ic Sunset Wheel

[Exaccus]

his curiosity satisfied and unwilling to reveal himself as a meta human to the club at large just yet Alex relinquished his grip on the form and allowed flesh to replace plastic and circuitry once again, it was a pleasant sensation he'd discovered, feeling his atoms change like tha made him warm and tingly all over in the most literal sense.

 

exiting the stall and washing his hands briefly but thoroughly he made his way back out onto the dance floor and began to head over towards the backstage area of the club, mysteriously unwatched by the buildings security measures, there was no place quite so conspicuous as that.

 

Time to get to the bottom of things

[Kai Wren]

“Stay calm.”

Victoria was trying hard not to get frustrated with the other Guardian. She’d just nearly had her face clawed off, and had put down something that had once been a living person. Violet’s eagerness was grating.

She noted the trumpet case, but she agreed that the trapdoor was a far more important avenue of investigation. Cursing herself for leaving all her gear behind, she used a bent paperclip to fiddle with the lock, trying to remember how those tutorials she’d looked up went. She really needed to practice on this.

Finally, there was a ‘click’, and the lock came away.

“Be ready.”

Because last time they opened a door, there was deadly danger behind it – this time, at least they’d be prepared.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Kai Wren

[Supercape]

GM

 

Jon had been trying to get more information out of Sunset. A passionate man, he was clearly starting to irritate Sunset who was become vexed. "I told you all I know, man. Back off" he said through gritted teeth, getting angry. 

 

As Alexander snuck through the back stage door, he was greeted by the sight of a dead woman in chains on the floor, and Violet and Victoria just opening the trap door. 

 

"It's not how it looks!" started Violet. "I mean it is but...eww! what's that smell!!!"

 

From the trap door came a sickly sweet aroma that felt soporific. It was almost pitch black down there, and the smell of sweet and pungent herbs whafted upwards quite powerfully. 

[Exaccus]

Oh wow, it had been a whiile since he'd had to deal with the undead, not since that fateful day they'd dredged up that submarine and the zombie crewmen had started to pour out of the hull breachs like tides of rotting, stinking flesh, although it had been a rather cool move to land on one whilst made out of steel it had taken him a long time to get the smell out.

 

"Huh....well I'm guessing you're either plain-clothes cops or super heroes, that's good...some messed up stuff has been happening here" he began before the sickly sweet scent poured out of the trapdoor, experience had taught him that weird smells and secret basements were not to be taken lightly and so his first instinct was to assume the properties of the Air in the room and create a zone free of the  pungent ungents before whatever effect they were intended to have could take root.

 

"Uuh....well Im facsimile, maybe you've heard of me?" he asked, voice a whispery rasp now that his words came from manipulating the air directly still tinged with a bit of pride at the prospect maybe he was getting a little famous for his work.

[Kai Wren]

“Concerned citizens.”

That was all the acknowledgement that Vicky was willing to give the other hero. A light correction, as she peered down into the newly-unveiled drug den, if indeed that was what it was. It certainly smelt like one. Her eyes narrowed as she scrutinised the darkness. She wasn’t so sure she liked that smell. There were a lot of variables here she didn’t have a handle on yet, and bringing an unknown superhuman into the mix seemed dangerous, at best. On the other hand, she couldn’t exactly turn him away; they didn’t have time for the argument that it would no doubt cause.

“Stay close and keep your guard up. We don’t want to wind up like her.”

And with that curt piece of advice offered, she slid down through the trapdoor. Because when your head is in the lion’s mouth, sometimes, you need to shove your arm down its throat to survive.

[Supercape]

GM

 

Down in the basement...

 

There were things that should be in a basement, like wine bottles and tools. But that was essentially irrelevant. 

 

The pungent odour came from a gently fuming glass beaker over an electric heater, a purple liquid bubbling softly. In it, some strange herbs were dissolving slowly. 

 

Five persons, filthy, emaciated, dehydrated, were lying around on rugs and soft cushions, either asleep or nearly so. Victoria could recognise two of them as the girls Jon was so desperately looking for. 

 

A fat man, bare chested, bald, and strong, smoking a cigarrette, was not quite so asleep but he certainly looked drugged and sleepy. He fumbled for a machete by his side as Violet and Victoria came in. 

 

"Hmmwf...what, time to play again? Who you want this time? wait.,...who are you?" he mumbled, eyes not focused properly. 

[Exaccus]

"not much sssspirit for cooperation huh?" he said with the effervescent waspishness of air to his voice as he descended into the basement behind them, any further thoughts were blown from his currently gaseous mind by the sights he saw before him, 5 people laying sprawled on the ground looking like living death and one fat man brandishing a machete at him and his two allies of opportunity was all he needed to see in order to react.

 

hooking his fingers into the air like some sort of silky material and making a sharp yanking motion  he tried pullng the air from the man's lungs and sent it spiralling around his head, both depriving him of oxygen already inhaled and cutting him off from drawing in more with the barrier of swirling wind all that remained to be seen is if they could escape his effect

 

"I can handle thissss guy, you check on those people."

Edited April 3, 2018 by Exaccus

[Supercape]

GM

 

The fat man gasped, dropping his machete and clutching at his throat. His eyes looked ever more glazed and he struggled and shook, gasping for air. 

 

"Wha...what...." he spluttered, trying to force air into his lungs. His cigarette was on the floor, and his fingers were nicotine stained. His lungs were clearly not in great condition at the best of times, but in this smoky and sickly air of the basement, what function they had was diminished still further. He gave one mighty wheeze and then was out cold...

[Kai Wren]

A lot happened very quickly in a short space of time.

Almost the same instant that she took in the space, Victoria could sense the drugs attempting to find purchase on her system. She slowed her breathing as much as she could, and had begun to move towards the thug – intending to force answers out of him. By the time she got there, Facsimile had put an end to that concept. Oh well, interrogation could come later.

“Get them upstairs.”

That was shot towards Violet, whilst she moved to take the bubbling brew off the electric heater, and see if she could find something to stopper the bottle.

[Supercape]

GM

 

"What, all five of them? I'm not Centurion, you know" sighed Violet, hand over her mouth. "I'll pass out before I get them all up..." She was not weak, but on the other hand was not hugely strong either. She did not complain further, however, and started pulling one of the girls up towards the Backstage area. 

 

"We need a better plan. Someones going to come backstage sooner or later" she offered, perhaps redundantly. 

 

Poor Jonathon, on the other hand, was already looking pale and soporific. "I can help!" he said with a woozy grin on his mouth, although it looked like he could barely stand. 

 

The bubbling brew simmered more gently off the heater, and Victoria found a heap of old kitchen roll that she could scrunch up and put an reasonably effective stopped on the glassware. Whilst helpful, the sweet atmosphere was still swirling; there was not a lot of air circulation here...

[Exaccus]

"Pleasssse, allow me ladiessss and gentssss" facsimile said, feeling himself inflate a little with pride at how lucky his assimilated form had proven to be so far and concentrating with all his might began to stir the airways in the room, a small whispy dust devil forming and maintaining a slow but consistent spin, designed to make the air spin like water in a drain and pull the ungent in, though its different density in the slow spin and containing it to the center of the whirling wind

 

"Can't, help with the people....not sssssolid at the moment, tornado powerful enough to lift ssssomeone would make a lot of noissse" he explained.

 

"Lassst ditch effort perhappsss?"

Edited April 3, 2018 by Exaccus

[Kai Wren]

The bottle stoppered, Victoria shoved it into the front pocket of her hoodie. Not exactly ideal, but she could see if she could find someone, somewhere to analyse this later. For now, getting it – and the people – out of here was as good as could be hoped for.

“We’ll get the people out of here first.” She said, firmly. “Worry about the rest later.”

She wasn’t in any position to dig deep right now. Outside of her uniform, with none of her equipment, she couldn’t hope to really get to the bottom of matters – common sense said that coming back under cover of proper darkness would be the more advantageous route, once the innocents were out of immediate danger.

She shot a dark look at Jon. Violet was, at least theoretically, competent to be here. Facsimile seemed to have let the complete civilian just blunder his way in with good intentions and a lack of awareness of his own limits to boot.

Infuriating.

Still. With a little luck, they could just leave via the nearest fire escape and be out of here shortly – that was her intent, as she grabbed two of the emaciated, semi-conscious forms to try and manhandle out of there.

[Supercape]

GM 

 

The spinning and swirling of the air rattled many of the flotsam stored in the basement. Lamentably, a rather expensive bottle of Pinot Noir, already precariously balance, hit the floor and cracked seeping its fine juice over the dusty concrete floor and scattered rugs. 

 

Apart from this regrettable mishap, it all went smoothly. The air flowed in and out of the cellar area, freeing all from the noxious fumes. Although surely some of that sickly vapour would now seep into the main hall where the ballrooom music continued to beat. 

 

Whilst the cellar was free of the drug, its victims were not. They remained somewhat intoxicated, or frankly asleep. 

 

Between Victoria and Violet (Jon was quite sleepy and drugged it seemed, although he did manage to stumble back to the Backstage area) the addicts were being manhandled upstairs, but....even with the musicians playing on stage, there was a risk of being spotted...

Edited April 5, 2018 by Supercape

[Kai Wren]

There was little that Victoria wouldn't have given for one of her smoke pellets at that moment in time. Nevertheless, there was only really one priority right now - get the civilians out of the way. She could see about finding someone to assist her with analysing the drug later. In future, she definitely wouldn't be doing this kind of thing in her civilian identity. It made life much harder. 

"Fire escape. See an alarm? Yank that too."

Victoria's tone was terse, especially as she was now working as much to herd Jon in the right direction as get the drugged people out of there. She was painfully aware that they were likely to be spotted; but options were limited. At this point, a quick egress was the best they could hope for.

[Supercape]

GM

 

Violet huffed and puffed with the strain, her white blonde hair sweaty now. At least she didn't seem to be affected by the drug. "Who did this? Shouldn't we find out?" she asked Victoria. 

 

"We got to get the girls out of here..." mumbled Jonathon, leaning heavily against a wall. 

 

"What in darnation darn?" said the woman coming through the back door entrance. She was a tall, middle aged lady dressed in a mans suit and tie complete with a top hat. One of the bartenders, or stewards. 

 

She dropped her cigarette that she was about to light up, and looked at the corpse lying chained up. 

 

"You killed her? But....but....we were hoping we could get her better!" she said, anger rising. 

[Kai Wren]

“Stop evil first. Worry about who and why-“

Just as she was about to continue her explanation, the member of staff blundered in. Of all the reactions that could have been expected, the anger from the other woman was possibly one of the few that could really have gotten under Victoria’s skin.

The woman was practically a blur as she crossed the distance, her load of dishevelled unfortunates left to crumple to the floor as her hand wrapped around the other woman’s neck, and she forced her back up against the wall. The bartender might have been about to get angry, but the seething, boiling fury that had been building in Victoria practically since she walked into this place was now bursting out of her.

“No.” She hissed, tightening her grip. “You people killed her. And you would have killed them too.”

She snapped the fingers of her free hand, pointing towards the half-dead addicts that had apparently either escaped the woman’s notice, or been completely beneath it.

“I don’t care how you’ve justified this to yourself. This ends. Now. Understand?”

[Exaccus]

hearing a commotion above alex rose from the still open hatch like a silvery ghost drawn aloft on an unseen string and hovered quietly, for now he watched as this new comer and her friend handled things, ready to intervine if he saw things going south for the winter, eitherway.

 

content to float aloofly and silently judge the situation for now, he had after all just ripped the air from someone lungs and been trusted that he was acting appropriately and not killing the man, it was only fair to extend the same curtsy now maybe he could even lend a bit of oomph to the ladies attempts to intimidate the woman.

 

"The Wind Howlssss For vengeance on the wicked....." his whispering voice coiling through the air "Who hasss befouled usss with sssuch putrid filth?" putting his talents to use to make things rattle with ethereal rage as he spoke,  not enough to make much of a fuss, but more than enough to make anyone who'd seen poltergeist's spine shiver a little bit.

 

"Sssspeak now or Ssssuffer their Fate....and have the windssss ripped from you."

[Supercape]

GM

 

The woman gasped as grasped, and tried without success to keep her top hat from falling symbolically to the ground. 

 

"What? We didn't....ack! It was the music! the music! It drove us all mad! Like it had too many notes in too many dimensions! I never heard anything like it!" she babbled. "Gloria wasn't the only one, but she was the only one that we managed to pin down! We had to try and save her!" she continued. 

 

"We are like family here, and we wanted to understand what was happening! See if we could do anything!" she gulped. 

 

"We should try to understand what's happening here..." said Violet softly. "Before we do anything..."

 

"What about those people down there?" mumbled the drugged Jonathan. 

 

At this, the bow tied woman blushed and looked awful. 

 

"We...needed to...understand what was happening..." she reiterated weakly. "And we had...ahhh....special drugs...." she explained letting the conclusion unspoken but obvious. Experimentation....

[Kai Wren]

Victoria’s anger was rolling off her in waves, and the look that she gave Violet at the woman’s interruption could have frozen blood.

“No.” She said, in a low, dangerous voice, every word precise and sharp as a scalpel, making her disapproval of the woman’s attitude painful clear. “We shouldn't. We need to stop it. Have I been unclear in some way as to what the priorities are, here? How much do you think I care about understanding the reasons why these idiots are endangering innocent lives, compared to making them stop?”

She was no longer so convinced that the Katanarchists were involved in this at all – but that hardly mattered. The continual efforts by the woman to try and go against her leadership was grating, heavily. The priority here could not be clearer to Victoria if it was written in neon letters a hundred feet high. People were dabbling with dangerous forces which had already claimed one life, and would keep doing so until they were stopped. The priority had to be to take away their ability to continue to do harm. Everything else could follow after that.

Her attention turned back to the subdued bartender, voice still low, still chillingly sharp.

“We’re getting these people to safety. You’re going to go and set off the fire alarm to get that band to stop playing before someone else dies, and then you’re going to go to the police and tell them everything you know. Because you understand that you’ve been an idiot. Don’t you?”

Edited April 6, 2018 by Kai Wren

[Exaccus]

Facsimile didn't like this, not one bit, this woman was acting crazy, giving orders and physically rough handling someone who had so far been co-operative but he knew better than to interfere whilst another hero was working, but he could make himself heard.

 

"Not a good idea, you heard her thissss is the one they managed to catch, there are otherssss who slipped the net." he pointed out "we ssssshould of course get thesssse people out of here but we ssssshouldn't turn the place out and call it done, you sssssurvived your scrape with thisssss one" he points out, having noticed the scar "Whosssss to say that sssssome bystander will be sssso lucky?" Reason in the face of emotion, often hard to bear he'd found out personally but often needed to be said.

 

though emotion was indeed a powerful thing and easily succumbed too as he felt his heart twinge with guilt about overlooking this terrifying solution.

 

"Put that woman down now pleasssse, you are acting like a mobsssster."

Edited April 7, 2018 by Exaccus

[Supercape]

GM

 

Violet stopped at Victoria's rebuke. "Is that you speaking, or the Wheel?" she asked, defiantly. "Just going along with what they say without understanding what is going on? Did they completely brainwash you? Think for yourself!" she demanded. 

 

The Bartender's eyes looked left and right to try and find some escape from the situation. And yet, there was none. 

 

"Sure, sure. Just let me go and I'll go to the cops and tell them everything! That's right! Full confession! Just let me go because I sure am an Idiot!" she babbled. She gave up trying to claw out of the iron grip that Incognito had on her. 

[Kai Wren]

Victoria relinquished her grip on the bartender, and turned on the pair. Behind her sunglasses, her eyes closed, and she found her centre. Her voice was still deadly quiet, and she wasn’t even trying to hide the anger in her, but she wouldn’t let it rule her.

“This is not the time or the place to have this discussion.” She said, coldly, addressing only Violet. “Referring to the Wheel in front of outsiders? Whilst I am not even properly disguised? We will speak of this later.”

Her attention turned to facsimile, then, and she gestured to the drugged social worker he had allowed to blunder in on his trail.

“You are a child.” She said, “And this is not a game. You don’t trust my judgement? Then do what you want. But you brought that man here, and now you must choose. Safety for the innocent, or satisfaction for your curiosity. I pray you choose wisely.”

The woman moved to grasp the two civilians that she could carry; the two that she had taken responsibility for, and then simply seemed to melt into the shadows.

[Supercape]

GM

 

Jon mumbled something along the lines of "where did they go..." but frankly he was too drunk on the fumes to see five feet in front of him with any clarity, let alone follow Incognito's ninja skills. 

 

Violet looked around - she had lost Victoria but was less surprised. "Clever...." she acknowledged. She was as cool as her cold blonde hair, though, and did not lose temper over the matter, at least visibly. "Come on, Mister. Time to get out of here" she said, voice disappointed. She half dragged Jon with her. 

 

There was indeed a fire escape, which could be unbolted from the inside, leading into a chilly night air. 

 

The Bartender scuttled away, back to the kitchen area, quite white with dread, her face a mask of cold sweat. 

[Exaccus]

"never seen someone with so many wrinkles throw such a hissy fit over not getting their way." he hummed to himself turning to violet briefly "seriously though, is that the kind of person you wanna work with?" he whispered as he whirled about after her "I've half a mind to report her to the police for her conduct here tonight, trust me, that is one shit list you don't wanna be on when people know your face."

 

He wasn't going to of course, they had been acting as they thought best and despite her big words he could tell she cared "then again, whatever kinda secret cult you're both a member of is none of my buisness, as long as you don't work for ghostworks.anyway." he said with the first true bit of bitterness in his voice.

 

"Oh yeah im a kid alright, one that got captured and tortured by rogue goverment operatives, thrown into other dimensions, fought a zombie uprising and all manner of stuff like that." a little bit of anger at being talked down "probably seen more action in a week than most people do in their whole lives."

 

"This lug follows me into the club cause he cares about those kids, sorry crazy lady I'm not willing to nail him to an alley wall." he mumbled, classic teenager hissyfit, now rambling more than talking to anyone in particular.

[Supercape]

GM

 

And thus, at the back of the Square Moon, outside the Fire Escape...

 

Violet hauled the last semi-comatose victim out. All five intoxicated men and women lolled about in a drunken stupor, eyes glazed, smiles wan but fixed. 

 

"There we go...that's my workout for today" she said, sweating. "But it's not over. Something crazy is going on down there. The music. The drugs. The dead woman" she said, stating the perfectly obvious. 

 

"We can't just let this drop" she said, confronting Victoria. "We need to work out what is happening. What strange forces are down there. That woman...that dead woman. I saw what happened. She is slowing time, or something? what happened when she touched you?" she asked.