at her interview and as such was a couple of minutes late. She passed Valiant in the hall, and then Clare chasing after her. Lindsey ended up in the room with the four heroes that were left, none of which were acting like much of a- Oh god.

"Uh hey," Lindsey said as she sat down in the chair that Valiant had been sitting in. "I know I'm a few minutes late because of the interview but-" she looked back to the door. Had Valiant been crying? "Did I miss something here? Is the meeting over?"

[GameOfChampions]

Jade smiles as Lindsey comes in, she liked the tough quick talking tinker. "Well It seems that there are a rough two options. We could strike out hard and fast in an attempt for retaliation and to gain back some respect after everything that's happened. Or we could take it slow, gather info on the men of steel while taking on an easier mission to get a win for us." She shrugs "Both are valid options, I mean we will have to deal the the Men of Steel at some point but personally I'm for the later. We do have the rest of the city to think of and it's still full of villains... I'm also worried we might not be ready as a group especially with Valiant." Jade looks down sad as she says the last part. It had hurt that he didn't want her support but maybe she just couldn't be there for him right now. She gives a sigh and slouches down in her seat a little.

Training Room

Jade just smiles at Clare, she could see she was a little worried about this. "Don't worry about it at all. You made the right choice saving them. Besides I was unconcious I wouldn't even have noticed if you were in the ambulance." She keeps the smile on even as thoughts turn to the Skullcrusher 'Who knows what that monster would have done to them. They should go to jail not have their skulls pulverized by him...'

Jade shakes her head a little to clear it of those thoughts "Ya a run couldn't hurt. My leg feels fine but I haven't tested it yet so why not." She heads over to the track with Clare and quickly starts to jog at a quick pace.

[Madwand]

Meeting

Groundhog started to sort though the social media. He had acess to various law enforcement databases to cross-reference and limit the search-space. Aramis Larock knew that criminals often are just plain dump - thinker power wasn't required to bring it to his awareness. Sometimes they like to record themselves or take memento photos during the commission of a crime to glorify their achievement. What criminals are unaware of is that many modern digital cameras and smartphones also record metadata such as information about location, date and time the image was captured.

Sadly, the top echelons of men of steel had avoided such mistakes - not only parahumans, but also vital players and few high-profile businessmen that could be (tentatively) linked to Men of Steel avoided such exposure. It probably was Sub Rosa' Angelus fault - the hacker-tinker acitive in Detroit for several years.

He had few hits with street level criminals - but he got into another problem. He didn't have blanked permission to capture the date and even if his Thinker power would let him hack into any ordinary ganger's account it was still technically illegal.

Pulse sent short message to PRT officers handling transfers and requisitions. She got answer almost imminently. New team leader's suspicions were accurate - tinker-tech had such a long wait time that it would be three months before she could get her hands on finished devices. The whole Protectorate suffered shortage of parahamuns and with recent transfers, Detroit won't see another for more than year. However, there was an unconventional possibility, but she needed to consult PRT about it as it was delicate matter of recently triggered parahuman, who is currently under arrest for murder.


BobbyBobby99 - are you going to continue with hacking? Also, specify if Groundhog minds or don't mind legal issues around it.
The_Snark - you could get one more parahuman on the team, but it would carry a risk - both political and direct (if she - the mentioned parahuman - prove herself unstable or aggressive).

Please continue with both scenes:smallsmile:

[GameOfChampions]

Meeting

Jade pulls out a folder on the various cape groups in the city, mainly looking at the Men of Steel capes to familiarize herself with their main opposition. As she is looking through the folder she spots a thick file at the back, curious she pulls it out and starts to read it. As she reads about this group she becomes more intrigued and after she finishes she tosses it down onto the meeting room table "Hey guys what about this group? The Russian mob has some pretty heavy hitters in "The Family" and it has a international task force attached to it. So if we try and do a mission to hit these guys maybe take one of them into custody or something we could get a lot of recognition, maybe even international, for the PRT and our team in particular." She looks around gauging interest in the idea, she knew that a lot of people wanted something aggressive against the Men of Steel and while she wanted a more simple approach for right now maybe this would be a good middle ground, action mixed with recognition but not necessarily throwing themselves up against the Men of Steel.

Training Room

As she starts her run with Clare she notices that Aramis is still in the throwing area and stops her jog and slowly makes her way over to him. "Hey Aramis, I know that we haven't talked much but do you want to do some training together? I was just going to have a jog for about 5km or so, do you want to join and then maybe you could help me with my grenade accuracy or something? I can always use practice with that."

[Writtensanity]

"Okay wait wait wait," Lindsey said from the chair she'd just recently plopped into. Sure, she hadn't been caught up but she caught the direction this was going in , "are you really telling me that you're vote isn't going to kill Shrike?" The word kill jumped off of her tongue, a little too excited for a hero. "He murdered other heroes and then made a fool of us. I don't CARE about the Family. Shrike is the real problem."

[GameOfChampions]

Jade sighs, so many of her teammates were having problems looking past this Shrike thing. She snaps at Lindsey "LOOK! The sad matter is that we can't take the Men of Steel right now! We aren't strong enough or prepared enough. Look at what two of them did to just screw with us! We couldn't touch one of the two that showed up and yet half of the people here want to start a bloody vendetta against them, imagine what the Men of Steel could do to us if they used all their members and actually were serious instead of just screwing with our minds. I get that the Men of Steel really hurt several members of this team but you need to get over it! This city needs more then us getting revenge on the Men of Steel to make ourselves feel better, it needs heroes who will look at the big picture and not focus on one aspect of it. We've ****ed up enough this week, we need something safer right now."

She sighs "I'm sorry that may have been out of line, I know both you and Clare lost people you were very close to in that attack and that Alexander went through something I can't even imagine but you need to rise above that now. Wouldn't the old team have wanted you to be the heroes this city needs instead of going after the Men of Steel for revenge this second? Their time will come but we aren't ready right now."

[The_Snark]

Esperanza sent a quick request for further details on the possible recruit. Depending on their power, a seventh team member could be a godsend... but a murder charge was not promising. Trigger events were traumatic, it was true, and maybe this particular case was defensible. Maybe not. The team was more than volatile enough already.

"Enough." she said as Jade finished speaking, her voice quiet but firm. "Aspect, I hear what you're saying, but I don't think avoiding the Men of Steel is a good option either. We've speculated that Shrike was making a statement with this attack, that he'll back off now and see how we react. We don't know. He may still come after us. If he does, antagonizing a second villain group will put us in a worse position. Even if he doesn't, the Men of Steel will only get bolder if we let this slide."

She turned her attention to Lindsay. "Valiant leans the same way you do, Gauntlet, but directly attacking Shrike is the most dangerous thing we could do right now. He killed the last team of heroes that tried that, and he'll only be more prepared now. Jade is right when she says we can't let this be about revenge. Our first priority is to keep the city safe. Justice has to come second."

She let that sink in for a second before continuing. "Fortunately, this isn't a binary choice. We have options between 'attack Shrike with all the force we can muster' and 'avoid the Men of Steel'. Moving against one of Shrike's lieutenants may strike the balance we need: it's less risky, less provocative than attacking Shrike directly, but it weakens the Men of Steel and shows we won't let things like this go unanswered. Carmilla would be my first choice of targets, if we can locate her. She's dangerous, but she's vulnerable if we can hit her off-guard, and last night on top of her existing record is grounds for a kill order."

[Bobbybobby99]

With a moment of reflection, Amaris went on a private browser (Tor, with a few custom fittings to shore up on its weaknesses), and proceeded to begin hacking the living heck out of every social media account with pertinent information he could find. He left few traces, but did his best to obtain the needed data, and look into the appropriate venues so he could form proper personality profiles. It would be helpful, if he ever needed to, say, interrogate one of them. It was still illegal, but he had some breathing room if nobody could actually trace him to it directly, and few people would want to.

He looked up from the screen when people started using exclamation points, and remained quiet until the end of Pulse's impromptu speech (she seemed inordinately fond of them). His response, in his normal reserved tone, was "I approve of that course of action; in particular, we ought to target the woman with magical seduction powers. I don't know about the rest of you, but I quite value my free will, and taking her out would be a simplicity if we did it right and prevented communication on her part. Compromise is a valuable tool when engaging in group projects."


Training room.

As he finished crumbling a fake wall using his pickaxe, he paused, and listened to his teammate. Almost setting down the pick, but stopping it and strapping it to his back at the last moment (he would be running with it in practical situations), he turned to his teammate, waiting a moment in contemplation.

In reply, Amaris said, "It is important to maintain general fitness, and I noticed that you were aiming a bit off; certainly, I could use a good jog. You never know when you're going to need it, even if I don't really need to maintain my weight or anything. Say, did you hear about the restaurant they opened down the street? It has excellent steak, and their baked potatoes are top notch." He kept up idle, wandering chatter, and gave a covert smile at the superheroine, feeling a certain internal satisfaction at having established a positive colleague relationship.

[Writtensanity]

"I-" Lindsey started before Pulse began, she was cut off but that was alright. They were right, she'd already ****ed up enough hadn't she? She'd caused a disaster, hadn't stopped everything at the gala and... how had the interview gone. She thought it went well but... it hadn't been on T.V yet. What was she supposed to do? She wasn't the leader. She wasn't even second in command anymore. She wasn't the baby sitter. She wasn't a lot of things. She was a fish in a new pond, and no amount of power was going to change that.

Under the Drinking Age

Lindsey put down her smart phone and looked down the street. She'd seen the Hero and Harlequin in passing, but it hadn't ever been on her radar. Would they even let her in considering she was 18? She didn't know. She'd been stopped three times on the way there despite not being in costume, people knew who she was now and they wanted selfies. It was kind of cool but it was wearing thin fast. She was supposed to be undercover at the moment. She was supposed to be being quiet about this. Could she walk around the city anymore? Could she just go out with her teammates without people guessing at which hero they were? She didn't know.

She was only a block away from the Hero and Harlequin, and she was determined to get in. Some people on the team were content with taking the baby steps to chase Shrike. Lindsey didn't want him to get a lead at all. She was on the hunt, even if it meant working with the wrong people.

[Madwand]

Meeting
As previously - continue with planning

Pulse - She got a file surprising quick - parahuman in question was Sarah Genovese, sister of Clare. She’d killed a man before being taken down by the Wards, under villain nickname Darkmatter and was facing serious jail time as a young offender before shipped off to an adult prison. She got some form of blaster ability - creating dense sphere of ‘dark’ energy that could wreak serious damage.

Darkmatter could be made provisional Ward member and possibly be excluded from YG’ overzealous protection. But her possible release and deal with Protectorate might open whole can of worm, of which Seraph reaction was the least. Pulse would need to ask for some favours to organize it, but it was a possibility.


Groundhog

He cracked all passwords and firewalls with ease that only parahuman could menage - what would take hours to every normal hacker, he could do in seconds or minutes. Hoverer, his gift didn’t support him all the way to the end. He obtained data, hacked cell-phones for recordings and text messages and collected pieces from hard-drives of criminal suspect, but he still needed to find useful information in gigabytes of potential clues.

He got some Thinker boost - he cracked at least one cypher, where members of ‘motorbike enthusiast’ club sent coded SMS messages about drug purchases and deliveries. Groundhog could be now 100% certain that they were part of Men of Steel organization.

Under the Drinking Age

The Hero&Harlequin was a mecca for cape-enthusiasts, groupies and cosplayers. The place was dance club and the place to be; some come to dance, but everyone comes to see or be seen. It was a shrine to capes as much as a club, and its walls are hung with news pictures and publicity posters and framed costumes. The stuff on the walls was nothing compared to what was going in the long waiting line. If one was to imagine a themed costume party where the invitation reads: Catsuits, jumpsuits, unitards, corsets, microskirts, or full-body tights are required. Masks and capes welcome.. Leather, spandex, and latex preferred. More than two third of the crowd fit the bill. Some dressed in “classic” style, but lots of costumes bordered on fetish-wear if they didn’t gleefully embrace it. Unique compositions were mixed in with costumed wannabees and cosplayers.

Gauntlet immediately spotted at least two white and gold jumpsuits that were almost identical to hers official hero outfit. Even more people tried to work in their costumes elements from Men of Steel’ style- the five colors, Carmilla’ red, Haze’ grey, Arete’ white, Brimstone’ steel blue and Knight’ black with suggestion of robotics or steampunk aesthetics or gang symbols and insignia like interlocking metallic gears.


I admit, I admit, I cribbed part of description of place from “Wearing the Cape”, google and read it. It’s good super-hero book:)
does Lindsay have her super-hand or ‘normal’ prosthetic hand?

[Writtensanity]

Lindsey is wearing her normal hand. She has never specified if it was different so she is kinda running on the idea that it could be a 'civilian mode'

Lindsey hadn't done her research before going to the bar, there was a dress code here and she was breaking it. Civilian clothes weren't what people wanted to see here. That being said she did catch someone pointing and whispering as she approached the bar. It had taken all of thirty seconds to get spotted. Awesome.

Lindsey found an empty stool at the bar and tried to wave someone down with her normal hand. When that didn't work she tried with both hands and the bartender snapped his attention to her like she was an E-cup willing to flash. He slipped to her part of the bar and pulled is close to her. His hands were sticky with a drink that had been spilled a handful a minutes ago. His eyes darted from her robotic hand to her eyes. Lindsey nodded to tell him that 'Yes, I'm the real one.'

When he walked away without saying a word she felt a pit in her stomach, like maybe the 'PRT' shirt she was wearing under a white and gold jacket was a little too obvious. Maybe she should have worn gloves, maybe she should have.

"What do you want?" a man asked from beside her. He'd snuck up and taken the recently vacated seat. "Anything you want."

"Um- a coke?"

"Coke?" he asked it like it offended him, "whatever your poison is. My friends aren't going to believe this. Me and Gauntlet-" Lindsey noticed the group behind her stopping their chit-chat at the mention of her name. "We didn't even know you came here."

"I didn't," Lindsey said looking for the bartender. She didn't need saving, but she was feeling in over her head a total of five minutes into her endeavor. At least drink offers were nice. Worse things could happen in a bar, and Lindsey couldn't shake the feeling that they probably would.

[GameOfChampions]

Meeting

Jade sighs and puts her head on her arms as she leans on the table "Well I guess I seem to be outvoted, it seems that most people are up for fighting against Shrike in some way or another. Just please don't forget about the rest of the city, that's all I want. So if we are going after a lieutenant of the Men of Steel you guys want to do Carmilla? I guess if we plan it right then we can take her out with little risk but do we have any information on where she could be or her operations? We just don't want to get caught in her gaze again..."

She shifts around a little prop up her head some more "Maybe Groundhogs hacking would help us on that front or we can question some street level members? I don't really know how to proceed with this search for her because we don't want to let her know right?"

Training Room

Jade smiles a little as they talk but is a little taken a back by the invitation to dinner, 'Huh I guess I misjudged him a little, I kinda thought he wasn't to friendly but this is nice.' She keeps the smile on as they do their jog, the idea of a nice meal keeping her going as she pushes her already tired body. Eventually they finish the run and Aramis give her some helpful tips on her throwing, correcting little things like her stance and the way she holds and throws the grenade and she found there was some improvement after the hour or so of training.

After they finish their training Jade gets quickly showered up and dressed in civilian clothes before meeting Aramis again to head out to the restaurant for an early dinner. Aramis spots a table and they give their order before starting to chat "So Aramis how are you doing? I wasn't there for the attack but that must have been pretty frightening right? Thinking back to it Seraph and I probably should have stayed."

Under the Drinking Age

Jade was laying back on her couch in her apartment after dinner with Aramis, she had had a whole steak and one of the potatoes Aramis had mentioned in training, when when she got a text from Lindsey. 'Hey Jade this is a just in case text, if I don't show up tomorrow I'm at a bar called Heroes and Harlequins where Capes and Cape people hang out. I'm just looking for some info so don't worry.' It wasn't to surprising that Lindsey was following up a lead even this late at night, though it was surprising that she was at a bar since she was eighteen.

Jade starts to think about it 'A bar where capes hang out...' she tries to not think about it but a little thought wriggles into her mind 'Skull Crusher could be there. Or maybe someone who knows him.' Taking a deep breath she bounces out of her couch and starts to grab civilian clothes as she googles the bar, halfway done getting dressed she finds out the bar is costume themed and full of look a likes. She hesitates, looking at her civilian clothes before she decides to discard the the civilian clothes for her costume, she makes a few quick changes so she won't immediately be identified as Aspect. She leaves the PRT issued grenades at home along with the belt and then changes out her red visored helmet for a spare she kept that only had the standard black visor. With her adjusted costume she heads to the bar.

As she walks in Jade is struck by the... rich scene of the bar and as she looks more closely she starts to blush at some of the stuff some people were dressed in, could it be termed as clothing if it covered less of you then some lingerie does? She spots Lindsey by the bar at a table by herself and hurries over glad to see someone she knew here "Hi Linds, I thought it might be smart to come and join you. You know two heads are better then one and all that." she says, hoping she wouldn't be upset that she had followed her out here.

[n0ble]

Alone?
Lindsey had gone out. Jade and Armais had gone to a restaurant. She couldn't find Valiant and Pulse, which meant that Clare was alone in the evening. Few, if any PRT members approached her while she was in her room at the HQ. It was the exact same reason why she couldn't go out with the others unless it was in costume. Too unnerving for... well for everyone really. Even with one regularly functioning eye it wasn't hard for Clare to see that people were simply freaked out by her, and the mask could only do so much to mitigate that. Sure their faces flashed with gratitude when she saved them from a mugging or house fire. But people stilled stared even then and it still bothered her anyways. I wonder if thats how Lindsey feels now. Maybe I can try and help her come to terms with it. Right after I do. As the the thought idly crossed her mind, Clare changed into some street clothing, customized to fit her wings and hands.

Her room looked like something you'd see at any university. Minifridge at the foot of the bed, shelf for books and the odd bottle that wasn't in the mini fridge, microwave for hot food. And posters. Some might have seen it as childish, but she still had the autographed one of Legend from her High School graduation, right next to her Alexandria lunchbox from when she was eight. Her mom had practically thrown them at her when she saw what Clare's "trigger" had resulted in, screaming at her to get out. It had hurt when that happened, but she wasn't going to give up on her mom. Or Sarah.

In the time since reflecting she'd taken her eye patch off and was looking in the mirror. The girl looking back looked troubled, like she'd forgotten how to smile and was failing to find a reason too. Blue hoodie and pale wash jeans with a black leather jacket over it. It felt... odd, alien almost. Esspecially with the wings, even when they were folded over her back. Plus none of it really looked right with her hair and the orb in her left socket. Clare looked down at all fourteen of her digits for a moment before sighing. Other people have their lives.He eyes turned from the mirror to the costume lying on her bed. This is mine.

In about four minutes the street clothes had been exchanged for her costume. She replaced the eyepatch and took one last look in the mirror before sliding the mask over her face. Clare took a deep breath before leaving for the rooftop of the building. Patrol.


Full disclosure, if the number of scenes are getting to be too much I can cut this one, though it could be a fun way for Pulse and Seraph to talk about Darkmatter/Sarah and spend some time together if they run into each other.. I just wanted to write something about Clare taking a break before patrol but not really being able to go out and do normal things because of how she looked.

[Bobbybobby99]

Groundhog had promptly informed everyone of the connection the motorcycling club had with the Men of Steel, firmly resolved that he could think about the implications on their operations later and dig through the excess of information when he had free time. They could no doubt find a myriad of ways to exploit the connection, in order to discover further information of the group.

Restaurant.

Amaris sipped on a water (he had added the free lemon slice and sugar to it, in order to get lemonade without the exorbitant drink prices), and looked over the menu.

"It certainly would have been helpful," he said in a dry tone, "but there's no need to badger yourself over it. Well, actually, there is, since the only person whose actions you can directly alter is yourself, but that sort of self-badgering is only useful, when limited. Besides, you tried to save dozens of lives, and likely did, depending on the killer's intentions; you can hardly consider yourself faulty from a moral standpoint. "

[Priest_Of_Banjo]

Valiant closed his eyes as the words from Clare slowly sunk in. He flinched and shook in slower and slower intervals but his breaths remained staggered. As Clare left, a creeping thought flew into mind.

Good try, but little Alex needs more than pretty words to help him.

With a sigh that held so much more that just exhaustion in it's whimpering sound, Valiant got up and got changed. A simple, practical thing. Unclinch this hook, undo these straps, look at the scars and the damage. Was it worth it?, place the armour back in his locker and leave with his gym bag with his weapon in tow.

A slow purposed walk eventually saw Alexander, as he now was in this disguise, home to his little apartment complex.

Isolation
The little things, it seemed, were askew in this home House. Flat. Apartment. Not a Home. . The sofa didn't feel as comfy as it had the last time he was there. His bed was too hard to sleep in. The kitchen had nothing he wanted in even if he could have sworn not yesterday that he'd picked up something...

I forgot. I always forget.

Alexander shook his head. A little television and then bed. Sleep would help.

No it wouldn't.

Apparently not. Television consisted of entirely damn pirates dramas (East India Operatives! High Seas and High Stakes!) or reality television. (On Henriette tonight: Case 53's and those who love them.)

I know what I could do.

No, no. Just sleep. Sleep would help relax the mind. After all, he'd had a long, trying day. He deserved it.

No I don't.

Sleep eluded him. Nightmares of her decided to pay a visit. Alexander looked down at the scars and damage that highlighted his body from... other things.

Was it worth it?

Sleep continued to elude as Alexander held his sword in it's sheath next to him.

Was it worth it?

[Madwand]

Under the Drinking Age

The staff didn’t dress up as superheroes—it would have made them invisible.
Instead, they all wore black pants and t-shirts with club logo. Bartender treated Lindsay and Aspect as royalty - smiling and paying attention to them.

Hero&Harlequin lived up to the reputation; there were capes mixed in with
flamboyantly costumed wannabees and cosplayers.

Black from head to toe and too bulky to be normal costume - Black Knight standing next to one of the high tables in the corner. He seemed prepared to people-watch all night and ignore how out of place he looked. Cape enthusiast, those who weren’t regulars tried not to stare.

Aspect and Gauntlet could guess who he was observing. The Biopunk. Battledust - big guy, but in the manner that no professional bodybuilder, who pops steroids in the same way children eat candy, couldn't mach. He was parahuman combat monster, enchanted by tinker-tech equivalent of steroids and when people asked "what the hell does that guy lift" his answer probably was "anything I want.” He hadn’t dressed up as a villain - just pec-hugging athletic shirt and black pants plus metallic mask. Gaggle of groupies surrendered him and he totally ignored statue-like Black Knight observed him.

Meeting & alone scenes.



OOC: without The_Snark response we can’t go on and seems like not everyone is even here to plan… so. So, I am going to wait to Tuesday to NPC Pulse/introduce new PRT director and get us mandatory meeting.

nOble - assume the patrol was uneventful. I don’t know if other players going to respond in your scene.
Priest_of_Banjo - in response to PM - nothing screw with Valiant at home, only PRT call to check on him. The things are disorganized and without PRT director no one is going to disciple him for walking in the middle of work-day. Valiant shouldn’t get used to it:smalltongue:

[n0ble]

Clare rode the warm air current upwards before landing on the condo balcony. Patrol had been largely uneventful. No parahuman crime encountered. But she did break up two muggings and what could have been a potential sexual assault. With everyone still out of the headquarters, Clare had gone home.

Home. She hadn't been back in a month. Once her mom had found out about Sara and Clare triggering she'd thrown them both out. Clare didn't blame her mom. How could she? Half the time it was either her grief or the wine she'd drank talking. She was scared. Scared that what happened to dad would happen to her girls. As clare landed on the balcony she took out a key from a pocket in her costume. Her mom had been too drunk to change the locks.

As she stepped inside the condo Clare heard the droning buzz of the tv. Clare took off her mask and set it on the kitchen island, even as she cleared off four red wine bottles from it at the same time. She did it as quietly as she could, not wanting to wake her mom on the couch. Not that she really could if her mom had drank all four of those bottles tonight. Mom.... Clare walked over to the couch and turned off the tv. the blanket her mom usually wore was on the floor, somewhere between the couch and tv. Clare placed it back on her as quietly as she could, making sure it covered the whole of her body. "I love you mom." Before leaving Clare went to her old room. Aside from the things she'd taken everything looked almost exactly the same. Like a little life frozen in time. She packed a duffel bag of spare clothes and took a picture from her dresser. It was her, dad, Sara and mom all on vacation in Brockton Bay. They were all smiling, with the PRT headquarters in the background. In the distance, outside the condo, police sirens blared. Clare returned the picture to her dresser before leaving and locking the door. I love you mom.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT6uT5yb1qo

[Writtensanity]

Lindsey's conversation with Aspect was short. She wasn't sure if she even wanted her here. Aspect seemed to be here to hang out and Lindsey was here on an invitation from a villain. Not the kind of start she wanted. Aspect got up first, saying she was going to talk to the Bio-Punk which was perfect.

Lindsey pushed herself away from the table and her third diet coke to look at Black Knight, the man had barely acknowledged that she was there. He took slight notice when she walked up. She was about a third of the size of him, and about half as prepared for a fight at this point. Despite her hate of him, she hoped the truce held true.

"Arete sent me here to ask about him," she said, "are you two friends are should I find another villain?"

After a second Black Knight motioned for Lindsey to join him. She leaned against the same wall and people watched. There was quiet between them as patrons glanced over and whispered about them being together. Someone took a picture and put it on twitter. Lindsey wasn't sure she was in the right place.


Tinker Tailor Soldier, Soldering, and Dimensionally confusing arms.

The inner parts of Lindsey's arm were seemingly infinite. It was like she was looking into the void of things she hadn't thought of yet. She had the time and the resources, she had for months, but there hadn't been a point. Lindsey hadn't lost. Now that was different. She could picture the time-speed bubble and about what that would mean. She added it to her list of things to work on. It was hundreds of ideas long, but that was one of the better ones.

She didn't quite know how things would work before she had them fully installed. She had an idea of what she was trying to do, but she didn't know how the levels would work. She was making a taser arm so she could take someone down non-lethally with one gem, but more? We're there capes who shot lighting? Would it be an EMP? She didn't know. All she knew was that testing it out, putting the incomplete parts together, caused her arm to dance with lighting. This was going to be one hell of a 'Oh and I have this' moment.

Lindsey caught herself with then zap and hissed before healing herself. It was a good thing she had that literally 'on hand.'

[GameOfChampions]

Under the Drinking Age

After chatting with Lindsey for a bit Jade decides to make the most of this trip to the bar and as she spots Bio-punk she makes a snap decision to go talk to him, she wasn't sure why Lindsey was here but this was a chance to get some info and as long as she was in the area Jade was sure she could back her up if something happened. She smiles at Lindsey as she gets up to leave "Let me know when you're leaving and I'll head out with you. Don't know what you plan on doing here but I feel like a bar fight would not be the best choice... probably." She adds the last bit with a grin as she leaves trying to cheer up her friend.

Jade walks over to Bio-Punk, noticing how Black Knight was eyeing him, and grabs his attention with a wave and a grin as she nods her heads at the groupies surrounding him, "Maybe you want to talk to someone more on your level big guy. I'm Aspect nice to meet you." She says in a playful manner as she shoo's some of the groupies away so she can take a seat beside the guy "So any idea why the big bad Black Knight over there is eyeing you?" She puts her hand on his arm, pretending to flirt with him so as to not arouse any suspicion from Black Knight before continuing "Is he just looking for a fight or maybe is he here representing something for the Men of Steel?"

She keeps the smile on her face even as she wonders is there was some friction in the Detroit underworld the heroes weren't aware of. 'I have to get some answers for this first, I have to back shelf my questions about Skullcrusher... for now.'

Restaurant

Jade shrugs at Aramis' comment a little embarrassed because she had been knocked out before the actual saving had been done "It was mostly Seraph with her orbs." She awkwardly pauses before asking a question that she had been wondering about since she had learned the particulars of his power "I've actually been kind of curious... your power let's you see the weaknesses or flaws in things right? Does that make it difficult to I dunno deal with people I guess, friends, family, or dating? Do you just know to much?"

It was interesting to her since the PRT recently had determined that her power was shifting due to relations with people in some way so she was kind of curious what he could tell her about herself though she wasn't sure if she wanted to take that road of self-introspection just yet.

[Madwand]

Under the Drinking Age

Black Knight did not provide much active feedback or confirmation that he is listening to Lindsay. She wasn't sure if he had really comprehended or cared about what she was saying, because his body-language was non-existent, he didn’t flinch or the head to look directly at her. He adressed Lindsay in computer-scrambled voice.

“He has been notified about your arrival, Gauntlet. He will be here shortly. Please wait.’

She only waited few minutes. But she didn’t spot him approaching, not until Black Knight acknowledged him with barely perceptible nod. Precog wasn’t in the battle armor. Instead, Arete was dressed entirely in black and white, a costume that was basically motorcycle leathers - white jacket contrasting with everything else. His mask was a piece of art - black etched with silver highlights, sculpted into seemingly real, angelic face. Blue eyes behind it sparkled, mischievously wicked. Super-villain smiled.

“Lindsay, I am glad you came by. I was looking forward to this meeting. Maybe we could get to one of backrooms? Do you want to bring Aspect with you? If you want to stay in public sight, I understand, we can get a VIP table. ”

It seemed that Aspect plan to remain incognito by switching few details about costume didn’t worked that well.

Jade hand didn’t reach the Battledust’s arm. One of the girls moved unnaturally fast, snatching Aspect’s wrist in non-painful lock. She is blonde, her features attractive, but perhaps a bit on the severe side. A triangular face with a sharp, defined cheekbones, and dark eyes contrasting her pale skin. Her t-shirt was knotted below ribs, exposing midriff, her jeans mini-short covered about an inch of her thighs. Body paint - lighter red, dusty rose, rust red, or something in that vein, blue and yellow covered her legs, arms, neck and midriff in psychedelic patterns.

She exchanged glance with Battledust, in the ‘I’ll take care of this’ sort of look.

“Listen, honey. If you are searching for a trouble, do it elsewhere. We are having fun tonight and PRT’s not invited.’

Tinker Tailor Soldier, Soldering, and Dimensionally confusing arms.

What people saw, even seasoned tinkers, even Lindsay was the head of the dragon only, raised above the mirror of the lake, above its wavering, flat reflection in flowing water. At times something glimmered below the surface, an enormous, dark and monstrous shape - but they put it out of their mind, because it was unlike anything, it could not be named, could not be compared to anything that homo sapiens senses evolved to perceive, a pure strain on the imagination.

Her tinker sense- the inspiration, the instruction - images showed her how to work with it. A shield that paralyzed anyone who touched her, a bolt of lighting on her fingertips - but still limited in range, a sphere that electrocuted everyone in limited radius, a way to withstand any energy attack and disperse it like ground rod, another to accumulate electrical charge for later use. More esoteric and abstract - ability to change quantum structure of any material so that it become highly conductive to electricity, a super-lightning rod - possibly to use with electrical absorption, catching and storing thunderbolts. Way to transform electricity into kinetic energy, multiply her striker strength.

What she wanted to build?


ARC 2 - RETRIBUTION WILL FOLLOW (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqdzL1ThVbM)

Interlude 2.x - New Hope

Detroit’s New Hope - interview with Lindsay ‘Gauntlet’ Hail by Kathryn Steding

Kathryn "Katy" Steding turn on her vintage tape recorder and ask if it’s OK to start. She smiled, it's nice, natural and encouraging smile.

Lindsey was seated across from Katy with one too many lights pointed at her. The PRT had been insistent about having the interview at headquarters, but they were at least holding it in one of the break rooms. It almost looked like a home if you ignored the logos that adorned the walls. According to the PRT having the interview at her home was a step too far. Lindsey also wasn't sure about having everyone know where she lived.

Of course the PRT had dressed her for the day too. She was wearing a t-shirt that bore their logo under the unzipped version of her costume. She was treating the usually tight clothing as her jacket, though the right arm was still sleeveless. There wasn't a mask, there wasn't a point to having one. They wanted her to look like she'd just come off duty, even though the only thing she'd just gotten off of was her bed.

She smiled back at the interviewer with teeth that were cleaned with Tinker tech this morning. How many questions had been drilled into her head? How many answers had she been run through? Too many. She was forgetting most of them as soon as the cameras turned on.

How do you feel Lindsey?"

"You know, I feel alright all things considered. Big transition day, you know. Had to answer a lot of text messages after I pulled off the mask. Wasn't prepared for that many friend requests either," Lindsey tried to laugh but it still felt like she was just playing pre-recorded answers, "you know, everyone from Elementary school suddenly wants to catch up." Was that relateable? Did it make her seem too young? She didn't know.

"I believe everyone suddenly want to know everything about you. What can you tell us about Lindsay the person, not superhero?

"There isn't a lot to tell, I mean I'm only 18 right?" Lindsey tried to seem shy about it. "I worked with my Dad in Brockton Bay on cars, spent a lot of time in the garage with him. I did pretty well in school but it was the tech classes that really kept me interested. Ummmm-" [/COLOR]she hung onto the pause, "the cars were my main hobby. Still haven't got a good chance to work on them here in Detroit. I was in the middle of working on a Stingray when the Leviathan attack caused me to trigger, but I still don't really remember that. So uh, yeah."

"Tell us more about your hobby? What is your favourite car?"

Well the 1967 corvette stingray was the 'stingray' that my Dad had. I loved that thing. Took so long to get it looking like it's old self. I never got to drive her though. I actually haven't done a ton of driving, I guess that wasn't the point to me. Didn't really realize how strange that would be until I said it out loud there.


"Was the decision to unmask acting on the spur of the moment or did you preplanned it?

"Unmasking was what the city needed at the time, it's great to have a bunch of heroes who are fighting for something, fun even, but it felt like it was time that Detriot had a face." Lindsey shook her arm to show how metal it was, "plus it's worth saying that there isn't a lot of representation for the disabled within the heroes, but we are out there. Everyone on our side went through something horrible to get here, and it's worth saying that we understand that we aren't the only one's fighting, we're just more overt about it."

“It’s interesting that you say that,” she said" abut the face. Would you like to tell me a bit more? Is this conflict such personal matter to you? Do you think that Detroit needs a new symbol of hope?"

"Uh yeah, it is personal. Like I said I ended up losing my arm and gaining my powers in the Leviathan attack. I was rescued from the rubble of my house by the PRT there, I hold heroism close to my heart. I lost a lot when Shrike did what he did and - I had friends move away and mentors die that day. It's personal.

On the symbol of hope part, I think that we can find it in the PRT collectively. This city has been through worse things than this, but I think heroes are always a good rallying point. We're going to do what we can to make sure that Detroit comes back stronger than it's ever been.

And what would it be? How do you plan to regain Detroit's faith in heroes?"

"It's simple when you think about it. Heroes inspire by doing our job. Taking out the villains of the world is something that is inherently rallying. As soon as we are on our feet and cleaning the city up I think the city will follow. Of course I can't really get into what we're planning, I don't think your channel is civilian only.


Isn't your tinker arm fully-functional? Could you make one that is not so.. alien looking? How your disability affected your daily life? "

"The arm that I wear for the heroing is the way it is because it needs to be. Tinker tech isn't as aesthetic as the rest of the world. I couldn't make it smaller or take certain parts off or it wouldn't work. At it's core my arm is an offensive tool that my thoughts can explain by my mouth can't. It shouldn't work, but it does."

"On the disability part it's mostly been hiding my injury to anyone who didn't know who I was. As soon as I was out in public I needed to make sure I was wearing a jacket and gloves or I just had the tinker tech arm off. The PRT worked to make the one I'm wearing right now," she waved her arm for effect, "so I could do more construction, but it's still more comfortable without an arm on. I've gotten very good at holding things in my teeth."

"Do you regret taking off your mask?"

"Uh,"she started. She hadn't thought about this one, it had been a day. She didn't really know yet. "I can't say yet, I'm totally in for what it stands for, but before I got to have this wall between Gauntlet and Lindsey, you know. It's like being in a place where nobody knows you, you don't need to worry about it." Lindsey shrugged, maybe that was good enough, and then she kept talking, "I mean, Gauntlet does a lot of things better than I do, interviews for example, general small talk, taking selfies with people, she's just a hero, you know. I'm Lindsey first and Gauntlet second but-" she lost her words, she'd already gone too far into it, "I guess I just don't get to be both now that people know? I don't know, like I said it's too early to really know."

"I hate to ask it, but.." Katy said "What went wrong with yesterday gala? Why Protectorate was unprepared for attack?"

"Um.... uh.... sh-" Lindsey looked back at the man who'd brought her to the interview, she was supposed to be protected from this sort of question, but now she was on camera stuttering. "Well it's hard to say, there are a lot of things that aren't quite as shored up as they should have been. We're still reeling from the first attack from Shrike and-" Lindsey darted her eyes back to her handler. "I don't really have much to say right now, we're handling it as best we can."


Meet the new boss

Suits, suits everywhere. The PRT headquarters in the Detroit was an underground fortress for a reason. Parts have been smashed, crushed, rampaged through, and disintegrated over the years, and it showed, especially to Groundhog, who could pinpoint the joints and structural break points. Heroes walked down through a layer of tunnels and corridors to an office with white walls.

Behind a black oaken desk as scarred and weathered as the most grizzled veteran soldier, sits a man. His suit is grey, his eyes washed green, his fingernails yellowed by the tar and nicotine from cigarettes. Against all regulations, he was smoking. He was quite short, and quite unimpressed with assembled capes. This, then, was Mr. Coldwell, the new director of the Detroit’s Parahuman Response Team.

He studied Protectorate team in uncomfortable silence.

Coldwell cleared his throat, and waved the cigarette with one hand."Good morning. My name is James Coldwell. Second in command of the PRT, Deputy Chief Director Reinhold, offered me this position and I am now responsible for solving Detroit’s mess with you.

I won’t lecture you or try to build a rapport, I am not into small talk.​ Though I suppose if any of you have questions, now's the time.

He put the cigarette in his mouth, leaned back, and studied you all again with sunken eyes.

[Bobbybobby99]

Restaurant.

"Everybody is a human being, I'm afraid," Amaris began, nibbling at the bread with a lovely pesto they were serving, continuing, "and human beings are more wonderful and more horrible than anything I've ever cared to know. "

He paused, nibbled a bit more at the bread, and smiled again, "I was never very romantic anyways, really; I was a biologist, before, and it was always this thesis or that paper or... that species; I'm not even certain I can do that sort of thing. You sort of need to idealize a person, before you can love them, and I can't do that; nor have I ever experienced a crush, even without powers. Friends? Same drill before powers, while my old team never really clicked with me, shipped me off the first they could get; I was a bit more clumsy, when I first started; a few fires here, a few injuries there. They were already well established, already had their way of doing things; I was always the new guy, always the tag along. There's a reason they shipped me off to here, you know, beyond the obvious burning building."

Meet the boss.

The first thing Groundhog did, for an obvious start, was discretely start searching for blackmail material. It was with only a discordant tone, and was moderately disagreeable as a practice, but it would be useful, even if he never used it. Affairs? Shady dealings? Drugs? Mental conditions? He checked down the list, one by one, eyes scanning the room and the man with a keen eye. He was continually distracted by the building itself, but he managed to focus.

With a casual voice, he asked, "If you could have someone supply me with some sort of sedative dart, it would be much appreciated; I do have some empty room in this pouch. Otherwise, if I had a penny, I'd ask you for your thoughts."

He carefully analyzed his response, looking for deeper weaknesses, and deeper secrets. For all he was fastidious on the topic of death, privacy had never ranked high among his concerns.

[Writtensanity]

Under the Drinking Age:

"Private table sounds-" Lindsey looked back to Aspect who was currently chatting to two of the Bio-Punks, "fine," she finished before nodding to a waiter. He scurried over and Arete talked about the private room. The Waiter was surprised but didn't hesitate to bring them into a room. He flicked the lights on, and Arete sat down before Lindsey was willing to. "What did you want to talk about?" she asked before cautiously taking a seat.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Soldering and Dimensionally confusing arms.

Lindsey stood on the edge of the infinite possibilities that were her arm. Her fingers were moving more like she was playing an instrument than building anything. She felt it in her head, there were so many ways to use electricity. Converting energy? That was something to look into, on a later day. Catching lighting? Interesting, but something told her that she would never be able to use it outside of her usual range.

She ran her fingers in a similar way that she had when she made the shield, a bubble, something that would zap everything around her. She could make multiple takedowns without worrying about landing a punch. She could make sure that she was always ready to fight. Void to draw them in? There were so many ways to use an electric field.

It would take more than an afternoon, but as long as there was that glint in her eyes Lindsey would keep working to make sure that she was stronger. How could she stop when the power in front of her was infinite?

Meet the Boss

Lindsey knew better than to add anything at this point, smile and nod, smile and nod. Make sure the man in charge liked you and you could get everything you needed.

[n0ble]

Meet the Boss

Clare looked impassive as the New director talked. A symptom of her mask. She had a meeting with Sarah and her lawyer later that she had to go to and it was grinding on her mind that she was here. Still, she was supposed to be here so she listened to what everyone had to say or ask. She only really had one question born out of both curiosity and eagerness "Sir, what is our next course of action?"

[Priest_Of_Banjo]

Meet The Boss

Valiant stared at his new boss from corpselike hooded eyes. While he'd been lying in his bed, the nightmares had been preventing any decent rest from being had at any point.

Maybe if he had slept, his next question might have been thought through better.

"So, are you a coward or is there some steel sitting behind that desk?" He was almost mocking his new boss judging by the tone.

Hell, let's see if I'm going to be grinding against the gears of the new guard.

[GameOfChampions]

Under the Drinking Age

The smile falters slightly as the girl, who she can only assume to be another member of the Bio-Punks, grabs her wrist. She pulls back her hand and instead just sits down with the pair as she grabs a waiter to get a drink "I'm not here looking for trouble. It's been a little stressful at the HQ, as I'm sure you can imagine, and I decided to come out here to relax but then low and behold I find some other capes here. I've been in the city only for a short while and I just don't really know much about the cape scene other then what are in the records. Figured you guys would know some interesting cape politics in the city, especially since Black Knight over there seems to be super interested in you. Come on guys help me out... I'll buy the next few rounds if you want?"
Jade gestures for the waiter to come back over and looks over at the pair with her head cocked side ways a little in a questioning manner waiting for an answer.

Restaurant

Jade listens rapt at Aramis' talks about himself, this was the most she had heard him talk about himself since they had joined the team. 'Wow "Human beings beings are more wonderful and more horrible than anything I've ever cared to know" that's so deep...'

She listens to the end and snorts out some water through her nose as she hears about the burning buildings. "Sorry about that, I had my own problems with setting things on fire back in Austin when my power changed, the first time I set my suit on fire by accident... that group training exercise didn't end well." She ends with a little smile as she remembers the incident and her friends in Austin.

After a second though she gets a little more serious as she continues "That is tough about the old team but we're all new here so maybe we can all connect in ways we wouldn't be able to if we were put on pre-existing teams."

Meet the Boss

Jade grimaces behind her mask, the new director was kind of intimidating and she was a little scared of his cold demeanor. She hesitantly raises her hand with a question "Ummm sir? I was wondering if the PRT could organize for a hand-to-hand combat instructor to come and teach me? I was taking lessons in Austin and I'd like to continue if possible."

Is it possible to improve skills through practice to get a bonus on rolls? Like a +2 or something :smalltongue:

[Madwand]

Under the Drinking Age -Aspect

“Be nice, Snow. Kid did have a horrible week.” Battledust said, deep and masculine voice matched his muscle-bound frame.

Snow Queen snorted ‘I can see that. Still, no reason to drink with you, honey. If you want to talk cape politics, you need to bring something to the table. So, what information do you have for trade?'

Under the Drinking Age - Gauntlet

Hero&Harlequin was housed in the vast and elderly hotel, a seven-floor, hundred-plus-room angular labyrinth converted in the 1980s from a soulless temporary staying place for very wealth into cult place for cape enthusiasts. It meant that t had many levels, so, too, did this club, from the ground floor of dance-club to the black marble and chandeliers of the higher realms where they were, the ‘members only’ part. It remained Guantlet of rumours, those talesof dealing between super-villains, politicians and business elites with tens of millions and human lives at stake, pacts made while smoking cigars in rooms upholstered in dark leather.

‘Tequila’ Arete ordered, then looking at Lindsay expression ‘and cola. You don’t need to drink if you don’t want to. But..’ his smile broadened ‘It’s not like we need to worry about the law.

He waited for an answer and poured the drinks.

“I want to talk, Lindsay. First, I want you to tell that Men of Steel brokered cease fire for next week. Just to make your life bit easier. You may have heard that Men of Steel and Protectorate had certain deals in place. Maybe not.’ Arete again deduced from Lindsay expression ‘those deal were broken - it’s why Shrike did what he did. But we want to avoid all out war - we want Protectorate to function and avoid further incidents’

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Soldering and Dimensionally confusing arms.


Ok, you have constructed a new design. It have recharge time of 15 seconds with one imput crystal and can effectively stun normal humans standing 1,5 m from Gauntlet. Adding more crystals would made it stronger (so it’s weapon against brutes and armored villains) or get rid of recharge time.

Meet the new boss

Groundhog notice the weaknesses of body - director was past his prime, in early fifties. Out of shape, but not obese. Years of smoking left the mark on the man as possible workaholic - he was mildly sleep-deprived and the pile of report on his desk was not for show, he probably started yesterday and read through it all night . He didn’t have any personal affection like photos or wedding band to indicate any weakness that could be affecting his personal life. But he was counterexample to that old saying - his body was unsound, but his mind was apparently in perfect order. Other than nicotine addiction …

‘More that in front of it.’ Coldwell answered Valiant ‘ Recent reports and psychological evaluation give me enough paper to institutionalize you. You’re a ‘ticking bomb’ and ‘unfit for field work’ to quote. Good for you that I don’t trust shrinks and other witch-doctors.

..and terminal case of being *******.

‘Consider it done’ he answered Aspect and Groundhog.

‘Now, our course of action.’ he nodded toward Clare ‘first, I convinced higher ups to send us another parahuman. He will be valuable addition to the team. He is also late to the meeting.

Our plan of action is to strike back. As I can tell, you were considering taking out Carmilla. Risky and, what's worse, predictable. Director shook his head.

On the other hand, we can’t do nothing. Retribution need to follow. . I have something we can do right now. What we need to do. The small detail from the initial report. Valiant, you did hear the Carmilla voice in your earpiece, right? Which means it was hacked or someone inside was working with Men of Steel to let them do it. Groundhog, I want the whole system checked. We are going to take out their mole or their hackers. It's top priority, because if they have direct access to your comm-links, they would see as coming no matter what would have we planned.

[Writtensanity]

That was news to Lindsey, all of it. A brokered peace? The PRT that'd she'd looked up to had been making deals with- She played with the shot of tequila that Arete had offered her, **** she needed a drink after that news. Was she really expected to just let him walk away? Just let them move how they wanted to and-

Dammit, earlier in the day she'd literally been arguing that they should gut the Men of Steel right away. Now she was across from one of them chatting about a truce? Was that what they needed right now?

"Let's say I was interested," she said, "how the hell are we just going to sit back when Camilla did what she did?"

[Forum Explorer]

Karma knocked lightly on the conference room door and let himself in. Sorry, for being late. I got a little lost. He said, finding an empty seat. What'd I miss?

[GameOfChampions]

Under the Drinking Age

Jade nods in thanks as Battledust lets her say and she ponders her answer over her drink for a second. "Hmmmm well I'm pretty new to the city so I don't know much about what is going on outside of the PRT, it's part of the reason I was hoping to talk to you guys. I guess I can share some gossip from the PRT side of things as long as you keep up your end of the bargain." Jade takes another sip from her drink before continuing "Well after our old director... ummm met his unfortunate end we got a new one shipped in and he should be arriving soon so I imagine he'll want to make some waves once he arrives. One of the members on our team has been damaged damaged by Carmilla's brutal use of him... it left him troubled to say the least and we're having trouble reaching out to him." That was something Jade should not have been sharing with these random people but even though she hadn't known Alexander for long his outburst had hurt earlier and she couldn't help but let it out, even at a random bar with capes she barely knew. "Aside from that I don't know how we're going to do it but half the team or so is out for blood, the Men of Steel's particularly unfortunately and I don't know if the rules will restrain them or not. Though I could hardly blame them considering how they've been treated and what they went through." She smiles bitterly at the last part, that was a little to true and she didn't want their little group to be split apart the second they got any head way in this city, she shakes her head then looks at the pair "Anyway now it's your turn, sorry if I can't share much but I haven't exactly been around here long. The only other cape I met was Skullcrusher and that's when we stopped him from another mass murder spree and he knocked me out with a broken head and a cracked skull."

Meet the new Boss

Jade nods her head and feels a little relief as she hears the director refuse the Carmilla plan "Sir the rest of us won't be particularly helpful tracking down the moles and hackers and while I'm sure we can help apprehend them it shouldn't be to hard unless they are capes. Did you have anything else in mind?"

She studies the new guy with curiosity, she hadn't expected any more capes to be moved to Detroit but any were welcome considering how tough things seemed, "It's nice to meet you, I'm Jade or Aspect in costume. We should chat later though, now may not be the time to swap life stories." She adds with a grin.

[n0ble]

Clare shoots Valiant a mournful look as the new director reams him out. She gave a curt nod at both the directors words and Jade's question, indicating that she agreed. She'd barely even passed computer class in high school. Always been more of an arts type. "I agree, if you put me in front of a computer I'll probably just end up making things worse." Her mournful look turned to a slight smile as she turned to the new guy.

Seraph got up and gave Valiant a friendly clap on the shoulder as she did. She gave him a concerned smile before turning to Karma. Her fingers lingered for perhaps a touch too long before she moved over to the new guy. She greeted him with an enthusiastic grin and a firm handshake "Hi, I'm Clare! Really looking forward to working with you!" She looked down, away from his face to her hand "Ah jeez, sorry. I've still not gotten used to the seven digits thing. I guess it's going to take even more time for other people to." What was a cheerful grin turns slightly sheepish.

[Madwand]

Under the Drinking Age -Aspect

The villains listened intently to Aspect’s chaotic monologue.

“Ok, honey. Stop there. You didn’t give us anything new, but I do appreciate honesty. I will share something with you about the other cape you have met. You see, the Men of Steel did convince all other gangs to chill for a few days. Let’s the public catch on something else than clusterf*ck in Detroit. It seems to work, some psycho in Brockton Bay tortured other cape on live stream and the news cycle have new topic.” Snow Queen said.


“The thing is, Skullcrusher didn't participate. He is confident that all of super-villains can do jack sh*t about him and that’s scary. We met him. Once. He beat Battledust hand to hand.

“He didn’t beat me” the brute rumbled in protest.

“Dust, he mashed your knee and put metal fence bar half an inch from your heart. “

“I was still standing.”

Snow Queen rolled her eyes.

Under the Drinking Age - Lindsay

Arete slowly sipped his drink, almost matching Lindsay’s reluctance.

‘Let’s say I was interested’ Arete smiled mischievously ‘in sharing information about Carmilla’s whereabouts? Don’t act surprised. We are not a big happy family. I personally hate her more than you do - I'm forced to work with her every day. “

Meet the Boss

“You new team will fill you in, Karma.” Director Coldwell said, weaving more smoke around before continuing.

“If hacker in question is Arete, we’ll need all of you to get him. But I see your point - the villains all seems to be awfully quiet in last few days, so you all feel restless. So it’s good time to train and recuperate, but also to address issues that were.. Less pressing. Like the ritual murderer, whose latest killing spree send Aspect to the hospital.

I, Groundhog and Pulse will be working on PRT moles and cyber-security. Rest of the team, integrate Karma into your exercises, show him around and catch me a serial killer.

Dismiss.”

Catch me if you can

I am starting a new scene - you have a few days and parahuman criminal to catch. Be creative:smallamused:.

[Forum Explorer]

Clare shoots Valiant a mournful look as the new director reams him out. She gave a curt nod at both the directors words and Jade's question, indicating that she agreed. She'd barely even passed computer class in high school. Always been more of an arts type. "I agree, if you put me in front of a computer I'll probably just end up making things worse." Her mournful look turned to a slight smile as she turned to the new guy.

Seraph got up and gave Valiant a friendly clap on the shoulder as she did. She gave him a concerned smile before turning to Karma. Her fingers lingered for perhaps a touch too long before she moved over to the new guy. She greeted him with an enthusiastic grin and a firm handshake "Hi, I'm Clare! Really looking forward to working with you!" She looked down, away from his face to her hand "Ah jeez, sorry. I've still not gotten used to the seven digits thing. I guess it's going to take even more time for other people to." What was a cheerful grin turns slightly sheepish.

Karma shakes Seraph's hand, and smiles. Name's Ralph. It's nice to meet you Clare and I look forward to working together. Umm, don't worry about the hand thing. I really don't mind. And I think your wings are cool too. he said, finishing on kind of an awkward note.

So a serial killer huh? Do we have any details on him? The boss mentioned you fought him, right Aspect?

[GameOfChampions]

Under the Drinking Age

Jade grimaces a little bit 'It's coming back around to Skullcrusher.' she wasn't to surprised to hear that the crazy villain thought he could survive not taking the truce but hearing what he did to Battledust was just ridiculous. "What! But you're... you're..." she fumbles for words as she gestures at Battledusts impressive physique that looked like he could one hit punch a bull elephant.

"Well he broke my leg and cracked my head if that makes you feel any better, all over the course of half a minute. That guy definitely has something else going on..." Jade mentions with a slightly bitter tone. She rolls around an idea in her head "So if we ever manage to put him behind bars that would go over well with you guys then? Who knows maybe every now or then we could just have some friendly drinks and chat about whats going on in the city? It's cool if you don't want to answer any of that but how bout as hanks for everything I buy some more drinks and we just chat about easy stuff like celebrity gossip, movies and or shows, or what ever is going on in the hellhole otherwise known as Brockton Bay?"

However it went down Jade was planning on staying here sho that she could leave with Lindsey but why not have a few drinks with some... relatively friendly people while she waits.

I'm cool with ending the scene now or after one more response from them if you want them to get another word in.

Catch me if you can

Jade frowns a little as Karma brings up her fight with Skullcrusher "Ya though you could barely call it a fight, he took me apart without a thought. I don't need to break him down to know that we'll be outmatched in melee combat though. He seemed very dedicated to his cause, a hardcore vigilante murderer to the core and though he murders anyone he deems bad he didn't kill me though he probably could have. The biggest problem right now will be finding him and dealing with his unknown Thinker classification, your force fields will probably help us a lot there if you can catch him with one." She adds the last part with a grin and a clap on the shoulder as she sits down at her desk.

She turns on the desktop at her desk and starts pulling up the files related to Skullcrusher, she loads the videos onto a USB stick and finds the paper files. She quickly looks through the files again, seeing the crime scenes he leaves behind 'These scum aren't worth dying for, hero.'. She closes it as he pops into her head again and shakes it off as she quickly finds Aramis and then hands over both the usb and file. "Hey if you could do a quick breakdown for us Aramis it would help a lot, you can probably finish it before you're on hacker patrol." She says with a smile.

[Forum Explorer]

Catch me if you can

Well if I can get him in a shield, I'm pretty sure that'll stop him cold, but first I'd have to hit him with one. Though if Seraph can keep me at a distance, I can just keep trying til I eventually succeed. Karma said, nodding to Seraph.

But first we have to find him. I really can't think of how though. Does he have any patterns of a region of the city he acts in?

[n0ble]

Catch Me if you Can

"Thanks aha, I think so too. They've been really handy when it came to blocking bullets and the like"

Clare nodded back, "He seemed to be in the process of hitting a major stash house for a gang when Jade and I fought him. Maybe we could interview some of the criminals we got from there, see where the rest of their places are. He might be trying to take them all out over a period of time. Could give us a list of potential locations. It'd be child's play with the Groundhog on our team."

[Writtensanity]

Under the Drinking age:

Lindsey played with the straw in her drink. She never used them but people kept giving them to her. Was it an age thing? She didn't know. Either way it was a distraction, something to keep her mind off the point that Arete was willing to work with her, and that she was willing to work with Arete.

"I-" Lindsey started eloquently, "what have you got? Anything I can work with?" she asked it like she was interviewing him, like he wasn't doing her a favor. "And, what would you want in return for it?"


Catch me if you Can

"Worst comes to worst we can just do a full cleanup and see if anyone knows anything. Not like Detroit is going to complain about a full sweep right?"

[Madwand]

Under the Drinking Age -Aspect

“No one will miss the f*cker.” Battledust and Snow Queen said in perfect unison.

we can close the scene.


Under the Drinking Age - Gauntlet

“I know where she is.. Almost all the time.” Arete explained. ‘In return we would re-establish working relationship between Protectorate and Men of Steel. First, return to unwritten rules. No more lethal fighting. I don’t want official cancellation of Shrike’s kill order on.. But unofficially, we would both avoid killing each others. Second, we would go back to trading favors and information. Regular meetings. That kind of things. How would you do it? I don’t know, it’s up to you. If you convince me that you convinced enough of your team to play by the rules I will give you Carmilla on silver platter.’

He leaned back, waiting for response.

Catch me if you can

Clare's intuition was spot on. Skullcrusher had a very distinctive pattern - he picked on gang or area and preceded to terrorize it for several months or until large number of capes went after him. He then drop off the radar for few weeks and pick another target. The police report indicated that his current 'victim' was the Russian Mob and their drug-smuggling operation.

Groundhog sent his analysis of the footage from Skullcrasher's fights - he had all ordinary human faults like reaction times and standard field of vision. But vigilante's fighting style was flawless.

[Writtensanity]

"I- I'd need to talk to some people first," Lindsey said before her phone buzzed. She pulled it out and read the text. It was an update from the PRT. Pulse was going to be resigning... sometime soon. Which meant team leader was up for grabs again. She was young, maybe too young for it, but she preferred calling the shots. It's what let her put herself in harms way first. "I don't MIND working with you guys," she said even though she wasn't sure she believed it, "at least you," she corrected. "But not matter what happens I don't think I can make it so that we aren't going to have to go after Shrike. I mean, even if we go non-lethal, he's just going to end up in the Bird Cage with the Psycos."

Lindsey took a sip of her drink and tried to figure out who she could talk to first. Was it Aspect? Karma? Karma might have had the smallest bone to pick. Valiant might just jump at the chance of getting Camilla. She would need to talk to most of them alone. It wasn't her style but.. Detroit needed a win. Even if it was a fake one. "Can you give me a day and a bit on this one? I need to talk to some people."

I've said my part. We can end it here or say something more.

The After Party

Lindsey grabbed Aspect when she left the back room. She didn't make excuses, but all she told Jade was that she was in a private meeting. They left together and ended up on the streets outside. Just two normal heroes out for a stroll.

"Can I talk to you about something back at my place?" Lindsey asked, "I mean like out in the city, not my room at headquarters. I can actually have a drink there."

Lindsey is going to want to approach everyone about this over the next day or so. If anyone wants to start the scene where we have that conversation just add it to their piece and I'll try to keep up with all of you. My place would be the default location, but it can be anywhere outside of the PRT headquarters.

Catch Me if You Can

"Well then," Lindsey started as she passed the tablet to Karma. Groundhog hadn't skimped on the data when it came to Skullcrusher. There was everything from seconds of pause to favored hit patterns, but none of it was really going to help Lindsey. "He might be flawless as a fighter, but that's not going to do much against me, as long as we can keep me on him I am just a wall he can't break through. I don't think I can get a hit in but I can keep distracting him so that one of you can."

Lindsey looked up at Groundhog. "Do you think he has a chance of braking through Valiant's shield or my level 2? Or could we just keep going at him while he can't stop us."

Knock Knock

"Valiant?" Lindsey asked after knocking on the man's private room several times. He'd been off at the meeting, and hadn't been too chatty with the new director. Lindsey had seen the aftermath of what he'd done. She couldn't imagine having done it. "Valiant, it's Linds, wanna chat? I'm bored." That wasn't the real offer and he probably knew it. he might have only known her for a few days, but he knew that keeping her headphones in was more in character for her.

[Priest_Of_Banjo]

Knock Knock

Ten... Eleven... Twelve... Thir---teeen! ARGH!

With a mighty thump, Valiant hit the floor with his muscles burning.

Break. I need a break. Her Ladyship wants me to be damaged. It'll be better next time.

The new director's a good start but I need to be better. My body, my mind; both need to be better.

Gotta work on those blank moments as well. Ever since Carmilla, they've been getting more frequent.

*Knock Knock*

A quick rap at the door brought his attention for a couple of seconds. His workout could wait for that long at the very least. "Valiant, it's Linds, wanna chat? I'm bored."

Ah. Yes. Lindsey. Stand up, smile. Presentation is everything here.

"Come in, Lindsey." He hoped his voice sounded like it had before.

Ah! Shirt, shirt... Where'e my damn shirt?! Valiant thought as he frantically looked around. His body, scarred from numerous... incidents in his past, would be on display if he didn't quickly get his shirt on. Spotting a quick glimpse of black amidst the general debris in his "Office," he dived for it, scrambling to get it on before the door opened.


WrittenSanity, I leave it up to you what state of dress Valiant is in when Lindsey walks in. :smallsmile:

[Forum Explorer]

Catch me if you can

If I can tag him with a shield, that'll stop him in his tracks. So long as I can get a shot in from surprise he'll be stuck. But if you're distracting him...well are you sure you can defend yourself? Cause you'll be trapped as well. Unless Seraph can teleport you out. Karma said, tapping a finger against the desk he was leaning against.

Besides that, well I guess we should just focus our patrols on that area of the city, wait for a catch, and then move in with everyone. Then we try and ambush him, and trap him in a shield.

Park Conversation
Thanks for showing me this park, Lindsey. Ralph said, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. I'd go crazy being stuck in HQ all the time. But what prompted the invite?

[Bobbybobby99]

Catch me if you can.

Groundhog had been busy the last little while, and was currently staring into a laptop screen, puzzling out data. It was looking like their online security was even patcher than he thought. He sent a report on the various backdoors, some clearly tinker made, to his superiors, and noticed that he was being addressed.

"My instincts as far as your shield goes is that he's unlikely to be capable of damaging it; you're essentially warping space and time as a protective measure, after all. Give him too much time to work with, and he might find a way to circumvent it; I wouldn't recommend just standing there and taking it."

[n0ble]

Catch Me if You Can

"I can do that, my idea was to a trio around him so that he couldn't get a bead on any of us. The three people engaging up close can occupy him while the people at a distance, including myself and Karma can support you." She nodded to Jade, Lindsey and Alexander before stopping for a moment. "Ideally we'd want him in one of your bubbles Karma, whether by porting him there or placing a bubble over him."

"That's something else I'd like to test out if you don't mind by the way, whether my orbs can pass through your fields or not. Because if they don't it means you'd need to put a field on top of one of them instead."

Knock Knock

Clare was half-sitting on her bed when she heard the metallic thunk of metal-on-door. Lindsey? She snapped her copy of "The Superhuman" by Grant Morrison closed along with her laptop. The thesis still needed work and Morrisson was an interesting writer, if not a particularly useful one. Perhaps a bit too metaphysical for me... What I need is Manton's 'On Triggers'... "Come on in!"

[GameOfChampions]

The After Party

Jade smiles at Lindsey as she comes to get her as they leave and quickly says her goodbyes to the pair of super villains, they weren't to bad as far as villainous capes go.

She chats with Lindsey casually as they head back to her apartment for a drink and though Lindsey seems relaxed Jade can tell she is a little tense about something. So as they get into the apartment JAde goes and pours Lindsey a shot of tequila, remembering where she stored it from the last time she had been over. After that drink and another they chat more about casual stuff like the crazy cape costumes they had seen in the bar and what Jade had learned from the pair of villains. "Anyway Lindsey was there anything you wanted to talk about in particular? You were in that backroom for quite a while?"

Catch Me if You Can

Jade listens to the plans but all she can think about is what they had just learned 'His fighting style is flawless... How do I beat that? I'm not sure but I know I want a second chance.'

She ponders the plans for a while "If we can pin him down with combatants long enough for Karma to get a bead on him and trap him in a field then we could bring in PRT containment foam trucks to start hosing him down immediately to contain him. Even if one of us are trapped in there then if we can have one or more of the orbs in there with us then we can hopefully 'port out as well. Though anyone trapped in there with him should have a natural form of protection like Valiant's fields or Lindsey's shield. I would probably get ruined. Ideally if the two of you-" She gestures to Alexander and Lindsey here "-would approach from the front I would be dropped behind him and set off my grenades to try and through him off or hurt him before closing with the two of you. It would also give me the invulnerability I need."

[Madwand]

Under the Drinking Age - Lindsay

"It's ok, Lindsay. I don't expect you to get an answer right now. Men of Steel won't strike against Protectorate and we did convince others to ceasefire. It won't last - it never does to be honest, but you have time. " Arete said.

"As for Shrike, Lindsay, you misunderstood. I don't worry that you kill or capture Old Man. Detroit has around 40 active parahumans and take my word for it when I say that you would be better off fighting all of them than Shrike. I am worried that if Shrike.. dispose of second Protectorate team within a month, Men of Steel will be declared S-Class emergency. It would turn Detroit into war zone.


Shutdown.

Groundhog's report had immediate consequences. He didn't investigate, turning the information to higher-ups. Director Coldwell ordered total shout-down of all computer systems, including communication via comm-links. He was now in contact with Dragon and PRT HQ to resolve the situation.

But heroes need to deal with their duties without computer data-bases and effective tactical communication.

Catch me if you can and after-party

Nothing for me to add right now, but I want to say that you are doing excellet role-playing:smallsmile: When someone decide to talk to Russian Mob task-force I will write response.

[GameOfChampions]

Catch Me if You Can

Jade groans and leans back in her chair as she hears about the tech shutdown that had just started 'Great this is just what we need. This may take a little longer then we originally planned...'

She pulls out her cellphone and a directory she had printed out on her desk, looking for the two numbers she needed. "ugh this will make things a little more difficult. I'll reach out to the police station and get them to get a squad car down here to drop off a dozen radios or so. That way we can keep in touch with each other in the field, we'll leave one or two here to keep in touch with HQ and I dunno another one can go to any squads we bring with us? I'll also call and set up an appointment with the task force in charge of the Mob and see if they have anything to give us, which I guess will have to be in file form won't it. Hopefully they can see us today if not I'm sure another day won't kill us."

I'll do another post before Saturday once some more happens IC

[Forum Explorer]

Catch Me If You Can

Karma shrugged, I could fry whatever is in the shield, but I really don't want to do that, particularly since the plan is for someone to get stuck inside with him. I guess we'll just have to get everything in position before he can figure out a way to get out. he said.

Still maybe we should practice keeping one of Seraph's orbs near whoever fights him. Then we could bring in help to subdue him while he's stuck in a shield.

Testing Testing

Karma stood across from Aspect, holding a police baton in one hand. Okay, um, I don't know if you've had time to read my file yet, but my power has a blindspot of about 30 meters around me. So in a close range fight I've got nothing. He paused and took a deep breath. So I need to see how fast Seraph can teleport me around, and catch the person attacking me in a force field. And I need to keep my focus in actual combat, so please attack me with everything you got. he paused, Okay, not that much. I'd like to keep all my bones intact thank you very much.

[n0ble]

Catch Me if You Can
"If we're going to run specific capture protocols or strategies I'd also like Groundhog to observe for any weakness in the strategy when we practice them. Ideally, if we can get him into one of your fields that already contains an orb, I can dismiss all the other ones and just use the last one to hold him and transport him somewhere with containment foam."


Testing Testing

Clare had already spawned her orbs before the training session began in earnest, about 20 meters above her current position, which was itself about 10 meters off the grond. She immediately sent three of them around Karma and the other three at Jade. The final one was sent about forty meters away from Jade and maintained the distance from her. Even if the Skullcrusher could dodge them, flooding the area around him with orbs was a good habit to get into and it meant that he'd actually have to make an effort to dodge them. Plus she could clash them together if need be to blind him.

[Writtensanity]

Catch me if you can:

Lindsey continued to follow the conversation. Honestly all the planning seemed to be a little much to her. It wasn't like Skullcrusher could beat all of them in a direct fight, he was ****ed if they all showed up at once.

Park Conversation

"Hey Karma," Lindsey said. It had been a couple of minutes later than she expected them to get there. Whenever she went into a store or anything there was around a 50% chance she was stopped for something. "I'm sorry I don't have the proper equipment, please send your request to the PRT," was her standard response to "My boyfriend's an *******."
"It's a nice place eh?" she asked without really expecting to get an answer. She didn't know much about the new kid or what was going on. Lindsey tapped her foot before turning to him, "have you gotten a rundown about what happened with Camilla?"


Knock Knock- Valiant

"Hey uh oh," she said as she stepped into the room. Valiant was pulling on a shirt, acting like it was a huge deal for her to see him without a shirt. The two of them sparred all of the time, she basically understood what was under the tight gym clothes. "Look I was just checking on you. Lot of bull**** going on lately and I wanted to make sure that you were-" she paused, "you can finish putting on your shirt."

Knock Knock - Seraph

"Thanks," she said before pushing into the room. Seraph was sitting on her bed with a book in her hands and half-a-smile on her face. Lindsey hadn't spoken to her a lot yet, and though she refused to admit it, it was because of how she looked. It wouldn't be as easy as it was to get some people on her side. "Look, if there was one person in the city you could take down, who would it be?" she asked, "you know, aside from Skullcrusher?"

The After Party


"Yeah I was talking to-" she paused, she couldn't say that yet, "look I was trying to find out a way to get Camilla, take her off of the streets and chuck her into the ****ing Bird-Cage," she explained. "I might have been talking to someone from..." dammit she shouldn't be saying this, "the Men of Steel."

[Madwand]

Catch me if you can

Gauntlet had the most accurate assessment of situation - Skullcrasher may be a precog and a brute, but he did not have a chance in straight fight against five or six capes.

It was probably why he always avoided straight fights.

Aspect directed contact with police and Russian Mob’ taskforce. Police radios were pretty useless - the Skullcrasher’s victim corpses were usually found a day or two after the crime. Lots of cold tracks and work for coroners.

The taskforce lost all enthusiasm, when they learned that Protectorate was not focusing on Family, but on minor super-villain. Nevertheless, they supplied Aspect with key information. Russian Mob dealers were disappearing, only to turn out later, headless. It was all around bad for their business. Russians decided to set up a sting. They seeded a few of their soldiers with clues leading to the old fish processing plant, closed factory in the northeast.

One of the soldiers was captured by Police and spilled details to the Taskforce and they shared it with Aspect, proposing a joint strike. They capture a shipment of drugs and hereos get chance to catch Skullcrusher.

It went without saying that PRT assistance in case one of Familiy’ parahumans showing up would be greatly appreciated.

Playing with Fire

Hereos shown to the old processing facility. It's a three story building, with plenty of chains and hooks to hang whale carcasses, and vats, and conveyor belts. The catwalks are old but still serviceable, and there's broken glass all around.

It was a good setup for the Mob. They didn't even have to fake transactions, they just shifted business to the factory. Junkies showed up, got their fix without noticing the snipers and security, and moved on.

It was a good setup for PRT and Taskforce. They managed to get a cameras and wire the place, before the Mob moved in with the product and soldiers. You waited outside, rotating two, three persons squads.

If the bad guy had come into the killzone, it would have worked perfectly.

He didn't.

He crashed a truck through the fence, through the back gates. The Mob enforcers filled it full of lead to no avail, as it skidded, flipped over, and started spilling barrels of gasoline everywhere...


I am assuming that you are all here or will be shortly thanks to Seraph with exception of Pulse (and others who don't post:smallfrown:).

It's middle of the night. Building is not on fire. Yet. There is around 50 Mob soldiers inside.

[n0ble]

Knock Knock

"Not a social visit then eh? Too bad aha, seems I don't get many visitors. But I suppose that comes with how busy everyone is these days." As Lindsey spoke clare pursed her lips into a more thoughtful line. "My gut would say the Shrike. This may seem presumptuous but would I be correct in assuming he's your choice as well?" Her smile took on a more mournful character. It was odd that they hadn't spoken given their shared experiences when it came to loss. Dad had always spoken well of her. But dad wasn't here. Find your own way.

"As much as I'd like to, right now that hits a little too close to vengeance for me. And as much as brining him in would give me a good feeling, that's not what we need to represent. We need to show everyone that our ways work, that we're not a bunch of lose cannons that just follow our own agendas and not the law. Because otherwise, if we can't follow the rules society had laid out, then what separates us from them?" she paused abruptly, "Sorry. Sounds like I'm lecturing and I really don't want to.It just feels good to talk to someone I suppose..."

Another awkward pause. Not because she was nervous or anything. Just needed to think for a second to continue her train of thought. The staring didn't exactly help. "We just have to show people that our ways work, even if they are flawed. 'Least thats what I'd say when it comes to picking someone. So I'd pick Cataclysm. She operates on a known international scale. Putting that monster and her family away would be a great example to everyone of what we could do. And the criminal underworld too."

Playing with Fire

The rest of the team winked into existence as the last of Seraph's orb's vanished. She was already making new ones even as everyone else touched down. "Karma, any chance you can contain the gas? If it catches fire then visibility is going to be an issue. Also, y'know, fire." As she landed the last of her new orbs spawned. She sent in three of them to scout the buildings layout, keeping four more at each of her teammates sides.

[Forum Explorer]

Park Conversation

Yeah, thanks for bringing me out here again. Ralph said smiling. Ah, what happened? Pretty much. I saw the news, and the new Director insisted that I read the After Action Report along with everyone's profiles. What about it?

Playing with fire.

Sure. Just TP me to a spot where I can get an angle on them and I'll start throwing down forcefields. Karma said, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

[Bobbybobby99]

Playing with fire.

With a note of disagreeability, Amaris stared upon the scene. After the computer lock down, the number of affairs he could use to distract himself from the man that had died a short while ago had sharply declined, and he was left to ruminate upon them. It was deeply unpleasant, and even if he told himself that being upset was unproductive, he wasn't immune to human weaknesses, even as he could perceive them. The fact that they likely weren't going to spare the lives of those currently present was a greater bitterness for him, and he was becoming more dissatisfied. Everyone else thought it was perfectly acceptable to kill a serial killer, and while it wouldn't weigh too heavily on his own consciousness, it would weigh none the less.

"I'm ready to deploy where and when you need me." he said, much of his forward motivation depleted at the moment.

[GameOfChampions]

The After Party

Jade wasn't sure how to react to what Lindsey had just said. She knew that the Men of Steel were bad but at the same time she didn't have the same type of hang ups that others on the team had. 'Does Lindsey want Carmilla this badly, that she'd go to the Men for help. Why would they want to get rid of members of their own group?' Jades head reels with questions about what Lindsey had been doing and she downs the drink she had poured for herself then reaches over and grabs Lindsey's drink which she promptly downs as well. "Well capturing Carmilla would be really helpful and a big win for us on multiple levels, it would especially help set Alexander at ease I think, but it's really dangerous. It's especially dangerous when adding in the Men of Steel. Will we just be doing someones dirty work for them, solving one members infighting solutions for them. I think that you were in the right to do this and its something we need to do but be wary, the Men of Steel have shown they aren't really afraid of the PRT and they won't be afraid to use us and then... dispose of us as they see fit."

Playing with Fire

Jade starts with surprise as the truck bursts onto the scene, she hadn't been expecting this when they had set up the entire op earlier. "I'm ready to go in with our melee team as soon as we address the new situation, I'm going to wait a little closer to the scene though. Also as far as the gasoline goes I'm going to be playing with fire so be wary of some possible explosions if you can't cover up all the gasoline."

She circles around to the edge of the set up to be a little closer to the action but still staying down and out of sight, the Seraph orb follows along giving her a small measure of comfort as she waits to see Skullcrushers next move. 'This fight won't end the same as last time, I'm not going home in a stretcher again. We're a team and I know we can take him, though this is a little more chaotic then last time.' She takes out a grenade in one hand and starts unconsciously flexing the hand in response to the incoming fight.

[Writtensanity]

The After Party

Lindsey let go of the breath she was holding in. At least she was willing. "Which is why we need to do this right now, the more time we spend without the Men of Steel on our asses the more time we have to get stronger so we can take them out. Locking Camilla in the bird cage will take away a lot of their power, which is something we need right now."

Knock Knock: Seraph

"You're not wrong," Lindsey said, "did you hear about what Camilla did though? Shouldn't she be the first target?" Lindsey bit her lip, "as for Shrike? I'm not sure we're ready."

Knock Knock: Karma

"Well I was there," Lindsey said. She couldn't quite picture what had happened anymore, maybe it was just defense so she didn't have to sleep with those memories, "and we really need to stop Camilla before she does something like that again."


Playing with Fire:

Three levels in shield to be a tank, and one in striker so she could actually hurt the brute. Lindsey wasn't about to back down to a little gas. The area around her shimmered as the barrier came up, she kept it close to her, made for hand to hand combat.

Three levels in the barrier had never broken for her. She cracked her neck and leaped out of the heroes hiding spot. It was time to party, and she was the opening act.

[GameOfChampions]

After Party

Jade nods her head slowly "Ya you're right, Carmilla is a big problem for us and after we did I hope she rots in the cage. We can do it smart and eliminate her fast hopefully." Jade smiles a little bit as she sees Lindsey let her breath out and it seems that some weight has lifted off her shoulders. Jade scoots closer to and puts an arm around the younger girl giving her a hug. "Don't worry Lindsey I'll always stand by you. You're my friend Lindsey and you'll always have my support don't worry." It may have been a bit of the alcohol talking but Jade was as sincere as she had ever sounded as she hugged Lindsey and subsequently let go, scooting back to her side of the couch and pouring herself another drink, this time to just mull over.

Playing With Fire

Jade shrugs to herself with a little grin 'Well that's Lindsey through and through for sure.' Jade quickly rises to her feet and quickly made to follow Lindsey, only stopping to have a quick word with Clare.

"Seraph I'm going in, can you keep my orb close to me and keep an eye out if any danger comes up? Don't hesitate to just get me out of an area if you see something but if everything goes right I'll charge in with Lindsey, keeping her between me and the gunmen but as we get close can you teleport me to an orb behind Skullcrusher? Extra points if you can keep it hidden from him." Jade adds the last part with a little grin and shortly after jumps out of their spot, following Lindsey. Jade keeps the grenade in her left hand but uses her right to cover her face from excess gas fumes, making sure not to light her fists until she closes with Skullcrusher.

[Madwand]

Playing with Fire

The orbs flew into the building. Heroes materialized in flashed of bright light, ready for a fight. The confused gangsters started to shout and search for targets.

The assailant wasn't inside the truck's cabin.

Gasoline, plus the decades of fish grime all over the place... Groundhog saw where this was going. He barely managed to get clear before whoever was outside started firing white phosphorous grenades into the building, which went up like a torch in few flashes of blinding explosions! After getting the place burning, Skullcrashed could switch to his usual methods, picking off the Mob as they panicked and tried to escape..

Suddenly, low rumble shook the building, shook it like localized earthquake and a giant whirlwind enclosed the flaming barrels, preventing fire from spreading. A new figure, grey bodyarmor over a business attire and simple domino mask entered one of factory's catwalks, twelve seven to nine feet long tentacles of blue fire trashing around her.

Cataclysm.

One of the surveillance cameras focuses in on a figure in featureless black costume-armor across the street, staring down at the flames, but already running, disappearing from its view. Was Skullcrasher running from the fight or stalking around to pick on easy targets?

[GameOfChampions]

It was a good thing there were no PR people around because they would have slapped Jade with a month of PR classes if they heard the creative swearing coming out of her mouth. She quickly gets control of herself as she sees Skullcrusher slip off in the chaos, "Skullcrusher is out of the picture right now but he could be hanging around looking for an opportunity to strike so our backline will need to watch out for him." She bitterly turns her attention away from Skullcrusher 'Of course he's slipping away again but we can't exactly just leave Cataclysm to do her thing. Curse you Skullcrusher!'

Jade then looks at Cataclysm with some intimidation from the 3 elements not under her control raging around her. "I'm not really sure how to handle this, I guess a bonus is that she is less tanky then Skullcrusher but getting into melee with her is asking for trouble." She glances over at Lindsey and Clare "I think we can do this is we strike fast enough though, Lindsey do you want to take point with your shield and focus her attention on you while I try and get a good teleport behind her to start beating on her?"

Jade pulls out another grenade so that she has one in each hand to detonate the second she comes out of the teleport. 'I saw her control the wind to stop the flames with the whirlwind so that should be the element she is controlling, hopefully she can't control the flames for my grenades though she may have some resistance.'

Honestly for lack of feedback from other players I'm just suggesting a default straight up fight. I'm open to other ideas but havn't heard anything...

[n0ble]

Knock Knock- Seraph
"Maybe. As much as I'd like to think we're ready that kind of optimism is misplaced. Shrike is...powerful. I would think that we need to have more unity before we take someone like that on, or his gang. Take Valiant for example," at the thought of Alexander Clare stood up, not quite towering over Lindsey but still standing quite a bit over her, "I do not mean to speak ill of him but I do not think he is well after what happened involving the director. We should try to make sure he is alright before we make any move against the woman who has made his life more... difficult"


As much as it might seem like a weak excuse, Clare was concerned. He needs to take on Camirilla for the right reasons. Not for vengeance, but because its the right thing to do. Of course if it gives him closure who am I to argue... Even as the thought crosses her mind, Clare briefly, and rapidly, shakes her head from side to side to clear her thoughts. No. Not for vengeance.

Playing With Fire
Me and my big mouth. It was odd that she'd suggested Cataclysm to Lindsey day's prior and yet here she is. Of course she was up for capturing a bigger, more dangerous, cape. "The only problem with that is she may just be burning up the oxygen around her, which would stop you from breathing. We'd need to be weary of such things, but if you both think you can take her then I can port you in."

[Forum Explorer]

Knock Knock

Sure. Ralph said simply. I certainly don't want something like that to happen to me, and I don't want to have to watch my back to make sure it hasn't happened to any of you.


Playing with fire

Okay, okay, prioritize. Our mission is to capture Skullcrusher. The less deaths, the less damage, the better. So Cataclysm showing up and containing the fire is a good thing. Give her a bit of help, and then go after Skullcrusher. Karma thought to himself, dropping a shield around the center of the fire to help keep it contained, before running after where Skullcrusher was last seen heading towards.

[Madwand]

Playing With Fire

In the few instances when the heroes discussed the plans, the gangsters organized little better and orderly started to back out of the main hall.

Karma unleashed golden ray that hit the ground zero of fiery explosion amd become the force-field engulfing worst fire. Several gangsters, more panicked than determined, turned their guns on heroes and started shooting. Seraph wings and Gauntlet shield allowed two heroines to shrug it off, Groundhog ducked behind old product line. Karma felt a sharp pain in his left leg as one bullet pierced his left thigh, but missing bones and arteries. Aspect's vest stopped another bullet, but impact threw her prone. It will leave big, ugly bruise. However, she didn't drop the grenades and moment latter, when first Seraph orb reached vicinity of Cataclysm, she was teleported.

Cataclysm turned to face the brilliant flash of light, and Aspect pulled the pins from grenades. Villain instinctively tried to shield herself, using the same element. Powerful blast of wind overlapped incendiaries initial blast. Aspect and Cataclysm flew in opposite directions like rag dolls flung by angry child, landing hard on industrial walkway's steel. Cataclysm weakly clutched to the railing, trying to stand up, as steel around her rapidly started to freeze, flame that has surrendering her seconds before turned into intense coldness. Aspect landed on her butt, but the invulnerability shielded her from all damage.

With horrible screech, the whirlwind unravelled in the most chaotic and violent way possible, trowing burning gasoline and half empty barrels in every direction...

Duck.

[Forum Explorer]

Playing with Fire

Ah! Karma fell, as his leg was jerked with the force of the bullet. Ow. he said instinctively, the actual pain being overshadowed by adrenaline, for now.

Seraph, I need an orb I can put a shield around. Then I can start healing some injuries. he said on the radio, already feeling a little light headed from shock. Aw, hell. he added, watching the flaming barrels fly around for a second before shielding his head as best he could.

[Writtensanity]

Playing with Fire:

Lindsey shrugged as the fire wrapped around her, doing nothing. There was gunfire too, but it did less than the fire did. At least the fire blocked her vision.

Cataclysm was the goal, they might have been here for Skullcrusher, but she was worth a lot more if they shoved her in the bird cage. It was time to see how much this barrier could tank. Seraph sent an orb over to Lindsey and she held out her hand. There was a flash and she was in front of Cataclysm, closer than Aspect had been.

One of the barrels that had been thrown by the wind crashed into her, twisting into horrible shapes before flying somewhere else. Cataclysm was before her, whipping the elements into a frenzy. Lindsey took her first step toward the villain.

[n0ble]

Playing With Fire

At the sound of Karma's voice, Clare immediately sent one orb away from the area, about 30 meters away from his position. "Orb's good, Karma, hit it!" At the same time, she slingshoted Aspect back towards her, "You want me to send you back in?" It was a struggle to not yell over the developing inferno, especially given that they didn't want to give up any sort of tactical advantage by yelling about their plans. With one orb left a, Clare sent the last orb the one she brought with her into the maelstrom to try and nab Cataclysm with it.

[Bobbybobby99]

Playing with fire.

Groundhog's mind was quiet.

He had dodged, ducked, and avoided since being sent indoors, operating purely on instinct. He had said nothing, done little, merely watched. Death, so much death. Endings.

One death or five, which would it be, by the fickle whims of destiny? Was lethal force justified, if used to save the many? He whispered, "Stay back from Cataclysm if you aren't shielded." and his mind hummed.

He had, earlier on, managed to acquire the tranquilizer darts he had requested. They sat in his pouch, and Amaris, still ducking, contorted so that he was unlikely to be bed them out of his pouch. Standing and ducking to the side, so he was partially concealed behind a few old crates, he held several darts in one hand and plucked a single one. Mentally adjusting for the wind and taking advantage of heat waves produced by the fire, he flicked his wrist, once, twice.

Pulling his arm back slightly, he threw the dart at a beam, quite to the side of Cataclysm, aiming for a weak point promoted by age and shoddy craftsmanship. That beam would, with a bit of prompting, crack on a single side, causing it to swing down on another beam, which would then fall on a still larger beam, which would, given his estimates, fall upon the super villainess and weakening the roof above her. All of that would require a few moments, the actual dart was thrown far enough away to fly reasonably well, and it wasn't the real threat.

Scrambling for the small chemistry kit, he took three small vials, popping open two and pouring them together, before taking his pickaxe and pouring the concoction on the metal portion. Picking up the fizzing pickaxe with haste, he ducked once more out of cover, and threw the result at the super villainess, aiming for the weakest spot in her defenses. The carbon and iron present in the steel, mixed with an active flame, mixed with the chemicals he had used...

Acid explosion might sound like a punk rock band, but it was certainly serious enough. Groundhog ducked back behind his cover, shifted to the left, and prayed to whatever gods were out there.

[Forum Explorer]

Playing with Fire

As quickly as he could Karma put a shield over the orb.

I'm assuming that the barrels will land before Karma can actually get in the shield though. So that's why the post is so small, as I'm waiting for the details of what happens next.

[GameOfChampions]

Jade wines as the jolt of her teleport jars her growing and colorful chest bruise that was purpling as they fought. She fights through the pain to stand up and see the the others ready to take care of Cataclysm. Without any more of Seraphs orbs she couldn't really get involved in that maelstrom of whirling debris. 'Besides as much as it will be a feather in our cap to get the Taskforce Cataclysm she isn't who we came for.'

So instead of joining the fight against the Russian Matriarch she jogs over to Karma watching over him until his healing was done and they could go after Skullcrusher. She made sure to keep an eye out for the vigilante, peering at possible hiding places and trying to keep an eye on possible targets like the Russian henchmen."How you doing in there?" Then a thought slips into her head and she can't help but let out a small laugh into the middle of this chaos "Welcome to Detroit."

[Madwand]

Playing with Fire

Groundhog darts worked like small pebble starting avalanche - seemingly too small and insignificant at first, but the end result was impressive. The steel beams that once held the large factory lights crumbled and sent loose one toward prone Cataclysm.

Serph took control of the battlefield. She swapped Aspect and send Gauntlet few steps before Cataclysm.

Super-villianes directed the unnaturally strong winds, twisted the steel beam out of the air and threw it into the Gauntlet face. Lindsay, prepared, swept the projectile aside and advanced in half-run.

Karma found himself encased in his forcefield as the flaming liquid splatted all around him, started to trickle down on almost frictionless surface. His other force-field vanished as he concentrated on regeneration and he could feel the wound closing. Aspect, just outside avoided the flames and debris, but she could not see anything in the night outside.

Maelstrom of whirling debris and gasoline that dropped like biblical rain of fire. It caught few gangsters, unlucky or too slow, their piercing screams were nightmarish as some of them tried to douse the flames and get rid of gasoline..

Serph, concentrated on her orb barely shielded herself with wings, but flaming gasoline covered almost half of her body - back and legs. Her armor protected her quite well, but she could feel heat and suddenly realized that she was on fire. Groundhog found himself exposed to the deadly rain just as he tried to set up acid exploding axe - the delicate compound mixed with gasoline and exploded in his face. He instinctively threw his hands up to shield it and felt horrible burst of pain as acid burned his arms from elbows to palms.

Cataclysm sent blizzard of ice needles at Gauntlet, but her force-field deflected all of them. Tinker took the last step and reached through the ice and cold, grabbing Russian Matriarch by the throat. She lifted her up and when villianes’ feet lost connection to the ground, she shook her and squeezed.

Russian mobster stopped struggling and dropped her elemental power.


So now you need to figure out how to get out of there. Seraph can make max 2 orbs before the fire spread over whole main hall.And she is on fire herself. Gauntlet could jump into the flames below and survive, but Cataclysm not so much.

And Karma is inside his shell. Force-field is not permeable to heat and smoke, so he will not burn alive, but it's permeable to air and flame will just use up it all around him, so he will suffocate in that time.

[Forum Explorer]

Karma stared at the flames surrounding his forcefield with a sort of detached curiosity as his wound healed. The crackling of the flames was quite loud, and served to distract him from the screams of pain coming from outside. You know, we never really thought about how to get me out of one of these when I'm teleported inside them. Karma said to himself. Something to work on in the future. Now I guess I get to see which will last longer. My air or the fuel for the flames.

[n0ble]

Playing with Fire

Well that''s one way to find out the wings are fire retardant.

"Ah jeez. Hey uh Aspect, any chance you could smother this stuff on me ? Gauntlet, be advised, I'm going to take Cataclysm from you and stick her in an orb. Can you smash Karma's field and get yourself and him out of here? This whole place looks like it's coming down soon. Groundhog, can you see? If not I can make my way over and fly us both out." With that said Clare sent the lone orb towards right in front of Lindsey, making sure it was the only one left. "Just chuck her at it."

[GameOfChampions]

Jade turns to Seraph and sees her legs on fire and then twists her head between Karma and her. "Sorry Karma I can't really help here, Lindsey will get you out soon though. I'll be back in a bit." She darts over to Seraph then starts trying to pat out the flames with her hands and while that may have had a little effect it wasn't helping fast enough 'Screw this.' Jade makes sure Seraph isnt going to fall over and then wraps her body around the other women's legs like an impromptu fire blanket, relying on her costumes resistance and her own to deal with the heat and put it out by smothering the fire.

Once she is sure that Seraph isnt going to burn up she quickly heads a little more inward checking to see if Groundhog needed any help getting out or if she could find any henchmen that she could save. She's careful not to go to far in though, while she would risk herself trying to save someone there wasn't much point in dying before that due to some random beam. 'These people are worth saving. They may be bad people but they don't deserve to die like this, burnt to death as collateral damage from their boss.'

[Bobbybobby99]

Groundhog-Amaris, his name was Amaris, reminded himself to avoid being clever in the future, in between mental screams of pain. On the outside, he merely panted, his arms dropping to the sides and sizzling.

This was what happened when he moaned about his failures; he accumulated more. He had stood there like an idiot, and then when he had acted, he had been so foolish as to not consider the possible further reaction of the compound.

Hissing slightly, he grit his teeth and haltingly replied, "I can still se-see, though I'll be needing some healing, alongside a new pickaxe. The costume did its job in preventing any extra damage, thankfully- it's extreme-extremely painful, but nothing that can't be fixed. I can get out; give me a few mo-moments."

Feeling every ounce of him cry in agony at the action, he tore off a few strips of his costume and wrapped his hands. He then took out his screwdriver and jammed it into an area of the nearby wall where the recent acid splatter had widened an existing crack. He then stabbed it into a few other strategic points, kicked it, and took out the other screwdriver and stabbed it into other weak points a few extra times.

To complete the act, he then broke off a nearby piece of old machinery, and hit it a few times against the significantly weakened wall, which proceeded to collapse. He stepped outside a few paces over the rubble, stumbled, and calmly walked to a far enough distance that he was unlikely to be caught up in any explosion.

He then proceeded to pass out on top of a very distraught squirrel, which had been innocently trying to burry a walnut.

[Madwand]

Playing with fire

Amaris exited in a way that only he could - demolishing a wall with few swings and his Thinker power uncontrolled. He left, but in his wake the building, already on fire and crumbling from previous side-effects of Cataclysm power shifted as if on verge of collapse.

The walkway on which Gauntlet held villainous cape lost its support and with ear-splinting screech plundged into the fire below. Aspect successfully extinguished the flames on Seraph, but running after the burning thugs was almost fatal mistake - the falling walkway hit the floor and she get hit square in the chest by a part of flaying railing. The spreading inferno was seconds from engulfing her as Aspect curled on the floor.

The moment walkway began to fall, Seraph's only orb hit Cataclysm, which in turn disappeared, trapped and safe inside it. Gauntlet, unharmed but blinded by fire and smoke needed to find her way as fast as possible - the shield did stopped her from catching fire, heat and lethal poisoning from inhaling smoke, but it did not provided fresh air.

Karma, deceptively safe inside the force-field, lost all visual to the outside world as the fire spread...

[GameOfChampions]

Playing With Fire

Aspect groans as she is curled in the ball on the ground and her body doesn't respond as pain courses through her 'Damn that was right on the bruise, it's gonna be so much worse now. Hell I probably cracked a rib or two.' She groans loudly as she gets up and quickly starts stumbling towards the exit, running after she catches her breath back. As she books it for the exit she starts to tear up a little bit 'I couldn't save anyone in there, I just got floored and had to leave. Damn Skullcrusher for forcing this. Damn him to hell!' The irony of damning him to hell as she ran through something that looked as if it had just been raised from hell did not escape her.

She collapses down as she reaches the Taskforce set up, directing one of them to go and grab Groundhog who she had spotted a ways away from the warehouse as she ran, the unconscious thinker was beside a strangely irate squirrel who did not look too pleased to have an unconscious Parahuman collapsed right beside him.


Yes I know it wasn't really all Skullcrushers fault for this whole debacle but that's how Jade is dealing with it, by latching onto the person who was at the center of the problem and who has eluded them yet again.

[Forum Explorer]

Karma layed down, and tried to breath as shallowly as possible. Hope this helps. I don't know what else I can do but wait. Karma thought, closing his eyes.

[Writtensanity]

Lindsey ran through the smoke and fire until there wasn't any more in her way. The fire had been taking away enough air that she couldn't stay, but it hadn't done any damage. Sure, the smoke felt heavy in her lungs, but it wasn't going to kill her.

The hero staggered over to Seraph, who looked lightly cooked. She did a headcount, three. She caught Groundhog on the floor and changed her estimate.

"Where's Karma?" she asked Seraph. The other cape shook her head. ****.

"KARMA?" she yelled, crackling fire responded.

Lindsey wasn't about to let this be a loss. She reformed the barrier hugging her skin and looked at Seraph. "You're gonna keep two balls with me. One for Karma, one for me. I'm going to find him."

Lindsey coughed the last smoke out of her lungs, and walked back toward the fire.

[n0ble]

"I will, but I have to go outside and deposit Cataclysm first. Any I make in here will just teleport her back inside." With that Clare took off outside through the very visible hole in the wall that Groundhog had made. As she left, she could clearly make out the PRT and Jade on standby, with Groundhog passed out. "Get tranquilizers and containment foam ready, she's out but I don't know for how long. Also call the fire department, tell them theres acid in the fire so they should be careful." With that said, Clare formed a second orb and ported Cataclysm's unconscious body to it, just in front of Aspect. She gulped down a breath of less smokey air before flying back.

She immediately wheeled around and began to reform her orbs. By the time she reached the gap in the wall there were four, by the time she'd sent the four in to search for Gauntlet there were seven in total, five inside, two outside with her. Once she found Gauntlet and Karma, Clare radioed the tinker "I'm scanning the area as fast as I can for him, follow the orb that's next to you, it'll lead you to him. Get him out, then both of you touch ones I have converging on his position. They'll both get you out."

[Madwand]

Playing with Fire

Seraph deposed NOT unconscious Cataclysm into the middle of prepared troops; the tranquilizes hit her from four directions, but the teleportation extended invulnerability to villain. She was disoriented enough for foam to cover her in few seconds..

Aspect left the field and got to the police cordon, which was in total disorder. It seems that running mobster get into short, but brutal battle with police forces. Two police cars burned, several officers wounded, unconscious or dead. Aspect eyes.. watered? No, she didn't cry. She couldn’t see right, everything was blurred, interposed, out-of-syncs.

Seraph and Guantlet lept into the building to the place where the orb left Karma. Guantlet, holding her breath, trailed by two orbs made her way into the flames.

She shattered forcfield in few seconds. As the burning gasoline covering it collapsed on shaker, Seraph's orb swooped in. Karma found himself outside, alive, unharmed but little short on breath. Moment latter, Gauntlet was teleported to his side.

Just in time to see mould of containment foam burst as Cataclysm exploded from it and shoot to the sky.


Aspect rage against Skullcrasher did get an effect. She has new Thinker power. :smallamused:

[n0ble]

Great. Clare had immediately started to spawn more orbs as soon as Gauntlet and Karma were out of the building. "Gaunlet, Aspect, Im going to send you up to get her, if we don't secure her now this whole thing has been for nothing" Even as the words left her mouth Clare sends up four orbs into melee range of Cataclysm, while sending two to Gauntlet and Aspect. She kept the final orb below the villain, ready to catch anyone who might fall, be it her or Jade.

As soon as they were about to touch them she'd clash two of the orbs together to blind and stun the villain.

[Forum Explorer]

Karma paused for a second to get his bearings. Groundhog- he paused coughing. Groundhog! I need you to tell me what needs the most protection. he croaked.

You and you! I need you to start gathering the wounded together so I can heal them. Is that understood? he said authoritatively, pointing to two police officers

[GameOfChampions]

Jade is on her knees, almost numb to the world as she views this scene of destruction. She vaguely senses that Seraph is yelling something and sees two orbs show up near her. While the young women knows that Seraph can't see her shake her head she is doing so anyway as she kneels there. When she doesn't react the orbs eventually dissipate as Seraph dismisses them, leaving her alone with the scene once more 'We didn't even hear this happen, we were completely blind to what was happening right behind us. Cataclysm is loose, we didn't even get a good look at Skullcrusher, and we set the warehouse on fire. This is a disaster.'

After a few seconds of blurry tear filled vision she realizes that she isn't actually crying, something is weird with her vision. She blinks rapidly wondering what is going on, she peers around and looks at the scene, then around at the fight going on in the sky. "What the hell is going on with this." She knew how her power worked but it came as a surprise to get a power now in the middle of all of this. Last time it had been while her and Hoyden were having some fun during practice and Hoyden had drenched her with her water bottle and they were both laughing... it was a far cry from this brutal scene though maybe it was closer to her problem with Thomas back when.

[Bobbybobby99]

"Mumma... bumma... mumma..." mumbled the still mostly unconscious Amaris, in reply to Karma's inquiry.

[Forum Explorer]

"Mumma... bumma... mumma..." mumbled the still mostly unconscious Amaris, in reply to Karma's inquiry.

Right. ****. Karma began dragging Groundhog over to where the other wounded were in order to heal them all at once.

[Writtensanity]

"Alright round two!" Lindsey yelled before jumping into the orb. There was a moment where she was weightless, and a second more when she felt her stomach lurch. Next thing she knew she was inches above the fleeing Cataclysm. She was just below Lindsey. There was one shot at this. She pulled her arm back and stuck at the flying hero. Whether it was a sickening crunch, or a total wiff, she couldn't really tell. Her arm didn't register anything as small as a human as 'in the way'.

Lindsey held her breath for a second as she fell. They'd tested the barriers, she knew she could survive this, but it was going to be one hell of a landing.

Dust and rubble shattered below her as Lindsey fought the ground and won. Her barrier absorbed the impact of her falling and made it seem like nothing had happened, like she'd just stopped because she'd felt like it. The concrete she hit was worse for wear, but it was far from the biggest of her worries. Insurance had an entire building to fix.

She pulled herself to her feet, more disoriented than actually hurt. She shook her head before looking for Cataclysm, or some register that this had all been a success. Their team needed a win before everyone up and quit on her.

[Madwand]

Karma' force-field surrendered the wounded and unconscious. His power switched to the regeneration, and hopefully, this time, it won't be necessary to avoid spreading fire. If firefighers get here. If Lindsday and Seraph finish the fight quickly. If.

Seraph summoned two orbs as quickly as possible; they have one shoot before Cataclysm get away and no time for planning or complex strategy. She sent one orb after villain and second one toward Gauntlet.

Cataclysm reacted immidietly, twisting out of the way; but Seraph aimed above; and in flash of light Guantlet appeared and struck at surprised elementalist. Her jaw broke with sickening crunch and teeth rained toward distant ground as force of blow spun Cataclysm in place moment before her flight stopped. Heroine and villain plummeted to the ground..

As the last of Seraph orbs cough (this time) unconscious Cataclysm before she was killed by fall. Split second after, Gauntlet hit the ground, unharmed.



nOble, I assume you don't wait to recreate 5-6 orbs this time. In seconds by seconds fight creating two new is already a stretch.

[GameOfChampions]

Jade slowly gets up from the ruined police barricade and wipes away the tears as she starts to jog back to the main group. She sees Seraph capture Cataclysm in her last orb and Lindsey crash to earth and land in a massive cloud of dust from the impact. The trump gathers herself and starts screaming orders, trying to organize everyone to quickly mobilize and get everyone moving to head back to HQ. 'The sooner we get back to HQ the sooner we can imprison Cataclysm safely, and hopefully avoid any immediate backlash from taking down the matriarch of the Family.'

She grins at the pair women that just took down Cataclysm "Nice job guys! Though we need to move now as fast as we can."

[Writtensanity]

Lindsey shook her head and looked at Seraph, and then Aspect. Groundhog was on the ground, and Karma was busy, but with the two girls all she could give was a beaming smile. "**** yeah guys," she whispered like it was a crime.

[n0ble]

Clare let out a sharp exhalation after she caught Cataclysm, not realizing that she'd been holding her breath the entire time. All the trepidation and nervousness she felt over capturing the villain immediately subsided and was replaced by a singular feeling of achievement. She turned to Aspect "Agreed. PRT HQ come in, we need a containment cell prepped for a shaker eight classification, possibly and escort there as well. We'll keep you updated as we make our way back."

Even with the businesslike content of her message it was hard to keep the happiness out of her voice. So this is what winning feels like. Underneath her mask Clare was smiling.

[Forum Explorer]

Good job. I'm going to stick around and make sure that I haven't missed anyone who needs healing. Karma said, walking over.