12294/The Reavers: Misery at Scale

The Reavers: Misery at Scale
Date of Scene:	05 August 2022
Location:	New York Harbor Docks
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	Joshua Foley, Tabitha Smith, Illyana Rasputina, James Proudstar
Tinyplot:	Reavers

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Joshua Foley has posed:
The rumours started weeks ago. It was a trickle at first. Mutants being abducted in Bushwick. More hate-driven assaults than usual. Angel, Iara and Cannonball stumbled across an abduction happening in the street and fought cyborgs in nondescript black military uniforms. Cyborgs who fought back with lethal force. Then the rumours grew, and spread beyond Bushwick to Gotham and beyond. X-Men and others freed Absalom Mercator from being drugged and held by these cyborgs, another team raided an underground cybernetics body shop and found more cyborgs there. And the rumours spread and grew.

Angel was not open about where the tip came from, but he was adamant it would be trustworthy. There had been a surge in kidnappings and he knew where they were being held; the Exxen Blue Systems warehouse in the Harbor Docks. Word was abductees were smuggled through the notoriously weak port security in containers on semi-trucks and taken to the warehouse.

The docks themselves are active, even at night. Trucks go in and out through the security checkpoints. Gantries trundle along stacking and moving containers. Longshoremen and ship crews move about on their business.

The muggy air cut down on the often sparse nighttime traffic in Sector 14 of the docks where the Exxen warehouse is located. The warehouses here saw more daytime than nighttime traffic and mainly consisted of customs brokerage storage. A ports police patrol car drives slowly down the main road of Sector 14, then turns off and drives between stacks of containers towards Sector 10. Two of the three loading bays at Exxen have trucks backed up in them. The trucks are off and there is no sign of the drivers. The doors are closed. The warehouse is blue and grey, with a large roof that peaks in the middle. It is studded with HVAC equipment.

The warehouse is reasonably well maintained. The Exxen sign above the tinted black glass doors at the front that is simple and neat. There is a gated parking lot to the right of the warehouse when facing it. About fifteen vehicles are parked there, many of them are black vans just like those described in the abduction incidents. To the left is an accessway that leads behind the building. The warehouse backs onto Sector 11, which is container storage. There is an accessway wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other behind the warehouse, and across that are rows of stacked containers. There is one closed fire door on each side of the building and two in the back.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Lot of things have been happening in July. Hopefully August was going to be a muych slacker last month of summer for Tabby but wishing often Jinxes desires.

Luckily it hasn't sucked all that much. Tabby turned twenty one helped Kitty cenebrate her own twenty first and a few other birthdays with folks like Betsy and the Professor, whom she helped un coma and beat back a very dangerous entity in the Shadow King. That whole thing ended up with a whole new secondary telepathy and sooo many headaches. That's bad.

But she has a motorycle now in addition to her van. That's awesome.

Now back to possible racists abducting mutants off the streets. At least this time it's not currently Tabitha being abducted. Again.

So there she and anyone else that came along might be. In a nice close sneaky spot first to scout things out.

"So like think these guys are in on all the same forums and stuff the Eff Oh Haitch and the Purifiers all talk on?" she ponders and hmmms as she tries to do a mind sweep to get some kind of numbers and locations. Fingers each rubbing temples while she does her best to filter out all the noise and get something actually pertinent.

Experienced telepath she is not. It's all like trying to look for a friend at a concert. Too much noise and goings on around her.

RAt least she's mostly dressed for it. Full body X-Suit, thankfully despite looking like mostly black leather, it's climate controlled and cool to wear. Padding at the shoulders chest, back and sleeves let it pass for motorcycle leathers while she adds a red jacket with all those tools and first aid kits and snacks she seems to carry with her.

Boot's in yellow match the one-piece while her hair is up in a pony tails and her cat eye glasses sit on her nose and the yellow lenses keep her world view looking jaundiced. Not that anyone is actually dealing with liver failure.

"On the job training sucks! Why can't like we simulate brainwaves and stuff in the danger room. Make forge build cerebro tech into the sims." sje pouts.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Abducting anyone is sort of a lost cause when you have a map, excellent binoculars, and a tenuous-at-best relationship with space and time. Enter Illyana Rasputina, clad in black slippery pants that might be the bastard child of latex, leather, and silk. Her slashed t-shirt puts paid to some infamous rock band, and her arms crossed over her chest don't give an impression of someone really happy to be visiting the docks in the dark.

"Bad enough I have to skim over the forums and chats," she murmurs, teeth bared and white from a curled frame that stings a blistered scarlet. A change from her usual black lipstick. She keeps a low profile, flat to the wall, the song of violence in the shushed rustle of the sea nearby almost a welcome thing. Her blackened uniform won't come into play until it really matters, anyway.

Tabitha might discover the entirely alarming fact that her powers won't even recognize Illyana is less than a meter away. They don't wrap around a hole; they cannot even find the trace of someone there, because psionics stumble past the Demon Queen as if they never were.

"Maybe we just start with the vans. Bash them up, someone comes out, we redecorate a bit. The creepy abductor look is so passe, da? Cyborgs at least give a little bit of theme, but maybe if they were steampunk machinae out to steal people in contraptions that had to be made from oiled brass and leather? Much better."

Her grin widens.

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar walks up out of the shadows. The large man blending, dressed like a dock worker, moving along the shadows. He's taken the perimeter using his super senses to take in what he can. He's quiet thoughts shielded. Jim shrugs, "You're talking to someone who spent years learning how to use my sense from Logan." He shrugs easily, "Wonder if they're water proof?"

Joshua Foley has posed:
The anti-mutant, hate-filled corners of the Internet have been filled with speculation, calls to imitate the unknown group behind the abductions, calls to rise up against the mutants, and various claims of responsibility for attacks. In short, what is happening is whipping up the anti-mutant types, but nothing credible is out there. Trolling social media reveals stories of being abducted and even a pic or two of cyborgs, but both the ones seen are ones Angel swears are dead from the first encounter he had with them. Though one in the Mercator abduction looked similar. Maybe a sibling. Strangely, face matching against social media trolling does not come up with the faces of these abductors.

The inside of the warehouse is a nauseating jumble of anxiety, pain and despair. There are many minds in there that feel normal but... Some are in fitful, dreamless unconsciousness. Others are frightened, defiant, despairing, anxious, in pain, or just numb. There are about fifteen of these.

A small number are determined, curious, righteous, but with that vaguely tired tinge of people at work. There are six of them.

Then there are the others. They are minds, human minds, there is no doubt of that. But they are nearly emotionless, serene and confident except for the faintest ripples of what might otherwise be normal emotions. Thoughts move through them so quickly, but they are neat, tight, regimented, like minds imitating machines. It takes a bit to feel it, but then it's there. Patterns. Intention in one place, response far away, coordinated movement an instant later. These 15 minds feels almost like a single, distributed mind... And wait... There are two more approaching, in time with the return of the ports police patrol car. It drives slowly past Exxen heading in the opposite direction from last time.

When Warpath walks the perimeter dressed as a longshoreman, the first thing he notices when he passes any of the doors is the smell of fear. It is unmistakable, fresh mingled with stale. Footsteps, some very heavy, too even, too regular. Others, busy, hustle, stop. Hustle, stop. It sounds like a hospital. Crying. Yelling, protests, demands, pleading. Professional, firm responses. 'lie down', 'this will only hurt more if you...', '...help me, this one won't calm down...'. It sounds very much like a hospital, or an asylum.

On the ground, boot prints through accumulated road grime. Military treads, different sizes.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
"We could do the whole bait thing?" Tabby points out. "Unzip the suit enough. Wobble and fake wasted. See what comes out. The telepathic blind spot that Illyana's presence provides seeming an actual reassurance as much as the sound of the Sorceress' voice. "So that's what Jean and Emma feel when you're around. We so gonna hang out more 'Yana.".

"I suppose I could boom out any support struts. But knocking the warehouse down gonna risk drowning hostages right. Think there's like a dozen or so hostages. It's blurry and and There's like a half dozen more I can't tell and then ugh. We shoulda brought someone like Betsy." she says and pouts as she rubs her head tiredly.

"There's a bunch more but I can't tell how many minds are there. Great so it's the Borg, hive mind I guess i dunno. So draw bad guys out. Someone sneak through release any hostages. Then we all party and leave robot bits slagged?" she suggests, making sure traditional communications are up and running.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Illyana looks down and up at Tabitha, the smirk flexed once again. She flicks her wrist idly. "You want well or top shelf? Pour a little on our wrists and behind our ears." Cheap or spendy booze as perfume ought to be banned but she offers that all the same. "Betsy would be useful but not for all this, mm? I could send one of the demons through there to pull them out, and we clean up the rest. They like having time to play." Yes, play; that's apparently what demons need to do because life is so dull without rampaging through a warehouse, causing chaos.

She examines the building from a distance, searching for any signs of how it's electrified. A nice obvious wire will do, or a power generator with proper connections among the HVAC materials or something worse than that. Lines that link up to the building can be cut with a pointed look. Nothing like a pinpoint portal blooming open to snickersnack a live feed of power. Nothing like dropping a little cover of darkness on the unsuspecting.

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar frowns, and shakes his head, "We're not over the water and The drones are going to have infrared or at least low light. Those hostages are terrified, not sure a demon would help. Maybe Kendricks?" Indicates a cuter goblinesque minion. "I mean we could just drop the demons in, pull out the hostages and lock the door?" James frowns, "So... there's a master controller? That's worrying. If you want to go in as bait, I can make sure you have a way out. Or, I can go after the cops. Try to pull some folks away fromthe building?"

Joshua Foley has posed:
It is one of those details easily missed in the jumble of industrial activity and structures on the port. But 100' high voltage electrical towers run the width of the port. Industrial scale lines peel off in areas to small substations that power warehouses and other buildings. There is a warehouse to the left of Exxen, and on the other side of that is the substation for Sector 14. The lines to the individual warehouses run power poles that are the same height as residential ones, but beefier. They run down the street in front of Exxen and the other four warehouses in its row.

The patrol car turns left several hundred feet past Exxen, but it is sure to be back. From what James, if not the others have seen, it drives by roughly every 10 minutes.

A hispanic man in his mid-forties walks out of the door beside the three loading bays. The door closes behind him and he walks to one of the rigs, a blue Kenworth. He climbs in, starts it up, and the truck starts to pull out, signalling left in the direction the patrol car went, which is also towards the nearest gate to the port for commercial traffic.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
"Like I don't have a flask on me already. I just can't remember what was in it. Be a shame to waste good stuff."Tabby points out with a chuckle. "Psylocke would probably love this gig though. Big damn heroes and maybe stabby fights. We'll gloat that she missed it when we get home!" she suggests playfully.

"I suppose we can always kill the power. Float bombs in through porrtals, ever see what a flashbang does to someone using night vision?" she suggests witha giggle. "So bait and draw the bad guys out. Delayed booms kill power and stuff. We party, demons party. make sure we don't blast any hostages coming out." she ponders a plan and hmmms as she makes with the flask. A swig is taken and then offered to Illyana before she makes a move.

"Sooo anyone get the humber of that truck? Jimmy totally I bet. You rock for that fine detail!" she says over comms.

With enough dutch courage doing for perfumery she will totally let some booms take care of the power on the chance Yana opens up some portals. Distractions for distractions soon following as Boom-Boom then goes to start making a racket out in the open.

She even starts singing. Badly. It's a Cheney song but the main idea is she's loud and very off keye because some songs should only be song in such a manner. Extra little booms going off in front of her while she sways and wobbles deliberately.

Nothing that could actualy hurt anyone, but enough to say, dumb drunken mutant chick alone at night.

AKA: Jackpot!

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Illyana needs only a thought to rouse the portals, and then a power line is sweeping through Limbo and not through to the next tower or the next few inches of cable. Whatever charge it holds grounds into a towering spire of basalt rimed in carnelian flows of magma, where evidently it can thrill the demons that enjoy frolicking in the molten heat. Snicker-snack one, and for the second act, it's dropping another line to the warehouse. As long as she can see it, the harmless insertion of a portal briefly here or there will disrupt the flow long enough for the power to drop. Hopefully.

"Dark on," she replies, eyes gleaming a pale frost blue in the night. "Your move. We play at being lost until they come out?" An offer for Tabitha and James as their cheerfully wicked ex spreads her hands in a gesture. The warbling sashay that leads off their kinetic explosive girl brings her toothily grinning, and then mincing a wobbly path that parallels to the other side. Nothing that anyone watching her can assume is calculated.

But she can spin and fold space all the same, laser precision used to litter random debris or the occasional hurled knife or bottle or plasmoid burst with altogether too much ease.

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar sighs, knowing from long experience the effect flash bangs have on low light vision. He stays to shadows, his size making him a threat even intoxicated. His metabolism meaning he has little experience with the feeling to use when 'faking' it. He texts the vans plate number and brief description of the driver to some friends. Letting them follow up and keep an eye on the activity. Jim shadows the girls keeping close but giving them enough space for the trap to convincing.