You walk through the now-familiar exit of the Lucky 7's in your usual disguise, give or take some stubble. As you walk through the narrow hallway leading to the "VIP Lounge" you hear the TV blaring over some conversations. When you enter the lounge itself, you see Gangbuster swirling a jar filled with several different kinds of alcohol in his hand. Stampede is a couple of seats down smoking a cigarette.
"-I'll be lucky if cancer is the thing that kills me" Stampede says, taking a drag from her cigarette. That's when she looks over to your direction. "Hey, The Vigil's here!" She waves over to you.
As you enter the room, you hear a voice to your right. "Huh! So you were a guy. Looks like I owe someone 30 bucks" You see someone on one of the couches. She's a short, tan woman, about 5 foot 4, with a mop of black hair and the left side of her face is pockmarked with scars. She also has a Hog Splitter with a handle about as large as her leaning on the couch. It takes it takes you a second to recognize her in street clothes, but that is Gladiatrix. She became an official hero around the time you became a Vigilante, but she was supposed to be crippled after a fight downtown with Profligate and his henchmen, er, man.
What was she doing here? At the very least, she should still be recovering.
"Nice work on taking down Profligate. Son of a bitch had it coming." She says with a smile. She holds out a hand. "Gladiatrix, nice to meet ya"
"Yeah, he was an asshole" You say. You didn't mean to kill the man. You'd rather put him behind bars, hopefully for good so you aren't cheering. But you aren't losing sleep over him either. "The Vigil."
"How's it hanging, Vigil?" Gangbuster asks, raising his jar.
"Can't complain. Got a collar and I didn't end up in jail, so..." You say with a shrug.
"Heard about that. Mr. 13, right?" Gangbuster says with a smile on his face. "If there was a chance I'd be in the same jail as that fucker, I wouldn't have broke out so soon!"
"Hey, if we're done pumping up his ego" Stampede says, rolling her eyes. "We gotta wait for Crush to get here and we'll be ready to get started" Stampede grabs a bottle and a glass from under the other side of the bar and sets it down. "The club is packed right now, so we got the place to ourselves. Drinks are on Ray"
"Pretty sure Vigil doesn't drink" Gangbuster.
"Not when there's work to be done" You say. "Unless there's a bottle of ginger ale or something back there"
"One sec" Stampede says before diving behind the bar and looking through the bottles. Once or twice, she sets aside a bottle for herself. While she's looking, Gangbuster is polishing off his cocktail. You have a seat at the bar.
"You sure you don't want in on this?" Gangbuster asks. "I know you're patching us up after, but I bet you could take anything they could throw at us"
"No thanks. I'm fine with what I'm doing" You say.
You hear a snort coming from behind you. "You're wearing a frigging ton of armor and you're scared to get in a real fight?"
"Now hold on!" You start. "I'm just-"
While you're talking, you hear the magnetic locks of the door disengage, and hear a fifth person enter the bar. A few seconds later, a young man walks from around the corner. You don't recognize him, so either he's new or lucky enough to not get the police or the press on him.
"Hey Crush, good to see ya. You find the place okay?" Stampede says. She places a bottle of ginger ale on the counter with a shot glass.
"You guys really need to get a new meeting place. Some guys tried to rob me on my way here." Crush says with a smile. "Still, I found the place. Thanks for bringing me in on this"
"No prob" Stampede says. "Drinks are on the owner tonight, so get behind the bar and help yourself"
Crush declines and walks towards the unoccupied sofa. "This everyone?" You ask.
"Well, Zigher and Majra are still on the fence. If they joins up, I'll give them the cliff notes version. Anyway..." Stampede says. She takes out a piece of paper from her pocket and places it on the bar. Looking at it, its a detailed, hand drawn map. A large building, labeled meeting place is circle near the center. Most of the buildings around it seem to be either warehouses or buildings for transportation and shipping companies.
"You've know Operative, right?" Most people nod, though Crush shakes his head. "Well, he's been undercover in an organized crime family. I'm pretty sure that The Vigil patched him up after he ran into some trouble, right?" You nod. "Now, from what Ops said, there's gonna be tomorrow. All three of 'em with two bodyguards each, all in the same place. I'm bring you here tonight because I wanna make sure that none of 'em get out. Good news is that there shouldn't be much traffic. Most people in the area will be in church for another hour, hour and a half. Bad news, it's in the middle of a very congested area, so just riding out of there is gonna be a problem"
You look at the map and see what she means. The warehouse is on its own block, but it's in the middle of residential areas, large commercial buildings, and more. With narrow streets and a lot of intersections, the people going in are gonna have a rough time getting out.
"According to Gangbuster, taking the alleyways down here" Stampede drags a finger along her route. "Should work, assuming we need to leave on foot. If we need to leave by car, then we can head south here, then go across the train tracks and then we can lose any pursuers in this area she points to another part of the map"
"So we have cars?" Gladiatrix asks.
"Two of 'em.. And I built in a little surprise to throw off any pursuers" Stampede says with no shortage of pride.
"So, once this kicks off, we're gonna have to worry about police and Hero response" Gangbuster says. "That area's about 7 minutes from downtown by flight. Could be more or less depending on where they're deployed"
"So once we're in, we need to take care of them and get out ASAP" Stampede says.
"Well, at least we'll have that fuck-off robot of yours to take most of the hits" Crush says.
At this, Stampede looks a little sheepish. "We... kinda don't. Stampede's is in the ship right now. It broke down and it's gonna be a while before its up to 100%"
At that, Gangbuster looks uneasy. "That's gonna make things difficult. That kinda firepower would've come in real handy."
"Well, good news, I do have a backup mech. Stampede .5. It isn't as tanky. Or fast. And it doesn't have as much firepower as my main boy, but it'll get the job done"
"You sure you can't get your bot back in action? I've seen that thing. I'm pretty sure it could rip a tank in half!" Crush says.
"Not really. It wouldn't have enough leverage. But as for getting it in working order, if we had time, then I'd have it fixed. But this is sorta time sensitive. We only have one shot at this"
Gladiatrix shakes her head. "I thought you genius' know how to do anything. You can't even keep your bot working?"
"Yes, but it takes time! I can only work so fast, especially since I don't exactly have all the tools to do it. Unless you have a PHD in Mechanical Engineering a 3D printer, and a couple hundred pounds of steel you haven't told the class about!" Stampede shoots back, getting angry. "I'm sorry that keeping a machine worth over half a million dollars working with no budget is a little harder than running a rock across a blade that you could buy at Home Depot!"
"Hey, let's take a deep breath. We don't need to be at each other's throats right now" You say. "I've fought with Stampede before when she was out of her suit. She knows how to handle herself"
Stampede smiles at that. "Thank you Vigil. So, anyone have any questions so far?"
"Well..." Crush says. "I know I said yes when you invited me, but I kinda thought there's be more people here. I mean, if I'm doing the math right, we're sorta outnumbered"
He does have a point. The mobsters are going to have 9, well 8 people on their side. And its a good bet that they're all going to be powered. Though, if the person that Operative replaced isn't powered, then some of the other bodyguards may not be powered either.
"Well, there's the five of us, plus out inside guy. The archers if they decide to join up. And either way, we're ambushing them. If we can take some of 'em out on the first wave, then That's about even, I'd say." Gangbuster says.
"There's only four of us committed to this" Gladiatrix says.
"But there's five" Crush says. "One two th-
"The Vigil's only playing doctor. He isn't doing any real fighting" Gladiatrix says derisively.
"Would you rather be dumped in front of a hospital for the cops?" You ask.
"Its not gonna make a difference if someone bleeds out on the way to wherever you are" Gladiatrix says, staring at you.
"It also won't make a difference if our doctor gets killed in the fighting" Stampede counters.
Crush shakes his head. "Look you said you wanna stick to being a doc, right?" Crush says to you. "But... I think we could use all the help we can get."
[] Agree. They're gonna need all the help they can get.
[] I wish you luck, but I'd rather keep to being a doctor.
[] Write in.
