After a month, the group is asked if they are ready to 'register' for gun permits, so they can work. It's deemed that they, with one exception, have changed their appearances enough that they are fine as is.
Pulse in her new buckyball suit looks nothing like she did 3 years ago. Blaze in any element other than fire looks completely different. Mud now looks however he wants. And Violet changes outfits as often as she changes her mind. It is suggested however that Violet and Blaze choose new 'public' names.
Aegis however, with her golden skin, is a problem. To cover this, they ask her to wear a full body suit. It's a mixture of rubber and steel fiber, and won't really provide any protection but will cover her from head to toe so she's not obviously a golden statue woman. She'll need to armor up under it, instead of over it, obviously.
Assuming that she is ameaneable, they will register them all as concealed weapon permit metas (with the exception of Aegis, who will need to register as a WMD due to her strength, as she can single handedly destroy a city in a few hours if she put her mind to it).
The group is not identified as the group that vanished int he repository for now, if it gets out, they'll deal with it then.
Pulse's spider web of images are all inspected, and the only people who can see the armored man in them are Aegis, Violet, Pulse, Mud, and Blaze.
Once everyone is assembled in St. Louis, they are asked if they would like to continue as a group, or split up. And also if they'd like to continue working out of the St. Louis office, or switch to one of the other offices? Kate is their case officer (Kate is everyone's case officer!).
[ooc]Your points stay the same in the base if you move, just the location changes. I assume you're not splitting up, but Kate would still ask. Kate oper
Violet is fine with moving, if it means new scenery and better weather - also, being in a new environment might help keep their covers better.
She's also fine with staying in town if that's what the group wants.
But if they are going to move, she suggests either Portland or LA.
"I think... The main thing is to answer the question of what we want to do individually. Do we want to be heroes? Vigilantes? Bounty hunters? We each got involved for our own reasons... So maybe the question is less about where we want to be, and more about where our interests align. I don't want to split up, but the question is still out there about how capable we are as heroes, and what the best role is that we can play." she says, looking to the others.
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"I'll tell you something I only ever told Zack," Violet says quietly. "All I've ever wanted to do is make my daddy proud. He saw a world where people like me... people with powers... helped the people without powers, because it was the right thing to do. Where we did what we did because it's the natural duty of those with powers to make the world a better place. He never said this to me. But he thought it. Every time he looked at me."
Violet pauses to contemplate her cup of tea. "I know we can't fix all of the world's problems. I mean, how do we fix all of society's ills?"
"But daddy loved Star Trek," she smiles. "He wanted a better world. And if we can do anything to make that happen? Even a little? Then call me a super hero."
"Are you guys registering your real names? Weren't we already registered by our proxies who faked our lives?" Mud had only just emerged when they came for the registration question. If everyone registers their real names so will Adam.
"I was a boy scout, so I want to help people, too." Mud offers.
"My real name is a bunch of numbers, the first five letters of my gene sequence, and the letter "Z"," Violet says, completely seriously. "There's nothing tying either Cadence or Calleach to Violet Markey, so..."
She shrugs.
"I've been kind of toying with the name 'Kyrie Elléson'," she adds. "Just to see who gets it."
Pulse looks from Blaze to Aegis, who hadn't spoken up, yet. "I'm in the same boat. Short of like... Blackwatch things, I just want to help people. And even then, I'm sort of uncommonly equipped for doing those things without hurting anyone."
She then turns her attention back to Kate, "I don't plan to leave the team, but a supers group with really similar skillsets right here in this place seems to be begging for a problem. But... this is our home, and I don't want to leave the memories behind, unless we have to. Can you give us an overview of the sort of things the company has done while we've been gone?"
Violet raises her hand.
"Tiny white girl loves winter fashion but hates winter cold and - in light of HoHo's very astute observation about people not being stupid and putting two-and-two together - amends her previous statement and votes for moving somewhere with sunshine most of the year. Possibly near Disneyland."
Aegis's trip to the Dugway military base was as fruitless as she had expected but she needed to do something no matter how pointless, at the very least it would keep her busy while the others recovered from the last fight and adjusted to the current situation. Depending on how long the trip took she would often, likely a little to often, call in to make sure everyone was okay and to keep up with what was going on back home. When she returned she delved heavily into any project she could find: Pulse's new suit, researching her metal or any other work others asked of her.
When discussing registration Aegis is fine with the paperwork assuming everyone else is but when they ask her to wear a suit she'd be livid, it would take quite a bit of convincing to get her to even consider the idea and even then she would demand heavy modifications.
"We need to take care of what we left behind before we move on, between Pulse's mystery man our team still being MIA we can't go running off to play hero yet." At the mention moving Aegis begins to look like they'd asked her to wear the suit again but controls it much better this time. "No, this is still our home and our base. We've been gone so long and so much has happened the odds anyone remembers us is questionable at best and even if they do they only know our old alias."
"I'm kind of with Violet and Pulse on the 'stay or go' thing," Blaze interjected. "A home isn't a place, in my opinion. It's the people you're with. I'd like to stick with the people in this room…but probably not here."
Kate nods. "Ok, then I think we'll use you guys as a reaction team. We don't really have a way to keep you from being noticed if you show up in St. Louis again. But, we can keep you based out of here, and we can bring your fakes back from overseas so you can walk around in public again as yourselves."
Over another 2 weeks, the group's real identities slowly make their way back to the US, pay taxes, and the group gets a chance to go visit with relatives (after a telepathic download of all the e-mails and videos they sent, thanks to a mutant girl named 'Replay' who can watch or read something once and then make a perfect mental image in a target's head, so they remember it as well as she does, she's about 14, and can't do telepathy, other than to push the images into people's minds). This way the group can answer questions about where they were, or at least, what they sent. She also pushes some images of the places they were supposed to be, and some general knowledge about the areas.
After the two weeks, the group is officially 'reactivated' as Fire Team Cancer (there are Fire Team Aries, Taurus, and Gemini as well). You get 'official' uniforms with little metal emblems built into the breast and shoulder patch. (Pulse get's two made out of neodynium magnets to stick to her buckyball uniform).
You are allowed to alter the color scheme, but they would like you to all wear the same scheme (including Pulse, who'll need to paint her bucky balls and learn to form them in pattern).
Once everyone has gotten their uniforms adjusted, Kate calls them all into a conference room with a large display. "Hello everyone! I hope you like the uniforms, we based them off the Marvel movies, but with actual material that works! They don't provide much armor, but they should survive most attacks with minimal damage, so no wardrobe malfunctions."
"I have a mission for you. We don't normally work in South America, other than our little outing to Ecuador, which I'm sure you all remember. The locals, and the government, has become very accepting of Metas since we saved that town. Well, the Ecuadoran government has their own Meta team now, and it's gone missing. They've contacted us and asked us to look into it. They've even given us permission to open an office in their capital, and link it to our network. They'll provide security, so be careful what you talk about, and don't use real names. Code names only. Since you never used your code names before, you can keep your existing code names for now." She brings up the map of Ecuador, and zooms in on a section of the rainforest where Ecuador, Peru, and Columbia meet. A small town named Güeppí appears. "Güeppí is a town in Peru, just over the Ecuadorian border. The Peruvian army and navy both keep a port here, to guard their northern border. Columbian drug cartels have started to send their people south through Ecuador's eastern corridor into Peru to smuggle drugs, as the security is lighter for Peruvian ships and planes than it is for Columbian planes and ships. Ecuador sent in some soldiers when they heard rumors of some cartels attacking the native villagers in their ranforests. However, the soldiers never reported back in. So they sent their Meta team in, 4 metas, none as strong as any of you, from our understanding. They never returned either. Ecuador has asked us to send some strong people, preferably people who were in Ecuador previously. Since you're free, Sanction said you'd be a good choice. We'll have to fly you down, since we don't have the link to a base set up yet, but the Ecuadorians have sent a private plane with diplomatic papers to the airport in Dallas-Fort Worth. They'll provide additional supplies, like food, and water purification pellets, for you while you're there. We don't have any information on what happened to the soldiers or Meta team. The Ecuadoran's would like their people back, if possible, and if not, to know what happened to them and for whatever took them out to be neutralized if possible, if not, then intelligence returned on it. They're willing to perform a military strike from the air if needed, if you can identify where they need to strike."
Pulse records the simple map and files it away, getting a basic gist of the geography into her head, to be added to later, with a small binge, so they don't get all turned around very easily. She chews on her lips amidst all of the talking. "Do they think they're dead, or it's a hostage situation? Where are we going to be dropped off, in Gueppi, or closer to the target? Do they have any certainty of cartels, or has nothing been confirmed?"
"My understanding is you'll be dropped off in Quito, and then, after meeting with the Ecuadorians, they'll chopper you out to Puerto Ospina, where you get to take a nice boat ride on the border. Take mosquito repellant..." She pauses. "Well, those who don't have steel skin. They don't know anything, which is why they're asking for help."
Kate looks at Pulse. "And you, young lady, drink tons of water. The average temperature this time of year is 86 degrees, but it can go as high as 98. The heat index where you're going is 120 to 180. Blaze may not mind that, but you will!" She nods at the others. "Those uniforms are designed to breath, so you should be ok. But Pulse's suit is bucky balls, they trap heat. Make sure you dowse her with water regularly to cool her off."
"But wardrobe malfunctions are half the fun," Violet smirks. "Am I joking? I could be! You'll never know! But seriously, if we're Team Crab, are we going with, like, white sheep crab, or brown uncooked tasty crab, or red cooked crab, or what? For our uniform color, I mean. We could be decorator crabs and run around with big feathered boa's around our neck."
"Someone pick suggest a color or I'm putting us all in for pink."
On the topic of the trip to Ecuador:
"So they had reports of cartels going Scarface, sent in troops, sent in Metas... and nothing? The reports are still going on, though? What about satellite footage? Maybe Pulse could woogie it and spot something others have missed?"
"We don't have access to satellites, and accessing them would invalidate our charters, and get more than just you and me in trouble. So let's not do that..." The unsaid 'unless we absolutely have to' goes unsaid. "They haven't heard any more reports, but they haven't heard anything at all, which is just as worrying."
"Well... there are two prevailing thought-lines for color choices. We either go garrish to prevent collateral damage and make ourselves stand out, so as not to get caught by surprise, or we go dull, and blend in better with the scenery. Bright pink definitely does the first one. If we're sticking to theme, Homestuck cancer is canonically gray, but in the extended canon of Hiveswap, Andrew Hussie makes it a sort of limon color. Like those Mountain Dew Ice drinks that came out a few years back, while we were gone."
"Great comic, really terrible fandom," Violet sighs. "Let's not do that. I was thinking Greek Mythology, since we're doing Astrological signs, but... On a scale of blend or bright, I'm always going to go with bright. We're heroes. We should look like we are."
"I am that fandom." Pulse says, "I am all the fandoms."
"How are we planning on employing Blaze's talents in a tropical rainforest? In fact, does anyone have any ideas we can work out and iron out on how to go about things before we even set out?"
"Well, the British army wore red to hide the blood stains. Or we could go bright pink, to support Breast Cancer. Is that still a thing?"
" Did someone really think out naming us Cancer? If that becomes public, it won't go over well. I certainly don't want to likened to a deadly disease." Mud suggests while modeling the different colors on his cosmetic suit.
"I like purple. It's vivid, like pink, but also represents all sorts of disorders, not least of which, ADHD. Is purple taken? Is anyone against purple? I don't like the name, either, but I like the symbol." Pulse says with a grin.
Kate frowns. "If you prefer, we could use the Chinese Zodiac, how do you feel about being Team Pig?"
”Well, I don’t like Team Pig much better than Cancer. And I don’t understand why you would suggest them if you weren’t just hazing the new recruits. Why don’t you just go with the Greek alphabet, like the military, if we can’t get a cool team name?”. Mud crosses his arm in teenage angst.
"We intentionally chose something everyone could recognize, and also that wasn't military. Team Bravo sounds Military. Team Aries, Team Capricorn, Team Cancer, sounds like organizational names. If you want a press name, pick a city we have a contract with and no formal team. Knock yourselves out. For these response teams, they're supposed to be made up as needed, so there's no permanent name. You guys are a special case, since we're trying to keep you out of public sight for another year or two."
"Ah, the perils and pitfalls of PR management," Blaze mused. "I'm good with Team Cancer for now, guys. It's makes me feel a bit oogie, but that'll probably give us motivation to come up with a better name years down the road—let's just avoid calling ourselves the Thunderbolts, though."
"Good, now that we're past that..." She bites off the word 'nonsense' and continues. "Any questions that are of a more save your life type, and less of a give Repli-Kate grief type?"
"Yeah. Let's go back to the 'Johhny Blaze meets the endangered Tapir and proceeds to accidentally burn down his home. What are we doing on that front?"
"We're firmly on the side of 'don't burn down the jungle'. On the bright side, Johnny may have trouble getting anything to burn down there. It's 100% humidity, and everything down there is soaked with water. The river is up 4 feet, and overflowing it's banks. You missed a massive rainy season that's just letting up. Don't be surprised if you get a major cloud burst while you're there. It should only be 8 or 10 inches of water at a time now though. They had 3 feet of water in one day about a month ago."
Feeling put down, Mud crosses his arms and unsuccessfully tries not to pout.
"Good. So we don't burn down the forest just by defending ourselves. Are there any local rebel groups or militias or the like we should be on the lookout for? Are there any uprisings? Is the leader in good standing with his people? I do not want a Beyond: Two Souls experience. Or to get randomly shot at by the locals from both sides."
"No information available on that. The people who'd have let us know that are the people who are out of communications." She says, and then continues on. "The local government was put into place about a year ago, through a popular uprising. Money is still scarce, but the economy is improving, and they're getting international assistance. There aren't many people crying about the previous leadership being out of office, unless you count the ones upset they aren't in jail and managed to skip town."
"Right, so still in the ballpark that we're up against the old regime moving back in, and not just a drug cartel or something else racially profiling of South America. Ugh, what is wrong with me and assumptions. Do we have any plans for extraction if things go badly?"
"That's what this is for." She pulls a sat-phone out of her fanny pack, as well as a memory stick, and tosses it to Hotaru. "Stick has the satellite phone comm protocols on it, plus a 'how to' course on interacting with satellite phone system API's. Use the flight to figure out how to talk to he satellites, Pulse. Then give the phone to Mud or Aegis, Aegis is most likely to still be standing, but Mud can hide it better. Mud, don't get liquid inside it, no shorting it out with mud."
"I'll need to pack some others things before we leave." Aegis stated as she took the Satellite Phone for safekeeping."Do we know anything about who they sent in? Might help us know what to expect. When do we leave?"
"They sent in an army unit, 12 men, all highly trained, with weapons. You leave as soon as I can get you all on a plane in Dallas."
Everyone grabs their uniforms, and meet in the basement. Kate takes the white tile marked 'Dallas' off the wall and puts it in the unit. Then the opening grows dark, darker, then pitch black. Finally multicolor lights form a whirlpool on it's side in the air inside the metal circle. "Ok, through you go. Try not to puke on the other side."
Stepping into the whirlpool is like pushing your way through molasses. You can't breath while in it, you can't see anything more than the swirl in front of you, but it offers a point of reference. Forcing your way forward, you finally step out of the other end into a large room with guards and SMGs, similar to the one you left.
You are shakey as you step off the platform, your legs and arms wobbly as if you had just run for 10 minutes.
Aegis is even worse, she steps out of the swirl and onto the platform, and bends over in pain as her body rejects the sudden transition violently.
Kate is waiting there with a clipboard. "I did tell you to try not to throw up. Do you need a bucket Aegis?" She asks. Now she's wearing jeans and a MLP is Friendship t-shirt, and her hair is done up in pony tails. "When you're all done being sick at your stomach, I've got an SUV upstairs waiting to take you to the airport." She makes shooing motions, obviously wanting you to hurry.
Violet mutters something about getting the technology out of Beta, and how she's glad she remembered not to fully zip up her uniform before stepping through. "Because nothing says 'shortness of breath' like stepping through that thing with your uniform zipped up to your neck."
Zipping up, she heads to the stairs.
"F%#&! Is all she really manages to get out as she takes a moment to sit down and recovery. She holds up a finger when Kate addresses her and takes out her flask for a long drink and a deep breath."I'm fine." She says shortly with another quick exhale. "Ok, Let's go."
She stood waving off any attempt to help her up, if it was offered. She stayed close to Pulse and it was clear she hadn't fully recovered from the travel but there was no way she'd admit it.
Pulse doesn't seem wobbly-kneed, but she does seem rigid, as she uses her magnetism to help support her for a moment, not really moving as she sticks close to those coming through. "It's not that bad. Also, this syntax... ugh." she says, complaining about her own situation as she continues to read.
Mud gets waved off for trying to help up Aegis. He looks around where they arrived.
"Glad…I only had something light to eat," Blaze commented as he eventually got his legs to stop being like Jell-o long enough to follow. "Hope there's an in-flight dinner, though…more than a bag of peanuts, y'know?"
"I told the driver to stop by Taco Bell on the way. There's sodas on the plane, but it's a small corporate type jet, no kitchen. There is a bathroom though." She leads the group out of the room. They quickly find they are in what seems to be a converted industrial complex. The entry room is in an underground storage area. Up top, what may once have been a factory of some kind has been converted into places for people to practice their powers. Large chunks of metal have obvious fist marks and score marks on them. Some people stand around, a girl with spider arms coming out of her back, a man with spikes coming out of his back and other joints, several people who look like unpowered humans in black security uniforms. They all wave or smile at the group as Kate hustles them through the area.
A large blue SUV (a Tesla SUV) sits in a corner of the area. The driver, a young man with blue eyes and a buzz cut who has a distinct military bearing gives everyone an easy smile. "No worry folks, I'll get you to the airport. You can call me Sam."
The drive to the airport (with a quick drive through to buy $100 worth of Taco Bell) is not too bad. The SUV is comfortable, and silent as it rolls down the road. The driver points out interesting things along the route, and pays for the food.
The SUV enters the airport via the private aircraft entrance, the driver showing some papers with what looks like foreign symbols on it. The Airport guard waves the SUV through. "Gotta love diplomatic immunity." He says after they pass through.
The SUV rolls up to a VTOL jet. "Ok folks, here's your ride."
A woman in military fatigues gives a wave. "Hello. You are my passengers, yes? I am Captain Vintamilla. Luggage goes in the cargo area..." She motions toward the back of the plane, where a panel is already open. "Not a commercial airline, and I am no flight attendant. Load up and get buckled in while I finish the refueling." She then heads over to where 2 other airport employees are hooking a fat hose up to the plane and a hole in the ground, and begins to speak to them about the fueling.
"Hi, Sam." Pulse offers but doesn't say much more. She chews on her lip inside of her 'helmet'. She's stuck in her head, learning the majority of the sat-phone protocol, so she'll have a chance to test it before they actually need it. "Just for curiosity's sake... what could we do to screw up our diplomatic immunity?"
"A small, corporate... VTOL. Okay. I am definitely not caught up. I thought that was just an anime thing. On that note, super cool."
She doesn't waste any time carrying her small bag over, most of what she needed was in her head, after all.
"We don't have diplomatic immunity, the Ecuadorian's do, and we are under their immunity as we're their contractors. All it really does is get us into the airport without going through security."
Mud tries not to sulk to the airport, but when Sam introduces them to their ride, his smile could not be wider.
"Wow! That's amazing! This is amazing!" He stumbles out of the SUV clearly gobsmacked and asks the pilot, "What is it?"
The pilot wraps up speaking with the fueling folks, and then comes back over and waves her hand in front of Mud. "Luggage on first, then talk after takeoff. There is 6 hours in the air to talk about plane. Luggage in plane, body in plane, body in seat, seatbelt on body, plane in air, talk in plane." She explains to Mud, but she does have a smile on her face as she looks at the plane. It's obviously brand new.
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Once everyone is strapped into their seats, which are very comfortable, with 8 seats in the back, the pilot sits in the right front pilot seat. She speaks to the tower, announcing the flight number, destination, and getting clearance. Then the flaps on the wings open and air begins to get sucked through the wings, pushing against the ground. Like a tipsy hawk, the plane begins to rise up, swiveling back and forth a few inches as it rises up. When it's a hundred feet off the ground, the rear jets kick in, and begin pushing it forward, and then up, and rapidly the jet begins to climb away from the airport.
Once the plane is at 30,000 ft and on autopilot, the pilot takes her headset off, and puts an earpiece in instead. "There, we will be in Quito in six hours. There are pops in the cooler." She points to a panel between the right hand 2nd and 3rd seats. "Bathroom is back there." She points to the door at the back of the plane. "If you confuse the two, I throw you out without landing." She grins. "This is a Gulfstream GVT100. Fourth one off the assembly line. Was finished building two months ago. This is first official flight for it since we got it. Handles like a dream. Could take you to final destination, but not cleared to land at non-airports yet by big wigs. Too expensive to chance for now."
The interior of the aircraft has that 'new car' smell.