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Post by Dead Sidekick on Feb 3, 2011 16:10:07 GMT -5
Vigil's eyebrows raise when Ferine mentions the 'Fomorexian Deathwraith.'
He types a command on the computer near him, activating a large display screen on the wall and says, "Computer, display demonological database entry for 'Fomorexian Deathwraith."
The screen flickers a bit, then is filled with an "artist's conception" image of a monstrous, demonic four-legged creature with ram's horns, bat wings, and a snake-like head bearded with writhing, suckered tentacles. Gruesomely hideous. And, in the artist's conception, taller than a three-story building. The file plays: "The Formorexian Deathwraith would be classified as a Type Seventeen Disturbance. Little data exists on what the creature actually looks like, but Paladin Institute founders from the Roanoke Colony anomaly reported in their journals and recollections from journeying to the Fomorexian Dimension that the Deathwraith feeds on death energy and doubles in size each time it kills and was impervious to their weapons."
Vigil adds, "Of course, their weapons were little more than swords and flintlock muskets then... still, a Type 17 Disturbance is world threatening. We obviously don't want to get the placement of the amulets in the artifact wrong. We really need that book."
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Post by Dead Sidekick on Feb 3, 2011 16:18:33 GMT -5
Elixir looks around the sublevel for anything resembling the Hypnoporter he saw when he teleported away with the Werewolf during the battle at Starky's Pool Hall. The only thing that remotely looks similar is the arrangement of gurneys filled with the clones of Rin, but they are connected to medical scanning devices measuring brainwaves, heart rates, etc. rather than the weird machine with globes of oddly colored liquids percolating on the top of them like the one connected to the Werewolf was.
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Post by Vendetta on Feb 4, 2011 10:10:30 GMT -5
"oh .. and by the way ... if anyone has Dr. Strange or Dr. Fate on speeddial maybe now would be a good time to call a friend." Vendetta adds with a very definite joking sound to it
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2011 10:13:32 GMT -5
Solo stands up again looking at virgil,"I had to be sure you were who you say you were. Im pretty sure you are who you say. I agree with oldschool and vendetta.
Me and elexir we got some help from some friends. We have some financial help now, we can use it to bribe people, elexir might get some kick to research, we can find shut down labs, and most importantly find the hypnoporter and shut it down, and stop this formoxian alien threat enter our dimension.
Also, does everyone have a com unit so we can communicate. I know I gave some of you one. Ferrine I believe you dont have one.
So where do we start. Where exactly should I get someone in?"
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Reen
Ex(20) Member
'Annoyances'
Posts: 112
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Post by Reen on Feb 5, 2011 12:25:23 GMT -5
During all this time, Rin has been drifting off toward the side, to the many hims. With his hands in his coat, he looks at them with a look of sorrow.
He felt sorry for them; they never got to experience the real world. Life, death, emotions, actions and consequences.... none of it. They only sat there in their heads, where ever that was. For once, Rin truly felt sorry for someone else, though it was himself in a way.
This opened his eyes though, to the fact that he himself hasn't really experienced it. He's only acted as a shadow of the world, and really never reacted with it. And since they need him to interact with it because they see it through him.....
When Oldschool and Shockwave began to talk about battle plans, Rin slowly wandered back toward the group, and stood next to Oldschool. Rin shifted his feet from side to side, until Solo spoke. He couldn't delay any longer.
In a somewhat quiet voice, but loud enough for everyone to here, Rin spoke.
"I can infiltrate and do reconnaissance."
Rin's voice came out shakily, as he never had to speak in front of so many people, let alone now be the center of attention as everyone would focus on him, since he wasn't apart of the conversation.
Rin looked down at the ground and continued to shift his feet, his hands shaking subtly in his pockets.
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Post by Dead Sidekick on Feb 5, 2011 20:52:01 GMT -5
Vigil looks at Rin and then to the others. "It is true. Rin can render himself... 'forgotten,' by overriding perceptions with a dreamlike state. He can stand right in front of a crowd of people jumping up and down flailing his arms and yelling and screaming and make them 'forget' that he is there. Particularly strong-willed individuals or someone monitoring outside of his power's range can still see him, of course, and he'd show up on playback of security video, but he can get around for the most part, for lack of a better term, 'telepathically invisible.' The drawback, of course, is that a teammate with him would also potentially 'forget' he is there. It could be dangerous if the team needs to exfiltrate and no one even remembers Rin was on the team going in, or even who Rin is. I believe you all witnessed this effect via security camera feed to Arc's laptop when I was speaking to Rin earlier while on your way back from the homeless shelter with Ferine after battling Windchill. Rin, of course you would have to resist using your power to its full effect. We can't have another incident like the massive knockout sleep induction this afternoon. Too risky in population dense areas. Too many innocents can be hurt."
Turning to Solo and Elixir, "There was no need to threaten me, Solo. If only you could see the patterns of intersecting evil as I do. Turning chaos and evil and the fearful against each other. Amplifying the hostilities. Turning people against each other. We have to trust each other. All of us, we have to trust each other. I will be as open with you as I can. But, speaking of Windchill, where did you take him? After I restored his broken jaw to its genetically healthy state, it activated permanent revisions made to his molecular DNA from the use of Kick. How long has he been using Kick? Are any of you Kick users? Nobody should use Kick, especially not recreationally. And most especially, not mutants. We discarded researching that particular formula back in the 1950s when it proved too unstabilizing. But now it has since been refined and augmented with pseudo-Kryptonite and God knows what...."
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Post by Dead Sidekick on Feb 5, 2011 21:20:25 GMT -5
The murmur of whispered voices in Rin's head begin to clear.
***The beautiful Deathwraith is coming, Dreambridger.***
***Annoyance. Shut that guy out.***
***Too close to the artifact. Why did they bring it here?***
***The dead girl. Cassandra she said...***
***I didn't wake Flashdance up, you did***
***We have to help. Why don't you tell Vigil and Arc that Ghost is still alive***
***We will have revenge. Ghost will find the Masters of Menace that slew our brothers, and then we will strike them through our avatar!***
***You're obsessed! This matter with the Fomorexian Sorcerer is more important than hunting new enemies. We can find the Hypnoporter and remake this world***
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2011 16:27:10 GMT -5
Solo looks sternly at Virgil,"I trusted before and was betrayed. I trust you as much as I trust anyone. And that aint much.....I am not at liberty to say where windchill is, he is in safety.
You can imagine in what state he is after what Paladins Drug did to the kid. Its a miracle he didnt end up as an icesculpture or a puddle.
Either way we will deal with the kick menace, as we did with everything else: We Make a plan and do our Best! If your guys wanna tag along and play watchdog thats your buisness. As far as I know all this is your fault! Paladin created the hypnoporter and Kick!"
Solo still didnt trust this guy, but he would play by books for now. He is leaving this group as soon as this gig is done. He will probably keep contact with Vendetta and Elexir, those guys are potential allies.
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Elixir
In(40) Member
![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png)
Posts: 232
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Post by Elixir on Feb 8, 2011 19:34:16 GMT -5
"Listen, I wan to trust you, but you've got yourself a heck of a mess here. Here's what I want. You give me access to your Kick research when this thing is over. I want that, prove to me that you will actually open up for something important instead of just aiming us at your problems."
"I had cleaned Winchill of his Kick when you went ahead and restored it while helping him. He got unwillingly injected, he's not a user. Now, he's somewhere safe."
"I hear what you're saying about going in with a plan Oldschool. We need to get inside without raising all of the alarms at the 20's club. That means something a bit more subtle. So we're going to need some folks to either sneak in or walk in in disguise. The way I see it some of use can't exactly use a disguise, like Shockwave. Flashdance probably could...but I don't see it. No offense."
Turning to Vigil, "Do you have anything in the way of surveillance equipment? We've got a couple of teleporters who could place them effectively. Do you have a building plan?"
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Post by Dead Sidekick on Feb 9, 2011 7:45:04 GMT -5
Vigil says, "The drug on the street known as Kick today is based on modified formulas of metahuman enhancement experiments the Paladin Institute was working on in the 1940s, in an attempt to produce superpowered agents that could penetrate the Nazis' Sphere of Influence, which was a wicked spell effect of an artifact once possessed by Adolf Hitler. In the 1940s, most "superhero" powers were either partially or entirely magical in nature, and the Nazi Sphere of Influence spell was capable of taking over the minds of any magical or extradimensional being that crossed into Nazi controlled territory. This is why the only superhuman agents the Allies sent into Europe against the Nazis were either robots, mutants, biophysically enhanced humans, or genetically modified animals. The Nazis were even able to summon Valkyries and the Thunder God Thor to do their bidding, though thankfully Thor proved too strong for them to control. Anyway, the Paladin Institute's lead researcher, Dr. Samuel Price, was unable to make a successful formula that would permanently graft superhuman powers to a normal human. His work was to be the next logical step after the US Government had success... with Captain America. Too many failures and dangerous side effects of Price's formula saw this project shelved and the Paladin Institute and Price turned their research towards nanocybernetic implants to impart superhuman powers to normal humans. We were more successful in this endeavor, as you've seen with Arc, and our latest success, Flashdance. Price's early work in teleportation circuitry is even a part of Solo's powers, though the US government happened upon that Paladin Institute technology through theft and espionage and betrayal. A team of superpowered agents we created, to be empowered enough to fight the demonic and extradimensional threats we track, decided to take a more proactive stance, dubbed themselves "the Masters of Menace," betrayed the Paladin Institute and went rogue. When they did so, they decimated the ranks of superhuman agents we created that would not side with them. Only Arc survives from those days. Unfortunately they killed Dr. Price, the man who invented the formula that today's Kick is based on, and leaked this formula on the internet as well as sold his notes on teleportation circuitry to the US Army. We are currently molding and training new superhuman agents, Flashdance and another codenamed 'Genesis' are the first graduates of that new class. Genesis is on assignment elsewhere. Glitch is a mutant cyberpath and mercenary hacker we have hired to try to decrypt Dr. Price's archives and try to recover data corrupted by the Masters of Menace's betrayal but he hasn't seemed to make much progress. Whatever notes we can recover of Dr. Price's World War 2 metahuman enhancement formula we will share with you, but since that formula was leaked it has been modified and refined significantly, particularly with the advent of attempts to make anti-Superman Kryptonite and the wider availability of mutant DNA since the punctuated population spike of random metahuman mutations globally, particularly in Genosha in the last 60 or so years. At least we can give you the raw grandfather formula that all the various innovative strains in the last 15 years have sprung from."
"As far as surveillance equipment, I'm afraid we're still moving our resources around to meet the two most pressing threats, the strange phenomenon in the American Southwest and the Bartholomew Jacobs' threat. God forbid the two become connected in some way. We've handled, or at least delayed Bartholomew Jacobs' threat once before, so the bulk of our spycraft equipment is deployed in the Southwest where it is more needed. As far as we know about the Roaring Twenties club, it's a jazz club and restaurant owned by the Hammerhead faction of the Maggia, and frequented by both mobsters and upper class hipsters whose ties to crime may be tangential or non-existent at best. I wouldn't expect a fight there unless you start one. I'm told that even among the criminal underworld, there is a code of honor that makes such 'sanctums' off limits to violence. Only someone viciously ambitious to escalate a gang war or bring trouble to himself would attack a place where mobsters meet to relax, and launder money. But surely someone there has the 4th amulet or has seen it. It's why I suggested a trade of their assassin for the amulet if Hammerhead has it."
And then, Vigil turns to Solo. "I understand your mistrust. I was there when our own agents turned on the Paladin Institute and killed most of them. They kept me from healing them. Made me watch them die. I was only able to save Arc. Their zeal for betrayal and violence was shocking, even to me, and I served in World War One AND Two. Though Arc would not hear of this, I understand why at least the 'Masters of Menace' felt betrayed by the Paladin Institute. I don't agree with their reasoning or their unforgivable actions, but I understand them. Part of the curse of being able to see... beyond human sight. So believe me, I will work to keep you from being betrayed, and answer any questions I can. The Board of Directors, largely through the efforts of Maximillian Pride, has decided to recruit and support superpowered agents in the interim while we rebuild our ranks of our own created agents. I was assigned with Arc to facilitate the formation of your team, to operate with no strings attached from the Paladin Institute. Flashdance was to be our 'bridge' to the superhuman community and is our bridge to you. Once this crisis with Bartholomew Jacobs and the HYDRA Hypnoporter's confluences are resolved, you might not hear from us ever again, save for the quiet support this group will recieve in gratitude. Above all, the Paladin Institute would like to remain behind the scenes. To quote Elixir, yes, we are 'aiming you at our problems,' in a manner of speaking, but you all are the best guns we could acquire on short notice. If you wish to part ways when this crisis is resolved, that is your perogative. But we will work to make our association amenable to you. Dr. Price's early teleportation circuitry work required GPS vectoring, and I suspect that is the principle upon which the Army built your own teleportation implants. Theoretically, if data on the frequencies of GPS pings from the satellites could be accessed, you could possibly track down Gabriel Grant and possibly clear your name. The ANGEL Towers array could be tuned to this task if we knew what to look for."
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Post by shockwave on Feb 10, 2011 10:42:51 GMT -5
"I'm not sure I like the idea of putting the kid in danger, no matter how useful that power of his is. If we do decide to send him in, we need to figure out how to knock out security cameras first."
"Even if this is peaceful territory, I think walking in while in costume would be taken as starting a fight anyway, so I still recommend we avoid that. I'll start scanning from accross the street. Anyone want to see about getting some building diagrams on that place? It's likely the official records won't be 100% accurate, but it should give us a start."
"I think above all, anyone going in, needs to go in unarmed." Shockwave glances between Solo and Vendetta.
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Post by Vendetta on Feb 10, 2011 11:48:28 GMT -5
Vendetta seems lost in thoguht for a few moments, then he finally says "these cameras ... are they CCTV or webcams ?" He takes a few steps foreward, "If they are webcams the signals are probably using either an internal eternet, or the www to transmit their feed to whatever harddrive they save the footage to. I doubt they would use a seperate network for the cameras so its likely even a local ethernet has a connection to the www, and if this Glitch is as good as you say he is, its should be a small matter to intercept and loop the images form the camera's before any of us do the recon. if its CCTV ... well thats a whole nother ballgame - but lets hope Hammerhead likes his money so much that he desided to take the cheaper option of webcams."
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Post by Dead Sidekick on Feb 10, 2011 13:54:55 GMT -5
Vigil says, "I'll try to reach Glitch and tell him to report in. I should be able to pull up a schematic of the club from the city building and zoning records."
Vigil begins working at a computer display.
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Post by Dead Sidekick on Feb 11, 2011 7:08:11 GMT -5
![](http://i540.photobucket.com/albums/gg340/deadsidekick/roaring20sfloor.jpg) Vigil says, "This is the best I can retrieve from the city records. Just a floor plan of Hammerhead's Roaring Twenties club. Looks like there's only two entrances, the front door and the rear entrance into the kitchen. I don't see any permits filed for security camera installation. Nobody screws in a lightbulb in this city without a union contractor. Doesn't mean there isn't any, they're just not on file. No idea about furniture in the place, but the fire code occupancy permit allows 150 people. I imagine at least half of that can be seated in the dining area, depending on how they arrange the tables and chairs. Looks like they've installed a bullet resistant one-way mirror behind the bar leading into the office."
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Post by Vendetta on Feb 13, 2011 15:38:05 GMT -5
Vendetta looks at the floorplan "This cant be all of it - I see a stage but no dressing room - it just doesn't add up. There are either doors behind the stage we dont know about, or the preformers go through the kitchen. We need better intel than this, but if Glitch can tap into the cameras we can get intel without even going in there."
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