Cubist

The fastest cat alive nodded at the captain. "What's your best guess on the number of terrorists?" he asked, and then similar queries on what (if anything) was known about the terrorists' powers (if any -- the captain had speculated about Zoom usage, but that wasn't certain), their tactics, and their weaponry. The speedster wasn't expecting to learn much, but however little the captain could tell him, that little was quite a bit more than he, Jubatus, knew. After gleaning what information he could, Jube upshifted and spent a few clock-seconds working over the poorly-parked vehicles he'd noted (which he presumed to be the means by which the terrorists had arrived here in the first place): He removed all the nuts holding the wheels onto their respective axles, putting the hubcaps back on the van's wheels to conceal his handiwork, after which he stored all the nuts in one of his vest's many pockets. You never knew when a small, dense projectile might come in handy, after all. Then, after disabling the terrorists' getaway vehicles, Jubatus put on his eye- and ear-protectors -- apart from things like flash-bang grenades, any armory contained lots of toys that made loud noises and bright light -- and rushed into the building. Since his Timeshift messed with gravity, the fastest cat alive decided to try something a little different: Once he was inside, he'd run on the walls, close to the ceiling. Hopefully, any sentries the terrorists might have deployed on corridors or whatever would be focusing their attention on the floor rather than the ceiling... Jube's game plan, like Gaul, was into three parts divided: First, recon the entire interior of the building, finding out where everyone, perp and hostage alike, actually was, and seeing what weapons and other resources the perps had access to. Hopefully his speed, his unorthodox wall-running, and the innate stealthiness of the cheetah he'd become, would keep any of the perps from detecting his presence while he was scoping out the battlefield. Second, pull the hostages out and carry them to safety. This would necessarily be a one-at-a-time process; Jube would have preferred to move all of the hostages to safety in one pass, but that wasn't a live option, so he'd live with it. "Needs must, when the Devil drives", as the saying went. Third, disable the perps. While he wasn't thrilled about this part of the plan, he also recognized that it would probably be necessary. Perhaps if he sprayed his fire extinguisher into a perp's face, that would give him an opening (while the perp was dealing with his faceful of foam) to duct-tape the perp into harmlessness? The plan sounded good... but Jubatus had no illusions about how likely it was that the perps would play along. The cheetah had been lucky so far, tonight. He wasn't at all sure how long his luck would continue to hold...

Jubatus' voice crackled over the car radio: "You guys accepting assistance from someone who's not a professional ell-ee-oh?" "My name is Jubatus. I'm a supertype who's on your side. ETA at your location will be 2 seconds after... mark." And in two seconds, Jube does indeed show up at the cops' location -- about 30 feet in front of their cars, well within the cops' field of vision.

I'm not sure if Jube's commlink knows what to do with police radio, but it seems like a reasonable thing to try. His police scanner is strictly one-way, hence not useful for a conversation... Assuming the commlink does what I hope, Jube's plan is to introduce himself to the cops and let 'em know he's on his way to help, ETA about one second.

Having circled around the Hornbrass property once, the fastest cat alive chose a spot out of the cops' lines of sight, and then downshifted to match their tempo of 1. Then he tried to use his comlink to talk to the police at the Hornbrass front entrance...

"Hornbrass, got it," Jubatus replied. "Thanks." And the fastest cat alive sped away to the site of the assault! Once he arrived at the Hornbrass campus, Jubatus circled around the property to see where the anarchists were -- get some advance notice before running into an unknown situation.

I have no idea how likely, or improbable, it would be for Jube to run into a supervillain on his first day as a hero. It would certainly be appropriate to the genre, of course! Either way is fine by me, and I will gladly leave the decision in your capable GMly hands.

It's unfortunate that the man didn't recall more, but any information was better than none... or at least that was the theory. Jubatus thanked the man. Then, turning to the reporter who first announced the attack on the munitions factory, the cheetah asks what specific location the anarchists are attacking; there aren't that many munitions factories in or around Freedom City, so Jube has a pretty good idea of where the anarchists have to be, but he'd still like to confirm the target before he starts running.

Sounds like a plan. [Patrick Stewart voice] Make it so!

I'm not worrying about the plotline; rather, I'm looking at the given information -- namely, that word of Something Bad Happening has gotten out -- and pointing out that one possible (if not "likely") consequence, is that some other hero(es) besides Jubatus might have become aware of said Bad Happening. I have no preference regarding whether Jube ends up taking on the anarchists alone, or in the company of other heroes. If Jube does it himself, that just gives him another opportunity to shine on his own, which is good; if he ends up working with other heroes, I get a chance to see how Jube interacts with other characters, which is good in a different way. As far as I'm concerned, it's a win-win situation! If you prefer one option or another, Supercape, I say go for it. Otherwise, you could always flip a coin or something?

"Right -- this press conference is over," Jubatus declared. To the man who'd just spoke, he quietly asked "What did they look like? And what did you overhear them say, if anything?"

Anarchists at a munitions factory, eh? Since this event has apparently been noted and reported on, it would not be the least bit surprising if other heroes also got wind of it and showed up somewhere along the way.

I think the "whizz-cat" thing works just fine, as an indicator of how good or bad a reporter is. If they call Jube "Whizz-cat", either they didn't get the memo or they don't care about getting the facts right; either way, they are clearly not worth Jube's time. Not even upshifted time...

It was madness -- but the cheetah really ought to have expected something like it. Life-threatening industrial accidents were newsworthy, and the time he'd just spent in cleanup had obviously been sufficient to let various interested people arrive here... Ack! Somebody remind me to make a Christmas list, so I can leave Fat Boy off it, Jube thought to himself -- but he did not allow his annoyance to show up on his face. "Thanks, Ms., but the name is actually 'Jubatus'." Zeus, I hope I didn't just waste my breath. On the plus side, I'll be able to tell which news outlets are worth my time by noting which ones call me 'Whizz-cat', rather than 'Jubatus', when they run this report. "You're welcome. Like I said, you can call me 'Jubatus' -- but you can also call me 'Jay Nelson Xavier'." Looking directly into the camera, Jube explained, "Seeing as how I look like this 24/7, I really can't see the point of even pretending to keep my identity secret." Then, he turned back to the reporter. "As for my story: To begin with, I was born at a very early age. Most of my life hasn't been anything that would be interesting to anyone beside myself. I don't know how I got the permanent fur coat, but it showed up in May of last year... and it wasn't until just recently that I figured out what the heck I was going to do with myself, now that I'm a cheetah/human hybrid critter..." Note to self: Find out who that cameraman is working for, and make sure to add his employer to my list of 'news outlets' to never let myself be interviewed by.

'Whizz-cat'? 'Speed-lion'? Thank Thoth I didn't consult him when I was picking my hero-name, the feline speedster mused in the privacy of his own skull... Decontamination was every bit as noisome as Jubatus had feared it would be. It was also every bit as necessary -- unless, of course, he was willing to find out the hard way what those toxins would do to his hybrid cheetah/human metabolism. Not an option, in other words. As for the men he'd rescued, it hadn't even occurred to him that he and they might go through decontamination together... Jubatus returned their grateful smiles as he shook hands. "Thanks." He wasn't sure why his transformation had left his facial musculature mostly intact; since it had, he could smile properly, which he did now. "I was just passing through, and didn't have anything better to do, so..."

"The name" -- a short spasm of coughing -- "the name is Jubatus. And yes, I" -- cough -- "am male. Got any decontamination facilities I could" -- cough -- "use?"

The Timeshift messed with Jubatus' hearing and vision -- when he upshifted, all sounds got transposed lower, to longer wavelengths; similarly, all colors shifted towards the infrared end of the spectrum. At this particular moment, he was running at a tempo of 40, so he was seeing by far ultraviolet wavelengths, and hearing in the high ultrasonic range. Jubatus had learned to deal with it early on, but even now, there were times when these sensory shifts just felt wrong to him. And moving through a chemical plant filled with toxic smoke was definitely one of those times... Didn't matter. He'd reached the target, and rather sooner than he'd expected to. All three men were in the same location, which was good. None of the three was moving -- but since the cheetah was currently operating 40 times faster than normal, this was only to be expected. If any of them were trying to say something, those words were inaudible to Jubatus, his Timeshift having transposed them down more than five octaves, far beneath the low end of his ears' frequency range. For all Jubatus knew or could tell, they might be dead. But dead or alive, he wasn't about to leave their bodies here to be consumed in exotic fire. The fastest cat alive spent thirty seconds of his time (less than one second, by the clock) examining the tableau -- the ring of fire, what objects were actually burning, and so on -- before formulating a plan of action. Step one: Gather four doors from nearby rooms, using his Swiss army knife to take them off their hinges. Step two: Create a six-foot gap in the ring of fire, a gap whose location he'd chosen based on what he'd seen while he examined the scene. Breaking the ring of fire shouldn't be difficult; he'd spray his fire extinguisher at the base of the flames in the area that would become his gap, and then, since he couldn't spare the time it would take for the flames over the extinguished bits to dissipate, he'd use one of his two doors like an oversized paddle, sweeping the actual flames aside. Only one side of the door would directly touch the flames (and therefore be contaminated by whatever toxic combustion by-products might be in said flames), he'd make sure of that. Step three: Move the three victims outside, where the air was clean and the paramedic were already on hand. It'd have to be a three-pass operation, as Jubatus didn't think he could handle more than one adult at a time. Since the cheetah couldn't tell how badly injured the victims were, he planned to disturb their bodies as little as possible. Specifically, he'd raise each man (as gently and evenly as he could manage!) a few inches off the ground; slip one of his three remaining doors under them, effectively serving as an impromptu gurney; do the actual moving-outside thing; and once outside, carefully deposit them on an unoccupied real gurney (assuming one was available) or else a reasonably clear patch of land near an ambulance. That was the plan, anyway. Jubatus was keenly aware that no battle plan ever survived contact with the enemy, and as far as he was concerned, the dratted inferno counted as an 'enemy' for purposes of that aphorism...

Of course Jube took 'cunning precautions' -- he's a perfectionist with the Master Plan feat! Apart from that, the once-a-minute Fortitude check is noted, and Jube doesn't intend to stick around long enough to make the first such check. We shall see whether or not circumstances conspire against Jube so that he must stick around long enough to be affected by the vile toxins in the air...

Interesting—the fat guy doesn't seem to have noticed that I'm not human, was the first, fleeting thought which flashed through Jubatus' mind. "Three men trapped in a chemical inferno, check. What's your best guess on their current location? Got a floor plan on you that I can look at?" Sadly, the manager didn't have a floor plan immediately at hand; Jubatus hadn't expected him to, but the question had been worth asking regardless. The instant it became clear to the speedster that he'd have to do his own reconnaissance, he upshifted to a tempo of 40 -- that is, forty times faster than normal -- and got to work. First: Eye and ear protection. A blazing inferno was none too comfortable on human senses, and Jube suspected that his current set of sensory organs might be even more strongly affected. Thus, he wore his goggles and ear shields Second: Lung protection. After a short internal debate, Jube decided he'd use his rebreather unit, not his gas mask. Since the situation was a fire in a chemical plant, God only knew what sort of crazy hazardous molecules were floating around in the local air. All the cheetah knew was that three men had been incapacitated by those molecules, so he wasn't willing to take a chance on whether or not the gas mask would actually filter those molecules out. Third: Protection from the flames. If his fur ignited, Jubatus didn't want to think about the consequences… Jube wasn't sure how much good his pocket-sized fire extinguisher might do, but having the thing at hand had to be better than not having it at hand, right? He circled the building once, the better to build a mental map of the danger zone within which the inferno blazed. He was acutely aware of how inadequate that mental map was, but time—even upshifted Time!—was short, and something was better than nothing. And within less than a second after he left the chemical plant's manager, Jubatus entered the burning industrial building…

Let's go on; Jube's intention is to cover the entire city, and it would be rather improbable for him to run into only one encounter. Jube will spend a bit of time on reporting what he saw and providing the cops a copy of his video files and so on... and this may or may not be worth playing out 'on camera', as it were. If it's not, we may as well fast-forward thru it, and start the next section of this thread with "After swearing out a complaint against the two thugs...". Mini-events on patrol is a good thing!

Jubatus A Hero's Quickening

Like I said, I'm assuming that Freedom City has the usual array of gun laws. So the thugs' lack of Concealed Carry permits, in and of itself, should logically be sufficient to justify nailing them on. As well, it wouldn't surprise me if the explosive was flagrantly illegal. So yeah, Jube could have handled things differently, but I think he did okay for a total novice... I also think that the cops at the precinct house are in an excellent position to tell Jube exactly how and where he screwed up, assuming he did screw up. Now that Jube's in the precinct house, interactions w/ officers are likely and perhaps even entertaining -- GM's choice how it all goes down.

"Wrong answer," Jubatus stated -- and then he upshifted, turned on the speed. Within a second or so, as measured by a clock, both of the thugs were prone on the pavement, with their wrists duct-taped together, and their ankles duct-taped to their wrists. Back at normal speed, Jube put on a show for the benefit of his cameras: He gave both thugs an olfactorily-enhanced pat-down search, sniffing at them from head to toe, with running commentary. The search of Thug 1, the guy who'd pulled his gun on Jubatus: "Cheap aftershave... Big Mac for lunch... Mitchum deodorant... here's where the residual scent of your gun is strongest..." Jube moved Thug 1's clothes around a little, so that his holster was plainly visible. "And there's a real interesting scent right here," the feline continued, pointing at a particular bulge under Thug 1's jacket. Jube pulled a small metal object from his vest and unfolded it into a set of long-handled tongs. This he used to cautiously grab hold of whatever-it-was... and he pulled Thug 1's bomb out into the light. "Well, well. What do you know. Crowbar, gun, and I guess the FCPD forensics boys can make the call on what this is." The search of Thug 2, the other guy: "Cheap aftershave, different brand... chocolate milkshake, huh? ... Irish Spring deodorant soap... a gun. And gosh, the gun-scent is strongest right here!" Careful not to make physical contact with the weapon, Jube manipulated Thug 2's layers of cloth until the concealed gun was fully exposed to view, and used his tongs to pull it out of its holster. "I'm done here. Time to turn you two over to the proper authorities." And Jubatus returned to fast-time. Operating at super-speed, he retrieved his cameras; used his tongs to return the guns, foul-smelling package, and crowbar to their respective custodians; and transferred each thug directly to the nearest FCPD precinct house (a two-pass operation, since even with the gravity-weakening effect of his Timeshift, Jube just didn't have strength enough to manage carrying both thugs at the same time), neither passing 'Go' nor collecting $200. After dropping off the first thug, Jubatus paused only long enough to attract someone's attention and say, "Excuse me, but I've got another surprise package to deliver here," after which he re-united both thugs. Then the fastest cat alive stuck around to cooperate with the police...

At this point, Jube has asked politely... twice... for documented evidence that the thugs are legally armed. He's not going to ask a third time. If either of the thugs give him any more crap, well, they're going down. I can't really see die-rolls being needful, somehow... How Jube takes down a normal human: Duct-tape their wrists together behind their back -- make sure the tape is adhering to their flesh, and not their shirt or whatever -- and then duct-tape their ankles to their wrists (again, making sure the tape's touching flesh rather than clothing). If the normal human is being particularly obnoxious, duct-tape their mouth closed.

"You got a license? Great! How about you let me have a look at it?" Jubatus asked the one who'd pulled his gun. Pointing at the other one, Jube said, "And since I can smell the gun you're hiding, I'd like to see your Concealed Carry license, too." The idiot was obviously not telling the truth; sadly, there were no criminal penalties attached to being an idiot. Not even a lying idiot. As soon as stupidity changed over to active defiance of the law... the both of them were toast.

Jube's "got a Concealed Carry license?" remark assumes that Freedom City has the usual array of standard gun laws. If this isn't true, it's the player screwing up; Jube would get the details right, so if I was wrong here, I'll edit the post as needful. Also: If Jube doesn't get a plausible response to "got a concealed carry license?", his next move will be to put both of the thugs under citizen's arrest. Yes, both, even tho only one of the thugs actually did pull a gun on him. Why? Because the thugs' scent gives Jube good reason to think that both of them are carrying firearms. The player doesn't know the specific details of how citizen's arrest works in Freedom City, to be sure, but Jube has assuredly done his homework, so he'll get it right (if need be).