Dawn Patrol: Blind Loyalty, Open RP for the SG!

[Crimsonstar]

In this crazy world where super humans, aliens and other worldly creatures show up on the streets of the city at the rate of four per hour, there is a whole broad spectrum of abilities and powers to be had. Naturally I don’t have the one I could really use right about now, the ability to not be affected by the weather. At three in the morning in early spring, the northeast still gets too cold to be skulking around on rooftops and in dark alleys. While I’d much rather be curled up in bed, the gang I’m after seems to think the only time they can conduct their illegal activities is in the dead of night. This is my third straight night of surveillance on this old mansion outside of the city limits and I’m starting to think the guy I beat up for this information might have lied to me. That prospect and the fact that my thermos of coffee ran dry two hours ago is putting me in an irritable mood.

The house is dark and over half the windows having gaping holes where their panes of glass should be. On more than one occasion I’ve seen a bird fly into the house through one of these holes, no doubt heading to a nest it’s buried deep inside. Or a raccoon has slowly ambled down the faded green and warping wood porch to disappear into a dark crevice at the far corner of the house. The hinges on the gate of the wrought iron fence have rusted so badly that one of them hangs limping off of one bracket while the other lies in the middle of the footpath where it fell. I’m also fairly certain that I’ve seen and heard the five foot tall weeds in what used to be the front yard rustle as something hidden moved through them. I so hope it’s still too cold for snakes to be active.

I’ve been studying the small glint of new, polished chrome that peeks out of the corner of the small, sagging garage at the rear of the lot. It’s been hidden well and you have to know where and what you’re looking for, but thanks to the heightened senses my powers give me, I can easily see the well washed and waxed late 1970’s sedan parked there. It hasn’t moved in the last three nights which means despite the uninviting look of the macabre mansion, somebody’s home. I have no idea how many people are hiding inside and I’d much rather do this quietly with no one around instead of creating a huge ruckus, not that anyone this far out would even notice it.

I find myself ducking even further behind the dense trees I’m hiding behind when the engine starts and the headlights come on. After wishing and praying for them to leave, I almost cry out in surprise when they do. The car pulls out slowly and approaches the side of the gate that surrounds the property and when it’s just a few yards away, I hear a small almost imperceptible hum as an entire ten foot section of the gate slowly slides into a recess in the ground. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s new too.

The front and back doors are locked which isn’t surprising. The fact that they’re reinforced steel with detailed paint and etching to make them appear to be wood is. I walk the length of the wraparound porch, checking all the windows. Unlike the ones I’ve seen on the upper floors, not a one of these are broken and a quick tap of my knuckles on the glass tells me I’m not going to be able to break them. I step out into the side yard and leap up onto the porch roof landing just opposite one of the windows I spotted earlier. Time to make like a bird. As I’m crawling through hole in the window pane I’m more than aware of the fact that the occupants of this home probably know every fissure, crack, hole and egress on the upper floors of this home and take special care to not disturb what glass does remain in the window frame. Someone has gone through a lot of trouble to make this house unremarkable. The tight fit of the hole I’m crawling through coupled with my caution to not dislodge any of the dangling shards of glass ends up costing me a nice foot long slash on the back of my clothing. I can feel the skin along my back sting as the glass digs a long scratch down my shoulder blade.

I move through the house quickly searching it room by room, finding nothing of interest besides the carefully placed decrepit furniture and scattered debris. The kitchen is where I strike payday, unless of course all cellar doors come with solid gray, riveted steel. Unless I can find a way past this thing three nights of freezing my tail off has gone to waste. There’s a small hole, about the size of a quarter on the right of the door and when I step in front of it to inspect it, it lights up. I mean, literally, ray of light shooting out engulfing me like some scanning device out of bad science fiction movies covering me from head to toe. It swirls over me for less than ten seconds when it suddenly collapses to two inch beam and focuses directly into my eye.

“Retinal scan complete, Victoria Hartwell, Dawn Patrol access granted” chimes a robotic voice and the door slides away.

“Oh shit…”


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The room was small yet brightly lit with a single door and no windows. There were no phones, no computers and two heavily armed soldiers guarded the outsides corridor. The room was checked and scrubbed twice a week for listening and recording devices even when it wasn’t going to be used. The five of them sat at a round table. Much like King Arthur’s knights the shape of the table was to imply that no one of them were to be deemed superior to the other, but everyone knew the woman in the dark leather ran the show. They waited patiently as she reviewed the report, none of them daring to look up at her. She sighed as she laid the file down, almost throwing it back at them.

“This is a monumental screw up gentleman. Do any of you realize the position this puts me it when the rest of them find out?” she said.

“We haven’t clearly identified the probability that the rest of them will….”

“The ‘probability’ became a hundred percent certainty when the damn door opened for her.” She said cutting him off. She turned back to the rest of them. “Anyone want to be the one to tell me how she managed to infiltrate the facility?”

“As near as we can tell, the computer security AI,….made a rational assumption, that she was cleared and allowed her access.” Said a middle aged gentleman in combat fatigues that sat on her left hand side.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked.

“Victoria Hartwell is the chosen of the Alabaster Serpent.” He said. She made a small gesture with her hands and head to indicate she didn’t follow his explanation. He leaned over on the table, clasping his hands. “It’s a magical talisman that we once tried to gain possession of twenty four years ago. The hunt for the artifact resulted in, ‘unfortunate’ losses for both us and Victoria Hartwell. She lost her parents in the investigation, and we lost both her and the artifact until four years ago.”

“What happened four years ago?” she asked.

“Victoria Hartwell resurfaced here in Paragon City, registered with the Superhuman Affairs Division under the name of Lady Victoria and joined the Dawn Patrol. It seems her situation is unique in that she’s buying time in the rather expansive library of MAGI by doing duty as one of Paragon’s costume heroes.”

“What is she looking for in the MAGI library?”

“She seems to be researching all the mystical religions, cults, and mythology of the Alabaster Serpent in hopes of tracking down the group that killed her parents while trying to steal the artifact from her father’s antiquities collection.”

“This just gets better the more you go on. I think the pieces are falling into place now. Her entire dossier is in the Dawn Patrol database. Records that no doubt include a full historical file of her life story mentioning the Alabaster Serpent artifact in her possession.”

“Yes and that information in turn triggered a keyword cross reference with our own computer records of unrecovered artifacts and the AI made the assumption that she was to be granted access.” At this point she allowed herself to smile and shook her head slightly. “So it was our own security protocols that rogered us over. Okay, we need to get working on damage control.” She stood up and they all rose from the table.

“First, find out what, if anything, she either removed or discovered during the sixteen minutes and twenty three seconds she was in the facility. Second, get a full level four purge team on site. I want it moved and scrubbed in the next eighteen hours, don’t give me your jaw drop look and try to tell me it’s not enough time, get it done. I’m going to call our mole and tell them they’ve just been put into play.” She grabbed the door handle and turned for one last command before she opened it.

“And find the programmer or programmers responsible for security at the site and make them disappear.”



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Dawn Patrol Headquarters, Tuesday, 5:25 am. The office of Leftenant Crimsonstar

Marsius Denthar had come into the Dawn Patrol offices earlier than usual as a result of direct request from Dawn Patrol member, Lady Victoria. She requested to meet him as soon as possible, and she sounded extremely distraught on his communicator when she reached him. He purposefully told her to meet him at 5:30 so he could have time to review her service record in DP. Her after action reports she had filed on her missions and her attendance was flawless. She had never requested leave in the four years she had been an active member and hers were one of the few Patrollers whose reports were always concise, to the point and never left out critical details of her findings. If she were an officer of the Star Brigade back in his home galaxy she would no doubt be an officer by this time.

She sat in a chair directly opposite him now and he was more than a bit, concerned, over her appearance. She obviously hadn’t slept and had already in the space of five minutes asked for reassurances that they were the only two in the DP headquarters currently.

“Victoria, what’s going on?” he asked her with his concerns over her state of mind evident in his voice.

“I’m sure you’ve read my file and reviewed my service record, so you know that my agenda as a registered hero in Paragon serves a personal purpose.” She said.

“Two weeks ago I got a lead from a former high ranking priest of the Circle of Thorns.” She continued. “He had a falling out with them three years ago, over matters he wouldn’t elaborate on, but he told me of a secret organization whose purpose was the gathering of rare and powerful mystical artifacts.” She stood up, took a nervous look out into the hallway, and sat back down. “Four days ago I finally tracked down the location of this group and was able to gain access to their hideout. The ease with which I got in was already alarming enough, their security system not only recognized me but knew of my affiliation with Dawn Patrol. It also became quickly apparent that my source was accurate as I found hallways and room after room of magical talismans, totems, amulets, gauntlets, and things I couldn’t identify. Then I ran across this….” She reached into a small backpack that she had been clutching tightly to her side and pulled out a large, blackened and battered box.

“What is that?” Crimsonstar said reaching over for it.

“It’s a video tape recorder.” Victoria replied. “They used to be rather large before the technology went to mini DVD and hard disk drives.”

“And THIS was kept in this secret hideaway along with items believed to have magical powers? Doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the antiques, does it?” Crimsonstar said. “It’s badly damaged, like it’s been drug through a war.” Lady Victoria didn’t say anything, but looked at him for several long seconds. She took yet another glance of the hallways out his office door. “The tape is still in the unit. It was damaged too badly to come out, but it still plays the last movie it recorded.” She said.

“Are you saying it works?”

“Very much so. I really think you should watch the contents, Leftenant Denthar.”

Crimsonstar turned on the recorder and played back the contents. A meeting had taken place, apparently in a dark, abandoned building. The audio was either muffled or damaged, but the images were clear. Several Rikti were in what appeared to be negotiations with officers of the United States Armed Forces. Crimsonstar recognized Colonel Brandt, the Army officer he had first met when he arrived on Earth. The Colonel had been one of the leading officers in the first Rikti War. It was he who had asked Marsius to assist in the assault on the Rikti ship that was now in the area simply known as the War Zone. Also present at this meeting, were a small contingent of the men and women in familiar dark blue combat leathers, and a woman who they knew all too well. Only she wasn’t the commanding officer they know now. She was, at least in this instance, simply another junior officer. He took note of the date stamp in the bottom right corner of the recording, 11/2/02, just days before Alpha and Omega’s teams assault on the Rikti forces. Marsius watched as Lady Jane took a casual glance at whoever held the video recorder several years ago as members of the United States Armed Forces, and the then acting leaders of Dawn Patrol seemed to strike some kind of deal with the Rikti invaders.
Marsius stood up, snapping off the video recorder. “Victoria, who else have you told about this?” he asked.

“No one, I contacted you first.” She said.

“Good, don’t say anything. I’ll be calling an emergency meeting of all Dawn Patrol personnel AFTER I get this pulled off and uploading into our computers.” He said. Victoria stood up and he thought she seemed a little relieved now that she had revealed what she found to him, but he didn’t want her to get complacent. “Victoria, don’t think this is over. You’ve stumbled into something huge here, and you may be at greater risk now than before you came to me, both of us actually. Keep sharp.”

[Scarlet Scorpion]

Something was happening.
---

Two weeks ago …

Part of the joy of being a superhero is knowing you are “better” in a lot of ways. The hubris is close to arrogance. But arrogance can kill, and even heroes can die. The Scarlet Scorpion is not immortal, yet she knows when the villains are simply outmatched by her prowess. In Paragon City’s struggle for peace, heroes try to clean the streets of evil. Today, Scarlet went to Terra Volta to teach some Sky Raiders that technology is not enough to make a person, or group, powerful. There is skill, training, and righteousness – none of which these villains have.

Scarlet threw a battered soldier into a group of charging Sky Raider reinforcements and they all crumpled like bowling pins into an alley sorter. She looked down onto the Sky Raider who was struggling for breath as her booth rested on his throat.

“It amazes me how much Vigilance tech you idiots have stolen.” She released the pressure on his neck, sending him into a coughing fit as he gasped for air. She allowed him to recover, but when he reached for his rifle, Scarlet brought a fist down against his back. The Raider’s body collapsed, yet he weakly reached for the rifle, hand shaking.

Scarlet kicked away the weapon and snapped her fingers. The drone hovering above the battlefield lightly buzzed toward her by command. The device was a gift from the city for Scarlet’s many years of service as a registered hero. She used it as a scout and decoy, its uses more numerable.

Scarlet leaned in, “Tell me what you know about Captain Amaro’s deal with the Knives. You can talk here or from the basement of the Zig. Truth is redemption for you.”

The drone’s A/V recorder activated.

On the roof of a nearby building, a shadowy figure watched Scarlet’s interrogation as blood from a lifeless Juicer slowly crept toward his feet.
---

Her headache was mostly from lack of sleep. The Ouroboros "missions" were wearing her down in small increments … still, they were adding up. The rest of her pain was from looking at Dogma’s screens for the forth hour. The holographic screens were designed to be easy on the eyes over long periods of time and Scarlet was thankful for that. But this situation put her one good eye to the test.

Scarlet’s review of her remote’s video logs were a little enjoyable only because she was watching herself kicking ass. But when a black-clad figure eluded her chase after one particular outing today, Scarlet enjoyed her past victories less and less. The same opaque humanoid was captured on video more and more. It was only on a few frames, and even then it was a shadow in a shadow, but her experience was confidence enough for her: she was being followed.

A hunteress never likes being hunted.

But was she really the prey?

Her comm badge beeped and the sound pulled her from the image-capture on the screen. She activated it, "Scarlet."

"It's Crimsonstar. I'm calling an emergency meeting. Arthur-01 clearance."

Scarlet raised her eyebrows. Arthur-01 is rarely used for meetings, even for emergencies. The fact Crimsonstar used it makes this call utterly important.

"On my way."

Scarlet reached the door before she realized she left her recordings open on the screens and turned to shut them down.

[deck72]

Tania Lockemont walks out of the ICON store in Steel Canyon, carrying the bag with her new uniform in it. Hopefully this one will last a little longer. She starts heading to her apartment over by the college. As she’s walking, Tania gets the feeling that she’s being watched. She stops and looks around. Nothing out of the ordinary. As she’s about to start walking again, she catches movement out of the corner of her eye, and as she turns her head, notices a shadowy figure ducking into an alley just as she looked there.

Deciding to investigate, Tania walks over to the alley and looks down it, but there is no one there. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. She starts heading for her apartment again.

Over the next twenty minutes, Tania catches glimpse of someone following her several times. I’m not being paranoid. Why am I being followed, and who is it? As she walks into her apartment building and takes one last look out the door, her navcomm starts going off. “Lady Britania here”

Lady Britania, Crimsonstar here. I’ve called an emergency meeting for all members, Arthur-01 clearance. We need you to get to the base as soon as possible.”

“Very well, I’m on my way. Lady Britania out.” Tania rushes up to her apartment to change into her uniform. Bloody hell, what's this about? My tail will have to wait.

[Crimsonstar]

Marsius sat studying the video recorder for long minutes after Victoria had left. Whatever she had stumbled upon was not good, not good at all. He looked at the clock on the wall, it was only six thirty, but the call had to be made.

"Mmmf,......hello?" came Field Commander Endless One's voice over his communicator badge.

"Sorry to wake you Shan, we've got trouble." Marsius said.

"I'll be right in." she said.

Forty five minutes later Marsius and Shan sat in her office as she watched the video footage for a third time. Finally she set the recorder down and looked up at Marsius. "So at the moment only you, I and Victoria have seen this footage?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Okay, do it, call everyone in. Since she came to you with this, you present it to the rest of team, but I'll be up at the head of the table with you." Shan said. Marsius stood up and pulled up his remote communicator device in his gauntlets.

"It's Crimsonstar. I'm calling an emergency meeting. Arthur-01 clearance."


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He was carefully lifting the egg with his spatula and gently rolling it over. There was a fine art to making eggs over-easy, and he was quite proud of the fact that it was an art he had mastered. He remembered back in his old unit he sometimes would be requested by members of his team to prepare them over-easy eggs and pissing off the company cook who had to make room for him behind the grill.

His phone rang and broke his concentration just enough to cause hit to break the yolk with the end of his spatula. "Dammit all." he cursed. He quickly flipped the egg the rest of the way over, his creation now ruined and picked up the phone on the counter.

"Hello?" he said, only to hear a dial tone, and then, another ring. He looked at the phone in his hand as he heard a third ring. He spun around and saw it was the phone that NEVER rang. The one set by itself on a table in the corner of his sitting room off to the far left of the kitchen. It was set to appear inconspicuous yet far enough out of everyday reach as to not get much use, but truth to tell, he hoped to hell that it would never ring.

"Oh hell." he said and sat down the other phone and slowly walked over to the still ringing phone. This caller wouldn't have assumed he wasn't home and hung up.

He cleared his throat, picked up the receiver and hoped to hell he sounded awake, professional. "Darling." He said.

[Crimsonstar]

Crimsonstar walked into the large sit-rep room of Dawn Patrol’s headquarters with Field Commander Endless One by his side. Lady Victoria followed closely behind them. Victoria sat down in a chair at the head of the table, peering around to at her fellow Patrollers. She had worked with many of them and couldn’t help but notice their astonished looks at her entering the meeting with Crimsonstar and Endless one.

Endless One and Crimsonstar stood at the front of the meeting room quietly whispering before she finally turned to address the room. “Leftenant Denthar called this emergency meeting after private consultation with me in my office. Since this matter was first brought to his attention, I’m going to defer to him for this matter and allow him to conduct the meeting.” She said and took a seat beside Victoria.
Marsius clasped his hand behind his back and stepped up to the table.

“Thank you everyone for making this on such short notice. I know many of you were listed as off active duty today and we appreciate you’re coming in.” He nodded towards Victoria. “You all know Victoria Hartwell, one of your fellow members operating under codename Lady Victoria and her record of service both to Dawn Patrol and to Paragon City of the last three years has earned high marks. I remind you of this fact so that there can be no question as to the validity of the evidence she’s presented to us.”

He pointed to the large array of LCD monitors that were suspended above the meeting room table. “DOGMA, please pull up file A-001-B-002-C003-Echo-Bravo, authorization Crimsonstar 11498.” He looked back at the rest of the team. “I’ve had DOGMA run several authentication algorithms on the following footage. We’ve also been able to clean up some of the fuzziness and recovered some of the audio. This isn’t going to be pleasant, people.” He said and then gave DOGMA the command to execute the file.

The room grew silent as the video footage played out on the screens in front of them. Jason St. Martin, also known as Major Britain stood up, and slowly approached the table. “is…is this time stamp for this recording…….is it correct?” he asked his voice shaky.

“We have reason to believe it is.” Shan answered, her voice concerned for Jason as she could hear his emotions in his voice. He was trying to not show it in front of team, but she could tell this was distressing him more than the others.

“Where did you find it?” Major Britain asked Victoria, turning to look at her. She shifted in her chair, feeling all the eyes on the room now focused on her.

“I was following a lead on the mystic cult that killed my parents when I was young. I was told of an organization that might have information on what I was after. This came from an old, battered video tape recorder that was held in a room with several other artifacts.” She said.

Scarlet Scorpion leaned over the table. “Okay, this is crazy. What is this, a meeting between the Rikti and Dawn Patrol? And that time stamp on the video, wouldn’t that put it….”

“During the first war with the Rikti.” Major Britain said, finishing Scarlet’s sentence.

He turned and faced Victoria. Endless One had never seen such determined concern on his face. Something about this video footage bothered Jason greatly. “Victoria, we need to know where you got this and who this organization is.” He said to her.

“There's an old mansion about two hours outside of town. I was told it was a lair for an organization whose purpose is the collecting and hiding of mystic artifacts called Surace Industries.” Victoria answered. Everyone in the room looked around at one another.

“Well? Anyone heard of them?” Shan asked them all. When no one could provide any answers she continued. “Okay, we need to get our ears and eyes on the streets and find someone who does know.” She moved to the center of the table and placed both hands down on it so she could make eye contact with everyone as she spoke.

“I want every magical informant we know questioned about this, both hero and villainous. Those of you with ties to the mystical realms, consider yourselves on double duty until we find this,…Surace Industries…”

Crimsonstar casually slipped out of the room as battle plans were being made and went back to his office. He closed the door and pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk. He emptied its contents and flipped the drawer over and looked at the label for Windsor and Sons Fine Furniture Company stuck in the corner. He carefully pulled it back to reveal a number and password written on the bottom of it.
He inserted the drawer back into the desk and quickly exited out the front of Dawn Patrol headquarters, the slip of paper in his hand.


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“…… and I want all those of you with enhanced vision shaking down the Pantheon hordes in Astoria. They have more crypts and lairs hidden there than I think anyone….” Shan’s voice was cut off suddenly by a blaring alarm echoing through the base.

“What the hell is that?” Lady Britania said spinning around as if expecting the ceiling to come crashing down.

“OH Hell!” Scarlet said jumping up and running out of the room. “That’s the computer firewall collapsing!”

“WHAT?!” Endless One screamed, her eyebrows raised.

“We’ve been hacked!” Scarlet yelled back.

They reached the main terminal of the server room and Scarlet quickly started to assess the damage. “Shit, shit, shit!” she yelled. She turned to Shan and Jason and the rest of the team that had all crowded into the small room. “Our personnel files, they’re gone. Someone just downloaded every piece of information on every member of Dawn Patrol, past and present.” She said.

“Who, can you track it?” Shan asked.

“it’ll take time and it depends on how well they covered their tracks. I’ll get on it right now.” Scarlet said.

Endless One turned to the rest of them. “The rest of us have work to do.”

[Scarlet Scorpion]

“ … sing the chorus to Mr. Roboto.”

Chip stopped breathing hard and looked at Scarlet like she told him he was an idiot. “Excuse –“

“No time Chip. But it is time to trust me like you love me. Do nothing else until it comes out. Then let it follow you here. I’ll shutoff the automated defenses from my office to here. Make a straight path back or you will get shot dead.”

Chip looked back once before rounding the corner out of the room. Scarlet was busy typing override codes.
--

“Pardon me ma’am … how the hell did do you have a Clockwork as a pet?!” Chip was still gawking down the hole into DOGMA’s memory core next to Scarlet.

“It was a gift from Penelope Yin when I helped rescue her father. Clicker is utterly loyal and safe. Actually saved me on a couple of missions.”

“Clicker?”

Scarlet looked deeper into the green-lit hole and spoke with excitement. “Yes! That’s it!” Moments later Clicker appeared with a red box strapped to his back. He looked from Chip to Scarlet and made little clicking noises in no obvious pattern. Scarlet patted the little humanoid robot’s head then made a few gestures with her hands. It nodded a few times and walked away from the hole to wait near its master.

“Um, ma’am .. I don’t think that’s allowed.”

“Find me a regulation about it and I’ll agree. But for now, Clicker just helped me solve the problem of who just stole from Dawn Patrol." Scarlet walked to a metal briefcase and opened it. “A small oddity is the price to pay to save our lives? Not to sound dramatic but he’s worth it.” She placed the red box into the computer built within the briefcase. Speaking her thoughts, Scarlet said, “Tell me who did this”. The screen activated and Scarlet entered some codes.

After a few seconds a name appeared on the screen and she jumped back from her seat, casting it to the floor. Looking toward DOGMA’s main terminal she was looking worried. “DOGMA, locate Sgt. Darling, visual maps only, screen three.” The desired screen replaced scrolling information with new data. Scarlet took one look and was running out the room.
--

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

Sgt. Darling’s clear-trimmed mustache twitched to the side, almost trembling. “I’m off-duty.” He pulled at the restraint but they were not slack.

Scarlet raised her head at the reserved response. She felt dominating and was enjoying questioning Darling. “I know that look. You’re pretty pissed off … is it because you were caught?”

Maximilian Darling looked into Scarlet’s good eye, “Getting caught implies wrongdoing. I’ve done nothing wrong beyond the parameters of my duties.”

She paused, stopping herself from slapping the hubris from Darling’s face. “Bullshit,” Scarlet seethed. “Theft by taking at this level is a federal offense at the least. You didn’t take words … psych profiles, meta-medical logs, secret identities … duties my high-ranking ass. You’d better get righteous real quick.”

Darling smirked. “Every hero has to register in Paragon City, and especially with Dawn Patrol. There are no secrets here, only lies and damn lies.”

“Then the truth shall set you free.”

“No clichés, please. It’s insulting.”

“It’s insulting what you’ve done to Dawn Patrol! Tell me why, that’s a start. The end will be much closer after that.”

Darling leaned in closer and slowly repeated, “I’ve done nothing wrong beyond the parameters of my duties.”

Scarlet’s mind whirled. She dodged through the forest of rage growing from the shattered trust with her colleague. The clarity of Darling’s words suddenly struck her like an epiphany. “You’ve been tracking us from the moment you got here.” The words trailed off as the scope of the situation revealed itself, at least from her perspective. She looked around the room as if the Truth was written on the walls. Finding nothing but cold steel in response she turned to the only source left. “Tell me why.” Her face removed all affect and pounded both fists into the metal table, “WHY?”

Darling was startled by the explosive response and he sighed heavily. “The Lady Grey noticed the growth of heroes and villains across the world and considered meta-humans a greater threat to the world than humanity itself. The premise being, “Who will watch the watchers”. With Dark Watcher and Gaussian, she created Spearhead. This was a global organization that would be the precursor to its current incarnation … once the Rikti Invaded, Spearhead was the better unit to “lead”, as it were, the fractured and separate hero and villain groups against the alien invaders. Needless to say, a spotter was required in each group. The organization was renamed and went public … but it’s primary mission never changed.

After several seconds Scarlet leaned back in disbelief. The anger in her drained as Darling spoke each word until finally she forced herself to whisper the only word that pushed its way into every thought.

"Vanguard".

[Battledog]

Battledog walked slowly back to his apartment in Steel Canyon. The night’s revelations still weighed heavily on his mind. Had he done the right thing…did he overstep his bounds by giving orders to members who weren’t really his to command? Prime had deferred to him, which he guessed was a good thing. Lady Vic had tried to answer his questions the best she was able and even gave the group access to DOGMA to actually see the video in question, which was an affirmation of sorts. Alex and Loni, the poor kids, followed his lead. Dave was worried at what Lily was going to say about what he ordered Alex to do, but he didn’t see another option.
The video they seen was dynamite. It could possibly destroy the fabric of all the heroes of the city had worked for and severely hamper the ongoing war-efforts against the Praetorians.
They needed information and it seemed the command staff was not going to be forthcoming with it. So they were going to get it…officers be damned.
Hopefully, Prime doesn’t come on too strong with that Colonel Brandt and Alex is as good as he thinks he is. If not, this would probably be the last thing Dave would ever do with Dawn Patrol. At the least, the officers would discharge him from the Patrol. At the worst, they wouldn’t let him see the light of day again.
It was their own damned fault. Lady Vic seemed to think that no copy of the tape had been made before Crim had flown off on his solo effort. She, as well, believed that this Darling-guy was handed it over to DPUK without even an interrogation being done.
Amateurs!
A slight movement caught his eye from the rooftop above him. A dark shadow faded from existence. Dave frowned and then cursed.
Great! Now he had a tail.

[Lights End]

Alex stared blankly at the screens in front of him.

"Computer, I need the security protocols for DOGMA, and once you have those, I need full backups of every drive in DOGMA's system. Run us through enough proxies that if it even begins to trace us, we can lose it easily."

He spun around and began looking at the security footage on the opposite wall. His bots were doing there job well, even if there seemed to be a false alarm at Lady Victoria's place. He contemplated sending one out for each of the rest of the group, but didn't want to seem like he was intruding. He then glanced over at his suit, and reminded himself that tonight was the night he was gonna modify the jump boosters to allow him flight. He slid himself over to the suit, and took the next few hours doing modifications...

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"Sir, we have a problem", the computer barked loudly.

"What is it?" Alex looked up from his work, feeling proud that he was able to get the boosters installed so quickly. As he glanced at the computer, two things caught his eye. One, it seemed that something had just knocked out his bot at Lady Victoria's, and two, it looked like someone was attempting to trace him already inside DOGMA. He sighed and cursed to himself quietly.

"Computer, reroute systems and up the priority on the disk cloning. Drop a block or two to give us some time, and give me the coordinates to where the bot watching Lady Victoria's place last was online."

He stood from his seat, and pressed a button on the belt of the suit. Suddenly, the suit vanished from the table and appeared on himself, sans the Helmet. His gauntlet beeped as the coords were placed into his mobile system.

"Suit, Activate!" His body became surrounded by light as the suit morphed into the full variant. He then looked to the security monitors while moving towards his teleporter.

"I hope I'm not too late..." He mumbled to himself as he vanished towards Lady Vic's place...

[Oynakiz]

Loni stood in the vehicle bay, gazing up at the silent behemoth standing still in the cubicle before her. Her eyes were drawn to a couple of new dents in the solid iron armor on the massive forearms. After propping her cellphone on a box and setting the radio app to Cape Radio (Loni loved listening DJ Angel's Celestial Stream program), she picked up a battered, oil-stained towel and began rubbing at them, like she might actually cause them to disappear. As he body went on auto-pilot, engaged in the mindless drudgery of cleaning the armored Iron Goliath power suit, her mind wandered over the day's events.

First, there was the encounter earlier with Lady Jane herself. Although Loni was new to the whole superhero biz, even she knew who Lady Jane was. Why, the woman had graced almost as many covers of People magazine as Kim Kardashian! (Almost) Meeting her in the flesh was so awesomely cool... And Lady Jane had even seen enough of something in the big mech and its inexperienced pilot to suggest that Loni get in touch with the Paragon City base of her own Dawn Patrol organization! How awesome was THAT?

Two hours later, Loni had got enough nerve to call the number on the card that Lady Jane had passed to her. She supposed that she wasn't surprised to get hear an electronic voice at the other end of the phone, identified as DOGMA, requesting her to leave a message. It was silly to think that a group as big as the Dawn Patrol would actually pick up the phone. They probably get all kinds of calls, from salesmen offering to service their air-conditioning or selling Avon products, to marketing reps wanting to push their idea for "Scarlet Scorpion" Barbie dolls or Crimsonstar action figures, from little girls wanting someone to get their kittens out of the tree to "tough on crime" politicians looking for an endorsement. Even though Loni assumed that the number she was given was a more private line than the one in the Yellow Pages, she knew that in this age of the Internet that no contact means was totally secure. So she dutifully left a message just as she assumed hundreds of other wannabe heroes had done and figured that was that.

She was shocked to actually get a call back from someone identifying herself as Lady Victoria, inviting her to come to the headquarters of the Dawn Patrol! She went to wait under the big statue near the north-west corner of City Hall in Atlas Park, half-convinced that this was all a prank somehow, when the teleporter beam grabbed her and deposited her in a small room someplace. A very lovely woman appeared, the same Lady Victoria who had called her cellphone, and after a stammering introduction, Loni was led further into the Dawn Patrol's Paragon City base. This place is HUGE! she kept thinking. Easily the size of the Paragon University campus.

Then she was led into a large meeting room and greeted by... people. Ordinary people, she thought, people just like me! Besides Victoria Hartwell, there were several (hunky) men, a bald girl with a pretty face, and another gawky teenager-type. Two of the men smiled and named themselves Dave and Simon. Lily was the pretty girl, and the young man with the cute chin fuzz called himself Alex. The fourth man, with the big shoulders, just introduced himself as Prime. Welcomes went around, and then Loni told a bit about herself before Simon left on a personal mission. Dave and Lily (who appeared to be an item, which made Loni smile) offered her a spare bedroom to stay at, since her home was mostly wrecked in the Council assault which had killed her parents just a few weeks before. After a bit of small talk, Victoria, Dave, and Prime Beef (as she thought of him) went into an adjoining office to discuss something private, leaving the younger Dawn Patrollers to entertain Loni.

Moments later, Victoria led the two men out into the main room, and Loni's day pendulumed from Wow! to Oh My God! Victoria requested DOGMA to play a portion of a recording, dated several years before, showing a meeting that took place between the Rikti and some military officer-types and, among a few others, Lady Jane! Loni was dumbstruck! But not so flabbergasted as those in the room who knew the Dawn Patrol leader much better than she did. After the video ceased, the three leaders began a heated discussion, almost all of it went flying over Loni's poor head. But the gist seemed to be that everyone was very upset over what appeared to be a betrayal. Loni couldn't take her eyes off the image of Lady Jane on the screen, while the others made plans what to do about this situation. Victoria apologized to Loni for the timing of her introduction to the Dawn Patrol, then she left also. Prime, after consulting with Dave, turned to technowhiz Alex to try and break through some kind of security protocols (which sounded like something that Loni thought of as Very Bad, on the order of Someone-Reading-Your-Diary Bad. But it wasn't like anyone was seeking her newbish opinion. Of course, they all had a clue, and Loni...

Loni looked up from her buffing into the dull, green eyes of the armored head gazing impassively at the far wall. "What am I doing?" she asked...

[Scarlet Scorpion]

He didn't have super powers. He didn't have special abilities received from training. But he did have a talent much appreciated with the Dawn Patrol: organization. He was VERY good at that. He was even feared for it.

That made him smile.

If there was any special ability he could attribute to himself, then it would be prescience. That's why he was chosen. The Dawn Patrol had not survived as a group for almost a century without members who were good at what they did.

The Scarlet Scorpion was just such a person. She got him transported to this ... prison ... and he couldn't figure out where he was. Oh, she was good enough to pull that off.

So, if there WAS something he had that was truly special, then it was prosthetics. He raised his shackled hands and pulled at the blindfold. Clearing his eyes, he opened them to see nothing. He was in the dark.

That made him smile.

He tugged at his fake ear and pulled away the rim. Twisting it, the plastic faintly glowed to reveal the small room. It was clean and gray. A bed. Toilet. A door. He shuffled to the door hunched over due to the shackles. The small plastic was glowing brighter and was starting to get warm. He tapped at the door and perceived it was hollow enough. Placing the warm plastic at a spot on the door, he pulled the shackles tight and against the door. He was taking a big chance because he only one attempt at this.

The plastic explosive detonated. As designed, the explosion was focused in two directions: through the door and across the shackle chains. Both were cut apart. The hot blast wave washed over then threw him to the floor.

He coughed with free hands and climbed onto released feet. A light shown through the door. He pushed and pulled the wrecked door enough to open it. No guards? No alarms?

He ran though hallways looking for an exit. Empty. His was the only door so far. He finally found a door and opened it.

The orange sky surprised him at first. The Scarlet Scorpion was just such a person to get him transported to this ... prison ... and he figured out where he was. Oh, she was good enough to pull that off.

But Maximillian Darling was free.

That made him smile.

[Crimsonstar]

Perez Park, the apartment of Marsius Denthar, aka Crimsonstar and Alexandra Sommers, aka, Northern Might.

Kathryn Beringer, or as she was known in Paragon City, Scarlet Scorpion, stood on the balcony of Alex and Marsius' apartment, watching the small group of Hellions on the corner.

"And you're telling me, that you never have any trouble on this block?" she asked, turning to Mars and Alex who were standing behind her in the doorway.

"Not since I've been living here, and what ever small trouble they did cause all but ceased once Mars moved in also." Alex said, smiling and nudging Mars with her elbow.
Scarlet Scorpion turned and walked back into their apartment. She sat on one of the wing back chairs in their living room as Mars took a seat on the couch, Alex sitting beside him.

She pulled a small thumb drive from her pocket and laid it on the table in front of them. "I've pulled the entire file off the system and downloaded it to this USB drive." Mars picked it up, looked at it for a moment and handed it back.

"You should hold of it then. I've got the tape recorder and it's tape from the evidence locker. I think it's best if we each keep a separate pieces of the evidence..."

"Just in case one of us happens to go missing." Scarlet said, finishing his sentence.
She sat silent for a moment then continued. "Okay, so we now have both the recorder and the file deleted from DOGMA. You do understand that short of wiping DOGMA clean, a deleted file isn't totally gone, right?"

Marsius nodded. "Yes, and hopefully we can have this resolved before anyone thinks to dig deeper into the system."

"Have you found him yet?" Scarlet asked and Marsius responded with a small nod.

"Yes, he got back in touch with me about two hours ago. You'll love this, they're in Bora Bora." Scarlet let out a little laugh. "That was no doubt Grace's doing. I can't see him going there willingly. When do you leave?"

"As soon as we're done here. I've already set a pre-recorded message to go out over the secure channel that I'll be gone." Marsius stood up, took a quick look out the balcony door, then came back inside. "Kathryn, be careful out there, I've seen signs that whoever is watching us has stepped up their surveillance."

"And with the several new members we've recruited, they could be at a greater risk than those of us that's been on the group for a while." Scarlet said, now standing up from her chair also. Marsius nodded "I'm afraid things are going to heat up very soon, for all of us."


Bora, Bora, Tahiti, twelve hours later

Marsius stood on a small wood dock as the wind blew down of Mount Otemanu and down across the beach. He was wearing khaki shorts, sandals, and a red and yellow Hawaiian shirt. He could hear the laughter and music from a restaurant/nightclub named Bloody Mary's just a mile down the road. It was supposed to be world famous according to the island brochure he picked up and word on the island was that someone famous was on Bora Bora even now and would quite possibly be there now.

"A Hawaiian shirt, seriously? I know I told you to dress like a tourist and try to blend in, but for Christ's sake could you have worn something a little less loud?" came a voice behind him. Marsius turned and watched as a figure slowly approached him in the darkness. Dominic Jackson, the man known as Stalking Shadow stopped a couple feet in front of him.
Marsius never really cared for Jackson, or his methods when he was with Dawn Patrol, but he lived and operated in a world that was as alien to him as he was to everyone else.

"I have to admit, yours is one number I never expected to see on my Droid. What could possibly be so dramatic as to make the great Crimsonstar contact me?"
Marsius scowled a bit at Shadow before reaching into the backpack at his feet and handed him a small badly damaged and scarred video recorder. "I need to see if you can clean up this recording." he said.

[Battledog]

Sam and Jayson Kinmount worked quickly. Crouching on at high roof top near their Steel Canyon apartment, they telekinetically placed the small cameras at various points and checked the placement on their phones.
"Why did Dave want these set again?"
Jayson telepathically asked his sister.
"He's getting paranoid. Thinks he's being watched."
Samantha answer floated through Jayson head.
"So why didn't he set them then?"
"You can't be that naive! If he's being watched, his watchers would know the cameras were here because they would watch him set them. God, you're hopeless. You should spend more time listening to what Dave is saying and less time talking to your girlfriend."
"Shut up! You're just jealous."
"Oh, please. Listening to you get all cutesy with Prof makes me want to gag. Now, hurry up. I got a lecture in a half an hour."
The two bickering siblings mentally confirmed the cams were adhered to the brickwork and emailed their older brother the datastream codes. They nodded once to each other, then Jayson leapt telekinetically away. Sam sighed and mentally urged herself throught the air, enjoying the freedom of flight.

[Lights End]

A few days later..

Light cursed to himself as he entered his apartment. The place was a wreck, with suit parts lying around, and the guts to more than a few computers sitting on the tables. He winced as he walked around the room, partially due to the pain generating from his cracked ribs, and otherwise from the mess he was gonna have to clean later. His scouting mission to check on the bots at Lady Vic's left him empty handed, and frustrated to boot.

"Computer, where are we at with the data recovery and decryption process?" He said in a drab tone. He realized that his mood was getting worse, but wasn't even in a place to begin to understand it. His thoughts jumped from today's incident with the clowns with Simon and Loni, then to the ambush by Freakshow and Flambeaux, then to Loni and G, then to Lily and Dave. He was interrupted by the computer's shrill chirp and voice.

"Disk Cloning is complete. Decryption process at 54%. Estimated time till finished: 2 days."

"Augh", Light grunted to himself. He didn't have 2 days to wait. He slid over to the main terminal and began working on speeding the process up, as his thoughts began to drift back to the earlier happenings. He remembered quickly that he asked Loni out to dinner Friday night, after the meetup of course, and then glanced at the suit in its tube, remembering that he had to get that thing repaired before he went back out to fight.

He sighed, and smiled. "Another night with no sleep it seems...", he said as he dove back into his work.

[Oynakiz]

The ground sped beneath her at a dizzying pace as the Iron Goliath's piston-operated legs propelled them through the air over the streets and buildings of Steel Canyon's Bronze Way neighborhood. Loni braced herself for the impact as she adjusted the hydraulic shocks for Big G's rooftop landing. She had been practicing and practicing in an attempt to lessen the damage that the 2000-pound behemoth made when it landed, after that debacle over in King's Row. She was thankful that the Dawn Patrol's legal team was taking care of the aftermath in that one. You'd think that with all the seeming-focus of the universe's humor and angst centralized on the little patch of the Earth known as Paragon City, that somehow the city planners would enforce a few building stress requirements. "Oh well..."

Alex's repairs on the Goliath's power distribution lines seemed to be holding up, for which she was grateful. They had been damaged during an assault on a Carney hideout along with Lights End and the Temporal Knight. The Goliath wasn't the only thing damaged though. Alex had suffered from some cracked ribs and many assorted bumps and bruises. His power suit wasn't quite as sturdy as hers, and he had paid a painful price for it, while she just suffered the indignity of having a sytems shutdown. "But it gave me the chance to play nurse", she thought with a wry grin.

Lily had met her and Alex in the vehicle bay where Big G was stored, and then Dave showed up also, to ask Alex questions regarding the technowhiz's ongoing effort to crack the security encryptions regarding that disturbing video footage that the team had witnessed the other day. Dave left, kissing Lily goodbye, to go take care of some personal business. Immediately afterwards, Loni had accompanied Alex and Lily to a cave beneath Peregrine Island where they searched for fellow hero held prisoner by some renegade Longbow agents. Big G had performed well; Alex knew his way around this tech-stuff. Best of all, noone got seriously hurt this time. Then, that evening, while he accompanied her on a shopping trip, Alex had asked her out. She was still smiling about that.

Loni cracked the hatch in the Goliath's torso, leaving the systems on standbye while she exited the mech for a breather. She was still hoping for Alex and Simon to get a little time to fix up some kind of cooling system for the cockpit. She stood on the roof, fanning herself with her hands and picking at her sweaty leotard. She was glad that the officers of the Dawn Patrol seemed to look the other way in regards to her uniform; having to wear the heavier, padded leather full-body suit that the regular members wore would have killed her inside the heated environment of her mech. Of course, she was still on probation, being the newest Patroller and all, so she was careful not to upset any of the team leaders. If they wanted her to suit up in a more standard outfit, she'd just have to make do. Then again, maybe they cut her a little slack for taking the initiative to completely repaint Goliath's exterior to match the Dawn Patrol's uniform design. "That had to count for something," she thought.

Loni was aware of a little prickly sensation in the back of her skull... that little feeling a girl gets when she becomes aware that certain parts of her anatomy are being stared at. "Alex, that naughty boy," she thought. Her lips curled in a mischievious smile as she made a show of pulling at the leotard's bottom and then spun around to see... nothing. "Lights End?" she called out. "Alex, is that you? C'mon out!" Loni was greeted by only silence. "It's not funny," she cried. "You want I should cancel our date?" More silence. Nervous, Loni crossed her arms over the tight-fitting leotard, suddenly wishing that maybe she had worn the heavier Dawn Patrol uniform; her eyes scanning the roof top and those of the nearby buildings. She was sure she was being watched. Loni backed up to the silent metal leviathan and, still searching around, climbed back in and brought the Goliath's systems back to full power, sealing the hatch. Visual cameras online, she made another look but saw nothing. Yet the feeling of being under surveillance refused to leave her as Loni worked the controls, causing Goliath's powerful legs to carry her away from the roof.

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Many yards distant, the man closed his zoom-enhanced recording device and silently slipped away.

[Lights End]

In the wee hours of the morning

Alex's eyes squinted as he worked on finishing up some adjustments on Goliath. He stepped down from the giant, and walked to his computer. The images on the screens played the contents of the Tape over and over, though without the addition of sound, while on another screen the various camera's placed in the apartment monitored the surroundings. He glanced out of the room, into his bedroom to see Loni sleeping peacefully, or at least she seemed peaceful.

Something caught his eyes as he scanned the room quickly. He could see a glint of light coming from across the way out of the window, followed by what appeared to be a man lifting off and flying away. "What the hell?", he thought to himself. He turned back around and rushed into the computer room, hoping that his camera system caught the man, and indeed it did. He watched the man fade from view after he crouched down and began looking at Alex's building through what appeared to be a spyglass, before noticing Alex seeing him and lifting up to fly away.

"I think everyone will wanna see this...", he said to himself as he started compressing the video feed into his flash drive. He thought for a moment, and opened a small safe in his wall, placing the flash drive within it. "I gotta get some sleep, and I can bring this up at a meeting soon.."

He went and laid himself beside Loni, wrapping his arms around her, before passing out...