No, it doesn't go all the way through, only exposed wires. That said, there is logically a plate on the inside connected to the same wires; it's possible you could push it through to have a line of site into the room.
Unfortunately, he's pretty resistant to such things.
Sorry for the confusion, now I understand. YES, the Martial Artist came into the room under the effects of an invisibility spell from the sorcerer AND has mad stealth.
As soon as the sorcerer disappeared, the Martial Artist would have become visible to everyone.
Glancing back at the room where the fight's going on, Rift hesitates. They might be in trouble but,.. the hostages need to be the first priority. Quickly she tries to push though the far panel.
No, he's still here. The martial artist attacks Mr. Marble:
but the attack, solid though it was, simply bounces off Marble's solid hide.
Meanwhile, in the other hallway, Rift manages to push through the plate on the other side, scraping her arm in the process. She can now clearly see into the panic room; it's easy to tell there are several people inside.
Rift peers through the hole to the other side. "Are you OK in there? Don't worry, I'll have you out in a moment. If you could just stand away from the door?.. Thanks." Checking again to see that the space is clear, she opens a portal into the room. "Just step this way" she says to the figures on the far side, "be quick though, I have to go help my friends!"
Mr. Marble is confused by the attack from his form ally, but he also realizes he's been abandoned by the others. Aiming for the ceiling, he leaps through the tiles and out the side of the building, causing building materials to crash into the room.
The heroes have subdued the only remaining villain (who is in Atticus' control). You can follow and try to apprehend Mr. Marble if you wish.
Meanwhile, Rift has rescued the hostages. They all seem very grateful, but none moreso than Grant Petersen, PhD and his wife, Audrey. A large group of party guests, all very well dressed but definitely the worse for wear from being trapped in the confined panic room, follow out behind them, a few looking in wonder at Rift's portal as they escape.
"Thankyou, my dear, so much," Grant says. He has a large gash on his head from where he's been maltreated, but other than that and being a little shaken, he seems fine.
Blood stains across his body start to reverse, his clothing mending as well as flesh, yet he dosn't even seem to notice. What he does notice however, is the large hole in the ceiling. "I'm not sure we'll be able to get them. We have one of their men, and the hostages are safe. As well as hopefully, whatever that... Wizard...? Whatever he wanted. Maybe we should call it a day for now..." He looks around at the mess, and is eager to put it all right.
"So what now?" Atticus asks through the mouth of his controlled enemy.
"I don't think the guys upstairs are gonna let me keep this one."
"Stopwatch, perhaps you could see to their wounds?" Guardian asks, gesturing to Professor Petersen. While they are being taken care of, he grabs a chair and places it so that he can stand on it to reach the hole in the ceiling.
"Professor, do you have any idea why they wanted that book?" he calls out as he gestures to the debris on the floor. It rises up to start fitting itself back into the hole while he listens to the answer, then he quickly reaches out to touch it and it seamlessly flows back together so that you could no longer tell the ceiling was ever damaged.
"We saw five of them, do you know if there were any more, and did you overhear them talking about their plans?" he continues as he gets down and replaces the chair. After taking care of his spyholes, he goes to work repairing the wall.
Theodore sends a quick burst of temporal energy out, helping Reece repair the building as it smooths out colour inconsistencies and other minor issues. In short time, everything should be as good as it was yesterday. He then steps over to the one hostages, offering a comforting smile as he aims his watch at them. Soon, even the very memory of their pain vanishes. There we go, all better. Just a quick check, do you recall the date and time? Being reversed has some weird effects on memories occaisonally."
"No problem" Rift replies with a grin at the doctor, "All in a day's work. Are you all OK?"I think everything'll be alright now, wish we'd caught Marble-man but at least we got Mr. invisible."
[dice=Self-Rewinding, Recovery Check]1d20
"Professor, do you have any idea why they wanted that book?"
"I have no idea, young man. Those ruffians were intent on destroying my library, so I can't say they themselves would have any use for an obscure German manuscript."
"We saw five of them, do you know if there were any more, and did you overhear them talking about their plans?"
"We only saw five as well. And they mostly just hustled us into the panic room, once they saw that book wasn't here. I didn't hear anything." The guests nod their agreement.
While helping to make everyone presentable, healing the wounds and fixing their costumes, Stopwatch suggests they should go out with them. From the chipper tune in his voice, it's clear he's very eager to show everyone off to the public.
Hostilities are over, so you can stop rolling for now.
Guardian makes sure he has fixed up everything as much as possible and looks over the books the kidnappers were going through, as well as checking if they had left anything behind.
He nods to Stopwatch and joins the rest of the group, staying in the back. He is still a bit uncomfortable dealing with the media, but knows he will have to get used to it.
"Frankly all, I don't think we did that great here. You know, collateral damage, blatant disregard for possible danger and police action. Let's all make a quiet exit to where we met that agent. hmm?"
Guardian makes sure he has fixed up everything as much as possible and looks over the books the kidnappers were going through, as well as checking if they had left anything behind.
Guardian finds nothing of additional interest.
Rift looks over at Atticus. "We were asked to deal with this, so I don;t know about all of that. Wouldn't it be good to let the public know that St Luis has someone to deal with this kind of thing?"
Although he is sorely tempted to leave, Guardian knows they have to face the music. "That would send the wrong message, just slinking away. We have to take responsibility for our mistakes as well as reward for our successes. Yes, we weren't able to stop most of them from getting away, but we did rescue the hostages and capture one of the kidnappers. As for the damage, we did fix all that. We just have to make it clear that while we tried to capture all of them, rescuing the people in danger was our top priority."
The heroes exit the building to be greeted by the barrels of a dozen SWAT M-4 rifles. As soon as they recognize the heroes (from their video appearance in the battle with the ant men), they lower their weapons to stand by.
A familiar detective greets the group. "Eh, I should have known. You guys again. Well, good job, I guess. Everyone alive?" he asks Professor Grant, at the head of the group.
"Quite," Grant nods. "Thanks to my new friends here. They dispatched those ruffians quite handily."
An olive skinned young woman steps up to the group as the former hostages are taken to the EMTs.
"Jasmine Nejem, Fox 2 News. Does any of you want to make a statement?"
Atticus shies away from the camera, mumbling something of a pre-cursor apology for his handler and the amount of paperwork that was undoubtedly being sent his way.
The heroes make a brief acknowledgement of their assistance in resolving the crisis, and then head back to the HQ to close up the mission.
Reward is 3 PP.
|
Tesla steps up to the microphones, a bright, warm, smile beaming on his face. "Lo! Once again Tesla's Band of Righteous Heroes has saved the day! Lo, though this city is besieged with many, MANY forces of vile wickedness to rival the evil of Thomas Edison himself, the TBRH is of course quite glad to have been in the right time and the right place to swing in to action and save the hostages, as well as to deny the wicked thieves the property they were unlawfully after, much like the wicked Edison has absconded with many of my patents and rights of property to which I am rightfully due.
So fear not! Unless you are an evil-doer then fear much! For always the tools, people, and personalities of Tesla's Band of Righteous Heroes are hard at work keeping the city safe. Safe and busy, with many objects of labor saving and entertainment available at TeslaToys dot com, at a site of the interwebs near you!
Sign up for the newsletter and get a 5 percent discount off your first purchase of 100 pounds, or 120 dollars!"
Tesla flies off, back to HQ, convinced that he has wowed the local persons and done some of the good Pee Are that his Pee Are guy is always talking about.
"Ah, Sorry about that! You will have to forgive our friend Tesla, he gets a little confused and carried away." Guardian steps up quickly and interrupts as Tesla is talking. "We are sorry that we could not capture all of the kidnappers, but the hostages' safety had to be our top priority. We will do our best to capture those responsible and turn them over to the proper authorities as soon as possible. Thank you."
__________________________
Once they have returned to the base, he starts a little speech. "While we did good in getting everyone out safely today, those responsible should not have gotten away. I think we need to improve our teamwork and come up with some strategies to improve our performance in the future."
"We need to be able to work together as a team, not just a collection of individuals. We need to be able to trust each other and know that we have each other's back in a crisis." He finishes his speech and waits for reactions and opinions from his teammates.
He stares at the elder scientist for an extended amount of time, trying to understand his words, before he quickly follows Guardian up the microphone. "Ah- yes! We're all glad to have been here in time to keep these fine people safe, and it's with our deepest regret that the main perpetrators fled the scene. Know that our group- whatever our name even is to be -won't let this be the end here, we'll find these criminals bring this city back it's peace of mind." He'd spend a few more minutes answering any questions the reporters had about the incident, before hurrying off witht he others.
-
He cups the chin of his mask while Guardian speaks, before nodding along to give his own thoughts. "You make an excellent point. We should try to train together, perhaps with team building exercises, go on more missions as a group, perhaps even just staying here and hanging out. We should familiarize ourselves with one another."
His eyes dart toward Tesla, "We should also make sure we're all on the same page in the way we deal with the victims, perpetrators, government officials, and the media as a whole. We're still in the rough, in this little coalition with a variety of conflicting ideas and hopes for the future. Let's find a happy balance, shall we?
"I propose we try to discover and capitalize on what the people out there are calling us. While I note several of us probably have a great ideas for names," He says, hesitantly. "It'd give us a connection to the public if we took on a moniker they themselves established. After all, a great many heros and their teams were given titles in a similar way, why rock what works?"
Atticus raises an eyebrow from Tesla's declaration and apparent brand awareness. He sends him a telepathic message, leaving the channel open for a reply.
"I'd be careful if I were you. Business is good and all, but AEGIS has a way of mucking up things they want to muck up."
Atticus has nothing to say, but sends out a mental ping trying to signal his handler that he has a martial artist that he could either hand off or make do handstands.
"I just hope the public doesn't latch onto Tesla's name for us..." Guardian says softly under his breath.
AEGIS sends several armed troops to take control of the martial artist, who is calling himself Ming (Atticus is familiar with some of them, though they don't let on).
Freeman Washington debriefs the team on the mission, and assures everyone there will be no legal issues related to loss of property. In fact, he is pretty impressed with the efficiency with which you solved the problem.
I'll have the start of the next adventure up by Monday.
Say hi to the kids for me Allison he mentally sends to one of the guards he recognized.
When no one is looking, or rather when they are suggested not to look, he leaves to return back to his apartment with AEGIS.
Atticus sits in a conference room atop the Federal Courts building (the same building his suite and AEGIS headquarters are in) with several important officials and more security than you can shake a stick at. Included are the Secretary of State, the Governor of Missouri, the Attorney General, and the US Ambassador to the United Nations.
"Mr Wells. Can you please give us some insight into the agreement made by your team with these Ant-People. I've read your briefing, and honestly, it seems the vaguest of truces at best."
Atticus sighs. This would have been the third time he's been through the whole story again. The first he was thorough, the second he was brief. Now he was just tired.
"Warring nations underground. This particular council that has launched a surface attack would be willing to come to a peaceful solution if we solidified their power underground. For all intents and purposes, I bought you guys time. Or would you rather have platoons of ant soldiers pop out in city parks or having skyscrapers falling down sinkholes? Your decision now, I told them we would have actual diplomats available for a meeting to discuss details.."
"Fair enough," the man sighs. He looks over at Danny Hanson, your handler. "We're going to need access to the asset during our negotiations." Danny breathed in, but he'd been instructed how to proceed in this situation.
"Of course, Mr. Secretary."
"Very well, you're both dismissed, for now. We'll instruct you further when we have a diplomatic contingent ready."
Atticus slumps against the back of the elevator. He hated formalities at times. They were just so....annoying.
"Danny, please tell me were done for the day? I don't think I could take looking at another meeting like that. How's the wife doing? She forgiven me for mind controlling the dog yet?"
"Forgiven you? Heck, she asked if you could come over and make him stop pooping in the neighbor's flower beds. I told her I'd talk to you, but I didn't think it worked that way.
"Yeah, we're done for now. Looks like we're in this for the haul though. If you're going down to antville, you can bet they'll want me to go, too."
Meanwhile, on the campus of a local university...
Theodore Lucas
and his friend Betty Wavaski are enjoying their lunch on a cool October day. Suddenly, the overcast skies begin pouring a light rain, forcing the friends to move to a table under a nearby arcade.
"So, have you and Emily had a chance to meet up lately," Betty asks not so subtly.
"Hmmm?" He humms, with a smile on his face. He'd been wondering when she'd get around to bringing it up again all day, and seems she's chosen now to spring it on him. "Well... maybe a few times. Though, perhaps not always under the right circumstances" He says, hinting at recent news regarding his Stopwatch persona and the others. He glances around the room, noting the lack of people and cameras, and his hand quickly taps a button on his watch. In an instant, he's as dry as he was five minutes prior.
Atticus chuckles.
"Yeah, it doesn't work like that. No permanent effects thankfully, or I might be under a much tighter lock and key."
He frowns when Danny mentions he might be tagging along.
"I'm not sure I like the idea of you down there, almost as much as I don't like the idea of me being down there. If anything happens to you, there's going to be a very annoying fat man calling foul play while being first in line to being my next handler."
Atticus
"Appreciate the sentiment. Don't worry. I'm sure there will be a contingent of AEGIS' finest down there with us, not to mention secret service and possibly ninjas..."
The elevator lets out to the floor containing Atticus' suite. "Have a good one, Atticus. See ya."
Meanwhile, at the HQ...
Guardian and Rift are the only team members currently present, each for their own reasons, when the phone rings. The number listed is registered to SLPD.