Skyside Prime

[Reinholdt]

[Cloudtop Heist]

"There's been enough people who are clued in that we're here that things are about to get a lot harder anyways." The guy they left at the docks, two security guards, a frozen bug, a sleeping desk jockey, explosions and shots. It's really only a matter of mobilization at this point.

"I think it'd keep them in the dark as to where they should be looking at the very least." Reinholdt steps over to the security console and crouches down, pulling out something that looks kind of like a big ball of rice with a radio-esque thing attached to it and sticks it on the absolute back of wherever it's best hidden.

[[brackets lover]]

[Cloudtop Heist]

"Huh? Just one buttons releases all the prisoners?" Mogzoku questions, scratching his chin. "Too much risk. Odds are they'll deploy even more guards to keep their most valuable asset safe in the chaos." A beat. "Lets do it on the way out."

[quillpleasant]

Cloudtop Heist

"Yeah, all of them. Classic fatal flaw of big evil facilities like this." Atya nods knowingly. iii may be nastier than most similar organizations, but they play by the same rules. "I'd agree with doing it on the way out, but my extraction plan doesn't involve coming back this way. Maybe next time."

Obviously, she does want to free the prisoners. But doing that right now without thinking it through might cause more harm than good. For now, she punches a couple buttons and the far door swings open, revealing a corridor lit up with glowing white light.

But then Reinholdt pulls out the... thing. "Uh. What is that?" says Atya, gesturing at the bizarre rice contraption as it's stuck far underneath the control panel desk.

[Reinholdt]

[Cloudtop Heist]

"Just a little insurance." A touch of C4 lying around in an evil corporation's security room never hurt. Made all the more useful by learning they aren't coming back this way. Reinholdt keeps that in mind as he moves back out of the room, checking the corners and blind spots on the way to the far door. So long as Atya's intel holds, Rein'll move to head down the flight of stairs.

[[brackets lover]]

[Cloudtop Heist]

Mogzoku seems deeply disappointed as Atya turns down his suggestion, a look of sorrow as he gazes longingly at the system release button. With a heavy heart, he makes sure the pistol he picked up was ready to fire at a moment's notice and all. Now on track to continue the heist, he cautiously follows behind Reinholdt. "Did someone grab my inventory bag from the break room?" asks Mogzoku.

[quillpleasant]

Cloudtop Heist

Atya could kick herself for not recognizing C4- after all, she loves blowing stuff up. She still gives an approving smile at Reinholdt's forward thinking.

The hallway continues for some way before ending in a flight of stairs. As they walk, Atya hands over Mogzoku's bag. "Hey, you really care about freeing people, huh?" she mutters. There was a time she felt just as strongly, and in a lot of ways she wishes she still could. "If it helps, getting the chemical is just the start. One day, I'm gonna bring this whole thing down." Not to mention the fact that the C4 charge might short circuit the system on its own.

The stairs lead down to a semicircular room that is almost entirely bare, save for a massive metal vault door. An eight foot wheel of solid steel with metal spokes around it, set in a wall of complex interlocking gears and pulleys. A small control panel with numbered buttons is the only obvious way in.

"Alright, blueprints end here. My time to shine." Atya cracks her knuckles, then tosses her bag down in front of the safe and begins to rummage through it. After a moment, she takes out an a stack of around ten conical party hats in a variety of gaudy colors.

"You two wanna help? Start strapping these bad boys on." She demonstrates by taking one of the hats and using its elastic chinstrap to attach it to one of the metal spokes around the door.

[Reinholdt]

[Cloudtop Heist]

"Well," Reinholdt muses as he picks up a pair of hats. "I guess now I vaguely know what it's like to be an evil clown on the wrong side of the law, terrorizing bats." He'll strap the party hats to the safe spoke as indicated, continuing to assist until all the hats are on. Then stepping back because he's expecting some kind of dangerous chemical reaction soon. It'd be real anti-climatic if the hat thing was just for cosmetics while Atya got to work on the real objective.

Plus he might as well keep on eye on the stairs they came from, to give them an early heads up if company finds them.

[Gold]

[A Golden Age of Villainy]

"GET BACK HERE! RUN THESE HANDS!" Undeterred by Princess Purrloin's substitution jutsu, TANBot continues to pursue her down the street. He really wants that sword back, after all - there are few like it, and fewer still that can imitate it.

TANBot takes to the walls, springing from building to building to catch up to the Princess a lot more efficiently than he would have had he kept running. He's focused squarely on closing the distance between them, but during an aerial somersault he does catch a glimpse of the Captain coming after him with some kind of weird cat glove. He shrugs that off, assuming Catastrophe won't catch up to him before he's done with Purrloin.

Once TANBot gets close enough and Purrloin has her back turned, the robot will aim a high-speed dropkick at the Princess to hopefully knock her down before she has the chance to swap anything else for anything else.

[[brackets lover]]

[Cloudtop Heist]

Receiving the bag, Mogzoku nods affirmatively. "I wasn't lying when I said i'm only in this to help people. That's why I do what I do," he says solemnly as they make their way to the vault door. Following Reinholdt's lead, Mogzoku does a few of the spokes as well.

[Rebonack]

[A Golden Age of Villainy]

Welp.

Jay-Walker just got slapped into the ground pretty hard. He's tough, but not THAT tough. He's out like a light. Princess Purrloin just got drop kicked, too and she's down. In terms of durability she's human so that doesn't take much for a ninja like TANBot. Though he DOES still have to worry about the Cap running up and trying to clobber him with that cat paw gauntlet.

Getting hit isn't advisable.

Mostly because he would get launched like a cat swatting a little rolled ball of alluminum foil.

"Is everyone still up? How many villains have we got left?" Olympia calls out, her voice carrying to the other heroes without difficulty despite the distance. Just one of the upsides of being a Magical Girl.

At the moment it's just Cap and-

"HAH! Done! The electricity of Skyside is OURS!" Professor Gore cackles as he PULLS THE ELECTRICITY STEALING LEVER! All across the city lights begin going out as the power is siphoned away into the evil tinkerer's electricity stealing contraption!

[quillpleasant]

Cloudtop Heist

When every spoke has been graced with a hat, Atya steps back, rummaging in her bag again and pulling out an oddly shaped remote control with copper wires sticking out of it here and there. She taps some of the buttons in quick succession and-

Nothing. "Damn it Alice, you said this would work," she mutters under her breath before hitting the remote with an open palm. And a second time, which seems to do the trick, as there's a sudden whir of energy from the hats.

The base of each one turns from empty space into a swirling, multicolored portal. The proximity of so many tiny rifts by each other seems to draw them together magnetically, shifting and stretching as they try to connect with one another. Then, with a pop, they join into one giant portal that goes directly through the door of the safe, leaving a clear path to go inside.

"Whoo!" Atya punches the air in triumph. "We're in! Let's get a move on, the door will only stay open for so long." Gathering up her bag, she steps through the portal into the room beyond.

This safe is huge, separated into a series of aisles between ceiling high storage walls. Each wall is composed of many large drawers, each almost three feet square, labeled with their contents. These all seem to be hermetically sealed, which is good because some of what's stored here could be very hazardous.

A quick perusal shows that the various drawers contain everything from the expected bank notes, gold bullion and gems, all the way to tetrodotoxin, plutonium, and god jelly. Chemicals, poisons, the body parts of rare animals, drugs, forbidden lore, rituals, blackmail- this place has everything. The layout does seem organized, but in a complex way that is quite hard to parse without a full explanation.

"Alright, final stretch. We're looking for a box labeled B32, so let's spread out. Oh, and if you see anything else you wanna take, go for it," advises Atya, already running her hands across the first shelf as she scans the labels. "Goemog, maybe you can look at the higher up drawers since you can fly."

[Halae]

[A Golden Age of Villainy]

"That doesn't make any sense!" Emily shouts at Professor Gore, her massive, powerful voice carrying easily across distances, "Electricity is a flow! All you've done is drain the current electricity and jacked up the power bill."

Which is still enough to punch him over, after all, but it's still dumb that he's so wrong. The huge heroine starts running, moving on all-fours to sprint at her full speed towards the contraption and the mad scientist running it.

[[brackets lover]]

[A Golden Age of Villainy]

"Huh- wha-?" Mogzoku stammers in shock as the full extent and implications of the plan are explained to him. Suddenly becoming a lot more serious, Mogzoku's facial expression intensifies as he flies towards the mad scientist alongside Emily. "Hey, be careful. I'm pretty sure electicity blows up when there's too much of it," Mogzoku warns genuinely.

[Cloudtop Heist]

Mogzoku seems a bit surprised as the portal opens up. "You know, even with the meds and all, a heads-up still would've been appreciated," he complains as he heads through the portal. He nods to Atya and begins to fly up, looking through the drawers. Blackmail, of course, he would take first and foremost along with anything else containing important and likely irreplacable information. He's wants to stop them from being able to perform any rituals described, striking their finances as a second priority, taking the gems for his own bag and just tossing any bank notes on the floor.

[Reinholdt]

[Cloudtop Heist]

Reinholdt takes a few steps and then hurries through the portal. He's not skittish like Mogzoku is when it comes to magic, but portals like these have a dangerous habit on closing at the worst possible time. Usually when the last person's half-way through. He'd better hurry up and find B32 so he can be the first one back out.

A shame then, that he gets distracted by the name 'god jelly' and immediately decides to steal it. Having no idea what something is or does is the number one reason to take something.

Then he'll continue looking for their prize, starting from the other end as Atya to cover as much ground as possible.

[quillpleasant]

Cloudtop Heist

For now, the portal remains up, a faint fizzing sound coming from it. But who knows how long it'll last.

Well, Atya probably has some idea. She shrugs apologetically at Mogzoku. Her eagerness to get through had made her forget about his fear of magic, but luckily he didn't take it too badly.

Speaking of the moogle, he finds quite a lot of blackmail material. It seems that iii is keeping records on a lot of very powerful people, both in the Nexus and across other dimensions. They are an Interworld organization, after all. Records of scandals, human rights violations, fraud and other criminal activities- enough to make a lot of people very, very mad.

Not to mention the rituals, which range from rare but otherwise normal spellbooks all the way to extensive documents on summoning and binding demons and other less savory entities. Some of these are loose, but others are contained in glass boxes with arcane locks on them, presumably to stop the dark magic contained within from leaking out.

Also gemstones are gathered and acquired. Enough to retire on in style.

Meanwhile, Reinholdt opens the drawer marked god jelly, and finds a tub of multicolored goop. It looks like something you'd find in the body product aisle at a general store, except that it glows with an inner light, and there's an extensive warning label with very small print. Well, that seems fun and safe. Continuing his search, he sees boxes for astatine, luhix, megamycete... this sure seems like the right section at least. It must be here somewhere-

"Hey, guys? Problem." Atya is backing out of the last aisle in the room, aiming her chemical thrower nervously. And shuffling after her is a strange looking man in a black suit.

Strange, not because of any unusual features, but because of how utterly nondescript he looks. He has short, slightly balding hair, and could be anywhere from late thirties to early fifties. He's not athletic or overweight, his eyes are a dull brown, his suit is nice but not expensive, and his height is perfectly average. But despite all this there's something strangely uncanny about him- a slight plasticity that makes his drabness feel calculated.

"Atya, I'm so glad you've returned to us. 12 will be so pleased. And you've brought friends, too. How lovely." He smiles at Reinholdt and Mogzoku, wide and toothy. "Can I help you find anything? Or were you just planning to help yourselves?"

[[brackets lover]]

[Cloudtop Heist]

Mogzoku is horrified to see the extent of the records kept. "No way, this is-" he says, choked up with both dread and relief. It was as if he stumbled upon something personal to him.

As soon as Atya said "Hey", Mogzoku began to draw the revolver, the strange man's tone giving the moogle pause. Gently, Mogzoku points the gun away from the man and instead uses his paint gun, firing a single capsule aimed at the center of the man's face.

[Reinholdt]

[Cloudtop Heist]

Well Reinholdt can't just take everything he doesn't recognize, they'd be here all day. If those things wanted to get stolen, they'd have cooler names! Like God Jelly.

Atya draws his attention away from the search and the Uncanny Man keeps it away. Was this also one of the immortal experiments, one that works directly for iii? Reinholdt steps away from where he was looking, moving to draw the man's attention, specifically looking to turn it away from Mogzoku. "Yes. We're looking for B32. Know where to find it?"

[Gold]

[A Golden Age of Villainy]

TANBot bends over and snatches his high-frequency blade back from Princess Purrloin once she's on the floor, holstering it and crossing his arms triumphantly. Part of him wants to make sure Purrloin can't steal anything ever again, but the fact that there are other people around dissuades him from doing that.

After that, TANBot turns towards the oncoming Captain Catastrophe and enters a ready stance. He doesn't know what kind of force that kitty gauntlet is packing, but he's not going to stand around to find out either. Instead, the robot draws his sword and points it at Catastrophe in a fencing stance to keep him from getting him too close as he says, in an impatient tone, "Can we hurry this up? I have to go unsteal the electricity." Then, he aims to surprise the Captain with a sudden elbow to the jaw followed closely by a roundhouse kick. "Y'know, I'm usually more talkative than this, but getting my sword stolen there really put me in a bad mood.

[quillpleasant]

Cloudtop Heist

The man's grin turns to Reinholdt, and he tilts his head uncomfortably far to one side as he studies the thief. "B32? Well, all you need is a syringe, and you'll find as much as you need in her pretty veins."

He starts to look back at Atya and then- blap. The paintgun's shot is a direct hit, splattering the man's face. He flinches, blinking rapidly at the paint in his eyes.

Before he can recover, Atya is darting forward. The chemical thrower was a bluff, far too dangerous to use in a room full of potentially volatile substances. But her crowbar isn't. The tool is brought crashing down on the man's head, knocking him to the floor.

But there's clearly something strange here. The crowbar has left a dent, as if he's made of some substance far more malleable than flesh, and indeed he's already staggering to his feet, body flopping upright in a horribly boneless manner. Luckily he still seems blinded, but that can't last for long.

[[brackets lover]]

[Cloudtop Heist]

Even the slowest of thinkers would be quick to pick up on when a swing of a crowbar simply pushes the head in like its jelly. Hence, Mogzoku's already swooping in with knife in hand, having set his bag down beforehand. With teeth grit, Mogzoku flies low to the ground and makes a slash aiming across the strange man's quadriceps.

[Reinholdt]

[Cloudtop Heist]

"I must have left my syringe at home." Whoops. Oh well. Rein will just have to continue pouring through the stuff archives while Atya and Mogzoku are keeping plastic-like man busy. Maybe nothing they can do will hold him down for long, but repeatedly pummeling and stun locks might keep him down indefinitely while Rein finishes up what they came here to do. He's pretty much ignoring anything else along the way now that isn't just a B with some number after it, going for speed rather than thoroughness. Which certainly leaves the possibility of missing it in his haste.

[quillpleasant]

Cloudtop Heist

The knife strikes true, slashing across the man's legs. Mogzoku's guess is correct, as the blade seems significantly more effective, leaving a deep slash. The man staggers, falling to the ground and catching himself with his arms. Atya, following suit, reaches into her bag as she looks for her own knife.

However, no blood drains from the wound. In fact, there's no blood at all- the man's body seems completely homogenous, with his insides composed of a smooth white rubber. He turns amused eyes upon the moogle.

"12 will love seeing what makes you tick, little rat," he says, in an almost friendly tone. Then his head lurches back, the neck stretching into a horrible snakelike tendril of plastic flesh. Quick as lightning he coils around Atya, binding her arms to her sides, and before she can even cry out his neck stretches even further to lunge at Mogzoku, mouth opening unnaturally wide as his blunt teeth snap hungrily.

Meanwhile, Reinholdt continues his frantic search. Words flash by- R28, Comet Fruit, PCS-008, B32, Flesh Eating Spores- wait, B32? Yes, there it is, a drawer on the bottom shelf. Upon pulling it open, Reinholdt will discover a refrigerated box that can be lifted out with a collapsible handle. Within it are three small vials, each containing a bright orange liquid. A syringe with extra needles is helpfully included in the box as well.

[[brackets lover]]

[Cloudtop Heist]

Mogzoku may not be described as fast as lightning, but to his credit, he is always moving, as quick and hard to pin down as a bat. Hence, Mogzoku would be flying away from the man before the counterattack even starts. "They'll never get that opportunity, kupo," says Mogzoku confidently.

"Got the feeling we haven't tripped security yet, or we we wouldn't be facing someone so weak, kupo." Mogzoku sneers at the man, letting up his own offensive and focusing on flying out of harm's way and taunting.

[Reinholdt]

[Cloudtop Heist]

Ah-hah! B32! As tempted as Rein is to palm one of the vials just for safe-keeping, he imagines that it being refrigerated is actually an important component to it being viable as a compound. That's usually how it goes with this medical stuff isn't it? Instead, he gets the prize of a syringe, which he takes out before putting the box of B32 into his hammerspace.

"Nevermind I found one." Rein quickly moves back to R28, having caught his attention purely for R looking a little like a B. This he'll open up and expect to see vials much like B32 had. Rather than trying to learn what it is or what it does, he'll simply inject a syringe into one and withdraw a heavy doseage.

So that he can run up to the man's side, coming in from the other angle as Mogzoku to try and avoid those actually very distressing teeth of him. "Here, let me share with you," Rein says, violently going to jam the needle into plastic-like man to inject him with R28 as painfully as possible.

[quillpleasant]

Cloudtop Heist

The long necked man snaps violently at Mogzoku's fleeting form, clearly frustrated by the moogle's evasiveness. "Security isn't needed. You're all marked now," he snarls, eyes huge and hungry. He stretches even further, the coils of his neck tightening around Atya with a terrible crunching sound. She struggles vainly, choking for air. Another lunge at Mogzoku and...

Utterly distracted by the flying thief, the man is caught unawares by Reinholdt. The R28 drawer did in fact contain refrigerated vials much like the B32 doses, a vivid red in color. And now the syringe is jammed into the man's neck, injecting him with a full dose of the mystery chemical.

The effect is instant. The man screams, his body twitching as his neck rapidly retracts, spiraling around as he regains normal human proportions. Atya is released and she collapses to the ground, wheezing and shuddering.

"What... what did you do?" hisses the man. He's not looking good. The veins in his eyes seem to be expanding and leaking blood, covering with a cloudy red film as he pants heavily. The strange thing is though, he's starting to laugh, lips contorting in a horrible grin even as red veins spread out across his face.

Well, that's not good. But at least the heisters have what they came here for!

[Reinholdt]

[Cloudtop Heist]

"No idea," Reinholdt admits, rushing over to help Atya up and move towards the portal swiftly. "We got what we came for, let's go!" He calls out to Mogzoku.

He'd love to check on Atya's condition, but she's also immortal and will recover quickly enough so Rein really doesn't need to be holding her as tenderly as he is. He does, however, call out to the Moogle as they step back out of the vault. "Close the portal!" If Goemog can pull off a party hat and leave the man trapped inside, then they won't have to face the consequences of their own actions!
...
Presumably.

[[brackets lover]]

[Cloudtop Heist]

With the man collapsing, Mogzoku has no need to waste effort taunting him and moves to help carry Atya for a second before giving up as he realizes with his strength, he can't do anything.

Though with his sheer flying speed, he is able to quickly grab his bag back from where he left it, slowing him down to where he's only able to just catch up with Reinholdt and follow his instruction to pull the party hat off.

If all went as planned, he'd take a breath, keeping an eye out for any further danger.

[quillpleasant]

Cloudtop Heist

The three compatriots rush through the portal, Atya leaning on Reinholdt for support. Hot on their heals is their currently mutating adversary, his body cracking and stretching even as he drags himself rapidly forward, blood dripping from his eyes.

"You're never getting out!" he burbles horribly, "You're marked! You're-"

His voice is cut off as Mogzoku grabs one of the hats, disrupting the network of magical energy. The portal shimmers, and then vanishes, six feet of steel suddenly appearing between the heisters and their pursuer. They've done it!

Well, they still have to get out. But getting in and out of the vault is probably the hardest part, right?

Atya's body is glowing with orange light, outlining her ribs through her shirt as they snap painfully back in place. She straightens up with a grimace as the light fades. "Well, that was invigorating. Please tell me one of you got B32?" She looks around hopefully.

Then the room's white light turns a deep, ominous red as a distant siren begins to sound, the wail echoing through the building. The alarm has finally been triggered.

[Reinholdt]

[Cloudtop Heist]

"I got it. You said you had the escape route planned right?" Mostly that it was different from their entry route, so they're dependent on following Atya here.

It does free Rein up to flick out a switch and press it. Seeing as how the alarm is going off anyways, Rein figures the sudden boom in the security room will keep them distracted. At the very least shut down some of their observational capabilities.

But he's lightly dancing on his feet, ready to move. Reinholdt's seen just enough media to know that steel door is only going to hold the man long enough for them to get to the next dramatic room, before he busts through the wall/floor in an unexpected way that makes you really question how in the world he possibly could have tracked them to that one specific location. It just seems so improbable when you start thinking about it.

[[brackets lover]]

[Cloudtop Heist]

Goemog has a stern expression on his face as the alarm goes off, pulling out a spray can. "Something I gotta do first, I can catch up."

Mogzoku begins rapidly spraying the vault door, spelling out the word "MOG" in big and bubbly light gray letters. Assuming he has time for it, he'd additionally overlay a peace sign over the "O" in black paint.