Sting Operation (Mega, open)

There was a large commotion in Uptown Jump as several loud footsteps could be heard, marching along in perfect synchronicity. The loud footsteps belonged to a large group of soldiers all wearing unusual yellow attire with helmets resembling wasps. At their front was a muscular yellow clad man with a shield, who was seemingly not worried at all about how much attention they were drawing as he seemed to be belting out a marching anthem.

"I don't know but I've been told!"

"I don't know but I've been told!"

"Robin's folks are real cold!"

"Robin's folks are reall cold!"

"Sound off!"

"One! Two!"

"Sound off!"

"Three! Four!"

"Sound off!"

"One! Two! Three! Four! One! Two! Three-Four!"

This had been going on for the last five minutes, with lyrics about every Titan so far. The group would then stop outside a mansion. This being Jump City's uptown residential area the mansion had a high wall and a formidable looking gate, all the better for keeping ne'er-do-wells dressed as insects out. Unless of course said unfashionable ne'er-do-wells had explosives designed to take the gate out.

That is exactly what the HIVE soldiers would set on the front gate before backing off to make some space. Their leader, the recently self-appointed 'Seargent HIVE' would then block his ears as best he could through his cowl "FIRE IN THE HOLE!!!" The explosives would then go off, alerting everyone within a miles radius to the already extremely high profile operation.

Seargent HIVE would then turn to half of his men "You lot secure the entrance! If any police or heroes come running, you make sure they buzz off!" he would say, treating what he was saying deadly serious despite all the puns he was making. He would then start marching through the gate "The rest of you come with me! We're gonna show these guys what happens when you kick the Hornets nest! Grab whatever money you can find, don't let any worker ants stop you!"

*******

That massive explosion had in fact been heard by someone that Seargent HIVE was hoping would 'buzz off', a particularly pesky pest known as Simon Camden. Upon hearing the explosion the young man had quickly dashed into an alleyway where no one could see him transform and donned the armour that would enable the people of Jump to recognise him as Verdant Gale!

He would then take to the sky and start flying in the direction of the mansion, hoping that the commotion had attracted enough attention for someone else to come running.

Prior to the earth shattering kaboom...
"So, how's work been?" Daniel would ask his lazy passenger, having trouble staying in his seat with how excited he was. He had already told Chessa that he finally got onto the force, they gave em a badge and everything- should he need it, emphases on SHOULD. He was to start the next day, and naturally he felt like celebrating. So he dragged his sister off the couch!

"Hm? Oh, it's not too bad so far," Chessa replied with a start, snapping back to being awake. "Where we going bro?" She asked with a yawn, but really it was an excuse to have Daniel talking more so she didn't have to answer immediately and go back to sleep.

"Actually that was something I wanted to ask you. I unfortunately haven't had time to explore the city as much as I would like. Excluding the present time and place, it'd be great for me to know where things are if I'm going to helping the people," Daniel replied, focused on driving and so didn't notice Chessa trying to drift off to sleep.

"Actually... you know that Sconehenge place I've been telling you about? They make really tasty treats, and have great eye candy," Chessa perked up alittle with a giggle. "There's also Sol's- I've been spending some time over there too. I think you'd get along great with Sol's kid, she's adorable," she added with another yawn. She also wasn't trying to set Daniel up with anyone there- but there was definitely one person there she wouldn't mind meeting him, just to see how he reacted.

"Hmmm...." Daniel pondered it over, having heard of Sols from some of the officers down at the station. But unfortunately before he could really dwell on it, there was an earth shattering kaboom! "That can't be good," Daniel remarked, immediately finding the closest way to turn around and head off toward the direction it came from.

"Don't worry about it bro, yer off duty for today. Besides, if nothing else I'm sure the titans will take care of it now that they're back from their hiatus," Chessa pointed out.

"Crime does not take a day off sis! I will have this sorted out and dealt with, then we can go back to celebrating my becoming a police officer," Daniel argued and continued the path, soon arriving a distance awaway from the crime scene. The rising smoke from the explosion was more than enough of a clue that ne'er dowells were afoot. "Watch the car," Daniel told her before hopping out, sprinting toward the action!

Chessa sighed and made herself comfortable, but kept one eye half opened...

Ren was busy eating Ramen and watching something a few of the Hades engineers called anime *why do the girls transform so unrealistic the enemy could easily take them down* Renagade echoed in Rens mind before Ren retorted with "Not everything is so realistic bud-" hearing the explosion in the distance Renagade took over.

"I call dibs, now then time to go to work." Getting up Renagade strapped on his armor Kenetic pistol plasma pistol and LMG he kept after the merc attack. Popping in a fresh belt and securing another over his torso he exited his apartment to head for his bike causing a man to hug the wall and say "God Damn!"

Hopping on his bike He Made his way to the location. "time to have some fun..."

Rico was hard at work as always, and when she heard the explosion, she got into her car to drive and reach the commotion before it died down too much. She passed a car on her way and parked near it. "Is that Chessa...?" she asked aloud, stepping closer to the car and then confirming it. A smile lit up her face and she waved. "Hi Chessa!" And then she ran off towards the smoking house.

When she arrived, she was converging on the house with a few other people. None of which she recognized, but they seemed to want to help. She peeked out from the wall and had blasters fired at her as she shot a few rubber bullets into the exposed areas of their suits, and then before the blasts hit her, she flickered out, still having Kyd Wykkyd's abilities mimicked. She appeared behind a pair of guards and swept their legs, delivering swift strikes into their throats to keep them down. She then flickered to another set of guards on the perimeter, swinging the flat of her sword into one of their heads and swinging a boot into the other's knee, before firing rubber shots straight into their helmet. The kinetic force ought to knock them out.

Of course the extremely over-the-top and loud entrance of Sargent HIVE and his HIVE Soldiers attracted a lot of attention. This was Jump City after all, if you even so much as raise your voice while committing a crime you're likely to attract the attention of a costumed hero or two. If anything HIVE should be thankful that the Titans hadn't shown up yet. Before Sargent HIVE could even enter the building their forces were under attack by a dark haired man in glowing yellow armour who came out of a car, a redhead cyborg looking thing barrelling their way over on a motorbike and a white haired girl kept flickering around and using hit and run tactics to take out soldiers.

Sargent HIVE decided that he would do something about this, charging at Rico and swinging his shield at her in hopes of sending her flying with the impact. He knew he probably couldn't beat these vigilantes on his own, but he would lead his soldiers into battle against them to defeat them with superior numbers. The HIVE soldiers that weren't being harassed by Rico would form a wall and aim their guns at Daniel and Ren and fire, hoping that if they all opened fire at the same area then at least a few of their blasts would hit. This tactic would also put Chessa in the line of fire.

**********

At that moment Simon would arrive, flying down for a classic superhero landing before noticing the hail of blasts that he almost dropped directly into "W-woah! That was close!"

Chessa had juuuuust fallen asleep, or atleast half-asleep when Rico popped up, and woke her up for a moment. Chessa lazily waved and felt better about Daniel running into a literal firing line with Rico around... buuuut she was still trying to keep an eye out.


Speaking of Daniel, he had donned his glowing armor. Didn't take much brains to fathom that it was probably a better idea to have some kind of protection when charging toward ranged opponents. It also seemed like he would not be alone in this, as two more people arrived. "How brazen and wasteful do you have to be to attack someone's house with an entire army?" Daniel deadpanned as he bunched his body up to help cover up a few gaps in his armor before the barrage of bullets happened. Because Daniel had not deviated from his car, his body would shield some of it from the barrage- but not all of it. A fact Daniel soon realized. "I JUST got that insured!" Daniel declared hotly, before also noticing that Chessa was no longer IN said car. Oh well, at least she wasn't swiss cheese...

Daniel quickly dismissed most of his armor, gathering up the energy to his wrists and charged the firing line as they (presumably) reloaded and retaliated with some shots of his own; which would then ricochet and bounce off between the soldiers. Daniel was just trying to break up the firing line and knock them out, so avoided vital areas... like their heads. What inconsiderate person shot someone in the head with... oh right. The white haired woman was doing just that but it seemed to be rubber bullets... hopefully. Good thing they were wearing helmets!

As the blasts came Twords ren peppering his vest and Bike causing him to skid to a stop his bike to damaged to keep going Making Renagade curse. "Damn it, I just fixed 'er up this morning...Your dead!"

He said as he took the heavy lmg off his back and used his totaled bike as a firing platform for said weapon as he began spewing the lethal rounds downrange at any hive not engaged in close quarter fighting with other heroes. Rens intent was clear, he was aiming to put hive in the ground 6 ft to be exact.

After firing a few burst he activated his enhanced targeting to boost his reaction time so that he could use the boost to observe the makeshift battlefield to asses the situation for anyone that might need help in their fightnoticing the firing line that the others were attempting to break up he braced himself against the heavy recoil pad of this heavy weapon before firing a long burst of death downrange at the heads of the firing line careful so not to hit any freindlys.

Rico rolled to cover when she heard actual arms being fired. She peeked and saw that the gunman was taking down the HIVE soldiers, frowning. She didn't really approve of it... but she did have lethal rounds for when she needed them, too. She emerged when she saw that he wasn't firing at anyone that was working together with her, and got back into the fight. But now, she not only worked to take them out more quickly, she also worked to get in between Ren's line of sight with the soldiers she was taking out. She couldn't call him out on his methods, but she could prevent death where possible.

She parried a swing with a weapon at her on her next blink, grabbing the man by the arm and slinging him around to use him as a makeshift club on his partner, and then threw him into the next few groups, blinking over to where she had disrupted them. She was working quickly to overtake them with her hand to hand skills, gun, and sword, even smashing one group into the wall with her projected arm to knock them out. She focused on taking out all the foot soldiers for now, unless absolutely no one was paying attention to their leader. In that case, she would head straight inside after him.

The HIVE soldiers barrage of bullets seemed to do little more than wreck vehicles and annoy the heroes that had come to stop HIVE. There was one hero who had gotten quite a fright from the assault, but that's it. Sargent HIVE had tried to attack on of the heroes, the girl that was teleporting, but she had been teleporting so fast that she ended up avoiding his attack seemingly without knowing it was coming. Ultimately, this tactic had not worked at all.

Sargent HIVE saw no option but to let this half of the force do their jobs and hold off the heroes, even if it meant they had to all be wiped out to do so. Half of the forces would split off and enter the mansion while the other half worked to keep the heroes at bay for as long as possible. Daniel and Rico would look to take the soldiers out non-lethally, whereas Ren would look to just gun them down without a care.

Before Sargent HIVE could enter the mansion though he was cut off by a green blur, it was Verdant Gale! "Taaaaake this!!!!" Simon swung with a powerful kick that was parried easily by Sargent HIVE, knocking the hero down into the dirt. Sargent HIVE thanked his lucky stars that the boy had announced his attack by yelling, if he hadn't then it would be the Sarge with his face in the dirt right now.

Before Simon could get Sargent HIVE back for that he was forced to fly to safety as dozens of rounds from the HIVE soldiers guns blasted the space he was lying in just a second ago. Despite the frankly pathetic display that Simon had just shown he would still take the opportunity to showboat "This is only a minor setback for me; VERDANT GALE!!!" He yelled, as the villain he had failed to stop escaped into the mansion. If he had done anything useful, it was that some of the soldiers focused their fire on him rather than the others.

Daniel's ricochete shot had done a lot of good- which was good if not for the sudden and untimely arrival of a heavily armed vigilante. That was enough of a shock to distract Daniel for a moment, only spared being hit too much with the parts of his armor still active- and the arrival of someone wearing his on suit of cool armor! Instead of reprimanding the vigilante, Daniel used the chance to throw in a couple more ricochete shots, chasing after them and likewise trying to dissuade Ren from gunning people down. With the ricochete shots and Daniel running down others, Daniel would clear out those on his end. "I think their boss went inside," Daniel called out to Rico, using this lull to tend to the ones Ren had shot- he was hopeful but not naive enough to think ALL of them were still alive after being shot by such a weapon...

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Ren looked at the hero asking Him to shoot them in their legs to try to not kill them. seeming slightly annoyed at the hero's request he deadpanned "you realize there's more chance of them dieing shooting them in the legs were clusters of arteries are right? hell shooting people in the head with rubber bullets would kill them slowly if you hit them in the sides or back of the head....but sure ill try to keep things nonlethal even though killing them keeps them from breaking out and committing the same crimes again and again."

opening a saddlebag on his bike he pulled out a duffle and put the lmg into before messaging hades corp to pick up his bike and lmg and wired them the expenses for it. standing up he pulled out a bullet-based handgun and a pew pew-based one. "ill avoid shooting anything vital okay Gandi?" he said to the heroen who requested that he doesn't kill. before turning and heading for the building "stupid organics..."

Rico would work hard to take out the rest of the HIVE soldiers with this group. The more time they wasted doing this, the more their leader could get up to on the inside of the mansion. Now that their forces were dwindling and she was working in tandem with the other three, incapacitating the rest was fairly easy. She used her gun as a club at some points, pistol-whipping her enemies into submission. When the last groups had fallen and the cops could move in, she reloaded the handgun with non-lethal rounds and went up the steps towards the entrance. "Let's hope he hasn't been in there too long."

She would carefully look around the inside of the building from outside of the door, before moving into the house to clear the area, looking for any signs of where the lead HIVE soldier was going.