ZippyWharrgarbl

IC: Rorohiko - Cliffside

He was oddly flattered Xaril had offhandedly referred to him as one of Fe's finest minds. He smiled a little as he fumbled in his bag for his shaded visor, finally managing to find it and slip it on. It was still to bright, even with them. He tried not to wince.

IC: Timothy Gyro - Friend Corner

He jumped a little, but hurried over and out of sight with his investigation companion. It didn't seem to occur to him she might be hiding from the Heroes; he figured that she might be undercover or something. He said to her, "The murderer got away. Augh, if I was just a bit faster, but the crowds and the stupid train..."

He stopped himself from punching the wall again, and instead turned back to her. "Hopefully someone else will sort that guy out on the other end of the line or something. What's the plan now? We don't have a dang sniper to grill for info or anything!"

His eyes went wide, hand going for his bag. "Except the thing he gave us, right? Hope it's got something good on there, else we're back to square one."

IC: Timothy Gyro - Subway

"Sorry to interrupt the investigation and all," he said to the gathered Heroes. "They got away. Guess we're back to looking now."

He continued on his way out of the subway. He'd completely forgotten about the evidence on his person, or his lead. His mind was entirely on being alone and how he'd screwed up.

IC: Armani - Main Man Hakkzan's Party Bus of Anger and Disappointment

She gave Maldrakk a puzzled look. "As large and impressive as I am, citizen, I am not in charge of this operation, and as such it would be more appropriate to issue such pleas to our higher-ranking companions."

~

IC: Rorohiko - Nerd Ship

He finished the line of code he was on and clicked his armour over the arm booper. The first time he went to Cliffside, he'd been stopped by one of the guards as he tried to wander off the ship tapping at it. Apparently, it wasn't all that wise to flout rare and experimental Fe tech around a city known for being full of thieves, among other criminals. When Rorohiko had said it was attached to his arm, he had been told that it wouldn't matter, the implications of which had solidified the advice in his sleepy, absent-minded head.

There was also the fact that it was experimental and secret Fe tech. He typically avoided using it outside Fe, but it slipped his mind on occasion if he was particularly riveted by what he was doing. Guards accompanying convoys often corrected him; Cliffside, he recalled, was just the place where there were no qualms about taking things immediately by force.

He followed the others off the ship, and gave a thumbs up to the talkative guard apparently waiting for him.

IC: Armani - Main Man Hakkzan's Party Bus of Anger and Disappointment

She regretted giving Maldrakk something to yell about. She had meant it simply as an observation, in case, for whatever reason, the craft did have one of the teleportation devices and it had failed to operate.

"If I may, Your Spikiness," she snapped a salute again. "Maldrakk here was very shaken from his experience. It took some impressive goading from myself to get him onto my magnificent craft to return here. He may not be fully in control of his faculties at this moment in time, and may be lashing out due to that."

IC: Timothy Gyro - Subway

"They got on the train. I nearly had them, but the train left." He sighed. "Look, I'm sorry about sounding mad, buddy. It's not about you. Just... doesn't feel good, you know?"

IC: Armani - Main Man Hakkzan's Party Bus of Anger and Disappointment

She snapped into a salute. "I have investigated the craft, and I am very sorry to report that the pilot has perished. I checked their vital signs myself, though the state of the craft didn't leave much hope of survival. The experimental craft and this citizen's vehicle were mangled horribly in the incident. I am very sorry. Were I in a position to have prevented this, rest assured I would have done so without hesitation."

She dropped from her salute to gesture to Maldrakk. "I have brought the aforementioned citizen; he was brought to safety by his vehicle's teleportation device. The test pilot, I believe, was not so lucky... or, possibly, did not have the device at all."

IC: Timothy Gyro - Subway

At Flames' yell, Gyro inwardly scowled. He didn't want to be rude to the guy, he didn't mean anything by it, but he wasn't in the best of moods after letting a murderer get away.

"What do you think?" he snapped back, a little harsher than he meant to say it. "And stop yelling that stuff across the station, ya goose!"

Around him, people were glancing between the two with confused, worried expressions. One nearby audibly whispered to their friend, "Is this performance art?"

IC: Armani - The Test

She rapped her knuckles against the door of the ship, glancing back to ensure Maldrakk was still following her. Not that there was anywhere for him to run to on foot, of course.

What a terrible way for a test to go. An experimental craft destroyed, a pilot gruesomely killed... she could not have done anything, of course, but the thought caused her little comfort.

IC: Armani - The Test

She glanced back to ensure he was holding on, and then took off for the others after closing the cockpit window. It wasn't a long flight, even with Armani flying slower than usual to ensure Maldrakk would have no trouble holding on. She landed beside the craft and its inhabitants, climbing from her ship, pocketing her keys, and gesturing for Maldrakk to follow. She approached the others to issue her report.

OOC: Are Hakkzan and the others still inside their craft?

IC: Armani - The Test

The Skakdi still stood there, seemingly shocked. She eased her ship a little closer. "Hold onto the side of my craft, then, citizen. I will save you the climb back to the others."

IC: Timothy Gyro - Subway

"Hey!"

He spotted them hurrying through the crowd and shoved after them, his greater size and strength allowing him to wade reasonably fast. He had almost reached them... almost... he could almost grab their elbow...

The train doors slammed closed, just in front of his hand, and the train sped away into the darkness.

He snarled, slamming his fist sideways into a column and denting the column's metal. The murderer got away. He strode back through the crowd, sending out the alert: the villain had climbed on board a train, which had left. The search here was off.

He was so mad with himself. He hadn't been able to catch them, but the footage from his headset could be analysed and put into the system. Maybe the police force on the planet could stop their train, with the train number and all. He doubted they- or he- could do much about it, though. The situation really sucked.

And he was underground. He hadn't even thought about that until now. He pushed back towards the surface through a different exit, annoyed with himself.

~

IC: Rotor - Meanwhile

Rotor was mid-flick in a game of Disgruntled Drones when the 'Low Power' signal flashed on his screen. He grumbled about poor battery life, pulling open compartments, until remembering he must have left the charger at their hideout. He swore and roughly yanked himself to his feet. XPlode had said not to leave, sure, but ducking down alleys and getting a charger from some hokey place with easily avoided cameras wouldn't be too hard.

His blades were an issue. He grabbed a tarp and draped it loosely around them before donning a cloak. At a glance, it'd look like he was carrying something over his shoulders. Maybe. Wouldn't hold well to scrutiny or someone touching it, but he was looking to avoid any observer other than a bored cashier or uncaring customer. If that. Being caught shoplifting brought attention he didn't want, but if he could do it without getting caught, he saw no reason to bother paying for it.

He flicked his hood up and said to his mostly silent companion, "I'm headin' out. Hold th' fort for me."

He shoved his tablet in his subspace and walked out, draping an arm over the top of his blades to add to the disguise. Even so, he stuck to shady alleyways, keeping under roof cover even then.

IC: Rorohiko - Nerd Ship

Upon getting no response from the instigator of this trip except for a long awkward silence, he was happy to have it broken by the more talkative guard. "Oh! Thanks. I have a habit of lingering and straying from the group on expeditions to other cities. That doesn't go so well in Cliffside. It'd be nice to have someone making sure I'm not being mugged in an alley."

Oh, you didn't have to edit it! It was fine how it was. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply it wasn't. Gyro's pretty tall for a Hero, so he could be an easy figure to spot in a crowd, assuming a good number of them are the size of the average Makuhero City resident.

@The Invisible Noob, Gyro has just done a sweet propeller trick into the subway, in pursuit of the assassin. He's got a reasonable head start from being in the area and being able to fly after the assassin, but Flames might be able to catch up or at least keep up, depending on how fast he is and/or how advanced his parkour skills are.

IC: Armani - The Test

She took note of his behaviour. The quick breathing, the holding the metal as if he were a small child clutching a toy... it could very well have been an act, but he seemed shocked by what had happened. She couldn't land, the outcrop wasn't big enough for that, so she could not step out of the vehicle to offer comfort.

Instead, she called over the engines, "This must be hard to come to terms with, citizen. If you explain that you did not realise this would happen to His Spikiness, I am sure he would be understanding. I hope you have realised the dangers of attempting a ram in a vehicle not designed for the task, and without extensive practice."

To herself, she wondered why she had been told ramming was acceptable when it very clearly was not. Perhaps it had been Maldrakk's ship not being designed for the task, causing debris and a wider spread of force. Perhaps it had been the position and angle of the experimental craft, hanging on the side of a cliff. Or, perhaps the other Skrall overestimated what a Hau could protect against. She filed the mystery away for later.

IC: Timothy Gyro - In Hot Pursuit

In the air, he caught a glimpse of the fleeing figure and headed full speed for them, blades roaring. "Stop right there!"

When they disappeared into the subway, he stopped his blades spinning and slapped them together, straight down, to dive into the subway after them, where he followed on foot. "Hey, you! Stop!"

IC: Armani - The Test

She reacted instantly. The crash looked horrible, no doubt fatal, but she flew down anyway in the very slim chance there was a survivor. She leaped from her ship and set about tearing aside rendered metal. Some small part of her was thankful she hadn't gone for a ramming attack herself- if she had caused a death such as this on an innocent pilot, she would no doubt feel terrible.

Sure enough, she found a body. She was no stranger to corpses, and even the mangled state of this one did not cause her hesitation in checking the body for any possibility of life. She eventually had to move away, her black gauntlets soaked with blood. They were, unquestionably, dead.

She took a deep breath and considered what to do next. The other pilot was on a ledge, she saw him on the way down. She would have to take him to the transport, for her superiors to deal with.

She flew up in solemn silence, and levelled at the pilot's plateau, cockpit window open to allow him to hear her. She said, booming voice overpowering her engines, "Citizen, your misguided actions have cost your ship, the experimental craft, and most importantly, an innocent life. I will take you to His Spikiness' craft, and he and the others will decide what is to be done."

OOC: I assume she can, I don't know, let him hold onto the side or something for the short ride up.

OOC: Editing everything after the truck out works.

OOC: Night Stalker's post is nulled. Sorry, Vestak, but he's busting a hole in the ground, turning to Corroder, saying "I am going to do this thing", pushing a truck towards the Heroes, apparently tunnelling through the ground (I understand he's tearing up the ground but I'm not too sure about there being a big open space right under the road like that? But that's a moot point as the main issue here is all the actions in the post), running through these tunnels, reappearing under the Heroes, and then shooting and swinging a hammer at the same time. This all was done assuming that none of the characters present reacted to any of these events except the last one, or reacted to them in a way that the players of these characters might not agree with (someone might have jumped the truck and gone after Night Stalker, for example). It's just too many actions in one post, and doesn't give reasonable time to react.

Barrier and Ruby have responded, but Barrier's post is vague enough to either not need editing or be easy enough to edit, and of course Ruby is in the same post as Night Stalker's IC.

If you have any concerns, want a clarification, or feel like I've made an error, feel free to ask in the discussion topic and I or one of the other GMs will do our best to make sure things are set right. But yeah, until we sort this out, it's nulled.

IC: Armani - The Test

She saw the ship come into view, and as she was already moving in the direction of the shots the vehicle had fired, she didn't have to correct her flight path much to fire upon it, especially as it wasn't reacting to her approach so far.

She had noticed the other Skrall mentioning the use of mask powers, of course. The land-bound nature of the ship was a little unexpected, but she supposed they had not said it would be a flying craft.

Land vehicles were an interesting but not unwise choice. Aircraft, by their very nature of being in the air, had a lot of problems to consider, such as weight and the problems of making a craft light enough to fly with whatever source of propulsion they used. A vehicle such as this would not have to be concerned with needing to restrict weight, or keep themselves in the air to land safely, or have to consider things such as a plummet from the sky. There were other things too, of course, but it was an interesting choice.

She hoped they really were prepared to deal with damage. The pilot hadn't so much as fired a second shot at her as she circled toward their general location earlier. Hence why she didn't ram them immediately- what if they were distracted? That could be disastrous.

IC: Timothy Gyro - Murder Scene

It was over in an instant. He had reached out and gripped the tablet, and thus was treated to a front-row seat to an explosion of organic gore. He blinked, shocked and rattled, but forced himself to remain calm. He turned to his companion.

"Take care of this guy," he said, striding for the door. "Get an ambulance or something, I dunno, I'll try and find the shooter."

Outside, he jumped from a running start and took off with a loud roar from his spinning blades. Bulk was nearby last he saw, but he might have moved on, and he couldn't see the two rookies anywhere close by. He would have to trail this guy alone.

In his shock and reflexive action, he'd momentarily forgotten to call in, and hastily alerted the other Heroes with a simple ping and short note about a sniper in the area. He did, however, have the presence of mind to shove the tablet in his pack as he did an aerial search, though he had a terrible gut feeling the shooter was long gone.

IC: Mona Silphi - Hero Factory, Actually Doing Something In The RPG For Once

Silphi was tending to her beetles when she received the message from Zib. She quickly finished feeding her pets before moving to her console proper to review the images.

They were not from any professional forensic photographer, but they would do. She set to work with her image programs, searching for serial numbers or any identifiable design features on the chips, as well as any other information she could glean, such as the assumed skill level needed for the job. From a glance, she could tell that this was no skilled, deft-handed surgeon, but doing such a thing would require at least basic skills regarding this model of robot.

Perhaps Destral's actual location was fixed in the MU, but the sea-gates that were connected to it were portals which could change where they connected to, giving the illusion of teleportation.

I think it's stated in canon that it is, in fact, actual teleportation. They did it with a device thought to be hooked up to a Kanohi Olmak. That's an interesting thought, though.

I think the map included in Makuta's Guide to the Universe might have some proportion issues, personally. They couldn't really use satellite imagery or anything like that, and their world's setup is a bit odd with the sea-gates and all. They might have just done their best and called it a day. Some old maps of Earth are super wonky, too.

I like how Mata Nui's feet are untamed, fearsome, dangerous areas no one goes to if they can help it.

As for Artakha, I think he didn't just rely on location. Illusions and such could have caused people to sail right by without seeing it or something.

What I want to know is, how did the map-makers cope with Destral teleporting everywhere? Maybe Destral came as a separate piece you could pin on wherever.