Where the fuck had Spellbound gone? With the threat of imminent immolation gone, he noticed that the woman had disappeared entirely. He'd thought they'd both been safe behind the door, but...
What the fuck was that? Gabbie said. Her normal, electro-sensual tone had become a keening hiss. That was the last thing I'd expected coming in here. A fucking bomb?
ET checked the HUD in his visor. Suit integrity was intact. No holes in his suit, or in him. "I don't know what it was, Gabbie," he said. "It was smart, and it was talking to someone, but that's about it." He looked down one side of the corridor, then the other. "Any idea which way is up?"
A blinking light popped up on his HUD at the same time as a message from the Tower. His breath caught. Addison KIA. "Son of a bitch," he hissed. He'd liked Addison: probably one of the few people he'd met in the last decade to feel truly genuine. Genuinely good.
Genuinely dead.
But two of them were alive, at least. If his files had been right, ET guessed that Stardust had pulled through as well. "All right," he sighed, setting off in the direction of the HUD light. He needed to get to higher ground. Communication with the outside world still seemed to be impossible, although the pagers were somehow working. Old tech, better tech? Who knew.
"Gabbie, can we set up Iron Door Protocol?" He had a feeling that the next few weeks were going to have a lot of loud technology nearby. Iron Door was a protocol he'd designed with Gabbie a year back which transformed all the 'sentient' tech around him into background noise. He could talk to them, and ask them to do things, but they couldn't talk back unless he added them to the whitelist. Useful for silence, but a lot harder for him to convince stubborn electronics to do his evil bidding.
A hysterical laugh of lightning coursed through his mind, and then IDP went live. Poor Gabbie. She'd be alright, but not for a little while yet. He didn't feel any differences yet; any electronics that had been alive in the area had been pulverized, aside from the cybernetic supers a a half-kilometer away. GET TO SURFACE ASAP -- NEED TO REGROUP, He sent to the pagers, then started walking.
He looked for Spellbound for a little while, but there wasn't a hint of a trace of the woman. Eventually, he kicked a piece of metal, only to watch it soar away into the setting sun. Oops. It crashed to the ground fifty feet away, and he was outside again.
The bossman lives! Dave's voice. Thought you'd been toasted to hell. I saw that there missile fall, so I high-tailed it outta there until I was past the blast radius. There's someone new out there, so watch yerself. I'm sittin' out here behind a cactus 'til you're good to go.
Relief flooded through ET, along with a sudden craving for a drink. Dave was alive. He shook his head. Dave 2 was alive. "Rest easy, Dave," he said to himself. He wasn't talking to his car.
A bang on metal interrupted his self-pity party. He turned to see the newcomer digging into the metal, and then looked left to see Stardust attacking the rubble with a vengeance. It was nice to know she cared, even if she was digging in the wrong direction. "Hey Stardust," he said, his voice magnified by Gabbie's speakers. "They're about forty feet to your left, I think." There was no mockery in the words, only business. This was not the time to fight with allies. Even the cranky ones.
His shotgun slid back into his hand. He'd holstered it magnetically over his shoulder while the world caught fire, but a newcomer was a threat. Especially considering the fortuitous timing. He felt Dave rolling back up to the ridge nearby, training some very precise, very powerful riot-control cannons at the newcomer. Stun-power of the 'less-than-lethal' variety, in case his shotgun got stripped away from him.
He stayed a comfortable distance from the woman: that is, the slugs in his shotgun could comfortably reach her if necessary. "Hey," he said conversationally, hefting the shotgun before him. "I'm Arbiter." He smiled, but the cold polymer-alloy of his helmet blocked the view. "Convince me you didn't have anything to do with that missile."
At 7:04 PM, a small group of washed-up superheroes raided the secret base of the hero Hex, or Harrison Moore. One of the best and brightest, Hex had been a paragon of Superhero purity for years, with friends in places both high and low.
Special Agent Addison Reynolds found him alone in his room, OD'd on a new superdrug, Nirvana. Surrounding him were gigabytes of video recordings about the "Reality Bringer"--an coming apocalypse in some form. The pieces didn't add up--Hex a drug addict?--and Reynolds was desperate beyond measure.
Using an old encrypted line of communication from the Superhero Glory Days, Agent Reynolds sent out one last call for help.
05/13/2047 : 21:14 Begin transmission So, I buried another partner this week. Jackson.
We were on a routine call out, just checking another street as always. It was one shot, and it wasn't even meant for him.
It's getting harder everyday out there, crime is at an all time high and every other week we lose officers and special agents. Hell, I'm a trained special agent myself and I've been pushed down to fill in on beat work because we're stretched so thin. Everyday there's a new threat.
It started with that new drug. They call it Nirvana. It's a synthetic creation and we can't track where it's being made, who made it, and who is distributing it. We just have to see the husks it leaves behind, the broken families, the bodies... We thought it was contained within the underbelly of society but it's spreading.
Then of course there is Luke. Luke Bennett. He's that sketchy candidate for office, he's picking up a lot of traction with people based on hate and fearmongering in our underprivileged communities. He's a hateful, power-hungry man who is building some kind of cult. We can't stop him because I'm sure he has blood money running through all sorts of departments. You know, just the usual shady shit.
The gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider, people are losing their jobs, their homes... There is a crisis about to happen with basic resources - more and more people are on food stamps, more and more people are forced between choosing to keep the lights on for a night or feed themselves. Just last week seven teenagers died from exposure to irradiated and toxic water because the nuclear plant dumped some in a pond where kids are known to play and hang out. We are expecting more fallout from this yet.
I'm trying my best... To hold it together, to keep a strong front. To be someone in the community that can guide people through these dark hours but I'm constantly stopped by something else. I'm strained, God I can't remember the last time I slept properly. I just feel that we're on the brink of a complete disaster. The wrong people are being given power and they don't want to change anything - they want to make things worse.
Cedar Fort is where I was born and raised and it used to be a great place. Now it's just ugly. I feel like I can't help anyone anymore, and that's why I'm reaching out to you...
12 years ago you kept darkness from our doors with your gifts, your powers, your spirit. We believed in you, put our trust in you. Then something happened, maybe we over-policed you... Some of you died, you had your own issues but you all disappeared, went off the radar completely. Of course, you could. Your identities were secret - I could well have walked past any of you, maybe you made my coffee... The point is that I don't know who any of you are, except for one.
Tonight I investigated an apartment in the city. Dead guy, kind of a usual call. I called it in and checked out the apartment and found in the back of his closet a suit, yeah, a suit. Turns out that Harrison Moore was the real life persona of the Superhero known as Hex.
That's not all I found, turns out Mr Moore was either going absolutely bananas, or knew something was coming. That was his power right? He was some kind of Warlock? I found his journals, his computer files - everything. He was adamant of some kind of apocalyptic event, and I've been checking and so far a lot of the things he wrote about have happened. The water thing? He wrote of something similar weeks ago. He's written repeatedly about a Reality Bringer. He seems to have died of a suspected overdose of Nirvana, he was alone when he died but I don't think this was accidental.
If my pleas and fucking sad story haven't intrigued you, I want this to. At some point, Moore was your friend and colleague. I believe that he was the only known Superhero to have had affiliations and relationships with all of the various factions around the US and globe. He was really one of the good guys, and he died alone - sitting on this discovery...
So please, if you're out there - any of you. We need you more than ever before.
Hex was the best of you, and he knew something was about to happen. So I'm asking you - if any of you are still alive, it's time to come out of the shadows. I'm sorry, I'm no storyteller - I have no superpowers of persuasion. I'm just an agent at the end of her rope, with no other options left now.
We need you.
We need hope.
At 7:22 PM, a high-yield ballistic missile impacted that same secret base at roughly 30 times the speed of sound. At 7:30 PM, the first reports of the explosion started popping up in local news feeds. By 7:40, the event had been categorized by the planned detonation of an old shipping warehouse, no longer needed in the area.
But the internet is quick to pass judgement. The conspiracy theorists latched on, and a few "superhero experts" have claimed (without evidence) that the location of the detonation perfectly matched an old hotspot for supers a decade ago. Some people are more afraid than usual.
The surviving members of the now-deceased Agent Reynolds's team are understandably upset about nearly dying, and so have decided to go to the nearest megacity, Denver, to try and suss out some "whys" and "whoms".
1. The Body of Addison Reynolds is still in the trunk of the team's supercar, and they've just rolled up to a...'reputable' nightclub. 2. In progress. The team is forming up to execute a heist on Carolex Experimental. May god have mercy on their souls.
Glad to hear it :) feel free to take a peek at the ooc and discord.
I'm working on worldbuilding a bit, but in the meantime you more or less have free reign on coming up with backstories and locations. I have a midwestern US sprawl, but aside from that I'm pretty flexible
Hey everyone. Welcome to Redux 2047, where you get the chance to play a damaged, washed-up superhuman that the world chewed up and spit out. We've just started the second act, in which we visit Denver, the city of Envoy the demigod. Bear in mind that supers unaffiliated with government or industry are now banned by law, so this will be fun.
We are looking for another person or two to join. There's only a few active characters right now, but they're pretty stable in terms of activity.
This is a world in the process of being ravaged by the onset of rising temperatures, seas, and tensions around the globe. Worldbuilding is welcome and encouraged!
The year is 2047, of course, but due to the presence of superheros and their technology, I am going to be pretty flexible in terms of what technology is mainstream. This is a Cyberpunk world. There are sprawls, there is body augmentation, and all that jazzhop. Creativity is encouraged.
Characters with a little baggage are preferred. Mature, grizzled veterans with lives beyond their superhero years: Children, jobs, a lot of shit in their lives, etc. You were a superhero, but maybe not anymore. If you want to be a teenage super, bear in mind that this is a world that doesn't really want you around.
Powers can be just about whatever you like. However, bear in mind that time-based powers are going to be hard to work with in a group setting, as are overly-powerful telepathic powers. I'll probably be pretty strict on those.
Weaknesses:
What works against your powers? Preferably not just "hard to control" or "takes time to charge up". Those weaknesses are hard to quantify in this medium, so something more concrete would be appreciated.
Appearance:
Pictures and Description are both welcome. Semi-realistic pictures preferred, to match the theming. Clothing description isn't required, but can be included if desired.
Equipment:
What does your superhero carry around with them on duty? Includes weapons, gear, vehicles, etc.
Origin:
How did your hero get their powers? What sort of life did they lead before obtaining their powers? Who are some of the people that are key players in their lives? What have they been doing since 'retiring' the cape and mask?
Personality:
What makes your hero tick? Who are they behind the mask? What are they afraid of, what do they love? What are their flaws and weaknesses? What makes them strong?
Misc Facts:
Anything else you'd like to include.
Note: I don't need too much here, as long as it's well written and cohesive. Just enough to establish your character as a player.
At 7:04 PM, a small group of washed-up superheroes raided the secret base of the hero Hex, or Harrison Moore. One of the best and brightest, Hex had been a paragon of Superhero goodness for years, with friends in places both high and low. Special Agent Addison Reynolds found him alone in his room, OD'd on the new superdrug Nirvana, with gigabytes of video recordings about one "Reality Bringer"--an apocalypse in human form. The pieces didn't add up, and Reynolds was desperate beyond measure.
Using an old encrypted line of communication from the Superhero Glory Days, Agent Reynolds sent out one last call for help. You have been watching. Listening. Wondering if the call from Agent Reynolds was a prank call, or a trap.
05/13/2047 : 21:14 Begin transmission So, I buried another partner this week. Jackson.
We were on a routine call out, just checking another street as always. It was one shot, and it wasn't even meant for him.
It's getting harder everyday out there, crime is at an all time high and every other week we lose officers and special agents. Hell, I'm a trained special agent myself and I've been pushed down to fill in on beat work because we're stretched so thin. Everyday there's a new threat.
It started with that new drug. They call it Nirvana. It's a synthetic creation and we can't track where it's being made, who made it, and who is distributing it. We just have to see the husks it leaves behind, the broken families, the bodies... We thought it was contained within the underbelly of society but it's spreading.
Then of course there is Luke. Luke Bennett. He's that sketchy candidate for office, he's picking up a lot of traction with people based on hate and fearmongering in our underprivileged communities. He's a hateful, power-hungry man who is building some kind of cult. We can't stop him because I'm sure he has blood money running through all sorts of departments. You know, just the usual shady shit.
The gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider, people are losing their jobs, their homes... There is a crisis about to happen with basic resources - more and more people are on food stamps, more and more people are forced between choosing to keep the lights on for a night or feed themselves. Just last week seven teenagers died from exposure to irradiated and toxic water because the nuclear plant dumped some in a pond where kids are known to play and hang out. We are expecting more fallout from this yet.
I'm trying my best... To hold it together, to keep a strong front. To be someone in the community that can guide people through these dark hours but I'm constantly stopped by something else. I'm strained, God I can't remember the last time I slept properly. I just feel that we're on the brink of a complete disaster. The wrong people are being given power and they don't want to change anything - they want to make things worse.
Cedar Fort is where I was born and raised and it used to be a great place. Now it's just ugly. I feel like I can't help anyone anymore, and that's why I'm reaching out to you...
12 years ago you kept darkness from our doors with your gifts, your powers, your spirit. We believed in you, put our trust in you. Then something happened, maybe we over-policed you... Some of you died, you had your own issues but you all disappeared, went off the radar completely. Of course, you could. Your identities were secret - I could well have walked past any of you, maybe you made my coffee... The point is that I don't know who any of you are, except for one.
Tonight I investigated an apartment in the city. Dead guy, kind of a usual call. I called it in and checked out the apartment and found in the back of his closet a suit, yeah, a suit. Turns out that Harrison Moore was the real life persona of the Superhero known as Hex.
That's not all I found, turns out Mr Moore was either going absolutely bananas, or knew something was coming. That was his power right? He was some kind of Warlock? I found his journals, his computer files - everything. He was adamant of some kind of apocalyptic event, and I've been checking and so far a lot of the things he wrote about have happened. The water thing? He wrote of something similar weeks ago. He's written repeatedly about a Reality Bringer. He seems to have died of a suspected overdose of Nirvana, he was alone when he died but I don't think this was accidental.
If my pleas and fucking sad story haven't intrigued you, I want this to. At some point, Moore was your friend and colleague. I believe that he was the only known Superhero to have had affiliations and relationships with all of the various factions around the US and globe. He was really one of the good guys, and he died alone - sitting on this discovery...
So please, if you're out there - any of you. We need you more than ever before.
Hex was the best of you, and he knew something was about to happen. So I'm asking you - if any of you are still alive, it's time to come out of the shadows. I'm sorry, I'm no storyteller - I have no superpowers of persuasion. I'm just an agent at the end of her rope, with no other options left now.
We need you.
We need hope.
At 7:22 PM, a high-yield ballistic missile impacted that same secret base at roughly 30 times the speed of sound. At 7:30 PM, the first reports of the explosion started popping up in local news feeds. By 7:40, the event had been categorized by the planned detonation of an old shipping warehouse, no longer needed in the area.
But the internet is quick to pass judgement. The conspiracy theorists latched on, and a few "superhero experts" have claimed (without evidence) that the location of the detonation perfectly matched an old hotspot for supers a decade ago.
You still have that encrypted comms channel, and you know a few of the old rendezvous points. Maybe now you've been moved to take action. Because whatever was inside Hex's base -- whatever was so dangerous a missile the size of a minivan was used to wipe it out -- didn't die in the blast.
And now they're on the loose.
R E D U X .// I N F O //.
Hey everyone. Welcome to Redux 2047, where you get the chance to play a damaged, washed-up superhuman that the world chewed up and spit out. I've been given permission by StormFlyx to take over the RP. We haven't gone too far in, which is why I'm reaching out now to see if anyone might be interested in hopping on board. The original meetup of supers has already happened, but I have another one planned for newcomers to join in. From the original hook:
You will be playing an older, jaded superhero who was forced back into normal life. The world seemingly no longer wanted you. Perhaps you fucked up, perhaps fame got too much, perhaps you had a rivalry with another hero... For whatever reason, things went sour for you, and for years you've lived a normal life.
I'm looking for 1-3 other people to join. Whether or not you know other supers is up to you.
This is a living, breathing world, on the fringe of being ravaged by rising temperatures, seas, and tensions around the globe. Worldbuilding is welcome and encouraged.
The year is only 2047, but due to the presence of superheros and their technology, I am going to be pretty flexible in terms of what technology is mainstream. Remember that this is a Cyberpunk world. There are sprawls, there is body augmentation, and all that jazzhop. Creativity is encouraged.
Characters with a little baggage are preferred. Mature, grizzled veterans with lives beyond their superhero years: Children, jobs, a lot of shit in their lives, etc. You are a superhero who was chewed up and spat out. If you want to be a teenage superhero, bear in mind that this is a world that doesn't really want you around.
Right. Pair him with the weird one. ET sighed. Okay, they were all weird, but this one in particular was the weirdest. It was fucking Albuquerque, and the figure beside him was dressed entirely in black. Sure, so was he, but he had a high tech set of liquid-cooled armor. It looked like...Spellbound was just wearing a cloak or something. Was she human? Who knew?
Behave, Gabbie chided. You’re not here to like everyone, but be respectful. These are dangerous people, and if you get me scuffed up fighting one of them, I’ll never let you inside me again.
ET focused on the first part of her words. Right, he growled mentally. To Spellbound, he motioned with a hand. “I guess we’d better get in there then, eh? Goth Squad, roll out.” He waved at Dave, and another thump came from the cloaked car. Then the shotgun fell into his hand. Close range called for something with a little more spread. It was loaded, he knew. Safety on, but that was an easy mental switch. We’ll be back in a bit. Call if you need us, all right? If someone shows up looking threatening, use the Funhouse.
He set off towards the bunker, footfalls light with servo-powered balance and control. — Spellbound followed the armor clad figure with a low sigh. She’d always hated technology. There was something about fancy electronics that rubbed wizards the wrong way. Magic and technology didn’t always interact well and the results could be unpredictable in the worst of ways. The sorts of ways that resulted in an arcane superintelligent AI hellbent on world domination. Not that Spellbound would know. Certainly not.
She didn’t know who Arbiter was. He was loud and brash. He talked too much. He produced an excess of carbon dioxide. He made jokes. All traits she found annoying. Not that it mattered. She would work with anyone, no matter how annoying, no matter how morally compromised provided it brought her to Hex’s killer. Morals were a matter for the living. The dead had all the time in the world to explain their actions.
Entering a magical bunker without preparation hardly seemed like the wisest of tactical choices, but Spellbound didn’t care. If it was a trap, she’d punch her way out of it. Arbiter seemed likely to be an excellent shield if it came down to it. He was full of enough metal. And metal could easily be repurposed. — As the two stepped inside from behind the opened iron door, the interior sprung to life. Rows of strip lighting flashed on leading the way down a bright, white corridor that wasn’t too unlike a hospital wing. Windows were set into walls on either side, but it was hard to make anything out from the doorway. If the two hadn’t just crossed the threshold from the desert and into the room, they might have felt like they were in the most polished and advanced hospital in the country.
There was a distinct smell, like disinfectant with something truly sour underneath it. The light at the end of the corridor flickered on and off. — “Great.” ET winced at the sudden smell. Had someone died in here? Certainly looked like the place for it. He hefted the shotgun higher, just slightly. He didn’t really expect anything--at least, Gabbie had yet to pick anything up that worried him, and between the two of them, ET was relatively sure they could handle it. Actually, that brought up a good point. He turned to Spellbound. “Not to butt in or anything, but what, uh… what’s your powerset?” Hopefully she would understand the merit of knowing who was watching her back. He decided to go first as a show of good faith. “Suit gives me super strength, super reflexes, super stealth, and plenty of computing power. Personally, I don’t do much; Gabbie does all the work.” — Where others might have welcomed conversation to break the eerie silence of the strange place, Spellbound felt only annoyance. The chattering of her unwelcome partner distracted her from the magic of the place. She had noted the smell and the wrongness of the corridor as soon as they had entered. But it didn’t bother her too much. Few things still did.
“I’m the muscle,” Spellbound finally continued, raising two closed fists. “No tech. No magic. Just me.”
“I’ll take the punches and I’lI hit back harder,” she added with a roll of a shoulder.
It took several steps before the pale superhero seemed to remember what ET had said. She turned back towards the souped up copper with a confused tilt of her head.
“Who’s Gabbie?” — “My armor,” he said simply. Now they were getting somewhere, but he didn’t want to push his luck too far. “X-ray sensors, infrared, grapple-attachment, the works. I’m not a real super, but I work with what I can get. Mostly I punch shit, too.” Maybe they could find common ground in violence. — During their conversation, the light stopped flickering, and just remained on. There was nothing too strange about that, right? One might have thought the lights were simply warming up but after a good thirty seconds, the light at the end of the corridor turned red. — Stable lighting was good. Stable red lighting? Bad. “Gabbie, anything?”
Nothing, hotshot. I think we’re cut off from the outside, too. I can’t get Dave to reply.
“Shit.” ET glanced at Spellbound. “Fists up. I have a hunch. Bad one.” He hefted the shotgun, and mentally keyed in the “electro-fist” augment on his hands. A ring of sparks jumped to life around his knuckles, sizzling in the air as he flicked the safety off on the gun. -- “You don’t think the ominous red light is friendly?” Spellbound asked. Despite her sarcasm, Spellbound suspected that the tin man was right. There was something very wrong with corridor they were in and the light was not helping the vibes. She couldn't feel any magic, not yet. Not that she trusted her feeling. Magic had never felt the same since Hex had tried to save her. It was a cold, distant thing now.
Taking a step forward, Spellbound raised both her fists in boxing stance antiquated long before her birth, “Let’s find out though, shall we, Mr. Tin Man? Whatever is its, it can only kill us in some horrible way.”
Maysah cocked an eyebrow as the others attempted to solve the mystery of the rocks that shouldn’t exist, her tongue clicking as Hex’s illusion was dispelled with less effort than she had anticipated. It was always struck Maysah as odd how little anyone seemed to know when it came to Hex’s powers. At times, she believed that her former friend rivalled, if not surpassed, her; other times she couldn’t help but wonder if he was little more than someone with a couple of parlor tricks who knew the right people. Regardless, she was certain he liked how vague it was. Added a bit of mystery to the man.Perhaps his old sidekick could shed some light on that too, she thought as she slipped her phone into her backpack. Among other things.
She sidled up to Lazlo and overlooked the hidden crater. Maysah didn’t know how much it cost to build a secret lair in the middle of nowhere, but a rough estimate told her that either Hex had a very profitable side hustle or her choice to remain unaffiliated from teams, sponsors, and corporations had been a significant financial blunder. Not that the money had mattered to her. Still, it would’ve been nice to have a beach hideout in, say, Morocco to spend the years instead of hiding in plain sight in a cold, Canadian flat. She frowned. Now wasn’t the time for daydreams. They had a job to do.
“I’ll look for an access,” said Maysah as she dropped her bag at Lazlo’s feet. “Don’t lose that. Meet you down there.”
There were two ways into the crater: the normal way of slowly winding down a gravel path to the clearing below while trying to maintain your footing, and Maysah’s way. Before Lazlo had a chance to protest about carrying her bag, she took two steps forward and dropped off the sheer cliffside of the crater. Purple light crackled to life around her as she half-fell, half-slid down the rockwall, taking just a second to steady herself as she hit the ground before she did a lap around the building. A ladder on the westside of the building caught her eye. She dispersed her energy and, after smoothing out her hair, beckoned for Lazlo to join her.
Lazlo hadn’t expected Dying Light to work out that well. Though he never would have admitted it, he was somewhat excited for what was behind the illusory spell Hex had casted as it faded away in a shimmering mist. Was it a cave? A gigantic spire? An ancient castle? Well, the picture of a crater didn’t exactly fit his expectations of what a wizard’s secret hideout should have been. The artist found himself unnerved by the desolate look of Hex’s base, taking note of Addison’s instructions in the background. Would there be any traps? Should they plan it out further before they began entering the base? Was someone still living inside the base?
Well, Stardust apparently didn’t have an issue with asking those questions as the living glow-stick dropped her bag to him and jumped down in a burning streak of beryl neon. The Third Rail would have advocated for conspicuity but what good was conspicuity in a barren desert with superhumans by his side? Lazlo pulled up Masyah’s bag, making sure that the sling was tight on his shoulder. He flicked off Dying Light’s flame, hooking the candle to his belt, before drawing out another trinket. The splotchy textures of water-color was soothing to his skin as he grasped Iron Cloud by its grip, unfurling open the roof of the umbrella. He leapt off the side, Iron Cloud preventing him from breaking his legs by slowing his descent to a sluggish crawl. Floating downwards like an autumn leaf, Lazlo touched the ground with his tip-toes next to where Masyah was standing.
“I appreciate the scouting, senora Stardust, but next time…..” He closed Iron Cloud and tossed Masyah’s bag back towards her. She caught it with a huff, the hint of a smirk playing with her cheeks. “ Handle your own luggage.”
He grabbed a rung of the ladder with one hand, pulling out a spray can by his side like a loaded gun. “ Now, let’s see what Hex was hiding in his casa….” Lazlo began climbing up slowly, taking care not to put too much stress on the ladder. Some of the joints could have rusted in the last couple of years or so.
Atop the ladder was a hatch, built into the structure. A heavy door with a dusty glass panel in the centre - dust on both sides it seemed. No amount of light shone into it would give a clue as to what was inside. The handle stuck out - as it begging to be pulled at…
“You really are Harrison’s pupil,” said Maysah as she joined Lazlo in front of the rooftop’s door. “He was also always lacking in manners when we worked together. Pardon me.”
Maysah bumped against Lazlo’s shoulder as she brushed past the man. It wasn’t a hard knock by any means, but it was almost certainly intentional. She briefly examined the door and then held her hand up to stop Lazlo from stepping too close as she flared back up. Her light didn’t penetrate the glass, even with her glowing like a purple Christmas tree. Her eyes fell upon the handle. Even if it was locked, she would easily be able to force her way in. Her only concern was any possible charm Hex had placed on the door. The glow around her body began to shimmer and ripple as her plasma wrapped a shield around herself. Better safe than blown off the rooftop.
“I’d suggest sticking behind me. I don’t see Harrison as the kind to boobytrap a door, but then again, I didn’t see Harrison as the kind to have a hidden lair in New Mexico,” said Maysah. She gave Lazlo a moment to get positioned, and then she opened the door.
“ Gracias, senora.” Lazlo had grumbled after Stardust had brushed him by the shoulder, a tinge of annoyance in his voice before whispering underneath his breath as he followed her. “ Gillipollas.” How dare she’d compare him to Hex, that cabron de - The tension in his nerves washed away just as another cycle of aerosol paint filtered into his mask like a breath of fresh air. The metallic taste of red never stopped getting old.
As the door opened, he slipped out Dying Light, half-melted with droppings of wax on the etched brass pan-handle. The curled black, burnt wick coughed back to life with a bluebell glow. He lifted it outwards while opening up Iron Cloud in front of him to act as a shield. A thought struck him. What if someone or something was still alive inside there? Sure, Hex was dead but that didn’t mean that his house was empty. Traps could be both alive and not alive, both equally deadly in their own way.
He held his breath, an umbrella and a candle held in both of his hands. One to light the dark and another to shield the light. The balance comforted him.
The inside was simply a shack, nothing particularly special about it at all. One small room, really only big enough for the two of them - but on the wall a display screen, and a keyboard beside it, just buttons - no markings of letters or numbers of any kind.
Maysah let out a quiet grunt as she squeezed into the room, her purple glow swirling around with Avant-Garde’s blue light on the black screen of the display. She avoided touching the screen or the keyboard out of concern that she would fry them with an electromagnetic pulse. Maysah turned to her partner with folded arms, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly. She had heard a hiss of a spray can just moments ago, but assumed it had been Avant-Garde preparing for an encounter. She jerked a thumb towards the keyboard.
“Give it a whirl,” she said.
Avant Garde approached the display at her invitation. He wasn’t a crack hacker by any means but you didn’t get around the He set down Dying Light on the table, illuminating the inside of the room. It was coated in a thin film of dust and cobwebs but it was otherwise unvarnished despite the fact that it’d been left here for some time.
“ Mierda…. Can’t make this out…” He clicked his tongue. “ Well, here goes nothing, then.”
Just before deciding to take a leap, he took out Cloak of Night and wrapped it around himself like a child would in a blanket. Just extra insurance in case anything happened that would end him up in an early grave. He pressed one button down on the keyboard, waiting for something to happen.
The screen turned on. The only colour it seemed to be able to produce was green. One by one, a block appeared displaying something inside of the building. A room, a hallway. The room that took the centre screen block was dark though, dark as night. Of the nine locations displayed on the CCTV, each had a corresponding number. But the one in the centre, it’s text in the corner simply read ?.
Well, that went better than expected. Still wrapped in Cloak of Night, Lazlo’s shuddered gasps came out as calm gasps through the respirators of his gas masks. For all he knew, he could have activated some sort of booby trap by pressing those keys. Thankfully, Hex was merciful enough not to kill him for his foolishness. The security cameras, however, were another matter entirely. He muttered to Stardust as he stared into the TV.
“ Strange, this looks like Hex installed a security system inside this entire building. As far as I can tell, no one’s living inside.” He tapped the center video. “ This one’s different, though. Perhaps, it’s some sort of puzzle?”
“Maybe it’s just broken,” said Maysah as she stepped in behind Avant-Garde to get a better look at the screen. It didn’t make sense to her to install a security camera only to obscure its feed, but then again it didn’t make sense to install cameras at all if Harrison was the only one using this facility. Ones of the perimeter, absolutely, but the interior? Perhaps he was squatting on an old test site; some kind of experimental laboratory. It’d explain the location, his unaccounted for funding, and the need for a security room in the first place.
“Just try hitting a few more buttons? I honestly doubt it’s even a puzzle, but you knew Harrison better than I did. Was he a fan of giving you cryptic tasks for you to solve to help nurture your mind so it was better prepared to solve a mysterious crime?” she asked, her voice falling flat as she added, “Or were you just spitballing?”
”Aye, sounds good. Beacon, cover our rear. Let's move up to the door and give it a knock.”
Alex followed right behind Addison, taking point ahead of the woman so his toughened body could stand between her and any potential threats. The thump of his combat boots on the hard-packed dirt raising little clouds of dust as he and his sister made their way forwards with Addison between them. As the big Brit reached the front door of the bunker, he stopped to take a knee, staring intently at the door. Thought the agent couldn't see it, his optics were scanning the door for structural integrity, material composition and any weaknesses in its construction.
His sister, meanwhile, was knelt next to Addison, her fingertips glowing dimly with power. Shirley didn't know much about the assignment, only that the woman next to her was in charge and that she was the one that had sent out the SOS looking for capes to investigate Hex's death. So here she was, out in the desert with her brother and several other capes she barely knew, risking her life so she could find out what had happened to her friend.
Just as it had been to dispel the illusion, it was all too easy to open the door. It groaned out as Addison pushed it - a heavy thing indeed. Once the gap was wide enough she slipped inside - finding only darkness, and the scent of dry, stale air. As if it hadn’t been opened for thousands of years - as if this was an ancient tomb from civilisations past.
After her, Alex and Shirley entered too, until the three of them stood in a long room, the chill gave Addison the impression that the walls were stone - solid stone and metres thick, which would be impossible. The door had simply been steel, and the outer frame of the bunker was like a ramshackle warehouse…
“Are you seeing this?” she asked her two companions as she pulled out a flashlight - shining it over the walls to illuminate the room somewhat. A flight of stairs leading down, down, down - deeper into the crater. A thin layer of sand beneath her feet that sat atop stone. The officer moved around the entrance, her beam of light finding that it was less of a room, and was in fact a cave - a tunnel even. If the outside was to have been believed, this should have been a room - with four walls and a ceiling - but this was an ominous tunnel with a flight of even more ominous stairs - and complete silence, only the scuff and shuffle of boots.
As she turned to face the entrance again, her eyes widened and her mouth hung open; “what the fuck,” she gasped, moving back to the door she’d pushed open.
It was gone. Only a stone wall left behind.
”Aye. Not sure if I can believe it or not. Then again, this is Hex we’re talking about here.”
Alex and Shirley had entered just after Addison had; the big man baulked a little at letting the mostly unarmoured agent go ahead of him but if she wanted to, she could. He helped her push open the heavy steel door after determining it wasn’t booby-trapped with his optics, leaving it open for his sister to enter after him. Once inside, the twins set their optics to low-light mode as Addison switched on her flashlight. Alex did another cursory scan of the room they were in, trying to determine where they were exactly, seeing as how the outside didn’t match the inside.
And then Addison swore, which turned the both of them around to find the stone wall where the door had been. Alex immediately moved over to the wall and assessed it both with his enhanced optics and with his hands, scrabbling over the stone to attempt to find any seams or hidden latches.
”Bloody hell- What in the world?!”
Shirley’s powers went to work, her hands lighting up like lamps as she held them close to the wall to help her brother search for a switch or something that would open the door again. She stole a glance to Addison, still confused as she stood at the top of the stairs.
”This feels an awful lot like Hex’s doing, agent Reynolds. We should investigate downstairs too.”
Addison struggled with it. She knew what her eyes had seen outside, and yet this was something different entirely. Beacon was right though, this was Hex's work through and through. "Looks like we're not going to get out the way we came in… Only way is down there," she commented, waving her light at the stairs. She was apprehensive to say the least, but still she took the lead in front of the supers, moving slowly down, a hand resting on a holster with her gun. Like it would do anything - but at least she had the siblings with her. They'd make that pistol look like child's play between the two of them. "Anything either of you can do for the lighting in this place?" She asked, her own light not doing much in the thick dark the further they descended.
And as well as that, she spared a quiet thought to the other two teams… Just what the hell had they been confronted with?
”Here, let me.”
While not as armoured as her brother, Shirley moved forward past the two of them, her left hand raised up high as she amped up her light generation, making her hand shine as bright as a neon sign, illuminating the staircase downwards. As she made her way down the stairs, her brother followed just behind her, hands open and loose just in case they needed to move fast. Before he went down, Alex turned to glance at Addison.
”Might want to stay behind me. If I know Hex, this place is gonna have more than just bullets waiting for people who step in the wrong places. My armour can take it. Your’s can’t.”
"Sure, can't argue with that," Addison replied, letting Alex take the lead.
With the lights on, the bottom of the stairs could be seen, not too far - and at least there was a bottom. It was more of the same stone tunnel, to the point that Addison continued to wonder if she was really in an ancient pyramid. Aladdin's damned cave of wonders. She didn't feel frightened, in fact there was a layer of excitement that she could still feel, and she took her hand away from her gun, feeling that the chance of threats was minimal.
"You ever seen anything like this?" She asked the siblings as she came to the final step, moving forwards just enough until she felt a sudden breeze, like an updraft. "What the-" she said as she swivelled on a foot to see that the stairs were gone - and there was only a wall again. Ahead of them, another staircase - the same one. "I'll ask again… You ever seen anything like this?"
Alex led on as they approached the bottom of the staircase, with him in front and Shirley at the rear. As the stairs mysteriously disappeared, it caught them by surprise, with Alex moving to the wall where the stairs had been to check it once more with his hands. At Addison’s question, the siblings exchanged a glance between them and simultaneously shook their heads.
”Nope.” ”Never.”
“What do we do now?” She asked, looking to the siblings for their advice, wondering all the while whether they would continue to move around and around in circles. “Maybe we need a spotter,” she offered, not waiting for one of them to answer. “Someone to watch the wall so it…. Doesn’t move?”
”I’ll stay,” Shirley offered, her hands still aglow with light. ”Besides, I’ve got my own light. I can hold my own. Go on ahead, if something happens, we’ve got the pagers.”
”Shi- Beacon, you sure that’s a good idea?”
Alex stopped for a moment, giving his sister a glance. She shrugged in response, casting her hands about the small room they were in.
”Not like I’ve got much else to do here.” “Be careful,” Addison said, her voice laced with the authority that only a special agent could muster. The weight of the shit she’d seen go down was heavy. She thought of Jackson, he partner and how he was barely buried and here she was - already on another case. That was life, though.
“Come on,” she said, turning to The Tower - surprisingly grateful to have him for company as she headed with him down the staircase. “You have anything like this in your homeland?” she asked, trying to make conversation - break the tension, make anything feel normal as they made their way through a place that was almost supernatural in it’s quality.
At the bottom of the stairs, the scene had changed now - and there was simply two paths. Left and right. A fork in the road.
Alex shook his head, watching the glow of his sister’s lights fade into the distance while he moved ahead with Addison. The lights were replaced by the glow of his own cybernetics, soft blue lights from indicators and his eyes as they approached the fork in the path.
”Nope, never seen anything like it. I think the closest thing I’ve seen is, like, the Knights Anglais base in the Tower of London. But the hallways don’t change like in Harry Potter. Not like this.”
At the fork, Alex stopped.
”Hmm. Should we go one way first and try the other if it doesn’t work out?”
A solid plan was occurring within the bunker. Several solid plans, actually.
A set of superheroes on a mission to save the world from the end of days. A magician, a technopath, and lightshow on legs. A walking reactor, a walking fortress, and the walking dead. Addison had put together quite the team to handle this threat. Unfortunately, she had also put together the last of the superheroes in the world who seemed to give a shit. A pretty little package, all in one place.
ET felt the danger like a punch in his gut. A new voice in his head, moving at ten kilometers per second.
"What the fuck?" he hissed, before his years of training snapped into him like a shot of Everclearer.
Fuck indeed. Addison had given them fucking pagers for communication. He tapped into his with a single minded fury and sent out a message which he hoped would be received. MISSILE EN ROUTE. BIG MISSILE. 10 SECONDS. FIND COVER AND BRACE. He also reached out to all the cybernetics in the group, and the phones in the group. They were all amenable to his words, given that the alternative was complete extermination. He felt Dave speed into reverse outside. At the very least, he wouldn't lose Dave. Again.
He whirled to Spellbound. "Change of plans. We have to get to cover now." He didn't wait to answer what kind of cover, given that they were in a metal bunker, but he had a feeling whatever was coming was going to make a real mess of things here. He set off down the hall at a sprint, silent as the servos in his suit balanced and weighted him perfectly. At the first door he found, he wrenched it open and yanked Spellbound inside, heedless of any protests.
The room was a dead end. That was fine. They were in a bunker, so a dead end was to be expected. ET turned and heaved the door closed behind him, and then flicked his wrist. Gabbie, enhanced over years by his tinkering, popped a fusion torch into his hand. He proceeded to lock the door behind them in a most permanent fashion. Hopefully it would be enough. The missile was not nuclear, but it was nonetheless devastating. When it struck the bunker, it punched through a solid three feet of metal at the top of the building. It's momentum was lost, and the missile was stuck in the roof, but the hundred gigajoule payload it contained wasn't so hindered. The explosion would have been enough to wipe a moderately-sized town off the face of the planet. A payload half its size was used in an airstrike in 30 years ago against a superpowered terrorist cell in Europe.
Inside the bunker, roaring flames traveled faster than eyeblinks through the tunnels. Enchantments and spells fizzled away from the raw fury of high-yield explosives. Any doors not fused shut were blasted inward at the seam, as the fires of judgement found their way to the exits of the building, and every nook and cranny besides.
In an interesting twist, there was no mushroom cloud. The explosion was immense, but brief, with no dirt to toss up. A torrent of force, followed by a torrent of fire, then nothing. Some supers would probably have been able to shrug it off, given enough advance warning. They were a wily bunch.
One super, in particular, had survived just fine. In the deepest recess of the bunker, a shattered glass tank spilled a clear, bubbling fluid onto the floor. Cords had stretched from the walls to the tank, to whatever...whoever had been inside.
Now, the room was empty, except for the hiss of pneumatics, and a blaring siren. ET punched the door off its hinges with a grunt. Maybe fusing himself into the room hadn't been the best idea, but it wasn't like there'd been a ton of time for him to think of a better plan.
The hall outside was shredded, blackened, and damaged beyond repair. Pipes hung from the ceiling, and patches of the floor had seemingly vanished into thin air. "Fuck." he said again, before sending another pager message. Fucking pagers. WHO'S LEFT?
Possible dibs on one of the original cyber matrix heisters? What’s the limitations here on what a character can be?
Edit: other possibilities: a High Orbital rich boy who fucked up one too many times and has been cutoff and sent to the surface by daddy
Depending on the year of this game, an ex-neo-nazi who has found redemption after (insert life changing event here). Reading about the “current” extremist groups makes me wonder how people who escaped from one of today’s current extremist groups would react
Lots of other ideas too. Tying them to the campaign trail would be the next step
As the world exploded into metal shards around them, Blue saw red. A rekking traitor, after all this? They'd nearly gotten shut down by a small man in a wig? She was too important to deal with this sort of bullshit. She lashed out with a hand to steady herself on the rocking catastrophe that was the ship. The other hand raised Cazette: not in her house.
"No. No no no, stop. Stop! Blue!" Bonk's voice fell on deaf ears.
Blue sent two razor blades zipping toward the traitorous helmsman. They were rekked anyway: whether or not he lived was immaterial to survival. The weird Pets-and-Animals guy would be fine, probably. The auto-aimer on the auto-crossbow Cazette told her where to aim, and she was a steady shot.
"Blue! We talked about this. You can't just shoot people who upset you!"
"Can it, Bonk! Bigger fish to fly!" Blue for the ratty-looking man who'd been held hostage by the waterlogger. In the commotion, she managed to snag his arm, noting the Q-tip arrow protruding from his stomach. "Shit," she hissed. A rekking Q-tip? What kind of freakish monstrosity needed a Q-tip that big? It was the length of her forearm. "Gimme some help here, rekkers!"
Member
Tim the Yeti
Atrophy
Punished GN