Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 6

23/01/2022 – Cont 2
I ditched the doll at the police station since she’s a registered hero and I’m not, and just headed back to mine to try and digest stuff. After writing stuff down and trying to think it through, I messaged the others with the info that we got from the minion, and asking if we wanted to hit up the theatre.

Turns out the twins had a bit of a spat in the middle of the street, got dragged home and grounded. Sounds hilarious, but Impulse broke her phone, and it did mean that they had to lay low until their Dad went to their secret Lair so they figured they could sneak out. Sounds like there was something about Mrs Bruiser coming to visit based on the messages between Velocity and I, so I spent some time preparing some ID for him and a bit of blackmail material should it be required. Pretty fun! Also asked if he would mind researching whether or not my teleporting could be tracked.
 
I also spent some time messaging with The Doll, and it kinda made me really question why I was actually protecting my identity. My parents have always really been uppity about it, and I guess it kinda made sense to me that I wanted to protect them, and the best way to do that was to keep my identity secret… but now having a group, especially one with super parents I figure that there can be a lot of people looking out for them and in fact might be less safe for me not to tell them. Plus everyone seems to be telling me to be more open with it and I guess maybe they have a point.
 
Anyways, we’ve agreed to meet up later tonight at the roof of the pet store on Vine Street as soon as Impulse and Velocity can sneak out, feel like I have a lot of thinking to do in the meantime.
 
23/01/2022 part 2
What a night, seriously I don’t even know where to start!
I “went to bed” early and just ‘ported out to meet the others. The Doll had gotten caught up at the Convention centre, but the rest of us were ready to rumble – particularly Atomic Justice since he’d gotten his official hero licence

It was still crazy busy around there, cos of that anime convention next door, loads of peeps walking about in costumes. Pretty useful as a distraction and disguise though, so I illusioned costumes for us – AJ was obviously Armstrong, Impulse was Winry, Velocity ended up being Edward Elric and I went for Mustang. We headed into the theatre, few pics and started making our way towards the screens but realised that since they were scanning the tickets I wouldn’t just be able to illusion some up which sucked. Luckily Velocity stuck his hands in his pockets and procured some tickets so we headed through.

There was a door at the end but there was a CCTV camera above it. Never done it before but I tried creating an illusion over us that looked like the corridor so that the cameras wouldn’t be able to see us – it was really tough though, I managed it but we didn’t have long so had to rush through the door, at which point there was a guy who yelled at us to get out. As we stepped back I teleported behind him and tried to knock him out but my hand went right through him so went and just teleported the others to behind him so we could ignore him. He was even set up to have solitaire set up on his screen! I did notice and bag a 35mm film real of “The Empire Strikes Back” … might end up being useful, or at least lucrative.

There were a few cabinets, but suspiciously two of them had exactly the same labels and scuffs on them so we just passed through it and opened a door that was hidden behind, ending up in a dark set of corridors. We did a bit of exploring, AJ grabbed some chemical which had been labelled as Glomco., and the twins apparently found a plush office which had bank account records with Mirage receiving payments from Austin Dexter for “services rendered”, and which timed out with just before and just after the mall incident. Also found some account records of someone named Dwayn Wilson, which figures could be the real name of Mirage.
Hearing loud music on the other side of the door we came up with a quick plan. For the lols I made AJ look like his Dad, StormRider, and BOTH twins to look like Mrs Bruiser! I myself switched to the Black Cat again :) In the meantime, AJ called his Dad and asked him to get over here as backup.

So plan went super well! AJ burst in and went super crazy, yelling about ripping their heads off and destroying the projector that they were watching… It was pretty crazy but I mean, he was just letting off steam and it was definitely effective! Immediately the two speedsters ran in while they were all stunned and completely took him down together! Like, smashing him between them like a ping pong, chairs on the head … the works! And boom!

By the time I teleported to the back of the room, getting ready to surprise from behind, he was completely unconscious, and Edd was there getting ready to start smashing, and I had a rather fun idea! I created an entirely naked version of Edd on stage and got him to start doing the hula in front of everyone! The reaction was hilarious, Edd ran over to the illusion and tried to hide it from everyone and at that absolutely burst out into tears, wailing about why we were all so mean!

We did a bit of intimidations (the minions with guns dropped them pretty sharpish) and started grilling Edd for information… which was like taking candy from a baby to be honest. I knew StormRider was coming so wasn’t too concerned about him escaping, but I’ll admit I started to feel a bit sorry for the guy – He didn’t see too much wrong since they weren’t robbing houses and everything was insured, and they were breaking the capitalist system (which is what Mirage told him). He liked Mirage since he didn’t make him just hit people but let him do other stuff too, and couldn’t get another job cos of his rap sheet.

They’d been hired to try this experimental drug from Glomco on some people from the mall – it wasn’t at a specified time just on a particular day (which made me feel way better about the whole “it’s about us kinda thing”) They robbed a few tills on their way out, and the operation was considered “broadly a success”. Turns out they have a plan to destabilise the city and create demand for security, which Glomco could then supply. They’ve got a number of jobs out to other villains in the area – one is a job for Doc Otaku to steal a rare item from the convention auction tonight. There was another artefact (one from the V’sori invasion this time) which is being held at the museum in star city and apparently the thieves guild is going to nick. The final news (saying I was SO close to letting him go) was that the thing with the Dragon was another of those jobs from Austin, and there’s a bounty of 6 mil for anyone who returns with the horn… which we still have hidden up in the hideout and made me super conscious that there were totally videos of me leading the dragon around!

I just told him at this point that he was not cut out for this – he seemed like a nice guy but this was not the line of work for him! I guess calling him nice threw him for a loop as he said that he’d never been told that before!

At this point Stormrider crashed into the room… and hilarity ensued! What he saw in that room was two Mrs Bruisers, and another person who looked like him, a comic book character and all the villains completely subdued! He FREAKED OUT, and panic called I guess Vector, telling him that two of his wife was here and she must have worked out how to duplicate or clone herself – He then said that he was busy on a date (amazing acting by Vector and Impulse here!) and called someone else who didn’t seem particularly phased about the whole thing! At this point AJ stopped the fun and asked if I would break the illusions … I thought about it and at least switched his out so he was a double height version of himself.

Meanwhile we de-masked Mirage – turns out he was a slightly chubby but normal looking guy, starting to go a bit bald – Stormrider suggested that illusionists were tricksy like that – which I definitely enjoyed! He then said it was our bag so up for us to work out what to do with them.

During this conversation the twins decided to bail, I guess thinking about them having snuck out (definitely glad I kept their illusions up)