Half-Dragon

IC: It should be mentioned here that Omega's barriers came in varying strength, depending on how hard he focused on them. This one, for instance, was intended to withstand being battered by a villainess with fair strength and mostly wooden or glass implements, which it would have done admirably. An alchohol explosion in an area with roughly two, maybe two and a half times the usual air pressure? No, that wasn't in the specs. He hadn't noticed her gripping the lightbulb at first. There were a lot of tendrils in a lot of places, that was just one of them. It wasn't until it caught fire that he realized why she was pouring alchohol on the ground. His first thought was Wait, she's not actually going to- followed almost immediately by Oh cr-! In his defense, the barrier actually did hold up for a moment, containing the worst of the explosion, but only for a moment. Then? Then it shattered like glass and the pieces vanished into thin air. Omega shielded his eyes from the heat and debris, but was otherwise unaffected save for a slight throbbing in his head that accompanied the destruction of one of his constructs. He rushed to the hole, too surprised to remember he was angry, and looked down. "Did she just blow herself up?" No, there were smoky, ash-laden footprints on the floor below, and a trail leading through. Luckily that room seemed to have been unoccupied. He was just about to take off in hot pursuit when he remembered why he was so concerned in the first place. He turned to Prime. "Are you alright? That was... nasty." He couldn't help but wonder, what ever happened to super-criminals who weren't psychotic? |H-D|NPC: Ultionis nodded at Skyra's comment. "Probably. But we've got three options, and this is the best one. We'll just have to-" Then he heard the noises and felt the rumbling in the ground. There, down the corridor - a wall of metal coming down. And according to their resident ferrokinetics, it wasn't ferrous. Wonderful. Still, they were holding it somehow, at least for now. The window of opportunity was shrinking rapidly. He dashed forward and lunged to the ground, sliding along under the door, and rolled to a stop with his guns pointed outward and his fingers on the triggers. He would not be caught unprepared just because he had to dodge a pile of lead. Dodging lead used to be half his job description.(H-D)

OOC: Omega's barriers are basically a whole field of energy. Completely airtight. Having twisted around to meet the other wall, I'd say it's already airtight. Considering which the shrinkage might cause some problems... How high does the air pressure have to be to cause negative effects on people?|H-D|

IC: It was the work of a moment to bend the energy wall around so that it blocked the bottles - that wasn't what bothered Omega. He'd just taken a closer look at what was left sticking out of Prime's mouth. It was fluttering in a distinctly un-clothlike manner. It was also thin and looking sharper than he would've liked at the edges. Omega's expression turned to one of horror, then rage. He turned on Apep, no longer interested in banter, and further twisted the barrier until it curled in on itself, trapping Apep between it on three sides and the wall on the fourth. And then it began to shrink.|H-D|

IC: "That one hurt."By the time Omega came back up it seemed Prime had gotten into the fight and was... doing well enough, for a new guy. He could see Apep seemed to be having slight breathing troubles and was standing a couple of feet back from her previous spot - evidence of a strong hit to the midsection. Prime, however, was having somewhat greater breathing troubles. Eww... Good thing those were cloth. If they were paper the damage to his throat- Did not bear thinking about and would never again be thought about ewewew where was the brain bleach?Shoving these thoughts into the corner of his mind and hoping they hadn't shown on his otherwise pretty cool, stone-hard face, Omega extended his hand and calmly fired a beam through the bandages about a foot out from Prime's face. He didn't usually use this version of his blasts since it was outright lethal, but he was almost 98% certain those bandages weren't actually part of Apep's body. And if they were... He would need so much more than flowers and get-well cards sent to the hospital. Regardless, the attack burned through the bandages like a laser through... well, through old, linen cloth. Then, without missing a beat, he fired a more normal, concussive blast at Apep herself.|H-D|NPC: Ultionis glanced back at the elevator shaft, sans elevator. "Maybe it's just me, but I get the feeling they know we're here," he remarked. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was about as funny as he ever got on a mission.(H-D)

IC: Omega glanced at the manager. "Yeah, uh, I think there's a bill for these super-fights. Not sure if it's still up after the inva-" At this point he noticed a few very small, stinging sensations and glanced down at his chest to see glass bouncing off it. "Wow," he said, casting a deadpan look at Apep, "that did not hurt me at-" CRASH! He had looked up, as it happened, at just the right time to see a mass of wood flying right at him, but not fast enough to actually do anything about it. The impact sent him out the window and plummetting to the ground...For about four seconds. Then he righted himself in mid-air and rubbed his temple. His head was throbbing like... Well, like he'd just been hit right in the head with a small, wooden desk. He was tough enough to take it, but hopefully that was the heaviest thing she could hurl at him. He flew back up to the broken window and leveled a hard stare at the villainess, now looking distinctly unamused. "That one hurt."|H-D|NPC: X-Calibur was right, of course. They really should have seen that coming. Still, it could have been worse. There could have been guns behind the walls or something. "I vote surveillance," he said once he'd gotten his bearings. "It's the most likely to have useful information. Assuming the sign's telling the truth." The last time he had followed a map of a base the place marked 'master control room' had been a deathtrap. The real control room had been marked 'sewage access.' He was not going to repeat that mistake.(H-D)

IC: "Noted, with apologies," Omega replied with a little bow. Okay, that sounded maybe a bit sarcastic, but he tried to make up for it. "I go by Omega. My partner-" He glanced sideways to... a Prime-shaped hole in the scenery. He sighed. "My partner will be joining us soon. On a related note, I really need to stop jumping ahead all the time." He shook his head and focused on Apep again. As he did, he extended his arm toward the woman who apparently was staying in this room and called a wall of energy into being between her and Apep, which conveniently left the door out of the room on her side."I hate to ruin the mood, but hostage situations aren't my thing. No chance you'll tell me why you were in here in the first place?" He put on a charming smile for good measure. Hey, maybe it would help, you never knew.|H-D|

IC: "Miss Sarcophagus," came a cocky voice from behind Apep, accompanied by a shimmering clamp like a giant handcuff moving to encircle her body, "you've been naughtier." Floating outside the shattered window, one hand extended with the manacle connected by a trail of orange light, was the same black, glowy superhero Apep had utterly failed to notice the last dozen or so times. It was breaking the window that had tipped the scales. Omega had been around for longer than a lot of heroes (interesting, since he was in college) and knew by personal, embarrassing experience that someone crawling up a building into a window could just as easily be entering their own apartment, and by even-more-embarrassing experience that villains could make the same claims as heroes without proof to the contrary. But you don't break the window to your own apartment, and especially not to a hotel room. Now they had criminal charges they could act decisively.|H-D|

NPC: "Actually, that's good. As long as they're not too thin, a layer of rubber between you and the metal floor is exactly what's needed. Just make sure you don't touch anything metal." His own soles were arteficial, designed for stealth and ease of movement, but they just happened to be insulated as well. Good thing too - his armor wasn't. The camo armor was a bit out-of-date and didn't have a built-in Faraday cage. (H-D)

IC: This whole time Omega had been making brief hops across buildings, transforming for a few moments before returning to normal once he was on the other side. Thankfully it was a fairly quiet transformation, and what noise there was would almost certainly get lost in the New York noise. He saw her pause at one building in particular. Insofar as intention could be judged with an Egyptian death mask over the face, she seemed focused on this one. Good thing, too, since these rapid transformations were annoying. It wasn't painful or exhausting or anything, but it was kind of like Chinese water torture. He was powerful, he was human, powerful, human, over and over. He crouched down behind a rooftop access and watched carefully. She looked to be about to start the actual crime...|H-D|NPC: "Yeah." Ultionis gestured at the ferrokinetics. "You be ready for anything. If that thing so much as jostles, lock it down and make sure we're not dropped down the shaft. And if anyone here doesn't have insulated boots, stand on someone else's feet. That thing looks exactly right to be electrocuted. Skyra, stay on your toes. I wasn't kidding about poison gas. Everyone else just keep your eyes peeled and be ready for anything. We didn't come this far to back down now, but we didn't do it to get killed for rushing in blind either."(H-D)

IC: By good fortune, Omega was not a commuter right now (though he didn't actually have a car - if he needed to get to Manhattan, he usually flew) and was no more distracted than usual when Apep swung into view. His musings on how precognition would be so useful for knowing if the trains would run on time were interrupted by the sight of a woman covered in bandages hastily making her escape, Spider-Man style. He tapped Prime. "Dude, you see that? I think we found her." He hovered outside to the rooftops, trying to keep a low profile. "Follow me. Discretely," said the pitch-black man with the glowing, firey orange corona. To his credit, after a brief zip through the air he did power down and crouch on a rooftop, observing Apep in human form. And fixing his hair. He never seemed to need to do that in Omega form.|H-D|NPC: Ultionis was glad he wasn't using night vision when he saw rectangular spots on the ceiling begin to heat up and realized the lights must have come on. If he had been, that would have been blindingly painful as well as just plain blinding. He'd been meaning to ask for a polarized lense upgrade, but apparently there was only so much you could do with a fabric armor mask. As it was, he just focused on the tunnel ahead, where the lights weren't coming on, to see if they had any company. And if so, if that company was within effective bullet range.(H-D)

OOC: At first I was waiting on Prime to confirm he was coming too. Then life stuff picked up. I hate September. The whole Fall setup, really.IC: It didn't take long for Omega and Prime to zoom across the rooftops, dodging the odd high building, bird or other super on the way, and arrive at the area of Grand Central Station. So far, so good, except for one little problem: There was no sign of any greater level of chaos than usual. Granted, at GCS it might be hard to tell if people were running from a supervillain or to a train, or whether they were screaming in fear or just 'get out of my way' in various, colorful, not-always-family-friendly manners, but the lack of any noticeable mummies was a hint. And who ever heard of a subtle one?"You suppose we're early?" Omega asked, glancing aside at Prime. "Maybe the crime's not due yet." He gestured at the big, round clock that helpfully displayed the time to people looking from just about any direction. A nice touch, he always thought. |H-D|NPC: When the explosion had gone off, Ultionis had done the only sensible thing a soldier could do and pulled the person nearest to him behind a nearby table. It wasn't much cover, granted, but it was the only thing within diving distance and they really didn't have time to run around the room. Now it was over, he stood up and glanced at the hole left behind. If by some miracle the enemy somehow hadn't realized they were here before, that just went out the window at terminal velocity. X-Calibur had the right idea, but it was worth voicing something else that had been nagging at him: "This might still be another trap. Fighting our way through a bunch of lethal obstacles just to end up sealed in a chamber full of poison gas sounds like exactly the kind of crazy we should expect." He paused, switching to infrared vision mode. It was unlikely the back entrance was lit. "Not that we've got a better idea. Just stay on your toes and be ready to run for the exit."(H-D)

IC: Omega grinned. "That could take some explaining, amigo. Better I just show you, huh?" Proving that he could, in fact, fly, he soared up into the air until he was just above the height of the nearest rooftops and waved down at Prime. "C'mon, the trains wait for no man!" He paused. "Unless he, like, controls time or something. But that would be way overpowered. Eh, semantics. Let's go!"|H-D|NPC: Ultionis, lacking any ferrous sense or active scanner, spent a few moments observing the area through different vision modes (infrared, thermal, ultraviolet) before determining that the answer would not likely be uncovered by staring from one spot. He switched back to normal and began searching the specified area carefully. The rule was simple: No stone unturned. Hopefully results would show before sundown.(H-D)

OOC: Reposting this, since it seems it was missed.IC: Keran | Misty IslandAfter having had enough of moping (and ensuring the crab was seen to) Keran poked Alfon somewhere he wasn't injured. "Captain. When do we get off this rock?" He'd honestly had enough of it to last a lifetime. The sooner they left, the sooner he could forget what had happened.^^H-D^^

OOC: RIght now in NYC we have Omega and Prime about to set off for Grand Central Station to stop Apep, a mummy villain who so far has yet to begin her villainous rampage. Probably just a matter of time. She's just about arrived, though.|H-D|

IC: Omega took the paper. The image of what was almost certainly some kind of mummy set him wondering if Anubis would know anything about this, but they'd have to ask later. He nodded at Doctor Om. "Claro," he said briskly before turning to Prime. "Looks like we got you something to do after all. C'mon, let's see what she's doing in this millennium." And with that he took off down the hall and out the big hole in the wall. Grand Central Station, here we come.|H-D|NPC: The sound of gunfire immediately triggered an engineered response in Ultionis, who immediately found the nearest raised surface that seemed tall enough to apply and leapt over it, ducking down and taking cover from the direction he thought it was coming from. After a moment, however, he realized there were no bullets crashing into his cover, which was in fact the village well, and looked up. Gunfire, automatic, coming from inside one of the buildings. He could hear some of the rounds bouncing off the stone walls. So, not a 50. cal with armor-piercing rounds like he would've used. Those rounds would go through half a foot of stone like rice paper. As it was, the pattern seemed to be too spread out to effectively penetrate anything much. Probably designed to hit as many people as possible within its arc of fire, or just keep people from entering. Either way, easily solved. "Jam that thing!" He yelled over the racket, hoping that between a pair of ferrokinetics one of them would know how to jam a gun without wasting energy on twisting the barrel into a pretzel or something.(H-D)

NPC: Well, Skyra seemed to be recovering. His eyes showed a slight dazing, but it was fading away, and his grip seemed firm enough. He was stunned, but not concussed. Retrieving what was left of his canteen, Ultionis nodded and stood up. He wasn't much of a medic. He'd done basic field medic training - more than most soldiers had, definitely - but it wasn't really a strong suit. That said, in his somewhat educated opinion, the danger was passed, so he turned to X-Calibur to consider their next move. "That's the only trap we've found. I wouldn't put it past the Coalition to heavily booby-trap an area of no significance just to throw us off, but their real base will be much better defended. We should spread out, find some more spots that might serve as a cover. I assume we've all got comms?"(H-D)

NPC: Ultionis reached into a pouch on his belt and retrieved a canteen. It had about two days' worth of clean water, but ideally they wouldn't be in this forest that long. Then again, considering how often the ideal situation cropped up for them, he wondered if he should have been on the lookout for a creek when they got here. Regardless, he held out the canteen for Skyra to take, waiting to see if he could grab it for himself. If not, he probably had a concussion. And that would just complicate everything even further.(H-D)

IC: Keran | Misty IslandAfter having had enough of moping (and ensuring the crab was seen to) Keran poked Alfon somewhere he wasn't injured. "Captain. When do we get off this rock?" He'd honestly had enough of it to last a lifetime. The sooner they left, the sooner he could forget what had happened.^^H-D^^

There's a game-wide timeskip coming? Huh. Once again I find I can't really follow discussion topics - they move too fast for my poor, beleaguered brain. *Heavy sigh*...So you think this will help get the Misty Island group moving again? Well, we probably won't still be on the island then, but semantics.^^H-D^^

So I gather that school starting back up is getting right in the path of RPGs and digging in, but just so I know who exactly are we waiting on with the Misty Island group? I don't think Alfon's said anything in a while, though last I recall Kaladin was trying to see to him.^^H-D^^

IC: Omega seemed unconcerned. Apparently he'd either seen this before or had just been at this long enough that these things no longer surprised him. He did wave a hand in front of Doctor Om's face just to check. Yep. Completely stuck in his trance. "Check it out," he said, grinning, to Omega Prime. "Think he can hear us?" He seemed to stop and think for a moment. "You wouldn't happen to have a marker on you, would you?"|H-D|NPC: Ultionis vaguely heard something about the signal, but it was lost in the sudden roar of an explosion nearby. He turned around immediately to see fire bursting out of a building and Skyra laying on the grass. He didn't appear to be injured, but Ultionis dashed toward him anyway. The fire was coming out in jets through the door, windows and cracks in the walls, meaning it wasn't too hard to avoid being burned, but even so the heat alone was sweltering. His forest camo armor wasn't really as thermal-resistant as it should be. Once he was close enough the soldier ducked down and grabbed Skyra's arm, dragging him out from under the window.It seemed the flames hadn't touched him, but just being that close to that kind of heat was not healthy. He lay the hero on his back and put a palm on his forehead, not so much to check his temperature as to cool it. The metal on that hand was still chilly. "You okay?" He asked.(H-D)

IC: We are of course respecting their privacy by hacking their secure databases, Omega through, but he chose not to comment on that one. "Could also be Hexas is just a pawn in someone else's game. I mean, it's a talking shark. In a mech. How exactly did that happen? I doubt she built it herself. Unless she's like those sharkmen the Coalition uses. You don't think that's related, do you?"|H-D|

IC: Keran | Misty IslandWorking with Diomi, Keran managed to bring the crab around to where Kaladin was, then gently set it down. Granted he wasn't a rahi doctor, but like the sailors said, any port in a storm. Once Alfon was back on his feet they could get the crab stable and start making their way back to the ship. Then he could put this island behind him.^^H-D^^

NPC: Carapace consulted a list of engineers who could get to the Hollywood sign quickly. "I can get you four men well-trained in engineering. They will emerge from hiding when the jet leaves. I can't promise they won't memorize anything you show them, but nothing will be stolen." Not that that antique he was wearing was worth protecting anyway. "I advise you wait until you're not needed to reply next time. The others are still talking. They might want your attention."{H-D}

IC: There are also rumors Hexas is an alien and the files are about Roswell, Omega thought. Out loud he said, "Okay, I know I sound totally 'conspiracy theorist' here, but hear me out: Say for a moment the files are about supersoldier research. Why would they tell us about that? I mean, you gotta figure they don't want people knowing they break their own laws. That kinda stuff gets folks mad. Especially us." He shrugged. "Either way, I'm not so sure snooping around for top-secret files is something superheroes ought to be doing. I mean, not in UN stuff."|H-D|NPC: Ultionis nodded and immediately began a sweep of the area. First thing to do was establish they were alone in this village. With that in mind he switched to thermal and began scanning the buildings for heat signatures. There were a few barrows where small animals had made their homes, but the adults had all run off when the signal went out. Other than that, there was nobody here he could see besides them. Still, he kept one hand on his gun. Maybe calling it a ghost town had gotten to him, but he didn't like the feel of this place...(H-D)NPC: Carapace was silent. The repairs were, of course, necessary, and nanoforge repair upgrades could only stand in their favor, but he wasn't so sure he wanted almost half the team coming in an hour after everyone else. And even with the coordinates, he couldn't send in help via teleportation without a good deal of visual evidence - enough that his teleporter didn't get himself stuck in a wall. No information about the installation could be found on any network he had access to, which was most of them, and satellite scanning would take too long, so everyone was going in blind. Going in at half strength was just another disadvantage. Eventually he told Gadgeteer, "I advise against splitting your forces, but we don't know how long it would take Hexas to find a new weapon or prepare for your arrival. The final decision is of course yours. Let me know if you need anything I can provide." Then he leaned back and waited to see if he could boost the odds in their favor. {H-D}