Stopwatch 2: Prototype (IC)

[Vahnyu]

"You do not even begin to comprehend the meaning of the word 'Excessive', human soldier." Hronos responded, his patience with the stuborn Spetznas starting to wear thin. "If words won't convince you to stay your hand, I will have to resort to louder means, as the human saying states." Hronos started glowing, as the Essence of Time blessed him with the strength of a thousand selves, all concentrated at one point; the point that Hronos was currently occupying. Using his enhanced, modified rotors, the mechanical being made an attempt to grab the vehicle behind which Boris had taken refuge, and use it to pin him immobile on the spot. Unfortunately, he miscalculated the strenght required to lift the truck, putting much more effort than needed, and causing him to lose footing. Hronos struggled to find his balance back, and attempted to use the vehicle again, but this time, he went too far the opposite direction, not putting enough strenght, and causing the vehicle to spiral out of his control, thus ruining his attempt to pin Boris down.

[Supercape]

GM

 

Boris responded with a sideways roll, easily evading the vehicle which was now upturned. He spared a quick glance back to the research facility. It wasn't too far. Getting to the cave in these conditions would stretch him, despite his Siberian training. 

 

"You may be the strong, but you are not soldier" said Boris, calmly. He picked up his gun and shot Hronos straight in the face, to a resounding crack of metal on metal. 

 

"Great Mother Russia! What are you being the made of?" he said, frankly amazed that Hronos was still standing. The bullet was pinpoint accuracy, from a high calibre rifle. 

 

Although his eyes were shocked, his bodies reflexes carried on, bolting another shot into his rifle...

[Vahnyu]

The force of the impact did make Hronos roll his head backwards, but after a moment, he slowly lowered it back to position, starring right in the eyes of Boris. The bullet didn't penetrate his exoskeleton, but the force of the impact had actually caused his systems to go temporarily offline, and while at first glance, he appeared to have been completely unaffected, a closer look at the lack of light in his visor betrayed the truth, that Hronos lost consciousness, or as close an analogue could be achieved by a being of robotical structure. The light didn't take too long to reappear, and after shaking his head swiftly, in order to shake the feeling of disorientation he experienced, Hronos started reassessing the situation with the Russian soldier. This situation is only going to get worse, as more time ellapses. I cannot prioritise his peaceful surrender any longer; I will have to resort to offensive means of subduation. He pondered in the miniscule nanoseconds it took to him to re-evaluate his current predicament.

[Supercape]

GM

 

As Boris pulled up his rifle to fire once more, Hronos caught glimpse of a flurry of snow in the corner of his artificial eyes. 

 

It was not easy to see, by any means. In the glaring arctic light and the featureless landscape, small things could be caught by the alert. 

 

Whatever it was was travelling fast, heading back to the research base. The vaguest footprints could be seen, and the kicked up snow. But nobody could be seen. It was invisible, shielded from the human eye. 

 

Boris caught it too, his senses uncannily good. He shifted his focus from Hronos to the invisible target. 

 

"What is the that?" he asked, scanning the horizon with his rifle. 

 

"I am seeing the nothing!"

[Thevshi]

Velocity zipped into the cafeteria area of the Russia research base, Robert still draped over her shoulders in a fireman's carry.  The speedster was surprised to find that Hronos was no longer there, having agreed to initially wait where he was to keep his part of the crystal from the others. 

 

Where could he be?  She thought to herself as she set Robert down on top of one of the tables in the room.  Thankfully it was warm enough in the building that he should be fine, particularly given the survival gear he had on from the Pegasus.

 

Velocity paused briefly (at least by her standards), to gently stroke Robert's check with the back of her hand before she was off in a yellow blur, starting back towards the cave to get one of the other two unconscious individuals in out of the cold.

[Vahnyu]

Hronos was understandably puzzled by the sight before him, or rather, by the lack of it. Certainly, it could very well be the result of some kind of optical illusion, but considering the circumstances he was currently involved in, this didn't look like mere situational happenstance. While his opponent was also puzzled by this event, Hronos turned down his temporal boost in physical prowess, and activated his sense of Chronal Attunement, which would not only grant him the ability to pinpoint any chronal anomalies in the area, but also, it would let him process information at a significantly faster pace. With a simple thought, the Essence of Time obliged him, granting him this supernatural sense, and as it did, things slowed down as Chronos managed to better focus his attention on the flurry of snow, through his now-purple-glowing visor.

[Thevshi]

Velocity was speeding back towards the cave when she spotted the footprints for the invisible robot forming in the snow, heading towards the research station.  Deciding she had a few seconds to spare before she needed to get the unconscious Russians and then Steed back to the warmth of the station, the speedster turned and ran over to the area the last footprints were in.

Once again she became a blur of motion, launching punches into every possible space around the footprints (going out some forty feet in each direction), the rapid mini-sonic booms of her punches sounding almost like a chain of firecrackers.  As happened a couple of times in the ice cave, she felt one of her punches connect solidly with the robot.  This time, she also saw a large section of snow get flattened about ten feet past the direction her fist had been going when she connected, a clear sign that this time she had managed to knock the robot over.

 

"Ah, there you are!"  She stated, skidding to a halt in the snow so she could keep on the robot in the hopes of finishing it and recovering the piece of crystal it had.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Thevshi

[Supercape]

GM

 

"What is the going on?" muttered Boris under his breath as he studied the blur of motion and snow in the distance. His attention drifted from Hronos to the mellee that had erupted over the Arctic landscape. 

 

"There is nothing there...some kind of cloak invisible" he explained to Hronos. 

 

"Too fast...but I see pattern. Everything has pattern. Just need to see the pattern. And being the predicting, no?" he questioned, metaphorically. 

 

Crack Crack Crack came three shots from his rifle in quick succession, whizzing across the snow and past both the invisible robot and the blur of velocity. 

 

"Blasting the damned!" swored Boris as he cranked another bullet into the shell. 

 

"What is the tricking of the Americans now?"

[Vahnyu]

Regaining sight of his surrounding and his current situation, Hronos was too late to stop Boris from firing at velocity, but he was thankful that the shot missed by a wide margin. The Mechanodynamis put his robotic arms together, and aimed them at the Spetznas. The arms started melding together, transforming, and taking the shape of a large cannon. It took a moment to gather enough energy, but that moment was all it took for Hronos to fire a purple beam at Boris. "I would greatly appreciate it if you ceased and desisted firing at anyone, sir Russian Military Spetznas." he exclaimed, as the beam found its mark, slowing Boris down to a crawl, until the man was rendered immobile.

 

"How is your situation, Miss Velocity? Am I correct to assume that you have, as the saying goes, run into some sort of trouble?" He then shouted at Velocity. No hint of chuckle escaped his robotic mouthpiece. "Is there anything I can do to be of service to you?"

[Thevshi]

Velocity saw the slow moving bullets (at least to her) approaching before she even heard that sound of the gunshots.  It was a simple matter of moving out of the bullets path, but before she could do any more, she saw Hronos incapacitate the man who was shooting at her, which the speedster recognized as the mechanic Captain Lvov had introduced earlier.

 

Seeing as Hronos seemed to have that situation in hand for the moment, Velocity turned her attention back on the robot she had been fighting. 

 

The speedster once again became a blur of motion as she rushed over to the indention in the snow and launched another series of punches in a wide area around the indention, the rapid sound of the mini-sonic booms her punches created again echoing across the barren landscape.

 

For a fourth time, she felt several punches connect solidly with the invisible robot, which again was knocked into a drift of snow.  It was still difficult to tell just how damaged it was, but she took the chance that she had stopped it for the moment and speed back over to near where Hronos was located.

 

"Yes, that group in the future I told you about sent a robot back to try to get ahold of the pieces of the device.  It came into the ice cave Captain Lvov and Dr. Schobak were leading us to, after stunning them and Robert and fighting me a bit.  It has some sort of cloaking field."  She began.

 

"I just dropped Robert off in the research facility so he would be out of the cold and was just on my way back for Lvov and Schobak when I saw its footprints in the snow and decided to try to stop it.  Hopefully it is down for the moment, you might want to locate the piece it has and recover that."

 

"What is the story with him?"  She then asked, indicating the paralyzed Boris.

Edited October 17, 2013 by Thevshi

[Vahnyu]

"While the incident itself bears some concern, it is a good fact to learn about the safety of Lord Harrow." Reforming his arms back to their original shape, Hronos spoke to Velocity about Boris, explaining to her the situation on his end. "This man identified himself to me as Russian Military, Spetznas. I understand that is a branch of Russian special military operations. Regardless, he explained that he wished to secure the fragment exlusively on the behalf of his country, ignoring my warnings in the process, and displaying dangerous levels of fanaticism, indicating that he would not be averse to sabotaging efforts on your end. I have been trying to subdue him while avoiding to hurt him, but his military trainning proved impressive enough to give me a fair amount of trouble." Sighing, Hronos slumped his metalic shoulders.

 

Turning his enhanced senses back on, Hronos entrusted the piece he held up until now to Velocity, took flight, and followed the trail of the last piece. "Hold this fragment then, Velocity. I will proceed to recover the stolen artifact. In the meantime, if you can spare some time before you check on the welfare of the scientists, I would ask that you ensure the Spetznas is properly secured; my beam will wear off any second now, and when it does, he will resume control of his motor functions."

Edited October 17, 2013 by Vahnyu

[Thevshi]

"Sptesnaz?"  Velocity stated as she glanced down at the paralyzed Boris.  The statement was rhetorical, she had certainly heard of them before, just never had an opportunity to encounter any.  She then turned back to Hronos as he offered her the crystal fragment he had been carrying, asking her to hold onto it and secure Boris while he investigated the other robot.

 

The speedster hesitated a few moments (long moments to her) as she considered the crystal and was a bit worried about touching it.  But then she took it, slipped it into one of the pouches on her belt and gave a small nod.  "No problem, I'll get him back inside and bound up."  She stated.

[Supercape]

A short while later...

 

The ATU was apparently inactive, but bound anyway. Robert and the two Russians were warming themselves up in the base with hot coffee and thermal blankets. And Boris was securely fastened and under guard. 

 

Captain Lvov was less than impressed with both Boris and the crackled Radio messages he was getting from Moscow. Everybody was denying everything and blaming everybody else. 

 

"Bah! Nobody, apparently knows anything. Which means that everybody knows something, Nobody knows everything, and Somebody wishes they knew nothing!" he sighed, his experience of Russian Politics giving him an accurate cynicism. 

 

"This will be mopped up with typical Russian efficiency. Nothing happened. You understand?" he asked. "Boris here is a top secret agent of Russia. A dutiful son and valuable asset. The exchange is simple. He gets back to Russia, nobody complains, the device we found...well it becomes the device you found. Now it is property of the world..." he sighed. 

 

"And I get job in Siberia" he groaned, then laughed. 

 

"Ah well! I don't take these things to seriously. This is life, this is politics, huh? Keep head down, watch the changing of the guard above you, and enjoy life, that is my motto. He grinned. "Maybe I get posted to Fiji, instead, hey?"

[Thevshi]

Now that everyone was safely back in the warmth of the research station and all three parts of the device were accounted for, Velocity allowed herself to give a tired sigh.  She glanced nervously over at Robert, both glad that he did not seem effected by any exposure, but also concerned about how he might be feeling with all three parts of the device so close to one another.

 

She then looked back to Captain Lvov as he spoke.  While the speedster did not particularly like being shot at, it was far from the first time.  But more importantly, the little incident with Boris had actually managed to bring about a quicker resolution to the custody of the last piece of the device than Velocity had believed would be possible.

 

"Well, that is acceptable I supposes."  She replied, trying to act as if she was grudgingly consenting to how the Russians wanted to clean up the incident, glancing over at Boris.  She then looked back to the captain, giving him a wide smile.  "Well, I certainly will be pulling for you to end up in someplace like Fiji or Cuba over Siberia."

 

"I guess we are pretty much done here then."

[Vahnyu]

Hronos nodded at the words of Velocity. "You are correct. I doubt that there is anything more that we could be of help with in this base." turning towards Lvov, the Mechanodynamis added "It has been an honor meeting you, Captain Lvov. I am regretful that events took this unpleasant turn, as the saying goes, for both you and your coworkers. Know, though, that it is my utmost hope that, whatever you are occupying yourselves with, and no matter your current location, you will always be safe and sound."

 

After extending his hand for the costumary handshake, Hronos decided to have a few last words with Velocity, before they part their ways. "What course of action will you be taking from now on, miss Velocity? As far as I am concerned, I intend on further investigating matters regarding these artifacts. The man who was previously in possesion of the artifact I gave you appears to have plenty of first hand experience with its inner workings. He is currently residing in his personal home in Freedom City, on bail. The man named John Smith is certainly insuferrable, but I still think there is plenty to be gained by questioning him."

[Supercape]

GM

 

As the Russians prepared coffee (with the odd dash of vodka) and saluted the motley crew that had visited them (and in one case, crossed tongues with Steed in the amorous rather than adversarial manner), the winds of the Arctic continued and the stopwatch prototype fragments, all three in one place, gave a peculiar tingling sensation. Deja Vu was rife - except it was not Deja Vu, as Hronos could confirm, The three prototype fragments were unstable and powerful. 

 

"Much as like fame and money, I like freedom more" explained Steed. "I got a good word in with the United States. So keep that thing. By rights its mine, which means by rights I give it away" she said, grateful that she could part with it. 

 

"Ill see you in Russia!" she laughed, as she turned back to her friendly Russian companion. 

 

"And I'll see you in Fiji!" laughed Lvov, as he saluted Hronos, Vahnyu, and Robert. 

 

~ To be continued...~