Polymorphing Mage

Summary:
March 29, 2015: A visit to a basement, a surprise and some freezing occurs

New York


Characters

NPCs

  • None

Mood Music:
[*<http://insert.video.or.music.link.here>]


DAPWS. For most people that's just a slightly silly collection of letters. Also, most people won't ever have heard of it, let alone know what it means. The 'Digital All Purpose Weapon System.' Also known as a Digital Polymorpher or just 'the Polymorpher'. Twelve were constructed by the Army and field tested by a special operations unit for a few years before the mark I models were retired pending further study. Of the twelve, two were lost in combat and one vanished off the books. Jericho is quite familiar with the story.

It's his.

The sightings recently of a hostile operative using technology similar to a Digital Polymorpher, if not exactly alike, has had him digging into old secrets again, trying to verify where the other nine cyber suites are. And what happened to the notes of the scientists that created them.

He thinks he's found one of those two. He isn't entirely sure which though. Metropolis is host to a number of cutting edge technical corporations. Unsurprisingly, some of them are in the robotics/cybernetics field. Mostly for medical purposes. One of those, at the edge of the city, is emitting some damn odd signals. Signals on a military band that Jericho picked up an hour ago.

The place is downtown. Closed for the night. It's a high rise tech facility. Bright. Shiny. Clean. Empty. Or so it seems. The hacker isn't sure how he's going to approach this one yet.


Nyx isn't that far off studying the building. She isn't entirely aware of why she is watching it. Just that she is and it makes her uneasy. Which is honestly good cover to why she showed up in general. The odd signals is enough to attract the alien AI's attention riding deep inside her now. "Hmmm.. looks … suspicious but not sure why…" she nutters to herself. Then she goes still and cocks her head. "Maybe I should just knock and ask them what they are doing that is illegal…"

Kara was just flying back to the Justice League: Avenger's lakehouse, forming a tiny silhouette against the night sky above Metropolis. Her flight path takes her fairly close to the area Nyx and Jericho are in, red cape fluttering in the wind as she approaches the building completely at random.


Quiet is the way to go. Quick and quiet. And preferably after the security systems have been disabled. If what's down there is what he thinks it is, it's damn odd tech and he needs to be careful. The hacker is hovering at, coincidentally, just about Kara's altitude as he considers the building and mentally works on hacking it, shutting down communciations, cameras, alarms. He hasn't noticed - because she's quiet - Kara's approach but his big amber batwings flapping might attract her notice.

Nyx he sees only because he's learned to recognize that odd, tight network. Rather than poke it though he pokes at her phone. "Well if it isn't the Angel of Metropolis. Funny to see you h-ACK!"

The 'ack' is from Jericho realizing he's got something inbound.


Nyx gets it on her phone and herself on another level all at the same time there. She looks over to where the signal bounced and originated and cocks her head at the ACK. She flares her wings to life… brilliant unsubtle white energy and takes off towards Jericho and closer to the building now.$r


When Kara spots the pair, she can't help but feel like they're acting a little bit suspicious. Perching herself on a near-by building she sits back and watches to see what Nyx and Jericho will do next, if trouble came there way she would certainly help them as well; assuming they weren't the trouble themselves.


Jericho regesters a second inbound and i- oh. Wait. It's just Nyx. He nods to the energy winged heroine as she comes up. He did have something elseo n his screen, he thought, but it's gone now. Hrm. Okay. Pity he doesn't know Kara's about.

Kara can see the building slowly start to shut off even more than it already is. Lights and phone connections die. She may not sense the alarms disengaging or the cameras rerouting but someone is messing with that building.

"Hey there Nyx. Fancy seeing you here. Investigating possible HYDRA fronts are we?" He's not totally sure it's HYDRA but he's having a hard time figuring out why else he'd been getting six year old military band signals. "I was about to head in there."


She lets her wings flare out of existance now as she crosses her arms and studies the building. "I was considering knocking myself. It seems like a pretty suspicious building really… got a hunch." Nyx squints at it. "Shall we go knock?" she shrugs rolling her shoulders and starts across the street at the building.


One advantage Kara had was superhearing and she uses it to eavesdrop for the time being. Hydra was definitely bad news, bad enough news she should go offer her help. Jumping off the building she starts to fly towards the pair, "If you like, I'll keep an eye out here for trouble."


"Keeping an eye out for trouble is probably a good idea." Jericho starts a bit at… wait… that's Supergirl. Well this is Metropolis after all. He's just glad she's not about to arrest him for hacking and breaking and entering. B and E is something he does a lot. Generally for good reasons but nooooot strictly legal, no. "I've already disabled the alarms. Care to come down with me Nyx?" Jericho nods to Kara. Actually if she wanted to come down that'd be fine too. Not like anyone's going to record them.

The hacker produces a pry bar which he uses to pop the side door… a little to expertly to be unsuspicious and peers in. Dark hallways. He's looking for a basement stairs sign. Should be around here somewhere. Place is clean, like the outside. They design a lot of tech here but the production is all on the lower levels.

There's a faint rumble in Kara's Ley Pendulum. A disturbance in the force, as it were.


Nyx was already walking, so really Jericho had to play catch up to get the door open. "Crowbar?" she shakes her head "Really…. okay sure…" she slips in past him now "Hey you." to Kara though before heading inside. She pauses and looks around, wandering over to a lab table and scooping up some electronics in one hand and letting them back down "This isn't it…" she mmmms softly "Below I think."


Kara looked between the pair of them, "So what are we looking for?" Then there's a disturbance in the Forces of Magic and she touches the sapphire pendant with her hand, attempting to teleport herself to the source of danger or at least get pointed towards it, "Hold that thought, maybe I can find out!"


Kara winds up right down on a Ley line in the building's basement. Moments later there are twin 'clunck' sounds. One is that of Jericho disengaging the lock to the stairs down to the basement. The other… came from deeper in. It is pitch black in here. THere's no light at all. But there is a familair sense of something… Kara may recogize it as similar to but not the same as the feeling the Judas Goat had.

"Sometimes low tech is the way to go." Jericho shrugs as he hacks the lock and opens it. "It's got to be down here. Signal's getting stronger. Where do you think Supergirl went?"


Nyx remarks "It looks like she teleported.. which well… I had no idea kryptonians could do that so it is pretty cool.." she kicks past Jericho and knocks the door right off it's hinges with a THUNK. "I do like low-tech sometimes…." she shakes her head and slinks past him heading down the stairs quickly.


Kara blinks a few times as she finds herself in the basement and she shivers involuntarily as the strange sensation she feels, "Oh great, now I'm down here alone." Focussing her vision towards the darkness she starts moving towards it as she searches for anything, calling out, "Hello? Anyone home?"


The entire pulse of the Ley Line in this area has been altered to instil one thing. Obedience to HYDRA. Ordinarily it'd take weeks, months of constant exposure to make this work if it worked at all. Ley Line alteration is very subtle. It's not an art that one just throws at someone. Jericho's aware of what they've been doing and is fairly sure it doesn't pose a short term threat. Long term, yes a problem, but not short term.

Kara, and now Jericho and Nyx can hear the thumping in hte back of the room. "There's a large mechanical room at the end of the hallway on the right. Sounds like it's coming from there." Certainly the signals seem to be coming from that location.

Kara can feel something else though. A presence. Whispers at the edge of her awareness in languages no human has ever before heard.


Nyx peers around and then flares her right arm charging her particle cannon in that limb to light up the room with a vibrant pulsing white glow now. "Right… I think it is totally back here…." she heads down that way towards the right hallway.


Kara hears Jericho and Nyx approaching and turns to look at the pair, "Nice of you to join me, it was getting a little too spooky down here. Also, I don't think we're alone. You two can hear the whispering right?" She really didn't like that whispering. Her eyes flashed glowing red as she approached the door, preparing to deal with whatever trouble that might be there as quickly as possible.


Jericho shoves the door open. There's a table in the room and not much else. On the table is what looks like a series of twelve quarter sized nodes laid out on the outline of a human form. The Hacker's eyes narrow. "A polymorpher. That explains the signal but not…" He spins just as something appears behind him. "Ah, I wondered when you might show up. With the Angel of Metropolis and Supergirl no less." The hooded figure says. He holds a hand up to forestal any fighting. "Don't make this any more violent than it has to be. I'm not here to fight you."


Well Nyx doesn't just up and blast the guy in the face with her hand, she holds off on the blasting though she does point it for a moment at Jericho and the guy past him "Well crud…" then she squints and heads further into the room to look over the polymorpher "Who is your friend there J?"


Creepy costume? Check. Weird feeling like evil archmage goat kinda? Check. Disturbing Leylines? Check.

Kara had learned a little bit about dealing with magical foes in her time with Primal Force and within an instant, she's putting white earbuds into her ears and blasting very loud punk rock music into her own eardrums; drowning out everything else.

The music is so loud, everyone else can hear it to. It's almost deafening to Kara, but that meant; nobody could compel her with words.

She inhales deeply and looks towards the man's lower half before closing her eyes, so he totally couldn't look into her eyes and compel her that way and exhales a gust of deep freezing wind that is meant to lock the man in place and freeze him from the waist down.

Kara then considered, she didn't have nose plugs. Great, what if this guy cast spells by smell.


That was… not the reaction that the man expected clearly. Chilled and now frozen from the waist down and now there's Jericho pulling his sword. That was a reaction he expected. He'd just expected to be able to move when it happened.

"Now now Trent. Yes I know your name. No need to be violent. Would you deny your friend there the opporunity to have a tasty snack? I imagine she's getting oh so hungry. Yes, we've noticed what she did to our facilities."

Jericho's eyes narrow. "You set this up on purpose?"

"Well I have to admit I didn't expect to get you and her and Supergirl all in the same go." He looks over the now oblivious blonde speculatively and then eyes Trent. That sword is awful close. Jericho hasn't made move yet though.

"Who are you exactly?"

"Mmmm. You can call me Astor."

"Star. Cute."

"No, cute is your blonde friend there."

"Don't even think it."

"Would I-"

"I will gut you like a fish if you finish that sentence."


Nyx pauses and looks back to the guy frozen from the waist down and narrows her eyes. "Was this bait for the trap… or is this…" she waves her hand over the polymorphers "The trap itself you Hydra scumbag?" she does reach down after a moment and scoops one of the nodes up now. "I think you are severely underestimating this situation."


Kara isn't quite sure what is going on, she's just sure if she gets mind controlled it will be bad for her two friends here. She calls out confused, "Tap me once on the shoulder if it's safe. Tap me twice if I should keep freezing him and tap me three times if it's not safe. Wait, don't tap my shoulder if it's not safe." She pauses, "NO, tap my shoulder three times if it's not safe, IF YOU CAN. If you don't I'll assume it's not safe." Kara had just confused herself.


"Well… seems Supergirl is worried about magic." The frozen mage says. "Well that's okay. Everyone should be. But maybe especially her hrm?" Before Jericho realizes quite what's wrong the mage goes insubstantial and begins to fade. "Damn it, he's portalling."

In his defense Jericho does try to run the guy though. But he's mostly out already. "I'll be seeing you all again. Bye for now Nyx. Supergirl." Jericho gets a death glare. "Trent."

With his departure the odd sense in the ley line goes too. Hrm. Maybe a way to track him.


Nyx scoops up another of the polymorpher nodes and lifts it up to her eye there. "Interesting…" she mutters critically. "Can they trap these things, or track them J?" she reaches down and starts to gather them up in a pile in front of her, well the remaining ones." she doesn't seem to care that the guy vanished.


Nobody taps Kara on the shoulder, so she assumes the worst. She starts freezing the area where the portaling archmage guy was and instead of freezing anyone she freezes a solid block of ice in the hallway.

Opening her eyes and removing her headphones, she stares at the block of ice in disbelief before looking at Nyx and Jericho.

"Oh my Zod. I did not mean to do that. I didn't even know I could transform someone into a solid block of ice!" She looks worried.


"He portaled out Supergirl. You're fine." Or does she prefer Kara. He's got no idea. Jericho doesn't see her nearly enough for it to be a factor.

"I doubt it Nyx but I'm not sure. They can't track mine and if that's an original they probably can't track it." Though he suspects it's not. If they had an original they wouldn't leave it laying around. Unless they've done something to it. He shakes his head. "Why? Are you planning on taking it with you?"


Nyx sounds a bit distant "I think so…" she finishes gathering them up in a pile. Then settles her hands over them and presses down. The devices aren't crushed though, the best way to describe what happens to the nodes would be absorbtion. The metal-ish objects are just vanished as she closes her hands over them one at a time.


Kara looks relieved when she realizes she didn't transform anyone into a solid block of ice, but stranger things have happened at leylines. She heads back into the room they were in and uses her pendant to search for the source of the disruption, "I don't think you should be stealing, I mean, I really can't let you do that. We're already breaking and entering, so…."


"Those devices, if they are what I think they are, were stolen from the Army base at Fort Eustice to begin with." Jericho explains. Or at least, the technology for it was. "Believe me, we don't want these guys holding on to these."

He blinks. "Uh, Nyx, you okay?"


Nyx steps back from the table now "I think so J." she blinks and well her hands are empty and the table is empty as well. "Just need to… settle down a bit I think…. also hungry. I think I need to go get some takeout." yeah right what was that then. "It isn't stealing Supergirl if it was already stolen"


Kara hopefully messes with whatever was disrupting the Leylines as she pokes around in the room and smiles, "Oh! Then shouldn't we really make sure it gets back to the army?" She taps her JL:A Belt buckle, "I bet the JL:A can make sure that happens."


"Um…" Jericho is fairly sure Nyx just ate it some how. But he'll let Kara take that up with the young woman. "Right. Takeout." Avoiding that particular topic. Since the army would probably love to know why Jericho has his (short answer, HYDRA tricked them both.)

"I'm… headed back upstairs now…"


Nyx tilts her head and gestures "Sorry…." she eyes the empty table. "I'm pretty sure that they aren't coming back now…and I have some heartburn… so I think I should go home and think about the bad decisions I've made… and maybe stop a bank robbery in Manhattan in progress…."


Kara didn't seem too pleased with that response, she didn't seem pleased at all. She's staring at Nyx with her hands on her hips, "I don't think this is over. While you might be a 'hero' like the rest of us, it doesn't just let you do whatever you want. We all have to make sure we do the right thing. Stealing isn't right and even if the technology is too dangerous for the army, it doesn't mean you alone can justify knowing what to do with it."

She frowns, "So trust me, this isn't over. It's just not going to continue right now." The truth is, she definitely needed to consult with her leaders in the JL:A. Nyx may be a hero most of the time, but stealing for yourself was not a hero-like action.

"By the way, the next time you stop a bank robbery. Make sure the money goes back to the bank, when something is stolen, you return it to the proper owner." Kara hmmphs and begins to head out of the building.


Jericho looks at Kara. Someone might want to talk to her about black operations and the politics thereof. However, the hacker is a busy, busy man. Also, likes not getting punched through walls, so that can be someone else's job. "You like schwarma, Nyx? Why don't we get you some. I need to chat with you about what you might have just eaten. And why HYDRA might have wanted that."


Nyx eye rolls "Ive never stolen any money.. just Hydra stuff…." she really hasn't either. She just fights supervillains and Hydra. There is a really big sigh and then the next thing she mutters "And.. not like I seem to have any choice either.. fuck I need that check out bad….." that is a darker mutter, super hearing can probably pick it up as Kara is leaving the building. When she gets out of the building she looks to Jericho "I do but no.. I wasn't kidding about the heartburn and there really is a bank robbery with hostages… catch me in New York?" she knows he gets around. Then Nyx pops her wings though and is in the air as soon as she clears the building and takes off. She is nice enough to wait until she is out of window breaking before she breaks the sound barrier on her way to NYC.


Kara smiles at the pair, "Well, stealing aside, it was nice seeing the pair of you. Keep up the good work." Stealing aside she almost added. Before flying away she offers, "If you need any help, you can contact me through the Hall of Justice. I'm happy to help with anything, just make sure we're not doing anything bad."


Jericho sighs. He's not… leaving yet. Time to check he computer systems of this place and figure out why that had that… and what else they might have hidden. He makes a mental note to not bring in Kara on… er, any of his operations. A bight and shiney worldview is a thing to be preserved in some people. And they tend to die pretty fast around him.


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