capeandcowllogs | Everyone won’t be treated all the same

Entry tags:

Everyone won’t be treated all the same

WHO: Everyone involved in the Reckoning plot
WHERE: NOHoPE and surrounding grounds
WHEN: Backdated to the fourth day of the takeover, the morning of the 27th. The following takes place between six AM and seven AM. Events occur in real time, except for the part where they’re backdated.
WARNINGS: Violence, references to torture
SUMMARY: After a grueling siege, Reckoning’s takeover of NOHoPE comes to its end with a daring rescue.
FORMAT: Present-tense prose to start, whatever works for you in your threads after. Separate sections will be posted for each part of the rescue, split into different threads and groups within those sections however you like. There will be no tags by the Reckoning NPC account in this log, so control those NPCs as you see fit!

After four days of siege, a grim routine has been established within NOHoPE. The guards patrol, the prisoners are fruitlessly interrogated, the rooftop sentries continue their vigil over the police and news crews outside, the hostages are monitored and fed. Sweeps are conducted for the elusive Jack Bauer, who slips away again and again while periodically snatching food and information.

At six in the morning, there is nothing at all to indicate this routine is going to be broken, save for the news that a hostage is being taken out of her cell due to the promise of having important information on Bauer. When the time comes for NOHoPE to be liberated, Reckoning’s takeover falls apart as suddenly as a thunderbolt from a clear sky.

It happens almost in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, the pale white light of the corridors is washed in red, the low drone of a siren becoming audible. In the cells where hostages are being kept, it's much more alarming: all doors and windows in the room are blocked as armored barriers drop into place, effectively sealing any possible exit points.

At the same time, Reckoning's access to their hostages are blocked.

The PA system crackles to life sharply, a young woman's voice speaking calmly but briskly.

"NOHoPE's power dampening system is now offline. You have fifteen minutes before the system resets and the building is no longer on lockdown. I repeat, you have fifteen minutes."

She doesn't presume to instruct the heroes on how to do their work, so she leaves it at that, moving on quickly.

"Reckoning: whatever quarrel you have with Jack Baeur, the civilians you've taken hostage have nothing to do with him. No one needs to die today -- lay your arms down and surrender yourself to the authorities. These people are innocent. By hurting them, you're no better than what you claim to stand against."

Her voice, which has been steady enough until this point, hitches a little before she can continue.

"Violence isn't the answer to violence. We can find a better solution together. So surrender. *Please.*"

The system stutters a little, and then the message calling for Reckoning's surrender starts looping again, broadcast all over the hospital until the lockdown lifts.

As Yako’s announcement goes out both on the Network and over the intercom, the assembled police units outside need no further encouragement. Once the veracity of the statement is confirmed they are mobilizing, snipers drawing beads on the rooftop sentries, tactical officers loading up in their vehicles, paramedics preparing to receive casualties. Everyone knows this is the best chance they are likely to get. The rescue is on.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ordinarily the order to execute hostages would have been given by now, but someone shut down Reckoning’s radios a few days ago. On the third floor, the guards outside the cells are thrown into confusion when the lockdown begins. Someone does yell for a hostage to be killed as an example, and a few fruitless bullets are fired into the barriers that have come down around the patient rooms, but it’s pointless. NOHoPE’s lockdown protocols are ironclad: Reckoning can’t get at the people they’ve been holding captive.

The reverse doesn’t hold true however. The hostages now have their full powers and abilities restored to them, even if it’s only for a quarter of an hour. Anyone able to get out of their rooms is now in a position to wreak untold havoc on the frightened thugs outside. At the same time, rescuers from outside are converging on the area, either teleported right into the building or finding other ways to the third floor. With angry superhumans coming at them from both inside and outside, it is about to be a very bad day to be a Reckoning guard.

That was the moment Kotetsu didn't know he had been waiting for.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. Some part of him instinctively knew that if he surrendered himself to save hostages, he would be on the inside when and if someone managed to implement a rescue plan. He hadn't been expecting it quite the way it happened, but he wasn't complaining.

After a quick acknowledgement on the comm to Yako, Kotetsu activated his Hundred Power, tossed the comm aside, and powered up to the maximum in order to carry out what he could. Fifteen minutes? He only had five. He had to make them count. Rescuing hostages was his goal, but if there were guards outside, he had to focus on them first - no sense busting others out if they were just going to get tased or shot. He tapped his PDA to start the five minute countdown and got right to work.

Reinforced lockdown walls and doors stood little chance against a hundred times the strength of a normal human. The sound of Kotetsu's fist slamming into the wall and the subsequent crash of rubble cascading into the hallway could probably be heard up and down the ward. Even without his suit, the Crusher for Justice could still pack a wallop. He barreled into the hallway and turned sharply to find out who or what faced him, arms up to protect his face from the dust wafting into the air. The few startled Reckoning guards who clearly hadn't expected any of the Imports to actually, you know, do something, recovered quickly and shot at him, but bullets bounced off his super-powered physique, leaving only small burns and tears in the black bodysuit. Without even needing to stop and think, Wild Tiger turned towards them, throwing himself bodily in the way as a shield. They kept shooting, and he kept blocking, wincing a bit at the sting and blocking his face with his arms, but if it wasn't obvious from the blue aura and the green running stripes glowing on his suit, he was temporarily invincible.

A minute into the barrage, he raised his voice and yelled, not knowing whether anyone could hear him behind the barriers. "OI! Anyone got the kind of power that can take down a shooting gallery? Yell out and I'll bust you out! You've got three and a half minutes to say so!"

That said, he decided being a stationary shield sucked. Those bullets did hurt where they tore across his skin. He sprang from place at a hundred-fold speed and launched himself at the guards, intending to keep punching until his power ran out.

There was someone else here! As exciting as that was, she could tell from the ruckus that the guy was getting shot at. Lila hid under the cot, as far away from the hall as she could. She wasn't about to get shot in an escape attempt.

What other options were there? Well, she could keep quiet and possibly be left behind by the only rescue attempt that was coming. Or she could be shot. There wasn't any part of her that Lila was willing to get scarred.

She really liked the purse thing that the teleportation process had given her. However, right now, Lila sincerely wished that she had something more along the lines of 'delicate skull-cracking' as a power. It seemed like it would have its moments. "No, but bust me out when they run out of bullets or you get your hands on a gun!"

"Hang on!"

Guns weren't his style. Wild Tiger was all about the punching. He threw punches everywhere, taking advantage of the fact that the bad guys in question weren't expecting it. But they weren't amateurs, judging by the way they regained their wits rather quickly and moved to intercept. He still got his hands on more than one and threw them at each other or the wall, but the noise was bound to attract more. He slammed one into the door of the cell from which the girl's voice had come just a few moments before. "I don't know about running out of bullets!" he called back as he wrestled with his opponent, ripping the gun out of his hands and crumpling the barrel like paper. "Got any other ideas?"

Three minutes.

Hang on? She had been hanging on for days! Lila didn't want to wa-

WHUMP. Something had just slammed against the door hard and... fleshy. Okay, maybe hanging on was a totally good idea. She could just chill in here and let them deal with all of that out there first, while being very grateful to be in this nice reinforced cell. Yes.

"They have to run out of bullets sometime! I've gone to movies with guys who've done nothing but complain about how .357s only hold 6 bullets!" She did not come out from under the cot however. "I don't know! Hit them til they stay down!"

Kotetsu wanted to grumble about how these guys weren't using .357s, but there was no time for witty retorts. Hit them until they stay down? That was what he did best. He punched his opponent square in the face and let him slump down to the floor.

For the moment, the corridor was empty. He had taken care of anyone who was guarding the Imports. Without knowing how long he had until backup arrived, he had to work fast. "Back away from the doors!" he called out, for Lila and anyone else who could hear. "I'm breaking through the walls now!" Since he was already standing right here, he started with her cell, punching a ragged hole just beside the door where the wall was less reinforced. He was already moving on to the next one before the dust even cleared, shouting as he went. "I don't know how much time we have, so get out while you can! Down the hall to the right - stay together and watch each other's backs!"

Kotetsu was going to free as many of the hostages as he could before the next round of Reckoning gunmen came around the corner. The timer on his wrist was still ticking down, though. Before too long he would be just as useless as the civilians.

She bit back a shriek when a fist came through the wall, spilling rubble across the floor. People shouldn't be able to do that. If you could punch through a wall, you could probably punch through a skull. Lila thought that whoever had let her out was every bit as dangerous as the ones with guns - maybe more, if he was beating them.

After counting to ten to be sure that it was safe - that nothing else was going to come through the wall, Lila scrambled through the hole and ran down the hall as directed. If the others were with her, fine, but she wasn't about to wait. "Thanks!"

When she reached the corner, Lila paused for a moment to consider why she should trust the directions. What if she went left and let the others be a distraction?

Gunshots echoed from the left hallway, and a mental image flashed through her head of how she'd look bloody.

Right. Right was good, she thought as she turned down the hall.

[ Yako's in Danger's office still, watching the numbers tick down, occasionally speaking into the PA system to do what she can to help direct people where they need to be. Whether she's successful at it or not is another matter entirely, but this matter's somewhat out of her field of expertise. Yako's a negotiator, but she appeals to emotion, not logic -- her words probably won't do much to sway people whose motivations depend on a paycheck.

That's the hypothesis she's formed, anyway. She can't sense any genuine malice from Reckoning's individual members towards Jack Bauer,

Regardless, though she's bound up her injuries via improvised first aid, her next question is what to do once the dampeners come back on. How is she getting out of here? ]

[ Gil doesn't like to waste energy. Desperate and short time called for Raven's power which he invoked as soon as he had gotten his revolvers, one slipped into his holster and the other locked and loaded before a whirlwind of dusty shadow and feathers overtake him in the middle of the living room.

It starts off as dim noise. Undecipherable, but harsh. Gil can hear footsteps coming from all around him and then gunfire explodes from twenty feet away at the end of a hall. Emergency lights give away his position: smack in the middle of a hallway with masked men shouting and aiming their guns at him. ]

Shit! [ In all this adrenaline rush, he stupidly forgot to ask Yako where she may be in the building. He flees from this hallway, but encounters more of those masked men trying to block his way.

He fires at one, hitting him in the thigh so he falls to the floor and the others stumble forward. It's the only opening Gil has: he takes it. He slips in between them, knocking anyone who gets too close against the wall and leaving them disoriented as he makes his way down the hall. ]

[ She'd been worried once Gil stopped responding to the communicator, but then she'd been distracted by the challenge of attending to her injuries. She keeps her attention half on the communicator and the map of people moving through the hallways, but with the delay on the display and her own divided attention, it takes her a few moments to realize where Gilbert is -- and it's completely the wrong floor.

She bites her lip, considering, then uses her communicator to place a call, hoping the ringing is insistent enough for Gilbert to pick up -- and that he hasn't simply left it behind in his rush to get here. If he doesn't respond soon, she'll have to try the PA system to get his attention instead. ]

[ More gunfire.

Judging from the damage done to the walls and the explosive noises, those men aren't using smaller weapons like Gil. Automated weapons that fire more rounds than he can in a few seconds that would have shredded his skin had he not ducked for cover behind a wall.

He did manage to keep his communicator on him. Stupid. He put himself in this position. He turns it on quickly, but he has to bolt from his spot as he hears the men charging. ]

Miss Yako? Can you hear me?! [ He takes a sharp turn toward a staircase and looks for something to jam the door with. ]

[ That burst of gunfire doesn't sound good at all. While a fifteen-second delay on the map displaying the interior of the hospital sounded good enough in theory, actually hearing someone in the midst of the action? She wishes it was faster. ]

Mister Gilbert, you're on the wrong floor. [ Her voice has the same urgency as his, if not the same volume. ] You're on the upper floor right now -- you need to go down one floor.

Ah...

Why didn't you say something earlier?! [ He can't hold the door for long, not with bullets piercing through right above his head. Without anything to jam it, he sprints from it and starts heading down the stairs. ]

What room?!

[ She could argue that he didn't give her the opportunity to tell him, but that's irrelevant now, and it's a waste of time. ]

Tell me the number of the first room you see when you step out.

[ She could tell him to read the map, but that's more likely to get him actually shot, so she guides him verbally instead, relying on her memory of the hospital's layout to tell him where to turn and to go straight. She has to pause from time to time as he deals with Reckoning's members in the halls, biting her lip until she hears his voice confirming his location.

Fortunately, at least, he doesn't have far to go, and once he ends up close enough to where she is, she scrambles for the door. ]

This might take a few seconds to open, hold on -- [ From the outside, the door seems impenetrable, metal sheeting making it almost unrecognizable as a door at all. But as she punches in codes and runs through the biometric scanners again, the sheet metal starts to move, sliding up to reveal the doorway beyond.

Slowly though. It's not budging easily. ]

[ He skips the last few steps in a large leap, making good time. The bullets ricochet around him. He ears how dangerously close they are, ears ringing, blood pumping and heart beating erratically. He pulls the door open and skids into the hallway, listening to Yako's directions and trying to outrun the guards on this floor.

He hears the door and sees Yako, getting close enough to the door -- but he's brought to an abrupt halt as it slowly opens. ]

What is -- [ He hears the gunmen shouting somewhere down the hall. They're getting close. ] Open the door!

I already am. [ Sadly, she can't make it go any faster -- and she hears the shouts just as well. For a moment, it's touch and go for a little longer, the shouts approaching, and the gunmen actually make it around the corner to spot Gilbert, shouting as they level their guns at him. ]

--there!

[ The door opens enough and she yanks Gilbert inside to the accompaniment of a hailstorm of bullets and the door sliding shut again behind them (and it's certainly a lot quicker to do that than open up). Caught off-balance by his weight, they end up hitting the floor in a tangle of limbs, Yako stifling a yelp as it jars her injuries. ]

Are you -- are you all right? [ Dressed in a camisole and her skirt, it's clear she's seen better days, but all the worry in her expression is for him as she struggles to sit up. ]

[ The world spins around him before it all falls back into its proper place. He rubs his head, a dull ache in the back of it and pops open an eye to see Yako --

And that's a whole lot of skin he's seeing.

Up close.

Almost on top of her. ]

F-F-Fine!! [ Gil leaps off and slams against the wall of the room, averting his gaze quickly. Outside, members of Reckoning shout at them to open the door and there's a heavy thud. They're trying to get in. ]

Why are you--?! [ He can't even say it. ]

[ For a moment, she has no idea what could be bothering him, but then she remembers what era he's from. While she doesn't actually blush, she does smooth down the hem of her shirt a little self-consciously with her good hand.

At least he's effectively moved away from her, so it doesn't take a lot of effort to get onto her feet. ]

--I had to do some emergency first aid. [ For now, her gaze darts to the door, which is sealed -- but then, they're effectively trapped in this room until someone else comes along to help. The timer prominently displayed on the screen clearly shows that there only a few minutes left before it runs out entirely. ]

How did you get here? [ Meaning the hospital, presumably. ]

Edited 2013-06-12 04:20 (UTC)

[ He groans quietly, rubbing his aching backside now. He shouldn't have moved so fast like that in an enclosed space...

He continues to avert his gaze, but his tone manages to adopt a serious flare to it now. He might have found her, however they'll have to get out of this room eventually. Who knows what other weapons those men from Reckoning have and what they will do to them. ]

I used my chain's power to sneak into the building. Are you alright? [ He finally peeks at her, trying to assess whether or not she needs assistance. ] What do those men want exactly?

Your chain...? [ He hasn't mentioned anything like that before, but she shakes it off, nodding. ]

I'm fine.

[ She looks as unwell as a few days of captivity can make someone, and she's cradling her right hand close to her like it pains her to move it much. There's a smear of blood on her skirt, and the edge of another improvised bandage peeks out from the hem, and she's clearly favoring the other foot. ]

They're trying to capture a man -- Jack Bauer. He was a patient of this facility, and he's somewhere inside right now, but... [ She trails off, shaking her head. ] I don't know where he is now.

Raven. It's... a bit of a long story. [ He says in a tone that indicates "later". He rises to his feet, pressed against the wall to listen in on the men outside the room. They're still marching back and forth, but they've gotten quiet.

For now, anyway.

He gulps. ]

All this for one man? [ He grimaces. They must not be very clever if they didn't go straight for this Jack Bauer person. ] If the power dampeners are still off, I can teleport us out of the building.

[ She stills and listens, too, frowning. Nothing she's heard about Reckoning's members suggests that they give up easily, but ... ]

They are, but. [ She gestures around the room. ] I was planning on staying here until they came back on to keep an eye on the situation.

[ Her voice is calm and steady, despite obvious exhaustion, and she shakes her head. ]

I can't leave until I know the barriers have come down correctly. [ And that outside help will come, or there will be a lot of heroes inside who are sitting ducks. ]

What? [ He didn't expect that from her. He shifts from his spot on the wall, moving closer. ]

We can't stay here, Miss Yako! They'll find a way in eventually!

The security for this office is very secure. [ If they use explosives, though... well, she can't guarantee anything. She stands her ground stubbornly in front of the console, though, the clock still ticking the time down. ]

I might be the only member of NOHoPE's staff who's still inside right now. If I leave... [ It just doesn't sit right with her. ]

HOSTAGE RESCUE AND REBELLION

open~

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

closed to gilbert nightray;

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject