Log:Enter: Thunderclap!

2018/01/15 	 Daemon Emi Null Orb Thunderclap Unix 1

A thunderous explosion close to Route 9 draws the attention of passing state troopers. When they investigate they come under fire from a man in flying power armor. Requests for assistance come in over the standard emergency channels.

Emi, oddly enough, was in the area, making a delivery to a small industrial concern in on of the various anonymous buildings along the road out of Colonial Bay. Or into Colonial Bay, depending on your perspective. Her head whips around at the sound of the explosion and her tail swishes back and forth in agitation. . o O (Eeek!)

Unix could hear the emergency broadcast. It was less than a minute before with a landing (and leaving a bit of a dent in the ground, and puff of smoke) that Unix arrived, then standing up to look over the area with the state troopers nearby. Approaching she waves. "What's up?"

Aleph|Null is back together again! Villians beware because problems are about to be solved- forcibly if necessary. "Now lets see if you can still swim with the sharks & run with the predators." Daemon said as the alert for the Power Armor ran across his feed. He figures being thrown in the deep end will help jolt his mind back into full working order.

They arrive nearby via hijacked aerial drone.

They both slice through the webbing swings Daemon attached and fall the few feet to the ground. The drone immediately resumes its normal tasks while Daemon activates his stealth systems (invis to sight/sound). He falls in line immediately behind Hunter- using familiar and superior tactics fromt he start.

Much land to the north of Colonial Bay is open countryside. The area around the busy 4-lane Route 9, which leads from Colonial Bay to Washington, is another matter however: service stations, businesses, and even whole towns have sprung up along its length; the highway itself is busy even at night with both conventional and hover-vehicles.

Close to Colonial Bay Route 9 passes between the Transport Nexus to the east and the Green Acres district to the west before one comes to the city proper. At the Hero Lane exit is a landmark of the city: the Protectors Memorial Coliseum, home of the Best of the Best tournaments.

Orb prepares another flight back into Colonial Bay from Cheapeake Nuclear. Whatever thoughts the spherical Orb has are interrupted by the sudden explosion. He flies over to observe, from a hidden position.

Null drops down nimbly and immediately using the terrain to his advantage, staying low and out of sight as they start their approach.

Just off of the highway, a pair of troopers take cover behind their car. The car is smoking from what look to be an energy blast, that's punched through the hood. A power armored figure circles overhead.

As other people approach the scene, the armored individual stops circling and pull up to a hover, 20 meters in the air. "Ok," he says, in an electronically enhanced voice. "Show time!"

Daemon cancels his sound-dampening systems to update his partner. "That suit is broadcasting a coded signal - which I doubt is a good thing. You take point. I'm going to crack it. Call a code 'Black' if you need me to come to your rescue." He's all business til that last bit. That's said teasingly to get Hunter into the right frame of mind here. He may not have powers, but he's the apex predator on the savannah. This is what he does and he's the best at it. He just needs to remember it himself.

Daemon comes to a halt and finds a little cover and then begins analyzing the signal being put out.

He sets all three of his lobes to the task at hand, depending as much on his mutant gift of omni-translation as well as his biotechnical upgrades to do the heavy lifting where computational power is needed. He is a perfect synthesis of man and machine- made to hack and break codes. Though, considering his partner has no memory of that- he's going to have to bring it here today too.

He watches the suit to see if he can get any clues about its makeup, design or creation too.

Orb waits and observes from a behind a building, inside a building, or similar. Orb currently is interested neither in making himself known, nor participating in any combat. More interesting is any observations he can pick up.

Thunderclap points both gauntlets at Unix. They power up with a vrrmm! before he fires twin plasma blasts at Unix, accompanied by a deafening crack of thunder.

Unix sees the electrical charge and seeing she's the target. While it probably wouldn't kill her, it would hurt... a lot... Crouching down before jumping away towards a nearby piece of cover hopefully before she got hit and fried her circuits temporarily.

One of the state troopers calls over to Unix, "Look out!" The other one says: "I don't know what this guy is after. We show up, and he starts shooting!"

"Code black?" Null answers, giving his partner a look. He may not be able to see Daemon, but he can feel his presence, prickling at his hyper-trained senses. He doesn't wait for Daemon to explain the potential pun there. "Radio me when you have answers."

Null looks back towards the power suit guy. He's ready for this, isn't he? He may not remember much of his past, but he still has the reflexes for fighting. Those little training sessions with Daemon brought some of it back. His mind is already trying to analyze the situation to determine what he can do about it. Simulations were all well and good, but this is a power-armored villain.

He sneaks in unseen, appearing in a cloud of smoke after throwing down a smoke pellet. His other hand already hods another set of pellets that he throws towards Thunderclap.

The pellets explode all around Thunderclap. He seems unaffected, turning his attention on Null through his cross-shaped visor.

Emi calls out to the troopers. "H-he's probably some jerk that wants to test his new suit against superheroes! Get out of there and let them fight."

Explosions? Gunfire? Sure sounds like something more interesting than watching traffic crawl by below. That's why Annie banks into a turn and sails down lower towards the more interesting stuff. She pulls up short when there's more zapping, and smoke exploding. Her white-feathered wings flap in a hover as Annie looks to the armored flying guy. She waves a hand. "Hey! You the one blowing shick up? What explodes the best?"

One of the state trooper begins to rise, but ducks back down, fearing a stray blast.

Daemon radios his partner the results of his hacking.

<< Alright, Partner- I've got a rundown. Its a command and control signal. So we're playing with a toy. Toys are easy- finding the driver is going to be a bit more difficult. So I've got a plan... how long do you think you can run interference? >> He asks curiously. Not really because he'll need a lot of time- mostly because he's curious where Hunter is rating himself. How he's feeling- here in the moment. He can't have a partner who will flinch or falter.

Then, the Spyder shoots two weblines onto the top of his cover- then using his superior strength, reflexes and the elasticity of his webs he creates a slingshot- with himself as both the sling and the shot.

It might seem strange that he's pointing away from his target, but then at the apex of his arc he deactivates his invisibility cloak & shoots another line at the suit to yank himself on to it's back.

Daemon gets his line in place on the power armor and then yanks himself to the point of impact, using his spidery cling to stay right in place.

Once there, he places his palms flat on the armor and activates his nanites to compromise these systems immediately.

<< Spread the word, quietly if possible. Keep this thing attacking anything but me. I'm going to see if we can't find out who this little action figure belongs to. >> He says to Null over their radio link.

As soon as the command is made, specialized nanites all empty from cavities in his reinforced bones and from throughout the nanosuit all flood out of specialized nodes in his gauntlets.

The nanites creep over the armored shell like a wave of microscopic baby spiders as they ascertain the location of the suits primary computing systems.

Still, but not idle. Orb sees neither the possibility of lives nor information being permanently lost yet. As such, Orb holds off on intervening in any way for te moment. While observing, thoughts drift. To the field, the ships, and the stars they came from. The emptiness of space. But Orb's appearence does not show all of this. The spherical body merely floats around, flying around only as much as can be moved without compromising the hidden position.

<> Null subvocalizes over their comms. <> He reaches into a pouch on his utility built and grabs a small disc, then flings his hand out towards Thunderclap's chestplate.

The explosive device strikes Thunderclap and blasts him nearly twenty meters laterally, tumbling through the air. His armor seems mostly intact, though.

Annie gets an answer to her question... in the form of Thunderclap getting blasted back thattaways. "Dozy. So we guess its totes YOU that explodes the best!" Annie laughs, because, well, that is hilarious. Not to mention a very creative way to answer! Before asking more, though, she stops hovering and starts flying his way to keep up and catch up. "That why you came out here? To get blown up?"

"I was hoping to get a shot at one of those Starguard guys," Thunderclap says. "You'll have to do!" He zooms up in the air and tries to shake Daemon off with a tight aerial spin.

Thunderclap manages to break free from Daemon in mid-air.

Emi sighs. "Well, I guess I tried." She looks up at the armored villain as it shakes Daemon free and he starts falling. "And that's why I wouldn't want to be a hero. That looks really dangerous." She starts flying away to drop off the package she was delivering. . o O (Should be about time to get to Past Times for Rocky's evening cheesecake delivery!)

Unix gets to her feet effortlessly after having jumped away from the bolt of energy. Looking up and judging where he would be landing Unix moves within a few meters of the slot and warms up her punch...

The Spyder is sent spiralling down to the ground where he lands on the soft earth with a hard thud. A groan escapes his helmet as he hits the ground.

He gets to his feet slowly. "Oh- so that's the Earth." He says sacastically as he looks up.

"Anyone else got any great ideas because that was Plan A." He says to the others as he dusts himself off.

Daemon activates his digistructed claws angrily. He's ready to carve this man out of this armor himself.... if he could just close the gap.

Null runs up to Daemon and winces as he gets up. "So much for plan A," he mutters as he unhooks something from his utility belt. A flick of a switch causes the device to expand into a compound bow while his other hand is already reaching for an arrow from his quiver. "I don't think I'm strong enough to pull him down. All I can really do it hurt him. But I think you'll be fine with that, right, Aleph?" he smirks lightly as he pulls back the string and takes careful aim before loosing the arrow.

The arrows glances off of Thunderclap's armor.

Thunderclap takes a moment to right his position in mid-air before taking aim at the target below him. This time, he targets Null, and unleashes a plasma blast.

Null sidesteps as the plasma bolt makes a black scorchmark on the ground. "Oh yeah. That pissed him off."

Ayesha enters from MagLev System.

Daemon chuckles as he rotates his right shoulder back and forth. Diagnostics show a bit of brusing currently being handled by his nanites. "Hell no. Bring this idiot down." He says with his typical flourish. "Ground his ass for good if you can."

He watches the arrow fly and land- but finds Null's breakdown is more than accurate. He was just pissed off.

He side steps the opposite direction as Null to make sure neither are hit.

Daemon shoots a webline onto part of the concrete structure used to keep water from beneath the road surface of the highway and sets himself up with another Daemon-centric slingshot.

Since his target isn't coming down- he is going up.

At the pinncacle of the launch he shoots out a single High Voltage Stickydisc to close the distance between.

"What the hell?" Thunderclap says as electricity crackles around the exterior of his armor. He looks down at himself, sounding a little puzzled, even through the electronic voice masking.

Well. Orb observes, undetected. But things are looking heating. Orb fears that this could become violent. Sure, Orb might not be able to hear what is being said behind here. But claws coming out suggest angry intentions. Orb decides to remain hidden, but is ready to come out at any time if this escalates any further. Ideally in a way that does not involve attacking.

Editor: ''Thunderclap attempts to fly away. Failing to escape, the armor self-destructs.''