Another M'buna...
Another prisoner transfer...
The V'sori say it is for logistical purposes when they bother to say anything...
The other prisoners say it is to keep prisoners off balance and disorganized. At least that is what they whisper to each other in the dark....
You are all locked into seats bolted to the walls of the Mbuna facing each other across the central isle.
There is an iris door separating you from the cockpit and a second iris on the forward port side allowing egress. The rear wall also folds down to form a ramp. You came in this way. The two V’sori pilots used the port iris.
Above the cockpit iris there is a camera and video screen. The screen is off, the camera is watching. You have a clear line of sight on the screen and camera, and vice versa.
The color scheme is black and industrial. This was a landing craft in the invasion and has been rather crudely re-purposed as a transport vehicle.
....
Your specific conditions follow.
What others see: Overweight pale young-ish man in a stained red track suit. Dirty hair, dark circles under both eyes. Restrained by a fold down chest restraint cum crash bar and active nullifier cuffs. The cuffs are clamped to the wall above his head forcing his arms to full extension. His expression is slack. He might be asleep, there is a bit of drool on his chin.
They began by modifying the nullifier beam they used to contain you. It hurt. Eventually pain lost all meaning because there was nothing else. Like asking a fish to describe water.
An unknown time later you discovered that they had managed to partially reverse the accident. You occasionally had a torso, or limbs. More time, more pain. You are stabilizing. They are getting close. You have been sleeping on a cot for a month, Last week you walked on weak legs. Each morning it takes about half an hour for you lids to separate from your eyes, but they do. You can blink. They never speak to you.
You have tried to figure out what they are doing, how this works. You have no solid ideas, but you know the breastplate holds the modified nullifier. With a lab and tools and time, maybe. Please note that the nullifer in the breastplate is currently negating all your powers including any stats or edges purchased with Power Points.
What others see: The figure in the seat is roughly humanoid. Head, two legs. Only one arm but from the shoulders and empty sleeve there should be two. Their skin is green, moist, and semitransparent. You are pretty sure you can see the shadow of their skull. No hair. Facial features look fake like a cheap plastic mask. The eyes are light green. There are wearing a full grey bodysuit. There are hose attachments and spaces to plug things in. It is surprisingly clean. They are wearing a breastplate that looks like it came from a movie. Telltale lights, switches, even a tiny blank screen. The crash bar locks into a dedicated slot on the breastplate. The figure’s arm is clamped to the breastplate at stomach level. No visible nullifier.
What others see: A young male thin. Wearing the torn remains of fashionable street clothes Fresh bruises and burns on their face and arms. Blond hair dirty and matted where a metallic blindfold wraps around their head covering their eyes. They are fully restrained, crash bar, extra waist restraint, ankle cuffs, head restraint locked to the blindfold. Their arms are restrained by nullifier cuffs above their head. But unlike the first figure these cuffs are clamped quite high on the wall. Their arms are at more than full extension nearly dislocating their shoulders.
What others see: An attractive if rather filthy and bruised woman. Her skin is a pale shade of blue, white hair worn long now matted by neglect. Restrained by crash bar and active cuffs identically to the first figure. Her grey eyes are closed but she was awake a few minutes ago.
What others see: A young woman with light tan skin. Her dark hair is nearly as filthy as her clothes. Half her head is badly shaved and butterfly bandages adorn a long semi healed surgical cut above her ear. She is restrained by crash bar and cuffs, but she has a second set of active nullifier cuffs locking her ankles together. She is barefoot like the rest of you. She seems awake. Her brown eyes actively watching the room.
What others see: A tall very thin very pale figure. Lank black hair. Deep sunken dark eyes. They are wearing a torn and filthy dark suit. They are restrained in the manner of the first figure with a locked crash bar and active nullifier cuffs holding their arms extended above their head.
You are dreaming. In your mind’s eye you see Farouk and Martin, victim and betrayer. You dream of your last battle the battle where you were captured. Explosions, smoke, disorientation. Your attackers are hidden, seemingly everywhere. A moment of clarity and you see Farouk and Martin fighting. Farouk has a knife stuck in his shoulder. But even wounded he fights on. He rakes his fingers across Martin’s face. You see blood. Farouk breaks free and runs as smoke and sudden weakness turn to blackness and oblivion. Please note that the nullifiers have completely negated all your powers including any stats or edges purchased with Power Points.
What others see: A corpse. A dry and desiccated body that looks like a movie prop from an Hammer Horror film or something from a National Geographic spread on King Tut. It was brought in last, so you all watched the drones lock in the crash bar and clamp the active cuffs to the wall. From the sounds when they lifted the arms it is a wonder the arms just didn’t come off at the shoulders. It appears to be wearing a thin brown robe, and something glinted red deep in its empty eye socket.
....
You have been in the air for at least four hours. You have no idea where you are going.
Mr. Sardonicous strains against the cuffs. Pain arises from his living form as his hands feel the cuffs tear into them. His mouth contorts with pain. He stops and looks around. "Greetings and salutations." He says with a nod. "Can any of you shoot my hand off?"
"Ugh." Dave vocalizes his discomfort. His toes are freezing and he's desperate to scratch his nose.
In hindsight, if he thought about it, walking over to the V'sori complex and telling them to arrest him was a bad idea. At least it hadn't worked out too well so far. This thing with the other weirdos is kinda new, though. And did that dead guy just say something? Oh, no, that was the other guy who didn't look quite as dead. But hey, there are girls on the flight. Actual women.
Things are looking up! Yeah, today would be a good day.
"Huh?" Dave responds.
The woman with the half shaved head keeps her expression grim and silent. She looks as uncomfortable everyone else seems to be. She otherwise has the air of someone meditating with eyes wide open, like Zen monks in a zendo or meditation hall. Each breath comes in slow and her stomach expands and holds for a moment. Then the air slowly flows back out. Her nostrils flare as she breathes in, as if trying to take in as much as possible.
Her age is hard to gauge, except that she is relatively young, 20 something. She might be pretty with a full head of well-styled hair, a shower, and a spring dress. Her clothes appear to be black synth-leather cat-suit that reflects very little light. There is nothing else to suggest why she is in such restraints, except the nullifier cuffs, which imply she would otherwise have something extra and probably dangerous.
She returns to her focus to her breath flowing in ... then out. In... then out.
Two of those look like they could be normals. Not sure about tall, dark, pale, and ... incoherent ... or crazy. 'Shoot his hand off?' What the f__k. Breathe.
In ... out ... in ... out ...
It's not going to end like this, that's for mother-f__king sure! When I get free, lots and lots of slitheries are going to pay big ... breathe.
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Pain....
Oh it hurts. It hurts everywhere. It hurts nowhere. It hurts always. It has never not hurt. If she could just...concentrate--
Pain....
Okay, that's a no on the concentrating thing. Oh the things she would do for a drink right now. There is a heaven for private areas and she would take a lucky individual there if only to lick up a rather small puddle of literally anything. Even accidental apple cider that is just apple juice kept in the fridge too long. Hey it wasn't bad that one time. Of course it was mixed with a little--
Pain....
Alright, gotta do something else. Can't think about how the meet should've gone down. Can't think about all the mistakes she's made.
Can't think about mom. Can't think about dad. Can't think about dad's stuff. Didn't she hear other people getting brought/dragged/forced in? Maybe it's time to crack open the eyes--
Pain....
Yup. Mistake. Too late now. May as well lean into it. Who we got? People. That's who we got.
Did someone say something? The goth Johnson in the suit. Something about hands and shooting? This headache must be even worse than she thought, so bad it's messing with head-wires in the brain pan. Maybe he said hello?
"Hel....lo," the blue-skinned woman croaks out. It's the sound of a bank vault rarely opened and now forced to divulge it's contents to the new management.
Has it been that long since I last spoke? Well the throat feels like I've been rapidly downing shots of PURE HOT LAVA, so that's irrelevant right now.
Pause a tic. Who's that? Over there. Is that...really...Oh my fragging frag it is! It really is! Ow, ow, ow ow ow, let's not get too excited. But yeah, it looks like he's here. Well no reason to let the raw hamburger of my throat stop me from making nice now.
"Hey there," she croaks as loud as she can at Dave.
She makes a conscious and obviously painful effort at swallowing. It helps and she favors him with a hazy smile. "They got you too, huh? They get everybody. Saw you on the TV."
Her face contorts in pain and the exhaustion from talking overwhelms the girl. Her eyes close again and her head melts back down into her chin.
"Yur kinda cute...."
No way... Dave turned to look in either direction to see if the blue girl was talking to somebody else.
Had to be.
Suddenly there was an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his empty stomach. As if a mouse was gnawing through his guts trying to find the way out through his ass. It kinda felt good.
"Umm," he started, on the extremely odd once in a lifetime chance she was talking to him. "Umm," he repeated. "Yeah."
Smooth.
"Who are you?"
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'Whoa. He's talking to me! Squee! I can't believe I'm having a conversation with the Mountain of METAL! Remember how he took out a whole squad of those bastards? And how the light glinted off his broad shiny chest in that very same striped tracksuit? Whoa. So, this is what he looks like un-transformed? Well we've all got our burdens. Right now the only way I could get off a building is by being thrown from it.'
"Em...imm...immmma...." she whispers hoarsely at the floor, responding to the question in fits and spurts.
Another forced swallow. Another grimace of anguish. But her eyes open a knife's breadth and her head comes up. Not enough to make eye contact again, but more of a general-direction.
"Imagine," she says, at last, clearly. "But not...not here. Here I'm just Kara. Kara...
Luthor."
She swallows, breathes.
"I'm not...not dad. You can't hold the things he did against me. Or maybe you don't know him. Good. Don't worry about it." She's rambling, her voice still unsteady, fighting the unionized team of street workers trying to pave a four-lane highway through her head.
"And you? Don't know your name. Just saw...well you know." Her cheeks color. Embarrassed. She always looked down on people who ran up to a celebrity and screamed "I saw your movie!" Good. You and billion other people. You think they don't know? Now here she was fan-girling out over the TV star.
Still, it made the pain less, and anything that did that got top billing right now.
"Oh?" said Dave when she mentioned her name. It meant nothing to him, and so her babbling about holding things failed to penetrate his skull. What she said mattered less than that she was saying it to him.
But wait! Saw me on TV? Huh?
oh. right.
Dave sighed. It was the longest, most depressed sigh of all time.
"Dave," said Dave. The feeling in his gut evaporated. "My name is Dave."
Mr Sardonicous' eyes flit between them. "I don't need to watch Kara and Dave blow eachothers. Anyone got an escape plan?"
Blow each other? Wait a minute - maybe Dave could make this stolen identity thing work for him.
"Yeah well, busting up alien dirtbags is what I do," continues Dave. "You know, I allowed myself to get caught just to get inside. Why wait for them to come to me, right?" That much was all true.
"Seems like a plan is pointless until we get these nullifier cuffs off of us" the thin blond man says tersely.
In the silence after Psiclops speaks, a sound like the wheezing of wind through old reeds can be heard.
"qad dabat laenat 'uwlayik aladhin jaealuni munkhafidatan"
The sound seems to have issued from the corpse at the end of the row.
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'That is so. Awesome. He got on the inside! I just wonder what his plan is now, but I can't look like an idiot asking. I'm sure to him it's obvious. Gotta play it cool.'
"Nice to meet you. Dave." She starts to smile a little before the volcano in her head shuts that down.
Kara nods at the pain-filled haze that mentions the nullifiers.
"Yeah...yeah. With these cuffs I don't think I could be counted on to steal the lunch money from a kindergartener, least of all break out.
So there can't be no plan. If these were Turnies--erm, Turncoats, traitor humans that betray their race by siding with the invaders--yeah, maybe. They'd be open to the normal things. Money, booze, drugs...sex. Maybe find a moment. But these? They took out Champion, so, baring a miracle, this is as good as it gets."
As the corpse emits a sound, she gets still and patient. Waiting.
It takes a tic before she realizes what she's waiting for. She's waiting for LenTran, her dad's translating program imbedded in the LenGogs, to analyze and translate the odd language he just said. But she doesn't have those. Or the belt. Or...anything.
And never may again.
"Yeah...yeah. With these cuffs I don't think I could be counted on to steal the lunch money from a kindergartener, least of all break out.So there can't be no plan. If these were Turnies--erm, Turncoats, traitor humans that betray their race by siding with the invaders--yeah, maybe. They'd be open to the normal things. Money, booze, drugs...sex. Maybe find a moment. But these? They took out Champion, so, baring a miracle, this is as good as it gets."
In the silence after Psiclops speaks, a sound like the wheezing of wind through old reeds can be heard.
"qad dabat laenat 'uwlayik aladhin jaealuni munkhafidatan"
Mr Sardonicous nods, "Leon de Mummysnatch is correct. You are exceedingly pessimistic." He shakes his head. "I could go into how baby elephants are chained up and try and try to escape until they give up...then as adults they're restrained by only a thin rope that they could easily break and never do. All because they are so pessimistic that they never try." He pauses frustratedly. "Try to break free. They aren't perfect and eventually will leave an opening."
Partly shaved head woman listens and her eyes roam over the room. Then she says, "They probably can hear us and watch us, so if you do come up with a whizzo escape plan, maybe don't broadcast it. They are taking us somewhere, which means some of these restraints have to go. Let's just watch for opportunities. And remember that saying about the enemy of my enemy ..."
Her accent is American, New York most likely.
Ah-Rekhmire: , Result: 5 + 2 = 7
Dave: , Result: 2 + 2 = 4
Kara: , Result: 5 + 2 = 7
Mr S.: , Result: 2 + 2 = 7
Psiclops: , Result: 5 + 2 = 7
Doc Toxic: , Result: 2 + 2 = 4
In the silence after Psiclops speaks, a sound like the wheezing of wind through old reeds can be heard.
"qad dabat laenat 'uwlayik aladhin jaealuni munkhafidatan"
The sound seems to have issued from the corpse at the end of the row.
The cadaver speaks. Wish my spirits were around to translate. I feel them around; why are they silent? Must be these ankle bracelets. I wonder if he's connected to that evil Egyptian cult the slitheries claimed to have shut down. Or is he the guy himself? Maybe he knows some magic that can get around these nullifiers. Assuming a stiff breeze doesn't blow him to pieces.
After Kara cracks wise, something in her 'tude seems familiar to Karma. Then she remembers. She was in the news last year. A woman with blue skin and white hair was wanted for questioning after a prominent politician was scammed out of a lot of cash. Security cams spotted the woman come and go from his home the day it happened. He claimed she had used some super power to make him buy her all kinds of goods. Sounded like a face-saving claim at the time. I wonder ...
When the thin, blonde guy speaks, it reminds her that her investigations of the V'sori power structure in the streets of Star City had turned up a few people who claimed they had seen such a guy near a couple of cases of sabotage. Didn't see him do anything but look intense at the facility. Then it folded in on itself. Note to self: don't piss him off.
The creepy guy doing most of the talking reminds Karma of a story she read of a vampire of some sort linked to some strange undead epidemic in Chicago. He had been locked up for decades, showing no signs of aging. I wonder what meal time was like in his prison? Not sure I want to be his ally. If he's a vamp, he'd be high on my list of targets, turning innocents into his kind of living death. Well, that will be then. This is now. I guess in my own way, I might be considered undead, although I don't turn others into ghosts.
As she observes the rest of the motley crew, memories surface linking the last two to rumors mostly. There was a guy captured who got away shortly thereafter, allegedly turning into a kind of sludge and rolling away down a drainpipe. And the fat guy might be the ... what was he called? ... The Fist, ... something like that. Seemed to focus on small time criminals. Might be good in a fight, though from the looks of him, I'd not pick him to be on my dodgeball team.
The woman says nothing else for a while, but she seems intensely focused on the situation.
"Damn." says the blob in a human suit. "Must be a nullifier suit. My molecules won't stay together. Without that, I'm largely useless. Pretty much a brain in a jar."
The Mbuna suddenly drops and half rolls to starbord. You press into your crash bars as you are momentarily weightless before the Mbuna stabilizes, levels off, and the gravity inducers catch up.
The engines are louder now. The vibration a little more pronounced.
"That's probably bad," Dave observes without humor.
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Pain....
Kara was getting tired of having nothing to focus on but the skull-breaking headache. Well, her arms were starting to ache, so that was new.
This sucked. Curse them for ever coming here. What even was on this planet that they wanted? Surely some asteroid would have more and easier minerals to mine?
The sudden banking of the ship dislodged a memory for her hungry mind to at last digest. It was her 16th birthday. Dad had laid out this AMAZING scavenger hunt that taxed all her knowledge, it borrowed from everything he had done for her up until this point and took up the entire day.
Only at the end, when the avian section at the zoo was closing up, did she finally figure it out .
She had to mind-control a janitor to unlock a storage closet under the fruit bat display in the dark zone. And there it was, wrapped in glow-in-the-dark paper.
The L-Belt Mk. I.
It would take her months to figure out all its functions, but that day, she worked out the most important one.
The two of them flew home.
Not a day had past from this day to that that she hadn't jazzed the graviton capacitors and told gravity to kiss her ass at least once. Walking was for chumps, and even driving had its downsides. But flying? It's like salt or money or booze: It always improves whatever it's applied to.
Imagine
Well done. I liked the fruit bat.
Dave once flew in a big jet. He remembered standing in line, last to board, and then when he got into the plane only middle seats remained. There was one row with a really pretty girl idly staring out from her window seat. He could have sat next to her, but she probably wouldn't have liked that. Instead, he chose spot at the back of the plane because it was closer to the bathroom and what if he had to barf? He'd need somewhere to clean up.
This all seems perfectly legit.
Mr Sardonicous Tries to use the turbulence for helping to break the cuffs. He utterly fails.
A valiant attempt, and a benny well spent, but the nullifiers hold.
Karma continues looking around the transport, her mind clearly working. She remains silent for now.
Since the take-over, she has continued to try to cultivate sources of information on the slitheries.
Result: 7 + 2 (streetwise) = 9
She remembers a tiny cell of resistors who boasted a database of V'sori assets. She observed them in ghost mode and learned what she could looking at them scroll through their aircraft, debating which ones could be sabotaged.
"Crashing would be nice. Either it would break the nullifiers and I'll be fine or I'll die and this will end." he says in a detached way.
"Crashing would be nice. Either it would break the nullifiers and I'll be fine or I'll die and this will end." he says in a detached way.
Dave snorts. "I'm not that lucky. No, death seems to have forgotten about me. We'll be fine. Well, I'll be fine. You'll probably all die."
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'We're asc--' Kara starts to mind-think before she realizes it will do no good.
'People only talk with their mouths? Always? How weird. I don't think I'll ever get used to it. Even though I'll probably do it for the rest of my life.'
"A--," she croaks out, the brief time not talking having again clogged her dry and inflamed throat. She works up moisture, swallows, tries again.
"Wooooo--," this ends in a fit of hacking coughs and a grimace of pain. She tries again.
"We're ascending," she gets out and allows herself a brief smile in triumph. Even this small task a bit of rebellion against their captures.
"Their filters are good, but not omnipotent. I spent enough time trying to find an altitude ceiling to detect thinning air when I smell it.
I'd venture a guess at 7 angels, but who knows.
And for the record," she painfully looks at Dave and tries out a smile. Her head allows it.
"I hope none of us die."
About 10-15 minutes after the shaking one of the pilots walks out of the cockpit and into the main cabin.
The V’sori walks to the monitor and attaches what looks like a large USB stick. They then cut one of the wires between the wall and the camera and splice in a small black teardrop shaped object. Both the USB and the teardrop are showing lit yellow/orange lights.
The V’sori is wearing a bright yellow belt with several attached pockets/pouches/small boxes. Think Batman’s utility belt but without as much stuff. It clashes badly with their uniform.
Once satisfied with the splicing job the pilot partly opens their shirt and removes a largeish flat pouch from under their arm. Walking up to Dave they remove a black disk from the pouch. It is about the size of 4 Kennedy half dollars stacked on top of each other. It makes a “click” as it attaches to Dave’s cuffs.
They then walk across the isle to the green skinned individual and stare for a moment. Their eyebrows rise in interest.
They turn away form from the person in the nullifier suit and walk towards the blond man with the stretched arms. They speak for the first time; the pilot’s voice is flat and affectless as with all V’sori. “Remember a V’sori did this.” they say as a second disk clicks onto blond man's cuffs.
Another disk is attached to the cuffs of the blue skinned woman.
After attaching a disk to the arm cuffs of the woman with the surgical wound they notice the ankle cuffs and pause. They look in their pouch and move on.
Two more disks are rapidly attached to the cuffs of the tall pale man and strangely to the set on the corpse.
They then return to the front of the craft and stand again before the green skinned individual. They stare for a bit. And then remove a folded piece of paper from the pouch. They are clearly comparing what is on the paper to the form before them. Seemingly satisfied they return the paper and draw ourt a flat 4-inch-long knife. It is a strange blend of makeshift and machined. The flat sides of the knife are smoothly polished, and the hilt is well fit black plastic. The blade however is jagged and broken looking. The tip is even slightly twisted. Without warning or change of expression the V’sori stabs twice in rapid succession. But the green figure is not hurt. The knife leaves ragged tears in the suit but does not break the skin underneath.
”Sorry about this Doctor.” they say as they place a disk high on the breastplate near where the arm emerges.
Walking to the port side iris door they pause and speak again. “Pay attention.”
They then open the port iris and leap into the void. It is dark outside. The door irises rapidly shut behind them.
Some seconds pass. You smell plastic burning. The tone of the engines change again and they grow even louder.
The monitor flickers to life revealing the golden mask of Dr. Destruction.
The artificial voice Dr. Destruction speaks.
"In two minutes and thirteen seconds this craft will crash. What happens after that is up to you."
Dr. Destrruction pauses.
"You will crash into a prison camp located in the Eastpoint district of Star City. The V'sori are holding someone who has information of significant value. Mindjack, you may have heard of him."
The image of Dr. Destruction is replaced for a moment with that of a smiling man with ruddy skin, receding black hair and a poor attempt at a goatee.
"If you agree to rescue him I will deactivate your nullifiers and you will bring Mindjack to the courtyard just outside the main building. If you do not agree this craft will crash directly into Mindjack's cell. There will be no survivors. Simply say 'Yes' when you agree, the voice recognition is quite good."
The monitor goes dark.
And the lights go out.
And the gravity shuts off.
And and the engines go suddenly silent.
After the craft rolls dramatically and then stabilizes again, the woman with the partly shaved head and surgical scar looks around, startled. After Imagine comments on the movement, Karma says, "I've read these ships are immune to turbulence. That sort of thing shouldn't happen. Something's off, Buckos."
As the V'sori works on the camera, Karma cranes her head forward but can't get a clear view into the cockpit. She glares at them, wishing her eyes could shoot more than figurative daggers.
After the V'sori jumps ship, Karma is again unable to see much, but clearly something is up. She tentatively tests her restraints.
When Dr. Destruction offers his deal, Karma is one of the first to say, "Yes." She's heard this villain has resistance cells working against the invaders. This could be legit.
Result: 4 + 2 = 6
Dave had started to nod off when the cockpit door opened. This was different. "Huh?"
The V'sori is acting very strangely, Dave decides. It tells him to remember something which he immediately forgets. And then it tells them to pay attention. Pay attention to what? thinks Dave.
"Wait," says Dave after the V'sori has already jumped through the door. "Who's flying the plane?"
He looks at the screen, confused. "Well how does he know there will be no survivors? The next time I die will be the first time!" Dave smiles thinly at the Blue Girl as if he's just won the superhero one-liners contest.
At the proposal, for lack of a better idea, Dave says, "Sure." He's bad at following instructions.
Mr Sardonicous watches the events with interest. None of it makes much sense to him, but he doesn't really care. "So if one of us says..." he pauses. "The N-word, then we all die?"
A vivid flash of red suddenly erupts from the eyeholes of the corpse. A voice calls out from what sounds like the dark beyond.
YES!!!
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Kara was too woozy to get a good look at anything except a strange dohicky getting attached to her cufflinks. She just kinda stared at what was going on--the V'Sori, his belt, the video of their new best friend.
Kara snort as Dave cracks wise. How long has it been since anyone cared to even try at jokes?
'Well if even a corpse is for this, I better not be left behind.'
"yes Yes YES!" she yells, her long-inhibited emotions already starting to get the best of her.
"I'll kill or destroy the mo-fo who says no, so Dr. D, don't worry about any no votes!" The anger and conviction of the heretofore taciturn and calm woman with the scar on her head comes through above the rising engine roar. Then she dials it back a bit and adds, "Hydra knows I can do it!"
Most of the group likely knows about Hydra, the supervillain who was killed by a super hero wearing a dark cape and a Day of the Dead mask, wielding a katana. As she did so, she claimed it was revenge for killing her and her family and many others trying to turn them into super heroes. Although someone claiming to be Hydra later kidnaped the U.S. president's daughter just before the invasion, Hydra's murder was captured on a security camera, and the video leaked to the press.
That same year, a similar figure claimed responsibility for slaying Hitler after discovering the dictator had not died at the end of WW II but was alive and well with an impressive collection of super powers and elite military units operating out of a South American country. The identity of the dark angel of death was never discovered, but she was dubbed Vendetta by the media for the obvious zeal with which vigilante justice was delivered.
It is possible the woman with the scar is just bluffing. There is only one way to find out.
= nothing
= nothing
As soon as Dr. Destruction's image disappears, Psiclops shouts "YES!" and hopes the doctor will keep his word...
"The other pilot appears to be dead or diabled. he notes.
"I most heartily agree to your terms, Doctor Destruction." There is a pause as he realizes this is not a live channel, and specifically and clearly says "Yes." He nods his head to the person speaking what seems to be an ancient form of Egyptian. "Yes." Then shakes his head enthusiastically to try and get him to repeat this.
"It's not like a room full of murderers would lie." He says. "Yes"
Dave has heard of Hydra, although it's a story that is too confusing to know what to believe. Is this lady claiming to be Hydra? Or some henchman?
More importantly, if Hydra wasn't destroyed by a super laser, is it possible that Champion is also still alive? Dave feels a glimmer of hope, then buries it under hurt feelings.
Anyhow, if she claims she can kill them all then she must be very powerful. Come to think of it, everyone on the flight seems like a super. Wow! Dave was finally part of a team!
"Yes!" he says with more conviction.
The goo turns to Sardonicus. "Betraying Doctor Destroyer has not historically been a good move. I will keep up my end of the bargain."
Mr Sardonicous arches his eyebrow. "Stop. You're scaring the women." he states flatly.
It seems the voice recognition was quite good.
With the final "yes" three things happen simultaneously. First the USB thing and the black teardrop burst into flame. Second the disks placed by the recently departed pilot begin to give off a dull red glow. You only notice this glow because the cabin is so dark. Finally, the engines reactivate with a tortured roar and force the ship into a new heading. The inertial dampeners/interior gravity takes a moment or two to come back and in that time, you clearly sense that you are going into a steep dive.
A few moments pass....
The disks are glowing brighter and giving off considerable heat.
A few more moments pass...
They explode.
There are a number of very loud noises. There is light.There is motion. There is stillness.
You are all sitting comfortably in your restraints on seats firmly bolted to the walls and floor of the transport. The induced gravity is functioning normally. The camera and monitor are gently burning against the forward wall.
The transport craft is resting upside down on and partially through the roof of a building. At least that is what you can see through shattered remains of the port-side iris door. You all hear some very exciting alarms from outside.
The interior lights come on.
"A little help please," The woman with the now bleeding head wound calls out. She is still locked in her seat by the crash bar and the nullifier cuffs are still attached around her ankles, keeping her normal.
She touches her cut scalp tentatively, checking out what she cannot yet see.
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Even as the headache clears, the desire for a mimosa remains.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhh that feels good!" Kara proclaims in unbridaled joy as her head ceases its attempts to secede from the union. "Oh you have no idea how good it can feel to have your brain stop trying to melt down.
Mmmmmm. Okay, okay, let's get up everyone. We got a man that's paid up front for a job be done. Let's get it done. Also, from those alarms going off it sounds like they're already playin me entry music so we won't be alone too long.
Hold on, chummer, by hook or by crook we're gettin' out."
Kara channels all the frustration, pain and anguish into moving her own crash bar to, at last, taste freedom and the unrestrained opportunity to visit ruin upon...well someone is bound to turn up.
Of course she also hopes the bar ain't locked.
Mr. Sardonicous feels the Thirst rise within him. The familiar feeling was met with nostalgia of the curse. He enjoyed feeling human again, but the need to rule the world was overwhelming. He summons the power of his claws. They rip at his restraints which then burst into chunks and pieces.
Mr. Sardonicous stands and raises his arms into a 'V'. He feels his fangs grow. He hisses and scans for the living. He moves in an aggressive manner to 'help' Imagine. He stands in front of her. He can feel the heat of her. He sniffs deeply of her scent. He rips her free with his claws.
Mr. Sardonicous fights the Hunger.
"My pleasure." he says.
The Doctor flows out of his suit, becoming flexible once more. He comes up to Karma, "I'll deal with your restraints and then the wound. Please hold still, as the acid is quite potent." He wraps a pseudopod around the nullifier, and it begins to sizzle and smoke.
Next, assuming that she allows it, he'll place a pseudopod on her wound. The pain quickly fades as lidocaine seeps into the tissue. But she'll feel a pressure as he flows into the wound to clean out any debris and kill any pathogens. An adhesive seals the broken vessels and covers the wound.
You have full access to you superpowers again. Feel free to roll Focus (-1 foethe wound) vs. 4 to clear that bleeding head wound. Nothing serious about the bleeding. The crash just popped a stitch or 2. You could also just let Doc fix it if you like.
Imagine It's locked.
Because I find it amusing and because that was a bad roll and because you are the only person who cannot trivially pop these restraints I rule that you cannot use your strength trait to escape for a bit. Get help or get creative. Don't worry you won't be locked in for long in any case.
The corpse stumbles from its restraints, looking more robust than it previously did. It looks over the group and sees some still in restraints, the creature utters some guttural noises and suddenly the bars are gone..turned to vapour.
Ok, using my matter control can I just change the restraints from metal to water vapour? I control both forms of matter...not too sure what to roll...