Ouri Maler
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(Preview) A Champion in Earth-Bet: Liberating Beleaguered Lagos (Part 1)
🕑 Added 2019-01-09 21:18:44 +0000 UTC
LIBERATING BELEAGUERED LAGOS (Part 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9feUxKIqKmg
[X] Both Excellente and Del Duque might react poorly to you listening in on the latter and then going above his head. Just ask Del Duque in private what this was all about.
[X] Steamroller: Strike one part of town hard and fast. Establish control. Move on to the next. Rinse, repeat.
Then:
Not too long after the Omega compound has been handled, you take the time to speak to Del Duque. The blue-suited luchador-themed Thinker is getting started with paperwork, but shows no sign of annoyance at your interruption.
"May I help you?"
"I had a question, if you have the time."
"I always have time for the Avatar," he grins under his mask.
You smile politely. "Back at the compound, there was a parahuman. Deadmask referred to him as 'Singul'."
Under the mask, Del Duque raises an eyebrow with an amused expression. His heart rate does not pick up. He wordlessly gestures for you to continue.
"From the sound of it, he wasn't part of Omega himself, but owed Deadmask a lot of money. One reason he was happy to see him arrested. You accused him of smuggling and murder, but let him go when he handed you a piece of paper."
"I suppose murder would be technically correct," Del Duque muses, "though I doubt Singul has ever killed anyone who wouldn't have gladly killed him first if given the chance. He's been on our radar for a couple years. A Thinker, definitely, though the exact details of his power have not been confirmed. Presumably he has some Tinker friend maintaining his gadgets, though we haven't identified permanent associates. Mostly, Singul specializes in smuggling across the Northern border - drugs, weapons, tinkertech, and principally people.
"Now, understand that there is a diverse spectrum of characters involved with the illegal movement of people across the border. On the least palatable end of the spectrum, you have human traffickers who either con or outright kidnap men, women and children to be used as slave labor in America, be it in the sex trade or various forms of industry. On the other hand, there exists a handful of small operations that effectively moves people North as a pro bono service, usually to help them escape from the cartels.
"Singul operates somewhere in the middle. He will frequently charge desperate people most of the money they have to help them escape to the North, but he will also direct them away from the abusers and toward groups and allies in the USA who will provide them with genuine assistance once they get there. His motivation is and remains lucre, but he has moral standards that many villains lack.
"A few weeks back, some of our heroes on the border managed to seize a cocaine shipment belonging to the Omega Cartel. The man moving it escaped, and we are almost entirely certain it was Singul. It would explain the money he owed Deadmask.
"As for the deal we struck with him…" Del Duque fishes for a piece of paper. You see a number of notes on it. "Feel free to do some digging in your own time. In short, he was tipping us off about some of the less palatable human traffickers. In the middle of the operation, I judged that this information was more valuable than arresting him."
Nothing about Del Duque's body language suggests any duplicity. You suppose you should probably look into those notes, but for now… "I would probably have made the same call."
"Indeed. One minor smuggler, versus major flesh peddlers? An easy trade in my opinion."
_________________________________
Now:
"We've gone over it with Forecast. The numbers often change, but an emerging pattern is that attacking Blood Count's territory first leads to massive civilian casualties."
"Probably because that's what they're expecting, and preparing for," says Narwhal. "Blood Count is an A-class threat and his power ramps up. Taking him out first is the obvious thing to do… and my best guess is, the Lagos warlords are setting traps for us if we try to do that."
"Then we'll do the next best thing," says Spark Brain. "We'll go after Choker."
The leader of Nigeria's National Parahuman Alliance, Spark Brain has naturally been playing a central role in planning this op. His Thinker power is supposed to be a secret, but Tattletale figured out he hears and sees things related to his goals regardless of distance - the more relevant and useful, the greater the chance that he will randomly see or hear it.
You honestly think there's more useful things for Tattletale to do with her limited power usage than figuring out the secrets of your allies, but she seems to have a compulsive need to one-up other Thinkers. At least she didn't blab it in front of everyone…
Spark Brain goes on: "All of these people are large-scale killers, but Choker is the most enthusiastic mass-murderer of the bunch, with a power that lives and breathes collateral damage." No pun intended, you assume. "He is staying at the edge of his territory, ready to invade Blood Count's territory once we move in. If we start there, we have good odds of neutralizing him before he can start killing hundreds of people."
"Unfortunately, the moment we show up, Blood Count will begin ramping up, which not only makes him a harder target but also threatens all the people he drains. Dragon's satellite view, combined with the Nigerian Thinkers, will detect if the telltale signs of exhaustion appear in any given neighborhood; if people start collapsing, the spearhead squad led by the Avatar is to head there, find Blood Count, and put him down. Use of lethal force as a first resort is expressly authorized in his specific case."
Which doesn't mean you won't try to take him alive if you can… but depending on circumstances, you might not have that luxury. Blood Count is a recidivist mass murderer and his powers are a frequent cause of collateral damage.
Narwhal resumes. "Blood Count aside, our strategy is to focus on taking a neighborhood, eliminating enemy forces and fortifications there, allowing the Nigerian military backed by NPA forces to arrive, protect them while they consolidate their positions, and move to the next neighborhood." Over 12,000 soldiers outfitted for urban warfare and a large number of parahumans will be involved with that, brought from all over the country - even if only a smaller subset will be working with the Guild and Pentagon as the spearhead. "This isn't going to be like Kolwezi or Santiago. Lagos is gigantic. This operation will not be over in a single day.
"Assisting with every neighborhood we take will be the Kenya Pentagon…"
Five capes nod. Many countries, among their parahuman law enforcement, maintain one special elite group to handle the worsts crises. The Protectorate has the Triumvirate. France's Irréductibles have the Quatre As. Kenya, meanwhile, has the Pentagon:
Radar. The leader, and a powerful Thinker. Much like Miss Militia, she has perfect memory and doesn't sleep. More importantly, all of her senses are enhanced to vastly superhuman levels, providing her team with excellent battlefield awareness.
Kinesis. He can, by touching someone, slow their time by a factor of 50%. More importantly, that extra speed is taken by Kinesis himself, who can use it or give it to someone else; it lasts 52 minutes either way. The super-speed he gives his teammates has been key to their successes.
Kraken. Shaker. She can cause over 150 small portals to open in a 90-meter radius, with a mighty tentacle under her control emerging from each portal. She provides battlefield control.
Mamba. A striker. He can cause any chemical to appear inside the body of those he touches. He helps out at hospitals with his power, but he also knocks out supervillains with paralytics and narcotics (a task obviously made easier by the super-speed granted by Kinesis).
Finally, Fortress. Rated Tinker 7, she specializes in force-fields. Her personal protection devices, which she has given all her teammates, give them effective Brute ratings in the field - without which, the team would definitely have taken losses over the past years. She also spends most of her waking time in kinesis-granted super-speed just to keep up with the need to maintain tinkertech for both herself and her teammates; you suspect that she's aged several more years than her birth certificate would suggest.
Granted… her recent collaboration with Dragon and Leonardo means her regular tinkertech requires far less maintenance than before.
The synergy between the Pentagon's powers makes them very well-suited for maintaining control over a given battlefield. Furthermore, a select few capes will be getting a speed boost courtesy of Kinesis (only a few, because overuse of his powers leaves Kinesis debilitated by parahuman headaches). Kinesis generally recharges his power by taking speed from Kenyan inmates (non-consensual, but they're rotated and no serious harm is caused); since this operation will take longer than his power lasts, Strider will be bringing him in and out of Lagos as needed.
The Pentagon, of course, are hardly the only heroes that the Guild must coordinate with. A spearhead of NPA parahumans will be fighting by your side. The "third wave" of new Guild recruits (Dauntless, Ninja Roja, Centuria, Go-Go and Wing Warrior) will be joining the fray, and they all have their role in the plan.
"Like us, the Lagos villains will no doubt be relying on a mix of planning and improvisation," Narwhal goes on. "The Gadfly Squad's purpose is to perform low-cost attacks on targets of opportunity, in order to disrupt their ability to organize. The remote Thinker team will provide support," a group that includes Tattletale and Forecast, who has saved the day's questions for this, "and can hopefully steer us away from traps and counter their own Thinker resources."
There's some team exercises to prepare, but you cannot afford to take another day - more time passing is also time for your enemies to prepare, and Forecast has indicated that attack taking place later than today will face a much better-organized and more severe resistance.
___________________________
The attack on Lagos begins in a flash. Strider teleports you, Celo, Dragon's latest suit, Doctor Metal, Dauntless, and a Nigerian Alexandria package half-a-mile above the city. Seconds later, your high-maneuverability, high-durability, hard-hitting squad is striking the location indicated by a combination of Thinker powers, Dragon's satellite footage, and your own enhanced senses.
What resistance stands in your way is crushed in a very short time; you detect hidden enemies, eliminate some explosives, blast paths through walls, and blast some armed thugs on the way. You make your way through the building, where a man sporting a white suit and facial scars smiles smugly while holding a dead man's switch in his hand. "And here we go," says the Choker. "Welcome to my humble city, champions of puppies, rainbows and sunshine! What's with all those serious faces? Now, I'd like to suggest a little game…"
Dragon gives you the confirmation signal. You blast the Choker unconscious. The dead man's switch clatters harmlessly on the floor.
Dragon and Doctor Volt spent some time collaborating on a device that could jam all radio communication outside of a few very specific frequencies across the city. Strider has placed it. Forecast gave excellent odds for this idea to improve the plan's results. The jamming both means that your enemies will have a much harder time reacting and coordinating, and that a number of tricks like the dead man's switch do not work.
Once Strider teleports all the knocked-out villains and minions to the ad hoc detention center, it's back to work. You establish a safe perimeter for Strider to bring in the Pentagon. The Pentagon's Radar immediately gets to work detecting and pointing out hidden weapons, hidden explosives, ambushes, and more. Additional heroes are teleported in to your beachhead within Lagos.
One warlord down. Six to go.
_____________________________
The next part of the plan is somewhat more fluid, informed by events as they unfold. According to the Thinker team and Forecast's shifting numbers, you need to take Conquest's part of the city next; a wall of soldiers and NPA heroes advances block by block, with the Guild and Pentagon staying ahead of them, taking out resistance as you encounter it.
Radar detects, at the edge of her power's range, a group wearing Conquest's colors who are running toward the center of her area; three of them aren't holding their weapons, suggesting capes. You head toward them with twenty of Centuria's projections (all armed with assault weapons) and Celo (following from a safe altitude and ready to intervene).
The sight of you showing up in person clearly shocks them. One of the armed men shoots at you and misses.
"Ladies and gentlemen," you say, "I strongly advise that you surrender."
"Fuck you!" screams one of the presumed capes, then shouts at another: "Fuck him up, Deathblow!"
The cape apparently named Deathblow stares at you, bug-eyed. "I… I can't."
"Fuck yes you can! You're the only one of us who can!"
Hm. Just what kind of power does he have?
Regardless, Deathblow takes a step backward. "I… no, I mean… It's the Avatar. He killed Leviathan. He killed the Simurgh. He saved Kolwezi. I… I can't kill him. That's… That's not fucking right."
"You fucking cowa-" The other cape's hand, suddenly glowing, aims at Deathblow. Reacting at superhuman speed, you take her out before she can do anything. An instant later, you're hovering in the middle of the group.
"Anyone else want to cause trouble?" you ask.
The armed men hesitate for a second before dropping their guns. Deathblow and the third cape get down on their knees.
And with that, the advance resumes. Centuria's projections, being expendable, keep playing an important scouting role.
"Satellite footage shows Conquest is gathering her forces," says Dragon, "and it looks like they're able to maintain radio contact. I think they're using some kind of tinkertech for it."
"Oh, I see," comes Tattletale voice. "That's her power. She has a Thinker ability that tells her in advance what she's going to need."
"So how well-prepared is she going to be?" asks Narwhal.
Tattletale hesitates for a moment. "She'll be prepared for our general plan, not for sudden improvisations. Her power isn't that good," she says with a hint of smugness.
"As our original plan stands," you say, "the Gadfly Squad would be running interference to sabotage her attempts at rallying her forces. What if we improvise by having the Pentagon and some of the Guild teleport in the middle of Conquest's territory, opening a second front?"
There's some back-and-forth discussing the plan before Forecast asks her question. "42.7296% chances of heavy losses if you enact that plan."
Ah. Maybe not a good idea, then. You try to think of-
"Shit," says Wing Warrior. "It's not because of Conquest. It's because of Blood Count!"
"Wing Warrior, what do you mean?" says Narwhal.
"Dragon's been watching, but we haven't seen any sign of him draining people yet. There's no way he isn't powering up. He must have found some way to power up discreetly - probably an underground room stuffed with prisoners or something. By the time we finish enacting the plan against Conquest, he'll have become powerful enough to mess this all up!"
"...Shit, he's right," says Tattletale.
Narwhal pauses. "How confident are you about everything you just said?"
"Positive," Tattletale replies.
"The part about Blood Count secretly powering up? Almost completely sure. It makes sense," says Wing Warrior. "The part about him being the reason we suffer casualties if we enact the Conquest plan? That part I'm not sure of. 80%, maybe?"
"I can ask," says Forecast. "I don't have a lot of questions left, but I can ask."
You think quickly (with Kinesis's boost and your own mental acceleration helping). Conquest being able to organize an effective defense could seriously hurt your plan; she could buy time for the remaining warlords to react, possibly inflict important casualties on your side. Blood Count ramping up is also a major threat; not only is he very likely draining people to death in the process, but if he reaches (or exceeds!) the highest power levels he's displayed in the past, he could become a very serious threat to the lives of the heroes and soldiers involved, not to mention likely to cause massive collateral damage. Regardless, actions must be taken quickly; in a battle, with or without superpowers, it is imperative that the enemy not be allowed to conserve nor take the initiative.
You could ask Forecast questions, but they are a limited resource. Narwhal is a competent leader, but she is faced with a choice with no clear answers that has her hesitating. You contact her directly, and, calling upon your long experience, give the best advice you can think of given the available information…
