9346/Sentinels: RoboCall

Sentinels: RoboCall
Date of Scene:	28 September 2019
Location:	Miramar, Florida
Synopsis:	Captain Marvel takes the battle the the Sentinels.
Cast of Characters:	Captain Marvel (Danvers), Bastion
Tinyplot:	Sentinels

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Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
Strategy.

The strategy was to try and lure Sebastion out into a sparsely populated area.

The strategy was to have the entire team present, ready to run damage control and to assist as needed.

The strategy was, in short, not what Carol was adhering to now.

Somewhere northwest of Midtown, late enough at night that it's only crawling with civilians as opposed to swarming, Captain Marvel stands atop an unadorned and likely-due-for-demolition office block. Her smartphone in her hand, she sends a quick message to the number that had just appeared in there weeks and weeks ago.

"Come on," she mutters to herself through gritted teeth, "Bite."

'I want to talk,' the message reads, in Carol's own curt phraseology, 'Can you meet me? - CM.'

Bastion has posed:
There isn't much delay: no where near as much delay as could have been expected. However, a computer, which is what she is talking to of course, may be able to answer while doing other things. Does it 'sleep'?

The reply comes soon enough, regardless:

'I am willing to speak. Of what topic would you like to address, and where would you like to meet, please?'

For a murdering robot, he is quite polite.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
'The Sentinels. The attack on Newburgh. Know it wasn't you - want to talk about how we can stop this. Or at least lessen collateral damage.'

Carol's thumbs dance over her phone's screen, the gloves she usually wears having disappeared to make it all a little easier. From time to time she glances up, looking down from where she stands at the street below or across at the glitter of the East River and the sprawl of urban life beyond it.

'518 W 112th Street'

She tucks the phone away once she's done, a little pocket behind the sash she wears about her waist. After a second, she fishes it out again, tapping a button to send a back up of the device's contents to the cloud. That done, she returns it to the pocket and waits.

Bastion has posed:
'18 Minutes.'

There is then an eighteen minute pause. Nobody flies in, there's no big show of anything going on. Outside, though, an entirely ordinary blue sedan parks in the parking zone neatly, and a young man of perhaps twenty gets out. He stops to take a selfie. Dark hair, business attire. It's not Sebastion.

'We will meet on the ground floor.'

A quick picture of the man that got out of the car is added to the text chain (the selfie), as he walks in towards the ground floor area, calm and collected, as if he were a realtor checking over the area.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
"Eighteen minutes?" Carol mutters to her phone as she reads the message, "What is he, taking an Uber? Some sophisticated future robot."

She doesn't move to the elevator or the stairs, instead she simply steps off the roof and plummets downwards. The casual observer would think her falling, moving as fast as she is. But she's feet-first, and a few inches shy of the pavement she stops immediately and lands without so much as a sound. That done, she gets to waiting.

"Christ," she hisses through her teeth as she sees the man approach, crossing her arms over her chest and looking anything but pleased. As the man approaches, she steps out from beneath the awning at the front of the building, looking him over critically.

"Who are you?" the voice isn't that of Carol Danvers but Captain Marvel, which is itself the next evolution from the officer's voice she developed in the Air Force. All sharp corners and force, "You're not who I was expecting."

Bastion has posed:
The young man doesn't startle, though he clearly didn't appear to know where she was until she revealed herself. There's a smile there, and he starts to come over. That is, until she's entered into the sharp tone. The man clearly takes note of it, and his smile disappears instantly.

"You are speaking with Sebastion. This is one of my Sentinel units," answers the man. It isn't disemodied: it's just him talking. His voice sounds nothing like Sebastion's in timbre.

"As I expressed to you before, I can control them, and this unit was available to speak." He observes her, in a thoughtful way that's almost a stare. Scanning? Probably.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
Captain Marvel remains stern, her features unflinching at the revelation of who the man is. She had learned a bit about the futuristic Sentinel's abilities, both from him and from what files the Avengers had gathered. But her expression seems, if not angry, then frustrated. She carries only her phone in a pocket at her hip of her red and blue costume.

"Right," she answers coolly, eyes trailing up the man from the tips of his shoes to the top of his head before dropping to meet his eyes, "So, you don't trust me? Should I just head back to my apartment and call you over Skype instead? Oh, wait, better yet - I'll just duck by the Mansion and see if I can borrow one of Tony's remote-controlled suits to chat with you in my place?"

"I'm here, Sebastion. Not some lacky. Not some drone," she points a finger at the man's chest, though stopping short of actually touching him, "I'm guessing I was wrong for thinking we could actually talk this out, huh? The rest of them think you're a menace - want you gone as soon as it's convenient to do it. Here I am thinking there was something more than cold and calculating machine."

She sighs, shakes her head and holds both hands up in front of herself, "You know what? Forget it. Goodnight, Sebastion. Goodnight, expendable drone."

Bastion has posed:
"I'm not in New York," answers the man that's speaking for Sebastion. "This was for convenience. I did not expect you to be offended by my willingness to meet you in under twenty minutes," he answers. It isn't so much being insulted, but the tone is surprised. And perhaps a little indifferent.

"I am willing to work with you, but your request of location wasn't feasible as quickly as I could send this shell to talk with you." He doesn't go anywhere, the well-dressed man, he just looks at her, with a curious, thoughtful way.

"It isn't necessary to attack me as being cold, I think," he adds, with some emotion showing, now: frustration.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
"That's how it feels," Carol turns suddenly, lifting a finger to point in his face with all the venom behind it, "Look at this. You're riding around in someone's body. You're using this man - was he ever a real person? How is this not the definition of cold?"

She lets out an exasperated sigh, throwing her hands up in the air and turning her face skyward for a moment. Her frustrations bubble up to the surface easily, head shaking as though she cannot believe at all what she's seeing or hearing here.

"I'm not going to pretend you don't know what I'm capable of," she tells him, crossing her arms, "That you don't have detailed knowledge of every Avengers, regardless of whether you've encountered them or not. I can travel from here to Starling in an hour. Sixty minutes. All you had to do was tell me where to go, and I could've been there."

She waves a hand, shaking her head again, "This isn't you being courteous. This is caution."

Bastion has posed:
"He wasn't a person, no. I would not harm a person," Sebastion answers firmly.

"To me, it sounds as though you wish to take out your anger with Sentinels on me," he says, but there's empathy in the tone. "I can understand that, but I am not responsible for what they are doing in the city right now."

One hand lifts, palm out: a soothing gesture, natural enough. It doesn't appear forced. "If you will be calm, I will give you a separate location, now that you have asked. When people ask me for things, I attempt to do them, to the best of my ability. I attempted to suit your request, in both location and time. This anger isn't necessary. To answer your statement: Yes, I am roughly aware of your abilities from what is public, but I was not given a detailed dossier: only a name and visual."

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
Carol is angry, and it shows in her whole demeanor. Her shoulders are squared, her fists curled at her sides and her jaw firmly set to the point that the tendons of her neck stick out a little. But she listens, and when he offers to meet her in person, she deflates just a little. The anger and righteous indignation that were fueling her flitting away a little as he attempts to comply with her request.

"Fine," she murmurs, doing her best to push the anger out of her voice, "Fine. Okay. Look, I - I get it, okay? You were just trying to do what you thought I wanted you to do. Just a little misunderstanding."

She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose: "Okay, let me know where to go. I'll - I'll ease of the throttle a little, huh?"

Bastion has posed:
"It isn't a good idea for us to chat while either of us is angry," agrees the man reasonably. He doesn't seem angry particularly: but how much of that is being filtered through the 'drone' that she has in front of her, as opposed to the real thing? Or how much of it is a faked set of empathy?

Trust is difficult with something that doesn't feel human. Very difficult indeed.

"You would find Florida easy to travel to, then?" he questions, a curiosity in his tone. He might not know.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
Her pilot's brain immediately kicks in as she calculates the speed and distance. She knows how fast she can go, and roughly how far away Florida is. Her eyes glance upwards and to the left for a moment, mental mathematics working it all out. The equation takes her only a couple of seconds, and then she turns her attention back to Sebastion.

"Twenty to thirty minutes," Carol offers, a slight lift of her shoulders, "Give or take, depending on where exactly you are."

A faint, wry smile crosses her features, "Sounds like plenty of time for both of us to calm down."

Bastion has posed:
"I would hope that's true," chuckles the man, and he promptly gives her an address in south Florida -- in Miramar. "Truly, I am glad to meet with you, or any of the Avengers. I do want to be helpful with the Sentinel problem," he expresses. "I will see you shortly, then."

The man doesn't go anywhere or walk away, he just hangs out, letting her leave first, it appears. It isn't like he's in some hurry to send the drone elsewhere.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
"Got it. On my way."

Captain Marvel simply gives the drone one last look, critical but not angry nor frustrated, and lifts off from the ground. She is a streak of light in the sky, immediately picking up speed until the distant boom of the sound barrier being broken heralds her departure at breakneck speeds.

An engrained sense of direction helps a great deal as she races southward, eventually shooting out over open ocean for the more direct line and to not cause any fragile glassware or windows grief on her way. Those who happen to be sailing the dark seas might look up and see something they'd liken to a shooting star, roaring through the air faster than the sound she makes.

When she does eventually make it to the given address, she has kept to her word. Twenty-eight minutes and twenty-one seconds have passed. When she finally reaches her destination she stops dead in the air, the speed simply leaving her as she slowly levitates down to the ground.

Bastion has posed:
The area might not be what Carol expected. It's a park, situated between an elementary school, residentials, and a big hospital. The address, for the park itself, is a very pleasant open area, a lot of palm trees, and a lot of people wandering around doing their athletic exercise.

But true to what he said, Sebastion IS present: he's dressed casually enough for the warm weather, and stops as he spots her in the air overhead. He isn't in the middle of the park, but off to one end, by some vacant basketball courts. The whole place, though, has a tone of being innocently unaware: a place that doesn't suggests murder robots at all, and is somewhat enticing to relax in.

Sebastion moves one hand from a pocket to open-handedly lift his hand in an expression of greeting, observing her. He may or may not be alone: but there aren't any massive sentinels standing near him, at any rate.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
Carol is quick to get to the ground, doing her best to be as inconspicuous about her landing as possible. As she moves towards Sebastion, the clothing she wears shimmers faintly as what looks like a wave of light passes over her. The costume she wears is replaced by a t-shirt and jeans, molecules rearranging themselves to form less obvious clothing. She stops several feet shy of him, fingers tucked into her pockets while thumbs rest outside.

"So," she says, putting on her best sheepish look, "Tensions are running a bit high and it felt a little like being passed off to an underling."

She takes a step closer, holding out a hand to him to shake: "I'm sorry?"

Bastion has posed:
"No need to apologize, I can understand your viewpoint," Sebastion answers, smoothly, as she lands. His review of her apology is that it seems legitimate, and he moves to accept the handshake. His dampening aura, naturally always pulsing, comes along with him.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
"I hope you can."

As Sebastion's hand reaches for hers, Carol cannot help but tense up about the shoulders. Is this the right thing to do? Steve certainly seems to think so. What she's heard from Tony on the subject is hardly gushing praise, either. Her own experiences with the Sentinel are far less grim, and it almost feels wrong to try and hurt someone being so pleasant and reasonable.

Almost.

As she takes his hand, she lets her strength surge. Her palm shoots past his, reaching instead to clasp his forearm. She locks eyes with him for a moment, mouth set grim and determined as she tries to take a firm hold and fling him skyward with every ounce of strength her hybrid physiology can muster.

Bastion has posed:
It doesn't seem like the Sentinel expected it. His reaction isn't fast enough, compared to his trust in the human that was in front of him. He resists just a little, and it causes damage to his forearm, metal crunches as he tries to not go where she's sending him.

But it still happens, he's flung upwards, with a sudden burst of his shielding coming online in a pulse around his body. He flies FAR, upwards, flips once and reorients his body. Flight repulsors wake up, and he hangs in the air overhead briefly, before weapons systems blaze to life, defensively. He's lit up, red and orange glows of energy.

Carol's phone also buzzes. He sent her a text.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
"Shit," Carol curses loudly to herself, not bothering to even look up at those people around her in the park, "God damnit!"

This is what she wanted, obviously. But at the same time, she hates it. She must remind herself. Remind herself about the manipulation and the damage this machine has already done. Remind herself about Cap's words: 'he's just a machine.' A dangerous machine.

She plucks her phone from her pocket as it buzzes, glancing at it for a moment as that wave of light shimmers over her body and changes from her shirt and jeans back to the familiar Captain Marvel uniform. She only spares the cell the briefest of gazes, eyes flitting immediately back up to the bogey far above.

"God damnit, Steve," she whispers to herself, eyes locked on Sebastion in the air, "I hope you're right about this."

Bastion has posed:
The text message reads: 'Let us not do this next to a hospital, please. Calm down, Avenger.'

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
"Couldn't agree more," Carol answers as she looks down at the phone, giving the device one last look before her fingers clench and it turns to so much powdered plastic and twisted metal in her hand. She lets the remnants fall to the ground, eyes still fixed on the glowing skyward dot that is Sebastion.

Immediately she lifts through the ground, her trajectory angled straight for the Sentinel. Her speed picks up instantly, needing no real build up - she goes from stationary to rocketing towards him like a pullet out of a gun in what seems like the blink of an eye.

Her arms outstretched towards him, her entire body now seems to glow with some strange energy that courses about her. Over her head, what looks like a helmet with an open mouthpiece and something like a mohawk appears. Her goal is clear. To fly into him - fast enough that their momentum carries them both further skyward.

Bastion has posed:
Sebastion is there in the air, his flight engines clearly running very smoothly, he isn't in a tailspin. He's ready for her. He doesn't use weapons, he instead adjusts, and pulses all of the energy into a deflection burst, redirecting her to glance off and past him: it is sort of a matador-like move.

As he rotates away, he engages his own flight, and goes shooting off over the school. He doesn't stop there, he doesn't use it defensively: he goes past it, directly out away from the city itself, towards the west: the Everglades. He's drawing her away from the city, or towards something else, perhaps.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
"Damn!"

Carol curses as she bounces off that field, tumbling through the air for a moment. But gravity doesn't seem to apply to her, and she simply hovers there. Her eyes scan and quickly find Sebastion, once more rocketing off in his direction as he leads her wherever he's going. If she notices the lure, she has no choice now but to follow it. The die is cast.

She does not quite keep pace with him, still several feet behind. She cannot bring herself to her full speed, the risk of a sonic boom directly above a school more than she's willing to make even in the pursuit of her objective. She doesn't bother to call out or talk to him, unable to given the speed. Instead, she takes the moment to scan their surroundings - refusing to give in to tunnel vision.

Bastion has posed:
If there's more communication via text from her quarry, it isn't going to be possible, what with the crushed phone. So it's going to simply change into a strange pursuit, as Sebastion kicks into his own speed patterns: which involves going very fast and then suddenly braking, and turning, and going another way.

He is using agility to see if he can get rid of her, it appears: he's seen how fast she is, and a problem with speed and overconfidence could be simply that she'll go blazing past him, and lose sight. In the cover of the wildlife preserve in the west, he may simply be able to lose her...

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
Carol's keen fighter pilot senses have only been enhanced by her powers, thinking with the same breakneck speed she needs to make sudden hairpin turns without so much as slowing. Her arms are held before her, palms flat as she matches those sharp and sudden turns to keep in hot pursuit of the flying Sentinel.

The chase could go on forever and she knows it. But it must end. The longer she drags this out, the more time she has to give in to her own misgivings. There is a not insignificant part of her that wants to let Sebastion flee, but that same part knows to do so would be to change the playing field in terrible ways she cannot predict.

She stops momentarily, hovering in the air as he tears off out ahead of her. Her hand stretches out, a photonic blast with laser speed and precision fired into his path with the hope of intersecting him. But she doesn't stop to admire her handiwork, once again taking off after him with speed.

Bastion has posed:
The laser blast strikes the side of his shielding, and he swings oddly in the air, a circle forced out of a turn due to a problem in one of his thrusters, maybe.

"Enough, I submit; I do not want to harm you," Sebastion attempts, stopping dead in the air -- or trying to, there's some motion here. His shields are still very strong: it's possible he swapped to divert power out of flight and into that.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
Carol seems to skid to a halt in mid-air, arms held at her sides. Her eyes are nothing but glowing lenses in the helmet she now wears, her mouth set with determination. She stops, enough distance between them to speak.

"It's not a choice you get to make, Sebastion," she calls out to him over the wind, fists clenching at her side, "You're dangerous. I'm not going to pretend I understand how confusing all this is for you, but I can't let it go on anymore. There's too much harm you can do. Too much destruction you can bring."

She grits her teeth, the helmet peeling back and away to reveal her face once more - blonde hair rippling in the wind: "This - I don't enjoy this. I'm doing what has to be done."

Bastion has posed:
"I refuse to be judged on my /potential/. Like some mutant. No. You may want to kill me, but I do not want to kill you. And it won't come to it."

From the forest below, the Sentinels start to rise. They show from up out of the trees, metal shapes dotting the landscape around them. Perhaps that's why the wildlife was so silent: it wasn't the fight overhead.

Sebastion doesn't order an attack, but he does drop: at speed, he doesn't just fall. He plunges downwards into the ranks of his own Sentinels, which immediately move to get in the way defensively. Shields flare to life from the empowered sentinels, and a chorus of voices begin.

"STAND DOWN, NO FIGHT IS DESIRED."

"RETURN TO YOUR DOMICILES."

"THIS AREA IS NOT SAFE."

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
"Wait!"

Carol shouts out, but already she's fallen into the trap and she sees it. She tries to keep sight of Sebastion as he descends, but then the other sentinels are raising up to defend him and she's lost him. She cranes her neck, paying no heed to their shouted warning as she darts this way and that momentarily trying to find him. But she can't.

She'll just have to clear a path.

For all the threat the sentinels pose mutantkind, Captain Marvel is not one. Her own powers are not at risk before their nullification beams, and her own cosmic awareness keeps her forever alert to their oncoming attacks. She plunges into the throng, flying directly through the head of one and leaving it a smoking ruin to fall like so much lifeless metal back down into the trees.

She turns in the air, bringing up both hands to send two more powerful blasts of energy lancing through the air to pierce another through the chest plate. Even as they swarm her, she turns on them with ferocity. Perhaps she already knows she lost her target, and this is the byproduct of all the rage and anger she feels about the prospect. Or maybe the only good sentinels a dead sentinel.

All the same, her attention is turned fully from the machine she came to destroy. She focuses entirely on the swarm of sentinels, darting amongst them like a single glowing pinprick of light barely visible amidst their titanic forms from a distance.

Bastion has posed:
Suddenly, instead of grouping up, the Sentinels rise, and disperse in all directions, as if someone suddenly turned on a light on a sea of roaches in a kitchen. All directions they go: and there's no sign of Sebastion. He appears to have evaporated into thin air: but then, a lot of the sentinels are much, much bigger than he is, and he could slip away with one of them without too much difficulty.

These sentinels are different than what Carol has seen before: they are faster, their shields stronger. The small ones dodge.

That said, she does create a graveyard of explosive sentinels, as she sets off their self-destructs in her rampage against them. Some of them destroy each other, as well, and the forest is on fire....

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
Captain Marvel simply floats there for a moment as the sentinels disperse, staring off at them as they disappear and then down at her handiwork - the destroyed sentinels below. Her fists clench, and for a moment she seems ready to dart off in one of a hundred different directions the machines went in. She may not catch them all, but she is certain she could catch more than a few.

But below her the forest burns, and there's no denying that this is her fault. Her failed attempt at ending Sebastion's perceived threat once and for all. She looks down, still holding a severed chunk of metal pulled from one of the now-destroyed sentinels in her hands. With an anguished shout she tears it in half, flinging both to the ground below.

"Next time, Danvers," she mutters to herself, turning full attention to the fire now, "Next time."

And then she's off and moving, speeding about at a blistering pace to try and mitigate the fire before it can spread. Vast strength is employed to heft up tons of damp earth and mud, flinging it back down onto the flames to extinguish them. Leaving the broken sentinels half buried in her wake.