Fly Me to the Moon

[Griffalo]

He looked from Velocity back to his communicator on news that Valkyrie was injured.

"Okay Emissary, understood. Anything you need from us down here?"

[MarkK]

"If you're free to do so, I would appreciate if you could contact Daedelus and see if he's picked up anything now that we've arrived, if nothing else the disturbance of the fighting should have helped his scans, such as have focused on this area."

[Thevshi]

“The rest of this place is empty.†Velocity commented as she returned to where Raindance was waiting.

[MarkK]

After both he and Valkyrie have fully recovered, Emissary begins to make his way forward, though activating his communicator to get in touch with Daedelus directly.

"This is the Emissary. Has the fighting allowed for you to obtain any more information about where we are? I'm looking at what seems to be.. some sort of space station right now. Valkyrie and I are making our approach to it now."

[Barnum]

Daedalus replied back almost instantly, but his signal was weak and distorted.

"My sensors are still picking up nothing that big. I can read you and the jet on my monitors, but that is all. Proceed with caution." There was a long static-filled pause and then, "Raindance, Velocity, have you discovered where the toys were being teleported to and destroyed the factory? Report!"

[Thevshi]

“The factory is destroyed, but we have no idea where the toys were being sent.†Velocity replied to Daedalus’ communication.

[MarkK]

With Valkyrie in tow then, the Emissary sped over towards the station, if keeping a wary eye out for defensive systems, or even more emerging robots, while trying to take in what further details he could.

[Barnum]

“The factory is destroyed, but we have no idea where the toys were being sent.†Velocity replied to Daedalus’ communication.

Daedalus was quiet for a moment. The heroes cold just imagine that he was calculating something in his head. "Roger that. Velocity and Raindance, wait there, I am sending another plane to pick you up. Emissary and Valkyrie, keep me updated. Daedalus out."

The communication ended with a click.

As the Emissary and Valkyrie blasted off toward the space station, they saw a flurry of activity around the dome at the rear of the platform. There were shapes there, swarming about like bees. After a few moments the swarm came hurtling toward the two heroes. These were more drones. They looked similar in shape to the four wind-up sentries, but they were smaller and quicker. They would be within striking distance in just a few seconds.

[Thevshi]

“Alrighty then.†Velocity replied at Daedalus’ response.

She then looked over at Raindance as she said. “There seems to be lots of waiting on this one.â€Â

[MarkK]

The Emissary indulged in a groan at the sight of the swarm, rubbing a hand over his face.

"Entity responsible for this! I must say that I am deeply exasperated by your conduct to this point!"

He at that crossed his arms before his face and shot forward like a rocket, seeking to outright smash through the oncoming swarm on sheer brute force and into the space station itself.

[Griffalo]

“Alrighty then.†Velocity replied at Daedalus’ response.

She then looked over at Raindance as she said. “There seems to be lots of waiting on this one.â€Â

Raindance shrugs.

"I don't mind. Gives us a break from the mayhem. Plus I have time to think." He seems to consider for a moment. "But I suppose when you're one of the fastest women alive, waiting around must be a killer." He smiles.

[Barnum]

The two heroes were waiting for nearly an hour before another Freedom Jet landed on the abandoned base's longest runway. The hatch opened as the jet pulled to a stop at a spot on the asphalt nearest to where the heres were standing.

---

Valkyrie was right behind the Emissary, the look on her face equal parts "Here we go again" and "Yippeeeee." She drifted off just to the Emissary's left as he collided with the swarm. The smaller robots pulled up, trying to avoid being smashed, but they were too slow. Valkyrie crashed into one head-on, shattering it into a million little pieces. Quick as lightning, she reached out and grabbed the nearest bot, that was trying its best to jet out of her way. She swung it like a baseball bat right into another bot that had veered off course trying to get around the Emissary's destructive charge. Both bots, bat and ball, were destroyed, leaving Valkyrie holding a mechanical leg that was broken off just above the knee.

She laughed. "Guess I was just pulling his leg."

[MarkK]

"Less quips, more vigorous forward charging please!"

Called out as he does not even stop in his advance, smashing through robots and scattering their debris from the force of his flight, hurtling towards the space station itself, seeking to plow right through one of its walls as his way of saying hello.

"Admittedly it was funny. But still!"

[Griffalo]

As the hatch to the jet opened for them, Raindance turned to smile at Velocity.

"Well, guess this is our ride..." He turned away from her, then turned back.

"If, you know... you want to, I dunno, go for a coffee some time, maybe, I dunno, discuss hero stuff or something, y'know, whatever, I guess that would be cool. If you want to."

[Thevshi]

Velocity looked at the jet that touched down for them. “Yep, that seems to be it.†She said in agreement, though she knew she could get back about as fast, though she might make a few wrongs turns and end up in Dayton Beach. Though, that might not turn out so bad.

She then heard him mention getting together for coffee and looked back over him, regarding him for a brief moment (which would have been very brief to him). She smiled. “Sure, that sounds nice. We’ll have to do that sometime.â€Â

[Barnum]

Valkyrie kept on the Emissary's wing, but she managed to smash another half-dozen bots that were foolish enough to fly into her path. The swarm began to thin out as the two heroes pushed through toward the station. With one good punch, the Emissary tore a hole in the dome, and the two were instantly blasted with escaping atmosphere and debris. Valkyrie pushed inside with the Emissary just as an energy field formed over the hole to keep life support intact.

The inside of the dome was a complex network of platforms, catwalks, and elevators. The central hub of the dome appeared to be a large platform just below where the Emissary and Valkyrie were hovering. The platform was covered with computer consoles and small, child-sized robots working diligently at various controls. In the center of a platform was a large chair, holding a small boy. He saw the Emissary and Valkyrie about the same time they saw him.

"Oh drat!" he exclaimed. "This just won't do!"

[MarkK]

"I would suppose that telling you you have been a bad little boy would be both wasted on you, and a dire understatement."

He shook his head to himself, then punched his fists into the catwalk below him, plunging them all the way through and then pulling them forwards so as to tear out an entire section of catwalk with him in order to hurl it over to the consoles and robots on one edge of the platform, seeking to cause not much more than an attention grabbing and diverting display of devastation, and hopefully send some of the consoles into cascade failure.

He flew quickly in the wake of his impromptu weapon to grab for the little boy and yank him up from his chair.

"You nearly ruined Halloween for the children of Freedom City! You are a.."

He paused and wracked his brain, he had heard many expletives by now, and he knew of other words, but they just wouldn't work.

"You are a jerk! Of the vile and little variety! Your parents must be deeply ashamed of you!"

[Barnum]

Valkyrie descended to the platform behind the Emissary.

"I would suppose that telling you you have been a bad little boy would be both wasted on you, and a dire understatement."

"You nearly ruined Halloween for the children of Freedom City! You are a.."

"You are a jerk! Of the vile and little variety! Your parents must be deeply ashamed of you!"

"Unhand me, you overgrown toaster." The boy spoke as one who is used to being obeyed. "Jerk? That's your best taunt? Jerk? You should let me speak with your programmers. I could give them some lessons on linguistic integration and improvisation in artificial intelligences." The boy turned his attention away from the heroes and called out, "Oh, Guard Bots? Could you come here, please."

Nothing happened.

Valkyrie smiled. "I think we broke all your toys." To emphasize her point, she put her fist through one of the remaining computer consoles. "Your reign of terror is over."

The boy just rolled his eyes. "This isn't over, Miss Melodrama."

[MarkK]

He hrmphed.

"I could have said that you look to be a child badly playing at being a man. I could have implied things about the sort of psyche from one that looks as you do, has done the things you have done to this point, and the related inferiorities and manias that would imply lurk deep within you. I could even just now comment on your paucity as a scientist and intellectual, to have rejoindered with so cheap, tawdry and innacurate a summary of what I am."

"But."

"Really, that's all a bit too grand for you. No. You are, just a jerk."

He activated his communicator.

"Daedelus, we have the perpetrator. He seems to be some kind of hyperintelligent manchild. You may wish to come up here to study his platform. Or, if you could pilot our jet by remote to arrange itself to one of the entry hatches, we'll just return with him."

Daedelus, as it turned out, seemed intent on securing the station as soon as possible, and so it was that he arrived with a few other members of the League. After he took control of it, Valkyrie and the Emissary returned to Earth with their prisoner, who they left in the League's custody.

The Emissary seemed pleased with the overall resolution and a chance to have worked at Freedom League business, but he did pause in his flight back to the Embassy to regard Freedom Hall thoughtfully.

"I am entirely uncertain if he should be sent to prison, or given a time out in the corner."

[Barnum]

And so the reign of the terrible toys came to an end. The young mastermind was quickly revealed to be, of course, the infamous Toy Boy. Daedalus dismantled the space platform, and Toy Boy was locked up (for now). Once again truth and justice prevailed thanks to the Freedom League and their indispensable allies: Velocity, the Emissary, Valkyrie, and Raindance.