Log:Your Honey or Your Life

2014/10/09 Big Top Bullet Chen Ebon Star Paragon Pelana Porter Rift 1

Harrisburg This once middle-class section of town has fallen into disrepair: the rows of two-storey homes are mere ghosts of the past. Some of the vinyl siding is cracked and faded from decades of neglect. Children play unsupervised in now weed-strewn vacant lots. Graffiti along brick walls mark the territory of various gangs trying to claim the neighborhood as their own. Harrisburg Elementary needs its tall security fence and guarded gate. If southern Harrisburg is bad, the north is appalling. Many of the homes are boarded up, perhaps occupied by homeless squatters, and the gang graffiti is ubiquitous. Drug dealers and worse have brought their crime to the district. Few trees or shrubs remain, and lawns are weeds and broken bottles. Here dwell the destitute, the desperate and the homeless.

It's weird, Bullet wants nothing more than to -be- a sort of Golden Age type heroine. Now... she's finally figured out that she can fly, and she's starting to get a -bit- good at it. But she's decided to shadow Paragon, to benefit from what she's started calling her... strong girl Mentor and trainer's.. experience. She's also brainstorming new outfit ideas because.. if she can fly, she -needs- a cape! That's what she thinks at least. "This is awesome!" she calls out, floating in a straight line as Paragon does her leaps and bounds, and Bullet is going slow enough that she won't like... WHOOSH away from her friend.

Paragon plummets down like a drop ship and lands in an empty, unused plot of dirt nestled between two commercial buildings, one of which is out of business, and the other in a state if disrepair. The weed overgrowth has been dug out and the soil plowed by hand. Paragon's carrying a huge stack of soil bags over her shoulders, which she drops down after she lands to begin her latest guerrilla gardening project.

Rift has been coming to Harrisburg a bit recently to do some patrolling, though she knows to keep a low profile. As such, she has her spatial cloak up, making her invisible. She does spy at least one familiar face and pauses to watch, though she is a little distance away.

Paragon picks up a bag and rips open the top. "You're getting a lot better at flying! I guess the gym really did help?" she asks in her metallic, echoing voice. Mentor? Paragon? She prefers partners. Trainer? Well, she doesn't know how to fly either, so she's not the best for that. But what she is good at is giving honest, positive encouragement.

Following Paragon down, Bullet hefts a few bags of her own. She's strong enough to handle that of course! And she cringes as she heads for the ground... her feet hitting there and skidding a foot or so while her knees absorb the landing force. She didn't roll over and tumble this time, so that's an improvement. Practice at the gym has paid off it seems! But.. landing is still a skill she's working on. "Totally!" she offers as she plays assistant, prepping bags for Paragon to make use of.

Rift moves over towards where the pair is, and then there is a distortion in the air, a rippling as she lets the cloak fade, revealing her form, the leather armored hero known as Rift. "Hello, need some help?" comes the distorted voice from her helmet.

Heroes help. Normal helpful guys help, too. That's why Porter, who was with Paragon (and possibly Bullet) before coming here, isn't here yet. Since he can't carry huge bags of manure or plant 12,000 flowers per second, he's doing what he can. What can he do? Coffee. Munchies. Delivery. So he made a detour for a food run for everybody. With his doohickeymawhatsit, it's not like he can't catch up quick.

Paragon tilts her head as she studies Bullets landing. "Hmm. Controlled landings are my speciality," she buzzes jokingly. After all, she does it lots of times every day. "Try landing at a run to bleed off momentum, just like you do with running. Stopping dead and skidding works in a rush, but less control. If you can handle it though, a steeper angle will stop you and you can absorb with your knees without skidding. But it IS harder on your knees, if that's a concern." Which it doesn't seem to be for her, considering how she lands like a rock and a slight crouch when she does. She starts to spread out the bags of soil that Bullets feeds her to create a rich top soil. Her eyes blink and she looks up as Rift suddenly appears from her perspective. "Ohhh. Hello. Help is always welcome!" she chirps in a cheerful, tinny tone.

You hear Porter's voice inside your head: << There's a sudden ping of a connection request, immediately followed by, "-here! Watch out! You need to-uhn..." There's a brief flash of pain and the connection drops. >>

Of course, Bullet has cut off her aura as she helps feed the soil to Paragon. "I'm not really much of a gardener. Also, not a big fan of dirt overall." she remarks to Paragon, "But, I do love to see things growing afterwards. I guess I don't really have much of a green thumb. I'm glad you do though." She adds, finishing one bag and reaching to heft another as she effortlessly tears it open and then looks over to Rift, "OH heya." she remarks to Rift with a grin and then... Porterlivery. Who can beat it?

Rift nods her head and does move over to help, "What needs to be done." she says and then smiles though it can't be seen. "I am Rift." she says towards Bullet, not remembering off the top of her head if she has met her before.

"Well, I still appreciate you helping. This will be good for the community. It's my third urban--" And Paragon stops in mid sentence and stands still for a moment. Her eyes blink off and on a few times and she stands up straight while the soil bag she's holding upside down just drains as she apparently listens to something only she can hear. A accidental connection ping that's auto-accepted. Her head pans mechanically up and to the south, then down and west, before returning to center. Maybe she has super hearing and never told Bullet? "Something happened to Porter. He's hurt. I think...an accident?" It's not surprising for Porter. But what is disconcerting is the flash of pain she received before the connection dropped. Connection drops are always a bad thing...

Paragon simply lets go of her bag of soil and dusts off her hands, calculating. "Bullet, he was getting food and coffee. But that could be anywhere in the city. You're faster than me by a long shot. We should start checking for him. Perhaps you can check the farther off places? He likes the coffee shop on Bridgend as a preference."

Paragon sighs and scratches her helm, wishing she were able to make outgoing connection calls. Looking to Rift, she says, "You're able to travel fast too, right? But with some method of teleportation. I remember you talking to Flicker about it."

Rift cocks her head to the side, "Porter? I can try to look through a spatial vortex and see if I can locate him, or I can just teleport and look, but yeah I am a teleporter."

"Could you, please?" Paragon asks in a concerned tone. "I'm...worried. He's probably fine as usual. But he seemed to be telling someone to watch where they were going before I felt he was in pain." It's her instinct to just drop everything and leap off to the rescue. It may be an overreaction, because Porter. But it's still there.

Pelana swoops in, hauling a large sack with several big bags of potting soil inside; a trivial weight for her, but one does have to mind aerodynamics. She's human-sized. "Sorry I'm late, Paragon, took awhile to find more soil..."

Raising her brow as Paragon freezes, Bullet's aura comes on almost by instinct. She narrows her eyes and inclines her head, "Do you know -where- she was getting this from?" she asks, cracking her neck and preparing to RUN

Rift nods her head a bit and then thinks for a moment. She bows to the dragon and then looks around a bit. "Faster to just teleport and look." she says, "Coffee shop you think was a good place to look?"

"Past Times." says Bullet with a nod. She looks to Rift and grins, "Race you!" she announces... and then she's off. Sure, soil and packaging around where she started are basically exploding in her wake...

"Probably outside or around coffee shops, based on the message...maybe inside. I...I don't really know." Paragon starts pulling a maintenance app up on her screen. The one Allison created for her to deal with upgrades. She alters the current maintenance upgrades she had selected (58% completion. Are you sure you wish to abort? Y/N), and switches to a comm upgrade to her networking hardware.

Paragon looks overs to Pelana and waves. "Thanks! You can just set the bags down. There may be a minor situation. Porter was on his way to get drinks and food for everyone, but I got a distressing message from him. I think he was hurt and knocked unconscious by the way the connection dropped."

Pelana tilts her head. "Is it bad that I'm not even remotely surprised to hear this?" "It'd only be bad if you didn't care," Paragon grins behind the faceplate as soil rains down from Bullet's explosive departure. "It could be nothing. But I'm still thinking it should be looked into."

Just as everyone is about to run, jump, fly, teleport, or other speedy means, there's a loud and bright *FLASHTHWUMP* Hey! Look! It's Porter! Who looks like he was hit by a bus. Possibly backed over once or twice. Maybe it was by the bus of an armored figure (who looks almost identical to Paragon) that's still holding him. The other that materializes is also familiar to some. Armored yet more slender, accented with glowing red lines along limbs, joints, and torso.

"Translocation complete. Network trace successful."

The red-lined helm promptly turns towards Paragon. "Third of Nine, stand down and submit for recycling."

Paragon flexes her legs a little as she grows impatient. "I'm going to check the nearby coffee shops, since Bullet and Rift seem to be taking the farther ones. Care to join me?" she asks Pelana. It's taking a great deal of constraint not to just leap off and start the search. "Or we can split up and check the ones near here--" She stops and turns towards the flash thwump, expecting Porter to be there and fine. What she sees is the worst possible scenario she could imagine. She balls up her hands into fists and growls out, "Let. Him. GO."

It's worse than what Paragon could have imagined: Porter didn't bring the coffee!!

Rift blinks as they appear, "They are bad guys yes?" she looks at Paragon and then back.

Pelana joins Paragon in growling. "Y'know, if you don't let him go... didn't you ever hear about what happens to those who meddle in the affairs of dragons, numbskull? You are *messing with my stuff*."

"Very bad," Paragon confirms for Rift. Even though Fourth is identical to her in just about every way. It's Eighth that she threatens, but her faceplate pans to Porter. She doesn't bother talking directly to Fourth.

Porter would help with all the threats, but he is occupied impersonating a ragdoll at present. Aside from close inspection or sharp senses to reveal that he's breathing, the strongest evidence that he's only out and not gone and out comes from Eighth. "The inferior unit is of no concern. Submit and he will be discarded. Refuse, and he will be disassembled." As if to clarify Eight's point, Fourth lifts Porter, one arm held in each hand, and splays Porter's arms with a firm, steady tug. Warm-up stretching. Lucky for Porter, he's not awake to feel it. On the other hand...

"No, stop!" Paragon's fingers unfurl from clenched balls as she holds up a hand towards Fourth and falls a step forward before halting. "I...I'll stand down and submit. Just...don't hurt him," her mechanical voice pleads.

Pelana looks over to Paragon. "Uh, Para? You remember the bit where I said about messin' with my stuff? You count, too." She turns and glares. "'Disassemble' him and I'll disassemble the whole lot, starting with you and ending with your boss-man. And then I'll wear your head for a hat."

Paragon's head turns over to Pelana in surprise. "I...can be repaired," Paragon reasons, whether it may be true or not in this instance. "Porter cannot. They will not hesitate to carry out their threat. And threatening them won't scare them, Pelana." She looks back to Eighth, her hands still held up in surrender. "I'm submitting!" she reconfirms.

Rift shakes her head, "Not sure I can do anything without putting him more at risk at the moment." she says, meanwhile she is thinking hard.

She barely had time to get about twenty meters when the teleport effect went off and Bullet's sped up senses detected the glow coming from behind her. She turned her head, noticed what was going on.. took the time to debate internally as she started turning around. After all, everyone's standing so still as she moves. She goes into her more... direct control movement and... she ends up flickering into being right in front of Porter. For all intents and purposes, she moved too fast for visual sensors to track, and she starts pressing random controls, buttons, doohickies, thingamagoobers and the occasional wizbang. She figures, -anywhere- is better than here. She's hoping that Porter's luck holds and he teleports away. Sure, she didn't take the time to discuss it with anyone but... she's a wee bit impulsive.

Unfortunately, luck is not with Porter, or his weirdness is also unconscious. Aside from a few annoyed or angry sounding beeps from the whatchamajigger, nothing happens.

Well, that's not entirely true. Porter does move a little. He flops a bit to one side when Fourth releases one of his arms so that he can send a gauntleted fist swinging (in relatively slow motion), towards Bullet.

Trying to activate the teleport is apparently not helping. "Come on. Come on... oh you've gotta be kidding me. Maybe this thing really doesn't work, but because he believes it does, it do..." and then Bullet is struck. She lifts into the air and heads back for the ground but... as hard as the impact appears to be, she adjusts in mid-air and hits the ground already running. "So that's the way it's gonna be eh?" she asks. Though by the time she finishes asking that, she's run around Eighth twice... and then continued on past to end up around a corner where she takes the time to mutter, "Owwwwwww." Oh yeah, and she punches at the guy twice as she runs around him in a blur of a circle.

Fourth is definitely built like a bus. Possibly more sturdy than one, since he doesn't move at the impact. In fact the impact is, or could be, painful, as speeding object smacks immovable one.

"Resistance is futile. Your companions must also stand down," Eighth does not quibble over details as to whom surrendered or did not. "You have three seconds to comply." Nor does he haggle over time for decisions, it seems.

Paragon doesn't like risky attempts when lives are at stake, either. She's glad that Porter isn't awake for this. "Everyone, stand down! It's...it's okay." She steps forward with her hands still up in surrender. She stops once she's standing in front of Eighth. "I submit for recycling. You'll release him without further harm. My companions will stand down." She looks to other others as she says the last part in serious, order-like tones. "Those are the conditions. Release Porter to Pelana."

Pelana growls. She really just wants to unload with lightning, or stomp. But her options are not, for the most part, discriminatory. She waits to see if they let Porter go. Then... well, she might take her chances to see if Paragon can survive.

"Parameter assimilated." Eighth reaches up his hands towards Paragon, one high near her head and the other over her chest. "Download and recycling commencing." The red lines flare brighter before energy emits briefly from his palms and into Paragon. The flow immediately reverses, as he draws the energy back in, along with a portion of Paragon's own animation energies and memories.

Fourth simply holds Porter out, dangling by one arm from its large gauntleted hand.

Paragon's body goes rigid as the process starts, then shudders as the very magic that keeps her body animated gets torn from her, and her memories downloaded forcefully. Her fingers twitch reflexively from the pain, she throws her head back and grits her teeth behind the faceplate, trying to hold back the scream that wants to escape.

Would Porter being unconscious and oblivious be considered fortunate or unfortunate? Like pretty much everything else in his life, it's probably both. Thought it's definitely lucky for Paragon. She'd be getting one hell of a scolding right now, otherwise. Maybe she'll get unlucky and someone else will explain her stupidity (as far as Porter's concerned) to her on Porter's behalf?

She heard the comments yes... Bullet comes skidding around the corner. She doesn't so much slow down as just.. focus on the events. Energy draining from Paragon, Porter held out. Folks might assume Bullet is wounded but... she will test if they are really allowing Porter to be taken.. by well, trying to take him. She skids to a stop beside him... takes hold, and if allowed, will carry the guy away from them. "Behave now." she mutters...

Now that the incentive is no longer required, Fourth releases Porter unceremoniously into Bullet's speeding grasp.

"Okay... take'em!" says Bullet from a good thirty meters away.

Pelana sees a blur as Bullet grabs Porter... so Pelana cuts loose with her cone of lightning breath, heedless of the fact that Paragon may well be caught within it!

The red electricity arcs across Paragon, Eighth, and Fourth. Upon Eighth, some of it mingles with his own red glow and more than expect appears to flow into The force pushes both he and Paragon a few steps, with Eighth steadying itself while maintaining contact with Paragon. Nearly aiding her to remain upright. Eighth the continues the task at hand. That task is Paragon, of course, and he continues his energy and data transfer. That it is highly painful and/or lethal is irrelevant. Her biological and mechanical components can be carried back to a laboratory for full disassembly. Fourth remains silent and appears oblivious or unconcerned about the energies. His armor is only lightly carbon-scored in a few spots.

Paragon staggers a few steps from the blast, but she hardly registers it compared to the agony she's already in. She collapses forward into Eighth and remains upright after the lighting breath washes over them. But as the energy transfer continues, she finally can't hold back anymore. She screams as she collapses to her knees. Her head pans jerkily towards Fourth, her eyes flickering from the power drain. She at least can register that Porter was released, giving her some solace.

Bullet is speeding back to the hospital carrying an unconscious Porter, who looks like he was hit by a truck or three. She stops by Ebon Star and says she'll be right back, and she is in two seconds, minus Porter after dropping him at the hospital. She asks for Ebon Star's assistance and explains in super rapid fire speech, of which she can probably pick up PorterHostageParagonDanger, then she grabs Ebon Star and whisks her to...here. Harrisburg. In front of an empty lot where Eighth and Paragon...and Paragon are.

One Paragon stands besides Eighth, silently watching while another Paragon is on her knees and screaming from whatever Eighth is doing. Eighth has his hands near Paragon, one near her head, the other over her chestplate. Red lines of energy are being drawn out of Paragon as her memories and magical energies are being forcibly transferred. On arrival, Ebon Star's mage sight allows her to see the magical signatures of all three cybernetic entities, with the fallen Paragon's energies dwindling as they're ripped away and absorbed by Eighth.

Ebon Star who was out on patrol blinks as Bullet flashes past with the unconscious Porter and moves fitfully back along Bullet's trajectory toward the source of unconscious Porter's. She's gotten all of maybe 10m By the time Bullet returns and is suddenly whisked out to Harrisburg in the time it takes to utter four words. Her cloak and cowl flutter like mad things in the wind. Fortunately her perceptions aren't thrown off by the disarray of her attire and the situation becomes apparent before she has adjusted her cowl.

The situation is decidedly Bad, even with Porter removed from the vicinity. Eighth and Paragon are where Bullet left them moments ago, but those moments have taken their toll. While there is no apparent physical damage, her standing idly by while Eighth continues to drain the very energies keeping her animate. Fourth was momentarily distracted by Pelana. The mighty Pelana, who is now absent. There is, however, a number of vaguely Pelana-shaped holes through one nearby building (the smaller version), and a red arm and hand protruding from one behind it (the large version). She can take a hit, just apparently not every hit.

Having heard a disturbance in the area Big Top heads to Harrisburg as fast as he can go running and leaping acrobatically from building to building. He flips over the edge of the building nearest Paragon and lands gracefully. He smiles at her and says "How can I help Paragon?"

Chen was on her regular run to Harrisburg. It stared when Devil Dog was active in the now ruined church. She takes food from the market stalls in Ming Street to the clinic each night to help feed the hungry, the food donated by the market stall owners. But tonight she sees something that calls for her aid in a different fashion. Paragon being drained by Eighth again. Dropping the bags she's running in at full speed screaming in anger with her face morphing into a snarling sabre-tooth tiger visage.

Paragon has since collapsed to her knees while being drained of her life energies, her screams dying away as she runs out of breath. Her head pans towards Big Top with a stuttering movement, as he's the only hero near her and speaking, but she can't communicate as power drains from her systems. The glowing white eyes set within the eye slots of the armored figure's helm flicker and dim. It's clear by the shuddering state of her body that she's in pain and in need of help, even if she can no longer talk. Her arms drop listlessly to her sides and she falls back into a seated position on her heels.

The diminutive cloaked figure that Bullet is carrying floats out of the taller heroine's arms a blossom of pearlescent oildrop-size droplets of inky blackness coalescing into a dim stellated cloud around it. She raises her right hand, palm and finger extended in almost a stop gesture. From within the darkened cowl a distorted voice emerges. "Give me one moment Bullet."

Narrowing her eyes, Bullet stares at the fading form of Paragon. She nods her head to Ebon Star. "Whatever it is you need me to wait for, please tell me it's quick." She is tense... quite tense, and ready to go. She was about to take off and do something... well... rash, fast, impulsive? The answer to all of those is YES.

Paragon's life is pain right now. Her systems are downloaded and drained. She doesn't remember why she's here, or who she was for the moment. There's just the excruciating pain and no idea how to make it stop.

Ebon Star keeps her palm and fingers extended and makes a smearing motion from right to left her hand waving slightly with the arm motion. And as a result.... absolutely nothing seems to happen.

Unseen wefts and woofs of illusion steadily take shape, constructing a tapestry of sensation to replace reality, gradually focusing Eighth's attention on a fictive Paragon but her twitching spasms are so much richer and the life force of her memories so brighter, so enticing, he is so close to having them all. In a low voice Ebon Star comments to Bullet. "Get her out of there."

Paragon shudders and jerks her body forward, falling onto her hands and knees as primal instincts take over. Pain...it's...the thing in front of her is hurting her. Her fingers claw on the ground and dig grooves into it as though the concrete was merely soft earth. A feral growl rumbles through gritted teeth. One of pain and rage. One foot draws up beside one of the hands on the ground, and then in a sweeping motion, Paragon rises to her feet, driving her fist up with her in an uppercut aimed at Eighth's jawline.

Ebon Star lowers her hand to her side. "Of course... that was my plan all along..." Though obviously electronically distorted there is a slightly forlorn note to the words. . o O (I am waaaaay out of my league.)

"Memory data download complete. Energy reclamation process at ninty perc-" Eighth never finishes the update as the limp and deactiving Paragon he witnesses is not the one that rises to catch him under the chin with a building-juggling fist. Eighth rapidly distances himself from Paragon in a ballistic trajectory, lands on his back on the street, and skids another few meters, sparking along the way. He does not immediately stand.

"Yeah, okay." says Bullet. "Be right back. I need to grab something." And she's gone briefly. She returns... apparently playing an old 1980's video game. She comes barreling in on Fourth as.. that one is a threat. But.. the game she seems to be playing is called Joust. You know those damaged and shortened I-Beams from the buildings around the area? Yeah, she has one in her hands and she flashes past Fourth once, twice... swinging that thing like a Louisville Slugger... And then she skids to a stop back next to Rose. "I like baseball." she remarks as she hefts that beam... now damaged, over one shoulder.

When Bullet is finished with her passes, she now holds a rather bent beam. Fourth is not bent. In fact, he doesn't even look dented. Bullet did seem to get his attention, though. Chen continues her full speed run forwards, morphing into a battering ram with legs as she closes on Eighth. She had intended to get Paragon away from Eighth but Paragon just did that herself. Change of plan. Destroy Eighth so Eighth will never harm her sister again. She has no intention of stopping.

The only thing Chen is regretful of as she slams into Eighth is the way he is knocked back from her. Now she'll have to move to go after him.

Eighth does not have the opportunity to catch his breath, if he does breath, or stand when he is stampeded by the charging Chen. The momentum transfer sends him flying into, and through, the brick building across the street.

Big Top Runs over to Fourth a Strongman Mallet appearing in his hands and winds up for an uppercut swing to him.


 * BONG* While it's not the ringing bell and the top of the muscle man scale, the ringing upon Fourth's armor is rewarding. Also is the fact hat it actually leaves a dent... and knocks the man (?) back a few meters.

Onto his beryllium butt.

Ebon star floats quietly at Bullet's side, cloud of opalescent droplist softly shimmering as the stellated cloud pulses and drifts. In a low voice she comments. "I do so abhor physical labour."

"I'm fast enough to do your share too." mutters Bullet.

Armor plates creak as Fourth stands and takes a bounding leap that returns him to his former position. He lifts both hands over his head and uses his own mass with a powerful downswing at mighty mallet man.

Ebon Star's cowl jerks in the direction of Fourth. "Mindless" Tiny shoulders lift in a shrug. "Your problem." As though that's all that need be said.

Narrowing her eyes, Bullet sees the hit. She inclines her head and says, "Be right..." and she whips over, faster than the eyes can track... picks Big Top up. She's stronger than she looks, dusts him off real quick, says.. "Hit him a lot more please." and then she's gone, back by Ebon Star as she says, "Back."

Fourth lifts his fists up to potentially pound Big Top into the ground as a tent stake, but suddenly stops and turns. He takes several heavy steps before launching with a great leap of powerful legs into the building through the hole Eighth recently made. Mostly. He tears a larger one as he knocks more bricks out.

After the instinctual uppercut on Eighth, Paragon remains on her feet as her arms drop to her sides. Her body is hunched over as her arms dangle listlessly. She sways slightly in place, eyes fixed straight ahead where Eighth was knocked towards. She remains this way, but does not move or say anything.

"I got an..." begins Bullet as she flashes into motion. She appears by Big Top. "Idea..." she finishes. "Don't think I'm getting fresh here big guy." she remarks as she hoists the Strongman in her arms. Then.. WHOOSH! She screams in through the hole and skids to a stop hopefully by those two, setting Big Top down and saying, "As I said, hit lots." and she's miming the whole hammering action several times here as if to demonstrate for Big Top's benefit. Then.. a bit of a grin and shrug. Superspeed is awesome and crappy all at once sometimes.

Chen moves into the building to stand over Eighth and slam a rain of blows down at him, alternating lefts and rights as she tries her very best to smash him into junk.

Eighth is still on the ground, presumably where he slid to a stop. When the raging Chen approaches, he quickly raises a hand, projecting a field of energy about himself and Fourth.

Rage almost proves enough counter-energy as the field wobbles and flickers under her assault. But it holds, if only just.

Rolling her eyes as Big Top doesn't hit the guys yet. She taps her foot, sighs and says, "Fine! Like this!" and she starts running around Eighth in a circle, trying to hit him through the energy field once, twice... the plan... to hit the same general area that Chen hit... once.. twice. And maybe to make an opening. When she's done, she ends up next to Big Top, gesturing towards Eighth as she raises both brows behind her gold tinted goggles, "Anytime now.." she remarks.

Chen needs, wants, to get to Eighth. That barrier has to go. Chen's legs muscle up and she takes off in a run around the room to build up speed and then slams into the barrier as hard as she can aiming so if the barrier goes down she'll hopefully hit Eighth.

"Oh wait, that's gonna... hey, you might wanna not quite go that... ow." mutters Bullet.

The Freight Chen unstoppable force pops the barely-there energy field like a soap bubble in a haystack of needles. Fourth lurches to interpose his armored form between her and Eighth when it pops. He manages to slow her down. Slightly. Dented armor buckles and tears, filling the the room with the stench of flesh dead for ... how many weeks, now? Chen passes through the putrid meat easily and then bursts out of Fourth's torso like some hatching xenomorphic larva. Then, she and what remains of Fourth STILL impact Eighth, sending the shapeshifted, necromagitechnical mess rolling across the floor in a big tangle of ... stuff.

When that happens, any hopes of combat for the forseeable future for Bullet go right out the window. She turns off her speed aura because... who wants to feel themselves vomiting in slow motion really? She turns and finds a corner to stagger into and makes it smell a lot worse for a bit.

Chen is a shapeshifted mess, her head that of a snarling sabre-toothed tiger, legs excessively muscled, and arms extended so she can slam more blows into Eighth.

Big Top says, "uh nice kitty!"

"Chen... what would Paragon say?!" mutters Bullet as she wipes her lips with the back of one glove, "Ugh, I need to wash this costume now." she mutters as she turns to stagger closer.

Big Top dodge

That's possibly the only comment that could get through to Chen. When she hears Bullet's words, Chen hesitates, and then stops. And with the ebbing of her rage she becomes aware of what has happened, and turns away to lose the contents of her stomach against a wall of the ruined building.

Big Top says, "It'll be alright. She's gonna be okay."

And as Chen stops that, Bullet takes a breath, activates speed mode... vanishes briefly, and shows up with a pair of damp washcloths... one is held out towards Chen, and the other is used to re-wipe Bullet's lips. Then she looks back to Big Top. "That's a nice mall... hey, where's your mallet?"

Big Top whispers "Right?"

Paragon would probably say nothing at the moment. Somewhere outside, she's only now slowly regaining her sentience as her systems start to address the power drain. And without the constant siphoning off of the magical energies animating her body, that starts to return as well. Her slumped posture slowly straightens up. Her glowing eyes slowly illuminate to their normal levels. And she remembers why she is here. Eighth. Eighth was here. And Porter. They had Porter! They were just letting him go after she surrendered and...where...is everyone?

Big Top says, "It goes away when I don't need it."

Chen thanks Bullet as she takes the damp washcloth and wipes her lips. She's too scared to go outside. She can't face the thought of seeing Paragon as a mindless zombie. So she just sinks down into a crouch and bawls her eyes out.

"...." starts Bullet. Not often that she is struck speechless. "H'okay... must be handy. Wish I could conjure up that sorta thing to hit these gits with on the way by." And then she hears... well processes some sounds. She grabs Chen and whooshes over to where Paragon is moving around again. "Porter's fine. I got 'im to the hospital. Nothing major. Eighth is... " she gestures towards where Big Top has him restrained. "Starguard is on the way and Fourth... well, I wouldn't worry about Fourth anymore." She took Chen there because she knows that Chen needs that.

Appearing with a clink outside, Showdown looks around. And... well, then he spots Paragon and drops down near her with another clink of the spurs. "Paragon? What happened here?" Showdown's obviously ready to shoot with a blue and yellow construct rifle in hand. Yep. Shoot first, ask questions later when it comes to whatever is making a lot of noise. The gold and red of his armor lights up, giving some light to the area as needed. Turning upon hearing Bullet and Chen, the rifle is pointed with both hands towards the two before he raises it upwards. "Bullet? Chen?"

Paragon's eyes adjust in diameter as she digests the rapid fire debriefing, shrinking to the size of nickels before returning to normal size. That's right, these are...friends. That is a Bullet. That is a Chen. Her head pans to Showdown, but she doesn't know how to answer just yet. Her memories are still in the process of being recovered. But she does understand enough of the situation to take a step towards Chen, arms extended in an offered hug.

"Whoa there Tex." says Bullet as the rifle points her way. She vanishes in a golden blur and ends up next to Showdown, "I admire the enthusiasm though." she adds with a smirk.

Chen sees Paragon move towards her and closes the rest of the distance to hug tight sobbing loudly.

There is something to be said about having to deal with undead horrors. And Showdown happens to feel like stating it. "Bullet... what in the world happened and what is that smell?" Did the helmet area of Showdown's armor just tighten a bit? Probably did. Yep.

A few systems boot back up as Paragon hugs Chen. Base heroic personality loaded. Language loaded. "Sorry, citizen," Paragon intones quietly as she pulls Chen into a tight hug on instinct instead of programming. The rest of her systems start recovering quickly. "Chen," she corrects. "Recovery at 58%." Her words are mechanical sounding.

"That smell? Well, which one? There's a bunch of them. However, it might have something to do with the Undead Robot Cyborg Necrodude exploding over there." Bullet remarks with a shrug. But yeah, she zips up her biker jacket as she adds, I definitely need a cape."

"Sorry, Chen. Had to." Paragon's vocabulary and sentence structure are still being recovered. But it's all rapidly starting to reboot now.

Chen asks Paragon worriedly, "Are you... are you going to be okay? You can recover fully, right? Please, say you can."

"See Chen... they showed up and had Porter in a drawn and quartered position. She played along, until they let him go. I ran 'im to the hospital and came back as fast as I could without like, blowing up cars... and then we put the smack down on 'em. Where's Pela.. oh.." she finishes, looking over at the building that collapsed on the giantess.... since... her shrinking turns off when she gets knocked out, it's really obvious.

"I think the... wait, undead..." He blinks, then turns to look at the obvious collapsed building. "... oh, great... don't tell me, Pelana's buried under there?" Showdown looks considerate, "Hm... I can probably help some with the digging, I guess, or should we wait for her to wake up and let her get out on her own?"

Paragon smiles weakly behind her faceplate. "I can. Will be. Soon." Her head pans over to Bullet. "Thank you. For getting Porter to safety." Better sentences. That's good. "Pelana tried to stop them. Fourth fought her." It takes another few seconds and her head perks up suddenly as she fully recovers her memories and personality. "What happened with Fourth and the other unit?"

"The one that looked like you... well, he's apparently in need of a body shop and a lot of spare parts. The smaller one... Big Top took to Starguard." says Bullet with a shrug. She looks back to Showdown and remarks, "I don't want to be anywhere near here when she -does- wake up."

Chen just hugs and sobs. This has been too much emotionally for her to take on top of the recent Paragon getting shutdown incident.

"I'm sorry, Chen," Paragon repeats as she just holds on to her little sister. "I couldn't let them kill Porter. Or anyone else, for that matter." If it had been a civilian or a stranger, she would've still done the same thing. "I had to surrender. But...I'm still here. I wouldn't leave you alone."

"It was a good strategic decision. You knew that we wouldn't just let them take you.. and keep you and all." says Bullet. "You had to play possum and make them let Porter go. It worked." she adds, "But seriously, a cape would work, wouldn't it?" Yep, total ADD.

Paragon glances over to Showdown. "You have a 50/50 chance of being Pelana's hero or wounding her pride. Make that...30/70."

Chen sags in Paragon's hug like all the strength just drained out of her, changing back to her normal form but looking pale and shakey.

Showdown looks considerate, then shakes his head. "I'll leave that one alone, then... so.. you said one sibling was kinda... busted? That must be Fourth... what about the other one? Had some sort of glow bit going on in a red color? And Bullet, don't do capes. You move too fast as it is. The cape would only get caught on something." This from Showdown. Who is wearing a poncho. He looks as innocent as can be, too, which is kinda hard in armor and a full helmet.

"Oh p'shaw. You sound like Edna Mode." mutters Bullet. "I -am- getting a cape because... you see, if I was just running that'd be fine but..." and she focuses... levitating into the air, "Guess what I figured out I can do!" she announces.

Cue the clang of a facepalm from Showdown. "... there goes that advantage for hiding from you."

"Why would you want to hide from -me-?" asks Bullet as she drops to the ground, leaping up again and doing an aerial flip. "I'm getting good at this!" She states.

Paragon continues to just hold onto Chen to comfort her. She's damningly silent at Bullet's strategy suggestions, but she doesn't refute them. "Busted?" she asks as she looks to Showdown. She picks up that much. She listens to get updated on what happened.

"Yeah, he's like... well, looks like he hasn't really... okay, he blew up. Self destructed I think." says Bullet. "Trying to stop us from apprehending the smaller one and saving you."

Chen feels her strength returning. She's not sure what just happened to her but this is not really the time to mention it. She feels quite cold though. And remembering what she did while enraged more than a little sick.

Shrugging, "Because I get tired of making hats all the time." Showdown states. Then looks to what Bullet is doing and shakes his head. A green pulse comes from his feet before he leaps upwards. Another clink sounds as a second green pulse signals his changing direction to do a flip in the air followed by a third clink as he spins to land neatly on his feet, trailing a few green sparks as he lands. He looks to Bullet. "Try that, then you can say you're getting the hang of it. So... Fourth... I'm sorry, Paragon. You seemed close in the last battle I was in."

Paragon's eyes expand in size in surprise. "Self destructed??" Her head pans to Chen, Bullet, and Showdown. "Are you all okay?"

And yes, Bullet lied to help Chen feel better too. She looks to Showdown and smirks. "Really now." she remarks, "That's all?" She shakes her head and says, "Is this a fighter pilot's game of follow the leader then?" she asks. She pushes off and goes through quite a routine of flips and twists and such....

Showdown looks to Paragon. "Ask them. I arrived after you came back online. I was returning from a race elsewhere." He pauses, looks at Bullet, then shakes his head, "Show off."

At the mention of being close, Paragon merely shakes her head at first. "Not really. We were never friends. He was antagonistic. But he was part of my series. Made just after I was. I think somewhere inside, that made me something of importance to him when he malfunctioned and became independent. But he was not a friend. He never learned how not to hurt people."

"Either way, the one that looked like you is scrap and the other one is in Custody at Starguard." says Bullet as she surges into the air, spins three times and then comes down... she's decided that instead of landing... just flying to the point of hitting the ground, she'll do better to just stop flying... just before she hits, and land like she would from leaping off of a human pyramid. She even lifts an arm as if to say, 'go team!' as she lands.

"Scrap...?" Paragon takes a few moments to absorb that as well as the self-destruct chat. "How awful. I suppose it couldn't be helped. At least the other is in custody. Hopefully it'll be the last we'll see of Mechaneer's creations for a while."

Seeing that Chen is in such bad shape emotionally, Paragon gathers her up into her arms more. "I'm going to take Chen home. I'll be back later to help police with Fourth's remains. Thank you for all your help, Bullet." There's some thanks that go unsaid for Bullet's cover story, but her thank you tone hints at such. "And thank you for trying to help," she says as she turns to look at Showdown. "You two should take it easy. You've earned a break." With that, she leaps off while carrying Chen away from the scene of the incident, where she hopes Chen will start recovering soon.