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Priscilla     With all six Starbounders setting on the Gearhulk, charging the riot suppression version of the machine with suicidal abandon the pilots aren't really equipped to handle, and with Riva stirring the crowd into an even greater frenzy and leaping into the frontlines herself, something about the situation becomes increasingly apparent.

    The Enforcers on the line aren't cut out for this. It's not a matter of training or equipment, for while they are obviously no match for experienced Elites, they have more than enough of both. It isn't a matter of numbers, because they ostensibly have plenty for the citizens, and the Elites on call are a drop in the bucket. It is very much a crucial difference that the most eager and trigger happy of Elite interventionists frequently forget, or fail to notice: these people are city police. They're guards. Keepers of the peace and of law and order. They are not soldiers. They are not secret service. They are not people whose job it is to fight in serious, life or death combat, and more than that, they are not people who signed up to seriously fight the city they grew up in and want to protect and serve.

    There is a lot that Ghirapur's Enforcement corps will do because their boss said so, and there is unfortunately a lot their boss will do because his boss said so. When Riva takes a position of leadership, her rabble rousing does more than just stir the riot, but lowers the morale of the police trying to stop it, as seeing the common citizens getting /that much more upset about it/, willing to attack them en mass with even non-lethal weapons, is certain cause to question why they're trying to subdue said people in the first place. Serious, hard hitting, Multiversal combat personnel also aren't really people they're hired to deal with; there is an army for that, and the Grand Consul has had it out of the city for a while as the police become steadily more militarized, deftly removing any chance of an attempted military coup.

    The line starts to collapse as the defenders grow more and more reluctant to stand in the way, as individual officers panic, fall back, are scattered by heavy blows, or lose their nerve, leaving the rest to be slowly overrun. Even the Gearhulk pilots (a pair of stumpy dwarves) hurriedly bail from their craft as the Flotilla sets upon it, climbing out of the upper torso and leg compartments and making a break for it when so much threatening hardware starts buzzing and cutting all around them. They successfully disable both hoses, and Seft manages to ascertain the hatch code and mana engine, commandeering the aether mecha immediately.
Priscilla     Staren has an ironic turnabout inside the Spire lobby, as he is now in the position of using his own kind of riot control gear on the swarming Enforcers. Given that most of them are currently battling Edison trying to wade on through them via brute Presiking force, he only has to disable about a third of it and then make a run through before the heavy reinforcements show up, and while the Spire itself is somewhat depleted of defenses.

    For the same reasons as mentioned, the guards in the Aether control hub, though more serious about defending something so critical rather than just the streets, know when they're beat, and quite frankly really want to help the wounded comrades right in front of them rather than continue a fight they know they can't win. Giving them the out -to be doing their job and also not battling the monster in the room- is exactly what it takes to have them hauling the other half of their number away, leaving Sram's 'monitors' just a bunch of bureaucratic personnel who don't have much ability to get in the way with Yuuki's 'insurance' hovering around.

    "Fine by me." he manages to say through a mouth now occupied by forceps, since the syllables are easily pronounced that way. Right away, he is absorbed in his work, ordering around his handful of still-present trustworthy apprentices and coworkers. The Spire's main elevators are smartly the first thing to go, as well as block power to where most of the interior Enforcers are posted, and the alarms and automated defense systems. Staren is witness to a forcefield and a pair of automatic lightning guns going dark right in front of him as he turns a corner straight into them.

    "Of course. The situation has already escalated beyond the point at which ceasing to act is a valid decision. Refusing to move at this point is contributing to the chaos." Baan says to Yuuki, in full professional crisis control mode. "There are six major power storage units along the Spire's central routing stack, each nominally responsible for managing aether flow to the ten floors adjacent to them during normal operations. At the moment, they have been set into emergency 'wartime' mode, are are isolated from the rest of the grid. At the moment, the uppermost unit appears to be channelling aether to the top floor, for reasons unknown to me. The remaining five units are in standby, waiting to replace the first."

    Baan shows them out again, wielding his identity like a shield. Zero has possession of a very fancy and finely constructed spear, both well-balanced and sturdy as an actual cutting tool (more of a partisan really) and with an integrated aether battery capable of delivering debilitating mana shocks to people and automatons alike.

    Since Sram has full control of the rest of the power grid, they can radio him as 'the guy in the chair' to activate select elevators and doors for them, as well as guide Staren as need be. The storage stacks are under heavy lockdown, and most of the other guards didn't get the memo, forcing a skirmish on every tenth floor while Sram lifts all the safeguards. Past that point however, it's a matter of turning a bunch of old-timey cranks on a bunch of valves in careful sequential steps, venting thick blue mist from the sides of the spire, poetically much like the symbol of the Renegades.
Riva Banari "PEOPLE OF GHIRAPUR, YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS BETRAYED YOU!"

When Riva stepped forward to give these people a direction to go, she could tell the police would start folding. It's not in their interests to lay their lives on the line, and bureaucracies rarely engender loyalty. She stomps forward, implacable, taking the lead and using her own abilities to force open a path for the rebellion to continue surging forward. "THEY HAVE ALLOWED ROT TO SETTLE INTO THE VERY CORE OF YOUR NATION! THEY HAVE ALLOWED GREED AND IGNORANCE TO RULE! YOUR VERY POWER HAS BECOME FORFEIT TO THE DESIRES OF SOMEONE WHO REFUSES TO BE HELD TO ACCOUNT BY THE PEOPLE THEY RULE!"

Yeah, she still has a megaphone in one hand, the other tends to swap between her Cross and her shotgun as needed. "THIS POWER BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE OF GHIRAPUR! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!" She yells, taking an ancient slogan and continuing to repurpose it for a very literal point. "POWER TO THE PEOPLE!"

What can she say? It's snappy. Maybe not everything she says is precisely true, but it's probably true enough. And frankly, she'll be damned if she lets the Concord and Paladins decide the fate of the land unchallenged. And challenge they are, as Riva marches with her rebellion directly upon the Spire, theoretically to occupy the thing and remove it from the hands of the bureaucrats that remain inside.
Priscilla     Even for lack of being at the front lines of battle, the 'diplomacy' going on surrounded by Gonti's more shady enforcers may well be equally as heated. "Your straw man doesn't impress me." is Pia's next line. "Human beings are capable of judging these things for themselves, and the people of Ghirapur are good, reasonable folk. 'It's always fine to retaliate against anything you don't like, or it's never justifiable to retaliate' --that's the line of thinking you're promoting, and it's worthless; it completely disregards a person's ability to think for themselves, and decide when something is appropriate. It sure must be easy to be oh-so above it all when you're not the one who has to decide where to draw the line, and take action when it's crossed; venture nothing and never be caught being wrong, is that it?"

    Her scowl intensifies as he continues, but not in an [righteous anger increases] kind of way. "Look, I don't give a damn about what side you chose or why. If you're finally capable of realizing there's something seriously wrong here, it doesn't matter. What I'm sceptical of is that you have that kind of power you're claiming. How do I know you have /any/ chance of deciding how this turns out, never mind a say in restructuring the Consulate, even /if/ we assume you can do it in a way that isn't just as bad as before?"
Priscilla     Tezzeret laughs. That's kind of what his type do in situations like this, but it's short, sharp, and nasty. "'Keeping it simple' is an idiom for craftsmen. For simpleton labourers who need to be reminded not to insert more variables than their small minds can keep track of and lose their grip on the equation. Do you take me for an 'artisan'? Do you think artifice is my calling, rather than a means to an end? Let me teach you a particular lesson here: simple and direct thinking like that is for engineers. Putting more variables in play than plain, average men such as yourself can keep track of --that's something shared by politicians, strategists, and planeswalkers who /know what they're doing/."

    The floor lights up under Tezzeret. Specifically, the myriad grooves and channels go from gold and silver to blinding blue. The air suddenly fills with raw aether charge, permeating the atmosphere to the point it develops into a thick, crackling cyan mist, just as a complete oversaturation of moisture does. Tezzeret's Etherium arm is exposed as the aether rushes into its metal, burning away his right sleeve in the disgustingly concentrated cloud of mana he is suddenly tapping into.

    "The Aether Spire's emergency power resources are technically supposed to be used to power wartime artifacts of extreme potency, but it turns out a mage with a little foresight can make use of it too."

    With double digits of colourless mana on turn one, Tezzeret activates every artifact in the room. They aren't wired to anything; he simply has the power to do it himself. Ranks of showpiece golems, thopters, and lifecrafted creatures whirr to life, swooping in on Theo. The airship hung up from the ceiling lights up on all ports, and fires its energy cannons. Even Tezzeret himself joins in, summoning a cluster of extremely un-Kaladeshi automatons of his own, very distinctly from a plane Theo has been to before. He basically has the overflowing batteries of the supercharged Aether Spire to himself, in terms of how much magic he can throw around.
All-Seeing Eye      Eye touches a finger to his temple and rolls his eyes. "Just as bad as before? Come now, dear. The only reason your little social club even exists is because of one little part out of place." He places the thumb and forefinger of the opposite hand together. "Had he your best interests in mind--or even moved along with his plans with a /modicum/ of subtlety, you never would have had reason to start all this. Even at his worst, you enjoyed a standard of living far in excess of the average world. There is no problem with the machinery of the state, save that one part--and all you need is to replace it with one you trust."

     "You are right to be suspicious of me, though! I can't do it /for/ you. I can't /talk/ to someone who can do it for you. But, maybe I can skew the odds for you, hm? Take a look around." He holds both arms wide. One gestures to an elaborately decorated lamp post, the other to an abandoned merchant stall still bearing colorful silk streamers. The Exalt twirls slowly in place, taking in the dimly, yet still lavishly decorated impromptu meeting spot. "If there's one thing this city cares about, it's /image./ Your tantrum here today is a black eye they'll be eager to cover up." He stops, facing Pia once more. "I can make sure your struggle reaches the Grandmaster's desk personally, paint it as sympathetically as I can, and sweet talk him into bending the ear of whatever Commonwealth diplomats he can reach."

     "Under all of that pressure, all /you/ would have to do is organize, develop a strong base with the backing of the Populat, and present your demands. The Consulate would be so eager to wipe off the blemish of this whole affair, you'd have them eating out of your hands. If you don't believe me, just picture, in your mind, right now, the sight of Dovin Baan hurriedly running from office to office as more negative attention mounts by the hour."
Theo Morrison In an instant, the entire room stirs. Theo lowers his center of gravity, tensing, eyes sweeping over the interior of the chamber and marking the things that begin to remove themselves from positions that should have been for display. He glances upwards, too. He's learned to always look up.

"Nah," Theo calls from his spot. He's trying not to let his poker face slip as he feels that mana surge like the heat of the sun on his face. "I take you for a pawn. It's not your fault that you're only seeing the other pieces." He smiles unkindly. "You just don't have the vision to see the board."

Theo bolts from the spot. Energy cannons rake the space he was just standing, but he's suddenly halfway across the room, running in an arc. He's fast, faster than any human mage has any right to be, and the mana he's channeling is being drawn from the objects he wears at his waist and from distant lands he's more than once walked himself. The table-thing he deployed follows him, keeping pace with grown legs of seemingly liquid metal, hop-stepping around danger and just barely keeping ahead of it. Theo and his table-thing start to break for cover as a filigree-covered golem steps out in front of him, one of many approaching on an intercept course. He can't avoid it.

So he runs right through it.

The table follows. Both he and it become suddenly insubstantial, hazy and translucent as if seen through smoked glass. They flit past the rank of golems, and then through a bookshelf and out of sight as the lifecrafted and less-lovely machines move in. Theo's Mycosynth Golem backs up while swinging, sweeping enormous blades and hammers side to side like it was threshing wheat, the dull grey Shield Sphere rotating around it and generating glassy projections of parrying blades and polearms that deflect attacks to the Golem's vulnerable sides. With that many arms and weapons, though, there aren't many of those.

Theo himself becomes solid behind the bookcases. There's a narrow gap where the wall curves and one case doesn't. He lifts one leg, braces against it with a knee, and pushes it and all the myriad books and objects on it forward, tipping it towards the oncoming swarm in an extremely expensive avalanche. His free hand snatches cards off the top of his deck at the same time, and he plays them out as fast as he can without messing everything up. Both he and the table are jammed in a corner, using the shelving as a form of cover against the mob.

"Thoughtcast!" More cards drawn. "Coveted Jewel!" An enormous gemstone gets its own place on top of the mobile table. Theo's hand size continues to grow as he makes up for a distinct lack of flagrant cheating with sheer card advantage. A Mountain gets put down carelessly, followed by, "Orbs of Warding!" Three spheres -- one red, one white, and one blue -- flicker into sight, rotating around him. "One for body, one for mind, one for soul," Theo mutters to himself. "Better hope that's right..." Flick, flick. "Try this one! Wurmcoil Engine!"

An enormous snaking construct of overlapping metal musculature suddenly slithers out of empty air. It moves like an onrushing train with a body to match, its mouth a tremendous threshing maw that is one part grinder, one part blender, and one part awful metal sandworm orifice. It crashes down amidst the masses of constructs, hungry to crush and consume.

Two cards in hand. Theo hesitates, glancing at one. Good tech? Yeah. But he really needs some backup. The other goes down instead, and immediately his hand tingles uncomfortably. His pockets seem to tug towards it. Theo steps out from around the corner, right hand swinging up towards Tezzeret like it was a lethal weapon. "/Galvanic Blast!/"

An enormous bolt of blue-white energy explodes off of Theo's hand, shrieking as it crosses the room in the shape of a slightly oddly-tinted bolt of forked lightning with Tezzeret on the receiving end -- and the window directly behind him, which Theo fully expects it to get contemptuously swatted through.
August Kohler August Kohler listens. He doesn't like All-Seeing Eye. He doesn't like the idea of squashing a riot. Part of him's hoping the rioters can get what they want done in the midst of this discussion, so that if Pia does agree, that they can stop it safely without everyone being too disappointed. For right now, though, August needs to handle this diplomacy.

Or atleast, he does until Riva sends a message that's both far more something he agrees with AND something he wants to do. August places his radio down, stepping over to Pia and moving to whisper to her, putting his hand up to try and block Eye from hearing it if he can. "Rioters are moving to take the Spire. We can end this here and now."
Starbound Flotilla "Urgent. Transmitting code!"
"Alright, we got the wheel."
"They're breaking. Keep the path clear."
"And make sure their retreat has the encouragement to join us."
"Let's bring it home to the one callin' for it! Smite 'em with righteous karma!"
"Floran isss ready! Got a leap calculated!"

    They've managed to take the machine. Now it's a matter of getting it where it needs to go. The whole Flotilla form up on the massive machine, and work hard on it fast, overclocking critical components, calculating proper function, and setting up the plan they have underway. They don't know it, but Theo Morrison just got into exactly the kind of hot water they're trying to set up backup for. And there's that signal he promised, of sorts, the sign that he promised that they should join in on the battle. As shiny bolts of energy erupt in the chambers and likely wind up blowing out the window, George targets that one specific opening and...

    Using their skills in piloting Starstriders, the Flotilla, all together, try to guide the anti-riot mecha to leap high and dive-tackle straight into the Spire window where that battle can be found, and ideally deliver a surprise massive mecha-punch to Tezzeret from the side. If all goes well, the entire upper torso of the thing will get clumsily jammed into Tezzeret's office, granting the Flotilla the chance to deploy from it.

    In Theo's magical system this probably resolves on the stack as a zero-mana instant played at the conclusion of his own turn.
Yuuki Kuran The entire situation was, as previously noticed, in an extreme endgame state. Nudging things here and there was all that was required. With the aid of Dovin Baan, and with Sram being their Man In The Chair, the Concord pair of Director and her loyal hound jog from the Aether Hub back to the spire, to the desolation of the assblasting Thomas Edison, Presiking and Staren, Boy Genius had wreaked in the Spire's lobby.

With them battling up the Spire the normal 'climb the staircase'/fight through the corridors' way, their progress is slow. They'll probably bust back onto the scene at a climactic moment, covered in scrapes to show their offscreen montage's results.

For Yuuki Kuran and her Entourage, things are more simple. "We're accessing elevator tube seven to floor ten." She mutters into the air, and Sram gets a very interesting experience.

The large black wolf which has set up as his protector, has its ears flick rather convincingly normally, before Yuuki's voice issues forth from it.

It's a Rai-doggo!

"Zero, take floors two and three. I'll stay with Baan and take one, Four, and Five. We'll meet at six."

That appears to be the plan, and while others battle in the streets to take the prize of Spire, or battle in the Spire to take the far more important prize of card advantage and board state, three fervent actors move to crank various levers to vent out the power that Tezzeret relies on.

SMASH CUT

Yuuki works a crank one-handedly, the cliche of the sticky lever or reactor room sequence entirely obviated by her woob strength. "I feel like something really dramatic is happening. Shouldn't I have minions for this? I guess it's not always like the stories. Or, people always leave out this part and only show the cool bits... hmm... Maybe I'll leave this out and think up a one-liner instead..."

"Baan, is there a pad for airships on the roof? Can the Grand Consul escape that way? Can /we/ escape that way when this is over? I feel like if I go 'OK Kohler, stop the riot' it's not going to happen."
Zero Kiryu << "Sram. Baan." >> Zero talks into his earpiece as their next mission objectives are laid out in various levels of detail, << "When the power draw from the Spire terminates, how fast will you be able to re-allocate the power to where it should be? What sort of hazards can we expect as a consequence, if any?" >>

Their plan is simple enough. They have six valves to address, one of which is near their final destination. The lower five are in relative hot zones, but they're not a priority for anybody to keep /alive/, as far as he knows. It's advantageous to anybody who wants Tezzeret taken down for his magical krokodil supply to be cut off so he doesn't get uncomfortable with all that skin everybody else is wearing and try to take it off mostly successfully.

Although not quite so effortlessly as Yuuki does, he pretty much closes the valves along the way by the same virtue of strength she does. For good measure, he makes a point of twisting it just a little too tight for a regular person to manage without a very big, sturdy tool.

The idea of having minions to do this for him doesn't occur at all. Vampire hunters are sort of like very aggressive cats, in that they mostly react to each other by growling and hissing and going their own separate ways while simultaneously clumping together inexplicably whenever something else upsets them.

It does however occur to him that he's a Loyalty Mission Secondary Operative. It's a good thing he's coincidentally in an emotionally good place with Yuuki right now.
Priscilla     The battle rages atop the spire, with all the drama befitting two experienced Planeswalkers, despite being something of a surprise climax. "And you take yourself for a chessmaster? Don't make me laugh. If anything, you'd be a pawn of more pawns. Do you think I don't know who you work for?" Tezzeret laughs. His confidence doesn't waver in the slightest as Theo's hand grows, because he has a deck full of black lotuses in terms of available mana right from turn one.

    Indifferent to the loss of the bookcase and it's no doubt priceless contents, Tezzeret casts a hand out towards Theo's orbs of warding, and a flash of blue mana finds each one in sequence, overloading them on the spot --steel sabotage. Mana crackling from his other hand, a blast of ethereal vapour takes the golem straight on, dissolving it into a hissing stream of coruscating cyan mana that rakes over Theo as a burning geyser --vapour snag. Clapping both his flesh and metal hands together, lightning crackles from his eyes and hits the wurmcoil engine dead on in the face, bringing it to a dead halt and causing it to turn around on Theo --corrupted conscience. With yet even more mana to spare, Tezzeret summons an additional pair of hideously grafted drakes, glistening with black oil, -spire monitors- and sics them on the attack on the spot, without a moment's summoning delay.

    Laying hands on the wurm, its body begins to shudder and soften like ooze, and then slowly divides like an amoeba, leaving /two/ of them occupying the room --mitotic manipulation. Decorative thopters sprout vicious poisonous spines and join the assault. "Honestly, what do you hope to accomplish here? Did you really think it would be /that/ easy? Do you think yourself a match for Nicol Bolas, and thus I should be trivial?" Tezzeret mocks.

    When the galvanic blast comes at him, instead of using countermagic, Tezzeret uses no doubt obscenely more expensive time magic, warping himself out of the way so that it blasts the panoramic window head on and shatters it. The Flotilla skids into the suddenly unobstructed room on a hyper accelerated Gearhulk, and Tezzeret summons yet another creature -a metamorph- which shapeshifts into the shape of the very same construct, albeit actually intact, and begins blasting them with the twin hoses on cutting pressure when they try to get out. "One, six, a dozen, a hundred --worms are still maggots, no matter how many you heap up in front of me!"
Priscilla     The Elites on the power stack have their work cut out for them. It isn't intensely hard going, but it's a lot of ground to cover and a lot of manual work that has to be done in specific, painstakingly clear order, with Sram semi-drunkenly leading them through it in a way that just leaves one to cross fingers and pray his memory of building the damn place outweighs an intense buzz.

    "Indeed there is. The Spire is equipped to dock ships up to and including the size of the Skysovereign --Ghirapur's aerial flagship. I have received reports that a number of airships have already been called to the site, but as long as no one grants them access to the top floor, they should be highly delayed by the denial of power to the Spire's roof entry and docking procedures for all further landing balconies further down."

"Gimme twenny minu'f." Sram mouths into the radio. "'n tell me wha' you wan' fetting up firf. I'm gueffin' you aren' out ta 'urn all the freetlightf bak on like a priori'y." There is an audible shrug. "Nuffin if done righ', which I am, though if you ge' any wilder theref alwayf a chanf the whole fing explodef. Hahahaha!" He is apparently very good at laughing when chewing on something even more obnoxious.
Priscilla     The people below are storming the Spire in short order. Seeing as Staren already dumpstered half the lobby with foam and vines, they have to pretty much swarm through it via numbers, cooperatively lifting and step-stooling each other over and then hauling the rest back in in a daisy chain of hands and bodies.

    All of the lifts and doors, however, are still under various stages of power cut, as Yuuki and Zero had ordered from Sram, who is probably much more reluctant to let a swarm of angry rioters up the same way, especially with delicate operations being planned. They're soon pushing to the doors, slowly bashing, cutting, and prying them open with the various tools afforded to them by the Flotilla, as well as a great number of their own workshop tools, setting off security alerts all over.
Zero Kiryu It's a good thing that Zero is actually good at receiving and following instructions, when he wants to be. It's an even /better/ thing that this is happening on a day when he's not boiling in his own skin or craving the gallons of blood that have probably been spilt in one form or another nearby. If that was the case he might /actually/ make something explode in the process of doing this.

It /is/ relatively slow-going, though.

<< "Understood." >> Is his initial reply.

Then, he stops and thinks.

<< "I do want the street lights on. All of them. Do something to get everybody's attention and then start lighting them up in waves. Start from the most neglected districts and work your way through the rest. Keep the Spire dark. Make it dramatic, but not so dramatic that we can't get utilities up and running by the time they get curious and investigate. Yuuki, confirm." >> He replies.

The word 'confirm' is not barked. It is not an order, it's a, 'Vet this.' Zero /assumes/ that Yuuki will get what he's trying to do, it's just up to her whether or not to go ahead with it.
Priscilla     "One little part that just happened to get its little self all the way to the top; a position that isn't even supposed to be there, mind you. You're full of crap. Where do you get off calling an unelected absolute ruler in a /Consulate/ just a little faulty cog in a perfectly functional machine? The entire damnded idea of a 'Grand Consul' is completely absurd and goes against every value the people of Ghirapur and the Consulate /both/ are supposed to have, 'emergency powers' or not. It's a /hijack/ of the machine at best! You think he'll give up the position if he were talked down or litigated? He should have given it up ages ago already!" Pia continues to bicker with All-Seeing Eye, apparently utterly incompatible with his personal grasp of, and take on, government structure, and obnoxiously a combination of malcontent enough to argue it, and intelligent enough to argue it extensively.

    "So, even if I continue to indulge you, how do I know your 'Grandmaster' is any different? I bet he has a lot bigger of a hand than yours, but is that still enough? What makes you think one of us couldn't go to him ourselves?" She squints noticeably at the word 'Populat', and tries to make sense of it from context. "We're not stopping until the Grand Consul is out, no matter what you say. The Consulate doesn't need him to function; if it collapses by returning to normal, then things are even worse than they look, and we should have done it sooner if anything. /After/ that . . ." It takes her not very long to think it through.

    "Sure, I bet they will in fact be eager to save some face. You think you can do some work in the aftermath, that's fine by me. Not me nor any one of my people are out to take the Grand Consul's job, or even a regular Consul. We want to go back to /our/ work. /Our/ homes and families. Nobody here is a rebel for the sake of snatching a seat; I know these people, all of them, and they're not like that. Let's say I stop it all once the Grand Consul is in a cell where he belongs." She motions at August to go. She has reason to believe 'Eye isn't just waiting for him to leave so he can make a move, and taking the Spire and kicking Tezzeret out seems to be her priority --one she trusts him with.
Riva Banari Riva and the Angry Mob (Anyone got swamps? I dare you to play swamps) crash through the lobby and work their way through the already disabled local security. She makes a mental note to send whoever did it a thank you card later. Or maybe a soda.

This makes things smoother. As they work their way through the obstacles, Riva is yelling to the mob. "Keep focused! We're going to work our way up the Spire, locate the Council and whatever bureaucrats are adound, and capture them."

She raises her megaphone. "TAKE THEM ALIVE. DEAD PEOPLE DON'T LEARN CRAP." Once they get to the elevators, Riva grimaces and helps breach doors with her kit.

Her kit includes shaped breaching charges because Templars believe in explosive reconstruction and the kind of stealth missions that involve all witnesses being dead.

Getting up the shaft, however , is a little more complicated. "CAN ANYONE MAKE A LADDER OR SOME COOL GRAPPLING HOOKS OR SOMETHING?" She asks the mob full of artificers.
Staren     With Sram back in control, Staren can stop cutting through walls as doors, elevators, and forcefields open for him. <"Thanks."> He looks wide-eyed at where the forcefield he almost ran into was. He wonders if it was electrified or trapped. Whoever placed these was fiendish...

    Staren follows Sram's instructions methodically. The armor's enhanced strength is hopefully enough to deal with stuck levers and valves.

    As Staren chucks riot control at the guards, some old part of him wonders if he should be talking to them. But what would he say? If they weren't devoted to their jobs they wouldn't be here. So he deploys his own riot control to trap them and moves on.

    After the second or third group, though, he runs out of the grenades and vials. He resorts to elecrified gel bullets and trying to hit unarmored areas, but it's much slower going and that means more risk... hmm.

    <"Can anyone get me a camera feed from outside? Maybe if they saw what was happening, they'd give up... I've run into some guards here.">
Staren     Yuuki has a different plan. Zero will get the valve behind these guards. <"Roger that. Rerouting."> Staren transmits, then throws a smoke grenade and a speaker playing the sound of gunshots that sound just like his SMG, and he runs to take the new path.
Yuuki Kuran Things Proceed Apace. It is a running theme. The pace, however, is set by the heart-pounding fight taking place at the top of the spire.

But Zero, in his moment, bring sup a good point. "Of course! That's a great idea. Sram, use your best judgement to bring any of those areas online. You're the expert. And... yeah. We can do this." Yuuki exclaims, in the dusty access area in the closet they put the fifth release valve. Dovin Baan had been directed to the fourth. Staren had taken out #3, and Zero #2. Leaving...

"Just number six left."

As the squad forms up - Staren, Yuuki Kuran, Zero Kiryu, and Dovin Baan at the Sixth Aether Relay - this one thrumming with the uncountable motes of aetheric power that Tezzeret was drawing on.

"Alright, everyone. Here's the plan. Staren is going to reinforce Morrison and the Flotilla in the frontal assault - Zero, you're on VIP duty. Make absolutely sure that Dovin Baan isn't critically wounded if he joins the fight. If this fight becomes a running fight, ensure that anyone else we need alive, stays alive. We'll be going upstairs after this right into ground zero, so I want everyone on their toes. Baan - I'd like you to personally shut down the sixth relay to make sure nothing bad happens, and then either join us upstairs, or..."

Yuuki draws in a breath, balling up her fists. It's hard to delegate. She wants everything under her control, now. "Avoid the riot, and act as you see fit. Tezzeret may go to the Special Inspection floor for the inventions he's seized and use them for some plan, or may do something you can forsee - just keep us appraised. We'll come to your aid. You are important - but too much of a genius to micromanage. Follow your best judgement." She favors the vedalken with a think, stressed smile. "I trust you, Dovin."

Then, to the other Concord conspirators. "Staren. I'd like you to set up a camera and pipe it out. We're fighting for the people: may as well let them see that." And, finally, tapping her ear, she uses NORMAL radio to talk to Sram. "I'd like you, Senior Artificer, to express elevator tube one direct to the Grand Consul's office. Interested gremlins can pipe themselves into the battle if they've got something to prove. I'll leave the rest to you and Baan, Sram. Keep your heads down if nothing else, and make sure the city survives."

She moves for an elevator, expecting Zero and Staren to follow, and for Baan to ~follow his heart~. Or his brain. The brain is probably better.

ONE SHORT ELEVATOR RIDE LATER, Yuuki shows up at the spire's top with the SQUAD, conveniently timed to correspond with the power shutting down.

"TEZZERET! Have you reflected on the Kaldeshi belief of the flow of invention? You were inspired. You innovated. You built. And you even liberated from the people here."

Yuuki extends her hand, her long telescoping baton-scythe snapping out into weapon form with an electric crackle. "And we've come to reclaim it, and start the cycle anew."
Theo Morrison Okay. So maybe it isn't entirely colorless mana.

Theo bolts from his hiding spot again. Heat washes over him, scalding exposed skin, but it barely makes him slow. Mana and adrenaline keep him going at full-tilt. He ducks low, rolling under the drakes that dive at him as the Wurmcoil Engine begins to swing back around at him. His Shield Sphere interposes itself in one last desperate gambit, joining the three other defensive artifacts in being blown to pieces. It slows the Engine down enough that Theo can 'walk away.

He reappears on the far side of the chamber, his board with him. He grabs for it -- and sways on his feet. Lines across his back burn with poison. He feels disgusting, almost instantly feverish, and struggles to ignore it. "You know, you're awfully concerned with what I think," Theo shoots back. He draws and plays, muttering, "One with the Machine," picking up a new full hand of complete nonsense. Ornithopters appear, made of wood and metal and canvas in the style of ancient Dominaria, interposing themselves between him and the incoming death machines in vain.

"I think you're pretty much straight-up evil," Theo says. "I think you're gonna try and do something awful to all these people, then go somewhere else and do something awful to all kinds of other people, because your boss is pissed he got neutered by some do-gooders on Dominaria pretty much incidentally." He drops something on the table. "Pili-Pala," he mutters. A... scarecrow appears. It looks like it's made of branches, rope and sackcloth. It has no legs, but it does have wings made of brooms. It super pathetic, and wobblingly flies up to hide on top of a bookshelf instead of actually contributing.

"Thanks for nothing," Theo says to it, spitefully. He slaps down yet another card with a grunt of, "Memnite," a four-legged wolf-sized machine materializing as another metallic body between him and Tezzeret -- and then points at the Gearhulk-copy, shouting, "Shattering Blow!" The words seem to reverberate with enough force to simply detonate the copy, rendering it into pieces too small to even be reassembled into something useful.

He really hopes that the Flotilla can pile on Tezzeret before Theo runs out of tricks, or this is going to turn into something of a problem. He'll be relieved as soon as the power turns off.
All-Seeing Eye      "You could try," admits All-Seeing Eye. "And I personally wouldn't stop you, but the bureaucracy certainly would. He's a very busy man," he says with a throaty chuckle, resting his hand upon his chin in amusement. "...a phrase I'm sure you're eminently familiar with. Oh!"

     "Bye, August!~" He waves daintily after the departing Watchman.

     His attention returns to Pia. "Now, where were we? Oh, yes. I'm not trying to stop you from getting rid of him at this point." The Exalt nods in what he's sure is an accomodating fashion. It's probably taken as more condescending than anything.

     "I actually agree with you on the value of having him in a cell. It reinforces public faith in the system. And juding by that sound," he says, moving a finger through the air in a circular motion, "That faith is at an all-time low. You know, the sad thing is, I don't think a lot of the people in that crowd would share our opinion." He tsk-tsks, shaking his head. "I hope none of them get to the Grand Consul before my people are finished with him. Fires /do/ tend to spread when you light them!~"

     He strides over to the lamp post upon which his waistcoat hangs, slipping it back on and snapping the lapels briskly. "Mm. Since August was kind enough to share some information with me," he says, tapping his ear. That's right--he heard. Super hearing, yo. "I'm going to pop down to the Spire myself and take some direct action of my own. Since it's clearly just the Grand Consul who's the issue here, the concerned citizens should be duly placated by his swift apprehension, and promptly return to their homes... no?" The Exalt giggles as he raises an arm straight up.

     "I'll be in touch for the..." His smile visibly fades. "Aftermath, and ensure Ghirapur receives consistent diplomatic pressure for the implementation of... what's the word. Oh!" He snaps his fingers. "Checks and balances. Ta." With that, he lifts his arm straight up, striking at a decorative outcropping that might in less extravagant cities be merely a gargoyle.

     Eye traverses the rooftops owing to the crowding of the streets with rioters still clamoring to get into the spire. Luckily, the Flotilla's made a ship-sized hole in the side of the place, and invented a new verb for the act as well. Within a minute or two, the sharply-dressed Paladin's dress shoes will click upon the floor of the impromptu battlefield... and rather than attack, he insults.

     "You stupid man," states the officer of a diplomatically oriented peacekeeping organization to a head of state. "/Look/ at how much /inefficient/ labor you've made me do."
Starbound Flotilla "Riot hose! Star Three, cover /now/!"
"Determined. Shield up!"
"Maggotsss?! FLORAN ISSS GREAT PREDATOR!! Not ssscavenger bug!! Gonna KILL!"
"Protect the summoner! Grant him time and opportunity to strike!"
"Oh you better believe I'm gonna bless him with some protection!"
"I'm gonna circle and close."
"George. Remember what we're here for."
"I know what I'm here for."

    Seft leaps into the fray, taking the brunt of the water onslaught with a heavy tower shield. It's JARRING and damaging to the arm, but she's going to survive. The Flotilla stacks up behind her, opening fire with heavy explosive arrows and arced grenades, before swiftly trying to break formation all at once to set upon it with a plentiful number of blades; cutlass, katana, daggers, all trying to plunge into the metamorphed foe.

    "Star Four, break high, clear airspace!"
    Pavo rises hard into the air, trying to get above and lash out with crushing magnorbs at anything flanking Theo. "Get summoning! Our numbers won't be here in time to thin this horde, you better be numbers yourself! Don't you waste my divine protection!" She caws out, firing blast after blast at thopters.
    "Star Two, heavy reptiles, defend!"
    "Second Sea Hylotl Style: Tsunamis Shattered Upon Lighthouses." Moonfin says, leaping into place and taking a single tremendous defensive power-katana slice against one of the incoming drakes, trying to tear it apart head-on when it moves to strike. "Your ambition rests in only your hands. Any such ambition is mere greed; any mere greed shall break under the weight of the blows of those with grander vision."

    "Star Three, shield on Morrison!"
    "Determined. Theo! I'll help you as best I can!" Seft calls out, leaping into action and brandishing her shield and heavy battle-axe, trying to keep him clear while he musters whatever he must muster; she's likely to be battered hard by the incoming deathbeasts, but hopefully mostly in lieu of Theo suffering too much.
    "Star One, unloading stuns. Cover!"
    Albert lets loose a barrage of concussive grenades from his launcher, trying to focus on brutally stunning Tezzeret repeatedly with the sort of constant crush of noise and impact that is meant specifically to mess with focus and try to keep him from effectively using the mana as well as he could. "Less maggots, more wasps." He says, with venom on his voice.

    "FLORAN ISSS NOT MAGGOT!!" Biteblade calls out, her /pride/ having been insulted, and thus driving her into a storm of aggression. Slinging her bow over her back, she rushes with unspeakable speed and power, cracking the ground with her leaps and impacting whatever tries to stop her with force enough to crush, like a human-shaped truck. She tries to do a running dagger-leap onto Tezzeret. and perform a massive power-armor-assisted /bite/ onto Tezzeret's torso, going for the neck or at least a chunk of shoulder. "Rrrrrraaaaagh! You're getting in way of Concord plansss!! Shut up, shut up, ssstop sssaying liesss and DIE!!" Right now, a man so full of energy smells /terribly tasty/, and she intends to get a bite out of him.

    George is absent. This is a stru with a high-power mining beam and get to the underside, and try to navigate to the lower side of that circle, where he hopes he'll get a chance to interfere with it, through bombing or other such techniques.
Priscilla     Breaching charges are sufficient. Riva probably has to communicate for people to /step back/ from the doors when they blow, but soon the mob is surging up the stairs as fast as people can be reasonably expected to take double digit flights of stairs, piling through emergency wells and into the guard personnel Staren and the others left behind, until there's a recall signal to concentrate forces up above. Considering the mob only really /has/ non-lethal weapons courtesy of the Flotilla, they don't have much difficulty adhering to 'not killing people' as a precept. They'd have to break a window and throw someone out or something to accomplish that.

    When set to it, the mob does indeed manage to start fashioning quirky, jury-rigged grapnel launchers and climbing spikes from quicksmithing gauntlets, dropping down cables and stirrups for others to follow. They're about a third of the way up when the core body of Elites has converged on the sixth unit of the power stack, and the Spire is absolutely pissing liquid aether mist into the wind.

    "Rifky bifneff, but fure, whadever." Sram mumbles through the radio. One of the main tubes lights up, each of its aether lamps popping upwards in sequence as a glowing platform smoothly rises to the twentieth floor for Riva and a decent chunk of mooks (probably capital R Renegades). "I have an idea." Baan responds smoothly to Yuuki, before departing from the group. It seems that he intends to head for the invention storage facility before Tezzeret might conceivably do so, given that he has authorization to enter without any process, being the Minister of Inspections and all.

    Going straight through a labyrinth of shelves and tables by meticulous memory, he arrives at the teleporter ring from the Inventor's Fair, hits the Thopter fabricator, and uses them both as he'd personally inspected, whipping up a recon thopter on the spot and dropping it from the ring, which pops surreptitiously straight into Tezzeret's office and the unfolding battle, both to see for himself what is going on, and to feed it directly to Staren. Following it, a trio of wrought gold pods tumble into the room from Tezzeret's desk, rolling out into a triangle of their own accord and setting up a pyramid of strobing blue lights, forming a magitech interception screen. He points to the incredibly heavy 'mana vault' in one corner. "If you would be so kind." he says to Zero, apparently intending for him to take it to Theo.

    Outside, the lights outside the breakzone begin turning back on, just as asked, followed by public works and ornamentation, then interior house services. With any luck, citizens will be stirring out into the streets as dark chunks of the city turn back on, just in time to see the Leaky Spire itself.
Zero Kiryu Zero can't help but find himself reflecting as the situation develops. He wraps up the remaining valves with as little violence as he can manage, and links up with Yuuki and the others in the lifts more-or-less wordlessly. He is a little pleased with his suggestion surrounding the city outside-- it wouldn't quell things entirely. But once it happened, he's sure that it'll calm people down. For most, it's hard to keep wanting to riot when you have everything you wanted in the first place.

But that isn't what he reflects on.

He surveys Yuuki from his corner of the elevator, an odd expression on his face. It's hard to read what he's really thinking based off of his body language-- it's almost always tense, and when it isn't it's /more/ tense. But with all the instructions out of the way and laid on the table...

And with monumental things sprawling out in mere seconds as is the truth of any battle...

The hunter looks vaguely pleased, or amused in some undefinable way.

He slides out of the company of the Director and the others on VIP escort duty as instructed-- it'll be a little bit before Sram arrives, and he can't be in two places at once.

"Yes." He agrees with Baan, discarding the spear from earlier and seizing the.

Then he hesitates, as if to say-- are you coming with, or will you be alright here? Evidently making a strategic decision, Zero simply takes the great unwieldy thing with him. There's probably no place safer here than where Baan is, especially for somebody familiar with the technology. If he wants to fight, he can fight. If he wants to leave, he can leave.

As he finishes the walk from the inventor's to see the battle still unfolding, his gaze falls first on Yuuki. That's no surprise-- it always does. But it's a little different today. Mere days, maybe even hours before Zero thought of Yuuki's work here as well-meaning but naive in a way that was taken advantage of. It was not a 'success'. It was not even a break-even point, even though it had its highs.

Tezzeret snubbing her made him angry, because it was exploiting that well-meaning naivete.

But...

"Morrison, refill!" He barks, angling the mana vault towards the Planeswalker. Zero has no idea how it works, but assumes Theo knows how to crack it and get his MAGIC FIX.

But, he reflects, Yuuki is not the person who ran afoul of Shizuka Toma in her well-meaning quest to end the lives of Purebloods who were tired of existing. She danced around the actors here and pressed her solution as gently as can be.

    Gradually,
    without him even realizing it,
    she grew up.

As inappropriate as it is in the situation, Zero can't help but smile and laugh at that.

It is so absurd.
Priscilla     "Sticks and stone!" Tezzeret laughs at 'straight up evil'. "So what? Would you like a prize for guessing the obvious?" Still drawing from the disgusting amounts of aether substitute mana at his disposa, Tezzeret responds to the Memnite with another summon of his own, dropping a hulking, four legged monstrosity into the room likewise pooling glistening black oil on the floor, which sets upon the wolf creature with a commensurately massive maw of grinding teeth. The Phyrexian Ingester sets upon the machine to devour it whole.

    Even if the copy explodes, Tezzeret directs the original wurm engine directly ahead, sending it after Theo as a main assault, alongside a swarm of thopters providing it cover and intercepting further attacks and counterspells. Tezzeret immediately erects a magitech barrier around himself when Albert begins blasting him with grenades, scouring at the interruption. A second later, some bizarre, slithering, shelled creature with humanoid arms and a strange sickle staff melts out of the Gearhulk behind Albert zapping him with a stasis field cast from an array of glowing blue tanks studded into its body.

    Moonfin cuts the charging drake straight down the middle, causing the two halves to splat and slide over the floor to either side of him, and Pavo succeeds in blasting some of the thopters out of the way of the wurm engine's charge, but Biteblade's charge is hastily intercepted by a summoned meat shield that doesn't get to /do/ anything before it's immediately mutilated by her charge. It tastes utterly foul and is probably poisonous, but is turned to so much meaty jelly when it is haplessly thrown in the way of her assault. "This should shut you up for a moment." he says, before a magically conjured dart is thrown in her direction, and the metallic syringe injects a Numbing Dose of some oily medication that wants to slow her metabolism to a crawl.

    Scowling at /yet more/ reinforcements arriving, Tezzeret shoots All-Seeing Eye a look that causes lightning to arc between his eyes and the Alchemical's, blasting him in the face and rifling through his brain with a clawed psychic hand, disabling a random assortment of Charms and sucking his Essence out with a Mindculling, which he then repurposes into a creature removal on his /eye drone/, causing it to erupt into scalding vapour in the same way he had on Theo's golem.
Staren     Staren arrives at the final valve and the elevator, and finds himself both on projector duty AND combat duty. The latter's easy, but the former... hmm. He gets out a flashlight, a quadrotor drone, and one of his old com-units, pulling off his gauntlets so he can use the tool wristbands to pull the com-unit apart after spraying the flashlight with nanites. They're tiny and slow, but he only needs to make a couple small changes. The resulting contraption is soon ready to be sent outside. It's an ugly kludge, but an LCD screen paired with an overcharged, refocused flashlight that's had its 500-hour battery supercharged to... well, Staren's not sure how long it'll last now. Hopefully at least the whole fight. It will project the view from Dovin Baan's cameras, and his own, onto the side of the spire for all to see.

    With Dovin Baan sending him some kind of magitech video signal, Staren's com-unit relays it -- hopefully whatever passes for TVs here will pick it up too.

    With Baan's camera showing him the room before he arrives, Staren can at least sort of plan for his entrance. As the elevator rises into place, he's already got his laser sniper rifle out and pointed in Tezzeret's rough direction. He tries to adjust aim and fire a three-pulse burst at the enemy planeswalker while Tezzeret is still adjusting to a bunch of new people arriving. Then he sends the projector and some decoy quadrotors towards the window. Hopefully they look too nonthreatening to be priority targets.

    "So, what was this all for? Surely not just to run your collection of toys here." Yes, Tezzeret, please monologue into the cameras for all to see...
Riva Banari Assuming they don't get it in their heads to beat someone to death, anyway. Once the doors are open to the stairwells, Riva steps back and lets the mob begin investing themselves into the location. At this point, they'll do what any angry mob does, likely. Break doors, rough up some suits, and yell slogans. Mostly harmless, since Riva has something else to deal with. Mostly.

When the express elevator comes, Riva points to it and jumps in with the cadre of Renegades. "Last chance to back out. No guarantees you're gonna survive what's up there. No one's going to blame you for it." This is the part that could get people killed. She's ready for that. The others might not be.

Once they've made their choice, the elevator zooms up the Spire.

At this point, there's likely a pleasant chime, and Riva steps out of the elevator. "Well, they've got the words, but I've got some sticks and stones for ya." Riva says, then squints at the leaking horrors. "What the hell is it with everything drooling black evil these days?" She mutters, then /winces/ as she watches Tezzeret do Asshole Blue Things to All-Seeing Eye. "That looks like it hurts." She asides to the prettyboy cyborg, before she pumps the action on her shotgun, unloading her entire clip at the guy as she strafes to one side to try to get around his barrier. Once the gun clicks empty, she hurls it aside and drags out the anti-tank weapon. "Thanks for that information on the robot elephant, by the way. I'll put a good word in for you while you rot in super-jail." At that, she fires the enhanced rocket.
All-Seeing Eye      Eye is perhaps justifiably struck right in the face by the blast of lighting. The skin around his eyes crumbles away like brittle clay. It reveals the blackened synthetic musculature beneath, turning his expression of seething rage into a furious death's head. Tezzeret's theft of his Essence sets his Soulgem to sparking and dark stormclouds appear around his feet, swirling slowly. His first response is to respond in kind with a ranged attack.

ESSENCE PULSE CANNONS OFFLINE
PROTOSYNTHETIC AMMUNITION DRIVERS UNRESPONSIVE

     His tampering has robbed Eye of that avenue for vengeance. The eye drone bursts into vapor somewhere in whatever jar the Renegades swept it into when their agent crushed it beneath his boot. He'd thank Tezzeret for the favor, were he even aware of where its remains were being kept. Nevertheless, this insult must be repaid.

     Four whips appear, two to a side: a steel cable and a length of purple lightning on each. The minor damage to his face from Tezzeret's attack seems to have provoked him into silent rage, and those whips lash out in all directions. Any piece of office furniture, overturned or upright, any summoned or conjured creature not large enough to resist (allied and hostile), is picked up by his whips and thrown, no matter the potential lethality, towards Tezzeret. 'Towards Tezzeret' is only in the vaguest sense, however--either the planeswalker disabled some of his targeting charms, or he's just that fucking mad. When he runs out of things to throw, he breaks out in a sprint towards the Grand Consul and dips into a forward somersault, springing above him on his palms.

     If he can get behind Tezzeret, he'll attempt to... uh. 'Subdue him' by putting him in a sleeper hold, and definitely not strangle him with bands of pure electric energy that will probably burn like hell besides. This, he will attempt, no matter what Tezzeret throws his way or how badly it wounds him to make that approach--if he's physically able to do it, he will try.
Yuuki Kuran "There is only one person going to super-jail." Yuuki mutters, mostly to Riva, as Zero and Staren split off for their missions. It was good. Everything was in place. And, with Staren running his cameras, his own blend of mad science quicksynthing, the final pieces were in place.

Yuuki waits for Tezzeret to spit or explain or monologue at Staren, because, quite frankly, she had set this up for a moment. To make sweet, sweet love to the camera. For a tango for two, in the social realm. When she gets her chance to speak, she does, with a fierce tone to her normally pleading shoujo level. "Tezzeret - Walker of the Planes and the Blind Eternities, artificer mastermind, agent of dragons, and no friend to Kaladesh. You, 'Grand' Consul, are an anomaly. In a place of inspiration, you dwell. In a place of innovation, you scheme. In a place of building, you steal. In a place of liberation, you dominate. In a place of reclamation, most of all, you do not let go. The people of Kaladesh existed before you, and will exist after you. And all this happened..."

Yuuki steps forward, her scythe held blade down and shaft resting against the crook of her arm and shoulder. Theo Morrison would be the sword here. It was his due. It was his duty. He wanted to.

She couldn't begrudge a friend. It was why she was even here in the first place.

"The whole cycle, and you buck it for temporary gain and fevered dreams of power. But we're at an ending point. You can stop the struggling and remand yourself to Morrison, and let these people get back to their lives, and do something good."

Her eyes shutter closed. "Or you can deny us, and keep fighting, bereft of power, outnumbered, and against an entire plane."

Her eyes open, glowing a bright red. "But I tire of your meddling, your schemes, your plans, and your actions, Tezzeret. I tire of learning that a beautiful jewel of a city and an industrious people are taken advantage of." All-Seeing Eye goes for the choker hold, auspiciously.

"As Director of the Concord, as a friend of Kaladesh, and as someone who hates people who twists others to their ends destructively, I command you, Tezzeret - Submit."
"Let this end."
Starbound Flotilla "Star Five, report!"
"Grrrrrhhhhh... Got with poissson!!"
"Tch. I will step in, weed."
"Star Two, hang back and--"
"With all due respect, Mr. Petrov, this is my business to settle."
"I'm caught!"
"I'll work on it!"
"Worried. I'm getting Biteblade out of there!"
"/Where/ is George?!"

    Seft leaps into action, jumping forward to shield Biteblade and quickly yank her out. Pavo breaks off to dive-bomb the strange mage of sorts, intending to stab it right through the midsection with a cutlass and then try to snap the staff to break the stasis that has incapacitated Albert. George continues his clambering about below, at work on rigging a bomb. His logic is that the spire's emergency reserves /must/ be somewhere else, and this is only an emitter; it must be safe to disrupt.

    Moonfin's the one who's invested the most out of the Starbound Flotilla members here, and he's the one who approaches. "I hold no grudge against you ethically. I hold in my heart no special argument for why you are wrong in whatever you intend. Perhaps it is some act of death that my superior Hylotl morality would find disgusting, but whatever it may be, it is not something I care to know." He brandishes his blade dramatically, as if challenging Tezzeret directly to a duel. Staren's cameras... He's almost putting on a show for them. "But you demand aether. What we demand is a city of excellence. What we demand is mutually exclusive. And we will not be denied. I am here only to stop you for resisting such a need."

    "Sixth Sea Hylotl Style: Lightning Striking Waves." His blade crackles with the brilliant arcs of an abrupt burst of energy. Moonfin lets out a sudden, aggressive kiai, and the many microthrusters in his armor activate blast hard. His blade slices with speed enough to break the sound barrier, creating a distinctive sound like thunder. He's going for a /brutal/ slash on the man, with or without All-Seeing Eye's hold, trying to tear open his ribcage in a crushing, rushing dash-slash.

    George detonates his bomb just at that moment, trying to crack and shatter a segment of that Aether-feeding circle from below, intending to disrupt the flow to Tezzeret at a crucial moment. His suspicion is that Tezzeret can restore connections other ways, but he suspects it'll take time -- time he, ideally, doesn't have.
August Kohler August is late to the party as he heads forward. There's a reason for this - he needed a way to get onto the roof. The long way would probably get any security remaining dogging him, or better yet, Baral. So, August put out a call to Renegade allies (Pia probably got it too, and since he's nearby, if she can help, he'll head to her).

<"Hey, can anyone get me a thopter? I have to kick the Grand Consul's ass.">

After heading to whoever can get him a thopter and getting on, August flew up to the top of the spire. It was clumsy piloting, because August has never done it before. But, eventually, he skids through the giant hole and into the room, probably right into the feeds of the camera, and shouts out as soon as he sees Tezzeret.

"Persona!"

In that familiar flash of blue sparks, the Tin Soldier manifests, and immediately moves to rush forward and slam Tezzeret in the face with a superpowered punch. August /would/ set him on fire, but Eye's choker-holding him, and as much as August dislikes him, he's not going to set him on fire. "Sorry I'm late."

"Had to make sure I got one in for the prison stay. I'd be disappointed otherwise."
Theo Morrison "So you're evil," Theo says, "and I'm a Paladin."

Reinforcements show up in a big way. Pavo and Seft give Theo the help he needs to not get instantly run over by the pile of monsters dripping with glistening oil. "That oil's corruptive!" he yells. "Don't let it stay on you!" Thanks will go out later. Right now, he's doing his best to survive the counterattack. The majority of it is blunted by the Flotilla, but Theo still ends up flinging his own constructs into the mouth of the beast. The Wurmcoil Engine seems unstoppable, approaching inexorably, shredding anything that touches any part of it and devouring it whole --

The rest of their backup piles in up the elevator. Theo's relief is palpable. He feels the Mana Vault's presence before he even sees it, turning his head towards it so fast he almost gets whiplash. He takes a step towards it and (flicker) is standing next to it suddenly, pulling it open and bathing in the glow of energy stored in such a lovingly-crafted container. It makes his chest hurt to hold so much. "Thanks," he sighs.

"Wipe Away." Theo points at the Wurmcoil Engine. It ceases to exist. There's no middle step, no chance to deploy countermagic, no opportunity to do something to steal it back. One heartbeat it's about to drop down and terrorize them with deadly, threshing jaws, and a split-second later it simply isn't there anymore. There's a vast emptiness in the room where its huge bulk used to occupy, open space that seems to hold perfectly still right up until the fight rolls into it.

"Grand Architect." He gestures near the shelf the scarecrow is hiding on. A blue-skinned Vedalken in a high-cowled robe appears, looking imperious. He raises two of his four arms to the sky, hands clenched into fists. Theo looks down at the mobile table-thing. He touches fingers to the Pili-Pala and the Grand Architect's respective cards. "I go infinite," he says conversationally. For a moment, he smiles.

The smile fades. Theo looks up and across the room. He straightens, despite the poison working its way through his system and stares across the furious clash.

"It doesn't matter that you're the one on at the top of the heap," Theo tells Tezzeret, voice loud and clear to reach him over the din of arcane combat. "It doesn't matter that you've got power, magical or otherwise. You're hurting these people, and you're going to keep on hurting them and anyone else you can get your claws on. You think some title is going to protect you from this?" Theo yanks his badge off, holding it high. "You think some red tape is gonna even slow me down?"

"I'm a /Paladin/," Theo repeats vehemently. "You're /evil/."

Theo drops cards like two parts of one mic. The first is immediate and pronounced: that hazy through-glass look he had earlier spreads out, covering all his myriad artifacts and rippling across friendlies. Everyone seems limned in white light and faintly see-through for a span of seconds. The name is only partly indicative of whatever it is he just did, invoking a name Bolas would hate and nobody else would recognize -- and palming a counterspell for the inevitable clash of mana to be sure it takes effect. "Teferi's Protection." The second...

Well, that's got a much more apt name. Theo screams it with a Planeswalker's fury.
Theo Morrison _______________________________________
/ Obliterate                        6RR \
|                                       |
|                                       |
| Sorcery                           \V/ |
|                                       |
| Obliterate can't be countered.        |
|                                       |
| Destroy all artifacts, creatures and  |
| lands. They can't be regenerated.     |
|                                       |
| For his family, Barrin made a funeral |
| pyre of Tolaria.                      |
\_______________________________________/

The entire floor vanishes in a singularly violent outpouring of fiery destruction. Neither Theo nor his reinforcements feel more than a warm breeze.

This may throw a wrench in certain works. It's probably safe to assume Theo doesn't really care about that right about now.
Zero Kiryu Zero stops laughing in fairly short order, returning to his usual stoic demeanor as Yuuki very obviously wields mind powers to try to bring this to a close. His reply to Theo is a vague affirmative vocalization and, with the Mana Vault emptied, he sets it aside. Assuming it doesn't just evaporate in his hands, anyway.

His feelings on what Yuuki is doing are mixed, but it's not the time to talk about it, and he has enough of a problem with this guy that he doesn't feel terribly badly about it. The firm pressure of her command echoes out in his mind.

They need this guy alive. Zero's trump card kills absolutely. As the battle rages around him, he retreats back towards the entrance of the mess of a room with every intention of going back to Baan. He's on VIP duty-- time to get back to the VIP.

This isn't his dragon to kill.
Priscilla     The Grand Consulate chamber doors slide open, and out pours further meddlers. "There's just no /end/ to you cretins is there? And here I thought heroes liked to work in small enough groups they could take any kind of glory or pride in it." Snarls Tezzeret. "No matter! Bring a hundred more, maybe /then/ I'll worry about it!" A barrier of splashing, swirling quicksilver suddenly whirls up around him, intercepting Staren's laser blasts before turning into an explosion of toxic mercury fumes from the heat.

    "What do I intend to do? It's a shame for you that it's already done!" When one barrier goes down, he raises another on the spot, with seemingly no end to his mana. Constant blasts of buckshot hammer into a new wall of psychic energy, shuddering like a drum while Tezzeret stands undisturbed in the middle, sending the Phyrexian Ingester at Staren to barrel down on him and swallow him and his tasty metal equipment straight into the grinder, and firing a bolt of blue energy at Riva that homes in on her head and blasts her in the brain, crossing all kinds of wires in a painful, thought-frying way, though not before her anti-tank rocket smashes into his barrier and blows it into a million glittering, ethereal pieces, nearly knocking him down.

    He has to defend with his actual metal arm when All-Seeing Eye starts swinging, swatting a flying desk and actually smashing it to flinders with the unnatural strength of his jagged etherite appendage and its wicked floating claws, apparently nonconductive when the electric cable wraps around it and delivers its payload. In a second, the Alchemical has him in a chokehold, burning his throat and chest as he angrily spits and convulses, until one of the Kaladeshi golems barrels into All-Seeing Eye from the side, just ploughing into him with semi-truck force and slapping him off the Grand Consul.

    Coughing and snarling, Tezzeret, throws down a swarm of hideously spined hummingbirds covered in mechanical black carapace, beating their wings in some depraved imitation of a thopter. The swarm around the Flotilla, biting and stinging and cutting with their wings, becoming an obnoxious, distracting screen of interference. Almost simultaneously, he throws out an equally horrifying, sword-nosed, four-winged beast that dives at Yuuki like a peregrine, the Impaler Shrike looking simply to ram into her and slam its face through her chest so hard that she's impaled to the back wall of the elevator.
Priscilla     "Oh /save your breath/! Preaching the values of this curiosity -this temporarily fascinating toy- of a world as if they have any kind of fundamental worth, to someone like I, who have seen and walked more worlds than you dare imagine? What absolute comedy! Do you expect an argument? A moral lesson? I couldn't care any /less/ about whatever it is you see in this place! It's irrelevant; it's a tiny fragment of something far bigger that could scarcely comprehend its own smallness! What sets this plane apart is its aether, and I have all of it I need now! More than enough for /you know who/ to arrive!"

    When Moonfin steps forward, Tezzeret hurriedly interposes a pair of heavy golems, now noxious with black oil infecting their joints, but the thundering slash cuts right through both of them, hurling the planeswalker back with the explosion, and straight into the dynamic entry fireball punch from August, laying the wildly yelling and cursing man out flat, connecting directly with the back of his head. With an epithet colourful enough to give even him pause, he swings back at August with his etherite hand, releasing a paralyzing blast of blue mana that is set to fling him right back out the window and over the edge of the Spire, intentionally immobile, to his doom.

    Scorched, bruised, disoriented, and thoroughly pissed off, Tezzeret sees his wurm engine disappear, and swears loudly enough to be heard even over the utter chaos of combat, straight across the giant room. "That's it! I'm done with you all! I'll see every one of you turned into so much raw meat!" Mana crackles around him, surging from the glowing lines in the floor, creating an aurora of glowing lines that gather motes of light in his hands. "JIN-GITAXIAS!" he cries.

    The floor lines sputter and go dark. Something cracks and fizzles as the dull thump of George's explosive goes off, severing the sixtieth floor power stack connection. Trying to draw on another, Tezzeret finds floor fifty completely dry. And floor fort. And floor thirty. And twenty. And ten. Comprehension hitting his wild and dishevelled face, he screams "DOVIN BAAN, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!", just before Theo sets off his trump card.

    The golems, the Phyrexian horrors, the thopters, the artifacts, the bookshelves, the furniture, Tezzeret himself; everything is gone. The fire so utterly consumes even the cavernous limited space of the grand office that it explodes out the shattered window and incinerates the landing deck, blasting a waterfall of flame out the side of the tower that continues for a quarter of a mile. When it clears, nothing remains. The floor circuitry is scorched black and dead, the accoutrements are burned to black ash, the black oil has turned to hard clay, and the hostile automata to grey slag.

    It wouldn't be farfetched to assume Tezzeret was pretty much vapourized, but that's always a mistake when dealing with types like him. Being a planeswalker, it's equally likely he bailed at the last second, taking an emergency jump to some other, far off, random place, realizing his defeat. Even in that case however, there's going to be no coming back for him. Just about everyone in the city saw and heard everything.
Theo Morrison Theo remains standing when the dust settles. His coat flutters dramatically from the wash of hot air. The table-thing folds up with a little gesture, seemingly swallowing the cards on it and resolving into a grey metal box with a belt clip on the back. It rests on the burned floor, rocking gently as the motion goes out of whatever it is.

August starts to fall. Theo, still in an mana-charged adrenaline-fueled spellcasting frenzy, whips a hand out in a dramatic finger-point and shouts, "Arcane Flight!" Blue light materializes in the form of some kind of animal's wings on August's back -- in this case, a butterfly's -- and gives him the likely-temporary ability to fly down to a place where he won't fall eighty stories and splatter on the paving stones.

Theo, for his part, sways on his feet, takes a half-step to one side, and then collapses against a bookshelf. The shelving crumbles about a quarter-second after he puts his weight on it, dumping him unceremoniously to the floor.

"Still got him," he mumbles.
August Kohler August gets his punch in. It feels super good. What doesn't feel super good is the backhand made of blue magic that immobilizes him, stunning his nerves and sending his Persona flying back into him, and then him flying backwards with it. August manages to desummon the Persona itself, luckily, despite the immobilization...

But that doesn't stop him from falling out the window. If he wasn't lucky, and if Theo wasn't fast, he'd be a smear on the pavement. Instead, though, as butterflies wings drag him to the ground, the immobilization slowly wearing off and allowing August to move again, he's alive. "Ow, my everything hurts."

For now, August will move to group up with Riva, even if that means retaking the elevator to reach the top or what, and see what's happening next. It'd be a shame to let the Paladins and the Concord to get /all/ the credit, after all.
Yuuki Kuran Yuuki Kuran gets spited for her words, her plea, and even her absolute command. Well.

What a fucking douchebag.

The Impaler Shrike flies for her, and bringing up her scythe Artemis to cut it in half, or something. The ephemeral nimbus of light that surrounds her from Theo Morrison's immense empowerment and command of absolute cardstock power, unlimbered from format restrictions and good taste, cut down for raw power and bombs, and weilded by a good man gone to war.

The destruction is immense, and with the Impact Shrike buried in the wall behind her, before being summarily fucking deleted from existance with a titanic fiery cataclysm.

Yuuki Kuran just stands in the ashes, as Teferi's Protection ends, and she phases back in, looking around.

She even gives the air a sniff-sniff. Nope. He's super gone.

Letting her scythe collapse back into a small baton, Yuuki crunches through the slag and debris to look down at Morrison, her eyes still aglow. "Are you alright, Theo? That was quite impressive. We'll get him, if he shows back up. You'll have my help to make sure he gets what's coming."

She extends a hand, to help pull the wobbly cardmage to his feet. She'll wait. The moment is fine. He can take a breather. "I like helping my friends."

The moment will come and go, but without being waved off or helping him up, she'll wait. She has time. Forever, in fact.

With that done, she taps her ear. "Baan - good job. The mains were drained just in time. The riot will take a bit to dwindle down but... The Grand Consul is gone. Sram, you can start bringing the city back online properly. I'd suggest leaving the spire mostly dark, just so people will leave."

She turns to look at the blown out window, and the people around her, and steps aside to let All-Seeing Eye at Theo. "I have some suggestions for a next step, we can talk once the shouting stops."
Staren     Tezzeret blocks the shot. It's to be expected -- Staren's confident that as a group, they'll take him down.

    More concerning is the GIANT MONSTER FULL OF GRINDING TEETH trying to eat him! Staren figures his forcefield will hold out for a few seconds at most if it catches him, so he RUNS, his own vaguely insectile energy wings appearing and buzzing as he flies away from it across the room. "Hey! You're not supposed to attack yet, He's still taking his turn!"

    He's chased to a wall and just as the monster's mouth opens and encloses him, it disappears with... almost everything else.

    "Woah."

    And then he sees Theo collapse and flies over. "Theo! Are you alright? Also, how did that infinite combo work?"
All-Seeing Eye      The few seconds for which Eye has the Consul in a chokehold are... not the best PR, given this whole thing is apparently on live TV. His face is a mask of teeth-gritted fury, golden eyes (and seemingly, his whole attention) locked on Tezzeret and just... ending him. So focused is he on whatever dark retribution dances in his imagination that the golems face no resistance whatsoever. Perhaps something to take note of, for those who often find themselves at odds with the Warden.

     The Exalt's back collides with a stack of sheves bearing all manner of knick-knacks, minor artifacts, and the like. The force of the blow sets it to splintering, and the weight of the amassed decorations sees the shelves buckle inwards, dumping their contents one after the other atop Eye in a heap. As Tezzeret begins gathering mana, Eye growls, swatting the remains of the small collection away and off of him. He rises to his feet, snatching up a crystal trophy of some sort, commemorating some forgotten deed.

     The Exalt twirls laterally, and throws it, sending it on a collision course with the Grand Consul's throat. It begins its transit just as everything explodes. The first sound to punctuate the clearing of smoke is a menacing 'thwack' of the sharp crystal artifact, now scorched beyond recognition, sticking out of a blackened wall. Eye knows better than to assume that, or the blast, killed him. It does nothing to improve his mood. Nevertheless, he stands up straight, and as reason begins to return to him, the steel cables retract into his wrists and the lightning whips disintegrate.

     With his soulgem still sparking and dark stormclouds now whirling as far up as his knees, he clenches his fists and attempts to reign himself in. A biologically superfluous, but nonetheless important breath escapes him, and he takes a moment to wipe the soot from his business suit. "Certainly, Ms. Kuran," he says politely. "There's something I'd see done, first."

     "People of Ghirapur," he begins, approaching Baan's drone. "I am All-Seeing Eye, Warden of the Paladins. What you've seen here is no fabrication, no fiction. Your Grand Consul did not have your best interests in mind. By his own admission, he saw your city as nothing but a toy, despite the trust you placed in him. We, too, placed our trust in him. We believed that when we asked to help, it was in good faith. For the part we've played in the unrest here, you have my humblest apologies." He pauses, his mind going back to the conversation with Pia.

     "I don't blame you for your anger. You're good people--people who want to go back to /your/ lives, the way they were before all of this. I can't imagine that will be easy, with everything you've gone through, everything that's been taken away from you." He frowns, clasping his hands before him, just below the waist. The Exalt turns to allow the drone a better view of the blackened, palatial office. "But, watching this broadcast, you can take a look behind me, and breathe your first sigh of relief in some time. The rest of your lives start now, and you never have to do today again. I intend to make up for our part in all this, to use every resource at my disposal to see this dark page in your history /remains/ history. To that end, I've reached out to some brave citizens you're likely all familiar with, to ensure a coup like the Grand Consul's is never possible again."

     Another strategic pause, and he turns so that once more he's directly facing the drone. "The author of that /dreadful/ page is gone now, never to return. You can go to your homes now, back to your lives, without fear of what's next on the list of things taken from you. As you rebuild, I humbly ask that you place your energy solely on rebuilding, and that every citizen, be they civilian, administrative, or security, does so wholly in the spirit of cooperation. You kindled the fires of change today, citizens, and you won--now like all inventors, you must make sure your creation is used safely, ethically and responsibly."
All-Seeing Eye      He places a closed fist upon his chest, bowing his head reverently.

     When he turns around and his back is to the camera, his expression is rather like a child forced to eat a hated vegetable. 'I can't believe I said all that bullshit,' his face seems to say. "I'll be in my office," he advises both Theo and Yuuki. "Come by whenever you're ready."
Theo Morrison "Adrenaline wore off," Theo tells Yuuki. "Uh... I think I got poisoned? Kinda... feverish. Ee. Feverishy." He clears his throat and mutters, "Healing Salve," conjuring a tin of the stuff. Theo takes Yuuki's hand and help back to his feet. He's gonna need to go get someone to deal with the cuts across his back. It looks like he got raked by some kind of giant bird of prey, which is exactly what happened. "Thanks," he tells her. He smiles a tired but genuine sort of smile.

Eye delivers a speech that Theo can just tell is making him cringe inwardly. He's glad that he has the composure to do it and keep on going. When he heads for his office, Theo sketches a casual sort of salute, and then looks to Staren, who has requested the kind of exposition that is absolutely necessary either before or after a trick of that quality. Theo removes his soot-streaked glasses and hunts for a clean cloth in his pockets to clean them off.

"Pili-Pala is an artifact creature that has the ability to pay two mana and untap Pili-Pala to add one mana of any color to your mana pool," Theo explains. "Grand Architect has the ability to tap an untapped blue creature you control to add two colorless mana to your mana pool but only for artifact spells and abilities. It can also turn artifact creatures blue until end of turn." He buffs his glasses with a handkerchief he found.

"Pay a blue to make Pili-Pala blue, then tap it for two colorless, then use that two colorless and untap it with its own ability to generate one colored mana. Then I just kept tapping it for colorless and untapping it for colored for a net gain of one colored mana per repetition." He puts the glasses back on, nudging them into their proper place. They gleam slightly. "Controlled infinite mana."
Staren     "But that won't remove poison counters." Staren points out, when Theo casts Healing Salve.

    He listens to the combo explanation. Then he replays it in his head. "...Untap it for mana? Is that from one of the joke sets?" The ramifications of that if so, he's not sure what to think. He'll help with the salve if Yuuki doesn't. "Either way, good job. How many turns did it take you? I guess that's not really important right now." Then he looks thoughtful and concerned. "Did... did we make things better than in canon?"
Priscilla     "It was my pleasure." Baan responds over the radio. "I have recorded, in meticulous detail and with complete accuracy, the Grand Consul's personal admission of capital breaches of conduct amounting to undismissible charges of high treason. Assisting you is part of my duty as a citizen of Ghirapur, to say little of Minister of Inspections." Sram mostly just mumbles in the other ear. "Already on id, hol' yer horfef lady." He is indeed, actually on it. This is necessary for the broadcasts to go out, after all, even if huge crowds have seen the whole thing blown up on a cobbled together magitech projector.

    All-Seeing Eye's speech, as much as he hates even delivering it, seems to be more than well-received by anyone who takes a look out of the utterly obliterated window. It's quite probable that they aren't going to disperse immediately; the level of energy coursing through the agitated masses has yet to run its course, and it'll probably result in hours of dicking about and chattering and celebrating before it goes elsewhere into the city. Going straight home right after that, stun batons still in hand, is difficult.

    When August pretty much falls into their midst on sparkly rainbow butterfly wings, he is immediately accosted by scores of adoring fans, almost burying him, then quickly lifting him up into a mosh pit crowd carrying scenario, unevenly directing him all over the place in a way vaguely towards the Spire. Even inside they're ready to rush to the door and celebrate, though the guards starting to arrive are stuck diligently hacking away at foam and vines or else their buddies are going to be stuck there all day.

    Yuuki's radio crackles.

    "Thou has brought things to a satisfactory conclusion, then?"
Yuuki Kuran Yuuki Kuran's smile loses its tired quality as the final smallest pieces fall into place. The rejoicing in the streets goes to Kohler and the Renegades. The evil has been carved out of the heart of the Consulate, and order returns to a now-improved-for-it city, thanks to Thomas Alva Edison's and the Concord's power solutions.

Which leaves juuuuuust one loose end.

"I saw Zero heading your way, Baan. He'll make sure you're safe until this blows over. He's in a good mood, too, so go about anything you see fit. Sram, with that, I'll stop getting in your hair. It was excellent working with you both - and I hope to work with you both more in the coming days."

Her radio crackles with the ping of a secure frequency. She steps into the elevator down, letting the door close. Her eyes close. She is calm, and quiet, and sweet. It is all genuine. This is what she did it for, anyway. "Of course. More than satisfactory. I've cleared the blockages in your path. Dovin Baan and I are on wonderful terms now. I can see that your devices are released personally."

"After all, this was all so I could help a friend."