Gemma watches as the old man tosses the car towards what she can only assume was the werewolf, though she herself hadn't quite spotted him yet. With luck, it hadn't spotted her yet, either.
Gemma makes a beeline for the nearest tree and quickly scuttles up into it's branches. The branches would offer some concealment and elevation almost always offered some tactical advantage.
Realizing that it's not just a vanilla zombie, the beast knows he needs to respond somehow. He rips up a park bench and tosses it and the anomalous zombie.
DC 21 toughness save. (based on using a blast power)
Despite his best efforts to keep his eyes peeled for the wolfman, both their friendly neighborhood flaming hobo and Hans get the drop on him. As a previously parked car sails over his head with a park bench lobbed in retaliation, he can only wince at the amount of potential property damage. But then, there is far more time for things to get worse if the body count starts to rise later, should this all go awry. That in mind, Cooper and the Funky Bunch all turn to look in the werewolf's direction as one. The Cooplicates frown in concentration as they work in concert to haul Hans clear off the ground where he might flail about in midair.
While his other selves take care of that, Cooper Prime mutters under his breath as he calls up his will, pulling an invisible sphere of force up around himself. Just in case Hans elects to get creative with more projectiles.
The bench catches the "zombie" in the chest and takes him down.
Hailey watches as the car and bench go flying in opposite directions of one another and gulps a little. Buck up, Hailey, this is what you get paid the big bucks for, right? She lets out a breath and moves in after Cooper gets the werewolf grappled and fires the paralysis potion at Hans.
"Hans, it's us, you need to calm down!
As the invisible Fairy Lady clambers into a tree, a flaming car slides under her, narrowly missing her. Hans swats the car aside, deflecting it enough that he can dodge it. He grabs a bench from beside the path and launches it at Annurian, knocking the old man out.
Coopers reach out with their minds and crush Hans into the ground, holding him pinned while Hailey hits him with a paralyzing paint potion, taking the rest of the fight out of him for the moment.
The two police officers draw their weapons and seem to flinch as they point their pistols at the Cooplicates, firing but missing in the chaos.
Gemma cringes as large things are thrown mindlessly about, especially when a couple come towards her general direction. She clings to the tree branch carefully, ensuring she keeps a good hold and solid balance from her perch.
Oh good! Police! Wait... what are they shooting at?!
"Coopers! Watch yourselves!" she calls out as the police fire off a couple rounds in their directions. Maybe they were aiming for the werewolf and just had bad aim, but that was hardly proper police behavior to shoot when there were civilians about! Even if those civilians all did look identical.
With Hans held still for the moment, she tried to get a good shot from her vantage point, trying to pull the same, disgusting trick of manipulating stomach flora like she had on gorilla-man back at that cabin.
"S!+%, the cops are showing glowing red eyes, guys. I don't think they're out to protect and serve right now.
She concentrates on the paintball gun, and switches the effect to nullify magical powers.
"What? Oh, sh*t!" Cooper manages with a reflexive duck at the sound of pistol fire. He turns to face the police and steps up between them and his Cooplicates, trying to shield the latter with his force bubble. Sadly, the sudden distraction means he notices next to nothing other than the people shooting at him.
Gesturing to the new threat, three of his doubles not currently keeping Hans pinned turn to try to wrench the guns out of their hands. The one extra Cooper remaining frowns in concentration as it draws its senses up to peer at the policemen through the Third Sight.
perfectly docile pooch
Hailey finds a small flower, a white chrysanthemum blossom, clipped into Han's hair at the nape of his neck with a roach clip. It resembles a traditional Japanese love charm, though in this case it is obviously serving another purpose.
Cooper, you have to maintain the grapple. The first two disarms slap the Glocks from the hands of the police.
The two police officers draw backup guns from the small of their backs, advancing toward the shielded Cooper.
Hans has an awareness that something is horribly wrong. None of this makes sense. Fiery zombies, zombies with guns, a bunch of zombies that look exactly alike. And why is that Zombie lady picking at his hair. Suddenly, he recognizes the smell of the woman with the paint ball gun. Where did these trees come from. He was just in his house, right?
Hans is of sound mind. Unfortunately, he can't talk about it.
New Round
Gemma curses her lack of success, then again when Hailey confirms her suspicions about the police. With were-Hans (she's still working on how to best combine his name with werewolf) apparently under control for the time being, Gemma turns her attentions to the police.
She aims a blast of bright light at the nearest officer with the intent of dazzling him.
Hailey reaches down and carefully removes the Chrysanthemum blossom from Hans' hair, trying to keep it as intact as she can so she can examine it later.
She turns towards the police officers and aims, hoping that the Nullify charm will work.
They are going at the end of the turn. Last turn they moved and retrieved hidden weapons.
"How's Scooby?" Cooper shouts back over his shoulder to Hailey over the sounds of a flaming car, gunfire, paintball gunfire, and blasts of cosmic energy. Best case scenario, they have already taken care of his little malady and can move on to figuring out why the cops are trying to gun the friendly neighborhood wizard down. Worst case scenario, Hans has already broken free of the kinetic force and is busy chewing on Hailey. He really hopes that this is not a worst case scenario.
"How many of these do you guys have?" He complains as his three doubles do their best to repeat the process again, wrenching the backups from their hands. Maybe they will not have packed their second holdout pistol today? One can only hope. The fourth Cooplicate does again to discern just what sort of nonsense these cops are wrapped up in, magic-wise.
Depending upon what Hailey's answer is, the last Cooplicate will try to follow the fourth's lead and look through the Third Sight at the cops. If she still thinks Hans is a threat, it's back to grapplin'!
There is a spell controlling them, making them hostile to Cooper in particular. They are now both disarmed, again.
Between the sharp cracks of the police weapons and the soft pops of the paintball gun, Hailey shouts back, "Holding still? He's paralyzed." She watches the paintball splat, hopefully against one of the police, I know my aim was good on that, it had to have hit. "That splatter have any luck in changing the man in blues' eye problem, Xerox?"
He can yell at me later, it's the best nickname I could think of under duress.
Hailey's shot splats into one of the officers. The glow fades from his eyes and he lowers his weapon, taking in the scene confusedly.
"Yeah, looks like it! Think you can paint the other one before he tries to engage in some police brutality for me resisting arrest?" Cooper shouts back as his fifth clone moves to flank the original with the others, not bothering to try grapple the prone werewolf anymore. If he notices the Xerox comment, he neglects to comment on it. For now.
No that he has his head together, he will resume human form.
"What happened? Last thing I knew, I was back in my townhouse, and someone spoke. They must have broke in. " then looking around at the mess "Best we get out of here. I don't want someone deciding there's a PUFF bounty to be had. "
"I dunno, big guy," Gemma says, swinging down from the tree once everything had settled down and the police had been disarmed. "I'm all for bailing now, but what about those two?" she asks, jerking a thumb at the very wrong-in-the-head police officers.
"No idea what their deal is."
"They look like I feel. That means someone screwed with their heads. I think they will be alright. We still need to be gone. "
"...eh, I dunno. I mean, if they've just had their heads screwed with, it might be worthwhile to check them out. Could help us figure out who did this to them and you." Cooper pauses and frowns as his doubles all look in different directions at the same time. The clone-creating equivalent of looking around shiftily, probably. "Then again, maybe it'd be better to just get their badge numbers and alert the Council. One of you guys got a notepad or something?"
"Hailey, don't you have some sort of neutralizing paintball going on? Pelt 'em a few times and lets go."
There don't seem to be many people around, though there are some cars on the street. Most of the pedestrians seem to have fled the area. There is a helicopter circling the area, but not right over you. You are concealed by the trees.
Hailey nods at Gemma, "I can do that." Hailey walks over to the two cops that are still under the influence and pops them with a couple of paintballs. "Still might be a good idea to talk to one of them to see if they know anything."
Hailey walks up to the first officer she nullified and places an arm on his shoulders. "You okay officer? You seem out of sorts.
Cooper grunts thoughtfully and shrugs at the lack of response to someone having a notepad, digging one hand into his jacket. He produces a pen and steps up beside Hailey, doing his best not to get in her way as he jots down the officers' badge numbers. Right onto the palm of his hand. Preparation at its finest, clearly.
That done, he tries to position himself beside the officer that Hailey is not currently talking to in such a way that nothing else will be in his field of view. The Cooplicates shrug out of their ridiculous hats and T-shirts of various colors, folding the latter carefully. One of their number scurries over to snatch Cooper Prime's hat off of his head before moving to collect all the extra clothes in it. Once he sets the cap back on Cooper Prime's head, though, all of the duplicates promptly dissolve into foul smelling puddles of ectoplasm.
With an idle frown, the only remaining Cooper shakes his foot to try to get the ethereal slime that has spilled onto his pant leg off. If, and only if, he can get himself lined up in a way that nothing but the natural world around him and the officer is in his field of view will he draw up his Third Sight. When he opens his eyes again, after the effort of will required to initiate the magic, he takes his time about peering over the man. If possible, he wants to sort out exactly what has happened to these men and what sort of magic is at play here.
"Hailey, what was wrong with Hans, exactly?"
The officer blinks his eyes several times, looking up at Hailey, and saying with a thick Southie (South Boston)accent "You must be my guardian angel. Mama always said you were looking out for me. We were dispatched because someone saw a bear in the park, figured it was the same thing that attacked those people over near the hospital. Then we were walking across the common and things get fuzzy from there. Wait, where is my pistol?" He looks around in panic, seeing his gun and then moving toward it.
Cooper carefully lines up his vision of the officer and opens the eye that cannot forget. The man is swathed in black magic. His head looks like it has been wrapped in barbed wire and then had the wire hammered in. The nullifying power of Hailey's magic is gobbling up the black magic like Pac Man eating a long strand of spaghetti, but the man will probably suffer some long term psychic trauma from the experience. The magic was not subtle or insidious, but was done quickly and with a lot of force.
The officer Cooper is Seeing is named Reynolds. He is an older cop, probably in his 40's but wearing the years poorly. He is a bit of a kaleidoscope. There are flashes of light here and there, but his spirit looks like it has been worn down with a cheese grater, leaving behind stains of darkness. You would guess he isn't entirely clean. Maybe he has been passed over too many times for promotions and looked to make some money looking the other way.
"Alright, that's enough, lets go," Gemma said, tugging at Cooper's sleeve. It looked like Hailey had set the cops right, so it was time to bail. She moved to give Hans a hand up in case he was still shaking off any residual paralysis; she had no idea how long it'd last.
"C'mon, big guy. I doubt they'll recognize you like this but better safe than sorry."
"We should head back to his apartment, see if we can't find what the hell did this."
Cooper grimaces at the image presented to him and slowly, carefully closes his Eye again so that the world returns to normal. That was going to be a pleasant sight to haunt his dreams for... Well, ever. Shaking his head to try to clear it, he gives Gemma a quick thumbs up to signify that he is okay and turns to go.
"Yeah. Yeah, good idea. I need to report this to somebody, I think. Hans, is your place close?"
"I think it is fairly close if this is the Commons. And yes, let's get moving. Some hunters have to be on the way. " and he will lead them out of the area towards his place.
Hailey smiles at the officer, "Nothing like that officer. Just someone that likes to look out for my boys in blue. You take care now."
With that, Hailey will turn back to Hans, Cooper and Gemma, and takes off with the rest.
"Well, find me a mirror and we can be back to your place in seconds. Not that there are too many of those out in the middle of the Commons..." Cooper frowns and peers around the area without breaking stride as though he expects a mirror to materialize in front of him very suddenly. "Hailey, you ever heard of black magic that manifests looking like barbed wire through the Sight?"
.
Gemma takes Cooper's hand to lead him after Hans, ensuring he keeps up a pace despite being lost in his wizardly thoughts.
Stupid wizards, she thinks angrily to herself in her head for no good reason.
Our weary band makes its way across the park and to Hans' townhouse. Along the way, you see two news vans, several police vehicles, and a truck from the Franklin Park Zoo.
Getting back into his place, he shows everyone to the sitting room and where the kitchen is. "Feel free to get some food if you wish. I need a shower...and maybe a flea bath. "
Gemma stops at the door and inspects it up and down, all around. It's possible they had been waiting for him in his home. Seems like the whole thing was a bit of a blur to Hans.
Okay, she wasn't the greatest investigator.
She goes inside and kicks her uggs off at the front before sauntering in and flopping on the most comfortable piece of furniture in the room. "Coop, grab me a drink before you sit down," she requests with a batting of her eyelashes.