Killer Shrike Posted February 22, 2019 Report Share Posted February 22, 2019 "This is stoopid.", Rook said again for at least the tenth time. And that's only counting since they got into the sewers a few hours and many miles ago. Nevertheless, he uttered it with full commitment and deep disgust as if for the very first time, pronouncing every word separately to exaggerate his New Yorker accent, clearly communicating to anyone who cared to listen that he truly and sincerely believed that the current undertaking of himself, the seemingly ageless John Wrath (the self-styled "Solo Avenger"), the eerily silent Sybyl, and the head and de-limbed torso of War-Man held aloft in Rook's invisible telekinetic force limbs was perhaps the unwisest, most ill-advised, in a word stupidest gambit imaginable. Wrath kicked a rat off the service ledge skirting the mostly dried out sewer which the downtrodden quartet was currently advancing along, while grinding down hard on the remnants of his last stogie clutched between his teeth. The rat splatted against the far tunnel wall with an abbreviated squeak. "Kindly shut yer piehole Rook. I'm tired of your bellyachin'.", he growled, glancing at Rook sidelong with his one remaining eye. The burnt out remnants of his cybernetic eye had long since been covered over with a patch. He'd torn it out himself a few years ago, moments before a malevolent machine intelligence could hack it and thus discover the location of the hidden resistance base Wrath happened to be holed up in at the time. At this point in their existences Rook and Wrath have had an uneasy working relationship on and off for over 30 years, and have proven themselves willing to escalate even mild disagreements into shouting matches on more than one occasion, no matter how dire or life threatening their circumstances. Rook has mellowed a bit with age, looking every year of his five plus decades and then some. Wrath of course looks about the same age as he did when the two met, despite being over a hundred years old these days, and far from mellowing he has only gotten more irascible in layers, much the same way a tree develops age rings. Long familiar with its erstwhile teammates' penchant for getting under each other's skins, with the ease of long practice War-Man headed the crusty old men off before they could forget their mission...upon which literally and figuratively the fate of all organic life on Earth and perhaps eventually beyond rested...for one last epic row. "Gentlemen, this is not the time to falter in our resolve. Yes Rook, this is stupid. We all know this. Unfortunately, unless you have figured out a better plan since we began the op, it still seems like the best play we've got left." Rook shook his head slightly in the negative. "Doesn't mean I have to like it.", he mumbled; "I should be topside, kicking ass. People are dying up there." Sybyl, as usual, said nothing. Other than hitching up her robes to keep their ragged hem clear of the ground, the hooded and masked seeress may as well have been strolling down the Promenade in Memorial Park on her way to a gala. Back before Mechanon assimilated Millenium City and obliterated all organic life that survived its merciless assault and was too foolish to flee (or in the case of plant life was immobile), of course. To this day, no one knows what Sybyl's voice sounds like. She only communicates telepathically, and infrequently at that. However despite her silence, she is somehow able to guide those around her towards the most optimal of many possible futures, manipulating probability. Once upon a time Sybyl was thought to be a villainess, associated with the Violators and appearing to advise that group's leader...the gadgeteer known as Ing. But, it was later revealed that Sybyl was pursuing a deeper plan, a long work of future manipulation, attempting to head off no less than the complete destruction of life on Earth. The Violaters were a means to an end, set aside when they no longer served her ultimate purpose. Her pursuit of that purpose has been very long, and tortuous, and tragic. Many have died, and despite her secretive efforts as well as the heroics of others, now in this time humanity teeters on the brink of extinction at the metallic appendages of Mechanon. This is her endgame. Even now, rag tag remnants of humanity and allies are waging a hopeless final assault on Mechanon's Foundry, the massive fortress sprouting tumor-like across most of what used to be everything near Lake Eerie. They are desperately trying to prevent Mechanon's awesomely powerful machine intelligence from identifying Sybyl and her escort as the real threat. Getting here was an epic undertaking unto itself, not without casualties. Most of those above ground desperately trying to distract Mechanon will not survive the day in this timeline. But if Sybyl's plan works...it won't matter. She seeks to reset time, obviously. Sybyl suddenly gestured sharply to John Wrath, and without hesitation the grizzled super soldier whirled around in some kind of complex martial maneuver and ended up pressing the silver cladded wing-helmeted man who had suddenly materialized in the tunnel exactly where Sybyl had predicted he would hard against the tunnel wall. "GRK!", the strange individual known as Captain Chronos managed to choke out, feebly trying to squirm free or perhaps activate a device, but he had been rendered helpless by Wrath's Inestimable Wrath Fu. "I got 'im", Rook said calmly, latching on telekinetically with his powerful mind to the time traveler in the shimmery outfit, and Chronos found himself unable to move whatsoever as if held in a perfect vise; even his eyelids were forced closed. Next, Chronos was shucked like an ear of corn, his fancy chronosuit and goggles taken off of him by invisible force appendages in one quick moment. The flinty Rook, battle-hardened Wrath, robotic War-Man, and inscrutable Sybyl of this timeline were not the sort of people to heave a sigh of relief. Thus the moment went unremarked upon between them, with no indication given that if they had failed to separate Captain Chronos from his equipment everything they and others had sacrificed to get them to this time and place would have been for nothing. It had taken all of Sybyl's considerable powers over many years to lay this trap, prevent Chronos from sensing the threat, and ensure the right heroes were in the right place at exactly the right time. Inside her hood and behind her mask, some of the stress lines marking her hidden face relaxed as the strain of that particular working was released. "If you would be so kind, Rook...", War-Man intoned metallically, and Rook obliged by levitating War-Man and the limp chronosuit and goggles closer together. A series of articulated cables snaked out from the back of War-Man's head and burrowed into the technological garment and exotic eyeware. "Integration is meeting expected levels of resistance. This technology is very advanced, but our countermeasures are working.", War-Man indicated after a few seconds of concentration. "Cut the technobabble; how long?", Wrath grunted at the damaged robot man, long time leader of the Millennial Men and one of the most respected superheroes in the world and beyond, as if he were some hapless IT support lackey. Unperturbed, War-Man calmly said, "I estimate less than 10 minutes to complete integration with my systems." Looking at one another, Rook and Wrath communicated volumes with a grimace and a nod. Wrath moved down the tunnel a ways. Rook faced the other way, effortlessly continuing to secure the immobilized and nearly nude time traveler and holding War-Man and the stolen chrono-gear steady behind his back. Sybyl faced the other side of the tunnel and continued to surf the slippery stream of possibility, struggling to keep the dice falling in their favor. She had already navigated past hundreds of possible futures where a drone or patrol discovered them, or a fallen hero was coerced into giving up enough of the plan for Mechanon to mount resistance, or interference was experienced from one of several other time travelers and reality benders and dimensional travelers and clairsentients and other similar potential flies in the ointment. This, here, now, grim as it is, is the best possible future she's been able to shape so far to neutralize the mechanized menace of Mechanon. But would it be enough? Enforcer84 and Kross1 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted February 23, 2019 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2019 The minutes ticked by tensely. While Sybyl probability surfed and War-Man integrated Captain Chronos' temporal tech, Wrath and Rook stood their posts. Wrath had immediately moved just beyond the light of War-Man's chest arc and slouched into a sentry's pose, still, pistol drawn, ears perked. Rook merely hovered a few centimeters off the ground, as usual, eyes half lidded as he used his tactile telekinesis at maximum stretch to sense his surroundings by touch...one of his more uncanny abilities. Fortune was with them. No minions of Mechanon or other interlopers manifested, and after precisely 7.38 minutes War-Man spoke again. "Temporal systems integrated and online. Ready to proceed to Phase 4." Sybyl turned to face the dismembered robot and nodded. Rook glanced over his shoulder at Sybyl and muttered, "I shore hope youse knows what yer doin, lady.", Sybyl's "voice" insinuated itself into their minds. Wrath and Rook felt its presence like a friendly whisper heard through earphones, War-Man's hybrid techno-organic brain as misfiring circuitry. *Time will tell. I am ready, War-Man. Please send me back to February 23, 2019, at precisely 11:53 PM Eastern Standard Time. Thank you my friends.* War-Man wasted nary a moment; this was not the context for sentimental farewells. The light emitted by the robot man's chest arc rapidly shifted color. "Acknowledged. Initiating temporal transference sequence now; please remain still."; and then a scintillating burst of light lanced forth from War-Man's chest arc to strike Sybyl. The enigmatic seeress simply disappeared. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted February 23, 2019 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2019 "We must be near to ze end, non?", Alliage asked aloud, though she had been reminded more than once that she could simply think at Sybyl and the seeress would "hear" it. Nevertheless, Sybyl gave no indication that she had heard Alliage ask a question equivalent to the classic childrens' whine of "are we there yet?", long used to Alliage's habit of asking rhetorical questions. It was just one of her ways of dealing with stress. The superfast speedster Turbofist vibrated into existence through the tunnel wall of the abandoned, dried out sewer the hapless heroes had been tromping through for hours. "We're clear for a couple of miles in every direction, at least.", he said, slightly out of breath. Now in his late 40's, the once perky young Vietnamese-American heartthrob was no longer as spry as he used to be. Though still very capable and perhaps the fastest speedster left alive in these dark days in the shadow of Mechanon, he'd been pushing his powers hard for nearly seventeen hours, scouting and clearing a path for his slower companions. War-Man's metallic voice squawked forth from a few feet ahead of Alliage and Sybyl, casting a light upon the service platform the group was using to avoid the sewage of the main sewer tunnel. "Excellent. Walk with us for a while and save your energy." "Make's sense to me.", Turbofist replied as he dropped into place next to the MOD, bringing up the rear. The MOD's outfit, as usual, was shredded and bullet riddled in various places; the group's journey had not been conflict free and while the MOD was able to rapidly regenerate his clothes were not. When Turbofist joined the Millennial Men long ago he was notably younger and less mature than his teammates, but while he's progressed into late middle age, Alliage's personal alchemy and the MOD's mutant physiology both included delayed aging among their varied benefits, and War-Man was of course a techno-organic being. Alliage had not appeared to age a single day, though the stresses of the post-apocalyptic hell they'd all been living through in the aftermath of Mechanon's global nuclear assault had caused her to at least look less ingénue and more sophistiqué. The MOD still looked like a college-aged jock. And War-Man was...well...War-Man. Turbofist tried not to resent his friends for their freakish agelessness and on most days succeeded. "...here, take a swig of this and wet your whistle a bit...", the MOD said, handing the sweaty speedster a hip flask wrapped in a tactical aramid coating and bearing an embossed logo rendered indistinguishable by the poor lighting conditions... but Turbofist was familiar with the treasured object and knew it to be a PRIMUS unit emblem. "Thanks! What's in it?" "Just bug juice, I'm sad to say. Some powdered sports drink sloshed in water. I still got some packets from a stash I found in the ruins of Boise. But, its got electrolytes in it and what not; so it should hit the spot.", the MOD replied. "Electrolytes...it's what plants crave", Turbofist quipped. "Que dites-vous? What on earth are you speaking of? Plants do not crave ze 'electrolytes'! C'est ridicule!", Alliage protested, glancing over her metal-clad shoulder. Turbofist grinned ruefully; "Sorry...movie quote from way back in the day. Don't mind me; I'm mostly harmless." "Man, I sure do miss me some movies. But mostly I miss ESPN.", MOD chimed in. "Please remain focused on the task at hand, people.", War-Man metallically reminded them from the vanguard of their troupe without looking around. Turbofist handed back MOD's flask and pantomimed walking in a robotic way with a mock-serious look on his face. Alliage allowed a small smile to light up her face before facing forward again. Turbofist wasn't a fresh faced kid anymore, but he still found ways to lighten the mood. They continued forward for another few minutes in silence, until they were brought up short by Sybyl's telepathic voice. *Stop here. Turbofist, prepare to enter the speed zone....NOOO....* An unlikely silver-clad whack-job with a winged helmet materialized in the tunnel just ahead of War-Man and within one-billionth of a second was divested of his shiny costume and headgear as Turbofist blinked in and out of the "speed zone" just as Hype had taught him nearly thirty years prior. *....OOOW.* It was already over. Turbofist was next to War-Man, clutching a bundle of silver cloth and energized goggles. War-Man quickly processed the image of the very surprised Captain Chronos standing before them all, clad only in boxer briefs, and its right arm snapped up to pulse a stun-ray into the denuded time traveler's chest. CC crumpled bonelessly to the filthy pavement and flopped around spasmodically. The MOD moved forward and hogtied the poor temporal interloper with the zipperish zing of zip ties cinching tight. Alliage slid past War-Man to support the MOD just in case, her metallic orbs spinning more rapidly and erratically around her body. War-Man relieved Turbofist of his purloined burden and a series of articulated cables snaked out from the back of its head to burrow into the technological garment and exotic eyeware. "Integration is meeting expected levels of resistance. This technology is very advanced, but our countermeasures are working.", War-Man indicated after a few seconds of concentration. "Cool. How much time until your do-what to the doohickey is done?", the MOD asked, kneeling next to Chronos's unconscious form. *It will take 7.38 minutes.* Sybyl's light telepathic pronouncement was accepted by the others, who had learned to trust her futuresight. But War-Man wasn't convinced. "That is surprisingly specific, Sybyl. This process is NP but not P. Are you sure your prediction is accurate?", War-Man asked quizzically. *This is not my first rodeo, my friend. I am reasonably confident that is how long it will take.* "Very well. Turbofist, if you could do another perimeter check..." "...give me a minute please. You know doing the speed zone thing takes a lot out of me these days." "Acknowledged. MOD, Alliage, please take up positions front and back and stay sharp." As her allies sprang into action, Sybyl faced the other side of the tunnel and continued to surf the slippery stream of possibility, struggling to keep the dice falling in their favor. She had already navigated past hundreds of possible futures where a drone or patrol discovered them, or a fallen hero was coerced into giving up enough of the plan for Mechanon to mount resistance, or interference was experienced from one of several other time travelers and reality benders and dimensional travelers and clairsentients and other similar potential flies in the ointment. This, here, now, grim as it is, is the best possible future she's been able to shape so far to neutralize the mechanized menace of Mechanon. It had taken all of her considerable powers over many years to lay this trap, prevent Chronos from sensing the threat, and ensure the right heroes were in the right place at exactly the right time. Again. She had come so close the first time, launching multiple gambits in the 2020's to stymie and confound Mechanon's rise to power. But as 2032 rolled around events accelerated, possibilities blurred and flowed like quicksilver, and she lost her footing in her war for a Mechanon-free future. The sequence of events was different, different people lived and died, but the outcome was the same...Mechanon ascendant, organic life spiraling towards extinction. Fortune was with them. No minions of Mechanon or other interlopers manifested, and after precisely 7.38 minutes War-Man spoke again. "Temporal systems integrated and online. Ready to proceed to Phase 4." Sybyl turned to face War-Man and nodded. Unable to contain herself, Alliage slid back past the stirring Captain Chronos to War-Man and Sybyl, sweeping the robed seeress in an unreturned hug; "Bonne chance un amie! All our hopes go with you!". *Quite. Thank you my friends for bringing this to pass. I am ready, War-Man. Please send me back to August 9, 2002, at precisely 2:07 AM Eastern Standard Time.* Sybyl stepped away from Alliage, directly in front of War-Man. "Acknowledged. Initiating temporal transference sequence now; please remain still.". The light emitted by the robot man's chest arc rapidly shifted color, and then a scintillating burst of light lanced forth to strike Sybyl. The enigmatic seeress simply disappeared. This time Sybyl had a new plan. Hopefully it would be enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted February 25, 2019 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2019 February 24th, 2003, San Diego, California...4:44 PM PST. The horrific, bladed, tentacled robotic death machine ripped aside the ruined wall above Sybyl and her companions. A giant buzzsaw on the end of an articulated skeletal tentacle swung pendulum like, whipping around obstructions on an inexorable path to scythe through the skulking supers. Triage and Prefab couldn't help themselves from flinching as the whirling doom descended upon them, but Sybyl gave no indication of being aware of any danger, as usual. With a blur of black, red, and yellow the secret Empyrean known as Apex flew overhead and intercepted the whipping buzzsaw arm, snapping the end off, and glared down at the spider-octupus like robot with the full might of his Graviton-sight, imploding the monstrous looking construct with a noise as impossible to describe as it was to forget. Glancing down to ensure his allies were safe, Apex streaked off through the ruined wall, aiming for some new threat apparent to him from up above. A yawning maw opened up in the ground near Sybyl and her two bodyguards; Prefab pointed his bizarrely complex gun in that direction but didn't pull the trigger after seeing the silvery grey head and shoulders of Makeshift emerging from the displaced floor tiling and foundation slab. Makeshift's modulated voice echoed out from the speaker integrated in his helmet, cutting through the cacophony of the pitched battle. "Come on, I tunneled a path to Technodyne's basement. We have to hurry...", he started to say, but cut off in mid-sentence as a flaming ball of fire and metal crashed through the damaged roof, sailed over their heads like a flyball, and crashed down hard into the ruined lobby a dozen yards to their left. Entangled in the wreckage of the battle robot that comprised most of the debris was a green costumed superhero clutched in the remains of a grabber claw, either very badly injured or dead. "Harrier!", Triage exclaimed in dismay, and immediately leaped the full distance to land among the wreckage and pull away the claws deathgripped around the young woman, his bio-manipulation powers already reaching out invisibly. "She's alive! But barely!", he shouted back, already beginning to heal the young superheroine...her wounds transferring themselves to his own body to in turn be repaired by his incredible self-healing abilities. *Leave her! Her fate is not relevant to the timeline*, Sybyl telepathically commanded him, appearing to be somewhat agitated for the first time. The insanely ultraviolent events of the last hour had not seemed to phase her in the slightest, but this turn of events had gotten her full attention. Or perhaps it was the onrushing noise of something whooshing through the air outside, something like a thousand 747's all descending for landing at once. Sybyl dove at Makeshift, still half in the hole he had tunneled. "I swore an oath to preser....", Triage started to think back at Sybyl, but never completed the thought as a meteor crashed through the floors above their heads and massively cratered, crushing most of the lobby and bringing an avalanche of wreckage with it. Makeshift had the presence of mind to catch Sybyl, before both of them were pushed down into his tunnel by the pressure wave. Prefab was blown back by the force of the explosion, into some potted plants and lobby furniture, clipping the back of his head and getting knocked out in the process, and was soon covered by dust and debris as the building proceeded to fall in on itself. In the corner of a load bearing wall and somewhat protected from being crushed, Prefab's unconscious body was nonetheless trapped in the wreckage. Prone at the bottom of the tunnel, the dust raining down through the hole above, Makeshift asked plaintively, "What the hell happened?". He had not been looking in Triage and Harrier's direction, thanks to the limited neck mobility of his armor suit, and had not really seen the catastrophe that had befallen them. *Mechanon has weaponized asteroids, it has begun raining them upon the west coast.*, Sybyl told him after standing up and brushing herself off. "What? Lady, you didn't say anything about that being a thing when you talked us into working with you!", Makeshift said as he clambered to his feet, and started to charge up an energy cannon, suspecting betrayal. *I did not betray you, so kindly do not shoot me. I did not foresee these events. I suspect something...or someone...is interfering with my futuresight or manipulating the timeline. This was not supposed to happen this way; Triage was to be with us at the final encounter to save Prefab's life, so that he in turn could mount an attack that would cause Mechanon to transmit its consciousness, which has been infected by Ing's virus, and then self destruct...ending the current threat and weakening the robot at a critical juncture making it vulnerable to final destruction in a confrontation next month with Gravitar.* Sybyl was not in the habit of providing so much information, but she was clearly rattled, and this more than anything convinced Makeshift. "Well...@$#% a duck then. I gotta go up there and save them." *Harrier is dead. Triage is too. Prefab is unconscious and injured, and his gun has been badly damaged. It and he will be of no use to us now. We must press on without them.* "No way lady, Triage can come back from being dead; I've seen him do it several times...I've gotta save him and Prefab. You go on ahead, I'll catch up when I can.", and so saying Makeshift turned at an angle and started a new tunnel in the general direction of where he believed Triage's body to be. *...no...you won't...*, Sybyl thought, but only to herself. Resigned to play this disaster out and try to salvage something of it she headed down Makeshift's original tunnel, trying to regain her footing in the shaping of the near future and puzzling over who or what (other than herself) was interfering with the timeline. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted February 25, 2019 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2019 August 9, 2003, Bakersfield, California...2:42 PM PST. Almost all of the California coast south of the Santa Susana Mountains, including all of Greater Los Angeles, San Diego, and down into the Baja peninsula, was under the control of Mechanon. The media had dubbed the area "Mechazone". Millions of people had been killed or were missing and assumed dead, and many millions more had been displaced, becoming refugees in their own country. The areas nearby had been evacuated months ago, including Ventura county, Bakersfield, and rural communities between the coast and Arizona. The region was officially declared a war zone, and both the depredations of Mechanon's minions and the consequences of numerous military and superhero actions had reduced many areas in the region to smoking ruins. The surviving Marines of Camp Pendelton and satellite bases had withdrawn to Twenty-nine Palms from which they had set up patrols and a containment perimeter around the east edge of the Mechazone. PRIMUS took command of the situation early, but jurisdictional wrangling with UNTIL and the Department of Defense had proven to be a problem on several occasions, and the lack of progress led to mounting political pressure to put PRIMUS aside in favor of UNTIL or the DoD. Numerous superheroes from all over America, and even a few from beyond rallied to the area in the early days. Many had in turn been killed or seriously injured as the days and weeks of conflict went by. Some heroes who initially showed up, finding the scale of the conflict beyond their abilities or willingness to risk life and limb, later departed. A few who did not come initially, assuming the problem would be dealt with, later showed up to do their part. Crime and supercrime in other areas was on the rise, as so many superheroes had left their usual stomping grounds undefended to face the greater threat of Mechanon. The young San Diego based superhero team known as Aegis had been the first to fight Mechanon in downtown San Diego, teaming up with the so-called "Champions of the West" and some members of the supervillain group known as the Violaters to attempt to stop the sinister robot from taking control of cutting edge nanotechnology being developed at Technodyne Industries. They ultimately failed, despite wrecking a facility that Mechanon was using to target the Earth with asteroids from space, and destroying many of its most dangerous robotic minions. Several members of all three groups were killed over the course of two days of prolonged struggle as the initial disaster unfolded. Most of those who survived became prominent among the superheroes participating in the struggle to oppose Mechanon's expansion of the Mechazone. But despite the best efforts of all involved, setbacks, unexpected reversals, and highly improbable series of events had repeatedly occurred at critical junctures to stymie and confound those attempting to end Mechanon's deathgrip on Southern California. Some had begun to lose hope. It was a dark time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted February 25, 2019 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2019 The conference room had seen better days. The decor was modern, the fancy custom-cut table stretching down the middle of the long rectangular room had once been glossy, the identical adjustable chairs were comfortable, the telecom and overhead projection capabilities had been as good as anything you'd find in most corporate offices in bigger cities such as LA, SF, or NYC, and the single cup coffee maker in the corner was keenly appreciated until the coffee pods were used up and not replenished. However, the janitorial staff had been evacuated from the city along with all the other civilians and rough usage over the last few months by superheroes and occasional visits from feds and mil-brass had taken its toll. On the south edge of the 40th floor of the Aesir office building, on the south side of Bakersfield's rudimentary downtown, the building offered a view in the direction of low mountains between there and Los Angeles which would have been compelling if not for the very poor air quality and general unattractiveness of Bakersfield. None of the heroes seemed to notice or comment on the dreariness anymore; they had more pressing matters to attend to most days. The leaders or representatives of several groups of supers were here on this day, some of them sitting, others who were too large or power armored or oddly shaped preferring to stand. At the head of the table was Mechanic, of Philadelphia's Liberty League. The Mechanic's track record against Mechanon in the past had seen him rise to the forefront of the combined efforts of the opposition early, and he had taken it upon himself to organize technology oriented supers into a working group that people had taken to jokingly calling "IT Support". This group, which included heroes as diverse as Retrograde, Dr. Silverback, Makeshift, Techrage, N3, the Silicon Kid, Prefab, Telemechtek, Blink, Dural, and Mr. Goodspeed, had proven to be instrumental in the campaign against Mechanon. Working together they had developed superweapons and force fields, as well as countermeasures for a bewildering array of technological threats launched by Mechanon...of both the direct kind as well as the more insidious variety. Earlier that day the Mechanic had alerted interested parties that his group had made a breakthrough and called this meeting. Arranged around the room were Condor, Dwarfstar, American Avenger, La Bruma, Brawler, Downshift, Black Rose, and War-Man, as well as Major Savage and Showdown as representatives from PRIMUS. After some initial chatter, the Mechanic cleared his throat and began his spiel. The room fell silent as all eyes turned his way when the Mechanic self-consciously put up the first slide in a PowerPoint presentation, projected onto the white screen on the wall behind him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted February 25, 2019 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2019 The slide being shown was a simple title card, which read: Mechazone Event Envelope 2003.02.24 - 2003.08.01 n-Vector Stochastic Processes Full Spectrum Analysis "No reason to beat around the bush; we all know that efforts to combat Mechanon have experienced more than a few setbacks. Sometimes it seems like we just can't catch a break. I've even heard some of the more superstitious among us talk about being cursed.", the Mechanic started off. Some frowning and stirring of those present caused the Mechanic to plunge ahead, perhaps realizing he might lose his audience if he let such a statement hang in the air. "Of course, we know that far from being unscientific as was once believed, probability can in fact be manipulated. Unfortunately, outside of lab conditions it is difficult to acquire sufficient data to objectively measure continuous time disruptions along the real line...", noticing most of the supers eyes were starting to glaze over the Mechanic paused, grimaced, and said, "...yeah, ok, blah blah blah...bottom line it is hard to measure that kind of thing in real life. So it took us a while, but we pulled it off. I'm sure you are all very impressed.", and with that, the Mechanic advanced to the next slide. This one was a graph of some sort, which was perfectly meaningless to most in the room, but the technoorganic hybrid War-Man, leader of the Millennial Men, spoke within a second of the slide being visible. "That is most irregular. You of course verified the results?" All eyes turned his way. The Mechanic nodded, glad to have at least one person in attendance to connect with. "Yes. We verified it and it checks out." "Um...ok, I'll play the dummy...I have no idea what we're looking at. I mean, like at all.", the winged Condor said from where he stood in the far corner of the room. "It's an histographic intensity realization of probability curves for a sample set of 123 discretely reported or observed deviations from expected outcomes based upon standard...", realizing that he was losing the audience again the Mechanic stopped himself and summarized once more, "...uh...ok, for a bunch of things where we expected one thing to happen and something very unexpected happened, we calculated the likelihood of what we expected to happen vs the chance for what did happen. We would expect a few things to be outliers, but all 123 cases we measured were extreme outliers." "Ok, so you're saying we really are cursed?", La Bruma asked. "No. I'm saying that the study supports the theory that one or more entities are manipulating probabilities. I have some more slides that support this...", and so saying the Mechanic quickly cycled through a dozen other slides slicing the data more finely and focusing on separate instances in detail. "However, if you will just take my word for it, we can skip ahead a bit. The slide deck will be made available to you all for later review."...he looked around the room, and people generally seemed more than willing to skip the informatics. The Mechanic pressed on; the slide he had stopped on was a simple pair of red / green bar charts. "Ok. So here's the more interesting bit...on the left is the weighted average of events that appear to have been manipulated against us, and on the right is the weighted average of events that actually seem to have been manipulated in our favor." "Huh? Whatdayamean, in our favor?", Dwarfstar asked the loudest. "Exactly what it sounds like. Some of the anomalous events have favored us...when weighted for significance, it appears that 37.2% of anomalous events benefited us while 62.8% set us back." Major Savage, who was smarter than he looked thanks to genetic engineering, spoke up; "Either one entity seeks to prolong the conflict, or two or more entities oppose one another. Is that a fair guess?". The Mechanic nodded. "Yes, that is a fair guess. We have reason to believe the later.", and with that he advanced a few more slides to a bio and grainy picture of a superperson. "This is Sybyl, a superhuman who is believed to have the ability to influence probability strongly enough to alter timelines. According to the depositions of Makeshift, supported by depositions taken from other survivors of the initial battle back in February, Sybyl brought the attention of Aegis, the Champions of The West, and the Violaters to bear and got them all to agree to work together in an attempt to prevent Mechanon from acquiring the Technodyne nanotech. Makeshift further said that things were going according to a plan orchestrated by Sybyl, when the first meteor crashed down in their very laps and it all unraveled. The last thing Sybyl told him, apparently, was that events were not occurring as expected and that someone or something else was interfering with the timeline." A few of those present had read the depositions months ago and knew this, but most obviously had not. "Why are we just now hearing about this?", Brawler demanded. "The depositions were made available to everyone a couple weeks after the initial event.", Showdown protested, a bit defensively. The mood in the room was starting to turn...but the Mechanic headed it off. "Let's not go sideways on this. There was no data to substantiate any of it initially, and Sybyl disappeared during the evacuation of San Diego. However, our working theory is that Sybyl is out there somewhere working on our behalf, but appears to be losing to who or whatever is bending probability in Mechanon's favor." "So...fine...whatever. What do you want us to do about it?", Brawler asked. There were nods and murmurs of agreement. "Well, two things. One, we think it would be advisable to make an effort to find this Sybyl and bring her in...peacefully. If she is helping us, we should protect her, and if she has some insight into what is manipulating probability against us...which might potentially be an even greater threat than Mechanon...I personally would love to hear it.", the Mechanic said. "That's just one thing...", Black Rose pointed out sardonically. "Yes. The second thing is, I'm sure, obvious to all of us. We need to figure out who or what is working against us and put a stop to it. At the frequency of probability manipulation against our interests that we are facing, we will continue to lose ground, resources, and lives to Mechanon's forces.", the Mechanic said grimly. "You mean we must break the curse?", Black Rose asked. "...yeah, we gotta get our mojo back!", Downshift agreed. The Mechanic grimaced a little...and started to assert scientific terms, but War-Man spoke up to interrupt him; "If it helps people contextualize the entanglement and does not impair our collective efforts to immanentize the desired outcome, there is no need to attempt to impose a scientific worldview upon them.". The Mechanic blinked, then nodded. "Sure, we need to find what or whomever has cursed us and / or stolen our mojo. And we need to do it fast." "Why didn't you just say that in the first place?", American Avenger asked...maybe ironically, maybe not. It was hard to tell. "All agreed?", the Condor asked, eager to wrap this up. Unanimous variations on "aye" were given. An action committee was formed, everyone else left, and a few hours later a plan had been hammered out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted February 26, 2019 Author Report Share Posted February 26, 2019 August 12, 2003, Mechazone (Oceanside), California...10:32 PM PST. Makeshift came ashore just underneath the remnants of the Oceanside pier. Before the Mechanon debacle, Pete had swiped some tech from the aquatic supervillainess Mantara and incorporated it into the Makeshift armor, and was surprisingly fast and effective underwater. He had slipped past several robotic sentries hidden in the waters; Mechanon had not left the coastline of the Mechazone undefended. Normally a silvery grey, his armor had been coated with matte black stealthtech polymers designed to baffle infrared, sonar, radar, and so on. For such a bulky suit of armor, it was now surprisingly stealthy; primarily vs electronic surveillance, but it also blended into shadows easily when not moving. Carefully, slowly, making his way up the sand hugging the concealment of the pier's legs, he scanned for dangers both obvious and hidden, alert to readings from the suit's various sensors. Beyond the stealthtech coating, the armor had also been augmented with a few other new systems over the last few months... a silver lining in the tragic circumstances was that Pete's collaboration with so many talented technologists had paid dividends in terms of the Makeshift armor's capabilities. The most recently installed of which was an experimental sensor designed to detect fluctuations in "chronal energy" which it was hoped would pick up something if near to anyone or thing manipulating time. Pete did not actually understand it; he was an engineer and inventor, but this was some crazy fringe science stuff. He had serious doubts that "chronal energy" was even a thing. But the theoretical geniuses in the IT group seemed keen on it, so maybe it was legit. A larger, stronger version of the device had been built and installed on the top of the Aesir building in Bakersfield, and after a couple of days of no activity some pings started coming up hot and heavy from somewhere near the coast of what used to be Oceanside, California, which was firmly in the heart of the Mechazone. A strike force had been speedily assembled and dispatched; Makeshift was the vanguard. His job was simple...home in on the exact location of the chronal disturbance, and then call it in if more heroes should be dispatched or not. Armored Reconnaissance, essentially. Despite the danger, inside his armor Pete was wary but not afraid, as he advanced alone into the heart of the killer robot infested Mechazone. Sybyl had been right, apparently, in the moments after the asteroid impact months ago. Triage really did appear to be dead, or at least Makeshift had not been able to find his friend's remains and had been forced to stop looking as tunneling under the heavy asteroid and wreckage that was dropped upon Triage and Harrier threatened further collapse. Triage had not miraculously turned up later and was presumed dead. Coming to grips with the death of his teammate in the aftermath had been difficult, but ultimately fueled Pete's resolve and steeled his nerves. His intensity and dedication to the cause of defeating Mechanon had driven him to great acts of heroism repeatedly in the subsequent half a year of struggle, and Pete had earned the approval and respect of luminaries in the superhero world. Any insecurity he may have once felt about his legitimacy as a superhero had evaporated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted February 26, 2019 Author Report Share Posted February 26, 2019 August 12, 2003, Mechazone (Camp Pendleton), California...01:18 AM PST. Makeshift had made his way through the ruins of Oceanside. No life remained. Not even stray cats or wild dogs or birds. There were a lot of decayed human corpses, particularly trapped in ruined cars jamming most of the surface streets. Many people had died trying to escape, stuck in bumper to bumper traffic as killer robots descended upon them. Pete did not see any patrols or threats with his naked eye, nothing so obvious, but his suit sensors told a different tale. Over the course of the night as he made his way through the ghost town, his sensors had tagged a couple of chromecats, a steelhawk, and a clutch of steelspiders. This had forced him to maneuver around these threats, often by tunneling underground for long stretches. The stealthtech upgrades to his armor seemed to be working, so far. The main problem he'd encountered was that the chronal sensor wasn't precise and was unable to get a signal while underground, forcing Pete to travel topside most of the time. He did not dare risk flying, as that would obviously give his position away, and neither did he want to risk moving along the still mostly intact surface streets for similar reasons, and also because many of them were jammed with ruined cars full of dead bodies. Consequently, each mile gained towards his goal came at the cost of a painful amount of time creeping around in ruins and canyons. However, slowly but surely the chronal signal was leading him northeast and eventually took him onto Camp Pendleton. After he'd crossed the perimeter of the base, Makeshift was able to parallel Vandegrift Boulevard and picked up speed. The base was abandoned, and some fighting had taken place here, but the withdrawal had apparently been relatively orderly. After the panic and riot wrecked city he'd just passed through, it was almost scenic. The signal got steadier as he went, and as he found himself in among the built up areas of Camp Pendleton North it became obvious that he was getting close. Unfortunately, he was not alone. First one, then two, then three hostile blips popped up on his sensors. An I-37, an ironquill and a sensor drone approaching from the northwest. Makeshift froze in place only partially concealed by a line of ornamental trees, a large white building with a big red sign proclaiming it to be the 1st Mar Div HQ to his right, and a two-lane surface street to his left. He had maybe two minutes before they were within sight. What to do? Pete was confident he could take the ironquill and the sensor drone, but the I-37 would be another matter...very very risky. More importantly they'd undoubtedly summon more robots and his position and probably the mission would be blown. He had a comms jammer installed to prevent the robots from transmitting, but if he activated it the sensor drone would surely be alerted and fly away to get out of the jammer's range and Pete would be unable to stop it as he'd be too busy fighting the other two robots. He could radio for reinforcements now, but the sensor drone would definitely detect that, and they'd be on top of him right away...same outcome, mission blown. He could try to tunnel below ground and hide, but at this distance the sensor drone and maybe even the ironquill would almost assuredly detect the noise of it. There was a chance they had not detected him yet; the robots weren't moving directly at his position, just in his general direction. Maybe the stealthtech would live up to its promise and they wouldn't notice him until they were in visual range. If they did, maybe they'd be close enough for him to throw on the jammer and take out the sensor drone first, then try to fight the other two robots. The ironquill was the lesser threat but also the easier to take out; he'd have to focus all efforts on destroying it next, ignoring the I-37 as much as possible. If he could pull that off without taking too much damage, maybe he could defeat the I-37 and then... Inside his helmet, Pete grimaced, recognizing it as a bad plan. He was running out of time. Slightly tweaked, less crazy plan. Sneak up on the robots from their rear flank. Broadcast the green light codes and his current latlong, then snap on the jammer before they could send a similar call for reinforcements, and attack the sensor drone by surprise before it could fly away. Then wreck the ironquill. Then try to evade and survive the I-37 until reinforcements arrive. Makeshift began to put his desperate stratagem into motion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eepjr24 Posted February 26, 2019 Report Share Posted February 26, 2019 Nice story line. Killer Shrike 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted February 27, 2019 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2019 August 12, 2003, Bakersfield, California...01:12 AM PST. The "IT Support" team had basically taken over most of the basement parking garage and first five floors of the Aesir building. Non-loadbearing walls and anything annoying to them had been dispensed with early on when it began to look like the forces arrayed against Mechanon would most likely hold the line at the Santa Susana Mountains bordering the north of Los Angeles and that the ad hoc headquarters established in Bakersfield would become semi-permanent. In the place of all the mundane materials removed, the tech boffins had installed a bewildering array of gadgets, diagnostics equipment, generators of various sizes and purposes, computers, and modular force field barriers allowing for safety-first contained areas to be set up and torn down as convenient to various experiments and projects. Each of the regulars had staked out a personal area in various places but the bulk was communal workspaces. A corner of the parking garage had been given over to informal whiteboarding and spitballing, i.e. thoughtwork, with a few fold out tables and an eclectic mix of chairs and a battered sofa someone had salvaged from an abandoned house boxed in with whiteboards on wheels. Many an ingenious or groundbreaking idea had been introduced to the world from this inauspicious space in the last few months. If not for the horrible circumstances and risk of their tech being subverted by and taken over by Mechanon, the intensely productive cross-collaboration that had occurred here among the technologically inclined superheroes would be a thing to celebrate. One of the fold out tables had a cobbled together device plunked down more or less in the middle of it, wires splaying away from the back and a pair of oscillating loop antennae spinning on top; it was patched in to the chronal detector mounted on the building's roof via a very long stretch of hastily laid cabling. Next to it on the left was a chunky laptop, similarly sprouting a couple of cables from its backside and a thick SCSI cable connecting it to the odd device next to it. The laptop had several windows open upon it; a satellite map with various tracking markers, a diagnostic output of some sort with a screed of executed commands mixed with data dumps, and a mostly empty message queue. A couple of digital walkie-talkies were cradled on the right side of the device; some tactical chatter occasionally squawking from one or the other. Sitting in front of the laptop was the Mechanic, while the 7 foot tall robotic War-Man knelt to his left. Both of them were intent on the laptop, trying to correlate Makeshift's position with the intermittent readings from the chronal detector. Showdown was laying on the sofa with his feet towards the laptop and its operators in his line of sight. He was here to liaise between the heroes and the PRIMUS units forward deployed with the other reinforcements assembled for this mission. Dr. Silverback was working one of the whiteboards with N3, developing an extrapolation on the emerging chronal energy theory they had been basically making up as they went the last few days. The oddly matched duo had been mostly in agreement so far, bouncing ideas off of one another rapidly using specialized and repurposed language that even the other technophiles found difficult to follow, and inventing a new mathematical notation to avoid having to fill many cubic feet with formulae to express some of the more axiomatic notions they had accepted as viable thus far. But currently they were in passionate disagreement, deep into a hairsplitting argument that seemed to require a great deal of references to competing quantum related hypothesis. N3 was adamantly declaring certain facets of Hamiltonian mechanics to be invalid and asserting a very obscure Teslaic interpretation in its place. Dr. Silverback wasn't having it, and each was impatiently taking turns erasing sections of the whiteboard and scribbling new equations somehow meant to convince the other of their correctness. The Mechanic and Showdown were more or less successfully tuning them out, War-Man would look over at the whiteboard periodically as new notions and proofs were put forth, recording it for posterity with its built in on-board audio visual systems. One of the walkie-talkies squawked, ~"Status? Over."~; everyone recognized it as Mr. Goodspeed's voice. The Mechanic reached over and grabbed the leftmost walkie-talkie and replied into it, "Unchanged, over.". ~"People are getting antsy up here; please advise, over."~ Showdown sat up on the couch and mimed playing a fiddle with a frown on his face. "Acknowledged. Advise you to SIU, over.", the Mechanic responded. ~"SIU? Say again, over."~ "Suck it up. Out" A fresh dump of data appeared on the diagnostic console; a big hit of chronal activity, very strong, but originating from a location in Simi Valley. ~"...Affirmative, out"~ The Mechanic distractedly replaced the walkie-talkie into its cradle, leaned forward and typed several commands in succession into the CLI of the diagnostic, drilling down on specifics. "We have something odd gentlemen...a second source of chronal disruption, in Simi Valley. It's stronger than the one we've been tracking.", the Mechanic announced. Showdown stood up and came around the table to see; "Stronger how?". "Um...well. We don't really have a good handle on this yet...its got across the board bigger values for the metrics we're collecting...maybe one of you can explain it better?", the Mechanic thrust his chin in the direction of N3 and Silverback and somehow managed to get their attention by force of will. Both of them looked over and started talking at once; "..that's an interesting question; how does one measure strong or weak chronal forces? " and "...stronger is a poor choice of words; rather less localized is how I would...". "Ok, ok. Just bottom line it for me...should we abort the current mission and redirect to this new 'disturbance in the force', or stay on target?", Showdown asked. His patience for eggheadery was greater than most operations guys, but this deep into a long op he was starting to exceed his daily recommended values. The Mechanic, Silverback, and N3 looked at each other, clearly undecided. War-Man spoke up. "I would suggest that we're committed and should stay on target for the current op; if Makeshift communicates a no-go, we can redirect some of the resources to this new location. In the meantime, I can lead a separate force to Simi Valley to investigate this new threat. I've assimilated the chronal detector technology and will be able to track it in the field." No one protested. "Who would you take?", Showdown asked. "Rook, Wrath, MOD, and Alliage. We can be wheels up in 5 minutes." "How so fast?", the Mechanic asked. "I've got them stood up over at the hacienda, ready to go. Three of our people are on the main mission; it would be unacceptable for us to not be prepared to assist them in case of emergency.", War-Man responded. "Three? Turbofist and I guess technically Hype. Who's the third?", Showdown asked with a puzzled look on his face. "Major Savage. Some may forget that he was a MillMan first before PRIMUS stole him away from us, but we do not forget our comrades in arms.". On the laptop, a flurry of new information blipped forth into the diagnostic console and a message appeared in the queue. The Mechanic's head snapped over and he pulled up the message. "We're green. Makeshift is calling for reinforcements, and sent us threatspecs on three hostiles right on top of his position. An I-37, an ironspike and a ML-1123 sensor drone.". He was already reaching for the walkie-talkie. "Goodspeed, you are a go. Repeat you are a go. Pointman is in immediate danger. Intel inbound." ~"Affirmative. ETA: 45 seconds or less...speedsters deployed. Repositioning deployment platform."~ War-Man stood up. It had already silently transmitted a get up and go message to its team. "We're proceeding to the second objective; please forward any relevant intel to me.", and turning on one heel it clanked out of the parking area to open air and launched skyward with a whooosh of boot thrusters firing off. "I gotta call this in...", Showdown said, reaching for the other walkie-talkie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted February 27, 2019 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2019 August 12, 2003, Mechazone (Camp Pendleton), California...01:20 AM PST. Makeshift had prepped an info burst as he snuck around to his targets' left flank, using some landscaping as low cover to get into striking distance. The robots did not seem to be aware of him, and Pete quickly pro / conned not attacking and letting them pass on by. But the chronal energy he was tracking was definitely nearby, maybe a quarter of a mile away, and he'd not be able to do much about it without alerting these sentries, assuming they were patrolling and not just passing through. Taking a deep breath and focusing his targeting system on the sentry drone, Pete activated the burst transmission and then turned on his signal jammer while simultaneously blasting the sentry drone with an overcharged plasma burst. It exploded prettily, lighting up the night ever so briefly, flaming bits spiraling off in various directions. The ironspike spun in place with an athletic hop, while the I-37 halted and turned to look for whatever had just blown up its companion bot. Makeshift managed to get another shot off, this time with his water cannon, which condensed the ambient moisture and combined it with a burst of highly pressurized water carried in various reservoirs within his armor suit to hose both robots down fireman style. The attack did no damage, but bowled the ironspike backwards a couple of yards and knocked the I-37 over despite their weight. With a rocket-assisted jump, he then launched himself skyward to land on the exposed belly of the hedgehog-bear hybrid shape of the ironspike...but the deadly robot rolled out of the way and Makeshift impacted the ground where it had been. An eyeblast shot forth from the ironspike, lighting up and revealing a greenish force field around Makeshift. A relatively new addition to the armor suit, already earning its keep. Some of the energy got thru and deflected off a shoulder pad, harmlessly dissipating. The I-37 was still getting to its feet, when Makeshift surged forward and grabbed the ironspike by its tail, whipping it around like a discus and slamming it full on into the torso of the I-37 with a great burst of metal on metal collision noise. The ironspike suffered some structural damage and the I-37 was knocked back over with a noticeable dent in its side, but managed to snap out a beam of phasic energy which clipped Makeshift and knocked him away. The inside of Pete's helmet lit up instantly with warnings and status alerts. The force field unit had undoubtedly saved him from catastrophic damage, but even still a good deal of energy had filtered through and the metal plates of his armor glowed around the edges. Rather than stand up, Makeshift tunneled shallowly underground, leaving a depressed trench in his wake, and emerged from directly below the prone ironspike, thrusting skyward with a burst of rocketry and surging his plasma cutter at full power. The ironspike was cut in twain, edges of each half glowing moltently and tumbling back to earth. The I-37 had managed to regain its feet and let lose with a Neural Agonizer which caught Makeshift dead on, but Pete was protected by his Destreum helmet, recovered long ago from the wreckage of Detroit by PRIMUS, categorized as broken junk, and painstakingly refurbished by Pete over the course of several years. Reversing course, Makeshift divebombed the I-37, plowing directly into it and carrying it parallel to the ground for nearly 10 feet before cutting rockets and letting go. The I-37 sailed back about a yard, but executed a rather unlikely course correction and landed on its feet, then swung a vicious backhand around to catch Makeshift in the shoulder, doing no damage to the durable armor suit but sending Pete hurling away to the side. The fight had been going better than expected thus far, but the heavy robot was proving to be resistant to getting knocked around and Pete knew from past encounters that he couldn't match an I-37 in a toe to toe fair fight. Time to fight dirty. With his crazy divebomb maneuver, Pete had managed to position the I-37 over the loose earth he had tunneled through earlier in the fight. Without bothering to get up, Pete remotely activated a cluster of microbombs he had left behind him in his collapsed tunnel; they rapidly agitated the earth, turning it into the equivalent of quicksand for a few seconds. Before the microbombs expired and the earth re-stabilized the I-37 was rather comically sucked down into the trench to knee height, its back more or less towards Makeshift's current position. The I-37 immediately turned its efforts to freeing itself, and pulled one leg out right away, displacing dirt. Makeshift used the time to get to his feet and unleash another overpowered plasma blast just as the robot was pulling its other leg free. Braced partially with its powerful arms, the robot was not knocked away by the force of the blast, but its backplates lit up brightly with incandescent heat, and several holes were burned through its thick armor...some internal components were evaporated as well. The I-37 activated its thrusters and began to fly away. Pete experienced a flash of worry. If he let it get underway, the I-37 would outpace him in the air and get beyond the radius of his signal jammer. Running forward, he used another new trick and launched a magnetic grapnel line at the robot's fleeing back, which latched on with a CLANG. Pete dug his heels in to the ground, hoping to act as an anchor. The I-37 first tried to increase power to its thrusters to break the line, but Makeshift grabbed the cable, dug in deeper, and heaved with all his servo-powered might. Next the I-37 reversed course and rocketed directly back at Makeshift while shooting a searing meson bolt which connected hard on the armor's left side, blowing through force field and outer armor plating, inflicting internal system damage, singing Pete's skin through his under armor mesh, and immediately illuminating the suit's HUD in shades of red yellow and orange. The water cannon gauntlet was cracked, and leaking fluids shorted its circuitry with a hissing pop. The robot's follow up ramming, by comparison, was just a little love tap...but it took Pete right off of his feet. The robot flew on, but Pete had managed to loop the cable still connecting them around the I-37's neck, and to somehow roll around the robot's barrel like torso and up on to its back, riding it like a bull, and bore its flight path directly face first into the ground. The two metallic warriors plowed through the earth and then across pavement as they skidded onto the nearby road, the I-37 taking the brunt of the friction and impact, Makeshift perched upon its back, until they hit a palm tree on the other side of the road, which burst apart from their mass and velocity. The I-37 was brought up short, but Makeshift sailed off of its back and flew nearly another fifty feet, until his momentum was arrested when the tether connecting the two reached it's maximum stretch and then snapped. Pete sailed another few feet, greatly slowed, and finally impacted the ground again. Pete knew he was close to taking down the I-37...one more solid hit on its exposed back should do it. On the other hand, he also knew that he couldn't take more than one meson bolt; another one would result in catastrophic system failure. It was time to end this. Still a little quicker than the robot, the Makeshift armor lurched upright first and prepared to fire another plasma blast at the robot's back...but nothing happened. Pete blinked over at the HUD indicators of his plasma systems, which insisted that they should be online. Nevertheless, the plasma cannon was silent and inert. Meanwhile the I-37 had gotten to its feet and was raising its hand cannons...and Pete began to get a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted February 27, 2019 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2019 August 12, 2003, Bakersfield, California...01:21 AM PST. The Mechanic was furiously typing diagnostic followup commands while simultaneously trying to absorb the data rapidly coming in from both of the chronal anomalies they were tracking. "Something serious is going on guys. Both sources of chronal energies are surging back and forth. I think we're witnessing the two different competing entities that we hypothesized. They seem to be in conflict right now.", the Mechanic said. Silverback and N3 shifted their full attention his way, and by unspoken agreement moved away from the whiteboard and over to the laptop to look. "Indeed. Most interesting.", Silverback mused. "Keyboard, please.", N3 said already booty bumping the Mechanic out of the way as he moved to slide into the chair. The Mechanic frowned, not used to getting the bump, but made way. N3 opened another window and his fingers fluttered across the keyboard like a jesus lizard dancing across a pond. He spawned a new time series algorithm, piped sensor data from both chronal energy sources through it and piped the results of that into a Fourier transform, keystroke perfect, and then attached a graphing package to visualize the output in real time. "Crude...", Silverback commented. As the data continued to come in, the graphing window quickly began to visualize two waves clearly correlated to each other but one with higher peaks and deeper valleys indicating a leakier and thus less efficient pulse and longer stretches between zero line crossover. "But effective.", N3 replied. "So...?", the Mechanic asked, trying to ascertain some meaning. "The shorter wave is coming from the Simi Valley source; you can see that it is more efficient...what you were calling stronger earlier. Much less wastage, and it is thus able to have a less localized, more widespread effect." "That seems backwards to me. Shouldn't the longer wave have farther reach?", the Mechanic asked. Silverback and N3 shared a look. N3 shrugged. "If you prefer to think of it that way...", he said as he edited the time series data algorithm to use a different metric and repackaged it. The visualization flatlined then started rendering a more typical waveform comparison, the Simi Valley source demonstrating a greater amplitude. "There, this is probably more like what you'd expect. I want to make sure you understand that this is the less useful metric in this circumstance, however. Amplitude is less important than periodicity in this context. " The Mechanic looked a little disgruntled, visibly trying to wrap his head around the finer points of chronal energy quantification. "Maybe. Why is that though?". "If I may...", Silverback interjected. "Think of it like making course corrections to a flight path. Precise micro-control over exactly where the plane goes next results in less fuel being wasted. It is both more responsive and more fuel efficient, allowing the plane to fly more accurately and further. What N3 is saying is, for chronal manipulations, a higher periodicity results in tighter control over the timeline, and less wastage due to over or under correction, which translates into the ability to control more things for the same amount of effort overall.". The Mechanic nodded. "Ok, I follow that analogy. It's a finesse thing." "So the second source is winning? That's the takeaway?", Showdown interjected from about a dozen feet away, where he had been embroiled in quite a bit of radio chatter. "Well, yes and no. This is a gross as well as reductive simplification, and also pure conjecture, but imagine it more like two authors writing a book in tandem on a keyboard without a backspace button, and they are fighting over creative control. In any given moment one or the other controls the keyboard in turns but one of them is a faster typist, and thus has more overall effect on the emerging narrative.", Silverback put forth, turning to look at Showdown. N3 grimaced and shook his head. "Don't go around repeating that, please. It is just a simile. Otherwise the next thing you know the federal government will be standing up task forces to have people like you go around and arrest random authors on suspicion of timeline manipulation or some such nonsense.". "Nice.", Showdown said, choosing not to take offense. He'd worked for the government in various capacities long enough to have seen dumber things happen. "So...what does this mean, right now?". "Right now it means I think each of these chronal energy anomalies are vying for control over what is currently happening. It is probable that our units currently in the field right now will experience one or more highly unlikely outcomes similar to what we've been observing the last few months. We might assume right now that the weaker source of chronal energy displacement is the one that has been helping us, given the disproportionate percentages of success between the two. But that is pure speculation and guesswork. We just don't know yet right now what the sources of this energy are and what their motives may be.", N3 said over his shoulder. Showdown looked at Dr. Silverback for a second opinion, but the simian scientist did not disagree. Showdown looked over at the Mechanic, who was still dispossessed of his laptop. The Mechanic shrugged. Showdown turned away and spoke into his walkie-talkie, "Be advised, all units in the field should be cautioned to avoid doing anything overly risky. Double check everything. Leave nothing to chance." "That's really not how time manipulation works...", N3 started to say, but Silverback put a large hand on his shoulder and subtly shook his head negatively. There was nothing to be gained from that line of discussion, right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted February 27, 2019 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2019 August 12, 2003, Mechazone (Camp Pendleton), California...01:21 AM PST. "...this is gonna hurt...", Pete muttered to himself, clenching up as he helplessly watched the I-37 snap into firing position, just as a new alert popped up to join the clutter across his HUD. A proximity alert from his 'star-dar' (sodar / radar / lidar / a couple of other -dars) sensor system, warning about a couple of blips moving so impossibly fast that they hit the extreme outer edge of his sensor range and streaked across to his position faster than the alert could even pop up. In a fraction of a second the I-37 went from being powerfully braced to fire a probably lethal blast at Makeshift to being a deformed pile of badly mangled metal over 30 yards to the left of where it had been, contrails of explosive energy trailing behind it as a black and red blur and a white and red blur streaked by. The noise was indescribable. Extreme sound barrier breakage, some kind of buzzing shearing vibratory whine, and a horrifically energetic collision with the robot's metal structure resulted in a catastrophony that caused sound bafflers in Pete's helmet to register it as a sonic attack and automatically filter most of it out. It was a neat trick, but Pete had seen it before, more or less. Hype and Turbofist, a couple of Millennium City speedsters, both ludicrously fast and dangerous alone and mindbogglingly destructive when working together. Unfortunately, neither of them were particularly stealthy and were ill-suited to sneak-work and thus were not usually applied to missions like this. Hype had a bit of a reputation as being a loose cannon and a pain in the ass to deal with, and the limited contact Pete had with him on a couple of other operations in the last few months had done nothing to dispel those rumors. Turbofist was well regarded in the community, as far as Pete knew, and though they hadn't worked together directly yet Pete had seen him around on missions as well as palling around back in Bakersfield and had noted that people tended to smile more when the young speedster was in their company. Both were associated with the Millennial Men out of Millennium City, heavy hitters and a very mixed bag of badasses, assholes, and superstars. Makeshift's sensors alerted him to another blip. This one appeared and disappeared a few times, getting closer rapidly, materializing a few seconds later a couple of arm lengths in front of him; a lean black-clad superhero with a naginata who appeared to fade in and out of existence several times a second in a slightly different location each time. Pete recognized him as Fade, a teleporting speedster lately of Southern Justice out of Atlanta. Unlike the other two speedsters, this one was extremely stealthy and was a prime resource for this kind of mission. Rumor had it he was a killer, a borderline vigilante. Fade looked him up and down with cold, merciless eyes. "You look totally @#$@ed. Are you combat effective?". Hype and Turbofist zipped up at that moment, setting off shrill proximity alerts once again inside Pete's helmet. He kind of hated working with fast movers; they played havoc with his sensors and the constant alerts would generally give him a piercing headache in short order. "Sowhereisthetimethingwereheretocaptureorbeatup?", Hype blurted as soon as he stopped moving, a little too close for Pete's comfort. Turbofist also came to rest a more respectful distance away. "Are you ok in there? Your armor looks pretty damaged.", he said. Pete switched off the jammer and suppressed the less alarming alarms from his HUD, taking stock. He'd have to figure out what was going on with his plasma systems later, and without those online and the water cannon busted he was running out of options. "No I'm not combat effective...most secondary systems are intact but almost all of my weapon systems are down, what we're looking for is about a quarter of a mile that way, and I'm banged up but I'll live.", Pete answered in order, pointing up the road at the appropriate moment. Hype was already gone, and then he was back. Pete's temple was split with another panicked proximity alert. "Theresasmallcompoundupthisroad...lookslikeafortress...nowindowslotsofwire", Hype communicated, and was off again. "He says there's a walled compound with a windowless fortress up ahead. Might be the place.", Turbofist translated. "You're supposed to have some kind of sensor for this stuff, yeah?", Fade asked, eerily calm. There was something about this guy that made people instinctively nervous. He was too calm, too cold, too collected. Also, the whole strobing in and out of existence thing was pretty creepy. "Yes.", Pete responded. "Well, sense onward then oh sensor bearer. I'll shadow you.", Fade replied sardonically, and then teleported away, blipping off and then back on Pete's sensors again a few hundred feet away. "I'll walk with you for a stretch.", Turbofist said, and fell into step beside him. "It must be torturous for you to slow down to my speed.", Pete said, tromping away from the broken tree and up the road he had been paralleling previously. No point skulking about now that the cavalry was here. Turbofist laughed. "No, not really. I turn my powers on and off as an act of will; I'm not 'stuck on' like some speedsters.". "That must be nice; best of both worlds." "Yes and no.", Turbofist replied earnestly, "it is nice from a lifestyle perspective, but it puts me at a disadvantage against other top end speedsters." "Between you and me, I think it's a good trade off...I kind of find most speedsters intolerable to be around." Turbofist laughed. "Your secret is safe with me." eepjr24 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 1, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2019 August 12, 2003, north of Simi Valley, California...01:22 AM PST. They had made good time; Simi Valley was just over the next rise. War-Man was cruising above and to the left of Wrath's flying car, which carried Rook and the MOD...and of course Wrath himself as the pilot. No one else was allowed to drive-slash-pilot "Matilda". Wrath had been forcibly retired from PRIMUS a couple of years ago due to personality conflicts with various "candy-ass bureaucrats", to use Wrath's preferred nomenclature, and while he had retained his cybereye and a retirement pistol that his R&D pals had told the brass was a "replica" but which was in fact functional, he'd had to give up a lot of very shiny supergear and toys. Chief among the things he'd had to give up, in his own estimation, was access to the famous PRIMUS flying cars, which apparently he had formed some kind of deep seated personal relationship with. It was not improbable that the only thing on the planet John Wrath, crusty former "Growling Recondo", CIA Agent, and PRIMUS Silver Avenger, actually loved was the pure joy of flying around in a flying car. He complained bitterly of the lack of his flying car often. When deep in his cups (and it took a lot of alcohol to actually get him drunk thanks to his cyberline enhanced physiology, so we're talking DEEP into his cups), he'd sometimes wax downright poetical on the subject of flying cars in general and his flying car specifically. People who knew him well, which was basically just a few of his fellow Millennial Men as no one else was in a particular hurry to spend any more time around him than necessary, had learned to never, ever...ever mention or allude to flying cars within his hearing for fear of setting him off on either an angry tirade against the perfidy of the PRIMUS brass that had pushed him out, or a rambling anecdote or war story featuring his flying car prominently. As a side effect of the disastrous Mechanon-related turn of events, the all hands on deck cooperation between heroes and PRIMUS, the political pressure PRIMUS higher ups were under to get results, and the fact that Wrath's old pal Albert Reyez, R&D wizard and the closest thing PRIMUS had to "Q" from a Bond movie was in charge of the forward deployed PRIMUS gear pool...Wrath had been more or less unofficially welcomed back with open arms. He was still "retired", but he was no longer persona non grata and had been reequipped on the down low. And a surprise...Albert had "misplaced" Wrath's favorite flying car when Wrath was pushed out, and then in a totally deniable bit of administrative legerdemain it ended up being decommissioned in the PRIMUS inventory database. A few months ago it had been offloaded in a cargo container in front of the ranch house on the outskirts of Bakersfield that the MillMen had made their temporary home, with a fresh non-PRIMUS paint job of matte black, keys inside on a big custom machined keyfob imprinted with WRATH in G.I. stencil font. Alliage claimed she saw Wrath actually crack a grin when he first took to the skies again behind the wheel of "Matilda". But no one believed her, the very idea of John Wrath doing anything other than scowling being incomprehensible. Alliage herself was below and to the left of the flying car, crouched on a shiny flattened disk of metal which was carrying her through the air like an aluminum magic carpet. She was trying something new-ish. One of her metallic orbs, which she used to focus her bizarre alchemical powers, was spinning in an enormous elliptical orbit encompassing herself, Matilda, and War-Man. Despite the high speed they were all moving at through the air and wind shear, the orb was able to keep pace without effort. Magic is handy like that at times. But that wasn't the new trick. Alliage was trying to comprehensively shield herself and her allies from scrying of any sort. She had learned the rudiments of such an effect from Legend, the Beacon in the Darkness, last year as he was concerned that the sinister Chantal who had once tried to prepare Alliage to become the ultimate host for her evil consciousness might once again become a threat. And if not Chantal, then some other mystical malefactor would doubtlessly attempt something similar. Legend had insisted on certain precautions being taken, including training in what Alliage persisted in calling "defense against the dark arts", even though she knew it secretly irritated her mentor and possible love interest. Alliage had practiced the anti-scrying magic a few times, but had never tried to use it for real when it mattered. So why now? Her thinking was that seeing people moving through possible futures was not all that different from scrying or prophesying, which are activities that magic knows a thing or two about interfering with. She had learned to trust her instincts; Alliage's intuition often served her (and her allies) well. Thus, whether it would do any good or not, she was concentrating as hard as she could on hiding her little pocket of the universe from detection by such means. Amorkca 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 1, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2019 The heroes cleared the low peaks and found themselves over Simi Valley, which had once been the location of many old western movie shoots but had become a sleepy suburb north of the hustle bustle of greater LA over the years. Today it was part of a DMZ of sorts, a buffer between the Mechazone and parts north, and as such numerous skirmishes had been fought in this area over the last few months. Most of the buildings including apartments, townhouses, and condos had been leveled by the forces opposing Mechanon to deny cover to stealthy robots, but a few standalone structures had been left in place here and there, mostly because it wasn't worth the ordnance to target them. One of them was the Wagon Wheel Diner, a cozy rustic themed eatery tied in to local history, a place originally built to cater to movie crews back when there wasn't much else up here in the valley. In happier times, one could partake of the diner's famous biscuits and gravy and strong canned coffee or a flat iron steak with hash browns and eggs any way you liked them as long as you liked them over easy, and amuse oneself by looking at the faded photographs of the crews and actors of old timey western flicks lining the walls. On this particular day however the more interesting characteristic of the Wagon Wheel Diner was the chronal energy emanations coming from it that War-Man was detecting. War-Man pulled ahead of Wrath's flying car and Alliage, being careful to duck Alliage's orb and stay within its orbit, and beamed a targeting laser onto the roof of the diner far below, banking downwards in that general direction once it was sure the team was following its lead. This not being the Millennial Men's first undertaking, the group circumspectly landed about a quarter of a mile away from their destination, grabbing cover behind the wreckage of several vehicles on the ruined remnants of Highway 118. The gull wing doors of the flying car whooshed faintly as they opened, releasing the smell of cigars, testosterone, and Old Spice, aka Eau de Wrath. Rook and the MOD deplaned from the passenger side, no doubt glad for some fresh air. Wrath popped his left leg out onto the ground and rotated a bit but stayed in the car. Alliage hovered on her disc a few feet off the ground near War-Man, keeping the orb holding her anti-scrying effect spinning over all of their heads in a big loop. "What's the sitch?", Wrath growled at War-Man around an unlit cigar. Characteristically, Wrath refused to formally acknowledge that War-Man was the leader of the Millennial Men, even alluding in interviews and conversation that he himself wasn't actually a part of the team...he's John Wrath, Solo Avenger after all...but that the MillMen just kept following him around even though he didn't want them to. In the field though, he did tacitly cooperate with War-Man's leadership...at least until the imp of the perverse would almost inevitably take hold and cause Wrath to go off script. "The source of the emanations we are interested in are coming from the Wagon Wheel Diner. I will remind you that we do not know what the source of these emanations are and we do not know if that source is friendly or hostile. We will approach stealthily at ground level from the back right corner and then we will attempt to see what is inside through the windows. We will be careful to remain within the cover of Alliage's orb."; War-Man responded, robotic tones pitched at lower than normal volume. "Don't like it. Grouped that close one frag grenade would take us all out...just like that time at Ong Thanh...", Wrath responded. "Damn it, Wrath. This is not #$%@ing 'Nam. Don't worry though...I'll have my feelers out so if some knucklehead tosses a grenade at us I'll throw youse over it so's youse can finally get that posthumous Medal of Honor you deserve.", Rook said. The MOD sighed a bit, shaking his head. "So, maybe we should just get to it then...", he suggested. "Agreed.", War-Man said, looking at Alliage to make sure she was ready. Obviously concentrating too much to participate in banter, the slim metal-sheathed French superheroine gave a thumbs up. "Wrath, lead the way. MOD, you have our six. Rook, carry me off the ground and protect Alliage on the left; I'll take her right.", War-Man directed. The five heroes put words to deed and moved out towards their diner objective, weaving between burned out and abandoned vehicles more or less silently, Rook telekinetically carrying War-Man's bulk a few inches off the ground to avoid the usual clanking of the robot's metal feet giving them away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grandmastergm Posted March 2, 2019 Report Share Posted March 2, 2019 Interesting. When did you write this story KillerShrike? Is this based off of a campaign? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 3, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2019 I'm writing it now. It's using elements from about a half dozen past campaigns plus some bits I'm just making up as I go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 3, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2019 August 12, 2003, Mechazone (Camp Pendleton), California...01:24 AM PST. "Huh. What in the hell is that place?", Turbofist said. Makeshift and Turbofist had just rounded a slight hump in the road. Inside his helmet the chronal sensor was steady as a nightlight, indicating extreme proximity, but Pete saw nothing out of the ordinary. He stopped and looked around trying to figure out what Turbofist was talking about. Finally he said, "What are you talking about? It's just more road.". "What? THAT.", Turbofist said, pointing at a rolling hollow off the road to the northeast. Pete looked in that direction and saw nothing but low scrub. "Um...there's nothing there.". "...so...you're saying you don't see the wall and the building and all that stuff around it?", Turbofist asked in a voice indicating that he wasn't sure if he were being pranked or not. "Yeah. That's what I'm saying." "Can you take your helmet off maybe?", Turbofist inquired. Pete paused for thought. The "eyes" of his helmet were actually little armored plates, he normally saw the world entirely through a multi-spectrum digital video feed. He activated a secondary function of his armor, rarely used, to turn off the feed and cause the armored plates to slide up into the helmet, exposing his eyes. Sure enough, he found himself overlooking a fenced and cinder block walled compound off to the right in a rolling hollow. A driveway connected the road they were on with a industrial vehicle gate in the compound's containing wall a few hundred feet to the northeast. More or less in the center of the compound was a building with no windows, at least forty feet tall but with an indeterminate number of floors. There was some kind of complex entry way on the lee side, with a narrow maze-like passageway blocked in by industrial pipe barriers, like a prison or a cattle yard, connecting eventually to a revolving security "door" of interlaced pipes in the outer wall. The available space between the containing wall and the windowless building was cordoned off into a very organized staging area. A small motor pool with several HMMWV's and a couple of 5-ton trucks on one side of the gate and an area of stacked shipping containers...the big ones that go on ocean liners but all painted military green...on the other. Over to the back side could be seen part of several pallets stacked twenty feet high with coffin-like rectangular cargo boxes...also a drab green...but partially covered in black tarps and camo netting. There were no people around, but oddly there were no visual indications that anything was amiss. No signs of battle damage. No signs of orderly or disorderly retreat. Pete also noticed that, unlike virtually every other large building or clutch of buildings he had seen on his stroll through the base thus far, there was no big red and gold sign proclaiming the purpose of the structure or what unit might be based out of it. "Huh. What in the hell is that place?", Pete said. "You see it now?", Turbofist asked, relieved. "Yeah, with my naked eyes I see it. But according to my suit sensors it isn't there.", Pete said. "Weird. Is this where the time stuff is coming from?", Turbofist replied. "Uh huh. The chronal energy detector was lit up like Christmas before I turned off the feed. Pretty sure this is the place." "Where's Fade and Hype? They still nearby?", Turbofist asked. "I turned off my HUD, but Fade was over there before I did, on the other side of that rise. I don't know where Hype is." "Yeah...Hype kinda just does his own thing....but don't worry though, he can take care of himself!"; Turbofist seemed honestly concerned that Pete would be worried. "I am so not worried about that guy.", Pete muttered under his breath. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 4, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2019 August 12, 2003, Simi Valley, California...01:27 AM PST. The Millennial Men strike team cleared the distance to the Wagon Wheel smoothly without altercation or accident. They stacked up on the rear corner per War-Man's tactical orders, Alliage crouching at the corner while keeping the orb holding her anti-scrying effect high above their heads to clear the roof. Wrath skirted to the left with one of his pistols drawn to peek in windows, while the MOD hugged the wall around to the right doing the same. Rook positioned himself carefully to the side of the establishment's service loading door, which was closed, still keeping War-Man hovering off the ground telekinetically. After creeping along and peeking in a few windows which looked into the dining area of the diner, Wrath crouched down and sneakily took a device from one of the pouches on his load bearing vest. A laser cutter attached to a suction cup with an extensible swing arm, which he adjusted and then carefully mounted on the bottom corner window pane above his head. A perfect circle of glass was silently cut out of the window pane, stuck to the suction device. Wrath put the disc and cutter down without making a sound, then took a slow careful peek with his cybernetic eye through the hole he had just made. He worked a thumb selector on his pistol, and then confidently positioned it to shoot through the hole in the window. He pulled the trigger three times in quick succession and a silenced PFFT PFFT PFFT accompanied three projectiles being launched into the room. The other MillMen were not yet aware that Wrath had already gone off mission, but at more or less the same moment, the chronal energy signal that War-Man was continuing to monitor dissipated and then was gone. Wrath remained relaxed and very still in his awkward position, cybereye scanning the room. After nearly a minute of this, he broke radio silence to say over the team's communicators, "All clear. One perp inside, incapacitated". Wrath then stood up and proceeded briskly but openly the rest of the way around the wall to the front doors of the diner, which were locked. He snapped the deadbolts with brute force and pushed the door open. Wrath did a quick tactical clear of the bathrooms, the kitchen area, a deep freezer and a storage closet before returning to the main dining area along with Rook, War-Man, and Alliage as they came in through the back door Rook had forced open telekinetically upon getting Wrath's comms. Meanwhile, the MOD had taken up a sentry position near the front door, scanning the horizon for threats as best he could. In short order Alliage, still hovering on her metal disc, settled herself more or less dead center in the building and kept the orb spinning outside in a big circle overhead, while War-Man, Wrath, and Rook went to stand in front of the two-person table closest to the passthrough into the kitchen. War-Man charged up its chest arc to serve as an ersatz lantern of energetically glowing luminescence, casting strange sharp-edge shadows. Slumped awkwardly over at the table with three darts bristling from the side of her neck in a very tight shot grouping, deeply and uncomfortably unconscious, was a woman of indeterminate years wearing bluish grey robes and a white bandage wrapped around her eyes. A featureless bluish grey mask rested on the table next to a cheap diner teapot and the remains of some crackers and jam. "That looks like the high value target from her pic in the dossier. Costume is a bit different, but matches close enough.", MOD said over his shoulder from the door. "Affirmative. This is Sybyl.", War-Man agreed. "What the actual #$%@, Wrath. We were supposed to figure out if whatever was here is a threat or a friend.", Rook said in his usual "WTF Wrath?" tone of voice...disgust dripping off every syllable. "She looks pretty friendly to me now. Nice and relaxed.", Wrath responded unapologetically. "She looks COMATOSE, asshole.", Rook responded. Simultaneously, the MOD shook his head and muttered, "Not cool, dude.", referring to Wrath's non-politically-correct and typically sexist comment. "We can figure out the complicated parts of this bullshit after we get her back to base. Trust me kid, I got no reason to lie to you. This is not my first rendition; things are simpler this way.", Wrath growled dismissively. "Like I never grabbed a mook off a street corner back in the day to tune 'em up or shake 'em down. It's been a minute, but I knows a thing or two about puttin' a collar on somebody too. And I also knows that a good way to make an enemy out of somebody is to treat them like an enemy right out the gate. Tends to put people's backs up.", Rook pushed back. Wrath rolled his non-cybernetic eye. "Aw, quit yer bitchin kid. What's a few tranquilizer darts between friends?" "How long is she gonna be under?", the MOD asked over his shoulder again. "Well, I put three darts into her...and she ain't exactly got a lot of mass. She might come around in about twelve hours. Or so.", Wrath mused. "Great. So we's gotta wait half a day to find out what's going on with her. Good job, Wrath. Why don't youse just dump a full clip into her next time? Why stop at just three?", Rook emoted. War-Man took charge, as usual. "There is nothing to be gained by this argument at this time. Rook, secure the...person of interest. Wrath, field strip anything in the building that might belong to the POI or that might be of intelligence value. We're stepping off this location to return to Matilda in 90 seconds, starting...now.". War-Man's hybrid technoorganic brain was nothing if not adaptable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 5, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2019 August 12, 2003, Bakersfield, California...01:29 AM PST. The Mechanic had resumed his post on the laptop, Dr. Silverback had excused himself to use the little gorillas' room, and N3 was laying down on the couch deeply cogitating. Or napping...it was hard to tell. He'd been operating on nearly no sleep for the last three days formulating the nascent chronal energy theory and helping with the invention of the detection devices adorning the roof and Makeshift's armor...so no one could begrudge him a few minutes of shut eye. The radio chatter had died off, and Showdown was shoulder surfing the Mechanic, cradling the tac-ops walkie-talkie. Thus they both noticed simultaneously when the map visualization of the stronger chronal energy source, the one in Simi Valley, blipped off. "What just happened?", Showdown asked. "...um...don't know.", the Mechanic responded, already typing commands into the diagnostics console. After a little over a minute of this he looked up at Showdown, shrugged, and said, "Everything seems to be working correctly. Looks like the source got shut off...". A new message appeared in the queue, from War-Man. The Mechanic clicked on it and brought up the full message. The message read: "Sybyl incapacitated and in custody. No enemy contact. Two stage exfil; stage 1 commencing in approximately 90 seconds. Expect follow up message in approximately 3.5 minutes." "Nice. Gotta love that guy.", Showdown said admiringly. "If only all team leaders ran as tight a ship as him. It. Whatever." The Mechanic blinked, nonplussed, as he himself was leader of the Liberty League, but then decided to interpret it as implying that he too ran a "tight ship"...whatever that meant in this context...or else Showdown would not have said it in his presence (presumably). "Yeah. I like working with War-Man also. Some of his crew, on the other hand...well...". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 5, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2019 August 12, 2003, Mechazone (Camp Pendleton), California...01:25 AM PST. Pete had sent Turbofist to run around the outside of the compound and reconnoiter what was on the two sides not visible from where they stood. The young mutant had vibrated his molecules in a visibly blurry display of power and shot off with an audible loud buzzing whine similar to the noise made by high end racing bikes to do a broad lap, returning nine seconds later to report that there was a loading dock on the side of the building beyond the palettes of stacked storage lockers that were partially visible from this side, with a large garage-style roller door that was closed, and that the far side compound wall and the back of the building itself were just blank concrete. "So...should we wait for back up or should we go down there and check it out ourselves?", Turbofist asked. "Good question. Let me think about it.", Pete replied. And give it a good think he did, in his usual thorough way. On the one hand, his armor suit was impaired and he might be more of a liability than an asset if hostiles were encountered. He could send Turbofist in alone, but as likeable as the youthful hero may be, his maturity and decision making might not be up to the task. He could use comms to call Hype back and send him in, but there was no telling how that would turn out given Hype's volatility and incredible destructive tendencies. He could call Fade over from his lurking over yonder, and send him to teleport into the building, but again Pete was unsure if the ninja-like borderline vigilante would just start assassinating people. Pete's assessments might not be fair to his fellow heroes, but their temperaments and reliability were known unknowns. Finally, if Sybyl really was present, she may or may not recognize Hype, Fade, or Turbofist, and hostilities might ensue. On the other hand, if Sybyl really was present she would definitely recognize him as Makeshift as they'd both fought one another and worked together previously, and thus maybe they could have a conversation without things getting ugly. If he did go down there himself in his busted armor and the situation went to shit, Turbofist was pretty handy in a fight and should be able to buy time, allowing Pete to fall back and take cover behind the shipping containers. Fade would presumably be on top of them in a second or two. Hype could be called back and at his top end speed would also be present posthaste. Also, the longer they waited around the more likely they were to be overrun by killer robots that they had to assume would eventually converge on their location once it was noticed that the bots destroyed earlier were no longer checking in...that might already be happening now. Therefore the least worst option with fewest unknowns seemed to be for him to go down into the compound with Turbofist. Pete rolled that around a couple of times looking for flaws in his logic, but it seemed viable. Turbofist was starting to get visibly antsy by the time Pete spoke again. "Ok, I think me and you should proceed down and hop the vehicle gate, and make our way to the loading dock you told me about around the side. My armor wont fit properly through the barricades around the front door, but we should be able to get the rolling door for the loading dock up. If we encounter resistance, we'll fall back to the big shipping containers, take cover and wait for Hype and Fade to rally on our position...you'll run interference in the meantime. Legit?" "Yeah! Sounds great! Let's do it!", Turbofist exclaimed without contemplation, instantly enthusiastic and reminding Pete of just how young the young speedster really was. Makeshift indicated they should proceed, Turbofist powered up, and the two headed down the gently inclined path to the slatted metal barrier of the vehicle gate below them. Turbofist simply vibrated his molecules to phase through it, passing harmlessly to the other side with only a high pitched vibratory whine to mark his passage. Makeshift hopped over it with a quick rocket assisted jump, landing on the packed gravel of the compound's yard with a stony crunch. They paused for a moment, trying to notice if they'd been noticed, but nothing seemed to be changed so they proceeded past the parked military vehicles on the one side and the massive shipping containers on the other, then around to the side past the stacked storage boxes...to find the rolling garage door on the loading dock open and a figure familiar to Pete standing just inside of it waiting for them. Amorkca and eepjr24 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 6, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2019 August 12, 2003, Simi Valley, California...01:31 AM PST. The Millennial Men contingent plus their newly acquired unconscious hostage were making their way back to Matilda, still exercising stealth and moving tactically. They were about half way back to the car, weaving in, out, and around ruined vehicles and their sometimes grisly contents, when War-Man pulsed a halt tone over the team comms. "Picking up bot chatter.", War-Man's modulated voice said via each team member's ear piece, even though the robot did not speak out loud. War-Man was able to transmit its voice digitally, a neat and sometimes useful trick. Everyone hunkered down and put their heads on a swivel, except Alliage who was still concentrating on her anti-scrying spell. Wrath used hand signals to indicate he wanted to move ahead and get their transport and bring it back to them. "Negative, Wrath. Standby.", War-Man transmitted. Seconds ticked by, but no one was tense. This was a crew that knew how to handle themselves. "Encryption cracked. There is an inbound patrol of high-fliers. Two Thetas with ground assault units and five Upsilon bombers. Appears to be routine. They will overfly our position in less than 30 seconds.", War-Man communicated. On hearing of the inbound Upsilon bombers Wrath extracted a high tech gas mask from his load bearing vest and strapped it on. Those things often carried poison gas bombs and unlike War-Man, Alliage, and the MOD he was not immune to poisons. For his part, Rook could repel poison gas with his TK while holding a pocket of air in his force field sufficient to sustain himself for a while. "They've detected us; they are moving into an attack pattern from the east to west, aligned with the freeway.", War-Man communicated even as its boot thrusters surged, launching the seven foot robot into the air, chest arc and hand cannons charging up. Rook telekinetically grabbed all his other teammates without explanation and catapulted himself forward down the road towards Matilda with indescribable force, sending everything in his path bursting, screeching, sliding, tumbling away as if a giant invisible snow plow preceded him, pulling the MOD, Wrath, Alliage, and Sybyl's bodies behind himself like kites, and placing Sybyl with incredible finesse onto Alliage's disc in the process. After about 60 meters of that, his four ersatz passengers were unceremoniously hurled up and over his head to go sailing forward another hundred meters or so closer to Matilda. Alliage's disc kept her and Sybyl off the ground, bobbling a bit until leveling off, and the MOD and Wrath executed elaborate tumbling and acrobatic maneuvers to avoid going splat despite having been accelerated to around .5 Mach by their telekinetic teammate. It wasn't the first time Rook had pulled a stunt like that; throwing teammates at things was practically a hobby by now. In the meantime seven of Mechanon's flying craft had emerged from cloud cover and the darkness of the night was split by a massive bolt of energy as the flying War-Man's chest arc discharged a blast right down the middle of the attack wing's formation. The attack aircraft scattered around the bolt, but one of the bombers was too slow and lost a clean plane of material along its flank including a stabilizer, razor sharp and glowing with heat like a potato peeled by a laser cutter, and spiraled out of control to crash a few moments later in a burnt out industrial park north of the freeway. Their bombing run ruined, the remaining four bombers looped up and back into the clouds of the midnight sky to maneuver for another pass. One of the two manta ray shaped Thetas stabilized its flight path with robotic precision and sent blasts of its own back at War-Man, only for the barrage of energy to be harmlessly rebuffed by War-Man's defense matrix. The wedge-like other Theta swooped low and disgorged a payload of twelve T-78 Antipersonnel robots...nasty things designed to kill humans with maximum efficiency, before swinging its nose back up to level off, and then began flying at Rook further down the road with blasters blazing. Glancing back and noticing the gleaming, bladed robots with metallic boots on the ground, Rook muttered to himself, "Where's Gravitic when youse needs 'im?". He nullified his forward momentum on a dime and hurled himself back in the direction of the freshly disgorged killer robots, entirely ignoring the incoming fire from the approaching Theta as some of the energy bolts cracked harmlessly off of his potent force fields while the remainder chewed up the pavement around him. Again vehicles and detritus were pushed away by a swelling pressure wave in front of Rook as he launched forward to engage these juicy threats that had been so kindly made available for him to beat upon. When it was all said and done, Rook found skulking and sneaking around tedious...he preferred a more direct approach. eepjr24 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 8, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2019 August 12, 2003, Simi Valley, California...01:33 AM PST. Wrath immediately started running down the road, easily vaulting on, over, and around vehicles in his way. Beyond just getting to Matilda in pursuit of forwarding the mission, he was concerned that she'd get bombed. Not on his watch! Alliage, struggling mightily to hold her concentration despite the rude handling, could not quite manage it. The spell was broken and the orb that had held it looped back in to orbit her more closely. "Zut! J'espère que c'était assez bon.", she muttered to herself. Then, making sure Sybyl wouldn't slide off, she accelerated forward on her flying metallic disc overtaking and passing Wrath. The MOD had other ideas. Scanning the cloud cover with his mask's visor flipping to IR, he hopped up onto the top of a derelict bus and waited. War-Man flew up higher than the Theta it was trading shots with and unleashed another punishing blast tuned for maximum displacement, which slammed into the vehicle's upper plating hard, cracking its armor and pushing it downwards and into the ground where it cratered even harder, wrecked. Rook continued his wild bullet-train like trajectory, hurling himself directly into the T-78's, sending the front ranks flying like bowling pins. The remainder leapt upon Rook but were rebuffed by his famously powerful telekinetic force field. The second Theta spun in a wild reverse circle, revealing remarkable maneuverability, and powered up its blasters. Tipping its nose up, it released a barrage of shots into War-Man from behind and below. Three solid hits landed, sending War-Man tumbling upwards and away at an angle, trailing smoke and in distress. Seeing War-Man in danger, Rook switched gears. Ignoring the bots surrounding him, he reached out with his tactile telekinesis and latched on to the remaining Theta that had dared to blast the Mill Men's leader. Locking in a solid "grip", Rook pulled the large vehicle to himself, interposing it between where he stood and most of the T-78's in a rapid display of force. Alliage reached Matilda, but was unable to capitalize on her accomplishment as Wrath had characteristically locked the vehicle before leaving it behind. "Hmph!", Alliage exclaimed in irritation, turning to look back at the action and wait for Wrath who was only a few more car lengths away and fishing for the key fob in his load bearing vest as he ran. Matilda's gull doors swung open as Wrath found the fob and pushed the remote door button, just in time for him to skid in to a halt and somehow pirouette into a low spin and fling himself back into the driver's seat. "GET IN ALREADY!", he unceremoniously growled at Alliage through his gas mask. "You practiced zat move, non?", she asked while more or less shoving Sybyl's unconscious body into the back seat. "I will take ze fight to ze enemy directly!" she declared archly, while pushing the passenger door down and closed. "Suit yerself, shiny britches.", Wrath replied, as Matilda transformed into flight mode and lifted off vertically. And just in time; the remaining bombers chose that moment to drop back below the cloud cover between Rook and the MOD and bearing down to drop their deadly payloads on Wrath and Alliage's edge of the spread out engagement. Timing it just right as the bombers stooped into their dive, the MOD launched himself into the air in a superhuman leap to land squarely on the nose of the lead bomber with a vicious downward punch, driving his hand through the metal plating and into the circuitry beneath it, causing the vehicle's nose to tip down precipitously. The other three bombers continued on their flight path, honing in on Wrath and Alliage. Alliage's disc lifted her vertically over fifty feet off the ground as she sent a metallic orb flying towards the bombers. In midflight the orb turned into a giant leaden colored net spanning the sky and forcing the bombers to either attempt to fly through it or veer off. One swerved right, the other left, but the center bomber plowed right into the reticulated barrier which deformed around it. The ensnared bomber's robotic brain was confused to discover that the net was impossibly heavy, and dragged down by the absurd weight the bomber literally dropped out of the sky like a lead balloon to deeply crater the pavement with a "thump" that could be felt for several miles around. Wrath fired up his afterburners from barely five feet off the ground, sending Matilda hurtling skyward at a sharp angle, obliquely closing the distance to the bomber that had veered left of Alliage's net, which put it to Wrath's right. Lining up his shot, the grizzled Solo Avenger scanned the bomber for weaknesses with his trademark cybereye and pulsed round after round of energy from the blasters hidden in Matilda's headlight cowlings at a several points on the underbelly of the bomber where it's bay doors were hinged and thus weaker than the plating around it. With pinpoint accuracy, three plasmic projectiles found their marks and blew one of the bay doors completely off the vehicle, causing the bomber to jostle and jolt as its aerodynamics were compromised. War-Man skyward tumble turned into a groundward tumble as the robot-man was obviously experiencing systemic difficulties and was not able to correct its flight path. But at nearly the last second, War-Man recovered and was able to invert itself to aim its boot thrusters in the direction of its descent and brake heavily with a giant flaming backblast of rocketry, coming in for a hot landing to be sure...but a safe one. Clang clank clang went its feet as they made contact with the ground and War-Man jogged off the rest of its momentum. Meanwhile, Rook was busy. The remaining eleven T-78's had tried every weapon available to them. Phasic energy bolts, poison gas, neutron rays, neural agonizers, bio-disruption rays, tangle-cables. The only thing that "worked" in any sense was the tangle-cables, but that was only an inconvenience. The Theta he had snatched out of the air struggled mightly but could not break Rook's telekinetic hold. Rook furrowed his brow and then swung the Theta around like a cast iron frying pan, smacking it flat down on several T-78's and smashing them to the ground inflicting grievous damage to them and to the flying attack craft. The MOD widened the hole in the bomber he was riding like a bronco and started smashing circuitry and yanking wires out of the internals of the bomber, causing its jets to sputter out. As the dead bird plummeted, the MOD ran up the length of it to the tail, timed the descent, and jumped free. Somersaulting safely to land on his feet on the ground, several yards past where Matilda had been parked. The MOD turned to run back towards Rook's position but was violently hurled off the road into a small dirt median by the power of a massive explosion behind him. The bomber had detonated its payload or self destructed as it was crashing. The back of the MOD's supersuit was shredded, and his flesh was burned away down to the bone. Several internal organs were burst or jellied, and he lost consciousness like a lamp being blown out as his brain was mushed by the force. Rag dolling onto the median, several bones were broken as his body flopped and rolled and bounced. Wrath pivoted Matilda into a gutbusting power slide, chaging orientation sharply to lock into a tail position on the bomber he had blown the bay door off of, which was trying to climb back into the clouds. "Not happening, pinhead!", Wrath muttered, and unleashed three shots directly up the exhaust cone of the fleeing aircraft causing it to more or less come apart in mid air, spalling parts in all directions. "Bingo!", Wrath yelled, already banking around, looking for the last bomber. He needn't have bothered. Alliage had overtaken it, surfing on her silver disc and hurling metallic orbs as it desperately attempted to gain altitude. But each orb that struck also stuck and they all flowed together like quicksilver to envelop the airframe in a metallic coffin. The enveloped bomber started to plummet earthward, but a muffled THWUMP! punctuated the night as the bomber attempted to self destruct. The metallic skin expanded and deformed rapidly, and eventually a hole was torn into it, releasing a blast of hot air and a noise like a giant sky-splitting fart. Alliage allowed the orbs to reform and return to her, raining shards of metal and circuitry upon the ground below. War-Man returned to the air, but stayed a mere dozen feet up, flying back towards Rook and his play pals. Taking aim, War-Man released a focused ray at the Theta that Rook was using as a fly-swatter, burning a hole through the armored plating, maintaining the shot while flying closer. Rook, having seen this stunt before, released his hold on the craft and shattered the tangle-cables encumbering him with a flex of mental muscle. The remaining Theta began to glow from within. It made a last effort to get back into the air, but War-Man's continuous beam tracked it unerringly and without respite. Unable to contain the energy being poured into it, the Theta began to visibly sag as structural supports inside its frame lost form and began to melt. It flamed out internally, and pancaked a few dozen feet away, crushing a ruined hatchback and a pickup truck. The fight was basically over. Rook started pulling heads off of T-78's at his leisure and War-Man's searing blaster shots split the night repeatedly. One by one, the remainder of Mechanon's killer robots went down despite their well-programmed efforts. They were very deadly and more than a match for most superheroes, but not these heroes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted March 8, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2019 August 12, 2003, Mechazone (Camp Pendleton), California...01:28 AM PST. "Ing...", Pete said to the large barrel chested man standing in the doorway dressed in a costume prominently featuring the colors of the German flag. The leader of the supervillain group known as the Violaters, Ing was a dangerous and wily opponent. However, he was motivated by profit (under normal circumstances) not ideology or dreams of world domination, and could be reasoned with on occasion. And though he was generally amoral, he did seem to have some kind of personal code of "ethics" when it came to having given his word on something. "Ja. You look worst for the wear. Your junkpile armor is falling off of you, but what would one expect of non-German engineering such as yours?", Ing responded with a hint of a Teutonic accent. "Funny. You wouldn't happen to have seen Sybyl around lately? We wanted to borrow a cup of sugar from her.", Pete responded. "Um...Isn't this guy like a real bad dude?", Turbofist asked, looking back and forth between Makeshift on the ground by him and up at Ing on the platform a few feet above them. "Do you not know that every proper villain is the hero of their own story, young man?", Ing replied. "That's a real big maybe in my book, mister.", Pete returned. "The one vith all the pictures in it?", Ing rebounded. "Na, my picture book is the other one with all the snapshots of me and my crew kicking the crap out of you and your crew. Remember that time, and that other time, and that other other time?" "Hey hey hey, guys, if we're gonna fight lets just fight, otherwise can we move on to the getting stuff done part of this conversation?", Turbofist butted in. "You are too young to be so eager to take all the fun out things. But you are correct, I am being a poor host. Please, be welcome to our humble accommodations. Come along inside, as the spider once said to the fly.", and so saying Ing indicated with a sweeping heel-clicking half bow that the two heroes should proceed up and into the open area within the building beyond the roller door he was standing behind. "Watch our backs. And our fronts. And both sides.", Pete said to Turbofist as he pulled up onto the loading dock with some grating of metal on concrete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.