Epic M&M: Issue 4 (IC)

[Velmont]

Great! thinks Kevin when he sees the cart.

"I will. I have to come back to the village anyway."

Kevin start to pull the cart back to Wen's house.

OOC: If the cart nbeed two hands to be pulled, Kevin will plave the bonsai on the cart, somewhere where he would be sure it won't fall.

 

[Calinon]

Arizona Team
Flying the Friendly Skies
After saying your farewells and leaving Vince in the curious Doctor Worthy's clutches, you take to the sky where you make your report. Thunder and Mendez listen to your report with interest.

"This may be a far bigger concern than we originally thought," Mendez says with some concern. "If a terrorist group got a hold of some of the virus' SAP works with, it could spell bad news for the world at large."

"I agree," Thunder says nodding. "Get back here ASAP, and we'll get Sanchez to help you and Anna boost the range on that detector. I'll get a hold of SAP and warn them so they can boost security until you get there. Your team did well, Johan. Contact Vince and make sure he's back within four hours," he says.

Vince
"Well," Doctor Worthy says. "It's just that your DNA strands seem very unstable." Seeing a look of panic on your face she corrects herself. "Not unstable you're going to fall apart, more unstable you're going to change. I can hazard a guess as to how, though," she says, looking again through the microscope. "Take a look," she invites.

As you look, you see the sample she's looking at, at extreme magnification. You can actually see the cells splitting at a somewhat alarming rate. "I'd guess you're going to be going through some painful growth spurts soon."

New York - Methesda
Initiatives: Guards/Dogs 20 (1 guard, 1 dog), Battlesuit 18-1[2L, grappled], Neutron 18-2[1L], MM 18-3[2L], Monica 15, Chief 14, SJ 9 [3L], Rebound 6[3L]

Straightjacket surges in, keeping himself effectively hidden from the approaching Chief. Seeing the shallow, to him, pool and the battlesuit floating above it, he steps in, grows to full height, and grabs the man in a bear hug!

Attack Roll: SJ -- 27 (hit!)
Grapple Check: 22 (battlesuit) vs 30 (SJ) -- guard is grappled!
Save: 12[1L]

Rebound finally recovers and blows up into ball form. With a boing he smashes into the guard right in front of him, sending the guard splashing into the water.

Attack Roll: 17 (hit)
Save: 11 (fail, unconscious)

The final guard has definitely lost interest in this fight. He remains alert enough at the edge of the pool though to notice his dying comrade. "Matt!" he shouts at the man who is going through convulstions on the floor, and he climbs out and starts crawling towards the guard, tryin to stem the flow of blood, but not having any luck.

Medicine check 8 (VP to reroll is lower, becomes 10 [fail])

The insane guard dog barrels in after Straitjacket, heedless of the pool of water. He hits the edge of the pool and leaps up, latching on to Straightjacket's arm with his teeth, biting through his uniform but unable to get through his tough skin. He clings to him like a pit-bull.

Attack Roll: 18 (hit)
Grapple check: 27 (dog) vs 25 (SJ) -- and yes, the dog has you grappled... kinda. He can't pin you, he only makes you make a save each round. If you knock him off, he falls into the water. Remember, you can grapple one handed!
Save: 21 (success!)

Try as he might, the battlesuit can't get a shot at Straightjacket, wrapped up as he is. He doesn't even try to get away, though, instead taking another shot at Michelle as Ms. Henry shouts, "I swear, if guard Wembly dies, you'll all be living in M-Tac's holding facility by day's end! Captain, stand down or I'll have your job!" she shouts at the Battlesuit.

The guard in the battlesuit says nothing, keeping his weapon trained on Michelle, the blaster crackling with unspent energy, but doesn't fire.

Diplomacy 23 -- the suit listens, though he keeps his weapon trained on Michelle, despite Straightjacket's efforts.

Your own communicators activate and Thunder's voice comes across the comm unit. "Metal Mistress, I need your team back at EPIC ASAP. Have you gotten the client information regarding the trucks?"

Neutron and MM are up.

China
Kevin
You are pleasantly surprised that, even after stowing the bansai carefully among the other plants, the cart is so well balanced, it makes it easy to pull. The uphill climb might be a bit hard on you, but is well within your abilities to do. You are just exiting the marketplace when you hear something very out of place in the quaint village. Straining your ears, you could swear it's the sound of many motorcycles. Looking over to the North, you see a large cloud of dust approaching town, right about where the road into town from the mainland would be.

Raisa
"I can't hear anyone!" Dara says with a sniffle. "Not even Raisa!"

"And until you learn control, I keep power under control for you," Master Wen says. "I not remove anything permanently," he adds. "You still have to deal with link between you, but not until you learn to control mind better."

"I can control it just fine!" she whines. "Give my powers back!"

You can only imagine it is like suddenly losing the ability to speak and hear.

X12
"I think they forgot we were still human. And humans have free will," Xi says. "You can program people like you can a computer. Perhaps some things cannot be programmed.

"I too think of the shadowed man as Father, despite myself. I would rather not remember him at all," he adds. "You can relax a moment," he adds. "You are 8 months younger than I am," he says. You find this hard to believe as he looks in his mid to late 20's. "I am, by my guess, ten."

 

[Velmont]

Kevin stop and start to look around to see if someone have seen the cloud and he looks at their reaction. A bit curious, he ask to someone near:

"Sorry, but what is that?" pointing the cloud.

 

[Mimic]

Michelle will hold her attack.

Your own communicators activate and Thunder's voice comes across the comm unit. "Metal Mistress, I need your team back at EPIC ASAP. Have you gotten the client information regarding the trucks?"

Michelle glares at the battlesuit as she reaches over and grabs the papers that she had printed out just moments before.

Affirmative, although some of the guards got injured, one looks pretty bad. You better send an ambulance. She deactives the line and looks over at the woman.

What's it going to be? You can call your men off and let us go. That way you can get your men looked at and Neutron can even put the floor back. Or we can continue this fight putting many of your employees lives at risk as well as escalating the collateral damage.

If you want press charges I and I alone entered your network but just remember that is all I did, which by the way was left open by one of your own employees. Where as your men attacked first, using lethal force no less without even waiting for all of us to comply with his demands. Somehow I don't see a judge being too sympathetic to your side, plus I am sure the feds will have to access all your files just to make sure that I have not tampered with anything else.

<Diplomacy +8>

 

[Dalamar]

"Affirmative, Thunder", Johan says. He then contacts Vincent.
"Vincent, this is Johan. You are to be back to the EPIC headquarters in four hours, by Thunder's orders."

 

[Calinon]

China
Kevin
"I don't know," one man says to you. You notice most people are looking in that direction as well. The sound is definitely getting louder, and definitely is motorcycles. People are looking rather concerned.

New York - Methesda
Ah yes, that poor old diplomacy roll... you might have been fine if you hadn't failed once and pissed her right off.

"You commit theft, destroy private property and violate the privacy of our network, and you think you'll dictate anything to me!?" Ms. Henry shouts at Michelle.

And of course, the lawyer kicked your arse on the opposed roll. Kicked. Your. Arse. A re-roll would have been pointless.

"Calm yourself, Ms. Henry," a man says, entering the room. He's in an expensive business suit, and has a briefcase with him. He's accompanied by someone with a first aid kit, who quickly gets to the guard to try to save his life. He looks around the room analytically. "My name is Ronald Falcon, lawyer for this company. You've committed theft," he says, looking at the papers Michelle is clutching. "Destroyed private property to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars," he adds, gesturing to the floor. "Possibly manslaughter, not to mention the civil suit you will likely be facing from his family," he says, looking briefly at the dying man.

"The good captain gave you opportunity to cease and desist. You refused and continued your violation of the privacy of our network and our database. They acted with justifiable force. We have all of your actions recorded, until this young man destroyed the cameras," he adds, indicating Neutron. "And the battle and subsequent conversations are caught on the battlesuit helmet cameras. Not to mention the hostile response to a simple request to go to the security station by your large companion," he nods towards Straightjacket.

"No, I don't think we'll need to comply with any of your demands, young woman. EPIC or not, you broke the law, committing several criminal and civil offenses and are currently holding the evidence of it in your hand. The air ambulance is already on its way here, and the police are just a phone call away. And thankfully, our in house tech's have already determined the files you perused, and we will be contacting our clients to warn them of the breach in their privacy." He holds his hand out expectantly. "I'll take those papers now," he says. "Or you can continue to deal with the Captain and Security Chief while I contact the local news crews. I'm sure the footage we have should make for an interesting news story." His thinly veiled warning rings very true in your ears. You may not be experts on the law, but you know he definitely has you in a very bad corner.

Even from within the foyer, you can hear the sound of a hovership approaching. "Ah good, the paramedics have arrived," Mr. Falcon says offhandedly before returning to speaking to you all. "I am rather curious as to why you thought it would be a good idea to perform such a foolish act of senseless espionage instead of simply waiting for Ms. Henry to finish with her appointments. I cannot think of anything you could possibly have acquired that could not have been acquired without some patience and common sense."

"Damn boy," Straightjacket hears as his dad comes in behind him. "When you are right, you are right. These other kids sure don't think much. And they're blowing your shot with that Methesda girl out of the water." Straightjacket, you see Stephanie Methesda in the background, staring with horror at the ruins of her reception area, and at the injured security guards.

Monica fishes the floating guard out of the water, and Rebound rolls over to the wall and watches carefully.

 

[buzzard]

"Hostile response! You can stuff your hostile response. I did nothing wrong, and told them I would be happy to leave without any trouble, but they opened fire on me. You can stuff your hostile response crap. Having done nothing wrong, they had no right to detain me. Nobody made them into the police. I wasn't here illegally, and had done nothing wrong. Any guard than opened fire on me should be liable for assault charges. Anything I did was pure self defense. Hell, I don't need this kind of grief. "

buzzard

 

[Agamon]

Neutron looks at the bleeding man, and gives Michelle the ol' what-the-hell'd-you-do look.

"Hey, you call that justifiable force? Why the hell do your guards have such lethal weapons? Personally, I was just trying to get the fighting to stop, but if I wasn't a metal M&M, I'd be worse off that Welby over there. Anyway, what I do can be undone (OOC: once the guard is out of the water, discontinue the transformation effect on the floor)."

"We came here to talk, you coulda bloody well just lied to us, but no, you just had to ignore us. This is a freakin' set-up." Neutron looks suitably upset.

 

[Calinon]

New York - Methesda
"You were allowed on our site to speak with Ms. Henry. You may have been outside when your companions started their attempted espionage, but you are with them. And if you believe that acting beligerant and doubling your size and refusing to co-operate with a simple request is not threatening, you should examine your perception of reality," Falcon says flatly to Straightjacket. "You may not want 'this grief' but you and your friends brought it upon yourself, because we certainly do not want people hacking our system, printing out confidential data files and thinking they can get away with it."

"Ignore you!? You walk in without an appointment, and expect me to what? Ignore clients so I can talk to you? And then you refuse to wait and resort to..." Ms. Henry starts.

"That's enough Ms. Henry," Falcon says calmly. "Speaking of clients, I believe you have one waiting for you in the form of a Mr. Murphy. See to him," he says firmly and Ms. Henry gives him a glare that could melt ice, then storms off, nearly running over Stephanie in the process.

"If you wanted the fighting to stop, you simply had to hold to the Captain's request," Falcon says to Neutron. As the guard and Straightjacket exit the pool, it changes back to its normal state. "Excellent," he says. And it's just in time, as the paramedics rush in, four of them, and start to take the wounded out to their hovership on stretchers.

"Now, the papers you printed," Falcon says to Michelle. "Then I'll invite you to leave."

"Boy, I'm dyin' to know what's so blasted important on those papers that chick has," Straightjacket's dad says to him. "Something's on there he don't want everyone to see, I betcha."

Straightjacket sense motive is successful.

 

[Agamon]

Neutron glares at the lawyer, but turns to see what Metal Mistress does with the papers. "If we're in big trouble, we'd at least better have something to show for it..." he thinks.