Santa Claws and his Slay Bells (IC)

[JackgarPrime]

The only real way to make sure a hole doesn't get any bigger is to seal it up. So Victory does just that. Grabbing the turn edges, and curls all the metal sheets back to meet each other in the center, closing up the hole. Giving them a good crunch together, Victory kicks his jets back on so he could float about. He makes sure not to touch any of the presents, as well.

He flies over next to Renee, and quirks his eyebrow.

"Elves, you say? Probably little robots or something, I'm sure."

He takes a peek into the other room through a window on the door, using his enhanced vision to try and get any specific details that he can.

[Supercape]

The central room is full of various machines and conveyor belts, all assembling presents by means of robotic arms. At least eight man sized elves wander around helping with carrying and construction, all fairly obviously robotic.

"See what I mean?" asked Rene. "Elves. Constructing very dangerous presents. Santa will not be pleased when he hears of this..."

[JackgarPrime]

"Indeed. I'll have to make sure Big Red hears about this."

Victory's expression didn't change as he said that. Was he joking? Was he not? Hard to tell. Victory's spent a lot of time practicing keeping a straight face.

Looking over the eight bots, he thinks of a good route through to smash each one of them. As he considers possible maneuvers, he looks down at Rene.

"So, what can you do? Explosions? Vision-imparing clouds? If you can provide it, I could really use something to keep me obscured so I can get through them before they can raise the alarm."

[Supercape]

"A distraction, you say?" replied Rene, considering the options. "But of course I can!" he exclaimed delightedly, whipping out his magic paint brush.

He closed his eyes, visualising the scene inside the construction facility.

He started singing in a soft voice and French accent, whilst painting in mid-air.

"Oh ze weather outside is Frightful

But ze fire is so delightful

And since we've no place to go...

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!"

As if by magic, for that was what it was, the room was filled with countless heavy snowflakes, all falling slowly to the ground, reducing visibility to but a few feet, and providing ample cover for Victory's next move.

[JackgarPrime]

With the snow cover obscuring him, Victory makes his move. His enhanced forms of vision make it very easy for him to locate targets, while he himself remains covered. As such, he's easily able to find and strike at a pair of elf-bots nearby. He slipped in through the door, and moved swiftly. The sooner this was over, the better. The first one, standing right by the door, quickly has its head knocked clean off by a bright flash of movement. And before any of the other bots could possibly be aware of what was happening, another one near it got a huge hole through its chest, from the force of Victory's fist.

Not wanting to waste any time, Victory already begins to move towards another pair of robots...

[Supercape]

As Victory extracted his fists from the remains of the two smashed robo-elves, the two nearby robotic arms, which had been busy assembling presents, swung around.

Their pincer like hands opened wide and advanced on Victory behind his back. With a resounding clunk, they hit his chassis, but alas, their grip was not sufficient, for as much as they scrabbled, they could not find a hold on the shiny sleek cyborg.

[JackgarPrime]

Victory gets ready to move on, when he hears the huge mechanical arms coming his way. Figures that Toy Boy would have some way to try and menace them from whatever hole he's hiding in.

They were far, far too slow, however. Victory slips away before they reach him, although his escape is slowed a bit by having to retract his arms from the robots. He makes it, however, and dashes over to another pair of elves, spinning as he does, landing a MASSIVE spinning back kick in mid air, knocking both of their heads off in one swift movement.

Before he moves on, he shouts back to Rene. "Do you have any way to slow those arms down?"

[Supercape]

Rene couldn't keep pace with Victory's speed. "Dammit, I'm an old man!" he muttered behind the Jet trail the cyborg had left.

Rene couldn't hear Victory speak, but he could see him mouth some words. Time to follow him in to the next room. Ignoring his aching knees (damn the cold) he ran into the next room to see the trail of destruction that Victory had left behind.

"What's that?" he yelled, cupping his hand over his ear.

[Supercape]

GM

The elves, seeing a new target, pottered off with a wobbling but surprisingly fast gate to each respective intruder. Victory was too fast for their powerful robot limbs, but Rene was less fortunate.

"Ow" he moaned, as one robot caught him round the ear with a wheeling arm. Where it not for his magical protections, he would have been out like a light, as it was, despite the armour like protection it gave him, he still staggered and saw stars.

[JackgarPrime]

"I said, can you sl-"

Victory is cut off as he tries to get his message over to the much older hero. As the elves try to smack him, Victory deftly dodges their strikes, and he responds with an attack of his own. As they were off-balance from their hit, he grabs both of their heads and smash them together, cracking them open with a satisfying crunch.

He looked back to see how Rene was doing, and sees him getting a good hit from one of the bots.

"Hold on! I'll give you a hand!"

[Supercape]

"Merci, my friend!" replied Rene, as his muzzy head received two more steel fists to either side. Where it not for the fact that they both collided with computer precision at identical time, and thus stopped his head from lolling either one way or the other, he may well have been knocked out cold.

As it was, combined with his magical talisman, the head on collision effectively just cleared his head.

"Zut Alors!" he exclaimed, thanking his fortune, before a bolt of mystic force erupted from the floor towards the robot to his left. Perhaps it was the groggy head, but it whispered through the air missing its target, before slowing down and doubling back, ready to try again.

[Supercape]

As Rene and VIctory fought, a small beeping sound emitted from one of the presents, and the lid blew off. A second later, a cloud of gas sprayed from the open present across the room. Tear gas!

Rene covered his eyes and mouth but could still feel the tears and coughing swelling up inside him despite his magical protections. Of course he realised perfect defence! robots would be unaffected!

[JackgarPrime]

As the room began to fill with gas, it seems like Toy Boy apparently didn't do all his research before trying to trick Victory into coming here. While the room filled, a mask quickly popped up over Victory's mouth, completely sealing it out, rendering it useless!

He didn't let it slow him down, however, and within moments, the last two robots were destroyed. As Victory smashes them to tiny pieces with a mighty blow for each of them, he checked Rene to be sure he was still alright. He placed a hand on the old man's shoulder and spoke.

"Are you alright?"

[Supercape]

Rene clutched his head, still ringing from the pounding it had received.

"I've had worse" he replied. It was true. The cannonfire in the revolution sprung to mind.

He glanced around "but I fear the danger is not over yet..." he swept his arm around the multitude of large present boxes stored in the room. "We appear to be sitting on a stock pile of bombs and other nefarious devices. And someone is controlling them all!"

[Supercape]

GM

"Its the Most...Wonderful...Time....Of the Yeeeeeear!" came the piped music, in what could only be described at a pitch, resonance and tempo that had been carefully calibrated to annoy all but the most tone deaf, musically tasteless of creatures.

A squeaky, high pitched, but unmistakably nasal voice pitched in "And I want my lovely present! All that lovely toy stuff! Even if I have to take it from the nasty solider that it's welded too!"

With that, another toy burst open, followed by another rant from Toy Boy "And I've worked out how to get it from you! I'm so clever! One of my special presents. I was going to give this to all the nasty boys and girls, to stop them playing with their toys that they didn't deserve!"

With that, a present popped its lid, and an ominous looking probe rose slowly from the box, beeping and flashing. With a sudden spark, it released a wave of barely visible energy across the room.

[Supercape]

Rene didn't understand what the probe was, but he had had quite enough of Toy Boy's japes. Without exception his presents had been, if not lethal, then painful, disruptive, and malicious, and he had no reason to suspect this contraption was any different. Whatever it was, he quickly formed a bolt of lightning which whisked from the ceiling in an arc and struck the orb in a shower of sparks, leaving a smoking remain.

"Someone has been a very naughty boy!" he proclaimed to the room "and its time for a smacked bottom!"

Lets have some good old 18th Century discipline he fumed to himself.

[JackgarPrime]

When the probe activated, Victory's would-be attempt at a bit of banter was cut off before it began. As the wave hit, he yelled in pain, his hands brought up to his head, trying to block it out. These debilitating tricks of his were getting extremely annoying, Victory would say, if he weren't trying to fight the effects off.

Fortunately, he'd been getting gradually more used to these things, and it didn't affect him full-on. It was troublesome, but he was able to stay on his feet and alert. It just made it very difficult to move around. But when Rene blasted the probe, Victory was able to get his movement back, breathing heavily, but able.

He placed a hand on Rene's shoulder in thanks. "Thank you. Now we just have to find where he's broadcasting from..."

[Supercape]

"Veritably!" agreed Rene "I've had enough of this!"

Unfortunately they were in a room full of what appeared to be an arsenal of weaponry at Toy Boys disposal. He was just glad none of it seemed to be lethal. Clearly Toy Boy had decided that TNT or arsenic bombs weren't quite "fun" enough to deliver to Freedom City.

The presents lined the walls and lay in stacks nearly everywhere. Toy Boy could be almost anywhere in the room...

"Search the room!" he decided "he must be hiding here somewhere. Why, he could even be in one of the presents themselves!"

[JackgarPrime]

Victory wonders for a moment just how or why Toy Boy would cram himself into one of these presents, but it isn't worth question why a clearly crazed villain would do any of the things they do.

"Roger."

His eyes begin to scan the room, constantly cycling through his various vision modes. To get a better look, he flies right into the center of the room and scans each of the boxes carefully, but with as much haste as he could afford.

[Supercape]

Rene started opening the bigger boxes, but he was much slower than his cyborg partner, and his eyesight was poor even by normal standards. He soon realised in a room of this size he wasn't going to be much help.

And of course, he knew next to nothing about all this modern newfangled technology.

"Be careful" he called out. "You have no idea what could be in any of the presents!"

As he spoke, Victory was hit in the face by a spring loaded foam boxing glove when he opened one of the larger presents. It could barely hurt a child, but left a large red blotch on his face, with the words "Kiss Me Kwik!" in dripping red paint.

[JackgarPrime]

"Same for you. For all we know, one of these could be a bomb. Or even more gas. Get yourself ready for cover at any moment..."

Victory seemed not to be taking his own advice, however. But then, he's a bit less fragile than most. And if it were an explosion, he could probably get out faster than the explosion could fill the room.

But what he didn't expect was the boxing glove. When it bopped him, his expression turned to confusion. And then, he started to look a bit...angry. Scowling, he grabbed the present and smashed it against the ground in annoyance, his fist driving it down into the floor, causing a small tremor in the room.

[Supercape]

Rene staggered slightly at the Shock of Victory's Jet-powered punch. "Monsieur! Please! I am old man! My bones are old and creaky, and the air, as you no doubt have noticed, is cold and frosty and does my poor joints no favours!"

He looked over Victory's Shoulder.

"Besides..." he continued, pointing.

The top had slip off a medium sized present, and a pulsating red globe levitated from the box, before it appeared to swivel at its nearest target, Victory.

"MERRY CHRISTMAS!" it intoned, before firing a laser beam straight at the Cyborg!

[JackgarPrime]

Victory was still too distracted by his bit of rage to properly respond when the laser popped up. He swung around just in time to catch the beam slamming into his chest. He reeled back with an "OOMF!", and managed to get an arm up in the middle of the blast, to try and reduce the damage. It still stung pretty bad, though. Oddly, it didn't feel like a straight blast.It felt more like it was trying to..sketch something in. He pushed through the blast, in order to rush up and crush the weapon before it could do any more damage.

Sighing, he looked down at his arm.It seemed a couple letters got carved in. He'll have to apologize to maintenance after this. Looking down at his chest, he seems more of the message. Something alongthe lines of "Christmas Tur" and then it cuts off, presumably from when his arm got in the way.

[Supercape]

Rene turned around at the sound of the scorching laser beam and was just quick enough to see Victory crush and rend the present in his hands.

He squinted. His mind's eye was not, in general, able to read text, only impressions. And his eyesight was not what it was. "Monsieur, what does it say? Christmas...?"

[JackgarPrime]

Rene turned around at the sound of the scorching laser beam and was just quick enough to see Victory crush and rend the present in his hands.

He squinted. His mind's eye was not, in general, able to read text, only impressions. And his eyesight was not what it was. "Monsieur, what does it say? Christmas...?"

"...Turkey. Heat Well" And a sigh of annoyance.

He read the rest of it off his arms, as his impatience grew. This was getting ridiculous. He'd make sure, when they found Toy Boy, that he got paid back in full.

As it is, he tried to keep his composure. Flipping out again would do them no good, but it sure was tempting just to tear the whole place down.

He took a moment to close his eyes, take a deep breath, and try to calm down, so he can search once more.