Vinomorph battle planning

[loveandsin]

Post-fog-event, Vincent is stuck after having involuntarily transformed into a xenomorph version of himself aka Vinomorph.

Original mission plotting post can be found here.

Gustave alerted the network to the situation in this recent network post and is seeking help dealing with Vincent.

Vincent's current state is berserker status. Anyone who tries to make contact with him, verbally or mentally, will only get a response from an unhinged alien creature/monster that is incomprehensible. Anyone who tries to approach him will be attacked without mercy and his intention will be to kill anyone he crosses paths with.

That being said, he needs to be dealt with and taking him down will be a fight.

Finding Vinnie will be handwaved, but if you want to be part of that handwaving assistance, you can comment to Gustave's network post and make it known here.

If you'd like to be involved in the monster-battle log, I'm gauging interest here to decide how to handle the log for this. It will depend on how many people are interested.

Comments

[will_chase_balls]

I'd be interested in having Dwayne help in a monster-battle log, as well as saying he helps find him.

[nimbuster]

Count me in! Cloud will help find Vinny and try his best to help take him down while also not letting anyone kill him.

[rudelanguage]

OK...mileage/interest check
i have a weapon that is specifically detrimental to shapeshifters, lycanthropes, and changelings
if u think señor vincent qualifies as such then i have a tool that can fuck his ass up hard to a degree of ur choosing
BUT ONLY USE ME AS AN OPTION IF U WANT!! he has cr that can already get juicier anguish as opposed to this fuckin feral rando showing up with a stab-implement (wouldn't be the first time)

[loveandsin]

If you wish to be involved, I'm not turning you away. Just provide me with more info on the weapon, please~

[rudelanguage]

here u go!
it can be free permanent wound real estate since we all dig scars or if u rly wanted vincent to eat shit and die it can facilitate
or it can fucken force a revert while ALSO grievously wounding him why not
basically i can cater to ur wishes c:

[fieldtrip]

Volunteering Toph for whatever role is convenient! She loves a fight and she could probably feasibly restrain / beat down Vinomorph with a judicious application of earthbending. That being said, if others want to play primary, she's also good at distraction and trying to herd him away from non-combatants.

I am super bad at writing action scenes so handwaving would be glorious for me. \o/

[sonofzod]

Hernan can punch him in the face if necessary.

[demainvient]

Gustave will be taking part, though not necessarily in a leadership role! But he has his ability to access his chroma back, so if necessary he can smack the Vinomorph with a high-powered electric strike that might at least neutralize it (ideally without killing Vincent).

[nottheboss]

Bossie is a sniper primarily so he can fit wherever is needed

[lockdownbuild]

Happy to offer one (1) high-level crusader.

[hammerbearer]

Gaia can be a passerby and end up helping with extracting people who might get overwhelmed by Vinomorph. Seems there's already plenty of folks ready to help beat him up Vincent. So if someone wants a helping hand getting away or any other idea that might be fun, I'm all down!

[querulus]

Quentin here volunteered to help find Vincent on Gustave's post via telepathy but also mentioned that he can potentially knock Vinomorph out or maybe even revert him (probably once all the fighters have softened him up a little) if that's something you're interested in! He's a pretty powerful telepath, but telepathy is one of those abilities that operates on an "as strong as the plot needs it to be" basis, so I'm flexible. If he gets anywhere near Vinomorph he will definitely need a bodyguard though, since he's a bit of a glass cannon.

[nimbuster]

Addendum - if Gustave (or anyone) is organizing even somewhat, Cloud will automatically take up a leadership role out in the field. I certainly don't mind if people ignore him XD but it's natural for him to coordinate people and give orders for stuff like this, especially since he's the one with the most specific experience in this case.

[loveandsin]

From what little research I can gather, xenomorphs may be resistant to telepathy and also use it via a hivemind. I wonder what effect might occur if Quentin were to connect to an alien species like that.

[loveandsin]

Noted! :)

[loveandsin]

Finding something of Vincent's may not be possible, but perhaps Dwayne could pick up the scent from the ruined house where Vincent was before he ran off?

[loveandsin]

Handwaving is perfectly fine! I anticipate doing a non-combat follow-up to this, which you might prefer.

[will_chase_balls]

Yeah, he'd be able to use process of elimination to figure out which scent goes to Vincent, so that'll work.

[querulus]

OKAY SO I realized you're right (it's been a while since I watched the movies with the Queen stuff) and proceeded to do Entirely Too Much Research. I think the general consensus is that Queens both send and receive telepathic communication but regular Xenomorphs only receive?(??) With that said it doesn't seem like most of them have enough "mind" for Quentin to really latch onto, ie they're more instinct than conscious thought. A Queen would be a pretty oppressive mental presence but a regular one would probably just be a bunch of horrible screeching.

So tl;dr he would have a Bad Time but how bad would depend on how close you want Vincent to be to Queen-level intelligence and how much of Vincent's normal mind is buried in there!

[loveandsin]

I appreciate the research because I haven't seen the movies, so I'm just going on a little searching. Obviously, there's no 'queen' in Etraya and Vincent would not be at that level. More 'mindless soldier', possibly kind of feral because there is no queen to take direction from. So pure instinct and just.. try to kill anything in his path.

Vincent, himself, would be buried deep underneath all of that and in no position to stop what is happening. Barely conscious of what is going on at all, as this is not one of his own shapeshifting forms.

If you want Quentin to suffer any backlash, feel free to do so. But I think Quentin can surmise that Vincent will not be able to revert on his own, and they're going to have to beat him down until the magic in his system is released.

[loveandsin]

I think using the weapon to force a revert in the final stages of the battle would work. And provide him with a significant wound. It'll actually make him feel slightly less guilty, besides. haha.

[rudelanguage]

I AM AT YOUR SERVICE o7
when u need a tag-in for a stab-in, shoot me a link or a ping and i'll be there C:

[laserguy]

i'll be happy to volunteer scott to help! since it seems like there's enough fighters and he probably wouldn't want to launch his optic blasts when there's people going at vincent, he can serve as something else if needed! like a waypoint or something since he can fire bright red optic blasts into the air or if someone needs him to blast something away, he can do that.

i'm definitely flexible with whatever though.

[fieldtrip]

Toph is actually a good team player and would follow Cloud's directions unless they were really, really stupid.

[querulus]

I think what we can potentially go with is Quentin being like "lol this'll be easy no sweat" and then it is in fact Not Easy and oops now his head is full of terrible screeching. He will complain about the resulting migraine for the following 2.5 business weeks but probably not suffer any other lasting effects. Whether or not the fighting team wants to give Quentin a chance to try (and fail) before proceeding with Vinomorph boss fight is up to the players involved! Quentin didn't exactly do himself any favors on Gustave's post re: credibility by showing up to vaguely brag and argue with children on main, so it's totally understandable if characters are unwilling to wait on an assessment from "just trust me bro" guy.

If you're interested, Quentin could help Vincent get control back once Vinomorph is sufficiently beaten up? I'm good either way though, so just let me know what you want.

Also fun fact there's an AU crossover comic with xenomorphs fully wrecking the entire marvel universe including every mutant except like 3, none of whom were Quentin. Granted they had some help from a geneticist supervillain guy but still. RIP.