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Thread: Necessary Evil Mission Two: Investigation in Southpoint!

  1. #101
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    Once Shifter leaves the room, Funshine says, "Yeah, do that, would ya, Lovie ol' pal? I got a bad feeling about the new guy."

  2. #102
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    A quick background check confirms The Shifter is indeed a small-time thief and more serious con man. Star City Police have been trying to get a hold of him for a long time. Omega files are less detailed, but they do note that he was indeed working with Yellow Alpha last year until they broke up due to internal strife and Blue Alpha for the last six weeks, including a massively successful raid on a V'Sori ammunition dump two weeks ago.

    The Shifter is entirely free of bugs, trackers, and communicating devices other than his Omega communicator.

    The Shifter returns from the background with his characteristic grin back on his face. His hair is blond now, his chin is much narrower, and his cheekbones sit higher on his face, effectively disguising him. "So what have you done lately for The Boss? Seems like a light group compared to the last couple."
    Last edited by Appleciders; 18 Mar 2013 at 09:48 PM.

  3. #103
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    "Our job is to find out how you got caught so easily." Flicker drains the remains of his coffee and puts the cup down to one side.

    "If the V'sori have found a way to track cells, we need to find out what it is."
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

  4. #104
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    "An' not run into it ourselves," grunts Terawatt, who's not tired of living yet. He never ran across Shifter before as their lines of business were extremely different.
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    "Ok, places to look..." muses Flicker. "...your previous gang's hideout, if there is anything left. Perhaps you may be able to tell us is anything is different. The ammo dump where this kicked off, may be an option, just in case you tripped something. Or alternatively, we start looking down the list and see if any of your former teammates decided to play for a different team."

    He turns at looks at Lovelace. "You didn't see anything in the Barracuda to track Blue Alpha down did you?", before turning to the others, "I think we should start at your base, see if anything is out of the ordinary, see what got left behind. Anyone else?"
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

  6. #106
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    Lovelace shrugs. "I'm not sure what would be ordinary for a Barracuda, to be honest. There was nothing that was obviously a tracking system, but such a thing could be hidden in a drawer and I'd have never spotted it. The old hideout is a good idea to start with."
    Last edited by Appleciders; 25 Mar 2013 at 10:46 AM.

  7. #107
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    "Well, let's give them a couple of hours and then head back. I hate returning to the scene of a crime, its such a bad habit to get into."
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    "So, stunned silence, huh? Fine - wake me in a couple of hours, and then we can start heading back." Flicker leans back in one of Lovelace's chairs and nods off.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    With no objections voiced, the Omega cell, along with The Shifter, prepare to inspect the scene of cell Blue Alpha's demise. Lovelace doesn't have time to entirely repair Terawatt's flight gear, but she does at least reconnect the obvious wires, repair some broken solder joints, and hammer the worst dents out. You're now down only to 2x your run pace, instead of equal to your pace. The police and security presence in the area surrounding Blue Alpha's warehouse hideout has mostly left the area, and those who remain are looking more for crimes in progress, not rogue superhumans. You slip into the warehouse without much trouble.

    The warehouse is trashed. Boxes, crates, and trash are strewn everywhere. Gasoline from a smashed generator covers the south-eastern corner, soaking into the debris. Late afternoon light slices in through the high windows. The north-eastern corner has a large set of server racks and other miscellaneous computer equipment, occasionally emitting sparks. The western end of the warehouse is covered in more debris. On a three-(formerly four-)legged table, there are a series of large blueprints, satellite footage, and diagrams. The far corner (northwestern) is walled off, presumably containing offices and smaller fabrication shops before Omega annexed the place.

  10. #110
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    "Wow, the place has been completely trashed. Ok all, let's see what we can find. Split up, spread out and see if you can find anything unusual."

    Flicker wanders across to have a look at the blueprints and other papers on the table.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    "Yeesh, this place looks like my last apartment," Funshine says ruefully. He and his furry companion will poke around in any nooks and crannies too small for the others.

  12. #112
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    If you need any bare wiring pulled about, ask Terawatt - he's functionally immune to household current, even a factory supply.
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    Sorry about the delays; a long weekend and a pile of work kept me away.

    Lovelace and The Shifter accompany Flicker over to the table to check out the blueprints and maps. They're all of a location in Beachhead, near Uptown. It's heavily fortified, but two points on the maps and blueprints are heavily marked up-- the sewer and the service delivery loading dock.

    The Shifter speaks up. "This is the new Beachhead V'Sori supply depot. They take shipments from the African munitions and weapons factories, then distribute to V'Sori guard stations across the world. Tough security, too; they have their own dockyard, don't work with the Longshoremen down on the Docks. Tight. But Swarm found a route in through two abandoned sewer pumping stations, and de Vega seduced one of the maintenance workers, thought we could steal some ID and get in that way. We were planning to break in, steal everything we could carry and blow up everything we couldn't, but the V'Sori started hounding us and well, you know the rest. Shame, too; that kind of military hardware brings a fortune on the black market."

    Funshine and Patches turn up a small weapons cache. A pair of .45 pistols and a sawed-off shotgun, along with a a pair of clips for each pistol and a couple boxes of ammo for the shotgun. There's also a single clip of M2-Herokiller ammo that will work with Flicker's pistol.

    Terawatt amuses himself by disabling the computer equipment's power supply, hoping to prevent a fire in the gas-soaked debris.

  14. #114
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    "In which case, they picked you up while you were making plans. Either your way in is more secure than you thought or your seduced maintenance worker wasn't and they caught you that way. either way, that's likely to be where they caught you. Time to take an interest, I guess."

    Using his communicator to keep it away from Shifter, Flickers opens comms to Lovelace. "This smells like a trap. Seriously, plans left out in the open after a Fin raid. Something stinks and its not the supply depot."
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    Lovelace shrugs, then realizes that Flicker's not looking at her. "Sure seems like it. There's not an obvious technological method of tracking or bugging here. Unless the V'Sori have finally cracked the Omega comms, I mean. I did that background check on him and nothing indicated that he was anything but a small-time con man who Yellow and then Blue Alpha recruited. Still, you try running a background check on a chameleon some time. It's like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall."

    The Shifter frowns at Flicker, then announces that he's going off to take a leak. He ducks off behind a pile of debris.

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    Funshine will silently pad after him and see if he's actually doing what he said he'd be doing.

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    Terawatt gives Funshine a nod, just in case Beelzebub's own teddy bear should need back-up shortly.
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    Funshine and Patches sneak carefully through the debris to spy on The Shifter, who picks his way around the trashed furnishings until he's behind the destroyed foreman's office, where he does proceed to take a leak against the wall. After he's done, though, he rummages through his pockets, opens a prescription bottle, and swallows a pill from inside. After a moment's pause, he takes a second pill. Then The Shifter picks his way back to the group and asks "So what do you think? Kind of fishy, leaving this stuff out after a raid, don't you think?"

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    "Well done, you get a gold star for original thinking." Flicker shoots him a look like he just announced that two plus two equals four and we should admire his intelligence. "But they are also the best leads we have, so we may as well follow them up."

    He smiles an evil smile at Shifter. "Time to put those powers to use. How's your de Vega impression? You've got a maintenance worker to check out and seduce."
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

  20. #120
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    Could Funshine tell what kind of pills the Shifter took?

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    A slow grin crosses The Shifter's face, followed by the unmistakable visage of the infamous jewel thief and Lothario, de Vega. "What do you think?" he asks in de Vega's smooth baritone. "I'll bet you half my share of the loot it passes."

    Funshine can't tell what kind of pills they were. They were small, white, and oblong, but Funshine couldn't read the prescription label because he's illiterate.

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    "Crap, but it will have to do", quips Flicker. "We'll soon see if you are smooth as the real thing. If there is nothing else here, we may as well vanish before anyone notices we are here."
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    Lovelace snags a couple of hard drives out of a server rack. As she does, she glances upward on the wall and sees the glint of a well-concealed lens. She freezes, pointing at it, and announces "Uh-oh. Everyone see the camera up there?"

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    "I didn't before," Funshine says, "but I do now." He will move to disable it.

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    The lens is too high off the ground for Funshine to reach.

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    Flicker wanders across, picks up Funshine and holds him up to the camera for him to pull it out.

    "Shifter, anything you want to tell us? Now would be a good time."
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    The Shifter looks angry. "Tell you? They've bugged the place in case we came back, that's what I've got to tell you!"

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    "Crap, crap, crappity crap." Flicker turns to Lovelace "Can you block it?"
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    "I can now," Lovelace snaps. "But I don't know what got through." As she says this, you hear a pair of sirens, faint in the distance.

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    "Time to be moving on, I think, guys," says Funshine, heading toward the nearest exit.

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    "Everyone knows where to meet." Flicker grabs the plans and stuffs them into a bag. "I suggest moving ladies and gentleman, try not to get caught." he says before vanishing.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    Lovelace and The Shifter both move toward the exits, their features rippling as they run. They slip out the door and vanish.

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    As Flicker jumps out of the building onto a nearby roof, he lands next to a pair of kneeling SOCorp officers, their sniper rifles readied on the low wall of the roof. The shock prevents one of them from reacting, but the other drops his rifle, draws a pistol, and rolls to the side, getting off a single shot before Flicker can continue his escape. The shot goes wild (3, adjusted downward for surprise)and ricochets off an antenna, sending a shower of sparks down into the streets below. Flicker continues his hurried escape.

    Funshine and Patches blast through a boarded-up window and start chewing up the pavement. Not everyone reacts in time (they're distracted by the gunfire on the neighboring roof) but Funshine and Patches are still met with a hail of gunfire, first from the snipers on the roof (net adjustment -2), then the Drones on the ground (net adjustment -4), and finally the Fin commander net adjustment 0) The snipers fire and their bullets trenches in the asphalt. The Drones on the ground snap up their blaster-arms and fire, setting the building alight with their misses. The Fin commander fires away with his Blaster Machine Gun, peppering the whole area with energy blasts. Patches takes one to the chest and tumbles into the side of a SOCorp van. Funshine keeps running and Patches shrieks with pain, struggles, and eventually bursts into flame, his furry body and synthetic stuffing going up like a torch!

    Hearing the hail of gunfire from out front, Terawatt bursts through a vent on the roof. No SOCorp operatives are on the roof of this building, though they are on the the other buildings. One shot goes entirely wild and the other two slam into his Kevlar vest. The ceramic inserts soak up one shot perfectly, but the other slips between a pair of inserts and send Terawatt spinning off course. Terawatt loses altitude and recovers, but is now within view of nearly the whole force below.

    Lovelace and The Shifter sprint out, hands over their heads, screaming about the dangerous Omega operatives inside. No one fires at them, and they are scooted off to the side, behind a pair of vans, where a medic begins to try to calm them down. They're safe for the moment, but Lovelace's many super devices may be discovered upon close investigation.


    Any new actions?

  34. #134
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    Flicker decides that discretion is the better part of getting the heck out of there.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    Funshine keeps on moving. His dark little heart feels a twinge of sadness for the loss of his furry duplicate, but the drive for self-preservation is a strong one.

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    After he has gone a little way and out of sight of the troops and no longer being chased, Flicker will stop and consider the merits of going back to see how the others are doing, but then going back to the scene of a crime got them into to trouble in the first place.

    On second thoughts...he decides that listening in to the troops from somewhere close by might be useful to see what they are up to.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    Funshine rips around the corner, through a small alleyway, and through a fast-food restaurant, scattering chairs and condiments in a cloud of chaos. He shoots out the front door and out into the street. Not very subtle, but sure difficult to catch!

    A couple of quick transits puts Flicker inside a Dumpster near where Lovelace and The Shifter are being held. He can hear the paramedics being shoved roughly aside in favor of SOCorp operatives who are asking insistent questions about the interior of the building. Lovelace is quietly imitating a nervous breakdown-- her appearance is disguised, but not her voice! But The Shifter talks quickly and quietly, just underneath Flicker's level of hearing, to SOCorp. Flicker catches only a single word: "Omega".
    Last edited by Appleciders; 23 Apr 2013 at 12:38 PM.

  38. #138
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    Opening the dumpster a crack to see what is going on. It could well be that Shifter is just saying there were Omega agents inside, or that Lovelace is an Omega agent and that, in reality, he is a double agent for SOCorp. Flicker keeps listening waiting for confirmation either way.

    If absolutely desperate, he could teleport Lovelace into the dumpster, but he's not sure she would appreciate that.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    Allowing a Streetwise roll to sneakily see through the Dumpster, Flicker peeps through a rust hole near the hinges and sees Lovelace shivering in apparent distress, being comforted by the paramedics. The Shifter, though, is speaking in low tones to a SOCorp officer in full riot gear. Flicker can't hear what's being said, though.

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    Quietly through the comms channel Flicker contacts Terawatt and Funshine.

    "Hi guys, Keep watch on Lovelace's place, don't enter it. I'll give you an update when I can."

    He tries to concentrate on what Shifter is saying
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

  41. #141
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    Wow, sure is quiet in this dumpster isn't it thinks Shifter to himself.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    It is quiet in the Dumpster. You're not going to be able to get a clearer understanding of what's going on in the conversation, it's just too far away and too hushed. A squad of SOCorp operatives line up with their riot shields and begin approaching the building, from which smoke is beginning to pour.

    I'd love to get some input from Funshine and Terawatt!

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    Funshine will try to find a good vantage point over Lovelace's place. He never had a good feeling about Shifter. He takes a moment, in his tiny, furry evil way, to mourn for Patches.

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    Getting the message from Flicker, Terawatt's happy both to help and get himself somewhere where he is not the focus of everyone's attention.
    Librarians rule, Oook

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    Terawatt makes a controlled but rough landing on a rooftop down the street from the smoking warehouse. That gives him cover from most of the shooters below, but the two snipers on the roof whip 'round and take quick shots at Terawatt. Their rifles are too unwieldy for that kind of quick shooting, and the bullets go wild.

    Funshine tears through an air duct into a building's ventilation system, where he shimmies up a pipe and finds an overwatch position, immediately above and behind the Fin and the pair of SOCorp officers who are running the operation. Funshine can't hear much over the whine of the air conditioning, but he's got a great view of the scene and he's well hidden by the grate.
    Last edited by Appleciders; 04 May 2013 at 12:12 PM.

  46. #146
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    Oh well, if those snipers want to play silly sods I guess I can oblige them. ZZAAPPP!
    Librarians rule, Oook

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    Terawatt's quick reflexes give him the edge on the exposed snipers. He lines up a finger and blasts away at the nearest sniper. It's been rainy lately, and the sniper is kneeling in a pool of water, effectively grounding the sniper and allowing Terawatt to course even more power through the man's body. He collapses to the ground, smoking and twitching.

    The second sniper, now more prepared, lines up and takes his shot. He nails Terawatt smack in the center of the breastplate. (That Kevlar with the ceramic insert plates has saved his life twice today already!) Terawatt is thrown backwards against a brick wall and drops to the ground, the wind knocked out of him.

    The second sniper, emboldened by his success, steps out into the open and carefully lines up his shot. He misses, however, and Terawatt catches his breath and returns fire from his prone position. This sniper isn't standing in water, however, and Terawatt's blast doesn't kill him. It does knock him to the ground, though, giving Terawatt's coup de grace a perfect hit.

  48. #148
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    "That's taught them to fart in church," mutters Terawatt, breathing a little hard after his narrow escape. Using whatever cover he can find, he manouevres around to where he can best bail his team-mates out of whatever mess they've wound up in while he wasn't watching.
    Librarians rule, Oook

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    Terawatt steps over to the edge of the building and glances over the edge. He's lined up right on top of the enemy encampment, as the Fin and two SOCorp officers are directing the SOCorp team to surround the building. Immediately beyond that, The Shifter is speaking to another SOCorp officer and Lovelace is still recuperating from smoke inhalation, sitting on the back bumper of an ambulance.

    The team is now more or less caught up in time, all watching Lovelace and The Shifter from different positions. Is there a larger plan afoot, or are you planning an escape separately?

  50. #150
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    Funshine will look around from his current position, careful not to reveal himself. Can he see any of his other teammates?

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