Log:Assault on Starguard

2013/06/14 	 Spirit Yushio Bard Snow Bee Star Girl Porter Anthony Quinn|Quinn 1

Champions Mush - Friday, June 14, 2013, 1:07 PM

The Alien District is long and thin, stretching north and south on either side of StarDancer Boulevard, but of great historical significance: here aliens made first contact with the superhero StarDancer herself. A bronze plaque in the middle of the boulevard, toward the southern end of the district, commemorates this momentous event, while as does a park further north, with a statue of StarDancer and the alien shaking hands.

The architecture and style of many of the businesses here shows profound alien influence, even ones built more recently than the initial alien craze, as if here the fashion never went away. This alien flare manifest in the products too, and if you are lucky you may even see some actual aliens here.

It's a lazy Friday afternoon. A couple of guards outside StarGuard HQ chat as they keep watch on the flow of traffic.

Then.

A large rectangle projection appears over the district, showing Dr. Julia Scarletti



She smiles. "Good afternoon, people of this city, and of StarGuard. With some regret, I, Dr. Julia Scarletti, am forced to note that StarGuard has taken two things of mine from me." She paces back and forth, gesturing as she walks. Behind her is some sort of weird lab set up, filled with large glass cylinders.

"I did try to resolve things peacefully, I am a woman of science, harming people is not an action I take lightly! However... It seems that StarGuard prefers to be obstinate. Therefore, it is necessary for me to make a small ...demonstration, of what I am capable of."$R$RThe image focuses on a close up of her face, "I will try to keep loss of life to minimum, as gesture of my magnanimous nature. Farewell, StarGuard!"

The image cuts out.

A giant red ring of runes appears on the sky, 100m across. On the other side seems to be a howling blizzard. A horde of drones drops through the portal and begin to attack as the portal closes.

(OOC: Eighty AI Attack Drones and ten AI Interceptor Drones)

Having actually been in the alien district performing Marcus Bard is on the scene. Still in a white cotton Tank top form earlier and black swim trunks with no shoes he has his guitar no hat and was playing music for fun. Suddenly his fun is ruined by 'peaceful' attempts at several counts of murder. Fun! Time to put a stop to the attack! BARD STYLE!

Snow was on her way home from doing a few things at the campus and decided to do a bit of patrolling as well. She is sliding along one of her ice ramps in her full icy armor, when she sees the runes appear in the sky. She heads that direction, knowing it probably means someone is going to need some help. She slides into the Alien district and glances around.

Yushio was at the CBSU taking to the administration about resuming her interrupted studies. The conversation didn't go well, with the college insisting she has to wait and restart next academic year. So she's in a fairly bad mood and walking aimlessly to cool down. Her steps have taken her to the Alien District so she's there to hear the threat.

Bee is not here when the action starts, but seconds after people begin to react in alarm, she appears in the air, well above the general traffic, but low enough that she can react to whatever on the ground is alarming people ... too bad the danger isn't on the ground.

Quinn Tower in Downtown is only a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Alien District. This is by intent as Quinn has been hoping to get some of the alien denizens of the city involved with the Wayland Foundation as well as providing convenient access to CBSU and the labor pool it can provide. From such a close vantage point the appearance of a large glowing ring of death and the emergence of close to 100 killer drones does cause a bit of conversation around the water cooler. Quickly Quinn gets armored up and in moments is streaking through the sky the short distance to Starguard.

Star Girl emerges on the very top floor of the Starguard Building (about 40m from ground level). It's a little windy up there, and her hair sways a bit in the breeze. She looks up at the swirling drones above, with wide eyelets and a slack jaw.

Porter was on his way to the campus, and hoping for a nice Friday afternoon to start the weekend off. This isn't what he meant. Giant images in the sky, threats, and now more of those damned robot things. Great. He detours for the downpour of drons.

Yushio stops and a moment later her battlesuit 'pops' out of quantum space and forms around her.

Bee gasps and flies straight up toward the drones. Pulling an exploding boomerang out of her pouch, she heaves up upwards with all her might.

Seven of the peanut shaped attack drones are hit by the blast and take minor damage from the shrapnel.

The 10 wedge-shaped drones swoop back to a further distance (130m away) and spin back to face StarGuard HQ. Missile drop from each and streak toward the building!

Chunks of the building are blasted off as the missiles detonate in red flashes of light, debris falling to the ground below.

Snow blinks as she watches some of the drones go back further and frowns a bit. She arcs one of her slides up and moves further up into the air. Trying to close the distance somewhat.

Bard seems to move towards... something, some may be sure of what he's doing as he stands approaches and takes in a deep breath. "BOOOM!" He shouts aiming a cone of force to topple a group of somethings (hopefully) thought seems displeased by the missile barage. His voice crackles like thunder in the wind and echoes like a glorious Roar.

The soundwaves fill the street, revealing ten spider-like robots with large scything claws. They don't seem damaged by the attack, but their invisibility screens were disrupted.

(OOC: ten AI Stalker Drones)

Bard breathes. "Invasion? Yeah, peaceful."

Porter is even less thrilled. More of the sneaky ones with claws. He's a little familiar with those. They did seem pretty prone to errors, though. Maybe Bard's BOOM! knocked something else loose on one in the middle of the bunch. Like a power source or something.

The stalker drones pause briefly, but seem to be unaffected.

The 80 AI Attack Drones swoop down 30m, closing to within 70m of the ground.

Yushio swoops through the air in a 'L' shape, racing across the where the spider like drones are and then turning to head straight up, firing back down at one of the drones as she changes direction.

The spider drone is blasted back 3m, a large hole blasted in its armor. It still seems functional...

Quinn glances about at the veritable plethora of drones. Momentarily spoiled for choices he comes to the conclusion that the Interceptors probably pose the biggest threat, so he opens up the vents of his jets and goes screaming in behind them in an attempt to prevent them from backing further away from Starguard while continuing to pepper the building with missiles.

Ten StarGuard agents begin firing from the windows and holes in the walls. "We need heavy weapons! Get those set up!"

Two shots strike drones damaged by Bee, causing one to burst into flame and plummet to the ground

Six of the spider drones swarm around Bard, slashing at him with their claws. The other four, including the damaged one (whose armor seems to slowly be repairing itself!) rear back, exposing belly mounted energy projectors and fire at Yushio!

Bard is slashed, and there is a fair amount of cutting across his body, but most noticeably his shirt is now missing. Now armed with no guitar and only his swim trunks and what is in there it's time for him to fight back! But stopping the pain may also be something on his to-do list.

Yushio is slammed by the energy blast that hits her, getting a 'free' 22m of extra height. 'Ouch.'

Bee continues flying straight up, flinging boomerangs as fast as she can

One of the damaged drones explodes into fragments, as shrapnel dings another 9.

Star Girl calls out over the radio: "So what's the plan?"

Quinn broadcasts back, "These one's up here have another volley of missiles. I'm hoping to draw their fire but you need to be ready to throw up a wall or something if I don't. Also, keep the other drones from getting too close to the building since they will explode.

Snow moves up a bit farther, gaining a bit more altitude, and then starts to hold her hands together, frost starts to form between then and then ice, till she has something that looks like an icy football which she throws into the middle of the group, "Try this bots."

Five of the drones are impaled on shards of ice and plummet toward the street trailing smoke. Three more seem heavily damaged.

The Interceptors ignore Q for the moment, and complete their primary attack mission, sending another barrage of ten missiles screaming toward the StarGuard building.

Yushio thinks. o O (This is a war-zone!)

The missiles savage the the building, shaking it like a terrier shaking a rat. Large pieces of debris tumble to the ground below.

Bard growls angrily in pain as he is sliced open. He drops to the ground spins on his back and raises up striking the last amchine to cut him with his foot. "A little help here?" He calls out. "Sorta got a massive cut in my side." If his hit lands it resonates with sonic energy.

The spider-bot is sent sprawling backwards 2m, a large dent in its armor.

Star Girl looks up at that the interceptors. She sighs, not really having a chance to hit them at this range. She then turns her attention to the robots advancing on the ground. She points both of her hands towards two of the robots attacking Bard, takes a moment to steady her aim. o O ( Ok. Don't shoot the hottie. Don't shoot the hottie... ) She fires a series of blue-white beams of energy.

One spider-bot is stagger and falls back 1m away from Bard. Both seem unharmed.

Well, that didn't go as planned. Unfortunately the Interceptors decided to dump their remaining load of missiles into the building anyway (or perhaps it was fortunate for Quinn as it would have no doubt been extremely painful had they actually targeted him). Still, being ignored is rather annoying and so with the roar of his armor's jets he surges forward, intent on slamming into one of the drones from behind.

Yushio has had her previous plan disrupted by the tumbling caused by being hit by an energy blast. Also she can see the wing-racks are now void of stand-off missiles. .oO(Too fast. I didn't stop the second volley.) So she turns in the air, reorienting herself, and fires a particle beam at one of the descending attack drones after bracing herself.

The awkward looking drone is blasted into metallic confetti and rains down on the courtyard below.

Porter does remember that the clawed robots were pretty tough. He also remembers that they didn't seem too bright. Maybe all those targets packed in together will confuse them.

The stalker bot seems nonplused.

The six Stalkers around Bard continue to attempt to make Bard sashimi. The other four advance toward the building 15m and fire up at Yushio.

Bard is tossed 4m by the attack and sliced further. "I could use a hand here!" He seems annoyed.

The 72 attack drones continue their descent, another 30m. They're 40m from the ground now

The combined fire from the StarGuard agents down another 3 Attack drones.

Bee backflips and *drops* fifty meters to land between Bard and one of his opponents, slowing her fall at only the last second. Lashing out with a kick, she yells, "Quinn! Any chance these things are remote controlled?"

The Stalker rears back away from Bee's kick

From high up above Quinn calls back, "Doubtful. Even if they were the ones we fought before had autonomous functionality so they would probably default to stand alone."

"Can you get an EMP pulse here any time soon?" Bard calls to the guards. "Or at least get us something to stop the blades here!"

Snow turns and moves a little closer. She is pretty much on the same level as the drones that she has been attacking. She raises her hands and lets looks with a cone of frost that blows over a lot of them.

Four of the drones frost over and shatter. Another 12 sustain heavy damage.

Star Girl winces at her ineffectual display of power. o O ( Ok. Kristen... focus this time ) She sucks in a deep breath, targeting one of the robots attacking Bard. Energy builds, gathered between the palms of her gloves until she releases it in one giant blast. ZAAAAM!

Porter hasn't had much luck trying to stop these things and the shirtless guy (who looks like he doesn't care that he's shirtless) keeps getting slashed up. Of course, the blood could've just smeared and made it look worse than it really is. Could be just a flesh wound.

The four that had targetted Yushio scuttle up to StarGuard HQ and start forcing their way into the building.

The other six divide their attentions between Bee and Bard.

StarGuard HQ has been savaged by missile strikes. Ten agents valiantly are firing back from windows and holes in the walls. The attack drones are now level with the roof of the building. Four Stalker drones are clawing at the main doors, as another six attack Bee and Bard. The 10 Interceptor drones are 130m away, preparing to dogfight Q.

This time, the two heroes managed to avoid the scything claws.

The other four slice through the main doors!

The ten interceptors swirl around Q, firing at him in a deadly aerial dance!

Bee tumbles about like a dervish next to Bard. "I've got these guy's attention," She says to Bard. See what you can do to help the people inside."

Bee back-flips and manages to activate her force field belt too.

Bard moves past the Robots, scooping up his guitar they dropped earlier. "I'll try to get there but I'm going have to resort to more violent methodology." He adds to porter. "Thanks!" He strums the guitar and a golden wave of energy emanates from it before striking and violently shaking one of the scythe bots on Bee.

Spirit is in the lobby as the stalkers cut through the main doors...waiting for them to get through. He raises both hands, and unleashes a blast of light energy from his fists toward the doors, hoping to catch a couple of the drones in the blast.

The discordant burst hits the Stalker Bard had dented before. It staggers back 3m smoke coming from its joints, but still active.

Quinn is slammed into by the blistering firepower of the interceptors and begins to drop from the sky. No individual shot was that injurious, but the accumulated effect was enough to leave him dazed and falling.

The stalker struck by the blast is sent flying back 13m, badly damaged between the hits from Spirit and Yushio earlier.

Yushio oddly finds the height she's been blasted upwards has suddenly become helpful. She re-orientates herself once again, and flies into Q's path, letting herself fall freely downwards and simply moving laterally with her thrusters, getting ready to grab him and bring both to a halt before the ground does it.

Yushio grabs on as Q falls past her. Now, all she has to do is hope she has time to direct her thrusters upwards before they go splat.

The blast strikes squarely, cracking armor plates and hurling the stalker 15m back into a wall.

It's still operational.

The three stalkers at the door regard Spirit with their sensor eyes for a moment, then slash at him with their claws.

Five of the remaining claw at bee, the sixth picks itself up and fires at her instead. All of the attacks fail to track the nimble heroine!

Spirit's leg is actually sliced into, and wisps of energy flow out like dry ice, "OW!..."

Spirit puts his arms out to his sides, and releases a centralized burst of light from his body, filling the room with light, and causing some of the flash burst to spill out the door, like paparazzi photography.

Snow sees that the cone of Frost seems to have had a good effect so she looses another. She aims at the large group of drones still right there with her and holds her hands out the cone of Frost flying towards then drones.

Snow's frost cone shatters 12 of the Attack Drones, and nearly cripples another 4!

The Stalkers' sensor eyes dim briefly, then refocus.

Star Girl sees her self surrounded by the airborne drones. She turns and ducks back into the building while firing a parting shot.

Star Girl's blast bursts the drone like and overripe pumpkin.

The remaining 52 drones descend another 15m. About half of them fly through the gaping holes in the side of the building.

The StarGuard Agents continue to attack desperately!

Nine of the drones are brought down my bursts of plasma rife fire.

Bard needs to act. Clearly the rather impressive amount of damage being dealt isn't enough fast enough to get the robots to leave. So acting time is now. He attempts to fill the air with the voice he heard earlier, mimicing her voice and amplifying it through his bardic trickery "she" says to the robots "Enough! These idiots know they've been bit. All units fall back. They'll think twice before attacking again." He goes a tad Hail Mary (full of grace) here hoping they receive verbal commands.

The drones pause.

The Interceptors turn and fly away at top speed.

Yushio is feeling pretty beat up herself so she flies down to land Q on a nearby rooftop. "I hope you wake up soon. They need you, and there's just too many of them for me to be a deciding factor." she says, speaking to the armored figure in her arms before looking over at the Staguard Building. "Well, beat up or not, while I can move I'd better go and do what I can."

The Stalker Drones shimmer out of view. Bard and Yushio can sense them moving away (and occasionally bumping into things due to being blinded).

Snow slides closer to the drones that went by her and then raises her hands against and throws another cone, trying to take out more of the drones before they can follow others inside.

Snow shatters another 16 drones.

Spirit blinks upon seeing the drones disappear. . o O (Oh, that can't be good.) He retreat, flying back to the hallway leading to the detention area, lands...and raises a hand back toward the door. A light barrier fills the hallway, hopefully keeping the stalkers on the far side of it.

Bard pants sitting down and attempting to block the bleeding in his side. "Thank God that work... now can someone get me a bandage please." He breathes

Bee flies up when her opponents disappear, hopefully out of range of an attack that never comes.

As the drones withdraw into the sky (or scuttle away in the case of the stalkers), Q hears over his direct radio link as he recovers, "...uinn, Mr. Quinn! We have intruders in your private lab! Six blue skinsuited women, we
 * STATIC***"

Yushio flies to the Starguard building and the other heroes, "You were terrific!" she tells Snow. Then looks at Bard, "And that was brilliant. You saved a lot of agents today, Bard."

Snow blinks as the drones take off and considers following and then slides down to the ground. She cocks her head to the side a bit.

Spirit heads back toward the holding cells, to check on the prisoner.

Saggitarius is still there. She smirks at Spirit, "I have a message from Dr. Scarletti. 'Quantity has a quality all its own. You're outNumbered.'"

Bee declares, "That did not feel like a victory."

Spirit tilts his head, and looks at Saggitarius. "The robots fight better than you did, you know. I was actually injured...for the first time in quite a while."

Yushio nods, "It was however the second best. It was survival. And we did. Just. Well just for me. I'm sure some of you more capable heroes didn't find it as scary as I did."

Spirit flies outside, and up, to assess the damage to the building. He's still leaking a little bit of energy from the cut he received, but not nearly as badly now.

"Well I've got a large gash in my shoulder and I don't feel great. So I certainly found it something." Bard states. "So about that bandage? or first aid... or Ambulance for everyone?"

Bee actually has a first aide kit in one of those belt pouches. Nothing spectacular, but she does what she can for Bard.

Star Girl comes out of the building, on the ground floor. Not a mark on her. "Everyone make it out ok?"

Yushio goes over to Spirit, "I regret not being able to prevent the damage to the building. The missile firing drones were too fast for me to stop the second volley." She bows slightly, "The Takaga Corporation will underwrite the rebuilding and reconstruction."

Bee thinks .oO (That is one hell of an recompense for being a bit slow)

Spirit shakes his head, "There's no need, but thank you for the offer. It's a government building...the government can pay for the repairs. And I'm sure they will."

Star Girl waves to Yushio. "Hey there! It's good to see you again. Lucky you happened to be nearby."

Yushio bows again, "Hai." she says to Dorian as she glances to see how Bard is faring, Then she bows to Star Girl. I did little to assist I fear. Clearly I need to work on an improved replacement for my suit."

Bard stands still holding his side. "Hey, I'm going go over to the hospital. If you need someone to make the robots go away again then let me know and I'll see if I can mimic her voice again." Bard starts towards the hospital aftergrabbing his sliced shirt off the ground to make a crude bandage.

Spirit says, "I had a similar problem in the lobby. I could barely dent their armor."

Snow nods, "Things seem to be alright, I wish I had just been in position to help the building a bit." she shakes her head a bit.

Yushio says, "My difficulty was not in denting their armor. It was the ease and frequency with which they dented mine."

Bee shakes her head, "I doubt that will work twice. If I were programming them, I'd fix that immediately."

As a parting gift Bard's voice can be heard. "You guys might want to see if there are any NO META wounded. you know? Just food for thought."

Yushio pops the visor of her helm, "You did the best of all of us outside, Snow. I have an idea if this situation arises again. One of my offensive weapon systems was derived from an anti-missile defence weapon. I shall have to see if I can restore that function to the suit version."

Spirit says, "Or we need something like that for a building defense."

Again bard speaks at distance. "Or reloacting temporarily. That might be advised."

Yushio says, "I'll be glad to share my work if I succeed, Spirit."

Star Girl turns her attention to treating the wounded and helping emergency response crews.