329/Xiang's Return

Xiang's Return
Date of Scene:	02 August 2014
Location:	The Central Valley
Synopsis:	Xiang and Galen Marek attack a town and research facility. Heroes stop them.
Cast of Characters:	18, Maya, Arthur Lowell, 40, Fiora O'Brien, 304, 320, 397, 481, Riva Banari, Wuyin Tsai

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Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
Somewhere in the vast canyons and pathways of the winding Central Valley, there is a reseach lab built into the wall of the valley. This isn't one of Xiang's labs - it's a small facility doing something. A small town surrounds it, mostly consisting of housing and businesses that serve the lab.

[space(3)]And then the fabric of space rips wide open in the middle of that little town. And from it step several figures - three of them dressed in long robes of vaguely asiatic flavor. And one wearing a mask that prompts the radio call you are about to hear from one of the guards/police officers who can see the portal.

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
Somewhere in the vast canyons and pathways of the winding Central Valley, there is a reseach lab built into the wall of the valley. This isn't one of Xiang's labs - it's a small facility doing something. A small town surrounds it, mostly consisting of housing and businesses that serve the lab.

And then the fabric of space rips wide open in the middle of that little town. And from it step several figures - three of them dressed in long robes of vaguely asiatic flavor. And one wearing a mask that prompts the radio call you are about to hear from one of the guards/police officers who can see the portal.

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
    From the Central Valleys comes a wideband radio call: "This is research post 273. We just had a gate portal open sans gate! Some thing is..." There is a long pause. "I know that symbol. Oh shi- XIANG! XIA-" The signal dissolves in a hiss of static. Only to be replaced by the voice of the Doctor himself. "The Demonstration Begins. Heh. Heh. Heh."

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
Of the three women, one wears a green robe with trees and vines embroidered upon it. The second wears a robe of blue, with strange geometic patterns surrounding musical notation embroidered upon it. The last wears a robe of pure blood red clean of embroidery. All three are beautiful in a remote sort of way, with long black hair.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    A Union transport swoops itself in low over the target area, the VTOL touch and go at this point. "Consider the LZ HOT until we find out what's going on, pilot." The words of Eleanor Lamb as she adjusts her gear, and looks around at the others in the transport with her. "Alright, everyone, be safe, and let's see what we're up against before we start blithely shooting at whatever or whoever it is that Xiang has brought with him."
    Expect the unexpected is Eleanor's call. And she's sticking to that.

    And she's alos the first out of the VTOL, moving for nearby cover.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
This was not how Black Arachnia anticipated spending her afternoon; however, she *was* on crisis-response duty, and she has a certain ... personalized distaste for Xiang's methods and handiwork. She would, in fact, love dearly to peel the not-so-good doctor apart slowly and find out if there are corporeal traces of his soul's near-certain corrupted state. But that assumes she will someday get the chance.

Today is probably not going to be that day, though, given that the last time she checked, Xiang was male, which doesn't look like it describes any of those three - even the one with the mask. Black Arachnia commits the flicker of an image from the research post to her internal data tracks, then scuries through a warpgate from Metroplex, coming out on a cliff above the research post. She engages her electro-disruptors for good measure, cloaking herself entirely from sight, then begins picking her way down the canyon wall - in spider form, of course.

Kirika (481) has posed:
    Kirika remains aboard the VTOL as she views the sitation from above. Her cloak flows just as the VTOL opens up and she stands to her feet. Making sure she keeps that footing until it's safe to exit.

    At least for her. SHe leaps from the vehicle as it hovers above, using a teleport to get to the ground safely as she rolls and tumbles before rising up. A hand is on her katana, and she narrows her eyes as her vision is caught to see the three figures ahead.

    Kinugiri glows with red flames as Kirika draws her weapon, and she tenses herself for battle as she wanders towards danger.

Maya has posed:
Maya has had sadly much experiance with Xiang, she does not like to think about it. She's going to have to think about it today given what's hapepning here. Maya's fairly quick to get out of the VTOL, she'd had to run from the medical wing at high speed to even catch this transport. Numerous horrors that Xiang has unleashed come to mind, this was going to be a bad day.

Galen Marek (18) has posed:
    Appearing alongside the Doctor is a man in full armor. Made of black and grey fabrics, leathers and composite alloys, the Sith Stalker armor looks like a mix of dark robes and more futuristic plating, with the helmet fully covering the head and making occasional, loud breather noises-- though nothing quite as disruptive as Vader's.

    Starkiller, six lightsabers hanging from his belt, has his arms crossed and appears to be waiting.

    His presence seems shrouded with a subtle black mist, obscuring his presence from psychics; just a generic, half-stealth Force effect.

    He is fairly eager to see what he signed up for.
    But true to being a Sith he's just eager for a fight too.

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
    'Why is Flint Hawke responding to a distress call?'

    A question one may wonder, as this has nothing to do with Pures, Abstractum, and he is in neither faction. And the answer for that is an Occam's Razor of simplicity:

    A distress call means people are in trouble. People in trouble means people might be dying. People dying means stuff to loot. And for a pirate, stuff to loot means profit.

    And that is why semi-notorious Space Pirate Captain Flint Ha(rlo)wke is here, stepping out of a warp portal and looking around as he adjusts the cap upon his head and the coat he wears, "Oooh, if I'm lucky I might even get a new ship in the chaos," He comments to himself, remembering he doesn't have much of a ship to store loot on since the half-recent mutiny.

    Either way, all he knows is that in a sea without tomorrow, the voices sing 'Go and live freely', and in his case that means hanging around and waiting to take free stuff.

Riva Banari has posed:
The warning had gone out. Riva deploys to the location immediately with Eleanor. She nods to her as she barks her (very sensible) orders. "Got it!" She calls, but you can tell she's nervous and flush with adrenaline. People are out there who need /saving/ right /now/. The moment the VTOL hits the ground, Riva fans out, quickly moving up to scout for Xiang and his monstrosities.

Which could also be Xiang. BIOLOGY HAX! She has her pistols out, but resists powering the weapons so far. He might be able to detect that kind of thing... As if her running around in a red, white, and black uniform isn't distinctive enough.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
MINUTES AGO

Sleep does not come easily to one of the Bees. The Buzzing likes to crawl along neural pathways, sneaking into dreams and thoughts in ways and through places that could be used for other things. Darker things.

It is fortunate that they are benevolent, if... <span class=" bold_bg_y fg_n ++ ryptic.

    'chy">Our</span> wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see.'

Wuyin awakens from his honey-scented dreams to the sound of his phone going off. He blinks precisely three times, and then snatches it off the table next to him. Deep breath. He brushes a thumb across the touchscreen. A woman's voice comes over it, speaking in Korean. She switches from incredibly polite to startlingly rude halfway through each phrase.

He stands up. His radio app gives a notification. Doctor Xiang is making his move.

"Close enough," he mutters, grabbing his gear, "to right on time." His hand closes around a metallic orb, and he feels the Agarthan Anima flow...

NOW

Wuyin exits a nearby warpgate. He's dressed casually and walks about the same, striding into the village the rift came from in a way that would be innocuous in any other circumstance. Moving against a tide of fleeing, panicking people tends to ruin the effect. He doesn't draw his sword, or reach for the curious object hanging opposite it; instead, he finds a flat-topped building and climbs up the side, pulling himself up onto the rooftop.

He's got a good view from here. Maybe a little too close, though...

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    It is not to say that Fiora O'Brien is truly intimidated, or in fact, altogether put out by people that she doesn't care about being threatened by one of the many factions. It was a daily occurrance. What struck her was the style that it was dealt in. The fact that it wasn't 'oh, x and y outpost at z coordinates is being attacked, ho-hum', but a screaming expletive laden 'we are all SCREWED' announcement cut at an appropriate time by an altogether confident voice.

    The pure theatrics of it was quite appealing, from an outside perspective. So, while most people bustle about, or try to sneak, or have an ulterior motive, Fiora O'Brien, the Witch of Void... Simply shows up.

    It's a touch more arduous than usual, because she has nobody to quickly 'join' to. She actually had to travel. It sucked.

    "So. Doctor Xiang, I presume?" She wonders, standing a few dozen feet away, eyebrow quirked, and arms crossed. She hadn't been there a second ago.

    "I'd /love/ to compare notes. When I show up places, there's no screaming and swearing, in fact, most people just ignore me! Oh, but don't mind me, we can walk and talk." She offers cordially.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    ARTHUR LOWELL is here!

    As is tradition for the kid, Arthur Lowell being here means he arrives in a manner entirely fitting to his personality, which is to say, he's come via rocket. He's riding his ROCKET BROOM, which screams overland with a huge slipstream and makes him a blur on his close-to-Earth approach, kicking up a column of dust.

    Arthur Lowell has heard enough people freaking out about Xiang that the kid, in spite of his eye-rolling a bit at it, is actually quietly taking this fairly seriously. "Do not let Xiang do whatever Xiang is about to do." This is a thought that he keeps close. So what does he do? He, as always, attempts a violent interrupt.

    Using his MAGE OF SPACE senses, Arthur Lowell attempts to locate the area of spatial disturbance in the middle of the town. He attempts to point his rocket-broom straight at it, regardless of any buildings or similar obstructions in his way. And he attempts to just full-bore ram the offending group at max speed, trying to slam into any one of their number that he can right in the gut, whichever one looks the most important when he finally arrives! Dude clearly intends to try to interrupt whatever they're about to do. Unfortunately, there's rather a lot of time that they have between arriving and Arthur's own arrival, so the situation may have developed more by the time he reaches his destination.

    He also arrives without much stealth, though he's arrived goddamn FAST. So, one of Xiang's group of four could get a defense or counterattack up. He also is traveling at a speed that technically qualifies him as a projectile and is pretty obvious on Force perception, meaning Galen Marek gets a free defensive deflection.

    Also, as is tradition, Arthur Lowell is doing a great deal of loud, aggressive, hot-blooded screaming as he approaches with his violent intent.

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
The masked figure in the stained labcoat makes a slight gesture with one hand as that eyeless mask branded with the yin-yang encircled by the serpent devouring it's own tail towards Fiora.

"I am, indeed, Xiang. And to be honest, I imagine the reaction is a matter of being aware of what happens in my presence."

At his gesture, the three robed women... act. The woman in red simply becomes a blur of red leaping up walls and hurling herself at the oncoming Arthur Lowell - the now visible hands tipped with six inch claws that drip reddish fluid that actually -smokes- in the open air, her perfect lips suddenly parted in a grin that quite literally goes halfway around her neck to reveal endless rows of teeth.

The other two women walk slowly towards the gates of the research complex, the one in blue opening her mouth as if singing - only those who can hear in both very high and very low frequencies will be able to hear the eerie cadences of her song - which seem to be directing the silvery cloud of nanites that billow like clouds from under her robe, disassembling and reshaping everything they touch into shapes of perfect order - well, except for that one soldier. He just comes... apart. Layer by layer, dissolving into so much more silver dust dancing to the inaudible song.

The one in the green robe... her enhancements remain unseen for now.

"And since I am aware others are observing," comments Xiang, "Todays demonstration is of something new. -Volunteers-."

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
Oh, and that dissolving solider? He does a -lot- of screaming until the process reaches deep enough to ruin his ability to do so.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Eleanor Lamb says something very unlady-like, and vaults her piece of Convienent Cover, and starts to charge in at the ongoings. Let's swing wide of the Sith for now, at least, as she moves on the green dress. From a sleeve drops a heavy, rusted and suspiciously stained pipe wrench, which quickly frosts over in a glaze of jagged ice. Her other arm erupts into a whirling galeforce, which launches the Big Sister forward, past Garen. She arcs in, aiming a blow right at the back of Green's head.

Kirika (481) has posed:
    The psychic with robes and laser swords will have to wait. Kirika opts to engage one of the women, Red proving to be her target for this one. Her feet tread the ground in nimble steps, the kitsune sprinting Red's way as she leaps and somersaults across whatever might be in the way of her path

    By the time she's in range of Red, Kirika's sword envelops in ice as her magic channels through the sacred blade, and she leaps out to slash down upon Red with a quick strike. "Yaaah!!"

Galen Marek (18) has posed:
    And there's the opposition; Galen smiles under the helmet, but just like the frown from being told not to overly damage residents (a reaction not unlike when Vader told him 'I want this Jedi alive, do not drop spaceships on him' and Juno seemed about to just start laughing), it's not like it can be seen.

    It's with the movements of Xiang's subordinates that the inquisitor uncrosses his arms. He may have moved to stop Arthur, if the woman in red wasn't already quite willing. Instead, he turns, and walks calmly after the other two. He whistles in idle admiration at the nanite cloud's ability to be directed so well; now he sees why he was warned. Since the one in green opts out of showing off for now, Galen steps forward, taking his turn.

    He reaches out towards the front gates of the complex with one hand, and then turns it gently. With the loud crunch of metal, the heavy gates are ripped off their hinges and implode into balls of crushed metals, which then hover over the man. He gestures ahead, now that the doors are open-- probably a pointless gesture, they could have opened it themselves.

    "After you. I'll ensure you are not disrupted too heavily," he tells Blue and Green, though he wouldn't really care if they had other ideas.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
Yyyyyyyyyep, same old Xiang. Black Arachnia is already on the edge of regretting that she came to investigate - but better to find out now, in what might be relatively controlled circumstances, than to run into this on an open battlefield or something. The chick in the red robe is clearly optimized for close-combat evisceration; the one in blue, Black Arachnia quickly determines, is using combined hypersonic and infrasonic wavelengths to manipulate the nanomachine swarms.

And neither being forcibly reconstructed into 'ideally ordered' structures nor being disassembled at the molecular level (or lower) strikes Black Arachnia as a nice way to die. Of course, as far as she's concerned, there *IS* no such thing as a nice way to die. Not even getting your guts ripped out by a super-speedy murderborg with claws that her fingers shouldn't have been able to hide.

She's keenly aware of the clock ticking down on her electro-disruptor's operational time limit, but she stays concealed from view for now, even as she attempts to transmit tight-beam messages to Fiora and Arthur: <<If you'd like to coordinate with the Union, set a radio to this frequency -->> along with the frequency she's isolating for local use. Said frequency is also relayed to the rest of the Union forces on-site ...

Just as the Force-user rips the complex's gates off their hinges. Well, so much for trying to sneak in ahead of him ... but with a little luck and a lot of subtlety, she might be able to get the drop on him without being sensed. .... Maybe.

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
    "Oi, oi. You guys should abandon everything and run! This place is dangerous," Flint says to any nearby townspeople or guards that are hanging out either indoors or cowering in the streets. It's not altruism, however. It may be disguised as such, the way he points people in the fastest direction to flee. And it may seem heroic of him to kick open a jammed door and let the family that was trapped inside flee the cloud of rewriting nanites. Until, that is, he promptly wades into the house they just fled and begins filling his pockets with jewelry and valuables. Then it's just him saving people (and making them panic) by proxy of looting.

    But let us talk about that cloud of silver nanites. The ones that just disassembled a man alive, screaming and in pain. Flint is currently in the middle of those, and it looks pretty nasty. The cloud washes over him, his shield flickering against it as he walks out of the house. His flesh begins to peel from his body, layer upon layer coming off just like the guard in neat sheets. But then... something deep within him defies. A feral pulse of instinct, angry and violent that another force dare impede upon its domain of his body.

    Raphael, the Pure in Flint's chest, beats once with an angry pulse. A hot center of feral rage at its host's survival being threatened. And it immediately goes to work. Every vein in his body pulses with a black ichor, though its only visible along his face and hands due to his coat. Energy pulses within him and he leans against a wall, grunting in pain and holding a hand to his chest.

    But still, his body begins to reassemble itself in the face of the swarm. Layers begin regenerating and soon he looks pained, if still fully himself and reassembled. Being a Pure user is convenient, if unpleasant.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Wuyin has no idea what Xiang's standard operating procedure is, if he even has one. Arthur gave him a few choice bits of information on how this sort of thing goes down, but that's not nearly enough to predict much of anything.

He never was much for sitting and waiting for the numbers to get crunched.

The Chinese man starts forward, breaking into a jog that turns into a run. He sprints across the top of the building and takes a flying leap onto the next, landing with his feet on the narrow peak of the roof and continuing along without apparent issue. He'll stick with what he's used to for this one, he thinks. If there's a problem he can't solve with steel, flame and thunder, he'll worry about it later.

He drops down to the street near the far end of the valley, close to the laboratory entrance and the three women. Rather than strike, he walks forward purposefully and peacefully. He takes a second to reach into his pocket and fish out his 3D glasses, sliding them on. He feels a little more comfortable that way.

"Something new?" he echoes, calling up at Xiang. "I would be loath to miss it. Do you suppose I'm going to have to fight through your assistants to get a front row seat," Wu asks, glancing at the women and the Sith, seemingly unconcerned (even if the /telekinetic crushing of blast doors/ is kind of a /thing/), "or would you be so kind as to provide one without the bloodshed?"

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Red Sharp there is probably gonna get some hits on Arthur Lowell when she starts using those claws, becaue he's not planning on dodging or blocking or being out of range. Boy, I sure hope that red stuff isn't poison! This is because Arthur never took any chance to prepare or anything. Lucky Arthur, that means a free attack immediately, so he continues his ramming-speed attack and attempts to slam into her on the gut, screaming as he goes.

    "WIPE that GODDAMN GRIN of your STUPID FACE!" He screams out as he does, trying to lodge the rocket-broom's handle right in her solar plexus and facefirst-smash her against or through several of the rooftops of the nearby structures (where we're likely to see much less inconvenient civilian placement). With one hand swinging around, he attempts to discharge a point-blank burst of VIOLENT GRAVITY MAGIC straight into her face, striking with a powerful, intensely damaging gravity differential. Taking this entirely seriously, he attempts to simply continue pressing that magic right against her, refusing to relent unless violently counterattacked or otherwise forced away.

    He did yell tasteless insults, but aside from that interruption, he has yet to stop screaming, and, of course, he is just sort of continuing to rush in. Hopefully Kirika is gonna be careful with that sword!

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva watches the scene unfold before her with horror. She's seen some gross things, but watching a guy melt away via being consumed by nanomachines is not one of them. The other guy who begins regenerating himself in the middle of it just tops things. She makes an indelicate noise as he lunch threatens to rebel, but she suppresses it, instead her face creasing into a deep scowl.

She was going to play nice, but anyone who operates like that... Well, she sure isn't the police. She's a Templar.

Silvery circuits crudely engraved along the barrels of her pistols ignite as she releases her restraints, and Anima energy begins pouring into the weapons, charging them. As soon as Eleanor Lamb moves, so does Riva, launcing into a pincer maneuver to strafe past Green. Thankfully, she read up on Plasmids, so she doesn't stop in shock at Eleanor's actions... But she does make a note to comment on that later. Instead, she fires a series of geen-tinged bolts of light instead of bullets from the gun.

Maya has posed:
Maya watches Arthur run in before she can do anything. She wtches the woman move at high speed and well just got full out monster horror. It's the least of the whole affair and she looks to see what Xiang's minions are doing. Then she watch what's happening as she sees the Soldier die. There's nothing she can do, that seems to be the case when Xiang shows up there's nothing that can be done. She seems more inten to go and help people flee than confronting Xiang directly.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiora sighs, looking at Xiang's three robed female volunteers, and the two showing their powers. Red, who we'll call 'Jaws', and Blue, who we'll call 'Siren', both showing off their powers. Thankfully, neither seem to be aggressing on her, and Xiang is nothing if not a perfect gentleman.

    "Well, that bit's a little hard. Most people have a hard time remembering me, if not outright associating with me. I guess that is a good pointer." She yields, turning to the two horrible creations, and the third yet-revealed in order.

    "So... These are Volunteers? People who came to you and asked you for powers or augments, and you gave them that stuff? Now, normally I'd be a bit curious, but I can see the thought process. Not having powers sucks."

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
Xiang holds up a finger in Wuyin's direction before responding to Fiora. "Dying of cancer is worse." Only then does he turn his attention to Wuyin, even as he starts walking in the direction of the now open gates. "If you wish to observe the outcomes of my work without involving yourself directly, you are welcome to do so. I am afraid I lack the attention or inclination to give detailed descriptions. If you will pardon me." His pace picks up slightly, going from stroll to brisk walk.

Meanwhile, the lady in green is assaulted both by melee and ranged weapons. As Eleanor's wrench hurtles at the back of her skull, her hair suddenly thicks and explodes outwards like a mass of black and green writhing vines that wrap around the end of the wrench and blunt the trauma, while still driving the woman forward. Green bolts slam into her, burning holes in the robe revealing - more of the vines. Almost thick cables braided together in the shape of a young woman. And they're burrowed into the ground she stands on, just as more of those grasping vines explode from the ground at Riva's feet, reaching for her. The ones wrapped around Eleanor's wrench similarly start twining up it, seeking flesh. And one of the guards who stood his ground is also met with the vines - vines that start burrowing into blood vessels, orfices and musculature - vines that force his aim towards Kirika.

Red, in the meantime, sinks her claws into Arthur's arms. And yes, that red stuff is toxic. Actually, it's worse. It starts -changing- the flesh it encounters, drawing it back, trying to make it a -part of her-. The ice sword slams into her back as they rip past, drawing a deep furrow in the sub-dermal armor. As they slam through buildings, a few unfortunate souls seeking to dodge via higher ground are grabbed and... that red venom makes quick work of absorbing them. Meanwhile, the gravity gradient tears at her even as she slowly starts to force all those teeth towards Arthur's face.

The silver cloud draws back from Flint after a few moments, discovering him to be both non-agressive and indigestible. Instead, the Siren continues to walk forwards - at a gesture from Xiang, however, the swarm sweeps down towards wherever Black Arachnia is hiding. The rest of it sweeps towards the air exchangers outside the research facility.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
It's not so much that Black Arachnia is hiding in a specific place. In point of fact, she's NOT staying in a single place - she's still picking her way down the cliff wall ... although as she notices a silvery cloud of horribly destructive nanomachines wafting in her general direction, she decides that the slow, methodical, and careful approach really isn't doing her any favors.

So she disengages her feet from the wall and lets gravity take over, attempting to land squarely on top of Galen Marek on his otherwise-casual way into the research facility.

Only after impact does she disengage her electro-disruptor; it's hard to pretend not to exist when you're a noticeably heavy weight that just crashed to the ground - whether on top of her target or ... not.

And maybe proximity to the Jedi/Sith/Whatever He Is will keep the nanomachines from getting too close. It's the only shot she has at the moment, really.

Kirika (481) has posed:
    Kirika's eyes widen as she sees vines possessing a running soldier in the most disgusting way imaginable, and she lets out a cry of horror before she boots Red away to let Arthur take care of her for the moment.

    "Forgive me, please." She whispers, before she evades gunfire, slicing at bullets that don't strike her or miss her entirely. Bullets pierce clothing and flesh, leaving behind wounds that while slowing Kirika down, mend with ease as her body pieces itself together and forces out the offending bullets over time.

    Her sword slashes at the vines first, then to end the soldier's suffering with a quick and painless strike to cut him down.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Well, a number of things happen there for Eleanor. For one, she is now being throttled by tentacle hair. Two, the tentacle hair is absorbing and devoring people, which seems to be a running theme of the Experiment today. Three, it is hard to formulate plans while blood flow is restricted to your brain.

    Eleanor's hands lash around feebly for a moment or two, her vision going suddenly grey and foggy as she attempts to gasp and struggle for air, and... and there's a bit of an instincual reaction from the sister. One arm crackles over with lightning, attempting to ground a massive bolt of electricity through Green and dislodge her.
    The other arm crusts over with honeycombs and beehives, and starts spweing wasps and bees, angry and looking to sting.

    "Gkktch."

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
The moment before Kirika's blade strikes home, she's able to meet the soldiers eyes - and there she sees both thanks and forgiveness. And then nothing.

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
Maya, in the meantime, will come to realize just how prevalent the vines are, as she manages to evacuate civilians just before they're grabbed and puppetted. Many are dragged clear of the silver cloud as well, and she can probably keep people from being trampled. Not so oddly given his reputation, the vines and silver nanites seem to be avoiding children.

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
    "Well weren't that an unpleasant experience," Flint comments to himself and probably no one else, since he's being left relatively alone if we discount the cloud that just tried to eat him. Still, as it backs off of him, the entity within Flint's chest calms down, sensing its territory has been defended from impedance.

    Flint, on the other hand, trudges his way back into the house he just came from and comes out with a bottle of booze in his hand, taken from a pantry, "I think I need an emergency infusion of ethanol after that," He notes before tipping his head backwards and chugs down a large portion of liquor.

    Then he takes off walking after the blue woman. Eating cloud of nanomachines aside, she's a very attractive person, "Greetings, Miss. I don't suppose you might be kind enough to call off your machines should you come across a space-faring vessel I might wish to acquire?"

Maya has posed:
Maya can count on that about the children. That's about one thing that's always certain for Xiang, he does not mess with young children. She contiunes ot focus on her evacuation efforts now. She knows she's got to get people clear. She moves trying to keep them from panicing helping those whom fall, and otherwise might need some aid. She'll even turn some magic to attemping to delay the cloud or even slow it if it will even work. She doubts she can stop it with no information on it but she can hopefully delay it.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Wuyin nods simply. "Noninterference, but the ability to observe unhindered. Reasonable." He seems like he likes the idea.

Unfortunately, he's Dragon. Non-intervention is kind of a thing they /don't do/.

The largely-unknown man breaks off from his bee-line (ha) towards the entrance. He spots something gleaming, a cloud moving towards... air exchangers. Those look an awful lot like nanomachines, or what nanomachines should look like. If they get in there, they've got free reign of whatever this is. He wonders what will happen if they don't.

Wuyin takes two more steps and then vanishes. He reappears perhaps twenty meters forward, directly between the nanomachine cloud, it's Siren and the ventilators. He bows slightly in greeting, and then reaches his right hand to his waist, grasping an amalgam of metal parts. He inhales, and there's a flicker of orange light tracing similarly-fine circuitry on the object.

The area around him promptly explodes.

A tremendous fireball erupts from the spot he's standing on, sweeping outwards into the swarm and the exchangers. An enormous electrical blast follows it, rippling across the ground and lashing into the air above him, trailing up walls and showering sparks everywhere. Finally, a pillar of ice and cold bursts into being, a wave that flash-freezes anything in the vicinity, freezing feet in place and chilling metal, flesh and bone with equal ease.

Electrical pulses and fast temperature changes oughtta do a number on those delicate little machines.

Galen Marek (18) has posed:
    Suddenly, robot spider.
    Starkiller seems quick to react; he must not welcome the idea of being stuck under a large droid of any kind all that much. Black Arachnia does have an edge, in that he can't quite feel her presence. Not through the Force, at least. She's hard to miss, now that she's visible.

    The inquisitor is quick to side-step, although not quickly enough any of the Transformers' limbs wouldn't have time for a quick and unshielded jab. There's a grunt and a rumble under the helmet, and the sudden ignition of a lightsaber with the distinctive sound.

    In Galen's right hand, a salmon-colored lightsaber.

    His left is still keeping the two compressed doors afloat.

    He opens his left palm up, and the compressed blast doors are shredded open into what could pass as badly battered doors. They attempt to shield Green and Blue from ranged attacks, but will probably be destroyed in the process.

    The lightsaber is swung for one of Black Arachnia's multiple limbs. On top of typical heat damage from the blade, this one seems to have a corrosive effect, as if it produced acid on impact.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiora keeps pace with Xiang, smiling now. "So, what we have here, is the Chef's Special. Consumption three ways. You've got your cloud-controlling girl, who turns things into more of her cloud, or 'fixes' it, you've got your tentacle girl, who seems to... Burrow into people and puppet them, and you've got your claws and teeth girl, who is the most direct of the three - what with her oh-so-big mouth and those absorbing claws. Clever, really. So, I have a question... Was it cancer for all three? If so, it's a nice themed event. Before, they were being consumed from within, and now, they're consuming without. And I don't really fault them. Even if two of the three now are a bit - or a lot - less than human, they're not dead, and they have fantastical powers. Plus, well, they're probably more reliable for it. They knew the bargain, and won more than they lost."

    Fiora shrugs, looking towards the lab they were brisquely walking towards. "So my question is... Is this for theatrics? Or testing? I find myself woefully bad at getting my name out there, you see, and you... Well, you're pretty much the king of the Name."

Riva Banari has posed:
That wasn't what she expected. Vines everywhere! Riva yells in shock as the vines explode from the ground and seek her out. She dives to one side, which prevents an immediately lethal striuke, but another pierces easily through her leg, greedily attempting to subsume it. She falls over with a yelp, yelling in pain as she drops her guns. "There's another solution for an oversized weed!" Riva hisses through the pain, pulling the sword at her side. It, too, bears Anima circuits, and begins gleaming with magical energy as she chops into the vine to sever it.

But the problem isn't one vine, it's the half dozen more coming after her. As a door slams past, handled by a Sith to run interference for Green, Riva grimaces. With that kind of thing, her pistols would be double useless... at least for the moment. But against her sword?

As the vines come in for a second shot, Riva lunges forward straight into the middle of the vine cloud, and the air explodes into cutting force as she focuses that Anima into a vortex of spinning blade strikes, attempting to cleave back through the vines to get to the source.

"Hole on Elanor! I'm coming!" She calls.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur's flesh starts getting changed, and drawn in by that awful mass. "Oh hell no!" He roars out, screaming as he slams into one more roof, bounces off, and then shifts trajectory and tries to slam Red Sharp there into the ground and pin her under Arthur.

    Deep, bleeding gashes give the girl plenty of bio-matter to work with as those claws have found their hold. There's an awful sickly fleshy churning noise as Arthur's own body is harvested slowly. "FINE, ya DUMB BITCH. You want a piece of ARTHUR GODDAMN LOWELL!" Whether or not he can pin her, the slam to the ground is gonna make a small crater.

    "Come ON and see what I GOT!" Trying to press both hands now instead of just the one against Red Sharp's face, he doubles up on his gravity attack, his screaming rising and intensifying as he does, the physically traumatic effect similar to a dozen powerful punches every second. Unfortunately, Arthur is still a bit in nonlethal mode, or at least "nonlethal for Elites". Presumably he's working with the baseline assumption that these women have any humanity to them.

    Neither the ground-slam nor the gravity are the primary attack here. The primary attack is instead the part where his eyes flare a brilliant white... And the flesh at the sites of the wounds becomes solar substance. That is to say, Arthur doesn't try to counter the absorbing process, he just tries to make Red Sharp be absorbing a star instead, and hopes that's close enough.

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
Xiang tilts his head slightly at Fiora, the otherwise featureless mask angling in what might almost be curiosity. "Both. And more. You haven't asked the question that's really important." A hand gestures in the direction of the facility, as if inviting her to consider it.

Wuyin, in the meantime... explodes. And indeed, the nanite cloud does not fare well against extreme thermal scenarios, and handles the release of high voltage just as poorly. Of course, after the first detonation, the song changes and the silver cloud draws back swiftly. The blast door keeps the worst of it from reaching Siren herself, although it does indeed come apart. More and more of the silver cloud draws back... and thickens. First into an almost mercurial liquid - and then it becomes a hovering -spear- of the stuff. Which then hurls itself - not at any of the combatants, but into the building itself, where silvery afterimages flash as the nanites start to integrate themselves with the walls.

Vines, meanwhile, is flat out electrocuted. The voltage hurls her to the ground, and she reflexively hurls this source of pain away, tossing Eleanor into the air - at Riva. Underground there is a crunching noise, and then Vines... giggles. And vanishes into the watermain servicing the facility, unbraiding as she burrows downwards.

Red, in the meantime... explodes. Sunstuff is -not- compatible with her. Limbs and head go hurtling in different directions, a spray of reddish mist all that remains of her torso... until it congeals. Veins and rippling red smoking -stuff- link all the different bits as they drift together. Red -hisses- at Arthur as her bits pull back together and then with a burst of highly accelerated speed she darts into the ruins of buildings. Where the screaming starts. Maya might catch a glimpse of her as she closes towards the largest concentration of food - aka civilians. Maya's charges.

Kirika (481) has posed:
    Kirika's eyes meet the soldier's, and her heart skips a beat before she realizes what happened. Her gaze glances towards Arthur and Red, before narrowing her eyes. At the least, the soldier has found peace. Now back to work.

    Kirika takes off at Red in a sprint, heading towards Red as she takes a leap and teleports in a shower of petals and light.

    Upon reforming closer to Red mid-air, Kirika takes advantage of her distraction to get in another strike at the super-being's back with a chop. She's careful to avoid hitting Lowell, enough to keep her interruptions to a minimum while he's up close and brawling with Red.

    When she gets a window of her own, Kirika lashes out with a spinning kick and another slash of her sword, before she uses the fuzzy gravity to her advantage as she soars overhead, launching a few ice bolts towards Red.

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
    The Siren doesn't seem up for conversation. Understandably, though, since people are beginning to attack her. Flint waves his hand a few times, "No matter, no matter! We will discuss it during the off chance such an event arises," He points out, stepping away from her several times to be careful to avoid the attack thrown at her by Wuyin. He raises his hands at Wuyin purposefully, showing he is not holding a weapon in them.

    "Unarmed and non-combatant my friend! Merely a travelling opportunist, meant to take full advantage of free market capitalism at its purest form. Please do not misinterpret my presence me as an act of hostility," He elaborates, smiling at Wuyin as he brushes some blonde hair out of his eyes with one hand.

    He steps back and away, careful to avoid being a part of this new fight that has stolen his conversation partner before their discussion could even begin.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
Getting one of her legs hacked off *normally* would be bad enough; they may not be critical hardware, but they're delicate and commeasurately sensitive. So there's a loud yowl of pain from the Maximal spider, followed by a snarled, "Son of a *scraplet*!!" directed at Galen Marek. The next words out of her mouth are no less angry but much more purposeful:

"Black Arachnia, MAXIMIZE!!!"

With that verbal command, the spider transforms into her robot mode, already prepared for combat with her claws out, and her remaining seven spider-legs fanning out from behind her back. If there's any continuing corrosion effect where the lightsaber lopped off a leg, the remainder of the leg is summarily ejected where it meets her main body - she'll have to get the leg replaced anyway when she gets repaired, after all. And then she lashes out with her combat claws, trying to lock Galen's lightsaber up with the pair on her right hand and force his arm away from being able to slash again; somehow her claws don't seem as susceptible to the corrosion effect.

Her left hand, by contrast, goes low - trying to shear through his body armor and lay open his thighs. Galen would notice her gaze shifting away from him briefly ...

And then she attempts a telekinetic *YANK* on one of those doors, trying to leave the blue-robed woman less protected, even if only for a split second.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Elenaor's cut loose, so to speak, blood and air rushing back into her with a flood of sensation, tingling all over. She does have the foresight to attempt to tumble out of the way of Riva though, a burst of TK altering her trajectory to the Templar's right. She crashes into the dirt, blood and scorchmarks marring the ratty sweater she's wearing. ...She's cheating though, as an armored undershirt can be seen showing through. Sort of Terran Republic issue, or one of them.

    Elle huffa puffa, her wrench flying back to her hands as she staggers up to her feet.

Maya has posed:
Maya is doing her damnest she glimpse if it regenerat she has often found that fire works best upon soething. Arthur also tells of the same thing she's moving after the red one which is going for the civilians. Maya has every intention of killing this thing, or prehaps even worse. Right now she's got to move and she does so going after her Red is about to run into Maya who'se going to start moving to get the thing way she's moving in and the moment she can c9onfr4ont it she's going to hit the creature with a freakiun very focused fire spell. Given the nature of Maya's magic she can generally control it.

"Hey you want something to eat try me..."

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur Lowell accidentally makes a girl explode. Oh SHIT! That's not what he wanted to do at all! Arthur and his soft-hearted not-killing policy briefly flip out about Exploding Bitches. Then he takes some time to nurse his arm-wounds, still full of residual toxin damage, swearing under his breath, the deep and intense pain with which he's completely unfamiliar having a clear and obvious negative effect on him.

    At the gruesome explosion, the toxin damage, and the overall disgusting and horrifying nature of his brief scrap with Red Sharp, Arthur takes a moment to stress-vomit into his little crater.

    Okay, that's done, hopefully nobody saw that. Back to work. Arthur is immediately back on his feet and dashing after the target. A GATE is cast ahead of Red Sharp there, further into the ruined structures. Hopefully Kirika has slowed her down enough, because otherwise he won't be sufficiently ahead of her.

    With a quick downward sweeping motion, Arthur summons a HUGE amount of gravity on the ruined, hopefully-abandoned structures. The intent is to bring several of the buildings down in sequence on top of Red, slowing or ideally immobilizing her, but hopefully at least just slamming her with huge chunks of building at high speed.

    Kirika can probably get out of the way of this though. Maya's rescue has hopefully moved civs out of the way too!

Galen Marek (18) has posed:
    RIP those blast doors.
    Galen crushing and uncrushing them sure didn't help them take hits, but if they took a couple for Siren and Vines that's good enough by him. Sadly he has his own issues now.

    With one arm locked in place and unable to deliver a second slash, now that Black Arachnia has transformed, his guard is that much lessened. Her claws will find his body armor isn't the sturdiest of things, and his body underneath is as human as they come. Fortunately for him, there's a feeble shielding around him-- his legs won't be torn open just yet. The armor's very badly damaged though, and there's the feeling she must have hit underneath it too.

    While she's distracted with the doors-- what's left of them-- Starkiller just lets them fall. His empty hand points at her instead, and lightning arcs between his fingers, and then launches as a continuous bolt.

    The Force Lightning has a lot of weight behind it; it could knock her back and free his arm, but she could try to stand still and take it too, and keep making use of being in close range.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva is about to lunge at Vines when Vines retaliates by throwing Eleanor at her! "AAAAAH!" Riva cringes, bracing for impact with an electrified Ellie, when she hears a crash. She opens one eye and looks over at the fallen Elle, and blinks... Then turns her gaze towards the last of Vines as she burrows into the ground. "THAT'S CHEATING!" Riva yells, scrambling to grab her fallen pistols, then helps Elle up if she isn't up by then. "I don't have anything that can follow her down there! Do you have any ideas?" She asks. Since Green isn't a valid target at the moment, she pulls a pistol and wings a few magical bolts at Siren's back, trying to take advantage of the distraction.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiora sighs, smiling. "I'm pretty bad at asking the right questions, Doctor. It's a part of my package. And my personality. Intelligent, but rarely all that terribly smart. Also, facts and I tend to not get along too well." the Witch admits. "But I suppose, the most direct question I'm asking is... Why are you doing this? And, furthermore, why /take/ volunteers? I mean, you're obviously here for something, or you'd be sipping a daquiri and smiling like a fiend as your little field test went on, but you're moving with purpose. So, I'm betting ulterior motive. Or, at least, primary or secondary objectives." She offers, curiously, less walking now and more floating at a good clip.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
The Siren with the nanite cloud draws back as he starts to flash-fry/freeze the area immediately around him. The wall behind him now has a pretty nice sheet of ice on it, glittering pretty in the afternoon sun.

"Please stay back if you do not wish to be collateral --" Wu cuts himself off mid-answer to Hawke as the spear blurs forward. He utters a curse in some Chinese dialect and clicks his tongue to mute his microphone, throwing himself into a roll to the side. He springs up --

-- directly in front of it.

The spear slows, completely inexplicably. It gets within a few inches of him and loses a staggering amount of velocity, the angle changing a tiny, seemingly insignificant bit. The talismans Wuyin carries, tucked away in hidden little pockets, practically burn with Anima. It gives his body a distinctly orange glow.

It does not, however, stop it completely. The spear strikes him off-center, punching through his midsection and into the icy sheet behind him -- and the wall behind that, though not nearly as deeply as it should have. He's unable to keep his cool when he gets hit; he coughs blood, a choked scream escaping him with a sharp exhalation. It's pinned him to the wall.

And connected him to the cloud.

Wuyin swings his focus up into his hand. Blueish light flickers across his body, forming into arcs of electricity. A thrumming builds, a distinctly electrical hum -- and then an electrical storm is cast from his grip, one hand on the spear while the other, gripping his focus, is pressed against the wall behind him. He's looking at the Siren the whole time, staring directly at her.

The entire front of the facility lights up like it was being continually struck by lightning -- because, well, it kind of is. It might make things difficult for other people near it. The electrical surge leaps forward, too, pulsing down the spear and chaining off of it at the figure controlling it.

Wuyin doesn't seem bothered by it. Maybe the spear hurts more.

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
Xiang shakes his head slightly. "No. The question is 'What do they research here?'. As for the volunteers - others needed to see that my work is bearing results." Around him the battle continues, his attention on Fiora. "And since my last conversational partner is now being a significant impediment..." Xiang reaches out and brushes a finger across Fiora's face. Incidentally infecting her with at least two strains of superaccelerated flesh eating bacteria which are in turn infected with flesh dissolving -virii-.

That done, he breaks into a jog towards the facility. As it's doors open, the control panel next to it sprouting wires and vines that whrithe like something alive. Which it probably is.

As the swarm is electrocuted, Siren finally makes a sound. She -screams-. A solid shockwave of sound intermixed with weird harmonics that instill a sense of vertigo and cognative dissonances. And wherever the sound touches the silver cloud, the controlled nanites go into an uncontrolled frenzy - grey goo scenario.

As for Red? She's sliced, lit on fire and then has a building dropped on her. Nothing seems to be moving in all that rubble.

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
    Acquiescing to Wuyin's request, Flint simply keeps walking away! Let the young man be impaled, Flint wants no part in that fight. He shuffles himself out of the potential for combat and back towards the building that was just dropped on the red target.

    A foot starts to kick aside rubble and debris. Since there's not much movement within, he figures the dead one might have some interesting technology to scavenge. Those claws were pretty nice, after all. And he wouldn't mind a new robe. Less interested in the dentistry she had, though.

    While clearing out debris with powerful footwork, Flint takes a pipe out of his jacket and sticks it in his mouth. He lights it with a match and begins smoking space tobacco while trying to find a corpse to loot.

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
After some kicking and scrounging, Flint would find the following: Teeth. Claws. And a single fist sized sphere of of some strange blood red stuff that looks a lot like glass, or even solid liquid.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Right. Eleanor gets to her feet as a rush of ADAM surges through her. Xiang just lit Fiora on MRSA, that's no good, but... she's tough. Albeit squishy tough. That said, such a thing really isn't able tobe ignored without a response.

    Across the field, one of those crumpled, battered hunks of metal that used to be the main doors of the facility suddenly starts sliding across the dirt, digging up furrows of grass and sod as Eleanor starts to charge the siren as well. Her brain is rattling with the sonic assault, but she's determined to make it through to...

    The metal chunk suddenly slashs up and out of the dirt, flying to slam into the Experiment as she lets loose a returning scream at the Siren. The bareful cry of a Big Sister rips out across the facility and Eleanor body checks the Siren.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
Black Arachnia is already winding up to slash again at Galen's legs, and harder, when he manages to draw a bead on her with Force Lightning.

It has a longer, more elaborate, and FAR more descriptive name in the spidery Maximal's personal lexicon ... or at least, it will when she can recalibrate her cerebro-circuitry sufficiently to waste processor cycles on coining enough invectives to describe it adequately.

Right now, though, staying in combat is a FAR more pressing matter on her mind, at least to the extent that she's capable of coherent thought processes when she's getting blasted off her feet by supernaturally-generated hatredlightning. Normal lightning would play enough hell with her systems to knock her for a loop; whatever Galen just blasted her with is ...

Worse, really. FAR worse. The spidery Maximal crashes to the ground, bouncing once or twice before skidding to a halt, stray currents still crackling over her armored frame as she twitches intermittently.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur pants exhaustedly, leaning against one of the remaining ruined buildings. Under his breath, he takes this chance to deliver a proper post-mortem one-liner. "How's THAT for some SCIENCE TESTS? Meet the OUTLIER, BITCH." He didn't intend to kill her, but you know what? Arthur didn't see her getting stabbed, so he probably doesn't mind, mostly. He gives two frustrated middle fingers to the rubble. Flint Hawke wanders by and starts looting, and Arthur gives a quick yell of "Enjoy!"

    Then he's weightlessly ascending into the sky above the town, trying to get a good view of the lab and observe what the hell's going on there, and pick a target. Hmmm...

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
    Smoking his pipe, Flint makes a little 'ooh' sound as he manages to find some interesting things to scrounge up. The Claws are a definite acquisition, the teeth seem valuable and potentially sold back later to Xiang. He's leery of the red object, but carefully attempts to pick it up with a hankerchief in his hand, not wanting to smudge it. All in all, definitely a decent pull.

    "I like the claws. Stylish," He says, slipping one of them on one hand before swiping at a nearby wall to see if it carves a hole in it. He seems content with the day's non-work.

Kirika (481) has posed:
    Kirika pants and takes a long breath as she runs far enough to avoid getting buried in rubble, observing the collapse from afar as she looks for signs of life under it all, as if incredulous that would be enough to kill Red after all she's dished out and tanked.

    Looking to Arthur, she then turns to face the storm of lightning hell up ahead with a frown. "Madness..." She murmurs sadly, shaking her head.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiora nods. "As I said, Doctor, I'm not the best at asking the right questions. Something about being the living embodiment of nothingness? Anyway..." She begins, before there is a hand brushing against her face. She looks... Sour. And not because there is horrible face-devouring bacteria working across her body now at a rapid clip.

    "Excuse me, but I am a married girl, and I would prefer if you kept your murder..." She begins, before gasping, and doubling over in agony. "... Purely... professional..." She finishes, writhing on the ground before there's nothing left but clothes, bones, and probably viral biological sludge.

    Fiora - Ded as fuk.

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
The sphere in Flint's hand, when held, pulses. Like a living, beating heart.

Maya has posed:
Maya wonders whom Xianf is refering to, she goes to make sure Red is dead, she's not going to take chances her. She's lucky she had some backup, she's very lucky there she knows that. She moves to get ready to confirm the kill she reaches out with a spell trying to senses Red's presence to see if she's really dead or not she knows a lot of other people are fighting right now but better safe than sorry when dealing with Xiang.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva is informed from the others what's going on. Red's down, Vines is /clearly/ infesting the research station because she has an actual sense of self-preservation, and Siren is going crazy because she got blasted by a /massive/ amount of crackling elementalism from Wu.

And Wu is... "DAMN IT, WU!" Riva yells. That's like the /third/ time she's seen him throwing himself into horrible situations and getting mostly murdered for it!

But she catches something out of the corner of her eye, squinting. Xiang, the man himself, entering the building. Her grip firms, and she comes to a decision.

She holsters the gun, and charges toward, bursting into higher speed as Anima trails around her. Eleanor fires hyperaccelerated metal chunps past her, and she moves naturally, keepign the flow of her movements smooth. She leaps onto a stop sign, pushing off of it and spinning to rebound before it crashes to the ground, consumed by the nanites. She flips onto a car, bouncing off of it as well. The alarm goes of for only a few seconds as she vaults, the nanite goo consuming it a moment later. She flips through the air, raising her blade in both hands as she impacts the sonic wall, her mind swimming at the strange sonics...

But she believes. She knows what is to come will come. Her arc descends, her blade igniting with a massive surge of Anima as she pours everything she has into a single thrust, and lets gravity carry her where she needs to go, sailing over Siren...

And descending towards Xiang himself with a deadly two-handed descending strike, her blade roaring with golden energy as Anima rolls off of it in waves. She doesn't scream anything. She can't think of anything witty. She is just going to trust to the fate of her blade as she strikes for Xiang's back.

The destiny of a blade is blood.

Galen Marek (18) has posed:
    Those lightning bolts... are not from him.

    Galen's gaze lifts off Black Arachnia, as she slams to the ground and just sort of sizzles for a while. Unfortunately for him, he's treating her like a droid right now; and in his mind, she is pretty thoroughly screwed and unlikely to get back up, so it's alright to put his attention elsewhere.

    He focuses it, first, on the source of the lightning bolts. Wuyin gets a stare; doesn't seem to be a Sith. Must be just lightning then. 'Just lightning' is still dangerous as fuck to get hit by, though, so Starkiller decides not to try to tank it with his face.

    Moving a few times-- to avoid being pelted by lightning he can sense a fraction of a second before it comes down-- the Sith finally settles on a target: Eleanor Lamb.

    His empty hand reaches out towards her, as she aims to slam into the Siren. Invisible forces attempt to slow her charge to a crawl. It's too late to stop all her projectiles, but HER, he might be able to. And if he can, she's going to find herself being made to float above the ground, with increasing neck pains and difficulty to breathe. More dangerous than the choke is probably Siren's counter though.

    This does leave Galen completely open to Black Arachnia possibly getting back up after all.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
The electrocution handles most of the nanites. Most of. The intruding spear seems to be largely inert, and not trying to get into the building anym--

SHRIEK

Wuyin's eyes squeeze shut. He's point-blank for the scream. He opens his mouth and screams back, the sound subsumed by the louder, more devastating sonic attack. His ears start to bleed, tiny rivulets of blood leaking out. His mind goes all topsy-turvy, up turning to sideways and in turning to thataway. He feels like he's going to be sick -- sick/er/, given the shock is starting to wear off.

The ringing in his ears is quickly replaced by buzzing. Sounds form, a roar like he was suddenly amidst rapids grounding him to /this/ place and snapping him back in. He can just barely make out words amidst it all.

Enlightenment hurts, sweetling. Does your forehead tickle? A tickle becomes a pain, becomes a suture-crack, becomes a cesarean gasp, and the third eye opens like a bullet hole obscenity.

Breathe. This too shall pass.

His eyes open again, wet and swimming.

Wuyin's body flickers, he and the remnants of the spear vanishing from the wall. He appears practically on top of the Siren, hands wreathed in flame. The hole in his stomach has grown, the out-of-control nanite swarm spreading rapidly. It's /eating/ him, and nothing about him appears to be able to arrest the spread. He's starting to come apart under silvery metallic fractures. Despite the agony, despite the injury and the blood, he's still going.

He screams wordlessly, a metallic tinge to his voice as the swarm eats and eats and eats. He hits the ground on his hands and knees, and a swirling inferno washes out from his fists, mimicking the swarm-that-was-a-spear in a hungry conflagration at the feet of the Siren, rendering earth black and rock molten.

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
Red is currently resting in Flint's hand. Where it goes from there is between Flint and Maya.

The Siren is first hit by the door - which being sharp edge metal travelling at speed, serves to -cut her in half-. The body revealed beneath the robe is revealed to be full of tiny holes, each a source of the silver nanites. Which start trying to pull her together as Eleanor is hauled off by Garen. But then -fire-. With a final shriek, the Siren's face splits apart as a golden armored sphere large enough to contain a human brain and life support becomes visible - only to vanish as a micro-gate opens up and swallows it whole.

Inside the facility, vines burrow into computers, ripping out hard drives and memory storage devices. Terrified scientists are grabbed and hauled deeper into the facility, towards the main lab where a growing web of vines and cabling grows.

And Xiang? Xiang is impaled by a sword through the back, one burning with the golden flame of justice. What erupts from the wound is best described as 'black ichor', and smells of machine oil, jasmin and the faint sweet smell of rotting flesh. A hand is raised to touch the blade where it sticks out of his chest, and then Xiang sighs.

His hand twists backwards as though he had no joints at all to grab Riva by the face. If he connects, the hundreds of microscopic needles in his palm will inject a mix of powerful sedatives, hallucinogens, and at least three strains of accelerated superflu.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Eleanor would have loved to see whatever the crap she might have done with those metal shards because once again someone is choking the shit out of her, only this time it's three feet off the ground and telekinetically. Blue eyes go wide again and she manages to struggle out. "SITH."

    She wobbles, fixating on Garen's position as best she can, and goes limp. Have to conserve energy for this, really. Ohhh, she's gonna have to drink so much blood in the morning.
    Both hands lift up to her sides, and pretty much every single piece of loose debris in the area plucks itself up into the air, swirling around the Big Sister as she looks wide eyed at Garen with... excitement? Yes, that's what's in her eyes right now. Shock is a wonderful biological response.

    And then a rush of TK powered shrapnel sweeps out at Garen as well, daring him to move and drop her.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    From a great distance, Arthur Lowell observes Xiang casually murder one of his best friends.

    "FIORA!!"

    The ensuing reaction is entirely unlike the arrogant, hot-blooded one he was using before, and carries none of the associated smple bullshit heroism. The boy is keenly aware of the way immortality works for his type of god. However, he also knows the tremendous pain and danger that comes with revival.

    So, you know, even though he might not have killed Fiora? Arthur, in his toxin-filled state, and as soft-hearted as he is, is gonna go ahead and work with the assumption that Xiang at least got close. And so, of course, Arthur immediately summons his Rocket Broom again and blasts off at maximum acceleration, heading straight for the blast door. No more screaming this time, not even any yelling or insults! In fact... The boy's oddly stoic right now.

    Disregard all this lightning. If any is coming his way, it'll strike through him with blazing red burn marks, but Arthur's not gonna stop. Green Bitch? She could grab at him, but Arthur's gonna disregard any bone-breaking violence that she inflicts on him to just tank through it. If Riva's still grappling with the man, it might be a good idea to put a small amount of temporary distance between himself and Xiang. As Arthur blasts his way through whatever part of the interior that Xiang managed to get into. As he progresses through to Xiang himself, Arthur's body is slowly consumed by a mass of rapidly flashing black and white energy.

    Dr. Nathan Xiang, as a man who just used sickness to murder one of Arthur Lowell's friends, is shortly going to be on the receiving end of someone attempting to do something rather similar to him. In Arthur's rage-fueled state, he's fully swapped into a lethal mode. No gravity-magic for Xiang, that'd be too good. Arthur converts his entire body into a churning, whirling rush of radioactive cosmic particles. He becomes a human solar flare, and attempts to slam into Xiang with enough force to pin him to one of the interior walls.

    If he does, the excessive physical contact is going to force him back into human shape, but with both hands pressed against the doctor himself, Arthur isn't going to stop with the radiation. He's going to try to blast every ounce of celestial magic he can straight into the doctor, doing his absolute god damndest (literally) to fill the doctor with as much horrible, debilitating cosmic radiation as he can. And this time, no screaming, not even any angry expressions!

    This is, of course, all assuming that none of the other events going on manage to intercept him on his way to do his little tantrum.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Wuyin is pretty sure that someone just hurled a chunk of metal through the person(?) he was setting on turbo-fire. He's okay with that. He'll thank them later.

The sphere becomes visible, with the life support attached. Wuyin releases his focus, lifting his arm and grasping the hilt of his sword. He draws it from the scabbard and sweeps it through the air in a flash, a swirl of cutting Anima released around him in a white wave... an /unstable/ one, dissipating into fragments and cutting up the blasted crater around him. He doesn't get the life support.

The Siren vanishes. Wuyin's sight blurs. He's pretty sure the world isn't moving; maybe he...

He hits the dirt, collapsing in a pool of molten metal, scorched earth, and his own spreading vital fluids. He doesn't so much as twitch.

Riva Banari has posed:
People die when they are killed. Riva's always enjoyed that simple fact. And when people are stabbed clean through with a sword, they're usually killed.

This is the reason why she's rather surprised when Xiang turns the hell around and grabs her by the face. The immediate sensation is quite unpleasant as her internal chemistry begins getting assaulted by a cocktail that would probably instantly kill a normal person.

Riva isn't a normal person, thankfully, but that means instead of instantly falling over and expiring as her brain is invaded and consumed by three different strains of superflu, she stands there, shuddering as the sedatives and hallucinogens do their work.

Strangely, they seem to have a stronger and more immediate effect than the diseases do. Riva makes a low gurgling noise, sagging a bit as her limbs begin to slacken...

But she does twist the blade, at least, before Arthur explodes violently into the scene. Riva falls backwards, hitting the ground bonelessly with a hundred tiny puncture holes in her face as her body tries to fight off the invading diseases as well as survive the debilitating drug cocktail.

This might take a while. In the meantime, she sure as hell isn't doing anything. At least she'll probably be out of the event horizon of what Arthur does to Xiang.

Probably. Hopefully.

Maya has posed:
Maya sees the most imporant things are done, the people are safe however Flint has what's left of Red in his hand and she weatches him for a moment she's not just about to jump him. She looks over FLint for a moment longer.

"So Mr. Hawke? Correct? I'd like to buy that object you jut found and take it off your hands. I'm willing to pay for it."

She does not care about the teeth or the claws she seems concerned about the core for lack of a better term.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
Black Arachnia is still twitching and sparking on the ground as Galen turns his back on her ... although between one bout of sparking and the next, her right hand is no longer empty: her mandible grapnel has been pulled out of its subspace 'pocket', the mouth-parts which comprise it twitching a little as if in sympathy with its owner's pain.

(Or maybe not so much 'in sympathy,' since it's a *part* of her ... just one that can detach more readily.)

Her optics start to light back up, protective covers - her eyelids - slowly opening ... and all of her ability to concentrate goes into three actions, flowing together into what seems like a single movement: aim at Galen Marek's neck, launch the grapnel -

And assuming it latches onto his neck, as soon as it DOES that, 'bite' and inject a dose of cybervenom. She didn't have the opportunity to customize the load-out, for obvious reasons, but the heavy-duty paralytic she had primed earlier for emergencies should be quite adequate for now. Assuming it affects him ... it *should*, if he doesn't have Force shenanigans boosting his immune system.

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
    Flint pauses, tilting his head at Maya when she comes up and offers to buy the red sphere in his hand outright. He peers at the orb and then holds it up to look at it.

    "So quickly? It must be of great value to you, then. And I assume to the Union. And to the Confederacy by that virtue, wouldn't it?" He ponders, rocking on his feet a bit. Then he idly spins it on a single finger like a toy ball, "How much? I'm thinking 20 million credits sounds fair. It's one of a kind and you lot seem very keen on that man not getting this back."

    He smiles cheerily, "It's okay if you need to consult with your bosses. I can wait." He tosses the orb up and town a few times.

Galen Marek (18) has posed:
    Oh. The Siren bit it.
    Well, at least her brain flew off.
    That's... a thing that happened. Sure.

    Starkiller decides not to question it. Xiang's science is more advanced than the Empire's in several respects, so odds of him grasping how that works are pretty low anyway. Might as well just call it all tech-wizardry and be done with it.

    Before he can tighten the pressure on Eleanor, she's biting back. His hold on her disappears completely as she pelts him with large chunks of shrapnel. She shields himself with the Force, forming a telekinetic barrier in front of himself. Some of the blast door pieces slam into it and bounce off, but a few come with such force that they slam into his body. Though they can't pierce the armor, that sort of impact would break bones, and probably did so to a few of his ribs at the very least, judging from the pained grunt.

    And due to that, Black Arachnia's projectile latches onto his neck. It doesn't quite pierce all the way through the armor, but the tips dig into flesh, and that's probably good enough for the toxin. The Force does offer certain physical enhancements, but nothing so potent as to be completely immune to poisons, especially not good ones. At most, its effect will be delayed slightly.

    And being an assassin himself...

    His immediate reaction is to adjust a few of the buttons on his belt. Life support systems kick in-- his armor's not entirely for show, it's got a few goodies in it.

    His second reaction is to shut off his lightsaber, and to literally disappear. His form vanishes as if stepping into a heavy cover of mist, and the Sith Assassin wanders off into the shadows, presumably to find a safe place to sit down and meditate the poison out of his system.

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
With a sword shoved through his torso, Xiang really isn't able to dodge particularly well as Arthur comes hurtling for him. He is picked up, slammed into a wall, and bathed in incredible amounts of radiation. The mask flies off, revealing the face of the man behind it, his glasses sparking with a nimbus of energy as the radiation interacts with the metal, his skin blistering and twisting and peeling.

And then growing back almost nearly as quickly. Blood boils and spills out, filling the air with that mixed stench of oil, flowers and death, only now it's mixed with the smell of boiling. Xiang's silver eyes lock with Arthur's... and the Doctor smiles thinly.

"Interesting."

There is a final twitch as part of the Doctor's skull peels away to reveal a flash of something metallic - and then his head vanishes in a flash of light as the bomb contained within detonates at point blank range. Even as the bomb goes off, one of his hands flickers as it's implanted recall teleportation systems kick in and sends it 'home'.

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
Deep inside the facility, the web of vines interfaces with the experimental warp gate being developed and tested at this facility. There is a surge of energy before the head scientist, his chiefs of staff, and a knotted sphere of vines is tossed through.

At which point the gate is crushed by side vines - right before they and the building's piping, wiring and infractruture burst out of the outside wall, vengance in mind.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    And Eleanor just falls to the groud with a dull thud, just in time for Xiang to blow up, and then the whole damn building comes alive. She staggers up to her feet, and drags a hand into her medic's satchel. She comes back out with an autoinjector of some sort, slamming the needle into her thigh with a gasp and a stammer of pain. Her whole body GLOWS for a second as she comes back steady to her feet. Alright. Siren's dead. Red's Dead. The Sith... is retreating. Okay.

    She shakes her head out, and then starts trotting over to Riva. Another autoinjector comes out, and she slaps the girl in the meat of the leg with it. "Come on, soldier, no time to trip out." Hooray for Union anti-tox.
    Time to get back into things, as she gets on her radio. Screw this.

Maya has posed:
Maya seems to be talking on her comm for a moment and raieses a hand to Flint. It's seem she's talking ove the price and not dismissing it out of hand. She looks to the pirate for a momenht thoughtfully as she says "Very well sir, you ahve a deal. Tell me where I can transfer the funds and it's yours, so long as you hand the unit over."

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
The mandible grapnel loses its grip on the Dark Jedi when Galen pulls away from where he was standing when it latched on; the cable stopped extending when the grapnel clamped shut, and its grip was shaky enough (thanks to that armor) that Galen pulls loose easily.

But Black Arachnia doesn't have the energy, or the fine control of her systems, to reel the grapnel back in, except at a very slow rate. Since she's not really going anywhere, even with the airstrike being called in on the facility - which suits the Maximal *JUST FINE* thank you very much, by the way - somebody had better retrieve her.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva is in no condition to chase down Vines or... much of anything really. Her mind reels with nightmarish visions as her body teeters on the edge of overload. Perhaps it might have been a mercy to die.

But she still fears and hates death. Even with her nature, she fights.

It's enough to give Eleanor time to give her antitoxins. The sedatives and hallucinogens begin to clear up, and she coughs, wiping the drool from her face as she staggers weakly to her feet. "T... Thank you." She says hoarsely to Eleanor. "I owe you one." She limps over to where her sword fell in the aftermath of the explosion, and takes it along.

As she turns to leave, she sees the body of Wuyin. She grimaces, and turns away, her expression grim as she drags herself towards a safe distance. Orbital strikes are not pleasant.

Kirika (481) has posed:
    Kirika looks about, sighing heavily as she sheathes her blade. Staring out a the mass of...SOMETHING, she gets marching orders from Eleanor from the radio. "UNderstood." She rasps, sounding AWFUL at the moment, but she soldiers on to go find Blackarachnia and Riva.

    Her search carries her towards the Maximal, once again finding her in a heap of mostly-dead at worst and stasis-locked at best. "No no no no no no..." She kneels besides the spiderbot, reaching out to take her hand. "Please...let there be some spark of life left within you." Kirika whispers, before she hears news of an airstrike.

    Whatever that is, it's enough reason for Kirika to HOIST Blackarachnia up with as much strength as she can spare, before hobbling her way to safety in a jog.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur pumps the man full of as much radiation as he possibly can. He's probably SUPER augmented. But Arthur wasn't focusing on the direct damage. He wants to focus on making that man incredibly sick for as long as possible. There's no clues he has about how resistant Xiang might be to this... But Arthur doesn't really care. Killing him would be fine! Arthur hates killing, but in his current toxin-addled state and having seen him casually murder one of his absolute closest best friends, he isn't stressing about it. But, as Xiang demonstrates, that's unlikely.

    Priority one is making him sick and miserable as long as possible.

    But then he explodes. Or, at least, enough Xiang leaves and an explosion happens. Arthur suffers the detonation head-on, refusing to back down, and so suffers MASSIVE amounts of burning, kinetic trauma, contusions, and other suchlike. He's blasted back, the explosion rocking his whole body and scorching much of the front of him. He slams with a loud cracking sound into the opposite wall and is pinned there by the pressure of the explosion before slumping onto the ground.

    No. No, no, no. Not dying like that. Vines twist and consume around the facility around him. But there's still a bit more left to do. He barely picks himself up on his beaten, burned, and bruised body. God bless the echeladder for making him survive that lethal blast, albeit barely. He could have a real chance of dying here otherwise. Struggling to his feet, he stumbles and staggers his dumb ass right over to that entryway, falling several times as he does.

    Once he's out, he sees the whole building has come alive too. Fuck. Arthur indulges himself in another quick stress-vomit, before desperately working on summoning up a personal extraction Gate for himself to get out before the Union bombs him to hell.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Wuyin's body lies face-down in the open outside the facility's main entrance. He's got a hole in the front of his chest big enough to put your arm through, a smaller one in the back where the nanites punched through and started eating outward from, and is generally smoldering.

His smart-phone is in one hand, and his sword is in the other. The phone is display up and glowing merrily, apparently still active. There's something on it, but it's hard to see from a distance.

MEANWHILE
THE SPIRIT WORLD, OR WHATEVER YOU'D LIKE TO CALL IT

Everything is black and white. Wuyin stands at a glowing point elsewhere in the canyon, a double-helix of white motes swirling upwards around him. He steps out of the Anima Well and looks around.

He sighs. "Shit."

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Eleanor, having jabbed Riva, staggers forward, and... No, tentacles are not a thing she wishes to deal with right now. An orbital strike is coming and she can't be bothered to get that close. Luckily, she's got an alternative. She digs one more time into her reserve of EVE, and lashes a hand out at Wuyin's body/corpse, hauling him out of the vicinity of the Deathhouse, close enough for her to stumble over and hoist the fellow up on her shoulders. "Come on, fellow, time to go."

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
Black Arachnia is made of metal and super-advanced alien polymers and ceramics. But she can still be picked up and carried.

Good thing for her, too. At least the grapnel isn't designed to latch onto anything else by dragging ... unless its owner wanted to hook onto something that way.

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
    It actually won't be too hard for Nathan Hall to transfer funds to Flint. The General has done so once before and his accounts are all the same. The Pirate, in turn, takes out a tablet computer from inside his jacket with his free hand and watches it, "Uno momento, as they say in Terra-Mexican." He comments, watching the tablet with red eyes. Eventually (Having consulted OOCly with Nathan Hall), the zeroes start to fall into place on the readout and he smiles, "All yours, love."

    He underhand tosses her the red orb like a softball before giving her a wave and tapping his pipe out onto the ground, "Pleasure doing business, but I believe some bad things are about to happen here, so I must bid farewell."

    And then, having handed the orb off, Flint waves a hand in front of his face mysteriously. Piece by piece his body sort of simply vanishes, before he is gone entirely.

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
Speaking of the Red Orb?

The vine infested building is headed right for it, screaming guardsmen still holding machine guns opening fire in Maya's direction even as the ground rumbles ominously, shuddering and twisting as more vines burrow towards her.

Wuyin Tsai has posed:
Wuyin ragdolls appropriately till he's properly hoisted. He's not too heavy. His weapon comes with him, and his hand is still curled tightly around the phone. Up close, it's easier to read, black text on a white screen.

It reads, 'PLEASE DO NOT TAKE MY THINGS.'

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Eleanor has no intention of taking Wuyin's stuff, as the VTOL craft swoops in a safe distance away, read doors opening as the craft hovers expertly. A loudspeaker crackles. "Ride's hot, folks, go go go." The pilot can be seen waving heatedly at the group of people.

    Elle, for her part hoists Wuyin safely into the back of the transport, and then venture out on the ramp again to get a proper headcount of everyone else.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva stumbles onto the VTOL and locks herself in, allowing herself to collapse and focus her strength on not letting the multi-strains of flu in her system win out over her immune system. She has a feeling that things are about to get ugly... She's never seen an orbital strike before and she's not sure she'd want to.

She just hopes Wu is going to be all right. He may be a Dragon but he's not a jerk or anything... She thinks.

Kirika (481) has posed:
    Helping Arachnia to the VTOL, Kirika hops aboard herself before she drapes her cloak over the wounded Maximal like a tarp crossed with a blanket, for whatever reason. Sentiment aside, Kirika provides vigil however long it takes for the transport to get everyone out of here, seated in back with her katana at her side.

Dr. Nathan Xiang (397) has posed:
As the various Elites and Union civilian rescue teams and transports clear the area, the first of the buster strikes impact - fired from controlled mass driver platforms in high orbit, carefully measured meteors result in micro sized orbital impacts - enough to damage and confuse the large target while the team clears the main target zone.

Then follows the primary strike. A kinetic warhead screams out of the sky, visible even as it descends as a light in the sky that grows brighter and hotter as it descends. The impact is tremendous, the shockwave flattening the rubble even as the bolt cast seemingly from the very hand of god smashes the infested building into the ground and into a crater. Rock and dirt are vaporized in that impact, hurled into the air.

Air that is swiftly filled by the follow up payload, as much slower moving dispersal systems fill the air with sterilization bomblets, spreading desscating and anti-nanite payloads over the entire area.

There is little that remains save for a giant crater, and the memory of screaming soldiers silenced by righteous fire.