Geosh still wasn’t sure what it was, but it had attacked with no real provocation, so Geosh decided to ask questions later. He materialized the sword and used two hands to slash at where he thought it was.
There was a crunching sound as he cut through… Something. The next second a large body of mass was moving towards him, practically falling on him. His armor would easily withstand the attack, but any gaps would need to be quickly covered if he didn’t want severe lacerations.
The reason? Even with the extremely limited light, with it this close to his face, it was obvious to see the entire surface - likely the entirety of whatever it was - was composed of razor blades.
Fortunately for Geosh there were few real gaps in the armor, and he could fill in the gaps in the armor; unfortunately, that meant the joints lost any mobility, and it was an all or nothing trick. Geosh did it though. Now Geosh was in a hollow statue of armored man that completely sealed. “Suffocation is preferable to being sliced up by a bladey-thing, it’s more poetic. Except nobody is going to know about it if I die down here. Sigh… I guess I’ll have to get out of this before my air runs out.” Geosh thought to himself, after a moment he began throwing his weight back and forth, hoping to tip the “statue” he was in and hoping that he would be clear of the “bladey-thing”, as Geosh was calling it.
There was for a moment a violent scraping sound, as all the razor blades ran over the exterior of the armor. Then, silence, and through the holes in the armor’s helmet orange light shone through.
“What in blazes…?” A raspy voice mumbled, and the light ran across the armor. Then, as Geosh began leveraging his weight, the outside figure showed a significant hold over the armor before suddenly letting go and allowing it to plop into the murky, wet sludge on the ground.
“Well if that ain’t a party trick.” The light shone overtop and there was a soft scraping sound outside of the helmet. “Still in there, gorgeous?”
OOC: there’s no holes for light to shine through
IC: Geosh felt something grab the “statue he was in, then let go, letting him fall to the ground. Then Geosh heard scraping by his head. “I hope I’m out of immediate danger, this armor is gonna be down for a few minutes.” Geosh mumbled as he retracted the armor and shot up into a fighter’s pose, just in case. He couldn’t really see, but he hoped that whoever was scraping wasn’t the behind him, and he hoped it wasn’t the bladey-thing, if it was he was screwed no matter where it was.
OOC:
Then how the heck does he see
IC:
Geosh was, admittedly, a little too close for comfort to the large monstrosity of twisted metal shards, razorblades, and loose screws as it towered over him. The two bright lights which shone on him were the eyes of whatever this was, and the reflections off the moist sewer walls faintly revealed the existence of a horrible, twisted metal mouth just below.
“Guess that’s a yes.” The monster grumbled, using the same raspy voice Geosh had heard earlier. “Now what are you doing down here? You some kind of mask?”
“Me? I just travel in sewers wearing armor. And you look kinda like a pincoushin threw up on you. Who, or what are you?” Geosh asked.
The figure scowled at the comment, the various metal fragments making up his body turning and flipping in irritation, which created the same metallic noise he had heard before. “Switchblade,” He snarled, and then, with a smile, “So clearly not some time-traveling crusader or your average Dark Souls addict. Pleasure to,” He extended his hand as if for a handshake, revealing it consisted entirely of metal shards, and retracted it with a villainous grin. “Make your acquaintance.”
“So is sewer-jogging your day job, or just a hobby? Because while venom runs the streets of Metropolis, I run the underbelly. And don’t you forget it!” His toothy, mechanical grin was almost as wide as his whole head, but if he was intending to kill Geosh, he probably would’ve done it by now.
Geosh was pretty sure this switchblade didn’t intend to harm him at the moment. That being said Geosh was pretty sure he couldn’t turn his back on this guy.
“Oh, it’s just a hobby of mine, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you down here before, or anywhere else. Fact I’ve never heard of you, are you sure you run the underbelly of all metropolis?” Geosh questioned, hoping to at least keep him talking till his armor cooled down.
“Anyone willing to argue the position can talk it out with me,” He growled, although it didn’t seem angry. No, growling just seemed to be his automatic reaction to things.
“What’s more important right now is that you snuck up on me nice and quiet while I was perusing the local news,” He rasped. “How would you like a commission?”
“Funnily enough, I was originally looking for a job when I stumbled upon you. So I’m listening, of course it depends what the job is as to weather I’ll do it.” Geosh answered, silently counting down the minutes till his armor was ready, he had about two minutes left till it was ready.
Something square-ish crawled up Switchblade’s body and into his hand. It was a lighter.
“It’s hard to accomplish these sort of things by yourself,” He began, flicking the lighter several times to ignite it. “Look here.” He extended his metallic limb to the wall, revealing by the glow of the lighter a series of lines extending over each other and often disappearing or beginning along a specific edge, like it was roads inside a city.
“This is the Luthor campaign bus trail,” He hissed. “I’ve tracked it nationally. Every route here was covered invariably by his campaign, a campaign of violent trampling of the rights of the citizens of Metropolis. I’m going to start being a thorn in his side.”
“Here,” Switchblade jammed a sharp metal finger into the wall. “Here is where the campaign bus will chart its next campaign; at the steps of the capitol building. Prior to that it will dock behind this hotel” His finger scraped across to a large dot on the map. “And that is where you will board it if possible and obtain anything valuable or essential. If boarding is impossible you will use that excellent sword of yours to make the vehicle as unusable as possible.”
He closed the lighter, cutting off all light other than his ominous eyes. The metal noise continued as he retreated backwards into the darkness. “Alerting Luthor will do no good, as I have other ways of stopping him. This is merely a warning. If you accept this and succeed you will be paid handsomely, here, where you found me. If not, forget we ever met.”
And with that, the giant mass of metal shards slunk down a corner and disappeared from view. The two minutes were up; if he wanted to try and chase him he was likely too slow to evade Geosh.
Geosh weighed the options, either try and take down switchblade now or get info on luthor. “Luthor is such a model citizen.” Geosh thought with heavy sarcasm. “I better find out what this dirt is first.”
So Geosh set out for the hotel.
Mark nodded understandingly, with a small chuckle, “Of course. How about we go get you that glass of water now, yeah?”
After knocking Gideon halfway across the street, the leader of the group hadn’t been expecting him to get back up, and yet he did. The man squinted for a moment, as if trying to make sure what he was seeing was really there, before he grit his teeth in a frustrated grin, “Nice trick.” He remarked tersely, “Let’s see how long you can keep it up.”
And with that, he began to advance in long, stomping strides towards him, throwing his arms out to grip Gideon around the shoulders.
“The guys who put you here are the courts, and this is a prison, not a daycare. Entertain yourself, before I do something that might get me fired.”
The guards lead the pair through the neatly ordered complex, packed to the brim with other metahuman or high risk criminals, eventually leaving the cell blocks entirely and heading down into a more staff-focused area of the prison. They passed off-duty guards, prison psychiatrists, cooks, even somebody who seemed to be the warden, until eventually being brought down a winding staircase to a foreboding, steel-clad door.
One of the guards stepped forward and tapped in a passcode, and the door slid open automatically. The room beyond was a painfully bright clinical white from a combination of the decor and overhead LED lights, and was packed an assortment of other (assumedly) criminals in cuffs, looking just as perplexed at their current predicament. Khan and Mosh Pit didn’t have long to contemplate the scene before they were unceremoniously shoved into the room, the door quickly hissing shut behind them.
As this scene unfolded, Mrs Kelly continued her tirade against the masks, “Not only are their efforts destructive, they aren’t even competent! Many of the most notorious “supervillains” continue to go unpunished, including most of the key players in the destruction of Bludhaven. Governments the world over have settled into complacency when faced with such horrors, under the false assumption that the masks will deal with it. Well the fact of the matter is that the masks haven’t dealt with it, and will continue not dealing with it to ensure the public has something to fear, something that we have to be protected against - we can’t let this go on any longer!”
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Hayden laid on his cot wishing he was out of this situation as he dozed off.
Iosif gave an awkward nod. People who don’t drink water out of their hands are weird.
Gideon didn’t have nearly enough muscle to seriously match the raw power these bulky brutes possessed while on venom, and while he knew they couldn’t force his joints backwards, he wasn’t exactly considering letting them hogtie him and dump him in a river.
Weighing his options, he waited until the thug marched practically marched overtop of him before snapping forward, hoping to barely move faster than the massive, swinging arms which threatened to flatten him with a straight right to the jaw.
By the time Geosh arrived, it was evident he was just a minute too late. The Luthor van had obviously changed schedule, and nearly hit him as it emerged from a side road and took off down the street. Or maybe the brilliant pile of garbage had somehow tipped them off.
But the truth seemed to be a bit more mysterious. As it raced past him, Geosh could clearly see someone shut the back door. They were in a hurry, and if he was paying attention they were in such a hurry something had flung out the back as they passed. It now lay in the street, practically begging him to come pick it up.
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Geosh wanted to chase after the bus, but he knew catching it would be difficult at this point. “Maybe I could catch the bus at the capital building, but that might be kinda open, and who knows if I could learn anything there. Eh… can’t hurt to take a lo- what’s this? Is it what got dropped out of the back?” Geosh thought as he noticed the item laying in the street.
It was a small metal case, with a handle and everything. There were two combination locks and the edges were badly stuffed with copper wiring. Lexcorp logos all over the container. If the contents weren’t valuable, the box itself surely was solely due to being Lexcorp property.
There was a loud honk as an oncoming vehicle moved into the opposite lane to get around him. If the Luthor van was in fact heading to the capitol, it’d be extremely suspicious to walk there with that package.
Geosh look around for some place to hide the case. Not seeing any Geosh decided to keep the case and find out what was in it. “I need somewhere private too open this. Better find an alley or abandoned building.” And thinking thus, Geosh set out in search of one of these, or something of the like.
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The alley immediately nearby was for the hotel, and it had the luxury of several security cameras. There was a phone booth on the corner, but it was all glass, and hardly discreet.
However, there was an alley on the other side of the street which seemed particularly empty, neglected, and unobserved. In fact, the only thing ruining this perfect spot was the manhole beginning to move.