A World of Heroes

"Hmm..." Stretch thought for a bit, looking around, sometimes glancing by a vent...until his gaze stopped right at it. "Heh. Revolver, I think I've got somethin' here. See this vent? I think I can travel down it; get in there without them knowin' and hopefully do something. Of course, I'm not sure just *what* I'll do, but it's certainly better then nothin'. So yeah, I think I'm going down there. Just, you might want to avert your eyes..."

edited 6th May '11 7:34:37 PM by kkhohoho

Ford: Not so fast, mate. Procedure calls for negotiation with the bastard in question.

...

Ford's cellphone rings. He picks his phone from his coat and gets it out

Ford: It's the comissioner. Gimme a sec.

Ford answers the phone

Ford: Hello, Comissioner...yes, I know about the new law...if I may disagree sir, no matter the political clim...OK, OK, I will do so.

Ford hangs his phone and saves it in his coat

they want me to send a super to show that the Superhero unit is actually a good investment. Do me proud, son. Keep thos hostages alive and bring the criminals here without killing them. I want them alive.

This post was thumped by the Codfish in a Derby Hat

"Sure, let me help you out." Going next to the vent, Revolver placed his hand on the cool metal and let flow Spin Energy into the screws, quickly unscrewing the things and taking the metal covering out. "This might make things easier for you." He told the other one, setting down the vent covering.

The news crew decided to take a close up on the police allowing Mal to get a decent view. He recognized some of the cops but he definitely saw a super there.

"Well, hello Doppler," Mal said to the image with a wry smile as he tossed his cell-phone aside. "Of course, you'd be on the scene."

Sandy/Doppler nodded. "Yes, sir. If you don't mind, I may need to borrow a few things, just to be safe...tactical light, Mace, definitely a Taser. Radio, too. Also, are you sure the commissioner can't whistle up a negotiator or two, Captain? If I were this Jackal person and I'm expecting negotiators, and I didn't see any, I would be suspicious, too."

As he spoke Doppler turned his attention to the radio range of the electromagnetic spectrum. He was looking, in particular, for the telltale high-density signals of portable smartphones and wireless internet. Ignoring the crowd and the police gear, he extended his search to the direction of the bank building.

Ford: It doesn't seem to be lack of capability, but lack of caring, you know? Hiring supers as our defense, while logical, still doesn't hit right with the constituency, see. We have to prove to them that their tax money is going to the right places, you know?

I'd prefer if politics weren't involved in my job, but whatever, I guess I'll have to suck it up.

Go up to officer Mann, he will provide you with your tools.

"Oh, forgot about that. Thanks..." Yes, in truth, he had failed to take in account the metal grating; if that had still been there, there wouldn't have been a space big enough for him to fit through. But now...

"Right then; here I go. Just an FYI though; I'm gonna' have to strip first. But-*naked*." And so he did this, taking off his clothes and laying them on the roof. "Okay; down we go!" He first got down on all fours, and crawled his way to the duct. And, after a quick, deep breath, he shifted into some sort of rubbery, blobby mass, and quickly made his way down the duct, moving himself along as best he could, until eventually, he came to the end. Upon doing so though, he was unable to prevent himself from going straight into the bank. This could have been a problem, except that he was able to slow his descent as best he could, making not enough of a sound to be noticed. Once he landed, he slugged his way to a spare desk in the back, slow enough to be unobserved but not too slow, and waited to make his move...

edited 6th May '11 8:09:27 PM by kkhohoho

This post was thumped by the Merciless Hammer of Doom

Revolver's eyebrow quirked as Stretch took off his close, and he turned to look the other way as the naked man entered the tight hole.

Multiple supers had entered the building. Time to get to work.

Fogata knew better than to focus on the ones standing over the hostages. A twitchy finger could be disastrous. Instead, she turned to the two in the middle, choosing the one farthest from the front doors.

Slowly, carefully, she began to siphon off heat from the criminal's body. Into the tile floor, into the air - she switched between the two every few seconds, to avoid heating anything up too much. If she could cool him (or her, she wasn't sure) off enough to slow his reflexes, or even take him out of the fight altogether, it would be worth it. And if she could do the other one too...no, two people would be too noticeable. One only then.

She stopped for a minute, noticing the person apparently shivering. She avoided grinning wickedly, as the police would probably notice. As far as they could tell from her position, she was just one of the passerby, drawn by all the commotion. No need to draw further attention.

edited 6th May '11 8:21:29 PM by TotemicHero

"What's the situation?"

The voice, piping up from behind Officer Mann, makes the officer jump slightly. Turning slightly, he assesses the newcomer.

The policeman behind him was a tall, muscular man. He had broad shoulders, a thick chest and a strong jaw.

As soon as Mann saw the glasses perched precariously on the man's nose, he facepalmed.

"Patriot, you are not Superman," he whispered harshly. "A pair of glasses is not sufficient to disguise you!"

Captain Patriot grinned down at him. "Don't worry," he said cheerfully. "I also dyed my hair, can't you see?"

Mann stared. "... It's still brown."

"A slightly darker brown," Patriot chuckled.

"... Patriot, you are an idiot."

Captain Patriot pouted. "Why are you always so mean, Officer Mann?"

"..." Mann's silence was almost audible.

Patriot sighed, and stood straighter. "Anyway, what is the situation, Captain Mann?"

Mann looked at him, frowning slightly. "Well, we have a bank robbery going down right as we speak as well as a hostage situation. We don't know how many people are in there, but we suspect at least a dozen.nApparently, the robbery was orchestrated by a man called The Jackal."

"We don't know much about him except that his name has been thrown around lately in the criminal underground. Apart form that, we don't know much. Thank Detective Allen for even getting this much."

Patriot frowned in turn. "How many Supers are here?"

"Just the one," Mann replied. "That we know of, anyway. It was kind of a rushed job, setting up this cordon- we barely had enough manpower to cover the alleys, let alone cover the roof or anything."

Nodding, Patriot leaned casually against one of the police cars next to them.

"Okay. I guess we'll just watch the situation proceed, then."

Doppler now had an array of police tools dangling off his belt—flashlight, radio, Mace, Taser. He made a note to prepare an emergency kit, to be carried at all times. Just in case.

There was still the problem of getting into the building without detection. Doppler raised an area of invisibility around him, visual light and infrared. Then, staying to the shadows out of habit, he walked up against the building, pressing himself against the wall, and peered into the room, still completely invisible.

Visible light, infrared, microwave, radio wave...Doppler was quite surprised when one of the guards appeared to have a variable body heat, alternately rising and falling. He frowned as he bounced radar signals through the lobby. He looked for two things: first, any additional weapons that the guards had secreted on their bodies. Second, any suspicious bundles of wires that might indicate a bomb.

The radar revealed some... interesting things being carried on their bodies.

Each of the guards seemed to be bristling with weaponry. They each carried multiple guns- from what he could see from the Radars, each seemed to carry two smaller arms, and a larger semi-automatic pistol.

Multiple knives were stashed upon their persons, too. Their sizes ranged from switchblades the size of his thumb, to knives as large as his forearm. Each guard carried easily a dozen knives.

They weren't wearing any body armour he could see. But in this day and age... Who knew?

Safely protected from view behind a desk, Stretch shifted back into his normal form. He once again stretched out his retina, just enough to see the situation, but not so much his eyeballs could be easily seen. There were the guards alright; and they were indeed armed and dangerous, loaded to the teeth with knifes, guns, and ammunition. The guns, again, posed next to no threat to him, but as for knives; he wasn't really sure. He suspected that knives would indeed affect him, but in what way? He'd suspected for a while now that his internal body structure wasn't exactly 'normal' to say the least; how on Earth would he able to do what he can do, if that was the case? Which brings up an interesting point; would he even bleed? Or would something else occur?

But, musing about one's own existence would have to be left for another time; the matter at hand was the hostages, and speaking of the hostages...

(As I have no idea whether or not there's some sort of twist regarding the hostages, I'm leaving that open for now.)

edited 7th May '11 1:35:35 PM by kkhohoho

Looking around, Revolver took out... his black colored water gun. It was a modified model, made to hold a water bottle's worth of liquid. Walking over to the back corner of the roof top, he proceeded to spin the water shot from the gun to turn it into a hydro cutter, and began to carve out a quarter circle in the edge of the building to use as an entrance.

Doppler shook his head. The criminal underworld's predilection for heavy weapons was reaching rather absurd extremes. What was wrong with a perfectly good rifle? Still, the SMGs would pose real problems.

His job was only half done. The next job was to locate the bombs—the Jackal had claimed there were four of them, but Doppler trusted the man's words not at all. Drawing in background light and phase-shifting it to the appropriate frequencies, he looked for anything that might indicate bombs. His job was hindered by the building's sturdy concrete construction, which was impenetrable to nearly all forms of detection radiation.

It takes him a few minutes, but eventually, he detects a low-frequency wave emitting in the background. Four of them, in fact. He can't quite locate what they're doing, though.

edited 7th May '11 12:40:33 AM by SabresEdge

"Hmm..." Precision thought, considering the sitation, "What should I do? I doubt that the police are watching the roofs, but there are the Supers...I could just bluff my way through and hope they don't know who is who."

He pressed down his right heel on the hover board, causing it to rise again. He then sped forwards, to the roof of the bank.

"Here I go..." he dove off the edge of the nearest building and dove down at the roof of the bank.

Zach had heard the report about the bank robbery and headed in that direction. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure what he could do against a bomb threat.

Now he was a block or so down from the bank, outside the police perimeter.

Several minutes after he had begun his reconnaissance, Doppler had a very good idea of the opposition. If the five in the lobby were the only ones the terrs had come in seriously undermanned for a three-story office building. There was always the risk of sentries on the upper floors, of course, but Doppler thought it somewhat unlikely given the terrorists' demonstrated level of competence.

He retreated to the police car and conferred with Captain Ford, reporting his findings.

"Long on weapons and balls, and almost terminally short on brain," was his final verdict. "I think someone's playing them for a patsy, but that's neither here nor there. One thing's for certain: it's too much for one person to handle, all the same. Captain, can you call up any other registered supers? And also, I have a plan, but it depends on the police department's cooperation..."

edited 7th May '11 1:49:09 PM by SabresEdge

Ford: Sure thing, bud. I'm willing to cooperate in any way you need. My men and my firepower are at your disposal.

I normally don't like handling situations like...

One of the windows on the second floor opens, to show the Jackal's face with a megaphone

Jackal: I demand a negotiator...now! Or I'll kill one hostage. You have ten minutes.

The Jackal closes the window without further ado

Ford: Well, you have a deadline now, mister. Hope you're able to deal with it. In the meantime, I'll call dispatch in order to ask for supers.

Alright; it was time do *something*. One of the terrorists had just gone up the stairs and issued a make-it-or-break-it proclamation; he could hear it due to the fact that the terrorist had used a megaphone. Unfortunately, it seemed at this point like he only *thought* it was time to do something; any rash actions could result in hostage's deaths. Not to mention, he wasn't sure what would happen if he was cut. If he just had some sort of distraction, *anything*... but who was he kidding? Something wouldn't just *happen*... would it?

edited 7th May '11 3:19:48 PM by kkhohoho

Lyna ran back down the stairs, now clutching a sportsbag in her hands. Tucked inside her inside jacket pocket, her magical Dream Rod glowed faintly. With a yelled "Bye mom!", she slammed the door behind her and ran off with her friend.

"That was way more than five minutes!" complained Romana.

"Hey, it's not like this stuff was just lying on the floor!" Lyna protested back. "I don't want my parents seeing this and getting weird ideas about me, okay?"

"Fine, fine... But if we show up too late, it's your fault, 'kay?"

The two ran off full pelt, and soon enough reached the bank in question.

"Um... Oh, uh... All these cops..." Lyna came to a full stop upon seeing the crowd. "Um... Suppose they have it handled already, Ro?"

"Oh please, everyone knows the authorities are incompetant!" Romana replied, probably a little louder than she should have. "The only kind of justice that really works is superhero justice, am I right?"

"...Besides, I can't see anywhere I can change without being seen..." whispered Lyna.

"Oh. Um. I suppose that's a problem. Uh..."