Log:Never Count Me Out, Scene 1

Never Count Me Out 2010/12/14 	 Anthony Dasha Kuroko Phoenix Nightkitten 1

Harrisburg

This once middle-class section of town has fallen into disrepair: the rows of two-storey homes are mere ghosts of the past. Some of the vinyl siding is cracked and faded from decades of neglect. Children play unsupervised in now weed-strewn vacant lots. Graffiti along brick walls mark the territory of various gangs trying to claim the neighborhood as their own. Harrisburg Elementary needs its tall security fence and guarded gate.

If southern Harrisburg is bad, the north is appalling. Many of the homes are boarded up, perhaps occupied by homeless squatters, and the gang graffiti is ubiquitous. Drug dealers and worse have brought their crime to the district. Few trees or shrubs remain, and lawns are weeds and broken bottles. Here dwell the destitute, the desperate and the homeless.

Scene Start

It's a normal day until now. But the flaring pulses of energy weapon fire shooting up into the sky suggests that might be about to change. The energy pulse are appearing once every few seconds and seem to be originating from the Harrisburg/Student Quarter boundary.

Nightkitten reverts to catgirl. "Tony, think we should investigate?"

Anthony gets wind of whatever it is threw his police radio as he pets Nightkitten and sighs, yanking on the shirt he was holding in one hand and quickly moving to grab his stocking cap, bandana, and trenchcoat, "Damn weapons, no one ever has fistfights these days." he growls. Leaving Nightkitten behind he turns and sprints for a busted out window of his church, throwing himself threw it and vanishing in an explosion of flames.

Nightkitten sprints after DD.

FOOOOOOOSH! Phoenix zooms over to Harrisburg from the University. o O ( Looks like History class will have to wait! )

Kuroko had spotted the strange light as she left the Bianchi Investigative Services office. She drove swiftly to the scene in her late-model black Dodge Charger. She got out and slung her case over her shoulder and looked around.

The energy weapon fire is coming from a MAMBA agent. He's seated on the bonnet of a car in full MAMBA body armor and resting the butt of a plasma carbine on his thigh, the muzzle pointing up into empty sky as he fires every few seconds.

Anthony arives in an flash of flames at ground level, scorching the sidewalk. Almost immediatly he mutters, "Trap." and looks around for the ambush.

Phoenix tucks her arms at her sides and flies on an attack vector for the Mamba agent.

The MAMBA agent lowers his weapon to point at the ground, "Ah. Took you long enough. Any more hero types on their way do you know?"

Nightkitten arrives, a little winded. "Wait for me next time, Devil Dog."

Kuroko takes off her sunglasses and give the agent a look, "Good day to you. Is there a particular reason you are using such a provocative way of attracting the attention of heroes?"

The agent nods, "Well, it worked, didn't it. And I seem to have misplaced my Bat signaller. Anyway now some of you hero types are here I'll expl..." He breaks off as Phoenix attacks.

Dasha approaches the scene from a different direction from Nightkitten, having been relaxing at home prior to seeing the energy bursts in the sky. She skids to a stop a good twenty odd meters from the MAMBA agent, eyeing him over with a flick of her tail. "Not too impressive looking. I was hopin' for a meta so this would be a proper fight..."

Phoenix pulls up from her dive attack about 15 meters from the Mamba agent, hovering about 5m in ther air. She points her hands towards him. "I don't know what MAMBA is up to here, but it ends now," she says, before releasing a blast of fire at him.

Anthony manages to get himself in the way of the flames just in the nick of time and Shields the man from damage, the flames parting around him without seeming to bother the hell spawn too much.

The MAMBA agent drops off the bonnet of the car and rolls over to get tucked in at the car's side using it as cover, "Someone tell that hothead to stop blasting, hey. I'm here to talk."

Phoenix floats backwards a few meters to reassess the situation. She doesn't recognize Anthony and did not expect having to take on two people, one of which appears to be fire resistant.

Anthony stands up on the car now and stares up at the hot-headed fire lady, "Idiot." he calls up to her, "Hold on and let the man talk before I come up there and knock some sense into your thick skull!" he shakes his head, still standing on the car, and looks down at the agent, "Get up, your acting pathetic." he says roughly.

Pulling a white hanky from a pocket the MAMBA agent waves it from cover, "Truce! Stop blasting me, damn it."

Kuroko sighed, "Ms. Phoenix, please restrain yourself for the moment. It seems this gentleman has something he wishes to share with us." She nodded to the agent, "Please continue. I would advise you to speack plainly and clearly, so that we have no doubts as to your intentions."

"Kuroko," Phoenix says, finally seeing someone familiar. She hmphs. "How do we know we can trust him?" She begins to circle a little bit overhead, with one ear on the conversation and with one eye looking for other MAMBA agents.

Dasha blinks and looks around. "I think I'm missing something, here."

Nightkitten heads over to Dasha. "As am I. I think the evil-looking guy wants to talk."

The agent stands, looking at Phoenix cautiously, "Right. Okay, one of our sub-bases has been overrun. We've had to abandon it. Everyone got out but some of our people have been injured. Acid burns and laser burns. Now Naga says it looks like the replicators that terrorized the city about a year back. She told me to contact you and let you know. Also to give you a ride down to the base if you want to go there."

"If he gives us a hard time, I'll break his legs. That's why we can trust him." Anthony responds to Pheonix's question as he jumps off of the roof of the car to land beside the agent, folding his arms over his chest.

Dasha is a little startled to see Nightkitten here, but quickly gets over it. "The dude in the armor, the dude who seems to be immune to fire, the chick who attacked someone who wasn't being aggressive, or the chick who seems to know all of them?"

Kuroko gives the agent a hard look, "I sincerely hope this is not due to any foolish in your organization regarding those things. If you were trying to harness them, I think it will go very badly for you. It is not done for organizations to harm their own communities. Regardless, it is not something we can overlook, so I will go with you."

Nightkitten facepalms. "The dude in the armor wants us to does some house cleaning."

The agent shakes his head. "Not us, honest, folks. We're not evil," he looks at Nightkitten who made the evil comment and grins, "We just have an unconventional viewpoint regarding property right."

"Hm. So now our business is to help MAMBA," Phoenix says, folding her arms. "Alright. Where is it?"

Dasha says, "I'm still a bit wary of all those people... Can you vouch for any of 'em?"

Phoenix thinks. o O ( The sooner we spring this trap, the sooner we can blast our way out of it.)

Nightkitten thinks... "I can vouch for the guy who took the hit, but not any of the others."

Anthony smerks as he stands on the car, arms folded over his chest, "Ironic." he says simply.

Anthony steps off of the roof of the car now, "How big is your base, and where is it at? I think we can help. Though, afterword I might kick your fellows in the head just on general principle."

The agent waves at a section of the roadway and speaks quietly into a microphone by his lips. A oval area of the roadway fades out to reveal a hatchway with a ladder leading down into a brightly lit space.

Dasha blinkblinks at the oval. "Hey Kit? Can we get one of those for the apartment?"

Phoenix heads in, floating down the ladderway.

Kuroko walks over and starts climbing down.

Nightkitten climbs down. "I don't think my stipend covers that."

Anthony hrms as the oval appears, then reaches over to grab the Mamba gangster by the scruff of the neck, "Neat trick." he growls, then will attempt to drag the man along with him over to the oval and toss him into it, then jump in after him.

Dasha follows after Nightkitten. "Damn. It'd be great for tidying up around the house."

Phoenix says aside to Kuroko. "Might find some useful intel on MAMBA while we're down here." She mentions this before Anthony arrives, with or without the MAMBA agent.

At the lower end of the ladder is a compartment with the look of a submarine control room. Another agent is waiting in there, "Good morning. Welcome to MAMBA's number three tunneller. Is this everyone?" Devil Dog gets a look of distaste because of his manhanding of the first agent.

Dasha blinkblinks again. "Are you SURE we can't get one of these, Kit? It'd be a lovely contrast to the curtains."

Nightkitten nearly facefaults. "No. We can't."

Anthony stares back at the seccond agent as he lets the other go free, "Hostages are affective tools, meat shields are nice too." he says to the man, giving him a casual shrug, "Fast facts." That being said he folds his arms back over his chest and waits for the ride to start, "Thought you should know in case I start getting shot at."

Dasha snaps her fingers and finds a seat. "Darn."

The second agent laughs at Dasha's comment, "We'll sell you one for $10M." he says.

Dasha says, "Cool, I'll start saving my pennies from the grocer."

Kuroko sits down and folds her hands on her lap.

Nightkitten sits down and crossesher legs, trying to get comfortable.

The tunneller starts moving, although the only evidence of motion is the chaning displays on screens and a faint vibration. "Our sub-base is located two hundred and fifty feet underground beneath Harrisburg. Early this morning we detected movement in a storage area. The agents who investigated discovered a irregular shaped hole about eighteen inches across in the wall and one of the replicators, or something very like one, that caused a lot of damage in the city just over a year ago. It attacked our people with acid and laser fire, and seemed largely immune to our weapons."

Nightkitten gulps. "So, how do you think WE can help?"

Phoenix lets her flames go out so as not to consume all the air in the enclosed space.

The agent says, "You're heroes. You take mere agents like Jonesy and me on at five or ten to one odds and win. Unfortunately from our point of view. Look, these things did a lot of damage, and could have done a lot more if you heroes hadn't stopped them last time. Nage decided we had to tell you about this."

Anthony nods his head at the agent's explonation, "You realize something though." he says, "We're here to stop a potential outbreak of these things and not to save your miserable hides. Understand?"

Kuroko smiles sympathetically, "Indeed, it is a hard life as a low ranking minion in a criminal organization."

The forward scene clears to show a hazy image of a large storage room. There's a spiderish robotic creature in there eating away at a crate. The walls, floor and ceiling shows signs of having been eaten, and there's not much left of whatever was stored in the room. "I'm holding us out of phase. When you're ready I'll phase in the hatch so you can exit the tunneller."

Nightkitten summons a few spirit kittens in preparation for the battle ahead.

Kuroko stands up and draws her shinai from its case.

Anthony stands with his arms crossed, calm as ever, and waits.

The agent that Devil Dog roughed up scrowls, "Hey, big guy, we were on the streets fighting alongside the Watch during the Horde Invasion. This tunneller got the injured out of the clinic before it was overrun. Where were you? When you've done as much as we have for the burg then you can badmouth us."

Dasha nods and cracks her knuckles as she stands up from the seat. "I'll take care of theses things so well, they'll recommend me to their friends for my excellent room service."

The agent at the controls counts down, "3... 2... 1... Phase-Locked. Go."

FOOSH! Phoenix reignites and aims on being the first person out of the hatch.

An oval area at the side of the control room fades to show the storage room through it.

Nightkitten bursts out, trying to strafe around the room and avoid being targeted.

The spiderish robotic creature seems to ignore Nightkitten.

Phoenix bursts forth from the tunneler, zigs through the air and directs hot fire at the spidery robot with both hands.

The spidery robot makes no effort to avoid the blast of fire and is blown apart into dozens of small parallagram shaped fragments about an inch by two inches by half an inch thick.

Phoenix drifts sideways slightly, taken aback by how easy that seemed...

There is a door leading out of the storage room. Well, there used to be a door, but about half of the door has been eaten away by acid. In the silence after Phoenix's blast can be heard the sound of many small metallic feet on the hard rocky floor of the base.

Dasha says, "Y'know, I think that our MAMBA friends may have forgotten to mention a few details. I'm pretty sure that robots generally don't explode into perfectly uniform pieces upon destruction."

Hype glances around, still not too sure about the situation but does move to try to get what remains of the door open, since that seems the way they need to be going.

Hype opens the door, "incoming," he says as he notices to two bots coming down the passageway behind it.

Anthony steps calmly out of the shuttle and walks over to a couple bits of bot left over from Pheonix. He kicks them with his boot, checking them out. "I don't like this." he says.

Kuroko sprints from the tunneller and runs into the hallway. Her shadow stretches out in front of her as she lashes out with her bamboo sword, the sword's shadow striking at the robot.

One of the spidery bots moving up the passage behind the door fragments into more parallelagram bits.

The fragments in the passage come together again to reform into the spidery bot, while the second bot in the passage moves up to the door. Meanwhile, around Devil Dog's feet the fragments inside the storage room are coming together.

Anthony squats and, moving quickly, attempts to grab all the reforming pieces at his feet and simply toss them to different sides of the room.

Bending, Devil Dog sweeps the fragments apart, scattering them around the width and depth of the storage room. Bouncing from the walls, the fragments start coming together but move only about half the distance they need to in the immediate period.

Anthony says, "everyone, blast them apart, then grab a piece, we need to keep them apart."

Phoenix says, "No. We need to bring them together and deal with one problem, instead of many."

Hype blinks a little as he sees the one starting to reform in the hallway, "This does not bode well." he says and thinks about it and then just zips with a blur into the passage to swing a kick at each of the bots there, including the one reforming and blur back to where he started.

Hype does manage to connect with the blurry kicks and knocks the two bots in the passage into fragments, well reknock the one.

Dasha thinks for a few seconds and takes off sprinting at the spiderbot in the hall, covering the 18 meters in under a second.

The fragments struck by Dasha's feet as she runs through them are sent flying in all directions, slaming into walls and bouncing off, the fragments losing their shiny lusture and looking dull and discolored when they come to a stop.

Dasha drops into a sliding kick as she goes through the fragments of the further spiderbot and another few meters past.

Nightkitten thinks for a quick moment before she decides. She unleases a swarm of spirit kittens centered on DD's feet.

The fragments that have approached Devil Dog's feet get bitten and tossed by the spirit kittens, losing their lusture and turning dull and discolored. However, the perceptive heroes looking at the fragments might have noticed that just instants after Dasha slid through the fragments in the passage, the remaining fragments became surrounded by the sheen of a force field.

Els doesn't usually jump into strange tunnels or machines in the middle of Harrisburg, but, then again, she's never seen either of those in the middle of Harrisburg before. A little late, a little curious, and still more than a little timid, she's just now getting up to the door that isn't really there anymore to peek in.

Phoenix takes aim on the group of fragments by the door. She takes a different tactic from before; instead of trying to blast the remaining fragments, she tries to superheat them and melt them down to useless slag.

When Els peeks through the end door she sees a large open space with just enouigh details left to tell this was probably a meeting room. But mostly it's now an acid eaten shell with a dozen or more spidery bots in it.

Phoenix projects a fan of flames over a number of the fragmented bits of robot. She melts them down into inert bits of junk.

The spidery bots in the meeting room become enclosed in force fields. The ones closest to the door move to attack Els, mandibles dripping acid as they grasp and claw at the hero. Behind Els, the door in the passage spills out several more bots which turn to face the storage room and emit threads of ruby laser light.

The acid dripping mandibles claw at Els but Kuroko bravely, foolishly(?), steps in the way and shields the mentalist.

Kuroko winces as the acidic claws rip through her suit, exposing part of the silver tattoo on her torso.

Kuroko says, "Be careful, young lady. These things appear to be quite dangerous."

Ruby beams of laser energy strobe out carving charred paths into walls and ceiling but nmissing the intended targets. One Bot slips on a patch of acid slicked floor and its beam lances into one of the other bots.

The laser beam flares harmlessly off the bot's force field.

Anthony takes one step forward before flaming wings erupt from his back and he launches himself threw the air a good 12 M to land in front of the bots, wings spread wide, "Someone get the girl back to the transport, she shouldn't have come this far." he says as a flaming whip slides out of his right hand and he whips it in a sweeping arc toward the bots, attempting to knock as many over as possible.

The four spidery bots spilling out of the side door are hammered by Devil Dog's whip and shatter into a scintilating spray of shiny fragments spread across the floor of the passage.

Nightkitten launches another swarm of spirit kittens into the hallway.

Savaged by a swarm of spirit kittens the multitude of fragments in the passage turn dull and discolored as little but sharp teeth nibble on them.

Phoenix flies straight into the midst of the spiderbot conference room.

Anthony launches himself after Pheonix to help her with whatever shows up, his whip trailing behind him.

Phoenix sees herself surrounded. She begins to shoot flames in all directions, with the flames coalescing into spitting images of herself.

Phoenix gets struck by three individual blasts. She curses in Mandarin. << Damnit! Who the hell built these robots so smart? >>

Anthony manages to flip out of the way of 3 of his bots, the 4th hitting him in the thigh though it doesn't seem to bother him much.

Dasha makes a long jump at the furthest spider, clearing 20 meters in a bound as she tries to Mario the 'bot.

Dasha soars through and lands squarly on top of the 'bot. If you listen carefully, you might have noticed that she started humming the theme to the original Super Mario as she went through the air.

Nightkitten continues being the clean-up crew for the fragments.

Dozens of little kitties slam into the replicators and scatter the pieces. Someone should have brought a camera and posted it to youtube, seeing as it is so cute for being so destructive.

Kuroko flips to her feet from when she fell covering for Els and dashes into the next room. Once again her shadow stretches out and uop through thin air as she does a wipe sweeping slash at two of the robots above her.

Kuroko's strike catches one bot, but misses the other. Fragments from the ruined machine rain down around her.

Another swarm of kittens attack the fragments, playing with them as though they were covered in catnip.

With the majority of the spidery robots fragmented or destroyed the heroes have little difficulty in clearing out the ruined MAMBA base. Then the tunneller transports them back to the surface.