Vintage Cyborg, Near Mint

Summary:
November 13, 2014: The location of an old SRD equipment cache is leaked and an assortment of super-types show up to loot it.

SRD cache — Connecticut


Characters

NPCs

  • SHIELD agents

Mood Music:


There's not exactly a road leading up to the front door of this bunker, but it's not so remote as to be unreachable. It seems a great deal more mundane than that, frankly.

The road that DID lead to the front door has long since deteriorated into a flattish path and scattered pieces of rubble that wind here from the main road, a little-used offshoot of a country highway. The site itself is, frankly, pretty unremarkable. The treeline parts to reveal scrub and briars and weeds, all of which work together quite well to conceal that there was ever anything here.

At first glance, it looks more like an old utility station of some kind — water or power, perhaps — than anything else. There are a few low cylindrical concrete stumps, their round tops inset with metal gratings. They're mostly covered by tall grasses and shrubs that have grown up over the decades.

This is not so much the case for the great concrete behemoth in the middle of the once-clearing. It's perhaps eight feet high at its highest point and wedge-shaped, sloping down to nothing at perhaps a thirty degree angle. It looks like it's been used for a skateboard ramp by some local kids; at least it does have some graffiti and a narrow path worn by several sets of feet.

The door, which may be of interest, is like bunker doors everywhere in that it looks forbidding and thick. There's a tiny window set into it, perhaps six inches by eight, made of what appears to be two pieces of thick glass sandwiching chicken wire. There's what looks to be a small intercom next to it which, miraculously, has never been stolen.


As an employee of Stark Industries who is frequently attached to SHIELD missions due to his singular expertise with an experimental flight system, Sam Wilson's professional life perches comfortably at the intersection of spy-world secrecy and bleeding-edge technology. Just last week, he was part of a team that uncovered a cold-war vintage Life Model Decoy of Howard Stark, and now he's on another one of these treasure hunts, running operational security and keeping an eye out for anything with the Stark logo.

"I wonder who's leaking the locations of all these old tech caches?" he muses aloud, arms crossed over his chest as he surveys the area. A SHIELD tech, unloading a large dolly from the back of a nearby quinjet, glances over and shrugs. The SHIELD team's goal is to get the goods out of here and to an actually secure location before the usual supervillains, mad scientists, and all-around opportunists show up to 'liberate' anything of value. Another couple of techs are already inspecting the door, trying to figure out whether it's still in good enough shape to respond to their SHIELD clearances, or whether they'll have to break out the welders.


Splat was taken up in interest of this place when one of his buddies who works in the bowels of an internet hub processing center cleaning the tubes (there are a few actually) that make up the internetz and has a tit for tat arrangement with one of the 'guys' there to keep an eye out for some type stuff related to the labs so Splat can learn what the heck is in him, and when word of this came down and a cross file that indicated in some muckitymuck somewhere that there was a high probability that some 'dataflag' thing, Splat was all for it. Course, he's never really tried 'flying' this far of a distance before so he's up into the atmosphere, falling up and then down while holding his breath, Smart Blood rearranging things inside so it don't hurt QUITE as much but he starts to scream as the earth plunges at him when its only half a mile away, instincts not that easy to suppress as he plunges pummeling pell mell down to the ground only to stop 10 feet from the ground, floating weightless and landing gently…he's still off by a hundred yards, landing in the trees. He takes a minute to catch his breath.

"Really….really…really need to learn to do that better."


Elijah Snow finds himself emerging at the top of the slope, seemingly from thin air, brushing off his shoulders as if dusting something away. He looks back into the empty air, a slight shimmer still visible, "Absolutely, thanks so much. No, no, I insist, you keep it. I didn't need that watch anyway. No, no, I'll find my own way home," he says, as the shimmer finally fades away. "Bloody faery roads. Last time, last time. I don't care how nice the scenery is…oh, and now I don't know what time it is. Great."

Snow draws a cigarette from a silver case, lighting it and beginning to make his way towards the door. Conspiracy boards claimed alien brainwashing tech, leftover government cyberparts, and/or the head of Dick Van Dyke (the real one). Like any good archaeologist, Elijah looked forward to sorting the truth from the weird.


The usual super-villain /and/ mad scientist of the day happens to be Magneto. He also pays attention to leaks on locations of Cold War era military depots. He was around in the Cold War and knows better than most the kind of crazy crap that they had running around. Like the Weapon X program and several parallel projects.

He doesn't look very threatening today. No armor. Just a middle-aged, white-haired man that might well be a hiker or something. Only odd thing is any alarms set to prevent the approach of unauthorized individuals to the depot didn't fire off. But maybe it is they were too old and unreliable. Or maybe they weren't there at all.


A falling star…

A pulse of green light silently arcs over the horizon its brilliant creating a rapidly fading glow against the starry sky…

Pausing just above the concrete edge it seems to pause with supernatural awareness before descending slowly upon the seen that is laid out below. Falcon's avian nature might allow him to designate the burst as the Green Lantern, as if the glowing contrail were not enough, but as the Lantern is easily visible to any who focus upon the light it begins to fade.

He shifts at the appearance of Elijah clenching a white-gloved fist and holding it half-heartedly before the symbol upon his chest as if this extra bit of jade light would help him identify the fellow. Then he turns his fist towards the rest of them, suffusing the area in an emerald glow.

"Well, here we are.." Hal remarks the light dispelling itself from the clearing and then rapidly fading from about his form as he touches down near the callbox, "Anyone gonna push the button?" He asks them.


With a crack of thunder and a bolt of light in speeds Rocket Red, ready to fight. What at first looks like a streak of red and white zooming across the sky at supersonic speeds suddenly comes to a complete stop revealing it to be none other then a man in red and white armor with a bright yellow visor. Standing on the air as if it were simple flat ground Rocket Red scans his surroundings trying not to be too distracted by the cartoons playing right next to his data readouts. There was a time that searching for places like this was a big part of his job, trying to keep ahead of the Americans the best he could, but now he's simply trying to find the source of an odd signal.


Unassuming though it may be, the facility was once notorious among the upper echelons of the KGB after several recon teams vanished during attempts at investigating outlandish information from an informant during the Cold War. It was a grim, sobering kind of familiarity, the sort that was quietly acknowledged among those who knew rather than spoken of openly; after the fourth lost team, it was generally accepted that the facility was simply not worth trouble— or worse still, a trap.

Either way, Aleksander Lukin was still an up and coming intelligence officer during those disastrous missions, and the idea of swallowing that kind of failure never quite sat right with him. He may not have the resources of the Kremlin behind him anymore, but he still has a few tricks up his sleeves.

One of those tricks - his ace, arguably - is lurking in the foliage bordering that clearing. The Winter Soldier was in a tree, but the Quinjet put an end to that; now he's huddled in briars and trying to use binoculars to scope out the jet and its occupant(s). As more and more people arrive - including one who looks more like a comet than a man and, of all things, a Rocket Red - he starts working himself free of the thicket to creep closer to the edge of the wilderness for a better vantage on the gathering. There is a plethora of weapons strapped to his person, but he is already beginning to wonder whether or not he should have requested a few more.


The white haired man frowns when he sees the S.H.I.E.L.D. contingent. They are not too dangerous by themselves, but it means the powerful agency is watching and could send reinforcements quickly.

As other superhumans appear, including some known faces, his scowl deepens. Some he knows, some he has heard about. The Green Lantern is definitely a serious threat. So instead of coming in full power, he approaches the group walking, trying to come up with a plausible story.


The SHIELD agents puttering with the door seem to be having some surprising luck pushing the button. One of the pair, a slightly built Hispanic man of perhaps twenty-five, leaves the other tech to work on the door while he steps up to Sam.

"Something is still powering that thing," he says, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. "It's not just an intercom: it seems to be hooked up to a computer. I guess they figured there was always gonna be someone inside, but there should be an access code…" He trails off as he surveys the other new arrivals, taking an apprehensive step or two back. The tech at the door doesn't seem to be paying attention to anything that isn't the door, though.

If there are any proximity alarms going off, they aren't going off audibly up here. All rumored death rays aside, there's also nothing firing on anyone. Not yet, at least.


Sam listens to the tech's report until the copilot clanks down the Quinjet's ramp and calls, "Falcon! We just caught something on radar. Small, but it was moving really fast. Crash trajectory, but no impact."

Before the agent can even finish, Falcon's metallic wings have unfolded behind him. "Send me the coordinates," Sam says. "I'll check it ou—"

He's interrupted by Hal's flashy appearance. He raises one eyebrow and points to the Lantern. "This your UFO?" he asks the copilot.

The copilot is watching Hal with some awe, but the question wakes her up enough to shake her head and answer, "Can't be — that guy's hard to miss. He puts off a ton of EM and the IFF has a profile for it. It could be Superman, though. Or—"

And then Rocket Red makes his entrance. With an irritated huff, Sam jets into the air, putting himself between as many of the newcomers and the bunker as possible. "This location is SHIELD property," he hollers, cupping his hands over his mouth. "If you've got SHIELD clearance, present it now. If you don't, back off or we nail you for trespassing."


Splat gets up and dusts himself off. The smart blood slowly helps him recover, pretty quickly in all. He spots the jet and some other people approaching. Given his recent encounters with the NYP, despite Emma explaining it all a 'misunderstanding' he's …cautious around other meta humans for now. He certainly didn't get that warm a reception when he helped in that …giant explosion thing, but the chance to get a clue about whatever is going on is too much to pass up. So he begins to run, using the increased gravity to speed himself up. He's no flash, but he's moving at about a hundred miles an hour. Given the sheer mass of him, that does make quite a bit of noise, a bit like a walking truck trundling along, but he's not trying to be stealthy. He's trying to be fast, and quickly leaps over the fence like it wasn't even there. He hasn't heard Sam because of the sheer noise he is making though.


Elijah Snow doesn't make much of a spectacular entrance, especially compared to the others. He does, however, manage to seem completely unperturbed by them. Keeping his cool around the strange and unusual is, after all, kind of his job. He takes a drag off of his cigarette and smirks as Sam demands SHIELD identification. The air around him begins to bead with snow, light flakes just tumbling on his shoulders. Nothing prolific, just a bit of atmosphere. Dramatics can be so important.

"If you wish to cite me, by all means, issue me a ticket. I think you have much bigger problems than me, at the moment, notably figuring out the proper sequence for the R243-94 Goldfrapp lock. All the rage in the 1970s among you spyfolk. You have several people here capable of bypassing it. Magneto, for a certainty," he says, nodding to the hiker, "I would be reticent about identifying you, mein freund, but I don't think you have anything to fear from these. And I like to deal openly. I, for the record, am Elijah Snow. If need be, you can call your superiors who will certainly tell you to do whatever I tell you to do. I would prefer that we work together as partners. I have no need to exercise my authority…but I will, if need be."


"Snow," Magneto growls a greeting to the other white-haired gentlemen. "I am wanted in most countries and you just revealed a cadre of SHIELD agents my identity. What do you think it is going to happen now?" The famous Thracian helmet forms over his head from the metal mesh of his outfit, concealing his face. First thing he does is attempt to scramble all electromagnetic-based communication, so the SHIELD team can't summon reinforcements. Green Lantern is bad enough; he definitely doesn't want someone like Superman showing up. "I didn't come to fight," he tells Falcom, "but I want to know what is inside the depot. It would be unwise to stand on my way."


The traces of green energy coil back into the power ring leaving the tangle of wires and overgrown clearing to the stars and any artificial lighting the others might possess..

The Green Lantern narrows his white-eyes the upper rim of his domino mask furrowing slightly at the question before giving way to a roguish smirk at the corner of his lips, "Do I look like I need a UFO?" He asks with a casual arrogance to a question that only appeared to be directed at him and seems about to add something else when the fellow bursts into the sky.

Hal Jordan doesn't proffer any credentials though the sudden appearance of the armored soviet did elicit a pale green aura to arise from the Lantern's skin.

At the name 'Magneto' he makes a silent fist and the Oan ring twinkles brightly. Hal Jordan looks at the wayward hiker and then steps backward lifting gently from the ground he comes to float above the callbox, "Just so no one's under the impression we're reenacting: It's a 'Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World' anything down there that is the product of extra-terrestrial design is coming with /me./ Anything else is up to the U.S. State Department and SHIELD."

"This being Connecticut and all." The Lantern says with the casual authority of someone who is used to placing his own goals in with all sorts of individuals to achieve some greater need.


The soviet armor clad creature be it man or machine simply stands on the air for a few moments as everyone comes out of the woodwork, having not really noticed that there were other people there for all of the distractions his heads up display had provided.

Suddenly Rocket has found himself in what could quickly turn into a war zone, and the cartoons are turned off. When he goes to respond to falcon Snow speaks up and outs magneto, causing him to for a few moments to simply look from one spot to the next. Then the radios are scrambled and he can no longer quiet get the modulator on his suit to work right anymore. Though no one without super hearing would be likely to be able to understand what is said here he rather calmly says with a bit of a chuckle. "This is a fine kettle of tea," having to keep the odd power signatures to himself as he lifts the hands of his suit up to his own head trying to fix the problem.


Once he is confident that the collection of heroes, SHIELD agents, and guys with white hair out front are suitably occupied with handling the door, the Winter Soldier heads for those grated stumps he'd spotted from his tree. He'd already been cold on trying the front door for a variety of reasons - too much time required, too many potential obstacles to field - but now that he isn't the only one here, he doesn't really have any choice but to find another entrance.

It all works out, really: the door might've taken a while, but he's reasonably confident in his ability to rip a grate out of its mooring. Thus, that's exactly what he'll do, assuming that he's able to skulk to the nearest one without being seen; provided that his cybernetic arm is up to the task of removing the grate, he'll fetch a light and a grapple line from his belt and proceed with descending into the shaft once it's open.


Upon hearing the actual part number from Elijah, the tech over at the door glances over in some brief surprise. But she's already working on getting through that security, apparently, turning back to the door and continuing her fiddling with its security. So far the door hasn't blown up yet.

The gratings set into concrete don't prove much of a challenge for Soviet prosthetic arm technology. They're quite old and rusty. From that, one might suspect the condition of the vents themselves is not much better.

As the tech continues on the door, she calls out: "Whoa — something's draining my batteries, guys. Twice as fast as it should be, but I think I've got it…"

There's a sound that is probably, hopefully, the sound of locks releasing.

There's another sound — some kind of grinding sound. The ground starts to gently vibrate.


Sam touches down in front of the bunker entrance to hear the explanations for why all of these people are here. Well, everyone but Hal — the burgeoning JL/SHIELD venture means that the Lantern is the only one he can be sure is actually authorized to be here. Snow is first to approach, and his dramatics only seem to get on Sam's nerves until the man casually name-drops a certain infamous mutant.

"Magneto?" Even behind the goggles, it's easy to see Sam's eyes widen as he turns to stare. He glances at the copilot, who gives him a quick nod and goes back into the Quinjet. She'll be reporting all of this to the Triskelion, running Snow's name past a few bigwigs, and likely prepping the jet for extraction under fire, just in case.

Or she would be, if Magneto hadn't decided at that moment to scramble her communications. Falcon sets his jaw and touches his mask over one ear — obviously there's an earpiece built into it, and it just went dead. "You couldn't have just denied it and walked away, could you?" he mutters, mentally searching for some way out of an all-out battle. "You think a sudden comms blackout from a hot recovery operation just after a bunch of unknowns showed up is going to delay the SHIELD response? They're going to come in with the big guns. Give me comms back and maybe we can talk."

The ground starts to rumble and shake, putting that conversation on hold. "Or that could happen," he says with a scowl, dropping into an action-ready stance. He doesn't take off yet — he's the only thing between the techs and Magneto, after all — but his whole posture says that he really, really wants to.


Splat stops and sees Green Lantern, Magneto, Falcon and some armor guy he doesn't know, shield agents everywhere. He's about to just LEAVE really since if shield is after him like the cops are….still, last time he checked, shield has better things to deal with than IP "theft" and is just about to ask what is going on when the ground starts to shake.

Yeah. That's probably not a good thing. He just goes weightless and gets ready to shoot whatever it is. He takes his gun off his back and looks around. Very quite compared to what he was doing.


Elijah Snow sighs at Magneto, exhaling a plume of smoke into the air, "Better they find out in advance than to have it suddenly revealed at an inopportune moment. And I'm well aware enough of your power to recognize that no one, except perhaps our green-ringed friend there, presents anything resembling a threat. And even he, I'm sure, has iron in his blood," he says, stepping forward.

"Now that everyone has comparatively measured metaphorical genitalia, might we move ahead before the egos out here start to create unnecessary friction? I, for one, am giddy with curiosity." he says in a flat, smooth voice.


It only takes Rocket a few seconds to rewire how his speech synthesizer works from piggybacking off coms systems to the microscopic speaker that's now formed on the front of his helmet out of nonessential parts. When he speaks up it's in a completely robotic voice not too far off from the Microsoft Sam of old, but with a distinct Russian accent to it. "This will all have to wait, something is pulling power into the base," his propulsion systems starting to fail as he lowers himself back to the ground standing in his full suit almost 7 feet tall, the giant metal creation starting to walk its way over towards the panel. "We must stop it,"


Magneto smirks faintly behind his helmet. "They knew the depot could be dangerous, didn't they?" The copilot can receive just fine, but communications back gets scrambled, so she must be hearing a lot of 'please repeat' and the Triskelion complaining about interferences. It is certainly unusual, and probably cause of alarm, but Magneto doesn't expect them to send reinforcements immediately without trying other ways to establish contact or checking satellite feeds.

The satellite feeds won't reveal anything alarming unless a fight starts. And if a fight begins, even a minute of delay would be good for Magneto. So it seemed a good plan until /something/ underground activates. The ground trembles, "wide ECM field power drain. It is not just batteries," he comments, maybe warns. A forcefield cackles to life around him, just a second before the bullets start flying.

Just for himself, though. Because he is a jerk. Besides, the only person here he would, perhaps, consider protecting out of the (very scarce) goodness of his heart, this being Rocket Red, is already wearing heavy armor.

Instead he walks calmly to the door of the depot and tears it open with a wave of his hand.


The whole shaft begins to shake around the Winter Soldier, and his eyes immediately turn upwards as he starts trying to determine whether or not it looks as if everything is going to crumble around him, how long it'll take him to get to the surface, and whether the source of the rumbling might mean that the facility itself is too compromised to be worth investigating. It's really more of a cost-benefit analysis - weighing his chances of being able to get in and out with useful intel versus the prospective odds of being crushed to death or worse - than anything to do with a survival instinct; him getting out of the facility alive is only important in that there's no way for him to bring anything of value back to Lukin otherwise.

Since the shaft isn't stable enough to support safe climbing right now, the Soldier decides to let himself dangle and take the opportunity to investigate the shaft below by popping the butt of his pen light in his mouth and looking down while he hangs on. Not too far beneath himself, he spots a ring of diode-studded machinery throwing off the occasional spark. Lasers, most likely; a troublesome defensive measure, even if it has seen better days. The Soldier doesn't get more than a couple seconds to contemplate ways of dealing with it, though: the shaft seemed sturdy enough to withstand grappling, and perhaps it might have been if it weren't for the tremors; as it is, cracks are slowly running up one side of the gray stump, and they don't stop until they reach the hook and the concrete gives way beneath it.

The Ghost of the Cold War doesn't even have the benefit of seeing the hook slip; instead, he just falls towards the trap that he can't even see. His metal arm should be strong enough to let him catch himself against the inner walls of the shaft, but there's no time to shift himself towards one before he hits the lasers; instead of trying to force it, he swiftly unclips a grenade, unpins it with his teeth, and hurls it against the ring. A cloud of aluminum flakes and other particulate matter billows throughout the shaft, revealing a red, faintly flickering grid that the Soldier is just barely able to twist himself through with some acrobatic contortions; as soon as he's clear, he untwists his body with a sharp pivot that drives his cybernetic fingers into the concrete shaft, arresting his fall. And slamming him rather roughly into the wall; painful, but not as painful as hitting the bottom probably would have been.


Grind. Grind. Grind…

There's a wonderful horrible crunching sound when the door just gets… mauled, and the tech who was working on it gets well and wisely away. No interest in joining it.

Beyond, darkness becomes faint light. Electric light, yellowish and distant. They're slowly turning on as if triggered by… something, but what on earth would be generating enough electricity for that at this point?

Meanwhile, the grinding and rumbling culminates in the sudden bursting-up of five turrets around the perimeter, all pointing at the door to the bunker. They're concrete-shielded metal with long, smooth nozzles that fold out and train on the movements of the people clustered around. A hum slowly rising in pitch suggests that they're powering up.

Which doesn't take long, actually. Bolts of crackling energy come shooting out, though — perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not — they aren't aiming for the quinjet.

As the Winter Soldier drops through the ventilation shaft and past the T-standard laser grid (seriously, its vintage is 1965 at BEST), he will find that the shaft itself takes a branch sharply to the right. Anything dropping STRAIGHT down the vent would keep going for quite some time, but the horizontal branch has a fan and a grille opening out onto a much larger room.


"That would be a no," Sam snaps at Elijah. The Planetary executive's casual, entitled attitude leaves the usually amiable veteran sneering. "Next time, try better credentials than 'buddies with Magneto.'" His mind has been racing since he realized Magneto was here, and one thing is obvious: his almost entirely metallic flight suit is far more of a hazard than an asset. So the moment the mutant attacks, Sam hits the emergency release, and the entire rig — backpack, gauntlets and wings — falls off. The first order of business, once he's free of the potentially restrictive metal? Wipe that calm expression off Elijah's face with a left hook to the mouth. Magneto is way, way out of his weight class; Green Lantern is going to have to deal with that problem.

The SHIELD techs do go for their sidearms, but remain under cover rather than wasting bullets on the Master of Magnetism's shields. (They were hired for their brains, after all.) Off to the side, the Quinjet's engines flare to life and it kicks away from the bunker on a column of thrust. Beam weapons fire — but in the opposite direction from the confrontation, raking the tree line and instantly setting fire to the first rank of trees. Seems that with ordinary lines of communication cut, they've decided to fall back on smoke signals. But as turrets appear around the bunker and start to fire, it's safe to say that any watching satellites will get the message regardless.


Splat is a pretty heavy hitter compared to most, especially in fully charged armor but one ZOT from that lightning blast is more than enough to stun him silly. He sends a shot wide at a nearby rock, causing it to fall…up. The Smart Blood instantly tries to correct the problem. First thing it does is set him DOWN. The wheels in the hamster begin turning. There are ways around this problem.


Elijah Snow had stepped well off to the side the moment that Magneto began to approach the door. He's been down enough ancient tombs, buried spaceships, and cannibal mausoleum's to know that the front door is usually where they put the poison dart launchers and the giant stone that rolls over you. Seriously, it happens, those Indiana Jones people did their research.

Of course, then he gets a sock in the jaw. A nice hard one, too. He rubs his jaw, "Almost as good as Captain America. Almost. A second will cost you," he says, and he flash-freezes the air against Sam's face, leaving a layer of frost over his skin that will break apart with the slightest motion.

He leans back into the wall to rest his sore jaw (thankfully, he can provide an icepack with just a hand). He can't help but chuckle at Falcon's accusation, "If you call that buddies, I'm not sure you have any friends, sir. Of course, I'm not the one whose job it is to recognize omega class superhuman threats when they hike up to me." he says simply. He leans back against the wall of the building and waits to see how the others solve the dilemma. His skills lie mostly in picking through the remnants for information and knowledge. And sure, he could freeze some things, but there's no point in freezing something he can't see. He might damage something valuable.


Magneto has little fear of electron guns set to stun, even without his forcefield. But they make a fine distraction for the SHIELD interlopers, don't they? Nevermind he is the real intruder here. Ahem.

"Snow, come here. I think this is your field of specialty," he will try to disable defenses as he goes down, of course. Those pesky poison darts included, if any. "I can sense a Tesla Coil generator. That is nineteen century technology, discarded as too limited early past century, but I have never seen one this powerful. And the power drain makes little sense in the context."


Those bolts of energy meant to stun Rocket do one fantastical thing most likely unintended by the designers: Give him back the power being sapped from him. Each strike is redirected to the central battery giving his systems that bit of extra power it needs to keep him going strong. His propulsion systems finally getting the energy to lift him back slightly off the ground for faster travel into this structure, focusing part of his mind on trying to force them to overload and shut themselves down as he moves. There's already a time limit on this whole thing and Rocket knows someone's got to try and zap whatever it is that's sucking down so much energy before it releases it back into the wild.


The Winter Soldier can still see his little pen light disappearing further and further into the darkness after being dislodged in his unexpected fall. He has spares, but he also has one hand lodged in concrete while the other busily scrabbles for cracks, holes— anything approximating a handhold, really; he'll have to make do with climbing in the darkness. Or, rather— he'll have to make do with climbing in the darkness after the rumbling subsides.

At least he got a glimpse of the branch when his light passed it; he might've been at it for a while, otherwise.

After the tremors give way to a series of climactic bursts above-ground, then relative calm, he works his way down until he's about even with the branch in the shaft. Once he's there, he gingerly pulls his knees up so that his feet are braced against the shaft, gently pushes against the wall a couple of times, then launches himself towards the other side with a powerful thrust of his legs. He rolls through his landing in the adjoining tunnel, and once he's on his feet, he fetches another light and shines it around in search of some way to disable the fan. If he can locate a power source, he might be able to shoot it or knock it offline with his EMP capabilities; otherwise, he'll fall back on looking for weak points in the fan itself.


Regardless of whether SHIELD's communications are getting through, that sudden shut-down of radio signals and the subsequent FWOOMPH of the trees around the site are a bit of a Bat-signal: somewhere not too far away, the nearest SHIELDies are probably massing. Reinforcements may take some time to get here, though.

The electrical energy turrets aren't playing favorites. Once people are down, it doesn't tend to keep shooting them; either it was designed to stun people so that the denizens of the bunker could pick them up later, or the batteries have really drained in the last sixty-some years. Hard to tell. But they do still seem to have a remarkable power source. Somewhere.

And then, all of a sudden, they're not. They're still shooting, but mostly wildly into the air and all around. At the trees some. At the sky some. It makes for a really pretty show.

The fan, meanwhile, is turning slowly. It's starting to pick up speed, and through the whirring blades, the Winter Soldier will be able to see a brightly lit laboratory. Sitting at the back wall is something a bit hard to view from this angle, but there is what appears to be a very handy lever against one wall. Its size and placement are such that it's quite likely the power cut-off for at least the lab, if not the whole facility.

Since the door has been unceremoniously ripped from its hinges, the interior from the front entrance can be seen. There's a long switchback stairwell going down, lit by flickering yellow lights.


Falcon's head snaps back as the ice layer disintegrates over his face. He understands the threat, sure, but as far as he can tell, Snow is Magneto's accomplice — the mutant is apparently ordering to help disable the bunker's security system. Sam has every intention of knocking Snow out and dragging him to the Triskelion for questioning, frostbite or no, and only the necessity of staying out of the withering fire from the turrets prevents him from putting this plan into action.

Hunkering back in the base's entryway like Han Solo in the third Star Wars movie, he yells at the tech team over the energy blasts: "We need to keep them out until reinforcements get here!" Apparently, the crew of the Quinjet agree: still accelerating away from the site (and the mutant who could crush their ship like a soda can if he wanted to), they open fire with the beam weapon again. Again, they're not firing directly at Magneto; SHIELD has pretty concrete protocols for such a high-profile target. Instead, the beam is directed into the bunker itself, in an attempt to cave in the entryway and prevent anyone on a short clock from gaining access.

Unfortunately, just after the first half-second of demolished masonry collapsing into the stairwell, the suddenly wild turrets manage to hit the Quinjet by pure dumb luck. Main flight systems cut, and the craft drops drunkenly from the air, one wingtip and then the fuselage skidding through the rocky soil.


Splat really should leave. Really. But he has to know. There is something here that explains what some of the crap inside him is. Unless there isn't. He wars back and forth as he kind of recovers, little stars flickering metaphorically in his head, and then he decides that he is just going to go for it…and runs for the front door, literally FALLING towards it, careful to fall AROUND MAgneto if he's in the way but otherwise falling down the door and then through the cooridor at a rather rapid speed, bumping on walls and stairs along the way.


Elijah Snow stays exactly where he is, "I have absolutely no intention of going anywhere inside of there. Not all of us have the pleasure of magnetic shields to protect us. That said, massive Tesla coils could indicate designers, anyone from Throckmeyer from the OSS to Challengers of the Unknown to Tesla himself. I could give a better estimate of authorship, but I have both an unnecessary number of energy blasts and an angry looking SHIELD agent to contend with, one formidable enough that I think I should just take him out now," he says.

At which point, Elijah focuses his power again, sucking warmth not just from the air in front of Sam's face but in his mouth, his throat, his nasal passages, coating over his eyes, with the intent of smothering the threat unconscious in an icy grasp as he starts to back away. He's more than content to pick the bones whenever the juvenile delinquents have gotten done with it.


Magneto grunts in annoyance at Elijah's decision and heads down. When Splat passes by him, he tries to grab him, or it. Whatever. He has no intention to let anyone reach the source of the power drain before he does. He is not aware of the presence of the Winter Soldier yet.

Then SHIELD decides to bury him alive. "And that is what happens when I am soft with humans," he comments, extending the magnetic field to make sure they don't get buried alive, then levitating down quickly.


Just shy of being buried by a wall of rocks and boulders there's still one that smacks him right in the helmet leaving behind a bit of a dent and sending him tumbling down to the ground. He doesn't swear or curse or even really yell out just rather calmly laughing, still sitting by the wall, and rubbing at the spot where his helmet indented. "Hokey Smokes, that was close,"


The Winter Soldier watches the fan carefully as it revs up, his whole body swaying towards and away from it as he tries to get a feel for its rhythm; is it just bad luck that's got this thing speeding past the point of easy - or even predictable - insertion, or is the ventilation system better surveilled than its aging laser grid would suggest? The Soldier isn't a superstitious man by any means, but he's been on enough ops to know that sometimes, circumstances can rapidly turn towards or against one's favor through sheer coincidence. If anything, he's ready to believe the former option more than the latter.

Not that the reasons behind the fan's increasing speed are all that important when he's staring at a power switch, of course; eventually, it gets to a point where trying to dive through is just untenable, so the Soldier just sets his feet, stares beyond the fan for a few revolutions, then finally uses his left hand to flick a knife from his hip sheath through one of the gaps between blades. It banks off of the wall facing the switchbox to ricochet into the lever at an angle, moving at speeds that he hopes are high enough to force it into the 'Off' position.

Once the fan's taken care of, he'll fill his left hand with a pistol and advance into the lab while shining a light around with his right. Since he brought weapons instead of bags, he's primarily looking for interesting things to take pictures of, stuff that be holstered or stashed in pouches, and punch cards; anything he can carry out without weighing himself down too badly.


Down the stairs, down the tunnel — it's a fair distance down, faster to fall straight down than it is to take the proper, civilized stairs. There's an anteroom at the bottom of the stairs — a second security checkpoint complete with desk, chair, metal detector, and a thick heavy metal door.

Given who's heading down that way, it's probably not long for this world.

Both thick metal door and fan-covered grating lead to the same place: a laboratory, quite large enough for two or three dozen scientists to work on opposite sides. The workbenches are all still here. The larger projects mostly got packed away, but there are still notes, plans, and half-completed electronic equipment. It's 50s-vintage, but it's unusual stuff — and apparently valuable, or no one would have sent the Winter Soldier down here.

One side of the lab seems dedicated to electronics. The other side appears to be dedicated to some sort of biological experimentation; at least, there's still a glass-fronted refrigerator down here, and it's still running, and despite cold being theoretically supposed to keep most bacteria and such dormant, there's definitely some kind of… slime… growing in there. Possibly dormant. Probably dormant. It's not moving, anyway.

It's what's at the back wall that might be of the most interest. Because once the lever gets flipped, all the lights go out. Every single one, just about. Evidently there's no backup generators. There's only one light.

Only one, and it's coming from the back of the lab.

There's a confection there of brass and glass, perhaps four feet across and seven feet long, lying angled perhaps halfway upward from horizontal. There's a lever on the side that is attached to gears that would presumably bring it upright. There's a great deal of other controls as well, but they don't seem to be labeled. There's a glass visor over the front. It's been frosted over, and it gives the whole thing the appearance of. Well.

A hibernation chamber. One glowing with blue-white light.

Back up on the surface, the quinjet is having a really rough day. With care, that copilot might be able to get it to land without causing any problems. The zap-guns have, happily, ceased entirely.

But an instant later, the power's being drained from the quinjet at a remarkable rate. If it has a battery, anything electronic, that's being drained away.


As Splat and Rocket go flying by all of them, Sam lets out a yell of frustration: "And who the hell were THEY?" Unfortunately, this distracts him long enough for Elijah to attack, so the white-clad executive gets the drop on the frustrated pararescueman. The ice flooding his mouth and nose prevents Falcon from even making a clever quip before he runs out of air.

It does not, however, prevent him from reaching into a shoulder holster to draw one of his sidearms and unload a magazine at his attacker. The pistol is sleek and lit blue in a few places: it's a SHIELD stun weapon called an Icer, and he's using it on Elijah Snow partly because he would rather not kill anyone today, but mostly because the superhero universe's sense of humor gravitates toward puns. Thanks to the lit HUD on the interior of his goggles, the ice won't be the same obstacle to his aim that it is to his breathing.

But even if he takes down Snow, it'll be a Pyrrhic victory. Sam collapses to his knees shortly after depleting his ammunition. He nearly face-plants onto the ground — no minor problem with a face made brittle by ice — but the Latino tech agent rushes forward and catches him by the shoulders, lowering him to the ground.


Elijah Snow had been backing away, so he sees the gun come up and leaps off to the side, but not quite fast enough. The first two shots miss but the last one catches him in his left breast, sending him crumpling to the ground. He's still conscious for the moment, but he can feel it slipping away as he plants himself on his hands and knees, glaring at Falcon, "I'm gonna…bill you…for this…suit…" he manages before he passes out, sure to be gathered up by SHIELD operatives and taken back to headquarters. That should be interesting.


Magneto frowns as the lights go out. But it is not surprise because those SHIELD /fools/ are bombing the depot or something equally foolish that humans would do. Also, Splat is interfering. "You," he tells the gravity-controller, "stay here or else…" He concentrates, making electric current run again through the depot and bringing back some lights. "Hibernation chamber, Pushkin. Looks like they were keeping here yet another unfortunate super-human. Perhaps a mutant. Lets see," he pulls a hand-held device, which should help him detect mutants close by, but shakes his head. "Too much electromagnetic interference. But I am quite sure this person is causing the ECM drain. Would you help me with the machinery? Wait…"

There are quite a number of electromagnetic fields, so the Winter Soldier would have remained unseen if it wasn't for that steel arm. "A cyborg," warns Magneto. Although a cyborg is the wrong man to send against the master of magnetism and a cyber-empath.


Coming back to a stand Rocket rubs his red helmet right back into ready fighting shape, moving down the way. His voice rings out again with that synthetic tones, the suit of armor stomping for a bit, as it gets back up to a slight float above the concrete. "A cyborg is no good comrade," He's always preferred floating to walking less because he doesn't enjoy walking more because it's faster. "Let us hope he is friendly," Fallowing along down the way towards the large metal doors,


The Soldier is in the process of shoving a few electronic components in one of his pouches when the door comes down. And his left hand inexplicably spasms open, sending the pistol skidding across the floor while the rest of the arm sags. The artificial limb emits a low whine the entire time as its energy is siphoned by— something; the Winter Soldier doesn't know what's causing it, but he knows that losing an arm is bad news. He immediately kills his light and starts crawling into a long cubby beneath built into one of the work tables, hoping to lurk in the darkness until the newcomers—

Oh. Well. Now the lights are on; that's going to make things harder.

With the barest of frowns, the Soldier rolls out of the cubby so that he can crouch behind the desk and scan the lab. He can barely lift his left arm, which severely limits his options. If nothing else, he still has a pistol; he might be able to pick off one of the white-haired guys, or the one in the cost—

'A cyborg.'

The Winter Soldier just starts running towards the vent shaft, because the universe clearly hates him.


Ramon up top does indeed catch Falcon, and his fellow SHIELD agents will assuredly be performing first aid on him if he doesn't end up melting on his own first. Nothing else up there should be causing too many problems. The structural integrity of the entrance is not exactly awesome at this point, admittedly.

At least the shaking has stopped. And Magneto's put just enough power in just enough lights to make it gloomy and creepy down here. Except near the pod, at least, which is getting gradually brighter.

Gears begin to turn. Knobs crank this way and that. There's a sharp hissing sound as the pod starts to shift, as it tries to crack itself open like an egg.


As the tech lowers Sam to the ground, the Quinjet comes to a skidding, messy, but generally intact rest and powers down. Up in the sky, SHIELD dropships and more Quinjets streak into view, maneuvering to keep out of the strange electromagnetic disturbance that is sapping their counterpart's systems. They're going to have to land out at the perimeter of the effect and march inward — at least, the mundane troops will. It's still unclear what sort of meta backup might be on its way.


Splat wants to stop right here, but the Smart Blood wants to go forward. There is a big argument briefly but Magneto's a psychopath. And an Omega class mutant. Uh uh. But given how he is moving its quite clear that he won't be here for long. Indeed in the splintered remains of the desk he can see that there is a schematic that the smart blood recognizes as matching elements very closely of some of the things in one of the labs he…liberated things from. But is it just a concindence?

The Smart Blood is SCREAMING at him in its own silent way but he holds still for now. But he listens.


Elijah Snow gets tagged and bagged along wih the SHIELD people, probably dropped into a nice holding cell in the Quinjet on the way back. He needed a nap anyway, it'll probably be good for him.


With Magneto this deep and all the electrical activity going, he can't keep on the electromagnetic interference, so that means SHIELD will know he is around and chances are he will have to deal with a large contingent of agents the second he reaches the surface.

Working quickly, he starts the defrosting process of the pod, and keeps tabs on the woman's vitals. "The cyborg has retreated," he states, "and this prisoner, she is a mutant, just as I feared. Unfortunately SHIELD will be up there, waiting for me, I can't protect her." He looks up at the armoured Russian. "I'll draw their attention, you get her out here, please." Otherwise, he believes he could find the woman's power signature.

Magneto returns to the ruined staircase and draws to him a large amount of the iron and steel of the facility. The lights go out again, when he pushes the mass of metal upwards, bursting through the earth like a missile. The man himself follows close behind, and after a brief glance to SHIELD's mustered forces, he flies away at high speed.


While not one for stealing from shield this is a human being, and Rocket's only goal here is to try and get this mutant to safety. A wave of his hand and he's already trying to force open the container. It's not the smartest move but maybe he can get them out of here on their own merit instead. It's not aiding an escape, but securing the scene.


Winter Soldier, on the other hand, only cares about getting himself to safety. It's tricky with only one arm; ultimately, he has to go with shouldering a table close enough to the shaft he came from that it can be used as a step up and hope that Rocket Red is too focused on the pod to bother with him. At least Magneto did him the favor of leaving the situation entirely; that helps.

If the power armored Russian does remain so focused, the Soldier will eventually jump/haul himself back into the shaft. Where he'll be faced with the dilemma of figuring out how to get back to the surface.

Hopefully, his arm starts working again; otherwise, he's either going to be here for a long time, or not long at all, depending on whether or not anyone bothers to check the ventilation system.


As the pod opens at last, letting out a great gust of cold air, gleaming metal fingers probe through the mist and grip the edges of the opening. A face emerges — calm, placid, the face of a Greek statue wrought from gleaming metal. The figure pulls itself out slowly. The metal 'eyelids' raise to reveal what appears to be blue crystal or tinted glass, which at least gives the face a little more life.

The metal body that comes out, beautifully-wrought armor though it is, is badly damaged and scorched. She's staggering as she emerges from the pod, gathering herself to her feet, swaying before she takes a defensive step backward. Her hands raise and she looks left and right. If the face could register shock or fear or anger, it very well might.

Electricity sings around her in a force field. Once again, she draws in as much as she can, causing the lights in here to flicker once more. In another instant, after she's gained some idea of the room, she's shooting toward the nearest vent. The Winter Soldier's vent, as it happens. And what with electromagnets being what they are, he might have an amusing time not getting his arm stuck to a cyborg even older than him.

Above, quinjets are gathering. Reinforcements have come and will at least get Sam out — and anyone else they happen to get their hands on, for that matter. They're prepared for enemies and offense and not quite prepared for Magneto and also not for the streak of blue-white light that rockets out of one of the vents. They may try to follow, though the lady is hauling serious butt and the quinjets are, for the most part, pretty well electrical. They're going to have an amusing time trying to keep up if she doesn't want to be followed.

And just for the moment, apparently she doesn't.


Back to: RP Logs

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License