Meet the Irregulars (IC)

[Dariusprime]

"John's idea many be the best, time wise. The non-metahuman scenarios would be a good change of pace and fairly fast to boot. You should have plenty of time for a team-based simulation afterword." said Fulcrum, nodding.

Beyond that she listened to the group, nodded her understanding as applicable, and generally took in the surroundings. She seemed impressed, both with the digs and the team dynamic. Little did they know she mentally compared the Doom Room set up with the Interceptors...well...as she noted herself, their former Simulator. No need to dwell on that problem.

Focusing on the situation at hand, she mentally flipped through the possible scenarios. A bank robbery would be fast and still show off each person's unique skill set. But where and how many? With consideration for the team and time, she came up with an idea.

"How about the bank robbery? Do you have a simulation for that? Maybe four robbers, medium-weight weaponry and hostages? Freedom City National Bank has quite a few robberies on record. If you do not have the floor plan, we can search for them quickly enough." Tapping her chin, she looked around at the group. "How does that sound?"

"I don't want you to be late for class."

[Quinn]

Morgan handwaved, leading the way up to the command and control room, and flopping into his usual chair in front of the simulator computer. A few taps on the keyboard, and he was bringing up some of their usual routines. There was the Triple-B, a couple of old-school villain groups, a basic SHADOW trooper occupation, couple more he knew the others were fairly fond of...pretty boilerplate stuff - he didn't think getting into the exotics was the best idea at the moment. Those were for the evening runs, anyway. For a moment, he let his eyes linger on the training difficulty scale monitor, seeing the top - "Wander" - again. One day...one day...

He shook his head and made an expansive gesture to the monitor, kicking the leg to spin the chair to face the others.

"Not a problem - we tend to run solo or two-three man ones in the morning anyway, and team long-run jobs in the evening when we've got more time. As for variety...got more than a few bank scenarios in here, truth be told, but we do shake 'em up with different ones; straight up brawls, hostage encounters, full stealth missions, you name it." He cocked a thumb behind him. "Few of our favorites. If we're going to show off, might as well do it right!"

[Dariusprime]

Fulcrum followed, still politely taking in the layout and listening to her hosts. As the list of routines scrolled, she committed them to memory and considered which ones would work. Wander's name at the top of the training difficulty drew her attention as well, but the giantess didn't seem much surprised by the rank. Or for that matter, Morgan's interest in that coveted position.

She just about patted him on the shoulder and said something when he spun around. A smile crept over her face and she replied, "You have an amazing repertoire I must say."

"Well then, I'll make myself comfortable," she added, looking around the control room, which though roomy enough, seemed a touch cramped to her, "and enjoy the show. Thank you again for letting me sit in this morning."

[Semi-Autogyro]

After changing into his costume, John met back up with the others in the control room where picked up the phone and had a quick conversation with Mister Archer before turning to the programming console. As he input parameters, the displays started showing the floor plan of Freedom City National Bank along with a scrolling ream of data. After about five minutes he finished and walked over to the holo-display, which started glowing.

Gesturing to the floating image, John continued. "As requested the main branch of National Bank here in Freedom City. The criminals committing this heist are based on a professional group of four criminals specializing in heists, and they posses access to what a group of their stature and means could attain." He glanced over to Wisp and Glowstar. "That may include equipment from their heist in Zurich, where they used a RPG to incapacitate the hero who responded to the silent alarm." He walked around the display pointing out the particulars. "The bank is simulated to have been robbed just after closing, with the silent alarm being tripped and police on scene. Hostages are bank employees only, and there has been no attempt to negotiate with police. I have randomized the reason for the heist, so their objective might not necessarily be the vault."

John finished and turned his attention to Fulcrum. "In order to provide the best showcasing of our individual abilities, I will be assuming the time needed for all preparations is allowed for the responding hero." John put his hands on the edge of the counter that held the holo-projector and leaned in to study it in further detail. "Now if you will excuse me, I myself would like time to formulate a plan of attack, so whoever would like to go first may do so. The program will execute as soon as you enter the chamber."

[Raveled]

Glowstar took his usual position, leaning against the wall as Myrmidon ran through the program. He exchanged a glance with Crow as the clone-turned-hero ran down the whole situation, but truthfully he'd decided on a course of action halfway through the run-down. "Right," he said, standing and dusting his hands off. "I guess I'll be first, huhn? Set the bar for property damage?"

---

The interior of the bank was dark, but the flashing lights of the police blockade outside threw blue, red, and white bars across the desks and carpet of the bank lobby. Three figures in dark sweaters, slacks, and balaclavas, each toting a Kalashnikov, paced the lobby, while a fourth member knelt by the vault door and manipulated the door handle, carefully seeking the correct combination. Bound and gagged hostages were piled in one corner, and one of the robbers had his or her gun pointed at them at all times.

The police hadn't tried to communicate for close to an hour, and the safe-cracker was nearing the end of his task. In a few minutes it would be time to load up the cash and make their escape; as smooth a job as could be expected, frankly. A few late-night hostages, a few bullets exchanged with the local PD -- it could have gone a lot worse!

Without warning, there was a horrible cracking and smashing noise from above and a mess of plaster and tiles fell from the ceiling, making a hole just big enough for Glowstar to fall through! The hero made a three-point landing between the hostages and the bank robbers, and a ruby-red force field sprang up between the two groups. "Ha ha! Pop quiz, hotshots! What happens when you try to rob a bank in Freedom City?" The criminals opened up with their assault rifles, but field held and the bullets bounced off, harmlessly. "Wrong answer, buck-o! The correct one is, you get knocked down and dragged to jail!" Glowstar drew back his arms and the force field was sucked in towards his hands, a fog of red and black focusing in his palms. He swept his arms around and released the power, sending an arc of force through the lobby at chest height. The three gunners were all caught and went down like bowling pins.

Glowstar straightened and was about to throw open the doors to the police, when the safe cracker straightened up from behind the tellers' counter. "Oh, missed one, did I? Well, hold your horses, sir, I think I can schedule a make-up exam!" The grin fell from his face when the man hefted a loaded RPG. "Well, that's just blatant cheating, sir." The cracker grinned nastily under his hood and pulled the trigger; Glowstar snapped his fingers and another wall of force snapped into existence a few feet in front of the rocket. It impacted and almost disintegrated as the motor forced it against the immovable wall before the warhead had armed. The backspalsh lifted the cracker off his feet and slammed him against the wall, where he slumped bonelessly. The hero hopped over and checked for a pulse; reassured that the criminal wasn't dead, he stood up and shook his head, tutting. "Physics 101 man, and you just got an F."

---

The simulations in the Doom Room were thorough and it was some minutes before Glowstar finished with the police and reporters that had coalesced around the hold-up. Before too long he swaggered back into the observation room, a grin on his face. "Well, how'd I do? C+ on the entry, A- on the witty banter?"

[Quinn]

Morgan shrugged and pushed himself out of the command chair, grinning while he pulled his bandanna up over his nose. Myrmidon's choice of job was nice and simple - kind of training routine he liked to experiment on; still, best to go for tried and true stuff here. And bring out a few new tricks he'd hammered down over his recent trip.

"Eh, I'll call it B+ on the entry and A- on the banter - early stuff was a bit weak, but that bit with the RPG was pure gold, man."

The teen limbered up a bit, taking some stretches. Quick check - coat on, gloves on, hood up, bandanna up, and all systems go, repeat, all systems go. Let's rock the house.

"Put the kettle on, I'll be back in a few."

---

Unlike Glowstar's dynamic entry, which turned the viewscreens into the Doom Room as more of a classic heroic action film, Crow leaned far more to a subtle approach.

Translated: rather than action movie, when Crow hit the floor, more often than not it looked like a horror movie.

The bank was sealed up tight, and the three gunmen kept up positions by the window. Thunder sounded outside, and rain threw the flashing blue, red, and white bars into interesting shapes and sizes as they went through the window. The cameras revealed these robbers had been a bit more precise (and swifted on opening), and the hostages were locked up tight in the vault itself; freeing the remaining two gunmen to rifle through the desks in search of...something. They spoke in a mishmash of European, calculated to confuse the listener.

The crooks seemed on edge. The police hadn't communicated for nearly an hour, and there was no sign of the papers they were looking for. No SWAT teams were outside yet, which was good - but if this kept up, they'd have capes up their necks in a heartbeat. Boris closed up a desk and cursed in fluid Russian. Then he noticed something. A slight movement; down one corridor off the main lobby.

The gunman raised his pistol and slowly stalked down it, checking down each empty door. To the watchers in the control room, a lightning-flash threw a silhouette into relief on one of the beams above him. A hunched-over figure, pure black, staring down like a vulture.

The crooks in the main lobby just heard a single cry, which abruptly cut out. Nikolai, Arkady, Georgy, and Ivan whirled to stare down that one corridor; Arkady called out for Boris. No answer. Kalanishkovs were raised. Nikolai rapped out orders, Ivan returning to the desk search while Arkady and Georgy slowly paced down that corridor. Flashlights were switched on. With shaky hands they slowly walked down the corridor, eventually reaching a split at the end. A low whistle came down the right corridor, and the two whirled; flashlight beams throwing into relief a frightening sight. Hanging in midair by his ankles was Boris, arms stretched downwards, dangling from...seemingly nothing! As the two stared, eyes going wide behind their balaclavas, a pair of hands reached out from the black behind them and slammed their heads together. The two hit the ground hard, flashlights rolling away, sending crazy patterns of light all through the back and through the windows.

Then there was silence. Nikolai and Ivan kept their positions, but started shaking. The shaking got worse. And worse. The two occasionally called out the other three's names. No answer. Just silence.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Rain spattered down on the windows.

More waiting.

Ivan cracked first. He seized his AK-47, and as Nikolai screamed at the man to maintain his position, went charging blindly into the corridors yelling like a madman. The yells continued, cameras following the frightened-out-of-his-wits gunman through the corridors (and under where Boris had been, now no longer there!) until eventually he came out the corridor beside the vault, breathing heavily. Nikolai upbraided him in fierce Russian, and Ivan simply nodded and panted...until something caught his legs.

The crook dropped his weapon and screamed, clawing at the carpet as he was dragged back into the blackness of the corridor. Then silence again. Nikolai stared, stunned, at the spot where his comrade had been. And fairly clawed for the RPG on his back, leveling it at the corridor. Before he could pull the trigger, a pair of shining streaks came out of the darkness, impacting and sticking into the weapon. He stared with confusion at a pair of knives embedded in the body of the weapon, before it was simply ripped out of his hands and disappeared into the darkness above him.

Then he saw something. Something coming walking up the corridor before him. A black-robed silhouette, with a hood up. Dragging four supine figures behind him.

Red eyes flashed in the darkness. And as lightning flashed, Nikolai could see a single arm, and a single finger, pointing towards him. And a cheshire grin under the hood.

That did it.

The final criminal threw up his hands and fairly dove for the door, racing outside and into the waiting arms of the policemen. He begged them not to send him back in there in halting English, to slap the cuffs on him and send him to prison. Anywhere where the monster would not catch him!

When the police finally got some sense out of the man, and the SWAT team finally arrived, they walked in to see a very strange sight. Four crooks, unconscious, tied-up quite neatly, in front of a vault door. An RPG and five AK-47s lay on the front desk, even with a ribbon and bowtie around them. Beside a small pile of papers with a Post-It note stuck on them saying "Crooks Wanted This." And another Post-It Note on to the vault door - "Hostages In Here". A subsequent search by the team and police revealed no sign of anyone besides themselves in the building; though the hostages did agree that they had heard some strange things.

Those watching in the control room also noted something rather odd. That aside from the silhouettes, Crow hadn't appeared on a single camera, period.

---

Crow appeared back in his chair, leaning back and putting his feet up while a small breeze ruffled Fulcrum's and Glowstar's capes. Yanking the bandanna down, he showed the others a pretty wide grin; and wiggled his hands in the air.

"Gods, did you see that guy's face when I pulled the Grim Reaper routine? Oh, and the other guy when he saw his buddy hanging upside-down? I mean, totally nicked that from the Raven's repertoire, but hey, if it ain't broke don't fix it!"

[Semi-Autogyro]

By the time Crow had returned from terrorizing the AI in the Doom Room, Myrmidon was sticking multiple sets of cable ties in his costumes' utility harness. "A most impressive display, Morgan." He closed the pouch, opened another and took a small roll of duct tape out of a small bag. "I shall return shortly." He intoned as he slid the tape into the pouch while walking out the door.

A sharp crackle of static emanated from the control panel, whereupon Myrmidons' voice came though loud and clear. "Attaching and activating helmet camera." John had started using the device in training after suggesting it to Mister Archer and Headmaster Summers after a few Doom Room sessions, since a point of view from the thick of things could provide valuable information that the normal cameras of the Doom Room could miss. One of the secondary monitors powered on, and the the viewers were treated to a Myrmidon-eye-view of things. "Commencing training scenario." the voiced stated succinctly as he walked through the doors of the simulator.

---

While Crow had set about to creating a mook horror show, and Glowstar demonstrated pure brute power in his scenario; Myrmidon was more along the lines of watching Predator or the Aliens movies from the perspective of the titular creatures.

He had gained entrance to the facility easily and quietly through the maintenance access panel for the elevator on the roof, and now he prowled the halls. Myrmidon moved at precise moments while moving though the halls, ducking into the blind spots in security as he made his way to his first destination: the security office.

Sidling up to the door, he took a quick peek inside the room. Standing there with a suppressed MP5, one of the robbers was keeping an eye on the banks of cameras. A security guard lay slumped unconscious against the desk, as the robber reached for his radio. After a short exchange of conversation in what seemed to be some sort of Slavic dialect, Myrmidon struck as soon as then man took his hand off the radio. He muffled the mans cries with one hand as he hammered in with a series of savage liver blows with his other hand. The man slumped to the ground, and he sent him to unconsciousness with a blow to the jaw. Myrmidon then busied himself with securing the man to an office chair with a pair of cable ties and duct tape across the mouth, before going to the security console.

After identifying where the remaining three robbers were, he turned to and opened the large breaker box that was beside the camera banks. Myrmidon flipped all the breakers, and the room and the bank as a whole was engulfed in darkness only lit eerily by the red emergency lighting. Satisfied, he shut the box and stalked out of the room to hunt other prey.

The next targets were the pair of criminals currently in the vault trying to cut through the bars to the safety deposit box areas. They both were wearing night vision goggles, as they had expected the police to cut the power and came prepared. Their first indication of danger was a hockey puck shaped item that slid into the room between them, and started emitting a high pitched whine. The duo looked down at it in confusion, only for it to explode in a dazzling burst of light seconds later. Screaming obscenities in Czech, they ripped off their goggles. In the the time they managed that, Myrmidon was on top of them. A series of nasty elbow blows and a particularly wince worthy groin attack later, the unconscious pair were trussed up and gagged against the bars they were trying to break though.

The final robber, a woman, paced outside the break room where they had stashed the hostages and tried to contact the others only to get dead air in return. The lobby that she overlooked was cast in a greenish tint from her goggles as she scanned the area for intruders. She caught a flicker of movement off to her side, and raised her sub-machine gun as she turned to face the threat. She very nearly squeaked in surprise as Myrmidon slapped the weapon aside. The female robber showed more initiative than her male compatriots by discarding the weapon and backpedaling madly. Given the additional breathing room, she pulled a pistol out of a holster only to be dumbfounded as the helmeted hero grabbed it and removed the slide of the weapon with almost contemptuous ease. The uppercut that followed sent her sprawling to the marble tiled floor, and when she tried to get up she was forced to the floor by a foot in the middle of her back. She slipped into blissful unconsciousness seconds later.

After securing her with cable ties and tape, he grabbed her radio. He made his way back to the elevator whereupon he turned the radio on and switched it to the police channel. "Attention. The threat inside of National Bank has been neutralized. Four targets are down and secured in the following locations: one in the security room, two in the vault, and one in the copy room. All fifteen hostages are unhurt and located in the employee break room and one in the security room. Signing off." He tossed the radio into the nearby trash can and left via the way he came, leaving the Freedom City police to take the credit for taking down the internationally wanted group.

---

John had his helmet off now, as he climbed the stairs to the control room. "I would have used tranquilizers, but I did not think that would be quite as entertaining as the method I chose to employ." He said to the group before setting his helmet on a nearby table.

[Azuth65]

Giving her teammates the requisite high fives after their runs she commented, "Nice runs guys." Adjusting her costume, she moved to the doors leading to the simulation.

---

When Wisp stepped in she found herself atop the roof of the bank. Recalling what she'd seen of the bank's layout she closed her eyes to focus, vanishing in a plume of smoke and reappearing crouched beneath a teller's station. Moving quickly she raised her head just enough to see she was within a few yards of the hostages. Luck also seemed to be on the teleporter's side given the neither the one robber guarding the hostages nor rummaging through the various desks of the employees were looking in her direction.

Motioning for the employees to keep quiet and calm she crept over and in one massive cloud of scarlet and white smoke, they were all safely outside. Turning to a nearby officer she pointed, "Do me a favor and make sure they all get checked over by EMTs."

With those instructions ringing in the air the teen vanished back inside where the thugs were currently in a state of severe panic. Choosing to capitalize on that and their shock seeing a girl appear from nowhere in their midst she rushed the nearest one, a hulking man carrying an illegally shortened shotgun. She snatched the weapon right from his grisp, her super-human strength warping the barrel and forend as her right hand clamped down. "Careful, somebody's liable to get hurt," she said through a smirk before knocking him cold with one solid left cross in the face.

The remaining robbers were quickly disarmed and dispatched amidst a series of short teleport-jumps that would flow from her tripping one woman holding an assault rifle to dropkicking a man with a pair of pistols in the chest and teleporting after kicking off from the impact and tackling the last from behind.

A few minutes later the robbers were being lead away in handcuffs and Wisp was well out of sight.

---

Once back in the observation room she plopped into a chair and reached into her bag, pulling out a protein bar. "Pardon me, I missed breakfast. After something like that on almost no calories for the day...," she trailed off before devouring the bar.

[Aoiroo]

Etain watched and smiled at the performances of her teammates. They all had there own style to express, from direct, to subtle, to effient and fast. When it came to her turn she examined the modile before she waved,

"I am not certain how much you may see, but I hope I do not disappoint."

______

It wasn't a stormy night or dark knight, it was early morning, just as the bank was opening. People walked in waiting in line, most of them seemingly unrelated, but everything went south when the power was killed. From the crowd waiting in line nearly half produced guns and shuffled their neighbors into corners. Cell phones were confiscated and the leader, a well dressed woman from lined up and isolated the hostages in a storage while she started to pull personal from the hostages to get access to the vault. The entire thing took less then a few minutes, it was very concise, and it seemed the entire course of action was made to finish the job as quickly as possible with as little time for police or hero interaction as possible.

Naturally, when Changeling entered that changed. Not that a single person acknowledged her existance, well at least until she made herself known. She moved towards the hostages first and with a quick movement relieved the guards of there weapons before promptly knocking them out with the back of her sword. Moving out the hostages didn't take long, the others didn't even notice them leave. After that it was just a matter of systematically disarming then knocking out each individual member of the force. The bodies lay still yet there was no acknowledgement from the next in line, until only the leader was left. She was in front of the vault, a few feet behind looking on at the spot that used to be the hostage she had typing in the combinations at gun point. Changeling took a few seconds to look at her before tapping her on the shoulder, the woman turned around in surprise suddenly facing the bank full of her unconcious comrades as the black and orange clad brunette raised her sword,

"Did you have a nice dream?"

___

Etain left the simulator once the police had arrived, she really did nothing but walk past the reporters and the holograms out of the simulators who much like the rest of the bank didn't notice her at all. Finding her seat again, she smiled and said,

"That was fun then, what shall we do for our next exercise."

[Dariusprime]

Fulcrum stood off to the side of the control room, arms behind her back and face carefully neutral. She watched the main screen, secondary cameras and out the main window all at the same time, seemingly unmoving. Nor did each of the performances yield an individual reaction. A simple nod of their success followed each hero's run.

Finally, as Changeling returned, Fulcrum tapped her chin in Serious Thought, and said ominously, "Impressive. Most impressive." After which her face lit up and she gently patted the nearest standing hero, John, on the back.

"Spectacular! And that isn't just Claremont training either. Each of you has a real talent for being heroes. Not to mention top-notch control of your powers. Those mooks didn't stand a chance."

Running back the records, she picked out a moment from each run, "I agree: the RPG moment was solid gold, Brian. Excellent reflexes at that. Morgan, your psychological techniques controlled the robbers like clockwork. John...let me just say, I'm glad you're on our side. Vicky, short, sweet and pulled the hostages right out from under their noses. Nice touch. I may not have seen much, Etain, but neither did the robbers!"

Before she went off gushing over each of them, or being bogged down in the minutiae, she paused a moment, consider the runs as a whole, and gave them all a round of applause.

"Excellent work all of you."

[Raveled]

Glowstar didn't bother hiding his reaction. He beamed at Fulcrum's praise. This was an established superhero, who had worked with other established superheroes and everything! Heck, rumor around campus was that she had even stood up to Headmaster Summers, which was a damn near legendary feat in and of itself. And she liked what they had done!

After a moment he glanced around and got his expression under control. "So. Um. What's the plan now, Fulcrum? Do you want to try running through a group scenario?"

[Semi-Autogyro]

John stiffened with the pat on the back and gave Fulcrum a slight bow in thanks for her praising assessment. "There is no other side I would willingly choose to be on, Ma'am." was his measured response to her statement.

He still remained wary, a portion in the back of his mind telling him not to drop his guard and that the test was not over.

"If there is a scenario you would like, please do not hesitate to ask. Or we can field further questions if you would like, Ma'am."

[Dariusprime]

Fulcrum almost caught herself saying,"Such a polite young man," but managed somehow an affectionate smile at John.

Turning that same smile to the others, she shrugged and motioned to the console. "A group scenario sounds wonderful. After seeing your individual powers and styles at work, I'm eager to see how you function as a team. And by function I do not mean dysfunction. With your varied abilities, this scenario should be a real treat."

"As for specifics, I'm not sure. Any particular set up you enjoy as a team? Perhaps one that has been a problem or unusually challenging?"

Looking amongst their faces, her tone relaxed, "No need to worry. I'm not grading you."

"Unless Mr. Summers has direct feeds. In such an event of course I am grading. One must be ever prepared for villainy!" she said with humorous sincerity.

[Quinn]

Morgan tappity-tapped on the computer's keyboard, quietly relishing the praise, but trying not to show it. Iron-clad self-control, that was the ticket. And the fact that he kept his face towards the computer screen to hide a small smile while running through several of the machine's group runs was totally separate. Lessee here... robot apocalypse, zombie apocalypse, alien apocalypse, robot zombie alien apocalypse...

Along with several other runs featuring a sizeable gallery of Freedom City's most wanted; everything from when Centurion was running with the Liberty League, straight through the worst days of the Moore Administration (though those were password-locked, sealed, the works), and of course a database kept on the bleeding edge of the FCPD, FBI, CIA, UNISON, MI6, and nearly a dozen other agencies' most wanted lists. Combine that with cutting-edge tech straight from Daedalus Industries and a whole host of other stuff; it nearly broke Morgan's brain trying to figure out exactly what the Headmaster had to do, who he knew, and what he could bring to bear just to get this much packed into one training simulator.

Actually, just pondering that scared him more than the famous Summers-Glare.

"Got a lot available here; anyone got any special requests? Fulcrum, you? Some villain you fought a ways back you'd like to see taken down a few pegs or something?"

[Aoiroo]

Etain sat and watched Morgan go through the options. She wasn't really that interested in it, there are some villains she may have certain troubles with but they weren't doing this on their own, she could always find a way to be useful.

"There is a lot to choose from I am certain, but we may want something hard enough that it will take us all to fight it. We are very strong in our respective specialities that it does come to that usually, I only recall one time where we were challenged enough that the battle did not end rather quickly, though the circumstances were most unfortunate."

She didn't let her mind wander on the Gorgon for too long, it was a bad time for all, and especially the poor boy they had to fight,

"So maybe one villain who is considered rather difficult even for a group would be an amiable choice."

[Raveled]

Glowstar dropped into a seat around the briefing table, letting it spin around as he listened to the suggestions. "Well, not to toot my own horn, but who would that be? The Collector?" He shuddered at the idea. "Gamma?" He stared up at the ceiling and thought for a long minute. The idea of the Alpha-Centurion and Superior both occurred to me and he dismissed them. He wasn't about to ask Wisp to confront her own personal demons, at least not before Fulcrum. Then suddenly, he sat up and looked at Crow. "Hey... what about the Beast of Kilimanjaro?"

[Azuth65]

Wisp sat in a chair not far from Crow's own, a smile plastered on her face at the praise from Fulcrum, "Thanks, that's what I was aiming for."

She retied her ponytail after it had started coming loose towards the end of her run and peered over Morgan's shoulder. "Can't go wrong with the standard robot uprising scenario. There are enough super-hackers out there to make rogue robotics a concern. That and is there anyone here who didn't want in on the resistance after seeing the first couple Terminator movies?"

[Semi-Autogyro]

John weighed the pros and cons of each option. "We do have experience in fighting physically superior foes such as the Beast of Kilimanjaro."

Giving a glance over to Etain he addressed the idea of robots. "The problem with mechanical foes is that Miss Etain is at a slight disadvantage when engaging such enemies and would not be an adequate team scenario." He replied to Victoria.

"Do you have any such foes that you would like to see us engage, Ma'am? With your field experience with the Interceptors I believe you would have some idea as to what would entail an effective training scenario." After all, she was the resident expert not to mention guest. Which meant that they should consider her opinions before theirs.

[Dariusprime]

Fulcrum tapped her chin in thought. Many of the suggestions made sense, and the list of scenarios was indeed impressive. She snapped her fingers at the mention of the Beast of Kilimanjaro.

"That's a thought. The Beast of Kilimanjaro is tough as nails, and I've heard its mind is alien enough to be quite resistant to influence. I remember reading the first encounter between Centurion and the Beast. He needed everything he had to injure the thing. Would one quite an exercise in teamwork." She looked around for feedback and added, "If you have experience teaming up against superior opponents, this scenario would work nicely for a variety of reasons."

"Not to mention seeing the Beast in action would be intriguing," she added, patting Vicky on the shoulder. "Perhaps if you have time, you can squeeze in a large-scale scenario afterword."

"So how does the Beast sound?"

[Raveled]

"Sounds awesome!" Glowstar jumped up, clapping his hands. "Time to test out a few tricks against big, mean, and gribbly, you know?" He strode back through the doors, paused, and turned around. "Um. Where are we actually going to be fighting it, anyway? City, jungle, on the moon? I mean, I like big explosions as much as the next man but property damage can be a concern, you know?"

[Quinn]

Morgan's hands danced clumsily over the keyboard, and he pulled up several different scenarios featuring the Beast. The thing was pretty famous in the hero community, if memory served - nasty beastie by all accounts. Big, ugly, nearly invincible, gave Centurion all he could handle and more. His dad never ran into the thing, something Red Hand was awful grateful for; he had enough giant monsters that nearly squished him over his career anyway. One scenario caught his eye, and the teen smiled. An image popped up - some stills and recordings of Young Freedom classic tackling the Beast during a trip to Dakana, taken from a costume-cam. A few stills of Adamant were in there as well, but that was easily enough removed by adjusting the simulation difficulty. Morgan turned his chair around.

"Okay, think this one might work well - from a few years back, Young Freedom tackled the Beast in Dakana alongside that oversized tin can there; it was a pretty rough shindig by all accounts, but if we drop Adamant from the equation it'll fit us perfectly. Mission specs wouldn't be different - beastie escaped, we have to push him back into the crystals to make him take a dirt nap for another few hundred years. Plus, we're following in some pretty big footsteps...and I gotta say, that's pretty damn cool." Big grin.

[Dariusprime]

"Excellent. Let's go for it!" replied Fulcrum, clapping her hands together. Which in a small room and given her hands, was quite a sound.

"That set up is perfect. You can really lay into the beast without fear of collateral damage, and everyone has a hand in the challenge. From what I remember, the thing's mind is primeval but cunning. This should be quite an exercise." She nodded and smiled. The enthusiasm was contagious.

Looking at the team, she asked, "Questions? Concerns? Modifications?"

[Azuth65]

Vicky leaned back in her seat, lazily swiveling from side to side. "As long as nobody comes over the speakers congratulating us on our tests and then promising us cake afterwards, I think I'm good."

In a soft burst of smoke the white-haired teen vanished from her chair, which continued to spin with a slight squeaking noise, and reappeared standing with her fists clenched by the door. With a roll of her shoulders she gave a determined grin, "This should be fun. But I'm betting we'll be too sore to move much tomorrow."

As she stepped out into the doom room she found herself humming a song from one of the shows she used to watch with each step.

[Aoiroo]

"I am fine with the selection as well."

Etain walked alongside Victoria keeping her steps light as she moved with her. Really it didn't matter terribly what they faced, she didn't doubt they could overcome it. Even if they rarely worked altogether, when they did they always got excellant results. She waited and smiled as the others joined her in the doom room as well, looking around curious as to what should form around them in the simulation, and how the terrian may effect the battle.

[Semi-Autogyro]

John placed his helmet back on, as he followed the others to the doom room, deep in thought. He had never faced Beast of Kilimanjaro in scenarios, but he surmised it wouldn't be too much to handle. Even tactically it was not much of a quandary, due to being a large tough target. Easiest way to fight it would be to lock its movement or escape options while either wearing it down and then directing as much firepower into the position as possible. Though he did think that it would probbably be in his best interests to remain out of reach and not have a repeat of the Megastar incident. One tended to learn not to like getting thrown bodily through one and a half buildings.

"As long as you do not attempt to trade punches equally with the Beast, I do not think it will be much of an issue." this was declared in the modulated tones of his helmets external commlink.