Surely you Jest (IC)

[Geez3r]

GM ONLY POST

After scouring the warehouse for a few minutes, the collected heroes find a clue. About 8 or 9 rows back into the warehouse, there's a collection of maybe a dozen or so crates that have a very large tarp thing covering them. However, from the looks of the dust, this area has been heavily disturbed, as if someone has made a concentrated effort to examine this collection of boxes. Most of the crates are labeled as property of Darts, most of them being weapons of some kind, ranging from side arms to artillery. After a few minutes of looking over the crates, it is discovered that one of the crates doesn't have any sort of label of any kind. This crate being the largest in the pile, you could fit 2 full size couches in it without any difficulty.

[quotemyname]

"...Searchin'! Searchin'!" Breakdown had been quietly singing along to the song playing through his headphones when he came upon the tarp. Clicking it off, he pulled the tarp from the pile of boxes and called to his friends.

Once they had arrived and had a chance to survey the scene as well, he spoke. "So, we've got a few crates from one of the city's premier weapons manufacturers, and a blank crate the looks like it can hold a megaton bomb. Given what happened when Malice tried to blow up half the town a while back, is anyone else worried about this?" Breakdown had been absent-mindedly holding the tarp in his hands as he looked the merchandise up and down.

[Gizmo]

Jack shrugged as he ambled up to the crate. "Or it could be an absurdly large number of styrofoam peanuts," he pointed out as he gave the large box a once over with his metahuman senses. There wasn't anything that screamed 'dangerous energy' to him; no obvious radiation or pulsing charge. Of course, that might just mean whatever was inside hadn't been triggered yet. "Let's face it, all this science stuff? There could be a megaton bomb the size of a breadbox stowed away in here, for all we know."

Considering for a moment, the swordsman evidently made up his mind. A thin line of electricity leapt from the lights overhead to his hand, an arcing rapier formed of lightning appearing in his hand. "Screw it. Hey, brain guy, hows about setting us up with a telekinetic shield or something just in case?" So saying, Jack jammed his sword into the edge of the crate's lid, using it as a rather exotic crowbar to reveal what was inside.

[Geez3r]

GM ONLY POST

Jack's blade easily pops the top on the crate, too easily in fact, it practically flies off. Jack then notices three very bad things in quick succession. Firstly, his senses didn't detect anything earlier because the crate was shielded. Apparently, if you want to sneak something into a high tech warehouse, it helps if it doesn't bleed energy everywhere. Secondly, the machine, whatever it is, is clearly on. Finally, his rapier has made contact with the machine and all of the little flashing lights are blinking and turning on. A very high pitched rolling sound is heard getting steadily louder. Within the span of 2 seconds it gets to almost literally ear splitting volume before going dead silent. The machine emits a blast of yellow and blue light that bathes the collected heroes and they black out.

Sometime later, the heroes regain consciousness in the warehouse. The machine is gone and the area seems strangely dim and quiet. How long where they out?

[quotemyname]

And people yell at ME for being impulsive?! Breakdown's mind was running frantically.

"Jack! What the hell, man?!" Breakdown yelled from his back, not even bothering to stand up initially. Once he pulled himself into a seated position, he glanced around the room, and scanned the airwaves for any sign of anything gone horribly wrong. If Dash had come back and stolen the device while they were konked, maybe it would be on the news or the police broadcasts by now. "Something tells me this is bad. Really bad..."

[Gizmo]

Groaning, Jack staggered back to his feet, holding the sides of his head and squeezing his eyes closed. "Yeah, alright, that one's on me," he admitted, blinking groggily. "In my defense, what happened to all the stuff in here being broken or failed or whatever? Besides, better we opened with Thad's force field up than the..." The swordsman's voice trailed off as his senses cleared enough for him to think straight. "The police," he said, making his way unsteadily to the hole that had been smashed in the warehouse wall. He'd definitely heard approaching sirens while they were poking around the stacked boxes. "Should have been here by now..." They couldn't have come and gone; they wouldn't have left the metahumans lying unconscious on the floor. An queasy pit formed in Jack's stomach.

[Geez3r]

A circle of tweety birds flies around Jester's head as he comes too. "Oooohhh that was fun! There may be help for you yet there Jackie boy." Jester stands up and dusts himself off. "Don't worry, the police are never there when you want them, it's in their contract, believe me, I've got experience in these matters." Straightening his back he asks "The important thing is, I think we all learned a valuable lesson here: if you're going to stick your sword into something unknown, you'd better use some rubber."

[patcore]

Waking up the first thought that came to Thad's mind was Why am I less than surprised that people act so hastily? Just because they're not finished doesn't mean they are harmless. Hearing Jack's apology helped but now they were in a whole new mess. It's true that the police should have arrived by now and if they came while we were all knocked out they wouldn't just have left us. They would have at least brought all of us in for questioning. Not to mention the machine is now gone. If that speedster had showed up again would he have just left us alone instead of exacting his revenge? Thad sits up and ponders on the situation while the heroes absorb what just transpired.

[quotemyname]

"Woh there, Clown-face!" Breakdown waved his hands in Jester's direction. "Starting to sound a little too health class for me, there."

Breakdown turned to Jack once again. "Don't worry about it, man. We all goof sometimes, believe me, I know." Breakdown had a large smile on his face. Part of a been-there-done-that expression. "But at least give us time to set up next time. Even if Mr. Mind-Powers wanted to shield us, he probably wouldn't have gotten it up in time. Which brings me to another good point..." Breakdown now directed his attention at Thad. "Thad, right? That new telekinesis guy that's been flying around? Good stuff man, keep it up." The encouragement was accompanied by a big smile and a thumbs up. Breakdown pointed at the rest of the group, "BD, Jack, Jester, and Mongrel Angel. Business taken care of... Now what the hell do we do?"

[Gizmo]

Awesome, condescension from the jukebox hero, Jack grimaced internally as his head pounded. Ironically, he could already feel himself getting impatient of the chatter, which was largely what had driven him to rash action in the first place. "Sword innuendo, great. 'Cause that's new. And if you need polite warning to use your defensive shield, you've got a problem," he grumbled under his breath, largely to himself. As the pounding in his head subsided, he made a conscious effort to think the situation through.

"It was a set up," he announced suddenly. "They were never going to take anything in the first place. They were leaving something behind." The fencer turned to the rest of the motley band. "You don't leave something like that turned on for storage, and if it's not plugged in you don't need an energy dampening container. I just set the damn thing off early."

He'd initially assumed it was just the aftereffects of the blinding flash, but as he recovered Jack realized that the colour of everything around him appeared oddly muted. It couldn't just be his eyesight, however, as the others looked perfectly normal. When he noticed the bugs, frozen in midair like it was amber, he felt a different kind of headache coming on. "Aw, nertz."

[patcore]

While BD made the introductions Thad simply made a slight hand gesture when his name was called. He took in what everyone was saying but never broke from the sitting and thinking position. Not until his darting eyes finally picked up on the color differences between the heroes and the rest of the room. Seeing the flies just hanging in mid air made Thad stand up in almost disbelief. This can't be good. was the only thought that went through Thad's mind. He hurried over to the hole in the warehouse to take a look outside to see what effects had occurred due to the blast.

[Geez3r]

GM ONLY POST

From Thad's new vantage point, he notices that they are quite a bit more trouble than they thought they were in. None of the surrounding buildings show any new damage, other than the destruction caused in the recent fight. However, everything still has that muted look to it. Thad sees the police making their way to the scene. However, they're still in their cars, and still haven't gotten there yet. In fact, it looks like they won't get the chance because their squad cars don't appear to be moving... at all. Nothing seems to be moving.

[Nyrath]

Mongrel Angel picked herself up from the ground and dusted herself off briefly. She spends a few moments looking around, noting the muted colours and all around stagnation of movement. "Alright boys, any ideas about what's happened?"

[quotemyname]

"Isn't it obvious?" Breakdown strolled up casually behind the other heroes gathered at the door. The song "Time Warp" was projecting quietly outward from his body. "From the way everything just stopped, I'm guessing it was some sort of temporal explosion."

[Gizmo]

Jack gave Breakdown a flat look. "That's not even a real thing," he accused before sighing and slowly circling around the insects frozen in mid-flight. "But okay, yeah, looks like we're doing the 'caught between ticks of the clock' thing. Which, besides being wacky fun, begs the question: where the heck did the machine go? It's not like anybody had, uh, time to move it while we were out..." A thought slowly dawned on him as he watched the others move about the warehouse. "...unless they're stuck just like we are."

[Nyrath]

We've got to get moving, not everyone is going to be fine without food and drink indefinetly. "Alright boys, time to take stock of the situation. One; we seem to be outside the normal time stream. Two; what seems to be our most likely way out of this situation is no longer here. Three; It seems likely someone has taken the device in question, or it has teleported away of its own volition. I am inclined to believe the former since we can act on that. Four; we can only rely on our own resources, anyone and anything else can be assumed to not have any time to assist us in." As the dark angel spoke she counted off the points on her right hand. "Now, do any of you have a way to track where this thing has gone in these conditions?"