Scene #4255: Pain and Healing Pt.3

Owner	Pose
Dr. Vahzilok	There are reports of a super-powered 'Jack The Ripper' on the loose in Paragon City, though the deaths are looking increasingly like the work of more than one individual due to how widespread they are. Disappearances, bodies dissected for parts found in alleyways and abandoned lots, all kinds of nastiness. Figures in surgical masks have been spotted going into a sewer recently by a reporter. It's unclear if they're connected to the killings or not, but they were carrying bodies down there. And there's really no good reason for that. Someone should probably investigate, and see abotu finding some answeres.
Sanary Rondel	It's time to traverse a swamp! Not a literal one, but a figurative one, since sewers are nasty as hell. That's why Sanary's wearing a mixed set of armor and clothing today: The thick, waterproof boots of her Lagombi Armor underneath... A 20th century police officer's uniform? It's better than wearing her white coat, at least. For now, she's waiting just above a grate leading into the sewers, nudging the steel with the bottom of her shield idly while waving away the occasional bystander. "Nothing to see her folks. Official business. Keep it moving, keeeep it moving." What a responsible technically-not-a-police-officer.
Tatsuko Itagaki	The Itagakis aren't exactly savory sorts themselves, Tatsuko included, but the promise of good pay and the chance to pound a sadistic serial killer gets Tatsuko quite excited! After all, even Tatsu has standards, and killing random nobodies is a bit low. Also, money. Despite her slightly dull outlook on life, she's come prepared. There's a scarf around her neck in case the smell's too bad, she has waders on instead of her normal shoes, and there's a small bag slung around her shoulder full of some basic medical stuff. That last one was probably Master's suggestion. She also uprooted a large stop sign for use as a weapon before coming down here. She's more or less staying on point right now as she waits for the others to gather, humming a lethargic lullaby. Tatsu occasionally nods off. "Hushaby hushaby, my good baby sleep~" A pause when she finally notices Sanary. "Hiii~! It'll be fun working with you! Tatsuko Itagaki." Offers the woman to Sanary. A sleepy little wink. Secret Fed is here! If necessary, she'll yank off the grate blocking their entrance.
X	This is a job - an unsavory, smelly one - but a job that X can do. And as disgusting as sewers are to people, to robots... well. He'll just need to make sure he washes off properly after this. That might be why X has chosen to join with the investigation group. It doesn't take him long to recognize Sanary, but the blue robot double-takes a bit at the other woman. SHE... is unfamiliar. "Things in this city can get INCREDIBLY dangerous. Will you be alright without any armor?" She's... carrying... a stop sign. And just sort of waving it around. That alone has the Reploid Template a bit boggly and unsure about her, but... "Even the slightest cut could get horrible infections down there. I was planning on locating the gang so a team can be readied... but it's starting to look like we're that team!" Hoo boy.
Dr. Vahzilok	The sewer grate opens readily once it is accessed. Even without robot strength or similar, it seems to have already either been worked loose or pried open by others in the past, because the lock mechanism is thoroughly broken off. Venturing down into the sewers leads to a network of tunnels and water ways, with functioning electric lighting throughout most of it. Not having to wander in the dark is a small blessing, but likely a welcome one. It definitely doesn't smell good down here. A pungent chemical odor separate from the smell of rotting sewage fills these tunnels. There's also the smell of dead flesh, but for a nose not tuned to such things, it might just all smell like 'bad'. There's no immediate sign of either masked men or bodies, but searching a little bit beyond the entrance area, and into the next tunnel, where it begins to branch in different directions, will turn up an occupied body bag lying on the walkway.
Sanary Rondel	Voices! Turning at the sound of Tatsuko's voice, Sanary blinks slowly in surprise at the sight of her. A stop sign? That sleepy look? The woman's freaking massive! It's not until she introduces herself that the healer brings her hand up in a quick salute, then takes her hand firmly for a handshake. Just because there's a huge size difference between them doesn't mean she'll let that intimidate her! "Sanary Rondel. Looking forward to working with you, too, Tatsuko." Secret Fed indeed. Does the healer even know that she's working with them in that capacity? If she does, she's not showing it as she just grins in return. X gets a look of recognition and the same grin, chuckling confidently and jabbing her chest with her thumb. "Don't worry. I got healing magic, so that should take care of any infections. And... Probably puking, if it's real bad. We can handle it, don't worry." Tatsuko handles the grate easily enough, and it's time to head into the sewers proper! It's much brighter than Sanary was expecting. Not pleasant, but at least she doesn't have to worry about not seeing where she's going. She retches a bit, then conjures up a bit of gray mush and wedges it right into her nose. "If either of you need nose plugs, I got you covered." She pipes up while waving a few more of those gray magiplugs in midair at convenient grabbing range! Spotting the body bag, the healer kneels by the bag and nudges it with the side of her axe before taking a deep breath and... Opening it up! She's not expecting anything pleasant, but there might be clues in there!
Tatsuko Itagaki	Tatsuko gives a warm, if lazy, smile to X! She slowly shakes her head, and holds up the bag! "It's alright, I came prepared like Master said! There won't be a problem. You're so nice, thinking about your allies!" Reeeach. X will get a headpat if he's not careful! Ugh.Oh yeah, this place stinks. Thankfully, Sanary to the rescue! The handshake is taken, and she gives a chuckle, nodding several times. In go the plugs! "Mmm, hopefully no puking. Seen that too much when Ami-nee went partying." Then, as they come across the body, Tatsuko too takes a long look. She's seen the dead before, and she doesn't flinch. Looking over for signs of a cause of death briefly, she then starts to look /around/ it. Maybe signs of it having been dragged here, or debris left nearby? But mostly she's playing bodyguard, idly spinning that stop sign in one hand.
X	Being PAT ON THE HEAD by a young woman is... a very very odd experience that leaves X sort of speechless and gaping. In fact he's still that way while the others toddle towards the grate. "A--...ah!" But he pulls himself together, deciding he's not going to be so shocked and weirded out by people's behavior this time. ... Why is it humans from other worlds act so COMPLETELY unbelievably? Oh well. Into the sewers he goes, taking stock of how easy it is to access. As he walks his tactical software's establishing a 3D map of the surroundings. Upon spotting the body bag... he clenches his teeth. People are being murdered and dragged down here... WHY? Who on Earth would do it? "And why would they LEAVE one.... just leave it here to be found...?!"
Dr. Vahzilok	As Sanary opens the bag up and Tatsuko examines it, well, there's definitely a dead body in there. A man unknown to any of them. Fairly healthy-looking aside from being dead. There's no clear cause of death, though there has to have been SOMETHING for him to be dead. The sound of voices nearby indicates that maybe the body was only left here temporarily. Perhaps to haul other bodies deeper inside. The investigators will have a few moments before the owners of the voices come around the corner, during which they may hear some of their discussion. "The doctor wants these moved to the new facility promptly. Patients need these transplants." one man's voice says. "It would go more quickly if we had some more help... How long will these organs remain viable, anyway?" Some kind of black market organ traffickers? Hard to imagine why legitimate doctors would be transporting bodies through the sewers otherwise. Though there's always the off-chance this is some kind of misunderstanding, that seems less and less likely. Especially when they come around the corner, wearing surgical aprons and heavy-duty gloves and boots, armed with bonesaws and what look like tranquilizer dart guns. Not standard doctor wear at all.
Tatsuko Itagaki	Suddenly, it all becomes a little clearer. And in Tatsuko's mind, the appearance of the men proves an opportunitty. She steps near Sanary, winks, and then quickly zips up the body bag only to throw it over one shoulder. Then, she's waving over to the men in masks. "Hiiii~! Body hauling services! Where's this one going?" Smiiiile. As if this is the most natural thing in the world. She makes sure not to get into X's line of fire, or be too far away from Sanary in case this goes south horribly. Tatsuko's ideas are usual /awful/.
Sanary Rondel	"An older sister or something? Yeah, that's... Never fun to clean up, but at least there's fun stories." Sanary speaks with a mischievous tone, trying not to let the whole corpse thing bother her too much even as she's... Well, checking a corpse. "Either they were careless, or they figured we'd find it. Better stay on our guards in case it's the second." Her tone shifting back to a more serious one, Sanary gets up from the bag before she can mess around with it too much. "That's a body alright..." She mutters, then steps back as Tatsuko hauls that bag right up. Infiltration, hm? Not a bad plan. She tips her hat up to flash a smile at the men in masks. "Coast is clear. Nobody's coming down here." Surely that old-timey cop uniform will help lend some credibility to the ploy! Or screw it up horribly. Either or.
X	X... X looks more than a little shocked at Sanary and Tatsuko's quick thinking, how CASUAL they are about setting to trick the men who are coming. That's not something he'd have been able to do on his own, but it's filling him with ieas and making an impression to be sure. He SHOULD just GRAB whoever's coming, arrest them and bring them back, but... He decides otherwise, and instead activates his VARIABLE WEAPON SYSTEM, changing to PHASER BEAM. The result is a CRIMSON-BLACK color scheme instead of the BLUE-DARKBLUE-PURPLE that's almost certainly shown up on Recent Hero Activity reports by now, and turns AWAY and back towards the entrance, sidling up against the wall as if being a PARANOID GUARD of the two girls. Strong chance he might simply be mistaken for a guy in armor, on the lookout for any do-gooders... so long as he doesn't open his mouth. X feels horrible about trying to lie and manipulate, and doesnt' trust himself to come up with any convincing stories. So he'll just play the role of Extra Muscle. For now.
Dr. Vahzilok	These three have zero credibility given the mismatched assortment of appearances they possess, but the fact these two aren't stupid is another major boon to dismissing the ruse immediately. They know who they did and did not call to haul anything. One of them yells, "Heroes! We have to warn Doctor Vahzilok!" and draws his dartgun, but they both turn and flee down the tunnel, rather than taking on three good guys with only the two of them. If they're pursued, a dart may be shot back towards them, with less 'tranquilizing' effects and more 'paralyzing and damaging poison'. The toxin doesn't last long, but it may slow someone down if they get hit with it. Around the corner, as well, however, there are a few more bodies lying on the concrete walkway alongside the flow of sewage in the center of the tunnel. And coming up another tunnel from the side, it seems there's shambling corpses, stitched up in places, who, upon seeing people running, begin launching globs of acidic barf that narrowly miss the fleeing medical personnel, and make anyone immediately behind them almost guaranteed to take damage. This causes a new set of choices to emerge. Chase down the guys in the surgical gear, or deal with the zombies that seem hostile towards everyone? Also, by the way, WHAT ARE ZOMBIES DOING DOWN HERE!?
Tatsuko Itagaki	That went about as well as could be hoped. But the men are swift, and the appearance of /zombies/ gets Tatsu's attention! The tranq darts makes her stop and swing her pole around, knocking them out of the air with the flat of the stop sign! Acid comes for her, and though she swats away most of it, the sign part of her weapon falls off and she gets splattered across the arm! "Waaahwahwah!" Comes Tatsuko, her shirt sizzling as well as her skin in an awful acid burn! Thankfully she's naturally tough /and/ a Kawakami Style student. It doesn't slow her down as she picks up the sign end of her weapon and tosses it frizbee-like at one of the zombies! Then, with quickness for such a tall Japanese lady, she leaps into the air and makes a wide, arcing swing of the pole, aiming to knock them all off their feet!
Sanary Rondel	So much for that plan. Sighing lightly to herself, Sanary starts drawing more magical energy out of herself to conjure up magical gray bricks in the air behind her. "You know we'll just catch up, right? Might as well make it easier on yourselves and not force us to beat your asses!" She shouts out towards the fleeing men, then chases after them. With Tatsuko taking the lead, the healer's able to focus on... Well, healing! She directs healing energy straight into Tatsuko to augment her natural regeneration, trying to mitigate at least the damage she's taking from the acidic vomit even if it's not doing so much for the pain. She doesn't stop to go after the zombies, though, since her own priority is still following those men in the masks. Sanary focuses some of that magical power into her legs, giving her longer strides by just launching herself forward. She narrowly avoids hitting her head on the ceiling while she's at it, but it's clear that she's trying to close the gap with several magical steel bricks trailing behind her. "Last chance to stop before we just take you out!"
X	"Should have guessed..." X reacts quickly, and thankfully... he can run REALLY FAST compared to most humans. Easily reaching Olympian-like speeds but... at the cost of kicking up sprays of sewer slop as he leaps and charges after the men. He switches back to X-Buster mode with a flash of light and leaps, takes aim over the men's heads as darts bounce off his Titanium-X alloy skin... and shimmery poisons and other liquids fail to do anything. In return though he opens fire! Not at the men, but the water in front of them. A semi-charged shot goes flying past them and-- ... And slams into the distant water uselessly, FLASHBOILING the sludge into an even SMELLIER vapor plume. His plan had been to disrupt their retreat, but instead... Instead... Instead... "... GAHHHH!" X rarely freaks out, but THIS is horrifying as it gets. Thankfully he quickly turns his attention to shooting down the flying barf-globs, flash-boiling THEM instead. he gets sprayed with acidic vapor that begins corroding his armor, but then he dives forward through it and unleashes a furious flurry of dozens of more shots for every zombie he can target! "What are they DOING WITH THESE PEOPLE?!"
Dr. Vahzilok	As Tatsuko and X engage the zombie-like creatures, they prove to be rather straightforward in their fighting methods. Swipe and barf acid in melee range, or launch projectiles of the gross stuff if at range. While they likely aren't feeling any pain from the attacks, they do seem to have a damage threshold, and once it's exceeded, they collapse to the ground (in however many pieces, depending on what level and type of attacks are used aganst them). Possibly whatever motivates them is getting damaged? It's hard to tell with flesh golems. However, since Sanary is chasing after the two Reapers alone, the men turn after the path before them turns into a scalding mist, see they now out number their pursuers at least for the moment, and suddenly Sanary is rushing headlong into two men swinging bonesaws and cleavers at her face! hey don't seem to want to be captured. Imagine that!
Tatsuko Itagaki	With orders over the radio to catch up when she's done, Tatsuko doesn't waste time! Of course, off in the distance, X makes even /more smells/. Even with those plugs, Tatsuko is looking a bit green by now! Thankfully she holds her lunch! With the zombies down, it's Tatsuko's turn to do some chasing! Mainly, after Sanary and co.! Tatsuko gather's her ki, makes several bounding leaps, and then uses her free hand to punch the air! A fireball of Kawakami-style ki goes bursting for one of the men! Seems she's willing to scorch them a bit!
Sanary Rondel	It's fairly clear that Sanary isn't quite used to taking such large leaps with how often she's staggering, somewhat mitigating the speed advantage she might have had. To make matters worse, the Reapers are taking swings at her! Good thing she's (sort of) used to fighting Elites in close combat. This should be a cinch, right? Not quite. That momentary distraction from stumbling on landing is enough time for one of the Reapers to nearly dig a bonesaw into her head, stopped only by her forearm! She howls out in a mixture of pain and anger as steel meets bone. "Son of a... I warned you, assface!" She spits out before drawing the arm back abruptly, trying to pull the Reaper /towards/ her both to give Tatsuko some space and to have those bricks that had been following her converge directly on the saw Reaper. His arms, his legs, his kidneys and ESPECIALLY his groin. Sanary's not stopping at just having those bricks go for a single hit and stop, either. No... She's going to be repeating that. Several times. She did warn them, after all, and she's being careful not to aim any (too close) at the head.
X	X lands near some of the downed... well. Bio-mechanical horrors... and finally gets a chance to do a more grisly examination, if only briefly. He Finds himself drawn to some gadgetry and mechanical parts that had been exposed by all the firepower... and upon touching them... a new wave of light races across his body from that hand, changing his color scheme to a sickly green and deathly gray. GET WEAPON: <strikethrough>Projectile Vomit</strikethrough> TOXIC SPLASHER But hearing the splashing of Sanary running ahead moments later... he whirls about to look that way, and quickly regrets stopping even BRIEFLY to see what they were up against. "Don't go alone!" He's a bit slow in catching up, but while the two girls go head to head X attempts to use wall leaping tactics to GET AHEAD of the fleeing criminals and cut them off from retreat!
Dr. Vahzilok	With the Cadavers down, the combined might of the three heroes soon turns the tides against the medical personnel. They are bludgeoned, blasted, and bypassed, and there's really no way to escape for them. Soon enough, they are taken down. Now all that's left is to arrest them and get these bodies to someone who can take care of them properly, and maybe even, you know, identify them. That could help with figuring out why they were being transported in the first place. Though one unpleasant/fortunate discovery is made in the process of clean-up... In one of the body bags, there's a young woman in there who is still breathing... But only barely. It looks like she has some strange carapace attached to her skin in a few places, and her lips are somewhat blue, but she can still be saved if she's gotten to a hospital quickly. Thank goodness they took the bad guys down so quickly. But it's odd that only this one teenage girl, no older than 15, was alive when all the others were clearly already deceased... There's something going on here. And they only have one name to go off of, called out in haste by fleeing criminals: 'Dr. Vahzilok'.
Tatsuko Itagaki	The healing from Sanary certainly helps! Tatsuko keeps forging ahead, watching for her two allies even as she tries to get the other bonesaw-wielder to surrender! Both Sanary's fight-healing andX's weapons are fascinating, but she doesn't let herself get /too/ distracted. In the end, Tatsuko stumbles upon the girl, and quickly gets her out of that bag. She'll help out Sanary as needed, but mostly will be hauling her away gently! A headpat. "Don't worry. You'll be just fine~!"
Sanary Rondel	After making sure that the Reapers are down (with a few more bricks to the groins for good measure), Sanary gets to triple-duty healing herself, Tatsuko, and the newly discovered girl! After a few moments of fumbling with figuring out which matrix in her magitech eye does what, she'll even try and send a few Esuna (negative condition removal magic) spells towards the bag-girl. Even if it doesn't fix whatever it is that's wrong with the girl, it might at least help keep her stable enough to get to the hospital safely! "Vahzilok... Weird name. At least we got a lead now."