Habitat for Metahumanity (IC)

[quotemyname]

Blueshift had answered that question on one of her breaks that day. As the sun beat down, she'd wiped her forehead with a towel. She was very thankful she wasn't given to wearing much makeup, lest the sweat generated by the hard work in the heat made it runny.

"My suit? Recon mostly. Heavy focus there. Intel gathering as well. Not really a combat suit. Cloaking Device frequently malfunctions. Overloads during combat stress," She explained, "Not defenseless, though. Bodysuit's thin. Tough like Kevlar, though. Right arm: Tesla Gauntlet," She held her forearm vertically in the air in front of her to demonstrate where it would be, "Essentially souped up Taser. Delivered via punching. Suit leaves me mobile. Rely on that. Can't get hit. Can't get hurt." She gave a tug at the belt that had been slipping down around her hips all day, "And this. Utilities. Functional, adaptable, unpredictable."

She'd gone on to ask him how he could stand the heat in all that fur. Dogs, for example, she knew panted. She wasn't sure the rules changed for a anthropomorphic animal from a regular cheetah.

[Ari]

Marceau was unaware of any dangers about the team of constructors, so he had been a bit more carefree than would have been advisable: "Me? oh, I can lift things many times my weight. Nothing really spectacular, compared to people like Mr. Push or Mz. Wisp. Got some slight training in combat, mostly wrestling holds, surprise attacks and basic small-group tactics, that sort of thing. Also, extreme temperatures don't affect me like they do most people, I think I'm just overexposed to them myself. Why? You think we're in danger of attack here?" He had in fact had a wonderful day, a peaceful, busy time where he didn't have to worry about the bakers dozens of vagrants back in Monkey Towers, where he knew Jackie wasn't likely to come dashing out from nowhere to ask him about the aliens living in her ears, and even his feelings of unease around the adjacent forest was ebbing. At Blueshift's query about his ability to go all day on a tropical island without needing to doff his armor, he had cheerfully declared that "Once you go through all the deserts in Asia without a bit of shade that isn't your camel, this is nothing."

[Cubist]

Jubatus' conversations with his fellow heroes, in which he asked them about their capabilities, all occured early on in the day, before noon when possible. Excelsior!

---

The first person Jubatus spoke to was Blueshift...

"My suit? Recon mostly. Heavy focus there... Bodysuit's thin. Tough like Kevlar, though. Right arm: Tesla Gauntlet. Essentially souped up Taser. Delivered via punching. Suit leaves me mobile. Rely on that. Can't get hit. Can't get hurt." She gave a tug at [her] belt ... "And this. Utilities. Functional, adaptable, unpredictable."

Okay, intel is good, and I like the sound of those 'utilities'. "Got it: Heavy on data-collecting, some personal protection, decent mobility plus hand-to-hand attack, and a bag of tricks," Jubatus summarized while nodding. "Thanks."

Jubatus would have moved on to his next task, but the tin can spoke up: "Your fur. Overheating. Why aren't you?"

The feline moved his shoulders in a mutant shrug. "That's a valid question, and I'm not sure." Because what little I do know suggests my Timeshift might be fueling itself off of the kinetic energy of molecular motion... maybe... and I'd just as soon not have the details known to anybody other than me. "My guess is, it's my build; long and rail-thin equals lots of surface area to radiate heat away per unit volume." And let's hope that line satisfies the Elephant's Child here.

Yeah, right. As if.

---

When Jubatus approached 'Marceau', he went out of his way to not seem threatening, even going so far as to downshift to a tempo a tiny bit slower than the normal value of 1. Apparently, this effort was not wasted, for 'Marceau' didn't seem to be nervous about talking to a big, fanged cat:

"Me? oh, I can lift things many times my weight. Nothing really spectacular, compared to people like Mr. Push or Ms. Wisp. Got some slight training in combat, mostly wrestling holds, surprise attacks and basic small-group tactics, that sort of thing. Also, extreme temperatures don't affect me like they do most people, I think I'm just overexposed to them myself. Why? You think we're in danger of attack here?"

"Don't know how likely that is, but I think it's possible, yeah," the feline replied. "Statistically speaking, heroes do tend to attract villains, so I figure it's prudent to be prepared for it. Just in case.

"Anyway... Heightened strength, combat skills, temperature resistance. Thanks."

[Azuth65]

Wisp finished her assigned tasks for the day and plopped down next to the cooler and dragged a bottle of powerade out of the icewater filled tub. As she drank, she chatted with Jube about her powers. "Well, there's the strength and the teleporting you saw earlier. Other than that, my own combat ability isn't as impressive as some of the others I've worked with. My best trick is ducking, dodging, and if need be, flipping, my way through or around an enemy's defenses."

[Quinn]

Push looked down from the roof, his hammer (conventional size one, this time) descending at a decidedly unsafe rate towards his thumb rather than the nail due to the distraction. For a sec, it seemed as if it had nailed his thumb with painful force, but with Jubatus's enhanced sight and senses, he could literally see a tiny mote of energy interpose itself between the hammer and flesh, slowing the blow down within seconds of it coming within an inch of Push's body.

"Huh. Should've mentioned that earlier, actually. One sec, need more nails."

He vaulted off of the roof, kicking in the jets for a moment and lowering himself down slowly, hitting the ground at a walk.

"Yeah, Push by name and by power. I control kinetic energy; think blasts of force, flight jets, kinetic leeching force fields, paralysis, the whole nine yards. Even got an ersatz form of telekinesis, but I think you already saw that."

Push hefted another bag of nails and did a little hop, the jets boosting him from the ground to the roof again. He looked down at the big kitty and shrugged, visibly grinning underneath the bandanna.

"I'm good for whatever. Death (metaphorically speaking, of course) from above, goon-sweeping, or anti-armor slash anti-everything if you want me to break out the hammer."

[Cubist]

Having gotten the information he sought from his current set of co-workers, Jubatus thought about how they might best be employed, tactically speaking...

Push's role is pretty obvious; his powers over kinetic energy make him a Swiss Army knife that hits like a BFG-9000 with all the upgrades. He's our heavy hitter -- as long as he's functional, we got lots of ways to mess over anybody that gets in our faces. Of course, any enemy with half a brain will figure that out real soon, so guarding Push's back will be everybody's responsibility.

Blueshift's easy to place, too -- intel and co-ordination. I bet she can pull untraceable, unjammable commlinks out of her Belt Of Many Things, and with her as an invisible 'eye in the sky', it's a good bet we won't be caught by surprise no matter what. And if things go pear-shaped, her Tesla Gauntlets won't hurt us one bit.

Wisp: Teleport means she can hit anyone, anywhere, from any angle, at any time. In other words, she's a sniper who fires herself at the target.

Me: Blitzkrieg with a side order of Decoy. I'm nowhere near the fastest supertype around, but I can outrun damn near any bullet made, so I can draw fire like nobody's business and not have to care.

'Marcel': Our weakest link. Clearly wasn't chosen for fighting ability. He can be our reserve, but if things get bad enough that he's needed... well, 'maybe the horse will sing'. And, well, he is an extra pair of eyes. I guess his primary duty can be watching Push's back...

[quotemyname]

Jubatus's relentless planning was enough to put him to sleep that night. He slept relatively well, considering he felt safer knowing he'd be prepared for just about anything anyone could throw at them, land, sea, or air. He still dozed in and out with cat naps, though.

At one point, he dozed out of a lighter sleep to see Blueshift standing near one of the small windows that had been built into the house. She was still dressend what Jubatus took for pajamas as they wouldn't be fit for protecting her from any of the Haitian sun during the day: Short mesh shorts, and a thin white tank top.

Almost immediately, Blueshift looked toward his cot. It really was difficult to escape her eyes and ears. They might even be sharper than his own senses. "Psst. J, your awake." It was a statement, not a question, though she still said it in a hushed voice, "You should come see this," She stepped away from the window and pointed.

---

Jubatus was astonished by what he saw outside: A crowd. The area around their little command center was packed with people. All lined up about ten feet away from the house, encircling it. There must have been hundreds of Haitian citizens all looking like they were picketing in protest. Though instead of signs, they held farm tools. Pitchforks, scythes, and sickles were common. Others had shovels, hoes, or iron rakes.

"They could tear this place down. Sheer numbers. Plus tools. But look. Their faces. They're not angry. Blank stares." She was right, looking again, Jubatus focused on their expressions. Every last one of the Haitians seemed like they just weren't there. "We should wake the-"

BWEEEEEEOOOOOOH NRRRREEEEEEEAAAAWWWWW

Blueshift interrupted by the load klaxon from a megaphone held by one of the people in the front of the crowed. If their friends weren't awake before, they would be now...

[Quinn]

Push's eyes opened, and he stared at the ceiling for about half a minute with an expression that could only be charitably described as 'murderous'. Sitting up in his bed, his feet hit the ground, and the kineticist caught a glimpse of what was outside his window. Lots of people. Lots of rather vacant people. Push sighed and pulled his coat over the hanger, throwing it over his shoulders and arms while skipping grabbing a shirt or gloves; he'd been sleeping with the bandanna around his face anyway.

"If someone's touched my chili pot, there'll be hell to pay."

[Ari]

At the horrendous noise, Marceau sprang ungainly to his feet. Still bleary from the rude awakening, he nevertheless grabbed his heavy cloak and slid over to the window where Blueshift was, and poked just enough of his head over to see without being seen. The sight outside the Command Center deeply confused him, and he looked over at Jubatus and Blueshift "So, what do you think is going on?" He hoped this was just a problem of land ownership confusion or something like it. On the other hand, maybe they had come to help..nah, that'd never happen.

[Azuth65]

Wisp all but fell out of her cot at the racket being raised outside the command center. Straightening the shorts and tank top she had worn to bed she looked for the source of the noise. Catching a glimpse out a window she muttered, "Geore A. Romero was right..."

To Blueshift she sighed and shook her head, "So, we have a plan for this contingency?"

[Cubist]

Jubatus wasn't really asleep when Blueshift spoke to him: "Psst. J, your awake." said the tin can in a hushed voice. "You should come see this,"

Jubatus came and saw.

"Damn. Not good," he replied, matching Blueshift's volume (but, of necessity, not her tone). All those blank faces, all those farm implements... "They're drugged, I'm betting -- so-called 'zombie cucumber' is my first guess."

"They could tear this place down. Sheer numbers. Plus tools. But look. Their faces. They're not angry. Blank stares." 'Drugged' was indeed the most-favored hypothesis at this point; every last one of the Haitians seemed like they just weren't there. "We should wake the-"

And then some idiot blasted away with a klaxon.

Jube's reflexive upshift helped; at his current tempo of 40, the massive flow of sonic energy was slowed down by a factor of 40, and thus the noise level dropped by a good 10-15 deciBels or so (as far as his ears were concerned, anyway, and that's what mattered to Jube). Then, after the feline got his ear protectors on, the residual clamor was... a lot closer to tolerable.

First things first: Get Blue clued in. "If things get ugly, you're intel and coördination -- commlinks for everyone." The 'if' was by no means an indication that Jubatus thought there was any real chance of avoiding battle; rather, it was the feline's precise language, his acknowledgement that battle had not actually broken out. Yet. "Right now, I'm going to see about threat management." These guys aren't responsible for their actions, so breaking them isn't an option. But they can still be dangerous, so let's see how many I can disarm, how fast...

Jubatus rushed outside and started grabbing at the various not-weapons...

[Cubist]

Jubatus felt something chew on his brain. The feline did not consider the implications of why his subconscious mind had instinctively supplied predator-on-prey imagery for the disquieting sensation, because he was busy, damnit! Busy separating a crowd of mind-controlled villagers from their (farm) implements of destruction, to be precise. And after removing those implements to a very safe distance from the people who had been carrying them, Jube zipped back to the 'command post', following a wide spiral trajectory so he could get a better sense of how big the crowd of villagers actually was.

Once in Blueshift's presence again, Jube said: "One, crowd's about 500 strong. Two, something tried to eat my brain. Didn't work, but I'm not about to get cocky where mind-controllers are concerned. Your on-board sensor suite got anything that can pick up on psychic assault? Three, unfamiliar car parked behind that house" -- here, Jube pointed at exactly which house he meant -- "and four, some weird designs scratched into the dirt about where we stopped building yesterday."

[Azuth65]

While Jubatus was collecting the tools turned potential weapons, Wisp was teleporting around various vantage points around and above the crowd. Well, at least they don't seem hostile. Though, that could certainly change in a heartbeat. she thought to herself as she landed on the roof of their 'command center' in a cloud of crimson and white smoke.

[Quinn]

Push walked into the common room of the main house quite relaxed. For a brief moment he pondered whether a shirt would've been a good idea in the first place, but catching a glimpse of Blueshift nearby put paid to that idea, and he resisted the urge to smile underneath his bandanna. He collected himself a mug of hot chocolate from the kitchen, peering out the window at the rather sizeable crowd outside, and took a sip from it. Hearing about the psychic attack and weird sigils outside caused him to sigh, and his eyes narrowed in frustration.

"Just once. Just once, y'know, I'd like to go on vacation and not have something eldrich and magically nasty show up. Seriously, am I a magnet for this crap or something?"

The kineticist put the mug down and cracked his knuckles, then closed his eyes. Lock down the crowd, make sure they don't hurt themselves, then find the magi. Same as the riots. Focus...focus...easy does it.... He felt outwards at the massive crowd, feeling the slight movements from all of them. A twitchy finger here, a slight shift of posture there. They didn't move beyond the slightest perceptible shifts, but they were there. And they all had kinetic energies. Inside, a small vortex surrounded the kineticist as he created the hundreds of links, just like he had back in the Southside riots. Motes of energy floated around the room as he put down his mug, and began drawing the power towards himself. He felt the energy collect around him, pulling towards him, wave after wave of kinetic power slamming into his system as he worked to lock down the entire crowd, overloading his system. To his credit, he didn't topple over, but as the last bit of it shifted into his system and the pain started, he did flop into a nearby chair a tad stunned.

"...Ok...locking down entire crowd...bad idea...did it work?"

[quotemyname]

Blueshift took a quick look at the drooling expressions on the crowd. She turned to Push as she tried to quiet the sensors in her visor. They were going haywire with all the energy pouring off of Push. It looked to her like he'd essentially overcharged his batteries. Not the smartest idea in the world, but she couldn't discount the results it produced!

Push walked into the common room of the main house quite relaxed. For a brief moment he pondered whether a shirt would've been a good idea in the first place, but catching a glimpse of Blueshift nearby put paid to that idea, and he resisted the urge to smile underneath his bandanna. He collected himself a mug of hot chocolate from the kitchen, peering out the window at the rather sizeable crowd outside, and took a sip from it. Hearing about the psychic attack and weird sigils outside caused him to sigh, and his eyes narrowed in frustration.

"...Ok...locking down entire crowd...bad idea...did it work?"

"Yea. You did it." She turned toward the door, activating her cloaking device, "Keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn't pass out. I'm getting a closer look."

She sped out the door and rocketed around the crowd. A few moments later, the group received another radio transmission, "Yea. That weird symbol. Jub mentioned it. Thing's a sorcery circle. Probably the source of the mind control. I can sabotage it. It'll take time. Better come out. Cover me. While I work..."

[Ari]

Marceau slipped on his poncho and metal mask, calling out softly as he walked silently out the door"I'm going to go out there and find a good hiding spot where I can strike from concealment. I'll put up a smoke field around the Command Center so we can escape into it if pushed back" suiting action to the word, he crept off into the night. crouching against the side of one of the newly-built houses, tossing a smoke-grenade to the ground next to the Command Center. After seeing the cloud rise a billowy grey, he relaxed slightly, satisfied that at least now they wouldn't have to worry about being totally visible to any prying eye. Now, he would just have to make sure nobody saw him until he was needed somehwere else.

[Cubist]

"I'm going to check on something," Jubatus said -- and he blurred outside. The first thing he did was get a nose-ful of the scents of every member of the mob which Push had neutralized; if any of the seeming 'natives' was an impostor, there was a chance that that impostor would not be carrying as much ambient scent (from the local earth and plants and such) as the real natives. However, there were no such olfactory 'markers' on any of the inert mob -- or if there was, Jubatus just didn't notice it.

Next, the fastest cat alive made himself a one-feline recon squad with an 'expanding spiral' search pattern, casting a suspicious eye on everything within a one-mile radius of the building he and his comrades had fallen back to. Most of the area was clear, as best Jube could tell -- no freshly-excavated dirt that didn't look like it had anything to do with the ongoing construction work, for instance -- and that suited him fine. He might be suspicious enough to think there was a good chance of some unkind and evil souls hiding somewhere nearby, but that didn't mean he wanted to be right about that kind of thing...

Blam!! went the shotgun! The shooter wore fatigues, looked like he had plenty of other weaponry on his person, and had been lurking behind that truck Jube noticed earlier. Okay -- that yutz is asking for it, the feline thought as he zipped a couple of hundred yards away from Mr. Fatigue. and broke out his commlink:

"Jubatus here," he said, hoping someone was listening. "Checked scents on the mob, and everybody smells like a local, so I doubt there's any ringers in the crowd. Jerkwad in military fatigues was hiding behind that truck I pointed out, but decided to fire a shotgun blast at me when I was doing recon in his vicinity. I'm going to take him down now." And the cheetah blurred back over to the shooter, to make good on his promise. He slashed at the shotgun-wielder with his foreclaws...

[quotemyname]

The razor sharp claws on what might be considered Jubatus' foreclaws sliced open thin slits in the shotgun wielding thug's fatigues. Jubatus could see thin rivulets of blood forming on the man's chest. The blow caused him to stumble backward a few steps, but did not otherwise faze him. For a second he looked like he might rush Jubatus using the shotgun as a baseball bat. At the last second, he shifted his grip, and unloaded a slug directly into the cheetah's chest.

---

Suddenly, the back of the house that Marceau was hiding behind exploded. Unable to see properly amidst the shower of splinters and other debris from the suddenly destroyed bungalow, Marceau suddenly felt a sharp pain in the side of his face. As the dust settled, a very large muscular man with gray skin could be seen standing amidst the rubble of the now ruined and tumbling structure. The massive man drew back the fist he'd used to deliver the blow to Marceau and fell into what looked like a jujitsu fighting stance, ready to face off with his opponent.

[Cubist]

It was really just a flesh wound, a minor injury. Sufficiently trivial that some superheroes wouldn't have given a second thought to having inflicted it. And then there was Jubatus, a fussbudget perfectionist who was terrified of the thought of losing control.

Oh[bg=black]xxix[/bg]Iscrewedup hewasn'tsupposedtobleeddamnit miscalculationmisjudgementmistake clawsarebadyouidiot bloodonclawsisworse IscrewedupIscrewedupIscrewedup whythehelldoyouevencarrytoolsifyou'renotgonnausethedamnthings fixitnow bandagesfirstaidkit screwupscrewupscrewup fixitNOW

Jubatus didn't even notice the slug until it hit him...

[Azuth65]

The shotgun blast roared across the site. Wisp focused for a minute before calling up her will and teleporting to where she thought the sound came from, finding her feline friend bleeding on the ground. On pure instinct she placed a hand on his hip and refocused her will, getting them both as far away from the bastard with gun as she could. Which was handily just outside the sorcerous circle, "Shift, please tell me on that utility belt you've got a first aid kit of some kind. I'm sure you heard the blast but Jubatus got shot... I can't tell if it's buckshot, birdshot, or a solid slug..."

[Quinn]

Push sat on the couch, his eyes closed as he rode the wave of neural shock. By the time it had settled to a dull throb, he'd started listening into the others, as his commlink picked up the various sounds from everyone. He could see through the kinetic silhouettes of the unmoving crowd Marceau's imminent danger, the slug connecting with Jubatus's chest, Wisp's teleportation away, the chaos of the fight. He saw a friend go down by a bullet from a person no-doubt mind-freaked, the horde of unmoving Haitians paralyzed by him, brought on by some villain with serious control issues...and Push saw red.

A crack like a gunshot echoed through the air, and as the other heroes looked on, they saw wood and splinters fly from a newly-made hole in the roof of their dormitory building. Then light. Lots of light. Pure energy erupting into the air above the crowd, the buildings, the heroes, warps and static all over the place. And one figure, in a coat, scarf, jeans, and boots, floating in the middle of it.

"Alright, let me make something perfectly clear! When that loudspeaker woke me up, I was irritated! When I saw the mind-freaked crowd down there, I got ticked! But now?"

Push thrust an arm forward, a truly prodigious amount of the warping energy engulfing the huge man and yanking him up to the kineticist's level. When he got a look at the mutant's eyes, it became clear that irritation, and "ticked", were no longer the operative words in this equation. The kineticist snarled at the gray-skinned man, clenching his other fist as more kinetic power flowed to it.

"Now? I'm pissed."

Push spun in midair, the huge brute swinging around him, and released the energy at the apex of the spin. Flying forward like a ball from a cannon, the gray-skinned missile whooshed by an inch from the shotgun-wielding thug's nose, bouncing across the ground a few times before landing in a heap. Push pointed down at the thug, then moved his hand in a "come-get-some" gesture.

[quotemyname]

With her teammates there to back her up, Blueshift went to work, attempting to disable whatever spells had been cast through the circle. She poured over article after article about religious uses, summoning circles, enchantment circles, and the list went on. Finally, she thought she had the nature of the circle and the spells that had been cast through it, narrowed down. She went about busying herself with scattering the proper lines on the sand. If she broke the wrong ones, she could perhaps unleash some sort of catastrophe. She needed to be careful.

"Need more time! Like disarming a bomb! Keep them away!" She radioed to her teammates.

[Ari]

Marceau had stiffened as the massive fist had closed in on his face, but by then it was too late. With a horrible sensation like something was trying to squeeze out his brain, he felt the blow crash into his cheek and lift him up from the ground.

He felt the air pass by him, watched between closing eyes the avenue of newly-built houses flicker past. He thought glumly if he should make a helmet or something for future events like this.

Flying several hundred feet out to sea, the King of Suits crashed into the waters of the Carribbean with a resounding splash, only frantic movements on the part of his nearly-insensible body kept him afloat on the deep blue sea, his eyes closing as his body struggled to recover from the shock...

[quotemyname]

Not wasting any time, the Tracer dove into his truck and fired up the engine. The big vehicle peeled out, fishtailing in the sand and pulled a quick 180 degree turn. It barreled across the sand toward the end of the row of houses. Finally, it skidded to a stop in full view of Blueshift and the magic circle she was busy trying to disrupt.

Meanwhile, the Powerhouse was busy being angry and having moved quite a distance under something other than his own power. In his mind, it was the perfect time to retaliate. He picked himself up off the ground and dusts off some of the sand. Looking up to see Push making himself a nice easy target in the air, he smiled. The sand around his feet exploded outward as the massive man gave a mighty leap into the air. Just as he was about to make contact with the Kinetic Controller, he thrust his kneecap forward delivering the blow directly to Push's solar plexus. A nasty smile spread across his face as he dropped to the ground on the shore side of the developments having been carried forward by his momentum.

[Azuth65]

Wisp's eyes were all but burning with rage as the guy who had shot their group's feline companion roared up the beach and towards the build-site in his jeep. Almost as soon as he had stopped the vehicle, Wisp was on the move. With an effort of will, she vanished from her position in a plume of white and crimson smoke only to appear holding onto the rollcage of his vehicle and swinging both feet at his face. After connecting with a solid crunch and sending him flying from his ride, she vanished again and reappeared above him to deliver an axe-handle smash, leaving him in the dirt before returning to her starting point.