[] Plan Contain and Capture.
-[] Deploy Recursion Field and scout out the building.
-[] After that lift Recursion Field. Samantha and Chevalier attack from within, while Vista, Dragon and Taylor provide support as needed.
Heatstroke 10.5
Chevalier shifts from where he stands next to you, the soft grinding of his armor's plates the only sign of his changed position. "Calamity Witch, your pocket dimension is an exact duplicate of your surroundings, correct? And you can choose which capes you bring into that dimension?"
"I can't choose who comes in," you tell him with a shake of your head. "It's based on the mechanics of their powers. It's a perfect copy of where I set up the field, though, yeah. Why?"
"Attacking a Tinker in their own workshop is always a risky proposition, and for Bakuda, I am quite concerned about where she might have placed booby traps for anyone sneaking in. If your field is so exact, is it possible for use it for reconnaissance? Figure out exactly what she has hidden where and where she is most likely hiding, maybe capture her in the process without anyone else knowing we were even here?"
You open your mouth only to close it again. That is a very good question, and one that you don't think you have ever considered before. «Storm?»
«…Undetermined. Recursion Field never used in such fashion. Previous deployments on high-magic worlds. All combatants mages and therefore brought into dimensional barrier. Earth Bet low-magic. Parahuman engineers questionable if affected by barrier. Stratagem possible.»
"I don't know that a Tinker would be sucked up, but even if she isn't, I can't think of a good reason why that plan wouldn't work," you tell him after another minute's thought on your own.
"Then let's do that. We'll search the building bottom to top, and if we don't find Bakuda, we can determine where the best place to attack is."
A twirl of your staff and a thought later, and a wave of not-color washes over the area. The faint greyscale of Recursion Field is a novel sight for Chevalier and even Vista, despite the latter hero having seen in once before during the ill-fated fight with Cadejo. Dragon's screen, on the other hand, goes on the fritz and vanishes with a staticky crackle. Chevalier glances where the screen used to be. "I suppose your assumption is right. A Tinker would not be pulled into this dimension of yours."
Sadly, he has spoken too soon. Another couple of seconds pass before the screen reappears. "Sorry about that," Dragon says, sounding slightly out of breath, as strange as that is to think about. "I wasn't expecting to be affected like the rest of you."
"So Bakuda's stuck in here with us, too?" asks Vista, her metallic fist opening and closing a couple of times in anticipation.
"I can't even begin to make that assumption. Since my current craft runs on similar technology to Shipwright's and Calamity Witch's, that may be the reason I was hit too. There is just no way to know for sure."
Chevalier nods before he, along with Vista and Samantha, make their way to the apartment. You, however, shoot the former A.I. a look. "Using mana-technology is enough to bring the Sybaris with us into Recursion Field?"
"Not exactly," Dragon says with a sheepish look, her digital avatar vanishing to reveal her real face. Behind her is not the metal walls you would expect from an aircraft nor the fabric of a pilot's seat. Instead it is open air and a couple of skyscrapers. "The Sybaris is still there in the real world. When the barrier went up, I found myself falling out of the sky. It's a very good thing I can fly. Otherwise the results would have been… messy."
"Because you're a Device," you say slowly, the pieces fitting together. "Recursion Field was designed to suck up mages into an arena where they could fight without wrecking the rest of the world. You're practically a mage in your own right now, so of course you wouldn't be an exception. It sucks that you can't bring your ships in here with you, though," you finish with a grimace. The Dragoncraft would have provided a welcome amount of firepower.
"There may be a way around that. I'll have to do some experimenting. For now, I can't exactly offer much help." The screen returns to the face she presents to the world. "You better catch up with the others. Keep the connection up; I might still be able to give you advice on what is what. It takes a Tinker to catch a Tinker, you know," she adds with a wink.
Somebody demolished the front door of the apartment building by the time you catch up, and you give… actually, all three of the other heroes a suspicious glance. You would have assumed it was Chevalier or Samantha, but considering the synthetic muscles she now has, Vista is a suspect too. The guilty expression she wears, the wooden fragments she is brushing off her knuckles, and the shocked face Chevalier is making seal the deal. A shake of your head, and you step inside. "Any guesses where the stairs to the basement are?"
"That might not be as relevant as you might think." You turn to Chevalier, who still flicks his eyes at Vista every now and again even though he otherwise is facing you. "Any chance you can make a hole in the floor? We can find the way up later."
A low-powered Solar Wrath is more than enough to make a new skylight for the basement, and you drop down to the ground and light up a Flare Shooter. Any doubts you had about this being a Tinker's workshop are laid to rest when you see the oblong shells sitting on a nearby table, some of them complete while the rest are in various stages of construction. That by itself is enough to worry you, but sadly Bakuda is not one to underwhelm, for only a couple of feet away sits a grenade launcher.
"Great," you say with a resigned sigh. "She doesn't just have weird-ass bombs. She's going to be shooting them at us."
"Worse." You look over to find Samantha squatting on the ground next to a boxy-looking thing. "Throw Dragon my way. I'm no Tinker, but I think this might be another bomb."
"Quite possib— Ugh!" Her grunt comes after you fling her screen like a Frisbee towards your Guardian Beast, and the upgraded raccoon looks down at her in concern. For all that her face is composed of blue numbers falling down the screen, she looks distinctly green at the moment. "Please," she begs, "for the love of all that is good in this world, don't do that again. I think I'm about to throw up."
Your eyes catch Samantha's and find the same question you are wondering. How in the world could Dragon throw up when she doesn't have a stomach? Or… does she have a stomach? How accurate did Tim make her anatomy?
On second thought, never mind. That leads to questions you don't need answers to.
The Tinker collects herself and looks down at the box. "It's a bomb, alright. No wires, so you can't just cut a cord and deactivate it that way. It could be set up to explode with proximity, but I have my doubts. Most likely it's either contact-triggered or remotely detonated. I'd put my money on the latter, which means Bakuda would have to keep the remote on her person. I can't tell you what it will look like, though. A television remote, a military-grade grip detonator. If her power is broader than just bombs, it may be more high-tech. Voice-activated, or a display built into an armband or even her mask."
"So bag her and strip her to be sure," Vista says with a frown. "Who's pouncing on her?"
Chevalier comes back in from a doorway at the far side of the room. "The best option would be Samantha and myself. We don't know how many underlings she has or how well they're armed. My armor and her power should protect us enough that we can focus on making sure Bakuda can't set any of these bombs off."
The Ward opens her mouth to protest, but you're faster. "That works. Guess that means you're stuck with me, Vista. I think I have a plan, too. If I dropped the field now, we'd all pop out in her workshop, right where we're standing." You turn around and point at two spots against the walls where random boxes are stacked up to make some convenient recesses. "You two hide there, and Vista and I can be outside. We make a loud, flashy entrance, get everyone running towards us, and then you pop out of hiding and hit her from behind. She won't expect you to appear out of nowhere."
"We'll need to check the rest of the building first," Chevalier warns. "Just because the building looked abandoned doesn't mean there aren't squatters living here. We can't bring down the building on top of them."
The four of you, five if you include Dragon, leave the basement and make quick work searching the upper floors for signs of life. You actually find some, but rather than the sleeping arrangements of the homeless you find cots and boxes of military rations. This is no one's home; is is a base for the mercenaries Coil must have loaned to Bakuda to help her do her dirty work. In other words, acceptable targets.
Now it is time to split up, and a screen for Samantha's face joins Dragon's. "In position," she tells you. "After you drop Recursion Field, we'll give you ten seconds to make as much noise as you possibly can before we jump out. Make 'em count."
"Oh, ten seconds will be plenty. Ready to rumble?" you ask the girl next to you.
Vista doesn't answer with words. She holds her left arm up, and her hand spins around and around on her wrist a couple of times. Her palm splits into pieces and reconfigures itself while her forearm unfolds. Soon enough, what used to be a functional hand looks like a trio of prongs surrounding a circular hole that crackles and glows a menacing acid green. The smile she gives you is feral.
No wonder you and Samantha like her.
"Three. Two." A dozen Flare Shooters form around you. "One."
Zero.
You let go of Recursion Field and watch color rush back into the world.
The building has barely returned to normal before the particle cannon built into Vista's arm lets out a high-pitched squeal and unleashes a bolt of plasma. Once more the door disintegrates, this time accompanied by large chunks of the walls next to it, and the residual heat barrels into the room to flash-ignite the wallpaper and the yellowing books on the desk. Vista's laughter is almost maniacal. "Knock knock, mother-frickers!"
You can't help it. You slap your hand against your face with a sigh. No more Samuel L. Jackson movies for her.
"…Sorry."
Samantha gave you ten seconds, but it takes only two before purple lasers lance out from around corners. They splash pointlessly against the shield you quickly cast, and a moment later your triangular shield is joined by a round one in the same green as Vista's plasma. Your magic bullets hurtle inside to punch through the walls hiding the mercenaries.
Or they were until part of the room is sucked up into a miniature black hole that forms in midair. That Flare Shooter must have hit a bomb, and if they're shooting Tinkertech grenades at you now…
A glint catches your eye, and you barely have enough time to spin the code for your telekinesis. A mental hand grabs the grenade right after it sails through the hole Vista made and tosses it skywards. This one is not a black hole; instead it explodes into an enormous ball of fire that you are sure can be seen from a good distance away.
That element of surprise you had going for you? You should probably kiss that goodbye.
The next grenade you catch you throw back to where it came from, which promptly disappears in a whirlpool of color. When the detonation is over, everything in that area is half-melted goop, even stuff that shouldn't melt. Like wood, or carpet. Or skeletons still dressed in ragged fatigues. You avert your eyes in time to see another mercenary fall after an orange fireball explodes in his face.
Is it strange that their own – admittedly assisted – friendly fire is more lethal than your own attacks?
While you were busy ruminating and throwing random grenades at people, Vista has been taking care of the lasers in the most breathtaking manner imaginable. Her shield can protect her, so like you she has not even bothered dodging. The different beams are now all bent towards a single point to create a three-dimensional sculpture of light hanging in the air in front of her as they constantly cross each other's path. The floating diagram shrinks down from three feet in diameter to a measly six inches, and she twists her head to flash you a smile. "Watch this. Fire in the hole!"
A hole forms in that cage of warped space. You know this only because the lasers race out as a widening cone of burning light, and the resulting carnage puts her particle cannon to shame. You blink in shock at the callousness you just witnessed as sweet little Vista kills the team of mercenaries attacking you, but then you hear it.
Groans of pain. Those henchmen are, somehow, still alive.
"I'm not a Tinker, obviously, but it's funny the kinds of things you can learn from them," Vista says as she deactivates her shield, either aware of your surprise or just wanting to brag a little. "Kid Win? Lasers were about the only things he could build reliably and that he didn't immediately take apart again, but he had a lot of trouble with math and stuff, and he was constantly puttering around with all sorts of equations. I was around enough that I learned some of the physics behind them just by osmosis. Then Miss Militia one day tried to teach us how to play pool, and she is phenomenal at bouncing pool balls off the bumpers. It's all about the angles.
"Put the two of them together, and a couple of times Kid and I tried to work on bouncing his lasers around corners and catching them again. The bouncing, not a problem. Catching, now that's harder. I can corral a laser, but keeping it too long in twisted space makes it spread out, and after a while the laser is just a big flashlight. Then again, Kid's lasers wouldn't hurt you if he shot you. They were basically just a strong punch. With these?" She walks into the apartment, her eyes moving around to make sure nobody would try jumping up or out from around a corner. "Either spreading the light out would make it harmless, or it would hurt them but still wouldn't kill them. No matter which, it was something we could use."
"You can say that again," you mutter while you stare down at the twitching form of one of the mercenaries. His clothing is singed with sunburned skin just barely visible underneath it, but his hands and eyes had no such protection. Those bits of flesh are shocked white and look to be forming blisters already.
You taught yourself a few things about how heat and light affects the eyes when you started using fireballs as your primary weapon, and as a result you decide not to tell her just what happens when lasers intense enough to burn skin hit delicate eyeballs. She doesn't need to know that most likely none of these men will ever see again.
The building suddenly shakes, and you lift off the ground as the floor bucks beneath you. That can only mean one thing: one of Bakuda's booby traps just went off. The floor is damaged now, and you fling Flare Shooters in a circle that quickly destabilizes what's left. You drop down into the burning basement, preparing yourself to start fighting a fully aware and well-armed Tinker.
Instead you see Samantha climbing to her feet, a lump of coal and ash lying close to her.
"Are you okay?" you demand, to which she finally gives you a nod. That loosens the tight band wrapped around your heart, and now you glance around. There is Chevalier, standing up himself, and a couple of mercenaries lying on the ground still, but of the mad bomber herself you see no sign. "Where's Bakuda?"
Samantha points at the ash pile. "Right there."
…What.
"All but two of her henchmen left to deal with you," Chevalier says, holding onto his side. "I focused on them while Samantha jumped on top of Bakuda. I don't fully know what happened after."
Samantha shakes her head. "I think her detonator was in her mask. I was busy keeping her hands occupied. She was facing that box over there"—she waves her hand at a gigantic scorch mark on the wall—"and then everything was on fire. I think she meant for it to be a fusion bomb or something; it looked and felt like I was staring into the sun right before the shockwave hit."
You hold back a sigh of relief. Trying to harm you or Samantha with fire? That is a terrible idea considering you are both fireproof due to Perfect storm's meddling. The blast itself could still do damage, but Samantha's own version of a Barrier Jacket would protect her.
Except now you have to deal with the fact that the scraps of burning wood are all next to weird bombs, and you have no idea how delicate they are. Would a nearby flame be enough to set them off?
The head of your staff swings around to point at the nearest grenade. "Storm, seal everything up!"
"Understood, Mistress. Sealing mode!"
The prongs on the staff head's flange unscrew themselves to reveal vents, and planes of orange light slide out from its arms. Shaped like this, Perfect Storm looks more like a ritual staff than a weapon. Blinding beams of light shoot out one by one to hit the bombs you can see; when they fade away, so have the bombs they were touching. You make a quick dance around the room to pick up everything you can. The smoke filling the basement is another problem, but that's one that won't kill your immediately.
"Good thinking," Chevalier says with a slight cough as he starts walking towards the door he had previously been exploring back in Recursion Field. "We can drop them off at the local Protectorate branch before we go home."
Sure, sure. You look down at Perfect Storm's head and give it a slight nod at its quiet question. You will return most of the bombs, definitely, but Tim and Dragon might be able to make something cool with some of these.
"Damn it. I hoped I was wrong."
The soft curse catches your attention, and you drift over to the doorway to peek over Chevalier's shoulder. Inside that room are rows of tables, each one holding a disheveled man or woman hooked up to an IV pole. "Chicago has a lot of homeless," he explains. "A dozen or two wouldn't be missed when they disappear, nor would they be remarkable when they turned back up. There's a cabinet at the back with surgical tools."
"Why would she need surgical tools?" you ask despite the bone-deep instinct that you don't want to know.
"I think she put bombs in these people. Planned to at the very least." Chevalier slams his fist against the wall, his righteous anger boiling over. "She was going to turn all these people into walking bombs. They wouldn't even know what happened to them until she set off the devices. It would throw this city into chaos."
You don't want to add to his bad mood, but… "Our fight outside wasn't quiet. I had to deflect of grenades into the air. If Coil saw that, or even heard about it, our window of opportunity to to catch him by surprise is almost over."
"Never count on luck. That's what kills even the most powerful capes." He shakes his head. "We still don't know where his base is, either. We definitely will lose our chance to move on him if we have to look under every rock in the city."
"Further search not necessary. Mistress, contact from Dragon."
Dragon opens a screen next to you. "Calamity, Chevalier. I found where Coil's base is. I was looking through his data some more, and that's when I realized he owns Fortress Construction, the company that built the Endbringer shelters throughout North America and Europe. From there I just had to narrow the search to where those shelters are, and I found it. It's in Hyde Park. It was started and then officially abandoned, so it was barred to the public, but it is still consuming power and water according to city records. It's active."
"An Endbringer shelter," Chevalier repeats slowly. "That would be a perfect base. Solid construction, entrances and exits into a resource-heavy part of the city. He could move himself and his men around easily."
It is a nice theory, and probably right, but there is still one big elephant in the room that no one is paying any attention. "How do we know he's even there? He still could be in that PRT meeting."
"There's only one way to find out. We need to search one of them." Another coughing fit hits him. "But let's get out of the smoke first."
"Bakuda bomb x5" added to Inventory.
A bit anticlimactic? Maybe, but from the way the vote discussion went, you put yourselves out of the worthwhile action. Thankfully, there will be more action when you go after…
[ ] Coil – Now that you know where the snake is hiding, you can hurry up and go after him. Maybe you'll even be really, really lucky and keep the element of surprise.
[ ] Calvert – The PRT administrators should still be in their meeting, weird bombs going off or not. Head back to the PRT base and bag a traitor where he least expects you.
