ic Edison vs Tesla 2k17(IC)

[Ari]

GM

 

May 1st, Monday, 2017, 12.45AM

 

Emerald City, Washington, United States, Fort Brewer Naval Base, Sub-level 2, briefing room

 

"This is the only visual we have on your target, uh...Ms. Masterson" Admiral Henry "Hank" Finley was a fit, imposing man at 6'8", with his close-cut greying hair and constant frown softened little by a short spadehead beard. He also clearly had little experience dealing with superhumans. The darkened room he and the other, conspicuously silent, officers were gathered in had enough Cold War atmosphere to choke somebody from the bright and clear Forties. The lights were dimmed to help accentuate the ten-foot-wide picture humming softly in the air.

 

With a slight cough and a swipe of his fingers, the projected image of a distant, misty lump of grey on a time-stamped horizon sharpened and jumped into focus. Hovering above the conference room table, the picture resolved into an island. An island with towering cliffs for shores, great tangles of hanging greenery and a liberal sprinkling of palm trees.

 

"As you can guess, there's nothing like this on any of our charts. Satellite has nothing, even got Argus down here last weekend to scan. Nada." The Old Man of Fort Brewer folded his arms and looked down into the enigma that had brought Mary Masterson, the Torpedo Lass of World War 2, to far-off Emerald City, Washington. "Sent some scouts out, they got to the spot and swear up and down the thing just vanished. But I noticed something."

 

"The sub crew I dispatched along with the other boats, they say it vanished just a little after the others lost track. Could mean nothing, but," Finley turned to Torpedo Lass, a gleam of cunning in his dark eyes "got me thinking somebody who can go faster than anything we've ever built and do it under the surface might stand a chance of clearing this up."

 

"What we're asking is strictly recon, understand. Just get there, take a look around, come back and give us what you get. We give that to Citizen and he takes care of anything dangerous." the admiral shook his head resolutely, and his tone became one Mary was all too familiar with. "I'm not inclined to risk your safety, miss, no matter how bulletproof they tell me you are. I've got kids older than you."

 

May 2nd, Tuesday, 2017, 8.45PM

Liverpool, England, A very nice side-street

 

The hero Dr. Deoxy had needs any human had. Being at the center of artistic life and on the crest of the glittering wave of imagination, for one. So strolling from one dazzling get-together had seemed like a good idea at the time. Just a little shortcut and he'd be back in the circle of greats...

 

Dr. Nathaniel Anderson only knew he was being followed when he felt the sudden shock of lightning, fell spasming to the ground and heard somebody whisper "You. Have been. Thunderstruck!" There was a giddy giggle as the darkness closed comfortably around Nathan's head "Nothing? _{Aw geez, overjuiced...}"

 

A squalid room somewhere

 

The darkness slid away to reveal a room that had once been stark and harrowing. A massive, altar-like table occupied the centre, letting the eye of the Sun in to bathe Nathan in cosmic fire. The rest was gloomy and indistinct, though clearly vast and of the Modernist school. Vines and tree roots reached in through the roof, turning the yellow light a gentle emerald. Other vegetation scrawled across the walls and floor. Somewhere birds chattered and sang.

 

Of more immediate importance was the fact that Dr. Anderson was pinned to the stony bed by some invisible force, preventing movement of any kind.

 

And he wasn't alone. Somewhere close, and getting closer, was the clopping sound of clumsy booted feet making their way towards him...

 

 

Edited May 20, 2017 by Ari

[The Sailor]

Torpedo Lass adjusted the lapel collar on her new suit, the superhero life was rather mean to her last two outfits, as she started to look over the intel. She pulled down her goggles. "Technically, yes, you're right on the age assessment, the years I missed out on don't count, sir." She said with a wink. "I don't mind peeping out something if it helps you guys out."

 

"Lookin' forward to solving this mystery of yours."

 

It wasn't long before she headed to a beach, still quiet awaiting summer, and started off with her swim, staying on the surface at first at a slow speed swimming, before letting air out of her vest to get neutrally buoyant and heading about 30 feet down. It was odd as her chest stopped moving as the last bit of air in her lungs headed to the surface. Her whole body adapted like the flip of a switch, she no longer needed to breathe... but she never really got used to it. Her eyes glowed as she readied to hit top speed.

 

It wasn't more than a couple moments before she was moving at super-cavitation speeds even the Navy's experimental technology groups could not fathom. She could be heard on sonar, yes, but there was little anyone could do when she decided to go full speed ahead.

 

"These new fins actually sorta help." She thought, turning and twisting, causing little momentary whirlpools with her wake as she vectored to the mysterious patch. She knew taking a direct route would be a bad idea, so she zig-zagged, taking indirect routes. Eventually she knew she would be coming up on the thing's visual horizon. She slowed down to a more "reasonible" clip... so as she swam at the surface she wouldn't break the speed of sound with the parts of her body above water... 500mph would suffice... She watched for the thing... getting ready for a pass-by.

 

 

Edited May 20, 2017 by Sailor

[Exaccus]

Nathaniel allowed himself a grunt of discomfort as his attempt to sit up was greeted by some resistant but imperceivable force, Not exactly the kind of headache he'd intended to awaken with when he'd attended that party in Liverpool to be certain but he found himself intrigued none the less, going by the bad pun and the accidental "overjuicing" he'd heard as his conciousness slipped away into darkness he'd wager that some metahuman was involved.

 

instead of trying to fight or struggle he decided it would be a better use of his time and energy to get a better grasp of his immediate surroundings, the crumbling gray walls of concrete and the vegetation overgrowing them lead him to believe that he was in some sort of abandoned and more importantly isolated location.

 

though he couldn't turn his head to look he none the less acknowledges the sound of boots on the floor  as someone moved around beyond the range of his preheiperal visions.

 

"Hmm...Well this is a first, Where am I?" he calls out to the darkness, more of a general curiosity than a panicked demand for information "and Whom might you be?"

[Ari]

GM

 

"Ah! Awake! At last!" A gruff and slightly hoarse old voice barked gleefully, followed by the slap and rustle of powerful and weathered hands being rubbed together.

 

A cheery, muscular man with a beak nose, bushy eyebrows and thick, receding grey hair in a military cut stumped into view. He was dressed in what, fifty years ago, would have been dressing down. Shiny leather working boots, a crisp blue button-up shirt over an impressively broad and impressively hairy chest, thick khaki slacks and a very nice hat with a pair of sunglasses on the brim. A toolbelt was around his waist, full of no tool sold in any store. He smiled down at the captive, steel-blue eyes twinkling.

 

"Good to make your acquaintance, Dr. Anderson! Or should I say...Dr. Deoxy?! Bwahahahahaaaaa-auck!" Gulping and gasping for a second, the man's face worked fantastically before whatever was wrong with him sorted itself out. Coughing a little, he went on blithely "Sorry, got a bit of the congestion. This damned tropical air, I'll bet. Not fit for American lungs! I'm the Conductor-NO!" suddenly his smile was gone and he was pointing a thick forefinger at Nathaniel's face "NOT a lackey of that lie-abed-late lyricist Maestro! I'm my own crook! It's on account of the electric principle of conduction!" The smile was back, as if nothing had happened "Welcome to Doomsday Rock, Dr. Deoxy. I'll admit, it's dilapidated, archaic, crumbling,decrepit, other synonyms of ruinous, but it's the perfect place for our little game."

 

"I've set up a little wager, see, with a young lady from Europe. She thinks she can best one of you super-dupes in half the time I can, just using her know-how, traps and a few slapped-together servitors. I beg to differ! I may have spent the last few decades in a villa on Sunset Hill, but I've not been idle, and I used to match wits with Daedalus himself!"

 

The Conductor gave a sweeping gesture to the eroding room "So, the game is simple: if you can get out of our traps, solve our brain-teasers and keep from activating your armor at moments that'd make the Rock's previous landlord activate his failsafes and bathe the Emerald Cities in lethal doses of radiation, you go free. In return, you promise to forget this, us, and the Doomsday Rock."

 

The Conductor shrugged "Or I can increase the power of the Conductron Shell by 12000%. You are, as all reasoning creatures should be, free to choose."

 

Meanwhile

 

Skimming through the murky grey waters of the northern Pacific, Torpedo Lass soon hit a bank of fog that hadn't been visible on the shore. It thickened until the Emeralds and eventually the Columbia delta and Atlas Range were swallowed up in grey oblivion. Which was right when it opened up in front of Mary to reveal a tower of black volcanic rock jutting from the sea, bathed in the afternoon sun and festooned with greenery.

 

Coming closer, Mary caught the calls of seabirds, floating specks resolving into enormous, screaming flocks nesting in the porous sides of the rocky island. Among those wave-beaten gaps lay at the meeting of the cliff face and the waterline, a rounded tunnel boring through the rock and into a faintly green...something beyond.

 

Approaching even closer, Torpedo Lass could see faint signs of long-abandoned habitation. Blocky concrete towers, satellite dishes, even the remains of an old G.222 caught in the hanging trees. But not a sign of any human life.

Edited May 21, 2017 by Ari

[The Sailor]

Torpedo Lass stopped for a moment, looking over the details of the scene, and sees the tunnel as she topped off her dive vest. "Well, they wanted a proper recon of the area... But this... doesn't seem like the type of weather you'd expect in the Pacific Northwest this time of year... water's too warm..." She thought as she closed the distance to the beach, using the rocks and other features to shield her approach. Then again it didn't seem for the moment she was watched.

 

At this point she starts to snake through the rocky outcroppings as she gets on land.

 

She started to wonder why she was approaching this like some rescue operation, hiding behind rocks...

 

"Stick to the mission, chief... recon and intel... then again, something like this I swear always ends up makin' me get into a squabble. Like that time back in the Navy... I was getting some info on a camp of pirates holding hostages... that ended up rather interesting." She whispered, verbalizing her internal monologue... Shaking her head so she didn't drift off in thought.

 

"Here and now, sailor. Focus." She thought. Steeling herself she starts heading down the tunnel...She'd have to investigate that plane and the buildings later...

Edited May 21, 2017 by Sailor

[Exaccus]

"hmm, so you are aware of my Nom-De-Gur..." he mumbled to himself, that made things difficult but at the same time cleared the air that little bit, whomever they happened to be, they didn't dare attack him openly whilst his armour was as his disposal, nor did they want him to have unrestricted access to its vast array of techno-organic technologies, what little of them he had publicly displayed at least something that emboldened him ever so slightly "well, you certainly know how to drive a bargain...Very well...Lets see what you and your little friend have in store, Im sure it will make the...afternoon?" he guessed looking at what little of the room he could see and the various shadows to make a rough guesstimate "more lively that it would've otherwise been; now if you would be so kind as to release me this position is a little too...compromising for my liking and im eager to get started."

 

Beneath the smarm of his intellectual attitude he felt a small pang of excitement at the prospect of matching his wits against two apparently gadgetry based villains and the dull thrum of anger about this humiliating capture by them, he would enjoy both the competition and his inevitable victory over them both, he was ultimately still human after all, at least for now anyway.

[Ari]

GM

 

"Nom-de-Guerre" Conductor corrected without missing a beat, flipping a small device from his belt into the air above Nathaniel's head, where it stopped in mid-air and began to emit a low-pitched hum. "Used to be the province of mystery knights and such, where the highborn and bloodthirsty would conceal themselves under an assumed pseudonym. French."

 

He beamed "Such a lovely language. I made sure all my grandchildren learned it. Little Emil is already writing sonnets about the Atlas vales. Anyway, you'll feel the pressure dissipate entirely in a few minutes. Give yourself a little longer to get the blood flowing, then...you'll see. Good luck, Dr. Deoxy." With that and another broad grin, the Conductor donned his sunglasses and climbed up the vines groping into the dim chamber, vanishing into the blinding sky above.

 

Elsewhere

 

Darting through the tunnel, Torpedo Lass emerged into a tiny paradise. tropical birds flitted and sang in palm and jungle trees growing in the open bowl that was the island's center. It went for miles, though Mary's vision terminated in just a few hundred feet thanks to the omnipresent and dense mist that cloaked everything. Amid the underbrush she could see lurking animals, a black panther leaping across the river from one enormous branch to another right above her head. Upstream, she could hear and faintly make out a cascading waterfall.

 

Of more immediate importance were the floating balls that drifted and darted through the air above her, painted haphazardly in blue and gold. They had four eyes, one at each end and at opposite sides of the body. All a gentle green. Until one turned in Mary's direction, halting abruptly. Its eyes clustered together to focus on her and it began skimming rapidly closer, a slim pair of prongs emerging from the body that began to crackle with ominous amounts of electricity.

 

[The Sailor]

"I think I saw this in a cheesy horror movie somewhere..." Torpedo Lass said.

 

She grabbed a heavy tree branch as the drone screamed toward her. "Time to see if all that batting practice on the carrier paid off!" She said, swinging. It was a clean hit, as prong parts flew everywhere and the mortally wounded drone laid shaking and sparking on the ground.

 

"Well... if no one knew my pretty face was here... they do now..."

 

Torpedo Lass took to the trees, using her prodigious leaping to go from tree trunk to tree trunk. Hoping she could use the jungle to her advantage. "This is totally against orders, but I'm not a seaman anymore either so... don't mind me, takin' a closer look..." She said with a grin. "Someone doesn't want anyone lookin' at what they're doin' here... Time for me to do a little site inspection."

[Exaccus]

Rather a lover of the classics aren't we? Nathaniel thought to himself as he watched the conductor climbed away into the sunlight he could feel is annoyance intensifying, how had these...Anachronistic armchair intellectuals gotten the drop on him?

 

Swallowing his indignation he waited for the device restraining him to power itself down, relishing the return of his freedom he sat up almost immediately, powering through the dizziness that rushed to his head and stumbling to his feet with his teeth clenched, he first opted to study his surroundings, beginning with the device that had been restraining him, it was a small tip of his foes hand but he would take full advantage, understanding was the first step on the path of adapting, overcoming and eventually conquering adversity.

 

Taking a hefty slab of the shattered and crumbling fortitifcations he brings it down with a cold calculating burst of force, smashing it against the aluminium casings before him till it lays bare the workings of the "Conductron shell." as it had been called...woefully inefficient machinery, that much was obvious from a glance, but never the less a fascinating piece of artwork and after commiting the slightly disturbed though mostly undamaged insides to memory he wastes no time in scavenging it for repurposeable parts.

 

with the use of his armour restricted by the threat of sudden radioactive superabundance laying waste to the local area he would need to have answers outside of his suit

Edited June 5, 2017 by Exaccus

[The Sailor]

Torpedo lass finds a spot that seemed well hidden, some downed trees and other things. She takes cover, observing her surroundings more closely. "Okay... that was a bit of a desperate escape... that moss almost was too slippery... I'll have to consider a more ground-based escape next time." She thought, picking out some slimy moss from between the built-in treads of the "shoes" on the feet of her suit using the edge of one of the swim-flippers she puts on before swimming a spell. "So... what is this place's game..."

[Exaccus]

Using the full capacity of his suits capabilities Nathaniel had no trouble leveraging his genius to create a particularly nasty piece of jamming technology, purpose built and levelled at the design philosophy of his anachronistic antagonist.

 

"Let the games begin." he mumbled to himself as he stood to his full height and after scanning the room one last time heading towards the southern facing door with purpose and more than a little exhilaration in his stride as he readies himself for what is to come.

[Ari]

GM

 

@Exaccus

 

Blessedly, the old quasi-temple to some forgotten ego wasn't a lesson in architectural excess. Exiting to the south took Nathaniel through a few crude concrete corridors with small rooms branching off of them. All were layed out so a single glance could see all inside, even without the long-broken lights in the walls.  A Spartan(literally, faded images of the Doric militarists festooned the walls)bedroom with one rotted end table beside a rusted-out iron bed, a washroom dominated by a broken tank proudly labelled "INFINITE WATER SOURCE", three cramped store rooms filled with now-useless electronics that must have once been the pinnacles of engineering and a kitchen so sparse it was frankly comical. Mold, grout and fungi crawled across the filthy walls.

 

The air was close and damp, something Nathaniel was at liberty to notice now that he wasn't pressed for breath underneath an invisible EM fist. Whatever damp and decay could erode and disintegrate, they had done. As well, great fissures gaped where some past tectonic event had shaken the building to its foundation.

 

Actually, two events. One very recent.

 

Dr. Deoxy arrived at the front door with no incident, guided by the sheer impossibility of going astray. At least, to the foyer's doorway.

 

There he saw the first major obstacle the Conductor had put in his way: 

 

The front door, a massive pair of granite slabs that looked more expensive than Nathaniel's house, had been smashed in and lay in pieces throughout the cavernous, domed front hall. In their place was nothing. 

 

Nothing, that is, except for an obelisk of science, a copper and steel and golden giant stabbing out of the floor like some infernal javelin. Cables thrummed, visible through vents and emerging from the spearhead in a rainbow of thick black cords leading to a small battery mounted to the ceiling. It was covered in roaming cameras that slid noiselessly along its surface, twisting on stalks that let the bloodless Argus watch every inch of the foyer's floor.

 

What the thing would do was unclear. Much more obvious in fuction were the turrets ringing the room, created by attaching crude robotic arms to ball joints welded to the walls.

 

A crackle and hissz of static announced a hidden PA system. Over it sounded the brisk voice of the Conductor, distorted by the old-fashioned radio equipment.

 

"Ah! My favorite opener, the good old 'the floor is death' test! We're starting off easy, so keep in mind the cameras I scavenged could only "see" in a pretty narrow spectrum."

 

"This message was pre-recorded, don't worry. Activated by something thick as a person breaking a little current. Constant surveillance is unsporting, not to mention exceedingly tedious! Good luck."

 

Meanwhile,

 

@Sailor

 

As if in answer to her question, a crystal-clear woman's voice barked out in a heavy European accent.

 

"Attention, intruder! You've just crossed the BIG line! Captain Allspark and I, Tesla reborn, own this island and you are not allowed. I do not know who you think you are, or who you think I am, or if you think at all, frankly, but that's not the point!

 

The point is I'll find you with my badass robots! They will capture you to avenge Orby Boo-Bot #9!

 

Then...

 

...Uh...

 

...I'll...

 

I'll think of something! Bye!"

 

All around Mary the jungle began to seethe and clatter. She could hear things darting and buzzing, scrabbling and leaping, all of them harrying the steaming oddity. Through gaps in the misty canopy she could see squads of the "Orby Boo-Bots" trundle overhead, while in the distance stranger shadows slid from tree to tree.

 

A gust of wind and one small slice of that all-enshrouding fog was briefly thrust aside, revealing something Torpedo Lass had never thought to see again rearing above her. A bulwark and castle of steel sunk into the jungle. Studded with rusted antennae and spotted with RADAR dishes. A battleship bridge. Two masts. A landscape of torn and melted metal she knew all too well.

 

The USS Oklahoma. Something she hadn't seen since she'd been flung through time. The very ship she had been helping tow to her breakup right before that fatal storm and final battle.

 

A cloud of the Orbies swung close to Mary...and veered away to give the wreck a wide berth.

[Exaccus]

Having hurried on past the kitchens in particular, he felt himself irritated and disgusted and more strangely still...deeply distressed due to the separation from his suit, its absence aching like the pain of a phantom limb.

 

He had to be sure however that he wasn't going to set off the radioactive fail-safe so for now he had to endure it.

 

Barely listening to the conductor as he blabbed about tests and experiments he examined the room as he took in the few phrases that caught his attention fully. "Floor of death." and  "only a limited spectrum" in particular catching his ears in particular.

 

Stooping to pick up one the of the smaller fragments of granite door at his feet and carefully ensuring he had as much cover from the turrets as possible tosses it across the room to see if motion would trigger any response from the array of machinery.

 

Edited August 1, 2017 by Exaccus

[Ari]

GM

 

The small grey speck bounced across the floor. For all of second. Then a two-foot square of flat red shone under it.

 

The next it had vanished in a cloud of dust and nigh-identical grey specks and shards exploding out of the ground, blown to nothing by the wall-mounted guns.

 

It was only as the cacophany of bursting rocks and scattering shrapnel died down that a very odd fact was noticed: the guns themselves, for whatever reason, were silent.

 

The obelisk of obstruction(the Disciples: The Following card his nephew had placed entirely too much faith in) gave no sign of pleasure or dismay at is terrible destructive power. At the least some kind of attention would be expected, but the pile of archaic tech turned to far-future application was unfazed.

 

Perhaps it would be best to speak with it. Make some common ground.

[The Sailor]

On 7/30/2017 at 2:37 AM, Ari said:

The USS Oklahoma. Something she hadn't seen since she'd been flung through time. The very ship she had been helping tow to her breakup right before that fatal storm and final battle.

 

"No need for that, girl..." Torpedo Lass said, jumping right at the re-animated wreck of the Oklahoma with one of her prodigious leaps... the honored fallen ship that was devastated during Pearl Harbor... the ship her brother died on... the ship that many other sailors died on... "I'M COMING RIGHT FOR YA!!! RAMMING SPEED!" She said, her eyes glowing brighter than usual in pure rage.

 

She knew those drones would be looking for her, and that was what she wanted. She was gonna get them right into where she could see them on the deck of that desecration of a once great ship. Then she would break all of these little Brat's toys. She was going to enjoy every moment of finding that woman...

 

Needless to say those "orders" were long since disregarded and abandoned.

[Ari]

GM

 

Torpedo Lass

 

With a fizzling snap Mary felt herself pass through something sharp and tingling. Then air rushed through where once something had held it back, and the sky of drones turned and looked. Synthesized growls and howls echoed through the jungle along with the snapping of undergrowth and tread of heavy feet.

 

. The shapes that burst from the jungle and charged into the clearing looked nothing like real animals, however, whirlygigs and tripods propelled them, while wobbling spheres of electricity sent power coursing through the light, eccentric shells.

 

The enormous energy weapons swaying perilously on their backs, on the ends of limbs or gaping from the cores themselves, however, were pretty conventional and clearly deadly

 

"Halt, bobbots!" 

 

With a flare of a long blue coat, a young woman landed on the command tower. Thick yellow goggles covered her eyes, while an unseasonal blue turtleneck blazed with a stylized golden lightning bolt. Thick shin-high boots with flat soles protected her feet. Beside her floated a huge battery pack attached to a sleek silver/gold rifle.

 

The horde had halted at her word and now surrounded the Oklahoma, eyes big, small and mobile fixed on Torpedo Lass.

 

"Comin' right for my Home Base, huh? You even know the superhero rules, American?" the younger woman folded her arms and sized Mary up sourly "One of the retro types, huh? Guess I oughta be glad you've not got a mask and cape."

 

She spread her arms to encompass the whole clearing, including the army of robots "Well, you got me. Now what is next step in your tabarnac li'l plan? You want to scrap? Then get on with it! I got a bet to win! Opa says he can bag him a hero with just some traps, but I'm gonna win this with a little artificial intelligence!"

 

Doctor Deoxy

 

Putting your hands over your ears is usually unwise. It closes off a vital sense and occupies your most important extremities. But this time, it opened up a whole new world.

 

Nathan could feel the web of motion sensors several yards away and covering the floor. Diverting his eyes from the obelisk was suddenly a breeze and he could even feel that he was standing in the path of some kind of focused beam. It thrummed through his flesh and bones even when he was well away from the target ray.

 

There was a trail across the room, looping and periliusly narrow, but stable, leading right to the vacant doorway. All Doctor Deoxy had to do was not make any mistakes.

[Exaccus]

Well there was only one thing for it now, slowly and steadily he steps forth, one foot in front of the other and elbows tucked nearly in front of him as he carefully begins down the path before him, he'd clearly underestimated his opponent, that much was for certain, he'd been expecting lumbering automatons and classic slow death traps but this had taken him by surprise and nearly defeated him.

 

He would have to be far more careful if he was going to win this.

[The Sailor]

Torpedo Lass

 

Mary quirked her eyebrows. "There's rules to this?" She said with a shrug. "Also a cape isn't that hydrodynamic, and the tar flap's harder to grab in a fight." She said, self-consciously adjusting the sailor collar of her "uniform" as she called it. "I was asked by the Navy to investigate this island... to see why it keeps popping up and disappearing. Bit of a navigational hazard." She said. Still looking like she was fuming, looking at the ship. "My Brother was on the Oklahoma when it was brought low at Pearl... you can... understand my anger, no?" She said, tapping her foot on the hull for a moment... then it hit her.

 

"Wait a moment... A bet? There's someone else here?"

 

She looked about, seeing the bots that had surrounded them. "Question, what'cha intend to do once you "got me", eh?"

 

"After all I was sent here to check what was going on with the island and report back to the US Navy what I found... I'm a former sailor myself in that fine branch, and I know what might happen if I don't report back... and it usually involved conventional tomahawk missiles and air-strikes. And that is the basics..."

 

She shrugged. "After all if I don't report back... something brought me low and is probably a big enough threat to use bigger hammers. AEGIS or the Freedom League comes to mind..."

 

"Ain't lying here... fact of the matter. The Military don't like negotiating. Me on the other hand... well..."

 

She grudgingly makes an admission... "You aren't bothering anyone... No laws against high technology. But if you got a fight going on with a rival well... You are in US waters more or less... that's why there's the attention."

 

"So... what IS going on here?"

 

If anything, encouraging this obvious supervillain to monologue her greatness could buy her time to make a plan. This wasn't any pirate or common terrorist... and the last time she went face with a outright supervillain she lost. Perhaps some caution was warranted.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Sailor

[Ari]

GM

 

Torpedo Lass 

 

The younger woman squinted uncertainly at Mary "How could your brother ever be aboard this? That's o'er fifty years ago, he and you'd be olsters-nah, forget it."

 

Waving her own question away, she explained curtly "This place used to be owned by this other American, called himself The Atomic Brain augggggh I will set off all the nukes in the world!" For a second 'Tesla reborn' mimed a zombie-esque creature stomping around. In mid-air.

 

Still stomping, she went on "Didn't want anyone getting too close, so he set up a surveillance system to disconnect the island from this dimension if anything got too close and wasn't following the right approach angles. Me and Opa Ohm decided it'd be perfect for a bet I got with him, that he was the old busted and I am the new hotness."

 

Landing with a thud next to Mary, Tesla jerked a head over at the circling horde of bobbots. "I was going to leave it to my babies while I poked around the island. Found a journal full of stuff in German and Russian, which is lucky 'cause those are my native languages." with a flourish Tesla produced a tattered notebook of a style that was new when Mary was young, flipping through it with a speed that argued strongly that she couldn't possibly read a word "It's got a bunch of "launch site" and "armor aperture" notes in here, was trying to see if I could find a nuke to tinker with when you" she poked Mary in the collarbone with the book "showed up and started smashing my babies!"

 

Nathan

 

The floor under Dr. Deoxy's feet had been sleek marble, black and speckled with grey, resembling the night sky. It also was riven by long, fine cracks and fracture points radiating from collapsed slabs of granite. God only knew what it had sounded like when this place had been trashed.

 

God certainly knew what it sounded like when Nathan stumbled just a little too far off the path.

 

With an almighty SKREEEEEEEch the guns welded to the walls swung as one to converge on him. As one they opened fire, in a roaring hail of crackling cacophony!

 

The barrage pounded against Nathan's skin, hissing and stinging and all but overloading the very nerves-!

 

Wait.

 

Not bullets?

 

Whatever they were, they were all but driving Nathan to his knees, spots and stars flashing and stinging behind his eyes.

[Exaccus]

Grunting with pain as the barrage pounded him onto his knees like a rain of searing ballbearings, his eyes watered a little as his nerves frazzled within his flesh like failing fillaments as whatever these projectiles were coursed through him like wildfire.

 

It was fortunate then that his physical conditioning was greater than his somewhat lanky appearance might've suggested, the reason for this was simple, when he'd first created the chrysalis armour the strain on his body had been unbearable, so he'd turned to self administered excercise and slight genetic modifications to push his body's hardiness to greater heights, enough that he could wear the suit without any more strain than one might suffer from wearing particularly heavy clothing.

 

It was fortunate for him that it was now coming into play outside of his beloved masterpiece enough so at least he could force himself back onto his feet, hands still firmly clamped around his ears and march through the rest of the room with his iron will backed up by his hardened physiology and out through the door

[The Sailor]

Torpedo lass grunted... "Nukes... The greatest mistake this country ever invented..." she thought.

 

"Nukes are pretty dangerous for one to mess with, particularly if they're old... I'd wager they're like... late cold-war era I'd assume? But judgin' by the age of that notebook I'd think older... Back when Stalin was still breathing maybe?"

 

She could read the German... but Russian? Not a chance. She stretched out. She knew there was more here than she'd want to bargain with... she could fight the robots but she wasn't even clear what this mad scientist could accomplish if she's distracted. Judging by her theme she controls electromagnetism and electricity. This'd hurt if she decided to get hostile. "Sie lesen nicht Deutsch, Frau?" [Translation from German: You don't read german, ma'am?]

 

"Kid... I fought in World War II... I know a few things about languages spoke by the Axis... falling into a time-rift can change your perspective."

 

If she could secure the island and deal with this girl, she might be able to make things safer off the US coast... maybe getting her to fight her rival while she disarms these things? She's no genius though... maybe there's some more notes...

 

There was no use acting smug now... this weirdo's got her dead to rights... for now. She sighed holding up her hands. "Well... I know when I'm outnumbered. You guys got some way to communicate with each other in regards to the bet?"

[Ari]

GM

 

Torpedo Lass

 

Eyes flicking back and forth as the pages turned, the girl(this close, it was impossible to think of her as an adult) shrugged and replied in the same language <"Speed-reading, g-ma. Here, take a look. I'll have my babies stand down, deescalate this."> Tesla reborn tossed the notebook to Mary, twisting a dial on her wrist. In response the bobbots audibly toned down, the thrumming and crackling of the colossal streams of energy coursing through them softening to a faint rumble. At a gesture from their creator, the machines retreated into the jungle, the globe robots taking once again to the air and resuming their patrols. 

 

But some eyes still glared, blue and cold, from the shadows.

 

"As for talking, Erik Edison, he's not one for condescending to one of my tender years." Tesla reborn wrinkled her nose and brushed back a lock of blue hair as it was flung into her face by a sudden breeze "That and my tech and his isn't what you'd say as compatible in most respects. He's very dieselpunk, I'm more electropunk. Like if Moebius and Imaishi tried to collaborate on something, just a total clash of style and substance." Turning again to the doohickeys on her wrist, the girl began to swipe and twist and tap at the dizzying inputs "So instead I just send a signal to his robot gofer, Overclock-"

 

A sudden gush of wind, from the opposite direction as last time, and suddenly a red and white android was standing beside the two women. It looked something like a speed-skating bishop, with a conical head swept partly backward, and a sleek, agile design. It stood smartly at attention, two square, electric-yellow eyes watching the pair intently.

 

Tesla smiled warmly at it.

 

"-and here he is! Give him a message, he makes sure Opa gets it. Right, Clocky?"

 

-"Yes."- The robot's voice was a clipped, synthesized chirrup.

 

Nathan

 

Stumbling out of the cracked, decaying hall of long-dead grandeur, Dr. Deoxy found himself at the crest of a tropical hill, a rich, green valley stretching out below him ringed by mist-wrapped rocky cliffs. A deep blue river cut through the granite beside him, originating from a looming, white-capped mountain that reared above him. A mountain that raised, by its very existence, many questions. The citadel towered like a cathedral, ornamented in carvings of great events in the history of science, all coalescing into one single brain above the doorway, marked with 'U92, summum bonum'.

 

The valley was mostly guesswork, of course. It was hard to be sure of anything through the thick mist that covered the island and the mountain. Only the hill on which Nathan stood was free of the stuff, and even then the sun was distant and chilly. Long ago, someone had put a simply unforgivable number of stairs from the top of the hill to what resembled a rocky plateau hundreds of meters down. The jungle had begun encroaching not long after and now choked most of the stairs into green oblivion, the sounds of wild life echoing distantly from within.

 

Unlike the...building, there were no obvious traps.

 

Another set of stairs followed the river up into the mountain. That one vanished into the grey oblivion of a rockslide whose larger debris lay just meters from the great structure.

[Exaccus]

Allowing himself a moment to catch his breath and evacuate his stomach onto the floor (turns out stun blasts and slight hang-overs didn't mix all to well.) Nathan dusts himself off and carried on as steadily as he was able away from the ruined building he'd been in, down towards the rubble that obscured the stairs before him.

 

Attempting to activate his Armour once he felt he'd cleared the building enough to avoid tripping any of its sensors and scanning the foilage as he passed, he was running on a recently emptied stomach and since the suit ran on his own metabolic energies it would not have a lot of power.

[The Sailor]

Torpedo Lass adjusted her drysuit-like bodysuit and started looking through the diary.

 

"I'd be honest... this whole place... this island... whatcha know about it? Outside of the base stuff that's obviously here, and the ship."

 

She starts looking over what she can look at. "Considering the climate of the Pacific Northwest and the climate here which seems far more tropical... do you know anything about it?"

 

That's it Mary... chat her up... although maybe I should keep up my end of the bargain, she might not be as much of a threat the other guy here could be... although trying to kidnap a hero is a bit of a stretch... then again that's between me and the deep. Torpedo Lass thought to herself... she's really walking a tightrope here... but so far, so good.

[Ari]

GM

 

Torpedo Lass

 

Tesla wrinkled her nose "Yah, it's real muggy 'cause the old boss wanted people to be miserable. This whole island used to belong to a guy from another dimension, Edison told me about him. Got kicked out of his home with all his minions and ended up here thanks to the Lor...the locals. Let him grab an old weather machine they got from the Russians, kept him supplied and more or less happy. Died about 20 years ago when the folks from his Earth came calling to tie up loose ends."

 

Dropping down gracelessly to the ship's hull, Tesla patted a spot next to her, pointing up at a dimly-detectable peak off in the distance "That used to be the base, they stored all sorts of crazy stuff. The locals picked that clean years ago, but there's all sorts of other stuff, like this!" She gestured expansively to the Oklahoma "And there's lots of animals and plants, so it's nice to come out and just feel all the nature trying to crawl into your ears. S'great."

 

"They're gonna start using this as a base, according to Edison. Don't like them messing with my vay-cay spot, but what am I gonna do? Can't fight 'em all."

 

 Doctor Deoxy

 

Meanwhile, Deoxy was being chased by a panther.