ic Waiting for the Green (IC)

[Tiffany Korta]

 

Downtown Emerald City, Oregon

10 am PDT, 1st August 2016

 

Emerald City the little city that could a glittering beacon of new opportunities as it embraced the future head on. And whilst it was no Freedom City it even had a few of it’s own superheroes a sign to many that a city had finally made it to the big leagues.

 

But it wasn’t just the law abiding that were drawn to Emerald City, many criminal sorts were also drawn to the city. After all there were so few heroes and so many chances to make you fortune, why not try to make your fortune the easy way.

 

Such was obviously the case for the guy sat in the car idling outside of Emerald Cities First National, he and his fellows were out to make a unofficial withdrawn.

 

Unfortunately for him he’d attracted the attention of Emerald Cities heroes.

[Tiffany Korta]

 

Perched on a nearby building overlooking the bank Emerald Spider watched the car with some interest. She’d missed the gang entering the back, Peri had been working on a nearby unit and had only noticed because she’d been taking a shortcut. The lack of activity suggested they hadn’t started yet and it was only a simple bank robbery, the ECPD were pretty efficient and could probably handle it without her. But it wasn’t in her nature to let any crime happen if she could help it, she couldn’t take the chance that someone might get hurt because she didn’t get involved.

 

Shifting in her position, the Spdr Rig didn’t really allow her to crouch for long comfortably, she prepared to swing down to surprise the poor getaway driver.

[Avenger Assembled]

Across the river in Washington, Citizen floated in mid-air over a half-built urban landscape, his eyes on the security camera footage from the bank. Property crimes were easy - as long as no Terrans were being hurt, you waited until the thieves were far away from civilians before moving in. That kept them from panicking and taking hostages, opening fire on the crowd, or otherwise turning the theft of dollars into the theft of lives. Sharl had learned that lesson back at Claremont. He might have simply let the robbers go - if not for the young heroine he didn't recognize moving towards the scene with familiar intent. Stars above, there are only 300 million people in this nation - why can't they just send all the people with powers to train at Claremont? That was not a helpful thought, though, especially in a city with so few superhumans. Just like Tronik - if Tronik had been bizarrely low and flat, spread out across an ancient river mouth like Eliza's buttered toast.. 

 

A few moments after Emerald Spider headed for the getaway driver, Citizen erupted from the brand-new Archetech complex on the north side of the Columbia River and rocketed towards the bank across the river, the electromagnetic engine inside his android body propelling him at close to super-sonic speeds for the moment or two it took to reach the skyline of the other Emerald City. A man in the sky was something new here; but focused on the mission as he was, Citizen didn't even look down as the people below began pointing and taking pictures, his black coat rippling behind him against the blue-grey sky overhead and that small, distant little yellow Sun. 

[Ari]

'This is stupid'

 

Shoving the black mask over his head, the Salmon chanced a glance out of the very clean alley to the very meticulously-organized crime going on across the street, his gaudy orange eyes drinking in the unfamiliar sight. The plan was simple enough. Bank heists hardly ever happened, and cars were relatively sparse in ECS, so a bank job and a big chase would do great for drawing attention away from the real plan. Or, more accurately, the real plant.

 

'That's Shinji all right. He's used to this stuff, he'll keep things on an even keel, but those other guys...' Open crime like this was rare for many reasons and the biggest was that nobody wanted to risk their men actually getting charged with anything that left too much for a few whispers and exchanges to lighten. Like robbing a bank while armed with guns which really needed safeties. The Mafiya men were always itching to shoot something, and this was exactly the sort of situation where you needed less excitable sorts, like the Dragons. The odds they'd just shoot somebody to send a message-

 

'Guh, not helping, brain' Pressing back against the egg-white wall of the office, the Salmon took a deep breath and pulled at what he'd so recently learned how to do.

 

In a black-green blur, the Salmon raced around the building and swung around the back of the bank, diving into cover behind some dumpsters. Huddling into a crouch and pressing one hand against the bank's wall, the masked man struggled to make sense of what was going on inside, his enhanced vibration sense little better than pressing an ear against a door.

 

'Can't just run in, gotta wait until they're leaving...' Ishmael had no intention of trying to attack a bunch of tense, edgy guys with guns, even if he knew intellectually he could probably evade them with ease. Even his teenaged bravado quailed at the idea of screwing with Mafiya soldiers.

[Tiffany Korta]

With an impressive leap into the air Emerald Spider made the appropriate hand motion send a tread of force into the air, which looked like a thin white cord with several similar cords winding around it, after a few seconds it was joined by a seconds by as she swing downwards toward the streets. The fall was calculated to almost perfection by Peri, when she’d studied physics problems like this she hadn’t figures she’d be the one doing all the falling.

The last few meters was a rather athletic tumble, which wasn’t necessary but looked rather impressive, a landed with a small thump on the roof of the car in a crouch.

[Avenger Assembled]

With the battle joined, Citizen decided there was no choice. If there was going to be a fight, it needed to be with the hero who could take the bullets - . He landed on the sidewalk between Emerald Spider, the startled getaway driver, and the bank crew itself. Throwing open the bank doors, he declared, "Gentlemen! Ladies! I need to open an account. Can someone help me?" He strode inside, fearlessly casting his gaze over robber and patron alike. 

 

As he spoke, the radio in the getaway car crackled to life, speaking directly to the man inside. "Surrender, idiot, or she's going to beat the crap out of you!" The words were clearly in the voice of the flying man who'd just strode into the bank building. 

[Ari]

Initially, the sudden jarring shock of a metal man landing on the sidewalk almost had the Salmon darting away into the streets. Luckily, he managed to master himself and peeked out to see the weird man in the coat who had been flying around ECN the last few months. Letting out a sigh of inexpressible relief that, at least for today, he was spared having to tangle with either the jocular and super-dense Anvil or the Steel Shogun himself, and wondering vaguely why he'd thought either would be sent out just for this, the masked man figured he might as well try and capitalize on the reversal.

 

There was a split-second roar of motion, then there was a slender man in a black and green costume standing heroically beside Citizen, head thrown back and arms akimbo. "Give it up, scumbags! This rogue tide won't let you go! Come on out with your hands up and we won't just come in and get ya!"

 

Please don't recognize me under the mask, that would be nice too.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Ari

[Tiffany Korta]

 

GM Post

 

Whilst the bank robbers were obviously hoping for no superhero activity they had taken a few steps in case trouble started, or they had always be supervillians of some stripe it was sometime difficult to tell with so many way to gain powers there days.

 

One was a hulking brute standing a good head and shoulders above everyone his clothing struggling to contain his muscles. The second was a blur of motion, even when standing still, which probably suggested that he had some kind of speed based powers. The final one didn’t have any obvious powers, but you could never be sure.

[Tiffany Korta]

On a hunch Emerald Spider lent down the side of the car and knocked gently on the driver's window, and was rewarded with the slightly startled robber following her instruction.

 

“Okay let’s not cause any trouble now, hands on the wheel if you please.”

 

When he did indeed put his hands on the wheel she made the hand gestures to web his hands to wheel, well she actually increased the strong nuclear forces causing his hands to be temporally be bounded to the wheel but webbed was just an easier shorthand.

 

The driver hopefully, incapacitated she lept over to the bank itself crawling over the top of the door to beside the other two heroes.

“So tall, dark and Matrix, what do we have today then? Oh and you bought a friend along.” she gave both of the heroes a friendly little wave.

[Avenger Assembled]

Sharl shot Emerald Spider a quick, reassuring smile, then was all business with the villains. "My name is Citizen." He was speaking as much for the cameras as the bad guys, knowing that his reputation on the western coast of this continent wasn't what it had been back east. "I'm the most powerful cybernetic entity in this part of the world." There'd been no reason to disguise his nature, not when the obviously robotic Citizen-1 had been flying around earlier in the year. Given the lack of superactivity in the Emerald Cities, advertising what he was seemed like a safe bet. People who had no experience with robots would be fascinated by one that could talk. "And I'm sure these two need no introduction." He nodded back to Emerald Spider and Salmon, walking himself into the center of the bank's atrium. "You have two choices here. You can surrender now and nobody will be hurt - or you can fight and you'll be hurt worse than anyone else. It's the simple logic of it, gentlebeings, and I would prefer not to hurt anyone today. You don't need to suffer because you needed money. Nobody should." 

[Ari]

"T-th-that's right, alien!" The blur of inchoate motion zipped into the tense space between its comrades and the three heroes, pointing an accusing finger at the monochromatic man of metal "And w-we're not going to let yyy-you make us suffer, either!"

 

Faster than the(human) eye could follow, the speedy thief was suddenly past the crimefighters and encompassing the glittering skyline of Riverfront's downtown with a sweeping gesture "N-none of us wanna be here, it's the daibatsu like M-M-Mars or the r-rest that drive us to c-crime! They automate our j-jobs, push us to quit and conspire with City Hall to crush our unions! They are enemies of all workers, and to steal from them or their minions is nothing less than just and virtuous, to protect them a crime against humanity itself!" The speedster was by now a distorting silhouetted 'X', arms raised and feet planted as their rant went on. There was more, but it rapidly began to lose even its initial fragile coherence.

 

"Uh..." the Salmon squinted behind his glaring mask at the man "Doesn't this bank also have money from other people the Big Five have wronged?"

 

The jittering stopped. There was a flash of movement, a savage "THUD", and the young hero was sent crashing into a nearby car.

 

"You see, alien!" the speedster looked plaintively up at the autonomic intelligence's android housing "All are arrayed against us! Even that murderer who claims to be a hero has it better than me! Join us, fight back against the oppressors! Don't you care about a worthy cause?!"