Log:Rats on Campus, Scene 3

Rats on Campus 2020/05/22 	 Amelia Blink Moonshadow Phantom Riptide Barnabas Bighead 3

While one or two heroes have stayed behind at the dorms to handle any possible threat from students who are still seeing zombies, the others have made their way to the science building, where it has been discovered that sentient rats have invaded the closed-off lab which used to be Dr Fogg's. With the heroes assembled outside the entrance, Riptide has just kicked down the door. For his efforts he is rewarded by being blasted into unconsciousness by massed energy weapon fire, which briefly leaves him in silhouette against a brilliantly bright open doorframe before he flies back down the corridor to land sprawled. 

Amelia sees Phantom start to react faster than anyone else of the heroes. "Sitrep please," she requests, "if you have the chance."

Phantom cringes in almost-sympathy as Riptide gets blasted. Almost. The guy brags and talks a big game, after all. Time for backup. <> He focuses on the rats he can see while looking inside to try and get a count.

The lab is still filled with all sorts of equipment and experiments, normal and bizarre. Some of it is under dust covers; some dust covers have been pulled away. The room is positively swarming with rats. Some are unarmed. Some have little one-handed energy pistols. Some have energy rifles. The armed ones have force fields. The ones with the rifles have a distinct military air to them, and well organised. They all just fired on Riptide, having been watching the door from various locations. The unarmed rats are carrying off equipment, often in large teams, supervised by the pistol-holding rats.

One rifle-bearing rat passes out, and a second is very woozy.

Phantom describes to Amelia what he can see of the room as his mind tries shutting down the minds of some of the rats.

Phantom says to Amelia, "A lot more rats. Some armed, some not. Some look like they have forcefields. Some of them are moving equipment. Why the heck are there militant rats?"

BLINK

She appears beside Phantom, an open bag of Kewler Ranch chips in hand. "Tho, what'th up?" she asks, sharing a few crumbs inadvertently before swallowing her mouthful. "What'd I miss? Oh, hi!" The last bit comes with a wave of bag at others in sight.

Phantom looks to Blink. "Attack the rats. The armed ones. They're stealing lab equipment."

Moonshadow steps through the door and jinks left. She fires a Dark Bolt spread at the closest three armed rats.

The rat that Phantom dazed passes out.

Amelia takes up a position at the other side of the door from Phantom so she too has cover. Plucking a small blue glowing ball from a inside pocket of her robe quickly scans the lab as she tosses it into the lab and speaks a short latin incantation. The ball splits into many smaller balls that seek out a multitude of armed rats in a crowded area of the lab. "Phantom, have you any idea what gets dumped into the sewers here by mad scienists, occultists, dark mages, drug labs, etc.. The question is, why ONLY rats."

"So in Florida, they got to deal with militant alligators?" Phantom is horrified further by the idea.

The glowing ball splits, and splits, and splits again, until there's a tapestry of blue glows paying a carpet over half the lab. Many of the balls touched a rat and spreading over it in an entangling energy field.

Screeching in alarm, the civilian rats begin running the back of the room. Some drop their burdens - especially those that have far to go and/or are carrying something big and heavy, some try to escape with them. The pistol wielding rats face the heroes to try to cover the escape of the unarmed rats.

One of the devices dropped by some rats (it looks a bit like a pressure cooker) starts to hum.

Amelia smiles, "Good to have you at my back again, Moonshadow. Well, you're in front and I'm at your back. But you know what I mean, right. Just good to be in the good fight side by side."

Phantom frowns as he notices something absent. "That big-headed rat from the dorms isn't here with the others as far as I can tell."

Moonshadow says, "Been too long, 'Melia. What's with the Chinese getup?"

Amelia smiles, "Local style where I've been spending a lot of time recently, Moonshadow. Where I'll be living after I marry the Prince."

Unable to find the Big Cheese(Head), Phantom keeps cover behind the door and looks towards two rats near each other they are armed and not trapped by Amelia's spell, attempting to knock them out psionically.

Moonshadow say, "Amelia, can you shut down that mana battery? And congratulations?" She fires a Dark Bolt at the nearest standing rifle-rat

Another rat slumps down to the ground, while another starts swaying.

The rat, unconscious already from the blast, bounces off a wall before its force field drops.

Amelia tugs a short rod out from a loop of her belt as she steps out of cover to get a clear line of fire. A quick shake and the rod expands into a powerful recurved bow. As she draws the string of the bow back a red flighted bodkin arrow appears nocked to the bow. With the bow-string drawn back to her chin she sights and releases the shaft in a single fluid motion.

The device explodes in a flash of octarine light, leaving behind an area of distortion not unlike a fishbowl lens where it used to be.

A few scampering rats are knocked off their feet by the explosion.

Of the eight remaining rifle rats (including the ones that the heroes didn't notice at first), one is stunned. The others fire on the heroes...

Phantom takes a blast square in the side of his chest that was exposed. He goes crashing into the doorframe from the impact and slides down into a heap with his white eyes clenched shut from the pain.

Amelia asks hurriedly, "Phantom, are you injured?"

Phantom grunts. "I'm...uhnn...I'm okay. Just a little bruised."

Phantom thinks. o O (A lot bruised. Ow.)

Blink gasps as Phantom is blasted back. "Hey!" That's -her- teammate! Nobody knocks him around but her, and maybe the rest of the team! She blinks into the room, then warps the space around Mr. Doorhugger McRatty Face. After that, she eyes the other rodents of unusual sharpshooting. "Watch where you point those things!"

THe pistol-armed rats - about twenty of them left - open fire!

Phantom notices Blink blinking in and exposing herself. "Blink!" he warns, his mind reaching out to subtly skew all the shots to just missing her. It takes all his focus just to get them to miss her, leaving himself and others open as he gets peppered with laser fire. He sinks a little further against the doorframe as he's shot while already down, turning his head away from the laser fire.

Amelia stands unmoved as one pistol shot hits her.

Rats rush as fast as they can through a large hole they've made toward the back of the room. They can only take small pieces of equipment with them. A few, though, turn back and start plugging in devices, jumping on big red buttons, and so on....

Amelia tells Phantom, "Get into full cover out of sight and take a breather it you need it. We'd got them outnumbered anyway. Blink, can you help Phantom if he can't move on his own?"

Three more devices of uncertain purpose start making noises, blinking lights, etc.

One of the rats who jumped on a button finds itself suspended helplessly in midair.

Phantom braces his hand on the ground. "I'm good," he confirms once he's no longer being gunned down. He's not out of this fight yet and isn't about to give up as a few curls of smoke rise off the shots that hit his shielded form.

Amelia pulls another of the blue glowing balls out of her robe. This time the invocation is slightly different. She tosses it underarn across the lab aiming the hole in the far wall. If it ends up where she wants it to she tells the rats, "You're not going anywhere. I suggest you switch those toys of Dr Fogg off and unplug them."

Amelia lobs the ball just where she wanted it. Catching most of the rats fleeing through the hole.

Rats squeak in alarm as they get stuck in place.

The helplessly floatig rat is not caught in the attack, since whatever is suspending it disperses the energy field.

One of the devices the rats activated, a tall cylling with a couple of long, tubelike 'arms', was not entangle by Amelias attack. The tubes extend, reaching for Amelia's face!

One tube forces its way into Amelia's mouth! And delivers hot coffee, black, with rather too much sugar.

Amelia wimpers, shaking her head and flinching. "No. No. That's intolerable. Black coffee."

/Error: new user. Preferences incorrect. Please specify preferences./

One rifle-wielding rat fires on Phantom, another on Amelia, and 2 try to blast the escape hole open again!

Phantom is shot again while still down, curling up a bit to defend himself. "Agh!"

The rifle fire blasts the escape route anew, wider than ever, but most rats are still too stuck to use it.

Phantom finally gets a break from getting shot up. Just enough for him to quickly spin to his feet with some help bracing against the doorframe. He takes a step back and over to get some cover, watching the rats escape while his mind focuses on the rifle-wielding rat that just shot him again.

Two of the rats holding rifles suddenly sink down to the ground, dropping their weapons.

Moonshadow returns fully to this dimension, and fires a Dark Bolt spread at the remaining two rifle-rats

One rat is knocked out. The other goes flying about the room, its little force-field ball boucing off several surfaces.

Amelia ignores the rats for the moment. She lifts the hand not holding the bow and gestures, speaking in latin. Thousands of spiders crawl out from all around the lab and converge of the hole in the wall, spinning webs across the opening.

Amelia switches back to English, "I can do this all day. My companions won't give you that much time. Put your weapons down and your paws up.

The remaining pistol-wielding rats concentrate their fire on the webbing in a last-ditch attempt at escape!

The webbing, alas, proves too tough for the tiny pistols to do much.

At which point, at the order of one of the pistol-wielding rats, the rats all hold up their tiny hands.

Amelia nods and speaks to the order giving rat. "I'm a healer. Shown me which if any of your people who are injured. I;ll heal them."

/Please specify preferences/, repeats the coffee machine.

Moonshadow steps Astride the Boundary again and passes through the hole, following where it leads.

After a bit of chatter among the rats, a couple who were hurt are located and pointed out to Amelia.

Phantom steps out once the coast seems clear and the rats have lowered their weapons. << They're lucky we don't squish them after shooting us up like that>> he shares with Blink.

Amelia heads to heal them. mentioning in passing to Phantom and Blink, "Collect the weapons, maybe. Just in case?"

/Preferences not entered. Using default settings/, says the coffee machine, trying to force itself into Amelia's mouth again.

Phantom nods and starts picking up the weapons.

The rats surrender their weapons, albeit with some reluctance and nervousness, and not a little whispering among themselves.

Amelia goes to Phantom and Blink after healing the injured rats. She lowers her voice, "These are sentient being. We don't squish sentients here. I realise you're joking but other might not." She starts to turn away. Turns back. "We should have a quiet private chat some time very soon." she adds in an even lower voice.

The rifle-wielding rat also surrenders his weapon.

 Amelia says, "Moonshadow, are you okay?"

Phantom gathers up the last of the weapons and takes them out of the room to pile them up.

 Moonshadow says, ""I'm fine. Just seeing where this hole goes. Maybe we can recover some of what was taken?"

 Moonshadow continues, "Or follow the rats back to their lair?

 Moonshadow says, ""But their psion should be dealt with."

 Amelia says, "Not by you alone. Psis are too dangerous to take chances with. Be very careful, my sister."

Moonshadow can, with some difficulty, trace the path of the rats. It's easy at first, following the fleeing rats themselves, but they begin to disperse in different directions. Some of the equipment they've taken they just drop in the passages behind them. Other bits they've got down to the sewers already. Their main interest at the moment seems to be escape: they've dropped their burdens in their rat-tunnels to move faster.

Warmth suffuses Moonshadow at those last words.

It's not long before the trail splinters to the point that she can't follow any further, and she returns to the lab.

Amelia gives Moonshadow a hug on her return.

Moonshadow returns the hug and tells the others what she found.

Moonshadow says, "So...what do we do with these guys?"

Amelia says, "Call in the police I guess. Or Starguard. Or both."

Moonshadow says, "And him?" indicating Riptide.

The attitudes among the rats vary, it seems. The civilians tend to maintain that they were forced to take part. The rifle-wielders seem to regard themselves as prisoners of war. And there are many shades of sentiment between, as is evident from the rat-chatter.

Amelia nods, "Wake him up and say thank you. He took shots that might have been for us." She looks at Phantom and Blink, "What do you think we ought to do with our little troublemakers?"

Moonshadow walks over to Riptide, reaches into her cloak, and pulls out a 5-gallon jug of water, which she pours over him.

Riptide has accepted an invitation to join this location...

Riptide has arrived...

Phantom looks to Blink, then to Amelia. "Maybe try Starguard. If any of these rats can do what the one at the dorm did, they'll just convince the police to let them go. Already happened recently. Hopefully Starguard can do better."

Riptide splutters as he sits up, burnt skin actually flaking off of himself as he sits up. He blinks a few times, then sighs. "At least it wasn't rail guns this time."

Phantom shakes his head slowly as he watches Moonshadow try to drown Riptide. It's super effective!

Amelia suggests, "We could let the unarmed one go? I believe them when they say they were forced into it."

"They could be accomplices. We should let the authorities determine the truth," Phantom says as he locates one of the unarmed rats saying they were forced.

"No!" says one rat. "IF you let us go Bigbrain will think we've betrayed him!"

Riptide groans as he gets up, shaking his head. "SO... what I miss?"

So... where's Blink in all this? She's checking out all the various gizmos and doodads and whatchmazappits in the lab, of course. What's this button do? That glowing thing is pretty... is it bolted down? 'Do not open' really doesn't -stop- anyone from opening it...

Phantom looks to the rat who just talked and narrows his pure white eyes for a few moments, then looks to a few others who claimed innocence. He looks back to the rat that spoke of betrayal. "Some of them are lying. They aren't all being forced. But some look genuinely like they're too scared not to do what they're told. I still think we take them all in so the authorities can find out who's telling the truth and who's lying."

Amelia nods to Phantom.

10 days after the college campus incident, Phantom sends out a message on the teen comms that he knows Amelia is also monitoring. "Hey, if anyone's listening, I just heard a rumor from someone at CBSU that the biochem department also got hit while we were dealing with the rats. I almost flunked chemistry, so maybe we should find an expert to find out what exactly got stolen and what can be done with what was stolen."

Phantom suggests over the teen comms, "Maybe we can meet up at the mansion to talk about it. I learned some other stuff about the rats." Stuff he already learned but had kept to himself."