Mutants & Masterminds Mutants & Masterminds: The Unlikely Prophets - Issue #2: The Man Who Built Yesterday

[The Scarlet Samurai]

Kenshin observed the preceding silently. After it became apparent that there was no easy way out of this situation he spoke up, "We need a large door, something that we can push the vault through at full size. That way Hex can open a portal. Otherwise we active its self destruct, though it would be a great loss indeed for so much history to be destroyed."

[Radiance]

"I don't think so. I can make simple things with easily seen parts like the bicycle, but a vehicle like a car is just out of the question."

She nodded. "If we get to the roof, I might be able to make a blimp air balloon of some kind that could get us away, but nothing fast."

She sighed. "I could create a door large enough for us to move the unaltered Vault through, and maybe have it connect to a warehouse or old hangar nearby where we're going to go."

She was throwing out ideas now. "I cound create a holographic layover all of us, to make us look like whatever we wanted, or even actual clothing, that way we could say we were the security guards or what have you."

[Bodhie Armstrong]

Bodhie was sweating from the exertion of carrying the minituarized vault. Its diminished size fooled everyone's eye who assumed it would weigh just a fraction of its former size. Secretly Bodhie was proud that she managed to lift it off the ground and actually carry it but she had never ever lifted anything heavier before.

"Guys... whatever you decide to do just be quick, ok? This thing weighs tons... literally.", rivulets of sweat spread all over her body finding paths between the deep cuts of her superhumanly defined muscles. Her face showed the exhaustion of carrying such heavy weight and she couldn't move that fast with the vault braced in her arms.

[IndyPendant]

Sharatur shrugged. "Sorry guys, my abilities seem to limited to kicking butt and short-range mobility. I'm not much use with this. Maybe since it's shrunk, Norm--augh! Sorry, sorry, Necronaut can take her into the, uh, netherworld now? Or maybe he could take Lar--Hex!--and Strongarm in that strange plane of his and just leave. The rest of us can arrange a rendezvous with Hex somewhere, once the thing is safely stashed away."

[Charlotte]

"Large door we got at the other end. There's a hangar that bush pilots used a few kilometers outside of town. But I don't have a picture. You'd need to find a door large enough in this city, then have Hex go through, find the door, and link it backwards." The sirens increased in volume. "And we'll have to do all that quickly. We need a place on this end we can get through."

[Necronaut]

"Wait, wait... Physics don't... Um... Bodhie, how long can you carry that thing?"

He paused, raising a hand to steady himself, or the scene, or to inform the class that he had a comment.

"I think my plane can carry... anyone. Anything. I mean... It's not a real plane, you see... it just thinks it is. So, if Bodhie's on board she can carry the vault, and the ghost-plane won't know the difference. Not sure about everyone else though."

He stopped cold, re-ran that mangled assertion through his mind, and cringed.

"I mean, my plane can take the vault as long as Armstrong is carrying it. I think."

[Radiance]

"I can make a door. There's a large one at the Seattle Tacoma airport but it's extremely busy. Or we could take it deeper into the warehouse district about 20 blocks away, they'll be less busy and have the doors we need."

She looks at Hex. "You may have shrunk it for nothing."

[z-Gloom]

"Less fuckin' talk, more fuckin' do," Gloom rasped, anxiety turning her normal whisper into a hiss. "If Bodhie can carry it full-size, then make the damn door and get us the fuck out of here. I've been on the 'fun' side of a Knight's interrogation; trust me, you guys don't want to be on the 'unfun' side."

The sirens were agitating Darkness as well as Andi. She knew what they could expect in custody and she wouldn't let herself be taken. She spied out her exit, a dark patch of shadow that would take her out of here if her companions couldn't shift their asses into gear.

[Bodhie Armstrong]

"Yeah - unshrink it, I can handle it - just hurry up.", Bodhie said through clenched teeth. She was slowly turning the shrunken Vault in her hands to prepare for it to grow back to it's full size so she wouldn't lose her grip on it.

"Hex, trust me, I can do it. Open a door and get us out of here, I can handle it, really.", her body was glistening with sweat and it was hard to tell how long she could hold it but for the moment it seemed to be working out.

[SalmonMax]

"Wait!" Hex gasped between arcane syllables. Her sentence took a little decoding to make out, as she had to intersperse her words. But it came out, "If I let this spell stop, I won't be able to recast it easily. And you can't just 'make a door' that'll work with my spell."

"We need to get to the roof, and use Necronaut's plane!"

[Charlotte]

"All right. Someone open up a hole in the roof. Necronaut, summon your plane and get Strongarm and the Vault out of here. And can you hold it upright and still stay in the plane when it's full size? Because if so..." He smiled. "Well. We can all fit on top, can't we? This included."

Blackjack nudged the L.O.O.M. with his boot. "I say we head for the warehouses. Fewer cameras. The radar at the airport would pick us up, too. Radiance, we'll need directions. Once we're there we'll need to get Hex back home, then get her quickly out to the hangar. I can point the way. Let's go."

[IndyPendant]

Sharatur frowns uncertainly. "Open a hole in the...?" She hadn't even considered that as an option! She looks up, wondering Just how much am I capable of, anyway? She crouches down for a moment and leaps up as hard as she can...

...and smashes through the roof entirely and keeps right on going, up out of sight past the sudden gaping hole.

A moment later she pops back in again standing where she leaped from, dusty and with bits of roof sticking to her--just in time to have more loose roof bits rain down upon her. "Well, there's a hole up there now" she states ruefully. She looks up and examines the damage she caused--and then curses to herself, muttering "Why do I always forget that?" She then simply steps up to the roof, walking on nothing, and starts using leverage and key strikes at weak spots to enlarge the hole more carefully. In seconds there's more than enough room for everyone to make their way up through it.

[Charlotte]

What was scary about it, was how easy it was.

As Sharatur-slash-Jade worked to open the hole, everyone assembled could hear the whup-whup-whup of helicopter blades in the air, the Knight Watchmen's rapid response team coming for them. With three quick strokes in succession, the Scarlet Samurai sent cleanly cut chunks of roof tumbling into where the Vault had sat for decades. Rainwater seeped in, from the rain that still persisted in downtown Seattle.

The Necronaut twisted the steering yoke, summoning his ghostly plane. Strongarm hopped in it, and Hex let her spell lapse, space twisting and causing the Vault to resume its normal size. Strongarm held the vault at an angle, letting everyone climb on. There was little to hang onto, but Radiance concentrated, creating a solid light support lattice that could hold everyone. Amazingly, Strongarm could hold the Vault, and the eight of them, and the L.O.O.M., without difficulty.

A hazy cloud of darkness masked the group, just enough to make details impossible to see, courtesy of Gloom. And with no fanfare, Necronaut started the plane.

It was something to see.

The flight to the warehouse district was only a few minutes. But it felt like much longer. As Necronaut adjusted his goggles he could see people out on the rooftops, looking up at them. Everyone else could see them, people turning off their filtered TVs and their censored Internet and their Order-approved news and looking, for the first time in a long time, up in the sky.

Not a one of them knew what to make of the group as it sped, silently, across the rooftops.

As the group closed in on the warehouse district, the choppers in pursuit, Blackjack gave directions from his house to the hangar. Hex spotted a large dock door that "would do nicely." No sooner had the words left her lips than Cyco grabbed the young witch, leaping off the plane, wings spread wide.

The two of them were out of sight in seconds, ducking down an alleyway. Hex took a moment to catch her breath, then linked the small door in the alleyway with the one she remembered from the town. Cyco tapped her foot with a sound that could be mistaken for machine-gun fire.

"This is the Order! By our authority as Knight Watchmen we order you to stop... to stop whatever it is you're doing and surrender immediately!" The voice over the bullhorn was nervous. Blackjack just smiled.

"Just like any bully. They don't know what to do when someone hits back."

Down below, the door opened. Cyco rushed through the door, Hex in tow, bee-lining for the hangar door. They were there in seconds. Despite the queasy feeling from the sudden shift in speed, Hex got to work.

As the plane closed in on the door, a shot rang out, and then another. The choppers were taking random shots, into the middle of the haze. From one moving aircraft to another, and with the haze in the way, the chances of them getting hit were just about nothing.

Down below, the door of the warehouse shuddered. Then slowly it creaked open. On the other end, Cyco and Hex strained against the rope pulley system that opened the door.

Necronaut swallowed, despite himself. This... would be close.

He dipped the nose of the plane, bee-lining for the door. More shots rang out. The door opened wider and wider, and then...

And then, Australia came to Seattle. Beyond the door was the endless flat plain.

It was only open a second. That was all he needed. He held the plane steady, and - with rain whipping up behind him - he flew the plane right through the door.

Hex and Cyco let go. The door clanged shut. Hex gasped for breath, making a dismissing gesture with her hand, and the one door became two doors once more.

Cast against the evening sky, Cyco and Hex watched the others taxi the plane into a landing, the spoils of the day held in Strongarm's capable hands. After the plane landed they went out to meet them. Strongarm set the vault down. Radiance formed a staircase for them. Shakily, exhilarated, they disembarked.

The last one off was Blackjack. He was the last to notice it. "Hell of a day. Amazing. Never thought we'd get anything like - this - "

He reached for his shoulder, feeling the wetness there where the bullet had hit him. He couldn't see the color. But he knew what it was.

"Oh... ha. Hell. Heh. ... just my - luck - "

Blackjack fell to one knee, sweat beading on his face and cooling in the Australian night.

[Charlotte]

... in Issue #3: History is a Bomb