Fantasy The Misfits

[ChrisClark13]

Storm Maiden gave a quick, "Thanks" when she was freed from the bolas.


Though she didn't have time to rest with the police getting closer... and what was Pheonix standing around for?


"Nope!" Storm Maiden said faux-cheerily, "You're coming with us!" her voice dropped to a more serious tone as she pointed at the cops in the distance, "You'll get in a whole lotta trouble if cops catch you right now and I'd honestly prefer if that didn't happen to someone who just helped us out."


She quickly shot a glare at Investigator, "Except for you, I still don't trust you and I'm not going going through any of your doors unless it's a honest-to-god life-or-death situation."


Storm Maiden quickly ran to the edge of the roof, speaking at Pheonix, "Well, com'on then!" before jumping off the edge and scrambling down towards Whiplash's bolt hole.

 

[Moolock]

Cory grinned and shoved her goggles on, not even caring that her long curls were plastered to her face by the strap. Running to the edge of the roof as she adjusted her hair, she couldn't help but let out a small laugh. Phoenix. I like it. She reached the edge and folded the wings into a dive, jumping off and into the hole. Halfway down, her blood froze. What the hell am I doing jumping off a roof with a test model strapped to my back into some power magic superhuman ability hole?  The pilot didn't pull up or rev the engines and stop her descent, though. This was a new world and why not dive in head first? 

 

[Shog]

Afrer Storm Maiden and Phoenix entered the tunnle he closed it behind him.  He was sure they weren't being followed and relaxed a bit.  They weren't in the clear yet, but they were in a lot better position.  Whiplash grabbed the sides of the ladder and slid down to the bottom.  After walking forward a bit he emmerged into a larger tunnle.  After tappjing on his wrist device for a moment his night vision came on.  Realizing that his two partners probably didn't have night vision, he turned on a light on his helmet and turned to face them.  "I don't suppose either of you have have a way of lighting up this space better than this wimpy light?"


The tunnle they were now in an old subway tunnle.  They were old and no longer in use, but crossed underneith most of the city making them an effective way to travel without being noticed.  The sewer did the same thing, but this smelled a lot better and you didn't drag human waste with you whenever you left these tunnles.


(Sorry for the late reply.  College is really limiting the time I have to reply.)

 

[Moolock]

Phoenix followed behind in awe. She'd never been anywhere so old, with so much to discover under the dust. At his question, she tilted her head, taking a moment to register she was actually being spoken to by the mysterious hero who'd just kicked ass up on the rooftop. "Uh... I-I might have a way." She held out a hand and after a few moments, a large flame equal to the brightness of a cluster of ten or so candles wooshed into existence, flickering some. She hadn't used her abilities much, she'd never had much reason to after moving to a new school with no bullying. It went out shortly after and she frowned, trying again. This time the flame was more stable and brighter. "There. Should be good?"


@Shog

 

[Shog]

"Good enough," Whiplash sid with a shrug.  He then turned and walked down the tunnle.  "I usually go through these tunnels with night vision on, so I've never had to worry about it much. Oh, and don't worry about being followed.  These old tunnels have other openings, many added by my mentor, but no one should even figure out that this is where we went to.  Not long after I, uh, came into my powers he found and recruited me.  Either of you ever hear of a hero by the name of Rocket?  He was really just a smart guy who inherited more money than he knew what to do with.  He was a technilogical genious.  After creating his hideout he made his suit and then the various access points across the city.  The doors only respond to his tech, which is why people haven't randomly stumbbled across any of them yet.  Rocket actually designed my current suit."


He paused for a moment, considering his next words.  "As you may have heard, Rocket is among the heroes that dissapeared.  He wasn't even on a mission when he dissapeared, just patroling.  I believe the information I stole from KorTech may hold some answers regarding what happened to Rocket and the others. That's why I need to go to the hideout.  It has a computer that can begin deciphering the data."

 

[Moolock]

Cory's eyes must've widened to the size of golf balls. "Rocket- engineering extraordinaire? Of course I've heard of- wait." She stopped in her tracks, the fireball in her hand flickering. "H-he's gone?" The girl frowned deeply, focusing on stabilizing the ball of light. "Never thought I'd be adding him to the list..." She continued onward not saying a word after that. Her goggles hung loosely around her neck, occasionally swinging from side to side as she hopped over an old subway rail sticking out from the floor and the Module was silent of its usual hum. Mum's coworker, Ruby, Wattson... now Rocket? If anyone looked back at her, they'd see a deep scowl as she mulled through things. This's gone on far enough... But if I want to join these guys and go after this, I'm gonna have to tell Mum about the whole Phoenix bit... my whole fire biz and the Module's gonna need upgrades. They weren't bad people and they're gone. Ruby, Wattson. She winced at the memories and even more at the emptiness of them being gone.


After some time, she finally whispered, "Whiplash? ...Do you think they'll get us too?"


@Shog 

 

[ChrisClark13]

Storm Maiden cut in, "If they come for me, I'm going to take as many of them as I can with me." She said grimly.


"They got Galeforce too, my mentor. He was out on his own looking into the vanishings, he didn't want to put me in danger." she sighed, falling silent for a few moments.


"Now, Whiplash, how far away is your computer?" she said, trying to change the subject.

 

[Shog]

Whiplash stayed quiet for a moment.  He was usually brutally honest, but there was something about this girl that made him hesitate in his answer.  She just seemed too... new at this whole thing.  Maybe she didn't have the stomach for the truth.  Whatever it was, a part of him wanted to to guarintee that they wouldn't be able to get to the three of them.  Unfortunatly, whoever or whatever was taking them had managed to snag far more experienced and powerful heroes than himself.  "There was little doubt in my mind that they'd come for me when I began looking into the dissapearences, and now you and Storm are certainly targeted by association if nothing else.  Whether they get us or not is up for debate, though I'd rather we didn't.  And the computer is in the hideout, which isn't too far from here."


(small time skip just to get there)


Whiplash pressed his hand against the wall and it opened up to reveal a large room.  There were only a few moveable dividers to provide sperate spaces but the celing was relatively low, keeping the space from feeling too big.  There was a training area off to the left, a mechanical area in the back with multiple projects partly built (mostly different experimental weapons and parts for a suit.  This area took up most of the space), a computerized table in the center, and a large comuter to the right.  The computer had several screenes stacket to the ceiling, each tilted towards where the person would sit in the center.  The control pannel had much more than just a traditional keyboard.  Whiplash walked up to it and sat down.  He inserted the flashdrive into a port and began working on it, leaving the other two to wander the room.  While he worked on getting the correct decription software working, he shouted over his shoulder "Don't touch anything."

 

[ChrisClark13]

Storm Maiden sighed and took her hand off of a power outlet that she had been recharging from, "Fine." Though it was too late to have stopped her from stealing a can of soda from a mini-fridge...


She walks over to Whiplash and stands just behind his shoulder, cracking open the soda can as she does so, "So, do you know how long this is going to take?" she said, trying not to let how antsy she is slip into her voice.

 

[Moolock]

Cory was in awe of the machinery as she stepped into the room behind them, extinguishing her light as she did so. "Whoa. This place makes my workshop look like one of those toys you get for kids," she said with a nervous chuckle, glancing about. The suit parts, the computers, everything was new to her and as Whiplash asked not to touch anything, her hand immediately shot back into her jacket pockets. As the two of them went to stand together, Cory sighed and sat down against a bare wall where there was nothing to touch and slung the Module off her back. Withdrawing a screwdriver and the rest of her mini repair kit from a compartment built into the outer shell of the device, she began unscrewing a small section of the shell that protected the core of the machine. She also took out her phone and making sure to turn off location services, went to her notes and wrote up a repair log before getting to work.


I must seem like a kid to them, she thought with a twinge of disappointment as she untangled and reconnected a few wires that'd come undone. I'll have to fix their ports as well, these are way too lose. That's a job for home, though. Back to more important things, Cor. Why the hell have they let you tag along? You have no experience in this, you're a test pilot. So you can make fire and have a wing suit that does about half of theirs, as well as in a way far more clunky and unreliable. Hell, one of these guys worked with Rocket. She pulled her goggles over her head and rested them on the floor beside the repair kit, taking a moment to rub her eyes.

 

[Shog]

"Undetermined," Whiplash replied as he worked on the decoding process.  "There is only so much I can do before I let the programs take over completely.  This data is encripted to a high standard, and then we'll have to sort through it to find what we're looking for.  If it's even there..."  He let his voice trail off at the end of the last sentence, not wanting to contemplate the option.  Even so, he did have a strong belief that they would find something of use.  Even if it wasn't exactaly what they were looking for.


Soon enough he stood up and walked away from the computer, knowing there was nothing more he could do for the time being.  He walked over to his own little corner and began messing with the control pad on his arm.  A section on his right wrist opened up and he removed the damaed wire.  He set it off to the side and pulled out another coil.  After puting the new coil of wire into his wrist and tesing it out to make sure it worked ok, he looked around at the other two.  They were in this together, whether they liked it or not.  This meant they would need to trust each other.  Trust wasn't something gained in the first couple of hours after meeting someone, but they had to start.  He picked up a tool kit from one of Rocket's work stations and brought it over to Phoenix.  "Here, use these."


Whiplash pulled over a chair and sat next to her.  "So if we're going to be working together, we will need to learn to trust each other.  And I mean really trust each other and not just work out some battle plans or something like that.  I trust Storm Maiden well enough, considering she's been on the news a couple of times with Galeforce, but I know almost nothing about you, Phoenix.  Likewise I'm sure neither of you have even heard of me before tonight.  For starters, you know me as Whiplash, but my real name is Leo Martin.  Just a nobody that I hope you haven't heard of."  With that he tapped his control pad several times and the back of his helmet opened up in the back and released from the rest of the suit.  He pulled his helmet off revealing his light brown hair and blue eyes.  There was a chance that either or both of the girls had heard of his parents, but hoped neither of them made the connection.

 

[Moolock]

Cory looked up at him, head tilted as he passed over the tool it. Setting aside her old screwdriver, she moved to open the kit and dipped her head in a silent thanks as she found a minuscule Phillips head screwdriver and was able to get open the inner panel of the Module. As she listened to him speak, she worked quietly. Once he was done, she put down the screwdriver and removed her gloves for a handshake. "Nice to meet you. I'm Cory Finn." Her hood was down and her goggles were off so she had no big reveal of identity and kinda just shrugged. After a few moments of awkward silence, she lowered her hand and rubbed back of her neck. "Yeah... 's it for me. No mentor, no news stories. 'M just Cory."


She supposed for a moment that she could call her mother her mentor but they were just geeking out over making a machine together. Ms. Finn didn't know at all about her daughter's powers and Cory was going to keep it that way for as long as possible. Besides, E J Finn isn't some cool hero name. It's the kind you see at the bottom of the cover of an engineering book.

 

[ChrisClark13]

Storm Maiden leans against a wall as she considers whether or not she wants to take off her mask... just for the principle of the matter. On one hand, not taking off her mask now would signal her as the odd man out, ostracizing her a bit. On the other hand, it'll increase the overall level of trust... but it comes with an unspoken promise that everyone in the group will be there for each other, that they can trust each other implicitly... she's not sure if she wants to have to live up for that... but on the other other hand, she honestly doesn't have much of a life outside of the hero biz so it's not like it'll harm her.


With a drawn out sigh Storm Maiden lowers her scarf and takes off her domino mask, showing her face, "My given name's Freya Wolke, alias Storm Maiden. Either 'Freya', 'Miss Wolke, or 'Storm' is fine. You don't get to call me just 'Maiden' though unless we're dating," she explained, saying that last part with a smirk.

 

[Moolock]

Cory nodded, smiling a touch at the last bit. "A pleasure, Storm." She looked between the two of them, she still felt a little odd. Here were to heroes- actual heroes who knew how to do actual hero things- and a test pilot with no heroic background sitting in a circle in a bunker. She frowned and inwardly gave a sigh once again. For starters, she was still a kid (technically) and though her birthday was in a month or so, she doubted that would change much. "So... what're we going to do while that," she gestures to the computer crunching the encryption, "does its thing?" Realizing how stupid the question was, she trailed off and fell silent. You know what we're doing. We're doing introductions and get to trust each other... hero show and tell, sort of. Good one, Cor.

 

[Shog]

"Now," Leo said.  "We go over all we know so far.  If you would please follow me."  He turned and walked over to the circular table in the middle and sat down.  He messed with the settings whill the other two chose a seat.


"This is everything Rocket and I accumulated on the dissapearing heroes."  A file with various images, profiles, and other data appeared on the table in front of the other two.  "Well, mostly Rocket.  Regardless, here is everthing we know.  The first recorded dsiiapearence related to this string happened three months, one week, and five days ago on May 27th and was a hero by the name of Hephaestus.  He was new to this whole thing and almost unknown.  This means that whoever is doing this was testing the waters and their ability to silently grab heroes with an "easy" target.  They could have just gotten lucky, but the people they have grabbed since then appear to be increasing in experience.  What you may not know is that some villians have been dissapearing as well.  There are probably more missing than we know, but villians don't show up in public nearly as often as heroes.  We figure that for every five heroes that go missing, two villians do as well.  Neither of us have figured out a pattern to when they go missing. Some, like Rocket, were on patrol.  Others just stopped showing up to their groups.  One even dissapeared in the rubble after defeating a rampaging monster.  This last one lead us to believe that they are being teleported somewhere.  If that's true, then they probably all dissapeared in some place where they could be seen by others, which is why they arn't dissapearing faster.  This is just a theory, but It's really all we have to work with.  You can view the files for every missing hero and villian.  If you notice any sort of pattern, please share."  He glanced over at the main computer.  Still about 25% left,

 

[ChrisClark13]

Freya nodded along, "Understood. I'll get you Galeforce's data as soon as I can. I doubt he managed to uncover as much as Rocket did, but he might have noticed something your mentor didn't."


She put a hand to her chin as she thought back to the files she had looked at, "That reminds me, Galeforce did list several possible reasons though the main one he looked for was simply potential. That's..." she paused for a moment, her growing cold as she steeled herself against the memories "...that's what happened in my hometown, Kaysville, a few years back. An extradimensional army of constructs showed up and me and several others were picked out based on some metric when they scanned us one by one, Galeforce believed they were selecting for meta-human potential. I doubt it's the same villain or group though, the heroes that came to save us were able to capture the alien leading the invasion and well, they were able to rip the everything it knew from it's mind before it died in custody."


The heroine paused to calm herself before continuing, "In any case, they could very well be selecting for other things such as power combinations, certain types of powers, for some kind of arena, completely at random, so they can achieve some goal, or maybe they have a precog that's selecting their targets. Galeforce was-" she cringes before starting over, "Galeforce is a very careful man, he needs to be thanks to the lethality of his power."

 

[Moolock]

Cory brought the Module and Whiplash's tool kit over to the table to work as they shared information. She was mulling over ideas as well, some questions dismissed as stupid, others as possible links. Thinking of her friends' disappearances, she finally came up with a question worth asking. "What are their abilities- those of the heroes gone missing?- villains too, if we know. Anything to do with energy? Electricity? Heat, manipulation?- f-for instance, you plug in an aux cord, if you hover the end by your finger, you get feedback. We humans are conductors- fairly good ones- of electricity. I-I'd imagine heroes function on a much higher level of conductive- forgive me I'm not the electricity geek of the family- conductiveness, if you will." As Cory explained, she couldn't help but feel a little doubtful about her idea. Unprofessional, a kid. "And our abilities are energy- we can create energy in different forms but there is no exchange. If I want a fireball, I don't have to burn coal for it, it's just there. What if they need power?- not like take over the world kind. What if they- whoever they are- are looking for an energy source?" As soon as she was done with her little ramble, the girl immediately fell quiet and focused very very intently on cleaning her goggle lenses with the edge of her shirt. "But, y'know, that could be totally wrong."

 

[Shog]

"Ah, the controverciel meta-gene theory," Leo said, not looking up to stopping his work looking for connections.  "While I'm not geneticist, but I don't believe in such a thing as a meta-gene.  I heard of your invaders.  It was all over the news for several monts.  I believe you unlocked your powers through some interdimensional radiation.  I can't explain why it would only effect you and no one else.  Maybe you were just more directly exposed somehow.  Regardless, I got my powers through a giant space rock and not some meta-gene.  That said, it wouild be stupid to reject any theory at this point."


He had to think longer at Cory's comment.  He ordered the mission heroes and villians by power type, and there was a corrolation.  Unfortunatly, there was a big hole in the theory.  "While it's true that a significant number of missing heros have powers dealing with energy manipulation, there are still plenty that do not have  a power in that category.  Rocket, for example.  He didn't have a power at all.  It's true he did designe the pulse cannon, which deals with energy, but I don't see how they or a simular design could help with being a battery.  Perhaps he could keep the system in good repair, but there's no way he's doing that of his own free will.  Even we don't have a hero or villian with strait up mind control.  Plus, they have a limited supply and often need to recharge for a while."


Leo looked at their profiles a bit longer.  In terms of powers, or even special skills, the missing heroes had quite the diversity.  Perhaps whoever was doing this had some crazed delusion of creating peace or balance by removing heroes and villians, but Leo doubed that.  The most plausable theory in his head was that they were being taken away to be brainwashed or something and turned into someone's personal army.  Even that seemed pretty far fetched.  What they needed was more information.  He glanced at the decription again.  Almost done.

 

[ChrisClark13]

Freya shrugged, "Meta-human, para-human, post-human, super-human, whatever floats your boat." Personally she didn't really care for what terminology was used, but she and her mentor had gotten in the habit of using meta-human just because it was the most prevalent at the time. Seeing that there's still a bit of time left on the decryption she decides she might as well go off on a tangent, "Genetics probably has something to do with it, last I checked researchers had moved on to checking the DNA of people with meta-human parents since they've concluded that it's completely unlikely that people will have the same 'meta-gene' that someone else does... and that study's not gonna be done for a couple more generations at least. Barring that there's at least some way to quantify who can and can't have powers and how strong they are."


She glanced over at the decryption progress again, "Anyways, we can discuss that later, for now we'd better see what KorTech thinks about all this before we start going in circles."

 

[Moolock]

Cory nodded to Whiplash's counter to the whole energy ramble, pulling her goggles over her neck once they were cleaned and with the Module good to go and nothing to fix, resigned to fiddling with the zipper of her "Phoenix" jacket. She hadn't expected the idea to be any sort of actual help and couldn't figure out why she'd gotten so excited, especially since she had no real experience in the field she'd been trying to explain. Of course not all heroes have energy-based abilities. Nice job, Cor. Really doing well about that whole proving yourself to them. At this point, why not start assembling one of those kid Lego sets?  The pilot stayed quiet for the meta-human conversation as well as she'd never done well in genetics and hadn't even heard of the super human concepts before. Reaching up to tie her hair back with an elastic from her wrist, Cory looked to Whiplash and asked, "Are the walls and floors of the training area fireproof?- Or is there a sink around?" 

 

[Shog]

Leo glanced over at the computer.  The decription was finally done and he walked over to it and sat down.  "Pretty much everything except for some of the tech is fireproof.  The only sink is in the bathroom."  He gestured to a door off to the side.  It was the only space not openly connected with everything else.


As he began filtering through information, he realized just how much infomation he had made off with.  He could sort out some information based on title, but what if the information they needed was located in some folder where they hoped no one would find it because who would think to look there?  This was beginning to give him a headach.  Just so long as someone was sorting through it at a time, the other two could be taking a break or something, right?  That's what Leo decided as he stood up.  "This is giving me one hell of a headach," Leo said.  "Freya, would you mind taking over?  I'm going over to the training area with Cory and blow off some steam until my mind settles down."


Without waiting for a response he stood up and walked over to the training area.  He considred grabbing his helmet, but there was no reason for him to do that.  He reached a control pannel on a pedistal just outside of the training area.  He activated a sparing bot that would react to anything in a certain radius.  "As far as not touching anything goes, I'm going to modify that statement to don't touch any of his projects.  Everything else should be fair game."


(Check the OOC)

 

[Moolock]

Cory's gaze followed to where he gestured the bathroom was and nodded, glad that there was no way she could accidentally burn the place down. As he rose and mentioned going with her to the training room, she paused to pat the Module before leaving it to follow the hero. She peered around his shoulder to the sparring dummy. "Roger," she muttered in reply to the amended rule. "C-Can I have at it?" Instantly, she shrank back from her question, realizing she knew absolutely nothing of what to expect. She could fence, but this was no strip and her epee was sitting in its bag at home. "I-I mean, after you, of course," she corrected herself. "Dunno... dunno why I asked. Your place, first dips, of course- never mind what I said." Cory nudged the floor with the heel of her shoe absentmindedly as she reached up with her shirt to wipe her goggles again, even though they weren't over her eyes.


@Shog

 

[Shog]

"It'll spar anything within a certain radius," Leo said.  "We could even add another one, if you want.  It will keep to meele attacks, so you don't have to wory about it shooting you either."


He watched her reaction and, not for the first time, noticed her self doubt.  He thought he was pretty good at reading people, and there was no mistaking how awkward she felt.  He couldn't say why for sure, but based on her appearence and general attitude he guessed she wasn't used to being a hero.  "You know, there's no reason to be bashful.  You are unique and have awsome powers.  You can fly, and I can't.  And I don't mean that in the sense that my suit doesn't allow for it, I literally mean I can't.  Rocket gave me several different flight designs to use.  I crashed every time.  You can also throw fire at will.  My powers require an external source of energy before I can do anyting beyond fling my whips around.  Plus, if it wasn't for you catching me back there the goon might have gotten and destroyed the information.  I got my butt kicked up there."  He glanced over at Freya to try and make sure she wasn't listening in on them.  "To tell you the truth, I'm not a hero.  Rocket found me using my powers for selfish reasons and tried to train me to be a benifit to society.  The truth is that my parents are Ben and Grace Martin.  They died a couple of years ago in prison.  The reason they got there in the first place is because they were theives.  Good ones too.  They trained my siblings and me from a young age to follow in their footsteps.  Basically, I'm most at home breaking into places and stealing whatever I want.  Does that sound like a hero to you?"


He hoped that would make her feel at least a bit more comfortable.  On the other hand he just admitted to being a thief and that might set her on edge again.  Regardless, there was no going back now.

 

[Moolock]

Cory relaxed a tad about it not shooting at her- she didn't really have any armor to deflect direct attacks. "'M a kid to you guys, though." She couldn't help but let a twinge of a "you're kidding me" smile show at the mention of him being an awful pilot. "And Storm would've gotten you 'f I didn't.." Listening to his explanation for why she shouldn't be bothered by feeling out of place, Cory only made a faint connection to the names, having heard the news story but never looked into it. "It does, actually," she replied after a few moments of silence. "Cool suits, saving people, that's great and all but in spite of your upbringing, yeah, that sounds like a hero to me. Someone strong enough to leave a not so great place for something a little better. You could've turned down Rocket but you didn't. Right here, right now, is proof that you decided somewhere along the line to step off from what you knew and turn things around."


She stepped past him and walked up to the bot, hovering just outside its range for a few moments as she slid on her gloves, perhaps her favorite part of her whole Phoenix deal because they kept her from burning herself. Cory found out the hard way at the start of all this that her fire was just as dangerous to her as it was to anyone else. "I didn't have any bad upbringing or any cool story to tell people to remember me by. 'M just a kid who wished on a star." At that, she raised a hand and a large flickering, spitting ball of flame sprang into existence. Launching herself forward, Cory released the firebolt into the bot's midsection just upon colliding with it. 


(@Shog Not sure how strong these are. It's up to you what that does to the bot.)

 

[ChrisClark13]

Freya sat down at the computer and starting paging through files while the other two went off to do whatever.


After weeks of searching, answers (possible answers some part of her mind chided) had practically fallen into her lap. Well nearly practically fallen into her lap considering that she had to fight off a goon from KorTech and break the law to get them... she let out a sigh when she considered that it probably wasn't a good idea to go out in public any time soon considering that the cops and KorTech would probably still be looking for her and her new allies. Even with the goodwill she had by being a local hero and the undeniably righteousness of her cause in looking for the disappearing heroes... she doubted that she could get the cops to look the other way more than a couple of times- scratch that, maybe she could get the cops to look the other way once if she got lucky since downing police helicopters was no way to get into their good graces.


Letting out a yawn as she refocused on her task Freya began to realize that there was just too much freaking data for her to get through! She wasn't even halfway done in looking through all the folders for goodness sake! Thankfully she could get the computer to do that for her if she used the right search terms. 


She started up several separate searches throughout the stolen files, looking for powers, meta/super/para/etc-humans, disappearances, vanishings, kidnappings, etc, etc. That done she got up from the chair and looked around for something else to do... but not before starting one more search looking for both her mentor's hero name, Galeforce, and his civilian name, Ken Russell.


------


Freya walking in on the sparring in progress, standing to the sidelines and crossing her arms as she observed what was going on.