2568/WoS: Meet Mister Johnson

WoS: Meet Mister Johnson
Date of Scene:	02 July 2015
Location:	Techno Urbania
Synopsis:	The identity of a mediator between the enigmatic man who ended up sparking the formation of the Shivan Confederacy and the Death's Head Gang has been discovered, and all forces involved gather in order to attempt to acquire what he knows... Or to silence him forever.
Cast of Characters:	626, 627, 628, 633, 655, 666, Lyria Mason, Starbound Flotilla, 742, 794, 823
Tinyplot:	Warlords of Shiva

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Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Welcome back to Denver, chummer.

The Sixth World continues to be a gilded glittering facade over a cesspool of waste, greed, and vice. While the good and right continue to fight their battles, more often than not it is the shades of gray who rule here, and choosing one might not be any better than the other.

So it was for Albert Dorn, a 'producrement agent' in the employ of Essential Memory, Inc, a subsidiary of Renraku Computer technologies. Just important enough to pull the big salary and benefits, but not important enough to get the scrutiny that comes with top corporate positions, he thought he had it made. All he had to do was get things done. Talk to people. Trail his hand in the sludge that collects in the shadows, and make big money for both himself and his employer.

There is a code in the shadows. You never know the true identity of your employer. It's always through a network of faceless fixers and front men who universally call themselves 'Mister Johnson'. It's how the powerful isolate themselves from the deniable.

However, Albert made the mistake of going off the reservation. This time, he took what he thought was a normal job. He got the people for it.

And now people want answers. It's clear the Death's Head Gang were just being played. They got paid a lot of nuyen for that hit, and they paid for it. Some with their lives. Some with more. Some didn't pay at all.

While that might have been enough for the Shivans, it wasn't enough for others. Some people want to cover their tracks. Albert Dorn learned what happened to the Death's Head Gang, and he hasn't been seen outside of his upscale, 12-story apartment building since. Rent-a-cops sit around at the corners and on the roof of the building. Security has been upgraded, and some of the residents might have been encouraged to find other lodgings for a while.

MISSION OBJECTIVES:

WE HAVE WAYS OF MAKING YOU TALK - Capture Arthur Dorn alive and make him spill. He probably has no intentions of going quietly based on his apparent preparations. That information might lead to something or someone interesting... Or it might fetch a pretty penny in the right hands.

IN THE SIXTH WORLD EVEN DEAD MEN TELL TALES - Then again, if you know what you're looking for, who says you even need him alive? This is an environment where information takes on a plethora of forms. Even if you might not be able to ask his corpse, maybe the information is elsewhere...

NO, MR. DORN, I EXPECT YOU TO DIE - Then again, some of those arriving at the location might have been informed that it would be beneficial to their needs if all of that evidence were to vanish in some suitably appropriate manner. Those people who have been approached know who they are.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
    Dominic's here, though looking less like Dominic and more like a native Street Samurai to the world. His Mithril Rapier is back at the apartment, swapped out for the diamond-edged Katana across his back that he took off the corpse of one of the natives of this world some months back on Shiva. He's also wearing a waist-length coffee-colored leather jacket over a purple shirt and some jeans and sneakers. He's making an actual effort to blend into the world at the moment.

    His hands are thrust into the pockets of the beat-up jacket, trying to look casual and succeeding at a rate of about 75%. To the average person, he's calm and collected, but under that he's pretty nervous to be here. After all, last time he so much as set foot on this world, some Tin Can Boogeyman with a Laser Sword split his chest like a deck of cards. That makes him gun(or saber)shy at best to be here.

    Adjusting a ball-cap atop his head, he keeps a lookout on the streets and tries to remain low-key.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Rent-a-cops. Annoying, but not insurmountable.

    Kyra is currently not with the team on the ground and has informed the rest of the Light Warriors ahead of time where precisely she would be. That 'where' turns out to be the rooftop of a neighboring building. She's opted for darker clothing instead of her usual highly visible white hoodie, making her far less noticable. Here, she lies on her belly with a sniper rifle tucked under her arm, already loaded with a number of very powerful set of darts, their mixture containing a drug meant to paralyze and render unconscious. She doesn't wait very long after the rest of their little group, who is very eager to beat some answers out of 'Mister Johnson' if they can find him, gathers into position.

    Metholodically, she starts lining up her scope and firing on the hired security, starting with the pair on the roof towards the front of the building, then moving to the pair guarding the entrance, then taking care of whatever remains.

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
    Last time Darth Vader looked into matters that hypothetically concerned the Shivans to some degree, he found himself beset by quite a few individuals who were determined to interfere with his little hobby. While it was certainly an /interesting/ experience, this time around there are not multiple points of interest. There is one, most likely quite fragile man, and one man only. Therefore, he has elected to come here in far greater force than he did the last time. Two shapes had appeared in orbit, one after the other, but it was the second that had descended.

    The Venator-Class Star Destroyer, "Resolute", descends from its position beneath the Executor. It is not subtle, and the threat that it represents is clear by the weapons that bristle along its hull. If the Executor is a country that flies, the Resolute is one of its battleships. A cold, terrible presence resides upon that ship, a nexus of power that seethes with volatile emotion. For a short while, at least. In no time at all, it is moving.

    The "small" Star Destroyer halts its descent a small distance from the surface, and at precisely such a height and distance that if its operators should feel the need to do so, they could open fire on the apartment building with most of their forward turbolasers... or turn other equipment on it, as the situation may require.

    "Begin deployment." Lord Vader's voice booms across the LAAT gunship he currently occupies, and further, across the hangar filled with similar such vessels. From the belly of the Star Destroyer descends five gunships, each of moderate size with opened sides and ball turrets mounted just fore of the entry and exit points.

    Four of them descend towards the streets.

    One lands on the roof, and it is this LAAT that bears Lord Vader himself.

    Lord Vader disembarks on the roof, but he does not as of yet demonstrate hostility. The Clone Troopers accompanying him are visibly armed and well-armored, and the same is true of those that are streaming into the streets below. One thing's for sure, nobody -else- is going to have any trouble blending in with the RED ALERT Vader and crew are guaranteed to cause.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason has been adjusting her clothing ot something more local. It doesn't seem much different from normal Levitani tastes for the portion of the plate that Lyria is from. Well other than it actually covers her a bit better than traditional clothing for her. She's wearing a jacket, form fitting under-suit but actual to Gods pants and boots. She's looking fairly not so out of place though her hair is and her goggles are for once? Not on her head. She's also wearing mirrored shades for the moment as she falls in behind Dominic and is doing her best to keep casual about it all.

Kamon Lionward (628) has posed:
Kamon hasn't been here before, but he got the run-down on what to expect. Honestly, it sounded a bit like some of the stories he's heard come out of Ramuh. Maybe there's always a crapsack city on every sufficiently-developed world.

His concession to blending in is a dark longcoat and a pair of angular sunglasses, night or no. Really, the coat is just to conceal the weapons he's carrying around (he heard guns are more prevalent out here, so he's ready for that), to hold armor inserts, and to make people think he's a local. The sunglasses are actually useful, providing cheap night vision so the wearer never has to be not-stylish.

He might hold onto them after.

Kamon moves in once Kyra has helpfully started tranquilizing people from up above, intending to bum-rush any she misses and bring them down in hand-to-hand before they can call out an alarm. Then, he and the rest of the ground crew can stash the bodies and move on.

Vader's arrival might make that unnecessary, but that remains to be seen.

Dorotea Grahn (742) has posed:
Dorotea Grahn, a Shivan, is kind of unhappy with people triggering a war in her nation.

Still, she wasn't there when the first attacks happened; she didn't even hear about it until it was too late to get there in time. Nor was she involved in the first investigation. She's never been to Denver! (Any Denver, if it comes to that.)

Apparently she's making up for lost time.

Though she's not a Light Warrior, she managed to get herself on the team. She doesn't actually really blend in that well in the Sixth World, but then again there's a subset of people who seem to fit in there by not blending in with anything at all, so it's probably okay. Her bright red hair certainly doesn't attract comment, and she's at least put a jacket on over her usual outfit.

That lasts until Kyra starts shooting. Dorotea, who is lacking in things like 'patience' and 'subtlety', takes that opportunity to rush forward, moving in as fast as possible.

Soan Sagittarius (633) has posed:
     Getting the rest of the team in was a bit more of a problem. For Soan, however, getting inside wasn't as much of a pain. Ends up that a lot of electronic counter-measures that works in his training against most Ramuhan-built electronic security seems to have the same founding principles as here. He can't really hack anything, but he has... other ways of getting the information that he needs. Besides, with a direct feed, that should be a different manner.

     He works his way through the apartment halls, slightly up ahead of his fellow Light Warriors, armed with his small arsenal of electronic locks, his wits and his secret super powers. His goals? Ensure that they DO have some information left, in case something goes absolutely wrong.

     Also, be the reserve in case the Dark Lord proves to be too much a problem. If nobody knows he's here, it's far easier transform into DRAGOON MAN and come to help.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Vader's not the only one coming out of space here. Certain authentication codes of a certain affiliation was all that the Core Fleet had needed to take the job to kill Albert Dorn, and as such, their craft keep a tight formation with Vader's. The fact that this puts them in an alliance with the Galactic Empire is... Strangely not an issue. Once again, Darth Vader or his allies here will find them utterly cooperative. All due caution, of course, just in case Vader holds a grudge, but they're not going to have an ounce of tension.

    The small fleet of craft don't land, but rather seem to fire a set of six pulses down through the atmosphere, striking the surface of the rooftop in a hexagonal arrangement around Vader's gunship. There may, in fact, be a seventh who finds an opportunity to deploy with the Starbounders, given a quick ride on their ships from the AMATERASU Lunar Mining Facility. What emerges from the brilliant, harmless red beams of light are six heavily-armed humanoids.

    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. Biteblade, the humanoid plant, is in durasteel plating with elaborately carved wood and bone ornaments over glowing powered components. Pavo the bird-girl wears a pirate-aesthetic set of mesoamerican-style armor, with bands of energized fabric linking the pieces and powering them. 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, resilient plates of durasteel. George (just plain human) wears a set of futuristic EVA-combat and exploration armor in a suit that glows a gentle blue at the faceplate. Seft, the robotic Flotilla member, is wearing full-on medieval knight armor with a soft energized glow below the plates on her body, and especially around the eyes.

    They have a menagerie of guns and blades; Seft, Pavo, and George have a heavy laser pistol, a laser RCW rifle, and a simple, hefty ballistic shotgun respectively, while Moonfin and Albert brandish a power katana and power warhammer respectively. Biteblade has a gleaming railbow. All six of them brandish their weapons at the rooftop rent-a-cops; any who don't surrender immediately will be offered lasers, buckshot, blades, or hammers to the torso for their unusual loyalty. Albert has them in proper tactical synchronization; they're here to secure up their flanks and then immediately find access to the lower levels, using Albert's power-hammer to simply demolish any doors between them and the interior as necessary.

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    Mirielle jammed her pockets into a tactically dirty dark hoodie, torn up jeans, and other 'normal' street clothes. She seems none pleased with the arrangement, but the 'plan', as it were, required people on the ground, and people up high. It was tactically sound. In fact, between Kyra, Dominic, and the rest of the crew, Mirielle placed a rather high odds of success upon the operation to either gain evidence or gain the suspect himself.

    That was, of course, before the Venator-class Star Destroyer dropped into Denver airspace and started belching out gunships.

    Darkly, she looks at Dominic, an unreadable sort of edge to her gaze. "I wish that we had the giant ships and the legions of soldiers. That'd be nice. I could take or leave the dark, cold presence eating at my heart, but..." She shrugs, thumbing at the door, now ostensibly under a cold siege from Imperial Clone Troopers. "How do you want to go in? My plan certainly has not survived contact."

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Xiao Li Yu was...not here to help her classmates. No, not at all. In fact, rather, she was actually with the Starbounders. Situated within one of their ships, she stood dressed as she usually did. Lazily making no changes for the locale. In one arm was an opened laptop and with her other, she quickly typed single handedly, observing the sights she could see and seemingly making notes.

     "This is going to be quite intriguing...one way or the other."

     As the landing beacons are fired, from the seventh emerges Xiao. Starkly devoid of combat armor, weapons, or anything dangerous at all. Just her and her laptop. She smiled pleasantly and her eyes swept back and forth, studying what she could see from where she was standing. She was oh so tempted to run off on her own and study the closest bit of non Galiandan tech she could lay her eyes on, but...

     Not this time. There would be greater rewards to be reaped, should this all go well.

     Technically not yet a combatant, the scientist kept clear to let the two forces do what they do best; take down their foes. She would run a few programs, see if she could analyze the building's structure and glean anything of interest. From her laptop screen, a loading bar could be seen slowly growing, building a 3D schematic of the building from the roof down...

     "Hrm...."

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Soan slips past the guards in his nondescript manner, bypassing the chintzt electronic locks on the entrance to get into the lobby. The lobby looks like something that would be straight out of Ramuh to the Thief: Some cheap marble facing, a chipped monogram with the logo of the apartments. A small, sputtering fountain and a lot of plants that might have been bright and vibrant once, but now are just kind of ragged and sad. Rich enough to look expensive, but not rich enough to /actually/ be good. The front office is currently closed, but Soan, thanks to the info from Zwei, knows that Dorn's apartment is 707. Not quite lucky enough, story of his life, perhaps. He can either take the elevators, which are fast but might have some kind of security on them, or the stairs, which are less secure but most certainly slower for people who have to run up seven flights.

Meanwhile, the rentacops at the front of the building get assailed. One gets shot by a tranq dart and gurgles, falling over. The other night shifter looks aghast, fumbling for his radio only to get ambushed by Kamon. The impact knocks the cheap rent-a-cop out cold.

Maybe Dorn should have put more money into his paranoia tonight. Dorotea can get through the front door, since Soan unlocked it for them. The question is: Where does she go from there?

MEANWHILE, Denver's seen many things since the advent of the Sixth World. The arrival of Honest To God Aliens is not one of them. The descent of the Imperial gunships go unopposed, though perhaps not for long. This isn't a problem for Knight Errant anymore. This is a problem for the UCAS military.

This gives Vader some leeway before the inevitable respone. He arrives on the roof, along with the teleporting in of the Starbound Flotilla and Xiao Li Yu, and the rent-a-cops offer no resistance. Whether this being from them fainting in abject terror of Kyra landing thost 12-story sniper shots is up to the imagination. The Starbound Flotilla find that their aggressive posture, for the moment, isn't quite necessary. All that remains of interest on the roof are AC units and the door down into the building, the 12th floor.

The door leads directly into the stairwell, which would normally leave them with the same question as Soan, but for a small complication. A whirring camera chirps in the stairwell, and a mounted gun emplacement pops out of the wall, rotating to fire at the first people through. Farther down, some makeshift electrical mesh has been installed to try to impede passage down the stairwell.

Meanwhiel, Xiao begins building her 3D map of the building. It will be more useful over time, as it rapidly fills in the outline of the building, then moves on to general structure. The detail grows over time. Vader, for reasons not mentioned here, has an idea of where he needs to go, but not what's in the way.

Back on the street, Dominic and Mirielle notice that the streets are beginning to flood with people. None of them are looking twice at the pair as everyone's eyes are on the alien gunships, a lot of people starting to yell, take pictures and selfies, and otherwise humiliate oneself in the face of potential annihilation.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Perhaps it was a feature of this particular world or this particular city. Kyra witnesses another bout of dire interference throwing a wrench into their carefully-planned (???) operation. Seeing the gunships descending is bad enough, especially since Kyra can recognize them as vaguely Empire make. Swearing, she lowers her head back to her rifle and spies Darth Vader atop the apartment building through the scope. "Oh shit."

    Immediately, she warns her friends over their radio channel and pushes her sniper rifle away. Sitting up just a little, Kyra reaches back to grab for the rocket launcher she's brought with her, which rests on the roof at her left. It has 'Plan C' painted on the side.

    Kyra pulls herself up onto one knee and balances the rocket launcher over a shoulder, pausing as she can now see quite plainly that Vader is not alone. All six of the Flotilla members are here and given the uncharacteristic proximity to Vader and their immediate aggressing on the rent-a-cops, she does not take this as a good sign.

    For a brief moment, she considers apologizing to the Flotilla but discards the thought. Kyra's jaw tightens and she opens fire with the rocket launcher on the apartment roof, centering the projectile on Vader.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
    Dominic takes a long moment to think about Mirielle's inquiry about what his plan is as the entire situation seems to 'go straight to Odin in a crashing airship', to use a Galiandan saying. He looks around a bit and then asks, "Have you heard the story of the man who walked calmly through a battlefield because there were so many fights going on?"

    He asks this question blandly before adding, "Stay close," and starting to walk towards the building at a pretty casual and relaxed gait. The entire point of his maneuver is that while everything is panicing, people are running through the streets and sieging the building in all manner of ways, Dominic's plan is for himself and Mirielle to just walk right on into the building.

    "Perhaps, like many apartments, they have independantly owned storage units for tenants. We may find information in the records office for the building."

Dorotea Grahn (742) has posed:
Dorotea bulls through the front door at about the same time as everything goes crazy up above her. This only galvanizes her; it gives her a time limit and a threat she didn't have before. At least she's inside, which means the gunships aren't likely to target her. Troopers, maybe, if they chase her, but she's got a bit of a head start.

She starts to pick up speed once she's inside; she doesn't go terribly /fast/ at first, but she has a kind of unstoppability about her, and once she gets moving she does start to get some good speed. Dorotea spends a /lot/ of time on the physical parts of her education; it shows.

It doesn't even occur to Dorotea to take the elevator on her approach to the seventh floor. Locking herself inside a metal box that she can't control is asking for trouble. She takes the stairs, swinging herself on the railing and starting to pound her way up them. She is not exactly lightweight, and wearing heavy armoured boots isn't helping her stealth score any, but she scrambles pretty quickly once she gets going.

She really, really wishes she knew Blue Magic to help her run faster. But, alas, she does not. "Stupid - stupid - stairs!"

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
    Although Darth Vader's transport was the first to arrive, it was only one of five. Down below in the streets, Stormtroopers are fanning out across the apartment building's exterior. They're not interfering though, which is probably strange and alarming. They do, however, take advantage of any opportunity to enter the building. There are four sizeable groups of them, two of which attempt to gain immediate entry and go about their work. Another two begin to operate on the building exterior, planting devices along the base as they go. This is probably fairly obvious, and very definitely bad news.

    With this many of them at it, it won't take very long for them to get DONE, either.

    The other group, if they managed to gain interior access, start to plant charges along the first floor as well. Strangely, they don't seem to have a particular GOAL for this. They're just spreading the bombs out far and wide. This might be just to make it hard to account for ALL of them if somebody elects to interfere.

    Each of the groups of Stormtroopers has one extremely notable leader wearing a jetpack and extra armor. Not heavy weapons, no -- these are ARC Troopers. As close as you can get to a Fett, as clones go, and every bit a problem. The others are rank-and-file, with a variety of jobs to them.

    Up on the roof, Lord Vader seems to realize that somebody is getting ready to attack him before it actually happens. He gestures grandly towards the LAAT which brought him here, and it lifts off of the ground despite its engines being disengaged. The pilot seems to wonder what's going on for a moment, then scrambles out with a cry of alarm. This is because the LAAT is hurled directly into the rocket launched at the roof, exploding spectacularly.

    The duty of being the Point Man is left to Flotilla personnel, evidently.

    The debris from the transport is not allowed to shower down across the street. Vader reels it in, pulling the debris field in around him and scattering it across the roof -- harmlessly -- in chunks. If he needs to throw a bunch of crap at somebody or something, he's going to HAVE it.

Soan Sagittarius (633) has posed:
     The operation starts. Normally, this is the sort of reason why Soan works alone on theses sort of infiltration. He, for the life of him, does not /get/ just how all theses people found out they were going, THIS evening? He presume that they just weren't the only ones that had access to other sorts of information. Especially considering who is here. And how many.

     All this means, is that he needs to kick it up, particularly fast.

     Soan goes for the stairs. He's dressed with a long, tight coar around him, not leaving too much of a figure to flap annoyingly as he moves. He'S wearing a mask, masking heat and most of his features. There is, also, an useless looking piece of chrome-wire coming out at the base of his skull. Closer inspectiong would indicate that it is taped on.

     Soan takes cares of the prolem of the slowness of 'stairs' by cheating. He takes out a grappling hook, firing upward at the roof of the stairwell. It digs around a handlebar around the 7th floor, gives a good tug... and jumps upward, holding up on the wire as it 'Drags' him up. Once up there, he'll rush through the door to get to search the room.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    "Alert. Incoming projectile."
    "Nothing beyond the prowess of such a renowned master. Give him space."
    "Aye cap'n, gettin' clear!"

    The explosion goes off, but the Starbounders have already breached the interior. Albert, at least, does intend to grab Xiao Li Yu's arm roughly and yank her towards the interior with them, unless she REALLY wants to stick to the rooftop hot-zone. Zaibatsu protecting their own. At least being just inside will give an advantage.

    "Hunt isss now! Science friend give map, we go!"
    "Plotting route. George, Biteblade, kill anything in your way."
    "Whatever, monkeyman, I got this under control."

    The team continues conversing urgently as they get inside, and shortly encounter that turret...

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason is moving in after Dorotea at this point, warriors up front, support behind, right? She's called her bots in at this point, they will be a bit in coming, but they are coming now. Hopefully they will be of use and she's got no idea that Pavo and Biteblade are here. It may be for the beast for the moment. She seems to be keeping back and she'll look for tech based trapps. Given this world she knows started out non magic using they have a heavy use of it still combing it in odd ways with magic. So she's very much trying to keep on her toes here as she keeps after her Shivan friend. She's also might be targets for the troopers as she follows at a shockingly good pace, all things are considered. She knows there's an elevator but she damn well think it's watched and could have a remote shut off of some sort. She's also placing a motion sensor or two in their wake so if someone else comes up this way she'll know about it.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Xiao completed her map and transmitted the data to the rest of the team. Nodding to herself and calling it one task well done, she stood. But a distant sound of a rocket sailing through the air and...right to their location. Oh bother. That would not bode well if it managed to make impact. Valuing her current state of being able to breathe and live, Xiao scuttled off behind the ranks of her allies. She wasn't about to be the first blown up! Once sufficient distance was made, she looked back to find a cruiser sailing through the air. And then explosion.

     "....Oh. Ohhhhh."

     Evidently, getting blown up was never even an possibility with Vader around. Was that telekinesis? Well, no time for questions now. She smiled and thanked Ifrit that she was still in one piece. It'd be kind of hard to research if you were in several hundred pieces and scattered across a rooftop. Rockets are bad news, yo.

     With the Flotilla team taking point, the scientist found herself dragged along with them into the building by Albert. Not that she had planned to /stay/ up there. No thank you. She stumbled a bit, but quickly moved along with them, eyes sweeping left and right. "The architecture is not /too/ grand. But regardless..." She ran a ran her free hand across a wall as she passed, feeling it's texture. "No matter." She decided, proceeding onwards with the other actual operatives.

     "But my, this is getting rather exciting!" Xiao randomly commented, ignoring the gravity of the situation as a creepy smile found it's way onto her face.

     Scientists.

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    Mirielle looks darkly at Dominic some more, before nodding. "As you say. A..." Mirille pauses. "That's not a common colloquialism at all." She complains, pulling out a notebook and flipping through it. "That's a reference to recent events. That was a thing that happened to you. Well, no, not to argue the actual validity of your idiom, but..."

    Mirielle moves into the building along with Dominic, spotting the Clone Troopers heading up the sapping of the outside of the building. "Now... That's peculiar. Normally you'd set up a cordon and then clear the building. And certainly they're not going to simply blow the building up with their liege lord atop, or allies within..." She muses.

    But she takes Dominic's flank, gathering up little bits of her power if necessary. "How... proactive of you, Dominic. I'm glad your law enforcement training is paying dividends. We shall leave the direct fighting to our allies, then? Try to dodge the white-armored troopers." She councils.

    Something bugs her about those devices. They simply didn't 'add up' to her.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    George is the first one into the turret kill-sights. Shit! Seft, thankfully, is still being the look-out scanner here; she shoves him to one side, rapid-constructing a mess of metal COVER with her Matter Manipulator at the stairwell handrails for Xiao to take while tanking the brutal impact of a stream of bullets!
    "Urgent. George, get down."
    "Turret! Sawbones, get ye head down too!"
    "Biteblade, boilstrike now!"
    "Floran kill ssstupid gun, yeah!"

    While the rest get into cover, Albert still pulling Xiao Li Yu along with them, Biteblade leaps out, the leafy girl drawing no bolt at all but rather concentrating a mist of moisture out of the air into a brutally tough bolt that she intends to fire out of her futuristic bow and lance through the body of the turret, where it will ideally explode in a rush of superheated water and shut it down before her body can get too riddled with holes!

Kamon Lionward (628) has posed:
Kamon moves the rent-a-cops just out of sight while people start to flood the streets and make bad decisions. He looks back at them, and then up and around instead. They're not really the problem here. Now, the uniformly-dressed individuals carrying some kind of rifles on the ground...

Already near the front door, Kamon spots the Stormtroopers planting what look remarkably like some of the traps that Soan occasionally uses around the building. He doesn't know precisely what they'll do, but there's no mistaking them for a weapon. Kamon reaches into his coat, grabbing one of his own. He moves up against the building, holding the weapon close to his leg. They're spreading out; it's only a matter of time before --

The Stormtroopers start to try to get access, and they run into the Odynari lurking near the most convenient entrance. Kamon lunges forward, thrusting the tip of what, to them, probably looks like a weird blue-bladed lightsaber right into the face of the lead trooper. Like the weapons of their world, it's designed to pass through most types of matter, but it leaves wounds iced over instead of cauterized with heat. This doesn't make it any less dangerous.

Kamon lays into the saboteurs, pressing into the midst of the nearest group of Stormtroopers with precise thrusts and quick slashes. He's ready to intercept any of them who come at him with a melee weapon; the J-shaped blade connects to the hilt at the bottom, giving it a hook-like guard that will probably beat anything they're packing. Kamon wields it in one-hand like a fencer, but isn't afraid to hit the troopers with his free hand to knock them off balance long enough for him to down them. Whatever they're doing, he's decided to stop it.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    "Seft is wounded. I will attend to her with haste, seek to advance immediately regardless of this."
    "Got it, fishface, one 'advancement' comin' up."

    Regardless of the status of the turret, George is in cover and unharmed enough to let him recover a MAKESHIFT BOMB from his Matter Manipulator and lob it down the stairs. It's a CORROSIVE CHEM GRENADE, meant to deal with things like this! Slapped together from random industrial gear, it releases a burst of disgusting chemicals that are meant to instantly corrode metallic substances and neutralize after a few seconds exposure to air. Great for dealing with fences and meshes and things like that, but quick enough that, if the turret's been dealt with, the group can immediately get down the stairs, with George and Biteblade leading the pack. Albert's already seeking to use Xaio Li Yu's map and any direction Darth Vader gives to identify the location of the VIP, and the route to get to them! So if everything's cleared out properly, the whole group -- with Seft sort of limping, being helped and repaired by Moonfin -- will be immediately headed downstairs.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Kyra and Vader seem to cancel each other out nicely. Vader loses his transport, but Kyra also didn't blow Vader (and everyone else) off of the building.

However, things get considerably more comples at ground level when the transports drop the Clone Troopers and ARC Troopers into the mix. The people on the street seem mildly raucous, but it looks like no one's gotten the guts up yet to fire on obviously military trained aliens. The bombs begin to be placed, and the front door may as well be a revolving one at this point at the inside groups begin their work. Mirielle and Dominic can easily break into the front office, it's just a glass door in the way and how is the place going to have any MORE of an alarm going? The problem is, they can choose between that or doing something about the Clone Troopers. Unless they want to split up? Everyone knows that's the best plan ever. Kamon engages one of the external squads in his own Lionward way.

Dorotea and Lyria, meanwhile, begin stomping up the stairwell. They get to the third floor before opposition begins in the form of the same problem facing the Starbound team: An automated pop-up gun turret which begins spraying bullets at them with abandon. Soan, meanwhile, whips past using his high tension grappling hook line and totally not his Jump ability (wiiiiiink).

Soan gets to the Floor 7 landing quickly enough. The door is locked with a standard tumbler lock. He could totally pick it, with a glance, but something seems wrong. His Trap Senses are tingling. The air around the door reminds him or Ramuh for some reason. Maybe it's the smell...

Xiao feels the texture of the wall: It seems to be mostly cheap wood paneling with dated wallpaper. She can see the seams tearing in a few places here and there. There's something about this place that feels... eroded. Perhaps at its height it might have been beautiful, but now it seems a shell of its former glory.

A shell that has lots of guns in it, it seems. Thankfully, the Flotilla has something to say about that. The hastily-constructed metal cover affords them some protection, though the bullets are apparently high-caliber enough that it's denting the metal. Eew. Biteblade learns about the stopping power firsthand as she takes a couple hits for the team, the daring bow shot striking and punching through the hardened casing. It's prepared for bullets and explosives, not steam bombs. The blast takes out the internal mechanics, and the gun droops uselessly without the control system telling it where to engage its point and click interface. Which mostly leaves a set of electrified mesh grates laid out on the floors, apparently intended to just murder whoever steps on them. thankfully, George has studied his chemistry and begins dissolving the electrified meshes. It takes a little time, but apparently they're heading to the 7th floor too.

Soan better think fast or he's going to lose his lead to the well-armed Flotilla... and Biteblade might be hungry. She's been known to go out for a bite on occasion.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    The rocket launcher scores a nice big explosion but Kyra's heart sinks as she knows that it didn't hit the intended target. That dropship move was just too well timed-as if Vader /knew/ the shot was coming. When the fireball and smoke clear, Kyra sees that the Flotilla have left the roof and went into the building. Her friends inside are quickly warned. From way atop the other building, she cannot exactly see that the Stormtroopers at street level are emplacing explosives.

    Their movements still strike Kyra as highly suspicious though, likely unconsciously reinforced by her own explosives-use knowledge. She'll warn her friends about this too. Mirielle fortunately provides the right details on what the Stormtroopers are up to.

    Wary, Kyra quickly places a Protect spell on herself before moving again.

    Keeping herself low to the ground, Kyra quickly reloads her rocket launcher and hauls it onto her shoulder. "You're going to run out of ships to throw in the way." Kyra mutters and fires again. Two additional shells remain since this wasn't exactly an easy weapon to transport.

Dorotea Grahn (742) has posed:
Dorotea Grahn makes reasonably good time on the stairs because she is in really, really good shape. She does not slow down for Lyria, though; either she can keep up or she can't.

"THAT'S CHEATING," she yells at Soan, as he lifts past her. She doesn't actually sound that annoyed - somewhere between exasperated and amused. At least one of the will get there in time.

Dorotea keeps pounding her way up the stairs until they get to the third floor. Actually, that doesn't stop her either; Dorotea keeps running when the pop-up gun turret flips out, but she changes her angle slightly, summoning something into her hands with a flicker of blue light and phantom diamonds around her.

As she gets a little closer, the gunnery turret starts to hit her. Dorotea yells more in anger than anything else, but she flings what she's summoned into her hand at the turret; it's a sticky blob of acid, like what some kinds of flans and slimes extrude. It does some damage as it eats away at the turret, but the primary effect is to start disabling the thing, clogging the gun and weakening its armour. (Sadly, it is probably impossible to poison, being a gun turret.)

Dorotea flips it the bird as she keeps running after throwing it. Thankfully, not literally. There is no actual bird.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    "Floran hurtsss... Need prey! Fassst!"
    "You will have it. Go to floor 7. Lockdown exits. Kill everyone. Burn everything."

    Biteblade is bleeding greenish blood a little from the holes in her sparse armor, but she's not slowing down a bit. The group rush through the mesh and just BOOK IT down the stairs. In fact, Pavo, George, and Biteblade don't even take the stairs! Their agility allows them to descend by JUMPING into the open space of the stairwell, using ENERGY JETS to redirect their movements and land a bit above Floor 8. This, unfortunately, means that they'll be seen very obviously in their mini-flight, so it won't be a surprise for them to be encountered higher up!

    "Coverin' yer aft! Get yerselves in there!"
    "Gotcha, Polly, you won't have to cover long."

    The trio are heading down to the Floor 7 landing with guns and bow drawn...

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
    The 501st Legion is not made up of ordinary Stormtroopers. Darth Vader does not brook service from the average, and the men that he brought today are no exception to this rule. The majority of the Stormtroopers on the roof file in after the Flotilla operatives and Xiao Li Yu, with one particular ARC Trooper remaining close to the scientist for protection. This isn't their first rodeo, after all. For the most part they make up a support role, though. They, like the others, are equipped with charges -- but that's not their job. They'll help with a breach if necessary, but this group is strictly support/backup.

    Lord Vader himself remains standing alone on the roof, which really seems like a bad idea, but he does have a purpose for being here, unexplained though it may be. He draws his lightsaber away from his belt, holding it loosely at the ready in one hand. But not ignited. His frigid presence creeps out across the surroundings, reaching for somebody SPECIFIC. Reaching for the person whose intent was to strike at him from afar.

    Kyra.

    It takes him a moment to discern her from the rest of the background noise, and even then he is not entirely certain of the person behind the presence... until his senses tell him that another attack is a heartbeat away. The ship debris that he pulled back onto the roof is brought up and fired into the next rocket, creating a flak field that catches the rocket just too late.

    The explosion rockets the roof, sending debris and a shockwave barreling into Vader. He's bowled over by this, and almost certainly inundated with dangerous debris of his own making. But he is not felled, however much that may have hurt him -- and that is a difficult thing to discern with his armor and cybernetics all made of black. If there is a fatal breach in his suit, it is certainly not visible from here.

    Lord Vader rises, his will now locked onto Kyra like a heat-seeking missile onto a roaring engine. His intent is quite simple. His free hand is raised dramatically, closing abruptly into a fist -- more out of habit than necessity.

    A crushing force abruptly threatens to close in around Kyra's neck out of nowhere. There are several ways to safely deal with it, and the air around trembles briefly before it occurs, offering some measure of warning that something is wrong. But whether or not she is in time-- that remains to be seen.

    MEANWHILE, the two groups of Stormtroopers trying to enter the building are partially waylaid... but not completely. If Kamon had gone for one of the rank-and-file troopers he could have started a chain reaction that would have deprived them of numbers, but he goes for one of the leaders. One of the ARC Troopers. And they're not so easily dispatched. He ducks to one side of the icy saber, which manages partial contact along the eye and side of his helmet. A cry of pain issues, augmented by his helmet's vocoder, but the ARC Trooper doesn't lose his resolve or his life. Frozen flesh and a ruined eye can be seen where the helmet was breached, but it doesn't kill. It might yet, but not so far.

    "GO! Complete your mission!" The ARC Trooper barks, falling back a pace and firing his carbine several times, trying to get underneath Kamon's guard while staying just a step out of his reach. Seems he's assuming that saber works like a lightsaber does, and will bounce weapons fire back at him.

    The Stormtroopers follow their orders. Kamon manages to take a few of them out, even, as they pass but-- sheer numbers and the quality of his opponent do not offer him the luxury of killing them ALL, and there's another ARC Trooper out there.

    In all, he's dealing with about two platoons of grunts and a couple of these ARC Troopers.

    That second ARC Trooper is smart enough to start shooting at Kamon from a distance to the side -- he's not foolish enough to approach from the rear and risk hitting his fellow officer.

    Meanwhile, the two exterior Stormtrooper platoons that did not attempt to enter have gone effectively unopposed. This may be trouble l

Soan Sagittarius (633) has posed:
     In normal circumstances, Soan would gladly take his time to disassemble the trapped door -- electrified, by the smell of it -- he's pretty sure. He hates wasting up a perfect mechanism like this, but he's in a hurry. With people barreling downward with guns, hot on his trail, he need to make this quick and dirty. But before he can knuckle down and take care of it, he need to buy some time.

     Soan snatch out of his belt a small spherical sphere, fueling with with a few MP from the top and bottom extremities. It whirls to life, lightning up just as he sees the tropping people coming from above, keeping it in hand as he goes to work on the door. The goal is to discharge the electrical, he assume, charges off into disposable Thunder Rod he keeps, along with his rubber gloves to make short work out of the tumbler.

     Discharge of pain or not, success or not, when the Flotilla comes barreling to the 7th floor, Soan flicks the spherical object, making a whining noise.

     Before exploding into one massive blinding lightning bolt, followed by an almost immediate deafening thunderclap. A Thunder Grenade.

     Or to some people, a Flashbang.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason is making up to the third floor a pop-up turret comes up and Lyria is peddling back, she does get an invention idea a shell generator would be nice. Okay that's an invention for later. Then Soan goes right past her as well she gets his warning too even as she's moving pull some sort of glue like grenades. She's not going to look up but she does throw a glue grenade at the turret to make sure the thing /stays/ down. She'll then make ready to start moving up the stairs if they are successful.

"We need to intercept those alien mercs and stop them. I'm also feeling like making a salad today."

She's going to press head afterwards trying to catch the Flotilla and slow them down some more.

Outside this madness several machine appear spider like bots bound in falling in with Kamon and start trying to freeze the ground or even the armour o the hostile Imperial troopers of various sort they will give him what support they can do. The Serpent like Remora charges on into the building to follow up after Lyria whose called for it.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
    "The logic behind this plan is quite simple, from a law enforcement perpsective, Lady Edelweiss," Dominic says conversationally as he walks. He keeps his pace semi-consistent so she can keep up despite her lesser levels of fitness, "Anyone who has been in this business long enough to accrue infamy will keep records. You just have to know where to find them," He notes as he keeps walking.

    "Now, anyone who has been in the business long enough to be infamous and unarrested will not have the records incriminate themself," He notes conversationally, "No. A good information broker keeps it divorced from an identity behind their network," Obviously Mirielle KNOWS this for her own reasons, "BUT!"

    He lifts his hand and holds up a finger, "But. They keep information to incriminate others. Information they will usually never let fall into other people's hands. So it won't be stored here. Or at least, he'll have a copy that's not stored here. In case someone attacks his apartment and forces him out, an angry client perhaps or law enforcement, he has a backup for blackmail to re-establish the network."

    "So you go to the records. He'll have a storage facility listed, for instance, for where his possessions in his apartment go in case of his death. A subtle thing most hitmen, angry clients, and officers won't look for. That storage unit or holding area may have his backup, hard copies of clients and... illicit blackmail material."

    Arriving at the door to the front office, he inwardly is happy that he remembered to wear a leather jacket. Because he has a master key in that much: He elbows the shit out of the glass window on the office and reaches in to unlock it. He looks around at the ARC Troophers that aren't TOO far off, "Alright," He begins to Mirielle, "You check the records. I'll stand guard in case someone thinks to come in here."

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Oh dear.

     Things were getting quite complicated now, weren't they? As much as she would have liked to stand aside and observe everything...for science, it was time to put in some more legwork. Figuratively speaking. Her arms folded inside of her sleeves, laptop and all, and then came back out. Where her hands were once uncovered and carrying a computer, they were now covered in a black, metallic material.

     Reinforced combat gauntlets.

     The various points in which the metal seemed to have to been sectioned off occasionally pulsed with a red glow, indicating that there was more to them. But they were mostly hidden in her sleeves, and almost obscured from sight from the wrist up.

     If Albert was still dragging her along, he would have felt an odd change in the bulk of Xiao's arm.

     "Hold a moment." She spoke evenly, eyeing the stairs at various points. "See those steps?" She pointed towards certain ones that looked a bit different from the rest. Those must be electrified. If you step on them, I can imagine that all your plans will go kaput!" Fun. "Give me a second." She brought her fists together, and a faint aura of blue surrounded her. Soon after, electricity began to build up around her, traveling down her body and gathering into the gauntlets themselves.

     Once that was done, she knelt down and simply pressed a hand against the surface of the stairs. Immediately after, a powerful surge of electricity burst out from her hand and rapidly traveled downward, aiming to short circuit the booby trapped stairwell with more power than it could reasonably hold.

     It would continue onward after that however, so anyone down below would be in for a bit of surprise!

     ...Of course, she wasn't quite expecting a flashbang to come sailing through the air either.

     "...Oh-"

     That's not good.

     BANG!

     Immediately, Xiao shielded her eyes from the flash, though she may have been a moment too late, having taken in enough of the light to blind her.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Between the explosion and the debris being used to form a telekinetic shield, it's hard to discern if she really got a direct hit. This one seemed to get closer to its target than the previous one and she could even see the apartment building shake a little from the blast. Yet through the flames she can make out that coal-black, imposing visage of the Imperial.

    Kyra's stomach drops when she sees him get back up. She doesn't have time to switch to her scope to assess the damage. He's moving and that's bad enough and even from her spot, she can see that gloved hand lift into the air.

    As the force closes in, the Protect spell around her suddenly erupts in flashes of green light. Vader will feel the spell actively trying to resist his power, gradually resorting to slow impedence. The choke is still happening, but far slower and it's enough to give Kyra some warning of what's coming.

    Kyra's response is panic. She shrieks and runs for the stair access of the building she's on, assuming that Vader can't choke her from afar if she can't see her. The rocket launcher is left behind in her haste while her snipe rifle remains attached to her via a strap.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    "ARRRRGH!! Can't see!"
    "Isss flashy-bang explode!"

    The first three Starbounders round the corner and suffer the immediate effects of the flashbang. As a STATUS EFFECT, it's an unfortunate fact that their armor just universally has extreme vulnerabilities to things like that. PAVO and BITEBLADE are both disabled for quite some time! Though, oddly, George is less so. He's blinded and deafened by the flashbang, but as someone who has been well-trained to deal with specifically that sort of effect (it mostly involves habitual strategic stimulant injection and /always/ wearing sunglasses) he can recover at twice the expected speed. This still buys Soan quite a bit of time, but it means that a deafened, slightly dazed George will still be rushing in sooner than expected to attempt an expert, brutal grapple, and a swift knee-shattering leg-sweep. He's also a bit louder than normal, on account of the deafness.

    "CAN'T HEAR SHIT, SON, SO I'M JUST GONNA ASSUME YOUR NEXT WORD IS 'OW'."

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    Mirielle nods, learning a few things. In fact, she pulls out pen and notebook and pushes glasses up her nose, jotting down a few juicy tidbits about how to keep her shadow broker empire from crumbling around her when the law eventually catches up to her. Or, how to keep the heat away from her. But, mostly, it's fascinating to hear about the organization structures of suspects and the ways that Law Enforcement handles them.

    "Well then." She notes, looking at the glass door, and then at Dominic. "I suppose you get the glory, and I get the data-management? How... Typecasted." She notes, neutrally, before moving to the glass door, and drawing out her dagger, to place against the lock. "Ragnarok, the Open Path, bring upon your daughter a boon...

    Her knife grows hot, and she aims to simply melt off the lock. If that doesn't work, she can blast the door, but...

    "I guess I'll go toss the books." She ho-hums darkly, pushing open the disabled door (or simply walking through the broken glass) to start pulling records. Surprising nobody... Mirielle is pretty good at data management.

Kamon Lionward (628) has posed:
Kamon managed to pick the tough guys in charge. Well, that's fine. Cut off the head, and the body will...

Shoot at him, apparently. That's a problem.

The ARC Trooper backpedals and takes a few shots, and Kamon does what he expects: he parries the energy bolts, blocking two but grounding them instead of deftly knocking them back into the ARC Trooper. The third grazes him, punching a hole in his coat and leaving a narrow streak of burnt flesh across his side. Kamon hardly flinches, but he does suddenly drop low, the second trooper's fire passing over his head as he swings his free hand out beneath him and snatches something before it hits the ground.

Kamon spins the other object in his left, grasping it and bringing it in line with the second ARC Trooper. He glances to the side to check his aim before he holds the trigger down, the submachine gun -- apparently cut loose from where it had hung in the coat -- spitting a spray of bullets at the second trooper to dissuade him from continued fire. It's nearly blind, but it's loud and threatening. Kamon has no idea if these guys are tough or dedicated enough to sit through that, but he thinks he's about to find out.

At the same time he's firing, Lyria's drones follow him in, harassing the various 'troopers with their ice-elemental disruption. Kamon follows suit, bellowing, "BREATH OF SHIVA," and raising his DB's Saber with his right hand. He stops firing with his left for a couple crucial seconds. A haze of blue spreads from the already-blue energy weapon, seemingly extended from his body.

        
         FLAIR > HOARFROST BLADE
        

"HOARFROST BLADE!"

Kamon swings. The path of the slash is outlined in the air, a short-lived glare of icy blue light left where the Saber's blade passed. It hangs there for a heartbeat before suddenly exploding into light and mist, a wave of ice and frost rushing forward at the wounded ARC Trooper. Kamon doesn't really want to kill the man, but he'll accept freezing him to an interior wall out of the way.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Albert, Moonfin, and Seft were all a bit farther behind, with Vader's forces, still leading the charge. They also follow along with Xiao Li Yu's instructions, being quite willing to halt as long as the scientist works quickly. With that done, they move on without so much harm done to them. Thank goodness!

    "Your wisdom is valuable, Ms. Yu. A flexible mind makes the warriors around all the more valuable."
    "Grateful. We appreciate the assistance."

    They catch only the edge of the flashbang's effect, thankfully not enough to suffer the same awful vulnerabilities, just enough to give Soan that delay he needs by forcing them to stop for a moment! Judging by all the noise they're making, it's clear he's on a time limit of a few seconds now, though.

    "Opposition below. Weapons ready, advance /now/!"

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
STAIRWELL:

Things are chaotic as two groups work on breaching the defenses of the stairwell. Dorotea gets shot a number of times, lacking the instant cover-construction capabilities of the Flotilla, but seems to make up for it with supernatural toughness. Berserker and Blue Mage are a hell of a thing. However, she is not idle as she acid-bombs the turret, which melts off some of its protective coverings just in time for Lyria to glue grenade it. The machine whirrs and jams into a complete mess. That's safer, at least. Now all that stands in their way is a platforming section unless they have a way to deal with the electrified mesh in some fashion. They best hustle, because the Flotilla are basically right on top of Soan... Or are they?

Soan hits the door with a Thunder Rod, attempting to ground it out. There is a powerful jolt and a BANG from the door as everything goes dark for a few seconds.

Did he wire the goddamn /mains/ to the door? Either way, when the lights come back on, Soan has the door unlocked and opens it to reveal the 7th floor hallway.

The hallway floor is littered with land mines. Seriously. What the hell is this guy thinking? Room 707 is at the end of the hall. Meanwhile, another turret pops up next to Room 707, beginning to spit lead down the hall towards Soan. How does he plan to deal with this?

Maybe the Flotilla have an idea. Xiao sure does, as she overloads the remaining meshes on the top side of the stairwell, clearing the way for the Flotilla to come down. This might get a little crowded for soan depending on how fast he can get in gear and if he is willing to deal with the robust combat abilities of George.

FIRST FLOOR:

Mirielle melts through the lock at the same time as Dominic breaks open the door for her. DOUBLE OPENING. The office is laid bare for their record needs. The office is a plain affair, having an outdated cyberterminal for someone to jack into were they inclined to have a DECKER EPISODE, but thankfully Mirielle has other options: Like those filing cabinets. There's also a desk and various unopened packages, perhaps unclaimed deliveries. Her rummaging reveals a lot of printed pay stubs and rent receipts, as well as a corporate ledger. There's also a master cardkey ring sitting in one of the drawers along with some magazines. Something about this office reeks of shadiness to Mirielle, and not the adorably woobish shadiness she projects. It feels like everything's here, but not how it should be.

Meanwhile there's some epic combat outside. Dominic gets to watch Kamon fighting ARC Troopers in the lobby. Doesn't that look awesome?

OUTSIDE:

The people part and get the hell out of the way as APCs roll down the street with the UCAS logo, discharging men in uniform with camo cybernetics. Helidrones begin weaving in towards the building, attempting to acquire targets and relay information to the firesquads on the ground. No one has any idea what to do about the massive ship in the sky, however, let along the one in orbit. The external stormtroopers come under automatic rifle fire, while a Firelance laser turret swivels and takes aim at the closest enemy, turning on and unleashing a steady, consistent burning beam.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
    On the ONE hand: Kamon is seriously looking taxed over there. And it's really tempting to go help him out in his time of need.

    ON THE OTHER HAND: The last time they were in Denver, Dominic left Mirielle alone for 20 minutes and she wound up impaled under concrete, rebar, and a broken fire escape. Also he nearly got cut in half and she had to, half-dead, help bail him out while near dead along with Soan.

    It's a very hard decision for him to have to grapple with. In the end, he leans into the doorway and shouts, "We may need to get moving soon. You finding anything worth while? Toss it as much as you want."

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
    It's not actually true that Vader can't choke someone without seeing them. But it does become kind of a hassle, especially when so much hostility is going on nearby. He gives it some effort to try to squeeze Kyra's little neck off, but ultimately she flees far enough that he no longer feels an inclination to force the issue... especially now that she's dropped that nuisance of a weapon. Peculiar that she was able to keep functioning while being choked like that, but he'll have to figure out what that strange resistance was later. Perhaps she has latent talents of her own.

    Still, he does not move from the roof. What's he /doing/?

    Lord Vader accesses his internal comm link and booms, "Captain, activate all tractor beams and center them on this building. Sergeant, detonate all explosives planted along the base of the building. If interior explosives have not been placed, loose all thermal detonators and evacuate immediately. Pilots and accompanying gunners, lift off with your transports and open fire on what remains of the first floor. Begin extraction of all ground forces thirty seconds after structural failure."

    The ARC Troopers make some strategic errors, but fortunately the DB Saber does not -deflect-, it just -blocks-. If not for that, they would've been in serious trouble.

    The first ARC Trooper doesn't know what to make about this bellowing, and doesn't expect a ranged attack from a swung saber. He does, in fact, get frozen to the interior wall. The likelihood that this won't kill him outright by the end of this is relatively unlikely. The second ARC Trooper fares better, that armor seems to be actually extremely effective against ballistics fire. He's forced to retreat by the force of the machine gun fire alone, and hits the ground on his back.

    That's the good news.

    The bad news is that he hurls a thermal detonator -- not at Kamon, though. At the ice sculpture his buddy has been turned into. It CLINKS against the ice and bounces to the ground at the frozen trooper's feet. Inside, the Stormtroopers are ALL loosing thermal detonators instead of planting proper explosives. And they're -running-.

    On the exterior of the building, the planted explosives begin to beep.

    Beep. Beep. BEEP. BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP--

    There's plenty of opportunities to screw over these retreating Stormtroopers. Or even, the fallen ARC Trooper. But that explosion is coming fast and those Stormtroopers only just gave themselves enough time to get clear. Not to mention, there's a much more immediate grenade on the ground not too far away from Kamon. He's definitely won the fight-- but the battle? That's still up in the air.

    Up on the roof, Darth Vader lingers, his only company the ominous hiss of his respirator.

    Up in the sky, the RESOLUTE directs its tractor beams towards the apartment building... and the gunships take to the air to direct heavy weaponsfire towards the first floor, intending to scythe through whatever might remain of it in the wake of the explosives.

    Why laboriously kidnap a single man, when you can simply steal the building he occupies?

    Unfortunately, bringing military assets into this means that military assets are scrambled by the locals. This is unfortunate, and takes the retreating Stormtroopers by surprise. The external forces, however, who were not engaged recover quickly, while the interior troops that are trying to avoid Kamon as well as their own detonator explosions are more or less wiped out in their hasty retreat.

    The exterior troops chuck their own grenades towards the turret that's causing them such problems, while several jetpack-equipped Troopers open up on the helidrones in the hopes of clearing them out before they can get too much of a lock on anything that's going on.

    It's, to put things lightly, a mess. It'll take a minute for full coordination to be re-established, and Vader is not interfering with his Battle Meditation... for now.

Dorotea Grahn (742) has posed:
Anger helps. When Dorotea gets mad, she's hard to take down - and getting shot usually makes her mad, because of course it does. Not impossible, but she tends to brush off wounds until afterwards.

Right now she's been shot several times in the shoulder, which she is completely ignoring; her right arm is fine, the wounds aren't that deep, and she is built Shivan tough. There's a reason she doesn't really bother with armour besides on her hands and feet; she doesn't really need it that much, but the metal helps when she wants to hit someone or something.

"Nice one!" she calls back at Lyria, rounding a stair corner. She needs to get to Soan... but she's unable to just keep running because of the electrified mesh. Dorotea looks at it with a sinking feeling.

Dorotea tilts her head far to the left, then snaps it right, cracking it. Only then does she approach the platforming section by the simplest means possible; she makes her own grips, punching into the wall and driving the toes of her armoured boots in to make small grips, leaping from section to section. It is probably difficult for Lyria to follow the same way, unless she's more agile than Dorotea thinks.

"Catch up!" she calls backwards, halfway through turning the platforming section into a climbing section. She really needs to get to Soan! She hears fighting up there, and fighting draws her like a magnet at the best of times. These are not the best of times.

These are the /awesome/ of times.

Dorotea, being in an interior stairwell, does not even realize that the building is being stolen. She feels something move, but assumes it had to do with her punching handholds and kicking toe grips in the walls, because let's be honest: that's way more sensible than Grand Theft Structure.

Soan Sagittarius (633) has posed:
     As if it wasn't enough, Soan is faced with quite a few problems here. The door is opened, the flashbang did a lot of it's work -- and now he's faced with a bed of landmines, with the distinctive whine of a turret warming up, tracking him.

     As Soan takes in the split second to analyse the situation, George comes up behind him, surprising him with his speed of recovery, get him into a grapple --

     And Soan's leg snaps from the brutal sweep. Soan's face behind his mask contorts into a rictus of surprise, pain and rage building up from deep within, his scream of pain immediate, high and long. His knee buckles underneath the lack of stability of his new broken limb, but there's something else.

     Soan's scream keeps increasing, leaving behind the expression of pain as he holds on tight with one of his hand, trying to reverse the grapple with a surge of strength, blatantly ignoring without all notion his broken leg, rising the very much charged Thunder Rod into George's stomach and -- grappled or not -- leaps into the corridor, avoiding landmines by using the walls.

     So we have a thief with a broken leg screaming in rage, adrenaline and the Gods Know What Else, charging on the walls against a turret to reach a door.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Once in the stairwell, Kyra gets to work on 'emergency egress plan 2', on the off chance she had to evacuate from the roof. It's slightly modified since she's no longer on the roof, which actually makes it easier to reach the outside fire escape after smashing a window with her sniper rifle. As she climbs down the ladder, she murmurs an incantation to start up a float spell on herself.

    Once it takes hold, she hurls herself over the side of the fire escape and lets herself drop down, sinking to the ground much more slowly, as if she was sinking in water. She reaches out to grasp onto the railings of the fire escape to slow her fall a little more until she reaches that one foot hover point over the ground.

    Kyra lands just as the explosives start going off, prompting her to take cover by a dumpster.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    "Motherfucker."

    That's all George has to say as a thunder rod discharges into his stomach, SHOCKING him and blasting him backwards off of Soan, then right back over the railings of the stairs! George is now freefalling and severely burned, around the time when Dorotea Grahn is ascending the stairs by way of jumping between the sections. George would claim, in this moment, that he subscribes to what he calls 'Open Door philosophy'; the idea that life simply opens doors at all times and that it's one's own job to enter them. Here's a nice open door: He attempts to tackle Dorotea square in the midsection as he comes out of NOWHERE, meaning to grapple and wrestle her all the way down the stairwell once again. Son of a bitch!

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    Mirielle starts rapidly arranging and copying down the ledgers, collating notes before stuffing them in her bag. She generally gets a feel for things that aren't salient to her search, though she does stow any that she thinks she can use as leverage or resources later as well. No, though, those books are drawing her like a moth to flame, and she quickly takes down the most pertienent details, letting the data line itself up, and the numbers to dance for her.

    Stowing it all in her bag, there's a harrowing set of explosions as charges and Thermal Detonators go off. "Dominic!" She shouts, as the power goes out, the cieling goes... Up... and waves of explosive heat washes over her. "We need to leave! I... I assign an eighty percent confidence to having what we came here for, and I've got both original and notes." She breathes, her overfull backpack filled with papers, keys, what have you. She thouroughly ransacked the area. "We need to leave, now!" She pants, her hoodie sweltering in the horrible feeling of being very close to deconstructive explosions.

    "I assign a... very startlingly low odds to us surviving if we remain at ground zero!"

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     "Ooooh..." Xiao winced in feigned pain at Soan and George's brief engagement. She totally heard that snap even from here. She did /not/ envy them right about now. "Regardless, the opposition is heading for the presumed target..." She didn't take the helm. No. She'd leave it to the much more combat experienced Flotilla. But still, she-

     Wait. Wait wait...Is the building moving or is it just her?

     Shaking off a brief feeling of disorientation, she proceeded on, no time to analyze the possibilities. ...Oh who was she kidding, she was totally thinking about it. "Considering that the very structure isn't falling down on top of us, I would have to wager that this movement is either..."

     As the scientist let her thoughts filter out, she proceeded to the entranceway Soan leap into like a screaming madman and-- WHOA TURRETS. NOPE. Back around the corner she went. She had caught brief sight of Soan leaping along the walls however. "........Hee~" And an idea sparked. She focused and another torrent of electricity formed in her fist. "...attributed to the entire building being prepared to be moved independent of it's foundations...or this is a quake. But given the nature of the mission, I am banking on the former."

     And with that, she pressed her hand against the doorframe. Resulting from that another surge of lightning burst forth from her gauntlet, splitting into several arcs that rapidly traveled across the wall Soan was running on. They chased after him, aiming to envelop and electrocute him before he reached his target.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
    Dominic, who is currently braced against the wall outside the records office as the explosions rip and tear the building apart, certainly won't be disagreeing with Mirielle. The flying debris and crazy blasts of heat both make him grateful he's wearing that leather jacket as flecks of glass and metal hit that instead of him.

    "RIGHT! I agree!" He shouts to Mirielle, mostly to be heard over explosions and the crumbling of the building's ground floor, "Let's move!"

    A long pause before he adds, "I'm REALLY sorry for this, Lady Edelweiss!"

    And then he puts an arm around Mirielle's waist and hoists her up over his shoulder into a fireman's carry. And then he's running to try to regroup with Kamon now that his and Mirielle's end of work is done.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Pavo and Biteblade have the steadiest footing. Thank god they're the vanguard now, otherwise losing George would have crippled everything. Biteblade still needs a moment to get this right, but Pavo doesn't! Her MID-AIR MANEUVERING SKILL, LIGHT BONE STRUCTURE, and EXTREME GENERAL AGILITY make it possible for her to, despite the shifting and bucking of the building due to Darth Vader's scheme, scramble onto her feet after recovering from the flashbang, and then simply leap through the hallway. Going from the door all the way to room 707 should only involve two or three big leaps... Hopefully she can dodge those landmines when she lands! At least the turret is focused on Soan.

    Meanwhile, Albert, Seft, and Moonfin all make it to Floor 7. Albert's already arranging something with Biteblade, but Moonfin and Seft are here to defend against any approach from below!

Lyria Mason has posed:
Things are going to madness in the Stairwell with all the brawling that's going on in here. The Flotilla is ahead and now the turret is down. That's one less thing to worry about. They need to try to get to Soan and help him if they are able to. She's not about to let her friend die here, right? Then something else is happening with the building. Something is happening now and it's not likely a good thing.

Outside the spider bots have a bit too much power it seems the intention as to restrain but they damn well froze some of the troopers and they will do what they can to help Kamon and Company.

Back inside Lyria calls to Dorotea.

"No problem let's keep this shipshape and keep moving!"

She's heard Soan over the radio and it's bad she's got to figure out what to do. She knows she'll have to catch up but Remora has finally caught up with her. She now has some help, thankfully Lyria is quite Agile, she's very fast on her feet which is something Dorotea might not expect and she's bounding along pretty well. She's doing well enough with the Platforming to keep up.

She's not sure if she can get there in time she does however pull a grenade and tries to lob it towards the Flotilla as she's in plat former land, the thing will hit the ground and not explode, it will give off massively powerful sonic pluses that are one of Kyra's Mogstep remixes, yes Lyria has weaponized it.

Remora meanwhile is making like coily and bouncing along going after the nearest of the Flotilla member trying to coil about them and if that doesn't work use the beam canon in it's mouth to blast at them.

Kamon Lionward (628) has posed:
While Kamon's skill with pretty much every weapon you can think of is instinctual and perhaps frightening, he doesn't have the tech to deflect that kind of thing with this kind of weapon. If he had a solid blade with a nicely polished edge, he'd probably do it with that, causing all sorts of bewilderment.

Another thing he can't deflect? Explosions.

The Thermal Detonators start rolling out. Kamon takes one look at them and decides he doesn't want to be at ground zero. He turns towards the exit -- and then spots the downed ARC Trooper, and the man he froze to the outer wall. He clenches his teeth, his instincts born of Odin conflicting with the softer side he'd rather face the world with.

The second wins out. Kamon drops the gun and draws a second sword, this one a curved shortsword with a solid blade. He spins, shouting, "SONG OF SYLPH," as a green-white light flickers across both blades. He sweeps them forward and runs at the front door, finishing the seeming incantation: "WIND SLASH!"

A gale-force wind suddenly rips through the lobby in front of him, sending bits of armor, spent ammunition, rubble and, more importantly, a couple of the Thermal Detonators towards the front door. The two ARC Troopers get pulled along with it, one torn from his mooring on the damaged wall and the other tumbled sideways. Kamon goes at a dead sprint --

The first Thermal Detonators go off at the front door. The wall is vaporized, a cloud of hot gas and ashes left where the entryway was. The ones across the rest of the interior begin to go off -- but Kamon is already bursting through the cloud and dispersing it with a rush of wind, a hazy figure in mid-leap by the time the rest of the lobby starts to get vaporized.

Perhaps most surprisingly, the two ARC Troopers get dragged with him, carried on a howling gale. They land and slide, skidded over to the Stormtroopers who are diving for cover from the interior. They might even be alive, even if they're beat to hell. Kamon is, apparently, a softie.

And some kind of partially-metallic juggernaut. He doesn't even slow down, leaning sideways in the charge and wheeling around past the incoming fire from the local forces. He spins his mismatched swords, deflecting bullets with hardly a thought when they stray too close. He's unwilling to let his momentum go to waste, especially now that Dominic and Mirielle are following directly behind him.

The momentum does not get wasted. Kamon takes a step, bends, and Jumps, a practiced but not-quite-Dragoon-level leap into the air. He goes up as one of the Imperial LAAT gunships come down, planting a foot in the troop compartment and letting out another blast of powerful wind to clear it of anyone who might be left trying to cover them. If he timed it right, it should be touching down right as he comes to rest -- just in time for his friends to catch up.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Another exploitation of their STATUS EFFECT vulnerability! Unfortunately, they just got done recovering from that status effect! This time, they're PREPARED for a stun, and so while Lyria's SONIC BOMB does disrupt and daze the starbounders defending from lower-level assault, it definitely didn't disrupt and daze SEFT, who has activated audio filtering subroutines and, honestly, was unlikely to be affected in the first place because she doesn't have ears. She moves forward to engage Lyria! She begins a stream of suppressive fire towards her using her LASER PISTOL, but she's interfered with by REMORA, who coils around her and forces her aim off! The shots go a bit wide, but they're still very dangerous!

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
EVERYTHING:

The bombs detonate, severing the first floor from the rest of the building. Because of the incomplete bomb placement, some sections manage to be preserved. The building groans, and would collapse... But the tractor beam from the craft high above locks onto the apartments, pulling it up into the air. Even the UCAS are outright baffled by this, causing them to stop shooting for a moment.

Then a guy yells, "MARS IS STEALING OUR WOMEN! FIRE, YOU ASSHOLES!" With indignant yells, the soldiers reopen fire, trying to shoot at anything that looks alien and potentially killable. The massive ship in orbit can't be reached by conventional fire, but its radars do detect an incoming missile launch that might actually reach it. ICBMs, man. Maybe it should do something about that. Meanwhile, the remaining ARC troopers manage to blast and wing the helidrones, destroying several. They take fire back, but the damage is done, for all intents and purposes. Vader has reestablished air superiority at low altitudes. He already had it back in orbit.

STAIRWELL:

Dorotea finally gets the fight she's looking for as she meets the falling George halfway. Call it a compromise, if you will. Lyria, however, leaps into the fray herself. Soan, meanwhile, takes critical damage in order to engage in ridiculous acrobatics. He runs along the wall towards the door, the turret trying to compensate for the unorthodox approach vector, but it looks like he'll reach 707 just as the turret threatens to wing him, Xiao and the Flotilla hot on his heels (literally, electricity burns, dontcha know). The door's there, it's probably locked and definately trapped. His situation is rapidly becoming untenable. What will the mild-mannered Soan Sagittarius accomplish in this state? Does he have enough time? That ground is starting to look farther and farther away, as the Stairwell's bottom attests...

Dorotea Grahn (742) has posed:
Dorotea Grahn climbs up. The fifth floor, the sixth -

Some guy she doesn't know flies out of nowhere and slams into her.

Dorotea was, at the moment, hanging onto the wall by a handhold that she had punched into it about two seconds earlier, and she has one of her feet kicked into it also. A two-limbed grip is not really enough to support being impacted by someone else wearing armour; she's strong enough to hold him up too, but the impact makes it impossible.

She falls, yelling all the while, and George might realize that he is abruptly grappling someone who is a) very angry and b) not afraid to fight dirty. Dorotea tries to get control of the grapple while still falling, twisting around so that she ends up on top, because guy with armour is a lot more likely to be able to handle a landing with her on him than she is with a guy on armour on top of her. She's a good wrestler, but there's not really anything to push off of while you're falling a few floors.

This is probably why she throws in another bit of Blue Magic as well, one of the simplest one she knows. Dorotea releases George with one hand and tries to punch him, armour or not, with her gauntleted fist. She is briefly surrounded by blue when she does it.

Is this the legendary... GOBLIN PUNCH?

(yes)

Either way, they're going to land. It's just a question of who's on top when it happens.

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
    Dominic is jogging along at a pretty good pace. While he's not ripped like Ellard or Kamon, he's fit and Mirielle doesn't weigh much. So she's not that hard for him to carry over one shoulder as he grips his sword in the other. The gap between himself and Kamon is kept wide enough for the Fighter to take point and for Dominic to be right in behind him. This was the kind of thing Fencer training directly covered: Moving out of a warzone in a team unit, so he was at least able to fall back on that training.

    He forges ahead into the dropship after Kamon has cleared it, unceremoniously dropping Mirielle into a seat and looking to Kamon, "You take the guns? I'm shit with anything but a sword!" He confesses as he instead opts to take a different role: He slips into the cockpit of the dropship and stares at the controls. Trying to figure them out.

    He knows that the barebones basics of aircraft piloting was covered in Fencer's class, in case of emergencies. He tries to remember those lessons.

====FLAAAAAAASH BAAAAAAAAAACK====

    "Okay class! If you're ever in a war zone, we're going to teach you the absolute basics of piloting most aircraft. You're gonna need to be able to get your VIPs out safely, so you need to know this." Says a man in a flight suit, standing in front of a mockup of some controls.

    Dominic is in this class, but he's tuned out and only listening by about a quarter since this lesson is not about swords or sword-related activities. As the instructor speaks, he lets his own thoughts go:

    "When piloting an aircraft, it is important to remember-" *Longsword... 43 inches, 3.3 pounds* "-'re giving yourself enough lift. And do-" *Rapier... 39 inches, 2.2 pounds* "-eck the entire aircraft. As you can see he-" *Zweihander... up to 5.9 feet. Around 7 pounds on accident* "-anding gear and positionals. You need to know how to moniter these and your fuel levels."

====END FLASH BACK====

    "DAMNIT, I need to stop thinking about swords so much," Dominic shouts with no real context for anyone else, only really himself knowing why he's frustrated.

    Fortunately, he remembers just enough to buckle himself in, put on a headset, and echo to the back, "Hold on tight. This is gonna be a rocky ride and we're gonna go get our friends and get the hell out of here."

    He yanks back on the control sticks and immediately rocks the LAAT vertically at a very steep incline, aiming to bring the ship up past Dorotea (Who can probably grab hold if she really reacts fast), and then bring it up alongside the building, "Kamon! Make them a door!"

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    George knows how this works.

    Well, no, he doesn't actually know what a Goblin Punch is like, but it does manage to solidly shatter his helmet, leaving her facing, for a moment, the casually grinning, bruised face of the man himself. He has that look because he knows he has the advantage... Just here, though. While falling, in 'zero gravity', he has the upper hand, in as much as anything can be said to be 'upper' in such circumstances. So he doesn't actually have to stop the impact. He just has to use his Robusting instinct to let it slam brutally into his head, and roll with the punch just enough such that they go into a spin that George can tolerate and Dorotea <span style="color:an't.

    "cxterm9">Gotcha!</span>" He says, winking with the one brutally bruised eye visible through the shattered faceplate, and then goes to yank the crossed arm that punched him in the face by trying to snag the wrist; with the free hand, he tries to strike her elbow with his palm and shatter the arm, before kicking away from Dorotea after they pass the bottom of the building and have only a few dozen more feet to fall! He pulls and fires a grappling hook at the shattered bottom of the structure; Dorotea COULD grab his leg or steal one of those useful air-maneuvering jets he's got lodged on his armor if she doesn't want to fall to a far-too-brutal ground.

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
    The ARC Troopers that Kamon rescues are more grateful than they'll admit, and to repay it they don't try... well, anything. One of them, the one that was frozen, is unconscious. The other manages to get his shit together when they're not being thrown around, and assist with getting his buddy out. He's perfectly cognizant of the fact that he wouldn't have survived without the assist, but DOES follow after. Not to interfere, just to hitch a ride. There's nobody on the LAAT that Kamon went for, since this platoon was wiped out just moments ago.

    There's still gunners, since they're in sealed ball turrets, but there's not much the gunners can do. The pilot will /probably/ cooperate given the circumstances. It's not like there's much he can do while at the controls, and killing these random interlopers wasn't a mission priority. Especially with the mission wrapping up.

    The apartment building continues to rise... and in the circumstances, there's not much that the Resolute can do about the approaching ICBM. It is too busy reeling in the apartment building, but the approaching projectile IS noted. The shields on the vessel are re-oriented to focus on the impact site, where a great explosion goes up.

    Shields flicker and dim, and the side of the Resolute is breached along several side-facing hangars... but it's hardly a deathblow. It continues to reel the apartment building in.

    The ship that is close at hand is the Resolute, a Venator-class Star Destroyer capable of operating atmospherically. It is, in essence, a very large troop deployment platform.

    High, high above, in orbit of the world is the Executor. It cannot dream of approaching.

    Staring out from the top of the seized apartment building, Darth Vader glowers angrily at the missile as it strikes his ship... and looks down from the edge of the building to the firefight that continues below. His comm hisses back to life, this time directed towards the Executor's bridge. "Captain Piett. Target the launch site of that projectile and open fire upon it once. Hail the launch facilities and inform them that sustained fire will commence if any further damage is sustained by our dropship."

    "Ensure that they understand that it is ONLY. A dropship." Vader growls, cutting his comms.

    The Resolute is a mighty ship, make no mistake. But it is, in fact, a dramatically oversized troop transport. The Executor may as well be a mobile continent, armed with enough firepower to engage a fleet on even terms. Perhaps better than even terms, some may argue. Whatever they may argue, though, it does not erase the devastation that an orbital strike from such a ship can bring.

    It may have come from a long, long way off, but the titanic flash of green weapons fire from the Executor can be seen even from here, in the shadow of the Resolute.

    Down below, the Stormtroopers are retreating to their rescuing LAATs. Wounded are holding up the retreat, but they'll get out fairly quick... and those gunships have a good amount of firepower of their own to return fire on their assailants. One's been hijacked, though. Pity, that. They came in with five, they're leaving with three.

    Up on the roof, Vader notices that something is amiss with the gunship that Kamon and Dominic have hijacked. That's... that's a problem, he decides, striding over to the edge of building. It's one thing if they escape with one of his ships, but not if they manage to snatch his prize from his grasp while they do it. He looks towards the gunship, and then towards his footing. Back and forth, for a moment, as if uncertain as to whether or not he wants to do this. He's done it before, but he was a lot younger and lighter then. The aim isn't the problem, the problem is the landing and all of this extra gear he's hauling around.

    A heartbeat passes.

    Darth Vader jumps, in the middle of Dominic's ascent. There is a very, very heavy THUNK against the roof of the LAAT, followed by an incredibly familiar hissing-wheezing noise.

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    Mirielle is tossed into a chair, clutching her bag to her chest. "Dark /Prince/..." she mutters, as an oath. "Are you suicidal? Are we suicidal?" She corrects, as Kamon hops on as well. "We're suicidal. We're all suicidal. Fine. Fine... This is... somewhat... acceptable! I thought you were more adept at the controls but..."

    Mirielle reaches over, assessing the controls a bit in the cockpit, and pointing at a few knobs and studs. "Yellow toggle, red switch to on position, blue throttle to half, and try not to /kill/ us all." She councils, before moving to the crash seat and very carefully tucking her backpack in and making sure it's all zipped up and comfortable. It's currently worth more than many things. She begins to cast a nice fat Protect for the whole thing to ablate some fire. Then, as Vader drops on top of the transport... She screams. She does, in fact, start freaking out, grabbing onto Kamon like he was some sort of nice, convenient metal pole-man, and starts shaking like a leaf. "He's here. We need to leave. I'm sure a fall from... six stories up won't be fatal. In fact, it's statistically likely we'll survive. He's /here/!"

    She's freaking the fuck out, and feels the oppressive, horrible cold in her heart. Which is shady and horrible but nothing, nothing like the loathing and fel presence of /Darth Vader/.

Dorotea Grahn (742) has posed:
Dorotea fights like a cornered animal, all wild punches and strange twists. But she doesn't have a damn clue how to fight in free-fall, and it shows; she's climbed up on big monsters to attack them before, but that isn't really the same at all. "Nobody gets me!" she responds, tensing her body, preparing to take a hit.

She does manage to partially deflect the impact to her arm and absorb the rest of it. George doesn't quite break the bone, though he hits the limb in a way that makes Dorotea go "Gggn," when it impacts. She doesn't even try to avoid the kick, which sends her tumbling away.

Fortunately, there is a ship. She does not know where the ship came from but she is being yelled at from it via the radio, and so Dorotea suddenly lashes out with both arms. She manages to hang on, though she seems to be in danger of falling off; she scrabbles several times to bring herself higher on the ship.

This, unfortunately, means that Vader sees her before vice versa. The rushing wind makes the rest of the sounds drowned out from her perspective, and she's far too busy working on such things as 'not falling' and 'not dying'. But eventually, she kind of looks up.

Her expression is probably a delight.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    In the shadow of the dumpster, Kyra continues to watch and lay low. The others know of her position and she looks on carefully for any sign of a rope she can grab onto from the hijacked dropship. At this point it has been established that Light Warriors and Friends will be evacuating the rising building.

    The temptation to start taking shots at the retreating Stormtroopers was high-except that her rocket launcher is still on the roof and she doesn't want to draw aggro from a group of stormtroopers when she's still alone.

    She sees a dark form drop ontop of the drop ship and shudders. Kyra lifts her sniper rifle, ready to take aim-only to stop. She had darts loaded-tranq darts which were useless against a fully armored target like Vader. Swearing, Kyra scrambles to unload the rifle and put in some more explosive ammo while she waits.

Soan Sagittarius (633) has posed:
     This situation would have been different if Soan's leg wasn't being completely useless, didn't have a bird assailant chasing after him -- and the building being lifted up gods knows how. Not a lot of theses things are revelent at the moment in Soan's pain addled mind, narrowingly evading the turret's wrath as he homes toward the door. Several plans goes through his mind. One involves landmines, throwing them at his followers at the door, then go through. A more rage-induced one tells him to simply bullrush at it, hope for the best.

     However, the calm part of his mind, struggling to remain so admist the pain, the chaos and the adrenaline, whispers to him a much better idea. This is what happens when he get in battle: sometimes, he forgets he is a Thief, not just a Dragoon, the battle rage overwhelming the patient, vicious and witty part of his abilities.

     Thus, Soan with one last groan slams from one potted plant that get ventilated seconds later after his departure, abandoning all objects he's had in his hands. He empties his mind, allowing for his desire to vanish, acquire and pick anything shiny in his path. It's is a very difficult way to describle to non-Thieves, just this burning desire to pick something out of someone's pocket, even if it's not valuable, even if you put it back. It's the ability of being able to DO it, get what you want, when you want, however you want.

     And right now, he wants that door.

     And everything in a straight line on the way behind it.
    
     STEAL > SMASH AND GRAB
    

     Soan's forms becomes a vaccume of hands, eerie silence of wind he goes through the door -- or rather, the door mysteriously vanishes upon contact, screws, screws that's holding the door as the young man, now not screaming despite the attrocious pain, is a one-man vaccume of acquisition in a beeline toward the windows. In his path, tables, lamps, electronics, carpets, anything unfortunate enough to be in his path get scooped up.

     Even the window don't shatter. It's stolen.

     A very overburdened Soan, with all sort of objects sticking out of his jacket, an oversized door on his back and various unweildy items would plummet afterwards as he notices for the first time that buildings shouldn't float like this.

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
    Standing there on the top of the stolen LAAT, Darth Vader looks down at somebody else ... but this one is just barely clinging to the ship. The hiss of his respirator continues to haunt the surroundings as he watches her, striding back and forth for a moment like some great predator contemplating its prey. But he does not strike. In fact, he clips his lightsaber back to his belt and reaches down bare-handed. One might suspect he intended to throw Dorotea away, but what he ends up doing is hauling her up to relative safety. It's probably safer in the crew compartment, but it beats dangling off the edge.

    "The company you keep does not suit your temperament or your origins, girl." Vader rumbles to Dorotea, most likely audible even to those within the cockpit below. His attention turns towards the building they are flying alongside. Evidently, he has no intention of halting the LAAT or its inhabitants at all. Or perhaps he is waiting to see what they are managing to make away with before he departs. That weapon of his would be more than adequate to ruin a critical part of this vehicle, if he chose to use it just now.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     The electricity petered out before it managed to reach Soan. "Tch. Well, not like it was imperative." She shrugged and folded her arms into her sleeves again. When they came out after, her hands were bare once more. "I do believe all of our opponents have retreated. Further combat operations likely aren't necessary." She smiled lazily and peeked around into the warzone that was the trap laden hallway.

     "Wow. It's even more of a mess than I had figured it would be." Xiao please. There were landmines everywhere.

     "Hrm. Well, I don't believe I will be of any further use, soooooo..." She gestured for the destroyed hallway, allowing the others to move past her and investigate the hall. "Ah, but it would probably be smart to check and see if our target is still here. That's kind of important."

     "Kind of."

     "Just a little."

     ...Xiao please.

Kamon Lionward (628) has posed:
Kamon points the not-a-lightsaber-but-might-as-well-be at the turret gunners. He doesn't know how to get in there, but with a little incentive they'll cooperate.

They level out. Kamon points at the wall and yells something over the engines and the chaos. The turret gunners swivel and open up, blasting the side of the building with their blasters until a big ol' hole has been torn in it. The people on the interior may have to worry about some very hot debris.

Outside the hole, the dropship hovers. Kamon directs it to move and they extend the hole, ripping into the ascending building and wobbling while Dominic tries to possibly sword the controls with his mind. He has them cut the firing as he hears something /else/, trying to figure out what the two thumps on top were --

Oh. Mirielle knows. Kamon looks down, suddenly clung to. He sheathes the shortsword in a quick motion, looking down. "Calm down! We've got it! We're fine! We're gonna get out of here, just hold on!" He actually seems much more stable than the actual ship. Weird. "Deep breath, and --"

Soan suddenly steals a window he missed with the gun and, laden with furniture and fixtures, leaps through the air on a broken leg. Kamon's suggestion is, for the moment, lost.

Kamon waits till he's made it aboard, then snatches a bundle off of the Thief without apparent concern for the pile of crap he's got with him, unfurls it, and flings it out of the ship. He slaps his end and two globs of something glue-like to the floor, and lets the rest rope ladder fall out and down. It's the kind of thing Soan just /has/.

Kyra will have to jump, but she could totally dramatically grab it on their way past.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Pavo is speechless with envy. She really wants to know how to do that. But now's not the time for envying Soan Sagittarius, for a lot of different reasons not the least of which is that turret. Right now is the time for an entirely different type of tactic. She gets to the door, and... Stops. She doesn't try to catch up with Soan. She focuses on closing in on that turret before it can swivel around to focus on HER, and shooting it repeatedly with her Laser RCW rifle! She needs someone STRONG to breach the room and kill the man fast.

    "Ready!"
    "I am prepared."
    "Biteblade! NOW!"
    "Floran /kill/!"

    And then...

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria is now in combat with Seft. This is where Lyria's got her own pistol out and she's forced to start evading. Thanks to Remora she's able to not get shot full of holes.

"So your trying to bury the truth, to line your own pockets!? People on my world are being slaughtered. So you can get what rich?!"

She fires a few shots but well she's focusing on not getting shot so the Magitech shots. She knows something's happening this time and well? Things are just clearly going up. Wait going up?!

"The building?! It's moving?!"

That's where she breaks off from the fight she needs to find a way out of here. Oh this is going to be badly left at the mercy of the Flotilla and the Empire? Ya she'd be pretty much not coming back from that.

She's now attempting to figure out a way to get out she hears her friends are coming but she also hears about that Darth Vader is on the roof of the craft. Their day just keeps getting worse.

Well it's not all doomed Dominic and Kamon have a plan. She's going to have to wait for it and try to stay alive till then. Then it happens the shots come the hole is made, it's time to go. Lyria calls to Remora who breaks off from combat even if it means taking hits. Hell Lyria's wide open now as Remora makes like Coily from Q'bert, coiling up like a spring. She gets on and the pair leap from the building flying into the drop-ship and landing pretty hard, she's also a sitting duck from the point she's getting on to Remora and her landing in the ship.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    By the time Kyra's got her ammo swapped out and lifts the sniper rifle again, she sees through the scope that now Darth Vader and Dorotea are standing on top of the dropship. Kyra swears and lowers the weapon, unwilling to take the shot while Dorotea is in the range of being hit and, worse, possibly getting knocked off the ship.

    The white mage allows the sniper rifle to slip out of her grasp and dangle from the shoulder strap just as the rope ladder drops from the ship, thanks to Kamon. Her own Float spell, which is still in effect, helps with the jumping just a little as she latches on to the ladder, first with her hands. A bit of swinging later and she has her feet hooked into the ropes too. Steadily, she ascends the ladder.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Biteblade jumps away from the door, holding her bow up.
    Moonfin fires his grappling hook through the space of the bow.
    Biteblade sails back, stretching the springy elastic of the hook.
    Albert swings his power hammer in low-power mode back, winding up.

    As he does, Albert briefly asides to Xiao. "If you do not see a corpse, they may as well not be dead."

    And then he swings a WIDE, HEAVY strike against the motionless bow, supercharging a giant grappling-hook slingshot maneuver that FLINGS Biteblade over the mines towards Pavo! Pavo, being prepared -- and hopefully not full of bullets -- grabs Biteblade's arm in mid-air and deftly rotates with her, redirecting all that momentum towards the opened door of room 707 while Biteblade draws a pair of daggers. She has been wounded and feels the profound hunger for flesh to charge her regeneration, and she is using her ENERGY BOUNCE tech, letting her bounce off of walls and floors and ceilings chaotically with an energy field.

    She will attempt to use her keen predatory instincts to identify the target's current location in all the chaos and slam into him. If Soan has him, she'll be tackling the two of them straight out the window at outrageously high speeds. But if he's still there, instead she'll be pouncing him in the building. Whatever the case may be, she'll be trying to immediately stab and bite him in ways that are brutally tribal and tastelessly graphic, such that it'd be best not to describe.

Dorotea Grahn (742) has posed:
Dorotea Grahn gets hefted up.

By her wounded arm, so it hurts like anything. Dorotea is resistant to pain; she's not completely insensible to it. (This is not really Vader's fault; both her arms have taken abuse by now.)

"Too bad," Dorotea says, when she no longer wants to yell in pain. "They're my friends, so you'll just have to put up with me hanging out with them." Part of her is pretty sure she can get Vader off the ship. How hard is it to just shove him off? She doesn't even have to win in a fight; she just has to launch him once.

Instead, she waits. She drops into a slightly lower stance because it's way more stable on top of a moving airship (holy shit, she thinks, /I am on top of a moving airship this is a really bad idea/) and also because it gives her the optimum position to jump forward and slug Vader.

But she doesn't. Holding her temper must be really, really hard right about now. "I'm going to ask you to get off the ship," she says. "You know. Given someone's already stolen the whole stupid building it seems like kind of a waste now!"

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
    There's a lot of emotions for Dominic to be processing all at once. One is that the aforementioned (in his entrance pose) Tin Can Boogeyman is on his ship. Vader can almost certainly feel the fear and impulsiveness that ripples of Dominic when he realizes fully who, exactly, is hitching a ride. And a certain amount of eagerness for violence. Though Dominic hides all this between a mixture of calm focus and a flight helmet that he's wearing. So that's pretty solely Vader's to pick up on.

    And while Vader is picking up on that, Dominic is picking up party members. With every added piece of weight to his aircraft, it wobbles while he tries to steady and keep it in the air. The now-dubbed SS Light Warrior Party Courier shifts and rocks in the air with each piece of weight added abruptly. Luckily, they were made to transport platoons of clone troopers, so he's not in the risk of going overweight YET.

    He fiddles around with the cockpit, "Attention all passengers, this is your pilot, Dominic Masoch. Non-stop flight service to 'anywhere but here' with an ETA of 'as soon as possible'. Will all passengers not going 'Anywhere but here' please disembark the aircraft now, as your bags will not be checked to your final destination. Thank you for flying with Light Warriors, please buckle your seatbelts as there may be turbulence."

    And then the craft wobbles in the air, making a bit of a too-sharp turn that causes it to stutter for a few moments before it tries to zip off and away from the battlefield. Vader has plenty of time amidst Dominic's currently-shaky piloting to leave or converse at his leisure.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    "Somber. If you want to hate me, I will not stop you. Our reasons are our own. Loyalty above all else." Is what Seft manages to say, while trying to return fire on Lyria. And yet... The mad gunfire stops as soon as Lyria disengages as well. Her gun stays trained on the girl, held steady by two hands, but as Lyria seeks to escape... Seft lets her go without harm. There's no obligation to hurt retreating enemies.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
There is a rain of turbolaser fire from the skies, landing like a bolt from heaven that strikes with terrible power. There is a detonation in the distance from what used to be a missile launch facility. There is no response to Vader's hailing, but the UCAS military does begin to withdraw. It's clear they're overmatched here. The Resolute and Velator were bad enough. The Executor is bad news on a scale that they can't casually oppose. You win this day, aliens!

MEANWHILE...

Soan engages some insane theivery abilities to steal not only the door, but the trip-latch connected to it, the high-powered shotgun, the bullets in the shotgun, the wall panelling behind it, some empty cans of soyfood, some full cans of soyfood, a pile of papers, a couple empty credit chips, some current Tri-D videos, the remote for the Tri-D set, a very angry cat, a ceiling fan, an assortment of silverware, 4 bottles of wine, a long strip of carpet, 3 couch cushions, an empty credstick, and 3 left socks. And the window.

Soan has a lot of crap. Now how is he going to stick the landing on the opposite side with a broken leg?

Meanwhile, Albert Dorn, African American, age 35, is cowering in the restroom should anyone check. He has a pistol in his hand but he's in no condition to threaten anyone right now. He's completely at whatever passes for mercy in the Flotilla, Empire, and Xiao.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Biteblade slams through the apartment with her Bounce tech until she crashes through the bathroom door chaotically. The energy field of the Bounce tech deactivates. Her two POWER DAGGERS gleam and hiss with energy. If she gets shot, so be it; she seems quite confident that she'll shortly have fresh meat to power some regeneration. Her excessive number of razor sharp teeth are bared as she grins widely. She will start with the offending arm. She has to leave a body that's recognizable to get the payment, of course, but that means merely leaving the head. Everything else is fair game.

    "You sssmell like fear. Don't worry! Isss right thing to feel."

Soan Sagittarius (633) has posed:
     It was not easy to do all of this, /THEN/ land on the ship. Perhaps it's a mixture of luck. Perhaps it's also thanks to Kamon's aid as he's freefalling through the air. Most likely, it is due to Soan's own aerial abilities. A Dragoon does not fear altitude, nor do he fear as he sees the ground getting closer and closer. On the other hand, Soan is a very overburdened Dragoon at the moment, one that is very wounded and not to mention exhausted.

     It takes much of him to correct his trajectory on the highjacked Empire Transport, Air Dashing himself into the opening, using the large door he's manuvering on his back to attack some of the wind.

     He lands inside the transport like a sack of potato, scrapping metal, flesh, equipment clattering on the metal floor, the growl of an angry, frightened cat somewhere in the mess of stolen goods on his back.

     "Yaaaay." Soan says, managing to lift an arm admist the pile of crap he's hidden beneath, his voice wavering as the adrenaline and his zeal vanishes to let place to the attrocious pain he's in now. "I'm aliiiiiiiiiiiive...."

Darth Vader (794) has posed:
    Darth Vader seems to consider Dorotea for a moment. Truthfully he is trying to decide whether or not it's worth it to stick around and choke the hell out of her for her insolence, but he ultimately decides that the hassle of wrestling control of this vessel back -and- getting back to his own facilities is not worth the effort he would have to exert in order to do it. He leaps from the roof of the transport onto the hovering building, from which Soan had just come. His landing is heavy but certain and steady, shaking the floor lightly as he lands.

    He turns back towards the transport, shutting his eyes and reaching out towards it with his mind. The cold fury of his existence stretches out like a chilling fog, enveloping the ship and the people within it. Probing, attempting to discern identity, motivation, and other facets of existence that few people would wish a being like Darth Vader to know of them. He is EXAMINING them, judging them, and perhaps even attempting to provoke them, after a fashion.

    Too many of these individuals has stood directly against him before. Attention is divided evenly between them, but ever so slightly more attention and prodding is offered to those who are particularly angry, or fearful.

    And then, his mind turns towards the man behind him. Cowering in the restroom, a pistol in hand.

    "I want him questioned before he is killed." Vader's voice rings out through the little apartment. He pauses for a moment, striding over to join Biteblade near Dorn. There is a thoughtful feeling to the tilt of his head.

    Vader takes his lightsaber to hand and hacks Dorn's limbs off in three powerful strokes. This would doubtless be immediately fatal if not for the fact that lightsaber wounds are immediately cauterized. The message is clear enough. Eat these first.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Assuming that the action was quite over, Xiao strolled through the warzone, and right into the sight of the poor man getting his limbs hacked off. "Oh dear." She mumbled, a hand brought to her cheek in a moment of feigned pity. For a moment, she thought it was fatal, but a moment later, she noticed the wounds were cauterized.

     "Convenient. That makes for a nice torture device. Hmn....I will have to study it one day." And without further ado, the scientist launched off into her own little world of random conjecture, leaving the interrogation and collection of the target to the others.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Kyra pops her head into the ship, having finally climbed her way up into the ship despite the rather rough escape piloting that Dominic is engaged in. She pulls herself inside and rolls over away from the open hatch.

    Silently, she moves right over to Soan and immediately starts poking him with fully functioning cure spells. As the white magic pours through her, she shudders at the Force probe leveled at her. Though Vader might find himself tripping over the fact that there's currently some kind of weird void in Kyra's head.

    At that moment, she's overwhelmingly angry and frustrated with how the mission went.

Dorotea Grahn (742) has posed:
Huh, Dorotea thinks. It actually worked.

This is good because, honestly, though normally she'd be perfectly okay with trying to throw down with Darth Vader (odds never really worried her) this is kind of a really bad position to do it from. She has no idea Vader was pretty close to just choking her; she has no idea what he can do beyond some real basics, nor can she read his expression with that helmet on.

She feels the probing. It doesn't mean much to her, having never experienced it before, but she feels /something/. It is unpleasant. She psyches herself up to try to put the awful, penetrating sensation out of herself; she does not like it.

"Yeah!" She says it more to herself than anyone else as she moves across the roof, still hunching low. She swings herself inside afterwards, landing poorly and sliding several yards inside.

"Okay, /now/ I'm in!"

Soan Sagittarius (633) has posed:
     There's very little Soan can do at the moment. He's stuck beneath a prodigiously unprobable amount of stolen goods (and a mewling confused cat), he lets Kyra poke him with various cure spells. It's going to take a while with a LOT more curing for him to completely recover. He screwed up his leg good.

     Vader's Force Mental Harassement is met with a surprising amount of resistance. Soan's unbriddled pain, annoyance at not succeeding is mostly what surfaces from his mental discipline, steeling itself upon mental contact.

     It is like a wounded eye, clinging hard to stay open -- and looks back.

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    Mirielle, as Dominic pilots them clear, and the Sith Lord leaps from their ship, collapses into a crash seat next to her backpack and rests her head in her hands, bringing her knees up to just quietly retreat into her head.

    The probe finds things there, of course, but Mirielle doesn't react to it. She is her own little bundle of problems for right now.

    After a few moments, she uncurls a bit, to poke her head in the cockpit. "Ah... Dominic, you do know where we're going, right? Where to land? How to get home?"

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
    There's not much Vader can get from Dominic with that probe that he didn't already know or just recently announce: Dominic Masoch, kind of a hothead, very much into being seen as a hero. His reaction to Vader was already covered last pose - Vader scares him, Vader angers him, and he REALLY wants to fight Vader to get stronger. Dominic also has a weird power dormant in him that can best be described in Vader's universe as a Jedi Weapon Master.

    Dominic also almost turns the dropship around when he gets goaded a bit via that Force probe. But a sense of duty to his friends lets him keep it on a steady course. As Dorotea and Kyra both wind up in the ship, he leans around out of the pilot's seat and gives the two ladies a thumbs up, "Welcome aboard. We're gonna make like a Ramuhan stormfront and bolt, now."

    He leans back in the seat tiredly, flipping up the visor on the pilot helmet and rubbing his face a boot. A glance sideways looks to Mirielle as she asks him, "Yeah. I know how to land and how to get home. You just relax and take some deep breaths," To his credit, he's picking up the piloting gig pretty fast for the foreign aircraft.

    "Alright. We're heading home, guys," He says, the craft moving much smoother as they exit the combat zone.

Kamon Lionward (628) has posed:
Kamon covers the sides of the transport as everyone pulls themselves in, offering a strong, helping hand whenever it is someone's trying to actually get inside. He also untangles Soan, more or less, so he can get some weight off that leg. The cat divests itself of being caught in the Thief's gear and settles in a corner, because apparently it /meant/ to get stolen and sleep in an air transport.

Cats.

"We'll find a warp gate and head for the Span," Kamon says, leaning into the cockpit. He stows his photon saber and hunts for a way to close up the sides. He doesn't find one, so he just holds onto one of the overhead straps and takes a section of wall. He feels burnt all over. The hurt is starting to catch up with him.

Kamon is feeling some measure of sorrow, regret, and self-loathing muddled with a decent helping of half-buried pleasure at having a good fight. He doesn't seem to like the last bit. He reacts to the prodding with a frown, shaking his head as if to clear it. He occupies himself examining the weapons and coming up with how to properly man them instantly.

He kind of wanted to try his mettle against the guy with the laser sword. Maybe next time, he thinks.