It's a day like any other for most of our heroes. Except for Mittens, who for the life of her, can not get a hold of Tim. He's nowhere to be found. Just as Mittens is coming to this realization, she gets a feeling that something is going to happen in a few minutes over at the local children's playground.

Mittens of course begins running in that direction while hitting the shortcut buttons on her cell that send the following text to everyone:

"Emergency!  Something happening or about to happen at the playground at W 84th St and Central Park West!"

Everyone includes emergency service personnel who trust her enough to bother having a cell of their own tuned into her emergency texts.

"Sorry lil bro," she mutters to herself, "My search for you's gunna haveta wait justabit."

Michael got the text while he was at home, busily packing his few belongings to bring to his new place. Sending a quick reply, he dons a vest, much like a solder would have, complete with pepper spray, a low level taser, flares, and a pocket monocular. He grabbed his belt that had two police batons on it and put it on as well. Dressed today in ripped blue jeans, combat boots, and a black t-shirt, he picks up his motorcycle helmet and keys on his way out and makes off towards the new threat.

Haalima blinked down at her pocket as the phone in it began playing music with a Middle Eastern flair to it. "Oh goodness," she said. She finished throwing her groceries in the back of her small car and fished out the phone. "West Eight-fourth and Central Park West? Where is that exactly?"

She opened the driver's side door and fished in the back seat for the map book, finding the address rather swiftly. "Better drive quick!" Haalima wedged herself in to the car and started it up, pulling away from the grocery store and driving as quickly as she dared toward the location Mitts had given her.

  Unlike certain hairy girls, Joe did not have precognitive powers outside of the kind anyone can develop from reading too much TVtropes.  If this was the case though, why was it that Joe was already at a local children playground?

  'Mmmm.  Bubblegum eyeballs.'  Ice Cream Truck, duh.  As well as the devouring of helpless Frozen snack representation of a Ninja Turtle head... Wait, how close to cannibalism is that for a Mutant?

  It's at this point Joe gets Text Of DOOM.  "...For crying out loud..."  There was only one course of action, finish his snack in two bites!... OhSweetBabyOptumusPrimeBrainfreeze

  After the momentary subjective eternity of horrifyingly exaggerated agony passed, Joe got to work.  "Excuse me, Citizen Patrol issue here.  Unspecified Doom incoming.  Please take your ball and go home before something explodes."

Liberty looks at her phone. "...really?" as she is right there in said playground, on the swings. Various children have various reactions. Some take Joe seriously. Others seem to think he's being silly and kidding with them. But as the uh-oh squad starts arriving, the kids get nervous, but curious too.

Liberty spots Joe and says, "I wish we could prevent whatever damage is about to happen."

Exactly as she says this, Haalima, Mike and Mittens arrive to see the ground begin to open up like a large ramp. The place quakes lightly as loud noises of the ground ripping can be heard. The ramp makes way for an opening where a bunch of orcs with some kind of SWAT armor start marching out.

"What the..." Mittens wonders out loud as she hears the familiar sounds of Joe and Liberty's voices, "How'd they get here so fast?  If they were already here, I may need to look into early retirement 'cause there'll be no need for my ability."

She shows up right about when the orcs do.

"OK let's not jump to conclusions!" Mittens says, blink-blinking in shock at the sight, "Just because they're armored and look like fantasy movie badguys and have an entrance that causes panic and property damage doesn't necessarily mean they really are fantasy movie badguys!"

She's sure to situate herself someplace where she can dive for cover if need be.  Out comes the megaphone.

"Hey playground mashers!  Are you villains?  Here to cause mayhem?!  Or are you just misunderstood?!"

Michael gets there as the orcs start to walk out. He moves to the front of the forming battle lines. He keeps his hands on the batons at his hips, but doesn't take them out. He doesn't like how well armed they are, but so far haven't tried to hurt anyone so he is willing to give them a chance to explain their actions.

He eyes the orcs, attempting to find the leader. If it came to a fight he wanted to be able to take the leader out first before worrying about the mooks. Most likely the orcs nearest him see him standing in a ready position, hands on weapons. They would be trying to judge his fighting prowess as much as his is their own.

OOC: When you say SWAT do you mean armor and riot gear: baton, shield, nonlethal weapons; or actual SWAT: shield plus lethal weapon.

Haalima stopped short just behind Mike. She put a hand up to her mouth to cover it and let out a surprised "Oh!" as she saw the orcs. "Oh dear... Normally people dressed like that aren't looking for a tea party... What should we do?" She looked to Mittens for guidance.

  Joe, along with others has dealt with crazies made of water, made of fire, and even protestors... So having experience in this sort of insanity by now of course he has a reasonable and well thought response to this. "...What the *censored*ing *censored* is this *censored*?"

  Heeey, this is a family game Joe!

OOC Style: I haven't been given a clear answer either way myself, but I'm <i>guessing just armor since only armor was mentioned
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:54, Sun 29 May 2011.

The orcs' commander (or what looks like he should be) steps up, shield at ready. He answers Mittens, "I am Karloss! You all shall surrender, or face the consequences!"

Liberty says, "Surrender to what? I mean... what is it you want?"

Karloss says, "We want the world!"

Liberty says, "Get in line..."

Karloss says, "We are responsible for the Fire Dragon and the Water Soldier! But those two were mere tests! MORE where they came from if you don't surrender!"

Michael looks at the scene before him through his hi-glare resitant glasses. Hands on his batons, he speaks loudly to the leader, saying,"Karloss! I wish to see little blood shed here today, as I am sure you fel the same. In order for that to happen I challenge you to an honorable duel. Today your opponent shall be Reaver! What say you?"

Walking forwards he places himself even farther between the others. Hopefully, Karloss goes for the duel. Otherwise there may be more calateral damage, like the other times. Or worse, one of his new friends gets hurt and without Timothius here, no way to heal them up.

Either way he had an ace up his sleave.

A zillion thoughts race through Mittens' little head, but she manages to keep her priorities straight.

"You got guts, boss!" she says to Reaver.

She turns to Haalima and forces a smile.

"While he deals with the hoard, you and I are on babysitting duty!  Let's make sure all the kids are out of harm's way!  I'll entice 'em, you grab the ones who won't be enticed."

With that, she rushes for the ice cream truck if it's still there.  If not, the parking lot.  Presumably same direction either way.

"Hey kiddies!  This way to the police and safety!"
This message was last edited by the player at 15:09, Tue 31 May 2011.

  "Right, just for clarities sake before you and Mr. Reaver-" Hey, calling them by their last name sounds more badass than 'Mike', "Beat eachother into a coma, did you mean you personally made the fire and water things, or did you mean that in the general sense of whatever group you represent and someone else made them?"   Because braining this guy with a brick would be less justifiable if doing so didn't outright prevent more elemental beast things.

Karloss says, "A duel?" as if intrigued by the idea. He looks towards Joe, "The group I represent, human, is what brought the elementals." he then looks at Mike. "You're on! I'll fight you. But if ANY interference occurs, my men will attack without prejudice. Your bystanders, women and children, will all suffer for any such foolish meddling."

"Meddling?" Liberty asks, "Geez, the guy even talks like a villain. Kick his butt, Mike! I believe in you!"

Michael is glad Joe was able to get some information out of Karloss. Hopefully they would be able to get more information after the fight. With a nod of his head to Karloss terms, Michael pulls out both batons and flings his arms downward so that they both extend. He steps forward and settles into a ready stance as he waits for Karloss to meet him.

OOC: What kind of weapon is he using?

Once the kids are herded safely away from danger, Mittens explains the situation to emergency services.  By cell phone if none have arrived yet.

"If they think they can just take over the world," she concludes, "It's a safe bet that they're rather tough.  Or loony.  Or both.  Reaver's got 'em distracted at the moment, but I'd say call in the National Guard ASAP!  This most certainly qualifies as an act of war, and we could very well have some serious civilian carnage in the near future if they have the power they claim!"

She then rushes to return to her team, double checking for any bystanders that may still be in harm's way.

Haalima helped Mittens get the kids cleared out, picking them up and carrying them under her arms if needed. Once they were all to safety she rushed back with the team leader, her hooves clip-clopping on the ground. "That Michael is either insanely brave or very silly," she said, mainly to herself.

  Joe is glad that the kids have been brought to a less carnage front seat viewing distance.  Also, the Icecream Truck has been brought to safety (unless Mittens only ran towards it because they were attracted by the bright and colorful adds), and that's the important thing... Wait... Okay, who switched the first and second lines in the script?

  'Okay, so picking off the other guys during the duel technically wouldn't be interference...  But unless I go all creepy bloodthirsty psychopath and try to stab necks or something I'm not really seeing that working out.'  Maybe if he started rocking a car, the Swat like fashion sense would instill in them the instinct to break up the shenanigans?... No, that's stupid.

Karloss gets in a ready stance. Seeing the batons Mike pulls out, Karloss pulls out a baton of his own. He and all his cronies are wielding SWAT shields, though. He charges Mike. "BWAAAA!!!" Karloss swings his baton in a fake swing at Mike's head only to suddenly swing downward to hit Mike somewhere on the torso. Aside from completely side-stepping, it'll be hard to dodge.

Mittens can see no bystanders in danger. Just the heroes.

Liberty says, "Man. Wish I was in there... taking hits is my power." she knows Mike is stronger than her, but able to take a hit better? Not likely. Though she does still believe Mike can and will take hits like a champ.

Michael does the easiest thing when someone takes a swing at you, back up. The feint for his head was well executed, but his moving backwards to get away from it made sure that the lower swing would miss him as well. The orc was very strong, but strength meant nothing if he couldn't connect.

'Gotta watch the shield,' he thought. In the right hands the shield could be more dangerous that the baton. He moveed catiously, circling slowly, waiting for his chance to strike. That is the nature of two weapon fighting; wait for your opponent to get tired and attack in is moment of weakness.

"I wonder how long it'll take before they lose patience and all of them attack," Mittens ponders out loud, "Probably just as long as it takes for Reaver to kick this guy's tail.  So you'll likely be fighting orc very soon, Lib."

All those times in high school cheer leading she wished she could insult the other team.  And in this case, the angrier the guy is, likely the more sloppy.

"Nice move, there, Reaver!  Keep making him look like the moron he is!  Keep hiding behind that shield, coward!  You'll need it!"

  Joe comes to a stop by Liberty.  Sure the girl was tougher than all of them put together, but it's just so much easier to instinctively want to protect a little twelve year old girl than Dainty Miss 'kick door off hinges'.  No offense Haalima. "The Homer Simpson boxing method probably wouldn't hold up so well on claiming a win in this case Liberty.  Not sure which one of us is the best at busting skulls as opposed to having a thick one, but Michael's definitely better at it than either of us."

Karloss charges at Mike again, this time, making an opening on purpose by spreading his arms, shield on his left, baton on his right. He figures he is covering too much area for Mike to dodge, leaving Mike with little choice but to strike. In which case, Karloss will also be able to go for a tackle!

Michael moves his arm back looking like he is getting ready to strike. However he then moves his hand forward again, throwing one of his batons right at Karloss' head.

Karloss takes the hit to the head, but keeps his forward momentum going as he continues his tackle against Mike! However, Mike was sure he heard a muffled grunt in response to the head blow.

Michael gets ready to move, spreading his legs and getting a bit lower. Once Karloss gets just just close enough, Michael move inside his arms reach> Attempting to use the orcs momentume against him, he lowers his shoulder, takes an arm and lets Karloss roll right across his shoulders onto the ground.

Karloss is grounded! He looks surprised, but then looks at Mike with a stern glare and swings his shield in a full circle to hopefully hit Mike with it.

Reaver leaps over the shield being spun at his shins. The jump takes him above Karloss, were he attempts to come down on his chest. This was not an honorable move and he knew it, as it was kicking a man while he was down. Reaver doesn't let it bother him at this point though, as he needs to win. Otherwise, the rrest of the group would be put in danger.

Karloss is stomped, but not out! With Mike on him, Karloss rolls to the side, bringing his arm around Mike's feet in an attempt to tackle Mike!

Michael feels the arm snake around his leg and reacts quickly. He pulls out his tazer as he lets his legs be taken and bringing his now tazered hand to the bare spot on Karloss' neck.

Karloss shakes as the taser does its damage! Yeah, Mike gets thrown to the ground with a thud, but anyone would gladly take a tackle in favor of a win.

Fight over.

But the orc army looks furious and charge at the nearest people! About half a dozen orcs charge each hero, many others going on a rampage to destroy property!

Liberty says, "Well shoot..." as she charges back and leaps at an orce, throwing a punch as hard as she can, knocking the breath out of the one orc. But the 5 other orcs grab her and start pummeling her.

(Reminder: While Mike's fight with Karloss was kind of one-sided in Mike's favor, this fight is going to be one-sided in the favor of the orcs. Each one of them is a trained fighter of about cop level and each one is very strong. All we have are our wits, super powers and the fact we called for backup. Which is what will save us in a couple rounds here.)
This message was last edited by the player at 17:25, Tue 21 June 2011.

Michael rolls quickly as he hears the other orcs starting to move. Grabbing Karloss' riot shield as he stands, he geets it up in time to block a batton to his head. He swings back with his own baton, but being this out-numbered, he is having a hard time blocking the hits, much less fighting back.

He used the shield to block many attacks, as well as his baton to deflect them away. His shield arm was getting sore from all the hits on the shield though. Trying something else he started trying to reason with the few fighting him. He figured it wouldn't amount to much, but at this point it couldn't hurt. "What happened to our agreement? It was Karloss vs me, winner takes all. I won. Where is your honor, warriors?"

"Masutemi waza!" Mittens shouts as she executes a flawless sacrifice throw on the nearest orc charging her!  The green guy goes flying into a bit of playground slide head first and he's knocked out cold!  But as with Liberty, there's this little problem of being hopelessly outnumbered.  Mittens finds herself on the ground being curb stomped by the remaining badguys!

"Ow ow ow ow ow ow!  Ok ok!  You win!  Uncle!  Uncle!"

  Joe wishes he bet someone five dollars this would happen, because then maybe it wouldn't have just to make him lose five dollars.  "Karloss is an asshole declaring world domination in a children's playground.  Graceful loser was never an option."

  He looks to Michael... He's a grown man.  He looks to Liberty... That sucks but not like she'll feel it.  He looks to Mittens... Yeah that's got to suck.  Stupid conscience, keeping him from just fleeing to another zip-code.  Joe rushes the vicious cat beating and uses his greatest super power, CAN O MACE!  It's super effective!... On one Guy.

  Joe then has the wonderful experience of getting clubbed over the head, having his mace stolen, and sprayed in his own face.  It's Super Effective!

The orcs yell in an accusatory tone, "Your kitten distracted Karloss with words! That's interference!" ...memories of children's games and how kids will argue the tiniest interferences. Or adult nerds argue "The dice hit the book! Interference!"

Liberty taunts them further, hoping to pull hate off her allies. "That supposed to hurt?! Was that a punch?! Felt more like HEY! Don't you -that ti-hi-ckles! No fair!"

Backup arrives and SWAT (as in HUMAN swat) come swarming out of armored trucks! "Hang on, heroes!" the SWAT captain yells, "We've got your back!"

Many an orc gets in their way so the orcs can take a little extra time to beat on the heroes. Liberty cries out "Mr Reaver! Your power! Help Mittens or Joe!" Teleporting would be a good way to do that.

Michael tries to find his companions and sees them getting quite injured. 'Smart plan didn't work, time for the dumb one,' he thought. He heard Liberty's call and, though he loathed to do it, he would save the others rather than her. 'She'll be alright,'he had to remind himself. He shoved the nearest orc out of his way, tossing the shield at another one. Then he was gone.

In a flash, he was next to Mittens and grabbed an arm. Blood was dripping out his nose right now and he didn't look good. Then they were both gone. A moment later, they were by Joe and he took him by the leg. the blood was getting worse, now coming out of his ears. Again, they were gone. The orcs looking puzzled at the occurance.

A moment later, the three showed up next toe one of the SWAT vehicles. Joe and Mittens looked pretty roughed up and Michael...Michael looked like he had a baseball baat taken to the face a few to many times. Blood was everywhere and when they had ported to this 'safe' location, he let go of them and took one step to turn, thinking to go back for Liberty, when the lights went out. Michael fell forward, landing hard on the ground. Though, in his condition, he didn't feel a thing.

Defensive prone position.  Difficult to fight back from, but occasional opening to kick a baddie in the groin presents itself.  Then... BAMF!  No more being pummeled on by evil orc army!

"Wow thanks, Reaver!" Mittens says plopping into a less defensive prone position, "Aaaand down he goes.  Ironic his own power was what knocked him out, not army of badguys.

"SWAT 'em good for me, Cap'm!

"Ow....  I think they broke my ribs."

  Joe's view is a bit of a stinging blur right now, but even in this situation he can tell he's not the worst off. "Oh good, the professionals are here.  Maybe we won't die after all."  He wobbles to a sitting position and digs through his pockets.  Does Visene help with mace?... Or does it cause a horrific chemical reaction where your face explodes?...  Let's find out, for SCIENCE.  Well, no face explosion anyways.  "Unless there happens to be an ambulance really close, we should probably stay here with Michael until this blows over."

  He does check to make sure Michael is at least still breathing.  He'd feel kinda terrible if the guy died because of the extra teleport for a sarcasm dispenser that cant die from blunt trauma.

The paramedics get to the trio and fix them up. The police fight the orcs back, but... the orcs retreat into their dark cavernous place and it begins closing! The cops decide better of it and don't follow.

Mike, Mittens and Joe are soon patched up enough to have their wherewithal. Enough to soon notice and realize Liberty isn't around.

Michael comes to when one of the paramedics place smellings salts under his nose. It is an awful smell, but usually works to bring one back from unconsciousness. Sitting up, he feels the blood rush and gets quite dizzy. Fighting through that he takes in his surroundings.

Mittens and Joe were also being patched up, which was good. Hearing the ground move again he looked to find the opening the orcs came through was closing. 'Good they are on the run,' he thought. 'I just wish we had some way of following them.'

There was little the medic could do for him once the blood was cleaned off. Most of his injuries were bruises where he hadn't been fast enough to block. His head still pounded, but it would go away eventually.

He looked around again and realized something was wrong. He got up, against the medics' protests and found an oficer going by. Grabbing his arm he said,"Sir, did you find the other one in our team? She's a blond girl, goes by the name Liberty?" He already felt very bad about not getting to her before. He just hoped that she was alright.

"Probably captured," Mittens surmises, "But she had her cell on her.  Perhaps the experts can track her with that."

She reports her idea to the highest ranking officer she can find.

"If that doesn't work, I'm probably you next best detector.  Put me in a chopper and fly low.  Maybe I'll pick up something."

  Joe is having a quiet moment.  It's a quiet one because the alternative would be a ceaseless string of obscenities degenerating into angry noises while punching the ground that had closed up.  But you don't get anything done that way, so it's more practical to selectively repress such seething rage for later when you need to kick someone in the balls so hard their pelvis enters a low orbit in two separate halves.

  Hey, Mittens was already going for groin shots, so it's totally legit.

  'Nothing like revenge to keep you from thinking about self preservation like a sensible person.'  The only reason the proper authorities weren't bigger failures than the Citizen Patrol for failing to accomplish anything or catch anyone despite their equipment and training, was because they didn't lose anyone in the process.  Though it was a pretty *censored* close call.

  Speaking of Cellphones, Joe uses his own to call home. "Joe? You're alive! Sweet, I don't have to deal with funeral arrangements." Must not crush phone.  "I may put you through it yet.  I need you to bring some things over."  While tempting, Joe still had enough hold of genre savvy to know asking to borrow some of his mother's guns would be completely useless, if not downright counterproductive.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:40, Sun 03 July 2011.

The uh-oh squad get together with the group. The officer Mike grabbed says, "No blond girls accounted for, Mike... I'm sorry." though to Mittens, the same officer answers, "Actually, the police office could do that. Let's go!"

Michael follows the officer to go and track Liberty's phone, all thre hile feeling terrible that he left her behind. He was brooding even more than normal.

"Prolly should let 'em know where we're rendezvousing at, Joe," Mittens suggests, "To the justice-mobile!"

She jumps into the squad car indicated and buckles up.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:46, Sun 10 July 2011.

  "I'll catch up with you when you get some results Mittens, or before that if it takes you until the other side of the city to get any."  Besides, squad car could get crowded sitting between a legitimately brooding man on once side and a spaz on the other was not a spectacular sounding idea just this moment.   "Though at least your ribs don't seem to be broken, that woulda sucked."  Well, more so than their current situation did anyways.

  Though as he considers Mr. Phone, he comments "Have to know where said meet up point is in the first place before I can tell anyone, but I'll see to a bit of a heads up to others."

  Ye olde Text Messages sent to the recurring game cast.  'Liberty Kidnapped By Orcs. Bring violence. Location soon hopefully.'  Well, there have been more vague messages made in the past by others at least, probably.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:17, Sun 10 July 2011.

One of the police men looks at Joe and says, "I guess she means the police office since that's where we could have access to phone tracking."

Another police man looks annoyed by Mittens' and Haalima's existence. He says, "How about you not get yourselves involved and let the professionals handle it from here?"

Just then, the heroes all hear a voice in their heads, <<Hello? Can anyone hear me?>> it sounds like a grizzly man's voice. The cops don't seem to be responding with any show of surprise, so they likely didn't hear the voice.

Michael hears this comment and is suddenly in front of the officer. No, he didn't teleport, just moved very quickly as he is very angry. He stares directly into the man's eyes from just a few inches away. From this close all of his scars give him a frightful look. This added with the anger in his eyes, the cop should be sufficiently scared right now. "I suggest you change your tone officer. These ladies risked their lives getting all of the potential hostages out of harms way. The rest of us could have been killed during the assault. One of ours is now missing! So next time you decide to say something, don't."

With that Michael turns and stalks off towards the cop car, hands balled and shoulders shaking. He hears tho voice in his head, but his mind is buzzing to quickly to respond.

Mittens nods to Joe to indicate that yes she does mean the police office as suggested.

"Woah!  A telepath!" she says, bringing her fingers up to her temples in the classic "I'm getting a telepathic message" pose, "Yes I can hear you!  In my head!  Here's hoping you can hear me somehow..."

She gives a nervous grin at the exchange between Reaver and the annoyed officer.

"Thank you, Officer Reaver.  As you say, we're all good-guys here and we all want to get Liberty back.  As the person who called the professionals in the first place, I'm more than happy to take the back seat, sir.  Thanks again for helping to deal with the villains, sir.  I will respect your chain of command and only contribute as ordered by the highest ranking officer, sir."

Well maybe.  If ordered to do nothing at all, Mittens will likely disobey.

((OOC: The classic "I'm getting a telepathic message" pose was easy to find with a google search for telepathy: http://ghostradio.files.wordpr...008/11/telepathy.gif ))

  Telepathic messages, that only Mutants can apparently hear?  The Citizen Patrol would like to welcome back their plot relevance thanks to this development.  <<Uh, yes?  We've got enough crazy going on without me getting considered crazy.  So excuse me if I don't immediately announce I have voices in my head.>>

  Hmm, with the amount of hassle at the moment, really in hindsight asking his father to drop off a Metal baseball bat among other things probably wouldn't exactly go unnoticed once he started lugging it around.

OOC style:  Pstandard Psychic Pstance, complete with Trope. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmw...andardPsychicPstance

A slight breeze from the south carried the sweet scent of honeysuckles, and taught a little street dust how to dance for a brief time.

The cop Mike confronted is intimidated. He isn't sure whether to react by asking Mike if he's threatening a police officer or to just back down. Officer Henry Sargas, a veteran cop who was buddy with Mike's dad looks over at Mike and says, "Hey, Michael... ride with me."

The voice continues, <<I need your help. Please. There were these... orc-looking creatures... and I think I'm in some kind of cave. They've been keeping me unconscious so I couldn't call for help, but today they all left, and the stupid ones stayed to watch me. Far as they know, I'm still unconscious.>>

Meanwhile, Joe and Mike don't get looked at like they are crazy, but Mittens does. Then again, that's normal and as it should be. "....telepathy?" the cop in the car asks Mittens while driving.

(In the car)
Officer Sargas has Mike ride shotgun and follows the other car that has Mittens in it. "It's not your fault, Michael. And if I remember right about that girl, she can take it until we find her. And we *will* find her."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:02, Fri 15 July 2011.

((Since Haalima brought her car with her, I'm going to assume she's following the cops))

Haalima had been quiet and reserved for the last few minutes, saying nothing. The disappearance of Liberty had her brooding, as did the fact that they had gotten their tails handed to them. Not that they should have expected to win against orcish things armed to the teeth, especially when one of the biggest and scariest members they had was Haalima herself, and she had all the fighting prowess of a... well, horse. That dances.

Her ears twitched when voices started speaking to her in her head, and she wondered if she'd finally gone off the deep end. When they continued she frowned. "Seems those uglies are snatching more than just little indestructible girls then," she muttered, to no one in particular.

Michael just nods his head. He doesn't know what else to do. He was just starting to come out of his loner shell. The walls he had put up to keep people away, to keep from getting himself hurt again, had come down a bit around this group. He tried to keep calm and think of a way to find Liberty before something bad happened.

Eventually his mind calms enough and he hears the voice. 'Curious,' he thinks. The he projects his thoughts trying to reach the other person,'Can you give us any other clue as to where you are? I believe the orcs may be heading back towards you now, so be careful.'

Mittens nods to the officer.

"The telepath says he's being held prisoner in a cave by some orcs," she says.

She puts her fingers to her temples again and speaks aloud.

"My name is Mittens.  I'm the leader of the Citizen Patrol.  We're the ones who defended the city from a Water Titan, a Fire Dragon, and just now helped fight off some orcs that popped up from underground.  I've got a few questions for you.  What's your name?  Can you transmit your memories?  If so, please send me what you remember about your captivity.  Especially any details on the kind of rock the cave is made of and what sorts of formations you might have seen.  I happen to be a somewhat experienced caver and might recognize the place.  Also, do you have a cell phone on you?  If so, what's the number?"

She gets a pen and pad ready to jot down details as they come.

  Alas, the lack of people looking at Joe like he is crazy was not to last.  For after the Cop Car Mitten's and such were hitching a ride in had driven out of sight, who should show up but-  "I am here to play baseball with my Son.  Nothing suspicious at all...  Yeesh Joe, try picking a playground that isn't a warzone next time." his Father David.

  "That's nice dad.  Now please hand over the innocent looking except when out of context stuff."  Yes, an aluminum baseball bat with a catchers mitt hung off the edge, and a blue fannypack with a baseball (along with brass knuckles, knife, and more mace).  Completely without cause for suspicion at a park.  Most likely cause for such passing by any metal detectors near police stations or following along looking for kidnapped girls.

  "Here yah go kid, not try not to get killed.  I still haven't finished filling out the life insurance forms."  With those loving words of parental encouragement, Joe gave a well practiced roll of the eyes and hurried off in the general direction Mitten's Police ride had gone.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:30, Thu 21 July 2011.

The telepath responds, <<Thanks, I'll be careful. I don't have my cell. They took it from me and destroyed it. My name is Harry.>> he then sends a stream of memories into the minds of those who are "listening" or being receptive. Those who allow him to send his thoughts to them receive the memory of being at some place he likes to go to think when the ground opened up just like the playground, and he was beaten up and taken. He then remembers being dragged through the city sewer system and then led through a secret door into some cavernous area. He remembers passing a room where some huge rock monster was fighting some orcs as if in some kind of military drill. Then passing what looks a lot like Timothius, who was chained up in the middle of some technological version of a pentagram. Then Harry remembers being shackled to a wall in a room with a couple orcs to watch him.

Mittens gasps when she "sees" the memory of Timothius.

"They have my brother!  They have Timothius!"

She covers her face and silently screams obscenities in her thoughts and offers a silent but panicked prayer in between.  After a few seconds she collects herself and wipes the tears away.

"We're going to need a map of the sewers, especially near City Hall Park.  Harry the telepath showed me where they took him from and pieces of the journey to where they took him to.  Unfortunately his cell was destroyed, so it's very likely Liberty's will be too and soon.  Can we call ahead to HQ and have them do the tracing thing while we detour for City Hall to where Harry was taken?  There's a good chance I can retrace his steps."

She brings her fingers to her temples again.

"Thank you, Harry.  They took a friend by the name of Liberty.  Blonde.  12 years old.  And she had a cell on her.  I think I can retrace your steps while the police trace her signal.  Try your best to be inconspicuous.  Whatever you do, don't let out any hints that we're on their trail."

(( His last name wouldn't happen to be Dresden, would it?  :p ))

Michael gets the vision of where Harry was taken and is being held now. Unfortunately, he doesn't know enough of the city to know where it is. He does notice Tim there and gets more worried. 'They are slowly taking our team,' he thinks to himself.

'Hang tight Harry. One of our group, a blond girl around your age named Liberty, was taken as well. If you see her and it seems safe to talk, tell here we are on our way. We will get you guys out of there soon,' Michael inner speaks to Harry.

As Joe started off in that direction, though, he noticed a young woman walking towards him.  Not just in his direction, but towards him directly.  She even made a rather meek eye contact.

When she was close, she said, "Umm, Hi.  I ahh saw what you guys did, over there," gesturing towards the park.  "Are you guys that Citizens Army, or whatever?

Because I just heard a strange voice in my head, and I think someone's trapped down there.
And ummm. I thought maybe, you know" she continued making, and breaking eye contact for about the umpteenth time, "that maybe I could, you know, help, or something".

  Joe is so glad that unlike a certain blue hedgehog, he can actually come to a direct stop when he needs to (not that he can run as fast as fictional animals anyways).  "Citizen's patrol.  Citizen's army makes it sound like we have actual equipment beyond reflective vests."   That Joe isn't even using anyways.

  He considered the latest member of the 'Voices in my head... No, really!' club, and said "Things seem to be getting kind of insane, but I'm not exactly about to turn down offers of help when two of my friends and some other guy are stuck underground with some crazys."   Hopefully the girl has some better idea on how to help than he does, because 'general carnage' wasn't very efficient last time around except for the Orcs.

  "Anyways, I'm Joe, wish we were meeting in less lame circumstances... And that I had a car."  Roof hopping as alternative transportation is all fun and games until you need to travel with someone, or carry groceries.

(Warning! Time skip imminent!)

Mittens is taken to City Hall for the map and the cops split up so they can get to tracing the cell while Mittens and friends get to sewer trudging. Obviously, if Joe is informed by cellphone of the change in plan, he could meet the group down below. Otherwise, he'll wind up continuing to the police station. But for sake of RP, we'll say he gets the call. Which is perfect for Mandy since "sudden people in need" is a great way to break the ice while talking to someone direct is a lot scarier.

---

The Sewer Base...
When the group makes it to the hidden door, they find the base. At first, it's easy navigating. But then there comes the first few security guards. They are orcs with taser rods. They are guarding a doorway with no door.

Mandy smiled, brightening considerably with the opportunity to help:
"I've got a car" she said, gesturing over towards an old, sky blue Cortina just down the street. "Can I offer you a lift?"
Wondering to herself, as the words left her mouth, whether it was wise to be offering a strange man time alone with her in her car.



As they drove, Joe received the call that redirected them to meet up with his allies.

Walking behind the big man as he made his way into the sewers towards them, Mandy fought her natural and ever-pervasive shyness; promising herself that if this didn't work out, if they didn't like her or want her around, she could just blow.

There wasn't time for Mittens to arm herself well, so she had to settle for a tire iron from the squad car's trunk.  She winds up and overhand throws the heavy tool at the nearest guard.

"Bring it, ugly!"

Mittens crouches and prepares to evade a counter attack.

Michael watches as Mittens proceeds to through her weapon at the enemy. Assuming it hit it would be a good attack, except now she is unarmed. That and it was going to be loud, which means drawing more enemies.

'So much for stealth,' he thinks. Walking forward, he pulls out a new acquisition that he acquired from the squad car he had been driving in. He had picked it up by accident when he was getting his gear out of the car, but he would more than make use of it now.

He walks out of the shadows and draws the stun-gun, aims it at the 2nd guard and pulls the trigger. His aim needs to be spot on, since it wont go through body armor, which forces him to aim at the head and neck area. Out of the front of the gun fly two wires with a barbed tip. Once they hit and close the circuit, it will drop whoever it hit.

He has a riot shield in his other hand and a baton back on his hip, as well as a few other things that may be useful down the road.

  Joe appreciates the ride, because driving a car means you don't have to put in the effort of travel yourself.  At the end of the day, The Flash walks, while Batman rides.  Go go Batman...  Joe wishes they had Batman handy while he's at it.

  Once they get to the underground hostile territory, Joe considers suggesting Michael teleport next to the Guards while he distracts them (because, well, with Liberty missing he defaults to toughest member... Joy).  Then Mitten's throws her weapon away while Mike tries for a more obvious frontal assault.

  "This whole day sucks.  Who wants a baseball bat that won't throw it away?"  This qualification would most likely default to Mandy now that we think about it, so he leaves the metal bat behind with her while heading over to Mittens.  He really hopes Orc kneecaps are not much tougher than average kneecaps if it comes down to trying to kick them in said kneecaps.

The orc Mittens threw her weapon at watches as the tire iron bounces off his SWAT armor. He now has the status "distracted". The second guard is alarmed and turns to hit the alarm button. Then gets shocked and KO-ed by Mike.

The first orc sees the KO of his fellow guard, sees he is outnumbered, and runs deeper inside the base.

A steady alarm sound is going off. The group can hear Harry in their minds, <<I hope this doesn't mean they caught you guys... but I also hope this means you're here.>>

Haalima sighed. She had been about to suggest that she try to distract them with some dancing, but hadn't been quick enough to say anything about it. Looks like they were going to get beaten up instead. This should be fun.

She snorted, her ears flicking as the alarm started to sound. "Stealth? What fun is that?!" She said to Michael.

"Yeah, go ahead and run, you coward!" Mittens hollers at the fleeing orc.

She glances over at Joe as she steps over to retrieve the tire iron.

"You've got spare weapons?!  Sweet!  Extra awesome of it's wood.  The enemy's armed with stun guns.  So a metal bat..."

She wiggles the tire iron.

"Or this thing... would likely wind up conducting the zap right into me.  So... yes, please!"

Mittens then sizes up Mandy then gives an approving smirk and wave.

"Hello there!  You got guts to be down here if you know what's goin' on.  Name's Mittens, leader of the Citizen Patrol, if you hadn't already heard from the news.  And your name is?"

She's expecting the police officer to radio in an update, but will remind him if he doesn't.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:10, Sat 30 July 2011.

"Oh, um hi" Mandy stammered, to the only person here to have acknowledged her {she wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not}. "I'm, ummMandy", she replied, although obviously distracted, and scared, of the strange, and very ugly, thing-person lying unconscious not so far away ... and somewhat discombobulated by the klaxons.

Michael takes the riot shield off his back and puts it onto his left arm, a baton back in his right. While using the two weapons might be better against human foe, he needed a bit more defense against the orcs. He walked forward a bit to check the guard he had taken down, looking for any weapons, keys, radio etc.

'Yeah Harry we are here. We'll get yo out soon as we can,' Michael thought spoke to Harry.

The police man that was issued to go with the Citizen Patrol group was lagging behind as he's rather overweight. He shows up and sees what is going on. And hears it. "What the... oh great. So much for surprise." he says before picking up the pace. He tries to radio for backup, but just gets noise. "....fudge nutter..."

(OOC: Joe asked me if we had cops with us. I told him I durped and forgot about the cops entirely. So since it makes sense the cops wouldn't let you guys go places in the sewers without one of their own, AND it would be more fun to have a "Captain! I found something! AAAAH!!!" NPC along, I decided to throw this guy in. Enjoy!)

  Joe would not be surprised of fudge nutter butters have something to do with.. Uh...  Oh dear, does this cop even have a name?  They're doomed aren't they?

  Joe also met Mandy first and implied baseball bat offers, so totally acknowledged. "Mittens, I said people who won't throw them away.  You've already been disqualified there... My common sense cries in anguish at my seriously suggesting you pick up the cattle prod for yourself instead."

  At the very least, if she threw that it might do something.

There is no more response from Harry. But the alarm continues and a bunch of orcs can be seen about 100 feet down the hall. They are rolling a cannon on wheels and aim at at the heroes. "Loke-tar!" one of them yells as they light the fuse on the cannon.

Here's a general map of where we are:
Us = us. Michael, Mandy, Haalima, Joe, Mittens, Expendable Cop

/---\__       _____
|    Us\_____/     \_____________________/
|S   Us _____       _____________________ Cannon
|E  /--/     \_____/                     \
W
E
R
 

This message was last edited by the player at 03:35, Thu 04 Aug 2011.

Mandy drops the baseball bat and screams, as she dives for cover.

Mittens charges forward, does several flips, then leaps through the air, landing on the backside of the cannon.  The force of her landing spins the cannon upside-down in a 180 that turns the cannon on the badguys!  "Have a taste of your own medicine!" she taunts, plugging her ears before...

Mittens snaps out of her split-second fantasy and dives for cover!

"One wonders how they wound up with an old-school cannon that uses a fuse.  Plug you're ears, everyone!"

She takes her own advise.

  There are some important things Joe must do before joining in the popular action of taking cover.  First, is making sure that there didn't happen to be pipes of flammable directly behind him, thus where the cannonball would shoot.

  Second, provided the entire hall won't explode as a result of cannons, make sure the Blue dressed redshirt of a Cop is out of the way.  Though if tackling a cop out of the way of a cannonball gets classified as assaulting an officer, Officer Fudge Nutter is on his own.

Michael pulls out ear plugs and puts them in his ears, while at the same time focusing on the chamber a little ways into the hallway. He ports there and is ready to attack any orcs who happen to be there.

When Michael teleports, he finds himself in the face of the orcs and right next to the cannon. The orcs did NOT see him coming. But the cannon goes off. BOOM! The cannonball winds up slamming into the ceiling of the doorway, making it begin to collapse. It's clear the orcs were more interested in making sure the heroes either didn't get in or wouldn't have a way out.

(OOC: Dramatic diving will get you all inside. Mandy will get in no problem, regardless.)

"Diabolical!" Mittens shouts, "Aiming at the ceiling!  Watch out for the cave-in, everyone!"

Mittens of course dives toward the cannon orcs, tumbles a bit, then gets up running at them!

  Part of Joe's brain wonders how this situation would manage to block the doorway enough to stop travel.  This gets overridden by the part of Joe's brain that assumes 'because it would be annoying, therefore happen'.  Either way, he goes to help get the Cop through the doorway, Cop first in front of him, yelling back to Haalima "Help me with this so I don't get crushed trying to help this guy."

  Hey, if the Dancing Tiger Horse can bust a door down, she's probably his best bet for help moving a chubby cop.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:13, Sun 14 Aug 2011.

"Right!" Haalima shouted at Joe.

And then she proceeded to run forward and shove him and the cop, pushing them through the falling debris with one hand while using the other to try to push away anything larger than gravel that might fall toward their heads.

With all the excitement and explosions, it was possible that nobody noticed the breeze of fresh air that wooshed down the corridor ... past the tumbling, summersaulting Mittens, past the brassy cannon, past Michael and the orcs ...
and off down the left hand bend; further into the underground stronghold.

One second it was there, and the next second, she'd blown on past.

Mandy was looking to get a better idea what was down the left hand corridor; and was especially looking for any prisoners that the orcs held.

Michael is glad to have the ear plugs in, as the cannon goes off right by his head. Since he is already in, he does some quick attacks to the orcs while they are confused and stunned that he is there.

The heroes manage to get the cop through, but a chunk of ceiling hits him on the head, knocking him out.

Meanwhile, all the heroes are now trapped inside, but Mike takes out the off-guard orcs.

Mandy finds what looks like a rather big, beaten up man who is guarded by a couple orcs. She also finds across the way another room also guarded by orcs, that contains a little blond girl who has two orcs holding her down while another is whacking her feet with a plank that has nails sticking out of it. The girl's feet are not bleeding and some of the nails seem bent. Another orc is pouring something in the girl's eyes and mouth. The girl is crying.

Still further down the hall is a large steel door that is guarded by two 10' tall suits of armor.

Seeing that Reaver's taken out the immediate threat, Mittens rushes to the downed officer, checks his pulse, then snatches his radio.

"10-53 officer down!" she hollers, "11-41 we need an ambulance!  His condition looks stable, but I don't want to take any chances.  We're near where we entered at City Hall Park.  Be advised, the way is blocked by a ceiling collapse.  You're gunna need an excavation crew to dig us out.  Enemy was armed with a cannon, but is now neutralized.  Likely more of them, so backup would be marvelous.  Over."

She releases the button, returns it to the officer's belt, and takes a deep breath.

"Wow, nice work, everyone!  This guys' gunna be alright, but there's nothing more I can do for him, so let's get to rescuing the hostages!"

She gets up and heads in Reaver's direction.

Michael takes only a moment to look at the cave in. He had a short thought of 'well no going back now,' which was squashed by,'there is no way I was going back anyway.'

He looked over the orcs that he knocked out for anything useful, finding some handcuffs which he used to chain them up and out of the way. Their group didn't need them to come to later on and flank them. He also made sure to take the keys to the cuffs with him.

He is happy to find a few grenades, smoke and flash-bang only, which can definitely help at some point.

He takes the lead, shield and baton in hand. He moves up to the doorway and peeks through, making sure not to be seen.

  "Right Mittens, leave you in a dark tunnel alone if you get knocked out because there is nothing I can do for you.  I'll keep that in mind along with the fact the same would be done to me."  Yeah, Joe gets that trying to bring along that much dead weight as they do their thing is far from practical.  But it doesn't mean Joe likes it.

  He more quietly follows after Michael, considering further bitter commentary just might give them away.

Nobody had seen Mandy since she dove for cover, down the far end of the tunnel. But now she came trotting down the corridor, out of breath, from deeper within the Orc Underground Compound.

"Down ... this ... way ... ... captives ... being ... ... tortured"

The sound of the cannon going off had attracted attention from deeper inside the cave and the group can hear distant shouting. "To the entrance!"

When Michael peeks around the corner, he sees a hall with guards at various doors. He can hear the distant crying of a little girl. He then sees some orcs turn a corner and begin running through the hall, towards the corner Michael is peeking around.

A whole lot can happen in a short time.

"If you think you'd be more use to this officer than to Liberty and the others, you're invited to stay behind, Joe," Mittens answers Joe, "Where the heck did Mandy...  Oh there she is.  Wow.  Thanks for scouting ahead.  Now we know where to... well it sounds like they're comin' for us, now.  How thoughtful of them to save us the effort.  Let's see if we can turn this thing on the enemy."

This thing meaning the cannon.  She looks for means to reload and turn the cannon on the incoming enemy and gets to work if means are to be had.  If not, she loots an orc for it's taser.

Michael takes the smoke grenade and tosses it down the hallway. If nothing else, it will make the enemy pause, giving them more time to get ready. He looks back at the group and sees Mittens trying to load the cannon. Since Joe is by him he tells him,"The cannon loads like a big musket. That bag over there has powder in it and goes in first. Use the plunger looking thing to push it all the was in. Then the cannon ball. If you can find a grape shot, a bunch of small cannon balls, load those. Then get ready to light the fuse. You have a lighter right? Nevermind, here take mine, but I better get it back!"

Michael passes him a very nice stainless steel flip top lighter.

  Joe 'what?' faces at Mitten trying to put the cannon to use.  "You want to use that thing against them?  Isn't that kind of extreme, I mean it's a canno-"  Then Mandy finishes her out of breath report on the situation.

  12 year old girl being tortured...  This will not fly.  "On second thought, let me help you with that Mittens.  Wouldn't want you to miss."  Well that's definitely one heck of a 180 switch, but these things can happen.

  He'll load an appropriately sized chunk of rubble into the cannon if he needs to.

Haalima held up a hand and cleared her throat. "If we didn't want to resort to wanton violence, I could try to distract them." The small, slightly devilish grin that popped up on her face was probably a little disturbing, but even in the middle of a rescue operation she would relish the chance to show off her dancing.

There is gun powder or whatnot, but nothing to load the cannon with except unconscious orcs...

As for whether Haalima gets to do a dance, that's up to the others in the group.

Meanwhile, the orcs down the hallway are heard coughing and don't show up as soon as expected as they are blinded and thus, slowed down.

"Nice shot, Reaver!" Mittens commends, "And excellent idea, Haalima!  Keep 'em occupied while we prepare to defend ourselves from the inevitable wanton violence.

After all, what could be more distracting than a dancing tiger horse?  Mittens doesn't have the bright idea of loading rubble as shot and gets to stuffing an orc down the barrel if he fits.  Cinematically, the comical value of the orc being shot at the others would likely make him much more effective ammunition than serious business rock-shot, so in her mind the same should hold true in real life.  Maybe.  Of course, she won't object to her allies loading everything else available into the barrel.

ooc: are the orca coming from the corridor that Mandy has just emerged from? Or from the other direction?


Mandy whimpered a little, and ducked behind the nearest solid object (the corner, the cannon, or Michael).  From there, she peered out with mixed fear and curiosity.

The earlier map:

/---\__       _____
|      \_____/     \_____________________/
|S      _____       _____________________ Cannon
|E  /--/     \_____/                     \
W
E
R
 

Where we are now:

                     _______
                    |       |
         ____       |Harry  |
        |   _|      |   ____|        ___
        |  |________|  |____________/   |    Large
        |   ______Smoke/Orcs________    | <- Steel
      __|  |__      |  |____        \___|    Door
   __/        \__   |       |
__/     Us &     \  |Liberty|
__     Cannon     | |_______|
  \__          __/
     \________/

Don't forget: large steel door is guarded by two 10' tall suits of armor.

  Joe highly approves of Mittens's current plan.  And then the universe exploded from not being wired to handle that.

  Okay, so clearly that second part didn't really happen.  But Joe does get to helping Mittens stuff Orc Ammo into Orc Weapons for Orc Injury.  "If they can wheel it into this room to aim at us, we can wheel it around the corner to aim at them."  The free lighter from Michael will ne convenient there.

  He intends to give it back we swear.

"Give them a hand," he says to Mandy, indicating Mittens and Joe, who had been hiding behind him when he moves to the opening with Haalima.

To her he says,"Ready when you are. You distract, I attack."

Haalima nodded at Michael. Then she reached in to her pocket and pulled out a shimmery, large square of fabric. She folded it in to a triangle and draped it around her shoulders before putting on a sly smile and walking out in to the smoke. She used the cover from it to get in to position, then as it began to clear she snapped her fingers once, clapped her hands above her head and held that pose for a moment.

Then, without any music at all and after an appropriately long pause to get the attention of any orcs, she began to slowly dance. She wiggled her hips from side to side as though they weren't attached to the rest of her, using her tail and the impromptu veil to accent the movements.

((OOC Prepare for Haalima's "mutant power": Distracting EVERYONE. Figured I'd give a round for reactions. :) ))

The orcs finally see as the smoke clears only to stare at Haalima. "...what the?" one of the orcs says before he then sees a cannon being pointed at them... and one of his fellow orcs stuffed in the cannon. "Fall back to the rooms!"

But thanks to the brief distraction Haalima provided, if her allies manage to not be distracted (Mittens and maybe Joe get a bonus due to having likely seen her dance before and the fact they hang out with the gal every other day), the cannon will have just enough time to fire an orc at the orcs.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:23, Fri 09 Sept 2011.

"Wakie, wakie!" Mittens says, slap-slapping the cheek of the orc stuffed down the barrel in and attempt to wake him up, "Wouldn't want you to miss this!"

She then strikes the best Captain of the Ship pose she can muster and hollers, "FIRE!" while pointing dramatically at the cannon's fuse hole.  Much as she'd like to fire the thing herself, Joe's the one with the lighter.

She makes a mental note to commend Haalima's performance as soon as possible.

  Joe makes with the lighter flick and ignite gimmick,  "I can't think of a one liner...  Horse dancing machine."  Well, the previous times Joe had a heads up regarding the Haalima floor show.

 The good news is fire can burn on it's own just fine, so his 'Well, that's distracting' posture still pulls out a fuse lighting win.

Mandy, still cowering behind the corner, was mesmerized by the dancing horse-tiger woman as much as any Orc might have been.

Guaranteed, the coming 'boom' was going to catch her in the worst possible way.

Michael, while noticing Haalima's  dancing and thinking it was quite great, was in the wrong frame of mind to appropriate it. He was still in the hurt everything mode until they got Liberty back.

So while the orcs where distracted, he would take as many swings as he could, both with shield and baton. At least until the cannon fired.

BOOM! An orc goes flying from the cannon into the distracted orcs. One could almost hear the sounds of bowling pins falling as the orcs all get toppled! Of course, Michael was able to get out of the way just in time. But a few more orcs come out of the side rooms to peek and then go back into their respective rooms.

"Awesome dancing, by the way, Haalima!" Mittens says as she cautiously moves forward into the hall to loot more weapons off the fallen orcs and shouts at the ones in the rooms a few paces ahead, "There's more where that came from, you evil monstrous nasty-pantses!  Surrender!  Or provide me with more amusement!  Either's fine with me."

Well not really.  Today has hurt in so many different ways.  But she's not going to let them know.

Mandy's eyes and imagination had been thoroughly captured by Haalima; and the explosive interruption caused her to scream in a most girly way, and fall backwards behind the corner she was hiding behind.
When she eventually climbed up from the muddy floor, the Citizens Army was well into their offensive.

And what an offense it was. Michael wasted no time getting back into the fray. He waded into the orcs, smashing any and all as he went threw them. He saw the big man to the side, but he remembered Mandy's info from earlier and pushed his way further in to get to Liberty.

  While Joe does have a thirst for Revenge at the moment, those more violent minded than him (or at least those collecting and wielding more weaponry) had things somewhat covered for the moment.  So he stuck by Mandy to make sure no carnage flew her way.

  At lest, no carnage that didn't have to pound him into the ground to get at her first...  This could be lame.
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:43, Tue 20 Sept 2011.

When Michael enters the room with Liberty in it, it has about 4 orcs in it and they all pile on Michael. One of them says, "It's the teleporter! Hit him hard!" as they all swing with all their might at Michael. Problem with that, though, is they set themselves up for the classic, comedic cartoon "duck and make them all hit each other" maneuver. What's worse, this RIGHT after they just mentioned he can teleport. Nobody said they were bright.

Liberty's crying can still be heard, with bouts of coughing and gasping.

No orcs exit their respective rooms, so... Michael is alone.

                     _______
                    | Harry |
         ____       |       |
        |   _|      |Orcs___|        ___
        |  |________|  |____________/   |    Large
        |Cannon____Us   ____________    | <- Steel
      __|  |__      |  |____        \___|    Door
   __/        \__   |Mike   |
__/              \  |Orcs   |
__                | |___Lib_|
  \__          __/
     \________/

<<Harry!>> Mittens thinks at the telepath, <<Feel free to send distracting thoughts to our enemies!>>

When Reaver goes South, Mittens figures she'll be of most use to him by going North to cover his back.  Or facing North anyway.  Taser in each hand, she steps into the North room's doorway and fires both weapons at the nearest two enemies!  She readies another double attack if it looks like she can pull it off before being piled on and pummeled.  If not, she'll duck back into the hallway and hopefully zap any enemies who should follow into the hall.

  Somewhere along the line, Joe had picked his baseball bat back up.  Definitely less visually impressive than dual police batons or dual tasers, but it was something at least.  For the moment Joe stuck to the intersection because while he was a bit worried about Mittens as ever, at least Mittens hadn't gone into 'curled up in a ball shivering' status like Mandy off behind him.

  So the girl deserved a bit of violence on reserve for her behalf just in case.  "I wonder if Orcs have dental insurance?  I think this will be an answered question by the time this is over."

As Mandy stood up, trying to brush mud and gunk off her backside, she looked over at Joe.

Was he standing guard over her, she wondered.  He struck quite an impressive figure.  He was, indeed, an Impressive Guy.

She watched on as the rest of his team took to the uglies, and wondered if he wanted to be there with them.

Reaching out and touching his arm gently, she said, "You should join the fun".
Mandy, however, would not be.  She was a little to scared.

(GM Posting of Michael. If you wish, Michael, edit this post to your liking! I only ask you be sure it doesn't change others' posts.)

Michael's glare looks deadly, but even during his rage he keeps his head and eyes the orcs carefully. Timing it perfect, Michael teleports out from amidst the orcs, to just 3 feet behind one of them and the orcs all smack each other. Michael's nose bleeds as he flops against a wall. "Not again... not *now*..."

Michael fights against his physical limits and goes to tear Liberty out of her bonds. Seeing she is free, he leans against a wall.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:21, Mon 03 Oct 2011.

Liberty reaches to hug Michael as soon as she is free from the bonds. She keeps crying, but seems to be calming down a bit either from exhaustion or the fact her friends are here.

The other orcs are also soon dealt with (Please describe how you beat up the remaining orcs that were guarding Harry's room).

Mittens' quadruple taser attack is super effective!  The enemies shout in pain and collapse to the ground, but only one of them passes out!  The others convulse on the ground, but look like they might recover after a little while.

"Little help in here!" Mittens says, punting one in the head to knock it out!

"Heya, Lib!  Good to see you in one piece!" she calls over her shoulder, "Care to look after Liberty and Reaver in the south room, please, Mandy?"
This message was last edited by the player at 22:46, Wed 05 Oct 2011.

  Joe nods to Mandy, and hurries into the northern room to engage in highly heroic actions.

  Beating people in the head with a baseball bat when they are down!...  Wait, that's not very heroic at all.  Though certainly more heroic than taking the Orc's nail boards that they were using on Liberty and returning the favor.

  "I don't suppose you know offhand where Tim would be, or if any of these guys have keys on em." Joe asks to Harry.

Harry looks in horrible shape. Probably wouldn't be recognizable to anyone who knew him. He finally speaks with his voice rather than telepathically. "....through the... big... iron... doors..." he says in that same amazing deep voice everyone "heard" before. He then closes his eyes.

Liberty isn't bleeding. So she should be alright (aside from traumatic experience, exhaustion, being wet all over, and other nasty annoyances the orcs came up with to make an otherwise invulnerable girl cry).

Harry telepaths, <<Too hard to talk. Easier to use telepathy. Just go through the double doors. If what I read about you folks is true, then the sooner you save him, the sooner you can save me.>>

Liberty rubs her arm across her eyes and hurries out to the hallway, teeth gritted and anger in her eyes. She glares at the two iron doors. Then looks at the cannon. Then looks at the others. "You could use me as a cannonball." she offers. Liberty coughs a few times after saying this, but clears up her coughing.

"That shouldn't be necessary, Liberty," Mittens answers, "Good point, Harry.  Reaver should stay here and guard Harry while the rest of us go get Timothius.  These tasers are working out rather well.  Loot as many as you can carry, everyone."

She takes her own advice then heads for the big doors.  When everyone's ready, she tries to open them, taser at the ready!

  "Liberty, I know you're a tough girl and all that, but we're not using you as ammo.  If we had enough  powder leftover to blast you through the doors, we could blast a rock or cannoball through it just as well."  Besides, it just felt off have the girl progress directly from torture to actions the likes of which Jackass wouldn't even touch.

  "Or we could stuff the whole thing full of boom, roll it towards the doors and light a long fuse..."  Then Mitten's heads right for the door with the ominous paranoia inducing armor standing by it.  He'll let someone else warn her against it.

A sudden voice booms out through the hall. "Stand aside! The Marvel will take care of this!"

If anyone turns to look, they see a guy in mid-20's and built like a bodybuilder running toward them. He as wearing a stereotypical super-hero outfit, complete with cape and a black mask around his eyes. Emblazoned on his chest is a shield with an M on it. His short black hair is slicked back away from his face. He tears right for the door with as much eagerness as Mittens.

Liberty says, "Sorry... not thinking straight. Still a bit say-who-what now?" she turns to see The Marvel. She stands aside. If this were an anime, the giant suits of armor on either side of the large doors would have sweatdrops next to them.

The Marvel, and anyone else charging the doors, will find the doors are as thick and hard as they look. The suits of armor turn to look down at anyone who might be at the door. They don't attack yet, though.

Mittens opens her mouth and turns to lecture the newcomer for presuming to interfere in official...  WOW!  A real. life. SUPERHERO!  He's got a cape!  And a mask!  And a chest symbol!  And...  And...  THIS IS SO AWESOME!

Mouth still agape, and wide eyes shimmering in excitement, Mittens steps aside to make way.

"Um...  M-Mister Marvel, sir?  Before you punch down the door, or blow it up...  My little brother's on the other side.  And it may not even be locked.  And ACK!"

She jumps back toward Joe and the others and points her tasers at the suits of armor.

"They moved!  Those suits of armor looked at me!  I saw it!"

  Joe blinks, turns, blinks, turns back, "Someone missed the 'no costumes' meeting.  Mandy, think you can go check and see if the way back is cleared out?"  This guy was here now, after all.

  "Well, maybe he can take em, or something?  Unless his claims of taking care of this doesn't extend to angry armor."

Liberty very quietly mutters. "I want a costume too..." having seen the Marvel.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:18, Tue 01 Nov 2011.

Haalima blinked in shock when the Marvel appeared. Where had this guy come from? And what was up with the crazy outfit? Huh... and people thought they were weird- at least they were using their real names.

The Marvel stopped just before he was able to smash a fist in to the door. He looked back at Mittens, then at the door, considering what she had said about them not being locked possibly.

Then he looked at the suits of armor that he was standing between. He stared for a moment, then grinned and pointed at one of them. "VILLAIN! Come, The Marvel shall defeat you both and save the innocents you have enslaved!"

The giant suits of armor raise their halberds and swing down at the Marvel. He's able to avoid being split in half using his amazing reflexes! ....but gets kicked by a giant's shin, sending the Marvel flying and slamming against a wall. That smarts! And he'll likely be soar for the next 48 hours easily. But with determination like his, the Marvel is still in the fight.

The other giant throws a leg at the fleeing Mittens, but Liberty jumps in the way, serving as a human shield, cushioning the kick enough that even if it hits Mittens, it won't hurt.

Liberty says, "That cannon would be handy to use on them if our friendly neighborhood Marvel stays out of line of fire."

Should Mandy do as asked, she will find the blocked area is still blocked mostly, but a small opening was made in the ceiling, just big enough for a man to have come through. Certainly big enough for everyone to escape one at a time too. But it will be a climb when it comes to that.

(Posted Marvel being hit with permission from Marvel's player)

"Oof!" Mittens ouches when toppled by a Liberty punted into her backside!

"Hey!  Nobody kicks my heroes around and gets away with it!"

Cannon sounds like a good idea against these big things, but until then, may as well find out how well taser works!  BZAP!  She fires off her tasers at the two suits of armor, being careful to stay out of reach of their weapons!

"Man.  Wish I could come up with lines as awesome as The Marvel's."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:39, Wed 02 Nov 2011.

The Marvel stayed slumped against the wall for a moment, the wind knocked out of him and stars in his eyes. Then he got back to his feet, determination on his face. "Villain... That was your one free shot! Now, THE MARVEL shall make you pay!" He rushed at one of the suits then, pulling back his fist and aiming a punch at its helmet.

Staying out of the line of fire? Not in The Marvel's vocabulary...

  "Punch their freakin heads off man.  Unless they're bolted on or something, or they can murder us without their heads...  This is going to suck."  He considers trying to wrench the swords from their grasp... But he's not as comfortable with his durability perks as Liberty is (somewhat literally).

  He will attempt to smack the Knight The Marvel™ was dealing with in the back of the head with his bat though.

The Marvel is able to hit the armor! ...and it feels like punching armor! Amazingly, though, the Marvel has the kind of strength it takes to make one of these suits stagger back a step! Only for Joe to smack it in the back of the head! *CLONG!*

Then Mittens fires a taser at the armor. Hey, was worth a shot, right?

Meanwhile, the big doors begin to open... just behind the doors is a mad scientist type looking person. First non-ally human this group has seen since the police. He has the mad scientist grin on his face and is holding a remote control in his hand. Behind him is Timothius, who seems to be stripped down to just wearing shorts at the moment. He is at the center of some kind of large machine (Like so: http://timothius.deviantart.co...y/?q=faction#/djpfq1 ). The mad scientist says, "Behold! My mutant power transference device!"

He points his remote at the heroes and they can hear the orcs grunting behind them. "I can remotely heal my minions with your ally's power! Hahahahahaha! Oh! And you'll never be able to remove him from the device! If you try, the device will self-destruct! Hahahahahahahahaha! SURRENDER!"

Classic, really.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:45, Mon 07 Nov 2011.

Mittens is guessing The Marvel can't hear Liberty's request over the ringing in his ears.  Not surprising considering the beating he recieved.

"Now that's how a hero should sound!" she mutters.

Aso not surprising is that tazer don't work against armored foes.  She readies another zap for in case Joe or the Marvel manage to knock a helmet off.  Maybe there's big orcs inside.  Somehow, a cat girl fighting an orc wearing a suit of armor in the modern world seems a bit more believable to her than magically animated suits of armor.

But then the doors open to Timothius strapped to a nasty machine!  She rushes the doors, taking advantage of the fact that the armored guys are distracted to get past them, doing a baseball slide if needed.  But the mad scientist says that Timothius will die if she tries to take him from the machine!

"Ok ok!" she says, feigning surrender.

She then makes a move for the remote, using her favorite martial arts technique for disarming a knife wielder!

  Joe hates this guy already.  "You had no problems kicking people in the nuts before Mittens, don't hesitate now." If they are stealing Tim's powers this means he can't heal himself right?  He halfway hopes this isn't the case so they can keep hurting him, but that sane half of his logic thinks that's terrible.

  They don't have the free time for that sort of thing after all.

  Meanwhile, Joe attempts the age old honorless method of 'hit them while they are down' against the recovering Orcs.  This could end up like a morbid game of Whack-A-Mole if they keep getting healed.

Okay, this guy is even bad enough to make Haalima mad. Which is a feat, all things considered. She rushes forward and tries to help The Marvel and the others with the suits of armor. At the last moment she turns and kicks with a hoof at one of the armored suits, putting all of her strength behind the blow.

The Marvel stares at the machine for a moment, his mouth agape. "The true villain shows himself! Distract him, little kitty girl! The Marvel will come help you deal with the criminal in a moment!"

Then he tries to punch the armor again to distract it long enough for him to duck around behind it and help Mittens.

Liberty freezes upon seeing the villain. But the villain falls for Mittens' trick! He gets disarmed and the suits of armor go toppling towards the ground from the merciless onslaught of Haalima and the Marvel. Joe whacks the moles orcs back down with relative ease since they hadn't had much chance to get up. How quickly things can turn around! Seeing all this, Liberty immediately aids Joe in stomping orcs so he and she can sooner get to helping the others.

Timothius mews weakly from the contraption he's stuck in.

The villain says, "You fool! Give that back to me, or else!"

(OOC: Sorry I didn't post for so long! I had forgotten it was my turn! ;.;)
This message was last edited by the player at 05:00, Wed 30 Nov 2011.

Mittens was expecting the 'or else' to include a gun pointed at Timothius, but instead it looks like an empty threat.

"With pleasure, Joe!" she answers, "Hold on to the remote for me, please."

Just before she tosses it to Joe, a nightmarish image of the remote shattering on the ground triggering a self destruct explosion from Timothius' prison machine electrifies her brain.  So she instead uses the would-be toss as a diversion from her other hand taking out her pepper spray and spraying at the villain's face!

"On second thought, probably too risky."

  "I'm a little busy here anyways Mittens."  He's flattered he apparently ranks on the 'People Mittens Trusts Her Brother's Safety With' list, but a guy flailing around with a baseball bat probably wouldn't be his first choice of pitching sensitive equipment at (Home run!).

  Of course, Mitten's already figured that out.

  Okay, any orcs moving beyond twitches of pain?  If no, Go to step two,
  Step two, rush between Doctor Jerkface and Timothius, just in case.

Orcs stomped. Liberty goes to follow Joe. The mad scientist sees Joe, but is unable to stop him before Joe gets between him and Timothius. "Curses!" he says, glaring around. He laughs maniacally and a strange looking proboscis comes from the ceiling, sucking him into it and vanishing. He just had his own lab suck him through a straw. Complete with THOOM! sound effect.

A female voice can be heard over the com; "Self destruct sequence initiated. T minus 5 minutes. Have a nice day."

Liberty says, "What'll we do?"

Mittens sweatdrops and gawks a moment at the bizarre and sudden disappearance of the mad scientist then facepalms at the impending self-destruct.

"I'll deal with freeing Timothius," she says, searching the remote for the 'release prisoner' button, "The rest of you, carry out the wounded...  including the badguys if possible."

  "I do not think I like that scientist.  As for doing, anything that keeps us from getting killed is great."  He starts running of back the way they came.

  "Any other takers for getting overweight police officers out of here?" a more cruel Joe would just say they couldn't find them if they were still unconscious.  This one would probably try to get them out of there for 4 out of 5 minutes if they were.

Liberty says, "I'll help with the overweight guy! Hey Haalima! Superhero guy! Follow Joe and I! There's someone else who needs helping!" as she knows she's strong enough anyway. She leads Haalima and The Marvel to the other prisoner Harry. "Carry him out if you would." Liberty asks. She grabs an orc and drags it with her on the way to the overweight cop.

Meanwhile, freeing Timothius really is that simple. There is a button labeled release that, when pressed, releases Timothius.

When Joe and Liberty make it to the overweight cop, they find he's waking up, which means helping him out won't be hard.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:35, Wed 11 Jan 2012.

"Do not fear, little super-girl! THE MARVEL shall save this gentleman!" And with that the masked super-hero lifted Harry up and threw him over his shoulder. Haalima blinked at The Marvel, obviously impressed with his strength. He didn't even seem to notice that he was carrying a human being one handed.

"Did you... uhm... want any help with him?" Haalima asked softly. The Marvel waved a hand at her and shook his head as he looked up at the tiger-horse.

"THE MARVEL has this in hand, good lady. But thank you! Shall we make a hasty escape out of this villainous place?"

"I gotcha, bro," Mittens says as she scoops him up to carry him to the exit, "I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that we've made a few new friends..."

She fills him in on the newcomers to help him keep his mind on positive thoughts rather than his suffering or the bodies of the unconscious orcs left behind.  Once he's safely with the others, she drops him off and turns to go back.

"Off I go to rescue some orcs!  _{Never thought I'd say something like that.}"

Fight orcs?  Sure!  Rescue them?!  Uh....

  It is always so much easier to rescue people when they can rescue themselves.  "Having a conscience is highly inconvenient right about now."   There were, what, how many Orcs?  Guys who fired cannons at them and other assorted things?

  Despite it all, Joe expected more people would complain if they left them all behind than there would be people who complained they rescued them.  It wouldn't be much more, wanting to avoid whiners is falling under 'take what you can get' for his justifying why he's bothering.

  "Wake up, your boss is exploding you."   Kicking an Orc in the ribs is not the most diplomatic rescue attempt, but it's a start?

(Hope you all don't mind, fast forwarding a little)

Thanks to the opening The Marvel came through, there are rescue teams ready and waiting to help rescue everyone, even the orcs. Who are, of course, arrested. However, it's just too many orcs and the countdown ends:

"5... 4... 3... 2... 1......... just kidding. I was only here to make you focus on running while my master ran. Ha. Ha."

Liberty sighs in relief and the rest of the orcs are promptly rescued. Timothius is not looking well and is rushed off to the hospital along with all the other heroes. Worst off is Harry, who looks dead.

(We are en route to the hospital. This is our chance to converse with and get to know "The Marvel". We'll say he's in the same ambulance as Liberty and Joe while Mittens is in the ambulance with Timothius and Haalima. Harry is in the same ambulance as Michael.)

Mittens made no comment about having a conscious being inconvenient and instead focused on the task.  One whole badguy rescued before time ran out, wooo!  During the final countdown, she cupped her hands over her brother's ears expecting the explosion to be painfully loud...

"Where's the kaboom?" she asks, impersonating Marvin the Martian, "There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom. Note to self: install self-destruct bluff message in supergroup base."

Inside the ambulance, she tries to find something to say or do to help sooth Timothius without distracting the medical team from their job.  She ends up just humming the Transformers theme song for him.

---

OOC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8rYotiiFP8

  Now that the rushed circumstances of Orc smashing turning into Orc rescue is over, Joe takes a moment to check up on Liberty.  "You going to be okay Liberty?  That looked worse than you getting caught in an exploding car."  He turns to the Actual Super Hero? The Marvel and says "Thanks for the help out of nowhere, I'm more used to expecting problems out of nowhere."

Liberty ugs... "Actually, I'm not feeling too good. I think I must've swallowed some bad stuff they were force-feeding me... and my feet feel like I've got paper cuts all over them."

Timothius weakly smiles at Mittens, glancing to Haalima and back at Mittens. "Are you two OK?" he asks quietly.

The tall muscular man wearing the mask grinned at Joe, his white teeth sparkling in the light of the ambulance. He gave Joe a thumbs-up as he laughed. "Do not mention it! I, THE MARVEL, could not stand by while innocents were in danger. Though I will feel much better once we get this little side-kick to the hospital!" He turned his attention to Liberty. "Hang on, little hero! We'll be there soon!"

Haalima returns Timothius' smile and pats his head gently. "I dare say we're better off than you, little guy," she said. "Sorry it took us so long to get to you."

"What she said, heh," Mittens answers, thumbing over at Haalima, "Really, the biggest hero today is likely the one who was hurt the worst: the psychic Harry.  He was the one who led us to you with his telepathy.  Without his help...  well...  I'm just glad things worked out as well as they did.  And thanks for helping save the day, Haalima.  Obviously, this means a lot to me personally."

  Despite everything they had been through, for some reason The Marvel in all their 'I Am A Real Super Hero' stylings seemed the weirdest out of everything.  Maybe it was due to how close to 'normal' it was instead of something over the top like Water Monsters or Tiger Horse Ballerina Belly Dancer.

  "Now that everyone is mostly safe, I'm finally angry that science jerk got away.  Someone who kidnaps and tortures children still running around is bad enough on it's own, but this one has crazy stuff backing him up."

To The Marvel, Liberty gives a helpless smile. The guy really takes this hero thing and goes with it, which was one of the things Liberty was hoping to do. "Thanks for the assurances." she's also happy that neither Joe nor The Marvel are treating her like there's no need for concern, despite her powers. Well, OK, no surprise coming from The Marvel as he's not familiar with Liberty. But still.

Liberty looks at Joe and says, "Yeah. Me too. Soon as the doctors help Timothius, I'll have him heal me and we can go looking for that mad man. I'm not sure the doctors can do as much for me as he could... if he's OK, that is. He seemed fine on the outside, but he was acting pretty zonked."

As usual, touching Timothius at all causes one to feel pleasant, so Haalima would get that from patting him on the head. He looks up at Haalima and says slowly and quietly, "I would be sorry too.... in your position." he then looks at Mittens and says, "They should have.. put me in the ambulance with him. I was.. too weak.. to tell them to... sis? Get me to Harry. Soon as you can."

Mittens nods to Timothius and explains to the medics, "He has a very potent healing touch.  Famous in the city's hospitals.  Still unexplained by science, but he has saved the lives of dozens simply by touching them.  So if it looks like there's no saving Harry in the E.R., the Trademark Timothius Touch might be worth a shot."

  "Maybe if we're lucky they will get all of you the same ER room or something.  Though as much as I want to find this guy-" right, mentioning just what you want to do to them if you find them would probably be bad.  "Even patched up you should probably take it easy for a bit first."

  He glances over to The Marvel, "I don't suppose you got mad scientist tracking skills to go with the Armor punching ones?"

(Fast forwarding a bit)

The doctors actually listen, but they are sure to care for Timothius first before "using" him to heal the others. Once Timothius is able to heal the others, they are back to full health, though all are still instructed by the doctors to take it easy for a while.

Emerald met the group at the hospital and expressed her concerns. Once she gets an update on what happened, she offers for The Marvel to join the group. Regardless of the answer, though, she meets the others back at base...

Once Mittens was sure Timothius was well enough, she dealt with giving statements to the police and to the press as well as texting the Citizen Patrol members, requesting that they meet at the base.  She is of course all in favor of The Marvel joining the group and arm-twists for him to at least come to the meeting to help plan how to catch the mastermind behind this latest caper.

At the base:
Once they're ready, she gives a quick summary of what's happened then addresses the group.  "First thing's first.  Now that we know that mutants are being targeted for kidnapping, I will be sending out a group text on a regular basis to check on everyone's kidnapped status.  Please reply to these as soon as you can so we know you're not kidnapped.  If you will be unable to reply for several hours, please let me know when you will be available again.  Next topic:  Catching the bad guy..."

She begins giving a detailed description of the mad scientist.

  "I suppose while it's not the safest of places, with a beach house you can see an orc horde coming from a good ways off.  And not like anywhere else is much better so may as well have a good view in the meantime."  Not quite off subject, as Orcs out of nowhere was cause for Liberty snatching.

  "Got to wonder why the guy even needs to kidnap mutants considering what he's already been doing though.  Why does a guy who can make attack elementals and subterranean orc armies need to outsource for abilities?"

OOC Style: Crazy RL is no excuse to my own brain. Waiting on me?! I'm so ashamed.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:26, Thu 15 Mar 2012.

Emerald looks over towards Joe. "He kidnapped Timothius specifically. In Tim's case, he just wanted the boy's power. Imagine an army of orcs and elementals who could heal each other. Basically, they'd be unstoppable. Meanwhile, Liberty, if I recall correctly, described her horrible experience as being exploited so they could learn what hurts her. Considering she's the toughest in our group, that makes sense. Learn your enemy's weak points. And Harry, well, it's entirely possible the mad scientist wanted Harry's telepathy so he can give commands remotely without anyone being able to listen in to any frequencies. Sadly, with people who crave power, it's the same as people who crave money; They could be rich with what they crave, but it's never enough."

Liberty is playing with her feet. She shrugs and says, "Speaking of being kidnapped, Tim and I weren't anywhere near each other when we were kidnapped. I say we travel in pairs from now on. It'll be harder to kidnap someone if there is someone else with them ready to run, call police, or kick your butt."

Angel says, "I agree. Buddy system and texting to make sure everyone's OK. Which should remain a regular thing for us even after we catch the mad man. Speaking of catching him, Harry was able to telepath an exact image of the scientist to a police artist. But Harry also doubted the guy shows his face much publicly anyway."

Timothius is just sitting next to Mittens, hugging his knees.

Mits side-hugs her bro to comfort him and nod-nods to the points being made.

"Good points.  And speaking of wanting more money and power when you already have it, one wonders how the reclusive villain got all those resources he had...  Maybe he's got some shadowy group or individual who's funding his research.  If they're from another country... this could mean war."

There is a knock at the door so Mits peeks through the peep hole then opens the door.  Framed by the now open doorway stands a naval officer in full white dress uniform.  When he sees Mits he takes off his hat and introduces himself with a slight bow.

"Captain Meyers, liaison for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, mam.  The U.S. armed forces could use your group's help preventing global nuclear war.  In return we offer our full backing.  May I enter, please?"

Mits blink-blinks and gestures for him to enter, which he does.

  So!  Let's review.  Durable yet easily kidnapped little girl.  A Catgirl. Would Totally Ace Gymnastics Class Guy.  Dude Who Turns Into A Worm.  You get the picture...  Government's apparent first choice to deal with World War 3.

   "... I, that, the thing goes what how."  Complete mental failure is what we have here people.  Probably not just in Joe.

Angel gets up and looks at the man sceptically. She offers him a seat as soon as he's close enough.

Emerald blinkblinks, not sure what to think. Then quietly hums "it's the end of the world as we know it" to herself while watching the guy enter. Once he's closer, she smiles at him and salutes casually.

Timothius stayed at Mitts' side. Upon hearing what the man said, he ducks his ears.

Liberty hops to her feet. "Global nuclear war?! What is this world's problem?!"

Angel goes to put a hand on Liberty's shoulder. "Shh... let the man speak."

Captain Meyers nods to Emerald's salute and takes the seat offered by Angel.  He takes out his wallet and hands it over to her.

"You'll find my identification and business card in there.  Please pass it around.  The number on my card can be verified with any directory service.  Standard procedure is to have the office call ahead before I arrive, but apparently they weren't able to reach you."

"Our listed number still goes straight to voicemail," Mittens explains.

"Let me start by saying thank you for your efforts today.  Intelligence has uncovered some evidence that what you faced today may represent either the prelude to a conventional foreign invasion, or a trick to goad the U.S. into a military response that, given the current international political climate, could snowball a chain of retaliation that may end in global nuclear war.

"While the risk assessment team has assigned a small number to the chance of this happening, much of their results are based on guesswork and it is my duty to make sure that the risk is minimized.

"If you were planning on tracking down the enemy who escaped, I urge you to share any and all information you find.  If you find him, you must not attempt to apprehend him alone.  Call me and the police and tail him.  It is of extreme importance that he is captured alive and by the book.  However it is of the highest importance that he not escape.  He is to be considered extremely dangerous.  Do not engage unless you see no other choice and are willing to risk your life."

Mits side-hugs her bro, rubbing her chin.

"So...  Hunt badguy.  Update authorities.  Be careful...  In other words, you're telling us to do what we were going to do anyway."

"Requesting...  But yes.  Apparently so."

"K!"

  "Call the professionals in case of emergency instead of leaving it to bizarre adolescents and the occasionally hairy adult, got it." Oh look!  Joe found his sarcasm that is still 100% honest again!  To the shock of nobody.

  "Any chances of filling us in just why it's a nuke war that's come to be a possibility?  Is this guy known to be trying to swipe some himself or something?"

Angel nods. "Along what Joe's asking, and you having asked us to share info, we'd appreciate any and all information you have on the guy. All we know so far is that he has a group of orc-like beings, 2 giant suits of armor, a machine that can use someone else's inherent powers, and the ability to make a base of operations right under our noses without anyone noticing."
This message was last updated by the player at 05:02, Sun 25 Mar 2012.

Michael comes out from the showers here at the main building, finally managing to wash all the blood and grime off of himself. He comes out wearing jeans and an undershirt, deciding to pad around barefoot for now. He has been feeling more and more comfortable around this group, which hopefully wont unsettle anyone else. If the scars from his hands had been bad, the ones going up his arms and under his shirt look like they had been incredibly painful.

After his shower, he does feel much better. The only thing left is some food. Towel around his neck, he heads into the kitchen to find some grub when he hears something about nuclear war from the entryway.

'Guess food will have to wait,' he thinks, instead grabbing a soda and making his way into the other room. He leans against the doorway and pops open the can. Should anyone look his way he will nod to them in greeting, but otherwise makes no sign of trying to speak.

Seeing that Liberty is as energetic as always brings a slight smile to his otherwise grim fave, but it goes back to normal when he regards the suit.

"It's known as the ricochet scenario," the captain answers, "As the only nation infamous for having deploying nuclear weapons on the battlefield in the past, the United States is considered a likely target for foreign powers to attempt to use for their own nuclear exchanges.  For example, an extremist faction of a rogue nation wants to nuke their rival nation.  Say... Pakistan and India.  Rather than overtly attack, risking international sanctions and retaliation, India instead frames Pakistan for attacking the U.S., hoping to provoke a military response.  Analysts predict that even if a suitcase nuke were detonated in an American city, an overt nuclear response would be very likely condemned by our enemies' allies and they could retaliate in kind, kicking off World War III.  Framed enemy or real enemy it wouldn't matter.  There are several groups just aching for a chance to glass us and our allies back into the stone age.

"This is why it is so crucial that we capture the perpetrator.  We must know who he works for and if they intend to tunnel under our cities to plant nukes.  If you want a more detailed answer, I recommend the book 'How the End Begins,' by Ron Rosenbaum or 'Assessing the Risk of Inadvertent Nuclear War Between India and Pakistan' by Stephen Smith."

He looks over at Angel and nods.

"Sounds like you know more of the details than I do.  If anything comes up that Intel can send your way to help you, I'll be sure that they do."

"Cheery," Mittens says sarcastically, "You've made your point I think.  Very important thing is very important.  We'll be on ze lookout for ze badguy."

"Thank you, mam."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:11, Tue 03 Apr 2012.

  "Well, if you want a more mundane problem to think about Mittens here's one.  My outlook that we won't get many volunteers for the 'not dangerous' stuff because of what we're more obviously exposed to has even more backing now."

  Join the Citizens patrol! Help people!... Oh, you may also have to stop world war 3.

  As for Captain Scars, Joe figures at least he survived well enough.  He'd probably be more worried if he had seen whatever caused them at the time.

Michael watched the solder walk out and shook his head. While he understood the governments request for them to keep an eye out, it would have been more helpful if he could have given them more info or at least some gadgets to work with.

"Not necessarily Joe. The possibility of saving the word could appeal to certain people. Though I'm not sure how much a glory hounds would help us," he said from the back of the group. 'Most likely get themselves killed,' though he didn't speak that out loud.

"For now, it seems to be wise to have everyone who was planning to move here do so asap. As for those who weren't planning on moving, you may want to reconsider. Not to scare anyone, but if this man kidnaps people we have better safety here in larger numbers."

Emerald noticed Michael entering and says, "Oh Michael! Glad you're up and about. We were actually just discussing earlier that we're enacting a buddy-system. Nobody goes anywhere without another member of the group. If you have thoughts to add to that, I'd recommend voicing them now."

Liberty says, "And I should be the one to answer the door from now on."

Angel looks over towards Liberty. "Admirable as your protective nature is, Liberty, after what the madman and his orcs did to you, I think they'll find a way past you fast enough. Mittens, however, can detect danger. So at least in that much, we'll be prepared if they come to our doorstep... or am I mistaken?" that last part directed at Mittens.

"Good point, guys," Mittens answers Joe and Reaver, jotting down a note on a pocket steno pad, "Angel volunteered to help with PR, right?  So I'll have to work with her on that.  As for points on the buddy system, I want to remind folks that it is strongly encouraged for your safety, but not mandatory.  Unless the overwhelming majority wants it to be?  As for door answering duty, I don't we've devolved to defcon 5 just yet, so thanks for the offer, Lib, but we don't need superpowers to be answering doors to rooms full of heroes just yet, I don't think.  Of course... feel free to call for a vote on the issue if you want..."

"Glad to be back up and about Em, and good to hear we will be traveling in pairs now.

We could always install a simple video system to see who is at the door. The tv could be here on this inside and anywhere else we wanted to see it. Though I would suspect this place to already have cameras up all over the place, at least outside," he said with a quick look to Angel to see if his guess was on the mark.

Angel says, "The place has cameras, but they just record. With a phone call, I can have 'em hooked up like you're suggesting and it wouldn't take long."

  Well, the potential threat of nuclear war was probably an insane enough reason to give his parents for why he was out of the house so often.  "Just so long as our situation doesn't degrade into a Reality TV show with where the cameras are pointing."

  Live! Drunken superheroes in a beach house hot tub!  Haalima in a swimsuit great for ratings, Haalima after swimming not so great for ratings its like a tiger striped 'Sad Wet Cat' photo with hooves.

"Welcome back, Reaver," Mittens says, "And thanks for the helpful suggestion.  And for bringing up the topic, Liberty.  And I agree with Joe.  May as well make the call then, Angel.  If it won't be too expensive, you can put it on the Citizen Patrol's expense account, but it won't hurt to ask if they'd be willing to install it for free as a donation to our cause.  You might be surprised how many folks have stepped forward offering us stuff for free...  Oh wait.  You're one of 'em!

"So keep your eyes peeled for the badguy, everyone!  Buddy system!  Appreciated the help!  I need to unwind.  Meeting adjourned!"

She drags her bro with and looks for a place to loaf and huggle.  Likely he needs to unwind too.

Michael takes a sip of his soda as he watches a few people start to walk out of the room, going their various ways. He has a bit to much energy to just sit around and figures he may as well get his housing situation figured out. His lease was almost up, which was good as he was moving here very soon.

May as well begin packing now. He wanders back to the spare room where he had dropped his few extra clothes and put on his socks and sneakers, then grabbed his army jacket and motorcycle helmet. As he headed towards the front door, he said to those still sitting there,"I'm heading over to my apartment to get some packing done."

He had taken another step or two before stopping, turning and asking, almost sheepishly,"Would anyone care to see my place and maybe give me a hand packing?"

Liberty hops to her feet. "I'd love to."

Emerald stands up. "I'll go too, though I won't be much help unless you want me actually packing your stuff."

Angel says, "Then I'll drive Emerald there. You won't wanna have both Emerald and Liberty on one motorcycle."

Liberty says, "Well I spoke first, so can I ride on your motorcycle with you, Michael?"

"Yeah three on a bike isn't a good idea, so thanks for driving Angel. Yeah Liberty, you can ride on the bike. I've got a spare helmet. I know you don't need it, but it will keep us from getting pulled over," Michael said to her before she could say she didn't need it.

The motorcycle is some kind of foreign bike, though which make and model is up in the air as it looks highly modified. Plenty of stainless steel and black paint make is shine in the sunlight, at least in the spots that it doesn't have scuff marks from who knows what. The extra helmet is a close faced model, though the vizor opens up, colored white as a negative to Michael's black one.

  "Well, you seem covered for the moving.  I've got significantly less stuff considering the 'still lives with parents' angle, so my excuse for not offering help is also a valid excuse for people to skip helping me."

  Not to mention probably less paperwork involved.

Mittens is just nod-nodding as she listens to the conversation.

"Been quite a while since I've drove a motorbike, and it was nothing like that one.  Nice bike there, Reaver."

She leans over to whisper in Timothius' ear.

The Marvel had been quietly observing this whole time. He had looked thoughtful while the government rep was talking, though he had mainly stood in the corner rubbing his chin and looking around from behind his black mask. Now though it seemed like decisions must be made. And he had made one.

So he struck a heroic looking pose, with fists on hips and chest out, and grinned. "THE MARVEL shall help you, little sidekicks! Since this is for the fate of the world, and you'll need a SUPERHERO around!"

Haalima blinked at The Marvel, then she put a hand up to her face and giggled. "Oh dear. We're sidekicks now."

Emerald chuckles and smiles. "Sidekicks are always younger than the hero they are the sidekick to... so if he's saying I'm younger than him, I don't mind."

Angel also seems amused. "I didn't know a hero could have more than one sidekick at a time."

Emerald says, "It's... rare. I heard Batman once had a Batgirl AND a Robin at the same time. Kinda cute, really."

Angel says, "Batman doesn't count. He's so amazing, the entire Justice League may as well be his sidekick."

Liberty scriggly-faces. "Who cares? He just offered help." she then looks at The Marvel. "Thanks for the offered help. Of course, right now, there isn't much that can be done. So we're gonna go help Michael move here."

Timothius ear-twitches as Mitts whispers in it. He glances up at her. "I wanna stick with the others."

Angel head-nudges. "This way to the Angel-mobile." she half-jokes in light of The Marvel's interesting antics. She leads the way to her car. Which is a nice one. A 1980 Lamborghini.

Michael nods a thanks to Mittens about the bike. He was about to comment about Marvel but decided against it. No sense starting an argument with the new guy.

He is quite surprised by Angel's car and gives a low whistle. "This is your ride? Very nice. Though will you be able to fit everyone in there?" Michael asks doing a head count.

Angel wears a proud smile as Michael comments on her car. Then nods to him, "I was taking Emerald. Mittens is presumably taking Timothius, and I imagine The Marvel has a Marvel-mobile... ALL superheroes have their own ride. Right?"

Meanwhile, Liberty's on the phone with her parents, asking them if she can ride on a motorcycle. She's bouncing in place on her feet, biting her lower lip and looking excited.

Mittens grins at all the superhero talk, tail wagging in excitement that The Marvel is offering help.  She does her best to hide her car envy by continuing to smile.

"Mittens is taking Timothius, yes.  The Marvel can join us in the Mittensmobile if he doesn't have a ride of his own.  And speaking of the Justice League..."

She offers The Marvel a Citizen Patrol sign-up sheet with a big smile.

"You are invited to become an official member of the Citizen Patrol!"

The Marvel took the form and scrutinized it. "Hmm," he muttered as he rubbed his chin. "It might be helpful to be in a League of heroes. The Marvel shall think on this, small furry sidekick."

"As for the ride, The Marvel has his own way of getting around!"

Liberty hurries over to Michael and manages to not raise her voice, though the excitement is clearly there. "Mom'n'dad said I can ride with you." she proclaims, bouncing in place.

  Joe can't help but imagine The Marvel flying the same way that Freakazoid does.

  "Right, I'll wait here for you all to get back then.  No sense in making the moving clutter even more crowded at one time."  There were some slight ulterior motives of course.  Joe had a fresh package of cookies and this would mean less people wanting him to share them while most of them were out.

Mittens smiles brightly at The Marvel and nods.  She then addresses the group.

"Alrighty then!  Address please, Mr Reaver, for us with GPS.  Then lead the way if you would.  If we get separated, we have each other's numbers."

She opens up the GPS app on her phone and gets ready to punch in the destination.

Michael nods and gives the address then, once he makes sure helmets are on, get on his bike and helps Liberty up. "Let's get this train moving," he says, then with a kick starts up the bike, which lets out a loud roar as the engine comes alive.
The drive isn't long, nor is is difficult, though at times the traffic can be a bit annoying. He takes it easy though, enjoying the ride. He would love to open up the throttle, but with people following it wouldn't be right or nice to do that. 'Maybe later,' he thinks.