World of Heroes -- Reboot

As he continued his escape from Kali, Strix's cowl beeped

"What is it, Sophia?"

"You sound kind of upset sir. Did your little date go poorly?"

"It wasn't a da-You know what I don't have time for this, what is it?"

Well, you had me monitoring all potentially important communications, and apparently investigation by one of the aliens indicates that the energies left from Nuklo's radioactive presence are beginning to grow stronger after lying dormant for some time. I thought you might like to know that a research team will be heading over to the crater soon. The analysis from your optic scans of the robot should also be complete soon.

"While that's all interesting news, I'm kind of in the middle of a situation here. I'll get over there as soon as I can. For now, focus on pulling up as much data as you can on Mastermind and the Super Penitentiary or whatever the latest donor has renamed it to."

Strix hoped he could evade Kali in time to do a little research of his own before heading to the prison. He supposed he could always steal the government's lab reports on the situation but he trusted himself to do a more thorough job.

edited 11th May '12 11:52:37 AM by Dblade26

As important as the Nuklo energy signature had been, Arguma was beginning to wonder if it wouldn't have been better to investigate the robot's appearance more before reporting his findings.

As it was, however, he decided he'd follow the robots trail of destruction back to where he had started, recording what information he could discover, then report it to whatever team showed up at the crash site. They'd already be equipped for such an investigation an on site anyway. All he'd have to do is wait for them to show up, if they didn't get there ahead of him.

By the time Arguma got back to the crash site, — whenever that would be — a research team was already hard at work, with a good couple-dozen researches, men&women alike, doing their best to ascertain the nature of the energy traces found there. And of course, they were able to come to he same findings that Arguma did. You see, their technology was more advanced then in many other locations around the world, with refugees from alien races, such as Argumana, or various Mad Scientist's employed by the government giving them handy blueprints and ideas that had made that technology so advanced in the first place. They were also able to detect the faint energy signature that the robot had left behind at the crash-site, when he teleported out. In both cases, — Nulco and the robot — they still needed more time to ascertain the true nature of both of these events and activities.

edited 11th May '12 12:06:03 PM by kkhohoho

Rather than heading over to either of the heavily crowded robot attack sites, Strix glided his way over to the Police Station itself. Even if no useful evidence was in transit between here and whatever storage or research facility it would later be tucked away at, he could always settle for a nice chat with an officer or two, if not the Registration Liason himself. Still, someone like him couldn't exactly enter through the front door.

Strix crushed an adhesive pellet in one hand and deployed his "talons" with an almost imperceptible hand movement with his other. He pressed his adhesive coated glove against a window before tracing around it with the talon-tipped hand and then simply lifting the entire windowpane out of the now cleanly seperated frame, placing it beside him then dropping soundlessly to the ground.

He switched to infrared in order to avoid the guards and any security sensors, and eventually made his way to the Liason's office, picking the lock with a talon and slipping inside.

He had planned to have a chat with the man, but instead found several shards of what appeared to be the robot's eye-lense already prepped for Evidence. Not one to waste a good opportunity, he merely took the shards and left the same way he entered, slipping the windowpane back into place and securing it with more adhesives before returning to the warehouse with the shards.

Ears still ringing, Kali decided it wasn't worth following him. Instead, she headed off into the night.

I intend for her to meet up with Wildcard.

Robert walked back into his office after leaving the restroom with a lot on his mind; the prison was bad enough, but now they had the robot and... traces of Nuclon, of all things, to deal with. He also had a nagging suspicion that Jeremy was hiding something, but he didn't have any concrete proof or evidence to speak of. So, he decided, he would simply walk over to the table, grab the shards which had mysteriously gone missing, and send them back to the lab for analysis.

...

Robert's eyes immediately darted straight back to his desk; sure enough, the shards had mysteriously gone missing. How, he did not know, but this wasww a problem. A big problem. Thankfully, due to his years of experience, he decided to gain for himself a bit of insurance, keeping a few small shards in his right pocket. Still, he thought that the possibility of the rest of the shards being stolen was not likely, even for for a 10-minute restroom break. If he had been out longer, he would have put the shards in his desk drawer... though even if he had, the perpetrator would likely have just searched the drawer anyway. In any case, this was no longer a time of inaction.

Going straight to the Chief's office, using his full authoritative right given to him as Registration Liaison, he had the Chief order several nearby police offers to, as Robert himself said, "Get their !$$es in gear, and find whoever stole the shards!" Among other things, he told them to search the surrounding areas of the precedent, and also to look up above for a change; for whatever reason, many a hero or villain had gotten away with many a thing simply because the hired help would not look up. Aside from that, he also had a forensic team get over to the site, to check for any and all possible evidence of who had been there.

Finally, he had thought of using the ear beeper's other feature — that of sending out a radio-message — to alert all registered heroes to be on the lookout for their culprit, but he changed his mind, seeing as they didn't yet know what to look for. Still, there was one other option. He brought out his all-purpose communicator again, and attempted to make contact with Arguma's ship, the exile. "Arguma?", Robert shouted into the communicator. "Arguma, do you read me? You know most of those shards you brought me? Some lowlife just made his way in very sneakily, and stole 'em! We're trying to find him right now, but I figured since you found the shards and brought 'em here in the first place, you might want to know."

Um, it isn't night; it's 12:30 in the afternoon. :P

edited 11th May '12 2:45:17 PM by kkhohoho

Matthew was driving along when Kara whispered in his mind. "Got someone causing trouble on the next street over on the right. But boy, is she weird..."

He pulled the car over. Hopping out, he rounded the corner to see something strange. A young girl in odd red clothes was standing on the sidewalk, holding an older man by the neck.

"Where is my Anima? Tell me now now, or I'll have to gets nasty-wasty!"

"Let go of him," Matthew called out. "Get ready to take her out," he thought, readying his gun in case this girl turned to attack.

"What a freak."

Upon closer inspection, the strange girl was wearing what appeared to be a female Santa-claus outfit with a tank top, as well as a red domino-mask.

As Mathew drew closer, Red slowly turned around, with the man still in his grasp. "Well," she exclaimed, in a childish, almost whimsical voice, "lookie who's here-ere! Maybe-aybe you can tell me where poor widdle Anima is!" She took out a sharp dagger from her side, and held it to the man's throat. "Now, can you pweeeeeease tell me where Anima is? Pwetty pwease?" Her voice then took a sharp, deeper, more menacing turn. "Or do I use this thing? What's it gonna' be, stud?"

edited 11th May '12 6:50:55 PM by kkhohoho

Arguma had made his way back to the crater site and would have been content to simply watch over the research team to make sure nothing went wrong. He had already checked in with them and discovered that they, too, knew about the other robot signal. For now, there was little to do but wait.

Except someone had seen fit to steal the shards. His first instinct was to guess that whoever was behind the robot had somehow learned about Arguma's delivery. Even if that wasn't the case, he couldn't simply let someone breaking into a law enforcement facility to steal critical evidence and get away with it.

[UNDERSTOOD.] Arguma said after picking up the device and getting a chance to respond. [I WILL MAKE GETTING THEM BACK MY TOP PRIORITY.]

With the Exile still in stealth mode, Arguma set it's scanners to search for the same signal the robot had let off at its two teleportation sites. It wasn't inconceivable that the shards would give off a residue signal, and he had little other means of knowing where they might have gone to.

For the time being, he flew back to the station for the third time that day, hoping there might be an off chance he'd be able to spot whoever was responsible from the air.

...And sure enough, as Arguma was flying back to the station, he noticed a strange man in an owl-getup gliding below...

Arguma's first instinct was to leap down and take on the individual head-on. However, two things stopped him.

First, he wasn't entirely sure that the man had the shards. While he didn't recognize him as a registered hero, Arguma wasn't inclined to get into a fight with someone over something they didn't have. He wanted to confirm that the shards were with him before engaging the enemy.

Second, if the man did have the shards, it would be better to wait and see where he retreated to. The mystery man had to have SOME place he called home, and if he was responsible for or working with the man behind the robot, it would be better to follow him back to his secret base, then charge in.

Keeping the ship in stealth mode and keeping a close eye for whether the man noticed he was being followed, the alien continued to follow him, waiting to see where he went and if his scanners would provide him with any indication that he was on the right track or if he should be going a different direction.

Strix didn't notice he was being followed as he glided and grappled above the city streets. However, he was being extremely cautious as he always was, perhaps even moreso now that he was carrying stolen property. So, he dive-bombed down the smokestack of an abandoned Keller Corp manufacturing plant.

Once there he landed in an empty chemical vat, stepped on a pressure sensor to reveal a keypad and then typed in three seperate three digit passcodes, causing the floor behind him to slide away and reveal a staircase at the bottom of which was another windingly complicated below-ground passage that lead to the warehouse lair.

The staircase and the keypad both sealed themselves behind him.

"Ah - I usually do alley patrols." Charity said, a little sheepishly. Truth be told she liked working with other supers... when they weren't sticks in the mud. And Wildcard was no stick in the mud.

A grin broke out on her face, "I do, however, know how to use a grappling gun so if we could take a slight detour then I could help with the rooftop stuff!"

The patrol had been more-or-less uneventful, which while fortunate for the good people of Megalopolis, was rather boring. As he looked down from a rooftop, Wildcard heard a commotion coming from the other side of it. He ran over to that edge and looked down. "Hey Sparky, take a look at this," he called to Charity. "Looks like Matt's in the middle of a party."

edited 11th May '12 6:54:35 PM by nman

Isaac didn't say another word as Lucunditas tried to negotiate with him before him. Not feeling like letting him get away, he leapt up and sent out a massive burst of blood to boost him forward before flying at his regular speed, where he would eventually catch up with the green Lucunditas.

Moving within a comfortable range of a hundred feet away, Isaac boosted again to leave his opponent unprepared as he sent tendrils out towards Lucunditas' limbs to restrain him before making impact with him. From there Isaac would try to send them both falling head-first into the ground below, an impact that he was sure to survive. As for Lucunditas?

Isaac didn't care.

edited 11th May '12 6:58:39 PM by Insano

"Why do they think that taking hostages ever works?" Matthew said to no one in particular, while issuing mental commands to Kara.

He watched as the girl's arm stiffened, being held immobile. At the same time, the older man floated out of her grasp and behind him. Touching down on his feet, the man dashed off before Matthew could tell him to stay.

"You'd think people would know to stick around to give witness testimony," Kara complained, releasing her telekinetic hold on the girl. Matthew agreed, but there wasn't anything he could do about it now.

"Let's try this again," he told the red-clad girl, "You're under arrest. Hands in the air...now."

Peeking her head over, Charity's catlike grin appeared again. "Awwwww, and he didn't invite us?"

Clapping her hands together again, she could feel the current running through the plates on her gloves. "How about we crash it?"

"Awwwww...", replied the strange red-clad girl, her voice soft and whimsical again, "you wanna' play. Her voice then again deepened. "Fine with me, hot stuff." She then rushed towards Matthew with great speed, lifting up Matthew by the throat with her strength. "I know you're there, you little ghost," she then said outward. "I got some supernatural stuff goin' on in me too, you know, so I can sense you're there. Sooooo," she continued, her voice resuming it's light-hearted nature, "you possesy-essy me, and heeeee diiiiiiieees! Tee-hee! Now, little boy, you wanna telly me where my pweoucious widdle Anima is? Or do you wanna' pway?"

edited 11th May '12 7:17:42 PM by kkhohoho

"Sounds good, but we don't want to have the old man get kil-", Wildcard saw the old man being freed and the girl's sudden burst of speed. "Ugh, let's go save the day" He jumped off the roof, his cane held below him as he accelerated towards the girl.

As the situation took a turn for the less pleasant, Charity hooked the grappling rope to the roof, and declined quickly - a charge developing behind her gloves.

Red Cap's head immediately swiveled toward Wild Card's, as he came swooping down. "''Coooompany!", she squeed, and then with a malicious grin, she hurled Matthew straight at Wild Card.

edited 11th May '12 7:21:34 PM by kkhohoho

Wildcard reached his hand out towards Matthew as the other man flew up, "Hey pal - scenic - need any help landing?"

edited 11th May '12 7:28:45 PM by nman

"Kara, now!" Matthew thought. Kara yanked him sideways, narrowing making him miss hitting the other supers coming down to join the fight. He still didn't get why the other super tried to catch his hand; at the speed he'd been going, that would cause more harm than good.

"So she can see me, huh?" Kara noted as she held Matthew about thirty feet in the air, floating. "What now?"

"We watch," Matthew told her, "We're not a match for her directly, and trying to read her mind might be dangerous. We'll try to see if she has a weakness." Out loud he spoke, "I'm fine. Be careful, she's stronger and faster than she looks."

edited 11th May '12 7:31:02 PM by TotemicHero

"That's cool, bro," Wildcard called out as he passed Matthew. As he continued to fall towards the girl below, he retracted his outstretched hand and placed it on top of his hat, while he pulled back his cane and streched out his legs to let his feet hit her first *

edited 11th May '12 7:40:34 PM by nman

Hitting the ground at the base of the building Charity didn't waste any time before running towards the scene.

Careful girl - she's armed and fast.