Cryo ignored Force for a moment, as he was very distracted by a clothing wearing ape offering breakfast. With words, no less. "You know, when a Gorilla offers you breakfast...you take it." He said, mostly to himself.

Then he notices a bottle being shoved in his face. "Oh, yeah, sure." He touches the bottle-not even looking at it or Force, and seals the entire thing in a block of ice. He then zips by Force, following Dr Sliverback inside via an ice slide. The slide turns to steam after Cryo has moved. The same fate happens to the ice chair he was sitting on. The bottle stays in ice block form. Making it very hard for Force to hold on to, much less drink from.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:21, Thu 19 Oct 2023.

In reply to Albedo (msg # 10):

Hernando said, "Buggs Bunny! You know he was based in part on Milton Berle and a fine tribute too. Berle was a genius on stage..." He said this in a way and with confidence of someone who had actually seen Berle in his Vaudeville days. He stuttered, "At least that is what I've read on the Interewweb...thing."

The slippery block of ice is fumbled for a moment as a transparent pedestal grows from the floor. AF sets the block of ice on the pedestal and harrumphs. "I thought it would be good to be the king," he says to no one in particular.
With a sigh, he peels off his disguise and reveals his featureless face. Setting the mask on the block of ice atop the force field pillar, he begins to search for coffee and donuts.

Doc rolled his eyes at the joke and then cleared his throat in an effort to cover for Guardian.

laughing he said, "I guess that one never gets old."

He then made his way into the assembly area and moved to the front of the room.

Hernando tipped an imaginary hat to Dr. Roller and followed the others. In the conference room he dropped his mask in front of a chair that he sat in. He continued to smoke, but blew the exhalent away from everyone else.

Inside the assembly room it was proven that Dr. Silverback spoke the truth.

A huge table was covered end to end in baked goods, jellies, jams, sliced fruits, and everything one would expect from a 4 star continental breakfast.

A small group of staff worked around the table handing out beverages and making coffee, tea, espresso, and juice drinks to order.

Three of them took the stack of boxes from the gorilla and a short conversation in Korean passed between them.

Chairs were aranged in the room facing a large screen and podium area in the front.

Amongst the chairs, and fully taking advantage of the breakfast, sat the large forms of Alloy and Behemoth and the smaller but still striking Shifter and Cat's Eye.

Also present were the majority of the security staff and department heads of the support staff.

The stocky, dark skinned Dr. Smith and tall, thin, pale Dr. Jones were standing along the back wall like wallflowers at a highschool dance.

The dark figure walks in naturally, the dark gray jeans and hoodie swishing almost silently with his movements.  With a black leather pack on his back, his hands in the front pocket of his shirt, and the hood pulled up over his head, bt tis not until he gets closer that the observer discovers that his shoes are not black with red stripes, his bare feet are.  But, the most unusual thing about him is that he walks upon the underside of the subfloor for the second story, it being revealed to view by the lack of a ceiling in the hallway.  And, as he steps into and out of shadows, there seems to be a change that comes across him, making him seem menacing in the darkness.
When he steps into the conference room, it is just like anyone else, except he is still on the ceiling.  He walks down the wall, stepping quietly to the floor and stands by the door.  Holà.  I am called Escorpion.  That is when the black, segmented tail, topped by a sharply pointed telson tipped in red, becomes visible.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:00, Thu 19 Oct 2023.

Rico takes a last drink from his coffee and disposes of the paper container in the nearest can. A few seconds at the bar, and he's gathered some fruit and a croissant on his plate. "Thanks for the doughnuts, Doc," he says as he tops off his plate with a large glazed doughnut. "How's everyone been?" he says to the room in general. "Name's Rico, in case you didn't know. Cape name's Blackhawk."

Rico, The New Guy, has been in and out of the compound for only a couple of weeks now, and he hasn't had a chance to meet everyone - in fact, this is his first time getting to lay eyes on the entire assemblage.

"Hola," he responds to Escorpion with a smile before he sets his plate down to get some water. If there is a slight flex of surprise around his eyes, he hides it well.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:06, Thu 19 Oct 2023.

Casper had been staying at the compound since the news had revealed his real origins to the world, but the only people he'd actually interacted with were the Doc's, Roller and Silverback. He was more than a little nervous about how the other agents might react to learning who Dynaman truly was. Or even just learning how much he had lied to them while pretending to be "Rex Carpenter".

So he hadn't spoken so far unless spoken to, which had only been a quiet "No, thank you" when Doc Silverback offered him a donut.

Seeing Behemoth, Escorpion reaches up to lower his hood with red-striped, black hands.  His head and face are the same red-striped black, his head completely devoid of hair, or external ears.  Jutting from his cheeks on either side of his mouth are what could be tusks, or fangs, that seem to move slightly; almost the same way his tail seems to sway slightly as it curves up behind his back.  His oddly intense, yet unfocussed, eyes, red irised with red sclera, scan everyone present.
He walks over to the breakfast goodies, seeing the staff cringe a bit.  He nod at them each in an attempt to be friendly, and grabs a trio of bagels, reaching back to place them upon the point of his telson, and some packets of cream cheese, as well as an orange and a banana.  As for coffee, he picks apple juice instead, then turns to find a seat at the table.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 20:25, Fri 20 Oct 2023.

Wipeout finally arrived, wearing typical street clothes.

Hope i didnt miss to much, my alarm didnt go off, and traffic was a bear.

Albedo's dark ponytail is dangling down from her inverted position, even as her head quirked slightly when Guardian spoke about the preeminent comedian and Vaudevillian.  "Milton Berle?" she half-asked, as though she barely recognized the name.  Admittedly, the floating heroine couldn't have been more than a handful of years old when the man had passed.

She shrugged slightly and followed the others in flying through the assembly room doors.  She hung towards the back to listen to what was being said, as Albedo didn't partake of any of the food, nor did she intend to sit down.  Plus, with her glow being too far forward in the room might be distracting (not that being constantly suspended in mid-air wasn't already distracting).

Rico has caught glimpses of Dyn- Behemoth once or twice, but with the controversy and the man obviously wanting to be left alone for now, he hasn't approached him. Now, he has a simple "Hey, man," to Behemoth as he passes by.

He eats the doughnut first, polishes off the fruit, then lingers on the soft croissant.

"Nah, hasn't started, yet," he says to Wipeout.

Guardian called out in a jovial manner, "Casper, don't be a wall flower. There is a seat by me." He is waving his friend over and motioning to the empty seat beside him.

Bypassing the entire breakfast and snack table, as well as most if not all of the idle chit chat, Alana makes her way through the room to one of the seats near the front where she won't need to look over any of the rather larger people to see the projection.

Despite settling gently into a chair clearly intended to accommodate much larger people her seat groans a little bit as it settles under what is no doubt a substantial weight of metal as she rests on it.

Alloy fist bumped Dr. Silverback as he passed by.

"You know that Kong Fun don't work out in these skreets."

"It would if you paid more attention in class..."

The gorilla dropped into a chair and even his weight didn't cause the reaction that Alana's dainty form did.

AF had quietly taken a rice cake and another bottle of water as he observed his surroundings. Eventually, the ice would melt away from his first bottle, but he didn't mind drinking two. "You must remain hydrated at all times. He could hear the lecture, "lower states of hydration are statistically linked to reduced strength, endurance and cognitive abilities. These affects reduce the efficiency with which an operative dispatches his target."

This was the first time Casper had ever seen Escorpion. He was surprised, but not in a revolted way. It was nice to see there was another who would understand. Even moreso, it seemed. Though there was one thing that made him chuckle. The only feature of a red insect that Escorpion was missing were antenna, and Behemoth had a pair of red antenna right on his own head.

“Hey, Hawk.” Replied the big red brute. He breathed a sigh of relief. This may not be the ordeal he had feared.

At Grey Guardian’s bidding he stood and circled around the table to the seat he’d offered. He had been very worried Hernando would take the revelation hard since he’d spent the most time with him in the field. And they and Cryo had made a hell of a team when they handed him Tagola and his tuxedo’s twats a trouncing.

“Thanks brother.”
This message was last edited by the player at 22:58, Fri 20 Oct 2023.

Escorpion takes the seat next to Agent Force, one of a couple familiar... faces.
He holds his cup of apple juice up to AF is a toast.  Salúd, he says , before drinking it down.  One thing the young mutant is glad of:  his mutation did not make him a strict carnivore, though he does have a marked preference for eating red meat rare.  He begins peeling the banana to eat.  His face is expressionless, the tough, chitinous skin not being flexible enough to move much at all.
He glances up at Albedo, understanding her love of being off the ground.  Scorpions may be terrestrial hunters, but they climb very well.  It just feels natural to him to spend time on walls and ceilings as much as he spends on the ground.
He looks over at Behemoth, intrigued by his antennae, something that arachnids don't generally have.  He raises the banana in toasting gesture to Behemoth.

At the head of the room Doctor Roller stood up and raised his hands for quiet.

Even in a room with the type of amazing people that were represented here Doc's presence could be felt. In his own way he stood as tall as Silverback or Behemoth but his personality wasn't scary so much as it was hopeful.

"Today is a big day for us all. Today we are going to put into action, for some of you in matter of just a few minutes, all of the work and research we have been doing for the last months."

"All of you are here because you are supposed to be. Whether you were recruited by me, arrived through your own hard work, or were delivered to us by the grace of god you have a part to play and a job that only you can do."

"We have been informed that there is something else launching today that is bigger even than what we had imagined."

He gestured at the screen behind him and stepped aside.

"The Honorable Mayor Wayne Zardona would like to speak to you about it."

The screen lit up and revealed the face of the most famous man in Century Station.

He wasted no time getting to the point.

"Good morning Agents of Arcus. I can not possibly express how happy I am to see you all."

It was as if he could see each person in the room and took a moment to look directly at them.

"Today we launch our last ditch effort to save Century Station from the damage done to her by the Daedalus Scandal."

"Operation: Overlord begins officially in just under 2 hours."

"You all represent invaluable reinforcements in what can only be called a war for the soul of this city and the surrounding communities."

"Before I was contacted by ARC:US we were not certain we had the strength to win this war."

"But now...now we are confident that we can clean up this town and give our children a better home than we had. A safer home than we had."

"For this I wanted to thank you personally. The forces that control this city's underworld are dangerous beyond reason. This will not be easy."

"But we cannot do it without you!"

"Thank you again and I look forward to working with you."

The screen went dark and DI Stone stepped forward.

"Alright we should all be properly motivated after that so let's get right to work."

"Finish your breakfast and then get into your work clothes."

"Team One: Senior Agent Albedo with Agent Force, Behemoth, and Escorpion be in Doc's office in 30 minutes ready to carry out our first direct action as part of Operation Overlord."

"Team Two: Senior Agent Grey Guardian with Alana, Blackhawk, Cryokinetic, and Wipeout be in my office in 30 minutes to follow up on the operation regarding the Pallbearers and there still secret Cartel Boss."

"Alloy and Janissary will form today's Flying Team and provide back-up if anyone needs to call on them. Otherwise they will carry out intermittent patrols during the daylight hours."

"Alright, Good Talk, let's get to work!"

Nodding, AF stands and approaches DI Stone. He asks a question with a single word, although he would probably have raised his eyebrows had he any. At first, "armory?" is the only thing that comes from the lipless slit in place of his mouth. In what is possibly an attempt to be friendly, he explains, "if this is a war, I'll need to gear up."

Stone stopped long enough to respond before making her way out.

Nodding she said, "Broach that subject at your briefing. As of this morning "War" is just a catch phrase used by a mayor who hasn't ever been in one. I expect that will change."