Yes, and simultaneously no? I mean, he's been in classes, with children, of the same approximate age, being taught stuff by a teacher, but if you look at the offical records, he's never set foot in a school or received a degree.

He's never felt so out of place in his life.

Which makes no damn sense, by the way. I mean, these are the kinds of people for whom genetic perfection was guaranteed approximately six months before conception. Anybody whose parents didn't have the money to ensure such was the case couldn't afford to attend here. And since winning the genetic lottery wasn't enough, the students have had to improve on perfection. Green eyes? Go for it. Wings? Hell yeah. Typhoid yellow floor-length Sailor Moon animatronic hair? The sky, your parent's bank accounts, and the current trends are the limit.

Compared to the polychromatic zoo around him, Victor cannot help but feel... plain. Dammit, he can make wings on the fly, convert his body into a freakin' miniature jetplane if he wanted to, but there's a not-inconsiderable part of him feels envious of being able to just... decide to graft on new limbs as desired. And he's realizing, too late, that posing as a talent scout disguised as a student requires that the students think he's worth paying attention to.

And, also, some functional knowledge of how Aristeia is played, but that's a different problem.

POTENTIAL 4

Showmanship. It’s all about the showmanship. Sure, she could try and just smack Witcherphim in the face with a laser, but that’s not sporting. That’s not a good show. That’s not going to leave the audience hungry for more.

So when she lunges forward, it’s with her own hardlight blade and a shimmering rainbow cloak over one arm: useful both for disguising the biotech injector in her hand and for disrupting Witcherphim’s strikes.

Go fast. Go hard. Go unexpected. Then just jam the injector up against her like it was a hidden knife and let it do its work. That’s the plan. But what’s a plan without a little flair, right?

[Snake Eyes on Unleashing her Powers.]

Go fast. Go hard. Go unexpected. Words to live by, right, @Sarahphim?

"THE WORLDORU!!"

You get hit by a tidal wave of energy from the side and blasted through the window of a shop. You come crashing to a halt in the midst of a glass display cabinet full of macrons, dazed eyes picking out the descending form of Sarampire in her stupid goofy nosferatu cloak and terrifying glowing red eyes. The only reason she and Witcherphim don't immediately follow up against you is because they both turn their attention to blasting Dominus' helicopter out of the sky.

That fangirl is standing over you too, hovering hesitantly. First thing you notice: her makeup is terrible. "Um, hey," she's applied the foundation cakingly thick but it still hasn't covered up the weird black-line bruises on her face. "So, um, someone put out an offer to all the Saras offering them a l-lot of money if they take you out," green eye-shadow isn't bad in theory but that is not the right shade of green at all, girl, and it's much too heavy on the glitter.

Locker: watch out
Locker: oh too late
Dominus: OH CRAP
Bode: Did she just shout 'the world'? Why? Is that a vampire thing?
Ferraphim1tp: Yes, all vampires shout that :)
Dominus: OH CRAP OH CRAP

She could do that. All of it. Any of it. Almost anybody would. Almost nobody would blame her.

...But a True Princess would never, ever look away.

Errant reaches up and clicks her visor on over her eyes. Loving something means that you can't look away when it starts going bad.

"She's not going to go for it," said Victoria Messermitt, fully outfitted in that terrifying power armour. "You're wasting my time, Warren."

Commander Warren's face was stone and slate. "Agent Errant is an indispensable asset. It is worth sounding her out."

"She and her entire team has been nothing but -" her lip twitched with a flash of anger. "Problems. For me. And I guarantee that they'll make it personal."

Yes, and simultaneously no? I mean, he's been in classes, with children, of the same approximate age, being taught stuff by a teacher, but if you look at the offical records, he's never set foot in a school or received a degree.

He's never felt so out of place in his life.

Which makes no damn sense, by the way. I mean, these are the kinds of people for whom genetic perfection was guaranteed approximately six months before conception. Anybody whose parents didn't have the money to ensure such was the case couldn't afford to attend here. And since winning the genetic lottery wasn't enough, the students have had to improve on perfection. Green eyes? Go for it. Wings? Hell yeah. Typhoid yellow floor-length Sailor Moon animatronic hair? The sky, your parent's bank accounts, and the current trends are the limit.

Compared to the polychromatic zoo around him, Victor cannot help but feel... plain. Dammit, he can make wings on the fly, convert his body into a freakin' miniature jetplane if he wanted to, but there's a not-inconsiderable part of him feels envious of being able to just... decide to graft on new limbs as desired. And he's realizing, too late, that posing as a talent scout disguised as a student requires that the students think he's worth paying attention to.

And, also, some functional knowledge of how Aristeia is played, but that's a different problem.

Fortunately for your cover, you are not the only shifty looking guy here.

"hey," said Locker from immediately behind you. He looks tired. "you're here on work too, huh? Makes sense you'd figure it out." Nobody has ever looked like he has belonged in a high school more than Locker. The deep shadows under his intense eyes, scraggly facial hair, the entire aesthetic of goth-with-motivation-issues. He fits here, so well that he's got an androgynous guy hanging off his left arm and blowing bubble gum and a lady with a daft punk helmet displaying a :D emoji on his right.

"come on," he said. "we've got to rescue a princess."

POTENTIAL 4

@SARAHPHIM: This sucks.
@SARAHPHIM: Sit tight, Dommy, I’m coming.

“I had a meeting, you know,” Sara groans as she pulls herself up the fangirl like ivy creeping up a trellis, ignoring her scandalized squeaking. She can handle having a half-concussed superheroine clinging to her for balance. “Was gonna sign on to an awesome clothing line. But everything’s got to be an ordeal these days.”

The unwritten contract between @SARAHPHIM and her fans is that she will be there to save them. Witcherphim can beat her for all she cares, she just needs to be there for Dominus first.

She tosses a glitter bomb through the broken window and scampers madly for the back, her sword and cloak melting away, the biotech stuffed in one of the shallow pockets on her suit. The fan will probably follow her, but no way she’s as fast as Sara at a dead sprint.

The helicopter’s spiraling down towards the ground, and Dominus needs more time to get the pilot out so they can both eject before their firey doom. You work with the tools you have: Sara begins juggling the helicopter with hardlight blasts, keeping it at a level altitude while also shaking Dominus and company around in there like pinballs. If there’s anyone who could escape in those conditions, it’s Dominus.

[7 on Defense. Exposing self to danger (hot) in order to take Influence on Dominus.]

Errant takes a deep swig of her coffee; it's about half finished at this point. She frowns, and hands the cup to Agent Bargain without a word. Slow steps, all the way back to her chair. She stands there for what feels like forever, staring through the mirror with the power of her visor.

She grabs the table in her right hand, twists and wrenches it right out of the ground, and swings it like a sword in a massive overhead diagonal arc to smash through the barrier in one clean hit. She steps through the swing and plants her foot back on the ground hard enough to rattle the little cubes of shattered safety glass on either side of the wall. She flicks her visor back up to glare at both of her (urgh) bosses. She stands there in the dimness of the interrogation room, straight and proud and radiant despite everything.

"How can you just stand there and let this happen, Commander? What happened to our AEGIS?!" she shouts at the top of her longs, voice trembling with the effort, "Don't you dare tell me this is just business! Don't you dare! A real merger would have me in contract negotiations upstairs, in a room with sunlight and cameras! You're standing in a fucking basement watching her threaten me with my team's lives to force me in line! She doesn't care about AEGIS! She doesn't care about anything! She's gonna turn our organization into the god damn mafia and you're letting her do it!"

Hot adrenaline-fueled tears streak down her face. She reaches out, even though she's standing too far away.

"It doesn't have to be like this! We can... she's right there! We can end this right now! If AEGIS means anything at all, we have to!"

[No, You Move: 11. Live up to Errant's standard or mark a condition. Errant takes Influence]

<Snipped quote by Balmas>

Fortunately for your cover, you are not the only shifty looking guy here.

"hey," said Locker from immediately behind you. He looks tired. "you're here on work too, huh? Makes sense you'd figure it out." Nobody has ever looked like he has belonged in a high school more than Locker. The deep shadows under his intense eyes, scraggly facial hair, the entire aesthetic of goth-with-motivation-issues. He fits here, so well that he's got an androgynous guy hanging off his left arm and blowing bubble gum and a lady with a daft punk helmet displaying a :D emoji on his right.

"come on," he said. "we've got to rescue a princess."

"Wow, that is so much more badass than watching an Aristeia game," Victor admits. "I mean, I got a hot tip that Dominus was plotting something. Is that what you're talking about? Be polite, I haven't met your friends before. I'm."

Crap. In hiding. Recognized. Double crap.

"Bill," he finishes, poorly. "Bill Ding, at your service." Suave, dork. He grins nervously, and dangles his hand limply in their direction. Don't leave him hanging, man."

POTENTIAL 4

@SARAHPHIM: This sucks.
@SARAHPHIM: Sit tight, Dommy, I’m coming.

“I had a meeting, you know,” Sara groans as she pulls herself up the fangirl like ivy creeping up a trellis, ignoring her scandalized squeaking. She can handle having a half-concussed superheroine clinging to her for balance. “Was gonna sign on to an awesome clothing line. But everything’s got to be an ordeal these days.”

The unwritten contract between @SARAHPHIM and her fans is that she will be there to save them. Witcherphim can beat her for all she cares, she just needs to be there for Dominus first.

She tosses a glitter bomb through the broken window and scampers madly for the back, her sword and cloak melting away, the biotech stuffed in one of the shallow pockets on her suit. The fan will probably follow her, but no way she’s as fast as Sara at a dead sprint.

The helicopter’s spiraling down towards the ground, and Dominus needs more time to get the pilot out so they can both eject before their firey doom. You work with the tools you have: Sara begins juggling the helicopter with hardlight blasts, keeping it at a level altitude while also shaking Dominus and company around in there like pinballs. If there’s anyone who could escape in those conditions, it’s Dominus.

[7 on Defense. Exposing self to danger (hot) in order to take Influence on Dominus.]

Dominus is the last one out of the helicopter. She's also the one that you happen to catch in a perfect princess carry and make her go from supervillain to blushing and stuttering as her brain is forced to confront the reality of things being Just Like Her Fanfictions.

But you're trapped. The burning helicopter is trapping you in. Witcherphim and Sarampire are coming at you and there's nowhere to go. This feels like a final stand moment.

But then there's that fan walking out into the space between the two sides, trying to look confident. You're just getting ready to throw everything behind shielding her from the incoming barrage of destruction when lights explode so brightly that you - and all the cameras - are blinded.

Angel-IKA: oh my god
Locker: can we get an instant playblack there
Ferraphim1tp: dominusblush.gif
Locker: i mean of the important part
Bode: Is the stream down for anyone else?
Angel-IKA: Dominus!! What's happening?
Dominus: OH GOD UM I HAVE NO IDEA
Locker: dominus stop being a gay disaster i need u here

"How can you just stand there and let this happen, Commander? What happened to our AEGIS?!" she shouts at the top of her longs, voice trembling with the effort, "Don't you dare tell me this is just business! Don't you dare! A real merger would have me in contract negotiations upstairs, in a room with sunlight and cameras! You're standing in a fucking basement watching her threaten me with my team's lives to force me in line! She doesn't care about AEGIS! She doesn't care about anything! She's gonna turn our organization into the god damn mafia and you're letting her do it!"

Hot adrenaline-fueled tears streak down her face. She reaches out, even though she's standing too far away.

"It doesn't have to be like this! We can... she's right there! We can end this right now! If AEGIS means anything at all, we have to!"

[No, You Move: 11. Live up to Errant's standard or mark a condition. Errant takes Influence]

Victoria calmly lifts up her helmet and puts it on. There's a whine of armour systems energizing. She turns coldly to look at Warren.

Immediately Agents Buddy and Bargain spring into action. They circle him like raptors, their patter still seeming lighthearted but their sunglasses nothing but mirrors.

"Of course AEGIS means something!"
"Security, continuity, safety, defense!"
"We're just expanding is all."
"Broadening our reach."
"Bringing the world into alignment."
"And making a profit on the side!"
"What could be better?"
"Well, I can think of a few things."
"Like a raise?"
"Like a scholarship for your son?"
"Like a company car?"
"Like not having to uproot your entire life and turn your back on everything you've ever worked to build?"
"We know that times are hard."
"I think there's some room in the budget."
"For our most valuable assets."

Commander Warren gave an exhausted sigh. He looked old.

And then, with the cyberboosted reflexes of an ancient gunslinger, his multi-pistol is in his hand, spiraling through the ammunition options as eye-bendingly fast as a spinning revolver, and settling to put an E/M round directly into Victoria's centre mass. She hits the wall armour shorting out for a second - but already you can hear the scream of the reboot process starting. "GO!" he shouts.

In the next second he's on the ground in an arm-lock from Agent Bargain.

Agent Buddy points. Both your and his uniforms turn criminal red. You see the all-user alert go out before the system locks you out of your own comlog. And... your limbs keep working. That you weren't expecting. Did they genuinely think putting a shutdown code in was too big a risk? Did someone lie to Buddy about the code? Or is it some product of Queen Ourania's blessing that makes these arms yours and not theirs?

Whichever it is the guy is not expecting to be hit right in his mirrorshades.

"Wow, that is so much more badass than watching an Aristeia game," Victor admits. "I mean, I got a hot tip that Dominus was plotting something. Is that what you're talking about? Be polite, I haven't met your friends before. I'm."

Crap. In hiding. Recognized. Double crap.

"Bill," he finishes, poorly. "Bill Ding, at your service." Suave, dork. He grins nervously, and dangles his hand limply in their direction. Don't leave him hanging, man.

Locker gives you a look that implies he has zero time for this. Luckily the robohelmet girl highs your five, changing her helmet to :D

"Getting Angelica kidnapped by Dominus would resolve two of my problems," said Locker immediately starting to move. "It'd stop her getting kidnapped by the Spiral Corps goons who are being sent to grab her to force an Athena Macrotech/AEGIS merger. And it'd resolve the insufferable will-they-won't-they thing that they've got going," he glanced out through the window suspiciously. "Ferraphim1tp did some digging into the Spiral guys with that data you got her. They're supervillains from AEGIS' cells pacified by the zombification drug that Sabrem used. And they want Angelica."

POTENTIAL 4
INSECURE

Now, given the breathing room, the chance to catch your breath and escape with your dignity intact, some people would choose to leg it immediately. They would thank their lucky stars that they were saved by some fluke of fortune and then go to ground where the endless waves of their dimensional dopplegangers couldn't find them. Those people would not be @SARAHPHIM, the top Superstreamer of 20XX. Because @SARAHPHIM, like a furious cat, knows only one way to handle a challenge to her dominance when her rivals are momentarily disrupted, and that is to go on the attack while they're still trying to figure out what happened.

She throws Dominus at Sarampire, yelling "she's a Catholic!" and then lunges at Witcherphim, going into a slide at the last second like she's trying to steal home, and slams the biotech injector against the silver-haired swordswoman's thigh. She rolls up, and then shoots a Heaven Thunder Spear right into Witcherphim's back.

"That means use a cross and pray to the saints," she yells at Dominus, keeping Witcherphim off balance with a hellish and high-intensity barrage. "And-- dios mio, don't let her-- yeah, she's going to try and crush your windpipe--"

She summons up another sword, because Witcherphim's right that these absolutely rule, and "tosses" it into Dominus's hands. Now she's sustaining a sword and pinning down Witcherphim and making it look easy, but if literally one more thing distracts her it's all going to fall apart like a house of cards.

[10 on Directly Engage. I want to create an opportunity for Dominus to banish the good Catholic vampire and impress, surprise, or frighten these two, and hopefully the @SARAHPHIM Nation converging on our Sara's head. I am cool with taking a few blows, so do your worst.]

A good soldier does not consider the nature of her miracle. Strike where the opportunity presents itself.

Errant launches herself forward before she's even finished test-wiggling her fingers. It's blind faith that, whatever's going on here, it's left her truly free. She's a reddish blur with an angry fist who closes into range faster than even augmented human reaction times. If you're gonna label her a criminal and don't wanna get punched, then don't spend her entire life speccing her for speed. Morons. Buddy is just another training course dummy. This is just another workout. Her fist smashes directly into those mirror shades, and there's a vicious pulse of satisfaction inside her when she hears them crack. She steps into the punch and sends him flying straight through the remaining partition, straight into Bargain, and straight through to the fall wall as a pair.

A good soldier does not lose sight of the bigger picture. Always make decisions based on as much information as possible.

She's hesitating. She can't afford to hesitate. The Commander is in trouble! He's right there, and he needs her help! She can jump in there and save him, and then together they can fight their way out of the building. In fact, that's the only option. How can she abandon him after everything she just said? After everything he's done for her? This is the man who finished raising her after her parents died, and he just chose her again. She's already leaning into her next charge when suddenly and for no explainable reason, she stops.

'Go!' That's what he told her. Victoria's already getting up. Remember the score. The last time they went at each other, she got both of Errant's legs and one of her arms. This time she's fully limits-free, but Victoria's got the full weight of AEGIS behind her. And what's more, this time her limbs are coursing with a magic power that she's not sure can survive the kind of hell she's been putting on her body lately. If she loses these, it's probably back to nor-- no. No one's gonna put her back together anymore, either. It's back to being a cripple.

But she! She can't! If it means one less body in front of her, what does it matter what happens to hers? What does it... what does it matter?

A good soldier follows her orders.

She has no idea what's carrying her right now. Her legs twist around underneath her and she spins on the balls of her feet to leap for the exit yet again. She's leaving him! She's leaving him!

Because she trusts her Commander.

Back into the corridor. Back into the labyrinth. Her visor clicks back down and her eyes scan frantically for angles she hasn't considered yet. It's time for another Pop Quiz.

You are a good soldier, Ms. Kim.

<Snipped quote by Balmas>

Locker gives you a look that implies he has zero time for this. Luckily the robohelmet girl highs your five, changing her helmet to :D

"Getting Angelica kidnapped by Dominus would resolve two of my problems," said Locker immediately starting to move. "It'd stop her getting kidnapped by the Spiral Corps goons who are being sent to grab her to force an Athena Macrotech/AEGIS merger. And it'd resolve the insufferable will-they-won't-they thing that they've got going," he glanced out through the window suspiciously. "Ferraphim1tp did some digging into the Spiral guys with that data you got her. They're supervillains from AEGIS' cells pacified by the zombification drug that Sabrem used. And they want Angelica."

"Yikes. Yeah, that's, uh. That's bad. I mean, it'd only put the entire city solidly in control of the woman who punched me through three walls, so... yeah. Let's avoid that." Hmm. Maybe contact Mami and see if she can figure out a counter-drug? No. She's still being monitored. Bode? Solid maybe, if he'd bother to step out of his invisibility cloak for like two seconds after dragging him into the public circle.

"Also explains the orange mist." He pauses as if slapped, then turns to stare at Locker. "Will they won't they? Between Angelica and Dominus? I admit I've not kept up on the stream, but is that really a thing? Never mind, don't answer, not immediately pressing, focus on preventing another corporate merger. Gimme more deets; is Spiral Corp a new subbranch of AEGIS? How much time do we have?"

"That means use a cross and pray to the saints," she yells at Dominus, keeping Witcherphim off balance with a hellish and high-intensity barrage. "And-- dios mio, don't let her-- yeah, she's going to try and crush your windpipe--"

She summons up another sword, because Witcherphim's right that these absolutely rule, and "tosses" it into Dominus's hands. Now she's sustaining a sword and pinning down Witcherphim and making it look easy, but if literally one more thing distracts her it's all going to fall apart like a house of cards.

[10 on Directly Engage. I want to create an opportunity for Dominus to banish the good Catholic vampire and impress, surprise, or frighten these two, and hopefully the @SARAHPHIM Nation converging on our Sara's head. I am cool with taking a few blows, so do your worst.]

The average person off the street might be able to brandish a crucifix and quote a movie preacher. It takes a history nerd as serious as Dominus to do so in the original Latin. And she's got some lungs on her! It reminds you of that time Father Dessiter hit his thumb with a hammer when repairing one of the pews.

You're going toe-to-toe with the tiger-eyed mutant and the trade starts to get bloody quick. The swords last for a while but you can tell they're not where your advantage is so you wrap them around each other, scatter them both to the floor, and follow up with an open hand chop to the neck. She staggers and switches to a boxing stance - and hits you back. She's shockingly strong and trained in these bare knuckle bouts. The punches start going back and forth but Dominus' shouting is reaching a crescendo and with a WRRRRYYYYY and whoosh of cape, Sarampire turns and flies for a dark shadow... and Witcherphim turns her head to look.

You've taken a beating, but this is your opening. Finish her. And then Take a Powerful Blow to see how rough the fight was.

*

Angel-IKA: Dominus? You speak Latin? o.o
Locker: u don't?
Angel-IKA: Uh it never came up in school
Bode: Why would she need to speak latin?
Locker: why are yo asking that can you not see the vampire
Ferraphim1tp: Just run it through a translator :)
Locker: that's not how ecorixms work ur all gonna die

But she! She can't! If it means one less body in front of her, what does it matter what happens to hers? What does it... what does it matter?

A good soldier follows her orders.

She has no idea what's carrying her right now. Her legs twist around underneath her and she spins on the balls of her feet to leap for the exit yet again. She's leaving him! She's leaving him!

Because she trusts her Commander.

Back into the corridor. Back into the labyrinth. Her visor clicks back down and her eyes scan frantically for angles she hasn't considered yet. It's time for another Pop Quiz.

You are a good soldier, Ms. Kim.

You tear past staff who drop sheafs of documents or tablets and snatch for their sidearms. By the time they've got them out of their holsters you're gone. Miserable effort. Commander Warren would be having words with them later.

The first person in your path is Maria.

She's powered up and ready to go, like she was expecting this. There's no subtlety, no grace to her interception - she charges at you like a freight train with a massive two-handed broadsword, infrastructure for cutting a TAG in half. Acceleration thrusters fire from her feet as she charges - not the manoeuvrable wall-hopping grace you are spec'd for but the thrust of a cruise missile.

"Yikes. Yeah, that's, uh. That's bad. I mean, it'd only put the entire city solidly in control of the woman who punched me through three walls, so... yeah. Let's avoid that." Hmm. Maybe contact Mami and see if she can figure out a counter-drug? No. She's still being monitored. Bode? Solid maybe, if he'd bother to step out of his invisibility cloak for like two seconds after dragging him into the public circle.

"Also explains the orange mist." He pauses as if slapped, then turns to stare at Locker. "Will they won't they? Between Angelica and Dominus? I admit I've not kept up on the stream, but is that really a thing? Never mind, don't answer, not immediately pressing, focus on preventing another corporate merger. Gimme more deets; is Spiral Corp a new subbranch of AEGIS? How much time do we have?"

"Why are all you people devoting valuable crime fighting time to wondering who wants to bang who?" said Locker. "I don't have much information and we don't have much time. Ferraphim's working the backend, Bode is being mysterious but I think she's around here somewhere. Collab with them, let me know what you find."

He immediately heads off to the commentator's booth. You've got a minute to assess the situation and figure out how to seven samurai in the face of a wave of kidnappers. What's your methodology, Victor?

Fight Science has a lot to say about a moment like this. Power vs Speed vs Size, a lot of simple physics, and a comparison of skillwires and software, all of which leads to a very simple conclusion: anything that Maria hits with that sword is going to die. The reason BlackSun went the direction they did with Maria (apart from her natural "War Goddess" body structure, which is probably more likely to be why they hired her in the first place) was for the simple reason that absolute power was, frankly, easier and cheaper to build and engineer than agility builds like Errant's or skill specs like @SARAHPHIM. And not only was it cheaper, it was also brutally effective. It turns out that high-precision bleeding edge tech broke just as easily as anything else if you hit it hard enough.

But!

There's a reason why nobody launched missiles to end car chases, or why knives were so much more common weapons than swords. All of Mr. Big Show's obnxoious, boring lessons go flashing through Errant's head. The best way to take a hit was not to. So! With those thrusters, Maria had exactly one attack vector. Turning or pivoting on a dime like Errant could would be impossible, and if she missed then she'd be lucky not to go crashing through the wall on the opposite end of the hallway. And since they'd gone and done her the favor of scaling that sword to match her absurd strength, the slash would come at one of two angles. At these speeds, it was a matter of guessing: would Maria favor the broad horizontal stroke to strike as wide a zone as she could, or would she go for the overhead smash so she could swing with enough power to split an atom?

What the hell kind of question is that? Of course she's lining up a vertical attack. There's no way to rely on even boosted reflexes to dodge at these speeds, but educated guesswork is Errant's strongest skillset. She charges straight into Maria's zone and then with a split second to spare before she commits to the swing, Errant stops. She twists her body and leaps nimbly onto the wall, running up and over Maria and planting a big, back swinging kick into her back to push the two champions further away from each other. She doesn't taunt, celebrate, look back, or even hardly remember to breathe. She just runs until she finds the steps, then turns and tears up them like her life depends on it.

Because it does. If Maria gets another bead on her, the next attack would come from behind. Fight Science had a lot to say about that too, but with much fewer caveats. She had to get out. She had to get out now. She had to... think, damn it. Did she have any help left?

[Directly Engage: 9. Errant resists or avoids Maria's blows]

There is a very simple reason Ferra has been out of touch. She was sitting at day four of being under siege. So was everyone else in the Gears Foundation. She'd woken up to panic as their cooperative project with Athena Macrotech on Perseus turned into a security and financial audit literally overnight. Buried in the list demanded was a full inventory of all Gears projects on and off site, down to location and security.

We shall leave it at the relationship cooled after that.

The audit team (thankfully without any Champions, who are presumably off doing something more important to the bottom line) has cordoned off the Gears Foundation building and the first arbitrators were gearing up for a breach when an intern had noticed and hit the panic button. The ensuring field going up had cut the audit team's TAG in half by fortunate placement, and the rest were stuck on the wrong side of a controlled temporal distortion. The audit team had spent most of the last day bringing up and trying a tunnel boring laser on the field, to no effect, and were leaving it on while they worked out the next step.

On the other side, in Professor Gear's office, Ferra and the Professor have a good view of the laser trained on their window, blocked by the field. And it's here that they've decided to figure out, what next?

POTENTIAL 0

Here's the thing, folks: take away her edge from fantasy drugs, and Witcherphim is just someone who's had to fight in street brawls to survive, just like regular @SARAHPHIM. She's a superstrong mutant, sure, but that is mostly an advantage when you can connect, and she had to learn her fighting style taking down, like, werewolves and knockers and whatever else Fantasy Poland has to throw at her. Sara? She has Euna.

"Never throw a punch if you don't know whether you'll hit your target. Arms in, weight on the balls of your feet, dominant side turned away from your opponent. Strike with the heel of your palm whenever you can; closed knuckle punches look cool, but you... can mess up your hand if you're unlucky." She tries so hard to not acknowledge that her fists don't have bones. Someone else might not have noticed how it tripped her up. "Breathe. Exhale through your nose when you jab. Stay loose!"

Then she gets the perfect opening. Maybe it's the enhanced senses she gets for hunting monsters. Maybe it's because when something makes that sound in her world, it's usually about to try to claw her face off. Whatever it is, Witcherphim makes the rookie mistake of looking away, and Sara immediately follows up with the mother of all haymakers, with a hardlight gauntlet shimmering around her knuckles to add to the oomph and protect her delicate organic bones. The sound of its connecting is a surprisingly wet thump that knocks Witcherphim off her feet.

Then @SARAHPHIM, to the sound of Twitch emotes being spammed by the audience of her impromptu stream, kicks Witcherphim in the stomach like a Brazilian soccer player at the World Cup, eliciting a pained grunt and a slow curl to protect her vital organs. @SARAHPHIM summons up another sword in shimmering silver and holds it, sparking and flaring, inches from Witcherphim's neck. You have to nail the dominance display or she'll just hop back up once her mutant metabolism gives her a second wind.

"Hail to the queen, bitch."

[5 on Take A Blow, and we'll take I Don't Care What You Think! for a permanent +2 on Reject Influence, thanku; that's my fifth advance, by and by.]

Then @SARAHPHIM, to the sound of Twitch emotes being spammed by the audience of her impromptu stream, kicks Witcherphim in the stomach like a Brazilian soccer player at the World Cup, eliciting a pained grunt and a slow curl to protect her vital organs. @SARAHPHIM summons up another sword in shimmering silver and holds it, sparking and flaring, inches from Witcherphim's neck. You have to nail the dominance display or she'll just hop back up once her mutant metabolism gives her a second wind.

"Hail to the queen, bitch."

[5 on Take A Blow, and we'll take I Don't Care What You Think! for a permanent +2 on Reject Influence, thanku; that's my fifth advance, by and by.]

There's an upside to fighting yourself - you follow your own logic. There's never a moment where you need to be afraid that she's going to swing up and go for another assault, or wait until your back is turned and go you again. If you were in her position you'd realize just as instinctively that dragging this out would push things from cinematic to ugly. There's a hierarchy here, and she's found her place in it - below your boot.

At the same time she doesn't give you the satisfaction of asking for mercy. She spits a little blood and turns her face down, hiding a snarl. But you can see the back of her neck and that's tiger for surrender.

"I don't suppose you'd let me take her captive?" said Dominus as her crew of bio-boosted minions regroup around her. She sounds joking but there's an unmistakable supervillain edge to the question.

*

Locker: oh here we go
Bode: It makes sense that she would ask this. Dominus' biomedical science would receive an enormous boost by being able to study Witcherphim.
Locker: yeah but it means this situation is going to turn into /another/ alpha-bitch standoff
Angel-IKA: She's joking, she doesn't mean it, she wouldn't kidnap someone.
Ferraphim1tp: That sounds wistful~
Bode: And incongruous with her criminal record
Angel-IKA: I don't know what you're implying!!

Because it does. If Maria gets another bead on her, the next attack would come from behind. Fight Science had a lot to say about that too, but with much fewer caveats. She had to get out. She had to get out now. She had to... think, damn it. Did she have any help left?

[Directly Engage: 9. Errant resists or avoids Maria's blows]

Up. Over. Through. There's a crash of armour from behind you but your attention is where it should be: Forward, full.

You are just ahead of the response loop. You arrive in rooms right as people are pulling emergency barricades into place, skidding through waves of stun pistol fire. Doors are slamming shut seconds behind you. There aren't decisions, there are just reflexes - your own, your skillwires', your training.

Those reflexes have sent you careening at a full sprint through a TAG maintenance hangar. If you had time to think strategically you would have avoided this area but this wasn't that kind of chase. And sure enough you see a cable surge with power and one of the Zetas detach itself from the wall, still hooked into its bay by dozens of cables. Like most TAGs it's unmaned - a remote pilot has just brought it up on their VR sync and in a matter of seconds the rest of the machines in this bay will follow suit. It lurches forwards, bringing up its secondary weapon - a heavy Riotstopper, a blast of instantly hardening and immobilizing foam. Like everything you're doing it's a reflex choice - the pilot is still disoriented from the connection and is going with an indiscriminate area weapon rather than anything more precise.

There is a very simple reason Ferra has been out of touch. She was sitting at day four of being under siege. So was everyone else in the Gears Foundation. She'd woken up to panic as their cooperative project with Athena Macrotech on Perseus turned into a security and financial audit literally overnight. Buried in the list demanded was a full inventory of all Gears projects on and off site, down to location and security.

We shall leave it at the relationship cooled after that.

The audit team (thankfully without any Champions, who are presumably off doing something more important to the bottom line) has cordoned off the Gears Foundation building and the first arbitrators were gearing up for a breach when an intern had noticed and hit the panic button. The ensuring field going up had cut the audit team's TAG in half by fortunate placement, and the rest were stuck on the wrong side of a controlled temporal distortion. The audit team had spent most of the last day bringing up and trying a tunnel boring laser on the field, to no effect, and were leaving it on while they worked out the next step.

On the other side, in Professor Gear's office, Ferra and the Professor have a good view of the laser trained on their window, blocked by the field. And it's here that they've decided to figure out, what next?

"You know this facility doubles as a spaceship, right?" said Professor Gears. "Or - technically it doubles as a submarine, but I reckon I can get it up to spaceship functionality. They're basically the same technology. Anyway, what I'm saying is, do you want to go to space? Mars is terraformed, albeit occupied by hostile robots. I can set up a dimensional internet port. It'll be great!"

There's definitely a little waver on that final note. She's more trying to convince herself than you.

POTENTIAL 0

Sara gives Dominus the Tiger Look. The lidded eyelids, the appraising but disdainful slow scan up and down, the lips that don’t so much as twitch. It’s trademark. Any other fan would be melting into a puddle of “step on me.” But Dominus can try to match that as an equal.

Which means playing dirty. Hitting her from an angle she’s not expecting, one she can’t defend from.

“Sure,” she says, with contemptuous casualness and a boot on Witcherphim’s back. She waits for Dominus to take a step forward before adding: “After you ask out your Angel on a date.”

And that is when her little portable ChRB drone zooms in on Dominus’s face for the whole stream to witness.

[Even with Influence, that’s a 9 on provoking her to immediately turn around and throw herself into a Supervillain Asking Out now that she has an excuse to do so for supervillainy.]

Errant's face twitches with irritation as she flips out of the way of a blast of foam. Her foot drops back to the ground less than an inch from disaster and she desperately serpentines through still dormant TAGS to present less of a target. Already she can hear the telltale sounds of the entire line starting to boot up. She's got seconds, here. Five or maybe six tops. Think, damn it! Think!

Ugh. This would be so much easier if she were literally anybody else. Sara would jack their joints with hardlight, or Victor would hack them with nanites, or Ferra would... Ferra would be fine, let's just leave it at that. But Errant? Errant punches things! How much fun is it to be the brawler in a room full of thugs more than twice your size who can end you from the other end of the hangar?

Two seconds. Think!

She grinds to a halt. God damn it! God damn it, all of you absolute morons! You cowards! This is your home too and you're just... letting her take it! AEGIS belongs to her! Her whole life, it's been for her! You can't have it, Victoria!

"YOU CAN'T HAVE IT!"

This is her last second to act unimpeded. Errant grabs the nearest TAG as firmly as she can manage. She can feel the heat coming off of her arms. She can hear the whine in her legs. She ignores both of them, and she yanks and twists with everything she has. The room fills with the sound of cable snapping in half and the furious scream of a single girl as she lifts this super heavy war machine straight up off the ground and suplexes it into the active TAG just as another burst of riot control foam starts spraying. It shoots everywhere, gumming up gun ports and freezing joints, as frame after frame seizes up and topples into the next one while sparks and flecks of foam more than large enough to lock one of her arms or legs up for hours drift everywhere.

None of it touches her. Errant runs without pausing to look or second guess herself as she darts between pockets of clean air, twisting out of the way of snapping cables and rolling under uncontrolled heavy arms fire. For a moment, she taps into something elemental and moves like she's shrinking the space between her and the exit more than passing through that space herself. She doesn't even get her hair dirty.

With a final leap and a flying kick she crashes straight through the hangar door and runs as hard as her body will let her as soon as she pops back up off of the ground. Her heart pounds so hard in her chest she feels like it's going to explode. Her lungs are screaming at her. Her back and her abs are burning. But none of it feels like anything next to how angry she is. None of them. None of them were doing a damn thing!

For a moment, she's got nothing to listen to but the sound of her own heavy footfalls. Errant can't help but remember Nobunaga complaining at her about not getting to rescue her last time. Her visor runs corrections on her vision to account for the tear welling in her eye as she bites down hot fury at herself for thinking she'd help this time, too.

[Unleash squeaks by with a 7. Marking Angry]

<Snipped quote by Balmas>

"Why are all you people devoting valuable crime fighting time to wondering who wants to bang who?" said Locker. "I don't have much information and we don't have much time. Ferraphim's working the backend, Bode is being mysterious but I think she's around here somewhere. Collab with them, let me know what you find."

He immediately heads off to the commentator's booth. You've got a minute to assess the situation and figure out how to seven samurai in the face of a wave of kidnappers. What's your methodology, Victor?

So, here's the skinny. Spiral troops, if what Locker says is true, are inseparable from their power armor. That is, unless AEGIS R&D has been working overtime to miniaturize the gas injectors into a form that can be surgically implanted, which is a fucking terrifying idea, and so it's not going to be thought about tonight. Point is, they're pretty distinctive. As a result, he's going to look for ways to sneak a power-armored platoon into the broadcasting booth of the local Aristeaia stadium--you know, walls thin enough to breach without damaging the broadcaster, abandoned buildings adjacent to the gymnasium.

[Aaaand that's a five on Assess. Marking XP.]

"You know this facility doubles as a spaceship, right?" said Professor Gears. "Or - technically it doubles as a submarine, but I reckon I can get it up to spaceship functionality. They're basically the same technology. Anyway, what I'm saying is, do you want to go to space? Mars is terraformed, albeit occupied by hostile robots. I can set up a dimensional internet port. It'll be great!"

There's definitely a little waver on that final note. She's more trying to convince herself than you.

"Is Mars more survivable than the Aegis-Blacksun merger? Probably." She agrees cheerfully. "But that'd mean we'd be over there, and not over here, helping fix the problem. Which is going to be an issue if nobody else fixes the problem, and they come after the Gears projects on Mars. Which they would, by the way, with that much power they're going to consolidate everything under one roof within two decades and then we and Sylvanas are the two groups that aren't under their control, and anybody who's driven to do this to themselves for more power," she gestures out the window, "isn't going to stop with one planet, not while there's somebody else out there to rule. SO, that's the first reason not to run."

She takes a deep breath. "The second is that I want to help. My friends are out there dealing with something. Sara's had a run of all of her doubles going at her, Euna's gone dark, Victor's on the run. And disregarding the personal aspect, there's about to be the worst version of a totalitarian society seen, ever, and I don't think I could walk away from that and stay myself. Halfwoman asked me if I wanted to leave, too, and I would love to see Mars, and I'd have loved to go with her and see the multiverse too. But I have to try to help people here, first. If you want to go still, that's understandable, if a little disappointing. If you want to help, however... a flying lab with all of Gear's defense projects, that's going to be a bit of a nightmare to deal with." She grins, vicious.

Angel-IKA: Oh crap the match is starting I got to go brb
Locker: same cya
Ferraphim1tp: gl hf :)

POTENTIAL 0

Sara gives Dominus the Tiger Look. The lidded eyelids, the appraising but disdainful slow scan up and down, the lips that don’t so much as twitch. It’s trademark. Any other fan would be melting into a puddle of “step on me.” But Dominus can try to match that as an equal.

Which means playing dirty. Hitting her from an angle she’s not expecting, one she can’t defend from.

“Sure,” she says, with contemptuous casualness and a boot on Witcherphim’s back. She waits for Dominus to take a step forward before adding: “After you ask out your Angel on a date.”

And that is when her little portable ChRB drone zooms in on Dominus’s face for the whole stream to witness.

[Even with Influence, that’s a 9 on provoking her to immediately turn around and throw herself into a Supervillain Asking Out now that she has an excuse to do so for supervillainy.]

Ferraphim1tp: WAIT
Ferraphim1tp: COME BACK
Ferraphim1tp: ARGHSHJGHGHG

Much like Witcherphim before her, Dominus doesn't flinch or cower or blush more than a little. She's as on-camera as you in her own way. She grabs your drone out of the air and holds it steady up to her face. "You hear that, Angel-IKA? You're going on a date with the future ruler of the world. And after that, so is she."

Just as all the cameras are focused on Dominus a slender finger touches your shoulder and a voice that is all the less confident for all the confidence being pushed into it tells you "Um, excuse me, Errant is in danger."

With a final leap and a flying kick she crashes straight through the hangar door and runs as hard as her body will let her as soon as she pops back up off of the ground. Her heart pounds so hard in her chest she feels like it's going to explode. Her lungs are screaming at her. Her back and her abs are burning. But none of it feels like anything next to how angry she is. None of them. None of them were doing a damn thing!

For a moment, she's got nothing to listen to but the sound of her own heavy footfalls. Errant can't help but remember Nobunaga complaining at her about not getting to rescue her last time. Her visor runs corrections on her vision to account for the tear welling in her eye as she bites down hot fury at herself for thinking she'd help this time, too.

[Unleash squeaks by with a 7. Marking Angry]

The world behind you roars.

Victoria is catching up. She's catching up. The light around you is offset with a red-orange tone from the backwash of her thrusters. She drifts around corners on hardware that's just better than yours. That armour is the life's work of one of history's most notorious supervillains and it's going to run right over you.

Or it is before Victoria misjudges a corner and crashes into it. She boosts out of it without hesitation but her shoulder clips a wall and sends a scattering of broken masonry out behind her. She navigates percussively - this isn't someone who's trained all her life to handle this power, this is someone who is relying on the crushing weight of hardware to outweigh all other concerns. You've fought her type before. You haven't fought anyone of her means though.

You're still racing through cubicle farms and storage hangars and training facilities. You need to slow her down.

So, here's the skinny. Spiral troops, if what Locker says is true, are inseparable from their power armor. That is, unless AEGIS R&D has been working overtime to miniaturize the gas injectors into a form that can be surgically implanted, which is a fucking terrifying idea, and so it's not going to be thought about tonight. Point is, they're pretty distinctive. As a result, he's going to look for ways to sneak a power-armored platoon into the broadcasting booth of the local Aristeaia stadium--you know, walls thin enough to breach without damaging the broadcaster, abandoned buildings adjacent to the gymnasium.

[Aaaand that's a five on Assess. Marking XP.]

You're searching one of those abandoned buildings right now. So you're not particularly into professional sports, right Brainstorm? Not your vibe. You know that Aristeia! is an anything-goes kind of sport, a battle of supers overseen by highly advanced medical drones and safety features - exactly the sort of thing that'd show up in a school full of rich kids looking to show off their custom augs and high fashion. In fact, it's just occurred to you that they represent the largest concentration of force in this entire building, and if you can get them on side you'll have all the force you need to directly confront Spiral...

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN," says Angel-IKA's voice from what feels like everywhere. "WELCOME TO THE HEXADROME!"

oh no.

"I'm Angel-IKA, with me is Locker, and strap yourselves in for the best night of high school Aristeia! that I am, um, not participating in directly!"

"In my opinion you were robbed, Angel-IKA," said Locker's voice.

"Kind of you to say, Locker, but today isn't about me. It's about them."

Two spotlights slam down, outlining two teams of four technicolour weirdos on both sides of you. This building isn't abandoned after all - it's the ring.

And before you have time to even think further there's a fucking samurai in your face. With a katana.

"Is Mars more survivable than the Aegis-Blacksun merger? Probably." She agrees cheerfully. "But that'd mean we'd be over there, and not over here, helping fix the problem. Which is going to be an issue if nobody else fixes the problem, and they come after the Gears projects on Mars. Which they would, by the way, with that much power they're going to consolidate everything under one roof within two decades and then we and Sylvanas are the two groups that aren't under their control, and anybody who's driven to do this to themselves for more power," she gestures out the window, "isn't going to stop with one planet, not while there's somebody else out there to rule. SO, that's the first reason not to run."

She takes a deep breath. "The second is that I want to help. My friends are out there dealing with something. Sara's had a run of all of her doubles going at her, Euna's gone dark, Victor's on the run. And disregarding the personal aspect, there's about to be the worst version of a totalitarian society seen, ever, and I don't think I could walk away from that and stay myself. Halfwoman asked me if I wanted to leave, too, and I would love to see Mars, and I'd have loved to go with her and see the multiverse too. But I have to try to help people here, first. If you want to go still, that's understandable, if a little disappointing. If you want to help, however... a flying lab with all of Gear's defense projects, that's going to be a bit of a nightmare to deal with." She grins, vicious.

"Well... the orbital calculations would be a lot easier if I didn't have to account for the weight of all this spare ammunition..." said Professor Gears, starting to think.

But then there's the air-shattering sound of a portal opening. Howling wind and rain pour through. Suited up megagoons pile through in all directions, rifles raised. One of them grabs Professor Gears before she can react and swings around behind her, using her as a human shield while pointing her gun at you. "Autonomous Gears Project, you are hereby instructed to stand down in accordance with your contractual obligations as an asset of the AEGIS conglomerate!"

[They're trying to shift your Superior down and Freak up, accept their words or reject their influence]

POTENTIAL 0

Sara turns. If she was on camera right now, it might be commented how uncanny it is that she’s mirroring the famous shot in CAMELOT SUPERS Z: FIREHEART.

(It’s subconscious. Errant insisted on that being a movie night, as it combined two of her favorite things: “historical supers” narratives and knights in shining armor. Lancelot is portrayed as Arthur’s equivalent of a corporate champion, with Guinevere as his handler who falls for him despite herself. And the scene where the friar arrives with Gwen’s message to Lancelot, and the knight turns from prayer with the intensity of a burning-eyed tiger, and Euna’s fingers closing excitedly on her arm...)

“Tell me everything,” she says. She still doesn’t see the familiar bone structure. Partially because of the woad, and partially because her mind has become a needle, an arrow, focused on Errant’s in danger.