[Unionverse] Capecon 2010

Before anyone could stop him, the Overlord leapt onto the stage, pushing the bemused comic book artist out of the way. Security reacted only to find themselves looking at 24 Shocktroopers with their weapons pointed at them. At close range, the weapons looked frighteningly real. Their surprise gave the Overlord enough time to slam the butt of his staff down onto the stage.

The shockpulse that radiated from it covered the auditorium in just under 0.3 seconds, stunning everyone within range. Even those who would normally resist such effects found themselves momentarily disorientated before regaining their bearings only to find that the Shocktroopers had taken up strategic positions around the room. Joining them were dozens of cosplayers, their weapons unsheathed, unholstered and ready. By the time anyone was fully aware, the Overlord had complete control of the auditorium.

Throwing off the cloak, he revealed a slim, dark haired man with a wicked grin, dressed in a decorated tailcoat. He gleefully took the microphone.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I am The Spoiler!” he announced. “And I now own you all for the next three hours. Please do not try to resist. I have planted four nano-thermite bombs on some of the assembled geeks and nerds in the crowd and I will not hesitate to explode them all if you don’t do exactly what I say. Needless to say, such an explosion would level this place and everyone in it. So be good boys and girls and play nicely.”

He allowed a few moments for his audience to react to his showmanship before continuing.

“For my first demand, I will need your items of power. Your rings, capes, helments, anything that gives you your powers, they now belong to me. My assistants will be round to collect your generous donations to my cause shortly. Don’t resist because…”

He mimed pressing a button on the end of his staff and then made a ‘boom’ noise into the microphone.

Rushmore stuck a red and white gauntlet clad hand up in the air. "Yo, Question for The Spoiler. Hey." He was smiling brightly after gaining his bearings. "What about those of us who don't have items of power? Should we just chill, or you know... sign autographs or something? Memorabillia?" Looking around, he stretched a little. "I mean, I'm not going to be stupid enough to try something with four nanowhosit bombs around on fans. But should I just chill here and stand?"

As he spoke, BODICIA kept laying on the floor from where she fell after the pulse. Systems flickered back online into life in her and the other Vigilants, and she set to work. Scanning for broadcast blockers/interceptors, before planning her counter attacks. Firstly, a message to the UV members present to co-operate for now and be alert. Next to relay to the police forces and get some hero presence outside, before lastly to begin trying to hack into whatever security equipment she could. This AI needed more eyes.

Richie slowly heaved himself back to his feet as Rushmore rambled on, his head positively throbbing after being knocked down by the pulse before he had chance to raise his own defenses.

"First chance I get, yeah?" the redhead muttered near-silently as he glared at The Spoiler from behind the table. "I'm shovin' that staff up your backside sideways."

*********

Unlike Richie, Molly had managed to stay on her feet, in spite of the fact that the pulse was still wreaking temporary havoc on her augmentations and repeatedly jabbing her with sharp, almost unbearable pains in the back of her neck where her nanomachine controller resided.

When the pains finally subsided, the first thing she checked was the welfare of her butler, Erica, who laid face-down and motionless on the floor beside the young genius.

Erica, Molly silently contacted Erica in an attempt to ensure she was okay. Erica, wake up.

The sudden burst of static noise in Molly's head signalled at least some form of activity on the butler's head, which was for the most part, reassuring.

...am fine, mi... ...ill play dea... ...dergo mome... ...epairs...

Take all the time you need. Molly answered as she observed The Spoiler with mild disgust, taking a few clear photos of the 'villain' as soon as her optical augmentations decided to run properly again. We could be stuck here for a while.

The Chief didn't move, the pulse riding over him like water trying to break down a damn. He'd weathered worse assaults than this, but he knew well enough not to do anything rash.
"Everyone alright?" he murmured, glancing at Fox and Vix as they hauled themselves upright.
"Just...effin' peachy," Fox grumbled, smacking himself in the head twice as his suit twitched and sparked a little. "Oh, that creep...if he's busted anything I'm roasting his a$$..."
"Get in line..." Vix growled, sounding genuinely annoyed as she massaged her head. Her ears were ringing, and she felt a headache coming on. She didn't like headaches. Her eyes flashed crimson for a moment, entertaining the (somewhat rash) idea of telepathically ordering all the shocktroopers to turn on their master...but best not to.

***

Across the hall, Wolf dragged himself up the pillar, cursing quietly under his breath. He glanced around; no one seemed to have spotted him yet.
Silently, he powered up the pulse jets in his boots, gliding up into the rafters and getting an arial view of the hall.
This was going to be...interesting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Ni slid quietly into control while Annette shook off the effects of the shock pulse. There was barely a fraction of a second of incapacitation and she watched calmly as the various fake fans took their positions. By the time Annette was growling obsenities in the back of her head and ready to join the fun, Ni had activated their tactical environment and mapped out the layout of the hall with the various combatants marked.

Listening to the Spoiler she thought "What do we do about the swords?"

"Hand them over if they ask for them," Annette replied. "It won't make any difference."

Ni waited.

Buffered from the nastier effects of the shock pulse as she was by some of the more *ahem* interesting parts of her augmentations, it still took Jo a good half second or so to completely find her feet again. Standing near Bodi, her own cybercoms systems kicked in, frequency-hopping encrypted tranceivers uplinking to a 'forgotten' extra transponder conveniently bolted to the side of Paragon Newssat 7, which tight-beamed the signal to a small bunker somewhere outside Paragon.

ISOSLink> cmd powerup Battlegroup P1 auth-key <************************************************* >

Units Helm-6, Gunnar-4, Bagman-4 Power 100%
Units Rafe-2, Venus-2 Power 100%
Unit Friday-2 Power 100%

All units report upgrades complete.
Readiness Status Descriptor: "Arrrrrr."

ISOSLink> cmd transport lock-coord def danger-close.
Transport Locked. Transport when ready.

ISOSLink> _

All of this took perhaps 6 seconds. Now, of course, she had the big dilemma. A younger, more callous Jo would perhaps have called the summon right there, and be damned to the consequences, but.. maybe it was old age, who knew? She remembered quite well what it was like to be collateral damage. There'd been quite enough of that. Keeping the command channel open, she opened one tight beam channel to BODI, at the same time as setting her E-War rig into passive snoop, listening out for C&C channels for the troopers, for the bombs, anything she could get her hands on.

Bodi, you reading me?

"A good question!" replied The Spoiler to Rushmore's enquiry. "Nothing for now is the answer but be good little boys and girls. Once the goodies are collected in, we can begin with the next stage of our little game! And aren't we in the right place for games!?" He laughed to himself, not stopping to listen for any answer.

Behind him, several of his assistants were setting up some form of elaborate staging. Hung on it were shots taken from around Paragon, in different locations. To one side, a Laura Croft cosplayer was retrieving an expensive looking camera from a bag and setting it up on a tripod. A further assistant, this one looking like a pirate was setting up a laptop wired into the network.

From this part of the trader's area, the view of the stage was obscured but The Spoiler's message rang clear through the PA. Pushing the lid back onto the sharpie he had been using to sign action figures boxes, Jay Reynolds breathed a sigh of resigned frustration. He'd been late to the opening of the convention and had them gotten waylaid speaking to cosplayers and attendees before spotting the trader with the boxful of unopened Crimson Archer action figures. Jay'd been nervous about the reception he'd recieve from the public since his release from The Zig, but up until now it had been really positive. Then this...

He knew Saffron and Brian were here somewhere, along with God knows how many other heroes, so this seemed like a strange place for a wanna-be supervillain to launch his masterplan. Jay shook his head then signalled to the trader near-by, pinting to the glass case at the back of the stall.

"Hey fella, tha' Manticore bow an' quiver come wit' a certificate'o authencity?" He asked, his voice thick with a smooth, southern drawl. "Cos if it does, then ah'll take it off ya hands right now."

Cauter backed away from one of the Storm Troopers, his hands up. "Sorry, as much as I'd love to co-operate with you, I can't give this suit away." The red and gold-clad hero sighed as the storm trooper waved it's gun towards him in a threatening manner. "Custom Variant Freedom Corps Soter Containment suit. If I take this off, people die. People die, who's going to watch The Spoiler's grand plan in action? Think about it. Won't that get him angry?"

BODICIA's communication protocols made a secure channel for Joanna, several data packet confirmations coming back asking if she'll compile software backends for access to the Unity Network, the protocols and software that bring tactical data to any with the right hardware and clearance.

You are connected, Josie. Welcome to my headspace.

The Shocktrooper considered Cauter's words then listened as if it was taking some instruction over radio. Instead of demanding the suit, it took up position nearby, keeping its weapon trained on the hero.

On stage, The Spoiler indicated that he was ready. "Okay ladies and gents, let's get this show on the road. First up, let's deal with the real heroes rather than all of these wannabes."

A figure was led onto the stage by the Shocktroopers and at first glance, it appeared to be Positron himself. However, at closer inspection, it became clear that it was just a very well made fan suit. The man was reluctantly led to stand in front of one of the backdrops where the camera was set up. Having positioned him, The Spoiler then struck him beneath the chin with the end of his staff, sending the cosplayer flying. The camera shutter clicked furiously and the laptop nearby displayed several of the pictures, all looking epic in nature. To the casual eye, it almost looked like The Spoiler knocking out the real Positron in Atlas Park.

"Next!" called The Spoiler as the dazed fake Positron was dragged away. "Don't worry, you'll all get your turn!"

The moment The Spoiler had made his entrace, Karnac had gone to stand up.

"Sit down dad," whispered Saffron, placing a hand on his massive arm. "You're not exactly the most subtle person in the world and if he's right about those bombs we could all end up incinerated.

With a growl, Brian sat down reluctantly. "Fine. But what about those bombs? If we could locate them, it'd just be a case of overpowering his troops."

"Without getting any bystanders hurt," finished his daughter. "Tricky. You know anything about this 'nano-thermite'?"

Brian shook his head. If it was genetics, he could have helped but bomb design wasn't his forte.

"Bro, Chief. I'm in the rafters. What've you got for me on the bombs?" Wolf murmured, looking around.
Without moving, the Chief shut off his external speakers, switching to internal coms. Given the time they had spent fighting alongside Vanguard agaisnt the Rikti, the SABRE teams comm link was pretty much impenatrable by man or alien.
"Unsure. We won't get much use out of infra-red. And the ammount of tech around will probably stop the tech filter. Cycle through, see what you can find."

Wolf nodded, an affirmative beep being sent to the Chief, as he began looking around, cycling through the multi-spectral filters in his helm, searching to see if anything showed up...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

No one seemed to be demanding the swords. They did, afterall, just appear to be swords. What could swords possibly do against guns?

Annette ran a connection through to the Vigil comms net and made sure she had her communications set up with Bodi, and then Ni and Annette waited, though one thing did pass through Annette's mind as she sat there. "This guy is such a jerk."

It took Richard several moments to recover from the shockpulse, during which time he was effectively blind - his battle-suit's software underwent a reboot, but the crashing wave of energy had resonated through his skull, temporarily overwhelming his mind, driving him to his knees.

When he came to, things had shifted. Almost every hero around him was tense, ready for anything, and he smiled tightly to himself as he noted Melissa and Marie had activated their stealth fields, but were waiting patiently, several booths away. Good news.

Casually pressing a panel on the wrist of his suit, he waited for the instant in which it teleported back to the containment chamber in the basement of Huntington Manor, then leaned casually back on nothingess.

Sammy? We have a situation.

* * * * *

Outside, Richard's thought rode through Sam's mind, along with flickering images of the inside of the auditorium. Shock drover her expression from smiling enjoyment to serious concern in an instant.

"Julie? Battle stations," she snapped, not even waiting for the other woman to acknowledge before activating her comm unit.

"Helena? Situation at Capecon - villainous activity. Scan through Richard, send the feed to PPD control, route a copy to my secondary storage, and call in backup! Civilian lives are at risk, we have heroes inside... lots of heroes inside."

Sam made a point of never reading minds without permission. There was only one exception to that rule, and that was only because she couldn't stop sensing Richard's thoughts. That restraint didn't prevent her from doing other things, though, and she rapidly created an aversion pulse, centred on the convention hall, designed to make people want to avoid going inside, where she knew they would be trapped along with everyone else.

As she finished the complex, stationary mental suggestion, Helena's voice crackled across her comm net.

"Alert activated. PPD inbound, all available heroes inbound. Potential cross-link - BODICIA is active and on-site. Shifting to support status."

Nodding curtly, Sam strode purposefully toward the hall, Julie at her heels.

"What are we going to do, Sam?" she asked, as she scurried to keep pace with the red-haired psychic.

Coming to a halt a short distance from the doors, Sam glanced at her.

"We wait."

* * * * *

Richard listened with half an ear to what Helena was saying, and nodded curtly to himself. Ultimately he was safe, he knew, but the number of innocents meant he couldn't take action until or unless the opportunity presented itself. And, thankfully, his battle-suit was just for show - he lost none of his powers while not wearing it, and revelled as he allowed a sub-lethal buildup of energy to filter through his body.

With a casual smile, he looked around.

"Well, this is certainly entertaining, isn't it?"

"ETA?"
"Damn quick, Inspector."
"Maybe they'll listen next time we suggest a PPD prescence," Jen Kerringer said quietly, motioning for the driver of the cop car to pull over. "I'll walk it from here. No point in getting whoever is inside all riled up with an obvious prescence. As long as he thinks he's in control, he'll make mistakes."

The Chief Inspector of the PPD Special Response Unit, or SRU, stepped out, double checking her equipment. She was bareheaded, as she normally was in all but the heaviest of firefights. Her body was covered in middle-weight, sleek armour, white and dark blue to show her colours as a PPD officer. The only exposed areas were her forearms and lower legs, and that was only because her cybernetic limbs were tougher than all but the heaviest armour in the PPD armoury.
One last time she checked the twin arclite pistols she had holstered by her hips; the moddable pistols were equipped with silencers and what looked like scopes, although they were actually remote optics, which she could connect to via neural uplink. It was the same as having an eye in each gun, allowing her to aim via her built in HuD.

Entering, Jen noticed two women stood by the doors, as if waiting. They didn't seem hostile, but she opened her holsters just in case she needed a quick draw.
"SRU Inspector Kerringer, PPD," she said, keeping her voice quiet as she headed towards them. "Whats the situation?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

BODICIA was busy explaining to the troopers near her that none of the Vigilants had any external armaments, and the internal ones were currently safety-locked due to convention regulations. That did not stop her from conversing with Josie though.

"Oh, if only more were like you." BODI said admiringly. "In any case, you are right. Could you handle investigating that wireless connection while I perform a signal scan? Perhaps I could shed some light on this situation."

Sam looked at the inspector, an expression of relief on her face.

"We have a number of hostiles inside, threat to civilian life, and an unknown number of meta-humans present, not even counting those in there with a big bag of gadgets. Show's being run by a guy calling himself 'The Spoiler', but he's got henchmen and allegedly bombs. I'm keeping the people out right now with a psychic aversion field, but there's nothing I can do to help those inside without risking being noticed."

Julie stood at Sam's side, fidgeting nervously in the presence of so many police, but said nothing as the psychic continued.

"I'm waiting on a download from an inside source so that I can get a good image of the interior, but there was a pulse of energy in there a little while ago, and it played merry hell with transmissions. And I sure as hell didn't want to go in blind."

::I'm on it.::

Latching onto the omnipresent wireless signal, Jo began the subtle and intricate work of decrpyting and subverting the signal to lead her back down to the routers, and thence back into the machine being used by the Spoiler's men. Reading the data-flows, she began to eavesdrop on the network traffic, hunting back for encryption keys, passwords, and other fun telltales.

The star burst tattoo over her eye glowing faintly after the blast, Horizon tips her head to the collector who was eyeing up the seven foot long sword she called a weapon and realising he was never going to lift it. Smiling sweetly she further discomforts him by holding out her arms so her bracers are showing and asking cheerily "They're attached. So do you want to cut off my arms or shall I?"

The situation had turned odd, which made her feel a little more at home. As far as she knew though a Nano Bomb was just a really, really tiny bomb, which didn't sound too scary, but considering the Spoiler wasn't a badly concussed mess after a eye blinding volley of wind, fire and all that kind of stuff it was probably a serious deal.

Unless she got a chance to hug the darn thing, she'd just have to wait for the tech-heads to do something. They'd probably rub it in too, how come it couldn't have been some malign entity from the hoary hells of whassaname?

Molly had continued to observe The Spoiler's stage antics, arms crossed as she waited for her augmentations to correct themselves. Only once her optical augmentations were working 100% with the bare minimum of fritzing out on her did she attempt anything further out of the ordinary and even then, it was a simple attempt to figure out who out of the real heroes here she could establish communications with without the dork on stage noticing.

"Come on, come on..." Molly muttered quietly, so as not to alert any of the cosplaying goons around her table.

There were two acknoledgement of Molly's signal, one from Wolf, up in the rafters, the other from Jen outside the doors.

The Inspector looked the doors up and down, her optics peeling the walls away to show her a multi-spectrum view of the room.
"I need to know if we can get the civilians out of danger first. After that, I think it's pretty much a case of wrapping up," she said quietly, glancing at the other two women. "Civilian safety is priority one right now..."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

The Spoiler was just finishing off his fourth hero, a rock like creature who he'd smacked in the gut with his staff, when a sharp buzz sounded from his gauntlet. He dismissed the hero, who was clearly disgruntled with being so humiliated and turned to his photographer.

"They all good so far?" he asked nervously.

"Good boss," replied the photographer. "You might want to tone the cheese down a little, allow yourself to look vulnerable. The punters always like a sensitive villain."

The Spoiler nodded and returned to address the stage, speaking into the end of his staff which appeared to double as a microphone for the showman.

"Greetings assembled heroes and PPD. By now you're probably beavering away, trying to tap into my frequencies and stop the bombs from going boom. That's cute but you know, very yesterday. All of my bombs require a constant signal from me that if interrupted, will cause them all to explode. So please don't try to jam them or things might get.... messy."

He grinned wickedly before continuing on. "But as you're so keen to see one in action, here is your first game. You have five minutes to locate and disarm my first bomb which will explode in... oh, four minutes fifty eight seconds now. But to give you a head start, here is a clue: What has four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, three in the evening and eight when it's been imbibing old gods!?" He laughed maniacally.

The reaction from the crowd was instant. Mass panic ensued as people began to try and run for the exits, others trying to find heroes who would surely save them. The Spoiler watched the chaos and smiled, turning back to his photographer.

Ni remained quite still, watching the spoiler. She hated riddles. Besides, others were far better equipped to deal with the situation.

He wants them to find it anyway, Annette commented internally. If these bombs go off, he'll kill himself and he doesn't want that.

He's a jerk, Ni commented. Annette found it rather hard to disagree.

Leaving the bemused and slightly scared trader to cope with removing the casing around the bow, Jay moved around the edges of the booth to get a better view. He hadn't liked threatening the man, but Jay liked being unarmed even less. Over the heads of the crowd he could make out The Spoiler and his Star Wars cronies on the stage, as well as the man-mountain that was Brian. Saffron wouldn't be far from her Father, so at least Jay had somewhere to head if something happened. Even with so many heroes in one place, Jay would rather put himself back-to-back with people he trusted.

But if anything did happen then he'd need more than just a bow and no ammunition...

Jay's eyes sparkled as a grin spread across his face and he made his way through the crowd toward a large display of cases and frames entitled Battle Zone: Movie Weapons and Props.