The NEW Vanguard! The HAUNT Issue #4

talking is good. Talking means he isn't hitting me with tons of pain. Now what do I want to talk about?

"You call us freaks," the Haunt says once he gets his breath back, "but isn't that just what you are trying to do to yourself? Turn yourself into an eternal freak? Why become something you hate? Are you sure you want to ignore what is happening wherever those people who were talking to you come from? They might have unleashed something that could destroy the entire world, before you can become the last man on Earth! You might die because of their incompetence."

ooc:
Babbling questions and seeing what sticks so I can see what makes him tick and to get him to either leave or drop his guard so I can do something about getting away.
Stretching only helps to resist physical damage, not energy damage, right?

OOC Correct on the stretching part. You can deform your body to stretch and cushion physical impact, but stuff that burns or blasts is beyond Stretchings ability to reduce...

"WHATTTTT!" screamed the man, turning in his chair. "FREAK? I? THE GREATEST MIND THAT EVER LIVED!?!?"

His eyes flickered, and he hovered his hand over the 'pain' button but held off. "What care I of the world? Medical science has no cure for me. The 'social services' of this country want to lock me in a home and levae me to rot. I have two choices. Die as the state decides, or live as I do. And I will live. And I will make the people of the world bow their knee to me!" He was about to continue but collapsed into a racking cough. Tended by his robots, he looked away from Haunt for a second.

The pain had already started to subside. Whatever damage it was doing to his skin was quickly healing thanks to his amazing ability to heal. Therein lay his way of escape he figured. Could he overpower this restraint machine and trust in his healing factor to keep him conscious? All the while, those robots would be coming at him. Maybe some kind of distraction? His arms and legs were restrained, so he was immobile, but ... how about stretching another part of his body?

OOC Is haunt Mr fantastic stretching (body, limbs) or Plastic man (everything)?

ooc: With stretching and shape change and Omni arm, he is Plastic Man everything plus super strength

Is his wheelchair battery powered? Was wondering about stretching my nose or tongue [I'm not about to extend my "junk in the trunk"!] and disconnecting his power to his wheelchair. Or using the same appendage and pushing his wheelchair out of the room, assuming there is an open door or hallway to push him through, and then try to get free. Or both.

Or can the Haunt see a shackle release button to free himself? He could stretch to that too.

So depending on what he spots, it will decide which one of those actions he wants to do.

Haunt looked about.

Thankfully either his nose or tongue would serve the purpose he needed. As the villain was tended he saw three possible solutions.

A large red button on the console to the left of Exitiums current location, within only a couple of feet. Could that be a shut down... or some kind of 'launch' button?

On the back of the bad guys chair were a number of cables exiting out of one area and going into another.

Elsewhere a large thick yellow cable ran between servers. He couldn't tell where it came out or went in, but at a couple of inches thick it looked like some kind of insulated power wire... or it might be spare, going nowhere!

Haunt had to act fast - Exitium was recovering, and waving his robotic helper away!

"Why can't people label buttons," the Haunt grumbled to himself. "Just how hard could it be and help reduce possibility of mistakes?"

The Haunt chooses door number three - thick yellow cable. Actually extend head from neck and grip cable with teeth and pull.

Stretching his head and knowing he only had one shot at this, Haunt glanced to see that the Doctor had been administered his medicine and was turning his chair...

Haunt had scant seconds before he was seen!

Seeing the cable, he wondered at the wisdom of grabbing an electrical cable with his teeth then pulling, but figured he had run out of choices!

Stretch... bite... grab... pull!

SKRRRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!

haunt let go as his teeth set on end, and... the place was plunged into darkness! Exitium started ranting immediately! "Find him! Get him! Restrain him! I must punish him! Quickly fools!"

Haunts head was back in place, and he saw red lights - the robots eyes - shining in the darkness. Tentatively, Haunt tried the restraints...

He was free! Slipping his hands out of the depowered restraints he knew he was at a disadvantage - it was pitch black, and his opponents could see, Haunt couldn't!

OOC And it might be the shortest lived escape ever unless Haunt can figure something out!

Not exactly sure how the robots "saw" and how they could distinguish one person from another, the Haunt took a gamble. Freeing himself, he turned himself into a duplicate of Dr. Exitum - wheelchair and all and zoomed over to be next to where the doctor was screaming.

possible future actions: Take doctor as hostage and back out of the room with him, looking for a better opportunity to get away and save whoever might be in the complex. Or shove the doctor towards the robots, thinking that they might have some kind of prime directive to keep the doctor safe, while he escapes down a black hallway.

The Robots started to look for the Haunt... and turned when the Doctor yelled out...

"What? Get him you fools!" he shouted, pointing at the white replica of himself! He frantically backed the chair up and pressed another button. Haunt saw an energy field form up around the Doctor and his chair, but it flickered. "Restore the power, idiots! He called.

Haunt looked at the panels and saw them flickering into life, rebooting as a backup power source began to restore it. In moments the lights would be back on! He looked about, and saw the floor was a metal grid, water sloshing twenty feet underneath. They were clearly in a natural cavern under London or a sewer cave! He could slip through the grate into the water below, or rely on taking the Doctor hostage. That niggled, and he realised why. The robots would have no qualms about blasting the pair of them with power reduction rays! He'd be overwhelmed in moments! As the robots advanced on the pair of Exitiums, Haunt had choices...

Go through the grate to the water below
Take Exitium hostage (he'd have to overcome his chairs force field first)
Look for an air duct to escape into
Take on the robots (not the greatest of ideas - every successful hit saps his power!)
Smash the consoles on the raised platform to (hopefully) disrupt Exitiums plan, regardless of whether he recaptures Haunt or not
Or... Something else?

Hit the water and see where I can come out at. Still want to find any other supers who are being held here. Disrupting power when and where I can.

Haunt flowed into the water like a white eel, powering down into the depths...

He pretty much ignored the electrical charge that pulsed through it - the robots weren't messing about - but it would need more than a couple of thousand volts to slow him down!

He figured they'd expect him to head for the exit... so he turned the other way, and swam as quickly as he could under the grid/walkway that separated the base form the water below. Every now and again he'd take a breath, peek an eye about through the grid and investigate where he was. Only a matter of time before he found where the captives were being stored...

...and so it was he came to a locked, sealed vault type door. The small window set into it wasn't made of glass, but something far tougher. A glance inside revealed a mist filled room with a dozen capsules, half of which were occupied by humans, and one person... thing.. that looked like an orange lizard. This was it! The supers were being kept on ice seemingly, and each pod was hooked up to a bank of machines. Haunt wondered if the mad genius and his robot army were somehow using superhuman energy to power this place. It wouldn't surprise him. Anyone who could not only create artificial life, but have it construct an undiscovered base under London and equip them with weapons that counteracted superhuman abilities was clearly a magnitude of genius far beyond Einstein. A pity then that he chose to use it for his own ends rather than the betterment of mankind!

How now to get into this sealed vault without setting off alarms, then getting either those capsules out, or rousing the occupants enough to help him help them escape, all whilst fighting off the crazy robots with depowering rays? At the moment he had the advantage. They would be thinking he'd left and searching accordingly. As soon as he messed with this door, that would change...

Don't believe I have Lockpick/Escape Artist skill nor computer hacking skills, though I may be wrong on that. Been awhile since I last looked over my skill set.

Since you say it is a sealed door, I assume that there are no cracks for me to ooze through to get inside.

How about any power cables nearby that I could rip out, disrupting power in this area?

If not, then using Omni-arm to drill a hole in the "glass" that I could then stretch through to get inside.

Let's try lockpick with the points added in. If that fails, then the drill bit as fallback.

HAUNT
Hero Points: 68

Haunt doesn't have long, and uses his amazing malleable body to instantly create the tools he needs. Flowing through gaps in the keypad by the side of the vault door he pulled it away from the wall and looked inside at the wiring. A failsafe meant that the wrong move would lock the vault - and probably the corridors around him - down in an airtight impregnable deathtrap!

Best get it right then, especially as he could hear distant clanking sounds of running metal footed robots as they sprinted through the corridors looking for him. No pressure then. With limited time and the sure knowledge he had only one shot, Haunt gave the door his best shot...

OOC 16 AV and EV on the safe 2d10 → [4,10] = (14)

With a HISS the vault door cracked open, and ice cold air escaped! With a sigh of relief Haunt levered the weighty door open. He wondered if he could have broken through it, or the reinforced concrete walls, then saw an energy field fizzle as the door seal broke. A force field of some kind as well?

Inside the vault he saw several rows of capsules with superhuman (and less than human) occupants in each, plumbed in via thick pulsing cables that led elsewhere in this place and possibly provided the power needed to stay 'off the grid' and yet utilise more power than the grid was ordinarily capable of delivering! With only a short time before the robots were on him, Haunt had a choice to make. Wake the occupants somehow, take as many capsules as he could carry (and each was 7' long by 3-4' wide depending on the occupant), face off against the robots or do something else...

The Haunt looks for controls to open the "coffins" and wake the various folks up, while at the same time shutting the door behind him and holding it closed with a stretched out leg.

The controls were fairly easy to find and operate, and the coffins opened with a hiss as the glass doors opened... slowly...

The clanking of footsteps got closer until it stopped outside. With a glance at the door, pinned shut by a foot, he turned back to the 'coffins'.

The first of the occupants, a beautiful woman in her late twenties, sat up slowly, disorientated. Her brown bob hair was plastered to her face, and the white smock she wore crackled with frost as she moved. With a groan, and wincing as the light hurt her eyes, she looked around. Then she self consciously reached for her face, as if expecting something to be there. Reacting quickly, she turned, and saw the white clad man in the cowboy hat looking at her.

"Who are you? Where am I?" she asked, moving with unsteady hands to climb from the coffin and standing on shaking feet. Flexing a fist, she jabbed it at the coffin - and the steel dented inwards as if slammed with the heaviest swung sledgehammer! "Too weak." she muttered. With her right hand she opened it and stared. A glittering form appeared in it - a short sword of some kind? It formed... then fizzled out and she gasped with the effort. When stood, the woman measured just over six feet tall, athletic build, an Amazon if ever Haunt saw one!

The door started pounding as the robots rammed their weight against it!

Haunt was stronger though and the door held!

Suddenly the pounding stopped... what next?

Haunt heard the faintest of noises... a hissing sound?

"Gas," the Haunt says outloud. Looking around quickly, he tries to spot the vents so he can use his pliable body to plug them up. Holding his breath after that one word.

actions: Guess HP would help in spotting them, so will use what amount that helps make a shift or two on the action bar. Then depending on how many and how large he spots, he will either use his fingers stretched out to plug them or use his whole body to spread over the walls and ceilings, wherever the gas is coming from.

OOC Perception Check (Int/Will) to spot the vents. Haunt has Int 7/Will 5 so is sharper eyed than ordinary people, but so-so for supers. Adding HP to Int (4 points) to shift AV to the 11 column and 2 to EV to shift to 7. Let's see what the dice say...

2d10 → [3,10] = (13)

The dice are kind.

HAUNT
Hero Points: 62

Spotting a number of small vents Haunt acts quickly to plug them, but frowns beneath the mask. Tipping his head to one side he listens...

And finds more vents at floor level tucked behind some machinery! With his arms spread out like white spaghetti, fingers splayed like handkerchiefs over the air vents, he knows it will only be a matter of time before the Dr figures out that Haunt has thwarted him.

The woman (Amazon) looks about. "We need to get out of here but my powers..." she glances at Haunt and figures he must know what's going on so for this occasion ignores he need to keep her identity secret. "My powers are weakened. Those robots really sapped me! And these others..."

Hearing banging on the vault she turns. "They must be back! We need to get out of here, then come back when replenished and put paid to this madmans' schemes!"

Haunt couldn't agree more, but there was another problem now.

The cocoon the woman had just gotten out of started glowing a deep shade of red. It hurt his eyes just to look at it, and more than that, made his stretched arms feel heavy...

Over a loudspeaker somewhere the evil Doctor cackled "You think you have me thwarted, Ghost Man? Everything that happens in this place is noticed by me! This whole installation is an extension of my will! I can command everything you see!"

The light from the cocoon intensified, like a sun lamp in intensity and brightness, save it was red.

Amazon groaned and stumbled, grabbing onto the wall to steady herself. "What...?" she muttered.

The pounding on the door grew more intense, and for the first time dust crackled from the ceiling as the door shook on its hinges!

OOC This red light is a worry. Haunt has stopped the gas, but this might be a short lived escape if this red light affects him like it affected the occupants of the cocoons! A death trap? Maybe, but salvation lies in the madmans own words...

"Free everyone you can," The Haunt says in his ghostly voice, "While I see what I can do about this."

Extending his body to cover the room as much as he can [with his stretching, I think he can easily cover it all] and also generate his fog to blind the doctor for as long as he can. Then start thinking about ways out of the room - gas vents have to have pipes, pipes have to go to some kind of gas container - those should all be easier to break out of then reinforced walls, is one of the ways he is thinking about getting out.

Haunt starts to stretch and fill the corners of the room, intending to explore every way out of the room...

Except it was painful to use his powers! What...?

OOC Roll(2d10)+0:6,1,+0 Total:7

Then his powers returned. The red light.

It was used in the cocoons by the doctor to keep his captives 'under' figured Haunt. Right now it wasn't affecting him, but the longer it pulsed its ominous rays out the more he was at risk. Racing against time he stretched outwards down pipes and conduits...

...and popped a finger out somewhere else in the complex. It was several dozen yards away, but Haunt figured he could get out of the room to pop out somewhere else. Where was the real question, but it would leave Amazon and the others at the mercy of the red rays and the robots who were pounding on the door. Haunt was pretty sure that he needed to cut the head off this snake to nullify the threat though...

Try and see if closing the cocoon will help with stopping the red light or at least diminish its effects. If that doesn't work, try ripping the cocoon out of the floor and using it to batter the pipe area he found as a way out for tiny and stretchy people.

Sealing the cocoon shut had an immediate effect...

But the others were glowing, and the occupants writhed in pain! Haunt tore it from the floor, sized it up against the wall and punched the steel capsule through it. Concrete smashed through, filling the room with dust, and Haunt shouted for Amazon to go as he turned to the other cocoons and let rip. With steel hard fingers he ripped and shredded the capsules and took the occupants out. They were too weak to move by this point. Not only were they powerless but the red energy had been a kind of radiation. A 'back up' in case things went sideways for this lunatic.

The pounding on the vault door became more insistent and the door creaked on its hinges.

Another second or two and the robots would be through!

Amazon helped several of the depowered supers out, crying out as the last remnants of the red energy burned into her. "I think we should get out of here!" she shouted over the metallic din as she pointed to the metal grate acting as floor over the water sloshing below.

Did Haunt have enough time to get these guys out of here before the robots got into the room?

Scoop up everyone he can with his stretchy powers and get out of Dodge!

"GO!" he commands Amazon.

Amazon coughs and stumbles through the hole while Haunt scoops everyone up - some quite roughly as in their disorientated state they resist - and follows her through the hole in the wall...

With no time to spare as there is a huge explosion behind him!

Showered in debris and surrounded by a dust cloud Haunt turns and looks back through the hole... the robots are really letting rip with mini guns and rocket launchers in the room. Thankfully their own munitions must cloud their senses as they haven't realised yet that their prey has flown the coop!

"What now?" splutters Amazon as she staggers to her feet. Another room similar to the last, vault door and heavy reinforced concrete walls. Haunt answered by raining punch after punch as the next wall, crumpling it into dust and breaking through into what seemed to be a Victorian sewer. The former captives needed no prompting to get through and helped each other out even as the firing behind stopped. That meant the robots would soon be after them.

OOC Perception check... Roll(2d10)+0: 4,4,+0 Total:8 DOUBLE plus Roll(2d10)+0: 4,10,+0 Total:14 =22

Haunt turns to face the robots. They would be coming in force through that hole and the escapees would need time to get down into the sewer tunnel and start running. In his heart he knew this was a battle he could not win. Their depowering rays would wittle him down and those miniguns would cut him up. Still, he could buy time if...

He glanced up as he stood in the hole of the wall and saw a large muck encrusted pipe running through the sewer. Someone else might not have spotted that, but could it be for the delivery of...

Gas?

any chance we are still under the river and I could smash a hole above to flood the robots and their chambers? Use my body as a plug to prevent the river water from pouring in after the escaped supers?

If not, then pull that pipe out and point it at the robots and encourage them to fire away at me, hoping the gas ignites and I have a wonderful flamethrower to use on them. :-)