Log:RACE for Hate

2015/05/06 Forge 1

It's been a rough day at Starguard and a few agents have been asked to guard the front entrance from fanatical protesters, and to maintain the peace so people can come and go undisturbed. There's a lot of angry people with signs with xenophobic writings.

OUR PLANET, OUR CHOICE.

GREENSKINS GO HOME!

WHY DIDN'T STARGUARD PROTECT US??

FIGHT AGAINST ALIEN OPRESSION!

I mean really. The rest of the signs get worse and it gets Godwinned pretty fast. There's always nutters who make humanity look bad. The ambassador and other aliens on staff have gone home for the day, but it didn't stop the protestors from creating a scene and hollaring at anyone that enters Starguard.

Malcolm Gibbs stands along the protest line, dressed in his Starguard BDUs - urban camouflage edition. He has largely been standing around with his arms folded across his chest in an attempt to look intimidating for the vast majority of his shift. Rolling his shoulders, his head, and his eyes, Malcolm tries to ignore the protestors unless they go trying to step out of line.

Fortunately, people stepping out of line seems to be the best excuse for having the ability to sprout prehensile metal cables Malcolm has yet found. C'mon, it's hilarious!

The crowd IS pushing to try and cross the line as a Starguard hovervan pulls up and four agents jump out, escorting a metahuman with cuffs in. Malcolm had heard talk of Rampage being loose in the city. He's an experiment gone wrong, but he has red skin and animalistic features, such as tusks to gore things with, so the protestors assume he's alien and begin to raise up shouts as a few are foolish enough to test Malcolm to try and cross the line with their signs.

"BACK IT UP," shouts Malcolm as he finally unfurls his arms. Metal cables start sprouting from underneath his shirt and tactical vest, stretching out to help reinforce the line. A shame his reach with those cables is only about 4m in any given direction. Even so, Malcolm works on rebuffing protestors as he steps up toward the line proper.

The total 8 meter stretch is enough to hold back the line. A few press right up against the tables, but no one is dumb or daring enough to press up against Malcolm. Aside from 'the usual' insults and slurs hurled at a sedated Rampager, a few people say "Death to the Aliens!" at random, until they get a chant going. The crowd is revolting! There's a joke here somewhere...

Malcolm reaches up to tap the comm button on his headset. Immediately his tactical visor lights up, data from Starguard streaming in as he studies the crowd and relays a general alert about the protestors starting to get their dander up. He flexes his hands, liquid metal seeping out of his skin for a few moments before receding.

Something catches Malcolm's keenly trained eye. A man with a baseball cap and a long coat (in this weather?) seems out of place. In fact, there are two others in the crowd in different long coats as well. With a rustle of movement, the guy's coat opens and the faint gleam of light body armor is spotted. From beneath the coat, he starts to bring an energy rifle to bear.

"Three tangos in the crowd. Energy weapons, long coats, light body armor," shouts Malcolm into his headset's microphone. Moving fluidly, Malcolm draws one arm backward as his body swivels to line up his shot. Liquid metal flows out of the palm of his hand and into the shape of a boomerang as he cocks his hand just so.

A split second later, the Alumarang hurtles outward and toward the gunman. There's a resounding *CRACK* as the Alumarang strikes true and launches the energy rifle out of the would be gunman's hands and to the ground where it skitters and slides across the pavement. Malcolm frowns as his body swathes itself in liquid metal.

Disappointed Forge is disappointed.

As the rifle gets lost in the crowd, the other two tangos get ready and draw out their weapons. "The REAL Allied Champions of Earth will protect the people where Starguard failed!" They take aim at the currently docile Rampager.

Lt. Wrestling Hamilton, one of the escorting agents, steps into the way of the blast. But even his rocky exterior and heavy set body feels the intensity of the blast. He skids back ten meters along his back as he's blasted away from Rampager. The second blast hits Rampager, which causes an angry snort from the boar-like science experiment. He's huge and burly, a bear of a man...

Wrestling Hamilton shakes his head, dazed. "Whatta week. Some jackhole steals my favorite pants, and now this?"

Rampager's jolt from the blast didn't knock him back, but it's starting to stirr him from the sedatives...

"By shooting a random victim of mad science?" demands Forge. His hand comes up as the Alumarang circles back to his hand. Springs emerge from the liquid metal flesh of Forge's legs as he crouches down just enough to build some tension. With a sharp *SPROING*, Forge launches through the air over the heads of the crowd toward the goon whose gun he's taken away.

As his hand clenches into a fist, his biometallic flesh visibly hardens. Forge takes a single swing at Disarmy McDisarmedson's torso with his solid Iron Fist.

The man proves to be better trained that he looks. Baseball caps are deceiving! He scrambles and leaps to the side of the man with the iron fist, trying to find his rifle in the crowd, which is now screaming in panic.

"He's attacking us!"

"We're citizens, we have rights!"

Hamilton gets up arduously. It's rough for a man his size to get up quickly or move fast. He starts stomping his way back to Rampager. "Get him inside now before he starts up again!" he orders the other escorting agents.

Rampager is still groggy from the sedatives, but another shot or two like that, and he might suddenly see clearly again.

McDisarmedson tries to spot his rifle in the mass of panicking people that are quickly about to turn into a stampede to flee. He manages to scoop it up just before someone kicks it away. The other two agents get ready to fire again. One aims at Malcolm. "Alien sympathizers deserve the same fate as their alien masters!" He opens fire. The other tries to shoot at Rampager again. Lt. Wrestling Hamilton groans and tries to pick up the pace...

Hamilton starts to pick up speed like a freight train and takes a leap to take the hit for Rampager to prevent him going berserk. Not that it will help stop Wrestling Hamilton from going nuts himself. What does prevent that is as Hamilton hits the pavement, he goes limp, knocked out from the blast.

Forge eyeballs the gun being turned in his direction and adopts a side-on fighting stance. Hands up, the metal man swings for the bleachers at the energy blasts coming downrange at him, but he's just a few moments too slow to really stop them. Instead, small explosions rock his body and scorch his polished metal flesh as he stands his ground steadfastly. Streamers of sickly black smoke curl off of his shoulders and abdomen as he narrows his metal eyes under the lens of his visor.

Rampager starts to calm down again. Just in time for two of the agents to try and blast Rampager. McDisarmedson levels his reclaimed energy rifle at Malcolm at near point blank range as protestors scatter between him and his target. "Always knew Starguard was soft on aliens," he says it like it's an insult.

Rampager is bowled over by the blast. He grunts as he lays on the ground, shakes his head, and starts to look more alert.

Rampager slowly sits up and looks around. The dazed, drugged up expression is starting to clear to a more lucid expression. An angrier expression.

Forge bounces up onto the balls of his feet, Spring Legs making noise as he bounces around. That doesn't seem to help save him from the energy blast that catches him dead in the face and momentarily knocks him off of one foot. Bent backward dangerously, Forge windmills his arms before abruptly snapping forward and onto both feet, his creepy metallic smile emerging first from the cloud of smoke rising off of his "burnt" metal face.

"Shooting people is not a right. Shooting me and the victim of mad science is really not terribly smart."

Metal batons extrude from the palms of Forge's hands as he keeps smiling through the smoke. He abruptly swings an arm out at Gun Guy's face, stopping it short of actually striking before Forge flips up and over his out-stretched arm to land behind Gun Guy.

At this point, Forge actually swings a baton at the junction of neck and shoulders, whirls around to the gunman's right side and chops with a baton at his elbow before continuing with his whirlwind impression. Sweeping himself down low, Forge bobs under the gunman's arm and swings upward with both batons to clobber Gun Guy dead in the jaw with dual rising uppercuts.

The RACE agent is unconscious before he hits the ground, collapsing on top of his rifle.

After the first one goes timber, the other two look at each other. Malcolm's the one standing in the way of them dispatching the alien. They both turn their guns on Malcolm.

Rampager snorts gruffly and tries to get up. Some of the Starguard Agents accompanying Hamilton cover him with their blasters. "Stay DOWN!" orders Agent Jiminez.

Forge hears guns being readied. He contorts his body oddly as he spins around to confront these latest assailants, eyes narrowing under his metal brow as energy blasts sizzle past either side of his body. Cranking his head one way and then the other with a sharp report of popping joints, Forge comments, "Tut tut. Looks like pain."

Lunging across the intervening space, Forge seems to be driving straight down the barrel of one of the goon's guns. He abruptly whips out a hand as if to grasp the muzzle before Forge simply vaults over the man. Executing a half-gainer in the air, Forge twists as he rights himself, aiming to drive his baton into the base of the gunman's skull. Alas that Forge doesn't seem to stop there, spinning toward the second gunman to ram a baton into his abdomen and a baton-wielding forearm into his face.

Instants later, Forge spins back toward the first gunman and abruptly drops into a combat roll in front of his target. Forge pops up on the other side of the gun and wheels around to baton-chop the gunman in the throat and kidney.

The whirlwind of batons that is Forge hits faster than the gunman can track. He lands every hit with swift precision. The first agent expects Forge to try to take his gun. His head tries to pan up to track Forge at the surprise vaulting, and before his eyes can catch up with the steel hero, Forge's baton cracks into his skull and snaps his head forward.

The second agent very, very slowly begins to turn to face Forge in confusion when he takes a baton to the abdomen and the face. He just goes flying back and crashing onto the pavement, dropping his weapon as his body goes slack.

As Forge returns his ire to the first agent, who is already starting to lose consciousness, the blow to the kidney and throat cause a strangled choking sound as he two goes flying and landing sprawled on his back. Forge efficiently handles the situation.

Whirling his batons in his hands, Forge glances around the area quickly. He asides calmly to Rampager, "They should've brought an umbrella for that pain shower, huh?"

Lt. Hamilton sits up with a groan, scratching at his chest absently. "Whatta week." Rampager snorts at Forge's quip. There's only an animal intelligence behind his eyes. Partly from the drugs, partly from the accident that changed him. Lt. Hamilton looks over at Rampager and motions to the door. "Get him inside and in lockup quick, before we start this whole song and dance again."

"Yeah, yeah. Everybody's a critic," grumbles Forge as his batons melt back into his metallic flesh. The metal man folds his arms across his chest and moves in ol Lt. Wrestling Hamilton's direction, offering a pair of cables to the giant of a statue of a man in silent bid of assistance in getting back to his feet.

Wrestling Hamilton grabs ahold of the cables, and with a loud creaking sound and a grunt, the giant man gets to his feet. "Getting to old for this shick," he grumbles as the other agents manage to secure Rampager and get him inside. "Thanks for the save, Gibbs."