maskormenacelogs | COME ON AND SLAM

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COME ON AND SLAM

WHO: Everyone! Especially YOU!
WHERE: The International Moon Research Base, Mare Nubium, THE MOON
WHEN: April 18th, all day
WHAT: Aegis Force, the government-funded imPort peacekeeping team, is hosting this month's Swear-In to promote their ideals of teamwork and cooperation! Come compete and spectate in the SPACE SLAM, the sporting event that's out of this world! Also featuring a LUNAR DISCO, a DIPLOMATIC EVENT, and a BATTLE AGAINST ATTACKING ROBOTS! Wait, what was that last one?
WARNINGS: Violence, awkward locker rooms. Any questions or issues, hit up the OOC post!

PART I: THE SWEAR-IN

Welcome to the Moon, imPorts! You arrive through the Porter in the base's atrium dome, designed in a futuristic style that emphasizes sleek, spotless white surfaces. You will immediately notice how much less you weigh here in the Moon's low-gravity environment- be careful jumping, or you may hit the ceiling!

Before you can get to the main event, you'll have to pass through strict security comparable to an airport experience (if the airport was surrounded by merciless vacuum and filled with flammable oxygen). Any weapons will have to be surrendered and locked up by base personnel during the event, unless you can convince officials to make an exception. Once past security, airlock tunnels will lead to the Base's other domes, where the main body of the Swear-In will be today.

The RESIDENCE dome is the largest of the interlinked habitable bubbles that make up the main Moon Base, holding tourist hotels, staff apartments, restaurants, and even a grassy park beneath a glass dome offering a view of the Earth above. Crowds are thick today, as plenty of people have flocked to the Moon to behold the heavily-advertised SPACE SLAM. The Slam is an Aegis-sponsored live-streamed sporting event, game show and fundraiser where imPorts assemble themselves into teams of 2 - 6 characters and compete in different challenges, held in hotel gyms and in the park. Giant screens and bright holo-displays notify of the different causes benefiting from today’s event, including the Endeavor Centre, SELF, and HOPE. Participating characters can choose any or all of:

1. Basketball - but of course. A court has been set up, and the stands are packed with cheering fans. Two teams face off and try to get the ball through each other’s hoops!
2. Battle Royale - the obligatory superhero sparring fight, available in free-for-all and team-vs.-team editions. Square off against with your rivals in an open arena and show the world who’s the toughest- just don’t kill or seriously maim anybody in the fray, or you’ll be disqualified!
3. Low-gravity laser tag - the less violent alternative to the Battle Royale, again in free-for-all or team-vs-team options. Grab your vest and plastic light gun and bounce your way into the neon-lit Zap Zone for a match!
4. Irritation Lane - a particularly challenging event, part demolition derby, part go-karting race. Your team must choose and customize their own ground vehicle(s) in a garage with sixty minutes to spare, working from pre-existing chassis like rugged old-fashioned moon buggies, light and fast hover cycles, and the massive heavy-footed Lunar Construction Mech. Decorate and modify your creations as you please and outfit them with nonlethal weapons like glue-foam missiles, EMP mines, net launchers, and smoke screens. Then put on a space suit and face your rivals in a thrilling race around the track that’s been constructed outside the base, complete with soaring low-gravity jumps and daring shortcuts through twisty, narrow canyons!
5. Charades - livestreamed to the entire planet so EVERYONE can see you choking as you try to think of how to mime a banana without looking like a pervert.
6. Competitive karaoke - livestreamed to the entire planet so EVERYONE can see you choking as you try to hit those high notes on ‘Don’t Stop Believing.’
7. Cooking contest - hop into a futuristic, well-stocked kitchen in one of the hotels with your team and roll up your sleeves. You’ve got an hour to whip up a dish that will impress, after which you’ll share your creation with other Swear-In attendees. The more delicious your cooking, the more votes you’ll get when it comes time for judging!
8. Dance-off - does your team have the moves to win over the audience? Put together a killer routine and show what you’ve got!
9. Bouncy castle endurance contest - A massive bouncy castle awaits in a huge room on one of the lower floors of the dome, with protective pads covering the walls and floors and ceilings. Get on the castle with your teammates and jump, jump, jump sky-high in the lowered gravity! Keep jumping no matter what, even if the opposing team tries to knock you off the castle. The team with the last people still bouncing wins this contest!
10. Lunar volleyball - the moondust on the moon’s surface is kind of like sand, isn’t it? At any rate, someone has set up a net outside the Residence dome and space suits are available for those who want to see how hard they can spike a ball in low-gravity.

Holographic and force field technology is in play during these events to ensure everyone's safety in the fragile environment of the Moon Base. Teams of metahumans are also competing, if you want to play out your team playing against NPCs. Before and after your matches, you may want to huddle with your team to discuss strategy and get psyched, engage in some trash talk with your rivals to get in their heads, and give interviews to clustering reporters about how you and your teammates are going to play hard, you know, just give it your very best. Locker rooms are also available for you and your teammates to get changed and shower in, which may or may not be excruciatingly awkward for you. Good luck and have fun, imPorts!

Once you’ve had your fill of the adrenaline of the Space Slam, why not move into the Embassy Dome for a more relaxing and mingle-friendly time? A LUNAR DISCO is happening in the gorgeous Grand Ballroom at the dome’s top level, with huge windows offering a gorgeous view of the cosmos, music to groove to across the marble floor, and a spread of free appropriately-themed snacks and drinks. Among the refreshments is finger food from The Nickel, and Abigail Hobbs will be playing the harpsichord. If you feel like you need to get outside for some (lack of) air, you can also step away for a moonwalk tour, ambling across the desolate gray lunar landscape in a space suit or a clear sealed 'hamster ball' under the supervision of base staff.

You may also find yourself on the Earth Viewing Deck, an elegant lounge dominated by a vast window view of the Earth, with soft music, low lighting, and private alcoves for personal conversation. Here is where the political aspect of the Swear-In comes into play. Not only is there a desk staffed by a government official where you can declare yourself Registered or Unsettled, but there are also optional conversation-starting name tags available with prompts like ‘I’m (INSERT FACTION/ALLEGIANCE HERE), ask me why’ or ‘I am a (INSERT SPECIES/PROFESSION/OTHER RELEVANT IDENTITY HERE), ask me anything’ or ‘I’m (REGISTERED/UNSETTLED), change my mind!’ The goal of this event is encouraging imPorts to talk to each other and resolve issues within their community peacefully and proactively, easing possible disputes before they end up making more work for Aegis.

PART II: ROBOT ATTACK!!
Things run smoothly until late in the evening of the event, when the buzz is immediately killed by a shrill siren, cutting through conversation and competition alike. A hushed silence falls over the gathering, broken by nervous murmuring. Those with experience in these things already know what’s happening: a Swear-In is about to go to hell again.

An eerily calm announcement sounds over the base’s PA system: ”Red Alert. Red Alert. Hostile forces closing on base perimeter. Lockdown protocol now in effect. All civilians are directed to proceed in a calm and orderly manner to the Atrium Porter for evacuation to Earth. All security staff and heroes to your emergency stations. This is not a drill.”

The announcement repeats once, and then the siren resumes. Time to make a decision, imPorts. Are you a civilian who will be evacuating with other noncombatants? Or are you a hero who will stay behind and defend the Moon Base from the oncoming assault?

If you’re evacuating, you can still help to guide and assist the streams of civilians- scientists, VIPs, reporters, tourists, some of them panicking- back to the overcrowded Porter. Once you’re safely back on Earth via the Porter base of your choosing, there’ll be little left to do but huddle with others and wait for news of the crisis unfolding far above the sky, as bits and pieces of information trickle in from the news and social media.

Those of you who choose to buy time for the evacuation by staying to defend the base will find yourselves in a dire situation. Because the Moon Base was built for tourism, science, and diplomacy as a symbol of peace, and thus has no real defenses. It has sensors though, and base staff report at least fifty contacts approaching from all around the base, most of them headed for the Science Dome, home of the base’s labs, lecture hall, and archives, with maybe ten minutes before they arrive. Barely enough time to retrieve your gear (if any) from security and come up with a plan!

First, you’ll have to decide where to make your stand. Will you don a space suit and venture onto the lunar surface in unarmed buggies and shuttles, trying to intercept the enemies before they reach the base itself? Your daring may spare damage to the base and its inhabitants, but out there on the bleak grey dust of the Moon most of you will be only one suit rupture away from a terrible death! You’ll be safer defending from within the base itself, where at least there’s shelter.

The oncoming robots come in two varieties: beefy KILLER ROBOT SPACE LIZARDs, and more subtle COPYCAT DROIDS. The lizards are seven feet long, tough and armoured, equipped with razor teeth and claws, an electric tail, and laser-beam eyes. They also lay ACID-BOMB EGGS that characters will have to disable or dispose of before they burst, corroding the Moon Base still further and causing structural damage. But they're really just the demolition crew for the base, and not that dangerous to imPorts compared to the smaller cats.

These bad kitties are prowling for imPorts, and will fire energy beams at them from their heads, attempting to steal their ~~talent~~ powers. If the beam strikes true, not only is the imPort de-powered until the Copycat is destroyed, but the Copycat will also morph into liquid metal and shift into a metallic copy of the imPort in question, complete with their powers and any specialized gear they may have, which they'll immediately use to wreak havoc on imPorts and natives alike. Get ready to experience firsthand what it’s like to be powerless in the face of a superpowered attacker!

As lasers flash, heroes smash, and robots explode, the Moon Base will begin taking damage despite the best efforts of characters. Injured staff will cry out for assistance and rescue, falling debris will threaten to pin people to the floor, hull breaches will threaten to drain the base’s oxygen and blow people out into space, and fires and explosions will wrack the Science Dome in particular as the robots try to detonate its volatile experiments and power sources to wipe out the entire base!

By the end of the fray everyone at the Moon Base will have been evacuated alive if not necessarily uninjured while all robots are disabled. However, there will have been heavy damage to the Science Dome in particular. Your characters can get started on repair and recovery if they want to stick around. Either way, the bravery shown by imPorts defending the Swear-In will result in EVERYONE being declared a winner at the Space Slam!

In the aftermath, characters will be able to glean more information about what just happened and why. It appears the robots ‘hatched’ from pods buried around the perimeter of the base in response to an activation signal. Apparently these pods have been lying in wait for over a year, while the Moon Base itself was still under construction as a highly-public imPort-led project! Those who are familiar with the history of the Otherworld Technologies Organization (OTO) may find familiarity in the design of the robots and pods. It would hardly be the first time the more extreme OTO elements were alleged to have pitted their killer machines against imPorts and civilians alike…

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[Inflammation builds around the bone and recedes in the space of a few heartbeats, the marrow joining, new bone knitting itself in a dense, rigid cobweb. Now there is little more than a flesh wound remaining, and it closes quickly, seething and then suddenly smooth with new skin.

He lowers his hands.] It is done. [It would have been possible to manage it without pain. But no one had asked for it.]

Whoa, that's so rad!! [He smiles excitedly.] Yeah, I haven't really been in touch with the music scene in these parts. But you can bet I'll start listening to you like heck! And hey, I'm always down for jamming sometime!

"As You Wish."

And just as they rise up into the air, Max fires on them, building up energy in his arms before bringing them together to create a cannon like affect. The two bots make a loud screeching noise from the force of the blast as they disappear. Did they actually fly off into the dark f the moon or did they mostly disintegrate?

Max isn't totally sure, but either way works for him.

"New record? New record. That's at least an extra two hundred yards."

[W H A T.

Angus is immediately struck by two thoughts: 1), that sword is awesome, and 2), Magnus would definitely be jealous of a sword that awesome. The fact that it's somehow bigger than Fuu only makes it even cooler, and he's a little bit starry-eyed.

... So starry-eyed that he almost misses the question, whoops.]

Oh, um, I have several spell slots left! I can do more Magic Missiles, and I know how to cast Fireball and Lightning Bolt, but I can pretty much only do those two once a day.

[ Y'know what, he has to ask. ]

... Miss, how are you holding that up? Like, with gravity?

Well, this is awkward. For Clark, anyway.

"It's not really something I like to spread around." He adjusts his glasses, wishing another robot would come along as a distraction. "Bad experiences with people in power back where I come from."

He's very sure that Anders knows how that is.

She watches him as he works on looking the bike over. She then sees the expression on his face and decides it's better to ask than try to guess.

"What's the verdict?"

"You better remember that."

She has a feeling that he will, though, whether or not she takes the time to remind him. She wouldn't be marrying Nate if she didn't think he had it in him.

"Makes up for some of the crazy shit that happens here, huh?" She closes her eyes for just a moment, enjoying the warm of him against her side and the softness of his voice. "We're lucky."

I think everyone gets to that point at one time or another.

[She takes a few steps forward, enjoying the buoyancy of the light gravity. It hasn't gotten old yet.]

Plus I don't know exactly what it's like where you're from, but space travel isn't something people can just do in my world. I've gotta seize my opportunities.

Zippin' around the system is possible when I'm from, but mostly not advisable for most folk.

Yeah, when I'm from you could call it a pit. Really nothin' fancy happenin' there.

[He can and does outdraw her. He even makes little 'pew pew' noises while doing so. Why yes, he's hundreds of years old and an important government official actually.

Still, he applauds her for the effort.]

[Cayde pauses, crouched along a wall at a blind corner. This would be a great place for a trip mine, if trip mines were allowed for a children's pretend shooting game. But they're not. He fumbles for the next best idea, which is to make a sound to draw her out.

He pulls out a throwing knife and intentionally whiffs the throw so that the handle of the blade smacks into the far wall with a heavy donk sound.]

"Hm, can we not?" he asked, that impassive mask and vocoder doing the real legwork to obscure most of what Woden wanted anyone else to know. Too bad it also meant that smug smile he always wore when he got in these moods was also obscured.

"I think if our histories were really that solidified, then there would be no reason to try to change at all, would there?"

Blue's more my colour!

[He flings out a hand, gesturing upwards. The vandalizing lizard glows blue as it's lifted upwards by Jacob's biotics, tumbling end over end.]

Finish that thing off for me, would you?

Hope and relief are not things that come into Allison's mind yet, so much as an urge to get her fingers around it. To figure out its weight, heft, and usage. Almost immediately like any other weapon or tool. It's almost too strange to have more than 5 or 6 quickly scrawled words, usually in caps, without any punctuation, after the last week, after the Apocalypse led up to and having happened through it.

(... and other things that are not so much worse as, perhaps, harder to be wordless in.)

The ability to sudden do anything like 'speak' even if it's not speaking, closer to her thoughts and choices than even the strange new invention of texting makes her almost feel wordless in a new way. As if there are almost too many words she could have, and what is she to do to know which ones. Which leaves her with a small few, in the newly ingrained habit.

To: Jacob Taylor

Not enough?

It's probably the most honest way to put it. Which is better than putting that she wants to know, mostly, less about it, and more about how to stop Luther from blundering into it that way he will undoubtedly do. Mitigation as a second, expected resort, but also prevention if possible.

She doesn't have a world to return to currently. They were supposed to be fixing that when whatever threw them here, did. It's not the world she wants to return to, but the task of fixing it, and then, to return. Then, to be able to relax even marginally when her daughter was alive again. The world, too. The whole world. But she's selfish and it's specific, and she doesn't give a damn.

She would die if that was all it required for it.
She would all but burn down another world for Claire.

But that doesn't mean she's immune to seeing the empathy and sympathy offered there. It may not help, but it's definitely not done to hurt, and Allison gives a small acknowledging nod. Then, lifts her pad and pen and writes, before holding it up;

Porter?

There's a lot of a question there. Many people have spoken about not being able to leave, but not under having a specific name, choice, presence, and there's a lot Allison has questions about to all of that.

It's not what she meant, but she didn't think it would translate right. She's getting used to that with people, her family and her roommates and random people. The context that having words at such an easy pass as breathing. Forgranted until it wasn't at your disposal.

She doesn't correct him because it's worth knowing, too. The answer is about as sensible as it sounds, and makes her think of any number of kids books she read Claire last year. The way the worlds of those made use of the idea so freely in a way adults rarely even allowed for other people around them to be.

There's a nod, amiable for his ending comment.

What else she really going to do in this place?

Her ideas and, drastically more, inclinations were few, unlike her brother Ben.

Oh! Sure.

[ Apollo is pretty sure that germs pose about as much a threat to him as a water balloon but he withdraws his hand, sticking it in his pocket obligingly. ]

So - is this your first time on the moon?

[ What a world they live in, where even asking that question is a Thing. ]

They can't have come out of nowhere. Someone must have unleashed them here.

[ Apollo frowns at the pile of warped metal that was the copycat droid and kneels to take a closer look. ]

I'd personally like to know exactly who here has the power to take my powers away from me...

[ And then he'd like to hit them. Really fucking hard. ]

[ The question leaves him frowning faintly, considering the words. ]

I hope so.

[ He tilts his head curiously and checks her label once again with a brief downward dart of his eyes. ]

What about you? Do you have heroes on your home world?

Is it fixed? Is he okay?

[ Apollo's words are heavy with suspicion as he moves closer, trying to see the product of Jadus's... unique... handiwork. ]

What did you just do exactly?

[ ie. what the fuck just happened? ]

Edited 2019-05-01 18:28 (UTC)

[ Catra takes a breath deep enough to puff out her chest, her lips a thin, determined line. Better do this before she loses her nerve. Or entirely change her mind.

So she dashes forward and grabs Adora's hand. ]

Okay, so, we gotta go look at the stars.

[ Catra's kinda uses to this Cybertronian business by now, being... acquainted with Riptide, but she still raises an eyebrow at Starscream. ]

Nothing, just... you gonna stomp around here in your giant robot form?

I'm fine, thanks.

[ She says as she's eviscerating a robot... only to be attacked by another one from behind! She notices at the last moment and shrieks as she jumps out of the way. ]

[ Catra, too, is familiar with more dangerous lasers, but these people are as wimpy as it gets, so she doesn't expect these lasers to be anything other than a light show.

The light turns green, and Catra smirks. ]

Guess you gotta watch out, then!

[ And off she goes. ]

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Page 35 of 54

COME ON AND SLAM

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Sorry, lost this notif!

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Swear-In

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