R.A.P.I.E.R - Captain's Log

((This is an in-character roleplay thread open to invited guests and members of the US Army, RAPIER division))

[u]Episode One: Cavern of Lava[u]

Rapier Helicarrier, Training Hall

Fire above 900 °C, a simple heat and light energy can reduce the human body to ashes in minutes. Yet as a hundred bolts of these scorching flames strike Director Pious Hunter, his burning skin merely grew anew. A small metal device in his right hand shot upwards to form an energy sword and collided with the thick hide of a giant magma monster, ripping open a fiery gash at the neck. Pious hauled himself off the monster with an elegant back-flip, narrowly missing a sea of lava bleeding from the monster’s neck. Not a second’s rest and Pious was again under assault from a gang of two dozen magma monsters. With a defiant stance, he readies for level three of the simulation training.

The room had slowed for Cypher, the sprout of liquid rock from the monsters neck merely crept towards him. Side stepping to avoid it, Cypher came up behind another rock-made fiend. Focusing himself, he sank back on his rear leg.
The world sped up as he unleashed a massive roundhouse kick, seemingly from nowhere as he came out of stealth, which disintegrated the monsters head; the body slumping forwards onto its knees and then its front.
Landing gracefully, the Colonel looked up to see several magma monsters had taken notice and were stomping towards him. He allowed the to get close, for the first one to take a swing; he dodged it, rolling between two of the beasts. They both looked down at him, their rock minds trying to think quick enough. They both swung at empty air, colliding their first with each others chests - disintegrating each other; as Cypher looked down from a perch up high, and watched the progress of the rest of the team, as he went back into stealth.

As the others in the room used their moves and weapons, Commander OmegaPrime quickly popped open his grenade attachment on the bottom of his rifle, plugging in another one quickly and slamming the compartment shut. He had no time to aim nor think about, as he unleashed it straight at the lava beast that was standing between him and the next platfrom.
The grenade stuck in fast, beeping a few times before exploding, sending bits of the monster flying. OmegaPrime just stood there as the parts smacked into his armour, it's cover just seem to aborsb the heat instead of melting, leaving the harden rock on him.
Quickly glancing about that the room, he allowed his targeting eyepiece to lock-on to the next nearest beast before he sprayed out a burst from the rifle's machinegun.

"COOL IT!" shouted Bullet Man, as he raced into view, launching up at one of the monsters chests. With a burst of air rushing away from him, he hung in mid air before unleashing a furious battery kicks and punches. Chunks of rock flew off in every direction and with the final kick he push away.

"HNGH... woaaaaah!" Smack.

Nutting his head on the monsters crotch, Bullet Man found himself dangling by one leg from its huge grip. Only leaving scratches on its thick hide, it wasn't furious, it was tepid. Almost uncaring as it swung the hero away and moved off to find a more interesting opponent.

"Aaahhh! Oohf." he landed face first in the dirt, looking skywards toward the upside down monster that skulked off in the direction of the others. "Ouch."

Multiple giant grotesque looking lava beasts ran awkwardly towards Raven. The usual smirk on his face widened as he fired of a giant ball of flame towards the beasts. The impact from the hit blowing his cape back. Raven searched around the room for the next beasts to beat on, when out of the corner of his eye he saw multiple chunks of molten rock flying in his general direction.

"Well slap me on the ar*e and call me bloody betsy" Raven said to himself as supersped out the way, ridding his cape of flames.
"You know...burnt capes don't look to bad" still muttering to himself neglecting to notice the beasts. Another rock flew in his direction.

Raven slapped himself on the head
"Beasts right yeh"
Raven clenched his fists and surrounded them with a field of kinetic energy, before blasting off at superspeed towards the magma fiends, blowing apart the beasts.

...Well most of them, another beast lunged at Raven from behind, in a quick, seamless maneuver Raven delivered a round house kick to the beasts chest followed by a sneaky kinetic energy backed trip knocking the beasts onto the ground with a slam. As the beast hit the floor Raven stabbed his hand into the beasts...heart..., and unleashed a horrendous amount of kinetic energy in every direction, the beast going with the flow of energy.

Pyro Raven scanned the room for the next brawl noticing Bullet Man on the floor, putting his iPOD earphone back in he Sped around the room looking to see where he could get his next private fight.

Retcon briefly wondered if the real cryogenic bullets were as robust as those used for this training exercise he’d never really trusted anything more complex than his M1911A1 side arm, currently it was loaded with bullets designed for this type of combat situation designed so that after a second impact (The first being the one that fired the bullet) the casing of the bullet would break apart unleashing the super cooled high pressure gas with in.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bulletman his long time colleague in various special ops hit the floor, the beast that had flung him walking away seemingly unharmed, a pale light pulsed in his eyes and he felt blood rush through his brain as he fired his talent. Bulletman rolled to his feet glaring at the back of the stone beast, the creature took another step and staggered as fault lines formed inside it’s body stone fell away from stone and the creature collapsed leaking molten rock across the ‘caverns’ floor.

Retcon side stepped as a creature brought a flaming arm down where seconds earlier he had stood firing over his shoulder twice in quick succession the traditional method of special operations double tap once to the chest, the recoil of the pistol moving it upwards so the second shot hit the head. The creature collapsed as the area where the bullets hit rapidly cooled from magma to stone, the change in temperature cracking and shattering the beasts. In a real life situation Retcon guessed the creature would of exploded into razor sharp shards of stone, and true to form the simulation provided the same event. He braced himself as the pulse of his talent sent lights dancing in his mind, a series of shards hit the back of his uniform reflecting off the armour pads.

Spinning he placed three bullets in three separate creatures, ejecting the pistols cartridge bay he threw it in and the final bullet within it into the gaping maw of another creature. As it the casing on the bullet melted releasing the gas inside the beast the burst of super chilled vapour ripped the creatures chest open; as the creature bellowed and collapsed in on itself Retcon reloaded a fresh bay of bullets and moved on feeling events shift around him.

Perched atop a rocky outcrop and taking a moment's respite to assess the situation, Emily One brought up her team mates locations on the helmets overhead display. The red circles were fairly spread out, luckily the lava beasts didn't seem to be organised and so no one was yet getting swarmed. Best to stay up on high though, one bad hit would put her out of the exercise and cause some embarrassment.

Lining up the red dot scope with the head of a beast trying to claw it's way up to her position, it's hands sinking into the rock as if it offered no resistance whatsoever. She braced as the customised rifle pounded several high powered cryogenic bullets into it's open maw, flicking her head back to the action as it fell away to the ground, lifeless.

Warning lights blinking on the inside of her helmet as flaming bolts of magma arced towards her, Emily slid down the sloped side of the rock, firing a smoke canister at the floor to cover herself as she slipped away. Emerging some distance off to see the two beasts looking for her with angry looks she took aim, ready to fire and move once more.

Director Irene Trenz watched the action in the Training Hall from the safety of the observation deck. Sat in a comfy-looking leather chair with her feet on the desk, just out of the way of one of the many monitors displaying the feeds from the camera drones floating above everyone, Trenz had a mobile phone almost glued to her ear as she argued with whoever happened to be on the other end.

"Is it really necessary? Yes, but can't it wait? Oh for... okay, okay, fine. We'll send him over first thing." As she hung up, she let out a sigh before brushing her greyed hair and taking one more look at the monitors. Any effort to conceal her concern at what she herself beleived to be sup-par performance proved to be for naught.

"Ugh. Is this R.A.P.I.E.R or a circus?" she asked herself as she began to write a small note on a sheet of paper, next to the name 777.

Bullet Man nodded to his comrade Retconn and rose to his feet looking around the room.

"Bullets, Fire and Swords... Where's the cla--" he watched with his mouth a gape as someone fulfilled his wish with some real style, downing an enemy with a combination of powers and moves.

"Oh right."

Colonel Richard Hawk rolled up his sleeves, revealing a pair of gun metal bracelets on either wrist. "Time to bring out the big guns."

Holding his hands palm to palm infront of him, Bullet Man grabbed his wrists and firmly twisted the mechanism on his bracelets. A flash of brilliant yellow light sparked up his arm and cut out at his shoulders. There he now stood with gleaming gold arms, the colour and sheen of a highly polished rifle shell.

"Haven't had to bring the noise in a long time... Better go to Level 3, Level 1 won't cut it!" Grabbing his belt he flicked a pair of switches on either hip, extending two more flashes of light down his legs.

Finally, he held his aviator shades on either side.

"LEVEL THREE!!"

Another blinding flash finished the transformation, melting the glasses onto his face, the liquid metal ran across his skin like Golden Mercury quicker than a speeding bullet. Running into his nose and mouth a thin filtering mesh covered his airwaves, the light passed beneath his shirt and the kevlar vest he was wearing, completing the armour across his chest and back.

"I. Am Buuulleeeet Maaaaaan." he whispered to himself in the style of Black Sabbaths song as he picked up his pace toward the nearest Molten Magma Monster. A subtle bluish-purple aura that burned away from his new skin, illuminated a new techno pattern of markings in the same colours on his new skin.

He lept from the floor and hung in the air, throwing his legs forward and bulls-eyeing his target igneous in a triangle pattern with his hands held in front of him. Dipping his head, he threw his arms back and clenched them into fists.

Then he Vanished.

The next thing anyone knew about it, the target igneous burst into an incredibly fine shower of molten rock and white hot sparks. An ear piercing sonic boom similar to an F16 and a 100mm Battleship Cannon making love followed a vapour trail that cut its path through where the monster had stood fractions of seconds ago.

At it's end, the trail of vapourised air finished with a slim impact crater that had torn through whatever material the walls were made of.

Bullet Man was gone... Where to, wasn't exactly clear...

It was a sound Retcon knew well the noise his squad mate Bulletman made whenever he broke the speed of sound. Underneath his stealth gear he smiled grimly, they’d been doing this competition across continents, missions and years, each trying to prove themselves the better at using their new talents.

‘Fine it’s on like donkey kong mother ******’ he muttered voice distorted by his breath mask

His vision tinted the world purple as he fully utilised his talent the world around him turning into simple facts and events, Emily One was okay, the Director seemed to be okay despite the amount of creatures he was gaining the attention of. Omegaprime fine and the guy Retcon secretly believed to be a few sandwiches, a basket and a park short of a picnic seemed to be thriving.

Feeling rather than seeing Bullet Mans path trough the room, Retcon dismissed the idea of making him mess up despite his irritating habits they’d faced down threats to the country and stared death in the face so often that he thought of him as a brother, a really irritating annoying sometimes total jerk of a brother but still a brother.

Instead he focused his mind on the creatures feeling the sense of events from his team mate’s actions fade as those of the creatures grew in importance. A changed step here a turn of thirty rather than forty degrees brought several of the creatures together rushing forward his attention snapped to his own actions he slid under the legs of one of the creatures feeling the heat blast his body as he ejected the cartridge from his pistol and threw it high in the air over the creatures rolling to his feet behind the group he reloaded and span a sense of déjà vu striking him as he reloaded and fired spinning to face the assembled mob. The bullet curved as he whipped the gun barrel round its path swaying sweeping past the magma beasts and striking the falling cartridge and piercing each of the bullets in turn a second shot followed the first breaking open the cartridge and unleashing freezing gas on the creatures, still crouched he empted his pistol into the creatures shattering their now solid forms.

Rising to his feet as he reloaded his awareness shifted as he turned his attention on to the events of his team mates once more.

All that effort on a single target, thought Pious. "Should have conserved his energy, he's of better use to the team striking multiple targets with those expensive attacks." Pious whispered to himself. All in all, the squad was doing okay, they were defeating a target per second and should complete the exercise with merits. While analyzing, a gang of magma monsters had risen from the lake of lava, one of them swung violently for the director, but he was too fast. A clean swipe of his energy blade dismembered the monster's arm, another swipe gutted him from groins to shoulder. A ferocious dance of heavy steel and mighty thrusts brought down three other monsters, a fifth brought its face right up close in a taunting roar, only to receive a sharp sword lodged into its skull. "If tomorrow's mission turns out anything like this simulation, things should go smoothly" said Pious.

Alex... the Siberian Sentry was hovering near the ceiling of the hall. He looked at the effectiveness of the weapons used. Especially the cryotech bullets made him smile. He was wearing a Cryoemitting Armor for G**s' sake.

Magma blast came close to him but cooled down before hitting him. The resulting impact of the stone was absorbed by the armor itself. He turned up the volume of his audio... Western Classic rock filled him with adrenaline. This music was the greatest thing that came from the west in the Russian's opinion.

He powered up the cryotech and blasted the creature who was closest. It froze solid on impact of the beam. Sentry went into a dive and hit the frozen creature full force... scattering it in pieces.

"Relaxing training is this, da?!", he yelled out over the music.

OmegaPrime shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as one of the lava beasts threw a poorly aimmed boulder towards him.
"Ha, ya missed me beastie, shame that I don't." He muttered under his mouth guard, before an alarm beep sounded in his ear.
Twisting about on his heels, he threw his rifle up into the air and powered up his suits gloves, they pulsed with the energy from the suits power supply, as he landed a punch at the boulder that was heading towards him from behind. The boulder shattered into pieces as hie blow hit, leaving him standing there, behind a small cloud of dust.
"Right.. thats it, you want a piece of me two huh?" OmegaPrime shouted as he grabbed his dropping rifle on the fly and ran at the lava beast that and threw the boulder at him, his gloves still glowing with the power from the suit.

Using the speed from his charge and the power of his gloves he punched the beast right to it's chest area, leaving him standing just infront of it, and the beast with his glove sticking into it, slowly he glance up at the beasts face. It groaned as as it raised it's arms up, but stopped all of a sudden as a crack shoot up it from the punch hole.
"see ya now." He muttered as the beast crumbled to dust.

"Alright, all units listen up" said Pious "Intelligence indicates that the stolen person is just across that lake, behind that rock. There are eight hidden obelisks in here, each of which must be activated simultaneously in order to disengage the entrance to the last cavern, that's the rock over there, yes I know it seems strange, but thats the nature of magic, and in this dimension, magic is everything. We don't have much time left so here the plan; we'll search all eight tunnels and position one man at each obelisk as we go along. Once we are all in position, I'll give the order to activate. After that, we assemble at the entrance. Do you understand?"

Raven noted Pious' orders
"Heading For Obelisk 1 Sir ! No Need For Escort !"
Pyro sped at inhuman speeds through the cavern mauling magma beasts as he went not breaking a sweat looking ever so satisfied with himself.

Hoping a lake of lava like it was but a crack in the pavement, Raven landed at a large obelisk, the mystical power it resonated, he could feel all throughout his body.

"In position !" He barked towards the end of this long tunnel.
"Now to get a picture for Myspace"...

Rapier Helicarrier, Medibay

He could hear them, he could see them, he'd helped design the training program... well he'd said about three or four words about it not being hot enough or the Igneous was a bit larger than that before Director Trenz ordered the programmer to make changes accordingly.. but for now he was dealing with a different problem; he'd been grounded.

The med tech was working him over with some scanner and Dr. Elttoc was saying some complicated medical jargon but he couldn't hear it over the constant ringing in his ears. A snap of the Doc's fingers focused his hearing somewhat painfully.

"Well, we've checked several times but as far as we can see there is nothing wrong with your ears or the bits inbetween. The headaches don't appear to have any physical factor that might be causing them so I'd imagine it's something psychological, possibly just stress. Have you noticed any changes in your current lifestyle?"

Tyger smirked as he thought about it.

"You mean besides joining a pan-dimensional police force, sponsored by the US army, flying aboard what can be described as a heli-carrier, juggling life aboard ship with that of my numerous family members and having a sudden craving for barbeque... no, not really"

A few moments of silence passed as the Doc looked slightly bewildered.

"I'm just going to assume that's what you cat-people eat and recommend that you take time off or at least cut back"
"But.."
"..CUT back at least. I know you aren't officially a soldier but you are putting your life on the line for this institution and I will not have your poor health putting others at risk. Nor, I think, will Director Trenz."

Tyger sighed and slipped off the examination table realising he had somewhat deliberately left out a big something but not something he could tell anyone. He had to be careful though; Trenz was a psychic like him. That familiar vibe kept sweeping over when they were in the same room and he was sure she picked that up from the glances she gave him.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Activating the on-board targeting systems Sentry located the second obelisk...

"Obelisk 2 covered...", he called out while positioning himself over it.

Emily crept up on the Third obelisk, it looked unguarded but you can never be too sure.

Folding out the stock of her rifle into a bi-pod she plants it on a rock and ramps up the internal power, anything following her was going to get cut in two.

"Obelisk 3 all set"

Trace stepped, seemingly out of thin air, beside her. Pulling his Chameleonine mask from over his face, ruining the wraith-like illusion the R.A.P.I.E.R Technology gave him. He readied his rifle, nodding to Emily.

"Got your back, Em."

OmegaPrime nodded before running down one of the remainning tunnels, his suit tatical display showed the river of lava coming up to him down the tunnel. Without as much of a mutter he engaged the suits jumper thrusters and hopped over the river of lava, landing neatly next to the fourth pillar.
"Commander OmegaPrime, in position, Sir."