"Check one" you hear Leeson's voice unexpectedly chorus as he performs his comms check. It's perfectly clear, and you can't help noticing that he now wears a ceremonial-looking collar, festooned with various fetish-looking items, among them a small boom mike and what looks like three different spotcams, maybe. And other stuff, mostly magical-looking in nature.
At Leeson's very successful communications check, Ace smiles, nods and replies back over the same channel: "Ace here. You're Five-By-Five. Out."
In the background, hardly noticable under the local system test, Tiny's voice just breaks silence. "Target is in the zone. Repeat: Target is in the zone. Look sharp!" and the signal drops off. "Seems your quarry finally made it. Glad he could come, what with his overly-busy schedule." The static somehow seems to create the sound, as though Tiny were somehow using a spark-gap transmitter.
Silently Ace transmits over his internal ComLink's encrypted to all: "Primary. Three. On it. Out."
With that, Leeson makes his way to the southern corner of the roof, and casually makes his way down via the use of a ladder painted so well that it blends into the wall perfectly. In no time he disappears from view, apparently heading down to the street.
As Leeson starts climbing down the ladder, Block starts to say something, deciding at that second that it's not a really good idea to distract a guy on a ladder. He shrugs and thinks to himself, "Oh well, I guess I'll pick some random perch and hope for the best."
X turns to face the group. "Well, sounds like our quarry is here. You two" he gestures at Ace, Block, "Feel free to relocate to other roofs with a better look at the park. If you see him, let me know." He reaches down to grab something off of his right-side belt pack. "If you think you have a shot on him, take it, but be prepared. The cops will be all over within a few minutes if you don't do things quietly." he stresses, "So be certain you have the shot before you take it!" With that X steps over to the south-western side of the building, surveys the other nearby rooftops, and select one with a good view of the park. He raises a grapple gun and fires it at the nearby building to the south west, disappearing silently into the dark.
Block turns to Ace asking, "You ready to be airlifted? I like the looks of that tower down at the end of the block. While I'm flying us, can you keep a sharp eye out for Reggie or anyone taking an interest in what we're doing?" As he talks he's busy putting on a helmet. As he does, something flickers to life inside, painting his face in light pastel colors.
At Block's inquiry if Ace is ready to impersonate a surveilence drone, Ace's face splits into a wiiiiide grin. "Dude," he responds, "As long as it doesn't involve getting shot down in a blazing fireball, I'm all for it!" Ace makes a Super Hero "launching into the sky" pose and cheers: "WHOOOSH!"
Block casts Levitate on Ace and himself, gently shifting them both down the block towards the border between Central Park and the hunting area. The roof of the Park Avenue Christian Day School on the West corner of 76th street and Central Park West turns out to be a fair vantage point cover a lot of the street. The tower on it's northeast side brags of a large, unobstructed view for a full circle. Block remains close to the roof line just in case something bad happens and he loses the flight spell; that way they won't have too far to fall. He also flies low and slowly, trying to stay hidden from prying eyes as much as possible, all the while leaving Ace an opportunity to scout.
As Block takes them to the roof-and-sky's edge and Ace's Point-of-View changes appreciably, Ace gets serious on the task of keeping his eyes and ears open for anything & everything. He scans the ground for Reggie, Miss Garcia, Gangers, Ghouls, Limos, or any indication of anything that might jeopardize the group's ability to toss a monkey wrench into the Hunt.
The group, as a whole, moves south down 76th street right past Ms Garcia's doorstep, towards Central Park. (Everybody realizes that Central Park forms one of the barriers of the "Hunting Zone".) Of course, Leeson unnaturally blends in to the ground terrain, eventually becoming invisible. The Impulse Twins are gliding slowly toward the Christian Day School, X is supposedly down there at street level as well, but nobody has actually seen him since he swung out of sight.
As if on cue, you see a threesome of LARGE armored people strolling up the block (via Central Park West) on foot, the one in the middle is not unfamiliar to X: that person's armor seems to have been hulled across the right shoulder, and at distant random intervals you see it arc/spark, as if it were visually grumbling and complaining. Which might go far to explain why they aren't running active cloaking at the moment. The two other giants are watching their flanks (and the front) warily, while Reggie continues to fiddle furiously with something on his left forearm.
They begin to turn north-westward, starting to come up 76th Street even as you are headed down towards Central Park, such that they end up on the other side of the street, facing the group. (This happens pretty much in line with the New York Historical Society building, securely closed for the night.) Before anybody can really react to this incredibly good fortune(!), Reggie and Friends perform a jungle-like reversal, as though something had surprised them from behind. Annoyingly enough, none of you can see (or hear) what it might have been! Reggie and team re-cross the street and easily jump/roll over the breast-high stone wall there and disappear from view into Central Park proper.
Look sharp, the game's afoot! |
