Scene #7201: SR Side-W: The First Run

Owner	Pose
Big Boss	FUN CITY, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, PUEBLO CORPORATE COUNCIL MAY 10TH, 2072 FUN FACTS: The Pueblo Corporate Council is both a nation and a company, allowing locals to buy stock both residential and preferred. California was hit poorly by several tsunamis and earthquakes, knocking much of it to the coast. Los Angeles is now very close to sea level, with several islands. Fun City is the happiest place on Earth. The air is warm, sun beating down on everyone in sight. The trip from the warpgate towards the destination is scenic - Fun City is an entire county modeled after California over the last few centuries. One moment you may be seeing palm trees and beach bunnies, and the next, white picket fences and the fresh baked smell of apple pie - if you have augmented reality, that is. The first destination is Rattlesnake, a park themed after the California Gold Rush from the mid-1800s. The target is Shane Crawford, a scientist for the Horizon Group, who are a major player in this world's corporate affairs. He will be visiting this park with his wife, son, and daughter, before travelling to a second park, then to his hotel, and finally being separated from his family to return to his bunkered lab - where security will be too tight for it to be reasonable to make a break-in. The park itself requires tickets to enter. Big Boss has spotted the fees for those who want to go in directly, though isn't against people breaking in if they think they can get around security. The problem is that the tickets are not physical or wristbands - they're digital, connected to your phone, your radios, or if not applicable, a small disposable device that'll stop working at the end of the day. The last option is constantly transmitting, allowing an easy check of your ticket to make sure everything's okay. Getting inside through the front, instead of bypassing the gates, requires getting searched. They check your bags. You empty your pockets temporarily. Walk through metal detectors. Get sniffed by dogs looking for explosives. Even a layer of magical security, looking for anything 'immediately suspect' magicially, but not going too much past the cursory. If you pay extra (Big Boss did not pay extra), you get a pair of augmented-reality glasses, allowing you to see facts about the park, as well as everyone around you dressed in 'proper clothes for the time', inside your field of vision. As for the park itself: welcome to the Gold Rush. Dusty sand underfoot, tumbleweeds rolling around, obvious security in 'sheriff and deputy clothing'. Plenty of clearly visible staff - and less clear staff, likely in plain clothes. It's a big park, with a fully functioning saloon, several shops and homes that you can visit, and a mine to explore if you pay an extra fee, complete with minecart ride (Big Boss did not pay extra). Horses and drawn carriages walk through, being able to be paid for a ride, and it's basically a small town in its own right. A clear difference between this world and most is that not everyone is human. Tusked orks, big and stocky trolls, and even elves and dwarves walk around the park, both in clear staff roles and as tourists. There's also an armadillo hanging out on a post with a deputy's star. He's the park mascot! The first step: finding the target and his family. You have pictures and a rough idea of where he'll go - he's paid extra for everything, because he never gets to spend his money otherwise, so he's likely to take a full tour of the park.
Selene	Selene is one of the mission operatives entering via the front gate. She's operating under the assumption that the security here wouldn't be too awful to a teenager here for a day of fun, especially one so wide-eyed and snapping pictures of everything while holding onto a weird, vaguely whale-looking ball doll. It just might be a little weird that the girl in question keeps talking to it like it's a living thing. The Wailer doesn't seem to mind, of course, content to just take in the smells of everything and occasionally getting a piece of questionably processed food crammed into its gaping maw whenever Selene finds an opportunity to. Of course she sprung for the extra fancy glasses. "Whoa... Look at all those heads! They're so huge!" Of course she's not being tactful about gawking at the orks, trolls, and dwarves. She's just a dumb kid, right? Right.
Xion	"Now okay, missy, do you have a phone?" Xion stares blankly at the ticketmaster. She moves her fist over a kiosk tray, and opens her hand to drop credits on the tray. Xion stares at the kiosk man. The man is oppressed by her psychic pressure. He smiles weakly. "How about one of them newfangled radi-majos." He's in character. He can't break character, for any reason. Xion continues to stare. MINUTES LATER: Xion wanders through the Gold Rush amusement dystopian corporate hole, wearing a mouse-eared hoodie sweater and a skirt, long bunchy socks and big goofy sneakers. She did not spring for the glasses, nor did she spring for the LOCAL GLASSES. In fact, she doesn't even have the tracker she stared at the kiosk man until he gave one up! It's in her inventory, which is definitely not in this same plane of existance. Instead, she has OUTSIDE SNACKS, slurping on a large red-and-white ICEE(TM) brand cup with one of the novelty large straw that she loudly draws on with a lingering -slurppppprprprprpprppppppprprprpppp- loud annoying straw noise. As she moves, though, she reaches out with her feelings, trying to find the 'image of the man they're trying to find' in the surface thoughts of those around her. If accosted with TOUGH QUESTIONS by FACELESS MEN IN UNIFORM, her first and automatic response is 'I'm looking for a ghost warlord!'.
Damocles	Damocles had a fairly unique problem facing him about this park. That problem being that he's over 3 meters tall, but is otherwise very human looking. So he's far too large to pass as a normal human, but doesn't have the right skin or face to pass as a troll. In addition, his illusion magic has trouble interacting with moving objects, so has always been useless to disguise himself, and he has no skill with makeup. Fortunately, as with most things, the problem can be solved by an equal amount of cleverness and disregard for other people. In this case, Damocles teleported into the park to avoid the gate security, popping in behind a bathroom where there is likely to be fewer people to spot him. Anyone who does see him suddenly teleport in probably won't be sharing the story. Especially considering his solution to the other problem. In other to disguise himself properly, Damocles has picked up a bootleg mascot costume, and is currently dressed as a 10 foot tall, North American Brown Bear, better known as a Grizzly. The costume affords him some advantages: People tend to ignore him, and he can sort of wander around wherever he wants, even approaching people to get a better look without raising suspicion. Unfortunately, he lacks the proper ID of an employee, which could be a problem. However that's ten-minutes-from-now Damocles's problem.
Amon	Amon's movement of Equalists have been on top of this mission since before it officially began. Already possessed of cell phones from Tony Stark's world, they had no problem at all acquiring digital tickets-- and in fact, the Equalist movement had gone out of their way to get extras, just in case. A corporate vacation package, as it was. So they not only have tickets, they have rooms in the local hotels and clothes to match. A select few of them have been in the area ahead of the rest-- early arrivals to the corporate vacation. A few of them /did/ get the AR glasses. Amon, perhaps surprisingly, is one of them. The AR glasses are acting the part of concealing most of his face, while a medical rebreather has concealed the lower half of his face. What little is visible is scarred, angry flesh running up into his hair line on one side of his face-- his hair itself is black. The man himself has paid a carriage for, pretty much the entire day. Not to just ride it, but to ferry himself and his family around-- apparently he's playing the rich man today. Currently a young woman sits up front with the driver, brown-haired and wearing a green t-shirt and shorts. Amon himself is in the back with a woman who passingly resembles the young woman with the driver. Each are observing the surroundings. Occasionally, the young woman defines a distraction or game that she wants to do, and the carriage stops. None, literally none, of the Equalists are armed.
Amelris Belthrone	Amelris Belthrone have nothing against going through the front gate. While he don't know much of this place's current trends of clothes, he have taken to heart the clothes that was provided to him by Amon's various scouts. Coming in without his weapons is also a little bit of an issue: it's not that he wont be able to fight but his capacities wont be all at a hundred percent. That, by itself, is also fine. What is perhaps LESS fine is his choice of clothing. The Miqo'te is wearing a wide, brimmed hat (with no holes for his ears, annoying), while wearing a big, bright yellow, red and blue sunset shirt. A pair of big novelty sunglasses in the shape of '2060' and short to the knee pants, also garishly purple and blue. To top it all off, he's wearing some croc shoes, along with a fanny pack and a shouldered bag over his shoulder. He comes in with a regular package, no extra glasses, looking like the biggest damn tourist you might see on this side of the Sixth World. Not to mention, a cheapstake.
Corona Arclite	Sometimes the best hiding is in plain sight. Especially when the world already has weird sites of alternate races. That and while she could probably possibly eventually get past security, she's too paranoid about not being able to get in time to help the operation to risk it on unknown levels of technological -and- magical security. So it's through the front gates we go. As is she hasn't really changed (other than not having guns in her holsters) and is wearing a t-shirt under her usual coveralls and duster so she looks more like a tourist just trying too hard to match the athsetic. She pays for the ticket with the provided, and dangles one of those 'new fangle radios' for it to be put on (the dongle would be too opressive to her paranoia trying to sneak around). Gives the security guy a polite tip of her hat, and drapes it off for him to look inside it as part of the search. Holds up the duster so they can see there's nothing hidden or in secret spots inside. Ignore the fox ears, she's probably just one of those wanna-bes that get additional body modifications because they didn't get -actual- alternate-racial mutations. Corp shouldn't care as long as she's paying and not carrying anything suspicious, and the wage jockeys probably aren't paid enough to. She pitchs in the extra of her own credits for the AR glasses because what proper gadgeteer wouldn't pick up local tech to dabble with? Once she's inside she slips on the glasses. "Huh, that's purdy effective." As she's wandering away from the gates she slides up the left sleeve of her duster to plug the 'radio' back into the rest of the wrist device and tug the sleeve back down. Got to hide the fancy tech that would ruin the illusion for others after all. Now to get down to work.
Nova Terra	Nova prefers to avoid the direct approach as a rule. It's not what she's trained for. Not what she's equipped for. And it's often more trouble than it's worth. Especially as she glimpses a look at the security. Yeah, she'd be lucky to get through that with even her suit. Nova instead goes for a more discrete approach into the park. Her cloaking device renders her invisible to many sources of detection. Admittedly she's not tested it against magical security systems, of which there might possibly be here. But now's a good a time as any to try it out. It shouldn't be too hard to get in unnoticed, whether by slipping in through an employee access as one such person enters/leaves. Or finding a way over a fence. It's not like this is a military installation or anything to which she is usually found infiltrating. The next step proves to be the more difficult part: Locating the target. Perched invisibly atop a rooftop, Nova looks out at the wandering crowds below. Their minds echo inside her head as a cacophony of voices. So many voices. Too many voices. The Ghost moves a hand to rub the side of her head. She can't focus on finding just one. She's going to have to try an alternate approach... ... Maybe all the park security systems will help. No doubt they have a room somewhere that oversees the park's security. She just has to find it.
Danzo Katou	True to her word, after Danzo had asked yesterday, she had headed out immediately, and spent a full twenty four hours tirelessly observing Fun City and gathering intelligence under at least that many different personas. At first she'd been taken aback by how enormous it is, how dense it is, how many people are constantly there, the number of radically different themes all jammed together, and the marvel of AR glasses. Then, she'd realized this this place is essentially a playground, in multiple ways, and melted into the job. She struts about the place, currently, as a security officer, in period appropriate clothing, tagged with the correct RFID signatures and a false identification card. She has immaculately disguised herself as a tall, built, tanned and curly-haired Californian man, almost a foot bigger than she actually is especially. She's even copied the stupid thumbs-in-belt strut and mildly sociopathic guido security guard stare. She also has the correct Watch encrypted codes to signal and countersignal when people start appearing. She fills in via the radio. "I have gathered what intelligence I could about the 'Horizon Group' faction who controls this territory. They are an exceptionally, no, overwhelmingly huge private company, who holds this entire region after acquiring it in an earthquake disaster response bid. There are many like it here, but the Horizon Group is the youngest of these factions. It is even so new that its growing power is deemed suspicious by many." "However, as their primary goods are forms of entertainment, news distribution, and common items that people rely on every day, they are regarded very fondly by the public. Furthermore, it enjoys a positive reputation with many for lacking a strongly stratified power structure, and for its inclusion of non-human workers, who are commonly considered to be excluded or marginalized in many areas." "They've . . . even considered artificial creations, to be real citizens." "I needn't say that this means they have a great deal of power over the perceptions of common people. Making a false move today could result in overwhelming backlash from the majority of this world's population, if it were caught and news were to spread. I have a likely suspect of which faction is sponsoring this mission, but it is . . . irrelevant for the time being." "What is more important is that this faction is a nation of its own. Within these borders, the law of its father country does not apply. The Horizon Group has its own code of laws that apply entirely on its company territory, and only workers who have sworn in are entitled to what full rights and privileges they offer. In other words, the company's word is absolute here. You will find no assistance if you witness anything you might deem objectionable, or even illegal." "Our target will arrive in this area, continue to the adjacent district themed after the early 20th century, and retire to a hotel, after which he will separate from his family and return to a heavily defended Horizon Group research center and remain there until his next vacation. Similar research areas exist on the outskirts of this strange city. I have knowledge of his schedule, the locations and timings of security fixtures, personnel names, and some codes, but that concludes the full extent of my reconnaissance so far. In any case, our greatest challenge will not be infiltrating an impregnable fortress or evading an army of soldiers, but acquiring and transporting our target without causing a commotion."
Big Boss	Selene somehow got a whale through security. It helps that it didn't ping as magical, explosive, or mechanical in any way. But as she pokes around the park, gawking at people, she gets slowed down. See, she ends up gawking at an ork 'deputy' standing next to an armadillo. She can't do anything, obviously, but a tourist troll, big, mean, and muscled, stops next to her. He looks down at her. "Hey, kid. Don't you know the things you say are hurtful? She can't respond to you, but we take a lot of abuse. Don't you know how tough it is for us, huh? You gotta apologize." "That's okay, pardner, it's-" "Come on, kid!" Xion snuck an Icee(TM) in. A deputy asks her what she's drinking and where she got that and how she got it in, and just blinks several times at 'I'm looking for a ghost warlord' and decides that this isn't worth their paygrade. The distraction allows Xion time to get the thoughts, and start navigating through people who have spotted that man. Shane Crawford, a black-haired human man standing next to a blonde woman, and two children, a boy with dark hair and a girl with blonde hair, all wearing AR glasses. The adults have cameras out, and are probably the types of weirdos to pay for their pictures. There's an unknown third adult with them - a short ork woman in a suit, not wearing AR glasses but instead regular sunglasses. She's watching everything carefully. A bodyguard or a minder? They disappear into the swell of the crowds soon after, requiring constant attention, as... The target group passes by another large group, who just pushes past them. Damocles is currently being flocked on by children outside the courthouse and about to be approached by a sheriff who realized that something seems wrong, when that group approaches. It's an entourage of men and women in black suits, with an executive-type person walking in front of them. AR glasses are taken off as Damocles is spotted, the executive taking a glance and nodding. He speaks up. "I like the bear. We can market that better than the damn armadillo, but it needs something. A hat, or a scarf, or..." He shrugs. "Get design on it." "Yes, sir." The sheriff backs off for the moment, but Damocles will get the feeling that every member of that entourage was subtly, heavily armed. The Equalists have been here long enough to have read the entire park map and get an idea of where the sheriffs and deputies are. The mines are dark, with lanterns to make it feel 'official' (you sign away any liability that tripping in the mines is Horizon's fault!). It's a good place to disappear someone, but, you have to pay to enter. Meanwhile, the horseshoes ring is the second most unattended place, because nobody wants to play horseshoes more than once, especially in this heat.
Big Boss	Amelris blends in perfectly. Nobody bugs him except for advertisements. Nobody notices him. He can walk around any of the public areas perfectly without getting seen as 'out of the crowd', so if he wants to set something up with the various attractions like the horseshoes, the general store, saloon, or courthouse, he can. Corona gets some eyes, but also gets to get past. She can group up with Amelris, and spot the executive team. From mutterings he makes, it seems he's a big-wig visiting the park unannounced. Nova moves for the security room. The problem: there is no room marked security. But as she hears mental voicews, she finds something interesting. There's voices beneath her. Tunnels, perhaps? It's a start, at least, towards finding security - find a way underground, and you have the full secret path beneath the park. Danzo is disguised as a security guard. This means she only just heard that the executive of Fun City, Bill Cross is here, unannounced. The problem isn't 'what he has with him', though. The problem is that security all along the park is heightened, and that the emergency response team has upped its time to be here in under a minute should something go down. It's plausible for the Watch to take care of the mission even if that happens, but it'd certainly be messy, and there's far too much collateral.
Damocles	When Damocles chose this disguise, he didn't realize quite how hard it would be to move, see, or breathe in the stupid thing. Moving around is easy as people accept his presence, but physically it was easier to move around in his damned armor than in this stupid thing. He also made the classic mistake of /not thinking of the children./ Turns out, kids love giant bears. Who knew? Damocles has no idea what to do around children, and it turns out, doesn't have much time to plan. Because of the limited field of view, he doesn't spot the security and executive until they're far too close. At this point, he has no ability to move out of their notice, because he's surrounded by children, and they've noticed him before he noticed them. He looks carefully at the man, but is convinced pretty quickly that it isn't the mark. Even from this far away, he can see there's no family, only security. He still focuses his enhanced eyes in to make sure, getting a good look at the guy's face, but he can't linger too long. If he's caught staring, that'll appear suspicious. He does have one defense here, ironically, which is the kids. Entertaining the kids provides a sense of normalcy which should calm the anxiety the others have about him. Unfortunately, Damocles has /no idea/ what to do. He tries a little dancing. Do bears dance? Damned ancient Terran life. Still, he tries it for a minute before it occurs to him: He's a /giant bear/. He isn't supposed to be silly. He's supposed to be a /goddamned bear/. He ends the dance by throwing his arms wide, hunching down and roaring. "RAAAAAGGH!" He then bows, and bounds away. Hopefully away from the execs and the sheriff, and towards the area with the throwing games. The radio chatter suggests that's a good place to locate the target, and somewhere he'll have more room to move, and still not stand out.
Amon	The carriage bearing Amon and his two immediate assistants is brought to a halt... at concessions. All three of them purchase some sort of typical theme park fare food -- a full meal, along with some cotton candy and a funnel cake -- along with very Large drinks. The largest drinks. The young woman up front gets extra, sharing with the carriage driver. Amon himself pulls his mask up to his nose to eat a hot dog, which is the closest thing to something familiar that he can see here. Meanwhile, a cluster of other Equalists begin to play the horseshoe game in a small group. There's a friendly competition going on between them, rather than under the terms of the game itself-- they're a little too good for the house to win like it's supposed to. It's not long before they wear themselves out-- rather than abandon the horseshoe are altogether, the group all go and buy hilariously enormous concessions drinks -- and only drinks -- and return to mill around the proportionately clear game. They take it in turns to resume playing -- usually in specific competitive pairs -- but realize that they're dominating the place and politely cede the area to anybody who comes up, retreating to sip on hilariously overwrought lemon and limades until newcomers clear out.
Amelris Belthrone	The area somewhat reminds him of some of the territories in Ul'dah. Dusty, sandy ... or at least, pretending to be that way. He's seen some mining towns that's been swallowed up back there. Still, he misses a lot of cultural cues about this! Which kind of makes his bemused, confused yet appreciative expression all that more authentic as the Miqo'te wanders the amusment park, completely unbothered except by the occassional advertisement. The target have been, apparently, discovered but this do not mean it's time to strike. Its the time to set this up juuuuuuuuuust right. Thus, Amelris wanders himself over to the General Store to poke his nose in there, getting a good lay of the land and -- also -- see what the hell kind of things they SELL in a place like this.
Nova Terra	After some brief rooftop recon, doesn't manage to find any administration or utility structures in the park. Which makes sense if they're trying to maintain a period appropriate theme. With that in mind, it doesn't take long for Nova to realize some of the voices in her head are coming from underground. Possibly where the park keeps the various structures and systems required to maintain such a business. It's clear she needs to get down there. Nova expects there are some secret doors or hatches somewhere that lead there. In places that aren't traveled by the public and known only to staff. Nova could go searching for them, but she's limited in the places she can search. She might be invisible, but she's not intangible and it only takes one or two people bumping into her to give her away. Her best bet is to pry the information from a member of the staff. While she can't find a single, specific mind in this chaos, there are plenty of staff easily visible and focused on. Kneeling down on the old-timey roof of the old-timey building she's atop, Nova presses her hand against the structure and closes her eyes. She concentrates on the staff inside, tightening her focus to a single one as she tries to probe their memories, searching for a way into the park's underground facilities.
Corona Arclite	The catteman's atrociously appropriate attire blends in almost too well. Corona only notices him because she's seen enough similarly tackily dressed tourists visiting her homeworld like it was a planet-wide recreation of a similar time period. While the fox herself is pretty much right at home. She saunters up next to Amelris, giving him a light pat on the shoulder to know she's there because she knows how much it sucks to have someone sneak up on you accidentally. "Ah, ya found the local tradin' post." She lets her accent drawl a little stronger than usual to keep up the illusion of 'trying to hard to play along' like some bad convention cosplayer. "Well, the outside looks authentic. But ya don't judge no book by the cover..." Corona strolls inside. Though she expects the interior to be less General Store and more Tourist Trap Tacky Souvenior Shop Masquarading As One. Doesn't mean it's not useful to properly check the place out. If there's other Corp Bigwigs besides the target in the park, security is only going to ramp up. Knowing more of the layout is in their favor should they need to pull a 'duck into a shop for cover' maneuver. That's somewhere between Plan B and Plan C. Hope we don't have to resort to Plan D, whatever that might be.
Selene	"It is?" Selene sounds genuinely confused as she's addressed by the tourist troll, spinning on her heel and nearly toppling over from the momentum of carrying that Wailmer around. She doesn't even respond right away, simply gawking at the tourist troll as well before going right back into her outdoor/only voice. "But you're all so beefy and horny and cool-looking! All I got is these.. Crappy little noodles being all... Crappy and noodly!" She wriggles her arms out at her sides for emphasis, slapping them together against the whale ball at the last moment so that she doesn't subject it to the massive three inch drop to the ground. The troll might notice the Wailmer glancing at him, but... That's a trick of the light, right? "But.. Uhhh. Does that mean I can't ask for a ride? Because I wanted to see the mines, but I couldn't see over anyone and when I got to the front, they told me I couldn't get in without something I forgot to pay attention to, and I didn't wanna leave my prize behind because it's for my friend who doesn't know what a chopped cheese sandwich is!" Selene needs a breather after that. Setting the Wailmer down, she takes several wheezing breaths, then looks right back up at the troll and the armadillo before folding her hands together and bowing. "Sorry. I dunno how stuff works here, but I can figure it out!" She actually behaves respectfully for all of two seconds, and then she's right back her usual too-loud tone. "... So can we see the mines? I wanna see how many rocks I can fit in my mouth!"
Xion	Xion follows along, able to ride the currents of minds and desires, chasing the target. It's 'fun', playing mental hopscotch through the flow of hearts as she dithers about concession stands and window shops the carnival games. As an unsupervised teenager, she is stealthy by dint of not needing any adults to mind her Right This Second and thus is the lowest tier of priorities - the ones that can be put off. She's distracted, though, by the much more important person! He's very important! Glowing like a sun, surrounded by his security like a constellation of galaxies. Hearts in orbit! And, so, because Xion is a doofus, she peels off of the target to instead start tailing Bill Cross, and by tailing... Well, what's really meant is 'walking directly at them'. He's such a shiny person! Much more interesting than Local Father Of Two, Wife, and Toothlady.
Danzo Katou	News of the new suit passes to Danzo. She relays "That person is most likely Bill Cross. He is, by himself, the executive body of this city. An unannounced appearance, likely to keep those under his employ on their toes, including security. It would be best if we avoided direct engagements while his security forces are on heightened alert." It's still all a little surreal hearing it in the voice of some Californian surfer dude who decided it's a dog eat dog world so he'd become a cop and hurt people --that specific, exactly kind of mental image. "These glasses make everyone here believe anything their eyes tell them so long as they are wearing them, and easily explain any discrepancy between what they view and what those without them fail to. The people here are easily deceived." she says. Considering all of the information, she then moves on to a plan of action with . . . remarkable decisiveness. For how passively agreeable, obedient, and soft-spoken she usually is, hear her snap together a deadly confident plan all of a sudden in the field is a bit of a change. "If there are passages underground, they will be the easiest position from which to extract our target with little notice. If they do not already connect directly to the mines, the mines will still be the closest place from which to maneuver into those passages. As the mines are dark and poorly patrolled, and the Horizon Group strategically cedes responsibility for its contents instead of ensuring their safety, we will be able to maneuver even directly under Bill Cross and his forces. We must maneuver the target into the mines, then separate him from his group, incapacitate him without being detected, and then transport him into the underground passages where we may act more freely, without the public eye." "Please, if you are able, insinuate yourselves into the next mine touring group, occupy security, remove Bill Cross, secure a route below ground from the mines to the tunnels, or approach the target and earn his trust when entering. I will ensure he visits immediately." Danzo finds a quiet, dark corner when target & family with bodyguard pass by. Taking a deep breath, she clasps both hands, two fingertips pressed together, lowers her head and closes her eyes, concentrating on the small area around him, catching a few adjacent bystanders so as to react to the same thing, and exclude the tender --and anyone else without AR glasses. Having had a full day to familiarize herself with the visual contours of the local 'net, she deploys her genjutsu in the form of intrusive AR pop-ups, advertising to said park-goers that the mines attraction has a zero-fee period that is ending in one hour, with an annoying visible timer, as well as a notice that all customers in the remaining period get a souvenir of real hand-panned gold dust, and their photos taken with a famous 'salt of the earth' local who is the type to be propped up on some direct relation to some old bigwig family that got rich off the actual gold rush and has been milking the legacy for ages once it got trendy. A guy she made up just now, of course, but is entirely too plausible given the superficial nature of California in general; all of it is catered to the man's ostensible desire to have as many reminders of this brief, happy vacation as he can get.
Big Boss	Damocles dances for the kids. They laugh and the parents ask if their kids can take pictures. And then he does a roar, a pose, a bow, and a bound away. There's screams and people clear the path for the running bear. That was weird. And also probably going to get a complaint! Luckily, the horseshoes is literally an area no one cares about and it's full of friendlies, and also a place where he can prep up for any further operational moves as he needs. Speaking of friendlies, Amon gets an ACTUAL MEAT HOT DOG(TM), and also is getting plenty of ads for 'side purchases', like 'do you want to buy some ketchup?'. The Equalists, meanwhile, are doing really good at horseshoes. A few people come in and out to play or to briefly watch the Equalists compete, but it's too hot to be around the horseshoes ring for long. Bill Cross passes by the horseshoes, Xion hot on his trail. He stops, briefly, to glance at it and make a disgusted look. "Horseshoes? Really?" His assistant responds, her voice meek. "Well, they're accurate to the-" "I don't care about accuracy. I care about money. We can't charge for a game this unpopular. Have it replaced. With...a cowboy shooting game." "But that's not-" "Plastic darts, or...foam. Yeah, foam's fun. Charge them for ammunition. Tell design to get on it." "...yes, sir." The entourage begins, slowly, to move on in that timespan. And then Xion walks in on them. Security immediately turns towards her, and one of them holds up a hand. "Back away." That's all she gets, before they prepare to start moving towards the mines, if Xion doesn't push it. The target, meanwhile, does not head to either uncrowded spot! He heads towards the General Store, as Amelris and Corona stop inside. Corona's intuition is right: it's not a legitimate general store, it's just the merch shop, but there's a lot of 'western' merch. Replica badges and hats and such. The target moves to start buying stuff - nothing for himself, only for his kids, and the store's decently crowded.
Big Boss	Selene says stupid shit to a troll. The employee is uncomfortable and so is the troll, but he realizes this is a child and therefore, as a good samaritan, he can't just tell her to screw off and then leave. ...wait, she wasn't with any adults, was she? "Wait, where's your parents, kid?" The troll man starts turning around, shouting through the crowd. "Hey! Where are this brat's parents? Are you her parents? Anyone? Hey!" He starts moving towards the mines, expecting Selene to follow. Is that where her parents were? Nova digs through thoughts. There's TWO primary entrances to the underground area. One is inside the mine, for employees to quickly get in and out. The other is underneath the court house, through the back door. Danzo sets up as the target would prepare to leave the general store and head past her. He spots the AR popup, as do some others. "Oh, we have to go to the mines." He tells his bodyguard. She replies with a frown. "That's supposed to be later. We can't break the itinerary." "The itinerary's changed. They're doing a free period-" "That wasn't in my notes." "Come on, what are they paying you for?" "They're paying me to keep you safe." "My kids really want to go, they get a photo with Johhny Jamestown!" "I don't know who that is. Whatever. Fine." The kids did not really want to go to the mine, but Crawford wants to spend as much time with his kids as possible, and as many memories as possible, so he starts heading over to get his free access.
Amon	When Danzo lays out her plans, Amon decides that it's probably best to fall in line with those. He already has people waiting at the horseshoes, so if it's necessary to adjust approaches there won't be any problems. He leans forward in the carriage to mutter to the driver, who brings them about to the mines. With the two equalists alongside him, they present as a family of three. The driver is made to linger outside-- his services have been purchased for the rest of the day. Another cluster of equalists file in at the back of the group, chattering among themselves as they go. They seem pretty fascinated by this place, although the theme in particular isn't really doing it for them. As he enters the mine, Amon spreads his awareness through the surroundings in search of water sources. It's best not to use any of those, but it doesn't hurt to be aware of those that are present.
Damocles	Damocles runs over some people on his quest to get to the less crowded games area. It's fine, he's a giant bear. The voice of Chaos in his head suggests that he needs a big hat to complete the look. It's funny because you're naked, but wearing a hat, when most people wear clothes but no hat! The fact that you're wearing the unnecessary clothing but not the necessary one is what makes you endearing as a character. Damocles only huffs in response. Damocles didn't want to be endearing, he wanted to blend in. At least he got away from that Bill Cross guy. The Chaos Sorcerer turns around to survey the area, and immediately spots Bill Cross by the horseshoes. Fucking /damn it./ Another of the group has taken up the duty of trying to tail the executive, but it seems like the weaver of fate has decided to put Damocles on a crash course with this guy, and running away would itself be too suspicious. He can at least stay close to provide backup if needed So, Damocles goes to entertain some kids again. It is sort of fitting that the Chaos Gods keep forcing him to situations where he has to entertain kids. Children are basically like tiny daemons, except people get angry when you kick them. I told you that you were going to have an entertaining day today! You sure did, Tzeentch.
Corona Arclite	Corona Arclite had been doing the act of browsing over the shelves, though she had to admit while it was just gift shop tourist knicknacks someone at least put some effort into keeping with the theme of the park section. Though her initial intention had been to look for a rear exit or other means for staff to get 'backstage'. Possible escape routes, that sort of thing. That object changes a bit when she hears the door open again, and with a sidelong glance notes it's the man in the photos coming in and doing some shopping. She makes note of it over the radio, and gets a confirm that Amelris also saw him. She mutters under her breath that the AR is starting to give her a headache, as an excuse to take the glasses off for now. They are tucked away for the moment, brushing her hand against her other arm as she does to tap the device on her wrist underneath to keep a track on the scientist. But keeps herself to the other side of the shop, and keeps to tailing distance in general, so it's not obvious that he's being followed. Sadly she doesn't have any tricks to try and nudge him towards the indicated location, so Corona will just settle on being a set of eyes on the man to keep track of him.
Selene	Selene marches along behind the troll with the Wailmer balancing delicately on her head (and somehow keeping its actual weight off of her without touching the ground), making all sorts of child-appropriate gawking noises despite being... Some kind of teenager. It doest' help that she's scrawny, but at least it's useful for edge cases like this one. "They're stuck at work. They were all 'oh, we gotta do important research for the Foundation' and 'we'd love to bring you but why don't you go with that nice hairy fellow', but then he ditched because he needed to listen to the radio or something." She sounds almost bitter about that. Before she has to try too hard acting, though, Selene finds fate smiling upon her as she hears something particularly juicy as she draws closer to the mines with her new troll companion. "Whoa... Did he say THE Johnny Jamestown is here?!" Instantly, she lights right back up as she starts jogging towards the mines, almost keeping pace with the troll at that rate. Her target's close, so it's time to keep playing dumb while getting further in! "... Who's THE Johnny Jamestown?"
Nova Terra	So far, so good. The mission is proceeding. And the plan suggested by Danzo fits in nicely with Nova's intentions, so she continues down that path. Having confirmed the available entrances into the underground, Nova heads for the court house. It's the easiest for her to get into, given the back door nature and lack of a need to navigate the mines and its more public entrance. There's probably a lock on the staff entrance. Based on what she's seen of this world so far, it apparently likes its security. It would be preferable to get in without being detected. Given the technology level she's not convinced she can force the door without an alarm. So her best bet is to lie in wait for a staff member to enter or exit and then sneak in while the door is still open. Which is what Nova moves to do once she arrives. Of course, if it takes too long, she may have no choice but to force it. Either way she needs to get inside in order to scout the facilities in preparation of moving the target through them. And locate the security room.
Amelris Belthrone	The garish clothed Tourist Catman jumps a bit at the tap on his shoulder, looking around to blink behind his novelty sunglasses at her. His tail calms down, lingering down as they stack into the 'General Store'. "Oh! Hi! Uh, yeah, I, uh, I did!" This caught him a little offguard, stalking people for this kind of mission is not really his sort of tea he generally simmers in. Stealth, in general, ain't. Stepping inside do make him slightly disapointed, looking around at the various CHEAP TOURIST CRAP that litters the shelves, including the target buying quite a few for his kids. This... do smell like the desperate behavior of a father that barely see their kids and is just now trying /very hard/ to make up for lost time... with a very varied amount of success from his children's appreciation. He cross the fox's glance, nodding subtly as he moves around to keep an eye on things, keeping on the other side of the shop to make his way to the ... Mines? The Mines. His eyes falls on the man himself with his family as he moves... then, there is that odd, splitting headache that he's unfortunately getting used to. The Red Mage lets out a hiss, holding the side of his head as he leans against a oldey-timey pillar...
Amelris Belthrone	It is a rapid fire set of images. Staticy. Quick. Visions, sensation of... hating his job, the man at his lab. Despise it. He morally hate it. The work... bubbling vial, chemicals, vats, things addted to food and drinks. Vision of smiling people. Eerily smiling people. Blank stares. Empty stares. Flexible, pliable stares. Amelris shakes out of it, grunting, snagging from his fanny pack a bottle to drink out of.
Danzo Katou	Danzo breathes out when Crawford gets moving. "Our target is heading exactly as I promised, on time. Please be in ready positions." She doesn't stop to elaborate how she suddenly got the big valuable scientist on a tight corporate itinerary vacation leash to suddenly swerve course to exactly where she wants him to be. Confirming Nova's news, she says "My intuition was correct. Please locate and secure that entrance immediately. If there are enemy personnel guarding it, incapacitate them at your discretion, provided that they won't be immediately noticed by security." 'Enemy personnel' though? It's a theme park. When Danzo next steps out of the alley, it's as a dye blonde college aged girl with a sunny disposition about the bleak corporate future she is only a year away from being ground away under, further completing the illusion with copies of merchandise she'd seen at the store, and the actually real AR glasses she'd acquired previously. Heightened security will notice one of their guards moving around out of position, so for this, she becomes a tourist; as a shinobi does, one must be able to become anyone of any kind, so long as they are nobody in particular. She maneuvers steadily through the crowd, blending into the press and hiding her tailing movement after her target in plain sight, suppressing all signs of having any interest in him or intent to follow him. When she arrives, she falls in behind Crawford at the line, and immediately plays the part of the California girl performer to Selene's (intentional or not) shilling. "He's a direct descendent of the Jamestown family that settled the very land we're standing on during the gold rush! His great great great great granddad struck out on his own, with just a dream and what he could carry in a covered wagon to feed his family, and panned a fortune in gold! Since his family has owned the big part of prospecting in these parts, for generations, of course the park has to pay him a little respect, y'know?" There are layers to this bullshit. She is expertly faking an urban Californian making an honest effort at faking a southern accent poorly. Leading up to the actual check-in, she's already applied the same bullshit AR prompts to the crowd around Crawford in a 30 meter radius as a committed effect, and then targeted the staff at the door specifically in advance, with a fake notice that a promo is starting and they're waiving admission. Short of someone suddenly taking off their glasses and earpiece and checking the transmission logs in the root, there's no doubting their eyes and ears, from what they see glowing in their peripheral vision and hear boredly droning on the headset. She sees that Crawford's kids look bored. Rather, their father is really invested in having memories of all of this, but they don't really feel like coming to a dark old mine. Danzo produces the wrapped up treats she'd won in a carnival game yesterday, hanging around uselessly due to her lack of a sense of taste, and crouches down to 'sneakily' offer them to the kids, making the kind of 'shhh' sound and gesture that really isn't meant to be actually stealthy, but instantly get little kids all over whatever they're not supposed to be doing. "It might be a bit boring for you, so you can have these if you follow your dad and don't cause him any trouble, okay?"
Xion	Xion, with her extra large Icee (TM) beverage, looks up with quarter-lidded eyes at the security guard for the 'surprise VIP' and gives him the utterly uncomprehending empty cattle-like stare of a teenager totally checked out of reality. It begs the question: not 'what is this young lady doing, she must have an ulterior motive' but instead 'why are you bothering to interact with this person?'. Xion knows 'these people' - the man she wants to abduct, the Important, Very Extremely Valuable Man and his entourage - absolutely must not go into the Mine area. So she just sort of stands her ground, ignoring the security guard, or being shoved, and sort of passively nonresisting. "Heh... you've got a funny ear-thingy. Can you hear cool stuff on it?"
Big Boss	Damocles entertains children further. It seems that Bill Cross is liking the park mostly - it's making enough money, clearly. He's in range to stop him from continuing to the mines, if he'd like, but that'd probably cause problems. Corona can spot the target heading to the correct destination, and track him all the way to the mines, while Selene...actually earns some sympathy from the troll. Only a little, because she's clearly a corporate kid. "I've never heard of a Johnny Jamestown, but...man, I gotta meet him if he's important." And then Danzo steps in and shills, and he oohs, especially as people start mentioning a 'free period'. "Alright, fine, kid, I'll take you to the mines, and in return, you learn to respect other people better, got it?" It's an appeal to get Selene to be less offensive. Amelris is probably right on the money about the father. And his vision is important, but he loses sight of the man as he snaps out of it. Instead...Amon makes it to the mines with his group, and slips inside. The mine's water supplies aren't very robust - there's a groundwater well that works to fit with the image, but it's pretty clear this mine didn't actually come from the gold rush, and was dug up to serve the park. The mine has a tour guide leading people through, as the equalists, Selene and Troll-friend, another customer, and the target and his family all end up in the same group. Selene will hear there's a minecart ride. That shouldn't be distracting! As Danzo supplies those kids treats, though, they get all over it. They nod and accept, and it doesn't seem they actually dislike their dad or anything - they just probably barely see him, so this feels like a stretch, but...candy, candy's good Xion isn't actually a threat, the bodyguard realizes, but they can't have her holding them up. "Back away, kid, this is important business." They tap their ear briefly to hear something, confirming Xion's question, as Bill Cross realizes they stopped. "What's stopping us? Leslie?" He states to his assistant, who tilts her head towards Xion. Bill Cross frowns sharply, and turns to a bodyguard. "Are we really being harassed by a kid? Does nobody know who I am around here? Get her out of here and keep going!" The entourage moves to try and trample straight past Xion if she won't move, trying to get Bill Cross to the mines, because he is a corporate asshole who thinks the world revolves around him, and because of his money, it does. Luckily, the tunnels are in use. Nova gets inside, going down a stairwell with the guards, and can find several areas of interest. Breakrooms, temporary bunks, all sorts of out of the way 'employee stuff'...and a security room. Locked door. Cameras all around it. Guards inside, sitting in chairs and at terminals watching the /thousands/ of cameras. Did you know that armadillo was actualy a drone? Yep!
Corona Arclite	Corona Arclite keeps her distance, up until the target's family and group is getting into line for the mines. That's when she scoots forward, slipping in just behind them to get into the same group and keep close. She lost track of Amelris because he was stalled by his Plot Vision(tm), but assumes that he's got methods to get into position. The fox is focused on keeping eyes on the target and being ready to move into action when the time comes.
Damocles	Damocles does his best to stay 'close' without getting 'too close' to Bill Cross, which isn't too hard since Xion is drawing attention to herself by generally being in the way without appearing to mean to. It works for a moment, but it looks like the men are getting ready to physically remove her, which will result in an altercation. Meanwhile, the radio is calling for a distraction to draw security out of the tunnels. Which means it's time stop hibernating. Damocles suddenly waves goodbye to the kiddies he was entertaining, and shuffles off towards Xion, hopefully intercepting her before the men get around to trying to manhandle her. He rushes over to her, and jumps up, throwing his arms out and giving a big 'Raaaaaw!" sound. He then starts jumping around, making bear poses at her. If he does it right, it'll look like he's trying to pull her out of Cross's path, however he's doing an extremely bad job of it, as he keeps jumping around right into the path of the guards, in general being even more in the way and preventing the guards from easily just moving past her because now a giant bear is also jumping around in front of them.
Selene	"Right?! He sounds super cool! I thought he was just a really fat guy that built this place into his gut or something." Selene replies to the suddenly commenting Californian, letting out an awed 'ooh' and 'aah' noise to keep playing her part of the idiot tourist. Sadly, the layers of bullshit are largely wasted on the girl with the whaleball, but at least she's not accidentally trying to blow Danzo's cover. It takes Selene a bit longer to turn to the troll with a thoughtful crease on her forehead. "Waaait a minute. That just now was bad, wasn't it?" She nods slowly as she mulls over thetroll's words, thinking about just what to say to placate him without really committing any of it to heart. "The really physically-suited-to-land-development-on-him guy." That troll's going to have his work cut out for him. At least Selene's too busy gawking at everything and looking for things to pretend-cram into her face to be that much more offensive, purposely avoiding eye contact with her known allies in this mission. When she hears about the minecart ride, though? "Hey, let's go on that one! Maybe there's gonna be a race and we can jump across tracks in there!" Of course it's going to be distracting. She's already starting to jog for wherever that may be, giant whale ball in tow and likely starting to bump into people in her haste to be a nuisance.
Amelris Belthrone	Amelris do have the means to catch up. However, his recent little dizzy spell do give him the perfect opportunity to aid in the cacophony of distraction that's going to happen here very shortly. It's something of a devious little idea, but hey, he's gonna work with what he's got. The Miqo'te staggers out of the packaged shop, skulking his way to the Mines proper with the bottled water in his hand. A hand is one his forhead, groaning out something incoherently. Amelris keeps an eye out for something that looks... fragile and quite a lot in plain sight, such as some advertisement shelves outside of some promoter or some HANDY PILE of pamphlets. Then promptly collapse against them, holding his breath, getting his red /FACE/ red hot. Oh no. A Catman just fainted from a heatstroke!
Amon	Amon weighs the benefits and drawbacks in his mind. This world is most definitely the sort where the exploitation of one's family could be used to prevent you from working. But it /does/ increase the risks if they have to deal with every individual present. On the other hand... he brought /more/ than enough people to carry a bunch of people, and even carrying an extra load they should be able to move around alright. His posture changes as he moves through the crowd. A slightly slouched, casual stride becomes straight-backed, almost military. Off comes the AR glasses, though the medical mask remains in place. His hands are folded behind his back, one grasping the other lightly to hold them in place. A sideways glance towards the young woman posing as his daughter is what starts everything off. Each and every member of the crowd who has blood or a water-based physiology of any kind begins to find it difficult to move the way they're supposed to. It isn't extraordinarily obvious unless they attempt to take quick motions-- casual movement simply won't reveal the extent to which they're being tugged on. It isn't apparent to Amon's followers, either, who aren't being subjected to the effect. Simultaneously, the Equalists begin at first to... bump into people. It's not an assault at first. They lose their balance, or move an elbow without enough care. Each blow, however, is an attack directly upon the animating energies of the people involved. This becomes obvious after the first significant moment of contact-- body parts stop responding altogether. After these initial stumbles it becomes a wholesale attack, beginning with the target's bodyguards and moving inward among his family. None of them have weapons-- and none of them need any, nor do their blows seem impeded by armor or cybernetics. Life force is life force is life force.
Xion	Xion can feel Bill Cross' heart - and it's not good, or kind. He sees the world in dollar signs and opportunities, and he has the willingness to disregard - to kill with his apathy. He doesn't even know the face of the person he's trampling. All for an inspection: an amusement. Experiencing their property, designed for other people, by barging through it. One of the guards tries to simply trample Xion, and is stopped cold by the unbudging girl in the mouse-eared hoodie. "Sorry. I know you're just doing your job. Just keep walking, okay?" With a start, Xion is on the other edge of the corpsec agent, an afterimage of her hanging for long heartbeats 'through' the guard. She tosses her Icee (TM) Brand extra large at the closest guard like a bullet of ice and slush, an explosion of frozen syrupy goo erupting all over the guard's face. One more step, and notable 'holes' in the ground are left in her wake, footprints in black and purple that are, for all intents and purposes, bottomless holes to nowhere. "You don't think I'm human! You think I'm something not even worth owning!" Her voice calls, stepping closer, as the ground shatters and dialates in a whirlpool of endlessly tesselating 'pitfall' under Bill Cross. Shadowy hands reach out for him, grabbing by the arms, the legs, the chest, around the neck and face and mouth and eyes, hauling him 'away'. Into the hole. Space warps and spins around Xion as she sprints forward to dropkick the AAA Executive into her shadowy portal. "You're gonna learn what it's like to be a line item yourself!" She yells, ignoring all the security forces. They don't matter. She knows this from their own hearts: And she desires the 'most important thing' in this entire theme park.
Nova Terra	A quick scouting of the underground and Nova finally finds herself outside of the security room. Looking through the window she can see the array of screens displaying the camera footage. She has to admit, it's impressive. That's a hell of a lot of security for an amusement park. It would have been easy to locate the target this way, though thankfully that's no longer necessary. No, now it's necessary to make sure that once the distraction is in place and snatch attempt under way, security doesn't mess things up. Noticing the door to the security room is locked and unlikely to be used any time soon, it's seems like Nova is going to have to force her way in. She considers trying an alternative entrance. Maybe a ventilation system. But it'll take too much time, the target already in place and the distraction under way. As such, Nova stands by, monitoring the security operators within. If the security forces act in any reasonable manner, they'll spot the commotion happening near their bigwig and call in reinforcements. Hopefully those reinforcements will include some of the guards in the underground facility, Nova making sure to stick to the sides of the corridor to avoid being bumped into should they rush past. Finally, after a short time has passed to allow the distraction to take full effect, Nova draws the sword from her back. Activating the psionic blade, she drives its mono-molecular edge, known for cutting through military grade armor like butter, into the door lock. While the security officers are still unlikely to see Nova entirely, it's doubtful that her entrance will go unnoticed as the door to their room has its lock destroyed and is flung open. Nova moves into the room swiftly, her cloak leaving a ripple in the air from her quick movements. She tries not to give the officers time to react and call for help, a blast of telekinetic energy launching from her to smash into the seated guards and send them flying into walls and equipment.
Danzo Katou	The target group is in the mines. It's dark and cavernous for ambiance. The group that's currently in together is heavily seeded with Watch agents. Crawford isn't suspicious in the slightest. She can sense Amon's men (and women) moving out through the crowd. Though she herself is built of wood and metal, she takes it on faith that the head of the Equalists knows what he's doing with the broadening pattern of casual bumps she herself would do something similar to if attempting to rob or poison someone. Speaking of, the sedatives slipped into the candy are probably taking effect any second now. The moment things become an outright offensive, Danzo acts to end the commotion the second it begins. A classic smokebomb falls out of her sleeve in the midst of the motion where she springs on the tusked minder from behind, grabbing her in a sleeper hold that then creaks and clicks and clacks as she ratchets her currently imperceptible arm gears into properly metahuman-suited strength. Actually choking the bodyguard out would take minutes she doesn't intend to waste, and so it's only a second to immobilize her before a hidden dart slips out of her wrist and punches into the guard's thick skin, dosing her with paralytic poison. While the smoke gushes and fills the room (mixed to be acrid and industrial, like a technical failure), she wheels from the bodyguard, crouches low, extends her arms outward at a snap, and flings two more paralytic darts at the man and wife, precisely aimed for the unclothed neck. Springing up from that crouch like a sprinter, she rushes from behind the pack, allowing her to scoop both children along the way and throw them over her back, her disguise dissolving when she snaps together the straps necessary to haul them like a bag of stolen loot. She goes to catch the wife, throw her over one shoulder in a fireman's carry, and then Crawford himself over the other. It's a lot of weight. Way more than anyone who isn't six foot half and three hundred pounds of muscle should be taking on, and even then, they wouldn't move all that fast. Given the carry equipment though, it seems like . . . she intended to take the entire family as one item from the very start. She literally has a harness ready for transporting unconscious children. "We will have only a few minutes at most before the next tour group arrives and locates the aftermath." Danzo speaks out, this time in her own voice, unbearably soft and calming. "Please mark the exit coordinates, and head to them at the highest speed you are able." Which, for her, turns out to be very high. The second Nova has the entrance location transmitted, she wants to be off, deftly navigating in the dark with glowing eyes and tracer lines, skipping down rough rocky terrain and leaping gaps with whirrs, clicks, and hisses of casually superhuman exertion.
Selene	It takes a bit longer than it probably should have, but the gears start to click when Selene goes over what she had heard a good half minute or so ago. It's time to be a distraction. "... Whoa, when did toys start doing this?! So cool!" She yells out dramatically, holding up theWailmer a little higher off her head. She waits another few seconds before clearing her throat and speaking a little louder. "It smells kinda Brine-y in here!" That's when the Wailmer finally gets the signal, and it starts spewing salty water all over theplace. It's kind of gross, but it comes gushing out like an industrial water hose that's only made worse by Selene spinning around to make sure everyone can see her 'cool toy' and get blasted with the off-putting deluge.
Big Boss	They begin. Damocles gets in the way of the guards, 'trying to stop Xion'. Xion gets mad at Bill Cross's attitude towards those worth less than him, and tosses an icee at a guard, distracting and immobilizing them long enough to blink through the other, and get inside Cross's circle. The ground starts to rip open, and shadowy hands grasp him all around, as he starts screaming. His assistant runs for it, as does the guard Xion whispered to, in the same direction, while the others draw heavy pistols and begin looking for line of sight to start firing at her. Damocles makes this difficult. They don't want to shoot him. But they just got their charge abducted, so after a few moments that the two can take advantage of, they open fire. "What the hell is she doing?!" "I've never heard of magic like this, god /damn/!" "Shoot her, shoot her!" Even as she dropkicks Bill Cross, who screams louder in pain, the hole swallows him. Amelris's 'heatstroke' is mostly ignored because of the gunshots. There's a /lot/ of panic happening outside, and deputies are moving to signal the emergency response team, who is going to be there 'in less than a minute' with the big boy guns and abilities. That won't be good, so the group needs to get out of there, fast.
Big Boss	Meanwhile, inside the mines: Selene starts dragging along the put-upon random troll. Her pushing and shoving and nuisanceness distracting the deputies. But the gunshots get them on edge. Everyone's on high alert, now, ready to start escorting guests to safety. And suddenly, they start feeling sluggish. They get blasted by water, and sent struggling backwards. They start getting bumped into in the commotion, or at least, that's why they think it is, and start getting weaker and weaker. The minder, the bodyguard, is slowed, and then so is the target and his family, as the other guy in the crowd tries to escape towards the deputies. Corona can make her drop now, if she needs to. The kids start to become sluggish from the candy, while the smokebomb goes off, the ork bodyguard is taken out, and then more darts go flying at the man and his wife, as the kids are grabbed and the disguise vanishing. In the end, the entire family is scooped up. And then they head for the tunnels. The security guards are a bit busy to focus on Nova, moving out of the underground, and allowing her to slice the door open. She's able to telekinetically smash them over, damaging some of the equipment and sending out a wide alert, but there's already too much panic for them to send people into the tunnels. Cross is the focus, after all! This means that Nova can find all the rest of the exits. There's a tunnel route, secret, that leads outside the park. It's not too well-guarded, but it's likely to be where an emergency response team is to come from. There's other exits, but they're more 'inside the park' and more likely to get into trampling guests. But it's better than getting right into the miniboss fight. At the least, Nova can sync with the security and monitor Everything, if she'd like.
Damocles	Damocles's antics are only tolerated for so long by the guards trying to deal with Xion before he's grabbed and hurled out of the way. They still don't view him as a threat, which is good for him. They're confused and scared, which is even better. Damocles could go loud and try and draw attention away from Xion, but he imagines she's got some kind of defense to keep them off of her for the moment. Meanwhile, he's got a better idea. He lays on the ground, whispering to himself. To nearly everyone, the whispering can't be heard or even noticed. But to one guard in particular, the one who threw him the ground, the soft whispering can be heard right on the edges of his mind. The words are impossible to make out, yet their meaning is crystal clear: To him, the chaos of the situation has taken hold, and those around him, even his fellow guards, are looking like threats intent on killing him. Danger is everywhere, the mission is already failed, everybody is attacking, and they all want to kill him. The whispering is a thing of raw emotion; Chaos and panic, dripped straight into his mind to make his allies look like enemies, and hopefully cause him to fall into a panic and start attacking his own people.
Corona Arclite	When Amon's men make their move in bumping and elbowing sluggish guards out of the way, Corona has been in enough saloon brawls to know exactly what needs to be done to help. The fox drops her AR glasses as if she'd been bumped into. "Shit! Those are expensive!" Then drops down on her hands and knees to find them. Doing so right behind one of the guards as he's elbowed out of the way, so he trips backwards over her and falls on his ass away from the target and his family. Corona weezes a little, those men are buff. But sucks it up and rolls out of the fracas to spring back onto her feet. The AR glasses are forgotten, instead pulling her usual goggles off her hat and onto her face so she can properly see Nova's transmission. And the better viewing options for once they get into the tunnels. "Let's go folks!" Corona falls in line with Amon's bloodbenders to give them some cover if needed. Since they've got their hands full of scientist and kids.
Amelris Belthrone	On the one hand, it was a perfect little distraction. On the OTHER hand, the REST of the thing that happened around them were FAR bigger distraction/cover blowing events. So, this attempt at gathering ATTENTION have, in fact, just been ignored. By itself, it is a slight blow to Amelris' ego. However, a Red Mage think on their feet. This is a new opportunity! The 'heathstroked' Miqo'te on the ground blindly grope around for some dropped articles. Luckily for him, SOMEONE dropped AN ACCURATE REPLICA of Crazy Ol' Gold Johnny of the Hills' gold panning extender pole. It's close enough for a Rapier for him. He kind of hoped this wouldn't have come to become loud. Ah, well! Amelris leaps off from the ground to make a tall, long leap off it, making a long back flip that makes him soar quite high. In his arc, he swings his improvised weapon to let off a shockwave aimed at some of the gunning Guards as he skids off against the mine's entrance to dive in after. He'd SURE want a REAL rapier right now but he'll work with what he have right now. He IS careful to not hit other people.
Starbound Flotilla	Did someone say "emergency repsonse team?" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALERT! ALERT! CONCORD TASK RECEIVED! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! PUEBLO CORPORATE COUNCIL ISSUED A SECURITY DEFENSE REQUEST! !!!!!!!!! +_+ +_+ +_+ +_+ +_+ +_+ Several idle eyes light up. A card-locked locker is shoved open, and a hefty shotgun, reliable pistol, and a cherry-red-and-black hardsuit bearing hefty sparking gloves are yanked out. A manic, grinning man scrambles and dashes madly through hallways. Samurai-style armor is taken from its display site in a meditaiton room, alongside a gleaming, perfect powered katana and its energized sheath. A proud, calm Hylotl strides to his chosen place. Wooden armor is yanked down from a tree, adorned with electronics and bone. Two sharp blades are sheathed at its sides before a heavy bow is procured. A Floran pounces and bounds through a window. Plated golden robe-armor is pulled from the altar of a shrine, and a matching set of three floating gold spheres follows almost as quick as the scimitar. Airboost armor sends an Avian blasting in a high arc to her destination. A young auto-squire runs with an armful of heavy techno-armor, joining another carrying a hefty axe, meeting at a royal arming room. Soon, a Glitch battle-princess strides purposefully to her steed of sorts. A figure runs through a wide armory, pulling a rocket launcher and a half-dozen rifles into hardpoints on his shining gray field-scientist gear. An Apex battle-scientist rockets his way straight to his destination. One man stands in front of the ramp up to the Rapacity III Rapid Response Ship, sheathed katana raised high. He calls out. "Starbound Flotilla!" "SORTIE!" "SORTIE!" "SORTIE!" "SORTIE!" "SORTIE!" "SORTIE!" Six fists crash together in a hexa-bro-pound. Albert's the first in, vaulting over the pilot's seat. hangar lights blast red and sirens sound. Pavo tunes up the engine just belowdecks, Seft hops onto sensors to check airspace, Moonfin already has their course plotted. From the moment there's an alert to the moment the Starbound Flotilla arrives on-site in the Rapacity III, a gold-and-orange gleaming ship surrounded by halos of light. Their sensor signature screams bright. The VTOL ship will be touching down into short-range teleport range shortly! From the moment where the chaos started to the moment they arrived, they must have gotten a response time of about a minute and a half at most. They'll likely be getting in just behind the emergency response team, and arrive exactly where the emergency response team would have spotted the most Elite-style chaos.
Selene	"Woo! How'd they even fit all this in here? It must be..." Selene lets go of the Wailmer as it starts spinning around on its own to keep that spray of chunky water going for a while longer, all while the Pokemon trainer poses with her hands spread out to her sides and shaking them lightly. "Movieeee magic!" And then she feigns surprise at the deputies and others inside the mine having issues staying upright. "Hey. You okay? Did you get tired already?" She keeps playing the role of the idiot corp kid, laughing boisterously and nudging her AR glasses up once before putting her hands on the Wailmer's underside again. "Don't worry! I'll get some snacks and drinks and stretchers, just you wait. Sit tight, and I'll get you feeling fine in just a minute!" She is not going to get any of those things for any of these people. Instead, she starts moving deeper into the mines, looking for the less-guarded entrances indicated by Nova that aren't likely to have reinforcements coming in from... Probably. She wasn't paying quite as much attention as she probably should have, so she might very well powerwalk near the incoming response team without even realizing it!
Nova Terra	Nova checks to make sure that the guards are all down for the count. Unconscious. Dead. It doesn't matter to her, as long as they're not interfering. Once she's certain, she moves over to one of the security console and starts typing. She notices the alert has gone out for an emergency response team and that they'll be on site soon. Nova whistles, musing to herself, "Impressive. I'm starting to like these guys." Nova taps in a few commands to bring up the footage from the tunnel leading out of the park, watching as the response team begins to arrive. The advantage of being in control of security means she now holds all the keys. Something she intends to use for her benefit. On the one hand, Nova deactivates the locks on the security doors that the Watch intend to use to escape the underground. On the other, she overrides those in the path of the response team, locking them down completely regardless of authorized access. She doubts it'll hold them for long, but hopefully enough time for the capture team to escape the tunnels with the target. Nova steps back towards the security room's exit. But before leaving, she turns to face the security equipment, "Better be sure they can't get things back up and running..." Nova raises her psi-blade, releasing her grip on it. She manipulates it with her mind, sending it spinning through the air. She directs it towards the security equipment, slicing through consoles and monitors. Until finally it whips back through the air into Nova's hand. She deactivates the blade, returning it to her back before moving to dash out of the security room and make her own escape down one of the unlocked tunnels.
Amon	"Wait." The Equalists pause their planned exit, captured individuals tossed over their shoulders. Amon takes a moment to seize electronic devices from the various fallen civilians who were incapacitated just for getting in the way-- though not especially harmfully so. Chiblocking is pretty gentle. He switches the devices from the VIP and his family with the devices of random people in the crowd. Lastly, he disables his own device and replaces it with that of the mine guide. "These tunnels will connect to other attractions. Bring the VIP with me, we're going to find another to pass through on our way out. The rest of you split up and find separate exit points. If things get too heated, release your hostages. Only the VIP is necessary." He instructs. A few 'yessirs' later, Amon and his equalists split up-- Amon chooses a random route through the park for escorting the VIP, while the others simply roll the dice, pick a direction, and go.
Xion	Xion is on top of Bill Cross and rides him down into the 'mouth' of the hole. Where he disappears into the abyss, Xion stands on the tesselation's center as if the ground had never turned into a 'portal' at all. And gets shot at, mostly. Handgun rounds burst into motes of dark red as the rounds close to hitting her, but when the automatics come out - and they do, rapidly, with a full security detail, Xion has to go mobile fast or get chewed up. The problem is that Xion has a few allies in the mix as well, like a fainting cat-man! And a giant dancing bear! Step-jumping on heads, Xion summons a steel pipe into her hands to smack at arms and guns, cartwheeling from one guard to another with a feathery step and a fierce chop to the back of the hands. Then, things get a lot more !!!ASSAULT IN PROGRESS!!!-ey, and Amon asks if anyone has a way out. "Oh! I forgot, I guess we can leave at any time?" Xion announces out loud while thoughtfully boomeranging her pipe at another goon. "I feel like we really shouldn't be here when the rapid response team get here!"
Danzo Katou	Nova has the exit solution transmitted. It's all Danzo particularly needs to exfil. The fact that everyone else is suggested to scatter in all directions, by themselves, well, Amon even needing to suggest it catches Danzo a little off guard, pausing for just a moment. "Yes. All operatives should be prepared to escape under their own power. You will be on your own until we have an opportunity to regroup later. Be prepared to avoid capture by any means." She adds, after a pause. "Good luck." Danzo sincerely doubts any of them are ready to commit suicide if it comes to that, but they're also better equipped to blast their way out than most. She hasn't failed to notice the intense round of warning signals coming flooding the radio waves, nor the heat and force of the Flotilla's entry vehicle from the remote position outside. She just hopes it'll count. Since Nova is currently covering her with the doors, Danzo slips inside just before the locks are reengaged and deliberately sabotaged. Diverting through the under-park route, Danzo takes highly deliberate pains to conceal her presence, sending distracting illusions of security staff running down wrong hallways or creating loud false sounds in the opposite direction, finding architectural blind spots around tight corners, in alcoves, and higher areas, that won't be looked at, and occasionally stopping to hide herself completely behind a section of conjured fake wall or glass. Everything necessary to prevent even rolling the dice on exchanging shots with a guard. Even if she's absolutely confident she would win, she can't risk stray bullets on the unconscious payload. Cutting right under the Flotilla's landing is the idea; the ship itself and its assorted crew will mask any sounds and signatures directly below them all the way up until they scope the situation and fan out to a considerable distance, by which point she hopes to have completely disappeared. Even then, what's most likely to turn up long before her is a tiny wooden 'drone', hovering far above on buzzing gearwork helicopter blades, watching the chaos from above with an old telescopic lens. Allowing that one to fall to an easily detectable height is her final misdirection.
Big Boss	Damocles sends a guard crazy(ier?), and he takes his gun and begins firing at his allies. They turn their guns to gun him down after a few moments of checking if it's friendly fire, giving Xion and Amelris to move and fight, hitting opponents with rod and pipe. They have an opening on 'getting around', but... They're also the targets for the response team. Starbound Flotilla would touch down 'in the middle of the park', right into the path of a member of the Equalists, complete with hostage. Between that and the three guard-buttkickers, they have their work out for them - but the missing Horizon man is nowhere to be seen. Nova locks down the actual local security team. That'll take them a few minutes to get past - enough time for the Watch to start pushing out, but once they're out, they're tough. They're basically their own Shadowrunner crew. Hopefully the Watch doesn't need to interact with them, though, because Amon and Danzo have the VIP, and can escape with him. Corona can go with them, or go help anyone outside. Selene gets lost! She finds herself face-to-face with a different troll, trying to split through the mines as the rest of his team goes through the gate. This one has an assault rifle, though. She might want to use the cover of darkness to get back out and escape with the others, or she's in trouble. The VIP crew can get to an out on their own, to a meet-up point with Xion. The question is: can Xion get to them and get everyone out herself?
Nova Terra	Nova remains cloaked as she makes her way back through the tunnel she entered in, coming out once more near the back of the court house. From there it shouldn't be too hard to continue on to the edge of the park and make her escape. Her part of the mission is complete, after all. Hopefully the others will complete theirs and not lose their target in the process. The whole thing wasn't quite as clean as Nova would have liked. But at least they pulled it off!
Amon	MEANWHILE, at the Emergency Response entry area... A cluster of around four Equalists have brought one of the VIP's children out this way, coming to an abrupt halt when they encounter the Flotilla team. The forward three adopt ready stances with outstretched fists, advancing carefully for a moment before all three make a run on the group and the rest of the ERT. They're not /incompetent/... but this cell isn't good enough to keep their heads above water in a situation like this. The three that attack will be subdued (or, perhaps, killed) in any way that the ERT and the Flotilla see fit. The fourth, with the hostage, will surrender in short order.
Selene	That's not Selene's weird tourist friend! That's another troll entirely, and she dips into a dark corner instinctively. First things first: Not looking like what might have been called in about her! That means putting the Wailmer back into its ball, her hat into her pocket, and messing with her hair so it just looks messy instead of matted. She's going to wait for a bit to see if she can just get by the troll without a confrontation, but if there's no other option... Then it's time for more 'acting', taking on the airs of a corporate asshole kid instead of just being her regular asshole self. The troll would be notified about someone making a mess back where she had left said mess with the Wailmer, then asking for an escort out before her parents get mad and fire someone for letting her out of THE TOWER. Not that she knows anything about any towers, but it'd just feel right.
Damocles	When the guards start fighting among themselves, Damocles pulls himself to his feet and casually strolls away, satisfied with the chaos created by his spell. He could keep going, but these guards will have to figure out who is fighting what right now, and that's time they won't be able to actually work on taking down his side, so that should buy them the time they need. Anything else is excessive. However he keeps hearing talk about a 'Starbound Flotilla' coming in? He has no idea what that is, but everybody seems nervous about it. He looks over to Xion, and makes a shooing motion with one of his paws. "Go on, make your exit. I'll cover you. I can get myself out easily enough." That said, he trusts the others to do what they need to do, and so he turns his attention away from them, and towards the Starbound Flotilla. He moves to cover the path that the other takes, intent on intercepting anyone who tries to give chase. He's still dressed as a giant themepark bear, though. No reason to break character NOW.
Corona Arclite	While there was some concern about the man's family and it being used in not nice ways later, the VIP was still the primary objective. Family complications.. could be dealt with later if need be. Especially with bigger heat coming in, this was no time to try and play big bad action hero. That's just playin' with dead man's hand. So Corona sticks with the main payload, as it were. As they're exiting the fake mine into the utility/security passages she grabs a prop shovel. She'd rather have a hammer but close enough; it's better to have a crappy weapon that's going to likely break in one or two uses than nothing at all. Hopefully it won't be needed to dig their own grave.
Amelris Belthrone	Amelris, in his amazing disguise that somehow is STILL together, is not sticking around to find out what kind of response... THAT is going to be. The impact was quite enough for him to just /bail/ into the mines, taking himself out into one of the paths in there, fighting his way out with his pipe. This is gonna leave a slight sour taste in his mouth that this got this loud but, what can he do at this point. There's more to this job than they might've first imagined.
Starbound Flotilla	"We have no time for a grand entrance. An emergency teleport deployment is necessary, if we are to calm this in anything resembling a reasonable frame of time." "Prepare for mobile launch!" The locked doors mean that pursuing that end of it is less viable for the emergency response team, and that means the Starbound Flotilla are forced to make their own deployment somewhere else. Damocles, and those equalists... There's suddenly a gang of assholes pursuing them! "Star Four, I need overwatch!" "On it! I see at least three fleein' their sins!" "Star Five! Flank left, points on the prime vector!" "Floran huuuuuuuntsss!!" "Star Three! Star Two! Cut ahead on deployment! Block them off!" "Determined. I'll make sure they can't escape!" "Let us see their strength falter." "Star Six, hostages on eyes, extract!" "Yank and 'stract, I got 'em." An Avian arcing above sights the Equalists; Albert opens fire from a nearby roof to force them into bad positions so that Seft and Moonfin can charge them down from their escape angles and Biteblade can cut off flanks. George is the one who manages to yank the hostage quick, almost as quick as the fourth surrenders! They keep in motion. They move with utter, absolute coordination. Damocles, the hostile themepark bear, is going to have to deal with a barrage of strikes from above as Pavo fires her three magn-orbs repeatedly, recalling and blasting them at him; and Biteblade launches heavy tungsten arrows from sniping point after sniping point. They're less the obstacle than Moonfin and Seft, the samurai and knight who are trying to keep any escape vectors cut off. Albert's the one trying to deploy AUTOMATED SENTRIES, and it's only a few minutes before they're up and running, making getting out of here without a protracted fight a /much/ more awful prospect!
Damocles	Damocles starts getting pelted about the head and torso by attacks from Pavo, the smacking of magn-orb against his skull a steady drumbeat as he continues to stride forward. "Ow ow OW ow ow ow ow..." he gives a bit more annoyed of a response each time he's hit, before finally losing his temper just a little. "Can't you see..." he starts to roar out, as he leans down, grabs a nearby bench, and rips it free of the ground, holding it over his head. "I AM TRYING TO BRING JOY TO CHILDREN!" He screams in rage as he hurls the bench with all his considerable might at Pavo. He huffs with the effort, though his rest is very brief, as a second later a tungsten-tipped arrow slams though his arm, completely punching though his forearm, the front of the arrow cleanly punching all the way through to the other side. He takes a moment to look at the wound, a little in shock before saying, "Ooochie." He immediately turns and flees into a nearby bathroom. If anyone follows, there will be no sign of him anywhere, though the bloody arrow will be laying on the floor.
Xion	Xion bears witness to a truly 'radical' multicolored rainbow of violence descend on the amusement complex. It's inspiring in its brutality. The tactical efficency. She reaches out towards those six hearts and, while she can find six shapes, they are also a single shape. "Aww. They fit together." For this heart-shaped-lack moment as Xion basks in the glow of the Flotilla's violent heart, two HRT members with shock clubs tactically takedown her and start beating the bajeezus out of her with tazer clubs. Guarding her face and curling up, after a few moments of abuse she just 'stops being present to be hit', appearing in a heap near Nova Terra's extraction point. "Ow. I got police brutality'ed." She laments, focusing curative energies on her shoulder while she joins the pack in the bug-out. She really wants to ride on Nova's cool airship, because airships are (as stated) Very Cool, but unfortunately people appear to be leaving THE BORING WAY. Through SEWERS and stuff.
Corona Arclite	Well they manage to avoid any fights thanks to ruckus above ground drawing all the attention. Corona needs to ditch the prop shovel, so she uses it to jam a hatch shut once Amon and Danzo are through with the VIP, just in case someone is following them. Barricade door. Tick another one off the Trope Bingo card. Afterwards Corona hotfoots it out of here with the duo and their payload.
Nova Terra	The invisible Nova makes it around a street corner and almost trips over Xion as she appears right in front of her. A wave of blue light washes over the Ghost as she decloaks, leaning down to check on the beaten up girl. It seems though that she's already healing herself. Impressive. Nova moves to help Xion up, reaching her other hand to touch her visor, "Condor One, get down here for that pickup." A voice replies over the radio, "In the pipe, five by five." The Terran Medivac plummets out of the sky, threading itself through the buildings as it quickly drops down towards the street where the two are positioned. Its two large thrusters rotate to point downwards, the dropship quickly decelerating before landing rather roughly, landing gear ripping of bits of street. The bay door opens for only a few moments to allow the two on board, before the thrusters burn brighter. As the ship begins to lift off, the pilot at the front calls back, "Be sure to wipe your feet at the door."
Big Boss	The Elites escape in several ways: teleporter, cool ship, tunnels. They manage to exfiltrate, even if they lose an Equalist team and a hostage to the Flotilla. The Flotilla is told that their services will be useful in the future, as the 'hostage rescue' is somewhat decent for PR. This went loud. Mr. Johnson is livid, for several reasons. The family wasn't supposed to be brought along, just the target. But that alone would be excusable. It went /loud/, and they abducted an executive. That's not heat the client needs. Big Boss gets told the words 'don't call me, I'll call you'. He relays this to the group, with a sparkle in his metaphorical eyes. He's already got thoughts.
Starbound Flotilla	"Hhhhh... Floran lossst lead. Vanished." "Focused. I'm detecting a signal low above all this! We can still..." "Hmph. No joy. Brought the ship around, but it's just a drone." "Sorry, buddy, they've spread out too much." "Well, we did get some captures. Enough to get paid!" "Enough to edge our foothold back into this world anew." "Ideas?" "We'll find an opportunity. This much coordination means something worthwhile is in play. We need only find it nature and take it for ourselves." The SFS Rapacity III returns almost as quick as it arrived. They only managed an inch of a foothold, and prevented none of the plan, but it's all they need to at least start understanding what's going on in the bigger picture -- they know now that a bigger picture is there at all.