You are (Not) the Heroes IC

Dove yelps from the pain of being struck by the energy attack, then jumped by the rifter, but he holds his ground and his eye flashes, commanding his doves to swerve around and all dive-bomb Haven at once, aiming to take the ex-hero out of the fight. It leaves him vulnerable, but he trusts Gaia's healing skills to prevent anything too serious.

Mechanics:

Madame Mask pulls a face at Vanish's lack of action. Between her magic and Sunset's guns having no effect, they have no reason to act. Still, very few are immune to one of the key skills in a superhero's arsenal: talking. She lowers herself closer to Vanish, and whispers "System Complex, don't you think this is going too far? Surely there are more productive ways for revenge." Hopefully between everything she's seen and heard, she was gonna be on the mark with Vanish's identity, otherwise this'll be a short conversation...

Testing Chamber
The communication card lights up again. "Um, the rest of the team are outside, and they've got some villains cornered, apparently? You might want to check that out."

"Well- hrm - I believe there's your course of action, then." Lex says, clearing his throat. "I can handle myself, for the most part."

The door, which appears to have shut itself during the fight despite no one moving it, creaks open again.

(For the purposes of combat, you can now join the other fight if you're so inclined.)

Lab
Y͔͙̫̩o̞̹̥ṳ͕͈'̥͚͔r͚͉̖e̝͓ ͉̩͓̤̜̤̟ṛ̣̯ͅi͓̼̖̗̺͓̟g̩̤͔͍͕̖h̺̫̗̠̥t.̺̖ ̲̻Ṭ̻͖̦̦he̗̬͉̤re̫̹̝ ̗̱̩̺͓ar͓͉͈̲͙̼ͅe͕. H̩̗a̤̞̱ve̫̦̟͎̬ṋ̖,͎̠͖̞̠̬ ͔̱̪k̖̻̭̩͈̺i̞͇n̯d͎̱̟̼͕̰̟l͉̪̼y͉ ̻̤̗̠͔̣͙c͖͍l͉e͉̯a̘̠͓̰̙̠͈n̦ ͉̱͍͖u͙p͕̞̯ ͈̤̤̰h̗̰̘̟̠̜ḙ̝̖̼̗͈ͅr̲̱̙̣̠e̼̗.

"Wait, what?"

Vanish steps away from the console, raising their foreleg. Clearly seen within the shadow comprising the limb is... a data chip. Not the one plugged into the console, but a different one. Madame gets the sense that Vanish is smiling as they give the assembled heroes a bow, and... vanishes, disappearing into the shadows. Madame can tell with her tracking magic that they are nowhere in the building, instead reappearing a few kilometers away in the rundown parts of town.

"You ass--!"

Haven looks incredulous at the disappearance of Vanish, before he is struck by an avalanche of birds and is sent careening into a wall. The moment before impact, however, his horn flashes with a brilliant blue light, and a new, tiny dimensional rift starts to open up in the middle of the room. Meanwhile, Haven slowly slides down the wall he is smashed into, clearly out cold.

The Rifters attack again, apparently unfazed by Haven's defeat. When Sunset shoots at one of them, she finds that the shot goes through the thing like putty, but it doesn't slow the Rifter down at all, who proceeds to attack Sunset again, this time with a hole through its head. The other rifters also stick to their original targets, except one of the ones attacking Gaia goes for Dove instead, and the one that stumbled through Madame's illusion goes after Sunset instead.

Sunset doesn't think she's heard of a weakness for Vanish, but that hardly seems relevant now.

Summary
Vanish poofs out.
Haven summons a Portal and then is knocked out.

The Tiny Portal looks menacing.

Rifter 1 deals 11 to Gaia (Single Attack).
Rifter 2 deals 12 damage to Dove (Single Attack).
Rifter 3 deals 10 damage to Dove (Single Attack).
Rifter 4 deals 9 damage to Sunset (Single Attack).
Rifter 5 deals 13 damage to Sunset (Single Attack).

Enemy List and Condition:

Sunset feels herself being rejuvenated...and then that rejuvenation smacked back out of her. Now there were two of them on her.

After a quick glance around, her gaze settles on the SOLUS and LUNA suits still on display in the lab. Much as she hates using Lexicon Author's tech instead of her own, it's clear that those suits have bigger guns than hers. And right now, she needs bigger guns.

She throws her hat into one Rifter's face and pops a round into the other as she ducks past them and makes for the LUNA platform.

"ALEXIS, if you're hearin' me, open the LUNA suit! Bug the drake for whatever code ya need!"

Might as well see LUNA has to offer that SOLUS doesn't...

Actions:

Status:

Gaia breathes a sigh of relief as Haven goes down, before immediately planting herself firmly in front of Dove and letting out a howl of challenge, while wild magic flows from her claws and wraps around Dove, patching up his wounds.

"Keep your head down, little one. You've done plenty already."

Mechanical Stuff:

Dove gladly accepts the cover, hiding behind Gaia and commanding a platoon of bandage-bearing doves to descend upon himself and Sunset, festooning both in copious amounts of bandages. Dove isn't sure if that's how healing works, but he feels better anyway.

Mechanics:

Madame Mask floats idly in surprise for a moment. She wasn't expecting that. But this was no time to ponder her next move, Vanish will have to wait. Madame Mask turns her attention the tiny, menacing portal, planning to magically swat it out of existance...

(Arcana Check: 6 / 5 (Roll / SotA Reroll) + 19 (Skill) = 25)

Daff looks to Crimson, then back at Lex before nodding at the decision. "Take care, Mr. Author," he says, giving the dragon a smile.

"I hope the others are alright," he says to Crimson before galloping towards the door.

A minute or two later, he charges through the conveniently already-knocked-open door of the room. "Rousseau and I are here to help!" he declares before slowing just a bit as he takes in the chaos of bandage-carrying doves, bird-peppered floor and walls, and rifters.

With one threat dealt with and informed about the situation with the other team, Crimson was considering his options before Daff spoke up and bolted in order to go and join the rest of the team... not that he could blame him or anything. However, unlike his partner in crime he decided to sit down for a moment as getting shocked repeatedly seemed to have a lot greater an impact on him then it did on his much more tanky friend. Since no one was screaming for back up, he was trusting that they had the situation under control while he let feeling return to his body and got his breath back. Looking at Lex, he nodded his head to the dragon before saying "Seems your stuck with me being the last line of defense for a little while longer. Are you alright?"

Testing Chamber
"I am, thanks to you," Lexicon sighs, sitting down himself. "I do not regret sponsoring your team in the slightest. I had my doubts, but you all turned out to be competent operatives."

Lex, Hero Sunset Raider requests access to the LUNA suit on display in the Laboratory.

"Hmm? Grant access, and make available all LUNA modules in the lab." Lexicon says.

He starts to say something else, but his face (scales? Dragon biology is weird) turns pale as he stares at something behind Crimson. When Crimson, he is met with the chilling sight of the discarded SOLUS suit filling with eerie blue energy and slowly pulling itself to its feet.

The door slams shut.

Lab
The portal fluctuates as Madame Mask tries to magically dispel it, but it persistently remains, rippling with instability. A blast of energy leaps out of the portal, as though in response to the attack, and strikes Madame, the space around her twisting with dimensional energy.

The Rifters mob up on Gaia, battering her with their putty-like limbs, which inexplicably harden on impact to deliver a nasty punch. One of them actually explodes their limb while it punches Gaia, the putty-like substance detonating on impact and arcing out in a shower of energy that hits Dove and Madame Mask as well. The limb then reforms, though notably thinner than before.

The one fixated on Sunset still continues its assault on her, ignoring the hat that Sunset threw on it, but another one turns towards the Tiny Portal and scrabbles towards it, thrusting a limb into the hole in space and promptly is exploded into violet energy that flows back into the portal, opening it slightly wider, though to Madame's expert senses it seems like the portal would have grown more if she hadn't tried to interfere with the portal.

The LUNA suit glows violet momentarily, and to Sunset's surprise it lashes out and punches the Rifter attacking Sunset in the face, which tears the thing's head straight off, though again the Rifter doesn't seem too affected other than be mildly inconvenienced. Taking the distraction, Sunset can quickly slip into the suit, and the familiar voice of ALEXIS comes up.

Welcome back, Sunset Raider. All systems are operational. Lex has authorized use of the Prototype LUNA suit.

The suit starts to set up, but it seems like it'll take a while...

(It will take a turn for the suit to fully set up, meaning she has to skip her next turn.)

Summary
The Small Portal deals 9 damage to Madame Mask. (Not technically an attack)

Rifter 1 deals 12 to Gaia (Single Attack).
Rifter 2 deals 13 damage to Gaia (Single Attack).
Rifter 3 deals 15 damage to Gaia, 7 damage to Dove and Madame (Burst Attack).
Rifter 4 deals 12 damage to Sunset (Single Attack).
Rifter 5 is dematerialized by the portal.

ALEXIS punches Rifter 4 in the face and deals 10 damage and Weakness 10. (Single Attack)

Enemy List and Condition:

LUNA prototype stats:

The weird putty-like things... Putties? Putters? Puti? ... The evil things lash out at his friends. Most of them seem to be focused on Gaia, who, just like before, seems to be handling it with grace, strength, and overflowing heroism-

Rousseau stomps on Daff's head. Right! Things are still attacking his friends - including her whether she's being heroic about it or not!

Of all of them, Sunset, who is focused on engaging one of those neat suits, seems to be the worst off. Another of the evil playdough creatures rushes towards her. Daff gallops in, placing himself in the way. "Hurry! Rousseau will cover you!" he calls to her.  "Together we will be a hoof in the eye of evil!" he roars enthusiastic to her.

(ATTN: Sunset)

Reactions:

Actions:

Summary:

Status:

For a moment, Crimson closed his eyes as he took a deep breath before letting out a loud sigh. "I'm about to turn around and get the absolute horse apples kicked out of me, aren't I?" Slowly turning around, the expression on his face when he saw the newly reactivated SOLUS rising up off the ground seemed to be that of grim acceptance; This was going to be incredibly painful and considering how round 1 had gone, he wasn't going to be standing by the end of it. Granted the suit didn't seem to be in the greatest of conditions either, but neither was he...

He wasn't going to win this fight. He could admit that to himself... but that didn't mean he wasn't going to throw everything he had left to cause some serious damage and try to slow it down.

Taking a moment to look through his remaining supplies, he idly tossed a small pallet towards the rising suit, bursting into a cloud of smoke that would hopefully mess with its weapons and more delicate circuits. "Lexicon, if you happen to have some kind of death ray or something hidden away, now would be the time to whip it out."

Actions:

Status:

Gaia growls at the incoming Rifters, her form shifting slightly as her fur seems to harden momentarily taking on a wooden appearance that the Rifter's blows just seem to bounce off of. The exploding hoof, though, catches her off guard, and she grunts as she feels a stab of pain in her side. Turning around, she roars angrily and swipes all around her, retaliating against her foes in a wide sweep of her claws.

With that done, she quickly sends another ripple of energy through to Dove, before she practically falls forward and crushes the first Rifter under her weight, pinning it under her and trying her best to squash it despite its amorphous putty-like physique. She also leans forward and catches another Rifter in her jaws, chomping down savagely. Finally she sends a burst of wild magic that produces vines and roots, entangling two more of the rifters.

Noticing Daff's heroic entrance, Gaia spits the bits of Rifter in her mouth out, saying, "Welcome to the hunt, Sunshine. Unfortunately, these... clay things, don't have eyes, but they're not so tough to knock over. You should try it."

She punctuates her statement by rearing up and giving the Rifter trapped under her another good bodyslam.

Mechanical Stuff:

Sunset steps into the LUNA suit while Daff is busy intercepting the rifter's attacks and waits for it to finish closing around her and coming online.

Status:

Sunset LUNA Stat Block:

Dove looks a lot less harried now that Gaia has taken some of the aggression off of him, and he hunkers down, focusing on his connection with his doves to prepare for another big attack. Whatever the portal is trying to do, he'll be ready for it.

"Try not to let them near the portal! They're trying to do something, um, I don't know what but something bad!"

Mechanics:

Madame Mask shelters her face with her forelegs as she gets pelted by different energies. When she pulls her hooves away, she eyeballs the growing portal, and continues her efforts to close it...

(Arcana Check: 2 / 6 (Roll / SotA Reroll) + 19 (Skill) = 25 (Again))
(HP: 84)
(Invisible)

---

Meanwhile, still with Crimson and Lex, the fake Madame Mask points at new moving suit and announces "I see something here."

Crimson
"I'm - ack - I'm working on it!" Lex replies, and when Crimson looks, sure enough the drake is all over the wrecked suit, pulling parts out and pulling together what looks like... an impromptu death ray? It looks like some kind of gun, but Crimson can't be sure.

The suit, meanwhile, appears to conjure up a shield just over the surface of the armor that keeps the smoke at bay. It marches towards Lex, hampered by the smoke and some kind of internal damage that makes its movements sluggish compared to the swift (albeit jerky) motions of the previous suit. It doesn't make any other attacks otherwise.

Summary
The suit spends its turn walking towards Lex.

---

Everyone Else
The Rifter under Gaia is completely pasted, reduced to a puddle of grey kinetic-sand-like putty that wiggles slightly but otherwise seems out of the fight. The other one that was attacked by Gaia seems to consider heading towards the portal, but after witnessing the fate of its companion turns towards Gaia and attacks, its limb morphing into a nasty looking sledgehammer construct that hits Gaia like a tonne of bricks.

The Rifter confronting Daff tries to go past him to get at the vulnerable Sunset, morphing its limbs into two sharp spikes it tries to impale the suit with. Meanwhile, the suit fully boots up, and Sunset hears ALEXIS' voice: ALEXA personality online. Suit is ready for operations. She feels the suit's artificial muscles flex and contract in tandem to her movements, and now she's able to move, the HUD of the suit lighting up with analysis of the scene at hand and various controls for the suit.

Sunset Raider, not all suit attachment slots are occupied, meaning the suit is not operating at optimal efficiency. Would you like to retrieve the Chainsaw Gun attachment? The location of the Chainsaw Gun attachment is pointed out on the HUD, which is at the back of the laboratory, a little ways away from where most of the fighting is going on. It'll take her a few seconds to get there, then, as ALEXIS helpfully informs her, the suit's assisted-attachment system will add the attachment to the suit's arsenal.

(It'll take a standard action to get over to the chainsaw gun attachment and add it to the suit's right shoulder slot, but you can still use a minor this turn if you do.)

The last, unaccounted for Rifter makes a mad dash for the portal, and like the last time, is vaporized into swirling energy that once again adds to the portal's increasing mass, despite Madame Masks' best attempts at dispelling the thing, and she senses it'll only be harder to keep it down from here, though she does a valiant job of slowing its rate of growth. From within the portal, she senses a great disturbance, and then the portal - for the lack of a better word - regurgitates a beam of energy due to Madame temporarily destabilizing its structure, which makes a beeline for Mask.

Summary
The Portal deals 13 damage to Madame Mask. (Not technically an attack)

Rifter 1 is pasted by Gaia
Rifter 2 deals 26 damage to Gaia (Single Attack). This attack ignores Armor.
Rifter 3 is vaporized by the portal.
Rifter 4 deals 6* damage to Sunset (Single Attack), then 9 damage again to Sunset (Single Attack). These are separate attacks.
*Modified by weakness

Enemy List and Condition:

"Threat first! 'Daptive Shield, Plasma Cutter!"

Sunset rounds on the Rifter attacking her, and punches it square in the chin with the glowing end of her right foreleg.

Actions:

Status:

"And stay down," Gaia runs a claw through the puddle of clay before rounding on the Rifter that had hit her. "As for you..."

She gives her wings a mighty flap, and some fifty razor sharp feather-darts are dislodged from them, all slicing into the Rifter's putty-like body, intent on reducing it to tiny chopped up bits. She finishes the flurry off with a solid smack with a large bear paw, right to the Rifter's jaw. "You're going down, too."

Mechanical Stuff:

Crimson blinked for a moment as he literally watched as Lex was actually making some kind of death ray out of the remains of his old suit. Truth be told he had been half joking when he had asked the dragon if he had one, through he couldn't help but feel that the fact that Lex could actually make a death ray out of the scraps of his super secret, busted up battle armor was something of a red flag in his mind, through right now he had greater concerns.

Stepping in-between Lex and the walking suit of armor, Crimson started to look it over in order to try and find some kind of weak point for him to exploit. He had a bit of his breath back now, but if he recalled the last bout with the damn thing correctly he was going to have to be smart about this fight. Overwhelming force wasn't going to work because of its shielding array, but neither would trying to wear it down with bug bites. He needed to find the proper middle ground.

Actions:

Status:

Daff's face turns just a shade of crimson when Gaia calls him Sunshine. THUMP! Rousseau's stomp on his head makes the present rush back. Ack! Daff barely charges forward in time to intercept the rifter as Sunset finishes starting up the suit.

He barrels into the creature at a full gallop, slamming into it like a wrecking ball. A cloud of violence erupts around them and is carried forward by momentum until it engulfs the other rifter as well. The scuffle continues a few seconds before Daff goes charging out the other side of the cloud. He looks around confused. Rousseau pokes his head out of Daff's mane, then taps the stallion on the head head and points behind him. Daff turns around quickly, eager to face their enemies once more.

(ATTN: Sunset, Gaia)

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Summary:

Status:

Dove watches his teammates take down the rifters, and focuses his attention on the portal, certain something bad will happen soon.

Mechanics:

As she gets attacked by stray energy again, Madame Mask begins to get invisibly annoyed. This was but a tiny portal a couple of seconds ago, how has she struggled this much with it? "I will not be upstaged by a prop!" She focuses once more on the portal, determind to deal with it and redeem herself...

(Arcana Check: 20 / 1 (Roll / SotA Reroll) + 19 (Skill) + 50 (Expert Skill Spectacular Effort (Nat 20)*) = 89)
(*Just going with what the handbook says)

(HP: 71)

The Team
The Rifter attacked by Gaia is sliced into ribbons, and though it quickly tries to reform itself, Gaia's heavy paw carving through it dispels the last vestiges of life in the clay, and the putty falls to the ground in a wet heap. The one attacking Sunset is first batted aside by Daff, the big stallion tossing the rifter around like a rag doll until it rolls to a stop at Sunset's hooves. Activating the plasma cutter, a searing beam of ionized gas springs forth from Sunset's hoof, burning a clean hole in the rifter's head, and it disintegrates outwards from the hole.

Madame, meanwhile, finally gets her shit together and with a focused magical vice, completely crushes the portal out of existence, stopping whatever was going to come out of it - she definitely saw a tentacle or two, and big glowing eyes the size of dinner plates - in its tracks. Such a feat should not have been possible by normal means - magical portals stabilize after growing to a certain size, and become practically impossible to close. But Madame located a minuscule weakness in the structure of the portal that let her destabilize the portal for long enough to close by normal means.

A silence settles upon the room as they realize all hostiles have been eliminated.

Combat is over

Crimson
The armor marches onwards, bearing down onto Lex, but seemingly at the last moment he shouts, "Hah! Have a taste of this!"

One of the fists of the suit, apparently attached to some kind of rocket, flies past Crimson and smacks the armor in the head, taking the helmet off completely, leaving the suit headless. It stumbles for a moment, then continues its advance, walking up to Lex... and staying there, apparently doing nothing. Lex stops charging up his fire breath, a perplexed expression on his face.

"Crimson Chef, is it just me or is the suit non-hostile?"

Indeed, it seems to be the case, as the armor just stands next to Lex, making no further actions.

Combat is over.

Sunset stays tense, keeping one eye on the LUNA suit's scanner. Once convinced the threat was past, she turns to look at the still-down Haven.

"Reckon we should see if this LUNA suit's got somethin' to keep him under control when he wakes up. 'Side from knockin' 'im right back out, that is."