M&M Episode 3: Misunderstandings Galore
I didn't write up the first two sessions, but James did, here and here. He writes up allmost of the sessions he's at, so try his LJ for context.
Misunderstandings Galore
Izzy threw herself in front of the huge slab of concrete and spread her arms and legs. She thought she could lift it easily-
The weight slammed into her and pushed her backward, back towards the Hightecher employees who had gathered in the quad. She didn't want to push hard against it, because if it broke-
The huge chunk of path pushed against her, and she tried to slow it down, but these powers were still new to her. How strong could she push? How fast could she fly to resist it?
She felt something-someone-against her back. Push harder!
Six seconds ago.
"Parker, we knew we couldn't trust you," said the archer as the concrete-coloured man set down the glowing platform. On it were the archer, a cloaked young woman, and a man in tights and goggles.
Izzy whispered to Vieno, "Who are they?"
"Confederacy of Justice. Quarrel, Gramarye, Urbanity, Ricochet. Seriously? You've never heard of them?"
"I'm Canadian." Actually, she did remember them. Sort of. Her father had mentioned them.
"There were three groups in the sixties who unified, though I think the 'Confederacy' part was just to get traction in the south-"
The concrete-coloured man screamed, "Get out of my head!" and ripped up a huge chunk of the concrete path, threw it at Everett Hightower.
Urbanity's teammates stared at him agape. Then Ricochet said, "One of them must be a mind-controller, take them down, I'll get the innocents out." And he was gone.
Now
Vieno strongly suspected this was all some kind of badly thought out hazing but if not, then taking the crazy guy down fast was more important than avoiding being hit. They surged to Urbanity and walloped as hard as they could. Despite connecting well enough to stun a tank, this had absolutely no measurable effect.
The archer shrugged and said, "My thought too. And I can guess who's helping," as a bow appeared in his fist, and he launched an arrow at Vieno, who suddenly found themselves wrapped in a bolo.
Volt had finally walked over from the parking lot, rounded the corner and saw…Izzy holding up a deadly slab of concrete, Vieno bound by a…bola?... and several dozen innocent bystanders, along with Hightower. They're like children, he thought. Get two together and there are fights. He willed his protective aura into being.
"Hey!" Vieno said. "We're the good guys!"
"They all say that," said the cloaked woman. "By the shining shackles of Sitakreon, I command you to be still!" Bands of glowing red light, looking like improbable Christmas ribbons, flew from her gesturing hands and immobilized Vieno, who toppled to the ground.
Vieno saw that neither of them did anything about Urbanity, which suggested A: hazing, B: They're all trying to kill Hightower, or C: jerks. Vieno shouted again, "Hey! Clowns of Justice! We're the good guys."
The bystanders vanished as Ricochet carried them away.
Urbanity sank into the ground. Then concrete-pale hands appeared around Hightower's ankles and pulled, as though trying to force him through the pavement. Hightower's eyes widened as if he were suddenly in great pain, but he managed to gasp to his communicator, "Shut down Athena and Hephaestus now!." But whether his words were heard or not was unclear; the noise from Izzy tossing aside the pavement blotted some of them out.
Quarrel darted to the grass and said, "They mocked me for having an explosive arrow-let's see if this slows Urbanity down for a second. Concentrate on the brick at range." He fired so that his arrow sank into the ground, under the path. The explosion buckled the pavement and threw up dirt.
At least Hightower wasn't pressing against concrete any more-Izzy wasn't sure if that was better.
And how did that help? thought Vieno as they tried a concrete-shattering blow against the shining shackles of whomever. Hightower's hurt, so I guess it's not a hazing. "See if Hightower's super," she grunted but no one heard her.
Volt thought, Mind controller? Okay, needs to be near here. Mental powers are usually line of sight- He started scanning the rooftops and upper windows, looking for someone suspicious. Hmmm…some kind of weird electrical activity…tingling…from this building. "Something in here," he called, and adjusted himself so that he moved through the wall.
Gramarye held off for a moment, visibly trying to decide between the fellow crackling with electricity and the brick, like she had been told.
Ricochet darted in and feinted at Izzy, hoping that the shot would set up the brick for a shot-but instead the ground flowed around Hightower and he fell down. Izzy darted forward, heedless of how open she was, and grabbed Hightower around the chest. She started to pull up, gently at first: she didn't want a human taffy pull. She shot up with Hightower and with Urbanity dangling from the man's twisted ankles.
"I'm taking him out of range," she shouted. "If you do anything against me, I am going to be very mad!"
Vieno hit the shackles again to make them fall off; then they popped up, ready to defend. Definitely jerks.
Inside, Volt found a security guard watching two technicians shut down a piece of equipment that featured a large torus.
"Supervillain attack outside," said Volt. "Get them to safety."
The guard said, "Hey, you're that guy who helped at the park. Saw that. Procedure in a fire is that I'm supposed to make sure they shut this down and then escort them out."
"Security center?"
"Hall, left, through two doorways." He watched Volt pass through the wall and muttered, "We have got to upgrade the hardware if there are people like that around."
Quarrel looked at the three disappearing figures. He remembered the crosswind and fired the net arrow that would string across the two buildings. "Gramarye? I can't fly."
"I'll watch," she replied and started to rise. She wasn't as fast as the other woman, but she kept an eye on them. The group stopped at five hundred feet above the earth, hovering over the building that Volt had gone into.
The security center was unguarded. Volt laid a hand on it and felt what it had recorded.
No; no one suspicious had gone in, though he noted that the mayor had been in to visit Hightower early that morning. He left a back door in case he needed to get back in. He did notice that the security computer was kept separate from the computers that controlled things like the experiments.
Vieno said to Ricochet, "Why move the bystanders? Why not move Hightower to the other side of the world?"
Ricochet said, "Because my teammates can't move that fast, and I didn't need a possibly-mentally-controlled Urbanity moving through the earth trying to reach him. I was pretty sure that…Hightower?... could take care of himself."
Vieno filed that hesitation away for future reference.
Urbanity shook his head and let go of Hightower's ankles. He floated there.
"You okay now?" asked Izzy.
"I think so." Urbanity fingered his communicator. "I seem to be clear now. I'm going to stay here until you give me the signal." He frowned. "I'm-I'm sorry. Tell them that, too."
Izzy couldn't resist. "Well, they couldn't have gotten through if you didn't have such a weak mind." She set Hightower on the roof, and he buckled and almost cried.
"We have," he said, "have a first responder set up…building 3…until the ambulance gets here. I have something to say." Izzy scooped him up and flew off.
Volt poked his head out of the building wall. "I don't feel it any more. The electrical disturbance…it's stopped."
Still, thought Vieno, the mentalist has to be near here. Vieno spotted the blind woman and her guide dog walking across the parking lot; Vieno bounded over to meet them. Vieno stroked the dog absently.
"Who is it?" asked the woman. Vieno identified herself. "Oh, good! Just who I was looking for."
"Yes?"
"Augie had a seeming. I had to tell you. Someone in a metallic suit, laying waste to things. None of you has a metallic suit, right?"
Gramarye swooped down. "Miss? Tell your dog to get out of my head."
The compulsion to pet the dog went away, like a lightswitch had been flicked.
"Nice dog," said Vieno carefully.
"Thank you," said the woman. What had she said her name was yesterday? Richards, Richardson, something like that? "Since yesterday, people have been so kind to Augie. It was traumatic, that storm."
Meanwhile, in the emergency care room, the hypo hissed as it injected sedatives into Hightower's arm. "I don't have much time before the drugs… I'd like to fund a superhero team. I want to set up a trust independent of me. I don't want them to say that I'm influencing the team. I'd like you to be on that team. All three of you. Bruno has the paperwork the lawyers drew up. And, uh, annnnd…" His eyes rolled back in his head.
"Lawyers? You should spray for those," but he was asleep.
Two paramedics came in to take him. "I'll fly the ambulance there," Izzy said. "It's faster."
"Sisters of Mercy General is the closest," said the one. "On three…one, two, three." They transferred Hightower to the cot. Three minutes later, she was back. There was a jet there now, parked in the little quad.
A masked woman in a dark cloak greeted her. "Isabel? I'm Corbie. Thank you for handling the situation."
"A situation your team created."
"And we've apologized." She half-smiled. "Your father and I have corresponded. I'm glad to see his daughter is doing well."
"How did you know we were here?"
"Vieno's Facebook status. You should tell her to put a handle on that." She turned to the other members of the Confederacy of Justice. "We should go."
And within seconds, it was just Vieno, Izzy, and Volt. "Security Center?" asked Volt. "Maybe three pairs of eyes will catch something that one didn't."
Bruno returned with paperwork, and Vieno asked him. "Sure, you can look, but you'll have to sign these releases and NDAs. Security footage includes corporate secrets." Vieno scanned them. In case of criminal affairs, they could speak of that matter, though they had to notify the corporation before notifying the police.
I think that's unenforceable, thought Vieno, but standard. Interesting that they were prepared for the question.
They chatted about the offer while reviewing footage.
"I don't want to be beholden to anyone," said Volt. "I'd rather not work for the city."
"Except that no matter what, we're beholden to somebody, pointed out Izzy. "This way, we get police powers."
"They can fire us," said Volt.
"If they don't hire us, they can sue us. At least with a legal relationship to the city, they have to jump through hoops if they want to do anything other than fire us."
"I suppose…" He looked at the paperwork that Bruno had provided. "Maybe a membership service relationship?"
Vieno had some thoughts on that.
* * *
Mr. Dion Palmer met them outside the Stewart Reed building. He was wearing a suit, even though it was Saturday, and his head gleamed like it had been freshly shaved: he looked Hispanic for some reason. "Well, if it will help make up your mind, we can tour the Sentries headquarters."
"It has squatters," pointed out Vieno. "The city only owns it because of a tax dispute."
"But we intend to keep it. And there are no squatters on the first floor. We've managed to rent that. And the headquarters on the top floors of the building are padlocked and you need a special passcard to take the express elevator there. Fortunately, I have one." He slide it through the card reader and the elevator started to move. "I'm sure that as soon as people know you're in the building, rentals will be easier."
"Really?" asked Izzy. "What if we get attacked?"
"Insurance is covered in the lease agreement, and there is a certain prestige to being near the city's super team."
Izzy nodded but didn't believe him.
They rode up to the twenty-fifth floor. "Odd," said Palmer. "It should take us to twenty-six. The Sentries headquarters is on twenty-six through thirty."
Volt looked at the card reader. "Don't bother. It's been tampered with."
"I'm sure it's because the security system is being brought out of mothballs. There's a stairwell, I have a key for the lock."
The chains that held the lock were dangling.
"Stay here," said Volt. He walked through the door and up the stairs. In the foyer of the headquarters, he could hear someone…maybe a teenage boy…singing a Britney Spears song. He couldn't tell which one; they all sounded the same to him. He kept walking until he could hear someone else.
"That's in the way. I think it's an AIM Reactor. Can you move that, sweetie?" came the electronically filtered voice. There was a scraping sound, as of something massive being moved.
Volt backed out. Palmer screamed when he reappeared.
"Sorry," Palmer said. "Nerves."
"Why don't you wait downstairs?" asked Izzy.
"I think I will," he said, and left.
"Thanks to that, they've heard us," said Vieno. "Let's go."
"Look at this stuff," said Volt. "It's like in mint condition for nineties tech."
Just before they came around a corner, they heard the filtered voice say, "I'm not done yet. Can you handle them, hon?"
They walked around the corner into a huge room illuminated by blocks of lit plastic, and with several massive pieces of Kirbytech scattered about. An armoured figure was lying on the floor, elbows deep in a computer panel. Between the battlesuited figure and them stood two people: a glowing translucent girl of maybe fourteen, and a teenage boy with red skin and big ram horns.
Vieno sighed and wondered, Did I ever tell the others about the dog's prophecy of doom? I don't think so. Too late now. "She's not touching the ground. Immaterial girl, I presume?"
"I thought you were supposed to file down the horns, fella," Izzy said. "They tell me that's the routine."
Volt said, "None of this is going to be mint in five minutes, is it?"
The figure on the ground said absently, "I could tell you it's all a misunderstanding, but I don't think you'd believe me. Take them down, kids."
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