The Rainmaker Job [IC]

[Avenger Assembled]

"Hey!" Edge frowned at Rook, thinking dismissive thoughts about what jerks heroes could be outside of Freedom City. "We had that guy, you know." He wasn't pleased; who could possibly fail to recognize all the awesome heroes assembled here. He was sure Fleur's entirely accurate chiding didn't apply to him. He'd made some hilarious puns and blast an obvious bad guy, not kept kicking a guy when he was down. "We're here from Freedom City," he added, trying not to sound annoyed. "We heard your city was having problems, and from the looks of things with Monolith there, we were right. What's happened lately?"

[trollthumper]

Rook turned to Fleur first. "Look, Monolith never comes easy, all right?" he said. "Last time he offered to surrender, he 'changed his mind' halfway to the police station. Half a block got destroyed afterwards." He puts his hand to his forehead. "Sorry, I'm just new to this. Started patrolling eight months ago, when the powers came in. Wasn't bad then; all you had to handle were dealers and gang bangers. Then word got out that there was a cape in Asbury, and suddenly, everyone wanted a piece of the action. Monolith there's been lurking in the background ever since the first time I brought him down. He's muscle, plain and simple."

"You're working this place alone?" Nick asked.

"No," Rook said. "Least, not anymore. Others have been showing up -- Virago, Gargoyle -- but it's only the three of us. And it seems like there are a lot of idiots who want to make their bones by taking down a cape."

[Northstar]

A little courtesy wouldn't have hurt anyone. Oh well, let's just get to business. So this stone man was just dumb muscle, and Rook here was one of the three local supers who were doing anything. Good to know. "How many other problems like Monolith do you have around here?" The only reason they were here was something was bothering Doc Metropolis little cousin. Couldn't be too much that was even capable of that. He got the feeling that the finding part would be a large pain.

[trollthumper]

A little courtesy wouldn't have hurt anyone. Oh well, let's just get to business. So this stone man was just dumb muscle, and Rook here was one of the three local supers who were doing anything. Good to know. "How many other problems like Monolith do you have around here?" The only reason they were here was something was bothering Doc Metropolis little cousin. Couldn't be too much that was even capable of that. He got the feeling that the finding part would be a large pain.

"Like I said, it was small when I was started out," Rook said. "Then there was Monolith. I could deal with him, but... well, he wasn't the most careful person. Fair bit of collateral damage, y'know? Then there was Maelstrom -- this storm guy who tore up the boardwalk. Said he was born of the sea itself. And Acceleranda... she went on a heist downtown. 'Course, when you run that fast, a sonic boom becomes an issue. We took her down, but... she got out during her transfer." He sighed. "You've gotta understand. We don't really have any resources up here. It's just us."

"You haven't made contact with AEGIS?" Nick asked. "They've got divisions for stuff like this."

"I've tried," Rook said. "Nothing. The requests just seem to get lost. I know it seems like we're screwing this up, but... well, what else can we do? This is our town."

[Ecalsneerg]

"Hmmm..." said Geckoman pensively. "Taking a step down... tried liasing with the FCPD? They got all kinds of battlesuits..." Then he perked up somewhat. "And power nullifiers! It'll stop breakouts, cos most superpowered people are pretty non-functional without their powers. People don't know how to bust out of handcuffs when they're used to tearing them off."

He looked at Monolith. "I mean, I'm guessing he's hella strong. But get a nullifier on him... kitty strength!"

[Avenger Assembled]

"That's weird," said Edge pensively. "They must be pretty small-time if they're causing trouble in a town like this." Mark meant no insult by it; Ashbury Park was obviously smaller and less developed than Freedom City. "Do you know who any of them are for real?" he asked, shooting a look at the other hero. "I mean, if you've been bringing Rocky Balboa here in and all, they must have gotten him in the national database, much less those other guys. Are they local metas gone bad, out-of-towners, or are we dumping our garbage on your lawns?"

[trollthumper]

"We've been talking about setting up a liaison deal," Rook said, "but like with AEGIS, none of the requests have gotten through yet. And power nullifiers aren't exactly the kind of thing you can buy on the open market. As for these guys... nothing so far. The other times I brought Monolith in, he kept his rock face up the whole time -- at least until he broke out. Some of 'em claim to be locals, but I'm still not sure on the others."

The sirens that had been growing in the distance crescendoed as several police cars and a flatbed truck pulled up. A uniformed cop got out of the lead car. "Where's Monolith?" he asked.

"Talk to her," Rook said, pointing to Fleur.

The cop looked over at the heroes of Freedom. "Ah," he said. "Friends of Rook?"

"Tourists, really," Nick said. "We heard there were issues up the shore, and... well, ran right into one of them."

"Yeah," the cop said. "Whole bunch of issues here. At least this time he kept it to the block." He turned to Fleur. "So, uh... where is our not-so-gentle giant?"

[Electra]

Fleur folded her arms over her round tummy and gave Rook one more quick glare before turning to the cop. "He's safely contained outside the dimension for the moment," she told him crisply. "For everyone's safety. I can deliver him to wherever you'd like him to go, as long as you have a plant there for me to travel through. Do you want him now? I believe Rook was just mentioning that Monolith is not the full extent of your supervillain problem."

[Northstar]

"So aside from the stone man, there are only two other problems active in your area. Has there been anything...out of the ordinary? Any new players, or anything like that? They'd been sent here because something big was happening, presumably. It didn't seem like nabbing three supernuts was why they had sent five helping hands. It would be really disappointing if that were the case. Titan didn't want to believe that he'd made this commute to round up a couple local troublemakers.

[trollthumper]

Fleur folded her arms over her round tummy and gave Rook one more quick glare before turning to the cop. "He's safely contained outside the dimension for the moment," she told him crisply. "For everyone's safety. I can deliver him to wherever you'd like him to go, as long as you have a plant there for me to travel through. Do you want him now? I believe Rook was just mentioning that Monolith is not the full extent of your supervillain problem."

"A plant?" The detective scratched his head. "Well, we've got a potted ficus at the police station. You got any idea what size he is in there? If he's normal, we'll need to set up a full-time watch to make sure he doesn't grow out of his prison... and if he's king-size, well, we may just have to wait until he drops out of it."

"So aside from the stone man, there are only two other problems active in your area. Has there been anything...out of the ordinary? Any new players, or anything like that? They'd been sent here because something big was happening, presumably. It didn't seem like nabbing three supernuts was why they had sent five helping hands. It would be really disappointing if that were the case. Titan didn't want to believe that he'd made this commute to round up a couple local troublemakers.

"Nothing," Rook said. "No strange confluence of mystic factors -- trust me, Virago checked -- nor any sort of criminal market to get into. They just... showed up. Because they liked being the biggest game in town." Rook put his hand to his ear, possibly listening in on an earpiece. "If you'll excuse me, I'm needed elsewhere. Personal business has come to the fore." With that, Rook leapt across the street to the rooftops of buildings that had been undamaged.

"Nothing going on, huh?" Nick said to the others, as the police officer coordinated an effort to deliver Monolith to the station via Fleur's plant network. "That can't be right. I can see why Doctor Metropolis's cousin might be having trouble, though; if every fight goes like that --" He jerked a thumb back to the ruined store front Monolith had grown out of. " -- I'd start feeling the aches, too. But for all of them to come here... hmm..."

Nick walked over to the ruined storefront, touched one of the shattered bricks, and opened himself to the tide of history. "They take out gold, and put in lead... surgeons with saws and scales... the colossus with two faces..." The tide of fate's recounting ended, and Nick came out of his trance. "Man, the Fates are getting stingy. Looks like there's something someone wants out of this city, though..."

[Avenger Assembled]

Edge was left in a tough position. He'd picked up on the way Rook was lying about something, or at least omitting pertinent data. But he'd been trained from early childhood in the superhero code, which was very explicit about investigating someone else's secret ID. "We need to follow him," he murmured quietly to the others, letting Fleur talk to the policeman. "I'm not very fast, but if you can jump, Dr. Titan, and if you can fly in the Pitchoo, Geckoman, you can get started and we can follow you all in. I don't know why, but I've got a feeling Rook is at the center of everything here."

[Electra]

"You may want to consider calling the STAR squad in Freedom City," Fleur told the police officer helpfully. "I don't suppose this is their jurisdiction, but surely they'd be willing to help contain a metahuman criminal? For now, he'll be safe and unable to hurt anyone in the place where I've put him, so you have a little time to set things up."

She turned back to the others. looking at all of them. "Well, I can't keep up with anyone, but I can catch up, at least." Reaching into her belt, she pulled out seeds that bloomed into white roses in her hand. She passed one to each of her erstwhile teammates. "Whoever finds him, just yell out, and we can converge on you."

[Ecalsneerg]

Edge was left in a tough position. He'd picked up on the way Rook was lying about something, or at least omitting pertinent data. But he'd been trained from early childhood in the superhero code, which was very explicit about investigating someone else's secret ID. "We need to follow him," he murmured quietly to the others, letting Fleur talk to the policeman. "I'm not very fast, but if you can jump, Dr. Titan, and if you can fly in the Pitchoo, Geckoman, you can get started and we can follow you all in. I don't know why, but I've got a feeling Rook is at the center of everything here."

"No can do, E-man," apologised Geckoman. "I drove up, the Pitchoo's under maintenance right now. I may have crashed into a few big metal objects and rendered the main anti gravity module nonfunctional. But I'm not committing to have done it."

He gestured over to his Geckomobile. "Baby got some phat wheels, though, it's not quite as fast, but it gets me by." He started hitting a few buttons on the remote, as the car's panels began whirring and folding back in, returning it to the form of a perfectly normal looking green Sedan. "And isn't as easy to spot."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Aw, rats. I'm sure you'll get it back," he said sympathetically to Geckoman. Geckoman loved that airship, and who wouldn't? It was fully awesome! "At least you've still got a sweet ride. All right, let's do this. Thanks, Ms. de Joie." He tucked the flower into his lapel and soon looked like quite the dashing fellow, or so he said so himself, or maybe like he and Geckoman were about to take their girlfriends out to superprom. "We'll call you soon as we've got anything." Heh. It is just like prom!

[trollthumper]

"I might as well take a drive, too," Nick said. "See if I can find Rook or any of the other heroes he mentioned."

As everyone went their separate ways, it became clear that Asbury Park had seen a bit of hardship since coming under the scrutiny of villains. Parts of the boardwalk were still torn up, with several stores closed for repairs. There were blocks closed off due to massive damage to the road, torn concrete and broken pipes clearly visible behind the partitions. Several of the store fronts that Rook said had been damaged by a speed-crazed jewel thief were still undergoing work from various glaziers. Everywhere were signs for various construction companies and repair firms, such as FirstPoint and Pyramid. There was little sign of Rook, however; wherever he had gone to, it must have been indoors.

"No wonder the city elemental's in pain," Nick mused to himself as he drove through. "Someone's holding it down and breaking its bones."

[Northstar]

Titan stopped running. He'd lost Rook a few blocks ago, and he didn't think he'd find him again. That left him in a new town with very little idea on what to do. This was important enough for him to be contacted, though, so he couldn't just drop everything. So he did the next thing that came to mind. He looked around, and tried to find something that didn't seem right.

He was surprised by how much damage had been done. He started looking over one of the busted up buildings, looking around very vaguely for anything that stood out. If the city is this thing's body, am I wondering into an open wound? Greg wondered. Are the people fixing the town up doctors changing a bandage? Or am I thinking about this a little too hard?

[trollthumper]

If there was an upside to Asbury's distress, it was that the ruin left enough disturbed to show hints of a trail, one that picked up a few blocks from where Rook had vanished. The downside was that the trail only stuck out in pieces amongst the wreckage. Edge found a few bootprints that led through a nascent construction yard but cut off after Rook likely leapt up to the beams. Nick Cimitiere and Geckoman, meeting up on the road, found a long stretch of broken masonry where ground stone had settled on the sidewalk recently, as if disturbed by someone passing through.

The various pieces pointed a trail, but none so clear as that for Fleur, who managed to find a long streak of bushes that still seemed to bear traces of passage, as well as grass that bore traces of a seed she recognized from around where Rook had fought Monolith. She managed to follow the seeds to a small, disused warehouse. As she drew closer, she realized she could hear someone talking.

"Look, they're here," Rook said to someone she couldn't see. "I didn't think they'd be here so soon. I thought we'd have more time."

[Electra]

Stesha stayed back from the warehouse, barely within earshot, but she let her senses range further, till she found a weed that she could see from. Rook was talking into his cell phone, she was disappointed to realize, so there was no way to identify who he was talking to. It didn't sound like he was up to any good, though. She was glad she'd stopped him from punishing that giant anymore!

The weed she was looking through opened a small flower, with a tapered bloom that looked almost like the muzzle of a cannon. Suddenly a tiny seed shot out of it, a little brown burred affair that stuck to the cuff of Rook's pant leg. From the seed, a tiny green shoot emerged, unfurling a single leaf, smaller than a fingernail.

Outside, Stesha held up a hand to try to forestall the approach of her compatriots.

[trollthumper]

The seed quickly found its way into one of Rook's boots; unbeknownst to the rookie hero, a slender vine crept out up along his pant leg. Through the vine, Fleur could pick up Rook's voice with greater clarity, as well as some snippets of his friend over the phone.

"Return... Harbrook Arms... plan... get out..."

Outside, Nick, Geckoman and Edge had arrived at roughly the same time. They made their way towards Fleur, but held off when she held up her hand.

"Got it," he said. "I'll see you then." He hung up on his phone, and proceeded towards the door where Fleur was listening in. He reached for the door, then paused. Fleur could feel it as he turned to run...

[Electra]

"He's going out the back way," Stesha murmured to the others, half her attention still with the plant she was looking through in the warehouse. "I've got a sprout on him, it should let us follow him wherever he's going, without scaring him off. Whatever he's up to, he's not happy that we got here so soon, and he's going to regroup. Anybody know anything about a place called Harbrook Arms?"

[trollthumper]

"It's a hotel on the beach," Nick said. "Stayed there on a trip up the shore when I was a kid." He takes a look towards the warehouse. "Had a feeling this wasn't exactly kosher. We want to lay in wait at the Harbrook for him and his friends, or try to get some answers out of him while he's alone?"

[Ecalsneerg]

"I suggest the element of surprise. I'd rather not try to catch someone who knows we're here, and doesn't want to be caught. At least at this hotel, while he's still not wanting caught (duh), he won't know we're there if we do it right," suggested Geckoman. He shrugged his shoulders. "The problem is, we'll need to get there faster than him, or we're just going to end up with the same situation, only in a presumably busy hotel, not a dingy warehouse. And, while I have no idea if something could kick off... well, let's just say that's not plan A."

[trollthumper]

As Rook swept over city blocks, Fleur was able to cast her senses downwards towards the ground through the leaf peeking out over the weed. She was able to keep a rough track of the landscape, the buildings, the intersections, and the noticeable flora on the ground below. The sights eventually cut out for the floor of an apartment. It looked like something of a dive, the kind of place that would only rent month-to-month on the expectation that most of its tenants wouldn't last that long. Fleur's vision was temporarily disjointed as she realized the boot was being shaken off. Once she got her vision reoriented, Rook was changing into civilian clothes and trying to pack.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Okay, where is it?" As soon as Fleur de Joie told Edge to which hotel she'd tracked Rook, he nodded. "Okay, I'm going to send us all there. You might want to take cover if you want to be sneaky." And with that, in a flash of black light, they all vanished, only to reappear right in Rook's hotel room. "All right, buddy!" said Edge, pointing dramatically at the erstwhile hero. Say what you will for Mark, he wasn't one to take the complicated route when an easier one presented itself. "I know this is a little unorthodox, but the life of a superhero is full of surprises. We want to be your friend. We want to help you, and we want to help your city. What's going on?"

[trollthumper]

Rook looked around, half-dressed and surrounded by heroes. Obviously, he hadn't been caught at the best of moments. "W... what do you know?" he asked.

"You've got someone who's ordering you around," Nick said. "Someone who doesn't like the presence of other heroes. Let me guess... young, inexperienced... what is it? Someone come to you with a job, or did they offer you powers first?"

"Just a job," Rook said. "He saw the town didn't have any heroes. Thought it'd be a good chance to cause some chaos -- I clean up, he makes a mess. I gain the trust, he makes the profit. Then... the others showed up. More villains, and more heroes. The villains were ours, the heroes weren't. This was supposed to be our last gig -- fake both our deaths -- then you guys showed up."

"So who's behind it all?"

"Monolith," Rook said. "He's the one who came up with the idea, he's the one who roped me in."

"Makes sense," Nick said. "Except..." He flicked his hand, and the door to the room, which had been slightly open until now, slammed shut. "...for the bit where I don't think a damn thing in that story made any sense. Let's start from the top, shall we?"

Rook swallowed. "What do you want to know?"