Spoiler: Elita
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You don't notice anyone acting particularly suspiciously in the crowd.


"With pleasure, Probationary Hero Wildfang!" the robot says, and proceeds to march over to one of the two vans, as one of the other robots goes to the other. The two hold out their hands, which ratchet back to reveal sleek-looking blasters, which...well, to say they disintegrate the offal wouldn't exactly be accurate. That would imply there was dust left behind. It was more like they were erasing the stashes of meat, sinew and bone from existence, right down to the stains. It doesn't take long before Charlie can't smell any more meat in the bonnets, and the robots close the two vans back up.

"We will now bring out the prisoner!" one of the other robots announces - and sure enough, shortly afterwards, Bacchan is indeed brought up.

He doesn't exactly look like a necromancer. Probably part of it is the fact that his staff, robe and other assorted necromantic accoutrements are in a big box that's being stored in the other van for transport to somewhere that can store the things long-term, and he's just in an orange jumpsuit, hands and legs chained together. He's in his late twenties, maybe early thirties, and if not for the prisoner jumpsuit you could probably have passed him on the street without really noticing anything unusual about him.

Of course, once he emerges from the Cannon, the protestors get a lot louder, but he doesn't really acknowledge them - or anybody else - with anything more than a disdainful sneer, climbing up into the back of the van before the robots close and lock it behind him.

The vans start up - controlled, of course, by Larsson Electronics employees - and the robots take off, jets in their feet allowing them to keep pace with the vans, skimming along at ground level.

Everything goes smoothly...right up until about three-quarters of the way through the journey.

Spoiler: From Discord
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Quote Originally Posted by Keramane
She's more concerned with like, a remote charge under a manhole or something.


Now, at this point, it is important to wind back the clock a few years, to the time when Overlord was still terrorising the world. He wasn't the only villain out there, of course; even leaving aside his own followers there were other independent villains. But whether because of some flaw of his powers or just because he liked the style, Overlord's technology had a certain...signature to it, in the form of red bolts of lightning (or, at a pinch, red glowing parts.) Some people called it 'Blood Lightning,' although there was never any evidence that actual blood went into the mechanisms (although to be fair, it's absolutely something Overlord would've done if it would've been to his advantage.)

Unsurprisingly given everything Overlord did, even five years later, there are a lot of people who remember the Blood Lightning as buildings or even entire city blocks were blasted to pieces, or devices threatened to erase entire cities.

So it is therefore unsurprising that when a hitherto-invisible mine in the middle of the road decloaks in a crackle of crimson sparks and erupts in a blast of red lightning that surges over the vans, the robots, and the Heroes...there are a lot of people among the crowd that turn and run away without looking back.

The vans screech to a halt, one of them almost crashing into a traffic light as it swerves to a barely-controlled stop.

The robots land and take up defensive positions around the vans.

But, at least for the first immediate few moments...nothing happens.