Rebel_Scum

Down the street slightly from the main event, from under the remains of the crashed helicopter, emerged a shimmering bubble most experienced metahumans would recognise as a personal forcefield. As her shield faded around her, the girl inside stood up and looked around at the situation. "Now that's completely unfair, I'm off duty just taking a nice quiet walk and someone tries to drop half a friggin' helicopter on me and doesn't even stick around to gloat about it. Bloody typical."

She broke off abruptly as she noticed what was happening ahead of her. Off duty or not, standing by and watching wasn't her style when confronted with a recently damaged warehouse from which gunfire was echoing. Pushing a stray strand of black hair out of her eyes she moved cautiously towards the warehouse. If not to remain undetected, she at least needed to find out what the sides were and which one she should be taking before she moved in. Spotting another hero hovering nearby she hoped he had a communication device of some kind as she activated her own communicator - something she kept with her even when off duty - and opened a channel in the direction of the other hero. "Hey, any idea what's going on here?"

((Edited for a real post, thanks to TeChameleon for PMing me the info))

"Man. there's a heap of this stuff here", Richard commented to his companion as they wandered through the base. "I don't think there's any way one of the old group put any of this here though. There'd be no reason to, most of them moved on to other groups."

"Yeah, you're probably right about that. Though I still can't shake this odd feeling that something's- whoa. Yeah definitely not put here by any hero, I don't know of any that can do that." It was abundantly obvious what she was talking about - they'd come to the edge of a pit. But this was no ordinary pit. Across it Richard could see the hallway continued, but to the sides he could see the warped sky that a hero more experienced than himself might recognise as that of the Shadow Shard. "Did we intersect with another dimension maybe? Or is that an illusion?" He bent down to pick up a small piece of debris from the floor and dropped it over the edge. It fell a fair way but eventually came to rest against an invisible barrier.

"So, an illusion then." He waved Areu about in the altered space just to be sure, but it didn't seem to have any effect so he leapt over the gap and continued on. A few empty and uninteresting rooms later, some small and some not so small, he came to another room that was clearly out of place. "Oh hey, didn't we beat up some of those Council goons in a base that looked just like this?", Areu asked as they inspected what was clearly a room from a Council base. What it was doing here was anyone's guess. Richard looked around for anything that might be useful, but there were no computers or anything similar as there would be in a normal base. Nor were there any in the Oranbegan cavern they found next, though interestingly the waterfall that usually followed through such a cavern was dry. Though since it wouldn't be connected to any kind of water source in this pocket dimension it wasn't really that surprising. Still, they paid it little attention as they searched but again there was nothing of much use besides the space, should they happen to find more survivors. Returning back the way they came Richard asked absently, "So what were you going to say before?

"You mean before we found this illusion cutting across the hallway? I was saying I couldn't shake the feeling someone or something is watching us. I still can't, by the way", Areu answered as they leapt back over that very same obstacle. "Something other than our group is here, though what I couldn't say."

"I'll see if the internal scanners can pick up anything when we get back." Richard looked up at the still flickering lights as they reentered the part of the base that he remembered. "Really gotta do something about those too, they're getting annoying."

I think Grey was meaning with the mission architect.

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After a bit, he found his way back to Richard in the ops center. "Ah... an' how big were ye sayin' thi' place wa'?" he questioned. "On account o' i' seemin'... bloody huge. An' creepy." he added.

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"I don't remember it being particularly big, we weren't a large supergroup so we couldn't afford a really huge base. Actually hang on a moment, I'll see if one of these things will work for long enough to let me pull up a map." He went over to one of the few consoles that was still working and hit a few buttons, resulting in a detailed map of the base popping up on the screen. Or at least the original base was detailed, the map showed a far larger area than Richard remembered but most of it was only a bare outline. "Ok, yeah that's a bit bigger than it used to be." He tapped a few more buttons, trying to pull up access logs, security footage, anything that might show who expanded the base. Of course this resulted in the screen flickering and dying again, and then in Richard planting a decent kick in the side of the machine. "WORK YOU USELESS HUNK OF CRAP!", he yelled at it.

"Now now, yelling at it won't get you anywhere", Areu said from over by the other console where he'd dropped her.

"No, but it does make me feel better." Grumbling to himself Richard picked up his axe and wandered off, intending to explore the bits he hadn't known about.

((Go for it.))

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"Hey, Richard" he said, pulling out the one he had gotten when they were fighting the hell-roaches "Since we all have one of these now, do I need to keep this one?"

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"No, that's my one. Sorry, I thought I got that back already", Richard replied a little sheepishly before swiping the device out of Matrix's hands. "As I told Danny though, if the materials are there one of the worktables has the plans to make them. And there's the entry portal and the two telepads in the teleporter room, it's the left hallway when you get back to the entryway." He pointed back down the hallway they'd come from.

"Also whoever was asking about food, they did have some but I'd imagine anything left here's long past being edible. We'll need to grab some supplies from somewhere once we get a working portal out."

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"If'n these widgies be th'same a' th'one ye were usin', then we've got four o' them total." he announced, holding out the armload.

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Richard came over and looked at the devices for a moment then nodded. "Yeah, these should work. They're older models but still perfectly functional." He took two of them and gave one each to Matrix and Akemi. "And please don't shoot the equipment", he added to Matrix as the archer took aim at one of the lights. "There's enough stuff broken around here as it is. If the flickering bothers you so much go power them down until we can get them fixed, we'll rely on Akemi's little glowy things until then. Anyway, the older portal devices don't require an access code, so you're all set as far as that goes. Now we just need a way to get back. Matrix, Fix-it, either of you think you could rig one of the teleporters to get us back?"

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"D'ye know if'n there be a Longbow base close by? Or th'Sky Raiders? A couple o' their wee bitty airplanes 'd make it a mite easier t'get around f'r those of ye tha' cannae fly."

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Richard smacked his forehead in the fashion of someone who's just realised something they really should have thought of earlier. "Small problem", he said before turning to Akemi. "You said the city teleport grid is down right? If that's affecting the base portals too we have no way out of here, that gadget we got in with only goes one way. Speaking of which," he looked over at Danny, "there might be a spare or two left in the workshop, and if not one of the worktables has the plans and possibly the materials to make one. But yeah, for getting out we might have to rig up something with one of the teleporters if the base portals are offline."

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"What do you guys need?" He looked over the screens and monitors humming softly.

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"What do you think we need?", Richard snapped probably a little too harshly at Matrix, obviously frustrated with the faulty equipment. "We need this useless junk to bloody work!" He kicked the console again, which unsurprisingly achieved nothing. Then of course the lights went haywire as well, which only made him more annoyed. Richard in fact did know Morse Code, and had he been calm he would have recognised the pattern and got suspicious, but he was far from calm. Given that the entire population of Paragon was apparently dead or missing and the base he'd hoped would be a refuge was proving problematic as well, he maybe had reason to be.

((I think I've come up with a good reason for the base to be barely operational - some scavenger came through and looted some of the parts from the equipment, or something like that. What does everyone think?))

((Ok yeah when you put it that way, your way sounds better. Barely-functioning base it is. I still want basic surveilance though ))

((I was going to have them locate both and teleport them to the base once they get things online, but whatever works I guess. Was kinda going for having the base as a sort of safe zone where they can rest or make plans without fear of Vuron attacks.))

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Then he flinched back violently as the console gave off a shower of sparks and three of the screens went dead. "Right. Well, tha' puts paid t'that..." he mumbled. The little archer retreated from the bank of displays, looking a bit helpless. "I dinna ha' a clue how t'use thi' junk." he muttered to no-one in particular.

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"What the hell did you do?!", Richard yelled as he came running back into the room. "I leave you alone for five seconds..." He dropped Areu beside the console and inspected the damage. "Admittedly I'm not great with this stuff either." He kicked the console and it flickered back to life for a second before dying again. "Hey Fix-it, you actually any good at fixing stuff or is it just a name?"

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"But what I wanna know is...if Jack's still alive."

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Richard doubted her boyfriend was still alive, but couldn't bring himself to tell her that. Instead he said, "Don't worry, we'll find him." He didn't mention that Jack might not be alive when they found him.

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"Pretty nice. Needs light though."

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"T'would prolly be wise t'be gettin' this place workin' again, else find our way t'a bigger one tha' is still active an' has surveillance drones or summat tha' we c'n use t'scan th'city, find out if'n we're in some sort o' alternate reality, or if'n the rest o' th'city is in an alternate reality, or i' this be yet another plot o' tha' daft sod in th'brass pyjamas."

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"I'm working on it", Richard called over from the console. As he spoke the base computer's main screen came online, displaying a map of Paragon. A secondary screen to the left of the main one also powered up, displaying a number of progress meters for the various secondary system. One by one the four other consoles in the room powered up, a faint hum signalled that the two teleporters were locked on to their assigned coordinates and ready, and finally the lights came on. Richard stood up and turned to the others. "Surveilance is that one, I think", he said to Danny, pointing to one of the secondary consoles, the screen of which was showing the same map as the main screen. "I'm going to go make sure nothing essential is in desperate need of repairs." With that he left the room, heading towards the workshop and from there to the generator room to make sure the essential equipment wasn't damaged.

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"I cannae carry either o' ye, so i' may prove problematic gettin' away fro' this area. 'm thinkin' tha' gettin' to a base might be th' safest, seein' as how th'only ones we're needin' to save a' th'moment is us."

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"Nope, no flight here sorry. Although I might be able to help with the 'getting to a base' part." Richard pulled a small device, similar looking to the Ouroboros portal devices some heroes carried but this one had nothing to do with them. "Supergroup I joined a while back gave me this", he explained. "They disbanded some time later but as far as I know the base is still there. It's in a pocket dimension or something like that so it should be free of these damned bugs too."

Looking around as an unfamiliar voice joined the group, he nodded to Mr. Fix-It as he introduced himself. "Nope not our bugs, we're as annoyed by them as you are. I'm Richard, and this is Matrix, Target Lad and ... actually I don't think I got your name Miss", he gestured to each in turn. "We were just about to be leaving, you're welcome to come with us if you like."

Pressing a sequence of buttons on the device, he pointed it at the ground in front of him and a shimmering blue portal appeared, similar to the standard base portals the city maintained but significantly smaller. Turning to Matrix, Richard handed him the device. "Hold on to this while I make sure it's safe. The portal closes if you take the device through so you come through last, ok?" After waiting a moment to make sure Matrix understood, he stepped through the portal. After just long enough for them to start doubting if he was ok, Richard's voice sounded over their radios. "Ok it's safe enough, come through when you're ready."

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The base wasn't much as far as supergroup bases went. Three hallways led from the entryway, the ones on the left, middle and right clearly labelled as leading to the workshop, the control room and the teleporters respectively. The whole place looked fairly high-tech, but a thin layer of dust over everything showed that none of it had been used in a while. Everything still worked though, at least for now. It was all just turned off. The base was lit only by the minimal lighting that had come on automatically when Richard had entered, a soft blue glow from somewhere in the ceiling giving light enough to see by but not much more. Richard was in the control room, seated in front of the main console trying to get everything powered up.

"Or they could come to us, that works too", Richard commented as the bugs came for them seemingly from all directions. If the whole city was crawling with these things, then they likely would be overwhelemed eventually, but if it was that widespread how had it happened so quickly? Everything had been fine when he went to bed and as far as he knew, bugs weren't smart enough to build up such a force in secret then launch a coordinated attack citywide. No, there had to be something else going on here.

"Umm, not to interrupt your daydreaming or anything but will you please DO SOMETHING!", Areu yelled at him. Richard looked slightly startled, but did as she asked. The axe would be near useless a horde of bugs such as these, so he again resorted to the admittedly fairly basic fire magic one of his friends had taught him and lobbed a fireball at the nearest group of bugs.

((The problem is all our characters have no idea what's going on, so really they have no reason whatsoever to move from their current position. Thus, for them to find out anything events must be set in motion by the GM of the RP, which is you in this case.))

((Probably. A shame really, since I kinda liked the idea.))

I don't think I've ever written a bio that didn't need to be cut back to not go over the limit.

"Boyfriend probably", Richard assumed. He too was curious as to what she was screaming at but not enough to actually voice the question, espeically once he remembered she was a peacebringer so she was possibly screaming at her Kheldian symbiote. "Anyway, since we don't seem to have any obvious direction to go from here does anyone want to pick one?" Not that it would matter, in the end. This was Paragon, in all likelihood they'd find what they were looking for regardless of which direction they set off in.

((And with those bugs living pretty much everywhere, that's actually not too far off the truth ))

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He stared for a moment, then asked in a slightly strained voice "... ye do know tha' y're axe is talking, neh?"

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"Yeah, I do. Call me if she ever shuts up and then I'll be surprised", Richard replied, before looking around as a piercing scream echoed all around them, reverberating off the buildings to make its true source competely untracable. Areu voiced his thoughts for him. "What in the hell was that", she practically yelled.

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He glanced at Matrix' bow. "Huh... ye wouldnae think tha' slingin' pointy sticks a' folks w'd qualify y' as a superhero, but t'is a daft enough world tha' we live in. Always nice t'meet a fellow-archer."

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"Heh, if they're pointy enough or you stick a grenade or something on the end then they're super enough. More super than swinging an axe around like I do at least", Richard laughed.

"Hey at least I'm a magic axe, that's gotta count for something right?", Areu added.

"Well yeah, there's that. Anyway..." Richard looked around at each of the group in turn. "Anyone have any ideas as to where we go from here, assuming 'we' go anywhere, or do we just blunder around aimlessly until we find something interesting or important? Personally I'm fine with either, knowing this town we'd find something just as fast either way."

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"So... I dinna suppose tha' you lot ha' any better idea o' what's happenin' than we do?" he questioned.

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Richard looked up at the flying boy and shook his head. "Nope, no idea. Woke up and it was all silent so I decided to go see what was up, then ran into this guy," he gestureed towards Matrix, "and got attacked by these wierd bugs." He walked over and picked up one of the very dead-looking bugs to get a good look at it. Definitely not a normal bug, even charred and crispy from fire and electricity it was still in good enough condition to tell that much.

"Heh, you have arrows and I have an axe. Not exactly the most modern of heroes are we?", Richard laughed.

"Richard, now is not the time for jokes. You know what to do, now do it already before those bugs eat you, or worse." Richard had to admit she did have a point, there was a time and place for making jokes and here and now wasn't really it. He shifted the axe into his left hand, thus freeing up his right to lob what looked like a fireball over Matrix's ice wall. It was nowhere near as strong as what a blaster type might produce but it was a fireball none the less, and since they were only bugs he didn't imagine they would take much to kill individually. It was just that there were so damn many of them.

((Yay for epic pools ))

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"You Gust?"

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Richard looked up as someone spoke, reflexively bringing the axe down off his shoulder into a ready position just in case. He straightened up when he saw who was talking to him though, most likely another hero by the looks of him. "Nope, can't say I am sorry." He started to say he'd help look for this Gust, but another voice interrupted him.

"Seriously, does he look like someone who would be called Gust?" The second voice came quite clearly from the axe, and was also distinctly female. "Anyway, he's Richard and I'm Areu. We'll help you find Gust if you want."

Richard sighed. "Sorry. Enchanted axe, has a will of its own and getting her to shut up is next to impossible most of the time." Areu just laughed.