Super Hero High: Prometheus Rising (IC, Open)

[Ularn]

Scott bit his lip then replied, "Yes."
He gestured for her to take a seat and then asked, "Rachael, are you going on the mission?"

[Nakarisaune]

Scott bit his lip then replied, "Yes."
He gestured for her to take a seat and then asked, "Rachael, are you going on the mission?"

Rachael reluctantly sat down. She didn't like it this way, as it put the power back in the adult's hands, but it was probably more sensible to at least try and conceal her hatred. "Yes." She was planning to leave it at that, but she couldn't help herself from saying, "So is this part of some quest or something?"

[Ularn]

Scott raised a confused eyebrow at Rachael, "What do you mean by 'quest' Rachael? I was asking you here because this mission is to capture a gang of rogue superhumans, and I need to know whether there's any chance Roxanne is part of the group?"

[Nakarisaune]

"Some pathetic, twee little love quest. I wouldn't expect any more. And no, she wouldn't be. I've ran into them a few times, and judging by the look of them, they wouldn't accept a useless drunk idiot. She'll probably just be curled up in a hovel somewhere getting even more drunk out her mind." Rachael was growing more annoyed. God, couldn't he just leave the bitch to die already, instead of rigging up a mission?

[Ularn]

Scott nodded and smiled a little, "Trust me, you're not the only one who's wondering that, Rachael. Anyway, if you're sure Roxy's not involved then there's one other thing I need from you," He swung his computer monitor round to face Rachael. On it was a satellite photo of Kildare, overlaid with street names. It looked like something from Google Maps but with much better resolution.
"These were taken from a military satellite early this morning," Scott explained, "If Roxy's not involved with the gang then it's important we don't accidentally tag her with the others. Most of the school's info on her is out f date now; I wasn't sure if she was still living with you. Can you point to me where she was living last you knew? It means we can keep her safe,"
He looked at her with his jaw firmly clenched, the look in his eyes bordering on pleading.

[Nakarisaune]

Rachael considered just pointing at a random building for a moment. It would put an end to whatever 'knight in shining armour' fantasy Mr Kerr was having, and it would get rid of Roxanne. She leaned forwards, grabbed her glasses out of her pocket and put them on slowly, then scanned the photo for some random house. When it turned out Roxanne wasn't there, Rachael could just shrug and say she must have moved on (like Kerr should have a long time ago).
Rachael was about to jab at a small house in the outskirts, when she saw a red fleck on the screen. She wasn't sure if she'd imagined it or not. She reached forwards and tapped the approximate location of the block of flats she'd last seen Roxy in, then sat back and removed her glasses. "Done yet?", she said, as scornfully as she could manage.

[Mighty Asgard]

Dominic smiled warmly as people started filing into his classroom. The room itself was quite large and slightly sterile in its appearance, all white and chrome, and other than the thirty-something computerized pods there was little in the way of furniture. The pods were quite similar to the room in their design, white and chrome, but they each had a lid of clear polymer, so you could see if someone was inside. Personally he thought the room felt too much like some sort of hospital, far too sombre for his tastes, but he understood that it was more important that everything worked right than looking nice. Still, he wished that they'd at least let him put a few chairs in there. As it was all the students would have to stand up while waiting for the class to begin. But at least the pods themselves were quite comfortable, and did not cause headaches like those he'd heard resulted from using the older versions. Since his job involved entering up to a dozen simulations every day, that would have really sucked.

"Welcome," he said to the students, "we'll begin in a few minutes, when everyone is here."

[Ularn]

Scott nodded, "Yeah, that's it. Thank you Rachael."
As she got up and sulked towards the door, Scott added, "By the way, thanks for the photos,"
She looked perplexedly at him for a second, then Scott pointed to the now framed picture of Roxanne on his desk by the ones of his family.
"See you tomorrow, Rachael," he said with a tone he tried to keep friendly.

[Nakarisaune]

Rachael got out of the office as fast as she could after those last words. She regretted giving away those photos now. They had just fuelled whatever insane obsession Kerr had. But then again, it had probably helped give him the motivation to try setting up the mission and give her the chance to kill some people she disliked. She knew there wasn't much of a possibility of Roxanne dying, though. Kerr said he needed her location to keep Ro safe; Rachael assumed that 'to keep someone safe' was some kind of odd new euphemism for 'to screw someone while staying off the front line'.
The only lesson today was a simulation thing. Apparently these were really lifelike, though had a tendency to give out painful headaches. Rachael headed over there after leaving Kerr's office, and stood with the rest of the students.

[Altruistic Paladins]

Bramwell and Makoto

"Bramwell, Cassie. It looks like it is time for our one class of the day. It would be nice if we could be expedient," Makoto said. Makoto did hold Ansuz to blame for Bramwell's cardiac arrest, though she never said that or declared her hatred of him to anybody but Bramwell. She just tried to avoid dealing with Ansuz anymore than she had to for class.

"Okay, we are going to Dominic's class are we not? Is not that the one with the simulations that cause headaches?" Bramwell asked. He honestly did not harbor hatred for Ansuz. His reasons for avoiding him were more to do with fear of magic caused by the incident. It had nothing to do with Ansuz. He just honestly had a fear of magic due to psychological trauma caused by the event.

"Yes, that class is the one we are going to," Makoto said. Bramwell and Makoto then left for the class. Bramwell actually liked the sterile nature of the room. Bramwell had long been used to rooms that looked like hospitals considering where he had been for over two weeks' time. Makoto did not like the aesthetic of the room. By this point, she associated it subconciously with Bramwell.

[Kershya]

Overhearing what Bramwell and Makoto said, Antonio also go to the next class. Looking at the unusual aesthetic, he can't help but comment about it.

"It looks like a scene from a sci-fi movie."

[Mighty Asgard]

"You can go ahead and get into the pods," Dominic said once it seemed that everyone had arrived, "I'll wait a couple of minutes to see if there are any stragglers."

Once a student entered a pod it would activate automatically, closing the lid and starting up. A few seconds later they would find themselves inside the simulation, all of them in the same place. Since Dominic hadn't loaded any simulation into the machine yet they would appear in the limitless white room that was the default setting for the pods. There was literally nothing of interest in that room, as it was only meant to be a sort of start up screen before the actual simulations were started. Some people found it disorienting to be in that white room since there were no landmarks to orient themselves by, only a spotless white endlessness.

[Altruistic Paladins]

Bramwell and Makoto

"It is that, or I am back in the infirmary," Bramwell said. He remembered that the hospital always had that sterile aesthetic. When they entered a room Makoto would soon drop a title for, Bramwell was surprised. "What the...Did we just enter the Administrator's room?" Bramwell said cheerfully in a reference he felt obligated to drop.

"Which 'White Void Room' did we enter? Is this THX 1138's imprisonment, the Construct, the ending from 2001: A Space Odyssey that forced me to question whether illegal substances were involved, or the White Hot Room. I have too much to say. I love 'White Void Rooms'," Makoto said in an excited manner. For some reason, she really enjoyed the thought of this type of room. Maybe it was just her inner-geek shining through, but she loved these types of rooms.

[Kershya]

Antonio then entered a pod, it closed and a stimulation started. A never ending white expanse. Looking around, he notice strange blurry colors and shapes at his peripheral vision that disappear when he tries to look at it directly. He then close his eyes.

'Ok, time for the disguise Shade.' He mentally thought as the shadows starts to surround him. Forming a dark long sleeve cloak that reach the floor (the cloak, not the sleeves) with a hood and a white mask that covers the whole face before shrinking to cover the area around his eyes, looking similar to a masque mask.

He then fix himself, checking the gloves and others things that usually comes with the disguise. To him, the room went dimmer, or greyer, in appearance, to help in his perception.

With his disguise ready, he now waits for the real stimulation to begin.

[Nakarisaune]

Rachael picked a pod and climbed inside warily. She was a little scared, to tell the truth. If what Roxanne had said was correct, while in a simulation she'd lose all control of her real-life body, and her consciousness would be somehow implanted into the machine, which seemed to fit more into a sci-fi novel than real life (or the fantasy that real life now resembled). This way, if someone got into the pod and stabbed her in the leg, she wouldn't find out until several hours later when she'd wake up in a pool full of blood. Rachael would far prefer doing this whole fighting thing in real life. It would be more dangerous, but at least you knew when something was real and it was actually possible to escape.
The pod roof slid down before she could get out, though, so she was stuck.

[Jormengand]

However, Kora's power intrigued her greatly. "So your singing can alter the world around you?" She asked. "That is an amazing power. Could you give me a demonstration or an example? If you don't mind." She said to the girl.

"I - I'm sorry, but it's hard for me to control it. I don't want to accidentally hurt someone. And,we have to go to lessons now." She followed the crowds out of the room. Following Pedro was probably a good idea.

Pedro flew into the classroom, and picked one of the simulation pods. Kora followed suit behind him.

[Corrian]

Caitlin and Cassie had continued doing the various things they were doing for the last half hour. Caitlin continued practicing beating on one of the dummy robot things, doing fairly well, despite the new bruise she had from getting hit once. Cassie on the other hand just sat down, listening to her music and vaguely hearing the conversation around her. When it was time to go to class, Caitlin had gotten there pretty quickly, before being one of the 'stragglers', but Cassie on the other hand wasn't in a rush to get to class and ended up being one of the 'stragglers'. They both nodded to the teacher, and got into the simulation device. If Cassie knew anything about these simulation devices and the possibility that they might give you a headache, she would of probably groaned in protest, because she was so fed up with headaches. Caitlin already knew, and just got in without any complaints. They both went wide-eyed at the simulation room, but didn't really have much of a response. It's not like anyone would really hear their responses anyway.

[Mighty Asgard]

Once he was sure that everyone had arrived Dominic got into one of the pods to enter the simulation himself. A few seconds later he appeared near the students in the white room and clapped his hands to get their attention.

"Hello everyone, listen up," he started, "today we will be doing something a little bit different than usual. We will be practicing teamwork, because you need to know how you can use your powers together with others. And I know that some of you don't really plan on being a team player once you graduate, but knowing how your powers can be used together with others will also tell you something about how they can be used on their own, so this will be useful to you as well." He glanced over at Rachel, "and even if you don't have a grip on your powers yet you can still put your training in marksmanship and martial arts to use."

The surroundings suddenly shifted, the clean white room giving way to a run-down urban landscape. It wasn't an exact copy of Kildare, but it was a similar urban environment. "Some of you will be going on a mission tomorrow, and I thought it appropriate to make today's class similar to that mission, to give you an idea of what you may expect. Simply put, there is a superhuman hiding somewhere in this town, and your mission is to track him down and capture him." The simulation around each student shifted again, as a light kevlar vest and a holstered pistol appeared on them. "Each gun is loaded with non-lethal taser bullets," Dominic explained, "and the vest is similar to what you will wear while on the mission."

"Are there any questions before we begin?"

[Altruistic Paladins]

Bramwell and Makoto

"Yes, will telepathy be capable of usage on this A.I.? Will there be multiple artificial intelligences in the simulation?" Bramwell asked. Bramwell wanted to know because, if not, he would not be able to train his telepathy. Makoto was silently questioning why light kevlar was being used when most supervillians used ammunition of higher caliber ammunition than what even patrolmen's body armor is capable of stopping? Makoto knew that she and Bramwell had brought body armor, but she was more worried about the potential for other students to get hurt should they turn out to be armed with anything higher of a higher caliber than a pistol or sub-machine gun and the students think they will be protected from it.

[Corrian]

"This is cool!" Cassie said to herself in actual excitement, not faked excitement or happiness. She was thoroughly enjoying this simulation room before the simulation itself even began. If anybody knew her well, it was probably good to hear her actually being excited, instead of always seeming down and lost in thought.

As soon as the teacher clapped, her attention instantly snapped to him, because she definitely wanted to pay attention to this class, even if she wasn't going to go on any missions. She felt that she'd be better as like, an offensive person, back at base or something. Maybe someone who used her Clairvoyant Detection ability to find specific people for the 'good' side, or if she can ever get control of her Precognition ability, use that to see the future for the students or soldiers, and see ways they might be able to avoid an ambush, or a death trap. That is if you can actually screw with the future. She hadn't been able to ever test that yet, since her future she saw happened exactly the way she saw it. No matter what you do, the future you see might possibly always end in the same exact way, even if it makes no sense for it to end in the same exact way.

If Scott knew that she had the Cairvoyant Detection ability, which she had barely told anyone she had, he might want to go to her to find out where Roxanne was. Though, she knew absolutely nothing about Scott and Roxanne, so she wouldn't even think about approaching him and asking him if he wanted help.

Cassie realized how useless she would be here, except maybe with the gun that they were given, due to the fact that she hadn't practiced much combat at all yet. Though, she hadn't even practiced much with the guns either, so she let out a sigh out how useless she would likely be. To pretty much everything he said, she nodded to the teacher in understanding. Team work was definitely good, especially if you were actually useful. The only thing she had to help was the gun, and she could stay back and help with her abilities, but of course there was the control issues and nobody knowing of the other one, so she couldn't think of anything to say.

(Caitlin)
Cassie listened to the teacher closely while admiring her surroundings. The simulation looked so...real to her. It was amazing, and she was just enjoying admiring the place. She did definitely hear what the teacher had to say though, and a question popped into her mind after finishing hearing everything he had to say. It was a question she had pondered a few times, but never got around to actually asking anyone it. Until now.

She raised her hand, thinking it was interesting how that worked inside the simulation. "I do. It just hit me, and I've been curious about this for a while. If you got, say, a pyrotechnic and someone who controls lightning, could you have both of those people using those said powers combine their powers together for one extra powerful attack or something? Like one shoots fire, and the other adds lightning to that fire. Or water, and you turn it into an electrical current of water. Of course there's probably the dangers of hurting the student casting the water, or the other power, but it was a theory I was wondering if it was possible" She explained, waiting for the answer.

[Camicon]

When I got into the simulation egg and I had unpleasant feeling of being swallowed by some sort of unearthly chicken. It passed quickly enough when I opened my eyes, and saw a vast white nothingness, stretching away far than the eye could see. Up and down and left and right, North and East and South and West, none of them had any foundation anymore. There wasn't gravity as I was used to it, but it wasn't zero-gravity either. We were definitely being held in place, but there was no way of telling where we were being held. It was the most disorienting thing I'd ever experienced, and the more I tried to figure it out, the more nauseous I felt. When the teacher appeared and terrain started forming out of nothing, a flood relief replaced the nausea. When I noticed that I, like everyone else, was wearing a Kevlar vest, I shrugged it off, letting it fall to the ground. Considering the rate at which I healed the only thing it would serve to do would be restricting my movements.

"Are there any questions before we begin?"

"Can you give us weapons other than these guns?" I said, gesturing at the holstered, Glock-like weapon.

[Nakarisaune]

When the pod's lid had slammed shut, Rachael found herself in a white expanse. Just a void, filled with nothing but the appearing students. It scared her a little, and when she looked down there wasn't a floor, just the plain white emptiness stretching out forever over her vision. She looked around for some kind of colour or form, but all that was there was the whiteness. The only escape from it was the other students, making beacons of form.

For Maisie, who'd just rushed into the room and quickly taken a pod, the whiteness was comforting, a sign of joy. Euphoria. The other students were still glowing, in shades of yellow, violet, indigo, and green in some. She was still panting a little. She'd had to run all the way to the class in not very long, due to not knowing a class even existed. She'd only noticed because of the rush of people, which she assumed she'd have to get used to now. It was hardly like her old private school, but then again it didn't have the strict rules against green mohawks, which was always a plus point.

After a quick speech by Moreno, the terrain appeared, and Rachael immediately felt a million times more disoriented. It seemed to be a patchwork version of Naas, with everything just slightly mixed up a bit. Judging by the broken payphone's position, a school should be sitting on the horizon. In this version, there was a block of flats. As Moron continued to explain what the simulation was and the equipment they had (noting that he'd looked to her when mentioning people who couldn't control their powers), she fingered the gun, wishing it was actually deadly, and that she got to keep it in real life.

[Mighty Asgard]

"Yes, will telepathy be capable of usage on this A.I.? Will there be multiple artificial intelligences in the simulation?"

Dominic looked over at Bramwell, "all your powers will work inside the simulation, including telepathy. The simulation accounts for creating artificial thoughts inside the targets, as well as allowing for telepathic manipulation. As for the second question, I don't know. I've set it up so that it randomly chooses the number of enemies, to introduce an element of surprise. You may just face the one, or dozens." That wasn't actually true, there was a set amount of enemies, but he didn't want to reveal that to them. And since the simulation didn't allow for the use of powers on him they couldn't use telepathy to get that information from him.

"I do. It just hit me, and I've been curious about this for a while. If you got, say, a pyrotechnic and someone who controls lightning, could you have both of those people using those said powers combine their powers together for one extra powerful attack or something? Like one shoots fire, and the other adds lightning to that fire. Or water, and you turn it into an electrical current of water. Of course there's probably the dangers of hurting the student casting the water, or the other power, but it was a theory I was wondering if it was possible" She explained, waiting for the answer.

Dominic smiled at her, glad to see someone so excited about the class. "Well, generally powers can be combined so far as science allows. As you said, you could shoot water at someone while another electrifies that water, and presumably the increased conductivity of the water will lead to more damage being done. But unless you can somehow alter the properties of the element certain combinations wouldn't have any discernible advantage, like combining fire and electricity. And there is no guarantee that combining powers in such a way won't be dangerous, you just have to plan ahead and weigh the danger against the potential gain. The most important thing in battle is to always use your head."

"Can you give us weapons other than these guns?" I said, gesturing at the holstered, Glock-like weapon.

"Certainly," Dominic answered, and a large rack of weapons appeared. All of them were close-combat weapons, including pretty much everything students could access for martial arts training on the station. "Feel free to grab anything you want from that rack. No bigger guns though, the ones you already have are the ones usually given to students for missions, and I want you to familiarize yourselves with them."

Once he had answered all the questions he pulled out a folder from his pocket, which was noticeably smaller than the folder itself. "I will be observing your progress, but not interfering directly. This," he gestured with the folder, "contains everything you need to know about the target." He placed the folder on a dented post box, wished them luck, and then faded away. When he faded away the simulation was finally fully activated, becoming much more life-like than before. Crows cawing in the distance, signs swinging gently in the breeze, the subtle smell of gasoline, a myriad things came alive all at once for the combined effect of making the simulation incredibly realistic.

The folder contained only a single paper, containing information about their target. His name was John Doe, he could mimic the powers of others, and reports indicated that he had somewhere between a half dozen and a dozen local thugs working for him. There was a picture of him as well, showing a heavy-set face with a crooked nose and glaring eyes, and a tangle of unwashed black hair atop his head. His last known location was a pub in the western part of town, called simply 'The Pub'. The final instruction was to bring him to the highway to the east of town for extraction.

[Reythan]

Claire was giddy about many things that day. Well, that week. She could barely sleep last night, being too exited about going into space, and living in orbit and being taught by another Awakened named "Ansuz". She never heard of him, and all through her shuttle ride she was dreaming about her lessons to be...she could hardly wait.
As the shuttle approached the station, Axel was pacing back and forth, occasionally glancing into the bay from the central room at the bay level. As he saw the shuttle enter the station's bay, he turned to face it and frowned slightly. It was clear, if anyone was in the room with him, that he was not happy. He was stressed out about having to teach both a normal class and a new Awakened. He quickly scratched his chin and clasped his hands in front of himself.
Claire stepped out of the shuttle and grabbed her bags. She saw the man in the room and waved ecstatically at him. He waved back, but in a curt way. She gathered all her things and went through the airlock and into the central room. "So, you're Ansuz?" she said, looking up at the man. Axel answered "Yes, I am. Who are you, Initiat...er...Apprentice?" "I'm Hera." "Good that you used you taken name. Get into a habit of doing that. Keeping your name secret will go a long way in keeping you safe." "So, what are we doing today?" "Getting you to your room." Axel handed Claire her room key. "Then we'll talk. We can't proceed directly to lessons. Just look on your key for info about your room. Once you're done, meet me in my room. It's right next to the infirmary, just check the map in the elevator." and he ushered her into the elevator. As the doors closed, he sighed deeply, and slouched a bit. He waited for another elevator to arrive and took it to his classroom's floor.

[Altruistic Paladins]

Bramwell and Makoto

Bramwell and Makoto proceeded to get a colichemarde and two dahong palays each. They prefered to keep weapons like those for obvious reasons. When the simulation started, they took a look at the information packet. Bramwell was able to find the person telepathically as being in the listed location and proceeded to start reading his mind. Within fifteen seconds, he had managed to blurt out the exact number of thugs working for him. Bramwell did get a chuckle out of the hammy acting whomever voiced John Doe had put into it that was outright hanging a lampshade on it. To make sure, he double checked the thugs that oddly had the same voices and confirmed that they were working for him.

"He is definately at the listed location. He has nine 'thugs' as he is calling them working for him. Does anybody have any suggestions for how to take them out efficiently? Until a suggestion is made, I will have to assume we will take advantage of a blind-spot along one wall in the back. Since I can see a door there and no windows on that wall, we could reason it leads to back rooms that would have emergency exits we could use to enter," Bramwell said calmly. Bramwell was having problems taking the program seriously because it was so close to being real that he was able to spot the minute details that were off. Despite the realistically detailed crows that were at nests, fledglings were not hiding outside of the nests, and instead stood in plain sight from the nest. It seemed this was not meant to be an accurate representation of crow behavior.