Angel is sitting near Arbiter Orr and checking a clipboard in her hand. The papers flitter a little from the breeze that carries over the nearby waters. A smile crosses her face as she checks a spot next to Medic. "Almost at a milestone. It's coming. Slowly, but surely. Day at a time..."

Angel then stands up and looks around to see if her officers Garner and Metal Mettle are around. At seeing they were not conveniently there just yet, she gets on her phone. "Angel to Garner and Metal. Come in."

Garner answers the call immediately.  "Garner here."

  Sometimes video footage could make for a handy teaching aid.

  ”Now, what are they doing wrong here?”

  “Their lasers are the wrong color?”  “They’re screaming Cobra? And we hate cobras?”  “I melted my crayons...”  Killbot 3 (He’d asked if they wanted better names, but all involved were too lazy to consider any) has some issues.  But considering their source, that was a given for any of them.

  “No, what they are doing wrong is missing.  Repeatedly.  At close range.  Please stop doing that.”  Some called it Tactics.  He called it aiming and/or just filling the entire area with Laser death.

  This bit of advice given, Metal Mettle learned that just because you emulated an actual cell phone for the hell of it when comminuting long distance at times, that one shouldn’t leave it set to vibrate when the component nanites are in what passes for your skull.

  “You called fearless leader?”  Needlessly gesturing for the Guardian to skip getting the youngest (Well, also oldest in terms of recent reconstructions) more crayons.  There was likely Laser to be done... What? in this Job, work usually defaulted to laser after all.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:45, Sun 27 July 2008.

Angel says, "Have there been any promising recruits? Have you teamed up with anyone who seems plausable? I know this place is full of losers, but there have to be a few diamonds who stand out and yet don't intend to lead a team."

"Useful idiots abound here, Angel," Garner answers in his usual lack-luster tone, "Those more useful than idiot are soon snatched up by the local government or other major faction.  If I may suggest, we could focus our search in Mercy Island, the so-called 'proving ground' for new arrivals on the scene.  We may be able to find a diamond or two there before anyone else."

  “I suppose we could also put to use the fact that Arachnos doesn’t bother to attack people in their larger Mercy Island facilities, where such new arrivals kind of mill around.”  At least when they were outdoors.  He felt sorry for any fresh into the situation being who went inside looking for a restroom.

  “I’ve already gone about more direct help additions..." This comment said as a second Guardian finished forming  "And I’m sure you will be able to as well.  But for more, unique, aid. We will have to look more carefully it seems.  Though I suppose we could also just pick willing people at random, and see if they survive.”

  Catastrophic injury happens, and had to all in their little group (if much more frequently to his and fearless leaders personal help, but Metal Mettle’s get better).  However the frequency and cause of such could provide some insight.

  Edit: One, desperate level before passing out.  Yay for Photon Grenade and second Protector Bot.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:24, Mon 28 July 2008.

Angel nods. "I'm going to take a trip and be busy for the next 34 or so hours. If you two have the time, do me a favor and help out some newbies. Test the waters... see who appreciates it, who is annoying and who is downright loyal. I'll leave it to your discressions who will be invited. If you prefer, you can go in disguise and learn some new skillsets while you're at it. But either way is fine with me. If you need anything, I won't be available until I return from my trip. Over and out."

(ooc style: Translation, if you guys have the time and feel like it, be a pair of pals and go to Mercy and help some newbs and use that as recruitment. Could help in the prestige our group gets. We have enough ppl in HVG for now that we don't need to actively search. And congradulations, Joe!)
This message was last edited by the player at 08:37, Mon 28 July 2008.

"Very well," Garner answers.  With that he speeds off to begin the search.

(ooc: Gratz, MM!  As for recruitment, may introduce Electro-Melon.  :)
This message was last edited by the player at 20:24, Mon 28 July 2008.

It's been a couple days and Angel returns from her trip. Having gotten her second costume and cape, Angel heads for the base and calls Garner and Mettle for a meeting. She waits in the meeting room (Of all places), sitting on the table itself, kicking her legs and staring at that same clipboard from earlier.

  Metal Mettle had discovered that more awesome than one small army of robots, is two of them in some recent efforts at getting help.  Although he was dismayed by the complete lack of Lasers they had used themselves.

  This of course, was somewhat made up by the fact he now had flamethrowers to point at enemies instead of them being directed his way.

  They entered the base and put seating to its obvious use as opposed to the table.  “Good to have you back Angel.  I’d ask how the trip went, but I figure you’ll be waiting for the both of use to be around so you don’t have to repeat yourself.”

Angel nods to Mettle's statement.

When Garner arrives (Because it goes without saying that he will), Angel begins. "Good news, you two.. Tharcon found us a couple new recruits. He informed me this person who goes by the name G-C-G is a kid or some such... or at least acts like it. I just love moldable minds." she says the last part with a smirk.

"On a side note, in the process, Tharcon also invited a demon or half-demon of some kind - Not sure yet - who goes by the name of Lucifaric. He seemed to go with the flow and agreed with Tharcon about everything. So that's two loyal, useful bodies at our disposal. Now for the bad news..."

Angel frowns and flips the paper on her clipboard. "Now... I have faith in you both. You know that. But do you two care to explain why I am already being labeled a coward running from everyone when I've only been gone for 2 days? I would have thought your collective presence would have been sufficient to keep people from daring to invent such lies."

She's calm, but it does look like she wants to vent some frustration. And soon.

Garner nods slowly, his expression unaffected by Angel's pleasure and displeasure.

"Apparently the natives have little better to do than to follow every little detail of the lives of every single super-powered person around," he answers.  The term "super-powered" of course excluding the remarkably taken for granted invulnerability and super strength of all those who have NOT signed up as a card-carrying super villain.  Any pedestrian can not only completely ignore being shot at by a machine gun like it's shooting air, they can also shove giant robots around like they were over-sized balloons.

"The walls have ears around here and none of our efforts could cloak the fact that you were absent," Garner continues, "However, this lack of privacy could work in your favor.  It seems to be standard operating procedure for one so accused to kidnap the author of the article and intimidate them not to do so in the future."

This method works well enough.  Even the invulnerable citizenry find it inconvenient for the Hellions to show up, take them away from their house, and force them to stand in a sewer for who-knows-how-long waiting to be "kidnapped" again.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:55, Tue 12 Aug 2008.

  “Clearly the media has trouble finding accurate sources.  They said I was dead.  This is an obvious mistake, I am merely not alive.”  They had pointed this out to the author of that particular article while showing that Laser > Magic to the rapidly decreasing Circle of Thorns population in the area.

  “I was unable to put these misstated facts to my advantage, seeing how everyone seemed to know I was still alive. If trying hard to ensure the accuracy of the article.”


  Metal Mettle shrugged, “The fact this occurred on a particularly busy day for me, and not one of my own absences makes me further stop wanting to consider what kind of logic is behind it, and go directly to plan A.  Which will work probably work out, as for some reason many people one would want to kidnap, already have been by various organizations.”

  Tabloid reporter talking trash about robots kidnapped by dark eldritch arts oriented group because...  Logic failed. Resorting to Laser.

Angel nods. "So be it." she says and heads for the secret entrance. "Let's go find out where this person is and make them regret spreading deadly rumors."

Angel privately wonders how well it works anyway since it seems to happen so often. But right now, she doesn't care and just wants to vent some annoyance. "As a side note... while I was gone, I got a pair of promising prospects for recruitment. After the mission, remind me and I'll tell you all about them."

Garner nods and follows Angel's lead.  It comes as no surprise that his heads-up display has already been updated with the location of where the reporter is being held.  A hop and a skip later, all that remains is to persuade whatever criminal organization inside to hand over the prisoner.  What else comes as no surprise is that they can only be persuaded by force.  Garner readies his rifle for combat like he's lived out this scene a hundred times before.

"You'd think by now these people would have learned to flee," Garner sighs, like it's time to mow the lawn or something.

  “There is only one exit to most of these places” Terrible breach of fire safety, but then so were all those people who wandered around lit on fire.
  “Even if they did, would we be able to tell the difference as we deal with everyone in our path as usual?”

  You know the variations of the saying ‘a little part of me dies when...’?  Well this was the case for Metal Mettle whenever one of robotic horde fell in a literal sense.  But these things happen when a trio of Laser cannon for hands robots and a larger one with a side in glowy bubbles formed out of your billions of nanoscopic robots bits and pieces.

  “Crush!”
  “Kill!”
  “Hugs!”
  “Protect
  Killbot 3 still had some issues beyond ‘I have no hands!’.  And yet that made their crayon drawings all the more impressive for it.  Have you tried drawing with laser guns for hands?  HAVE YOU?!

Angel begins the mission with Garner and Mettel only to come to the end and find the person who had written the article. Thankfully, since it's a kidnap mission, her target is invincible and thus doesn't get killed too quickly for her to notice it's someone she knew from earlier in her carreir. Once out of the mission, Angel seems sufficiently vented, but looks at the recent kidnapee and says, "Why you of all people?"

Angel takes the kidnapee and her two faithful followers back to base. "Sorry to interrupt our fun, boys, but this is someone I know personally... if things go over well, we may be able to recruit him to write articles in our favor..."

"Very well," Garner answers in his typical detached tone.  Just before leaving the room he secretly drops a tiny listening/tracking device into the pocket of the prisoner.  He then pulls up a chair in the workshop and pretends to maintenance his assault rifle while listening to Angel's conversation.  Though has every confidence in Angel's self defense skills, and she's never without bodyguards at her fingertips, he's made it a habit to keep an eye on her at all times just in case.

  Metal Mettle would have a different approach to listening in, had he bothered to put it to use.  No, not taking advantage of the fact he could replace the dust population of the base with himself.  Rather the fact that Angel had never asked them to leave, so he could put to use standing right next to them if he had wanted.

  "Is this one of those coincidence things, or one of those 'the insults were to get your attention and get me the hell out of here' things?"  After all, they did have to retrieve them from a heavily armed group of people they didn't seem to like.

  "I know you asked me to remind you to tell us about the two prospects once we were done."  Which they were.  "But it seems this more recent development is something that needs to be dealt with now, understandably."

Angel thinks on this a bit. Then looks at Mettel. "No... you were right to bring it up. I'll talk with this guy. You and Garner can split up and listen in on the goings on of any secretive science organization. Especially in the genetic soldier department. The other prospect, well... I think Hell itself has opened an opportunity for us to take advantage of in the form of a demonic agent willing to aid anyone's cause. I want to be that anyone. Find these prospects." She re-emphasizes before turning her attention to the recently rescued man. "Interesting to find you here..." she begins, pretty well assuming Mettle got the idea she meant now.

  Mettle’s advanced (they were past expiration date after all, ba dum tish) brainage was able to grasp the ‘please leave now’ implications just fine.  It was paying attention to them that was an issue from time to time.  Conveniently, now wasn’t one of those times as he headed off commenting “I doubt you need Hell to get the job done.  You could even probably do it without lasers.”

  The usage of com devices was skipped in favor of personally informing Garner of the situation... Well, as personal as a Robotic drone that grew out of you can be anyways.

  “Angel wants us to look into Genetic soldier research separately.  They didn’t specify what kind, so it could be any from physically boosted Normal to ‘Genetically altered to shoot Bee’s from their hands’.”  The Guardian drone skipped the need for listening to replies by way of dissolving.

  Don’t worry, they totally don’t feel pain.  Not to mention Mettle just remade them on the other side of the porter.

Garners response to the dissolving robot's message is to simply open a laptop and begin browsing the newspaper archives for leads.  Seems "secret" is a relative term around these parts and leans more toward "only those who bother to read know" than "only those with security clearance know," so may as look for what's hidden in plain view first.

Hidden in plane view are reports that an "experimental soldier" has escaped and there is a reward for bringing this mutant of scientific origin back to her captors. The quest describes this mutant as a raccoon looking person. But if Garner and Mettle know Angel, they know her hinting at this being a possible new member of the super group means she considers this person more valuable as an asset than any reward. A gift that keeps giving is any recruit who is loyal... and nobody more loyal than a rescued science experiment who probably feels like property by now.

  Metal has found ‘because I feel like it’ to be an adequate source of loyalty.  But then what works for him may not work for others.

  As he had pointed out that Angel mentioned they work separately, and pointed out the science soldier end of things, Metal figured he would take a look at that Demonic Agent side of things they had also talked about.

  This was followed up through shooting Circle of Thorns members indiscriminately preliminary investigative work.  “You’re doing it wrong.  You’re supposed to say helpful information, not ‘aaaaaarg!’.”

  The robotic laserholic considered what he may be doing wrong...  No, there wasn’t anything wrong with his methods (at least according to him).  So clearly, the problem was the scale at which he was working.

  He too turned to the newspaper for his purpose.  But not in the same way Garner and countless others did, considering the resulting article.

Metal Mettle claims he can totally kill more Circle of Thorns members in ten minutes than any ‘Demonic Agent’.  Puts 500,000 Infamy on the line.

Garner continues to eavesdrop on Angel's conversation as he heads off in search of loyal mutant experimental soldiers.