Thevshi

Okay, so Megan only made a 14 for her Gather Information roll (via Well Informed). Looks like she has not been keeping up like she should on news regarding Merge!

Let me give you some observations to include in the post to help get to 500 When she gets to the third floor, it is destered. No visible bad guys or civilians. As she looks off in the direction the main bad guy with the exploding speargun harpoons went, she realizes it is back towards where the Deep Ones were located.

SC, both Mess and Hound can take a half action in this "surprise" round (Hound can catch Mr. Chen as a free action if he wants). Also, need initiative rolls as we go into regular combat. And Mess has +1 hero points for my fiat.

Mr. Chen gave a small nod as Harry commented on what he had reveled. "I am certainly no expert regarding the Tongs or the Triads, but from time to time it is helpful to have some knowledge of what they may be up to. From what I have been able to gathered.." As Mr. Chen had been speaking, both Harry and Freddy had been scanning the nearby area, both now much more on the alert than they had been. At approximately the same moment, the pair spotted a glint of metal in a second story window further up the block, aimed in their direction. Reaching up, Harry grabbed the front of Mr. Chen's suit, pulling him forward, just as a burst of silenced automatic weapon fire zipped by, at least two rounds that would have hit Mr. Chen in the back of the head impacting on the wall near Harry. One round still caught the Chinese man in the upper back, causing him to cry out in pain as he was knocked forward into Harry, his legs giving out as he started to collapse towards the ground.

Megan had certainly been impressed by Castle Katastrof when it had come into view as they came in for the landing on a helipad attached to one of the new towers that had been added. She had also been very impressed by the conference room when she and the others first arrived, but was able to focus on getting things ready for the meeting while also taking in the idyllic images projected on to the walls and ceiling of the room (one of the advantageous of having superspeed that really did not require using much of it). The young blonde was seated in the middle of the Summit delegation, and she had out a tablet that she connected to the port near her seat so she could run the presentation slides and share documents and graphs as needed during the meeting. Once she had everything ready, Megan chatted quietly with some of the KST individuals across from her. When the room darkened and Baron Katasrof arrived, the young woman regarded him with a slight inward smile at the theatrical entrance. When he stopped at the head of the table and took a few moments to look over all those gathered, Megan did not miss that his gaze rested on her a bit longer than the others. Of course, she was rather accustomed to men staring at her, but the Baron’s gaze had been a little different than most. As the Baron began the meeting, the head of the Summit delegation spoke up. "Good morning Baron Katasrof, and thank you." He began before starting to discuss the technology one of Summit’s subsidiaries had been working on for a thin, flexible screen that could be applied to any surface and the purposed joint venture between Summit and KST to further develop the technology. When the meeting began in earnest, Megan, as the junior member of the Summit delegation naturally did not speak, but she was clearly engaged and understood what was going on and being discussed. She was able to quickly pull up documents that were being discussed to display on the screen on the conference table and certainly knew her way around all the financial data in the massive pro forma spreadsheets for the proposed joint venture. From time to time, one of the Summit executives sitting by her would lean over to get her to quietly clarify something.

Cape, I need notice checks for Mess and Hound please.

A short Caddy ride later and Harry and Freddy were back in Freedom City's Chinatown in the West End. After parking the Caddy, the pair made their way to one of the narrower side streets where a small, open air market was set up. Despite the chilly February temperature, the market was rather busy this morning, as the pair started making their way along to where Mr. Chen had indicated to meet. After a block or two, they spotted Mr. Chen, speaking with the owner of a small antique shop along the market. Spotting the pair, his expression darkened ever so slightly and he gestured off towards the opposite side of the narrow street as he finished his conversation with the man in Chinese. A few moments later he made his way over to Harry and Freddy. "Gentlemen." He began, his tone somewhat friendlier than it had been on the phone. "I believe you two are in the middle of something you might wish to be. I for one certainly do not." "After I made several inquires here in town that provided nothing in the way of information, I went a bit further afield. It would seem that half the Tongs and Triads in Asia are looking for this girl."

The next morning Harry was feeling much more rested after sleeping in his own bed, though he was still not quite sure what to make of all the information he and Freddy had learned so far. While the pair where sitting around in the office, pondering what their next step should be, the office phone rang. When Harry picked up, he heard Mr. Chen on the other end. "Mr. Hound. We need to talk." His tone was rather short, and a bit cooler than when they had met in Chinatown two days ago. "Meet me at the Chinatown market in an hour."

Yep, I saw that I will see if TA posts tonight and if not, I might just post anyway (though it might not be very long).

Hey Tiff, checking in. I've been waiting for TA to post with Asad before I bring in Megan/Velocity.

"No idea Harry." Lance commented to the likely rhetorical question from the rumpled detective. "When I have some free time, I can do a little looking and see if I can't find out any more information for you." After leaving Lance's apartment, Harry and Freddy stopped at a dinner for some breakfast and to kill a bit of time before heading over to the library once it opened. Once inside, Harry quickly discovered that Zhou was not an uncommon name, even in Singapore, and for awhile he was stumped on how to narrow down the list of possible individuals. But after trying to cross-reference Zhou with Mr. Ling and his law firm, Harry was able to focus in on one Tung Zhou, the owner of a company involved in oil refining and the production of oil rigs. There was not much information about Tung Zhou, other than some of his company’s business deals and some charities he sponsored, but Harry was able to find a picture of the man, who appeared to be in his early seventies.

Okay, she can easily take 10 and climb in and along the metal rafters supporting the rooftop. Go ahead with an IC post.

The first light of morning was just beginning to shine through the blinds in Lance's apartment when Freddy and Harry were awoken by the smell of fresh coffee. "Morning gents." Lance said from the small kitchen area as the two began to stir. "Got some fresh coffee here if you like. You two seemed so tired I just let you sleep through the night while I worked on that picture. Got some things to show you." Lance sat out two coffee mugs near the coffee pot as he grabbed his own cup and headed back to his "office." When the two private investigators joined him, he had the picture up on the monitors once again. "First off, I identified the skyline behind her, it is Hong Kong, and based on the presence of this building," he pointed to one of the ones visible, "the picture cannot be more than three years old, when it was finished. But, I did a bit of searching, and the clothes she is wearing shortens the window to no more than a year ago." "But, for the more important matters. Turns out there has not been any alterations to the picture. That distortion I mentioned last night when you first showed me the picture, well, turns out that was a result of copying some original that had some slight damage or folds. See, your picture is a copy of another, either an original or a copy itself. That 'original' was not in the best shape, so, when it was copied, there were some distortions, as well as that slight fuzziness that is along the edges."

February 13 th, 2013, 8:00 AM About thirty minutes from Katastrof Castle, Sweden Megan Howell looked out the window by her seat as the beautiful Swedish landscape passed beneath. The attractive young blonde woman was on a helicopter that was taking her and several executives from Summit Transnational to their meeting at the World Headquarters for Katastrof & Sorenson Technologies, located at Katastrof Castle near Helsingborg. Megan and the other representatives from Summit had arrived late yesterday and stayed the night in Stockholm. The noise from the helicopter made any conversations all but impossible, giving the young woman an excuse to listen to music from her iPhone during the trip. The twenty one year old knew she should feel excited about the opportunity Ms. Van Cleef had given her in being part of this meeting, but right now she was having a bit of a hard time feeling that way. Tomorrow was Valentines' Day, and Megan was not sure if she would make it back to Freedom City to spend it with Kyle Conner, the man she had been dating for about a month now. She had been looking forward to this Valentines' Day, but over the last two weeks, she had not seen Kyle as much as she would have liked. Part of that was the fact that both had been busy with work. Ever since Megan had been transferred to working for Ms. Van Cleef at Summit, her workload had increased significantly. While the blonde could easily have handled this with easy thanks to her superspeed, she had to be careful about using that to do things TOO quickly. So, she trudged along at something just above a more normal speed. And of course, the young woman did her best to get out as much as possible as Velocity. As if all that were not enough, a couple of weeks ago while out patrolling as Velocity, she had run into a male superhero named Siphon. During their first meeting, which had started with Megan tackling him to keep him from being shot by some gang members on Zoom, Siphon's powers had inadvertently triggered and he had copied Megan’s speed, which he then used to help her run down the gang members and their companions on motorcycles in a chase through parts of the West End. It had been rather fun to have someone that could keep up with her (literally) like that, and Megan had to admit that Siphon seemed rather cute (as best as she could tell due to the mask). She had meet up with Siphon one other time since to patrol the city, and allowed him to copy her power that time as well so he could cover ground as quickly as she did. So now the young woman was feeling very conflicted. She REALLY liked Kyle, and they had fun when they were together. But there was a certain appeal to Siphon, someone who not only was part of the world she lived in as Velocity, but could copy her powers. Given her history with relationships, and the tension caused by her keeping her life as Velocity a secret, Megan was starting to wonder if she might just head things off early with Kyle and save them both a lot of heartache. But then, the couple of times she had tried dating another superhero, things had not lasted very long either. Just then, Pink's Try began to play on her iPhone, the soulful lyrics causing the young woman to sigh slightly. Yeah, that is about how I feel. She thought as she listened to the song and continued to stare out at the window, hoping that this time and distance from Freedom City would help bring her some clarity. A little over half an hour later… Megan made her way into the conference room along with the three Summit executives she was accompanying for the meeting. Dressed in a dark, charcoal grey suit with knee length skirt, the young woman was now focused on the task at hand. As the one who had spent the better part of a week pouring through all the various spreadsheets, pro forma, projections and other financial data relating to the proposed joint ventures between KST and Summit, Megan had to be ready to have the various information on hand and ready during the meeting if anyone needed to refer to something specific. And of course, she also was supposed to treat this as a learning experience to watch the discussion and negotiations that would take place in trying to finalize the deal.

"Well, it really depends on what we're dealing with." Lance responded as brought the picture up on two of the monitors in front of him. The image displayed on the left monitor remained the normal size, while Lance zoomed in on the image displayed on the right monitor, a small box showing the magnified section on the normal sized image. "If any alterations were done by someone who didn't know what they were doing, probably no more than half an hour or so. But if we're dealing with someone really good, could take a day or more. From what I could see of the picture by eye, if we are dealing with anything, it is more towards the later. There were no obvious alterations." He turned around in his chair to look at the two private investigators. "So, you guys can hang out here for awhile if you like. Or head home and I can call you tomorrow to let you know what I have figured out so far."

Round Eight: Tsunami: 16 (unharmed, 3 HP) Warp: 12 (unharmed, 3 HP) (of course the bad guys are busy too, just not listing their initiatives right now )

GM After knocking out the last of the gunmen on the second floor balcony, Warp started back towards the central stairwell to continue on up to the third floor. She had made it about halfway up to the third floor balcony when yet another muffled explosion sounded from up on the third floor somewhere. Down on the main floor, Tsunami looked up at the sound of the other explosion. With no further threats visible down here and most of the civilians evacuated so far, she sprinted towards the central stairwell that Warp had gone up, bounding up the stairs as quickly as she could.

Thunder, just to be clear what CT is doing, is she climbing into the skylight and along the rafters of the warehouse to try to find where the voices are coming from? Or is she going to continue along the rooftop and see if she can find another skylight and/or way in?

Velocity shrugged slightly as Warp indicated she was not sure how widespread the news that Congressmen Walsh's son had superpowers would get. "Well, you never know, some reporter somewhere could pick it up and run with it. Might just take a little while." "Asking ahead of time about whether you could attend is always a good way to go about it." She then stated. "Back on New Year's Eve, I spent twenty six hours running around the world to see the New Year arrive in twenty four different places. Four of my stops were with US military personnel at various bases around the world. I probably could have just show up, but I had Captain Thunder help clear my visits with the Pentagon beforehand." The speedster nodded as Warp mentioned possibly letting things calm down some before she tried to do anything the help improve her image with the men and women of the FCPD. "Yeah, it might be a good idea right now. But, let me know if you at least want me to see what I can find out for you."

As the group continued their journey, Giang marveled slightly at the natural beauty of the terrain they passed through. However, she did her best to not allow that to distract her from staying focused on watching for any danger around them. The thin column of smoke that became visible once they left the cover of the jungle a stark reminder of the seriousness of their situation. The Asian teen regarded the variety of herd creatures that were grazing on the various plants growing around the many hot spring pools. Thankfully, they all appeared content to leave the group alone, so long as they were not threatened. When Kazra dropped to the ground and signaled for the others to do so as well, Giang dropped down as indicated, looking to both sides a moment to be sure nothing was approaching from there. She then crawled up near Cerys and their young guide, looking down at the scene below. After watching for a few moments, she looked over towards John and the others. "While I do not like the thought of having this group operating in our area, engaging them could result in the other Serpent People being alerted when they don't return."

GM As Angus reemerged in the coffee shop, she found that it was now mostly empty. The two baristas that had been manning the shop when she and Megan had gotten their coffees earlier were still there, and had started doing what they could to try to clean up some of the mess caused by Raditron’s smashing through the main window and knocking over one of the displays. One of the two young women spotted Angus as she stepped out of the small hallway that led to the shop’s restrooms. "Oh, we didn't realize anyone else was still here." She said in surprise. "Are you alright?"

"While a dangerous place, it was still quite amazing." Giang stated regarding her visit to the Lost World earlier in the month with Subito, Cerys and John. "The jungle tribes led by Lord Zandar were well adapted to their environment, perfectly content without any of the technology which surrounds us here. There was also a city filled with the descendants of colonists from the Roman Empire, and another with descendents from the Incan Empire, both still existing as their ancestors had in times past." The Asian teen paused a moment before she continued. "Despite the danger posed by various predators and other threats, it was certainly a place I might wish to revisit someday." When Elias touched the sphere of water, a ripple went out through the sphere from the contact. As he formed his telekinetic bubble inside the sphere of water, the sphere bulged in several places, as the some of the water was displaced by his bubble. But the Giang maintained control over the water, keeping it generally in place. With a twist of her hand, all the water pulled away from Elias' bubble, reshaping into the long, twisting shape of a Chinese dragon. The water dragon flew back around behind Giang, before coming up to rest on her shoulders, as she gave Elias a small smile.

Megan gave a small nod as Amir talked about how her upbringing was likely very different than his. "Yeah, it probably was." She stated in agreement. "Although, being the youngest, I had to follow in the wake of all of Samantha and Jason’s accomplishments." The blonde young woman smiled slightly as he talked about what working for Ms. Van Cleef would be like for her. And here I thought the idea was that I was overworking myself. She thought. "Well, sounds like I am going to have to be ready for anything then." She replied. When Amir mentioned that she would be contacted by an online magazine, Megan looked a bit surprised. "Wow, really?" She asked, not quite sure what to make of the revelation. "Well, I guess I can see what they want. Just as long as it's not about a swimsuit calendar or something."

Velocity just shrugged slightly as Young Britannia commented on her having a business card. "Just been at this awhile. Makes things much easier to provide the police with a way to get in touch with me if they need more information or the like." The speedster then grinned as the taller heroine mentioned how handy her personal storage dimension was. "Wow, I am sure it is, I so could use one of those." Her grin broadened into a full smile as Young Britannia mentioned getting in touch with her in the future. "Anytime." The police officers made their way over to the two heroines and took custody of the villains while waiting for a heavy transport with power restraints. Velocity was giving a statement when Young Britannia made her exit, giving a friendly wave as the heroine flew off. When the other heroine disappeared from view, the speedster turned to the officer she was talking with. "I have something I need to go take care of for a few moments, when the transport gets here, don’t let it leave till I get back. I want to make sure these three make it to Blackstone this time." With that, the speedster was off in a blur, reaching the rooftop where she had stashed her bag several blocks away in less than a second. She needed to change back to begin Megan for a few minutes to try and find Angus and come up with some excuse to cut short their visit.

He gets a 22, but still not good enough. He's out.