[dice=Mud, Paramedics, Violet]12-3d6
[dice=Mud, Paramedics, Rocket]12-3d6
"Damn. That cat's heavy. Nice move, Aegis." Mud realizes his cat toss was not needed when Aegis manages to grab the catgirl and pile driver her. With catgirl under control and her cats out of commission, Mud runs to Violet and staunches her bleeding. First, he applies light pressure to her wounds to avoid hurting her; then he smears some of the dark brown liquid leaking from his wounds which solidifies on her wounds. She's still unconscious but no longer leaking. "Guys, Violet's alive but needs a hospital."
Mud hears Rocket's wobbly plea and moves to his side as the speedster wants to rush Violet to the hospital. "Wait Rocket. Let me look at you... Stay still for a second, dammit. You don't want to bleed out running her to the hospital."
Mud manages to smear some of his mud near Rocket's crotch but hesitates to get more personal. "Here. Smear this down there. It'll stop the bleeding." They share weak grimaces together and manage to stop Rocket's bleeding, too.
Mud stands protectively near Rocket and Violet and ignores the new guy. "Guys, how's Pulse? Is she stable? Is Snap under that pile of cars over there? What are we going to do with catgirl and her cats?" There were too many wounded for him to make any funny comments. He was extremely worried about the unconscious girls. The unconscious civilian was further down his priority list of concern.
Things seemed to be largely over. Blaze was was awash in thought, wondering how much help he was, especially considering that his powers were kind of crippled by the sprinklers, wondering if he screwed anything up that made things as bad as they were for Rocket and Pulse
Oh well…if I'm gonna get yelled at, I supposed I deserve it, he thought. This was all so new…but sometimes one only learns by screwing up.
"I'll go check on Snapdragon,"he said. "Hang tight."
He drifted over, making sure there was no puddle of gas, before settling on the ground. Knowing he'd have to get close to her, he willed himself back to his normal flesh and blood form.
Once that was done, he crouched down to check out Snapdragon.
The odd looking tree woman is trapped under the crushed cars, and looks dead, although she may just be unconscious, it's hard to tell with four cars on her. There is gas everywhere from the ruptured fuel tanks of the four cars. She's soaked in it.
"Aegis!" Blaze called out. "I think I need your help over here…as in 'several tons of car and a gas soaked wounded person' kind of help."
There wasn't much he wanted to do, unless he somehow went crazy and decided more explosions would help folks. He looked over at the newcomer over the pile of cars.
"And you are…aside from impeccably well dressed…" he asked. "Sorry we didn't get to this point sooner, but we're kind of in the middle of things."
"Oh no, quite understandable. People call me The Magician. Or Mr. Magician, or Magic Man." He holds out his hand, and his top hat flips into the fingers. Then he reaches in and pulls a cane from the depths of it, before flipping the hat back to the top of his head with a negligent flare. He leans forward on the cane with a flourish. "There was one idiot who called me the Amazing Flatulence. I turned him into a toad." He grins. "I'll take the lack of response to my question to be an admission you're one of Sanctions little pet projects. So, you have my pet projects, very good fight. Was very interesting, and I learned quite a bit. You're not really set up to deal with dear Cerberus and her kitty pets. How about I take them off your hands, and we all go our way peacefully?"
He taps the cane on the floor, and a wave of white light washes over the garage.
"A little show of good faith on my part, yes? I didn't even extend it to my pets..."
Mud begins to try to wake up Vi and Pulse, shaking both of them...
"Blarrrgh..." Pulse manages after several protesting gurgles. "Did anyone catch the plates on that truck..?" she asks blearily.
She briefly has the time to look over the scene with two cats, one unceremoniously flopped on its side, and the woman-girl-cat-thing unconscious.
Not privy to the previous discussions, lacking though they may have been, Pulse winces as she tries to push herself up, still exhausted, and decides to just rest for now. "What's with Dapper..?"
As soon as the fight ends Aegis does what she can to make sure everyone is at the very least stable, she'll Check on Pulse first then go to free Snap while Mud helped Rocket and Violet. She wouldn't respond to the man appearance until after she knew everyone was ok or he made his offer. "We don't really have much of a choice, You take care of your and we'll take care of ours."
The man uses his cane to tip his top hat. "Excellent, Mademoiselle Gëlle Fra." He walks over to the Green and Gold cat and taps it with his cane. The cat shrinks down to a normal gold and black spotted housecat. Picking it up by the cruff of the neck, he flips his head forward, causing his top hat to roll down his arm to his hand. He lowers the cat into the tophat, and then puts the tophat back on his head. "Much easier to carry around when they are in their normal body, oui?" He takes on a french accent, and seems to be flirting with Aegis. "Oh! Do be a dear, and tell my dear sister I said 'Hello' when you next see her? I belive she's still using that horrible 'Shadowcat' alias with you lot, isn't she?"
"Wait... you're not with Shim? Who are you with, then?" Pulse asks as she begins to call the emergency line mentally.
There are no cell phone signals inside the garage, this is not unusual, you're underground, beneath concrete and steel rebar.
The man looks over at Pulse, and jerks back slightly. "Oh my... You should really see a burn doctor." He comments dryly as the walks over to the RedWhite feline and taps it with his cane as well. The large cat shrinks down to a normal housecat. Again his top hat flips to his fingers, and again he lowers the cat by the scruff of the neck into his top hat before returning it to his head with a flair of movement. "I am not with Shim... I assume you mean Shimmer. Very hot girl, and insane range, but quite limited in her own way. All those pesky photos..." He shakes his head. "No no, I am... what you would call an 'independent researcher', and these three are my latest fascination. Such interesting mutations... The dear girl can form a bond with any housecat and turn it into.. well those..." He taps his top hat with the cane. A faint mewling is heard. "Shame about her... dietary requirements... still, humans are, biologically speaking, a rather cheap source of protein given the eight billion on the planet. Only one of her.. and so much easier to contr... study when she gets her meat regularly instead of what happens when she doesn't." He leans down and checks the girl's pulse. "Ah, sleeping like a baby, and not a broken bone or even a bruise. Amazing how tough her body is..."
Violet's eyelids flutter open, and as they do, the mindlink flutters back into place. She rolls her head over in Rocket's lap, and with shallow breaths assesses the newcomer.
Violet, To All: ::This guy's an arrogant nutbar, isn't he? I hurt all over.::
She looks up at Rocket and manages a weak smile. "Hey. Did we win? I hurt all over. Ow. Call my uncle, tell him I need help."
"Oh, that reminds me, I'm sure someone will be calling the cops as soon as my little 'cone of silence' vanishes. Which will be any second now. You might want to dig your friend out and get out of here... now..." He touches the girl's body with the cane, and it floats up on a black haze. Then he touches her with one hand, and tips his hat with his cane. "Assuming you aren't arrested, I look forward to studying you in the future. Some of you hold potential as research subjects." He glances at Aegis and then to Mud. "On the other hand, some of you are rather plebian and common place as dirt." He looks from Blaze to Rocket to Violet to Pulse. Then he laughs and looks back to Mud. "No offense to our resident dirt man." And then his body turns solid black, as does the girl, and both vanish*.
The way he vanished looked exactly like how Shadowcat vanished when she teleported.
After a minute or so of silence (he's not really sure), Blaze chimes in. Well, I never thought I'd say something like this in real life, but I think we just met with a genuine, grade A supervillain boss."
And the world just became that much more disturbing.
And somehow, he wasn't bothered with being considered "plebian" by a man who felt there was no problem treating folks like meat.
Violet checks herself over as she realizes she can actually sit up.
"I still hurt all over, but maybe hold off on the phone call. For now."
She stands and ensures that everyone who is conscious is back on the mindlink.
Violet, to All::We can talk about his scene-chewing exploits later. Let's get the f* out of here. Now.::
Violet, to Blaze::Hey... Can you burn all of our blood off the floor?::
::Sure…as long as it's not mixed with gasoline::
"Stand back folks," Blaze said. "I have some physical evidence to destroy, before we leave
"En Fuego!"
After Snap had been freed from the cars Aegis tries to keep herself between the team and the new comer as he picked up the cats and their human, she matches his pace and would make no attempt to attack unless he made an aggressive move. "We'll let her know the family business is still running." Aegis tried to look relaxed as the flirt made his rounds but her tense body language betrayed her true nerve.
"Everyone able to stand?" She asks obviously excluding Snapdragon as she moved to pick her up. "We should get everyone that can go to a hospital there or find a way to contact Trinity Asap."
"Wobbly on the pins," Violet says, using Rocket to keep her balance as she stands. "But mostly okay. Should probably get looked at by someone who's not going to ask a lot of questions."
"Shim and crew probably have people that won't ask any questions. I tried calling them, but there aren't any signals down here... something tells me Shadowcat's gonna be really upset that we met her Creeper brother and just let him take the girl..." Pulse says with a grimace, finally pushing herself up once she's not feeling woozy at all.
"So... what happened? There was the car, and then I don't remember anything. Did I get KO'd by a car? Lame..."
Only then does she really realize he'd meant she was the one who'd been burned. Her body felt like she'd been out in the sun for too long (but she's only at 14/15 body, so I figure not super bad burns any more?) and stung pretty badly... she takes a moment to look down at her hands and arms.. through the burned away triple layers of clothing.
Mud continues to watch the Magician. He is actually happy to not be an interesting research subject for the Boss supervillian. The healing causes most of his human shell to reform except for a small slash.
As soon he departs, Mud moves to Snapdragon's car pile and carefully shifts cars until he can extract her. If she is still unconscious, he carries her out. He shifts Snap to cover his wound.
"Let's get home and review our injuries. Hospitals will ask questions. Let's motor. Pulse, can you check for any electronic surveillance along our exit?" Mud looks to everyone while heading for an exit.
When the Magician appears, Rocket is still recovering from the physical shock of having his guts ripped out.
We...we can't just let him take her, can we? More innocents are sure to die...but I doubt we're in any shape to fight that guy, if he's completely fresh. Still...
He looks down at his wounds--still fresh, despite the healing--and over at Violet, who he's supporting in his arms.
Another day, then. Another day.
When Blaze says he's going to clean up with fire, Rocket exclaims, "Hold on! There's a lot of spilled gas down here right now, including all over me. I don't think it's safe without risking a huge explosion.
"I can quickly sweep up biological evidence though. Vi, can you walk on your own for a few seconds?"
Rocket goes into speed-cleaning mode. In seconds he has swept up any blood and skin he can find, or anything else that seems like potentially incriminating evidence.
"OK, time to go fade away now, nurse our wounds...and call Shadowcat & gang to find out what exactly we've stumbled into."
Violet nods. "I'm glad I wore flats. Yes. Standing up is happening."
Violet reaches into her bag, pulls her wig and Santa Hat back on, and stumbles a bit as she heads for the door.
"Meh," she frowns. "Maybe not dancing right away. Ow."
After a bout of speed cleaning, Rocket continues up outside (arm around Vi) looking for a place to fade away into. Glancing at his phone he realizes that it's been barely a minute since he entered the garage.
To Violet's question, he nods. "A nice dinner sounds great. I'm famished!" He smiles, but then the smile turns into a bit of a wince as pain shoots through his belly while climbing the stairs.
::And of course I'll help you any way I can when we're back at the base. I uh--(Zach glances down at his savaged crotch, blushing)--I might not be joining you in bed for a little while though.::
Once the group bugs out and gets back to base camp, Violet spends several minutes writing up her after-action report and sending it off to the Home Office. She pays careful attention to the fact that this newcomer ("The Magician") was clearly arrogant, confident, and seemed to have been in no way stressed about the outcome of the situation. She also notes Pulse's reference to "Shadowcat's Brother," and questions why this information wasn't made available to the team.
Violet also references the time scale involved with the movement of the attacks up and down the river, suggesting that our various groups should be able to figure out a more reliable schedule, in case "Cerberus" shows up again. Violet is able to provide an exact description of the cat-girl, thanks to her Eidetic Memory.
Once she's done, she finds Rocket and gets him to help her out of her bloody clothes, wincing in obvious discomfort as the now sticky, crusty, nasty tatters are pulled off of her (still healing) wounds.
Violet, to All: ::If anyone has a line on doctors that don't ask too many questions, speak up now. Otherwise I'll see what my Uncle can come up with, okay?::
Tired, hurt, and more exhausted than she realized, Violet makes a command decision that "fancy dinner" with Rocket is allowed to consist of pizza, wine, and cake on the couch until she falls asleep.
If they where able to get everyone home safely Aegis would help Pulse to the main floor since the others seemed to have paired off and Blaze wasn't really hurt.
If Snapdragon had any signs of life she'd try to get her to any medical equipment they had while she searched for a way to get in contact with trinity and shadowcat, Wondering if the cards would work twice or if the number changed.
** spoiler omitted **
She also notes Pulse's reference to "Shadowcat's Brother," and questions why this information wasn't made available to the team.Violet, to All: ::If anyone has a line on doctors that don't ask too many questions, speak up now. Otherwise I'll see what my Uncle can come up with, okay?::
"No one knew about him until he told us he was her brother and copied her power,we didn't even know she had a brother much less an evil twin. "
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Violet eyes Aegis, seeming at once exhausted and perturbed that the other woman is looking over her shoulder.
"I'm pretty sure she knew she had a brother. It's sloppy record keeping."
Somewhere between the report and the pizza, Violet makes sure that Snapdragon is placed in a garden bed with a strong sun lamp shining on her, per her instructions (and thanks yet again to Violet's Eidetic Memory).
Mud's been with Snapdragon for awhile, so we can assume that he remembered her instructions, even though he really did not believe it. But would do it, because it's just funny.
Individually, Mud floats the idea to everyone of another collective after-action discussion of the fight to review any lessons learned. Besides mentioning the idea to everyone once, he doesn't push it.
He wears several layers of shirts even inside, because his small wound of dark brown liquid keeps soaking through the first two layers of fabric.
Several people notice them getting into the bus, but nobody raises the alarm, and apparently nobody got the license plate because nobody comes by asking later.
The next day, Violet's Uncle manages to get in contact, but can't help, based on the code words he responds with to her message, indicating he might be under surveilance, or possibly just in an Op.
However, Trinity, Shadowcat, and Shimmer all appear the next evening. Trinity immediately triages everyone, and then makes everyone, including the unconscious snapdragon, stand inside a 2 meter circle (granted, Snapdragon is mostly held up by others).
Then she holds out a hand, and begins to walk around in a circle around everyone, her finger tracing in air. The tip of her finger begins to glow green, and her colors go strange, and then there's a purple her and a green her walking in a circle, the purple her walking faster than the green her. Each leaves a line in the air, one pruple, one green.
Then as the purple moves on ahead, it splits again, turning into a blue and red version of her, each at slightly different speeds, leaving a red, blue, and green line in the air.
As they finally reach equal distances around the group, the glowing light they leave begins to fall toward the ground, like a curtain of shimmering light. Finally the glowing red blue and green lines stay long enough to touch, and when all three touch, they become a bright glowing white circle around the group, shedding bright light over them.
The world seems to lurch for those in the circle, and then the light fades, and the three Trinities stand there with matching expressions, heads tilted slightly.
Red : "Well, that feel better?"
Blue : "You should really be more careful, I'm not sure what you'd do if I wasn't around."
Green : "Well, you'd scar, that's for sure... and Rocket would be a very unhappy camper going forward. Probably Violet too."
Mud stands amazed looking from previously wounded locations to others. "How? How did you do that?"
After returning to the base, Hotaru had sequestered herself in her room. Her literal open-door policy seeming to have ended as her door spends most of the time shut. When she does make appearances, mostly for food, she's sullen and quiet, and then retreats to her room. She doesn't ever ask anyone to go away... but until Trinity shows up 'broody' is the best adjective to use to describe her.
The first thing Pulse does after being healed is pull up the long sleeves of her shirt (she normally only wore short sleeve shirts) and look at her arms. That done, she pulls up the bottom to investigate her stomach. Her breath catches for a moment as she finds no scars and quickly wraps Blue in a hug.
Blue (through a hug) : "Well, first we load up the Eidos Backup, then overlay it on the current form..."
Green : "We perform a quasi-temporal shift at the molecular level, reversing the temporal flow while maintaining the energy quantum state to preserve..."
Red (Glaring at Blue and Green) : "We healed you up with no scars." She overrides the other two, resulting in a grin from blue and an annoyed frown from Green.
"You sound like we live in the Matrix." Mud prods wondering if he's just plugged in somewhere acting like a battery.
All three in unison make a Phhhgt sound.
Red : "Stupid trilogy. First was ok..."
Blue : "Internal logic failed like, over and over again..."
Green : "The science was horrible, humans don't provide enough energy to be a battery, and there's way better ways to gather energy than humans. Bacteria would provide more energy and require less support equipment."
"Think I'd make a decent battery." Pulse offers as she breaks away, attempting to collect herself, but quickly scampering away to a chair a small distance away. She wrings her hands and runs them along her arms as she sits and watches the others. "But I'd probably have to be awake for it. Which would suck."
Red : "You ain't human though..."
Blue : "They didn't have metas in the movie..."
Green : "There were no genetic mutations in the movie, unless you count the albino woman..."