Every one can hear sirens from at least two directions now.
More interestingly you also hear gunfire. You hear both the assault rifles of our valiant local police and the occasional thunder-crack of energy weapons.
Everyone hair stands on end as a damaged M'buna comes in just over the wall makes a 90 degree turn and lands hard in a flare of overstressed gravitics.
Large doors at the waist and rear of the oversize craft flip open. Bright lights illuminate the golden armor of Dr. Destruction himself.
Dr. Destruction looks to the gathered meta-humans
"Get in."
Carl runs to get in.
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Well now! Be still mah beatin' heart. 'Tis Himself now come to get us. Best not keep the man waiting.
With a gesture, she mentally picks up the convalesing form of Mindjack and places him in the craft, flying in herself shortly behind.
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To all: Looks like the Man himself is come to get us the frag outa Dodge. Hurry along, gents an' ladies. Don't make the man ask us twice.
To Val:You're coming too, right?
Imagen's gives the running figures a side-long glance. Wonder what they're doing?
Who is this guy, what the f#!% is going on, how the hell did I got on this anyway?
Sight
Well I guess its the best thing I can do anyway
"Alright big guy, your call"
Heaven gets in
Who is this guy, what the f#$~ is going on, how the hell did I got on this anyway?
In your line of work you have most definitely heard of and likely worked for Dr. Destruction. Think of him as Dr. Doom. Remember that all information in the players guide is known to your characters.
Sight
Well I guess its the best thing I can do anyway
"Alright big guy, your call"
Heaven gets in
The Hybrid-horror picks up the unresisting MindJack and climbs into the transport.
As the transports engines power up Dr. Destruction looks out on the former school. He seen a young woman watching him.
"Ms. Ramierez."
"Destruction."
"Remember Akron."
The hatches close as the M'buna rises into the air.
"Down!"
Valerie shouts as hurls herself into the playground dust.
Seconds later the compound is filled with light and noise as the carefully placed satchel charges cut one of the metal wall slabs off at the ground.
As you rise into the clouds you can see the Undergrounders and other subjects running through the gap and into the night.
Dr. Destruction looks over the group. "Well that was passably successful"
A green suited, full face mask wearing minion enters from the cockpit. She is carrying a familiar looking metal disc.
The green suited figure speaks: "Sir, there are two active radio transmitters in this compartment." The figure clicks the disc onto MindJack's nullifier.
Dr. Destruction glances at a display screen built into a forearm before turning to Carl and The Fiddler
"Is there a reason why you two are wearing active V'sori distress beacons in my ship?"
in the silence following this question The pop of MindJack's nullifer being destroyed seems anticlimactic.
"Right... Well it seems its the first time we meet golden Dr. Im guessing you guys know each other. If you dont mind... im gonna step out of this place after we land and part ways...I got a lot of a%!$@!&s to kill now"
Dr. Destruction speaking to Heaven, everyone can hear.
"And where would you go Mr. Chanceller? You have no home, no boltholes. The V'sori were unusually effective in ferreting out your resources."
"However as you are now an Omega cell, arrangements have been made. I am allowing you one of my disused facilities in Southpoint. I believe it once belonged to Alpha Squadron."
"We will be arriving shortly so if you have questions ask them."
"Well, dude... I mean Docto.... I don't know what you mean. Is it something I picked up at the prison? Here's what I got, man."
Carl will show him the stuff that he picked up in the prison:
- saw knife
- blue gel tabs
- key ring with keys
- Vibroknife
- blaster pistols
- yellow belts
- One pair of fully functional Nullifier Cuffs.
"If you show me what the problem is, I can ditch it."
"Well, dude... I mean Docto.... I don't know what you mean. Is it something I picked up at the prison? Here's what I got, man."
His helmet is expressionless, but none the less you feel that the Doctor is glaring at you.
"The belt. It is a rescue and survival device common in V'sori aircraft. The beacon is activated along with the induced gravity effect. The transmitter is in the buckle. I see you have a knife."
"Well, can I just disable it?" he says, as he removes the belt he's wearing. "Or do I gotta trash the whole belt?"
To Carl
"I will leave that up to you, call it a test of your intellect. The blinking button on the wall beside you will open the door. You have one minute...."
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Ooooo, purrs Imagine. I do so love a smart man. I see that you're familiar with the belts then? Would you mind cluing us in on what the rest of the do-dads do? The silver cloth was especially puzzling for me. And could you tell us what the green capsule does before Carl pops it just to see if he can taste the rainbow?
Much as I would enjoy seeing your minion taste this particular rainbow I suppose he is a resource of a kind. It is a suicide pill. It kills V'sori quickly, and quite painfully through tissue liquefaction. Death occurs in less than fifteen seconds and complete decomposition in about an hour. The effect on humans is slower but no less lethal.
The food bars I assume you recognized. The blue tubes with the orange end are water purification straws. They grow more orange with use.
The orange ball is a fizzing luminescent dye. Dropped into water it makes a highly visible and lasting marker. I believe it also acts as a shark repellent.
Not seeing a way to disable the activated belt, Carl will go over to the door, say "Everybody ready for this?" open the door, and throw the used belt out the door. Then he will close the door.
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to all: Well, that IS interesting. Carl, don't swallow the pill. It makes you sober and boring...for a very long time.
My super-normal senses tell me that a belt once activated uses all its juice and can't be re-used. Pity, but that's what drained batteries get you.
Dr. Destruction, since you're being so revealing, we had "some" problems "finding" the "trigger" part on the "gun" "thing". Carl couldn't "make it go" or "do" the "things" with it.
He tried so hard to make his thing fire so good, but alas, it wouldn't wake up. Could you help him with that? ;)
How exactly Imagine keeps making a mental smiley-emote isn't immediately clear.
Imagine knows she should appreciative of an Omega facility, but at the mention that it was once used by Alpha Squadron, a melancholy drapes itself over her.
She wonders if he used it? Did he sleep there the night before he died? Did he...think of her?
She shakes her head, clearing the phantom. Another thing that can't be helped. Another thing for the V'Sori to pay for.
The Fiddler Follows Carl's lead and throws his own belt free from the craft.
Dr. Destruction continues. "An excellent choice"
The Mbauna changes to a new heading and accelerates.
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to All: Y'know, Carl, I'm sorry I got nabbed, but it kind of worked out because I was here to see this through. With you. She favors him with a little smile. But I just can't figure out how those bostards were waiting for me in such strength. I mean, I took all the usual precautions. Huh. Maybe I've been getting sloppy.
Hey, Heaven, what's your story? You look a little familiar. Have I hired you to kill someone before? If so, you're gonna have to be kind of specific. I run kind of a big organization, so I both hire and kill a lot of people. Well...I used to. Don't know how long I've been out. I'll have to check with Red once we get touch down.
to all: ....Dr. Destruction, since you're being so revealing, we had "some" problems "finding" the "trigger" part on the "gun" "thing". Carl couldn't "make it go" or "do" the "things" with it.
He tried so hard to make his thing fire so good, but alas, it wouldn't wake up. Could you help him with that? ;)
Dr. Destruction's flat, golden view-ports turn towards you. "You will find I do not respond well to humor."
The V'sori did me a great favor in removing Champion and the Alpha Squad rabble from my planet. I intend to make them regret that favor. You will assist me in this willingly with free run of the planet as your reward or you will assist me as fresh meat thrown to invaders as a distraction.
The Mabuna descends from the convenient heavy cloud cover into an empty industrial square. The doors iris open to the gentle sound of steady rain.
"Black and Hensley Meats originally belonged to the Spider. It was used intermittently by Alpha Squad once the Spider decided to join that Parliament of dunces. This site was largely cleaned out when the Squadron relocated to New York. It had been empty for some time even before the invasion. Make good use of it. I have left you communication gear in the main office."
Dr. Destruction waves you off the transport.
"You will be contacted."
The iris door closes as the Mabuna rises into the dark and rainy sky.
Heaven jaw drops as the doc bring him the bad news to heaven
"Son of a b~*%#. My company, my assets, my money.."
What the hell Hania, this must be a joke this must a be a bad dream of some sort
HANIA: SYSTEM INDICATES THE SITUATION IS NOT A DREAM
"I will kill them, I will f%$@ing kill them all"
________________________________________________________________
After Heaven recovers from the shock he answers Imagine
"Now that you mention it, it may be possible, yeah I remember a girl who wanted to become thug or something like that. I helped you deal with some kind of invencible superhuman. Well nothing is invencible tought."
Camus grins and then turns to Dr Destruction
" Alright Dr shiny, as long as there is money involved I am in, I consider a bonus any information which can lead to the destruction of those f@#%ign bastards. So yeah count me in willingly"
______________________________________________________________
After they land...
" Ok this place is not as good as my mansion but I guess it can work. We better have this place running fast, there is a lot to do"
The large building stands empty the only thing of immediate note are the obvious Southside Slashers gang tags.
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A cat's grin crawls slowly up the sides of Imagine's face as she dreamily strolls along one wall. She runs a delicate hand along the graffiti, touching it, tasting it with her fingers, making sure it's real.
She breaths in deeply, relishing the air's sweet familiar tang of mold and mildew and sweat and vomit and fear and money and hate and violence and hate and hopelessness and murdered dreams and hate and dying alone and money and profits to be made and margins to be cut and men and women and flesh weighed on one side of scale and their lives determined by their usefulness and money and violence and greed and graft and loyalty and hate.
She inhales deeply like a college girl at last in her lover's apartment.
She's home.
It's time to make a call.
To Red: Mom?
"Get in here!" A slight figure hisses from the shadows within the structure. "Just because those fishy bastards are busy cleaning up after the mess you made up North, don't think they won't investigate any sightings they hear of, and lots of street people like eating more than they like you!"
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Imagine was just contemplating getting someone in here to clean up a bit (whether they wanted to or not. Probably not.) when, during a routine mental scan of all the minds within short range (a habit picked up when drug lords and gang leaders are trying to make you not-alive) Imagine senses a disturbance in the force around her. Curious, she reaches out.
Hello there, are the words that echo in Tracy's head. My name is Imagine, and are you lost? Are you supposed to be here? How do you know you even exist? And what is your name? If you don't have one, one of my choosing will be assigned to you. Not that that's ever happened, but I doubt it would be one you'd prefer.
Well, that explains comment of 'Big D'...
'You want to talk in my head, fine. Just so long as you & the rest of your crew do it under cover. This neighborhood as abandoned as it looks.'
'As to names, I'll answer to Tracy, I'll answer to 'scrubs', I'll answer to . 'Big D' said 'get your ass over to Black & Hensley Meats 'cause i just activated a new Omega Cell & they are likely to need patching up', and I said 'yessir, thank you for not disintegrating me sir!' Anything you want to know about me, you have to , and you start earning by listening when I give you a suggestion.' The furtive 'come here' gesturing becomes even more frantic as you continue to simply stand out in the open.
"Well, baby! You don't have to ask me twice."
Carl goes into the new digs and starts to poke around.
At least a head shorter than Carl, you all notice Tracy visibly flinches away as he slides by her through the doorway.
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To Tracy: Tracy, how did you land a sweet gig working with Daddy D? I had started to think he was just a rumor. A bogie-man to scare the VS and give heart to those of us good Samaritans still fighting the the fight. Or something.
Did you give you any instructions? He said we will be contacted. Are you our 'being contacted'.
"" The slight woman in the comically over-sized clothes barks out as she follows the rest of you deeper into the structure. Pointing to the attache case on the desk, "Those are how he will contact...
us."
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To Tracy: Great! thinks Imagine in reply while twirling about the space like an astronaut in zero-G. But what about yourself? How did -you- come to be here. In this place, at this time, as the person you are. I know me and I know Carl and to some extent I even know Heaven, as much as he's let us know, but I don't know you. What are your turn-ons? Turn-offs? Where are you from? Are you...excitable?
"This isn't a meet & greet," the woman replies, "none of y-
of us," she corrects herself, "are known for our sociability, trustworthiness." With the last, her gaze passes tellingly over everyone present. "Like I said before, trust is earned, not forced."
The surrounding neighborhood is a typical industrial park. Or at least as typical as such can be in an occupied city. There are large, big, huge, buildings surrounded by other large big huge buildings, interspersed with sprawling parking lots. Some of these were operating, and they churned out smoke and consumer goods in large measure.
Being non-residential the captains of industry tolerated a certain level of gang activity, and this could be seen in the prevalent graffiti, with the graffiti intricacy corresponding with the level of activity--The sites that still housed workers and machinery were almost bare, with some few tags in constant war with the maintenance crews that covered them almost daily. But the abandoned sites looked more like living art. This building must have carried some mystique of its former owner's power, for it still looked to be in the early stages of assimilation by the Southside Slashers.
The interior looked not so bad. The first floor was the line, and looked mainly stripped clean, with a few larger machines not yet fully stripped, faded and fading Spider-themed murals crawling along the thick stone walls. The freezers in back were built into the building, so they'd not been removed, but much of their copper and internal metal had been stripped for salvage. A large plastic wrapped pallet full of Italian military MRE's sits in the loading bay.
One freezer was actually untouched because the lock was jammed from the outside, and the place had not been occupied for so long that it had been worth the effort to break it off.
The mainly open first floor had two flights leading up to the second floor of cubicles and office terrain. There were a handful of minute conference rooms that could be used as bedrooms, and the Big Man's office was filled with hauntingly out-of-place comm equipment that looked so new it might be a display case at Comp-U-Store.
Behind one door with a usable lock, it lead to a cavernous basement. The thing was enormous and mostly empty. No doubt a on-site warehouse for consumable goods used when the thing operated, it now sat patiently dreaming of former glory. It looked like one giant roll of shrink-wrap was still sleeping peaceably among various rat's nest and needles.
Information on the Southside Slashers
They were about as ruthless as a gang could get in an occupied city--which meant, they coped to strong leadership. Too amorphous to bring to heel, they sold their loyalty (such as it was) to whoever could offer them the most. The Slashers commonly work with the V'sori and have been rewarded for their loyalty with vibro-weapons which are replacing the Slashers formerly favored knives and cleavers. This has emboldened them to break free of their former masters, a gang known as "The Family"
Information on The Family
A small but wealthy gang representing the larger east coast cartels. Before the invasion they were heavily involved in transshipping drugs through Star City into the mainland US. Since the invasion they have largely been quiet and have recently been losing territory to the more aggressive Slashers.
Information on the Com-links The watches have all expected smartphone capabilities including access to what Wi-Fi infrastructure still exists. The only immediately unusual thing about them is an unfamiliar app named V-Map. The icon of which is a slowly shifting irregular polygon.
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To all: Is that better, baby? *teeheeheehee* Imagine replies to Tracy as she rotates near the ceiling, arms out, pretending she's Saturn. Mmmmm...purrrrrrrrr, but isn't that the great thing about...Reality? You can switch perceptions, but yet it won't budge. Oh, but baby, we -have- met, and we have greeted. Hence and thus a meet and greet has happened. La.
And I -am- known for my sociability, so why do you hurt my feelings by saying otherwise? Unless...
Imagine stops rotating and quickly turns, staring at Tracy. When you say 'us'...does that mean...is there, someone else, all up in there? *teeheehee* Now THAT would be fun. How does it feel? To never be alone? To always have another voice. In the dark. To always have someone share your thoughts...whether you want it or not? That must be thrilling! Or terrifying. Or both. For you.
Imagine leans back and goes back to her rotating. She telekinetically grabs a comlink and starts messing with it.
It's clear from her expression that Imagine's query regarding the nature of Tracy's verbal slip have struck a nerve. "No, I'm saying that all of us have warrants on our heads. None of us are exactly 'upright citizens'."
"Do you want to see what you have to work with or not?" She huffs, obviously disinclined to speak more of herself.
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Hey Mom!
Darling! Sweety! Sweety darling! How are you? You've been gone so long I assumed you'd been nabbed. Are you still in custody?
Nope, nothing so droll. I broke out! And guess who assisted?
No. Not him!
Yep. Dr. D himself! Guess I made an impression.
You were always good at that. Are you coming home?
Actually, there's been a change in plans. Are you still in the apartment?
Well, yes. When your raid went t1ts up and you weren't seen, unfortunately the New Crypt moved in and nabbed most of your territory. A captain of theirs came by, but he's letting me stay in exchange for getting his knob slobbered. I guess I still got it!
That's super mom! Way to go. Actually, since we no longer have a power base we can move. Daddy D gave us a sweet-ass crib. Can you move here quick?
Sure honey. The girls and I are just finishing some canasta. I'll pack up and take a gypsy cab. What's the address?
It's the Spider place. In the old industrial park.
Oh that's lovely. I'm glad someone's using it. You know I worked the line there before I met your father....
Ya, okay, we need to focus on something other than what you and dad did. I'll ping you every half hour until you get here. It's got some sick security so I'll have to let you in.
Will you be setting up a power play?
Meh. I'm feeling kinda done with that low-ball stuff. I'm thinking bigger. But the first thing we need is to clean this place. So make sure to bring my stuff and a ton of cleaning products.
See you soon Honey.
Bye Mom.
To Carl: Carl, I hope you don't mind if my mom moves in here. We need someone to help clean up and look after the place while we're on super-secret missions an' stuff, so now we don't have to worry about the place being empty. Also, she's being forced to schtoop some lousy Crypt to keep her current place and she's getting too old to bend that low. Anyway, she's bringing my stuff, so we've got a lull. Go grab your gear and get your room prepped. We don't know what other low-lifes DD is gonna drop on our doorstep, so we better be ready for anything. Oh, I'm gonna go shopping. You need anything? My treat! Well, I mean it'll be the treat of whatever store I rob, so it's really on them, but still.
Imagine spends some time messing with the comlink that she started messing with during her convo with the really-too-cute-for-her-own-good Tracy.
To:Tracy. Hey, my mom is gonna move in. Hope that's okay. Do you know how to add her to the security system? Also, I'm gonna go shopping later, you need anything? Snacky Cakes? Cheesy Poofs?
Imagine adds her mom to the system so that the building doesn't freak out long enough for Red to come upstairs and get her retina and prints scanned.
Then, Imagine goes shopping.
Imagine shops a number of different ways, but most of them follow a pattern: She'll go to some big box store. Sometimes Food N Stuff, sometimes Pick Your Save, or Mart-Mart, anything that has a low chance of her being recognized. If it's a new place she'll just fill her cart like a normal shopper, but when she gets to the check out line, she'll mind-control the check-out person. The check-out person will scan in all the items as normal, but when it gets to the inconvenient "paying" part, she'll have them just cancel the sale. The two people pleasantly exchange a "Have a Good day!" and she takes her cart out of the store, cancelling the control shortly thereafter. Almost all employees won't take this matter higher, just out of confusion as to what the F just happened? And their drawer isn't even short, so it's all good.
Imagine gets some actual food, some real clothes, and yet even more cleaning supplies.
By the time she's back her mom is in the cab and will be arriving shortly.
her...
...
Shaking her head slightly but definitively at Imagine's query, Tracy is already snarling at the owners manual for the 'med bay', muttering to herself, "seriously Spider,if you weren't already dead,I'd be tempted to kill you myself..."