Beginning of New Things (IC)

[Raveled]

11:28 PM, December 31st

The end of the year winds were blowing across the city, and across the warehouse roofs in Greenback. Ironclad, crouched at the edge of one such building, didn't feel the chill through her armor. She was focused on a chemical warehouse across the way, looking through its walls with her infrared sensors. She had one knee against the ground and a bulky contraption affixed to her helmet, scanning the building's frontage steadily. Sitting next to her was her good friend Dragonfly; Ironclad hadn't told the other woman exactly what was going on, only that she needed backup for a job.

[Fox]

Dragonfly certainly did feel the cold - she was awfully glad, if nothing else, that her gauntlets generated enough heat to keep her hands arm. She'd long since stuck both hands under her jacket to try sharing that heat with her torso, but wasn't having a lot of luck; she'd also long since put up her force field in the hopes of cutting at least some of the wind. That wasn't quite how her force field worked, but she liked to think it helped. It was better than nothing, anyway.

"So," she said, when she couldn't stand the literal cold silence anymore. "Hints on why we're here? Could have been sipping wine in a warm warehouse."

[Raveled]

"You're underage," Ironclad muttered to her friend, her own attention clearly fixed on the opposite warehouse. "Remember, we have to set an example for... little kids and puppies. Or something like that." Her scanning program caught a heat source and directed the heroine's attention to it; after a moment of inspection, though, it turned out to be a patrolling night watchman. Ironclad silently urged him to hurry on. If her guess was right, he could only be hurt by staying here.

"Remember I wanted to talk to you around Christmas? I think someone's been stealing chemicals and heavy equipment from different storehouses here in Greenbank. I've a couple of suspects in mind, but I don't want to just catch a mook in the act. I want to track them back to wherever this stuff is ending up."

[Fox]

"Kids and puppies aren't allowed in my warehouse anyway. No spiced wine for you, then."

A mental command had her infravision up, watching the night guard stroll along at an agonizing pace. "But fair enough. Capture the thief, you lose the stolen goods. Thief's employer may just hire another thief, too. If the thief's working for someone." She frowned, wishing for about the thirtieth time that she could see through walls - well, see things that weren't heat, anyway. "Annoyed I didn't hear about this in my own part of town. Too busy lately, maybe."

[Raveled]

"Just make sure you keep the espresso stocked, then," Ironclad replied. "Speaking of which, how's the 'bot coming along? Installed an AI on it, yet?" The heroine shifted her stance slightly and glanced at the clock burning in the lower-right hand corner of her vision. It was getting on to midnight. If the thief didn't show up soon, the young heroes would have to switch off stake-out duty while the other one went for a snack run.

[Fox]

Dragonfly shook her head. "Not a good one. Did spend some time upgrading its ability to map the environment...mostly enjoying watching it explore. Very busy little thing. Well-made - goes down stairs without damage. Need to get around to making it smart enough to not try."

She sunk a little further into her jacket (why do I insist on a short jacket), muttering, "Espresso sounds good right now. Need to consider revisiting plans for a battlesuit of my own. Preferably with a heater. Air conditioning for the summer."

[Raveled]

Ironclad snorted, the sound coming out odd and distorted through the armor's speakers. "I should've gotten you a parka instead," she said. "Or gone all the way and gotten one of those orange survival suits they have on --" She broke off suddenly and reached a gauntleted hand to the contraption bolted onto her helmet. After a moment she spoke again, her attention clearly on something else. "The alarms. Inside. Were tripped. By something." She bit her lip and debated the wisdom of crashing in right now. On the one hand, doing so might scare away the thief they were trying to catch. On the other hand, the interior of the warehouse was still cold, suggesting that whatever was in there wasn't a mundane criminal in there.

"What the hell," she muttered aloud. "If you wanna be a hero, you gotta be heroic." She stood and seemed to jump off the roof, but as her arc tended downwards her flight systems kicked in and she floated across the gap between the warehouses. There was a skylight there, and she dramatically crashed through it, sending hundreds of tiny glass shards falling to the concrete floor.

[Fox]

Dragonfly sighed, but she'd kept up with the train of thought - with infravision up but the warehouse still in cold blues and grays she knew something odd had to be going on, and it might as well be checked out. She almost brought her force field up before realizing she already had (stupid - focus) and just making a couple quick teleports, one to the warehouse rooftop and the next down through the broken skylight to the floor below.

Both gauntlets were charged and ready, quietly humming as she cast her gaze around the building. "Thanks for the warning," she muttered. "Still. Very dramatic. Nice."

[Raveled]

Jessica saw her friend blink into existence out of the corner of her eye, but didn't spare time for banter. Her suit's sensors cut through the dark inside without a problem, and she immediately focused on the large figure making its way to the far corner. She shouted wordlessly at the figure and it stopped in its tracks, turning slowly to face the two young women. Whoever or whatever it was, its form was vaguely humanoid, but the long, shabby coat and shapeless, dirty hat obscured any other identifying features. The creature was hefting a large metal drum under one hand like it weighed nothing, and slowly raised its free arm to point at the heroines. Electricity gathered along its arms, gathering faster and faster, until it leapt out at the two women in a shattering, blinding lance.

[Fox]

Swearing in Japanese, Dragonfly threw up one arm and a large, circular shield twisted into being at her fingertips, facets lighting up in a soft electric blue as the lightning hit the shield and scattered, splitting off into a hundred tinier (and more importantly, harmless) tongues of electricity that were happy enough to lick the air and fade away. what was that - mutation magic science - difficult to tell - theft leans toward science - too many assumptions She frowned, noting the figure's clothing and the disturbing strength it seemed to have - she carefully noted to stay out of its reach. Or probable reach. That coat didn't offer much as to body type....

The shield flickered and collapsed, but even as it disappeared that same hand had fired off a shockwave at the poorly-dressed burglar. "Going to ask ONCE. Put down the barrel, give up. No more lightning."

[Raveled]

The figure ducked to one side and the spacial distortion slammed into the wall of the warehouse. It still didn't speak, but instead moved away much faster than something that large should be able to, racing to one corner of the building where a storm drain sat. The heroines had a moment to realize that something had ripped the cover of the drain from the concrete floor, then the large figure jumped into the drain and disappeared. Ironclad charged straight after it and dropped into the sewer herself, but although she sent her enhanced senses questing up and down the tunnel she couldn't find any trace of the thief.

[Fox]

Dragonfly ran up to the ruined storm drain and stopped at the edge, teleporting down to save herself what would likely be a bit too long of a jump. A quick glance around didn't tell her much, and from the way Ironclad was just standing there her friend wasn't having much luck either. She sighed, bringing her infravision back up and peering about anyway. "The sewers. Of course. Always the sewers with you - why?"

"Sneaky and fast," she observed, shaking her head. "Bad combination. Have a better sensory suite than I do, I'm sure - thoughts?"

[Raveled]

Ironclad reached up and unfastened the odd attachment to her faceplate. "Sorry about the muck," she said. "As for how we're going to find him -- preparation." The battlesuited hero flexed her arm and a pair of small flat devices, roughly the size of a credit card, shot into her hand. She gave one to Dragonfly and pressed hard in the center; instantly, a holographic arrow appeared above the little device, pointing down a tunnel that ran north and roughly parallel to the coastline. "This warehouse is Dawes Tech property," she explained, activating her own tracker. "Earlier today, I came in here and planted special tracking bugs on the most likely targets. Now we just follow the glowing arrow." She suited action to words and turned to walk down the tunnel.

"There's good news, though," she called over her shoulder. "I think I've seen our thief before."

[Fox]

Dragonfly hmmed, taking the little card and inspecting it as they walked. Turning it over in her hands, she wished she had more bells and whistles on her visor - a closer look would be very interesting. "Clever. Compact. Subtle. Clear. I like it...a good piece of work. How did you--"

She shook her head. "No, sorry. Focus." She folded the card into her dimensional pocket, where it'd be safe in case she needed it, jogging a bit to catch up after she'd lagged behind. "Explains why you were in Greenbank - knew you had property out here. Didn't know where. Should spend more time mapping out who owns what...criminal storage slows the process down. Speaking of: who's the thief?"

[Raveled]

Ironclad wanted to blast through the tunnel at top speed -- aside from the whole 'bringing a criminal to justice,' people messing around with Dawes Tech, with everything her family had built over the years, really got under her skin. She managed to keep from leaping into the air, but her long strides were quick, keeping her ahead of her shorter friend. "Don't know his name. Don't know if he has a name. Last time we met, he was a dead man, so I assume he's still dead. Had some wicked-strong electricity blast, and wasn't a slouch up-close, either. Actually, um, got the better of me. That's when I met KC -- he saved my life." Ironclad's step faltered for a moment, then she resumed her fast, angry stride. "We took him down, but some hobo with a sonic pistol showed up, grabbed him, and disappeared. With any luck, he'll lead us right to Doctor Dishabile's lair."

The pair came to an intersection and the heroine checked her tracker. Their quarry had evidently turned inland, so she set off down a different, even darker tunnel.

[Fox]

"Romantic. Would explain the lack of heat," Dragonfly noted, trotting to keep up. "Though walking dead are rarely a good sign." 'Dishabille' - cute "Good to know, at least - can expect at least two enemies. More, maybe. Could be worse."

She frowned, thinking back. "Seem to have a bad history with hobos. And villains aiding villains. And sewers. You have strange luck. Optimistic plan, at least. Will find your property, if nothing else. And 'nothing else' isn't likely."

[Raveled]

Ironclad wasn't sure how to respond to the idea that they were retrieving her property. Ever since her argument with her mother two months ago, her future employment was less certain than it had been. "It's not really my property," she protested. "It's the company's property. I mean, my family runs the company and we hold most o the shares, but the company's property isn't my property."

Ironclad lapsed into silence again as the two women trudged through the muck and the mire. They transitioned into different tunnels several times as they hunted the tagged chemical container, and eventually they left the sewer tunnels behind. Soon, Ironclad pushed open a steel door to reveal a tall, wide tunnel with what looked like rail tracks laid into the ground. The young inventor looked up and down the tunnel and spotted a solid wall a few hundred feet in one direction. "Unfinished subway station," she said, her voice suddenly quiet. "We might not be all that far outside the city."

[Fox]

Dragonfly quietly tapped a boot against the wall, looking around the tunnels as the muck fell away from her feet. "No complaints here," she observed, matching her friend's quiet tone. "Smells better, feels better underfoot. More space for a fight, if we have to fight. A step up."

"Close enough to your property, anyway," she continued after a pause. "Transitive property of equality. You own - partly own - the company. Company owns the property. You own/partly own the property. Just have more restrictions on what you can do with it." She shrugged. "Likely not entirely that simple, but simple enough."

[Raveled]

"I own fifteen percent of the company," Ironclad replied. "Should I go in and ask for my fifteen percent of the dangerous chemical back? No, this is about stopping a madman from killing people."

Rather than try and sneak down the tracks, the heroine activated her ehteric drive and rose a foot or so into the air, floating over the rusting steel tracks and the accumulated mess on the floor of the tunnel. Maybe a hundred feet away and hidden by a slight curve of the passage was the subway stop. This had evidently been finished, but judging from the color scheme it had been sometime in the Fifties. It was both lit and heated by several strategically placed kerosene heaters. In the railway was a huge vat; several empty drums were scatted around it, and the thief was in the process of pouring the Dawes Tech chemically in.

Three large ducts led off the vat and up the stairs, presumably to the surface. There was some kind of control interface set into each vent partway along, and a smaller man in more shabby, dirty clothes bustled between the stations, making adjustments here and there.

Ironclad floated just inside the mouth of the tunnel, careful to stay within the flicking, inconstant shadows shed by the heaters. She didn't want to risk even whispering to Dragonfly with the bad guys so close, so she texted instead. Looks like we got here just in time. Which one do you want?

[Fox]

Dragonfly frowned, bringing her force field back up around her profile with a thought, and picking her way closer along the wall where there was less mess to shift and give herself away with. wish we had more time to prepare for this - never enough time before the shooting starts - mmh She tapped a finger on her leg and ran some numbers in her head.

Guess you don't get your chemical back after all, she sent back, tilting her head and watching the two villains very carefully. Will take the short one - leave you and your armored shell to deal with the one with super-strength.

[Raveled]

"Right then," Ironclad muttered under her breath. She channeled energy into her gauntlets, empowering the disruptors there and charging her flight systems. She gave a cry as she charged out of the darkness, aiming to hit the large thief squarely in its wide chest. She just hit him a glancing blow, though; the force managed to spin him around and knock him off the vat, but the heroine caromed into the ceiling of the tunnel and ended up partly embedded in the bedrock there.

[Fox]

Short on Ironclad's heels, Dragonfly threw up a hand and unleashed a large, twisting shockwave in space at the smaller villain (Dishabille Igor? - mmh)...only to miss completely as her target spun around to watch Ironclad's plight in the ceiling.

Dragonfly exercised her Russian vocabulary at that, moving up a bit in the hopes of getting a slightly better line of sight. Not the best start to a fight. One of those days?

[Raveled]

The dirty man scuttling between the stations whipped his head between the two superheroic women, obviously not prepared for this situation. "What!? What!? You're early! You can't be here to beg for mercy yet! Which means you must be here to stop me! Well, I'll stop you first, how does that sound!?" The man started rummaging in his overcoat, pulling out the bastard child of a multi-tool and a sodering iron in one hand, and an aerosol can in the other. More apparently random junk flowed out of the coat, and the man started attaching it to the spray can. "Buddy!" The shout seemed to rouse the recumbent thug, laying across three of the railroad tracks. "Buddy, get the one in the tin can! I'll deal with the one too stupid to wear a coat in winter!"

The large figure -- 'Buddy' -- stumbled to its feet. The shapeless hat was gone, and Dragonfly could see that it was indeed a man, and he had indeed been dead long enough for his skin to go various shades of gray and green. Its eyes crackled electric-blue for a moment as they fixed on the young inventor, then swept past her to assess her friend, still stuck in the ceiling. The dead man grunted and swung a hand at Ironclad, but instead of catching the woman's pinwheeling feet it only caught air.

[Fox]

"I like my jacket," Dragonfly scowled, raising a gauntlet and lining up a careful shot at the hobo as he ducked behind cover. "It's a nice jacket. Looks good. Comfortable. Shouldn't talk if you get clothing from dumpsters."

Deciding she had about the best line of sight on him that she could manage, the young woman let the shockwave go and hoped it would hit...something. Anything. For the fortieth time that day she wished she could get her wings working properly....

[Raveled]

Ironclad freed herself with a surge of servo-assisted strength, letting bricks and mortar fall to the tracks. She oriented on the dead man quickly enough and fired off a quick blast from her wrist gauntlets, but it just threw up a spray of gravel as it impacted the ground. The dead man grabbed at her again and against she twisted in the air, avoiding his grasp.

On the rail platform, the shabby supervillain completed his contraption and vaulted over the vent, almost eager to engage the heroine. The aerosol can had been welded to what looked like the cone from a bullhorn. He aimed it in her general direction, depressed a button -- and a gout of flame, fully twenty feet long, burped forth. The hobo inventor apparently misjudged the recoil, though, because the device pulled up and set the tiles on the roof alight, instead of roasting the heroine.