I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings [IC]

[nareik123]

Dryad was rather annoyed. She expected to terrify everybody by popping out of a spider! She shrugged as she lent against a cold, stone wall, examining her claws.

"You know, I'm wondering what some of you would look like if you accidentally split in half" she giggled.

"Docs techy abilities kinda makes him resistant to claws. Whities too powerful to be clawed. But his henchmen...." Dryad cackled, gleering at each of the henchmen.

[Heridfel]

The henchmen don't seem to like that word (accurate as it may be), or being threatened by a real life fern spider woman. It doesn't take much insight for White Knight to tell that they aren't too happy, and that there are a lot more of them than her.

"Keep your girlfriend in line," White Knight says. "If she keeps it up, I don't care how much help she gave us earlier. How much time would it take to lower those dampeners?" He looks jumpy just staying in one place, now that the possibility of a swift teleportation outside of the facility is out of the question.

[Dr Archeville]

She is NOT our-.

Silver Tongue now, rant later.

The doktor's left eye twitched for a moment, but soon stopped. "Phyllis... dear...." he said to Dryad, "ve do not haff time for you to indulge in your... hobbies right now. Please do try to control yourself a bit longer."

He then turned back to the White Knight, "four minutes und forty-five seconds, sir, den de power dampers go down. First de vons nearest de surface, den de next level down a minute later, den de next, von by von, level by level, all de way down to de deepest part of de facility. It vas de best I could do from dat console -- I could not rig a total simultaneous power-down, but dis should certainly be adequate for our purposes."

[Heridfel]

"No," White Knight says firmly. "That's too slow, if it even works. We move now."

White Knight looks at each of his men, and they readjust their hostages over their shoulders to get them properly seated.

"You can either come with us, or try to bring down those dampeners yourself. The choice is yours," White Knight says. He readies the weapon that he borrowed from the armory and creates a small ball of blue flame with his other hand. If the powers go out again, then he'll know immediately. That done, he walks out of the door.

[nareik123]

Dryad cackles at the unease of he Hechmen.

"Whats the matter? Scared of the crazy plant woman?" She giggled, clawing the wall with her twisted hands.

"You should be" she cackled. She opened her mouth, then thought better of it and closed it again. She had no intention of beng beaten up again, it hurt the last time. She followed silently, at the rear of the party.

"So, lemme try and get this straight, in four minutes, every single nutter locked in the prison will get his, her or its power back? Wouldn't that mean the entrance is sealed? Also, if you lot escaped, i'll doubt they'd just let you walk out" Dryad grinned.

[Dr Archeville]

She is a mad woman! Why did we ever bother helping her in the first place?!

Because it's the right thing to do. We help her, she helps u, or someone else, and so-

Oh... I think you just gave me an idea!

What, another plan?

The doktor's left eye twitched again as he walked along with them, "dat is de entire point, Dryad -- vhen all de inmates get deir powers back, de guards vill be far too busy mit dem to be able to stop us from valking out. Und as far as I could tell, de prison vill not be any more 'sealed' dan it already is now, so dere should be little problem in us getting out."

"In fact," he said, turning to fully face Dryad, "vhy are you still here? Ve saw vhat you did mit de spider, vhy didn't you just scamper out through an air duct und out to Freedom?"

[nareik123]

Dryad grinned a fanged grin, examaning her claws.

"Now now now, my smart friend" she giggled.

"I could have escaped, and nobody would have known. However, I wouldn't have gotten far. Every policeman would be onto me, and I can't evade them all! Besides, what am I gonna do? Go smash a jewelry store when I don't care about the money? I don't rob banks, it isn't enough convincing me to risk a bullet in the spine. No, I think i'll stay here, where I can do some Actual villany!" Dryad giggles.

[Dr Archeville]

We really just need to leave her here to rot....

Aw, what's wrong? Your latest plan not able to work because it depends in part on an obviously insane woman?

I... she... shut up!

The doktor's left eye twitched again, "dat's a mighty high opinion you haff of yourself, if you think every policeman in de city vould be more interest ed in you dan in any of de other escapees here. Und just vhat sort of villainy do you think you can do from inside a prison?"

[nareik123]

Dryad sighed.

"You know what? Leta not worry about the plant freak. Lets worry about escaping shall we? Or do you like waltzing your way through a tide of damned cops and other nastiness?" Dryad recommended. Sher stopped examining her claws and started to examine the area around her, pushing herself into a low combat stance.

[Dr Archeville]

I'm really starting to get bored with this one.

Patience, you. You got us into this, you're getting us out.

Oh, come on, you can't really expect me to- oh... wait, that could work quite nicely.

"Ve von't haff to be dealing mit 'a tide of cops,' or vere you not paying attention vhen... oh, forget it!" He turned to White Knight, "Herr Knight, I vill stay here und see vhat I can do to speed up de shut-down process."

And if I can use the comm gear in here to contact the Warden and tell him exactly what's going on, he thinks, then maybe we can salvage this without too much bloodshed. Though I doubt White Kinght's going to leave me here alone.

[[ Closed due to 1/3rd of players leaving and 1/3rd being banned. ]]

[Avenger Assembled]

Suddenly, Dryad screamed a short, agonized, wordless syllable! Clutching at the side of her head, she collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut, the sound of her body hitting the ground heavy and painful-sounding. She lay twitching, breathing shallowly, as blood oozed from a cut on the side of her head. For his part, White Knight took a step back, bumping suddenly into the nearest wall, his hands up. "Wasn't me! Wasn't me!" Dryad looked to be in real distress even to Doctor Archeville's fast onceover, a look of despair and panic in her wide-stretched eyes as her body completely betrayed her.

[Avenger Assembled]

"My...my strings," whimpered Dryad suddenly, her voice pushed out of a dead throat by sheer force of will, "my strings are cut. I have nothing anymore. Please save me." She turned her wide eyes on Doctor Archeville, the knowledge of mortality, of doom, written large on her face. "I don't want to die. I tried to do good. I tried to be a hero," she whispered. "I don't want the world to...throw me away..."

[Dr Archeville]

Oh, what now?!

I have no idea... but it cannot be good!

Actually, it might be very good: could be just the distraction we need!

And if White Knight decides to just incinerate her to put her out of his misery?!

Archeville spit out a curse in German, then was kneeling by Dryad's side, examining her. "Unless you are going to help me," he said, not looking up but obviously addressing White Knight and his cronies, "I suggest you continue out. Especially since vhatever is happening to her may be contagious to any other superhuman."

[Avenger Assembled]

Sure enough, Doctor Archeville's 'Science' was more than enough to make White Knight and his cronies scamper for the door. That left the heroic scientist alone with the dying woman, giving him enough time to perform a thorough investigation of her body. Looking over the dying Dryad, Doctor Archeville noted that her body seemed badly in need of energy to absorb to reanimate her vital essence. He was reminded of a classic experiment performed by a German scientist of a few generations earlier. But wouldn't they call him...Mad?

[Dr Archeville]

One order of grilled veggies, comin' up!

We need her alive!

"You vould do dis to me now, vouldn't you?," he muttered as he searched the room for any equipment he could use.

There was plenty for him to use -- White Knight had ordered the trio of guards here to drop their weapons, including their tasers, and there were more in the lockers.

It was a simple matter for him to wire the devices to discharge all their energy into one massive pulse, though getting the amperage up to the necessary levels was slightly harder. Fortunately for Dryad, Archeville was a super-genius.

"Und now, for de moment of truth..." he whispered. Then, he cackled madly.

[Avenger Assembled]

Dryad bolted upright, a silent scream on her lips, and stared into nothingness for a moment before she turned to Dr. Archeville. "I...I am restored." She blinked a few times. "I...I have awakened. Thanks to you, you beautiful German!" She planted a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you! Quickly, we must defeat the supervillans before they seize control of the island...nay, the world! Shall I have plants pull them into the ground where they might feast on the...no, wait, that would be bad! And I don't want to be bad." She looked at Dr. Archeville. "What should we do...sir?" At that, she gave him a very big smile.

[Dr Archeville]

Dammit, we've fried her brains even worse than before!

Well, at least she appears docile for the moment.

"Actually...." he began, keeping his eyes locked onto hers (partly to keep her attention, partly to see if she was about to turn again), "if you can extend your senses to 'see' und 'hear' through de plants around de island, give me a better view of what's going on, dat vould be of immense use to me. I believe de Varden has a small bonsai tree in his office you can use, too."

Okay, we have reset the Power Dampers to kick back in after a few minutes, so once they do things should quickly return to normal.

Boring!

But White Knight & his gang still have hostages, and weaponry taken from the guards and the armory. Which means we still need to face them.

Ah, now you're talkin'!

[Avenger Assembled]

"Oh, yes..." Dryad opened her mind wide, closing her eyes as she reached out to touch the doorways of Arboreal Heaven. "I can see everything. Everything. There is a champion coming to the city soon, who..." She shook her head. "Yes, they are all around in the warden's office, and there is much shouting. Oh my goodness, there is talk of shooting the hostages!" Her eyes widened. "Wait, no, the other has talked them out of it. They are still very bad, though. It looks as though most of the bad men who are loose are around the warden's office. They feel safer with the hostages."

[Dr Archeville]

"Ja.. ja, okay... right, ve haff to - no, I haff to..."

Do you see all the things around us?! We can really do some damage!

Yes. Yes, we could. Or, make lots of distractions.

They were in an armory, which contained not only routine armor and weapons but also some suits of MAX armor, and a suit of Super-MAX armor. On top pf that, there were some confiscated kit-bashed super-weapons made by assorted inmates.

Archeville was like a kid in a candy store.

He quickly hooked his Gravimetric Belt to the Super-MAX armor's systems, then took some of Looking Glass's mirrors and Mad Maple's "winter wand" and hooked them to a makeshift utility belt/bandolier he strapped across the chestplate of the armor

"Dryad, listen very carefully," he said while snapping some final pieces into place, "I do not vant you following me, I do not vant to risk anyvon else getting hurt. I vant you to go back to de infirmary und vait dere, alright?"

He snapped the helmet on, then faded from view. "I made dis mess, und I am going to fix it."

He took off, down the corridors where White Knight, his cronies and their hostages went. He would make this right... somehow.

[Avenger Assembled]

Suitably disguised, Doctor Archeville soon came upon the nest of vipers that was White Knight and his hostages. In the heavily-fortified warden's office, Daniel Foreman had been lounging like a petty god-king before Viktor had interrupted his petty kingdom with his scientific prowess, and now the place was still all shouting and chaos. A few of Foreman's goons, petty meta-criminals Archeville didn't recognize, were menacing the hostages, shouting at them and intimidating them, a few making crude remarks to a bound and gagged female guard. Foreman himself had the warden in one hand, and was busy breaking down the glass in the office with the other. "I want them to see you BURN, race-traitor!"

[Dr Archeville]

LOCK 'N' LOAD! GET SOME!!!

If I did not need your passion for combat right now....

Archeville analyzed the situation with his lightning-quick mind. Five metahuman criminals under White Knight's lead, most with hostages.

Time to test that flux capacitor he'd wired in from Downtime's time belt.

Time slowed for an elongated moment, long enough for Archeville to aim and fire at all six of the assembled metahuman criminals. To his perspective, it looked as if the bolts of energy from the MAX gauntlets were lazily lobbed over to each one, but from their perspective, the Doktor had become a whirling blossom of doom.

Time just as suddenly snapped back for Archeville, though his senses were still distorted a few moments more form the stress. "I must make a point to study dis more," he murmured.

[Avenger Assembled]

Doctor Archeville's blasts were perfectly on target, striking White Knight and his superhuman thugs without harming a hair on the heads of the hostages. As the goons staggered and nearly fell, only the villainous Daniel Foreman kept his feet. "You! I might have known you were behind this!" he shouted, pointing at the illusory Dr. Archeville. "Better get rid of all the distractions before I stomp my boot in your mud-blood face!" And with that, he hurled the deputy warden in his hands right out the open window of his office! He then fired a powerful burst of flame at Archeville, one that only his concealment saved him from as it scorched the roof just behind him.

[Dr Archeville]

Crap! We have got to save the warden!

No, blast the Knight and his goons!

Save!

Blast!

Save!

Blast!

Sa- look, we can set up illusionary doubles, keep them occupied while we save the Warden, then we come back and blast them from behind. How's that?

Duplicitous! I like it

"Looks like I should even de odds, den!" Archeville said, and suddenly five more Archeville's suddenly appeared in the room, each aiming their gauntlet-blasters at a different criminal. "Lucky for me I brought mein Matter Duplikator mit me today! Surrender now, und you main get some leniency."

As White Knight and his men focused -- he hoped -- on the illusionary doubles, the real Archeville (hidden from their sight due to his cloaking field) flew out the window and down after the Warden. Fortunately for both of them, Archeville's gravimetic belt not only let him fly fast enough to catch him, it was maneuverable enough to allow him to catch the man.

"I'ff got you!"

Onlookers below would see the Warden had been tossed out the window, then abruptly slowed in his descent about halfway down, landing safely on the ground below.

"De power dampers are rebooting now, Varden," he quickly reported, "und should be back up in a few minutes. Mercifully it appears contained to de von cell block, but von uncontrolled cell block is two cell blocks too many, ja? I am going back up to contain Vhite Knight und his cronies.".

Before Warden Drummond could give much of a reply, Archeville zipped back up, stopping to hover right outside the window the Warden had been tossed out of.

[Avenger Assembled]

Archeville arrived just in time to see an enormous explosion inside the warden's office! Glass shattered and broke against his protection as he felt the heat of White Knight's fiery blast; directed not at him, but at White Knight's former allies. The super-criminals were down like nine-pins, blasted away and through walls. Even the hostages were untouched, though they were certainl appalled "MONGREL DOGS! You're no better than the cotton-picking cretins you shanked in the shower." He pointed at Archeville, a look of murderous fury on his face.

"You, though. You're MINE."

[Dr Archeville]

Such cruelty! Oh, he must be stopped!

Yeah, by shootin' him in the face!

Well, the knees or arms, cripple him. I... am not sure we can stop him, to be honest, and-

Oh, man up!

Archeville had de-cloaked on his way up, switching to his more potent force field. He hovered right outside the window, several plans of action forming in his incredible brain. For as long as he'd fought supervillains, they always managed to surprise him in how irrational they could be, and Knight was a prime example.

"Bold talk, for von who is little better dan a mad dog!" Archeville shouted as he unleashed the full force of his suit's gauntlet blasters. "You rant on und on about 'purity', but I bet you cannot trace your family line back more dan 150 years! As if dere could be anything 'pure' about being a White American!"