ic The Hades Complex(IC)

[horngeek]

Vector made her way to McGruther quickly, making sure not to injure anyone- she'd have gone for a different plan, but when the Terminus was involved in any way, most Aussie superheroes had an attitude of 'get that stuff out of here as quick as possible'.  

 

Quite a few would have gone for the 'as long as the collateral damage doesn't include people' approach in this situation.  

 

She grabbed the man's arm, smiling serenely.  "Hi!  We've got some questions to ask you, but here isn't exactly the best place.  I'd like you to come with us, 'McGruther'."

[Ari]

GM

The press of ill-favored humanity currently patronizing Marsha's took a little while to make good their escape. Though naturally to them it seemed only a few moments, getting some kind of orderly retreat was on nobody's priority list, and in that kind of everyone-for-themself environment getting anything done, like moving out through a door, was naturally and fiercely opposed by the other odd-dozen souls determined to be out of it first.

So for a wearying minute Captain Silvia, the Stormbreaker, endured the riot of nonsense, insane hostility and pure inanity that characterized the dash to freedom of the beleaguered bar veterans.

After that eternity, the crash as the door fell open to reveal five brawny and heavily-tattooed young men was a downright relief. Partly-entangled and yelling a fascinating cross-section of Australian cuss-talk, they all fell silent as they beheld Silvia. For a fraction of the instant before the blast of air cannoned into them and the other five hollering behind them, they managed to look outright ashamed.

As the cacophony of fresh howls of pain, confusion and breaking wood and glass echoed into the heavy air, MacGruther flinched at Vector's touch and quailed before the sight of one of his nation's mightiest heroes. Meekly nodding his surrender, the crook muttered "Yeah, fine, okay...ask whatever. After tonight I'm ****ed anyway, the Omega'll have my head for this sorta failure."

Glancing up hopefully as Vector started hurtling them back to the Ages Lost, the smuggler added "Say, don't suppose you supers go in for witness protection? 'Least as far as making sure I don't die of the 'Mega Mob?"

[Blue Rose]

Silvia strolls through the crowd, coils of air lashing out at a few more bits of furniture that weren't quite wrecked yet, and grabs McGruther by the collar, carrying him back onto the ship where he can be hurled into a cell in the brig. From there, it is a minor task to make the bird sing. She had heard of this Newman- a petty man, of little note, who seems to have gotten involved in matters larger than himself.

Very well.

Some sharing of information, and they are ready to go. A 'legitimate businessman' like Mr. Newman is not hard to find. "Be ready to move," she tells Vector with little further preamble.

Above the building, she listens in, comparing the many voices below to the description she received as she beats back a pounding headache from all the yelling in the pub. This is not the time.

"Top floor," she calls to helm as she feeds more information into the nav computer, already working for a firing solution.

In one fell swoosh, the ship comes alongside the tower, loosing a full broadside to blow the roof off.

[horngeek]

Vector nodded, briefly joining Silvia in the interrogation- and delivering a promise to McGruther to get him into protective custody.  She'd handle that after the whole business was over.  "Well, hopefully we can get Newman behind bars.  Or at least tie this stuff to him."

 

As the cannons fired, the heroine prepared herself to drop in.  "All right.  I'm ready whenever you are..."

[Ari]

GM

Luckily, most of the glass and steel not vaporized by the Ages Lost's cannons sailed far out into the water. Still, the riotous noise and cloud of smoke billowing up from the hole blasted into the office building meant that soon Newman's abruptly-raised voice was joined by others, and then the noise of hurrying feet and rumbles of inhuman power building up.

As the smoke cleared, roughly a dozen or more figures burst into the excavated room, gleaming silver standing out from their dark suits, and inelegant weapons bristled in their hands. They couldn't very well stay in formation amid the wreckage of the sterile office, and the sight of a glittering space-galleon and two superheroes gave them notable pause.

"Get those damned capes outta my soddin' air, ya €[}#wits!" barked Newman's voice, the man himself staying out of sight.

With that, the men raised their weapons, and in a crackle of dark light the things came alive.

[Blue Rose]

And they come crawling out of the woodwork, emboldened by shinier guns, but they are still merely human. Nothing compared to even the barest sliver of a dragon's might.

The captain raises a hand, gesturing Vector to wait. The first blow shall be hers.

Slowly, she rises into the air, gathering a swirling shell of air around her, each jet stream an extension of her will. As they gather speed, the white coils of wind become visible.

More. Faster. Sharper. Until the captain herself is barely visible behind a thousand blades of air.

Then, in a flash, she is gone. A living bullet against the building, trailed by razor-sharp streams of air that fan out, lashing out against anything and everything fool enough to get in their path, engulfing the entire floor, and some of the building beneath besides in the destruction.

[horngeek]

And in her wake, Vector jumped into the air, covering the distance in a single bound.  Newman, miraculously, remained untouched by the windstorm, but not by what came after.  

 

As the Omega Boss gaped, Vector landed right in front of him, a solid stare directed at the gang lord.  Her fist followed shortly, slamming into his chest and throwing him back through a wall.  Vector winced slightly, but the punch didn't hit anywhere vital by design.  And it had the desired effect, as the various gang members started to flee.  "You've been smuggling goods that no one wants here, Newman.  You honestly thought that wouldn't attract attention?"

[Ari]

GM

Carpet shredded, glass shattered, and men went flying as the Stormbreaker's assault swept the evil den bare. Macabre paintings that lined the walls collapsed into massacred piles, a few of the throbbing engines of death blasted through drywalls in pieces, and Newman alone had remained untouched by the gale. Frozen beside a metal table on a windowless side of the room, staring in teeth-clenched and eye-bulged fury at this intrusion, the stocky, vicious man was in a black and white corporate uniform minus the jacket, sleeves rolled up and a trail of red going up the arms of his shirt.

His eyes focused on Vector as she came streaming in, fixing his hatred on her from his small, cold eyes just before her fist struck him solidly, throwing the Omega of Crime straight through the wall behind him with a roar of surprise and pain!

Smashing and rolling to a halt against a broken desk, Leigh snarled out "God**** capes...that bloody kid lied to me..." As he rose slowly and ungainly from his unceremonious couch of splintered wood, his guards' retreat from their terrifying adversaries left Vector plenty of time to feel the ache of her knuckles where they'd hit Newman. It was like punching iron.

A manilla envelope could be seen where the boss of the Omega Mob's sleek black desk lay, solid and almost contemptuously unscathed by the lashing blades of air. The envelope and the white papers within were in tatters. Aside from it and the sparse chairs at the windows, not to mention the metal table topped with a large, oblong dark bundle, there weren't many amenities for Leigh or anyone else.

[Blue Rose]

Silvia rises from her crouch in the ruins of the top story, turning a frigid glare towards the fleeing goons. A warning. Not that they need it.

A glance to their target, and it seems Vector has things well in hand with him, so she instead goes to the envelope, and the desk, to begin rummaging through records to see what she can find.

[horngeek]

Meanwhile, with a look towards the desk, Vector started making her way towards Newman, cautiously making sure that the villain had no other 'tricks'.  She figured he might not be down and out from that punch, especially if he had powers of his own.  She wouldn't put it past the Terminus wannabe, even if she didn't know for a fact that he had them.  

 

"Please don't get up, by the way, Newman.  You're going to be in enough trouble already."

 

It was true.  She figured that even if he managed to wriggle out of this, a lot of Aussie superheroes would pay Newman more attention in the future.  This could well be the beginning of the end for the boss of the Omega Mob.  "Found anything yet, Captain?"

[Ari]

GM

As a matter of fact, Stormbreaker had. The envelope contained detailed reports about the movements of Ruster, AKA Lawrence Sykes. Evidently a hero of Darwin, a teenaged white native of the city with metal-corroding powers and substantial fighting skill, if the bills from various underworld doctors and increasingly vicious scribbles in the margins were to be believed. Newman had been tracking him for months, trying to keep the gallant off his own moves, a plan that failed when one of the Omega Mob caved to Lawrence after he found one of the early weapons shipments a mere week ago. Ruster had followed the trail right to Newman, after days of careful detective work and probing of his contacts, not to mention walking in on random gangster meetings and punching people through walls.

He'd caught on to Newman being behind things only yesterday, and had been headed to confront the man last night. After that, the only word on his status was a hand-written note on the back of a security photo showing a slim, smirking youth in orange creeping down a hall "Stopped his bleeding head".

"Trouble? Ha!" The Omega of Crime got to his full height, leering at the two heroines with contempt and eyes almost red with unrestrained hatred "What trouble've you got for ME, crumpet?". His breathing was labored, and one hand clutched his chest(from the venomous look he threw at Vector, he wasn't likely to forgive such an assault too soon), but he seemed otherwise perfectly comfortable.

"Ye think if ye just waltz in here on your li'l pretty princess shoes, and mess up my sodding property, that'll get you anywhere?" he spat noisily on the ground "Forget it! Those arse-loving boys of mine know their work, put me behind bars all you like" for a second, as the word 'bars' hung in the air his scarred cheeks seemed to twist "it'll all keep movin' on. HIS will IS done."

"Hey, pirate bint!" Leigh turned his eyes to Silvia "Tell you what, I give you half o' those gun shipments, you claim that's all, and when the wankers in Berry fork over a tenth of a mil, I give you a real payout. You'll never find the whole lot, by Taarvon, and ye look like you've some ****ing business sense. Not like Snivellin' Sykes 'ere!" With a grunt, Newman tossed glass shard off the ground, tossing it at the oblong bundle on the metal table with a sneer of disdain.

[Blue Rose]

One tenth of one million dollars. So, a hundred thousand. And only a cut of that.

Silvia throws back her head and laughs, the sound ringing through the air. "You are dealing in Terminus weaponry for pocket money? Such a fool."

She strolls casually over to him, smiling all the way. Yet, it grows colder with each step, and she draws her sword on the approach. "But you are quite right; I do have business sense. And I know how to choose my business partners. Such incompetence is not up to standard. For a man in your career to so blatantly miss the measure of a business proposition?"

Cold steel presses against the man's throat, yet Silvia continues as calm as can be. "My associate here may place great value on upholding Earth law, and perhaps even on your life. I do not. You are reckless, unstable, and a liability. I know how life is in your prisons for your type; I have seen that Earth documentary..." she pauses to reach for a name. "Goodfellas, I believe it was? Yes... pay off a few guards. Have your associates sneak in goods. Barter with the other inmates for supplies, good will, and protection. You end up in a private room, waiting out your term, teaching yourself to cook, until you are eventually released on good behavior, and return to your former ways. I could end that." A little pressure, and a single drop of blood falls. "I should end that."

"But I don't have to. You see, there is more than one court with a claim in this affair. Trafficking in Terminus weaponry on a pre-FTL planet? That is the sort of crime that will have you in a Lor prison station for the rest of your natural life. Locked away, in a place where your money is useless, where your associates can never come, away from everyone and everything you have ever known or cared for, never to see a blue sky again, locked among creatures that consider human a fine delicacy. Many of whom have friends who were destroyed by Terminus."

She shows a row of teeth, which suddenly seem very sharp. "Or... you can sing like a bird, give me what I want, and not end up dinner for a Volarian."

[horngeek]

Vector frowned as Silvia threatened Newman.  She didn't think that Silvia was serious about the first threat, but if it came down to it, she'd stop the captain.  Heck, if it came down to it, a lot of people would be not very happy with the second option.  "Make it easier on all of us, Newman.  If you give up the weapons, then that's at least something in your favor.  Or, well..."

 

She shrugged.  "You know the attitude that law enforcement has regarding the Terminus.  There'd likely be some noise made about how the crimes were committed on our soil, so we should be the ones to lock you up, but I imagine a lot of people wouldn't be too unhappy to see you go.  Your choice."

[Ari]

GM

Regarding Silvia with a gimlet stare, the defeated crime boss silently weighed his options. Darting down, he grabbed the tip of the sword between his jaws and cracked it off with a wet noise of breaking teeth and a rush of blood. Chewing it into manageable pieces, to the further obliteration of his uneven grinders, Newman finally swallowed and nodded.

"You win. Tonight. This world's a ¥]%}heap where blokes can't see what's right in front of their faces, but I've better chances 'ere than the void." Getting up, Leigh idly fingered the small cut Stormbreaker's sword had made, widening it little by little as he strolled on heavy legs over to a hidden wall-safe "And Princess Flaggy" he addressed Vector with a glance of fire "don't go thinkin' I'll forget you"

Shoving a pile of neat papers from the safe at Stormbreaker, the Omega of Crime marched over to the table, sparing a second to stare at its cargo with something like pleasure.Tossing the stiff corpse over his shoulder with considerable nonchalance, Leigh Newman went with the two heroines to meet justice.

---

As it turned out, there was a lot more than 1/10th of a million laid aside by the Australian government. They were deeply relieved that such a horrible scandal as smuggling Terminus-tech weapons from their shores and through their cities had been dealt with so quickly, and showed it. Vector and Stormbreaker were loudly and warmly acclaimed for their swift and decisive work. There were even offers to begin work on a small docking station outside one of their major cities for the Ages Lost, though the tech-gap quickly stifled the plan.

Leigh Newman, for his part, was charged and tried for smuggling, the murder of Lawrence Sykes(which he happily exposited upon for more than an hour when the autopsy technician began stammering), numerous smaller crimes, and having contact and trade with otherworldly enemies of mankind. It proved impossible to figure out how or why Leigh had acquired the weapons, and just what he'd intended to do with them, since none of the 23 shipments had stayed in Australia for more than a few days.

Things then took an odd turn. The body found in Newman's office wasn't that of Lawrence Sykes at all, and the security footage, once analyzed, revealed that it came from a hotel on the other side of Darwin. The records from his vault, once deciphered, turned out to have nothing to do with the smuggling. The frustration and suspicion that greeted these revelations can be imagined. When questioned, Leigh couldn't keep from grinning, no matter how hard pressed, but swore that he hadn't a clue.

Justice settled in for a long haul.

---

The last time the Stormbreaker and Vector met on the case was in the middle of the trial, days after the ugly discoveries and shortly after being called on as witnesses.

Inside the crisp, modern Supreme Court of the Northern Territories, it was almost possible to see the victory they'd won. In the actual court room, that was far harder.

[horngeek]

Vector sighed as she sat down.  "Bloody hell.  He's going to be able to drag this out for months if not years.  Well, at least we know to keep an eye on him, now."

 

She turned, extending a hand to shake Stormbreaker's.  "Good working with you on this case, though.  Maybe we'll see each other again."

[Blue Rose]

Silvia spent time riding the good will, putting her best face forward, and generally doing what she could to foster good will with the people and government of Australia. It makes good business sense, after all. She even offered to take Newman to an off-world court for violations of galactic law, and respected the country's decision to hold onto him without reservation. A predictable response, and a way of saying, "I am here to help," without actually having to go out of her way. She's not a fan of dealing with legal authorities anyways.

The dicier matter is getting them to agree to let her take the weapons off-world, but the fact that she can actually dispose of them safely should be adequate leverage.

All in all, a reasonably successful venture, whether Newman stays confined by Earth justice or not. Though it will be an annoyance replacing her sword. She'd already placed a call, but the best Toledo swordsmiths tend to have busy lives, and it won't be a quick commission.

For the time being, she accepts the situation for what it is. She faces her partner and accepts the handshake in a firm grip. "Next time, may it be on happier terms," she offers.

[horngeek]

Vector nodded, smiling.  "I hope so too.  Do you want me to let you know how things go with Newman, or do you have your own ways of finding out?"

[Blue Rose]

"There are certain topics I keep my ears open for," the good captain answers. "If he becomes... relevant to my interests again, I will find out."