Log:Target Rich Environment

Open Season 2019/11/12

3

Ledge of building, in the downtown area, Gauntlet sits with basket of apples beside her, Zero very nearby. They're...talking! With words!

Zero leans over and sees the apples appear. "Ok. Now I'm officially jealous." She says heading to sit on the ledge on the opposite side of the basket of pilfered apples.

She snags one for herself without asking. She rubs it off on her suit before taking a bite. While she does that she says, "Well- Colonial Bay has a lot of metahumans. A lot of capes. But there is a lot of crime they miss- and not all of it victimless. That's usually where I try to apply my... talents when there's nothing worth taking."

Gauntlet leaves the basket wholly unguarded. Almost as though she expected it to be drawn from by more than just herself. "Vat crime?" she asks, looking more for extrapolation than clarity. She smirks then. "Der basket vas in my home. Now it is here."

Zero takes a bite of the apple and considers the question. "Smuggling- weapons, drugs, people. Triads. Yakuzas. A few cartel and mafioso-types too. None of them have any qualms about using innocent people for ill-gotten gains and most prefer the shooting to talking. Not wise to give them the chance to make that decision." Zero says finally. "That's where most of my fun comes from these days."

"More cartels soon enough," a feminine voice with a rich spanish accident declares somewhere behind them as Mechanica's cloak drops. "Who's this?" she asks pointedly as she flips a wrist, palm up and claws flashing as she motions to Gauntlet.

Zero smiles without turning around, recognizing that voice immediately. She swings back around and the smile turns into a grin. "Mechanica. Meet... Gauntlet. Gauntlet meet Mechanica." She says with a cheerful lilt ot her voice. "We just ran into each other as I was leaving someone's place. She's got sticky fingers too so we were naturally comparing notes." She chuckles lightly.

Propping her forearm on raised knee, Gauntlet bites apple. "Friend, ja?" she says, her own accent from somewhere more Germany-based. "Vilkommen. So you are like dar Robin Hood. Take from rich and corrupted. Give away or keep?" It doesn't sound like she's going to be surprised by either answer.

"You've gotten very trusting," Mechanica says to Zero. Mechanica's default state is a paranoid one. "Telling stuff about me to a stranger already?" she studies Gauntlet some. She certainly sticks out. Plenty of identifiable features.

Zero nods looking as if she'd been scolded and says, "Yes. Friend." Keeping it short and sweet. She wanted to say all sorts of flowery things about her sister, reminded recently that life is short and the people you care about should hear you think the world of them. But instead she sighs.

Plus now that robot butler of hers does all the things that she'd creep in and do for her so they're free for more good-natured trouble so she'd rather stay on her good side today. She hasn't told her about Hunter/William yet, mostly because she doesn't want to see the look of satisfaction on her face.

"Yup- you got it." She answers without really specifying what she does with the things she steals. A little of Column A and a little from Column B.

If Mechanica happened to have dropped by her place first she may have noticed much more from Column B lying around unguarded.

"More? I think we're at capacity do you think?" She asks Mechanica flippantly, clearly familiar enough with her attempt to change the subject away so easily.

"Vat can I say?" Gauntlet asks, finishing the apple she attacked with her teeth. "I have trustable face." She slides out a compartment on the left gauntlet and interfaces with it like a touch screen, and the tattoos that show change to accentuate her features and make her appear just a little more childlike by shading. The smirk though, that's not helping the look, which becomes kind of impish. She leaves that on for all of ten seconds, swiping the screen, tapping a bit to take on a lightning pattern against a darker backdrop, flashing without the sound of thunder. Probably because the implant does not make sounds. "It is fun toy," she mentions. "Very hot at clubs."

Mechanica had been looking for Zero after she seemed to fall off the face of the earth after Null's well-intentioned kidnapping, and was back again to see the loot, and get clued in she was back. She doesn't ask for those details in front of new company. She's skittish as a cat with new people. Sh folders her arms over her chest. "Yes, more. They're bulking up their presence and trying to oust the Koreans." She watches Gauntlet show off her tech. "Hmmm..."

Mechanica steps away for a moment, holding a finger up to Zero in her usual 'I have a situation to deal with' manner before she cloaks from sight and sound again for some privacy.

Zero shrugs. "A bit of a workaholic. But she's lovely as long as you stay on her good side." She turns around and blows her a silent raspberry. SHe doesn't 'look' for her, she just shoots it off randomly.

"Still- not looking forward to more cartel. They aren't fun. Its always the same with them. Murder. Murder. Murder. There's no finesse there." She complains before taking another bite of her apple. "These are really good."

"So righteous acts," Gauntlet muses, motioning to the basket. "Go on. Too many for me right now." She turns, sitting crosslegged on the ledge with two apparent presences instead of the one she knew about. "You really believe I can help? Ja, I suppose most veppons vould not harm me. Might be fun to try!"

"Well you seem pretty skilled with those Gauntlets. Seems like there could be a lot of fun gags are in store." Zero says in between bites of apple while she snatches up one for later. "Thanks." She says quickly.

Mechanica finishes pulling up blueprints for a vigilante on a job and sends them over, after taking down the security systems remotely. She then decloaks and sighs. "Taken care of. And I saw that," she says with a glowering look at Zero concerning the raspberry.

"Vant apple?" Gauntlet asks of Mechanica, lifting four from the basket within a red and yellow scintillating nimbus that seems to come from her right hand gauntlet. They rotate while suspended.

Mechanica shakes her head. "I'm good. Thanks," she politely declines. Paranoid. Check.

With care, the apples are set back into the basket. "Is gag like joke?" she wonders. "Tat vort is also in German." She takes a second apple, moving the basket closer to Zero.

"Yeah. You know. Like a job. A heist. A mission. I'm a bit more flexible these days." Zero explains, wishes she had pockets for these contraband apples.

"Vell," Gauntlet muses aloud. "How much should I be told beforehand? I understand, trust is hard to gain." She nods in Mechanica's direction. "If not this vere first day here, I vould also have mistrust. I can see, you trying to figure out if I am police or revenge spy, ja?" She smirks. "I vould be awful as each."

Night Marshal enters from Old Town.

(I've got a hunch about this one. I mean- she looks weird. Neo-punk is sooooo weird. But supposedly she's a big deal overseas. I want to see what she can do.)0o. Zero protests mentally to Mechanica while chewing.

"That's true. Mechanica's usually right to play it safe." Zero says aloud before adding to Mechanica alone, (Not all of us are precogs. Afterall no one's perfect.)

Mechanica doesn't mean to project her immediate reaction. o O (Yeah, and being a precog worked out real well with your boyfriend.) She then immediately worries that she projected that. She looks even more sourfaced at that potential.

Zero gasps suddenly as if she were just punched in the gut. She shuts off their Super Secret BFF MindLine. She narrows her eyes at Mechanica and pulls up her hood, suddenly not feeling very social or cheerful.

Her chin trembles before she turns to look away from the others and at the cityscape itself. She tries to keep her composure clenching her fist out of sight.

Mechanica is standing apart from Zero and Gauntlet, her usual bristling self when meeting new people. Arms are folded, data queries are being run on Gauntlet. Zero and Mechanica are seated and eating apples from a basket. Her scowl smooths away to guilt at Zero's gasp. So she did accidentally project. Shick.

Silently watching the two, and the change in Zero despite no outward sign or speech, the following reaction from Mechanica, Gauntlet chews the second of the apples in thought. She's seated at the ledge of a building, crosslegged facing the direction of Zero and Mechanica, leaning back and propped up on one gauntleted hand.

Night Marshal has been following a tracker he placed on a suspect's vehicle. But the device has gone on the fritz, as they do sometimes. He ends up downtown, and he decides that he might be able to get a better idea where the car is if he can get a better view. So, he starts to climb toward a rooftop. It ends up being the building that the group is on top of, curiously. Definitely a coincidence. Maybe?

Zero decides not to say anything about Night MArshal's arrival, hoping it startles Mechanica while she thinks mean, nasty things about her.

She takes another bite of the apple and wishes it were something more satisfying. Something like chocolate or a bit of burglary. She can't believe she thought that!

Gauntlet swings her legs from the ledge toward the center of the roof and stands, noticing then that the roof is taking on another body, her posture remaining neutral with her arms both at her sides after she presses in a short sequence on her left gauntlet.

Night Marshal comes walking over a bit closer, not bothering to try to be sneaky. His voice has kind of an Old West drawl to it, or at least the kind of exaggerated one heard in movies. "Howdy. I'm surprised to see you folks up here this afternoon." He tips his hat to the ladies.

To Zero's chagrin, Mechanica's not surprised. Mechanica half-turns and smiles at Night Marshal as he approaches. "Vaquero," she croons affectionately to amuse herself, "Fancy running into you out here. In broad daylight." The daylight comment includes a cutting look towards Zero. "I was surprised, too." She looks back to Night Marshal. "What've you been up to lately?"

Zero senses all that and bobs her head and quietly mocks the tempo of Mechanica's words.

She turns after a long moment to take a breath and compose herself. She waves to Night Marshal. "Afternoon, Cowboy. Fancy that. A lady-killer on a rooftop of ladies." She tries to play her heartbreak down by falling into the role of Zero.

Crimson enters from MagLev System.

Night Marshal chuckles. "Today's my day off, so I'm moonlighting. During the day. Lost track of someone, and reckoned I might be able to see them from up here. The roof has a pretty good view, yah?" He heads over to the far edge to look around. "Though I don't see the car anywheres, so...perhaps not my lucky day after all."

"Still learning my vay around," Gauntlet's German accent is pronounced. "Lady killer? I do not know tat phrase." Everyone stands aroof and also it's set downtown.

Mechanica smiles. "If you have a license plate or more details, perhaps I can help you locate it again, Vaquero." It's rare for her to just offer up help without some quid pro quo. Will wonders never cease?

Crimson moves from rooftop to rooftop across the city, assisting her leaps with judicious use of her energy whip, when she spots a gathering of figures on a rooftop. Diverting her course she leaps to that rooftop. "Taking the air?" she says with a slight British accent. "I'm Crimson. Journeyman heroine. So heroes or villains?"

Night Marshal starts to answer Mechanica, only to have Crimson ask her question. "I can't speak for everyone here, but I'd say more hero than villain." He points at Zero and gives her a wink, "I reckon I'd watch out for that one. She seems to want to take anything not nailed down."

For her part, Gauntlet is quiet, watching as more seem to be attracted to the location but beyond being quiet, she isn't showing any outward sign of anything. She is studious, though both of her gauntlets have taken on a bit of a powered on look, with the right tapping subtly over the left a series of keypresses.

Zero senses something and stands up. "Watch out!"

The warning comes, but only Crimson sees a cylinder descending to the center of the group from above at the same time a white beam of light comes shooting from a more level area towards Mechanica.

"Funny! All we see are targets!" comes a high pitched cackle from above.

Gauntlet reacts to the warning with a raised right hand, some subtle finger movements and wave of her arm to place a deflecting zone over Mechanica's general location.//12 PD/12 ED 0 Body barrier-blockamajig. No special add-ons.

Crimson frantically ctivates the force field function of her battlesuit. Meanwhile back at Quinn tower Mark drops a genetics textbook and hurries to his own battlesuit.

The barrier holds as an explosion erupts in fire and smoke against it, protecting the others. "Hey, that's not fair!" complains the cackler.

The crossways blast strikes Mechanica, sending her careening off the rooftop and into the adjacent building with a crunch. The white beam has electrical sparks around it, causing her own systems to spark as well before she starts to fall down. Serves her right for hurting her sister's feelings.

Deadlock looks up from his sights. He's affixed to the side of a building with a long rifle attached by a strap, dressed in military-grade power armor in urban camo. He has a helm with a visor that covers all but his mouth and scruffy chin. "One down," he radios to Boomer, then starts taking aim at Gauntlet.

Deadlock is 12m away from the heroes, across another building with partial cover. Boomer hovers 15m in the air above the heroes, and 8m back. He's wearing navy BDUs with body armor, a bandolier of canisters, and a grenade launcher. He's got a metal rig harness with metal wing-like attachments with turbines installed to allow him to hover.

Gauntlet finds herself launched and airborne, not overly worried as there is still time before impact and her options are several.

Zero is about to tell Night Marshal that he's no fun when sudden she feels that tale tell feeling that she's in terrible danger. She uses that breath to alert the others of the oncoming general danger they're in as she senses that where they are seems to be the best place for the moment and she rolls to get as close to Gauntlet as possible.

She closes her eyes so she can sense their enemy and focus on them.

She's feeling nasty after Mechanica's comment and could use with a little romp to blow off some steam.

That's when she sense's Mechanica careening off the building and into the neighboring structure. She suddenly feels awful for being so cross at what was likely a stray thought and instead is upset someone is shooting at them. Still an issue.

She smoothly slips her swingline gun out of its holster and closes the grapnel head- making it a perfectly dangerous implement, perfect for her method of fighting which is 'do not die or get close enough to be killed'.

This plan isn't working so well- especially when the two they are fighting with prefer keeping a good range themselves & have already dropped two of five people. Zero's mind sets to calculating and plotting, trying to find a way to keep everyone alive.

She rolls forward while getting her Meteor Hammer swinging to build momentum. There's nothing she can do to help either Mechanica or the others under fire.

She gets as close as she dares and leaps up, spinning the hammer around her and then kicking it forward straight at Deadlock.

The blast hits Deadlock, but his grav-boots keep him latched onto the building.

Boomer's turbines grow louder as he flies over and past the barrier. "Like shooting heroes in a barrel," he chortles. CHUMPH! Another canister is fired off towards the rooftop with the heroes on it.

Crimson is buffeted by the blast but unharmed and unmoved. The battlesuit provided by Anthony Quinn is holding up well despite being years old and adapted multiple times as she and her brother grew up.

Night Marshal braces for the explosion, knowing it's going to hit, but he wants to get a shot off. Thankfully it doesn't rattle him as much as it could have. His pistol practically leaps to his hand and he moves to the side, looking to get a clear shot at Boomer.

The shot hits Boomer squarely, causing him to yell from the pain.

Mechanica drops off the wall and starts to plummet down ten meters.

"Falling Mechanica!" Gauntlet calls up.

Deadlock's visible mouth curls in a smirk at Night Marshal's shot. "At last somebody got Boomer to shut up," he comments, taking aim for Crimson next before firing.

Mechanica lands atop a car with the sound of crunching metal and broken glass, sprawled on her back.

Crimson takes the shot on the left shoulder and is unharmed although the impact knocks her back a staggered step or two but she manages to remain on her feet.

Happier with the glowing field of energy surrounding her than not, Gauntlet feels fortunate that she managed to land on an awning just before impact with the ground. The German phrases she uses are not making it past the censors.

Crimson calls down to Gauntlet speaking native German with a Black Forest regional dialect, "Language! There's minors here." Her attention is focused on Boomer however. Reaching out with her energy whip she attempts to grab Boomer, and if successful aims to drag him back to the rooftop.

Sadly Crimson's attempted grab is unsuccessful.

Boomer sways aloft his metal wings and laughs. "Nice try, kiddo!"

Zero is washed over by the edges explosive blast, staggering her forward and singeing the back side of her suit- which absorbs the worst of the blast but its clear she wasn't a fan of that. She realizes she'll need to trust in her friends and that battlesuited kid if they're going to survive this & she's going to snag Mechanica before she hits the ground.

She keeps her third-eye open so she isn't the victim of a sucker punch or sneaky grenade.

She cartwheels towards the side of the building where Mechanica fell and attempts to snag her suit with her grapnel gun which buzzes in her hand as the haptic feedback system alerts her her line is full retracted. Of course by then she's too late- so she turns angrily and fires the grapnel head at Deadlock.

The grapnel head clangs into Deadlock's power armor, but doesn't seem to bother him.

Boomer laughs excitedly. "I LOVE easy money!" he peels with laughter as he fires another shot, this time in between Night Marshal and Crimson equally.

"Shut up already," Deadlock growls.

Crimson takes the blast on her armored suit after most is dissipated by the protective force field.

Night Marshal is also buffeted again, but not overly hurt, thankfully.

"If they can understand this," Gauntlet responds in kind, her accent placing her in the Naumburg region, "They are fine to hear it!" She sounds moderately angry. Now fully powered up in her shielding, she appears by Deadlock. "Guten tag!" she declares. "You have to do better than that."

Night Marshal keeps moving to try to get soem cover behind an air-con unit on the rooftop while he fires again on Boomer. The last shot hurt, so apparently his armor isn't too thick.

Boomer yells again and spins a bit from his own flailing. "That...REALLY...hurts..!"

Deadlock leaps away from his perch with the benefit of some boost jets, trying to get some distance between him and Gauntlet. "Damn cowboy," he grows as he sees Boomer hit again. He lands on another rooftop some twenty meters from Gauntlet, then tries to take aim and take a shot at Night Marshal, even though the vigilante has taken cover. He charges up his shot this time.

Night Marshal gets struck and knocked backward, rolling to close to the edge of the roof. He's really starting to wish he had added some kind of gliding technology to his armor at this point. He manages to roll to his feet as he comes to a stop.

Zero stays in motion and keeps her grapnel head spinning around with elegant and perfectly timed footwork. She runs towards Deadlock and shows incredible control and poise when she snaps the line out and opens it all in one motion so it can sink into the building Deadlock retreated to and yank her across the gap to the next building over.

She uses her momentum to propel her all the way to him and lashes her leg out to try to sweep his legs out from under him. She doesn't hold back since he took the last blows in stride.

Boomer wobbles a bit. "That's at least one bonus. I'm out for now," he says to Deadlock and starts flying up and away. Deadlock scowls at his cowardly partner.

Gauntlet appears where Deadlock is again, giving her spatial warping a bit more 'oomph' to enhance the flash factor, appearing behind him relative to Zero. "This vill not vork," she tells him. "I vill follow you."

Night Marshal might not get another chance to take out Boomer. He moves away from the edge of the building and then fires a shot upward at the fleeing mercenary. Normally, firing into the air wouldn't be something he'd do, but at least his rounds aren't lethal.

Shot in the back! Boomer wobbles some more and goes slack in his harness. The shift in body posture makes the wings dip and he starts to fall instead of fly, losing conscious from the long shot from Night Marshal's smoking gun.

Crimson really wants to contribute to defeating the attackers. But she can almost 'hear' Peter's voice in her head telling her what the right thing to do is. So regretfully she turns her back on Deadlock, and waits to catch the falling Boomer with her whip when he drops into reach.

Deadlock frowns at seeing Boomer shot out of the sky. "Serves 'im right," he mutters. The glances partially over his shoulder as Gauntlet appears. "We'll see about that," he comments as his left hand draws a sidearm and cross over to shoot behind him at Gauntlet with a focused, tight-beamed red laser.

Deadlock leaps up and fires the pistol shot at Gauntlet.

Boomer plummets, finally drawing within Crimson's whip range.

Crimson sends the whip snaking out trying to grab Boomer before Boomer becomes a smear on the sidewalk.

Deadlock pulls the trigger again on the person who tried to trap him and promised to follow him.

Crimson catches Boomer with a loops of the whip around his torso and pulls up stopping him hitting the ground as she draws him back to the rooftop she is stood on.

Boomer swings along the end of the whip with a groan, dangling upsidedown due to being top heavy from his wing harness.

Deadlock drops his sidearm and slips off his rifle and sets it down, hands in the air. "This gig isn't worth a trip to the hospital.

Gauntlet teleports down to Mechanica, seeing what she can derive with her utter lack of paramedics skill.