The Ultrahumans! Issue #4 starring Miss Victory and Lionheart "The long road back"

LIONHEART and MISS VICTORY

The British hero slowly looked about at the lift and the room. Super smart, he guessed that the heat, the smoke and the state of the room suggests up to about about an hour, possibly, when it happened?

Guessing at that he narrows his eyes and looks around...

OOC Postcognition 11 + 2d12+0 5,6+0 = 11 (22) vs
OV10 (1 hour) + 2d12+0 1,1+0 = 2 FUMBLE

Success +7

EV11 +7 (EV18) vs RV0 (Fumble)=18 RAPs

The room changes.

Soldiers running back to the lift and kneeling, taking aim.

Lionheart turned. The creature they'd defeated was marching slowly into the room ignoring bullets collecting around its feet as they flatten against its body. It is slow, considering. About a dozen soldiers are here now and two set something up like a 'Ghostbusters' proton pack that unleashes a high power energy beam by the one holding the weapon whilst the other operates the pack.

The creature pauses mid step then continues. Behind it three army officers - two men and a woman - calmly walk behind. Soldiers are behind them and the female officer turns, eyes lighting up.

Lionheart grimaced as he saw a dozen soldiers vaporised with a glance. The 'woman' morphed and changed to the grey shapeless creature as they'd fought. Two of them. No.

He stared at the other two 'officers'.

Miss Victory watched Lionheart walk across the room and stop, staring at nothing. Lots of bullets where the Brit stood. Flattened, splintered, destroyed, the bullets hadn't made a mark. The concrete was shattered on the spot too, as if pile driven by heavy weight and extreme power.

Lionheart saw the creature 'swell' slightly, becoming more dense. The energy weapon settled on it and the room lit up... Finally it subsided and the power pack exhausted... to no effect. The alien creature stared impassively.

Looking back at the two male officers they morphed into the same sexless shape as the others. Four of them.

Eye beams lanced out, smashing and crashing windows, destroying computers and desks, living flesh turning to red mist with each pass...

Finally turning away Lionheart looked up at Miss Victory. She saw a haunted look in his eyes.

They faced four creatures like the one they'd destroyed, three now.

Lionheart sighed and recalled the scene once more as the aliens parted the double thickness blast proof doors like wet tissue, tossing them aside. A blast into the lift shaft destroyed the cables and three of them stepped into the darkness, floating down into the depths of the base.

Admin wrote:LIONHEART and MISS VICTORY

Lionheart sighed and recalled the scene once more as the aliens parted the double thickness blast proof doors like wet tissue, tossing them aside. A blast into the lift shaft destroyed the cables and three of them stepped into the darkness, floating down into the depths of the base.

Lionheart filled Miss Victory in on the situation as his post cognition had shown him adding, "It looks as if our chum, here, has three other with him. If we thought he was a challenge, I wonder how we'll fair against the others. But also who is behind this? Is this Advent, Nexus or another 3rd party seeking to exploit the chaos around."

Lionheart looked a bit crestfallen. His usual cheerfulness and indomitable will seemed somewhat deflated. It was all very well being nigh on undefeatable until something comes along that can actually defeat you. But he shook it off, he wasn't one for being morus, perhaps it wasn't in his DNA programming.

"So what do you think, I'm all for following but cautiously we don't want to walk into a trap."

Sj

"First let's try an experiment on the "Goo" robot you have with us," she said. "Can you use your telekinetic abilities to "sieve" the thing? There might be some kind of tiny control or "brain" in it that we can remove and make it harmless. Sort of like a "core" of a slime in all those fantasy games and such."

"IF there is, we might be able to deduce how to torn off the others or destroy them."

DavidMcMahon wrote:"First let's try an experiment on the "Goo" robot you have with us," she said.  "Can you use your telekinetic abilities to "sieve" the thing?  There might be some kind of tiny control or "brain" in it that we can remove and make it harmless.  Sort of like a "core" of a slime in all those fantasy games and such."

"IF there is, we might be able to deduce how to torn off the others or destroy them."

Lionheart nodded they certain needed some sort of advantage and this was worth a short as was anything right now.

Concentrating, Lionheart attempted to create a series of chambers with a mesh to sift the goo through.

Sj

LIONHEART narrowed his eyes, concentrating...

With his telekinesis boosted to the nth degree

(OOC 22APs)

the superhero from the future could practically feel every molecule in his mind as he sieved through the 'gunk'.

Miss Victory was right. It wasn't a liquid as such. Rather it was nanites, or some version of the thing. Tiny computers which didn't do much on their own but together would interact with each other and form an incredibly off the scale solid whole!

What controlled the nanites though? Speeding up, using his super speed (albeit at a slower rate but still 500 times faster than an ordinary person could do it) he speeding up the sieving process.

There.

With the 'liquid' forced through an invisible mental 'net' the heroes saw something slightly larger. About the size of a golf ball. Silver metallic with thousands of tiny short needles jutting from it.

Lionheart glanced at his companion. She was right on the money! Powerful, beautiful AND smart, Miss Victory was a force to be reckoned with!

Lifting the 'ball' telekinetically whilst letting the 'goop' fall away the pair peered closely at it. Using telescopic vision was no good. Both heroes could see far off things up close but to see small things in detail they would need microscopic vision, or a microscope.

That left the question of what to do with this thing. Left to its own devices it would regenerate its energies, reboot and call the 'goop' to it, recovering to once more be a murderous powerhouse capable of ignoring most of the conventional armaments of the world!

Destroying it... it was sentient. Did that qualify as murder? What prison could hold it? Separating it from its 'host form' goop seemed to be the answer. Maybe Miss Victorys husband would know. Though Lionheart was no scientist he was super smart, and could boost his brain to be the equal of anyone on the planet, even the smartest such as...

Wandafar?

Would the diminutive genius from another world, veteran hero and 'backbone' of the Vanguard be able to help?

Admin wrote:LIONHEART narrowed his eyes, concentrating...

Wandafar?

Would the diminutive genius from another world, veteran hero and 'backbone' of the Vanguard be able to help?

OOC: Just to say I am going to be away from tomorrow till the following Saturday (17th) on Holiday so I am unlikely to be able to respond until after. I didn't want you think I'd fallen off the grid completely :-)

Lionheart put out a call to Wandafar - if anyone would understand what was going on here it would be him. In truth Lionheart had never met anyone smarter. And he had met and even been grown by some smart people. Establishing a link to the diminutive genius Lionheart explained what their latest predicament was and hoped he hadn't interrupted him in the middle of a critical part in Eastenders. The challenge in creating what he had just sifted through suggested possible alien tec? Advent maybe? Or was their a new player on the board. They had to do something to even the stakes just one of these robots was enough to give Miss Victory and Lionheart pause, what would a group of them mean? It wouldn't go well for the heroes, unfeeling, unmoving they'd show nor have any capacity for mercy as was evident by the slaughter they'd witnessed.

OOC: OK not sure if my coms would work here, or an if I need to go via Telepathy but either way, lets put in a call on the Wandy phone.

Sj

OOC Been AWOL myself, what with work, kids and indulging in a few personal 'side projects' (once I start something I get kind of obsessive until I tear myself away and find it's 3am and I'm at work at 6am and haven't been to bed yet. Doh!)

LIONHEART

The British superhero from the future had never done much in the way of measuring or testing his powers. Wandafar would be at least 5,000 miles away assuming he was still in England. Ah well, no time like the present to try these things... Switching his power to Telepathy he 'spoke' up...

The response was immediate!

"Vat! VAT! Blinkin' flip, you know vat time it is? Dumbkopf! I vas in ze middle of a great dream ver Dirty Den came back und ... Uhhh. Need coffee..."

Lionheart got the mental image of a bed in a cramped room surrounded by bits of gadgets - wires, motherboards, bits of PCs, all sorts of junk stacked haphazardly and somehow all connected, tied together by wires and a crazy/genius knack of making things work when they shouldn't.

"Lionheart..." muttered Wandafar. "I hope you are not saying ve hef a world ending crisis 'cause Frostbite has gone missin' an ze boy is like bear mit ze sore head. Catherine is in charge but viz no powers she can't lead in ze field. ADVENT are going back in time to mess viz stuff und Dawson - ze oaf - has gone back in time to 'fix stuff'. Don't zey vatch all the movies about time travel, und ze butterfly effect? Everything zey touch vill alter our present. Maybe ve never see zem again, or forget ve knew zem. All sorts of rubbish could heppen. Zets vy I have constructed a device to fire off an interdimensional beam zet bounces off from... something... und returns mit all ze information I could cram into it. Even if ze timeline changes I vill get ze message und be able to read from it."

"Unfortunately Coronation Street und Eastenders hev a lot of years of beck episodes so that took up a lot of ze bandwith, but zer should just be enough to..." There was a pause then...

"Vat do you vant?"

Admin wrote:"Unfortunately Coronation Street und Eastenders hev a lot of years of beck episodes so that took up a lot of ze bandwith, but zer should just be enough to..." There was a pause then...

"Vat do you vant?"

"I'll be quick..." Lionheart said with the equivalent of a smile on his face as he messaged the diminutive spacefaring scientist, all the while wondering what he meant about Frostbite disappearing!

Starting with what brought them here, he then explained about the robots and their goo form following their demise, the 'brain' of the thing and that there were more that they had yet to face. This one being more than a touch challenging, the others combined might be more than a match for them, but not for Wandafar. Having outlined the situation and the challenge they faced, Lionheart waited, not one of his strongest abilities.

Sj

ooc: Since I've been reading a number of Japanese Isekai light novels, I was think cores like the cores of the slime monsters. Crush the cores and they die. And actually how far back does the saved episodes of Coronation Street and East Enders go? Are they like Doctor Who and the earliest episodes got taped over so it is pretty much the 70s on for episodes? Having never seen a single episode of either but have heard of them, just a bit curious.

OOC Coronation street has run for decades longer than Eastenders which started in the 80s. I don't watch either (as a kid watched a few Eastenders episodes as some of the characters and storylines were infamous at the time and unavoidable, the stars household names) but Wandafar will have ways and means of watching them. Probably by constructing a gizmo that goes into deep space and looks upon the Earth in the past or some such.

"Hmmmm. Zet sounds remarkable. Nothing I hef not heard of before of course but not at the power levels you describe." replied Wandafar inside Lionhearts mind.

"I vunder, could you gather some up? Ve hef a chep called 'Timmy Jones' (formerly possessing a 'fentestical toy army' which sounds as dumb as it vas) who *might* benefit from some research und modifications to ze sludge you hef described. I vud hef thought ze core would be quite safe to hendle especially mit your force field. Make sure it goes no ver near any gizmos or gedgets as it might have some abilities like zet crazy sentient progrem zet lives inside Frostbite. Never found out ver zet came from but I suspect from ze future, probably even later then your own future."

"I vunder. Vot, if any, effect vud ze 'core' hef if you vere to throw it at another of ze crazy powerful sentient sludge android things? Zey may split into separate beings und cause more bother or... or start a kind of 'internal var'. Let me know how zet pens out. In ze meantime I hef to realign von of ze satellites over South America, my bounced signal is getting fuzzy..."

Admin wrote:"I vunder. Vot, if any, effect vud ze 'core' hef if you vere to throw it at another of ze crazy powerful sentient sludge android things? Zey may split into separate beings und cause more bother or... or start a kind of 'internal var'. Let me know how zet pens out. In ze meantime I hef to realign von of ze satellites over South America, my bounced signal is getting fuzzy..."

Lionheart explained what the diminutive genius has said, finishing with a shrug, "He's seems odd, but he is all there when it comes to knowing this stuff. What do you think about using the core against their cores? I'm not otherwise liking our chances against going up against another one of these let alone more."

OOC Either way I think we ought to go down and get a move on. Sorry for delay in positing, its a bit harder to post at the moment but I am reading them and trying to get back when I can.


Sj

"Give it a try I guess," Miss Victory says shrugging her lovely shoulders. "If it doesn't work, can you do some kind of EMP burst and if that does?"

ooc: I'm not going to metagame this and look at his character sheet. He seems to be able to do many things so she asks.

LIONHEART and MISS VICTORY

Mindful that whatever the powerful strange alien synthetics were doing was being done right now and time was ticking on, the pair peered down into the absolute darkness of the lift shaft.

Lionheart could navigate in the darkness simply by using his danger sense but Miss Victory was literally 'in the dark'.

He stepped into the air, standing. Miss Victory could leap down herself or take a hand from Lionheart.

OOC DANGER SENSE

AV9 + 2d12+0 2,4+0 = 6 (15) vs
OV2 + 2d12+0 5,11+0 = 16 (18) FAILED

Danger sense doesn't reveal...

There is a blur of motion from below and another of the horrendous creatures 'appears' next to Lionheart and swings at him!

OOC No full on Surprise but an adjustment for 'appearing' behind Lionheart and him relying on his normally reliable Danger Sense which failed him this time (bad roll) means...

AV18 + 2d12+0 5,7+0 = 12 (30) vs
OV26 + 2d12+0 1,8+0 = 9 -2 adjustment (33)

MISSED

Miss Victory blinks. Suddenly behind Lionheart 'appears' another of these things! It swings - a blur to anyone else but these two - and Lionheart catches a glimpse of something behind him and ducks - still floating in mid air in the dark lift shaft!

The blow - designed to take Lionhearts head off - pounds into nigh invulnerable steel and explodes it, shattering the area around and mangling it into a molten mess, such was the power of it (that would be 30APs power...).

Miss Victory sees Lionheart floating in the lift shaft and the creature literally floating right behind him swinging at the hero!

OOC Lionheart and Miss V act first in the next round and it's a relatively tight enclosed space in the dark so Lionheart is a little at a disadvantage.

Mind Blast seems best option for Miss Victory.

DavidMcMahon wrote:Mind Blast seems best option for Miss Victory.

OOC: Meanwhile Lionheart will look for a way to put the core from the other creature into this one. So maximum points to dex and speed, seeking to up my accuracy and make sure I get this where it can do some 'good' at least if only in our favour.

Lionheart meanwhile started to become a blur his being suffused with kinetic energy that made him incredibly fast, untouchable he hoped but able to still accurately deliver the core from the previous creature. Hoping that their desperate gamble paid off.

Sj

OOC Apologies for the delay. This is the last of four weekends on the bounce (and four long weeks!). It doesn't get a huge amount better for updating - I'm away in Whitby for three days later this week then have a week with my son which is kind of up in the air. Europe is too hot at the moment so it might be a staycation. After that (2nd week of August) I should start to get back to being able to sit down and update more than my current rate (which is hopeless - blame long shifts and not a lot of time to do anything other than eat and sleep). It will get better, just a 'summer slowdown' I guess...

LIONHEART and MISS VICTORY

Miss Victory wound up her powerful mental blast again in case Lionhearts plan - to plunge the 'core' of the downed creature into the body of the newcomer.

Lionheart waited several nanoseconds - an eternity to someone who could move faster than thought - then struck!

OOC Best bet is to Devastating Attack to break though this things impenetrable skin.

AV26 + 5D M Arts + 7d12+0 12,12,12,10,10,2,2+0 = 24 (Crikey, take your pick but the first two dice do it) DOUBLE plus 2d12+0
8,4+0 = 12 (36 rolled 62 total) vs
OV18 + Dev Attack 8 + 2d12+0 6,7+0 = 13 (39 total)

Success +7

EV14 + 7 (21) vs RV30 - 12 (Dev Attack)=3 RAPs

Not a lot of damage... but enough to pierce the skin and...

The creature stiffened and Lionheart just pulled his hand out of the hole he'd made in the sludge before it closed.

Instantly the thing started thrashing around and everywhere it touched in the supposed nuclear proof lift/bunker/structure crumpled like paper!

OOC 30AP strength will do that...

Like a blur, the thing thrashed... until it seemed to 'explode' outwards then shoot inwards to splatter like a puddle across the back wall.

The two cores there amidst the sludge were blackened, smashed, destroyed.

Miss Victory blinked. She'd been ready to blast but what had just happened? Lionheart wasn't even a blur - he was in one place then half a dozen others. This thing wasn't much slower - but now it was gone. Dead? No. It wasn't alive, it was something else. An advanced AI and some sort of manufactured semi organic sludge?

Nudging the sludge with a foot ensured that yes, it was just sludge now. Done. Gone. Oozing, dripping slowly down the wall in the darkness.

Two down.

The problem was that the process of introducing another core into the being as a whole which kicked off that instant battle for dominance ended in both cores destroying themselves in the process.

With a glance at each other the pair continued down the lift shaft.

With the light above receding it soon became pitch black. Lionheart struggled with his Danger Sense in such situations. What might be dangerous to someone ordinary (without powers) was inconsequential to someone who ignored bullets, most explosives, shells from a battleship... before he applied his force field.

That left the pair with a choice. Continue into the bowels of this place in the dark, or stop off at one of the levels to find something to light the way...

OOC Neither hero sees or operates well in the darkness. Running into these things in pitch black will make things very hard for the pair of you...

[quote="Admin"]

OOC Neither hero sees or operates well in the darkness. Running into these things in pitch black will make things very hard for the pair of you...

Lionheart spoke up for what had seemed like an eternity to him. "We need illumination if we are going to proceed. I suspect these things can see in all visible and other spectra. I can't and I don't know about you but they've got the advantage. Unless we wait for them - in which case I think we'll have pretty much flunked this mission. I suggest I take a look back where we've come from, somewhere is bound to be a torch or some means of illumination. Why don't you take point from above and keep me informed if anything changes?"

OOC:Assuming this is agreeable to you Dave, I'll take a superspeed look around for some hands free illumination, torches, flares, portable lights or inferred head gear. Amazing that for all our abilities a little thing like the lights turned off totally stimies us.

Sj

"Besides flashlights, see if you can find any light sticks," Miss Victory says. "We can throw those far beyond us so we don't get targeted by our lights. I'll stay here where there is still light and keep on guard until you get back."

LIONHEART and MISS VICTORY

The moments ticked away...

Well. Moments was perhaps too strong a weak. Seconds. Several seconds.

Two to be precise.

Lionheart searched/cleaned out the upper floors cupboards, storerooms, desks and anywhere else that might hold something useful and came back with a rucksack full of snapping green glow sticks and powerful hand torches of the plug in variety so they would last hours.

With light provided the pair could see.

They were in the lift shaft and it led deep, down into the bowels of the earth. Somewhere below them was a missile silo and more of those things that had slaughtered the brave men and women of this army base. They'd taken down two.

The second one had gone easier than the first but what were to happen if there were more of them?

OOC You can search floor by floor or head straight down, but with plenty of light there are no issues with fumbling around in the darkness any more!

[quote="Admin"]LIONHEART and MISS VICTORY

OOC You can search floor by floor or head straight down, but with plenty of light there are no issues with fumbling around in the darkness any more!

"Well Miss V, what say you. I doubt there is much chance of us landing surprise. Our assailants will be warned and no doubt ready to spring a surprise. We might as well try and see if we can't turn the tables, but given what we've faced already its going to be a tough one."

Lionheart awaited Miss Victory's response before preceding. Mindful of his own danger sense he sought to focus on that to give them the edge they might well need when, not if, they were attacked or needed to attack these deadly Robot assassins.

Sj

"Hmmm ... why don't we start at the bottom and work our way up," she suggests. "Less chance of any of them slipping by them. Of course, we are going to have to rely on you to take them down. The best I can do is be a distraction."

Steeple_jackuk wrote:

Admin wrote:LIONHEART and MISS VICTORY

OOC You can search floor by floor or head straight down, but with plenty of light there are no issues with fumbling around in the darkness any more!

"Well Miss V, what say you.  I doubt there is much chance of us landing surprise.  Our assailants will be warned and no doubt ready to spring a surprise.  We might as well try and see if we can't turn the tables, but given what we've faced already its going to be a tough one."

Lionheart awaited Miss Victory's response before preceding.  Mindful of his own danger sense he sought to focus on that to give them the edge they might well need when, not if, they were attacked or needed to attack these deadly Robot assassins.  

Sj

[quote="DavidMcMahon"]"Hmmm ... why don't we start at the bottom and work our way up," she suggests.  "Less chance of any of them slipping by them.  Of course, we are going to have to rely on you to take them down.  The best I can do is be a distraction."


[quote="Steeple_jackuk"][quote="Admin"]LIONHEART and MISS VICTORY

OOC You can search floor by floor or head straight down, but with plenty of light there are no issues with fumbling around in the darkness any more!

Lionheart nodded, either way they were unlikely to avoid running into the robotic creations before too long, he was just hoping that they might yet retain some sort of high ground, as Miss Victory said. When it came right down to it they were both going to struggle unless they gained some sort of upper hand.

Sj

OOC last few weeks been a bit wobbly, sorry (work, helping Mum move house, time with young un etc) but should start to get better - one can hope!

With Lionheart carrying Miss Victory telekinetically to the lowest floor the pair discovered the lift... or what was left of it.

Smashed up, ruined, useless. Ensured no one would be able to get down here in a hurry.

Unless they could fly.

With a glance at one another LH and Miss V flicked their torches off.

There was a glow of weak emergency lighting from the wide open expanse of this floor. This room... no.

This was a vast bunker.

An underground bunker.

Smashed glass, thick stuff, thick enough to stop bullets or radiation or flames from...

The pair looked beyond the trashed control room and try to ignore the half dozen red smears on the ground in the rough shape of human beings.

Massive metal doors of some unknown metal had been torn apart, dragged aside, punched through...

Beyond them...

The lights were faint there and clanking could be heard. By the dimmest light of the sparse lightning the heroic pair could see ... the bottom/firing ends of Inter continental ballistic missiles. Four of them. Those ... things were doing something to them, but thus far had not been seen by the heroes. Hopefully they in turn had not been seen...

Miss Victory saw the broken glass on the floor that would make noise to walk on. None of the soldiers that had been in here were alive.

Lionheart's danger sense told him there was danger here.

OOC 2d12+0 10,6+0 = 16 +9 (25) vs
OV4 + 2d12+0 2,8+0 = 10 (14)

Success +5

EV9 +5 (14) vs RV4=10 RAPs

The 'things' had taken the radioactive 'heart' of one of the missiles out and were doing something to it. It was extremely volatile and even something such as a drop might do something bad. Lionheart was sure he could take just about any amount of Radiation but wasn't sure about Miss Victory...

Miss Victory looks over at Lionheart to see what move he wants to make.

[quote="Admin"]

The 'things' had taken the radioactive 'heart' of one of the missiles out and were doing something to it. It was extremely volatile and even something such as a drop might do something bad. Lionheart was sure he could take just about any amount of Radiation but wasn't sure about Miss Victory...

Lionheart knew enough to know this was major level bad. But he didn't readily have a plan to stop it. Who had sent these things, let alone made them? What did they hope would come of this? And more importantly how could they stop them.

No doubt there was little point trying to eavesdrop on them, as they probably had a sophisticated communication system speaking some sort of binary to one another. What about the nuclear material, might the very danger of it be a means to 'kill' these things? But if it did go off, what would it do to the complex, let alone any survivors or themselves?

They were up against some serious baddies, and they needed a plan. Was their something they could use, something the soldiers who relied on conventional weapons didn't use, or realise? Was their something about the room itself that could be used? So deep underground did it block transmission even?

OOC:Although I don't possess the skills of a top level scientist Miss V does. I do however, possess the skills of a detective, I am wondering if we can utilise our skills to try and fathom out what is going on and or the beginnings of a plan. Some clue as to how we can take on 4 of these things and still come out alive?

Sj