ic Tilting at Windmills

[Avenger Assembled]

Monsoon raised a hand in the air as if giving a blessing, but the air rippled between her and the empath - and suddenly the latter was frozen still, completely unable to move muscles locked down tight. "Hydraulic compression," Nina told the woman, reaching up and removing the SHADOW empath's mask, completely baring the woman's bruised and battered face. "I remember how painful it is." She put her hands on the woman's face, her fingers directly over the eyes. "This is power. Your life in my hands - and no one will ever know you didn't make me do it." She met the empath's eyes, her own pulse regular and her breathing still, just as he'd learned from her father when playing games of life and death. "I'm going to count to three. Before I get to three, you're going to release him from his madness. One...Two..."

[trollthumper]

A millisecond before Nina could follow through on her threat, the cloud lifted from Joe's hand, just long enough for him to regain control of his tongue. He could have said something, but that would just waste precious time. Instead, he took a few steps forward, taking advantage of his "maddened" state in hopes of catching the empath on guard. He drove his fist at her as hard as he could, delivering a blow right to her chest - which bounced slightly off of the reinforced armor under her uniform. Still, her grunt told him he'd at least managed to do something, even if his muscles still weren't used to acting of their own accord. 

 

"Nice trick," he said. "Getting tired of people screwing with my head. Now, I don't exactly agree with her... but I agree with more than you'd think. Especially the more painful bits. Whatever they did to you to get you ready? I can do worse."

 

The empath worked her mouth, as if trying to respond, but she couldn't work up the strength to move her jaw. All she could do was glare, but it seemed more desperate than before. 

[Avenger Assembled]

Monsoon waited, and waited - and then, with an effort, reached out and undid the hydraulic lock that had frozen the empath in place, consciously undoing her own handiwork that had kept the woman locked up inside her own flesh. Mentalists can still think while I do that - I will have to remember that for next time. She kept her hand in place, though, pressed against the side of the other woman's bleeding face. Her fierce expression practically dared the empath to try anything, and her voice did the same thing. "Speak now, while your tongue can move. Who sent you here? What was your mission?" 

[trollthumper]

The empath started working her jaw, trying to shake off the last of the paralysis and get her muscles working. "You have eyes, don't you?" she said. "There's so much rage on this continent. So many nations still riding out the wave of the economic crash. So many countries choked by the idea of starving themselves back into prosperity. So many people willing to find someone to blame. And these people, who walk their streets, unwilling to go along and be 'good, perfect Europeans'... resentment blooms like a rose. And it comes with so many thorns--"

"And you're trying to set up a garden," Joe said. "Get in on the ground floor with the nationalist parties, help them climb to the top, maybe ask for a few favors. Never thought I'd see the day that SHADOW would stoop to franchising." 

 

The empath glared at him. "There's a difference between whoring oneself and knowing how to present yourself to your courtiers," she said. "But... you were correct on one front. I am, in fact, nothing. Born for the glory of SHADOW. Made to die for the glory of SHADOW."

 

A barb bit into the back of Nina and Joe's minds - not hard enough to bite, but hard enough to prick. In the echoing chamber, they could hear bootsteps rushing, not towards them, but away. A siren rose soon after.

 

"How would you like to join me?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Inside, Monsoon thought fast. The SHADOW agent would not be fool enough to threaten a hydrokinetic with drowning, even if she had no idea that Monsoon was herself a daughter of Typhoon. The threat here would be structural collapse or fire - no doubt produced by a bomb to which she would be as vulnerable as any normal human being. "Come, Cannonade," she told the super-strong powerhouse imperiously, "throw that one over your shoulder and strike her like a disobedient child if she resists."  For her part, she looked down at the crates of SHADOW gear, tugging at them experimentally with her powers until at last she found what she was looking for - canisters of what was no doubt a liquid poison or explosive, sealed away in a crate for safe storage. Picking the crate up with her powers, she hefted it into the air with a whumpfh. "We are under the river!" she called to Cannonade. "Open the door and I shall clear the way!" 

[trollthumper]

"Got it." Joe rounded on the empath, who looked rather perturbed that her grand suicidal gesture was being subverted. He could feel the tide of emotions trying to wash over him, as the young woman desperately tried to rip his mind apart with a storm of cognitive dissonance. Fortunately, in this case, his fists were faster, and the combination of mental exertion and blunt impact sent her sprawling to the floor. Once he was sure she was out, he hoisted her up on one shoulder, then leapt down to the floor below to join Nina. In a feat of juggling, he managed to pick up a few more crates of the weapons Nina was gathering, managing to balance them on one arm like a strong handyman might balance beams of wood. 

 

"Ready to let this place get burned to the ground when you are." 

[Avenger Assembled]

Nina was tempted to crash through the roof as water cascaded down all around them - but she was intimately aware of just how lucky they'd gotten that day. Being with Mark for the last four years had helped give her a good idea of just how important luck was; and how careful you had to be when you didn't have it. "Let's leave this place to the foul grave it deserves." She took the lead, pushing herself to the utmost as she flew down the corridor and up through the doorway they'd first come through, out into the still-sodden headquarters of the nationalists. Leaving nothing to chance, she pointed at the nearby wall. "No time for the door! Run!" 

[trollthumper]

Joe crashed through with all the force of a battering ram, taking care to keep the fascist in his grip from getting between him and the stone. There might be a day where he'd be somewhat more tolerant about reducing a Nazi to a meat pancake... but the day hadn't gotten that bad yet. And besides, he needed her alive. The combination of water and concrete dust was slowly caking him, not doing much to improve his current mood. 

Eventually, there was the washed-out wreckage of an office complex. And after that, there was daylight, and Joe looking like a very pissed-off golem carrying a knocked-out SHADOW member. Which made things very inconvenient for the staffers who were trying to explain things to the fire brigade. 

"Don't think your boss is coming back. Probably had an escape submarine down there." 

[Avenger Assembled]

Nina tarried inside the building for a few minutes, long enough to feel the distant vibrations of the explosion beneath her feet, and to make sure all eyes were on them before she chose to make an entrance - an entrance rather more dramatic than Joe's. "BEHOLD!" Monsoon shouted as she erupted into view, water briefly cascading upwards to silhouette the outline of her blue and white costume as she hovered above the crowd below. She was immaculately clean despite the filthy water, a very pleasant effect of her powers. "We have crushed those who sought to bring disorder and chaos to your nation, defeated a terrorist plot that would have murdered your innocent citizens, and captured the telepathic filth who was the cause of all this madness!" She pointed dramatically to Cannonade's prisoner. "I...oh!" Drat - Cannonade was having a moment. Well, never let it be said I'm not a team player. "And you owe it all to this all-American hero!" 

Edited April 26, 2015 by Avenger Assembled

[trollthumper]

Joe quickly realized he'd just barged out of there, carrying an unconscious woman in SHADOW garb. That had been a dumb idea. Goddamn undercover work...

Fortunately, there was a solution. He laid the unconscious psychic out on the ground, and tapped his earpiece. "Hey, Brooks?" he said. "You still got the translator feed up?"

"We can get one up. This your idea of subtle?"

"Hey, they started it."

"I'd bitch, but that's pretty much the main axiom of geopolitics. Go ahead."

He stood before the crowd. "We were tracing the activities of the UNG," he said in passable Dutch. "There were too many discrepancies. Too many strange investments, too many irrational movements... the party seemed to be taking orders from outside the country." He pointed to the unconscious woman. "This is who pulls the strings - SHADOW! The party doesn't want a true Netherlands! It wants another fascist fiefdom for terrorists!"

"You... bastard!" From the thick of the crowd emerged Britt Kappel, the supposed second-in-command to the party. Fire blazed in her eyes. Joe was somewhat impressed - most politicians would take this as a sign to head for the border with a suitcase full of cash and a fake passport, but she was going to ride it out until the end. "You're nothing but a fraud! This is nothing but a sham! The Americans think they can come in here and tell us who we are. They think people will actually buy this sham! Who pulls your strings?"

[Avenger Assembled]

While Cannonade bandied words with the crowd, Monsoon took a moment to text Mark. "ALMOST DONE W/TRIP - CALL SOON BB." By the time she turned back to the conversation, Joe was exchanging hot words with the Dutch nationalist leader - words that Nina was ready to answer! The image in Nina's head was clear as spring water - she would smash the woman to the ground, stand on her neck, and shout "ME, YOU FOOLS!" as the crowd gasped in horror. Buuut that wouldn't really help anything, especially with Joe likely to resist even after they'd just fought the enemy together. Maybe I should call Mark - he'd be good at this. But no, she'd decided; she'd started on this mission to do her own thing, and she wasn't about to miss the goal now that they were so close to the end. 

"I have called myself your enemy today," she told the crowd. "But in truth, a nation's greatness is measured by its enemies." She locked eyes with the nationalist leader as if memorizing her face for later. "Be greater than this!" she told the crowd as she gestured to Kappel. "Be greater than your fear!" 

[trollthumper]

Kappel tried to stand defiant in the face of Nina's retort, but it seemed that something of the fire had gone out. "This is not your country, girl," she said. "On every conceivable level, this is not your country. You would dare call me an enemy of this land? When I've sweat for it? Bled for it?"

"No, go on," he said. "Say 'kill for it.' You know you want to." He pointed to the unconscious empath on the ground. "Let me guess. You believed your people would know right from wrong. The right words, the right sentiments, the right targets, and they'd rise up with the right outrage. But you needed something to really get them on your side, something that'd convince the normal people of Amsterdam to take up arms. You had to make your own enemy. And hey - if they didn't buy it, maybe you'd make them really angry."

"Why do you keep telling lies? This is nothing! This is a farce! You can't stand to see us stand tall, and you have to cut us down with falsehoods!"

"Hey. You wanna keep calling BS, there's a whole lot of wrecked secret base right under that warehouse. You wanna tell me someone did some secret renovations on your headquarters and you didn't know crap about it?"