ic The Southside Sentinels

[RocketLord]

GM

 

A warehouse by Kissinger, Southside, Freedom City

August 24th, 2020

4:30 PM

 

With the police arriving, Archer and Shooting Star had left the fight at the school behind, heading towards Southside. Before leaving, he had called Facsimile, told him where to meet them.

 

Archer had not been amused being carried, and had insisted on a quick stop at one of his caches around town to stock up on arrows. Just in case.

 

Now, they were ready. Standing by a rooftop on Kissinger, Archer just waited for Facsimile to arrive before they could get started.

[RocketLord]

Archer II

 

"Facs, this is Shooting Star." Archer motioned with his hand towards the younger heroine as he made the introductions. "Stronger than she looks. She was attacked by someone way too heavily armed for a regular drug thing, things lead to this warehouse." He pointed at it. "Star, Facsimile. Prep school hero. He's a good guy."

 

"The place'll likely be empty, but we're all here in case it's not. Hoping your powers might help us look for some clues, Facs. We're looking for a new super drug I've been tracking for a while."

 

Give them a moment, do their introductions. It wouldn't work right if they all ran in without any idea what the others could do.

[Kaede Kimura]

Alice had not expected her night to include ferrying an infamous Moore era vigilante across the city, and his attitude about it was not helping her apprehension. Still, she was more than strong enough to carry the man, even if she doubted her arms were comfortable to rest in. She didn't know what sort of help she had expected Archer to call, but a guy who looked like a younger version of one of her father's workmen was not exactly what she had in mind. Still, despite her surprise she held out her hand to shake as Archer introduced her. "There was a kid selling the stuff at a school who I decided to investigate and some Navy SEAL wannabes turned up to stop it. Based on what he said it doesn't sound like the main supplier is making any money off of it so he has to have some other motive to keep the super drugs flowing."

 

She raised an eyebrow behind her mask as Archer mentioned that Facsimile's powers might help them investigate. "Do you mind if I ask what you can do? I'm a flying brick and with stupidly dense tissues, and that's all that matters unless you want to head into space." Alice grinned mischievously as she added, "And Archer can vouch for my right hook when it actually hits something." She wasn't above self-deprecation.

[Exaccus]

Facs had of course come as quickly as his obligations allowed, arriving as a whirling mass of silently twisting wind and returning to his human form

 

"Pleasure to meet you, shooting star, I absorb properties from stuff i touch, like a sponge kinda, more reccently been sucking up litteral information, i just suddenly know stuff sometimes if i can pick it out of the flood of data." he summarized briefly before turning his attention to archer's briefing fully "Military stuff huh? at least we're not dealing with space lasers and plasma bolts."

 

he diverted a little bit of his attention from the here and now as he spoke and listened, extending his awareness into the warehouse before him, past the metal, mortar and brick and into the floor plan of the building, his brow furrowed as he strained to filter useful information from the flood of ages, chemical compositions and tidal wave of other information he pulled in.

 

"im giving the warehouse a poke now, might take me a sec to process it all."

[RocketLord]

Archer II

 

"Yeah. Facs' powers pretty much all got something to do with how much he sucks," Archer added with a slightly sly grin. 

 

Now, he and Facs were joking around with each other. When they first met the two of them had almost gotten into a brawl. It was weird how things changed.

 

Reaching for an arrow, Connor fired it across to the warehouse, a line trailing behind, getting ready to move  towards it. And not be carried anymore, if he could help it.

Edited March 16, 2021 by RocketLord

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Concrete. Glass. Asphalt. A lot of the usual building materials.

 

And something else. 

 

Steel, near the floor. Somethind under the asphalt.

 

And traces of chemicals, something that felt, for a lack of better words, blue. 

[Exaccus]

facs guffawed a little, his concentration slipping just enough to bring him out of his focus.

 

"yeah, yeah, I suck real good, too good some would say." witty comebacks would have to wait till his brain was back to its usual self.

 

"definately something up with that warehouse, steel beneath the asphalt, buncha chemicals and take his how you will but something that my brain interprets only as "Blue", not blue coloured, but literally the colour blue ya dig?" he hummed "Not much of a science nerd myself so I couldn't tell you more than the composition of that other gunk, sounds like a secret drug lab basement though. don't think its Max or Zoom."

 

his exposure to max and zoom had been minimal at best, mostly he got called in to do a locker sweep at some highschools where unusual athletic prowess had developed amongst otherwise normal individuals before a power trip lead to them hospitalising their percived enemies, most of the common blends at least he was familiar with.

 

"Could be a more exotic blend i suppose; but i think your new stuff is...or perhaps was being made here, not picking up any people, but hey, i ain't infallible."

 

and with that he was once again wind ready to swirl through the sky and into whatever miniscule gaps there might've been in the warehouse.

 

"time for a bit of blowing and showing after all that sucking!"

[Kaede Kimura]

Alice looked between the pair talking about how much one of them sucked, and how he was 'real good, too good' at sucking. Were... were they trying to be subtle? "You know, if you two are together you don't need to hide it. I'm not homophobic or anything." She kept a respectful distance from the lovebirds as she spoke. "I'm not going to spread it around or anything either, I know better than to spread anything that could spoil your secret IDs." She looked between the two again before focusing in as Facsimile talked about what was under the warehouse and switching to business.

 

"How do we want to do this, sneaking in or just take the roof off and go in?" Her flight was silent so she could sneak well enough but hiding wasn't exactly her strong suit given her white costume and bronze breastplate. Then she blinked in surprise at the hero's final line. Was she... intruding on something that she probably shouldn't? She was starting to feel like a bit of a third wheel.

[RocketLord]

Archer II

 

Archer paused for a moment, staring at Shooting Star. 

 

"Screw you." 

 

He silently shook his head at the question. She wasn't that much younger than him, and still, he wanted to complain about freaking kids. Not a good sign.

 

Archer leapt off the rooftop, swinging down to the building, landing next to the others. He looked at Shooting Star and Facs. The way she was acting, she was clearly picking up on something.

 

"Don't read too much into everything." He reached into his quiver and pulled out a few arrows, nocking them on the bow. "This ain't high school. Not everyone ribbing on you are into you." 

 

Moving along the wall, Archer crept towards a door and lightly pushed it open. "We go silent, then bring the noise once we find something."

[RocketLord]

GM

 

The warehouse seemed abandoned, much like it was supposed to be. Empty, covered in thick layers of dust. Some broken windows. A few scattered containers left behind, all empty.

 

If there was anyone there, it didn't seem like they noticed the group as they entered. 

 

It seemed like it was a bust.

 

Then Archer noticed some tracks in the dust. Facsimile could track a miniscule amounts of the strange blue drug that he had sensed.

 

It led to a large hatch in the floor. Shooting Star would be strong enough to hold it up. It was big enough that a car could drive through, if needed.

[Exaccus]

having returned to his flesh and blood form upon landing in the warehouse facsimile wasted no time in ignoring the structure for what he saw it to be, a cover operation and thanks to some pointers from archer about where to direct his focus he'd quickly picked up the trail of trace amounts of the blue drug, seems whatever they were transporting it in wasn't entirely sealed, small blessing, quite a stable chemical for what it was if it didn't react with the various atmospheric gasses.

 

"Bit harsh don't you think archer?" he protested with a disarming chuckle.

 

"we just prod fun at each other on occasion is all, i never miss the chance to make a pun, though that one was a bit more risque than i had intended, ment it more as a quick hairdressing appointment ya know? showing up and getting a cut and blowdry. or a show and blow if you will." he explained "keeps me sharp and the bozo's i fight off balance i reckon."

 

"Me and him damn near came to blows when we first met, mostly my fault, I was acting high and mighty because i had a string of success as long as my arm and my wreckin' ball was fresh out the super science oven."

[Kaede Kimura]

Alice gave Archer a look that said 'what the hell are you talking about?' even as Facsimile talked and she floated into the warehouse. "Right I'm not sure exactly how old you are, but you definitely had a much different school life then I did Archer, but oh well." She looked around the warehouse disappointed but not surprised at the emptiness. She was genuinely surprised when the two of them found the door, and it was pretty big, but she was somewhat ludicrously strong...

 

"Alright, I should be able to lift that, although I'm not sure how quiet it would be so here's your warning!" She reached forward and grasped the handles, hovering over the door. "Here we go!" With that she dragged the hatch open.

[RocketLord]

Archer II

 

Both of them just. Kept. Talking. Freaking supers. Thinking they're invincible just because they got powers.

 

School life. Archer just glared at Shooting Star, but didn't respond. He didn't feel like sharing his entire life story.

 

He moved a finger up over his lips to try to silence them, then moved towards the hatch. He looked into it with a frown while he replaced the arrow in his hand, picking out one with a casing on it and firmly planting it in the ground next to the entrance, then looked at the other two and motioned with his head towards the hatch.

 

They were bullet proof. They could go first.

 

[Kaede Kimura]

Archer's glare washed off Alice without effect. She was getting used to him being a grumpy lout, and she was getting less intimidated by the vigilante. She was nonplussed by him sending one of them first, but she supposed she could understand since he wasn't superhuman. She gave a shrug and floated down the hatch, head on a swivel. In terms of skills of perception she would admit she probably wasn't the best choice to go first, but she didn't know if Facsimile was bulletproof and she knew that Archer wasn't.

[Exaccus]

Facsimile for his part shrugged silently as he hopped into the hole after starlight, she seemed comfortable taking the lead and whilst he was pretty strong and tough even without absorbing anything he was just shy of being bullet proof.

 

His powers had developed to trade speed for depth and they had never been subtle so for now he opted to wait to see if anything kicked off before making a litteral flash and bang about.

 

Binding the cord of his meteor hammer around his armband tightly gripping the mass of morphic molecules on the end to stiffle any noise its rattling might make he descended into the darkness.

 

Whilst his eyes faltered his mind flared to life, gingerly plucking information from his surroundings as he slowly and steadily paced down the hallway.

[RocketLord]

Archer II

 

Shooting Star went first. Fine. She was bulletproof. Could take a few shots if necessary.

 

With the others moving in first, Connor took care of keeping an eye on their backs. Just because they hadn't seen anything up there didn't mean they were alone, after all.

 

It wasn't dark in there. There were few places to hide, but still, he moved as silently as he could, keeping close to the walls.

[RocketLord]

GM

 

The underground hallway was brightly illuminated. It didn't take long before both Archer and Fascsimile noticed a few security cameras and point them out to Shooting Star, seemingly avoiding detection.

 

The hallways seemed old. Featureless concrete, they had probably been here since the warehouse had been built, but there were traces of much more recent use, aside from the active cameras.

 

Moving closer, the group came to a junction. One path continuing ahead, the other turning to the right, both ending in closed doors. 

 

They could hear muffled voices from the path ahead. Fascsimile couldn't quite place it, but there was something familiar about those voices.

Edited April 6, 2021 by RocketLord

[Exaccus]

facs felt the familiarity of the distant distorted voices, though he couldn't make out what they were saying the cadence of the speach patterns tugged on his memories vaguely, taking a moment to touch shooting star on the shoulder to get her attention silently and holding up his hand to indicate a proposed stop to them both.

 

touching his forefinger to his earlobe, pulling it away and extending his middle and ring fingers to join it, spread apart and seperate before joining them together and indicating the path straight ahead.

 

he hoped he was being clear about what he meant but this kind of thing really wasn't his forte.