Heroes: Endings and Beginnings

[Dark Silver]

"To many people, to big of a Lizard" Legion spoke, "The best way to get the people out of harms way..is leading that thing away from them."

It was a quick and simple plan. Unfortunately it also meant that until the attention was garnered, there would be some people in the way. "We'll help those we can, but the good of the many out weight the good of the few right now."

[SirNitram]

"This van possesses no less than four light sources on the rear. The cost in damages is estimated to be less than Agent Templar's vehicle damages in one week of standards operations. Request permission to begin. Warning: Attention likely to be attained with great alacrity."

Nothing pissed off giant lizards like burning it's wossname.

[Charon]

People were running, knocking each other over, and generally stampeding as quickly as they could in whatever direction was away from Godzilla, this was a much larger, and much more frightened, panic than Omega had seen before. A baby carrier tilted over, the contents being saved by quick action by Mark-25. But more people were being injured as the panic grew and spread.

NExT's attacks made Godzilla take an involuntary step back, swiping around his face with his arms, as a person would who was trying to swat away a group of annoying gnats. The beast let out a low growl as it looked for the source of it's annoyance, and stalked towards the city again, now ignoring the laser blasts which were coming from everywhere. A home was crushed flat under a mighty foot, Godzilla's next step crushed an intersection where some of the blasts had been coming from. The creature roared again as more blasts continued to annoy him from everywhere.

[rhoenix]

Though stunned for a brief moment when the monster appeared (Why, Inferno?, he thought. Why?!), he ran with the others, and began to think of things he could do here, which unfortunately wasn't much.

Seeing where the others were trying to lead the great monster, Agent Templar used his telekinesis as a blade to slice through the top-most part of the great lizard's left ankle, deep into the flesh from the same direction they wanted the creature to go. "Get ready to run!", he called to the others.

[Dark Silver]

None of them got on the van.

'They need to listen..' he thought to himself, even as he restated his orders, "Those of you with a damn body and hands, get onto the van, get attached, and get a gun in your hands - biggest one you can manage. We're going to play Van-Tag."

[rhoenix]

(post removed, due to continuity)

[Charon]

Templar learned three things in short order.

One. To be able to attack Godzilla's foot is to be able to be attacked by Godzilla.

Two. Unless you are a speedster, you cannot outrun Godzilla.

Three. Godzilla has a very big foot.

Before he could make it back to the van, Godzilla's other foot came down on top of the meta. The force field that made up the constructs foot bent so as to not crush the Meta, but it was clear that Templar had just died. Godzilla stomped down on the thing that had scratched him a few more times before it went back to eliminating the sources of laser fire.

Templar wasn't knocked out, but a few metallic tendrils came out of the ground and wrapped around him a few times, not tightly, just enough to restrict him from moving.

[Dark Silver]

"And there goes one of the team...."

Legion would need a beer after this was over, "NeXT, how big can those big honking lasers of yours be? We may need them to get it distracted..."

[rhoenix]

Well, that went well..., Templar thought to himself, as he felt just how immobile he was. He was tempted to try breaking the metallic vines with his ability over force, but decided against it. He had done something that hadn't worked out well, after all. Well, at this lets me watch them do this whole teamwork thing.

[Comrade Tortoise]

Sunrise was in the van. And Godzilla could move faster than the van.

"This is not good" he thought to himself as he positioned himself to bail from the van should Godzilla move to crush it. He could easily break any straps that might have held him in place otherwise, not that any of the attachments fit his body anyway. He had a laser cannon, and would use it. Though it would be more effective as a powersource for his own abilities should he need to use them.

'I do love it when a best possible solution, the non-violent, non-direct confrontation with Godzilla is abandoned for fucking stupidity' he thought, but did not say.

"Then listen to what I am telling you Legion. All we need is a loudspeaker, and a fake monster sound, something well within our ability to get considering what any police force has and what NeXT can access. Godzilla is currently destroying everything in his path while being shot at, and this van probably cannot outrun him if he really wants to catch us. But if you dont want to listen to me, dont. We will see who is right in the end."

[SirNitram]

NeXT watched. Godzilla was recoiling from the shoots, as anticipated. Now came the hard part. Selective shutdown of lasers, and intensifying others, to try and herd the colossus after the van.

"Penetration unlikely. If herding protocol succeeds, datalink will be made to orbiting weapon satellites. Ensure safe evac distance is maintained."

[LadyTevar]

Jerri got in the van, grabbing a weapon without another word. Sunrise's plan had merit, it could be expounded upon if NeXT's holograms could be made up to life-sized....

Jerri, just take the fuckin' serum.

"No." JErri saw the people panicking, saw them hurting themselves as Godzilla crushed houses looking for them. She saw Templar 'die', for nothing.

She got the feeling that even if they did get Godzilla away, they'd already lost just from the civilians who died.

[Charon]

Godzilla was being struck repeatedly by lasers. They didn't particularly hurt him, but they were annoying. It had become clear to the giant beast that smashing the sources of annoyance one by one was getting him nowhere. As such he turned to other methods.

Godzilla took a breath inwards, the long line of spinal protrusions beginning to glow with a soft blue. The glow quickly turned from a soft, almost inviting incandescence to a harsh burning glow. The air in the town turned suddenly and unbearably hot. Godzilla opened his mouth and a stream of blue fire launched out, smashing haphazardly into buildings, trees, and people as it swept from side to side in an attempt to remove the annoyances.

The breath of fire lasted for a full twenty seconds, long furrows now appeared where the breath had struck the ground. Anything it had hit was utterly and completely gone.

[LadyTevar]

....... Holy fuck ........

"How many civilians did he just kill?" Jerri asked softly, horrified.

[SirNitram]

NeXT stopped responding. Albert was recoiling in horror. He had formed a simple plan, convince the thing to walk along because there was pain, and then...

The frontend attached to the simulation program filled with casuality/fatality numbers, then shut down. Ultima would think NeXT had fled. It was close enough.

Somewhere in a half-forgotten server, the meta cowered from his own actions and their consequences.

[Dark Silver]

Legion hit the gas, closed did his level best to remain calm.

"What, is why I did not want to initiate Sunrise's plan either. Godzilla is notoriously territorial...and he will defend with all means. The simulation is similar, and sometimes even more aggressive."

Then NeXT disappeared along with his lasers, and Legion silently cursed.

"Quiet frankly," Legion spoke pulling the van around a heap of cars, "We're out of our league here. We were from the beginning. We need to get people away now, as far and as fast as possible."

[Hotfoot]

Mark 25 had followed orders and gotten onto the van, the weight from his frame and his weapons giving the suspension a near impossible strain. With one hand, he held the 20mm anti-material rifle, and with the other, he held on to the roof of the van as he hung out the back doors. He made sure to have the back end of the gun resting on the roof, as the recoil compensation tube would otherwise fill the van with hot fire.

"Cover your ears!" he called out as he lined up the shot. His targeting programs were already being calibrated to handling the complexities of the shot he was about to take. Fortunately, it would be hard to miss the target. He took aim at the monster's knee and fired. Reflexively, he extended his barrier to encompass the entire van and everyone in it.

[Charon]

If Mark's shot had hit, Godzilla didn't seem to notice. The creature turned and looked over the destruction it had wreaked, and nodded to itself a few times and snorted as no more lasers came to bother it. Then it turned and looked at the van that was fleeing.

Inferno nodded. "Yeah alright, set it after them."

Godzilla turned and lumbered after the van, away from what was left of the town where raging fires still flared up dozens of feet into the sky.

[Agent Fisher]

Mike covered his ears, the sound still making a ringing noise in them.

He shifted around in the van, reaching one of the windows. Mike popped it open, looking out of it, back at the giant creature following them. The creature seemed unfazed by the 20mm round that had hit it. Pulling back from the window, Mike crawled over seats, reaching the rear, looking out the open back up at Godzilla. Scooting to the side not blocked by Mark25's bulk, Mike lifted his hand, aiming it at the giant creatures knee.

Suddenly, an angry red bolt leaped from his hand. The equivalent of a 40 mm cannon shell sped across the distance, hopefully to strike the creature in the knee and slow him down a bit.

[General Havoc]

Deep inside the motor pool garage, technicians climbed atop lifts and maintenance baskets, and poked and prodded over the systems of the three ton armored war machine that had been tendered to their care. Omnicorp robots certainly had a reputation for slaughter and devilry, but these were robotics technicians, and all they could concern themselves with at this point was their admiration for the obvious engineering skill of whoever had designed this class of law enforcement robot.

"Check out the hydraulics. It's like ones on the M403."

"Yeah, but with a really weird cooling system. What do you suppose those extra heatsinks are for?"

"Maybe a liquid heat-transfer from the weapons systems?"

"Nah, too much bleedover into the primary power cables if they have to stretch it out that far. Maybe there's a friction concern in the shock absorbers..."

"Where are the members of the organizational unit designated "Omega"?"

The techs raised their heads in surprise, to find that the robot had not moved a milimeter, and yet it was clearly the robot's voice that had asked the question. The robot was standing motionless to one side of the room, as half a dozen Ultima techs crawled over it, directing semi-automated robots who were stripping paint and performing cosmetic repairs to armor sections. The internal work would come later.

"Um... running some drills in the training room," said one of the techs, checking a wrist-mounted computer display. "Why?"

"By what methods are such drills performed?"

"It's a... holographic display room," said the tech. "A holodeck. Computers generate holograms and forcefields and simulate whatever the controller wants to have happen."

"Would it be possible to observe these proceedings?"

The two techs looked at one another. "Well... we're not done with the maintenance cycle," said one. "And besides, you wouldn't fit in the room. The floorfields aren't designed to take your weight."

"This unit was not suggesting physical transference," explained the robot. "If the environment of the training facility is simulated digitally, then would it be possible to observationally interface?"

One tech merely scratched his head, but the other slapped his forehead and laughed. "Of course," he said. "Why the hell didn't I think of that?"

"Think of what?" asked the other tech.

"We can have the holoprojectors create him an avatar and give him uplink control of it."

"Would he know how to operate it?" asked the second tech. "He's a robot, not a video game."

"Genius, he's an AI! To a computer, all reality is virtual reality. To him it won't be any different controlling an avatar than it is controlling his body."

The other tech smiled. "I think we've got something on file... do you want to actually intervene in the training session?"

"Negative," said the robot. "This unit simply wishes to observe without prejudicing the encounter."

"I'll rig up a simple ghost object," said one of the techs. "You don't have any security clearance yet, so I'll just make it guest-accessible. Can you keep any snoopers out yourself?"

"This unit is protected by Omnicorp 'Van Ness' firewall software, version 9.2.3b."

That seemed to satisfy the tech. "All right then. Try not to make a mess, and let us know if you want to adjust the avatar parameters. It's a simple one, so we'll need to re-initialize to make any changes."

"Understood..."

*-------------------------------------------------------*

Next to the speeding van, a small, translucent object slowly materialized. It was a robot, though it looked completely different from the enormous war machine downstairs, instead resembling, of all things, a Dalek from Doctor Who. The figure was roughly garbage-bin-sized, four feet tall and perhaps two across, and was so translucent as to be hard to see, a thing of holograms and light, effortlessly moving alongside the speeding van, and possessed of no actual substance or weight.

A generic "object" inserted by the technicians to give Alpha a window into what was happening.

[Charon]

Inferno raised an eyebrow as the computer told him an observer was entering. He had the computer follow the line back to the maintenance bay.

"What the hell? What's he spying on us for? He's got the proper codes. So he either hacked into it while maintenance was on him, unlikely. Or they got him in. That's odd." Inferno decided not to take action yet however.

_______________________

The only apparent response to Mike's attack was that the creature smashed it's own hands together like a boxer as it continued to walk towards the van, eating up the distance quickly. At each of their speeds, it would be close as to whether they would get far enough outside the town limits. After that Legion just had to hope that they could corral it long enough for the railgun to get coordinates, charge up, and fire. Or hope that they could lead it into preset coordinates in time with the satellite firing.

[rhoenix]

"Noooobody knooooows the trooooubles I've seeen..." Agent Templar sang in a passable, though off-key singing voice (though not very loud), as he was bound, staring straight into the artificial sky of the training room, waiting for Godzilla to finish baking and stomping everything. "Noooobody knooooooows the sooorrrrrooooowwww..."

[LadyTevar]

So, are you going to just sit here, or do something. Like TAKE THE SERUM

"You can't do anything to help here either, Heidi," Jerri replied tiredly, while she dug around in the tangle of weapons for what she wanted.
Jerri? Remember, that thing has backblast. Do NOT have the tail end inside this vehicle, please?

"Which means I get to hang out the side door? Thank you, Heidi.. thank you so much." With a tug Jerri slid the side door open, then shouldered the RPG launcher. Unless someone decided to hold onto her, she was going to fall out of the van when she fired this. But at least she'd be out of this trainwreck of a simulation.
Ok... Just take aim... take a deep breath...

"Shut up, Heidi," Jerri replied, aiming for the torso of the giant lizard following them and pulled the trigger, sending the AP rocket vooming up towards it's target.

And then they hit a bump, and Jerri went flying, letting go of the RPG and tucking into a ball to keep from breaking her neck or anything else as she rolls along the ground.

Maybe, if she was lucky, Godzilla will step on her before Legion calls down Hailstorm... whatever it was.

[Charon]

Jerri's rocket was on target, it was hard not to be. There was an explosion, but Godzilla was not slowed. The great beast didn't seem to notice that Gemini had fallen out of the van as it continued to stomp forward, his foot coming down on her small form as it continued onwards. Like Templar before, force-field's bent to not squash the person under it, and then tendrils came out of the ground and wrapped Gemini securely.

The van continued on, leading Godzilla to a preset coordinate, by then the beast was practically on top of them. Legion and the others got warning of the blast and Mark-25 created a shield around the team just as everything turned a blinding white. The air shook with the force of the explosion as the van was hurled into the air and spun around a few times before crashing back down to the ground. Both Gemini and Templar were exempted from the force of the blast. The van rolled over a few more times before finally coming to a stop. There were a few bruises but nothing serious for those inside.

Dust filled the air and it was impossible to see more than a few feet, but the devastation was complete. A few pieces of ordinance and van parts were still falling, but that was the only sound for several seconds, before a horrific roar filled the air, it was a sound of anger, not pain. The dust cloud began to disperse quickly as Godzilla took a mighty breath in and they could see a great gaping wound that started at Godzilla's shoulder and came out his back. The blow was not fatal, but it had done a good deal of damage. Godzilla lifted his head straight in the air after he was done with his breath inwards, his spines glowed brilliantly and a stream of blue fire launched straight into the air for several seconds. Careful eyes could see a small explosion up in orbit, and then Godzilla turned his attention to the van that had caused him so much trouble. He wasn't about to take chances with it, and so his spines glowed again, and he fired.

The simulation died just as the blue fire erupted from the creature's mouth and the group was left sitting on the ground, tendrils around Jerri and Templar released them and all was still.

[LadyTevar]

"Well.... That worked beautifully," Jerri sighed, rolling onto her back and looking up at the industrial grey of the ceiling.