Log:Reign of Terror, Scene 4

Reign of Terror 2010/06/24 	 Flux Harlequin Jade Rebound 4

''This is an Emergency Alert. Attention all LEOs and Heroes in the greater Colonial Bay area. At 1227 local time a SH07 Shadowhawk Gunship and its two parasite SCRAM units went AWOL from the Aberdeen Proving Ground US Army facility in Maryland. The SH07 has been visually confirmed flying NOE and heading toward Colonial Bay. Warning. The SH07 was on base security duty and is fully armed.''

An iridescent pinprick appears in the air and then expands into an iridescent hoop. A darkened room filled with carious kniock knacks can be seen as Harlequin steps through the gate to this spot.

Harlequin waves his hand and the gate closes cutting off a sepulcral voice that says 'And be caref-"

SH07-Shadowhawk

A sleek and dangerous helicopter gunship. It's armed with a nose mounted 30mm vulcan cannon firing APSDDU rounds, wing mounted 20mm hypervelocity fletchette guns, and 6 "Brickbuster" Anti-armor missiles. It is totally silent in flight. It has two bays, one on each side to carry SCRAM battlearmor units.

SCRAM01

A large 3m tall battlearmor, painted in a camoflauge pattern. It's carrying a APDS-48 Fletchette Carabine. It's alos armed with a HK78 Vibroknife, a RCHF-2B Laser cannon, and an interanl DSFM-643 "Dragontooth" area saturation missile launcher.

Sirens fill the air as the CBPD moves to cordon off the zone and evacuate civilians. A plainclothes officer is directing the operation.

Harlequin takes an ornate looking wood and crystal wand from his belt and waves it. A set of silver then a set of blue disks begin to circle him.

Rebound bounce-glides onto the scene from the direction of the heart of the city.

 Rebound says, "Testing. Anyone else online? I'm responding to a situation outside Harrisburg, intercepting a rogue military gunship."

Earily silent, the wasplike shape of the SH07 can be seen about half a mile away, flying slowly about 10m above the ground.

 Jade says, "I'm-on-my-way-but-this-is-really-*not*-how-I-wanted-to-sppend-my-18th-birthday."

Harlequin taps the wand against his chin. In an Eastern European accented voice he murmurs, "Why steal them and head right towards the most meta filled city on the East Coast?"

Rebound glides into a landing next to Harlequin. "If your goal is chaos and carnage, it makes perfect sense. I'm Rebound, by the way, and I'm assuming you're hear to help. We can worry about formal introductions later."

Jade arrives by car - only by chance was she driving today, sorting out things for her birthday celebration.

Shikha Chandrasekhar (the plainsclothes officer) waves the heroes over.

Harlequin wanders over to the officer but lets rebound take the lead.

 Rebound says, "I'm sorry, Jade. Hey about we et some ice cream cake when this is over."

Rebound moves over to the officer in one stretch-legged step. "Hello, officer. How can we help?"

 Jade says, "Sounds-good!"

Jade seems to jump from her car almost the instant she brings it to a halt.

Chandrasekhar breathes a sigh of relief as she hears that, "Good to see you. We got a follow up from the military. That thing took out the other 5 'Hawks at Aberdeen before it flew off. The Army's tin soldiers are being carted over here in trucks since their rides got trashed, but there's traffic all the way on 95, and I don't want them blowing up my city anyway. We need you to stop that thing from getting over the inhabitted areas. Those things carry the firepower used to fight wars, and I don't want my city becoming a warzone."

Harlequin nods. "Any idea as to who stole them? Or what as the case may be?"

Chandrasekhar shrugs, "Last report was that the regular aircrew and SCRAM grunts were on board. They haven't been able to get any response."

Jade pulls out her omniscanner to see if she can get more idea what she's up against. She's feeling heavily outclassed.

Rebound looks to Jade. "Maybe the systems have been hacked." He says for everyone to hear, "I'm thinking that the helicopter will be the easiest to ground and immobilize. We should hit it first, and then worry about stopping the armors." He looks around. "Make sense?"

Jade says, "I-don't-have-a-better-ideas-at-this-point!"

Harlequin nods. "Agreed. I shall follow your leads, sir and madame."

Harlequin

This figure stands a little under 6 feet tall and has a wiry build. His features are covered by a white porcelain harlequin's face mask. The eyes are obscured by dark tinted glass that barely reveal the eyes beyond. The mask has an obscure, faint smile on its sculpted features.

The figure is dressed in a floor length hooded black cloak that covers a scarlet tunic with long sleeves and loose fitting pants. All the clothing seems to made of some silken material. Black leather gloves cover his hands. The pants are tucked into a pair of calf high leather high boots.

The figure seems very confident in his mannerisms and stance. His gaze does not seem to linger long on any one person or object.

Jade tucks the scanner away again.

As it gets closer, you can see the SCRAM units hanging of either side by their rappeling tethers

Rebound stretches his hands into giant chairs. "Hop on," Rebound says, crouching as he prepares to leap. "The further away from the city we meet them, the more time we buy ourselves. I'll bounce us there in a hurry."

Jade hops onto the Rebound-chair.

Harlequin takes a seat and crosses his ankles in the chair. "Is there an in-hop movie?"

Rebound luanches himself in the air towards the oncoming helicopter. "Yeah.. 'Predator'... 'Get to tha choppaa!'"

In the distance, there's a burst of fire as the SH07 fires its 30mm cannon at a tree.

Jade readies herself for helicopter boarding - this included raising her force field.

Harlequin readies himself as well. He deiceds to stick with the others for now.

Jade waits till she and the helicopter meet!

Rebound continues to bounce towards the attack chopper. He slows his pace slightly, allowing himself a chance to evade if necessary.

SH07-Shadowhawk drifts forward and opens fire on Rebound with it's main cannon and wing guns!

Rebound lands and springs back up into the air just before the cannon blasts the pavement where he touched down. He winces as a he catches a flechette round in the leg, but he manages to hop over the worst of it.

Rebound says, "This chopper came from Aberdeen... do you think the crew might be under a fear whammy?"

SCRAM01 and SCRAM02, from their position of on either side of the SH07 open fire, their oversized shoulder pods flipping up and firing off a hail of minimissiles in the direction of Rebound.

Jade says, "A-connection-is-likely-but-whether-that-could-have-this-effect-I-don't-know."

SCRAM01 and SCRAM02, from their position of on either side of the SH07 open fire, their oversized shoulder pods flipping up and firing off a hail of minimissiles in the direction of Rebound.

The disks that have been circling Harlequin suddenly expand to englobe him in a blue and silver as the missiles fly.

Rebound sees the incoming missiles. "Oh... shucks."

Jade rolls ahead of the explosions - just barely.

Rebound grunts, and he's buffetted by one explosion and then the next. He comes through the barrage alright, though his uniform is singed.

Harlequin hisses as toungue of fire gets through his shields, but he holds onto Rebound's chair-hand. He beats out a small fire on a sleeve, but seems otherwise unharmed. "Gods above an below that is irritating."

Jade thinks. o O (How am I even going to get close enough to try anything?)

Harlequin then goes quite still in Rebound's chair-hand. Grey mist seems to flow from him towards the helicopter expanding as it does into a large (2m) skeletal hand that reaches for the main gun of the helicopter.

The nose of the Shadowhawk blisters as the armored cowling is ravaged by time.

Flux flies low, not wanting to attract attention. She heard there was some helicoptor doing bad things and she has the idea that maybe helicopters don't like ice, the way most machines don't. So to help she comes toward the horrible missile-firing, armed-with-machine-guns-probably whirly-thing-that-keeps-it-aloft-as-a-hat-wearing thing.

Jade spots a telephone pole and charges for it, attempting to swing-and-climb her way up to the helicopter.

Jade half-jumps and half scrambles up the SCRAMs themselves to reach and hang on to the tethers, securing her aerial position!

Jade yanks on the manual release for the SCRAM, hoping they won't be expecting this, then tries to make her way into the helicopter via the SCRAM bay.

Shadowhawk Gunner#1 shouts, "They're breaking through! They're breaking through. Noooooo!!!!!"

Rebound springs into the air and tries to grab the helicopter with his free hand.

Rebound lashes his arm around the left gun wing a few times. From there, he manages to pull himself and Harlequin up onto the helicopters wing and out of the way of it's guns.

Rebound calls out, "Fifth floor: Cockpits, battle suits, and lingerie!

Harlequin murmurs, "Thank you for the lift, Rebound." He steps onto the surface of the wing, then reaches over to rest his hand on the side of the helicopter. The grey mist flows from his boy as the air cols lightly around him and the grey skeletal hand grips the sie of the ShadowHawk.

Pieces of armor plate flake and crumble away under the mystic assault.

Flux moves herself to one side of the Shadowhawk, taking aim at the upper rotors...

SH07-Shadowhawk pivots and the pilot fires the 30mm supervulcan cannon at Flux!

Flux rolls for HAP's and gets 2 for this scene.

"HEY!" Flux moves well out of the cannon's line of fire, eyes wide, "Watch where you're pointing that!" And now she has a focus.

Rebound shouts, "If we can take out the rotors, I'll try to make a soft landing for everybody. The trick is, taking out both rotors at the same time."

SH07-Shadowhawk 's gunners, inside, twist in their harnesses and fire their side arms at Jade!

The shots ricochet around, damaging the gunship!

SCRAM01 (left) swings its fletchette carabine toward Rebound and Harelquin and fires off a burst

The spray of plastic splinters miss Rebound, but narrowly wing Harelquin.

Harlequin remains with his feet planted on the gun wing and his hand on the side of the helicopter. The flechette streaks towards him and is intercepted first by a blue disk then the silver one but a bit of it gets through and gouges him in the arm. He looks down at it, then turns back to the the helicopter side.

SCRAM02 (right) fires its Fletchette carabine at Flux

... but misses.

Rebound tugs his arm to test he has a firm grip on the body of the helicopter. With his free arm, he stretches his hand into the cockpit through the SCRAM hatch. He looks through the tinted window as he reaches for the ejection mechanism and tries to trigger it.

Rebound says, "Hang on, this could get rough..."

canopy forward). The three crew are rocketed into the air and the interior fills with flames.
 * fwoom* The canopy and the rotor blade blast off (the rotor backwards, the

Harlequin grabs onto the side of the helicopter as he shouts, "Bozhe moi!"

Straining under the weight, Rebounds manages to slow the descent of the gunship to a slow crash.

Above, the crew's parachutes open.

Rebound floats over the downed helicopter, draping on the top of it like a blanket. "Uhhhh... Remind me not to do /that/ again..."

Jade thinks. o O (So much for that. Time to go outside and get shot at again, I suppose.)

Flux sends ice over the nearest SCRAM, hoping to at least slow it down for the others to get at them.

Jade makes her way back out of the hatch to see what she can do against the SCRAMs.

Ice coats the SCRAM, getting in everywhere and generally making a mess of things for the pilot to deal with. Flux seems happy with the results.

Jade figures she'll need a weapon so she attempt to grab a carbine from the nearest SCRAM.

Jade grabs the carbine but is unable to wrest it free - though nor can the person in armour use it.

Rebound rolls off the top of the helicopter, shrinking back to his normal dimensions, dropping onto his feet on the side of the unfrozen SCRAM. He throws a punch at it with mailbox sized fist.

The SCRAM is battered back, but halted by its tether before it can go anywhere.

SCRAM01 tries to shift but the ice is too hard. There's a brilliant flash of ruby light from beneath the ice as it fires its chest mounted laser.

The ice is mostly melted away, but the SCRAM is still trapped.

Rebound says, "They're hallucinating... I think that's why they blasted that tree."

SCRAM02 flips open its other missile pod and fires directly down at where Jade is standing!

Jade says, "That-was-my-reckoning - uh-oh!"

Jade sees the missile coming and runs out of the blast range, unfortunately abandoning the weapon.

The disks circling Harlequin intercept each piece of debris and lick of fire. He turns his head to look at the SCRAM. "Just give up. Please."

SCRAM02 flicks on its external speaker, "Nooooo! I'm not going back to Kinshasa! I saw what you @##!ers did to Benny!"

The SCRAMs break down and start crying.

Rebound sees to rounding up the pilot and gunners.

They seem terrifed, as if they've just woken up from a nightmare.

Harlequin looks at the terrified soldiers and shakes his head. "I think I need to work on something to counter this..despair," he mutters.

Jade does her best to put on a sympathetic face, as she asks, "What happened?" Figuring it might be useful to hear from their perspective.

The most responsive of the men (the gunship pilot) tries to pull himself together, "W-we were back in Kinshasa, flying patrol... they were all around us. The knives... oh god not the knives..."

Rebound says, "You were at Aberdeen base before the nightmare started... what do you remember happening before the nightmare?"

Jade says, "What took you back there? What's the last you remember beifre it happened?"

He shudders, "W-we were flying our normal patrol around the base... then we were back in Kinshasa." He grabs his ears as if trying to shut out a sound, "The screams... oh god not the knives not the knives not the knives...'

Harlequin moves over to the pilot and waves a hand as his eyes begin to glow a sooty red. "Be calm, soldier. It is not real." (Mind Control to counter the effect)

Rebound hmms. "Maybe we ought to get in contact with the base..." Rebound pulls out his PDA. He looks up the phone number and starts dialing.

Rebound says, "They say everything is alright at the base, relatively speaking. They'll have people here in 5 minutes."

Harlequin murmurs, "The control they are under is no onger being maintained. The poter presence is withdrawing."

Jade says, "That's-somethig-at-least is-anyone-making-any-progress-in-this-matter?"

The pilot says, "Th-thanks... my team we were in Kinshasa back in 08. We got shot down and taken prisoner... Th-they flayed Benny alive and started on us before the 08th Marines got to us. Rotated us back state-side to recuperate. But they tagged us with PTSD and stuck us on BaseSec once we recovered."

Harlequin's eyes return to normal as do the pilots. "I have not been investigating. A mistake it seems."

Rebound says, "Dark Horse reported that he thought the Psiops consultants might be involved somehow."

Jade says, "They're-using-them-in-this-project-because-of-this-trauma?"

The pilot holds his head, "It... when did it happen... We were on patrol pattern epsilon, crossed the barracks, then the Medical Ward... then Kinshasa..."

[To Jade] Rebound says, "I'm not sure, though it sound like we should check out the medical ward."

Jade nods.

Jade says, "Do-they-station-lots-of-personnel-who-have-had-traumatic-experiences-there?"

In the distance a hovercar with military markings is heading your way.

The pilot shrugs, "I d-don't know. Maybe? Lots of guys that can't go frontline get stuck on BaseSec."

Jade observes the approaching vehicle. It occurs to her that people with something to hide might be involved in the collection too.

The car lands and three people step out. Two men and a woman. They are wearing gray military uniforms. Their unit insignia is the greek letter 'psi'. Their name tags just read "Alpha" (the woman) "Beta" and "Gamma". They are wearing full face masks of black cloth, that covers even their eyes and mouthes.

Gamma speaks in a friendly tone, "Wow! You guys managed to stop them before they got to the city! That's awesome!"

Jade watches them, trying to do her Sherlock-Holmes trick and see if she can make anything about them out despite their get-up. Also so she might recongise them, hopefully, is she saw them again.

Rebound says, "Would you care to explain what's going on at the base? If these people have made it to the city, there would have been serious carnage."

Alpha sighs, "What's going on is classified of course. Sorry. We're really, really grateful that you people stopped them before anyone got hurt."

Beta nods, "Look, we can't talk here. And now's not a good time to visit the base. Contact us in a few days and we'll see what we can arrange."

Jade wonders what's going on there now.

Rebound says, "Why, what's going on at the base? More of this madness?"

Gamma shakes his head, "Just... contact us in a few days. We're PsiOps Triad 036 by the way. Just ask for us and use the pass phrase 'World Peace and Puppies'

A military hover ambulance arrives and they begin taking care of the gunship team.

Jade says, "Why-do-I-suspect-if-I-nearly-destroyed-a-city-no-one-would-accept-the-excuse-'it's-classified'?"

Rebound nods. "There will be an inquiry, and hearings. All of it will take more time than we have."

Jade nods. "Why-do-people-always-withold-information-from-those-who-might-be-able-to-help it's-frustrating not-that-I-was-any-help-today.