Log:Overlord - Colonial Bay, Scene 2

Overlord's Arrival 2018/04/20 Spirit Chen Natasha Pleiades Copycat Griffin Defender 4

Long, largely straight roads, often in poor condition, stretch across the low-lying farmland, interrupted by lines of tree delimiting fields and acting as windbreakers. Traffic is thin, most long-distance traffic preferring the major highways to the south and east. Small villages and isolated farmhouses hold the human population, while fields and hedgerows have the animals.

Last issue...Overlord has arrived on planet. Or at least his devices have. Spread around the globe, there are a series of large pylons that have slammed into the Earth. Each is 2 miles in diameter and between 5 and 10 miles tall, jutting into the air. Each device appears to be hollow, somewhat like a straw, but in this case, the outer wall is a good 15 meters thick...and made of metal and some kind of unknown compound.

Heroes around the world are dealing with their local versions of these things, and in Colonial Bay's case, a handful of heroes arrived soonest: Spirit and Pleiades from Starguard, Copycat, Griffin, Chen, and Natasha.

Drones had spilled out of the pylon, starting to scan...and defend their home. The heroes were fast, though...slipping into the drone launch bay with minimal resistance, and then ripping through the outer wall to the interior. Only then did they realize the pylon's shape. The drones have started to respond, finally...attacking Spirit, who remained relatively unharmed due to his strong resistance to energy-based attacks.

Chen looks at Spirit, "Griffin, et al., are heading up. Guess they think that's likely where the control and command centre is. If this thing is drilling down there may be something breakable at the bottom. So I'll go down." she tells him. Running through the drone bay she takes a leap out into the centre and if gravity works, starts falling.

Spirit calls out after Chen jumps, "I might be able to trace the control patterns. Or Griffin might be able to. But this hole in the side here is going to be a problem if we dont' stop the power generation!"

Spirit flies into the interior from the drone bay and looks around for the energy flow. "I...think it's being controlled from somewhere about 50 meters up. Far wall." He points up and to his left.

Natasha turns to face the drones that attacked her. She flies in towards one, studying it, before opening her mouth and emitting a frightful screech - not unlike when she talks in the dragon language but much, MUCH louder.

The drone is hit with the sonic attack...and vibrates at a similar frequency...before it shatters entirely.

Pleiades continues upward with her 'Eagle Road', moving upward with her skates and leaving a trail behind her.

Copycat and Griffin Freeman, the Colonial Bay Sentinel continue their ascent upwards- moving quickly enough to make progress towards the top of the spire, but not so fast as to be at risk for being squashed with a drone or barrier apeparing in their path.

Chen hears Spirit's comment. Growing wings she flaps hard to start heading to the area Spirit indicated. "Hope you're right. But I'll not got any better ideas. Be there in.." Chen makes a quick estimate, "about a minute."

Defender's boots crunch down on the ruined earth bordering the giant pylon, the silver-armored knight having made his way to the scene as quickly as his limited jet boosters would get him here. Tilting his head back he silently takes in the scene, glowing lance held up and out from his body. The sheer immensity of the structure before him is impressive, and this is only one of many? The prospect of dealing with even one is daunting, let alone the rest of these things that have dropped around the planet. But, well, there isnt' really any other choice.

Gauntlet tightening reflexively around the shaft of his lance, he drops his attention back down to the base of the pylon and takes in the situation. The wall of the thing rises up a good 50m away, but between him and it hovers a line of robotic drones, and one small dragon.

Glowing visor tracking the little dragon's attack, Defender shifts forward, mind making itself up. There are more heroes inside, but one baby dragon against a small hoard of drones isn't exactly a fair fight.

Fire bursts from Defender's back as the armored knight ignites his jump jets, rocketing across the ground in a low arc toward the second of the two drones fighting Natasha. She clearly has the other well in hand, but maybe he can help even the odds here a bit. Lowering his shoulder, he attempts to flying tackle the machine with all the force and grace of a boulder launched from a catapult.

The Drones peel off in several directions. Three move to engage Natasha, three chase after Spirit, and three engage Defender. The remaining two continue scanning the area.

Long, largely straight roads, often in poor condition, stretch across the low-lying farmland, interrupted by lines of tree delimiting fields and acting as windbreakers. Traffic is thin, most long-distance traffic preferring the major highways to the south and east. Small villages and isolated farmhouses hold the human population, while fields and hedgerows have the animals.

Natasha weaves with ease through the clumsy fire of the drones.

All three lasers impact Defender heavily, throwing the silve rknight off of his feet and sliding across the ground in a cloud of smoke and kicked-up earth.

Chen accelerates to her maximum speed while finally able to restorew her defensive bulk and toughness.

Spirit rights himself and pivots toward the drones chasing him. "Keep going. See if you can figure out the control systems when you get there." He opesn fire with a laser at hte drones chasing him.

The drone that Spirit hits breaks apart, turning into crystalline powder and mechanical debris.

Natasha decides to try something. Particularly since the drones don't seem to be very good at shooting. She flies back to the pillar itself and tries her screeching attack against that, aiming for the region with an energy "artery".

Chen calls out to Spirit, "Figure out the control systems? Me!?! You want figuring stuff out? That's not me. Breaking things, yeah, now you're talking."

The pylon shudders a bit as the sonic attack strikes it, but while it seems to have a similar construction as the drones, it doesn't seem to be quite so...expendable. The attack still cuts a gouge in the exterior, but it doesn't have hte same kind of explosive resonant effect.

Pleiades peers up into the darkness. "Up there, right? All right! No time to waste! Blitzraeder, Eagle Road, Full Wing!" Her speed along her road of light increases as she skates upward.

Long, largely straight roads, often in poor condition, stretch across the low-lying farmland, interrupted by lines of tree delimiting fields and acting as windbreakers. Traffic is thin, most long-distance traffic preferring the major highways to the south and east. Small villages and isolated farmhouses hold the human population, while fields and hedgerows have the animals.

Griffin opens up with his eyebeams and drills a hole through the wall into what looks like a lit control room. There's definitely someone inside. A spindly insectoid-like alien of some kind.

Defender plants the butt of his spear into the earth and levers himself to his feet, dirt and bits of ash flaking off of his silver armor and drifting down to fall about his boots like dark snow. Giving himself a little shake to clear the cobwebs, he lifts his spear overhead, power surging along the butt as the rockets melded to his back detach and roar up to cluster around the ever-shortening shaft. Once the transformation is complete, the knight finds himself holding a huge hammer of silver metal and pulsing blue energy, the back of its rectangular head glowing red with heat as its rocket thrusters prime themselves for launch.

Noting Natasha breaking away from the drones to return to the pillar, Defender turns his attention back to his own set of now slightly distant drones, hefting the rocket-powered weapon defensively in both hands.

"Come on, then!" Defender shouts toward the swarming drones, his voice coming out staticky and distorted through his helmet's scrambler.

Three drones open up on Defender. He manages to redirect the attacks back at two of the attackign drones. One is hit by its own blast and it flies back into the pillar, exploding. The other is hit and spins in midair. The third's blast gets through the knight's defenses, searing him with its energy attack.

Natasha is hit by a blast. Luckily, though she's small, she's still a dragon! SHe rights her flight again promptly.

Natasha fixes the drone that hit her with her eyes. If it's going to be like that about it when she was leaving it alone...

Chen changes her body form to what she calls her tiger mode and slows her flight to a more combat suitable velocity. "If you understand American you can shut this thing down or I'll... You know what? You're trying to kill the f***ing planet! F*** you.

The alien is hit...thankfully, it's wearing an armored suit of some kind. It bounces off of a control console and into the far wall before it hits the floor. It's not dead. But it does appear to be unconscious.

Spirit tries widening his blast to catch the two remaining drones chasing after him.

Both drones are sent reeling. Not destroyed, but heavily damaged.

Natasha's eyes narrow as she flies straight at the drone that hit her, emitting another deafening shriek.

The drone that Natasha hits turns into crystalline powder and mechanical bits.

Pleiades slows and skates into the control room.

Copycat and Griffin look at each other in confusion. Neither were expecting this. A series of subtle facial movements are volleyed back and forth, but finally with a sigh Griffin Freeman relents and prepares to turn around to Guard the 'entrance' he just created. He knows Copycat has much more experience in this realm than him- despite having regular operations with Zero Division.

Copycat puts he rhands on her hips as she hopes this being speaks English. The Harbinger seemed to. So she reframes from crossing her fingers.

"How about--" Is about as far as Kat gets before Chen charges in claws a-blazing.

Griffin misses Chen's entrance as he's turning the other way.

Kat manages a "NooooO!"

Its enough for Griffin to turn around, but he doesn't seem to stop Chen. He wouldn't have made the same call, but he doesn't blame her. Its all happening so fast, its impossible to say. Luckily for the alien and Kat's plan of talking this out, Pleiades swoops in to save the KO'd alien.

Kat sighs. "Well that's just great. Any of you guys know how to use this thing?" She asks while waving her hand flippantly at the undamaged console.

Chen has a smile on her face, "Like I said, breaking things and people is what I'm good at. Okay, hopefully someone can figure this out. I'll go keep the drones off your backes while you do." she says, flying back out of the control room and staying near the hole to run drone interference.

Spirit flies upward, away from the two drones he's severely damaged. He almost gets to where the control room is, but not quite.

Natasha turns her attention to another drone. She has to admit, making them go poof is fun!

The drone that Natasha hits has a large bit of it break off, and it spirals into the grass, landing with a thump.

Pleiades looks at the alien. "We need it conscious to turn off things, right?" She raise her gauntlet. "Panzerfaust, load zaubermunition! Restoral Wave!" Her gauntlet's chamber rack and expels a smoking brass cartridge as she punches down near the alien. A spherical wave of blue-white light erupts from the circle runes that forms beneath her.

The alien wakes...and it coughs out something, which gets translated by the speaker in its armor. "Executor...on its...way..."

The SuperCharged Soldier watches and sighs with relief as the alien is roused. "Alright- I'm certain we're NOT going to want ot meet that guy." He crosses his arms and looks from the console to the alien.

"So- time's short. We can either---"

Kat interrupts him before he starts threatening to pull his arms and legs off like a bug. Griffin is set on edge by this world ending cataclysm stuff just a smuch as anyone and he makes up for that fear by overposturing. She's been his partner long enough to know that.

"We're going to be civilized people and work this out- without needing to resort to THAT. So- how do we stop this process?" She asks in a slightly urgent tone. She's tryingher best to be calm and collected the way she is tries to be out in spac ewi tht eh mechanic but everything she knows is on the line and that makes this so much harder.

Defender slides back onto his heels under the impact of another blast, his boots digging twin trenches in the loose soil. Before he can topple backward, however, he triggers his hammer with a flare of orange flame, the weapon's forward thrust canceling out the momentum of his slide. Smoke curling up from his gleaming breastplate, the bulky knight strides through it at a determined pace, crossing the short distance between himself and the nearest drone.

Blue light blazing behind his slitted visor, the Defender closes the final few steps and triggers his hammer, flames roaring out behind him as the huge head arcs through the air at extreme speed. A line of orange is left hanging in the air as he attempts to smash the weapon full-force into the side of the damaged drone and bat it spinning through space toward the undamaged one, having only a second to calculate the angles and hope that he has it right.

The drone is damaged heavily by the swing...but then flies off into the pylon and blows apart into its components.

Natasha takes out a couple more drones - then drops down to the ground to catch her breath. Young dragons, like the young of many species, are good at quick activity but not so good with stamina!

Pleiades hauls the alien to its feet. "Deactivate everything."

The translator does its work and the alien replies...again the translation comes out of a speaker. "This one cannot. Overlord would end this one."

Chen calls out, "You've got a problem then. Because if you don't I'm going to end you."

Griffin and Kat work for a few moments at the sliders and dials but they aren't fast enough. She turns around and says, "Fine- you're going to help one way or another."

Griffin vanishes, only to reappear behind the alien to hold him still if necessary and to look imposing because he plays the role best suited to him at the moment.

Kat pulls off her glove and reaches out for the alien. "Last chance- this Overlord is going to think you helped either way. At leas tif you help us, we can be safe here too. I'm sure StarGuard will arrange something."

Defender lowers his hammer until the butt of the shaft is resting against the ground, the entire weapon beginning to glow. With a smooth metallic click, the shaft lengthens, forcefield flickering out and jets hovering down to meld once more with the armored knight's back. The transformation ends with a soft snick as the pronged end of the lance spreads, lightning jumping from one end to the other and beginning a soft background hum.

Lifting his weapon, the silver knight offers a nod of his head toward Natasha, before tramping over to the ground level hatch to take up guard.

Natasha, once she has her breath back, walks over to the pillar and starts scratching at the power arteries again. It probably won't do much, but perhaps even taking out systems in one part of the pillar will do *something*.

Chen comes back to the hole saying, "Let me peel that bug out of the suit and let how many limbs I have to tear off before it agrees.

The alien doesn't seem to cower in fear from Chen...but it says, "This one cannot tell you that the lever on the right will launch into space again. Nor can it tell those ones that the lever on the left will power down the kyber-drill."

Kat jumps up and down excitedly cheering. Griffin smiles appreciatively as he walks towards the lever on the left. "Alright Bugman. You just out your self a ticket to get off this ride. Bad news though- she's your ride out of here." He points over his shoulder to Chen.

Kat nudges him and he smirks. "What- he doesn't know you can fly too." He whispers conspiritorially as he prepares to power down this drill before settign it to reverse course.

Chen sounds quite calm compared to just a few moments ago. "Power it down but let's think before sending it back. Maybe we'll want to hitch a ride and go speak to this Overlord?"

The pylon starts to power down. The humming and general activity seems to just...get quiet. It's only then that you notice that there was a lot of background noise. Outside, though...Natasha and Defender can see someone flying toward the pylon, leaving a trail of energy behind him. He's wearing segmented armor and carrying a flail made of energy.