(AoH)[1.3] Steel and Thunder

[Craig ST]

This thread is for Team 3 which is: Icarus, Neutrino Girl, Talos and Titan

The Explosion rocked the special research building of the Olympus Technologies Alameda complex. The force of the explosion shook the complex to it's foundations and a ball of fire burst into the sky, visible from across the bay. Down in the lab 42, Marie Weston worked frantically to bring her charge, the mighty cybernetic hero Talos back to consciousness from the routine diagnostic he was undergoing. Only moments before Nolan Marks, OTs head of electronic security had informed her of strange goings on in the security grid and to be prepared to wake 'the big guy' as he called Talos, just to be on the safe side.

The explosion, which had ripped through another part of the building, tripped the security lock down and thick steel plates had slid into place across the doors, trapping Marie in the lab of what was surely by now a burning building. Her fingers worked rapidly over the control panel of the computer monitoring Talos' life signs and she brought him back to consciousness as quickly as possible without causing him any harm. It seemed a lifetime to the terrified scientist before the the light in the giant cyborg's ocular sensor glowed dimly, signaling he was awake and active.

"Oh thank god," She said breathlessly. "Talos? Talos we have an emergency! There was an explosion and we're locking in here and Nolan says there's been some sort of security breach!"

Her words were a rushed panic and it took Talos a moment to process what the clearly frightened woman was saying. "Okay, Marie, slow down. What is going on? Start at the beginning." He could see the emergency blast doors were in place so he knew whatever had happened had initiated the lock down procedure.

The petite scientist took a deep breath to calm her nerves the started speaking. "Nolan contacted me about 10 minutes ago, to inform me that the glitches in the security grid we've been having trouble with for the last month or so had just spiked and he believed we were being compromised. He wanted me to get you woken up and ready just in case something happened. Then there was some kind of explosion and the security lock down protocols engaged and locked us in here!"

She was starting to panic again and her breathing got ragged again. "What if we can get out, or are buried down here? Or what if the building is on fire! Oh my god you have to do something!"

From somewhere behind the door there was an ominous rumble of a lesser explosion and the muffled sound of gunfire.

-

Angelique Martin sat beside her employer, Cade Allistaire, in the richly appointed board room for the Olympus Tech office block attached to their Alameda research and testing facility. Her own employers, Durandal Conglomerate, and Olympus were in talks to collaborate on a joint venture in Space exploration technology and it was her job as Mr. Allistaire's personal assistant to 'look out' for him on these ventures. If truth be told she knew he had very little interest in these deals and the responsibility for paying attention and making everything run smoothly fell to her. The pretty brunette knew she'd have to go over all this again with the brilliant, but distracted, genius. Even now he appeared more interested in fiddling with his high tech looking briefcase than paying attention to the meeting. She just hoped their hosts hadn't noticed his disinterest.

The explosion took them all by surprise and as the shockwave hit the building it shattered the glass windows, showering everyone in razor sharp shards and throwing them from their chairs to the floor. They could hear claxons sounding from somewhere else on the compound and the building's security systems was ringing. A moment later and the fire suppression system engaged, soaking everyone in the room. The sound of gunfire and screams could be herd coming from the ground below. One of the OT executives crawled over to the window to see what was happening. "Oh my god!" he yelled over the noise. "I think we are being invaded!"

-

Officer Benjamin 'Benny' Dukes of the Oakland police had been on the force for 10 years and these new 'super heroes' still amazed him. He couldn't help but gawk at the girl (at least he thought she was a girl, you never could tell these days) in the bubblegum pink body armor as he handcuffed the groaning mugger she'd just recently caught by landing in front of him, presumably from one of the rooftops in the neighborhood and knocking him in to the middle of next week with a glowing fist.

"Thank you officer," She said as he helped the perp into the back of his squad car.

"No problem and thank you uhhh... What's your name?" He asked her, still a little stunned about meeting his first actual super hero.

"You can call me Neutrino Girl. Well it looks like you have everything in hand here so I'll be on my..." She never got a chance to finish what she was saying as the sound of a huge explosion to the north-east rocked the neighborhood. The cop and the armored heroine looked at each other for a silent moment before he nodded to her and Neutrino Girl sprung into the air. She landed on the building across the street to her and began to make her way quickly northward, towards the old Alameda Navel Base that was now the property of Olympus Technologies. She followed the smoke rising up in the distance and before long she found the source.

Surveying the scene from the roof of a nearby building she was shocked. People were running and screaming from a partially collapsed building that was on fire while men in uniforms she didn't recognize with what looked like assault rifles were engaging with Olympus Tech security, which were only armed with pistols at the moment. It looked like a scene out of some war movie but it was very real and was happening right in front of her!

-

Ace reporter Steven Neuborn had spent the entire morning in the channel 12 news copter, following the mysterious new hero around the city on what appeared to be some sort of patrol. For weeks now reports of an unidentified new hero in a cape and with what looked like a capitol 'T' on his chest had been seen performing good deeds yet no one had had a chance to interview him and Steve wanted that exclusive. When the explosion took place across the bay at the Olympus Tech facility, Steve and his crew had a front row view of the spectacle and even better, the mysterious hero rocketed directly towards it, the sound of thunder in his wake.

Naturally the eager reporter ordered the pilot of the helicopter to pursue and in moments they were hovering over what he could only describe as a war zone. At the center of the explosion, was a building, still partially standing but now on fire. Structural damage had been caused to several other buildings surrounding it and people were running all over the place in a clear panic. To make matters worse, a uniformed force of unknown soldiers were firing at the people and engaged in a gun battle with the OT security forces. The unknown soldiers were grouped close to a convoy of military grade vehicles including some sort of decked out APC carrier with a big gun on the top. Steve felt a glimmer of recognition towards the APC but couldn't quite remember where he'd seen it before.

He watched with baited breath as the man in the cape observed the situation and without turning his head spoke to his camera man. "Make sure you get everything!" He said enthusiastically.

[Talos]

Talos stepped off the maintenance armature, and tested all his joints. Marie would have warned him had any of his systems been outside of tolerances, but to Talos it was no different than stretching when you woke up. "Did you try the emergency override? If there's a fire you should be able to disengage the security lock-down right?" Talos scratched at his head, a complete affectation, but one that, like many of his habits, was in no apparent danger of being given up.

Marie nodded hurriedly, "That's that problem! The internal safety systems are offline, the security lock-down can't be overridden because the fire systems aren't engaging!" The mousy brunette had grabbed Talos' hand and was dragging him to the nearest door, anxiety plain on her features.

"Oh." Talos said, thinking it over. It all sounded reasonable, though why the emergency and security systems would be experiencing that kind of disconnect was beyond him. "Well, ok, I guess I can force the door open, or maybe I can try to bypass the lock out manually from here." The sounds of gunfire filtered through the walls and into the converted hanger.

"Was that gunfire?" Marie asked, as she trotted after Talos toward the exterior doors.

"Sounded like. Which means the explosion might not have been an accident. If Nolan what right I'm going to guess that we are under attack." He shrugged, and bent over nearly double to peer at the door controls. A pair of tiny, almost delicate, hands extended out from under his forearm cowlings and prodded at the control panel. "Just relax, I'll get this door open one way or the other and then we can find out what is going on."

Probing at the panel Talos triggered the release and popped the cover off, exposing the wires and circuits behind the keypad. "Ok, this should release if I bypass this with this and then reset this by grounding out this ...." He moved some wires around, the tiny hands - which were really about the same size as Marie's, seeming small only by relation to Talos' normal hands - deftly creating new connections and re-wiring old circuits. "Ok. Here goes."

Rolls

[jameson] 8:34 am: Technology +5

jameson *rolls* 1d20: 18+5: 23

[jameson] 8:35 am: Strength +12 (if needed)

jameson *rolls* 1d20: 7+12: 19

[jameson] 8:35 am: oy

[Neutrino Girl]

Neutrino Girl slowly uncoiled from her crouch atop the SecuriSave Financial Building. The wind howled at this height, batting uselessly at her armor and whispering past her solid steel polymer face-plate. On the other side of that face-plate, the suit’s panoramic camera view faithfully recreated every detail on the ground below, while the HUD system threw up little data points for Neutrino Girl’s perusal. It was 78 degrees in San Francisco. The humidity was 32%. She had a paper due the 19^th on the Personification of Objects and the Objectification of Persons for her Comparative Literature Class. She had a lunch date with a boy named Andy Williamson on Tuesday at 11:45. Below her, exactly four hundred and twenty one feet and ten inches away, according to her targeting computer, she watched the fight unfold with growing alarm.

You have to do something. Now. She told herself. Heroes did not stand about waiting for their hands to stop shaking, or for the butterflies in their stomach to flutter away. They acted when it was time to act—at 15:17:49 PST. Now.

Neutrino Girl jumped. The building fell away from her, and for a moment she seemed to float…before gravity reached out for her like a fist and yanked her straight down. And down, and down, and down. The ground screamed closer and closer. A series of meaningless updates flashed by her eyes, indicating the speed and angle of her descent, the necessary corrections she must make to control her fall. None of it mattered. Her stomach was in her throat. She was sweating, but cold as ice. It was all Neutrino Girl could do to keep her arms straight out and keep herself from tipping forward into a career-ending faceplant. She hit the ground feet first, and the impact smashed the concrete like it was glass, sprouting a spider web of cracks from the point of landing. A cloud of dust followed the thunderous boom, billowing up and washing over the suit…

Neutrino Girl rose to her feet. The fall should have turned her to jelly inside the suit, should have shattered her bones and compressed her organs and flesh into a great big bloody mess. Instead, she stood unharmed, bright bubblegum pink showing through the caulk colored coating of pulverized cement. Without hesitation, she turned and raised her hand. A bluish light built at end of her oversized gauntlet, and a moment later, with a loud zap and the smell of burnt ozone, a beam of energy exploded from her fist and rocketed at the APC.

Neutrino Pulse! DC 25, plus Move Object DC 17:

1d20+10=13 . . . oops.

[Titan]

Titan had treated his new role as protector in the same manner he once policed the skies of his homeworld. He divided the city into a polygonal grid, and spent most of his days going from polygon to polygon, listening to the police band radio and keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of violence. So far, he had stopped nine minor crimes, in each case telling the perpetrator to stop commiting antisocial acts and letting them go. He had, as of yet, had no contact with any of the Bay City's law enforcement personnel, or media. The last four days, however, he had picked up a tail in the form of this aerial vehicle, this 'news copter'. He did not let it affect his patrol, but he continued to ignore it, and the pleas for an 'interview' from the man inside over his loud speaker.

Still, he was considering speaking to the man, if only to tell him to leave Titan his privacy. He hovered over the west end of the Bay Bridge, looking and listening, and thinking of how to say it firmly but without giving offense, when the explosion startled him out of his reverie. He looked across the Bay, found the large industrial complex with the billowing flame and black smoke, and rocketed towards the source of the explosion. He noted with a slight irritation that the news copter followed him, but put it from his mind. In a matter of heartbeats, he was close enough to see the complex, and stopped short in shock.

There were several problems, and all of them needed solving immediately. A building, or the remains of one, was imminently in danger of falling. The fire threatened the panicked people running around amid the chaos. However, the primary source for all of these seemed to be the small army that fired indiscriminately at the unarmed people running around. In addition to the men on the ground, the army had a large vehicle with a weapon mounted on top. That had to be Titan's primary objective.

He flew towards the grouped armed force on the ground, landing on their flank. He reached out and opened a high-altitude vacuum tube, channeling the cold blast of air towards the men. He had to stop the firing.

Amusing rolling and confusion

Yeah, so I don't really get this part. There don't seem to be any modifiers, but there have to be, because it's a DC20 for the Move Object Wind Blast. (This is part of what has taken me so long in this thread, but I decided just to suck it up and admit that I don't know)

So! Modifier-free roll, somebody stop me where I've gone wrong:

[Titan] 10:51 am: hey all. I need a witness, I think. Anyone available.

[Titan] 10:51 am: ?

[Dozer] 10:51 am: I'm here.

[Kamiko] 10:51 am: going in 30

[Titan] 10:51 am: cool. I guess there are no modifiers, just a straight 20 roll. Never done it, but here goes.

[Titan] 10:53 am: d20

[Titan] 10:53 am: Yeah, I don't know how to do it. Lol

[Dozer] 10:54 am: 'roll 1d20

[Dozer] 10:54 am: `roll 1d20

[Kamiko] 10:54 am: its /d

Titan *rolls* 1d20: 16: 16

[Dozer] 10:55 am: Thanks

[Titan] 10:55 am: woot. I did it!

[Titan] 10:55 am: K. Thanks guys.

[Cade]

For Cade the sound of Gunfire brought immediate focus. His sky blue eyes narrowed, and he looked to his assistant. "I believe it is time I go and make a phone call. Please, make the necessarry arrangements, Miss Martin."

With that he rose up, taking his briefcase with him, grumbling inwardly about having to pilot Icarus soaking wet, again. It got uncomfortable after awhile, but he didn't seem to have much time.

Amidst the chaos, he easily lost himself in the crowd, slipping into a deserted office, before sending the command to the briefcase. The technological marvel soon began to shift and reconfigure before he placed it securely against his chest, as it split and folded down, reattaching to itself magnetically, then the armor panels for the arms and legs slid out and locked into place. The helmet was the final peace as the armor encased his head and his full HUD came online. "Alright, activate all systems, run hot start sequence." As the system complied he flexed his legs and arms, and nodded. All green lights across the board, he shot out the window, reentering at a lower floor, his full sensor package online, looking for the potential hostiles.