Order And Chaos: A Superpower RP (Started, Closed)

[Fury Is Me.]

Lina waved Marcus a goodbye and gave him a smile as he left. She'd met someone today. If she had a checklist of things she'd mark that off. The sword wielding titan of strength suddenly found herself back in an empty hallway, with seemingly no one around, again. That wouldn't do. She decided to head off in a random direction to explore the facility again. She didn't really care where she ended up, just so long as it was a bit interesting. But behind every door she found that wasn't a living quarters, she found uninteresting normal things. Broom closets and the such.

A good hour went by like that, and Lina didn't find anything. She sighed and decided to head back to her room, defeated by the many hallways of this building. Back down the stairs she went, back to the boredom of her room. At least she had television, and that only let her down half the time. And so back she went, back onto her couch and back to channel surfing.

 

[socialtangent]

"I can't take him, he's got a bomb."

"I can."

Kurt sprung into action. While still under his cloak, he lunged forward at the masked man, aiming to grab his detonator. What he didn't expect was to go completely through him and tumble to the ground. He went into a roll at the last second and used the momentum to bring himself up to a crouch, facing the masked man. Allowing his cloak to dissipate, Kurt fired an ectoplasm blast from his palm at the assailant. The purple energy sailed through his target, who temporarily dissolved into static before coming into focus again.

'What the...'

If this masked man was a spirit, Kurt would've picked up on it the moment they arrived here. Waldemar, Arlana, or any of the hostages wouldn't have been able to see him as well. That had to mean...

"Guys, don't know if you saw that, but this isn't our perp. It's some kind of decoy. The real guy's probably fled the scene..."

Kurt caught a glint of light reflecting off something metallic in a nearby tree. From this distance, it was hard to tell, but it looked like some kind of camera or projector mounted on a set of propellers. Almost as if it knew it was caught, the image of the man suddenly vanished and the object took off with surprising speed towards the alleyway.

"...but I think I know how to find him. If you can, follow my signal and keep your distance."

Running into the alley, Kurt re-engaged his cloak and took off after the flying projector. If he was lucky, this thing would lead him right back to the guy who deployed it, or at least, his base of operations. This guy was crafty, whoever he was. And likely very dangerous.

 

[Terratina.]

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Those sounds echoed throughout the sewer, accompanied by the squelches made by Morph was it attached itself to the ceiling, avoiding the rats and the possibly toxic water below. Shaping its tendrils into claw-like appendages and used those to anchor it to the cold brick of the ceiling. Its stomach bulged with the contents of the poor citizen it had devoured on the street, and bulged even more as Morph manipulated its own flesh to increase the surface area of its stomach. Soon the transformation was complete, if a biologist were to examine it now, it would be mistake for the numerous alveoli at the end of the lung's respiratory tree, until it was cut open with a scalpel, revealing all-consuming acid and perhaps a remain of something that used to be part of a human swimming about in that acidic soup. Devouring a whole street of people had been Morph's riskiest venuture yet, and the most rewarding...

Its hunger would be satisfied for possibly another three days, then the beast in its belly would howl for blood again. Being a all-devouring, shapeshifting, biological engine of destruction was hard work, needing a significant calorie intake to maintain. Even as Morph's size increase with every meal, the calorie requirement simply to keep the engine running increased. It was a tough dilemma, but with many answers. Morph could simply devour the Earth once Morph got too big or even perform mitosis, something that Morph wasn't too sure about. It didn't even know whether it could reproduce, sexually or asexually, and didn't like the idea of competing with its offspring. There only could be one Morph in town.

With a feast like that, it would take at least about twelve hours for it to digest. Morph didn't mind, in fact it relished the feeling of saccharides, amino acids and lipids being torn from the dead meat and being absorbed into Morph's being. Nevertheless, with the average diet of the New Yorker, there was a unsavoury amount of saturated fat and trans fat. Both inferior to unsaturated fat with those delicious fatty acids. Oh well, at least Morph now had time to think about such things without the hunger or the onslaught of fragmented memories that was to come. Thinking was something strange and new to Morph and with its prey already having mastery of it, Morph was determined to get the hang of it, lest it fall behind to the bottom on of the food chain. Still, one thing haunted Morph, even before it had gained sentience, it was a picture, no a logo. A logo that read "BioCorp". That was its next move now the hunger wouldn't stop, only to get that image out of its mind.

 

[Lambi]

"What?! How didn't you detect that sooner?!" Christopher was not happy when one of his scanners informed him that an attack had been made a few blocks away from the Seraphim building. "The police will have surrounded the area! We should have stopped it sooner before it devoured a whole street!" He hung up the phone and took a moment to breath. "It's alright." he said to himself. "I just need a reliable team of heroes to go and investigate..." Who he'd send, he wasn't sure.

He got another call on his phone and picked it up. "Christopher Adelbert speaking." "Sir, we've detected the...thing...in the sewers. It's not far from where it attacked the street." "I'll send a team there immediately." He hung up the phone and picked it up again to call the heroes he would send.

"Persephone, Faraday and Blizzard. I've got a mission for you. A blob of sorts has attacked a street nearby and is trying to get away through the sewers. You should be able to find the street if you follow the sound of sirens and look for the blood stained street. Find it, and take it out." He hung up again and sat back against his chair. "What a day. First some technological biohazard, according to Quick, Blizzard and H2O. And now a blob that devours a street while our scanners detected it too late." He rubbed his forehead a bit before returning to his work.

[hr]

Blizzard got the message on her cell and headed down towards the lobby, waiting for these Persephone and Faraday she was going with. This blob sounded like a few other ones she'd had to deal with before. Thankfully, she had her miniature laser gun ready in case she needed it. Persephone and Faraday would be able to recognize her by her black shoulder long hair and the blue outfit she wore.

 

[Arcanist]

As Marcus finished shoveling the last of his sandwich into his mouth, he heard the beep of a cell phone ringing somewhere to his right. Looking to the source, he saw a sleek, modern looking smartphone on his desk, the caller ID naming Adelbert as the caller. URGENT MESSAGE - LISTEN IMMEDIATELY. 'Right. Adelbert did say he'd give me one of these things to keep in touch.'

Answering the phone, Marcus heard Adelbert's voice speaking to him in a very serious, businesslike tone, in stark contrast to his previous friendly demeanor. "Persephone, Faraday and Blizzard. I've got a mission for you. A blob of sorts has attacked a street nearby and is trying to get away through the sewers. You should be able to find the street if you follow the sound of sirens and look for the blood stained street. Find it, and take it out."

He hung up and slipped the phone into his pocket. 'Time to get serious, Faraday.' Gathering the remainder of his gear, he slung it on and dashed out the door. A set of fingerless gloves to act as a conductor and the HUD display suite for his goggles - he hadn't fully tested their integrity since his fight the other day, but that could wait. Duty called, after all. 'Still, it couldn't hurt to run a diagnostic while I move.' Getting into the elevator and selecting the ground floor, Marcus brought up his suite's interface on his HUD and ordered the damage assessment diagnostic to run.

SCANNING

INTERFACE DETECTED, BEGINNING ASSESSMENT

STRESSING CONDUCTORS...

CHECKING VOLTAIC COMPILERS...

NO STRUCTURAL DAMAGE DETECTED - CAPACITANCE AND RESITANCE AT NORMAL LEVELS

'Good. It should be fine for now.' The elevator opened to reveal the ground floor, a woman in blue standing in the center of the lobby. She looked to the elevator as it opened and approached. Marcus stepped out, doing the same. 'That must be Blizzard. I'm guessing ice-based powers, but I should get specifics I'm going to be working with her.'

He extended out his hand in greeting. "Blizzard, I presume? I'm Faraday."

 

[Fury Is Me.]

"Persephone, Faraday and Blizzard. I've got a mission for you. A blob of sorts has attacked a street nearby and is trying to get away through the sewers. You should be able to find the street if you follow the sound of sirens and look for the blood stained street. Find it, and take it out." Said Christopher's voice as it rang through Persephone's room from an orifice she couldn't quite find. But who cared? This was big! Her first job here and it didn't even sound like kiddy crap. An entire street?! How in the world could... It ain't gettin much farther now, though! It's days are numbered by the minute!. She though, full of disgust and energy.

Quickly slipping out of her casual clothes, which would just be whatever assortment of T-shirt and pants she had at the time, Lina slipped into her old Wolfen uniform, the long, flowing, red jacket, the flouro-red pants and under-shirt, and her black and red skirt. Needless to say she had her glasses. Out the door she sprang... Before she realize she forgot her sword. flushed with embarassment, she stopped in her tracks, stood there for a minute, before she resumed her dead-sprint, but in the opposite direction this time. Back to her room, she went, to find her precious blade. Persephone kept it in her closet, a whole back wall just for it. In a nice little case and stand, provided for it by Seraphim. She gripped the handled of the golden colored, giant blade, Ark of Noah, and hoisted it over her shoulder, on the flat end, of course. The sword itself was bigger than her, in height and width. the only dimension it wasn't larger than her was depth, but that in no way entails that she's fat. "Man, I wish I had a sheathe for this... I'll ask Christopher if he can provide after this mission."

She cricked her neck a few times and ran back out the door, but only at a jogging pace this time. This was a narrow hallway and she had a big sword with no sheathe. Running at a dead-sprint would be suicidal and homicidal. To the elevator went the mighty maiden, and down to the bottom for she went, where she found her comrades, Marcus, and a new woman, who she could tell was blizzard by Process of Elimination. She walked over to both of them, and grinned a wide, toothy smile. "Yello, guys! Heya Marcus, kinda funny how we just met and now we're on a mission already, huh?"

 

[Lambi]

Blizzard extended her own hand and shook Faraday's. "Yes, I'm Blizzard. Pleasure to meet you." Not long after that, another girl came out of the elevator, presumably Persephone. "We've got a mission to do, so lets not stop for too long here. Pleasantries can be made on the way." Blizzard walked out the door with the two close behind and listened for the sound of sirens, as Christopher had said. That didn't take long, as she looked to her left and found the source a few blocks away.

The three of them sprinted towards the scene, and Blizzard was shocked to see just how blood stained the street was. "What kind of monster..." she started before she stopped when a police officer came towards them. "What business do you have here?" Blizzard fetched her Seraphim ID out of her pocket and showed it to the officer. "I'm here on Seraphim business. These two are with me." She pointed towards Persephone and Faraday. "Alright, but don't temper with anything. If you're here to catch the one that did this, search if you want to. Whoever it was isn't here anymore." the officer said to them.

"We know." Blizzard said. "We need to check the sewers. That thing is around here somewhere in there." The officer shrugged. "There's a sewer cap right in the middle of the street there. Take a look there if you want." Blizzard nodded and hovered towards where the sewer cap was. She lifted it open and motioned for the other two to come before hovering down into the sewers.

 

[Arcanist]

Turning to the street, the stench of death and gore overpowered Marcus's nose. He reeled further at the sight before him - skeletons stripped bare, and blood spattered like water after a rainstorm.

'Fucking... What happened here? It's like a pack of wild animals came and picked these people down to the bone. I'm not too keen on letting this... thing... run free.' Marcus saw Blizzard prop open a manhole cover and make a motion to follow her down.

'Still in the sewers, huh? Damn it. That's going to complicate things.' On the one hand, power mains ran the length of any sewers large enough for people to fit in - it made them easier to maintain. On the other, it is a sewer, damp and full of water. 'I'm gonna have to be careful down there. If I get wet, we're all in trouble.'

Marcus followed Blizzard down into the sewers, careful to keep himself dry as he did. The air was humid, and the sewage ran in a stream to his right. 'Humid air... another inconvenience. The city's engineers must not have finished repairing the respirators down here.'

"Just a word of warning, ladies - if you see me get wet, get away from me IMMEDIATELY. I'll need some time to dry off before I rejoin the fight. I can't be held responsible for what might happen if you don't."

 

[Fury Is Me.]

Needless to say, Lina had delved into the manhole cover. She was too intent on stopping whatever monstrosity did this to marvel in disgust at it's handiwork. Lina had to position her sword so she and it could make it down the manhole. This thing REALLY needed a sheathe.

"Just a word of warning, ladies - if you see me get wet, get away from me IMMEDIATELY. I'll need some time to dry off before I rejoin the fight. I can't be held responsible for what might happen if you don't."

"Hm? Why should we- Oooooh. I guess water makes it hard for you to use your powers huh? Heheh, don't worry. My weakness is a lot more inane than that, and probably more inconvenient." She patted him on the back, kinda forcefully, like one of those big burly men who doesn't know you're like a twig compared to him. "Don't worry buddy, you'll be fine, and hey, if you need a dry off, you could always sit on my sword. It won't get it done fast, but you'll be dryer quicker." she laughed, knowing that sitting on a sword for a few minutes wasn't the best way to do things in an action situation like this. "Just keep mind of the water, and we'll be perfectly fine. I don't mind a little electric shock every now and then, anyway."

She turned her head back towards Blizzard, who had gotten a bit ahead of them. "Hey, wait up, Frosty!" She said, taking off into a job, sword still on her shoulder. It hadn't even begun to fatigue her yet. "So what do you think we're up against, Blizzard?"

 

[Captainguy42]

Without any special command, the Drone defaulted to a taking a circuitous path back Ryan, who was still making still making his way through the city. Once it was close it began hanging out of sight, sticking to alley-ways, and remaining well people's heads. Below Ryan began congratulating himself on his get away, thinking he was home free. The remaining SPD's from Broadway would be here in just moments, but now Ryan had a feeling that he wouldn't need them and it was only a few more blocks before he could get a boat at the water-front.

At the moment he was fenced in by cars on a busy four lane street. All around New Yorkers went about their day without a clue that a villain was in their midst. And that villain went about his without a clue that there was a hero very close by.

 

[Lambi]

"Don't worry about it. I could freeze the water around here to help you not get wet." Blizzard replied to what Faraday said before turning her attention towards Persephone. "I'm not sure. I know it's a blob. If it's one that absorbs other's mass, well, then we've got a big blob on our hands. Thankfully, I've come prepared." She patted her gun holster under her left arm. "It's only a last resort, but I won't hesitate to use it if I have to, since we may need to avoid the blob re-grouping if I can execute my plan along with you two."

She didn't want to keep them in the black, so she continued. "Should it be a blob that can re-group, I will need to freeze parts of it and have either one of you break those frozen bits off. Once that's done, I can use my laser gun to evaporate the parts that have been cut off. I've gotten this question before, so I'll answer right away. No, I can't use the gun on the blob itself if it's too big. I had it specifically made to only take out small things, otherwise it'll overheat. I prefer to use my powers to bring down criminals and villains, not a gun. But I've encountered blobs before, so the gun is only usable for that job."

 

[Arcanist]

"Hold on a minute. As long as we're on the subject of preparedness..." Marcus reached up and felt around the sewer's ceiling, and sure enough, he found a power main running along its length. Sensing the powerful current moving within, he guessed... no longer than a few seconds? Only one way to find out. Grabbing it with his right hand, he activated his HUD. "Prepare major power draw protocol." His HUD crackled to life, displaying his current capacitance at 2%. 'Wow, I didn't think it was that low. Good thing I stopped us, I'm nowhere near ready to fight right now.'

"Stand back, this should only take a few seconds." His HUD gave a beep, indicating his suite was ready for the incoming stress. Marcus took in a deep breath and started the drain. Lightning crackled from his hands as he did so, and the figure displayed on his HUD made a steady climb upwards. 15%... 35%... 50%... 75%...

A few seconds later, he released the wire with a gasp, and his HUD let off another beep, this time to signify the power draw was complete. 100% capacitance. "Okay, I'm good to go. We should move quickly. I have a feeling this thing won't stick around for long."

 

[Fury Is Me.]

"So this could take a while while we chip down the blob. Alright, that's fine by me." Lina said as they walked, paying attention to Blizzard as she spoke. "I've never fought a blob. Mostly just more... Em... Solid threats, so this should be interesting."

The stink in the sewer didn't exactly bother Lina, but the smell wasn't exactly pleasing either. "Hm. I've never really been in a sewer before, like most normal people. Then again, we're not really normal people. Is there a 3-dimensional aspect to these at some point? Like a lower level or floor?" Lina asked, genuinely not knowing the answer.

 

[Lambi]

While Faraday charged up, Blizzard made things ready so he wouldn't get wet by freezing the sewer water as they went along the path. "There shouldn't be." she answered Persephone. "It should just be straight ahead, backwards or to the sides. No down. The only up obviously being to get out of the sewers."

Once Faraday was charged up, they kept going, Blizzard hovering over the sewer water to freeze it. "Yeah, I agree." she said to Faraday saying to move quickly. "We want to take care of the blob as soon as possible so that it doesn't cause any more harm. We don't want another street like the one we just saw..." She clenched her fist in half-anger. "Nothing that does that deserves to go on. We'll find it and defeat it. Nothing more, nothing less."

 

[Terratina.]

Drip.

Drip.

Splash.

The change in the waters unsettled Morph, as it was vulnerable in its open state. Gradually retracting the sacs, it settled into a more compact state, with large sections of chitin taking shape, protecting the soft underbelly, the claws retracting into tiny hooks on the underside of Moprh. The shell took the colour of the ceiling, while the soft fleshy parts camouflaged themselves as moss. After that, as a little subtle touch, Morph let liquid secret out of the pores, giving the impression of a raised wet lump in the ceiling caused by damage or where some worker was a little overzealous with the concrete. Morph mimicked the foot of a slug, it slowly crawled away from its resting place, slowly but surely to the location of the BioCorp building, directly opposite to Seraphim. After all, it was only a matter of time until they noticed the carnage Morph had wrecked in the street above.

 

[Baldrek]

Waldemar looked on in bewilderment at the scene, he was sure that he had hit the villains pistol, and yet he had seen the unmistakable impact of the bullet on the asphalt in a straight line behind it, and weirder still was the slight delay before he had 'tossed' away his pistol which was now nowhere to be seen. As he brought out his detonator and opened his coat to reveal the rows of explosives it contained, Waldemar silently wondered if this had somehow been his plan, and that he had actually missed with his first shot.

He finally snapped out of it when Arlana spoke over the cellphone and leveled his rifle at the villain again, now brandishing his detonator and seemingly daring them to do anything to hurt him, it truly seemed like he intended to blow himself up unless they let him have his way. Trying his best to aim at the small detonator the villain held in his hands and wondering if hitting it would actually help and not just make him trigger the explosives, Waldemar was deep in concentration as the message from Kurt came through on the cell, just a short "I can." in response to Arlana.

Moments later the person flickered briefly, like the image of a TV with bad reception, and as Kurt let his cloak fall away and fired some kind of energy bolt at him the flickering returned, only even more visibly. As the person, or image, focused itself again Kurt sent through another message.

"Guys, don't know if you saw that, but this isn't our perp. It's some kind of decoy. The real guy's probably fled the scene..."

Waldemar cursed, of course it was, seemed incredibly obvious now that Kurt had figured it out, if he had half a functioning brain he should have realized it when the bullet had passed through his pistol and impacted behind him, now the villain had a head start on them. His mood didn't exactly improve either when a metallic object up and left from a nearby tree faster then he could spin his rifle around, letting whatever decoy the villain had used escape as well.

"...but I think I know how to find him. If you can, follow my signal and keep your distance."

His mood was marginally improved as Kurt finished his message however, apparently he had a plan to stop the villain still, despite their little distraction here. "Got it, I'll be following from a distance, should I try to keep your position within line of sight?" He asked over the phone as he went back to the fire escape and descended from the roof, meeting up with Arlana as he used the phone to home in on Kurt's signal so he would be able to follow him.

 

[Arcanist]

Marcus walked alongside his comrades, his eyes sweeping along the walls to the sewer. He'd been in them before, back before he became Faraday, as he was often dispatched to repair broken power lines and assist construction crews in building new ones. The brick walls where lined with mold and water, a result of the city's recent neglect of this borough's infrastructure. 'I can't count how many calls we got complaining that the sewers where spiraling out of control. The city should just fix the respirators down here and be done with it.'

As they moved deeper into the sewers, Marcus started to to notice something odd - the ceiling above him was being tinted with some strange, dark fluid. 'Water wouldn't leave marks like that. What's going on here?' Looking ahead, he saw something even stranger. To the untrained eye, it would just appear to be more neglected sewer, some shattered concrete covered in moss. But as Marcus looked closer, he noticed the texture was... off. And the fluids covering it seemed to match the liquid trailing behind them. Silently, he motioned for Blizzard and Persephone to stop and back up. Reaching up, he touched the power main, took a few steps away from the mass, and let loose a massive surge through the wire. A sound like a gunshot let loose as a bolt of electricity surged down towards the mass...

 

[Terratina.]

Morph waited above where it has nested. To the average observer, it was just some moss-covered concrete. A remnant of the neglect of the sewers in this block. At first he saw a man with goggles, he seemed to be quite cautious in his step, avoiding the water as much as possible. Then he saw a woman with a giant sword and then nothing else as the sword partially blocked its view. Morph cursed, there could be any number of Seraphim agents there. No doubt these were the ones who dared to call themselves Morph's predators - Seraphim. No doubt they had seen what carnage it could unleash on the street above, it hoped that Seraphim would take that as a warning, but no. They had to play the hero. Still, as the group approached, in what others would describe as fear but was more of instinctual self-preservation, Morph secreted more of the fluid, ready to turn it into an impetuous flow. The man was now reaching up to the power main, Morph didn't anticipated what would happen next.

[HEADING=1]

...BZZZT...​

[/HEADING]

Suddenly a bolt of electricity surged towards Morph, reflexively it calmed up inside the chitin shell, but that made no difference. Morph got the full brunt of it. As the current ran through its mass and muscle, bits of Morph twitched and a memory fragment of its creator was jolted into its head - it was of him linking up a dead frog to an electrical circuit and watching it move. Fighting the current, Morph let the chitin completely cover itself, every bit of exposed flesh covered by a shell. Legs jutted out, half-tendril and half-claw, like some strange mockery of an insect. Channels opened throughout its body, from the stomach to the pores, a potent mix if Morph had the time to let the acid get concentrated. As when mixed with the liquid of the sewers and its secretions, it was only mildly acidic, but better than nothing. A giant monstrosity stood there where the concrete was, the few bits of light reflecting off the wet chitin. Morph was ready.

 

[Lambi]

Blizzard stopped when Faraday motioned for her to do so. She prepared by freezing the water up ahead as much as she could before he let out an electrical surge. It hit whatever had apparently been on the ceiling, which she could only assume was what had consumed all those people on the street. She was right in thinking it was a blob.

There was little time for words, so she tried to keep it short. "I'll freeze parts of it, and you two work on breaking parts of it off so I can shoot them with my laser!" She began freezing the blob with her powers, a blue stream of frost could be seen coming from her hands. She also aimed her powers towards the ceiling in order to get the blob down to them. The sewer water was frozen so that it would land on that if it didn't land on either side. The process of freezing the blob was taking a while, since it was more solid than the water, but it was working as the side of the blob that faced Blizzard slowly froze over.

 

[Fury Is Me.]

"Ahaha! Just like old times!" Lina said, as she lifted her sword off her shoulder and was at the ready with it now, knees bent, sword a little to her side, with the point facing the frozen parts of Morph. She took a moment to consider how best to charge her sword. The creature seemed to be pained by electricity, freezing it was still in the process of being verified to work, and fire... She didn't really think extreme heat would do much, but she could try some other time, she supposed. Plenty of blobs in the world. She decided on ice, and, gripping her sword tightly, she inhaled deeply. The moisture that had accumulated on the sword began to freeze, and the water vapor around the sword was visible, like a breath on a cold winter's day. The sword had reached near antarctic temperatures, and though it was not as potent as Blizzard, it was sure to afflict those not well suited to the cold.

Wasting no more time, Lina saw that a good enough portion of the large blob was now frozen, and, while she didn't anticipate that she could cut it all off in one clean blow, she knew she could chip it off bit by squishy bit. She leaped at and with the great power in her legs and flew above it. Her sword, however, was held downward and, upon reaching within range, Lina made a great swing upward, sword brought steady to her front, pointing forward after. She'd managed to take off a sizeable chunk with her frigid sword. She spun back around quickly, in position to defend now, facing the monster's back.