16175/The Path of Progress: Ambush

The Path of Progress: Ambush
Date of Scene:	30 October 2023
Location:	Isolated Beach -- Outskirts of Madripoor
Synopsis:	The trap is sprung and the expected chaos insues. The only real question is whether Cable and co. can come out of it all with a tangible lead on John Sublime's whereabouts.
Cast of Characters:	Cable, Monet St. Croix, Sally Pride, Roberto da Costa

---

Cable has posed:
When is a trap not a trap?

When the people it's meant to trap walk into it willing.

Or something. That might not actually be the case but it is the future logic that Cable has used to explain just what they happen to be doing here, knowingly waiting for a rather sketchy meeting to take place on the outskirts of Madripoor.

It's possible that Cable's full of shit. But he has a lot of big guns and no one's brought him down yet so who knows. Maybe there is something to that future logic.

Night has settled on the tiny island nation of Madripoor. No doubt it would be more appropriate if it was a dark and stormy one but the evening sky is clear, the stars twinkling above, the lights of the nearby city still visible from this isolated stretch of beach, cliffs looming nearby, looking down over the picturesque stretch of sand that would be a natural tourist trap.

If Madripoor wasn't so thoroughly disreputable. Which admittedly does make it at least a little more desirable to a certain segment of clientel.

Back home -- at least where most of them likely considers home -- the chill of forthcoming winter might be creeping closer and closer. But here it is still very much a balmy, pleasant evening, the island breeze rustling through the occasional scattered tree.

Madripoor really isn't all bad. The weather tends to be good. The alcohol tends to be cheap. And the local authorities hardly blink when gratuitous violence takes place. How can anyone not appreciate a place like that?

Somehow though, standing on that beach, waiting for the shoe to drop, Cable looks more then a little dour about the entire thing. He only seemingly sports a single plasma cannon strapped over one of his shoulders -- though that seemingly magic briefcase with it's space-bending properties to literally carry an entire arsenal rests nearby, sitting open and only covered by a seemingly innocuous beach towel. As if they were here for a pleasant evening out.

Yeah right.

"They're late," the white haired soldier from the future grouses sourly. "Amateur hour. If you're going to ambush someone you show up early to get the drop on them. Or at the very least on time. Making people wait just makes them edgey and more alert," he mutters, his voice a low grumble.

It's possible someone's going to end up extra dead tonight. You know, instead of just the regular dead.

"You'll recognize the one we want on account that he has a third eye. Not to complicated. Remember to leave him alive, but we don't need him mint in package. Feel free to play with him some. The rest of them don't matter."

Assuming that they ever show up.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would go to fold her arms together, "Yes, isn't it incredibly rude that we've gone to all this preparation to ready ourselves for their strike and dig in to retaliate for it and they can't be bothered to show up? How assinine of them. We should go and file a complaint with their corporate leadership and HR representatives over their inability to stick to a schedule. It's definitely something to complain to their management over. How do they think they can be employed as steady mercenaries if they can't even be bothered to show up for their own fight?"

That's a very deep amount of sarcasm coming from Monet as she lies in wait over with the others, ready to go in and engage.. Or the way the night is going, settle down for a game of cards (hopefully without that horrid concoction that Neena considers 'pizza') and wait for thier opposition to show up.

But, if anyone would go to a corporation to complain that their legion of evil mercenaries didn't show up to an ambush on time, it probably would be M.

Sally Pride has posed:
There's something said about knowing it's a trap doesn't mean you don't avoid springing it. And there is the chance that after their escapades maybe some of the jackass' underlings have started to notice he isn't such a great boss who has their best intentions in mind. Always a chance.

Sally isn't going to get her hopes up too high though. If this turns into a fight of some kind, she's not going to object too much either. She's got her blaster tucked away somewhere, but as far as appearances go she's just got her claws and, you know, being a mutant predator with a good deal of paramilitaristic training.

"More likely they're purposely taking their time to ensure we're all here," she replies to Monet. And snickers a bit at Cable. "Don't need to kill the potential info... but you know how much someone can live through..." She does briefly flex her claws with the sentiment, then recrosses her arms.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto Da Costa blinks, rubs his tummy, which grumbles. He frowns, "Wait, they have that level of organization? I could have frozen their accounts and put pressure on their organization to... you're messing with me aren't you? That's cold." His stomach grumbles again, "I really thought they's be here by now... there's a gyro place like two blocks from here. Do you think we have time?"

Cable has posed:
"Sublime runs his own corporation with all the assets and obligations that implies," Cable offers up. No, they're not joking. Not entirely at least. "He pretty much funds the Transhumanist movement himself," he adds, which is really why they're here tonight, trying to procure one of his trusted lieutenants and therefore his current location. "I suppose we could have unleashed you upon him and watched the two of you try to destroy each other in the business world and the legal system," the future soldier conceeds. "But that wouldn't have involved nearly as many explosions. I don't go in for hippie crap like that."

He's joking. Probably. Or at least as close as he comes to making one at any rate. Cable is very much about making the best use of whatever weapons he has in his arsenal and going after Sublime's money, resources and influence would certainly be fair game. BUt given the horrors he has inflicted upon the mutants he has had kidnapped, experimented on and finally harvested for their body parts, well, maybe it's become a little personal.

The moonlight turns the ocean behind them a silvery sheen, light dancing on the incoming waves that roll up along the beach at their backs and finally -- finally -- there is some hint of activity. Up on those nearby cliffs it is possible to make out some signs of movement. Oh, there is an attempt to be subtle, but trying to hide that sort of thing from people with enhanced senses -- not to mention telepaths -- borders on the useless.

"It's about time," Cable mutters, jerking his head towards those cliffs and the shadowy forms up there. That moonlight glints off of the metal of weapons being setup -- no doubt ot straff the sands below and Cable gives a quiet little snort. "They probably should have checked the weather forecast before setting up this meet. Maybe they didn't want to get rained on," he suggests drily.

Closeby, at the edge of the sands where they meet the roadway that leads back towards the city proper a dark van pulls to a stop. A moment later doors open and a pair of man flankiing a third -- one who, appropriately seems to have a third eye encased in a metal implant right in the center of his forehead -- emerge. That then would be the lure. The shiney little goal designed to keep them standing here, waiting for the clean, white sands around them to be turned into a kill zone.

"Guess you should have gone for that burrito earlier," Cable comments, shifting a little though not sliding that plasma cannon down off his shoulder yet. "It's go time."

Monet St. Croix has posed:
So they're not going to have time to get something to eat. But SOMEONE would insist on it being pizza, then there would be an argument on toppings, then there would be a brawl over preferences in toppings.. Monet goes to take a moment over to shrug. "This region's propensity for rain is borderline tropical. If they're worried about it, they should have set up their operations somewhere else."

And then as the vans start to drive on in the distance, Monet goes to crack her knuckles over. "I'm irritated at their inability to keep to a schedule." Oh yes, someone is going to be using some bad guys as a stress ball. A dmittedly in a 'horribly cripping an dmutilating' kind of way. But she is somewhat cautious at least.

<<Sublime has so far used underlings haphazardly as disposable sources and then retaliated over with more dangerous ones. These are likely so far a distraction group designed to feel us out before he sends out another strike against us.>> So she's going to move to circle around, letting Roberto take point with her going to flank him and give backup.

Sally Pride has posed:
<<Someone keep attention on our flank, and that cliff up there. They'd be most likely to try and surround us, and gun us down.>> By this point Sally has gotten use to having the telepaths communicate and just thinking such things instead of saying them out loud. Her tail twitchs a few times, but so far the only thing she has armed is a dour look.

Then again, she doesn't need to draw her weapon to be dangerous. Though these people have been screwing up mutants long enough they're not going to be intimidated by her looks.

She'll happily give them proper reasons to be scared of her, if and when that point comes. Probably more on the if side, but anything is possible.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto Da Costa smiles, "Hippie? We're discussing thisidea when we're done." Roberto shifts from his normal handsome human form to the deep vanta black that is his powered state. He nods to Sally, "Obrigado, menina." He cups his plasma field close a shimmer of black against the night. Berto swings up and out setting up a strafing run on the cliffs. He uses the night and the ocean for cover coming up under their line of sight and poping up at the last minute to pummel their snipers nest with concussive bladts of plasma. He rotates to support the attack on the van.

Cable has posed:
For the most part when it comes to these missions Cable seems to have been more then happy to leave the telepathic heavy lifting to Monet or Tabitha and he certainly has good reason for that. But like most people battling an ongoing condition, it would seem that the future soldier has his good days and his bad days just like anyone else.

Today would appear to be one of the better days because he stretches out with those senses, looking to confirm some of Monet and Sally's speculation -- and doing so rather quickly. << Good call. they have a group in dune buggies of all things coming down the beach behind us. And some of those Exo-Power Suits coming up through the water. I feel like I'm in a Sixties spy movie, >> Cable comments. Presumably that is a 1960's spy movie, but who knows, maybe James Bond survives into the ravaged 2060's as well.

Clearly the beach is meant to be the killzone but it is just as clear that Sublime -- or at least his followers and hirelings -- have consistently under-estimated Cable and his team.

While their foes might be a little late to the show tonight, one can at least applaud the fact that they have seemingly managed to coordinate everything reasonably well. The sound of those motorized offroad vehicles just barely cuts through the evening breeze up along the beach just as the nearby ocean begins to swell as armored figures appear amongst those moonlit waters. The scampering men up on those cliffs finally seem to have settled, have picked out their targets amongst the quartet waiting for them on the sands below. Everything is in place.

The trio approaching them suddenly stops, the three-eyed man suddenly screaming 'Kill them!'. "Really? That's their signal?" Cable asks, the disgust plain in his voice. Light 'em up," he says.

Of course Roberto is one step ahead of him, already lashing out, lacing that cliff face with bursts of energy, a line of explosions tearing into the rock, sending up debris as the high ground advantage for their attackers rather abruptly vanishes in concussive explosions of plasma energy.

The other three approaches are still very much in play. Emerging from around that cliff facing, a trio of wire-frame off-road vehicles come tearing into view, machine cannons mounted on the back of them. As they whip across the sand, the gunmen standing in the back of each begins to open up with those cannons, lines of tracer fire starting to tear up the beach around the mutants.

From the ocean those armored power suits emerge into plain view, water sloughing off them as they march towards the beach and dry land, each about ten feet tall. They too sport shoulder mounted cannons and what appear to be rocket-launchers and flame throwers attached to each arm respectively.

The final approach is covered by the trio of men who appear to be leading the attack. Their target is in the lead and a sudden bright, burst of amber energy rips from that third eye towards them. The man two his right lifts a hand and shards of what look to be razor sharp bone begin to fly while the third lifts a hand and a wall of sand suddenly begins to rise up near the base of the cliff. Five feet, ten feet, twenty feet. Then it begins rolling towards the quartet, looking to crash down atop them.

For his part Cable focuses on his telekinetic shields initially, giving them all some over from the incoming fire, giving them a chance to respond as the trap is finally sprung.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
If James Bond survives into the 2060's, how many more decades does the Simpsons go on? Monet goes to fly alongside Roberto before peeling off as the heavy hitters go to open fire. Where do they get all those guns? it's ridiculous,e ven by Madripoor standards. But, all thsoe cannons, rockets, flamethrowers, and other heavy artillery will definitely mess her up. So seh goes to fly defensively, moving to try and buzz towards the line of cybernetically enhanced defenders at roughly Mach 3, about three meters off the ground. The way psionically boosted flight works is there's no real sonic boom..

But, the onrush of wind and something shooting past them at high speed hopefully has almost everyone lined up instinctively going to track her as she would fly. Training only went so far, this was human instinct after all. And so hopefully they're all trying to track M, or weapons trailing after her, her going too fast hopefully for them to draw a bead..

Then going to fly fully evasively for when they do adjust to her position.

It hopefully results in most guns and attention on her and leaving them open to the rest.

Sally Pride has posed:
So much for the faint sliver of chance that this wasn't just another trap. Though in the end no one in the small group is all that surprised.

It was just tactical sense that they would try to surround them on all sides. But when one of those is heralded by the sound of engines and the smell of exhaust fumes, Sally's dour expression for a brief moment turns into a faint smirk. She turns in the direction of the roaring buggies, letting Cable's telekinetic shield take the initial brunt of firepower, sand pluming up where shells hit the ground either from the spray of gunfire or from pinging off the shield.

And then she breaks into a mad spring out of the billow of sand charging towards the fast attack vehicles, counting on them to initially focus on the immeadiately moving and more obviously superpowered targets, and while speeding towards their victims not expecting someone to come charging towards them!

Sally lunges when she gets close enough, boots stomping on the hood of the vehicle so she can spring forward and grab the wire frame rollcage. But rather than go for the driver she swings herself around the side and uses some of that feline flexability to aim a heel for the face of the guy manning the weapon mount and knock him off of it.

So she grab the gun herself, swing it towards the beach, and open fire on the exos coming out of the water to get in a few rounds of heavier fire before the driver realizes what happened and tries to do something to stop her.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto Da Costa whistles as Monet goes zipping around the battlefield. He drops down on the mechs in the surf, smiling at the ten foot giants as he lifts one and hurls it at another. Lifting into the air a nice juicy target, he smiles a ball of heat and radar that can't be a truck, I mean how could it? This is tech and science and.., what could go wrong?

Cable has posed:
For a moment complete chaos envelops the beach as explosions rip through the quiet night, as the sound of gunfire drowns out any trace of the breeze stirring through the leaves or water lapping at sands underfoot. The stars in the sky and the moon's reflection in the water is nothing compared to the glare of energy bursts, of gouts of fire that threaten to turn sections of the beach into sheets of blackened glass.

But one thing that the chaos doesn't bring? A bunch of dead mutants. If the swift, sudden application of violence was expected to surprise and somehow put an end to Cable and his group of allies, well, that fails pretty badly. The team scatters, each going after their targets, each offering up a different sort of distraction to their foes. Each not only comes through that initial volley unscathed, they manage to take it to the enemy in turn.

While those dune buggies might be fairly swift, they're not prepared for just how agile the lioness is and while the trio of vehicles try to bring their cannons to bear on her all they manage to do is chew up the sand. Then she's one the back of one of them, comandeering that same machine cannon and laying down straffinf fire across those armored power suits as they stomp towards the beach. While that armor holds up for a moment, the repeated impact of those powerful, high velocity shells finally begins to punch through and when it does absolutely shreads the suit in seconds, leaving it a tottering wreck at the edge of the surf..

The off-road vehicle swerves wildly back and forth, trying to dislodge Sally and the other two vehicles begin to close in, cannons beginning to open fire on their compromised number, tracer fire ripping through the vehicle, blowing out those tires as it suddenly flips and goes tumbling wildly through the air.

Monet's gambit is entirely successful as well, racing towards those armored mechs, out over the water at speeds great enough to foil their onboard targetting computers. Bright traver fire cuts across the beach and ocean as it tries to track her but none of the ten suits can manage to draw a bead on her. With that distraction, none of them are able to unleash their full firepower on the rest of the team.

Which of course leaves Roberto open to wade into the fray, to casually crunch one of those suits, picking up another and using it as an improvised weapon. And as that heat source builds to glaring intensity on the mech suit's onboard targetting array, they do take the obvious track, the one they've been trained for. More then a dozen heat seeking rockets suddenly launch from the power suits, streaking through the dark night.

For his part Cable is seemingly content to serve as a decoy as well, to draw in the fire from the other threats, though most especially the trio of enhances human beings charging him with their stolen mutant abilities. Those energy blasts fling all around him, scorching sand and sending up plumes of it from the ground, but deflected from him time and again by that telekinetic shield. It is equally effective against that barrage of jagged bone shards fired his way, though he does grunt when one of them finds its way through, pinging off the metal shoulder.

But then that wall of sand comes crashing down with thunderous force and for a moment he disappears from view. Only to reappear a moment later, that sand cascading over the dome-shape of his telekinetic field.

Standing up, grim-faced, the future soldier finally slides that plasma cannon off of his shoulder, into his hand and with one smooth motion brings it to bear, firing off a burst of bright green plasma energy.

And where there were three men charging him, suddenly only two remain. The bone thrower reduced to little more then a smoking streak in the sand.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet goes to stay on the evasive! Roberto can hurt the mechanical marauders far better than she can. So she goes to keep on flying defensively, having gotten an idea for how quickly the turrets are able to track and retarget her from a few fights now. She would skim along, staying just out of the way of their ability to engage her with burst fire. At least not if they didn't want to risk peppering themselves with shrapnel from firing off high explosives and heavy ammo rounds wihtin a dozen meters or so. She keeps on buzzing them like a drone to keep their attention, then rapidly going to dive past them as the explosions, fire, and chaos along the beach..

Probably don't even remotely come to blocking out the explosions, fire, and chaos that was the norm in Madripoor itself.

Sally Pride has posed:
Sally Pride is able to pump several rounds of burst fire at the exos before the swerving attempts to dislodge her force the mutant lioness to focus on not being thrown off and run over more than firing. But dealing with vehicles is one of her specialties and she knows how to shift her weight with the swings of the rear of the buggy to keep her footing. While watching the other two wheel around to come back after them with their guns primed.

She leans forward to tsk at the driver. "I don't think your friends are very happy." She stands up... and then leans forward again. "Also, I'm taking this." At which she stands up again, moves one hand to grab under the main body of the machine cannon, and whench it free of it's mounting. Then jump backwards off the buggy just moments before gunfire from the other two blow out the tires and it's sent flipping into the air. "Remember folks, friendly fire isn't friendly at all!"

After the quip of questionable quality she digs her heels into the sand to brace herself. The weapon is heavy even with her mutant strength, but she only needs to hold it for a little longer as she grins and pulls the trigger, emptying what remains in the machine cannon's magazine at the two remaining buggies.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto Da Costa smiles as the rockets seek the heat source, his heatsource. He lets them comes as reaches out with pinpoint precision. Targeting the cooling systems sending their reactors into overdrive and spiking their heat signatures as he pulls the heat back into himself sending the missiles in search of other targets, hotter targets.

Cable has posed:
It is never all that comforting to watch a friend -- or at the very least a work collegue -- be rather casually vaporized right before your eyes. Certainly it seems to draw the now pair of men up short, perhaps a little more leery about getting any closer to Cable then they have to afterall. Things haven't really gone as intended afterall. Their ambush was foiled before it ever even really began and even a quick glance around the beach is enough to confirm that the other two forces assembled to try and close off this trap, to put an end to Cable and his allies , are not exactly meeting a lot of success.

The flipping dune buggy is pretty spectacular, though perhaps a good object lesson to those present that it doesn't really pay to be on Sublime's payroll when even your allies wont hesitate to take you down. More importantly under the circumstances it is complete failure at its main task; taking down Sally. Instead the feline mutant flips free of the vehicle a moment before it's fiery ruin, machine cannon in hand as she turns that firepower loose on the remaining two dune buggies as they zip across the sand. Tracer fire tears into each of them in turn and in mere moments the remaining two vehicles are flaming ruins, lighting up the beach around them as thick plumes of black smoke rise up into the night sky.

So much for the rear battlefront.

Things are not going any better on the ocean approach as M continues to whip in and out amongst the battle mechs with that display of high speed, defensive flying. Targetting computers strain to keep up. Strain and fail and more bursts of straffing fire and literal fire fail to find their marks, the patter of spent shells sending ripples through the surrounding waves.

Not that the Power Suited mercenaries fire for long. At least not when Roberto pulls his trick out, that blooming heat source suddenly gone, leaving the heatseeking rockets to look for the next most tempting target -- in this case the very mechs they were fired from in the first place. Those streaking projectiles with their white plumes trailing over the beach suddenly circle around, flying back towards the half dozen power suits still trudging their way onto land. And slamming into them as the night sky and the dark waters of the ocean both are suddenly illuminated by those flaming explosions, debris scattered across both sand and sea alike.

And then there were two.

Or realistically only one. Watching their force melt away the pair of Transhumanists start to scamper backwards, away from Cable, starting to turn towards the waiting van a good fifty feet away. Glancing back over his shoulder, the one with the power to manipulate sand looks panicked, desperately trying to raise up another sand wall.

That does absolutely nothing when Cable's plasma blast plows through it and obliterates him. A second blast almost immediately follows and the van suddenly bursts up from the ground, the epicenter of a bright green explosion of plasma energy that rips the vehicle to shreads and sends it hurtling into it's shreaded component parts.

"Lets wrap this up," the grim-faced future soldier says, advancing across the beach.

Game over man.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would dart along and keep on flying ahead of Roberto, going to draw fire away to let him take out the threats. It's rather murderously effective as they can either take mostly useless potshots at Roberto and let him melt them, or they can turn to try and go evasive and Monet can smash them. It makes for something rather cathartic for the girl that hasn't had a chance to hit things in awhile. Sure, she's not direclty hitting them, but seeing htem explode in ways and catch on fire from thier own munitions cooking off about them is rather relaxing.

<<Do we have the target? Most of the hostiles are neutralized>> Monet would rather not kill if she didn't have to. But she wouldn't interfere with others doing it. Here, she can keep her proverbial hands clean and let the targets deal with the consequences.

She's waiting for further orders now that the beachfront is being pacified. But also on full alert- Sublime's ambushed them multiple times after they were doing well and it would be in character for him to have another backup plan to throw at them here when they were already spread thin from the fight.

Sally Pride has posed:
"So," Sally muses as she hefts up the machine cannon to rest against one shoulder, "how big of a hole do you think we're burning in Subline's pocketbook this time?" She saunters in Cable's direction as he advances on the one remaining man. The cannon is empty, but they probably don't know that, and she's holding onto it as an intimidation factor for the moment.

<<Boss' dealing with him. Don't relax yet though.>> Sally is thinking much the same thing as Monet is. There's been a Plan B/C/ect. from this asshole enough times it'd be foolish to asume otherwise before knowing for certain.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto Da Costa frowns looking around as he heads back towards the beach. Berto destroyed property, most f the mech pipots managed to eject. He pulls two from the water dumping them on the beach where they cough and sputter. He even fires off a flare to alert a fishing boat to the other survivors lettibg them tread for a while. "Maybe 20 million? It's not like the mercs were high-end and depends if he developed the the mechs himself." Berto cobsiders as he takes in the scene, "Those looked fun, I should get a dune buggy, we should all get them."

Cable has posed:
Certianly the fact that this was indeed a trap and not a genuine defection suggests that Sublime has a contingency plan in place. It seems doubtful that their target actually has the information they're looking for to track down the man if he is right here, practically in their grips.

The confident declaration that his men should 'Kill them!' is long in the past now and the three-eyes man scrambles backward, eyes darting between the fiery ruins of the van and the mutants that now advance on him grim-faced. The breeze, the crackling, smoldering remains of the dune buggies and Exo-power suits make his voice indistinct for a moment, difficult to hear but as they get closer his words will become impossible to miss.

The man babbles, a steady stream as he seemingly talks to himself. Begs and pleads really. "I can still salvage this. Really. It isn't over. Just give me another chance. Please," he says in a seemingly constant loop.

Then he glances towards the advancing mutants once more and gives a shriek that is part anger, part hate and a whole lot of terror. That eye flares brightly once more and another burst of energy flares from it, blasting out towards them. But again that blast is deflected away by the grim-faced future soldier.

"Nononononono..." the three-eyed man babbles, scampering backwards on all fours. And an instant later it becomes plain just how John Sublime intends to deal with this loose end. The man begins to dissolve, literally before their eyes, a wailing scream rising up from him as he does.

Somewhat mercifully that high-pitched wail does not go on for long before it is cutoff, a gurgling babble continuing for a moment until there is little left but a puddle of goo on the sands. Even Cable looks faintly surprised at that.

"So. Back to the drawing board then," he says flatly, staring at the remains of their target for a moment longer before shaking his head and turning away. "Take the rest of the evening off. You've earned. Pizza and beer is on me"

Who knows, maybe he'll even join in with the dune buggying. Madripoor has no end of trouble, no end of distractions to get up to for sure, especially for someone with such a checkered background. But the buggy's could be distracting.

He looks a little more interested in the machine cannon that Sally's claimed though.

Either way, this mission is over. They'll have to seek out their next lead. Maybe Boom-Boom has had some luck pouring through the information they stole from the law offices.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto Da Costa starts walking up the beach with others, "Pizza and beer?! We're in Madripoor! Live a little, I know this great food cart, the lizard on a stick is to die for and they have goat schwarma, real goat."