Log:Trouble on the Docks

2012/11/25 	 Starlight Superhuman 1

Port

The smell of salty air and marsh is the most apparent here at the port of Colonial Bay. To the left, the sturdy automatic cargo cranes stand tall and await the container freight vessels that transport goods into and out of the city. Most of the work is done by the large, efficient machines.

Over to the right, there is the Marina, where various pleasure craft and fishing boats rock gently in their moorings, tied by secure lines. The private vessels range in size from 16-foot cruisers to 32-foot yachts. The marina also rents out various water sport equipment as well as modern speed boats and fishing vessels for the day. There is one old-fashioned riverboat with paddlewheel propulsion, which provides pleasure cruises and caters to weddings.

From Memorial Day to Labor Day, sea lovers crowd the marina. During the rest of the year, the docks are peaceful, except for the fishing and cargo vessels.

The day after Black Friday, businesses depend on getting more stock in as already their shelves are being ransacked, and one of the cheapest ways to move massive tonnage from factories is over water. It's really the only realistic way to do it without it being a logistical, and expensive, nightmare. The logistics are bad enough with just the sheer amount of containers that come in on a freighter let alone if there was multiple plane trips, fuel costs, runways packed... and so on.

So the fact that the port is packed isn't unusual in the slightest, workers getting overtime to help put /them/ into the black as well as the businesses. So when a ship comes cruising into port at flank speed, it's a cause for concern. When that ship doesn't respond to hails, or claxon sirens, it's a /real/ big problem and in a city like Colonial Bay, the first responders are /rarely/ the civilian authorities...

Starlight is just relaxing. Which in her case is sitting on a roof with her PDA playing music as she browses the latest news local and national.

Lily had been wandering around the area, taking notes for her day job as an actuary. Several of the companies at the port were clients of Colonial Bay Property and Life, and they were do for their periodic risk reassessment.

Superhuman is engaging in her latest hobby: running on water! She didn't know she could do that, and it's still fun. Of course, as she nears port she has to pay a bit more attention to the boats so as not to run into any. She's a bit surprised one of the ships isn't showing the same courtesy.

Black friday, the only day when it's not only allowed, but encouraged, for folks to act like looters in the stores. Abigail has a simple black friday tradition. Avoid stores at -all- costs. That's just a tactical decision that she is rather proud of. So it is that she's spending her Saturday riding herd on a marine training op. They're headed back to base, the Ospry carrying them over the port with Abby hating it, but riding co-pilot. After all, she wasn't -assigned- as the pilot for the op, so she's not going to step on toes. However... she points down at the water and says, "Anyone else seeing this?"

Lily blinks, "Oh my. If that runs aground, we'll be out a lot of money at work. And people might be hurt!" She runs toward the oncoming boat, looking for a place to brace herself and catch it.

Starlight hears something over the music she's playing. Pulling out the earplugs she listens. Sirens from the port? Shrinking down, as much to minimise sonic shock as anything else, she zooms over to there looking for the cause of whatever problem has arisen.

X is flying above the area, trying to figure out what exactly to do in this situation. He can't do anything to stop a ship that size. But he's certainly not going to just leave and forget about it!

Superhuman dashes toward the cruiser. She doubts she's strong enough to catch it, but perhaps she can redirect it to a safer course...

Maggie loves Black Friday shopping. It's after the caffeine-fueled early morning spending frenzy that sucks. That calls for rest and relaxation afterwards, which means not quite as much caffeine in a more relaxed setting. The coffee shop was just that, at least until all the sirens and klaxons started going off from the nearby port. Being her, she pauses relaxation for being nosy and heads over to see what's going on.

Starlight swoops down when she sees the speeding ship and joins in the efforts to stop it, heading for the bow and pushing hard with all her strength and flight power.

The pilot stares down at the ship, and the people running over water and the like, "Affirmative." Is answered to Abby's question. There's nobody to be seen on the ship at all, it's deck covered in a humongous amount of shipping containers who are full of who knows what. Those who can see it might notice the back of the ship starting to churn water rapidly, like white water style, and those close enough to hear it can probably hear the chugging cavitations as someone throws the engines in reverse. Those who are grabbing hold of the ship will feel it start to vibrate, like it was having an earthquake onboard but then it stills to normal engine chugging. The ship /starts/ to slow, but it's still moving fast towards the ships already in dock!

"Call it in." says Abby to the pilot as she simply disconnects from the headphones and all the strapping in webbing. "And see what you can do about civilian evacuations and SAR." Then she opens the door to the copilot's seat and simply steps out, shutting it behind her as she starts glowing and streaks down towards the freighter's bridge.

X shakes his head, and dives toward the ship. Once close enough, he throws out sound that sound like guitar rifts toward the ship.

Starlight continues to slow the ship pushing against the bow. But she quickly realises it's not going to stop in time. Calling down to Superhuman at the waterline she yells, "Unless a dozen Cobalts turn up in the next few seconds we'll not stop it. We need to look for the safest place we can guide it to for minimum damage. Can you see anywhere?" And following her own advice she also searches for the best possible place for a collision to occur with minimum consequences.

Her dive starting, Abigail in her fatigues which.. have seen better days. She was on the way back for a shower y'know. Anyhow, she goes into a power dive, arms flattened against her sides and legs as she angles straight downward, pulling up to decelerate just over the bridge of the ship. "Ahoy!" she calls out, trying to see if any crew is still active.

As far as Starlight and Superhuman can tell, if the heroes can get it turned there's more space on the port side of the ship than to starboard. On the deck of the ship Abigail can see unconscious crewmen and a burned /line/ in the deck cutting off the bridge where the walkway was melted away due to intense heat. It's cooling now, but the bridge itself is manned only by a couple of guys who are unconscious, bound, and gagged.

There's also a rope tied to the wheel, keeping it heading straight ahead...

Starlight says, "Superhuman, over there to the left. Looks like there's more room that direction. Unless you have a better idea let's turn it that way!"

Maggie blinks and drosp her coffee when she realizes the reason for the sirens: namely the big ship coming in way too fast. It looks that there's already people trying to stop it, but it might not be enough. Trying to think quickly, she goes for the first ship-stopping thing that comes to mind. All it takes is a little tweak of good old H2O. A line of seawater changes phase at ambient temperature, between the ship and all the things they don't want the ship to hit. Instant mini iceberg, just add Maggie.

Superhuman puts her full strength into steering the crusier onto the safest course, and slowing it if she has any to spare. Her feet beat at superspeed, sending spray as far as the shore.

Lily cheers on the team pushing the ship, then realizes she needs to change position to match its new bearing. She leaps 30m along the shore trying to stay in front of the ship.

Amongst the docks people are trying to figure out how to move ships, tugs would be to slow, but tire nets are thrown out in hopes to provide /some/ buffer. The ship sheers right through the iceberg with a tremendous cracking and crushing ice sound even as it resists being turned thanks to it's rudder but it /is/ turning, a little, but it's sort of like a mouse trying to move an elephant!

Meanwhile, Lily see's three individuals appear out of the ground over by one of the warehouses that is used to offload ships. The ground rippling and rumbling, not that people notice due to all the rushing around but the cement looks like water for a few moments.

Those three individuals stand out, to put it mildly. One is a nine foot tall man carved from granite in greek style it appears, the other man is a well dressed older gentlemen in navy blue business suit with a silk shirt and tie on (sky blue to match). The woman is a teenager, pretty little thing, all gothed out, long black hair, babydoll style dress, big heavy doc martin boots and spiked bracelets and choker. You know the drill.

The older gentleman looks around and nods at all the distraction going on. He seems pleased with himself as he turns and starts to walk briskly up the stairs, "Firefly, overwatch. Make something explode if we're noticed. Preferably something big and calamitous with as much collateral damage as you can."

Firefly adopts an expression like it's a dream come true, "Oooh thank you Ripcord." She practically coo's and dragonfly style wings made of fire sprout from her back, lifting her off the ground as she gets some height for overwatch, and a good line on a gasoline tanker...

X looks to the one flying above, then back to the ship. X hmms, but does nothing else for the moment.

Ripcord (the older gentleman) keeps heading up the stairs, making it to the door and then stepping inside to the warehouse. Presumably doing something in there, but who can say?

Diversions suck, but they work because they threaten bystanders. Abby darts inside the bridge and starts ripping crewmen free of their bonds. Before she does though, she says, "Which one of you is a qualified pilot?" as she gestures to the tied up wheel. She wants to make -sure- she gets the guy who can steer and slow down this tub.

The wheel is turned as the starboard engine gets reset to flank forward, keeping the port prop spinning backwards. It's a good thing she's kinda strong, since Abby is turning that wheel by herself and likely encountering some resistance. Over her SG comm, she says, "On the ship's bridge. Nobody evident here, evidence of damage from the attack. My best guess is that this is nothing -but- a diversion. IF anyone is reading this... check the surrounding area."

Starlight simply continues pushing on the bow but is now also angling her flight to help move the ship towards the greater amount of space on the port side.

The ship starts to turn, with Abigail piloting, and the two supers pushing at the bow of the ship to it's port side get the big beast to start to swing, there's groaning of metal as the ship turns quicker than it should, stress being added in bad ways but, no worse than a bad storm really all things considered. Cargo containers on the top start to snap their bindings but none go sliding off, yet! Almost in the clear!

Meanwhile....

Meanwhile.... nine foot tall granite statue walks up the stairs, the stairs do not appreciate this, as Atlas tries to get a better view of what's going on. "How they doin' with our present Fire?" He asks Firefly.

"Eh, they're dealing with it, the ships starting to turn. I'm just hoping someone notices me here, I wanna blow up this tanker big time." Firefly answers, yawning some as smoke drifts from her mouth.

X responds through the SG Comms, "Hey, I hear you. I saw someone flying above us. Some type of girl with wings made of fire. Something tells me they aren't with us." X turns his attention to Firefly above, turning and climbing toward them.

X starts moving faster.

Sudden inspiration strikes Abby. She looks down and sees the rope that had lashed the wheel. With a quick improvisation, she ties it off in its current -full starboard- position. Then she heads to the nearest crewman and removes his gag before trying to gently wake the guy. "Hey, you're safe. I need you awake. Come on sailor...."

The ship is turning of it's own accord now, it'll /probably/ clear the other ships. Maybe. With a little bit more it might be in the clear assuming the rudder stays turning!

Starlight keeps pushing ans turning the ship.

Superhuman continues her frantic, exhausting efforts to turn the ship.

Flirefly notices X coming in, because she's on overwatch, and she got really lucky by looking directly at X's direction. She blinsk and smiles, "Here they come Atlas. Better rattle the house so Ripcord knows. Me, I get to have /fun/." And she inhales a deep breath and then exhales a /stream/ of fire that burns all down the tanker truck full of gasoline about 20m away. The fire burns into the tanker, starting to melt it and heat it, that's going to get very bad, very soon, especially as the fire keeps burning...

Atlas nods, "Cool, I was getting bored sitting her playing bouncer." He chuckles and then jumps off the little landing at the top of the stairs he was on and he hits the ground below, slamming his fist into it. The ground ripples and shakes as seismic event expands from that point of impact, no doubt setting off seismic sensors nearby, causing the whole building to shake and rumble!

X mutters something to himself, then continues flying toward the area.

On the ship the two men are easily awoken, they were just knocked out and not to terribly beaten about it, of course they're just normal guys. They look around frantically but seem relieved that someone else, isn't there. Looking at the wheel they both try to frantically indicate they need to be untied. The ungagged guy, "Get me lose so I can man the helm!"

"Right away. I've already set the starboard engine full forward, port full reverse. Wheel is full starboard and lashed." says Abby as she works to free the man's bonds. "If you can man the helm, I'll start getting the rest of the crew on their feet." Maybe it's the marine fatigues. Maybe it's the glowing eyes. She's hoping that she can at least provide -somewhat- of a morale boost. "Unless you need a station manned that I can do for you."

X gets on the communicator again, "The girl I spoke of set an oil tanker on fire. I don't like this, it seems that whoever's responsible for this is further trying to create a distraction."

The crewmen rush to the helm and check things, "It looks undamaged, we got this. Go get those bastards!" The other man says, "We've got this now, go get 'em." And they go about dropping portside anchor as well. Sure it'll snap, but it'll help, a little as they ease off on one of the engines.

Over her comm, Abby actually rolls her eyes and mutters, "I -told- you it was a diversion earlier. Were you -not- listening?" She sighs and looks to the crewman as she shuts off her comm, "See what I have to work with?"

Starlight relaxs as the ship is now seemingly under control and safe. "Woo. That was a close one, Superhuman. I wonder how this happened. Want to head up to the bridge with me and find out?"

Superhuman says, "Sure!"

Starlight swoops down, grabs Superhuman is she allows it, and flies up towards the bridge of the ship, and coincidently, Abigail.

Nodding to the helmsman, Abby shuts off her mic and glows brightly before flying out of the bridge and over the side closest to shore. She looks down for the source of the bigass spout of water and calls out, "Shore! Another diversion! Tanker Truck meets fire metahuman!"

Starlight shouts back to Abigail, "Where? Point us in the right direction?"

Lily leaps toward Atlas, "Hey! You guys should surrender now, or I'll have to hurt you!"

Lily tries to grab Atlas!

Atlas looks down at Lily as he gets grabbed, not even trying to struggle and he d'awwws, "You're cute, like a little puppy." he looks at Firefly, "Think I should keep her or do you think Rip'll get mad?" He asks curiously in his gravelly rumble. Firefly rolls her eyes, "If it's female you try to tag it don't you. You've got a problem." Atlas rumbles a chuckle, "Yeah I know, it's called blue balls. Lets see if she's breakable first." And then Atlas simply sinks into the ground, slipping free of Lily's grasp with a rippling of concrete to appear right behind her. He lifts his hands up, preparing to drive them down in a double fisted smash!

Lily blinks, "Aw."

Firefly rolls her eyes again, "You have fun with that. Me I got a bug to cook, at least I think it's a bug, it looks like a bug anyways..." And her flaming wings beat faster as she flies to close the distance with X, inhaling a deep breath she exhales a gout of fire at X!

X gets hit by the blast clean on, but that doesn't seem to stop him!

Firefly hmms as the bug doesn't seem really affected and she pouts petulantly, then she blinks as she see's it's a bat, "Ewww! It's a giant flying rat!" And she flies backwards, getting some more distance and coming to a stop 30m back before she inhales again, breathing out another gout of flame! This flame seems brighter and hotter however!

Now that seems to actually affect X, as the shield that surrounds him disappears, and he falls from the sky, probably straight into the water.

Now that she's done her best to start accelerating, Abigail yells down to S&S, "Follow me!" before she rockets off towards the shore... leaving a golden energy trail behind her. Yes, she's off like a shot, and should end up within 10m or so of the visible target there.... Firefly. "Oh, I didn't know you were allowed to go out and play on your own." she says, "Where's your babysitter?"

Firefly is giggling as she watches a burning X falling towards the water and she looks up at Abigail, "Oh you, I remember you. Ripcord will take care of you just like he did last time."

Starlight flies across the intervening distance in virtually the blink of an eye. Heading towards the big guy she calls out to Superhuman, "You okay with it if I throw you at him? "

Superhuman says, "Yeah, ok, sure!"

Starlight heads for the big guy and drops Superhuman off at ground level far enough away that she can control the rest of the movement herself, with starting velocity. Then she angles up and streaks at eye-blurring speed straight at Firefly. She doesn't expect to hit, although luck might be on her side, but it should scare the living daylights out of the flying fire hazard.

Firefly shrieks a little as Starlight flies by at super fast speeds and she narrows her eyes afterwards... "Tell me there's more than the three of you soldiergrrl, else this is gonna be real boring."

Superhuman decides the big guy needs budging! Landing already running, she charges straight at him, trading in some speed for accuracy.

Superhuman collildes with the granite monster and comes to a dead halt with a deafening bang - leaving herself stunned.

WHAM! Superhuman slams into Atlas's back and the big guy doesn't even /budge/ But the impact is enough to throw off his aim and he swings wide of Lily missing and hitting the ground, hard. He rolls his head about on his shoulders as he straightens up and then looks behind him, "Oooh, you're cute too aintcha." He rumbles.

Stepping out of the building with a large briefcase in hand Ripcord looks around the landing, noticing the burning tanker he nods to himself. "Atlas get clear. We're leaving. Mission accomplished." He starts to make his way slowly down the stairs, "Now heroes, feel free to continue attacking us if you wish. I'd guess you have about 6 seconds until that gas tank there explodes." He shrugs, "Your choice."

"Lily. Tank, in the water. Now!" offers Abigail as she alters direction towards Ripcord. "You know Rippy, it'd really be nice if you'd tell us what the mission was. You know we really aren't that bad. Nice trick with the ship -and- the tanker by the way." Moving half phase closer to Ripcord... 13m.. holding half

Ripcord smiles at Abigail, "I'm just coming to pick up my employers property." He looks around, noting the scene, Superhuman down, X in the water, burning tanker, and he adds, "You know you'll need to find professionals to beat me Major. You can't do it with ragtags with no teamwork."

Starlight sees Abigail heading down, hears Abigail giving instructions to deal with the tanker. That leaves her, oh, and fire girl. Swinging around in a tight circle and slowing to gain maneuverbility she heads back to Firefly and tries to punch her into next week.

As Starlight starts to head for her again Firefly giggles at what Ripcord says, "You know he's right." She calls to Abigail's back before she inhales and then breathes out a burst of small fireballs at Starlight!

As Starlight flies in the fireballs tag her, two out of three. They don't look like much till the impact, and then they explode in dull fwoomps, mini-explosions carrying quite a bit of kinetic force!

Lily nods, "Right! Sorry Rocky, I have to go, I'll play with you later!" She leaps toward the burning tanker truck.

Starlight is thrown back almost 30m by the dual impacts, spinning around in the air and taking a moment to stabilise. "How long can you keep that up? Because you can't run from me. And I won't stop until one of us is down."

Lily grabs the tanker truck and heaves it into the water with a mighty toss!

"At least one of them does as she's told." remarks Abigail towards Ripcord somewhat softly. She doesn't take her eyes off the guy though, inclining her head to one side.

Ripcord chuckles in amusement as the tanker goes flying overhead to splash into the water and the fire starts sputtering out only to go out completely as the tanker rolls, "My my, she's strong for her size isn't she." Ripcord notes politely, his british accent showing. "Ah well, no worries. Execute plan Theta Four." He then snaps his right hand to the side, a white energy whip forming out of the palm of his hand and he snaps it out towards Firefly, trying to grab her with it and yank her to him and Atlas!

Atlas whistles as Lily throws the tanker, "You sure I can't take her home Rip? She's cute..." He rumbles and Ripcord just /looks/ at him, "Right. Fine. Theta Four." He mutters some choice words having to do with Ripcords heritage and parentage as he walks over towards Ripcord and Firefly to place a hand on both, "Wish I could say it was fun, but, my boss apparently is losing his stamina with age." And the ground starts to ripple around them. Uh oh.

She doesn't say a word. Abby just points a hand at each Ripcord and Firefly. She knows better than to try this with Atlas... so she fires a rather wide blast to try to hit both of the other two and perhaps knock them too far from Atlast to be teleported away.

The beam impacts into both Ripcord and Firefly, sending them both flying backwards and into the warehouse! As they hit Firefly looks both stunned and only barely conscious bleeding from her tear ducts, ear drums, and the corners of her mouth after that energy blast burned into her system, her eyes unfocused but she's not all the way out yet... she whines pitifully. Meanwhile Ripcord is looking dazed, but he's already starting to recover. However... Atlas.

Atlas looks at Firefly and he stops moving, goes completely still, for a half a second that seems like a year. He turns on Abigail and then he charges forwards, his footsteps thundering across the dock as a roar builds like an avalanche before he launches himself in the air wrecking ball style at Abigail!

X shakes his head, and a humming sound comes from X as his purple sonic forcefield comes back online. And some how, he makes it back into the sky, wet as can every be, and an expression that marks him as being /very/ angry. He unleashes a purple sphere of concentrated unpleasant sounds at him.

Atlas gets hit by the sonic screach and he grunts, "Firefly almost took you out. You really /don't/ want to be *censored* with me right now. One and only warning." Atlas doesn't even look at X as he says that, instead staring at Abigail where she treads water.

Starlight nods as she hears Atlas. She calls over to X, "Is that a non-injurious attack? If it is, use it on Firefly. She took so much damage from the last blast none of us punchers dare hit her again."

"Almost only counts in hand grenades and shotguns." X boldly states back at Atlas. X looks to Starlight, and nods.

Starlight flys back to the scene. It's too far to fly and punch, so she flies and cloth-lines Ripcord, or at least attempts to.

Starlight catches Ripcord on the ground and despite a good effort to avoid her swinging arm the diminitive Starlight slams a forearm into his chest.

Thwack! Ripcord tried to roll away but gets hit and knocked sliding across the ground. He grunts but he is definitely still at full facilities. "Atlas. Theta Four!" He calls out!

Superhuman runs to grab the briefcase - she figures it's what they were after so they won't want to leave without it. She then turns to run up to Ripcord, holding the case i both hands, intent on bashing him with it.

Atlas snaps, "Go suck on a tailpipe Ripcord." His voice angry, like the crash of boulders against one another. As X says he's going to attack Firefly Atlas moves to grab hold of a forklift and chucks it at X! "Don't even think of hurting her!" He roars!

X gets smashed by the incoming truck, his shield disappearing once more, and falling back into the water, but this time, he's completely unconscious.

Firefly is in a bad way, she's dripping blood from her mouth, tear ducts, and ear drums, covered in dust, and not happy. "Atlas!" She screams almost hysterical, "Theta Four NOW!" Her flaming dragonfly wings flash into being behind her and she flies over to Ripcord, spotting Superhuman rushing in with intent she wipes blood away from her eyes, "Get away from us..." She whispers almost in panic and then inhales a breath before she breathes out a burst of fireballs at Superhuman!

Superhuman clings onto the briefcase whule being blasted into the ground somee 16m away.

Lily leaps over to Atlas, "I'm sorry your friend got hurt, but you've hurt my friends too. I'd try to hold you until you calmed down, but I know that won't work on you, so I'm sorry about this. If it helps, you can beat on me all you like!" She punches at Atlas.

Crack! Atlas gets hit by diminutive fist into granite and he rocks slightly with the impact but otherwise doesn't move. He grunts, shaking it off and rubbing his side where he was hit. So he felt it for sure, it just didn't move him.

Ripcord flips up to his feet, absently brushing himself off even though his suit is ruined from that energy blast Abigail smacked him with, "Effort in futility." He murmurs to himself, "Atlas. Theta Four. Now." His tone is calm and cool, "Firefly is fine. It is time to go." And he snaps his right hand out and a white energy whip froms again, extending from his palm. He snaps it over towards the briefcase that Superhuman is holding onto and tries to grab and yank it out of her grasp!

SNAP! The white energy whip wraps around the brief case and Ripcord pulls back on it, the whip growing taught as it tries to yank the briefcase out of Superhumans grip, but she manages to hold on. "Firefly, nuke her."

All wet. Well plasma will steam dry her outfit and hair soon enough. Abigail lifts out of the water easily enough and whips her head about. She knew she heard another splash... so she arcs towards X. She has no idea if the creature can drown or not, but... she grabs him and mutters, "ew... flippin' wet bat fur..." as she comes up to the edge of the docks, setting him down and looking over towards the still going on conflict. "Star. While they're competing there. Put Ripcord -down-. Lily. My advice... do something painful to Firefly."

Starlight hears Abigail, and although it wasn't her first intention, she can live with the plan. Except, "Be careful. Firefly is badly hurt. Let's not kill her." she warns, as she flies over to Ripcord and aims a double-handed uppercut to his chin.

Ripcord goes flying back, the energy whip fading out of existence in that instant, blink, it's gone. He hits the ground and lays still, unconscious. Firefly /screams/ in terror. Like raw emotional scream. Atlas snaps his head over towards the pair and he curses in totally not pg-13 fashion.

Superhuman runs up to Atlas to clobbers him with the briefcase! It surived the tug of war, so she figures it can take it.

For all intents and purposes, it doesn't even look like Atlas noticed he got thwacked with a briefcase at that amount of impact. The briefcase however goes crackthoom. Seals break and good old fashioned cash dollars go flying into the air. Also what appears similar to the black box out of an airplane falls to the ground. Clank.

Firefly flies over and grabs hold of Ripcord, she struggles and strains to pick him up but she does so and in a flash of fire she flies over towards Atlas right in the middle of Superhuman and Lily! "Atlas. Please. Take us home?" She asks, "Please?" Her voice full of fear and pain. Atlas looks at Firefly and it's clear that he's pained by Firefly, not Ripcord, but maybe there's some sort of wierd triangle going on there. "Fine." Atlas rumbles, "You know he'll be pissed we didn't bring the briefcase." And he grabs hold of both of Ripcord and Firefly, the ground starts to ripple around them like liquid...

"Seems you guys know how to listen." offers Abigail as she nods. That's about the highest compliment she an give to metahumans. After so many experiences with folks questioning or flat refusing instructios, it feels good to have folks who actually pay attention. She drops to one knee to check on X's condition, making sure the guy's alive. After all, she has -no- idea how his physiology works.

The ground ripples like liquid and all three sink down into the earth, the ground smoothes and it's like it was always solid. Maybe it always was. Atlas apparently has some connection with the Earth after all. The money is flying around, some of it banded, some of it loose, mostly 20's, except for 3 5's to make the total 19995$, just barely legal to transport across state lines. The black box remains on the ground, just sitting there, latched shut. It glitters darkly...

Starlight is not too displeased, although she wonders what would have happened if she'd tried her plan. Namely, grab Firefly, and take her to Atlas and tell him to leave with her. Would Ripcord have been left? Who knows. Even so, the villains may escape but everyone knows who won here, and it wasn't them.

Superhuman uses her superhuman speed to try to grab the contents of the briefcase. She assumes they're important.

Starlight muses out aloud, "I wonder if lifting Atlas off the ground might weaken him? If he has an afinity to the Earth, he might need contact with it for his full strength."

Once she is sure X will recover, Abby starts walking over towards the others. Steam rises from her fatigues as they rapidly dry and she watches the money get collected. In response to Starlight's comment, she shrugs and says, "Question is, if lifting him from the ground is a realistic goal. He might have such a connection with it that it tries to hold him in place."

Lily pouts, "Aw. They got away." She smiles quickly, "But we stopped them!"

X is fine biologically speaking, he still has a heartbeat, still is breathing, and all of that good stuff. He comes to a while after the villains depart. But not long after, he comments, "Agh, They want me /now/? Ahh...I need to go." X takes off into the sky, heading for who-knows-where.

Starlight turns to Abigail, "Were you on the bridge of the ship? I felt it start to turn on its own." She shrugs, "I would have gone there, except I have no idea how to drive a ship. I figured my best bet was pushing on the bow.

Once the money is collected, Abby makes sure it gets packed into -something-. She calls in the authorities and nods to Starlight. "Yeah, the bridge crew was tied up and unconscious. I locked the wheel starboard, and woke'em up. They took over after that." She shrugs and picks up the black box. "Wonder what the importance of -this- is." she remarks.