Scene #6585: #04: Message - Eradicate the Disturbance

Owner	Pose
Gideon Kaspar	It was said before, but the mission of assassinating Intruder was handed down to the 404 after they . . . presumably succeeded in their last mission, and once again, they'd gone off the rails and done their own thing. G&K's HQ, ever distant, demanding, and basically useless out here in the sticks beyond inhabited territory, is impatient to be rid of the Ringleader and sweep things out of the public eye at last, citing that the removal of Intruder will have them be rid of the last foothold Sangvis Ferri has in Sector S09, and finally push them back into their territory. At least it's a simple objective again, unlike the weird, cryptic scavenger hunt last time, or the creepy puppet show Intruder had put on before, or the runaround with the hacking and the messages and the bombed out database. Go from point A to point B, shoot anything wearing black and purple, and then doubly triply extra shoot the psycho leading them all around. An operation this big finally seems to be delegated into two parts, for once --that is, two parts in the same area, and not two parts over time. The snowy mid-mountains and foothills aren't easy to navigate, and have very few points of real infrastructure, so the main ground team is way down to the south, engaged with Sangvis forces on the large scale near the tail end of a broad meltwater river that runs all the way down the mountainside, caught up in a raging gun battle across multiple bridges all the way down the split shoreline, occupying the bulk of the troops in the region; this is a pretty big relief, given that Intruder's specialty (outside of hacking and schemes) appears to be making armies of standard units dance like angels on a pinhead. The 'precision strike team' (i.e. really, the replacement assassins) are flown up through the mess after Gideon gives the all clear that anti-air has been disabled, and deposited higher up and to the north, by the edge of a frozen lake bowl, where a nightmare hairpin road runs straight to the Sangvis command base to the west . . . eventually . . . past eleven changes in elevation . . . and some tiny little road stop of garages, storage, a gas station, and a cheap motel halfway. The main advantage is that the team doesn't have to cut across the river or fight across any bridges here, and that a high, snowy ridge protects them from being shot at from the top until they cross that checkpoint town. Obviously, there are still reserve units up here. Even just confirming with eyeballs from the air along the way, there are plenty of Guards, Dragoons, Vespids, and probably Jaegers up here. It's just the shortest and least vulnerable path to the base, and Intruder herself.
Gordon Freeman	Gordon makes his way from the drop point straight down the road. No waiting, no words, just taking off at a jog. He already has his SMG at the ready, and he's worried about the ambush point at that road stop, but he's only readying up his armor for it, not trying to sneak past it or anything fancy like that. The only thing he does make sure to do is stay, as much as he can, out of the main open road, and nearer the sides of it. Specifically, he really wants to avoid running dead-on into being caught out in the open. He knows he'll be caught, because he's big and armored and orange and he's Gordon Freeman, but he's going to do his damndest to make sure he gets caught near enough to the halfway-stop buildings that he can maneuver in the interiors instead. And when he hits the various SF forces, well, no sense in holding back. Best to just open fire with the SMG, and his ever-fine-tuning understanding of how best to take down the murderbots.
Tomoe	So another day, and another mission. It was wonderfully simple and direct, it was clear the way to the enemy commander and deal with the commander. It was simple and she prayed it would remain so upfront even if it turned out to be difficult in its execution. She was as ready she could be for this operation. With the units to the south being kept busy this would hopefully give the 'precision strike team' a better chance at pulling this mission off. She will arrive with ret of the team and will start to take a look. Tomoe takes in the terrain and thinks back on what she saw on the way up. There are still a lot of enemy units but she knows there could be a heck of a lot more. She'll be on guard as they will move out, she will attempt to take point ahead of the rest of the group. She takes a cue from Gordon and keeps off the main road as they move, as well. The moment the enemy is directly encountered, Tomoe will engage. She'll open up with a few quick spells before she'll try to move in to engage them up close in melee as she's wont to do, she's learned enough though to never charge them in a straight line as she does so. That's just asking her to get sniped. She knows they will have to press on ahead one way or another and given she's not stealthy really. Hopefully, she can draw attention and fire off her allies as they press towards their objective.
Theurgus	Theurgus isn't one of the original responders, but the DCC is easily bored, and when she caught wind of some automata needing some very serious cases of being stabbed, shot and/or exploded, she offered to join in. Stepping off the dropship, the blue-haired woman looks around, then starts strolling down the road, following a few feet behind the man in the bright orange armour. She's taking some notes on how it moves as he does, then quickens as others start to pass her. Theurgus doesn't appear at first sight, to be built for combat, especially not this kind of combat with high power projectile weapons and coordinated tactics, especially wearing a bright white coat-dress and a pointed hat with cogs built into it. Once contact is made, the DCC goes all business and with a quick flick of her wrist, summons a metal staff with a stylized head with a large spherical marble set into it. She doesn't transform just yet, that's a bit too flashy for the first act. Instead, she flings homing bolts of elemental energy into any Sangris units she can get sight on, acting more like a light artillery unit than a direct sniper, hiding and flinging attacks, then shifting position.
Tony Stark	Sangvis Ferri has been a Project for a while. Something Tony Stark couldn't ignore. A world full of children being put to war. Spent like weapons. Brought back, toyed with, spent like bullets. It made him sick. The whole situation was at its best a little too far. At its worst... Well. Best not to think about that. At least this awful dystopian reality of slaughter as a service wasn't his fault. This time. Dropping out of a helicopter isn't new for Iron Man, though normally he owns the helicopter. With a flare of boot and palm jets to stabilize his descent, he lands near Gordon Freeman and surveils the surrounding terrain quickly as his helmet HUD starts lighting up targets. "Right. If the doctor and the pretty lady are going to be the belles of the ball, they're going to get a lot of suitors." "Sigma platform on standby. Satellite uplink established. Projecting best course through enemy fortifications." "Push it to Doctor Freeman and watch the good man work." Populating through Tomoe's avatar and Freeman's HEV suit are a number of highlit waypoints and strategic assessments, painted targets (with big angry red downarrows even showing targets through walls), best guesses as to enemy composition and highlight killboxes that the Jaegers and snipers had set up. "Once Intruder shows up, I'm going to bring the spicy salsa, but until then, Doctor Freeman is the man with a plan. Let's get it done."
Gideon Kaspar	The initial resistance along the road is fairly light. Small squads of infantry litter the path, taking shots from the light tree cover and rocky outcrops. Given that there's so little cover around, it becomes paradoxically easy to predict where they'll appear, as anything large enough to get four or more people behind is typically where green particle blasts start coming down the road from. They move from position to position where they aren't blown up or shot down while running, performing a fighting retreat up the western road, stopping to form a little barricade where enough of them can get together, and then breaking once their numbers go down again. The is the potential for some nasty potshots here and there, but it's not, so far, nearly as challenging as things had been with Hunter and Executioner. Arriving at the checkpoint, Gordon and Tomoe find it essentially unpopulated, with forces having either pulled back from it while they were shooting their way here, or not being stationed near a gas station (and thus, reservoir) in the first place. The constant sound of gunfire, explosions, and energy weaponry floats up from the foot of the mountain as if it were more unnervingly close, bouncing from the rocks oddly and creating a confusing and chaotic soundscape, but there aren't any signs of it here. From the air, Tony can tell that it looks like a fairly ideal place for Jaegers to camp out and pick people off (or blow them all to hell), but the high ridge that is the halfway point in terms of line of sight only has so many places one could be camped out, and even a fairly thorough aerial scan doesn't reveral any. It's when Theurgus closes in from the rear, and the frontliners start to push through, that the problems start. Several electronic signatures activate in nearby garages, the upper floor of the motel, near the foot of the ridge, and off the road, starting up from cold (literally; even the heat signature of their mechanical components is nothing when left on idle in this much snow), and are followed by immense blasts of signal static radiating in all directions. This is very very bad, because all four members of the team are using, or ARE, electronic(s). Comms and targeting crap out instantly, jammed five ways back and forth. Tomoe's, Tony's, and Gordon's HUDs start flickering and bugging out, and even for Theurgus, a video conference window with a pale woman with short, dark hair, sapphire blue eyes, and a daringly cut black and purple Sangvis Ferri outfit, is forced on. A number of systems start trying to shut down or go off seemingly randomly, screwing not only with the HEV and Iron Man suits, but actively trying to screw with Tomoe's and Theurgus' stats and sliders, fiddling with their code with a million, million blind neural trial fingers. "Hello there! So nice of you to join us! I was wondering if you'd gotten lost on the way to the teahouse. After you so insistently invited yourselves in, too! So? Are you enjoying yourselves? Have I occupied your time well?"
Theurgus	Theurgus winces as something starts trying to mess around with her code. Her body flickers and slightly, but whatever it is she's made from, it's hard to get a grasp on anything important, at least to start with. She frowns a bit at the chat window, a visible thing that appears beside her head, just off to one side like a hologram. "Intruder, I take it? Come and face us directly, lest you lack the courage." she says back, pushing forward to join the others a bit closer to the town. "We should find her transmission vectors and destroy them."
Tomoe	Tony's coordination is very much welcome she'll keep tabs on the way points nad targets, Tony is making thing and the seriously does make her day. This will help a lot with the coming operation. <<Oh your making thing, thank you!>> She'll keep on the move, yet there's something that leave her on edge in very short order. They are able to handle the enemy T-dolls in short ower and when they hit the checkpoint? There's nothing there almost nothing at all there. She can hear the sound od the battle from the other team going on and it seem to be getting closer. Tomoe's HUD flicks and bugs out even her own personal status displays are going /wonky/ and that troubles her a lot. Then come the source of it the pale woman with dark hair and sapphire blue eyes. The further hacking i clearly causing some warping on Tomoe's appearance but the code that makes up that part of her body is pretty strange it's terrifying that the T-doll can mess with it given so little time. If this battle drags out it's going to get very bad for Tomoe. "So Intruder I doubt you want to fight us up front but here we are." She'll look to Theurgus and nods "We do need to or I might end up becoming a hindrance if she forces me to drop out of henshin." She'll pause and start trying to suss out where the source of the transmissions are coming from, they need to act fast and she knows it. Her body warps again for a moment as the digital assault keeps up. There's got to be some transmission system around here, somewhere!
Gordon Freeman	Man, being able to see light defenses through walls and navigate like this /rocks/. Usually, the HEV suit doesn't work out this well! Which makes it all the more disappointing when Gordon's HUD flickers. His fancy armor falters, activating and deactivating. He's had to hard-reboot his HEV suit in the middle of operations before, but he's never had it constantly going in and out like this. Unlike Iron Man, Theurgus, and Tomoe, he doesn't really have a mind or soul behind his automated parts. When Theurgus joins him, he gives a firm, steady, determined nod. Even Tony's convenient and incredibly useful uplink gets jammed? Jesus. Gordon puts a hand to his chin, stroking his beard in academic contemplation, before seeming to decide on the course of action. If he wants Gordon to have the plan, Gordon will have it. The bursts of interference are highly unambiguous in their directions of origin at least; he can apply his SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS to the mysterious energy phenomenon, and figure out the direction based on correlating signs of electromagnetic activity! That means Gordon can split things up. Getting into cover, he wordlessly gestures to the others, in case Intruder can hear them, and also because he never fucking /speaks/. The upper floor motel emitter is assigned to Tomoe because she can withstand any ambushes therein and can fly directly to them, Theurgus gets assigned the off-road emitters and the one at the foot of the ridge because they have no cover against her artillery, and Tony gets invited to join up with Gordon in duo-clearing the garages. Divide and conquer, that's Gordon's plan, and without even waiting for confirmation from the others, he starts executing his side of it!
Tony Stark	Everything is going great. Everything is going well. Everything is going according to plan. With a strategic blast or missile here or there, and pushing up with Tomoe's shield wall, Theurgis' flank, and Gordon's maniac kinetic charge through the hills on their way to Intruder. "Energy surge detected!" Friday warns moments before the crash of electronic warfare starts flickering through Tony's hud, a large warning symbol flashing across his vision as the automatic flight assist cuts out and Iron Man has to maneuver to the ground on manual controls, cutting his air offense short. Landing near Gordon, Tony worriedly checks the progress bars that start appearing - a penetration meter, progress on countermeasures, a system override spinny. A flickering warning alongisde Intruder's picture features a number of critical, primary, and secondary systems knocked out and coming back online in priority order due to the electronic attack. "Doctor, we probably want to take those out before we push up the ridge, but..." Charging along after Gordon and laying into the garage with repulsors and missile arrays. "... I'm pretty sure we're on a time limit now. Intruder kept on saying she was buying time, playing for time, right? Well, what's she doing that for? It can't be just drawing out this for nothing. If we can shut down a jammer, that could take pressure off all of us. And I'd really not want to just hand Sangvis Ferri one of my suits, or yours. Up to you."
Gideon Kaspar	"Courage?" faux-gasps Intruder. "Oh I'm afraid it has nothing to do with courage, you see. It's about orders. Specifically, following my orders to keep you bunch entertained. Hasn't it been great so far? If you want to meet face to face, you're free to come in, sit down, and have a chat!" Gordon doesn't have much trouble tracing down energy signatures that intense. In all four major locations, there are squat, tripod, black/purple machines a little larger than a refridgerator, with most of their height being clusters of thick, pointed antennae that are outright audibly humming and creating tingling static when one gets up close, for the amount of power they're using to transmit like this. They have their own little built-in consoles, and aren't especially sturdy. Most of their 'defense' comes from the signal jammers/transmitters starting to figure out which lines correspond to which critical systems, and trying to shut off Tony's repulsors and lasers, Gordon's ability to actually move, and to drain Tomoe's MP bar and sip on Theurgus' System resources. When hit directly by powerful weaponry or magic, they're crushed straight away, though they'd be proof at least against whacking them with a crowbar. Odd though. If there were some Guard units around here to fight back and protect them, the group might be in really serious hot water. Without an enemy force to protect the objectives, it's a nasty time-waster, and a worryworm what lingering effects they might have, but little else. The signal traffic clears up, and the jamming drops, but somehow, the little G&K issue comms window keeps floating in people's faces. "Oh, I'll fight you if that's what you'd rather do. Shame to let the tea go cold, but it is what it is. I'm supposed to 'kill time' after all. So, I can be a gracious hostess." And indeed, right after she says that, Sangvis Ferri units come streaming over the ridge. Rather than waiting for the group to fight all the way up to the base, and probably spring some carefully laid traps, ranks of bipedal mechanized Dragoon units come storming over first, revving up their particle cannons and blasting the hell out of the checkpoint zone as the walkers lead the charge. All-terrain fitted, four wheeled Prowler drones come after, bouncing and swerving and roaring like ATVs, then dive bombing swarms of agile, flying Scouts, adding a terrible hail of rapid energy blasts from on high. Trudging to the top of the hill, teams of rifle-wielding Vespids set up what are almost gun lines, using the peak visibility of the ridge itself as cover, and coordinating two or three squads to an Elite, firing away with high-powered marksman rifle attacks. Somehow, none of it hits the giant, obvious, extremely explosive gas well. Plenty of it misses (obviously, or else people would just atomize under hundreds of beam shots) but not a single stray lights a pump or blows the whole checkpoint to hell. At the very tip top of the ridge to the north, what appears to be Intruder herself just walks on up. The woman with blue eyes, flanked by a team of Guards, bearing their massive, heavily armoured shields, drags some sort of long, slender, motorcycle-sized autocannon along with her. From the air, Tony can see her do eenie-meenie-miney-mo with her finger, and then pick on Theurgus specifically to start dumping massive quantities of heavy gunfire on, the snow shaking off her perch from the sheer recoil of the thing blazing away. The Intruder in the image window doesn't actually reflect the shooting, performing entirely separate gestures. "Is this more to your liking? You're difficult to shop for, you know that?"
Theurgus	Theurgus nods, and gathers her Resource with a softly chanted incantation. "Seeping crest of tubidity, arrogant vessel of lunacy. Churn forth and deny, grow numb and flicker, disrupting pause. Crawling queen of silicon, eternally self destructing doll of dust. Unite, repulse. Fill with trash and know your own powerlessness. Divinity Rupture. The Drive Core Controller, despite the drain on her personal Resources, manages to bring down a barrage of homing lasers, brilliant white that erupt from the head of her staff and come down straight atop her assigned targets, burning them away in a torrent of Divine-aspected energies. She's caught flat footed as Intrudter arrives and lets rip with that autocannon, taking several slugs straight through her body, leaving angry looking swaths of red damaged code before she can break line of sight and get some hard cover between her and the SF construct. Despite the possibility of having the comms intercepted, Theurgus does notice the sheer lack of fire striking anywhere near the gas well. <"They are purposefully missing the fuel building. I know not why, but we may be able to use that to our advantage."> she transmits to Friday, hoping the AI can encrypt and disseminate the information to the others without Intruder getting wind, but it's likely a futile hope. The DCC then, while hiding from that heavy cannon, summons her Relay, stabbing it into a secure little nook that's unlikely to get a soldier come through too soon, and activates it, shifting her form into Divinity Mode and readies herself to rejoin the fray once her Resource replenishes and some of the surface damage repairs itself so her weak points aren't as obvious.
Tomoe	Tomoe's code is very strange like something that wasn't human wrote it all or converted human done code to fit its own alien mindset. Still, it's starting to cause her some problems the MP bar glitches out several times when Tomoe can even see her personal HUD at all from all the interference. She does find some of one of the transmitters and will smash it with her sword as quickly as she can, she wonders where are the guards. This would be the perfect time to ambush them. Then comes Intruder message she's going to come out and play. Units are swarming them now and it's time to fight her wings will flare out and she see the damn walkers, she's learned a few things since last time and it may be best to target the riders than the walkers. The rate of fire is intense she also notices they are missing the gas station now to and they are not turned into atoms. This has to be a delaying tactic but she will also see about how they seem to be trying to avoid hitting the gas station there must be enough gas left in the tanks to make a sizable boom if they are watching it. She knows Therugus has some setup time before she really can get into the fight so she'll try to get her sometime she'll let loose with the light ray spells trying to hem and otherwise disrupt the hordes bearing down on the team. She'll get a move on her wings will flare out as she'll try to maneuver some with it and even then she is taking hits already and wireframe wounds are covering her body but she' still going fairly strong if she has to she'll keep it to just her physical weapons rather than slinging spells if her MP bottoms out.
Gordon Freeman	Thank god they dealt with this in this order. Gordon finishes off the jammer he was dealing with just in time to be stuck dealing with a massive rush of foes. His HEV suit isn't done saying "High-impact reactive armor subsystems rebooted." Before he's suddenly being barraged. Some of the artillery is what really gets him. Shit! He's already been tossed around by some of the impacts. Thankfully, though, he gets his bearings and focuses. Taking cover in one of the better garage structures, he settles into cover and readies his rocket launcher... then stops to think about something. He nods to Tony, sort of saying without saying that he's thinking on similar lines. Sadly, it seems he has no solution to the confusion and strangeness to offer. His solution is more geared towards this matter itself. He moves as quick as he can to one of those downed jammers...? He broke most of the remote access systems, but that doesn't mean that a big high-power transmitter isn't still a big damn high-power transmitter. Gordon yanks out some of the parts, using his powerful repair skills to get the emitter in working order fast. He doesn't know how to actually tune it specifically to Sangvis signals. But he /does/ know how to use a simple signal-reflective dish. And, well, Intruder just got Gordon pinned down in a garage. At a road stop. You know, where they have car repair tools. So, from the time the barrage starts, it takes about a quick minute and a half for Gordon to come out of the garage with an ad-hoc backpack hoisting something like ten car batteries and the emitter over his shoulder, and using weld-bent car doors as a director dish to emit the unfiltered, imprecise disruptor emissions right at Intruder and her gang; he's even using his RPG laser pointer to aim it more precisely! He's also using his RPG laser pointer to aim his rocket, and since it's fly-by-laser instead of doing any computing, it may well manage to strike Intruder's far-off position.
Tony Stark	It gets harder. It always gets harder. A dull, mechanical and toneless voice that exists in all of Tony's armors as a default begins warning of systems getting offlined under the directed electronic attack. As the team works through the disruptors, more and more things are trimmed in the struggle - either flickering on and off in a containment burnwall or simply having resources pulled away. "Automatic Flight Off-Line." In a lot of ways, Intruder has the home field advantage - a prepared area, with all the resources of the Sangvis network to point at a single Iron Man suit. It's just an issue of scope. "Missile Guidance Off-Line. Repulsor Focusing Compromised" Even after the last disruption 'tower' is dealt with, the Mark 43's active systems have been trimmed down solely to that which was absolutely required for operation - and a few that Tony would like but couldn't prioritize and Friday couldn't save. But hey, that's over, right? Wrong. Standing ass-out and framed down the ridge, Intruder's next gift starts barraging down the hill and Tony can't really do much more than take the withering fire and return with dumb-fired missiles. But the communication line is still open, apparently. "Look, Intruder, you're trying to get me things, and we've barely spent any time together. They say long distance relationships just don't work. And, while I'd love to do tea, I haven't really gotten down straws in my helmets. It's a work in progress." Tony quips back, clearly meaning 'never without armor on'. Meanwhile, Tony grits his teeth as he uses his eye-and-finger commands to start undoing some of the damage Intruder had caused - especially to systems like 'shields' and 'flight' and 'weapons'. "Friday, do we have satellite still? I've got an idea." "Signal only. Anything you send will be intercepted." "Good enough. Hey! Intruder, speaking of discourse and sitting down for a cup of tea, why I don't I introduce you to someone more 'your speed'. JARVIS, you're up." High above the battlefield, the Stark Tactical Satellite bearing the extra mission packages for the Mark 43 and all the heavy artillery that a single suit could't bring to bear, lights up and begins adjusting its orbit to truly geosynchronous. Responding to the namedrop, another AI voice is bounced from the satellite down into the operations area. "Of course, Sir. Miss Intruder, my name is JARVIS. I suppose mister Stark's comment about tea would be apropos to my vocal pattern. If you would like a 'tea party', may I recommend some guests?" From above, in the satellite, Jarvis begins beaming down an interference of his own directly into the Sangvis network, using the stolen AI core and data from countless battles with the T-Dolls of SF. A massive disruption pulse crashes down into the network, and in the nanoseconds that it no-doubt comes back up, cloning thousands of 'dummy' dummies, each a spoofed individual 'unit' of every type fielded all giving a 'hello world' and requesting orders. Thousands of them. An ocean of junk data to try and give orders to, or to try and pick out which unit is in what area, or anything of the sort. A total nightmare for a micromanager. Something Intruder may be able to brute force, certainly, but given time.
Gideon Kaspar	Firing heavy artillery spells into the oncoming waves of Sangvis Ferri units on their way down the ridge is pretty much a free mega kill. As crappy as it is, the Elites have the only actual cover save the ridgetop itself, the fast Scouts and Prowlers are flimsy and crippled with near-misses and splash damage, and the heavily armoured Dragoons are big enough that they're hard to miss period, with only a few having the reflexes to dodge out of the way as Intruder ditches control of the lost causes. Soon, the reinforcements are climbing over craters and low walls of slag and wreckage to get at the team. Tomoe intentionally trying to tank is worse than usual. There are few frontliners, Gordon is busy, it's an outdoors environment, a massed enemy with plenty of long-ranged weapons, and the Ringleader is right there. Even through her shield, she takes an absolute pounding, enough to force her to start popping all her healing skills and regeneration consumables when Intruder sees Theurgus run off, then turns her cannon on Tomoe, perplexingly the most heavily armed combatant despite being a humanoid fashion model specialized for e-warfare. Gordon did indeed just walk right into a big building specifically for repairing mechanical things that road stop along the mountains, and does indeed have a plethora of parts and tools that are fairly universal, even to weird hypercorp tech; a wire is a wire and a closed circuit is a closed circuit. He comes out wielding an utterly ridiculous backpack device that seems to be completely stupid at first, and then cuts off an entire, narrow cone of rank and file units, jerking to a stop for several seconds before rebooting in standalone pre-planned tactical mode, moving simply and mechanically. More importantly, it hits Intruder up on the ridge, and her posse of Guards. Intruder appears to power through it for a little, and turns (slowly) to fire on Gordon next, specifically aiming for his 'dish', but the Guards remain standing and staring uselessly forward, in the direction Gordin is, rather than the direction of the rocket, and the explosion lands right inside the formation and takes out a thousand pounds of snow and loose rock, sending the Dolls tumbling and skidding down the slope like . . . dolls, exposing their Ringleader. After Tony is done slugging it out on the ground, coring Dragoons with laser blasts and blowing up squads of Prowlers with eyeballed missiles, the satellite spam comes down, and indeed, the whole battle formation briefly 'crashes', freezing the battle in its tracks. Completely unexpectedly though, so does Intruder herself. She locks up, awaiting input. Intruder's head snaps to the side. Sparks and synthetic blood spray out from her neck. The snow puffs up next to her. A hushed, misty bang sounds out after, and then she collapses to the ground. A second later, Tony picks up a remote detonation signal, and rows of explosions go off across the ridge, setting off what must have been meticulously pre-buried mines ahead of time, and wiping out a huge number of Sangvis Ferri units.
Gideon Kaspar	Two things immediately happen, one after the other. The first one is that they get a new signal, which immediately exclaims, in almost highschool girlish tones, "Wow! Forty-five was totally right! I totally trust her of course, but that's really impressive! You did exactly like she expected!" "Or close enough. Don't start giving her too much credit. If her head gets any bigger, she won't be able to walk. We'll have to leave her behind." "Didn't she threaten to leave you behind though?" "And I threatened that I'd leave you at the bottom of a ditch if you didn't take your shot seriously." "W-what? But I did though! I hit her right in the head!" "Did you sleep through the briefing again? Intruder is engaged in a stalling operation with her Dummy Units here while clearing out the base and retreating out of Sector S09. That's why we went to steal the data ahead of the battle, remember?" "Huh? Sangvis can use Dummy Units too? I thought that was only . . ." "That was the whole point of this operation, moron." The 404 chatter doesn't get any more useful from there. Instead, the second thing that happens is that their claims are instantly proven right, as the ranks of remaining line units revert to factory automatic completely, given up on wholesale in the face of the Jarvis signal bombardment, leaving only another three, identical Intruders to climb to the top of the ridge. Their autocannons flip backwards and transform, turning into flat out miniguns instead, using the other end of the weapon. "Ah, so the secret's out then. I wondered where those little rats had gotten to. Who knew that outlawed T-Dolls like them would come to help Griffin's flunkies. Maybe that's what you'd call solidarity between tools. My lovely minefield too . . . oh well, I only have to keep you entertained for a little while longer!" All three Intruders, of course, open up on the party, sweeping streams of ridiculously high intensity particle-minigun fire across the whole checkpoint, chasing Tomoe, and any Iron Man maneuvering, through the air with thousands and thousands of shots to roll the dice on at least one or two landing. This time, they aren't afraid to hit the gas well, which immediately ignites into a towering fireball which levels the surrounding buildings completely. "And you've been picking and poking at things that don't belong to you too, you naughty humans. Here I was hoping for some civil conversation for a change. Well, even if you insist . . ." Intruder trails off for just a second, her fake video window cutting out and falling back on [SOUND ONLY]. She clearly responds to Tony specifically. "I'm glad you're enjoying my little present anyways~" she ends, so smugly and cryptically that the sheer intensity of it it wraps around from 'transparent sore loser', to somehow once again feeling . . . uncomfortable.
Theurgus	Theurgus lifts up from what's left of her cover, after the fuel station goes up and blasts the whole checkpoint to kingdom come. Saved from the brunt of it by distance, being as far from it as possible while still being in the immediate combat zone, she's scored with multiple red 'slash' marks from shrapnel. The DCC is in her full Digital Divinity, hair awash in multiple colours, a tight bodysuit connecting clockwork armour segments to her slender frame, and mismatched red and blue eyes that swap sides between blinks. She speaks, a clarion call that likely gets some of that firepower directed at her. "Ye lords! Masked in bits and code. All creation, a flutter of wings. Ye who bear the name of Program. Upon a wall of green code, inscribe a toroid spiral. Within the abyss of Base Code, await the approaching maelstrom. Cyclonic Demise!" Her staff unfolds the headpiece, a geordion knot spilling out ribbons of greenish-yellow energy, that fragments into the air and twists out towards the Dummy Intruders and the remaining Sangvis forces. As the motes of light begin to surround the formation, the winds begin to pick up within the perimeter, soon creating a ripping, tearing and slashing maelstrom within the local area, knocking projectiles off course and slamming lighter units and debris into other units.
Gordon Freeman	Gordon loses the jury-rigged backpack. He gets it off as soon as they kill the dish, and has to cut power to the thing abruptly. And, well, aged car batteries... Yeah, easy come, easy go. He got done what he needed to get done. He surges forward. Gordon was busy, and now he's not; when it comes to tanking, he can take half now. He brings out the heavy rebar crossbow, and couples it with his grenades. He hates working outdoors, but needs must, and right now he really needs. He tries now to cut through the bombardment Jarvis made, working to slice through the opening. He's a terrible conversationalist. But the fact that 404 are alive relieves him. He is, after all, a humanitarian, and strongly appreciates pretty much anyone still being alive instead of dying. Rushing on, he starts trying to plunge crossbow-speed hot rebar into the faces of each lesser Doll between him and the trio, and then start opening fire on all three, slinging grenades and not even making any effort to differentiate between the targets. He has to leap forward as the blastwave of the gas well takes him off his feet, but he transitions cleanly into prone position for an ace crossbow-sniper couple of shots, before he's on the move again, hitting the front lines as hard as he can to make up for lost time, and well intent on pinning the trio down to mess up the flow of their less-maneuverable heavy weapons!
Tony Stark	It's been one Ringleader, every time. Iron Man's gambit with the tactical satellite was entirely to buy Gordon time for his fly-by-laser missile launcher to strike home. He hadn't seen a single Ringleader take heavy ordinance to the dome and walk it off. When it turned out there wasn't one ringleader after the pulse, but four -- and all of them dummies -- with the real Dreamer still just out of reach. Detonating mines. Making cryptic comments. Being creepy. Filling the air with chaingun fire. "Ah, crap." Tony groans, maneuvering but it's another math problem, and Intruder solves for X, Y, and Z, zeroing in on his debilitated evasive maneuvers and chewing through armor and internal mechanics and sending him falling out of the air right into the fireball of the fuel depot. Ka-BOOM! The pressure blast that Iron Man tumbles through is mildly less painful than getting zeroed by a stream of autocannon rounds, and he disappears into the crashing rubble and dust cloud. In the dark, face lit by rather yellowed and red status screens and feeling sore stem to stern, Tony grunts out a "Finish that reboot now, I guess." Moments later, as Theurgus unleashes their tremendous spell, the ground crunches in light rhythm near the three fire-spraying Intruder clones. Tony's HUD finally repopulates, weapon loadouts lighting up red from grey, then yellowing, then becoming a satisfying green and collapsing into the periphery. "That's more like it. Cut stealth mode, divert power to chest RT." Shimmering into view as the Mark 43's retro-reflective plating de-activates well within the 'close' range of Intruder's dummies, taing a broad power stance as the central light of the armor burns a bright blue-white for a heartbeat. "Limiter release - stabilizers full power!" The next, as Gordon's explosive rail-bow zips in, the Mark 43 belches a massive column of repulsor energy into the mass of Intruder(s) - the Unibeam.
Tomoe	Tomoe is forced hard she knows she's in a bad place she does pop everything she's got, potions, cooldowns anything she can to mitigate damage. Shots slams into her she deflects what shots she can but even she does have her limits. She has to hope and count on her allies for stopping the Intruder as she's going to be holding her at bay. Theurgus is going to be back in time or so she hopes but when the more or less humanoid fashion model turns a big damn doomsday gun on her. She's going to try to evade this knowing trying to tank that thing is not a good idea at all. She will move and that's what saves her she doesn't get caught dead on but shrapnel and like do including more injury to her. Then comes to the rest of the team with Gordon's attacks domes she's survived the confrontation for the moment but she's clearly very bad off even with. When Tony too makes his own move and she's very glad to see him and when Intruder goes down, and then the bombs go off? Out fare out as it's time to get moving then comes team 404, so they finally have been found as it were. Okay, so they had been up to something else too as she thinks the charges are from them. The additional cire is coming her way she's pushing for all shes' worth. At that moment Thurgus make her return to the battle and her action saves Tomoe from further injury for the moment, but as the push goes on she'll keep moving engaging anything that gets to melee with her sword otherwise slinging spells, lightning this time rather than fire or light. She's also going to try to avoid further hits too.
Gideon Kaspar	The gas well going up failing to kill everyone present roughly signals the end of this particular firefight. With the bulk of the enemy guns on site in factory automatic, running around robotically and blasting in preset patterns, they're basically easy (albeit, still capable of hurting him a lot) targets for Gordon, picking them off one after the other while they're right out in the open on his way to the Intruders. By the time he clears a way through, and they can turn to trap him from behind as a basic stratagem, Theugus has already finished the casting animation on wind element hell, and the forces on the slope that haven't been wiped out by the Elites, or by the hijacked minefield, are blown away, both literally and figuratively, where their attempts at continuing a firefight with the basic, generic package S.F. AI are completely cut short by such a maelstrom that they can't even stand up, much less shoot properly, and are swiftly torn to pieces, smashed against the rocks, or hurled from the mountainside. About as Gordon would predict, none of the Intruder dummies are up to taking him on at short range. In the first place, they aren't quite on par with a normal Ringleader model (though, three of them at once makes up for that), and the info-warfare model no longer having the ability to use its main advantage just leaves it with three big and awkward miniguns between a crazy man with too many guns, a crowbar, and extreme, mute protagonist determination. They can't keep up with him, they can't track him, they can't hit him with more than a couple of glancing shots, and they soon end up battered and bullet-marked, bashed and backed up together, right ahead of Tony's Unibeam. It doesn't go like it did with Executioner. They don't have a prayer of clashing with the improved version, even if they all fired on it at the same time. The giant repulsor blast wipes the cluster out almost immediately, only requiring that Tony turn and walk the beam back and forth a little to clear the two on either side of the center Dummy, melted through in seconds. The snow turns to a steaming waterfall down the ridge, exposing glowing rock beneath it, when the left, and then the right, Dummy units join the first hit, and tumble down the slope in so many smoking pieces. Completely boning Intruder's tactical network, and frying her dummies, seems to have basically decided the ground battle too. With a bit of quiet up top, the group can hear the number of particle blasts rapidly decreasing down south, and the chatter of guns taking on a stop-start, moving sweep quality. Over the top of the ridge, they can see the base to the west, and the huge number of tracks moving from it, confirming that the reserve forces that were guarding it had all been emptied from their posts and thrown at them to make that giant series of waves, rather than sticking to the original tactical plan. It's a straight shot from there, but it's not clear what they'd really find. No matter how they look at it though, this is, by all accounts, the last major Sangvis Ferri outpost in Sector S09; their last foothold outside their borders. Sending Intruder packing means that they no longer have the ability to attack human cities, nor do they have the opportunity to try and capture any of the Anti-Rain Team. Problem solved. For now?
Theurgus	Theurgus, after being unmolested, and having expended a good amount of Resource on that spell, comes down near the rest of the team and hovers a couple of feet off the ground, looking between the other Elites. She then dismisses her divinity form and lands with a slight click of heels to the stones. A twirl dismisses her staff, and in the same movement, summons a can of soda into the same hand, which she pops the tab of and takes a sip. it has a burgundy hue and a logo that states: Doc.P. and the subtitle of 'The Elixer of Enlightenment'.
Tomoe	Intruder finally falls and she's very glad when she does. Tomeo is a mess, and she'll banish her weapons and will find somewhere to just sit the heck down she's clearly in more than a bit of pain, but it could be worse and she knows it. "We all made it I'll call that a good op."