(2) - Dawn of the Metahumans

Game Master mdt

Violet will use her vast mental elasticity to alter her speech and vocal patterns to make herself more agreeable and charismatic in their minds.

5d6 Aid To Presence: 5d6 ⇒ (1, 6, 4, 3, 1) = 15

New Presence = 33

Presence Roll 16 or less, -2: 14 - 3d6 ⇒ 14 - (1, 1, 5) = 7

Made the roll by 7, which is half or less, if that matters.

In an effort to alleviate potential panic, Blaze (or Windy, or Airboy or whatever), settled to the ground, and turned back to his uniformed human self. He hoped that would help things out, but he also worried about what might happen the next time he tried to transform.

I don't feel I have anything to add to the present scene.

::Tell them if they have anything mechanical or electronic, I can help with that, but otherwise I'm mostly useless here.::

The locals seem to calm down some, or at least accept that the group doesn't have any medicine or ability to kill the snakes immediately, and they begin to filter back away from the group.

The village head, a man in his 60's, does step forward however. "We no feed. No food for us now." The old man says in broken English, so everyone can hear him.

Speaking with the elder, in a mixture of broken English and Spanish and a smattering of Portuguese, the team finds that the village is low on food, and only has water because the village itself abutes up against a small stream so they can get fresh water continuously. They do boil it first, as it's not the well water that's just outside the village. One of the drug men, the paramilitary people who worked for a cartel, was a radio specialist, and figured out that the snakes couldn't see through a wire cage, or the village would be dead now.

::Pulse, if they are willing to work with you, could you talk to their radio specialist and maybe work out something that could get a signal out? Violet would you be okay with going with her? She'll need a translator and I don't want anyone alone in here, victims or not they're still capable and I don't trust them enough to risk people going off on their own.::

"How about you and I check the wall?" Aegis said to Blaze. "Make sure there isn't any obvious holes or things that may require a more meta approach?" ::I want to make sure these people aren't going to try anything, willing to walk around with me and try to get a read?:: She turns to Violet. "Will you ask them if that's okay?"

"If you're sure you can go out and not get hurt, you could go grab some of the snakes we knocked out and bring them back. Since... you know... these guys are hungry." Pulse suggests to Aegis, growing rapidly impatient with everything.

"One thing at a time," Blaze suggested, "Assuming of course we can predict what I might change into next time. Check wall first, that can't be too hard."

He was kind of concerned. Why did he change into "Air Boy" instead of "Torchy"? What was going on here?

There's not much Violet can do except be a translator and calming influence on the villagers, so assume that's what she's doing unless otherwise needed.

I'm waiting on Violet to grab this hook from Kitty, since she can apparently do what Pulse wanted to do without all the extra effort:

Violet doesn't have the link to a Kate currently, however, she has had enough training to know that if she does her mind scan over Atlanta, London, or Tokyo in a specific pattern, then there are several telepaths who are able to detect it and will try to link up to her remotely, which would allow her to get a link. If you'd asked to set one up before you left, Kate would have.

I read that as "since you didn't ask, you don't have it," but if that's what he meant, and a retroscript is allowed, then let's do that. Otherwise, Violet can't actually mindscan accurately at that distance.

Well, if we can't, we need to swap to longterm things, not just short term scenes, I think. Pulse's SOS will take time. Violet or Blaze flying out for help will take time. If Violet can carry wounded outside of the Snake's arc and to safety that presents the ability for us to get them out slowly without risk. Aegis can go collect the snakes and bring them back as food int he short term, maybe.

Hotaru interpreted my post correctly, I've been mostly waiting for Vi to do her SOS mind scans...

Huh. Okay, I wasn't aware that I could be that accurate at that distance, but, sure. What do you need me to roll? Just my normal 10d6?

There's really no penalty involved, as you're not scanning for a specific person, you're just scanning over an area that you are vaguely familiar with. So usually you scan for someone you've linked to before, in the city, such as Kate. The roll to do that would be +2 (familiar mind) -12 (major metropolis), and you don't really care if you actually link up, if you do, great, faster link up. If not, then the other mentalist is alerted by the ones using mental awareness in the city, and then they scan for you. They know generally where you are based on your assignment. So bascially, you get 5 chances to roll low enough to lock onto Kate directly. If you do, she knows you did so, and will know it's an issue. The 10d6 don't really matter because you're just sending an 'SOS' type thing. It would matter if your telepathy was separate from your mind scan, but we're still working on that. So basically, hitting Kate speeds up how long it takes to get back to you.

Violet's Mind Scan and Mind Link are not in the Multipower with her Telepathy, so I'm not sure what you mean by "separate". Let me know what you need me to roll (ECV, just straight dice, whatever), and I'll get on it.

Ah, thought they were. In that case, you can do the mind scan for real, and try to hit Kate in a major metropolitan area. That would be an ECV attack roll with a total modifier of -10. If you manage to hit it (11-10+8 = 9 or less) then you can roll the 10d6 to 'latch onto' one of the Kates in that city. If you succeed, you can use telepathy to talk to her immediately. If not, then it will take X many days for the other telepath to find you, with X being roughly based on how close you came to hitting the 9 or less you needed (10,10,10,14,16 will be much faster than 16,16,17,17,18).

Nope, we moved them out a while ago. But I don't blame you for thinking they were. It's been a while since I used this power combination.

9-3d6: 9 - 3d6 ⇒ 9 - (6, 1, 3) = -1

Missed it by Thaaaaaaat much.

Violet doesn't look happy, but will quietly tell Pulse and Aegis that if we can hold out for a day or so, there might be some good news coming soon.

::All right, are we going to stay here then? If so I don't want anyone going out on their own. These people are jumpy at best and they have some weird weapons.:: "If they'd be willing to eat the snake we can drag it back but I'm worried that might bring some attention. Violet, will you ask them about it? We can give the wall a quick look from the outside if we're going to get the body."

::Pulse, would you be okay staying here with Violet while Blaze and I go get the snake?::

::"Do we know that it's safe to eat?":: Violet replies. ::"Going hungry sucks, but it's better than being poisoned by Demon Snake.::"

::I... think it's likely that I could eat it. Even assuming they were gonna microwave us from the inside. It's not likely they're both venomous and poisonous. That eats up way to much evolutionary XP to be reasonable. Apex predators pretty much don't ever have reason to be poisonous.:: Pulse responds, looking towards Aegis, ::Told you Tierzoo was cool.::

::I think that I'll wait for you to come back with the snake, then you and I can go SoS til I'm exhausted.:: Pulse responds with a small shrug.

::For what it's worth, the unconscious snakes aren't communicating the same way the other snakes are. So while maybe they'd call for help if they woke up, we'd be fine inside the cage... assuming we found a way to filet them. Eating one would definitely boost these guy's morale, I think. Anything you can eat suddenly doesn't seem so scary.::

::Normal evolutionary rules don't apply when you're talking about a world in which there are people capable of turning into solid bodies of fire or made of living mud, Ho-Ho. All the rules of what's safe to eat are out the frickin' door.::

::So, Blaze and Aegis are heading out to get food, and you and I are on the backburner... for now. Once they get back I'll start blasting static into the radio waves in the hopes of getting some kind of response a little sooner. Any other ideas on how to leverage our abilities? I mean, short of Aegis inventing a radar invisibility cloak?::

::Even if they can't eat it, seeing one of them dead might help morale at the very least. Blaze are you good to come with me? You could keep an eye out from the sky and let me know if something tries to sneak up on us, I'd rather not fight these things again if we can avoid it.::

If Blaze is ok with going with her Aegis will head out and try to drag part of a snake back.

::Stay close to each other and if anything even seems suspicious call out and we'll come running. I know these people are the victims here but I still have a bad feeling about this place.::

Blaze and Aegis venture forth and retrieve the head of a snake to reassure the villagers that it's dead. Unfortunately, eating it is likely not safe, considering the number of dead insects and animals they found on and around the snake's carcass.

The other snake was nowhere to be found, and apparently survived the encounter.

Over the next few days, they begin to find the names of the locals out, with Violet being pressed into translator many times. Apparently several of the mercenaries don't speak English or Spanish, and the former translator died before they could get into the village.

They find out the mercenaries were working for drug smugglers, escorting a shipment of raw coke through the jungle when the snakes attacked them. Their small arms fire did little more than annoy the snakes. Violet does find out that the snakes, at that time, were being directed or observed by a human, although the mercenaries don't give much of a description beyond 'white man'.

A couple of days later, Violet feels a mind reaching toward her, a powerful and very ordered mind. The mind brushes hers, and then locks on with a grip that feels a bit like a pair of steel pliers. "Identify yourself." Is the only thing said after telepathic contact is established.

It probably won't help, but Violet would attempt to re-scan every day that we didn't get contact. Probably safe to assume that this is the result of those continued attempts.

Violet scrunches up her nose at the rude contact, but replies calmly.

"Cadence," Violet replies. "You?"

"Psywave. What do you want? This better be an emergency." The mental voice comes back, sounding annoyed and distracted.

Remind me who Psywave is?

No one you've met thus far

"I'm the team telepath on AMS Rescue Team Cancer," Violet replies. "And we have a situation, here. We have multiple, possibly genengineered, herpeforms down here, that have meta-level abilities, and who have corralled numerous civilians into a relative safe-zone."

She provides mental imagery of everything the group knows about the snakes, and the compound. [b]"We have the civilians secured, but there aren't enough of us to get them out of here safely."

She pauses for effect. "So, yeah. Safe to say we have an emergency situation on our hands. We need extraction assistance to our coordinates ASAP."

"Connecting you with Replikate Network. Hold." The voice is still prickly, but a few seconds later, Vi finds herself in connection with Kate. To say that Kate's network has gotten more... complex... is an understatement. Trying to fixate on one Kate while talking is difficult at best.

"Ok... that's a modified..."

"...Dendroaspis polylepis it appears, although..."

"Looking for rescue teams..."

"...there's some obvious Naja nigricollis involved too..."

"...no, that's Naja ashei..."

"...anyone know the atomic weight of Californium?"

"...those burns are acidic and temperature related..."

"...so there's some Coleoptera Carabidae mixed in..."

"...251 u."

"...but which branch?"

"Probably Brachanini, they're the most common..."

"Located potential relief team..."

"Not in South America..."

"Neither are Dendroaspis polylepis..."

"Nor Naja ashei..."

"What rhymes with Nantucket... that isn't lewd?"

"Anyone know how many teeth a tiger has?"

"Which species? They vary..."

"Rescue on way..."

"I dunno, I'm not the zoologist? How do I tell which one I'm looking at?"

<SUDDEN JOLT OF PAIN>

"Gahh..." In stereo times 1000...

"Who died? The one asking about tiger teeth?"

"Not me, I'm in a zoo with a glass wall between me and the tiger."

"It was number 93, she fell off the cliff face in Annapurna, Nepal, the rope got cut on some sharp stones."

"93 again? Don't remake her ok? She's always getting killed doing something stupid and giving me a migraine...

Violet sighs, and thanks Kate.

"Can I get a dedi-Kate, here, please? Just one. Maybe two. Easier to coordi-Kate that way. Also, I will continue with the puns until it happens."

To the team:

::We have a relief team on the way, if I'm deciphering the Kate-Net properly. Trying to get an ETA.::

"Ooo, it's a pun off..."

"...better Kate than never!"

"...Kate minds think alike!"

"I love that one!"

"Me too!"

"Me Three!"

"Me 103!"

"She shouldn't have started a pun contest, now she's behind the Kate ball..."

"What do you call a Limey Kate? Kate Britain!"

"Not so loud you guys, you're distracting me while I drive over the Golden Kate Bridge."

"Hey, I'm diving off the Kate Barrier Reef!"

"I'm water sking in the Kate Lakes!"

"I'm sure she has Kate Expectations for our skill at sending rescue..."

"Yep, we'll ensure she has the Kate Escape!"

"We'll ensure she doesn't see Heaven's Kate!"

"Why are Kate's like a computer? Because we have Field-Programmable Kate Arrays!"

"I dunno, that requires too much computer engineering knowledge 72."

"Yeah, she'd have to understand XOR Kates and NOR Kates OR Kates and AND Kates to get that one 72."

"53, you're not helping."

"We should be a production studio and call it Lions Kate Entertainment!"

"They could produce a movie called 'Kate is Enough'!"

"We could get Jester to do the special effects, she's always up for a good pun off."

"You forgot about NAND Kates 53!"

"And there goes 72 again..."

"Ooh! And XNOR Kates?"

"NeKated AND Kate!"

"What do you call the entrance to Hades?"

"The Kate to Hell?"

"The best RPG game ever? On a computer?"

"Baldurs Kate!"

"Are you beginning to Kate this yet, Violet?"

"Ok everyone, that's enough." A stronger voice echoes through the cacophony. There's a round of 'awws' and 'boos' but the network goes quieter. "OK, Kate Prime here. Should be less than a few hours to rescue."

"Your Kate only makes me stronger, you fools," Violet smirks. "Thanks, I'll prep the group."

Violet then informs the team and the survivors that help is On The Way (tm).

Just over 24 hours later, Vi's link to Kate wakes up. Incoming, Purple Eyes."

A few seconds later, there's the sound of a high pitched whine, and then a red, white and blue high tech suit comes buzzing in from above, landing hard just outside the wire mesh around the village, leaving a deep 'WHUMP' resounding in the air. On the left breast, the letters K.A.T.E are emblazoned.

The suit is almost 7 feet tall, and moves with alacrity and fast movements that are oddly jerky and yet also oddly fluid at the same time. Kate's voice comes from the speaker in the front. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to fly this thing without radar or radio engaged?" She moves the mesh aside to step inside.

On her back is a massive cargo pod, about the size of a coffin.

"105 on site, preparing to deploy the RTD."

Stomping to the center of the village, she turns around, and the metal pod on her back detaches, and begins to unfold, forming a round platform about 4 feet in diameter, and then forming a ring structure that's an oval about 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide, in the center. It looks similar to the teleport tube in the basement of the St. Louis base.

"Ok, get the wounded up here, wounded priority, then children, then adults. It takes 10 minutes to charge this thing each time it's used, so prioritize those who need the most medical attention."

The device begins to humm and buzz as it powers up. "ETD, 1 minute, 12 seconds."

"Imagine trying to exist with radar and radio always engaged." Comes the snarky reply from inside the cage.

Pulse begins trying to organize everyone into a queue... not that she'll have much success given that everyone seems to speak different languages and will react differently to the knowledge - that would soon appear - that they were getting out. Or being sent into a hell dimension. It really depended on how trusting they were.

"Hey, Kate... is that gonna work with this Cage around it? And... is it gonna send off any powerful signals that the snakes might be able to pick up on?"

::I hope this doesn't become a tower defense...::

"Doesn't use radio waves sweetie. Unless your snakes can hear muon particles decaying, we should be ok. It's basically an Einstein-Rosenberg bridge with a temporal limiter on it, so we don't accidentally send everyone into 2055 or something. One way trip those, so yeah, we try to avoid them." As the first wounded person is helped up onto the platform, they and the two people carrying the boy with the bad acid burns seem to stretch like taffee and then vanish down the tube.

The locals cry out, and the boy's mother begins to yell.

"Uh, Violet, can you calm them down? This is normal... and they just arrived safely, the boy's getting medical attention now. They're in the capital city, on the military base. Really good doctors... Damnit, I knew 37 should have come, I can't keep all the skills in my head to keep this thing working AND speak Spanish!"

*coughcough*Rosen not Rosenberg*coughcough*

Violet cringes at the screams and once again exerts her calming influence.

"It's Portuguese, mostly."

5d6 Presence Aid: 5d6 ⇒ (5, 6, 5, 4, 2) = 22

Current PRE 40. Not tooooo bad, but I have GOT to buy Oratory.

Need me to roll anything, or can I just 40 PRE my way through shouting with a megaphone?

40 PRE Megaphones work on non-enhanced people

Once the villagers are calmed down, they begin to line up again, looking apprehensive, but calmer. The former drug mules look a bit reluctant to go through the portal, but finally agree to drop their guns and step through after thinking about it for 10 minutes.

Eventually the entire village is evacuated, after nearly three hours.

When the last of them, the soldiers, go through, Kate wipes her forehead, and then closes the helmet back up. "Oh, thank god, cooling systems are the bomb. Ok, so, you lot ready to go through too?"

During the evacuation Aegis does what she can to help guide people and keep anyone from causing trouble, not being able to talk to most people made things a little difficult but she could make do with things like universal gestures. She helps with anyone or anything that needs to be carried to the teleporter but the entire time she is careful to keep an eye on her team and anyone that gets too close to them. ::A lot has changed since we've been 'gone'.::

"What about the snakes? We still have no idea what is causing them to get this massive and we still don't know about the missing metas, do we?"

"The giant snakes do remind me of Cerberus, though... the crazy cat-lady who hit me with a truck before the Magician showed up. Are 'similar' powers a super common thing, now that pepole are getting registered? Like, were there any 'giant shark' makers or 'giant eagle' makers that showed up? The Mercs said that they'd watched a guy watch the snakes for a bit." Pulse says, moving forward to the boom tube. "I'll get my videos uploaded as soon as I can. Journey to the Center of the Snek is going to be a great movie. Excellent practical effects."

Once all the civilians/survivors are through the portal, Violet follows them through, leaving the rest of the team to sort themselves out, as she could really use a First-Aid station and an anti-anxiety pill.

"See you all on the other side."

Aegis looks a little confused as Violet walks past them and into the portal. "All right. I guess we'll talk about it later." She would wait for everyone but Kate to go through before following in last.

Once the group is through the portal, and back in the capital, on the Military base, Kate pulls Pulse, Aegis, Violet, Blaze If he's still playing, Mud if he's still playing? off to the side, and into a large Antonov An-124 Ruslan aircraft. The interior of which is full of electronics, along with a half-dozen mid to late teens with headsets on.

"Sorry Aegis, I didn't want to answer your questions about the other Metas until I was sure I could secure the area. And I wasn't sure that area was secure. This is mobile HQ 4, Anton. That's Sliver, Rescue, Flicker, Synch, and Toby."

The last kid, the one with bright red hair, grins. "No meta genes here, just plain old human, so no need for a fancy name." He says, his voice pitched loudly, probably due to the earphones he's wearing.

Kate turns back. "We're still wanting to find the Metas, but I don't think they're here anymore, or if they are, they aren't alive. The local government is loading up a full assault flight, choppers and bombers, they're going to use HARMS to take the snakes out, anti-radar missiles. So no need for you guys to be in HARMS way." Several of the kids groan at the pun. "We're guessing it's Tophat, with the snakes. Nobody else we've come across can alter humans into metas or alter other metas and normal animals into metas. Until we have proof otherwise, the assumption is he's doing more experiments." She looks pensive. "What also makes me nervous is he was pretty silent for the last 5 years, but now as soon as you lot show back up, he goes very active with snakes that look all but designed to take you out specifically..."

Rescue, a girl in her mid teens, wearing a red outfit with a white cross on it, holds her hands out on either side of Violet's body, and the hands begin to glow a bloody red color. Violet's skin begins to crawl as it begins to slowly heal over at an accelerated rate. "Sorry about the whole 'buried in centipedes' feel, side affect of stimulating the nerves." She says, looking sheepish.

Perception: 13 - 3d6 ⇒ 13 - (2, 2, 4) = 5

Pulse checks the jet for wifi, and goes through the proper protocols of checking in (just in case Anton is like their base's firewall), before returning to paying attention. She snerks at the pun. If she does have a signal, she looks up what a HARM is, to verify that she's got it right. "Yeah... they reminded me of the cats, but worse. Those were built like trucks. These were built like tanks. Do you think the HARMs will have enough payload to really damage the snakes? Will they be able to home in through all the white noise being generated by them chattering?" Pulse asks, as she stands careful not to touch anything. Her suit was damaged so she was a bit worried she'd fry something if she touched it. "And do you know how we wound up being chosen for this specific assignment?"

Taking a moment to let all the questions fall out, and wait for Violet's healer to get freed up, Pulse looks to her.

"Don't suppose you've got more centipedes to go around..? I just got out of a 'Will-it-Blend' infomercial."

Barry listened to the discussion, and was a little surprised at the mention of Tophat. The last time he heard of him was just after his first mission with these folks (assuming they were talking about the guy behind the girl with the big cats).

The idea that the snakes were specialized for them was a little disturbing. How did he know they, specifically, were coming? Or did he have an army of snakes?

The thought disturbed him, but he also had another problem…

"Um…I'm not sure if this is the time to bring this up, but when I tried to flame on…I turned into a tornado instead."

When it's mentioned that the snakes are being taken out, and that they appear to have been specifically designed to deal with the team, Violet sighs.

"And that's why I took the doorway out."

Violet shrugs at the mention of nerve stimulation.

"I've had worse."

She looks at Kate and motions to Blaze. "Second stage adaptation, it looks like. Like when I learned I could fly. Or when I was a kid and realized I could speak any language if I just took enough time to concentrate."

"If they were made to take us out how would they have even know where we were? Their main attack seemed to be swallowing us and running away which couldn't really touch me but being animals and having whatever was messing with Pulse's powers was convenient." Aegis takes a moment to gather her thoughts, whatever dust they had used on still slowing her down a bit. "It looks like Pulse did something new as well, Maybe stress triggers? I think some forms of evolution use that, adapt or die type of things. But you both changed pretty rapidly."

Kate raises an eyebrow. "What did Pulse do? But swallowing you and taking off sounds suspiciously like 'capture and retrieve'. As to knowing where you were, they didn't, they sort of set a trap yes? That means if it was set up for you, Top Hat has a line into our network... somehow. After all, we'd just activated your team when this mission came up, so it was pretty natural we'd put you on it, since you were the only team free at the moment."

"I'm calling it 'Bankai! Limit Break: Sudden Death', at the moment. Sort of went combination Super-Saiyan-Fork-in-a-Microwave. My powers turned up to eleven... but it hurt like I was being torn apart and stitched back together, then torn apart a bit more. My force field came back and filled the gaps in my suit, and I started blowing holes in the snakes from the inside." Pulse responds, not commenting on anything she hadn't personally noticed, yet - things she likely wouldn't catch until review, if all of her data wasn't corrupted.

"It was pretty lucky that it happened, really." She adds, finally. "Lots of pain, but then, that was where I already was. Kinda wondering how he planned to 'capture and retrieve' me when he was literally melting me, though."