[Sunday, November 2nd. 2:30 PM.] [Saturday was an unusually slow day in terms of villain activity. Or maybe just in your patrol zones, because none of you encountered any trouble if you were out on patrol. Which is fortunate, because it gave you a chance to rest up and relax.] [A little.] [Organist is quite dead. Devourak is re-dead, apparently. And Badgerforce is securely in SPLEE-NY custody, meaning he didn't teleport away, which is something of a relief.] [The two heroes who were captured and semi-drained by Organist were to be released sometime early today. Some of you may have even been there. Who knows?] [The election is two days away. And you've all been called in for a quick briefing, along with any necessary medical treatment.] [Session Start] [Sis Admin is doing her usual thing at her monitor bank, looking in on a number of satellite and other feeds, along with monitoring various police bands and typing away at something or other.] [Solaris, as is her wont, is alternating between looking over SA's shoulder and pacing like a caged lion.] * Christian heads on into the room, smoking on one of his cancer sticks and looking a little ragged. He waves to Solaris and Sis Admin as he makes his way in before plopping himself in the chair, feet spread. * Abby is sitting in her chair, for reals, staff gripped across her lap. She is looking slightly down at the table, lost in thought. * Christian waves to Abby too, since she's already in here. * Horus comes walking in, back in her normal outfit with her normal hair, and softly glowing gold - as normal. She walks over to her typical seat and sits down. * Abby doesn't look up to Christian's wave, although after a moment she looks slightly off to the side, then back to the table. * Jacqueline is in a chair, filing her nails with a laser discharge that probably cost about as much as some small towns' entire per capita income, as is her wont. * TheRedcoat stalks in, coat tied tight, hat brim pulled down almost all the way. * TheRedcoat then takes a seat. [Solaris stops pacing once everyone's settled in, and walks over to the table. "I'm not going to keep you all long... just wanted to get you up to date on what's going on in regards to the election on Tuesday."] * Horus rubs at a crink in her neck, then looks over at Solaris. "Yeah?" she says, not sounding particularly interested. * Christian blows out a stream of smoke and holds his cigarette off to the side as he hunches over and sighs. Yay politics. [Solaris takes a seat. "As you might or might not have seen on the news, Wild Bill's momentum has come to a crashing halt. That's on you guys; his demagogueing isn't playing as well with you guys out there showing the public what you're really made of."] * TheRedcoat manages an extremely self-satisfied smirk. * Christian keeps hunched over. "Well, I'm glad the Big A can still smell an ass from it's asshole, but what's that mean for us?" ["Election's still close, though, and it's gonna come down to the wire... which is why we're not just waiting to see what happens. Sister Admin hasn't turned up anything on him, but that just means he's careful with his computers. So I called in a few favors and brought in someone who specializes in more old-fashioned investigative methods."] * TheRedcoat wrinkles her nose. [She turns to Abby. "Pretty sure you two know each other from back in Japan."] * Abby is looking down with a slight frown, then snaps her head up to look at Solaris. "Uh--sorry, something else on our mind. Who do I know again?" * Christian finally puts his cigarette out on his shoe. It looks like this is going to take a bit. ["Gumshoe Kyojiro? Scales' databases aren't as extensive on overseas matters, but it indicates that you two worked together some."] * Abby blinks, eyes widening a touch, and then she smiles slightly. "K, huh? Yeah, I know him." * Abby smirks. "Kinda surprised he had the time to hop over, but I guess I haven't been checking up on him." [Solaris half-smirks, but lets it fade. "He's already on the ground, and he's supposed to check in with us in a couple of days once he has the lay of the land. So heads-up."] Wait. * Christian looks about to say something too but turns to Redcoat as she gets the first word. Let me just straighten this out. [Solaris looks over at Redcoat. "Hmm?"] We are focusing attention, time, resources on this man because we hate his politics? I mean, and his face obviously. He is a rich man with dangerous politics and, quite possibly, dangerous friends; /I've/ been surveilled for similar reasons. ["No, because we suspect he might have ties to Master Magus. As a puppet or something to antagonize us and make our lives difficult if he gets into office."] Kinda struck me too. Ahm....right. I see... * Christian turns to Solaris. "What the hell's the big guy up to too? Ain't seemed like he's ever here when we're having these 'team meetings'" * Christian does airquote that, yes. * Abby nods along with Solaris, then smirks to herself again. * TheRedcoat settles back in her chair. "Almost feels just like home." * Horus glances to Redcoat at that, but she doesn't say anything. [Sister Admin chimes in. "He's out on patrol pretty much 24/7. Without American Dream, we need him out in the field pretty much all the time." She glances over at Redcoat. "Oh please. The guy couldn't be more suspicious if he was wearing a Master Magus t-shirt."] * Christian sighs. "Well that's just great, ain't it?" He runs his fingers through his hair. "Look, I know this is important and all, but it ain't really *our* thing, is it? I mean besides the priestess having a connection to the guy, what do *we* need to do about it?" Throw him a welcome to America party. * Christian snorts. "Yeah, alright. He gets to meet Bill Hickock, Texas Asshole. Can't get more American than that." [Solaris nods. "Like I said, just keeping you all informed about what's going on. We've just got one or two more things and then we're do-"] [Sister Admin interrupts. "We've got a problem. Eternal Warrior has engaged Centaurion just north of that big free concert in Union Square Park, and it looks like Centaurion's summoned half a fucking army to go after the people."] * Christian grins and smacks his fist into his palm. "Now *this* is more like it." * Horus gets to her feet. "On it." And she runs for the teleporting whatsit. [Sure enough, on the screen, there's satellite and security camera footage of armored men with swords and bowmen marching down the street in formation from several directions twoards Union Square. From pretty much every direction, actually.] * Christian pretty much hops to his feet as well. "Buncha tin cans to take out to the trash heap." [Solaris stares at the screen, then jumps to hear feet and hurries off towards a side room. "Get over there and stop them before they get into the crowd. I'll be right behind you."] * Christian raises an eyebrow. "Wait, you're comin' with?" * Jacqueline remarks, "Now, now, you don't want to /push/ yourself," as she strolls to the teleporters. * Abby looks at the screen, then nods a little and flies up and out of her chair with a slight spin, then goes into the chambers. [Solaris calls out as she ducks into the room. "I'm sick and tired of this fucking place. We're going to get those soldiers off the crowd, then go pound on Centaurion until Master Magus has to teleport him back in pieces."] * Christian smirks slightly at that. "Got it." He jogs over to the porters. * TheRedcoat sighs and gets gone. [You all teleport into the train station on the southeast corner of the Square. As you exit the station, you see that the crowd is already aware of what's coming. Cops, mounted and on foot, along with a few power-armored SPLEE-NY officers, are spread out around the crowd, but they're woefully outnumbered.] [And it looks like the armored knights and the bowmen are advancing from all directions and approaches. About a dozen knights and a half-dozen archers coming down each street.] * Horus teleports in early; she doesn't even know Solaris is there yet. She glances around quickly, then flares in a bright golden fire before flying towards the largest cluster she can find. * TheRedcoat looks around, and dashes toward a good vantage point. * Christian comes in shortly after and watches Horus fly off before rushing into the fray, charging energy into his right arm. "Hey, leave some for the rest of us." [To be more precise, there are groups coming from both directions on 15th and 16th Streets, from the north on Broadway and Park, from the south on Broadway and University, and from the SE on 4th Avenue.] [Horus can see this now that she's in the air, and presumably relays this information.] * TheRedcoat climbs up to some big stage setup with lots of rigging. [Redcoat, from her vantage point in roughly the middle of the park, and Christian, atop a big rig parked along the west side of the park, get a similar view.] * Abby comes out flying, and when Horus relays the information, she starts flying towards 15th and Park/Broadway, where two groups are converging. she says in Japanese as she flies around one of the trees on the east edge. * Jacqueline makes her way towards 16th Street, meanwhile, to cover the one group there. It possibly involves a lot of pushing through people without apologizing or anything. [The cops, seeing the lot of you moving to cover four of the approaches, scramble to concentrate themselves at the remaining five.] * Abby 's call to the tree seems to work, as one of the trees near that intersection pulls up its roots and starts to move forward, roots on the ground as it half-walks half-slithers forward. * Christian lands off the bigrig and starts charging full tilt towards his targets down the west side of 15th, leaping over the heads of the first ones and landing in their mist, slamming his fist against the ground to slam it. [The street explodes under the ground beneath the advancing soldiers, sending them flying every which way into building, parked cars, lampposts, and just through the air. A couple of straggling archers escape the worst of it, but are quickly dogpiled and pummeled by passersby.] * Christian gets up as the dust settles, ready to take on the rest, the notices the passerby's pummeling them. "...man, I love New York." * TheRedcoat focuses on one of the northerly groups near Park, and tosses her hat and a gunful of grapple at them. [The grapples take out five of the advancing line of knights, caving in their breastplates and leaving them writhing on the ground. This opens up space for Redcoat's fedora to fly through, slicing through one archer and then another as it flies back to her hand.] * Horus screams through the air, over the advancing soldiers and archers coming up on Broadway, southeast. As she does so, the ground beneath them grows hot - it remains so for a brief moment before a pillar of blinding white fire explodes upwards, towards the sun. Horus continues east for 4th Ave. [Yeah, those soldiers never had a chance as Horus nukes the hell out of them. When the column of fire fades away, they're all gone, the divine flame having purged the magiks that summoned them.] * Jacqueline doesn't even turn to face her group as she crosses their path; she just holds her gun up, pulls the trigger and lets her cascade of lasers do the rest for her. [Five very confused knights get an object lesson in optics and the wonders of focused photons as holes are burned through their chests. Being knights, they do the chivalrous thing and drop.] [The four groups that either haven't been or aren't about to be engaged by our heroes crash into makeshift barricades set up by the overstretched police. The cops manage to pick off some of the knights with small arms fire as they advance, but the rest crash into the barricades, forcing the police into desperate melee combat.] [Meanwhile, the archers start to fire on the crowd and the group.] * TheRedcoat , despite all expectations, actually gets hit with an arrow while dodging other arrows. She stares down at it in outraged disbelief. * Christian turns around to the archer menace and dives towards the crowd, making sure to scoop them out of the way of the arrow rain, dashing them narrowly to safety. * Jacqueline doesn't evade or anything, she just lets arrows bounce uselessly off of her forcefield; with each contact, the field is momentarily brightened with ripples spreading from the impact point. * Abby takes a few arrows as she flies over the soldiers, coming down into them with a one-handed swipe of her staff as the tree lumbers into combat, swinging branches angrily at the soldiers. [The tree sweeps aside five of the knights, smashing and pummeling them with its limbs. Meanwhile, Abby bonks one of the archers right in the soul, and he falls like a marionette with its strings cut, fading away into nothingness.] [Meanwhile, groups of cabs pull up near Redcoat and Abby's groups, as well as at the University Place to the south. Groups of turbaned Sikhs pile out, wielding huge curved swords and charging into the exposed archers. "For our fallen hero!" "Vengence for Hack'n Slash!" "The Cabbie Warrior lives on!"] * TheRedcoat does another grapple gun-and-hat dealie at the remaining knights at Park. * Christian runs towards the next nearest group, presumeably the one who archer attacked the civvies, and rushes past the police right through them. He slams into one of the middle of the group, knocking him down and reaches back his hand. "Say goodnight, legionassholes." He slams his palm against the armor, sending his shockwave through it and outward. [The knights are about to protest that they're actually English, and thus not technically legionaires, who are Roman, but are interrupted as Christian finds the resonant frequency of ass kicking and makes all of their armors explode, taking out them and the archers nearby on W 16th St with the shrapnal.] [Meanwhile, Redcoat takes advantage of the understandable confusion of the remaining seven knights at having a horde of angry turbaned men appear behind them, and puts them all down with her grapple gun and razor-sharp fatal flying fedora of fantasticality.] * Horus flies for the soldiers and archers coming up on 4th frowning slightly when she sees that they're already in a skirmish with the police. She doesn't hesitate, however, as she lines herself up with the afternoon sun and spreads her wings, a thousand thin beams of light streaming unerringly from the sky. [George H.W. Bush would be proud, as a Thousand Points of Light(TM) rain down, avoiding the cops but burning away the magik holding the soldiers and archers in this dimension. They all crumple to the ground and fade away, leaving some bloodied but relieved cops to wave up to the sky at Horus.] * Jacqueline stops her jaunt beside a stoplight, where she pops the covering protecting its innards off and reaches inside to start fiddling with the wiring. After a little rearranging and the insertion of an unobtrusive device, all of the lights blink on, then begin moving between red/green/yellow in a rapid, constant pattern. Within seconds, headlights all up and down the street flip on, a chorus of engines begins purring, and vehicle after vehicle seemingly drives itself into the remaining knights and archers clogging the street. * Horus gives the cops a short wave before flying north to help the others. [The archers and knights never knew what hit them. Especially because they're archers and knights and don't know what the fuck those big metal boxes on wheels are. They sure do hurt, though.] * Abby and her tree keep up the pressure on her group, the both of them swinging for the fences. The tree's doing a better job of it though. [Abby karmicly clubs another archer out of this dimension, while the tree deals with five more knights the old fashioned way: with large chunks of wood.] [Meanwhile, a group of people from the nearby Forbidden Planet comic shop cheer on the tree in Old Elvish. They may also be saying something about elf booty.] [At the same, on University, the cops on the barricade are losing ground, being pushed back in melee by the knights while simultaneously being pelted by arrows, until a charging, glowing Daegal crashes into the line, flinging knights to and fro.] [And Solaris flies out of the train station, wearing rocket boots and holding the biggest fucking gun you've ever seen an athletically built 5'9 woman wield. She surveys the scene, then flies to help the cops on N Broadway as she comms. "Eternal Warrior is engaged with Centaurion a few blocks northeast of here in Gramercy Park. SPLEE-NY is inbound, ETA one minute; I'll help clean up here, you guys go engage Centaurion. Be careful."] * Horus glances at Solaris, then hits the comms, "You sure?" * TheRedcoat blinks. "Wait, WHAT?" Of course she's sure. * Christian sighs and cracks his knuckles, then his neck. "Guess we're movin' up into the big leagues then, huh." That doesn't make any sense, we can take care of these guys no sweat, and you keep saying Centaurion is big guns territory." * Jacqueline brings the cars to a halt - with a fairly minimal amount of actual crashing, brushes herself off briskly and begins making her way northeast. "That will happen, when we're fabulous." * Abby replies, "It ain't _that_ big a gun, Red." * Abby then takes off to the north, and murmurs to herself, "Just that kind of day, I guess." [Solaris comms back. "Welcome to big guns territory."] * TheRedcoat sashes off to the north in disgust. "But she *is* that big a player." She may "accidentally" leave her comm on for that as well. I've been here for years, darling; my feet are up and everything. * Horus just flies for Centaurion. No clever words here. [You all head northeast! And conveniently, based on your relative positions and when you got moving, you're all within a block of each other by the time you're two blocks south of Gramercy Park when...] * Christian taps his foot a couple times and nods his way at Solaris. "Good to see ya out in the field, by the way. Sittin' away in a dark room ain't done ya good." He snaps off a half salute and dashes towards where Centurion's engaged. [Gravity goes nuts, and you all feel yourselves being dragged towards the ground!] * TheRedcoat isn't able to keep her swing on the sash (though she keeps her grip on it), and falls from midair, twisting to land safely on a handy surface. * Horus yelps and is pulled gracelessly to the ground, but she manages to land on her feet nevertheless. "What the fuck!" * Christian nnnghs and loses his momentum but manages to keep himself upright. "Dammit. What the fuck is right." [As you're all pulled to a stop, a man steps out from around the corner. He's tall, square jawed and broad shouldered, wearing an impeccibly-tailored dark three piece suit with a white shirt and a red power tie. His hair is silver and slicked back.] [And his face is completely blank.] * Abby falls out of the sky, looking panicy for a moment before her eyes narrow and she twists in the air, landing with her staff hand flat on the ground in a crouch. * Jacqueline manages to keep herself upright too, having probably had at least one experience with hypergravity. [Jacky may have encountered him before. Horus has certainly heard stories from the old Horus. The others may not know of him in this form, but instinctively they recognize him.] [Whenever someone is followed by security in a posh store because they don't look like they 'belong', he's there. Whenever a mom-and-pop store is driven out of business by a big chain, he's there. Whenever a rich man gets off with a slap on the wrist for something a normal person would pay dearly for, he's there.] [He defends those who can defend themselves. He's faceless and nameless, known only as... The Man.] [Session End]