Mutants & Masterminds: The Unlikely Prophets - Issue #3: "History is a Bomb"

[Radiance]

Hikari stayed with Andi, playing the curious tourist without fail, not saying all that much, but listening all the while.

[Charlotte]

Night fell, and the group reconvened on the hill. They shared what they had learnt (or rather, what Gloom, Radiance, and Necronaut had learnt.)

They then had to decide what to do next.

[Necronaut]

"The dead know nothing of the island. Those who die there never reach the mainland. Not too surprising, I suppose..." There was a hint of nervousness in his voice. He could think of lots of ordinary explanations for a prison island keeping its dead. But the extraordinary ones he couldn't think of worried him.

"Are we in the clear to head over? I could fly and carry some, or do recon for a door-shot."

He was as polite as usual, but his impatience was beginning to show through. Apparently spending all day meandering around a sunny Mediterranean paradise was not his idea of a good time. Granted, it was yet to be seen if he had any conventional ideas of a good time.

[SalmonMax]

"When you fly, can you turn invisible?" Hex asked. "And if any of us go with you, can you still be invisible?"

In hindsight she realized how little she really knew of the abilities everyone had, and how little she'd shared of her own abilities. That would have to be mended, she thought. Now wasn't the time, but soon.

[Necronaut]

Norman tilted his head slightly and squinted in thought. "That's a very good question. I'm pretty sure the ghost-plane isn't detectable by radar or anything like that, but my guess is that it can be seen and heard. We can't assume there's enough space to land without being spotted. However, I could still fly in close and, er, ditch. From there I could make myself scarce, walk to shore, take a shot and head back."

"On the other hand..." He turned and looked up at Bodhie. "How far do you think you could throw a person? I speculate that if I went into the neitherworld mid-flight the landing would be more or less harmless."

[SalmonMax]

"There's another option," Hex said. "I can use an illusion to cloak the airplane...make it look like a dense flock of birds or something. Something ordinary. But I'd have to be in it to do that. It won't work at a distance."

[z-Gloom]

"Let's stay together," Andi said. "You can get us out there on your plane, right? And Hex can hide us. We'll fly over on the plane and find a way in - or make one."

She nodded to Necro. "Maybe when we hit the island, you'll be able to find the ghosts and get us some intel."

Andi made sure they were alone before she released her hold on Darkness. "Any questions or further ideas?"

[Charlotte]

The problem of how to fit everyone on the plane was easily solved - Radiance could create a solid-light harness that Strongarm could hold. That problem solved, the crew prepared to fly out.

Originally Posted By: OOC

Unless there's anything else, on Friday we'll FF to the prison proper.

[Thomas Froit]

Glitch breathed a sigh of relief as they set off. Frankly, the risk of being spotted in his civilian persona by a concerned citizen and the Order being alerted to a wanted 'criminal' was significant enough to cause a heap of worry. And hence the mission and the group, might end before they truly began.

Hence the salty air and spray from below was comforting to Glitch, as he clung to the light lattice over the sea. He had developed a jet pack, of all things, but he hadn't revealed it, plus the noise factor was an issue. So he stayed quiet and hung on.

[Charlotte]

The flight out to sea was quiet, partly because everyone was worried that talking may ruin the illusion, but mostly because everyone was filled with quiet unease at where they were headed – a secret prison was bad enough, but a secret prison that dead people never came back from? In a "paranormal hotspot," no less.

So they flew out in silence, to the sound of crashing waves and and the sight of near blackness, with Necronaut piloting and Gloom on lookout. The moon was waxing and gave some light to the surrounding environment, but not much. Anything could be out there. At this prison, they could find anything.

So they were startled, relieved, and scared all at once, when the lights came on.

It was still a fair distance away. About a quarter of a mile. But they could see it – floodlights illuminating a concrete circle with an H imprinted on it. Then, over the waves, they could hear the faint whup-whup-whup of a helicopter out there somewhere.

Gloom could see it. It was a small chopper, the kind they used in "civility maintenance" exercises. She knew that it had swappable weapons on the turret that hung from the left side, usually shooting tear gas grenades. Usually nonlethal measures. But, she remembered, not always.

It was coming in for a smooth landing – so coming in, not going out. The pilot and crew had to be very well trained to find their way out here in the dark – and very serious about not being seen.

[IndyPendant]

Sharatur looked down, and over at Norman, remembering her last extended flight with him. "Uh, Norman, you aren't going to do that weird crash-landing bit with this thing again, are you? Might want to warn them if you are."

Abruptly she laughed. "We're getting ready to break into the world's strongest prison, and I'm worrying about you guys getting startled."

Her instinctive grin was back as she studied the prison; there was something thrilling about this covert assault, the risks of their disguise being pierced, and now with a helicopter thrown into the mix. "What the hell is wrong with me?" she asked, only half-joking.

[Necronaut]

"I've had a little practice since then. As soon as I find a clear spot we should be down smoothly enough."

The Necronaut's mind was somewhere else. He couldn't escape a nagging feeling that they were going to find more here than they had bargained for. After a moment he added distantly,

"You're alive and you want to stay that way, along with the rest of us. Caution is a very life-affirming emotion, really. Nothing wrong with that."

[SalmonMax]

Hex chuckled nervously. "I think she means what's wrong with her for coming out here in the first place," she corrected. "There's a chunk of my brain that's asking the same thing. But this is where the key to our answers is, so this is where we have to go."

She looked over at one of the other passengers.

"Glitch, how close to the prison do you have to be to do your thing?"

[Thomas Froit]

Glitch looked back at Hex, and he started adjusting his arms and posture so that he could safely hold onto the lattice and still pull out the WID, which he did. "Well, now that you mention it, I'd say we're well within range. It's a few miles, but yeah."

Self-aware of this cue, he began to boot it up, and the antenna characteristically extended. "So, do you want me to hack in and start searching for data? Remember, we got tracked last time..."

[Radiance]

Hikari focused on keeping the grabo on materialized and nodded. "Perhaps we should have spoken more of a plan before we took flight." She said with a smile. It was a weak attempt at brevity, at best.

[Charlotte]

As the plane pulled in closer, they got close enough to make out what was going on down below.

The helicopter landed, but curiously, did not wind down. Whatever they were here for, they were here only briefly. Then the side of the helicopter opened, and everyone in Necronaut's plane felt unease.

He was one of the most famous men in the world. He had a military jacket with epaulets, grey hair that was being tossed about by the rotor, and a grin that never seemed human. He had a sword at one side and a gun holstered at the other. He looked around, and the man called Spartan said something.

Another man in a grey trenchcoat made his way out to the helipad, looking anxious, while Glitch's WID began searching for networks.

[Thomas Froit]

Glitch found a network, and so he relieved, began to start beating the access routines for the Iron Gates network. Then, a side glance caught the concern of his fellow freedom fighter's faces, and he stopped, confused.

"What's wrong guys?"

It took a moment for his face to follow theirs and he blanched for 1.3434 seconds.

"Spartan. Real... good..."

Click to reveal..

Computers roll:

21+6=27

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2750102/

I think we're toast. But is it rye, or on a bagel with cream cheese?

[IndyPendant]

Sharatur's grin faltered a bit. "No, I mean I'm actually enjoying thi--" She cut off as she saw and heard who was in the helicopter, her grin now wiped away completely. "Oh, shit."

She watched him for long frozen moments, then exhaled and relaxed. "He might know we're coming--I'd like to believe he's here on coincidence, but yeah right--but doesn't know we're here already." She looked around at her companions. "Think we can take him...?"

[Necronaut]

"In a stand-up fight? We might survive long enough to get away. We've got to keep under the radar to have any chance of making this work."

He fell silent as his brain spun for a few moments.

"The Vault is the only lead he can have on us. If he does know we're coming he also knows why we're here. We either need to make this really quick, or extra careful."

The Necronaut took the ghost-plane a little lower and a little further out, not wanting to risk getting spotted by Spartan or his entourage, despite the layers of obfuscation around the conveyance. He continued to keep a look out for a landing zone, but also watched for any flitting pale shapes standing out in the darkness, which might indicate the presence of the Island's heretofore unaccounted for dead...

[Charlotte]

It took a while, but Glitch found an unprotected cellular data network and used its wireless computer interface to snoop through the prison's records.

Lots of names went by. Each name had a listing of their crimes, and the crimes ranged from the serious - attacks against the Order, implying that even with the Mathemagician's power their control wasn't total - to the laughably trivial, like distributing anti-Order pamphlets they'd made in their basement.

They were also listed by cell block, with the three cell blocks of the prison. Glitch nearly discounted that part, and then he ran into references to a fourth cell block. One not on the blueprints.

The reference read, simply, Underground.

And Jasmine Gold's name was listed next to it.

Meanwhile, the man in the trenchcoat seemed to be having a heated discussion with the visiting superhuman. At least, it was heated on the man's part. Spartan never lost his cool, and his grin never wavered. The man, by contrast, seemed in a state of panic. It looked like this was a surprise. An unpleasant one.

[Thomas Froit]

Glitch was unaware of the mysterious goings with Spartan down there, absorbed in the data calculations involved in searching and the hacking. "Ok, new set of good news and bad news folks. Good news, I know where Jasmine Gold is. On the bad side, seems she's in a fourth, underground cell block, which doesn't seem to be in the blueprint, unless it's in the Link."

Glitch turned, or rather- shifted to Gloom, gaze focusing on her. "You wanna take a look and see if you can figure it out?"

[SalmonMax]

"Even if the Order's figured out who we're after, they'd have no way of knowing when we'd make our move," Hex murmured to Necronaut. "Lets not get too paranoid until we know there's cause. Still...just in case we, should try to kick this up a notch."

She looked back at Glitch.

"Any chance you could update the blueprints with data from the prison itself? Our best bet is to straight for her, get her, and leave via a door. We don't necessarily need an exit route, but we need a way in."

[Radiance]

"We go in, no matter what. Odds are he's here for the same reason we are. We either have to avoid him, or deal with him. We can't give him the chance to summon his compatriots."

[Charlotte]

Glitch's efforts, pouring through the computer systems, did not turn up a blueprint of the place Jasmine Gold was being held. There were, however, several references to the fortified bunker north of the complex that was noted as "the Link."

Always capitalized.

The discussion on the island itself turned more forceful. The man facing Spartan was alternating between hysterics and anger - going eerily still once Spartan put his hand on his shoulder, and forced him onto his knees with no effort at all. Then one of them men got out of the helicopter and ran over to Spartan, looking like he was in a hurry...

[Thomas Froit]

"Good plan," Glitch acknowledged, "but based on what I can find, it does look like the Link is our target." Accompanied by a hand gesture to the prison section in question, "So you can tell getting in isn't going to be easy. So then, Gloom, who do you think should scout out the place then? Unless you have something else in mind?"

[Charlotte]

The helicopter pilot and Spartan conversed. Spartan seemed to think for a moment, then he said something back.

Then he adjusted his grip on the shoulder of the man he'd forced to his knees. There was a blur. And then the man wasn't there any more.

It took a moment for everyone to realize that the official hadn't vanished - he'd been thrown into the air. Not at the group, no - but out to sea. He screamed as he pinwheeled his arms in the air, at least a hundred feet up, his face white with terror.

If the fall didn't kill him, the cold ocean water would.

[Necronaut]

The Necronaut's glass-covered eyes watched the man's trajectory. The rest of the world seemed to vanish. His whole life had been defined by death, been built around death. But he had only ever really seen what was left afterward. He had never seen anyone die before. He felt a moment of sick dread. That wasn't a record he wanted to change. For once his brain, his tongue and his body all agreed on something at the same time.

The Ghost-Plane and jerked and wailed as he made an impossible maneuver to spin about and open up the semi-real throttle all the way on an intercept course with the rapidly descending man. "Catch Him!" He cried to his passengers, not taking the time to actively hope one of them had the capacity to do so. But on a passive, subconscious level he was hoping as hard as he could.

[IndyPendant]

"I'll scou--" Sharatur started to say. She hadn't really figured out what was going on--still hadn't really had time to process it. Operating on pure instinct, she vanished from her seat, appearing beside Strongarm, holding tightly to her arm with both hands. "Strongarm, throw me at him! Hard as you can, don't hold back!" Then her brain caught up with her instincts. "Just, uh, just don't miss." She didn't seem concerned about the fact that she was now outside the plane, beyond a single glance downwards at the empty space beneath her dangling feet.

(Edit: Necronaut just informed me we're in a old propeller-driven biplane. I've edited my post accordingly. ; )

[Thomas Froit]

"No." Glitch's voice sounded ludicrously calm, yet the young man's expression easily ruled otherwise. He too did not want to see that man die from a moment's callousness by Spartan, Order man or not. So he had something else in mind versus what his words implied. "Rescuing him risks blowing our cover. So Nec, take the plane to the Link and get started there. I'll save the guy and run distraction if need be. Okay?"

There was now a hint of desperation in his voice, trying to balance the two goals in the right way and present that to his comrades.

[IndyPendant]

Sharatur scrabbled at the side of the plane with her feet for a moment, wind whipping her hair into complete disarray. Finding purchase somewhere, she braced her feet against its side, still gripping Strongarm tightly. She pierced Glitch with a surprisingly intense glare for a woman so slight. "You promise me you can save him?"

[Radiance]

Hikari sighed. there was nothing she could do without dropping Strongarm.

[IndyPendant]

"There's no time" Sharatur decided after a moment. "Besides, the way Necronaut swerved this thing, it's likely someone has already noticed something is wrong about us." She gauged how fast the plane was moving, then told Strongarm "Steady...hold it...okay...throw me!"

Sharatur went rocketing off as Strongarm braced Radiance's platform with one hand for a moment to throw her. Sharatur hauled on the arm even as she was flung to increase her momentum a bit--or tried to. Fact is, she wouldn't even have been able to maintain her grip on the arm, so hard was she thrown, if Strongarm hadn't grabbed her own arm first. As it was, her shoulder felt like it was deciding whether it was dislocated or not.

The man had almost reached the water. If this failed, she wasn't going to get a second chance. But she had no time to dwell on these facts; he was already there, already passing, oh dammit she missed...

...almost. Stretching with every ounce of effort, she managed to snag the man's pant leg for a split second--but that was all she needed. They both vanished.

Only to appear a moment later, slightly closer to the plane, standing less than fifty feet above the water. --Well, Sharatur was standing, and now holding onto the man's sleeve instead.

The man promptly fell. Again.

"Crap!" Sharatur managed to grab his hand--but just barely. She was driven to one knee by his weight, kneeling on air as the man struggled and swung beneath her in near-mindless panic. Her grip began to slip. "Stop it! Stop wriggling so much!" she growled in frustration.

She looked over at the plane, even as the man clawed at her with his other hand, struggling for a better grip. When she gauged it was close enough, she quickly teleported them both back onto Radiance's platform again.

The man didn't realize he was now safe and sound, still clasping Sharatur's arm in a deathgrip, his legs tucking up towards his belly. Hardly an unreasonable reaction under the circumstances; the whole maneuver, from Strongarm's throw to Sharatur's return, probably took no more than ten seconds.

[Necronaut]

The Necronaut craned his neck to make sure the man was on board, but didn't change course yet. "Hex, can we get a splash?!"

He tilted the ghost-plane into a shallow dive, hoping to give the resident sorceress a shot at letting Spartan's latest victim meet his demise in illusory form.

It was, perhaps, a vain hope that Hex's spell could be turned to such a different subject matter on the fly... but he considered it less vain than his hope that Spartan or his men wouldn't look to watch the man land. His least vain hope was that it was a little too dark and a little too far out for anyone to notice... but he wasn't about to rely on that.

[SalmonMax]

"Got it," Hex said. Creating a new illusion while maintaining a complex one, like the swooping, swarming flock of birds that now covered the plane, was difficult, and for a moment Hex felt dizzy and winded. She felt like she'd just finished...well, maybe not a marathon, but a good 100 yard sprint at least. Nevertheless, her efforts paid off. Not only was there a splash, but there was the shadowy figure of a man plummeting the last bit of distance, kicking and writhing, only to hit the surface with a memorable plume of water. She even added screams and a great PLOOSH, in case Spartan had super-hearing or something like it.

"Getting woozy," she reported, grabbing onto the railing for support. "Lets land somewhere out of sight so I can drop this spell..."

(Using Extra Effort to Surge, creating an unmaintained illusion of man falling into water (lasts 1 round, so doesn't take more than 1 action). Hex is now Fatigued.)

[Charlotte]

On the plane, the man went from panic over falling into the ocean to panic at being on a glowing light lattice held up by a super-strong woman on a ghost plane, surrounded by superhumans. He struggled in Jade's grip, shouting muffled noises through Jade's hand over his mouth - noises that would have been probably masked by the illusion Hex was maintaining.

Out on the shore, the helicopter pilot and Spartan exchanged words. The chopper pilot shouted to his friend in the helicopter. No one could make it out fully over the sound of the chopper blades...

Click to reveal..

But since my players are good people, here is what they said.

"Found anything?" The pilot looked nervously at the co-pilot. Spartan, for his part, couldn't stop smiling. The wind from the blades whipped at his steel-grey hair. He put a hand on his gun - out here, it would have to be the gun, but if he could get in close to use the sword he damn well would.

"Nothing - wait - "

"What?"

The co-pilot had a pair of green goggles held up to his face. He was looking through the tinted glass of the chopper. "The flock just swerved."

"Now, did it swerve because I just threw a person out there and birds do that, or did it swerve because of something else?" Spartan looked out into the sky himself.

"I don't know - "

"Well, find out, would you? You're the one who spotted it on radar. Just a flock of seagulls, you said. Nothing to worry about, you said. Let's find out, I said. So find out."

"It's still - wait - someone just - I don't believe it - "

"I'd believe it." Spartan's grin widened.

"No, it's nothing. I thought I saw someone catch him but they vanished, and - there, he hit the water. It's nothing."

"Hmmm." Spartan thought for a moment. Then he looked over at the side of the helicopter, and the gun mounted there.

There was a blur, as he moved at inhuman speed to the side of the chopper. Then the gun was in his hands. "Let's see what the heat-seeker things."

He flipped off the safety and pulled the trigger.

"And I got to admit, I always wanted to try this, on every flying cocksucker that shits on my shoulders."

And then there was a blur, and Spartan had a missile launcher in his hands, and there was the report of it being fired. The high-pitched whistle of the missile arcing through the air rang out over the waves.

Click to reveal..

It was a good effort, team - for your efforts, everyone gets a Hero Point because this is close enough to GM's Fiat that I think it should count.

Hex, you may use this Hero Point to power the extra effort, so you are not fatigued if you don't want to be.

[Thomas Froit]

"SHIT! I think we've been found." Glitch snapped to the rest of the crew, "Full speed to the Link!" he added to the piloting Necronaut. Deactivating the WID and shoving it back to his hidden pockets in the suit he wore, Glitch slipped down the sensor visor onto his face, and activated all sensor features including infrared to ascertain the speed and other capacities of the damn missile.

The odd thing he noticed was that though the missile was generally heated, there was a section near the front where the heat was apparently kept to a minimum. Curious, until Glitch recalled comments from a conversation he'd had with a colleague who'd worked on missile launch and guidance systems.

"Double Damn!" He yelped again, "Infrared says it's a heat-seeker. Time for you to showcase your piloting skills, Necronaut."

[SalmonMax]

"This is a ghost plane," Hex gritted as she held on tight to the rail. "Does it even generate heat? Oh jeeez..."

Adrenaline rammed into her system, clearing the momentary fatigue from her spellcasting before.

(using that hero point to clear fatigue )

[Thomas Froit]

"I'm not thinking about the ghost plane, I-" Glitch stopped and chuckled, as something occurred to him that he hadn't expected. "I almost forgot!" Quickly he pulled out what appeared to be another of his gizmos, one with a squashed cylindrical main body, and a scaled down version of a satellite dish extending out.

"This should block the infrared camera on the missile." Glitch announced while activating the Jammer. "Hex, can you still hide us and make it look like the birds scatter to avoid the missile?"

[SalmonMax]

"No," Hex replied grimly. "The spell can't make us invisible. It has to make us look like -something-. If we dodge the missile, I can make the flock move out of its way too though."

[Radiance]

Hikari was powerless to help, sadly her ability to help their flight prevented her from doing anything else with it, including defend herself. If the missile hit none of them would survive.