Log:Metal Zombie Atlas

2013/03/24 	 Anthony Quinn|Quinn Ghost Lia Jolt Scrapper Ten 1

At that time a call comes in from the local PD reporting that the statue of Atlas at the Colonial Trust Plaza is apparently attacking the city.

Ten says, "Statues attacking the city. Finally something that makes sense."

The downtown district, and above all famed York Boulevard, is an area of skyscrapers old and new and the jewel of the city where most of the real money is made. From the lower, older buildings like that of the Colonial Bay Chronicle to the height of the Corporate Tower, the district is alive with bustle through the day; while at night it is well lit by the light of ads and news reporting across the sides of the buildings, and the action is focused on a few clubs and other hotspots.

Ten demonstrates her new trick with the staff to get there - showing off for Quinn, in part. Extending the staff and then using the force of the tractor beams for propulsion, she swings down the city streets at about 130 mph - quite an alarming rate when not much above street level.

Quinn takes the opportunity to slip into something a little more uncomfortable, the side of the van waiting outside opening and extending arms holding the various pieces of his armor and locking them onto his body.

Colonial Trust is the largest insurance company in the city. The plaza in front of their building is decorates with a thirty foot tall metal status of Atlas, complete with the Earth hefted upon his shoulder. Now however, the statue is active and moving and holding the Earth in two hands above its head.

It was pure happenstance that Kun happened to be in the area when the attack started. It took only a few moments to find an out of the way place and slip into his costume. Once done he could move more freely and try to get a good vantage of what was going on with the statue. Take a look around and see if anyone was controlling it for example: Statues don't tend to just get up and move on their own without outside influence.

Ghost is already in the area, remonstrating with the bouncer at the entrance to one of the nightclubs. She wants to get inside to the card game taking place inside, but without ID the bouncer is adverse to admitting an appearant fourteen year old into the club.

People have begun to scatter from the plaza, clearing a twenty meter radius around the statue's feet, but beyond that distance, there's still plenty of people who might get hurt.

Lia /was/ just practicing her magic, most notably, sending bolts of magic into the sky when it happened. "Huh, target pratice..." She mutters, looking at toward the now-alive statue, before muttering, "...I wasn't doing anything involving summoning, was I? No, no I wasn't."

Scrapper must be listening to police scanners, because she teleports into the area well above ground level, smiling and looking for a fight.

Quinn takes a look at the gigantic statue towering over the people. "Ok. Well, this is new," he says, the faceplate of his helmet making his voice electronic and filtered. "Makes me wish I had spent more time working on the Mk. I Titan now. I guess the first thing we need to do is get that globe out of his hands before he throws it at someone."

Ten flips and lands on the street, using the staff again to stop moving instantaneous, then extends it to try to 'sweep' people to safety.

Jolt has made it here, she flies a bit above the ground and takes a look at the statue "You know it's kinda funny how statues attacking the city seem normal compared to the accusations of a bean counter" she admits as she gets ready to see what it's going to do.

Ten's extended staff begins clearing the crowds, but it's slow unless the people listen to her shouts and grab on.

The statue turns and hurls the giant Earth off of shoulders. IT smashes down on York Boulevard and rolls down it smashing cars and store fronts as it barrels toward the support column for the elevated maglev tracks, about 40m away from it.

Ghost mentally curses her unfamilarity with these 'heroes.' She can suggest a suitable tactical response with such limited information. So she does the next best thing. She assumes the heroes know what they are capable of, and stays quiet to not distract them while watching, and recording, the unfolding events.

Ten dashes into the path of the ball, acceletating herslef with the staff and ttrying to deflect it.

Ten slams hard into the globe, causing it to veer off track away from the maglev support but toward a building. She just prays the angle of incidence is slight enough that it will glance off the building rather than going through the wall....

Ten thinks. o O (That thing is heavy.)

Lia hmms at the ball, shrugs and targets the statue. A type of static forms around her hands, turning to spheres of raw magical power, then from those, a narrow beam of this concentrated magical energy is unleashed toward that colossus.

The narrow beam of energy strikes the side of the Colonial Trust building. Luckily no one was in the office struck by the blast but debris hangs precariously on the ledge, threatening to rain down on people three stories below taking cover by the side of the building.

Ghost tells the bouncer, "I'll be back." Spinning round she activates her navy force armor and considers for a split second. Her Spetdod isn't designed to attack anything like that. But maybe the cantrip she's managed to adapt to use here might help. So she moves forward to close the range and casts it, by force of will alone. No gestures or incantations needed. From her eyes a pale blue beam lances out aimed at the statue's feet.

The pale blue beam bathes the statue's feet in its radiance, and suddenly the feet have virtually zero friction. Like slick ice, only more so.

Jolt calls out to the people under the errant attack "Stop standing around and get the hell out of here" she points up

The statue looses it's footing and falls forward onto the ground, cracking the pavement under it's hands as it crashes forward.

Inferno doesn't have a lot of time to act, the rolling ball, the falling statue, the building crumbling above innocents. There's only one thing he has a hope of affecting and he has to prioritize. "Get out of there! Clear the area!" He shouts at the people under the crumbling damaged building but he focuses his energy in another direction. He runs to close the distance between himself and the 'Earth' as best he can while giving himself time to act still and his arms move into a rapid kata leaving behind a taoist symbol in it's wake, tracing in fire that gathers in his hands before he thrusts his hands forwards and a gout of flame burns towards the rolling ball, trying to burn it and destroy it before it can do anymore damage!

The giant sphere begins to melt under the intense blast of heat. It lease momentum as it's warping frame begin to dents and shift, instead of roll.

While Inferno attempts to destroy the rolling globe before it can hit anything Quinn opts for a more hands-on approach, literally. He channels his offensive systems to strength and with a roar of bootjets flies to land directly in the path of the rolling sphere, bracing himself as he attempts to bring it to a halt.

The sphere smacks into Quinn with a resounding clang, its hollow structure making it reverberate like a gong. His feet dig into the asphalt and he is pushed back a few inches but otherwise remains unmoved as he brings the runaway globe to a halt.

Ten dashes back to where the building is crumbling, stretches out her staff and tries to pull the people to safety... She pulls the three people endangered by the collapsing building safely toward her. "There you go. Excuse me now, I have a giant statue to fight."

Scrapper hovers above the battle, looking about for the source of the magic while the battle starts below. A quick glance below confirms that the heavy hitters are doing well and don't yet need her added muscle.

Jolt decides it might be good to just throw a whole lot of electricity at the downed statue. After all it's vulnerable at the moment, might as well take advantage of that. The electrical aura that surrounds her sparks and flickers as she channels her excess energy into a bolt and launches the lightning at the statue

The statue begins to glow red in spots under the strikes of lightning

Lia ughs at her epic miss, but, with Ten taking care of the citizens, she briefly becomes this glowing mass of green magical energy as she seems to instantly flow from her location to one closer to the fallen statue, re-materializing back into her former self on arrival. Once then, closer, she decides to try this again, hopefully she'll just hit the ground if she somehow misses again...

Lia's beam slices into the heated body of the statue like a knife through butter. The force of the beam slams it flat against the pavement, deforming a bit as it's smashed flat.

Ghost is once more amazed at the abilities and sheer power of the superheroes she's watching. However she can continue the trip cantrip and contribute in a small way with that.

Scrapper growls at being unable to track the source of the freshly cast spell and flies *up*, an aerodynamic bubble of force forming around her body for added speed before arcing back down on top of the statue feet first.

"C'mon guys," Scrapper yells, "Stop wasting time with this distraction and help me find the necromancer that made this metal zombie. I think they are still around here!"

Ten says, "Point me at a necromancer and I'll do that. But I wouldn't know one from Adam."

"They needn't be around here to control their minion to the best of my knowledge." Lia shouts back, "They might be, but it's doubtful."

The statue is struggling to get up just as Scrapper slams it flat again.

With the runaway sphere stopped Quinn hefts it in both hands. Boot jets roar as they propel him in a rocket-assisted leap as he attempts to bring the globe crashing down on the downed statue.

Ghost thinks. o O (I do my best to stop it moving so the heroes with ranged attacks can pound it into the ground, and half of them race into hand-to-hand range. Maybe there's so benefit I',m not seeing. Or maybe they're just a bit crazy.)

Ten looks on in awe at Quinn's feat. "Ok, forget the stupid staff. I want some of that armour!"

Wham! The Globe slams down on top of the statue and the two pieces of metal, heated by Inferno's blast and Jolt's lightning become fused together. Together they slump down to the ground in one jumbled heap. The statue stops moving.

Ghost ceases maintaining the cantrip.

Scrapper says to Ghost, "Please tell me all that magical equipment includes tracking software"

Ten looks about. "Ok, we beat up a statue. Robot, or magic? And who's behind it?"

[To Ten] Scrapper says, "Necromancy."

Ghost says, "Yes. Kind of, Scrapper. What do you want to track?"

Lia sighs, and seems slightly disappointed that its already over. Lia stares at her hands, making her green magic crackle from them briefly, before looking to Ten, "Necromancy, yeah."

Inferno is still looking around, "Distraction." He says mostly to himself, wishing he could fly for the umpteenth time and see what might be going on elsewhere.

Scrapper turns to Ghost and repeats, "Necromancy."

Ten says, "I though things had to be dead to do necromancy. I mean, in the sense of once-alive."

Scrapper says, "I don't write the rules, I just hit those that do."

Ten says, "Fair enough. So who do we hit?"

Ghost shakes her head, "Ah. No. Not that. I can't even - see - the Mana field here. It's like being in a room with all the lights turned off. I can track a person or object. That's it."

Lia shrugs, "Not sure. The spell used is a type where you don't need to be /here/ to control the darn thing. I don't have a way of magically tracking things though (yet) so...not sure where to go from here..."

Scrapper inhales as if to yell, then lets the air out slowly. After a calming breath, she says, "If you can't, you can't. I understand. I keep trying to use the little magic on me to do things they were never designed to do, so I understand how frustrating that can be."

Ten says, "Hm. Still know next to nothing about magic. Um, can you do anything, uh, forensic with the statue?"

Ten says, "Oh, duh. Anyone monitoring police channels? If this is a distraction somethin' else is going down. Someone may have noticed."

Scrapper says, "Yes and no. If I see the same spell, cast by the same person, I'll recognize that it is the same person; but mages are rare enough around here that you likely would too."

"I probably could if my wand didn't explode when it completed the spell that let me use magic innately..." Lia mutters. Lia turns to Ten, offering a shrug, "Beyond what I've already noted? Probably not. I'm not an expert in necromancy, or in the way magic is practiced here..."

Scrapper looks to Q, "I don't carry a police scanner with me."

Quinn says, "Hang on," to Ten an runs a quick search on the police channels for anything of interest.

Inferno looks around as all the ideas he had seem to become enacted by others and so he starts to head over to help civilians who may have gotten banged around by the statue or falling building or rolling earth whichever.

Lia relaxes slightly, focusing, before turning directly to a hole in the Colonial Trust building that seems to have been caused by the statue, venturing closer to investigate it.

Beyond the hole, there are a couple of security guards, knocked out. Though one of them moans, stirring to consciousness.

Ghost sighs, "We're looking for a mage who's an idiot. Needing physical presence to hack a computer? Ridiculous."

Lia notes, "More like three mages, given the spell used."

Ghost turns to Lia, "Really? That's worth knowing."

[To Ghost] Scrapper says, "As you have already seen, with most, technology and magic training are mutually exclusive."

Quinn asks, "One mage can't animate a statue like that?"

Ten says, "Three idiots then?"

Ten nods. "Probably because magic takes a lot of work to learn. I think."

"Generally, no, that spell takes the power of three most of the time. I'd hate to go against a mage who could do it all by themselves." Lia notes.

"That, or it's just a ritual requirement of the spell for there to be three mages. Some spells are weird like that." Lia adds.

Ghost nods to Scrapper, "I've seen that. I have a theory. Magic is easier than technology, so technology is discounted when magic capability exists. Our society was different, as we had a high technological base before discovering magic."

Ghost goes back to argue with the club bouncer once more.

Ten says, "oops, I need to get going!"

Ten takes of, swinging on her staff at breakneck spped.

Q nods to Ten. "I've got to go as well and start talking to lawyers, I guess."