Mad Scientist

Quite independently, and entirely unaware of their presence upon the scene, of the Interceptors, Wildcat was also staking out this particular strip mall this night. Someone had started jacking a lot of cars out of the West End, and he wasn't at all happy that some new crew had moved into his neighbourhood and thought they could just start taking whatever they wanted. A lot of the people that lived here didn't have a whole lot to their name, and a car was not only a significant investment, it might be crucial to their livelihood. Someone just going around and casually making off with such a critical possession didn't sit well with him at all, and he had decided to do something about it. He'd chosen this place mostly at random, influenced by the fact that the locations of the previous rash of thefts had been sort of in this area but not right here, and with most of the place closed down this late at night, it could be a tempting target. If nothing showed here tonight, he'd have to try staking out somewhere else tomorrow, maybe. It was far from his preferred way of doing things, but without even a viable scent trail to work with, he was reduced to picking his spots and hoping something happened. Tonight he was up one of the scrubby trees adjacent to the strip mall, balanced upon a branch and motionless amongst the pine needles. Eyes and ears were both peeled for signs of anything suspicious, and he hoped he would have a chance to switch from surveillance to beating heads sometime soon....

When neither of the heroes gave any sign of recognizing the significance of the paper butterfly, Ms. Allen continued. "According to word in certain circles, an origami butterfly being left at the crime scene like this is the calling card of a certain catburgler known as 'The Papillon'," she explained. "He or she has stolen various works of art, jewellery, precious artifacts, bonds, quantities of cash -- essentially, anything of significant value, and most often with strong security measures in place." Her lips tightened for a moment, clearly displeased that the Atlantis had joined the ranks of 'hard' targets. "No one seems to know how The Papillon is accomplishing these crimes, but it seems safe to assume that they are some sort of paranormal," she continued. "It's been only minutes since the vault was breached -- do you think you might be able to intercept this thief before they make good their escape?" The request almost seemed to pain her, but she her voice and gaze both were steady and unflinching.

Okay, moving back to a bit closer range with the airship, and triggering off Nova. Reflex Save DC 19 for anyone who can see her, if it fails, visual senses are Dazzled.

Well. First things first, do not panic over the ridiculous amount of open air between feet and ground. Ignore the fact that it's several miles, and get down to business. Right? Okay! With her first call for help disappearing into the clouds below her -- and she hoped that the debris from the wall wouldn't hurt anyone when it crashed into New York City -- Cerulean first stopped her fall, then reversed course and headed back toward the giant airship and its tiny, buzzing fighters. While by far the easiest thing to do would be to simply wreck the airship and send it crashing, crippled, to the ground, it was also by far the least safe thing she could do, for the hostages, the people of New York, and yes, the dieselpunks currently crewing the ship. They were committing criminal acts, but that wasn't any call for what could be a death sentence. Splitting off her light-generated decoys to make it more difficult for anyone to target her in particular, she gathered herself for something that she'd never tried on this scale before. Arcing around to what seemed to be the prow of the airship, keeping an eye on the little buzzing attackers, she drew the vast well of Light that seethed within her into a tight ball, then let the radiance burst out from her in all directions, turning herself into a brilliant, shining beacon that would sear the eye of anyone who looked at her. If she could render a portion of her opposition unable to see, including those who were piloting the airship, perhaps she'd have a chance of convincing them that this whole thing was going to be more trouble than it was worth....

Shifting +2 to All Out Attack, hoping to get that hit in and trusting that the diversionary images will handle any counterattack that might still resolve. Light Bolt Spray Attack (+2 All Out Attack): 1d20+13 14 ...well. That's not entirely helpful. Going to have to HP that one, I think. HP Reroll:: 1d20+13 15 ...just, wow. So, that's an attack roll of 25, with a Blast 11 with Autofire, Current defense is 11, with 50% miss chance from Concealment.

Could I get a Knowledge: Current Events, please ladies. DC 15.

Ms. Allen regarded the pair for a moment longer, her eyes unfathomable. "I would normally not involve Freedom City's...heroic community in such matters, but considering your happenstance to be here on top of the event in question, your assistance might be timely enough to make enough of a difference," she told them, quite flatteringly, oh yes. "Please, follow me." She lead the way at a brisk pace, her heels only being prevented from crisp, loud reports by the durable carpet covering the casino floor in an ever-so-tasteful coral and fish motif. They passed through a door marked 'Employees Only', and she paused before a doorway flanked by opaque camera bubbles typical of a security system. "Less than five minutes ago, we had a breach in security," she began without preamble. "A transfer of currency from the hard count room to the vault had just occurred, a routine transfer that is done several times daily, and this one transpired with no unusual activity." Punching a code into the keypad, she opened the door. Within the room was a heavy vault door, standing open, soft lighting illuminating the interior. An additional pair of camera bubbles covered the interior of the room, and Allen lead them over to the open vault. "Perhaps seven or eight minutes after the transfer, an alarm was triggered by an unscheduled opening of the vault door. Security responded immediately, only to discover the room like this, and the vault empty. ...nearly so," she qualified, and gestured inside. Sitting on the very centre of the floor was an origami butterfly, folded carefully from a sheet of yellow paper.

No, that seems like a pretty good place to catch up to our en media res. Have at! :)

The two guards exchanged a look as they held the pair of rapidly talking heroines at gunpoint, but they didn't lower their guard or their weapons. The shorter of the two nodded, then reached up to the radio microphone clipped to his shoulder. "We have a Code 99 for two, fire exit 19," he reported, then returned to a two-handed shooting stance. It didn't take more than twenty seconds for half a dozen additional guards to show up, hands dropping to weapons but not drawing, accompanied by a petite woman with short, sandy hair wearing a pencil skirt suit and heels. "What's going on here...Donald?" she asked brusquely, glancing at the shorter man's name tag. "We came across these two lurking in the exit hall," he replied, lowering his gun halfway now that backup had arrived and addressing the suit. "They claim to be heroes, say they want to help with our...situation." He didn't seem to like even admitting there was one, but considering the response, it was hard to try and pass everything off as normal. The woman looked them over, eyes narrowing slightly. "Yes, I believe I've heard of this one before," she said, quirking one sculpted eyebrow. "Seahawk, she goes by. I don't know the other, but I imagine they're just what they claim to be, all things considered. It's hardly unusual for heroes to just pop up unexpectedly in this town, after all." At a gesture from her, all weapons were holstered and the guards made some space at the end of the hall. "Cynthia Allen," she introduced herself as one of the guards called in an end to the Code 99, whatever that might happen to be. "How good are the two of you at tracking something down?" she asked seriously.

Done. Taking 10 on Bluff, for a total of 20, to convince any listeners that she's two people having a conversation. Unleashing Light Bolt Spray, Autofire Blast 11.

Well. At least this Sky Lord seemed to be enough of an anachronism that he was taking his host duties seriously, regardless of whether or not they were all involuntary prisoners. The food smelled amazing, and her stomach gave out an embarrassing gurgle. "Um, thanks," she called back, sounding a little nervous. "No, I'm good, no messages for anybody." Go away, go away, time was wasting. If she was going to do this, she wanted to get started, and knowing there was a guard out there dispensing food was a good thing -- better than not knowing whether or not anyone was there at all. She could take him into account, when she busted out of here. And given that he was obviously bored with his routine, he wouldn't be ready to leap into action. Well, since there were no cameras, and the food slot wasn't going to be opening again soon, it was probably as good a time as any to get into character. Pushing back her shirt sleeves, she crossed her wrists and pressed the sigils together, starting the luminous transformation into Cerulean. One...two...three...four.... The light grew too intense for her to see, and on the sixth heartbeat it crested, then faded away, leaving her transformed. No longer a helpless prisoner, but a powerful and trouble-causing superhero. Now, considering the humane treatment of the prisoners, it seemed pretty unlikely that the Sky Lord was the sort to just kill them all, should things go wrong. So, all she had to do was convince him and his men that things had, indeed, gone all too wrong. "How did you get in here?" she hissed in a high, nervous voice. "Just one of the many powers a hero has in their arsenal, miss," she replied to herself in a voice that was low, but as confident sounding as she could manage under the circumstances. "In fact, I'll be getting you out the same way, and you'll be joining the rest of the rescue force." "I am?" she squeaked in a muffled voice, beginning to feel just a bit silly with the radio play she was putting on here, but it was the best way she could think of to try and preserve her identity. Plus, possibly make whoever was monitoring the cell audio believe there were other heroes aboard. "Yes, you are," she replied with wry, tolerant amusement. "Just relax, and breathe normally." "Wait -- what are you going to be doing?" she breathed nervously. She chuckled softly. "I'll be focusing all eyes on me, so nobody goes looking anywhere else. Now, here you go." She paused for a few long seconds, counting silently to herself. "All right," she muttered, squaring off against the door, hovering a few inches off the floor. "And here I go." Raising her hands, she unleashed a rapid-fire barrage of light bolts at the door, looking to either blow it off its hinges, or just shatter it entirely...if she was lucky. She hoped she was lucky, today....

Cerulean didn't particularly want to have to go head to head with such an unknown quantity, most especially one that had by reports never been defeated before. Most most especially before she had a chance to deal with an urgent need. But...well, she couldn't exactly lead a supervillain to these people's doorstep, let their cities get flooded, and expect them to help her, now could she? Plus, she'd feel horrendously guilty about all the little things, like millions in property damage, the loss of life.... And, well, hadn't she just been told that she was far more powerful here than she was back home? And this from a man who had only seen what she could do defensively. Nobody here yet had seen what she could do when she cut loose, and if there was one thing her powers seemed to be designed for, it was dishing out the punishment. High DPS, as it were. "Well, she'll just have to be content with only one 'enemy' for now," she muttered to herself -- now that Siddig was afoot and hiding, she wasn't about to encumber herself again. She was not built for ferrying passengers about, and certainly not in combat conditions. Letting the massed power die away from her hands, she took to the air again in a streak of blue, still dogged by her extras in a confusing swirl that made it next to impossible to tell which was the real her. She came in at a higher altitude than this 'Tempest', wanting to make it more difficult to use the ocean against her, and was ready to blast away at her if she looked to be readying a killer wave to unleash upon the domed city. "All right, here I am, now what?" she shouted down to the gender-swapped clone, stopping perhaps a hundred feet away. "I'm pretty sure you don't want this to turn into a fight, if that was the best hit you've got," she added conciliatorially.

Sense Motive, DC 24: 1d20+6 17 Stupid navy, better go deal with her, mutter mutter mutter.... Moving to conversation range, and assuming she doesn't get blasted as soon as she's in convenient attacking range, will ready her Light Bolt Spray to open fire at the first sign of aquatic assault.

The ladies' transformations went off without a hitch, but it was perhaps inevitable that they were discovered almost immediately. "Hey!" came a shout from the doorway that opened up into the main room, drawing attention to a pair of security guards that most likely had just been assigned to watch this particular fire exit. Between the two of them they effectively blocked passage out of the short hall, leaving the options of dealing with the pair, or crashing out the fire doors in headlong flight. Unsurprisingly, given the tone of the casino's staff at the moment, they both were in the process of drawing sidearms.

Move action is 5,000', which I'll assume is enough to get her over land somewhere in the bay. Activate Mirror Images as a free action, 50% concealment effect. Ready an action: If Aquabitch pursues in person, or sends some sort of water-based attack her way, she'll respond with a Kamehameha -- Blast 11 Line AoE, 25' in diameter and 550' long, Penetrating 5 and +5 bonus knockback. Toughness Save DC of 26, or used as a countering power vs an aquatic attack.

Cerulean's jaw dropped in surprise as a figure rose out of the ocean before them, and the demand to surrender -- property?? -- caught her off guard. "But...I have to pee!" she exclaimed nonsensically, having tried to ignore the urge for about the past forty minutes. The ocean rising up to slam at the bubble of hardened light as they rushed toward the woman made her flinch and yelp inelegantly, and the sprays of icy ocean water that penetrated through the stressed fractures turned her yelp into a squeal as they washed across what to her felt like bare skin, regardless of what it looked like. "Oh man, now I really have to pee!" she protested -- perhaps it was for the best that her opponent couldn't hear her responses, all things considered. Unfortunately, words pretty much were her response for the moment, for she couldn't return fire without dropping Siddig into the ocean at speed. Fortunately, speed was still something she had on her side. Still moving at a rate a little over the speed of sound, she blew past the perhaps-overconfident Aquabitch and streaked inland, homing in on the nearest shoreline and dropping until she flew up a few hundred feet past the shore -- she didn't really want to fight this woman over the water if she could help it, all things considered. Decelerating rapidly, she unceremoniously dissolved her damaged hard light field, dropping Siddig a short distance to the ground. "I'm gonna suggest you run now," she told him, and split into half a dozen identical copies of herself as she turned back to face the bay. She and her duplicate images all gathered brilliant light about their hands -- if Aquabitch pursued in person, or sent a wall of water or something after her, she was ready to reply with excessive force.

Whoops, sorry! I didn't catch that edit yesterday, was waiting for an IC resolution post. I'm on it!

As the security guards didn't seem to be too concerned about whether or not someone might be tailing them through the casino, it wasn't particularly difficult to tag along in their wake as they headed deeper into the building. The pair of girls found themselves headed into the north-west corner, and since they were alert for trouble they spotted the signs of subtle but increased activity in other parts of the casino as well. They began to see guards posted by emergency exits, and it was apparent that the rest of the casino staff was aware that something was up as well, given the nervous looks on dealers and whispers being exchanged between waitresses. As they and their vanguard of security reached the northwest corner, it became apparent that they were leaving tourist country, for the most part. Clearly labelled signs indicated the presence of the cashiers, lined up in a bank of reinforced windows along one wall, and several sets of doors were labelled 'STAFF ONLY'. This was the part of the casino that contained maintenance rooms, break rooms, locker rooms, count rooms, surveillance monitors, first aid station...and yes, the vault. Something was clearly going on, given by the buzz of activity here. Guards were apparently being split into teams of three by members of management, and three separate men were urgently talking into cell phones with grim expressions on their faces. It...didn't have the flavour of an emergency, but something was undoubtedly wrong given the tension levels.

Object Toughness Save DC 23: 1d20+7 22 Taking damage but still intact! Nobody needs to go for a swim!

Knowledge: Art (Music) (Untrained): 1d20+3 23 Too bad that you can only score a max DC of 10 with an untrained knowledge check. Nothing is happening apart from the sourceless appearance of music...yet.

The oddly-shaped blue birdie preened its feathers for a moment, then blinked its enormously oversized eyes at her again. "Oh, so you're wooking for Eiween, are you?" it replied, bobbing slightly atop its perch on the Eileen-flowers. "She's been...awound." The pause before the pun made it blatantly obvious. "It might not be a good idea for you to be here, because...." The little birdie trailed off. "Well, maybe you should beat it before any twouble begins," it began, but got no further before the 'shave and a haircut' was tapped out. "Oooooh, I wouldn't have done that if I were you," the little canary told Zephyr with sing-song censure, even as the initial rapidly tripping bars of what was immediately recognizable as 'Flight of the Bumblebees' began drifting out of thin air, the violins playing with enthusiasm and...menace?

Well. Being spied upon audibly wasn't great, but it was a fair sight better than there being cameras in the cells as well. The air exchange system built into the bed wasn't comforting -- clearly, they were taking into account the possible need to gas their hostages again. Sitting on said boobytrapped bed, she pondered as to what might be the best way to go about doing things. It was a given that she wasn't going to just sit around and wait for rescue to arrive, or for something to go catastrophically wrong and ending up with people getting hurt. Which meant, of course, that she herself was going to have to be careful not to do anything precipitous like, say, blow the ship out of the sky. First things first, she'd have to get out of this cozy little deathtrap. She-- ...managed not to squeak, quite, when her ruminating was interrupted by knock and voice at the door. Apparently, there was food service on this flight. Thinking quickly, she shushed the empty room with a hissing exhalation and shifted a bit on the bed before answering. "Uh, yeah, I'm awake," she replied, her voice high and a little nervous. "Um, shepard's pie?" she called out dubiously. Worst of all, she really was hungry, but she wasn't planning on eating any of this food. This was more in the way of seeing more about how the whole cell system worked, and possibly getting her hands on something useful in the process. The plan, as far as she had figured it out so far, was to give the unseen listeners a few tidbits that suggested she wasn't actually alone in the cell, that she was being rescued and there was a secret way out of the cell, and then she'd blow herself a hole out and go cause a ruckus. If nothing else, she should be able to be overt enough that she might attract just the sort of rescue attention that everyone needed....

Initiative: 1d20+1 13 So, sorta like Aqualad in Manta-boy armour, then? Charming....

Wildcat: So Great A Cause Cerulean: Kindness To Every Living Thing Sky Crime! Hūhunu: Envious Eyes GM: Monopoly Misappropriations Uffish Thoughts

Taking 20 on Search, for a total of 22.