Difference between revisions of "5354/MISSION: Starwatch (1)"

Latest revision as of 15:18, 8 July 2017

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Numbani. Wide savannah. Broad horizons marked by rising hills. And marked, at one critical point, by the high-rising structure of the Numbani Space Center. Integrated manufacturing, transmission, testing, and launching can be found here; it's every aspect of a space program, condensed into the hyper-advanced facility of a progressive robotic city-state. The wide hangars are full of crafts under assembly or in testing. The tall sensors and structures scan the skies and the stars. The central launch platform reaches high into the air, loading powerful Numbani craft onto a huge thruster.

    These are normal. This is science.

    What is not normal is the ship emerging from the staging hangar, stealthily built into one of the nearby hills. What is even farther from normal are its inhabitants: Six broken people in a broken ship. The craft is formed from scraps of hull cannibalized from many other crafts, held together by beams of durasteel, and sealed with heavy salvaged plates. Its weapons are a mishmash of multiple types, turrets and fixed beam weapons in asymmetrical variety. Its thrusters sputter awkwardly every so often, almost but not quite disrupting its clean approach vector.

    Aboard, George clicks a mix tape into a tape deck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCJzIesrl5U

    The Flotilla hit hard and fast. Faster than any response could keep them out of the perimeter. The craft closes the distance from detection range to local airspace in less than half a minute, and the built-in teleporter dramatically drops several telespatial energy "drop pods" containing the crew at the perimeter. Their coordinated and ruthless tactics make short work of Numbani automated security forces. OR15s are swiftly annihilated by heavy explosive weaponry. Dangerous shock weapons render human opposition unconscious. The Flotilla isn't being stealthy, it's being swift, and brutal. Something is helping them, too; no blast door stays closed, and no defense emplacements seem to target them. It's as though they have every code and know every corner of the place. Their craft has settled in one of the central assembly chambers.

    By the time that any response gets here, things will have settled into place. The Flotilla members are charging the assembly hangar, engaging the final holdouts of the security team brave enough or automated enough to get in their way. Five Flotilla members are handling this, while the sixth works to situate their ship in the assembly hangar.

    Moonfin, the fishman, is in elaborate full-body durasteel armor that looks like a powered cross between a diving suit and a samurai's armor, with a flickering cyan glow at the cracked and worn faceplate. Biteblade, the humanoid plant, is in durasteel plating with elaborately carved wood and bone ornaments over glowing powered components that glow an intense green, but those ornaments are often shattered or conspicuously absent. Pavo the bird-girl wears a pirate-aesthetic set of mesoamerican-style armor, with yellow bands of energized fabric linking the pieces and powering them, though there's awful tears in some. Albert the monkey-man is wearing elaborate dystopian commando armor reconstructed with a 'rebel spy' aesthetic: A sleeker faceplate, a slimmer form, and a more chaotic design that integrates thin, dented, resilient plates of durasteel, and lines of bright white. George (just plain human) wears a set of futuristic EVA-combat and exploration armor in a suit that glows a gentle red at the faceplate, but it's damaged and absent at the left shoulder. The sixth, Seft, is the one unseen, aboard the craft. Each has a heavy industrial-yellow two-pronged plasma-cutter-like tool strapped to their side, a Matter Manipulator, and each wield a worn and damaged but still-terrifying mix of ranged and melee weaponry.

Sombra has posed:
    - MEANWHILE IN DORADO -

    The small room is illuminated by several screens that rise above the desk. Data continues running down one of the screens, continuous updates about the situation in Numbani. Security cam feeds is the second best thing to actually being there in person, and with things well prepared; it's time to sit back and enjoy the show.

    Sombra taps one fine nail against the keyboard, all while she gets the communication channels ready. "You think they will do well, Señor Sleepy Bear?" she asides to the teddy bear that sits next to a bag of doritos. "Is el Comandante right in her worries about those pesky little niños interfering with our potential new allies?" The hacker smirks for herself. One of the good things about this is with her being able to look at everything at once rather than having to watch her back. Besides; the crew ought to be able to handle themselves, especially with the items she made sure to send their wayâ¦

    "¡Que comience el show!"

Septette Arcubielle (632) has posed:
     Sometimes, keeping people safe can leave a bad taste in one's mouth. Septette has been over her rationalizations and reasons a hundred times already- the Starbound Flotilla are long-standing and important allies in keeping Etria safe; they were going to pursue this mission regardless of her aid; she can steer the pragmatic Flotilla away from courses of action that would cause civilian casualties- but even if the utilitarian calculus of her moral framework comes out in favor of it, helping them here still feels... transgressive, somehow. For all her prideful disdain for mortal laws and customs, an outright smash-and-grab in a major city still leaves the little war-machine a tad apprehensive.

     She can't allow that queasy apprehension to bubble to the surface. Accompanying the Flotilla here is the right thing to do, and any emotions that get in the way of doing the right thing are an unnecessary burden. A moment's hesitation could get an ally killed- holding onto those doubts would be risky and immoral. So Septette shuts off her eyes, reaches deep down within, and suppresses those emotions with the discipline characteristic of the mind of a yggdroid. When her eyes flick on again, it is with a newfound, colder confidence. The time for doubts is behind her. The time for action is here.

     She yanks the Ariadne's Thread to warp in to the Captains' location, materializing in a glittering beam of light and surveying the dregs of the security detail with analytical disdain. The scarlet shawl around her shoulders loosens as she unfolds a long, wickedly curved tan blade from her arm and heats it to glowing, then strides through the broken lines of the opposition to the far end of the hanger, neatly bisecting OR15s and frying human opponents into submission with arcs of electricity that leap from her fingers as a manic smile spreads across her face.

     When she reaches the heavy door at the back of the hangar, Septette sinks her claw-like fingers into it and pries it apart; the door's internal motors protest for a moment, then crunch and give way. She glances back at her allies as the last of their opposition here dissolves. "Clear. Good work, Captains- everyone alright so far?"

Reaper has posed:
The Concord agents are being very, very careful to minimize the civilian contact with the Flotilla's raid, even as they shatter the automated defenses. Thanks to Sombra, of course. And helping Concord when requested? That's right in line with current Talon operating procedures. There are finer layers to this, of course - politics, positioning. Secrets to be stolen. But for the moment, as a coiling black smoke thickens and churns into a running, cowled figure? At this moment, there's no greater joy than simple violence for a simple goal. It's been a long time.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

The hellfire shotguns send their payload outwards with brutal, explosive force, each hit enough to jerk Reaper's arms up to compensate for the recoil. Even as the next gun barrel is dropping into position. He spares - none. He asks for no surrender. Omnics, OS15's - even the occasional brave soul is left upon the wettened ground as he flanks. Opposite of Septette, point of fact, his dark, rough laughter bubbling up. A pause to throw those empties aside, two more drawn from beneath his coat where none should fit.
"Clearing the area." He comms in, before switching to a more private channel with a faint click.
"Sombra - target location?"

Staren has posed:
    Staren wanted to help the Flotilla. It's good to see them again, and they've certainly helped him get things like the ship he now lives on -- but he has some misgivings upon finding out that, inexplicably, in a world full of problems, they picked the city of peace and progress to attack. Isn't it more the Concord's thing to take resources from those who are /misusing/ them so they can be put to better use?

    The mission's going to happen anyway, though, and the Flotilla probably won't do anything too bad. Last time around they wanted pieces of a nigh-indestructible monster to build a table out of, after all.

    Another ship drops out of FTL high above, and a sixth beam of light shoots down, shaping into Staren clad in white and sea-green armor of well-maintained plates. He follows the trail of destruction to catch up to the group. "It's good to see you again... I wish you didn't have this penchant for making your splash on the multiversal stage by causing trouble, though. What do you want this time? Do they have some new experimental material you need to make an ottoman out of?" His tone for the jibe is one of friendly ribbing rather than angry snarking, at least.

Reimu Hakurei (972) has posed:
     Reimu was currently flying through the air while four black and white orbs Yin Yang Orbs were following closely behind her. She was currently wearing her usual red and white outfit along with the red ribbon in her hair. As she flew through the skies, wondering where exactly Nitori told her head off from that weird device that she had, the wind manages to blow across her dress as well. Upon seeing the large city of Numbani, her mouth opened in shock and she merely looked at the otherwise alien structures to her. However, upon hearing the sounds of gunfire, she directs her attention over to the assembly hanger. In an instant, the flying girl soars off toward the sounds of gunfire, the four orbs constantly trailing behind her at all times. Clearly, the ones who are in need of aid must be the people being attacked right now.

Tesla Armadia (368) has posed:
The ramshackled mishmash of a ship is not the only vehicle approaching the space facilities. But the second is much less a hodgepodge and a bit more spikey as it rumbles across the savannah, heavy wheels kicking up dust and plumes of exhaust smoking into the air above the hulking, armored vehicle. Obstructions like fallen trees, rocks and even restraining walls are little defense against the large spiked plow and steamroller wheel the vehicle bears at it's front.

It is a peculiar vehicle to say the least. A strange sight to the locals.. but others may reconize it as the siege machine belonging to a certain mastermind technopath.

Who is sitting calmly in the cockpit, drinking from a mug of rediculously strong coffee. Saiga sits on her shoulder, helping to observe the monitors while Tesla is focused on operating the Mad Maximizer's approach upon the space complex. "Things seem to progressing as expected. Intervention has a probability of arriving within the next 15 to 20 minutes, so make your initial push count."
"If I may ask, Master," Saiga murmurs as she's screwing the top back on the coffee thermos with her manipulator arms, "Why? There is no tech here that you could not simply design for yourself, or presumably any allies that asked."
"Because they wish to make their own effort to rebuild themselves, rather than take hand-outs and appear needing to their newest allies," Tesla replies without hesitation. "I also suspect they wish to demonstrate what they are capable of, even in such a... hindered state of affairs."

As the Mad Maximizer rolls up to the perimeter Tesla slows the vehicle with a snort, coming straight into the automated defenses. "Keep moving in." Tesla raises one hand and her machine mimics the motion, it's right arm whipping up to grab a security OMNI in it's claws. Then shifts to hold it in front of the cockpit, while inside Telsa tips her head to one side. These seem much more independant than the invasion they assisted with before. Then a dismissive wave follows, and the Mad Maximize whips the robot off to the side.

Followed by Tesla clenching her left hand into a fist, reving up the dual-sawblades on the other arm, followed by a forward punch to slam the seige weapon into the side of a structure. The two blades spin in opposite directions, tearing into the foundation not only by the serrated edge by the sheering force between opposite rotations as well.

Rory White (673) has posed:
Another spaceship is on quick approach, after piercing the atmosphere and broadcasting Paladin IDs to Numbani control. Rory's Muse is handling a lot of the fine details of requesting a tie-in with local security forces and information gathering with the standard offer of Paladin help.

    Yet she is but one ship, and more of a mining, exploration, and research vessel than combat.

    And she is loathe to take direct action against the Flotilla, despite her obligations. Inside the Cognizant Odyssey's mainframe, her consciousness flickers and sparks with doubts and uncertains - plenty more unhandled exceptions than she really knows what to do with.

    THE ENTIRE FACILITY IS SUBJECTED TO A PERVASIVE ACTIVE SCAN that lights up the Odyssey's presence like a grand finale of fireworks, and the facility's map - including some of the passages that her sensors can make out - begin filling into her awareness while the ship continues floating high in the sky.

    Her ship's own teleporter flicker-flashes... and deposits a silvery-grey spider walker into the fray.

    ... By that, meaning, the drone high-tails it for the nearest wifi hotspot or networking hardline and attempts to tap into local systems - if regional powers allow it.

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Just outside base limits is a van. A van that looks like it's been made to hold a small car inside of the back.

    The back door opens up as Reinhardt rockets out, armor rocketing him across the ground. He LEAPS across the wire fences, before sprinting towards the source of gunfire and explosions, leaving massive footprints in his wake.

    CRAAAAAASH

    The towering knight smashes through a wall in an appropriately dramatic manner, rubble covering his armor as the giant points his hammer at the Flotilla's numbers. "I suggest you come quietly, or there will be severe consequences!" he rumbles, making a move to neutralize the interstellar raiders.

Leyanne Mace has posed:
Leyanne arrives astride her freshly-rebuilt Arkadyne Model 14 combat-bike, leant down low over the handlebars. In the pillion passenger seat is Laura Kinney, with the mouse's tail wrapped around her.
Tiny grins behind the faceplate.
"Let me know when you want me to Fastball you, L- Talon." Tiny comments. "I'll have to swing you out wide to get enough leverage, but if I also turn Skrat at the same time this should be pretty sweet... whoever you hit is gonna have a real crap day."
She laughs, smashing through a chain-link fence and turning onto the spaceplane landing runway. She twists open the throttle, letting the bike build up plenty of speed on the smooth, flat ground.
"Black with shotguns, target sighted." Tiny comments. Reaper can probably see her coming.
Her left arm flexes oddly, the elbow bending back on itself while the shoulder flexes far beyond natural limits, ready to provide the best leverage possible for what's coming next.
As soon as Laura grabs her hand, the mouse stands up in the saddle, leaning into the throw. She even turns the bike just as she lets go, to add even more momentum to it.
Okay. Now to get the bike back under control...

Laura Kinney (1111) has posed:
Laura Kinney rises into a crouch, a firm grip on one of Tiny's shoulders keeping her from bouncing off the seat as the bike roars over the rough ground. Things get a log smoother once they're on the tarmac though, the mutant teen rising up a little bit more to scan the scene. Firefight by the main hangar, Spaceship overhead... and what look like several nonhumans in some sort of high tech armor. And... Well, Laura would say that had to be a Mad Max style War Rig, if she'd ever seen any of those movies. Her nostrils flare, sampling the windblast as the bike screams down the concrete. Among the smells of combat, something stands out... Almost a rot, with a bit of a metal tang. Gabriel Reyes.
     "The one in black with shotguns. Now!" She calls into her headset, stepping up onto the mouse's oversized palm, legs bent to add her own jump to the impact force. Everything blurs for a moment, her vision distorting as she's launched forward, silvery metallic claws breaking the skin of her knuckles, and slipping through the toes of her boots as she flies towards the edgelord supreme at highway speeds. When she hits, she's going for a similar strike as the last time they fought, one hand's claws embedded in the shoulder, foot claws kicking into the small of his back while her free hand goes for the neck.

Septette Arcubielle (632) has posed:
     And then there's that guy. Some kind of owl-faced smokey freak. She doesn't know his name, but the little robot instantly takes a dim view of his techniques. "Get thee behind me," Septette mutters under her breath- or whatever passes for breath with her. "Trying to keep this op as bloodless as possible. Your sideshow shtick can wait; we don't need the extra-"

     Reinhardt's Kool-Aid-Man entrance interrupts her mid-sentence, instantly drawing her attention away from chastising Reaper. "I've got this one," she calls out to the Flotilla, and strides over to him with almost dismissive confidence. Sombra's dossier gave some... interesting information on this one. "Wilhelm Reinhardt! Your reputation precedes you. I challenge you to honorable combat. Show this 'dragon' what you can do!" With her cloak on, she could be mistaken for a human- but this illusion is swiftly dispelled as she burns it off, momentarily wreathing herself in flame for dramatic effect.

     Her true form revealed, Septette appears as a delicate-looking skeletal android not a hair over five feet tall, with a youthful face and menacing blades attached to her limbs. Her skin-toned exoskeletal plating is incomplete, not fully covering her inner workings; it vaguely resembles a stylized human ribcage and spine in its design, but is more like armor in function. Underneath that, thick black cables and wiring are visible, along with several crystalline or mechanical components whose function isn't analogous to any earthly technology. Nestled inside her 'ribcage' is a glowing red sphere, about the size of a grapefruit and glimmering like a gemstone.

     On closer inspection, it doesn't look like she ought to be standing at all. Several of the hydraulic tubes are already severed; what internal circuitry is visible appears warped and slagged. In some places, the damage is severe enough that it looks like she shouldn't be mechanically functional at all- yet here she stands, arrogant and unbowed. Just what does she run on, anyway?

     A split second after her dramatic reveal, a trio of small spherical drones beams in beside her- one red, one blue, one yellow- and begin circling Reinhardt at a safe distance, though they have yet to take any obvious action. "Your move, old knight."

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
"Isss cat friend! Hey!"
"Aye, missed ye, ye little tinkerer! No, 'tis no artifact, this time! 'Tis mercenary work, matey! And a chance to rebuild! Treasure in these systems, matey, we'll be the ones to dig it up!"
"We need access to central control. Need to extract data."

    They surge forward as Septette and Reaper clear the way. "Thanks, Gabe!" George calls out, completely oblivious to his name preferences. Presumably by intent. God DAMN it Sombra!! He actually surges a little more forward than the others, heading towards upper levels with a few shotgun shots of his own -- meager compared to Reaper's treendous power -- and only barely dives out of the way when Reinhard Wilhelm crashes through the wall he's running by. "Shit!! Why are we fighting the Kool-Aid man?!" He tries to slide out of the way and head up to an upper level area. Tesla Armadia's machine comes punching through another wall, thankfully far less dangerous to George but still just as impressive. He tries to evade Reinhardt's attention by zipping past and behind the Max Maximizer on his running dash. "Thanks!"

    Meanwhile, Rory White finds something awful. While Septette has thankfully handled many doors, others opened with ease to the Flotilla, and while many cameras saw them, they didn't automatically alert allied forces. Yes, someone's hacked the system! The Starbounders have some information objectives too, potentially...!

    Albert grunts. "Handle them." He says, referencing the recent interior intruders. "Biteblade, with me." They head to the hangar entry, where Leyanne Mace is arriving. Albert, with his heavy rocket launcher, fires a series of blasts at Leyanne's vehicle. It's likely the slower, more obvious projectiles can be evaded with her deft driving skill, but... "Biteblade, fire." And the Floran does. A heavy bolt launched in a whistling arc heads straight towards the vehicle, intending to stop the vehicle with a harsh impact as the dense metal rod streaks towards it. Coincidentally, this might arc dangerously close to Reimu! But her dodging skill is more than enough to evade it completely.

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Reinhardt narrowly misses George, but rather than press the assault, he notices a challenger approaching.

    He stares at Septette, as she reveals herself. "Aye, that may be so. You yourself have something of a reputation as well, I am to understand. You will see why they call me the Crusader, 'Dragon'."

    Laura and Leyanne can handle things on their end, he has a duel to settle. The knight races towards Septette when she issues her challenge, and the knight roars as he swings his hammer wide at her, moving with inhuman speed and force behind his strike. The skelebot may want to move fast if they want to not get smashed.

Reaper has posed:
"You want bloodless? Stop holding back. They'll run faster."

Hisses the owl-skeleton-faced man to Septette, claws groaning as he flexes his hand within the metal; And just to punctuate his point, he lowers one uprised hand, tilting his head as if sighting down the long barrel - BOOM. A scream of pain. But at least it's pain, and not a death rattle, the owl mask turning back to regard Septette. Which isn't to say that Reaper is unharmed - quite the opposite. Several holes are smoking across his thin body armor, even as he slows his run to a power walk. The black mist rising and curling around his form, the prostrate and hidden sillouettes of mashed omnics and bloodied humans shriveling as he goes. Metal rusts. Cloth unwinds. Flesh unbinds. And every wound taken is similarily healed - for the moment. There's plenty to go around, after all, so long as he keeps moving.
Which is when Flotilla calls out his real name. A low, dangerous hiss, the cowled head turning slowly - shotgun lifting towards 'George's ship. But before he can do something to horribly inconvience their arrangement with the Concord, the sound of a bike is heard. Head turns. Both shotguns twist towards the incoming 'Hero' - distraction, Kool-Aid Reinhardt Incoming - and then suddenly he's got BLADES EVERYWHERE! At high velocity fast-ball, no doubt. What is it with people and body slamming him at high speed?
The Tacti-Cool Edgelord rolls, his twisting body turning into smoke. Hopefully to let Laura continue past on her own momentum as he reforms again, rips trailing black ichor and mist from his wounds. Nothing but a single pair of words as he pulls two new shotguns out.

"Die." BOOM.

Reimu Hakurei (972) has posed:
     As the heavy bolt manages to careen directly over to her on the spot and she manages to swiftly maneuver herself away from he projectile. In response, she shifts her course and begins to fly directly toward the large vehicle. While flying onwards, she shouts out in a huff,

     Well, I hope you guys are fans of acupuncture!"

     With a single wave of the wand in her right hand, the four orbs begin to unleash a barrage of red and white needles. The large, holy powered, clusters of needles threaten to impact large sections of the metal vehicle which wouldn't really be a problem unless they manage to hit the two currently piloting them.

Soldier 76 (1120) has posed:
Lurking in the rafters above the rapidly escalating battle, Soldier 76 has been planning his next move carefully. Well next move, in this case, being his first move. After all there are a lot of hostiles down there, most with bigger and better gear than he has. He'll need to plan this move perfectly.

His partners from Overwatch don't seem to agree as Reinhardt plows his way through a wall. Jack sighs and rubs his temples for a moment, "So much for the element of surprise." He rises up from where he was kneeling and leaps off, falling through the air to land on top of the monsterous machine piloted by the mutant mad scientist, "Hey Doc, you picked the wrong side."

He aims his pulse rifle down at the cab of the vehicle and opens fire, not sure how thick the armor plating on it is. If he can't penetrate it with pulse munitions from point blank, he'll need to reconsider his options.

Laura Kinney (1111) has posed:
Laura Kinney feels her hand claws bite into... Flesh? Close enough for the time being. She starts her maneuver to get a foothold, but her target's losing cohesion. What would have been a double clawed flying kick results in the mutant flying through what should have been Reaper's torso, landing in a crouch and breaking with her claws, sparks cascading down from the metal catwalk as it suddenly has several long cuts ripped into it. She spins around, jerking sideways just in time to cause the buckshot to take a chunk out of her left shoulder and upper arm instead of her head. "After you." is her retort before she charges again, aiming to sweetp the leg while her toe claw cleaves through the pipe that suspends the catwalk from the girders above. Hopefully if she can keep Reyes occupied, his friends won't worry about saving him until it's too late. And she's got an idea to disable him as well, but the positioning's not quite right yet...

Rory White (673) has posed:
Thankfully Numbani is apt to cooperate with the Paladins! Rory's quickly authenticated with Information Security privileges and taps into all of the center's surveillance, routing her ship's considerable processing power into the job of helping analyze all of the traffic, analyze access logs and trace all connections with the kind of rapidity that only a well-prepared security suite controlled by an AI can pull off...

    Better watch out Sombra, Rory's hunting for you.

Leyanne Mace has posed:
Leyanne Mace yelps as Albert and Biteblade open fire on her. The rockets she evades about as deftly as expected from an expert rider, though that whistling, heavy metal bolt slams into the bike's engine... which predictably vomits its own turbine out.
Tiny barely manages to keep the thing under control under the harsh decelleration of a seized (impaled) engine, bailing once the bike's slow enough that it won't be -too- utterly trashed.

    Rolling upright, the mouse unstraps her trusty Bren gun from her back and sprays a burst across Albert and Biteblade. Reimu might be close enough to hear the snap of the rounds passing, but she's not the intended target of the mouse's light machine gun fire.

Septette Arcubielle (632) has posed:
     The milliseconds tick by slowly in Septette's perception- the tense of Reinhardt's fingers on his hammer; the twist of his body as he brings it around in a wide arc; all of these play out in sufficient time for her to react, or perhaps even dodge. She does not, save to bring up one arm in an attempt to block the strike flatly. Renowned crusader or no, Reinhardt is still a creature of flesh and blood- and until he forces her to respect his capabilities, she will gravely underestimate them.

     The rocket hammer's blow jars her entire body, making her glowing lavender eyes flicker and sending coruscating sparks through her frame as the arcane servomotors malfunction. The sharpened talons on her feet dig into the floor for purchase, carving deep gouges into the metal hangar with the scream of steel-on-steel as she skids away from the impact. It seems that grudging respect for his abilities will come sooner, rather than later. "A fine weapon! You make for a better opponent than anticipated," she remarks, her coldly manic grin returning. "Don't let me down now!"

     Septette grips the haft of the hammer near the head with her sparking left arm, attempting to electrify the weapon and force the knight to weaken his grip. Simultaneously, the long blade folded into her right forearm snaps out and reheats to an angry sizzle before being thrust at a chink between two plates in the front of his armor. The drones behind him lack Septette's raw destructive power, but they rain jolts of electricity and sharpened shards of ice on his unprotected back, hoping to strike something important or perhaps even throw out his spine.

Sombra has posed:
    And here arrive the cavalry. As expected, Overwatch agents are present. Reinhardt... and good ol' Jack. Which means Reaper will be focused, and perhaps going a little gung ho if she knows him right. Which she likes to think she does. Let's see if she can make things a bit better for the Concord and Flotilla members...

    "Your friend is here, Gabe," Sombra's voice states in Reaper's ear on their private channel. "Better clear things up if you want to say hi to him, no?"

    At the same time, a security bot comes to life nearby, shambling out of one of the nearby corridors... and aims at whoever is closest. It's not bound to be a major threat nor take out an elite unless she's lucky, but it might cause a slight distraction.

    Leaning forward in her chair a bit, Sombra keeps on typing with her left hand, all while she picks up a handful of doritos. Let's get the doors further into the space center open so that her new friends can get her what she wants...

Tesla Armadia (368) has posed:
For all intents and purposes it looks like Tesla is just trying to tear part of the complex apart. The monsterous machine was designed as a cyberpunk seige engine after all. But she rarely does anything without a method, regardless of the apparent madness.

It's much like Reaper said. She's found it's often easier to get bystanders out of the way by scaring them into running on their own. A building appearing as it might collapse is usually a good encouragement to get the hell out of Dodge as they say.

There's a thump as someone lands on top of the cab. Followed by the flash and bang of pulse energy as it tears into the plating, being at essentially point-blank helping to blow through the resiliant material. Fortunately the massive vehicle's cockpit is large enough that the remander of the shot passes through the opening and does more damange to the consoles than anyone inside.

"Predictable." The smoke from the blast hasn't even cleared before a bolt of kinetic energy blasts back out of the cab at the unwanted rider, as Tesla had started charging up her gauntlet as soon as he had landed over her head. "Everyone goes for the cockpit to disable the operator."

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    "Second Sea Hylotl Style: Waves Crashing Against Shores." Comes a dramatic voice. And then, suddenly, a fishman interposes himself between Reimu and the Starbound Flotilla's lone vehicle! And with a flickering, dramatic motion, he parries several of the needles... Only several though. His worn katana bends dangerously against one impact and the shock slams through his body, bruising one side and rattling him with traumatic force, forcing him to his knees, and overloading one of the power systems on his arm with a sudden blast of sparks and light. And that's to say nothing of the impact of the needles into his BODY! Which is dangerous and leaves punctured wounds in his armor.

    "Acupuncture is an honorable profession among the Hylotl." He says, rising from those knees again, and then leveling his weapon towards Reimu. "Is it so barbaric among your own race?" The answer to that question may not come soon enough though. Now that Reimu's under the wide roof of the hangar, Pavo can strike! The bird-girl maneuvers through the air as if she were flying, swinging on a grappling hook and firing off her flintlock pistol as she comes by to dramatically kick into Reimu with a heavy armored boot!

    "Avast, ye scurvey sky-dog! I've no measure of the wings ye think ye have flyin' about like that, but back off or they'll be torn right off!" She calls out, kicking Reimu straight towards Staren!

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Reinhardt's strike hits home, sending Septette back a few paces. He grunts as Septette remarks, before he grits his teeth. "I've no intention of that!" He retorts, before he thrusts the head of his hammer out at the android.

    Of course, she catches the hammer, and he struggles to free it from her grip with an angry growl. "Rrrrgh!" Muscles tense and servos whirr angrily as his suit enhances his strength in overtime, but he notices too late Septette is attempting to attack from behind with the drones. He's zapped and ice'd in the back, and pain lances up his spine as he staggers in place.

    Trying one last time to swing the hammer free, he feels his back punish him for pushing his body so far like this. "Augh! Maybe you're not so fragile after all." He says, before he tries again, swinging at a drone with his hammer.

Staren has posed:
    "Depends on if it's from a world where it's a real science or just fake. I prefer nanomachines, myself." Staren replies. Needles bounce off or catch in his forcefield, some just leaving scratches but the ones that hit straight on poking holes with cracks around them. "I'm really sorry about this... They'll make it quick and not use the data for anything really bad, probably." He opens with warning shoots from the beam rifle -- if Pavo successfully kicks her his way, he tries to slap a hand on her in melee, using his armor's shock function like a melee taser."

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Albert gets into cover, but not soon enough. A spray of bullets catch him on the side, searing through his armor in a brutal bruise over his torso. He grunts with a sudden burst of pain, then discards his spent rocket launcher, drawing his hammer into both hands. "Enemy vehicle down. Enemy infantry still fighting." He declares, scowling under his helmet because he clearly didn't want to deal with that. "Returning fire."

    With a heavy grunt. Albert SWINGS his hammer... Straight into the crate of equipment he was hiding behind! It goes tumbling and slamming over the ground, launching right towards Leyanne, serving as a grave threat and an even more grave distraction to let Albert close the distance. He had meant to put himself on information extraction duty, but... "RrrrrrRRRRRRRAAAAAAAHHHH!!!" He leaps behind the crate, coming down hard with a massive power-hammer swing, the kind that creates a tremendous shockwave!

Reaper has posed:
"Little girl, I died a long time ago."

Growls Reaper, assuming a pose much akin to what Laura might've seen in old Logan promos. Shoulders out, head down, lowered center of gravity. The only difference is that he's pulling shotguns rather than claws, the black whirling smoke coalescing into solid forms almost as quick as he can pull them up - and then Laura's on him. But this time he's expecting how quick she is, letting the natural thud of mud twist his leg out of the way. A spin to place the shotgun in the right spot - let's see her heal from a lack of head.
That's when the girl's upturned leg snips a power coupling above the two. See, he's good at -plans-. At plans and counter plans, at foresight and thinking out what the next turn is. He's not good at impromptu - that's why he had Sombra, now. That's why he had Jack and Ana, then. He doesn't catch the trick until the power coupling neatly folds down atop him. And he roars as electricity begins rapidly arcing through him, his body shuddering in and out of existance before it explodes into a whirling mist of smoke, fading away..

The Dead Man - Dead Again?

Smoke coalesces again, behind Laura. Forming a twisting leg, solidifying just as he attempts to connect it to the back of her skull. And send her crashing down to play with someone else. "Better." He growls, before his mask turns. His fight with a teenage girl forgotten light of a NEW target.

"-JACK-."

Septette Arcubielle (632) has posed:
     She may be strong, but there's no way Septette can hold onto that hammer for long- certainly not with one damaged hand against all of Reinhardt's strength. It wrenches out of her sharpened fingers easily, and the opportunistic drone that darted a little too close is annihilated in a spray of red shards by Wilhelm's blow- it seems the little pests were never made to last against that kind of force. The other two- blue and yellow- continue to retaliate, hovering at a slightly more respectful distance.

     But as he turns to destroy the drone, another opportunity prevents itself: in the split second that his attention is diverted, Septette leaps at him from the side! The floor shatters under the impact of acceleration, and her searing blades extend in an attempt to carve through his sturdy armor! Even without superhuman speed, her super-dense mass of nearly a ton could hit like a literal truck, and she expertly channels the kinetic energy into the small contact area of her sharpened blades.

     "Fragile?! I've fought my people's wars for two and a half centuries, knight! No man of flesh and blood is my equal," she boasts. "Beasts of legend and living gods could not slay me. What makes you think you can?"

Reimu Hakurei (972) has posed:
     The kick actually manages to leave a small bruise as she hurtles off towards Staren. As she flies out of the hanger, she is sent hurtling towards Staren's position and his hand is mere inches from making contact with her left arm. Unfortunately for him, she actually vanishes before his eyes almost immediately. The four orbs vanish as well. However, she seems to reappear a good few feet above him.

     "Oh? Well, that's a new face for once."

     As she hovers in the air, she begins to back away from Staren slowly while the four orbs arrange themselves in front of her position. They unleash a more dense version of the needle clusters from earlier and together, it almost looks like she's firing large, red, v shaped projectiles at him.

Leyanne Mace has posed:
Leyanne Mace takes the cargo crate to the face, smashing it to pieces. She goes down onto her back, bren gun skittering away and then... ooookay that's a gorilla. The mouse rolls out of the way of that hammer, not quite expecting the shockwave but that's new and interesting data. And it makes her antennae sting. She kicks herself to her feet and she's straight back on the offensive, cocking back her left arm as she moves in on the gorilla. The arm's status lights go from red to green, and the mouse smirks.

"My turn."

She swings in for a haymaker, hoping the hammer's mass, inertia, and general resistance to changing direction gives her enough time to land the punch. Jets of gas vent from her elbow and shoulder as she swings, her clenched fist spinning on her wrist, just for that extra little bit.

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Reinhardt grunts in satisfaction as the drone is destroyed. He feels blades slash at him like one of those prowler Omnics from back in the war. He's damn glad those are gone, and this is definitely a nasty reminder of those days. Blood leaks through his armor's wounded gaps, and he swings his fist hard in a back-hand swipe, aiming to smack Septette right in the face. "Because I am neither beast nor god, I AM A MAN, AND NOTHING OVERCOMES ADVERSITY LIKE THE STRENGTH OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT!" He lunges forth, stabbing or no stabbing, and punches Septette again, this time aiming for the stomach in a furious body blow.

Laura Kinney (1111) has posed:
Laura Kinney feels the cold metal against the back of her skull, gritting her teeth as she braces for... Phew. Plan worked. She takes a bit of a jolt as well as the charge grounds out through the catwalk as well, but nowhere as much as Reyes who was in the direct path. No sign of smoke. She jumps back onto her feet, approaching the railing to pick her next target. The hairs on the back of her kneck stand on end, the mutant starting a backwards kick to bring a toe claw up as someone's behind her-CRACK-.
     The force of the blow combined with unsteady footing sends her over the railing, plummeting to the floor. Fortunately, being limp keeps her from suffering any further serious injuries besides the concussion on her way down. Staggering to her feet again, she shakes off the blurriness in her vision, shoving the feelings of bone knitting and buckshot being squeezed out of her shoulder as she charges towards Biteblade, claws dripping black ichor.

Rory White (673) has posed:
All the analysis Rory's doing shows a trail into an encrpyed tunnel that leads back to... Mexico? Somewhere in the region, anyways. And it certainly should not be using encryption like this... but tracing it completely from here is not practical.

    Thankfully, she doesn't need to. Having identified a few nodes, she attempts to re-route the connection where it links into the space center's systems...

    ... and instead, feed a recording of the horrifying sci-fi action of Breakout: Crisis gameplay... which is real-looking enough to be mistaken for NOT A GAME, but a depiction of actual alien monsters doing horrifying things to people from a first person perspective.

    Anything to monkey-wrench the hackers while she tries to purge the system and restore normal operations!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    George -- and Biteblade with them -- are trying to pull away from combat. "Bitey! The gear!" George calls out, calling out for her to toss the little hacking access-stocks to him. Perfect timing, and the kind he knew he'd need. "Heads up!" That's when Laura is likely to hit the pair, having landed at the second floor from Reaper's higher position that had left him so vulnerable to the Fastball Special.

"Gonna hit up second objective!"
"Urgent. Please, go for the first. This level of violence is far too much."
"I've left the battle with this foe. I shall work to assist with the others."
"--GAH! Floran-- Floran find other hunter!!"
"Aye, matey, hittin' yer deck for the backup!"
"GHHHHH! Down, assist NOW!"
"In mere moments."
"Keep 'em going for-- goddamn it, /sixty/ seconds at least!"

    The Flotilla is in coordinated chaos. Everything's under attack, but they adapt and pursue RELENTLESSLY. George flees further up to the control section, as Biteblade makes sure Laura can't get past her... By engaging her directly! Shit! "Woah! You, hunter! Big hunter, like Floran!" Biteblade calls out, bringing her bow up to try to stop the claws... And finding that those claws, whenever Laura makes her first attack, just shear right through it! Only barely giving her enough time to dodge away. "Auhh!" She calls out, drawing a pair of heavy daggers quickly. "Isss baressskin with shinyclaw?! How? Floran have to know! Shinyclaw friend isss gonna tell! Floran want shinyclaw too!!" She... She actually seems to be just as savage as Laura acts, but in an ENTIRELY different way, as she moves in, trying to stay on the inside of that claw range and make it tougher to use them, while trying to gut Laura with a ruthless series of slashes and stabs!

Septette Arcubielle (632) has posed:
     A blow to the head can't stagger Septette in the way it might a human, but the kinetic energy of the strike knocks her off-balance nonetheless. One of her eyes shatters outright, its lavender light going dim, and she takes a hasty step backwards to regain her stance. The blood on her blades boils off in a flash of steam as soon as they're pulled from Reinhardt's body, and she brings them up to catch the second punch in a scissor-like motion, biting down on opposite sides of his wrist. If he doesn't pull free soon, they could melt right through his armor!

     "No," she replies in a quieter tone, staring into his visor with one guttering eye while they're momentarily locked together. "I've seen too many human minds broken by the horrors of war. Squishies are never indomitable; you wear down, expire. Or are you really as quick as you were thirty years ago, Wilhelm?" With that, the blue drone fires a hardened bladelike icicle at the rocket on his back, aiming to disrupt something important. The yellow drone swoops in as well, dangerously close to Reinhardt's wide reach, to deliver a harder jolt! Those things are becoming a serious inconvenience...

Soldier 76 (1120) has posed:
The shot that comes in from the cab of the vehicle catches 76 in the chest, knocking him off his feet, where he lands hard on the cab. He was about to get back up to his feet, when he heard the familiar voice of the angry spectre that used to be his best friend. He kips up to his feet and scans across the battlefield for the ghost.

"GABRIEL!" He roars out, as he jumps off of Tesla's vehicle and rushes towards the Talon agent. His rifle is back up to his shoulder as he moves, firing several shots in his direction as he advances on Reaper's position, "I'll put you in the ground for good this time, old friend. Don't make this harder than it has to be."

Staren has posed:
    Staren looks around when Reimu disappears. Up isn't his first thought, but she speaks, drawing his attention. "Same to you... I think. Been here so long I'm not entirely sure you're unfamiliar." He starts running to dodge the Vs. Some clip the field, breaking more parts of it. He doesn't worry about trying to hit her -- because a small missile rack pops up on his shoulder, firing a minimissile that aims to track her and explode in a fireball if they even get close! He watches her, concerned about just how much damage it will do.

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Reinhardt notices his engine going out from the ice, and he suffers more bolts from the other drone. He swings and swats at them like flies, before he glares Septette's way. "You better believe it!" He yells, bringing his hammer down with rocket blazing on top of the android. Maybe sufficiently damaging her will disrupt the drones somehow.

Sombra has posed:
    What the...

    The moment the foreign signal shows up on her screen, the notorious hacker arches an eyebrow. That... is obviously not Numbani. The architecture is all wrong, and this... well, it looks like a video game? Or an animated movie. "Well well... it looks like we've been noticed, Senor Sleepy Bear..." she mutters to herself. And they think they can handle /her/. Time to show them what this world's greatest hacker can do. Sombra smirks as she begins typing furiously away at her keyboard, swiping away the gameplay footage.

    Retrace route.
    run sombra.pkg?
    y/n
    y

    There's always a risk connecting to secure channels like this. A risk is that something might be used against you, including a virus program aimed at whoever tries to hinder Sombra. Now let's see how effective this is. Hopefully it can keep the intruder busy. Or even better yet, fry their hardware.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    The punch impacts Albert hard, slamming into his torso armor with tremendous force. It cracks, then shatters, an entire outer layer of armor utterly devastated by Leyanne's Iron Left. Not only does outer armor explode off with a wet fleshy crunch of damage to his torso, Albert himself goes flying back towards the assembly area, slamming into some of the parts there, and falling to the ground, prone and wheezing from the air being knocked out of him.

    "GHHHHH! Down, assist NOW!" He calls out, in harsh and tactical tones. He's answered by the call of a helpful fishman. "In mere moments." Moonfin dashes towards him, grabbing him, and doing a quick blink-teleport into cover to try to get him on his feet before Leyanne closes the distance again! "Arise, soldier, this is no grave for one such as you." He says, quickly administering a stimulant to keep Albert on his feet.

    And then it's Moonfin who closes the distance now. Not with any fancy distractions. This time, it's a dramatic SAMURAI FLASH-STEP ATTACK, trying to do a tech-enhanced dash to close in on Leyanne and cut through her as he passes by! "Fifth Sea Hylotl Style: Lightning Strikes Tall Waves."

Reimu Hakurei (972) has posed:
     Upon seeing the minimissile, she actually begins to smile before flying away from rocket. As soon as she is a good distance away from it, the orbs change to a blue color and she almost begins to unleash a new barrage of machinegun esque talismans. However, the minimissile that's currently tracking her manages to catch her atention and begins to fly directly toward Staren, the four orbs unleashing their machinegun like talisman barrage. The red holy charms threaten to flood out a large chunk of the area where Staren is currently standing. However, his forcefield should be able to take them since they are her weakest projectile type.

Reaper has posed:
Gabriel - Agent Reyes - Reaper. Whatever he is, whatever he's become, he starts moving forward as soon as he has Jack's attention, a slow walk with the black smoke coiling away from his form like a poisonous mist. The few dead and dying things, whether machine or man, withering as he passes, the ichor bleeding tears in his bodysuit sealing shut with a slow finality. Even Laura may find the ichor that stains her claws evaporating. And then he's picking up speed, heavy boots pushing at the pavement as he literally charges right for 76. His head and body jerked, his feet stumbling as the plasma rifle begins chattering, the weapon digging into his midsection. Ichor and smoke curl away, wounded even further - losing steam from his first fight with Laura. He snarls - "You killed me.. him before, -JACK-, with your bomb!"

And then he's smoke, an outline screeching forward like a banshee out of hell, the sterile bone white mask seeming to float like a mirage in the forefront. Reforming again, looking to do nothing so much as get too far inside for gun range. And whip the shotgun across the bridge of Jack's nose, hissing.
"But the grave can hold me no longer." Yep, that's right. SLAP FIGHT TIME.

Tesla Armadia (368) has posed:
Tesla merely glances out a side window as 76 yells and leaps off to confront his former cohort. "Huh. That's what it's like to have an archrival I guess. Emotional hubbubble." Then turns back to her own controls. There's a hole in the cockpit roof and some damage to the controls, but not anything she can't work with thanks to her powers, and other assets.

She smirks a little as she flicks one of the controls. "Let's make use of the diversion though."

Steam hisses from the back of the Mad Maximizer, followed by it's rear hatch swinging out and upward to open. Several eyes light up in the shadows of the interior, accompanied by a gibberish of mewls and snarls. Followed by a proverbial eruption of fur and bionics as a dozen or so three foot tall cat-like creatures charge out of the compartment. The Gremlynx continue their irratic vocalizations, waving around various tools as they swarm towards the nearest pieces of technology and try to dismantle and steal whatever they can get their grubby paws on.

Leyanne Mace has posed:
Leyanne Mace growls "And STAY down." She cautions Albert. "Stay down there and think about what it means to hurt innocent people!"
She doesn't appear to be about to go after her downed opponent - she's here to drive them off, not kill them. She appears in fact to be about to continue the lecture when Moonfin blink-teleports Albert away. She really is lucky she's got such good hearing; she manages to turn just in time to bring her left arm around to block Moonfin's blade, her tail curling around to try and trip the passing ninja... either way, the mouse's arm is going to take a nasty hit...

Septette Arcubielle (632) has posed:
     Reinhardt's wild swings manage to catch out the nearer yellow drone, destroying it on impact- one left! Despite the dangerous amounts of magical power they can channel, it seems the little drones don't have terribly sophisticated evasive routines. Septette takes the opening to aim a quick raking strike at his chest, testing the metal of his armor again before he can retaliate.

     The arc of the hammer over Wilhelm's head is painfully obvious- the engine flares a fraction of a second before it'd come down, sufficient time for the yggdroid to calculate a half-dozen plans for response. With typical pride, she stands still until the last possible moment, sidestepping out of the way...

     At that instant, a sparking OR-14 unit lying next to her- a victim of her earlier rampage- summons its last dregs of energy, grabbing onto her ankle with an iron grip. Septette lurches, falling to the side from the unexpected hazard- and the hammer, in its original arc, comes down on her outstretched leg. CRUNCH.

     There is no grimace, no howl of pain as her limb is nearly crushed on impact. Pain is for mortals. She merely stands back up with a decided limp, her expression eerily blank and cold- as is her voice. "Wilhelm Reinhardt. My name is Septette Arcubielle. I am the defender of my world, as you are of yours. Injuries that threaten my long-term capabilities cannot be risked. I am obligated to end this now."

     Her one good leg tenses like a spring, and she takes off to the right almost faster than the eye can track. She runs almost a dozen feet up the side of a large cargo container next to them, digging in with her talons and blades to compensate for her damaged limb, and then leaps off it towards Reinhardt with alarming speed. If she's able to land on top of him, she'll grapple and try for a chokehold- but with one of her blazing swords taking the place of the arm across his neck.

Staren has posed:
    The missile will chase Reimu until it runs out of fuel after a thousand or so feet of travel. It can't be tricked into catching Staren in the blast, though, its computer guidance system won't allow it. Staren frowns. He can't dodge the new attacks, but quickly sees that they aren't doing much damage. What's her game here? He keeps dodging anyway, though, radioing to Moonfin and Pavo: <"Come on, guys, do something while she's focused on me!">

Laura Kinney (1111) has posed:
Laura Kinney isn't giving anything away as she slashes that shortbow in half, (These guys REALLY have some mixed tech) before slowly circling opposite the plant... insectoid... alien. Long bladed knives. Could be worse. She still doesn't speak, charging forward to meet Biteblade's attack.
     Laura's learned a lot about getting hurt over her years of life. The most important of these right now, is 'in the short term, you don't really have many vital organs in your stomach' Her lunge carries her onto the blades, attempting to repay the damage taken with viscious blows from both hands, and footclaws. One hand also slips down, aiming to cake off the handles of those knives. She spits a dribble of blood out the front of her mask, glaring into what passes for eyes on plant aliens, although her own are hidden behind reddish tinted lenses.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    While Albert recovers, someone else gets into the fray with Tiny! While Moonfin slams into the dirt after that sudden weirdly destabilizing exchange, grunting and rolling as best he can with his heavy wounding from Reimu, someone SWINGS from the hangar roof, and heads down towards Leyanne Mace, trying to catch her unawares as she focuses on the downed Moonfin, who can't get up on his own in time!

    Her power-cutlass comes stabbing down HARD; whether or not she impacts, she won't focus on keeping the grip on the blade. Instead, she lets go of it, rolls off, and gets back to her feet... And then yanks Moonfin back onto his feet! Damaged though he may be by the interruption, he can still mostly function. She tries to drive Tiny back with another series of flintlock shots!

Rory White (673) has posed:
If she had a face, Rory would scowl at the strange pile of code that sneaks in over her buffered connections despite her best efforts otherwise. Havoc is wreaked on the counter-hacking front as various programs begin to crash, their virtual memory managers getting confused about what program is assigned what chunk.

    And then, rather suddenly, the Cognizant Odyssey's connection to Numbani blips off.

    But the ship... remains airborne. The spider-bot down at the network node doesn't explode or fizzle out or anything.

    . . . . . *BLIP*

    After about two minutes, the connection flickers back up and operations resume, no trace of the malicious code remains. It as though the entire system went back in time a minute or two?

    The joys of multiple layers of sandboxing, instancing, and other layers of abstraction, and processors that are hard-designed to never allow any process access to more than a strict limit of processor time no matter its priority.

    But valuable progress in restoring full control of the systems to Numbani was lost, and the A.G.I.'s frustration is mounting.

Reimu Hakurei (972) has posed:
     As the missile circles around over to her, she smiles before beginning to fly in a figure eight pattern. The natural circling of the flight path actually makes it difficult for the missile to come close to hitting her due to the overall difficulty of circling to begin with. The missile keeps attempting to chase her, but since her flight is ignoring physics, while the minimissile's flight is forced to obey the laws of physics, she is free to continue barraging Staren's forcefield with homing talisman shots while the missile is left to slowly run out of fuel.

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Reinhardt clenches the hammer, narrowing his eyes at Septette. "Defender to defender, I will do my best to ensure you survive...but this will hurt nonetheless, a lot in fact." He warns, before Septette latches onto his back like a spider-monkey, and tries to choke him.

    Gasping for air, Reinhardt tries to pry Septette off, but it's not easy on account of her robotic nature. He instead tries his best to smash her off, flinging himself back-first towards a wall or some manner of crate or anything else in range, almost comically flinging himself toward anything that may scrape Septette off. THis may take a while, and he'll probably run out of oxygen before he runs out of things to fling himself at.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Staren calls in a heavy strike! Albert is happy to provide. The missiles from before might not have hit, but maybe that was because Reimu was focused on Staren. Albert loads his last rockets into his rocket launcher, even while he has to lean on one of the cargo crates to prop himself up, and fires. These are a special airburst blend, the kind that detonate in close proximity to a target. Less damaging, but more likely to hit, and far more disorienting.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    "AaaaaaaAAAAAAUGH FEET CLAWSSS WHY." Biteblade calls out, suffering several brutal punctures up and down her body as those talons slam through refined durasteel. Laura finds something odd, as she does: Her foe's skin is a thick, flexible bark, the kind of thing that is actually not what claws were meant for. While that means Biteblade can survive, it doesn't mean Biteblade won't still get hurt, and those talons draw a sticky blood-like sap and a pained yelp.

    "FfffffFFFFFLORAN EAT YOU FOR GET ANSSSWER QUESSSSTION." Biteblade calls out, lapsing briefly into tribal savagery, attepting to take advantage of the instability that comes with the kicks to tackle Laura down and just start BITING at her! The Floran's sharp teeth snap aggressively, trying to get a chunk of the Wolverinelet.

Soldier 76 (1120) has posed:
The pulse rifle is designed for medium ranged combat. When it comes to close range, 76 prefers to use his fists. So as soon as Reaper clsoes outside of the effective range of the rifle, Soldier 76 slaps it down across his back where it magnetically locks into place, and prepares to face his long time rival.

The shotgun smashes him in the face, the mask managing to absorb some of the blow, but forcing him to fall backwards, "My bomb?!" He yells out, "It was your bomb! You and Blackwatch betrayed us!" It was Reaper, still Gabe then, who threw the first blow all those years ago. It was Reaper who is the reason why Jack has a scar that never healed right across his face.

He rushes in, closing the short gap between himself and Reaper, reaching out to grab the cloaked figure and rise up with his right knee to slam it right into that mask. He's going to break that mask off and see what's left of Gabriel under it.

Septette Arcubielle (632) has posed:
     Now that she's got hold of him, Septette is holding on for dear life- the flat of her cooling blade is held tight across his throat, and her ceramet claws dig into the thicker portions of his armor for maximum grip. Every time she's slammed against an object, her battered body groans and shrieks metallically in protest, and she's forced to push with all her might against it with her leg to keep from being crushed. A yggdroid never fatigues, but the slowly-accumulating damage amounts to almost the same thing in terms of degrading her performance.

     But still she holds on- even with mounting mechanical failures, the magical animating spirit that dwells in her bones refuses to let go. "You have earned my respect," she says in that cool synthesized voice, now twisted with distortion. "You already had my mercy. Rest now, old man. You have nothing else to prove."

Reimu Hakurei (972) has posed:
     Upon hearing the sudden burst of rockets and turning to see them coming directly at her, she reflexively begins to activate a spell card. Specifically, it's not even remotely a kind one.

     Divine Spirit "Fantasy Seal: Blink"

     Her entire body begins to glow a ghostly white as she suddenly begins to hasten up to miraculous speeds, allowing her to dodge both the airburst rockets and the minimissile as well. They both manage to take each other out as she barely speeds past them. In the process, she manages to wave her wand which unleashes a noticeably large amount of violet orbs directly upon both Staren and Albert. She seems to stop for a moment before bursting off towards them again and unleashing a second set of violet holy orbs as well. It's a good thing these are nonlethal though or otherwise, this could hurt.

Tesla Armadia (368) has posed:
Tesla picks her shinki up off her shoulder and sets the tiny robot down on the console by where 76's pulse blast cut through it. "Repair that while we're waiting." Saiga salutes with one of her normal hands, before plunging to the machine to get to work with her larger exo-frame style limbs. Then Tesla pulls a lever (it's mostly for effect since she can just do things mentally) that slides her seat through a hatch in the back of the cockpit.

Moments later the seat slides into place at the back of the vehicle and swivels around. The technopath's eyes glow ominously behind her glasses as she raises her hands almost like a conductor readying his orcestra. But instead of instruments its various pieces of machinery that come alive from the walls and floor of the compartment.

Outside Gremlynx run about the chaos of combat, ripping apart whatever technology they can find and hauling it back to the Mad Maximizer. It doesn't matter what. Because whatever they toss into the back of the vehicle, Tesla uses her powers and the machinery to strip down to basic components, and then reassemble into the components Seft was requesting.

There's a shriek as one gets caught in the insane crossfire of multiple conflicts raging at once, no idea who attacking what the stray fire came from but it doesn't matter as the creature crumples from the damage. One isn't much of a loss to the numbers, another just picks up what he was carrying and runs off with it.

Another group caterwauls in a panic as they veer around, trying to avoid the edges of the airbursts going off. Friendly fire isn't friendly at all, even if it's accidental!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Rory's attention goes down.

    "Alright, baby. Sing me a song of your sweetest secrets."

    Somewhere in the deeper data core, George slams a little black electronic device square into a disconnected, high-security digital storage rack, activating one of Sombra's wonderful little tools. They've got a window where Rory won't be able to hard lock them out with some kind of trickery when the tool forcibly connects the data center for the upload to Sombra's own storage.

    "Thanks for the window, S. Working the primary objective now."

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Reinhardt struggles still, grinding Septette against a wall with a roar. "I have my duty to uphold, even now!" He grunts, before he remembers something.

    He still has one of his engines to use, and he can turn it on right now. So he does that. THe engine roars, and jet boosters kick in as Septette gets a point-blank blast of power right into her face, more or less. He's not gonna go down easily at all, no doubt of that, so long as he can still blast Septette off of his back.

Leyanne Mace has posed:
Leyanne Mace tries to lean out of Pavo's way, but unluckily for the mouse, she's just not quick enough. The blade cuts a good chunk out of her leg before it glances off the metal-reinforced bone and skitters away. Red blood leaks down onto the ground as the rodent yelps, flintlock fire pelting into her armour. But ballistic fire is what it was designed to deal with.
Even as chips are blown free from the chestplate and helmet, the mouse advances on the piratical one, blood leaking from ler leg - and at least one fresh wound in her torso where one of those big, wide flintlock rounds has punched through her bodysuit.
"Run!" The mouse growls "Before I do to you what I did to the ape."

Sombra has posed:
    It's easy enough to keep an eye... or an ear on several channels at once, getting transcipts of the voice coms on the fly. Which is good, as Sombra keeps her focus on the screen that shows the progress of her hacking of the intruder... Rory White. A grin spreads across her lips when the hack goes through. "Adios."

    For two minutes she is able to focus on aiding the others with intel on the battlefield, as well as continue hacking. Hopefully the Flotilla can get to the main computer soon...

    Then Rory is back online. And Sombra arches one split eyebrow, popping one dorito chip into her mouth as she watches and listens. "Huh." So she's back already. No matter. Security measures are in place, so she shouldn't be able to bother her again...

    Especially not when George has gotten to the main objective and set the idiot (aka Reaper) proof hacking device in place. Smiling contently, Sombra begins typing away with great haste, fingers flying across the keyboard as connection is established, data is extracted and sent her way through proxies upon proxies. Yes, yes... this is exactly what she needs.

Laura Kinney (1111) has posed:
Laura Kinney doesn't really have the time for talking, not that she would anyway. This species certainly isn't like anything she'd fought before, and it turns out that slicing through tough fibrous plant matter is pretty difficult when the quarters are too close to get a good swing. It turns out that once kicked in, her foot claws give her a pretty good anchor point, allowing her more leverage to try to do some damage. While she's grappling for position, Biteblade's teeth latch onto her shoulder, the mutant teen letting out a cry of pain as a decent chunk of her shoulder is torn away, her left arm suddenly losing most of its impact. With a near primal scream of her own, Laura brings up her good right arm in an attempt to stab right through the roof of that gnashing maw.

Septette Arcubielle (632) has posed:
     Most of Septette's body is designed with enormous tolerances to heat shock- her eyes and the delicate circuitry behind them, however, are not. Her remaining eye cracks as the glass rapidly expands, then gutters out as red-hot slag pours down her cheeks- she's operating almost blind now, relying on magical sensors and passive detection. But you don't need to see what you can touch, and she puts all of her strength into constricting her arms around Reinhardt's neck now that she's unlikely to win a straight fight!

     The fingers on her left hand dig into the armor of her right arm as her upper limbs squeeze like a mechanical anaconda, her remaining servomotors shrieking and whining in protest. There's no magical energy left for spellcasting either- her remaining drone simply falls to the floor as she pulls her energy out of it, redirecting the mana to crudely forcing her body to move like a puppet.

     Her legs go slack, leaving her full two thousand pounds of weight to pull on Reinhardt's throat in a desperate attempt to choke him into unconsciousness. The various status lights across her body go dark as all power is pulled from non-essential systems, and her core flickers erratically as its glow intensifies to meet the power draw. This has to be it...

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Reinhardt chokes and gasps, trying to keep his air where it should be. It's not easy, but he eventually manages one last headbutt at Septette to knock her off of him. "RRRRR!!!" His hands scramble and claw frantically to get ahold of Septette, and if he does get a hand on her, he grabs and tries to pry her off of his back and neck, and toss her like a rag doll.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    "Panicked. Thank you, thank you Ms. Armadia!" Seft calls out from the cockpit of the chaotic vehicle. Old power systems come to life! Engines roar, thrusters shine, and manufacturing systems finally come back online, after months of inactivity. George makes it to the control center from his stop, and only barely manages to stay out of sight of a screaming predatory fight between Biteblade and Laura while he nervously works the controls of the auto-assembly system, helping complement and reinforce Tesla's work.

    They'd rather take the facility, capture it to use it as a launch platform, but that's becoming less and less viable as the heroes force them to retreat or surrender. Thankfully, with both the auto-assembly systems and Tesla's own technopathy, they're able to make up the advantage by a little less than half.

    Seft's vocal tone is actually weirdly neutral. "Frantic. Allies are becoming increasingly at risk. Septette, Albert, and Biteblade will require extraction, and we cannot maintain control of the center." The cargo loading entrance of the ship opens a fresh airlock, bringing a large ramp down. "Urgent. Please make your escape immediately." Her voice calls out over radios.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Pavo is actually... Pretty intimidated by that. "Y-ye mad creature!" She launches her grappling hook back towards her ship, using it to launch and pseudo-fly up through the air, while Moonfin blips and blinks towards it... Barely keeping his teleportation stable as he does. He needs to get out FAST.

    Did they expect Leyanne Mace not to pursue? No, it seems not. That's why Pavo seemingly left a small bomb -- with a little fuse and everything! -- near Tiny's feet. Always with the sleight of hand, those damn pirates.

Leyanne Mace has posed:
Leyanne Mace only notices the bomb when her foot nudges it. She looks down and sags slightly, just before the device detonates, launching the 500lb mouse across the tarmac. She bounces a few times before rolling to a stop on her back, with a soft exhalation.
"Ow..." she mutters... OK, she's out of this fight.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Albert's weakened, damaged body is now pulverized by the nonlethal magical shots. There's really not a lot to say here. His armor's so damaged and absent in several places that the magic surges through with ease, brutalizing the monkey-man inside, and just cleanly knocking him right the heck out. He's blasted off his feet and onto the ground by the barrage of orbs; only seconds later, Pavo swings by on a grappling line attached above and yanks his heavy form towards their ship. "Hell's skies, matey yer a heavy son of a... Sorry lass! I be takin' this one back with ME!"

Tesla Armadia (368) has posed:
"Duely noted," Tesla replies. "Saiga, status?"

There's a few soldering sparks and the shinki sticks her head out of the console. "I've patched enough to be mobile at least."

"Good enough." Tesla started to shut down the machinery once the final components are on their way to Seft's ship, and return to the main cockpit. Puts one hand to her temple. She's not in direct control of the Gremlynx swarms, but she can still give commands to their neural network via her technopathy. Which is to simply switch off their self-preservation protocols. "See to it Septette can withdraw."

Six of the small creatures aruptly snap to attention, followed by screams that could just as well be LEROOOOY JENKINS!!!1!1!! if it wasn't entirely gibberish as they rush in and try to mob the massive German. Their tiny forms and tools aren't going to do much to his armor. They're just a distraction for him to squash so his opponent can slip away.

Meanwhile Tesla turns her attention back to her own vehicle, revving it up once the rest of her followers have climbed in and starts to drive away.

Septette Arcubielle (632) has posed:
     The headbutt snaps Septette's head backwards, jostling her and snapping something in her neck but not weakening her grip. For the first time this fight, she lets out a primal, staticky scream- not of pain, but of raw, vicious defiance. She fights Reinhardt's grasping hands with every ounce of strength; his attempts to pry her off draw deep, sizzling gouges across his armor as she instinctively digs in deeper, even trying to ruin his remaining thrusters and damage the helmet's visor. Then the order to retreat comes over the radio.

     In an instant, Septette's tactics change drastically. She goes from clinging on with near-berserker ferocity, to instead twisting and guiding Reinhardt's struggles carefully by adjusting her center of balance. Her grip finally relaxes, and even kicks off of his body for extra momentum when he throws her- directly through a nearby wall, out of the facility, and over a cliff.

     There are only a few seconds before she hits bottom. A few seconds are enough. She produces an Ariadne's Thread from her pack, yanks it taut, and dissolves into glittering energy instants before she would have struck the ground below.

     "Septette extracted. Good luck to the rest of you."

Reaper has posed:
WHAM! The knee connects to the mask, jerking Reaper's head back. Small cracks appearing along the edge of that hardened, sterile thing - it's designed to take a beating, after all. But rather than jerk back as expected, Gabriel - Reaper - shoves -FORWARD-. Intending to get a hand under Jack's good leg and force him to the ground. Where Reaper can hammer with metal gauntlet fists.

"Oh, yes. Because I'm one to light a fucking fuse in the building -while I'm still in it-. I -.. he was doing what was necessary." It almost sounded like Gabe. Almost, but for the voice croaking like it was forever on the edge of a scream, reverberating. And then the sound darkens, the bass kicking back in. Reaper settling back into his bad guy headspace.
"But I'm not here to rehash old tales, Jack. I'm here to -finish yours-. And then I'll bury the rest of your ghosts - one. By. One." He always did talk too much.

Reimu Hakurei (972) has posed:
     Rather than just stay behind like a smart person would, Reimu actually begins to fly directly after the shuttle. Her eyebrows furrow as she immediately begins to unleash another barrage of needles directly at Seft's ship, specifically, at the crew currently in the hanger. Her eyebrows furrow down and she begins to frown,

     "If you think you're getting away from me, you've got another thing coming!"

     It's pretty clear that the needles have no chance of piercing through the hull of the shuttle. Holy power can only do so much, but that's never really stopped Reimu from trying anyway.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    "Hhhahghhhaahaghaghah!! Hahahaghgghhgahga, hahhg hahaghhagha hagag hhhaghah hhahga -- hahhgghag -- ghhhaghagha, hhahahg hahggha!!" Biteblade shouts articulately, in intense pain. Biteblade managed to lean just slightly back, enough for the blade to emerge about from her brow, gushing more of that awful sap. She's in an outrageous amount of pain from the wound, and pretty desperate to do a proper Predator's Escape. That is to say, wound the other animal enough to get their claws out, and then escape!

    She grasps the offending wrist with one heavy claw, then PLUNGES her remaining dagger into the offending elbow while biting on the wrist, intending to sever every involved nerve and many involved tendons. Well, that's not true, precisely. She wanted to sever the whole arm, but Laura's superhuman constitution prevented that. She yanks her head back and away from the claw... And it looks like that gulp of meat helped. Her own inbuilt regeneration can't restore the wound, but it can close it and make it less horribly lethal. It's not even close to Laura's powerful regeneration, but it's at least another part of their strange mirror.

    And then she darts away, leaping onto the roof of the shuttle that the Starbound Flotilla now call home. "Ghhhh ghhhh ghhhh!!" She calls out. Telling them to go, probably? Oh shit, this puts her right in the line of fire of Reimu's magic! One of those needles skewers her right to the hull. "Hhhhhuuuuuhh! Verrrheh meeenh! Florah trrrh to ruh awah heerh!"

Staren has posed:
    Reimu can go EVEN FASTER! How can Staren possibly hit her with anything? Maybe he needs to stop messing around with missiles...

    But shooting her will be a problem while he's assailed by violet danmaku orbs! He tries to dodge, the orbs now tearing through the forcefield...

    On the bright side, as long as she's kept busy, someone's accomplishing the mission, right?

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Septette is extracted, and Reinhardt's been stalled. Once he realizes the reason as to why she did this, he does swing his hammer around at the Gremlin bots. They mob him, trying in vain to stab at his bits, only for Reinhardt to send each of them flying, tossing some and smashing others with his hammer like a golf club.

    Eventually, he runs out of things to smash, and he slumps over. "I'm too old for this..." He mutters under his breath, sighing raggedly.

Sombra has posed:
    It's time to withdraw. Sure, the Flotilla doesn't have all they need yet, but this is a start. With this data Sombra will be able to get them the rest either way, so it's better to retreat now before they suffer major losses. The defenders are not to be underestimated. Let's see if she can do something about it...

    A signal is sent out in the area, aimed to all channels save for the one that Sombra has set up for her allies. A signal that will cause a loud noise on any active channels. Perhaps it will give her allies an opening if their opponents are distracted for a few seconds. But alas, Reaper... he's still fighting Jack and not about to pull away. So maybe she should try something else... Opening up the private channel she and her fellow Talon agent use, Sombra makes her voice as sweet as possible.

    "Gabrieliiiiitooooo~" The hacker can't help but smirk for herself. "Me and Senor Sleepy Bear think you should go home right now, you can play with Jackie boy laaaaater."

Laura Kinney (1111) has posed:
Laura Kinney cries out herself, half rage, half pain, as a combination of teeth, claws, and knives leave her left arm hanging limp, and her right one hanging on by a few strands of muscle and tendon. Not able to apply any more pressure with har arms, she sags backwards, landing on the ground with a thud and a wet sucking sound as her claws pull free of the plant alien. She lies on the ground, breathing heavily for a few moments. Okay... Left arm... This shouldn't take /too/ much strength yet... She manages to bring her hand to her stomach, pulling out the six inches or so of dagger still inside her, before tossing it off to one side with a clatter. Staggering to her feet, she looks down at her right arm again, rolling her still healing left shoulder a bit. That... Needs some work. Lifting it up so the stump sits about where it should, she holds the edges as best as she could as she slowly heads for where her ride home is, all the claws that still had intact nerves and muscle havingg retracted. And then her earpiece screeches with the harsh buzz of a wide spectrum jammer, and Laura almost stumbles, muttering something under her breath. No one liners here, sadly.

Reimu Hakurei (972) has posed:
     Reimu was still trying to continue the woefully inadequate assault on the Flotilla. It was honestly quite amusing to see that her usual aggressive attitude wasn't working for once. The needles just kept bouncing off of the hull of the ship, but she was still determined to keep firing out of sheer insanity. After all, most of her problems were normally solved by shooting everything down, so maybe it'll work with enough firing.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    The Flotilla craft lifts off of the assembly platform, rising up. It swings low, offering a chance for Staren to leap into the craft, a swing past Reaper if Sombra can yell at him enough, with the door open enough for the misty man to swoop inside, and then, they take off, blasting through the door of the hangar and knocking over lesser craft on their way out.

    They rush out, up above the hill line... And then over the horizon. And yet, not up into space. No, not where Numbani Space Center can detect them, or where they can be followed or pursued. They're staying on the surface of this planet, it seems. But why? What's their plan? It's not clear. Something's going to happen... Later, though. Not now. For now, they're going to find a staging area, set up a little techfort to rest in, and try to recover. That was a hell of a raid... And yet...

    They're back. They've got what they need to survive now.

Soldier 76 (1120) has posed:
The blow to the leg knocks Jack off balance, and sends him sprawling to the floor. Jack doesn't believe for a second that Gabe didn't betray him, but him so vehemently denying the bvomb...It'll need further investigation. But not right now.

From the ground, 76 is quick to move again, diving towards one of Reaper's feet, but it's a feint, as he turns around to grab the ghost by the head, and haul him through the air and slam his face and mask into the ground, as well as bringing his neck down across his bicep

Reaper has posed:
The fist pauses - a hesitation that will cost Reaper a lot as his masked face suddenly turns to the side. The voice that comes crawling in its skin saying a single word. Two syllables. The second one held and slowly getting louder.

"Som-braaaaAAAAAAA!"

Which is when he snaps his attention back to Jack, jerking his leg out of the way. Still too fast, J-*HRK*. Oh. Feint. The Lord of Edges is SLAMMED face first into the ground, faint -pings- of metal sprung away from the sterile bone white thing screwed into his forehead. His spine compressing as momentum catches up to him, breath hissing from his mask. And then he feels the familiar feel of a bicep across his neck. Oh, he remembers this pose. Face down with an arm around his neck. Usually this would be the end of it, as the two fought until blood - or unconsciousness - during training. A strained sound - laughter? But it's not one of pleasure, it's something snarky turned hideous. And he's ghosting again, a black smoke that wafts up and away - following the crack in the door. And the exit of the Flotilla. Perhaps he realized he'd be in over his head, with all the heroes on deck and his own support withdrawing. Perhaps Sombra pissed him off enough to draw the rapid dog off of it's focus on Jack. Perhaps he just likes leaving things unresolved.

Perhaps he's just a jerk. Definitely the fourth.

Soldier 76 (1120) has posed:
Damnit. He's getting away again. But that initial blow that he took from Tersla's blast is starting to catch up to him. He drops to a knee and watches as Reaper retreats, but the name he calls out, well, it's hard to miss.

"Of course she was involved.." He mutters, as he clutches one hand over his chest. He's gonna need to take some time to heal that up, that's for sure.