Cubist

Jubatus nodded. He'd used the phrase 'it made my hackles rise' a few times in the past, but now it was literally true, rather than just being a colorful metaphor. And it wasn't a comfortable sensation. Not comfortable at all... The feline walked over to Zap, and nodded at her: "Come on up front, and let's get this show on the road," he said, and he returned to where Brandtford's gizmo was set up. Only vaguely aware of the new passenger that Baron Blackbody had just dumped on board the bus, Jubatus turned off his Timeshift completely, returning to his default tempo of 6. Then he gradually upshifted, keeping an eye on the Channeler's indicator lights as his tempo increased...

Even before Miss Steampunk finished noting that the train's motion was an unwanted anomaly, Jubatus had upshifted and blurred on up towards the engine which pulled the train, the obvious place to look for signs of whatever was making the train accelerate. Ramstein was there! He'd clearly made efficient use of his time after leaving the cheetah's company; not only were all three of the train's engineers unconscious (doubtless by Ramstein's own hand), but he'd gimmicked the controls so that the engine's throttle was stuck wide open! "Hermes and Savitar!" the cheetah swore. Well, the highest priority was to stop the train before it was well and truly a runaway; Ramstein himself could wait until after that first task was finished. Not bothering to downshift even a little bit, the fastest cat alive searched the engine compartment... and quickly located a few oversized socket wrenches. He grabbed them all and went outside, running alongside the drive wheels on the left side of the engine. Okay, Jubatus thought to himself. Here's the wheels... here's the linkages... looks like that could be a drive shaft... The train's forward motion was eminently ignorable; at his current tempo of 40, a realtime velocity of 120 miles per clock-hour would appear to be a mere three MPH, as seen from Jube's point of view. And the train was nowhere near 120 mph. Yet. The bolts which held the driveshaft linkages together were all fairly obvious, so Jubatus tried out his borrowed socket wrenches... success! Some people might have been surprised to see the that the inhumanly-slim feline was actually able to undo these bolts. Of course, none of these people would have considered that Jube's musculature could generate sufficient effort to propel his hundred-pound body at a speed of 70 MPH, a feat which required more than 18 horsepower worth of force... After undoing each bolt, the cheetah made sure to put the newly-loose bits into convenient vest-pockets. And within mere seconds, as measured by the clock, the engine's left-side driveshaft was completely decoupled from its wheels. Decoupling the right-side driveshaft was the work of only a few more clock-seconds. Now to put the brakes on this beast, Jubatus thought. Hopefully without any unpleasant side-effects -- like, say, derailing the engine or any of the cars. Stepping up to a position in front of the engine, Jube got down on all fours (which he did not enjoy, but Saving Lives trumped his distaste for 'animal-like' posture)... butted his left shoulder up against the engine proper... and used all four of his limbs to push against the train's forward motion. Under ordinary circumstances, Jube's 18-horsepower muscles would never have been able to even make a dent in the train's speed. But here and now, the cheetah's Timeshift was a literal force multiplier, which boosted his force up to more than 700 horsepower. Even that much force wasn't really enough for the job, but it was what Jube had to work with, so he used it. Was the train's forward motion slowing at all? Not that the feline could tell, but he had faith in his physical capabilities, and in the math which led him to believe that this crazy stunt was even doable in the first place...

Jubatus is displaying his innate -10 ranks in Diplomacy. Which isn't actually recorded on his character sheet, but you know what I mean, yes? Anyway, Jube isn't going to make any violent moves, just indulge in forceful rhetoric. He doesn't know if Supercape will take his advice re: returning the monkey to its homeworld, but he sure hopes so, if push comes to shove. It will be interesting to see how much (if anything) Flowers chooses to reveal in response to Jube's demands for information.

"What a coincidence; 'utmost interest' is just what a slaughterhouse has in the cattle that go into it," Jubatus snarled, not bothering to even try concealing his deep distrust of the Galactic entity. "Exactly what sort of interest do you have in Terra? And why, exactly, did you feel like recruiting Terrans for this job -- trying to keep a low profile so the Galactic gendarmes don't interfere, or what?" The cheetah scanned his surroundings with a decidedly jaundiced eye. "With the kind of resources you're showing here, you can't get hold of a starship? Yeah, right. Flowers, I don't know what you're hiding from us; I don't know why you're hiding it; but I know damn well that you are hiding something! And I don't like hidden agendas at all." Now Jubatus turned his attention to Supercape: "I suggest that you prep whatever voodoo you do to bring us back to the monkey's homeworld, and be ready to take us there at a moment's notice. Because if Flowers doesn't feel like playing straight with us, I say we put the critter back where we found it and call it a day."

"I'm going to check on something," Jubatus said -- and he blurred outside. The first thing he did was get a nose-ful of the scents of every member of the mob which Push had neutralized; if any of the seeming 'natives' was an impostor, there was a chance that that impostor would not be carrying as much ambient scent (from the local earth and plants and such) as the real natives. However, there were no such olfactory 'markers' on any of the inert mob -- or if there was, Jubatus just didn't notice it. Next, the fastest cat alive made himself a one-feline recon squad with an 'expanding spiral' search pattern, casting a suspicious eye on everything within a one-mile radius of the building he and his comrades had fallen back to. Most of the area was clear, as best Jube could tell -- no freshly-excavated dirt that didn't look like it had anything to do with the ongoing construction work, for instance -- and that suited him fine. He might be suspicious enough to think there was a good chance of some unkind and evil souls hiding somewhere nearby, but that didn't mean he wanted to be right about that kind of thing... Blam!! went the shotgun! The shooter wore fatigues, looked like he had plenty of other weaponry on his person, and had been lurking behind that truck Jube noticed earlier. Okay -- that yutz is asking for it, the feline thought as he zipped a couple of hundred yards away from Mr. Fatigue. and broke out his commlink: "Jubatus here," he said, hoping someone was listening. "Checked scents on the mob, and everybody smells like a local, so I doubt there's any ringers in the crowd. Jerkwad in military fatigues was hiding behind that truck I pointed out, but decided to fire a shotgun blast at me when I was doing recon in his vicinity. I'm going to take him down now." And the cheetah blurred back over to the shooter, to make good on his promise. He slashed at the shotgun-wielder with his foreclaws...

Jubatus stepped ahead of his companions, interposing himself between Flowers and them (the purple monkey included). "That's nice. But before we actually, y'know, make the delivery, I want some answers from you, Flowers. First off, why does a hyperadvanced Galactic entity like you need to call on a bunch of primitives from a low-rent planet like Terra? Why couldn't you handle the job yourself, or at least bring in people from any of the real interstellar civilizations?"

Anybody whose first reaction, upon being noticed, is to fire away with a shotgun blast, is probably up to no good. Shotgun boy gets Jube's attention, thanks. Free actions... Do we have any communications protocols set up (i.e., "okay, people, tune your radios to frequency thus-and-so" or whatever)? If so, Jube will report report Shotgun Boy's attack to the rest of the heroes. If not, Jube will be annoyed at not having thought of this himself (dude's a fussbudget perfectionist, what can I say?) and he'll zip back to the heroes' "HQ" to leave a written note before he returns to deal with Shotgun Boy.

It's actually quite normal, if not expected, for people with Hero System expertise to find MnM a bit confuzzling; while the two systems do share a fair amount of concepts in common, the differences can really mess you over... sort of like how the UK and the US are "two great nations separated by a common language". Regarding your lad's "Science rules" mindset: It may be worth noting that the Freedom City setting includes a number of genuine deities, not to mention all those honest-to-Hecate magicians who are running around. A "science rules" mindset can work if your boy is a Nay Theist, but the character will just look silly if he is, instead, a Flat Earth Atheist.

Hmmm... the crowd is disarmed and paralyzed, so there's no real danger from that end of things... Jube is going to do an "olfactory survey" of the crowd (see also: Acute and Tracking on his sense of smell). The people who actually live in this area should all carry a fairly similar collection of scents from the environmental factors (plants, dirt, etc) they share in common, so anybody whose scent stands out as different might just be an outsider. Like, say, a visiting supervillain, perhaps? The cheetah will Take 10 for a Notice 'check' of 19. As well, Jube will do reconnaissance over a nontrivial area; say, all the territory within a 1-mile radius of our impromptu HQ. Hopefully, if there's any enemies hidden behind bushes, or freshly-excavated whatzits that aren't part of our construction efforts, or whatever, Jube will have a decent chance of noticing. Again, Jube will Take 10 for a Notice 'check' of 19.

If you think a speedster might be useful as a courier to help coordinate your efforts (and maybe get medieval upside the head of the occasional Deep One), Jubatus is available! I mean, Myrmidon can only be five places at once, right?

Rammstein is actually in the engine compartment? If so... Jube goes for the driveshafts. Again, stopping the train takes priority over nuking Rammstein. Jube zips in, looks for a suitable wrench, and whether he finds one or not, he zips right back out to deal with those annoying shafts. Jube isn't sure if he actually can stop the train at all, so taking the engines out of the equation is a Very Good Thing. I hadn't considered it as a Power Stunt, but yeah, that's it -- stunting SuperStrength off of the Timeshift container. And yes, Jube will be bloody exhausted afterwards. His 720-horsepower output is positively anemic by comparison with the force produced by actual train engines, so he will be putting his all into it, and however long it took for the real engine to accelerate the train up to whatever speed, it will take a good deal longer for Jube to bring the train to a halt. Derailing the train is not Jube's first choice; he'll just try to brake it 'normally', unless there's an approaching hazard on the track that it looks like the train will hit before it stops normally. Meanwhile, Fenris has a golden opportunity to neutralize Rammstein in the engine compartment.

Since Baron Blackbody has grabbed hold of the bus, Jube will whip out his UV-light and zip around the bus, running on its windows, with his blacklight continually aimed directly outside. With any luck, this will hurt BB's "hand" enough that he lets go of the bus long enough for the CHanneler to take us home! Since Jube's player -- me -- is an evil-minded soul, it occurs to me that agonized or not, BB might well interfere with the Channeler's operation, thus sending us off to some other dimension entirely. The plot-question is, do we want to end the 'excursion' now, or should we let the adventure continue a bit longer?

"First humans, sure," Jubatus murmured... He actually hadn't considered the question of the beastie's species-name; he'd assumed that it already had such a designation, given it by one or another of the existing interstellar civilizations, but of course there was every possibility that none of their representatives had ever set foot on this planet. "Interesting idea. Have to think about that; what if some other sophonts have already classified it? But even if we do have right of naming, there's no way that critter's gonna fit into the nested hierarchy of Terran life-forms, so... hrrm..." It occurred to Jubatus that he had no idea whether the existing Linnean scheme of binomial nomenclature had already been extended to accommodate extraterrestrial life, and if so, how. "Definitely have to think about that... and check with the ICZN... before I lay down a name. "In the meantime, how about we get the hell out of this open-air oven?"

When Jubatus first notices the train is moving, he's going to zip on up to the engine and see what's going on there. If he sees Ramstein along the way, Jube will make a mental note and continue on his way; stopping the train is the highest, or at least most immediately urgent, priority. At the engine: Jube will do whatever seems appropriate to get the train under control. If somebody is at the controls and making the train speed up, Jube will take them down, because they're part of the problem. If the train's engineer is tied up, Jube will untie them and let them do their job. If the engine is completely unmanned, Jube will do his best to figure out which lever(s) control the brakes, and he'll try to brake the train. If the controls are wrecked, Jube will grab a wrench and zip on down to the drive wheels, with the intent of disconnecting the driveshafts from said wheels. Ideally, Jube can find a suitable wrench on board; if not, perhaps Jube can improvise a suitable tool from the stuff he carries in his vest-pockets. And if all else fails, maybe Jube's Timeshift-enhanced strength of 18 may be enough to turn the ruddy bolts? Of course, disconnecting the driveshafts won't negate any of the velocity the train's already carrying. However! By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, Jubatus' muscles should be able to generate about 10,000 foot-pounds of force per second, which works out to a little over 18 horsepower. Roughly speaking, said muscles can propel a 100-lb body at a speed of 70 MPH; since 1 horsepower is 550 foot-pounds per second, at the normal tempo of 1, said muscles are good for a baseline figure of about 18 horsepower just because. Now throw in Jube's Timeshift, which effectively multiplies Jube's force-per-unit-time output by a factor of 40, and the feline is up to about 720 horsepower. For comparison, modern-day train engines have horsepower ratings in the 3K-to-6K range. If Jube gets in front of the train and puts his body into it, I guarantee you that his 720-horsepower worth of braking force will have some effect on the train's forward motion! Rather less of an effect than the train's engine would, to be sure, but some effect. And I'll bet Fenris, with his STR 24 (one-third again larger than Jube's STR of 18, we note), would be at least as effective as Jube at slowing the train down. And with both of 'em working together... Once the train is brought back under control, Jube will go looking for Ramstein.

I think Jube's most-recent post works well as it stands, regardless of the specific game-mechanical details that go into it. He's duct-taped (Snare-d) the demons; he really doesn't know how long the Snare will hold; and he's at least going to try for a peaceful resolution, no matter how unlikely that is to succeed. For the record... [*:2zu1g2jh]Yes, Jube is Stunting off of his Speed, so he's apparently got 6 'virtual pp' to 'spend' on the stunt. [*:2zu1g2jh]He's not trying to Snare anyone at a distance -- he's getting up, close, and personal with the duct tape -- so yes, it's downgraded to Touch (-1 modifier to cost). [*:2zu1g2jh]And yes, there's an Area extra in there; I was thinking Area: Trail rather than Area: Burst, but either way, it's a +1 modifier on cost, so Jube's Snare ends up at its normal cost 2 pp/rank, so it works out to 3 ranks in Snare. The demons who made the original Reflex save, to avoid being hit, are only affected by (3/2, rounded down =) 1 rank in Snare; everybody else is hit with 3 ranks.

Jubatus gave Supercape a skeptical look. "Giving the critter a name implies a long-term relationship, like maybe making it a pet. Kinda doubt that's a good idea -- does the phrase 'rabbits to Australia' have any meaning to you?" He hoped that phrase would suffice to make his point, but if need be, the feline was willing to talk about the potential dangers of importing a life-form into a biome that was completely new to the critter. "Apart from that, what makes you think this Flowers guy would allow Wisp to keep the critter? He's collecting specimens -- why would he bother, if he's not going to keep them himself, for whatever other purposes?"

Hmmm... Some possibilities for Jubatus' involvement, in no particular order: [*:vrk8x51g]To Bell a Cat -- Evil!Dok thinks that Jube's Timeshift power is an exploitable resource, so he captures the cheetah and performs unethical medical/genetic procedures on Jube to make the feline a more-suitable tool for his purposes. Presumably, the Grue-derived modifications of Jube's DNA prevent Evil!Dok from just giving Jube the Interceptors treatment, or perhaps that treatment only works for a short time until Jube's high-speed metabolism manages to overcome it? Anyway, Evil:Dok infects Jube with an engineered retrovirus to deactivate Jube's remaining human genes, and offers a deal: If Jube will serve Evil!Dok, Evil!Dok will provide regular doses of an antiviral drug that will preserve Jube's humanity for a time. Jube tells Evil!Dok to get stuffed. Evil!Dok shrugs and moves on to the next stage in his plot... leaving Jube unattended in one of Evil!Dok's secret labs. Can Jubatus succeed in putting a dent in Evil!Dok's scheme before the fastest cat alive is reduced to a mindless animal? [*:vrk8x51g]Kill the Messenger -- Somebody in Freedom City has discovered a vital piece of information that has the potential to throw Evil!Dok's scheme into disarray, if only that information can be transmitted to [insert name of person here]. Radio, TV, email, and internet communications can't be trusted, since Evil!Dok has demonstrated the ability to subvert/control them all, so the info must be carried by a courier... and that means Jubatus. It's a simple task -- carry a small package from Point A to Point B -- but it's complicated by the presence of any number of Evil!Dok's minions/hirelings/mind-fried slaves, all of whom will of course do their best to prevent the package from reaching its destination. [*:vrk8x51g]Blitzkrieg -- Jubatus versus endless waves of Deep Ones. Which will be exhausted first -- the cheetah, or the supply of Deep Ones?

Regarding Jube's request for information: Yes, that word he didn't allow himself to say was "kill". Because for all Jube knows, maybe he did leave a trail of maimed bodies in his wake... I suspect Dok would be able to figure that out; Quinn will have to decide whether or not Crow caught that little point.

The world slowed down as Doktor Archeville spoke... No, wait. That's me, Jay realized. So friggin' shocked-slash-distracted, I'm losing control over my Timeshift. He squeezed his eyes shut and re-established the concentration that allowed him to interact with normal-speed people at their tempo. And... better watch myself when I'm talking, too. "H'oooh-khhay," the feline said, his vocal quality distinctly lower than usual for him. "Whaat, ddid, I, ddho, d'rr-ing, my, fuugue, state? Hhwho, did, I, kkhh -- hurrt?"

Keeping his voice down (to whatever extent his throat structure allowed him to), Jubatus spoke quietly to Brandtford: "I got no idea what Baron Black out there has backing him up, but I'll bet he's not anywhere near as omnipotent as he wants us to believe. If he really was that powerful, why'd he bother with the scam up front? For that matter, why doesn't he just pound us all right this second? I say the guy's stalling for time -- maybe he's waiting for his power to recharge, I dunno. I think we need to hit the 'go' button now, and if the oversized inkblot gets in our way, then the supertypes on this bus slap him down."

In the seven-decades-plus-change of his former life, Jay Xavier had never once encountered demons, let alone demons that congealed out of smoke! What the -- huh!? -- But -- The shock of this surprise was great enough, not just to render the feline motionless, but also to kill the continuing Timeshift that kept him at the normal tempo of 1... Back at his default tempo of 6, Jubatus recovered his equilibrium within a second or so of clock-time. Okay. Okay. It's weird, but it's real. Get your [bg=black]xxix[/bg] together, man! From Jubatus' point of view, the demons were drifting slowly forward with obviously lethal intent. The cheetah upshifted to a tempo of 40 times faster than normal (his practical upper limit) and thought about how he should respond: Duct tape their eyes shut so we can pick 'em off while they're blind? Do they even need eyes? Hm. They do seem to need limbs, so how about hogtying 'em with dee-tee? Not sure how effective that'll be versus things which condensed into solidity from a gaseous state, but it's worth a shot. The fastest cat alive blurred into action -- taking one demon at a time, he pulled their arms behind their backs; bound their arms together by coiling duct tape around their wrists; and wrenched their feet up so he could duct-tape their ankles to their wrists. He then spent a precious few upshifted seconds looking over his handiwork, reviewing it for obvious errors... and seeing none, he downshifted to the normal tempo of 1. "I bought us some time," Jube said to his comrades. "No idea how long they'll be stuck, so prep for the worst ay-ess-ay-pee." Then, turning his attention to the ensnared demons: "Okay. You guys want to explain what you're here for, or would'ja rather skip on down to the part where everyone starts whaling on each other?"

If I've read the Area rules correctly, the DC for this Snare attack is (10 + attack-ranks), in which case the stated DC of 12 means the Snare is a 'mere' 2 ranks. I'm not sure I agree with that, but seeing as how you're twisting my arm with a Hero Point, I will not offer more than token resistance...

Jube will Take 10, for an Initiative 'roll' of 41. What he'll do: Power-stunt a Snare with the Area extra, using duct tape from his vest. Since it's power-stunting off of his Speed 6, I guess it would be 6 ranks in Snare? Not sure. Anyway, the idea is that for each of the six demons, Jube 'handcuffs' it by pulling its hands behind its back and duct-taping its wrists together, and finally duct-taping its ankles to its wrists. According to the Area Attack rules on pg 159 of the Core book, each target gets a Reflex roll, against a DC of (10 + attack's rank), which would be 16 if I'm right about the ranks in Snare. Them what makes the Reflex roll are only affected by half of the full number of ranks, and them what fails the Reflex roll get to eat the whole thing.

Hearing the captives' burst of rapidfire whatever-language-it-was, Jubatus thought it was a good bet that questioning them might yield useful intelligence. Of course, that requires a common language. So... "Gonna try something," he remarked. The feline moved over to a spot about four feet away from the prone captives -- beyond arm's reach -- and crounched down on his haunches, putting himself closer to their level. He raised his empty hands, palm forward and fingers pointing up, hoping they'd interpret the gesture as a sign that he had no hostile intentions towards them. Okay. Probably don't want to lead with English, because they're likely to associate it with jerkwads like Ramstein. Now, let's see how this works. Looking at one captive and then the other, Jube asked: «¿Habla usted español*?» The captives looked at each other and spoke in their own tongue. Great -- a dud, Jube thought. Next, in the second of the three languages he understood, the cheetah asked, «Parlez-vous français*?» A few seconds of French-free response later, Jube tried his third and final language: "Do you speak English?" Still no joy. "Oh, well," he said as he stood up. "Time to bring in a consultant." And with those words, the fastest cat on two worlds blurred his way off the train; within little more than a second, he reached the policemen he and Fenris had rescued from that Thugee attack. After downshifting to their tempo, and waiting for them to recover from their shock and surprise, Jube said, "Pardon me for interrupting, but there's a couple of prisoners on the train who just might have useful information, and me and they don't have any common language. Could I borrow one of you for a translator?"

"You're welcome," Jubatus replied. "We aim to please." "Shouldn't be a problem. I'll play rear guard, just in case this planet's super-fast lifeforms include a vicious predator or three." "Sounds like a plan. See you at the disc." After ending the conversation, Jubatus looked over at Wisp, who was getting along very well with the purple monkey. He half-regretted not having a chance to test his speed against the little beastie... Yeah, right. That would have interfered with getting the job done. He stayed well away from her; as she'd so correctly noted before, his built-in pointy bits weren't exactly conducive to befriending animals. Apart from that, there was always the chance that the monkey's speed was due to an evolutionary arms race; if so, the critter was likely to associate his kind of speed with "things that want to kill and eat me". The cheetah contented himself with making digital vidcam recordings of the little guy, in between frequent looks around for signs of incoming danger.