Scene Listing

||

Scene Schedule

||

Scene Schedule RSS

Owner	Pose
Gideon Kaspar	It's the middle of the goddamn night near the foothills of a postcard snow-capped mountain range at the beginning of winter. Any complaining someone might want to do would best be checked against the mercy that it isn't actually snowing. Sure, the roads (of which there are a lot more now, outside of SF's territory and towards non-corporate urban sectors) are covered in a thin layer of black ice, the grass crackles with frost that won't melt until sunrise, and it's obnoxiously easier to see the fog in front of one's face than the terrain thirty feet away, given the experience of being nearly in the middle of nowhere where it not for a large highway not far away, but it could be worse.     That knowledge will have to keep people warm on the walk here. It will *be* a walk, and nobody is being offered a ride, because of the sensitive nature of this bit of recon. This is technically neither Sangvis Ferri's territory, nor G&K's, covered by no private security contract because the stretch of land is by the government in name, and by the army in practice. Of course SF has no right to be here, but their inteference hasn't been fully verified, never mind proven. Considering G&K is currently trying to downplay the situation as much as possible to their private and government investors, petitioning to try and get access to a military listening post for the totally-we-swear-for-real purposes of checking for enemy-we-can't-really-tell-you-about collusion or hijacking in order to spy on our top-secret-don't-exist project T-Dolls, would be understandably a bad idea.     "The good news . . ." Clover continues her train of thought over the crunchy, frozen field, from the road and up the steep incline past it, puffing a little from the hike up the exposed shale hillside before that, and the fence between the two. ". . . is that since Sangvis Ferri is one of the military's primary weapons contractors, an outpost on their borders will be very lightly defended. This outpost . . . exists mostly for federal reasons, not wartime ones. Keeping a net of coverage, and all."     Leading the group as best she is able, they'll be arriving at the lower bounds of several rises, hills, and exposed rock faces that surround the winding road and many fenced checkpoints up to a small sensor complex up top. The main building has a commanding view of the terrain all around, but in the middle of the night, what really works are the three visible radar towers spaced around it in a triangle, giant dishes and all, quite probably for the purposes of operating without help from other outposts in triangulation. They unfortunately aren't close enough to the mountains to have some convenient cliff to drop from, and there is only one road through it all, but that's probably a bad idea anyways, given the floodlights, metal detectors, alarm barriers, and similar strewn all up and down its length.
Gideon Kaspar	Despite the number of lights, both for visibility and flashing to show status, there don't seem to be any people outside. The lower bounds have only a handful of vehicles left in parking spaces or small garages, the middle tier has nobody manning any kind of emplaced weaponry, probably being all automated, there isn't a soul at any of the checkpoint booths, none of the lights are on around the supply depots, and the radar units are all unmanned, just connected to a central computer.     "So . . . Griffin can't send any formally affiliated units this way, or it'd be a breach of contract. It's just me, since technically I'm a part of 16Lab until the papers are updated. You guys aren't from anywhere, so just try not to be noticed. All we have to do . . . is to check for any Sangvis forces around the area, and if we find none, check the mainframe for signs of being used by Sangvis Ferri. I really doubt the military would just let them in, even if we'd seen any human representatives of the company by now, so if you get caught . . ."     Clover takes a break for a second, catching her breath as she pulls out a slip of paper which are apparently a map and instructions. "Let's see. Schedule . . . rotations . . . passwords . . . exfil- ahah! In case you get caught, 'just tell them you got lost'." Clover blinks twice in silence. "Is that some kind of code phrase I wonder? Maybe the Commander has a man on the inside."
Seifer Almasy	Seifer Almasy is actually really good at this shit.      One wouldn't think that the loudmouthed, aggressive, hot-headed would-be Knight would be good at night missions. One would think that his tendency to shout, to swagger, to bring bravado and braggadacio where brevity would be better, would get in the way. But in fact Seifer makes his way through the freezing cold in the middle of the night with a surprising degree of decorum and quiet. As Clover talks, Seifer listens, and he comments - quietly - "So we're hittin' a government contractor?"      This doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest. Governments always have tyrants that need slaying. The Fox Knight looks down at the visible radar towers, the giant dishes, the metal detectors, the whole nine yards, and quietly considers it. He considers the automated weaponry, the emptiness of the whole place, and he comes to a conclusion.      Robot guards are assholes.      Thankfully, besides this thought, he's got a real big heavy white coat to keep him warm, and he's practicing circulating his Soul Force for the same purpose. In fact, every so often, people can catch a glimpse of Seifer's breathing turning from a white cloud to a dark cloud, and the smell of gunpowder briefly filling the air. It's not helping *too* too much, but it's practice, and it's practice in a practical situation, and Hyne knows Seifer's at his best when he's in a practical situation instead of a training one.      "OK. So the objective is scout, sneak in, check the database, an' scram, with minimal interaction."      Well, better get started.      "We got a point of entry or are we all fine just goin' through the front door?"
Nova Terra	A cold mountain night. The kind of weather that can cause some serious damage if you're not prepared for it. Nova is naturally wearing appropriate clothing for this environment and type of mission.     Which is to say she's wearing what she always wears, here skin-tight hostile environment suit.     Seemingly comfortable despite the obvious thinness of her clothing, Nova looks through her visor at the target facility in the distance. The nightvision mode is of course quite useful. As is the zoom function. Through her HUD she can identify a number of security systems. Resting her rifle over her shoulder, she hmmms quietly.     "The front door is likely to get us noticed."     Nova turns her head to look at the others. Doubtful that everyone here is up for a quiet infiltration, she adds, "Maybe not a bad thing though." Looking back at the facility Nova tries to identify a quiet way in.     Meanwhile, Nova outlines what she has in mind. "I suggest a two team plan. One team goes in through the front like Almasy suggests. Draws the attention of any hostile elements, confirming whether they are present or not. Second team uses the distraction to sneak past and access the mainframe."
Tomoe	Tomoe looks to Clover for a moment listening to the T-doll. "Nobodies so far as this world concerned and I'm all right with that. She takes another look round. "I don't like this Clover. She then laughs a little. Memories of a certain pirate and pokemon trainer who were infamous for getting lost came to mind. "No that actually happens in the multiverse, maybe he does. Your commander has shown got some serious skills and has adapted fast." She looks to Seifer for a moment. She summons a menu, which glows before her and she punches in a command the towering Tomoe seems to shrink to a far shorter redheaded woman in a tactical armoured body suit. Well, appearance wise. "This might stand out a bit less than a Salamander." She notes her voice unchanged and honestly anyone whom knew of her would be able to figure out who she was, still, it was less likely to be spotted than a Towering fairy knight. "I could go with the back team to cover them in the event something happens there." She notes to nova.
Staren	Staren would really prefer to bring his mecha to all future missions against Sangvis, giving how the others have gone. So when asked to not bring a mecha to this one, he decided to BE a robot. Of course, he doesn't resemble the T-Dolls at all, not even looking like a male version -- the whole 'heavy plate armor' aesthetic contrasts with their 'wearing clothing and uniforms' aesthetic. Backing him up are a squad of cases (low-quality robots that could not be mistaken for human) in what looks similar to riot or SWAT team armor, carrying high-tech bazooka-like launchers on their backs and caseless rifles in their hands.     The long walk doesn't bother Staren at all. He's very probably got it on literal autopilot while he reviews briefing documents and such. He gives Clover a confused look. "How are you out of breath? You're a robot."     After she completes her explanation, he suggests, "I think that's sarcasm. We're /way/ too heavily armed to be lost civilians. We'll probably have to fight our way out."     To Nova, he comments, "Not a bad plan, but who goes with which team? I'm WAY too obviously not a civilian right now. Heck, if they check me with sensors, aren't they more likely to figure I'm some experimental new T-Doll? Maybe I should go with the 'stealth' team -- both to check the computers, and to provide some firepower if we get caught anyway and have to fight our way out."     Staren turns his head towards the cases. "These guys will stay behind as backup. They can provide a secondary distraction and divide any forces coming after us."
Haguro	The ship-like turrets that Haguro would normally equip on missions generally aren't the easiest things to hide, and bringing them along in plain sight would generally be a bad idea. That's why she's keeping them mostly hidden under layers and layers of thick down jacket, several chin and mouth hiding scarves, a shawl, and even a knit cap to top off the whole lost-tourist look.      "I'll join the front team, then. I look... Normal enough, I hope?" She grips her camera clumsily with her mitts on to wipe off the lens, then checks that it can even turn on. "Unless... I'd be more useful with the backup team?" There's some hesitation in her voice at first, and then a shake of her head before a more focused grunt escapes the cruiser. "No... I'll go for the front. If things go bad, it'd be safer for everyone if I was part of the vanguard. More targets to shoot means fewer crippling injuries overall."      Not that she's expecting crippling injuries anyway, but it's not a possibility she can ignore. "I don't have much skill with computer systems, anyway."
Gordon Freeman	Gordon regrets not exploring night vision options for his suit, but at the very least he's got a nice flashlight. For some reason, he doesn't like the idea of an operation mounted at night, but he can't exactly put his finger on why. He's looked lost in thought throughout the effort to travel here, but thankfully it hasn't been thought interrupted by cold; the HEV suit is at least pretty warm.     The mess of security is familiar to him, as a man who often deals with extensive military security. He's never had to bypass it though, and he won't be starting tonight. He remains silent through the briefing, and silent as he looks over the extensive defenses with the binocular functions of his HEV suit. The most expressive he gets is when he gives an amused smile to that last joke-by-proxy, and goes back to peering at the ongoing business, scratching his head a bit...     He shakes his head a little. Gordon gives just a quick nod to Nova, and then seems to answer which of the teams he intends to be a part of by stepping forward and heading towards the front area. He's not planning on having a gun out, but he knows how this works. If there's any Sangvis Ferri in the region, he expects to be shot the moment he approaches, but SF always seems to be where things are abandoned; if anyone was here that wasn't one of those weird proxy-dolls, they'd at least shout at him first, or give some warning shots.     It's a terribly direct approach. Despite all the time he's spent fighting then, Gordon doesn't know what Sangvis Ferri tracks look like, otherwise he would have spent some time circling around the little sensor complex looking for them. Instead he just has to approach -- while making sure to try waiting for proper human response at any of the checkpoints, silently.
Tony Stark	A stealth operation, in neutral territory. One would presume Tony Stark would be far, far away. In an office park, or a mansion, or in a large, extremely phallic tower. Maybe a nice place upstate after another full feature-length summer blockbuster adventure. Instead, Iron Man is here. Oh, the red is matte, and the gold and chrome are darkened to a black, but he's still extremely... Large red superhero metal man. "So, go there, get shot at, act surprised, defend ourselves." Iron Man shrugs at the potential ROUTE SPLIT. "Look, I've gotten into the habit of wearing these to get burgers. I'm not walking into a definitely-not-we-swear active clandestine warzone. So, unless someone else has a better idea, he-" Stark points at Staren. "Get ready to back up whichever team you like. I'll back up the other one. If they stary shooting - and they will - we can come in and hit them hard when they poke their heads out. No snipers in a tower pinning everyone down. The experts go in the front and the back, and if they get uppity, we play whack-a-mole."
Staren	Staren smiles as Tony jokes(?) about wearing the suit to get burgers. "How are you at hacking? I don't really... defeat security systems so much as hope they never expected a hostile actor to have physical access."
Riva Banari	Riva doesn't seem to care who is being 'targeted' at the moment. It's not her place and it's to keep things together for G&K. Riva's more than familiar with the needs of playing the gray areas on jurisdiction, being a secret agent for a secret organization that does secret things in a secret world. Except she also rolls with a rocket launcher in that bag of tricks so she's not all that good at being secret. Nova offers a plan, waves to Seifer and the others as she steps up. "I'll take point on the frontal distraction and scouting team. It's something I do a lot." Sometimes she complains about it but really, it's what she's geared for with the massive number of protective charms hidden on her person. Having to work in those things to her normal fashion without standing out is a pain in the butt, she'd tell you. It pays off when you're getting blasted by SMGs tyhat shoot /particle beams/ and junk though. She still hasn't forgotten that. Sangvis Ferri is no joke. Still, smiles to the others and heads towards the front door with the rest of Team Distraction. Hopefully the security won't immediately try to kill them. It will probably try to kill them.
Tony Stark	Iron Man gives Staren a Look. It's hard to say what kind of look, because impassive faceplate with glowing eye-slits, but it's probably a decent look, or perhaps a 'who are you talking to' look. "I'll take care of it. You handle the front, then. I'll play cavalry for the the pretty lady and her band of n'er'do-wells." And yes, Staren, he actually has flown a suit to get burgers.
Staren	Staren nods, and jogs off after Gordon and Riva.
Gideon Kaspar	Clover looks at Staren with a slightly indignant expression, puffing out her chest in a sulky kind of way. "Because they don't have an exo tuned for me yet and I had to walk all the way here. It's a hard hike okay?" she says, as if this answers everything neatly. "Ah, please don't start a gunfight with the military if you can help it though! I know I said this post would be lightly armed, but it's still a very bad idea to cause that kind of trouble! The less the military gets involved, the better over all!" She looks to Seifer. "So, um, please don't use the front door unless someone says it's alright. Ideally, we wouldn't need to go inside at all. Obviously, all the sensor equipment is outdoors, and the data feed should be externally accessible, since we don't need to get user access to the mainframe itself." The most confidence she seems to have is when Tomoe (perhaps misguidedly) affirms the idea that 'I got lost' is some kind of clandestine countersignal. She might still be a little green at this entire 'leading operation's thing.     Either way, she pulls down her headset, pulls up her face scarf, tightens her gloves, zips up her jacket, and screws on her suppressor, flicking out a combat knife to slice through a roll of barbed wire as if it were twice, then mantling smoothly over the concrete barrier, motioning whoever's trying to be sneaky but probably not good at it to follow. Nova has a look at something more like a sandbox layout rather than a stealth game setup. There are numerous small buildings dotting the slopes divided and tiered by the road like a wedding cake, housing power mains, water pumps, a maintenance shed, a couple of garages, a repair shop, covered supply stacks, and so on, but everything substantial will be part of the main building up top. Anything important is well lit by multiple rows of stationary, high intensity lights, but between walkways, sensor consoles, and ID-locked doors, there are a lot of dark, open fields breaking them up, and extremely dangerous climbable walls.     The dishes themselves are obviously for detecting aircraft, armoured vehicles, or remote command signals, not human beings walking around on the ground, but there *are* heat sensors of the 'automatic porch light' variety mounted on each level of fencing. It's worth noting that Clover's posh jacket shows up as dull purple on typical infrared scanners, possibly explaining why she's in the process of circling around to one of the three radar dishes.
Gideon Kaspar	Gordon and Riva just taking the front road is exactly the opposite of what Sangvis Ferri would expect at least. They're immediately tripped by a detector of some kind or another bleeping away at picking up piles of weaponry on them, but nobody rushes out from a checkpoint to wave them down. The vehicle barrier lowers automatically, but after several moments of standing around by themselves, they could always just . . . climb-step over it. Past the small tarmacs of mostly empty parking spaces, and a view of some sort of huge, six-wheeled jeep raised up on carjacks for repair under a tarp, they wander up to the next level of fences where tiny IR lamps studded in the upper part visibly paint them with red light, but nothing much happens there either. It's somehow both abandoned-seeming, *and* doesn't involve them being shot in the back by an SF T-Doll.     They get halfway through the second of four vertical rises when they're finally actually stopped, but it isn't by a soldier or a purple-clad killbot. They can actually hear the electric whirring and heavy thumping a little while before they see anything in the dark, though Staren would pick up a pair of very faint heat signatures first.     Coming up on the halfway checkpoint, the frontal group is suddenly blocked out by a pair of *extremely* heavily armoured humanoid figures, who practically materialize out of the dark, walking straight towards them until they stand shoulder to shoulder completely walling off the road. Coloured in no-nonsense beige and dark grey tones, they look almost like powered EOD suits, with heavy blast collars, angled armour, reinforced joints, and full face helmets with only external cameras. Even the carry pouches attached around the waist are practically bricks of solid metal. It'd be easy to imagine them as powered suits for a minute, but no matter how someone looks at it, they're too big for a person to wear, but too small for a person to pilot. They're both carrying man-sized shields of what look like reactive tank plating two feet thick, with obvious mechanized pylons to dig into the ground. They have no less than three sets of optics, probably being different vision modes.     And once they get in the way, they just . . . stand there. Completely silent. Directly in the way of the people trying to enter, but vocalizing nothing. The gate is still bleeping annoyingly, but if there is an alarm raised, nobody is answering it. No SF has showed up. No military personnel have come to check. It's just these huge walking tanks, blocking them like a pair of surly club bouncers turning them away for being insufficiently young and pretty.
Staren	Clover warns them not to try the front door, but... people are already on it, so Staren runs after them. And... after them. And after them, as lack of resistance after lack of resistance is met. Finally... <"Something's up ahead."> Staren warns, aiming his right arm at the heat signatures, but...     They're not attacking?     <"What the hell is going on..."> Staren wonders, and lowers his arm for now.     For the moment, he tries to sniff their wireless traffic. He doubts he can break their encryption, but by having his AI analyze it, maybe he can determine whether they're sending video somewhere or receiving remote control signals of some sort.
Haguro	"We'll have to be careful, then. Alright, moving out." Easier said than done, but Haguro's gotten better at figuring out what she actually needs to do instead of just following the pack! Sort of.      In this case, it doesn't sound like it should be too hard. She's no tech expert, but spotting things is straightforward enough, and there's enough people in this group that finding those radar dishes shouldn't take too long as long as there's no obstacles.      There's obstacles, of course. Haguro stops in mid-step as the humanoid semi-giants appear, scrambling her brain to figure out whether to start shooting or try talking their way out of the situation. From the looks of it, they could be brought down given enough time, but that would set off too many alarms too early. Talking to them could buy some time, but that would require talking.      Which the giants don't seem to want to do. They... Don't seem to want to do anything, even. Everything's quiet, even, and it's actually rather unnerving. They're not hostile yet, though, so perhaps...      Yes. It's time to turn on the tourist mode. "Uh... Oh! Hello there. That's some very impressive armor you have. Do you mind if..." Haguro fumbles a bit as she unwraps her camera from around her head carefully, stepping towards one of the armored giants while waving her camera lightly. She's heard that teenagers enjoy taking pictures of themselves next to impressive things on vacation, so she's going to try getting a good shot of herself next to one of these humanoids. Who knows? It might not look too suspicious!
Riva Banari	Things go pretty well! The alarms go off, but whatever, Riva expected that. It's the POINT of all this. Riva moves forward, expecting to get instant hell murdered. It doesn't happen. She steps over the barricade and moves along, looking around. She's still not getting murdered. Weird. "Huh." She mutters toe herself... And then they get to THE WALL. Riva looks over the two semi-mobile masses of metal and blinks. "Wow, that's... really impressive. How are they supposed to even operate? They look like bomb squad units in metal anti-tank armor or something. That's crazy." She steps forward while Kaguro acts all touristy, and Riva waves too, smiling. "Hey guys. Guys, right? Any chance you can let us past? We're late for an appointment." She faux-glares at Haguro. "Do we really have time for this?" May as well play along!
Nova Terra	Nova opens her mouth to correct Clover on the meaning of the term 'front door' in this context... But then closes it again. It's probably easier to not bother.     The two teams begin to move. Nova naturally goes along with the more stealthy team, blue light washing over her body as her cloaking field engages. No doubt on the walk up people with appropriate systems were synched up, so the team should be able to track her despite her invisibility. Helps in not accidentally bumping into her... Or shooting her!     Nova moves along at a well practiced pace of fast-but-just-slow-enough-to-not-cause-her-cloak-to-shimmer. While she's moving with the stealth team she's keeping enough awareness focused on the other to monitor their progress. It seems they have encountered some form of security defense. Not SF. Though from what Nova can feel, or rather can't feel, it's apparently either automated or remote-controlled. So as of yet, still no confirmation of whether SF is actually here or not.     Nova chooses to break off a little from Clover's lead, confident she can do so without discovery. She begins some more in-depth scouting of the approach they're taking. Just to double check that they don't overlook any possible signs of SF presence that otherwise might be missed by making a circular beeline to the nearest radar. Also helps in keeping an eye out for any patrols or security systems that might detect the other sneakers.
Tony Stark	Tony, in his suit, considers Clover as the Front Door team does thier their thing, and points towards the structure. "You really should ask about getting that exo, though." He counsils, because he can't help it - and this particular case, with the lady being an armed AI, he almost feels an uncle-sort of affinity for her. Due to this internal meta-monologue, Tony immediately changes subject and plan, because being creepy is the actual last thing anyone wants to be. "Right. Friday, paint their sensor net with 'do not go' red, and the edge of it with 'go faster' yellow." With that handled, and a clearly analyzed pattern for Iron Man to skirt the nighttime treeline and avoid INSTANTLY lighting up the base for Nova and the infiltrators. "Hey, that checkpoint's looking real quiet for people walking up to it. What's your situation? Everything still good? Talk to me here, paint me a picture."
Tomoe	Tomoe normally would be one of the people to go in the front door, but today it hit her the sneak team might very well need a tank so here she is. After all with the amount of firepower in this world. So here she was keeping up with Clover, Nova and the rest of the team. She kept herself low as a profile as she could but Tomoe is not a stealth expert like Nova is. <<No idea Staren that's why we're here no?>> Tomoe keeps her eyes peeled for anthing of note or that would lead to trouble as she moves onwards.
Gordon Freeman	Gordon knows Sangvis Ferri engineering, but he also knows proper defense-contractor military engineering. And so when he's stopped by the blank-looking bouncers, he stands there, regards them for only a few moments, and then nods. He gets the posture that's easiest to recognize for a basic human-recognition machine. Then he just sort of waves.     He came prepared for this. He knows how to communicate with robots like this. Machines like this have their own ways of speaking and figuring things out. To be honest, T-Dolls among G&K are what he's lessed used to dealing with, but military hardware like this, Gordon knows how to speak to. He's brought... A sticker sheet? Why does he have a sticker sheet?     A little-known fact about military robotics is that sticking QR codes onto surfaces is how you guide robots; it becomes their "visual language". Which is why Gordon made sure to print out QR code stickers that say the machine equivalent of a series of tags designating "<FOREIGN OBJECT> <FOR DELIVERY> <DESTINATION: RECORDS TERMINAL>". It's not any kind of actual hack, but who knows what might work. It's definitely enough, he hopes, to get them to examine and scan more closely, because his intention is to use his suit's communications suite and his military hardware experience to check in an ANALYSIS way for things like telltale signs of hardware expressions of firmware overrides, for things like machines moving less like military hardware and more like a SF commander's proxy control systems, and other signs that the systems at this outpost are compromised. But you know, if it works, that'd be good too.
Gideon Kaspar	Staren checks the broadcast units of the two armoured hulks. As he suspected, they are meant to be given remote orders, and have the appropriate modules to send and receive signals. As far as he can tell, they are also encrypted . . . but also broadcasting dead air. The two heavies are linked to each other to share data, but otherwise receiving no orders and relaying no information back to or from . . . anywhere. Basic knowledge of robotics is enough to know that shouldn't be happening. Even if the station they're supposed to be directed from werent *right there* and clearly intact, they should have shutdown protocols, recovery beacons, or pre-programmed orders to fall back to the next step in the chain of command or something.     Nova sneaking around the perimeter has some luxury in scouting. She manages to locate a second, then a third, pair of identical units, at separate checkpoints at gates. Military grade and essentially sitting around on power conservation mode, they have almost no heat signature, easier to pick out with standard night vision in the dark than with alternate vision modes. The others don't even seem to be aware the first team has found anything, or even that various alarms have gone off. They're just standing there, waiting for something to wander close to them. There are no doubt more robots littered all around the complex, essentially severed from the command net, but operating 'dumb' regardless.     Friday can pretty easily and quite accurately map out the sensor coverage of the facility, largely being three big blobs of overlapping red, with a smaller blob of red in the center, convoluted webs of yellow around the mess of checkpoints, and a thin scatter of green in the big, dark, open fields that are no doubt not under sensor coverage because of how trivial it would be for a human to just flip on a spotlight and nail someone crossing them. Getting above 10 meters will probably have him detected right away by air radar if low-flying drones are a common thing here, but as with all things, they've had to work as best they can with the terrain here, instead of having a perfect security whiteroom, and there are places where the natural rock faces and ground features block slices of coverage.
Gideon Kaspar	Haguro talks to the big 'bots and gets no reply. They don't even slightly move when she indicates her desire to take a selfie on a restricted military compound road. When Riva takes a single step closer to talk though, she trips some kind of coded limit on permissible proximity, and the closest robot transitions from bodyblocking her to actively advancing on her. It draws some absurdly heavy-looking collapsible baton from the back surface of its shield, attaching to its underarm in a tonfa grip style, and then slams her with a good twenty kilos of metal and about that many thousands of volts of electricity. It *looks* like it could have been used as a riot baton thing for crowd suppression, but it's *absolutely* keyed all the way up to 'fry a T-Doll', and didn't dial back down for a human.     Yet, it doesn't actively try to follow up and kill her. Assuming she gets any kind of distance, it will immediately stop and fall back in line, as far as Gordon can tell, because it hasn't detected a Doll of any variety. The way they're acting is weird and stupid, performing the role of civilian crowd control to keep them out of a restricted area, but with all the parts about interacting with humans shut off and replaced with 'kill androids on sight'. He can tell right away that they pick up on at least a couple of the QR codes, as one of the three optical scanners inside the other unit's helmet swivels to focus on them, but when it uses its vocalizer, it broadcasts audible dead air instead, making an awfully loud and scratchy clicking sound about what he'd expect for accessing deleted audio routines.     So, they've been jacked alright. Not properly hacked, however. Someone was somehow able to crack military encryption to get into their independent processes, but the best they could come up with was to completely delete all their sophisticated decisionmaking and replace it with 'stand here and kill this type of thing that comes along' orders. Their tactical network uplinks apparently still work by Staren's analysis, so instead of properly hijacking it or subverting it, the 'hacker' apparently left it intact but did something to disable the hub from giving any orders. For all intents and purposes, he can probably assume that all units on the base are acting autonomously, and wired to murder anything that meets certain trigger conditions, with no oversight or recall signal.
Staren	That's... weird. Why aren't they transmitting? After a moment, Staren pulls something kind of like a flipphone from his bag and starts scanning them for magic or psychic communication or the like. Of course, they could be using something designed to be impossible to intercept too, but it's worth checking...     And then Riva gets close and they start moving. He aims but doesn't fire... until they swing at Riva. Then he fires the beam cannons on his arm, and if they respond to that, this is probably going to turn into a fight!
Gideon Kaspar	Clover makes her way through the dark patches of ostensibly wide open and visible territory which are nevertheless covered by no sensors. Her guess proves correct when the defense of 'human beings with working eyeballs' fails to spot her. She moves quickly and quietly from point to point, avoiding cameras and walking straight past electromagnetic and heat sensors, manually shutting off each one in sequence and waving the group along behind her. She gets to one of the radar dishes, steps up to the external console, and produces a blank, black keycard that apparently grants her access, not bothering to explain how she is immediately typing away at the controls until the red blob goes dark on Tony's radar, and he, Nova, Staren, and Gordon, now have its own coverage added to their readouts, mapping out a third of the area and lighting up the scattered robotic units.     "This was definitely in use alright. This unit is calibrated for specific coordinates and set to listen in on radio traffic. It looks like it's synchronizing with satellite imagery too, but I can't get that from down here. It's . . . watching something, but it's like there's nobody here to watch it." She looks upwards to the main building at the top. "Unless someone in there at the terminal is just ignoring us. I'm going to trace this."     When Clover starts working, Nova will see from her vantage point that several of the huge, armoured units warm up from power conservation mode, standing up fully and starting to tromp down the path towards the radar dish, responding immediately to the console being *accessed* rather than anything she's done with it.
Tomoe	Tomoe finds Staren's news about the drones troubling and notes such over the comm. She'll leave the scanning to him as he's far more skilled than she is with this, she clasps a small cylinder in hand as she came ready for a fight and she knows it. She'll try to keep with Clover to make sure she has direct cover while she works, her eyes dart about keeping a wary watch for anything that might jump them. "Got it, Clover, I'll cover you as best I can." She notes still cradling the cylinder in her hand as she waits watching hoping they can get in and out without a big damn furball. She's not forgotten how hard things like the Jagers hit and these bruiser androids that are onsite likely hit like a truck up close. Then she hears about Tank units? So things are going to get nuts in a little bit, from the sounds of it, she readies herself for the pending fight.
Nova Terra	Nova is in the process of skirting past the additional sets of heavily armoured robots when they suddenly become active. The fact that it coincides with the new radar information she's received makes it pretty clear why they're waking up. Nova goes immediately still as she watches the robots begin to march in the direction of the rest of the infiltration team. However, she doesn't immediately engage them.     Clover's comment about someone either being absent from the main command building, or simply ignoring the group, prompts Nova's own curiosity about that. So she ducks her invisible self down behind one of the concrete barriers in her area and concentrates. Reaching out across the area with her mind, she pushes aside the mental presences of her allies and tries to focus in on any she doesn't recognise.     Initially just trying to sense whether there are others nearby, if there are any Nova will try to pick up on their surface thoughts. She doesn't go any deeper than that though. She doesn't know who or what else might be here, and whether they can pick up on a deeper probe or not. No point in risking such detection until she knows more.
Haguro	That's about as much permission as Haguro needs to take those pictures. She manages to snap a few shots, some legitimately well framed and some focused considerably more on the bots, then freezes as one of them swings at Riva. The turrets under her scarves jerk around as instinct kicks in and she's almost ready to fire, but...      Not yet. She still has her part to play, and things haven't gone belly up yet. Instead of moving into a defensive stance and unloading, she just screams and scrambles away from the giants instead. "Wha... What was that for? W-we should get out of heeeere..?" She puts an odd inflection on that last part as she turns to Riva, gesturing at her to lead the way while her other hand slips the camera into her sleeve. "If they didn't want us here, they should have said so." One incredulous huff later, and Haguro's stomping away while trying to hide the fact that she's tossing concerned glances over at Riva.      It sounded as if the radars were located, so getting the information to everyone else would be her next priority. It's just going to take her a minute to actually figure out how to send those images. She makes sure to send the ones that are focused more on the robots, of course, even if her face looks unnaturally stiff in all of them.      <<"These robots should not be engaged at close range. They have large, heavy batons, and one of them swung at Riva.">> She pauses, listening to the talk of the tank troopers while glancing around rapidly to try and find a good spot to keep an eye on the main roads.      Her turrets are alreadying starting to re-arm and load in preparation.
Tony Stark	Now, sometimes, Tony Stark needs a spread of data points, a theory to go on, and time in a shop to put his brain to work. Problems were challenges, puzzles with solutions. Given enough time, Stark would engineer a perfect solution. Not given time, well, that became a different story. "Friday what're the odds this is a trap?" "Is that rhetorical?" "Tactical analysis, Friday." "It is absolutely a trap, Mister Stark." "Thanks." Once the area's radar goes down, Tony flies in, low to the ground, moving quickly to make up for his 'quiet' approach just previously. "But they're not just shooting at anyone... Damn. Clover, multiples incoming on you. Everyone, I'm thinking if they find a target this whole base is going to go ballistic on whoever that target is. If they're looking for local hardware, though, that's just Clover. Nova, Doctor Freeman, I'd start sweeping for nasty surprises - everyone else: Make a little noise and draw their attention. Tie 'em up, and like the nice boat ghost said - stay at range." "Banari, Haguro, make sure to get all over any snipers or artillery units they bring out: we can easily win a running battle with these walking turtles, but if they squad up around some hardware we're gonna have a real hard time digging them out." With that, as Tomoe engages, Stark beelines to intercept the closing Military Androids from the rear, where their heavy shields aren't. "Compositional suggestions?" Friday almost sounds smug, in a 'you have to ask?' sense. "The big missiles." "Big missiles it is." Aiming with an arm, Iron Man's wristplate rotates, and one of the large, armor piercing missiles arms and fires into the set of enemies Tomoe is trying to suppress.
Riva Banari	Well, it was worth a shot. Riva tries what she can, and when the 'robot uprising' scale baton comes up, Riva gulps. "Why the crap IS IT ALWAYS M-ghrlhglk!" A moment later, she's getting prodded with the prod. And it's not even a kinder, gentler Orochi Security supernatural debilitation zapper, no. This is a big, bad, fry-you-right-there prod. Riva promptly ends up falling back, smoking, jerking about from the electrical energy running through her body, lying there for several seconds before she finally finishes discharging... And maybe getting her mental capabilities back in order. HEr eyes focus, and she grunts, sitting hp and looking down at the scorchmark on her jacked. "You assholes." She spits. In a fit of pique, she reaches into the rippling space that she keeps all her stuff in, and drags out the LAW. "Get clear." She instructs the others, having clearly already Had Enough Of This Crap, and locks in on of her augmented warheads. "YEah, yeah, I'll get on it. I don't see any right now." She replies to Tony. "For now, I'm just knocking on the door." Metaphorically. A moment later, she's firing the rocket launcher... Not at them directly, because they'll just block with the shields and she's pretty sure they're made to take that. No, she's shooting at their feet.
Gordon Freeman	Well, whatever sympathies Gordon might have for military hardware -- and honestly, as good-hearted as he is, he has a lot! -- he doesn't get too deep into them that he can't process the fact that these have been broken and essentially zombified through various acts of high-level subversion. So with only a half-second of somber hesitation, he's forced to draw a heavy submachine gun. There's no way that an entire functioning military-mind might be contained within their ROM, so he's got to improvise.     Gordon is well aware that they don't necessary /have/ to deal with this situation, but he's very worried. Specifically he's worried about the idea that they may try to kill Clover, or at the very least wipe the data while she works the way Gordon would wipe data: By blowing up hard drives. He's gotta make sure they don't get to the terminal, which means he needs to circle fast around the guardpair. He engages his dash systems and his suit synths out "Power assist movement activated." Softly as he makes a break to either slam /through/ one of those fences, bounce between the guards at the center, or otherwise break right for the console.     He's going to be making extensive use of the grenade launcher to keep the thickly-armored military foes stunned at least, if he can get to them. He's got no gauge of how much of that armor is remotely effective. The primary focus is making sure their VIP survives, which means getting to her and attacking anything else trying to do the same! Especially since she doesn't have the exo.
Gideon Kaspar	Nova is completely ignored by the heavy units stomping right past her. She may or may not wonder if they'd ignore her even without her cloak, but there's no good reason to not be invisible at the moment. She opens her mind's eye instead, which she immediately finds utterly unhelpful for assessing or locating killbots, and also utterly unhelpful for locating human operators, because there aren't any. She can't detect a single person she doesn't already know here, save for just one presence inside the main building at the peak, which feels . . . fuzzy. Fragmented. Like someone on so many drugs they don't even know who they are at the moment.     Clover looks up immediately when alerted, flicking down a pair of goggles from her headset to scan for robotics in the dark, no doubt hooked up to the radar unit she's fiddling with. "Those are . . . aegis units. They're old models, out of manufacture, but the military still often uses them for point defense, heavy security, and mechanized infantry roles. They use standard AI, not classified as Dolls, so these ones should be programmed to patrol the area and raise an alert if they spot an intruder or come under attack. Human operators should be required to authorize the use of lethal force, so why would they . . ."     Even she recognizes that it isn't the time to be deeply pondering these questions when they start rolling out in force though. Clover ducks from the console and slides down the jagged rise to gain distance and cover as Tony flies in behind the line forming up on the hijacked radar dish. His missile directly strikes it in the back, triggering a reactive explosive mounted to its back to counter the blast, but sending it tumbling and crashing down the road anyways, slowly grinding to a sparking halt on the asphalt with its power supply rendered a smouldering wreck, and its shoulder actuators too damaged to push itself back up.     Riva fires her own explosives on the Aegis types down below, straight between them and at the ground. Being incredibly heavy, this only sends them flying to either side by a couple of meters, knocking them over and forcing them to climb back to their feet with impressive fluidity considering their tank-like design. Of course, if she wasn't looking to cause damage, this is fine, because both of them are out of the way of the gate for several seconds, allowing Gordon to blitz straight through.     Considering Staren *just confirmed* their tactical network isn't doing anything, and Gordon also just confirmed that they don't properly react to human beings, this should be the point at which both parties can meet up and destroy the robots two at a time until the area is clean. Instead, what happens is that the base alarm finally raises itself, even though all the scanners, gates, and robots that caught them before couldn't get it to go off. More Aegis units activate all over the compound, half trudging in line towards the disabled radar unit, and the rest splitting up to attack the Elites still within the range of the other two. The former are clearly just going in the direction of the intrusion. The latter *know* where the Elites are. They're hooked up to the scanners again.
Gideon Kaspar	Tony is immediately accosted by a squad of units advancing on him with surprising speed. They're not as fast as the Iron Man suit, and can't fly, but it's suddenly quicker than a dead human sprint. Where he inevitably escapes them, they stop pursuing him, leaving only one behind to do what Friday will alert him is painting him with lidar (he can even see the red beam from its one circle 'eye'), which immediately leads to a spray of missiles erupting from several ground installations with a direct lock on him.     More teams sprint in on Gordon and Riva, looking to cut them off and block them from going further. Both of them are in for the same kind of lethal clobbering from several units per person, and this time they won't stop until they actually confirm cessation of life signs. Gordon's grenade launcher is capable of getting them to stop at least, where they plant their shields down and extend the hydraulics, but it won't cause real damage to them. It's an anti-personnel weapon, and these things are literally built like MBTs, with all the same technology.     Gordon is helped out when Clover recognizes he's coming towards her. Climbing to a darkened rise inside of the 'friendly' sensor net range, dark on the base's radar, she takes a knee, loads what is definitely specialist ammo that a PMC like G&K isn't supposed to have, and starts taking precision shots on the Aegis units from behind. The flash and crack of her shots is muted to unrealistic, Hollywood suppressor levels, and coupled with her weird thermal baffling, it seems the robots can't find her yet, because after the first couple that go down to inhumanly precise three round bursts of explosive ammunition straight down the back of their blast collars and into ther necks from above, several turn around and circle shields in a search pattern, trying to locate the source of fire, and freeing Gordon up to sprint past.     Staren, Riva, and Haguro aren't so lucky though. Staren fires his integrated beam cannons and melts a pair of holes into the armour of one Aegis, which doesn't come close to killing it. Instead, it advances on him in the blink of an eye and goes to smash him with its robotic strength. They too are painted with lidar units, and then barraged from on high by an arcing salvo of ground-to-ground missiles from inside the base. Only Nova escapes the fray for now, by being invisible and separate from everyone else.     "I don't really get why the tacnet is back up all of a sudden, but I can't find any signs of personnel on base! Shoot whatever you have to and the Commander will negotiate around it later! I still don't want to stick around and fight through the whole base though! Whoever can get to the top, let's get in and grab their records, and get out as quickly as possible!"
Staren	Staren can fly too; one of his many magitech artifacts projects a pair of wings like a Cait Sith's, which buzz and assist thrusters in his back and boots as he takes flight.     That's not help against missiles, though! They slam into his forcefield and send him tumbling through the air -- by the time he stabilizes, the forcefield is thin and flickering, barely up at all.     Staren comes up with another idea in the meantime, though -- he starts dropping hot smoke grenades, so the Aegis units can't paint him. Of course, hiding in the smoke, he's blind too... Except for the tacnet. He orders missile strikes on the two identified launch sites -- Back outside the base, two of the cases fire the first of their oneshot launchers, vehicle-scale explosive missiles arcing over the base to retaliate. If it looks like that was enough to take them out, good -- if not, he has them fire two more.     <"Okay, we have a problem. We need to get that data, quick!"> He dives low and flies towards the center building, regularly throwing clouds of smoke ahead of himself and trying to make a path for others. Once he's at the building, he'll have to figure out a way inside. Probably a violent one.     He can only hope that the central building isn't a bunch of missile racks covered with walls and doors waiting to blast him the moment he breaks through. Noone would do that, right?
Nova Terra	Nova is confused. She can sense a mind, a single mind, in the main building. But it's not clear. It does remind her somewhat of those greatly influenced by mind-altering compounds. But it could equally be a matter of it being a lifeform she's not familiar with. Considering what she has seen of the SF dolls, they are potentially intelligent enough for Nova to register them, if in an obscured fashion. Though Nova can't be sure either way.     So of course the obvious choice is to find out.     Pulling back to herself once more, Nova quickly takes stock of the situation. A number of the so-called Aegis units have passed her, which does provide a bit of a clear path upwards. She can also see Gordon, highlighted by her HUD, making his own way up.     Nova jumps up from her cover and starts running. Taking an alternate path to Gordon's, she hopes to split the attention of the outpost defenses. She is putting away all attempts at stealth, though keeping her cloak engaged for the moment in the hopes it will make aiming difficult. But now that she's moving fast, it should be a simple matter for the cameras and motion sensors to pick up on her movements.     Nova isn't sure if the data they're after is in the same location as the person she sensed. But on the off chance it isn't, she's grateful that Gordon will be around to track it down.
Haguro	Haguro is suddenly feeling better about keeping her turrets ready and loaded. Stark's instructions earlier have her scanning the immediate area for anything that could fire from longer ranges, such as mortars or snipers in windows, but her attention is soon grabbed by something a little closer.      Several somethings much closer, even. Taking fire from the missiles, Haguro breaks into a sprint to avoid getting blown up and left in a crater. <<"Missiles incoming! What direction...?">> Yanking off those scarves to free her turrets, she looks somewhere towards where she could recall seeing the missiles coming from, but just knowing direction without distance isn't enough for her to start shelling anywhere reliably.      Plan B, then. Clover's given the go ahead to fire, and Haguro shifts gears to take aim at the swarms of missiles Staren's requested assistance with. She keeps running as flak fills the air around the flyer, countless chunks of metal and scrap firing as clouds to try intercepting those missiles coming for Staren, herself, and even Iron Man should he be close enough to the cloud of garbage!      Hopefully, she won't misjudge her aim too much and hit her allies with said flak in the process.
Riva Banari	Riva just can't reload the LAW fast enough in order to engage in suppressive fire. Not that it would help anyway, they're literally built to stop this kind of assault. The incoming salvos make things worse, but at least it's not ELECTRICITY. Riva really hates electricity for Reasons. The incoming explosives blast around Riva, her body being shredded... But the impacts being significantly lessened than they should have compared to a normal human. Riva, meanwhile, doesn't have much of a choice. Her guns aren't going to penetrate that kind of armor... But her hammer can. The Ajoran Cross comes out, snapping open as it flares with orange light... And she hauls the weapon back and simply /hurls/ it directly at the closest AEGIS unit. It doesn't seem like it'd be all that effective until the weapon detonates on impact with a shockwave blast that hopefully will get through that armor before they're zapping her again.
Tomoe	Tomoe gets the information from Clover about the units that are coming in. Tony's support is very much welcome too for this as she's going to need the cover for what she's about to attempt to do. From what Clover said it sounds like the units are akin to the more dangerous mobs in SAO from the sounds of it. Dangerous but it gives her ideas. <<To use a term I hear sounds like they gone maverick somehow or someone left them with orders Clover, is my best guess.>> Going after the tanks would be foolish better to leave that to someone like Staren the Aigis units on the other hand? Tomoe's now as Colver moves to aid Gordon? She will move to get in close and fast as she can igniting the cylinder it's a photon blade. A pale pink blade snap hisses to life from it. Though really it's just a fancy looking weapon but it cuts well enough, which is what she's going to hope to do as she starts launching into melee attacks on the already assaulted Aigis units by Clover and the others. She'll also engage in the odd sword art or two. SAO survivors bringing swords to gunfights not much has changed about them in that regard since they escaped the floating castle. "Come on bolt brains you want some of this!?"
Gordon Freeman	Gordon is as fast as Gordon can be. Once they're stopped, they can be dealt with using a canny tactical approach. And thankfully, Clover has that covered, giving him the opening he needs to sprint past. He's as near as anyone else, and intends to make use of it. He stops only briefly near Clover's position, trying to double-check that she's going to be okay in this situation, before surging as fast as he can towards the interiors. If his current rush can work well enough, Gordon may be able to breach the structure and get at valuable HARD DRIVES!     He notes the way the foes stand and ready their shields when he destabilizes them with grenades, so he keeps that up, swapping to a cluster of grenades slung at one leg. Anything between him and the target is going to get a stunning concussive blast as best he can deliver, and when that's done, he follows up fast with his crowbar... Using it the way a crowbar's been meant to be used, planting it in the gaps of shield setups in order to jostle any of the shieldbearers hard out of his way!     If he can get inside, he'll be trying to yank whatever seems like the nearest fistful of hard drive he can get, as he's often done before. He needs to be ready, because he isn't sure how long of a gap in activity his friends can buy for those GGMs, and he knows from experience (laboratory experience, of course) that the HEV suit is only rated to survive one direct anti-vehicle explosive missile strike, not two, and he'd like to get /out/ of here with the hard drives too.
Tony Stark	Stark barely has time to start firing on the encroaching dumb mil-bots when he gets picked up by the base defenses. "Uhhhhh, hello? Friday, the base is supposed to be dark. We're in-vis-i-ble!" "Boss, the whole place lit up. I don't know why." "Well, I guess they're cooking with the special sauce. Ramp RT to maximum output, give me full flight power!" As he's painted with the laser array, Iron Man is already strafing in tight, swift flight patterns. The gig seeming up, the 'matte stealth' pattern suit becomes an exponentially greater heat signature as the series of internal reactors step up to a full combat state. The military probably doesn't skimp out on targeting lasers, though, or the mounts to put them on, and soon enough there's a whole pile of missiles on his tail. Buzzing past his allies and bidding down among the base's structures and power pylons at top speed, flipping around to blast away at the incoming threats that he can't shake with his palm blasters. The volume of fire, though, is too much. This much military hardware -- "Doctor F-" Gordon Freeman is long past needing Stark's plans for shit. He's already through the door and down the levels. "Yeah that seems good." Is all Tony can finish with. "Everyone button up and do what you can, I'm going for their laser-painters." He announces, rocketing back up and hurtling through the air to make his attack run. With multiple sets of laser users directing the missiles, Stark spends little time confirming kills - swift blasts to the optics, a crushing hammerblow, or even just bombarding the area with missiles is good enough for him. Disrupt the laser locks - and he'll free up Staren. "Wonder-Kid! I'm having Friday send you my read of those missile ballistics - can you put your artillery on the marked missile bays?"
Gideon Kaspar	Flak cannons are incredibly old-fashioned by this world's standards, but Haguro isn't trying to hit a supersonic jet; they're missiles that are headed straight towards her, not exactly complicated to shoot at. They are also *fast* however, and so she only even has the actual time to hit a few of them, unfortunately spaced out enough that they don't daisy chain like in the movies, because the military is more competant than that. Several of their number explode quite dramatically in mid-air, but several more land directly next to Riva and herself, at least turning out to be anti-personnel rather than anti-tank charges, as a small mercy, hitting them more with incendiary heat and blast pressure than turbo lethal shaped charges.     Riva's hammer is certainly not what the Aegis units are built to defend against, in the same way SF's line of standard T-Dolls don't come programmed with swordfighting routines. Swinging it around, she launches one unit straight through the barricade and crashing into the back of the garage, where the propped up jeep tilts off its jacks and collapses on top of it. The second blocks the hammer with its tremendous shield, detonating the reactive charges on its face due to its sheer force. This actually stops the hammer cold, and even launches it back a pace, but also completely wrecks the shield, and pushes the Aegis unit down the slope from the recoil, away from beating the snot out of Haguro for the time being.     Staren successfully loses their lasers in the smoke. The lack of manually aimed gunnery units to shoot into the smoke by eye is a bit weird in the situation, but that could quite probably be a role humans are responsible for here, with the inactive turrets and all. Air+smoke is basically the one hole in the otherwise solid combo of melee units with mobile artillery support they're built to outright stand in the middle of. His first launch from the stacks is immediately shot down by automatic countermeasures, as tiny interceptor missiles are fired from the two opened silos, skewering and destroying his own halfway to target. His second and third launches run the silos out of interceptors however, and the last pair wipe them out before they can be reloaded.     Tony isn't quite as fortunate in the preceding time, given that the suit is invisible to their sensors, but not being stared at and visually targeted by a robot with 'eyes'. The missiles, he quickly finds out, might be last gen, but nowhere near cut-rate, and are perfectly capable of putting up a real run of chasing him through the air. His luck is that he's wearing more armour than the people on the ground are, and so their blasts aren't quite as deadly to him, but when confirmed direct hits don't take him out of the air, a second pair of silos activate almost immediately. He has their position from the air; relaying it to anyone else should give them perfectly good coordinates, and Haguro's guns especially aren't the kind of things the defensive interceptor missiles will be able to target, were Staren's stacks to run out.     Most the ground units that are set to paint targets are currently busy, for now. Staren dropping smoke all over the place makes for large lanes where they can't aim their designators through, and Nova's cloak, even shimmering as it is, refracts enough of the painters that they can't reach the minimum tone threshold. Gordon and Tomoe are straight up in CQC, where it's difficult to laser designate much of anything. Tony has until the smoke clears to swoop in and eliminate as many of the Aegis units as he can, able to access the radar dish hijacked by Clover to single them out in the ECM smog, and blasting their heads off with concentrated fire. Ideally, he'll be able to get about half of them in the current zone before his smoke cover blows away, which means he's still at the mercy of someone hitting the second set of silos, which are almost definitely anti-aircraft.
Gideon Kaspar	Tomoe finds the Aegis units, predictably, to be incredibly hard targets, and worst of all, specially treated to deal with energy weapons. Their armour is coated with a material that gives her photon saber extreme difficulty, causing it to feel like chopping down a tree with an axe rather than dramatically slicing up robots with an energy sword. Of course they're nowhere near as capable in a melee weapon fight as she is, but they're better programmed for it than the Ripper units used by SF, and she has to deal with what are effectively electrocuting warhammers being swung at her head while she fights. Gordon of course isn't really going to do any damage just slapping them with a crowbar, but he can predictably cause them to stop and read when using explosives, and then jump them up close, using his powered suit's strength and the crowbar's unique leverage to wrestle their shields and weapons while Clover follows from the ridge, using her specialist ammo and aimbot hacks to punch exploding holes into the joints he forcefully exposes.     At this point, the Aegis units that aren't being called to the gate by Riva and Haguro, and which aren't being ambushed in the smoke by Tony, are chasing after Nova, even as they continue to fail to gain target lock for the support missiles. On flat ground they'd be slower than her, but they can bulldoze through obstructions she has to climb over or go around, and stomp up steep inclines just fine. She leads enough of them on a merry chase to let Gordon, Clover, and Staren get close from their angles, but is soon getting pinched off by multiple Aegis squads from different directions, corralling her towards a cramped checkpoint area.     Breaking over the top rise (or swooping down on it from the air), the remaining Elites can see perfectly well that the main building is decently armed, but all of the auto-defenses have been shut off, and a number of other robots, including non-Aegis units, have been completely disabled in such a way that they don't stir even when moved right past. The doors are electronically locked, but breached easily enough with high explosives, allowing them to storm a small, dark commons, barracks, rec center, and kitchen sized for only a skeleton crew of eight at most. Even if this outpost is almost completely automated though, it doesn't explain the fact there are a bunch of empty beds and no bodies.     Clover quickly consults her info package and silently guides the others around inside, checking her corners and slicing various pies like the pros do it, but finding no more than them either. When they eventually come to the monitoring room, it's a surprise when the door swoops open automatically rather than requiring a breaching charge than the last couple. "Get down!" she suddenly yells, though what alerted her is uncertain, seeing as NVGs, heat vision, and similar scanners, don't see or detect anything in the opened room. Those who decide to trust the 'intuition' of an android can throw themselves to the floor along with her, but those who insist on trusting their own eyes and equipment are immediately shot dead on by the volley of scouring green particle blasts that fly out of the room, punching through multiple metal walls on the way out.
Haguro	As some of the missiles strike nearby, Haguro gets thrown about a few times as she struggles to regain her footing. The extra layers of jacket don't help all that much to protect her from the explosives, and she quickly discards the tattered jacket along with one of the destroyed armor plates that had taken an explosion head on.      "So this is the difference..." She mutters to herself as she tries to steady her aim enough to get a bead on those silos in the distance. All the explosions around her and the pressure of needing to aim shots at such long-distances have her fairly frazzled. Even with as much as she's used exploives and been around explosives, she /still/ hasn't quite gotten over being so high-strung around all the noise.      Staren said it himself, though. He can only guarantee one silo, meaning that the rest are going to continue being issues for the rest of the group if Haguro can't bring them down. Digging her feet into the ground to steady herself amidst continuing missiles coming her way, the heavy cruiser takes several anxious breaths as she steadies her aim as best she can.      There's still too many of those silos, but she'll just have to do her best. The flak in her turrets switches out for more conventional heavy explosives, she adjusts her angle what's more, and then she starts firing volley after volley of mortar-like explosives!
Riva Banari	The good news is that she's made some progress! She'll have to keep it in mind for the next time she sees these things, because if she's learned anything about this place, it's that they LOVE their mass production. The bad news is she's still getting shelled. The pressure and incendiary strike Riva, hurling her into a cliffside impact like a ragdoll. there's a painful crunch as she collapses to the ground... But then she pushes herself up, gritting her teeth through the pain as her body actively works to knit itself back together. "You know. Sometimes I really hate being mostly immortal." She hisses to herself. The sound of things popping back into place is heard as she staggers back up, and moves to angrily plant herself in front of Haguro and slams her wrapon into the ground vertically. "Do what you need to do, Haguro! I'll hold the line!" She calls back to her heavily-armed ally, and channels her Anima. A wave of orange light billows out around and before her in a partial energy field, helping to ward off any continuing incoming fire on the pair as long as Haguro stays behind her... And the shelling stays to the front and above.
Staren	Almost out of big missiles, damn. Staren commands the cases to fire the remaining four missiles in a single, spaced-out salvo at one of the silos, to overwhelm its defenses. Bring more missiles next time. Always more missiles.     Staren finds the facility... bizarrely empty. He does listen to Clover, fortunately, and then... "Not THESE things again!" He fires the beam cannons into the room wildly and then flies back out of view of the doorway!     Wait, shit, the trick with these things was to shoot them while they're reloading/recharging/on cooldown, wasn't it? Oh well. He'll have to figure out a way to get them to fire again without getting himself blasted. Hmm...
Nova Terra	Nova finishes her run by pressing herself up against the wall of the main building, just beside the entrance. Her HUD alerts her to some of the others making it up too and so for that reason, Nova deactivates her cloak. She becomes visible once more, not wanting to risk an accidental shooting in these close quarters.     Canister Rifle raised, Nova sweeps into the building, walking cautiously through the hallways as she scouts it out. Given their opponents are mostly unthinking robots, Nova has to be extra cautious. But all she finds... Is empty rooms. Nova agrees with Clover's earlier implications, that this outpost-as automated as it is-should have more people manning it. The fact that they find no bodies to account for the missing personnel just makes things further confusing.     Regrouping with the others just outside the monitoring room, Nova silently signals it and moves to open the door. However, it suddenly swings open before she has a chance. As a trained professional, Nova reacts almost instantly to Clover's warning, diving to the ground.     As the doorway and surrounding walls are sprayed with energy blasts, Nova keeps herself plastered to the floor as she reaches to her leg. Detaching one of the cylindrical devices from the attached pack, Nova arms the high-tec flashbang and slides it into the room.     The resulting blast of light and energy should hopefully temporarily disrupt the person, or targetting sensors, firing over their heads.
Tomoe	Tomoe is locked in some pretty serious CQC here the drone units are nothing to laugh off really. As she finds she's more using an axe on a tree rather than a chainsaw. Still, she's faster she's got some serious close combat experience and the most important thing is she's tied them up and messed up what they wanted to be doing here. She will make a note for next time to use a solid state weapon or maybe a heated one? She'll have to experiment later, for now, she will focus on the massive thunderhammer like weapons they use. Often forcing her to break off attacks and other times they catch her which is not fun for her,m but her nature shows as one the big wireframe injuries from the impacts. She's still giving it pretty damn good to them. She seems to be holding her own for it and several times she'll leap up and land on top of one of the units trying to see if she can trick the others into smacking their fellow drones. Not likely given the level of competence with AI design in this world but she figures it can't hurt. Then it hits her, fire, as she moves she'll chant a spell causing the photon sabre to burst into flames, maybe a fire blade might help with the cutting? She should have tried it sooner. Even if she looks like her old GGO avatar right now her abilities are full on her ALO ones, it just happens a sword is a sword.
Gordon Freeman	More abandoned zones. It's like Sangvis Ferri's signature is an absence of human life in some uncanny way. The more Gordon sees it, the more it sticks in his mind. Where do these people go? What happened to them? Aren't there records, somewhere, that say something about this? But that's less relevant than the monitoring room.     The massive deluge of exotic particle blasts almost hits him before he gets into cover. He grunts in surprise and distress, pulling out of the way! He waits long enough for Nova to strike her own way, but he can't afford to press for more time. Working or not, he has to press on. He slams a button at his shoulder, popping his helmet over his head. "High impact reactive armor activated." His suit synths out, and then... Just a moment after the flashbang, he just goes right in. When it comes to surviving exotic particles, Gordon Freeman is just about the best equipped person on-site. The HEV Suit is designed for just this task, or those similar to it. If it sustains the way it did before the stun grenade, it'll likely scour away layers of carbon supermaterials, overheat his body, barrage it with contusions, and other high-intensity dangers.     But the man is a survivor, the kind who will surge through with a crowbar in hand and try to force whatever is emitting this dangerous beam to stop by smashing it brutally with a chunk of metal that may be more slag than shape by the time he gets to whatever mysterious, invisible source menaced them in the first place.
Tony Stark	Tony doesn't really box, but he's been in a lot of fistfights. Tony doesn't really have an automated missile evasion and interception suite on hand, but brother he's been shot at by a lot of missiles. Stark quickly expends more than his fair share of tricks and maneuvers bullying and brutalizing the Aegis units, the tight-knit active groups of them being scythed across with his cutting laser so he can get at the crunchy tanking units to deliver a full power orange beam of tangible kinetic force just into the camera/laser "eye". Quick and dirty, expending too many missiles, too much reactor power. Resources are there to be spent - ask a businessman. "Clover took these things down with three rounds of her popgun, Friday, we've got a full targeting suite and more firepower besides." Stark complains, breathlessly. "That would be because her ballistic profile and hardware were more consistent with..." A small readout opened on Stark's HUD. "Excuse me, she's firing what? Friday, schedule five minutes for offended brooding, and then a half-day for a smartgun upgrade plan." "Before or after the current project?" "Let's go with concurrent." "Before or after the current lethal engagement with the missile tracking you?" Iron Man banks, dropping into a tight corridor as the terrain whips by, and breaks around another corner, before Stark grunts "After?" Friday's voice becomes tense. "Missile still has lock!" "Flares!" The spray of countermeasures come a second too late, and one of the missiles splash Tony in a direct hit, causing him to immediately eat shit and grind across the terrain while struggling to regain altitudinal - or momentum - control. Tearing a crater in the ground, Stark finally manages to get his legs under his now significantly slowed (by simple friction) form, and rises back into his feet with a burst of his jets. "What's the score? I've got a pretty big energy pulse inside!" Tony asks the inside team, ejecting spent laser cartridges from the back of his suit's hands. "Because if they've got a satellite overhead, they're probably coming to look at why the little ants are moving under the microscope, and I'm running a little dry here. I didn't come quite dressed for this party."
Gideon Kaspar	Riva indeed holds the line. It is the least enjoyable job there is on the battlefield, but frequently the most important. Under her aegis (the non-robot kind), Haguro can use the sent coordinate to put those battleship guns to use exactly how they should be: high arcing direct artillery.     The first few rounds largely land around the target zone, blowing up tarmac, smashing fences, and pulverizing concrete, but it only takes one shot to land directly on the silo and punch right down to the missile battery to cause the entire thing to cook off and detonate spectacularly. Staren's remaining missiles are enough to exhaust the second silo, which is then buried in its own rubble. The only real issue now is that Tomoe is left pretty much completely by herself, fighting a steadily multiply number of Aegis heavy hitters. Where she laboriously hacks down one, another pair readily takes its place, those having given up pursuing the targets that have already eluded them, without a commander to guide them to its next probable location, all fall back on the one they know is there. The fire is marginally more effective, in that it heats and softens the metal she's cutting at without being refracted off the plating like the beam of her saber at least.     Inside the building, Clover throws herself low with her back against the wall, and ducks under the rapid volley of energy blasts that gear through the monitoring station wall and punch all the way out into the open air outdoors. Staren fires his beams wildly into the room, but somehow manages to hit nothing but the wall, his audio sensors picking up a swoosh in the dark before another fifteen blasts are all fired at him in the blink of an eye, like he'd bumbled into an eight-strong squad of Rippers at point blank. Nova's flashbang rolls into the room, and the electric shooting sounds stop when the disorienting blast takes over and whitewashes the room. Clover takes to a knee and turns the frame as Gordon rushes through the door, blasting fully-automatic fire into the room, lighting it up with the strobe of muzzle flash and explosive ammunition blowing up all over an assortment of heavy metal crates pushed to the forefront of the room, as if to prepare against a breach that somehow hadn't merited locking it(?).     Gordon has to charge his way through, wherein he is directly hit twice in the face by beam blasts that would have taken his head off without the helmet. For a split second, he can see another person in the room with him, dangerously close, easily within reach of his crowbar. Luminous, acid green eyes seem to assess the double lack of fatal headshot in a fraction of an instant, and then his melee weapon sweeps through empty air as a shock of white hair ducks swiftly underneath it. One bullet out of Clover's entire magazine manages to just barely graze them, spitting a few drops of dark red fluid across the opposite doorframe they dive through.     Tony, still outside, can hear one of the bulletproof windows smashing to pieces, and can turn to see a figure in an open black coat crashing straight through it through brute force, taking a thirty foot job down to the rear cliffside and skating down the incline quick enough to disappear before he can get airborne again. Should someone actually chase them all the way to the window, they won't be finding them again in the dark; they're stuck with the 'nobody could have survived that fall' moment, except they all know they did.
Gideon Kaspar	Clover spends several seconds staring out that window searching for them, before giving up and quickly slinking back into the monitoring room, pulling down her face scarf again, letting her finger hover around all the controls until she sees something she recognizes, and then jamming that black card into a security pass slot and hitting a sequence of keys and icons next to it. Tomoe, Riva, and Haguro outside are finally relieved as the Aegis units freeze and the missile systems disarm, taking the outpost off combat alert. The T-Doll wipes her forehead and sighs in relief when the alert lights go to yellow.     "I guess that confirms what we came to find out. Would have been nice to have done it without getting shot at though." She hits the lights, and then checks the room for the same thing someone else might. "No bodies . . ." she trails off, before moving to the main computer console. "Since they left in such a hurry, what they were looking at should just be . . ." she says to herself more than anyone else, tapping a couple of keys until she recalls the satellite feed the previous occupant was using. After some scrolling and zooming, she enlarges a top down shot of a heavily urbanized riverside valley city to the point where she has a spy-sat closeup of a bridge, with two armed girls crossing it. Even grainy as it is, the fact that one has a bright red hair streak and the other a bright purple one to match her bright green, and both are carrying assault rifles, makes who they are, and the previous operator's interest in them, pretty clear.     ". . . I'm going to report this to the Commander right away. A-15 is really smart, so I think she should anticipate that Sanvgis could be monitoring her radio communications. That might be why S-2 is with her and hasn't contacted base. I hope so, anyway . . .
Nova Terra	The resulting scuffle in the monitoring seems to barely last a few seconds. So by the time Nova is back on her feet and moving into it, she barely gets to see the green eyed, white haired someone dive out of the window.     Like Clover, Nova moves up to the window and glances down into the darkness. Even the zoom on her visor isn't enough, "What the hell was that?" She looks back at the others in the room questioningly.     The identity of the mysterious controller aside, Nova moves over to watch as Clover recovers the video. She's not entirely up on the local goings ons, but remembers enough to catch the gist of it.     Shouldering her rifle, Nova tries to cheer up Clover, "At least none of the local personnel were hurt... By us..." Where the hell are they, anyway?
Staren	A lot of things happen crazy fast:     1. One of SR's ridiculous particle blasts comes THROUGH THE WALL and hits Staren where he's laying on the floor, the sheer energy of the attack nearly melting through his armor in one shot,     2-15: Fourteen more ridiculous blasts slam into him, melting through multiple layers of armor and just completely toasting vulnerable internals.                                     YOU DIED                                         A spare copy of his support AI is running on the cases, and tags Staren's body for retrieval on the tacnet.
Tomoe	Fire helps a little bit but there's just so many of the units keep coming, how many of them are there? There has to be more they can't be materializing new ones out of the wrecks, can they? At least not in this world or so she hopes. Thankfully Clover is there for the save as she is able to shut down the units, Tomoe stops mid-swing at one as it stops moving she'll take a moment to. Make sure they are not moving before she'll turn off her photon sabre. "Clover I think I owe you a drink of some sort. No...I certainly owe you that or something." She gets up and dusts herself off, she's going to need to get some time to recover but she's pleased they have pulled it off and got out in one piece. She's going to move to go pick up and catch up with the others. Yes people are far worse off than she.
Tony Stark	The crash of the window and the leaping, controlled fall of the Unknown bugging out is tracked before Stark even gets back into the air. "Friday, get me a vector here." "Working on it, boss. We don't have the power to chase her down." "Then make it hard for her. Mis-" Stark asks, before glancing at his readouts. "Damn. We did it the expensive way. The hell kind of wheaties do they have these girls on? The next one doesn't get a-" Stark's entire helmet HUD flashes and gives him a very specific warning. It's a very precise chime that produces a very specific mild tang in the inner ear. Very annoying, but also very deliberate. It meant a member of the team had taken a serious hit. "Damn, one of the kids?!" Stark swears to himself, doubling back to close in on Staren's signal. He doesn't actually know that Staren had achieved technological immortality, and the body that his kit had flagged was a little too dead for him. "Doctor! Freeman, where are you?!" He shouts, amplified through his helmet. "Friday, map and mark." His helmet begins scanning through the walls as Stark begins repeating the mechanic's mantra, one he'd learned from his father, in the shop. 'C'mon, c'mon...'
Gordon Freeman	Gordon's vision is blurry, his ears are ringing, and his balance is off. His suit is blackened almost like he had just tried to order something from Acme Products to catch the Road Runner, which, all things considered with this ultraviolent response, may well be essentially accurate to the situation. He stumbles, unsteady and uneven in his footing, until he winds up leaning against the doorframe again.     The HEV suit administers painkillers for the pain. He jams that button on the HEV suit again, folding his helmet back, though it creaks a bit from all the dents. He knows he's not finding anyone, but still, he winds up stumbling to whatever window may be nearest, pulling out a heavy crossbow, and trying to sight the foe from afar, but at this stage, there's just no way. His suit quietly synths, "Warning. Severe contusion detected. Severe burn detected. Moderate concussion detected. Morphine administered."     But he's still on his feet. Enough to activate a beacon in response to Tony Stark's urgent calls, and to head towards Staren. Any chance he's got a stack in that body? Because Gordon may not /speak/ much, but he does /listen/ very well, and Staren has extensively mentioned the fact that he wants to give out immortality, and he's clearly a robot; Gordon intends to grab any storage he can find and... slot him into the local tactical stuff that Clover just unlocked. Because around here, egocasting to the Aegis units for a little bit is probably the optimal thing for a man of Staren's stylings.     He also makes sure to give a quick thumbs-up to Clover, and a grateful nod. He appreciates her tag-teaming with him to clear paths! It's important. Then he looks over the information... Concerning. Were they being monitored? Were they told to bug out when they saw them, or was SF monitoring them and threatened them to get them to leave? Was something more happening? None of it adds up in his head, but one thing does: They have a lead on finding those lost team members, and that's good enough for him.
Staren	As Gordon makes his intentions clear, Dawn walks him through the process.     Staren awakens in nothingness. "What the..." Let's see, he was under attack, and then... Nnngh. NOT PLEASANT. "Where is this?" Shit, is he dead? Did nobody pick him up? Did it kill ALL of them? "Hello?"     Something happens. He feels a connection, and realizes he must be in a computer. "Hello?" His voice is on any available speakers. "What'd you put me in?"     He gets camera feeds. "...You put me IN THE BASE COMPUTER?! Why would you-- Okay, sorry, sorry. I mean, thank you for your quick thinking. Um... hang on."     His voice comes back on the radio. <"Okay, um... this is super... disorienting. Oof, is that what happened to my body?! What the hell has that kinda firepower, were there like sixteen cloaked snipers in this room?? How'd you beat 'em? Wait, maybe I can roll these feeds back... ugh, this feels so weird... is there anything you need me to do in here? I guess I'll have one of the cases bring me out. If we can get 'em past the robots. Oh wait, are those all off now? Can I control them? Hmm.">     As Staren keeps nervously ranting, the cases start heading for the control room.
Gordon Freeman	Gordon just sort of stares blankly at the base computer throughout the process Staren goes through. He doesn't really explain anything at all about this, but just sort of lets Staren do his business, and gets into looking around the data about where the rest of the squadmembers are after that initial bit of satellite sighting, looking for another lead. He's a fair bit disoriented by the events, but it's his own way of inviting Staren to examine the stuff too. He just doesn't /say/ it, because he's so used to his silence just kind of working itself out. He just kind of placidly lets the matter settle out and focuses on maximizing the stuff getting done.