Log:ACRO - Jacobs, Scene 2

ACRO - Jacobs 2017/04/28 	 Armament|Dr. Derrick Jacobs Eclair Daemon Grimm Timewarp Wasp|Starlight ACRO agent Timewarp

2

Mega Mall consists of three stories of shops with a gigantic International Food Court in the center, along with a wide variety of other services required by shoppers as they traverse through the large zigzagging corridors. Overhead, large bulletproof lexan skylights let in the natural light of daytime, while full spectrum bulbs are attached around the ceilings to provide light on those sunless days. The floor is made of a special plasti-rubber material that reduces customer fatigue with walking around the shopping mecca. At the end of each corridor, a Mall Directory has been provided to help customers navigate through the mall easily. Stairs, escalators and a glass bubble elevator transport people to the three different levels. Benches are scattered about for tired shoppers to rest on, and in the very center of the food court, is an artificial waterfall and pond. Even in this day and age, people still throw coins into the fountain. On the far end of the Food Court is an entertainment area with a raised stage.

Two events at the mall, related, yet in contrast to each other. On one hand, Dr. Derrick Jacobs has written a new memoir about his life as an ACRO scientist, SG scientist, and supervillain. On the other, we have a costume contest in the main area of the mall, being judged by a couple of industry insiders and someone dressed as Random Factor. Both events are for 'Free Comic Day'.

Dr. Jacobs had finished signing and was taking a break when he was approached from behind by a cyborg dressed...relatively inconspicuously. Sweatshirt and jeans. Eclair (costumed as herself but entered in the contest under an assumed name) shouted out, alerting Jacobs. The scientist backed away from his erstwhile assailant, heading toward Jackie. The cyborg, presumably an ACRO agent of some kind, started to make his way out of the mall. Only to get tapped on the head by Daemon, who was attempting to subtly plant a bug.

Timewarp worries that a fight is about to break out, and fights and crowds are generally a bad combination. Luckily, we're in a mall, and one thing about malls is that they contain *lots* of stuff. In an instant, a subset of this lots of stuff is forming a wall between the cyborg and the crowd - part of it runs up close to the cyborg since some people are very near. Timewarp sits down to rest from all that heavy lifting for a hundredth of a second or so before standing to be ready for the imminent fight.

After Daemon's gentle love tap on the back of the cyborg's head, he confirms the SpyderMites on the cyborg are transmitting in the split second of relative time it takes for Timewarp to erect a small arena of sorts around them.

Daemon had much the same idea as Timewarp, though in comparison, he's far slower than she. Now that a protective barrier is around them he changes tactics.

He backflips- sticking to the ceiling above the exit only long enough to bound back at the cyborg. As he gets near enough to hit him he instead punches with his left arm at the air between them- launching one of his High Voltage Stickydiscs covered in webbing (for adhesion's sake) at the as yet unnamed cyborg.

The flattened disc of nanotech is launched at high speed a split second later towards his target.

The ball of webbing hits a brand new Holoprojection system.

It begins sparking as smoke is emitted from inside.

Starlight accelerates with a buzzing of her tiny wings, darts across the distance between Daemon and herself, and comes to an abrupt halt just in front of his face. "Stand down and stay here. I'm placing you under citizen's arrest. If you attempt to leave or resist I will use force to prevent you. Do you understand?" she calls out loud enough that a non-deaf Daemon can hear of the rising crowd noise.

Daemon waves his hand as if to swat a fly away. "Wha? Oh little bug... you've got the wrong spider." He nods upward at the Cyborg he slapped, though he shows no intention of standing down.

Grimm watches the wall get erected after Daemon goes cowboy on her. "Oh boy," she murmurs as she takes a step forward. When her foot hits the ground, she's shadow stepped across the mall, past the wall to a safe spot on the other side, her hands in her pockets. "For alleged assault, this is a bit much," she murmurs, eyeing Daemon, then nodding back at the wall as if he were behind it.

"I swear- everyone always wants to blame the arachnid." Daemon murmurs in an annoyed tone. "It is nice work though. But it wasn't me." He doesn't ened to look back to feel her nod towards the door.

The cyborg extends an arm at Daemon, who had just shot at him half a second earlier. His forearm morphs, with metal plates sliding, and turning his arm into some kind of energy weapon which pulses audibly and visually with a reddish light. He says, "Analyzing target. Target found in database."

Starlight calls back over her shoulder to the Cyborg, "You stand down too. Or you'll be under arrest as well. Start with losing the weapon."

Timewarp dashes about, getting shoppers on the unsafe side of the barrier outside, if they're willing to go.

Daemon isn't one for giving up- so while being blamed for everything but things seem well in hand, and his SpyderMites are receiving just fine.

Daemon leaps to the ceiling, activating his nanosuit's Therma-Optic Nanocloak w/ Sound Dampeners.

A white line spreads up from the soles of his feet, wiping his image away as it passes.

The instant Daemon makes the start of a move Starlight darts in with buzzing wings and grabs at his arm as she passes, winging her way up and off toward the nearest Mall exit.

.oO(Darn. I'm still rusty.) Starlight thinks. .o(He's pretty fast too.)

Grimm looks with her jaw dropping as Daemon's the one got arrested when the cyborg's the one accused of assault. She looks to the Cyborg and orders him with a finger pointing straight down. "You stay here so this can be investigated." To the cyborg's ears, her voice seems to echo ominously.

The cyborg's transformed arm shifts back to a more normal looking one, but still metallic. His sweatshirt has ripped a little, making his arm more obvious. He's still pointing upward toward where Daemon was, but otherwise, he doesn't move.

Grimm eyes the cyborg like a scolding teacher. o O (Man, I hope that holds...). She looks to the few patrons still stuck on this side of the wall. "Please evacuate in a calm manner to a safe distance outside of the mall," she informs them calmly. Thinking the cyborg is handled, she goes after her best friend before he gets beaten up by their own team. She shadow steps outside of the mall and calls out to Starlight, "You've got the wrong guy. The suspect is in -there-." She emphasizes as she points back to the mall.

Starlight calls back to Grimm, who she has seen previously, "Ma'am, the suspect as you call him was walking away peacefully when Mister Bouncy slapped him on the back of the head and then fired a destructive energy device at him. I also see the suspect has un-readied the weapon he displayed. I assume you were not in possession of the facts when you made your judgement."

Starlight looks, and listens, for any indication of Daemon's location. Unless she locates him or anyone else takes hostile action she holds her action.

"He unreadied it because I made him comply," Grimm counters calmly. "And he was walking away 'peacefully' from a potential--and currently alleged--assault. I am not in possession of the facts, which is why I'm stopping that other citizen from departing until I get them." She narrows her eyes at Daemon for a moment. "My not so subtle colleague did what you're doing now."

Starlight glances back at the Cyborg who hasn't moved. "Thank you for your co-operation." she says, quite unaware the cyborg is mentally paralyzed and /cannot/ move.

Grimm taps her foot in the ground, hands back in her pockets. "He's not co-operating. I put him on a peaceful time out. Don't worry, he's unharmed."

The cyborg has one mechanical eye, which is moving independently of his human eye. And it's following the heroes' conversation. The human eye is staring into space. The mechanical one is watching the heroes.

Starlight uses her super-duper new SG communicator to ask Starguard to inform the CBPD there is an meta incident at the Mall.

Daemon watches on, listening to everything from his perch above. He's absolutely awestruck by the fact that the little waspinator tried to arrest him. He has 1/3 a mind to web her up and 'arrest' her himself.

Grimm can of course see the SPider with her shadowsight as he moves towards her.

Some police are already enroute, it looks like. Two officers, one male and one female, enter from the nearby entrance. They were likely called by security. A security guard runs out of a doorway to intercept and give them a rundown.

Grimm's phone buzzes as she pulls it out of her pocket to read her message. Her mouth purses and she texts back <>

The guard says as they walk, "Thanks for coming so quickly. We had a meta conflict. Looks like it's calmed down. But we have recordings of the incident from three angles for you to look at."

Daemon scoffs. << It worked didn't it? Now these creampuffs are about to let the Big Bad BattleBorg loose on the streets with no way to follow him and find out what's really going on. Sounds pretty genius to me. >> He doesn't mention the improvements he's made recently on his own intelligence.

Grimm texts back <> She reaches into her other pocket and pulls out a pair of cuffs. Why does she have handcuffs? Uhh, it's job related. "Well, since he's under 'citizen's arrest', I guess I have to deal with him and take him into Starguard."

The female officer nods, "Thanks. We'll be sure to take the recordings." She gets to the group and hears the mention of Starguard. "Yeah...no. They have no jurisdiction in the matter, miss. We're going to have to question each of you."

The cyborg is still unmoving. The officer looks to Starlight, "Can you give me some details as to what happened here?"

Starlight nods, "Of course, Officer. I'll be pleased to help." she says, and then relates what she saw...

Timewarp approaches. "Is everything dozy? If so, I should put all these junks back."

<< Of course I did. >> Daemon replies. << So hopefully he gets out of police custody soon- then we can follow him back to his bosses. >>

Timewarp looks to the officer for permission to disassemble the wall.

Grimm gives her statement when it's her turn, reporting the warning and the attempt to investigate the alleged suspect trying to calmly leave the scene after the warning, identfying herself as a member of Starguard Gamma.

The officer nods to Timewarp. "Please. Let's get this cleaned up."

Timewarp disassembles the wall, over a few seconds, because she has the added work of working out where everything came from.

The officer takes each hero's statement in turn. Finally, the cyborg manages to start moving again. He looks around, and the male officer makes sure he doesn't leave. "We'll need your statement too."

The cyborg states, "I was looking to speak to Dr. Derrick Jacobs, who was a former ACRO scientist. I thought he might be able to help me with some...issues. When he recoiled and some of the crowd were clearly scared of me, I decided I should leave. At which point I was attacked by the metahuman known as 'Daemon'.

The man's voice is flat, with very little inflection.

Starlight starts at the beginning as she as she was aware. "Dr Jacobs, late of ACRO, was here signing books. There was also a meta costume competition happening. I was up on stage with someone wearing a Fortitude costume. As you may recall Fortitude and I used to be a team so I was talking with that contestent. I heard another contestent call out a warning to Dr Jacobs. I did not see any obvious threat but I saw Dr Jacobs was uncomfortable with the approach to that," she points, "Cyborg. I flew over to offer to extract Dr Jacobs from the situation. He declines. Then someone leaped at the cyborg and slapped the cyborg on the back of the head. Immediately after the same person fired a destructive energy device at the cyborg. You can see the damage the device did to the holo-projector over there." She points to a slagged down holo-projector. "I apprached the person who has initiated the assault of the cyborg and placed them under citizen's arrest. However they leapt away evading me and vanished. I'm afraid I do not know who that person was, but I heard the cyborg say the cyborg recognised him."

The officer takes Starlight's statement. "Thank you."

The officers finish taking statements, "Thank you all, you're free to go. Including you, Mr. Smith." He's referring to the cyborg who gave the name 'Bob Smith'.

The female officer looks to the security guard, "We'll need a copy of the security footage. Thank you again for your assistance."

Dr. Jacobs waits until the cyborg has left and the police have headed to security before he comes over to the heroes. "Umm...thank you for your help."

Timewarp says, "No anx. Sorry I couldn't help more."

Starlight goes over to Timewarp, "Hello. That was quick thinking. If the situation had gotten out of hand your action would have saved many injuries at a minimum and probably lives as well."

Grimm checks her phone after being dismissed. Bob Smith. Really. That sounds like a legit name. And hopefully Daemon has gotten somewhere safe, so she can kill him later.

Timewarp shrugs, "Hey, spurring sap is mostly what I do. And keeping people safe - hey, that's what ros do."

Starlight nods, "Yes. Yes, it is." she says nodding in agreement. "I'm Starlight. New name for a new start as a hero. I used to be known as Wasp. May I ask your name?" she says to Timewarp.

Timewarp says, "I'm Timewarp! Didn't we meet already? Or maybe that's not yet. I get a bit muddled sometimes."

Dr. Jacobs excuses himself and heads back toward the book shop to gather his things.

Starlight smiles, "Ah. One of those... I can understand muddled. I have sufficient trouble keeping linear time straight. I'm fairly sure we haven't met before in my timeline. I can't speak for yours."

Timewarp says, "Oh, ok. Yeah, it's all confusing. I was a ro here for a bit a couple of years back, but then I got taken into the past and - well, it got very complicated after that. But I finally managed to find my way back."

Starlight says, "Glad to have you back then. You acted as a true hero today."

Starlight glances over at Grimm, "Did I hear you say you were in Starguard?" she asks.

Timewarp says, "I try. And it's good to be back, though I feel kind of sidebar."

Grimm texts Daemon << Well, that didn't go nearly as well as planned. Where should we meet up? Where's that cyborg going? >> She glances up from her phone as she realizes she's being addressed. "Yep. Been in it for about a year now on various missions," she replies. Dark particular matter swirls around her and her street clothes change to black BDU versions of Starguard's uniform.

Starlight looks back as Timewarp, "Oh. Why do you think that?"

Timewarp says, "Just cos I've missed a couple of years, I guess. Friends are gone, or are nups now."

The cyborg walked about a hundred yards outside of the mall and then stopped at a coffee shop. At least...that's it so far.

Starlight thinks .oO(It is a paramilitary group, despite Dorian's overview. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find someone like that in it.)

Starlight nods to Timewarp, "When I first arrived here in Colonial Bay I didn't know anyone here. You'll make friends. Especially in the hero communitity if you continue as you did today." Starlight puts out a hand, "You'd made one potential friend already." she finishes saying with a smile.

<< Well depends on if you want to keep tailing this 'borg or not. Right now, I'm standing next to him to see where he's going. >> Daemon answers, not at all concerned that all this is being penned on him specifically and that the police will soon be looking form him.

The costume contest finally works on wrapping up, giving out prizes to everyone, though the best prizes go to two individuals: The one dressed as Fortitude, and the person dressed as Eclair. The man dressed as Ten also gets a special prize as well, but not one of the 'big two'.

Timewarp shakes Starlight's hand. "Crash."

The cyborg just sits with his cup of coffee, sipping it slowly and watching the clientele. He glances down the street in the direction of hte mall every so often.

Starlight says, "Oh, look. There's someone I want to talk to before he heads off. One of the competition judges. Sure that Timewarp can keep up if she wants, Starlight flies over to 'Random Factor'. "Hello there. So, who are you?" she asks.

Dr. Jacobs finishes packing up his things and he notices Roland still in the mall. He heads over to speak to the bald man, keeping their conversation quiet.

'Random Factor' remains in character, "Why...I'm Random Factor, former leader of Starguard Gamma. Pleased to meet you, miss." He smiles.

Timewarp is interested in the supposed Random Factor too, so does go over.

Starlight gives the imposter a hard look, "I knew Random Factor. Well. You are not he. So, who are you and why are you impersonating him? You can tell me, or you can explain it to the police. Your choice."

Timewarp says, "I thought he looked wrong!"

'Random Factor' raises a brow, "Arrest me? For dressing up like him? You going to do that in Vegas with everyone still dressing like Elvis? I'm playing a part. A part I was ASKED to play by the organizers. My name is Steve. Does that really matter?"

Starlight says, "Depends on the reason it was done. If just to make it look like there was a meta on the panel of judges, no, it doesn't matter that much. Although it shows a lack of respect for the people taking part, and foolishness. First, there are people in this city of all places that could tell you weren't Random. Second, if they had asked they could easily have gotten a real meta judge."

Timewarp says, "And you could be libeling him or harshing his reputation or any legal junk."

Starlight adds, "Oh, and thirdly, there are people in this city who still hold a grudge against Random. I'd change out of that costume as soon as you can. For your own safety."

'Random Factor' nods, "Just like you can tell that the people playing Elvis aren't really him, right? Guess what? People were able to tell I wasn't the real deal either. I don't know why they picked me, but I like to think I'm a talented actor. I don't look like him, but I have his accent down." He looks to Timewarp, "Tell you what...am I? AM I libeling him? Or messing up his reputation? AM I?" His voice continues to raise. "His own reputation was HORRIBLE. If anything, I'm doing him a favor."

He continues, "Anyone who holds a grudge against him would KNOW him, right? As you just said a minute ago? Or are you assuming only those angry with him can't tell the difference?"

Timewarp blinks. "Wai it? I was a midge when he was a ro."

Starlight shakes her head, "No. I'm saying those with a grudge might not wait long enough to tell the difference."

Roland Hammer and Dr. Jacobs head out toward the back entrance of the mall, still chatting as they walk.

The impersonator folds his arms, "I have a job to do. Which was to entertain the kids. Do you mind if I return to doing that without you trying to arrest me over something you can't hold me for?"

Meanwhile, Daemon starts getting bored. Well in reality- with his tertiary lobe he's now moving on to other matters at hand. If the cyborg is going to just stand here, Daemon will too- but he'll also start seeing what he can find on the event, its organizers and this 'Bob Smith' character.

Grimm texts back to Daemon <>

Timewarp has to admit she doesn't really know the legalities of the matter. She read a book about it, somewhere, somewhen, but isn't even sure if what she can barely recall even applies here and now.

Grimm turns towards Starlight as she tries to arrest an entertainer. "You're awfully arrest happy. You don't have to start with 'you're under arrest'. There are protocols."

Starlight shakes her head again, "I haven't tried to arrest you. I have tried to warn you for your own safety that what you are doing might be dangerous. You've just seen an example of how hot-headed some metas are. You're a grown man. It's your decision in the end."

Grimm motions to the actor. "She can't detain you, you're free to go, sir," she says to 'Random Factor'.

Timewarp turn to Grimm. "And what's your anx? No one aaked for your junk."

<< I already record everything I do. My brain is .33333333333 synthetic. Editic memory comes with the package. >> Daemon replies as he maneuvers himself behind the Cyborg 'Bob Smith'.

<< Wait- they're in there crucifying me aren't they? One little slap in the back of the head and now you're America's Most Wanted. >> He grumbles silently to Grimm. << Oh yeah- already made that list. >> That last one is paired with a Daemon emoji that appears to be laughing. << Now- back on to the matter at hand. It seems both the book signing and the costume contest were arranged by the Comic Book shop. Not sure there's a lead there- but its what I have so far. >>

Timewarp nods.