Log:Harrisburg Dreams, Scene 7

Harrisburg Dreams 2009/11/17 	 Ferryl Imaginary Girl Lightray Lorelei Sable Spirit 7

Harrisburg Dreams, Final

The Reina Roja Gravfeighter

4PM, November First. 26 hours until the polls close…

The Reina Roja Gravfreighter sits at it's berth at the dock, preparing for departure, several black vans that have just shimmered forth and lost the appearance of ambulances parked outside of it. Ropes are being uncoiled by hooded crewmen in sweatshirts, and the loud howls of the dock echo with working sailors and moving cranes as the horn of the boat bellows. Needing no tugboat, the Gravfreighter is a masterpiece of technology, as a few people still dressed as paramedics walk up the ramp...

Sable staked out the eastern portion of the city, sweeping across the area for ambulances that have failed to track to the nearest medical facility. Having found one she tracks it cautiously, paralleling it's course at a generous distance until it reaches its destination. Once near the port she makes good use of the available t=cover to shadow the vehicle's path, settling into a rooftop eyrie to observe.

Spirit flies along at a good distance up, following the ambulances in carrying Lorelei with him as he flies. She's being held up with his telekinesis. He's not an uncommon sight in the sky, and he keeps a wide berth from teh actual vehicles. After all, it's easy to follow such from the air.

Joseph steps out of a cab a moderate distance from the Reina Roja's berth. He walks the rest of the way in on foot doing his best to look inconspicous. He holds his PDA as if checking bills of lading on crates as he walks towards the ship.

Lorelei keeps an eys on the ambulance too, though this isn't such a natural position for her, and she's slightly nervous being this high up.

Ferryl follows Regan, preferring to stay with the boss lady for this one since she has little clue as to what exactly is going on.

Lorelei says to Spirit, "Not sure how to play this. Stealth is probably needed, but I'm only really of much use when visible."

The boat blows it's horn again, and hooded sailors toss more ropes over the side. With a low, sickening clank, the anchor begins to grind it's way up. As the grinding continues, the Reina Roja's engines begin rumbling to life.

Spirit says, "Well, we're in contact with Sable. She can contact us when she'd like us to dive in. I'm not really sneaky, but I could disguise myself. Honestly, that's not really what I want to do here."

Lorelei nods. "Let the stealthy people go in first."

Sable pauses long enough to scan the vessel's decks for any intrusion detection or weapon's systems before moving forward.

Joseph moves closer to the freighter, seemingly checking crates against a list on his PDA. He pulls a ball cap a bit lower over his eyes, shading his face by chance as he gets closer.

Ferryl looks over things with a thoughtful eye. She glances at Sable to see what she's noticed about the ship.

Joseph makes his way closer to the ship, pausing for a moment when Sable speaks. He murmurs to himself, "Ah, that explains it."

Ferryl speaks, quietly, "looks like you're planning a long jump. Want assist?"

Sable moves forward, changing course to bring her in a wide arc toward the front of the vessel, moving swiftly but still making full use of the crates and machinery that litter the dock to provide cover from the vehicle. She aims for a point that will allow her a view of the anchor while being covered from the deck and lines up her leap.

Sable says, "Sure thing."

Ferryl nods. "I can get us both anywhere on the hull you want, including the sides. Give me a spot."

Sable says, "Let's go for the anchor, then up unto the deck behind the winch-housing"

Ferryl nods. She offers her hand, "Hull around it is safe? I can't see any problems there." She slides her bow over herself, "Hold on to my back." She lines up a leap of her own, and springs in a roughly horizontally-favoring arc.

Spirit continues floating, but moves a little closer, knowing that he's not really that fast a flier. He closes to about 80 meters out from the ship.

Ferryl lands as Sable directs, quickly maneuvering both herself and cargo to the desired location. A thumbs-up on completion of the elaborate maneuver, when it's deemed appropriate to let Sable be ambulatory again.

The crew go about their business as the anchor rises, the deep horn blowing once more as the crew start going about their business. The anchor is about halfway up the bow of the ship.

The crew moves over to begin retracting the gangplank, reaching for the winch.

Joseph stops by the ganglplank and watches it get drawn upwards to the ship. He then turns his back and walks back into the press of crates on the dock, looking for a concealed spot in which to change.

The Anchor makes its way up, slow and grinding, and locks into place, and the deep horn blows once more, the freighter slowly beginning to pull out from it's berth with a dull PNNNG PNNG PNNG noise, alerting those on board to the proximity of other ships.

Ferryl makes her way along to avoid cameras, presumably accompanying Regan as an extra set of eyes. She listens for approaching hostiles before she sees them, preferring to avoid the chance of being spotted.

Spirit is still waiting until the ship is completely clear of the dock before moving in.

The boat slowly makes it's way out past the dock, the low rumble concealing footsteps as crewmen concentrate on their tasks, the light growing darker in the setting sun as the boat begins steaming it's way out to sea...

Spirit starts heading toward the boat, just as it clears the dock proper, perhaps not drawing much attention yet, as he's still a good...50 meters out or so.

Joseph changes into Lightray in the concealment of the crates. He flies up into the air and up into the sky. He spots the wake of the shp and follows it.

The ship continues moving, at about 7 knots per hour, slowly steaming out to sea. As the ship clears the harbor, it begins to shimmer, beginning to become more indistinct....

Spirit continues closing in on the boat, arcing downward toward the water first, to come in at a relatively low trajectory.

Spirit says, "Get ready. We're going to land on the deck shortly. I think we may draw some attention."

Lorelei nods, and tries to see who's on the deck and where they are.

Spirit continues flying, dropping down to below the level of the deck to both build up speed, and to drop out of line of sight of people on the deck. Just as he nears the ship proper, he arcs upward, probably causing Lorelei's stomach to churn just a little bit as they clear the aft railing. He lands, and sets her down behind him, knowing that he's a bit more resilient than she is.

Sable skulks forward in a low duck-walk to what appears to be one of the cargo-hold's control boxes which she starts work on, fishing a series of small tools out of the belt at her waist to circumvent the hold's electric lock, ready to open it at will.

[To Lorelei] Spirit says, "If you need to, get under cover. I can draw fire."

Spirit brings up his light shields. They flicker around his body as he scans the deck, getting the layout down.

Lorelei takes cover till after Spirit has drawn attention.

Sable notices that Spirit seems likely to come under fire and announces into her communicator. "Breaching hold now." With that she connects the wires to throw open the hold doors and peers cautiously inside to view what's within.

Ferryl takes up a spot where she can snipe either at the container or at the door, herself attached to the wall to present an unseen target.

The hold doors grind open to reveal a factory of massive proportions, shimmering bright devices on a conveyor belt, with people strapped into machines, laser beams removing damaged limbs and surgically replacing eyes, changing them into cybernetic monsters when necessary, leaving them as normal as possible when possible. On a catwalk above the ordered mayhem, Devastator stands, wearing a lovely navy suit and his golden helmet with purple goggles. Standing next to him is a woman, wearing a similar helmet, and a ladies business suit. On the catwalk, making the metal groan, is the massive form of the Annihilator. The Devastator looks up, his emotionless helmet staring as the doors open. "It won't be long now." He murmurs as he looks up. "You must be Sable! I've heard so much about you!" He reaches out for the woman's hand and takes it. "So much for Zimm's toys. He's outlived his usefulness. I'm surprised you survived the explosion at the mansion, really. You're very lucky. But the days of needing Zimm to do what I do are over..." He lets out a low chuckle. "If you're here, that means you're where he needs you to be, which means that all I have to do is..."

There is a low crackle, and a massive, floating CGI head of Zachary Zimm floating in the middle of the cargo hold. "I can't believe you led them here." He smiles a little bit, his gaze looking down at the Devastator. "I told you I had one final trump card. If I can't destroy superheroes by making them failures, I'll destroy them by using YOUR superpower, Martin. That's right. The one where you pass energy into objects and people. The one that made you crazy enough to marry your own cousin because she was the only one who can trigger it. The one you gave me oh so much money not to tell anyone about lest anyone discover the reason behind your autistic boy. This vessel's turning around. And I lied to you about it's top speed. It's top speed is three hundred miles an hour. I know you already planned to blow it up. This vessel will crash into Colonial Bay at three hundred miles an hour. I'm pretty sure that at that speed, Lisa's telepathic trigger won't be needed to make the vessel explode. Kiss your city good bye, Martin. I love being in prison."

The vessel makes a horrible grinding noise as it slowly begins turning around...

Sable rises and jumps smoothly onto the catwlk. The closer she is the less likely she is to get zapped again. "You have absolutely no idea how surprising I can be. Nor how much I can hurt you. Surrender now."

Ferryl moves to get a better shot at Devastator and Annihilator, staying out of sight for the moment. "Which one do I draw a bead on?" she asks into the comms quietly.

As the rumbling boat begins to turn, it also rises up slightly above the water, humming and throbbing with a dull roar as the engines expose and water drips away from them. The vehicle also begins to shimmer more, as it begins picking up speed.

Annihilator's bulky form rises upward, flying in it's big thick boots as the hands glow and roar with power. "You will be de..de...destroyed..." He rumbles. "I will turn you into...ashes...syn...syn...synthetic...miscreant..." He lifts his thick, gauntleted hand towards Sable and fires, hovering over the factory below.

Annihilator is clad in silver and black armor, with his faceplate shaped into a massive, bolted skull. His thick heavy gauntlets crackle with strange whitish energy, popping Nuclear Fusion into the night, his gaze glaring down into the crevice.

BAWHOOOM! The blast roars forward, searing past Sable's ear and out into the evening sky, the massive bolt roaring upwards, lighting the sky with brilliant, shining radiation. If anything, Annihilator seems more powerful than ever. "You ca...ca...cannot dodge forever..." He crackles.

Sable springs to one side, grabbing the edge of the catwalk and slinging herself back onto her feet. "I don't need to dodge forever, just until you decide to run away like you did last time."

Lightray moves to the aft of the ship and looks down at the exposed engines. He takes a moment to aim, then lets loose with a blast of sunlight.

There is a strange shimmering pop as the engines shiver there, and the light is drawn in by the paint. The engines continue to hum.

Lightray shakes his head as the light from his glowing form seems to smear slightly towards the ship. "Damn."

Lorelei doesn't really have a grasp of what's going on so isn't sure how best to apply herself. So she moves so just one of the crewmen can see her and, with a smile, strikes her trademark stunning pose.

The crewman turns and his jaw drops open. "Th...that girl..." he manages. "Oh, my..." With a cheerful smile of desire on his face, he tumbles down the stairs and hits his head, falling unconscious.

The twin helmeted forms reach out for each other's hands, and looking outward, the man turns to the woman. "Well..." he says. "If we're going out, let's go out with a bang..." She turns to him and squeezes his hand, and looks out over the battlefield. "I sense one..." She murmurs. "Besides the big one..."

Ferryl takes aim at the man of the two, going for a head-shot to rock him a bit.

"NNNGH!" Devastator gasps as the arrow slams into his bulletproof vest, and he staggers back. He doesn't lose his grip on the woman, and their hands glow with the same shimmering energy as the Annihilator...

Lorelei explodes with white hot light, radiating heat and energy in all directions. There's a FWOOMP noise and a high pitched whine, echoing as the shimmering boat is backlit.

The Cyborgs in the hold move out into the open, aiming at Ferryl and Sable as they peer around and loook for targets. Their cold eyes and freon gun arms aim up into the evening as the grinding boat continues to turn. >From the crew, there is shouting as weapons are drawn and their loud footfalls move forward.

From way up in the sky, the sound of a sonic boom is heard - Imaginary Girl's arriving on the scene, slowing from supersonic speed as she dives down in the direction of everything that's going on, guided in by Annihilator's blast up into the air, a few moments ago. Seeing the boat... she angles her course to go down to it.

Spirit does his best Dragonball Z impression as he builds up the energy in his hands, and then brings his hands forward as he unleashes energy directly into the deck...hopefully overcoming its natural resistance to light.

The Engines creak and groan a little bit, as Spirit chips the paint, revealing the cruel grey metal underneath. The boat begins to whine as the turning radius continues, accelerating as it goes.

Spirit shakes his head..."That didn't work. Time to try something else."

Spirit looks up, noticing Imaginary Girl as she arcs downward toward the boat. He waves, trying to flag her down.

Sable's knees flex slightly while she springs in a smooth forward flip, curling smoothly into a forward roll and spinning. to land gracefully on her feet behind Annihilator, straightening into a low crouch as she turns to face him having landed between the surprisingly nimble giant and the helmeted duo. "Hold your shot till after the big guy Ferryl."

Ferryl waits for opportunity, assessing good places to be to avoid being turned into a dead catlady.

Annihilator turns to fire at Sable, his hand charging up with raw power as the thick, heavy hands glow with power, his fingers charging up with the same high pitched whine, his suit making a WHRRR and a deep KA-CHUNK! His hands roar to life with power, aiming at Sable.

Sable's booted feet shuffle slightly as she fine-tunes her position as Annihilato brings his weapon to bear, leading the not-so-gentle giant's aim toward Devastator and sidekick before she spins in a smooth arabesque, swaying backward to carry herself out of the path of the blast and let it thunder toward the pair behind her.

For all her fancy footwork Sable simply gets smashed by the annihilator's blast which thumps her like a ragdoll against the cat-walk railing.

FRAKOW! The blast slams into Sable's side as the graceful dodge twists her out of most of the way of the impact, spinning her into the ground as the nuclear powered beast in the armored suit. "I t...tol...told you...you can't dodge forever...Ha..ha...ha...hahhhh..." The suit seems to be laughing on it's own.

Imaginary Girl, still moving VERY fast, comes streaking down out of the sky and low over the surface of the water as she sweeps around in an arc and at the aft end of the ship. Leaving a wake in the water behind her, just from the rush of air left by her swift passage, she sweeps past the ship's engines, lashing out with one fist - adding the power of her speed to her already prodigious strength.

The ship lurches hard under the impact as Imaginary Girl rips by the engines, tearing them right off the vessel. A colossal hole opens in the back of the vessel as the boat crashes into the water stern-first, taking on water at a phenomenal rate. Bereft of power, the massive freighter begins tilting upward, crashing into the water and hurling a massive cloud of water skyward.

 Ferryl says, "There are some words I consider profane when it comes to those who possess enough strength to tear a large ship in half. That's one of them."

 Imaginary Girl says, "... I .. .never hit anything when flying that fast, before..."

Sable, though still prone lashes out a hand by instinct and grabs the edge of the catwalk, her hand clenching vice-like around a stanchion in an effort to hold on.

There is a horrid BOOM from inside the boat as cyborgs and crewmen clatter around, hurled about like tenpins as the cyborg processing apparatus goes dead. Screaming erupts as people are hurled from their automated surgical stations. Chaos erupts from machines as lights go dead, and the whole freighter goes dark, a vast dark shadow beginning to sink into a watery grave...

Spirit instinctively jumps upward into the air to avoid the ship dropping out from underneath him. "Well...damn. That was unexpected." He says into his comm, "IG...you better prop up the back of this thing. I'm not sure how well cyborgs float. Probably badly."

Lorelei hangs on tight to the shuddering ship.

As the boat lurches and twists, rising upward and sliding into the water, the woman's hand and the man's split apart. Devastator grabs the nearest catwalk, twisting and jerking as his female counterpart falls into the yawning abyss, lost in the chaos of the jerking bodies, screaming victims, and tortured, twisted metal.

Lightray flies up and over the ship lurches up due to the strike. He is narrowly missed by a piece of debris.

Annihilator's skull like mask howls, the eyes glow red and then turn dark, the suit appears to be on fire with the strange energy nimbus around his hand. A voice speaks, impassioned, cold, mechanical all at once. There is no control, just a bestial, desperate scream. It is the howl of rage and fury of a child who has lost his mother. "MUH...MUH...MAHHMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" The helmet turns to look at Sable, the only enemy he can see in his blind, furious rage. "YOU! YOU KILLED HER! I'LL RIP YOU APART AND EAT YOUR HEART!"

Ferryl mutters about heroes and their need to apply the most amount of force where it's least necessary, changing her location before opening with a shot at Annihilator, to debilitate rather than to damage.

Annihilator twitches a little bit from the arrow, and his head turns slightly towards Ferryl before refocussing on Sable. "YOU'RE DEAD!" He howls, ignoring the arrow as he resists the majority of it's power.

Imaginary Girl loops around and back towards the back end of the ship, trying to find herself as good a place as she can to push... and that's what she starts trying to do, trying to push the ship back around and towards the shallower waters closer to shore.

Spirit gets a better look at the hole, finally. "Oh, geez."

The ship stands nearly straight up in the water like a spear as Imaginary Girl tries to lower it to a more reasonable pushing angle, it slowly begins sinking downward, but it looks like the boat is sinking faster than she can push it. She does slow it down though.

Lightray flies along the vessel to get inside. It looks like he is trying to find people to get to the relative safety of the deck.

Lightray grabs a couple of people from the wreckage of the interior. He directs those who can move to make their way up twoards the deck. He then darts up and out with his burden.

Lorelei does what little she can: she grabs a flotation device (if she can get to one) and leaps free of the sinking ship. Then she looks about for anyone else in the wate in need of saving.

Lorelei swims toward the nearest person to assist.

Sable's lips twist into a determined grimace as she hauls herself bodily up to brace her feet against the catwalk, using one of the railings to gain some footing and allowing her to kick herself in a powerful arc, aiming to sail through the open hold door and out into the water beyond.

Sable's leap carries her out through the side-hole that was formerly on top of the boat as it continues it's heavy slide, plummeting downward towards the water as the roar of liquid filling up from below heaves and gurgles, the superstructure of the ship shaking...

Annihilator glares and rockets out the hole after Sable, catching up to her and firing a powerful bolt of energy at her, the roaring, shrieking blast echoing as the ship shudders below his thick boots and bulky suit. "YOU KILLED HER! I LOVED HER! I LOVED HER! SHE WAS MY MOTHER! KILL YOU! RIP YOUR THROAT OUT! DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

THere is a horrible WHNNK-CHNNK as the gauntlets flare, and blast Sable across the night sky, sending her into the water with a horrible wet splash, hurling up a small cloud of water as the impact connects...

Spirit flies closer to Annihilator, and reaches out with a hand...attempting to drain off some of Annihilator's energy. Knowing that it'll have that odd effect again...but that's what he wants.

Annihilator grunts. "You! Again! How many more will die for killing my mother! HOW MANY! I WILL BUTCHER YOU LIKE ANIMALS! HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAAH!"

Energy pulls out of the Annihilator armor, and toward Spirit's hand. Spirit says, "Your mother may not be dead, butcher. Go look for her."

The black and silver suit shudders as he recoils from Spirit's touch, the machine and man together clanking and whirring in rage and fury.

The arrow slams into the back of nnihilator's helmet as he glares at Spirit, and the boots shut off, the massive armored monster falling backward as his energy field flares, absorbing power into him as he shakes his head back and forth. The hole of the boat swallows him up like a giant mouth as it sinks below the water, Imaginary Girl's strength too taxed to hold it for much longer. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" He howls as the boat echoes with his voice.

Martin Danzinger throws his Devastator helmet away, trying to see more clearly as his heavily armored son falls past him, into the bowels of the ship...His neatly cuffed pants leg catches on the Annihilator's thick, gauntleted fingers, and desperately clutching his father, Annihilator drags Martin Danzinger, his family, and Zachary Zimm's mad scheme down into a dark, cold grave...

Lorelei thrashes about in the water, heaving with the sinking of the swim, getting more people to the float.

Spirit plunges into the water after the ship, getting as much speed as he can before hitting the water, since his flight doesn't actually work underwater. He then grabs onto the ship as it sinks, and tries to reach down with his telekinesis to draw anyone he can out of the ship proper.

When Spirit reaches the bottom of the boat, he finds only Jason Danzinger, struggling to survive in a broken wheelchair, breath for breath as water fills his lungs, his hands clutching his mother's hand as he cradles her. Nearby, Martin Danzinger is impaled on a chunk of metal, the victim of his own magnificent evil. Lisa Danzinger appears to be as dead as her husband.

Spirit tries to pull Jason out, knowing that it's likely that he might not survive anyway. But he has to try.

Spirit is happy to let the wheelchair sink, though. Assuming that it does so. He pulls Jason to the surface, and then helps with the cleanup. "It sucks to be right sometimes."

Lorelei says, "At least you were right. I was wrong... catastrophically wrong...."

Spirit looks over at Jason, who's recovering. "I'm going to guess I'm going to regret pulling him out. He remembered me from the dinner, too."

Spirit says, "He'll be up there with Yellow Jacket on the list of people wanting to kill me."

Ferryl does her best to avoid having to swim, either by going from buoy to buoy or catching a flying person to shore.

Ferryl eventually comes to stand by the gathering heroic types. "So I got to thinking, after I heard the word "whoops". Is it just me or does she seem to make a lot of whoops statements concerning just how much force she is able to exert?"

Spirit nods. "Not sure. I think I've seen it happen twice now."

Spirit says, "And I've had more than that number of incidents like that in my career. And she's been around longer than me."

[To Ferryl] Lorelei says, "It's nothing compared to my mistake. I had lunch with the Danzinger, for heaven's sake! And I had not the slightest clue how nuts they were..... If I'd had the slightest notion all of this might have been stopped before it started...."

Epilogue

"After the boating incident in the Chesapeake where superheroes gathered to stop a mad plan by the Devastator to blow up Colonial Bay, a tragic encounter in which despite heroes best efforts and saving many of the people kidnapped during the Harrsiburg explosions, over a hundred people died. A special election has been called by the City Council of Colonial Bay, to be held on December First, 2059. "Too many accusations of fraud and the lack of a Democratic Opponent to run against Schoffnaus have tainted the entire electoral process." They said in a joint statement.

Jason Danzinger has been relocated to a secure facility where his powers can be studied, and Superhuman Attorney Chandrika Williams has taken his case pro bono, pending further developments. "The real tragedy of this situation is that Jason Danzinger never had a chance from the moment he was born." She was heard to say. "I can't think of a worthier way to make time in my busy schedule." I’m Barbara Wawa, For CBN….

The Federal Corrections Commission Maximum Security Wing. Zachary Zimm's cell. November Second.

Zachary Zimm reviews the footage from shore and lets out a deep, romantic sigh, grinning as he watches Imaginary Girl rip the engines off, upending the boat and watching it sink. He reaches to his plate, and smiles, tearing into the soft, wrapped paper, and pulls off the sweet, sugary top. Laughing, he stops, thinks about it. Then he settles back into his chair, and chews amusedly, taking his first bite out of a raspberry muffin...