.
Dottin
!tod
(.)
here
It is Tuesday October 13 2015, the new moon, 11:30 p.m. The New Hampshire woods around you were, until recently, as dark as a cave. That was until someone trip a motion sensor and the night burst into flame. Now the forest is burning and this whole thing is beginning to seem like a very bad idea. Only hours ago, you had to drop what you were doing at the “request” of Agent Benton Fowler. You stepped into a plain white van and were whisked to a safe house in South Boston, where you were briefed, geared up, and sent into the wilderness.
Briefing: You are looking at a photo of a young blond girl. Agent Fowler is talking. Fowler is a six foot man who looks like he might blow away in a strong wind. In a movie, he might be played by Steve Buscemi.
This is Madeline Collins. She is eight years old and the granddaughter of Senator Tilbert Collins. Senator Collins is a chair of the Unearthly Forces Committee, which does not exist and which does not have a vote tomorrow on new funding for the restructured version of Special Task Force Unicorn, which, as you know, I represent. Yesterday, little Madeline was picked up by her nanny after school and never made it home. Last night, Senator Collins received directions to torpedo STFU and to move to withdraw the American contribution from the BPRD. It took the Senator 4 hours to decide to call Director Flierl and 22 hours for our agent to track Madeline to a hunter’s cabin in New Hampshire. You will be inserted via helicopter 5 miles from the target. Get in, extract the girl. You are authorized to use deadly force, but you are not to concern yourself with apprehending or eliminating those involved.
As you can see, there are 6 guards roaming a perimeter and we believe there are 3 more in the cabin, at least one of whom appears to be a wizard of unknown talent. Pull your gear, grab a sandwich, and roll out
Based on your map, you think you are about 2700 feet from the cabin, which is on a hill and entirely surrounded by fairly dense forest with undergrowth. The forest around you is on fire.
"Nice to know change in management haff not changed the organization. I vill be having flashbacks to Las Vegas. "
then to his new compatriots "I can try to sneak my way in to get the drop on a guard. No guarantees there though. If you have better methods ve can consider them. A forest is not a good location for sniping."
"Yeah, that sounds like a fun story for another time, Ivan. Right now, I'm a little more worried about the fact that the woods are burning down around us. You wanna send Rocky in all sneaky-like or should we just kick the front door in? I'd rather not turn this into a hostage situation, y'know," Cooper replies as he holds a rag over his nose and mouth to ward off the smoke inhalation. Magic was all well and good, but something as simple as asphyxiation could kill as easy as a bullet.
"I've got my home-made flashbang ready whenever you want it, just gotta be close enough. Or did we want to try to deal with the roamers-- Uhh, guards, rather. Guards first? Or sneak in?" He casts a glance around the group from his position crouched behind a bush. He can only hope that the bush does not attempt to channel some deity lest it singe his eyebrows clean off.
"Are we just going to casually address the fact that EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE?!" Gemma shouted as the flames flared and sparked around them.
She was beginning to regret agreeing to all this, but the reward of exemption was a little too tantalizing to give up. Especially this time of year when she was pollinating. She picked up her phone and quickly smashed in 9-1-1, only to be hit with no reception bars. Great. No handsome firefighters were going to come rescue her now.
"Just go, just go!" she urged the others. Anything but standing around waiting to be enveloped by flames was preferable. "Sneak, flash, charge, I don't care! But we can't just sit here forever!"
Perhaps it was the fact that she was practically half-plant, but this entire situation had her on edge. She pointed up towards the cabin and waved her finger about. "See? It's not on fire yet. We should go there."
Well, I particularly like the fact it's all on fire...
Annurian smiled friendly, trying to calm the companion. He then looked at the direction of their extraction.
I'm not sure we will all be able to sneak there. Maybe we should try assaulting team by team, eliminating their communications first.
His eyes glowed for a moment. He looked just like an old man - and spoke as such - but his movements weren't exactly natural.
"That makes one of us, grandpa," Cooper retorts with a grimace beneath his rag and a shake of his head. "Awww, hell. Time to double down. Now you see me..."
His mumbling to himself trails off quickly as copies of himself take a step in five different directions at once, all sliding right out of the original. Oddly, the center copy is the only one wearing a baseball cap and motorcycle jacket; presumably this is the real Cooper. The other five orient themselves behind their creator, hauling the bottom of their shirts over their nose and mouth.
"All right, this is about as useful as I'm going to be able to be for a little while. Unless you want to step right into the cabin's bathroom or make it really foggy around here, these guys are going to be doing all my heavy lifting." He turns to dig into his backpack and pull forth a twelve by twelve plexiglass mirror to shove at one of his doubles. The double promptly nods without a word and moves off to the side of the group to find a spot that is not currently on fire.
Since nobody seems to have a trick he needs to be involved in, Han figures this team isn't big on coordination. "Ok, I vill just eliminate guards. " he then shifts into werewolf form and moves to the nearest guard to take him down.
Ritter slides into the darkness and begins his hunt, quickly finding a scent trail that leads him toward a pair of guards walking a perimeter. They smell of humanity and gun oil with just a whiff of stress and fatigue.
The woods are only moderately dry, so the fire is spreading slowly. The initial accelerant seems to have been consumed. Gemma feels that the flames are sliding over her skin.
"Oh s*+@, our dog's running away. Quick, somebody bring the car around." Rather than waiting around, Cooper and all of his duplicates move to chase after Hans through the burning forest.
God, this whole plan is so screwed. I just hope the rest of these jokers can pull their weight, too. Before he gets too far, one of his duplicates makes sure to grab at Gemma's hand and tug her with him. Because the last thing he wants to do is leave the only reason he is here behind to burn.
Brown hair the same as his, taller than his normal form, clawed and loaded with muscles. Pretty much the way they look in MHI. Bipedal, furry, snout, big teeth, the whole deal. Pretty scary. Not quite as imposing as the Loup Garou in Fool Moon.
"You know, in every story ever, splitting up near a cabin in the woods has always gone-- Oh hell where is everyone going?" she starts before one of Cooper's clones snags her by the hand and hauls her along behind him. The jolt is enough that she has to trip over herself a few times before she manages to gain control of her footing.
The heat from the fire slithers across her skin and she almost feels like her skin my flake away like a dried leaf. It isn't, she doesn't think, but it certainly feels like it.
Annurian laughs, not too loudly, towards his band. They're most certainly not organized, or smart, but they're clearly brave and excited with the mission.
Alright... Moving.
He moves only fast enough to keep up with the slower of them. No matter which part of him we could talk about, he was still old; yet, all the brash attitude around him was invigorating. He blinked slowly - he didn't really have to blink anymore, but still kept the perk - and smiled.
Hailey listened to it all from the front seat of the van, and then steps out from the passenger's door, smoothing out her skirt. "Good thing I wore the flat boots, instead of the heels" She says under her breath with a slight sigh.
Reaching into her jacket pocket she pulls out what appears to be a paintball gun, and a few small trinkets which she attaches to her blouse. As she does a slight shimmer covers her body. "Interesting group you have here, Fowler. Recon is what we wanted? I think I can help with that." She brushes one of the charms and mutters a word quietly, and her form blurs and then becomes invisible. Her voice rings out from the empty air where she was just standing. "What did we want to know?"
Hans will sneak up on a guard once he gets the scent. Using the trees and brush for cover he maneuvers into position to maximize the advantage of surprise and hopefully drop a guard before he can react. Then it's one on one and he knows a human is no match for him.
DC 22 toughness save.
Hans tears into the guard's armor, dropping him like a bag of potatoes. The guard is wearing dark grey fatigues and a black tactical vest. He and his partner carry Israeli MTAR-21 assault rifles and multiple grenades.
His partner turns back toward Hans.
Cooper stays hot on Hans's proverbial (or maybe literal, who knows?) tail straight through the forest with duplicates in tow. The moment they see their canine friend hit the first guard, one of the duplicates rears back a fist to punch at the air in front of him. Naturally, a corresponding ripple of kinetic force sweeps outward at the guard in an effort to pummel him.
Cooper 2 (Or Cooper Red?), these guys are going to need some sort of nomenclature, launches a TK punch at the second guard, laying him out.
Cooper: You can't use your Telekinesis while you maintain the duplicates, because they are both alternate powers of Magic. I believe, however, that the duplicates can use the other powers because they have their own pool of points and are essentially separate characters. That is the crazy that is duplication. One of the biggest problems with Duplication is hogging table time, which doesn't matter here at all, but the action economy still makes it incredibly powerful
Cooper and his duplicates promptly crouch down low to the nearby foliage in an effort to stay unseen and unheard.
Yeah, hence why it was one of his duplicates doing the punching and not him. If you'd rather that all the duplicates act on one turn or only one can do an attack each round, that's fine with me. However you want to run with it. Also, Coop is a huge dork, so he'd probably call them Cooper Alpha, Beta, Charlie, Delta, and Echo. With himself being Cooper Prime.
Gemma continued to let the Cooper clone drag her along with him, though she moved with independence unlike her first few steps. She watches as Hans easily take down the first guard, and one of the Coopers knocks out the other. She was beginning to feel like a damsel in distress with how useful she had been so far.
She mirrored the Coopers and ducked down into what she hoped was not yet catching fire foliage.
"Can we just pause a moment and make a plan?!" she hissed with exasperation. Sure, it was basically the exact opposite of what she said mere moments ago, but stress does funny things to people.
"We need to move in quietly and as a unit. If one of us gets spotted, we'll need to change to pure guerrilla tactics. But we have a lot of cover, albeit burning and gradually lessening cover, but there's still a lot of forest between here and there. That's gotta give us some advantage."
She lifts her head to peek over the bush and towards their detination, keeping an eye out for more guards and perhaps the best path up.
Hailey follows the others while invisible and speaks up, "Great plan if you're going to commit a full frontal assault. Have any idea of the layout of the place, or if they boobytrapped any of the entrances? How many guards? What kind of patrols? Now if you boys want to rein back the macho a bit, how about we try to take a quick sneak and peek to at least try to figure out the building layout. You know, like maybe sending the invisible person to look first? Just hope the patrol that you just dropped doesn't go missing."
Hailey will wait a few moments for acknowledgement, and once she gets it will head towards the building, still using cover even though she's invisible. No sense taking chances. Once near the building, she'll look in windows or open doors to get an idea of the layout.
She'll set the paintball gun to paralyze while she waits.
In a very glutteral voice Hans responds. "Keep up lady. I asked before I charged. I guess you didn't recover from nap time fast enough. Go and look. "
Annurian comes behind, calmly, almost looking like a tired old man. It looked to him like his companions were having some sort of competition, and he just didn't want to participate. He guessed everybody just wanted to show what they were capable of to the STFU, and the hybrid was fine with it. Whatever suits their egos.
Finally, he arrives at the guards and kneels down, trying to check how hurt they were.
Once checked, he stands up and blinks, silently pulling the weapons and collecting in his backpack. He gives a new look to the companions and speaks.
It seems Hans and Cooper were tremendously gifted on their attack. Maybe now we should just check if it alarmed anyone, or if we can keep the same strategy of one group at a time.
He didn't know where Hailey was, so he just turned his face to where the voice was coming from.
If you'd be so kind to use your talents for a quick assess, we will continue our action. Unfortunately I assume we don't have much time for subtlety since we have a hostage situation, so I'd ask you to please hurry and report back.
He shows the weapons to his companions, wondering if anyone wants one of them - just in case things get ugly.
Gemma planted her hand on her face. Great, now we got a know it all lady with an attitude, she said with a sigh. And she's even less of a team player than the others. Not that she stopped the woman. She could go die alone in the woods for all Gemma cared.
"We're all going to die," Gemma grumbled to the remaining team members as she clung to the Cooper clone. She was not running ahead alone, regardless of what concealment she could provide herself. "I think the time for careful planning ran out when everything went up in flames. At this point, getting there as fast as we can is our best bet, and probably our best chance at not burning alive. The longer the forest burns, the faster it's going to dry out and the faster that burning is going to happen. I'd know. We need to keep moving to avoid getting trapped by the flames. Let's keep going forward. I don't exactly want to die here waiting for some lady who's probably going to get sniped by anything with heat vision goggles."
"We are just the most organized group around, tonight," Cooper mutters with a tone dripping in sarcasm as he frowns deeply. The forest is on fire, they had just taken out two of the guards, more might be on the way or otherwise alerted, and there was still a little girl who was no closer to getting un-kidnapped. In short, this whole thing has gone sideways very quickly. Still, it is not over yet, he reminds himself.
"Okay, everybody shut up," the four Cooper duplicates chime in simultaneously, before falling silent when the real one speaks up again. "Sneaky McSnarkypants over there is right. We can't just charge in guns blazing. This isn't a bad action movie and I'm not Van Damme. Gem, go scout it out with her just a bit ahead of us. We'll be right behind you if everything hits the fan, which makes us the heavy hitters. Guys, if you see a gun, hit it like a truck. Now, let's go before we waste any more time."
"I can't be seen by any visual senses, so no danger of heat vision picking me up." She nods at Cooper, and then catches herself with a wry grin, "Give me about a 30 second headstart, and come towards the cabin. Once I get a look, I'll head back and give you what information I can. He's right too. Guns blazing generally leads to dead hostage, and escaped bad guys. Personally, I'd rather not have either. Her voice moves a bit as she talks to Hans, "I trust you can track well? Better to hear and smell you with, and all that?" Despite the jest, her voice holds a note of respect as well. "If I come across any guards that I sneak by, I'll do what I can, rip leaves, turn up fresh soil, to leave a scent trail which hopefully the smoke won't cover up. She taps a laquered nail on her teeth, making a faint clicking sound. One other note of concern though. The fact that the forest went up just as we got here is too coincidental for my taste. Not sure we have complete surprise on our side here.
"Yeah, I can track. Yeah, operation is already probably FUBAR. We'll deal. We have to. Go. " he growls in response.
Annurian's eyes look as blazing as the forest fire itself. He understood the worry of the others towards the fire, even though for him it was all fantastically powerful and natural. He loved the flames.
Silently, the hybrid Fire Djinn started moving towards the cabin, following with the group. He hadn't adopted his "fighting instance" yet purely because he believes the others are probably physically more capable - and plus, he would catch way more attention that they wanted.
Waiting is always the worst part. The fires blaze around them and time ticks away as the burning forest creeps ever closer. Somewhere up the hill, there is a terrified little girl who probably does not even know help is coming. The entire thing reminds Cooper a bit too much of when he was much younger, but he tries not to dwell on that. A slight shiver of unease at the memory that drifts through all of his duplicates. Cooper Prime turns to look toward Annurian in an effort to distract himself.
"Good call grabbing their guns. Say, granddad, what's your shtick? You've been pretty low-key for most of this." He waits nervously and keeps the count going in his head, but stays close by the older gentleman when 30 seconds have gone by. Better to keep his voice low and head down as he tries to figure out if there is a better way to be using everyone's skills.
Hailey moves right after she speaks, moving up to the cabin, taking care to try and stay clear of any patrols. Relying mostly on her invisibility to keep her hidden, but also trying to remain as quiet as possible.
Once near the building, she'll look in windows or open doors to get an idea of the layout, trying to get an idea where the kid might be stashed so she can run back and report it to the others.
Gemma, visibly distraught though about what was anyone's guess, let go of Cooper clone's hand and quickly popped out of sight and sound.
Gemma is going to make a beeline for the cabin with her total visual and auditory concealment, hoping that the smoke will mask her scent should they have their own sniffer type (I can only assume a forest fire is enough to overwhelm most smell). She'll keep her eyes peeled for guards, traps, and any alternate entrances besides the front door should she get that far without incident. She'll be particularly watchful for a chimney, and whether or not she could fit down it.
A deep, Old Man River gargles gravel voice rolls out from where the chair creaks, singing a show tune from Annie
Little girls,
Little girls.
Night and day
I eat, sleep, and breathe them.
I should be anywhere but here.
Private planes,
on the stage, or MTV.
But I find myself here at this snot house.
Little shoes,
Little socks.
Please kill me I'm serious,
Please kill me I am not singing,
I'm asking!
Locked in a cage with all the rats,
I slipped through the cracks and
now I'm stuck with the scraps
and I can't seem to find my way back.
Get me out,
Get me out of here,
I'm ready for stardom
after all these years.
I'm done
with little girls.
I wanna be someone
in this world.
I can see you little girls, come up here and have a talk with big papa.
You can smell a terrible musky skunk sort of smell even over the smoke from the distant fire.
Following behind the scouts, the rest of the team moves lightly through the dark night.
Being unable to hold her concealment together was something of a piss off, but Gemma wasn't about to let it deter her at this exact moment. That said, the song was creepy enough from a voice like that to give her pause. She had two options really: either bail out or keep moving forward. Of course they took precautions against invisible invaders, she thought to herself with a sigh. Couldn't just be simple...
She looks back the way she just came and the flames that flicked through the trees. she shuddered. She'd rather face a creepy singer in a cabin in the woods than that.
She cast a look around for a tree sturdy enough to climb and preferably not on fire.