behemoth, meet the opposition

[mrglam]

Sadde doesn't seem quite able to focus on homework at the moment. He's fidgeting, and sometimes stares off into space for long periods of time before James has to snap him out of it.

Comments

[peterxy]

It's a few days later. Glam is manning the console, Lorica's in her workshop, the other Wards and the heroes are out patrolling - they're quite understaffed.

So of course it should come as a surprise to no one when five ghostly images of Crusader surreptitiously float through the forcefield, then find and disable the forcefield generator.

[thinkering]

Alarms go off, of course, and alerts to all the patrolling heroes and Wards go out, and the PRT squads on call erupt from the building. Glam's newly replaced shoulderbot relays more detailed information as it comes in.

[mxglam]

Information is bad news, but at least it makes it obvious what the whole thing's about: Kaiser, Hookwolf, and Crusader are walking into the complex, calm as can be.

Glam generates a copy and tells their shoulder not: "Sending a copy upstairs, I'll be at the console and watch it through the camera." They transfer the shoulderbot to the copy, and it flies towards the elevator.

[thinkering]

"You might want more than one, with Crusader!"

[mxglam]

More copies are generated, and the elevator arrives.

Crusader's ghostly images are mostly occupied with the PRT uniforms, one or two clones per officer. Foam goes right through them, but their hits are quite effective. Whenever an officer is taken down for long enough, Kaiser creates a sharp iron cage for them.

[thinkering]

A couple of Lorica's robots are of all-plastic casing designs for almost exactly this reason; one sneaks up on Kaiser while another makes a more obvious assault as a distraction. Other bots grab foam sprayers and try to encase Hookwolf. Encasing Crusader will barely slow him down; she concentrates her forces for now.

[mxglam]

The receptionist isn't an "acceptable target" so all that they suffer is being terrified while in an iron cage.

The various copies of Glam that emerge from the elevator? Definitely an acceptable target. Crusader splits off more clones to deal with them, his stride only very slightly broken by the surprise. Kaiser uses long, thin, sharp, fast-emerging blades to stab at the obvious Lorica bots, and a Crusader clone appears to use its ethereal spear to attack the surreptitious one.

"Try to tranq the original Crusader, I don't think the clones can stay around without him!" real Glam says through the console.

[thinkering]

Robots fire at the original Crusader from various angles.

Hookwolf, meanwhile, has finally separated a target from the PRT herd and bit their arm off.

[mxglam]

...what the heck.

Crusader has a few clones surrounding himself and swatting various bots away, helped by Kaiser's blades appearing to surround his teammate.

Glam's copies materialize (with original Glam's help via cameras) various different guns. Two of them use a gun that electrifies and heats up metal against Kaiser and Hookwolf, while the remaining shoot clone-destroying blasts at the Crusaders. Kaiser causes blades to sprout from the floor and ceiling and other blades pointing at the copies, who have to fly very quickly to dodge.

Then Crusader calls out to Hookwolf, "The little faggot's real body's downstairs!" causing real Glam to turn around and throw themself to the ground just in time to avoid a Crusader clone's attack.

Armsmaster and Miss Militia choose this moment to appear at the door.

[thinkering]

Armsmaster and Miss Militia are all well and good but what they need is Rewind. "Rewind I need you back at HQ what is the holdup!?" Lorica says, as robots continue to try to maneuver to tranquilize Crusader.

[mxglam]

Rewind is silent for a few seconds before saying, "Night and Fog! Windflower and I just ran into them!" She sounds like she's been doing quite a bit of exercise for the previous few minutes.

And clearly the Empire has thought this through, because Dauntless calls in saying that Krieg and Cricket are holding him up. Crusader also seems to have come prepared for the robots, and Armsmaster has to jump out of the way as Kaiser makes various blades appear where his feet had been just a second previously.

The copy-Glams are stranded, having to make do with the weapons original has given them while original deals with two Crusader-clones downstairs. As for the arm Hookwolf tore off? Well, wouldn't you know that the elevator's palm-locked!

[thinkering]

"Give me your location and I'll send Transit to bail you both out!"

Miss Militia can shoot at the various enemies here but the Crusader clones are entirely too much in her way and don't care what she shoots them with, they just shrug it off.

[mxglam]

Radio silence from Rewind and Windflower.

Armsmaster uses his halberd to shoot a heavy metal ball at Kaiser, but is blocked by a sheet of metal that emerges from the floor to absorb the impact. Two Glams try to intercept Hookwolf's path, but three Crusader clones get in the way, and one of them manages to kill a Glam copy, and Hookwolf's way down is clear.

[thinkering]

"REWIND, WHERE ARE YOU. WINDFLOWER!"

Hookwolf puts severed hand to palm lock and descends.

[mxglam]

After a few seconds, Rewind's voice is heard: "I really hate these fuckers! I had to rewind Windflower and me, Fog's all around, what'd we miss?"

And look, here's a Hookwolf giving the Crusader clones that were attacking real Glam the severed arm. One of them floats back into the elevator with it while the other's moving his lance way too fast for Glam's taste, and apparently it counts as a person, or maybe Hookwolf is enough, but either way Glam can't make a turret appear behind him to shoot him. Glam manages to dissipate the clone, and stares at Hookwolf, making a fiery-looking gun appear.

"Why are you even here? You know where Purity is."

[thinkering]

"Give me your location now!" Lorica shouts to Rewind.

"We're having such an easy time," says Hookwolf, "why not spare a minute for a fag-hunt?"

[mxglam]

Rewind gives an intersection.

Glam doesn't say anything more, electing to try to melt Hookwolf with a flamethrower.

[thinkering]

Hookwolf's pretty agile. And also hooky and wolfy. So this doesn't get too far. He advances.

Lorica dispatches Transit to the intersection. He'll take a few hops to get there accurately.

[peterxy]

And in the meantime, Kaiser and Crusader deal with the heroes upstairs. Crusader himself looks rather worn out, and isn't generating any new clones, but the ones he's already made plus Kaiser are more than enough to buy time. Echo taps the comm to say she's run into Stormtiger, and no one acknowledges it from the console.

After a few minutes, Purity, Hookwolf, and a Crusader clone emerge again from the elevator. Purity immediately blasts Armsmaster away from a Kaiser-hit (though her blast is nowhere near as strong as it usually is), prompting him to lower the barriers he's erected around real Crusader and start making his way out.

[thinkering]

"As soon as Windflower's in I'll send her to relieve you," Lorica comms to Echo. "Disengage if it's dicey. Dad, ETA?"

"Nowhere near yet, and Fog's going to throw me off once I'm in short range -"

"Make it work. Land above and fall if you have to - Glam, status? -"

Glam's status: chomped.

[peterxy]

And being chomped is not very conductive to reporting one's status.

Purity doesn't help with blasts anymore, and Crusader's clones help her move; she's apparently too weak to fly on her own. Most of the clones have been dissipated by imaginary bullshit Glam-copy guns, there are only four left, but they've managed to murder a couple more Glam-copies. Between Kaiser, these remaining clones, and Hookwolf, the Nazi contingent makes its way out.

[thinkering]

"Glam -"

Lorica's low on robots and her armor only makes her a mediocre flying brick as such things go. "Echo, I'm swapping in for you, find Glam, I think something's wrong and you know first aid -" And she bounds up to where Echo's been fighting Stormtiger.

[peterxy]

Echo's close enough, and she says, "Stormtiger's gone, reporting to HQ," before Lorica actually reaches her location.

Rewind, likewise: "Night and Fog have retreated, I'm coming up."

And Dauntless: "Krieg and Cricket are leaving as well."

[thinkering]

Lorica reverses course. "Rewind, if you hurry you can fix the PRT guy missing a hand, I'm bringing the hand. Transit's still trying to intercept you for a ride back."

[peterxy]

And Rewind runs into Transit, and then she's in the PHQ. She takes one second to survey the scene, then reaches into a pocket of her new, branding-approved costume for a piece of wire she uses to quickly but tightly tie the wrist of the removed hand to the wrist of the non-removed hand. Then she boops the PRT uniform, and the wire returns to her pocket at the same time the officer's hand gets reattached.

"You got your hand removed, I just rewound you, you'll be sore, fragile, and raw around there because of lost tissue, and you've lost quite a bit of blood." She looks around, taking in the various wounded or dead Glam-copies. "Is any of these the real one? Do I need to rewind anyone else?"