Scene 6
The First Night
The Heist
|| Location âĻ Bay City ~ Blue Tesla's Hideout ||
|| State of Mind ⧠:/ ||
The First Night
The Heist
|| Location âĻ Bay City ~ Blue Tesla's Hideout ||
|| State of Mind ⧠:/ ||
Mania's mirth was at a bit of a low ebb. For one thing, their employer had made clear his intent to kill them the moment they slipped up and/or outlived their usefulness, something which even she, space case though she might have been, grasped fairly clearly. For another, the fluffy white-haired man was apparently really grumpy about something, and so decided the best way to take out that hostility would be to refuse to shake hands with anybody and be all cold and aloof and stuff. Oh, and to brutally murder the two guards outside the door, which seemed pretty twisted to her. Like, there just wasn't any point to it, so why bother? It's not like they could have put up a good fight. Anyway, adding further annoyance to the situation, the Hamburglar also seemed adamant on refusing the wonderful name she'd given him. She'd given a childlike pout and refused to shake his hand at that, like a much more adorable imitation of the aforementioned Vincent. Mania completely failed to realize the hypocrisy of this course of action.
So consequently, Mania was getting a little stir crazy. She was thinking about things way too much, and if there was one thing that she hated, it was actually having to contemplate her actions. Fortunately, all that seemed to be changing, since as she rushed out after Vincent - stepping gingerly over a pair of fresh bodies in the process - four men with some sort of zappy laser-y cannon thing - as her mind helpfully categorized their weapons - opened fire, nearly hitting her and completely shredding the antisocial man. Mania gave a sharp cry of surprise, darting to the side at the last second and barely avoiding the incoming shower of lightning.
She may have been controlled by her impulses most of the time, but she wasn't stupid. For example, she knew that, right now, there was probably a powerful supervillain somewhere in this base ready and waiting to fry their ragtag band of intruders, and that it would probably have been best if they didn't attract his attention. But, as her mind helpfully told her, she didn't need to worry about any of that anymore, since thanks to Vincent's entrance, they already knew she was there! Which meant... all she had to do was... A massive grin spread across her face at this realization, and her shields sparked to life with a snap and a hiss in a flurry of seven-colored light that whirled around her.
The men on top of the stairs looked to be charging their weapons for another round. Mania eyed them with some slight surprise. She'd heard a lot about Blue Tesla, but those guns of theirs, while decently powerful, seemed really inefficient. I mean, what kind of self-respecting mad scientist would arm his entire guard force with a weapon that could only be fired once every ten seconds or so, and then not give them any sort of body armor to allow them to stand up to any attacks that were launched at them in the interrim? Forget supers. This base could be taken by a sufficiently large force of people armed with automatic firearms, a fact that, thanks to reading her thoughts, the others would soon realize as well.
Mania sighed. He must have been really desperate to keep with his lightning theme. Uncle Dan would never have made such an obvious oversight, She thought, remembering the time she'd spent working as an assistant in the laboratory of Dantalian, Dastardly Doctor of Dangerous and Dreadful Disciplines. His security measures might have been a bit excessive, even by supervillain standards, but they'd almost never failed. Compared to having to brave those any time she wanted to come home after a job, a few guys with guns that shot lightning was nothing.
Still, if nothing else, they would be capable of putting up at least some fight, and that was all she asked for. As the two on the stairs almost finished charging their weapons for another round, Mania braced herself against her forcefield, leaping forward as though she'd jumped horizontally off a vertical trampoline. Blurring across the hall, she sped between the two men at the foot of the stairs, launching straight up them and at their allies at the top. She giggled to herself, raising her hands as they were momentarily surrounded by a flicker of rainbow colored light. Planting her feet on the top step, she skidded to a stop right between them, raising a hand in front of both of them. Instinctively they drew back, trying to retrain their weapons on her, only for her to grab them by the barrels, her shield instantly coming into contact with their electrical field as it tried to jump down from the coils and into her arms. In a flash of light, both the shield and the energy charged into their weapons dissipated. Mania's eyes widened slightly in surprise. She'd expected her shields to dissipate the energy charged into the weapons, but she hadn't expected them to fall in the process. Just two of these things had enough power to shred her defenses completely? She made a mental note to try to always be the one to shoot first, not wanting to have to stand up to something that powerful if she could help it.
Oh, right, but there were still the two guys trying to wrest their guns from her grasp. Mania grinned cheerfully, letting go of both and raising her hands in front of her. They eyed her in confusion, seeming to interpret her gesture as one of surrender. Retraining their guns on her, one of them raised a hand to his ear, seeming to be saying something. Whatever it was, he never finished. The power that had been building in Mania's hands discharged instantly, heralded only by one word.
"BOOM!"
The resulting rainbow-colored explosion was like fireworks, crackling, snapping, sparking and hissing as it scattered outward into the throne room and backward down the stairs, shredding them in the process. The two men were sent flying backwards, saved from being charred to the bone only by their surprisingly heat resistant suits. Even so, the sheer force of the blast was enough to hurl them a good several meters across the room, knocking them against both the floor and each other as they were sent hurtling back. By the time they came to a stop near the foot of the throne on the far side of the room - much to the surprise and confusion of the two guards standing watch there - they were completely motionless.
That had been fun. Mania glanced back, grinning from ear to ear, as she looked to see what the others had been doing during this time. To her surprise, though, she found herself realizing the positions of several more guards she couldn't have possibly seen, located at various points throughout the hall. On the one hand, she wanted to go back and help the others with the oncoming swarm of henchmen, but on the other, she had somewhat bigger problems now. After all, if she knew her supervillains, the most likely place to find the owner of this little establishment would be either here in the throne room, or at the very least, somewhere very close by. She highly doubted that he'd just conveniently "happen" to be gone, considering Mr. E hadn't mentioned anything of the sort, and seemed to be making a point of giving them the most difficult "test" he possibly could. Mania had been working with supervillains long enough to know that if your boss didn't specifically tell you something, it meant that he probably didn't want you to realize that that something wasn't true. So sure, you might assume that the crazy powerful lightning master mad scientist wasn't home, which was why Mr. E had sent them there now. But, on the other hand, that pretty much definitely wasn't true. So, considering that her own entrance had exceeded even Vincent's in sheer flashiness, she had a feeling she'd be face to face with the master of the house soon enough. She supposed that meant that it fell to her to keep him occupied while the others recovered from the situation they'd gotten themselves into.
So, she stepped into the throne room, glancing around curiously at her surroundings before turning to the two guards at the foot of the throne and waving cheerfully. "Hi!" She said, giving a big, friendly smile as her shields flickered back to life.