Wednesday, 3PM -- Eleven Days after the first meeting

The past eleven days have been hectic, finding new places to live; learning the new town and the new team. The Aspen complex, which is a five level base carved into the mountain, has housing for everyone – but no one is expected to live there permanently (though the view is better than most anything you could expect in Denver).

As the work of knitting the team together seemed to move along better. Five AEGIS agents seemed to be on-site at all times: a systems analyst on “monitor duty”; a pilot for the Hoplite (the VTOL Guardian vehicle could get from Aspen to Denver in minutes); a security chief; a medical technician and a forensics technician. Each also doubled as an instructor – should anyone be interested in learning a new skill. There were four teams working 4, 12-hour shifts; and were on seven days a week.

Today was combat training and Chief Audrey Dudley was running the team through their paces. She was working the training room against them in a pitched battle of capture the flag. So far, the team had yet to win a match; but they seemed to be feeling each other out and getting more used to relying on each other.

Ivan tracked the incoming capture-foam grenades as they sped toward Wild Lotus, hitting them mid-flight and clearing her for her run at the flag. Shimmer cursed silently when the residue from them coated her and stuck her in-place. She was supposed to be helping Paladin escape the homing rockets. The power-armor accelerated in the enclosed space and he heard Iron Maiden give him the call. He jinked left, then turned 90 degrees up and the nigh-indestructible woman stepped into the incoming rockets. They exploded against her body gloriously, nearly tickling her.

Lotus, Paladin and Singularity Man were all moving toward the flag. In the control booth, Dudley cursed aloud. Behind her, Dr. James Murray (medical) and Avi Gross (pilot) exchanged twenties. Murray had been giving long odds on the team beating Dudley today, and Gross was smiling. He had called the Paladin/Iron Maiden swerve but had lost on Shimmer getting taken down.

Without warning, the room went from the “combat-active” red-tinged lighting to the “combat-inactive” white lighting. The three agents in the control room – as well as the about-to-win team – were taken aback.

“Monitor three.” Lou Jenkins said. “It’s not something you see everyday.”

“OK. Yeah.” Dudley said, then opening the com to the room, “Sorry, I’ve got something for you on the monitor.”

**This is Michael Kim for GNN.** The Asian man started, **And, I’m live at the Denver Zoo.** He ducked and looked a little shaken as an explosion could be heard in the background. The camera turned to catch it. It looked like a car had been thrown through the fence that separated the Tropical Discovery from the parking lot. As the camera zoomed in, two, very large – far too large – Nile crocodiles sped toward the parking lot.

**Great -- ** the reporter stopped and started -- **Those must be 40 feet long and they are charging into ...**

“Everyone get to the Hoplite.” Dudley said, as security chief, she was in charge of the AEGIS personnel at the base (and sometimes assumed leadership of anyone else who would follow).

“Lou – get the video feed to the bird. Get the GNN producer and get us all the footage they have. Let local PD know that our flight time is going to be about 13 minutes.” Dudley said as she ran to grab her field kit. And stopped to look back at the monitor.

**That’s – yes, that’s really a 80 foot tall monkey.** Kim said in amazement. **And he’s ... get down!** The camera man kept shooting, as the chimp picked up a large Range Rover and hurled it toward the parking lot.

-- In the air --

Audrey Dudley looked like a nervous mother. “Everyone remember your comm-links and keep in touch. Try to stay together. I will be working with the local PD and EMS to evac the area. You’re all very good at what you do.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself and – for all her hard-ass attitude during training; seemed to be a little unsure of herself here in the field.

“AEGIS agents are going to secure a command post outside the zoo. We’ll land there. Lotus, I want you to get a good look around so you can evac the wounded to there. I’ll make sure there’s plant life around for that."

Wild Lotus nodded, secured her commlink over her ear. She'd had opportunity to visit the zoo once, felt she could find her way around it decently without a visitor's map.

“Paladin, Iron Maiden, Shimmer and Singularity Man – use your flight...” She shook her head, “You *know* what to do out there. You’ll be fine.” She slapped the energy pack on her energy rifle and pulled her helmet down.

Paladin nodded once and turned to look outside the Hoplite. A nervous offensive coordinator and a rookie charging out onto the field to do battle - it was his first season all over again.

As much as he'd spent the last few months treating everything like a game, he realized, maybe for the first time, that this was as different as it got. There weren't any time outs and he wouldn't be shaking hands with the opposing players after the game.

The Guardians looked jumpy, which was a bad sign his experienced mind reminded him. This was go time, and if he had to, he'd fake it for their sake.

"Somebody better go back and get a shitload of bananas," he broadcast with a confident-sounding laugh. "And tell Morgan we're going to need one hell of a pooper-scooper."

Anna smiled slightly in appreciation of Paladin's comment. Her stomach was already churning in nervous anticipation and his humor helped a bit.

Ivan smirked wryly. Perfect, he thought to himself. Excellent leadership, as usual. Nothing like a vote of confidence.

He watched below as they neared the zoo. He spotted the ape from the television first, then the crocodiles. There were also birds of all shapes and colors, all of them enormous, terrorizing a crowd of people near the front entrance.

"...um...this might be a good time to mention that I'm virtually useless against animals." Anna grimaced apologetically. "But I'll find the bastard that's doing this in short order." Her tone was confident and almost cocky before she continued a little more soberly. "...assuming they're human."

"Crocodiles? Apes?" Singularity Man asked, gazing out the window. The ground below churned and lurched as the Hoplite moved in closer. The zoo looked like a warzone, something distant that CNN anchors would be talking about while the cracks and booms chimed well off in the distance. That's what it was. Distant. Not here.

And yet at the same time, that's exactly what it was. Here. A roar, deafening, reminded Singularity Man of that.

Gross called out from the cockpit, “We are 60 seconds from the CP. Ready to launch fliers?”

"Paladin is good to go," he said inside his helmet with a thumbs up to the AEGIS crew. His gauntleted hands clenched and opened, clenched and opened, and after the third time he forced himself to stop. He'd been known to do that on the field and he didn't want to give anybody two dots to connect.

"Ready as I'll ever be," Leah replied. Her stomach was doing flip-flops and her mouth felt dry. Her palms, on the other hand, were definitely damp. She wiped them surreptitiously on the wool of her cloak. A lot of peoples' lives were at risk. This was a much bigger threat than anything she'd dealt with on her own.

Though, frankly, she thought she preferred working on her own. Teamwork required trusting other people and she had definite control issues. She'd learned very young that the only person she could depend upon was herself--certainly not her mother or other relatives. Depending on other people was so not her best thing, though she'd been working at it in the training sessions. (I guess now we'll see how well it works in practice.)

Wild Lotus shifted in her buckles to catch Iron Maiden's eye with a tight grin and wink of her own. Yes, she felt a little nervous, but the few minutes' flight time allowed her the grace to center herself in Krishna's teachings as the warrior Arjuna had once done and to let go of any expectations for results. Her role was simple and within it she could function: Protect the innocent. Defend the helpless. Neutralize the threat. It left her mind clear to do what needed to be done, and if her hands trembled a little in her gloves, well, that would pass soon enough.

Singularity Man drew in a deep breath. He felt, ethereally, for the ribbon. There. To the left. The sensation left a tingle, like shampooing one side of your head and not the other. He turned to it, invisible to all but him, and reached mentally out for it.

As expected, in the span of a full second, he dissipated. He became a cloud of dust, smoothly and yet violently pulled from the inside of the helicopter. His suit, white and golds and reds and blues, was a tangle of colors that stirred in and out of each other in the open air. A swirling dervish that, just as quickly as it had become, ended. He reformed in the air, and gazed down.

"Crocodiles", he repeated.

Gross counted down intervals as they approached the drop zone. Then Dudley and another AEGIS agent opened the side hatch of the Hoplite. The wind immediately began swirling and whistling through the interior of the craft, tugging at Leah's cloak and ruffling her hair.

Even the prospect of impending battle and the concern for casualties on the ground didn't dim her enthusiasm for flying. Leah bailed out with a huge grin and a whoop that blew away on the wind. She tumbled in a slow motion somersault in the wake of the Hoplite then arrowed down toward the crocodiles threatening the bus full of school kids.

Paladin side-stepped out the hatch and drew his limbs in to make a ball that quickly dropped below the Hoplite's air wash. As soon as that happened he extended again and his suit thrusters did the rest. Hot forced air mixed thinly with a combustible chemical gas mix lit off a blueish-white corona from his boots and shoulderblades and he shot off like a bullet towards the animalistic carnage below.

The Hoplite had barely touched down and Sniper was already moving. While he preferred a higher vantage point, he could work from the ground, as well. He moved in a stooped run, away from the VTOL and towards the school bus, evaluating the scene on the fly.

*Sniper to team,* he said into his com, more for his own benefit than anyone else’s, *Targeting ze Crocs first. Deal vith ze ape next.*

While the parking lot was a mess of cars, locked with fleeing traffic and empty vehicles both still in spots or otherwise abandoned, Sniper aimed to maneuver through them and position himself for a clear shot.

Singularity Man looked to Sniper, then to the Crocodiles. Sniper, though he'd only known him for a short time, had the look of a man who could handle himself. Yet somehow, there was something in him that made him mundane. He wasn't in a suit of powered armor, wasn't a mentalist or able to manipulate plants or matter. He was just a man who, by his own accounting, had a big gun and knew how to use it. At the time, the statement had seemed full of boast and bravado, akin to dropping one's trousers just to compare size. Now, Jack was as thankful for a "man with a big gun" as he'd ever been.

"Sniper, I can slow one down. If it helps your shot, cool. If not, it's lined up when you're ready."

"Do it," came the curt reply.

As Paladin arced over the zoo his tracking systems traced the paths of attack his teammates had chosen. Tactical data cascaded across his visor's transparent display but he'd spent enough time in simulations to be able to pick out the important bits.

Half of them had self-tasked on the crocodile threat. Given the situation that made sense. A loud squak drew his attention further west to the main entrance and what looked like an Alfred Hitchcock movie on steroids.

"Paladin is on the birds from hell," he called out over the team comm line. A flick of his controls put him in a brief spiral arrowing towards the main entrance and the large crowd under attack.

Lotus dived out the door after Sniper, hit the grass, and disappeared. She loved doing it, it never failed to startle anyone who saw it. She turned her attention to the plants in the surrounding area -- no threats around the command post, which left her free to emerge from the bushes near the main entrance. "Lotus to Command, all clear in your vicinity," she said, crouching down for a moment to remain unseen. "I'm at the main entrance right now."

Turn 2.1A – Killer Crocs (Sniper, Singularity Man, Iron Maiden)
The crocs seemed be driven mad by the smell of gas fire, smoke and the sounds that surrounded them. One croc was working hard to chew his way into the bus, opening the thin metal wall of the bus with giant teeth and powerful jaws. With only two bites, the children inside were exposed to him. They fled from the hole even as the croc’s head went through the hole he had made. The rest of his body started to shimmy as he worked himself through the hole.

The second croc pulled one man (or what was left of him) from an overturned car. The woman in the car screamed and (panic-stricken) tried to get out of the other car door.

Leah arrowed down toward the closest crocodile, arms spread wide to seize it. Damned if she was going to let it climb into the bus among all those children. Briefly she wished she'd paid more attention to television sports--tackling the croc seemed like the quickest and most effective way to deal with it. Well, she'd just have to do her best.

Iron Maiden will make a 20" Combat Move on Phase 3 to perform a flying tackle on Crocodile 1.

Singularity Man felt a rush of panic shoot through his body. The Croc was like a famished dog, digging through dirt to find a fresh kill. Watching the kids pour out only made him feel more panicked; for every one that escaped, how many were still inside?

He shot through the air like a laser, hoping to get close enough to the Croc to have an effect.

Two large bounds brought Sniper up the hood and onto the roof of a parked SUV. The decision was split second, and he chose the reptile wriggling in the school bus as priority. Without hesitation, he lowered to one knee, took aim, and squeezed. The report of the rifle was deafening.

Sniper's bullet penetrated that croc's thick hide a second before Iron Maiden crashed into him. The croc and Iron Maiden spun out of the bus and onto the asphalt. She was somewhat surprised at how heavy the giant croc was -- and how strong. But, she forced it's head down.

Tech: Sniper is 31" from Croc 1 and 33" from Croc 2; Iron Maiden (on the ground) is in base-to-base with Croc 1 and 2" from Croc 2"; Singularity Man (flying) is 4" from Croc 1 and 6" from croc 2. Need Sniper's action for 4. The "speed drain" had some effect - but the croc has not been able to go since getting hit.

A second loud crack was heard and Sniper put a second round into the big croc tangled up with Iron Maiden. She could feel the impact, and the croc did seem more sluggish; but she thought that it still had some fight left.

Singularity Man hadn't been this close to a regular sized crocodile before. Here, the sounds of it breathing, the smell of it's hot breath leaking from its mouth like a stovetop, made this battle all the more real.

Where had they come from? What was this?

He shook the consideration from his mind, and reached for the String again. Once he found it, he pulled down hard, hoping to sap the last of the croc's movement from its feet.

The giant croc, growled in anger as he could not move from the spot that Singularity Man had tied him to. Iron Maiden’s croc was also slow sluggish that its heart barely seemed to be beating (OOC: but it *is* beating.). The children on the bus seemed to be holding their breath waiting for some other shoe to drop.

When it didn’t they let out a cheer! “Oh thank God!” Cried the woman in her car. One croc snapped angrily – but was unable to move. The other was much like a statue; but eyed Iron Maiden with all the spite it could muster.

Turn 2.1B – The Birds (Paladin and Wild Lotus)

The mass of people running out of the entrance was starting to trample those who were unable to move so quickly. Paladin saw several slower people knocked down and run over. Hard as iron beaks took pieces out of backs, shoulders and legs. The cries of the victims mixed with the calls of the birds turning blood curdling into something worse.

To make matters worse, a third of the birds began to gain altitude and looked as if they were going to dive attack those in the front. Again, the birds were seemingly acting in concert.

Paladin quickly assessed his options as he closed on the predatory avians and chose the higher group. The small tactical wisdom he'd picked up in his rigorous training with Morgan flashed through his mind. These were animals, not criminals, so he opted to open with a dispersal tactic.

"Shoo!" he shouted as he raised his arm towards the rising flock. A compact crackling pulse of energy shot out of his gauntleted forearm and streaked towards the center mass of the elevated group of birds.

Five or six of the dozen-ish birds fell to the ground and the rest scattered - squawking in panic.

Lotus stifled her mental sigh of frustration and took measure of what tactics were left to relieve the suffering of those on the ground. A coordinated attack might have let us both disperse all the birds with one combined shot. But now I can't fire any attacks into the birds without risking further damage to the innocent. Unless...

Left with no direction and no other choices, Lotus silently chanted her mantra to herself (protect the innocent... defend the helpless... neutralize the threat) and leapt head-long into the fray with the loudest scream she could manage, startling the birds into flight. In the next split second she fired off a cloud of choking spores 4 meters above all their heads, screaming "Duck!"

As Wild Lotus jumped into the on-coming rush of people and birds, some of the birds flew up and some of the people dove out of the way. She released spores into the air, sending most of the chasing birds tailspinning into the ground. What was left of the birds were dispersing and flying away. Any cooperation between them seemed to be over as they flew away.

What was left was a crowd of injured and frightened people. Some had severe beak wounds in their back, necks and arms. Others had been run over and were in more serious condition. But, the birds seemed to be fleeing.

Turn 2.1C — Mind Games (Shimmer and the AEGIS team)

Shimmer and the rest of the AEGIS team landed. She began to mentally scan the area; while they set up the Hoplite as a temporary command post. "All of those animals have increased intelligence." Shimmer reported over the radio; "Nearly human-level. Also, I'm detecting several high-level intellects inside the zoo. When they seem to be the ones running the ..."

"Shimmer's down; Shimmer's down." Dudley broke in, "Attacker unseen -- everyone take cover."

Lotus hopes Dudley's just talking to the AEGIS team because it's a little late for her to "take cover," especially from any unseen threat that could take down Shimmer.

"Great job, Wi-lo," Paladin threw out as the last of the birds broke and flew off. He twisted in air as he climbed to look out over the entire zoo, communicating, "Paladin to AEGIS, bird threat is dispersed but we've got a lot of civilian casualties. Direct first responders to the main gate."

"You too," she called out, relief in her voice. "They weren't as stubborn about it as I feared."

"Good work." Lou Jenkins said over the comm, "I've got three ambulances and two combat AEGIS teams moving in-bound; but they are 3 minutes out. I'm sending up Doc Murray and Avi now; hold your station and do what first aid you can until they arrive."

As he talked, his visor's innards shifted imperceptably. His panoramic view of the zoo grounds was overlaid with high-definition thermal imagry, which his on-board computer processed to add tactical detail - here an animal, there a person, etc.

Inside the zoo, he saw groups of humans: either cowering or running away. Animals proudly stalked as if they had overthrown their master He couldn't see inside the buildings, but he could see that some of them had broken open doors. Then, he noticed several groups of monkeys - three groups of eight (all normal sized). They walked - or marched - as if in military formation.

Thanking her late husband under her breath for insisting that she get (and maintain) her First Aid and Emergency Responder training, Lotus did a quick triage on the people around her, picking up a small child who'd been obviously trampled and was barely breathing. She cupped her hand to his nose and mouth, dispensing spores to heal, not to harm.

The child quickly began to breath again as his color returned. She looked up to see Murray and Gross running full sprint to her location. The most badly injured taken care of, Murray looked at them. "Good work -- we can take it from here." He said releasing them.

"Paladin to AEGIS team, I'm showing multiple groups of endangered civlians in pockets spread throughout the zoo, numerous doors smashed on buildings, animals are running amok all over. And it looks like the primates have organized into a single fighting unit."

A sudden, rapid beeping accompanied a red flashing along the outside edges of Paladin's helmet visor's inner display and, as a reflex developed through months of simulated combat scenarios, he spun and shifted in mid-air. It was just enough to move him out of the path of the Buick that went pinwheeling past him to crash in the grassy area outside the main gates. As he watched it careen into a tangle of landscaped shrubbery he made a mental note to let Morgan know that the emergency proximity alarm worked as advertised.

He looked back along the sedan's trajectory to see the giant ape beating his chest and bellowing at him. He had his next target, and this was a perfect time to exercise some of the teamwork they'd forged in the past week and a half of practice.

"WiLo, prepare for pickup," he broadcast while arrowing back down towards her location on the ground. "Let's see if we can give that overgrown banana disposal something to think about."

He swooped in low behind her and cut his speed to reduce the jarring from impact. He just hoped she remembered to reciprocate and sprint forward.

OOC: Paladin is using a zero-phase action to relay data on his scans and then using a full flight move (20") to perform a grab-by on Wild Lotus, with any residual move distance moving them both towards the giant ape.

"Roger that, Paladin. I'm with you." She clapped Murray on the shoulder. "Gotta jet. The old fellow over there, he seems stable enough but his color's not good. Watch your backs, okay?"

With that, she located Paladin's descent, tried to gauge his trajectory and took off running as fast as she could in that same direction. It was a move the non-fliers had rehearsed with the flying team-members, but none of them had really perfected it yet.

OOC: Up to 12" Noncombat Run in preparation for the Grab-by.