Log:Reactor Rumble

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Reactor Rumble
Emitter	Aornis
Players	The Alderman, Fast Forward, Mentor, Sirocco
NPCs	Afterthought, Schizophrenia, Simulation
Place	James Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant, Oswego, NY
Time (IC)	Mid-afternoon, 02/21/2013
Time (OOC)	02/21/2008

The James Fitzpatrick Power Plant has a single reactor that produces a little over fifteen percent of the power for the state of New York. The nearest city is Oswego, near the Great Lakes. Mid-afternoon on Thursday, and one can even get in the door without a permit or a degree - in an attempt to boost PR, they've been offering tours. Whatever reason one is in the area, this afternoon finds a group of people inside the perimeter ...

Toby is here under strange circumstances. Really, it started as a morning jog... and turned into a trip up the coast at a couple thousand miles per hour. Ever since talking to Vector, he's been wondering what kind of time he could make to get just about anywhere... so here he is... about as anywhere random as it could possibly get. The tour? Well, he has a report to do for science class, and the flier caught his eye. While he's on random jog around the country, why not do something totally and utterly random? Thankfully he brought along his normal identity clothes, and is just posing as a local student.

The wonders of modern transportation. Or even more wonderful, when you can just use them as a pretext to explain your presence, when you're actually a mystically-empowered air elemental who can make the trip in even less time than the maglev train network.

It being a Thursday, Dr. Gia Cecere had no classes to teach today, and so she took the time to drop in for lunch with her parents in Ithaca. Not that any pretext was needed there, since her mother and father are both aware of her abilities. It was after that, when she made the short jump to meet up with a friend and former roomate at the train station in Syracuse, from there to ride in her friend's car up to Oswego, where Julia teaches physics at the SUNY campus. And, on a lark, the two decided to to take the tour at Fitzpatrick...

The first part of his week was spent chasing down a bail-jumper, eventually grabbing him in Oswego. Just in time for the local city-spirit to ask him for 'a teeny tiny favor, nothing really'. Which is what one Adrian Vaughan, private investigator and sometime champion of Port Liberty, is doing in the tour group. (Also, he is hoping there is a gift shop, so he can buy a souvenir for his daughter.)

"Yes, that's right. The new coolant rods should be fine. The new solution should fix any problems..." Samuel isn't in the PR group. He's speaking to one of the scientists. He was ... consulting, let's say. "Replace the old ones with the new when you can, and that's that." He shrugs a shoulder, "Should increase the safety margins by about fifteen percent." He glances curiously down the hall at the group passing by, "Tours, now?" He asks the other man. "I'm glad I don't have to deal with that," he observes. "Would drive me insane with all my research, and --" As usual, Samuel is too busy talking to really notice much else.

Alarms and sirens start to wail, causing hysteria amongst the tourists - until someone points out that the piercing shriek is for the fire alarm, not a nuclear breach. That doesn't mean the evacuation protocols are any less swift, however -

"Can't you get a bead on the fire?"

"None of the cameras are working."

"What, none of them? The security system -"

Two technicians huddle in the hall, having this frantic conversation. "Is fine. It's working, the cameras are just dead."

"Just?!"

Absolute chaos, funneled, channeled. The only goal the average tourist or employee has right now is to get out of the way.

But Toby and Adrian may notice that, wedged at a strategic point behind a pillar, is a strange tile of a green-glassy stone, etched with mystic sigils. A faint flow of energy moves from the tile inwards - towards the reactor chamber.

Beat... the kid near the back of the tour group is racing to evacuate, taking a wrong turn as he hears the magic words of 'camera not working'. That poor kid disappears, as a black and white flash emerges from the corridors a second later. By now, most people have gotten a few steps, maybe.

Now on the scene, and noticing the odd mystic sigil stone, Fast Forward tries to figure out the best way to get to it past the fleeing crowd, looking for a clear path, even if it requires running along guardrails and the like. "Alright, everyone out, don't push, women and children first, c'mon, c'mon."

Meanwhile, Gia Cecere is with her friend among the crowd of tourists being hustled out of the plant. At the moment, she's more concerned with making sure Julia and the rest of the 'civilians' get out safely, but she's also looking for an opportunity to slip away from the group...

Adrian winces when the alarms go off, and he starts by looking around for a source. His eyes light upon that tile as he makes a show of evacuating along with the others, and he stares at it for a moment, before slipping away from the group at an opportune moment.

Samuel is surprised by the noise. "What is that--oh, it's a fire alarm?" He was busy handing over papers. He blinks at his companion. "Shouldn't the backup systems come online? What's going on?" His voice is disgusted, "If they don't come on, something bad could happen," he points out before glancing towards the group, watching them begin to make their way out. "Go to the control room, I'll leave, yes," he says to the man. Watching him leave, the man slips to the side, disappearing into a closet. He pushes a button on his PDA and his entire form warps and shifts, and instead, a form sheathed in dark gray fabric is there, even his head covered, the only part of his body visible being his eyes. "I feel like such an idiot in this getup," he complains before emerging once more. He looks down at the object he carries -- it looks like a slender display unit now, rather than a PDA, and pushes a few buttons, musing, "If the systems are down... there has to be something going on. Where...?" A blink, and he looks up, spotting the energy flowing over the rocks. He hadn't noticed it till now. "Okay, that's not supposed to be there. At least there's no signs of a meltdown..." He begins to head in that direction, following the energy as he mutters, "Can't believe I'm dressed in this silly stuff."

Fast Forward leaps onto the railway to get past the crowd, keeping his balance until he can drop next to the cameras. After fiddling with wires faster than the eye can follow, he gestures to the workmen. "Its not the cameras, something else is wrong. Evacuate, we'll handle it here!" he says with authority, before turning his path towards the stone again, only showing any frustration with the lack of fixing on the cameras when he turns away. "Going to have to sweep the whole place... lovely."

Meanwhile, among the crowd on its way out, as they're passing through the small Visitors' Center attached to the plant on the way to the exit, Gia Cecere spots... the public rest rooms. "Go on," she tells her friend, "I'll catch up!" And with that she breaks from the crowd and bolts into the ladies' room.

Once inside, and not taking the time to worry if her friend has chosen to follow or not, she hurries into a stall and latches the door. And a moment later, in airy, nearly-invisible form, the metahuman called Sirocco exits the restroom through the gap under the door and heads back into the plant.

The Alderman is not immediately visible, largely because he is staying *inside* the walls until the bulk of the people have been evacuated. He does, however, emerge before too long, near that unusual tile, and continues to peer up at it. "Whatever it is, it's feeding energy toward something. That way. Of *course* it's that way." That way being toward the reactor.

Mentor hurries down the hall. He spots Fast Forward, and shakes his head a moment, saying to himself, "I can't believe I'm doing this." This seems to be the primary thought in his head: Mentor's voice even sounds different, muffled and changed slightly. He calls out, "Some strange spatial energy is heading towards the reactor," to the young man, "I don't know why, but something strange is going on." This is on the heels of Alderman's statement. That much, he can be sure of. He continues on his way, following the energy signatures, the machine in his hands beeping now and then as he turns along the hallways. Let's hope that kid isn't an Heir or something!

By now, the evacuation has left the plant eerily still - even the wailing alarms seem to fade into the background. The only hint of motion is that faint ripple of energy towards the reactor chamber and thus people find themselves moving in that direction. The security doors are unlocked and open wide.

There are three figures moving about the reactor chamber - one on the fringes, and the other two close to the casing that houses the reactor itself. The man who stands on the edge and seems to direct matters wears a simple white costume with mathematically-aligned gold threads and a wire-mask - the latter glows faintly, as if charged.

"Just get them positioned and let's do this," he says. There is a certain precision to his baritone, a beat and measure.

The other man is slightly shorter with middling blonde hair, dressed in dark grey with - well, it would be very hard to count the pockets. He wears a partial helmet of some weird obsidian metal, a matching blade-like device affixed to his right wrist. "Oh, relax. I haven't blown up a power-plant yet, I'm not going to start now."

"Don't joke about that," the woman snaps. She wears an opalescent grey robe, the fabric refracting shadow-images of her surroundings. One could almost imagine faces in the snap of the cloth. She is a half-head shorter than he is, with knotted auburn hair. "It isn't funny."

"You never think anything is funny, Schiz." Beat, and the blonde essays a boyish grin. "No, really. In no possible future does this reactor actually blow - well, maybe one, but it won't be my fault."

"Shush, both of you." The man in charge sighs. Both of his companions carry two tile-like squares of a dark green, glassy stone etched with sigils - a match for the one found on the pillar without.

Fast Forward starts off a ways behind the others, since he has to go investigate the tile thing first. Seeing it refuse to dislodge, and not feeling it wise to try and break it, he makes up ground on the others heading for the reactor and then some, building up a rooster tail of dust behind him as he goes. He picks up more and more speed, seeing the trio, deciding they're not the good guys, and abruptly turning on a dime.

The rooster tail of dust goes careening at nearly the same speed, pelting the people around the reactor and flying towards their eyes as he heads for cover to see what happens when the hopefully more veteran heroes arrive. One of them seems blinded by the storm, the second evades the worst of it, while the one talking about the futures where things go boom, predictably, sees the future where he gets supersonic dust in his eyes, and avoids it.

Trailing behind the speedster, Sirocco zips into the reactor area with a soft whoosh, keeping well above the floor level, still airy and nearly impossible to see. Spotting the trio, it isn't hard to make the assumption that these are the people responsible for what's happening -- and as Fast Forward's dusty slipstream catches the one of them, Sirocco quickly takes advantage, letting fly with a hurtling shaft of semi-solidified air -- that notably comes at her target parallel to the floor and at about midriff height, and not even vaguely from the direction of the air elemental's location. The blow scores a blow, but only a glancing one not to any pronounced effect.

The Alderman's entrance to the chamber is rather more subtle than either of the others'. He sticks near the walls, trying to keep to the shadows, though he may or may not be visible to the keen of eye all the same. He seems inclined to just take in the situation for the moment.

The woman addressed as Schiz - not too many things that could be short for - hisses in annoyance, the tiles wavering in her hands before long-nailed fingers tighten. She dashes at her eyes with her free hand, clearing them of the dust effect, and focuses immediately on the one who blinded her. Fast Forward feels a sudden, perhaps teenagerishly-appropriate drop in his mood, but the depression doesn't last long enough for the psychic trauma that seems to loom; he shakes it off with ease.

She puffs out an impatient breath. "Go away." Her voice is high and scratchy, tightly wound. She starts across the floor, heading for a particular spot along the reactor casing.

"How did anyone know we were here?" the one who seems to be in charge inquires.

"Someone probably felt the anchors, Simulation," the blonde says. "That's a guess, not a prediction."

"Uneven quality to the shadows, obnoxious breathing," Simulation continues with a head-tilt in the Alderman's direction. "Deal with him before he becomes a problem, Afterthought." There is a flicker as a faint fields comes in being around him, zeros and ones arranged in a halo of aura-like colors. He turns his attention then on Mentor, who has just entered. Lips part; the soft that escape him are barely audible, clicks and snaps not unlike morse code, but far more complex. What is he doing?

Suddenly, Mentor will have the unpleasant experience of his belt momentarily seizing around him, tightening in a vise. It is enough to knock the breath out of him if not crack ribs. The effect passes as soon as it was mustered.

Afterthought, as the blonde has been dubbed, looks slightly wary as he studies Sirocco - does he know something the rest of them don't? (Indubitably.) - but takes the order in good humor. He lifts his hand, and the device there spits balls of ice, a rapid flurry that smack into Alderman and leave him significantly bruised. Then he, too, starts to remove around to a position opposite the woman, whistling something under his breath.

It takes Mentor a moment to shake off the attack, lifting his hand to his head and staggering. "I knew this was a bad idea," he laments. Then he turns on his attacker, and says, "Don't /do/ that! Do you know how expensive this was to /build/?" With this, he lifts the object in his hand, frowning as the device twitches in his hand, his fingers hitting a few buttons as if to modify it on the fly, and from the end comes a trio of arching blasts of ... what looks like electrical energy, streaking towards and finding Simulation, the blasts slamming straight into the man's body and causing it to seize up, leaving him severely stunned by the electrical attack. "That's better." He stands there a moment, as if unsure, hand over his side where ribs threatened to crack. "Oh yeah. Give up!" He's not used to this, can you tell?

Fast Forward launches himself into motion again, blurring around the edges as he zips around the room in a black and white flash. That flash first aims towards the person who attacked him, Schizophrenia - teenage angst pisses him off, by and large. He doesn't need any more of it. The villain dodges the attack by the narrowest of margins, while Afterthought is missed by a huge margin. Simulation, still stunned, is hit and given a nice shiny black eye for the trouble of being easy to hit, but is still up, leaving FF with little progress as he zips back under relative cover.

From above, Sirocco continues the barrage on Simulation that was begun by her allies, another bolt of solidified air slamming into the villain -- from another random direction -- leaving him staggered. Trying to capitalize on the man's weakened state, she forces her will on the air once more, and from the opposite direction as the first strike, another impacts with seemingly fearsome force -- but Simulation somehow remains standing, if increasingly worse for wear.

The Alderman dives out of the way of most, but not all, of those shards of ice, and sinks into the floor. Only to rise up out of the floor just behind Afterthought, smacking him quite hard...to no visible effect. "Actually," he remarks before sinking back into the floor, "I'm here as a favor to a friend of a friend. Bit of a long story."

Schizophrenia casts a baleful look at her companion when he starts to hum, but then there are more important concerns. "You!" she cries out, almost a witch-cackle as she points at Sirocco. Direction or not, it is a fairly logical deduction where the air-blasts are coming from. Wild moodswings unleash themselves in Sirocco's mind - manic first, playing up whatever adrenaline came from the damage done to Simulation, then shame, and then ... a hectic rollercoast of a mental ride later, and Sirocco is much scored from within.

On the heels of this, Schizophrenia slaps one of the tiles she is carrying on the protective casing of the reaction. She speaks three gutteral words in Latin, and it flares bright green before fusing to the surface.

Simulation looks genuinely surprised when Mentor's bolt strikes him, and then - he is past surprised, badly battered, at Sirocco's follow-up. He reels, dropping to one knee. A weak flicker of binary numerics surges into being around him again, and then fades.

Afterthought curses under his breath, but he has the presence of mind to repeat the action of his teammate - the first of his two tiles makes a mystical fusion to the metal. He pushes away, ripping off the helmet even as he digs in his pockets and comes up with a copper device, chains binding a bright white sphere. "I knew I was going to need this, I just didn't realize it would be this soon," he says. "Well - forewarned, forearmed, and I am always forewarned."

He knows he has time to strike a pose; ergo, he does, and not a second more than he has to waste as he reaches Simulation's side. "This won't hurt a bit," he says, applying the sphere to the man's body.

A flash of light. The worst injury plays backwards - and is gone.

"Thank you," Simulation says briskly, but he wastes no more time than that. The binary aura flickers back into being around him as he whirls on Mentor. The belt tightens even further, constricting against the ribs in an attempt to choke off the man's air - but to no avail. A pause, and one brow arches. "Ah."

Looking down, Mentor looks confused a moment before shaking his head, "Not going to work, it creates a small spatial warp that prevents ..." Pause. "Why the hell am I explaining this?" Mentor wonders to himself with a sigh before lifting his that strange combination device he carries. From the end comes another blast of electricity, streaking out towards Simulation. This time, the blast only harms him, sending him back a step. He moves then, actually flying towards the reactor, the field of transparent energy around him carrying him along to land by the reactor. He calls, "Whatever that strange energy is, it's getting stronger. Anyone have any idea how to stop it? If not, I'll try something..."

Fast Forward goes on the attack again, darting out from behind his cover to shoulder check Simulation just as he /thinks/ he's getting up, slamming him to the floor. This time Schiz can't avoid the teen, as he follows right through with a WWE quality clothesline, dropping him to the floor. Afterthought is last, and likewise gets an NHL check towards the wall, and then on to the floor from there. "Try and hit them now!"

Shaking off the effects of what was done to her a moment before, Sirocco sees her opponents down and tries to get creative. A horizontal slab of solidified air forms, and drops toward Afterthought and Simulation, the third villain being a bit too far separated from the other two to be included in the attack.

Unfortunately, the precognitive 'sees' the attack coming before the slab even forms, and rolls clear. It does land solidly on Simulation, however, leaving him bruised and needing to crawl out from under the glassy-looking slab. The elemental attempts to follow up by firing another attack into the area beneath the slab, but it fails to connect.

"Good question," the Alderman says, as he rises up out of the floor once more. This time he appears, again, beside Afterthought. "So what're you up to?" he asks. "Oh, uh, not you," he says to Afterthought, before kicking him quite savagely and knocking the wind out of him. "It's meant to be some sort of teleportation effect, but that's all I know," he says a moment later, apparently having received an express transmission from Planet Crackpot. (Or the tiles told him. One of those.) Once more, he sinks into the floor.

Schizophrenia hisses through her teeth again, clambering back to her feet with loose locks tumbling out of her pinched hairdo and a furious expression on her face. "I have had just about enough of this," she declares. This time, a faint blur of double-vision energy flashes across the room and connects with Fast Forward. Forget bending his thoughts, this assault goes straight for the physical makeup of his brain, with an agonizing internal crack. The young speedster drops.

Afterthought managed to land with style, albiet absolutely prone and laughing from where he has rolled away from the block of air. "You know, I could actually work from down here. It's quite comfortable -" His smugness is wiped out, however, by the Alderman's attack. "You might at least come out here and face me like a man." He lifts the device still on his wrist and a burst of concentrated light beams out at Sirocco - but misses its mark.

"Think you could talk less, work more?" Simulation inquires as he rolls onto his hands and knees and, not terribly dignified, crawls out from the block of air. "Get the last tiles in place so we can get the reactor - and us - out of here." Beat. And then, with evident irony, "Please."

Both criminals have already started to make their way around the side of the casing - hampered by the fact they were knocked over, but they're bound to reach their destinations soon. Meanwhile, Simulation keeps moving, working his way around the column of air in the general direction of Schizophrenia. He can't cut a straight path because of it, and the extra time requires him to make a sudden effort to take the offensive. There is a sudden, ominous snap of sparks from Mentor's tricorder-like device - is it supposed to do that? Regardless, it causes no harm.

"Let's see..." Mentor is busy playing with the buttons on the object he was using as a weapon. He's looking up, then to the reactor, then back. A slight frown is on his features, "Hmmm." This is when one of the metahuman criminals /say/ what they're doing. It's at the same time he can sense the spatial tunnel forming -- not that he can see /how/ it's forming, but he can see its formation. Stupid magic. At any rate, the man says, "I don't think so." Pause, "Oh dear. I'm going to spend a /week/ cleaning out all the radiation...I hope nothing's permanently damaged." He hits a few keys on the object in front of him... the keyboard glowing brightly as he touches it to the wall of the reactor. There's an odd twisting as the reactor shimmers, and disappears. Meanwhile, alarms begin to go off throughout the establishment. He blinks, "It worked. And god, Virgil is going to /kill/ me..."

Wait. THAT was unexpected. The one guy who's also been fighting the trio who were trying to steal the reactor -- just STOLE THE REACTOR? But unless this was a REALLY clever ruse, it doesn't seem like he was working for or with the other three -- and what are the odds that TWO metahuman attempts to steal a <expletive deleted> NUCLEAR REACTOR would happen AT THE SAME TIME?

There IS the fact that the unknown guy hasn't made any move against Sirocco herself or either of the other two who've been trying to stop the trio, though -- and the trio has been doing a VERY good job of making the elemental angry. And so she gathers her will and smashes first one, then a second bolt of speeding, semisolid atmosphere into the woman, as she dives toward Mentor, her 'ghostly' form taking on color and visibility as she does, and a slice of the air before her shimmering into the form of a shield as she gets in his face, yelling, "WHAT DID YOU DO?"

Fast Forward doesn't stop as his brainpan gets rattled, slamming into the wal and going ricocheting off, skidding along the ground until he finally rolls to a stop. His eyes flicker open, trying to make the world quit spinning. "You think you're tired of this?" he mutters, before suddenly he's on his feet, pushing himself to go blasting at Simulation, fists flying and impacting the villain with a sound like machinegunfire, leaving him staggering around. "Now could someone kick psycho witch in the head?" he asks as he goes darting back under cover.

He emerges from cover in the same blur, breathing hard, head flickering back and forth between the fighting heroes. "Please?" he adds, before darting back into cover.

"Yeah, that'd be real smart of me," the Alderman says as he pops back up out of the floor, feints right, and punches left. Another solid hit, and once more, he sinks back into the floor. But not before just *staring* at the spot where the reactor used to be. "What the hell...did he...I thought he was on our...yes, all right, ALL RIGHT, BE QUIET, I'LL FIGURE SOMETHING OUT." And then he's back below the floor again.

Schizophrenia slumps downwards, head in her hands, a low sound of pain escaping her. She makes no attempt to move as -

Raggedly, Simulation gathers himself up, sucking in a sharp breath. He stares at the reactor casing, but wastes no time in either curses or attempted repairs. No, the vigilantes have pressed them too far for second thoughts. "Afterthought, we -"

The other criminal has already replaced the helmet and keyed something up on the controls on the side. "Ready when you are. Get over here. I know you're going to make it, don't fuss."

Simulation quirks an eyebrow and gives him a look that can only be described as somewhat put out, but says nothing - and as it turns out, the blonde man is right. The machine manipulator - machine speaker? - reaches his companion even as Afterthought depresses the button on the side of the helmet. There is a weird whirl in space; when it clears, instead of the duo, a rather large oak tree stands improbably rooted in the chamber.

Schizophrenia finally falls to her knees, robe pooling around her. "Peace," she rasps. "You win."

As the villains teleport out, Mentor shakes his head, "Damnit, I hate spatial disturbances. Should have known from their attempt to teleport away the reactor." He's speaking to himself, "I wonder...maybe if I..." He's busy thinking and theorizing. This is when Sirocco's shriek registers, and he looks up, eyes opening wide in surprise more than anything else, "I stole it before they could steal it. Don't worry. I can put it back." A pause, before he adds, "It'll be tricky re-aligning all the coils and electrical systems, but I think I can do it, anyway." He says this so /casually/. "It's just dimension-shifted into a pocket of warped space. They would have to know the vibrational frequency of the warp in order to access it." He lifts the object in his hand, "See?" On the screen is an image of the reactor etched in green, "It's out of phase, I have to re-align it, before closing the spatial warp. The hard part is doing so while siphoning away its relative inertia so it doesn't impact the planet at near the speed of light, you see..." He's babbling on happily. He /loves/ science problems! "... er, anyway. I can return it, don't worry. I'm going to have cleanse all the things in the warp pocket though, the radiation from the reactor will have contaminated everything."

The Alderman reappears. Stares at the oak tree. "...okay..." he says. And he just sort of stares some more, as Mentor speaks. "...so it's coming back, right? The reactor?" A pause, and he remarks to someone, or something unseen, "He said he's going to put it back. No, I won't let him leave until he does. Yes, I promise."

Fast Forward zips over to the woman on her knees. Then the tree. Then the woman. "Oh man, you are /so/ under citizens arrest as soon as they fit you with a tinfoil helmet or something. Uhm... what's with the tree?" he manages, before fatigue catches up with adrenaline, and the kid instead finds somewhere to flop down. "Ok, so someone else can arrest you, whatever. Ow... I am not looking forward to calculus tomorrow.." he adds, rubbing his head.

Sirocco just /stares/ at Mentor for a moment, before muttering, "You and my boyfriend should belong to the same Mad Scientists Club." She then 'walks' over toward the remaining villain, saying to her with a darkly flippant tone, "I'll make you a deal. You put your hands behind your back and play nice, and I won't hit you again."

"Who're you speaking to, sir? Are you talking to ghosts, like that strange Ms. Loxias?" Mentor asks. He says this idly, before shaking his head, "Of /course/ I'm putting it back. Do you think I want a nuclear reactor? It doesn't have /nearly/ enough energy for my purposes, I assure you." He's tapping at the object in his hands, "Let's see..." A graphical representation of the reactor aligns itself over a faded red version of itself. "Parameters check out," he mutters to himself. "Just have to ... " He looks over at the others, "I'd stand back, there will be residual spatial radiation that could cause problems when it arrives." He pushes a button. There's a flare of bright white light, and the reactor appears once more. A female voice announces, "Reactor integrity restored. System now in operation." He relaxes, "Ah, good. The variables balanced out properly." He sounds relieved. "That could have been ... difficult otherwise."

"That's not going to stop me," Schizophrenia says to Fast Forward with a grim smile. "Young minds. So pliant. It makes me envious." She shrugs as Sirocco approaches her, hands sliding from her knees to a position behind her back. "Neither will that, but if you want me to play nice ... would you like to be Martha Stewart? Hillary Clinton? Mother Theresa? It can be arranged."

"Ghosts? Of course not," the Alderman says with a snort. "Just the spirits of this place. Completely different." He relaxes a little once the reactor reappears. "There. See? He put it back. Yes, I know he called you a ghost. No, I'm not going to hit him."

No sooner is 'step back' uttered than Fast Forward is a good ways back, following a brief blur of movement. And that's only at half speed. "Ok... so... reactor is back... right, good." he mutters, before catching Schiz's comments. "Why are you still talking? Either you've had enough, or I... or the nice invisible ghost lady needs to play soccer with your skull some more."

Sirocco sighs. "I didn't figure it would, but I thought I'd give you the chance to cooperate. But 'playing nice' usually doesn't include threatening people. I think I'd rather keep being 'the scary blue chick who decides where your next breath comes from.'" And the air seems to suck away from the villainess' face just for a second, by means of reinforcing that statement.

"I was trying to be helpful." Schizophrenia closes her eyes. "Some people don't appreciate the value of a good mental makeover." Her voice, now that she's calmer, is no less high and scratchy, but there's something lulling about it; soothing somehow, not quite hypnotic. "If it would reinforce your paradigm to knock me out, though, enjoy yourself." It won't be very long before the scene is interrupted - the alarms were already going before the vigilantes burst in, after all.

Fast Forward shakes his head clear. "Anyway, the security cameras were down everywhere. So I'm going to let you guys take the tree out for firewood, and maybe toss the witch there on the bonfire." he calls, mostly kidding. Mostly. "I'm going to check every inch of this place for any other signs of sabotage or interference, and then I'm going to go home and forge a note so I can call in dead to first period tomorrow. Good job team, rah, rah, all that. Let me know if any angry mobs or adoring public show up, huh?" he adds, before setting off on a slow search of the premises, relatively speaking. Power plants still aren't anything to be messed with.

"Spirits of this place?" Mentor says this slowly. "Right." It's quite obvious that he has no idea whether to believe Adrian or not. He's not into that mystical mumbo-jumbo. Instead, he blinks and takes a step back, "Er... hit me?" He looks around and offers, "Er, I'm sorry?" Whether he believes it or not, best to be cautious as he slips the strange weapon-scanner-thingy-bobber into a pocket in his wrist. "Is everyone all right? Not that I can do anything about it, really, but I could take you to a hospital." He winces, holding his side, "Perhaps I'll go myself, I think they broke one of my ribs. I'm really not cut out for this stuff." He blinks at Sirocco's words, and he slides the object out, and types on it, speaking to himself, "Note: do not piss off metahuman vigilante known as 'Sirocco'." Yes, he took that down as a note.

"Yeah, spirits," the Alderman says, suddenly sounding very tired. "I could explain, but you'd think I was crazy, and you'd probably be right." A pause, and then he pats the side of the now-returned reactor. "There, there," he says quietly. "It's all right now." He doesn't seem to be giving the supercriminal any particular attention at all.

"I don't suppose anyone has a tranq to use on Miss Congeniality here?" Sirocco asks.

"No. I could electrocute her into unconsciousness, but I don't think that'd make the police happy, and it'd probably lead to her release." This from Mentor.

Sirocco says, "Yeah, sort of why I thought beating her senseless or suffocating her was probably a bad idea. Unless I'm provoked into it, naturally."

News Report

(New York Times)

Disaster was narrowly averted yesterday at the James Fitzpatrick Power Plant in Oswego, New York, when three metahumans broke in and attempted to meddle with the reactor. Understanding of how the trio got inside is sketchy, but it is known that the surveillance system simply blacked out and that the intruders sounded the fire alarm, causing an immediate evacuation of both personnel and visitors on tour. The individuals were identified as Schizophrenia, a woman capable of altering patterns of mind, Afterthought, whose apparent perception of the future allowed him to come prepared with numerous devices, and Simulation, who seemed to be able to communicate with machines.

It seems almost inevitable that they would have achieved their purpose and disappeared, save for the intervention of four costumed vigilantes: hyper-speed Fast Forward, airy Sirocco, the Alderman and a device wielder tentatively identified as Mentor. The quartet met up with the criminals in the reactor chamber and engaged in a pitched battle.

Reports claim that the criminals were attempting to remove the reactor itself via some kind of mystical teleportation - and an independent expert confirms that the symbology left on the site was consistent with this intent, regardless of whether or not such a dislocation would be possible. Certainly, the vigilantes on the scene acted as if this threat were actual and went to extremes to protect the reactor. Equipment in the chamber reads that, in the wake of one of Mentor's actions, the core completely disappeared for approximately ten seconds, causing a brief but dramatic drop in power. While technicians are certain this is a malfunction in readings, whatever he did temporarily thwarted the metahuman trio.

The other vigilantes took advantage of this opening: Fast Forward did resounding damage to Schizophrenia, while Sirocco sent Simulation staggering. Afterthought, while able to evade most blows, couldn't quite duck the Alderman - but wasn't subdued sufficiently to prevent him from teleporting himself and his male associate off the scene. Schizophrenia, left alone, surrendered, and was turned over to the authorities by Sirocco.

Schizophrenia, unfortunately, never made it the police station. The officer in charge of transport, Lucas Brant, reports, "As soon as I made eye-contact through the rear-view mirror, she disappeared. Like Eurydice when Orpheus turned to see if she was behind him in the underworld - err, sorry. I was a classical studies major before I decided to become a cop. But she was just - gone."

"Whatever these criminals actually intended, it couldn't have been good," said a plant spokesperson. "We are very grateful to the vigilantes involved. The plant here produces almost seventeen percent of the state's nuclear power - it would have been a severe blow if it had been disrupted."

Preliminary investigation indicates that there was no physical problem with cameras and that the surveillance system had not been breached; it simply stopped receiving data. Authorities are tentatively linking it to an incident in Buffalo in early November of last year, where cameras blacked out in a one-mile radius between 3 and 6pm. "That incident had no apparent motivation," said a local officer. "We're operating on the theory that it was a test-run for this - and possibly other attacks."