Walpurgisnacht [IC/PG-16/Conditional Acceptance]

[Chaos Sonic 443]

“I did just say that, didn’t I? Tinker brain, I suppose, always getting caught on small details of things. You’re going to have to forgive me in advance, too. I’m sure it will happen again.”

Override sort of overlooked this, namely cause it probably was one of those situations where the man's mind worked faster than his mouth. That did happen to the best of them from time to time...he was one of them. Regardless, the Tech Hero watched Tinker speak to Censer, and was surprised to see that she was actually complying with this. Tinker...at this point it seemed like it was more than that...seemed more like a Thinker here...power of persuasion or maybe just good at talking to others. In any case, Censer told Tinker the location of what they were after...least some progress was being made.

“Ah, see, that wasn’t so bad. Minos, I will let you retrieve the tissue or whatever Caesar has given Censer here. Override, camera off, turn around, we’ll give them their space.”

"Very well..." he tapped at the side of his helmet, cutting the camera feed as he turned away, proceeding to walk with Tinker. Wasn't the first time since this whole thing started he was requested to turn cameras off or shut have his A.I. off for a while.

“I do hate being like that, but sometimes you do have to play off a certain reputation. I understand you fought her earlier. That must have helped too.”

"The group fought an array of Caesar's team..." Override piped up. "Myself personally, I was engaged in combat with...I believe the records said she was Arcturus. I fired a pulse bolt at Hellhound originally and Censer simply rebuked it in a sense at the beginning." However, right now, Override was trying to figure something out. Tinker's demeanor...just changed. It was somber... Before he could ask anything, Tinker spoke again, pulling out a pendant...a marble wrapped in wire.

“I was surprised when you were assigned to supervise me. I didn’t think we were supposed to meet yet. You know, you might have to seek some of us out. But don’t worry. I’m sure it’ll be sooner than you think.”

"Wh-..." he was about to speak, only to hear Minos pipe up that she found it and like that...Tinker seemed to be back to his normal self and walked back. There he left Override for a moment or two. "...P.I.X.E.L., I'm going to need you to run a search in the background for me...discreetly as possible if you have to." he spoke quietly.

"At once sir. What for?"

"....." Override was silent, just staring at Tinker as he walked off. "...pendants...specifically seeing about any with a marble wrapped in wire. I want origins, meanings, significance...whatever you can find. I need to figure out who 'Tinker' is...and what he meant by that." With this spoken to only himself and his A.I., Override returned back towards Tinker and Minos.

---

“Alright, so that’s still on. I assume you agreed upon a time?”
“Pending your approval, of course, it would be ninety minutes from the end of the call, so over an hour from now still.”
“That’s time, but not a lot of time. I suggest we have the teams -- the ones that have already been formed, anyway -- gather together and familiarize themselves with each other. I know we’re all- well, most of us are professional, anyway, but we can’t afford to step on any toes for these. And the raid groups will have to decide which location they’re raiding. As for everyone else…”
“Everyone else is playing defense or support. We’re holding as much territory as we can so Caesar doesn’t sweep us by in the meantime.”

Seemed like he was selected for a raid group...being grouped with Minos, Belladonna and a renegade named A.V.D. This seemed like a mismatch of combinations here, but then again, not like he could've easily told them to rework and reassess the situations with power meshing...that would've been too easy for them.

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll get along great! I’ve already met some of you, the rest can’t be all bad. Hi! My name’s Minos! My favorite food is scrambled eggs and…”
"Sorry to cut you off Minos-- it's a pleasure by the way. What's your skillset and how can I work around or with you? We should strategize before we go barging in. I like to know and understand who I'm working with. You can all answer that as you please. It's best we get introductions out now before we're under fire. I specialize in plant life and use my powers as a means of control. I hope I can be of use to you all."

"Plant life...that tracks." Override spoke up. "Read your file from the G3 Database, they were talking about the way you specialize in that style of powers. Unfortunately, nature and technology seem to be at odds with one another...so that does put this group at a slight disadvantage. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there..." He shrugged slightly and simply continued. "Override, I specialize with technology, as expected. I'm good for general analyses, pulling up various information..." A pause came when he was planning to say something else: expert hacker. The young man bit his tongue for the time being, not prepared to open that can of worms right now. "...aside from that, my suit can assist in whatever capacity we need, that along with my onboard assistant...P.I.X.E.L., say hello."

"Greetings."

"Now, let's get this started." Override said, opening up a holopad. "P.I.X.E.L, tell me you got some blueprints for Battle Labs Robotics."

"Just located them. Pulling them up for you now." The A.I. chimed, as the building blueprints began to spark onto the holopad.

"Here we are." he nodded, enlarging the image and putting it in front of the four of them. "This is Battle Labs Robotics. As you can see, it's a campus like area with an open courtyard in the middle and the building itself is a three story square. And as you can see here..." he paused, pointing at the bottom area of the building. "...there are three basement levels. Security is most likely going to be tight. However, aside from that, it doesn't account for how many Gibbons could potentially be inside the building."

"Oh, is that our decision, then?" Minos said. "We spent all that time with Tinker and you're just ignoring everything he worked on?"

He winced slightly within the armor. Of course Minos would mention this... "I'm not ignoring anything. I'm keeping out options open." Override shook his head. "The casino is a different story all together, considering that's basically Caesar's home turf. I can provide the schematics for that too if that'll help."

A.V.D. spoke up for the first time. "Shouldn't you just give the floor plan of the place we're not raiding to the other group? Stanley said there wasn't that much time."

Override simply gave a nod and immediately shifted the holopad, collapsing it in the process. "P.I.X.E.L, send the floor plans t-..."

"They've just been sent off, sir."

"...thank you." He said, clearing his throat as he looked at the others. "So the casino..." he said, pulling up another floor plan, though this one seemed surface level and rudimentary. "All I know about it is the waiting room they kept us in...along with the secretary. They were sort of...tight lipped about things here. Hellhound practically escorted us to the office via the elevator and that was it. Least that's the broad strokes of it."

[radio414 909]

Casino Royale (2006)

“Oh! Right! Sorry!” Minos said as Belle asked about her powers. “Uh, I manipulate the earth. Best way I can describe it is I can pull walls up. I guess I could show you but I can’t do that here, obviously. I also have a really good sense of direction, but Cassie says that’s not a power that’s just proper awareness of my surroundings. Cassie never gets lost either. Have you met her? Cassiopeia?”

A.V.D. answered the question as well. “Mine’s kind of a showy one too, but, uh, I do illusions. You know, pantomime sort of stuff. I guess I can-” He held his hand out in front of him and started peeling an imaginary orange, picking at the top before winding around the orange with one long strip. He tossed it into the air a few times, catching it to demonstrate its weight. “I’m not- Other people see it. They tell me I’m good at it. I can’t actually see the stuff I make, so I guess I just have to believe them. I don’t know. I just felt I had to do something, you know?”

He looked down at the map of the casino Override provided. “So there’s a bunker underneath this, huh? How do you suppose we get down there?”

“Oh, maybe it’s like a movie, we have to break into the vault!” Minos said. “Like, actually, that’s underground, right? At least we know where that is. We just gotta go…” She ran her finger through Override’s projection, tracing a path through the blueprints, down an inclined elevator shaft, and to a large circular room. “Oh wow, that’s got a lot of security stuff already,” she said.

“And it’ll be swarming with Gibbons, I’m sure,” A.V.D. said. “I like the vault idea, though. Having both a high-security vault and a panic bunker seems like it’d be overkill, and we’d probably see more evidence of the latter on the map.”

Director Sekelsky walked over. “Unlike the other group, it’s a bit of a hike to Hell’s Inferno, so I’ve arranged a transport. It’s an Edison Mark Three, something you --” He glared at Belle as he said this “-- should be intimately familiar with, so whenever you’re ready.

Minos looked at Belle also, mostly just following the Director’s gaze out of curiosity, then back up at the director, then back at Belle and Victor. “You asked about how we can support each other,” she said. “Honestly, I’m pretty flexible. Tell me where I need to stand for you to do your best and I can do it.”

A.V.D. nodded his agreement. “I’ll do my best,” he said. “But it sounds like we should go.”

Battle Royale II: Requiem (2003)

The Horseshoe Stadium was named after its shape. Rather than a bowl-shaped stadium that encircled its staging area entirely or the boxy nature of the stadium in the Old North, the primary section was shaped like a U, wrapping around the field only partway, with the final section enclosing the space added almost as an afterthought. It was the biggest construction in Scarlet City, able to seat a sizeable chunk of the population when a particularly big event rolled around. Strangely, neither The Horseshoe nor the Stadium in the Old North were actually located in the district of Skitty called Arena District. The world just had too many different ways to provide a space for a crowd, but it had been that way for as long as anybody could remember, and some of the concerts they hosted during less tenuous times were pretty good, so nobody really bothered scaling them down.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Someone had proposed a set of luxury box seats to be built in that would technically reduce The Horseshoe’s total capacity by a couple thousand people, but that was always getting lost in the process when it came time to allocate funds for it. So somebody cared, but in a weird way, and clearly not enough.

The group, Cassiopeia, Sibyl, and Aeon, found themselves just outside one of the Horseshoe’s many entrances. Like the fictional Colosseum they might have read about, this one allowed entrance from any direction to assist traffic flow. This one, though, was special in that its facade was a massive archway that itself had three smaller archways contained within it. At the top of each archway was a single word, and they combined to form a phrase: “OUR TIMELESS BOND.”

It would be pretty easy to get out to the field from here. Without security cordoning off off-limits areas, it was just a straight shot down some stairs, through a hallway, and into a tunnel that led right out. Someone could be heard saying, “Here they come!” from inside. “Alright, places everyone!”

Cassiopeia made a gesture to Thessa that read, “You said you’d take on all comers, so after you,” and once Thessa’s back was turned, she looked at Sibyl, cocked her head Thessa’s way, and rolled her eyes. The meaning of that, of course, was obvious.

---

OOC

Spoiler

Subtitles are movies, I made this joke already so I updated them for the second ones. Yes, there were two Casino Royales, didn't you know?

Just moved you both to your respective locations. The Casino team I guess is only implied because you looked like you might want to talk more about strategy or you actually want to see A.V.D. peel an orange for realsies in the ride over or something, but I expect you to arrive (if not properly cross the threshold to begin combat) in your posts, so let me know if you need some banter from NPCs up to that point. The Edison Mark III remark is a bit of canon welding for Belle's addition to the cast. The Fates were already established as having attacked one of these vehicles, and now I've made it a bit more clear what the goal of the March 15th incident was.

As for the Horseshoe team, as they say, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades and this is one of those times. I similarly expect you to cross the threshold in your posts. Here's an image of the 'Shoe. As you can see, you're right near the bottom there. I could have gotten one of these myself but it was really cold the day I could go out and get pictures and this is a pretty well-documented area anyway.

I feel like I'm forgetting something but I'll chime in in chat if I remember what that is. Like I said, keep in touch with me, and happy posting,

-r

 

[GwenSynth 2]

"Plant life...that tracks." Belladonna turned her attention to Override. "Read your file from the G3 Database, they were talking about the way you specialize in that style of powers. Unfortunately, nature and technology seem to be at odds with one another...so that does put this group at a slight disadvantage. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there..."

Belladonna shook her head. "How our powers work together is limited only to your imagination. And if we're going to be working together, I'd like to see that big brain of yours create something spectacular that we can use to bring down Caesar. I'll be counting on you."

As Minos described her abilities, Belladonna became excited.

“Uh, I manipulate the earth. Best way I can describe it is I can pull walls up. I guess I could show you but I can’t do that here, obviously," Minos explained.

Sasha smiled at the opportunity. "Your powers are... beautiful," she said with a tinge of lust in her voice. "I believe you and I will make quite a powerhouse. Your ability to move the earth will allow me to use my dear plants in so many new and different ways," she said with a grin.

"I also have a really good sense of direction, but Cassie says that’s not a power that’s just proper awareness of my surroundings. Cassie never gets lost either. Have you met her? Cassiopeia?” Minos asked.

Sasha's grin remained. "I haven't had the pleasure, no. Though I believe Cassiopeia and I have very different ways of looking at the world. Perhaps if things align differently in the near future, and the Fates will it, Cassiopeia and I can have a cup of tea together." She turned her attention to A.V.D. then and extended the question she asked Minos to him. "And what of you, mister acronym name?"

“Mine’s kind of a showy one too, but, uh, I do illusions. You know, pantomime sort of stuff. I guess I can-”

Sasha watched with shock and excitement as A.V.D. formed an orange from nothing. It had the appearance and weight of a real orange, but as explained, was an illusion. Sasha watched as the orange was peeled skillfully. She almost wanted to applaud, but kept her composure.

"That was beautiful," she said with a squeal of excitement. "The possibilities!" she exclaimed.

“I’m not- Other people see it. They tell me I’m good at it. I can’t actually see the stuff I make, so I guess I just have to believe them. I don’t know. I just felt I had to do something, you know?” A.V.D. summarized.

"Interesting. I wonder then, what the practical implications of your ability could be. Can you only create illusions of things you understand? Or can you create an illusion of something you've seen before? Perhaps one of my plants?" she thought aloud. "We'll find out soon, won't we?"

A.V.D. pointed out the bunker in Overrides' schematics. Minos created a direct line to their objective through the casino, giving them a guide to follow. It seems Minos did have quite a sense of direction. Belladonna also quietly wondered if there were any rooms that Override couldn't display because they were hidden. A person like Caesar was sure to have many secrets in his position. If he was as intelligent as was believed, those secrets wouldn't be shared even with his most trusted henchmen. Her thoughts were shaken up as Director Sekelsky approached.

“Unlike the other group, it’s a bit of a hike to Hell’s Inferno, so I’ve arranged a transport. It’s an Edison Mark Three, something you --”

Sekelsky and Belladona's gazes met and she exchanged firm looks with him. Was he the one who had her arrested? She felt something bubbling at the back of her throat but she swallowed it as Sekelsky's eyes shifted. Unfounded outrage wasn't something she had time to focus on. Not now at least. Once the world was saved, maybe she could learn more about him.

“-- should be intimately familiar with, so whenever you’re ready. "

Belladonna nodded. "Then we shouldn't delay. The longer we wait, the more time Caesar has to prepare."

“Honestly, I’m pretty flexible. Tell me where I need to stand for you to do your best and I can do it," Minos said.

“I’ll do my best,” A.V.D. added. “But it sounds like we should go.”

"Then let's get on with it. We have an emperor to dethrone," Belladonna said with malice tainting her tongue.

[LordCowCow 841]

It was always strange to her how many places like Horseshoe Stadium there was. It was as if the city expected more people than it held. The fact had bothered Thessa for a long time but she could never quite figure out why this was the case.

At least it was better than not having places like it. It meant that there were multiple different places you could have multiple different events. Still the size was always a bit...strange feeling whenever she came here.

They ended up going through what Thessa would consider the front of the building. Coming here without a crowd certainly had a unique feel to it. It usually took much longer to get anywhere and yet they were heading for the entrance to the field in what felt like no time at all.

“Here they come!” from inside. “Alright, places everyone!”

"Aw, they're waiting for us, isn't that sweet. Wonder what surprises they have cooked up."

She didn't really need Cassiopeia's gesture, of course she'd go ahead, but she responded anyway. "Sure, I'll go crash the party then. Maybe I'll try and save some leftovers for you."

As she headed straight for the field she heard a voice again counting down from three as she crossed the threshold. Immediately upon hearing the voice she began to run forward, prepared to face whatever they throw at her head on.

"Zero"

There was an explosion at her feet, one of pretty decent power at that, which would have caught her had she not activated her power and leapt forward. As it was she felt the blast at her back but was able to avoid being hit directly. Once past the blast, and once she landed onto the field again, she turned back towards where she had heard the voice.

She saw a man with his head poking up behind a turn in the stairs. She didn't see him long before he vanished back up the stairs.

Thessa cocked her head to the side. "Alright. Well if that's how it's gonna be, guess I'll go Seeking huh?" She activated more of her power, shaving a bit more time off, just in case someone tried another sucker punch and decided to jump up towards the area that the stairs led. Unconcerned about whatever she might encounter up there.

[Chaos Sonic 443]

"How our powers work together is limited only to your imagination. And if we're going to be working together, I'd like to see that big brain of yours create something spectacular that we can use to bring down Caesar. I'll be counting on you."

Override glanced in Belladonna's direction, knowing she was right to an extent. He couldn't help but chuckle slightly at her attempt to stroke his ego with that brain comment...it already hitting home for him regardless. Nevertheless, while P.I.X.E.L. rendered the blueprints and floor plan of the casino, Override got a silent ping on his HUD. He accessed it, clicking the side of his helmet for a moment...to see that it was a message from his own A.I. Luckily for him, the others were talking among themselves about their powers.

Sir, I did some digging into the search you requested earlier. The pendants you happened to see Tinker have on his person. I figure this would be easier for you to keep on file, along with keep up the facade that you happen to be working here.

He nodded slightly, waiting for P.I.X.E.L. to continue.

Extensive research has found a number of Capes, although it is not very many, of all factions having the marble pendant listed as part of their costumes in some shape or form, according to the wiki at least. While I understand that going by the wiki may not be the best course of action in regards to research, but this is only the face value search.

It's better than nothing... Override thought, nodding slightly again. Now the gears were turning in his head. From the sounds of this, it seemed like this was something deeper than the normal heroes and villains thing...deeper than the Fates, Zodiac, Gibbons and even the G3 Organization. ...sounds like I'm picking up some serious secret society vibes here...interesting. We'll put a pin in on this for the time being.

Once the map had finally finalized and rendered properly, the group were now looking at the entire floor plan to Caesar's casino. Override didn't speak a word yet, allowing the others to get their thoughts first. After all, getting the takes from the others would've probably been the best option first before acting.

“So there’s a bunker underneath this, huh? How do you suppose we get down there?”
“Oh, maybe it’s like a movie, we have to break into the vault! Like, actually, that’s underground, right? At least we know where that is. We just gotta go…Oh wow, that’s got a lot of security stuff already,"
“And it’ll be swarming with Gibbons, I’m sure. I like the vault idea, though. Having both a high-security vault and a panic bunker seems like it’d be overkill, and we’d probably see more evidence of the latter on the map.”

"Shouldn't be too much of an issue, far as I'm concerned." Override finally spoke, glancing at AVD and then at Minos. "As you both stated your general powers, Belladonna's included, you three should be no issue to take on the emperor's domain. More specifically, Minos with her earth powers could easily disrupt the place and make the ground unstable, allowing us time to get inside. Just a workshop idea to think about for the time being. The tech side of things, however, you can simply leave that to me. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, so it just makes sense that you allow me to deal with my strengths when we cross that bridge."

“Unlike the other group, it’s a bit of a hike to Hell’s Inferno, so I’ve arranged a transport. It’s an Edison Mark Three, something you -- should be intimately familiar with, so whenever you’re ready."

"Thanks, director...but you already know I'd prefer to fly myself." Override smirked under his helmet, already collapsing the hologram of the map. "P.I.X.E.L., send the full schematics of the casino to the Edison Mark III's pads. That'll give them a moment to look through the map on the way...it'll also give us a full chance to properly talk strategy." He simply walked past his 'team' and gave them a thumbs up. "I'm counting on you all, I hope you realize that. Now, let's do what our 'Vine Queen' suggested and dethrone an emperor."

[Skaia 578]

Sibyl whistled as they got to their proper destination. It hadn't been the first time she had been to one of these arenas, but she didn't frequent them enough to find their scale mundane. There was also an almost eerie sense of wonder that made the building feel even larger today, having no actual people around it, that made her all the more excited to actually enter. It also didn't take particularly long for her excitement to rise as it was evident that their competition had already set up shop. As the explosion was let loose and Thessa had already gone on the run after the perpetrator, Sibyl exchanged glances with Cassiopeia before calling out, "yeah kick their ass!" Looking back to Cassiopeia the girl then said, "so, guess we should see what the rest of the commotion was about."

Cassiopeia let out a sigh. 

As the duo made their way onto the field proper it had appeared that there already several capes waiting for them. A vaguely familiar face belonging to someone in the air, using their power as a means to balance themselves up there. A second flier, much less familiar looking, who rather than using some complex form of power to keep themselves afloat actually had a pair of wings. And someone Sibyl was very well acquainted with; Hellhound, who had looked no worse wear from earlier, was somehow standing on the field looking opposite to Cassiopeia and Sibyl. Though she could not see them either, Sibyl could hear a pair of footsteps approaching from behind. 

"Only three of you, huh?" The first said. "You all must be confident, foolish, or both"

"Oooooh." Sibyl marveled at the group before having a friendly smile cross her face. Giving a wave as if she was greeting an old friend she shouted, "hey there Hellhound! Long time no see," before laughing at what was supposedly a joke. Looking up to Arcturus she'll say, "I got into a scuffle earlier today and three was plenty for that." Then, after a moment passed she asked, "do I know you by the way, you look familiar?"

There isn't even a look of recognition on Hellhound's face. The one Sibyl questioned looked like they were about to say something else, but settles on, "It makes sense if you don't remember. You seem like an out of sight, out of mind sort of girl anyway. I was there for that scuffle -- your friend tackled me through a ceiling, though I like to think I paid him back for that. To my memory, there were four of you then."

Sibyl thought about it again before saying, "oooh, you're right. I forgot that we weren't just protecting the Lady. Well, that's all in the past and if you're as fun as you sound then I'm sure I won't go forgetting again." Sibyl's shadows began to coat her arms. "So, is this the whole party or did you invite some more friends along?"

"Oh, you know Caesar. He'll put his thumb on the scales so much you'd almost think he had luck manipulation powers. He just wasn't expecting there to be three other capes before." They responded. "The house always wins, but you'll have to figure out the exact odds on your own." She spotted Sibyl gearing up for battle and started forming her own ball of light in her hands.

"Well I don't know much about what you're saying, but I don't need to know the odds to get a Jackpot right?" The girls grin widened before taking up a fighting stance saying, "let's have some fun!" Breaking into a run towards Hellhound.  

[radio414 909]

Gathering Storm

Cassiopeia had not stopped staring at Arcturus since she had walked onto the field. When the conversation turned to memory, Cassiopeia rubbed the center of her forehead. “I remember you, traitor,” she might have said. “I have been waiting for this moment since the day you left.” With a few more motions, “Ophiuchus gave you your name, and I intend to take it back.”

Her next motion was not unlike a bicycle kick from a soccer player. It carried no meaning, but as Cassiopeia’s feet left the ground, she began to fall in the direction her feet were pointing instead of straight down. As she manipulated herself further, it became clear that this was a general rule for her person. It was not a perfect rule and subject partially to Cassiopeia’s whims, but it was close enough.

Arcturus snarled and sent her energy ball right for her former associate. The explosion sent Cassiopeia in the winged man’s direction, who sent a flurry of razor-sharp feathers her way, but Cassiopeia recovered in time to kick them all away. She stabilized, reducing gravity’s pull on herself and leaving her floating in between the two fliers, eyeing them both.

Down below, the thing that looked like Hellhound saw Sibyl running at them and charged back. As they ran, their form shifted, growing bigger until it was nearly twice Sibyl’s size, though still retaining the general shape of Hellhound. They roared too. It was an inhuman, guttural scream that accompanied the Hellhound raising both of their hands up clasped together above their head, aiming to bring them both down on Sibyl’s head.

Meanwhile, Thessa immediately saw the man she had chased up to the mezzanine the moment she got up there, though he was not the only thing waiting for her. Behind him was a massive ooze creature, translucent green in color, with a few darker spheres suspended in the gelatinous mass. A single tentacle extended out from the thing and was wrapped around the man’s waist.

The man was wearing a mask, but one could tell from the tone of his voice that he was smiling. “I expected nothing less,” he said. Then he raised a finger, pointing at Thessa’s chest, and began another countdown. “Three… two… one…”

[…+The Buildings They Are Sleeping Now]

The casino loomed large over all four capes as they stepped out of the armored car. The trip had been surprisingly smooth given where they were headed, though surely some part of that had to do with the external guard detail Director Sekelsky had assigned to the transport. As they left, one member of the guard said, “We’re headed further West, some sort of activity out near the Shimmer. We’re all counting on you, though.”

A.V.D. balked at the comment. “You mean I could have been… I just thought this was the only way to help. I would have volunteered for something else if I’d known. Now that I’m here, it’s a bit too much.”

Minos patted the renegade on the back. “Hey, no worries. We’re all right here with you. Here, I’ll make a big show of things, and that way all the attention will be on me, okay?”

A.V.D. shook his head. “I don’t want to feel more responsible if you get hurt than I already would,” he said. He managed a few deep breaths. “It’s fine. I can do this. It’s no bigger stress than my first show, or the one with critics in the crowd, or… I managed those okay.”

“Override had the blueprints,” Minos said. “We know exactly where we’re going.” She looked down at the ground. “Hate working with asphalt, but it’s only polite to knock.” She knelt down and dug deep into the parking lot, pulling up a wall of the substance that she kicked and sent careening right into the casino doors with a loud CRASH!

For a moment, the whole building seemed to shudder, in a way that implied someone might be controlling it, but it wasn’t something Minos seemed overly concerned about. “Alright, let’s go!” she said. “I’ll make more walls if you need cover!” With that, she charged.

---

OOC

Spoiler

Subtitles are movements of songs from the album Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven by Godspeed You! Black Emperor

You're all in fights now so react and stuff. I'll have NPC info up when I get a chance. I also decided wrt maps that I'd just provide them on demand, like, if we need clarification on positions, I'll sketch something out. It's entirely possible some of these maps would change pretty substantially pretty quickly (and I don't just mean your locations on those maps :P), and having some of that stuff already ready would be more preprep than someone who takes a hot second to put together NPC images has managed previously. In the meantime, I'll just rely on theater of the mind.

Seriously, though, do reach out for enemy actions, including any that might be waiting in the shadows waiting to strike. I know I said I'll be out of town for the next few weeks, but I will respond when I can. Happy Posting,

-r

 

[LordCowCow 841]

Thessa figured she'd find the cause of the explosions up here. What she didn't expect was the slimy jello beast that was also there. The area they found themselves in was largely open. She could see a concession area and a hot dog stand behind them, as this was an area near a frequently used exit. Since it was mostly a place to go to the upper seating section there wasn't much else there which meant that there wasn't anything for the masked man to hide behind easily.

She heard the countdown. It was pretty easy to guess what would happen but she couldn't be certain exactly how it worked yet. So she stood there and waited. Shaving off some more time to boost up her endurance to make sure she could take the hit and, as expected, once he finished counting down an explosion occurred where he was pointing, right on Thessa's chest. However this time she was able to take it even easier, and didn't even flinch as the explosion happened.

"If you expected me then you should have more than that."

"Yeah?" they said. "I shouldn't be telling you this, but those were just to get your attention."

"Oh really? S'pose that makes sense. Doesn't really matter though, whatever you're distracting me from I'll just have to take care of after I finish you all off."

He shrugged. "If you say so. Caesar paid us pretty good money for this so as long as I make it out with time to spend it, I'm happy." He pointed his finger and started counting down again, this time from five. "Five, four..."

Longer countdown, bigger explosion? "Time, huh." She shook her head. "Guess then you don't mind wrapping this up quick."

She decided to go for a straight forward rush. While it looked reckless she was keeping an eye on the man, and the creature behind him, as she moved. Sure enough the ooze reacted, pulling the masked man into it suddenly as she approached. He looked to have been caught off guard and his countdown was interrupted. She couldn't be sure he wasn't able to use his power inside of the thing and began to move again.

Remembering what was nearby she darted by the ooze and headed for the hot dog stand. It wasn't too large, but large enough, and she was able to lift it with ease. "Ketchup or mustard? Why not both!" She proceeded to launch the whole thing forward, taking aim at where the masked man was inside the ooze.

A few seconds had passed and Thessa watched as the ooze opened up a small hole in its body, going from the man's finger and extending outside, as though it were now a barrel of a gun. The hot dog stand just barely touched the ooze before an explosion occurred, almost half again stronger than the previous, and the whole stand was ripped apart. The ooze seemed to be unscathed, despite the burning bits of stand sticking out of it.

"Hm, brb okay?"

She figured there was something up with those solid bits inside the ooze. However reaching them would take a bit more effort and an idea occurred to her for something else she could throw at them. Or rather drop on them.

She jumped outside of the area and up towards the ceiling above them.

Thessa shaved away some more time, starting to get to a point where she could almost notice the change, as she landed and cracked the now floor previously ceiling. With a few more leaps she cracked it in four places, around the area above the ooze. Then she took one more leap and slammed her fists down on the middle to bring the entire thing down on top of the ooze.

[Chaos Sonic 443]

Before getting to the casino, Override made a stop by his workshop. He needed to grab something that could potentially help against those at the casino. A little project he was working on: a power dampener.

“Sir, are you sure that it's wise to pull this out now?” P.I.X.E.L. asked inquisitively.

“Better now than never.” Override pocketed the dampener. “This should give us a bit of an edge against them…especially if it works like it's intended to.”

“Aye sir.”

Without much of anything else, Override took off and blasted off in the direction of the casino to properly rendezvous with the others in his squad. Now initially, the plan was…if things worked properly…he could do a surprise fly-by, drop the power dampener and then crash through the nearest ceiling window and make a grand entrance. At least…that was the initial plan.

“Alright, I'm nearing the site. Let's attempt to do this qu-...”

“Hate working with asphalt, but it’s only polite to knock.”

…oh no…
CRASH!!!!

Override heard the crash in the background of his radio transmission and sighed. “P.I.X.E.L., did the raging bull do what I think she just did?”

“So it would seem, sir. I suppose we forego the stealth aspect?”

“May as well.” Override sighed, grabbing the power dampener. “Do me a favor…if we're going in loud and hot like this, let's get a bit of a rock into this.”

“At once sir. Playing the quote, Ass Kicking Playlist, now.”

Caesar... You miss me?

Override's HUD displayed the roof of the casino…it was hot with Gibbon security, total of five from what he could see. Four on the four corners of the roof and the fifth in the middle, above the giant slot machine. Given the trajectory of the path he was flying at, also factoring in the spacing of the goons as well as the wind speeds…he'd be able to drop the dampener and have its field of effect hit at least one of the corner guards and the slot machine one. “Here goes nothing.” he flew overhead, immediately dropping the power dampener. Once it left his grasp, he activated the dampener via his suit. Within second of touching down on the roof, the two goons were in it and were feeling the effects immediately. “Bullseye.”

He got closer, the slot machine one produced a bow made of golden light…but the problem came that there was not a shot fired off. The dampener was working splendidly. The goon shouted something to the corner one who immediately threw himself off the roof. Override thought this was a desperate tactic or just insane, but immediately understood what was going on: falling out of range of the dampener's field. Once that happened, the goon had his flight ability regained.

“Impressive…maybe they aren't all talk. Still, the power dampener worked perfectly. Mental note: make more...” Override muttered, watching the bowman scramble to get out of the area of the dampener. The other three began to mobilize and take cover. One taking cover by the stairs, one taking cover behind the ventilation pipes and the last was fiddling with a belt. It seemed to be a forcefield projection belt. First thing was first. He focused on the bowman and fired a pulse bolt at the right angle, knocking him down and out cold.

“Alright, now there's only three.” he nodded, before slowly descending towards the three, while also seeing the one flying overhead. Make that four...right... The one goon who finally fiddled with the belt long enough to get a forcefield up stood there triumphantly. Override took this moment to test something. He fired an immediate pulse bolt at the bubbled goon and watched as the bolt hit the shield and sort of…dissipated. It was spread out and nullified. “A nullification of any energy when it hits the forcefield. That is impressive, for sure.” he smirked under his helmet and continued. “Stand down or I'll drop another dampener. Things will be much easier for you lot if you just surrender.” Of course, Override was bluffing…he only had the one dampener currently, but they didn't need to know that.

After saying this, the one at the stairwell immediately bolted. Apparently that one was having none of this. The one who was in the air seemed to keep quiet, which he figured was for the best. Regardless if he got out of the last one, there was always a chance to clip someone's wings as it were. The forcefield one though, he had a mouth on him. "Yeah, I got Tinker tech too, why don't you come down here and let me show you some?"

The one by the pipes, now emboldened, spoke next. "You think everyone Caesar stashed in this casino can't handle four guys?”

Override only touched down on the roof and crossed his arms, staring at the loudmouth with the belt. He might've looked like he was just staring him down, but within the suit, he was going to work. His technopath power was serving him well as he could see the workings of the belt and its inner machinations. He knew how this belt worked now…and with a simple thought, he had it work for him: “Disengage”.

The belt seemed to power down quite a bit, and the forcefield shut off. The goon looked down and around him before beginning to whimper slightly.

“So you were gonna show me Tinker tech, huh?” Override said with sarcasm dripping from each word. “Seems like it's having performance issues…not uncommon…one out five…”

“Sir I do not wish to alarm you, but it appears we are sinking into the roof.”

Override noticed it the moment P.I.X.E.L spoke, clicking his tongue slightly. Seemed like the roof was the Tinker tech that the loudmouth was talking about, he figured. Regardless, least the party started off right. “So it would seem…well, guess we're doing the one plan regardless.” he sighed, as he proceeded to crash through the roof.

[Skaia 578]

Sibyl looked all the more intrigued as the former entity she thought was Hellhound was turning out to be less and less like the person she had just met. She wondered if they some kind of a twin or if one of their beasts had the ability to shape change like this, but this went no further then the cursory thought that produced these ideas. As the large, bestial Hellhound towered over her and clasped its hands to strike down on her, Sibyl thought she'd follow suit with it. With a wide grin on her face the shadows on her arms began to grow larger and form bulkier, thicker arms. Rather than the clawed, long arms that she typically made these were more akin to that of a gorillas. Clasping her own hands together, the girl swung them towards the arms of the Hellhound look alike and smacked into them, letting out a noise and feel that was much less like skin and more like she was hitting something incredibly viscous. 

The arms of the creature were deflected away, smashing into the ground next to her. Not stopped by her attack, it started to drag its arms across the ground towards her ankles. Sibyl, not one to back down from a direct clash, had shadows begin to cloak her legs as she braced herself. Then, clenching her fist, she sent another punch into the face of her opponent. The punch smashed true, but quite like before the attack didn't seem to have the impact one would expect from hitting another person. Instead the face rippled and distorted as her fist went deeper into it then it should have a normal human. As the creature's arms struck her legs the girl grunted and fell back, a portion of the attack being absorbed by her shadows but still being enough to cause her pain and knock her off balance. 

Despite this, a smile was still plastered on the girl's face. "You're some kind of freak aren't you? Or some kind of freaky creature? Well, if punching won't work how about I try to tear you apart instead!" Propping herself back up on one arm, the girl's other arm enlarged and the shadows reformed into something more akin to a crab claw. Extending it upward, Sibyl went to grab one of the things biceps, attempting to bisect it off with the grab of her newly formed claw. 

[radio414 909]

Gravity’s Rainbow

Thessa’s presence on top of the broken ceiling as it came crashing back down to the mezzanine floor kept it from rotating, and the ooze bore the brunt of the flat surface slamming directly into it. The whole thing squished down and spread out, cushioning the impact as best it could. It took a moment to spring back up, but spring back up it did, throwing the ceiling chunk off-balance though still resting lopsided on the ooze.

If Thessa were to look, she’d see two features of the ooze change slightly. The first, more obvious one was color. Most of the ooze was a redder tint than it had been before. A pocket of contrast surrounded the man inside ‐‐ maybe the color around him was the same but that was harder to tell. The newly-colored slime started to dissolve all the debris touching it, slowly but surely, but the man inside did not dissolve.

Speaking of the man, as soon as he saw Aeon again, he had his index finger trained on her, though an explosion wouldn’t go off after three or even five seconds.

The other changed property involved one of the five globules. They all moved about the ooze freely, so perhaps assigning them locations was not the brightest move, but the one near the top of the ooze looked worse for wear than the other four. There were visible cracks all around it. As more and more debris dissolved, the cracks started to heal, but it was a slow process.

As soon as the slime sensed Thessa’s presence again, it shuddered and launched a piece of itself at the hero.

The Same Space

Override came crashing through the ceiling of the casino at just the same time that the other capes ran in through the front door. It took everyone a moment to find each other and regroup, but that was the only issue. Thankfully, by dealing with those on the roof, Override had saved everyone else from the initial counterassault. Now they were surrounded by row upon row of slot machines, all alike.

Minos’ voice was clear, even over the sounds of blaring klaxons. “Classic move,” she said, commending Override’s entrance. “Always wanted to do that someday except, well,” she stomped her boots, “also like having my feet on the ground.”

“Maybe you could do it again?” A.V.D. said. He was a bit harder to hear but one could at least get the gist. “That’d get us underground better than dealing with the backrooms. Surely they’ve got security.”

As if on cue, every sprinkler system in the casino pit activated. A.V.D. conjured up an umbrella, miming the opening action and shaking it a few times to get it big enough for everyone to comfortably fit under (“Isn’t that bad luck?” Minos said), but the water was starting to pool at everyone’s feet. Worse, the klaxon subsided and was replaced by a voice over the speakers.

“You seem like a troublesome bunch,” the voice said. It sounded feminine, but a low sort -- almost sultry. “Casino policy states that we can refuse service to anyone for any reason, and that means you, I’m afraid.”

“Where is that coming from?” A.V.D. said. “Control room?”

“If you don’t voluntarily exit the premises, you will be escorted out by security, and we will not be responsible for any injuries caused by me or my colleagues in the carrying out our said duties.” The water on the floor started receding away from the raid team before the voice even finished speaking.

“Alright, sounds like we gotta deal with her first,” Minos said. She looked down the row of slots and her eyes widened. “Incoming!”

Tearing across the rows of slot machines was a massive wave ready to crash down on all of them.

As Above So Below

The way Overflow saw it, you had two career options with powers like his. Supervillainy, or becoming the best goddamn plumber in the city. He had chosen the former and had no regrets. Who would want to spend their life iterating on variants of drain-o? Research was so much more fun when there were none of those pesky “ethics” involved, and who else would have developed such magnificent aquiformes besides himself? The answer was nobody. Nobody else could even try.

He was here on Caesar’s explicit permission. His work on Project Rubicon had been completed weeks ago, and whatever supervisory role he could perform was better performed by somebody else. Overflow knew his limits. He had been itching for some field tests and jumped at the call. 

A notification buzzed in on his watch. His Quintophyte model had just sustained some damage. That was to be expected, though. Both Aeon and Countdown were up there, he would have been surprised if the Quintophyte didn’t get roughed up. And even if Aeon (or Countdown, in his idiocy) managed to destroy the five slime cores he had fused into that thing, well, that was useful data too.

Overflow focused back on the fights on the field, coming back to his senses just in time to leap back out of the way of his Chameleophyte’s attack on Sibyl’s legs. He was just an invisible observer, leeching off of Griffin’s power to avoid detection. Griffin’s whereabouts, of course, were none of his concern. The Chameleophyte, meanwhile, what a design! How much of his work had been combined, infused into it to make it just so? It was all worth it for that brief moment of surprise on their opponent’s face. Had they not just captured Hellhound?

Up above, Cassiopeia kicked some more of Albatross’ feathers into the Chameleophyte as she continued to duel both him and Arcturus. The aquiforme gave no indication that it even felt the feathers as they slowly sank through its disguised skin. It was more interested in Sibyl getting it in a crab claw grab. The sliced-off arm splashed down onto the turf, collecting in an inert blob.

Overflow watched as the Chameleophyte dove on top of the goo, reabsorbing it to grow another arm. It was either that or shrink, of course, and Overflow felt it had made the correct decision. It was a little vulnerable on the ground like that, but it counterattacked smoothly, shooting out a foot aimed squarely at Sibyl’s chest.

---

OOC

Spoiler

Albatross -- Overflow (invisible no image spooky)

Subtitles are songs from the band Klaxons

We're back! I think we're back? It took a moment there, but we'll soldier on regardless. If Gwen wants to pop back in she can but I'm comfortable with this group continuing onwards regardless. I don't know how much to put here, like, the two people who were doing attacks, you did some damage, though these oozes (god i felt so pretentious when i came up with "aquiforme") seem like they can heal a bit so maybe work on that. Override, meanwhile, you've got a different liquid-based hero to think about if you don't want to be fighting water traps the rest of the way down.

Let me know if you need anything else,

-r

 

[Skaia 578]

Sibyl picked herself back up from off the ground after severing the Hell Ooze's arm, watching with curiosity as it dove after the piece of itself and recombined. "Oh, pretty attached to yourself aren't you?" The girl teased as the slime shot its foot out in a kick towards her. Bringing up her gorilla like arm and digging her shadowed feet into the ground Sibyl caught the foot, skidding a small amount back before grinning. "Let's see if I can't take a piece for myself then!" Bringing her crab claw arm over the girl snipped off the leg from the main body of what she was fighting. Before the goo could hit the ground, though she opened up her other hand, transforming from an arm into something akin to a demonic hounds large head. Opening the maw of the newly formed bestial appendage, Sibyl snapped the slime into her arm mouth and closed it shut. 

The girl let out a hearty laugh as her plan seemed to work, barely noticing the acidic quality of the ooze as it sat there in her arm mouth, and looked as her opponent reformed to compensate for missing a leg, growing smaller in the process. "Well, well, well, let's see if we can't get it a little smaller." From behind her Sibyl could notice that there was some kind of muttering and beeping noise but hardly paid any mind to it, instead continuing to move to attack the ooze. 

Lashing out with her crab claw attack, the Hell Ooze side stepped the attack only for Sibyl to then have a third shadowed arm grow out from her side and reach for the creature's head. As she grabbed it her opponent had an idea of its own, reeling its head back and causing Sibyl to go with it, before it lifted her off the ground and suplexed her onto the ground. Though the air had been knocked out of her, it didn't take long for Sibyl to start going from breathless to laughing as she said, "man this really is the best." Using her third arm to help push herself back to her feet, the girl turned her crab arm into yet another demonic hound head, going to take yet another bite out of the creature's side. 

Sibyl Chimera Tracker

Spoiler

Her regular hands and arms are both shadow hellhound heads, with a bit of a "neck" to them. 
She has a third, clawed, shadow hand/arm coming out from her side. 
Both of her legs are covered in shadow.   

 

[LordCowCow 841]

Thessa had elected to ignore the man in the ooze. She had decided that he couldn't actually do anything to her. In fact she had come to the conclusion that this fight wasn't any threat and the only thing she had to do was figure out how to finish it faster.

She noticed the darker portions of the ooze, the basketball sized globules that were floating around, and thought that those seemed a good place to start. She darted to the side of the slime the thing launched at her and grabbed up a chunk of rubble that had tumbled off to the side.

Getting into position she lined up and threw the chunk like a baseball pitch right towards the already cracked globule. The rubble hit the ooze and seemed to be slowed down by the goo. It still managed to hit, and crack, the globule though and more importantly pushed it partway out of the ooze. The rubble proceeded to be dissolved by the inside of the ooze.

She noticed that the ooze shifted the hole back over to the villain and it was likely he was about to fire again. Which, as mentioned before, Thessa ignored still in order to throw a second pitch into the ooze and knock the globule outside. It looked to be trying to generate more slime but it didn't appear to work.

Meanwhile she was hit by another explosion, this one stronger, which also happened to damage the floor around Thessa in the process. It actually hurt somewhat but nothing Thessa felt she couldn't handle at her current level. So she ran over towards the globule and stomped on it to shatter it entirely.

As she looked over towards the ooze she noticed the other globules seemed to be moving about faster, more erratic, than before. Almost as though in response to her targeting them. Once more ignoring the man she ran over and waited a few moments for one of the globules to be within range and launched a haymaker punch. It connected with the globule and sent it towards the other side of the ooze. Unfortunately before it popped up the ooze seemed to basically hold onto it.

The ooze shot more of itself at Thessa and she decided to leap up into the air over it. Over the entire creature itself. Then she shifted and dove kicked the globule she had just punched and, taking it with her, soared past to the other side of the ooze than she started.

Behind her the man had done yet another explosion. This time aimed at the floor. Which shattered and allowed the boy and his blob to fall down towards the ground level. Thessa picked up the globule she had knocked free and crushed it between her two hands before turning back around and looking down the hole where the villain had fallen.

[Chaos Sonic 443]

Apparently Override timed it just perfectly as the moment he crashed through the casino ceiling, the others in his group came running in as well. Just as the tech hero planned...okay maybe it wasn't but it was a well timed and thought out coincidence for sure. And thanks to his efforts with the roof, there wasn't a counter-assault in that aspect. Once again: just as planned...maybe.

“Classic move. Always wanted to do that someday except, well, also like having my feet on the ground.”
“Maybe you could do it again? That’d get us underground better than dealing with the backrooms. Surely they’ve got security.”

"I'm sure you'll get an opportunity to do so, Minos." Override chuckled, trying to assess the situation they currently found themselves in. "But AVD is right...we should be able to get down below here without an issue. Provided nothing else gets in our way to impede our progress." It was at this point that Override wished he kept his mouth shut, as the sprinkler system began to go off. He cursed under his helmet as the water started coming in...then he heard the voice over the intercom.

“You seem like a troublesome bunch. Casino policy states that we can refuse service to anyone for any reason, and that means you, I’m afraid. If you don’t voluntarily exit the premises, you will be escorted out by security, and we will not be responsible for any injuries caused by me or my colleagues in the carrying out our said duties.”

The water pooling at their feet receded...but it was only to get worse. Over the horizon of the casino, Override saw it: a massive tidal wave of a flood. "Minos! We need to be above that...STAT!!" he shouted, watching Minos nod and immediately digging deep into the ground and pulled everyone up via a new earth...or in this case...vinyl pillar. The wave crashed into the new pillar and it began to wobble, clearly not architecturally sound, but they narrowly avoid that particular assault for now high on the casino floor. "Good work, now..."

How the hell do we fix this? Override thought, his eyes darting around him as they lay behind his helmet. This was a conundrum, but he had two options, except one option was not good. That option being the fact that they could blow a hole right into the ground, that way the water would just find a place to drain. However... ...our goal is down below, so that's going to make things even worse...we won't be able to obtain Caesar and finish the mission. Plus, the person that was over the intercom, more than likely...controls water, so even if we attempted it, it'll fall flat.

He thought about it a bit more, before finally coming up with an idea. "P.I.X.E.L., I need a scan of the area. I need to try and pinpoint the control and/or security room. We can pinpoint that, we should be able to make a plan of action."

"Processing now..." P.I.X.E.L. spoke, before a ping was heard. "I am afraid that the current area is giving us a reading of slot machines."

"Expand the range of the scan and immediately remove the frequencies from the slot machines." Override sternly replied. Another ping sounded, and to the tech hero, there was the CCTV security cameras scattered throughout the pit. It was faint at first, but this was due to the water and distances. ...can't believe I'm about to do this...but I'm going to need to hack into those cameras. If I do...I can trace it's signal to locate the control room.

Without another word, Override rocketed over to one of the corners to attempt to hack the camera. However, as he started to fly to it...the water beneath began to spring up and fire off like a geyser. "D-Damnit!" he shouted, narrowly dodging the geyser, immediately landing back with the others, though he noticed the strain from the sprinklers after doing that. "Geysers...of course it wouldn't be easy." Override cursed under his breath, before trying to figure out another course of action. His gaze, however, turned immediately to AVD and he had an idea. "Can you conjure up appearances of people?"

"I can try...," A.V.D. said. "It's easier if I know the person well, but... what do you need me to do?"

"I need a few illusions of me..." Override spoke directly to him, quietly though to not arouse suspicion from the control room. "I need to use them as cover and a distraction while I attempt to interface with the cameras so I can get a read on the control room. Our water manipulator is there...if I can pinpoint the location, we can continue the assault. It's an option, at least."

A.V.D. looked Override up and down, trying to take all of him in at once. "You tech heroes have stupid complicated stuff..." he muttered to himself. But they complied. A.V.D. took out some keys from his pocket and knocked them against various parts of Override's armor, trying to listen to the sound they made over. Then he went over to each corner of the pillar everyone was on and made the same motions. He knocked against the air and sound came out. The illusory suit came after.

A.V.D. stopped after the second one. "I... I think that's about as many as I can handle if you want them to actually do stuff," he said.

"Honestly, this should suffice." Override gave AVD a thumbs up, starting to hover slightly. "Let's have them fly and we mix em up a bit." Without a second to lose, he and the two other Overrides began to fly around and move quickly, much to the patterns and styles of a bunch of flies. Soon, the three would separate and fly to different areas of the room. The real one, would eventually make it to one of the cameras (as did the other two) and he proceeded to hack his way into the camera. It was simple for him, interfacing with such a simple type of machine.

0v3rr1d3 connected to address ##########
username: *******
password: **********
Access granted... Beginning trace...

It only took a few moments before he finally got through, which was a good thing too. The moment he finished his hacking through the camera's system, he was struck by the geyser, which apparently struck him and the two illusions. The geyser definitely seemed weaker than the very first one, but it was still an issue nonetheless. Once Override got his bearings and immediately landed down back with the others, he got the nanomachines in his suit to begin work on expelling the water from the NOVA Armor. "Alright...where's she located?" he muttered, pulling up the results...though they weren't anything he liked to see. "...damnit... The control room is underground. It's situated in a half floor between basement floors -1 and -2, strangely localized beneath the casino's restaurant. Damn...they thought this through." he shook his head. "Anyone else got any brilliant ideas on how to fix this?"

[radio414 909]

Crawling Into A Fireplace Cackling

Countdown stared at the hole he’d made in the floor-now-ceiling, trying to get a glimpse of Aeon up there as she reduced the former Quintofthingy (whatever Overflow called it) down to a threeothingy. It was weird how the slime knew that that was happening, how it shivered in response. The fall had made the shivers more pronounced, too. “Fuck,” he would have said if his mouth wasn’t full of weird breathable slime -- If they hadn’t tested it, he would have sworn his power wouldn’t have worked under such conditions. But this was part of the plan. Keep them split up, and keep them busy. They didn’t even need to win so long as Project Rubicon -- whatever that was -- went off without a hitch. Overflow had reassured him: “If Aeon kills you, you won’t be there to know her greatness or however she likes to phrase it. The worst is a little concussion, and my research will be most grateful for the data.”

In any case, it was better than Arcturus kicking his teeth in herself. At least he was getting paid for this. Countdown raised his index finger, pointing up at the hole, and tried to think of a number that would work this time. Something to really get Aeon’s attention. Before he could, though, his watch buzzed a quick phrase in code. Griffin wanted to talk to him.

Countdown stuck his head out from the good (more accurately the goo stuck his head out but he hated thinking like that). He couldn’t see anyone, of course, but that didn’t mean anything. “What?” he hissed at a ticket gate.

“Behind you, actually.”

He hated it when Griffin did stuff like this. He almost wanted to not turn around and insist on the point, but the slime rotated him around anyway. “What?” he said again.

“Hanging in there? No, I can see that look even behind your mask so I won’t do too much small talk. Overflow gave some tactical information to relay: You’re going to want to move in a little bit, maybe get in the tunnel. See that sprinkler head? I’m going to commit something of a misdemeanor.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Countdown asked, but he got no response, and the slime responded on its own, moving as instructed. Countdown briefly wondered why he even had to be a part of that conversation if everyone was going to talk past him, but he stopped when he realized he’d kept his eyes off the hole in the ceiling. Whatever Aeon was doing up there was still kind of a concern. He pointed his finger again and started counting as the slime pulled him back into its center, ready for any sign Aeon might want to give him on where to point.

Administrative Violence

Minos repeated Override’s conclusion. “So it’s a floor and change below the restaurant? I wonder if people know that when they decide to eat there…”

“I mean, it kinda makes sense,” A.V.D. added. “If they’re using water as their main fire suppressant because Caesar’s got that woman on staff, like, you still want a different suppressant if the restaurant’s got a fryer. I don’t think even Caesar could convince a health inspector otherwise.”

“Oh, true,” Minos said. “Bureaucrats are pretty scary.”

“And the control room’s probably got a lot of tech. You don’t want water leaking through the floor into that. She can’t be here all the time to keep it out if something goes wrong.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment to let A.V.D.’s conclusions sink in. Minos was the one to speak up first. “Oh, so it’s like a blind spot!” she said. “She’s in the Control Room, but she can’t let too much water get in there. We could probably just make a hole in the kitchen floor then, right? Go down through there?”

“You know where the kitchen is?” A.V.D. looked at Minos quizzically.

It was an expression Minos ignored. “Duh! My superpower-Cassie-says-isn’t-a-superpower, remember?” She grinned. “Also, there were signs for the restaurant when we came in.

“Anyway, yeah, if you’re real anxious, I could probably close up the floor when we’re done with it too,” Minos said.

A.V.D. looked down at the rushing water and slot machines below. “I don’t want to get into all that water on the floor, though,” he said. “I guess we’re running across the machines, then? I’ll try to conjure up some handrails in case we lose balance because that doesn’t look safe either…”

“Good idea!” Minos said. “Well, we’ve got a goal and a plan to achieve it.” She looked at Override. “What else are we waiting for?”

Hail Sound

The Chameleophyte, well, it couldn’t really roar, but it certainly looked like it would have if it could as Sibyl took another chunk out of its side. Up above, Cassiopeia kicked another set of Albatross’ feathers into the ooze, which it took significantly less notice of. She sent one of Arcturus’ balls of energy that way too, but Arcturus maintained control of it enough to not shunt the ooze somewhere it didn’t belong.

The ooze got low again, going for another sweep to knock Sibyl back down to the ground. It did so, however, while making a slight retreat, extending itself to attack the rest of it moved backwards.

Small black cylinders popped out all over the turf as the ooze stood back up. They were arranged around the field in even intervals -- it was hard to not be near one of them. Then, somewhere in the stadium, Griffin turned the sprinkler system on, and water began to spray everywhere.

Everyone could also hear the sound of a fire alarm coming from the stadium building. Griffin had also pulled the lever on that, sending an extra shower of water down on the triophyle. The water affected both slimes in the same way: they absorbed it. It took a moment for their internal chemistry to change again, but both of them grew in size with each droplet of water that landed on them. The Chameleophyle Sibyl was fighting seemed entirely rejuvenated, though its Hellhound disguise seemed much more see-through now, while the triophyle grew to block off the tunnel entirely, its three remaining globules also swelling inside it to match.

There was one additional small consequence to all this water getting sprayed everywhere. If Sibyl was looking, she would be able to see the outline of an invisible human watching her fight.

---

OOC

Spoiler

Spoiler

Subtitles are Lauren Bousfield songs

Some got more details than others, but each of the three fights got a little more to keep things moving. Override got his question answered after a bit of back-and-forth, while the combined antics of Sibyl and Thessa have triggered something of a "Phase Two" where the slimes are doubled and also an invisible Overflow has inadvertently revealed himself. I feel like I should be writing more here for this, but it really is just continuations of what was already happening. I can answer questions, obviously, and if I realize I forgot something, I'll pop into chat with an update.

Keep up the good fight,

-r

 

Edited February 23 by radio414

[LordCowCow 841]

Thessa looked down the hole where the ooze had fallen down. She couldn't really see much from where she stood. She thought about it a moment and looked around this level. Her eyes settled on a piece of rebar sticking out of the exposed concrete and grabbed onto it. With a heave she yanked the rebar as well as a chunk of concrete close to the end out of the floor.

Now armed with a makeshift hammer Thessa jumped down after the creature into the tunnel below. The sprinklers were on and Thessa noted that the creature had now grown in size. Blocking off the tunnel enough that if she for whatever reason wanted to try and pass it by she couldn't.

Still she could see the round objects inside the thing so she smiled as she approached. "Oh no more of it whatever will I do."

She hefted the rebar up like a baseball, said "Not much room for a home run but it'll work," and swung it at the ooze. She had almost forgotten about the man inside it until she noticed the ooze intentionally put him in the way of the hammer. Perhaps in an effort to block her from hitting another globule. It succeeded in protecting it. Sort of. The hammer struck the man and the globule both and sent them flying out the back of the ooze.

It wasn't perfectly clear but it was clear enough she could see where the two of them landed. She also could see that, as the water struck the globule, it reformed around the man into a second creature.

Letting out a breath Thessa shook her head. "Alright, well that'll be next then." She pulled the hammer back once and swung it horizontally at another globule. This time when she connected she continued the swing to push it off towards the wall on the right. When the globule hit the wall it was crushed between it and the hammer. When Thessa pulled the hammer back she saw the concrete portion was beginning to crumble and she decided to finish it off by hitting it against the floor and breaking it into pieces.

Hefting the rebar she laughed as she backed away a few steps. "How many sport events can I cram into today?" She held it up like a javelin and sized up the ooze.

It was hard to explain but instead of simply reforming the ooze looked to be tightening up and growing more dense as the water cascaded around it. With a sigh she realized she'd need a bit more power to pierce through and reluctantly let a bit more time slip away as she threw it with intense force forward. The rebar struck the globule and pierced it through entirely and broke the last of them inside this ooze.

[Skaia 578]

Sibyl's grin grew wider as she managed to take another chunk out of her opponent.  "Yeah yeah yeah, looking pretty small now aren't ya, hahaha," the girl laughed to herself only to be silence as water started falling down on her. "The hell?" With this abrupt sprinkler induced rain, the girl paused for a moment. Looking down at the ooze it seemed to be absorbing the water, growing back in size once more. With a face full of wet hair now the girl's expression dropped further as she said, "hey hey, what's the big deal here!?" Annoyed that all the work she had done to tearing this thing to pieces had been going to waste, she started to scowl and look around. Something had caused this sudden rain fall and she intended to find out what that was and give it the thrashing of a life time. 

As the girl continued to look around every which way for her perpetrator her eyes finally rested on a figure outlined by the rain. She had heard noises coming from behind her this whole time though she had opted to ignore them entirely up to this point. Whatever it was she figured she could just deal with it once the fight was over. But, without any proof, she was certain that whoever this invisible man was they were what was behind the sudden squall. Her eyes narrowed as a fourth arm grew out of her side, and with an unnervingly calm voice uttered, "oh. I see." 

The girl broke off into a sprint towards the invisible figure, the calm that was previously on her face replaced entirely with ferocity. As the slime reached out to grab her legs, trying to keep from reaching the man, Sibyl shouted, "I'll get back to you!" and jumped over the arms. With one of her shadowed fists the girl had very easily punched the invisible man, he himself not seeming to put up much resistance. "If you want to get involved in the fight so bad then I'll be glad to welcome to you to it!" The demonic villain then grabbed what she believed to be his head, lifting him up and smashing him back into the ground over and over again, a few curses being muttered from the figure as he was manhandled. 

Letting go of the man as the slime monster made its way back to her she said, "oh right, you!" Sibyl's expression was haphazardly shifting between enraged and gleeful as she stomped on the man's head, hearing a crunch of glass beneath her shadowed covered feet. "Then I'll just tear you both apart!"

The slime used its massive bulk to try and envelope the girl as soon as it got close enough, however Sibyl seemed fine to engage it in a test of strength with this creature. The two arms that had been mouths beforehand slowly started to bulk up and lose any semblance of shape, becoming just blobs of darkness at the end of her arms. Smashing them against the creature's body, pushing it back, the girl then morphed the two other arms coming from her waist into mantis blades beginning to slash repeatedly and tear the slime out one chunk at a time. The girl's eyes then focused on something, a black basketball sized sphere darting about inside the slime. "What do we have here?" 

The orb was, however, out of her reach. To make matters worse she could feel the slime beginning to try and toss her to the ground once more. However, rather than back off the girl continued to press forward. Turning her mantis blades back to claws, the girl dug her hands into the slime. Rather than just be tossed again she decided she would try its own move against it. As the girl was lifted in the air, with her claws well dug into its body, the slime tore itself in half as the tossed it over her head and onto the ground, smashing the slime there. Getting back on her feet Sibyl, now flanked on both sides by two slime halves, let out a low and feral growl. Eyeing the orb in the bottom half of the slime she said, "let's see how much longer you can play this game of keep away."

[Chaos Sonic 443]

“So it’s a floor and change below the restaurant? I wonder if people know that when they decide to eat there…”
“I mean, it kinda makes sense. If they’re using water as their main fire suppressant because Caesar’s got that woman on staff, like, you still want a different suppressant if the restaurant’s got a fryer. I don’t think even Caesar could convince a health inspector otherwise.”

"I wouldn't put it past the rotund psycho at this point..." Override sighed, his suit finishing the expulsion of the water from his suit. "Regardless...we should be able to work with that at least..."

“And the control room’s probably got a lot of tech. You don’t want water leaking through the floor into that. She can’t be here all the time to keep it out if something goes wrong.”

Override was silent, as he turned towards A.V.D., waiting for a moment. Things started turning in his head, about the time he realized what was meant, Minos seemed to come to the same conclusion.

“Oh, so it’s like a blind spot! She’s in the Control Room, but she can’t let too much water get in there. We could probably just make a hole in the kitchen floor then, right? Go down through there?”
“You know where the kitchen is?”
“Duh! My superpower-Cassie-says-isn’t-a-superpower, remember? Also, there were signs for the restaurant when we came in. Anyway, yeah, if you’re real anxious, I could probably close up the floor when we’re done with it too,”

"...that's...a fair point. I think I must've missed those signs specifically, considering I came through the roof." he said, prepping himself. But at least now they had a plan, though it wasn't too much of a great plan, but it was something.

“I don’t want to get into all that water on the floor, though. I guess we’re running across the machines, then? I’ll try to conjure up some handrails in case we lose balance because that doesn’t look safe either…”
“Good idea! Well, we’ve got a goal and a plan to achieve it. What else are we waiting for?”

Override gave Minos a nod, beginning to rise into the air again. "At this point, nothing. Though I am going to say this..." he noted the display on his H.U.D., seeing the layout of the kitchen he had gotten. The restaurant area was a series of tables circled around a lavish buffet line. There were a couple of mercenaries/mooks/whatever they were standing guard near the kitchen doors, one by the buffet, and three tables also have someone nearby for a total of six hostiles. The tech hero already started flying off in the direction of the restaurant. "Okay, we have about six hostiles in the restaurant area. One by the buffet, a couple standing guard by the kitchen doors and three tables have someone near them. Do either of you have a proper plan to take care of this? I'm open to suggestions."

A.V.D. looked back behind himself and saw a rush of water flowing out of the casino pit and giving chase. "I don't know if we have the time to make a plan..." he said.

"No, it's okay!" Minos said. "That's just one or two each. Dibs on the buffet line one!"

"Guns blazing then, alright." Override nodded, before hearing some stuff behind him. He glanced backwards and saw that the very slot machines they were starting to run on, the ones behind start sparking even further and explode behind the last person running along. "Shit...that's not good at all. Kick it into high gear, people!"

The moment he got to the restaurant doors, Override burst through and aimed at the two nearest ones, the ones by the tables...and he fired two pulse bolts at them. One connected with a mook and they were knocked down. The other, dove behind a table. "The table isn't going to save you, buddy." he said, immediately firing another bolt at the table, blasting a hole in the table. And yet, the hole was sealed up by a freeze ray. "...charming."

He took aim at another thing in the room...a chandelier above the table in question. Override fired another bolt at the chandelier, having it crash down onto the table...or the plan was that... The mook fired the freeze ray up at the falling chandelier which froze into a platform for the chandelier to crash into instead. The tech hero immediately noticed something, in where the mook was giving a thumbs up to the camera in the corner of the room. "So they're keeping tabs on them from the cameras, eh? Clever girl." Override took this opportunity to immediately fire bolts at the cameras. "Time to blind you lot. No more freebies."

"Sir...sir!"

"In a minute, P.I.X.E.L."

"But sir! Incom-..."

Override heard the alert too late as he was struck in the left arm by the freeze ray, which knocked him for a loop for a moment. He got careless, which caused him to curse under his breath and helmet. "P.I.X.E.L., get the suit to attempt to pull power to go into a defrost." he said, before immediately firing another bolt at the mook with the ray, knocking him out. He landed for a moment, before checking on the others...Minos had managed to deal with the two by the kitchen door in addition to the one she called dibs on and A.V.D. had left the one remaining one shivering in the fetal position. Plan well executed.

"O-Okay...good work...now...while I get my suit to at least deal with the frozen side... Minos! You're up." he pointed in the direction of the room, towards the kitchen. "If you don't mind."

Minos gave a little salute. "You got it!" she said. "One and a half floors down we go!" She marched through the swing doors into the massive casino kitchen, where she picked out a spot, punched into the floor, and widened and deepened the hole until the first basement could easily be seen. It seemed like a standard office hallway underneath.

She hopped down and repeated the process with the basement floor. The hole she created there did not reveal any details about the control room, though. It was pitch black below.

It took a second but Minos decided to climb back up to the kitchen. "It's a bit of a jump, and I'm gonna guess she's not alone down there 'cuz that's gotta be a power," she said.

"Fantastic..." Override sighed, the suit finally able to heat up enough to defrost the left side. "Then we should get down there and see what we got." Once he was fully defrosted, he immediately followed after Minos.

[radio414 909]

I Wish I Was Joking

Minos was ready to jump back down but stopped herself. “I know how far down it is so I’d be able to brace, and Override probably has stuff in his suit to help out with the fall, but you don’t have either of those things,” she said to A.V.D.. “So I’m going to carry you.”

A.V.D. hesitated. “I can just… I know how to make a…”

Their protests were in vain, though. Minos scooped up the renegade and put him on her back. “Too late! Now, you heard him! Let’s go see what we’ve been dealing with!” She jumped into the blackened pit.

The black persisted all the way down to the ground. As they landed, they noticed something else. The control room had vinyl flooring on top of reinforced concrete, the same as most other parts of the casino. But the sound when they landed was different here. It was muted, somehow, like the darkness itself was absorbing the sound. Minos tried to say, “Everyone land okay?” but that came out muffled too.

“We might have overestimated ourselves here…” A.V.D. said.

The voice from before rang out, piercing the veiling darkness. “What’s the matter?” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of the dark.”

Minos was undeterred. “She’s at, like, my two o’clock,” she said. “Someone else is behind us- oh that’s you, Avi. Can I call you Avi?”

“Please don’t.”

“Gotcha. Wait, no, yeah, there is someone else. Two and six.”

Again, the woman’s voice was unaffected. She didn’t even seem to notice the chatter. “Well now, let’s see if this second vial Censer gave me works just as well as the first,” she said. Everyone heard the sound of glass breaking, and the fog lifted.

There was indeed a woman where Minos had said there would be. Anyone who knew Caesar’s upper circle would recognize her as Tidebinder, She was sitting in an ergonomic office chair, wheeled around from her computer station to face the interlopers, themselves more or less in the center of the control room. Hers was not the only computer, of course. In addition to the three rows of identical workstations, there was also a large screen with several security feeds (many of them destroyed by Override earlier in their attack) broadcasting the whole of the casino.

Behind Minos, typing away at a laptop, was Legion.

A.V.D. quickly clambered off of Minos’ back but the woman took notice of that. “Well, don’t you all look cute,” she said. “It takes quite a bit of determination to get in here. I’d invite you to sit, but I don’t think your stay will be very long.”

“I agree,” Minos said. “We just need to beat you, and then what, a few more mooks before we get to Caesar?”

Tidebinder raised an eyebrow. “What makes you believe Caesar is here?”

A.V.D. looked back towards Legion and their eyes widened. “We- there was a device to trace Legion’s tracking power…” he said. “Legion’s always been with Caesar.”

“Well,” Tidebinder said. “He isn’t now, is he?”

People In The Streets

Up above in the sky, the two-on-one battle of Cassiopeia versus Arcturus and Albatross was coming to an end as well. The two Gibbons capes were clearly unused to working together, and Cassiopeia had exploited that for all it was worth, dancing between the two, goading one into firing their respective projectile at her and directing it right towards the other, perhaps with a kick to give it either a slight course correction or an extra boost. It had been a battle of attrition, and Cassiopeia had been winning it. Cassiopeia elevated herself above both of her opponents and looked down at both of them. Even from just her position, she seemed to say, “You’ve lost. And though we’ve had our differences, I’m sure if you surrender now we can find agreeable circumstances for you both.”

Down below, Aeon’s makeshift javelin piercing the final globule turned the former Quintophyle into a None-o-phyle, and the remaining slime splashed outwards, leaving behind a puddle, any extreme chemical properties of which were rendered inert by the continual shower of water from the sprinkler’s still washing down the tunnel to the field. Countdown was there too, still unconscious and likely to remain so for at least a little while longer. But Aeon was not the only one observing the aftermath of her victory. Another one, the invisible Griffin, walked up behind her. “Damn, that’s crazy,” he said. “Well, tried their best, I guess. Saves me the burden of having to listen to them bicker anymore. Hey, gee gees. Was cool to see a fight in a place like this before Project Rubicon wipes the slate clean on things.”

Sibyl loomed over the one remaining globule in her ooze. The upper half of the slime, the part that she had bisected away from the rest, made no motion to attack her flank. It made no motion at all, really, besides reacting to the sprinkler water raining down on it. The half in front of Sibyl, the one with the globule, quivered in place. It was a motion that could just as easily have been mistaken for a symptom of the sprinklers as well, but this one seemed to slow down as the ooze decided on how to act next.

The slime hardened up, absorbing the excess water around it as best it could, and maneuvered its globule to the center of its mass. Once centered, the globule started to blink, flashing red light in regular intervals, and beep audibly even through the ooze barrier and the field. The pulsing light and beeping started to increase in frequency, almost like it was a countdown.

---

OOC

Spoiler

Tidebinder image coming soon

Subtitles are MGMT songs

Continuing the fights, or what's left of them, anyway. Aeon and Sibyl are just about done, minus the chameleophyle's globule doing a little light show that's not at all a self-destruct mechanism nope no way. Thessa, meanwhile, has someone to talk to if she wants, though she's welcome to do anything else too.

Vic, though, has a bit of a twist and a definite break in the action. Tidebinder's here. Legion is here. Caesar is...? Talk it out or fight it out, you may do as you like here as well.

Sorry I didn't announce a small break I took last round, will try to keep my communication up in the future. As always, hit me up for any bonus notes or questions, though. Even when I'm not near my computer, I probably have my phone on me for quicker responses. Happy posting,

-r

 

[Skaia 578]

Sibyl raised an eyebrow as the core seemed to shift around into the center of the now hardening slime. The girl was, of course, ready to tear the rest of the slime apart before it started to let out a beeping noise. Though her emotions had put her into a frenzy she had enough common sense, or at the very least knowledge of television and film, to understand that when something spherical was beeping red it was probably about to explode. "Trying to end the fight like that huh? I ain't gonna let it be that easy for you though!" 

The balls that her original shadow limbs had previously morphed to changed back into their original claw like form, the slime that had been inside of them the entire time falling harmlessly to the floor. Running over to the beeping ooze core the girl grabbed onto it. From here she knew that she could just toss it away and the slime would be utterly harmless to her. But simply ending the fight like that, against an opponent that already couldn't think, was boring to her. It was then that her attention was directed skyward as the fight between the other two villains and Cassiopeia was reaching its conclusion. Her smile widening the girl said, "yeah, how about some fireworks to end this." 

As the core began to flash faster and more repeatedly, Sibyl turned around and lobbed the ooze into the air. The projectile had gone largely unnoticed until it was already right near the two flying enemies, Arcturus only having the time to shunt themselves away from being directly hit before the slime exploded. Albatross was blown back, though still managed to use their wings to right themselves in the air. Arcturus, meanwhile, had been launched down into the field below before skidding to a stop and getting themselves back up. 

"Last time Caesar gets a favor out of me," Arcturus says. "Didn't tell me they could explode. On top of everything else too."

Looking at her downed opponent with glee, Sibyl shouted, "heeeeey, glad of you to come down from the sky," she giggled to herself. "I'm already 2 for 2, so wanna keep the wager going?" Before waiting for their opponent to respond Sibyl had already thrown a punch, limb stretching across the field, to hit the villain. 

Arcturus, however, had already begun to launch themselves off the ground, shunting Sibyl's arm away with another blast of theirs. "Not really in the mood anymore. Long day, lot to think about, people to complain to, Cassie to avoid. I'm sure you understand." Albatross, seeing Arcturus's retreat had also decided it was time to make his break for it too. 

Her expression scrunch up as rage filled her face, Sibyl shouted, "huh?! Where the hell do you think you're going?!" Of course they were already off and moving at speeds and height too fast and far for Sibyl to actually catch up with, which did nothing to abate the girl's anger. "That bitch acts all confident and then isn't even gonna go down swinging?!" Punching the field tearing out of chunks of mud in her anger Sibyl rampaged for a few moments before finally letting out a deep sigh. The shadows on her body seemed to retract and dissipate before saying, "I'll kick her ass next time."

A smile returned to her expression as she looked up towards her ally, shouting, "hey good work up there Cassie!" Looking around, seeing the invisible figure with water still raining down on them and outlining their shape, the girl walked over and crouched down to examine them. "Three presents in one day, I'm like Santa." 

[LordCowCow 841]

She had, of course, won. It was always a bit of a strange feeling; the moment after victory. Her power still coursing through her without anywhere to use it. A smirk appeared on her face when she heard a voice and in the back of her mind she had a thought "Good, another one."

“Well, tried their best, I guess. Saves me the burden of having to listen to them bicker anymore. Hey, gee gees. Was cool to see a fight in a place like this before Project Rubicon wipes the slate clean on things.”

Thessa wasn't sure what Project Rubicon was but it likely had to do with Caesar's makeshift plan. Thessa looked behind her to see that the voice had come from....nothing? Perhaps someone invisible. Or a speaker somewhere. Still she decided to talk to them as if they were standing there.

"Are you one of Caesar's gang too?"

"I dunno, is one of those answers going to get me beat up too?"

"Well, my goal today was to take down every member of his gang so if there's one around I have to do something about that."

"Gonna level with you," they said, "you don't really give off a 'goody two shoes' sort of vibe. Not from what I've heard from others and not really from what I've seen either."

"Well, yeah, but what's that have to do with anything? I said I was gonna take em down so I'm gonna take em down. Didn't seem like Caesar had much of a plan so I figure wiping out his gang sounds better than letting him do his thing."

The, male, voice had a hint of worry to it, even as he did his best to appear undeterred. "I dunno, I mean, you all can probably stop what's coming. I don't deny that. But that's about as good a plan as Caesar's too. I'm not, to answer your question, by the way. Just a humble mercenary. Though you beat up Countdown pretty hard, so maybe that's not good enough."

There was a good point, a couple of them, in there. She didn't actually know what they were going to do after taking down Caesar. But that didn't mean much to her at this point. She had had an open mind about his plan before but his lackey didn't sell the idea well at all. Plus it felt like she wasn't being taken seriously which wasn't something she could let continue. If people thought that she wasn't as strong as she was then she would end up having to use more power than she wanted to correct them which was no good.

Thessa shrugged. "At this point I'd rather see what happens once Caesar is gone than whatever his idea amounts to." She gave a small laugh. "Plus it'll be kinda funny to see him realize he screwed up." She looked over to the unconscious body. "Oh, well, maybe he shoulda made that clear. Oops. Anyway, you don't happen to know where Caesar is do you?"

If she could see the man she would have been able to notice him shrugging as well. "I dee kay, probably at Battle Labs getting the last thing he needs for Project Rubicon. Or rather, having one of his Tinkers make it for him while he's there for the boost, I guess."

Battle Labs...it rang a bell. She had seen something like that on a map earlier right? It sounded like a good place to check next then. If she went right for Caesar he probably would set the rest of his gang on her and she could take them all out in one place.

"Kay! Guess I'll go pay a visit....Oh, yeah. Those two are here maybe I should let them know I'm leaving."

As she left she heard the invisible man say "See ya." and she let him go off freely.

On the field she saw Sibyl, on the ground, and Cassiopeia, in the air. As well as an unconscious and battered body laying on the ground. "Hm? Just one guy? Weird. Anyway I talked to an invisible dude and he said Caesar might be at Battle Labs so imma go check that out."

[Chaos Sonic 443]

Something was wrong…very wrong. It was a situation where Override was a bit surprised to see the room they found themselves in. What was worse, they found the culprit behind the water: Tidebinder. It made sense on why the water was acting the way it was…it was because of her. That wasn't the part he was having an issue with though… No, the issue was…

“Well, don’t you all look cute. It takes quite a bit of determination to get in here. I’d invite you to sit, but I don’t think your stay will be very long.”

“I agree. We just need to beat you, and then what, a few more mooks before we get to Caesar?”

“What makes you believe Caesar is here?”

“We- there was a device to trace Legion’s tracking power…Legion’s always been with Caesar.”

“Well, he isn’t now, is he?”

The Tech Hero looked in the direction of Legion, and yet…there was no Caesar. The rotund menace was nowhere to be found. He began to grit his teeth under his helmet, starting to turn back towards Tidebinder. Override, still on guard, slowly lowered his arms for a moment. "So if Caesar isn't here, the logical explanation is that you pulled a bait-and-switch. To our knowledge, Legion is always at Caesar's side, so naturally we'd be inclined to assume he'd be with him. Just let me know if I did in fact deduce that correctly, my dear.”

Override felt the remaining ice and water on his arm tighten up. He was glad he was wearing the helmet, because his face contorted slightly in pain. "I don't think you're in a position to be calling anyone 'my dear,'" Tidebinder said. "But to answer your question, I don't know anything about a 'bait-and-switch.'"

Minos said, "We had two capes trying to track Caesar down using their powers, and they gave us two different locations. You were trying to trick us into choosing the wrong one!"

Tidebinder gained a little smirk. "Oh, is that what this is about? All I know is Legion got left behind in my care when Caesar headed off to finalize Project Rubicon. I imagine the server room is useful for a broadcast power like his. Caesar is smarter than you give him credit for, but I don't think it's a trick.”

"Finalize it?" Override asked, before remembering the tightening on his arm. He pointed at it as he looked at Tidebinder. "...if you could please release the grip on my arm, I'd be greatly appreciative. But in any case, if Caesar left his secondary lapdog...no offense, Legion...here with you, what are you even doing here instead of assisting with whatever Rubicon is?”

"I would call Hellhound the lapdog, or at least I would have until this morning." Tidebinder said. She did not, in fact, release her hold on Override's arm. "But I told you what I'm doing here. I'm watching over Legion. Surely not everyone has to be with Caesar to raid Battle Labs. Gibbons is the largest gang in Scarlet City, I don't think we'd all even fit in there.”

"...I suppose it was a bit much to ask for the grip to be release, fair play." Override shrugged. "I digress. What does watching over Legion here serve for you and for that matter, your boss?”

That question seemed to catch Tidebinder off-guard. She cocked her head to the side and her smirk disappeared, replaced with something a little more quizzical. "It's... my job? I'm doing it because Caesar asked me to?"

Minos chimed in again. "Yeah, but why Legion and why here?"

"Just trying something new," Legion croaked, only now looking up from his laptop. "Wanted to see how good of a broadcast beacon I can make this place. Could be useful."

"He does talk..." A.V.D. mumbled. "If we somehow get out of this, at least I get to be a hero on the wiki.”

"Then...what was the point of us coming in here?" Override looked in the direction of Legion. "A broadcast beacon as of this moment is the least threatening thing we have going for us. Unless you're trying to do something specific with it." He made sure his movements weren't threatening like, moving over towards Legion. "What are you using it for, if I may ask.”

It didn't look like Legion was going to respond, but Tidebinder still snapped in. "Don't describe to the tech hero how the tech thing works," she said. "As for why, I assumed it was to cause mayhem like you heroes always do. And look! You've succeeded."

"Point of order:" Minos said. "I'm not a hero. And A.V.D.'s a renegade too so just the one hero, actually. I do like causing mayhem, though."

A.V.D. shuddered. "I don't actually, um..."

Tidebinder waved him off. "Regardless, now that you've caused a suitable amount, I'm going to repeat my request from earlier: You will be escorted off of the premises or you will be forcibly removed from them." The ceiling above everyone creaked and a bit of water dripped through the hole Minos had made.

About this time, before Override could do much of anything else, he had a transmission come through. It was from the Director of all people. “They found Caesar at Battle Labs, but they're having trou-...” the rest was unintelligible static. They were too far down to really get a good signal. He began to grit his teeth again, looking more at Legion's direction. The guy wasn't lying. Using what's around him, Legion was indeed sending and receiving information. There was absolutely no doubt about it. Probably was hooked up to an antenna somewhere to do it, but he digressed.

The Tech Hero went silent for a few moments, after receiving the transmission. He looked at Legion, before turning back towards Tidebinder. He pointed at his arm, before speaking. "If you could let go of my arm with the grip there, we'll kindly take our leave without the need of your escort." he turned to look at Minos and A.V.D. "Somethings going on at Battle Labs.”

[radio414 909]

Intermission: Caesar

Information Security wasn’t just making sure your enemies didn’t know something. No, in Caesar’s -- ˈkae̯sar, of course -- view, equal importance was placed on what your enemies did know, and knowing what they knew as well. That was what was frustrating about The Fates, for example. Nobody, not even he, knew every detail of how Legion’s power worked. He was happy to exploit it and Legion was happy to oblige, and everyone else was allowed to have a good idea. Only Legion was allowed to know for sure. When that brat grabbed Legion off of one of his officers and the power shorted out, it meant she knew something, and suddenly he, Caesar, leader of the Gibbons, did not, or even know that she knew before that.

If they knew something about Legion, they could know something about Project Rubicon. He had been just as careful with that one as with Legion. Even more careful, really. The only people who understood the entire scope of the project were himself and the tinkers putting the finishing touches on it all and only right this moment. Everyone else who ever worked on it was only allowed their own job and nothing else.

There were rumors, sure, but he knew they knew those. “Have you heard the machinery they’re running at the edge of town?” “Project Rubicon is the reason for Caesar’s hostility.” “Caesar is working on taking over the stars themselves.” People could not help but talk, even if he mandated otherwise, even under the threat of death. But if The Fates knew what it was…

No, this was no time to be paranoid. It technically wasn’t too late for them to do anything about it, but the door was closing rapidly. He was marching into the deepest laboratory in Battle Labs to pick up the final piece right that moment. He had a personal set of guards with him while mercenaries cleared out the rest of the building. The enemy alliance’s strongest were off fighting a proxy battle that was proxying nothing.

“How are the intruders at the Casino?” Caesar grumbled into an earpiece.

“Leaving now. Pit’s probably irrecoverable but Legion’s still up and running everything,” Tidebinder said. “I suppose you wouldn’t have been able to reach me he wasn’t.”

Caesar turned a corner and was coming on the final door now. “You would have found a way,” he said.

Legion spoke next. “Arcturus and those mercenaries lost. Ophiuchus is calling for your surrender.”

That stupid fucking man with that stupid fucking snake. Caesar could hear his drawn-out voice now. “This  is  the  way  things  are  done.” Sweet Astra, the way things were done was the reason things were the way things were. If he wanted to get anywhere in life, to improve the Gibbons’ (and therefore his) standing, he had to break some rules. He didn’t say anything to Legion because there wasn’t anything worth saying. No response was more powerful than anything else.

He turned his attention back to his guards instead. “Clear?” he asked. The guard nodded, and Caesar pushed open the door.

There were two Battle Labs employees in the room. Both were on his payroll. They both knew this was coming. “It’s too soon,” one of them blurted out. “The output is within acceptable bounds, but it’s unstable. The matrices-”

Caesar flexed his power and took a step forward. “Put it simply. We don’t have all day. There’s a war on, don’t you know?”

In a final analysis, with all the cards on the table, it was a weak power. Boosting other people’s abilities was fine and all, but most people did just fine without you. Encouraging people to like him was helpful, but it was inconsistent. People were still fickle when they wanted. He could just have easily been the support of some group, maybe the fifth ranger helping out a solid squad of four. He could have faded into obscurity within the year. His Power -- not his superpower, Power with a capital P -- was more nuanced than that. He didn’t control the largest gang in Scarlet City with that. He did it with people. Understanding and using people was his Power.

For example, maybe Arcturus was fuming after losing two battles in the same day, to the same capes, even, if he had to guess the people G3 decided to send over to the Shoe. She wouldn’t accept fault, probably blaming the mercenaries he had hired to go along with her, just as she had when she insisted on revenge after dragging Lucky Cat to safety. “It was her plan, yes, but only she had managed to execute it. It would have gone perfectly,” or something along those lines. But she could be appeased by more tasks, no matter how meaningless they might have meant to his long-term plans. Any tasks, Arcturus believed, proved her worth. For Caesar, she wouldn’t get the opportunity to try and seize someone like the Archangel ever again.

This scientist, meanwhile, had simpler levers. They had a job, and he was the client. Money wet most tongues sooner or later, and the Casino had been profitable before Tidebinder had gone and blown up half of it. Failing that, well, his guards could go on the offensive if need be. “If you activate Project Rubicon now, there’s no telling what will happen.”

Caesar raised an eyebrow. “But it’s ready? If I activate it, it will run?”

“I don’t-”

He asked again before the scientist could even finish. “Will it run?” He extended his hand out.

There was a look of worry, of fear, in the scientist’s eyes as they looked over to his colleague and partner on this project and back at Caesar. “It will run,” they said. They both said it, even. The second scientist took a small box out from one of the lab cabinets, and from it produced a console. There were all sorts of meters and inputs on it, but the most important feature was the red button covered with a safety hatch.

Legion piped in his ear again. “They know something’s happening,” he said. “That group you handled earlier called in more.”

This button was a form of power too. In a final analysis, there was still something to be said for a little brute force. Caesar wasted no time taking the console, opening the hatch, and pressing the button down.

The River

Earthquakes were rare in Scarlet City but they did happen. There were natural ones, yes, noticeable, but not really threatening. Most of the time, though it was the fault of some S-Class villain looking to inflict damage to as much as they could, the earth included. This was no different. Far out west, well into Gibbons Gang territory, underneath some otherwise nondescript warehouse nobody would think twice to look at, the earth shook with a massive force. The warehouse collapsed to the ground, and from the rubble, from underneath the earth, it emerged.

It was an automaton, but it was much too big and had too much flesh to be called a robot. It was bipedal, with two arms and a head to match, but to call it humanoid would be too much comparison to a human body. It had a “mouth,” but who dared imagine such a thing eating? Or worse, imagine it talking?

And yet, it breathed. Project Rubicon was alive. Ut stood there at the one of the ends of the entire world, surveyed all of Scarlet City, and inhaled.

When it exhaled, it produced two things: The first was a screech, a high-pitched whistle that would likely be ear-splitting if experienced up close, and was still audible even as far away as the Shoe arena. The second was a beam, cutting a swath through the western regions of Scarlet City. It only took a few moments for everything the beam touched to ignite into flames. In the aftermath, every open space on Project Rubicon -- mouth, eyes, even joints -- let out belches of steam.

It took a step forward.

Somewhere in Goodale Park, Director Victor Sekelsky issued the call. “We still need extra hands at Battle Labs -- Caesar’s got to be in there somewhere. And we need capes dealing with whatever the fuck just came out of the ground.”

---

OOC

Spoiler

The rubicon is (was?) a river and also it's a king gizzard song yes i'm very clever

did i just import a god warrior gog from nausicaa into walpurgisnacht? i wouldn't say the deadly radiation made its way over, but it's a helpful reference image i suppose.

Director Sekelsky has provided you with your choices on where to go next. You know where Caesar is, you know where Project Rubicon is, you can engage with either of those spots or anywhere else. If you DM me I'm sure I can think of some other place your character could need or want to be if you're not interested in either of these. Let me know if you have that or any questions, there's a lot of stuff in here I was trying to keep consistent but might have failed at.

 

[Skaia 578]

Sibyl looked up as Aeon called out to them from where she was. The girl shrugged saying, "the other two ran off. Wonder if they flew back to Caesar," despite how clear Arcturus had made it that they were annoyed by their boss, Sibyl had the feeling they'd go flying back to them eventually anyway. And she was most certainly ready to go meet the big boss himself and any goons that he surrounded himself with. "Sounds like a plan! Let's go have some fu-" 

The girl's statement was cut off as an earthquake followed by an explosion interrupted her. Seeing the line of fire plume up through the city, obscured though it was by the stadium they were in. "Holy shit! The hell was that?" Sibyl made her way out of the building immediately, her curiosity forcing her to find out the answer to her question. With the one guy, Selesky or something, calling out about something just popping out of the ground. It didn't take a lot of looking to see the giant plumes of steam and the creature that accompanied it. "Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! That's awesome!" A wide grin formed on her face the more she exclaimed. "Alright Caesar can definitely wait. Here I come big guy!" And with a look of glee that girl rushed off to meet with the creature. 

[LordCowCow 841]

"the other two ran off. Wonder if they flew back to Caesar,"

Thessa nodded. Just meant that there would be a couple extra bodies in the way once they got there.

Cassiopeia took a moment to catch her breath after the fight, keeping just above the range of all the sprinklers. "I am glad to see you're okay, though I suppose that's to be expected of you, isn't it? Sounds like we'll be working together again a little while longer." At least, that's what Thessa got out of the look that she gave her when she approached them.

"Hehe, I'm sure you're super stoked about that aren't you?"

She was about to tell Sibyl to try and keep up when....an incredibly loud noise, accompanied by an earthquake, stopped her and drew all of their attention.

"Ahh. Rubicon." Thessa said, nodding again in understanding. So that was his play. A giant. Well, it certainly was exciting and would possibly even provide a temporary challenge.

"Alright Caesar can definitely wait. Here I come big guy!"

"Ha, guess that makes sense. But I'm not so sure I'll be joining you quite yet." Sure maybe she should go deal with the giant monster thing that was in the process of destroying the city. But...she also really, really, wanted to see Caesar's face when she came knocking on his door.

"Seems there's lots going on but I'm still gonna pay Caesar a visit, sorry if I leave you behind!"

With that she took off. When she glanced back she saw Cassiopeia wave as if to say "Be seeing you."

Some of her power was still coursing through her body so she was able to move quickly. Jumping from building to building and object to object on her way to her destination. Battle Labs. To say hello to, and maybe smack a few times, the leader of the Gibbons.