[The Human Element] Delta Division HQ

"AMMO, LETHAL configuration, softnose variant." Stefan's voice is cold as ice. Believing Nicky to be downed and seeing Girl Prodigy being ganged up on, he thinks the creatures delight in attacking the weak first, and fully believes they're going to try to tear Girl Prodigy limb-from-limb. He struggles with the weapon a few seconds, moving components into position, then levels it at the first Fae that grabbed the girl.


The softnose technique involves placing an inhibitor on a laser so that it moves it just slightly slower than the speed of light. This allows the photons that make up the laser to interact with solid objects as though they were also solid and prolongs the contact time of individual photons against surfaces they strike. Stefan doesn't fully understand all this, especially the "light that moves slower than light" part, but what he does understand is that it effectively makes the laser a spray of bullets the size of dust - like a microfine shotgun - that hits faster than any other known projectile and doesn't spread out and lose effectiveness over distance, and can't be countered with a reflective vest.


This is the variant that LETHAL configuration was named for. There will be no more crowd control. "Für mein Kaiser!" He lets fly a burst, likely the first of many.

Stefan uses Extra Effort for an extra move action this round, spending it before his usual actions to change AMMO's form. He then spends his full action charging and firing the LETHAL burst. This is actually lethal damage, unlike the last time he readied LETHAL. He'll be fatigued after this shot, but that'll just offset the Accurate bonus on this weapon. I rather hope these creatures have a weakness to light-descriptor damage.

^_^ (oh yeah, if they're weak against light, my calm/blind/fatigue ray would have been at a bonus to DC as well, hehe.) Base DC before any modifiers for weakness and the like is Toughness 25.
Attack roll still only hits a 13, IC seems to hate me recently.
 
d20 + 4 =

10 + 4 = 14
Grace had been trained in Judo, It didn't stop people from grappling with you. In fact, it almost encouraged them to grapple you. The surprise always came when you reversed the hold, and started tossing your opponent around. They could all just pile on, if they wanted, she could handle the little rugrats. This was getting pretty close to baby-sitting.
 
Vlad turned to the nearest group of fey and used his tremendous strength combined with his speed to rapidly propell himself towards them, his blade drawn back and poised to strike the first one he could land on.


(ugh nat one)
 
Desmond continued to try and blast the goblins, focusing on those that were on the edges, possibly close to escaping.

Total of 21 for the attack roll
 
Vlad's Fey target neatly dodged his blade and took advantage of the vampire's imbalance to hop onto his back. The little creature grabbed a hold of Vlad's collar with one tiny hand and raised the other in a fist. For a fleeting moment, it looked for all the world like he was actually holding a Stetson. "Woo, hoo! Ride 'em, cowboy!"


Grace was having far more success. Despite the creatures mobbing her, she remained in control. Extradimensional child-like creatures were still just children after all. Light flashed all around her as Desmond and Stefan made their attacks. Stefan's unclear focus made it difficult to distinguish any real targets and his blast went wild, but Desmond's smacked into the face of a Fae, and the thing dissolved.


All around them, any Fae not involved in combat stood perfectly still. They began to chant. The sound was not dissimilar to a little kid singing a nursery rhyme in a horror movie. Black marks appeared on the pavement all over the battlefield. They seemed to take on a cohesive pattern, though it wasn't one any of them recognized. One by one, all the Fae disappeared till only the heroes and the scattered innocent bystanders were left.
 
Stefan keeps his weapon out and charged as he runs to where he thought he saw Nicky fall, arriving only to find.... ?


Nicky, for his part, is sulking, having assumed an appearance like his impish default, but with bands of light encircling his limbs to advertise the fact that he's not a shadow-creature like they just fought and essentially lost to. He knows as long as the kid got out safe, it was a victory, but it didn't feel like a win at all.....
 
Desmond descended and landed next to the policewoman that he spoke to earlier, consciously dimming his light.


"Is everyone ok?" He asks in Russian.
 
Vlad spins around as quickly as he can reaching behind him trying to grab the fey but failed as he hopped off him doding nimbly away until it disappeared. Vlad collected himself sheathed his sword into his cane and looked about.


"IN THE FUCKING FUTURE CAN WE ALL MANAGE TO NOT SIMPLY START ATTACKING THE SUPERNATURALS PROVOKING THEM INTO AN ATTACK! especially when we do not actually know their intentions no matter what you think you know about them." He was rightfully pissed at this point.


"And drake! In the future please do not simply Spazz out and start informing the other children to start attacking because some "supernatural baddy" has some horrible stigma attached to it for being malicious and evil. Not all of them are bent on ruining your plans, infact i can assure you most probably could give fuck all about your miserable existence and would probably prefer to be left alone to watch the goings on of the world." He said as he stomped threw the street, the earth beneath his feet cracking and shattering.
 
Drake, of course, had used a device to teleport away and get the kid to safety at the beginning of the fight. Now he reappeared behind Vlad, gone one second and there the next. "Tell you what," he said icily. "When you've had one of them possess you, strip you of your identity for a year, then we'll talk about their intentions and how much I think I know them."


Stryker turned from Nicky to Stefan. Obviously no one knew what had gone on in Stefan's head, but the shell-shocked look of confusion translated in any language, especially given what the Fae were capable of. "Are you all right?" He asked in stilted English. Concern reflected in his gold-colored eyes.


The officer nodded at Desmond. "We're fine, thank you," she said a little stiffly. Still a little shaken by the experience, she made an effort to put her commander face back on. "Now, if the threat is over, we must make an effort to clean up."
 
Grace didn't know what to think. This hadn't been what she expected. She imagined that there would be villains out there with powers to contest them, and not a bunch of mischievous fae-things. When they tried to gang-tackle her and drag her down, she had used all her skill to keep them from doing so, but in the end it wasn't like they were a villain to be defeated.


"Mister Drake, any idea why they were here? The shadow fae things? Any idea what they wanted?" Tactically, it made no sense. It wasn't as if the things were trying to abduct the boy. They hardly made any real effort to get to him. So it seemed more that this was possibly a distraction, or worse yet, this was just some form of play for them and there was no purpose.


Even so, Vlad was probably right. Despite what her mother would call 'the gratuitous use of the f word. She would have to be more careful about the comments she made. Goblins was probably right, but calling for alert might have been too strong. She probably could have said for people to be on watch or something less active.


She didn't want to go back to headquarters. Sam probably wouldn't be happy with them. She had never gone through a debrief before, but her parents hadn't enjoyed them. Now she knew why.
 
Vlads eye twitched as turned around, the road crumpling beneath his foot like a carpet as it slid around. "Excuse me?" His eye bright red, as if they were going to fire lighting from them at any moment "So we should judge the entire hole of a population of people because of the misdeeds of the few? The Jews should slay every german now because of the Holocaust, the native Americans should destroy every white person because of their European roots and what the Europeans did to their home lands, the African Americans should do the same. I have been hunted my entire life by some misguided small group of idiotic humans who think they are doing "gods" work just because I posses abilities beyond normal humans so that means that because a small group of humans are bad ALL humans are bad and there fore I should just start slaying every human I encounter because they share the same species as the hunters trying to kill me?" He said looking as if he was about to loose anything resembling humanity rather quickly.
 
"To be fair mate, vampires are something that humanity instinctively fears. And impulse judgement or not, anything that decides to use illusions when we're on an escort mission will be met with a laser."


Desmond said, amused by Vlad's rage.


"Don't blow this out of proportion, its not like we killed any of them. Or even hurt them properly."
 
"Wait? What illusions?"


Grace didn't remember seeing any illusions, but then she had been in the Maverick watching the screens. She didn't have a full view of the battleground. Maybe the components hadn't picked up the illusions, as mechanical devices were notorious for missing certain supernatural effects.
 
"Illusions, of course. That explains why I'm not finding the body I'm looking for. Nicky, if you're still standing around here somewhere, come over here and step on my foot a few times until I shake this off." Stefan calls the second part of that out loud, with a look on his face somewhere between annoyance and hope. He's still not sure Nicky survived the fight, and he still can't find the body....


Nicky, for his part, follows orders with a rather confused look on his computer-generated face.
 
"I never saw through it, actually. When they started materializing out of shadows or engaging us in hand-to-hand was the only way I could tell which weren't kids. That's why I was using wide-area non-lethal tactics until they made themselves obvious... " with a hard look at Vlad, Stefan finishes, "...both obviously not children and obviously hostile."
 
It might have been the group's collective imagination, but it almost seemed as if the air was getting heavier. It was physically just a touch harder to breathe. The situation and Vlad's tirade was bringing out a more terrifying side of Drake that not one of the new people had seen. He took a step toward Vlad, but Charity stepped between them. She spoke with a calm, quiet force. "Gentlemen. Let's continue this discussion back at HQ. Any more and it's going to come to blows between you two, and I'd rather that happen in the training room instead of leveling Saint Petersburg in the process."


Drake looked like he was going to say something, but thought better of it. "See you back at home?" Charity asked pointedly.


Drake nodded and disappeared with a press of a button on his device. The heaviness disappeared with him.


Jay called in a clean-up crew and a couple spin-doctors to handle the aftermath. Within half an hour the Maverick was back in the hanger and the heroes back in the board room. It was time for the dreaded debrief. Drake was nowhere to be seen.


Sam sat at the head of the table, waiting. She looked at Jay. "I suppose you're going to tell me that could have gone worse."


"It's the truth."


"Hm." She looked at the others. "Let's hear it from all of you please. One at a time. There'll be written reports, of course, but for now tell me what happened. Just the facts. Leave the petty accusations and the name-calling in the kindergarten classroom."
 
"Goblin things attacked. They were pretending to be kids in the crowd so I assumed that they were enemies. I flared my light and then attacked, assuming that they were bad news. I spoke to a cop, convinced her that we weren't attacking kids then they left shortly after."


Desmond reported camly.
 
Vlad rolled his eyes. "Ms Prodigy spotted some "Goblins" in the crowed." He used both his index and midle finger of both hands to make the quotation mark sine when he said goblins. "Or at least that's what she said, telling the group to go into alert status. Immediately afterwords


Mr Desmond starts firing rays of light off at dammed things, I try to calm the situation down as best as I can informing them that it is entirely possible they dont care about what we were actually doing they could have just wanted to see what the commotion was. Drake doesnt agree with my observation and proceeds to curse in languages that probably shouldn't have been producible by human vocal cords... SPeaking of witch I would like to learn some of them from him at some point.. At witch point your "senior members" decide to fill the rest of us in that they are Dark fey and order the group to further escelate their watch on these creatures whom at this point still have don little more then exist in the same general area we did, and as you can tell things quickly turn into a brawl... During witch point they made little to no effort at retrieving the boy, but making it fairly clear they were able to with all the shadow teleporting they were doing. It ends with them doing some chanting, cohesive black marks start appearing all over the pavements and they disappear...." He said with a dull look on his face.


"Now if you dont mind... I rather hungry, so unless you want to donate Im going to go grab a bite..."
 
Stefan finally spots Nicky after nearly tripping over him, and gives him an odd sort of "glad you're ok" look. "Vlad has it about half-right, give me a moment..." Muttering a few commands to himself - more to help his focus than because they're required - Stefan looks around with unfocused eyes, seeing the replay from his head computer - and the feed from Nicky's grasp on his wrist - rather than the area around them. "Mission was proceeding as near to normal as a parade can be, when Girl Prodigy spots the creatures hiding among the crowd. The Heliomancer sets up a defensive light zone around the target vehicles, but it doesn't help much - one of them materializes inches away from the principal. I engage it with non-lethal stun-and-disrupt, spraying as much of the crowd as possible to stun any of them there as well. Once Drake gets the principal out of the combat zone, I begin engaging the ones that have charged the street instead of staying in the crowd, assuming they're hostile. I see Nicky go down - apparently a mental illusion of some sort, as he doesn't remember this - and switch to lethal laser fire, concentrating on the ones surrounding Girl Prodigy, who at some point went dirtside. We maintain this state until the creatures retreat - my assumption is because they confirmed their target was no longer present. The sympathizer is screaming about not hurting them from about the point Desmond sets up the defensive array all the way until several moments AFTER they've retreated."


Nicky's ears perk up at Stefan's tone when he says the word 'sympathizer'. He knows that code for "might as well be one of them" when used in that tone of voice. He releases Stefan's wrist and blatantly positions himself between Vlad and Stefan, ready to go back into the fight at a moment's notice if necessary.
 
Sam nodded at Desmond, the only one really to have done as she asked and given the play-by-play as facts only. Her gazed flickered to Vlad. "Sit down, Mr. Brodavitch," she said flatly as he tried to make his exit. "We are not finished here. Clearly we are going to have to deal with these Fae creatures in one capacity or another. I think it best you know a thing or two about them, don't you?"


Charity observed the tensions between Vlad and Stefan and sighed. The mask removed, she rubbed the bridge of her nose with a gloved hand. "Thing is you're both...not wrong. They're not native to this world, exactly, but a few have been here for close to a few thousand years. And yes, they have been actively evading notice, content to observe humanity for the most part. Of course. you never want to see them bored, that much of the mythology is true at least. The only thing worse than a bored Fae is a bored Fae with friends. They're a force to be reckoned with. Fortunately, they lack direction. On their own, they're unlikely to take any kind of action, but once they chose and establish a leader, they have a tenacious, single-minded focus on pleasing their master."


"From what I understand, it's never one of their own race," Jay said. "Last we encountered them, it was in their home reality, and they were serving Kronos. And yes...for all intents and purposes, that was the Kronos, the titan of mythological legend. The Fae respect power, and their collective chooses a leader based on how powerful they are."


"They've got to be working with someone," Charity agreed. "They were far too organized today, and there's no other way they'd show up in that great a number. Oh, and for the record, they did make more than a token effort to kidnap Trevor. They were waiting at the safehouse where we were scheduled to take him after the parade. Fortunately, that's not where we went." She glanced at Sam. "Drake had a second safehouse set up elsewhere. For the sake of security, it's best only the three of us know the location. The fewer minds the Fae can pick the better."
 
"So why were we protecting the kid anyway?"


Desmond asked, tilting his head in confusion.


"And what's our next step? And what else do we know about ancient gods or titans like Kronos? I mean, wasn't the guy castrated and cut up? How did he end up in a different dimension? Why are we only finding out about this now?"
 
Stefan silences Nicky with a look before he makes another comment about us having already gone over why the kid was important. "There's effectively infinite dimensions or timelines out there... it's safe to say that in at least a few Kronos existed and survives, or that they were serving him BEFORE that happened to him. Time travel is a serious pain, especially when other dimensions are involved. I once accidentally flanked with myself and nearly shot myself when two of my missions came nearer to one another than I knew - the first time it happened I really didn't know who was helping me, but didn't complain or investigate, figured it was the police force that I'd thought was wiped out. When it happened to me again, though, from the other side, I realized it was me laying down my own cover fire on a different mission five years apart.... I left them for five years apart, they took place in the same time, obviously. It's MORE confusing when you get into other people's timelines, but you can get things there that don't exist in your own."
 
"Well, if he wasn't castrated before, he sure is now," Jay said. "Well, sort of."


"Kronos, and others like him, are extradimentional beings of pure energy," Charity explained. "They exist effectively outside our space-time, and though they are still capable of processing the passage of time, they are unaffected by it. Kronos, as you can imagine, is particularly annoying in that regard. According to their world's legend, they were the first sentient beings created. The... Ereakthc." She looked at Stryker. "Am I saying that right?"


He nodded. "Close is almost. It is my people's story legends that she tells to speak of." Stryker spoke with a thick accent, habitually using several words to express a thought where one would do. "I my people were created to form stories for them. It is said we are told that the destinies of the Ereakthc are formed by the Ereurtc--the second created."


Charity continued. "Long story short, they eventually found their way to the Earth dimension and thought they'd introduce themselves to the locals. Throw in a few millennia, and there you have modern mythology. There are...varying truths to each myth, and pinning down exactly what happened to any one of them is dicey at best. However, as far as Kronos is concerned, he is no longer a threat."


"He'd better not be," Jay muttered. "We ran a mission about four or five years ago--most of it still classified--that sealed him away pretty damn good, but at an insurmountable cost. If I never see his face again, it'll be too soon." His fist clenched and a dark look passed for a moment over his usual laid-back demeanor.


Sam pinched her lips. "The mission involving our young friend we met today is no longer your concern. You all performed well enough considering the rather abrupt change of circumstances. Clearly our opponent was interested in at the very least denying us the advantage of the child. It will be our ongoing duty to monitor the boy's safety; however that means nothing if we cannot understand what we are up against. Finding the power behind the Fae should be the top priority of this group. If we can parlay with them, fine. If not, we will see to justice."


She thought a minute. "Kronos is not the only of his kind to have made an appearance within the last century. The entity Ptah-Setker-Osiris is at least as powerful in his combined state. He has certainly caused us enough trouble over the last few decades. It could be a wild goose chase, but it's never a bad thing to know what's going on with them."


"Intel puts their latest hideout somewhere in the Sahara," supplied Jay. His grin returned. "Who's up for a good ol' fashioned raid on the lair of a mad scientist?"


"Tomorrow night," Sam said. "Take tonight to get some rest and prepare, and we'll reconvene for the briefing on that mission tomorrow."


"Aw, John and I have patrol tomorrow," Jay pouted. He seemed genuinely disappointed to miss the raid.


"Miss London, that'll be your lead then."


Charity face went visibly paler. For a second it looked like she was going to bolt. Eric shot her a look of concern and placed a hand on her lap underneath the table and she composed herself. "All right."


"Any other questions," Sam asked. "Anything else to add?"


When there was nothing else, Sam gave a curt nod. "See you all tomorrow, then. You will receive notification of when we will debrief. Get some rest." She glanced at Jay. "Oh, and please remind Mr. Hachirobei that he is not above protocol, much as he likes to think he is. I will be expecting his written report by morning." She focused on Stefan. "Please see Meryl Allison in the morning. I understand you need your rest now, but I'd like to make sure there are no lingering effects of the Fae's mental assault. Dismissed."


They were summoned back to the briefing room for 7 PM the next evening. Blink and Stryker had already hit the streets for patrol. It was going to be a quiet night. Who in their right mind would rob a bank under the watchful eye of the Paragon of Alliance City?


Charity, Eric, and Drake were there, with Sam presiding over the head of the table. Charity had abandoned her flashy Thundra costume for the more practical standard Delta uniform. This was to be covert--the less fuss they made, the better. Drake was dressed similarly. Eric wore comfortable slacks and a collared shirt. His suit would provide the rest.


The atmosphere was subdued, notably different from the briefing of the Russian mission. Drake stared off into the distance, his brain running multiple calculations and scenarios, rather than working to make a wise-ass remark. Yesterday's events were clearly still bothering him. It was likely he hadn't slept at all. Charity was visably nervous, though she tried to hide it. Story was she'd been kidnapped by Ptah-Setker-Osiris some years ago and subjected to their experiments.


The holographic display showed a topographical map of the Sahara. On a repeated loop, it showed the whole north end of the African continent, then zoomed in closer to Algeria, then to an area slightly Northeast of the Tuat region.
 
Grace had been very quiet in the last debriefing. As Girl Prodigy she had been held back, and then was allowed to join only when it seemed safe for her to go in. She wasn't sure it was Sam's orders that had held her back, or if it had been the mission leaders choice. She had intended to say something about that, but once the arguments started, she decided to play the kid and keep quiet.


Now they were called back in for what she was calling Phase 2. They were going looking for the leaders of the shadow fae in the deserts a thousand miles from where they had been. "Mister Drake, one thing is bothering me. If the shadow fae were also at the safe-house, wouldn't that also mean that they knew of our plan. Either that, or they would have been at all of our safe-houses. So, somewhere they have been getting information about what we plan to do before we do it."


Grace was wearing a pair of faded purple jeans, ankle-cut hiking boots, and a tapered pink blouse with narrow sleeves. It looked almost executive, like Sheera Dayn in "Fall of the Leader" which she won an acting award from the motion picture industry. She had been told that this was going to be low key, but her book-bag belied the thought that she would go without her accessories when she set it down with a metallic clunk. It didn't matter how Grace looked, she knew that she needed to bring her supplies with her, just in case.


She also wanted to ask Charity if she had ever been held back for safety reasons and how she had dealt with it. It wouldn't be easy to fit in as a super-hero if you were always the secondary hero. However, this was a briefing, and maybe she could ask when they had a break from this mission. With all the teleporting people were able to do, it didn't seem likely she would get a chance to talk to her during travel time. Grace looked at Charity, then reached into the front pocket of her book-bag and pulled out a worn copy of Red Badge of Courage. She had to get through chapter six before the next class. Of all the mental gifts, speed reading wasn't one of them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)

Similar threads

Sora No Kami
A vicious dance with death (RP 1x1 based on the song "My R") TW: Self-loathing, Suicune
Replies
1
Views
91
Sora No Kami
Sora No Kami
Back
Top