DeviousMe

((It was the Butler in the Ball Room with the Candlestick! And yes, I'm just waiting for thenopportune moment... ))

Grumbling sullenly at his desk, Tharomar checked the page displayed on his computer screen once more. Something here wasn't quite making sense - the Aluminum shipment from Shakhead ad come a bit late, and there seemed to be a discrepency on the actual mass value.

He made a note to have that shipment checked, then glanced at his watch again.

Hadn't there been someone scheduled to meet with him...?

The Alpha 1 Prototype suddenly found itself confronted with a single figure, apparently walking out of its carnage unharmed.

"Hey, buster!" Allen smiled, having dropped his cloak for now, and thumped a fist on his chest, "Right here! Gimme your best shot...!"

*bombs the tablecloth factory*

((Welcome. It'd be nice if you had a few more blank lines separating paragraphs, bot other than that, I'd say your memory jogged quite well.))

"Strengthen security at the launch pad." Tharomar asked of velasquez as the left the board room, "That and the rail line to it are the most conspicuous marks and likely targets, especially for Crey. I don't want anything happening to them."

He glanced at his watch. Time for another meeting - this time a private one...

Bleh - took me forever to find this stuff, and it's not the best of quality, but it'll have to do.

Once more, then:

Acid still has Beethoven's 5th Symphony, Movement 1. The general scene is he just got smacked into something and now he's pissed - but, as always, with a smile.

And for General Schwarzherz, I finally found the Hell March again! Some of us old-timers may remember this one very well. This works for any type of assault, really, best when begun with the lowering of a landing craft gate or the breaking down of a heavy wall as a tank rolls through.

Tharomar nodded once more as the last report concluded. Things were going well indeed. The launch pad would be ready not long after the satellite's completion, and everything seemed to be running smoothly.

There were, however, a few unpredictabilities, such as Clarence, but then again, that was nothing new. The man was good at rolling in the green, and as efficiency expert of the company, he was second to none, even Tharmoar had to recognize this.

Not to mention he wasn't exactly much of a threat when it came right down to it. Tharomar still had him under his thumb - and he knew it. It probably created some resentment, but Tharomar didn't care as long as it didn;t harm productivity. Indeed, it seemed to boost it, and so he had no reason to change the situation.

"Then we are adjourned." he declared, standing up, "As always, follow up with Mr. Thomas about funding requests, and he will decide if such is truly warranted. Other than that, make sure all your departments are secure at all times. We don't need anyone sneaking in and ruining everything this close to the end."

Without so much as a 'goodbye', he turned to leave...

Uh-oh.

*waves hands over floating crystal ball*

Iiiiii ammm sennnsinnnng...REALLY uh-oh.

Oh, and Pete wants to know if his disappearing act worked last night.

Heh - Acid can't play ANYTHING, and his singing voice sounds like a crow choking.

Vern can play most instruments, though plucking stringed stuff is still kinda hard for him.

Allen plays a mean guitar, and he's not half bad on the drums either, though he can't play any mouth instrument for the life of him.

Mnemonyev and Vyachslav...dunno, really, have to ask 'em. Same with Kerat...

Actually, I have to join into the zombies vs. robots debate here.

I give you a handgun...and sic a zombie on you. Chances are you'll blow the zombie to bits, as we all know from bad zombie movies that a shot to the head will either kill or completely incapacitate a zombie.

I give you a handgun...and sic a battle drone on you. Chances are you'll empty that whole clip, and the bot will just laugh, if it has the ability to. Then it will proceed to turn you into a nasty smear mark on the pavement with lasers and - most likely - hydraulically powered melee attacks.

On the Grave Knight end, I can see this, but once again, thy need to be in melee to do well. If even the basic robots are coated in stacked force fields, which is VERY likely since both Acid and Toy use /FF, then the GK's advantage of enchanted weaponry and armor is reduced to a somewhat even playing field.

Then throw something with heavy artillery (Long Tom Daishi) or aoe protection (MPV wih dispersion + force bubble) and the qualitative advantage is clearly on the bots' side.

HOWEVER, it must be noted that Lichs, as they are used in these threads, not the in-game versions, bring this balance somewhat into whack again. Still, VERY often, range > melee, so I see no problem with undead needing to largely outnumber bots in order to win a head-on fight.

Now, if you're defending, and add traps to the undead side, then yes, I could see even numbers working.

((Sooo...the heroes gonna move in sometime soon? I don;t wanna get ahead of the story here. A larg mech incinerating entire parts of the forest is abound to draw attention, so I'm not sure if I want to kill a good chance at meeting up. ))

Haha, sorry about that then, but I figured with all te crud Mnemonyev's been through in tht fight over the whole city:

AA dark attacks + general fire + Lich spells + alotta Grave Knight swords + all manner of traps + building falling down on him + Muck, Guck, Wei-Li...

= a whole lot of damage. The guy's a tank, but he's not invicible. Sooner or later it gets too much. Something's gotta supply power to those wings of his, and when that's gone, they're gone.



But on the discussion of the Gigapol cannon...yeah, in order to actually explain how that thing works, it takes an equation in 5 dimensions with 13 varables. The VERY basic idea: it makes a nuke appear inside things.

Since it can fire up to the equivalent of 5000 gigatons of TNT, I decided it was severely overpowered for any thread here and have only used the smallest caliber of half a gigaton so far - and that'll probably disappear when the armies in Final Fight go the way of the dodo, which should be happening very soon.

. . .

Uh, thanks for that, Leo, but I think I'll stick with the plan of reading what the other guy did to my character and then asking myself "Would this work?"

I find that to be the best method of deciding things. Some approaches work on my characters, others are doomed to fail from the beginning.

And then there are some that are just plain cheap *leers at Burning*

Hmmm...well, Leo does bring up a valid point with the tech thing there. I guess most tech-users in the comicbook world rely on mostly prototypes and what they themselves fave created - like Experiment.

As for my guys, Acid and his crew...well, things are usually quite volatile in the design stage, especially if someone happens to be meditating near it. But seeing how they have an intelligent supercomputer as well as a sentinent computer virus that can exist in the real world, the series models are pretty close to flawless.

Schwarzherz, on the other hand, uses both tech and magic, so the tech he doesn't know how to work is magically augmented until it does.

And Spion and Pete...they use your general off-the-shelf stuff. After all, there are enough tech stores in Paragon City that can either be bought or stolen from, inversely respectfully.

Actually, that does remind me of the Etatstopper, which was supposed to work like a better sapstick - as in intended to weaken enemies but not kill them - but ended up draining all energy from the victims' molecules, causing them to die in a most painful and horrific way until they finally crumbled to dust...

"Good work." Tharomar smiled coldly, not a hint of his thoughts coming across to his face. It was how he liked to appear - cool, distanced...ruthless. It got the job done.

"The launch pad should also bring in quite a bit of tourism." he continued, closing a file on the laptop in front of him, "Really a novel idea, Mr. Thomas. I wouldn't be surprised if Sacred Pass got the nickname Rocket Town upon completion. Very well, then, next item..."

((Actually, I was wondering where the tunnel ended. the way it was described, it seemed to come ou right in the middle of the ocean. ))

Allen's ears twitched as he heard something - and then a large swath of forest was cut down in the distance.

He stopped...looking...listening...sniffing...

When he was sure no one was about, which would have been remarkable as his senses were near-impossible to elude - stemming from a Dark World did hav its advantages - he connected to his troopers via short-range hypercom.

A few words were exchanged as Allen pulled his binoculars and eyed the mech. Yeah, this was WAY better than a few old turrets.

A few orders went across, then Allen cut the channel. No more were necessary.

Within minues, the troopers were back at his side.

[Flanking positions.] he signaled to them, [Take it in a pincer.]

[Roger.]

[Understood.]

The three fanned out once more.

Yes, this was most certainly much better than a turret...

((I'm still kinda wondering myself how the whioe standing on water thing is working out, seeing how the shield was, what, 50 miles around the island...? Ah, whatever... ))

Things were at a dead end. The guy wasn't nowehere in sight, jut broadcasting his memo over and over again. What was really annoying was that he wasn't even being original. What had today's villainy come to?

Then again, maybe that was just the answer. They hadn't been able to get a whole lot of data from the drone earlier, but they did manage to get the locations of a few turrets - not that it was hard considering the things had been blazing away into the sky not a few minutes ago.

Allen silently signaled his troopers, motioning them to stop. Not a minute passed, hen the plan was ready. They split off in three diections, always listening for anything that might be of importance as they leaped from branch to branch with no more sound than the wind...

((Wow...just wow. ))

With everyone here, Tharomar waved two fingers at the large double door, ordering it closed without a word, which was promptly taken care of.

Several clicks and clacks sounded as Velasquez locked the door from the inside, then took his seat. The door was nearly soundproof, but Khell could probably hear what was being said if he listened closely enough.

"Nice to see everyone could make it." Tharmar began, absently glancing at his watch. Certain people knew what he wassaying this this, but he continued without losing a step, "Ladies and gentlemen, our company is about to take off, and quite literally so. The project your departments have all been working so hard on is nearly complete, and soon we will succeed even Crey and Portal Corp as we spread our influence across the globe."

Those who knew about the inner company workings, which included everyone important enough - Clarence of course being the foremost in that field - immediately made the connection to Project Forecast.

Project Forecast was an old, but unrealized idea that could revolutionize literally the entire world. The basic idea was simple and had been dreamed of for centuries...

Global weather control.

With the mammoth of a satellite, currently under construction at a secret location, the entire planet's weather patterns could be steered almost perfectly, giving humanity true conrol of the climate.

The deserts could be made fertile, and the hungry could be fed.

Or a disliked rogue governemnt could find itself suddenly scooped up and shredded to bits in the maw of a tornado so strong the world had never witnessed such horrid power and destruction.

Oh, for the right price, there were SO many possibilities...

But of course, Project Forecast depended not only on some shadily 'acquired' Rikti technology, but also bio-research, the latest in microcircuitry technology - specifically the Z-chip - and of course expertly programed code secure from any...unsavory elements...among others.

"Mr. Thomas," Tharomar went on, turning to Clarence, "Since you are first on our agenda, do indulge us. Is the chip on schedule...?"

Tharomar nodded once to Velasquez. As soon as the guards arrived and the doors closed, this meeting could begin...

[ QUOTE ]
The mastermind removed his finger from the trigger. "No need for them to find anything to help them out... Let us let the beast have his meal before they get away."

[/ QUOTE ]
Allen's ears twitched as he heard the mastermind's faint voice. He smiled fiendishly, hand-signaling to the troopers. They didn't much care about the thing coming up the cliff - unless it used echolocation or something to the like to navigate, it wouldn't be able to find the.

Especially with the wonderful distraction Kaos provided.

It wasn't going according to plan, but it was going well enough.

Signaling again, Allen leaped off his branch and to another. They made sure to choose only thick ones to remain silent as thy ehaded in the voice's general direction, hopping through the canopy silent as Shinobi...

Clarence was here. Tharomar showed his first reaction of the day - a wry and devious smile. Now they just needed Velasquez and they could start the agenda.

Where was he, anyway? he was usually one of the first to arrive.

Regardless, he pushed a button on the intercom embeded into the conference table. Said button connected him to Fred in the monitor room.

"Send up two guards." was all he said before releasing the button once more. he was absolutely certain his instructions would be follwed, as they always were...

((And no, he's not plotting anything sinister yet. He just wants security posted outside the door, as this'll be a very sensitive company meeting. ))

Howard Tharomar didn't even seem to acknowledge anyone who had entered th room. As far as he was concerned, only when all had arrived could they proceed.

Not to mention that Clarence's report was the first item on the agenda, yet the man hadn't arrived yet...

((Probably. I was vague with the meeting on purpose. I think we'll start when Thomas gets there, as everyone arriving late will be eating stares from three people who apparently all hate to waste time. ))

"I hate climbing." the tail trooper murred, "Are we there yet?"

"Oh for the love of..." Allen sighed, already at the top with the other trooper, "It's only two more...!"

"Yeah, yeah. Just trying to lighten the mood."

The three collected the grappling lines again, then took a look about. A lush green forest had grown to within a few meters of the cliff's edge, and all manner of noises were coming from inside.

"Where are we anyway?"

"Working on it." Allen replied, flipping open a panel in his powersuit's left arm, "Dang, looks like the satellite feed's being jammed."

"Want me to try the hypercom?"

"I'd rather not. Never know what's crusing around out here in the backwater."

"But we're already using 'em."

"Short-range, buddy." the other trooper replied, "To reach orbit we'd need to turn it up to medium."

"Right...damn, forgot about that."

"Speaking of." Allen mumbled, "Fold up the suits again."

"Sir." both troopers nodded and did as told. Nothing visible happened - the dark matter cloaks had hidden them all this time, and were continuing to do so.

"Alright, boys." Allen smiled, whispering as they approached the first trees, "Let's have ourselves a look around."

A rustling in the tree crowns was all tht could be heard as they rapidly climbed into the canopy, moving from branch to branch to where they suspected the drones had come from...

But Tharomar was quite unlike the image of superiority he let on to be. He knew just about everyone by name, even though he never let this on. In his mind, information was power. And power was his prized posession.

Being thus, he was always the first to arrive in the board room. He'd called a general meeting of the major executives to see if everything was going, and he appreciated giving everyone the once-over as they would walk into the room.

Tharomar checked his watch as he sat down at the head of the conference table. Wouldn't be long now...

((Let's just say he called a meeting yesterday or something. And as with Hal's character, this one most certainly exists. ))