6868/Storm of the Century

Storm of the Century
Date of Scene:	24 July 2021
Location:	The Delphine Princess, somewhere in the Atlantic
Synopsis:	The Outsiders are called to a hostage situation on the high seas! Yes, technically they fight pirates, and there are enough ninja-types on the team for the makings of a joke. Pretend there's one here.
Cast of Characters:	Tim Drake, Strix, Phoebe Beacon, Cassie Sandsmark, Hope Summers, Conner Kent, Laura Kinney, M'gann M'orzz

---

Tim Drake has posed:
    The sun beats down onto the wooden deck as it hangs overhead, just at the apex of its journey across the sky, but the breeze rolling off the Atlantic is cooling. A perfect kind of day for sunbathing, which is what many of the passengers aboard the Delphine Princess have chosen to do with their afternoon.

    "Did you see who young mister-you-know-who was sitting with at dinner last night?" one young woman asks another, both stretched out on lounge chairs wearing expensive bikinis, being tended to by extremely deferential waitstaff. "I had no idea he was gay."

    The other woman laughs as she fans herself. "Oh come on, really? Don't you have, you know--" she wiggles, "Radar, or whatever?"

    "Tilly, you've seen my luck with girls, do you really think I have a functioning gaydar?"

    Tilly's still laughing. "I think you gave Henrietta Beacham a heart attack when you hit on her, Indy. But no, seriously, who was the guy he was with? The redhead?"

    "No idea," says Indy, which is probably short for something. "The way he talked to Santiago, though, seems a bit... rough, don't you think?"

    Even behind her big designer sunglasses, Indy manages to make some sort of indecent expression that has Tilly's laughter reach a fever pitch of tittering.

    "Indy, no! That's scandalous!" Tilly settles back in her lounger as she's handed a fruity drink by one of the waitstaff, and she takes a sip as she looks out across the ocean. It's then that she notices the dark clouds on the horizon. "Oh, is that the storm they were talking about this morning? They better not turn the ship around, I'm going to be so upset if our trip is cut short."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    It's not quite dark yet on the eastern seaboard when the mission details come on. Red Robin has been absent the last couple of days--the official reason is 'vacation' which is probably hard to believe, knowing Tim--but he's at least somewhere that he can tune into comms and send out the call.

    The Delphine Princess is less a cruise ship and more a floating home on the water for society's rich and famous; $10 million in assets is the smallest of the requirements for even getting an invitation to apply for space aboard. Aside for a Ms. Henrietta Beacham, a young heiress to an oil fortune, there are a few other well-connected individuals aboard whose names will likely catch the eye of anyone who scrolls through the list of those currently on the ship that Tim has managed to acquire.

    They've also gone silent and still in the middle of the Atlantic with tropical storm Terry on a collision course.

    Apparently when they stopped in Antigua, more people came aboard than disembarked for a day trip, including a host of metahuman anarchists who are holding the ship hostage.

    Schematics of the boat with highlighted areas of concern are sent through for everyone to review: the dining room, where most of the hostages are being held, the bridge where the Captain and some of his crew are under armed guard, and a storage area off the engine room that comes with no explanation. There's also a rough estimate of the number of hostiles aboard and what little can be ascertained of their strength and abilities, which can mostly be summed up as: very dangerous.

    <<I'm less concerned with the hostages in the dining room as I am with the crew; several of them have been pretty seriously hurt>> is the last thing Tim says before he signs off with a promise to check in later, but also an unspoken message of: you've got this, team.

Strix has posed:
Is Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous still a thing? If it is, then they would have an entire season dedicated to this ship. Not that Strix would know anything about being rich. Or the show. She had spent almost all of her life in stasis, or when they thawed her out, assassinating people. So going in for rescue missions is something of a novelty for the Talon.

Honestly, she's never been on a jet before. She's never actually /flown/ before, since the Court had been based in Gotham, so she's grinning from ear to ear from the experience of being ferried out to the ship. Not that anybody could tell due to her mask.

Once over the ship, Strix disembarks, silently moving into the shadows to blend in. There she waits for further instructions.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Balm was onboard, having recovered from a particularly unwelcome event at the Laughing Magician. She was holding her domino in her hands, looking at it woefully onboard the flight before go-time is announced.

    "Okay. So main objective is to secure the crew and triage them. Then we take down the metahumans, and then secure the clientelle. Red Robin didn't make any big concern about the upper decks," she pauses to put on her domino, and takes a deep breath as she gets used to the hud feed "so if we split into two teams, should be good to take out most anything in our paths; one to secure the bridge, one to secure the crew."

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"I'm totally qualified to fly it now, you know. Di's been letting me fly the Invisible Plane. And it's been teaching me the manual controls." It. The plane has been teaching her to fly itself. That might seem a little strange, at least to everyone who isn't M'gann.

---

She is not flying it, however, and that was the sum and total of Cassie's earlier protest on the matter, which she does not otherwise seem terribly invested in. But it does give a peek into some of the things she's been up to, off in Amazon Land. For now, she's stashed in the back, lounging somewhat comfortably until some indicator tells them they've arrived in the area, at which point she hauls herself up to check her gear. She's never been very costume-y, and probably had at least joked about infiltrating the fancy yacht in beachwear, but has ultimately settled for the all-black version of her usual sportswear ensemble.

"So how close can we get to 'em, stealthwise, before everything goes summer blockbuster? M'gann's gotta have some tricks for that, yeah? Otherwise, I say put me on the dining room. Sounds like it's more likely to go bad and I'm decent for keeping control on a firefight." The latter is reinforced as she checks the most important element of her outfit, her bracers.

Hope Summers has posed:
Hope Summers joins the others on the ship's bridge, peering out at the bigger ship stranded in the sea below. "Great, a ship full of rich spoiled people.." she sighs, not a big fan of the rich and famous but they're humans and innocents too.Well some of them are, at least. She checks her big gun before strapping it to her back, joining the others. "So locate the crew first, and triage them. Got it. Let's see, what's the quickest route to them?" she frowns, scanning over the schematics.

Conner Kent has posed:
And Conner that thought it would be a boring weekend. He told the others about Rose's return along the way to the Delphine, then tried to find schematics for the cruiser to see if he could help Hope with a plan or something.

But when they got within sight of the ship, he left the aircraft to land some distance to the others, trying to spot if the pirates (can we call them pirates, guys?) had anyone outside looking for, well, super-heroes. Because unless the terrorists are very dumb, they should be waiting for the Justice League, or the Avengers, not for the US Marines.

He lands at the ships bow, immediately trying to use his tactile telekinesis to scan the whole ship. But really, a cruiser is too large for him.

Laura Kinney has posed:
The ocean isn't exactly one of X-23's preferred environments to carry out a mission. There isn't much cover out on the waves and if things go wrong the entire ship could sink. But still a mission is a mission. So on the trip over she skims the schematics with the practised eye of an assassin. Trained to learn blueprints and layouts in a short space of time.

"What about the third highlighted area? It doesn't look like a location they might have planted a bomb. But we shouldn't ignore it." There's a pause. "If we wish to be stealthy we should try and reach a room directly above or below our target. We can then breach from a direction they won't be expecting." She points out a few likely options for each of the two locations they need to visit.

She's packed light for this mission. Dark grey pants and a figure hugging top, ideal for stealth, with a tactical webbing that's filled with non-lethal grenades. Flash bangs and thermal smoke mostly.

M'gann M'orzz has posed:
Vwooosh! The BioShip flies over the ocean at just under the speed of sound, sonic booms would be rather troublesome on a stealth insertion after all. "That's wonderful! You can fly next time Cassie!" M'gann assures her eager friend. "I think she'd really like that." M'gann is clearly referring to, assigning feelings to, and gendering the ship. Martian Tech is weird. But for the moment M'gann is pushing the ship through the hurricane, manipulating the telekinetic shields as they go to, well, keep them all in one piece because this isn't exactly safe even with a Martian BioShip.

"We should be coming into view. I will set up a psychic link, try not to think anything you don't want everyone else to hear." Ah the joys of Martian telepathy. At the same time the BioShip begins enhancing the visuals with its sensors, cutting through the storm to reveal the ship ahead. <Okay, we're coming up on it.> Comes M'gann's mental voice as they burst out of a cloud bank silhouetted by a flash of lightning. <Activating stealth mode. Can jump in 10. She'll try to wait up above for us but may need to circle around and come back with this storm.>

When the time arrives, M'gann too gets up to leave the ship, the BioShip is capable of flying itself after all. <See you soon.> She is definitely talking to the ship as she leaves. Stepping out into the storm the green skinned red haired Martian girl also vanishes from sight as she flies her way down to the ship.

Tim Drake has posed:
    The very edge of the storm has reached out to embrace the Delphine Princess, and the seas have gone choppy. A strong wind whips across the open decks of the cruise ship, and the figures wrapped up in shades of red that patrol these areas are starting to lean into it in various degrees. As of yet there's only the lightest sprinkling of rain, but the air is thick. Off in the distance, lightning streaks across the sky. It's not easy to see the heavy clouds that loom menacingly overhead against the dark of the night, but they're there.

    One of the hostage-takers (okay, technically yes they are pirates) is wearing an honest-to-God robe like he's a priest about to give out communion, but for the most part they're all dressed in street clothes. Just, red. All red, in varying shades. Like they raided their closet for whatever fit the bill before deciding to take on the 1%.

    Coming up on Strix's position in the shadows are two of them right now, and they both have automatic weaponry. Red Robin's briefing had suggested that the less dangerous metahumans (he suspects they are all enhanced to some degree) are the ones that are armed, though there are plenty making their rounds that are walking with their hands empty by their sides.

    All of them are steadily getting more damp as the rain begins to pick up, and there's definitely some muttering to be heard about that.

    The bridge is about a third of the way back from the front of the ship, a glass-encased room that stretches from port to starboard just below the topmost deck. The quickest way in would be through the windows, of course, but otherwise it's possible to access the bridge by descending any the stairways from the top deck or ascending from below, then moving down the main corridor towards the bow where a set of secure steel doors bar access first to the general crew area, and then to the bridge itself. There are more hostiles along the way either patrolling up and down the hall or standing guard at various points.

    Where Conner lands is several decks down but gives a clear view (and feel, for his tactile telekinesis) of the area in-between him and the bridge. There are more figures patrolling here, and one stops mid-stride and seems to turn his face into the wind like he's scenting the air. "We got trouble!" he shouts out, and though he doesn't yet have a bead on Superboy's location given that it's dark, rainy, and windy, one of his compatriots sounds the alarm by firing their gun into the air. People start running in that direction.

    Now there's a lot of movement, and a lot of red for eyes to track aboard the open areas of the ship. Inside the bridge, one of the anarchists applies pressure to a wound on the Captain's shoulder, and some of the others grab up members of the crew, treating them similarly roughly, some with their bare hands and some by pressing the barrels of their guns to skin.

Strix has posed:
And Strix is already in motion. Two armed men, even if they do have superhuman abilities, shouldn't be any match for her. She moves fluidly out of the shadows, ending up right behind one of the guards and knocks him in the back of the head, intending to knock him out immediately without him suspecting a thing.

The other one gets a sweep of the leg to send him to the deck of the ship, and on the way down, she'll grab his face and help the man down, concussively knocking his head into the floor. Once those two are taken care of, she grabs their weapons and unceremoniously tosses them overboard.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Balm was out and into the storm, landing on the bridge, mindful of her footing as rain drips down her face, pelting her cheeks. She takes stock of those with her, and then moves towards the front, drawing down a bit to peer into the windows.

    <Crew is in movement; I can already see some injuries.> she states over the mental look, turning back to the others. <We've got to get in quick.>

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Once they're in position, Cassie joins the others disembarking, approaching the rear of the ship, with her last check being the lasso at her hip. And then, quite unceremoniously, she jumps out into the increasingly stormy sky. With the thunder and lightning announcing its approach, and the wind and rain whipping against her face as she sails down for the boat, her reaction is to look up briefly and then roll her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, we hear you. Always so dramatic." Dads, amirite?

<Hitting them from above sounds like a smart play,> she offers in belated agreement with Laura, readily using M'gann's link as she feels it rather than trying to shout over the storm. For her own part, she goes bullet-pose like a skydiver and drops fast rather than taking too lengthy an aerial survey, where even against the stormy backdrop, people randomly flying do still tend to stand out. Sustained stealth may not be an option (as quickly becomes apparent), but there's no reason to highlight 'incoming flying person' any more than necessary. She aims for an entry point on an upper deck (one deck above the dining room taking Laura's advice!), abruptly aborting her descent and flipping upright at a closed hatch, with every intention to just tear it off its hinges. As the alarm goes up, she's quick to make sure the others are deploying. <M'Gann, bridge is yours. Get it safe for our medic ASAP. I'm gonna come through the other way.>

And then in she goes, following her recollection of the schematic to find a position above the dining room, taking point through the narrow corridoors to make sure she can meet any opposition face (and bracers) first.

Hope Summers has posed:
Hope Summers follows in after Balm, leaping from the ship, breaking through the window which was the quickest route and landing on the bridge, peering around with her scanners, "Right, Balm, I'll cover you, everyone we should split up. There could be other injured people outside the crew quarters. We should have someone keep an eye on the hostages too in case the situation changes. We dont want any more injured people"she's already assessing injured people, "How many can yiu heal, we may need to transfer the others." she nods to Laura, "Coming in from an upper or lower floor is a good idea." of course she has her gun at the ready in case the bridge is swarming with hostile.

Conner Kent has posed:
"Woah, there is a guy with super-senses here," states Conner at the comms, when he hears some redshirt pirate has detected him. He assumes he was detected, because Strix is some kind of bat-ninja and Batman snuck on Laura that one time (the time Hope shot him). He has yet to be formally introduced.

Then he realizes it is possible he was detected by hearing, so maaaaybe he should keep his mouth shut. For once. <I am going to 'think' at you, M'gann. You doing that psy-link thing? Cool>.

Avoiding the pirates nearby thanks to a combination of enhanced senses and high speed, Conner heads for the engine area, or rather, a place he can meet with Laura before going together to see what is so important there.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Once the mind link forms Laura switches to mental communication. Spending time around Xavier's has given her a little bit of experience with such things. And with the link in place she can study the schematics and allow her understanding to spread throughout the team. Here are corridoors which will likely be patrolled. These walls and floors aren't structurally important so can be cut or punched through.

There is also probably an unnerving amount of casual observation about the fastest way to kill everyone on the team too. But it's nothing personal. Or even it seems out of the ordinary...

She takes a deep sniff before she begins stalking her way into the ship. Checking for the smell of people, guns and explosives. <Remember to use your nose.> She adds for Hopes benefit. It is after all a sense most people aren't used to using.

And then she's off to a rendezvous point where she can meet up with Conner. Slinking silently along corridoors. Ducking into side rooms and using her claws to slice neat little holes. Low in the wall so she can wriggle through unseen.

M'gann M'orzz has posed:
M'gann floats down, following the descent of Phoebe and Hope, while also slowing the descents of her teammates to slightly safer velocities with her telekinesis. <I'm here.> M'gann's mental voice informs them and they can kind of sense her approximate location through the mental link, which is good because she is otherwise invisible.

That is of course until the alarms sound, the window is smashed, and all pretense of stealth goes right out the window, or through it as the case may be. M'gann appears in the air and drops to the floor of the bridge, <I'll draw their fire.> She tells Hope through the mental link. Tank/DPS/Healer, the Bridge has a perfect Trinity, as they spring into action.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Enhanced or not, Strix really doesn't get to find that out. Because both her targets are knocked out flat before they've even really registered her presence, and then she's left with two immobile figures spread out on the deck, their weapons clattering to the floor. Someone further down the way calls out "Hey, are you guys okay?" and the beam of a flashlight clicks on, sweeping towards her current position. But at the same time the rain has gone from a light drizzle to pelting the deck in a quick wave that travels from stern to bow, layering over the sounds of gunfire and hurried footsteps.

    Inside the bridge, when Phoebe leans over the roof to peek, is similarly harried. The hostile pinning the Captain to one of the consoles is yelling, both at the injured Captain and then the other figures in red. Some are scrambling to put members of the ship's crew in front of them like human shields, while others are dipping out through the now-open steel door to go cover that particular method of entry into the bridge. Balm will be able to see that more than a few of the crew are injured; nearly all of them seem to have been roughed up in one way or another, and at least one is on the ground with a makeshift bandage around a gunshot wound in their thigh that looks like it could be fatal.

    Where Phoebe and Hope are positioned, no one inside has yet to notice them. They clearly don't expect anyone to come through the windows, which is a pretty glaring oversight on their part. The Captain, though, he's looking up and over the console he's pinned to, and though it appears like he might notice some movement out there amidst the raindrops hitting the glass, he only keeps his head down.

    If they move quickly, a breach entrance is possible. Aside for the hostile holding the Captain, the rest of them are either focused on what's happening in the room or looking through the door, expecting resistance thataway.

    And then of course M'gann's entrance proves that they were all very much wrong about that. One of the anarchists is even reactionary enough that she lets off a burst of automatic gunfire within the bridge, which has people screaming and ducking out of the way (even some of her fellow hijackers). All except for one who takes a couple hits of friendly fire, but the bullets just ping off her skin. That one rips one of the chairs bolted into the floor right out and tosses it at M'gann.

    There are injured people in the dining room too but for the most part it's nowhere near as serious as anything in the bridge. After tearing through the hatch, Cassie and anyone else nearby will be able to hear a commotion from down below as the hostages seem to realize all at once that something is amiss.

    The gunfire probably helped to tip them off on that one.

    There's no access to the deck the engine room is on from the outside, at least not without ripping a few holes in the hull. They'll have to come in from above, go down a few flights of stairs or otherwise descend, and then follow some twisting corridors. There's actually... not much resistance at all down here. Just a few crew members who are cowering in various hidey-holes, who will probably trip over themselves if Conner or Laura follows their various enhanced senses to them. There's a lot of elevated heartbeats, whimpering, sweating in fear, that sort of thing. Nothing yet noticeable in terms of things being off or suspicious.

Strix has posed:
<Hold up! I'm coming!> This is the first that people have heard Strix's voice over the telepathic comms. It's strange but her inner voice sounds like an excited eight year old. <Wow! This is neat! I can talk! I'll be right there! Just got to take care of this guy> Strix ducks and covers, moving in such a way that the flashlight won't shine on her. <Don't kill him, don't kill him, don't kill him,> she chants to herself reminding her that she's not an assassin anymore. With a couple of practiced leaps, she gets up behind him, and with a fist to the back of his skull, knocks him out. She quickly grabs the flashlight before it can hit the floor and turns it off. Again, she disarms the man and chucks the weapon into the ocean.

She quickly hurries across the deck, her footing is sure and steady despite the high winds and rocking ship, and quickly catches up to Cassie. <Hi!> she says brightly. <I'm Strix! I like your lasso.>

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    And the Bridge Team has a healer that is as capable in combat as she is in her profession. With M'gann's aid, the healer is swung in through the shattered window. Her first target? the man holding the captain down.

    Her regular staff extends behind her as she moves, dark eyes narrowed as she comes in low and hard, and with a one-two blow sweeps his legs to the side, and then bring the staff up to meet his falling chin -- it sinks in a little bit, with poor Balm making a face as it does, but he stumbles backwards as she knocks him off the Captain, placing herself between the hijackers and the boat pilot!

<Strix, make sure you make it inside so you don't fall out the window.> Phoebe thinks, motherly as typical. <Next target is the one with the legwound. Get me a clear path; they're not going to last much longer.>

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Cassie's non-stealth entrance is at least a bit purposeful at this point: things echo pretty well inside a ship, and a few big metallic clangs are sure not to go unnoticed, and they'll sound like a more obvious and more traditional attack from a sensible direction. Not the less conventional angle that M'Gann and co are approaching from. So any little bit of help she can give them, that's a bonus. And no one appears to stick guns in her face before reaching the room over the dining room, so all that is pretty good. And Strix has time to catch up.

<Hey. I'm Cassie.> Her own thoughts are immediately brightened by the cheerful chatter. And lasso compliments! In that same moment, she is in fact uncoiling it and looping one end in her hand. <It's cool, yeah? Just wait 'till you see it light up.>

<So, I'm gonna break the floor, and we're gonna drop in,> she announces. <And I think they probably know something is coming from somewhere, so I expect resistance, just hopefully it's a little off-balance. But either way, let 'em focus on the big obvious thing -- me. Not you, not the hostages. I'm pretty tough. You take advantage, get the hostages free if you can, and hit 'em while they're confused and focused.>

And with that, she does a bit of what might be considered an unecessary power-up pose: flying briefly up off the deck to the limited extent of the low ceiling, winding up her arm above her shoulder, while the lasso begins to glow and then spark in her other hand. And then she comes down on the deck with a full-strength punch, plowing down through it and into whatever waits underneath.

Hope Summers has posed:
Hope Summers nods to M'gann, switching seamlessly to mental communication..<<Roger that, thanks M'gann. And noted, Laura. Let us know if you come across anymore injured and we'll be there once we clear the bridge>>. She nods to Balm, lifting her gun, setting it to the highest level of stun, since with the mix of injured, hostages and pirates running around, she doesn't want to misfire. Even if she doesn't usually miss. "Right Balm, stay close.." and with that, Hope opens fire on those standing between her and the one with the leg wound, gaze constantly sweeping the area for other injured people, taking Laura's advice in mind and opening her other senses - especially smell, as they go.

Conner Kent has posed:
Conner slows down to try to calm down and talk with the crewmembers hiding near the engines, and to ask them if there is anything unusual going. "Can you find any pirate here, Laura?" He asks. There is distant gunfire, which is interfering with his ability to hear people being quiet near him.

<This is too quiet. No pirates here, just crew members,> he thinks to the others. Well, so far so good. But he feels he should be on the deck, punching bad guys.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Laura isn't really interested in the remnants of the crew. They're not mission critical to her. Although she tries really hard not to think about it in those terms over the psionic link... And when she does encounter them she'll whisper directions for the safest nearby area.

Safe being a relative term.

On the rare occasions she might run into a hijacker they are dealt with quickly and quietly. Picked off from unexpected angles. The inside of a ship is filled with hard metal surfaces to slam a head into until unconciousness sets in.

<Nothing. Which is strange. The crew could have taken the engine room and potentially had access to critical systems.>

M'gann M'orzz has posed:
M'gann stands up within the center of the bridge after dropping down from where she was floating near the ceiling when she became visible. "Hi, hello." She addresses the terrorists in a friendly cheerful manner. "I was hoping we could discuss your peaceful surrender?" Only to be met with more gunfire and the chair being torn from the deck and hurled in her direction. "...okay, have it your way." <Why don't they ever want to do things the easy way?> The last thought filters through across the mental link.

M'gann leaps between the automatic weapon going off and the crew doing her best to keep them from getting any more injured, though this doesn't stop some of the spray from hitting their very strong and seemingly very durable friend. For a moment the gunman might feel a sense of triumph, after all a lot of those bullets sank into M'gann's body and her expression is one that resembles pain. It's short lived though as they shock to her Martian cells wears off and her natural ability to alter her shape restores her form, pushing the bullets back out as it does. "That was not very nice!" M'gann informs the gunman crossly.

Meanwhile the heavy metal chair sails through the air towards her, only for her head to swivel around doing a full 180 like something out of a horror movie at the last moment "Not nice!" and the offending projectile freezes in the air mid-flight, before with an intense look she sends it flying back the way it came with significant telekinetic force behind it.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Someone in the ocean is probably not going to be pleased with Strix's littering, unless there's an undersea (get it... like underground, but it's in the water) economy for waterlogged guns. Of course, cruise ships are also terrible pollutants, so Strix's contribution is both a literal and figurative drop in the ocean.

    We'll stop with the water puns now. Sorry.

    Going through the hatch that Cassie rips off puts Strix right above the dull roar of chaos that's coming from the dining room, and that chaos reaches a fever pitch when Cassie slams her way through the ceiling. People scream as debris falls, and though these hostages are indeed being guarded it's mostly by people milling about the edge of the dining room, or blocking one of several exits. So the rich folks whose unnecessarily expensive vacations are currently being ruined start to scatter, under tables and behind chairs, ducking and moving out of the way.

    Conversely, the various hijackers within the dining room start gunning for Cassie immediately. There's maybe a dozen in the room total, which is not a lot given the amount of people in here: over fifty by a good count, though it's a big enough space that they're not tightly packed in together. It's an absolute nightmare of movement and noise, leaving both Cassie and Strix to wade through.

    At least all of the hostiles are wearing red and waving weapons.

    Conversely a good amount of those in the bridge aren't obviously armed, including the guy that was holding the Captain. But Balm's sweeping kick and smack with her staff knocks him down, so whatever flavor of enhanced he was perhaps just hasn't been made obvious yet. And yes, that was very obvious foreshadowing, because he rolls away from both Balm and the Captain and then his hands are glowing red. Probably why the Captain is wincing and clutching his shoulder despite having no visible injury to it. He comes back at her and basically pinwheels his arms, aiming not for any kind of serious hit on her, but just something that will get close enough to touch. If he manages, a white-hot lance of pain will follow anywhere his fingers manage to brush.

    A few of the other hostiles go down from Hope's bullets, stunned, but another one seems to shrug them off the same way the woman facing down M'gann did with the lethal type of bullet. This one lets out a roar of rage as he throws himself at Hope, his nails sharpening into claw points as he swipes at her, one-two, in quick succession.

    Said woman tries to catch the chair thrown at her, and she... kind of does. It batters her backwards but she tosses it away, hard enough that it soars through and shatters one of the windows. Wind and rain has already begun to add to the cacophony that has overtaken the bridge, and the enhanced woman takes a deep, deep inhale of the air, heavy with humidity, and then lets out a eardrum-shattering screech. Everyone in the bridge will hear it, and several of the hostiles and crew wince, but it's projected in a fairly narrow cone of sound towards M'gann. Everyone else can probably shrug it off, though it does echo through the open door and down the corridor.

    It is of course loud enough that several more of the hijackers start heading towards the bridge.

    Several decks below, one of the terrified crew manages to pull herself together long enough to say, "Uh, n-no? Not now. Earlier there were a couple of guests down here and they were fighting, um, another guest?" She sounds very unsure about that. "It was really loud, like... it sounded like a bomb went off, but just in my head! But that was a while ago. I think they left."

    Aside for a few char marks that might be from small explosives on the walls and floors nearby as well as a scattering of spilt blood, there's really no telling what was down here worth fighting over. Even if the evidence suggests it was a pretty damn decent fight. The storage area next to the engine room is empty now of anything interesting, just various tools and gear necessary for ship maintenance.

    The hijackers La

Tim Drake has posed:
    The hijackers Laura and Conner do run into down here seem to just be doing sweeps to find those hiding crew members, which are at least safe now with two Outsiders between them and hostiles.

Strix has posed:
<Wow! That's really the bees knees!> Strix says, sounding delighted when the lasso lights up. She nods as Cassie explains the gameplan, and takes a step back to give her some room for the punch. <Ooooooo> she says appreciatively at the power pose and resulting punch. She claps excitedly and then drops down in the hole, getting a handle on the situation. <Twelve of them.> she says over the mental link, <Piece of cake as long as they keep shooting at you.>

Then it's time to get to work. The closest grunt is the first to notice her and turns his gun to shoot at the Talon, but never gets a chance to fire it off. She lashes out with a clawed hand, ducking under the gun arm and raking the man's wrist causing him to drop the weapon. She catches it by the barrel and swoops up using it like a bludgeon and catches him under the chin with it.

Before his body even manages to hit the floor, she's moving to the next guy, who hasn't even noticed her yet. She tosses the gun and hits the thug right in his face. It's not enough to knock him out but it does rock him back in a daze. He has barely enough time to figure out what's going on when a hand is suddenly on his face, and a leg is behind his knee, and with a practiced sweep, slams his head onto the dining room floor.

All this is done while keeping up the chant, <Don't kill them, don't kill them, don't kill them.>

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Balm has the Captain in her Healing Aura, so that should be a great favor to him, the calming, healing power radiating from her now as she narrows her eyes at the oncoming pain-maker, and she grits her teeth, drawing back her lips a moment.

    And she steps forward, and stepping into the range of his attack she braces herself, brings the staff around and in a move that would make any staff-user proud, she drops down, over her staff, dropping it behind her and below the Hands of Pain's leg, and then rolls over HARD, bringing herself up to her feet with a grunt, landing that stiff pole between the pain-man's legs, and launching him towards the ceiling as that ear-peircing shriek sounds off. The healer gives a cry out of her own, dropping and covering her ears!

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Being surrounded and shot at is about what Cassie expected, so chaotic as it may appear, this is the plan 'working.' Give or take. She has only a moment as the guards realize the situation, turning their attention inward from the perimeter, but she can move pretty damn fast, and so she uses those fleeting instants to do everything she can for the people in the room.

"GET DOWN."

The first thing she does is yell at them all, with surprising authority for someone her age. Before the shout has even reached them, she's moving, flipping a pair of very large tables onto their sides to create some modicum of cover, and then by the time the baddies have turned? She's already in motion. There's a tempation to simply charge them, but her focus really is on defense, and as the guns swing to track her, she's already thinking through the space she's in, about their positions, the hostages, and where she can put the ricochets safely. Because obviously, it's bullets and bracers time.

They open fire, and Cassie bursts into motion, her arms snapping with even more intense speed, motions that are so small, quick and precise that they're no easier to see than the bullets themselves, evident in the sparks they make when they contact her nigh-indestructible Amazonian bracers. Still, taking fire from many angles is a challenge even for her, reducing the individual actions to pure muscle memory without much chance to adjust. She spins as they shoot, fortunately not in perfect synch, sending the earliest bullets in the direction of gunmen on a different angle, turning their allies attacks into suppressive fire.

But it's also more or less ALL she can do for a few moments, just defend, while moving forward to pull the center of the crossfire (her) away from the bulk of the hostages.

In the second or two of all of this happening, the mindlink receives an interesting compressed jumble of thoughts: combat drills, practice sessions, Diana's voice, as well as a less heroic stream of <Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit....> as she balances at the edge of discipline and panic. <-OWFUCK-shitshitshit...>

Yeah one got her, somewhere in there.

In the center of the hail of bullets, suddenly it starts dropping off as Strix drops targets, and as soon as she's not being shot from every side simultaneously, things get easier. One gunman yelps as a bounced shot hits his hand and another gives a panicked yelp as she finally reaches him and body checks him into the bulkhead. Another on the far side starts reloading, and this is where Strix gets what she was promised: a glorious light show as she flings her lasso arm straight and sends the electrified length of golden rope whipping in his direction. She doesn't even lasso the guy, just tags him for a quick taser-jolt effect.

Hope Summers has posed:
Hope Summers frowns, turning up the strength of her gun once she has a better view if what's going on. It seems stun does nothing so she goes in fir a more powerful blast but trie# to aim to main rather than outright kill..It seems that Balm can more than handle herself so she continues to search for survivors only to be ambushed by some hostile with nasty claws. She doesn't have time to think, bringing up that big gun to try and block the strike before stepping to the side, swinging it back and violently at the clawed hostile's head, hopefully it connects. <<These guys are tough, must have some meta level of toughness. Don't hold back!>> she warns as she tries to plot through them and make it to the next injured person if she-can.

Conner Kent has posed:
Conner frowns at hearing the story from the crewman. That just... doesn't fit. Guest fighting? Char markings? They could be from explosives, but also from super-human powers. "I think we are missing half the story here," he comments to Laura.

Mind-link is getting rather cluttered with unfiltered thoughts. So, he will save this bit of mystery for later. "Can you guess who was here? Track them?" He asks Laura. She might recognize the scent later, at the very least.

Buuut, they are missing all the action. "Lets clear this area of goons and go upside to help, yeah?" He touches a way and spreads his telekinetic scanner, seeking pirates to punch.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Laura Kinney pauses at the storage room. Sniffing the air. <Explosives. Blood. Two people at least. Tim was injured.> Her eyes dart around the room, trying to recreate what events lead to the scorch marks and battle damage. Rather than swamping the mental link with details she tries to focus on a sense of calm and whispers to Conner "Trial heads that way. Up the stairs and into the passenger housing decks. Can't be sure if he was captured or escaped."

She doesn't wait for anyone to give an order before moving off in that direction, now with much more of a focus on speed than stealth. It's not that time will weaken the trial. But it could very well change what they find at the end.

If Tim did escape it's possible he could have left traps to discourage pursuit. So she remains as alert as possible for danger. Although if the worst comes to the worst she trusts she can heal through any of the non-lethal options favored by Gotham vigilantes.

M'gann M'orzz has posed:
Rather than turn her head back around from its 180 degree position like a 'normal' person or even turn her body to match it, M'gann's physical outline just flows and shifts until all of her is facing in the right direction. One hand reaches out and sends another wave of telekinetic force in the direction of the gunman with the automatic weapon, sending him flying backwards into the wall and his weapon skittering across the floor.

She just sort of sighs when the woman somehow catches the chair that was flung back at her and manages to cast it aside. "Can we talk about this? You seem really upset. Sometimes talking helps." A moment later her eyes go wide as the woman's mind reveals her intent to M'gann, but not quick enough to avoid the sonic blast. The young Martian is sent flying back hard enough that she winds up leaving an outline of her body in the reinforced wall of the bridge.

"I'm starting to think we're not going to be able to be friends." M'gann grumbles as she pushes herself back out of the wall. As she does her red eyes begin to glow with every increasing intensity. Pinpoints of red light within her eyes begin to grow and expand until the it encompasses her eyes entirely. "Maybe this will help you learn to use your words!" She shouts as she unleashes a powerful 'Martian Vision' blast of blisteringly hot red energy from both eyes aimed center mass at the super strong sonic screamer.

Tim Drake has posed:
    And that's all she wrote. Phoebe, that is, because one swift knock to the bits and Hurty Hands (probably not the name he goes by) is done. D. O. N. E. He pops up screaming just about as loud as the screecher (maybe that's a bit of hyperbole) and after he collides with the ceiling then falls to the floor, all he can do is roll around and cry while clutching himself.

    Ow.

    Lots of people are getting hurt in here. Though he doesn't quite shrug off the upgraded blast the clawed man keeps coming at Hope, however the material of her gun is more than a match for the claws at least, and he shouts in pain as he does more damage to himself than anything, fingernails bleeding as he pulls back. He's so distracted by the pain that Hope's gun connects with his noggin, and with that he crumples down to the floor.

    He is swiftly joined by the gunman that M'gann throws against the wall. Another one bites the dust, more or less. Still breathing, but probably with a few broken bones. It's the same story for the screaming woman, who inhales like she's going in for another blast (not a chat like M'gann wants, though it was an honest effort) but all she does is let out a shocked, choked off gasp as the Martian blast bodily flings her out one of the windows and onto the decks below and beyond. She isn't getting up either.

    In the dining room, Strix and Cassie are similarly cleaning up. Especially once all of the guests have dropped down more or less flat, or at least under tables well enough to be out of the way. Then it's just a shooting gallery with Cassie's bracers picking off one after the other after the other, and Strix slinking her way in-between to thin the herd. The hijackers are all so focused on Cassie that Strix gets a proper stealth bonus on her attacks, and down they go.

    Cassie, of course, does not need a stealth bonus to her lasso attack. That's all nat20 critical damage, baby!

    Two of the remaining hostiles throw their weapons down and drop to their knees, hands behind their head, almost in sync. "We surrender!" And that was actually in sync; in retrospect, they... all the other hostiles in the room look identical. Is there even a word for that? Septuplets is seven, right, does it go higher?

    And then, finally, downstairs:

    "--you can decode it?" It's Tim's voice, and then there Tim is, dressed down in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts like it's totally normal for him to be in vacation-appropriate clothing. Which it is not. He even looks like he might have gotten a little bit of a tan.

    He also looks like he's had the crap beaten out of him. There's a smear of blood across the lower part of his face from where he's tried to wipe away the worst of a bloody nose and a black-purple bruise forming on his forehead around a small cut, still trickling blood, as well as various other scrapes and marks. Right now he's got himself leaned against the wall like it might be the only thing keeping himself vertical. "Then leave it for later." He's talking on an encrypted comm line that isn't the Outsiders frequency, and it cuts off abruptly when Conner and Laura come upon him. For a second he's quiet, then he offers a too-casual wave before his hand lifts back to his ear. "Gotta go, try not to bleed out. Uh huh. You too."

    His hand comes back up in a 'one moment' gesture before he doubles over, coughing up a few spitfuls of blood (gross) before he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. "Hey, what's up?" he asks while he's still bracing himself against his knees. Then, "Bad guys coming," and he gestures to where Laura and Conner can probably already hear a couple sets of footsteps beating against the floor.

    Hey. It's the best he can do right now.

Strix has posed:
Strix moves like the wind itself, only pausing to watch Cassie use her lasso. <Wow that's neat.> She gets a bullet in the gut for her troubles, but doesn't seem to be too phased by it. She moves from thug to thug, quickly disarming and disabling them to give Cassie even more breathing room to do what she does. Soon, between the two of them, they've disabled all but two of the goons, who have rethought their life decisions that led them up to this point and are surrendering.

She slides her swords out of their sheaths, and menacingly stalks towards them, keeping her swords aimed at their throats. <I'll keep these two from doing anything. I can't talk to the passengers.> They back up with their hands held high above their heads until their backs hit the wall. They look like if they could just melt into the wall they would, but as it stands, Strix holds them there at swordpoint until they figure out what to do with them.

<Hey, can I try that lasso out when we're done here?>

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Balm knows she's on a relative timer. She's gotten stronger with the healing, but that doesn't stop from healing friend and foe alike with her aura. To M'Gann and Hope she leaves the remaining fighters, instead skidding forward, baseball-sliding over an angry malcontent and to the one with the leg wound.

    She gives a smile, and introduces herself gently, all that calming and feel-good aura probably not doing anything for the yeller or the cutter, but for the other crew here?

    Maybe it'll help considering the big-ass broken window and the hurricaine outside!!

    And with that, she does her lay-on-hands. She forms a circuit. one hand at the knee, the other up on the wounded's side.

    And there is light between her hands, tracing its way over her armor as she breathes out.

Conner Kent has posed:
Conner hears Tim's voice, probably at the same time Laura does. He hurries up and winces when he sees his friend beaten up form. "Hey pal. Did you win that fight?" He asks, trying to keep it light. <Phoebe, we need you here. Tim is in bad shape> goes to the mind-link.

And... some pirate guys are coming. Which is -really- too bad for them. "Just two of them," he offers Tim. "Give me a minute." He figures will be even less if Laura gets to them first. That is fine, although they will have to wait for Balm before moving, anyway.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Surrender is a good outcome! No more risk to the hostages or anything else. Cassie is still mopping up a guy when it happens, and turns back to find Strix already covering them, menacingly with her blades. <Uh...> Yeah, for a moment she is a little worried. But it sounds like she has the idea. <Sure, yeah, keep an eye on them... uh speaking of, do they not look kinda similar to you?>

This realization causes her to look down to an unconscious goon on the ground at her feet, confirming that he, too, looks alike. <OK weird. Hey, the rest of you OK? We got the dining room secure, but the guys in here, I don't know, looks like they might be clones or something.> She's a superhero. Clones is about 100000% more likely than whatever-tuplets who all chose a life of crime together.

"Everyone, I want you to stay here, and stay in cover," she tells the former hostages, as she starts toward the exit, on the route she'd originally planned toward the bridge for their sort of pincer-like maneuver, although presumably she's gotten enough feedback from M'gann to know that things are more or less under control in there. When she reaches for the door, though she ends up wincing, finally discovering that bullet that had managed to tag her in the midst of all the gunfire she took, hitting her in the upper arm. Maybe even a ricochet back off her bracer, who knows. One out of however many gazillion isn't bad, but in the mindlink, there's still a brief, embarassed feeling, a stray thought to what the other Amazons would think. Mentally grumbling, she stops to grab a tablecloth, and uses it to quickly bandage the arm before continuing on out. <Uh. The lightning might not work for you. But you can come to the Themysciran Arts Center and I'll show you a bunch of cool stuff.>

The rest is all cleanup. Strix is left in charge of the captives, whether or not the passengers in there seem thrilled. She checks in with the others and compares notes on the clone cult. And later, she yells at Tim when she finds out he didn't mention being one of said hostages!

Laura Kinney has posed:
"I'll handle it," Laura assures. Whatever Conner might think it's probably no more dangerous for her to go. If they open up with automatic weapons in a metal corridoor against Superboy... Well those ricochets could be lethal! At least when X-23 charges them her claws will cut the bullets out of the air.

And then the gun into pieces. Hopefully without taking any fingers with it but hey piracy is a tough life!

In the close confines of the ship there are very limited places to run. And a great deal of metal things a skilled martial artist can throw people into until they surrender. One way or the other they'll cease to be a threat.

<We've found Red Robin. Balm once you have healed the critically ill civilians he'll need treatment..> She sniffs the air. Quite a strong smell of blood. <As quickly as you can manage.>

M'gann M'orzz has posed:
Cassie isn't the only one with cool lasso tricks! M'gann turns towards the two terrorists in red still standing and whips out her arms? Yes, her arms at them to lasso them both as the elongated appendages wrap tightly around their bodies, with her hand at the top giving each a pat on the head. "Can you please, please, pretty please just surrender?" But at this point she isn't really wait for a response as she stares at them both intently, those eyes of her seeming to bore straight into their minds as she send the mental command: <<Sleep>> <<Sleeeeeeep>>

Once the remaining hostiles conk out in a snorefest, she releases them and retracts her arms back to their normal length. <The bridge is secure.> She informs the rest of the team through the telepathic link. <We're on our way to join you!>

Tim Drake has posed:
    Once it becomes clear that the fighting within the dining room is done, people begin to emerge from behind cover, push themselves up from the floor, and go looking for loved ones. Most are obviously just relieved to be okay and listen to Cassie, huddling back up as best they can, but a couple of real jerks immediately start complaining.

    Why weren't you here earlier? Do you know who I am? How dare our vacation be interrupted! Etc etc etc.

    Meanwhile, the two hijackers sort of vibrate in place, their silhouettes briefly distorting, and there aren't ten others in various states of distress on the floor. Just the two of them, with a compilation of injuries from their duplicates. So they both groan and collapse. Just twins, not dodecatuplets, sadly.

    Outside, the storm has really started to batter the ship. But as soon as the coast is clear--or rather, as soon as M'gann has wrapped up the two remaining hostiles in a neat little bow (of her arms)--the Captain surges upwards. Balm's healing aura has certainly helped, and he, along with several other members of the crew, get to work. Even the one with the injured leg, much recovered thanks to Phoebe, starts quietly directing some of the non-bridge crew to start assisting in other ways. She might be the first officer, judging by the stripes on her uniform shirt.

    Strix is surrounded by cheering ex-hostages as they all feel the boat begin to move under its own power. Even the complainers are happy about that, though they're probably going to argue for a refund or something. It seems like something they'd do. That is, however, not a problem for the Outsiders to deal with.

    Down several decks, Tim can't do much more than stay where he is while Laura handles any incoming hostiles. And he's still there when she returns, though he's slid down the wall to sit with his eyes closed as he waits. Still breathing! Don't worry.

    "I'm fine," he says after a long moment. "Busted a couple of ribs." He cracks an eye open to make sure they're alone, and then he lets out a sharp breath. "Really miss my armor."

    Eventually the ship makes it clear of the storm, which thankfully banks and turns sharply northward while the Delphine Princess chugs its way westwards towards the nearest port. The Captain suggests a nice area down a few decks for the hijackers to be locked up in under guard until the proper authorities can take them into custody once they've docked, and then the galley crew busts out the stops to console the passengers and the Outsiders with basically everything remaining in food storage.

    And it's all real bougie stuff, too. Fresh seafood and caviar, Wagyu beef, champagne (no one gets carded!), really immaculately put-together desserts, and of course a variety of vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, keto, etc etc etc options because these are rich folks with very diverse diets.

    The Outsiders make themselves scarce eventually, but no point letting good food go to waste, yeah?