Crazy_Dragon

Page deleted.

Because at the rate the OOC confuzzlement is going, it needs it.

((Because some people need to slow the hell -down- a little... >.>))
The alleyway, just after Whisper's escape...

Masha stumbled through the door, struggling to catch her breath as she frantically looked around for Soapbox.

"Where the blasted hell did he gAAAAAGGGGHHH!"

The horrific sight of the Humanity First speaker's remains took the Russian entirely by surprise. A sudden chill ran up her spine and her legs almost gave up their increasingly difficult efforts to keep her on her feet.

"The hell?" She muttered, slowly rebuilding the will to press on. She took her first steps with caution, carefully approaching the corpse while keeping a keen eye on her surroundings.

Look up. It could be a trap. Remember to look up.

The next few steps were quicker, a sudden jolt of panic pushing them harder than she wanted them to be pushed, getting her within observing distance of the body.

"How... who could have done this?" she quietly muttered, before suddenly looking up to the sky visible from the narrow gap, the augmentations on her vocal chords firing up in her throat.

"WHO DID THIS!? COME ON, SHOW YOURSELF, COWARD!!"

She waited. And waited. And waited.

*******************
The skies above Kings Row...

"Woah, holy crud..." Sophie muttered, watching the wireframe map from the safety of the Schmidt. Near the back of the building, a large green, soft-edged circle pulsed, the sign of some form of energy discharge. Its origins, though, didn't appear clear. "Hey, bring the ship over the alleyway behind the hall, willya? I need to use the ventral cams for something!"

"Roger that!" The pilot confirmed. The Katana chief felt the ship softly bank to its left while she hammered a few keys to switch to the cameras on the underside of the ship. At first, all she got was a distant view of the alleyway, but a few commands got her a zoomed-in view, along with a little image enhancement.

"...Oh my god..."

*******************
The hall itself...

The skies above Kings Row...

"Crud it," Sophie cursed as she tapped away at the display. "It's a mess down there, guys. I dunno if it's those Humanity First morons or whichever stupid capes decided to gun for braggin' right without assessing the damned situation first, but they're blocking your ideal positions."

"Get us in a close as you can." Molly suggested. "We'll just have to charge in a little. On the plus side, it's giving us a little momentum for the fallback once we plant these."

"I hope you know what you're doin', Boss." said Sophie just as the teleporter began to give a rising hum, a sign that it was about to jump six people from a dropship at high altitude to the inside of a busy hall instantaneously. "Okay, porting in 3... 2..."

"Ladies and gentlemen," Molly addressed the team behind her while keeping her eyes fixed in front of her as view flashed from the inside of the Schmidt...

****************
...to the stage around the abomination taking centre stage.

"...Operation Bellerophon is now in effect! Move!"

In an instant, the six-strong team charged at the creature, emitters at the ready to plant once they were within range.

Simple job. Slap the thing flat-side down, whack the big red button at the top and fall back. Molly was the first, planting hers and boosting backward to keep her sights fixed on the monster. Masha and Florian followed, though they were hindered by the crowd. Erica had only a few clear steps to make, beating the couple despite the distance difference. Crash landed hers next, and finally, Star Splitter.

Everyone fell back as ordered and the emitters hummed into action, ready to pull the beast down with a multi-second burst of increased gravity.

((Emitters are slightly similar to Gravity Distorion, but I'll leave the damage to the dice and the probable hold effect up to Mech here, TBH

Rolls (1 per member of a team of 6) for Smashing Damage: 6,5,2,6,3,2))

Molly watched as the beast staggered on the spot, glancing at Soap Box's predicament only briefly, though it was enough to show her was still under threat. The thing seemed to be fighting the extra forces trying to hold her down, but she couldn't tell if it was working.

Florian, Masha Molly called over the wireless connection between the team. Deal with that stupid lizard over there, Erica, try and regain some order. Crash, Splitter, stay on Chimera.

Molly swung her rifle in the direction of the rest of Mechano's goons but held her fire. Florian and Masha promptly turned their attentions to the reptile that showed up, while Erica calmly hung back to a safe distance and 'cleared her throat'.

"ATTENTION ALL COMBATANTS WITHIN THIS HALL." Though Erica appeared to be speaking normally, it sounded as if she was talking through a megaphone. "YOU WILL ALL CEASE HOSTILITIES AT ONCE! I REPEAT, CEASE ALL HOSTILITIES."

***************
Julia laid face down on the floor, bruised and battered from the moment all hell broke loose. Bruised and battered from the panicked crowd that saw fit to knock her down and trample over her.

Bruise and battered by betrayal.

She didn't want to get up any more. She just wanted it to end now. She just wanted to die.

Operation Bellerophon is now in effect! Move!

She laid corrected. She didn't want to die now. As soon as she heard the voice of Molly, the voice of her betrayer, she wanted something else.

Blood.

Julia pushed. She used what little will he had left to lift her head and peer between what remained of the seats in the hall.

Molly.

Now she needed a weapon. She needed one if she was going to get any form of satisfaction from this mess. And she would fine one, but she'd need to find it without being noticed.

The skies above Kings Row

Sophie twitched slightly as something flashed up on her screen. A small envelope icon in the lower-right corner, signalling the arrival of a new message from Julia's phone.

"New message, people!" she yelped as she tapped on the icon with her index finger. Then her eyes widened in horror as a photo of Chimera on stage flashed up on screen. "Woah, hell... IT'S HERE, YOU IDIOTS! GET OFF YOUR BUTTS, CHIMERA'S HERE!!"

"Got it!" Molly barked back, hopping out of her seat and slinging her heavily-modified Redding over her shoulder. "Florian, get ready to pull her out of there!"

"Big problem, Boss." Florian declared, much to Molly's distress. "Can't get a damned lock!"

"What? Why?"

"Hell if I know! I just can't get a stupid lock!"

"I should still be able get -you- in there." Sophie piped up, slapping Florian across the back of the head to remove him from the driver's seat of the dropship's teleporter. You'll have to get her out with the rest of the civilians in there."

"Alright," Molly nodded. The rest of the 6-strong team suited up and stood beside her. Of course, there wasn't much in the way of suiting up to be done. Crash simply zipped up her jacket. Masha cleared her throat. If anything Florian had the worst of it., having a full battlesuit to don, but he was already in it by the time he boarded the dropship. "Get us as close to Chimera as you can, preferably with each of us on an even hour of that thing's position each. Everyone remember your emitters, and remember. Plant them flat-side down, whack the red button and back off!"

"Roger that!" Sophie confirmed, tapping away at the screen. "Just gimme a moment."

****************

...The hell are you -playing- at, Florian?

((Characters aren't there yet, so no attack attempt this turn.))

Halberd-class Longstaff WarTech Dropship "Schmidt", the skies above Galaxy City, approximately one hour prior.

"Julia?"

The secretary snapped out of her worried daydreams of the hours ahead to be greeted by a concerned Molly, now clad in her blindingly pink nanotech suit. Behind her, most of Stiletto were looking busy, presumably preparing for whatever they were expecting at the rally.

"Are you okay there?" Molly enquired. "You're not gonna flake out on us or anything, are you?"

"N-I'm okay..." Julia nodded, doing her utmost best to hide her panic. "Just, umm... a little worried about w-what'll happen down there."

"Okay, then. Right, all you gotta do is just find a good seat there. Somewhere in the middle should do, as it'll be the optimum spot to take footage with the phone's camera."

"And don't worry too much about the phone running out of memory either." A voice from behind Molly yelped. "I hacked that thing to pieces to cram in a good coupla-hundred gigs in there, -AND- tweaked the camera app in that thing just to remove any arbitrary limits on vid size. Go nuts, my little cameragirl!"

"Sophie, won't they start suspecting something if they somehow find out about those?" Masha called over from the other side of the dropship. Her eyes were fixed on the small box-like device in her hand as she fiddled around with it."

"Pfft, nah!" the unseen Sophie answered with absolute confidence, though it did little to boost the technically-challenged Julia's. "The memory's the same stuff you find in everyday flash drives, and the hacks can be pulled off by any old geek these days. At the most, you'll look like a geek. A hot geek, but that's it."

"Uh, yeah." Molly added. "Just keep the camera pointed at the stage and you'll be fine, okay?"

"A-and if something goes... goes wrong?" Julia stammered out her last question.

"We'll port you out of there at the first sign of trouble. You'll be fine."

Julia simply nodded.

******************
Freedom Court, Galaxy City, five minutes later.

Just a second ago, Julia was aboard the Schmidt, dreading the process of being teleported and generally fearing for her life. What if something went wrong with the teleport? What if it ended up killing her before Humanity First or Doc Mechano got the chance?

Now, she found herself looking out of an alley onto Freedom Court, heavily disorientated and bordering on falling over herself before she found the nearest wall to lean against.

"Okay," she slurred to herself as she waited... -willed- her head to stop spinning so she could walk straight again. "Could have gone better, could have been worse... hope that doesn't happen all the time..."

When her head finally cleared, the redhead made a few checks on herself before she even dared set off for Kings Row.

Clothes still here and not fuse with her skin? Check. Julie took a moment to straighten out her demin jeans and jacket, as well as ensuring that her white and black fedora was still sitting comfortably on her head. It was the only hat she had, much to her annoyance. She also ensured that, yes, she was still wearing her current-favourite "Another Visitor" tee, still white text on black fabric and no, she was not exposing anything she shouldn't have been.

Smartphone intact? Check, and with a few texts from the Schmidt already. She would read those on the way.

Skin not inside out? Check.

With everything in check, or so she hoped, Julia took a few deep breaths before making the first steps toward Kings Row.

******************
Not long before 7.30pm, Crowne Memorial Hall, Kings Row.

"E-excuse me," Julia stammered as she pushed through the crowd in her efforts to find a seat in one of the middle rows. "Excuse me, c-c-coming through!"

It wasn't easy. She not only had to squeeze past a full crowd of presumed bigots, some of them far larger than they should be, but she had to ensure she kept hold of her smartphone while at the same time keep her fedora on her head the whole time. It wasn't a necessity, but the less nobody saw her face, the better.

Eventually, she staggered into the middle seats, almost falling into the first few of the row she stumbled to, and proceeded to tip-toe over to a free seat just a few chairs along the row from her end.

******************
The skies above Kings Row.

"Alright," Molly called over to the dropship's pilot. "Flick it to whisper and hold it here. "You sure we're stealthed now?"

"Pretty certain, Boss!" the pilot called back.

"Okay, good." Molly responded. She then slid herself into Julia's old seat and looked to the suited-up members of the Stiletto Division, all of them ready for the probably battle ahead, if not all too happy about such probability. "Okay, now we wait. Everyone grab a gravity emitter in case that Chimera thing shows up, and someone pass me one too. Six of us with one each -should- be enough to anchor that monster if it strikes."

"You hope." Florian muttered, never the fan of the experimental.

"I really do."

((Warning, rush-job >.>))

Katana Division, Longstaff WarTech Rhode Island, May 6th 2010, 1:03pm

"We ain't found squat!" declared a pigtailed young woman from the centre of a ring of multiple computers, most of them towers with a lesser number of laptops sprawled about. "And frankly, at this point, I'll just be going around in circles."

Florian glared at the girl with his good eye. He knew she'd found something, but more often than not, Sophie Larkin, the newly-appointed chief of the company's cyber tactics division Katana, had a tendency to disregard information she deemed unworthy of note.

"Don't you -dare- give me the evil eye, buddy!" Sophie yelped, pointing an accusing biro at the Stiletto agent. "It's not gonna work on me this time."

"I know what will." Florian muttered, before leaning over and whispering "I wonder how Karl over there would react to my telling him that you've got the hots."

Sophie suddenly snapped her head around to look at a young man in a blue Hawaiian shirt. The scrawny looking fellow who clearly needed a haircut, judging by the wiry mess that could almost pass for an afro, was far too busy tearing apart what looked like a computer dating back to the mid-nineties to notice Sophie's eyes training on him before she snapped her head back to Florian.

"I hate you. Fine. I'll fire all the useless crud I did find over to Lill's printer, that okay?"

"Very much so." Florian answered as he turned to leave, failing to notice Sophie flipping him the bird.

******************

Julia Cravic's apartment, Talos Island, 6:23pm

A smartphone.

That was it.

A single stupid smartphone.

The only thing she could take with her into that blasted rally. At the very least, she could have been given a sidearm, surely?

No, that could have gotten her caught out. Humanity First might accuse her of being an assassin or something.

Julia sat on the bed twirling the smartphone in her hands. Just hours earlier she'd been told that it was the only peice of technology she'd be taking in there. A consumer gadget of all things.

The unfortunate secretary tossed the phone onto the nearest pillow and hopped to her feet. Time to find something to wear, then.

Skirts, shirts, jeans, various pieces of underwear, all travelled across the space between the wardrobe and the bed as the redhead sifted through every probable combination of clothing. She even went as far as attempting an updo, ignorant of the fact that her hair was far too short to achieve such hairstyles.

"What the hell am I doing?" She muttered to herself, pinching the bridge of her nose after throwing her last attempted combination onto the bed. "It's a bigot rally, not a prom! God, I'm such a moron!"

Okay, she then thought to herself. Just pick out the blandest thing you can pluck out. That'll do ni-

Then she noticed something. A reddish light just out of the corner of her eye? What the hell was...

"No..." Julia quietly gasped. The red light soon became an unsteady dot on the wardrobe in front over her. Now she was frozen on the spot. Fear suddenly forced her body to ignore her mind screaming at it to run like hell. "Please, no, not again..."

Then the dot disappeared, gone as soon as a youth directly outside her window released the button on his laser pointer and made a break for it.

And Julia Cravic was left to slump onto the floor and curl up, a gibbering wreck both all too eager yet far too afraid to scream.

Stiletto Breifing Room, Longstaff WarTech Rhode Island, May 4th 2010, 9:26am

"... it should be interesting to hear what they've got to say."

Suddenly, the screen flicked off, and all members of Longstaff WarTech's Stiletto Division turned their attentions to the prodigal Molly Longstaff, sat in her chair at the other end of the briefing room's single long table, staring at the now-inactive widescreen display as she idly tapped the remote against her lips.

"Yeah," Molly muttered quietly, as if to herself. "Very interesting for sure."

Everyone was lost for words at that moment. The chief of Stiletto, Crash Leadfoot, merely took the opportunity to pull her jacket into something resembling straight. Florian Uhrmacher, codenamed Sky Stormer, simply cleared his throat, while his partner in more ways than one, Masha "Mashup" Romanenko, along with the alien robot Star Splitter, stared into the space ahead of them, seemingly deep in thought until the Russian finally broke her silence.

"So what do we do?" She uttered, half-expecting an immediate plan from The Pink One. "Do we deal with this... Chimera thing or these so-called 'human supremacists?'"

"Mundane supremacists." Molly calmly corrected, glancing only briefly at Masha, who gave an understanding nod in return. "And we're gonna deal with both."

"Both?" Florian queried, promting Molly to slowly push herself out of her seat.

"Both." she answered. "First of all, we need to send an agent into that rally on Friday to observe, report, gather any intel worth a damn if such opportunities come up. In the mean time, we'll hang over out of sight on one of the dropships in case anything goes the way of the pear."

"And Mechano's little plaything, Boss?" Crash cut in. Molly merely smiled in response.

"Katana can start dredging up every scrap of data they can find on the Net, both on Mechano and these Humanity First goons. Break into Mechano's systems if needs must. Same applies to these dorks. They know the drill. Leave. No. Trace. Got it?"

"Uh... Understood, Boss." Crash answered with a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

"Who do you expect, if I may ask..." the robotic Star Splitter intervened in his usual tinny serpentine voice. "...to send to this... rally?"

"Hmm..." Molly pondered the question for a moment. "Good question."

"Yeah, we're all packing some form of augmentation here..." Masha said. "Except Splitter, what with him being a robot in the first place and seeing next to no upgrades since he meteored himself here."

Splitter raised a metallic brow at the 'meteored' comment. It was certainly a term he'd never heard before, though it seemed a little obvious she was referring to his crash landing on Earth. Still, it was rather curious to him.

"What about the division's new blood?" Molly enquired. "Any mundanes there?"

"None." Crash answered flatly.

"Crud. Alright, who else have we got? I need all hands on deck in Katana, so that's out of the question..."

"What about one of the lab techs?"

"Nah, none of them are cut out for spy jobs. They struggle enough trying not to blow the building up by accident, and I have zero faith in their ability to avoid doing the same to their cover."

"Office staff? Mailroom? There's that Jenkins guy who's had something of a history of industrial espionage."

"And happens to be mentally scarred from those experiences, Lils."

"Crud."

The entire room remained silent as everyone wracked their brains over who they could rope into spying on the rally before the silence was broken by a gentle knocking on the door. Enter one Julia Cravic, Molly's current secretary and the building's resident bag of nerves, fighting with her high heels as she stumbled through the door with a small pile of papers in her hands.

"Um, I w-was..." the twitchy redhead stammered. "I've got all of K-katana's sick notes now... erm... and I was..."

"Just leave them on my desk for now, okay?" Molly smiled. "And thanks! You're doing great so far."

The secretary smiled awkwardly before she took her leave, accidentally slamming the door. Everyone could almost make out the muffled curse that immediately followed. Then the room fell silent as everyone looked to Molly.

"Oh, no..." Molly groaned, slowly placing her face into her palm. "No, just NO!"

"She's as mundane as mundane gets," Florian calmly protested. "AND he's done this kinda job before."

"I promised her, for crying out loud!" Molly barked. She was somewhat adamant against whatever crazy idea they were quietly suggesting. "That kinda stuff is the reason she a total nerveball right now, do you realise that?"

"Yes, but Mo-"

"I am NOT sending Miss Cravic into that rally! Final! End of!"

************

Several minutes later...
Julia Cravic leaned back in her chair and looked around her working area, situated right outside Molly Longstaff's office.

She was starting to like it here.

Sure, there was the odd worrying rumble from the lower floors, and a few escaped projects tended to make their way up to this floor once in a blue moon, but for once, her employer wasn't sending her out of deranged espionage missions like her last few bosses seemed hellbent on doing. For once, her boss wasn't deliberately sending into life-threatening danger. For once, she felt like something wasn't out to get, gut or shoot her for the antics she never wanted to see herself pulling.

Julia then locked the fingers of her hands together and held them to the back of her head, settling them into her short, blood-red hair while she pushed the chair onto its rear legs.

For once she had the opportunity to speak too soon.

The sudden bleeping of the desk phone's ringer sent the poor girl tumbling backward onto the floor behind her. Luckily, there was plenty of space to fall back into without bashing her head off another piece of furniture, and the carpet was like new. Nice, soft and fluffy enough for a mostly painless impact when her head collided with it. Mostly. It still throbbed like hell moments later.

After nursing her head for all but a few seconds, Julia scrambled back up the desk and clumsily picked up the receiver.

"Y-ow... Yes?" she groaned into the receiver. She hoped she was holding it the right way.

"Uh, are you okay?" Molly's voice asked with concern. "You sound awful."

"I'm- I'm fine, I... I... I-I just bumped my head a little, that's all."

"Sounds a lot worse, if you ask me. Um... can you come into my office in a few? Something's came up... something you're really gonna hate me for..."

Yep. She spoke too soon.

Hrm, I really have to ask, but what's up with PNG support? It's listed as an allowed file format, but in all the time I've been using the Handbook (just over 2 years now), every attempt to upload a PNG has been met with:

One brand-spankingish-new super-pretty CharacterBox, and you have Oreso to thank for making it colour-customisable.

http://union.virtueverse.com/index.p...EXCharacterBox

The old one's still there, don't worry.

"Did you hear about the bodies floating about up north?"

"Ew, those icky dead thorns?"

"Yah."

"Ew ew ew!!"

"Clare? Stop that. You're creeping me out now."

"But they're so, like, icky!"

"Anyway. I totally think that wierd chick that Mason saw by Spanky's the other night has something to do with it, you think?"

"Pfft, who listens to that Dynemonkey? That stuff's got him seeing things."

"Shut... up... Mason's totally not doing Dyne."

"His skin is, like, green? Hello?"

"He's a mutant, peroxide-for-brains..."

"Wait, wait, wait, didn't, like, that Donna wierdo mention something a little funky over by Spanky's last week too?"

"That crazy little ice queen?"
---
Three ditzy schoolgirls yakking away in a Talos street.

Channels dropped.

Uh-oh. Now there's a page in its place saying the domain name's expired.

That ain't good.

Has Virtueverse carked it again? It's suddenly decided it doesn't want to load my end and tracert can't even reach the first step.

Magic-Origin Demon possession could also work. For example, he's a treasure hunter that busts into a recently-discovered tomb while the archeologists are all sleeping that turns out to be cursed?

Just something to toss into the big ol' pot of brain farts while I'm barely awake.