Duodecimarch Revolution (Warhammer x Metroid x Worm x Transformers Multicross Quest)

[Spartakrod]

Samus​

The Thule Society, as the primary mysticist arm of the third reich, had quite the long reach and as many fascist groups often do; has quite an extensive deal of contacts within the halls of bourgeois wealth and power. Those who had listened to the siren song of the promise that the Weltreich could protect their wealth and privilege within society and ensure that those who ought to be below them stayed below them.

Theirs was a sinister legacy and after several encounters with them, you weren't in the mood to give them any room to attack you again. Especially not with the Kitsune potentially in harm's way. Best to get a good read on what this kid was all about first as you scanned around, confident that for the time being no one was around who could threaten the boy before you let your visor give you a read on him.

Spoiler: Scan Log: Ryunosuke

Ryunosuke is a Kitsune whose body is imbued with a substantial amount of potent magical energies both fused into his form through his curse that compels him to occasionally speak in nonstandard languages when under significant stress as well as his descent from potent users of magic. Ryunosuke's true form is that of an anthropomorphic fox, but he prefers his human and kitsunememi form due to interacting with humans frequently. While not particularly physically strong, especially by your standards, he is exceedingly agile and possessed of both a sharp mind and a keen way with words and force of personality. A force of personality that helps him predict and even outright deflect incoming blows or harmful effects through magical energy and prophecy and serves as the basis for most of his magic. He has a somewhat limited number of spells imbued into his body, particularly his more powerful spells, and his reservoirs of magical energy can be depleted through overuse. While rest can restore his supply of magic, adding new spells to his magical matrix requires substantially more effort, though some of his weaker spells can be changed out from day to day depending on what he prays for following a period of rest. Each of his nine tails is imbued with magic power that allows him to cast spells from it, which can also be used to bolster his wardings or his physical power and can be used to cover shortcomings in his magic.

Immune to disease and effects that cause or induce fear, he is also capable of imbuing his songs with his magic to achieve a wide array of effects, and is gifted at restoring the health of others through his spells and touch. Enemies who read to his senses as particularly predisposed to the powers of disorder or malevolence can also be designated by him for substantially greater impact. Ryunosuke has special ties to a Kirin named Uihara that serves as his mount of choice as well as a pet Fox named Takashi that serves as both a familiar and a means of tricking enemies by using his own ability to assume the form of an ordinary-seeming fox and transforming his familiar. Based on accessible records, he has already made a minor name for himself through this prank within Paragon City. Particularly when combined with Uihara's own sorcerous ability to change shape to add the maximum possible quantity of confusion as to whom one is speaking to. However, Ryunosuke while mischievous, is also highly respectful when it comes to his pranks and will always back off if requested to do so and tries to avoid pranks that are humiliating or meanspirited.

Further analysis suggests that Ryunosuke has some descent from entities more closely aligned to his deity than he realises, contributing to the exceptionally metallic colouration of his hair and the particular luster of his skin as well as the glow in his irises. Further study will be needed to make a clear identification of the ancestry he has, but it seems to contribute to his chipper and optimistic attitude and virtually unbendable sense of righteousness. He is, however, noted to be forgiving almost to a fault, having difficulty accepting that people he trusts can do wrong and is exceptionally willing to overlook often glaring personality faults or cover for the misdeeds of people he believes to be friends.

So a spellcaster in essence, one with a formidable but not infinite reserve of spells that as far as you can tell, are meant to cover a decently broad array of subjects. Seems to split his magical traditions along a number of lines, some more focused on support, others more focused on destruction, others on battlefield control and deception. Overall, a boy of many talents who could probably find a place in just about any group. But as of right now, he was in your trust and care, and he had just said that he was likely being pursued.

You quickly grabbed at his hand, getting a burble of stammering gibberish from him as you pulled him towards a denser crowd of people that would at least offer him some cover from whatever was interested in finding him before bringing him into one of the public transport terminals that were guarded by the City's police drones likely to prevent anyone but the most serious of attackers from poking into your business. You took another look around and then moved your eyes back to him for a moment, his eyes blinking rapidly while you tapped the side of your helmet.

"+Arne, Agata, Sevrin.+" You said, pinging the three at their various locations, Arne busy working on some manner of mechanoid from the inside of his starship, Agata doing curl-ups while upside down under immense gravity, and Sevrin just about wrapping up a religious ritual involving cradling a light source.

"+Samus, what's going on?+" Arne asked, lying supine on his back while his nimble hands adjusted some alignments on the components of the robotic companion he was making.

"+I am in the middle of something if you do not mind Sammy.+" Agata grunted as she pulled herself up one more time, sweating from her long bouts of activity.

"+I have done my daily duties, I am ready to hear your request.+" Sevrin said, calm as ever.

"+I think I have an idea of what the Thule Society wants to do now. I'm with an extraversal named Ryunosuke who has a cursed sword. Tyrfing. Sending you the datafiles now+" You said over the line.

"+If they're looking for that, that can't be the only artifact they want. Tyrfing is powerful but never made you unbeatable in the sagas. After all, it wants to go from one user to another.+" Arne said without skipping a beat while he teased in a power cell into the matrices of his latest creation.

"+Well, regardless of whether it is their only goal, if Nazis want it, they shouldn't have it no?+" Sevrin pointed out with a smirk on his face.

"+Mhrm, have you seen the retrieval team yet?+" Agata asked.

"+No...the coast is clear for now.+" You said.

"+Yeah I'll get there in a bit. Don't worry your golden head.+" She said as she dropped down with an immense impact due to the increased weight that the dialed up gravity put her unarmoured body under, landing on her hands and then dropping onto her feet and dabbing her head with a nanosalve before ordering the room to return things to normal, placing on a shirt to cover her midriff before forming her zero suit and then armour around her.

"+I'll be there...don't worry.+" Arne said, moving his goggles away from his eyes and finishing up his work after petting the head of the newly activated cat-like machine. His own armour manifested over him in a blue flash, and a quick activation of his blink pack brought him much closer to where you were.

Sevrin of course, had already been moving towards you from the moment he heard your summons, so of course he was the first, offering a little wave as he stepped into view before Arne and Agata appeared shortly afterwards, the other eight tails of Ryunosuke seeming to materialise purely to wave in alarm from the sudden startling appearance of the other three. He calmed down shortly though, and cleared his throat to offer a bow of acknowledgement.

"Hand me that." Agata said, extending her hand to Tyrfing.

"Wait bu-"

"Bad people want it yes? I'll make sure they don't get it." She responded brusquely.

"Moonshade..." You started before she looked towards you and sighed before relaxing slightly.

"Please?" She added.

"I...alright, but it's only because you're moonshade." He said, gulping as he handed the scabbard over to the taller, armour clad girl who gave the weapon a once over and then clipped it to her waist guard.

"Don't really see all the fuss honestly..." She mumbled under her breath.

"Hey, uhm." Arne still had some difficulty speaking to new people. Especially when just brought out of his mechanist zone. He concentrated a bit, shifted his posture and his tone went from slight and shy to more poised and confident, more like a real knight.

"Where are your friends? If you're under threat, so are they. It'd also make getting you debriefed a lot easier." He said, the Boy biting his lower lip with his fangs briefly before letting his tails wag a bit to indicate a direction.

"I'll just teleport us there...real quick." He said, fishing out a scroll from his pouch and unfurling it, reading its incantations and producing an image of a small but rather diverse group of people not too dissimilar from him trying to figure out how the menu at Burger King worked. And also finding to their displeasure that gilded coins are not legal tender in the State of Rhode Island.

And with another incantation he extended his offer of teleportation, allowing you to subconsciously accept and bring you to the inside of one of Paragon City's many shopping centres where the cashier was currently acquainting their head with the cash register while a rather feisty young lady with purple coloured skin and prominent horns and a prehensile spaded tail arguing with the employee about the validity of her currency.

"Brilista are you st-" Ryunosuke started before being made to silence with a quick "mouth close" hand gesture without the pale rose colour-haired girl even looking in his direction.

"This here is gold plated, come on that has to have at least some value!" She said as the frustrated looking employee pinched her brow and started to reach her finger over to a button to call security while she brandished a gilded coin before the employee.

You, sensing disaster, quickly stepped in and pinged the cashier with a payment tab of about a thousand US dollars forwarded from you on their sake, prompting her to stop and pull her sallow-skinned hand back from the button and assume a gentler demeanour.

The girl flicked her eyes over to you, yellow irises staring out at you and her tail briefly stiffening when she realised you were looking her right back. She was carrying an awfully large number of chemicals on her person, A rather dangerous amount of volatiles actually. A quick scan revealed her name to be Brilista Ventervale, a self-styled intellectual who specialised in creating items of power, studying targets, alchemy, and studied forms of magic. She had a number of books on her, inscribed with all manner of formulae and descriptions of how to achieve certain effects along with large quantities of notes.

She had a coat with some plated armour beneath clearly designed for maximum mobility, and goggles she had placed onto her forehead while she brushed aside her long, straight hair and tilted her head and then looked to Ryonosuke.

"That's Dawnchild?" She asked, her accent a bit strange, vaguely eastern European but not quite, her elfin ears wriggling a bit while she spoke.

"Are you done yet? I'm hungry!" Someone else shouted, his hair the colour of the sun and seeming to flicker like the ribbons of plasma on the surface of a star. His body temperature was definitely abnormally high, his eyes the colour of fire and his pointed ears almost seeming to glow with an inner heat along with the rest of his late afternoon sun coloured skin. As if plasma or magma was flowing in his veins and arteries instead of blood. Ziqud Iyaasah, Ifrit born to half-elves and one of a rather literally fiery temperment as a result of his fire elemental and genie heritage. Certainly seemed to be...

"As ravenous as your element." Agata said quite bluntly.

"Hey! Who said that?!" He said, his youthful features bristling as his hair, normally in a boyish cut seemed to take on texture more like a lion's mane made of the stuff of the sun and a hiss could be heard from him as his spit boiled in his mouth. Seems he took fiery temper a bit more literally than most. very much like Yesuntai honestly, though Ziqud was definitely a bit bigger.

"I did." Agata said bluntly as Ziqud narrowed his eyes, the rather impressive looking set of plate armour he wore silent as it moved around his body while Ryunosuke clearly was nonplussed by the sudden aggression everyone was displaying, urging calm and rationality before the last of their merry group of four; though you had a feeling that there was at least one more half to the group that were just elsewhere for the time being; stepped in.

You could tell immediately they were an android, just from the way their aura shone in your othersight and from the reports of nanite solution instead of blood being present beneath their humanlike synthskin and the odd circuit board pattern markings that danced around glacier coloured skin with a cold glow. She definitely had concealed weapons on her, potentialities hidden by sorcery waiting for the right moment to be brought forth.

"I recommend a cessation of belligerence before hostile first impressions take root." She offered before raising a hand. "Greetings, I am Viri. I serve as this group's primary tracker and vanguard combatant. Also often the primary mediator." She said, her voice rather monotone, little emotional inflexion or range. It seems that the Android wasn't designed with social interaction in mind despite how much effort went into mimicking so many biological functions. Clearly designed for agility and long-term power rather than burst lifting strength or bulk. Somewhat like you, but more...stiff. Compared to Brilista she definitely had more muscle though. Well, muscle-equivalent anyway.

You made sure that information about them was sent to the Autobots and other allies, then filtered through those in the Phalanx and Protectorate you trusted. It was hard to gauge who was fully trustworthy though, you still sometimes struggled to parse people's meanings, especially when they suppressed tells and you didn't really know them all too well. There were signs when people were lying, but skilled liars knew how to not give them.

Bulkhead pinged a message to wait for him to arrive outside the mall to pick you up, noting that Bumblebee was out on deep recon at the moment. Disappointing but understandable at least.

"We'll have something to put the Sword away in as soon as my friends arrive. Are you all alright?" You asked, trying to get everyone focused back on task.

"I mean...sure..." Ziqud shrugged as he looked Viri up and down briefly while she sat herself on one of the chairs in the booth, her more plasticish armour bending a bit with her movements while Ziqud grumbled a bit about how he no longer had leg room.

"Ryu, you didn't bring that sword with you right? Not without putting it somewhere safe right?" Brilista said, looking at Ryunosuke pointedly while he gulped sheepishly.

"...You brought it here, didn't you?" She said, eyes widening as he took a look around and you briefly felt a sense of incoming danger, reaching out your hand and grabbing something that raced towards the scene. You looked and noted it was a missile, one about to arm and detonate.

Thinking quickly, the time dilator activated and the missile's detonation was frozen for the time being, letting you quickly step outside and throw it to the sky, returning to where you were as soon as you had gotten rid of the immediate danger and firing off a paralysed beam shot at the direction the missile had come from, striking some manner of machine before you yanked it towards you with the grapple beam.

An assassin drone, you murmured as you tore out its power systems from its spindly chest; the other Inheritors already on alert as you resumed time and let the skinny blade limbed thing crumple onto the ground. There was a sudden outburst of murmurs and worry, everyone looking around and then towards you as the nazi machine's head was stomped on by your boot to make sure it remained broken.

"You aren't safe here. Where's the rest of your group?" You asked pointedly.



"Two of them are at Independence port, uhh...Liberty Harbor I think? One of them is at Astoria and the last is at Atlas Park." Ryunosuke said, letting you have a moment to think. You were currently at Talos Island.

"Can they handle themselves at all?" You asked.

"They've seen adventure yeah...but they wanted to see the city up close so they wandered off." He said sheepishly.

"The two at the Port are Sinlal Evem and Rumufi Ludhuvi. Our Witch and Druid; they're uh...Sinlal is descended from a Celestial and Rumufi is part Marid, Water Genie. The one at Astoria is Maert Lilychild; our Occultist, psychic...general weirdness handler; changeling, dark hair, one green eye, one red, dark hair, hard to miss her. And at Atlas Park is Tilgisclan Firevigil, he's like...our moral compass. Apsu has something in mind for him but I don't really know what's the deal with the Dragon God." He explained, your suit feeding you quick Paragon Police Department profiles on them.

Sinlal had hair that seemed to be spun from strands of silver with pointed ears and eyes that glowed a noble hue of blue-grey; his skin was on the darker side too, but with a sort of sheen not seen in humans, he seemed to disdain armour and kept company with a Compsognathus, a small feathery dinosaur, according to the PPD his magic seemed to be focused less on raw power and more on control and altering the abilities of others to fight. Rumufi was blue-skinned with webbed fingers and gill slits on her neck, her features somewhat Semitic with wavy sea-green hair and turqoise coloured eyes, her garb made from the discarded carapace of sea-creatures rather than metal, seemingly inseparable from a long legged crocodilian that was just at home on land as well as water; her more nature focused magic making her more able to handle herself in close quarters. The two seemed like they covered each other's weaknesses and strengths quite well though. Independence Port was a major area of economic activity even with the frequent giant Octopus attacks. It was also crawling with the 5th Column and the Council among other Fascist groups, to the point that the PPD had marked out a number of "only enter with backup" zones patrol officers were supposed to avoid and leave to metahuman specialists. Given that the 5th Column took marching orders from the Weltreich, they were the closest to the Belly of the Beast.

Maert Lilychild was something of a space cadet (note to self: ask what this term means, you don't think she's a cadet for space programs) but easy enough to pick out of a crowd once you knew what to look for, a frizzy haired dark skinned girl who seemed to have her head somewhere else half the time. Usually seen with a phantom knight and a strange summoned creature she could possess the body of that the description noted had a somewhat morphic and frequently disturbing form. Astoria, from the description of it, was once the resting place of the Carthaginian God of Death and Sterility Mot who had once threatened to consume the souls of Sourcewell Humanity in his bid to displace the Well of Furies; but Mot was defeated years ago and can never feed again. Still, the legacy of Mot likely drew someone interested in the Occult like herself to the place just to see what it was like and commune with what spirits and psychic essences were there. On the other hand, that same lingering horror of Mot and the banished Pantheon likely would mask anything trying to hurt her.

Tilgisclan according to his file claimed to be descended from Radiant and Paradise Dragons and consorted with the beings of Heaven. His PPD file said he was very friendly and astutely observational but also somewhat dogmatic and held himself and others to high standards. it seemed that he could control how much of his inner dragon he manifested, but usually looked mostly humanoid save for patches of scales, backwards swept horns that rose from the confines of his literally glowing platinum-gold textured and coloured hair and seemed to be more fond of having his wings out and about than Brilista or Sinlal who usually had them moulded into their body. A healer and a guide as well as a holy warrior, he had gone straight to Atlas Park; the city's centre and the site of its City Hall as well as an informal centre of the cape community to try and present his petition to the city in the hopes of getting them to hear out his case. He was by far the safest, both deeply formidable in battle and also literally surrounded by capes as well as the core of the city's defences.

There were others, but they were on the Rogue Islands, reportedly safe due to Lord Recluse's orders, but right now you weren't sure if you could even set foot on Richter's nation of villains.

Arne though pointed out Bulkhead's arrival; his green form rolling up near the window and breaking you out of your thoughts. It was a bad idea to split up in general, but taking a look at your list of contacts...

Chris, Vista, Victoria, and Gallant were with Taylor, Tattletale, Regent, and Grue on some sort of team-building thing slash a tour of the city with Alice, Elyra, Boltdancer, Raelamiel, Steel Paladin, Mistral Slash, Dawnmaker, and Aronim and might be able to help watch over one of the three disparate groups until you got there.

Dragon was currently in the city, accompanied by Armsmaster, Assault, Battery, Ascendant, Numina, Citadel, and Yin who were quite eager to get the Guild and Protectorate more familiar with Paragon City, with Arcee, Windsaber, Hotshot, and Cliffjumper on standby nearby in case anything went wrong.

Alyrsero, Lelithax, Kaeliyae, and Ormothin finally were at the lakefront near the city hall of Atlas Park; seemingly being lectured by Alyrsero's father Vrailius. You doubted you had all that much pull over Vrailius or his former Druchii spouse Veskyrai but keeping them aware that there might be trouble could be worth it; either them or Scoutmaster Cyrus and his Astartes Initiates on terrain familiarisation duty and Tarkus and his tactical astartes.

Actions:​

Pick one group to go and check on first.

[]: Sinlal and Rumufi at Independence Port.
[]: Maert at Astoria
[]: Tilgisclan at Atlas Park.

Designate places to go for the three available contacts.

Eldar & Blood Ravens (Currently at Atlas Park)
[]: Astoria
[]: Atlas Park
[]: Independence Port

Taylor, Wards, Undersiders and Starsetters (Currently at Peregrine Island)
[]: Astoria
[]: Atlas Park
[]: Independence Port

Armsmaster, Dragon, Citadel, Yin, and Autobots (Currently at Founder's Falls)
[]: Astoria
[]: Atlas Park
[]: Independence Port

 

[Spartakrod]

Samus​

"We should head to the port, the people there are in the greatest danger and we'd be able to help two of them at once. It's just...the most efficient solution honestly." You said before you made a face beneath your helmet, yuck, that was very...Mother Brainish.

"I can agree with that...we should be able to get there quickly. Independence Port shouldn't be too hard to screen through to find our lost adventures." Arne said, thinking up a plan in his head quickly, your own thoughts in sync with his.

The Eldar were already in Atlas Park, and the priest was in probably the safest place in the city. No need to move anyone to handle him.

Astoria was spooky, and the one there had her head in the clouds. The experience of Dragon's group would be good at making sure she got to a designated meeting spot in one piece, before she poked into something left over from Mot's rampage or the Nictus got to her.

Independence port had active 5th Column bases and hideouts though, as well as activity from the Council among others. And Taylor could get there quickly despite the distance from her position. The choice was clear.

Requests for deployments were sent, dispatched to those who were the most likely to listen to the information sent. Affirmations were made, discussions were had. Time was saved. You took a look at the others.

"Can you see where they are right now?" Sevrin asked Ryunosuke.

"Uh, no they've got nondetection spells up. Normal precaution stuff. But I can get us to where they said they were going to be." He said as he pulled out another scroll, letting its words glow while he read off parchment. Another remote viewing spell to provide him with enough information to let him be sure of where he was going before he clapped his hands and said the magic words to yank everyone there in a single step.

Independence Port was...busy. As if nothing was out of the ordinary. Ships came, ships went, filtering into the massive natural harbour and out of it with goods from around the world. There was more tension in the air than normal though; contributed to by the formations of American naval warships that were docked at Fort Abrams' facilities or were steaming out to the open ocean to join the formations of warships on patrol.

Power Island and its imposing war walls surrounding the Terra Volta electrical plant certainly wasn't a welcoming looking place. There were a lot of implications about something as banal as a city's largest power plant being sealed behind so many fortifications or looked over with a veritable army of guards; including power suit clad PPD officers, Psionic Police, mechanoids with far too much weaponry to seem like suitable beat cop units.

Just, how many people ended up maimed or worse at the hands of the police here? You've seen them conduct arrests with units equipped with cluster-missile launchers and plasma cannons; which felt totally inappropriate for a city where the largest portion of dangerous criminals' deadliest weapon was a blunt instrument or a 9mm pistol.

"What sort of device do they keep locked behind those barriers?" Brilista asked, adjusting her goggles after making sure all her body parts where were they should be.

"Power generator, pretty experimental technology for the general technology level here." Arne said briskly, always glad to speak of machines and metallic things.

Taylor's group appeared in a flash of darkness, popping in all at once while Tattletale fell to the ground and coughed a bit, shaking her head and trying to reorient herself after being pulled through Shadow of Retribution's darkspace.

"I feel like I got my head dunked in a roller coaster." She groaned.

"You get used to it." Dennis said after shaking his head and taking a quick look to make sure he still had all of his limbs attached before giving you a thumbs up.

"Hey, what are you kids doing here? This is a restricted area!" One of the supercops shouted, their cape fluttering a bit in the wind while their peaked cap lowered slightly at his desire, giving him a vaguely M Bison esque appearance that felt more dictatorial than comforting to you.

"We're looking for two outversers who are in a lot of danger. The Reich...Nictus are looking for a sword they stole from them. Possibly other things. Please...have you seen anyone matching these descriptions?" You said, squeezing your gauntlet and projecting an image of the PPD photoshoots of the duo in question while Arne looked through the web of data across publicly accessible networks to try and pinpoint their location.

"Yeah, whatever. Power Island is off limits to anyone without sufficient security level clearance. Scram before I get in touch with your mentors." The Officer said, clenching his jaw as he did so, the Police taking note of you with clearly unpleasant regard. Most of your heroics had been on Earth Bet so far, and your reputation on Primal Earth wasn't quite as...strong. It certainly lead to a feeling that they looked at you like a fraud, something that couldn't live up to the legend.

"Seigneurs, we are with Autobot command, perhaps you could allow us this once?" Sevrin said before one of the officers shook his head.

"Don't care what alien credentials you flash around here. The PPD knows these streets, not a bunch of space kids in tin suits." The SWAT officer said as he turned around and signalled to the others to adjust their perimeters, clearly unsatisfied with them.

Ryunosuke seemed to be a bit...baffled by the hostility of the PPD, and his ears lowered slightly when he he heard a comment about "god not another animal eared freak" from a power armoured officer, looking down and chewing on his lower lip to try and pretend he wasn't offended.

Taylor certainly didn't seem to appreciate the rudeness from the police, even as Dennis and Chris whispered to each other about "asshole beat cops"; marching straight up to the caped officer without fear of retaliation as her Nictus aura began to flare around her, shrouding her in shadow while her wings spread wide to further impress the nature of her power over the officer; shard bound Insects flying around her like a cloud of locusts.

"Maybe you could show some respect to people trying to help make your lives easier for once?" She said with venom in her voice, the officer making a face and twitching his arm as if he was preparing to hit her before holding back as soon as he saw Alice and her Demons and Fire elementals nearby; the hissing of the fiends and creatures of flame making his comments quiet down to some...

Wait why is he looking at Boltdancer and Grue that way? They haven't done anything so far...as far as you know. "Those kinds of people?" You caught from the officer's thoughts as he made a grunt and looked away.

Bulkhead, Smokescreen, Chroma, Hound, Windblade, and Strongarm transformed and urged some restraint and caution in the area, the large autobot towering over the others and extending his massive hands to show that he meant no harm. Hound though was well...Hound, being personable wasn't really his thing.

"Cops are cops anywhere looks like..." Grue muttered to himself.

"So what's so important about these two kids that you bring in eight starsetters, four LARP rejects, the whole Quartet, six autobots, and eight Beters?" The Captain said to you rather pointedly.

"They're looking for the Sword of Tyrfing and a number of other mythological relics. The sword likely meant to make it easier to acquire something much more dangerous." Arne said, hoping his somewhat Scandinavian accent would make him sound like more of an expert.

The captain sighed, rolled his eyes and muttered about "gods and monsters bullshit" to the other squaddies present who agreed in a hurry.

"Hey I've had just about enough of your constant attitude. What have we even done to you?" Ziquid snarled as he approached the Captain whose eyes began to glow briefly with intent just before Dawnmaker interposed themself in front; appearing in a flash of light as the Kheldian-Yurye hybrid folded their arms with clear disappointment.

"You will stop this." Dawnmaker commanded, not requested, commanded.

"We will split up to cover more ground. Mercifully, our charges are not with...the gallant officers of Paragon City." Dawnmaker just about sneered with a degree of contempt you never expected out of generally unfailingly polite "superhero's superhero".

"Hey what makes you think you can just walk out of here, we're not done with yo-" The Officer said before the eyes of the Kheldian-Yurye hybrid began to glow like suns within his helmet.

"I AM TIRED OF LITTLE MEN WHO THINK A UNIFORM PROVIDES THEM WITH A BLANK CHEQUE TO DO AS THEY PLEASE." They said with a furor that made the air shake without necessarily being loud, more like a dictate that could be felt by anyone and everyone as if it were ringing in their skulls.

"You will cease this farce, or I will speak to the Kheldians who merge with those who bear your badge and the fallout of that upon your pact with my kind will be on your head, Darrel." Dawnmaker concluded with a coldness that made the officer gulp and back down.

"Wait, why is that enough to make him back down?" Brilista asked, the Tiefling's tail wagging with interest.

"They have a lot of influence among other Kheldians." Sevrin whispered back. Huh, you don't think Dawnmaker ever told that to you, but then you never spoke to them very often. You probably should at some point, to get to know the Kheldians better.

"We'll take the four. Dawnmaker, take your team, Taylor; go with your group. Make sure any potential threats to the two are dealt with." You said before Bulkhead signalled to the autobots to transform and roll out, your map of Independence Port loading up to try and point you in one direction or the other.

"+I'll keep in touch.+" Taylor cut in, smiling on her end of the comms before she cut out; teleporting her group out to another part of independence port, quickly met with rapid-fire swearing in Italian-American accented English and automatic weapons fire followed by gravitic distortions from Taylor's Nictus powers.

Spreading out wasn't that hard, especially with your ships providing a bird's eye view of Paragon City and Ryunosuke's spells being used to guide your path. The four kept to some sort of group flight spell, buzzing around at a more languid pace than you and your fellow inheritors who bounced around on the directions that Ryunosuke provided. You could move faster, and you wanted to, but Ryu and his companions weren't quite capable of keeping up with you at your full speed. Most people weren't, which was certainly annoying, but it couldn't be helped.

You stopped at the outside of an...abandoned warehouse. You feel as though this is far from the last time that you'll find important things occurring in abandoned warehouses in Paragon City.

"Torag's beard they just leave something like this unattended?" Brilista muttered with astonishment as she just...stared at the massive, multi-story, above and underground building just laying relatively derelict.

It was to be fair, a waste of a perfectly good Vatican city-sized warehouse. You were pretty upset at the idea that a place like this was just...not being used.

"Snipers at the windows, maintain stealth." Agata said, extending a hand to urge everyone to stop.

She grabbed at a nearby empty can of coke and tossed it into the air and didn't even flinch when the can exploded into burning shards of ruptured aluminium as soon as it had a clear line of sight to the building. Merely a self-satisfied nod that she felt as though she was proven right about her hunch.

"Observation: Frontal Entrance will likely meet with significant resistance." Viri intoned.

"Why are there so many Nazis in this city it's absurd..." Arne complained mostly to himself.

"Most of them aren't from the city." You assured him

But you did have an idea. Dawnmaker's team had plenty of veterans of the city, maybe one of them could be of some assistance. You pinged his team with your situation, not wanting to put the newbies at risk before you were fully assured of their ability to withstand the sort of firepower they had. Especially since, if the two were in there, they were likely already in trouble.

Boltdancer was the first to respond, seemingly having expected you to make a request for some on the ground assistance.

"+Whiteston Warehouse? I've had to go into that hellhole on fifty god damn missions. If your adventuring party members are in there they're probably gonna be held in one of the lower levels. Probably what...floor negative five? Got a mage-cage in there from when Nemesis used it to...hey Aro, what did Nemesis use it for again?+" He said, his dark skinned features hidden behind his mask as he pinged the Yurye brute archetype.

"+Nemesis...Mage-Cage...oh right he was trying to create a "perfected spellbook". I'm not really much for magic so I don't know the logistics behind that.+" The Elfin Psion shrugged.

"+Spellbook that would update itself with instructions to cast any spell that was cast in its presence to let the wielder learn magic nearly instantly.+" Alice added.

"+Hocus-Pocus stuff...fun...+" Chris groaned.

"+Magic is perfectly legitimate! It's not "Hocus-Pocus" stuff Chris!" You grumbled.

"+Anyway, you guys'll wanna take the subway. Don't head to the main terminal under there the Nazis'll be all over that. There's an old maintenance hatch, tunnel leads up into the main floor. Won't set off the phase-through or teleport detectors or burrowing sensors too. Probably got a few Circle of Thorns whack-jobs close-by but nothing you can't handle. Seeing as you saved my ass from the Genestealers 'n all.+" He said, shrugging a bit before you gave it a bit of thought.

"+Maybe we could split up again? Sevrin and I take the main route, we'll take two of the adventurers. You take the sneaky route Blondie.+" Agata said, cracking her knuckles as she looked at the primary entrance to the warehouse.

"+Hold on , I don't know much 'bout you aggie but you're just gonna kick the door down?+" Boltdancer asked.

"+Affirmative. It will be fun.+"

"+Since when did I agree to this?+" Sevrin protested.

"+Did you ask the D&D group?+" Boltdancer asked.

You took a look at them, and then back at Agata early already planning to just bulldoze her way through the front door of this veritable fortress of questionable architectural decisions. No, you wouldn't let her try her...tactics with them in her group, not until you were sure they could take the sort of firepower that she drew to herself by force of habit.

"+Unicron's Pit, if you're kicking in the door count us in.+" Hound laughed.

"+I'll need one person from the Starsetters and the Ward/Undersiders team each to help coordinate.+" You asked.

Actions:

Pick one person from each of the following teams to accompany you to the Warehouse. Minicons will be dispatched to replace them on their teams to ensure optimal team size.

Starsetters:

Aronim Ophilix aka Xaeon: Yurye, Brute Archetype Hero. Highly powerful psion bonded to a living-metal Vondun armour shell who gets stronger the more intense the combat he gets involved in and the higher his emotions run, very durable and hard to put down but needs constant combat to stay ramped up. Tank/Melee damage.
Raelamiel Thelemir aa Rundrasta, Frost Angel, Scrapper Archetype Hero: Lethal and highly mobile CQC combatant wearing heaven forged armour who is virtually unrivalled for sheer close quarters striking power among the starsetters with the ability to randomly deal even greater damage. Primarily a Cryokine with divine power, defeces are most vulnerable to high temperature. Melee Damage.
Tyrius Veldegard aka Steel Paladin: Nymph-Fairy hybrid, Tanker Archetype Hero: One of the most obnoxiously resilient heroes in the starsetters encased in virtually indestructible otherworldly plate armour bearing a Sunsword and a Shield never known to have ever been overcome by any attack. Most vulnerable to mental attack, still mentally recovering from Tyranid induced psychic trauma. Tank.
Alice Dahl aka Eudaimonica: Human Demonomancer, Mastermind Archetype Hero: Commands a massive army of magical entities such as Fire Elementals, Demons, Golems, and more. Excels at support and is capable at dealing ranged damage through her other spells but is somewhat fragile if directly engaged should her defensive spells be bypassed. Winterpyre's allegiances are dubious. Minion/Support.
Marcus Wilson aka Boltdancer: Mutant Electrokine, Controller Archetype Hero. Incredibly broad control over electromagnetism able to be used for support, offense, defense, or battlefield control with a particular specialty in control andsupport abilities. Able to create animated constructs of electricity and magnetism and is quite intimately familiar with the ins and outs of Paragon City. Control/Support.
Mitsuki Aiko aka Mistral Slash: Mutant Kineticist, Stalker Archetype Hero. Stealth specialist, martial artist, able to alter the vectors and direction of incoming energy as well as absorb or amplify kinetic energy, not only through her armour but also her blade. Also able to bend energy to divert nearly all forms of detection and allow her to study a foe to strike forextreme damage. Skilled with operating with most forms of devices. Stealth/Melee.
Arkoril Ypshalon aka Dawnmaker: Yurye-Kheldian merger, Peacebringer Archetype Hero: All rounder, de facto leader of the Starsetters. Through Kheldian rider is by far the most experienced member of the Starsetter team. Only substantial weakness is to Quantum modulation weapons, has the whole gamut of superpowers. Basically anything you want out of them.

Earth Bets

Taylor Hebert aka Black Moth: Parahuman-Nictus Merger: Controls arthropods through her parahuman abilities to an immense degree of fine control, as well as beings implanted with fragments of her Nictus symbiont, usually particularly favoured arthropods in her swarm. Nictus abilities are quite similar to Dawnmaker's Kheldian abilities, but themed after darkness and gravity instead of light and electromagnetism. All-Rounder/Minions
Brian Labourn aka Grue: Parahuman-Incarnate Augment: Controls darkness, abilities augmented from nuisance to genuine umbrakinesis by augments from an unknown source along with general physical enhancement to escalate Brian from a mere thief to higher grade combatant able to influence and control the battlefield and prevent enemies from concentrating and gathering properly. Control/Stealth.
Lisa Wilbourn aka Tattletale: Parahuman-Incarnate Augment: Conventional abilities enhanced by treatments offered by unknown source Incredible intelligence gatherer, abilities augmented to the point of precognition and clairvoyance as well as enhanced physicality and intelligence and an ability to foil detection and tap into esoteric martial arts. Intelligence/Reconnaisance/Stealth.
Jean-Paul "Alec" Vasil aka Regent: Parahuman-Incarnate: Conventional abilities enhanced by treatments offered by unknown sources greatly enhancing ability to control the bodies of others, psionic abilities have been activated by the treatment meant to augment him to serve some manner of purpose, allowing him to function in either control or ranged damage. Control/Ranged Damage
Melissa Simone Belmont aka Missy aka Vista aka "If you use the cringy name my parents gave me I will gut you": Parahuman-Incarnate: Space warper augmented via her connection to the Source that has not only augmented her physical capabilities in tandem with a modified exploration suit loaned to her by Arne Skjoldr but also increases the potency of her dimensional manipulation to the point of even being able to affect space, living matter is more difficult for her to influence but not impossible with her increased powers. Control/Support.
Chris Maverick aka Kid Win: Parahuman-Incarnate: Tinker with an emphasis on equipment modularity and customisation, user of a continually toyed with power suit and bearer of an incarnate shard that augments his physique, gear, and intellect; allowing him to diverge from the original Entity Shard's general limitations for his understanding and ability to craft gear. All purpose combatant but is particularly adept at mobile mid-range combat, avoiding getting tied into fights and slipping into whichever range his foes are weakest at. Striker.
Victoria Dallon aka Glory Girl: Parahuman-Incarnate: The most prominent flying brick among Brockton Bay's teenaged heroes and resident beauty queen. While not usually using the armoursuits offered by Samus' group, since bonding with an incarnate fragment her physique has increased greatly, as has her ability to modulate and utilise her energy fields and defences, gaining ranged energy attacks and the ability to form hard-light constructs among other things as well as enhanced reflexes and non-shield based durability. Tank/Melee.
Dean Robert Stansfield aka Gallant: Parahuman-Incarnate: Blaster whose powers primarily attack the psychology and mind of foes, especially adept at disrupting psychic magic, psionic, or pleromic constructs and excels in countering such mentally focused enemies; also able to control and project kinetic energy and light, primarily working from a distance where his less trained reflexes will be less of a hindrance. His armour is designed for durability and additional firepower in case of hardier enemies. Blaster/Tank.


Situation:

It is likely that the two are being kept in the Warehouse rather deep within it, the warehouse is a quite open battlespace that will soon be swarming with Nazis quickly after breaching into it, with the majority coming from the 5th Column and Empire-88 rather than the Weltreich proper.

It is highly likely that named major villains will be present at the Warehouse to try and stymie any possible advance, and the longer the two are kept in the care of the 5th column the more likely it is they will be subjected to torture or worse to give them the answers they want.

The Autobots will join Agafya and Sevrin's team to bash in through the front to draw attention, while Samus and Arne will join with four of the adventurers and two from the other two teams to infiltrate through a subterranean passageway.

The passageway will be relatively lightly defended, but once the Nazis are aware of your usage of it, resistance will stiffen. This will however, make the job of the other two teams easier.

Once the nazis are alerted to your breach, less snipers will be protecting the angles of approach, allowing the more fragile teams to slip in.

Cargo truck bays are currently closed and will require particularly physically powerful or metal warping characters to breach to allow for tertiary and quaternary team infiltration. The loudness of this insertion will lead to heavy weapons fire almost immediately, favouring more durable teams.

The roofs are heavily guarded with weapon batteries and sentries and will be dangerous to try and approach directly.

The staff entrance doors are watched with security cameras but are usually more lightly guarded and thus more suited to teams who are less resilient to weapons fire but can work well with some space to breathe.

The windows are monitored and will require a stealthier approach to deal with, and teleportation insertion is being blocked by the 5th column's incarnate fields. However if the initial approach is managed they will offer vantage points in the building.

Your knowledge of what's inside the building is quite poor, but Alice's demons are skilled at infiltration and are capable of stealth.

Team Strategy: Pick five priorities and set from greatest to least.

[]: Civilian Defence (Defend civilians at the line of battle)
[]: Search and Rescue (Find civilians trapped in enemy territory and save them)
[]: Reconnaissance (find out where the foe is and what they're doing)
[]: Force annihilation (destroy as much of the foe as possible)
[]: Ally assistance (try to shore up the efforts of friendly military forces and pick up more team members to get eight people)
[]: Objective capping (Use your foresight to determine points of strategic interest and deal with them)
[]: HQ elimination (look for and kill important enemy characters, units, and structures to weaken their overall efforts)
[]: Fire Break (Contain any enemy advances and eliminate these pockets of advance to keep frontlines stable
[]: Lockdown (Stop the enemy from enjoying freedom of movement by eliminating their infrastructure to support it and choking the avenues they're using to move)
[]: DISTRACTION CARNIFEX!!! (Make the most noise possible to pull as much attention to yourselves as you can, drawing forces away from allies and civilians at obvious risk to yourself.)

Write in Team Tactics and Character Actions:

 

[Spartakrod]

Arne​

With a chant and clap by Ryunosuke, Mistral and Tattletale were teleported over to your group as soon as they were selected, their forms appearing in blue flashes of energy as they stumbled onto the ground and took a moment to examine the group. Both girls were still rather...distant to you and gave you a second glance, perhaps offput by the cyclopean design of your helmet which was even less human of appearance than Samus'.

Aiko's words became a quick burst of astonishment at seeing Ryunosuke however, immediately recognising him for one of the Kitsune.

"It's astonishing to see something like you in the flesh." She said with barely concealed astonishment. "I had heard...stories but I rarely left Tokyo to see the Yokai of the countryside." She said, clearing her throat as she tried to look presentable, your suit detecting elevated hormone levels and heart rate almost immediately from her.

"Aw thanks. But I'm really not all that special." He said with a chuckle before you harrumphed to get everyone back on task. Time was after all, of the essence here.

"Whoa, you four...your readings are...weird as hell." Tattletale started before you raised a hand.

"Extraversals, we'll have time for introductions later. First we need to get inside the building." You said, getting a few nods of agreement, taking the front position as you usually did, dropping into the subway tunnels and letting your senses guide you towards derelict passages in the sprawling underground of Paragon City.

"You people could have an entirely different city in your underground. God, how do people even get anywhere in this sprawl?" Tattletale murmured as she tried her best to keep up with everyone else despite her disadvantage in terms of speed and stride, being the shortest of the group here when you took one moment to look at a cavernous hole in the wall and stepped through, your armour affirming your hunch that there were no guards here at the moment.

The decrepit abandoned passageways were dusty and filled with more vermin than you would have liked, your eyes briefly lingering on another rat of unusual size with fierce red eyes that you side-eyed.

"The 5th Column hasn't heard us at least...not yet." Samus said, checking her echolocation visor to see how the sound waves travelled, there were no receivers nearby, and it seemed that the barriers were too thick for the sound to pass through to anything that could hear them, likely to hold the weight of the city above up.

"Ryunosuke, do you have any idea what's inside that warehouse?" You asked him as the eight of you approached the entrance to a derelict part of Paragon City's sprawling subway tunnel network. Flickering lights, rodents of unusual size some of whom were particularly grotesque and stank of unnatural warp energies and noxious disease.

"Scrying's blocked, but I think if we go through this route we'll do pretty well...definitely alright." He said, trying his best to smile before he cleared his throat and affixed his kabuto's faceguard to his head, sealing off the eye-covers with magic lenses to protect his vision while he sniffed a bit at the air.

The entrance was there, like Boltdancer said, only lightly guarded with some Ubermensch, Vampyr and drones. It seemed that they didn't think anyone would even think to go through this entrance with how few guards they had, though with your combined senses you were able to avoid a number of patrols of some of the less pleasant denizens of the underground segments of Paragon City, including a number of Rikti patrols and mutate monsters. Perhaps they banked on nobody being able to get through the gauntlet of third parties without alerting their reinforcements?

Well, it was going to be their mistake, you thought as Samus stopped the group and scanned the enemy formation.

"<<I hate this city, can't they design fewer fucking underground passages?>>" One of the soldiers complained to a larger, higher ranking compatriot who took a moment to tap something onto his smart phone, likely carried to play apps that would have been forbidden from his HUD. His German was good, but the accent indicated a non-native speaker, likely from the Pacific Northwestern United States based on his inflections, if you had to guess...Idaho or thereabouts.

"<<Do you ever stop whining Thomas? Did your parents ever teach you how to not be a fucking bitch? Shut up and do your job and let me enjoy some quiet for five seconds.>>" His superior shot back, not even glancing from his phone, based on his accent he was probably from Rural southern England, hrm. As far as you knew the Fifth Column's cells tended to operate more separately to avoid the downfall of one impacting the fortunes of the others. If they were bringing in people from Europe they had something planned.

"<<If you want "not doing their job" what about these Empire-88 clowns? Ingrates lose their shit when they get hit by a nine millimetre and can't stop whining about how it's not fair for metas here to teleport to safety.>>" Another said, this one probably from Paragon City proper.

"<<Well excuse me for not coming from a place where bullet proofing powers grow on trees.>>" One of the ones bearing the sigils of the Empire-88 rather than the skull insignia of the 5th Column growled, this one's more personalised outfit suggesting they were a cape rather than a mass produced super soldier. Her voice was clearly feminine, and the Empire and Column were much too fond of traditional gender roles for her to be anything but a woman, not in a pin-up nazified supergirl style get up like that.

You weren't sure why she thought that a domino mask would protect her identity in a world where saliva droplets in the breath contained enough DNA to make positive IDs but evidently she did. Let's see...Sarah White, originally from some small town in Oregon.

Spoiler: Scan Log: Fraulein Blitz

Sarah White, age 16, is an Anglo-American native to the town of Eugene, Oregon in Earth Bet raised under the auspices of two prior members of the Empire-88; David and Jane White. Though the mechanism of shard based powers means that she does not directly inherit the abilities of her parents, she would still trigger into parahuman abilities at an early age following hand contact with someone she later found was Jewish after years of being raised to despise semitic peoples.

Her abilities revolve heavily around the manipulation of electromagnetism and electromagnetic forces, abilities which make her one of the most powerful assets of the Empire-88 with her abilities following their fifth column enhancement allowing her to launch quarters at high enough speeds to destroy the Cheyenne Mountain complex multiple times over and can output enough electricity to vaporise multiple shielded supercarriers instantaneously. Her defensive abilities are amplified to the point of making her able to easily withstand nuclear weapons and use electromagnetic manipulation to replicate extreme super strength.

Her weaknesses are her vulnerability to energy drain and lack of skill and reduced capability when it comes to manipulating positrons and other forms of anti-matter; allowing them to cause her harm through the radiation output by the annihilation process. She is also incapable of manipulating your shield, armour, or bodies; forcing her to rely largely on ranged attacks and crude direct damage. She is considered a low-grade threat overall, and should be easy to deal with; particularly with your superior reflexes and esoterics.

"I'm going to deal with Blitz, Tattletale, Mistral make sure nobody gets a report out. You four help the others take out her help. Samus well...want to come with?" You said with a small smirk beneath your helmet as you felt a little part of you relish the challenge of another electrokine. If you were the stormchild, why not test yourself against someone else of your element?

"Should be easy. So why not?" Samus said with a little swish of her hips as you nodded and set your eyepieces to opaque mode.

Lightning coursed around you, and you let in a breath through your helmet before exploding out towards her; melee weapon in hammer form and spinning as your speed booster rocketed towards her, a devastating swing crashing into her automatic electromagnetic fields as you could sense her sudden surprise.

"Fuck it's the tincans!" She said at a speed most of her compatriots wouldn't even be able to process before your arm cannon sparked to life and let forth threads of shock coil anti-matter, neutrinos and energy stripping, stabbing into her shielding and lighting the room up with interesting noble gas lighting as elements were combined into heavier atomic numbers by the energy pouring from your weapon.

"Grah, why you of all people?" She complained as she tore nearby nails out of unused equipment and sent them rocketing through the air at relativistic speeds; sparking orbs of plasma ripping through the sky; a weltreich time dilator letting them devour time even faster. Your own time dilator fired off, letting you simply sidestep the projectiles and throw yourself in a screw attack tackle into her defences until they cracked.

You grabbed at her neck as soon as you unfurled out of the screw attack and while she was still frozen, tossed her into a heavy footdive by Samus that sounded like it broke something even before she gave her a face full of charged super-power missiles.

Time resumed shortly, several 5th Column and Empire-88 troopers falling to pieces as a result of damage inflicted them during the temporal stasis, Tattletale already working on the computer systems as her abilities informed her of the exact steps to take to silence the auto-alarm.

Ryunosuke waved shortly afterwards, fire still curling off his finger tips after having reduced multiple 5th Column warbots to slag, a lesser Vampyr crumpling to his side as Viri withdrew her blade from its own flank, analysing the blood on it until the door opened nearby.

"Are you sure you can handle this?" Samus asked, looking towards Ziqud as he shrugged and pushed ahead, two handed sword in hand.

"Easily." He scoffed while you piled into the entrance. The warehouse was much like many other paragon city warehouses, seemingly overly large for no particular reason and full of empty space that seemed to be rather wasteful to you. There were shelves stacked with all sorts of goods, but you quickly identified that a lot of them had been replaced with 5th column materials that were likely to be used in future operations against Primal America.

Your hand briefly lingered on one of the crates, your eyes noting the coded German label. Your brain worked a cipher that would have stumped the world's supercomputers to figure that it referred to a package full of nuclear weapons materials. Right next to one full of "Propaganda materials for the Irony poisoned."

"Irony poisoning?" Samus asked, stopping briefly at it.

"+People who do a joke so much they end up believing it for real. You see it all the time with people who start with racist jokes ending up becoming actual racists.+" Mistral said over the comms, her stealthy form moving ahead with Viri, Ryunosuke, and Tattletale to get a feel for what might be ahead. A number of marked traps appeared on your HUD courtesy of Mistral's link, with their nature and their activity status listed for you to glance at.

"Keep going, we'll catch up shortly." Samus said before the building shook with the rumble of a detonation. Distant shouting rang loudly in your ears as more blasts thundered far away; telling you that Sevrin and Agafya had started their end of the mission some distance away.

"+Jeeze...I thought we'd have more time.+" Lisa mumbled over the comms.

"+Hey, are the uh...renaissance faire bunch connected to our network?+" She asked afterwards, her voice making it clear she was a bit closer to the trampling of 5th Column Troopers towards the nearest intrusion than you were.

"+No. Try it with Viri maybe? Though I don't think she has that ability built in.+" Samus said, cocking her arm cannon as the two of you sensed a fight likely coming.

Ryunosuke pointed to the left as his Kirin appeared in a burst of flame, his fox familiar jumping out of his bag and landing on his shoulder with a heavy growl while you let out a few bursts of frequency-beam fire to punch through the cover to your left; sine waves sliding through the particles of matter and striking into Nacht Elites who thought they had the drop on you.

"Bomb out!" Brilista shouted as she stepped ahead, the Tiefling advancing and then lobbing a stick bomb with a hard pitch, letting one of her contraptions out of a pouch to expand into a wall of iron while she ducked back as the soldiers let out shouts of "Grenade!" before the explosive erupted in alchemical ice-fire that burned cold, crumbling away the unprotected caught in it in a dark flash of absorbed light followed by snow-blind white.

Ziqud raised his sword, uttered a prayer, and energy flowed into it until it glowed, filling it with power before he charged into the fray, his form seething with rage born power and inherited magics as he snarled and tackled into the nearest War-Wolf; burning arcs severing limbs while his own aura protected him from retaliatory strikes. Crashing waves of power sparked at him when one of the warwolves burning with nictus blackflame slammed a gravitationally distorted hand into him, but Samus' ice beam fire put paid to the warwolf in short order; shards vaporising from her follow up missile.

"Well, seems like we know why our guards went silent." One of the Empire-88 goons said before being grabbed by the neck by a 5th column ubermensch and tossed like a softball to obsfuscate your aim. A quick containment foam missile gave him a soft landing before your shoulder-weapon shifted to a magnum-cannon subweapon and burst fired a series of slugs into the Red and Black armoured Ubermensch, throwing him out of the way as you slid across the floor, ducked beneath a Vampyr's claw swings and snapped its arm like a toothpick with a brief twist and pull to tear it out entirely.

Another detonation of icefire went off; one of Brilista's quick-traps engulfing Empire-88 gangbangers herded as meatshields by the 5th column's troops who advanced by fire of gatling gun and plasma weapons, sinister orders barked over the comms by the higher ups of the Nazi paramilitary as they fell into lines of cover; some scourged off the field by Samus' shots or Viri's quick teleporting assassination strikes; others huddling under psionic barriers and continuing their resistance.

Other traps seemed to present those who set them off with illusions of their worst fears, causing cardiac arrest from fright while Brilista hastily mixed two of her chemical extracts together in the heat of battle; letting a now mounted Ziquid interpose himself between her and a powerful cutting laser.

"+You people enjoy missions like this don't you?+" Lisa said as she snapped the neck of another gangbanger, throwing herself out of the way of a line of rotary gun fire that chewed its way across the floor.

"+That's a ridiculous assertion! I don't like knowing people are in danger from people like these!+" Samus said, a power bomb consuming a wing of incoming lower quality drones while she shrugged off the retaliatory fire, not bothering to dodge what she knew wasn't a serious threat to her to begin with.

"+Viri is saying that they are likely to be bringing in more powerful combatants to make up for the failures of these dregs. Expect incarnate powered soldiers in short order.+" Mistral said in a low whisper, currently silently observing the movements of further 5th Column reinforcements.

"+Anyone important?+" You asked.

"...Massively powerful psychic presence." Ryunosuke muttered slightly before you felt something big on the edge of your mind, like the sucking sensation of being a bit too close to a black hole, survivable but there's a dire sort of immediacy to not be there. Something that only briefly felt in tune with the mental wavelengths of the Nazis before lashing out against them with a whipcrack that rocked the building. Someone else was also here, you weren't sure who, but that did mean that this was likely to get a lot more complicated.

"That is...not good chemicals I'm smelling. What is that?" Brilista said as you noticed a green fog that engulfed unprotected Empire-88 soldiery and rapidly devoured their bodies, causing them to expand frightfully fast before exploding in a burst of yet more of the self-replicating gas; others engulfed by a more purple mist that caused rapid growth and swelling into muscle bound monsters.

"We're not the only ones here for your friends." You said, realising that whomever was releasing the gas was likely a master of genetic manipulation to be able to induce such mutations in people who breathed in the purple mist. Which likely meant they were here to collect samples.

"Pull back, most of you aren't protected against gas like that." Samus said, noting that even soldiers with gas masks were overwhelmed by the forced evolution gas and directing everyone to move to be literally anywhere else as fast as possible. The ground was shaking with the clear signs of something digging through it, and Ryunosouke shuddered for just a moment.

"We're going to have to head down, quickly. The others have boring machines." He said before he looked at the ground and sucked in air, glyphs forming at his command and parting the ground to allow a quick passage way down for you all to slide across, leaving the growing firefight to resolve itself.

"There's a lot of monsters ahead. Creatures taken from older eras of this world...hydras and...the walking dead...draugr." Ryunosuke said as he let his senses dive into the sight beyond sight briefly. "Lots more than that too..." He said, letting moonlight dance between his fingers as he prepared to release his spellfire on the first monster that he saw.

The room lead down to a hallway, and you could hear the gauntlet of all sorts of mythological creatures in the way between you and advancing further down into this dungeon of a warehouse, all while above the warehouse was now a bedlam of warfare. It was likely that the nazis would have more ambushes ready for you, but you were also concerned about the intruders and their psychic powers; as well as their deadly gas weapons. You'd be fine, your compatriots? You weren't so sure.


Situation:

An unknown third party has made its own attack on the warehouse, likely wanting the DNA of the two captive teenagers for their genetic experiments. They have psychic powers as well as a mastery of chemical warfare and genetic engineering.

The Nazis are split between multiple fronts and so you'll have a straighter shot towards them.

The Nazis have a lot of mythological monsters up their sleeves, at least the undead and Laernean Hydras, probably more.

Sevrin's team has successfully breached into the warehouse and is making as big of a mess as possible.

So far, no known higher up capes from the 5th Column or the Empire-88 are known to be present.

The two rescuees are healthy and unharmed for the moment.

Team Strategy: Pick five priorities and set from greatest to least.

[]: Civilian Defence (Defend civilians at the line of battle)
[]: Search and Rescue (Find civilians trapped in enemy territory and save them)
[]: Reconnaissance (find out where the foe is and what they're doing)
[]: Force annihilation (destroy as much of the foe as possible)
[]: Ally assistance (try to shore up the efforts of friendly military forces and pick up more team members to get eight people)
[]: Objective capping (Use your foresight to determine points of strategic interest and deal with them)
[]: HQ elimination (look for and kill important enemy characters, units, and structures to weaken their overall efforts)
[]: Fire Break (Contain any enemy advances and eliminate these pockets of advance to keep frontlines stable
[]: Lockdown (Stop the enemy from enjoying freedom of movement by eliminating their infrastructure to support it and choking the avenues they're using to move)
[]: DISTRACTION CARNIFEX!!! (Make the most noise possible to pull as much attention to yourselves as you can, drawing forces away from allies and civilians at obvious risk to yourself.)

Write in Team Tactics and Character Actions:

See how teams are doing:

Choose one:

[]: Team Taylor (Taylor's group)
[]: Team Xaeon (Aronim's group)
[]: Team Sevrin (Sevrin's group)