Log:Den of Snakes, Scene 1

Den of Snakes 2012/05/15 	 Bullet Chen Jeremy Miss Chief Star Girl Sukeban Utility Victory 1

It's the start of summer at CBSU. Exams are over, and already some of the students and faculty have left the campus for vacation. Others remain on campus, saying goodbyes, playing frisbee, or just lounging in the sunrays on what's a beautiful afternoon in mid-may. Summer is also time for construction, and construction crews have broken ground on the new science department annex - the Masters Physics Center.

Kotone is lounging under a tree, her eyes closed as she enjoys the nice weather. . o O (Ah, this is the best. Nothin' to do, and no need to do it.)

Summer is also the time for summer school, and some people have to try and get some courses in in order to get their trust funds back. That's why Jeremy's there, being lost in space got him expelled, but, he was smart enough to pass the GED thankfully and that means... can start college this summer with more than the occasional night class. Deciding against wearing his costume (Which is generally a bad idea) the blue skinned teen is making his way over towards the administration building but stopping every now and again to talk to old friends, or throw a wave at others, he's not in a hurry. Summer classes never fill up completely.^t

Utility is walking out of the campus library, apparently looking relatively straight ahead as she seems to be observing something that may or may not be there. As she continues out, the expression on her face seems to change thoughtfully indicating some kind of input, creating a rather odd appearance of reacting to nothing. The hazards of personal digital communication...

Casey is sitting under a tree next to Kotone. "Man, it's a nice day... to bad the weather waits until I'm ready to leave for California to get good..."

Kotone murmurs, "Mmhmmm. Almost makes up for havin' to come back from Mykonos."

Well, registration is done. Eden is making this summer her first semester. She is going so far as to get scholarships arranged, and is planning to move into the dorms on campus rather than living at home with her parents. Right now, she's got a small backpack slung over one shoulder as she pushes the door open and walks out of the registrar.

Casey sits up. "Mykonos? Me: Super jealous... for totes." She sighs softly and looks out around the campus. o O ( I'd love to go on a trip with Wade...) Her gaze settles on Jeremy, who kind of sticks out in a crowd. "Oh," she remarks aloud. "I wonder if he's going here now?"

CBSU is one of the better state schools, especially strong on the science and in the fields of xenobiology and alien culture second to none. The new dorms, lecture halls and library speak of generous benefactors.

The campus is arranged in an broadly circular pattern. In the midst of campus is the college or student square, an open area where the students can hang out when the weather's nice. Surrounding the square are the rest of campus facilities, starting with the dorms, then moving out to the classroom buildings. By the campus stores two elevated MagLev lines cross. There is no stadium: that's off the campus proper, to the north of Courtland Way.

Kotone grins and opens her eyes lazily, "Maybe next time I'll get Suzu-chan to invite you and Wade along." She tilts her head up to look, "Oh? That guy. No idea."

Jeremy breaks away from a small group of people and continues over towards the administration building. Catching sight of Kotone (and Casey by association) the blue skinned teen throws a friendly wave in their direction and is distracted enough to almost run smack into Eden as she's leaving the building he's heading into.

Wade comes jogging up from the gym. He's in workout clothes, clearly getting in some exercise now that classes are over. The only odd thing is the high-tech looking bracer on his left arm.

Well, Eden isn't in speed mode, but she isn't distracted really. "Hey, careful..." she remarks to Jeremy, as her eyes slide fully his way, "Oh hey... you're blue!" Yes, it's time to point out the absolutely obvious. She smirks a bit then and shakes her head, "Colonial Bay... right, I get it." Almost like she were carrying on a conversation externally, with her inner monologue.

Casey spots Wade and starts to get up. She says to Kotone: "His name is Jeremy - supername Cobalt. He's not too bad once you get to know him. Flew us to Australia once. Doesn't know me outside of my suit, though..." She heads over from the tree towards Wade.

Kotone nods and closes her eyes again, leaning back.

Wade smiles, and waves to Kotone and Casey. He slows to a walk as he gets closer. "Hey there."

"Holy crap when did that happen?! What did you do to me?" Jeremy asks Eden, looking at himself in mock surprise but he grins and winks, "Thanks for reminding me." his tone is playful and not aggressive or angry or anything. "Sorry about that." He steps to the side, "Saw some people I hadn't seen in a while. I'm Jeremy." He introduces himself to Eden.

"Hey there," Casey says, smiling at Wade. Once near enough, she hugs him, putting her hands about his shoulders and closing in for a kiss on the lips. "How'd the workout go?"

Utility walks past Jeremy before stopping for a few moments then walking back and saying, "Oh, hey. Didn't think I'd see you here." she says then looks around saying, "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Eden." answers... well... Eden. She smirks a bit as she steps back and folds her arms over her torso. Her expression is wholly amused as she looks Jeremy over, and then her eyes slide past him about the campus for a moment before coming back to the blue guy. "You seem popular." she says as she eyes Utility with a bit of a grin and a nod of greeting. She doesn't KNOW Utility, but figures she might as well be social and friendly.

Wade hugs Casey back, and returns the kiss as well. "Pretty well. How're you doing?"

A smile cracks blue lips, "Nice to meet you Eden." Jeremy says and then looks over towards Utility, "Hey there, haven't seen you in a while really. Eden, this is Utility, Utility this is Eden." he makes introductions, "As for popular..." He makes a questionable face and shrugs, "Not really, I'm just noticable." A smile follows.

Casey tilts her head a little. "Ok... Going to miss you, even if it's going to be for just a couple of weeks," she admits.

Chuckling, Eden shakes her head just a little bit, "More like Memorable.. and.." she pauses as her brain almost audibly and visibly clicks, "...Utility? That sounds like something out of a comic book, not a -name-." And her voice trails off there and then... almost sounding like she's asking a question.

Wade smiles and says to Casey, "Well...it's just a short time, but I'll miss you too."

Jeremy shrugs a little, "It's the only name I've got to give." A wry smile, "Not everyone likes sharing their identity. Me... no choice. Blue." A grin.

"Well, I figure most people can find out what my name is if they want to. Rebecca Clark, then if you'd rather not have the name people generally use for me when I'm out doing who knows what." Utility says, "And I can understand not being able to hide yourself. It was a bit of a big deal for technology when I got rebuilt, people started writing about it in a couple different places. Not every day that someone gets accidentally blown up and rebuilt as a guinea pig."

Casey nods, and is quiet for a moment, enjoying it with a smile. Then: "Kotone's just over there... And Jeremy's over that way. Looks like he's making friends."

"Right.." offers Eden, "I swear, only in Colonial Bay. Glad I came home." she remarks with a bit of an amused grin on her face, "So, you both going to classes here? I just signed up for Freshman year starting this summer." She says that with a gesture back at the door she just walked out of.

Wade nods and smiles. "I ran into Kotone recently. She was gloating about vacationing with her main squeeze."

"I'm about to do the exact same thing." Jeremy says to Eden with a smile, "I took a night class a while back but... it was extra credit or something that doesn't matter anymore." He looks towards Utility, "Rebecca's a nice name. Thanks for saying, it's impolite to pry into another hero type's identity you know." He smiles and then looks back to Eden, "What classes are you taking this summer? Maybe we'll share some."

Casey says, "Yeah, Mykonos... I'm totally jealous. Hey, what do you think about taking a trip somewhere...?"

THOOM! There's a sound from the construction site of something heavy and metal slamming into the ground. The sound by itself is easy enough to ignore; it's been happening all day as the construction crew digs out the foundation of the new science building. Actually it's the clanging metal and shouting that signals what's going on as being out of the ordinary!

"Starting off with Algebra and..." Eden's head tilts and she glances in the direction of those sounds, "Well... looks like you're gonne be a bit too busy to compare schedules now. Maybe we can chat in a bit."

Kotone opens her eyes and looks over, "Meh. I hope that's nothin' I have to deal with. It's too damn nice a day to fight."

Wade starts to answer, "I think that's..." He looks over toward the construction site. "...a good idea." He smiles to Casey, "I'm going to go check on that. Back in a bit." He breaks into a run, headed toward the construction site.

"Well, whatever it is, hope it doesn't take to long and I can't get into any classes." Jeremy smiles and then lifts a hand in a salute to both women before a halo of blue energy forms around his whole body. A gust of air and energy flashes past their ankles as he flies up into the air and over towards the construction area, shouts and clangs of metal, never a good thing.

"Go to research one creep... And hear another doing something else." Utility says as she turns around and walks over saying, "Well, let's hope this doesn't involve some kind of forced fight again." and picks up her pace, running over towards the source of the noise as she looks through it on multiple spectrums and listens for transmissions in an attempt to see what's going on.

Casey says to Wade. "I'll catch up in a bit..." She departs, and looks for some place to change identities.

Perfect! Now that Jeremy and Utility have both turned their attention from her, Eden makes sure others are looking away too before she starts to blur a bit with superspeed. She then vanishes from where she's standing, ending up around a building corner where she does her patented super quick-change. If something bad -is- going on, she'd better be prepared for it! So the golden and white costume is put on and her street clothes are folded and put away in that split second activity... the backpack stashed around that corner....

Kotone sighs and levers herself to her feet, grabbing her beat up shoulder bag. . o O (Such a pain in the butt, tryin' to find a place to change.)

At the construction site, there's a giant 5 meter deep pit being dug for the foundation of the building. There's a giant excavator and it looks to have struck something hard with it's giant digging claw. The driver pokes his head out of the cab of the vehicle. From the edge of the pit a foreman shouts 'Stop the dig! Stop the dig!' A couple of construction worker in hard hats approach something that the excavator seemed to unearth...

The excavator claw seems to have busted open the corner of a giant square vault. The hole is about 2 meters wide and leads into darkness.

Flying over towards the dig and all the shouting Jeremy 'huh's at the information he receives from shouts and the like though really, blue skinned flying teenager. For the moment he just hovers where he is, waiting to see if something dangerous is going to come boiling up out of the tomb of darkness that has no doubt just released the Croatoa monster.

Wade reaches the edge of the contruction site, and stops, just watching to see what's going on.

Within another couple of seconds, there's a golden blur that comes to a stop at the edge of the site... pretty much beneath Jeremy, "So, uncover some ancient magical alien sacrificial chamber or some such!?" calls out Bullet as she stands there, hands on hips.

Chen is back working in the CBSU canteen. She's unaware of the excitement so far as she heads to the construction site with a tray filled with mugs of coffee and snacks pre-ordered by the construction company from the canteen. So the sight of any heroes on the scene, if any are visible, comes as a surprise to her.

"Nope, robot hanger." Utility says, "And it looks like some of them are starting to wake up." she says, taking some steps back and holding her hands in a position ready to vent plasma into them.

Kotone grits her teeth in frustration as she runs toward the nearest building, muttering, "Some days ya just can't find a place to change."

A number of robots fly out of the hole in the vault. "Security compromised," one of the robots says. "Eliminate risks to mission integrity..."

Automated Security Platform. A humanoid robot in black combat armor. This android stands about six feet tall. Its frame is all black armor, trimmed with silver. It's face is a flat unarticulated silver faceplate. The palms of its hands are armed with some sort of blasters, and the boots are equiped with thrusters.

"Whoa... wow, robot hangar indeed." mutters Bullet, "Okay people! Get back and away from the site!" Then she says to the robots, "What mission?!

Chen arrives at the construction site only to find the workers unusually uninterested in coffee. They seem to be paying great attention to a hole in the ground. "Hi, what's up?" she asks one of the workers watching events unfolding.

"We busted something open down there!" the foreman says to Chen.

Chen frowns, "What? A gas main? Water pipe? Megavillain secret underground base?"

The foreman says, "I'm not waiting to find out!" He's standing on the edge of the construction pit, but he shouts down to his guys in the excavated hole: "Run, get the heck outta there!"

Kotone grumbles and keeps running for a building and a place to change.

Chen puts the tray down safely, hardens her skin, a dragonscale pattern forming on her surface, and heads towards the hole.

Wade waves to Chen before activating his energy shield, and vaulting the fence around the site. He says, quite loudly in a pseudo-stage whisper, trying to get the attention of the robots, "Oh no...robots. I better tell the media about this! They'll blow the lid on this wide open!"

Star Girl runs up to the construction site, from her changing place.

Chen grins, "Oh. Hi, Victory. Would you like a hand or three? Hey, Star Girl. Good to see you again."

"Stand down... Override B-1... Something?" Utility says before sighing and saying, "It's not going to work." and lets some plasma out into her hands ready for the first sign of aggression.

"Metahuman obstacles identified. Intercepting." one of the robots says. Propelled by boot thrusters, the robots swarm into the air and scatter, each one targetting a different hero.

Wade brings his energy shield around, deflecting the blast without much problem, sending it into the dirt.

sidestepping the incoming blast before looking up at the Robot, Bullet calls out, "Hey! Watch it! You might hit somebody if you keep that up!" And then as others -get- hit, she says, "See? You need to be careful with that stuff! What mission I asked?!"

Chen is hit by the blast from a robot and knocked backwards a couple of steps.

"I don't think they're friendl-OOF!" Jeremy was talking to the other heroes when he takes not one but two blasts from the robots and not being anchored he goes flying back across the campus over the quad and into the science building. There is another THOOM as the wall gives way and Jeremy hits the ground inside the building, ripping up floor and with a crunch he pushes a desk into the wall, "Please let there have been nobody in here..." He says to himself and he takes a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. "I'm OK!" He shouts out as loud as he can, and also on the SERAF radio just in case anyone else has one to allay any fears. "Just... gonna gather myself a sec."

The foreman who's up by Chen turns and flees the scene. The other three construction worker, including the excavator driver, are fleeing on foot. They make it to the foot of the dirt ramp that leads out of the pit -- about 12m from the hole the robots emerged from.

Eyes catching the slow motion movements of the workers trying to evacuate the site, Bullet calls up at the robots, "You really need to be more communicative! What mission?!" And then she blurs and whooshes down to the bottom of the ramp before coming -up- the ramp and scooping up workers over her shoulders and in her arms. It's a good thing she's strong! When she sets them down, she's maybe 30m from the ramp, and she turns to head back about another 10m so that she's not right by the workers.

Chen comes back to her feet, looking towards the hole, "Okay, that's it. Now I'm pissed! Stupid security robots. The news is out! Human agents would know to contain the situation and just hold off heroes while the important villains evac. It's disgraceful, the state of the business these days. Sometimes I think being a hero is wasting a fantastic opportunity, because the competition in the villain field in so incredibly inept." sha says, while heading back.

Chen stands on the edge of the hole looking down at the robots, "Hi. Thanks for calling Inept Tech Helpline. Sorry to hear you're having a problem with out basic security robot. Have you tried rebooting?" she says in a padodied out-sourced Indian helpline voice, and her foot changes into a large contruction worker's heavy boot as it extends in a martial kick at the nearest robot.

The robot tumbles head over jetboots until it slams into the side of the science building

The robot fails to break through the stone facade of the building. It begins to fall to the ground.

Kotone runs into the building and the bathroom near the entrance, dashes into a stall, and starts to change.

Wade finds that the robots are a bit too high up for him to actually hit. He attempts to run up the arm of the digging equpment to get some height.

Star Girl takes a half-step back as she focuses on the robot circling her overhead. She thrusts both hands forward, hadouken-style, and tries to nail it with her blasters.

The robot twists slightly in mid-flight, as Star Girl's blast glances against it.

The beams fly towards Utility and strike her square in the chest as she falls back before using the plasma vents in her hands to stabilize herself, discharging some of her plasma in the process. She then lets plasma fill her hands once more before tossing them together as one bolt towards the robot that had attacked her.

The robot banks and dodges out of the way of Utility's attack.

The robot that Chen blasted fires its thrusters and launches itself back towards the shapeshifting hero. The two robots that blasted Jeremy fly in through the hole in the building and look to finish the job. The other robots attack their original targets.

Wade pivots, maintaining his footing on the arm of the digging equipment, deflecting the next blast at him.

Star Girl gets knocked to the ground by the laser blast from the robot. She seems to shake off the effects easily enough, though.

Jeremy hasn't even managed to get to his feet before he's slammed back into the desk again, crumpling it further. "Good thing it's summer time..." He mutters as he dusts himself off. "Starting to get annoyed."

Jeremy is clearly annoyed, a flash of blue energy and the teenager is on his feet, more holes burnt into his shirt from the laser blasters. "I seriously have to start wearing my costume all the time..." He mutters to himself but hey, at least it's a good spot for it. His eyes flash brightly and a chaotic maelstrom of energy consumes them and then blasts forwards as a cone of cobalt energy burns into the floor, the ceiling, the wall... out the hole he made and the robots came into... but mostly, it also burns into those two robots.

Both robots weather the storm of Jeremy's eyebeams, emerging with just scratches to their armor.

"Seriously?!" calls out Bullet towards the one above her giving chase. "What... mission?!" She asks that slowly, like she was trying to make herself understood by a three year old. "You know, nevermind, I'll ask your friends. Maybe they'll be more talkative." And with that, she blurs and vanishes. She comes to a stop after dashing around the side of the science building... leaving the front door closing slowly behind her and racing up the stairs and down the hallways. She appears basically between Jeremy and his two attackers, "Your friend told me to ask -you- what mission you're talking about. So how about it?" she asks, hands on her hips as she basically makes herself a target, trying to get these two to stop focusing on the Blue guy.

Chen is prepared. As the flying robot returns she recalls Master Chang's lessons 'Litle blossom, your haste and impatience causes lack of control. Lack of control makes you vulnerable.' There's normally a painful encounter with the ground to highlight the point as Master Chang diverts her charge into a face-planting nose-dive. Stratching out she attempts to use the robot's flight against it, diverting it course to slam it into the digger arm close to Victory's feet.

Chen flips the robot's feet into a new direction, letting its own thrusters take it the rest of the way to a clanging impact against the digger arm be Victory.

The robot sparks and struggles to continue moving. "Warning. Unit integrity at 15% percent..."

Star Girl calls out. "Can you guys handle these robots without me? I've got an idea!"

Chen grins and calls out, "Victory, let me know when you want another to play with."

Wade smiles, even as he barely keeps his balance on the digger arm. He looks to Chen, "Thanks." He then lifts his foot, and attempts to kick the head of the robot right next to him.

Chen laughs, "Anytime, Victory. It's good to help your friends."

Wade's boot dislodges the robot from the excavator arm. It falls to the floor of the construction pit in a heap of metal and sparks.

Star Girl vanishes from sight.

"Ok, that's it!" Utility says as her hands start to fill with plasma once more. Except this time, it seems to be much more plasma than usual as her hands are cupped against each other and seem to be having a hard time containing it, "You are NOT walking away from this!" she says as she throws the abnormally large plasma bolt at the robot, apparently seeming to be a bit tired afterwards.

Utility's energy blast hammers the robot -- it crashes through the first floor of the sports complex and splooshes into the pool.

A few shrieks come from the pool where swimmers are swept out of the swimming area by the backblast from the impacting robot.

Miss Chief teleports to campus - and finds herself in the middle of a battle zone. She looks about in dismay. "Uh-oh!"

Bullet's robot zooms one the trail of the superspeedster. Meanwhile the two in the wrecked office of the science building turn to face Bullet as well. Wade still has a robot in pursuit, and the robot that was attacking Star Girl looks around for a new target, settling on Chen.

"Over here guys. What... damned... mission?" says Bullet, being a distraction and such. Then she ducks and weaves before adding, "Hey, careful there!"

Chen gets hit by a laser blast and is throw backwards again. "You could try missing occasionally. You know, just for a change." she gripes to the robot targeting her.

Wade deflects another blast coming his way, "Hmm. I wonder what they were guarding?"

Jeremy blinks as the blast apparently does little more than scratch their paint, "Why did I learn to do this again?" He asks of himself and prepares to get blasted once more... but he isn't, not this time, he didn't even /see/ what happened with those two to draw their attention but... heck, not going to waste it. He plants his feet into the floor, literally digging his toes into the floor of the office for additional bracing as he focuses everything he's got to try and control a wild torrent where he lets loose with a large portion of the energy his body contains.. all at once...

Miss Chief asks, "So what's up here, guys? Evil robots?" Then without awaiting an answer talks a bit of cable from the construction site into ensnaring the closest robot. "They got something against higher education or something?"

Chen grins and grows an extra arm to wave to Miss Chief, "Hi. One of the others might know. They're shooting at us. That gives them a vote for being evil in my book anyway."

Miss Chief says, "You never know on campus. They could just be protesting about something happening in Zu or somethng....."

Chen says, "If they wanted to walk around waving signs and shouting slogans I'd leave them to it, Miss Chief. Shooting lasers at me is going a step too far though, don't you think?"

Her perceptions sped up ridiculously, Bullet sees Jeremy getting ready for his attack. She nods and says, "I'll set'em up and you knock'em down. Even while he's moving forward and starting to unleash his energy, she's flashing through the room and blurs past them both, lashing out at each with a snap punch before turning and running across the hole in the wall and waving to the one out there. She runs past the hole again, making an obscene gesture to the thing, and then runs back past it waving again before ending up out of sight from the thing.

CRUNCH! Two robots slam out of the science building and land in the excavation pit, landing in six or seven pieces.

Chen takes note of the need to capture at least one of the robots so Bullet's question can be answered, so her arms extend to attempt to grab the closest active robot in an double arm lock.

Star Girl does something.

Looking over at the science building, Utility pours more plasma out into her hands and says, "And here's another!" as the plasma flows out into a large bolt once more. She then tosses it at the robot with notable effort before she drops to one knee, apparently quite tired.

Chen grabs the robot and pulls it down to the ground, it's arms held twisted against the joints, palms bent back, the laser emitters aimed harmlessly upwards. o O(Hope this thing is modelled on human skeleton structure. Memo to self, work on this in the Gym.)

Utility's blast sends the robot crashing into another section of the Science building.

"Hey!" calls out Bullet as she vanishes once more. She appears before the robot just as it's settling into its resting place after being blasted, "Get...out!" she calls out before she winds up and goes into an insane flurry of punches.