Electra

Erin simply nodded at those instructions, which weren't anything she hadn't heard before. In most situations she'd have argued against a directive to retreat, but there wasn't a damn thing she could do to help if things went pear-shaped here, and a lot of really dumb people outside who still didn't deserve to die in an explosion. Just to be on the safe side, she pulled up the city grid on her phone again and began plotting routes, then trying to decide who would be available to call upon if the need arose. Just to be on the safe side.

"Give me a moment," Fleur told Gabriel, sounding a little distracted as she forced the plants to grow despite the invisible miasma surrounding them. "I need to clear the air in here a little." As she spoke, the plants began to work in unison, fanning wide leaves to circulate air, while others transpirated carbon dioxide and oxygen at many times the natural rate. The overall effect was one of a gentle breeze of fresh air, scented delicately of flowers, that wafted through the entire chamber. As it swept past her, Fleur began to look better, her hair a bit greener, her face a bit less so.

Is she going to be able to use her plants to facilitate her powers, for awhile at least?

"Great, that's just what we need," Erin muttered. "The feds really screwed the pooch on this one. Bystanders all over the place, media rolling in, why don't they just send a parade down the street to really make things exciting?" She rigged another of the lamps she'd brought along, bathing the cramped and dirty crawlspace in brilliant white light. If they were going to deal with this literal time bomb, at least they'd be able to see what they were doing. "Is there anything we should be doing to help," she asked Mara, "or should be just be staying out of the way?"

Fleur is going to activate her nullify power to clear Panacea from the air. First roll is a dud. Spending HP! Second roll is a 23. Hope that works!

Miss Americana listened carefully to Nick's report and was just about to lay out a plan when Harrier turned and headed for the church. Muttering a curse, she took to the sky and flew after him. "We're not ready," she told him, "we need to be smart about this, we need a plan..." When it became patently obvious that he was ignoring her, she fell back and landed with another, slightly louder curse, and cracked her knuckles. "We need to shut that teleport ring down," she told Nick as they went. "I can probably do it given time, but you're almost certainly more familiar with the forms being used. If you get down there, I'll try and corral Harrier and come back you up." She winced slightly as the doors were ripped off and thrown aside, alerting anyone who cared to know that there was trouble, but loyally followed Harrier into what had once been a church and was now a den of much worse than thieves.

The foosball game was a quick one, full of back-and-forth exchanges almost too fast to follow. Erin may have had superhuman dexterity, but it had been six years and an entire lifetime since she'd last played, and that counted against her. Corbin scored four points in a row while she was still getting herself organized, a streak that had her sputtering with mingled amusement and frustration. "I think you got the good side of the table," she decided, adjusting her grip once more as he pulled the ball from her goal and prepared to fire it. Luckily for Erin's ego, she started making a comeback as she got the hang of the game again. She managed to score several points in a row with a combination of backspin and blinding speed, and blocked a couple of shots with her goalie, to boot. The final score was ten to eight in Corbin's favor, but at least she hadn't embarrassed herself. "Rematch after the game?"

"That wouldn't help anyway," Koshiro pointed out. "Destroying the Meta-Mind would probably destroy the planet anyway, it would just be slower and more gruesome, like letting a bunch of animals starve to death and eat each other. They're not really people, see? They're like bees or ants, with enough sentience all put together to become one really malevolent, aggressive virus thing. If we hurt them but don't destroy them, they'll come after us. If we just leave, then whatever harm they do in their next invasion is on our heads because we could've stopped it and we didn't. We're supposed to save peoples' lives, and sometimes that means wiping out diseases."

Miss Americana walked into the room a few moments after Dragonfly, her very presence enough to draw all eyes for a second. Though she didn't spend as much time at the Lab since taking over at ArcheTech, she'd still dressed for the occasion in a smart navy pantsuit with a red tank and narrow red belt. A three-strand pearl necklace and drop earrings completed her ensemble and her signature color scheme. She smiled pleasantly at her colleagues. "Good afternoon, everyone. I take it the guest of honor hasn't arrived yet?" She poured herself a cup of coffee but didn't partake as she carried it over to an empty seat at the table.

Gaian Knight's wall of stone had an immediate effect on the quality of the air in the chamber. With the source of contamination temporarily sealed off, Fleur mustered her forces to contribute to the effort. She wasn't exactly in fighting form, but that didn't make her powerless! Reaching into her pouch, she pulled out a big handful of seeds, all kinds of seeds, and tossed them into the center of the room. In moments they were growing, not the explosive growth that she could usually manage, but steadily enough, and green with health. The carpet of plants began to spread, leaves and lichen, across the floor and up the walls, almost as though they were going to cocoon the chamber.

"Stupid robots," Miss Americana muttered as she lost her grip on Keres and watched the metal monstrosity attempting to wreak havoc on the city below. "What you need is a more accessible off switch." She cracked her knuckled and pulled out her scanner, flipping it open just like a character out of Star Trek, and pointed it at Keres. "Of course..." she sighed. "It would be that. Citizen!" she ordered her sidekick, "get clear right now and take out that last drone." Miss A herself rocketed suddenly away from Keres, dropping nearly to street level and almost out of the fight entirely. "Voltage, magnetize Keres!" she called. "He's vulnerable! Do it now!"

"I suspect she uses some sort of natural entropy manipulation," Miss A murmured to Nick, even as she kept a concerned eye on Harrier. "There have been a number of cases in the literature where different types of energy manipulators, magic users, were turned by or turned to the Terminus, and had their natural abilities warped into a more suitable form. If you can create a field that inhibits decay, that might be as close as we'll get. As for the Shepard boys, it's possible that being T-babies made them naturally more vulnerable to her manipulations, or that they were simply angry and rebellious and found a terrible way to express it. Either way, it's not safe to assume they're not full-powered Annihilists at this point. If we can capture them, we can make an attempt to rehabilitate them, but that's a question for later. Right now we need to see inside the church and find out who's in there and whether there are innocents immediately at risk. Is that something you can do?" she asked the necromancer.

Okay, cool. I'm going to dump my standard action and take another move action to get clear of Keres. She'll fly towards the ground, where she'll be a more attractive target to the drones than the civilians, should any of them try getting up.

"They're standing down," Erin told him, looking somewhat bemused as she watched the pair of villains head for the stairs. "Or at least they're getting out of our hair. Follow them to the perimeter," she instructed, "but don't detain them unless they start being aggressive again. We've got bigger fish to fry, and I told them they wouldn't be arrested if they left peacefully. I'm going to finish the sweep and meet you in the basement." Erin did a quick check of the apartment to make sure there were no more villains in hiding, then headed out, collapsing her bat and tapping her radio. "Mara, we're nearly done with the sweep, I think. If you've got something that'll scan for life signs, we can wrap it up even faster."

"Hold on one second," Koshiro said, looking at the other two, then out the viewscreen. "The Grue are really bad guys. They try to destroy us pretty regularly, and their favorite way is by murdering people and stealing their lives so they can infiltrate Earth. I didn't live in Freedom City last time the Grue invaded, but I know it was nasty and a lot of people died, even with the heroes working all out. They do the same thing to the Lor, and they have been for more than 200 years, or this ship wouldn't be here. Two hundred years of murder and invasion and just waiting for us to slip up so they can take us out once and for all. Maybe we can end all of that right now. They're a hive mind, right? If we get the bulk of them, that'll throw them into chaos for a long time. Maybe it will even free the ones that are left from mental slavery."

All righty! Free Action to talk and direct Citizen to tag Drone 2. Free Action to shift array back to lasers Move Action to use device scanner and Detect Weakness on Keres. Before I take my standard action, is there anything to find?

Koshiro cautiously peeled himself off the crash couch, making sure he was still all in one piece after the insanity of warp-speed transit. "Well, he can't be expecting us to steer the ship," he reasoned, thinking of Mr. Archer in his viewing booth. "None of us know how to do that, and it's not exactly a life skill here on Earth anyway. There's got to be something else we're supposed to be doing..." He arched an eyebrow at the sight of the glowing panel rising from the couch. "All right, that might be a clue. Let's get this party started." Reaching out, he pressed his hand to the panel, right overtop the outline of the hand. Whatever happened, at least they weren't gong to be wasting time!

It was obvious that Erin still didn't like the idea, but she reluctantly gave him a half-smile back. "Stealth, distraction... it was a thought. Just keep an open comm line, all right? And be careful. I'm going to scout the exterior." With a silent leap, she was up on top of the marquee, landing on that precarious perch just long enough to bounce to the roof. It was unlikely there was much to find up there, not when the front doors were hanging open wide enough to drive a motorcycle through, but there was no way she was going to be able to just stand there and wait. It was always better to be doing something.

"Wait," Miss Americana put a hand on Harrier's arm to stop him. "You can't just go barging into something like this, not if she's as bad as you and Nick are saying. We talked about this, remember?" She gave him a significant look, finding the ever-so-faint outline of his eyes behind the faceplate. "We find another way, or we get reinforcements and go in that way. But first, we make a plan." She closed her eyes for a moment, putting a hand to her temple in the classic "psychic communication" pose. "Someone will watch the church." Gesturing to the others, she fell back, away from the building and out of sight of the occupants, hopefully. When they had a little distance, she spoke again. "When you say she goes after entropic mutants, Harrier, you mean what we call Terminus babies, right? The children who were mutated by the 93 invasion? She wouldn't find much to interest her here, not anymore. The youngest of them are already old enough to drive, and most of them are practically adults. Like these two." She turned the screen to face the men, revealing the photos of two young men, one of whom looked very much like the street preacher. "Thomas and William Shepard," she explained, "heirs to the Shepard Sweets fortune, and joint partners in Black Onyx LLC, the brand new corporation that owns the church. They were Claremont students about five years back, but were expelled for conduct unbecoming. Apparently they were trying to start some kind of cult." She pursed her lips, looked to the building. "She may have gotten hold of a couple of children after all."

Intimidate check, skill mastery 21, hoping for a circumstance bonus since she just turned his own weapon against him. :D

Erin stood back for a moment, staying her hand as long as she had his attention. "There's a bomb in the basement," she told him sternly. "It's very old, and very unstable, and very dangerous. If it goes off, this building and half the block are going to be shrapnel so small it'll take Dr. Metropolis weeks to put it back together again. Anyone inside the building when it goes is going to be nothing but a bloody smear, whether or not they can shoot cute little icicle beams." She tapped the end of her staff on the floor for emphasis. "I'm here with a team to defuse the bomb and get it out of here before anyone is hurt, but we can't do anything until the building is clear. Every second we stand here makes it more likely that someone is going to get hurt. So either you get out, or you will be carried out on a stretcher, but you're not staying here, you understand? And the same goes for your girlfriend."

"I don't care if your girlfriend is cheating on her villain boyfriend!" Erin exclaimed, even as the hapless Canadian flailed about. "I don't care if the Thieves Guild has orgy parties every night. I'm not even here to arrest you today. I just want you to get out of the goddamned building! Preferably with some clothes on!" As the second ice blast came her way, she raised her bat, holding it like she was going for a line drive, and swung away. There was an audible crackle as the bat connected with the blast of cold radiation, and suddenly the silver metal began to glow. The ice blast stopped in its flight, curved around, and shot straight back towards The Mad Maple, hitting him square in the already-bruised chest. At least the policemen were wise enough to be staying out of the room for this, she thought with a sigh.

Miss A grinned at Nick's words, her chuckle more felt than heard through her chest pressed against his back. "Best view in the city," she agreed, before angling down for a landing. The shadows were beginning to gather as the sun sank in the western sky, lending an even deeper air of menace to the already sketchy-looking "church." "I've never been too fond of Lantern Hill," she admitted softly as she undid the straps that released Nick from the harness. "A little too spooky for me." She caught up with Harrier at the door to the church, already lifting her pad computer to find out everything there was to know about this building. "What do you know about her?" she asked Harrier, mentally bracing for things she probably didn't want to hear.

Erin hissed in pain as the radiation blast hit her, ice crystals forming on her uniform and spiking the ends of her hair. She shook it off and waved the police officers back, even as she activated her radio. "Stay out," she warned the cops, "that blast could kill you. Murdock, get around the back of the building and intercept a metahuman female in her underwear coming off the third floor!" She was mindful of the warning that the top floor was not structurally sound, but took a calculated risk and leapt up to grab an exposed water pipe overhead. Swinging her legs up, she tucked in the air and tumbled over a beat-up old recliner, coming down almost nose-to-nose with The Mad Maple. Before he could react, her bat was in motion, swinging somewhat awkwardly in the close quarters but nonetheless connecting solidly with his ribs. "We're trying to save your ass, you idiot," she warned him curtly. "This whole place could blow up. Now stand down or I'll make you stand down."

Free Action: Call Steve to circle the building and intercept Lady Underpants, tell the policemen to get back out of the room. Move Action: Acrobatic Bluff, DC 27 to resist Standard Action: Power Attack with bat. It's a 14, yuck.