The Armorer vs. The Garbage Man

The following article contains spoilers for the Garbage Man story arc and will involve events set in the near future of the Manifold Sky setting. If you are interested in reading these stories when they eventually come out, proceed at your own discretion!

The Garbage Man may have the unique Dimensional Shift ability, but this seemingly mystical power to traverse the Manifold Sky's hidden spatial dimensions does not, as his followers believe, make him omniscient or impervious to attack. Thus, when he arrived in the outskirts of Bunker Primus to kidnap Angela Foxglove and her now-lover, Feumont Atsuhi, he was wholly unprepared to be thrust into danger by none other than Miko Slaus-Braun and Sigmund Bouchard - in their guises as the vigilantes Armorer and Duke of Drones, respectively. The resulting struggle nearly resulted in the decaptiation of the 125 Hands organization in a battle of brawn and brains versus belligerent belief - had fate not bestowed its bounty on the behalf of the besieged bellicose bullies.

The Conflict

Prelude

Miko Slaus-Braun by Artbreeder

When the Garbage Man teleported Angela away to the Red Velvet Desert, Miko heard him say somthing to the effect that he would need her later to bear witness to his wrath upon the world. With this information in hand, while law enforcement and other members of the Ghostleaf Foundation started rallying a search for her, Miko started considering how she might track the Garbage Man and his agents; find the terrorist, she reasoned, and she might find her lost friend in the process.
Miko left Feumont with the dying Baurus Noventi to meet up with The Duke of Drones, with whom she had collaborated in the past while investigating the serial killer Gordon Druce. The two met for the first time in person, as previously she had only interacted with him through his drone proxies. Together, the pair made some interesting scientific discoveries about the properties of absinthite, the crystalline dust left behind whenever the Garbage Man had disappeared from somewhere. Using a sample taken from the clothing Miko had worn during the initial abduction, she and Sigmund discovered that that it echoed certain radio frequencies, meaning that it and others covered with it could be tracked with special RF antennae. They also realized that the powder must be something that the Garbage Man cannot use his abilities to move; perhaps, they reasoned, aerosolized absinthite could be used to create an area where the Garbage Man's abilities would be supressed?

Sigmund Brouchard by Artbreeder

When word reached the Duke of Drones that Parasol Private Holdings had found Angela and was bringing her to the neutral ground of Bunker Primus, he informed Miko, who reasoned that the Garbage Man was most likely to strike at some point after they arrived. Miko rushed back to her labs at the Ghostleaf Foundation and retrieved the prototype Keysuit, bringing it back to Sigmund so that the two could prepare it for battle. The pair infused the keysuit's resin capillaries with colloidal absinthite to help provide a barrier against the Garbage Man's ability to teleport away body parts and attached shoulder-mounted smoke canister launchers to disperse aerosolized absinthite dust.

Deployment

Duke of Drones Calling Card by BCGR_Wurth

The Duke of Drones deployed listening drones equipped with absinthite detection antennae throughout the district of Bunker Primus' Dorsal-adjacent surface associated with the airship fields, reasoning that this was most likely where Angela would be staying when she arrived - and, thus, where the Garbage Man was most likely to strike. These drones detected 125 Hands agents even before Angela arrived, but the signal grew stronger after she did. Miko donned the keysuit - and the identity of the Armorer - before having herself delivered in a shipping crate to the hotel where Feumont was to meet Angela. She snuck out of the crate at night and carefully scaled the building, running her suit on pressurized reserves to keep silent, so that she could keep overwatch.

Battlefield

The region of the Dorsal surface of Bunker Primus near the airport is taken up with embassies, some tourist attractions, and some commercial structures - in other words, an urban environment with enough verticality that a vigilante in auto-armor might not be spotted on a rooftop if properly concealed. The streets below are built upon an armored shell protecting the habitation areas beneath, meaning that even a hard drop onto the surface and direct bombardment with ordinance would not meaningfully damage critical infrastructure.

Conditions

The morning after Angela's arrival in town was cool, damp, and overcast. Angela and Feumont emerged from the hotel for a walk around 7:30 AM, and a slight fog still hung between the buildings when the Garbage Man, Felix Tanis, and some of their goons emerged from the nearby park to follow the couple. The Garbage Man and Felix encouraged the couple to keep walking, with Felix taking up a distant rear. The implicit threat was that there was nothing the couple could do to escape and that they should both come with the 125 Hands willingly; the Garbage Man didn't want to create a scene that would 'distract from (his) final act in a few days' time.' The Duke's drones detected the sudden spike in absinthite readings and allowed him to triangulate the Garbage Man's location; he signaled the Armorer to intercept.

The Engagement

The Armorer dropped from the rooftop to confront the group, landing simultaneously with her volley of absinthite smoke cannisters. The Garbage Man's cronies siezed Angela and Feumont, warning the Armorer that any attack would result in the couple's death. The Garbage Man tried to appeal to the Armorer's sense of justice, arguing that 'he,' of all people, should know the corruption of the world and that the rotten structure of things had to be overturned to allow for meaningful progress. The Armorer declined.

by Hero Forge

The Garbage Man expressed pity that the Armorer couldn't see eye to eye with him, and flicked his wrist to cause a fatal dimensional shift within the Armorer's body - only to discover, to his immediate horror, that his attempt was being rebuffed by something. The Armorer responded by drawing her Crew-Served GF-2 Assault Needler prototype and spraying the Garbage Man and more of his goons stalking up from the nearby wooded park with chemically doped flechettes.
The Garbage Man was able to excise the projectile from his shoulder through his power only with great force of will, but the others collapsed and started foaming at the mouth as the paralytic venom took hold. Several of the Duke's drones with explosive tips raced from their hiding places to collide with goons closer to the group, leaving Angela and Feumont with only two living guards each. The remaining goons opened fire on the Armorer with grease guns and thrown grenades, only to look on in horror as the pocks and holes in the keysuit's armor resealed themselves with flash-hardening resin.
The Garbage Man started to fall back towards the couple, but the Armorer rushed forward through a hail of 125 Hands gunfire and snatched him up with a powered gauntlet. The Armorer started throwing the Garbage man against the ground and beating his face and body with piston force, only failing to kill him outright because of his protective vest and some lucky dodges. Felix managed to get in close and jam a knife between some armored plates in an attempt to save his boss, causing the Armorer to flinch; the Armorer responded by slapping Felix aside and throwing the Garbage Man into him, cracking several of both mens' ribs in the process. The Armorer tried to finish the pair off with another volley of needles, but the Garbage Man was quick enough to roll out of the way; Felix, on the other hand, took several shots deep into his already injured belly, the force of the projectiles at such close range allowing them to penetrate deep into his body cavity.
Unfortunately for the Armorer, Feumont, and Angela, the wet morning weather gave way to downpour over the course of the fight. This helped to supress the effect of the absinthite smoke somewhat, allowing the Garbage Man to regain some of his abilities. In a panic for the first time in many years, the Garbage Man strained mightily to teleport the cube of space containing himself, Felix, Feumont, Angela, the Armorer, and the four nearest goons back to Tartagloam. Unfortunately for the Garbage Man, his powers and vision were both still weakened by the lacrimatory absinthite vapors. Felix, already critically wounded, was caught laying halfway within the affected region of space when the group - sans the impervious Armorer - was whisked through the unseen fifth dimension.

Outcome

Back near Tartagloam, Feumont and Angela were quickly seized by 125 Hands retainers waiting for the Garbage Man to return. The couple were rushed into the back of a van destined for The Tartagloam Palms, the secret base of the 125 Hands, to await whatever the Garbage Man had in store for them.

Felix Tanis by Artbreeder

The Garbage Man quickly realized the terrible cost of his assualt when, head still spinning from paralytics and choking smoke, he heard the agonized groans of Felix nearby. He rushed to his friend's side and discovered to his horror that the once-lively Terraceball player had been roughly bisected by the haphazard nature of the emergency dimensional shift - indeed, Felix's lower half beneath the navel trailed off into streaks of rent muscle. Felix whispered that he was proud to have served the cause of justice beside his friend but that he was in immense pain. The Garbage Man asked him where his fondest memory was, and Felix replied that he had once been sweet on a girl in the Rostran Archipelago Confederacy. The Garbage Man granted his dying compatriot mercy by teleporting his head to a beach in the archipelago.
For her part, Miko fled the scene and reported tearfully back to Brouchard over encrypted RadNet transmission that she had failed to kill the Garbage Man and retrieve her friends. Brouchard helped her calm down before reminding her that they weren't going to harm Angela based on the conversation she had overheard, that they now had a way to track the Garbage Man's movements that they knew worked, and that he now had footage from just before the fight of the Garbage Man mentioning where they might be headed next. Miko returned to Brouchard so that the pair could start preparing to intervene at the Glass-Block Fortress. As it turned out, they knew just who to call for transport, as the PPH Canopy was still parked in town for refits.

Aftermath

Miko broke her tibia in the drop from the hotel roof, but the keysuit kept her leg intact enough for her to fight and escape. She would go on to develop long-lasting pain from this event whenever the weather got cool. Because the keysuit relies heavily on biotechnology developed using Caudal lichens, she had to go on a long-term anti-fungal regiment to prevent rapid verdialization. Still, despite her discomfort, she was always proud that she could say she was the only living being in the Manifold who had actually withstood - and very nearly killed - the infamous Garbage Man.

Conflict Type

Showdown

Battlefield Type

Urban

Location

Bunker Primus

Belligerents

Vigilantes

• Ghostleaf Foundation

Led by

• Miko Slaus-Braun
• Sigmund Bouchard

125 Hands Plot

• 125 Hands

Led by

• Felix Tanis
• The Garbage Man

Strength

by BCGR_Wurth

The Armorer: An auto-armor specialist of unknown identity wielding the power of the Keysuit infused with absinthite particles to resist the powers of The Garbage Man

The Duke of Drones: A dieseltech drone expert using a combination of cameras, microphones, special apotheosite-detecting antennae, and explosive seeker drones to help The Armorer get the drop on The Garbage Man.

125 Hands Deedmark by BCGR_Wurth

The Garbage Man: A grief-maddened extremist with the unique ability to cause people and objects to traverse the hidden dimensions of the Manifold.

Felix Tannis: A former Terraceball player, a skilled grenadier, and one of The Garbage Man's top lieutennants.

Casualties

Angela Foxglove (captured)

Feumont Atsuhi (captured)

Miko Slaus-Braun (fractured tibia, early stage verdialization)

The Garbage Man (beaten and strangled by Armorer before managing to escape)

Felix Tannis (killed on return to the Tartagloam Palms due to impeded dimensional shift)

10 125 Hands agents (picked out from crowd via Armorer's absinthite sensor and killed with seeker drones or crippled by paralytic bolts)

Objectives

Protect Angela Foxglove from The Garbage Man's plot to kidnap her

Capture the Garbage Man to turn him into the authorities or, if this is not possible, eliminate him as a threat to the Manifold

Escape without being detected

Kidnap Angela Foxglove so that she can bear witness to The Garbage Man's grand design and, if the world survives, tell others what she saw

Kidnap Feumont Atsuhi to use his unique knowledge of illusions and mechanical devices to bypass the dangers of the lower portions of the Glass Block Fortress

Escape with minimal casualties or pursuers