SwordCoastTaxi
 OOC 
 Dice Rolls 
      "NECESSARY EVIL!!!"      
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  3 a.m.
 Weather:  66° &amp; hard rain
 Location:  The Sea Bridge halfway to Star City


In the early morning darkness, wave after wave of torrential rain slams the eastern seaboard relentlessly. The few people who would normally be on the road this early have either called in sick or pulled over until the storm lightens. A large white van marked "Department of Corrections" bounced defiantly down the Sea Bridge highway connecting Star City to the rest of the world. The streaking van splashed large swells of water into the air in its wake like a speedboat racing a lake. The vehicle's wipers worked feverishly to clear the windshield as the flood kept pouring down unabated.

Inside the felon transport vehicle, a DOC guard kept one hand on the steering wheel while rhythmically nodding his head to the music his earbuds were feeding him. Beside him his guard accomplice was choking down a large burrito and fidgeting with the climate control setting. He coughed, grabbed his drink, took a long swig then craned his neck to peer through the small bullet-proof glass window revealing the van's rear cabin. His subsequent burp and chatter were completely unheard by the quartet of felons restrained in the back. "Restrained" was an understatement:

Military-grade meta-polymer chest- and seatbelts, a near-indestructible Adamantion seat apparatus bolted to the flooring, and Flexsteel Neurodynamic "Cooler" collars fitted at each of the felon's necks.

The nosey guard laughed silently. Then silently tapped the window repeatedly. Then he licked the glass window and produced a middle finger at the felons while spitting unheard profanity. Then the window slammed shut.

The back of the van smelled like an abandoned hospital. It was dark and for a rainy Summertime morning, not hot or cold. The van sound-proofing was impressive and the felons could only hear themselves. Belted in so tight everything had gone numb, the people known as   Hench Wench, Breakneck, Chimera   and   Sol Invicta   had been snatched from across the country (or the world) and processed for Star City. They all knew the city well enough having done business there in the past. Ever since the aliens took over, a lot of people went into that place, but none of them ever seemed to come back out.

As their transport skipped and skidded down the Sea Bridge headed for Star City, the four supervillains, just taken from planes and shoved into this van about an hour ago, were experiencing military-grade jet-lag ....

 
 Spoiler: OOC 
Game time! The PCs can do whatever they want EXCEPT move and use their powers. The collars have negated their powers, dropped their abilities to -5 and made concentrating very hard. Attempting to escape the restraints would be a DC23 Strength or Sleight of Hand check. Questions? Please ask OOC. Rolls? Only on the dice roll thread please. If you made the Investigation check it will come into play soon enough. The villains saw each other at the airport transfer but they were not allowed the chance to talk (which they can do now if they like).
 
Postmodernist
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Breakneck's mind moved faster than his body. It was strange - things seemed less predictable, somehow. It was frankly refreshing to escape the tedium of a world perpetually in slo-mo. It almost felt good, if it weren't so impossibly boring. It was infuriating.

 "Just my luck to get locked up three chicks. Listen ladies, if we get out of this thing alive, whaddya say we have a nice four-way? Trust me, I'm better than your vibrators,"  he said with a smile that teetered into a leer. Seeing his joke inexplicably fail to land with his captive audience, he realized that this crew was either stuck up or, understandably, frustrated by their present circumstances. Breakneck, as accustomed to abrupt shifts in direction as his old partner Whiplash's name implied, changed tack.  "Erh, um, speaking of getting out of here, any of you happen to be super geniuses or whatever? Got any bright ideas to escape? I am all ears. Well, I mean, my name's Breakneck, not 'All Ears,' that'd be stupid. Besides, I think that guy died when the sushi aliens showed up I heard. Bad joke, sorry. So... what are you gals in for? Or is this just where book club meets?" 
AvatarVecna
 
 Originally Posted by Postmodernist 
 For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Breakneck's mind moved faster than his body. It was strange - things seemed less predictable, somehow. It was frankly refreshing to escape the tedium of a world perpetually in slo-mo. It almost felt good, if it weren't so impossibly boring. It was infuriating.

 "Just my luck to get locked up three chicks. Listen ladies, if we get out of this thing alive, whaddya say we have a nice four-way? Trust me, I'm better than your vibrators,"  he said with a smile that teetered into a leer. Seeing his joke inexplicably fail to land with his captive audience, he realized that this crew was either stuck up or, understandably, frustrated by their present circumstances. Breakneck, as accustomed to abrupt shifts in direction as his old partner Whiplash's name implied, changed tack.  "Erh, um, speaking of getting out of here, any of you happen to be super geniuses or whatever? Got any bright ideas to escape? I am all ears. Well, I mean, my name's Breakneck, not 'All Ears,' that'd be stupid. Besides, I think that guy died when the sushi aliens showed up I heard. Bad joke, sorry. So... what are you gals in for? Or is this just where book club meets?"  
 

  "Hench Wench,"   she says, by way of introduction. She's almost stunningly beautiful without her usual balaclava.   "Unless I can get the guards thinking with the wrong head, no plans here. If just counting my stuff...some murder, some vehicular manslaughter, grand larceny, grand theft auto, kidnapping, and false imprisonment. If we're counting stuff from the like 500 charges of aiding and abetting...basically everything. I'm in for basically everything."   She laughs to herself.
Soras Teva Gee
For the first time in years Invicta felt cold and uncomfortable. It was true what they said, you never realized how much you relied on certain things until they taken from you and the fire had grown to sustain her over the years in ways she'd had never expected in her youth. All gone for the moment though. Idly she wondered how long the collar would have to stay on for her to start aging, in American movies those who cheated Saturn always paid a price in the end did they not? Was that to be her fate? No not likely. She'd get out of this or be killed first.

  "Our dear Breakneck would so far bear out the premise that all men only think with one head. At any rate good evening, or morning now, to you both Madame Wench and the Fastest Man in Bed. Your reputations precede you both"  

Invicta did not introduce herself, but then there were few in the world who did not know the name Sol Invicta. Dictator, mutant, terrorist, freedom fighter, revolutionary and super villain the Queen of Flames had worn many titles over the years. Though a woman in her fifties she was still in the prime of youth with platinum silver hair and golden burning eyes. Beautiful most would say but it was more then that, just for a moment it seemed like her bindings were no more then the latest fashions and a dingy prison transport a stately royal transport. When she spoke it was a voice rich in confidence, one that wasn't easily ignored.

  "As for a genius, some of those ranker types on the internet have called me that but I'm no Gadget Rat,"   Referring to one famous heroine now likely lost but who could famously make or break any machine with a box of scraps,   "I will perhaps think of something but with no tools my hands are not fine enough to slip these leashes before this van reaches its destination. Still they could have killed us out of hand, so perhaps we will find that time and another way in turn."  
Dusk Raven
Eshe felt like a corpse.

For so long now, she'd been strong. She hated the  reason  she was strong - those damn augmentations that Dr. Krieger, better known as "The Optimizer," had inflicted on her. The ability to rip herself apart and put her back together stronger. He made her a monster, a  freak.  But... she'd always kind of liked being strong, being fast, being tough. And even the pain of her joints dislocating, her bones snapping and reforming, was almost like the ache one felt after a good exercise... sure, it hurt, but it was oddly satisfying too. Most of the time, anyway.

Even the worst of her transformation pains, though, were preferable to feeling nothing at all. Once, she'd wondered what it would be like to have all her powers removed, or suppressed, like what was happening now. She now knew it wasn't worth it. She hated feeling weak, sickly, sluggish... and  really  hated that didn't have a choice about it anymore.

The jury was still out on whether  internal  emptiness was better than internal pain. Eshe was finding it hard to decide. She kept going back and forth between the two, stewing in impotent rage and hatred, before eventually collapsing into listless despair and resignation... at least until something aroused her ire.

Like that jerk in the van with her.

She turned her gaze on him, a fresh fire in them. It was probably helped by the fact that, despite her powers being suppressed, her damned eyes were still their yellow color, with black sclera. He wanted to know what she was in here for?   "Why do you  think  I'm in here? You think I'm hitchhiking?"   There were a bunch of reasons, really, but the aliens probably saw her as a freak too. And, more importantly, a threat. Humans always had, after all. That's why they called her "Chimera."

She settles back down. Her eyes didn't lose their fire, but she did redirect it, glaring at the humans in the driver's cab. She ached to be loose... and for her powers back. And for... well. Best not to think of all the things in her life she wanted but couldn't have.
Postmodernist
Breakneck smirked.  "The Targaryen talks funny, 'specially for a queen in prison van. So if you're not gonna play 'Breaker of Chains,' or whatever, looks like we're stuck here for a minute,"  he casts a look at Chimera,  "at least until they drop off our snake-eyed hitchhiker here. Oh, and I'm not the  fastest  guy in bed. That distinction belongs to Timewarp. Pretty sure that dude lost his virginity before his own dad was born." 

Smugly satisfied with his patter, Breakneck takes a look around the van, searching for anything of use or a means of escape.
Soras Teva Gee
  "Yes yes very convincing,"   Invicta said to Breakneck with a roll of her eyes.

Now she considered the last occupant of the van. She and the other two villains were quite established but the 'hitchhiker' was still a mystery to Invicta. She didn't look far from Invicta's apparent age, but then that was chief evidence of how little outer appearance meant in these circles. Still there was nothing else to give her identity away. Well nothing to do about that but ask

  "If you can ignore the thug I'm curious what brings you here too so perhaps more polite introductions? I am Sol Invicta. I've been wanted for 'crimes against humanity' for years and countless other charges. All of which makes me a threat worth picking up on general principle for our new overlords. These two likewise have well established records, but you madam I'm drawing a blank.  So what brings you to this fine establishment?"  
Dusk Raven
After another glare at Breakneck for his comment, Eshe looked over at Sol Invicta.  Politeness  was never her strong suit, especially not while being a prisoner. But, with bitterness and emptiness still warring in her heart, she figured being rude wasn't worth the effort. Especially with Breakneck taking up the mantle of smartass.   "I'm called Chimera. I'm in here for... same things as you, really. Just not as grandiose."   Well, there  was  the time she and Optimizer had planned to launch a series of missiles to spread a mutagen around the globe, but that had ended less dramatically than Eshe might have liked. Maddie and her comrades had shown up before Optimizer had even gotten the payload ready, so it was pretty much just a matter of them kicking villain ass and then telling the US government that it was safe to go get their rockets back. Most people probably hadn't even heard of the incident, that was just a Tuesday as far as hero and villain antics went. Still, it had felt good yelling about things like "total global saturation" during her fight with Maddie.

She tried to fixate on that rather than... well. Maddie. But she was accustomed to mixed feelings by now.

Back in the present, she said,   "I've never really cared for fame or notoriety, so I'm not surprised you haven't heard of me. Don't care, either. Though, if you want to play twenty-one questions during our little bus ride, find out about us all, I can't stop you."  
Soras Teva Gee
So Chimera then. Classical reference, perhaps animal themed powers? Whatever the case it was true, Invicta had not heard of any villain using that moniker recently, but then she herself hadn't been as active lately busy with other things beside.

  "Well then Chimera a good day to you as well,"   Invicta said with an easy smile,   "There's certainly nothing wrong with anonymity, even aliases only go so far, and fame has its drawback. I once ended up burning down half of Sarajevo after someone identified me in market buying... ham and sausage I think it was. Walked out and found three capes and probably the entire police force waiting for me. I wasn't even planning anything for later I had just been in town to meet with some bankers, and wanted to refresh our stocks. So don't feel that being anonymous isn't without merit."  
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0306 hours
 Weather:  66° &amp; hard rain
 Location:  The Sea Bridge halfway to Star City

The speeding van suddenly shudders, fishtails, then goes into a slow turn to the right clearly against it's intended direction of travel! Another hard shudder and the van FLIPS leaving the bridge and tumbling mid-air before returning to the highway with a shocking collision that nearly knocks the bound villains unconscious! Spinning out of control on wet pavement at over forty miles per hour the doomed van comes to a crashing stop against one of the Sea Bridge's massive towers! The impact force crushes the metal in-between the villains' rear cabin and the van's front rending metal and the entire front end of the van rips free from the vehicle reinforced metal tearing like wet toilet paper! The van now in two pieces, the lashing wind and rain instantly invade the decimated vehicle showering the beleaguered captives! They could see outside the vehicle: the van had come to rest on the right edge of the bridge, the semi-severed front driver's cabin dangling over the side above the raging Atlantic Ocean below!

Roaring winds! The early morning darkness only partially illuminated by the Sea Bridge's lights! The tropical storm drenching the restrained villains' bodies! The van groans and leans forward threatening to tip over and fall into the ocean below! Suddenly the small front cabin window opens and the villains see the burrito guard's terrified face! He pounds a hand (silently) against the window just as the front end of the van snaps loose and falls tumbling into the darkness three hundred feet above the ocean! Lightning flashes and thunder echoes across the dark sky as if signaling the horrific final fate of the four felons!

Then. A black and red cape whipped into view from the outer edge of the now open face of the van. A massive figure in black and red armor stepped into view, his distinct horned metallic helmet turning to gaze at the villains, then glance out into the darkness beyond the bridge.

   OVERMASTER!!!   

The world's most wanted terrorist, and for good reason: the armor-clad madman had attempted to dominate or destroy the world repeatedly for over a century! But despite blowing up cities, taking world leaders hostage and unleashing vast armies of robotic terminators or subterranean kaiju on humanity, he has never been captured once. While his identity remained a mystery there were rumors in the criminal underground that he was once a benevolent polymath who led the world into the 18th-century Industrial Revolution but was driven mad by his own unbelievable intellect! But now the dark tyrant of international terror was rumored to be leading a global offensive against the extraterrestrial invaders. An offensive that was gaining ground no matter how hard the aliens fought against it.

The van leaned forward again set to tumble into the dark abyss but Overmaster leaned his back against it, supporting it against the storm. An echoing meta-baritone spoke,  "Well, well, well. This would seem to be the quintessence of the proverbial 'by the skin of your teeth', eh? Overmaster was tracking your transport to Star City and meant to actuate your liberation, but clearly your masterful driver had a far more creative solution. You know, over forty-thousand Americans die annually in automobile accidents. Good thing you had on your seatbelts, yes?" 

He looked away and seemingly talking to no one said,  "Stand-by."  Then he looked back at the hapless villains,  "They're coming for you. Two K'tharen patrol ships are five miles out and closing. Rapidly. Did you know: when written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' has two key characters: one represents danger, while the other, signifies opportunity. Overmaster will offer once. Only. Join Overmaster's OMEGA initiative and assist in Overmaster's plan for global reformation. Or, Overmaster will leave you to .... whatever  this  is." 

He turned and walked away and the van groaned forward leaning towards the whipping ocean below ---

 
 Spoiler: OOC 

It's a slow lean so the PCs have a few seconds to discuss a decision. For players, I'd describe Overmaster, Earth's greatest villain, as sounding a lot like Darth Vader and of course he only speaks of himself in 3rd-person 😛
 
Postmodernist
 "Jeez, this dork talks worse than the Targaryen. Did I just hit my head really hard, or did this floating video game boss just give us the option to join some arbitrary organization with zero information whatsoever? Or wait, no, the Trout already have us, and they're engaging in some sort of mind-control ****ery, yeah? I think that might have been an episode of 'Rick and Morty,' actually. You losers ok?" 

Breakneck tests his restraints, assesses the situation as best he can, and attempts to test his powers against the "cooler" collar.
Dusk Raven
Sol Invicta had  just  hit on one of Eshe's sore spots. She'd turned to the other woman, glared at her, and said,   "Oh, I'd  love  to be anonymous, but I  can't  because of these  f-"    at which point the van went off course, to the extent that even Eshe thought was odd. When things had settled, somewhat, Eshe looked over to the general direction of their savior (?) and said,   "Not much of a choice, eh? I wouldn't mind a little more info, but option one has some clear benefits!"   Realistically speaking, Eshe thought there wasn't much different between refusing now, or accepting and then choosing to bail later, assuming it ever came to that. For now, she struggled a bit against her restraints, the promise of freedom putting a faint sense of vitality back into her...
Soras Teva Gee
Invicta bore the Chimera stare with little concern but before she could formulate a reply all hell broke lose. Invicta's stomach leaped into her throat as the prison transport seemed to go in every direction a once. She'd taken hard hits before, but not in this weakened state. It lasted an eternity and then it was over. Or perhaps just begun as they seemed to be in a much more immediate predicament, until a cloaked and horned figure appear. Overmaster!

  "Oh providence, truly you are still with me,"  

Invicta said to herself  before letting out laugh rich and deep like wine while the others spoke. Invicta had already decide the course though.

  "Overmaster you old lunatic, the sooner you cut us free the sooner we can fight back."  
AvatarVecna
Hench Wench grins at the sight of their rescuer. She doesn't have a lot of repeat customers, both because few wish to hire her for more than petty drama, and because she finds a lot of villains just...lacking in vision. Overmaster has neither problem, and she's happily worked for him more than a couple times over her career. Little surprise he's just as effective playing guerilla against aliens as against the world governments.   "Of course I'm in!"  
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day : Monday
 Time:  0307 hours
 Weather:  66° &amp; hard rain
 Location:  The Sea Bridge to Overmaster's ship

The back doors of the van burst open and several figures wearing OMEGA's trademark jet-black bodysuits jump in! Using mini-lasers the operatives cut the villains free, toss them over their shoulders and exit the van in less than a minute! As the villains are toted across the bridge they see their wrecked transport tilt over the edge falling out of sight!

Carried several yards across the bridge the villains see a brilliant flash of light around them and then they are lowered to the floor?!? They are no longer on the rainswept Sea Bridge but find themselves on a teleportation platform within a warehouse-sized space: the metallic walls and twenty-foot ceiling are covered with flashing electro-mechanical lights as approximately twenty OMEGA agents walk hurriedly from place to place. The smell is sterile as a sealed computer room and a low white-noise echo hums from all directions.

An OMEGA agent approaches the drenched villains saying,  "Welcome to the party, convicts."  Snatching off his mask you see a familiar face:  Cadre ! One of the world's most infamous thieves who uses his self-duplicating power to execute nigh-impossible heists. Cadre had worked with the supervillains (except maybe not Chimera) at one point or another, usually during the planning phase of difficult scores, as his advanced military experience with U.S. Special Operations made him an exceptional schemer.

He stepped onto the platform and walking villain to villain, placed a tiny metal disc that resembled a watch battery on each of their "Cooler" collars, which beeped off a second later. Instantly the villains could feel their strength returning! Cadre smiled and winked at Sol Invicta,  "I'll show you your room."  Again the villains are surrounded by brilliant light then they find themselves in a large studio-style room: sofas, recliners, dresser drawer, big-screen TV, computer, kitchen, closets, wall-to-wall carpeting, no art or windows and hallways. Pointing at the hallway Cadre adds,  "There's separate restrooms with showers, body wash, towels, whatever, down there. The fridge is stocked with fresh fruits and veggies and bottle water. Your suits are in the dresser drawer." 

He shrugs,  "Any questions I can't answer?" 
 
 Spoiler: OOC 

Moving right along. The villians should feel normal now but they still have the deactivated collars on. And their orange prison suits.
 
Soras Teva Gee
As the collar blinked Invicta reached up to touch it then breathed deeply. A distinct chill swept the room, building steadily in strength. Yes there it was, her power was restored. Invicta held up her arm focusing her power and the heat of their new surroundings into single point. Suddenly a light flickered above her upraised palm, a small flame of golden red flickered to life. Beautiful. Invicta drew in more heat and the flame grew to the size of her fist and then a head, taking on a golden hue like a minature sun. The room was cold now but for the intense heat radiating from Invicta's flame. And then with a flick of her wrist it vanished and a wave of heat like stepping into a sauna filled the room, leaving it warmer then it had started.

  "Oh yes that is much better,"   Invicta said removing the collar as she spoke,   "Hello Cadre, I see reports on Omega's personnel numbers were not as exaggerated as the new authorities want to believe. I can think of many questions starting with where are we now, but not until after I am out of these clownish rags I think."  

Invicta waited but a moment to see the others reactions before moving to collect the indicated suit and go fully refresh herself.
Dusk Raven
  Ah,  damn  this feels good!"   As Sol makes her statements, Eshe goes through a few quick stretching motions, before testing out her powers, just a little. One after another, the spaces between each vertebra pop as she extends her spine, extending her height by several inches (and stretching her torso to a slightly uncanny proportion), before retracting to her normal shape with a sudden snap. She looks down at her hands, and her pitch-black claws stab out from the fingers on one hand, but only a few centimeters. The same thing happens with the other hand a moment later, before they all retract.   "Never been more glad to be alive."   She then, finally, looks at Cadre again, hesitating slightly before speaking.   "Actually... that day the aliens turned on humanity, do you..."   she looks away.   "...Never mind, that can wait."   Before anyone can ask what it is she meant, she follows up with,   "Do you have a place I can  really  stretch myself out? And shred this damn outfit in the process? Also, where can I get some clothes?"  
Postmodernist
The other villains almost notice Breakneck vanish and rematerialize, idly lounging in one of the recliners in front of the large-screened TV, tossing grapes into his mouth like a hyperactive teenager. He is no longer wearing the prison jumpsuit, but has slipped into an all-black track suit, a sort of henchman mufti. He appears groomed, his hair straightened, and his appearance less bedraggled than it was during their time in the van.

 "Wow, Cadre, you didn't tell us what a dump this was. There's barely any good channels, the hot tub takes  forever  to heat up, and there aren't any good snacks. You know my metabolism is crazy fast, right? Where the hell are we, anyway? The Alps? The Andes? Appalachians? I'm doing this in alphabetical order until you tell me what mountains we're in. Oh, and those personnel numbers are probably exaggerated by Cadre's dupes, if my little look-see was any indication. Anyway, you slowpokes should clean up, you all look like crap."  Breakneck begins flipping channels, waiting for his companions to refresh themselves. In an instant, a small pile of banana peels, empty water bottles, and discarded apple cores appears on the coffee table next to him.

 "Oh, and uh, speaking of my metabolism... I may wanna talk to your boss about getting some more  juice  in here sooner or later, if you know what I mean. The stuff was supposed to stay in my body permanently, but nobody counted on how cracked-out it'd accelerate my system, so I actually metabolize it over time. I'll need more soon-ish, so we might wanna address that, assuming your boss wants me in top shape." 
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0314 hours
 Weather:  ???
 Location:  OMEGA secret hideout

Cadre nods at Invicta,  "All warfare is based on deception. We don't win every battle but as long as we continue to stay a step or two ahead of them, we'll win this campaign. As far as our current location, that's one I can't answer. It's wartime, so intel security is paramount." 

Raising an eyebrow at Eshe's unfinished question, Cadre did answer the next,  "Uh right: there's a uniform in the dresser over there. Latrine down the hall and you've got some room here.**"  He looks around,  "But if you want a little work-out, there's a full gym ground-level. Even has -" 

He gets cut off by Breakneck's report and looks down shaking his head. He looks up at the speedster with a frown-smile,  "And like I just said,  Brakedust , the location is Overmaster's business. Hell, even I don't know and I pride myself on knowing other peoples' business. You want to go after your stash, fine, but the enemy will be looking for you. You get pinched, you're on your own. OMEGA won't risk being compromised for one cell." 

He tapped a wrist and a small hologram of the time flashed over his wrist:    0314 hours   . Cadre started to head for the sliding doorway,  "You have about two hours for R&amp;R, then you'll get your mission briefing in this room. If there's no more questions, I'm on my way ....." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC** 

The room is 100 ft. x 100 ft. with 10 ft. ceilings. So a very large, furnished studio space. In the dresser drawers are OMEGA uniforms (black bodysuits) with black masks that cover the face fully. 'Latrine' is military jargon for a restroom.

If you make a roll please let me know so I can give you the information you need (if successful) 🙂
 
Soras Teva Gee
  "Yes one can't betray secrets we don't know, a shrewd though often frustrating policy"   Invicta remarked mildly on Cadre playing coy with their location.

Well she supposed that was to be expected, she certainly had secrets she was less then eager to reveal. The location of Invicta's own little hermitage being easily the least among them. For now it could wait, and she could always melt her way out later.

  "Well I suppose other questions can wait for the briefing. In the meantime I think I shall have a nice shower and make a meal."  

Heading to the bathing facility Invicta took her time under the cool water letting it sizzle across her skin whilst thoroughly scrubbing away the filth of her capture. Her hair in particular was a great mess of sweat, dirt and just a little dried blood. That done she found herself wishing for her own collection of brushes and combs before finally drying her hair with a touch. Showered and dressed in the black body suit Invicta considered herself again, it was important to always strike the right image if you wanted people to listen to what you had to say. Well black always worked it was true but she would definitely need to prioritize a run to her own lair at some point in the near future.

Finishing in the bathroom Invicta moved to the kitchen. While she had no true need to eat cooking was a hobby she quite enjoyed, and whether leading them or following cooking for people rarely failed to have a positive effect on your relations she had found. Now then what to fix, something relatively quick and easy. Chicken perhaps.
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0500 hours
 Weather:  ???
 Location:  OMEGA hideout

The time passes quickly as the villains mentally and physically transition from prisoners to civilians again. While they're eating and chatting the spacious studio goes completely dark! Then a hologram of a tall skyscraper appears hovering in the air mid-room! Standing next to the slow-spinning hologram is     OVERMASTER!    
 "The accommodations are satisfactory, yes? We are not savages nor should we live as such. No, there is a greater destiny meant for those such as us, if we pursue it. You have questions, of course ...." 
Soras Teva Gee
As time ticked by the sizzling of oil and smells of cooking wafted from the kitchen. Pan fried chicken lightly battered, white rice with mild seasoning, and large bowl of salad soon appeared as Invicta worked. It wasn't the greatest dish ever made but it was hot and fresh. She made sure the helpings were ample, speedsters all ate for ten and that Chimera girl seemed like her powers would need an appetite as well.

Invicta made a point to bring a plate to each present, warning Breakneck and Cadre to not simply devour the entire batch. Finally she herself sat down with a small plate to eat and relax. Taking only one helping for herself Invicta was finished by the time Overmastered appeared and...

Invicta found herself letting out a sigh. Honestly was that his way of starting a briefing. There was never an end to questions, it was the job of the briefer to shape those questions in advance to the most relevant matters. Well one couldn't expect too much working with History's Greatest Madman she supposed.

  "The accommodations are most adequate, though I suppose they lack a little intimacy next to a tight windowless van,"   Invicta said with a light smile before letting her face harden,   "As for questions Overmaster, I suppose the most pressing start with why you brought us all here. Omega has been fighting for some time, are we to be one more cell in your organization or did you have any higher purposes in mind? Also while you've been causing an admirable amount of destruction do you have discrete tactical and strategic goals for us? I cannot speak for the others but I will fight better knowing at least the shape of our victory and how we will get there."

"Or perhaps you are in need of a general to do all that?"  
Dusk Raven
 Prior to the briefing: 

Eshe grabs one of the uniforms, then gets herself to a corner and...

And...

To her surprise, she hesitates before activating her powers. Despite her statement that she intended to shred her outfit - and her implication that she would do so by transforming - and this juncture, a rare moment of trepidation kicks in. Why? Didn't she spend her time with the collar wishing, for the first time, that she could transform, push the limits of the human body? And yet now that she could, once more... well. Transforming had never been casual for her before. Perhaps this was just her being her old self - despising her own abilities and only wishing to use them when needed. ...And maybe for intimidating people. But she didn't really feel like doing the latter right now.

Well, her new allies could wait to get the horror show that was Chimera's transformation. She could do the big reveal once they were on a mission. Hopefully she wouldn't miss the looks on their faces. For the moment, she tried to put the new uniform on over the jumpsuit as best she could (hopefully she can get something with a zipper, for the dramatic shirt take-off before she destroyed the jumpsuit underneath), and prepared for the briefing.

 At the meeting: 

Distracted somewhat by her thoughts, Eshe can't think of any questions to ask - not at so early a juncture. She wasn't out of the loop  that  long, was she? Besides, someone as grandstanding as The Overmaster was bound to explain all the important parts as soon as he got the chance. So, Eshe crossed her legs and did her best to let him get to the point.  Then  she'd have questions.
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0501 hours
 Weather:  ???
 Location:  OMEGA hideout

 “You might think Overmaster rescued you because Overmaster is in awe of your amazing powers. You’d be wrong. You can all be cut into flank steaks on a V’sori examination table for all Overmaster cares. No, you were rescued for two reasons. The first is because it draws the K'tharen away from Overmaster's real target. The second is because Overmaster can always use a new Omega cell. If you want in, and can prove yourself today." 

He points at the building hologram,  "This is Weston Tower in downtown Star City. Once one of the region's finer business centers, it has since been nearly abandoned. Overmaster's Meta-analysis of Star City has revealed a conspiracy forged between certain members of the U.S. government and the V'sori. But why? Well, to conceal something of course. Something that cannot be relocated." 

The hologram changes with the building replaced by a floorplan of the lobby area,  "Several years ago an enterprising organization known only as The Sphinx secretly purchased Weston Tower and began construction of a special project. The U.S. government has worried for decades about the long-term 'neutralization' of the most-powerful superhuman criminals, especially since the established 'Super-Max' model has failed repeatedly at the containment of even low-tier offenders. What The Sphinx offered was a state-of-the-art Meta-Security installation like none other before it, that could incarcerate the most dangerous criminals, indefinitely. And they built the facility there. The prison can be accessed by elevator from either the upper floors or the lobby." 

The hologram shifted again to reveal a sprawling underground complex one-hundred feet beneath the lobby of Weston Tower! Overmaster pointed at the simulation,  "Simple but effective design: the limited-access lobby elevator provides staff transport down to the stadium-sized containment center below. Three-hundred feet in diameter. One level. Twenty guards armed with military-grade plasma weaponry. Five medical personnel. One hundred restroom-sized cells equipped with the same nullification technology as your "Cooler" collars. Current data identifies thirty-two convicts, all contained in a state of suspended animation and oblivious to the world around them. Your unit is tasked with the extrication of  one  of them." 

The hologram shifts again into an image of a man in his early twenties,  "His name is Jacob Markewitz. He is young and thus naive and trusting. Find him and bring him to the roof of the building. Overmaster will pick those who survive up after Overmaster deals with any remaining Fins that fly in. It won’t end there though. Overmaster can find you wherever you go now. Overmaster can help you and show you how we can defeat the invaders who took over our playground, or Overmaster can point you out to them like wounded prey to a hound. It’s your choice." 
Postmodernist
 "Far be it from me to question the infinite wisdom of our respected Overmaster, but if we're in the prison facility, wouldn't it be advantageous to spring all the other convicts? The enemy of my enemy and all that. Besides, won't that further complicate matters for the finheads? The only thing more frustrating that one freed metahuman is thirty-two of them running around, right? Plus, won't if we spring one guy, they'll probably be able to puzzle out why we snagged him and why, no? But if we spring a bunch of them, well, our intentions will be lost in the shuffle. But what do I, a mere... Omega cell member, know?" 

Breakneck casts his mind back, trying to rack his memory for any recollection of the Weston Tower, The Sphinx, Jacob Markewitz, or any of the other items mentioned in Overmaster's villainous monologue.
Dusk Raven
Eshe grins, just a little.   "I agree. Unless the point is to be as stealthy as possible, then if nothing else, freeing everyone at once might cause enough chaos to cover our escape, and would be a massive headache for the aliens on top of that."   Her grin fades slightly as she recalls an alternate reason for wanting to free the prisoners... but the one prisoner she'd really care about probably wasn't even there. Still, if Eshe found herself in a control room with a "free" button for each prisoner, she was going to hit all of them, partly out of sympathy but mostly for the sheer joy of the chaos it would bring, regardless of what The Overmaster said.
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0502 hours
 Weather:  ???
 Location:  OMEGA hideout


Overmaster responds,  "The mission is Markewitz and if you knew who or perhaps  what  is confined underneath Star City, Overmaster is certain you might rethink your emancipation. There are considerable security measures defending the facility. That and the routine patrols both human and K'tharen. To magnify your chances of success, I am adding two others to your cell ..." 

There's a flash of light behind Overmaster just as the room lighting flickers on! Standing behind the master villain are two well-known criminals who were reportedly slain by authorities a week ago while attempting to escape custody!

Overmaster continues,  "Sovereign and Guerrier should prove useful to your mission. Like you Sol Invicta, Breakneck and Chimera, I saved their nugatory lives and now offer you all redemption as OMEGA agents. Do not disappoint me." 

The large hologram vanishes as Overmaster finishes,  "Tapping the left wrist of your new uniforms will activate a hologram of the building enabling positional navigation. The image will not reveal the location of site security or the boy's exact position. If you trigger the building's sensor system, the SCPD and Fin response will be extensive, and swift. The OMEGA suits provide a degree of protection but the K'tharen weapons are constantly being upgraded. You have fifteen minutes to craft the extraction, then your transport will engage. And, if you are captured, there are  quicker  endings than what awaits you at the hands of the V'sori." 

Overmaster vanishes in a flash of light leaving the five supervillains to themselves in the studio ...
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 

As the flash of light dissipated, Sovereign’s sharp green eyes scanned the room with a calculated gaze. Having just been demolecularized and pieced back together by the teleportation process, she regathered her poise and straightened her back, not unlike a cat restoring its dignity after just suffering an insult. Her tall frame, cloaked in her characteristic black-and-dark green outfit, commanded attention and accentuated the angles on her facial features that drew across Chimera, Breakneck and Sol with an imperious eye.

Unfortunately for Overmaster, he had brought her forth into the room only moments before he had spoken an unwise sentence:

  
   "Sovereign and Guerrier should prove useful to your mission. Like you Sol Invicta, Breakneck and Chimera, I saved their nugatory lives and now offer you all redemption as OMEGA agents. Do not disappoint me."   

  
  Nugatory, am I?   the telepath thought coldly to herself, the straight ceiling that her eyelids formed across her brow an indication that she had not taken the words with humility or forgiveness. But, arrogant and brazen as it was by the Overmaster to make such open dismissals, it was, ultimately, an unspoken inevitability. Both she and he would live forever, and neither of them had any intention of sharing the planet once it was "liberated" from the alien invaders.

But until then...

Sovereign stepped forward, one hand on her right hip and her face half-framed by a bank of blonde hair.

  "My, what strange bedfellows.."   she spoke, her smooth voice reaching the other three. But it was Sol's presence that curled a corner of Sovereigns lips.

  "You're a long way from home, Madame President. Still fighting the good fight?"  
MrAbdiel
Guerrier is idle a few moments longer than Sovereign is, before he moves to the holographic display. He's easily the dominant physical presence in the room (at least while Chimera is in her neutral state), near to seven feet tall and with the broad shoulders and olympian physique suggesting total fulfillment of the potential of the human body. With that hardly being a limit to the powers of those in the room, this alone isn't tremendously threatening; but he radiates a languid, shark-like menace even as he begins committing the layout of the building to memory. The black and orange ensemble with deflection plates worked in where they won't hamper the warrior's grace is a highly distinctive arrangement.

 
 Spoiler: Do I know you? OOC: 
Guerrier is a 'deathstroke' type villain in that he's sometimes the head of his own operation, but just as often he's in high demand as a supremely capable lieutenant for megalomaniacs both because he's extremely deadly, willing to go toe-to-toe with almost any opponent, and most importantly, his wicked ambitions do not seem to extend to a desire to rule the world himself. He has almost certainly worked for Sol Invicta and Sovereign at one point or another. If Chimera or Breakneck have a habit of being scraped together onto 'teams', they might have worked with him too.

By reputation, he's Guerrier, enforcer and battlefield asset for fingertenting lunatics across the world. But he's also one of those villains whose name - Lance Drake - is as widely known his villainous moniker. To people who know him, he responds just fine to  Drake . People do not call him Lance - or if they do, those people are close to him, and you are not close to him.

If you're well connected, you're probably aware he operates under the delusion that he is the immortal knight of the round table Lancelot.

If you're well connected  and  curious enough to have done a remarkable about of investigation, you may have come to the conclusion that this might not be a delusion after all...

Anyway, the point is you can call him Guerrier or Drake, and that's probably fine.
 


He gives a brief glance to Sovereign and Sol Invicta - those women are too ambitionally similar to not need to find some equilibrium with each other first of all - the warrior opens up discussion of the hologram with the speedster and the shifter. His voice is a gravelly baritone, rendered slightly metallic from within his crested helm.

 "We have to extract the target on the roof - it is prudent to enter that way also. It will permit us to disable defenses and security measures present on top of the building before we are fighting our way out. Is anyone skilled enough to hack surveillance and defenses from the outside of the building? We have fourteen minutes until our transport leaves."  
Postmodernist
Breakneck flickered between Sol Invicta and Sovereign, appearing in an overwrought pose each time - his hand stroking his chin contemplatively, or mock-aghast in imitation of either Edvard Munch or Home Alone, popcorn acquired from somewhere in the kitchen being devoured as a prop.  "Something tells me these two are gonna be best friends, right, Gary?"  Breakneck addresses Guerrier, with whom he has begrudgingly worked a few times. The guy was good, but he  sucked  so much. Everyone on this team was a bore, everyone wanted to be in charge, everyone was uptight, but at least the chicks were kinda hot. Maybe they could all have a pillow fight. Breakneck had chosen this life to get away from all the bull****, the hierarchy, the bosses, responsibility, and then these dorks show up and they want to reimpose that same boring order all over again. What would the difference be between Sol's or Overmaster's or Gary Drake's or Sovereign's "utopia?" The color of the uniforms, maybe, the shape of the stupid statues they'd insist (had insisted, in some cases) be sculpted for them - those might differ, but the rest would be just as drab and tedious as the rest.

But if Breakneck ruled, that **** would be  awesome.  Too bad he wasn't interested, cause that was  boring.  Wait, what were we doing? Oh, right.

 "I can  maybe  do it. It's not my primary occupational specialty, shall we say, but I doubt any of you boomers could open a PDF without assistance, so... where is this prison, exactly?" 
MrAbdiel
The wicked knight lets out a rattling growl of displeasure at the speedster's less-than-confident assessment of his own technical skills.

 "Nnn. Without a skilled and dedicated hacker, we ought consider other measures. Far too late to get a man on the inside... No time to fabricate uniforms for a Bavarian Fire Drill. Neither can we feign our own incarceration without hacking personnel and prisoner records. I do not care to be tested in this way - a little more time to prepare would change this scenario dramatically. But without it..."
 
He reaches toward the main hologram and, defying Breakneck's expectation of his ludditism slightly by coping with the interface, illuminates the elevator shaft that runs from top floor to sub basement.

 "Say we don't go in through the roof, then. Encountering the security there without a digital solution will only alert the enemy to our approach. Say we go through the lobby. We can expect there to be stairs from lobby to ceiling in keeping with Star City's fire code, but likely none to provide an extra security threat for the hidden prison." 

He looks at Breakneck again.  "You are the only one of us fast enough to defeat cameras for even a moment. If you race in through the lobby and up the stairs to summon the elevator to the building's top floor then meet us at the lobby again, we can pry open the elevator doors and drop down the empty shaft to the sub level. Forget the retinal scans - Invicta will just have to slag the doors. Sovereign is a telepath of sufficient power to pull the location of Markewitz's cell from the facility staff without bothering with they systems, but as soon as we torch the door they'll be going into lockdown so we'll be on the clock. That means the elevator will shut down, but it'll be near the roof at the time and we won't need it. With so few prisoners and all of them in a suspended state, they likely won't have more than a single security hardpoint. We start heading towards the target while you peel off and deliver a weapon to disable their communications. I have such devices. At the cell, we will all have to fight while Invicta blasts our way in. At that point, if we've moved quickly, only one or two minutes have elapsed and the enemy has scrambled their response. If we're lucky, they have been unable to communicate where to send it. If we're unlucky, they'll  hedge their bets and guard the elevator shaft. Either way, we're fighting our way back to the shaft with the target over someone's shoulder."  He glances to Chimera - but uncertain of the nature of her powers, he does not volunteer her by name.  "Either way, once we get to the shaft, we go back up the way we came. We may be relying on Sovereign to telekinetically haul us upward - Sol Invicta and Breakneck may preceed us upward. It will be quicker to avoid the actual elevator box entirely and pry open a door on one of the upper levels, smash out a window, and finish the ascent to the roof for extraction that way. All other obstacles unforeseen... we'll just have to manage on the fly." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Not trying to bulldoze with my plan; just trying to preserve momentum in the game and keep out planning conversation going. Drake is stating this plan like a  fait accompli  but we're all villains with big personalities, so obviously challenge it or offer your own alternates however you like! Sovereign, in a second, is going to turn around and mention she happens to have memorized the building's details casually so that'll be fun. :D
 
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 

Sovereign looked at Sol a little longer, before tilting her head and peering back at the holographic display, around which Knight and Breakneck had gathered. The former was offering a swiftly devised plan, while the other professed scepticism at their combined technological expertise.

  "Our biggest concern is alerting the V'Sori to our presence,"   she said, stepping closer to the two gentlemen, the flickering image of the hologram draining the color from her face.

  "If I can secure a portable computer I could possibly gain network access to the surface-level security system and set the camera's on a few second replay and jam any external signalling system. The prison system itself is likely an isolated system, as a hundred feet beneath the earth? They would need to relay signals through a transmitter in the lobby, or via a separate, connected signalling broadcaster on the surface. In the latter case, that would give us a possible electronic way to access the subterranean prison's system. With time, I can penetrate most systems, but there are some that are beyond even me. However, given the nature of this installation, it is probable that they are relying on its secrecy as its first barrier of security, particularly as they only have twenty armed staff and all of the inmates are held in suspended animation. The absence of any technical or engineering staff suggests that the internal, isolated system is not as sophisticated as one might expect - because they don't anticipate anyone accessing it in the first place."  

She purses her lips and tilts her head.

  "If we have a spectrum analyzer on the craft that will take us in, we could scan for any signalling transmissions from the Weston Tower, either from the lobby, or a separate transmitter connected to the subtereanean level. Once you know the frequency, you can place a puppet signal over it to project a fake signal while we,"   she brought up her right hand to make a scissor motion with her index and middle finger,   "castrate their communications. They'll be unable to call for back-up, while the V'Sori won't know anything is amiss, and our job will be much easier. Assuming we neutralise the lobby staff without setting off any alarms. Alternatively...a signal jammer could do a similar trick. But if it is a continuous signal feed, the V'Sori will know something is wrong the moment it stops, and send teams to investigate."  
Postmodernist
 "Blast our way in, but our biggest concern is alerting the V'sori. Got it, not contradictory at all. I see we're going for the super subtle approach. Classic."  Breakneck seemed in no way upset that they were going with minimal planning and just crashing the prison.  "But yeah, I should be able to... push an elevator button real fast. Why don't we just knock out the guard and take his keys, or use his eyeballs for the retina scan, or just blast through? Like, I appreciate all this spectrum analyzer and signal jammer stuff, but like... how about we punch these losers and take what we want like always?"  Breakneck's restlessness began to grow, his desire for action palpable.
AvatarVecna
 
 Originally Posted by BananaPhone 
   "If we have a spectrum analyzer on the craft that will take us in, we could scan for any signalling transmissions from the Weston Tower, either from the lobby, or a separate transmitter connected to the subtereanean level. Once you know the frequency, you can place a puppet signal over it to project a fake signal while we,"   she brought up her right hand to make a scissor motion with her index and middle finger,   "castrate their communications. They'll be unable to call for back-up, while the V'Sori won't know anything is amiss, and our job will be much easier. Assuming we neutralise the lobby staff without setting off any alarms. Alternatively...a signal jammer could do a similar trick. But if it is a continuous signal feed, the V'Sori will know something is wrong the moment it stops, and send teams to investigate."   
 

HW hums to herself, thinking the plan over.   "Even if it's not continuous, regular check-ins will be the death of us. That goes for both if we wanted to take out the guards one at a time, and if cutting communications will even work to avoid the V'Sori realizing something's gone wrong down here. Might behoove us to spend some time observing habits, to get a better idea if cutting comms means we're home free or 5 minutes from getting buried."  
 
 Spoiler 
ooc looked like a "it's fine as long as it doesn't happen again" but not 100% sure. Will continue unless told otherwise.
 
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 
  "If I were to predict the security in the surface building...surveillance cameras, motion detection, infrared, biometrics, with automatic cross-references to established databases, and x-ray scans. The lower prison itself is most likely an isolated system, with its own power grid and less extensive security, relying on its secrecy, and its only link to the outside is the elevator shaft."  
MrAbdiel
Guerrier glances to Sovereign and then Hench Wench as they weigh in. His posture alone suggests he is not convinced at this stage that fussing with anything other than a rapid breach and seizure is worth their time, but he makes no move to attempt to squash the alternate suggestions. He merely glances to the clock - thirteen minutes remaining - and then back to the hologram.

 "Underground facilities require constant air and heat cycling. Likely they run a HVAC conduit all the way up the elevator shaft. The HVAC vent is likely full of its own motion sensors and so forth, but if we had more time I'd suggest piping gas down into the prison through it to subdue or disorient the defenders - just carbon monoxide would put the humans out, and they wouldn't even realize it was happening. But in a space that big we'd need time we don't have. As for why I'm suggesting we skip the biometrics..."  He inclines his head slightly toward Breakneck.  "If we use the elevator system, rather than dropping down the shaft, we're putting ourselves at the mercy of whomever controls the elevator. We go down at their speed, and up at their will. If we raise alarms on the way in, plunging will give us a chance to make a move on the prison before external responders are scrambled. If we try to use the elevator itself, and we miss any single surveillance measure, they have us in a confined location for a response. Speaking of response - how fast  are  you, exactly? Could you... Race across Downtown and trip an alarm at one of the Mag-Lev rail stations the V'sori rely on, and then get back to us while the fins are drawn in that direction?" 
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 

Sovereign offers a small shrug.

  "Could just rip the elevator out of the shaft. I can take us down and up. Worse comes to worse...could skip it all entirely and just telekinetically burrow down there and into the prison and depart the same way. That's what I did to that idiot hippie Blossom Spirit's subterranean nature retreat...hehehhe..."  

Sovereign chuckled darkly as the memories surfaced in her mind, the smile that came across her lips only available to those who took pleasure in their work.

  "...she didn't think that was too  groovy , hehehe..."  
MrAbdiel
An absolute and unflappable bummer, Drake ignores Sovereign's embroidered anecdote but addresses her point.  "Is that within your capacity? Creating a supported tunnel a hundred feet below the surface of the earth, and then to bore through what we must assume is military-grade reinforced concrete into the facility proper?" 
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 

Sovereign rose her eyebrows and tilted her head forward slightly in a 'yes', confirmation.

  "I've blasted my way into mountains before. It's not subtle, but it can be quick. Neutralise the guards and take all the pods back with us, and let Overmaster sort out the ones he wants. We can try this - and if it fails, you and Breakneck can get ready to secure the elevator shaft?"  
Postmodernist
 
 Originally Posted by MrAbdiel 
  "Could you... Race across Downtown and trip an alarm at one of the Mag-Lev rail stations the V'sori rely on, and then get back to us while the fins are drawn in that direction?"  
 

 "Can I lure the fins on a wild goose chase?  Is Sol Invicta's vibrator low on batteries?"  Breakneck snickers.  "Yeah, I think I can handle that. So are we gonna continue jawing or actually do this thing?" 
MrAbdiel
Drake stands still for a moment, having some conversation inside himself at Sovereign's bolder suggestion, but then shakes his head.  "All the pods? No. I'm certain your psionic capacity could do it, but we need to operate with the possibility that one or more of us might go down to enemy fire and need extraction. Plus - if it looks like a full scale shucking of the facility, there's no reason for them not to go full-out with any last desperate measures they have. If I were building a secret prison, and it was very important to me not to let my captives escape, I might be upset if I lost one. But if I was losing all of them, I'd be inclined to press the button under my desk that collapses the whole building on them out of spite.  They may not have such measures - but we needn't provoke the risk. Or the pods, decoupled from their power source, may unleash thirty two different kinds of outraged meta-prisoner in our keeping. We need Markewitz. The guards in the place may know their inmates only by number, but the medical staff will know their names and details. Alright - consider this:"
 
He taps the elevator shaft on the display so it ceases its illumination, and draws and finger across it so that the hologram intuitively paints a tunnel underneath the ground toward the hidden prison.

 "We debark from the transport a block from the Sphinx building. Go in through a manhole cover so we're below sight level of the street, and Sovereign bores us an entry tunnel to the facility wall. Between her telekinetic force and Sol Invicta's heat, we should be able to breach our way in, which will trigger alarms. At that point, Breakneck detaches from the group and creates a distraction somewhere else downtown to provoke, or at least split, the Fin response. Something flashy and loud, which is why I suggested involving the Mag-Lev. Once inside, Hench Wench, Chimera and I are running interferance for Sol Invicta and Sovereign who, between them, can extract Markewitz's cell number from enemy med-staff and slag through mechanical obstructions. Once we've retrieved the target, we retreat back into the tunnel and collapse it behind us. Regroup at the manhole, signal for extraction, and make for the rendezvous. This way we're not even touching the main building exterior until it's time to leave, so they have no reason to have fortified the rooftop. As far as they know, we've completed our extraction going back out through the tunnel. Response units will be making their way down into the facility through a lobby we have no need to even approach." 
Soras Teva Gee
  "I do not generally plot out loud Breakneck if you must know, unlike our capable new arrivals"   Invicta said rejoining the conversation,   "Though I suppose it might be more accurate to say I generally have plotted alone, especially these last ten years or so."  
  "I have heard many ideas and issues and see merit in most of them, but assuming our employer will not give us days to see to every issue we might for our usual villainous capers we cannot plan for everything and there is an old adage that reads no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Thus we should strive for as simple a plan as possible.

'To that end I suggest first we approach from below together. I am no stranger to melting earth and rock myself and dare say this would be more efficient then Sovereign's psychic abilities formidable though they are. With the help of those here it should prove even more efficient and subtle. Bypassing the outer defenses will hopefully surprise our adversaries and open multiple options to get out. From there we smash and grab as quickly as possible. We cannot anticipate every challenge we may face inside but with this collection of competent people instead I suggest we focus on roles:'

'Our good knight is highly skilled and experienced, an ideal vanguard leading our way taking out opposition and dealing with the more basic obstacles.'

'Chimera and Hench Wench will back up Guerrier as our main combatants focusing on taking out as many adversaries as they can.'

'Sovereign and myself will form the center and support. I am not as well known for it but I can provide excellent defense to you all. Sovereign's psychic powers seem our best option for dealing with more complicated issues, and we should all strive to give her some of the guards to extract information from. Or I can simply destroy what bars our path.'

'Finally if Breakneck can run half as fast as he runs his mouth I expect to be everywhere assisting all of us as well as ranging out though I am loathe to split the party in such an unknowable situation.'

'Rear guard will rotate between whomever is least engaged with what bars our way. Success will depend on how fluid and adaptable we all can be so all of this may change in a heartbeat. We should also take any opportunities that arise. Overall though we must remain focused on our target first and last. Finally for extraction the fastest way would be up the elevator shaft but we shall have to judge that option when the time comes against back the way we came or blasting out a new path."  
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 

Sovereign listened quietly to Knight, nodding once, before shifting her eyes over to Sol Invicta and waited for her to finish speaking.

  "Using intense heat to create a passage hundreds of feet through the earth beneath the city streets runs a highly probable risk of igniting gas pipelines that could create a catastrophic chain reaction, as well as electrical wiring and vaporising local water pipes. Gasses expand rapidly... ka-poosh ..."   Sovereign held her hands up and pulled them away from each other while twiddling her fingers in a little 'ka-boom' gesture,   "Melting such large quantities of earth, on its own, would also create something a few steps down from lava, while vaporising chemicals in the soil would create clouds of chlorine, sulfur and carbon dioxide that will create an atmosphere in the tunnel so toxic that only I and Breakneck would survive longer than a few seconds when attempting to traverse it. I can sense mass down to the molecular level. I highly recommend that I perform this feat."  

The tall blonde let the prospect hang in the air before adding,   "the choice, however, is yours. I suppose you could direct this molten excavation from a safe distance, and then I could carry us all through the ensuing tunnel. But once in the prison, my preservation would be paramount, for I would be the only one who could extract us."  

Outside of this, Sovereign offered no criticism of either Knight or Sol's proposed plan: enter in through the ground, breach the prison, deal with the guards, locate the VIP and exfiltrate them to the rendezvous point.
MrAbdiel
Drake glances at the clock again.

Nine minutes.

 “Once we are below a dozen feet, we’re unlikely to hit municipal lines. Gas lines won’t be deeper than that; usually they’re within a few feet of the surface. But the carbonised gas discharged from a fire-bore will be difficult to disguise, certainly. Sovereign’s power is safer to dig the tunnel - but when we hit the facility itself, we do well to remember this is a Hyper-Max prison intended to contain powered prisoners. We should not be surprised to encounter structural shielding using non-terrestrial alloys. With time being of the essence, and the enemy alerted at the moment they hear us cracking their walls, we may well need Sol Invicta’s flame to warp and soften the barriers Sovereign will have to clear. The Lady of Dalmatia is right, however, about her defensive powers - incandescent plasma poses the least threat to her.” 
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 


Sovereign held up her right, gloved hand and gave a little 'either way', gesture, tilting her head and pursing her lips in accompaniment. She seemed content in either direction.
Dusk Raven
Eshe took in the new arrivals with very different reactions for each of them. Guerra was, it seemed, the only one who'd know her. She wouldn't say she was  friends  with him or anything, but they'd worked together before, and regardless of the tone of that interaction, he at least knew a bit about how she operated, and vice-versa.

Sovereign, though... Eshe's eyes widened at the sight of her. Eshe had heard of  her,  and the things she'd done. Eshe might be a freak, an abhuman shapeshifter, but Sovereign just disturbed her. As far as Eshe was concerned, Sovereign was more of a monster than she herself was. One that Eshe had no means of defending against.

Well, there was one method she could try - thinking the most visceral, bloody thoughts she could, mostly of her own transformations. She recalled the feeling of flesh and bones twisting, tearing, snapping. She had long desensitized herself to the feelings, but when these powers were forced on her... she thought she'd throw up her own stomach from how  wrong.  It felt. Now, if miss cerebral, mind-violating, self-proclaimed ruler wanted to read  her  thoughts... well, she'd better be able to handle the  grotesque. 

Of course, flooding her own mind with kinesthetic static meant she didn't have much mental capacity left for planning. She was occasionally an okay strategist, but she needed more time, more information... and more knowledge of who she was up against. And she'd never planned anything like this before. Thankfully, there were people willing to do the strategizing for her, and she had no desire to add her take and give people more options. She found herself gravitating towards Guerra's plan, though - if only because she'd worked with him before. He'd certainly laid out some very good reasons not to free all the prisoners at once, enough to make her reconsider. In truth though, she didn't care much. Both plans only expected her to be muscle, and she could do that  very  well.
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0515 hours
 Weather:  ???
 Location:  Transport?

While the crew goes over the details of their plan, light flashes brilliantly around them, then they find themselves back standing once again on the transport platform of the digitized warehouse! Twenty of so OMEGA agents walk around and work the beeping and flashing panels surrounding the platform. Standing next to the platform, armored arms folded behind him against his flowing cape, is     OVERMASTER!    
 "While not one for subtlety, Overmaster finds the furtive nature of your operation slightly erudite.  Do not fail me ."  He tosses a small metallic object to Breakneck just as brilliant light envelops the super-cell!

 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0515 hours
 Weather:  68° &amp; hard rain
 Location:  Sewers below downtown

In the damp darkness of Star City's sewers, the rancid smell of rotten eggs welcomes the villains. They are in an 8-foot-diameter circular stone passageway standing in ankle-deep dirty water. The way ahead looks to go on forever into an even deeper degree of unescapable darkness. Breakneck realizes the object Overmaster tossed him is a mini-flashlight!

From behind the crew comes a series of vicious growls as the villains see a large pack of snarling feral dogs stalking closer from roughly thirty feet away! The wild canines bark and seem to be preparing to attack!
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 

 While the crew goes over the details of their plan, light flashes brilliantly around them, then they find themselves back standing once again on the transport platform of the digitized warehouse! Twenty of so OMEGA agents walk around and work the beeping and flashing panels surrounding the platform. Standing next to the platform, armored arms folded behind him against his flowing cape, is OVERMASTER!

"While not one for subtlety, Overmaster finds the furtive nature of your operation slightly erudite. Do not fail me." He tosses a small metallic object to Breakneck just as brilliant light envelops the super-cell! 

Sovereign stood with the others, a hand on her hip, her black cape flowing from her shoulders behind her. When Overmaster addressed them, she said nothing, and just returned his look, her eyes flat and expressionless.

One day, she told herself. One day the indignity of enduring his undeserved hubris, would come to an end.


 oOo 

Fortunately for Sovereign, she did not have to wade through the muck and grime of a sewer, though she did have to put up with the stench. Instead of walking, the Psychic hovered five to six feet off the ground silently, her body gently moving through the air slowly amidst the group, her black boots touching neither walkway nor fetid water.

But then the dogs emerged.

Sovereign had sensed them before she had heard them - a score of animalistic, simple minds, consumed by instinct and the urge to satisfy immediate needs. No...she could tell, not even that. Nothing - fevered intensity, a wild savagery.

Narrowing her eyes and turning around on the spot, Sovereign raised her right fist towards the incoming group - squeezing her fingers tight as her vulturous mind surged forward through the rancid corridor of the sewer like a net to ensnare all that it could...

OOC:
 
 Spoiler 
Actions:

 Main action:  Sovereign is casting "Group Mind Control" on the centre of the rabid dogs. It's got a 60 foot radius, DC 19, Perception ranged and cumulative.

 Move action:  Commanding the ones that fall under her control, to attack the others that didn't.
 
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0515 hours
 Weather:  68° &amp; hard rain
 Location:  Sewers below downtown

The snarling dogs suddenly turn away from the villains  to face each other , barking and nipping wildly!
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 

The Supervillainess inhaled softly as she felt the sweet intake of psychic energy as the rabid animals fell under her control. Though nowhere on the level of satisfaction she would gain from pressing herself into the skulls and hijacking the more advanced cognition of a human, these pets would have to suffice for now. Like a pre-dinner appetizer.

Silently, Sovereign directed her new little canine rabble: 5 hounds to set upon their two fellows that had resisted her domination, and the rest to charge back up the sewer tunnel towards the darkly silhouetted figure who believed they could observe the group from the safety of the shadows.

Responding to their new masters call, five of the hounds snarled and gnawed their fangs as they fell upon their once-fellow canines, the doggy whines and yelps echoing within the passage way with the chorus of savage barking and teeth searing into flesh in a vicious 5-on-2 melee. Meanwhile, the majority of the pack turned in unison, eyes focused on the witnessing figure, and surged forward as a little canine platoon in pursuit...

  "Observer - one hundred feet into the darkness!"   Sovereign said to those around her, her form still hovering,   "I will send them to retrieve our spectator..."  
Postmodernist
Breakneck vanishes for a moment, sprinting over to the unknown spectator to grab a quick look. The light from the flashlight, perhaps the only thing faster than Breakneck himself, fires a nigh-instantaneous strobe from crazy angles as he makes his assessment and returns to the team. It's all over in an eyeblink. Breakneck makes his report of what he sees, ready for the next part of the plan.

  "...oh and bad news. I think one of those dogs was Gary's mom."   Breakneck pulls a face while also preparing to dodge anything potentially thrown at him.
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0515 hours
 Weather:  68° &amp; hard rain
 Location:  Sewers below downtown


The speedster and the trailing dogs find nothing ...... probably just shadows. The villains move on through the dark subterranean labyrinth towards their goal: they reach a "T" section where the tunnel splits to the left and right. Directly ahead is only a filthy stone wall that went upward over a hundred feet and on the other side, their objective ......
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 


The Psychic villainess floated along several feet off the ground, her new pack of 20 or so rabid dogs trotting along behind her in silent, vigil unison.

When they finally arrived at the area, she looked over at Invicta.

  "Time to start digging,"   she commented, before gesturing to the dogs.

  "When we breach the prison, they'll go first."  
MrAbdiel
 "Good. Give me a minute, then we can start. Give that to me." 

He snatches for the flashlight from Breakneck - a fairly mild reprisal for his maternal slander, suggesting there may be a more severe payment remaining on the account. Leaning against the wall in a 'sit' to keep his equipment from falling into the slush at his ankles, he takes the bundle of beige putty ingots and begins packing them into brushed chrome cylinder, and ziptying to footlong steel stakes. After a minute of work he has a trio of the charges and a detonator that slips away into a safe pouch on his weapon-festooned panoply. With the light no longer needed, he lobs it back to Breakneck... and draws the tarnished but singingly sharp bastard sword from its scabbard on his back, and a slick black carbine in the other hand.

 "Ready. Breach. Dogs. Interrogate. Liberate. Egress. Seal. Extract. Let us be done with this little test."
 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Presuming that Jury Rig is all good GM, Guerrier will use his 'move action' to deploy those charges just before we've busted through to the other side, tossing them up to spike into the ceiling, and setting the  trigger  feature to remote detonation.

The actual Jury Rig is done in  Marine Ethos . I figure it's fair to enter the facility in the same  Ethos .
 
AvatarVecna
Hench Wench follows along, eyes peeled and guns ready.

 
 Spoiler 
was waiting on chimera but since it seems it's just us and the dominated dogs for now, order matters a but less?
 
Dusk Raven
And just like that, the encounter was over. Not that the dogs would have been a challenge... hell, they would have been nothing more than a minor delay even without Sovereign's powers.  With  them, though... Eshe shook herself. Damn, but mind-control was scary.

However, something had distracted Eshe - that figure in the darkness. She'd seen him too, but he seemed to have vanished. Even so, she kept looking around while the group (too early to be called a "team") stacked up by the breach point. At the moment, her damned eyes were her greatest asset. Someone else could handle the actual breach.

Though... in the meantime... she might as well use the moment of peace while it lasted.   "I'd best get ready, too. Stand back."   She takes a few steps back from the rest of the group, slipping off the uniform. Beneath it was the prison jumpsuit, that she'd been saving for this specific moment. Then... she  changed. 
 
 Spoiler: My attempt at basic body horror on short notice 
It starts with an sharp popping sound from her spine, rapid and irregular, and she nearly doubles over as each vertebra extends itself, snapping and reforming, growing longer and larger each time. Eshe bares her teeth, tightly closing her eyes. In two seconds, she gains another meter of height, before collapsing onto all fours, just as her limbs start to break with an even more concerning snapping sound. The growth comes in stages, each limb growing independently of the other, at slightly different rates. In each case, the bone grows, but the flesh merely stretches taut across her skeleton - and then starts to tear. Her prison jumpsuit starts to fray under the growth, as her form becomes more inhuman. The shape she takes is not humanoid - it is of some quadrupedal predator, lean yet fearsome, its stance wide. A tail even starts to grow, as her spine  keeps extending  even beyond her pelvis. Her arms - now forelimbs - spread out slightly, almost in imitation of how a human's arms are supposed to bend. Bone stabs out from her fingers and toes, dagger-sharp and slightly hooked. Then, finally, flesh catches up with bone, and her skeletal form starts to become flush with muscle so dark red that it's almost black, coming in rapid pulses along with her quickened heartbeat, showing just beneath her taut skin. Her jumpsuit is shredded entirely, falling to the ground in orange tatters, exposing dark red flesh that immediately starts to be covered with ash-white bone plates. Breakneck would be hard-pressed to come up with an inappropriate remark, because quite simply, there's no longer anything to see. Her deactivated collar pops off too, as her neck fully fills out with muscle. Finally, her teeth grind under the pressure she's subjecting them to, before her jaw unhinges, almost immediately before her skull splits and reshapes itself into a feral, predatory shape, her teeth now sharper, and no longer hidden from the world by her cheeks, her mouth locked into a perpetual snarl.
 

 
 Spoiler: Mechanics: 
Activating both Chimera's Claws and Growth abilities.

Using a standard action to use Variable. Giving her the following:

Enhanced Trait: Agility +4 (8 points total)
Extra Limbs: +1 Tail (1 point)
Movement: Safe Fall and Wall-Climbing (4 points total)
Protection: +1 Toughness (1 point)
Speed: +1 (1 point)

Assuming I've understood the limits of Variable correctly, I'll post an updated statblock for Chimera in the OOC. In general, though:

Strength increases by 2 (as does the damage for her claws), Stamina increases by 2, Agility increases by 4;
Dodge defense increases by 3, Parry decreases by 1, Fortitude increases by 2, and Toughness increases by 3;
Chimera now has a +1 to Intimidate and +2 to Stealth,
Her speed should be rank 3 now (making the assumption that ranks increased with Variable stack with my existing, always-there ranks)
And, of course, she now has a couple movement options. And a tail.
 


The resulting four-legged, three-and-a-half meter long creature, has no semblance of femininity  or  humanity - other than the black hair that falls around its neck like a mane. It is, quite simply, a creature of inhuman muscle and bone, existing only to hunt and destroy. It lets out a hiss through its teeth, takes a deep breath in, and says - in a voice that sounds only slightly deeper than her normal voice, albeit still strained -   "Ready."  
 This  is the greatest work of the late Dr. Hans Krieger, better known as "The Optimizer." What he believed was an ascended human. It's actually a monster.
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 


Sovereign watched with a detached fascination as Chimera underwent her grotesque vicissitudes, her dimensions elongated with sickening cracks and flesh pulled taut over new webs of bone. Where once a woman had stood was some Gigeresque prehistoric horror, a sabretooth tiger if it had been born from a Kafka-like mind after a weekend of doing lines.

  "Fascinating!"   the psychic uttered, floating silently over and reaching out to press a gloved finger against the skin of Chimera's new form, the tough and sinewy flesh beneath pressing around her gloved finger and imparting a glistening iota of its ichor.

  "You can break the Laws of Thermodynamics at will - the conservation of mass, it would seem, does not apply to you!"  

The tall psychic rubbed her index finger and thumb together, creating a small, glistening web of film between them as she peered at Chimera the way a mechanic might view a car they wished to take apart and examine.

  "Extraordinary..."  

Sovereigns concentration lasted for several moments longer, until she finally turned to look over her shoulder at the area they had to begin digging so that they could breach the prison. Floating back over, the tall blonde slowly drifted down and felt the rubber soles of her boots touch the sewer's service walkway for the first time since they had descended into this disgusting pit, as her eyes locked onto the wall before them before closing and focusing.

Holding up one hand, palm exposed, fingers upright, Sovereign drew the appendage across in a slow, sweeping motion as if she were a living radar tower, her movement arrested several seconds in with a softly uttered    "there you are..."   

Loose bits of debris and flotsam about the psychics boots started to vibrate softly, an invisible force levitating individual broken pebbles, masonry cracks and remains forming a loose ribbon of orbit as Sovereign drew in upon herself and concentrated. The prison. The beings inside. The wall separating them; structured sewer walls, compacted earth, reinforced concrete; a barrier of a hundred feet.

The psychics gloved hand gripped into a fist and a crack split open the wall before them, dust and bullets of concrete splattering out in a shower of dust. But barely a second passed until a visible hole seemed to rot away into the earth, its insides compressing inwards as if imploding in upon itself as the roof, walls and the ground they stood upon shook and groaned before an almighty  Crack!  tore open a gash in the wall and blasted it all forward, all at once, every cubic foot of stone, earth and cement rocketed forward a hundred feet as if fired from a gun to carve a column clean through the earth itself. Their actions were announced with the scream of twisted, tortured metal and shattering infrastructure, and the unmistakable sound of prison alarms blaring through the debris of the prisons wall that formed their jagged, powder-swirled maw-like entrance to their target.

  "Go!"   Sovereign beckoned her mind-controlled pack, the enslaved score of rabid hounds surging forward through the tunnel as a snarling, barking carpet of rabies and slavering fangs.

Turning to the others, Sovereign smirked,   "we're in."  
MrAbdiel
Guerrier makes no comment about Chimera's shift in form - though he does observe from one eye, in the gloomy shadow permitted by the lone flashlight. He makes no comment, but he does shift in his stance. It's easily enough read. He hadn't seen what she could do before. Now he has seen it, he considers her a threat. This may be, contextually, almost a compliment.

Then sovereign cracks the finally wall to the prison, and they're in. He lets the carbine dangle on its strap for a moment, then snatches the spike-charges from his back and flings them all upward in a single toss so that all three spikes sink into the compacted earth of the tunnel's ceiling, their charges quietly blinking their willingness to detonate on command.

 Ready. Breach. Dogs. Interrogate. Liberate. Egress. Seal. Extract.  Three down. Five to go.
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0516 hours
 Weather:  68° &amp; hard rain
 Location:  Super-Max prison

Driven by a psionic whip, the 18 wild dogs race through the newly-formed prison entrance darting up and down the walkways within! Guards to the left and right shout as the feral canines pounce, jaws biting at them! While five of the nearest guards frantically fight off the dogs, at least four guards remain focused on the villains' access point in the wall! More guards can be heard sprinting from the far side of the complex!
Postmodernist
Breakneck wasn't entirely sure what Eshe had transformed into, but he was able to control the wave of nausea that swept over him as her body began to contort into what would become Chimera. The truth was, among all the other villains that had been pressed into service with the OMEGA initiative, Eshe was the only one Breakneck pitied. Overmaster, Sol Invicta, Sovereign, and Guerrier all seemed different flavors of megalomaniac. Hench Wench at least wasn't as sociopathic as the others, but her professional sycophancy made him a little uncomfortable. Chimera was at least like him - she had been given her powers against her will, just like Breakneck. He'd been lucky that his abilities didn't entail a transformation as distressing as Eshe's.

These thoughts occurred as the speedster dashed through the complex, reconnoitering the place in a second, dashing up and down the walls to get a comprehensive perspective of the layout. Once he was confident he understood the building's structure, he turned his attention to the remaining guards, seeking to take them out before they knew what hit them.
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 


The dogs surged forward, snarling and barking, a floor movement of fur and red-eyed rabies that poured into the village and threw themselves at the guards.

Most wouldn't make it, Sovereign knew that, and honestly, she didn't care.

Her boots lifted off the sewer service walk-way once more, her black-and-emerald-green costume hugging the shadows of their interior as she floated forward, hands by her side as her tall, intimidating form drew closer to the breach in the wall.

What she saw through that jagged maw amused her greatly, as anyone looking could see a smile crossing her pink lips.    "Dance, puppets...hehehe..."    she snickered beneath her breath, her eyes swiveling in her head to stare at the closest cluster of Guards and dogs that were locked in a vicious riot of claws, fists and batons.

Snapping her mind forward like a net, Sovereign seized them with her psyche. Relinquishing control of the dogs, the Psychic wrapped her vulturous mind around man and dog with a steel-like invisible force, gripping them all and sending every one of them upwards at a bone-cracking velocity to  smash!  wetly into the ceiling above.

  "Heh heh heh..."  

OOC:

 
 Spoiler 
 Move Action:  Sovereign is moving up to the breach in the prison walls.

 Standard Action:  Sovereign is using her  Mass Telekinesis  to make a  Grab  attack on everyone in a 30-feet burst radius, centred on a big knot of Guards/dogs fighting each other.
Everyone has to take a Strength test vs DC 23.

Those she ensnares she is slamming up into the roof for a DC 28 damage hit.

Finally, Sovereign has  Selective , so she's deliberately excluding any team-mates that might fall under this effect.
 
Dusk Raven
"Chimera" had received a lot of reactions to her  gifts  in the past, but "morbid curiosity" was one of the rarer ones. Eshe hadn't been treated like a science project since Optimizer died... and the fact that it was  Sovereign  doing it made it even worse. At least Optimizer wasn't a creep about it. Still, she didn't reach much as Sovereign touched her. Sovereign wasn't an enemy, and Eshe wanted to keep it that way as long as possible.

Instead, she tensed as the hole was dug, ready to pounce. The dogs went first, of course, and Breakneck  naturally  beat her inside. Sovereign of course didn't need to physically enter the place to deal with the guards, leaving Eshe to follow in Breakneck's wake. She moved with speed that seemed unnatural for something her size, but her new body shape was built for speed and agility, and she intended to show it off. She leapt onto the wall of the tunnel before bounding off to the deck of the prison floor outside, before running along the arc of the south section, towards the guards. As she bounded across, she slashed at each guard with her forelimb claws in mid-bounce, or with her tail, trying to cut through each. She didn't stop to check if each strike was fatal or even connected - right now, she was just a feral predator in surplus-killing mode... at least, as far as everyone else can see.

Inside, she thought,   Being a freak shouldn't feel this good.  
 
 Spoiler: Mechanics 
Five attacks at -5, I believe. Each has a damage of 11.

Going to stop my movement adjacent to the last guard.
 
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0516 hours
 Weather:  68°
 Location:  Super-Max prison


As their comrades were slammed against the ceiling, the remaining eleven guards rushed into position, stopped and took aim at the invading villains with their plasma-blasters! The alarm continued to blare loudly!

Breakneck easily downs four guards before they even knew what hit them, and Chimera slashes through three of the targeted five guards creating an instant bloodbath! The two remaining guards drop their blasters and run away as fast as possible!

Incapacitated guards were sprawled across the prison walkways but there was no one else left in sight to challenge the OMEGA villains ........
MrAbdiel
The 'team' blitzed through the door, and Guerrier followed behind. But with a chorus of crunching bone and cracking ceiling tiles, the tearing sonic boom of the speedster's attacks and the thrashing of Chimera's charge, it became quickly clear that they were over-staffed for the requirement. He let the carbine fall to its strap on his shoulder, and shared a glance and a shrug with Henchwench.

 "Clear." 

It was no skin off his nose if he didn't need to strain this early in the operation - though he was not enough of an optimist to assume there would be no more opposition. With Breakneck's recon and the enemy in rout, it was easy enough to get to Markowitz's cell. And then -

He looked over his shoulder down the corridor the way they came. Then tapped the communication bead worked into this OMEGA issue variant of his panoply.

 "Invicta's gone. Trying a manual breach." 

Without the pyromancer, slagging the door was off the table. But then, however sophisticated the retina scanner, it was designed to sort between mortal guards and doctors; and the door was designed to keep in depowered, harmless villains.

He took Aroundight, the Tarnished Blade, in both hands, hefted it high above his head, and struck.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Figure I can chop as hard as anyone else! Break attempt in the Roller Thread. He shifts into  Knight Ethos  first, and puts away his carbine.
 
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 

Watching the chaos unfold and the skirmish turn decisively in their favour, Sovereign's eyes looked upwards, tracing the facilities structure to the 'trunk' like structure in the centre, like the spoke in a wheel. Lifting off the ground, Sovereign gently flew into the air to pause and hover before the apparent command centre while the rest of her team operated dozens of feet below her on the floor of the prison.

She considered it for a moment, glaring at it, before dismissing the contents - including the four whom she surmised were the doctors on hand. Her psyche reached out and ran along the bulb with a grasping form, squeezing and probing for any structural weakness that would grant her a focal point to collapse the entire thing with one well-aimed telekinetic shove. But alas, there was none. Not that those inside had any nicer time for it - the walls around them quivering with the groan of tortured metal that threatened to implode in upon them at any moment.

Thankfully for them, however, that grim spectacle never arrived. Seeming deciding otherwise, Sovereign stared at the command module, before turning away to remain floating up in the upper atmosphere of the prison complex, staring down at her companions and other cells, remaining alert as the airborne sentinel...
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0516 hours
 Weather:  69°
 Location:  Super-Max prison


Guerrier's weapon carves into the hi-tech meta-glass shattering it into pieces of broken pieces!

Immediately, huge jets of white gas blast down from the roof at numerous spots around the complex like high-powered extinguishers! Simultaneously, the blue interior lighting changes to red!

 
 Spoiler: OOC 

Breakneck and Guerrier need to make a DC23 Fortitude check. If he makes the check, Guerrier will see Markewitz lying unconscious on his bed at the center of the cell,
 
MrAbdiel
Guerrier takes a half-step toward the shattered door before the lights change and the gas fires. He halts, closes his eyes, ceases breathing, and lets it all wash over him. He reminds himself to upgrade his helmet, when possible - the integrated life support was something he had eschewed before, but if he could expect more of these missions, it would become indispensible.

After the gas had mostly dispersed, he opened his eyes to the red-tinted hallways and their quarry asleep in his bed. He gave the cell a look over - the briefing had said the cells were the power suppressors here, and he wondered if there wasn't some additional layer of protection to best yet - but with the sand slipping through the timer, deliberation could not be afforded. He  took two big steps into the cell, snatched Markewitz's prison uniform by the collar, and began dragging him back into the corridor toward their entry point. And, with a glance about, he noted their numbers had diminished again.

 "Target in hand. Let's go. Henchwench's vanished too. Everyone who hasn't bolted, let's regroup at our breach." 
Dusk Raven
Eshe hadn't spent much time exerting herself, but she still took a moment to take a deep breath - as much to prevent herself from pursuing the remaining guards as anything else. She took a brief glance at the guards behind her, on the ground. It wasn't quite accurate to say she felt nothing - it was more like an vacuum, noticeable by its very absence. So, in a sense, it was something. The feeling was nothing new... but it always made her feel a little bit  abnormal.  Less so now that Maddie... wasn't around, and couldn't make Eshe feel like a psychological freak as well as a biological one.

Eshe glanced at the cells around her.  Could she be here?  It was a long shot, but she thought she'd take a look anyway. She started to quickly go to the cells and peek in, trying to see if there was anyone she recognized. She was interrupted by the rush of gas from Markewitz' cell.   "I'd  just  started to think this was a little too easy..."   she rumbled.

With Guerrier's command, Eshe abandoned her search of the cells, even though she thought of it less as a command and more of a good suggestion. She bounded over on all fours to the breach, with similar speed to what she'd used in the fight, if one could call it a fight.
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 


Sovereign stared the reinforced concrete of the command bulb, a smirk crossing her lips as she considered reaching inside and forcing those within to open the place up and allow her inside...


 "Target in hand. Let's go. Henchwench's vanished too. Everyone who hasn't bolted, let's regroup at our breach." 

Sovereign tilted her head as the words came through her comms device. Needing nothing else, she seemingly forgot about the command module and flew silently down to the breach entrance in search of the others.
MrAbdiel
Dragging the slack and sedated Markewitz out of the cell into the red lights, Guerrier halted when he intersected with Breakneck, the speedster looking slightly off balance from the chemical blast.

 "Hey. Don't pass out. You're up." 

He reached to his bandolier, and snapped off of it an orange and chrome device with a narrow band of buttons and lights, tapered ovoid design sensibilities of a football topped with an oversized ring-grip. He thumbed a few of the buttons, set the lights to blinking blue, and shoved it none-too-gently into Breakneck's arms.

 "EMP. Contact charge; no timer."  He indicated the ring-grip.  "Twist this and pull, to arm."  Then the football.  "Throw this."  Then the ring-grip again.  "Bring this back. I need this. Don't lose this." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Guerrier is giving Breakneck one of his  EMP Grenades .

 EMP Grenade - (Fourth Alternate) Nullify 13 Ranks, Area Cloud, Broad (Technological), Variable Trigger, Penetrating 1 - 30 

Won't blow anything up but it might be very funny to happen to a hovercraft full of fishmen or a speeding train. I leave it up to your discretion, Breakneck.

 This is an alternate use of Guerrier's Combat Equipment array. As such, the rest of the array is narratively inoperable until Breakneck uses or loses the grenade. 
 
Postmodernist
Breakneck managed not to wince when Guerrier hefted the mechanical doodad into his arms. At least, it happened faster than anyone here could perceive it. Probably. He cradled the device like the high school receiver he'd been, and a smile split across his face. He drew his feet to attention, and saluted Guerrier.

  "Aye, aye, cap'n,"   his grin widening,   "I know just where to put this."  

With that, the speedster vanishes.
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 

At the breach when the group had gathered, Sovereign was, as always, hovering a few feet off the ground. However, when they appeared ready to move out, the psychic's eyes closed as she tilted her head oddly, as if she could stare through the walls and see something beyond them all.

  "...the Fins are here..."   she commented,   "two squads...Overmaster is nearby; they're moving to engage him. Local law enforcement is also converging on his position."  
Dusk Raven
  "He's certainly punctual,"   Eshe growled.   "I suppose we shouldn't keep him waiting."   She remained in her predator form - no sense in transforming to her natural form unless she needed to appear human. That didn't seem likely, and there was probably more action to be had soon. She did, however, swipe her discarded OMEGA jumpsuit from the ground. The tatters of her prison outfit could stay.
Postmodernist
 Day: Monday
Time: 0516.2 hours
Weather: 69°
Location: Star City Central Police Station 

The closed circuit police surveillance camera doesn't even pick up the blur of movement, Breakneck simply appears on the screen. He holds the chrome and orange oblong for a moment before lobbing it to clerk sitting behind the intake desk.   "Catch,"   he says with a grin. Less than a second later, the black-clad villain vanishes. The desk officer stares for a beat, stunned at the exchange, before the screen goes white, then ceases functioning.

 Day: Monday
Time: 0516.42 hours
Weather: 69°
Location: Star City Highway 

In many different hues, commuters will be treated to a variety of colorful phrases emblazoned across the barrier walls of the highway. Memorable quotes included: "Eat moar sushi," "**** the Fins in their Blowholes," and "K'tharen have less spine than jellyifsh." The rest was an assortment of minor graffiti, riddled with misspellings and errors. A pile of used spray paint cans sat in an empty high occupancy lane.

 Day: Monday
Time: 0516.64 hours
Weather: 69°
Location: Star City, a nondescript stash house in an undesirable part of town. 

Inside a crummy studio apartment, Breakneck pulls up a panel of floorboard beneath a rug. Beneath, a rack of vials holds a dozen tubes of liquid. He holds one up to the dim light, watching the cloudy fluid swirl, small particles undulating in Brownian motion. He tucks them into his utility belt, and in a blur replaces the floorboard and rug, locks the door, and dashes away.

 Day: Monday
Time: 0516.80 hours
Weather: 69°
Location: Star City Super-Max prison 

Breakneck materializes suddenly, a rush of displaced air accompanying his arrival.   "Speaking of punctual, sorry I'm late. Had to inconvenience some pigs. What'd I miss?"   he asks, his customary smirk plastered across his face. He sees the sedated Markewitz, tosses Guerrier the ring grip from the EMP device, and makes ready to head with the team to the extraction point.

 
 Spoiler: Later 

 Day: Monday
Time: 0701 hours
Weather: 74°
Location: Star City Hardware Depot 

Meredith stood in stunned disbelief in the parking lot, agog that her shift would start like this. The front window had been smashed to pieces, but the only thing taken was an entire row of Krylon spray paint canisters. Kids? Vandals?  This was gonna be a bad week,  she thought to herself as she unlocked the front door and headed in to get a broom.
 
SwordCoastTaxi
Day: Monday
Time: 0517 hours
Weather: 69° &amp; Rainy
Location: Downtown Star City


The villains rush from the prison with their prize, back through their makeshift tunnel and into the dark musty sewers. Finding a ladder they proceed up to the street above after tossing aside a rusty manhole cover! Police sirens echo across downtown and rain pelts the villains as they reach street level! They notice downtown is still dark with limited traffic so - suddenly several SCPD cruisers whip around a corner just a block away and come speeding at the crew just as Jacob awakens,  "Huunnh whut tha ..."  A brilliant flash of light envelops the villains and when it dissipates they are on the transport platform once again: Mission Accomplished!

Around the wide techo-center OMEGA agents are frozen, staring at large digital screens displaying     Overmaster     standing on the downtown rooftop as two k'tharen hovercraft flash at him! Two Fin warriors leaped like giant panthers from their airships landing roughly 30 feet from the supervillain just as the twin ships unleashed an ion-cannon barrage that seemed to stagger him! The Fins pounced with deadly two-foot-long double-blades snapping from their forearm bracers, but it was a trap:     Overmaster     Straightened and with blinding speed struck both attackers with blows that splintered their advanced armor and sent them sprawling through the air hundreds of feet away! He then pointed his hands at the hovercrafts and they both exploded in a horrendous explosion of crackling Meta-Force! Reaching for the sky and looking upwards     Overmaster's     enhanced meta-mechanical voice boomed across downtown Star City:   "THIS WORLD IS   MINE!!!!  "  

The OMEGA agents around the recently-arrived villains erupted into ecstatic shouts of triumph and joy at their leader's warcry! But then, four more hovercraft streaked into the area all firing ion-cannons wildly at     Overmaster    , but he would not fall! He fired crackling-black blasts back at them but the ships continued to arrive!

Suddenly a massive, brilliant-red bolt of lightning from the sky struck the top pf the building and the rooftop instantly vanished in a haze of burning debris --- and the building  started to collapse!  It tumbled down floor upon floor setting off explosions within and outside the skyscraper as thousands of tons of metal and stone roared down into the street below! Arriving SCPD cruisers swerved onto the opposite sidewalk some crashing into stores! All the while the near armada of K'tharen hovercraft rained a hail of ion-cannon force into the disintegrating structure! A thunderous shockwave washed over downtown as the building completely fell into a enormous cloud of fiery debris that spread outward covering the area for blocks! Car and building alarms sounded everywhere as the fleet of Fin ships slowly circled the catastrophic scene!

The OMEGA agents were again frozen, watching the screens for long seconds as if waiting for something to happen ...... but there was  nothing. 
 
 Spoiler: OOC 

PCs need to make a DC15 Perception check.
 
 Spoiler: Success 

The villain notices a tiny circular lesion on the back of Markewitz' neck. Make a DC10 Treatment or Expertise: Medicine (Sovereign) check.
 
 Spoiler: Success 

The lesion looks like a surgical scar.
 

 

 
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 


Sovereign watched implacably as the drama unfolded on the screens, her arms folded over her flat tummy, the black and emerald green of her costume largely blending her into the dimmer environment and contrasting with her fair skin and light blonde hair.

Overmaster declared his dominion over the world while fighting off a pair of fins. The Psychic arched a part of her lip, snorting lightly in derision.   'We will see...'   she thought to herself. And as if the cosmos could read and heed her call, the supervillain was set upon by a growing number of enemy forces. They poured fire into his position, heavy weapons streaking their ordnance upon his location and blasting the building out from under his feet, leaving little more than a pile of smoldering masonry and plumes of black-white clouds of smoke and dust.

  Enjoy it while it lasts  ...the telepath mused to herself, having some faith that not even the Overmaster was so arrogant as to allow himself to get taken down in some pointless display of bravado.

It was then that the woman turned about to her companions, her eyes drifting down to their Target...and Sovereign noticed  that .

A circular incision in the back of the neck.

Immediately, Sovereigns eyes widened, her hand gripping at the mans neck as she stared at it with her mouth partly open.

  "Someone get a Bug Sweeper - I think we're being tracked!"  
MrAbdiel
Guerrier watches the display - what he had assumed to be a distraction effort by Overmaster for their benefit may have been a suicidal gesture. But a more immediate mystery beckoned - and his eyes tracked to the blemish on Markewitz as Sovereign called it out.

 "Cadre,"  Guerrier calls for the OMEGA Senschal, searching for them among those attending,  "Do we have such devices? Flesh-penetrating sensors?" 

He asks the question with cautious urgency, before leaning down to the groggy captive's neck and listening...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Shifting into Assassin stance, Guerrier has Ultrahearing. I figure if this is a bug in Markewitz' neck, it will probably be transmitting at a frequency I might be able to detect (though not understand). But if it's like...
 a bomb waiting to receive a signal, it'll be making no signal at all. Not a foolproof detection plan at all, but it's more data.

EDIT: Data received!

Post amended!
 

 “Something in there, certainly. Pinging away. Tracker, maybe. I might be able to EMP it - but if it’s a timer on something messier…” 

He lets the implication hang. Surgery might be a better option here - but what they could scan, surgically remove, or disable depended greatly on what resources Cadre could whip up in a moment.
Postmodernist
  "What are this Markewhatsit's powers, anyway? Can we cut it out without hurting him or what? If it's a tracker, we're already screwed, since it's found our destination, right? I'd imagine Overmaster has this place shielded like crazy. Want I should dump him somewhere or something?"   Breakneck pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. They'd only been free a little while, and already this was turning into a headache.
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 

Sovereign pursed her lips.

  "Get it out,"   she stated.

  "Then get it moving again somewhere else. The V's will just think this is a rendezvous point."  
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0518 hours
 Weather:  69° &amp; Rainy
 Location:  OMEGA Mothership


Jacob pushes away from Guerrier,  "Wut're ya doin, man?!"  He looked around the ship,  "Oh heck yeah! You guys sprung me! Hey thanks but, too bad for the Big O right?"  Once he realized the villains' distress, he started touching himself in random places,  "What? They  chipped me ?!? Noooo waaaaay!"  Then he stopped, took a deep breath and closed his eyes .... and nothing happened. He opened his eyes and looked around panic building in his face,  "Oh nononono ..." 

The OMEGA agents snapped out of their daze and began looking at Markewitz! One agent stalked forward from about 30 feet away and began crackling with electricity,  "I can just zap him. Maybe take out the device ..."  a female voice said! Another agent turned to the cybernetic wall and four more arms sprung from his body and six hands began tapping away at digital controls,  "I'm definitely getting scans, from seemingly everywhere. We're being pinged - hard!" 

Several of the agents began giving directions, all of them speaking  in unison  - Cadre!  "Let's go you know the drill people:  PENGUIN, PENGUIN, PENGUIN! "  The agents, less than twenty, move to their digital control stations tapping semi-intangible screens as the larger screens they were watching Overmaster on vanish! Within seconds the villains feel a slight vibration as Cadre walks over,  "They shouldn't be able to track us but I'm not taking chances. We're submerged, and diving deep, away from the city."  He points at Markewitz,  "We gotta figure him out ASAP. He might be rigged to blow." 

Jacob steps away hands out and looking around frantically,  "J-just t-take it easy, dudes ...!" 
MrAbdiel
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Making some assumptions about Markewitz's weakness and push-around-ability, let me know if I need to change anything boss.
 


There was nothing to be done for Overmaster now. If he was dead, he was dead. If he was alive, perhaps the fins would pull him out of the rubble and they would have a chance to perform a second jailbreak later. The part of his flinty heart in which the ghost of warm feeling still exists regrets the outcome - he had liked Overmaster, who had struck him as a competent leader and a man worthy of service. Without him... Well.

One problem at a time.

Breakneck's point that they didn't know Markewitz's powers was also true, and potentially dangerous; but inaction was more dangerous still. Sovereign was right. If this thing is a tracker, it needs to come out. If it's a bomb, it needs to be disarmed. If it's anything else, they need to know. Towering over the bewildered and recently emancipated Markewitz, Guerrier steps closer to him and looms up - a mountain of killing strength and armament stenciled out as a black shadow against the ship's sterile halogen lights behind him.

 "This will be easier for us all if you do not struggle." 

He snatches him by the collar and starts dragging him again, out of the immediate room and into another a few doors down - somewhere, anywhere, clear of the immediate controls of the vessel they are apparently in, and with decent lighting. There was no time for anaesthetic - but even if they had time, he wouldn't recommend it. Pain is a man's first opponent. Numbness is weakness. If Markewitz was important to the ultimate cause, he would need the opportunity to learn this lesson. The knight slams the prisoner face down on a table, holding him there with his left hand. The right draws another ring-gripped EMP charge off his belt and sets in behind him, within reach - presumably as a last resort to short the device if it proves more complex than a simple extraction. Then he draws a slick little friction-folder blade from his belt and  sniks  it open.

 "Sovereign - help me. Chimera - restrain him." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Alright, I'm Tee-ing us up. It's rock-climbing-knife surgery under the assumption this device is just tucked right in there under the dermal layer where the scar is. If it's in the spinal column... We will regroup when we get to that outcome!

Guerrier is planning to make a Treatment roll to expose the implant for identification/removal/disarming.

Anyone who wants to justify helping should declare what they're trying to do to help and make a roll. Strictly speaking this isn't a Team Check (which requires everyone to use the same skill and locks difficulty for the helpers at 10). Strictly speaking, you're all using whatever you can to generate circumstance modifiers (at a DC of the GM's choosing) for my upcoming roll. In the interest of keeping momentum, I recommend declaring and rolling and letting SwordCoastTaxi decide if that's enough/notEnough in his roundup post.

Breakneck, Guerrier didn't give you any specific instructions but that doesn't mean you're not invited - I just couldn't conjour up an obvious way for him to help this second then realised that's your job not mine!
 
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0519 hours
 Weather:  69°
 Location:  OMEGA Mothership


With this allies holding the frantic Markewitz down and still (as possible), Guerrier makes an incision! His scream is loud enough to nearly pop an eardrum, then he passes out! Working with the proficiency of a professional, Guerrier gets to the implant: it was a tiny metal disc about 5mm in diameter  attached to Markewitz' neck bone  ( C5 )


 
 Spoiler: OOC 

Guerrier can see the implant. Next move?
 
Dusk Raven
Eshe had been wondering when a good time to change back was. The answer, clearly, was "not now." This way, she can make use of her enhanced strength, and her tail, to help hold their unfortunate patient down. She also looks around for some wooden object to serve as a stick and 19th-century pain reliever. Failing that, she'll extrude one of her own finger bones to serve in that capacity. Her only words are,   "Bite down on this, if you like,"   without explaining what it is she's just shoved horizontally in Markewitz' mouth.

  It's probably for the best that he passed out,   she thinks.

Her mind thinks back to some of the medical treatments she's partaken of in the past, and she begins to realize how much of an  amateur  she is. Hell, she's never even taken part in a real surgery before. She  almost  performed one by herself before - a somewhat ill-advised attempt to do surgery on Maddie to give her some of Eshe's own "gifts," during one of the few times Eshe had managed to capture her. That had been the most scared Eshe had ever seen her former friend, though that was probably less due to the prospect of becoming like Eshe, and more because there was a good chance Eshe would have killed her without even meaning to. And if Eshe had been thinking clearly, she'd have seen that, too.

She hadn't been in a very good mental state that day.
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 

The tall psychic stared at the small device, her right hand stroking her chin.

  "I've seen that before..."   she announced.

  "They're nuclear-powered nanite AI's that do it all; power inhibitor and tracking device. Screw up trying to remove it and it'll cause a low-yield nuclear detonation. Try to tamper with it, low-yield nuclear detonation. A High-Intensity Electromagnetic Pulse should disable it, but success is not guaranteed. "  
MrAbdiel
Guerrier’s grimace is hidden behind his mask. He lets silence in the air hang for a few moments as the assembled villains consider the possibility of having a small nuclear device that might be triggered to detonate in the submarine by some remote actor, as far as they know. The chance that an EMP would set it off was not absent - but better than all the alternatives.

He snatches the EMP grenade from the table nearby, and twists the ring-grip, and holds it over the unconscious Markewitz’s exposed spine.

 “Stand clear if you’ve got any devices you value.” 

He gives his allies some time to retreat to a safe distance, then twists and activates the charge, bathing the room in electromagnetic disruptive energy with a distinctive ‘Phhhwwwrrrnnnnn’ and a dance of leaping blue arcs of power.
Dusk Raven
Eshe doesn't have any electronics on her - at least, none that she knows about. As such, she doesn't move away. She just watches, oddly slow to react, as Guerrier takes the initiative and preps an EMP. Even  Eshe  thinks that that's brash. But, clearly the consequences of this device fulfilling its intended functions are bad, and if they have the means to deal with it...

Granted, Overmaster  might  have prepared for this possibility. And yet, as Guerrier prepped the grenade, Eshe only had one thought:

  **** it.  

If they all died here... well, that'd be a relief in some ways.
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0518 hours
 Weather:  69°
 Location:  OMEGA Mothership


The light in the room goes out along with anything else electrical .... and  nothing.  Then power flickers back on a few ticks later. Markewitz groaned as he bled out.

Cadre jogged in followed by a few more Cadres carrying an assortment of tech equipment,  "We heard a scream. Is everyth ... you  killed him?!?"   "They" stared at the bleeding ex-con with a look of disappointment ....
Postmodernist
  "Wait, he's already dead? What'd I get all this crap for, then? Goin' great, everybody. Really crushing it with the whole situation here, not stressful in the slightest,"   Breakneck blurts, as he appears pushing a small surgical table laden with gauze, surgical tools, two units of blood, an assortment of syringes, and a bedpan.   "I couldn't find a Candystriper outfit, cause this place is WAY bigger than I expected. You coulda mentioned it, Cadre. Also, uh, where are the scuba tanks or whatever in case this whole operation goes, like, Mariana Trenchward or whatever? I  might  be able to help get us out fast, but I can't make us breathe water."   Despite the nonstop banter, Breakneck's trademark smirk seemed to tremble slightly with apprehension. He was reminded of an acronym from his time in the military - SNAFU, as waited to see if they were all gonna blow up, or if Markewitz would bleed out on the table.   "Man, wouldn't it be funny if you saved him and we blew up anyway? Like, not for us, but sort of  obejctively,  y'know? For other people. Maybe I'll shut up."  
MrAbdiel
 "Not dead. Give me those."  He snatches one of the kits from Breakneck's arms and slams it open on the table nearby, swabbing blood away from the incision and seizing an array of sutures to begin closing the wound. He can barely pay attention to Cadre - and the other 'Cadres' which suggests something of Cadre's capabilities.  "Chipped."  He offers as a minimal explanation, glancing briefly to Sovereign to defer to her to explain the situation while he tries to stabilize and close up the prisoner.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Time to save the life we imperilled because we had to. Still got a  VP in the bank if I need it. What's the DC, captain? 20 again or nah? Atleast this time we have the right tools! And I'd take another assist from my friends if I could.
 
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0519 hours
 Weather:  69°
 Location:  OMEGA Mothership


After Guerrier and the crew finish patching Markewitz up, the Cadres tidy up the space with their collection of hi-tech devices. As they exit the space one turns to the supervillains,  "Normally we can track Overmaster wherever he is but ..."  He shakes his head,  "Either his suit was damaged enough to disable his signal, or, the Fins have him."  He looked down and rubbed the back of his head, then glanced at the unconscious Markewitz,  "He tell you anything?" 

Just then a voice comes over the PA system,    "SONAR-CON ASTERN! SIX MAKOS* 2,400 METERS! THEY CAN HEAR US!!"   
 
 Spoiler: OOC 

*Makos = amphibious K'tharen warships armed with Pulse-torpedoes. They're about the size of a Navy Corvette but twice as fast.
 
MrAbdiel
Guerrier shakes his head.  "He's had barely a chance. He was glad to be sprung, and immediately seemed to try to use his powers - but the limiter blocked him. Whatever they are, he has access to them now - when he wakes up. I hope they were worth it." 

Then it's all blaring alarms and escape vectors. The assassin-mind seamlessly sublimed into the marine again, with a faint grunt barely audible in his throat.

 "Foolish to fight - can this vessel escape, now that the tracker is blanked? If not - what's the range on the teleporters? Perhaps we can make strikes on some of the Mako bridges and withdraw in the chaos." 
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 


Sovereign had stood by as a relatively impassive observer, her words only coming in at critical points to correct Guerrier's work at critical moments when his original course of action would have spelled disaster. Thus, when Markewitz proved to be alive, weak but alive, the psychic nodded once to both herself and others: the mission, so far, was a success.

But...the sudden klaxon alarms blaring stirred her attention back to life.

Others around her made suggestions as to what should be done, but Guerrier's suggestion of storming the enemy boat stuck out the most to her.

  "Not even that,"   the tall blonde suggested over the bedlam.

  "Arm and time a torpedo and teleport it over."  
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0519 hours
 Weather:  69°
 Location:  OMEGA Mothership


Suddenly the air within the ship rippled slightly and a woman's sigh echoed everywhere: on the teleportation platform stood     The Morrigan    , Witch-Queen of Infinite Shadow!! Clothed in swirling robes of pure shadow, the dark sorceress who has tried for over a thousand years to destroy the civilizations that 'men built' as vengeance for her brutal murder, surveyed the room,  "Poor, poor Cadre. You were trying so hard. Fool! You would drag us ALL into the abyss with your dull, callous man-brain! OMEGA! HEED MY COMMANDS: Take us up, and out ...  to the Moon base! " 

The OMEGA agents look around at Cadre, Guerrier, Sovereign, Breakneck and Chimera briefly, then turn to their controls hurriedly tapping away at their digital controls!

The Morrigan's hypnotic black eyes fell on Sovereign as she whispered to her mentally,  "Zara ..." , then she spoke,  "It's been too long since our last engagement, Sovereign ... when you betrayed me!"  The OMEGA agents busied themselves with their duties and even Cadre found a reason to walk away. Instantaneously, the Morrigan was behind Sovereign, close enough to touch,  "Cadre or another would step into the madman's place to take control of OMEGA, if not for two obstacles: you ... and I."  She appeared in front of Sovereign and took a step back raising a hand wreathed in swirling shadow,  "Take my hand now, and swear eternal allegiance ... or feel the wrath of infinite darkness!" 

Several of the OMEGA agents turn to look ...

 
 Spoiler: Sovereign 

About a decade ago Sovereign and the Morrigan brought together a team of female supervillains. They came within seconds of overwhelming Earth's heroes and taking over the planet but, Champion convinced the women that they would one day grow alone without men. The Morrigan hated men, but most of them didn't. So, the female villains betrayed her and the Morrigan was banished to an alternate dimension. But she swore her vengeance on everyone, even though Sovereign was the one ally who hadn't betrayed her.

Since then, the Morrigan escaped her exile and resumed her war on mankind nearly destroying the Vatican and the UN in the process. Her supernatural nemesis, Doctor Rune, claims to be her magical superior but that doesn't deter the Morrigan from her crusade to eliminate mankind completely. And now with Rune out of the picture, she may well succeed.

The Morrigan has shown a strong attraction to Sovereign, but it's never been more than a game of romantic cat &amp; mouse. Sovereign knows she is a VERY powerful sorceress who sold her soul for the power to crush mankind. But the Morrigan's weakness lies in her all-consuming hatred that blinds her reasoning.
 

 
 Spoiler: Breakneck, Chimera &amp; Guerrier 

The villains know the Morrigan is (1) a violent and powerful sorceress who hates men. Powerful enough to challenge Overmaster or a team of superheroes, but they are all gone. Since the other OMEGA agents are following her order, it's obvious the Morrigan is here to assume leadership ....
 
Postmodernist
  "I think I speak for everyone when I say, "What in the ever-loving $@#% is going on right now?' Overmaster's vaproized ashes haven't even been swept up yet. We haven't confirmed if he's even really dead or just... teleported somewhere. We're in a submarine, being tracked by Fins, performing casual surgery on prisoners with kitchen knives, then homegirl shows up to throw shade unannounced, and now there's a friggin'  moon base?!?  I know I've only been a member of this esteemed organization for two or hours or so, but something tells me now isn't exactly the time for your leadership pitch. Can we get out of here? Or let's at least kill the aliens hellbent on ending our lives. Afterwards, I'll gladly feign interest in your big, complex justifications for your megalomania contest. But we need to live long enough to get to that point first."  

For a moment, Breakneck thought about how it would have been, staying a prisoner, not having to deal with the insanity of this world. He thought of time ticking by even more slowly, the space between moments expanding like the horizon. How boring would that be? He hadn't had this much fun in 2 hours since he first got his powers.
Dusk Raven
  "Not even my first day on the job, and I've already got a new boss? Ugh, I need to be in human shape for this."   Without further delay, Eshe starts another transformation, this time to change back to her normal "human" form. The process is  not  like her previous transformation only in reverse. There's the same cracking of bone from before, but this time there's a constant crunching of matter being subjected to great pressure. Her skeleton splits into pieces, only to be packed tightly together, contorted into smaller and smaller shapes. For one brief, disgusting moment, her flesh doesn't immediately follow, leading to a moment in which the formerly taut muscle is a size too big, and not quite attached to her bones. The moment abruptly ends when her flesh is sucked in as though by a vacuum, sliding across her bones in uneven patterns as they compact. A few blood vessels close to the surface burst, only to quickly heal due to her powers. As her body assumes a vaguely human-sized and human-shaped form, Eshe pushes herself into a kneeling position on the ground, twitching slightly as though her body was being hammered back into shape. Finally, the changes end, and she's left gritting her teeth, kneeling naked on the floor, and only slightly bloodstained. She shows no embarrassment at her lack of dress - she's been through this enough times before. But she immediately snatches the uniform she'd brought with her since her first transformation, and drapes it around herself as she stands up. She had doubts that anyone would find her  appealing  given the circumstances, but the less time they had to recover for the body horror, the better. ...Nothing she could do about Breakneck, though, he probably had the time. Oh well.

With that done, she reaches both hands up to her face and starts feeling around, saying softly,   "What's wrong this time? Something  always  fits back wrong..."   She finds the answer soon enough - one side of her cheek is slightly raised, the bone underneath not quite having assumed its proper position, or perhaps shape. Eshe draws her hand away, only to clench it into a fist and slam it into the offending structure. There's a quiet snap, and just like that, her face is exactly as it was before she transformed. She lowers her hands, and looks over at The Morrigan.

Eshe hadn't quite planned this, but the confrontation between The Morrigan and Sovereign - two women with a history, apparently - was quite a distraction from her own transformation. Though, truth be told, Eshe wouldn't have minded mind if she interrupted the argument, however temporarily, with a grotesque display. Damn, but women with superpowers could be as bullheaded as men, sometimes.
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 

Well...that was unexpected.


Sovereign only received a half second warning of Morrigans arrival, as her spine slithered with a sharp sensation that she hadn't felt since...

Her eyes widened slightly, her forehead tilting forward by the barest amount to convey interest, as Sovereigns form hovered in the air, boots off the ground and standing witness to the arrival of the Witch-Queen. The blasphemously intimidating woman was garbed in voluminous robes whose darkness matched only that which lay in her heart - and her designs for the future of this planet. A decade ago, when Sovereign had been new to the game, she had been intimidated by the sorceress, as anyone with a lick of sense would have been.

But it hadn't been just that. The way Morrgan had... looked  at her. Sovereign had no interest in other women, in  that  way, but that hadn't stopped Morrigans wandering gaze that had made the Psychics skin crawl more than once, like a boss one knew would one day call into their office with inquiries as to how  badly  one wanted to keep their job...

But now?

Well, things were a little different now. Morrigan wasn't on the verge of world domination, and Sovereign wasn't the inexperienced, new psychic villainess turning heads. Could she take the sorceress on now? She couldn't back then, that was for sure. Now? Well...still, maybe not, but this time, it wouldn't be easy for the witch. And  that  wasn't an uncertainty she wasn't used to.

Besides...she was a madwoman.  All  men? Why? Sovereign knew she had a son out there, somewhere, and she'd be damned if she let him perish in the fires of civilizational destruction, just for  Morrigans  benefit.

  "Morrigan..."   Sovereign announced. She was no longer the new, psychic villainess turning heads on the world stage. She was now a power in and of herself, her poise upright and her smile small.

  "I betrayed  no one ,"   she announced, having turned about in mid-air to face the witch.

  "You, on the other hand, still cannot see: humanity is all, equally worthless."  

The tall blonde let a silence hang in the air for a moment. One might think Sovereign to make a stab for leadership, to reach her vulturous mind out and wring the necks of every OMEGA agent that refused to go along with her. But...sometimes it was helpful to have a lightning rod.

  "We have a planet to take back. I will work  with  you; but I won't work  for  you."  

Sovereign then turned her eyes over towards Breakneck as the speedster summed up the situation, and their one real hope of moving forward. Turning her eyes back to peer at the sorceress, her blue and blonde contrasting with that pitch-black and midnight, the Psychic held her gaze.

  "What'll it be, Morrigan? Go back to your Moon Base empty handed for the next thousand years, or your only chance at success?"   she gestured both hands to her sides, indicating the supervillain team at large: Guerrier, Breakneck and Chimera.
MrAbdiel
Guerrier, who has shown himself to be fairly comfortable making his voice heard in power conflicts and tense situations, is uncharacteristically silent. The sound of one of his heels shifting back and out slightly, moving his weight to his back foot  away  from the Morrigan, is almost certainly lost in the cacophany of Eshe's autobiological Reconquista.

It has been a very long time. Everyone had different names, back then. She had concealed the most of herself, and he had very little to hide - but what he had hidden she found out. Now she was exultant and explicit in her wickedness and otherworldly dreadful aspect, and he was the hidden one - wrapped in layers of himself, lives lived to put distance between that, and this. He felt that coil of being tighten and strain inside him. Perhaps, if he was lucky, she would not recognize him. Perhaps, if he was lucky, he might avoid direct interaction with her until the day and the moment when he was ready to take sharp, sudden revenge.

But Lancelot du Lac was not a lucky man.

He says nothing.
SwordCoastTaxi
 Day:  Monday
 Time:  0519 hours
 Weather:  69°
 Location:  OMEGA Mothership


The Morrigan's black eyebrows raised,  "Ah, so we're playing the maggot, ye? Still the wet-eared man-slave I remember. You're wrong to challenge me, Sovereign. OMEGA belongs to   ME  !" 

She whips her hand at Guerrier and a bolt of jet-black lightning blasts the villain! The witch flicks her hand unleashing another burst of shadow lightning at Breakneck, but the hyper-kinetic villain is too fast to hit!

The OMEGA agents freeze - some sitting others standing - watching the battle commence!

 
 Spoiler: OOC 

Guerrier needs to make a DC28 Will check. Everyone needs to make a DC20 Perception check.
 
 Spoiler: Successful Perception 

The Morrigan seems to 'fade' becoming translucent as her feet hover above the floor. Position-wise, the witch is about 30 feet from the PCs. The OMEGA agents are at their control-stations roughly 60 feet away. The teleportation platform is within 10 feet of the PCs and the witch. Remember, the ship is a warehouse-sized space: the metallic walls and twenty-foot ceiling are covered with flashing electro-mechanical lights. Ask if you have questions.
 

 
Dusk Raven
  "I just *%#&amp;ing changed-"   Eshe starts to say, as lightning gets flung around her. But she cuts herself off with a snarl of frustration. She is  not  happy with  any  of this, but she's mostly very  peeved  at The Morrigan.

Strictly speaking, Eshe doesn't have to do anything. She's doesn't really have the time to figure out how emotionally invested she is in her new team, or in OMEGA. But it's not hard to figure out, because she's only invested in  one being  on this  entire damn planet,  who's probably dead, and thus that means she gives zero @&amp;%@s about  anything.  So she could just walk away, possibly to find a way to capsize the sub and kill them all. Well, not her, she could adapt, but the others would be in trouble. If anything, if there was a hostile submarine bearing down on them, this course of action was her best shot at survival.

But she  really  wanted to do was give The Morrigan a piece of her mind, and what was the point of giving zero @&amp;%@'s if you couldn't just do what you wanted?

  "Your sense of timing is  terrible,  Morri!"   Eshe shouts as loud as needed to make herself heard over the inevitable chaos.   "We got a %@*$-ing submarine coming at us, and your little power struggle can't wait? You think any of us are gonna follow the $@*%# with impulse control problems!?"   This was extremely hypocritical of Eshe to say, but poor impulse control was a critical feature of a freak with nothing to live for like herself, and not at all a desirable quality in a leader, like The Morrigan wanted to be. Then something clicked.   "$&amp;#£, for all we know you're working with the fishes and that's  why  you can't #*©¥-ing wait!"  

If Eshe was going to die, she was going to die saying extremely rude things to powerful people.

 
 Spoiler: Actions 
Standard Action to attempt to Demoralize The Morrigan, using the Taunt advantage to use Deception instead of Intimidate. Seems the most applicable right now.
 
BananaPhone
   Sovereign 


Sovereigns eyes widened, her mouth grimmacing.

She'd always known Morrigan as a...temperamental person, with a sense of humour as short as her patience. But she had not expected her to be  this  aggressive. She had predicted the sorceress would offer one more round of belicose self-aggrandizement...but apparently not. She had immediately chose violence.

Already hovering in the air, Sovereigns form drew away from the main group, as the Psychic focused solely on Morrigan. She knew the womans tricks and her ways - she watched as her semi-translucent image suggested at her favourite trick of going insubstantial to avoid any material damage and counting on no one being able to touch her...well...

Sovereigns eyes narrowed as she drew up from deep within the well of her psychic energy. Her telepathic abilities, likewise, transmitted across intangible lines towards tangible targets, and so if she could combine that with her telekinesis...

Sovereign reached a hand forward, focusing her mind like a hose - her face grimaced as spells exploded around her, and her mind stretched out towards the Sorceress to seize and inhibit...

  "She's intangible - I'm holding her now!"  

OOC:
 
 Spoiler 
 Move Action:  Move about 20-30 feet away from rest of the group to spread ourselves out, using her hovering ability.

 Standard Action:  Using her Power Stunted Telekinesis Power with  Affect Insubstantial  on Morrigan. Morrigan has to take a DC 23  strength  check or become bound and, I'm assuming, activate her 'needs her hands to cast spells' weakness. Again, I'm just assuming, I could be wrong.

 Rolls:  None, power is Perception range and hits automatically.
 
Postmodernist
 
 Originally Posted by BananaPhone 
   "She's intangible - I'm holding her now!"   
 

  Here goes nothing,   thought the quick-tempered criminal as Sovereign's voice rang through the room. He'd only done this a few times before, and it required more concentration than he cared to muster. Breakneck's brow furrowed as he tensed his body, causing a shiver to course through him. He felt himself grow insubstantial, and a wave of disorienting nausea crashed over him. When you moved as fast as he did, you felt resistance, friction. The wind was insistent, and propelling yourself forward with the solid guarantee of even the surface tension of water was a constant comfort.

This was different. Managing to phase his feet and fists in and out in order to affect the Morrigan required focus. The lack of resistance from physical objects was strange, he had to will himself forward, more than just run.

Forcing the speed through his body at a molecular level was  hard,  but what followed, well, that was easy. The speedster materialized as a sequence of snapshots, popping around Morrigan in staccato bursts. The effect was something between the spinning rotor of a helicopter, and a depiction of cartoon violence between Wile E. Coyote and Yosemite Sam.

  "Duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh..."   a flurry of motion as dozens of punches pummel the dark sorceress,   "da na na na na na na!"   following as he appears from another angle with a blur of strikes.   "Who ya gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS!"   His steady stream of patter masked his genuine uncertainty of how this might work.

 
 Spoiler: Mechanics 
Ok, so I suck and was confused on how best to approach this stuff, but basically I'm using extra effort to power stunt the Strike (or Damage?) power off my super speed with the Affects Insubstantial extra. That costs a flat +2 for the full effect, so I just drop 2 ranks from it. (I'm sure there are other ways to do it, but please correct me if I'm wrong.)

She's defenseless, so I can hit her as a routine attack, but her defenses are 0, so I'm gonna forgo it and make a normal attack, which is an automatic crit if I do hit, which adds +5 to the resistance. I'll All Out attack her for -5 to my defenses and +5 to my attack. I'll also activate the single target multiattack. If successful, increase the attack’s resistance check DC by +2 for two degrees of success, and+5 for three or more.

So I'm gonna roll a d20 plus: 4 Fighting + 11 Damage/Strike (the new power, doesn't use my close combat skill) + 5 All Out attack.Total +20.
If I connect, she makes the resistance roll at +5 DC, and then more depending on success. Is that right? Sorry if that was tedious, especially as it was mostly for my own benefit. Rolling in the thread now.
 
MrAbdiel
Wicked black voltage arcs through the air, and before Guerrier can move his feet it strikes him in the centre of his helmet. His head rocks and his back arches as if by force of the blow, when in fact it's the the psychic revulsion rather than a physical shock that causes him to reel. He feels the shadow-slick power peeling back the layers of his psyche hunting for something to... what? To attack? To control? To  take ?

But some elemental part of him acts bodily without the full marshal of his conciousness. His right hand snatches the wrapped hilt of  Arondight , given to him by another mystical woman who cursed his life long ago, and the mind-reaving charge slips  suddenly down his arm, into the blade, and vanishes as the blade rings from its sheath... red hot.

He holds the once-sacred sword before him, his eyes watching the shadow-witch from either side of the edge, and braces himself to receive more such wrath.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Guerrier shifts to  Knight Ethos  for free. He draws his sword; and then uses his  Deflect  power. He'll roll his defence actively against any attacks against him (or anyone immediately behind and around him within the reach of his weapon) until his next turn.
 