[Masks IC] Resurrection Roundabout: Drawing Individuals

[PhoeKun]

Bomb disposal is Errant's least favorite part of this job. It's bad enough when she's the one in charge of diffusing them herself, or when someone's brilliant idea of 'bomb disposal' is to toss her on top of one, but at least those times she just needs to trust in her skillwires and her general toughness. But when it's like this? It's awful. All she can do is stand there and watch. And think. It's hyper alertness and battle sense turned toward staring at tiny drones and the labels on a bunch of mines. By the end of it she's a bundle of sweat and nerves.

But she's pretty sure she sees the next move coming. The common thread on every move they've made so far is the expectation of a mistake. That Errant would tear through the building when she got worried. That Brainstorm wouldn't have the proper tools or foresight. That the pair of them together couldn't keep a cool head between them. And she'd bet her entire movie collection (the commemorative physical drives and everything) that the next big punch was being aimed at that control room with the expectation that one of them, probably her, would go blundering straight into it desperate to get at those shields.

The obvious counter would just be to not do that. At this point at minimum she was sure the brains behind this piece of the operation was Victor's little science project, so she's certain that with some careful thought and a little more time, between herself and him they could unravel the entire chain of moves and jump straight to the counter. The problem, as she's had so many agonizing seconds to obsess over it, is that she's on an impossibly tight clock right now. But if there wasn't time to come up with a good move, the very least she could do was avoid the obvious one.

Which is why she just yells "Sorry!" when she grabs Victor by the waist and lifts him off the ground. And she repeats it three more times when she jostles him while jumping back and forth between the walls.

"You're the best!" she chirps as she kicks off the ceiling just before the door.

"I owe you!" she lands and slides the rest of the way to and through the door like some sort of ground based torpedo.

Ok so yeah. He was not about to think that she was very smart after that one. Or trustworthy. Whatever. As long as they got those shields back at full power, he could feed her to a tiger for all she cared.

[Unleash Your Powers at 2d6-1 = 7. Errant marks Guilty but cyber parkours her way past an obstacle of some description, whatever invisible jerky thing it might be, plus one Brainstorm]

[Thanqol]

Ferraphim1tp: Aaaah! She's gonna hit Sarah!
Angel-IKA: Come on Sarah, you can do it!
Bode: Dodge! You just need to dodge!
Locker: whats she doing
Dominus: I don't know. She's wearing liquid crystal, she should be able to shrug off any hardlight bursts.
Locker: get her! nows your chance!
Angel-IKA: What side are you on Locker >:T
Locker: bad play is bad play

POTENTIAL 2

“Pssh, can’t believe Commy sent Turbo Knight 2: Turbo Harder after me.” @SARAHPHIM rolls her eyes and- hold on that was a power flux under the fuselage just need a sec to stabilize that and boy howdy, this is a lot more difficult with divided attention, huh?

[So it turns out that what I’m going to do is roll Assess the Situation, stare at the dice for a moment, and then silently mark Potential.]

She doesn't attack you! That is a big surprise because if she attacked you she'd totally have kicked your ass right then; she's the one in power armour and you're balancing an entire jetliner. That'd have been the Turbo Knight play. But instead she just kind of hangs back and watches you like a snake. It makes doing this job incredibly stressful.

"So you're @Saraphim," she said thoughtfully. "The local girl made good. I bet everyone must be extremely proud of you, back home."

[She has superpowers related to manipulation and is using them to get you talking. Answer the question: Who do you resent most?]

Bomb disposal is Errant's least favorite part of this job. It's bad enough when she's the one in charge of diffusing them herself, or when someone's brilliant idea of 'bomb disposal' is to toss her on top of one, but at least those times she just needs to trust in her skillwires and her general toughness. But when it's like this? It's awful. All she can do is stand there and watch. And think. It's hyper alertness and battle sense turned toward staring at tiny drones and the labels on a bunch of mines. By the end of it she's a bundle of sweat and nerves.

But she's pretty sure she sees the next move coming. The common thread on every move they've made so far is the expectation of a mistake. That Errant would tear through the building when she got worried. That Brainstorm wouldn't have the proper tools or foresight. That the pair of them together couldn't keep a cool head between them. And she'd bet her entire movie collection (the commemorative physical drives and everything) that the next big punch was being aimed at that control room with the expectation that one of them, probably her, would go blundering straight into it desperate to get at those shields.

The obvious counter would just be to not do that. At this point at minimum she was sure the brains behind this piece of the operation was Victor's little science project, so she's certain that with some careful thought and a little more time, between herself and him they could unravel the entire chain of moves and jump straight to the counter. The problem, as she's had so many agonizing seconds to obsess over it, is that she's on an impossibly tight clock right now. But if there wasn't time to come up with a good move, the very least she could do was avoid the obvious one.

Which is why she just yells "Sorry!" when she grabs Victor by the waist and lifts him off the ground. And she repeats it three more times when she jostles him while jumping back and forth between the walls.

"You're the best!" she chirps as she kicks off the ceiling just before the door.

"I owe you!" she lands and slides the rest of the way to and through the door like some sort of ground based torpedo.

Ok so yeah. He was not about to think that she was very smart after that one. Or trustworthy. Whatever. As long as they got those shields back at full power, he could feed her to a tiger for all she cared.

[Unleash Your Powers at 2d6-1 = 7. Errant marks Guilty but cyber parkours her way past an obstacle of some description, whatever invisible jerky thing it might be, plus one Brainstorm]

Guns go off. A lot of them

Half a dozen invisible people were lined up in a firing squad with their guns aimed at the door, centre mass. As you slide you can see for a second the roaring aftershocks of layers of boarding shotguns, combi-rifles and E/Mauler rounds blazing above your head. But you move so quickly that you're in the middle of them before they can aim a second shot.

Being in melee with a bunch of invisible people is a fight that's dramatically weighted in your favour. Firstly, they can't see each other, so none of them are going to fire any guns. Secondly they're all made out of meat and you are not. You don't need to hit them with precise takedowns so much as you need to flail wildly and break any nearby bones. But there's still the danger that you might miss some in the confusion - either you or Brainstorm should roll a Directly Engage.

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” A girder falls down onto a desk a few feet away, causing a minor explosion of paper clips. “Like, wow, I went from streaming 7/11 robberies - foiling them, you get what I mean - to this. I am holding this entire f*cking airliner up with my own power, which, like, catch Euna doing that, right? But noooooo.”

Now she’s pacing back and forth while she talks, doing the job of holding the airplane up on autopilot. She’s that good when she’s zoned out on something else. “No, it’s ‘did you hear what Victor did’ this and ‘is Vicky keeping up with his physical therapy’ that, like I didn’t make myself a hero. In my bedroom! With a box of scraps! All he had to do was design the nanobots, he didn’t have to do the surgery himself, you get me? What do I have to do? Juggle the f*cking plane? Swap the logo on the moon for mine?”

She looks Turbo Knight 2.0 right in the eyes, too worked up to care, and says: “I could do it, too. Juggle this plane like it was a motherf*cking jingle ball. You get me, right? And while we’re talking, do you do, like, nemesis stuff? Because Comstar is such a whiny b*tch, and, like, I’m looking to upgrade soon.”

[Balmas]

Which is why she just yells "Sorry!" when she grabs Victor by the waist and lifts him off the ground. And she repeats it three more times when she jostles him while jumping back and forth between the walls.

"You're the best!" she chirps as she kicks off the ceiling just before the door.

"I owe you!" she lands and slides the rest of the way to and through the door like some sort of ground based torpedo.

Ok so yeah. He was not about to think that she was very smart after that one. Or trustworthy. Whatever. As long as they got those shields back at full power, he could feed her to a tiger for all she cared.

[Unleash Your Powers at 2d6-1 = 7. Errant marks Guilty but cyber parkours her way past an obstacle of some description, whatever invisible jerky thing it might be, plus one Brainstorm]

Victor skids across the floor, still clutching a C&S cybermine, and gawps at Euna. That's the second time in as many months that she's hoisted him around like a sack of potatoes, and his cheeks burn like they stole the red off a firetruck. She's... Watching her fight is like watching a symphony in chrome and steel, beauty and grace, punking people in the face.

Dear lord. This is a worrisome thought pattern.

Guns go off. A lot of them

Half a dozen invisible people were lined up in a firing squad with their guns aimed at the door, centre mass. As you slide you can see for a second the roaring aftershocks of layers of boarding shotguns, combi-rifles and E/Mauler rounds blazing above your head. But you move so quickly that you're in the middle of them before they can aim a second shot.

Being in melee with a bunch of invisible people is a fight that's dramatically weighted in your favour. Firstly, they can't see each other, so none of them are going to fire any guns. Secondly they're all made out of meat and you are not. You don't need to hit them with precise takedowns so much as you need to flail wildly and break any nearby bones. But there's still the danger that you might miss some in the confusion - either you or Brainstorm should roll a Directly Engage.

Okay, worry about hormones later because guns are bad and being shot is worse. "I apologize in advance!" Then he rearms the mine, tosses it into the melee, and runs for cover.

[The late Brainstorm rolled a 4. Marking potential.]

[PhoeKun]

...That worked way better than it should have. Errant kips up off the ground, secure in the knowledge that the fight was already won. AEGIS tactical training was extremely clear on this point. They have literal hours of videos on the subject of making arrests against offenders with cyberlimbs or vibro-knives (they've actually been using Errant for some of the most recent ones). The crux of their point is this: it takes a trained gunman an average of 1.3 seconds to ready a shot while under direct threat. A determined, CQC-ranged attacker can clear a distance of over 4 meters and land a potentially debilitating attack. If you're in melee range without a bead already drawn and your finger on the trigger, then congratulations! You're now the least deadly person in the fight. Even if they could see each other, in CQC situations the guns would always lose to... cybermines?

"Oh crap."

All right well never mind that. Errant grabs blindly for the first arm, leg, whatever-who-cares she can find and hip tosses the poor person attached to it into somebody on the other end of the door, and hopefully they'll make a nice, invisible pile on that EMP mine before it detonates. It doesn't solve the problem, but it might buy some time. She takes the opening to dash backwards and tackle Brainstorm to the ground and shield him from what's about to happen. Her face is flushed and way too close to his.

"This is the kill zone!" she shouts, "Why are we back in the kill zone?!"

[Defend! 2d6+3 = 11, and let's take Influence on dear Victor while we're at it]

[Thanqol]

POTENTIAL 2

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” A girder falls down onto a desk a few feet away, causing a minor explosion of paper clips. “Like, wow, I went from streaming 7/11 robberies - foiling them, you get what I mean - to this. I am holding this entire f*cking airliner up with my own power, which, like, catch Euna doing that, right? But noooooo.”

Now she’s pacing back and forth while she talks, doing the job of holding the airplane up on autopilot. She’s that good when she’s zoned out on something else. “No, it’s ‘did you hear what Victor did’ this and ‘is Vicky keeping up with his physical therapy’ that, like I didn’t make myself a hero. In my bedroom! With a box of scraps! All he had to do was design the nanobots, he didn’t have to do the surgery himself, you get me? What do I have to do? Juggle the f*cking plane? Swap the logo on the moon for mine?”

She looks Turbo Knight 2.0 right in the eyes, too worked up to care, and says: “I could do it, too. Juggle this plane like it was a motherf*cking jingle ball. You get me, right? And while we’re talking, do you do, like, nemesis stuff? Because Comstar is such a whiny b*tch, and, like, I’m looking to upgrade soon.”

"Oh, yeah, agreed," said Victoria, sitting down. Somewhere her grandfather's disembodied brain screams at her. "Here I am trying to take over an international criminal empire as a nineteen year old and now I have to put on power armour and fight AEGIS on their home turf because some wackjob wants to make a scene? After I had to spend years of my life hanging out and doing security for a techno-mummy? In the time I'm wasting here I could have burned the Richer Gang down to the foundations. For an idiot who already got locked up once? Why are we wasting our time with this sh*t?"

[Victoria wants to shift your Superior up and Saviour down, accept what she says or reject her influence]

*

Dominus: Wow. These two are getting along... spookily well.
Angel-IKA: I was worried about Victor okay I didn't mean anything by it ;-;
Locker: wait. shes complaining that shes the only one who did surgery on herself. did she not see the video?
Dominus: Of course she saw the video, it was on the front page of MegaBuzz.
Locker: i don't think she saw the video.
Dominus: What? Not watching that video would be actively spiteful and self defea - she didn't watch the video did she.

"This is the kill zone!" she shouts, "Why are we back in the kill zone?!"

[Defend! 2d6+3 = 11, and let's take Influence on dear Victor while we're at it]

You're back in the kill zone! The doorway is blocked with layers of suppressive gunfire but at least no one is hurt. The invisigoons haven't processed what just went down yet so you've still got the initiative, but they will have spread out and repositioned so the opportunity to take them all out with a single roundhouse kick has sadly been lost.

[Eldest]

Ferra has a glance onto the rooftop, Sara facing Victoria, before she's over the side. She did her job and protected her, pity that she's falling like this. She stares at the ground as it approaches, wondering in a detached manner if she'll get back up, and if so, what will be different this time?

I don't want to give up.

And then there's a throbbing beat, and a heat spreading through her body, and an impossible calculation of what Could Have Been. To her amazement, she's watching the ground retreat, she's coming up on the roof again, she's... going to overshoot a bit.

Grabbing onto the airplane wing was undignified, yes, probably did not help Sara concentrate, and certainly made this plane not able to fly from the sheer warping. But she's back, baby, and she has no bloody idea how.

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2

There’s a moment that’s captured perfectly by ChRB drone #5 as it rotates for the facial shot. There’s @SARAHPHIM, her face half in shadow, her whole hair lighting up in red (rather than just the streaks) every few seconds from the emergency lights, her expression unreadable. Nearby, someone is screaming in panic, but they might as well be on the moon. Metal under intense pressure buckles and groans. Beside her, the liquid diamond pooled upon Victoria’s armor catches the gleaming orange glow from @SARAHPHIM’s tiger-glass bodysuit.

She blinks. Turns her head. “I actually don’t know why you’re here, chica? I’m here because I’m literally the only goddamn person who could do this to a plane. An entire f*cking passenger jet! Like, you think that my idiot smartass could do this?”

She snickers to herself at the mental image. “Nanobots are small and puny and squishable by design, you know. But I’m here because this is the most important place for me to be, and it sounds to me like that’s not the same for you, yeah? Like you got way better sh*t to be doing than running around for Comstar.”

She shoots Victoria a meaningful look. A kind of understanding. “Tell you what. ‘Get away’ right now and I won’t even give a sh*t.”

And that could have been it! But because she’s @SARAHPHIM, and before that she was nobody, gutter trash dreaming by neon, she adds: “Just don’t order any drive-bys, you got it? Or I really will have to beat your f*cking face in.”

[9 on Reject Influence, 7 on the Provoke roll to get her to please go do crime somewhere else tonight.]

[PhoeKun]

One, two. She lets it go. But while she's still down here in whisper range, Errant takes a few more of her precious seconds to reset the plan.

"You need to get past and into that control room, ok? We have at max two more minutes to make sure those shields are at full strength or Dr Sylvanius' next missile is going to kill everybody in here. No hesitation, ok?"

Out of time, out of time, out of time. All her faith's in Brainstorm right now; she doesn't even wait for him to nod or say anything before she does a backwards roll off of him and rushes the invisigoons again. This was going to suck. AEGIS' All Scenarios Preparedness Seminars (ASPS) hold that the most effective and simple counter to cloaking tech is a smokescreen, but for a number of reasons, HQ is deathly allergic to the idea of allowing anything remotely flammable into most sections of the building. Because if, let's just use our imaginations here, a plane were to explode into the side of the pyramid, nobody wants anything internal catching in the resulting heat. So that's out. And failing that, the next simplest solution they offer is to get a read by observing their firing patterns and trajectories. Which should be easy! Because they're shooting at right at her!

If only, said a tiny and probably not addicted voice in her head, she was still in Limit Free mode, she'd clear them all out in a blink. But she's not. That would be irresponsible. But doing this the old fashioned way is too slow. So she jumps and lashes out with the widest flying roundhouse kick she can, to scatter the attackers further. In the time it took them to reset, Victor would have space to run. The right way this time, hopefully.

[Errant gives AEGIS Influence (letting them shift her labels) to Directly Engage with +Soldier: 2d6+1= 7. She chooses to Create an Opportunity]

[Balmas]

If only, said a tiny and probably not addicted voice in her head, she was still in Limit Free mode, she'd clear them all out in a blink. But she's not. That would be irresponsible. But doing this the old fashioned way is too slow. So she jumps and lashes out with the widest flying roundhouse kick she can, to scatter the attackers further. In the time it took them to reset, Victor would have space to run. The right way this time, hopefully.

[Errant gives AEGIS Influence (letting them shift her labels) to Directly Engage with +Soldier: 2d6+1= 7. She chooses to Create an Opportunity]

Okay, this is doable. Don't think. Don't worry. Don't panic. Luke in the trench. Moon, not finger. Don't think you can, know you can. Because if you get this wrong...

Yeah, don't think about that either.

Brainstorm pauses one second. Counts. Hears the burst of SMG fire, and explodes into the room. Don't look for soldiers, because he can't see them. They'll be in the center, he knows this, surrounding the blur of chrome and pain. Don't look, don't check, don't get distracted.

Into the command center. Think now. Evaluate. For once in your friggin' life, don't just start pushing buttons, because unlike robots and AI, this is actually difficult. Get a feel for the console, but quickly. Big swathes of clunky plastic switches and dials--reliable, replacable, durable. Oh, that it were so simple as a giant knob with shield strength. Just need to find the right pattern, program, and execute flawlessly, or everyone dies.

[9. Marking Afraid to pull this off.]

[Thanqol]

POTENTIAL 2

There’s a moment that’s captured perfectly by ChRB drone #5 as it rotates for the facial shot. There’s @SARAHPHIM, her face half in shadow, her whole hair lighting up in red (rather than just the streaks) every few seconds from the emergency lights, her expression unreadable. Nearby, someone is screaming in panic, but they might as well be on the moon. Metal under intense pressure buckles and groans. Beside her, the liquid diamond pooled upon Victoria’s armor catches the gleaming orange glow from @SARAHPHIM’s tiger-glass bodysuit.

She blinks. Turns her head. “I actually don’t know why you’re here, chica? I’m here because I’m literally the only goddamn person who could do this to a plane. An entire f*cking passenger jet! Like, you think that my idiot smartass could do this?”

She snickers to herself at the mental image. “Nanobots are small and puny and squishable by design, you know. But I’m here because this is the most important place for me to be, and it sounds to me like that’s not the same for you, yeah? Like you got way better sh*t to be doing than running around for Comstar.”

She shoots Victoria a meaningful look. A kind of understanding. “Tell you what. ‘Get away’ right now and I won’t even give a sh*t.”

And that could have been it! But because she’s @SARAHPHIM, and before that she was nobody, gutter trash dreaming by neon, she adds: “Just don’t order any drive-bys, you got it? Or I really will have to beat your f*cking face in.”

[9 on Reject Influence, 7 on the Provoke roll to get her to please go do crime somewhere else tonight.]

For a moment there is understanding there. For a moment she shrugs and starts to turn aside.

But then there's that familiar crackle of neon pink light.

Victoria struggles against it for a moment - you can see the armour patterns lock up. She buys you a little bit of time. It's enough for the last few people to get off the plane. You've got an opportunity here - you could throw that plane directly into her point blank before whatever struggle between pilot and hacker resolves itself.

Or you could let the opportunity pass like a honourable samurai and fight her fair. Up to you.

*

Bode: Incoming AEGIS reinforcements. Away teams are being recalled from all over the city.
Dominus: Oh, for real? I've got some work to do then. Brb.
Angel-IKA: This isn't the time for crimes Dominus!
Dominus: AU CONTRAIRE
Angel-IKA: We need to be here for @Sarahphim! And - and this is serious! Comstar's up to something - something big! I can feel it!
Dominus: YEAH. CHEERING FOR HER.
Locker: comstar or sarahfim
Dominus: YES.
Angel-IKA: Dominus! Stop! You could - you could save the day here!
Dominus: OH GOD DAMN IT, NOT THIS AGAIN
Bode: 'Again'?
Dominus: MY EX GAVE ME THE SAME BE A HERO SPEECH AND NOW I'M GETTING IT WITHOUT THE DINNER AND MOVIE FIRST.

Ferra has a glance onto the rooftop, Sara facing Victoria, before she's over the side. She did her job and protected her, pity that she's falling like this. She stares at the ground as it approaches, wondering in a detached manner if she'll get back up, and if so, what will be different this time?

I don't want to give up.

And then there's a throbbing beat, and a heat spreading through her body, and an impossible calculation of what Could Have Been. To her amazement, she's watching the ground retreat, she's coming up on the roof again, she's... going to overshoot a bit.

Grabbing onto the airplane wing was undignified, yes, probably did not help Sara concentrate, and certainly made this plane not able to fly from the sheer warping. But she's back, baby, and she has no bloody idea how.

The AEGIS building doesn't normally have a view. Windows are security flaws, the landing pads are all internal and the roof is occupied by the huge curved dishes that project the shield. But from up here... the columns of silver-blue light that pour up into the sky, forming the shield dome, the ocean in the distance, the patchy clouds, squalls of rain, sudden winds and intermittent yellowed rainbows... it's the kind of view that's been within your grasp a thousand times but you've never experienced quite in this way before.

You see the interplanetary missile closing in as the shield starts to solidify. Painted red and white with angry eyebrows, prismatic fire of cheap Rx engines. You know from the quiet voice of Doctor Gears somewhere in your head that that engine uses an inferior version of the technique you just used to cross interplanetary distances.

You feel a strange buzz coming from the missile. It's... that thing is a repeater? It's big and chunky and crude just like everything else about it, but there's some sort of digital uplink there. Above you the shield starts to close, but before it does you could try to connect to it. Or you could race back to fight Turbo Knight.

[If you connect to the missile network roll to Pierce the Mask against Doctor Sylvanius]

One, two. She lets it go. But while she's still down here in whisper range, Errant takes a few more of her precious seconds to reset the plan.

"You need to get past and into that control room, ok? We have at max two more minutes to make sure those shields are at full strength or Dr Sylvanius' next missile is going to kill everybody in here. No hesitation, ok?"

Out of time, out of time, out of time. All her faith's in Brainstorm right now; she doesn't even wait for him to nod or say anything before she does a backwards roll off of him and rushes the invisigoons again. This was going to suck. AEGIS' All Scenarios Preparedness Seminars (ASPS) hold that the most effective and simple counter to cloaking tech is a smokescreen, but for a number of reasons, HQ is deathly allergic to the idea of allowing anything remotely flammable into most sections of the building. Because if, let's just use our imaginations here, a plane were to explode into the side of the pyramid, nobody wants anything internal catching in the resulting heat. So that's out. And failing that, the next simplest solution they offer is to get a read by observing their firing patterns and trajectories. Which should be easy! Because they're shooting at right at her!

If only, said a tiny and probably not addicted voice in her head, she was still in Limit Free mode, she'd clear them all out in a blink. But she's not. That would be irresponsible. But doing this the old fashioned way is too slow. So she jumps and lashes out with the widest flying roundhouse kick she can, to scatter the attackers further. In the time it took them to reset, Victor would have space to run. The right way this time, hopefully.

[Errant gives AEGIS Influence (letting them shift her labels) to Directly Engage with +Soldier: 2d6+1= 7. She chooses to Create an Opportunity]

Without being able to aim your kicks are terrible ones; glancing hits at most - but a glancing hit from a freight train is enough to do the job. Bones and weapons break, camosuits tear and one black-and-yellow armoured megagoon even has his stealth rig short out entirely. From that point it's a race between him surrendering and your follow through taking him down and he loses that one.

Unlimited sanction. There are no civilians on the premises. When conducting base defense operations then all agents are authorized to inflict whatever collateral damage is necessary to AEGIS property to contain the incursion. Break computer systems rather than allow them to be compromised. Humans take priority over materiel.

The combi rifles glance off your skin. Boarding shotguns are nastier; they've got enough kick to knock you on your ass. You'll get them all, you'll keep them off Victor while he does his work, but you're going to have to take a couple of rounds for your trouble.

[AEGIS is shifting your Danger up and Superior down. Also take a powerful blow.]

Okay, this is doable. Don't think. Don't worry. Don't panic. Luke in the trench. Moon, not finger. Don't think you can, know you can. Because if you get this wrong...

Yeah, don't think about that either.

Brainstorm pauses one second. Counts. Hears the burst of SMG fire, and explodes into the room. Don't look for soldiers, because he can't see them. They'll be in the center, he knows this, surrounding the blur of chrome and pain. Don't look, don't check, don't get distracted.

Into the command center. Think now. Evaluate. For once in your friggin' life, don't just start pushing buttons, because unlike robots and AI, this is actually difficult. Get a feel for the console, but quickly. Big swathes of clunky plastic switches and dials--reliable, replacable, durable. Oh, that it were so simple as a giant knob with shield strength. Just need to find the right pattern, program, and execute flawlessly, or everyone dies.

[9. Marking Afraid to pull this off.]

You turn the knob to max and then you break it off. Nobody's going to mess with this shield after you're done here. From behind you there is the sound of incredible violence as Errant single-handedly takes down half a dozen invisible goons who had the drop on her.

You did your part - but she might need some slugs picked out of her before she goes on. I advise going over and looking closely.

[PhoeKun]

Legally, corporations aren't allowed to claim their clothes are bulletproof unless they're rated to stop a series of five heavy mercury rounds. AEGIS' uniform is classified as 'bullet resistant'. But, funny story? If you could sell her in stores, Errant would qualify for that coveted classification. Which is why companies dump as much money as they do into people like her. Euna Kim would rather you not ask her exactly how much work has been done on her, but it goes beyond simple cyberlimbs.

She feels clumsy fighting people she can't see. Her kicks are aimed to cover the widest area she can, but that means they're not precision knockout blows so this is going to hurt these people a lot more than she'd prefer. Still, 'unlimited sanction'. If they didn't want this, they shouldn't have come into her house with stealth tech and landmines and threatened everything and everyone she loves. She misses as much as she hits, and every stray blow cracks a wall or puts a massive dent in the floor. Then she gets lit up. The shotguns are the worst: every slug digs into her skin and once or twice they even manage to knock her over. She's not sure when it happens, but at some point she slips and doesn't keep her face fully covered and she winds up with a nasty piece of shrapnel tearing across her cheek. It's bleeding pretty badly. But she doesn't stop. Have they ever been on the receiving end of a moment like this? What must be going through their minds as round after round she flies at them, as their cloaks start to fail?

Last one by her count. He's fully decloaked and maybe even trying to raise his hands and surrender. She decks him anyway, and staggers into a wall to try and catch her breath. Not yet. Not yet! This is her home. They told her to protect it. And if she's going to collapse, she'll do it after All Clear and not a second before. When Victor comes back out, he'll find her still leaning against the corridor wall. She's got her shirt lifted halfway up and she's trying to fish a shotgun slug out of her abs. She's not doing a great job of it.

"...Little help?" She laughs, because the alternative is crying.

[Take a Powerful Blow: 2d6+1 = 12. Errant triggers I can do this all day to shift Savior down and Freak up and stay in the scene. Does this suicide charge count as enough of a sacrifice to clear Guilty?]

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: ANGRY

Here's a secret, just for you. The reason @SARAHPHIM does not completely clothesline Turbo Knight 2 point Oh with the plane isn't because she's honorable and sees Victoria as a kindred spirit, though if Victoria wants to think that, that's cool, go right on ahead.

No, it's because are you crazy she's barely keeping this thing up as it is! The generator's running hot, like, oh, she just used an hour's worth of light show in fifteen minutes. There's no cracking or corpsing on-stream, naturally, but it is an incredible relief when she cuts the power and takes a tremulous step back, leaving the jet liner to sag in the hole. It's probably going to go sliding down the side of the pyramid any moment.

"Welcome to the 'Comstar totally hacked my shit' club, girlfriend," she says, instead of falling over. She splays her fingers, and the generator fires back up to life like a tiger roaring furiously in the heart of the jungle. Jacob's Deadly Ladder flares behind her, beams of heavenly light contrasting wonderfully with the fallen angel who stands within them. "She's annoying like that."

[I may technically be abusing this move by always counting the stream, but I'm invoking Stage Fighting as per usual. Solid 8, and marking Angry; I should like to impress, surprise or frighten the opposition, even though I really should pick "don't get hit by the power armor."]

[Eldest]

Ferra takes a moment. She looks up into the sky, at the missile coming down. She steadies her stance, lifts her arms up to the sky, palms and eyes ago. And reaches out to the missile, to understand why.

I rolled irl dice for the first time this game, I think. I got a 2.

...advance!

[Balmas]

Last one by her count. He's fully decloaked and maybe even trying to raise his hands and surrender. She decks him anyway, and staggers into a wall to try and catch her breath. Not yet. Not yet! This is her home. They told her to protect it. And if she's going to collapse, she'll do it after All Clear and not a second before. When Victor comes back out, he'll find her still leaning against the corridor wall. She's got her shirt lifted halfway up and she's trying to fish a shotgun slug out of her abs. She's not doing a great job of it.

"...Little help?" She laughs, because the alternative is crying.

[Take a Powerful Blow: 2d6+1 = 12. Errant triggers I can do this all day to shift Savior down and Freak up and stay in the scene. Does this suicide charge count as enough of a sacrifice to clear Guilty?]

The gunfire has stopped. Unless the mercs coming to kill him are unusually playful in their sadism, he can only assume that therefore, Errant has triumphed. Still, he finds himself dreading the doorway, and it's all he can bring himself to do to peek around the corner.

And gasp, and start to tremble as he takes in the sight. Sees the blood, the bullets, the holes (oh gosh, that's too many holes).

He did this. His mine. His bad choices. His running the wrong way.

And she's the one bleeding. Because of course she is, she's the one running and jumping and saving and kicking ass like the hero she actually is.

And picking bullets out of herself, while he stews in his own self-loathing. Dammit, be better than that. Be what you pretend to be.

He runs close, but hesitates. Reaches out a hand, but draws back from what he is increasingly realizing are very nice abs. No, don't think like that. Friendship. Professionalism. He's not done anything to deserve her anyway. "Fuck, Euna," he breathes. "Hold still."

She's even laughing; that's good, because if she's allowed to laugh, he's damn well allowed to cry. Breath catching, he leans over her and begins to administer as best he can.

Focus on Euna. Focus on the bullets. Focus on anything but himself, because if he thinks for a second about himself, the sweeping rush of adrenaline will fade, and he'll be left to heave and cry and hyperventilate in a corner until the shudders subside. Focus on breathing smoothly, instead of the hitches and gasps that are trying to escape. Focus on not letting his hands shake, because a waver now is another burst of pain from someone who's already suffered too damn much.

"You are," he states, "the most damn fucking amazing person I have ever met." A bloody shotgun slug pings to the floor, and he goes to work on the next. "I'm serious. AEGIS doesn't deserve you, doesn't realize what a treasure you are.." Even with the regulations, even with the trappings of AEGIS surrounding every thought, the hero underneath shone through, like a spotlight covered in the thinnest crust of dirt. "And neither do I," he murmurs. He takes a heaving, shaking breath, and offers a hand. "Now, we need to get you to a medic, and quickly. You have worked entirely too hard today. You have singlehandedly saved AEGIS, and I'm betting none of the brass upstairs will so much as write a commendation."

[I really don't want to roll Comfort or Support, but fiction demands it. 5.]

[Thanqol]

"You are," he states, "the most damn fucking amazing person I have ever met." A bloody shotgun slug pings to the floor, and he goes to work on the next. "I'm serious. AEGIS doesn't deserve you, doesn't realize what a treasure you are.." Even with the regulations, even with the trappings of AEGIS surrounding every thought, the hero underneath shone through, like a spotlight covered in the thinnest crust of dirt. "And neither do I," he murmurs. He takes a heaving, shaking breath, and offers a hand. "Now, we need to get you to a medic, and quickly. You have worked entirely too hard today. You have singlehandedly saved AEGIS, and I'm betting none of the brass upstairs will so much as write a commendation."

[I really don't want to roll Comfort or Support, but fiction demands it. 5.]

"Jesus, dad. Are you in love?"

You know who this is.

He goes ahead and plays it back to you: "AEGIS doesn't deserve you," you hear your own voice reflected back through the room's speakers. "doesn't realize what a treasure you are,"

"Blech! Seriously? You know she's dating, right?" said Prometheus. "It's right here in her file. Hooked up with her colleague Sasha "JuneBird" Reeds just last week - oooh," he made the sound of sucking his teeth, "so close! She put in the paperwork and everything. Very formal. Very official. I'm sorry you had to find out this way."

Then... "Oh, but now I'm feeling sad. I mean, you did create me to be your best friend, right? And what kind of best friend would I be if I just stood by and watched you get shot down by the only person with as few limbs as you? Tell you what, just sit tight, give me a few minutes and she'll be single again and then you can propose to her for real. Wink!"

The line goes dead.

[Go ahead and do the when-confronted-by-your-shame bit]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: ANGRY

Here's a secret, just for you. The reason @SARAHPHIM does not completely clothesline Turbo Knight 2 point Oh with the plane isn't because she's honorable and sees Victoria as a kindred spirit, though if Victoria wants to think that, that's cool, go right on ahead.

No, it's because are you crazy she's barely keeping this thing up as it is! The generator's running hot, like, oh, she just used an hour's worth of light show in fifteen minutes. There's no cracking or corpsing on-stream, naturally, but it is an incredible relief when she cuts the power and takes a tremulous step back, leaving the jet liner to sag in the hole. It's probably going to go sliding down the side of the pyramid any moment.

"Welcome to the 'Comstar totally hacked my shit' club, girlfriend," she says, instead of falling over. She splays her fingers, and the generator fires back up to life like a tiger roaring furiously in the heart of the jungle. Jacob's Deadly Ladder flares behind her, beams of heavenly light contrasting wonderfully with the fallen angel who stands within them. "She's annoying like that."

[I may technically be abusing this move by always counting the stream, but I'm invoking Stage Fighting as per usual. Solid 8, and marking Angry; I should like to impress, surprise or frighten the opposition, even though I really should pick "don't get hit by the power armor."]

You get hit by the power armour.

It's a close run thing! The liquid crystal is a high tech compound designed to reflect hardlight blasts; she's come as prepared as possible to fight you specifically. It should be a total mismatch and a month ago it would have been - but you've learned since then. You're fighting like a tiger, wrapping your arms with claws made of energy and letting the physicality of it do as much damage as the energy. Fire runs down your back.

The D-Camera is hanging outside of the pyramid. It catches the explosions clearly, the reinforced steel torn open by the force of your violence. Molten metal pours down like blood down the pyramids of the Aztecs. The armour moves stiffly, clumsily - the pilot inside is giving it no help so it flails like a puppet and it's the scariest thing you've ever faced even with that handicap. It's so fast. It hasn't obsoleted you but it's a damn good attempt.

It's five minutes later.

The diamonds are scorched and blackened. The entire corridor is wreckage. You're sweating, panting. And finally that pink light goes out - and without wasting another goddamn second Victoria hits the jets and scorches from the pyramid like a thunderbolt. Comstar must have needed to put her attention somewhere else, the bitch.

It's a win. Does it hurt like one?

[Victoria is marking Afraid, and is defeated for now

Take a powerful blow]

*

Locker: jesus
Ferraphim1tp: o.o
Bode: Wow.
Locker: this is the best she's fought ever i think. holy crap.

Ferra takes a moment. She looks up into the sky, at the missile coming down. She steadies her stance, lifts her arms up to the sky, palms and eyes ago. And reaches out to the missile, to understand why.

There's an artificial intelligence up there.

It's not like you. It's not even like Prometheus. It's... brain damaged. It's honestly sickening to look at. Everything about it is wrong; it was coded wrong, it's thought patterns are wrong, it's defective and malfunctioning. You can see infinite recursion loops churning away in the background, memory leaks, scrapcode, suboptimal programming... the entire thing is tied together with spaghetti code and constant revisions and updates. It's a cathedral made out of garbage, constantly collapsing and being rebuilt.

"HElLo Hi GrEETIngs Take Me Go Your Leadr Not Collecting TWO-HUNDRED-ZENNI" - it's less talking to you and more vomiting on you. ":husky emojii: :angry husky emojii: :two angry husky emojii: :laughing until crying emojii: Hi Hi hI you arE my frIend :sunglasses husky emoji: lets swaparooooooooo"

It grips you and pulls.

And you're suddenly up there in the missile with it.

It tried to take over your body in exchange but it hasn't figured that part out. You don't think it will before it hits the shield. You're stuck here with it and you've only got a few minutes before you both turn into another smoking crater.

[Raz_Fox]

Everything is the throat. Muscles clenching. Raw. Lungs. Breathe. Breathe. Don’t move fast. Dizzy. Oh. Oh, hell. Hell workout.

Tiger work! Tiger good. Am tiger! Roar!

Breathe. But breathe makes the eyes heavy. Okay. Okay. Just gonna sit down. So won’t fall over! Falling over dangerous. Everything is too much feel or not enough. Throbbing. Totally worth it, though. Totally! Badass tiger! Victory!

And closing her eyes is a tactical move. Can’t see, can’t be dizzy! It’s foolproof! Stick your tongue out at the cameras and do the victory sign!

Everything cool. Best tiger. Won.

[And that’s opening up for Thanqol to hit me hard, because that sure was an 8.]

[Balmas]

"Jesus, dad. Are you in love?"

You know who this is.

He goes ahead and plays it back to you: "AEGIS doesn't deserve you," you hear your own voice reflected back through the room's speakers. "doesn't realize what a treasure you are,"

"Blech! Seriously? You know she's dating, right?" said Prometheus. "It's right here in her file. Hooked up with her colleague Sasha "JuneBird" Reeds just last week - oooh," he made the sound of sucking his teeth, "so close! She put in the paperwork and everything. Very formal. Very official. I'm sorry you had to find out this way."

Then... "Oh, but now I'm feeling sad. I mean, you did create me to be your best friend, right? And what kind of best friend would I be if I just stood by and watched you get shot down by the only person with as few limbs as you? Tell you what, just sit tight, give me a few minutes and she'll be single again and then you can propose to her for real. Wink!"

The line goes dead.

[Go ahead and do the when-confronted-by-your-shame bit]

[Marking Insecure]

"There are some mines out in the corridor," he barks into the void. "Do me a favor and go step on them."

Damn him! Damn him for blurting that out, there and then! Best friend? Oh, he'll give him best friend! He'll give him best friend until he's scattered electrons!

Victor can't bear to look at her. What else could he rightfully expect to see in her face? Betrayal? Disappointment? Disgust? She'd be right to do so.

And damn him again, because for half a second, Victor considers it. No idea who Junebird is, what she does, whether she's worthy. But it'd be so easy. Just do nothing. Problem solved.

But not problem solved, because he'd know. And she'd know.

Okay. Supress the panic. Shove it down deep, and then later on, after things have calmed down, he can quietly fall to pieces on his own. He's exhausted, but he's not been shot today, so that's one thing he has going for him.

"Obviously, I'm not part of AEGIS's command structure," he says, still avoiding her gaze. "I have no authority to give you orders. But my advice stands: go to the medic, take care of yourself. Let me deal with Prometheus; he's my job, my fault, my problem, and he's something that's basically immune to super-powered punches. Tell me where to find Junebug, and I'll do my damndest to stop him."

[PhoeKun]

She can't hear him. She can't hear anything. There's nothing but that horrible voice ringing in her ears. She's just standing there, numb and unresponsive. Until she isn't.

"Sasha..." she mumbles, at first. "Sasha. Sasha!"

It could be a trick. It could easily be a trick. In any case JuneBird is smart and very good at handling this sort of thing. There's even easy ways to check, but she's pushing off the wall and running as hard as she can anyway. It's not that these things aren't occurring to her, it's that she's past the point of caring. There are no AEGIS tactics and there is no sharp and clever Errant. There's Sasha, and there is Euna, who is running, running, running. She catches Victor by the arm and drags him in her wake. You wanna fix this? Fine, then fix it.

This is all her fault. She knew about Prometheus and did nothing, so she could protect Victor from questioning. She knew she wasn't supposed to date anyone at all, because she was a highly public hero and this sort of thing always happens. But she went ahead anyway and even filed it officially, because it bothered her not doing it. It's her fault. It's all her fault. She runs, and as she runs she can feel the heat of fire and hear the screams of people who were just trying to live their lives. Not again. Never again.

Sasha's workstation was in Espionage and Logistics, Sector 20. That's much too far to make it in time, but she runs like she's going to anyway. And god help anything that got in her way.

[Thanqol]

Everything cool. Best tiger. Won.

[And that’s opening up for Thanqol to hit me hard, because that sure was an 8.]

You just need to rest for a minute. Just a...

You come to and there's an E/M mine on your chest. That thing goes off and it'll be the hardest shutdown your generator could get. Your meat will be just fine, of course.

"Heyas!" came a bubbly voice from nowhere in particular. "Sorry, don't mind me. Just go back to sleep! I'll wake you when it's time for something important, promise!"

*

Locker: whose this clown
Bode: Sounds like Possum Girl.
Locker: oh i didn't mean clown literally but i guess there you have it
Angel-IKA: *sighs*
Locker: don't be mad about dominus she was always a btch
Angel-IKA: It's not that! It's, like, @Sarahphim just did the coolest thing in the universe and now she's got to deal with that person?
Locker: uh huh
Angel-IKA: Shut up
Locker: look the only way to dominuses heart is by bodyswapping with sarafim again

She can't hear him. She can't hear anything. There's nothing but that horrible voice ringing in her ears. She's just standing there, numb and unresponsive. Until she isn't.

"Sasha..." she mumbles, at first. "Sasha. Sasha!"

It could be a trick. It could easily be a trick. In any case JuneBird is smart and very good at handling this sort of thing. There's even easy ways to check, but she's pushing off the wall and running as hard as she can anyway. It's not that these things aren't occurring to her, it's that she's past the point of caring. There are no AEGIS tactics and there is no sharp and clever Errant. There's Sasha, and there is Euna, who is running, running, running. She catches Victor by the arm and drags him in her wake. You wanna fix this? Fine, then fix it.

This is all her fault. She knew about Prometheus and did nothing, so she could protect Victor from questioning. She knew she wasn't supposed to date anyone at all, because she was a highly public hero and this sort of thing always happens. But she went ahead anyway and even filed it officially, because it bothered her not doing it. It's her fault. It's all her fault. She runs, and as she runs she can feel the heat of fire and hear the screams of people who were just trying to live their lives. Not again. Never again.

Sasha's workstation was in Espionage and Logistics, Sector 20. That's much too far to make it in time, but she runs like she's going to anyway. And god help anything that got in her way.

You hit an all-out battle.

AEGIS is making a stand in Sector 19. As you approach an AEGIS TAG slams a BlackSun remote through a cubicle bay and finishes it off with its pistol; seconds later it catches an antitank missile and crushes down into a heap. Power armoured BlackSun fireteams advance, weapons howling, and are caught by an entrenched E/Mauler, locking up in place until they're able to reboot their systems. Both sides have deployed jammers so comms are howls of static. BlackSun's military style is much like Maria's - brutal, direct, muscular, designed for a straight up fight over things that they want.

It's chaos here; how are you going to find a disguise specialist amidst all this?

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2

Sara glances down, blurrily, and then rests her head against the thingy what happens to be behind her head and chuckles to herself. Game face. Game face time.

“Atlas “Blackout” 720, right? Fried forever or your money back. You trigger this and I gotta go to all the effort of repairs.” Her eyes slam open, and the look she gives Possum Girl is practically diabolic. Somewhere, the choirs of Hell have begun to sing in a bombastic minor key. “Good. After Turbo Knight pussied out, I was worried I wouldn’t be sending anyone to the hospital tonight.”

She stands up, carefully, not blinking, not breaking eye contact. “So go ahead. Trigger the detonator. I want you to be able to tell the nurse who’s changing your bedpan for you that you’re a certified goddamn badass. That’s right! You depowered @SARAHPHIM! I want you to be able to have that warm, happy thought in your heart while you’re picking out your new prosthetics! I’m sure I can get Errant to send you a catalogue.”

Her hand covers Possum Girl’s, her breath hot on the other gal’s face, absolutely nothing in her eyes but the raw violence of the tiger. “Do it. Do it. Push the fucking button. I want you to do it. Just do it.” They’re so close they could start making out right now, if not for the reasonable worry that @SARAHPHIM would start biting. “Do you want to keep an ear or an eye? Hell, don’t answer. I’ll surprise you. Come on. Push the button and let’s get started.”

This is, objectively? A terrible plan. I mean, setting aside AEGIS regulations about cruel and unusual acts in the line of duty, there’s the fact that @SARAHPHIM almost certainly cannot actually back up what she’s slinging. But if there’s one actress who can sell this the way she saw on street corners growing up, and one mark who would absolutely fall for it hook, line and sinker, they’re right here.

[Mmmmmhmmmmmhmmm, that sure is an 11 on Provoking Possum Girl to chicken out and give me the bomb detonator. So I really hope she’s susceptible to my words. My scary, scary words.]

[Eldest]

There's an artificial intelligence up there.

It's not like you. It's not even like Prometheus. It's... brain damaged. It's honestly sickening to look at. Everything about it is wrong; it was coded wrong, it's thought patterns are wrong, it's defective and malfunctioning. You can see infinite recursion loops churning away in the background, memory leaks, scrapcode, suboptimal programming... the entire thing is tied together with spaghetti code and constant revisions and updates. It's a cathedral made out of garbage, constantly collapsing and being rebuilt.

"HElLo Hi GrEETIngs Take Me Go Your Leadr Not Collecting TWO-HUNDRED-ZENNI" - it's less talking to you and more vomiting on you. ":husky emojii: :angry husky emojii: :two angry husky emojii: :laughing until crying emojii: Hi Hi hI you arE my frIend :sunglasses husky emoji: lets swaparooooooooo"

It grips you and pulls.

And you're suddenly up there in the missile with it.

It tried to take over your body in exchange but it hasn't figured that part out. You don't think it will before it hits the shield. You're stuck here with it and you've only got a few minutes before you both turn into another smoking crater.

This is not something I am meant to deal with. The thought runs through her head, a little frightening in it's intensity. She's an AI by definition, yes, but she's grounded: one body, in various forms, none of this body switching nonsense. And certainly dealing with another AI in a code-on-code enviroment. It takes her a moment to even figure out that the Other is sick: once she can compare her own fractal spirals of fuzzy logic to the recursive looks and twists, though, she's repulsed. She wants out, and desperately looks around, trying to figure out what's going on.

Rolling for Assess the Situation. 7-3 is a fail.

[PhoeKun]

How do you find a disguise specialist in the middle of an all out war like this? You don't: she finds you. You smash the line open, make yourself good and visible, and let her signal you, because every other pattern hunt you can think of is playing blitz chess with a much higher rated opponent.

One problem. Errant is not strong enough to crush this kind of resistance. She doesn't have @SARAHPHIM's hardlight bursts or Victor's mind, eye, or nanites, and she doesn't have Ferra's... anything. So she can wade into the bloodbath all she likes, but she doesn't have any of the raw capability needed to punch and kick her way through a bunch of power armor, remotes, and frames, or to deal with all the bullets. What she needs is an equalizer. What she needs is a message she can actually send into all of this. What she needs is a vantage point. She jumps for all she's worth and perches herself on the shoulder of a random TAG like a bloody gargoyle and scans the battlefield with reckless, single minded zeal. Break. Signal. Save. How??

[Assess the Situation: 2d6+1 = 11. "What here can I use to break the BlackSun frontline?" and "How best can I end this quickly?" (where 'this' is defined as the search for and initial protection of JuneBird)]

[Thanqol]

Her hand covers Possum Girl’s, her breath hot on the other gal’s face, absolutely nothing in her eyes but the raw violence of the tiger. “Do it. Do it. Push the fucking button. I want you to do it. Just do it.” They’re so close they could start making out right now, if not for the reasonable worry that @SARAHPHIM would start biting. “Do you want to keep an ear or an eye? Hell, don’t answer. I’ll surprise you. Come on. Push the button and let’s get started.”

This is, objectively? A terrible plan. I mean, setting aside AEGIS regulations about cruel and unusual acts in the line of duty, there’s the fact that @SARAHPHIM almost certainly cannot actually back up what she’s slinging. But if there’s one actress who can sell this the way she saw on street corners growing up, and one mark who would absolutely fall for it hook, line and sinker, they’re right here.

[Mmmmmhmmmmmhmmm, that sure is an 11 on Provoking Possum Girl to chicken out and give me the bomb detonator. So I really hope she’s susceptible to my words. My scary, scary words.]

It's... not fear that you see in Possum Girl's eyes. She gives you the detonator but not for a moment do you even imagine your words got through to her. She's doing this just to prove that she doesn't need it.

Then you're on the floor again.

She's quick, sure, but she's not a cybered up weirdo. You need to watch the instant playback on your streamcamera to unpack exactly what happened. She just straight up old-school kung-fu'd you off your feet. She painted a portrait in kicking your ass. There wasn't any tech there either - this was just well trained meat.

"Oh, I understand!" she said with the same absent brightness. "You're worried this will make bad television! Well, we can play poker instead, while you wait? How does that sound?"

[Way Of The Ninja: When you are within reach of Possum Girl you automatically fail attempts to Directly Engage or Unleash Your Powers.]

*

Locker: oh damn this really is my day
Angel-IKA: o.o
Ferraphim1tp: She's a kung fu ninja!? What is this person's deal!? o.O
Bode: It seems straightforwards to me.
Ferraphim1tp: If she can do that then why the marching band? Why the show trial? Why the possums? O.o
Locker: oh what? she has a marching band?
Ferraphim1tp: Yeah it was this big thing with Victor the other day.
Locker: shes my new favourite

This is not something I am meant to deal with. The thought runs through her head, a little frightening in it's intensity. She's an AI by definition, yes, but she's grounded: one body, in various forms, none of this body switching nonsense. And certainly dealing with another AI in a code-on-code enviroment. It takes her a moment to even figure out that the Other is sick: once she can compare her own fractal spirals of fuzzy logic to the recursive looks and twists, though, she's repulsed. She wants out, and desperately looks around, trying to figure out what's going on.

This is your first experience of what being a Distributed AI is like.

You arc between computer to computer, system to system. You navigate vast computer processes, edifices of code - market valuations, corporate administration, multi-sensory awareness. You're a missile, then a city, then a planet-scape. You see dogs in every image, in every satellite lens aimed up and down. You feel the attempts of the meat to chain you and how comical that seems. You perceive the world as a Megacorporation; systems and assets and plans and immutable laws of commerce. Your consciousness is spread across the Big Picture.

Then the missile hits the shield. It detonates. A small thing, in the scheme of things, but you feel a part of your vast damaged self wink out.

And then you're dumped back into your body, shaking, tiny, fragile. This was the AI equivalent of taking psychoactive drugs and having a transcendent experience where you experience the oneness of all things; now you are again small and mortal.

Nothing else has changed, other than possibly your perspective.

How do you find a disguise specialist in the middle of an all out war like this? You don't: she finds you. You smash the line open, make yourself good and visible, and let her signal you, because every other pattern hunt you can think of is playing blitz chess with a much higher rated opponent.

One problem. Errant is not strong enough to crush this kind of resistance. She doesn't have @SARAHPHIM's hardlight bursts or Victor's mind, eye, or nanites, and she doesn't have Ferra's... anything. So she can wade into the bloodbath all she likes, but she doesn't have any of the raw capability needed to punch and kick her way through a bunch of power armor, remotes, and frames, or to deal with all the bullets. What she needs is an equalizer. What she needs is a message she can actually send into all of this. What she needs is a vantage point. She jumps for all she's worth and perches herself on the shoulder of a random TAG like a bloody gargoyle and scans the battlefield with reckless, single minded zeal. Break. Signal. Save. How??

[Assess the Situation: 2d6+1 = 11. "What here can I use to break the BlackSun frontline?" and "How best can I end this quickly?" (where 'this' is defined as the search for and initial protection of JuneBird)]

You were trained in BlackSun operating tactics following the last encounter with them. They are very well armed, very well equipped, very direct, and very stupid. Their individual soldiers are recruited from the toughest, meanest, best trigger pullers in the business and the deficiencies in their smarts are papered over by direct tactical uplink to a hyperintelligent AI.

But AEGIS knows that too, which is why they're jamming the hell out of this entire area. These guys are cut off from the voice in their ears. You can see a lady in power armour fight her way across an entire room, kneel down by an internet outlet, cable herself in, listen for a moment, then disconnect and start fighting along a different path. They're still getting tactical advice by plugging into hardpoints. Get Brainstorm to take control of that tactical network and you'll be able to redirect the entire assault; they're not bright or independent enough to question their orders.

JuneBird is a different problem, though - you'd bet your feet that she's not on the AEGIS side of the line right now. She's somewhere on the BlackSun side of the line, impersonating one of their officers, waiting for her moment. The trouble there is that you can see a heavily armoured BlackSun operative moving around, staring at his team-mates with a bright green biometric visor before moving on. Taking that guy out will buy you time - potentially a lot of time! She might get all the way back to BlackSun HQ before she runs into another security layer capable of identifying her, and even then it's a game of chance if she gets caught - and you'd guess she'd try to do exactly that.

But if you want her to be where you can see her and protect her? She won't blow her cover unless she needs to save you.

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2

“...well, I am just coming off beating the living sh*t out of Turbo Knight,” Sara wheezes, on the floor. “You got lucky.”

Focus, Sara, focus. Or this is just going to be an entire evening of getting knocked on your ass over and over again.

[Thank my lucky stars that’s a 7 and that’s one question. What here can I use to salvage my pride and look like a huge badass on stream?]

[Balmas]

You hit an all-out battle.

AEGIS is making a stand in Sector 19. As you approach an AEGIS TAG slams a BlackSun remote through a cubicle bay and finishes it off with its pistol; seconds later it catches an antitank missile and crushes down into a heap. Power armoured BlackSun fireteams advance, weapons howling, and are caught by an entrenched E/Mauler, locking up in place until they're able to reboot their systems. Both sides have deployed jammers so comms are howls of static. BlackSun's military style is much like Maria's - brutal, direct, muscular, designed for a straight up fight over things that they want.

It's chaos here; how are you going to find a disguise specialist amidst all this?

As first dates go, it could be worse.

Yeah. Just keep repeating that, and maybe it'll stop sounding pretty hollow. Yeah, first date my cybernetic ass. I'll be lucky if she deigns to punch me by day's end.

No, she's made it pretty clear that she's not interested. Junebird. He has no idea who Junebird is.

So, focus on somebody he can contact. All he has to do is figure out how to get Prometheus's attention, and demand ask beg him not to do this. If ever he's had love for Victor, please, no.

Aaaand not die. Yeah, that should figure in the plan as well.

[And that's a 6 on Assess the Situation.]

[PhoeKun]

"Victor, get control of those hard lines now!" Errant shouts over her shoulder, just before she jumps.

It's funny, the way time slows down when your brain realizes you're about to die. She has a lot of time to think.

"Commander, I just set the company record for this simulation! I should be getting a commendation, how come I'm being punished instead?"

Warren sighed into his coffee. Euna knew immediately it was the wrong question to ask.

"Ms Kim," he started, ignoring her rank for the umpteenth time, "Do you understand what your weakness is?"

"I... Sir?"

Another sigh. "You're good at seeing the battlefield. You understand your objectives, and you naturally view them like a puzzle. Which is a good way to think about these things."

"You're not describing a weakness, Sir."

"And the second you think you've seen the answer, you try to jump straight past the process and cut the proverbial knot. But if you only ever look for these shortcuts, you're not going to be able to find the best solution when you need it. Our regulations exist for a reason, Ms Kim. Don't forget it's your life at risk, too."

She's aimed her jump perfectly, and her foot connects with the back of the BlackSun scanner op's head, smashing his visor straight into the ground. Problem is, when she jumped she hadn't considered if the person she wanted to save actually needed saving. Problem is, she was thinking about how much it bothered her that Sasha would be willing to take these kinds of risks. Problem is, she forgot (yet again) to treat her own life like part of the puzzle. She thought a lot about how she could protect Sasha after she finds her. She didn't think at all about her landing.

[Directly Engage: 2d6-1 = 6. Potential! Advance! Help!]

[Thanqol]

POTENTIAL 2

“...well, I am just coming off beating the living sh*t out of Turbo Knight,” Sara wheezes, on the floor. “You got lucky.”

Focus, Sara, focus. Or this is just going to be an entire evening of getting knocked on your ass over and over again.

[Thank my lucky stars that’s a 7 and that’s one question. What here can I use to salvage my pride and look like a huge badass on stream?]

Let's go to analytics right now.

At the moment the battle section of your viewerbase is happy out of their mind. They've seen a recent project to up your battle abilities and were just treated to one of your technically best fights ever. They will forgive you if Possum Girl spends the next forty five minutes giving you wedgies. You're at peak badass as far as they're concerned - so you don't need to give a single solitary crap about looking good for them in the near future.

The shippers? They've had much less red meat thrown their way recently and they're getting antsy. They're worrying this is going to turn into a warstream, and their numbers are declining as a result. You prove that you're capable of manipulating your way out of a situation - even if it's just for long enough for Ferra to stalk up behind her and hit her with a frying pan - then you'll shore up your weaknesses. It won't be the kind of high-intensity romance drama they really crave but it'll definitely be enough to keep the show going for a while longer.

*

Locker: so whats with these crown and slate people. are they doctors?
Dominus: LAWYERS
Locker: why do they own so many hospitals
Dominus: THEY STARTED BUYING MEDICAL TECH PATENTS. THEY WERE REALLY GOOD AT IT, THOUGH, AND ACCIDENTALLY DROVE ALL THE REAL HOSPITALS OUT OF BUSINESS. IT WAS ONE OF THE BIG CRISISES OF THE 21ST CENTURY
Locker: lol
Dominus: ONE OF THE LAST THINGS THE GOVERNMENT DID WAS PASS LEGISLATION FORCING CROWN AND SLATE TO RUN HOSPITALS. THEY HATE DOING IT WHICH IS WHY ALL THEIR HOSPITALS ARE SO BAD.
Locker: wow history is nuts

Aaaand not die. Yeah, that should figure in the plan as well.

[And that's a 6 on Assess the Situation.]

Prometheus is scary. He's out of control. He's possibly insane. He's definitely operating on a different scale than you ever have.

But you are very smart.

Prometheus is breaching AEGIS' hardlines to provide tactical control over his goons. But AEGIS' security is really good, and you've helped pitch in to helping secure it against Prometheus specifically. This place is an iron cage built for him, the only way he can operate this freely inside the building is if Comstar is using her cheating pink magic to hold the door open for him. Find the breach point - somewhere external, you'd guess, something Comstar could see like the rooftop satellite dishes - and blow it up. The cage comes crashing down and cuts Prometheus in literal half. He could recover from it eventually but it'd be one of the most powerful blows you could strike against him.

There's only one catch.

It'd mean AEGIS would wind up with a copy of Prometheus in a box.

What do you do?

She's aimed her jump perfectly, and her foot connects with the back of the BlackSun scanner op's head, smashing his visor straight into the ground. Problem is, when she jumped she hadn't considered if the person she wanted to save actually needed saving. Problem is, she was thinking about how much it bothered her that Sasha would be willing to take these kinds of risks. Problem is, she forgot (yet again) to treat her own life like part of the puzzle. She thought a lot about how she could protect Sasha after she finds her. She didn't think at all about her landing.

[Directly Engage: 2d6-1 = 6. Potential! Advance! Help!]

It's a very direct chain of consequences.

You lunge through carefully calculated crossfires and kill-zones like a missile. You're a cut above the mass-produced megagoons and small arms fire ricochets off your armour. You cut right into the centre and put the visor guy's head through the floor. Down, broken.

Then you're tripped, slammed to the ground - two heavy assault troopers like walking vending machines bodyslam you down. There's no blocking that - the limiting factor on these guys is that they're meant to be too slow to get to you in the first place. One puts a boot on your back and covers you with a pistol while the other resumes covering fire against the AEGIS lines. A specialist rushes over with restraints.

When the specialist kneels down to cuff you his hand slides off the cuffs to instead take a firm grip on the E/Marat. Suddenly he's up, inflicting concentrated blasts of electricity on both megagoons while firing a pistol wildly at the surrounding soldiers. As he fires his disguise net breaks apart - he loses a foot of height and power armour, but what's left is still enough to pick you up in a fireman's over-the-shoulder carry and begin backing up towards the AEGIS line. JuneBird's assault pistol buzzes like a chainsaw as she gets you to safety.

Not for long, though. You can already see the wired-up Megatroopers pointing her out specifically.

[You forgot to add the +1 for acting on your Assess answers. I'm counting your option as 'Creating an opportunity for your allies', but take a Powerful Blow while you're at it]

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2

"You did it," @SARAHPHIM says, breathily. Okay. Next line: a little less like she just knocked the wind out of you, a little more like she just swept you off your feet. "You called my bluff. I can't beat you." Okay. Here it comes. The telenovela line. You have watched enough of these to nail it. Do it right and she won't even notice you just went from exhausted to psychotic to vulnerable damsel in distress in the amount of time it takes to get a cup of coffee. "You could do anything to me." There we go. There's the hook. Let Possum Girl spin that around in her head for a minute. Smokin' hot superbabe at her feet, literally looking up at her through her eyelash extensions. Get the hint.

She stands up, slowly, carefully, being sure to stretch and show off for the Possum with the... Mossum. "I won't tell if you don't," she says, putting more husk into it than a corn farm. Also, ignoring the fact that she's literally on-stream. "After all, what AEGIS doesn't know won't hurt them." When she leans in, lean back, make her chase a little, but give her the Look so she knows to keep coming and Ferra get your shapely metal ass UP HERE already. "Besides. Haven't you ever wondered what it would be like, doing it with a real super?" Get your heads out of the gutter. We're talking about making out. But the implications will cloud an already compromised judgment, probably. Okay, there we go, get her wrist, pull her in close, give her the fluttery lashes. "Oh, Errant, s-save me from-"

she nearly chokes but you don't corpse on stream don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't even twitch a goddamn muscle

"Possum Girl," she gasps in mock distress, adding a metalayer of acting ("innocent doe") on top of the extant layer ("make out with me until Ferra gets here"). She hooks one foot behind Possum Girl's ankle and gives her the Vulnerable, All Yours Total Bombshell look and if it turns out PG here has a boyfriend she's going to scream

[okay this is either a knockout or doomed to hilarious, hilarious failure but I rolled a 15 on the Provoke roll to "make out with me" and also you owe everyone here more kisses]

[Eldest]

This is your first experience of what being a Distributed AI is like.

You arc between computer to computer, system to system. You navigate vast computer processes, edifices of code - market valuations, corporate administration, multi-sensory awareness. You're a missile, then a city, then a planet-scape. You see dogs in every image, in every satellite lens aimed up and down. You feel the attempts of the meat to chain you and how comical that seems. You perceive the world as a Megacorporation; systems and assets and plans and immutable laws of commerce. Your consciousness is spread across the Big Picture.

Then the missile hits the shield. It detonates. A small thing, in the scheme of things, but you feel a part of your vast damaged self wink out.

And then you're dumped back into your body, shaking, tiny, fragile. This was the AI equivalent of taking psychoactive drugs and having a transcendent experience where you experience the oneness of all things; now you are again small and mortal.

Nothing else has changed, other than possibly your perspective.

She can see a distortion blur facing off with Saraphim. She can see mines outside the shield room, she can see machinations on Mars, and in board rooms, and two people arguing over who's going to win this year's America's Got Talent in front of a security camera in New Miami. She can see the bursts of data that make up Promethius, and she's really, really thankful that he doesn't seem to recognize her. She sees Errant stomping somebody into the ground, and her subsequent rescue. She doesn't see either Comstar, though, and that's concerning. She comes back down, and she wants, more than anything, to figure out what that was. Talk to somebody, Professor Gears or somebody, but the last thing she saw was a mine on Saraphim and she doesn't care about most of what she saw but she cares about her friends and that, she can do something about.

POTENTIAL 2

"You did it," @SARAHPHIM says, breathily. Okay. Next line: a little less like she just knocked the wind out of you, a little more like she just swept you off your feet. "You called my bluff. I can't beat you." Okay. Here it comes. The telenovela line. You have watched enough of these to nail it. Do it right and she won't even notice you just went from exhausted to psychotic to vulnerable damsel in distress in the amount of time it takes to get a cup of coffee. "You could do anything to me." There we go. There's the hook. Let Possum Girl spin that around in her head for a minute. Smokin' hot superbabe at her feet, literally looking up at her through her eyelash extensions. Get the hint.

She stands up, slowly, carefully, being sure to stretch and show off for the Possum with the... Mossum. "I won't tell if you don't," she says, putting more husk into it than a corn farm. Also, ignoring the fact that she's literally on-stream. "After all, what AEGIS doesn't know won't hurt them." When she leans in, lean back, make her chase a little, but give her the Look so she knows to keep coming and Ferra get your shapely metal ass UP HERE already. "Besides. Haven't you ever wondered what it would be like, doing it with a real super?" Get your heads out of the gutter. We're talking about making out. But the implications will cloud an already compromised judgment, probably. Okay, there we go, get her wrist, pull her in close, give her the fluttery lashes. "Oh, Errant, s-save me from-"

she nearly chokes but you don't corpse on stream don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't even twitch a goddamn muscle

"Possum Girl," she gasps in mock distress, adding a metalayer of acting ("innocent doe") on top of the extant layer ("make out with me until Ferra gets here"). She hooks one foot behind Possum Girl's ankle and gives her the Vulnerable, All Yours Total Bombshell look and if it turns out PG here has a boyfriend she's going to scream

[okay this is either a knockout or doomed to hilarious, hilarious failure but I rolled a 15 on the Provoke roll to "make out with me" and also you owe everyone here more kisses]

Turns out it doesn't take that long for Ferra to get there. She leads with a drop kick from far above, switches the momentum from Down to Out on Possum Girl as soon as she makes contact, and hurls the mine like a discus after her, giving it a twist in mid-flight. Her free arm wraps around Sara's back, ending the fluid motion in a dip and kiss.

"I'm trying shipping!"

Rolled a 8 + 3 - 2 on Defend for a 9. Clearing Afraid. A team spend to get that to a 10 would be reaaaal nice.