Log:Day of the Deadly Diorama, Scene 1

Day of the Deadly Diorama 2006/12/02 	 Cliff Worth Ivy Lightning Lorelei Kibin Xing-Liu 1

Early this morning, a call goes out to Starguard and to others heroes from the museum curator. The curator didn't wish to discuss the matter over the phone, instead insisting that it was an urgent matter that required an in-person conversation.

Lightning arrives in typical fashion, flying through the main doors, lit by her own power. Her hair and skirt flutter in the unseen ion wind, and she alights in the center of the floor. Tourists stop taking pictures of the artwork, and turn their cameras on her. "Please," she says, smiling, "no flash photography!"

Lorelei arrives only a bit later, and less conspicously since she's not flying. It makes a change that all eyes aren't on her!

Ashton arrives in a normal fashion, walking through the doors a little bit after Lightning and Lorelei, with practically no eyes on him. Not that that's a bad thing, though.

Exploration of an art museum has been selected as the day's activity for Xing-Liu. While the artwork itself is often confusing, it's still interesting to view and sometimes makes enough sense to be smile-worthy. When the cameras start to click in unison and in a specific direction, she's made aware of the presence of costumed hero entering via flight. She is wearing a hood to keep her most glaring feature from being visible from Line-of-Sight, and it is this hooded asian girl who nears the evident call-responding Lightning.

Lightning smiles at Xing-Liu, but her eyes go on past to Lorelei. "Lor! I saw your work in Vogue last month. Nice shoot!"

Vanessa Parsons, the museum curator, is near the entrance. She's a stout woman in her fifties, with red hair and glasses that give her face an owlish look. She walks over to the heroes, her shoes clacking on the marble floors. "Lighting, Lorelei... Kibin. I'm glad that you all could make it."

Ashton nods to Vanessa, asking her, "What did you need?"

Lorelei says, "Oh - uh, thanks!" Lorelei is rather taken aback. She's actually very much a fan of Lightning's - in awe, really, of how she handles the public - and the praise was a surprise to her. "Thanks for giving me the encouragment to get started - oh!"

Lorelei remembers the business at hand!

Lightning grins at her fellow model, then turns to Vanessa. "How can we help, Ms. Parsons?" She ignores the cameras that have gone mad as Lorelei joins her in the middle of the floor.

Lorelei pretty much ignore the cameras too - she's used to them by now.

"You see," Vanessa begins, "There's a bit of a situation. I couldn't discuss it over the phone, but it's a little sensitive. Follow me please..." She turns and begins to walk through the museum, heading for the alien exhibit wing.

With hands held in her pockets, head tilted downward slightly to make recognition of herself harder, Xing-Liu shows a slight smile in reply to Lightning's. She stands behind Ms, Parsons, facing a bit to the right rather than the speaking curator, listening in without making herself very noteworthy.

...not very noteworthy, until she starts following.

Ashton follows, getting distracted by the occasional painting.

Lightning pats Xing-Liu's shoulder as she goes by, following Ms. Parsons. "You picked the wrong people to call if you wnated this to be handled discretely," she teases.

Lorelei heads after Vanessa. Of course, peope with the cameras are inclined to follow, so it's not clear how this aids privacy.

Lorelei says, "let me guess - it was easy to reach us through our agents?"

Vanessa sighs slightly, responding to Lightning. "Perhaps you are right... Things will be easier once we're in the alien exhibition wing."

Lorelei says, "Hm, actually, *did* you get my number through the agency? If so, I imagine Cliff will be along soon - they're terrified of my going out in public without him...."

Xing-Liu gives a slight nod toward Lightning, even now keeping her low-profile act going in spite of the light flashes and obvious following.

Lightning links her arm through Lorelei's, enjoying the attention, and smiling like the sun. "We're at your disposal, ma'am," she says, "whichever wing you'd like us in."

Ashton follows Vanessa quietly.

The Alien Exhibition Wing lies ahead, and a handful of security guard stand by the entrance. Signs at the entrance to the wing announce a number of exhibits: Centauri sculpture, model starships, and miniature scale model of the Starguard team in action. The largest announcement is for a soon-to-be-opened display: The Star of N'Grral.

Signs also state that the wing is closed today, due to a new installation.

Lightning pauses by a model of StarDancer's saucer, and laughs. She looks at Lorelei. "You know, my first professional gig was with one of these."

Lorelei had forgotten how impressive some of this was: she hasn't visited since she first arrived in the city. "Cool. I've done a shoot at the sight of the orginal landing, but never with anything like that."

Lightning grins. "It was a niche publication... 'Starship Modeler'. I think they mostly just wanted me to hold the model in the pictures so they could have some breasts in the magazine."

Vanessa leads the group of heroes past security and into the wing proper. The trailing crowd of photographs gets blocked off by the guards.

Lorelei nods. "I've done one ot two shoots for otherwise dull magazine."

Lightning turns around as they pass through the cordon of guards, and blows kisses to the photographers.

Surprisingly allowed to follow, Xing-Liu seems puzzled for a moment until she considers Lightning's overt signs of acceptance as part of the group. Still, she remains unchanged in her outward appearance.

Lorelei says, "I must remember that - if I need to get away from people, the security here can - oh, there he is!"

Lorelei points at Cliff, looking less cool than usual as he runs to catch up.

Lorelei drops Cliff Worth.

Lightning hmms at Lorelei. "I often find that flying helps...."

The Starguard exhibition has a displays of Starguard bases and equipment. There's a group of action-figure sized miniatures: Random Factor, Barricade, Kibin, Amber and Azure fighting some alien creature.

Lorelei says, "Ah. I was about to ask if you never found the attention too much! I don't really have that option - oh, don't worry, boys, he's with me!"

Security checks with Vanessa, who give a nod. Cliff is allowed to pass.

Lightning goes on following along behind Ms. Parsons, and shares with Lorelei, "The public has made me a very wealthy woman, and I do try to live up to their expectations of me, in return. But, yes... everyone has times they'd rather be alone."

[To Lightning] Lorelei says, "This is Cliff, my bodyguard. The agency insists!"

Now that the group is safely away from outside eyes and ears, Vanessa explains: "Here is the problem... The Star of N'Grall has been stolen."

Xing-Liu seems almost surprised by the mention of something being stolen and the response to such a thing. Her face turns toward Vanessa, eyes widening in curiosity.

[To Lightning] Lorelei says, "I thought you must feel that way too sometimes - but I wish I handled it half as well as you!"

[To Lorelei] Lightning says, "The important thing is to always be gracious to the public. Even if you look in their eyes and know they're creepy, and doing obscene things with your picture, you smile and thank them... they're paying your salary."

Lightning turns her attention to Ms. Parsons. "Perhaps I'm not as up on art as I should be... what's this star?"

Ashton asks Vanessa, "Sorry for my ignorance, but what's the Star of N'Grral?"

"As you may know," Vanessa says, "The museum enjoys a cultural exchange program with other worlds in the Guild of Planets..."

Vanessa says, "With great difficulty, we managed to obtain the rights to exhibit the Star of N'Grral. It's actually a piece of a dead star, transformed into a one of a kind crystal..."

Lightning hmms.

Lorelei says to Lightning, "You're right, of course. Sometimes I've lost sight of that - get lost in my own thoughts and don't think enough about - and I'm doing it now!" She starts paying more attention to the matter at hand.

Vanessa says, "One of a kind doesn't begin to describe it. It's of a kind from a thousand worlds. It would be a great diplomatic blow if we failed to recover it, which is why Stargaurd was called."

Lightning looks around, curiously. "And this is where the stone was stolen from? Something like that... it must be massive, right? How massive?"

Cliff asks, "Does it have any value other than it being rare or beautiful? I mean, is it *useful* in any way?"

Xing-Liu nods at Cliff.

Ashton glances down at the diaroma, and peers down on the starguard mini-replicas.

Vanessa says to Cliff: "It's priceless. But besides that, I don't believe it have any special properties."

Lightning clears her throat. "And it weighs how much?"

Lorelei says, "At least it's not an illudium Q-36 space modulator."

Vanessa says, "It's not that large actually. About the size of a fist, but it weighs nearly two tons."

Ashton comments, "Kind of hard for someone to steal it, then."

Lorelei whistles. "So no one slipped it into her purse. What was rhe security on it?"

Lightning nods, and resumes looking around the room.

Vanessa says, "The typical measures: security lasers, motion detectors, sound detectors. We even installed gravitic sensor around the edge of the wing -- if someone removed it, we'd detect the Star's super-dense nature.

Lightning says, "And none of them were tripped?"

Ashton asks Vanessa, "Why not just put the gravitic sensor on the Star itself, and set it to trigger the alarm if it detects that the gravity from it isn't there anymore?"

Vanessa says to Lightning, "None of them. We're checking the security computers to see if they were tampered with. The gravitic sensors are new and on a differect systems -- they seemed to be functioning properly."

Lorelei says, "That's a puzzle. I can imagine someone, say, teleporting it out, but the gravitic sensors should have picked up its suddenly vanishing."

Xing-Liu pulls back her hood then, taking a long breath before she looks thoughtful and looks around for where the crystal probably was.

Lightning points to an empty display stand. "This is where you had it?"

Vanessa nods to Lightning.

Lorelei says, "Do you have any recorded data from any sensors, or cameras? Something that might enable pinpoint a time they were tampered with?"

Lightning leans down, closely examining the display stand. She runs her hands over it lighty, looking for anything that seems out of place.

Xing-Liu stays back to let Lightning do what she was thinking of doing.

Vanessa says to Kibin. "We thought that we had taken proper precautions, those that would protect the Star and allow for the best display. Of course, hindsight is 20-20."

Lorelei says, "This is probably a silly question, but has anyone checked to make sure it's really not there but invisible or someting? That would explain not triggering the gravitic sensors."

Vanessa nods to Lorelei. "I thought that you would ask for that. We've set up a security console for you to view the tapes and records." She points to a computer set up nearby. "Invisible? Not we hadn't thought of that."

Ashton asks Vanessa, "Who's been in contact with it recently?" Kibin wanders over to the display where he's guessing it was stolen from.

Lorelei says, "Well, it's a long shot but might be worth checking!"

Lorelei says, "Um, is our poking about going to trigger alarms?"

Lightning opens the case she's been examining, and reaches through the space the gem would be, if it were here.

Cliff goes over to look at the securoty console.

Vanessa says to Lorelei, "There's a portable version of one of the gravitic sensors by the security console."

The display case feels empty to Lightning's touch.

Lorelei says, "Do you know *when* it went missing at least?"

Vanessa says, "Some time last night."

Ashton hmmms when Vanessa's hand goes through the space where the gem would be. "Maybe it was turned invisible, you thought it was invisible and thus turned the alarm off, and then someone picked it up afterward before we got here?"

Cliff starts looking over the data for any anomalies.

Lightning looks around. "Can someone get me a set of allen wrenches?"

Vanessa replies to Kibin. "We've had security posted around this wing since early thing morning. Besides myself and some trusted security guards, you are the only people to have come into this room since its disappearance.

Cliff says, "Look at this - anomaly from 03:07. This has been tampered with."

Lightning goes on taking the display stand apart, looking for concealed compartments.

Vanessa looks over. "Oh?" She walks over quickly to find out.

Cliff points to the difference on the Starguard diarama.

Lorelei says, "Hm - come to that, is the Starguard display receent?"

A security guard provides Lightning with tools.

Vanessa says, "Hmm. Maybe a week ago, Lorelei."

Lorelei nods. "Probably just chance, then. How long has the star been here?"

Lorelei goes and examines the Starguard display closely anyway.

Ashton asks Vanessa, "How long since it was stolen? If it was a day or so ago, I could probably sniff out where the criminal went, if I knew what scents to ignore..."

Vanessa says, "We were prepared to open the exhibition on Sunday, it's only been here for a couple of nights."

Lightning offers Lorelei tools.

Vanessa says to Kibin. "It would seem that it might have happened at 3 o' clock this morning."

Lorelei says, "Hm, almost certainly not to do with this, then. I wonder why it got knocked then, or whatever. What's the difference, exactly, Cliff?"

Cliff says, "Barricade is posed differently."

Ashton comments, "I thought I saw it move, but that might have just been a trick of the light."

Lightning reaches over and puts a mild electric shock through the Starguard model display.

As Cliff mentions Barricade, the action figure size superhero looks up at Lorelei. In a tiny, high-pitched voice he shouts. "They're onto us!" And with those words, the miniature versions of Random Factor and Kibin spring to action.

Xing-Liu seems a bit surprised by the figures' decision to reveal that they are in fact animate rather than simply part of a display. She takes a quick look for escape routes, and whether the figures are going to attack or just escape, and readies herself.

...The miniatures of Amber and Azure start moving as well.

Kibin changes back into a more combat ready form, waiting to see what the miniature figures are going to do before acting.

Action Figure Random begins barking orders, but from the heroes perspective, it's more of a 'yip'. Barricade, get the rock into the flying van. We'll hold off the good guys!" He raises his fist and it starts to glow with energy -- he's got some kind of blaster mounted in his glove. So do Kibin and Amber and Azure. They all take aim.

Xing-Liu demonstrates her objection by moving to intercept the AF Barricade, leaping to get to the destination of the flying van to interfere with the plans to use it, careful to avoid damaging anything as she wraps hands around the device mid-aerial flip and land with it tucked close to her body, crouching.

Cliff, who seemed to sense the figures were about to do something before they even called out, dives in front of Lorelei!

Cliff's armour keeps him from permanent damage, but he's out of the battle.

Lorelei shouts "Cliff!" as he takes the hit. These things are dangerous but - tiny people or robots? She hopes the former, or her powers are pretty useless. Best to try an obvious power, to test: she strikes a trademark stunning pose at mini-Random-Factor. If it doesn't affect Ramdom, whom will it affect? :)

Random looks up at Lorelei, seemingly entranced. "My God... They're *huge*... Ungh!" He staggers slightly from the effect of Lorelei's pose, but shakes it off.

Mini-Barricade says, "Boss, I think that's Fist -- and she's got our escape route."

Lightning 's forcefield pops up, and she spreads her hands wide, throwing an arc between them... not at the Action Figures, but at the display table they're standing on.

Lightning's blast doesn't destroy the table -- it only weakens it. But apparently the table was under a lot of stress. The weakened support groans and falters and the entire display table tilts and topples under the apparent weight of the model of the space alien that Starguard was fighting. The blob-like creature lands on the floor heavily with a marble-chipping Thud!

The entire Action Figure team is spilled onto the floor.

Kibin hmmms. He picks up the tabel, dropping it on the rest of the 'team' on the ground.

Kibin successfully hits them... but it's inneffective, due to some type of protection.

Xing-Liu stands, turning toward the little people with the flying vehicle in hand, hands wrapped around the access points.

A yellow glow encompasses the table as Mini-Barricade tries to wrest the table from Kibin's grasp with some kind of energy beam. The rest of the team gets up and scatters from beneath the table.

Lorelei is delighted to see her attack works at least. And if she could make the real Random faint into his soup (which doesn't make for the best of dates, admittedly) this should be no problem. She bends low over the Random figure, since he seemed to appreciate those particular features last time.

Lightning keeps her hands spread, and the electrical arc between them lashes out again, this time at the model alien.

Mini-Random just stares in slack-limbed awe. "Can't... look... away..."

Lightning nods in satisfaction as the styrene covering melts away, revealing the gem known as the Star of G'Knorr... or, um, whatever it is.

Kibin grabs one of the figures, the mini-Kibin, and holds on tight.

Witnessing the power that the little tiny things can put into lifting objects, XIng-Liu decides not to give up the getaway vehicle, and refrains from simply breaking it due to not knowing who it belongs to. She stands ready to act still.

Kibin tries grabbing the mini-him again like he did before...

Xing-Liu glances at Lorelei, sending a telepathic message that fails to have effect beyond letting her know she wants to send a message.

Barricade tries swatting at Kibin with the table. "Let's see how /you/ like it!"

Kibin blinks as the table breaks over him with barely any effect.

Mini-Amber, Azure, and Kibin fire their blaster gauntlets at Kibin, Lightning, and Xing-Liu. Mini-Random holds open his arms and says to Lorelei, "Come to Papa..."

Lightning snickers. "I guess this is where the term 'needledick' comes from...."

Lightning is struck by the blaster, and goes tumbling skirt over bustier.

The Action Figure's blast sends Lightning crashing backwards into a Centauri sculpture that smashes and falls atop her in a pile.

Xing-Liu flies, meeting wall with the sound of girl meeting wall at high impact, landing in a slump and not moving.

Lorelei keeps bending over to distract the mini-Random. Hoping he collapses before her back does. She tries to open her mind to XL while she's at it.

Lorelei grins and breathes a sigh of relief as Action Random falls over with a grin all over her face. But then loses the look as she notices what happened to Xing-Liu.

Kibin just tries slashing at one of the mini starguard people with his foot.

Ivy sneaks by with a stolen artifact from the Egyption exhibit in hand. Damn those gang bangers black mailing her into this. Huh? What is this a battle. Ivy peers as she isn't sure what to do.

Ivy gasps. "xing liu!!"

Kibin tries the exact same thing as last time, slashing at one of those action figure sized people...

Kibin knocks out Mini-Kibin with that one, and Kibin cheers mentally.

Mini-Kibin slides across the floor, unconscious and disappears beneath a display case.

Mini-Barricade sets aside his display table and turns his tractor beam on the model of the Starguard flying van. He pulls it close and sets it rightside up, next to the Star of N'Grral crystal.

Ivy's eyes light up when she sees the gemstone. . o O (What is going on?)

Mini-Ambers collect the unconscious Random, and Azure fires a blast at Kibin.

Azure's blast is wide.

Lorelei turns to face mini-Barricade and strike a fresh pose for his benefit, figuring he can't load the van if he's drooling at her....

Lorelei grins as the little Barricade stares up at her.

Lightning flies out of the pile of wreckage, a determined look on her face. She lands on top of the stone, and her force-field flickers, down and then up again.

Mini-Azure squeaks: "Lightning... she's got the rock! Get her!"

Ivy gathers up her courage and takes off! She decides to call the real starguard and or police. 911! and whatever sg's number is. She knew Alex gave it to her some time ago.. PDA punch fest! Beep Beep Beep!

Ivy makes sure to not tell the authorities she's a thief as well.

Kibin notices that Xing-Liu doesn't have the van anymore, so he picks up where she left off and grabs the van, taking it away from those action figure thingies.

Kibin...runs with the van. Away from those action figures.

Ivy continues talking to the authorities, while hiding away from the fight in a corridor or something.

Mini-Barricade says to his teammates. "Get her!" He points his blaster at Lightning, and Amber and Azure follow suit.

Ivy whispers. "No not the science museum.. The one on Main Street.. the art museum.. The security? I don't know where they are."

Lightning 's forcefield flickers and goes down, and she's blown across the room, the red of blood blooming where the blasters hit her.

Ivy frowns. "oh no! I have to help them somehow.."

Lorelei figures her *only* chance is to take out Barricade now, to even numbers somewhat. Sure, Kibin has the van, but maybe they don't need it.... Once more she strikes her pose at Barricade, putting all she has into it.

Lorelei looks worried as she's left alone against te three figures.

Kibin hmmms, and once he's out of sight of the figures, he hides the van out of the way.

Ivy hangs up and spots a statue of some sort near those evil figurines. She rushes over and tries to push the LARGE OBJECT over to smash the evil dolls.

A long shadow falls over the action figures. They look up and see the falling stature and try to dive out of the way!

Amber shrieks. "Nooooooooooooooooooo!" She disappears, hidden beneath the fallen statue

Lorelei barely has time to smile at her saviour before resuming the assault on Barricade - surely this time?

Kibin runs back to the battle after concealing the van.

Lorelei breathes a sigh of relief as mini-Barricade falls. Unfortunately, the remaining figure is female....

Ivy looks down at the miniature Azure. She raises her sneaker...

...and steps on mini-Azure. The miniature villain shakes her fist up at Ivy. "Why you stupid..." She seems more angry than hurt.

Still a bit dazed from her adventures into the wall of doom, Xing-Liu makes her way to Action Random and picks him up to examine him, puzzledly seeing whether or not her suspicions are true.

Cliff wakes up, his danger sense ringing in his ears!

Kibin does a final swipe at the mini-Azure, hoping to end this now.

Xing-Liu moves to get between Kibin and the miniature Azure, arms spread, alarmed expression on her instantly no-longer-groggy features.

Mini-Azure looks around. She gets up and starts to run for the wall of the gallery. Her destination seems to be a small air vent by the base of the wall.

Xing-Liu makes a quick attempt to snatch the tiny Azure, frowning at the misguided hand's failure to grasp the desituated figure.

Lorelei dashes over toward the vent, throwing herself down on the floor in front of it to block mini-Azure's escape!

Kibin slashes at the mini-azure, seeing as how mini-kibin wasn't hurt...

Xing-Liu dives to cover the mini-Azure with her body, bracing herself for the blast she expects to come.

Ivy runs over and checks on Lightning.

Cliff pulls himself painfully to his feet and staggers in the direction of Lorelei.

Lightning is very, very, very unconcious.

Xing-Liu lands to cover the tiny Azure with her body, bowling her over and smothering.

Kibin stands back while Xing-Liu takes care of it...

Ivy looks over Lightning for a few moments before realizing she doesn't have the faintest idea what to do.

Xing-Liu stands, reaching to pick up the little Azure and ensure the gun doesn't shoot at anyone.

With MiniAzure in hand, Xing-Liu looks around at the people she hasn't seen in a while. A quietly worried expression is cast at the unconscious Lightning, and a glance that looks as though she's in need of assistance with her new doll.

MiniAzure squeaks. "Let me go! Let me go!" She tries to push and twist free.

MiniAzure drops to the ground and starts looking for an escape route. It might be possible to escape from one hero, but three? She raises her arms in the air and says, "Ok, I give up!"

Lorelei remains covering the vent, just in case.

Xing-Liu begins to gather the unconscious other miniature staruguard defamers, looking weary.

Cliff comes and stands protectively by Lorelei for a while. Looking like he might fall over at any moment.

It isn't long after this that Xing-Liu tends to Lightning, revitalizing the fallen heroine.

Vanessa climbs up from behind a particularly heavy-looking sculpture. "The Star.. you've found it!" She sounds delighted.

Vanessa looks around the exhibit hall and starts to take in some of the damage. "Oh my..."

Lorelei gets up and thanks both Cliff and Ivy - for keeping her in the fight and maybe even alive.

Lightning sits up, rubbing her head. "Did someone get the number of that truck?"

Lorelei goes over to Lightning. "Are you ok?"

Cliff makes just-doing-my-job sounds to Lorelei. But is grinning like an idiot once her back is turned.

Lightning nods, slowly getting to her feet. "I think so... did we win?"

Lorelei says, "We did, though it was a near thing for a while. Now what I want to know is who or what these miniature people are!"

Xing-Liu puts her hood back up, sitting down with her back to a wall to rest.

Cliff gradually seems to recover.

Lightning rubs her ribs, and sighs. "Yes... who are our little friends?" She peers at the unconcious Random-alike. "Not actually much of a likeness, is it?"

Vanessa approaches the heroes. "I must thank you for your help with this matter..." She sounds grateful, but distressed by the situation.

Lorelei says, "I hope - the other items weren't quite as valuable or irreplaceable?"

Vanessa sighs. "All the works are important -- It will be a disappointment to our off-world colleagues. But if we'd lost the Star it would have been close to an interstellar incident. We will manage."

Lightning nods, and stretches. "You better get a derrick in here to move the star... and maybe some increased security."

Lorelei nods. "That's about what I thought - I'm sorry." She looks about. "At least most of it is intact, but the Centauri statuary...."

Now that Lightning is up and active, Ivy steps away while no one is looking, sneaking behind a display case and then slowly sinking intangibly through the floor, with her Egyptian antique booty in hand...

Vanessa nods. "Increased security indeed. I don't know what to say about the Starguard exhibit though. It was donated by a reputable benefactor of the Museum."

Lightning pats Xing-Liu's shoulder, waves at Lorelei, and quietly follows Ivy out.

Lightning leaves Art Museum and enters Main Street.

Lorelei says, "Oh? Who is that?"

Vanessa says, "I can send you the information, Lorelei. For now, I'll need to attend to the exhibits here. I'm fearing that we will be closed for another week now..."

Xing-Liu rises, and once again she is gone from view as she departs the museum, head covered by hood, hands in pockets.