(2014-07-03) Metallo 2
Metallo 2
Summary: Metallo breaks into a manufacturing firm to acquire a device which synthesizes crystals. Power Woman attempts to stop him, but Metallo reveals his trump card, and Power Woman is saved by Katheryn Kelly!
Date: 2014-04-07
Related:

Metallo 1

NPCs: Metallo
Scene Runner:

Aerial

Social/Plot: Plot

Adamant Solutions is an industrial manufacturing firm specializing in custom machining tools such as drills, very fine lathes, rare energy power supplies, laser cutters, and hydraulic presses, for creating supermaterials and processing minerals that are either too fragile and delicate or too hard and durable to work with normally.

The break-in isn't subtle. Just between the evening and night shifts, a silvery android with a terminator skull walks straight through the loading bay wall and into the machine shop, while several black windowless vans pull up outside. Generic thugs with stun pistols rush in after Metallo, moving faster than his more leisurely pace, to cover the workers. For the most part, they're just forcing them to leave, but complaints are handled with a quick shot from the pistols, leaving the less compliant workers slumped unconscious on the floor.

Several feet from the loading bay rests cabinet or two laying on their side against the wall, old and forgotten, they are from the buildings former life and have been waiting for removal for several years at least. Few would see what the left most, and more intact one contains, but the most perceptive might hear the rustling of linens as a young redhead raises her eyes to the slightly ajar door, peering out to watch those vans pull up. It's not much, but this is her home tonight, for when it rains, you make a bed wherever you can!

With no alarms and no alerts, there's nothing to warn the thugs or the cyborg that help has been summoned. But a single worker snapping pictures and posting them to WorldWatching.app is enough to start the ball rolling. The massive servers accept the image, along with what bits of information are passed along - time and date stamp, GPS coordinates, the user profile of the poster, and one or two additional bits of badly scrambled text from the keyboard - and collated. A program embedded in the platform identifies the circumstances of the photos and their contents as being of importance, and they get shoved into a queue, brought to the attention of a superuser ...

High above the city of Metropolis, the crimson-caped white-suited form of Power Woman flies, eyes shielded by StarrGaze glasses that she would never wear in costume while in public. Data scrolls over the glasses, as fingers flick to and fro, manipulating the data as it streams through. When Power Woman spots the post about a cyborg smashing into Adamant Solutions, it's enough to draw her attention. The MPD won't be able to handle something like that without help. She checks the location, inverts in mid-air, and streaks off in that direction while putting the glasses away.
The Woman of Steel is on the way.

Metallo appraises several of the machines with a critical eye and a flexible tentacle-cable that just slams straight into and through devices of interest. The tentacles rip motors and drills and clamps out of the manufacturing machines and yank them back inside the android, his body shifting like a transformer to open up places to accept the parts and electronics. Cards and hard drives from mainframes drawn in, but all of this is just in passing. Metallo makes his way to the DiamondForge hydraulic ultracompressor. A machine that can put out enough pressure and heat to form various crystals and grow them in controlled conditions. This, Metallo is more careful with, inspecting it studiously before touching it.

Kath shifts a little more in her cabinet, catching just a glimse of that... thing as it enters the building, the sight sending a frightened shiver through her. "I... didn't." She murmers to herself, biting her lower lip, and yet the vans and others are still about, she feels the cold, she has to be awake. With a worried swallow, she slowly begins opening the door further, the old hinges making a sharp squealing noise before quietening down.

There's no sonic boom. No alarm or alert. Just a rush of air, like a wind. And then six of the workers who had been laying here and there in the warehouse are just gone.

Power Woman is just that darned fast. And then she's standing in the hole in the wall made by Metallo's entrance, cape flapping behind her as she settles in place. "Mighty inhospitable of you, making all this trouble for these good men and women on their last day before their three day weekend. That's just mean."

One of the thugs calls, "Boss, we got company!" as he backs away from where one of the unconscious workers used to be. The android turns slowly in place to face Power Woman, "That's one way to look at it." He steps away from the hydraulic press towards her. "The other is I'm giving them the day off early, and a worker's comp bonus." His chome-polished skull has no lips to make those teeth stop smiling/grimacing. "The stunners are non-lethal, for what it's worth." He extends a hand. "The name's Metallo. I'm so glad I finally get to meet you. You're the Kryptonian, yes?"

The tall blonde woman at least has the sense of humor to smirk a bit at Metallo's odd criminal's humor. A sweep of the room with her Kryptonian vision shows all of the workers safely out of the way. Just the goons and the robot left. "I am Power Woman, Metallo." Everyone knows Power Woman is Kryptonian. She doesn't bother to confirm further, beyond claiming her own nomme de guerre. "I know the stunners are non-lethal. That fact is the biggest reason why I'm talking, not already punching. What do you want, here?" As long as no clear threat is offered to anyone's safety, Kara can afford to talk. Information is ammunition, after all.

Metallo shifts his posture and lets the hand he offered drop away with a sigh. "Well, I have a bit of a medical condition. I need a rare power source in order to live, see." His chest splits open in the middle along a bright green vertical line. The glow of a fist-sized chunk of Kryptonite bathes the whole half of the room in front of him in blazing green. Once that light's out in the open he suddenly snaps his arm forwards to make a grab for Power Woman's neck. "So my boys are packing up the equipment I need to make more of it." At this, the thugs back away from the two feuding supers and bring in pallet jacks to move the DiamondForge.

Katheryn's green eyes widen greatly, seeing the metal thing open itself up, it actually brings the softest of frosted gasps to her lips. Suddenly, she feels the cold seeping through her all too thin, torn clothing, and at the same time, realizes just how close to goons she is. Snapping a look at one, she slips into the complex and tries to hide amongst the crates and such in the loading dock itself, knowing she likely can't just run away from this!

A chunk of green Kryptonite of that size is easily sufficient to cover half of even this large room. And that means its radiation reaches Power Woman - or would have. But the moment that green-glowing seam opened up, Power Woman was already moving. She'd heard about a robot or cyborg who tried to make a theft to steal a Kryptonite stone. It's enough for her to move back. Which is enough to mean that she is not immediately incapacitated. Weakened, and in pain, but not already collapsing. And with a stone that big, if she gets too close that is exactly what will happen, a matter of a minute or so before she s poisoned to death.

Weakened, in pain, Power Woman is further away than Metallo's arm had intended to reach, but it's not like he can't adapt. She's not blurring away from this fight. Grimacing, she grabs a few bricks from the savaged wall and tosses them forward, probably at best shattering over the robot without effect. At worst, there may not even be enough strength in her throws to scratch his finish, let alone shatter the stones. This isn't good.

Metallo's shoulders unfold and bulk up suddenly with the motors he's absorbed from the industrial machines. With a sharp mechanical whine, he plucks the incoming bricks from the air and lets them drop to his feet. Then his right hand shifts and becomes a large clamping vice. The left hand becomes a wickedly serrated spike. "I am your death, Power Woman." Mirrors in the back of his chest cavity shift. From covering the whole half of the room, the effect sharpens and focuses like a magnifying glass, covering a smaller area, surging forwards as a columnated beam.

The DiamondForge is being wheeled away by the group of thugs out towards the waiting vans, but one of them spots Katheryn. "Hey, there's another one!" He splits off to persue the redhead, firing a few stunner shots at her. Fortunately for her, he has stormtrooper syndrome.

Katheryn snaps her gaze around, red hair flying about her as she not only hears the call, but sees one shooting at her. At her! She actually screams, even while leaping over the rear end of a forklift, landing in a roll a parkour veteran would be proud of. She skids to a halt on behind the lift, ducking back against it even while watching the skull thing speak and fire. The moment she touches the lifter, she squirms, gasps, then simply disappears... the lift starts up, the electric engine whining up to a speed it's never touched before. The wheels squeal, the forks raise, the whole machine powers towards Metallo from the side, forks aimed right for his chest.

Kryptonite!

Power Woman thought it might be, which is why she dodged back. Turns out that saved her very life. She survived facing Brainiac. But it wasn't pretty. Now she's here again, facing another robot entity, and this one knows about her weakness too. Knows about it, has it, and is using it! Everything hurts. Aches. Her whole body is screaming, and Kara can only clamp it off, refusing to give voice to the whimper of pain and fear that would otherwise issue forth. She staggers back another step as Metallo advances, and sees his body adjusting, adapting.

Then she hears the scream.

Someone else is in trouble. There's no more time for this foolishness!

Power Woman lurches to the side and rolls behind the dumpster outside the building. She's getting her cape messy, and if she lives she'll worry about it later. Then she takes a pained, aching breath, and jumps for the door, dashing around to come back inside a bit away from Metallo, as all her senses sweep the building. Where's the girl who was in trouble?

But she's gone. She's gone, and a forklift is charging Metallo. Power Woman grimaces, trying to focus enough to eek out a small blast of heat vision aimed at the doors to the open chest cavity. But it's paltry and weak, nowhere near what might be needed. And it's probably enough to tell the damned cyborg where she is.

The instant Metallo loses sight of Power Woman the doors to his chest snap right back shut again. There's no point to having that part exposed and vulnerable if it's not flash-frying a Kryptonian. He turns to face the forklift, and somehow that skull manages a look of surprise. THUNK. The forklift's supercharged drive slams into him. The forks don't penetrate his body, but he's shoved back in front of it, then under it. And out the other side. Then a dull red spot develops on his surface where heat vision strikes him -- but he doesn't seem to be aware of it at all, rather than it giving away Power Woman's hiding spot. Metallo rises and dusts himself off, unharmed. "Well. That was interesting." He grabs the forklift in the vice of his right hand and lifts it overhead, stalking around searching. "Come out, come out, wherever you are. We're not done yet, you and I."

"Boss! The other girl's gone! I was watching her when she disappeared right into thin air! Some kind of teleporter maybe? Watch your... front. She might pop back any time."

"Annoying. Load the device. It'll take me too long to absorb it here."

With the doors over Metallo's chest cavity closed, Power Woman breathes. It's a coughing choke compared to her norm, but it isn't agonized, weak, and pathetic. It's a vast improvement. She could sure use some pure yellow sunlight, but it's past dusk here on the eastern coast of North America, and sunlight's in short supply here. Damnit.

Power Woman takes that moment of strength restored to take some action. She seizes a few tools, and bolts outside to puncture and slash tires, rip out engine blocks, and generally disable the vans. The device is going nowhere if she can help it. Anything that would enable Metallo to make /more/ Kryptonite is a Bad Thing (tm). She still can't spot the girl who screamed, but she can hear the men saying that she must have teleported away. She's not sure she buys that, but she doesn't have a better idea right now.

Slashed tires. Ripping metal. Metallo's head turns to face completely backwards towards Power Woman and his arm rotates like a shot put. Apparently killing her comes even above making off with the goods. Suddenly there's a forklift screaming out of the shop towards Power Woman, but it's way off target and smashes into the ground instead. "Change of plans," Metallo barks to his goons, "Someone's trying to hack me. All of you go home. Leave the device where it is." The goons nod and break, all scurrying different directions to disappear. "I found that girl you were trying to save," he grunts. His arm twitches and reverts to a human-shaped hand. Then into a keyboard. Then into a missile. Then into a canopener. He stumbles as one foot becomes a rollerblade, but gets up, seething. Taking a moment to focus. "Guess I have a hostage you can't rescue. You're gonna have to come out and face the music. Then I'll let her go."

Katheryn feels herself falling, twisting, turning, falling, raising, splitting, breaking, reforming, her body seeming to do everything at once, her mind following, trying to keep up. Bit by bit, her 'eyes' open, shadow giving way to light, her eyes forming with Metallo's so she can see what he sees, and so much more. Internally, she gasps, flicking through everything she can find in an attempt to escape, for she feels /him/ in there with her... only as she looks down, she finds she's not in herself, but in him. "What... I'm..." She tries to push her voice out, whether it makes it or not simply not her decision, but she tries. While she does, she continues powering Metallo, her form allowing his to move faster, more powerfully, and bit by bit he gets more and more control of himself.

Power Woman turns, running back inside, right through the flames of the crashed forklift. Metallo has a hostage? Then she has to save her. Save ... where the Hell is she? The Kryptonian heroine eyes Metallo's malfunctioning body, and then she begins to understand; not how, but at least what is happening. Somehow, the girl is inside Metallo. And here Kara can't afford to tear him apart to get her out. Another massive dose of that green Kryptonite, and she might never make it out. Hell of a time to need backup, isn't it? "You're a terrible musician. And I don't take orders from terrorists and criminals. Let her go. Or I make you."

"You /can't/ make me." Metallo sneers, "You aren't /strong enough/." He turns both his hands back into hands, and his foot back into a foot, and stands smoothly again as the jittering shifting of his body dies down and fades away. "I'm not sure what she's doing, or how, but it's quite wonderful. All of my systems are in overdrive. Which means maybe I won't have to wait." He jumps backwards, colliding bodily with the hydraulic press, and wrapping around it fluidly. His robotic tentacles secure and fuse the device onto his back, the device scaling down slightly, his own body scaling up slightly, to make it all fit.

Bit by bit, second by second, Katheryn feels Metallo take over, at least that's what she /thinks/ he's doing, since she quickly finds herself unable to really control any part of her body swirling around his internals. Her arms, legs, breath, fingers, mouth... all she can control soon, is her eyes, and even that goes a little wobbly as the machine lurches backwards. Kath can do nothing as Metallo begins his process, but on the plus side, it doesn't feel as if he can do anything really to her.

"You have no idea how strong I am, Metallo." Power Woman answers, with a growl. Her eyes glow for a moment, and twin beams of incredible heat lash out, slicing away through a shoulder joint, trying a sort of anti-weld to slice through and sever the arm at the shoulder. She has done it before to other robots, but she can tell this one is of much hardier construction. She can't be sure how quickly this will slice through, though she has a reasonable guess, given her engineering and materials knowledge and her Kryptonian senses - which are coming back up to full, bit by bit. It'd be instantaneous if there was sunlight. Instead, it's a process. A process that could be interrupted again if she gets hit again with that damned green Kryptonite.

Not reckless enough to wait around in place for Metallo to react, Power Woman moves again, this time way off to the side, and she slices away the hydraulic press itself, severing what Metallo has absorbed from the rest. Then a whoosh, and she hammers the huge piece out through a wall. No more toys for the robot.

Metallo's shoulder turns red. Then orange. Then white... but it's not enough, not yet. The superalloy holds. The hydraulic press however, falls apart in short order. Metallo's body rejects the damaged parts and both halves end up spat back onto the ground... and the tentacles start to lash and writhe, flailing about as Katheryn's struggles bring her back into existence wrapped within them, somewhere between being absorbed and rejected. Metallo stumbles again. "Feeling. I can... feel..." His voice sounds awed. He turns to look at Katheryn for a moment. "...Deal's off, Power Woman. I'm keeping this one. You get to live. For now. This is more important." He opens his chest again, blasting the green light wide in Power Woman's direction as he backs away. "How..."

Though Katheryn feels her control slip, she slowly becomes aware of... power, of componants, of choice. She can't quite reach it, her body feels for now lost, wrapped amongst the machinary contained within Metallo, her consiousness almost, but not quite, a part of his. Moments pass, Power Woman's assault isn't felt, but seen, she watches with some detachment the heat beam, the cutting of... herself? She blinks, gasps, then feels herself slipping out, cold flows over her once more, her raggedly dressed body covering with goosebumps as she suddenly shifts out of Metallo, standing now beside him. She's there, she feels, but a big part of her remains in Metallo, and quite suddenly she realizes she has absolutely no control of herself.

Power Woman is waiting for the chest to open, ready to move, to whisk away and make another approach. She's not going to let Metallo get another blast on her if she can help it. What she needs is a shielded suit, but she doesn't have one, and hasn't time to get one. So this will have to do. "I told you. I don't make deals with terrorists or criminals." Power Woman offers, this time from atop a catwalk. And then her heat vision lashes out again, this time slicing away at those tentacles, trying to free Katheryn. She's not going to let Metallo get away with the girl. That's not an option.

The melting point of flesh is significantly lower than the melting point of Metallo. The tentacles start to glow red the metal heating, and then sizzling where they hold Katheryn's bare flesh. Both Metallo and Katheryn scream, though Metallo's cry sounds somewhat more masochistically pleased. "That must be pain, yes? I heard somewhere that burning was the worst pain. It's good to finally feel it." Even though the pain causes him to double over a bit, he still turns quickly, trying to move fast enough to catch Power Woman in the radiation.

Though Katheryn looks free, with those tentacles holding her mostly bare flesh fast, she doesn't appear to make any attempt at all to free herself, or even struggle. Even as she screams, her she doesn't otherwise move, not even to throw her head back as searing pain floods through her. Internally however, she starts fighting, meekly at first as she's not quite aware of /how/ to do anything, having lost association with her body. For now, all she does is perhaps make Metallo feel a little weird.

Usually, metal Power Woman hits with her heat vision melts away so fast it doesn't have time to conduct the heat. And usually the people she's slicing free of metal tentacles are other heroes, less likely to be so adversely and immediately affected. Regardless, clearly the Kryptonian woman stops immediately upon there being any sign of pain in Katheryn. Of course, Metallo's gloating may also have had something to do with it, as now she is enraged. Like seriously furious. He's been disrespecting and toying with her and torturing this poor girl, and she has had enough!

Power Woman leaps from the catwalk and lands with a very solid thump. Then she runs the distance and tries to grab hold of the tentacles holding Katheryn, working to wrest them off of her and set her free. She's a Kryptonian powerhouse, she should be able to do this, especially when she's furiously angry and not holding back anymore. It would help, though, if she wasn't still a bit weakened. Damnit!

As Power Woman gets her hands on Metallo, she starts to realize just how durable that metal is. She can pull on those tentacles, but not simply crush them in her hands as she might so many other metals. But now, up close and personal, Metallo finally gets his hands on Power Woman as well. The tentacles bifurcate and lash around, while Metallo turns with glowing green eyes. His chest opens and the beam bursts out again, striking with an almost concussive force at point-blank range. He's done gloating, at least.

Katheryn continues her futile struggles within Metallo, while her body does nothing at all to help her, or Power Woman's cause in freeing her. If anything, she's lost even more control now Metallo has so much to focus on, her own will focusing with his. Bound in tentacles, she watches the scene unfold, watches with her own green eyes her own lacking struggles and Power Woman's efforts, even as the Heroine fights, Katheryn can feel the difference in power between them. She can also feel the shift in power away from Metallo's legs and into other areas, her own body augmenting this shift.

Kara's Kryptonian strength is pulling, yanking, twisting, trying to free the girl from the tentacles ... and then she herself is wrapped up in them. Power Woman is caught, and that chest cavity is opening.

PAIN

Kara screams in agony, as her body goes weak. All that strength, all that speed, all that power. Gone. Gone, and at this range, with that much Kryptonite, the poisoning sets in. Green pebbling to her skin where her veins bulge. Breathing gets raspy, weak and empty. Her body quakes.

Metallo's fist closes over Power Woman's face, and he starts to squeeze. The tentacles release her, and he bears her down into the building's concrete foundation with a sharp crack, fractures radiating through the floor, still holding her head. He continues as the Kryptonite does its work, deadly blows meeting increasingly meager invulnerability... but he's also... shaking a little. He glares at Katheryn suddenly, "What have you done to me?!" he roars. "Stop SENDING ME these FEELINGS!" He hurls Katheryn down on top of Power Woman hard enough to knock the wind from both of them. Then he's looking around in a fretful panic. The influence isn't safe, he decides. As much as he craves the sensation of touch, those other feelings are too much a liability. He only hopes distance will break the connection. He turns to run.

Beaten. Poisoned. Broken. Power Woman crumples beneath Metallo's withering assault. She would be dead, save for whatever it was that finally drove him away. Whatever weakness he rants about, Kara won't remember any of it. Kara will only remember that she nearly died. And that dawn brought her back. Unfortunately, dawn is hours away. This is going to hurt for a while.

Her breath comes back eventually, as does the feeling in her arms and legs, each time a second ticks by, she slowly gains attachment and understanding of her own body, and as it comes back, she rises to her feet. A deep breath is taken, released onto the cold night air as she looks down and around... no sign of Metallo, no sign of the thugs, but there lays a heroine who is probably dying. She flexes her fingers, then pauses, afraid to touch her. Instead, she bolts, not outside, but for the office telephone, there to call 911, a number thankfully familier to her. While she explains why she needs the police and ambulance, she also becomes aware that she is indeed an illegal alien. With a sigh, she rushes back to the girl, staying with her until the sirens are heard.

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