Sophistemon

Please forgive the delay in response; I'm retooling our villain's character sheet.

Presto's available.

Ethan lowered his arms, slowly, and nodded his head. "That's smart thinking there, partner. Why don't we pay Green a visit? A chat would do me good, after having guns pointed in my direction." He turned his head to look at the guards. "But seriously, you two are on point with the whole 'scary security' thing. That was intimidating. How often do you practice? Is there a guidebook I could borrow? I'm a little too friendly, sometimes, and people get the impression I can't kick their ass."

Presto reached for the paper, unfolded it, and glanced at the contents before he looked to the door. He set the paper down and drew his wand. It felt good in his hand, as always. A physical manifestation of his strength and potency, he felt his strength renewed just be holding it. He tried, and failed, to avoid thinking about what Freud might say. "Sometimes a wand is just a wand," he reminded himself, and opened the door another inch. He peeked through, hoping to see enough so that his next action wouldn't be completely off the cuff.

A voice hissed in the darkness, the sound of it like a snake working its way through tall grass. "Warne," it said. "James Warne. I know you." Something shifted in the dark. A man, clad in metal, stood from a crouch. He stood tall, at least seven feet and maybe more. His face was a gruesome mask, all edges and planes, with a visor where the eyes should be. The visor glowed a dark and baleful red. His shoulders were broad, his arms covered in thick, overlapping plates of armor that dripped with melting snow. Something about the design, the tooling of the metal, struck a chord with the agent. It was the familiar unfamiliar, the sense of someone's hand at work. "He wants you, too. But not today. Today he wants Stone." His arm twitched, the wrist bent forward, and a blade emerged from the armored plating. Segmented, it snapped into place piece by piece and began to glow, heating in seconds until it was red-hot and sparking. "Today, you can live, if you run. But only if you run."

It's neither here nor there but, because Warne can speak Mandarin, let's just assume he can recognize the stranger's accent as having originated in Hong Kong.

@Blarghy "Steiner and Val Verde have a history," Becker explained. Warne turned the page and saw a photograph with three men standing in front of a very lavish-looking building. The man on the left was labeled PEREZ, and the man on the right was labeled GALLO. The man in the middle, dressed to the nines in a very familiar suit complete with an artfully askew top-hat and tailcoat, was STEINER. "Presto the Preposterous spent a lot of time in Val Verde. Back when he was active as a super-criminal, the island didn't extradite. In fact, they encouraged criminal tourism; it was a pretty sizable source of income. Their banks, so far as we know, were filled mostly with criminal investment that the Val Verdeans laundered into native currency." She frowned. "He'd lay low there between heists, drinking mai-tais and sunning on the beach, partying with the two most powerful men on the island. Then, when he got bored of the good life, he'd come back to the States and commit another robbery." Becker looked at Warne. "I don't think he could help himself. He had enough money to retire a dozen times over, but he kept coming back for more. Eventually, he was captured before he could disappear to the island, but all of that money? Gone. Gone to Val Verde." She chuckled. "And now it's just gone, period. A few years ago Gallo got tired of playing second-fiddle to Perez and led another revolution. The official line is that Perez fled the country to Eastern Europe and was taken in by some post-Soviet state, but details are hazy. And Gallo's used all that ill-gotten wealth to fund his modernization programs." She frowned. "Whatever his intentions, Gallo's good for Val Verde, at least for the time being. Their economy's booming and their quality of life is rising. It's slow, but considering the circumstances it's better than you might expect. Thing is, not everyone's happy about it; not only are Perez's old associates leading an insurgency against Gallo, the criminals whose money he's seized have put out a bounty on him. It hit five million dollars last week." Warne turned the page and saw a plane ticket paper-clipped to a passport containing a false identity. "We are... concerned that Steiner might be using his previous connection with Gallo to get close enough to claim the bounty. He lost a lot of money in the coup, money that he might have been hoping to get his hands on someday after he'd spent some time laying low." She stared Warne in the face. "We can't let that happen. I want you to go to Val Verde and check in on things. Protect Gallo, if he needs protecting. Stop Steiner, if he needs stopping. And find out what these two women have to do with it, if anything. Knowing Presto, they might just be a cover... but they might also be accomplices. Keep on your toes." @Heritage Sam smiled, slyly, at Lynn. "There's an old chestnut," he said. "About magicians, their secrets, and the revealing thereof. But, ah, seeing as how we're all magicians in one way or another, I suppose it can't hurt." He pointed out the window, down at one of the larger buildings. It had been build around the original church, constructed on the island by missionaries as their service to God, and served as the nation's sole seat of power. "There," he said. "That's the Presidential Palace. That's where we're staying." He moved his finger, slightly, to the left. "There, specifically, are the guestrooms. Back when I used to visit, they rivaled the Presidential Suite of any hotel in Las Vegas. Luxury like you wouldn't believe." He looked back to the women, and his smile was somber instead of sly, his eyes downcast and moderately embarrassed. "After everything you two have done for me, you deserve to live like queens for a while. Bringing you with me is the least I can do to repay your generosity. I just really, really hope you have a good time."

@Blarghy You know that Val Verde is a small island nation off the northwestern coast of Mexico, somewhere southwest of California. @Heritage Handling this as an online search is a good idea; it's not as though she doesn't have time to look things up. With that in mind, here's what she discovers about their destination:

@Blarghy Becker was waiting for Warne in the lobby when he arrived. In one hand she held a slim manila folder, in the other a steaming cup of coffee in one of those dangerously flimsy Styrofoam cups that practically dare you to squeeze it ever so slightly too hard. Both of these things she handed to the subordinate agent. "Welcome back," she said, voice clipped and professional. "We've already received the good news; you should be proud of what you've done today. Debriefing can wait, though -- this is more important." She pointed to the folder. "Open that, read, and walk with me. We've got a lot to talk about." She strode off, towards her office, as Adept trailed behind and did as instructed. The first page of the folder's document was a mugshot of one Samuel Steiner, formerly known as Presto the Preposterous, currently known as a minimally useful asset of the AEGIS intelligence network. Below the photo was a list of his crimes. Robbery, mostly, with some instances of nonlethal assault, evading arrest, and the other assorted dalliances of a super-criminal. "Steiner's left the country," Becker grumbles. "Which he is, technically, allowed to do. But it's where he's going that concerns us. Are you familiar at all with Val Verde?" Adept flipped the page, and saw an aerial map of the island nation, taken by a radar-invisible drone in a pretty clear violation of Val Verdean airspace. "Long story short, the place is a madhouse and the lunatics have been running the asylum for a very long time." @Heritage Samuel laughed at Lynn's excitement. "Trust me," he said. "You will. Gretchen will, too; she won't be able to help herself. Val Verde is... it's like nowhere else on Earth. It's one of a kind. And there haven't been any dinosaur attacks since the sixties." He looked out the window and narrowed his eyes, squinting to see down to the ground. "See there, that city?" It wasn't hard to miss, as it was the one and only city on the island, build around the one and only harbor. Most of the population clustered there, with the rest spread out among the countless plantations and minor villages built up and into the walls of the volcanic cone. "That's Puerto Rojo, the capital. There's a club there you'll like, Gretchen, called the Rope & Razor. It's very..." He wracked his brain for the proper term. Goths weren't a thing anymore, were they? Maybe it was... "Punk. It's very punk. Loud music, flashing lights, free glowsticks. It should be right up your alley. There's also hiking, natural hot-springs, indigenous crafts... and the beaches! God, the beaches! We're going to lose days on those beaches alone." He looked down again, and blinked. "Huh, there're more buildings down there than I remember. They must have done some expanding while I've been away." He tried not to think about what 'away' meant. Those years in prison, stripped of his power, reduced to drear normalcy... it had been torturous! "Anyway, I can't wait to introduce you to Gallo, and President Perez. They're personal friends of mine."

@Blarghy You could have Adept make a Knowledge: Current Events roll to see if he remembers hearing of any recent Val Verdean news. Otherwise, Becker will just fill you in.

"I... what?" There was a pause, and Presto swore. It was the kind of word his mother would have bopped him for, the kind of word his father would have used as the justification for a grounding, but he said it anyway. "What in God's name was that?" the magician demanded. He groaned and forced himself to stand, wobbly, on his his feet. He glanced around in an attempt to gain a better understanding of his surroundings. "Becker?" he called, vision swimming. "Baku? I... something just happened, and I..." He reached up and clutched his forehead, felt his gorge rise up to his throat, and swallowed back the vomit. "I think I'm in over my head."

"That's... actually a good idea," Ethan mused. "Maybe next year." He took his coat from the hook and slid it on before opening the door and ushering Warne back out into the cold. It was bitter and biting, with a low wind that tossed flakes hither and yon. The pilot trudged through the snow and stood in the yard to stare up at the roof. He squinted into the dark and shook his head. "I can't see anything," he admitted. "Do you mind, ah, checking?" He looked around, saw that there was nobody around, and nodded. "I know it's probably not a sanctioned use of your power and normally I wouldn't ask, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't a squirrel, you know?"

Stone complied, lifting his hands with a careless nonchalance. He was smiling, but the guards wouldn't be able to see it through the blank mask of his helmet. His syncsuit, fit tight to his body, had many zippered pockets but no obvious weaponry. He was the very picture of unarmed compliance. "Easy there, fellas," he said. "Easy. We're the good guys." Hands still up, he arced a thumb at Agent Warne. "Adept, flash a badge, won't you? We're not all bulletproof."

This is the OOC thread for Viva Val Verde.

@Heritage It hadn't taken much convincing. All Samuel Steiner had to say to get their attention was "Val Verde," and all he had to say to get their agreement was "Vacation." Three words were all it took to get Lynn Epstein and Gretchen McDaniels to board a plane to the secretive little island a few hour's flight off their nation's southwestern coast. That, and a few days of planning. A employer can't just disappear along with two of her employees in tow and expect everything to keep running like Swiss clockwork in her absence. Schedules needed rewriting, tasks needed assigning, and subtle, only half-joking threats of terrible retaliation for failure needed making before they could leave. All things considered, it was a painless procedure. It could have been even more-so, with the power available to the three. A few spells and they could have stepped from their homes to the island in an instant, without the need for planes, trains, or automobiles. But part of the joy of vacation is the trip, and so they took a passenger jet to the American southwest, arranged a taxi to a small, private airfield, and boarded another plane -- small, but richly furnished -- to the island. The process had been described in great detail by Steiner's letter, now slightly crumpled but none the worse for wear. Written by their would-be host, a man named Gallo, the letter had given the two women only the smallest taste of his personality, the tiniest glimpse of what he'd be like. Sam had tried to fill them in on the rest but some men, like Gallo, defied simple explanation. "He just is," the magician explained. "He's larger than life. Big eater, big drinker, big talker. He and I go way back; I think you'll like him. He was a good friend to me... kind of like how you guys are, now. He took me in when I needed taking in and helped get me back on my feet when I was laying low." Eventually, the flight neared its end, and it wasn't long after that when the three could look out the windows and see it: Val Verde, set like a gleaming emerald on a sea of blue velvet. "My God," said Sam. "It's just as beautiful now as it ever was. I'd almost forgotten." @Blarghy James Warne dusted his hands and reached one of them into his jacket, intent on removing the battered carton of cigarettes nestled into a pocket therein. He was surrounded by the prone bodies of groaning men, their firearms thrown haphazardly around the room by a telekinetic storm of disarmament, with their persons having followed shortly thereafter. He flicked the lighter with a practiced thumb, lit the smoke, and inhaled. Other men might have allowed themselves a smile, if only a bitter one, at the idea of a job well done. Not Adept, not here. Duty called, he answered, and that was all. The cigarette, the smoke in his mouth, the fire in his lungs; that was his smile, his concession to the world. His phone buzzed, once, an indication of incoming text. He reached for it, touched the screen, and brought up the client. TSA pegged your old friend [STEINER, SAMUEL] leaving the country w/ 2 women, it said. [EPSTEIN, LYNN] & [McDANIELS, GRETCHEN]. They're headed for Val Verde. Pack for sunny weather and report for briefing. Sorry. It was signed, at the bottom, by 'B,' which meant it couldn't be ignored. Warne grunted, replaced his phone, and strode towards the exit. He passed police and paramedics on the way, who hustled towards the battered men behind him. When he was out of sight, he took to the skies like a bird of prey and flew back to the city. It was going to be a long day.

Moments passed -- during which the Grinch finished tying an antler to the head of Max the dog -- before there was another sound. The crunch of fresh snow, once and then twice. A thump, and the creak of something settling on the roof. Ethan's eyes flicked skyward, his brows furrowed, and his thumb depressed the remote control's 'pause' button. The movie halted and Lilly looked at him, her face scrunched with concern. "Daddy?" she asked. "What's wrong?" Her father looked down at her, smiling, but Warne could see his associate's eyes strained with the unusual presence of concern. "Nothing, doll," he told her. "Do me a favor, okay? Go tell mommy to meet Buck in the basement, all right? I want you two to play hide-and-seek for a bit; I'm it, okay? I'll come find you in a bit." His daughter looked up at him, mouth twisting to speak, but he held up a finger. "Lilly, one. Don't make me get to two." She nodded, slid from the couch, and dashed towards the kitchen. The moment she was out of site, Ethan stood and strode for the door. "Come with me," he told the other agent. "There's someone on the roof."

The magician swore and crossed his arms before him -- not over his chest, but held out in midair. He spoke a word of power and conjured a fiery wall of protective sorcery, a smouldering half-dome shield to defend himself from harm. "Take that, you... thing," he snarled. And then, annoyed, he shouted: "Baku! For Pete's sake, get back here! I'll protect you, but we've got to get out; you can't just stay in here!"

Stone laughed, his head arching back to accommodate his guffaws. "Ah, we worked that out in the beta-phase," he said. "I mean, it took a few million dollars, but we got it fixed." He frowned, remembering the machine's performance with the Green Dragon. "I just wish we'd caught more bugs back then, instead of finding them now." There was a huff of breath as he sobered and shrugged. "Ah, well. So long nobody gets hurt that doesn't deserve it, it'll all balance out."

I've reduced his Will Save by 1 to accommodate the loss of the 'Executive Override' drawback.

Upgrade split the sky like a bolt of silver lightning as it approached the building. It flew gracefully, one arm outstretched in a classic pose, before pausing mid-air and hovering. The mechanical man floated there, unnervingly still, as though considering something. Then, without warning, it fell. Several tons of armor, armament and ammunition plummeted to Earth at a terrifying speed before once more halting. The landing was smooth, almost mockingly so when compared to more conventional aircraft, and the AMP knelt down so that its chest could split open and allow its pilot to exit. In through the back, out through the front, that was how they did it. Ethan Stone stood in the parking lot, his flight-suit tight around his body, a form-fitting helmet obscuring his features. The AMP closed shut behind him, bowed in obedient supplication, before it stood to await further commands. "God," Ethan muttered. "I love that machine." He smiled at the AMP and then turned smartly on his heel to approach the car containing agents Warne and Becker.

Game Master (please allocate points to Punchline): Lights, Camera, Action! Presto the Preposterous: Psichology. Upgrade: Heavy Metal Christmas. Irradiated Intervention.

"Gnhg!" grunted Sam, his free hand reached up to clutch his chest in the aftermath of the gunfire. He hated being shot; it was never a pleasant experience. "Baku!" he snarled. "Damn it, we don't have time!" He came to a decision, spawned partly of desperation and partly of pure, innocent hope. "I'm going to let you go," he said. His voice was soft, and he released the spell that kept the Dreamweaver captive so that he could swing the wand around and launch a bolt of sizzling blue lightning at Warne's subconscious defender. The fewer enemies they had to face the better, he thought, and the more they could focus on the monster attempting to kill them all. "Baku, please! We can all get out of here alive if we work together!"

Alternatively, we could do a repeat of the earlier meeting and have Ethan keep the AMP up high, out of sight, and ready to swoop down and engage if necessary. That'd put Warne in there alone, though; I'm not sure how I feel about that. Scratch that; I'll park it in the lot and put the fear of God and/or Uncle Sam into everyone.

Colonel Chalmers sighed and eased himself into a chair, brushing an empty pizza box out of the way before settling in. He laced his fingers together and breathed. "Jason is..." he leafed through the papers until he found the proper sheet, read, and swore. "He's twenty, currently attending MIT in pursuit of a degree in engineering." The large man leaned back into his seat, which creaked beneath the weight of his bulk. "Well, that's just dandy. They might all be in on it. I mean, it says here that Shondra's a nurse, but... even without the education, she could be pulling all the strings." He sucked a breath and looked to Sea Devil. "You raise a good point. A few of you can, or could, get to the house by flying or... whatever it is the clown does." He looked over at Punchline, who stuck out his tongue and wiggled his ears, and sighed. "But I think it best if you go incognito, or at least as stealthily as possible. We have a few options, but I think a delivery truck could work. We've got a few flower vans down in storage from the old Cold War days that would do the trick." Finally, he turned his attention to Miracle Girl. "A fine idea. The more you know about what's going on inside before you engage, the better prepared you'll be when you do."

Sam watched with growing horror as the creature tore itself free of the floor and turned its malevolent attentions upon him. He twitched the wand and drew Baku towards him, the screaming Dreamweaver making the expenditure of magic even more unpleasant for all of his wailing. "Baku!" shouted the magician. "I need you to calm yourself. There's a way out of here for both of us, but we need to work together. Okay? Give me your word and I'll set you down." A magician's word was a special thing, in many cases binding. A broken word could lead to curses most foul, in many cases, and might draw the ire of higher powers. Then the bullet tore through his head, harmlessly passing through flesh, blood, and bone to emerge from the other side and slaughter Private Kello. Sam viewed the ensuing scene with a torrent of emotions whipping chaotically through his mind, but settled eventually on a deep, gnawing despair. Life wasn't fair. He'd known that for years, but to see it proven time and again was beginning to wear him down. "I'm sorry," he told the Warne of the past. "God above, I'm sorry." He looked down at Baku, and then over at Becker, still frantically firing round after round into the silent defenses of the agent's subconscious. "We need to go!" he shouted. The monster was tearing free, and it wouldn't be a hypothetical threat for long. "Becker! What do we need to do?"