Log:Payback, Scene 1

Payback 2009/01/12 	 Jade Payback Silver Shadow Silver Spider Wasp 1

Jade is here because she has to be in town and this seemed the safest place to wait, given that metas usually hang out here. Today,though, they seem thin on the ground. She sits back to a wall where she can see the entrance, and keeps looking down into her open backpack.

Chandrika comes in after a long day, padding upwards towards the counter as she shoulders her briefcase, looking tired as she mops her brow a little bit with a napkin. o O (This stupid mockup is in my briefcase. Weighs twice what the original does. Have to figure out how to reduce it.)

Jade scrutinises Chandrika as much as everyone else coming in. She and her briefcase get checked by the omniscanner, same as everyone else.

Jade wonders what the case is, but in any case it appears not to be a threat. She relaxes a little.

Feng walks in, perhaps a bit odd as he's in a set of work coveralls. Walking in, he heads for the counter with a sigh.

Jade scans Feng too, both with eyes and the scanner in her bag.

SilverShadow phases through the door and slides to the counter. He pulls back his shadows to reveal his face orders some coffee and sits down.

The bell above the door rings as someone comes in. Regulars to the coffee shop would recognize him. Etienne Chabal, a silver-haired French retiree. "Allo, allo, ev'rybody," he says rubbing his arms as he comes in from the outside.

"And to zink... I could 'ave been in Florida with my brother..." he adds.

Jade scans him, just in case, before saying "Bonsoir."

SilverShadow looks up from the table and nods to him, "Eve'ing Etienne."

Chandrika settles into a chair with her usual coffee and sighs. o O (Regan, where are you? I haven't seen you in a week. I hope you didn't go all crazy revenge on Next Gen on me...) She takes a sip and stares off into the ether.

"'ze Silver Shadow, nest-ce pas?" Etienne says. "It has been a while, no?" He walks over towards the counter. On his way, he spots Chandrika. "Allo, Chandrika... How is it going?"

SilverShadow grins and nods, "Yea...but i'm back in town." He takes a sip from his coffee

Chandrika turns to Etienne for a moment. "Hello, sir..." She says. "And it's Chandrika Williams, Attorney at Law..." She hands him a card out of her pocket. "I'm a superhuman specialist, so I don't normally go to traffic court, but if you need a hand with anything weird, I'm your girl."

Jade writes on her PDA between scanning people who enter, writing with seeming urgency. A hot chocolate sits before her.

Etienne reaches for the card and will take Chandrika's hand if she allows. He aims to plant a kiss on the back of her hand. "Oui... I know... I have seen you around here before. It is my pleasure to meet you."

Chandrika smiles a little bit. "Thank you, sir." She giggles a little bit, like a schoolgirl. "If my girlfriend knew I let you do that, she wouldn't be the slightest bit jealous. A gentleman is always welcome to do what a gentleman does."

Wasp arrives back on Earth carrying a large red and white striped O2 container. She drops it off outside the coffee shop and pops inside with the intention of grabbing a quick coffee fix before heading back to NASA and the awful canteen coffee served there.

Etienne smiles and says, "It ees good to have someone who will be jealous for you. I am perhaps a bit jealous of her, I zhink." He continues over toward the counter. "I will have ze usual," he says to the girl working the counter today.

Wasp pushes in through the door, "Hi, everyone."

SilverShadow gives a nod to Wasp, "Another face i haven't seen in years. Good to see you Wasp"

Jade scans Wasp too with the scanner in her bag - but wasn't really expecting her to be an imposter. "Hi!" she calls to the newly-returned hero.

Etienne is a silver-haired French retiree, and a regular customer at the Past Times. He looks over at the Wasp and nods in Greeting. "Allo."

Wasp smiles, "Hello. Yes, it's been a while. Since before the Rift War as I recall. How are you doing, Silvershadow?"

Chandrika blinks as she sees Wasp slip into the room, and idly settles in her chair. o O (I wonder if people really think of me as a predator for handing out my business card.) She takes a sip of her coffee and looks around, as if waiting for someone to arrive.

SilverShadow smiles to Wasp, "Yea, i'm doing well enough back in CB to stay. Japan was driving me a bit crazy but CB seems totally different than what i knew as well...so oh well, grass and greener they say. How are you?"

Wasp nods, "Lots of faces have changed, Silvershadow, but Colonial Bay remains Colonial Bay."

Jade says, "If-you-don't-count-the-D-someone-carved-in-it."

Etienne gets his coffee and turns back to towards the exit. He pauses by Chandrika's table. "I cannot stay... but perhaps I will give you a call... zhere ees a contract zhat I need someone to ah look at."

SilverShadow nods to Wasp, "Can't say it isn't. Still capes crawling all over the coffee and muffins here. Things can't be all that different right?" He grins and finishes his coffee getting a refill at the counter. "Well one more for the road..."

Jade sighs in frustration and puts her PDA-pen down.

Chandrika shrugs. "Yeah, Silver Spider's still around. And so's Knox Pooley. Big surprise, huh?" She says. "You should buy his book, 'Silver Spider and the Moral Decline of Colonial Bay!' It's very popular.

Wasp joins Silvershadow at the counter, waving to Jade and Chandrika in passing.

Etienne heads to the door, looking a little dismayed to not get a goodbye from Chandrika. He steps outside.

[To SilverShadow] Wasp says, "So you're back in the city? Almost starting to be like old times again."

Jade thinks. o O (I'm just going to have to settle for this... I wanted
 * conclusive* proof... but I don't dare delay....)

SilverShadow turns to Wasp, "Yea, its a wierd thought...but New Blood is gone and seems like everyone from it kind of dropped off the face of the planet. Anyhow let me buy you a coffee? what will you have?"

Wasp says, "I know how that feels, Silvershadow. Joey Bolt Fletcher, Rampage, Fortitude. All the heroes I looked up to when I first got here, except for Spirit or Spyhon as he was then, have all retired."

SilverShadow shifts his head to the door. The shadows around him pull themselves over his face obscuring his face. "Well sounds like we got some trouble outside..."

Chandrika turns to Wasp for a moment. "Yeah. I was a teenager when most of those people were around." She takes another sip of her coffee.

Jade says, "Etienne's-in-trouble!" and is running for the door, grabbing her bag.

Wasp follows Jade and Silvershadow out the coffee shop, not waiting to reply to Chandrika.

Jade says, "Sounds-like-he-was-grabbed-by-armed-men-in-a-van-GM-Vanguard-'56-I-think."

Chandrika gets up and heads for the bathroom, making a disgruntled face as she appears to be upset with her coffee. She pops into the bathroom, stowing her clothes in the false ceiling, and comes out as Silver Spider while attention is elsewhere, slipping out the Handicapped entrance near the bathrooms and flipping up onto the top of the diner, extending a webline to swing towards the scene.

Everyone arrives outside in time to see the backdoors over a hover van shut, with Etienne inside. The van is 4" up the street and pulled up onto the curb. Between the coffee shop and the van, by the back doors to the van are a group of armed men.

Payback Payback is a solidly built man, armed to the teeth. He'd look something like a    commando if it weren't for the garish green and gold colors of his uniform. He's    blond haired and in his forties perhaps, with his identity hidden behind a domino mask. His uniform is reinforced with armor plates, but more impressive is his weaponry. He's got pistols, knifes, and grenades on bandoliers. To round out his kit is a laser assault rifle. He's wearing protective goggles (Flash Defense), and he chomps on a cigar.

Payback says to the driver, "Take the package to the delivery point. We'll deal with these guys."

Jade charges the nearest paramilitary armed with a submachinegun and attempts to kick it out of his hands and into her before he can even react.

The gun is kicked into the air and Jade has it in her hands and ready to use in the blink of an eye.

The trooper stares at Jade with bug-eyed amazed.

Silver Spider swings forward onto the lip of the diner, peering down at the hovervan for a moment as she shakes her head. "The problem with hovervehicles is that I'm their biggest fan..." She says sweetly. "That is a pun, but you won't be laughing when it's over..." She swings down, rolling under the hovervehicle in a smooth graceful leap and tumble, firing a big thick clot of webbing up into one of the hoverjets. "Try escaping with THAT in your bonnet."

The van's hover jets groan in a deepening tone until the motors finally seize up.

Wasp was intending to stop the hover van's departure. But before she even gets to react the incredible Silver Spider is on the scene and has done that task. Switching objectives she shrinks and flies in a darting zig-zag path towards the paramilitary agents, kicking out with her feet as she passes by them, and ends her flight some twenty meters down the street behind a trash can.

Wasp misses the first of the agents she was aiming for, and in trying to correct her aim misjudges the follow-up flight path sufficient to miss the remaining agents as well.

Payback raises this rifle and first a burst of lasers at Jade.

Silver Spider looked at Payback.

Payback is quick, but Jade is quicker, tracking where he aimed the gun and staying fractions of an inch ahead of the laser fire. "This-is-why-no-one-wants-to-play-laser-tag-with-me."

Two of the troopers armed with shotguns move to try and flank Silver Spider in a coordinated they fire in a coordinated maneuver. They fire at her.

The disarmed trooper draws his side arm and tries to shoot Jade.

Jade says, "What you-think-bullets-will-hit-when-lasers-won't?"

"UNNGHG" Silver Spider winces as the blast hits, and staggers about, as if mortally wounded. She half falls to the ground, wobbling, and then pops right back up to taunt the agents. "Only kidding..." She shrugs. "So...I'll never be an actress. But you'll always be morons, right?"

Jade thinks. o O (If I can only convince them that shooting at me is a waste of ammuminition...)

Wasp chuckles, Silver Spider just has to wisecrack. "Hey, Silver, next time I'll hit the unmoving van and you go for the dodging guys, okay." she calls out.

SilverShadow flies up into the air and levels a closed fist, locked elbow at Payback, "Yea...your done"

"Alright boys," Payback says, "Looks like we'll be legging it out of here!"

Jade had intended to shoot to disable the van, but judges from the sound that Silver Spider has already managed that. So she shifts the SMG to her left hand and goes to kick the laser gun from the hands of Payback.

Jade had intended to shoot to disable the van, but judges from the sound that Silver Spider has already managed that. So she lets go of the SMG with her left hand and goes to kick the shotgun from the hands of another man - regrefully ignoring Payback, who is too guarded with his weapons.

Jade sends the shotgun, too, flipping through the air, and catches it in her left hand. "Say, how good are you lot at dodging gunfire?" she grins.

Silver Spider flips over to the front of the van and aims for the window, firing at it with a bolt of energy to get at the frenchman trapped within, her fingers launching a bioenergy blast at the windshield of the hovercar to provide entry.

Silver Spider waves hello to the people inside, giving a deft bow as she stands in front of the hovervan. "Hi, Everyone! Please don't adjust your video, I'm sure that the channel will resume normal programming once you reach prison." She gives a cheery tilt of her head. "Are you all right in there?"

There's a frightened driver inside the front of the car. And he begins scrabbling for his pistol.

Etienne seems a little roughed up, but ok. "Oui," he says to Silver Spider.

Silver Spider shouts. "Wasp! Get that guy! Do not let him get a hostage!" She points at the man scrabbling for his pistol inside the van.

Wasp starts to fly back towards the scene, picking a route that lets her see if she can get into the rear of the van through the windscreen now Silver Spider has blasted it out. Seeing she can, she flies inside, and if Etienne is not secured she attempts to grab him and fly him out and away to safety on a rooftop.

Jade finds she's run out of hands for holding her opponents' guns in, so instead she aims the SMG at the remaining shotgun and opens fire.

Wasp flies in at speed, spinning to kick off against the rear doors like a swimmer in a pool, and grabbing Etienne in passing flies out with him and up to take him to safety on a rooftop. "No hostage, Silver Spider. Go get them."

Payback tosses a grenade a Jade, underhand. "Here. Catch."

The shotgun falls to bits under the hail of bullet fire. "Oh-dear you-aren't-good-at-dodging are-you? Maybe-you-should-put-down-your-weapons-before-I-stop-playing-around."

The grenade explodes, showering Jade with white phosporous.

Jade winces as some of the phosphorous gets through her force field.

SilverShadow decides that Payback is too dangerous to have running around. This time he takes a bit extra time in firing. "Your done."

Payback grunts as the blast lift him up and off of his feet. He's knocked back along the pavement...

...but he manages to tumble onto his feet.

Etienne says to Wasp, "Zhank you zank you for saving me..."

Silver Spider peers into the van and looks at the man scrabbling for his weapon as she shakes her head. "Stick around..." She says as she lifts up her hand and tries to engulf him in sticky goo. "Is everyone okay over there?" She peers around the edge of the van as she lets the webbing go...

Silver Spider watches as the webbing wraps up the man scrabbling for his gun. "There. That's better. Mom always needs a few more christmas ornaments before we drink their blood on the web. Just kidding...kidding...you look pretty silly right where you are."

The trapped gunman shouts, "Get me out of here!"

Wasp gives Etienne a smile, "This is what we do. Knowing the person we're saving makes it more personal though." Once out of sight seemingly heading for a landing on the rooftop she's above, she changes direction and flies him down to a alley where he'll be out of sight and safe while she returns to aid her friends.

Silver Spider thinks. o O (It's your sense of humor, Silver Spider. Your jokes are awful. Plug my ears, bury me alive, just don't mock me anymore...)

Jade says Payback, annoyed, "You couldn't play nice could you? This was a nice simple fair fight between a bunch of big guys with guns and an unarmed girl. But NOOOoooo, you had to bring out the white phosphorus. I bet you alway bit people in fights when you were a kid too, huh? Well, now I'm mad!

"Gunh!" The gunfire spins Payback and slams him against the side of the van. He lands on his chest. His still conscious, but he labors to push himself up again.

Payback pushes himself over to a sitting position, leaning his back against the van. "Ugh," he says. "So. We gave it our best shot, and you handled it, no problem. How about we call it a day, and both sides go home."

Jade says, "How-about-you-tell-me-what-this-was-all-about?" while picking bits of white phosphorus out of her force field.

Silver Spider swishes over to a fire hydrant and pops the lid off, putting her hand over it to spray Jade with water to wash the gooey White Phosphorous out of her force field. She gracefully hacks the metal lid off with a well aimed twist, and covers the water as she aims to make a finer spray. "Sorry about your clothes, kiddo! But that force field will go down soon..."

The spray of water from the hydrant douses Jade and helps to wash the incendiary material from her force field. Bits of the dangerous substance end up on the pavement. Once exposed to air, they'll flare up again, but Jade is now safe, between Spider's and her own actions.

Wasp flies back to see what is happening, and seeing that activities appear to have come to a halt for the moment, and that Jade is looking a little crispy as well as wet, she heads to her and if Jade allows sends a healing viral infection to her.

SilverShadow zips down to Jade's side holding an extended fist toward Payback, "So, you going to come quietly or are we going to have to send you to jail directly from the hospital?"

Jade isn't convince the fight is over and so declines Wasp's healing for now, despire an obvious nasty burn.

Jade accepts Wasp's ministration gladly - she has a rather nasty burn.

Silver Spider nods as Payback gives up, sort of, and turns to everyone. "Thanks guys, gotta go. Someone will, no doubt, blame me for the sidewalk business, and this time, it really is my fault, so..." She extends a webline and prepares to swing off. "Contact me on Heronet if you find out why they wanted to kidnap this guy." She vaults up into the air, swinging away and over the Coffee Shop, and is gone...

SilverShadow moves forward, "Well...

Payback dips his cigar to a bit of WP that's drifted his way. He relights it and takes a few puffs. He says, "We weren't properly introduced. The name's payback -- bounty hunter extraordinaire. I don't to these parts much, but really, the really money is overseas anyway."

Silver Spider leaves Bridgend and enters Past Time's Coffee Shop.

Chandrika slips out of the coffee shop, and makes her way home via the maglev, sighing as the cup has lost most of it's heat during the battle...

SilverShadow takes out his PDA and clicks a few buttons calling the police. "I bet...and more importantly CB thats aint the place you wanna do anything illegal friend"

Jade says, "And-who-wants-Etienne and-why?"

Payback says, "We'll make sure of that next time we're back. Y'see, I've got some friends in the Florida Keys who should be about to pick up the Frenchman's brother. And unless you want us to give him a one-way ticket to Zu, you should let us go..."

SilverShadow looks up slowly from his PDA and slides it away, "Please tell me you didnt just say that to me..."

Fist enters from Golden Sands.

SilverShadow approaches the man. The shadows across his body begin to show images of faces in pain and anguish. "I think you have a call to make..."

"The 20s were a pretty wild time in the Southern part of Africa." Payback says. "A lot of things went missing. A guy could disappear with twenty million dollars worth of diamonds. Even easier if he had his brother help him."

Jade thinks. o O (Hm. Perhaps I should bill Etienne for my assistance.)

Wasp says, "In the United States there are courts for such matters. Not mercenary bounty hunters."

SilverShadow extends a shadowy hand search the man for his phone. (Unless of course he does something to stop me..)

Wasp flies back to where she left Etienne. "Do you know where your brother is right this moment? He may be in danger of a kidnapping attempt like this one on you."

Payback levels a glare and Silver Shadow, with his hand hovering over his side holster. "Don't."

Jade raises the SMG at Payback's side holster. "Don't."

The shadows around Silver flare up, "Don't...what? Your going to call off your hit squad or we are goin to have another conversation you arent going to like. I'll also warn you that your bullets and lasers arent going to stop me. I'll phase through them."

Payback adds, "You guys are pretty quick, but I haven't met anyone who's a faster draw. So where was I..." He looks over to Silver Shadow. "They have him by now. Nab both brothers at the same time, so one can't warn the other."

SilverShadow growls deeply, "Then your call just got longer, but its still going to happen.."

Etienne tells Wasp, "We have a winter home, in Key West, Florida... Is he, do you know if he is alright?"

Wasp tells Etienne, "Give me the address, and GPS coordinates if you have them, then call your brother and warn him. I'll head over there and bring him back here."

Etienne gives Wasp the address.

SilverShadow says, "So...we going to play ball or we going to have that conversation?"

Jade quietly watches the men as SilverShadow negotiates, ready to fire on any that makes a move.

Payback says, "Let me and my boys go, and you get the brother. Pretty simple, yeah?"

There's a ear-deafening crack and loud rumbling thunder as air falls back into a miles long tunnel of vacuum drilled into the sky. Wasp is for once using her full flight speed as she heads to the address she's been given.

SilverShadow says, "No...your going to release him in exchange for your own release to the police...how does that sound?"

"It sounds like the Frenchman's brother is going to Zu." Payback says.

SilverShadow reaches stops looking for his phone and slides his stretched arm into Payback. (I thought he was bound so 0 DVC?)

To be concluded...