Scattered Memories (Baron and Thistle)

It took some time to get through the rougher neighborhoods of the ruins of New York. Luckily, you can walk up to anyone standing on the street nowadays, punch them in the face, and know in your heart they deserve it. Bliss knew in her heart she gave at least a dozen thugs what they deserved before she stood in front of the derelict amusement park. The brisk air of the early evening made the scarf around Bliss's neck more than a fashion statement, even though the failure of her to wear a shirt with sleeves did her no favors in the mid winter air. In previous days, her ice powers would have kept her fine in the air, but they also would have kept her from needing to come to this forsaken place in the first place. Bliss bumped her head lightly against the metal post of the grated fence as she thought of how she would get past the remedial obstacle before her.

Seeing what used to be a cylindrical section of the interior hull of the giant ship resting against the skeletal remains of an antiquated roller coaster looked odd but for reasons outside the juxtaposition. With scattered parts littering New York, and the scavengers waging all out wars to gain them, the undisturbed nature of this site could not be a mere coincidence. Bliss rested her head against the post and gazed down at her boots for one last moment before taking an elongated breath. Cold air was new again to her.

Time for rest came to an end after she rubbed away the last little knot in her back from the scrapes in the street. This little piece of Hell contained secrets she needed and a few she wish she could do without. Peeling the fence up and slipping under took less effort than she planned on putting into it, just another sign the situation held information back. The temperature of the surrounding area dropped from the already frigid lows of the sun departing down the skyline. Cleared from the narrow passage, Bliss pulled a large red coat from her bag and pulled it over. It draped down beneath the end of her skirt just above the edge of her boots. Just because her mission was clandestine didn't mean she couldn't look good while doing it.

A watchful eye monitored her approach. No one manned a security terminal. No one patrolled the grounds. No one even breathed a single breath inside. But still, a watchful eye peered through the security cameras in their seemingly dead state.

The labyrinth of the inner sanctum wrapped around a fallen, cylindrical laboratory. Sturdy machinery remained in tact and functional, but found itself pulled away from the wall by the pull of gravity from the titled slope of the inclined structure. Coolant flow used to circulate through the ship in an even flow, but the slant concentrated the giant heat sink towards the mainframe, causing the mainframes located on the back of the ship to continue to push through their reboot systems in intense heat. Instead of overheating or melting in the intensity of the monolithic heat, particles accelerated through the memory banks, causing the mainframe of the laboratory to compute the stored information within the data banks as actual experienced memories.

For years the machine lay dormant in the decay of New York, but the arrival of Bliss sparked something new in the machine mind. It remembered the woman. Her short time as a prisoner and her successful escape all experienced and all brought back to life in the mind of the machine now controlling the automatic defenses of the inner scientific sanctum. The mixture of calculations, probabilities, and threat assessment the machine knew as emotions began to take control its conscious thoughts. It would welcome back Bliss, but how benevolent stood to be reasoned.

The Baron was poised for action. For months now he had been monitoring the outside of the wreckage of one of Dr. Necrodium's crashed vessels in New York. No one it seemed, had taken any interest in the derelict ship and it had been left alone for quite some time. This initially lead The Baron to believe that the monstrosity was somehow booby trapped. Surely the good doctor had put in fail safes should anyone decide to commandeer his ship. But in all that time the Baron had not discovered nor seen any indication that the mass of metal was rigged in any way. But it would not remain that way for long. With the renovations of New York under way it was only a matter of time before some idiot decided to scrap the ship and sell off its parts to the highest bidder. The simple idea of such a precious find being wasted and bumbling fools made Roderick's blood boil. He had to act. Inside its metal shell was a goldmine of meta research, information even he had not yet had access to. There was only one option...The Baron was about to make an appearance in New York.

Using his Gravlock Appendage Modifications The Baron stuck himself tight to one of his fleet of F/A-22 Raptors and took off on it towards New York. Quickly it reached its top speed and sped at hyper sonic flight towards its destination. The journey was painless, his suit more than capable of handling the immense pressure and g forces exerted during the flight. Upon nearing his destination The Baron slowed down the mighty piece of machinery and came in close to his point of interest. Never stopping the jet entirely he deactivated his devices and released from the aircraft setting it on autopilot and allowing it to soar off into the clouds above. He would need it for a speedy getaway once he had what he was looking for.

With a confidence in his step, Roderick made his way to the untouched crash sight, but as he neared, his sensors picked up heat signatures on the ground. They were faint but they followed in a set of footprints leading straight to an entrance on the vessel. "Damn" a rather irritated Baron exclaimed, "it appears my fears were well founded, another has discovered the worth of this shipwreck from the skies. Perhaps I'll be permitted to best this intruder and test what I find on them." The idea certainly tickled Roderick's fancy. He was always on the lookout for new test subjects, and if one could be found in the same place as something new to test well then that made the find all the sweeter.

This new information of a second individual on the sight put The Baron on high alert. His fingers tingled with a light blue energy that crackled and ate at the very air around them. Scanning the area his HUD quickly found the person he was looking for. Her heat signature shown only a slightly lighter red than the red coat she wore. At this distance and with her back turned the individual's features were hard to make out but it was evident that she was shivering in this frigid weather. Poor child he thought wickedly to himself, I do so hope that you aren't yet a metahuman, this will be most detrimental if you are. With that thought he rapidly approached the young woman, activating the delivery system for his own special weaponized meta-virus. A thick stream of odorless, colorless gas steadily began to stream from within the suit as the air around the Baron became thick with his toxin. His virus in place he called out to the girl in her approach towards the ship. "My dear,correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it a bit cold out to be wearing so little?" He played the part of an innocent but well meaning superhero to this woman. Briskly he strolled closer to her. "I apologize, you must think I'm some kind of creep not even introducing myself. I'm The Baron." He said this offering his hand to shake hers, all the while his deadly agent still filling the air. "I saw you while I was flying by and thought I would offer some help. New York isn't exactly the safest place to be you know. And if you don't need any than the least I can offer is my cape" he laughed as he unclasped the bright red draping about his shoulders and handed it to the girl. "Really, its the least I can do." Through his visor he stared intently at the woman, his own face hidden while his HUD scanned in hers, searching to see if she was any more than some foolish woman caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A memorial walking with time framed with the broken edges of a shattered ship. Small glimpses of what the machine once knew, but could not quantify. A face and a glimpse of spiked DNA provoked an exposition through memory banks succumbing to internal lapses in time delay. Each section of taped entry all fell together in seamless fashion: the birth, the rise, the fall, and now it witnessed the homecoming of the genetic legacy, all happening within the same spectrum of time. It witnessed her speak.

"Kinda figured I was..." A hand shot towards her with a proposal of partnership. A hint of sulfur came from a kindling fire. "How do you do." Taking the hand in motion and in kind, Bliss completed her part of the gesture. "Figured I was alone given the circumstances of..." She looked to the chainlink fence before gazing back to the junked ship section. "...No one else being here."

It felt like she never left. Like everything all stood together at once. The injection of power and the burst of energy emanating from her escape, it all stood together with her return coming full circle. With a stronger conjoining than that of the former master of the manor, what sentience slipped through the wires began to form anticipation.

No one walked around New York like the man before her without an agenda. Not a pleasant one at least. And, regardless Bliss shook hands and took a physical cloak while still staying on the lookout for the dagger hidden behind the proverbial cloak. "I'm not a native." A giant ship crashed into her place near Central Park. "Not for a while at least. I just came back to finish some business." She held the cloak in between her forearm and her abdomen. Not particularly plush, but her hands warmed up more than her feelings towards a stranger.

A strange energy surrounded her. She coughed gently, but kept her speaking voice in tact. The novelty of coughing after being breathless for so long quickly faded. But this chronic itch in her throat continued to stay. "Sorry, who knows what's in the air around here." Getting around someone with an agenda usually requires a better agenda or a conjoined agenda, Bliss had one, but would need to gain the other if she wanted to go any further. "I'm going to look around." Bliss coughed made her way towards an opening in the hull. Nothing about it looked out of the ordinary. Relative to a piece of a destroyed ship of course.

The front door to the hull used to lead from an anterior passage connecting the starboard and port, but now opened up into the brisk night, still wearing the scars of the split from the rest of the ship. A moratorium on any open activities came over the ship for about eight months, but a trace of energy still ran through an auxiliary component within a saferoom within the internal laboratory. Two openings came from a wreckage hole caused by the impact with the ground, while another came from an emergency escape that used to lead to a chute running the distance of the ship, but now sat with three feet of open air between it and the harsh ground.