rogue, meet hero

[peterxy]

Most of the time, patrolling is a dull, uneventful affair, somewhat akin to the Ankh-Morpork City Guard ringing their bells and calling "All's well!" at night.

Sometimes, it's not.

Dauntless was not expecting to run into two unpowered Asian gangs (Japanese and Korean? that's what it looks like at a distance) duking it out in the middle of the street. Granted, it's the evening, and it's not quite the most well-frequented of streets, but still.

He decides to call for backup, not because he wouldn't be able to take them on, but because he's supposed to do that whenever confronting another parahuman or a large number of non-capes, at least until he graduates. He turns the comm on and describes the situation - a bit over a dozen people on each side, arguing and brandishing blunt weapons and in some cases guns - then waits and watches.

Comments

[peterxy]

Dauntless is undaunted by the mysterious changes of the battlefield, though it's unclear whether that's because he doesn't notice them between bumping people and dodging bullets that are becoming increasingly scarce thanks to Lorica or because he deems it not-a-threat for now.

He is pretty surprised when he has to suddenly take a sharper turn than usual to dodge a person in a smiling demon mask carrying knives that appears in front of him all of a sudden.

[thinkering]

Lorica comms it in: "One or more unexpected capes on Dauntless's scene. Appeared suddenly, I didn't see him before so call it Mover. Going in." Dauntless can handle knives - from the direction of his shield. Lorica's named after armor for a reason. She hops off the roof vantage point and wades in.

[mxglam]

She is not the only one!

An energy bolt that looks like something out of a Tinker gun flies in Oni Lee's direction but misses, and flying away from its origin is another cape, in a featureless white bodysuit, their face covered by a white glassy pane with a drawing of a face that shifts and moves as if it were a real face. They also happen to be holding something that looks like a stun gun.

[peterxy]

The demon mask cape's power starts becoming apparent when a clone of theirs appears behind one of the Korean gangbangers and stabs him before their original dissolves in a puff of white powder. The clone does that after a second as well, but no new one is immediately apparent.

Dauntless takes this in and decides that his priority is protecting the lives of the bangers being attacked by the mysterious new cape (well, one of the mysterious new capes) while they run for it.

[thinkering]

And only some of them can even run for it; a few of them are sleeping off tranq darts. Robots sit on unconscious people, ready to attack anyone unallied who approaches.

"On my way," says Velocity over the comm. "Can you get a tracker on him?"

"I can try," Lorica says. "Confirm Mover, some kind of duplicating teleportation power, temporary clones?" She readies a tracking device; it'll spring out from under the plates of her armor at anyone suddenly appearing. "Plus unfamiliar rogue-or-something likely Tinker apparently engaging the Mover."

[mxglam]

Rogue-or-something continues engaging the mover, trying to hit them with the laser gun thing and failing. They keep failing to hit for a while - not only is the Mover a teleporter, apparently they are also pretty agile - before deciding to change tacks. The gun disappears in a way somewhat reminiscent of Miss Militia but white and is replaced by another gun that looks slightly more advanced. When they shoot with that gun, the bolt actually curves some to follow its target.

[peterxy]

The Mover is hit! ...and dissolves into a cloud of dust. They reappear on a rooftop and then teleport right behind the rogue.

Dauntless, meanwhile, seems to have decided that his boots aren't good enough for dealing with that and is going after the gangbangers again.

[thinkering]

Lorica abandons the defense of the unconscious gang members; she spreads her robots out over the field so they can attack an appearing teleporter with better reaction time. There's only eight of them today. "Behind you!" she says, audible outside her helmet this time.

Velocity skids into view. "Which is which?"

"Demon's the Mover."

[mxglam]

The rogue yelps then tries and fails to dodge, being scraped by the knife. Apparently their bodysuit is at least slightly resistant to that, though, no wound can be seen. The rogue flies away, twisting towards the teleporter and shooting him-

And he's dust again. Where is he?

Right in front of Dauntless, that's where.

[thinkering]

Two of the nearest robots hum in his direction, brandishing tranqs and in one case a stun gun. Velocity zips up to Dauntless and pulls him out of the way at accelerated speed before he gets knifed; Lorica's tracking device springs out to land on the Mover.

[peterxy]

It does land on the Mover!

...and is duplicated, right behind Lorica, where the Mover seems to have gotten his hands on a small beeping explosive device.

It's duplicated again, before the original one has even crumbled to dust, this time behind the rogue, and leaving its copy of the small explosive device attached to the rogue's bodysuit.

And it's duplicated a third time elsewhere. The first of the four starts crumbling to dust about now.

[mxglam]

The rogue notices this, and the part of their bodysuit the explosive device got attached to seems to rip itself from the rest of the suit, and the rogue flies away from the device.

[thinkering]

Lorica gets airborne too; a robot tases the copy of the Mover that was going to explode her. Robots zero in on the most recent instance of the tracking device at her murmuring.

[mxglam]

The bomb intended for the rogue goes off before hitting the ground, and while the explosion isn't that big, it'd still be enough to hurt and/or knock out someone not built to withstand that, as well as possibly damage certain pieces of armor.

The rogue examines the battlefield, where most of the gangbangers are unconscious and the remaining are either fleeing (in the case of the Koreans) or trying to take Dauntless out (in the case of the Japanese). They decide to go help the Ward, zigzagging in flight to evade the Mover and shooting the remaining bangers with the stun gun.

As for Lorica's tracking device, well, it is now five different tracking devices, one of which belongs to a Mover trying to stab Dauntless, one to a Mover trying to stab Velocity, two to Movers trying to stab (the first) and explode (the second) Lorica, and the last one on a rooftop pausing for a second to look at the battlefield.

[thinkering]

Lorica snatches the knife out of the stabbing one's hand before it scratches her faceplate; she doesn't like hand-to-hand but she can manage, now, if she has to. The panel the exploding one attaches the bomb to judges itself dangerous, ejects, and summons surrounding panels to squinch in around her so she's not left unprotected.

Robots converge on the rooftop copy, firing tranqs.

[mxglam]

He's fast! The copy that's on the rooftop has been tranquilized but there's another one down on the floor level spending a second to localize himself and oop he's behind the rogue again, who is currently paranoid enough to notice this and attempt a kick before being stabbed.

Gangbangers have all been dealt with by now, so Dauntless mostly tries to predict where the Mover will appear to stab him with the glowing spear.

[thinkering]

"He keeps scoping out the battlefield - Velocity, here, have a tranq dart, you're faster -" A robot offers Velocity a dart from its supply. "I'm going to take out some streetlights."

Robots go and short out streetlights.

[mxglam]

The rogue gets the idea and flies close to Dauntless. "Your stuff's too bright, stop moving," they say, an androgynous voice making assumed pronouns unclear.

Dauntless blinks and stops moving for long enough for the rogue to make a small spheric device that produces thick but quickly dissipating smoke around them, covering their body from about shoulder down. Dauntless gets the hint and lowers his spear so it's also hidden by the smoke, while keeping his shield (which doesn't emit light yet) up to protect against potential stabbing.

Streetlights start going out one by one,

The Mover attempts to stab them once, forcing Dauntless to swat him away with his spear, but then he's ashes again.

[thinkering]

Lorica and her robots can see in the dark. Where is he?

[peterxy]

He-

-seems to be gone.

The darkness makes Dauntless uncomfortable, but he doesn't move. No new copies of the Mover appear.

[thinkering]

"That seems to have done it, at least for now," Lorica says over the private comms. A robot lands on the rogue's shoulder to whisper in their ear too. "Anybody have something good to trap him with if he comes back when a light goes on again? Foam? Velocity?"

"Sprayers fall apart when I run them," Velocity says ruefully. "We can call in the PRT; they'll take a few minutes, though."

"Rogue?"

[mxglam]

"I can make a foam sprayer appear, or pretty much anything. It's getting him to be in a single body for long enough to count that's the problem."

[thinkering]

"Don't have to illuminate much space. He may've already run off, though."

[mxglam]

"If we illuminate anything again he might just think - correctly - it's a trap, though, and not come back anyway."

[thinkering]

"Yeah. Might be a lost cause. Worth a try?"