Scene Listing || Scene Schedule || Scene Schedule RSS
Owner Pose
Gawain Everria, Late Evening
Richmont Corporate Headquarters

The best way to describe this building is 'metropolitan'. A sleek mixture of glass and steel, the corporate headquarters for the largest food corporation in the nation that houses Everria certainly lives up to its reputation. It's several stories tall, and rudimentary scans for building plans would find it also has a basement server farm. The head offices are at the top floors, which is also where the office of the CFO, Rodrigo Cardoso, is situated. Rodrigo Cardoso is, if rumor and intel is to believed, a corrupt businessman who is using every connection he has to make sure the Foodbringer is stopped, including violence. And so, he's the target for some vigilante justice, because the law can't touch him. Only you can.

The front doors to the building are locked, as is the back door and emergency doors. Through the front glass door, a janitor can be seen cleaning, and the security room's lights are on in the distance behind the front lobby, likely manned by a late shift guard. The janitor occasionally talks into a pager, making it unlikely he's the only cleaner. There's also likely still lateshift workers, up in the cubicles in the middle floors or similar.

Watch, this is your playground tonight. The approach is yours. What is your target? The server room, to sabotage Richmont? The CFO's office, to see what sort of things he's hiding? Looking for something else? Make your choice.
Eve     Eve eyes the building pensively. She isn't exactly studying it. She's already done so, considering the physical entrances and likely defenses with all due care. The problem is, she's new to the idea of actually breaking and entering. Her plans are a jumble of what-ifs and maybes, and a good part of her hopes someone else will have a really good idea and take matters out of her hands.

    She's honestly not sure what to attack and where. Though her attention returns again and again to the CFO's office. The data in the basement? That does no one any good. Stealing it, she figures, would be worthless. Wrecking it might be interesting, but ultimately unhelpful. If they've got backups or cloud servers, it wouldn't actually hurt the company. And besides, she's not interested in the company. She's interested in the people.

    Again and again, her attention returns to the head offices. She fidgets, considering just flying up and smashing through a window. But no... best to wait for others first. A single coordinated strike will be far more effective than one lone crusader!
Reinhardt Wilhelm     Quiet, peaceful, uneventful.

    That won't do at all for this op. With all the subtlety of a bulldozer, Reinhardt bursts through the walls suddenly. The door is pulverized instantly, or should be, as Reinhardt attempts to go through the walls. To his credit, he stops short of pulping the poor janitor. Instead, Reinhardt simply makes a motion. "You should probably leave." He advises wisely, brushing debris off his shoulders.
A2     Fortunately, whatever short time and few spare parts that were on hand to look at A2's leg, it seems to work fine right now. The supply of each seems to have terminated before doing anything for its exterior (or any of her exterior, really) and so the android is left to follow along wearing a recently retrieved blackcloak, or else stand out on the street even at night, but the insane stress placed on all her joints from several days previous is at least, not showing. In fact, her gait is smoother than ever.

    Unfortunately, having motive systems that don't complain so often she's learned to tune out the maintenance notifications seems to have only emboldened her. The third figure following along in the dark doesn't stop to scan and consider the building like Eve. She, in fact, brushes right past, examining the slow curl and unfurling of her fingers for the fifteenth time tonight as if fascinated, before walking right on through the hole Reinhardt caves in through the wall, and, at the first sight of an alarm system, shearing it straight out from its wiring with the flicker of a hovering blade.

    For a few moments, the only sound from her is that of her heels clicking over the gravel-strewn floor and crunching on broken glass. The next, she stops back to look at Eve, as the sword (barely visible in the dark) disintegrates into amber motes.

    "Are you coming?" She asks, almost rhetorically, pushing a spill of white hair back under her hood.
Gawain The trio of Watchmen go in loud. As soon as Reinhardt smashes through the wall, the janitor falls on his back from shock, staring up at the massive armored man in fear of his life. As Reinhardt tells him to run, he scampers upwards, dodging for the door. A2 moves for the alarm system, tearing it out of the wall...and all of this makes noise. The security guard booth has shuffling in it, audible from a distance, as alarms on other floors begin flaring. The elevator past the lobby, across from the security guard booth, suddenly has a red light flashing, as the doors lock down. The security guard bolts out of the room with a pistol in his hand, takes a step back as he notices the scale of the threat, and starts firing. A few shots at Reinhardt's armor before the gun is turned on A2, and he begins unloading the clip as fast as his fingers will let him.

Meanwhile, the Everria police gets a notification, and after addressing the situation (they don't know much but it sounds bad) and the location (Richmont), they decide to send in a SWAT team, with an ETA of a minute or so. Anyone else monitoring Richmont can likely find out the same situation...and in the distance, police sirens are blaring.
Eve     Eve isn't willing to be left behind, and she's just making ready to follow Reinhardt when A2 brushes past her. She watches the robot instead, following without crowding, remaining just outside while A2 deals with the security system. The little blonde finds the summoned blade fascinating, and its dismissal equally-so. It's an effect she can do herself, though her 'power' involves blue motes rather than amber.

    She blushes as A2 asks her question, not because she was slacking but because she'd been momentarily distracted by the warrior robot's actions. The blush is faint though, mostly subdued, and only obvious because of Eve's pale complexion. As she hastens to follow, the blush fades quickly. She doesn't bother with a verbal reply however. It seems irrelevant; a waste of words. She lets her actions speak, in this case at least.

    Being last in has one advantage at least. The gun-wielding security guard doesn't actually shoot at her. That may also be because she's a girl of course. She doesn't LOOK dangerous, not like her companions.

    Eve considers taking out the security guard. She won't kill him, of course. A2 might. Then again she might not. It's not like the guard is an actual enemy. He's just someone doing his job, someone in the way. He's not Eve's responsibility, saving only that if she hadn't brought up the mission, his life wouldn't now be at risk. Well, perhaps that's easily dealt with too. "We should spare them." she claims, breaking into a quick and low run to get past her companions, leading the way to the stairs. "Dead guards would draw enough retaliation to give us more trouble than it's worth." she adds, trying to sound tough and callous like she imagines a Watchman should. She probably fails at the attempt. Then again she IS running past and on up. If anyone should waste time downstairs, she may just leave them behind.
A2     A2 rips out one alarm, and another one goes off. "Is that how that works? Damn." she intones, without much of a sense of urgency. "Worth a shot." Thankfully for everyone involved, she seems calm enough today. Tired, even; as always.

    Still, even if alarm systems are a thing of the distant, /distant/ past for her, she can recognize a gun when it's pointed at her; especially when it's already been fired at Reinhardt. In the time the guard takes to fire the handgun at the big guy, A2 produces her executioner's sword in a blaze of golden energy, turning its broad side towards the spray of bullets in a heartbeat, so that they squash on the high-tech pseudo-magically reinforced metal. She counts the shots until his trigger clicks, and files the number away for later, before swinging out wide with the flat of the blade (without actually holding it), and smashing him back into his booth without anything exceptional transpiring.

    "So much for that. I'm hitting the top floor. You can come with me, if you want." A2 says to Reinhardt in near-monotone, as her giant blade floats back over her shoulder and settles itself in a hovering position behind her back, fastened by glowing rights of gold, black and grey holography. Had she actually /listened/ to Eve? Or was she not interested in killing humans? Before she goes gunning for the stairs though, her first target is anything that looks like an elevator. She should be able to recognize one. It's the right time period. If necessary, she'll pry the doors open by force.
Reinhardt Wilhelm     Reinhardt brings up his shield immediately as the guard opens fire on him and A2. "Get behind me!" he orders the girl and android, before he begins to approach slowly. "Sir, I highly suggest you back off now. I do not wish to visit harm upon you, but do not think this hammer of mine is for show!" He calls out to the guard, drawing closer and closer as bullets impact against the shield, practically evaporating thanks to extreme heat from the energy being given off. Once he's in range, he swipes his hammer to try and urge the guards to back off. "This is your last chance, I implore that you reconsider this!" Eve's right, dead guards won't' solve much. Of course, A2 is quick to take care of the guard in a less-than-lethal manner, thankfully. "Right," He follows A2 and Eve quickly, considering his size, going for the stairs. "Let's hope they designed this to be power armor friendly...!"
Eryl Fairfax     Active monitoring? Eryl doesn't need it.

    As it just so happens, the Paladins have been asked to negotiate with a world interested in joining the Commonwealth that borders Evarria. As a demonstration of what they can offer, he' been having the meetings at the Paladin embassy here in this city. Also, it turns out that a street vendor across the road from Richmont Company's HQ sells excellent gyros, so he's been visiting them frequently since this arrangement began.

    All purely coincidental, of course.

    As soon as the alarms blare out, he's tossing the wrapper of his latest Grecian wrap into the trash and rushing across the road to the building. He hears quite a commotion coming from the front... which is why he goes around the side, to a door intended for maintenance, cleaners and deliveries. With a hard kick, he slams the door open, strides inside, and smashes open a fire alarm panel and pulls the lever.

    Now, anyone in the building knows to get out NOW.

    And of course, since there is now a 'fire' in progress, the only sensible thing to do is to take the stair. Which he does, up and up and up.
Gawain Reinhardt's shield and A2's blocking makes the guard's gun (eight shots) useless. He begins to back up, before Reinhardt scares him off and A2 tosses him into his booth, which he quickly locks up. The staircase looks like it leads to all floors, and that Reinhardt will juuust be able to squeeze through, while the elevator is locked up tight - when A2 pries open the doors, she'll find that it requires keycard access for the higher floors, and otherwise only goes up to the cubicles, but currently, the button's not working. There does seem to be a hatch on the ceiling of the elevator, but it's locked.

And then, the fire alarm is pulled. There's two pairs of staircases (for crowding), so Eryl can either take the one the Watch is going up, or the other one, and can go as high as he wants. The middle floors are all cubicles, and there's some workers. The top floors, as he knows, are the corporate offices. The CFO's is on the top.

Meanwhile, the sirens are close, and then stop moving. A loudspeaker suddenly rings through the building, a gruff man shouting through it. "This is the Chief of Police! Surrender yourselves immediately, or we'll be forced to take violent measures!" If A2's still on the ground floor, she can hear the shuffling of loud boots, multiple. Probably atleast half a dozen guys coming so far, and there's more in the distance. For the others, the upper floors have windows, and they can see that SWAT officers are surrounding the building. Tons of them. It looks like they pulled out all the stops for Richmont...but /why/?
Reinhardt Wilhelm     Reinhardt barely manages to squeeze through, as he goes up the stairs. STAIRS? In his powered armor? Barely likely, but SOMEHOW he manages to make his way up to the top floors. Oh boy. "They're going to extreme measures to stop us, if SWAT got here this soon. Makes me curious what they're protecting!" Reinhardt comments as they ascend.
Eve     Eve's not particularly worried about the police, but the response does seem rather swift. And rather strong too, all considered. One might even think the response is out of proportion to the importance of this building and its contents. Then again, Eve knows of the CFO's corruption and his connections. She hasn't written down everything in that report, just what was directly relevant. It's perhaps unsurprising his connections led to this unnatural response. Though that would also suggest they were tipped off to the Watch's impending arrival. Perhaps it's just a coincidence.

    She's not all THAT worried though. Cops have gear, and she's essentially unarmed and unencumbered. Eve almost literally flies up the stairs, not bothering to pause for rest. She doubts anyone is going to match her speed, except possibly A2.

    Eve counts the floors as she ascends, and she wastes no time at the appropriate doors when she reaches them. She KNOWS they'll be locked, bolted, electronically secured, or otherwise unopenable. Fortunately she has a key. Lifting a fist, she forms the edge of her hand into a monstrous wedge-shaped head and slams it into the door, the frame, the hinges. Fire axes are designed to get through doors, even secure doors, and once she springs a gap she wedges her weapon into it, transforming it into a prybar. The doors here may be secure, but they'd have to be a bank vault door to stop her for long. Hopefully she can get things open before Reinhardt has to batter down the door - or the wall.
Eryl Fairfax     Eryl can't help but commend SWAT for arriving so fast. But that's the Chief of Police's voice... why be here personally? Is this another 'favor' owed? He scowls a little, and doubles his pace while putting in a call to the Ad Coelum to patch him into the police radio.

    "This is Eryl Fairfax, Grandmaster of the Paladins," he intones once he's in. Though he's on the second stairwell, he may be audible through the walls with how clearly he's speaking. "I am presently in the building pursuing the criminals. I have reason to believe they are highly dangerous. Maintain the perimeter, but do not engage. I repeat, do /not/ engage."

    Once at the top, he is likely also faced with a door. Not having the time or the tools to pick locks, he just delivers the door another mighty kick to take it off entirely. Doors can be replaced, he reasons.
A2     A2 wastes precious seconds jamming on the buttons, hitting all of them in mounting frustration, before punching the panel hard enough to crush it like a tin can. She can plainly hear the boots just outside, which means she doesn't have terrifically long. Eve is right. They had shown up too early, and in too great force, to be normal.

    No matter. A2 turns her attention upwards, spinning her giant sword a couple of times over hand, before firing it through the emergency hatch with the force of a cannon, putting a twist on it sufficient to rip the roof open if needed. It's a weapon designed for taking down Goliath-class Machines, after all. "It's just another sign of their guilt. Don't flinch." she states flatly into her radio, leaping upward onto the top of the elevator cart, and wrapping her fingers tightly around the cable.

    She looks about for the counterweight on matching lift, and then shatters it with a stomp of her heel, letting gravity rocket her upwards and out of reach of the ground floor SWAT. As soon as she sees the ceiling approaching, she'll jump from the top of the car, and bust her way through the door into the cubicle floors, hitting the ground at a superhuman athlete's sprint, and gunning it for the second set of stairs, tackling her way through any late night workers in her way.
Gawain For those climbing the stairs, getting through the locked doors isn't too difficult. Eve can smash through her side, and Eryl's cyborg strength allows him to kick through his. Meanwhile, A2 breaks a very expensive elevator, cuts through it, and then sends it catapulting upwards with a stomp. She manages to dive out into one of the doors below the top floor, smashing straight through metal and turning it into rubble on the floor, causing a janitor hiding behind a cubicle to audibly scream and duck in. As the android rushes up the stairs, a fleeing office worker finds himself knocked into a wall, crumpling to the ground from the force.

Eventually, everyone's at the top. There are no lights - seemingly cut - and all of the offices have blinds over them. It'll take picking through them to find the CFO's, and light will be needed. But that might have problems, because the footsteps start coming up the stairs, and then the windows shatter. About four men on bungee cables with nightvision goggles, swat armor, and riot SMGs, begin blasting at everyone on the top floor, making sure not to let their shots hit the offices. This includes Eryl! On the stairs, guys with shields at the front of a conga line of officers begin to get closer, audible and somewhat visible, but not quite there yet.

This is way too much pressure for a little office raid. What the hell's going on?
Reinhardt Wilhelm     Reinhardt smashes the door down on his way to the top floor, only allowing the girls through first because GENTLEMAN! Of cours,e when he enters, he stares at Eryl just long enough for the Kill Bill siren to begin playing, the elder knight-errant locking eyes with the Paladin cyborg.

    "Grandmaster," He greets, with just enough politeness to let Eryl know this isn't personal. "I am ashamed to find this to be our first meeting, I wish it were under better circumstances. However, I've my orders, and you've yours. So..." He pops his neck, bringing up his shield as he begins to storm towards Eryl, SMG fire peppering his barrier and body armor while he closes the distance.

    He'll do his best to delay Eryl, thrusting the shaft of his hammer at him to start off, but those SWAT guys are gonna be a problem too if they stick around!
Eve     Once she absolutely wrecks the door, Eve delicately steps through the shattered frame and locates a light switch. It's not like this is a subtle burglary requiring stealth. Light will help her move faster, to get more done. She frowns as she learns the lights are out. There appears to be no emergency lights either, which seems wrong. Is this whole thing a trap? Could her information source have done some kind of deception?

    The doubts only last a moment before Eve shakes her head. She trusts Toph more than most others, and just couldn't see this being some clever deception. Toph would just try to arrest her straight out rather than calling police to do it. If someone here is deceiving, it wouldn't be her friend.

    Eve can't see very well in the dark, but had the foresight to bring a simple flashlight for a nighttime raid. So when the SWAT members break in to the upper floors she's not immediately helpless. She LOOKS helpless though, small and unarmed, and immediately dashes for cover. That means, since the SWAT aren't shooting at the offices, Eve dives headlong at one of the doors. She smashes through, owing more to hammer-fists than her own strength or mass, then heads for the best cover she can find. Behind a desk, crouched low, nanomachines woven into bullet-resistant defenses just in case.
Eryl Fairfax     As Eryl strides through the empty door frame, he locks eyes with a mountain of a man. It's a long pause before he is addressed, and replies in kind. Having used that pause to draw from the Paladin database, he replies. "Reinhart Wilhelm. Former affiliate of the defunct organization Overwatch, now vigilante. May I ask what your are doing here? How many are with you? And will you stand down peacefully?"

    Unfortunately, he is rudely interrupted by SWAT abseiling through the windows before he can get an answer. As they aim those SMGs, Eryl slips his foot under the door he kicked in and lifts it, hoisting the thing up and catching it by the handle. Once they open up, he swings it around to serve as a shield. "Stand down!" he shouts over the roar of gunfire. "I'm a member of the Paladins! I'm trying to stop them too!"
A2     A2 pays no mind to the man she punts out of the way. She's almost to the top, and has only one objective fixed in her mind. Most everything else is irrelevant. She takes the stairs twelve at a time, practically vaulting up them with powerful strides that send her airborne over half of each staircase. Another door crumples under a shoulder assault, where she breaks her way into the darkened offices, and whilst she adjusts her eyes to the dark, is promptly hosed with fire from the armed police.

    At least a full magazine of bullets rips through her unprotected frame, puncturing her cloak in several dozen places, and drenching it in synthetic blood, which pools rapidly around her heels. Her body jerks with the collective force of the rounds riddling her body, but at the point they have to reload, she is still on her feet, slumping forward with an exhalation of agonized breath. It doesn't seem like the small calibre rounds broke anything vital just yet.

    She charges, moving explosively across the office and smashing desks and chairs in her way to splinters, taking on the SWAT through sheer ferocity. She takes her gigantic cleaving sword in hand, and mid-sprint, spins it around her entire body, grinding the carpet under her heel as she hurls it long and wide to hack through as many of the men as possible. This time she responds with lethal force. Aside from being shot, the black armour and glowing goggles only remind her of YoRHa's extermination squads, and she feels her blood boil just at the sight of them.
Gawain The SWAT fires without mercy, but when Eryl rips off a door as a shield (which is riddled, but not fast enough to hurt him) and shouts his affiliation, the SWAT officer focusing on him actually takes a second to speak into his comms. After levelling his gun at Eryl again, he changes focus onto Reinhardt as she begins slamming through offices. No more of the officers shoot at Eryl, indicating that they've been alerted of his presence.

Reinhardt's shield allows him to soak the SWAT fire, and after a bit, the officers stop firing on his shield, instead trying to move around it. However, they don't get the chance to close in on him - A2 sprints and spins with her blade, and the firing goes wild as blood splatters the walls and windows, a flurry of screams that quickly go out as the men screaming them stop breathing. It's at this time that the guys on the stairs reach the top, and there's atleast a dozen of them, with atleast four guys with riot shields. Fire is immediately focused all on A2 from their guns, though once they fill the room, a couple split off to try and gank around Reinhardt, as another heads over to Eryl to...check if he's safe?, the officer trying to help him get through the building.

It's at this point that the first sniper fire begins. A window is shattered as a bullet impacts with Reinhardt's shield, and then more shots are fired off, going through the offices to impact at A2. The Watch are going to need to split through the floor if they want to get any cover or distance, because the crowd is massive.
Gawain Crashing through the door of an office is easy - they're not reinforced. Eve ducks under a desk to weaving together her nanomachines and the SWAT is too busy dealing with A2's roaring rampage to focus on her. For a moment, her cover seems clear, but then she'd hear the shuffling of feet towards her, and then a voice. "Don't you dare move." With her flashlight, it's all clear - a man of Spanish descent in a suit is pointing a revolver straight at her head, sweating and obviously on-edge. He's Rodrigo Cardoso, the CFO of Richmont and their target, and from a glance at the paperwork that's spilled onto the ground, as well as a laptop on the desk (monitor off), it seems he was working late. Directly across from the desk nook Eve is underneath is a combination safe, if she happens to look away from the man. "If you so much as speak, I'll pull this trigger. All you outsiders are fucking nuts!" As Cardoso speaks, red dots begin appearing...optical illusions?

No. Sniper focus. A pair of snipers are aiming right at Eve, but haven't pulled the trigger. She's caught with three guns pointed at her. How will she get out of this?
Eve     Eve didn't actually come here to hunker down behind office furniture and cower. Mostly she's where she is because she figures if the SWAT want to shoot at her now, she'll be doing her part to destroy the offices. True she's far squishier than either Reinhardt or A2, but she's not actually helpless enough to need to run away, strictly speaking.

    Of course, this isn't precisely what she'd intended. She'd expected to be followed, not to be ignored. And she certainly hadn't intended to run straight into Rodrigo himself.

    It takes but a moment for her to consider her options. There's no way she can get her shield in place quickly enough to stop a bullet, not if this man's committed to the decision to kill a child. The SWAT snipers aren't all that significant to her right now. She's reasonably sure they'd hesitate, being police, unless she displays some sort of weapon. No, she only has to deal with Rodrigo himself for now, and she's not willing to bet he has enough sympathy in him to spare her.

    Frowning in concentration, Eve draws in the nanomachine shield, 'disarming' herself to all appearances. She keeps her eyes fixed on Rodrigo, glowering at the man hatefully. She can't quite make herself look like a helpless, innocent child... but then, the glower still speaks of a child. Just one caught red-handed and sulky rather than one purely innocent.

    Eve doesn't speak and doesn't move anything but her head, aside from her making the shield slowly vanish. She's preparing though. Frantically she wields her nanodefenses internally, plating armor underneath her skin in likely vitals Rodrigo or the snipers are likely to shoot at. Not her face though. Her body, covered by clothing, is easy to subtly armor. Her face could gleam at the wrong moment however, tipping off the gunmen. No, she has to remain at least somewhat vulnerable here.

    "If you shoot me..." Eve says, her voice super-quiet. It's possible it might not even carry to Rodrigo over the sounds of gunfire and screaming, but she's quite obviously trying not to provoke him further. "... They'll hear. And they'll kill you." she concludes. "The only way you survive this is if they escape first." she adds in a nearly-silent thoughtful warning. She doesn't think he'll actually shoot, not for this, but she's watching his trigger finger intently.

    She's prepared however, ready for anything. And while he considers whether or not to fire, she springs into action. Throwing her arms across her vulnerable face she leaps up, hopefully putting her head out of the immediate line of fire. Then she charges straight at Cardoso, hoping that speed and uncertainty will keep anyone from shooting precisely enough to do serious injury to her. Snipers have trouble with fast-moving targets, and pistols are notoriously inaccurate in the hands of the inexperienced. She might not get hit at all... and if she DOES get hit, hopefully her defensive nanomachines will keep any wound from being too dangerous. She's shielded across her ribcage and some of the rest of the abdomen, and across her forearms. That should protect the most likely areas to take hits.

    There's a plan here too. Eve isn't just trying to get close to the gunman. Disarming him is essential, yes, but there's also the hope that being close to him removes the sniper threat. Plus she has to try to disable him. If she can put him down, he can't close the safe before the Paladins can investigate!
Eryl Fairfax     Eryl hunkers down behind the door until the shots cease. Thank goodness they're actually listening, he was concerned the Chief was abandoning him up here. As they begin to converge on Reinhart, he begins offering tactical advice over the radio, keeping the door up between he and the German.

    And then A2 bursts in and cuts them all down.

    "Oh, you," he says coldly as more swarm in from the stairs. He looks to them, more fragile lives... he launches the door at the cyborg, throwing it like a frisbee. He rushes in, grabbing every sizable bit of furniture within arms reach to hurl at her, keeping her occupied.

    And then, once he's close, he tries to dropkick her out a window.
Reinhardt Wilhelm     Reinhardt holds the shield up, but he knows he can't react fast enough as the SWAT guys begin to flank. They're smart, he has to give them that much. It's only when A2 steps in does he notice she's going lethal, frowning behind his visor.

    He moves in to stop Eryl from the dropkicking, if he can move there in time, as he swings his hammer at the cyborg Paladin, grunting with effort. "Rrrrraaagh!"
A2     This time A2 is on guard. Her targets are scythed down with the arterial sprays she's come to expect from Androids. The fact that they're really human is tuned out of her mind. They're just more YoRHa dolls, but a little squisher. When the second group storms up the stairs, she's ready, and turns to face them on queue.

    The deluge of bullets, even though it's so much higher in volume than the first one, doesn't find its mark. A2's ballistic tracking software kicks in, and the bullets slow to a crawl in her mind as the already dim colours around her mute to a dull grey. Her evasion systems activate. Her form bursts into a scatter of black and white holograms, and the original dissolves into grey static. For a few seconds, only monochrome flickers of A2 can be seen stepping through the hail of bullets, reappearing here and there for only split seconds, winding her way serpentine towards the squad in an inexorable advance of what looks like rapid teleportation.

    She reappears fully at the head of the squad; too close. She kicks off the ground, and lunges forth, skating along some invisible track that has her close the distance without even quite touching the ground, as if gliding. Her eye flares with bright red light. The air ripples and breaks around her, and then she crashes into the shield wall like a set of bowling pins, sheathed in an explosive pressure wave of energy to mow straight through them.

    Of course, that entails moving in a straight line. When she stops, the sniper's bullet slams straight into her shoulder, and overpenetrates completely, splattering the ground with more of her dwindling blood. She staggers under the greater force of the high velocity round, but rights herself quickly. Fortunately, she has tons of metal and ceramic around her, the fragments of which dissolve into pixels of white light, which stream into her many wounds. Her HUD's integrity gauge slowly begins to climb. Despite that, she is quickly made to duck inside a side room, and watch the laser sights crawl across the floor and walls.

    "Somebody do something about those goddamn snipers! I can't reach them." She hisses into the radio, leaning against the wall whilst her battered body repairs itself, trying to give herself some time to fix herself up.

    And then the Grandmaster of the Paladins shows up. She'd hope he would think twice about attacking her again after she'd nearly cut his arms off before, but it seems that isn't the case. This time, she doesn't have the luxury of busting out B-mode either. She ducks under the door, letting it slice over her head and smash against the far wall, and withdraws her longsword from storage in a flicker of amber light. Lightning quick swipes easily dispose of the mundane office furniture, rending it to pieces before it can so much as touch her, but the large objects constantly obscuring her vision cover Eryl's advance, and a moment later, the wind is driven out of her as Eryl's flying boot impacts her chest, sending her crashing through the window behind her, the frame of which she only just manages to catch, leaving her hanging from the building.

    "Get . . . lost." she gasps out, starting to haul herself upwards. "Did you set this all up? You think this is funny?"
Gawain Chairs, lamps, the broken door, paper bins, everything is weaponizable, though A2 can easily cut through it, as can she scare the wits out of the guards, who are put off-guard by her 'teleportation'. A trail of bodies is left behind, and the remaining SWAT split up, shouting over their radios in panic. The megaphone sirens again. "Alright, we're bringing in the choppers- wait, where are the choppers?!" It seems they're having an issue, though for how long, who knows.

The guys trying to get around Reinhardt manage to do so, and one begins firing into his armor, trying to pierce through it. The bullets stray towards the thruster on the back of the suit, as the SWAT trooper notices it stands out and therefore might be a weakpoint? (Probably not.)

The snipers continue to fire, but when Eryl moves up close, they don't take the shot on A2, despite her hanging out the window. It seems they don't want to accidentally hit the Grandmaster. Once she's up and obscuring the window, though, another shot is taken, but it narrowly misses to her side. She'll want to keep manuevering away from the windows.

And then, a gunshot rings out from one of the offices. It's not of the same type as the SMG's, more like a revolver and it's a single shot. The one guard who was previously with Eryl (and wasn't in the death conga, therefore surviving) dodges off that way.
Gawain Rodrigo glares at Eve as she stares up at him, moving back briefly towards his open safe. He was doing something in there. The revolver keeps levelled at her head, but she decides to use her looks to her advantage, /while/ threatening him. Even with the gun pointing, he hesitates in pulling the trigger, and his hesitation is more noticeable when Eve says that he might /die/. The snipers don't fire, either, and that gives Eve the time to move, right as he moves to talk. "You goddamn frea-"

Eve charges the CFO, and moves to disarm him of his gun. However, he doesn't want to let go. In the struggle, Rodrigo tries to shoot, and fires. The bullet going sailing past (or possibly grazing Eve's arm if she's not careful), before he moves to kick Eve back and off of him. Due to how close they are together, the snipers don't pull the trigger, and Rodrigo's disorientend.

And then, that SWAT trooper barrels into the room, SMG at the ready. He notices Rodrigo holding a gun...and a child? The man's stance moves, and his gun is no longer pointed where he could quickly fire it at someone. "Sir...what's going on in here?!" The SWAT trooper distracts Rodrigo, who moves to speak, giving Eve just the window of opportunity for whatever she wants to do next.
Eryl Fairfax     Eryl feels a slight rush of satisfaction as he feels his feet make contact with A2, followed by the sound of smashing glass. That satisfaction burns away as the flat of Reinhart's hammer fills his entire field of view. All he can do is cross his arms over his chest as it comes down, absorbing some of the impact as it slams him hard into the ground.

    He starts getting up, slowly as A2 climbs back in. "I just happened to be nearby when the alarms sounded," he croaks, lungs heaving to get his breath back. "And protecting lives is no joke." And then that gunshot rings out. Eryl is familiar with the retort of all kinds of firearms, and that does not match anything SWAT would be using. Concern shoots through him, and he makes a break for the CFO office along with the SWAT member.

    However, unlike him, he keeps his index finger pointed. "Nobody move," he orders, gently nudging the man inside.
Reinhardt Wilhelm     Thrusters are damaged, and Reinhardt grunts in pain. He winces, feeling bullets penetrate his armor as he's peppered in SMG fire, before he swipes at the SWAT officers.

    REinhardt feels a bit of satisfaction, but he does note that A2's not exactly in a good situation. The thought of attacking Eryl from behind comes to mind, but Reinhardt curses himself internally for even considering that. It just isn't honorable...even if they are enemies at the moment.

    He instead focuses on A2, reaching over to the android. "Take my hand, A2!" He says, helping her back into the building. Nothing would feel right if he left an ally hanging, literally in this case.

    Of course, the German pauses as he hears the sound of a gunshot, and he charges towards the office. "What happened?!"
Eve     Eve's timing was just about perfect, luckily for her. Surprise is a wonderfully-effective tool, as is being underestimated. She grabs Rodrigo, managing to interfere with his shooting enough to protect herself. The problem? She's a tiny girl grappling an adult. She's strong for her age and fierce, but with no mass to speak of she's just not a good wrestler. Rodrigo kicks her and she goes flying back several feet. The kick doesn't hurt her. It might hurt the CFO though, given he likely kicked her in subdermal nanoarmor. It's not thick layers of metal but it's still metal.

    She lands, crouched, ready to spring back at Rodrigo. The cop's voice freezes her though. She hasn't protected her back. If he shoots, she could die. She glances back, only a moment, then again as Eryl shows up. She recognizes Eryl even in that momentary look. A high officer of the Paladins. And here he is, in the CFO's office with the safe wide open. In a way, this is mission-accomplished. All she needs to do is get out.

    Eve sets her jaw stubbornly. "I came here for a reason." she says, addressing the words behind her, but not turning her eyes away from Rodrigo. "... Sorry." she adds, then bursts into a sprint.

    Not at the CFO however. She runs at an angle, past him, straight for the windows of the office. It's obvious enough they'll be shatterproof, but she's not intending to take the manufacturer's word on that. The windows probably can't stand up to nearly a hundred pounds of flying girl concentrated behind a sharp point, and she leads her charge with spiky nanometal, intending to punch her way out of the office.

    That's not all she does however. As she passes within a few feet of the CFO, Eve lashes her head in an arc, whipping her long golden hair at him. The effect isn't obvious. Still, hair with sharpened bladed tips lash across the man's legs. There's likely no blood at first, but if she hits cleanly that's only a matter of time. The tips of her hair aren't surgically-sharp or anything but they work well enough as knives. Not tearing through flesh, but cutting shallowly enough to wound with little chance of the wounds being vital. She's going to strike SOME kind of blow against the man, and make sure he's in no position to lock his safe before Eryl can act here.
A2     "Don't try to bullshit me." A2 grunts, crumpling the windowsill under her grip. "We hadn't hurt anybody before this whole setup sprung. These are your lackeys, aren't they? They were here in minutes, and the first thing they did was open fire on sight. They had to be waiting. They know exactly who we are."

    The android's slender (but considerably strong) hand claps into Reinhardt's giant gauntlet, and with an agile vault, she leaps back onto the window ledge. Another sniper bullet cracks into the concrete beside her, but as it is, she doesn't have any means of returning fire. She'd have to cross the street, and Rodrigo would surely escape if she did.

    Before she can unleash an assault on Eryl, though, he's already run for the sound of the revolver going off. She chases him, of course, but she's already so far behind, and Eryl is at least a fairly high quality cyborg. He has plenty of time to reach Eve, but if he wants to shoot at her on the way out, A2 will be there just in time to tackle him from behind, and hopefully make him fire off-course.
Eryl Fairfax     As Eve breaks into a sprint, Eryl's eyes take in the room, and his mind analyzes what's going on. The CFO working late, his safe wide open... Eve running for the window, veering close to him, her hair moving in ways unnatural to her speed and momentum. His ears pick up the bulky footsteps of Reinhart approaching, and the faster, yet still heavy sprinting of A2, rushing towards him.

    He aims, and fires just as he is tackled by the android.

    This knocks his aim off. Instead of intersecting with Eve's path, hitting her in the leg, his shot hits the window she's running for, the high-velocity slug slamming into the glass. Fracturing it, weakening it for her escape.

    Oh darn.
Gawain Everyone running to the office means there's no more CFO fire, and Reinhardt knocks back the guys who were fighting him, taking them out. If they're still alive, they're certainly not conscious. As everyone starts approaching the door, the guard is panicking as he glances at Rodrigo and Eve - Rodrigo wincing at his foot in pain. The SWAT officer speaks, "Freeze!", shouting at Eve, before Eryl fires, and Eve begins to move. Eryl's shot shatters the window, allowing Eve her escape, but the SWAT officer hastily blasts his gun at her, several bullets impacting her in the back as she dives out, Eve's hair whipping and cutting into Rodrigo's ankles, causing him to scream in pain and fall to the ground. Rushing over to the CFO, the SWAT's distracted from Reinhardt and A2, which gives them just enough time to escape...

Because while the snipers don't fire on Eve, the sound of helicopters is in the air. It's time to go.
Reinhardt Wilhelm     Reinhardt didn't go out of his way to lethally injure those cops, and the officer that storms into the room is no exception to that. Reinhardt thrusts the shaft of his hammer at the cop, trying to knock the weapon out of his hands before he can shoot at Eve, protecting her from additional shots in the back. Once the window is smashed open, he takes the chance to bail while they can. "We should extract now!" he advises A2, before he throws himself through the glass.

    A Hard landing isn't a problem with his armor, even if it is damaged, but Reinhardt lands with the impact of a tank. "INCOMINNNNNNG!" He bellows, crushing an unfortunate car before he takes off.
Eve     Getting shot is NOT fun. It's not the first time Eve's been shot. It turns her leap out the window into something more like a bellyflop, graceless and limp. She doesn't completely collapse however. Fortune smiles on her one last time, that and preparation. Preparing to escape, she was already in the process of shifting most of her nanomass to her upper back to form into wings. While nowhere near a bulletproof armor, the dense mass of metal mostly absorbs the impact, preventing the bullet from tearing through the otherwise-fragile girl.

    It still hurts though, and the shock of impact tears a cry out of her. An airless sort of cry that's more gasp than scream. She tumbles out the window, apparently completely out of control.

    She falls some distance before getting together enough will to form her nanomachines into wings. Originally she'd intended to plunge far just to fool the snipers. This has the same net effect, but it wasn't exactly by the girl's choice. She struggles to fly, but it's more a mental effort than a physical one. Her mind, even struggling with agony, is superbly up to the task of guiding the nanomachines that are, after her brain, the most effective part of her.

    Hopefully she won't have to fly far though. The strain on damaged flesh is agony. But no, she doesn't have to get too far to escape the SWAT cordon. At the speed gained from near-freefall, she'll be clear in no time. Then to rendezvous with the team and... well, probably get carried out.
A2     A2 saves Eve from a coilgun slug at least, or else she is lead to believe. She shoulders past Eryl, not having the time for him with the chopping thrum of rotor blades outside. She books it for the same exit as Eve, egressing through the window, but not before drawing her path directly across the prone Rodrigo, and breaking as many of his ribs as possible with her very high weight focused on the point of a high heel, and leaping off him to kick his desk in half, destroying his PC and scattering his papers.

Shehe takes the plunge without issue, cracking the street beneath her, but absorbing the shock without breaking anything, even if it chips her integrity display down. From there, she runs as a black streak across the asphalt, diving into the protective shadows of an alley to evade the spotlights of the roving police choppers. She's made her point. The office is now a crime scene.
Eryl Fairfax     Eryl runs to the window once he's back on his feet, watching the three disappear into the nooks and crannies of the city. Out of range. As such, he goes over to Rodrigo, examining his legs and his ribs. "Get the medics in here!" he yells to the SWAT man as he strips off his coat and starts slicing it into ribbons for makeshift bandages for the legs. "Try not to move sir, you've had several of your ribs broken."

    As he tends to the CFO, he puts in a call to the Ad Coelum, patching in the SWAT team at the same time. "This is Grandmaster Eryl Fairfax. I am requesting cooperation between the city's police force and Paladins on this matter. As of right now, the aims of these attackers are unknown. As such, I want a full quarantine and investigation of this building, both in the physical and technological sense. As a leading food producer, the damage that could be done by meddling here is immense. Every precaution must be taken."
Gawain The Watch manages to escape, losing the police after a few minutes. A2 shatters Rodrigo's ribs making a painful scream come from the man, as he whimpers and doesn't speak again, before destroying his stuff. And then, that safe's open...

The Ad Coelum would be able to patch Eryl into the larger government, and despite the Chief of Police's protests that 'we've got this', they'd permit the Paladins the cooperation. Inside the open safe is revolver ammunition, and all it would take is a quick glance at the victim's records to learn that he has no gun permit, and so the revolver is illegal. Which would allow a further glance into the safe. Which would lead to seeing the documents about money transfers...deals with the mayor and the chief of police? Well, that's interesting, and with everything's that happened, certainly something to note. And then, the USB drive tucked in the corner, trying to be hidden. Now, what could /that/ be about?

Either way, both the Paladins and the Watch have succeeded in their goals. The only question - what will they do next?