7931/For Science: The first 'component'.

For Science: The first 'component'.
Date of Scene:	22 September 2021
Location:	Columbia University
Synopsis:	Doctor Octopus kidnaps Absolute Zero as a first step towards realizing his project. Tetsuya is forced to choose between a rescue of her, or his hostages.
Cast of Characters:	Ayanna Dreyfus, Otto Octavius, Thomas Blake, Tetsuya Wakao

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Ayanna Dreyfus has posed:
It's morning, most students are already in class by now and Ayanna is hurrying towards the building where her lab is. She's late this morning for whatever reason, dressed in her usual elegant European chick with a long black skirt, a green tank top and a black cardigan on top. Her hair is loose, flaying behind her as she hurries facing the breeze. Her school bag is on her back behind her.

Otto Octavius has posed:
By the time Ayanna is at the door of the lab, something feels... off.

Looking inside, it becomes clear what the problem is. No one is inside. But there's plenty of audio from the sealed cooling chamber. Directly in front of the operatiing console is a man in a brown overcoat, who is engaging with the console, his hands flowing over the controls as if he knows them by heart.

That's not the strangest thing though... the strangest thing are the four metallic tentacles coming out of his back, through that overcoat, that hover around the man like drones on standby... at least, until one of them suddenly turns in midair to look at Ayanna and the pinchers open, a red 'eye' looking right at Ayanna.

"Ah, I was wondering if you were coming in this morning." The man offers with a civil tone. He turns around slowly, and black goggles look directly at Ayanna as he stands there, all four tentacle 'heads' now aiming in her general direction. He smirks smugly, "You can call me Doctor Octopus. I'm here to enlist your services in a project."

Ayanna Dreyfus has posed:
Ayanna Dreyfus blinks and then blinks again for good measure as her mind goes through the French equivalent of 'wait, what?' and different flavors of 'WTF!?' pretty quickly. She swallows, glancing at the man, drones, tentacles, judging the distance between them to herself and the door behind her. She might be able to close the door quickly enough and dash down the corridor, right? But, where are her friends? If they're not here, then... Her eyes search the lab for them as she asks the almost obvious question, her strong French accent very present, "You're not with the faculty, are you?"

Otto Octavius has posed:
"Quick on the uptake. Good." The man tells her, and Otto points to one side, towards the cooling chamber. "Oh, your colleagues are in there."

One of the tentacles suddenly flits over to the console behind him, the pincer sliding back so the fine manipulators inside are ready to 'type'.

"One wrong move, and I flood the chamber with flash coolant. You don't want to be responsible for their deaths, right?"

Thomas Blake has posed:
Thomas Blake has been known as the world's best tracker. Of curse that was in the African savannah Urban environments required different methods. Seeking a small woman with the most extreme French accent ever and a sort of bookish look to her he began hunting in bookstores selling French language literature. He had a name as well and finally found a place that new her. For some fair compensation the clerk was able to recall she went to or worked at Columbia University, thus here he was on the campus looking about for her to make amends for ruining her movie, and maybe more! He has no thought of supervillainy. He wants to ask her for coffee.

Ayanna Dreyfus has posed:
Ayanna Dreyfus blinks and frowns at the tentacled, well obviously villain. "You should let them go now, they'll choke!", she blinks and shakes her head, "how long have them been inside there!?", she asks angrily. For all she knows, they may have all lost concsiousness due to lack of oxygen by now. So running away is not the best course, but being late to class all of a sudden turned into potentially being late to save her colleagues as well. "Look", she says and slowly closes the door completely behind her, "how about you show they're still alive and let them go and then we can speak?"

Tetsuya Wakao has posed:
Since coming to America, some of the more unusual individuals in Tetsuya's consultation had decided to try out university. In this case, there was something to be said about checking up on one or two. That had lead him to the university in this case. And getting a call not long after by one of them of some strange man wandering around.

That had made Tetsuya hurry up to get there. Glad for being so in shape and also using some ki to rooftop hop, the rather young shinobi had arrived to the university and followed the directions from the phone to make it to where the man was last seen. Now the main question was, where was this guy?

Deciding to take the more inventive route, and figuring these things had to have windows of some sort for ventilation, Tetsuya had called again to see what floor and what part of the building. And that lead to him being on the same floor as he started to look carefully, and listen even more carefully.

Otto Octavius has posed:
One of his hands pulls out a hypospray and hands it to one of the tentacles... which extends toweards Ayanna and drops it a little more than halfway to her, before pulling back. "A sedative. I'll release them if you dose yourself." Otto tells her in a serious tone.

The tentacle at the console reaches out the manipulator to the button... just shy of pressing it. "Their lives are in your hands, my dear."

Ayanna Dreyfus has posed:
Ayanna Dreyfus steps forward, one step away from the door and stops. Shaking her head, the French girl says simply and decidedly "no". "There's no way I can tell if you held your end of the bargain once I'm sedated, nor I can do anything about you not keeping your word. You'll have to do better, much much much better", she states a breath later.

Thomas Blake has posed:
Thomas Blake gets a lead on Ayanna -oh the girl sounds like Maurice Chevalier on helium!- He opens the door to the lab and is immediately the target of a mob of academics exiting the building! Fire drill? Zombie uprising?

He jumps, grabs the door and pulls himself up, holding the door open with his feet as the technologists flee beneath him.

New Yorkers, they run from stuff, to stuff. People in Gotham have enough brains to hide.

Tetsuya Wakao has posed:
Meanwhile, Tetsuya has been lead to the right area. And sees some movement in a lab. One that looks very much off to him. He walks over to knock on the door to the lab. "Hello? Janitor. Anyone in there?"

Proabbly not the smartest thing, but it's at least going to accomplish his goal of seeing who or what is in there, anyways. Yep!

Otto Octavius has posed:
"I have no reason to keep them in there if your abilities are neutralized by that sedative. Fighting you to capture you is pointless. I need you to complete a project, and I don't have time to waste on convincing you." Otto glances towards the door... and one of his tentacles suddenly shoots out around and behind Ayanna, slamming the door shut and keeping it in place.

The tentacle remains in place to Ayanna's side, "I am a man of science. All I want is to have you jumpstart my project. I have no need for anything else."

Ayanna Dreyfus has posed:
Ayanna Dreyfus gasps softly, jumping a little as the tentacle rushes quicker than her reaction time, but not to wrap itself around her, thankfully. "You could have asked rather than blackmailed me into it. Let my collegauges go and I will give one an hour, on the clock, after which you will make sure I get proper transportation back here. She has a threat hanging on the tip of her tongue but decides not to voice it out. Priorities. Save lives, do science, avoid evil. She's no hero, better leave the hero stuff to the government and his arch enemy, would it be... spiderman? So she sort of pretends to stand her ground despite the startling tentacle right next to her.

Tetsuya Wakao has posed:
With the door slammed into his face, and he knows he caught sight of something weird there, Tetsuya starts to bang on it. "Hey! No need to be rude!"

"Don't make me get security!" He continues to call. Seriously, if he has to go all kung fu on the door, this is going to be one big disaster. While he's banging on the door, he starts looking at it carefully to figure out what it's made of. Specifically so he can potentially bust it down if he has to.

Otto Octavius has posed:
"I need a lot more than that, I need to test how much or how little is needed from you, and I need to have you on call for emergencies. I'm treading new ground, and you're the perfect catalyst." Otto finally begins to sneer, "Last chance. Dose yourself, or they die. I don't need them, I need you."

Ayanna Dreyfus has posed:
"You're wasting time and you're losing me", the French girl states. "I mean, you want to be wanted for murder and kidnapping, be my guest. Instead of just the government and some wannabe heroes, you'll have the army and the big mean heroes on your tail, but what do I know about law enforcement. Their lives are in your hand, not mine and you're the one stalling. So the ball is in your hands", she says, pointing her index to Octavius. "Right now, you're just throwing words and wasting time. Doesn't sound like a proper scientist to me", she pokes at him.

Tetsuya Wakao has posed:
Stepping back, Tetsuya looks around. He's definitely looking for cameras and such, then sighs. "Screw it. I'm pretty unknown anyways." Then he looks around before finding of all things an old mop bucket. Breaking off the mop end, Tetsuya takes aim after checking the shadows to get a guess. And finally stabs at the door itself.

Said stab ends up enhanced with ki magic to make it a lot more forceful. The force of which is enough to puncture steel. Instead, Tetsuya aims to precisely aim at three different points one by one. About where the door hinge is on the bottom, the door latch itself, and finally the top hinge before he kicks the door to make it pretty useless and walks in like he owns the place practically.

"Sorry, but I was getting tired of waiting for security or the police. Now what is going on in here that demanded a door slammed in my face? That is so very, very rude. You Americans just have to stop doing that. First someone breaks the underworlds, now this? I swear if I had any political clout I would be declaring war on this place." Tetsuya slightly rambles as he walks in.

Otto Octavius has posed:
"I don't have time for this." Otto declares with an impatient sneer. The hypospray on the floor is grabbed by the tentacle that was keeping the now-ruined door closed... and within seconds it's sedative is being injected into the bloodstream of Ayanna.

Then, he looks to Tetsuya, his two free tentacles popping up into a defensive combat stance in front of him. The last tentacle drops the hypospray and starts to wrap around Ayana, securing her. Those goggled eyes look to Tetsuya. "I don't know who you are... but you have two choices. Try to save the girl, or rescue the entire staff of this lab from being frozen to death."

The tentacle that was hovering over the console brings the manipulator down, starting the venting process. A series of screams can be heard from within the sealed chamber as they bang against the door. Then, he pulls Ayanna towards him and starts 'walking' on the three spare tentacles towards a window, "I trust you'll make the right call." Otto smugly tells him.

Ayanna Dreyfus has posed:
Ayanna got startled and then completely distracted by the Asian man's entrance she neglected the speed in which Otto's tentacles can move around. By the time she noticed, it was too late and the French girl didn't even have enough time to shriek as the world around her faded into grey and the cold metal tentacle wrapped itself around her limp form.

Tetsuya Wakao has posed:
Eyeing what he has to do, Tetsuya glares at Otto. "Trust me, you will be seeing me again." He heads for the locked cooler to free the other hostages quickly.

Unfortunately, he's too late. But right now, he needs to get that door open. Which considering he can just puncture the lock if he has to, can be done. That leaves him to check out what in the world happened and everything else, as well as make a police statement or something.

Otto Octavius has posed:
He's out the windoe already and climbing to the rooftop, the pinchers audibly breaking the wall as he creates holds to travel with.

As he moves across the rooftop, Otto glances to the sedated Ayanna in his spare tentacle. "You and I will do great things together." He slips the goggles up briefly, examining her, "Great things."

One leap across to an adjacant rooftop later, Otto speeds off into the city with his prize.