4562/CoH Issue

CoH Issue
Date of Scene:	17 September 2016
Location:	Paragon City <CoH>
Synopsis:	The Rularuu begin their invasion in earnest, and one of the invasion points is Skyway City. Freeway traffic over inhabited buildings being interrupted by monsters is a recipe for disaster!
Cast of Characters:	1002, 1010, 774, 151, 97

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War Witch (1002) has posed:
    Portals have been opening up in various zones of Paragon City every hour or so since last night. Heroes from all over have been responding, but the fights have been rough, even with the support of healers, and it requires cycling their patrols to avoid just getting too torn up to fight. The medi-porters have literally been life-savers in dozens of instances so far. A lot of daily life in Paragon City has ground to a halt or is proceeding at a very cautious rate at least.

    The most recent zone to get an alert announcement at this hour is Skyway City. The various overpasses and underpasses, the highways and bridges and the buildings beneath them, is a marvel of engineering. And portals are opening, and monsters emerging. They make their presence felt immediately as a contingent of Brutes emerge and start smashing cars as the drivers panic and try to drive around them or screech to a halt. One of the cars is hurled right off the road, plummeting downwards to the streets below...!

    Horus flies up and tries to catch it, but he doesn't have THAT much strength. The lenses of his helmet flare bright green as he struggles under the weight and momentum pushing down on him, while inside a mother and her children are screaming in terror.

    War Witch is trying to make a series of ice platforms up the side of a building to break Horus's fall, but that's still going to be one heavy bunch of metal whenever he hits the ground.

    Apex is keeping Natterlings off of War Witch while she does this. "Ugh! These things ar revolting! Are those rocks or eyes shoved into their bodies? They're like big house flies with claws!" He kicks one of them across the street as two more dive bomb him.

    "Enough complaining! More fighting!" War Witch chastises, having only seconds to finish the ice platforms before Horus hits them. Good thing he was up so high and his flight powers are slowing him even further.

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Shit shit shit shit shit way to go off-world to look into something huh Reiny? The Knight emerges from the portal in a sprint, his suit helping him run like crazy as he hurries onto the scene. He uses his boosters to propel himself to the melee once he's within eyesight.

    Natterlings will be sent flying if they wind up in Reinhardt's path, and he aims himself to a nearby brute, tackling the beast as he gives the cycloptic monster a crushing punch to the head, his hammer swung wide to send Natterlings flying.

Dorian Pavus (774) has posed:
    Dorian has been being ferried around Paragon City since last night, and he definitely shows it. His white cloak is tattered at the end, there's several cuts in his leather armor, and bruises show on the one exposed arm. Far worse -- at least Dorian would say so -- is that his hair is messed up! Mind, he HAS had to rest, or risk using too much mana. And if that happens... well, bad things happen when he overuses his magic.

    "They bloody well ARE revolting," Dorian responds to Apex's statement as he arrives. He needs to separate the civilians from the creatures, to give them an exit route. He can't use fire, not where there's so many cars. They might explode. So he decides on the opposite, even if he doesn't use it often.

    Condensation begins to fall from the end of the staff, and he swings his arms out to his sides. Then he brings his hands up in a sharp motion, and a wall of ice raises in front of the gathered cars. It won't stop the beasts long, but it should at last give the civilians some time to escape.

    And then he wobbles, quickly bringing the end of his staff down to the ground to support him. "...Kaffas..." he mutters under his breath.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    When Ainsley arrives to this region of the city, she sees chaos going down. She chooses to fly high up in the sky and observe from afar, trying to judge what she should do first. She turns her eyes to the noise of that car being caught with the help of two different heroes, and she grimaces at the sight of that. She turns her attention back to Reinhardt, where he is attempting to reach that brute over there.

    Her sword is drawn so flying enemies that get too close can be chopped at, but she's trying not to get caught in a melee. She's not good at direct combat.

    Ainsley draws her metal-bound book from her coat and peers into her reflection. A flash of blue light happens in the sky, and a summoned entity appears above her, a strange turtle man in modern fishing gear with odd proportions. Ainsley shouts something that wouldn't be heard from that far in all this chaos, and a soft blue light pulses from one of the turtle man's eyes. Then magic would reach out to Horus while he's trying to stop the car from slamming into the concrete.

    The magic would try to grab ahold of positive emotion as fuel to power him up, hopefully reducing the risk that he'll get hurt in the process of performing his heroics, or at least it could give War Witch more time to complete the ice platforms. It doesn't deplete those emotions but bolster them and reinforce them magically to actually improve physical capabilities.

Varia Beetle (97) has posed:
News travels fast across the Multiverse, and the airwaves are buzzing with news about Paragon City's infestation. City in danger? Weird monsters? A perfect mission for Varia Beetle's bold approach. Shimmering blue wings carry the beetle Reploid through the sky as she scans the area, but it's a big city. She spots a big brute below smashing a car, and dives from the sky to knock the lumpy creature over the gaurdrail along the elevated roadway.

"Urban combat, huh? I've got a suit for that in here somewhere..." The gem on Varia's chest flashes bright purple, and her armor transforms into a new set of gear, equipped with roller blades and wicked shoulder spikes.

War Witch (1002) has posed:
    Reinhardt scatters the flimsier little creatures with his charge, or smashes them out of the air, or tramples them under foot. A pair meld together into a larger version of themselves and attempt to latch onto the armored hero's back even as he clubs a Brute in the head, sending it staggering aside into a mailbox, which it destroys with its subsequent fall.

    A Watcher fires some sort of optic blast at Reinhardt, capable of afflicting him with those same strange gravitational rings War Witch got hit with last night that slow down movement... But that effect seems not to be guaranteed, especially against Elites.

    Dorian's ice walls separate the Brutes from the civilians in their cars. That's long enough for more heroes to fly in and help evacuate them, rescue anyone trapped in their vehicles, and get medical attention via healers to anyone injured in the crashes and pile-up resulting from traffic coming to a violent end when interdimensional portals opened up on the skyways. Some girl in a scruffy-looking brown outfit with scraggly red-brown hair, indistinguishable from a normal civilian or maybe a homeless person, comes running by, but stops when she sees Dorian so weakened. "Hey, are you okay?" the concerned young woman asks as she tries to help him up.

    Yes, almost totally indistinguishable from a normal homeless youth... Except that she's carrying what looks like a Rikti energy rifle, strapped to her back. She also pulls out some kind of device and seems to be calibrating it. "I can give you a healing boost if you need it. Just keep up the good work on saving those lives in return, yeah?"

    How encouraging! Not only does any damage he has taken get mended as she sweeps some green mist-spraying device over him, but from someone so young taking the time out to help a fellow hero and offer kind words, Dorian, might catch a bit of a Second Wind, Inspiring him. Enough to make his fatigue feel not so bad after all, perhaps.

War Witch (1002) has posed:
    Meanwhile, Ainsley's timely intervention helps Horus deal with the repeated impacts as he falls through ice platform after ice platform, breaking each one but reducing his momentum, as well as just helping him to handle that weight better. Enough that his determination to save the family inside the vehicle allows him to set it down gently on the street instead of being pinned underneath it. Ainsley helped him a lot there. But she also awakened something else inside him. He feels like... All this time he's been underestimating his own strength. Like the maximum threshold he'd assumed he had was actually much higher. He doesn't know why that is. Did he just increased in power somehow? Like other heroes do over the courses of their careers? ...Something to think about another time. But there's been a LOT of weird things going on with Horus lately. And they just keep piling up.

    He flies over to help Reinhardt, blasting at the thing trying to land on his back and claw at him, and then sweeping his green gauntlet beams across the street to take out swarms of Natterlings that were clouding the area behind him. They really ARE like flies. Gross.

    The Brute gets sent over the edge, falls, and smashes into the street, courtesy of Varia Beetle. And no ice platforms to break its fall. So sad. Her dramatic arrival, however, earns her attention from the local hostiles. Some new ones, infact. Thin, golden-skinned creatures levitate down, and begin attacking with psychic blasts against the heroine, trying to wrench at whatever mind she has with purple mental energy attacks. They seem to have sufficient physical substance to both be avoided and to do physical harm if she is resistant or something, but they are also controlled by thought, so a degree of trajectory adjustment is also on the menu.

    As if the forces already here weren't enough, now there are evil psychics. Ugh!

    War Witch is facing some of those herself, trying to slash at one with a fire sword and finding it floating out of the way, abnormally evasive. Like it's reading her attacks in advance. But then Apex flips the car that the rescued family just got out of, up and over, and onto the golden humanoid. It doesn't seem happy about that.

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Reinhardt is slowed down just in time for one of the creates cloning to his back to get a few good hits in. "OW ow ow ow ow owowowowowow-STOPPIT! STOP!" He flails helplessly, trying to knock the Natterlings off his back with little success. "CURSE my size, CURSE this armor, get these things off of me!"

    He says all of this in slow-motion, and moves as such. It looks fucking ridiculous.

    Horus is a welcome boon, and the knight flails some more before he flings the creature clawing him at the Watcher that zapped him with a slow-ray. "Take that! AND THIS!" he follows it up with a lunge and hammer strike at the beast.

Varia Beetle (97) has posed:
A satisfied smirk spreads below Varia Beetle's visor as the Brute goes crashing down, but there's little time to celebrate -or even try to get her bearings- before the Reploid is attacked by an entirely different sort of creature. She leans into the attack with her armoured shoulder plate and wing guard, the purple energy bursting in bright flashes against her purple armor. She was prepared for a brawl, not suspended sallow skinned psychics, but the lithe humanoids don't look like they'll put up much of a fight in close quarters. Rockets on the back of Varia's legs blast to life, zigzagging across the street towards the Wisp on her skates. "Why don't you come on DOWN and we can TALK this over!" She makes a leap to try and dash-tackle the psychic enemy, with a heavy spiked shoulder.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley doesn't have trouble with any enemy forces catching onto her presence up there. She's glad for that, because she saw the Wisps down there and they are more than a small problem. Her Persona fades into blue light behind her and her focus turns to locking onto the Wisps with her Arcane Sight. Her book flips open and she starts speaking in a strange otherworldly tongue. The air around her distorts and glows as she prepares her spell by grabbing spell components from her book. If the Wisps are using some form of telepathy to predict the movements of their targets...

    She tries to shut that down. She points down at the Wisps individually, casting the spell with an accompanying burst of light from the tip of her sword. She's shutting down their ability to 'communicate,' focusing on telepathy and other psychic concepts, in the hopes that they'll be easier to destroy if they aren't homing so accurately on their prey or avoiding danger quite as easily.

Dorian Pavus (774) has posed:
    Dorian nods to the girl who stops to assist him. "Ah, yes. Just a mite exhausted," he insists, standing properly. The squaring of shoulders that follows is mental as well as physical, and he taps the end of his staff on the ground as he exhales. He's centering himself. He's about to tell her to go find a safe place, but then he notices the energy rifle. That's not something just anyone would have. And sure enough, green healing mist from the device she's carrying!

    The bruises visible on his exposed arm, as well as the cuts under the slices in his armor, start to heal with the application of the mist. In return, he offers her a smile. "Thank you. That's very much appreciated." His words are earnest. Mainly because he doesn't have the energy to snark at anybody!

    Though there are still monsters to fight. So he turns to the girl, and offers a suave grin and a lazy salute, before heading back into the battle. The nearest Watcher he can find -- because they're the ones that do that immobility thing -- he aims his palm at, releasing a gout of flame. That magical flame should hopefully set the beast alight for a while (lovely DoTs), though he's not sure the thing has enough of a brain to be afraid.

War Witch (1002) has posed:
    Dorian sets the Watcher ablaze and it flies around unhappily, only able to make guttural gurgling noises as a result of its mouth being composed of its eyelids, flying through a crowd of Natterlings in its blinded state, and setting THOSE on fire too. It turns into a huge mess. The girl with the rifle, meanwhile, seems to be homing in on the Wisps, and... The ones attacking Varia. As Varia tries to tackle one of them, it completely abandons offense in favor of dodging aside, apparently more concerned with not being touched than taking damage specifically. Or trying to. Because it suddenly clutches at its head when the stocking-capped girl with the rifle mentall attcaks IT instead.

    Locking it down just long enough for Varia to smash into it in mid-air! ...And go right over the side of the highway! Thankfully, she and her opponent both land in a heap on one of the closer rooftops. Unfortunately, there are also some green-skinned thugs known as Trolls standing there who have been busy throwing garbage cans and rocks over the side of the building the whole time, trying to take out fleeing civilians and the heroes trying to help them just to amuse themselves.

    When they see Varia land, there is a brief pause as they process this new information. Then the drug-enhanced gang members roar and charge at her and the Wisp both, wielding super strength fists and street-weapons alike. Superb.

    Reinhardt, meanwhile, even with his movements slowed, packs a whallop. As Brutes are not super agile, when they get hit they feel it, durable smashing-resistance bodies or no. Reinhardt is strong! But one of them takes a bad enough blow to the head that it feels the need to reveal these things have another capability they haven't used so far. It releases the energy stored in its eye crystal, boosting its damage dealing by energizing it... And all of its nearby allies.

    The Brutes will still be taking damage as normal. But now they're hitting a LOT harder as they try to pile onto the rampaging armor knight, while Horus tries to pull the Brutes off of him and gets backhanded in the face for his trouble. He skids down the street on his back, but gets back up even with his mouth bleeding and tries to blast them in the back. He is NOT going to let Reinhardt get taken down by sheer numbers. That knight has been fighting alongside them, fiercely, determinedly, saving lives.

    Paragon City has lost too many heroes already. And some bunch of mooks aren't going to be the ones to take the brave man down. Though Horus isn't sure they even can, given that armor of his.

War Witch (1002) has posed:
    War Witch's head is still pulsing with pain from how powerful whatever that is on the other side of the portals happens to me. Its presence alone is a pressure that feels like it's forcing open the inside of her skull. She doesn't want to probe the portals, but she has to. Because someone has to figure out a way to close them so this doesn't keep happening. She finds an alleyway to sit down in and meditate, even though she'd much rather be protecting people.

    "I hope you have a plan, War Witch!" Apex calls out as he backs up to guard the alleyway entrance and keep an eye out for anyone who needs help. He winds up clotheslining a Clockwork robot making off with a baby carriage (with baby still inside), buying time for some dad to come and save it from crashing, but he can't stray too far while Clarissa is vulnerable.

    Ainsley, meanwhile, is finding success in jamming her targets somewhat, they try to resist as much as possible. Like the psychic girl with the Rikti rifle, it seems that while they are vulnerable to psychic attacks or mentally-impairing influences due to their reliance upon such, they are still psychics themselves and soon rippling waves of purple and pink mental energy are flying towards Ainsley, even as she aids other heroes in taking them out, cutting down on the number of attacks she has to avoid in turn.

    She has thus far been spared much of the brunt of the attacks, but the swarms of aerial opponents are still quite prevalent, and a cloud of Natterlings suddenly turns in the air like there's a homing beacon on the lizardly mage after her psychic jamming, and start flying towards her like a locust swarm. Only each locust is about 3 to 4 feet tall, and has claws.

    And, as she discovers moments later, as shard of crystal begin shooting at her, apparently even THESE things had abilities they had not yet revealed. They have ranged attacks, not just melee!

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    "Not that easily!" Reinhardt bellows upon seeing that beast charge up. He doesn't follow shounen anime rules, so instead of standing around like an idiot while this happens, Reinhardt charges his own attack up. His hammer glows bright before he flings some sort of energy projectile at the Brute trying to buff itself and its buddies.

Dorian Pavus (774) has posed:
    The Watcher -- and the Natterlings the Watcher set on fire in its panic -- should burn for a while. And it's a good thing too. Because Ainsley seems to need some help. She's quite far up in the air, but maybe... just maybe... he can do something to help. There's no way he can target her with a Barrier from down here, no. But he can try something else.

    That 'something else' turns out to be a large glyph that forms in the air in front of him. And as he throws his hands out to his side, a multitude of lightning-elemental orbs fly out of the center of that glyph. He tries to aim them up for where Ainsley's attackers are, but he's not sure just how much luck he's going to have with that.

    Besides that, this headache is really taking it out of him. Overuse of mana in this state is doubly dangerous... because he might not be able to fight off whatever unpleasant thing from the Fade he happens to catch the attention of...

Varia Beetle (97) has posed:
Varia Beetle lands on the roof with a crunch, her own heavy armor taking her down hard. Hopefully that hurt the yellow lanky fellow a lot more than it hurt her. A tangle of limbs, she reaches out to try and grasp the wormy Wisp by the throat. "You'd better start talking, pal! Tell your friends to pack up back into those portals or I'll feed you to these big green booger-eaters!" tough talk, but the trolls don't seem very picky about who they threaten. Varia needs a little space, so she hunkers down and launches a burst of sharp steel spikes from her spike-brindled shoulder pods.

Ainsley (151) has posed:
    Ainsley doesn't allow the Natterlings to just take her out of the air, but she spends a lot more time dodging and trying not to get smote from the sky by psychic blasts than actually doing much to help once she becomes the target for so many of these things. She isn't helpless, certainly, but she can only concentrate on keeping herself alive up there. She swings her sword at the wings of the Natterlings to try and make them fall out of the sky, and during one of her swings a psychic blast hits her pretty hard. Oddly, it /doesn't/ hit her mind, as if she routed the influence around it on instinct. She might have some enchantments in place to protect it... after all, her True Name is locked up in that head of hers.

    That means she's launched through the air and barely manages to avoid becoming a red smear in the concrete. It also means she's not RIGHT THERE as lightning orbs fly toward the things attacking her. Once she gets some breathing room, she calls her Persona again -- "Urashima Taro!" -- and casts Tamatebako, creating a mirrored shield around herself so that some of the psychic power gets launched right back at the Wisps!! And she just holds her defensive stance like that, trying not to get crushed by the assault.

War Witch (1002) has posed:
    War Witch attempts to open her mind and her senses, to commune with a circle of witches in a mystical mental space known as Coven Space, where the ladies who raised her can all gather to discuss, advise, share information, and even combine their strengths. What she finds out there as they attempt to prepare a spell to safely probe the portals is that anything they attempt to do will result in severe psychic backlash for Clarissa Moore, aka War Witch.

    She grits her teeth and mutters, "I'm ready." She'll take it. She has to do something. The spell is woven intricately, the experience and synergy of many crafting it strong yet flexible.

    And then War Witch casts it out like a net... To snare information. What she gets back is far more than she was expecting. Far more than she can handle. It's like trying to stop a whole ocean with something full of holes. It washes over her, overwhelming her. And she cries out in pain as she reels backwards, the link with the others broken. They, too, suffered some of it. They distributed the shock between their entire circle. Otherwise it might have simply killed War Witch.

    Apex turns in shock, kneeling down next to her and helping her up off the ground. "War Witch! Are you okay!?" he asks frantically, worriedly.

    War Witch blinks the spots out of her eyes, and then realizes those aren't spots. Her eyes are bleeding. And her nose, her mouth, and her ears. She feels like a bomb just went off in her brain. But she learned what she needed to. "Just... Fight them as long as you can. Defeat them. The portals... Not stable. Can only stay open... So long. Tell the others..."

    "I'll tell them, but we have to get you to the hospital--" Apex starts. He is stopped by War Witch slapping a hand to his chest to try to weakly push him away as she forces herself upright.

    "I'll be fine. Tell them NOW." She wipes the blood from her face so she looks less horrible. But she feels pretty shitty. Like she was just run over by a god.

    Apex hesitates only a moment longer, then nods and gets on the radio...

War Witch (1002) has posed:
    Meanwhile, Reinhardt's shockwave hurls the Brute that buffed the others backwards. It was already injured from his hammer blow before that triggered its damage buff, so it isn't getting back up after getting sent tumbling through its allies and taking them down as well. A few others continue to try to pound on Reinhardt with energy-boosted blows, but with Horus backing him up, sniping them from a distance, soon the knight is freed from opponent.

    Dorian's lightning spheres electrocute the Natterlings, actually jumping between them a bit due to their proximity, cooking them in the air... Like insects. They fall out of the sky in droves thanks to the AoE nature of the magic, and Ainsley's sword helps that along before she gets knocked out of the path of the lightning orbs.

    When she redirects the psychic attacks back on her attackers, they seem singularly displeased with this development. Combined with the other heroes in the area also taking them out while they're distracted, it looks like teamwork carries the day yet again, despite the new abilities displayed and the new enemies encountered.

    It doesn't seem the Wisp is prepared to divulge anything to Varia though, even as she strangles it. The spikes stab into the Trolls, who yell in pain, some of them collapsing to the ground or stumbling off the roof top, while one of the tougher looking ones raises a foot and STOMPS hard, sending a shockwave through the roof that may hurl Varia and the Wisp away. The Wisp seems more desperate to make Varia stop TOUCHING it than to breathe, firing as much psychic crap at her at point-blank range as possible, and unleashing a psychic scream that makes that stompy Troll stagger and fall to one knee from the pain in his stupid, stupid head.

    But eventually, the Wisp loses out to Varia's strength (even if it was surprising stronger and tougher than it looks), and passes out from the injuries incurred.

    The fight drags on, and the information is conveyed on the radio. 'Outlast them, and the portals will close again. We can start working on a more long-term solution then. Right now, just keeping them busy long enough will end the fight.'

    And that is all that's left to do... Until when the portals eventually close. And all that's left is clean-up. Both for the remaining monsters, and of the destruction caused.

Varia Beetle (97) has posed:
Varia Beetle is well-equipped to weather the onslaught of psychic blasts, since she's seemingly the only robot present on battle-scarred city streets. The information from the radio flits across her combat visor, and she drops the unconscious invader- War Which has the answer she was looking for. There's still a lot of fight left in this Reploid soldier, she can keep on slugging it out with the remaining enemies until the portals close.

Dorian Pavus (774) has posed:
    Outlast? Dorian can probably do that. Maybe. He's been fighting too long, and this feeling that someone's trying to ram a sword through his forehead is not helping his ability to keep himself centered. But he keeps fighting. He's a stubborn bastard, if nothing else. Crowd control mixed with a healthy dose of bludgeoning when he feels his mana getting dangerously low shoudl do the trick. But he can still feel himself weakening.

    He's lucky... it all finally catches up to him after he's taken out the last enemy threatening him. Dorian just... collapses. Like a puppet with cut strings. Without a sound he falls in a crumpled heap on the highway, then falling over onto his side. His staff clatters to the asphalt beside him as his hand releases it.

    But he's not unconscious. He's still, but his eyes are still open, he's still breathing, and his brow is still knit into a frown with the painful sensation of that magical headache. But he's unresponsive, and his eyes are unfocused...