20082/Konami Code - Arcade Deathtrap

Konami Code - Arcade Deathtrap
Date of Scene:	23 February 2025
Location:	Murderworld
Synopsis:	In which a group of heroines are caught in Murderworld for rage against the 8-bit world.
Cast of Characters:	Monet St. Croix, Valeria Richards, Sally Pride, Alison Blaire

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Monet St. Croix has posed:
It had been for most of the heroes one of those days. Going out, minding their own business, on patrol, or whatever scenario.. When a large garbage truck had gone past, then a loud 'SFLANG' as a vacuum snapped over them and sucked them up. Darkness.

Then blinding, flashing lights and finding they were stuck in glass spheres along a giant.. Pinball machine? Yes, a pinball machine where they were the balls, a large spring was positioned behind them.. Bumpers flashing, electric strobes going..

"Hidey-ho victim-rinos! I'm your host for tonight's festivities! Tonight we're going with the classics." A bombastic voice that for those who knew it was the madman ARCADE would boom out.

Valeria Richards has posed:
For many, capturing someone like Valeria 'Brainstorm' Richards is one of those ideas that other villains will say is the absolute dumbest thing you can ever do. Usually because they've all tried that with either the girl or her brother Franklin.

The hint is in the last name.

However some bad guys are either just too dense, or too crazy to worry about the heat they might bring down on their head.

It could go either way with Arcade.

The kidnapping in Val's case off the street shopping, likely left a few bags of very expensive clothes on the New York streets to be claimed by anyone. The girl slowly coming too inside the transparent sphere as she groggily looks around.

"Oh,, oww! Did I have an edible somewhere?" she sounds pretty dazed and confused. The fact that she's still in her street clothes. Bar a pair of gold rings on each middle finger. Jeans and Latverian green parkas less attention grabbing than blue catsuits.

Sally Pride has posed:
"Uuugh." Sally rubbed a hand against her forehead. "Now I know what the crumbs feel like when the vaccuum comes out." The other hand shifts down to push her up, finding the curved surface she was leaning against. The curved surface of an enclosed space. Sally really does not like small spaces with no obvious exits and that's enough to get her on her feet and shaking the fog from her mind. Followed by pounding a fist against the inside of the sphere, tail lashing behind her. "What the hell is this?!" It was close enough to being caged up to really get her hackles raised.

Alison Blaire has posed:
Alison Blaire strolls out on a little rickety wooden platform and waves at the kids in the park. She's dressed in her dubiously appropriate low neck silver bodysuit with super 70s blonde hair and blue make up. "Hi kids! Time for your Dazzler sing-along! Ready?! Okay, let's go!" she says into her microphone, "EVERYBODY....And ...."

Suddenly, the darkness engulfs her and she swoops away into nothingness.

Dazzler doesn't know what's worse, trying to get loud and annoying kids to sing songs or getting dropped into a pinball game. It's up for debate. She was doing such a good job being likeable too, and ANOTHER one of her stupid concerts is interrupted by something unplanned. "Great!" she mutters frustratedly, waking up in the glass pinball, "This is just great," she lets out in surprise. She kicks at the glass with her lil heels.

Getting serious, she frowns as she hears Arcade's announcement and FIRES off a sparkle beam of sparkle power to try to free herself.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
As everyone tries to rally themselves and get coherent, as Alison goes to draw up her energy to get ready to blast he rway out of the ball.. It's made of some kind of reinforced material, and she's nto able to get enough energy out to hit it to do any damage.

The voice calls out, "Three, two, one, CONTACT!" The launcher draws back, and then the trio of balls are flung up and over intot he machine! Presuming they're impacting over with the bumpers and rollers, they're getting hurtled along at high speed, each going towards a drop zone which seems to be flashing over with what looks like some sort of low rez.. Well, it kind of looks like the speeders from Return of the Jedi, but something's clearly off about them. Presuming the trio can't, they're launched through the hole!

Valeria Richards has posed:
The launch, and the bouncing and bumping is not taken well by the blonde supergenius. There's probably a lot of swearing that could be heard if the pings and bell ringing from the pinball sounds can be heard.

The bumping and rolling making it really difficult for Val to put her rings together, it might have to wait till either the bouncing stops or the rolling does.

Alison Blaire has posed:
Dazzler can't seem to concentrate enough to zap her way free because she's tumbling down the pinball game, rolling over herself and gladly thankful she skipped lunch. She tumbles over herself repeatedly until she puts her hands out and stabilizes herself as she's rolling, bumping and falling into the drop zone.

"Can anybody hear me?!" she yells, "Waaaa!" she lets out as her little ball bounces and spins around a corner into the drop zone.

Sally Pride has posed:
Sally Pride yowls as the sphere is launched into motion. But after the brief moment of disorientation feline reflexes kick in and, while the ball is bouncing and bowling about too much for her to do much about it she's at least able to keep herself stable inside and not get constantly batted around by the spinning. She would maybe make some snark about being through worse gravity trainer simulations but she's too focused on keeping herself from freaking out.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
The trio are flung down and out into a room where they land atop those speeders with oversized handlebars. As each lands, chains would go to try and snap around their waists and legs to hold them down. The speeders were simple - brake, accelerator, height, turn. Up ahead of them were a dizzying array of rapidly moving ramps, spiked barriers, and giant monsters moving on rockets randomly launching throughout the room like terror fish.

Arcade's voice would boom once again, "THis is just the warmup! You know how the game goes. Try to (not) stay alive on the rocking racers!" Before likely they can do anything, they would be flung forwards, rapidly accelerating if they couldn't do something to more than four hundred kilometers an hour!

Alison Blaire has posed:
Dazzler flops onto the lil bike and mutters again, "Hey I'm no Jedi..." she says as she pulls at the chain around her, "This is not cool," she explains.

The speeder bike REVS up and takes off so she grabs the handlebars, "Waaa! HEY watch out!" she lets out, steering around a stupid little raised bumper with an X on it. She looks for the laser shooter controls and tries to hit the brakes to stop herself before she crashes and burns.

Valeria Richards has posed:
Landing on the bike, that gives just enough breather for Valeria to suit up, fists together, rings connecting as she activates via code word.

"Val rings, such good bling" and in a moment the girls casual clothes are replaced with a more visually padded version of the standard Fantastic uniform. A brief shimmer of light after that adding a force field. Handy for keeping the rushing air out of her eyes when the speeder bike starts up. At least looking around she can at least recognize one person on a bike. "Dazzler? And umm, buff but adorable cat lady!" she yells trying probably in vain to be heard.

Sally Pride has posed:
Oh thank goodness they're out of the balls. Though the spin, release, and drop is still dizzying enough for the restraints to bind Sally to the seat and handlebars before she can completely recover. "Who the hell is this wackjob?!"

Thing is, Sally has been put on a vehicle. One that launches up to phenomenal speed. It's hardly a standard vehicle by any means but when it rockets into action it's like a switch flipping and the pilot training kicking in. Sally has the rocket bike weaving and jumping through the insane obstacles, with more than one close call but managing to not crash into anything.

Buff but adorable. She'll take that compliment.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
They're going at immense speeds. The type where normal people might be getting wiped out by friction and G-Forces. Where a sudden turn or snap would break spines. Thankfully none of them qualify as 'normal'! As they go to make the first series of whiplash turns, spiked barriers go to twist in front of them! It's a manner of desperately darting between randomly moving barriers going as fast as they are that will put them a smear if they hit!

And then coming up ahead if they manage to survive those a great pit filled with acid and randomly leaping monsters, and giant ramps that they'll clearly have to accelerate even faster to get enough lift on, and launch in a way to hit hit the jumping monsters..

Alison Blaire has posed:
Dazzler hits the brakes repeatedly only to find out there ARE NO brakes (or breaks) in this silly simulation, "Waaaaa!" she lets out as she forcibly swerves around a huge cartoon spike.

"I'm getting pissed off! Screw you!" she lets out, then repeatedly swears at Arcade like a sailor, "I'm gonna sparkle-fry your face!" she yells just before going over a huge GORGE in slow motion, like out of a movie. The episode perfectly captures her stupid fear of rollercoasters and dizziness on fast rides. Dazzler tries zap ZAPPING the bike after it lands and she starts heading toward another ramp, "Somebody DO something!" she says, trying to fry the controls again, but doesn't have much time.

Valeria Richards has posed:
Between the forcefield, and the strength augmentation of the Val suit, which is totally power armor. A crash is likely pretty survivable. Or at least falling off is. The distances they seem to be travelling and the speeds has the blonde girl pondering and might have an idea about their situation.

And before the ramp that might launch the woemn to destiny or a fiery impact, Val lets go of the bike and tumbles back off to let it zoom off away from her. Letting her hands free up again to start tapping on the wrist computer on her left arm.

First thing is making a group comms with the two other women's cell phones.

Sally Pride has posed:
There's always a pattern to things like this gauntlet. Maybe not the individual movements, but the way it's layed out is intentional. Like putting a long jump that would take great acceleration after a stretch of precision maneuvering is pretty diabolical. Granted at extreme speed there's not always enough time to nuance out ever movement, every step, but in the end it was arguably as much reflex as it is calculating in this situation. Complicated but not impossible.

Sally navigates the spiked barriers until she can see the end of them. "DON'T SLOW DOWN OR YOU WON'T CLEAR THAT JUMP" she has to practically roar (good thing she's a lion) to have a chance at being heard. And when most of them shift to line up she cranks the accelerator to speed out of them before they can shift again and have the momentum to hit the ramp. Maybe not enough to clear the pit on it's own... But that's why she bounces the rocket bike off one of the leaping monsters. Or maybe that was just lucky. It's hard to tell with all the moving parts to the death trap.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Dazzler doesn't quite have enough juice on her when it comes to breaking the controls of the machine - also it might not be the best time given the speed they're going at, without a plan. But all three are able to make the jump, just barely, with Sally managing to go some extra 'oomph' on her way that does have Mario jumping at a goomba sound effect. You gotta give Arcade credit for that.

They are not on a holodeck as far as Val can tell. This is all practical effects. Everything is real. Arcade has gone all out. One might wonder where he got all these crazy toys!

Good news, there are no more ramps coming up ahead.

Bad news, there are still lots of barriers.

Worse news, there are now machine guns, sonic cannons, and flamehtrowers.

Alison Blaire has posed:
"Eh, what's up Doc?" Dazzler's annoying cellphone ringtone chimes in as Valeria connects with the super powerful Dazzler-Teams network and she's distracted for a second as she heads for an upcoming barrier, so her lil bike scrapes the side of the pinball wall wall thing.

"Cellphone ANSWER. Hey! Oof! Who the heck is this?! Kinda busy being manipulated!" Dazzler yells loudly. She has to stop speaking to swerve around the barrier.

Sally Pride has posed:
The real question is how the hell did Arcade keep something like this hidden?! But yeah, the guy is insane but some credit for just going full ham on the finer details, even if the small satisfying familiar sounds can't be appreciated for long.

Fortunately yes Sally does have cell phone, generic burner model that it is, and a head/ear piece to use it without her hands which are very busy with the rocket speeder controls. "If that's you Mikey this is NOT a good time for a prank call," is her answering response. While speeding around barriers and hunching down low against the machine to duck under flame blasts.

Valeria Richards has posed:
From her side of the jump she didn't try to make. Val beams when there's an answer on one of the other ends. "You might want to switch to earpieces, you'll want hands free. I'm Val Richards, Sue and Reed's daughter, smartest person ever. The bike you saw explode a moment ago without me on it. So we're clearly in a simulation. No one has this much real estate anywhere. And I've been to the X-men's Place" Val's getting her big brain on at the moment while she Alt-Tabs on her computer to start wireless sniffing.

Even from her side, there's still bad things shooting at her. "So I'm not sure who's doing this. But they definitely have funds. Pretty sure this is hard light holograms, I might be able to remote shut down. But I'll need time. Or possibly direct access via cable. So... start tearing up the place. Dazzler, you should be fine with the energy attacks. Just watch for anything coming blunt force. If you hit walls and start exposing wires point them out."

She can certainly technobable, but it's probably more fun to wreck stuff with no guilt.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
One has to wonder a); where Arcade finds the space and b); where he finds all these thing sfrom even if he can afford them. How exactly is he paying for all of this? There's no way his income stream fro murder for hire on superheroes can remotely cover the bills of this place - tahts' just the maintenance for the weapons. Also his engineers must be completely insane. Then again sso are most engineers.

Things here are analog as far as Val can tell. Rocket bikes, randomly moving ramps, monsters, acid pits.. All depressingly real as the heroes manage to get to some cover as they get control of their bikes to speed around. That's when things get.. Worse.

Leaping out from the walls come a trio of humanoids. Recognizable from nightmares.

Geese Howard. M. Bison. Pyron.

They're called SNK hard for a reason.

"Konami welcomes you.. TO DIE!" Each would go to a base combat stance.

Alison Blaire has posed:
"Start tearing up the place?" Dazzler asks Valeria over the super cool Dazzler-Teams network, "What do you mean tear up the place?!" she lets out confusedly, "Is this REAL?" she yells.

After her cute lil bike swerves around one of the barriers, streams of glittler lasers sparkle pop blast from her body and fly in random directions like meteor beams of destructive power.

"Screw you!" Dazzler yells back at Arcade.

Valeria Richards has posed:
"Faked, lots of robots, holoprojections of the walls. Actual weapons." Val communicates while dialing up some of the power levels in her suit. She might need it when the boss battles seem to start.

"The hell are these guys?" she asks since Bison clearly doesn't look like Raul Julia. And she hasn't actually played any fighting game. Or she'd recognise the others.

That said, while Valeria might not be more than a middling fighter. She is the goddaughter of a different boss.

Victor Von Doom.

If anyone can spot the patterns, and exploit them. It's Valeria Richards.

Sally Pride has posed:
Break things? Sally does like breaking evil things.

But they've also got a new problem to deal with. First thing first, the bike. Her hands are bound to the handlebars... So she uses her mutant strength to pull the bike up like doing a wheelie, and just rip the handlebars off the rocket bike. Then as she pulls herself free of it, kicks her feet into the bike to send it flying at the three newest interruptions. "Seems real enough for things to explode, good enough for me. Let's see who's first."

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Play stupid games, win evil prizes. M. Bison goes to flare up and over with his PSYCHO POWER, the bike flung over at him going to simply halt in midair, right before it would be crushed like a tin can and explode. The energy blasts that ALison goes to flow along are met by Geese Howard going to launch his way through them to PUNCH through the beams of energy. Ki does NOT WORK THAT WAY.

Pyron goes to cross his arms over together and moves to focus over while blasting Valeria with a burst of flames.

Valeria Richards has posed:
A far as bad guys go. A simulation of Pyron is far from impressing Valeria. "Really, flames? When I stress test my tech against the Human Torch." There's eyrolling. To the point that she's already clearly bored with the fight. The up close attacks getting blocked boxing style thanks to her other uncle's training.

There's an opening fore sure, it's a matter of finding it as Valeria pokes here and there, not quite footsies, but if it wasn't for the Val Suit, Val herself likely would have been cooked already.

Sally Pride has posed:
The rocket speeder is caught midair and crushed as to go along with stealing his noncanon lines the Bison impersonates Magneto with his Psycho Power.

But it's while he is doing so, attention on preventing a painful collision and showing off, that Sally charges in and swings at him. In what would be a double axe blow, while she's still got the bike handlebars she ripped off in her hands for a bit of extra oomph to that mutated predator strength she has.

Intentional? Or seizing the oppritunity? Could be either, could be both, in the end it doesn't really matter beyond Sally is ready for some Mortal Street Stalker Fury.

Alison Blaire has posed:
Dazzler winces a bit as the cartoon fighter PUNCHES her sparkle blast and it fling flangs back at her, ripping into her bike, sending her tumbling. SHe doesn't know if she should be thankful or scared as the weird fighters look at her in a threatening way, "That guy just ... punched my super powers..." she mutters. She brushes herself off as she stands up. She doesn't have any compulsion about holding back now because she thinks she's in a video game anyway, and lets loose on Geese Howard, "Punch this!" she tells him. She waits a moment as the firery light dances past her (cause the light charges her up) and she raises her arms like she's about to break into song, then flings her fingers forward and .... and....sparkle sparkle beams launch from Dazzler at her new target.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Pyron goes to charge overa t Valeria, his hand going up to twist together as she moves to go to block him. There's a glow as he launches himself over at her at high speed, and the robot flamer just goes to move to try and give one heck of a cheap, brutal uppercut that if it connected would have her being punched out like Glass Joe vs Mike Tyson!

Sally goes to hit over at M. Bison who takes the hit, even as he goes to snap his hands together in front of him, the robot being moderately damaged and sparking. His lcoak dramatically sweeps over himself as he goes to press his hands together and LAUNCHES himself across the screen, twisting like a glowing cannonball right at her! Meep.

Dazzler rapidly readjusts her fighting style. She might not be able to blast up these bots with the current amount of power she has, but she can definitely overload them. Her energy blasts go to hit Geese in the head, and it starts fritzing, electronics seizing as it goes to explode!

Alison Blaire has posed:
Dazzler dusts her hands off, "That's what I thought," she smirks in a pleased way as the robot fritzes and overloads. She run run runs toward Valeria as the Pyron continues being an annoying flamer, and grabs at her to try to pull her outta the way of the massive punch, "Watch out!" she yells. She steps in front of Valeria and raises her hands dramatically again, "I got enough for one more! Close your eyes," she says and light burns from her in a totally hemispherical burst, like a cute light show lantern but deadly.

Sally Pride has posed:
There's a *clunk clunk* as what remains of the handlebars hit the floor, busted in half from the impact with the M. Bison replica. Which was enough to tell Sally a bit more, having had to fight her fair share of mechanical foes. Figures it would be robots of some kind. No time to mull over how they are imitating some powers when Bison hurtles himself at her like a not-quite-living missile!

The lioness braces herself, but can't do much to slow him down. But Val gets some of her busting as the collision slams into a wall. Sally grits her teeth, then as something catchs her eye turns into a bit of a smirk. "Didn't anyone ever tell you?"

Quick feline reflexes lash out to grab the cloak with her claws. Shame its a robot and she can't choke him with his own accessory, but she can whip it around the Bison robot and then sling him into the wall as well. "No Capes!"

Valeria Richards has posed:
The glow might have been plenty of a telegraph, even for an inexperienced fighter. But it's an opening. So while the forcefield has it's work cut out absorbing impact and flames. It does hold up.

Enough that Valeria can sidestep just enough, turn about and grab hold of the Pyron robot.

And start getting metronomically percussive with it, using that enhanced super strength provided by the suit tech originally designed to simulate two thirds of the Thing's own.

It still is, but Ben Grimm had only gotten stronger since he needed a Thing Suit.

"Puny Robot." she taunts as she repeatedly bashes the robot against the ground over and over again, thankfully with her back to Ali's lightshow where her precious eyes stay safe.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
The trio are able to rapidlyb ypass and bust up the Bots that (thankfully) weren't the real things. Could video game bosses be real? Well, with multiverse theory they quite likely could. Maybe there was a world out there with Ken talking to Ryu about superhero comics wondering what Superman would really be like while Ryu listened politely. Wouldn't that be neat?

THey have time now to tear and bust their way over into the walls, wehre if they do they would find massive amounts of wiring and access shafts like an old fashioned Dig-Dug maze.

Alison Blaire has posed:
Dazzler flashes the Pyron and Valeria busts it up so she clap claps, "Nice job," she comments. She waits a moment as she charges up and then blows a hole in the wall.

"Any suggestions where we go now?" she asks. She looks over at Sally and checks on her.

Valeria Richards has posed:
Despite any appearances to the contrary, there are probably walls closer to the women than appears. Which gets Val pondering, and aiming what remained of the now wrecked Pyron robot at the direction of any Arcade sourced bad guy taunting. Or at least the speakers.

It's not a pretty throw despite the looks of the power armored girl, one or two spins like a giant swing and the robot remains fly hopefully to blow a hole in wall with anything left of the flamethrowing capabilities it once had.

Amazing in the same direction Dazzler is blasting with her powers.

Sally Pride has posed:
"Well, can't say I approve of the manner of getting people into this mess, but at least it hasn't been boring." A brief wave to the other two ladies. "The name's Sally, by the way. Sally Pride. So now." She gives a shoulder a little rolling stretch. "How about we do some redecorating?" Which the two of them, being energy blasts and utilizing robot remains do pretty handily, exposing what is probably some manner of maintenence spaces. "Guess its time to play tunnel rats."

Monet St. Croix has posed:
As the group goes to get ready to go into the vents, there are pop-ups. Lots and lots of pop-ups. The sounds. Small helmeted things that look like just round faces with feet underneath them and helmets. Dozens and dozens of them. And small humanoid robots holding bombs. And a few others holding drills.

All of them about half the size of Val. That was a -lot- of explosives. But.. Explosives made for advantage!

Presuming the gals didn't get exploded.

Valeria Richards has posed:
Still more robots. Having wanted to get out of this deathtrap amusement center, Val just facepalms at the sight of the hordes and the differing aesthetics compared to the last batch.

"Sally, Dazzler, I think we're all done and could do with mimosas." she has a tone to match her feelings. Her hands swiping up and down on her wrist computer, then left to right a couple times before hitting two buttons on her holographic haptic display on her wrist. Followed by a big button that said 'START'.

This turns Val's expression from a frowny almost resting bitch face, to a more wicked grin.

All the while the robots starts attacking.

Everything but the three women.

Alison Blaire has posed:
Alison Blaire looks at Sally, "Right, call me Dazzler," she states in an official superhero way. She frowns as more robots start to stalk at them like Frankenstein, "I hate video games," she mutters.

"Uhh, they're coming...this way," she tells the ladies, "Maybe we should back up unless one of you has a flame thrower," she explains, "I need more light to be effective."

Sally Pride has posed:
Almost indestructible helmeted gunners. Ugh, no one tell Null about these things, the Rodney Roadkills are annoying enough. But there's also bombers. And ... An ear perks at Val's comment. "I do like that idea." While the hacker is doing her thing.

When one of the bombs rolls towards them she helpfully kicks it back into the horde with her steel toe boot before it actually explodes.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
What the group has is complete, total chaos as things are flung everywhere and all explode! Walls are shaking, and the place is threatening with collapse! The benefits of analog, however, are in that Val can only control it at limited ranges. However, it means also that Arcade has no way of getting control again. He is blinded in this area.

It's time for a breakout and the girls to get up and away! And apparently the girl with the quarters today is Val.