Scene #4360: CoH Issue #1: Rikti Crash Site

Owner	Pose
War Witch	War Witch may have been the one to contact her allies about the need for heroes to help handle the Rikti issue, but there has been plenty of news along various heroic channels about the need for powerful, experienced, high-security-level heroes to assist in dealing with increased Rikti activity. The war with the Rikti isn't quite over yet, despite the open invasions by portals and such having ended... For now, at least. But one of their huge vessels crashed in an area formerly known as White Plains. This is the zone where possibly the most well-known hero in Paragon City, the Statesman, as well as Maiden Justice, fought off a horde of the villain Lord Nemesis's strange steam-powered robots. They defeated some six-hundred enemies in order to free Paragon City from Nemesis's grasp. Now the zone is thoroughly trashed, buildings broken, streets shattered into an uneven expanse, chasms formed by the underbelly of the city being exposed... Some neighborhoods are relatively intact, but the scars of battle are still prevalent, power is absent throughout most of the zone, and enemies lurk around every corner, or even stand openly in large group as they patrol or engage in combat with defenders. The blue glow of the War Walls shows that the force fields keeping each city zone separate from the others are still doing their job. But the access point into the zone is one under constant siege, if not by alien invaders, then by one of a few other groups, such as the greedy and corrupt Crey Industries, the monstrous Devouring Earth, or snipers dressed up in Prussian soldier uniforms... Though with firepower far more sophisticated than their anachronistic appearance would indicate. And over all of this, the faint hum of Rikti technology in the background, emanating from the half-buried disc of an enormous battleship lying in a scorched crater. Those who have come have a briefing waiting for them. Major Richard Flagg is one of the few military survivors of the Rikti Invasion, and leads the troops massing to contain the aliens near the crash site. Based on contacts who have directed those arriving to him, it seems he believes that actions speak louder than words, and he expects those who work with him to perform to the best of their abilities, even when times get tough. He realizes that the future safety of the city, and perhaps the world, depends on the containment of the alien Rikti. He puts his whole heart into his post, earning him the unqualified admiration of his men. He is standing near the entrance into the zone, at a military base that is being built and expanded upon all around them. The compound has watch towers, barbed wire, and basic defenses, but is a long ways from being secure. He introduces himself to everyone who comes and explains the nature of the mission. "I'm sure heroes such as yourselves understand the importance of containing the Rikti threat. If you're willing to help me toward that end, it could mean a lot to the city. It appears that the Rikti have developed a new communications code, and it's a doozy. I can only conclude that they're working on a new plot, something they want to protect with the utmost secrecy." He looks around at each individual, waiting for acceptance of the mission and agreement to form this Task Force, and then once receiving such, he explains further. "The code is transmitted via the airwaves, then decoded by small transmitters that the Rikti soldiers carry. If you can retrieve one of those transmitters and get it to the techs over on Peregrine Island, we'll be in business." There's plenty of Rikti in the area. They're the ones in alien armor with hover drones floating around them and future-weapons. Pretty easy to identify compared to humans in anchronistic uniforms, business suits, or giant walking trees, all of whom are also in this zone.
Silica	Silica listens to the briefing. "A fetch quest then..." she muses to herself mostly, idly petting Pina's head. "I wonder how many of them won't even have the item we're looking for." She's a gamer at heart, even despite having been trapped in that horrific death game for two years of her life. "Well, I'm not specced for front line fighting, but I'll provide support with magic. Pina can heal, so can I, and while I'm not a tank, I'm pretty good with my dagger." she offers to the others that are forming this group. "So, I guess I'll be the healer and off-dee pee ess." Most of these people won't know what you're talking about Silica. But oh well, with her piece said, her ears twitch, and the Cait Sith goes to messing around in her inventory, swapping gear for better support bonuses and MP ammount.
X	Once again, X finds himself called upon to fight a battle he's not sure is one that should be fought by him.... and at the same time, worried about what will happen to whoever isn't him that would fight in his stead. If help is truly called for... He's appeared at the meeting place via a beam of blue-white light splashing down from the heavens near the meeting place and heads onwards to the briefing upon materializing proper from the teleport. It's much worse than he feared. "Looking at an awful lot of firepower out there," is his assessment of the Rikti zone. The robot's frowning HEAVILY. "We not only need to grab one, we need to do it without the others noticing. Otherwise there's a chance they could change the codes on us before we learn ANYTHING..." As always, he's not so sure of the mission now. This isn't that visibly critical, but he's putting himself up against inhuman invaders who are still people under all that armor. Presumably. And the mission's hit and grab, highcontainment efforts... he makes a note to look up more details on this Rikti threat later. He is, of course, a bit concerned about Silica's youthful and simple-minded determination at running straight into this warzone. It's no place for kids! Or.... kid elves? ... Cat elves? He blinks a few time at her ears. And her crazy lingo. "Uh... sorry, half of those words went right over my head. By now everyone should know what I'm good at though. Ranged specialist, some close quarters in a pinch. And this is lightweight armor that can't take a lot of damage!" And... he's fighting to disarm and disable, which goes unspoken. Good thing it's not that big a deal in Paragon City!
Alden	Alden looks a bit out of place, in a warzone, between heroes and military personel, the small, admitedly cute digimon, listening curiously, lizardy tail twitching behind him. To make him look even... more unusual, there is a rather small humanoid girl with cat ears and a tail (shinki) resting atop his shoulder, who asks, "So we search for one of those transmistter thingies and bring it back?" she asks. Alden looks back at Silica, "I am good at doing damage, either ranged or at close range, admitedly, a bit better to things away." he says. "Not sure how well I can tank, since I don't know how hard those Rikti things hit, but can give it a shot, and Katze here is rather quick for her size, can sneak around and get intel."
Chat Noir	A SMALL WHILE BEFORE... Chat Noir stands in front of the warpgate, his baton-phone currently active as he speaks with his fellow partoller, Ladybug. With a faux thoughtful expression on his face not at all complimented by a wily grin he speaks into the video call, "We've looked for days and days and haven't found an Akuma to explain this. It's probably inside, so I'm going ahead to look about. Just think of me as your cat's paw." "Catch up as quick as you can, My Lady!" He exclaims, offering a two-fingered salute and shutting the video phone off. NOW Paragon City is a place of superheroes, so it's only natural that a couple of superheroes from the outside could blend in pretty well. Chat Noir, still assuming that this is some sort of incredibly convoluted supervillain gimmick, had simply rolled with what he'd found on the other side of the as-yet unexplored warp gate. The paths had eventually lead him /here/, now. The sensible thing to do would have been to turn back, contact Ladybug to fill her in on the weird superhero metropolis on the other side, and then go from there. Naturally the black-clad teenager had instead bounded into things head-first and eventually found himself milling about at some kind of military briefing. Chat Noir lingers near the back of the assembled Task Force, not really exactly a part of it but definitely pretending to be so. He's leaning on his staff casually, his face split with a wide grin that could be interpreted as sinister, but isn't really meant that way. INTERNALLY, Chat Noir isn't yet aware of the fact that he's stumbled into an actual other world and not some sort of supervillain gimmick, and is trying to figure out exactly how to identify the real target and set things back to normal. This complete failure to recognize what's happened will certainly not be trouble in the future.
Reinhardt Wilhelm	A A WILD REINHARDT HAS ARRIVED! Ritki invaders will be in for a hell of a greeting when Reinhardt arrives on-site, smashing through a patrol along the way while the rocket knight makes his way to the meeting zone. "Well met, Major!" He greets, snapping off a sharp salute to the fellow officer. "My name is Colonel Reinhardt Wilhelm, retired from active service in the Bundeswehr, but my duties call for me regardless. This will be handled shortly." He says during the briefing. Get the transmitters, get them to the techies, easy enough. Once he's in the field once more, Reinhardt will be remaining protectively with Silica, recognizing the petite young girl as fragile compared to himself. "Worry not, Madchen, I will ensure no harm comes to you while we work." He assures Silica, grinning beneath his helmet.
Ladybug	A SMALL WHILE BEFORE Ladybug stands atop a Parisian rooftop, squinting out at the sunny summer days and sighing exasperatedly. No sign of an Akuma, no sign of Papillion, no sign of... Anything. Her yo-yo beeps, and she flips down the top to peer down expectantly. Instead of helpful news, she is greeted with the rather distressing series of Is Chat, Wont Fix events. "Chat! No, don't!" But he does it anyway. Of course he does. Rubbing her face with a deep sense of suffering filling her heart, she turns towards the Arc du Triumph, leaping into the air before casting out her yo-yo. She could already feel this would be A Day. NOW Slinking into the military briefing while looking at her flipped-open yo-yo face like a tourist reading their GPS. On its face is... A GPS display, duh, with a green cat-paw-print symbol that she follows, wandering into the military briefing before looking around with an almost startled expression. "Where are we..? Is this some sort of... video game Akuma? I think I heard of a game like this. But what could the item be?" Ladybug raises her hand, like a dumb middle schooler would, before letting it drop, realizing that was dumb as hell to do in a military briefing. Instead, she tries to figure out what's going on. There are so many colorful heroes here, and... alien invaders? Leaning in to Chat's ear, she mutters a quiet question. "Do you think they all have Miraculous?"
Cirra Constantine	A warzone, almost exactly next to a city. How dark. You'd think no one in their right minds would live in Paragon City. But then again, Cirra thinks. People live in the Junkyard next to the roaming bands of Nightmare Golems. The Judge Walks out of the meeting next to Silica as she she slides her horned helmet back on. "These enemies won't have as many obvious tells that they're attacking, so watch yourself." She doesn't dote on Silica needlessly but having played with the younger girl in ALO has produced a familiarity she rarely shows anyone else.
Maya	The zone brought back bad memories fo Maya of the Heratic war on her home world. She listend to the briefing getting the gist of what they need to do. It seeme4d simple enoughbut they had a lot of aliens to deal with one way or another. She'll be on heer feet and ready to go. She took a look at Silica nad grined. "One of the Gate Crashers, right? Your one of Kirito's friends as well?" Maya had sadly not seen her friend in some time but she'd picked up enough along the way. The Blue Witch as Maya goes by here was in full costume, she looked like some anime witch, down to having visable body tattoos here and there on her outfit but she seem relaxed and ready for a brawl.
Chat Noir	Chat Noir cants his head towards Ladybug in answer to her leaning in, and the act only seems to cause his grin to grow broader still. He issues an exaggerated sigh and whispers back, "It would be pawsitively felicitous if there was more than one Chat Noir to go around, but that one isn't wearing jewelry." A faint nod is directed towards Silica. If he has an explanation for why he doesn't think the /others/ could be fellow Miraculous-bearing superheroes he doesn't offer it, almost certainly because it offers him no opportunities to make dumb jokes. Though the cat ears /he/ bears don't look like they should be functional at all, they move and twitch much like Silica's do. Actually, the fact that hers /are/ so much more realistic catches his eye just now. Chat Noir ponders that and shifts his weight away from his staff, leaning towards Ladybug instead since she's given him a small opening. "Aliens?" He bounces the idea towards her quietly, but it doesn't seem that likely because it's too obvious. The scenario is tilted towards dealing with the aliens, so if it's an akuma, for some reason it would need to be aliens that they're somehow upset about.
Silica	Silica looks over as Reinhardt comes barreling in, and smiles up at his offer. "Thanks! I work better when I'm not having to dodge everything!" she chirps merrily. Cirra gets a nod. "I know, I'm not in Alfheim right now, but even so... you just have to know what to look for. Everything has a tell before it does anything." learning the openings in VRMMO monsters has given some minor insight into real life bodylanguage. It's not perfect by any means, but it could help. Chat's observation gets an ear twitch from Silica, and her tail slashes the air as she leans back and gives him a once over. After that though she smiles, ears perking back up before she trots over. "Hey, hi. I've not seen you before, I'm Silica." she says, leaning forward with her hands clasped behind her back. The others get enough of a greeting to be polite. Though X earns a smile. "Hello mister robot! You should know I can take care of myself!" she offers to his concerned look. They /did/ fight together that one time, after all.
Alden	The digimon looks around, trying to figure out who he met or not so far. He met Reinheardt!, at least for a moment, so he waves in his direction, he also offers a happy wave to the rest as well, and decides to get closer to introduce himself. It pretty much consists on mentioning his name, and Katze's. The Shinki bows politely as well, "Nice to meet you!" she says. Alden rubs the back of his head, "I admit I never did much of tracking... beyond hunting for other digimon, but I kind of have a special sense to find them... unless you think I can sniff one.". Meanwhile, Katze catches someone using cat puns, and inmediatly turns her attention to Chat noir, jumping of his shoulder to approach the young man, seemingly drawn to the Cat Elf and the human with cat ears. "Hi!".
Ladybug	Ladybug is having a mild overload of information and thoughts unbidden, which isn't helped by her partner, the im-paw-sible Chat engaging in his grinning and punning and general lackadasical nature. An armored giant - who sounds like he could be her dad if her dad was German - a robot man, a cat girl (she needed another cat in her life), a strange creature attended by a tiny doll... a normal woman? Well, she looks like some sort of video-game character brought to life. It's all too much. Since, however, Silica is engaging Chat, Ladybug takes the opportunity to be responsible. "Hello - I'm Ladybug. This is my partner." She thumbs at Chat, who will almost certainly introduce himself, while she flips closed her yo-yo and quirks a domino mask'd brow. "Have you seen a purple butterfly around here? Or, well..." She can't ask about Akuma, what would she say? 'they're monsters that possess people and oh yeah it looks like half the people in this room could be one'. That's descriptive! She forces herself to put on a kind smile - which isn't too hard, as Silica is adorable and fills her head with a few ideas for new outfits. "We're heroes... from Paris?" Was that relevant? Maybe this was some sort of dream world? Alternate universe? Her head hurt.
Chat Noir	Suddenly, Chat Noir is getting a lot of attention, which has the unfortunate side effect of making it nigh impossible to conduct a private conversation with Ladybug. He toggles the length of the staff down to more of a cane with the simple glide of a clawed finger, moving it over in front of himself to lean forward against it with both hands. Dear lord he's just straight up posing now, it's not even subtle. "Chat Noir! It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Silica. You have meownificent taste in attire." He twitches one of his cat ears, pointedly. It hasn't occurred to him that in fact she is just a cat person of some kind. That simply doesn't happen. The Shinki called Katze comes right along to start challenging his perceptions of things though, and did Silica call that blue guy a robot? He shifts his baton out of the way to crouch down more level with the little thing, offering a finger in greeting instead of his whole hand. "Hello there! I think you have me at a disadvantage, little girl?" It's delivered as a question because Chat Noir isn't certain what he's actually talking to, how old she really is, or... just in general what to do with her. He's a pushy confident guy sometimes, but he actually would prefer to make a good impression.
War Witch	Major Flagg has acknowledged everyone, returned any greetings, but as people continue to mill around, he asks pointedly. "Have you found a Rikti transmitter yet? No? Well, time's a-wastin'!" He then gestures out at the area OUTSIDE the military encampment where all the enemies are, that they should be fighting. This is a time-sensitive operation. If people are worried about them changing codes or something, then MAYBE THEY SHOULD GET A MOVE ON. A transmtiter needs to not only be recovered but then gotten to someone else so they can decode it. That means going out there and beating up hostile aliens and their drones. And the streets are full of them. Armored figures with strangely-shaped heads, energy pistols, high-tech swords that flow some kind of plasma current along the blade, rifles, force fields... And then there's the drones flying around, and pale, nasty-looking little monkey-like creatures with claws and sharp teeth that swarm and hop up the sides of buildings, fallen or otherwise, as they hunt for prey. The heroes have their pick of targets. But they better get moving.
Silica	Ooop, that's right, she was here to help hunt down a thing. "We'll talk later~!" she chirps to Chat. As she gathers her wits again, the Cait Sith looks over at Maya, blushing faintly after having accidentally ignored her. "Oh, Um... Yes, yes I am." she offers, then looks to Reinhardt and the rest. "Tanks first. Ranged fighters second row, supports in between." she offers as a formation strategy. Cirra would notice more than the rest. A strange air has fallen around the norally bubblely girl, her eyes have taken on a diamond-hard determination... one borne from having to literally fight for her life, every single day for two straight years. "Pina. Guard!" she says, pointing at Reinhardt. The little feather stole around her neck picks its head up, chirptrills, then flaps into the air, hovering near to the giant man-mountain. "She'll heal you if you get hurt." she explains, before holding up her hands and beginning to chant in not!Norse. Words of Power form around her, locking into place as she speaks each one. As the final one locks in, a 'pulse' of energy surrounds each member of her 'party', providing them with a minor protective barrier. It should help against most attacks, but won't outright block anything but the weakest of hits.
Reinhardt Wilhelm	Yes, that would be a good thing to get going. Reinhardt nods to the French heroes, and then beckons people to follow as he takes point. "ONWARD!" He is gleefully smashing aliens left and right as he goes into the fray, his hammer hitting each enemy with the force of a meteor. He's /really/ good at this, not to mention weathering plasma blasts without a mind given to them. "Ahahaha! I LIVE FOR THIS! /Bring it!/" In a hurry, Reinhardt just keeps a smashing'. Silica will be VERY safe if she remains near him, in a weird way.
Cirra Constantine	Cirra might look normal... for a woman in platemail that was designed with the assistance of Computer-aided Manufacturing. She pauses after speaking to Silica staring slightly at Chat as he makes a load of cat puns. "And don't talk to too many strangers." she adds to her previous advice as the group moves out. She glances aside as Silica puts on her game face. Even ALO she sees it, that moment where she stops being the group's mascot and becomes a focused supporter. Cirra draws out her crystaline Judge Blade as the protective spell goes up. "Follow in Reinhardt's wake, a pair to each side to clean up what escapes his hammer." and proceeds to practice what she preaches, moving swiftly at the German giant's left side, slicing at any enemies with her sword.
Alden	Katze has enough time to shake a finger, "I like your outfit, I am Katze!" she meows, before any further talk is interrupted by the army person, "Oops, seems we gotta go!" she says, swiftly rushing back to Alden, and somehow, managing to effortlessly jump on Alden's head, landing lightly. The two follow the lead, and stick close to the group, with Alden getting surprised by the 'buff'. "I can do either long range and area stuff, or close combat, which do you think might be more useful?... I am not used to group tactics yet." he muses. Katze looks at the glow around herself, "Neat!" she chimes, before summoning her combat gear, standing up adn striking a pose, "Cat armor activate!" she says, before said gear just... appears on her. It involves a helmet, chest armor, a rather large, paw shaped glove/shield for her left arm, and oddly, the right hand and forearm being replaced by a large drill!. Alden groans, "You don't need to summon your armor with a spell, you are not a super hero.". "But it's cool!" is the rebuttal. Alden watches Reinhardt start smackign aliens around, and following Cirra's advice, he decides to go ahead with close range. "Katze, please." he asks. The Shinki produces a card for some sort of game, and slides it through a reader in Alden's D-Ark. There is a flash of light, Alden's form bursting in a small group of voxels, before it is replaced by a far more intimidating one, a tall (About Reinhardt tall, maybe a couple inches less, but not that far), bipedal wolf creature wearing jeans, and wielding metal knuckles appears. He just goes to the right side, moving to attack any leftover creature with surprisingly strong punches, kicks, and the ocassional fire breath attack.
X	"No denying you have some skills, miss!" X agrees with a bit of a smile. "Amazing ones! But horrible things happen on battlefields from the smallest accidents... I don't want you getting hurt! PLEASE fly away if it gets too danger--" There goes Reinhardt. X boggles. "-...ous..." Looks like a guy who'd get along well with Zero, in a way... And wait, didn't he have... "That's a perfect idea... pardon me!" X takes a flying leap over to Reinhardt, who's providing EXCELLENT cover for the ranged.. squishies. X is not THAt squishy, but he's quite lacking in armor right now. "Let's both clear a path!" The robot exclaims, clapping a hand to Reinhardt's arm for a few moments. If the knight's armor is heavily computerized, it probably just detected a rather aggressive signal harmlessly pulsing through, almost like sonar. It's just been analyzed! And in the next few moments, X brings his buster forward and leaps out from behind the cover provided by the prodigiously oversized knight. Light flares from his buster onwards, quickly engulfing his whole body. Where the light passes, his blue alloy-skin's shifted to steel silvery-grey with crimson trim, eerily close to Reinhardt's. The X-Buster's raised, but panels open up around the barrel - panels that it didn't HAVE moments before. There's a SURGE of energy and.... And soon, X, Reinhardt, and Silica are all enjoying considerable cover from weapons fire, thanks to a TRANSLUCENT CURVED SHIELD tinted cerulean blue being projected from the Variable Weapon System!
Chat Noir	The girl they just met starts flying and putting barriers around the people who keep close to her, including the great pile of sheer mass that Reinhardt represents. Chat Noir looks meaningfully towards Ladybug, but this just doesn't make /sense/. If they're not other superheroes, then they're part of the akuma's whole schtick, which would make this some sort of really elaborate honey trap. It has to be one or the other, doesn't it? "Well it looks like we have work to /cat/ch up on if we want to unravel this mystery. After me, My Lady!" It's around the time that he makes this sort of proclamation that Chat Noir inevitably overextends himself and has to get dragged back into line by Ladybug. Allowing his baton to shrink down to its minimum size and replacing it at the small of his back, he bounds away on all fours. Not /too/ far away, but enough to be considered plenty out of formation by any reasonable standard of measurement you can apply to this situation. Chat Noir slips among them casually, giving a pair of the weapon-toting aliens a thump each on the sides with his fists in passing to try to bait them into giving chase, belt flailing along behind him dramatically (or comically, depending on perspective).
Maya	Maya hers everything Flagg has had to say to and she'll get on the move with everyone else she notices the various armored aliens awshe heads out and the monkey-like creatures? She'll end up trying to thing those things out given how they might swam everyone else she'll be pulling several cards out and giving Slica a bit of a grin as she listens to her set up sopme basic formations. It's a good idea andthen comes the lighting, the card in her hand glows blue as blue flames leech from her body into it. Then she lts tthe lighting lose into the horde of monkey-like creatures hopefully that wuill give her allies some breathing space. "Should anyone be injured I should be able to help with my magic!"
Ladybug	Tapping Chat Noir's posing-cane with a foot as if to keep him off balance - or on his toes, the mildly disapproving Ladybug continues to try and absorb - process - everything that's going on. And, you know, it was almost inevitable that the Major would dislike the fact that he gave a mission and then all of the heroes stood around socializing. If she needed help and was telling people what to do and they all started making cat puns, Ladybug would have probably had stern words too. And so the group rolls out, the rather impressive shield wall of Reinhardt leading the charge. Cirra directing people, others... Chat. Chat no. Chat /pls/. Moiving one increment towards 'I am going to hate it every time he says that, aren't I?', Ladybug tries to follow after Chat Noir yelling 'Chat! Come back!', but... she has to cover her side, right? Like the armor woman said? UNLESS IT WAS AN AWFUL TRAP BY PAPILLION AND AND Ladybug wipes her face one more time, before swinging her yo-yo up to a high point, swinging up to get some air - and vision on what's going on.
War Witch	The response to the assault by Reinhardt charging into the fray is blasts of strange green-black energy that is capable of causing disorientation through short-circuiting machines and nervous systems alike. Elites are clearly going to be more resistant to that than most, but it's still not fun to get hit with. Likewise, just as Silica casts protective barriers on her allies, a Rikti Guardian starts thrusting their hand out, projectors in their armor allowing them to put protective shields around THEIR allies. He or she or it also seems to be capable of healing those around it. If the enemies in this case aren't so much mooks as foes with the same sort of tactics and capabilities as the heroes have... That would explain part of why the Rikti are such a big deal. The other part, obviously, is their numbers and technological superiority. Speaking of which, a Rikti Communications Officer, upon seeing his comrades get sent flying by Reinhardt, and then Cirra slashing foes and carving into their armor (even as they retaliate with plasma-current blades of their own), and then some kind of WOLF MAN performing WOLF-FU on some others... Well, he tap-tap-taps on a device on his forearm, and a shrieking, collapsing sound of air and space tearing open accompany an eerie green portal appearing and Rikti reinforcements beginning to pour out of it. The shield X copied helps in sparing his comrades from some of the barrage of weapons fire, but the drones in the air begin raining more of their strange energy blasts down on the Elites. These blasts seem calibrated not to disorient, but to knock down by destabilizing local gravitational fields for a moment. Chat's attempt to bait aliens after him, striking two in their armor-plated sides in the process and staggering them, baits the wrong aliens. As he runs through, a patrol of a dozen of those ghastly Rikti Monkeys come around the corner, see him, and immediately start leaping at him with surprising range and strength, chittering and generally adding to the chaos. They are small, weak, easily defeated. But their teeth and claws are sharp, and they are numerous. Thankfully, Maya was already targetting the pack of nasty, flesh-chewing, ferocious monsters. Lightning surges through their ranks. But then there's the unpleasant discovery as they fall that they... Release toxic gas from their pores upon defeat, creating clouds of harmful vapours. And also that apparently they are psychic because some of them are hanging back and firing bots of pink mental energy from their heads into the melee. Ladybug perspective from above reveals a different look at the situation. There are about 25 to 30 enemies on the ground, not counting a half-dozen armored drones in the air. There are other forces in the area, and there's a glowing portal near the rear of the enemy group disgorging more troops. Destroying the portal or the one who called for it might be a good idea here. And Ladybug might be the only one who even knows the latter two are present given everything else going on and everyone else in the way.
Silica	Silica maintains her position behind Reinhardt, using the shielding to keep up her healing incantations. She doesn't have the HP Gauges in her HUD to guide her, but somehow, she can still sense who needs a top-up more or less. Magenta eyes dart around, taking in how the Rikti are reacting. How they stand, how they move. Learning what they do before every action. The drones overhead are harder to read. They don't have any moving limbs to indicate when they'll attack, but... she can still see it, little shifts in light before one of those bolts fires. It gives her an idea. "I hope you can hold on for a second, I'm going to try something." she says, before backflipping away from the main line, and turning her eyes skywards. She takes note of the drones locations, before lifting her hands again. "Ek, Skyt, Tuttugu, Smar, stroia!" Each word locks into place, and as the last is spoken, 20 shining green lances spray out from a circle field eminating from the Cait Sith's hands. She's aiming to shoot down some of those Drones before they can destabilize the formation, thought doesn't get away with the effort unscathed as some of those drone bolts slam into and around her.
Chat Noir	Really, there was no way this was going to end satisfactorily with Chat Noir running off the way he did. He darts past the armored aliens he'd slapped only to run headlong into a pack of what can only charitably be described as monkeys. He transitions from a bit of an odd, feral run into a sliding kick that causes one of them to explode into gas around him, and most of the others in the surroundings are electrocuted promptly by Maya. This is good news-bad news time. The good news is that he's not covered in murderous alien monkeys. The bad news is that he's /absolutely/ immersed in that gas. This is, to be clear, not Maya's fault at all. He practically ran into the middle of these things as she was aiming. A great coughing fit issues from the cloud of poison, and gravity rays descend from the drones above to start pelting the area. Around's no good, he can't go down. Coughing and spluttering all the while, Chat Noir draws his staff, plants it against the ground, and extends it. He rises up into the sky /very/ rapidly, escaping the cloud of poison gas that had materialized around him for the moment. He stares blearily around, trying to reorient himself. Then some of those gravity bolts start hitting the base of his staff, tossing it into the air momentarily and jerking the boy around. He shoots an alarmed look downwards as the staff hits the ground again with a jarring jolt, causing him to slide down about a foot. Then it starts to tilt off to one side instead of acting like a useful perch like it was half a moment ago. Ohhh boy.
Alden	Alden is surprised at the organization of the aliens, and poisonous monkeys!. And fire from the sky!. He lets out a few surprised yelps as he is hit with the stun bolts, and the gravity ones. Seems the stunning ones are not quite as effective as one might expect, but the other ones work well enough. "Katze, Range." he barks loudly. Seems the device in Katze's hands works as a radio of sorts, since she takes the command, and uses a card on the reader again. There is another similar burst of light and voxels/pixels, before a new figure appears, this time a large, robotic looking quadruped wolf!, one that seems to come with rocket pods/launchers on it's shoulders. The wolf jumps to the air, and manages to... stand there, looking around for the drones, locking on a couple, "I'll help with the flying ones!" he barks. There is a series of clicks as the wolf's frame reveals a lot of hidden compartments, all of which are holding some sort of explosive ordinance. "Giga Destruction!" he says, before releasing a swarm of smallish, but fairly strong missiles, all of which fly towards a group of the drones. Then he gets hit by a couple gravity beams, and regrets getting airborne to attack, causing him to land again with a loud thud. He does not seem too hurt, but might need a second or two to get up.
Reinhardt Wilhelm	"Take your time, my child!" Reinhardt says to Silica, mid-swing as he lunges at one of the Rikti. The Commander will get a fireball launched at him, as Reinhardt begins to focus his attacks towards he commander. Of course, he winds up having a handful of Rikti portal-ing all in, and Reinhardt charges the lot of them with a hearty yell. He swings wide with his hammer, intending on scattering their numbers while he does as much damage as he can.
Cirra Constantine	Cirra's sword sings as it meets Rikti armor and weapon alike with equal capacity. Whatever it's made out of it's enough to resist those plasma blades. With Silica dealing with the drones attempting to stagger them and Alden off to DigiVolve, Cirra holds up a hand and swings it down, pointing with two fingers at the Rikti medic that's keeping the enemy on it's feet. "Enemy support! Disable it!" and ducks below the swing of Rikti weapon to draw a card from her side and slap it on to the ground, "The. Briar!" causing thorny crystal vines to grow from the ground, rushing towards the enemy healer to try and entrap it - and anything in their way.
X	Empowered by Silica's protection and pushing his Variable Weapon System to its present limits, X has temporarily become a juggernaut charging through the weapons fire at Reinhardt's side! He's not slow to notice the drones flying up overhead, but what he DOESN'T expect is... weird GRAVITY BOLTS. He dodges the first few shots, but one of them eventually catches him in the arm and slams him to the ground, HARD with a thud and a protesting yell from the robot. The shield fizzles out, but it did a hell of a job fending off those disruptor shots. Unfortunately holding up that long has drained that weapon's capacitors to mere dregs. It's a terribly inefficient gadget his systems just aren't optimized for. Unwilling to give up that easy, X exerts everything he's got and SPRINGS back to his feet with a hot-blooded howl. The X-Buster reconfigures and - with a second wave of light - his previous color scheme resurfaces. This time he goes on the OFFENSIVE, aiming upwards and unleashing shot after shot of solar plasma at the drones while circling around into Reinhardt's wake! "What kind of weapon WAS that? Gravity manipulation?!" A concept that isn't new to him, but he's never seen it turned into a LASER BEFORE.
Ladybug	Coming up from a crouch on the rooftops after landing, Ladybug looks out. There's... a lot of goons, and the rest of the group were making headway. But that portal - belching out more enemies, and too bug to be something she could break casually. Maybe she could find a control panel... But they're aliens. She's lucky, not impossibly good-graced and a tech-head to boot. There was always Chat Noir... Whose headstrong nature caused him get bombed by his own allies, and have to escape the cloud on his staff, which left him precariously wobbling in the air. Well, she couldn't just /call/ him and politely asking him in a conversational tone to use his super-power on that portal that he can't see from where he is. Instead, tossing her yo-yo around a convenient light-pole and having it return, she then hurls the spotted disc towards Chat's dangling form, before bracing her foot against a bit of roof and yanking full-strength. Reeling her garbage cat in, she drops to street level for extra tug, leaving him tied up and upside down next to her. "You're very inconsiderate, Chat, sitting on your phone makes it hard for me to call." She gestures past the alien robots, towards where they're congregating from as she releases him and her yo-yo retracts. "You should probably break the teleporter, and then we can wipe out the robots much easier. Just... Do it fast, alright? We don't know what will happen if you de-transform in here." She suggests, worry infiltrating her tone.
Maya	There are sure a lot of hostile aliens out there to be certain, she seem to know what she's doing to get the crazy little monster thined out,she is forced to leap back as the thing die making some sort of horrible toxic attack as they die. She does take note og Chat Nori and LAdy Bug they do seem to be new to her at least. She does seem to be now adapting to this but she's already caoughing anf hacking though from the horrible gas. Shge does do her best however to help she starts to cast again pulling back. this time it's not an attack, but a spell one to purge those effected by the toxin of it and a second follow up spell to ward them. Thsoe who allow it such as Chat and Ladybug woudl find they had a faint gold glow and would be somewhat protected from physical damage for a time.
War Witch	Amidst all the chaos of combat, one of the Rikti drops a device that looks like a communicator. It doesn't appear as though the enemies are going to stop fighting any time soon, even though their numbers are being sharply reduced thanks to the combined efforts of the heroes, and they are likely to win eventually. But while they fight on, the greater mission of getting the device to someone who can work on decoding Rikti communication signals takes priority. It's probably time to pull back to base. The Rikti will only pursue for a short while if they do so, though at least all those nasty Rikti Monkeys are out of the fight, and the drones lie in flaming heaps... Though they had an unpleasant degree of frictionless armor and deflection shields built in that made hitting them frustrating. But once struck enough times, they crashed and burned. Many other Rikti lie around on the ground, though the unconscious and injured are teleporting out, in a way very dissimilar from the standard medi-porter evacuation seen in Paragon City proper. Do the Rikti have their own medi-porter system? That's a problem if so. Because it means they really do have most of the benefits that heroes do. And the Elites are likely to fight the Rikti again and again until they're evicted from this planet for good. That being said, it seems that the mission has been accomplished! ...Or at least the first stage.
Silica	Silica pants softly, sprawled out from being thrown around by those gravity bolts. She looks at her HP gauge... in the orange... too close for comfort. She incants a personal healing spell, topping her off to a more sustainable position, before spying something on the ground. She shifts onto all fours, and scampers over to it, picking it up with a deft little pounce, before backflipping out of the fray again. She radios in to the others, then gathers herself into a crouch, before springing skyward, four yellow pixie wings sprouting from her back as she takes flight to get clear of the combat zone.
Reinhardt Wilhelm	Reinhardt gives one last swing, his hammer smashing somebody like he was at the drive-range, and he then nods to Silica. "I will cover our retreat, don't worry!" He calls out, flashing a thumbs up cheerfully before he goes back to brawling. Once he has his fill of SLAUGHTERED PREY, he opts to boost his way out of the immediate area, and takes off with the force of an angry elephant in sprint while he runs. Might not be a good idea to be in front of him.
Cirra Constantine	Target aquired and mission accomplished, Cirra lifts up another law card and tosses it down, "The. Rampart!" creating a wall of crystal spikes behind Reinhardt when he begins to retreat, and then takes off in a run after everyone else.
Alden	The metal wolf grunts as he picks up from the floor, shaking his body a bit, "Ugh, note to self, try to be more careful." he says, before looking around, tail giving a wag a the mention of mission success!. He just follows the rest, flying away!. with Katze on his head.
Chat Noir	As the tremendously extended staff upon which he is perched tilts precariously, Chat Noir stares down with a dread of the inevitable feeling of falling. It's not going to kill him, he realizes, but the physical impulses /not/ to fall are just too strong. He's about ready to brace for impact or attempt to separate his baton and catch himself on something else -- unlikely -- when a familiar sensation twines itself around him. He looks down. A wire is wound 'round his form and bound by a circular spotted red disk. Oh thank god. Chat Noir retracts his baton back to minimal length and replaces it as he's dragged away by Ladybug, and comes to rest in an upside down hang from a light pole. His expression is relieved, but quickly turns catty and amused, as if he /hadn't/ just made a tremendous fool of himself. He doesn't actually care, he's having way too much fun. "I'm flattered that you're so eager to get in touch. Cat get enough of me, My Lady?" This is probably the exact moment that Ladybug releases her yo-yo. Chat Noir is, for once, ready and manages not to go tumbling into a heap. He flips over on his way down and-- staggers around before gaining his footing properly, acting thereafter as if the stagger was entirely intentional, no trouble here at all. As is /usually/ the case, he does manage to pull himself together enough to put on a serious face about the plan Ladybug is pushing him towards, but then... then people pick up something and start scrambling out. Clearing his throat, he points a clawed hand in the direction of their retreating companions and replies, "I'd be purrfectly pleased to break things for you, My Lady, but I don't see any akuma here and all of the others seem to have gotten what they wanted. We can't be sure what that means yet."
Maya	They had got things together fairly fast all thins considered and Maya would be happy to get out of here once they were doing. Seeing Silicia has what they camer for and is pulling out now. She's got an idea as she channels a nee spell this one would cause a faint green glow and speed up everyone's response time, in short? They are going to be a lot faster for a little bit and Maya's moving it too as she now unleahses a few bolts of flame to gibver her allies covering fire. "Once Slicia's clear we all need to get out of here as well!" She's keeping an eye on Chat and Ladybug. Slicia she knows by reputation and she has some experiance with Alden, Cirra and Reinhardt at this point along with X. It's time to hopefully get ev eyrone else now out.
X	Medical teleporting Rikti's a plus in X's book for now! He's not out for blood here.... just helping people who clearly need it, lest their city be overrun! But Paragon's situation's starting to get more than a little ridiculous the more he thinks about it. How can ONE CITY play host to so many problems, so many heroes and troublemakers, and still be standing at the end of the day? Why do people still LIVE here? The more he thinks on it, the more he's not sure he wants to know... He makes haste away from the battlefield, doing spectacular backwards leaps and glancing over his shoulder while laying down covering fire from the buster, face frantic and increasingly frustrated. This was a nightmare. They knew nothing about what they were going to be facing and only won through sheer firepower! And... He could have SWORN one of their number was a flying catboy this time. Yeah, that's him over there! People in this city are just crazy. "On it, Maya! You get clear too!"
Ladybug	Ladybug looks at Chat Noir, the Robot Aliens, and then the retreating friends. "I guess I'm paw-llowing your lead this time." She smirks, before resuming her serious expression. "Because you're right - no Akuma, and the rest are retreating. Do you think the Akuma... heard us? But the portal couldn't be the item - it's too big! We'll... figure it out later." She turns to sprint after the party. "We're coming!"