Tossing up a few pieces of the broke walls, Jack shouted up, "You see where the power source is?"
"I can hear it, but no eyes on it yet!"
Lance finds the appropriate panel, feeling the vibrations in the cover plate and feeling a strange sensation of harmony between those vibrations and the stifling sensation of that energy, and the strange sensation of constricting it inflicts on something indescribable deep within you.
The panel is about half a meter tall by a meter wide. It has six anchor points, each is behind a matching recessed nut with an unusual (and probably unique) shaped tool requires to open it. Like the transparent barriers, the plate itself is probably made of some hi-tech, non-ferrous, temperature resistant polymer. The plate itself is recessed just slightly from the surrounding mounting, meaning a crow bar probably wouldn't have been much help.
Lance sticks one of the shards in the hole and gives it a tentative twist, to see if it will budge any.
While Lance ascends, Kalden tip toes towards the hallway where the skirmish was heard and he stealthily peeps around the corner, hoping that Grandmaster managed to clear the way.
Deacon drops the arm of the armor-suited prison guard in frustration as he gives up trying to snatch up any weapons. The armor was far beyond his level of technical expertise to even begin to understand and he knew it. Instead, he settles for scrambling up Dunwich's outstretched tentacles with a quick, "Much obliged."
Once up within the bowels of the proverbial beast with Lance, he takes a moment to take stock of the situation. More tech nonsense. Greeeaaaat. Still, seeing Lance hard at work at one of the nuts, he sidles up next to him to give it a look. And, guessing that no amount of his sweet talking will get the nut to spin, tries a different tactic. With a quick look over the machine, he tries to find anything in the way of wiring or tubes or whatever feeds this device.
Barring that option, he settles for the tried and true method. Namely, trying to carve through the polymer with those wickedly sharp claws of his. For the moment, he aims for the nut that is on the polar opposite side of the panel from the one Lance is working on.
The block of plastic is of little use as an Allen wrench; the specialized bolt heads are not likely to be defeated with so trivial a technique. Unless a proper tool kick presents itself, some variation of the brute force method seems to be the only likely path to success.
Demoniac had trouble finding purchase with his claws. Though sharp enough to score steel, the featureless polymer plate seems to offer no starting point for his claws to bite in. Raking them hard against the cover plate, they slide over it like kitchen knives over smooth featureless glass. The same way even a carbide drill bit needs something to start the cut, and direct the force, the smooth plate offers no point of purchase.
Seeing the problem Demoniac is having getting started, he winds up a blow with the chunk of transparent wall. He smashes it hard into the cover plate. The whole wall vibrates with the force, but the plate itself is barely scuffed. However, scuffs are all the undead fiend needs to allow his claws to bite in. The same second the chunk or irregular material slams home a red flashing warning light snaps out from one wall, the spinning pair of lights within casting strange shifting lights within the narrow mechanical space.
With a rictus grin, showing a terrifying expanse of sharp interlacing teeth, the revenant rams his claws down into the plate, this time tearing shallow but visible rents in the space age material. It is slow going, as each pass of his claws digs another millimetre deeper. Once he breaks through, perhaps another blow with the block will do enough to crack it.
Meanwhile, down below, those in the hall begin to hear heavy pounding from some of the cell doors. Slowly, they realize that with the lockdown in effect, anyone that was in there room is now trapped in there. Whatever the Grandmaster did aside, the doors seem near indestructible, and even El Tigre's door is barely moving under the onslaught of his hammering. Quickly looking around and taking stock shows only Lance, Demoniac, Roulette, Horror, Kalden, and the Kid were outside their cells when the action went down. The new guy, Shockjock, is also free of his chamber, due to the can-opener efforts of the Grandmaster. El Tigre, Killer Frost, and all the rest are all locked up tight.
Lance feels a slight twinge of alarm at the warning lights, but fights it back.
"No guts, no glory." he mutters and brings the piece of wall smashing down on it again.
"Aw s++& aw s!#& aw s~!% aw s%+~" he panics as he paces. He looks over at Horror and then up at the ceiling. " All right, jerkwads! We doin' this er what? If you too scared, say it now 'cuz they might not be a way back."
"Good on you, kid," Deacon praises Lance with the first stab that nets them a starting point.
Despite his initial grin, the tough going as he slashes over and over and over again wears on Deacon. Not that he is particularly tired out by the action, because what undead would be, but really. This level of security is just unnecessary unless...
Well, supervillains tend to make just about any means necessary. Conceding the point with himself, he glowers at the hunk of machinery he is busy trying to carve into. The going is about as productive as trying to whittle a log with a dull spoon in the rain. And yet, he is getting somewhere with it, so he keeps at it.
The moment he does finally get through the front plating, he curls his claws into the hole he has made and tries to haul it clean off. All the better for Lance to be able to get at the guts within. "This is more your scene. You just tell me if you need something shredded."
With holes finally broken through the whole sheet of paneling, Lance brings a chunk of plastic down on it hard. There is a slight flexing and a cracking sound, but no visual change. A few more hits results in the same, with the only change being a lessening of the cracking sound with each impact.
Demoniac hooks his claws through the visible crack, using it to get a good grip. Signalling Lance to help, the other man shifts himself behind the undead demon, and grabbing his waist and shoulders, uses his own strength and weight added to the creature's. The panel cracks, shudders, and then shatters as it comes free. Instead of ripping out as a single piece, once subjected to too much stress, it fractures, sending small narrow pieces in all direction, though thankfully not hard enough to injure anyone.
As the panel comes free, the rotating red light suddenly increases in both brightness and frequency, and an alarm sound kicks in to accompany it.
The device emitting the inhibitor field is now laid bare and exposed before the two men. From here on, it appears to be just circuitry and emitter coils; no more armoured protection.
Each of the two large operating arms observed earlier as they were folded into niches along the walls, unspools, and reorients on the two intruders.
As the warning lights and sirens start going nuts around them, and the other prisoners' pounding increased, Jack came to a decision. Rushing over to Killer Frost's door, he started looking for a way to open it without needing the old guy's freaky strength. "Yo, Ice Queen, you want outta this s***hole?" he asked with a grin.
Her pounding on the door stops once she sees she indeed has someone's attention. She gives Shockjock the standard lookover, starting at his feet, and casting her gaze up, and then back down and over again.
"You know it, sir knight. Why don't you get all chivalric and open a door for the lady?"
"Keep those arms off me for a second while I wreck these wires!" Lance says, and since he decides finesse hasn't served them well SO far, he'll just start ripping wires from the hull, focusing on the emitters and whatever is between him and the next one.
Deacon, a bit distracted by all the flashing lights within the machine, whirls around the moment he sees the robo-arms come to life. Which is admittedly a bit slower than he would like. Either way, he bares his claws and gets ready to be Lance's meatshield.
Lance mashes a hand into the guts of the Inhibitor, setting off a rather severe anti-tampering system. Several thousand volts of power slam through his body.
His muscles clenching and spasming, his jaw clenching so tight it feels as though his teeth might snap, he continues the motion, jamming his hand forward through the arcing electricity until he gets a grip on something delicate feeling. He rips it out, and a handful of wires, and a few metal clamps and fasteners all come out in a chunk. Instantly, the sensation of that oppressive hum diminishes.
It's not gone though. The inhibitors must be laid out in an overlapping field of effect in order to prevent the failure of a single unit from letting loose hell. Seems like they really did do their thinking here, and really didn't want anyone escaping. The power of the effect is significantly lower though, and like the feeling returning after anesthetic wears off, each person in the cellblock feels their connection to their powers return.
Robot Arms:
Robot arm
Sci-Fi Loading Arm
Loader Arm
Robot Loader
The arms extend and adjust to grab a hold of the two intruders. Both of them strike accurately enough, but while Demoniac gets held fast, Lance is wily enough to slip out of the pincher hands.
Lance grins.
"Worth a little shock." he says, cracking his neck a bit as his nanite regeneration kicks on.
He then casts out his datalink to find whatever machine is controlling these arms.
Kid just stays hunkered down. These lunatics are going to get me killed. They won't just let me stay either. I'm hosed.
Feeling a surge of power coursing through his body since he first arrived, Jack allowed the electricity in his body to surround him in a barely visible aura. "Best stand back, babe, this could get a bit shocking!" he yelled out with a grin before firing a blast of electrical current into the door locks, hoping to fry them into not working.
Deacon, despite the wavering power inhibitors, is a bit too busy trying to deal with the arm that is clamped down on him. He kicks his legs as he tries to find purchase on the smooth metal floor and rakes his claws across the arm itself. Perhaps, instead of trying to break free, he can simply break the arm. If not, at least the effort might get both focused on himself instead of Lance. "Any day now, bud!"
An audible crackling sound can be heard below the wails of sirens. Those standing around Kalden could feel a physical change in the air-- something much more volatile than what was there seconds before.
"I can feel it!" he shouts as amber bolts crackle, pop and hiss around him. "Can you FEEEEEEEEL it?!" he shouts again, this time accenting his words with explosions. Despite the excitement, he shows restraint. The series of explosions let off don't seem to hit anyone, nor any of the cell doors, as though it were filling in the empty spaces. Obviously a show of power.
|
The Dunwich Horror was depressed.
All seemed lost. He, a galaxy-defying nightmare beast, had been reduced to a mere step ladder holding open a trapdoor so others might climb upon him. And not even everyone was doing that!
He resolved to remain here, until the security force inevitably overcame The Grandmaster and, at last breaking open the single door between them, no doubt opened fire with guns blazing. And he, somehow deprived of his reality-bending field of Rage-made-manifest, would accept this ultimate fate, joining whatever lay for in whatever afterlife was--
--and then he felt it.
One of the fools above had hammered through some protective cage, and the wires therein felt the tremor. Their obstructing field had...quivered. The ever-present dampener that presented a sublime wall of exactly one point had at last been multiple points. Perhaps if it happened again....
And then it did. The one point became three, coming together to join at...one...ephemeral...joint.
Like a fist through paper his cosmic determination blasts through the dampening field and grasps, AT LAST, his Source. Energy flows through his limbs like a volcano of power.
It is the work of a moment to lever himself up through the trap door, leving a severed leg behind him wedged in the door to ensure it does not shut out the others.
The writhing mass of a dozen wriggling tentacles closes and attacks the arm that currently harries Gravewound.
To Demoniac it seems that the machine is cocooned in a squirming mass of moist green ropes.