Raveled

Berserker's Sense Motive check, vs DC 25 (1d20+10=26) He's on to your wily games!

Blue Jay had kept back when the other heroes were talking to the Lor. She knew vaguely that these were the good aliens, the ones that tried to help Earth; but these ones didn't seem to want to do anything but run away after looking around. However the other heroes were able to talk these three around, and they all piled into the Lors' spaceship. Which was far and away from anything the archer could have expected. Everything was so white and bright and clean. It made Jay acutely aware that she had been wearing the same clothes for three days. She brushed herself down, and immediately wished she hadn't moved as dust and dirt fell onto the gleaming floor. She hugged herself and stood very still as the ship lifted away from the landing bay and shot up the side. It was almost impossible to believe that they were moving, except for the view outside the front window. It was somehow easier to accept moving with the sensation of moving, than it was to accept the rushing, swaying movement of a ride in Mali's car. Quickly they reached a higher part of the Curator's complex, which seemed pretty much the same to Jay. "Are you sure this is the right place?" She bit her lip almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth. "I mean... where should I go? To get into the structure as fast as possible once the hole is cut?"

Design Journal 20.4. Further notes on development of Long Range Research Yard (LRRY) mk 1. Restatement of principals: this design is intended to provide a field lab wherein initial experiments and necessary per-fabrication can be carried out, until sample can be moved to larger, more substantial facilities or in case sample cannot be moved. The main body of the LRRY is based off a V-22 Osprey tiltrotor. A range of between one thousand and two thousand miles would allow the LRRY to reach nearly to the West Coast, or almost to Greenland, or into South America without refueling. The weight load isn't nearly as much a problem as the interior space. I'm designing as much of the interior mechanisms as possible to be deployable. That means once the LRRY reaches its destination the occupant will have to spend time unloading and setting up the laboratory equipment, but it will allow the aircraft to carry appropriate gear to investigate almost any situation.

"I can... I can feel it in my gut." Cunningham held his head with one hand and his stomach with the other. He stumbled away from it and the portal began to shrink -- slowly, almost imperceptibly without instruments, but as Cunningham got farther away from the hole it was closing up. The armored heroes helped him over to the holding tank, and into it. The controls were simple to understand for someone of Ironclad's intellect, and within moments the machinery bolted onto the cylinder was humming. A quick check confirmed that the hole was gone, and Ironclad let herself relax. It seemed like all of this was finally over. All they had to do was deliver the cylinder to Blackstone and hand over Cunningham, and she could put this whole mess behind her. And then the Sky Lord came shooting out of the sky in his auto-gyro. A grapple line spat from the machine and fixed itself to an anchor point on the top of the cylinder, and he was suddenly towing it into the sky. "My sincere gratitude," he transmitted over the common link. "I doubt I would have been able to subdue the Negator myself! Now hurry off, children, we have much to discuss in private."

Sky Lord's Ini (1d20=9) Initiative 24 Bee-Keeper -- Uninjured -- HPx4 9 Sky-Lord -- Uninjured -- GM 8 Ironclad -- Bruisex2 -- HPx3 BK's up.

Ironclad Free Action: Switch Weapon Array to Servos. Full Action: Flip the car and rip up the track.

Ironclad frowned as the purple-suited villain ran away from her and Bee-Keeper. That... wasn't how things normally went. If she had charged while screaming about "impudent, nosy heroes" Ironclad would know exactly how to respond, but this wrong-footed the heroine for a moment. Bee-Keeper's voice brought her back to reality, though. "Both of us," Ironclad said. "But first, we have to make sure this isn't going anywhere." She routed power away from her wrist blasters and to the suit's servo muscles. She gripped ahold of the rail car, and it was the easiest thing in the world to flip it off the track, crushing a couple of the loading arms in the process. Then she walked in front of the car and took hold of the rail set into the floor. She heaved and with a scream of parting metal it came up, a fistful of tempered steel in one hand. She walked forward and repeated the process, then again and again, until almost ten feet of bare concrete, shards of metal, and free-standing bolts stood between the upturned rail car and the remaining rail. Ironclad turned to face Bee-Keeper again, her breath coming a little faster than before. "Now," she said, "we go find Professor Plum."

Ironclad + Vignette 6 7 1 5 6 + 7 + 1 + 5 = 19 + Vignette Starlight 2 Blue Jay + Vignette 4 8 2 2 3 6 13 4 + 8 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 6 + 13 = 38 + Vignette GM 1

Drynwyn's blue glow illuminated Crimson Tiger's flashing fists and elbows, as the pair of heroes laid into the over-muscled gang leader. A palm strike to the face left him reeling and largely unable to defend himself, bruises blossoming over his torso. And then as the girls watched, they began to shrink and disappear! Apparently this wasn't going to be as simple as it appeared. Blue Jay and Kit found themselves in a small room with a hole in the floor! They could hear a voice singing down the hole, so the pair crept up and looked. There was a ladder, and the ladder lead under the wooden walkway; underneath there was a Zodiac boat, tied to some pylons. The blonde woman was loading it up with styrofoam boxes marked with the biohazard symbol!

Berserker's Toughness save, vs DC 24. (1d20+11=22)Bruisex2. Buuuuuuuut. Berserker's Regeneration check (1d20+8=17) So! Initiative 25 Dr. Smythe -- Uninjured -- GM 24 Crimson Tiger -- Uninjured -- HPx2 23 Blue Jay -- Bruisex1 -- HPx1 14 Berserker -- Bruisex1 + Daze (24) -- GM 13 Kit -- Bruisex1 -- HPx1 10 Blod -- Bruisex1 -- HPx1 Smythe's Notice check. (1d20+8=27) One. Point. Off. Tiger's up next.

Ironclad's Ini (1d20+3=4) Ironclad has 2 ranks of Luck, and the Responsibility (Dawes Tech) Complication.

Tona's eyes lit up at the mention of a Welsh longbow. "My... my father used a Welsh selfbow," she said. She licked her lips in anticipation. "I was never tall enough to draw it properly before I left, and the composite bow is much more utile in the city. I don't suppose you could let me try a few shots?" And then the topic of stories came up and she sat back, drawing into herself. She couldn't very well tell war stories of fighting the Treminus, and her father had been an escape artist before becoming a guerilla leader. But her mother... Tona sat up again. "I could tell you stories about cases my mother fought, in court."

Questions. Did the not!Major run down the tunnel to the airport? Are there any other entrances/exits from this loading bay? And can we contact the airport control tower?

"Mike? Mike?" Negator looked up in confusion for a moment, and then he fell to his knees, clutching his head. "I don't kn-kn-know what youuuuuuu're AHHHHHH!" He slammed his head into the ground, hard, and looked up at the flying heroes, confusion and terror writ across his face along with the blood streaming from his forehead. When he spoke his voice was quieter and more controlled. "What... what's happening? Where's the base?" "Michael Cunningham?" Ironclad lowered herself to the ground gingerly, not sure if this was a trick or not. "Cunningham, you kind of... lost control." He climbed to his feet shakily. "Was it... was it Mahgninnuc?" He looked around and spotted the portal, already as big as a man's head. "Oh no, it was Negator. He got out again, didn't he?"

That would actually make him Friendly. Hmmm, let's see how this goes.

Tona rubbed her head, feeling the pain recede. "It's... very odd," she said, sitting back. "So many things in this world are very sweet, they taste very good. But you're not supposed to have too much." She leaned forward and took the tiniest sip of the milkshake, swallowing quickly. "Back home we took what we could get. Usually that meant small game, or wild berries, or just stone soup. This world has so many different kinds of food you can have all the time, sometimes I can't keep track of them all."

"Don't be too confident," Ironclad warned. The armored heroine smashed through a few walls and was soon over-looking the loading bay that Bee-Keeper had fought through. It was simple to force her way into the elevator shaft, and from there she could descend slowly while picking off attack-bots. "We haven't found the laser cannon or the delivery system yet. We might be too later, and only fighting a rear-guard intended to slow us down." With the top of the elevator car cleared, Ironclad dropped into the interior of the car with Bee-Keeper. She flashed him a smile, invisible behind her helmet. "Let's not count this as an easy win until we've made sure they're not going to do something like this again."

Tona reached over and grabbed Sam's arm, squeezing it. "That's the problem," she said softly. "There usually isn't a way to escape." She half-smiled at Cerys's suggestion, picking up her bow and strumming in the string lightly. "I think Mr. Landis would frown on us shooting arrows at each other," she said, "but we could tell stories around the fire. We used to do that a lot at home, at night."

Combat again! Ironclad's Ini (1d20+3=8) Negator's Ini (1d20+6=11)

The Sky-Lord's auto-gyro revved up and one entire wall of the room folded away, to reveal a tunnel sloping upwards. Ironclad eyed it and then, sighing, flew up to the top of the glass cylinder and grabbed ahold. She waited until the Bee-Keeper had anchored himself similarly, and then the pair hauled the tube into the tunnel, and up and into the sky. The Sky-Lord followed them, quickly zipping out front, working at a console inside the small craft. In a few minutes he came over the radio. "I found Negator a few miles inland," he said. "No clones with him, but I'm getting reports of scattered criminal activity throughout Orange and Pike counties." "He's moved them into New York and Pennsylvania," Ironclad observed. "He doesn't want anyone to interrupt what he's doing, so his clones are running interference." "He shouldn't be able to communicate with his clones at a distance," Sky-Lord said. "If we don't let him get away, we should be able to end this here and now." The unlikely alliance followed the Negator's signal, until they could see him; a figure on the ground engaged in some weird ritual. It looked like he had a hole in mid-air that he was pulling on and stretching, slowly pulling it bigger and bigger. "I'll leave this to you," Sky-Lord said, and sharply veered away from the portal. Ironclad sighed and directed the Bee-Keeper to put the cylinder down about a hundred feet from the Negator and his portal. Then she flew over and stood in the air, jets flaring. "Negator," she called out. The man turned and smiled at her crazily. "You're crazy plans aren't going to succeed. We'll make sure of that!"

"My remaining scientist is convinced that the clones Negator creates are not true entities. They are swarms of Counter-Versal energy, given form and image by Negator's will. Only the original can open the portal, because only he has the proper mix of Counter-Verse matter and matter from our universe. If the original can be captured, then the others will cease to exist." "And I suppose you have something that will let us catch Negator and keep him contained," Ironclad said. "Of course. I can't very well conquer the world if it gets blown up by some mad-man." Sky-Lord lead the heroes through the base. Ironclad tried to shut out the occasional scene of carnage; a bloody body draped over a table, a pair of legs in a corner minus a torso, a silhouette burned into the wall in the shape of a man. In time the group came to a control room separated from a bay by a sheet of toughened glass. The glass had been melted and cracked by some intense heat, and while the Sky-Lord used a door to enter the area Ironclad boosted through the hole on her jets. Inside was a large glass-and-steel cylinder, easily big enough to hold a man. "If you can get Negator in here," Sky-Lord said, "you can shut his powers down, at least long enough to get him to Blackstone." Ironclad walked all the way around the device. "And do you have some way of finding Negator? Besides following the trail of destruction he's no doubt creating already." "Of course I do," Sky-Lord replied smoothly. He walked over to another door and stepped through; moments later the wall folded away to show the Sky-Lord at the controls of a small auto-gyro. "Just follow," he said. "I'll take you straight to the Negator." Ironclad sighed. Teaming up with a supervillain wasn't how she had expected this day to go, but it seemed the only option that this juncture.

Blue Jay froze when Harrier's announcement came over the comm channel. Hours of crawling through the shining metal corridors had her on edge; if they had been trekking through fields and forests it might be different, but the Curator's base reminded her too much of the horrors of her homeworld. "Do we really want to worry about this," she asked, her voice tense. "If it's one of the Curator's robots, then it's the only one moving. If it catches up with us, we can deal with it then." She glanced around, starting to regret her decision to wander so far ahead of the group. "We should keep moving and find a ship to take us home."

Blue Jay watched the fight developing beneath her feet. "Good job with the illusions," she said to Kit. "Cleared out most of them." She nocked, drew, and fired two more arrows in the blink of an eye. "And that's the last two. Well this should be simple enou--" And then the blonde and the gang leader stepped into the room, and suddenly there was a new element in the fight. "Merde." Jay eyed the door the doctor had exited through. "Think Bodeu and Tiger can handle this guy on their own?"

Blue Jay Standard Action: Arrow Against the Crowd against both remaining mooks. Blue Jay's ranged attack check, vs Thugs' Def. DC 20 Tou (1d20+15=16) Rerolling that. Blue Jay's ranged attack check, vs Thugs' Def. DC 20 Tou (1d20+15=24) Le sigh. Final check of 34, which certainly hits. Thugs' Toughness save, vs DC 20. (1d20+3=7, 1d20+3=21) Whelp, they're down. Berserker He's Dazed! Oh noes! Kit is up.

Berserker's Toughness save, vs DC 26. (1d20+12=21) Daze + Bruise.