Gizmo

"Not much of a talker, huh? That's cool," Jill mused aloud as she leaned a little out through the gaping hole in the wall she'd created to keep an eye on the captured villains up above. "Keeping focused, keeping your concentration. I mean, if I were to let mine slip, those guys up there wou- oh Dios!" The teenager recoiled in horror as though watching someone plummet to their doom. After a beat, she turned her head to give Bear-Knuckle a truly irritating smirk. "Psych! Seriously, though, getting bored. Mama said knock him out, Green Jeans."

"But at least it's a vaguely poetic kinda creepy," Jack noted with exaggerated optimism, keeping pace with the teenage powerhouse, sword at the ready and lithe musculature coiled. "You're handling this pretty well," he noted quietly to Wander, before hastily adding, "Not that I didn't think you would or anything, but I got the impression the ghoulies were sort of a sore issue for you." The swashbuckler kept his hushed tone conversational, and while the brief glance in her direction held a touch of concern, his footing suggested that he was perfectly confident the young woman had her side of the front line well accounted for.

Nice. So he's flat-footed against Ironclad's next attack and takes a -2 penalty to all checks and saves until Jill's next turn.

Jill O'Cure Free Action: Maintain Created Objects Standard Action: Auto-DC 30 Taunt w/ Skill Mastery Move Action: Auto-DC 25 Feint w/ Skill Mastery Set-Up: Transfer benefits of Feint to Ironclad

The Katanarchist actually holding the Grasscutter displayed surprising impressive evasion skills, ducking behind his remaining comrades as he avoided Miss Americana's red, white and blue beams. Before long, however, he was left standing amidst a considerable pile of groaning and unconscious red robed martial artists, clutching his prize in both hands as the blonde heroine hovered above. For a moment, he stood still, looking remarkably dejected for someone with most of his face covered, shoulders slumping in defeat. "Well, that's the last time I take a contract to satisfy a meme," Freebooter sighed, glancing over to where Geckoman had finally managed to free Spellbound from the robot's grip, the occult-themed technologist making aggressive use of her electromagnetic gadgetry to finish the job. Giving his patriotic opponent a courtly bow, the villain commented, "We'll meet again sooner rather than later, my dear, but this captain knows better than to go down with the ship." With that, he made a prodigious leap obviously beyond the capabilities of an ordinary human toward the shattered windows of the far wall. On the opposite side of the lobby, the Crimson Katana responded to Jack's sudden appearance in her way by smoothly pushing off with her hands to flip end over end into a kick that sent the fencer crashing back down to the floor even as it propelled her the rest of the way to her escape route. Balancing in the window frame, she paused for an instant before turning back long enough to call down, "You leave your guard down on your left." With that, she vanished from site. Sitting flabbergasted on the lobby tile, Jack could only let out an indignant, "Who was that?!"

"That's crazy, I can't be Harold Ramis," Jack protested, stepping past Nick into the theatre as the necromancer paused to take stock of their surroundings, joining Wander on point. "Are you calling me Rick Moranis, Bones? Because I will straight up fight you if you're calling me Rick Moranis." It took his a few moments to determine whether the rancid smell was actually there or a manifestation of his metamagi senses' synesthesia. "Okay, ew. Any idea what we should be watching out for, here?"

"Well, hey, I don't know about better," Jack assured Caradoc encouragingly with a casual wave. "Better looking in this extremely flattering bodysuit, sure, but..." The swordsman trailed off as Wander got right to business, suggesting a plan of attack. "The kid volunteers me for meat-shield duty because she cares," he explained to the others with a wry grin. "Aw, who am I kidding?" With a grandiose snap of his fingers, the metamagi drew a spark from the marquee, a ribbon of lightning streaking down to his outstretched hand where it solidified into a crackling energy blade. "Who ya gonna call, amirite?"

Wail made a low sound of consideration before turning to one of the police officers who'd pushed his way through the crowd of spectators and reporters. "That work for you, officer?" the towering man asked, not showing any strain from carrying Khuitan. Taking off his hat, the officer scratched his balding head. "Well, it's gonna take a bit to set up a cell for this guy," he admitted. Stocky and heavyset, he looked old enough to have been familiar with Wail before his retirement. "We got power dampeners, but those things are sketchy as anything, 'specially with physical types, y'know? We can probably leave 'im in League custody 'till that gets sorted," he decided, replacing his hat so that he could tip it politely to Fleur.

"Oho! I can't say I expected the beauty queen of all people to clue into my little private joke," Freebooter chuckled jauntily, vaulting through the air to land atop the robot's shoulder in a crouch, resting his diode studded cutlass on one knee. "I suspect you'd know, then, that ninjas only grow more deadly as their numbers decrease!" Looking a little more introspective for a moment, he shrugged. "I also get the impression that this lot is a bit mad, so..." As if confirming the pirate's hypothesis, the remaining ninjas leapt forward, blades flashing as they lashed out at Miss Americana. Their single-minded fervor seemed to strengthen their blows and quicken their strikes, but still they were no match for the patriotic paragon's impervious skin, which easily brushed aside their attacks. Sprinting into the melee, the Crimson Katana caught the ninja carrying her weapons off-guard, punching him squarely in the face and sending him flying backward as her etched blades fell from his hands and tumbled through the air. With a gesture, the mystic steel melted into liquid flame and slithered up the masked woman's arms, transforming into tattoos. Taking stock of the continuing chaos, she seemed to reach a decision and moved to begin climbing nimbly up the wall toward the high windows. "Hey, we're not finished here, lady!" Jack called after her indignantly, giving chase. Along the way, he used the robot the Freebooter was perched upon as a stepping stone, his energy rapier moving almost too quickly to follow in his wake. The swashbuckler backflipped through the air to connect with the wall just above the Crimson Katana, blocking her way. A moment later, the massive automaton let loose a ear-splitting creak before falling apart in two halves, bisected down the middle. The villain on its shoulder let out a brief yelp as he acrobatically managed to land on his feet atop the smoking remains.

Ellie took the opportunity to slug Eli in the shoulder before the speedster could pull all the way away. "Regular poker! It was regular poker," she insisted, raising the index fingers of each hand as she looked about the room as if to ward off any disagreement. "Regular. Poker." Her brother laughed aloud, shaking his head at his blond teammate. "Man, you gotta stop thinking I'm the one to worry about when you try to mess with mi hermanita." Reaching over, Erik tousled his sibling's hair, recently cut back down to a pixie cut. "She'll mess you up!" "Her? It's my files he talking about perusing!" Vince protested with exaggerated offense, his outfit shifting to nothing more than a long bath towel that he pulled tightly up around his chest in mock self-consciousness.

As Wander strode forward to join the heroes already on the scene, a flash of royal blue swung though the air, landing lightly in the space between them. Jack of all Blades brushed hair out of his eyes with one hand as he rose from his crouch as retracted his grappling line with the other, grinning broadly. "Hey, Bones, shoulda known you'd be around when the hair on the back of my neck stood up," he greeted Nick with a gesture vaguely like a salute before turning to the young woman approaching, and offering her a deferential nod deep enough to edge on being a bow. "And Slug- ah, Wander, too. The badassedness of the situation is on the rise." Though they more or less mended fences, the swashbuckler was careful to be on his best behaviour with the Claremont student. "Sir Galahad is new face, hello! What's going on?"

"And we're back to her," the Blank observed, tossing the last of his razor edged throwing disks with strangely casual disregard before producing a small device with a stud at the top. Even as he pressed the button, Midnight was diving away from the disks embedded in the steel wall behind him, twisting in the air to throw a handful of capsules behind him. With a short, electronic tone the projectiles detonated, the edge of the fiery explosion causing the capsules to burst and expand with a foamy chemical reaction, containing the worst of it."Honestly, what is--," The white-clad villain was cut off as Midnight used the momentum of his leap to transition into a haymaker his counterpart only just avoided. The body language of the two young men wasn't identical. Midnight's movements were a little more contained, a little more graceful, while the Blank gestured a little more grandly, strode with more obvious confidence. Even so, they were close, and trained as they both were at analyzing the myriad of non-verbal cues, they really had little need for words to convey their meaning. And so that punch told the Blank all he needed to know about Midnight's motivations. Behind his featureless mask, the Anti-Earth native allowed himself a small, cold scowl."Typical." With that, he resumed the battle in earnest, foregoing any of his remaining arsenal in favour of a flurry of body blows Midnight managed to catch on his forearms instead. Each silently agreed that they meant to finish things, and that it would be done with their own hands.

Ellie blanched at Eli's initial outburst, wincing as the speedster managed to awkwardly articulate what he was upset about. "Um. Whoops?" she offered. "Smooth," her brother drawled with a hint of amusement, resting his head in one hand and letting his younger sibling handle the situation for herself. "Shut up," Ellie retorted, absently punching Erik in the shoulder without looking over at him. "Sorry, Zip. I mean, I wasn't exactly advertising, but I kinda though everybody already knew at this point." More specifically, she was a little surprised it had taken so long for Lynn to let something slip. Admittedly, the medic hadn't been going out of her way to let Eli in on the news; he'd never really made a serious pass at her, but he was the Interceptor the closest to her own age and she hadn't been sure how he'd take it. "But, uh, yeah. That's a thing, anyway..." With an impatient noise, Erik interrupted, "Oh, give the poor guy a hug, already." Responding with another swift punch, Ellie sighed. "Fine, but we're not making it a habit or anything."

Wail didn't even attempt to dodge as a series of the inky blades impacted across his broad chest. Though not as resistant to damage as some metahumans, the big man had a lot of experience in taking a punch. Cracking his neck from side to side, the stepped forward with resounding footfalls. "Hah. You call that a shockwave, son? Let an old timer show you how we handled kung fu killers back in the day." Taking a deep breath, the aging hero let loose a torrent of sound, the bass vibrations rattling bones as he swept across the concealing shadows, catching their foe in a wide swath.

Wail Reflex Save vs. DC 27. (1d20+5=8) Toughness Save vs. DC 27. (1d20+12=22) Bruised and Stunned! Hero Point: Clear Stunned condition. Move Action: Get in position. Standard Action: Sonic Scream. That's a General Area Cone attack with a DC 27 Toughness Save and a DC 19 Fort Save.

"Up front and to the side, obviously," Erik drawled with a grin in return. "Can't have me making the groom look bad in comparison. But where am I going to find an ugly enough tux to make enough of a difference...?" he mused with exaggerated concern, his jovial manner suggesting he was well pleased to be a part of the ceremony. Ellie flushed a little at Lynn's enthusiastic response, her usually flawlessly composed manner failing her. "Well, I mean, she's always pretty busy with like, a million things, but um." She let her feet swing back and forth a bit off of the armrest as she looked away with a small smile in spite of herself. "Y'know. I'll ask." Vince appeared, life-sized on the television screen, wearing a tuxedo that was just over-the-top enough to suggest a classy lounge singer, a movie clapperboard in one hand. "Until they make a category combining Best Supporting Role and Best Special Effects, I may be snubbed, Lynnie," the gregarious AI admitted with a tooth filled smile. "I'll make sure to get some good shots, but you'll probably want somebody who can actually walk around the place capturing those happy memories, too!"

"No argument here," Wail agreed with a brief nod, stooping to heft the vine entangled wrestler over his shoulder with ease. Fortunately his super-dense muscle mass afforded him considerably greater strength than even his prodigious size suggested. The pair of heroes made their way back through the museum, the crumbling hole Khuitan had left in the wall still dropping bits of debris as they stepped outside. Additional police cars and news vans had arrived since the fight had broken out, which both groups rushing forward to greet them.

Sitting on the armrest of the chair her brother was reclining in, Ellie gave Erik an arch look. "Well?" Pulling back slightly, the elder sibling raised an eyebrow. "Well what?" "Do we have to worry about the House of Staves or the Broan space fleet or whatever showing up because you ticked them off?" she asked folding her arms. A sardonic smirk suggested she was at least partly joking, but her brother's history for making certain lasting impressions made it a reasonable concern. The fencer shrugged, bemused. "Hey, like half of my arch-nemeses are also on my 'potential wedding dates' list," he grinned. "It'll be fine. Dok's got a good point, those energy shields and a little advance warning'll go a long way if it comes to it." The smirk fell from Ellie's face as she turned to Lynn, focusing on one part of Erik's offhand comment. "Dates! Right. Um...?" The younger woman wasn't entirely sure what the proper etiquette was.

Hands shaking a bit from the mystic recoil of Heavyweight's blows against her construct, Jill grimaced. "Whoop, hey now, none of that." Thinking quickly, she lifted the bubble prisons and their occupants just off of the floor and with a broad gesture slammed them into the window she'd just slipped through. The wall gave way against the more durable force fields, leaving a substantial hole as they continued out into the open air. Lifting her hand upward, she sent all three rocketing skyward, until they hung suspended at the limit of her range. "You're probably gonna want to reconsider trying to break out of those, guys! On the bright side, there is a hospital right here, but still!" Turning a portion of her attention to the armored heroine giving the remaining villain a run for his money. "Hey, Ironclad, yeah? Sorry for butting in, but I was in the area and we have a mutual acquaintance who'd be super ticked if I let these guys manhandle you." Tilting her bead to one side slightly, she considered. "Or would that be bearhandle?"

"You're taking the whole thing awfully personally, is all," the Blank remarked casually as laser sharpened steel scraped against carbon fiber alloy with a spray of sparks. The well dressed young man swung smoothly down for a sweeping kick, only to have Midnight anticipate the move and leap over it back-flipping through the air. "Investing so many resources! Quite the puzzle," he continued, his voice unnervingly calm as he spun about and caught his double in the midsection with the other foot. Midnight rolled with the blow, tumbling away across the cavern floor before springing back up and launching forward again. Trails on inky black mist seeped from the seams of his uniform, leaving stygian trails as he brought both escrima sticks forward in a parallel strike, forcing the Blank to block with both his stiletto blades and opening him up for further attacks. "Seen you," he growled in a gravelly rasp. He knew he should remain silent, focus on the fight, but there was a morbid fascination in the verbal exchange. "Know it's wrong; let it happen anyway." His sticks whirled in matte black arc, a relentless assault that only the other combatant's extensive training allowed him to keep up with. "Coward." Behind his featureless white mask, the Blank's smirk turned to a cold, thin line. "Well now. Not about to take that from someone who confines himself to sentence fragments," he replied, twisting about to bring an elbow into Midnight's chest, following through with a deadly slash of his blade. This time his counterpart dodged low, but took a step back to circle warily, the two youth's examining each other for weakness. "You know nothing," the Blank insisted. "What do you think the life expectancy of a student outside of Hex or Pathos' camps was before I arrived? Can you even fathom the chaos I have to deal with?" Suddenly springing backward, he retracted his weapons back into his sleeves as razor edged disks appeared in his hands in their stead. A pair of sweeping motions sent a volley of the projectiles toward Midnight. Dropping backward nearly to the ground, the darkly clad vigilante avoided the first of the disks before forcing himself back into the air with a grunt to dodge the rest. The throwing weapons buried themselves, quivering, into the steel walls separating the pair from the rest of the battle. "Excuses. Could have gone underground," he condemned as he recovered his footing in time to sprint to one side as more of the disks arced through the air. "Could have fought back. Could have saved her."

Initiative. (1d20+2=6)

As Geckoman's limbs abruptly wrapped around its optical sensors, the robot stumbled backward, flailing one leg in the air, then the other. "Error! Error!" it shouted in a plaintive electronic tone, causing the other robots to lumber over and swing their massive metal arms ineffectually at the offending superhero. Unfortunately, is retained its bear hug on Spellbound, leaving the bizarre trio to dance about the lobby. The remaining Katanarchists swept past Jack of all Blades and his opponent, snatching up not only the fallen Grasscutter, but also the fire-etched blades on the swordswoman as they raced toward the door, eliciting a string of curses in at least two different language. "Wait, what?" Jack blurted, confused. Despite their similar costumes and apparently parallel goals, was it possible that the ninjas and the late arrival weren't on the same team? Wherever their loyalties lay, the silent thieves found their progress immediately halted by the patriotic paragon setting down directly in their path. "Children. No respect for classical archetypes," Freebooter bemoaned, tilting his head to one side as his high-tech monocle glowed with bright LEDs. The last robot, the one holding the security guard captive, straightened stiffly before tossing its hostage roughly to one side and moving to harry Miss Americana, obviously looking to buy its new master's employers time to make good their escape. "I trust you've more refined sensibilities, dear lady, ha ha!"

It took Wail a moment to parse that Push's piratical costume was only a costume, not his usual uniform, though it struck him in retrospect as likely for the best. Of course, in his day they'd managed just fine with their fists, but considering how woozy the younger man still looked, the broad-shouldered hero refrained from comment. "If Push can give an old man a lift again, fine by me," he told Silhouette agreeably, evidently ready to head out despite his relaxed manner, neither inclined to waste time talking nor to fret needlessly.

Alright, so, we talked about this in chat, but the gist of it is this: Jill's Creat Object have the Movable extra, which is basically Move Object limited to the things she creates. That also means she can use the rules for using Move Object to throw those force field bubbles around, so in this case through the hospital wall. She can't really miss the, y'know, room they're in, so forgoing the attack roll. Instead, lets get things smashing! The first bubble hits the wall for a DC 27 Toughness save. Taking 10 with a +5 Toughness, the wall gives way easily. The bubble, with +12 Toughness, is Injured but still intact. The remaining two bubbles follow the first one out through the hole in the wall. Once they're outside, Jill sends them as far upward as she can. How far that is depends on the weight of the villains, but it's pretty darn far, and presumably high enough to make breaking about and falling a poor plan. All of which is only a Standard Action, so she'll also make an auto-DC 25 Taunt against Bear Knuckle as a Move Action via Skill Mastery!

"That's what I'm saying," Ellie called through the visor of her helmet as the motorcycle accelerated down the road, "fringe benefits." The medic wasn't typically one to place particular value on vehicles, particularly as she'd developed a taste for parkour since first donning the crimson bandanna mask of Jill O'Cure, but she certainly wouldn't have been able to press up so close to Mara in a car without violating a few traffic safety laws. Of course, there was also something to be said for going really, really fast.