5810/Doppelgang: A Fortunate Setback

Doppelgang: A Fortunate Setback
Date of Scene:	01 April 2021
Location:	Hell's Gate
Synopsis:	The Titans and allies help to put out a burning ship that belongs to the Doppelganger leader Il Mutante. The doppel leader himself puts in an appearance, and lets the heroes know that the warnings they have received about how dangerous he is were justified.
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Bart Allen, Jon Kent, Kate Bishop, Terry O'Neil, Natasha Irons

---

Donna Troy has posed:
    Since the capture of a number of doppelgangers working for the other-universe supervillain Il Mutante, the Titans have been monitoring a shipping company based out of the old Hell's Gate docks. Vesuvio Shipping is a company founded just a few months ago which the captured doppelgangers have indicated is being used as a cover by Il Mutante's organization. They own a four hundred foot long, 16,000 ton bulk carrier, the Tarxien Sunrise, a barely sea-worthy container vessel registered under a Maltese flag of convenience, which they purchased for a nominal sum a few weeks before the Titans raid on the abandoned church.

    So far monitoring of the organization has turned up little obvious activity, but one curiosity. The ship has yet to sail, having been berthed at the docks since it was delivered, but has been refueled several times. While there have been other distractions, notably a vacation in Themyscira, the Titans have been content to monitor the situation and consider their options.

    That is, until news breaks of a fire reported at Hell's Gate docks -- a large explosion aboard the Tarxien Sunrise. A column of smoke rises high into the sky, and a pair of firefighting vessels are already alongside, blasting the hulk with water to try to control the blaze.

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen will have came running up to check out what is going on. He happens to be passing through on one of his runs. The fire gets his attention, and while normally Bart tries to help everyone, he has been making special effort to help fire fighters after an incident with a friend and team mate recently.

Jon Kent has posed:
     Luckily, Metropolis has plenty of heroes that can help this situation aboard the Tarxien Sunrise. This was a job for Super...boy. Yes, not exactly Big Blue himself, but Jon had been put anyway, his zip-up Superman hoodie with the cape, ripped jeans and sneakers.

  A woosh on the air is the only thing that announces his arrival, but he was indeed hovering over the docks as he observed the fire, not wanting to risk further harm to any of the surrounding workers, or vessels. He came in, and started to work on extinguishing the fire from the stern, Arctic breath is extremely useful, after all for this kind of thing.

Kate Bishop has posed:
On one hand is sad to be back from Spring break.

On the other hand, duty does call.

She is staring at her t-comm and asks the other Titans. "So... I mean iti s likely something going super duper wrong with their evil operation. We should probably use this as a conventient excuse to kick in some doors to 'rescue' them right?" she fishes out some small binoculars to look at it as she stands on the wharf.

"So Titan's Go..." she says amused. "Save these poor bad people.. and if they flip out well ..arrest them and their nefarious schemes. Also loot their files. Bring Vorpal back a present?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The Rabbit Hole close."s behind the Titans who have come along, courtesy of the Vorpal Transportation System. "Holy shi- this is bad..." the Cheshire comments, observing the plume of smoke. "Okay, I imagine you two have more experience dealing with fires," he says to Caitlin and Donna, "I could open a Rabbit Hole over the ship and leak some ocean water to help--- but that might not be--"

He glances at the more experienced Titans. "Too much might cause it to sink, right? I'm not very good at physics and buoyancy and whatnot

Donna Troy has posed:
    "You can move rabbit holes around, right Vorp?" Donna says. "So stick one end under the water, stick the other end well to the side of the ship, then tilt it upwards until it's spraying water towards the ship, so you can control the quantities actually hitting the fire. Raise or lower the under-water end to control the strength of the jet."

    As she's talking, she's staring out across the dock to where the ship blazes. "That sounds like a good basic plan, Hawk - but also we need to know what's going on here. It would be interesting to know what caused the fire. Vorpal, your contact said the leader of this group has fire-controlling powers, right? Which suggests either he isn't here, or this is intentional.

    She keeps staring. "Okay, Firefighting Cat to help get the blaze under control, but make it quick. We want to get on that boat and start rescuing people, doppelgangers or not. That's the priority, but let's not lose sight of anyone we take off the boat, huh? I suggest evacuating people to the firefighting barges, and we can round them up from there when the burning ship is empty."

    She turns back to the group, a finger pointing to the air above the ship. "I'm not the only one seeing that, right? There's someone up in the air blowing on the flames, and it's too small to be Superman."

Kate Bishop has posed:
"I mean.. I did say to 'save' the bad guys and their boat. AS in... I mean use this as an opportunity to snoop like crazy and find out what they are doing."

At the extra intel "Maybe this is a trap for us?" fire controlling is suspicious.

"Hey... is that a superboy?" she directs her binoculars up to the small superman floating up there. "Not imagining it no."

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen looks over, and squints at the super person, and will run over towards the ship's higher areas where the radar disks, masts and all that is. He heads to try to get into range of Jon "Hey Sb, when did you get the super brea... Hey your not Super Boy, well you are, but your not the one who is supposed to be around." He stands there balancing on one of the ends of a mast, seeming a bit lost or in thought for just a moment. He shakes his head wobbling on the post a moment "Ok, this is a bad guys boat, but we still want to save them, so if once the fire is contained if you can ice up the decks a bit to slow them down." Over the Titans come he says "Ok, He is on our side, but sorta like Kid Flash and me." He offers not going into a deeper explanation yet.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Aye Aye, fire chief Donna!" Vorpal says, and runs to position himself in a place where he has the best vantage point to conduct the operation.

The Rabbit Hole is a very versatile tool- and one capable of a lot of very impressive things. Its only serious limitation being its ten foot maximum diameter... and that is something that Vorpal theorizes could be overcome with the proper circumstances, such as an extra infusion of chaos magic. Perhaps. For the moment, though, two ten-foot diameter Rabbit Holes appear. One of them quickly dips under the ocean, while the other one immediately begins producing a high-pressure spray at the ship's side, and Terry begins to manipulate it in the manner indicated by Donna. "Operation Soak It Up underway, Tita.... wait. What do you mean /a/ Superboy?" he says, hearing Bart's explanation, "How many Superboys are there? Kid flash and -" he pauses, trying to work this out for a second while also directing the flow of water. And then he groans. "We're going to break time and space at this point, and it won't be me doing it."

Jon Kent has posed:
     Jon keeps blasting the fire with as much arctic breath as he can, slowly but surely extinguishing the stern, and working his way around, stopping every now and again to take a breather. That was about when he saw Impulse on the mast, and approached him, still in the air. "Uhh, yes. But how'd...jeez, just don't get me McFly'd out of existence, okay?" He commented, his eyes looked a bit...worried about that still being a possibility. "I got you." He says with a nod and a smile, before taking off again, starting back where he left off. The addition of seawater made making ice with Jon's breath, and luckily, the fire is not long for this world.

Natasha Irons has posed:
"Well, this is an awkward situation." Steel shows up on the scene, hammer in her hand and floating above the burning ship that is slowly stopping its process of burning, "Really hadn't expected to find that this explosion of fire was already over." She smirks before looking over at Superboy and she considers, "Another?" She seems unsure and then floats down to near Superboy and by default some of the others.

"Hey there." Steel calls out and looks at Superboy carefully, "You aren't by chance looking to cause any damage or speak in reverse or..." She shakes her head, "Just, are you a good guy." She looks from Superboy to the otehrs, unsure of them in a way but at the least, this Superboy doesn't look like a Bizzaro.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Last I heard Superboy doesn't have..." Donna starts to respond to Kate, before Bart's response on the T-Com clarifies the issue, or at least confuses it even more in an informative way. "...Right," she says, sighing slightly. "Another one from the future. We're all doomed."

    Between Jon's ice breath, the Rabbit Hole water extravaganza and the firefighting barges, the fire soon comes under control. There are still numerous small blazes burning around the ship, which the firefigthing barges move to douse, but the main blaze at the north end of the vessel is out.

    "And that's Steel, too," Donna says of the congregation forming at the north end of the vessel, around Jon. "Okay Vorp, wanna open a rabbit hole on the deck, south side? I'll come in from the north end with Impulse and the others, you guys come in from the south and we'll take it from both ends. Hawk, you co-ordinate the south team."

    Donna loosens her lasso and takes off, flying to join Natasha, Jon and Bart by the north end of the boat. "Hey!" she calls out to them. "Impulse, Steel and uh... Superboy? Um. Yeah, situation here. This boat is owned by doppelgangers who are up to something. We need to do a rescue here, but people on that boat are likely to be doppelgangers and need to be rounded up. We are looking for evidence too - any computers, grab. Any signs of unfamiliar technology, do not touch and let us know. Impulse, can you do a quick run around and see if you spot anything like that?"

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen will nod a bit and looks to Jon "I think you will be safe, as long as your not flirting with ya mom, you can probably even be friend her just don't tell her to much about the future, but still don't think you would poof out of time." He looks over to Donna, and gives her a salute, and is off in a flash of lightning. He covers the ship in record time before, coming back balancing four laptops on his arms "Ok, there is a couple people in the main area, another in the galley and some in the personal area. There is also a big heavy door near the engine room, hear being shouting on the other side of it. It is locked, I could run through it, but wanted to drop these off first.

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate tilts her head slowly still watching the Superboy through her binoculars. Then she trains them on Steel.

How much did she miss taking spring break with the Amazons. Really now.

Finally she sighs and tucks the binoculars away. "How can we be sure he is from the future and not just from the crazy dimension Troia?" cheery thought.

Still she gets her bow and an arrow ready. Waiting for her Rabbit hole express to the south end of the boat. "Okay lets 'Save' these criminals Vorp" which about when she gets shot at the first time and ducks behind something. "Right 'save' them with some prejuduice and toss them back on shore once they are subdued. Can you rabbit hole them once we 'save' them?" she is having way too much fun with this.

She pops out and fires one arrow at her first antagonist watching the flashbang arrow explode on his chest. "One 'saved' so far!"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The Rabbit Hole opens and bullets start flying. A glowing kite shield appears in Vorpal's hand as he summons a chaos construct to shield himself. Vorpal crosses through and soon becomes the focus of the firepower, since a glowing shield construct is too attractive a target. Hey it takes some of the fire off Kate, and as long as he can maintain the construct, he should be safe, right? Knee bent and crouching behind the shield as it comes under a hail of bullets, Vorpal thinks this might actually be a rather cool scene in a movie-- somebody get him Gar's agent!

First things first, though, "I can Rabbit Hole them, yeah. I'll keep drawing their fire, you guys go ahead and pick them off!" because teamwork was important.

"Also, let's not talk about flirting with mothers. This dude from Thebes tried that once, and Troia can tell you it didn't work out well for him /at all/."

Jon Kent has posed:
     Jon looks to Steel and then to his hands. "Talking backwards? Nope. I don't think so." But then people start talking to him and paying him attention. "Oh, yeah, sure!" He has no idea what doppelgangers are or really what was going on. But bad guys are bad guys. "Ew, dude, gross. That's my mom." He says towards Bart.

  Superboy floats down and lands on the ship, walking towards someone taking shots at him. The bullets drop off his body as he keeps walking towards the guy, before he grabs the gun's barrel, bending it upwards and rendering it useless. "Sorry about this." He says, before lifting him, and flying the doppel to safety, right at Metropolis' finest.

Natasha Irons has posed:
A slow blink. That chrome face mimics her own so well, "These people are dopplegangers?" She asks and then looks over at Jon before shaking her head and looking down at the ship, "You'd be surprised what I have run into wearing the S lately." She points to her own chest before nodding her head at the idea, "I can go through the ship if need be." She smirks, "And given that it is rather damaged." She looks down at the ship before looking to the side, "If we have a room that is locked up tight, I find the best way to get in." She flies off to the side, "Is the way they wouldn't expect." And then she rushes at the side of the ship.

Donna Troy has posed:
    At the south end of the ship, under the protection of Vorpal's shield Caitlin and Hawkeye are making quick work of the limited resistence they find there. At the north end of the ship, following the intelligence gathered by Impulse, the team is making equally fast progress.

    Donna drops down on the deck close to Jon, deflects a couple of shots taken at her with her bracers, and then lashes out quickly with her lasso, hooking crew members and slamming them into convenient bulkheads. "Yeah, flirting with your mom is ew and bad," Donna chats over the comms as she fights. "Stick to flirting with other people's moms if you have to. I mean except mine. Yeah she's gorgeous and smart and rich, but she's also four thousand years old. Also I'll glare at you."

    As the north and south teams close in on the engineering section, Natasha bypasses the bulkhead door to force an entry through the side of the ship. Inside she finds half a dozen startled mooks. One is talking rapidly into a phone, two are tinkering with a large and bizarre-looking piece of equipment that's purpose is not immediately obvious. Heavy cabling leads from the machine to the engine, which is obviously being used as a power plant for whatever the construction is. Several of the cables have burned out, and there are signs of flashover damage to the equipment. It's a good bet that they managed to blow the power plant, causing the fire.

    After a few moments hesitation, the other three goons open fire on Natasha, but just moments later the bulkhead door is torn out of the wall behind them by Donna. Jon and Impulse are just beyond, as the northern team arrives together at the engine room.

    The southern team is approaching too, but they are interrupted by a loud, angry roaring from behind them, and turn to see a shipping container heading their way. Caitlin's reaction are fast enough to catch the container before it crushes the Titans there, and she quickly hurls it over the side of the ship. Advancing down the deck towards them is a man almost as tall as Caitlin is, heavily muscled, with short-cropped dark hair and wearing a paramilitary looking outfit that might be some kind of uniform. He snarls at them, and charges forwards!

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen will turn to look at the others, he figures the others have the mooks well in hand, and he sill head towards flat top. He zooms, in giving the guy a couple dozen kidney shots before moving out of arms reach. He figures someone who is toss cargo containers can take it and needs to see if he even phases him. Over the com, he says "Hey your the one who brought Back to the future into this." He is smiling though

Kate Bishop has posed:
Over comms. "I can honestly say I have never been tempted to flirt with any of your moms. Also this will be a wierd AAR for anyone who reviews the comm logs during.... and that is saying something considering some of our missions."

Hawkeye is making slow methodical work with Captain Kitty Shield, the Amerrrrican Avengerrr and Caitlin. She fires a goop arrow at one mook. A taze arrow into another.

She is sad she isn't getting to use her new arrows though.

Still plenty for Vorpal to rabbit hole back to the authorities on the wharf.

The roaring makes her pause and look behind them. "Holy crap!" I mean yes she has had huge things thrown at her before but these guys seemed like such a milk run. Still Amazonian Caitlin to the rescue, that won't ever get old, and Kate narrows her eyes. "Huh... maybe I will get to use one today..." she draws an old school arrow not one of her fancy ones from the quiver and snaps it off at the Paramilitary metahuman from Planet X. Aiming for his knee.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The Rabbit Hole swallows up the downed mooks, spitting them out at the appointed place. So far so good, right? Right?

Wrong. A shipping container almost turns them into paste, were it not for the intervention of Full Caitlin- "Cheap Dolph Lundrgen knock-off with super-strength? I suspect that's Il Mutante. Other Colette warned us that he was bad bad news."

The Cheshire cat narrows his eyes. As Kate draws an arrow, he speaks into the comm. "I'm going to try something..."

Vorpal has been thinking about uses for his illusion power, and in doing so he has taken to do a lot of research here and there. That's how he came upon the principle of the Vortex Illusion. Commonly used in fairs and haunted houses, it is the infamous Spinning Tunnel Of Oops I Fall Down. When people walk through the center of a spinning tunnel they can experience vertigo and a loss of equilibrium as their brains receive conflicting signals from their bodies and senses- what some have termed vertigo of oculomotor origin based upon the effect of certain visual stimuli on the vestibulo-ocular reflex.

Or, you know, Spinning Tunnel Of Oops I Fall Down.

Darkness descends around the advancing man, with only Vorpal highlighted by a spotlight.

And then, there is no Vorpal, but the Spinning Tunnel of light, smoke and shadows.

"Get ready to fire that arrow, Hawkeye!" Vorpal says, speaking into the comm.

Jon Kent has posed:
     "Ok. No. No more mom-flirting talk for anyone. Off-limits, forever, I didn't even mean that part." Jon comments after tossing more useless guns on the ground.

  This was about the time that a big metahuman started to charge towards them, Jon stands before the others, ready to butt heads with this one. Contain and subdue, Superboy plants his feet down into the structure of the engine room, trying to plant himself and make it harder for him to get pushed back.

Natasha Irons has posed:
The armor comes with some seriously enhanced senses and Natasha tilts her head as she looks over at Donna before rolling her eyes, "I don't know you, really, Donna, nor do I know your mom but if you are trying to convince people to not flirt with her?" She walks up to one of the guys with guns and simply snatches the gun out of his hand, "You're doing a really bad job." She chuckles before looking at the people here.

"Ok, I just came through the side of the ship, they just ripped your doors off. You should really just give up or else we'll be doing things the hard way and," She slams her hammer into the deck below her, denting it and leaning on the handle, "The hard way is basically between that hammer and the floor." She leans forward, "Think you can handle the hard way?"

She then glances at Jon, "Also, don't tell me who's moms I can or can't flirt with." She chuckles, "Moms deserve to feel wanted, too."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Bart might not be surprised that the man can indeed take it, and the kidney punches barely do phase him at all. He swings a large fist in Bart's direction as he speeds away, but at least this alternative world Metahuman doesn't have an answer to the speedforce. There's a whistling of displaced air as the fist smashes towards him, but it's easily avoided.

    The man - as Vorpal suspects, Il Mutante - decides to ignore Bart for now, and keeps up his forwards momentum, planning to run straight through Kate and Vorpal on his way to the engine room, where Jon stands ready. Kate's arrow is superbly aimed, as usual, but it bounces off his knee, and he continues charging forwards, unhindered.

    Trapped between Natasha and Donna, the mooks in the engine room look at each other and drop their remaining guns. Steel's argument is persuasive. Donna finds it less so. "Steel, /four thousand years old/," she says with emphasis. "She /disapproves of the Internet/.

    Il Mutante keeps charging forwards, but before he can plow through Vorpal and Kate, and possibly even Jon, Vorpal's vortex illusion engulfs him and he staggers clumsily sideways, and comes to a halt to avoid toppling. His eyes narrow, and he gives another wordless roar of anger. He rams his fingers into the decking and yanks upwards, tearing and twisting a strip of metal to try to flip those standing ahead of him over. Then he stands straight again, and raises his arms. His eyes glow red.

    All around him, the flames that had virtually died down to nothing rise up again in sudden conflagration. A furnace-blast of hot air rushes along the deck, and he drops down through the hole he'd torn in the flooring.

    The structure of the ship starts to ring with explosions as, below decks, Il Mutante's pyro-kinetic powers start to rip through the vessel.

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen frowns and looks to the others, and he zooms back u, and down into the hole, the young speedster following the monster of a man. But Bart does have a plan and even before he has hit the bottom where the big man is going, he starts running in a circle faster and faster, a twister starting to form up through the hole, as Bart tries to suck the air out of the bottom of the ship to put the fire to a halt, and hopfuly put Il Mutante to his late night nap.

Kate Bishop has posed:
"Remind me to tell the amazons that their arrows do not penetrate all idiot metahumans with super durability..." she does sound a bit annoyed really.

Also she is ready to get the hell out of the way, but thank goodness Vorpal managed to make him nauseous or whatever that was. The deck yank has her doing this little kip up, snagging a railing with very good agility and then dropping back down in time to see him melt his way to the below decks. "Good call Vorpal.... I think he is trying to scuttle the ship though. We should abandon said ship and regroup on the wharf... " she purses her lips "What a jerk."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"What a goddaned wanker. We'll get him later... for now... ABANDON SHIP, ALL HANDS!" Vorpal shouts. He also shouts it over the comms. He knows Bart can get himself out in a jiffy before anyone else can. Steel and Superboy and Donna can fly out, and they are super-tough. So is Caitlin- but she can't fly. "Cait and Hawk, I can show you the world-"

A glowing carpet construct appears and, as his team-mates climb aboard, a zap of Chaos Magic causes it to take to the air in an instant, leaving the conflagration behind. "Flaming, simmering, burning- Tell me, Princess, when you last left the cat decide?"

He's going to be in a whole new world of pain once the carpet touches down on the port.

Natasha Irons has posed:
A blink at Donna, "Setting aside that one thing...why would the internet even come up?" Natasha moves to scoop up a few mooks and states, "Get on or sink with the ship." She gestures to her back with her head and then looks to Donna, "You really shouldn't be bringing that up during flirting." She shakes her head, "Again, I don't know you that well but it hardly seems like a good way to flirt." She shakes her head and starts flying out, "And now I have strange internet based pick up lines floating through my head." She sets some people down near the cops and then sighs.

"Anyway, what was a bunch of dopplegangers doing here together anyway? I thought they were out to get their counterpart in an insane attempt to take over another person's life or something?" Natasha looks to those here, glancing at Donna, "I mean, being all gathered up together hardly seems like the best of strategy. Hard to convince people you are not a doppleganger while hanging out with a bunch of dopplegangers."

Donna Troy has posed:
    When Bart descends down that hole to follow after Il Mutante, he finds the corridor he comes down into empty, but the walls ablaze. It's HOT in here. He starts to run through the corridors, and escape the heat. He soon makes it to one of the large cargo spaces, where there is room to run in circles - but the ship's hull is increasingly leaky. Very quickly it becomes apparent that he's sucking air in at the same rate as it is being channeled out, and the effect is to feed the flames rather than starve them. The walls around him are starting to glow cherry-red, and it's soon clear he's going to have to make a rapid exit.

    Those standing in the engine room start to feel the heat just moments before the ship takes a dramatic lurch to one side. The agonized roar of tearing metal can be heard from the cargo hold beyond, and then the separating wall starts to glow red, the color deepening rapidly. The six mooks with them start to panic and attempt to run past Superboy where he stands in the doorway.

    "Get them off the ship!" Donna yells out to Jon and Natasha, readying her lasso and advancing towards the glowing wall, waiting for Il Mutante to burst through. Waves of heat plaster her hair to her forehead with a hot wind, and she starts to swing her lasso.

    But it's not Il Mutante who comes bursting through the wall when the metal starts to melt away, it's a ball of fire that crashes into the strange device, engulfing it in flames. The machinery erupts in a loud blast, knocking the Amazon to the floor. The ship starts to tilt as water floods into one of the rear compartments.

    "On second thoughts," Donna calls out, running back to scoop up a mook and help with the evacuation, "Abandon ship!"

    The speed at which Il Mutante tore his way through the ship was frankly rather worrying, and Kate's arrow perhaps cannot take the blame this time. It's sobering to recall, at least for those who've read the Titan's briefings, that in his own world Il Mutante had personally conquered a significant chunk of Italy.

    The group gathers on the dock, watching the ship take on water as Donna explains the situation to the police, leaving them to guard the prisoners while they wait for ARMOR to pick them up. Donna returns to the group with a sigh. "To answer your question..." Donna tells Steel, "...they're up to something. Information we have is that they're part of an organization back in their world that has plans for ours. We think they're trying to open a portal back to their world so they have a two-way gate, but we'll know more when we've had a chance to decrypt the data on those laptops." She rests a hand on Impulse's arm and gives him a grin. "Good work there, Impulse. If you're going to keep working with the Titans, we should look at upping your security clearance so you get all the briefings in advance."

    She glances thoughtfully at Jon. "Uh... Titans. That's us. We're the Titans. Hi. And you're... future Superboy? How does that work? We already have a present Superboy."

    The ship is burning so hot that in places the steel itself is on fire, and it's slipping quickly under the water. A huge column of steam stretches high into the sky as red hot metal sinks beneath the waves.

    Of Il Mutante, there is no sign.

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen comes out from inside the ship coming up in the water before climbing aboard. He steps away from the titans and does the dog shake at super speed, and is dry when he steps back up to the others "Sure, I can be part of two teams.