The Glorious Revolution, and some serious sunburn

[machine_herald]

[S] Evolve.

Another lovely morning in Venture City, California. Nothing but blue skies, an ominous airship of some kind, and a few scattered clouds.

Wait back up a bit there.

From the smoking ruin of Viktor's warehouse headquarters rose a huge airship. It looked sort of like a blimp, but it clearly wasn't, as the gasbag was no where near large enough to hold it up on it's own, but some sort of shimmering field was nailing it to the sky.

As it slid ominously across downtown, gas vents along the side started belching out clouds of reddish smoke. The smoke drifted upwards and faded, but the effects were apparent. Already the sun seemed harsher in the sky. If this kept up, it wouldn't be long before going outside was dangerous and painful.

Of course, if any of this was unclear, there was also the booming voice coming from the ship.

"The human body is WEAK. You alter its environment even slightly and it starts to fall apart! A simple compound that degenerates the Ozone layer and suddenly humans can't go outside. A slight increase in ultra violet radiation is all it takes to render this city uninhabitable!

But there is an alternative! I offered you ascension once and you laughed as you spat it back in my face. Now I offer it again! JOIN the Glorious Evolution! Become MORE than merely human! Steel will fix all your flaws! You will rise above the follies of man!

Or stay behind, cling to your decaying flesh, and watch as the world forgets you. The choice is yours."

It seems Sparks' warning came just a hair too late.

Comments

Approaching the ship

[machine_herald]

Various force fields and anti-missiles systems shoot down or block any attacks from the ground, but an aerial assault might be more successful! It's still guarded, though. Viktor has followers, and they are armed. Some have jetpacks, some have maneuvering jets actually built into their legs. Their weaponry is a bizarre hodgepodge of whatever they could scrounge up: guns, melee weapons, built in cybernetic weaponry. It seems Viktor's army was too poorly funded to have uniform equipment, but they maneuver as naturally on their cyborg flying systems as an unaugmented human can on the ground. They will be no pushovers.

Approaching the ship

[number1_kerbal]

The sudden appearance of a helicopter from around the edge of a building as it guns it for the airship might catch the Cyborgs off guard-certainly, none of them would have heard it approach on it's low speed stalking approach, but now it charges in fast.

Too fast seemingly, it looks like it's on a Kamikaze run to ram the airship and knock it out of the sky! Even for a computer, it would be impossible to get out of this situation in one piece.

[6billioncreditwoman]

"Next time, I'm driving!" the passenger of the helicopter shouts over the rushing wind.

Shepard does her best to take potshots at the airship with a submachine gun like an underfunded knockoff of a Vietnam War-era gunship, mostly trying to keep the defenders' heads down for when she and Kerbal-X inevitably have to bail.

[machine_herald]

The air guard scattered like pigeons when the helicopter tore at them from out of nowhere. The quickly recovered and gave chase, but cautiously, as they had to avoid the bursts of gunfire. The helicopter fell under fire, but not as much as they could have been, considering the amount of firepower available.

Part of the hesitation was from surprise, but part of it was from curiosity of what they thought they were doing. If they kept up like that they were going to ram...the...lifting bag...

As they started getting dangerously close, the volume of fire suddenly intensified.

[dropkick_princess]

Mint had to recover a bit as the helicopter... well, she hadn't expected her pilot to be so crazy. Still, it's not like she'd just sit there until it was time to bail.

"I-I'm fine, I'm fine!" Mint insisted, even though nobody was questioning her health.

She leaned out a bit from the helicopter, twirling her over-sized rings to charge up her magic before unleashing a torrent of lightning bolts at their pursuers.

[number1_kerbal]

Jebediah had honestly been expecting to ram the thing-before his passengers showed up and demanded a ride. So this changed things. But plan A could still be used as a bluff to cover up his real actions, so he kept barreling in like a madman, leaning the Helicopter more and more forward to gain more and more speed, even as he twisted it's flight path into a wild and unpredictable twist.

"Like heck you're driving! But you might want to hold onto something, before I flip this thing!"

...that was the worst possible position for a helicopter to be in. Flying inverted in a chopper was a good way to slam yourself into the ground. And that's if you don't stall the engine or break off all the rotors from the strain. It was therefore, the last thing they would be expecting.

[6billioncreditwoman]

"Just give me a three-count before we have to bail!" Shepard shouted over the noise of the rotors. Because, seriously, there was no way the chopper was going to last through that, and there are certain advantages to having anti-gravity powers when forced to jump out of an aircraft.

To that end, she harnessed her SMG and moved toward the center of the chopper, ready to grab Kerbal-X and the other, younger-looking hero.

"What's your name?" she asked.

[dropkick_princess]

"Flip?" Mint repeated dubiously as she looked toward the pilot, but she nonetheless did secure her weapons before taking a hold of something to make sure she wouldn't go flying out.

She glanced at Shepard as the older woman asked her a question, "I'm none other than the beautiful and powerful Mint!"

Though younger than Shepard, yes, she certainly had an ego... at the very least, though, she's stopped throwing around her (ex-)princess title.

[number1_kerbal]

"She's a princess to boot, or so she says." Jeb swung the chopper back and forth before suddenly pitching backward, flaring the Rotor so hard that the pursuing cyborgs had to dodge violently to the side to avoid hitting them. One even clipped the blade of the rotor, and was flung violently into a building, even as the chopper shuddered and Jeb pushed harder on the stick, pushing the helicopter into a inside loop.

Amazingly, the blades, despite screaming in protest, did not fall off the chopper-instead, the chopper came out of the maneuver moving much slower-and just a few feet from the top of the Airship.

[6billioncreditwoman]

"I don't know how you did that," Shepard admitted.

She then put a hand on the 'princess''s shoulder. "This is our stop. Let's move!"

Shepard headed out the side of the helicopter, hopefully followed shortly by the other two, aiming for the top of Viktor's flying fortress. The jump wasn't as harrowing as she'd expected, but she still employed her gravity powers to make sure she and anyone following would stick a neat landing on the airship instead of falling off.

[machine_herald]

Incoming fire slowed to a trickle. No one wanted to risk shooting the gasbag.

Instead, a trio of cyborgs with jet feet came in and drifted to a landing across from Shepard and brandished a variety of painful looking melee weapons: A axe with a chainsaw for the blade, an electrified whip, and a sword who's vibrating edge made it hum unnervingly.

[dropkick_princess]

"Yeah, let's kick their (expletive)!"

Mint rather nimbly made the jump onto the blimp. Spotting their opposition, she pulled out her rings and immediately greeted the cyborgs with a barrage of oversized ice cubes.

[6billioncreditwoman]

Shepard didn't like the look of those weapons. As she rolled to her feet, she drew her other big gun for this operation, a semi-automatic shotgun. She shouldered it, aimed, and fired a high-speed bean bag at the torso of the guy holding the sword.

Hey, when she's in Venture City, she's law enforcement, not the military.

[number1_kerbal]

Jebediah dismounted from the Chopper, but left they keys in the ignition and the engine running-no sense in shutting it off and having to preform the whole preflight all over again! Still, ice cubes and bean-bags weren't going to take these guys down. He'd try reason first. "Hey, you realize your boss is totally bananas, right guys? I mean, what next, he's gonna melt the polar ice caps so dolphin civilization can take over?"

Invading the ship

[machine_herald]

The ship itself is a confusing maze of hallways, incomprehensible machinery, and narrow access tunnels. Compounding difficulty of navigating the cryptic interior is more of Viktor's followers. Armed similarly to the cyborgs outside, they are just as devoted to the cause.

But somewhere in this mess is the machine producing the gas.

And somewhere in there is Viktor himself.

Confronting Viktor

[machine_herald]

At the heart of the ship stands a huge machine. If it looks to be lashed together from spare parts, that's because it was, but it still seems to work. The air is heavy with the scent of industrial chemicals, and has a strangely metallic taste to it. Standing between you and his doomsday device is Viktor the Machine Herald, clad in battle armor that seems to actually be part of him.

He stares at you with anger, though it's hard to tell behind the mask.

"Always, genius will be met by fear. Always, humanity manages to advance, dragging the ignorant kicking and screaming into a new age."

He slammed his staff into the ground, while his third arm started glowing as the death ray charged up.

"You made it this far, but you shall go no further!"

[big_blue_boyscout]

A red and blue streak shoots across the sky towards the airship, too fast for the defenses to get a solid lock before it punches straight through the plating on the ship. Alarms go off on deck after deck, and despite the guards and whatever security measures the ship might have, they barely slow the intruder down, if that.

The echoing crashes and impacts of the fighting echo through the halls of the airship, growing closer and closer to the heart of the ship, until eventually a pair of cyborg guards are sent flying in through the doors, knocking them off their hinges.

"No, Viktor, this is where it ends, I'm shutting you down now."

Viktor found the limit of Clark's patience the moment this thing lifted off, putting the lives of billions in danger.

[machine_herald]

That was...quite an entrance. But this time he was more prepared. Viktor put up a confident front.

"You can certainly try, but evolution will not be stopped. Evolution cannot be stopped."

[big_blue_boyscout]

"This isn't evolution Viktor. This is you taking revenge on the world for rejecting your ideas."

Clark stepped forward, striding across the deck towards Viktor and his machine.

"Turn it off now and come quietly. You're not getting another warning."

[machine_herald]

"Is that what you're really worried about now, 'Man of Steel', or are you more afraid of a world where the rest of us have caught up to your power?"

The aperture of his deathray started glowing as it charged up. But there was something slightly different about it this time, that Superman couldn't immediately identify.

Villains!????

[machine_herald]

Perhaps not all sought to fight him. To those who have no moral objection to burning Venture City to a crisp, to those who can stomach being strapped to his surgical table, an alliance with the Herald can prove quite beneficial.

Viktor stood on the bridge of the ship and watched as the city panicked like an anthill that had been kicked over.

"They will no doubt try to overcome us with force. You have my thanks for aiding me.

If it comes to it, I will be at the heart of the ship, guarding the atmosphere device. Without that, all this is for naught."