823/Forsberg Gallery Raid

Forsberg Gallery Raid
Date of Scene:	18 October 2014
Location:	Brockton Bay
Synopsis:	Things don't always go according to plan.
Cast of Characters:	12, 20, 73, 353, 513, 518, Zero Kiryu, 554, 569, 587, 590

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Armsmaster (554) has posed:
BROCKTON BAY
EVENING

    The Forsberg Gallery is twenty-six stories tall and is, with the exception of the Protectorate HQ, perhaps the most recognisable building in Brockton Bay. Tonight, the top floor of the gallery is home to rich, powerful and influential people of Brockton Bay. It is a celebration of the Protectorate, for all the hard work they have done and will do in the future. There are people in suits, fancy dress - and more than a few people in cape costumes, although they are clustered by the stage at the back of the room. The tickets for this little event ahd gotten up to four hundred dollars a piece.

     Just near the stage is seemingly the entire local Protectorate team. Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Assault, Battery, Velocity and Triumph. Dauntless, it seems, is nowhere to be seen.

     Nearby, there's a table for the Wards, the under eighteen heroes. Clockblocker, Vista, Gallant and Shadow Stalker. There's plenty of other kids talking and mingling with them - teen actors, sons and daughters of local politicians.

     At the front of the room, armed with weapons that look very much like flamethrowers, is the on-duty PRT squad ("Just in case," Armsmaster had said). Their uniforms look like a mixture of chain mesh and kevlar, augmented with faceless helmets, identifiable only through the digits printed on the front of their uniforms.

     And there are many, many civilians, all in their finest clothes and jewelery, all mingling and laughing and unaware of what is about to happen. There's the Mayor, over there, chatting with the Barnes family.

     The only indication that something might be amiss is that Armsmaster has his Halberd on his back.

Toph Beifong (20) has posed:
    Parties. The bane of her existence. Still, she had promised to help out, and Toph Beifong does /not/ go back on a promise. Armsmaster might live up to his nickname of Assmaster at times, but then he shows that he's actually got morals... it makes stuff complicated. So the blind earthbender is here, though of course Jarvis had to kindly 'remind' her that showing up in her usual clothes of choice would not be appropriate for a party, not to mention make her stand out. So after some brief bickering, Toph had enough and done a quick costume change.

    The young teenager is standing by the groups of teenagers, though she isn't actively interacting with them. Instead she has found her way to the refreshment tables and opted to partake of some of the snacks there, still trying to get used to the dark blue dress she's wearing. Since Pepper got it for her it's not that bad, and it's not scratchy. At least it's not chilly here, but the white scarf she's got draped over her arms does help a little. Her hair is put up in a bun like usual with a white scarf keeping it in place, though her bangs do appear to have been tamed, kept in place with hairpins instead of obscuring most of her face.

    Oh well, at least she's ready. Armsmaster did get his whole team here, didn't he? But still, it's best to keep low for now and not draw attention to herself. If something does happen, it's easier to handle it if the troublemakers don't know about all of them, right?

Finna (513) has posed:
    'Be there,' huh?

    Oh, Finna's here alright! Just not in the way that Armsmaster probably expected.

    Someone's managed to get in that was never properly invited. Indeed, that never talked to any guards or welcoming parties, never signed the guest list... she was just simply there one moment, and nobody blinked at it.

    Well, some might've blinked. This is a room full of superheroes after all, but what's one more rich family's daughter to over a dozen of them?

    With her hair done up in an exotic sort of ponytail, and garbed in an elegant blue dress, Finna's somehow managed to entirely blend into the crowd. Even the capes are gonna find it really hard to spot her Tell through all of this!

    For whatever reason, the illusion that keeps her fox ears and tail from view has grown even stronger.

    If your ALLIES don't even know you're here, your enemies sure won't.

    And she's fairly sure that Armsmaster wouldn't send such a message unless he was pulling something.

Bitter Medicine (569) has posed:
     One of the guests for the event is an unusually pale man. He hasn't bothered to dress up--or has he? A Regulator uniform, the same one he always wears. It's a snappy thing of sleek lines and menacing leather, conveying an image of power and authority. His badge is missing, as are his eyeliner and his earrings. In keeping with the cape theme, he's wearing the classic black facemask anyone with a passing familiarity of superhero fashion can admire.

     It's not his style to try and sneak into a place, so he strides confidently up to Armsmaster. "Armsmaster," he says. In plain view of everyone, he holds his hands out as if ready to accept handcuffs. The message is clear. He's going to help, whether it's wanted or not.

Frederica (73) has posed:
    Frederica LOVES parties, of course. Having lived nearly her entire life as a shut-in, getting out and mingling with fascinating people is wonderful. She is (perhaps surprisingly) a wallflower, however. Fear of rejection makes her seek out a sheltered place, somewhere she can be seen and perhaps approached, but somewhere she doesn't have to approach others and face their possible disinterest.

    In fact FireFox, dressed up in 'costume' like so many others, hangs around near but not quite WITH the teenage tables. A kid at heart, she identifies better with teenagers than with stuffy adults. She doesn't really fit in though. In addition to her poise, it's pretty obvious some definite money went into her costume. It's not cheap fabric poorly draped, but well-fitted and with the characteristic heft of quality... possibly even of modern armour. Certainly not chain mesh, but possibly ballistic gel underlay.

    It's not clear, unless one already knows, whether Frederica is a 'cape' or whether she's just a socialite pretending to be one for the party. She does get some attention however, and of course she HAS appeared on the local news at least once. She's not hanging out with the protectorate adults however, though she's met several of them.

Taylor Hebert (587) has posed:
Meanwhile, on a nearby rooftop!

The UNDERSIDERS are being paid HUGE BUCKS by their employer to ruin this gala. All they need to do is embarass the heroes, scare the civilians, and then get out without being arrested.

Though, with the Protectorate having Multiversal allies, it doesn't hurt for the Undersiders to have such too. Posting something up on public boards did the trick, getting a couple callers who both want to make money and also ruin some fancy schmancy party.

The Undersiders themselves are a group of five, plus three canines, grown to the size of rhinos and covered in bone, flesh, and muscle, all over the place. The Undersiders are each on top of a dog, with Skitter in her black bodysuit and mask, Grue in his bike leathers and darkness-mask, Regent with that weird king thing he has going on, Tattletale and her form-fitting outfit, and then Bitch with..street clothes and a dollar store rottweiler mask. Bitch is riding Angelica, with Skitter on her back, whilst Tattletale and Regent are riding Judas. Grue's on Brutus, though there's room for another ally to ride alongside him if needed.

And then, when the signal is given via radio, the dogs leap forward with their superstrong paws, towards the gallery and onto the walls. They climb up to the glass window ceiling..

*CRASH!*

The dogs smash down through the glass, straight onto a table which is destroyed in the landing. The Undersiders, minus Bitch, dismount from their dogs..and stand around, looking from civilian to civilian, hero to hero.

It's game time.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    An additional presence idles by Skitter.

    Though unseen, spiritual or magical senses can perceive that where one stands, two are present. The wavering, transparent image of a knight, invisible to the naked eyes, fully incorporeal.

    It would be impossible to make out its size, armor or even weapon while in this form, but it is definitely there, walking calmly with the Undersider.

    The knight still isn't sure what pushed it to this agreement. Boredom? It was probably that. The treatment this girl gets on the Broadband? Probably that too. The knight can't argue, it's trying to be more knightly. Stuff it, Bedivere, it found a damsel to shield today, one that's getting the rough end of the stick publicly.

    And the knight agreed not to kill if it could help it, too.

    That's pretty rare.

Bain (590) has posed:
    Coming in quick after the Undersiders, there's a set of rolling machines! Good god, there have to be several dozen of these compact, quick robots, rolling in FAST AND HARD, streaming in too quick for warning. Most make to smash down the front door, while a dozen of the Crew and a pair of Elite Crew drop from above, slamming into the ground heavily and with a rough CRASH!

    The Crew of Bainbots here today is what they always are; humanoid machines, clearly disposable and clearly initially designed for industrial work. The majority are formed from tough-looking, blocky, squared-off shapes, colored in gunmetal grays and blacks, with unpleasant and graceless design meant for machines that you'd never expect to see mass-produced, and mechanisms with the look of construction or transport purposes. Their loadouts are simple; variable-payload kinetic rifles and sidearms, and often large, hefty stun batons the size and weight of baseball bats that crackle and arc with electric charge. Their movements are jerky and machine-like, clearly automated drones.

    Among them, one can find a small collection of Elite Crew. These are marked with much, much sturdier, sleek builds, more comprehensive armor, colored trim in caution-yellow stripes, and most notably... Masks!

    Five Elite Crew are deployed today, distinguished by their masks. VOLT bears the mask of a mutated human with harsh boils in a pattern around his cheeks and eyes. PROFESSOR WRATH has his namesake represented via mask, a green-skinned, angry human with slicked-back black hair and glowing geometric markings on his face. CROW GOBLIN bears a yellow-skinned goblin mask with a ragged purple hood and a wide grin that seems to have torn past a mouth intended to be stitched closed. BLACK DEATH bears skin flushed with a dark purple color, wrinkled and mutated, encased around his face in a metal brace-like helmet, especially at the chin and jaw. And COMMANDER CRIME bears a rather simplistic mask that looks like dark cloth draped over an uncanny human head.

    Anyone who knows their comics well would know that these are supervillains from the OVERKILL Comic Universe in Earth-145. Bain might be a bit of a nerd.

    Regardless, they're smashing through. The pair of Elite Crew, COMMANDER CRIME and CROW GOBLIN, have arrived from above with the group. CROW GOBLIN immediately releases a payload of CONCUSSION GRENADES, intending to stun much of the less-than-Elite partygoers and draw a lot of attention, and keep anyone from following evacuation orders effectively. Then Bain's voice can be heard, as if over a radio. "Alright, chumps!" COMMANDER CRIME suddenly begins moving in a much more human fashion, taking a step forward and leveling his kinetic energy rifle (set to stun. RELUCTANTLY) at the PRT with the flamethrowers, going back-to-back with the Undersiders briefly. "All of you go ahead and point a gun at me, let's make this happen!" While CROW GOBLIN is busy trying to stun the party, COMMANDER CRIME and the non-elite Crew immediately begin a volley of bruising, stunning kinetic blasts towards the PRT, trying to stun them from this side so they won't be able to defend against the rest of the Crew rolling in through the front doors.

Laer (353) has posed:
    Also coming in behind the Undersiders isn't Laer. Laer isn't coming, because she's standing in the street nearby, waiting a few minutes before she plans to be making her own way into the party. This isn't to say, of course, that the bard isn't doing something. She hadn't wanted to alert people nearby to anything being wrong prior to moving on the party, and so she has a little preparation work to do before striking up and at it.

    Which is to say, at the moment she's standing in the middle of the street, undoubtedly attracting attention as she sings and holds what appears to be a very large tooth in one hand, her head bowed for the moment in concentration. This may be irritating enough to those around her, but as she starts to break out in red scales, they're likely to leave her be.

Bain (590) has posed:
    One of Bain's crew has deposited a PRESENT CASE on the ground before going to work. It's marked on info-feeds for Laer, Skitter, and Mordred. Within are several MASKS. Laer can go grab hers in her human form later, if she likes, and Mordred and Skitter amid the battle whenever they want.

    Laer's mask is the DRACO, a brilliant crimson-skinned reptile face clearly styled after a dragon. There are little decorative pyrotechnics that she can trigger around the jaws.
    Mordred gets the BLOOD KNIGHT, a harsh-looking metal knightly helm with a vicious jaw cut into the lower half, dripping with blood decals!
    Skitter gets a remake of the TARANTULA mask, with the four superhero-like eye-masks torn up and a long scar down two of the eyes.

Armsmaster (554) has posed:
     Whatever Armsmaster is about to say to Bitter Medicine is lost in the cacophony of the Undersiders arriving through the skylight. Immediately, people begin to panic. Armsmaster's Halberd is in his hands immediately and the Protectorate capes ready themselves - Miss Militia's energy coalesces around her body to form a handgun, Battery begins to glow, and the others get ready for a fight. The Protectorate Response Team, with their foam-spraying weapons, steps up and-

     Is immediately intercepted by the masked Bainbots. As a gun is pointed their way, they bring up their containment foam weapons and immediately open fire. Thick strands of yellow-white foam, designed to contain any supervillain, goes towards the Overkill crew and towards the Undersiders, but they promptly come under fire and much of their foam probably goes wide - and probably right onto some of the panicking civilians who, in the aftermath of the concussion grenades, end up slathered in it! The foam hardens around those it hits, encasing them, preventing them from moving while still remaining permeable for oxygen. Dragontech is great stuff.

     Armsmaster barks out a surrender order, which is promptly refused. And so Battery kicks Assault in the chest, who redirects the kinetic energy of her super strength to send himself /flying/ towards the Bainbots as she leaps to follow him. Triumph appears to be directing the confused evacuation that is rapidly becoming a severe problem. Miss Militia and Velocity move upon the Undersiders, slowly, carefully, to avoid running into any of the scared party-goers.

     And, after a moment, Armsmaster follows, Halberd held in both hands, and a frown that goes far beyond his usual disapproval etched on his face.

Frederica (73) has posed:
    Frederica is quick to react to the first breaking glass. She's no fighter, not in the sense of one who survives by speed and skill at least. Still, one thing she does have going for her is the ability to enhance her reactions in a crisis.

    Flying glass doesn't particularly bother her. Aside from the risk of superficial cuts, there's no way it can easily pass her armour. She's about to react, about to launch a quick strike, when more enemies roll in and draw her attention.

    Dogs are one thing, but enemies throwing explosive weapons are another matter entirely. Frederica's spared the most damaging effects of the concussion grenades by covering her ears and averting her eyes. Accelerated reactions gave her plenty of time, so to speak. Raising her head once again, she takes a moment to assess. She's quick, but she lacks the experience of the Protectorate team and the luxury of purely nonlethal weaponry. She has to use her head instead. This, unfortunately, takes moments when she could otherwise be trying to evacuate civilians, strike down foes, or perhaps draw attacks from civilian targets.

    When she does act however, it's fairly blatant and probably draws plenty of notice. Fire shoots out of her, arcing and spinning around her in a tight series of comet-like balls flailing about in chaotic patterns meant to be a close-range defense. "I'm afraid I don't have a gun to point at you." she says, grinning maliciously. "I suppose this will have to do." she says, lifting one hand and spraying a blast of small firebolts at Commander Crime, with a few more hurtled towards some of the giant dogs. If they're beasts, she figures, maybe she can panic them with fire. Not that the flames are lethally strong. They'll hurt, and quite probably hurt a LOT, but she's not here to incinerate anyone. Hopefully.

Finna (513) has posed:
    Sooooo Finna, all dressed up and probably UTTERLY unrecognizable with the hairdo change, suppressed tell, and highly refined manner and clothing? She is having a blast. There's foods and weird people around, and you know what's fun?

    Eating lots of the former, fooling all the latter. Nobody has paid much attention to her presence...

    But oh, she hears the commotion a few moments before it happens. If anyone's paying much attention, they'll see she's tensing... mere moments before...

    ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.

    Glass scatters everywhere, a table full of food's reduced to splinters! Dogs everywhere, villains dismounting...

    She whirls about to face them, showing a seemingly genuine bewildered look. Well, okay, she IS surprised, but she WAS expecting SOMETHING to happen. So half of that surprise is faked! As is the fear as the weapons start coming out and -

    BOOOOOOOOOOM.

    Concussion grenades! that's a new one. Finna gets the stuffing knocked out of her by one that lands pretty close by. She's blown clear off her feet and tumbles back, slams messily into a table and tears chunks of her skirt on the broken shards. "Owwwwie ow ow..."

    Then, the young woman clambers to sit up. She looks around with widening, panicking eyes, and...

    "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

    SCREAMS BLOODY MURDER. While flailing her arms ineffectually and scrambling around in no real direction.

    That's not really so unusual, is it? Lots of people are probably screaming. All the non-Elite partygoers are likely scrambling to get the heck out of here. And screaming.

    It just so happens that this woman's scream is hitting frequencies that humans cannot hear. But dogs and many other creatures sure will be able to hear it. And it will be like a thousand nails fired from a machinegun across a chalkboard.

    Finna has no intention of revealing herself just yet.

Bitter Medicine (569) has posed:
     Well. He's not going to be cuffed? No matter--he can wait until after they apprehend the Undersiders. The Alchemical is the exact opposite of Finna. Subtlety is not Bitter Medicine's forte, especially not when one adversary has sent in a small squadron of automata. Decent construction on those. If they weren't being used for illicit gains, he'd shoot the creator a compliment.

     The biggest threat here isn't the automatons, though those rifles do hurt like a son of a bitch. The biggest threat isn't the three rhino-sized dogs, the girl who can control them, or even the girl who can have the entire place swarming with stinging, poisonous insects. All of those threats can be taken out, provided the PRT has one thing--vision.

     With that in mind, Bitter Medicine grabs a long banquet table and swings it like a giant, unwieldy baseball bat, aiming for Grue even as shots from Bain's automatons slam against him and through his makeshift weapon. Turkey, little hotdogs, salad, punch and crab rangoon go flying haphazardly through the air.

Toph Beifong (20) has posed:
    Not bad food at this party, huh? Toph is standing by the refreshment tables when she suddenly blinks and tenses, feeling /something/ sending vibrations out throughout the building and getting closer and closer... what the...?!

    As the dogs climb up the glass window and then crash in, Toph uses her left hand to raise a cover against the glass shards as they rain down around her, her eyes wide. "What the CRUD?!" What kinda animals are that? Giant wolfbats or something? What grabs her attention more though are all the robots that enter next, and the blind girl can't help but snort, and when the concussion grenades are thrown they force Toph to step up against the impromptu barrier she made, keeping her hand on it to keep it together. Yet the moment she hears their commander's voice, Toph can't help but tense up, her eyes widening in surprise, her right hand tightening its grip on the plate.

    There is no way she forgets a voice, and especially not /that/ voice.

    There's no warning as she punches into the curved barrier, destroying it as several sharp rocks are sent towards the bots, aimed at their heads. And while the blind girl might not be recognizable as she's clean and wearing a dress, her voice is similar, both in tone and how she speaks. "Too bad, you guys crashed the wrong party...!" It's not often that Toph looks mad, but tonight is one of those times as she throws her plate aside and cracks her knuckles.

    Oh, she will help out all right. And perhaps get some personal justice at the same time.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    The beautiful night is beutiful and a night and flowery flowery flowery purple prose words. And, perched across the way, looking in almost boredly at the PRT party from a roof, is a girl with short-cut, pale purple hair, and huge, red dinnerplate-sized eyes.

    "So, I wonder if anything will happen tonight, Mourning..." She wonders before...

    Well, before the whole thing goes to shit. Explosions happen. The Crew and Elite Crew from Bain drop in. Concussion grenades go off. And, sliding a butterfly half-mask over her eyes and nose, 'Ruri' grins at 'Mourning Cloak'.

    And then she stands up, extending her hand. "Come on, then." She offers, with a big dorky smile to her companion, as her hair-matching purple dress flutters in the night air.

    And she stands there.

    Her smile dims. "Well fine. Get there yourself. Jerk." She grumbles, before she dissipates into a cloud of butterflies starting from her right side and swiftly to her left, fluttering over towards the PRT building and settling around the roof or fluttering down.

    Yuuki is not really thinking about her powers, at the moment, as her familiar-form flutters into Taylor's range... There's probably some odd interaction with powers.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Red and blue wisps of mana, like colored gusts of wind, coalesce in front of Grue, as the table flung in his direction suddenly gets bisected in half, the two chunks passing to either of his sides harmlessly for now. As the magic finally finishes gathering, the knight appears, sword tip against the ground from the downward swing to cut the table.

    The knight's appearance is distorted; its height anywhere between five and six feet. It's hard to tell, something's intentionally messing with people looking at it. The color of the armor shifts with the lighting of the room, and the sword, although obviously two-handed, is held in one.

    The helmet twists and contorts, reshaping itself after the BLOOD KNIGHT MASK that Bain gave the knight. The armor takes a dark red hue as a result.

    But the knight does not stay in place, and immediatly dashes back to Skitter's side, crossing the distance like a blur and interposing itself between the incoming Capes and their targets. "I can't guarantee I can keep all harm from you and your crew, but if you have someone in particular you want held back I can guarantee they won't reach you," the knight says, its voice as distorted as its appearance. Male? Female? Young, old? Hard to tell.

    The knight raises one foot, and suddenly slams it into the ground. The concrete fractures immediatly, blood red geysers of magic bursting from the cracks, headed straight for Miss Militia and Velocity. It's mostly kinetic force and a bit of heat, not lethal unless you intentionally hug it with your face and no superpowers whatsoever.

Zero Kiryu has posed:
    "It's already happening." Mourning Cloak answers, and though beneath it all it's Zero Kiriyu, he doesn't really resemble himself very much. His clothing has been replaced with a costume, which itself was supplied with a false identity. Mourning Cloak is a japanese hero, whose presence here in Armsmaster's territory is... recent, at best. His background is plausibly falsified and, for all intents and purposes, a paper trail exists. The costume itself is heavily masked by a great cloak that he wears, which bears a very distinct pattern.

    The cloak is primarily brownish-red, trimmed with a murky black stripe filled with tiny pools of violet, and further trimmed on the outer edge with pale yellow. Underneath his clothing is thoroughly covering, but more resembles the sort of practical equipment used by special ops. His weapons are stored carefully on his person, primarily consisting of a single katana and a length of wire. Further concealed, even than that, is Bloody Rose. Underneath all of those layers thorned vines wind around his body, forming a protective armor that isn't visible above his upper layers. His face is covered with a plain white mask.

    Ruri offers him a ride, and he becomes visibly uncomfortable at the idea. He doesn't decline exactly, but he ends up being called a jerk anyway. It doesn't seem to bother him at all, and he ends up following after to the adjacent rooftop with a running jump. It's good enough, and easy enough. Flying is safer, but he can do this much.

    Unfortunately, it IS slower. By the time Mourning Cloak/Zero has approached the edge of the skylight and looked down into the situation below, Yuuki has already advanced well ahead of him. This elicits an exasperated sigh from the vampire hunter, but he doesn't bother rushing after her. She'll be just fine for the moment.

Taylor Hebert (587) has posed:
In Bain's present case..something is moving around in there. Skitter requested a box be put inside for travel reasons..and now, that box is about to open! BUGS! BUGS FOR EVERYONE!

A swarm flees from the present case..and fly straight at Velocity, attempting to land onto and swarm him, as Taylor moves that way to get closer to him. But, Taylor's bugs jitter a bit in movement. She's locked onto the nearby butterflies..and they're messing with her right now. She quickly cuts her connection with them, focusing on her swarm alone, though this is somewhat startling for her.

On request, Grue is tossing a burst of darkness straight at the Protectorate units spraying foam, before, on Tattletale's request, firing it at the civilians (and the heroes escorting them). Blindness, deafness, weird sense of touch, and strange things with signals follows for all who enter it, but Elites are likely to have lessened effects. And Toph's immune to part of it! But then, a table is swinging at him, something he can't exactly deal with. LUCKILY, he's white knighted! Mordred is totally the most chivalrous knight of all.

As fire flies at her dogs, Brutus and Judas take a hard hit, but their endurance allows them to keep going. A shout of "Judas, hurt her!" from Bitch sends Judas charging at Frederica, possibly able to get a bite in or too until suddenly, he begins howling, as do Brutus and Angelica. Something's messing with their hearing, as Bitch can probably be heard cursing /very loudly/. She's trying to calm Angelica at this point, being her mount, but isn't being very successful.

Tattletale moves to a corner..and draws a gun. She's pointing it at Toph, since she has little to do other than observe shit and snark at people and give out information as she sees it. She's totally vulnerable, though.

Regent, on the other hand, is moving towards Miss Militia; and raising a hand, swinging his arm in an attempt to trip her to the ground. His other hand has his tazer-scepter in it, which he attempts to get close to Miss Militia in order to shock her. Though he is definitely attempting to dodge Mordred's blasts, too. Those aren't fun.

Bain (590) has posed:
    The CREW manages to mostly evade much of the foam, and what little they can't, they seem to not mind by virtue of being completely inhuman! Some of them are stuck where they are, and yet, continue to fire in a machine way, gunning to smash the PRT troops with kinetic blasts to take them off their feet and knock them unconscious.

    COMMANDER CRIME is abruptly no longer acting particularly human, but still continues opening fire! Bain has assumed direct control of VOLT now, instead, who leaps gracefully and human-like ahead of his Bainbots to intercept the capes going after him! VOLT goes off his feet, stunned, but the robot grapples with the first of the pair, trying to slam the electrified baton against him and press it into his body, trying to stun him severely, maybe knock him out? Then he tries to toss him headlong into the path of Laer, doing whatever Laer intends to do, to force his partner to go after him to help!

    Meanwhile, one of the Crew pulls back from the whole ordeal with the front-row PRT types, hoping that Laer will cover soon. Kneeling down, it begins trying to get a direction for Finna's screams, and feed the data to Bitch, in the Undersiders! Meanwhile, Commander Crime has some of his armor slagged by a volley of fire, and turns his higher-quality kinetic rifle on Frederica in an automated motion, blasting suppressing, kinetic bolts at her.

    Toph manages to catch a lot of attention, though! Several of the Crew have their heads explode when sharp rocks slam through their heads, collapsing to the ground in sparking wrecks. VOLT is on his feet, with the rest of the bots busting in the front now hopefully. Naturally assuming that Laer is about to deal with whatever's at the front of the room, the Bainbot's disengage from their targets all at once, curl up, and begin rolling. They gush forward, moving to cover Bain on his approach to Toph! Focusing on her specifically, apparently! His machines unfold and launch into short-range stunning rifle attacks or baton-strikes, intending to engage her as viscerally as possible, while VOLT dashes in, leaping gracefully over the chaos and trying to land with a heavy strike on Toph, followed up by a flurry of electrified jabs and strikes with his hefty stun baton.

Laer (353) has posed:
    Laer finishes her transformation, and she certainly plans to follow Bain's instructions. Mostly. No killing, no eating people, no going directly after civilians and other such fun-killing directives.

    She's a bit clumsy in flight, actually, more than she is as an elf. This somehow generally makes the giant red dragon more imposing, because even when she's not intending to knock into things she occasional does regardless.

    She'll be coming into the fray, trying to help take over for some of the crew as requested, to attempt to relieve the pressure. She's breathing fire as she comes in, and she's not being particularly watchful of where it goes; hopefully the crew had cleared out of her way! She's going to be disappointed when it turns out some of them are resistant to being on fire, of course, but you can't always have everything.

    Bearing Bain's warning in mind, she'll be doing passes, rather than hovering. Foam sounds like it'll stick in her scales for later.

Armsmaster (554) has posed:
    Velocity is the first cape to fall.

    Super-speed is a grat power to help you dodge an incoming attack, ducking to one side as Mordred shatters the floor of the ballroom and sends a kinetic burst at them. She clips Miss Militia, too, and she stumbles, open for another attack as her green-black energy shifts around her into another weapon. And then Regent intercepts her, driing her to the ground. The taser strikes her, until she brings a heavy green-black baton around to knock the weapon away!

     But as Velocity dodges, he comes under attack from Skitter's swarm. The interesting thing about his power is that the faster he moves, the less he can affect. His hands brush ineffectively at the various bugs and, in moments, he's on the floor, flailing wildly as the bugs sting and bite and take him out of the fight.

     The PRT squad members go next, stunned or downed, as Assault and Battery leap into the fray. Assault slams into Volt, trying to pin him and hammer him with blow after blow and while Assault can channel the kinetic energy of Volt's strike right back into him, it doesn't do much to stop the electrical energy which renders him limp. Assault goes down, unresponsive and thrown across the room to crash into a table, and Battery is off after him.

     As Tattletale draws her gun, the ball and chain of Armsmaster's Halberd - now a flail - streaks out of nowhere to prevent her from using it. It snaps back in to a more reasonable length as Armsmaster goes to interpose himself between Judas and Frederica, swinging the heavy flail in one hand. When it strikes Judas, Armsmaster seemingly aiming for the side of the dog's head, it is like getting hit with a wrecking ball. Either Armsmaster is far stronger than he looks, or he has some sort of kinetic accelerator in that thing.

     In either case, the Protectorate commander doesn't seem like he's screwing around and he's already moving to intercept another target!

Frederica (73) has posed:
    Frederica is, fortunately for her, reasonably well protected. Her costume is finally combat-serviceable, and while it's not ideal for protection from dog bites it's better than nothing. Better than armour however, she has her flame. Judas is going to find out what happens when you bite a flame wielder, one currently orbited by point defense fireballs. First one, then all three balls will smack into the burly dog, delivering more of a kinetic punch than heat, but still with enough heat to cause serious burns.

    FireFox isn't particularly good at dealing with kinetic blasts however. Flamebolts can't block kinetic force, and the girl is smashed hard. The gel underlay of her armour will keep her from suffering major damage just as it kept the worst of the dog bite from penetrating, but she's knocked sprawling and into an undignified scurry for cover.

    Peeking out, kept from moving in the open by suppressing kinetic bursts, Frederica ducks back again. Remarkably effective... anyone doing more than peeking out would probably be knocked silly. She's already silly enough for now and has no desire to get any sillier. Fortunately for her, she doesn't HAVE to. Having a reasonable idea where enemies might be, she lofts a few fireballs over her cover towards the Bainbots. A few little balls of fun scattered where COMMANDER CRIME is, to keep him hopping, a few more at VOLT to try to keep him busy, so Toph can hopefully focus on Bain himself. Again, not particularly deadly blasts of flame here. More little balls of fire that burst on impact, doing most of their damage with concussive force.

Toph Beifong (20) has posed:
    Most of Toph's attention is on the bots, as she doubts that the others would have an easy time handling these, at least not as easily as her. The radio exchange with Bain does leave her slightly conflicted despite the determined and angry expression on her face. This guy nearly killed her supervising officer! But unfortunately for Bain, Toph's worked on perfecting the bending she first learned to do that day.

    And even if it's what he wants, he /needs/ to be stopped. Damn coward.

    When Grue fires out the darkness, Toph does notice something. Her hearing, as sharp as a human ear can possibly be, gets dulled. But her sense of vibration earns a bigger surprise as everything feels... fuzzy. Not that it will stop her from fighting, but still...! Annoyance settles on her face as her brow furrows, and she notices somebody pointing something at her. A gun? Toph raises her foot a bit, then slams her heel down into the floor, raising a small spike underneath Tattletale's hands, intending to knock the gun up and hopefully out of her hands.

    At the same time she raises her arms slightly and assumes a defensive stance as the bots roll forward. Okay, it's on! Toph throws her hands up, raising a wall that she sends flying at some of the bots with a forward pushing motion into the air. The floor is not going to look pretty here after she's done, most likely. With a twist of her hand she focuses on one of the approaching bots by attempting to twist its spine around, though she's forced to deal with Volt as he leaps into action. Toph ducks to the side, eyes wide as she feels the heavy strike graze right next to her torso. As the robot strikes out in succession with the baton she is forced to step back, crying out as some of the jabs hit her arm. But she isn't slow, using one of those backwards steps to launch a spike towards Volt's arm in attempt to stop him long enough as she reaches out. Ugh, whatever is dulling her senses is making this harder. Normally metalbending is nearly as easy for her as earthbending, but it's harder to sense things while it's like this!

    Hopefully it will be enough to do bend Volt's arm out of place and make the bot less dangerous!

Bitter Medicine (569) has posed:
     Interference. Bothersome interference--and then that damn darkness. This is exactly what Bitter Medicine doesn't want to be happening. This isn't going to be another bank incident, not while he's still standing. He's already let Armsmaster down once, and by the Machine God, he's never going to let the cape down again.

     That knight can't be everywhere at once, and Grue can only move in so many directions. Bitter Medicine isn't going to use Voidbane, because killing and maiming is pretty much the only thing it can do. But... a plate is similar enough to a chakram, minus the gyroscopic part. The Alchemical begins dumping food off of the large banquet plates, then throws five pieces of dinnerware in a pattern like the spokes of a wheel, trying to cover Grue's escape and peg him.

     Three platters, a pressure cooker lid, and a plate formerly carrying hors d'oeuvres go flying through the darkness, followed by whatever else the Alchemical can get his hands on, regardless of how aerodynamic they are. Forks, ladles, chairs, broken bits of table (thanks, Mordred!), even a cooked turkey. When there's nothing left for him to throw, he goes rocketing through the darkness, carried by his plasma thrusters, hoping to slam into the Undersider.

Finna (513) has posed:
    Finna's still screaming wildly and flailing through the crowd. The screaming's periodic, as she has to take breaths, but it won't be hard to track her down eventually. The lady is behaving APPROPRIATELY hysterical. Shaking and jittering arms and flailing limbs and no apparent direction to her stumbling around.

    By the look of it, the cerulean-dressed young woman finally seems to get some semblance of coordination going and scrambles across the floor, taking the LONG WAY out of the room. Still hooting and screaming and flailing. The flailing is also not entirely ineffectual, but...

    The way she's knocking things around in a scramble to leave is COINCIDENTALLY(?!?!?!) knocking food tables around.

    Very quickly, the food tables become catapults. Forks and knives and spoons land weirdly and fly in a shotgun pattern towards Grue!

Mordred (12) has posed:
    The warning makes Bain give proper orders.
    One couldn't see it, but Mordred grins wide under the helmet.

    With a burst of speed comparable to Velocity's, the knight all but disappears from Skitter's side and reappears by Regent, her empty hand already reaching to grab ahold of Miss Militia even as she is still being pinned to the ground by Regent. The armored gauntlets vaguely rattle, as the fist tries to lock itself around the Cape's neck, or failing that, one of her arms.

    And then Mordred yanks, with sufficient strength to upturn a car. Not to dismember, but to get the Cape off the floor and cleanly into the air, still being held onto. If she can't free herself...

    The knight is going to smash her into the ground.
    And then the wall.
    And then if anyone tries to get her out, into that person. If there's one thing Mordred is good at, it's being a savage beast. It might or might not show right now.

    Her other arm, still holding onto the large sword, suddenly surges out with bright red light, and the sword is swung downward in Grue's direction. A bright red shockwave of red magic, arcing like lightning, is attempting to intercept the projectiles headed for the Undersider, but her aim's not good enough to get all of them.

Bain (590) has posed:
    That's the third Elite bot in the group, and now, a fourth! The Crew is streaming in steadily, violently, rolling and uncoiling to terrorize the people... BLACK DEATH doesn't seem to have a weapon, that particular Elite Crew seems to have something else entirely. Some kind of industrial paint application mechanism, from the future!

    Amid the chaos, BLACK DEATH will be running around, trying to paint something all over the walls. If one looks closely, they can see, in bright colors:

    "YOU'RE AT THE MERCY OF THE UNDERSIDERS"
    "NOTHING CAN KEEP YOU SAFE"

    And similar messages in massive, bold letters. HUMILIATING. If nobody stops the bot, anyway. Let's focus back on VOLT, who, with Bain controlling him, just had his arm bent, in a way that would break a human's arm. Bain himself screams out in pain, dropping the baton, but the other arm goes to catch it, while the bot... Kicks the spike, snapping it off, and tries to use the ruined arm as a flail, trying to brain Toph with the broken spike-part while he follows up with a baton strike! That's to say nothing of the dozen or so demolished robots that she just tore apart.

    But then the combat suddenly becomes robotic and predictable; Bain's no longer home, he's outside of that robot! Meanwhile, PROFESSOR WRATH arrives in full force too, with another group of ranged Bainbots. Not caring about the presence of VOLT, PROFESSOR WRATH assumes human-like mannerisms, opening fire with that rifle on Toph, with a dozen Bainbots following suit to a lesser degree, just trying to saturate her with bursts of intense kinetic force that will hopefully overcome even the inevitable earthen wall! Even if she could also use VOLT as a shield there...

    Meanwhile, CROW GOBLIN continues its efforts; it tries to flank Frederica, launching more concussive grenades into her vicinity to force her to stop the fireballs that have slagged one of COMMANDER CRIME'S arms, fucking with its aim, alongside blowing up several of the weaker bots to his side, but they remain robotically undeterred, continuing to fire! When Armsmaster gets into that kilbox, they split their fire and start trying to hit him too!

    Elsewhere, PROFESSOR WRATH emits Bain's voice due to his control, and continues to work the rivalry with Toph. "There we go, kid! That's what I wanna see! I hurt the people you care about, you hurt me, that's how this works, right? You came up with that metalbending because of me, right? It's so /cool/! Hit me with everything you've got from that, kid, I wanna /feel/ the hate!" Despite the pain he seemed to be in before, he seems absolutely giddy to have someone working a rivalry like this!

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    The fluttering pink-purple butterflies (which lookk like ) that mess with Taylor flutter around uselessly, the fight continues! Thankfully, nobody seems to pay attention to the fluttering bugs because... There are other much more annoying fluttering bugs going around! Then, however, the butterflies DO A THING.

    Which is to say, swarm around Tattletale, before reforming into Ruri (aka disguised purple butterfly motif Yuuki).

    "Um... Surrender?" She offers almost conversationally, looking around. "I mean, what are you getting for doing this? Maybe just leave?" She offers, hopefully. "You sure are causing a lot of problem and getting a lot of heat from that Armsmaster guy for not a huge amount of payout, right? Couldn't you be better served doing good with your powers?" She asks with an earnest tone.

    She is also obliviously talking to Tattletale as shit EXPLODES AND FIGHTS AND GOES BONKERS AROUND HER.

    The 'butterfly cape' doesn't seem to notice.

Taylor Hebert (587) has posed:
With Skitter's swarm busy, she's moving aside, taking cover herself. She's gathering bugs from everywhere she can, since moving any from Velocity could give him an advantage, but sadly, this puts /her/ at a disadvantage. She's open for attack, unless she chooses to move her bugs of Velocity for a quick defense, which doesn't seem likely.

Bitch is seperating from Angelica as she receives the perpetrator's location, and is running into the crowd. The darkness is released from in her path, as Bitch is going straight at Finna, attempting to punch her in the face. Well, anyone in the signal's direction, really. She's punching everyone right now. Judas is struck hard by the blow to the head. If his hearing wasn't being messed with, he'd likely be fighting back, but he takes it and goes skidding back. Bitch can be heard cursing very, very loudly, if you're close to her.

Whilst most of the projectiles flying at Grue are destroyed, several hit him, knocking him to his knees. Much of the darkness he has sprayed is vanishing, though there's still a blob around the Protectorate goo-gun guys. Grue aims a hand up, attempting to blast Bitter Medicine, unless he's stopped.

On call, Regent is moving from Miss Militia, heading straight at Bitter Medicine's side. An arm is reached, and then tossed to the side, an attempt to send Bitter Medicine stumbling and falling. It's resistable, however, though it does feel weird to have your body being controlled.

The gun is easily knocked out of Tattletale's hands by both Toph and Armsmaster's strikes, but she doesn't seem too shaken except for momentary surprise. She moves out of the way, and is about to shout at Toph, when RURI appears. This startles Tattletale a bit, but she puts two and two together about the butterflies Skitter mentioned earlier, and seems calm when she speaks. "We're actually getting paid pretty well to do this. It's pretty hilarious to see a bunch of heroes who were supposed to get celebrated have their little party get screwed up." Tattletale smirks a bit, before continuing. "We'll be done soon. We actually wouldn't have done this if it wasn't such an important job. But, before you ask, no, you can't know why it's so important.". Yes, Tattletale is chattering back. "We're not surrendering, though. Ruins the whole thing. Sorry."

Zero Kiryu has posed:
    There are plenty of humans fighting here, and because of that Mourning Cloak isn't particularly interested in getting involved in most of this. But, there is a problem that he feels needs addressing, and it is one that he's comfortable dealing with. Peering down into the ongoing conflict, he catches sight of the great monstrous dogs that attacked him the last time he was on this world... and they are attacking somebody else, no less viciously. There is a faint sound of metal against metal as the blade that he brought slides quietly from its sheath.

    Then he jumps.

    Through the skylight and into the fray below he goes, hurling himself towards Bitch and Angelica from above. But he's not aiming for Bitch herself directly -- he's aiming towards her mount, hurtling down towards Angelica at high speeds like a blade-wielding bullet. Monstrous strength aside, this would do a whole lot of damage just based on impact alone if it made contact, and it would be easy enough to miss Mourning Cloak's descent even if this place WASN'T a huge clusterfuck like it is.

    As if that weren't bad enough, the blade that he's wielding is made of a material very similar if not identical to that of his gun. Whatever wounds he inflicts, now or at any point in the immediate future, are likely to /stick/, and stick hard for a good long while. Fortunately, despite the extremely similar anti-regenerative property, it doesn't have any real visual connection to Zero Kiriyu's real identity. Just an extremely similar function.

    Mourning Cloak asks for no explanation, and offers no warnings. His surprise attack is as dirty as it comes, and there's really no question that he's aiming to kill Bitch's dogs. It's unlikely that he's completely on-target, but since he is attacking from above he's pretty ruthlessly aiming to do spinal damage of some kind.

Laer (353) has posed:
    As requested, Laer will provide a distraction by giving a bit of fire as close to the civilians as she possibly can without actually attempting to set them on fire!

    That may not have been the exact request, actually. Laer will claim she misheard earlier. Still, it might make for quite the distraction for Bitter Medicine, as the dragon makes that pass, not actually trying to hit anyone in particular.

    "Are you all ready to leave yet?" She'll growl out at the Undersides. She can give a lift to one or more of them if she needs to, though Laer will be grumpy about doing so.

Armsmaster (554) has posed:
     Miss Militia might be a crack shot with her weapons and a well-trained soldier otherwise, but she's not strictly superhuman. Mordred yanks her upwards and then slams her into the ground, into the wall. She spits something out, muffled by the American flag wrapped around her lower face, but she's clearly disorientated and winded by the quick, powerful blows.

     Armsmaster leaves Judas where he lies, and moves through the fusilade which Crow Goblin and his fellow bots are laying down. His flail returns to being a halberd, and Armsmaster arcs a quick burst of electricity at them from the tip of the weapon, almost as an afterthought.

     What isn't an afterthought, however, is the information his HUD is providing im. He steps up to a dining table which has been cast aside in the confusion and, with a mighty kick of his armored foot, sends the table careening straight for Tattletale and Yuuki!

     With those two dealt with, no further dogs coming at him, and the rest of the villains seeming to be engaged, Armsmaster leaps, further than any normal person could manage thanks to his powered armor, towards the source of all of his irritation - Skitter! And when he lands, his Halberd taps against the floor, and a charge of electrical energy bursts outwards, frying any of her insects that get too close!

     It helps Velocity too, to be sure, but by the way he is curled up and moaning, it is unlikely that he'll be getting up anytime soon! And, if Tattletale was right, it's unlikely that Armsmaster even cares.

Finna (513) has posed:
    While she's doing her best to appear uncoordinated and not worth anyone's attention - just some random, hysterical bystander - Finna's not so arrogant that she doesn't expect SOMEONE to catch on after the second or third weird occurence. This is confirmed as Bitch comes punching and screaming in her general direction.

    Thankfully, Clover Can't Be Found. A veil of mystic power seeps around Finna. The harder anyone is trying to find Her, the less likely she is to be found. As illusions go, it's a neat little trick, but she's not going to count on it for long.

    As it is, she doesn't intend to fight Bitch. Simply having her on a wild goose chase and being unable to do anything else is fine enough.

    So the foxgirl in a dress slinks behind a curtain.

    This girl fights dirty, after all.

    "*TSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSYEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAARGHKK!*"

    Whatever the hell noise a FREAKING VELOCIRAPTOR MAKES when it's angry and on the prowl echoes loudly through the entire darned room. The terrifying lizard tears its way free of the curtains from the OTHER END of where Finna entered, no longer protected by any illusions to throw anyone off her tail.

    The animal JUMPS UP on a table and roars out its domination of the whole battle. Its mighty talons grip the table and crush into the edges, then... WHOOOOOSH.

    Lizards should NOT BE ALLOWED to be this big. Or to leap across entire rooms. That is totally against any rules there ever were.

    The creature has chosen to assault Regent in defense of Bitter Medicine. While he's focused on trying to control Bitter Medicine, Finna's guessing he'll have less ability defending himself. And furthermore, guessing he won't be able to easily control something that's very, VERY not human-ish.

    But since she's been told to not do anything too lethal to villains here, this mostly means a lot of VERY MENACING false swipes with those nasty-looking claws and one very powerful charging headbutt!

Toph Beifong (20) has posed:
    It's disturbing to hear Bain cry like that, even if Toph knows that the thing she is fighting is only a machine. Just why does this hurt him? There's little time to ponder more on that as she feels Volt leaning forward to attack, and she just barely avoids getting the a spike to the face as she leans back and to the side, reaching out to bend the other arm that snatched up the stun baton, this time aiming to twist it around the bot's torso so that it might stun itself and hopefully put itself out of combat!

    Then the bot's body language changes, and Toph blinks. It's faint, and perhaps difficult for most people to pick up on. But when Professor Wrath arrives and raises something towards her, she is quick to move her hands to the side and gestures to the floor underneath her and Volt. With a twist of her foot she turns the floor so that Volt comes between her and the rifle. It's a bit different with the kinetic force however, and Toph winces, raising a wall in front of her, then yelps as she finds herself thrown backwards by both the kinetic bursts as well as parts of the same wall she raised as defense. Stumbling back and thrown into the refreshment table, the blind girl winces and shakes her head, some of her massive amount of hair tumbling down into her face. Part of her dress is dirty too, covered with some of the food that she crashed into, though she hardly cares as she pushes herself up with a pained wince.

    Hearing Bain's voice again causes her to frown. Yes, this guy did hurt somebody dear to her, nearly killed him as a matter of fact! And while she hates to admit it, it was that situation that helped her figure out how to metalbend, as it was the only thing that could have saved Tony at the time. Still, it was close. Too close.

    Toph swallows, then assumes a defensive stance once more. "It's not hate," she replies calmly. Then she reaches out for the metal in the bots before her... and tears her arms to the side, aiming to throw the other bots present into Professor Wrath. What follows are a series of repeated forward strikes with her hands, fingers splayed, a motion meant to bend the bots around Wrath's torso.

Bitter Medicine (569) has posed:
     Fool me once, shame on you. An Exalted probably has enough willpower to resist having his own body controlled--if he should expect such a thing. Bitter Medicine lets out a grunt of surprise as he's flipped by Regent. This makes him a sitting duck for Grue's counterattack. Luckily, he's up on his feet again once Finna takes on Regent, so he's not completely defenseless. In fact, that's very rare, as Grue is about to find out! Surrounded by his own cloud of inky blackness, he adopts a defensive stance that can't be mistaken for anything but the stance of a trained martial artist.

     But wait! There's more. He might not be able to create blackness like Grue can, and he certainly can't dull the senses to the same bizarre effect, but he does have a neat little trick called Chemical Fog Generator. Grue and the Undersiders have run into this charm once before, when he applied tear gas to try and smoke them out. This time, it's a little different. Clouds of black smoke billow forth from the Alchemical with a menacing hissing noise, surrounding Grue in a different kind of darkness. It's nowhere near as noxious as tear gas, but it's not pleasant. The point is the darkness. Might as well even the playing field, right?

     Bitter Medicine searches through the cloud for Grue, and--what's that buzzing noise? The Alchemical is unaware of the effect of smoke on bees, but he's filling his own little corner of the room pretty quickly. Anyway, he's very ready to make a counterattack, or an attack if he bumps into Grue first. Thousand Wounds Gear style doesn't play nice even at its least lethal levels.

Frederica (73) has posed:
    This is unpleasant. Still under fire from COMMANDER CRIME, Frederica can handle that. If it comes to trading fire, particularly with her behind cover and arching fireballs over it, she can do that with the best of foes. It might almost be relaxing, trading shots with one gunner who can't even see her behind her cover, if it weren't for the rest of the chaos about the room. It does give Frederica a chance to look around though, and assess other threats.

    She sees CROW GOBLIN moving in to flank, to fire more of those grenades. Okay, those things hurt, and Frederica's having none of that. She glares at the grenade gun, sending out a cone of flame and force like the outpouring of a dragon's breath, aimed to explode the bombs prematurely and maybe shake up the robot a little.

    This, however, is a preamble. FireFox has something else planned right now. She bursts out of cover with a battle cry. "Pyro Queen!" she calls out. This is something the Confederates might well know. When she's hard-pressed in battle, she usually calls on the name of her power like this. Not that her identity is a secret from the Confederacy or anything... it's just a secret when she's with the Protectorate.

    It IS a battle cry too, of sorts. As she breaks from cover, she does her best to dodge. She'll trade hits however, if it's necessary. Her physical speed isn't that great, but she can take a hit from the kinetic pulse gun of Commander Crime. It's entirely possible he won't survive what's coming for him however. She's no longer relying on little bolts of flame. Instead, her hand trails a long flexible lash of blazing plasma. "Flame Whip!" she cries, bringing her arm up and then down, sending the whip at Commander Crime, aiming for his arms, his weapon, his center of mass. The whip is a cauterizing tool, and more than capable of burning through steel like the white-hot center of a thermic lance. If the robot is to escape destruction, it'll be through speed rather than armour.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Miss Militia seems to be pretty bad off.
    Mordred doesn't take any chances and hurls her body straight at Armsmaster. Return to sender, mind your own allies, so and so forth. If he doesn't catch her right, she might break a few more bones, or smash into another wall. That's up to the man, though! Maybe he just doesn't care what happens to her. It's unlikely the throw is enough to kill her, Mordred's being vaguely careful about that, at least.

    She is notified of an attack then; Bain and Skitter urge her to move to help Bitch's dog. Zero-- well, Mourning Cloak-- is fast enough that the knight has to direct her Prana Burst to her feet. Trails of crimson, almost blood-like magic gushes out of her greaves, and in an instant she is between Zero and Angelica.

    Her empty hand grabs ahold of Zero's katana. It cuts clean through the armor and the skin underneath, drawing blood-- although from his perspective, it's insanely shitty emulated blood made out of magic. Maybe it's delicious! Maybe not.

    Still grasping onto the blade, Mordred attempts to swing it into the ground, along with its wielder. When she lets go, she grunts, and magic funnels into her hand to restore the armor, muscle and skin. Except, only the armor reappears. Blood continues flowing, now leaking out of the gauntlet visibly.

    "The fuck?! Damnit... BITCH, GET YOUR DAMN DOG, WE'RE GOING!"

    She just realized she can call someone bitch and it's not actually negative at all. Wow, what a great world. She idly muses whether or not polite people would be morally torn at the idea of having to call someone that or not. It's cut short by the fact Zero is almost certainly still right there in front of her.

    And Bain said to take care of the raptor. Damn.

    "Whatever! I wasn't using that hand anyway!"
    (Gotta keep looking cool.)

    Another wave of crimson magic gathers around her blade, and her footwork adjusts itself to circle around Zero until he, her, and the Finnaraptor are making a straight line. She thrusts the blade forward, and a mix of a shockwave of red lightning burst out, larger than the last, tearing the ground open its way to the raptor.

    Zero has to deal with both the risk of being skewered and having that go off inside him, but doing that one-handed makes Mordred that much slower it's far less an issue than it could have been.

Bain (590) has posed:
    VOLT is disabled, core mobility systems crushed completely. Almost as if on cue from that, more of the bots near COMMANDER CRIME wind up exploding from electrical overload in a way that seems to punctuate the loss!

    Meanwhile, PROFESSOR WRATH gets the other Bainbots wrapped around him, and yet, continues blasting as he wrenches his way out of the mass. "Awww, not yet? Damn it! C'mon, kid! What's a guy gotta do to get a nemesis here, if cooking your dad isn't how it works? Gotta season him too?"

    PROFESSOR WRATH is still firing, desperately and wildly, but can't do much accurately right now, and his squad is ripped up! It looks like a desperate struggle, until Toph might notice that body language shift just slightly again as it once more becomes just a robot.

    Suddenly, out of nowhere, a dashing BLACK DEATH comes in from the rear, trying to slam the massive paint machine over Toph's head, shattering the thing and spilling all the paint if it can get a solid impact, and hopefully stunning her at the very least... But, of course, it can't really get the element of SURPRISE so much as the element of FLANKING, since Toph's senses are 360!

    God damn it, he's really pressed now. Elsewhere, deep in a safehouse, Bain is sweating bullets, desperate to get this done. He's down to the wire here! Okay! Time to help out with the Laer Express! "TATTLETALE!" He calls out, while he's trying to brain Toph, since she's nearby. "TIME TO GO!" God, hopefully Yuuki doesn't follow! He's not gonna aggro her, if he can help it.

    Shiiiit, and now COMMANDER CRIME is being attacked! The one-armed robot does an appropriately machine-like thing and stands still, firing shot after shot at Frederica! And then is BISECTED COMPLETELY! Bain can be heard crying out in pain as the Elite Crewman "dies" properly due to the lethal action, but Bain himself still seems to be alive just fine!

    The remaining Bainbots look like they're ready to beat a hasty retreat if they can get everything worked out here. VOLT aside; only his legs are free, so escape would look very silly and is very unlikely. COMMANDER CRIME is dead, and Professor Wrath mostly disabled, so it's a lot of losses here.

Zero Kiryu has posed:
    The difference in physical ability between Mordred and Mourning Cloak is significant. It's not a wide gulf, but it's enough for Mordred to believe that her victory is likely. However, this assessment would not be altogether correct. While the superhuman abilities of this man aren't quite up to Mordred's standards, his skill is astounding. He knows exactly how to maximize his abilities with what he has, and he uses that as fiercely as can be expected. As soon as his sword is released from her bleeding grip, he pushes back away from her and prepares to counter attack. Or at least... that's what it seems like he's doing at first. A thrust, from the look of his stance, but then he glances over his shoulder.

    The instant before she attacks, Zero's eyes meet with Mordred's between the slits of his mask. He hurls himself forward, but-- he doesn't strike out at Mordred at all. The aim of her charge is to carry through him towards some other target, and he thinks he knows what that target is. It's nonhuman, so he doesn't actually care to defend it. At first it seems that he's charging at Mordred wholesale, perhaps clotheslining her or striking with a slash in passing.

    It doesn't happen. Some of Mordred's partially electrical attack finds its way to Zero in passing, because he didn't adequately determine safe minimum distance... but the brunt of the attack is allowed to carry on past him completely harmlessly. He says only one thing as he passes her by, low and almost whispered.

    "I don't kill PEOPLE."

    Then Mourning Cloak comes to a halt, the smell of burning flesh wafting off of him. Something on his person conducted that electricity, but it wasn't the sword he's carrying. That's strange...

Toph Beifong (20) has posed:
    Robots and a metalbender turn out to be a bad combo for Bain indeed, and Toph does her best to keep things going her way. Though it seems Wrath is still able to fire, and Toph is forced to raise a wall to protect herself further, frowning as she feels the bot tearing its way out of its comrades. This guy seriously wants her to hate him? Is he for real? "It's justice, dunderhead! And you stay the HELL away from my dad!" Her voice is slightly squeaky as she raises her voice, and she does her best to keep her hands steady as she rests them on the wall to reinforce it against the rain of bullets. Don't give this guy what he wants, she mentally reprimands herself. Take deep breaths...!

    Her eyes widen as she feels Wrath's movements change, and she listens as intently as she can with her dulled senses. Where? Where will Bain come from next? There's so much going on around here with all the others fighting and...

    Later than she would have liked, Toph notices Black Death charging at her, and she throws one arm up to send a spike towards him in an attempt to knock him back and to hopefully block the attack. That hope is crushed just like the spike is as the momentum of the paint machine crashes through it and into Toph, causing the blind earthbender to let out a cry of pain as she's knocked over.

    Everything is even blurrier and tougher to follow now as Toph finds herself on the floor some seconds later. The floor is moving, shaking, and she lets out a pained sound as she does her best to push herself up.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Ruri just kind of backs off once she's rebuffed by Tattletale, becoming a cloud of moths again, sort of uselessly floating around as THINGS happen. Thankfully, each indidividual purple butterfly seems immaterial to her total form. And so she just sort of flutters around. She's in fact super useless because...

    She's kind of a shitty immortal high school girl who is MEGA BAD AT BEING A HERO. In fact, mostly she just flutters around Mourning Cape, messing lightly with Mordred by one or two of her familiars just fluttering against 'his' helmet. HA HA HA TAKE THAT SHE IS BEING ANNOYING!

    When Tattletale asks to get out, she appears in a cloud, looking confused. "Why would I help you get out? I mean, wouldn't that make me a villain?" She offers, glancing around. "My brother and I just go in town, we'd rather not be villains..." She offers, before muttering something that sounds really intensely japanese. It's something like 'I really should have thought about this plan so much more'.

Taylor Hebert (587) has posed:
As Armsmaster comes at her..Skitter seems like she's without advantages. Until, after a small banter, she utters these words to him.

"You lose, Armsmaster."

Suddenly, from a compartment inside her suit, a swarm comprising of hundreds of bees bursts outwards, flying straight at the unprotected part of his face. They're non-poisonous, but it still fucking hurts like hell. Ace up her sleeve used, she's moving into position for Laer's incoming portal.

With Bitch's dogs not being hindered anymore, they look like they want to tear something up. They'd wrestle a velociraptor, if Bitch wasn't commanding them to move to Skitter's position, herself following. Regent is fleeing the velociraptor himself, moving in position as well

As Grue is smoked, he's actually using his power completely around himself, and everyone in his immediate vicinity. He's immune to it, so he's moving quickly towards the others, but not before /another/ burst towards Bitter. RIVALRIES BEGIN.

Tattletale shakes her head, as she quickly dives out of the way to dodge flying table, narrowly making it. "Actually, I just wanted you out of the way so I can get out of here. But, I can get out of your way, that seems easier." Tattletale rushes towards the others, shifting out of the way of any obstacles, and especially velociraptors. Everyone's in position now, for rapid get aways.

Armsmaster (554) has posed:
     The bees swarm Armsmaster, getting into his beard, crawling across his skin and finding their way under his helmet and down into his armor. They sting him and Armsmaster snarls, swinging his Halberd in a blind blow for Skitter.

     Just in time to get hit with Miss Militia. The pair hit the deck in a tangle of limbs, Armsmaster's Halberd clattering to the floor. Armsmaster is too busy swatting at some of the bugs he can reach to get up immediately, but it seems like he's willing to weather the repeated stings as he goes to climb to his feet.

     But he's slow and the bees continue to harass him. Miss Militia rolls onto her front, pushes herself to her hands nad knees, and then collapses.

Frederica (73) has posed:
    Frederica feels bad, but only a little, when her flame cuts Commander Crime in half. It's a robot, not a person. She wouldn't feel terrible even if it WERE a person. Well okay, she would. These are criminals, sure, but they're making an effort not to kill. To respond with lethal force when lives aren't on the line is horribly shameful... but it was only a robot. And, judging by how the elite robots had moments of brilliance in sequence followed by a more prosaic attack pattern, it was a nonsentient robot controlled by a remote operator, likely with backup programming when the operator's attention was elsewhere. Nothing to feel bad about... nothing at all.

    Of course she'll only be able to consider this later, after the battle's over. Right now, she's in too much pain. Her Flame Whip is powerful, but she took a chance getting in range to use it. Lightning reaction speed only goes so far. She might have been able to dodge if the robot had broken its attack, had been more focussed on defense than on offense. Since it stayed solely on offense however, its shots easily caught up to her dodging speed. Slammed by several rounds of kinetic force, Frederica is flung backwards and dropped to the ground in a painful series of exhalations. Not quite shrieks... she doesn't have the wind for it. Little cries of pain, more gasps than shrieks. Even with her armour, the impacts will leave a lasting mark. Maybe even crack ribs if the kinetic impact is forceful enough. It's best at stopping bullets after all, not pure impact.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Mordred does not follow-up after her attack. Zero whispers to her, and she decides to accept that. One hand less, besides, and while her opponent might not be superhuman like her, he's making up for it with an annoying sword and obvious skill. As much as she loves fighting, this isn't really the sort of dramatic battlefield she wants to go all-out on. They're done here, anyway.

    The knight lowers her weapon in answer, giving a quiet nod.

    She's curious what that reaction was. Didn't look like armor or weaponry, but she didn't get a good enough look to tell. This has been too chaotic to really pay any one person enough mind to study them, and she's actually pretty pissed about her hand. Damn sword. If she had time and Zero hadn't essentially lowered his weapon, she'd try to see if destroying it undoes the curse, if it's even a curse. Sadly, Bain and Skitter said to get out.

    Unless stopped, the Servant hops away towards the exit, manning the rear of the retreat. It's likely she'd turn aggressive again if attacked, but as the rear vanguard it is apparently her job to tank for the retreat.

Laer (353) has posed:
    It's not a fully fledged portal, exactly, because it's more like a teleport over to where Laer is. She's not actually able to open completely normal portals while in dragon form. What she is able to do, naturally, is be just outside those earlier shattered windows, and use short range teleportation to move willing people over to her back.

    There's not really anything to hang on to other than scales, though, so hopefully the Undersiders and anyone else taking that path has a good grip. She'll grab anyone she can, but she doesn't wait terribly long before taking off to the skies rather roughly, starting to fly away from the site of the crime.

    Which will allow the Undersiders to get the achievement for riding a dragon, even if it's not Dragon.

Finna (513) has posed:
    Yeah, Finnaraptor's not gonna approach something as ominous and obviously powerful as Mordred is showing themselves to be. SStill, she's not so stupid as to be caught with her.... pants(? What pants?) down by such an obvious move. Especially when it's a move she's seen not long ago!

    The raptor bails to the left with a huge leap. Its beastly agility far exceeds any ordinary human's... heck, it far exceeds any ordinary Velociraptor's, and that's saying something.

    With lightning speed, but what it DOES is.... not on the normal list of options one would expect.

    It barfs. Or... well, it does something similarly gross, however one wants ot call it. With a rumbling belchy grumble-noise, it spews a thick stream of sticky, tarry GOO at mordred in a large glob.

    It utterly REEKS, whatever the heck it is. And it's clearly not something a velociraptor ought to be doing.

    It will sting and irritate. For most people it would make rashes and possibly minor acid burns... for a Servant?

    Really, it's just gross.

    Except that it's aimed mostly at Mordred's HELMET...

    Getting their only way of seeing and smelling mucked up by sticky, opaque, stinking goo is probably not ideal.

Bitter Medicine (569) has posed:
     Since it worked so well the last time (read: since by some miracle no one on his side was hurt) Bitter Medicine counteracts his inability to see by grabbing everything in sight, or lack thereof, and throwing it across the room in every direction. He activates another martial arts charm, The Circle Screams, to make even /floor tiles/ into near-deadly projectiles.

     For good measure, he removes a jackboot and throws that, too, using the laces to turn it into a kind of self-launching sling. There is something he's forgetting--no, not that he's basically in pitch blackness. He just doesn't give a shit about that. There's something he could throw, which, provided it actually hits someone, would be a symbolic thing. From inside his jacket, he retrieves his Regulator badge, a gear-shaped thing of metal roughly the size of the tin sheriff's badges of the Old West.

     "Great Maker, guide my hand." It's not about stopping them or having one final stand--there's too much civilians here for that, although he should have been concerned about that when he was flinging around pressure cookers and turkeys. With a flick of his wrist and a burst of Exalted strength, he sends his gear-toothed badge zipping through the air. It won't be lethal if it hits someone, but it will stick. More to the point, it's spiteful, maybe even as spiteful as throwing his own shoe, and that's what the Exalt is all about.

Bain (590) has posed:
    Bain, elsewhere in his safehouse, slams a big red RETREAT button at his control console. He can't do anything else but cut costs now, so his bots go into retreat mode and he beats as hasty a retreat as he can; all remaining machines that can still move curl up into spheres and immediately book it for the front door, where they rush out into the street and off into the night in a chaotic swarm... Unless broken first, such as by Bitter Medicine's projectiles, the attacks from various other Unionites who might still be able to fight, or any of the local capes.

    It's sort of without ceremony, honestly. But it's the practical thing to do now! Whatever's left to happen, Bain can't help much at all with his pitifully limited supply of machines, since so many have been cut down.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    So Mordred is bailing.
    That's distracting.

    She's grumpy about Zero and his sword.
    That's distracting.

    She kind of ASSUMED she vaporized the raptor.
    Not distracting but also a factor.

    THERE IS A BUTTERFLY IN HER BLIND SPOT.
    Very distracting.

    Although the butterYuuki will probably get a good enough look at the incoming pukeball to take off Mordred, the Servant does not, and it slams her helmet dead on. Burns! Minor, but still. More importantly oh god that smells awful.

    Her sword is dismissed into thin air and she motions to unclip her helmet, before a BADGE SHURIKEN slams into it and just lops it straight off her head, and it dissappears like her sword. The masking effect immediatly nulls itself, the knight barely standing five feet tall, in silver and red armor; a young teenage girl, with blonde hair in a ponytail and green eyes.

    "FUCKSHITGODDAMNITOW!"
    She is extremely eloquent.

    Rather than deal with this shit, Mordred dematerializes, leaving only red and blue particles in a gust of wind before her presence is clearly leaving out the door.

Taylor Hebert (587) has posed:
The Undersiders are warped onto Dragon!Laer. This is a surprise to all of them, and they hold on very tight.

But they won.

/And/ Skitter totally got to see Emma Barnes' scared ass face, so that's a plus too.

Toph Beifong (20) has posed:
    Her brains feel scrambled! As Toph pushes herself up she feels the bots still standing making a break for it. But right now she doubts she can do anything about it as nausea and pain overtakes her senses. It takes some seconds for her to get up, and she is far less steady than she usually is as she leans on the nearby table for support. Ugh, it feels like she's going to throw up...! Whether she likes it or not, medical might be a good idea from that blow. But she managed to hold her own, and if her senses hadn't been dulled... well, this might have turned out differently.

    Pardon her for looking like a mess, and she winces as she rubs her forehead. "Did somebody get the number on that truck...?" Are people safe?

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    The ButterYuuki-Ruri does GET RIGHT THE HECK OUT OF DODGE when the puke comes. Now reformed Ruri is just standing there, looking like an idiot. In fact, she doesn't even look like she's in a real costume, just an odd colored dress and odd colored hair. And red eyes.

    "Do we... stop them?" She asks, looking at the other heroes. Almost as an afterthought she brings up a finger, raising it to the sky, before swinging it down in a bright, firey arc.

    In front of the retreating Undersiders and Feds, there is a startling burst of flame in the air, but it's entirely harmless. "Um... Stop... In the name of..."

    She turns to Armsmaster, thumbing at him. "That guy!"

    She looks at Mourning Cape/Zero. "W-what should we do, /big brother/?"

Armsmaster (554) has posed:
     Later, a cape in silver and white glowing arm, spear held in one hand and shield in the other, comes racing through the doors. Dauntless is flanked by a squad of PRT officers with full gear and a fair few paramedics. They begin seeing to the civilians - getting them out of the containment foam, helping those who got injured. They see to the capes, too, and the Elites.

     But the sheer level of damage and distress - tables wrecked, the gallery ballroom looking like a warzone, food spread all over the place, graffiti sprayed across the walls, broken robots left here and there, injured capes, civilians and Protectorate Response Team officers...

     Armsmaster might not know it, but it's his final strike.

Finna (513) has posed:
    With Mordred on the way out, several oddcomers (they've been here a while, so they're not new anymore) roaming around, and the Undersiders and support all gone... Finna chooses to reveal herself again. The Velociratpro - Claw Strider, technically - warps and mutates, srunching down in a somewhat eerie display of melting and reshapign flesh. Soon though, the lump sprouts clothes and human features THANKFULLY in that order, taking the shape of Finna with her USUAL hairdo and fox ears and tail on display, but still in the fancy party dress.

    "Now that's what I call a PAAAARTY! When's the next one?"

    She's grinning like a maniac, but at the same time her eyes dart about looking over injuries, casualties of any kind...

Frederica (73) has posed:
    Frederica is able to get up, but she covers her chest protectively with her arms. She's ready to fight even... but there's no need. Even if she's injured in body, her mind is the only thing she needs sound in order to fight. Still she would hardly be at peak efficiency, so perhaps it's for the best the Undersiders have scarpered.

    She catches Finna's transformation, and looks at the fox woman in surprise. "You!" she cries out weakly, pointing rudely. "Not much of a party! Look how many people got hurt." she complains.

Finna (513) has posed:
    "If you're looking to blame someone for that, turn that finger that way." She gestures Armsmaster's way. "He knew something was gonna happen, but let it continue anyways. If there's an action any of us could've done to keep it from getting a mess, NO PARTY would've been the answer." She twirls a finger at Armsmaster.

    "But I'm not seeing anything fatal or long-lasting around us. A lovely pattern of bee-stings to go around though! ... And other things rest and some medical attention will clear up... we're lucky. If they came in through a different window that opening assault might've killed someone."

Finna (513) has posed:
    "Anyways, it was a good party! Most of the ones I'm from turn into brawls sooner or later!" Finna adds a few moments later. "Just usually without the explosions..."

Frederica (73) has posed:
    Frederica shrugs, then immediately regrets it, groaning. "Blame the robots for the explosions." she mutters.

Bitter Medicine (569) has posed:
     The darkness goes away, which can only mean two things. Either Grue escaped, or he died. As much as the Alchemical would like that (he's not a cruel guy, just a practical one) there doesn't seem to be a body. Though, there are floor tiles embedded in the wall at several places. Just where in the hell did the Undersiders get to?

     "Portal Woman," he surmises. He hasn't SEEN the bard, but then he wasn't seeing for most of the battle. He's really going to have to get something to counteract that parasite. The Alchemical rolls his neck. Thermal vision? Might work. Of course, the real issue here is that they allowed the Undersiders to come to them instead of hunting them down.

     "Throwing blame around is stupid. Our goal was to apprehend them. Their goal was not to be apprehended. They won. Let's pick up the pieces and get ready for round two."

Zero Kiryu has posed:
    "We should leave." Mourning Cloak says, simply. He sheaths his weapon with a light click, uninterested in pursuing the retreating villains. "Our familiarity with the locals was inadequate to make major contributions here. It's a wonder that we were able to do anything but get in the way. We'll do better next time. Bees..."

    The cloaked man trails off, jerking his head to indicate that Ruri/Yuuki should follow after. There's no point in lingering. The things that he wanted to be sure of weren't relevant in the end. It'll have to wait for another day.