Mutants & Masterminds: Harmony City - Red Team: The Visitor

[Dawn OOC]

6:07 a.m., downtown Harmony City

Paul pushed his glasses higher onto his nose and wondered where his secretary was. She was supposed to be here to meet him with the reports so that he could review them before the eight o'clock meeting. He growled to himself and took a sip of coffee, trying to remain calm.

A low rumble of thunder shook the morning air, and Paul glanced up at the blue skies, frowning. It took him a second to realize that the golden glow wasn't the early-rising sun, not coming from the south. It was something that looked rather like a incoming comet.

Paul turned and ran, putting a building between him and the fireball. It impacted in the intersection, so it was still behind him, and the tall buildings funneled the backdraft like aqueducts. The blast knocked him off his feet and set his clothes and hair smoldering.

Paul remained on the ground, rolling until he stopped burning. Only then did he stand and stagger back to the crater in the ground. Squinting against the heat radating from the ground, he was startled to see something moving in the bottom of the hole. Gasping, he pulled out his cell phone and began to run away from the edge, looking for a signal. Like everyone in Harmony City, he had memorized the number for the new superhero team. He'd prayed he would never need to use it, though that was a long-shot for any resident of Harmony City.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Chad yawned and stirred his coffee. This was his six a.m. cup, designed with the proper amount of sugar and caffiene to ensure that he would remain awake for the rest of his shift, for the drive home but be tired enough to sleep when he got there. It was a fine art - a balance between energy and fatigue-

The emergency phone rang and Chad forgot about the coffee. He snatched up the receiver and said, "Harmony City Defender Team. State your emergency." He listened, then hit the emergency alarm, summoning the on-duty team, the Red Team. Grabbing his notes, he prepared to meet them for the briefing.

[Rorx]

Dwarfstar looks from the simulation of a trinary system including a blackhole that he was running when the alarm went off. Quickly saving the parameters but leaving the simulation running, he changes into his costume and teleports to the briefing room.

[SalmonMax]

A heartbeat after Dwarfstar appears in the briefing room there's a ripple in the air, and Tesseract steps out of it. She's wearing the light armored vest she requested from Harmony City and at her hip is the bulky heavy taser pistol she got along with it.

She nods coolly at Dwarfstar and looks around. On seeing no one else present, she takes a seat and waits.

[Vixen]

Roxanne was in the lab she'd put together for the purposes of studying the ani-borgs. Piled on her desk were textbooks - piles of them. The older, more worn ones were on subjects such as molecular biology, trait migration and stem cells; the newer ones were on cybernetic interfaces, wetware, and "the rise of super-tech" as one book described itself. Buried in a corner, as if she were ashamed of it, was a copy of one of Silas' mystical tomes, which Roxanne had only borrowed after screwing up a great deal of courage, and swallowing a lot of pride.

"It's just science I haven't boned up on," she told herself. Except it wasn't. It was full of calls out to other-dimensional forces, and counter-intuitive ways of thinking (let the magic flow through you AND keep your distance from it?) It was only the fact that the book was borrowed that kept her from throwing it through a window. She wondered sometimes if Silas hadn't known that.

She wasn't bothering to maintain the illusion of being human. Down here there seemed little point. So when the klaxon went off she didn't have any embarrassing slips - no tails crept out from behind her skirt, because they were already there.

A few seconds later, she'd made her way up to the meeting room, having transformed her lab smock into the red dress she thought of as her 'costume.' Well, it had to be something, didn't it? She padded into the room barefoot, looking around. "Came as soon as I could. Amazing things they did with those ani-borgs. I'm sure I saw stem cells wedded to a circuit board, I didn't even think that was - right, emergency, what was it?"

['The Apostate']

With a groan Ditto's hand slammed down on the snooze bar.

The klaxons continued.

He opened one eye and gazed at the time, the other half of his head completely submerged in pillowy goodness. His hand slammed down on it again... and again... and again until he whined like a baby to whatever gods would listen that the cursed alarm needed to be smote.

It took him a second but the realization that it wasn't his clock but something more important.

The meeting room doors opened and Ditto strode in with a gaping yawn in progress, a blue paisley robe on and a huge 52 oz. mug of coffee that steamed like a angry volcano and a new paper under his arm.

"Ugay," His speech was barely understandable through the 'yawn that never ended'. "Sersly... dis so idn't funny. Dis beeh noh be a dwill."

[Dawn OOC]

"Not a drill," Chad said, his voice terse. Turning, he used a remote to bring up an electronic map of Harmony City. The normally muted colors of the map was marred by a red, glowing dot. "Early-morning white-collar reported a fire ball landing here in the Downtown area, approximately five minutes ago. He further said there was something moving inside of the crater. Apparently, he was brave enough to look in, but not enough to gain any useful information," Chad added sardonically.

He glanced back at the team, his face set its usual frown. "At this point, this is literally all the information I have. Any ultimately futile questions you'd care to vent to the air?"

['The Apostate']

The map came up and Ditto lazily stood there slurping his through of coffee so loud Chad's eye started to twitch. It always did that when Ditto was around and Ditto was starting to think that he should see a doctor... that couldn't be healthy.

His keen vision caught something however and he slowly approached the map with a calm sense of purpose. The room grew silent as he carefully investigated the crater projected upon the wall. "Guys, this serious... very serious."

The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife as he squinted his eyes and slurped his coffee again as everyone in the room hung on his very next words, he knew something they didn't, that much was obvious.

He looked at them all and pointed to the map. He was serious, so serious that they had no idea who this man standing before them was and what he had don with their Ditto (but they were hoping he'd keep him). His finger touched the corner of the intersection. "Half off blue tooth head sets guys!" The collective moan was like a perfectly orchestrated symphony of displeasure as they notice he was pointing to a barely noticeable sales add in a store front window. "Holy crap they're gonna sell out like crazy and I really need one!"

He paused for a second and scrunched up his face and pointed to the meteor as he looked to Chad. "Dude... did you know someone parked a rock in the middle of that intersection? We'd better send someone to clean it up."

[SalmonMax]

"With that map to guide us, we should all be able to teleport there immediately," Tesseract said, glancing furtively between Ditto and Chad.

[Rorx]

Dwarfstar nods in agreement with Tess about teleporting there, puts his coffee down and does so.

[Vixen]

"Yeah, blip us in. We'll take a look."

[Dawn OOC]

One moment they were here and the next there, as Tessaract popped them into the area. Blinking around, they were instantly aware of the extreme heat that was radiating from the hole in the ground. Easing forward, the group peered in and saw that there was someone sitting in the crater. He didn't seem to mind the heat; it wasn't burning his skin or his hair, though it had removed his clothes, cleanly. It was hard to see his skin tone or many details; the red glow and distortion from the heat were pretty extreme. He was also holding his head, as if it hurt him.

[Rorx]

Dwarfstar tries to examine the crater to see if there is any signs of anything that might have incased the person before he presumably crashed into the planet. It looks a bit like he was travelling through space and crashed into the planet, or got thrown really high by something and crashed here. Either way the crater and the heat might be due to him going through re-entry and crashlanding here.

Dwarfstar turns to the others, "Any of you able to handle this heat to go down and talk to him, and perhaps see if he needs first aid or whatever?"

[Vixen]

"Heat..."

Do I turn everyone into neoprene? How would that even work? Would it kill them? No, this one's out of my range. "I don't know. I know I can take a bit more punishment than most, though. I'm gonna go down and see if I can help him."

[SalmonMax]

Tesseract stayed where she was, a respectful distance from the glowing hot pit. Immediately she could feel a desire to leave...a desire in sharp conflict with any number of reasons she had sought this place out in the first place. The dissonance of her body was becoming more than just a nuisance!

"Ditto," she called. "He's not hurt by heat...can you take that from here and go down there?"

[Guest Hawt_Crater_Maker]

An incredibly handsome man stood beside Tesseract. His tightly packed physique the pinnacle of what a human gymnast could hope to achieve and he appeared as everything a woman could possibly desire. He was lithe with curly reddish-blonde hair and yellow-green eyes.

His resonant baritone soothed the ears of those around him. "Done." Ditto(?) said calmly as he approached the craters edge. "Be ready. I'll go have a look."

With that he hopped into the heat and slid down the crater's wall and approached the being whose form he'd stolen.

[Vixen]

Vixen blinked as Ditto made his way down into the crater. "Woo. Hello! Damn." She popped open a button on the collar of her dress. "S'hot all of a sudden."

[SalmonMax]

Tesseract's mouth falls open, and as the god-thing that had been Ditto walks away, she finds herself following it for a few steps without even meaning to. A wave of dizziness hits, and she stumbles and falls to her knees, nearly swooning altogether as her body reacts with a mind of its own.

[Vixen]

"Heh... hmm? Tess?" Vixen takes a couple of steps next to Tesseract. "Are you... er, okay? Do you feel sick?" Be the worst timing if she was, but it's a good thing I'm here...

[Dawn OOC]

Ditto slipped and slid to the bottom, stopping near the man. He didn’t seem to register his approach at all, remaining still and holding his head. “Yo, you ok?” Ditto asked, kneeling down to see if he were hurt.

The man mumbled something softly, something Ditto couldn’t hear over the steaming of the melted asphalt and a water pipe that was supposed to be spilling water out but the water was converted to steam before it could hit the ground.

['The Apostate']

Ditto approached the dazed men, finally getting a decent look at the guy.

[Diplomacy, 9] "So uhh..." The ceeping feeling set over his teammates that this might not end well. "You from out of state? Not that there's anything wrong with that mind you, but you're kinda blockin the road here dude. Think you could move?"

Click to reveal..

(Ditto) rolls 1d20 and gets 2. +7 Diplomacy.

[Dawn OOC]

"Don't send me back," the visitor moaned, finally looking up at Ditto. Seeing his own face looking back at him seemed to unnerve him, and he shot up into the air in an uneven arc. He didn't seem to be well, for he careened into a building, disappearing through the plate glass on the twentieth floor.

[Rorx]

Now that the guy was out of the hot crater Dwarfstar was more willing to get close enough to talk to the guy, indeed from the way he acted it looked like he could do with some help.

Dwarfstar flies up to the 20th floor and waves Vixen up to follow him. Once there he looks in through the broken windows trying to see where the guy is.

[SalmonMax]

For a moment Tessaract doesn't respond to Vixen. Then she starts and looks up at her with wide, frightened eyes.

"I may be sick. I feel sick. Something is wrong with my body."

As the man in the crater sails out, she flinches and looks after him.

[Vixen]

Vixen waves at Dwarfstar. "Be right up! Tess is feeling off! Tess, tell me your symptoms. I'm not a medical doctor but I can probably help. What do you feel?"

[SalmonMax]

Tess frowns as she tries to find appropriate words, even as the momentary fugue is fading.

"I...it's not as bad now. I felt a rush of blood to my face and around my arms and chest. It made me dizzy...disoriented. My heart rate sped up, and I think my body's temperature increased because I felt suddenly very warm."

She paused, then added, "I think I nearly fainted. It all happened very quickly. And it's fading now."

[Dawn OOC]

Left in the crater, Ditto quickly realized that the guy had been the source of the extreme heat. The tempurature rapidly normalized after he left.

Dwarfstar was learning the same in reverse, when he caught up to the man and found him on his hands and knees, shaking. The carpet of the room he was in was smoldering and a nearby pile of paper was beginning to brown and curl.

['The Apostate']

"Well poopy cakes and duck butter..." Ditto cursed under his breath as the alien crater dude shot off. "I'm going to miss the blue tooth sale, I know it."

He sighed and shot off after the visitor using his own borrowed powers. Upon reaching the 20th floor he hovers beside Dwarfstar. "The guy's surrounded by heat, getting close'll be a pain in the butt. But he spoke, he knows our language... we could prolly talk him down a bit, I guessing he's either injured or suffering from one heck of a concussion."

"Yo, dude," Ditto shouted at the crater-man. "Relax bro... we're just here to help ya man, c'mon, cut us some slack here!"

[Rorx]

Dwarfstar gives a mental shrug and joins Ditto in calling to the man, "If you could turn down the heat your putting out we have someone here who may be able to heal you if you have any wounds or even bruising."

[Vixen]

"Rush of..." Vixen bursts out laughing. "Oh God, I had the same thing too. Tess, uh, how do I put this. You're horny. Seeing an, uh, attractive man will do that."

Oh, boy. Yes, Tess, keep talking with the woman who hasn't had an orgasm in fifteen years about your sex drive. I can't wait.

[SalmonMax]

Tess stares at Vixen for a moment, perplexed. Then she frowns and gets to her feet, shaking her head.

"That's not possible," she assures Roxanne. "Literally not possible. For me to be attracted to the body of a human being would be similar to a human being being attracted to...a ball of mud. Your bodies are the least interesting thing about you. They are easily quantified and qualified. My existence in this body is proof of that."

She pats her shoulders, wrings her hands, and nods. "I'm feeling better now. Maybe the man in the crater used some kind of ability on me."

[Vixen]

Vixen snickers. "Denial, Tess. I felt the same thing, and I recognized it right away. You're IN a human body, or close enough to one anyway. There's little human chemicals in your head and they do their own thing sometimes, and this is one of those sometimes..."

She's being weird. I dunno. Maybe don't press this. "We'll talk later. Let's stick to the job. Want me to fly you after them?"

[Dawn OOC]

Originally Posted By: Rorx

Dwarfstar gives a mental shrug and joins Ditto in calling to the man, "If you could turn down the heat your putting out we have someone here who may be able to heal you if you have any wounds or even bruising."

"My... heat?" the man said, staring at his hands. When he looks up and sees Ditto again, panic twists his face. "No!" he screamed. "I won't go back!"

He thrust his hands out and a gout of flame blew at Ditto.

Click to reveal..

Power check on Blast: 28

[Rorx]

shit, he thinks Ditto is one of his own type/race after him since Ditto is copying him

"Ditto, shift form, he thinks you're after him since you look the same."

['The Apostate']

Click to reveal..

Immunity: Fire

Instinctively Ditto held out his hands and blocked the blast of flame. The steady stream of flames licked his 'shielding' and deflected away in a horizontal umbrella -like shape.

"Love to Dwarfy..." He grunted, pushing away the flames in a dramatic power lock. "It's kinda the only thing saving my booty from being toast at the mo'... so I think I'll keep it... thanks. If I got his powers... I got his face... that's... how... it... works!"

With a rush of a second wind he pushed the flames back completely. "Dude! I don't wanna take you anywhere! My name's Ditto! Welcome to Earth, now stop trying to kill us before someone get's hurt! I can take the heat, my friends can't..." His voice calmed to an almost pleading tone. "Look, bro, I can see your scared and confused. We are too... but we need to relax, okay? Those people down there are just regular Joe's trying to get to work... they didn't leave their homes this morning to get burnt alive... so please... pretty please, just calm down and we'll explain everything... where you are, why I have your face... all of it. Deal?"

Casually as he spoke Ditto hovered to block Dwarfstar, interposing himself between the alien and his teammate. "If you have ideas," he mumbled from the corner of his mouth. "Lemme hear em, this guy is strong..."

At his sides, despite his immunity to the heat, Ditto shook the the numbness from his hands. Damn that hurt...

[SalmonMax]

"That won't be necessary," Tessaract demurs. "I'll move in closer so I can see up to where he is. Then if you need me, I can move there quickly."

Without further warning, Tessaract vanished, immediately reappearing in the parking lot near the building that Ditto and Dwarfstar were hovering in front of.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" she calls up.

['The Apostate']

"Well..." Ditto called down to her. "No one gone a breakfast run yet... I'll buy if you fly!" He looked to the alien. "Hey, you want a coffee or an Egg McMuffin? My treat." He grinned broadly with his borrowed features.

[Vixen]

"Like talking to a Vulcan. 'Beam me up, Scotty.' Vixen rose into the air, and flew after the group.

[Dawn OOC]

The visitor huddled on the floor of the office. The heat around him was dissipating slowly, allowing those other than Ditto to approach him. He still flinched at every move they made, his strangely-colored eyes following every movement. "Who are you? Where am I? Are The Others here?"

['The Apostate']

"See, that's more reasonable..." Ditto coasted into the office and took a few steps towards the man. With each step he took his form shifted and molded until he returned to his typical handsome self. "My name is Ditto and you're in Harmony City." He motioned to his team mates. "That's Dwarfstar, the hot lil number over there is Vixen, and there is a monotone automaton of a woman around here somewhere named Tessaract. I'm sure she'll wanna know who the 'others' are."

"We're the 'Red Team'." He raised his hands. "I know, I know... not very intimidating to the bad guys, but it's a working title. It's nice to meet ya by the way... you got a name, dude?"

[Dawn OOC]

"I'm Thirty-One," he said hoarsely, staring at them all in turn. "That is what they called me. Is that a name?"

The papers had stopped smoldering, but the smell of paper burning and the plastic warping and melting was thick in the air. Shakily, seemingly unaware that he was still naked, 31 stood up and took another look around as he waited for an answer.