blasto, meet official opinions on self-replicating minions

[peterxy]

The PRT catches wind of a strange increase in disappeared domestic animals in the downtown area. Given that the people who live there are the rich and powerful, this is clearly a problem that needs to be investigated and solved immediately. The PRT, of course, agrees that this is of utmost importance, and not just because of precedent about mass abductions of pets, of course not, why would you think that, they are so very worried about Fido, even Scion recognizes the merits of rescuing lost pets.

(Lorica's asked to maybe keep a few more eyes there than she has been.)

Comments

[thinkering]

And the bots chase monkeys and set them the fuck on fire, ready to foam anything other than monkeys that catches; and bots are trying to contain the ones that are still in the building; and bots are directing evacuees to MOVE IT.

[peterxy]

Evacuees are moving it but there's panic and disorder, they have not been trained about evacuation to free from hybrid monkeys.

The bots set one of the flying monkeys on fire, and it catches. The monkey it's holding doesn't, and disentangles itself from the flying one, and falls onto its death-

Wait, nope, not its death, it cracks on the concrete and vines start growing from it, and those vines are now roots and it's starting to grow a tree-

And of course, similar fates befall any other monkeys the bots don't manage to strictly incinerate before they hit the ground.

[thinkering]

The bots start ganging up on the monkeys to make sure they're ash and not - seeds. Bots set fire to the tree.

[mxglam]

But the monkeys just keep coming there are so many of them, good thing Glam's making lots of bots, rig-

BEEP

Suddenly a little more than half the bots Glam has made disappear simultaneously, not in a predictable pattern except for "not the ones Glam was looking at that exact moment."

[thinkering]

"Suicide run bots!" Lorica says. "Shaped flame charges with bot chassis, keep them coming, they'll wreck themselves as fast as you can make 'em." The shoulderbot indicates where they need to be.

[mxglam]

Glam makes them!

[thinkering]

They promptly sacrifice themselves for the cause!

[acanofworms]

Not exactly too little, too late, but too little, too late. Even some monkeys that are burnt down manage to grow into large enough trees that they smother the fire.

That's around the time Armsmaster arrives on his bike with Drupe, a couple of PRT vans only about two minutes behind him. "Contain them," Armsmaster practically hisses to Drupe as he uses his Halberd as a grappling hook to get into the building.

[alicornucopia]

Drupe does his best, although not before glaring behind his mask at Armsmaster for hissing. Rude.

[peterxy]

Drupe will find it simultaneously easier and harder to control these hybrids: they have more plant matter than animal in them, but they're also stronger and more capable of resisting his control. Still, he manages to reduce and eventually stop the outflow of flying monkeys if he keeps concentration.

The Protectorate has pressed full panic mode now, however, with two dozen trees growing downtown in many different places, and monkeys protecting them from the kamikaze-bots. The higher-ups have called New Wave, who will be joining the fight shortly, and Glimmer, Silica, and Velocity are to come at once.

PRT officers have sectioned off the area and are busy evacuating civilians from all nearby buildings, and some of the downtown air raid sirens are sounding so they can evacuate their buildings and go to Endbringer shelters. The higher-ups message Lorica and tell her if she can find a way to burn that building down without damaging the other ones and making sure Armsmaster and the villains aren't in it she should do it.

[thinkering]

Lorica promptly solicits from Glam more foambots. She coats adjacent buildings in a protective layer of foam and sends in Lorica-copies to evac E88, comms Armsmaster to be ready to get out on her signal.

[mxglam]

Foambots: are provided.

The Empire's in bad shape. Purity's mostly unharmed but she's definitely outnumbered. With Drupe's help slowing monkeys and vines down she's managing to get the upper hand but it's slow going. Hookwolf isn't having a whole lot of success, and has been trying to escape for a while now. Crusader's pretty much okay, if exhausted from using so many duplicates. Stormtiger, Krieg, and Cricket are having Lots Of Trouble doing anything other than surviving, and even Fog's only still Fog-shaped because that's better than being a human. Only Night's been met with undeniable success, though both of them return to human form when Lorica directs them outside.

Evacuation starts but is slow.

[thinkering]

Lorica-copies are willing to fly villains out of the conflagration-to-be if necessary to get the place empty stat.

[alicornucopia]

Here come Miss Militia and Windflower.

[mxglam]

"Lorica, don't burn the thing, I have an idea," Glam says into the comm for everyone to hear. "Windflower, if we manage to evac everyone, I could conjure a containment thing around the building and you could poison everything. Think you could do it?"

[thinkering]

"Yeah," says Windflower. "I can poison the heck out of everything if it's contained real good. ...Can it be see-through so you can have copies in with me in case something doesn't die?"

"Of course they can," Lorica says.

[mxglam]

"Yup, sure. Okay, evac evac, come on stupid nazis get out."

New Wave has arrived! Not on this scene, they've scattered around to fight other monkey-trees, as have the other heroes. Armsmaster leaves the building and gets on his bike to reach the closest non-burnt-down tree, and after all villains have been removed from the building Glam makes a copy say, for the Empire's benefit, "Get the heck out I'm gonna contain and she's gonna poison the place!" And after they've done it: transparent containment dome.

[alicornucopia]

Once the containment's up Windflower lets loose with a combo of the most lethal, corrosive stuff she's got as fast as she can make it.

[mxglam]

And the monkeys start perishing in contact with the poisons - nowhere near as fast as humans would, but still pretty damn fast.

"Okay, we got a bunch of other trees to do this to, we should move."

[thinkering]

"You want to Windflower all of them? ...Oh, of course, you'll just make the containment thing selectively permeable to Windflower alone and check on it every half hour."

[mxglam]

"Of course," they say, having planned nothing of the sort.

[thinkering]

"Wait, so I can just walk out?" Windflower asks.

"Is the place full?"

"Yeah."

"Then yep, you can just walk right through and a bot will show you to the next tree."

So Windflower walks out.

Meanwhile, the bot flock continues kamikaze and ranged operations against monkeys and trees and monkeys attempting to emerge from trees and trees attempting to emerge from monkeys.

[peterxy]

Monkeys, trees, monkeys emerging from trees, and trees emerging from monkeys abound. Dead monkeys are carted back to trees by other monkeys for raw biomatter, and these monkeys are pretty dense with lots of redundant biology, so they apparently can duplicate even without having to eat anything.

And there are still so many.

[thinkering]

"Look, this isn't solving the underlying problem, which is that Blasto made these things. This - this outbreak is a disaster and he'd need a fragment of one of the organisms to start a dozen more just like it. He was using pheremones last time we busted him, he may still be doing that, can we - track those and find him and get him a ticket to the Birdcage?"

[acanofworms]

"If these things were on purpose he already has a ticket to the Birdcage or worse," Armsmaster says between blows with a dozen monkeys. "If you have a suggestion on how to track him I'd love to hear it."