House of HORROR

"That's it," motions Arsenal as she indicates the rather shabby looking building she has brought everyone to. It doesn't look like much, but then here in the heart of Nyon what doesn't look like ... this. "It used to be free housing for disposables, but Patdown... removed... all of the tenants, quietly. That way they can use the illusion that it is still in use. It's one of the key substations, a link in the supply chain. The N.P.D. doesn't have much... but more than everyone else. So if we can break that chain..." 
The tall femme has her dome up. She looks down to the gun she holds, inspecting it. "Truth of the P.D. is that they are stretched thin. Beyond thin. At most there will be two guards inside. The comms blackout disrupts us, sure, but then too."
Hot Rod has somehow managed to find the one place to stand where he can Captain Morgan it: he has one foot lifted, resting on a fallen column, and his hand braced on his thigh as he leans forward. (The pose gives him at least +5 hero points.) His gaze is bright and his manner intent. Slowly, he smiles. "This is gonna be easy," he says, thus dooming them all.
Glancing up, Hot Rod searches the skies for Moonlight -- but if she's doing her job right, he'd never spot her. With Moonlight and Cheetor to watch their perimeter, they should have warning; with the others dispatched to raise hell rousing rabble by spreading word about Mender, they should have distraction. It's almost a plan! "You're our eyes, Rewind, okay? Just focus on keeping watch for us in case anything slips through or we miss something."
Rewind isn't far away, his video camera already set and recording. Perched up on a high spot, he scans the area. It's been a strange several cycles in Nyon and the small data slug has been kept extremely busy with all kinds of dramatic footage. Hasn't been dull, that's for sure. "Gotcha, Hot Rod. So far so good."
"Yeah...," Arsenal sighs as she racks her gun. "Easy." It will be that, but then that's not what worries her about going in there. She looks over to Hot Rod and ... wow, this is going to hurt. But then, she vowed to help and she knew going in that it would entail exposing some things that, quite frankly, not show her of in a very positive light. "They won't be able to signal for help any more than we'll be able to. Even with me to point you at this, Patdown doesn't think I'd be bold enough to strike here. This is a central location though so it's the risk. This is where they often stored the heavy armaments," she explains. Yet, to her, that is just another reason to take this place. 
"After we cleared this place," she frowns at the memory, "Patdown took us to the roof. He pointed out how from here he could launch a missile at any part of the city, then laughed how he bet no one would notice. If anything, he would be thanked for clearing out some of the 'trash'." She shares this because she is hoping to open up some questioning about the S.C.U. Maybe shedding light on them will help to get a any kind of spotlight off her. Which reminds Arse... "Sure you don't want me to go in first, secure the ground floor? Maybe, ah... clean it up a little." So what they did can't be seen. She does look over to Rewind though and wonders... "Nevermind that." Even if Hot rod hates her after tonight, there is good that come from Rewind getting a recording of what is really going on.
Arse holds out the rifle she has just inspected and armed, to Rewind. He might need it. "There *should* only be two in there. Maybe less." She hopes not more.
Where Arsenal's anticipation shades wary, even reluctant, Hot Rod is all eager and bold. He seems oblivious to the unease that slithers around the edges of her words, and laughs at her question. "No way. Can't let them think I'm hiding behind you, right? We'll go in together," he says with a grin.
Studying the hints of movement at the lower level, Hot Rod shakes his head. "Patdown sounds like a /mess/. Who even thought putting him in charge was a good idea? Perfect example of everything wrong with things." He rolls his shoulders and steps forward to cross to the door to the lower level as easy as that. "Well, let's hit it."
Behold, strategy Hot Rod style: he knocks on the front door and calls, "Delivery!" Then he steps to the side and says to Arsenal, "Take the door down."
There is power in showing people the truth, and that is what Rewind strives to do with his video camera. He may be small, but that lens has a huge impact. He continues surveying the area, then turns to look at Arsenal as she offers him.... a gun?! 
He stares at it. "...." He then looks up at her. "I...uh, I haven't ever used a gun before." As a disposable and an archivist, it just... hasn't really come up.
"Breach selected him, I think, because he *is* deranged. The Chief can use him to engineer exactly the situation that he wants and even use the mess to get rid of him. Breach is likely hoping you kill him," Arsenal admits freely. "Patdown is insane enough to go along with it, if that is indeed the plan or it's been shared with him. Patdown is *all* about function,, so if he is convinced his is to die..." Oh Primus, Rod is moving. She hurries as she shoves the rifle at Rewind. "Then keep the safety on. Use it to look intimidating. The greatest part of survival is showing your commitment to it," she notes to him as she gets her game face on. Literally. The dome comes down and Arsenal moves forward.
A big boot comes up and kicks the door wide open, violently so, and Arsenal moves past Hot Rod to enter. She draws a pistol as she does, clears the corners and then stalks inside. "Behind me," she states professionally as she moves inward, headed towards the far stairs.
Inside are... well, what remain of those that had lived here. Disposables. Yet none of them function though they are indeed animated. Crude batteries have been jammed into sockets or rudimentary conveyor belt like machines shuffle the long-dead bot bodies around. "The illusion of occupation," Arsenal offers back as she keeps moving, without pause, to the stairs. "I go first," she states, then turns and heads in deeper.
"You know, I changed my mind. /Breach/ is a perfect example of everything that's wrong," Hot Rod says as he waits for Arsenal to take the door down. His tone is conversational, lighthearted, as though this is little more than a fun adventure. He double-checks on his own weapons, but with his guns built right into his arms, it's all internal. They warm, a light glow at the edge of the silver.
When Arsenal kicks the door and heads in first, Hot Rod kicks into movement with an eager, "Hey! Wait! Togeth--!" The brightness falls, tumbles, and shatters. "--er," he finishes, flat. "Rewind. Primus. Those /scrapheaps/. Rewind, make sure you get this." He pauses, slower to follow after Arsenal, as he turns back to see how the archivist takes the horror show they've entered. He extends a hand, clasping his shoulder, and moves with him rather than race ahead to the fun.
Rewind stares up at Arsenal as the rifle is shoved in his arms. The thing is nearly as big as he is, and he stumbles back a bit. But oddly enough- she DOES have a point. "Oh! Uh. Right!" Struggling a little with the weight, he stumbles back once, then forward as he gets the hang of it. Hefting the weapon he follows along behind, adjusting so that the rifle doesn't completely block the view of his lens. He nods to Hot Rod, "Scrap heaps, right." He films that, too, then continues on after the other two.
Arsenal stops on the stairs as, behind her, the others have slowed as well. It's not like she can blame them. She knew what it meant to bring them here. She also knows what it will mean to the cause once they claim this place. "Keep together. We take the building you can document as needed later." Maybe Hot Rod will see the value in exposing this place while it still exists. That might be enough to earn forgiveness for having failed to stop this from happening. "Up," she states before she moves again.
The next floor is the same. "Don't try the elevators. They were blown to avoid escape," she explains professionally as she keeps advancing. Each floor has the next stairwell on the far side, which means crossing each floor to make it to the next.
The third floor is littered with shells as the disposables here were clearly used for target practice. 
Once she secures the doorway to the fourth, Arsenal slows on this floor which is... empty, like it's been scrubbed clean. She looks around carefully. "This doesn't make sense. This is where they did the questioning. It should be... messy."
"Right." Hot Rod very nearly has to shake himself out of it: a sharp twist of his head draws his eyes away from the bodies and to Arsenal's back. He follows. When they get to the third floor, he can't help himself. He snarls: "What is /wrong/ with their /processors/?" He draws up next to Arsenal to study the fourth floor and repeats, "Messy," in a 'please don't clarify that for me' kind of tone. "Chances they cleared it because they expected us to hit the place?"
Primus. This is a lot of stairs. It may or may not seem that way to the other two, but when you're just a little guy like Rewind (carrying a big, heavy gun no less) it gets to be a bit much. The grisly scene doesn't help, either. Vents wheezing just slightly by the time he reaches the top, he pauses to take in the view, ghastly as it is. The archivist's camera never stops recording. 
Looking around, he tries to figure out just what's going on. There's a pause, then he asks quietly, "You don't think it's a trap or anything do you?"
"Or they found something. Or didn't find something. There was a mech they held here, someone they considered important. They didn't explain who; I didn't ask," Arsenal explains calmly. Very calmly. This is go-time for her so she defaults to combat operations. "Over there," she points to one corner of the central room where all this happened. "They made him watch everything in effort to break him. Here he would have ... right." Rod kind of 'asked' not to know. She scans around, as though looking for something, finds nothing so advances to the stairs. "I suspect no one is here," she answers Rewind, "As they would have detonated the worst trap on the first floor." She's going to guess that no one wants that explained either.
The fifth floor is the P.D. made their own quarters. Every bit of anything of value from the previous floors has been brought here. What meager things the former residents had managed to hold onto were taken or handed over, then stored here. On this floor Arsenal shivers, despite her serious attitude, and has to pause several times as she quakes with memories. "Operations, and thus the armaments, are above on the last floor."
"/Important/." Hot Rod rolls the word around. He samples it, tests it, tastes it. "You know, I think I'd hate to see their VIP treatment after the last couple of floors, but this whole -- swept clean thing?" He gestures. "Almost worse." It leaves far too much room for his imagination.
As they pass through the fifth floor, Hot Rod reaches for and brushes lightly -- and one might almost say reverently, but maybe not if one /knows/ him -- over the minutiae gathered by the former residents. His pace slows, but whether it is out of respect for Rewind's little legs or for the abandoned artifacts is an open question. "You know, Arse, I /really/ don't like those guys." The brightness of his tone flashes brittle in his gaze.
Despite all of her training and better judgment... Arsenal stops here, on this fifth floor. Hot Rod calling to her with that nickname is... it's everything in this moment. The kindness of that small act is enough to break her, through all of the armor and armaments she carries. "This is what I did," she admits with a choke to her vocalizer. She's said it and now she can't look at any of it, all of the stuff that is gathered here. Stuff she took from there, all these precious things that the former residents hide. Not much of any of it is worth anything but that didn't stop these things from being of value to those poor, poor bots. And she took it from them, at the cost of much being ripped from her own spark in the process. "Feeling is mutual," she assures him as she brings her pistol back up. She has to get out of here, off this floor, so she hastens to that last stairwell.
The top floor, the sixth one, has had most of the walls removed. Stacked in piles here are weapons. Weapons upon weapons. And, as Arsenal kind of mentioned, even some missiles aimed out windows. There are boxes and boxes of bullets, bladed weapons, batons... and a hatch in the ceiling that has been flopped open as a single copbot frantically scrambles to get out of here!
Rewind's small frame allows him access to places the others might not be able to reach, and out of curiosity the archivist starts moving around and exploring. Capturing the video footage he makes his way around until he finds himself next to a desk. He stands there a moment, wondering what to do next, when the huge rifle in his hands suddenly slips. Falling on the floor with a THUD, he flinches and moves to pick it up again. But that's when he spots something /taped/ under the desk.... 
Small fingers reach under and peel away the item. "Interesting..." He flips it in his hands, then takes out a small reader device and plugs it on. 
Following the others still, he starts reading data from within. "Hmm... Apparently this belonged to someone named... Switchtouch. A comms mech engineer. And this other data... well..." His optic ridges furrow down a little. "Looking at this video I'd say he was the one held here. He made this datachip."
"Lurking. Watching. The darkness of night consumes our hero as he watches from above. His optics narrow and he crouches low. Waiting. Stalking."
Cheetor perches on the edge of the rooftop, his optics narrowed as he focuses on the building adjacent to the one he has laid claim to. The former beast smirks the moment the spots what he figured would be here soon enough. That smirk fades into a grin as Cheetor rises to his full height and skims along the edge of the roof and leaping off towards the building in question.
"Pouncing."
The gravely tone of voice he's been using is clearly not his. He's only posturing because he's been monologuing to himself this entire time. As he soars through the night sky with both speed and stealth, he hits the rooftop in mid-skid and is on top of the copbot before he can finish getting out of the hatch. There's not even a moment that the copbot can realize he's free because a streak of yellow grabs him and the next thing he knows, he's being held over the side of the roof... with a blade to his throat.
"Wha- wha-- WHAAAAAAA!" Copbot is terrified.
"Where are they?!" Cheetor's fake voice is on full blast right now.
"AHHH! Who?!?!"
"My FRIENDS!"
"I-I-I-I-I dunno! I dunno nothin'!"
"LIAR!"
Cheetor starts to lose his grip and the Copbot flails, scrambling to grab onto Cheetor's arms!
"Okay okay! I'm sorry! They're inside! I swear!"
"Really?" Cheetor slips back into his normal voice. "Okay, cool! Thanks, mech!"
The Copbot flickers an optic and tilts his head. "Wait-- what? Who are you, anyway?"
Cheetor's optics narrow again and he pulls the Copbot in to match him Optic to Optic. His Bale-ish voice returns.
"I'm Catmech."
"He was Mr. Important?" Hot Rod asks, turning back to Rewind with a flare of interest. Absently, he reaches out to pick up the fallen gun. It is not quite so huge in his hands. He studies the archivist's expression as though he could read the data from Rewind's reaction to it, but only a moment.
Turning forward, Hot Rod sighs a long vent as he catches up to Arsenal. He clasps her shoulder, and repeats, "Did, maybe. But what you're doing now is helping put an end to every other place they'd try this slag." He paces her to the sixth floor, where he lunges forward on seeing the cop scrambling to get away from their JUSTICE. Seeing a gleam of yellow with the sudden yank of the cop out the exit, he puts two and two together to make, "Leave enough for the rest of us!" He takes his time heading over, sure enough that Cheetor can handle a single cop caught with his armor down.
Arsenal has her weapon up and ready to fire at that fleeing copbot but... scrap! She lowers the gun as he gets away! "The blackout might prevent normal communications but he could still do it in person. We won't have long if he gets away. We have to clear out of here fast." Meaning they can only grab the weapons they can carry. Fortunately for them, Arsenal can cover most of the inventory here by herself. Yet, Rod doesn't seem concerned? He saw something she missed? She pops the dome open, since Hot Rod is willing to not worry. She looks down at Rewind to make sure that he's okay. "What could they have wanted with someone like that? Especially to make him endure so much."
The caught copbot is clearly scared to have been stopped by somebot so... yellow. But one with a sword? and it sounds like below the others he sought to avoid have caught up. He backs up and attempts to alt form, set on getting out of here. "Have at it, Catmech, everything that's here!" He's content to give up on it, maybe especially since he was the lone guard posted here for cycles on end.
Rewind is going to regret he didn't get that /fantastic/ entrance by Cheetor. Ah well, maybe another time. maybe soon! As it is, he scrambles after the others, happy to let Hot Rod carry that gun for a moment. "He would have known about the communication systems. It could mean that they were planning this blackout for awhile." He continues on- then catches sight of that yellow guy. He starts going through his databases... someone that yellow has to have records. Somewhere.
"Really? Mech, thanks. This is gonna' be a really big help. You're awesome."
Catmech has turned back into Cheetor it seems, just before the copbot decides to transform and roll out. Cheetor even offers him a little wave as he reattaches the sword to his arm where it belongs. He turns and wheel-slides off in the direction of the hatch because that is definitely where the free stuff is. Down in there. "That was awesome. I totally interrogated that mech." He's talking to himself again before he makes his dropping entrance down into what looks like it is going to pass for an armory of sorts. And this is probably where everyone will get the chance to recognize him as Cheetor!!
And copbot is out of here! On silent rotors now, he zips away,, keen to alert the closed of his kind that he can find.
As soon as Cheetor drops down Arsenal points her pistol at him. That dome closes quickly as she advances, suring up her shot as she keeps that weapon trained on him. She is new here and legit ins't exactly sure who this is... though she waits on, and will take lead from, Hot Rod.
"Fast, you said?" Hot Rod glances around the armory, then down at Rewind, who is sooo not going to be much help carrying. And definitely not /fast/ help. Now that they've made him come with them /all the way up the stairs/, he asks, "Did you get enough footage when we came up, or do you want to head back down while we're loading up?"
When Cheetor drops by, Hot Rod only looks past him with a disappointed sort of noise. "So he's off to tell tales?" After turning it over a half-second, he shrugs. "Eh, doesn't matter. We can handle it." He grins, then, easy and careless. "Hey, Cheetor. Arsenal says we need to move fast. Think you can handle that?" This is how he does introductions: dropping names, nothing formal, and moves to dismantle the /missiles/ aimed at /his city/ first.
Rewind also waits on Hot Rod- the mech has a natural leadership quality. Meanwhile, the archivist concentrates on getting footage of this new guy. Then Hot Rod wants to know MORE footage stuff. The small mech takes one look down all those stairs and his head whips right around back to the racer. "I'm good." Please don't make him do that again, Hot Rod.
Arsenal is already moving to start collecting weapons. Compartments open all over her body, and when they do, she starts stuffing any manner of weapon or ammo she gets her large hands on into them. "Yes. He'll locate others, gather them up and then come back here. Thing is, it will only round up so many as it will send off others to gather more. So, the N.P.D. might not have much but I don't think we should rick being swarmed." Just her advice. She looks up from the RPG that she is, very literally, stuffing into her pants to Rewind. "We could... we could give this place a burial, if he has it all. We could use those," she chin-nods to the missiles, "To arm a trap too. I can't carry all of those out of here. We rig them to blow when those dronebots get back here..." Just an idea? There is a part of her that wants to see this place reduced to a crater for hopes of being able to forget it. "They are likely to detonate the bombs them put in those bodies below anyway, when they get back. To try and remove the evidence, or hope to catch us hiding inside." Whelp, Rod said before he didn't want details and Arse didn't reveal THAT earlier, but it feels important to bring it up now. Yes, the S.C.U. use those automated corpses below as explosive traps as a further desecration.
"Why blow up what you can keep?" comes a voice from above, the sound a little cut up from the whirr of copter rotors. Hey, it's Moonlight! Back from aerial observation and fun stuff like that, she's here to help pack up with that wonderful cargo hold of hers. Yay! Slowly she lowers herself to the ground, where there is space, and opens her cargo doors.
Hot Rod reaches out to rest his hand on Rewind's helm. Ruffling not really being a thing, he just knuckles the smaller bot's head in an affectionate pat. He tosses a quick smile, and what isn't said, he seems to guess. "Okay." Hefting one of the missiles, he says, "Burial, yes. Trap, no. We don't know who they'll send, after all. We'll set it to blow after we leave, but before they're here." This definitely doesn't presage any important difference in approach! "Those poor sparks down there deserve some kind of burial, though, instead of the horror show."
With Moonlight here, it becomes much easier for Cheetor to zip around and help load, which is totally what he's doing, right? It's what Hot Rod's doing! "Nice timing, Moonlight," he calls to her. "This lot looks pretty explosive, so be extra careful no one shoots you, huh?"
Rewind looks up to Arsenal, expression somber, and nods. "I can try to do something. I haven't actually done anything like set up traps before, but..." he taps the side of his helmet, "I have an extensive database to look through." Moonlight gets a glance up, and he offers her a quick wave- he hasn't forgotten that cool helicopter ride he went on. 
And then there's a gentle rap on the top of his head, and his hands come up reflexively, grin on his face under the faceplate. He looks up at Hot Rod. "Good point. I can start something, what would you like? I have some field manuals in my databases..."
Arsenal can think of about a hundred different reasons why she wants to blow up this whole building. All those reasons are one floor below her. And to not use this opportunity to rid Breach of a great number of his mechs? Arsenal wants to rebel against Hot Rod's decision, to tell him that to end this he will have to go further than *that*. He's witnessed how little mercy the S.C.U. has and yet... he's wishing to show it? She's not established with them enough to tell them how flawed that kind of thinking is. "So be it," she states, following orders well. She'll use her height and strength to hand up all that is to be taken - and heft little Rewind up so he can get out if he wants. After he's set the detonator on that missile they aim to leave behind.
"I don't like to be shot, so that shouldn't be too hard an objective to complete," Moonlight says with an odd chuckle; odd simply because it has that strange, echoing effect that speaking into a fan has. "But if I do blow up I'll try to do it right in their faces, ha!" Anyone who is small enough could probably get a ride in the cockpit. That would probably only be Rewind. "Alright. So, what's the next step folks?"
"Cool. What /don't/ you know?" Hot Rod grins at Rewind in surprised delight. He gives him a nod to get to it, and carries on oblivious to any second-guessing that might be going on elsewhere. The quality of mercy is self-evident, isn't it?
"Next step? We run." Hot Rod laughs as he says it, but it's a laugh that covers an element of truth. No, really. They run. Once the brain (that's Rewind) has set the explosives for detonations, the brawns abandon their attempts to clear the area of everything of value. The rest is going up! Cheetor tasked to make sure there's no one in the nearby buildings, Rewind sent off with Moonlight, Hot Rod takes the detonator and heads down the street with Arsenal. "I think this one's yours," he tells her, handing the detonator over to her so that they can bring the building down, rendering it nothing more than a crater of ashes and bad memory.
There's a flash of light, a rippling wave of pressure, and a blast of sound. Smoke rises into the night sky as fire burns the site clean.
Category:Cops and Rebels