POTENTIAL 0
SHOWBOAT

It’s too easy, really. They’re not packed in close to cut off her escapes: she’s brought them into a tight knot so that there’s no escape for them. She twirls her fingers, and with each spin it coalesces: first a line, then a rod, then a baton, then a wickedly sharp arrow. Crackling with barely-contained energy, she sends it shooting into the crowd with a delighted cry, and it pierces straight through the gas lines of the first trooper, making them flop and leak out the precious zombiefication gasses. As long as she doesn’t breathe any in, she’ll be fine!

Zip, zip, zip! The arrow dances through their ranks like the perfect cut of an iaijutsu master, tearing open fuel lines and rupturing weak points in their armor. Instead of a rain of bullets for them to hunker down under, Sara is ripping through their vulnerabilities with just one, faster than they can react. Zip, zip, zip!

If she’s very, very lucky, the gas won’t get to her, and she’ll be able to use a hard light wedge to bust free from the disoriented mass, so that she can rejoin Euna. And, hey, the luck’s part of the fun! She’s laughing wildly as she controls that arrow almost by instinct, rather than any sense of sight.

You stand triumphant atop a crowd of ruptured, smoking suits. About half of the audience has taken their cue to evacuate but the remainders are all cheering for you and you can see that stream count go up, up, up.

BOOM

You're also the one to see the Optokoppler pull in above. It's an assault carrier, a flying warship, the central base for the entire Spiral Corps company. Evidently whoever's co-ordinating this attack has decided to well and truly fuck subtlety. You can see half a dozen hangar bays open and begin launching reinforcements at the school - combat remotes, TAGs, reserved Spiral troopers.

And you, @Sarahphim, get to play Space Invaders with the targets as they come down.

"Don't be ridiculous," she scoffs, "You're not a hero yet."

What a strange sensation. Normally in these moments her skillwires are such an out-of-body experience she can't help but feel like her arms belong to someone else, which leads her to the nasty point of contemplation that, legally, they probably do. Or did. It doesn't feel like that anymore. Even though her brain is doing just as little to guide the delicate motions of defusing a bomb as it ever has, the sensations coming from her fingers are real, are vibrant, are... warm. It's her. She's doing this. It's a choice that she made, and she's doing this with her own body.

Suddenly, she can't find her anger anymore. It's not... it's not forgiveness, not it's exactly, it's... it's complicated. It's moving on. Moving forward.

"This does not make us even. So don't even think about pulling any of that Hac Tao bullshit on me, got it? Just because AEGIS rotted out from underneath me doesn't mean I believe what I said last time any less. So just... be good, god damn it."

...God damn it, Euna Kim. You are lame.

[Defend: 8. Errant will officially take Influence on Sabrem and expose herself to danger]

"Hnn. Yeah. Just..." Sabrem held perfectly still, the stillness of training and discipline that mirrored yours just as the unsteadiness in her voice mirrored yours. "I just..." with breathtaking fluidity she'd snatched the sword out of the ground and hurtled it across the room into the chest plate of a Spiral trooper drawing a bead on the two of you, all without even slightly shaking the backpack you were working on.

"... call your bank. Tell them you want to upgrade to the Rega Plus package. It'll cost you about fifty bucks and will switch your savings to Crown&Slate scrip. Heads out any attempts from the corp to mess with your money. And there's a guy on 18th/44th/2609 who does competent cybersurgery no questions asked."

She has her pistol out and is firing one handed, covering you from sporadic rifle fire. You know how exposed you are like this but just as you're working to save her she's working to save you. She sets her feet to resist the impact of hexshells against her armour. Her knee joint sparks and locks up as she absorbs damage.

"Plus... hnnn... I made my own skillwire chip. For you. Simple thing. Get a hat and it'll give you the reflexes to automatically adjust it to block any camera that looks at you. Lets you move around the city safely. Hnn. Do you like hats?"

Oh, Brainstorm has been there. Above the fray, getting the big picture, assessing. And if there's one thing that he's learned, it's that there's nothing quite so frustrating as getting distracted. Like, say, if someone where to thwip a little cable of nanites around that spiral trooper with a pulse rifle juuuust enough to nudge his aim high? Or maybe he snaps a missile out of the air and redirects it?

It's just the kind of thing that he'd find absolutely maddening, especially if he were to follow it up with snapping a cable onto her jetpack, and filling her helmet with buzzing, stinging nanites. See how they like it.

[Directly Engage with a 7. I'm stealing her concentration.]

[Marking Angry]

The Spiral Commander endures this for a little while. Big picture. Big picture. Big picture.

But when your helmet is full of bees the big picture gets a lot smaller.

She snaps out, surrounded by an aura of spectacular violet energy. Floor tiles begin to rip out of the ground and huge chunks of the roof are torn apart to procure additional projectiles - they surround her like the rings of Saturn, accelerating faster and faster, until they're launched at you like shots from a railgun.

You've got her full attention now, but take a Powerful Blow from the counterattack.

Angel-IKA!

TAGs are not meant to be ridden. They're all sloping armour plates and smooth surfaces and keeping your grip on the three meter tall combat robot is really hard. But goddamn it if this isn't the next best thing to piloting one.

Ferraphim1tp: Woah - jeez!
Ferraphim1tp: I am really glad I put in the simulator hours first
Ferraphim1tp: This thing does not move like I thought it would

There was a dull roar as the main gun began to fire, tearing through a cluster of combat remotes. You swing your wooden chair leg like a baseball bat and land a solid connection against another repeater drone. If one of those gets onto the TAG then it'll be back to team evil. You might not be a badass sexy werewolf lady, but oxpecker is also a completely valid thing for a hero to be doing.

You spare a glance at Locker. He's somehow got one of the Spiral troopers in a headlock and as you watch he rips off her helmet. She's dazed, glassy eyed, still dazed by the gas. "You're Igni, right?" he said in a voice that makes you flinch a little. "You shoot fire? Well you goddamn start shooting fire at anything I point you at." He swings her around like a human shield, holding up her right arm with one of his hands, catching bullets on her armour and clearing a huge swathe with blasts of fire from the supervillain.

And there's Dominus. Camo jacket. Flag patches. Raven black hair. Moving in the midst of a cluster of her minions and you've never seen anyone move more like a superhero. Maybe it's just that she's surrounded by goons who make her look better in comparison, but every jump and swing and punch looks like something out of a movie. She punches a trooper's jaw, shattering her respirator, and pulls her in close to her neck so that the escaping gas is brought into close contact with the venomous perfume she's wearing. The Spiral trooper goes limp in her arms and Dominus makes eye contact with you from across the room and in that moment you're feeling like she must have poisoned you too.

"Nope!" She responds cheerfully. "No idea who you are. I'm Ferra. I'd guess you know that already though." It's remarkably zen, dangling here. If she was anybody else, she'd probably be scared stiff, but honestly? No fucks given. "And yeah, no, you sound super stressed, and if you try to lie to my face again about that I'm going to laugh at you." She gives a abridged shrug. "So why do you want everyone to, I don't know, fear your power and flee in terror at your name? I'm guessing that's what you meant there."

"You're going to -" she hissed. "I don't even want fame. It's stupid! Only stupid people want fame! I just want a completely reasonable amount of respect! I've overthrown two megacorporations and am about to take down a third and I'll be the ruler of the world before I'm thirty. Is it too much to ask that every stupid teenager with a hoodie and a halloween mask stops breaking into my office to challenge me to a fistfight? That stupid old people stop second-guessing my business strategies? I just want to be taken seriously, and if that means blowing up Australia then that's what's going to happen."

POTENTIAL 0

Please. This isn’t Space Invaders. In Space Invaders, you shoot a dinky little bullet up from your dinky little ship against wave after wave, moving around desperately.

@SARAHPHIM has all the bullets, and she doesn’t need to scurry around the bottom of the screen. She unleashes her bullet curtain, rising upwards, and lets the goons worry about dodging. They can dodge in three dimensions, right? Right?

Hahahahahahaha.

Though, it must be noted, this is taking 100% of her concentration and then some. Please do not distract her while she turns the sky above the school into a bullet hell zone.

[8 on Defend Others, clearing Showboat because... I mean... just look at what’s going on up there... and exposing Sara to more danger.]

Don't buy in, Errant. Don't buy in for a second. Saving a life is one thing, but don't let her into yours. This is a trap. This is absolutely a trap. Remember who she is. Remember what she did. Re... remember who it is she must be working for now. This is a trap and Victoria's the mastermind. Block it out. Block it out. This is all just noise and you need to focus on this bomb so that nobody dies. Then you need to get ready to fight her, so that nobody dies.

...Here's a confession. And it's a disgusting feeling, but that doesn't make it a lie. Errant's had a lot of heroes over the years, and if you put a gun to her head and told her to pick her biggest one she'd still without hesitation say it's the Shogun. Nobunaga has saved countless lives, and she did it in a way that made Errant think that she could do it too, even though she couldn't fly or summon muskets or cripple people with her stare the way Nobunaga could. But the person she... what's the word? Admired. Yeah. This is gonna sound fucked up, but the person she admired most was Sabrem.

How could that be? That's the woman who killed her parents! That's the woman who ruined her life! But she can't help it. Even now, she can't help it. Do you see the way Sabrem moves? Look how shockingly, terrifying fluid her form is throwing that sword, shifting her body, turning and firing that gun. See the way she pilots her body. That is exactly the way that Errant tries to move. That's the form she's been reaching for her entire life. Nobody understands what it takes to be able to do that. Victoria certainly doesn't. Buddy and Bargain have no clue. Commander Warren thinks he does, but the way he talks you can tell it's beyond him too. Even Sara, Victor, and Ferra process it differently than she does. There is one person in the world who saw her run that race and understood exactly what it meant.

Sabrem.

Errant frowns as her fingers untangle and delicately pluck wires from the backpack in a very precise order she neither understands or has any need to. With a last yank, she pulls a full half dozen connections loose and all at once the blinking red lights shut off. Instantly, she raises her fist for a fight. Now it's time to make a decision. AEGIS... that is to say, her AEGIS taught her that rehabilitation came after capture. AEGIS was gone, now. Maybe Victor was even right and it never actually existed the way she thought it did. But still. But... still.

Her hand comes down on Sabrem's shoulder. She pushes the larger woman down, just out of the way of a burst of rifle fire, then vaults over the top of her and flies across the intervening space like a missile. BAM! She grabs the rifle with one hand, yanks it out of the Spiral Trooper's hands, and then smashes them in the face with it like she's swinging a sword. Face plate and rifle destroy each other. She throws the useless lump of metal at another trooper dropping in, then throws the useless lump of a human being against the door.

"Hats?" she asks, "Never thought about them. A friend of mine gave me a tiara recently, if that counts. But I could... you know, give them a try. Expand my horizons, I guess."

She halts. Her mouth falls slack as her brain forcibly reboots.

"Wait! You wear hats?"

"You're going to -" she hissed. "I don't even want fame. It's stupid! Only stupid people want fame! I just want a completely reasonable amount of respect! I've overthrown two megacorporations and am about to take down a third and I'll be the ruler of the world before I'm thirty. Is it too much to ask that every stupid teenager with a hoodie and a halloween mask stops breaking into my office to challenge me to a fistfight? That stupid old people stop second-guessing my business strategies? I just want to be taken seriously, and if that means blowing up Australia then that's what's going to happen."

"Look, lady. Humanity, collectively, is the most stubborn, idiotic, and illogical bunch of animals that you will ever meet. You are currently wearing so many different layers, in exactly such a fashion, because that is how things are done, including the makeup coating your face and nails. You just yelled at probably the most powerful tool you have access to and threatened to destroy it out of pique, because that made you feel good. You all, collectively, keep threatening your own cities and doing terrible things to each other and then go right back to where you were at the start. You. Are. Idiots." She takes a deep breath. "That's not, however, a bad thing. Out of the sheer, stubborn idiotic decisions, you decide, generally, to care about each other. To help in spite of the society built to make you care about yourself first. You want to be the ruler of the world and you're expecting to get respect for it? The one possible position where you can get blamed for everything that goes wrong, and every single hero will be after you for vengeance, for freedom, for whatever, and every single villain will be after your spot. It's not the smart thing for them to do, no, but it's the dumb thing to do and that makes it the human thing to do."

[Yeah, that's a 13 on Take a Powerful Blow. I'll take Lose Control of Yourself for 500 points, please.]

POTENTIAL 0

Please. This isn’t Space Invaders. In Space Invaders, you shoot a dinky little bullet up from your dinky little ship against wave after wave, moving around desperately.

@SARAHPHIM has all the bullets, and she doesn’t need to scurry around the bottom of the screen. She unleashes her bullet curtain, rising upwards, and lets the goons worry about dodging. They can dodge in three dimensions, right? Right?

Hahahahahahaha.

Though, it must be noted, this is taking 100% of her concentration and then some. Please do not distract her while she turns the sky above the school into a bullet hell zone.

[8 on Defend Others, clearing Showboat because... I mean... just look at what’s going on up there... and exposing Sara to more danger.]

There is only one place in the rainbow hell that isn't ablaze with glory. And that's the dirt at your feet. An appropriate place for your enemies, wah-ha-ha-ha!! But also a serious problem because you're holding up the sky here and there a dozen Spiral troopers are crawling on their stomachs towards you. It's going to be all well and good until they get to your ankles and put their grubby fingers all over your designer shoes. You'd better hope that someone saves you.

"Hats?" she asks, "Never thought about them. A friend of mine gave me a tiara recently, if that counts. But I could... you know, give them a try. Expand my horizons, I guess."

She halts. Her mouth falls slack as her brain forcibly reboots.

"Wait! You wear hats?"

As you're watching Sabrem's moves you start to pick up on something that's been in the back of your mind for a while now. She doesn't move like a human being.

Ordinarily, when a punch is thrown it's a full body thing - the torso twists, the shoulder rotates, hips to lean into the blow. When expanded by augmented limbs it results in enough power to throw someone across the room. Sabrem, however, is doing the opposite of those things and it should be simply terrible form. She fires her pistol one handed and unbraced, she tosses the sword with just a rotation of her elbow while keeping her back perfectly still. She's cutting every single possible corner and letting her augs pick up the slack - it's not sloth, it's a ruthless, unbelievable level of optimization, almost like a martial art for aliens. She's not chasing the maximum of her augs - she's cutting to the minimum. A minimum force slap is enough to daze a human like a solid punch from a regular person might, and so that slap is all she needs, especially when she's using that same motion to spray semi auto pistol fire with hands strong enough to ignore any recoil.

"Hnn. Course I wear hats. It rains three hundred days a year here, don't know why they're not in style. I use one of those... big red ones, like Carmen Sandiego mostly. Had a femme fatale fashion phase. Others too. Depends on the outfit. Anyway. Go save your girl."

[Yeah, that's a 13 on Take a Powerful Blow. I'll take Lose Control of Yourself for 500 points, please.]

You dodge the slag. You dodge the car. You dodge the TAG wreckage. You dodge the gas canister. You don't dodge the gas.

Your vision swims as the orange gas surrounds you on all sides. The Spiral Commander lands alongside you and places her hand on your forehead and into your empty head new orders flow like water. You are but a vessel, a puppet, and you have only one objective: to capture Angel-IKA.

Angel-IKA!

"Hey," you say. Mouth dry. This is the first time you've seen her, you know? You remember that she's got some sort of hypnotism perfume so should probably pull back a bit, you know, in case. "Uh. Hi. I'm Angelic - uh, -IKA. Angel-IKA."

"I know who you are," said Dominus, walking forwards into what was probably the hypnotism danger zone. You take a couple of steps backwards. "You're why I came here."

"M-me?" you squeak. You squeak again when your back hits a wall. She doesn't stop coming closer. "What could you possibly want with me?"

"That's a good question," Dominus said. A lock of tangled black hair was stuck to her face with rain and sweat and you could see your own fearful outline in the reflection in her eyes. "Why don't you tell me? What are you good for?"

"I-I-I-uh," okay this is definitely the hypnotism perfume, there's no other reason you'd be blushing this hard. "I'm, um, I'm not good at anything -"

"Pathetic," she says, but you can tell that's not what she means. Her face gets closer. Her lips get closer. "You don't even recognize how beautif-"

"HELLO" said some kind of robot, appearing out of nowhere right besides you.

"AAAAAAAH!" you say in greeting.

"OH COME ON BODE!" you hear Locker yell from across the room.

"Bode!?!" said Dominus, aiming a pistol at him with one hand and straightening her hair with the other.

"Brainstorm is in trouble and I noticed that you were the only two who weren't busy. You need to help me save him!" said Bode brightly.

"Why," hissed Dominus, "didn't you do something about it?"

Bode tilted his head to the side. Glowing eye lenses blinked.

"I thought you would both appreciate the opportunity to be heroes," he said.

"Look, lady. Humanity, collectively, is the most stubborn, idiotic, and illogical bunch of animals that you will ever meet. You are currently wearing so many different layers, in exactly such a fashion, because that is how things are done, including the makeup coating your face and nails. You just yelled at probably the most powerful tool you have access to and threatened to destroy it out of pique, because that made you feel good. You all, collectively, keep threatening your own cities and doing terrible things to each other and then go right back to where you were at the start. You. Are. Idiots." She takes a deep breath. "That's not, however, a bad thing. Out of the sheer, stubborn idiotic decisions, you decide, generally, to care about each other. To help in spite of the society built to make you care about yourself first. You want to be the ruler of the world and you're expecting to get respect for it? The one possible position where you can get blamed for everything that goes wrong, and every single hero will be after you for vengeance, for freedom, for whatever, and every single villain will be after your spot. It's not the smart thing for them to do, no, but it's the dumb thing to do and that makes it the human thing to do."

Your words had an impact. She stands there for a moment, hands clenching and unclenching. There are a lot of questions in her life that she doesn't know the answer to and as you watch she systematically fills them in with pure rage. Rage doesn't need answers. The only way around those questions is to decide that questions are stupid and that anyone who asks or answers them is stupid.

[Marking Angry]

"Idiots, huh? Then I'm going to send a message that even an idiot can understand," she said. "Guards. Take her out of my sight - no. Put her on the rocket, next to the other one. Granddad was right. I need to talk to the public on their level."

You dodge the slag. You dodge the car. You dodge the TAG wreckage. You dodge the gas canister. You don't dodge the gas.

Your vision swims as the orange gas surrounds you on all sides. The Spiral Commander lands alongside you and places her hand on your forehead and into your empty head new orders flow like water. You are but a vessel, a puppet, and you have only one objective: to capture Angel-IKA.

And honestly, why should he even bother trying to save her? I mean, yeah, she's saved Sara a few times, but that just shows how much the @SARAPHIM name has been slipping now that you have all those clones running about. Heck, if AEGIS needs her that badly, maybe they've finally pulled their heads out of their asses and figured out that an elite can do the job of a superhero so much better than some rando gutter troll.

And boy howdy, does he know how to do it? See, these troops are something else--all the powers in the world, and what does AEGIS do? Just has one person controlling them, like ants in a hive. Don't they know tactics? Don't they know strategy? Don't they know that redundancies are everything in this world? Sheer numbers are nice, but the key is to properly use them! And now, instead of one person leading them, they've got two, and one of them's a literal damn Capital-S-G supergenius.

I mean, look at this. They've got someone whose powerset is literally controlling metal, and they've got him--what is that, boxing gloves? Come on, people, this isn't looney tunes. Box is right there! Rip the floor out, drop Angelica into the arms of a waiting jetpack trooper, and zoom out. Play the objective, people! You want Angelica, right? Throw just enough people at the worthless teenagers to bog them down, and then smash-and-grab! What are they gonna do, huh, call foul, ask for a redo? That's capitalism, baby.

[Tactical Genius: ...That's a 6. Marking XP.]

"Oh! Oh! No, it's cause--" Errant briefly loses her train of thought punching out a gunman, "Think about it, right? When was the last time you saw somebody wear a hat in a movie with a big city scene? Never, right? Well, there was Imperium Nova 3 with that weird Fedora Cult scene, but those were the villains. Also nobody, like, saw that movie. Anyway yeah, you know? Uh... Stars Over Halcyon? Three Midnights Till We Part? Seventy Four? With the big scene where she's the only one not under the rain shield and she's crying her eyes out while her lover vanishes into the crowd in the park? It's rain chic! Everybody wants to look like that! You've gotta get soaked, let your hair cling to your forehead all... erm..."

Errant flushes, and turns her back on Sabrem in a way she wouldn't have dared even twenty minutes ago. Posture rigid. Arms straight. She yanks an electro-sword out of a fried suit of armor, because maybe if she looks cool enough she'll stop wanting to sink into the floor. She turns and looks over her shoulder again.

"Anyway. Yeah. I just. Yeah. Thank you. For the... for the advice. And the, um. This is my contact info. Check in so I... know you're not breaking parole. Stay. No, right. Going now."

With a hop and a flourish, Errant hops over a barricade and zips back out into the field, zipping this way and that through Sara's rainbow hellscape with the grace of a certain princess. She dances between safe spaces, practicing those alien, fluid motions and seeing how she can push herself to... not push herself. A good soldier always takes the good ideas she finds on the battlefield. While she runs she flips through her commlink and presses dial on the number for her bank.

"Hello, yes? This is Euna Kim, I'm calling because I was hoping to..."

She goes sailing over the top of Sara's head with a placid half smile on her face as she somersaults onto the back of the nearest trooper trying to claw their way onto her beautiful star. She stomps, twists, and flips off of them to the ground so that her hair does a full mermaid's flip behind her.

"Mhm, yes that's right I'm looking to upgrade my account. Yes, of course I'm fine with that fee..."

The sword sings in her hand, cutting wide, crackling arcs through the air and delivering full system shutdown levels of voltage to one suit and then another. She slashes, flips the blade over her wrist, and smashes somebody in the face with the flat, then tosses the sword over her head, does a half-spin on the balls of her feet, catches it with her other hand, and completes the spin with another wide slash across the chestplate of a woman who'd decided that standing up was the power move after all.

"Mhm... mhm... ok, great! Thank you so much! Yes of course, you have a nice day, too. Ok bye!"

She comes to a halt in front of Sara. And now she's still. And now she's silent. There's a look of concentration on her face, like she's trying to burn this moment into her memory forever. The joy on Sara's face as she works. The colors playing all around her. The battle that neither one of them for a single moment has a thought of losing. The...

She flicks her wrist behind her and tosses the sword through a power cable of a charging heavy trooper. She dips into a wide bow, flourishing her hands to either side for the camera drones flitting all about as the clumsy suit of armor skids to a halt just behind her.

"So, I uh," she stumbles, ruining the shot yet again, "Was wondering if... hey, um... do you... like hats?"

Fucking really, Euna?

[Defend: 7. Errant takes Influence on Sara again and escalates the situation]

Your words had an impact. She stands there for a moment, hands clenching and unclenching. There are a lot of questions in her life that she doesn't know the answer to and as you watch she systematically fills them in with pure rage. Rage doesn't need answers. The only way around those questions is to decide that questions are stupid and that anyone who asks or answers them is stupid.

[Marking Angry]

"Idiots, huh? Then I'm going to send a message that even an idiot can understand," she said. "Guards. Take her out of my sight - no. Put her on the rocket, next to the other one. Granddad was right. I need to talk to the public on their level."

She locks eyes with Victoria as she starts to get surrounded by guards, who are figuring out just how to get her down. "You're a human, a unique example of infinite possibility. I hope you realize how precious that is, the ability to make your choices and be yourself. And I won't take that ability from you. Totally could, but nah. But I will stop you if you chose to hurt others with your position. That said, it was nice to meet you! I do suggest some peppermint tea. Bye now!" And the door shuts. She turns to one of the guards. "What was her name again? I don't think she ever told me."

POTENTIAL 0

“Depends on the outfit, but not usually. Headscarves are more in style this season. Why? Are you going to finally going to change your outfit?” Sara flashes Euna a grin like a cat that’s just been invited to run security for a cheese convention. “Because I have ideas. No, scratch that, I have galleries. Scratch that, I have connections. Give me twenty-four hours and I can get you a full makeover.”

Stars fall around them, some of them looking suspiciously like bowlers and berets and breastplates as Sara’s mind wanders. “If you want to call out the racist wonder that Vicki’s probably sent after us by now, I know Courtney Lovecraft’s been dying to make something ronin-themed. The Ronin taking down the Shogun, you rubbing it in her dumb face that a badass Korean beat her, ha!”

The barrage stills, so suddenly it’s almost impossible. There’s stillness from above; presumably whoever’s up there is figuring out what to do, now that all their paratroopers have been blasted out of the sky. Victor’s handling saving the civilians, Euna’s cleared out room, and so Sara grabs her friend’s wrist and pulls her close, beckoning over a camera drone as she slips that arm around Euna’s shoulders, pulling the shorter girl in close. “But first...”

“Selfie!”

Click!

I mean, look at this. They've got someone whose powerset is literally controlling metal, and they've got him--what is that, boxing gloves? Come on, people, this isn't looney tunes. Box is right there! Rip the floor out, drop Angelica into the arms of a waiting jetpack trooper, and zoom out. Play the objective, people! You want Angelica, right? Throw just enough people at the worthless teenagers to bog them down, and then smash-and-grab! What are they gonna do, huh, call foul, ask for a redo? That's capitalism, baby.

[Tactical Genius: ...That's a 6. Marking XP.]

Hell yeah! You're a hustler, Brainstorm, no mistake. You're on the make, action on the side, paid by commission, taking life by the horns and riding those animal spirits all the way to the jackpot! All you've got to do is break up the power couple and send the teenagers back to school. Easy for a guy with an army at his command and an assault carrier hovering above your head. Calculate the firing angles, bring in the big guns, full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes! Who's going to stop you? The magic of friendship?

There's a certain interaction that happens when a vehicle runs into a building, and the building rarely comes off the worse in that exchange. Today you have confirmed that that principle holds in reverse. As you watch, the Gears Foundation - as in the entire multicomplex, supported by enormous thrusters and an attitude of casual disregard towards gravity - drops out of hyperspace and rams the assault carrier amidships with the same conflict resolution as a fly taking up residence on a windshield.

Okay. New plan. You've got this.

That's when Angel-IKA hits you upside the head with a chair leg.

TEN MINUTES LATER, THE GEARS FOUNDATION JANITOR CLOSET/BRIG

Errant! @Saraphim! You've been picked up along with the Stream Team by Professor Gears, incongruously tossing a rope ladder off the side of her flying building. There isn't much time to hang out and exchange pleasantries - the priority is deprogramming Victor from his hypnotism. You two know him best, so you've been sent into the janitorial closet he's confined in to snap him back to himself.

Victor, you're still hooked up to the Spiral Mind and are drinking deep of the black nectar of capitalism. One aspect of this is that you've got a whole lot of data coming in regarding Victoria and her plans. But now these unemployed scrubs want to get your time of day? Tell 'em to get outta here, why don't you?

She locks eyes with Victoria as she starts to get surrounded by guards, who are figuring out just how to get her down. "You're a human, a unique example of infinite possibility. I hope you realize how precious that is, the ability to make your choices and be yourself. And I won't take that ability from you. Totally could, but nah. But I will stop you if you chose to hurt others with your position. That said, it was nice to meet you! I do suggest some peppermint tea. Bye now!" And the door shuts. She turns to one of the guards. "What was her name again? I don't think she ever told me."

"Oh, her?" said the megagoon, glancing back at the door as it developed a deep dent as it was struck by most of a table. "She's Turbo Knight 2."

You are taken through to an enormous launch chamber featuring a DOOM SATELLITE. It's a frightful amalgamation. AEGIS has dismantled, destroyed, or shot down a dozen of these over the years and this has been hurriedly constructed out of the various debris pieces that have been kept in storage. It's an inefficient and ugly piece of tech telling the stories of a dozen different supervillains. It certainly doesn't need three doomsday devices when it can only power one, and the fact that one of those doomsday devices will transform everyone on earth into adorable talking mice implies a very specific origin story.

But one of those cannons is a straight up giant laser, and it is to this you are tied, right next to the Shogun. She is not wearing her hat, which makes you taller than her. I'd advise you not to mention it.

"What are you in for?" she asks.

"Oh, her?" said the megagoon, glancing back at the door as it developed a deep dent as it was struck by most of a table. "She's Turbo Knight 2."

You are taken through to an enormous launch chamber featuring a DOOM SATELLITE. It's a frightful amalgamation. AEGIS has dismantled, destroyed, or shot down a dozen of these over the years and this has been hurriedly constructed out of the various debris pieces that have been kept in storage. It's an inefficient and ugly piece of tech telling the stories of a dozen different supervillains. It certainly doesn't need three doomsday devices when it can only power one, and the fact that one of those doomsday devices will transform everyone on earth into adorable talking mice implies a very specific origin story.

But one of those cannons is a straight up giant laser, and it is to this you are tied, right next to the Shogun. She is not wearing her hat, which makes you taller than her. I'd advise you not to mention it.

"What are you in for?" she asks.

"Nice to see you again! I told her she was stupid to expect rational decisions from people. And I gave her advice on tea to calm down with. You? And are you able to survive the launch and space? I've always wanted to go to space." She takes a look over the DOOM SATELLITE as she chats. That thing is terribly, terribly constructed, AEGIS. Your recent merger has really tanked production values. For shame.

Victor, you're still hooked up to the Spiral Mind and are drinking deep of the black nectar of capitalism. One aspect of this is that you've got a whole lot of data coming in regarding Victoria and her plans. But now these unemployed scrubs want to get your time of day? Tell 'em to get outta here, why don't you?

"You guys," Victor says judiciously, "are fucking assholes."

This is, sadly, not the first time Sara's stolen his limbs. He can feel them, somewhere, battering against the lid of whatever tupperware jar they put his nanites in. But not tying him up? Come on. Give him some respect, maybe? Some common courtesy? At least pretend you think he's a threat worth more than just propping his torso up in a chair.

Fucking humiliating, is what this is.

"Seriously. You!" He should be pointing. They've taken his hands. Can't point at Errant. Commie bastards. "I thought you, of all people, would be hunky-dory for my new change of heart. Finally! Finally, we two can be truly on the same side, have fun adventures! Errant, corporate champion, and Brainstorm, CEO! Once I take over AEGIS, you'd have free reign to pursue whatever hobbies you fancy---maybe we could make you the director of the bureaucracy, wouldn't that be fun? Wouldn't even send you out on any of the more distasteful missions, and that's more than could be said of miss 'punch you through a wall for laughing at her' Victoria. You're seriously telling me that you'd rather literally rebel against the very people who raised you, taught you, made you who you are, than see me in charge of it? That's your line? You'll gladly toe the line when AEGIS is bombarding-by-proxy the entire neighborhood, but the thought of me running things my way sends you running for the hills?

"Love the red, by the way. 'Criminal' is quite a fetching look."

He snaps back to the other bitch in the room. "Speaking of the other bitch in the room, chinga mi madre, Sara, was me having two minutes in the spotlight already too much for you? I swear, you'd think that after having franchised you'd be more willing to friggin' share. But noooo! Can't have Victor having fun! I mean, you've already stolen everything else in my life, so why wait when I'm finally on the cusp of turning over a new leaf? Oh wait, that'd mean that I might actually make something of myself, instead of being content to be one of the losers who waste their lives watching the poorly-edited drivel you produce! Fucking A, it's just like the time you stole my photo album to make the Wincest calendar! Yeah, I know about that, you think I didn't notice it went missing right about the time you got that new hardlight generator installed?

"...Actually, that was a pretty slick move. Like, still a bastard, but the kind of bastardry that I can admire and get behind. Maybe once I'm CEO, we could do another one of those calendars. I mean, horny is as horny does, and horny spends money. They're already buying my bootleg horndog calendars, and that means that they're not buying licensed Brainstorm softcore. Note to self: purchase a Cali studio, they have relaxed restrictions on that kind of thing.

"Anyway. You two have had your fun. So now, what's going to happen is you're going to give me back my limbs and a sizable chunk of bribery, and I'll forget this happened. Then, once I take over AEGIS, Errant will get her job back, and @SARAHPHIM won't have pissed away every sponsership deal she ever made. We'll be... well, you'll be employees. But favored ones, and that's more than can be said of most of the people I'll hire."

You stupid bastard. You stupid bastard! Say it again! Just try saying that again you selfish, arrogant genius-level prick. You think there's rules, here? You think she wouldn't punch a cripple? Say it again and she just might! God damn it Victor, you are too smart to be this stupid! How do you do it? How do you always find the dumbest shit to say, even when you're jumped up on Sabrem's zombie gas? God. God! Geniuses are the stupidest motherfuckers on the planet!

You know what the cure for this is? It's violence. Who cares that Angelica already hit him upside the head with a chair and he's still like this on waking up? He just didn't get hit hard enough, that's all. Well she can fix that. She will fix that. Jesus fucking christ Victor, do you ever hear yourself when you talk? With your encyclopedic knowledge of every stupid fucking thing capitalist-adjacent society has ever said, do you replay these conversations in your head on a loop while you jerk yourself off? Stupid little... ok yeah no, that's it. The calendar thing, that's the line. We're doing violence now. Violence is the sweet and simple solution to all of life's problems and it's time to let it do its thing. I call this trick cutting the Gordian Di--

...Euna frowns, and sighs. For the first time since coming back from Hyperborea, she runs a hand through her hair. Then both at once. She steps slowly, very carefully, off to one side. Out of the line between Victor and Sara. She takes a deep breath through her nose.

And smiles as sweetly as she's ever managed in her life.

"Victor?" she chimes, "Maybe you'd like to stop talking before one of us says or does something you'll regret~"

POTENTIAL 0

Oh. He knew about the calendar. Whoops. In her defense, fans are a bunch of horny little shits. That’s something she should... probably apologize for later?

But right now, she’s got her feet up on the table, a jar full of neutralized nanobots in her lap, and a phone pointed at Victor so that this happy memory never gets forgotten. Like, she’s not streaming it, she’s not that mean, but Victor’s getting a replay as soon as he breaks out of it.

“Hey, but at least you’re watching, bitch. That said... too bad you’re too much of a hippie to take charge when you’re not high on capitalism gas! That’d be a nice solution to a lot of problems.”

Having Euna’s back, that’s the most important thing. But it has to be said... it’d be nice to know what comes next. She’s walking forward in the dark, and the only warning she’ll get is Euna falling with her if it turns out there’s something wrong with the floor. Installing Victor in charge of AEGIS, at least that would be a plan. But as soon as the gas wore off, he’d dissolve it and fire everybody after signing them up for his anarchist newsletter.

She drums her fingers on top of the jar and feels the nanobots drunkenly hop inside.

“Speaking of the calendar,” she drawls, “we could get started on the next one right now. Want me to shut him up, Eunicorn?”

She waggles one foot in his face with the shit-eating grin of a sister who has her nerdy dweeb of an adoptive brother at her mercy, and zooms in the camera on his reaction.

"Victor?" she chimes, "Maybe you'd like to stop talking before one of us says or does something you'll regret~"

"Oh, sure, that sounds peachy," he snarks. "Look, I'm a little busy right now. I have an inside line to AEGIS, I'm monitoring their every business decision, I don't have time for... for whatever the hell you think this is. The sooner we move on from your lame-ass kidnapping attempt, the sooner I can get on with revolutionizing the face of heroism in this city."

“Speaking of the calendar,” she drawls, “we could get started on the next one right now. Want me to shut him up, Eunicorn?”

She waggles one foot in his face with the shit-eating grin of a sister who has her nerdy dweeb of an adoptive brother at her mercy, and zooms in the camera on his reaction.

"Just so long as you're aware that you're losing whatever you put in my mouth," he deadpans, and then a look of. Of wonder? Of amazement? Whatever the look is, it crosses over his face and then returns to camp there. "Eunicorn. Holy shit, Eunicorn? That's. What, a pet name? Sara didn't come up with that, I guarantee that. Holy shit, this is the best. Like, I'm not saying the message boards are going to light up with this, but can you imagine the potential sales? Errant, corporate champion, icon of the free world, and potential idol? Oh, the media coverage AEGIS would have."

Oh, they've made a mistake. They've put his nanites where he can see them. And that means that he can see what they're doing, and hopefully that means that somehow he can octopus the lid of the jar off from the inside. Lessee, what is he working with here?

[If that's enough for an assess, then that's a 6.]

"Nice to see you again! I told her she was stupid to expect rational decisions from people. And I gave her advice on tea to calm down with. You? And are you able to survive the launch and space? I've always wanted to go to space." She takes a look over the DOOM SATELLITE as she chats. That thing is terribly, terribly constructed, AEGIS. Your recent merger has really tanked production values. For shame.

The Shogun gives a rough little laugh. "No, I can't survive space. I'm just hanging here trying to compose a fitting death haiku but everything about this situation is so ridiculous it is not working out. Help me out?

Friendly robot comes
Unlikely guide to heavens
Literal and otherwise."

Deep breaths, Euna. Deep breaths. You are Good Cop. You are supposed to be Good Cop. You can't play Good Cop Bad Cop if Good Cop goes bad. Just breathe. Offer him another out. Sooner or later he'll have had enough oxygen to leap for one and then you can have your friend back. Remember that word? That's a good word, focus on it. There's positive signs in his rambling, if you really think about it. So just calm down for his sake, calm down and...

Eunicorn. Message boards. Idol.

...Idol.

NOPE!

Nobody sees her move. First she's standing by the door with her arms folded over her chest, and then immediately after that she's grabbed Sara by the collar at the back of her neck and dragged her out of her chair. There's no filler frames. Snap, snap. She frowns, possibly unsure who to hit. She settles for ramming both their heads together with a satisfyingly dully clunk.

Then she yanks Sara back again and stands as straight and tall as she can manage, cracking her neck to hide how deep her blush is.

"Not! In! Front! Of! The! Prisoner! You! Moron!"

[Errant's backfired Assess question turnaround!
-What is Victor most vulnerable to right now?
-Is it possible to gag a man with his own nanite limbs?]

POTENTIAL 0

CLUNK!

“Ow!”

Hitting Victor was always at least a little bit on the table, so it’s not like she’s surprised Euna went there. It’s just a little more of a surprise that she picked Sara’s head to do it with.

It’s really a wonder the nanites don’t spill everywhere. Good thing the jar’s very, very effectively sealed. Like, you think the first thing they thought of wasn’t “hey, maybe we should put these things in a container he can’t open from the inside?” It’s very securely locked from the outside, thank you very much. As long as nobody drops the jar, we’ll be fine.

“What? It’s not like he’s going to remember it after he snaps out of the gas!” This is a wild assumption. “Besides, he’s right, it’s such a great name! Not about the whole message boards thing,” she adds, hastily, seeing steely death in her crush’s eyes, “but... it is the best.”

[- How could we best end this quickly?
- What here can I use to embarrass Victor in a fun way?]

Nobody sees her move. First she's standing by the door with her arms folded over her chest, and then immediately after that she's grabbed Sara by the collar at the back of her neck and dragged her out of her chair. There's no filler frames. Snap, snap. She frowns, possibly unsure who to hit. She settles for ramming both their heads together with a satisfyingly dully clunk.

Then she yanks Sara back again and stands as straight and tall as she can manage, cracking her neck to hide how deep her blush is.

"Not! In! Front! Of! The! Prisoner! You! Moron!"

"¡Ay! Pendeja, ¡putéate en la mierda!"

Funny. He's always been assured that being hit by a pretty girl is a good thing. Turns out, it just sucks.

[Errant's backfired Assess question turnaround!
-What is Victor most vulnerable to right now?

Errant!

So, right now Victor is riding high. Slightly less high, admittedly, than about thirty seconds ago, but he is full of plans, capitalism, and himself, in that order. If you wanted to get him back to normal, you'd need to deflate at least one of those things. Bringing in Bode would, I think, get through to him even in this state. I hope.

Or, I mean, he's a torso with a head and no limbs. Pummelling until he stops talking might not be the most rational way to deal with things, but it'd be fucking satisfying, wouldn't it? Aren't you tired of being nice? Don't you just wanna go apeshit on this asshole?

-Is it possible to gag a man with his own nanite limbs?]

I mean. Yes, technically? But if you look at the volume of mouth and the volume of four sets of limbs, it's really inadvisable. You're gonna burst his stomach before you even get started on the second leg. You might be able to shove just enough nanites into his mouth to jam it up, but then you're giving him tools. And then you have to keep his mouth shut somehow, and tape gags are never as effective as the serials make them look. Plus, the second you open that jar, at least some of the nanites are going to make a break for it and go cause problems somewhere else in the ship, force you to leave him alone.

All in all, a ballgag seems like it'd be simpler, and you and Sara could make a date of picking out one both of you like.

[- How could we best end this quickly?
- What here can I use to embarrass Victor in a fun way?]

@SARAHPHIM!

H'okay, so the biggest issue is Sabrem's gas. Did you grab her onto the ship after Errant disarmed her backpack? She'd know the best antidotes for the gas. Heck, even if she's not here, you have Bode and you have Locker. You're not exactly strapped for supergeniuses, is what I'm saying. You could probably even trick Victor into doing it himself, if you can figure out how to phrase spitting out the koolaid as being good for his quest to take over AEGIS. Phrase it as a challenge to his ego, and he'll bite.

As for the second part... are we talking immediate humiliation, or long-term, "show the grandkids uncle Brainstorm's epic freakout" kind of embarassment? Because the latter is a lot easier--you have a camera, and this is the stuff that home videos are made out of. You keep filming, and this is the sibling-blackmail material of the century. Streaming it doesn't seem like it'd be all that effective--he's in full-on CEO mode, and bad publicity is just a matter of the right spin doctors.

But if you want to be really nasty? You're a lot more in touch with how people think, so you know he's got it bad for Locker already, even if he doesn't. Bring him in here, and he's gonna be a lot more reluctant to act out, lot more blushy and stammery.

(And then you film it, because those grandchildren also want to hear the story about how Uncle Vic met Uncle Tor, and that's blackmail material almost as good as what you already have.)