Kitsune, the Shadow, Paladin, Galatea and Ariel finally defeated the trio of villains but not before Death Magnate had escaped. Piling a large amount of metal debris over herself and then tunneling down through the streets and into the sewer system below. But the heroes did capture Feral, the animalistic martial artist woman and Octoman, the four-armed tentacle berserkers.
As the fight was finishing up, Ariel flew off, not wanting to be confronted by the police, while the others moved about to save those civilizes still trapped in the rubble and secured to two villains to make sure they did not escape. Surprising a fairly large number of people who had be badly injured and trapped under rubble were not as hurt as many feared. It seemed that the healing power of the Paladin’s hammer had saved a great many lives that day.
Within a few minutes’ police, EMT’s and the fire department were pushing their way through and into the central area where the battle had taken place. Kitsune had gone and retrieved the disoriented man who claimed that he could see the craters on the moon as if he were standing there and who quickly dubbed ‘Overwatch’.
They meet the city’s Chief of Police Marcus Toliver, a tall heavy set African American who was hesitant around the heroes. While happy for their help he felt this was a police and government matter and did not want civilian in the area. The Federal Government was also there, from A.E.G.I.S. (the American Elite Government Intervention Service). The heroes meet Agent Gold (tall male with blond hair, did most of the talking) and Agent Red (athletic female with red hair, hung back and spoke mostly with other agents). A.E.G.I.S. took the two villains into custody and then started ‘recusing’ everyone who was exhibiting powers. They assured the heroes that it was simply a precaution.
The heroes found Felix (Cheetaur) half buried in the rubble but otherwise unharmed. With Cheetaur and Overwatch in tow, the heroes left the area and went to the University of Centropolis, where Galatea was a student. At the labs they looked over the samples of some of the dirt around where the explosion had happened and found what appeared to be tiny, microscopic robots –nanobots! But they were dissolving.
Overwatch then informed the heroes that he had reddish colored nanobots in his bloodstream and that the heroes had bluish colored nanobots on their cloths. The bluish ones were also dissolving.
Paladin thought he keep hearing a buzzing coming from somewhere around them and then everyone discovered that they had weird notes on their persons. Notes asking for their help and that they needed to be a certain warehouse at the Human, Inc. facility in South Place neighborhood (south of the Smokes and Red Haven), tonight at midnight.
The heroes, along with Ariel whom had also received the mysterious note, arrived early and scouted the location out. It appeared to be a high-tech industrial park. They all gathered on the roof of the building and were trying to figure out what to do next when a heavy rain storm formed out of nowhere and started pounding the area. While most could not make out much through the rain and darkness, Kitsune spotted a strange, alien looking aircraft coming their way. Everyone ducked into the warehouse (as the Shadow and disabled the locks and the security on the roof door) and moved down to hide in some of the offices on the top floor or moved all the way down to the warehouse floor to hide.
Villains appeared (lead by the time bandit, Remlock, they included the super athletic Parkour, the giant purple muscle monster Behemoth, the dark wizard Doctor Havok, the storm rider, Rain Maker and a man made of bees, the Swarm Master) and a great battle between them and the heroes’ ensued. It appeared the villains were after something but the heroes were mostly able to stop them…
Parkour escaped with a strange looking piece of equipment, and while Remlock and Swarm Master also escaped they were denied other pieces of the strange device. Rain Maker, Behemoth and Doctor Havok (along with a number of big drone like humanoid monsters and the strange craft) where captured.
A.E.G.I.S. again showed up again and took the villains into custody. Agent Gold also informed the heroes that the CEO and owner of Human, Inc. would like to meet with the heroes the next day… for brunch.
The next day some of the heroes did show up and spoke with Mr. Shawe on the 101th floor of his penthouse apartment in the Monolith Tower near the center of MainTown. He said that he had a couple of propositions for the heroes… the first being the uses of the Centurion Towers, where the past heroes of the city had used as a Headquarters.
Galatea was unsure and left at least for a bit. The Shadow, Kitsune, Cheetaur and the Paladin agree to at least have a look at the place and to discuss some other issue with Mr. Shawe. Shawe gave each hero a PDA with some basic data on the headquarters…
[sblock=Centurion Towers]
This distinctive C-shaped building graces the City Center. Centurion Tower was built by Raymond Shawe and Human Inc. to house the city’s heroes, the Centurions under the leadership of Atlas. But alas with his death and the death of so many other team members during the V’sorri Invasion and then last years’ Destruction Day, it has been empty ever since. Last year it was briefly re-home to a new team of heroes but they disappeared a few months later.
The heroes base is only the top 5 floors of this 34-floor tower, most of the rest was meant to be leased out too businesses and as office space, but is mostly unoccupied… too many villains in the past have attacked it thus make it unattractive for most mild manner businessmen and women. Human Inc. still leases few floors and spaces for those brave enough to be drawn in by the very low rates but they maintain the rest as a loss each year. Raymond has been making hints about hiring a team of supers to come and occupy the base again but so far, no takes have appeared.
The first floor consists of a public areas (including the reception lobby and lecture hall), conference rooms, a dinner and a number of shop and coffee spaces (most empty but there is a Zap’s Coffee Station and Red Lotus Diner and Bar here) and lobby elevators to floors 2-29, and three of the parking sub-basements. Access to levels 30-34 and sub-basement 4 are restricted to card and retrial scans by authorized personal only. The roof has a helicopter landing pad and access to the lower floors but again only through a heavily reinforced security door. The windows on the entire building have been reinforced and can change from reflective to opaque or normal transparent, depending on what situation or privacy desires.
The top five floors are access through two high speed reinforced security elevator and the subbasement. These area are also heavily reinforced and include a low-level force field/electrical field to prevent many types of meta-human instruction (blocking most forms of teleportation and desolidifcation).
Floor 34th is dominated by a roof access elevator to the helipad (or any other VTOL vehicle) and large machine and service shop for any of the team’s flying vehicles, which can also be stored here.
The 33rd floor contains the ten large luxury bedrooms and ten smaller guest bedrooms (each with its only bathroom facility and storage space area) along with a large common kitchen area and entertainment lounge.
The 32nd floor contains extensive scientific laboratories, machine workshops, a monitor and communications room and space for expansion.
The entire 31st floor contains the team’s danger-room and various training/exercise rooms and is the locations of the core computer servers and network facility.
The 30th floor contains the original team’s trophy room, and various utilitarian features such as extra storage and a large security value along with a large meeting/conference room and offices for city, state or federal government liaison(s).
The subbasement on level 4 has a large security value, a temporary holding cell with nullification field to hold a villain or two, a backup generator and parking facility for any ground vehicles that group might have. [/sblock]
As the team was riding the elevators up in the Centurion Tower, Mr. Shawe confided two additional pieces of information and reasons why he wanted to speak with the heroes. First that he had watched them do battle with the villains at the warehouse the night before by someone transmitting the whole thing from various points around the building in real-time at the same time. This person or persons must have been invisible or they were transmitted by nanobots. It seems that Mr. Shawe and Human Inc. had received samples of many of the Stormers (what the media has dubbed those people whom gained powers during the Silver Storm Bomb incident yesterday at the Yellow Brick Road Farmers Market). They could not figure out what the nanobots inside the people’s bloodstream was doing or how it was giving people’s powers but they were working on it with other corporations with close ties to the Federal Government.
Most of the Stormers were being held (for their own safety and the safety of others) at Middleton Army Base just to the north of town at least until they could figure out what had happened. As many as two hundred people where there now all with various, seemingly random powers.
The other thing that Shawe wanted to speak to the heroes about was what the villains had been trying to steal from his warehouse last night… a non-function piece of equipment giving to Human, Inc. for testing by the Sigil-Work Group. It seemed that last year, Doctor Sigil, the world’s smartest meta-brain had been working on something he had called a Trans-Dimensional Portal, to something or somewhere he called the Null-Zone or Non-Zone… a dimension between the multiple-dimensions of the Multi-Verse or something as such.
The problem was that Doctor Sigil gave up working on it to focus on something else (something he often did) and that it was not completed. The scientists at Human, Inc. had worked on it for six months but could make nothing out of how it worked and so they had put it into storage at the warehouse.
How the villains learned of its’ existence he was unsure, but he was also worried about why they wanted it in the first place. It did not work as far as he knew… what did the villains want with it?
And this is where the readers open the page to the elevator doors opening on the 30th Floor of Centurion Tower…
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