Raveled

Ironclad rubbed at her helmet, wondering why in Finagle these people were hanging out together. Stress affected everyone in different ways, but this was ridiculous. She cut off Jill's ramblings with a heavy chop of her hand. "Alright! Listen, we can't risk going back to the hospital and bringing out another ambulance. So we're just going to have to wait here while the authorities come to us, okay?" The young genius had heard of the tests that Blackstone used on incoming prisoners, they might uncover whatever had been the catalyst of this incident.

Ironclad's Diplomacy check. (1d20+2=7) :eng99:

Jessica blinked at Thomas' sudden revelation. She wanted to stop him, to talk to him, but there wasn't time. She arrived at the elevator shaft and armored up. Her metal-clad fingers were more than capable of opening the doors before the on-board motors could, and stepped into the elevator car. She debated her options for a micro-second and blasted a hole in the floor of the cab. Her armored form dropped precipitously as she read Voltage/Thomas's email. The armored heroine fired her thrusters in time to hover in front of the lobby doors. She wrenched them open and stepped out into chaos. Buzzing swarms of flashing mechanical shapes, no larger than her thumb, harassed office-workers and engineers. A figure stood in the middle, exulting in the chaos. It was a large, hunchbacked figure, blood-red with a bright yellow head that looked like an ant's, complete with antennae. Or rather, all fashioned in that guise; it was the same face that had shown itself on every computer screen in the building. "Yes, my mechanical children," he shouted at them. "Yes, my swarm! Punish these close-minded fools!" He noticed Ironclad stepping out into the lobby and singled her out. "The heir! Attack, my swarm! Destroy the dynasty, and the whole corrupt edifice falls!" With that he stepped out the front doors, and measure of the tiny flying machines following him out, but more than enough stayed behind to be a threat to Ironclad. She considered the situation and quickly shot off a reply email to Voltage. 'Hive Tyrant's escaping out the front. Intercept him. I'm dealing with flunkies in the lobby.'

Voltage is facing one minion-type Swarm and one villain-type battlesuit. Ironclad is facing three villainous swarms. Hive Tyrant's Ini. (1d20+5=10) Swarm's Ini. (1d20+8=27) Swarm 1, 2, 3's Ini. (1d20+8=21, 1d20+8=21, 1d20+8=11) Ironclad's Ini. (1d20+3=15) Erym. Not gonna be fun...

Jessica nodded. She'd made an assumption about Corbin's family that had turned out not to be true; her silver spoon upbringing sometimes led her to the wrong conclusions about situations, and she had to work consciously to avoid it. Still, she respected Corbin's decision and she told him so. "You're being pretty mature for someone just getting out of high school," she pointed out. "Planning for your future, and worrying about what you'll do in twenty years? In a hundred years? You may have felt like you failed with Young Freedom, but at least the experience helped you grow."

Starlight didn't bother talking to the criminal. It was obvious that this woman -- or group of women, or woman duplicator, or whatever -- wasn't interested in talking. So the heroine calmly raised one hand and sent an overcharged blast of light energy heading straight at her. The energy blast shattered the glass doors, calling attention to the stark white figure floating into the control. "Dwayne," she said. "You have made some bad decisions this day. Regardless, I do not wish to harm you. Surrender, and stand away from the control panel."

Starlight Standard Action: Ranged attack on Merge, through the window. +5 Power Attack, +5 All-Out Attack. Starlight's ranged attack check w/ +5 Power Attack and +5 All-Out Attack, vs Merge's Def. DC 30 Tou (1d20+10=11) Oh fff-- Rerolling that. Starlight's ranged attack check w/ +5 Power Attack and +5 All-Out Attack, vs Merge's Def. DC 30 Tou. Reroll (1d20+10=24) Well... at least that should hit. Move Action: Moving forward into the control room.

There's also the fact that the Midnighters are strictly mystical. Now of course several of the members here have magical backgrounds, but Starlight is more comic and the first threat being the MG does tend to push them into the space category. Not to say that the Midnighters can't fight aliens, but this team might be a better bet for it.

Yeah, Iapetus has no chance of that. Tethys' Toughness save, vs DC 24. (1d20+9=27) Nope, no go. Initiative 22 -- Tethys -- Uninjured -- GM 13 -- El Heraldo -- Buisex2 -- HPx1 11 -- Iapetus -- Flat-footed (Glow) -- GM 10 -- Glow -- Uninjured -- HPx3 Tethys is up next. Tethys Move Action: Fast Startle against El Heraldo. Fast Startle check, vs El Heraldo. (1d20+13=18) DC 18 Will, Intimidate, or Sense Motive. Standard Action: Attempt to grapple EH. Tethys' melee attack check, vs El Heraldo's Def. Grapple. (1d20+9=25) That hits. Tethys' grapple check. (1d20+19=20)

Tona frowned as Sam reappeared with the bag full of... something. She reached in tentatively and pulled out a small, red something, slightly squishy and shaped like a kidney. Sam seemed to be eating it with relish, so Tona took a sniff and then bit it in half. As it hit her tongue, her eyes went very wide. She'd tasted sweet things before, mostly berries and other free-growing fruit, but nothing that was so concentrated. She popped the other half in her mouth and chewed vigorously. She reached for another one, a translucent one that looked almost exactly like a tiny kidney, and stopped herself. She looked down at the little sugary thing in her palm and considered. If this was all Sam had, they had to eat them slowly. Tona was an old hand at rationing, so she bit the second jelly bean in half and chewed slowly. "Try them on? Um." She looked around and saw a sign up near the ceiling that read 'Dressing Room' and pointed toward an alcove. "Alright. I'll be back." She dropped the uneaten half of the jelly bean in one pocket and took the clothes from Cerys, then disappeared into the dressing rooms. She found an empty booth and spread her possibilities out, examining them as she undressed. She was more used to choosing clothes for utility and camouflage, not for how they looked on her, but she tried. After a minute's consideration she pulled on the submarine shirt and the skirt. She didn't much see the point of wearing something without pockets, but she trusted the other girls to know what she should wear. She stepped out of the dressing room and back into the store proper, feeling the fabric of the skirt swish around her legs. It was a new sensation, very different from wearing pants! She stopped in front of the other girls and spun, showing it off from all sides. "Well?"

Let's just move on.

Ironclad leaned against the car, feeling minor burns and bruises as her system wound down from the high of a fight. "I'm not sure," she said, "but whatever was happening there wasn't fully under Ace's control." She glanced up at the top of the hill, where two more teens were sitting; well, one was sitting, the other was in a wheelchair. She nodded up the hill at them. "Excuse me for a second." She took a running leap and fired her thrusters, the jet-assisted jump taking her to the crest of the hill. She landed and regarded the teens with the blank face of her helmet. "Has anything like this ever happened before," she asked. "Has the big guy -- Ace -- ever exhibited any metahuman powers before today?"

So, just putting this out there. If you want to see Tona in a skirt or dress, you're going to have to suggest it to her.

Tona bit her lip as she wandered through the aisles. She looked at dresses and gowns and dismissed them straight off -- not nearly enough pockets for her taste. A long dress with a floral pattern hung in front of her face for a moment, and she almost laughed trying to picture herself in it. She picked up a white shirt showing a unicorn charging out of it. She'd heard of horses, she'd actually seen ponies running free on her homeworld, and weaponizing them seemed like a great idea, but Mali had suggested dark colors, so she put the shirt back. She found a few pieces that were to her liking; a blue shirt with a diving submarine on it (she'd seen pictures and been very excited about them, until she realized how much maintenance there would be on a weapon like that), a black shirt with a stark white anarchistic symbol on the front, and a red shirt with blue stars marching down the long sleeves. She couldn't find any pants she really liked, since most of them seemed to have very few or very small pockets. She hung her purchases from one hand (her right hand, she'd use her left to hold her bow) and walked up to Mali. "So... do we just pay for them, or what?"

Starlight is Dazed until the tanks attack. Do you want me to make a post of her being dazed?

The scaly sorcerer held his ground, keeping the glowing ring between himself and the heroes. "You impudent drythingsss will learn the folly of interfering with Iapetusss!" His free hand sketched arcane designs in the air, and the glow around the ring grew lambent and flickering. Suddenly it leapt up into a fireball and raced towards Glow! At the last moment though, El Heraldo made a heroic leap and took the hit for her, his costume looking decidedly singed around the edges.

Iapetus Standard Action: Attack Glow with Blast 11. Iapetus' ranged attack roll, vs Glows' flat-footed Def. DC 26 Tou (1d20+7=20) That will hit... El Heraldo, since he's Interposing!

Tethys' Dex save. DC 13. (1d20+2=21) Whelp.

As the Silver Spider was cursing her momentary lack of skill, she heard a whistling cutting through the air. Her sixth sense alerted her and she tried to dodge it, but she felt a number of hard impacts on her back and legs, like golfball-sized buckshot. Behind her, the frumpy woman in the sweater had shredded the garment, revealing a tight bodysuit cross-crossed by bandoliers studded with ball bearings. "Damn heroes," she spat. "Popping up out of the woodwork! Where were you hiding, you scrawny little thing?" The metal-framed glasses slowly deformed and warped into a spiky metal mask, and several more ball bearing detached from the belt and began to orbit the woman slowly. Starlight was put off by her inability to hold on to Sirocco, but she reasoned that she wouldn't be able to do anything to the man while he was in that state. So instead she turned to focus on the large man who had bumped her before, who was now surrounded by a boiling mass of dark tentacles. "Those who clothe themselves in darkness only make themselves more inviting targets for the Light," she shouted, firing off another strong blast of magic. It missed the man by a mile, though, smashing into one of the dioramas and scattering the pieces everywhere.

Ricochet Free Action: Switch array to Bombardment Standard Action: Attack Silver Spider. Ricochet's ranged attack check, vs Spider's Def. DC 25 Tou + Autofire (1d20+10=20) One point over Def, so DC 26 Tou. After that is Starlight. Starlight Free Action: Switch array to Blast. Standard Action: Attack Hooded Menace. Starlight's ranged attack check, vs HM's Def. DC 25 Tou (1d20+10=13) Miss. Initiative Order 15 - Bee-Keeper -- Uninjured -- HPx5 13 - Starlight -- Uninjured -- HPx5 8 - Siroccoro -- Insubstantial, Uninjured -- GM 8 - Hooded Menace -- Uninjured -- GM 10 - Silver Spider -- Uninjured -- HPx2 3 - Ricochet -- Uninjured -- GM Bee-Keeper's up next.

Tethys didn't seem at all concerned with El Heraldo's powerful declaration against them. "Pretty, tasty little things," she said, swaying back and forth. "Why don't you just lie down and let all your worries bleed away?" She darted in, moving with supernatural speed. Her hands were empty, but they struck like sledgehammers against his ribs. As she danced closer El Heraldo's world seemed filled with those blank, dead eyes, those sharp, white teeth, and those red, red lips.

Tethys' Ini. (1d20+2=22) Wow. Iapetus' Ini. (1d20+7=11) Nnnnot quite. Initiative 22 -- Tethys -- Uninjured -- GM 13 -- El Heraldo -- Uninjured -- HPx3 11 -- Iapetus -- Uninjured -- GM 10 -- Glow -- Uninjured -- HPx3 Okay, vampy up first. She'll take a swing at El Heraldo. Tethys' melee attack check, vs El Heraldo's flat-footed Def. DC 24 Tou (1d20+9=29) o.o Let's not force a super-huge Tou save, and instead get a free Stunt. Emotion Control 9 (Flaw: Limited [Fear Only]) So a DC 19 Will save or be overcome by fear.

GM Sirocco's eyes burned as he stared the alabaster alien hero down. "You may have me in a tight grip now," he taunted, "but can you hold the wind and the flame?" The burning spread to the rest of his body, and in a moment he was transformed into a dust devil, all blowing wind and dust and fire. He slipped out of Starlight's grasping energy hands, laughing as she swiped at him ineffectually. Hooded Menace stepped back from the display case, and suddenly his shadow spasmed and leapt forward. The glass shattered under the impact of many dark tendrils, then the man's hand reached into the display case and carefully picked up the canopic jar. He turned to the whirlwind and yelled out, "Sirocco! We're leaving!"

Sirocco Free Action: Switch Array to Insubstantial. Standard Action: Activate Insubstantial. Move Action: Float out of the grapple. Hooded Menace Standard Action: Smash the case. Move Action: Grab a jar. Free Action: Yell to Sirocco. That will trigger Spider's Ready action, so now she can attack.

Vincent was already pretty rattled from being kidnapped, and when the companion of the terrifying pirate queen stalked into his cell like death on two legs, that destroyed what little resistance he had left. He curled into a ball on the little bench he had to sit on, flinching away from the King of Suits' questions. "I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt! I just read Highfollow's thesis, and thought if I could make the meta-virus -- well, I'd be a shoe-in for graduate study! You don't know how hard it is to get into the grad programs at FCU. But it can't hurt anybody! The viral bodies only live for 48 hours, then they dissolve into protein." He unfolded slightly and sat on the bench, hunched over and looking defeated. "I can't understand how it got out. It was secured in the lab. Any of the students in the biology department could've gotten in, I suppose, but only me and my professor knew what I was working on!" He fell silent, but after a minute he spoke up again. "I don't know what you want Tory for. He's in sociology, he wouldn't know what a meta-virus is if it gave him West Nile."