Once Shift confirmed that Justin's systems were up and stable, Justin dialled in a little nervously to check on Era and Ira. And was both relieved and frustrated to find that they were absolutely fine, except that Era was distressed at all the lost time Justin had cost her from her various projects, and Ira was grumpy about the mess. It was nice to be such a loved and respected boss.

Most of his equipment had also survived just fine. Some would need a little tinkering to get them working right, but there was no lasting damage. That wasn't the case with the nanite factory which somehow seemed to have taken the brunt of the damage. At this point it had cost him so much frustration that he wasn't even surprised.

He checked over his server for issues, and only a couple of processors had been burned out, and the rest seemed to be ticking over just fine. All in all, his little accident could have been much, much worse, and he was considering making the transfer back when he considered the issue of Manticore's lab.

A greedy little corner of his mind had been eyeing all the rare, expensive equipment ever since discovering that the police had never found the underground lair. It was all just sitting there, unused.

Should he spin a tale to Division about needing to replace damaged equipment? He'd certainly kept stuff from the man in the past, but he'd never actually lied to him. At least not that he could remember.

If he didn't lie, could he convince Division that there was valuable information to be obtained from the systems? In fact, he probably should pass on the files he'd already appropriated. Would Division want to turn it all over to the authorities? Justin really wished he was better at reading people.

He needn't have worried. Apparently Division was still on his 'see no evil' kick, and his clone cleared out with a wave as soon as Justin confirmed that his home system was back up and running. Score one for honesty, now he just needed to find some warm (and possibly un-warm) bodies to move his loot out of here.

Shade was a no-brainer, and Shift didn't ask too many questions, agreeing to lend a hand at his usual hourly rate, as long as he didn’t have to spend much time in the sewers.

But it was Revenant that Justin really wanted. Strong, tireless and immune to the radiation, the guy would be worth his weight in purloined electronics. However, Justin was concerned about the knight's Code of Honour, a complication Revenant had mentioned in passing at the OOC meeting. He realised he really hadn't talked to his teammates very much, all his information on them came from spying and system searches.

It was a little tricky trying to get details, but Revenant seemed happy to discuss 'his' history. Apparently his character was an actual knight from the middle ages, brutal, merciless, cursed, punished, raised, redemption, rebirth. Justin was only half listening. But the crux seemed to be that Revenant's honour was based on the 'high' ideals held during his own time. Basically those of on actual medieval knight entirely separate to the Arthurian romances.

It could be pretty much defined by word of honour, valour in battle, and fair looting of enemies. Looting, it seemed, was both expected and encouraged, something near and dear to the hearts of knights and, Justin was aware, gamers. It seemed Revenant was happy to help Justin clear the site of his conquest.

So, with his band of miscreants assembled, Justin fetched his phantom drone, and decided to check his character sheet while waiting for darkness to fall.

Codename Artisan Designation Ketican Interstellar Probe VDCI Also Known As Kip Weyland Species Artificial Intelligence Archetype Inventor Origin Synthetic Wealth $ 122,310 Level 5 [10%] Integrity 300 / 300 Recovery Rate 0.25 per minute Strength - Intelligence 63 Agility - Acuity 40 Fortitude - Willpower 25 Mental Resilience 62% (25%) Stamina - Focus 151 / 151 Recovery Rate - Recovery Rate 0.25 per second Powers Talents Complications Hardened Code III Inventor Amorphous Over-Clocking II Machine Traits Outsider Quantum Field Manipulation III Outsider's Perspective Partial Amnesia Skill Rank Skill Rank Awareness Beginner 9 [44%] Control Beginner 8 [19%] Meditation Beginner 6 [19%] [Engineering] Novice 2 Persuasion Beginner 2 [41%] - Design Novice 2 [56%] Remote Piloting Beginner 6 [37%] - Crafting Novice 2 [34%] Stealth Beginner 2 [24%] - Maintenance Novice 1 [40%] Subterfuge Beginner 4 [79%] - Repair Novice 1 [42%] Visualisation Beginner 4 [16%] [Science] Novice 3 [Coder] Novice 3 - Biology Novice 1 [39%] - Coding Novice 2 [08%] - Chemistry Novice 2 [26%] - Decipher Novice 1 [84%] - Materials Novice 2 [49%] - Encryption Beginner 7 [12%] - Mathematics Novice 2 [24%] - Hacking Novice 1 [36%] - Physics Novice 2 [55%] You have chosen to minimise five Skill Groups. Please see individual Skill Group for more information. [Behaviour - 4 skills] Novice 1 [Inquiry - 4 skills] Novice 2 [Culture - 4 skills] Novice 1 [World Affairs - 4 skills] Novice 2 [Enterprise - 4 skills] Novice 1

The biggest addition was obviously the powers, but there was also the new Control skill, which seemed way too important to be lost amongst the other un-grouped skills. He played around with things a little, and got Control, Meditation,and Visualisation to join up under a user made group, they wouldn't share xp with each other, but he thought it looked neater. He went through some of the other skills seeing what he could square away, by which point enough time had passed that it was time to focus on robbing Manticore blind for a second time.

When his super-powered minions carried up the first load, overseen by a nervously hovering Justin, they were all a little surprised to see Division and his clones waiting in the shadows at the back of their van. With a smirk, his people began lifting the goods into the back as the others watched him uncertainly. Now Justin was even more confused.

When Division pointed out that the van was actually the new team van, he swivelled his camera to stare at Shade, who appeared a little embarrassed. As he should, he'd have to do better than using the work van if people were going to buy him as a former thief, though to be fair, the only reason Justin knew that about him was because his character had been caught and had a record. Perhaps he was playing a bad former thief.

Anyway, if this was the new team van, Justin was going to need to do some work on it, there was no armouring, and the suspension bowed worryingly when Revenant stepped inside. He would also bet his lab that the number-plate they were showing was its actual number-plate, taggable, traceable, and linked to their team by reams of paperwork.

Which left only Division's presence and apparent willingness to lend a hand.

"Let's just say I've decided to break a little bad." Division replied to Justin's awkward prompting. He said it like it was a reference to something, and seemed pretty disgruntled when they all just stared at him in confusion, turning away and muttering about classics.

Justin had arranged for a cash only, late-night storage lot to drop off all the equipment since he still didn't want more people knowing where his lab was. The other reason was that he needed to check it all over for tracers. It wasn't just that Manticore might have put one on his own stuff (Justin certainly did), he was aware that Shade and Division had been handling things, and you never knew with those two.

He'd decided that the new server was eventually going to go underground somewhere well outside the city, that way it would function as a bolt hole in case of further accidents or incidents at the lab, and would also provide a place to practice his new powers without the risk of opening a black hole in the middle of a residential block, which he didn't think was an actually possibility, but it appeared that things could get quickly out of hand while messing with primordial building blocks.

He'd also decided to move Era to the team base at the Underground where she would be safe from lab accidents, and would be able to provide the team with system security, threat analysis and information retrieval.

He figured it was a good idea to pay the guys back for their time before getting caught back up in his own projects. So while he was remotely supervising the midnight heist, he'd also gotten to work on adding the curved, flick-out glaive to Revenant's staff, and started creating some new armour based off Shift's design.

It was fairly easy to jump back and forth, splitting his attention between the two fairly mundane projects, occasionally looking in on the team. And once he was happy that the guys were being careful, he pretty much left them to it, especially when he found them singing along to something about hungry wolves. He wondered what had happened on that team night out, a little jealous at their camaraderie, though if it was karaoke, he was probably fine with having missed it.

Now that Justin didn't need to worry about the cost of running the arc-furnace, he had plans to make Revenant's new armour out of full tank-gauge steel plate. With a silver-wash, a full-face helm and a vibrant blue cloak, the armour was going to shout paladin way more than Death Knight, which is perhaps why Revenant liked it so much. Justin was the last person to say anything about species choice, but the undead warrior must be getting a little tired of scaring children and old ladies by now.

He was hardening a layer of steel, while considering a way to route a conductive thread through Shift's costume when Era interrupted him. Apparently there had been a lot of chatter about the Bricktown Jackals going on a recruitment drive, and about the second escape from custody of one Black Dragon, mistress of the dead, along with her partner, Ku the Destroyer. Apparently the authorities had been keeping it under wraps since there was evidence of inside collusion.

Justin hadn't honestly considered that he would miss the peace of Manticore's underground lair, but for a brief moment, he really, really did.