"Hey there." A cocky looking teenager said, hovering about ten feet ahead and ten feet above Penny Arcade with a wry smile on his face, protected by a green sphere of... well, green. "I'm Jake, and I'm gonna have to politely ask you to hand over that encryption key you have there. You see, Arachnos needs it, not to mention..." He said, scattering several small devices on the ground, all of which teleported nearly identical looking bots to the field. "... you seem to have stolen my designs and made a few modifications. While I am flattered..." He continued, his bots all lifting their guns and charging their lethal lasers. "I'm afraid I can't have someone walking around with one of my design secrets. So, hand over the key, the bots, and the good doctor, and we'll be hunky dorey." He smiled at the end of this last sentence and hovered a bit downward. His shield that he had on seemed to be deflecting all of the fire that was coming his way.
[ QUOTE ]
"Hey there." A cocky looking teenager said, hovering about ten feet ahead and ten feet above Penny Arcade with a wry smile on his face, protected by a green sphere of... well, green. "I'm Jake, and I'm gonna have to politely ask you to hand over that encryption key you have there. You see, Arachnos needs it, not to mention..." He said, scattering several small devices on the ground, all of which teleported nearly identical looking bots to the field. "... you seem to have stolen my designs and made a few modifications. While I am flattered..." He continued, his bots all lifting their guns and charging their lethal lasers. "I'm afraid I can't have someone walking around with one of my design secrets. So, hand over the key, the bots, and the good doctor, and we'll be hunky dorey." He smiled at the end of this last sentence and hovered a bit downward. His shield that he had on seemed to be deflecting all of the fire that was coming his way.
[/ QUOTE ]
Penny Arcade laughed. "My designs,' you say," she quoted, as if he had said the silliest thing in the world, so ridiculous it was funny: as if she had stolen the designs from him! "I hate to disappoint you, but no one is getting the good doctor - gonna sting, Doc, sorry."
Penny turned around and shot her hostage. He looked surprised in the moment before he disappeared, leaving chair and tape behind. He was out of the fight for good. Somewhere in Paragon City he had reappeared in a hospital, surrounded by heroes on every side, and protected from intrusion by the tough robotic drones which protected all hospitals and subways from interference.
As she expected, this drew howls from the Longbow who had witnessed it. "She's got Doctor Malcolm!" "She shot Doctor Malcolm!" "Nooooo!"
"To address the remainder of your demands: someday you and I will sit down for a nice, quiet, polite lunch, and you can explain to me how you came to imagine that the Rikti would make any differentiation between Paragon City and the Rogue Isles... but not today. Ta!"
Neither Arachnos nor the 'Good Doctor' had mentioned anything about Rikti. Clearly Penny Arcade had information which neither of them possessed... which wouldn't be unusual, considering her reputation. She raised her hand in a jaunty good-bye.
Then she turned off her rocket-boots, and dropped like a stone. Her lone remaining drone followed.
With Penny Arcade out of the way, this brought him more or less directly into contact with the Longbow who had been on her tail. He heard cries of, "Co-conspirator, Penny Arcade has a co-conspirator!" Other members of Longbow, not being of a mind to engage in clever banter, opened fire, their own lasers pinging off of his force bubble, a few splashing across the bodies of the 'bots.
Penny Arcade's plan was obvious - let him deal with the Longbow, while she made her escape. Obvious... but it had its advantages. Longbow was not playing around, and more agents were swooping in from every direction. If he stayed in the area too long, he risked capture, bots or no bots....
A figure crouched on the ledge of a nearby building, watching the fight as it blazed across the sky. As the girl dropped from the fight, making her escape, the figure cocked his head to the side as though listening to something. Then he clutched his tattered red cloak closer to him as he flew from his perch in a lazy trajectory to follow her.
<The Hell? Looks like she teleported him... seems like she made a few key changes in my design...> He said, just letting the bullets and whatever else was being fired at him glance off of his shield and be thrown off course by his bots. Dropping down to the ground himself, he ordered his bots to go into an aggressive following state, following him around while shooting, and normally taking down, any Longbow agents that were in the area. "I'm not a co-conspirator by any means. Sorry to dissapoint." He said to one warden who had dared to come close. His bots all opened fire on the poor sap before he could even get a blow in, flinging him backwards and a good ways away from Jake. "Now where's Penny..." He thought, looking around.
(Yeah, kinda odd that lasers have a slight chance to KB... *shrug*)
Penny Arcade wasn't difficult to find.
She was streaking down the street, flying very low and parallel to the road - alone. Her final bot didn't seem to be with her. Her weapon may have been unconventional, but it couldn't be denied that it was effective. Any Longbow agent struck by the double-bursts of red light vanished as the Paragon teleportation system transported them away. Penny Arcade was a good shot, and she was cutting a wide swath in her enemies as she moved. Wherever she was going, she was booking.
The reason why became apparant a moment later, as the forces of Arachnos boiled out of one of the buildings to her side, jumping into the road, forcing her to swerve. The gun which she pointed at the nearest Tarantula Queen looked like an entirely different weapon - and, when fired, gave entirely different results. She was well-equipped with conventional weaponry, and had no intention of sending the forces of Arachnos to a Paragon city hospital. The knockback from the weapon flipped the Tarantula Queen over and Penny Arcade flew perilously through the spot where it had been. Several shots bounced off of her armor: her force field had long since faded.
It was a gamble, but it paid off. She was soon clear of the immediate threat, though they gave chase at once, forcing her into a trajectory that would, ironically, make her easier to intercept.
Those who were intercepting, once they got close enough, could hear her. She was muttering to herself, her voice calm and rythymic, even given the curent circumstances. "Seven.... six.... five.... four...."
Jake's eyes immediately went to the low flying Penny Arcade. He immediately ordered his bots to give chase, their metallic feet flaring up with fire as they lifted into the air to follow. Jake, on the other hand, simply turned his jetpack back on and nonchalantly floated upward in case he was needed, but his bots were normally more than enough to take care of things. As he got up within ear shot of the girl, his bots already taking aim and charging their lasers, he heard her counting down, most likely having a pre-planted explosion in the area. Jake cursed, his nonchalant look very quickly fading from his face as he increased the power in the forcefields around his bots to the point where they were on par with the Personal Forcefield. This would prevent them from being damaged by the explosion, but also would leave them to deal with the lasers that would soon be trapped within the bubble.
"-ut Longbow are already in the area, Solid," finished Colleen Saramago, one of Solid Shot's old contacts in Steel Canyon. "And besides, there are plenty enough heroes running around Steel Canyon to take down any number of villains that try and wreak havoc."
"Yeah, well, I'm here right now and I want to shoot something. And since shooting other heroes or civillians is generally frowned upon and all the gang bangers are occupied with other heroes, I figure I might as well use my aggressive mood constructively."
The flat grey combat droid was currently standing on the edge of a roof of one of Steel Canyon's trademark skyscrapers. The cyclopix targeting eye whirred slightly as it zoomed in on the blue shimmer of the emergency force field just visible in the distance and his Omni-rifle tapped against his leg as he talked with Colleen through his radio.
"Well, not like I can argue with you," the Hero Corps field agent replied. "Just try not to show up the newbies too much, alright? Also, if you give me a link to your HUD I should be able to run the image of the villain through my files and find a match. Should give you some idea of what you're up against."
"Roger roger, Colleen," Solid replied as he locked onto a small black blur being trailed by several other blurs. "And I think I see the perp himself. I'm going to cut audio transmission now, it'll take up less bandwith if I feed you only video."
"Gotcha, good luck."
"Luck is my business in trade. Going silent," Solid said with a slight click ending his sentence.
Tapping on his mouth grate with his free hand, Solid calculated how long it'd take for the villain to fly past his building. ...not long was his estimate. This of course meant he should get his grey metal [censored] moving.
"I love this job," Solid remarked as he jumped off the roof, arching into a perfect swan dive.
His boot jets kicked in before he had fallen five stories and accelerated his fall until he pulled up and out of his dive, his grey and black lightningbolt patterned cape trailing behind him. He stayed low to the ground, flying just above traffic in order to keep below where the villain would fly over him. Basically, Solid's plan was to wait for the villain to fly over him and then flip onto his back, match the villain's speed, and lay into the [censored] with his standard load of bullets. A type of rubber bullet that dissolved with impact, they were very good at taking down unarmored crooks without seriously injuring or killing them. Normally he'd switch out to some AP rounds when fighting a metahuman but he figured his normal rounds would suffice to knock out his little buddies if they came near while he was shooting at the main target.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
Solid Shot's first hint of a potential spanner in the works came to him when he got close enough to the perp to get a good look at her. Or, rather, to not get a good look at her. The cyclopix targeting eye, so reliable when looking at other things, simply refused to render an image. The net result was that he was looking at a solid black blur.
It couldn't have been the eye. Everything else was rendered in nice, crisp, high-definition resolution, including the impressive following the perp had managed to gather: Longbow, robots, and Arachnos. Even from the brief and unreliable glimpse of her, two things seemed apparant. First, the perp was a female; the hourglass shape of the wierd, blurred outline gave that much away. Second, she was armed with two types of weapons. As he watched, a Longbow Eagle foolishly got in her way, was struck twice in the chest by her handgun - and simply disappeared. The electronic signature of the Paragon City teleportation field was unmistakable. But the shots aimed at the entourage came from a different gun (it was possible to tell because the blur was a slightly different shade) with a different noise and a far more lethal affect.
The entourage was impressive. The chase had picked up steam. Lasers were splashing around everywhere, Tarantula bots were jumping from building to building in her wake, and the small contingent of pursuing robots was getting greener as the strength of the force fields surrounding them increased to the point where their own lasers couldn't....
...wait a minute. Increased? And the Perp unexpectedly darted into a nook, around a corner of one of the buildings, pressing herself hard against the walls, a blue circular field suddenly breaking into life and obscuring her completely from view. Given the determined pursuit, cornering herself made no sense, she was sure to be overwhelmed. Speed would have been her only chance, why - ?
He had a bare moment to find cover.
The bombs that Penny Arcade had planted beforehand went up like roman candles. From each one, a white ring of pure energy flashed in enormous spheres, resembling nothing so much as a gigantic string of pearls.
The massive EMP pulses produced immediate results. Scores of the smaller Arachnobots simply fell from the sky or flipped onto their backs as the wave washed over them, those nearest to the bombs smoking slightly. Many of the larger bots veered off-course, crashing into buildings, into their handlers, and even into each other. Many of the Arachnos agents, being of a biological nature and therefore immune to such things as EMP pulses, were still forced to drop their weapons as they suddenly spat fountains of red sparks.
The EMP pulse was attuned specifically to take out Arachnos forces. The Longbow suffered far less: but they were not immune. Like the Arachnos forces, many of the ground-based Longbow agents were forced to drop their spitting, sparking weapons. The Eagles who had followed too closely fell, as their jetpacks died in bursts of blue electrical sparks. Eagles who had been farther away were also forced to break off pursuit, veering to catch their wingmen before they hit the pavement. But even those that were missed, and fell to the earth, suffered no serious injury. It suddenly became clear why Penny Arcade had been flying so close to the ground.
Pillars of fire bloomed as the EMP pulses faded into nothingness. Fire and smoke blossomed not outwards, but upwards. It was a terrifying display of pyrotechnics, especially close-up, and a major distraction. The Longbow forces - not to mention every hero in the area - now had a choice: deal with the bombs, or follow the perp?
For the perp was on the move again. She had waited out the EMP pulse, shielded by the blue field, but that had lasted only seconds. The moment the pearls had vanished, even as the fires were bursting in her wake, the perp had darted out of the niche and was again rocketing full speed down the street, at such a low altitude that she was having to dodge cars. Almost no one was following her now: her pursuit had been decimated.
At the far end of the street was a manhole cover. A very long shot from her lethal rifle flipped it off. With the emergency force fields in place, the only possible way out of the Canyon was via the sewers. If she reached the open manhole, her chances of escape rose by an order of magnitude.
Just after the explosions, as the Perp was still streaking down the street at top speed, a transmission came to Solid Shot, courtesy of his old contact Colleen.
Solid, she said, From the scrambled images you're sending, I think you're dealing with Penny Arcade. Her threat level isn't as high as your security clearance but it's way high for the Canyon. Her file is pretty threadbare but here are some things you should know:
First of all, she's got some sort of jamming gear - she's famous for it. Electronics can't get a clear image of her. The only images in the file were taken with old-fashioned lens-and-film cameras, which is why they are so bad. That includes most scopes and advanced gunsights: don't expect to get any clean shots.
Her two main weapons are a teleportation gun and some sort of standard laser rifle. The teleportation gun trips the Paragon City teleportation system and sends the target to the hospital. It's one of her MO's. By the time that the target gets back to the area, she is long gone. The teleportation laser seems to have some lingering confusion affects: people who are struck can't make a reliable ID, or describe exactly what she looks like, even months after the encounter. Her other big MO, by the way, is that no one gets hurt. Penny Arcade has been known to take enormous trouble to ensure that no casualties are incurred by her activities - but don't take that for granted. The second weapon is some sort of laser gun, with plenty of kick to it. Your armor can probably take it but use caution, she's known to modify it or swap it out almost constantly, its rarely the same two jobs in a row.
She has a contingent of robot drones which she can summon at will, and she knows how to use them. If she brings them into play, watch out for the one called Buster, it's supposed to be a real tank. And watch out for her too - she's been known to use the bots to cover her escape.
She seems to do mostly bank heists. Fourteen heists and counting but - get this - no money taken in any of them. She'll go to the trouble of planning and executing a bank robbery, break into the vault, stand tall to Security, the works - and then pry open one safety deposit box, clean it out, and gone. No theft charges because the owners of the boxes all claimed they were empty... but that was to law enforcement. Presumably the contents of the boxes were of less than legal origins.
However, we've also seen Penny Arcade involved in big things... really big things. Remember that big Circle of Thorns hullaballoo last year where they were going to summon that demon - Hesphallollalla or whatever its name was? Penny Arcade had a big hand in stopping that. She's gone up against the Council, Freakshow, Tsoo - you name it, she's butted heads. She seems to take a personal interest in stopping things which she presumably believes threaten the safety of both the Rogue Isles and Paragon City.
And in case you are wondering, I checked with the Steel Canyon branch of First National. No robberies today.
I think your day's about to get a whoooole lot more interesting, pal... good luck, Solid.
The Perp was blasting towards him at top speed. She didn't look as if she had seen him. Any second now....
"Well that's not nice," Solid remarked as he pulled up, his jets flaring behind him as he broke his speed abruptly. He had recognized the oncoming blast wave as an electromagnetic pulse. Not that Solid has much to worry about, ever since he had been installed with the illegal Rikti tech that allowed him to channel the energy of his power cell in creative ways he had become somewhat immune to things that would disable other machines. He figured it was because the Rikti tech was partially organic, though he had never bothered to find out exactly why. Some things worked better if you didn't know how they worked, in his opinion.
"This is still gonna hurt," Solid groaned as the almost invisible wave swept over him. Sparks danced over the surface of his armor and a motivator circuit in his left arm burnt out. A back-up system took over, so the damage wouldn't mess things up.
Since he was just about the only thing in the street that was still moving the way it wanted, Solid had a prime view to see which way the perp went as Colleen called back and gave him some much needed information.
"Remind me to buy you a drink after all this is over," Solid sent back to the Hero Corps agent as he tracked Penny Arcade and shot off after her. "Damn good thing I keep my camera in my head, nowadays."
Switching vision modes for a second, Solid snapped a picture of the fleeing villain with the standard camera installed in his head. As a security droid, he had occasionally had need to store pictures in a place other than his electronic memory and camera film worked quite well. It also helped in the compilation of a "Defeated Foes" album that Solid was constantly adding too. Something about pictures printed from actual film just felt right to the robot, though he suspected that was just his damn programming screwing with him again.
Sometimes he just wanted to find that kid in Korea and....
But now wasn't for thinking random violent thoughts, now was for doing active violent things. As Penny Arcade came racing at him, Solid held his gun out wide in one hand, its barrel pointing toward the building to his right, and lifted his left hand up toward the perp. Electricity crackled and wove around his bulky forearm as he channeled power in a peculiar way he had first learned to do when he arrived in Paragon City. Small strands of lightning leapt out from his hand, arcing toward Penny Arcade almost faster than one could blink. The strands would wrap around her body, bleeding away her momentum to such a degree that she'd find she couldn't move at all. Her jets would still keep her aloft, but they'd make her a sitting duck for anything else Solid might care to do.
"And that's when one applies the freeze ray to the face," Solid said as he attacked.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
A nasty cackle came from the hooded figure as the bombs went off. Actually it came from the small, green gremlin-like creature that was currently peaking out from under the tattered clothing.
"Fire and smoke! Lights and burning! O, she's a sly one boss. Cunning and wicked. Proper nasty, she is." The little creature chortled again, looking maniaclly down at the destruction.
"Quiet Scratch," the small figure said, his voice agitated. "Shouldn't we stop and help the Longbow people. Some of them could get hurt." He looked worriedly at the red and white garbed agents as their jetpacks and weapons sparked and fizzled.
"No boss. Not our job, is it. Orders is 'girl gets away', and gets away she will. Coppers be on their own boss, we can't helps 'em now."
"As much as I hate to admit it, he's right Tommy," a small fairy-like creature on Tommy's other shoulder said, sadly shaking her head. "If the Balance is to be maintained, the girl must succeed. And we can't risk losing her now."
Tommy sighed unhappily, but nodded his head anyway. Gathering his tattered clothing about him, he swooped down toward the action. Fire formed around him, shooting out toward the ground. Many of the remaining Arachnos forces were thrown to the ground, engulfed in flame. Though if someone looked closer they'd see that the people were not actually burning, even though they WERE writhing about in apparant agony.
Tommy tried his best to ignore Scratch's happy cackling as he looked toward the guy currently attacking Penny. Opening his mouth, the boy sent a jet of fire streaking at the hero.
"You didn't think that an EMP would take me out, did you?" Jake said as he flew in at nearly double the speed of the pursuing hero, although his statement was clearly aimed at Penny Arcade. His bots soon followed suit, having only taken minimum damage from the lasers and their shields keeping them immune from the EMP. Firing on the villainesse again, Jake also joining in this time and firing a Photon Grenade, he hoped to stop her before she reached the sewers. Not for efficiency, not for the right to say that he stopped her in her tracks, but just because he damn well hated the sewers.
"If I was trying to take you out, you would be gone," spat Penny. "I don't have time for this!"
Penny Arcade cursed to herself when the tendrils wrapped around her body. The nature of her armor, which was heavily resistant to such things, meant that neither the frost bolt, nor the speed-sapping tendrils, worked at optimum efficiency. However, they worked well enough, and she veered suddenly off-course, crashing through a light pole, which collapsed in her wake with a thunderous CRASH, rather like a toppling tree.
Things began happening very fast after that.
The hero who had shot the tendrils was attacked by a newcomer, who swooped out of nowhere and breathed a column of fire right at his face. Penny knew not to question such a gift, and acted immediately. A series of circles shimmered overhead for the briefest of moments, as a number of things were teleported through. The circles vanished almost as quickly as they had appeared.
Buster was the first 'bot to reach street level. Anti-teleportation fields had never made much difference to Penny Arcade, and they made no difference now. A thirty-ton behemoth, it landed in the middle of the street with a BOOM. Following closely behind were two smaller drones, Laurel and Hardy, and then the three smallest, Larry, Mo, and Curly.
Each of these drones, taken individually, had a lower threat level than Solid himself. But it became apparant, almost at once, why he had been warned. The drones worked as a team, backing each other up, and acting in harmony. It seemed that their creator had a very good grasp of tactics. Solid was now facing, not just a single villain, but a practiced team of them. While it would not have been possible for Penny Arcade to defeat him alone, the drones, acting in unison, were a very different matter. The gap in clearance levels, alone, was not enough to nullify their threat. It was far from unknown for a well-directed lower-level team to take out a significantly higher-level, single, opponent.
Along with them came reinforcements, of a sort. A force field generator dropped suddenly into view, and one of the 'bots set an acid mortar the moment it arrived. A couple of seeking drones zipped about to increase field of vision and improve targeting. It all dropped down so fast that there was no possible way the 'bots could have been summoned manually. Rather, it seemed all but certain that Penny Arcade had pre-programmed such a sequence for exactly this sort of emergency.
All six bots, in unison, turned and fired at Solid Shot. While it was unlikely that any single bot would have any chance of penetrating his armor, their combined attack was much more potent. More importantly, such a combination produced a staggering amount of force: they were trying to knock him backwards, forcing him to break off his attack. The largest bot, Buster, attacked with only one hand: with his other, he pointed his flamethrower directly at Penny Arcade herself, instantly snapping wires and transforming ice into steam. Solid had interrupted her flight to the sewers, but only momentarily. She would be back up again quickly.
As soon as they had attacked, they whirled, scattering to new positions. Jake's bots would catch up to the group almost instantly, and required different tactics. Comparing bot-for-bot, the two groups really did look a lot alike...
OOC: LET THERE BE 1 v 1 v ? v ? ACTION!!!
Aka "Olololololol, Solid is so screwed."
BIC: "Aw [censored]! I hate friendly fire! And firing squads!" Solid shouted as he was alternately bathed in both laser fire and regular fire, charring and blackening the armor plating protecting his torso and shoulders.
Doing an inelegant backflip through the air as he was hit square in the chest by Buster's plasma cannon, Solid accelerated backward to more properly size up the situation. As he thrustered back out of range of the acid mortar he flipped the bird to the person his targeting systems identified as a friendly.
"Heroes are suppoed to be shooting the VILLAINS!" Solid shouted at the cloaked hero as he waved his finger for emphasis. "Now I'm giving you one more chance to NOT get pegged with a beanbag while I fill the metal brigade here with holes!"
Flicking a switch on his OmniRifle to 'Full Auto', Solid tightly clenched his open hand and slammed it against his chest to make a heavy ringing noise. The noise seemed to grow and crowd out all other noises for the half second it took streamers of energy to erupt from his oversized forearms and into his rifle.
He was overclocking his energy generators in an unhealthy way to pull off this stunt, but Rikti technology was surprisingly adaptive and wouldn't be overly damaged by the massive build up of power in his system. His OmniRifle was also more than hardy enough to handle the heavy electrical charge that was now imbuing every single one of his bullets.
"Shocking, ain't it?" Solid chuckled malevolently as he grabbed the barrel of his gun with his free hand to steady it and pulled on the trigger with his finger.
The bullets that shot out of his gun were effectively all tracer rounds, each and every one of them crackling with an electrical charge that allowed them to hit harder and penetrate better. And given the angle of fire he had, that of straight down the street at a bunch of robots and people right in front of him, there would be plenty of targets for the bullets to slam into.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
Spark Force had known from his more recent contacts that Penny Arcade was on the move but was unsure how to deal with her. He had looked at the file he had sent over to his apartment, and was zooming at superspeed as fast as he could while reading it. After hearing of both Arachnos agents, Longbow, AND a few heroes added to the mix, Kyle figured this was the right place.
"I ought to have me head examined for doing this... But If Arachnos wants this Arcade woman, it can't be good. Better help out as best I can." In flash his attention was darted to the street, where he saw several robots, a woman, and what appeared to be a robot facing them. Slowing down his speed slightly, he turned to the 'bots and crackling with electricity threw a electric bolt at the closest one saw.
Drakonice was just exiting the sewers himself having taken care of rikti and some random clockwork. He was a little beat up but being a tank nothing major. He wore only black tights, a red and black cape, a red aura eminating around him. As he emerged however he saw a girl flying at him at top speed and a few heroes fighting robots. Clearly his day had really just begun. Drakonice erupted in flame and pulled out a stone mallet readying himself for whatever the situation was.
Drakonice shouted at the heroes "Hey do you need some help whats happening."
OOC: Cowman - an icon of greatness! I looooove Freakazoid! Freakazoid FTW! 
BIC: Penny Arcade was acting more and more as if she was under some sort of stress, which was hardly surprising, considering the situation. There were a thousand and one things happening, as there always were at such times.
Her attack on Solid Shot had been successful, so far as it went. She hadn't intended to hurt him or even significantly damage him - and didn't think she could, even if she had wanted to. But she had wanted to knock him back, and the combined force of the laser burst had worked well. Now he was firing back, but the momentary breather had been critical. Her armor was smoking slightly from Buster's burst of flame, and looked somewhat scorched, but the interfering wires had melted away along with the ice, and she was back at full capacity.
Each 'bot was triple bubbled - once from the force field generator, once from Laurel, and once from Hardy. The triple force fields served to prevent Larry, Curly, and Mo from simply being blown to bits by the barrage of electrically-charged bullets, as large holes were blasted through unimportant bits and pieces. Laurel and Hardy, more heavily armored, took the barrage better, though they were heavily dented. Buster didn't even notice, the bullets making *ping* noises as they ricocheted off of his chest and arms. Colleen had been correct in referring to the 'bot as a "tank." From the way it reacted to the bullets, it was doubtful that anything short of a heavy mounted cannon was going to be sufficient to hurt it.... a very heavy mounted cannon.
The electric bolt from Spark Force hit Mo directly in the chest. Its alarms whooped miserably, the smallest drone unable to handle both the hail of bullets and the electric bolt too, its frame smoking, looking as if it was going to fall over at any moment. Laurel turned, and held up a metal hand. From it a greenish mist issued: a swarm of nanites, which covered the failing 'bot briefly in a green glow. The results were instant and dramatic. Holes knitted themselves closed. Much of the smoke vanished. The alarms stopped. While clearly not running at full capacity, the 'drone was again healthy enough to re-enter the fight.
This was potentially bad news for the various heroes who were fighting. How often did the two support bots recharge their supply of nanites? There was no way to tell, but it was clear that it would take coordination, and the concentrated application of firepower, to take down the robotic team.
It was strange to have an alliance, of sorts, with Arachnos. They had used their time well, and had now caught up with the heroes who were trying to take down Penny Arcade. Most of the 'bots had been decimated by the EMP pulses, but Arachnos had sent plenty of other forces, mostly mystically based: Mu of various rankings, Blood Widows, Fortunata. They were hanging back around the edges, but they were quite involved in the battle, firing when the heroes fired, coordinating attacks, not bothering to attack anyone but the lone villain who had stolen the key. Some were distracted by Longbow, but there was enough happening now that Longbow's own forces were diluted. Still, some agents were firing at her also. There was no way she could take such sustained firepower for long, healing 'bots or not.
Then, as was common in such battles, things took a turn for the worse.
Penny Arcade had been running under radio silence. Indeed, she was not known to have any significant partners in crime. But now her earpiece crackled to life. The channel was heavily encrypted. In fact, no one who did not have access to Rikti technology would have had any chance of intercepting the signal.
Penny Arcade had no way of knowing that Solid Shot had access to Rikti technology.
"Penny!" her radio spat at her. The voice, in spite of the precautionary tone scrambling, was clearly male. "You're out of time, get out of there!"
"What happened to radio silence?" She shot back.
"Hang radio silence - He's activating, do you hear me? And he's locking on you! He thinks you're in Cap Au Diable!"
There was a very brief silence, punctuated by the sound of expelling air, as if she had been suddenly punched in the gut. "This is not Cap Au Diable! He's insane - "
"Tell me later, get out of there! "
"How long have I got - "
"Thirty seconds, tops! [/i]Move![/i]"
Her head turned briefly from the chaos surrounding her to the nearby manhole, looking at the hero who had just emerged from it. "No chance," she said flatly. "Go to plan B, I'll have to try to disrupt it from this end."
"You're out of your mind - you don't have the firepower - "
"I know." Penny Arcade reached up, letting her 'bots cover her movements, and unstrapped a large, metal disk from her back. "Are you going to blather all night or are you going to get me coordinates?"
"Should be about half a mile over your head. Fifteen seconds. I'm coming to back you up." The male voice was calm, as if familiar with routines such as this one, as if they had done this sort of thing a thousand times before.
Downloading, said Buster suddenly, audibly - it was a shame to alert the nearby heroes, but it couldn't be helped. They simply hadn't had the time to change Buster's audible mode under such occasions. Its head cocked at an angle, almost as if it was listening to something that only it could hear. Full control in five seconds.
"Thanks." She blasted off, quite literally, her rocket boots providing impressive thrust as she shot straight upwards. Her troupe of 'bots gave a few seconds cover, then followed, letting the force shielding take most of the hits. By now the force field generator was making a high pitched whining noise - it wouldn't last much longer. Buster followed the closest. His size made him a decent shield for Penny Arcade, as he allowed shots to simply ping off of his armor plating.
Download complete, Buster said a quarter of a mile up. The 'bot looked around as if seeing the scene for the first time. What the - did you have to pick a fight with every hero in Paragon? At the same time? Buster's voice was clearly made by a voice synthesizer - it sounded metallic. Yet, the tones and inflection, the way it suddenly flew and looked around, made it appear as if he was a completely different robot... an intelligent robot. A 'he', not an 'it.' More likely, he was a robot now remote-controlled, long distance, from a second villain who might be nearby, but might also be miles away or even in the Rogue Islands themselves.
"Meh. It's traditional. How long?"
Ten seconds. If this doesn't work, we're toast.
"We're not toast." She turned to look at Buster, who looked back at her. "You'll take the encryption key and stop that meglomaniacal idiot before he kills us all."
Roger that.... uploading. Buster looked up. Here it comes.
The first spanner in the works came in the form of a power spike. Every technological or robotic hero or villain in the vicinity detected it at once. A moment later, every non-technological or robotic hero or villain could detect it too, from the way it crackled over skin, and made hair stand on end. It was a massive spike, making the ground vibrate, rattling cars. Its source was not Penny Arcade.
Steel Canyon, at that moment, was cloaked in a set of double force fields. The first set of force fields were the large, entrenched fields which had first been set into place after the invasion of the Rikti. These massive fields remained just as they always were, uncaring of events so petty as the street battle now raging. The second set, however, was much smaller and more fragile - the emergency fields which had been erected upon notification of a known villain in the area.
The emergency fields were maintained by two different types of generators. The first type were permanent generators dotted at strategic locations around the city, usually installed on the tops of various office buildings. The second type were small, portable generators mounted on trucks, which could be moved around from place to place. The truck-mounted generators were of course the most vulnerable. The unfortunate truck which happened to be nearest to the epicenter simply exploded in an enormous fireball. The section of emergency force field which had been maintained by that truck flickered uncertainly, and then died, leaving a squarish gap in the otherwise solid field.
There was a rumbling noise, vibrating through the pavement, through the buildings, through people's shoes. Then it went deadly quiet - the silence before the storm.
Penny Arcade (still holding the disk carefully,) Buster, and the rest of the bots just hung in the air, letting their own force fields take the worst of the incoming fire, just.... waiting.
OOC: Next scene - chaos, chaos, chaos! And Chaos! Oh, and did I mention chaos? MUA ha ha ha ha ha ha!
"New plan as it would seem." Jake said aloud, but clearly to himself. Taking note of the spike in energy, but not taking action for the time being, he threw up a detention field around Buster, who had just made known that he was a bit more intelligent than had previously been given credit for. He immediately ordered his bots up there to attack Penny herself, of course adding in targetting alterations to account for the refraction of the lasers their shields would cause. He flew up there as well, encased in the most powerful shield he could possibly have without cutting him off completely from the world outside. Throwing up detention fields around other bots now, specifically the Protector Bots, he maintained a steady rhythymn that kept all three of them trapped while his bots dealt out some damage to Penny.
After trying (rather unsuccessfully) to dodge the various attacks, Spark Force was also attempting not to hit any Longbow, fellow heroes, or to be put in the cross-fire. "This is why I LOATHE robots, you know?" He asked himself as he tried to speed away from the various 'bots.
[ QUOTE ]
"New plan as it would seem." Jake said aloud, but clearly to himself. Taking note of the spike in energy, but not taking action for the time being, he threw up a detention field around Buster, who had just made known that he was a bit more intelligent than had previously been given credit for. He immediately ordered his bots up there to attack Penny herself, of course adding in targetting alterations to account for the refraction of the lasers their shields would cause. He flew up there as well, encased in the most powerful shield he could possibly have without cutting him off completely from the world outside. Throwing up detention fields around other bots now, specifically the Protector Bots, he maintained a steady rhythymn that kept all three of them trapped while his bots dealt out some damage to Penny.
[/ QUOTE ]
There was no doubt to anyone, as he worked with robots and force fields, that Penny Arcade was in trouble. Nor was he the only one who had thought to turn and fire on her. A number of Longbow had stayed on target, and were swooping around. In addition, while most of the robotic forces of Arachnos had been taken out by the EMP pulses, not all of them had. A variety of drones were sweeping around as well as the Mu mystics. Above him a series of seven drones had ringed themselves back-to-back, bracing themselves on the top corner of the tallest office building. They had assembled what looked like a heavy-duty cannon, and were trying to aim it.
Aiming, in general, seemed to be a problem with Penny Arcade. His 'bots had no problems with the shields, but those shots which they took directly at Penny Arcade all seemed to go wide. She had some sort of jamming gear in place - the bots couldn't get a lock. Not just his bots, either: none of the Arachnos bots seemed to be having any better luck. Lasers were flying all over the place but only a couple of shots actually connected, and these were deflected by her armor.
However, while the jamming gear was effective for herself, it was not in place for any of her robotic crew. Laurel and Hardy flailed rather uncertainly when placed in the detention fields. They were obviously disoriented, uncertain of what to do, but didn't seem to be in any particular distress.
Not so with Buster. In fact, it was in detaining Buster that the luck of the battle changed.
He was not the only one to recognize the threat that Buster posed. The Mu adepts had been in the area as well, but none had bothered him, concentrating instead on Penny Arcade's group, and primarily on Buster. Though the jamming field had a big effect on the number of shots which were coming through to Penny Arcade herself, Buster was, quite literally, an equally large deterrant. He was simply big enough to be difficult to shoot around, and he was impossible to shoot through. He saw Jake's intent and whirled, swinging his weapons around. "No!" He cried - but too late, the detention field hit him square on. His big, solid form faded to almost transparency as he was shifted out of phase.
At the same moment, behind and below Jake, there was a noise, a chilling ka-THWUMP sound. It didn't take long to find the source.
Buster was so big, and so solid, that nothing short of mounted heavy cannon fire had a chance of damaging him. Arachnos appeared to have anticipated the problem. The drones who had entrenched themselves on the corner of the office building below him had assembled and fired a sizeable cannon at the behemoth. The corner of the building had cracked from the force of the launch, and the shell, with a diameter as large as his waist, only just missed him, to strike Buster squarely in the chest.
Or would have... except that Buster was no longer in phase with the shell, or with anything else for that matter. The shell passed right through him, harmlessly, and continued on.
"Penny!" All Buster could do was call out to her. "Heads up!"
Like Buster himself, Penny Arcade turned too late.
Neither the force field generator, nor the unfortunate form of Curly, served to even slow the shell down. The generator, though not hit directly, simply could not deflect any more damage, and exploded into twisted strips of metal. Curly didn't even have time to sound an alarm, his once-sleek form shattering into more twisted strips of metal as the shell passed through him. The damage to the shell wasn't sufficient to set it off.
To her credit, Penny Arcade did try to dodge. But the sudden removal of Buster had clearly caught her off-guard. The flash was blinding. The force of the explosion sent pieces of drones flying in every direction: Larry and Mo had been too close. Penny Arcade went flying in a long streamer of smoke, through the wall of one of the skyscrapers below. It was impossible to tell what sort of damage she might have suffered.
The mu adept next to Jake, though, was elated. "Yes! Well done!" He seemed pleased to have finally gotten a solid hit.
Well, this had certainly gone south fast. And there he'd thought this would be an easyly and quickly executed operation.
Then again, no accounting for Murphy's Law, he supposed. He'd just have to do this the old-fashioned way. Hopefully, things wouldn't deteriorate any more than they already had.
He gave the order...
--------------------
As she crashed through the wall in a gout of dust and debris, Penny very awkwardly entered one of the X plus seven number of abandoned office buildings Paragon seemed to have these days. Light fixtures hung raggedly from the ceiling, the walls were scuffed and grimy, furniture lay overturned all over, and there was no telling what the original color of the carpet had been anymore.
Long story short, her arrival didn't change the decor much.
The place already looked like it had been through a meat grinder, and so Penny's smashing down of a few walls went largely unnoticed by the building itself.
Sadly, not by the Arachnos agents that had been on their way to the roof, their mumbles of how stairs were creations of the devil because the elevators had no power quickly eclipsed by the crashes of Penny Aracade.
"There she is!" yelled the team's Mu Striker at the duo of Wolf Spiders, "Quickly, get her!"
The Arachnos agents stormed forward, the floating Mu finding himself only barely keeping pace with the now very excited Wolf Spiders. This capture could get them a rank, maybe promoted to the Crab Spider division.
"Wait!" the Mu suddenly exclaimed, looking to the ceiling, "Sto..!"
The two men of Arachnos dropped to the floor without warning and from one second to another, as if their entire motoric nervous systems had just shut down. They fell flat on their faces, slumping into bent heaps with limbs of rubber, then remained there, still and motionless.
Not half a second later, the same fate befell the Striker, the Mu mystic suspending his bound hover for a half-slump on a somewhat raggedy bench.
The cause seemed immediate, close, and self-evident.
In a corner of the room stood a man garbed in black, the omnipresent shadows of the abandoned office making it difficult to discern any of his features. He was covered in head to toe, a full mask of cloth draped even over his face, the gloves of his hands, boots of his feet all in the same matte black. The only distinct pieces were the long cloak that hung from his head, running over back and shoulders, and the duster-like hat on top of it all.
No, there was one more thing.
In the glove of his right hand, the man held a pure-white conductor's baton, still outstretched towards the Arachnos operatives as if it was a lethal weapon.
Without a word, he flipped the thing back into his belt, then rushed over to the mound of rubble Penny had ended up in, starting to dig for her with downright robotic tenacity.
There really wasn't much of a plan as of yet - dig Penny out, load her onto his back, and then run like hell.
There was, however, more to this than met the eye, as anyone with any sort of energetic detection means would quickly discover.
Whatever had struck down the Arachnos operatives, it hadn't come from the baton.
It had come from straight above, through the ceiling of this floor and all the ones above...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
[ QUOTE ]
Penny Arcade went flying in a long streamer of smoke, through the wall of one of the skyscrapers below. It was impossible to tell what sort of damage she might have suffered.
[/ QUOTE ]
"Oh no," Glimmer whispered from Tommy's shoulder.
"Gummin' up our mission they is. Gettin' in our way," Scratch rasped angrily. "Hurts 'em boss. HURTS 'EM BAD!"
Tommy had no alternative but to comply. Wrapping himself in mystical flames, the boy looked down toward the large gun and stopped hovering, letting himself fall straight down on it. The small burning figure, aided by momentum, tore straight through the machine causing an explosion that sent bits of masonary falling toward the street below.
However, the flames of the blast did not dissipate. Instead they continued to swirl about, eventually coalescing into streams of fire, the boy barely visible through the haze, arms outstretched as he held the flames around him. Clenching his hands tightly, he brought his arms around in a throwing motion, sending volleys of deadly fire streaking for the Arachnos and Longbow forces.
The street below erupted in several explosions. Arachnos drones erupted into flaming wreckage, Crabspiders and Blood Widows where sent flying right along with Longbow agents. A flyer took one of the missiles straight through the cockpit, the hovering machine blossoming into a fireball of it's own.
Tommy took to the air again, the ropey gray muscle that made up his body slowly winding itself back together where it had been damaged in the explosion. With Scratch's delighted cackling in his ear, the boy swooped down toward the building that Penny had disappeared into.
OOC: I lied, I actually got back today.
BIC: "That was entirely uncalled for!" Solid shouted from the depths of the truck trailer he had been knocked into by the explosion.
Managing to extricate himself from the wreck, Solid set his nano-bots to repairing as much damage as they could while he tried to survey the situation. Penny Arcade was gone from his sight, though the giant hole in the office building a bit down the way was probably where she landed. Her bots seemed to be mostly gone as well, the only ones left seemed to be alternately trapped in some ultra-dense force field or forcibly shifted out of phase with reality.
An explosion from the top of another building heralded the end of the Arachnos cannon-thing and a good number of support troops that had been near it. It also took out several Longbow Eagles that had still been in pursuit; which pissed Solid off a bit. Longbow might be kind of (more like really) annoying at times, but they were doing good like other heroes were.
"Hey Colleen, still tagging along?" Solid asked. "If so, try and look through your files for a hero matching the description of trigger happy up there. I think after this is over he's going to need to have some friendly guys in white suits knocking on his door."
"Will do, Solid," Colleen replied. "But I can't promise anything."
"No problemo. You should have plenty of time to search while I check in on our perp."
Shooting back up into the air, Solid introduced a Mu Adept to a beanbag and consequently ignored the unconscious soldier as he fell to the ground and landed in a garbage truck. Keeping a safe distance back, Solid activated the high-powered scope on his rifle, linked it to his targeting eye, and selected his LRM launcher. He peered through the dust and smoke kicked up by Penny's landing and watched carefully while leaving one eye open to make sure no one tried to ambush the android while he was concentrating.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
"Well that'll do it..." Jake muttered, grinning at the sight of the damage done to Penny. He gave a friendly wave to Buster as he rocketed off to Penny's location, making sure that the robot wouldn't be escaping his phased out prison any time soon. He reached the sight of her obvious crash relatively unscathed, his bots fairing about the same. He looked around the room, oblivioius to the chaos happening outiside the building. Taking note of the unconscious Arachnos soldiers, he cautiously ordered his bots to take aim at Penny's would-be savior, ordering the man to keep out of affairs that don't involve him.
Outside the old office building, things were picking up steam.
Longbow and Arachnos darted and swooped, firing at each other now that the higher-threat heroes were occupied. Almost unnoticed in the battle, subtle warnings were becoming less subtle.
The unfortunate generator truck was still burning. Within a few blocks, several other trucks were now overheating. A gap was already present in the emergency force fields. Now several areas around the gap were flickering, on the verge of failure, as their supporting generators far below ran themselves red-hot against some unknowable force. The air resonated with an annoying, high-pitched whine which was becoming louder at every moment, the pitch rising higher and higher.
Inside, however, Penny Arcade was aware of none of this.
Emergency Systems Online.
Penny Arcade's armor was something else. Its outer substance was all but indestructable. Its center layer served to dissipate any energy or force which somehow managed to penetrate the outer shell. The interior lining served to monitor the life signs of the pilot, its nanotechnology ready at any time to arrest bleeding, introduce lifesaving drugs, or solidify itself into temporary splints around broken bones.
All of which meant that Penny Arcade was still alive.
Exterior armor durability reduced to 67%. Estimated time to completion of repairs: four hours, seventeen minutes. Pilot lifesigns: 42%. The words flashed across the interior surface of a cracked and broken faceplate, as the soft voice of Autopilot whispered into the pilot's ears. Internal bleeding detected. Multiple fractures sustained. Recommendation: teleportation and immediate hospitalization. Activation of teleportation sequence in 10... 9... 8...
"...over..ride..."
Override command acknowledged. Teleportation sequence deactivated.
WARNING + WARNING + WARNING
Unnecessary movement risks aggravating injuries. Estimated time of consciousness maintenance: sixteen minutes. Survival probability upon unconsciousness: 54%.
WARNING + WARNING + WARNING
"Just... do what you can..."
Acknowledged. Emergency medical protocols activated. Initiating consciousness maintenance...
[/color]
Penny Arcade's vision cleared as Autopilot dumped massive quantities of lifesaving medicines into her bloodstream. She hurt. The pain was concentrated heavily in her arm and leg, and left side. She couldn't think why her side would hurt - The shell, that's why.
Oh yes... the shell. Meant to take out Buster. Penny found herself amazed that she was still alive. She had blacked out momentarily... and then what? There was dust... rubble... an old abandoned building, in Paragon somewhere. Paragon - that awareness crystallized her thoughts, as her memory seemed to pan around, showing her recent events in a big, panoramic swoop. She had a vague idea she had come through the wall -
Movement attracted her attention, and a thrill of fear went through her. To be captured alive in Paragon was to be vivisected. She turned to see a black robed figure digging at her. She had no idea how long he had been digging there, of how he had found her fingertips first, of how he had pushed aside bloodstained rocks to get to her. She knew only that he was a big, dark-clad figure in a city where she was a known enemy. Penny Arcade did not have the good fortune to live in a place where mercy or kindness were commonplace, and she was afraid of what he might do.
"Don't!" She extended a hand as if it was all she needed to stop him. In her palm she held a small, ominous looking metal disk. "Back off!"
She looked awful. A large chunk of her faceplate was simply gone. The armor was heavily cracked and portions of it, particularly around the ribs where the shell had landed, were also gone. There was a lot of blood. She was forced to stop, rolling over on her knees and coughing up a quantity of blood, before looking up again. Her face was gray, but young, very young, not quite a kid, but not quite an adult.
There were others here as well. The gray mechanical-looking hero: the kid who thought she had stolen his designs; another kid in something ragged and red. All looking at her. If she showed weakness now, she would end up dead, or captured which was the same thing in slow motion. "All of you..." She couldn't stand. Her leg was broken. But the antigravs, amazingly, were still functional, and that sufficed, leaving her floating a few inches off the ground.
There was a tube in her mouth; she could hear it hiss, and it tasted like oxygen. Yet she still couldn't seem to catch her breath... she supposed that was a bad sign. "I won't... be taken. I mean it... back off." She did mean it. Better the quick self-imposed death over the slow torture of vivisection. She wouldn't take anyone with her, but of course they had no way of knowing that.
At that moment, however, her intentions were rendered irrelevant.
Outside, the high pitched whining reached a crescendo. Nearby windows cracked. Another two generator trucks abruptly exploded into fireballs, one on the heels of the other. Flying things - Longbow agents, Arachnos agents, various robots - fell out of the sky, most catching themselves before they reached street level.
In a pinpoint spot some forty stories above street level, the sky abruptly fell in upon itself, warping in excruciating fractals until the fabric of reality tore itself apart. Beginning as a pinpoint, in seconds it had enlarged itself to the size of a basketball.
Every window shattered at once, as soon as it formed, but the glass did not fall down towards the street. Instead it was sucked upwards into the whirling maelstrom. Anything not bolted down rose into the air: robots, shrapnel, cars. The sky went an angry, violent purple, as if heavily bruised, and clouds formed where moments ago there had been a clear blue sky, and the clouds swirled themselves into a spiral, mirroring the whirlpool which had formed below.
It was an awful thing, to have a hole in the world. On the other side was everything which was darkness and violence, disharmony and unbalance, fear and blackness and death. The war between Arachnos and Longbow broke up instantly. Most of the agents simply, and wisely, turned and ran for shelter. Most civilians had already been evacuated.
"Listen - to me!" Penny Arcade shouted - she had to shout over the sudden din which made it almost impossible to hear. She was gasping for air, blood still trickling from a corner of her mouth, but her face was determined. "We have... fifty three seconds... until the interface... stabilizes! Until then... it's unstable... if we can put enough... enough firepower in it... it will collapse! If this thing picks up momentum," she coughed painfully, "By the time... Freedom Phalanx notices... we will all be dead. Everybody... everybody will be dead."
She lifted a trembling hand, and wiped away a drip of blood which was falling into her eyes. "Funny thing..." she mused, "I came here... wanted to prevent casualties." She shook her head at how things had gone. "Please... please help me," she said simply. "I will try to stop this but... don't have the firepower... to close it alone." She stood up straighter. "You either need... to help me close the portal... or you need to get to safety... get out of ground zero. Get your... families out, if you have any." Her lips thinned. Around her, the junk nearest to the hole in the building wall began to rattle. A filing cabinet abruptly rose, slamming against the edge of the hole in the wall, opening itself up and spilling out a cloud of papers before spinning outside and rising to the whirlpool, its papers following it like a swarm of bees. The hole in the center of the storm was already the size of a small car. "In either case... you need to get out of my way. I have... I have a job to do." She glared at them all equally.
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OOC: please do not blow up my portal with one fell zap. I have plans... heh, heh, heh.
OOC #2: Yes, this is our "main villain" of the scene. Big purple clouds, lightning etc... think of a combination of "The Black Hole" (anyone remember that movie?) and "Ghostbusters..."
OOC:
Thought I would post an additional story! As always, anyone, heroes or villians are welcome. Please no god-moding, yadda yadda yadda. The opening setting is somewhere in Paragon City.
Enjoy!
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Penny Arcade looked down at the city far below. "Boy," she mused, "It's been a long time since I've seen this place."
"You'll be seeing the inside of the Zig!"
Penny Arcade turned and looked at Dr. Justin Malcolm. He was an older man, with a beard and white lab coat. He looked fearful, but resigned, and drew himself up to his not-inconsiderable height. "You've wasted your time! I'll never give up the encryption key! Not to a villain of your reputation."
She arched an eyebrow at him. "Don't be ridiculous. Of course you'e going to give me the encryption key."
His chin went up. "Never! Do your worst!" But in spite of the bravado in his voice, his eyes darted fearfully to Buster.
Buster, the largest of Penny Arcade's contingent of drones, was a thirty-ton behemoth standing eleven feet tall. Currently it was hovering on its heavy-industrial-rated antigravs: it had to, as the floor in this building wasn't rated for its weight. Standing nearby him were three battle drones, designated Larry, Mo, and Curly, and by the door were two additional drones, larger than the battle drones but much smaller than Buster - Laurel and Hardy.
Penny Arcade held up an armored hand. It was impossible to see her face, for she was wearing a battle-suit which covered every inch of her form. The suit had once belonged to Crey Industries, but it had been altered and repainted and was no longer recognizable for what it was. "Dr. Malcolm, I assure you I have better things to do than to rip out your fingernails," (Dr. Malcolm shuddered at this, in spite of himself.) "The reason you are going to give me the encryption key is because your own research will compel you to do so."
"What do you know about my research?" His tone was suspicious.
"Trying to draw me out? Very good, excellent interrogation technique, my compliments," Penny Arcade smiled. "But I don't have time to discuss your work, though I assure you I have read your scientific publications with great interest. To sum up: you know that the Freakshow has stolen prototype spectrum stabilizer from the Crey corporation, and they plan to sell it to partes unknown for purposes unknown. It is your belief that said unknown parties intend to use the stabilizer to build a device which would open an interdimensional portal. Are we in agreement so far?"
"Yesssssss...." Dr. Malcolm didn't look at all pleased.
"Good. I have some information for you. Your belief is correct, but your timeline is off. The buyer is a certain branch of Arachnos, and they don't plan to build a portal... they have already built one. The stabilizer is the last piece that they need to get it operational. I took the liberty of borrowing a copy of their blueprints..." From a compartment in Buster's enormous arm, she took a roll of large, stained, scorched paper, and unrolled it on the nearest table.
"Is this blood?" Dr. Malcolm approached in spite of itself, staring at the considerable damage on the prints.
"Don't worry, it's not mine."
"That's what concerns me..." He looked over the blueprints for a moment, and turned white as a sheet. Mo had to lay a steadying hand on his arm to prevent him from falling.
There was a long silence.
Dr. Malcolm swallowed hard. "Longbow - "
"- would never believe me," Penny Arcade responded. "You yourself pointed out my reputation. Even if you vouch for its authenticity, they'll want to check my story. That will take time. By the time they realize they realize the meaning of these blueprints, and launch a task force, it will be far too late." She produced a much smaller piece of paper, a photograph, and laid it in the center of the table.
"You'll use the key for your own ends afterwards," he growled. Dr. Malcolm was looking shaky. There was real fear creeping into his voice.
"Of course I will... but if the immediate concern isn't addressed... there won't be an afterwards." Penny Arcade looked almost sympathetic to his dilemma. "I realize it's terribly difficult to provide assistance to someone on the other side of the fence, so to speak. Would it make you feel better if I threatened you life and limb?" All the bots, including Buster, pointed their weapons directly at him. "Told you I had... I don't know... bombs in the building, or the Doomsday Destruction weapon, or some such thing?"
Dr. Malcolm took a breath. "The key is in the safe on the first floor," he said, in a rather choked voice. "It will only open for me. I'll escort you."
Penny Arcade smiled, rolling up the plans and storing them safely in their previous location. "There, you see? I knew you were a reasonable - "
"STOP RIGHT THERE, VILLIAN!"
The Longbow contingent was a team of first responders. The lead was clearly an officer and took the time to point at her commandingly. "You're under arrest! Surrender now!"
Penny Arcade's eyebrows went up. "Ah, of course you tripped the silent alarm when you first saw me. Interesting, they've changed the frequency. You should wear this, Doctor." She tossed him a gas mask.
Dr. Malcolm caught the mask, but looked horrified. "No, wait!" He called to Longbow. "You don't understand - "
In the back of the Longbow group, one of the younger-looking ones (Penny Arcade suspected they were very new) gasped, "Oh NO! Penny Arcade has kidnapped Dr. Malcolm!"
Penny Arcade knelt down, working with something that Dr. Malcolm couldn't see.
"Call reinforcements! Protect Dr. Malcolm!"
"No, no!" howled Dr. Malcolm.
"FIRE!" barked the Longbow officer.
A number of things happened at that moment.
Buster interposed himself between the good Doctor and the oncoming Longbow assault personnel, effectively blocking any chance of a stray shot harming him. Laurel and Hardy cast bubbles around him of an eerie, shimmering sea-green, providing him additional protection from any possibility of injury, and furthermore granting him with a limited supply of fresh air.
The Longbow contingent fired with practiced precision, filling the small space with arrows. Personnel with larger weapons aimed them directly at Penny Arcade, knocking her back into the wall. Her armor didn't seem at all bothered by the hit, and neither did its wearer. Arrows pinged off the tough armor of the drones, and a stray rocket punched a hole in the back wall.
Then, and only then, did the Drones respond in defense.
The firefight was instant and brutal. The acid mortar which Penny Arcade had successfully laid down made small, regular ka-JUNK noises, spraying the air in a fine green mist. The green mist was thickened by a small bottle which she had also laid on the ground: one of the clumsy Longbow, eager to fire at her, shattered it with his foot, and it exploded into pea-soup fog. At once the Longbow staggered, gasping and choking, and making themselves easy work for the drones.
But when they were hit by the lasers, the Longbow did not fall. They simply... disappeared. The fight was very short indeed.
Dr. Malcolm frowned at her. He had put on his gas mask - or rather, one of the drones had insisted that he do so - but his voice, though muffled, was still understandable. "Those guns are too low-caliber to be teleporters."
"True. This way to the first floor, Dr. Malcolm."
They were met by various Longbow agents on the way, and the fights were almost identical. Penny Arcade never fired first. Dr. Malcolm tried to shout, but Longbow, intent on preventing what they saw as a kidnapping, was not in a state of mind to listen. At any rate, Longbow was too scattered in the building to be much of an immediate threat.
Dr. Malcolm did not speak again until they were on the first floor, and he had opened the safe, handing Penny Arcade a small card that, before tonight, he would never have dreamed of handing over willingly. "I don't believe you're a villain," he said as he handed it over. "Not really."
"Doctor Malcolm!" Penny Arcade looked shocked. "What a horrible thing to say! And after I have taken such good care of you, too! How can you think such a thing?"
"After observing your blasters... I have a good guess of how they must work," he said, as she gestured him to a nearby chair.
"Oh? And how is that?"
"You've hacked into the Paragon teleportation system. The first round puts something on your target, probably the microtransmitter which forms the basis for the hospital patches which all Paragon City heroes use. The second shot trips them. The teleportation system then receives a 'hero in trouble' alert and teleports the target to the nearest hospital facility - thus not only ensuring that no one gets hurt, but if somebody should accidentally take some damage, they end up at the hospital anyway." He paused. "That's also why you've never been stopped by anti-teleportation shielding."
"Because I am not a big enough threat to risk an actual hero getting hurt," Penny Arcade smirked. "Very good. There are only two problems with your theory. Sit here, please, Doctor."
Dr. Malcolm hesitated, but Buster shifted his weight, and he obediantly sat down in the chair. Penny Arcade produced a roll of duct tape, and after wrapping his wrists first in plastic, taped them securely. "First of all, it would be counter-productive to transport them to a nearby facility."
"So, what I am hearing is, they're at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, instead of Mercy Memorial."
"Touche. If you must know, the Statesman Research Center is the facility which is geographically furthest from this location."
"And the second problem?"
"I have a reputation to protect," Penny finished her taping, and put a gag in Dr. Malcolm's mouth. "Now, a new detachment of Longbow should arrive in five to seven minutes and find you here. I expect you to tell them what a harrowing time you have had - "
She never finished speaking. At that moment the back wall burst inwards, showering everyone with dust and rubble.
The Arachnos contingent was significantly larger than the Longbow contingent had been. Penny Arcade stared for a moment. She couldn't help but wonder how they got into the city? It had been enough of a risk for her to sneak in, alone. Then she caught herself - they must have come up through the sewers. Their leader was a Mu Adept. Beyond him she could see Blood Widows, Fortunata, Arachnos soldiers of various ranks, Drones and controllers, and Tarantula bots. Lots and lots of Tarantula bots.
"PENNY ARCADE! HAND OVER THE ENCRYPTION KEY!" Thundered the Adept.
The weapons of the Tarantula bots were already swinging around. She had a bare second to act.
"Or not," she finished. "Larry?"
The drone picked up the chair, Dr. Malcolm and all, and shot forwards, only moments after Penny Arcade herself, propelled by powerful rocket-boots. Behind them, Buster and the other drones closed ranks. They would be chopped to bits by the oncoming Arachnos forces, but they would buy precious time.
They burst out the front doors of the building, shattering them into showers of glass. But any thought of easy escape were instantly quelled by the hastily-erected force fields surrounding the area. The forces of Paragon City, as was their habit, had sealed off the block. From above her were more shouts: "STOP PENNY ARCADE!" And "She's got Dr. Malcolm!" "Protect Dr. Malcolm!" Lasers went whizzing past her ears.
She swore between gritted teeth, swerving suddenly to avoid a Longbow Eagle who swooped at her. Larry stuck very close to her, careful to keep the chair upright at all times, and the shots of the Longbow went wide, lest they hit Dr. Malcolm. "This encryption key better be something else," she muttered, and returned fire, her laser splashing twice across the chest of the intruding Eagle. A look of surprise came over his face as he disappeared.