Team 1:
[x] Samus Aran (Mandatory Duodecimarch, generalist, slightly more agility weighted.)
[x] Arne Skjoldr (Mandatory Duodecimarch, generalist, slightly more close combat weighted)
[x} Agatha Sokolova (Mandatory Duodecimarch, generalist, slightly more tanking weighted)
[x] Sevrin Agard (Mandatory, generalist, slightly more support oriented)
[x]: Silverbolt (Autobot aerialbot, aerial focused melee and ranged combatant; very effective against organic enemies. Good cooperative bonus with Samus)
[x]: Alyrsero (Eldar Craftworld Warlock, direct damage oriented Warpborn abilities. Extreme damage capabilities but relatively weaker defence and support. Strong cooperative bonus with Arne, great with the other duodecimarchs)
[x]: Nightcaster (Debuff and ranged damage focused shadow sorcerer. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters.)
[x]: Dinomax (Metahuman mastermind, summoning, melee damage, and support focused. On one hand, no cooperative bonuses. On the other: D I N O S A U R S)
Team 2
[x]: Ormothin (Exodite Eldar jade mage, best heals and supports, makes your booboos go away very quickly while he's on the field, can make plants into allies and empower allies with the strength of life itself. Okayish at melee.)
[x]: Kid Win (Masterforce tinker, highly generalistic, good at dealing with tech based enemies. Strong cooperative bonuses with Samus.)
[x]: Idaliryn (Lumineth Swordknight, close quarters blender with a mix of offensive and support magic but limited crowd control. Cooperative bonus with all Eldar.
[x]: Clarioli (Ithilyani factor-mage, crafter, has a lot of robots, will get random crafting ideas from deployment, very tanky and good at most ranges, great against tech based foes. Bonus with all Eldar)
[x]: Clockblocker (Parahuman striker, with enhancements and explorer suit is quite durable, versatile, and fast and is able to remove select combatants from the fight temporarily or lethally clothesline them with his cables.)
Priorities:
[1]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
[2]: Denial (Prevent the enemy from seizing certain points or items of interest)
[3]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
Team 3
[x]: Bumblebee (Autobot Scout master, reconnaissance and infiltration focused CQC combatant, broadly effective against anything lighter than superheavy. Very good cooperative bonuses with non-adult characters)
[x]: Kaeliyae (Eldar Harlequin Shadowseer, Illusionist and extremely agile close range combatant, very good at turning large numbers of enemies against themselves. Gains a cooperative bonus if deployed with Alyrsero, and a lesser one for all other Eldar characters. )
[x]: Elendria (Aesvaul mage-knight, best tank among the Eldar, very good at stopping squishies from getting hit, hits hard herself especially in close combat, can get ideas for stuff to forge from the encounter.)
[x]: Vista (Masterforce mover, very good support, devastating offensive capabilities against robotic enemies. Strong cooperative bonuses with Arne.)
[x]: Windblade (Flying autobot focused on CQC and aerial combat, general purpose combatant and psychic. Works great with bumblebee)
Priorities:
[1]: Commando Ops (Seize important locations or take out important enemy strongpoints such as leaders or vital infrastructure, favours sneakier teams)
[2]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
[3]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
Team 4
[x]: Eudaimonica (Demon-summoning sorceress, all rounder minion focused character, has supports and ranged damage too. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters.)
[x]: Korlanil (Ynnari death mage, very good at making things dead, makes bad jokes, can also stop or reverse death with some effort, gets power from people dying near him. Bonus with all Eldar.)
[x]: Elerya (Yurye Psionic Dominator, masterful crowd control capabilities and incredibly destructive all range combatant though reliant on crowd control for defence. Strong cooperative bonus with Samus, great with the other duodecimarchs.)
[x]: Lelithax (Ex-Druchii Sorceress, somewhat racist. Heavily debuff and malediction focused caster character who has pretty good defences of her own and can handle herself a bit in melee. Strong cooperative bonus with Alyrsero for being twin siblings. Cooperative bonus with all other eldar characters.)
[x]: Aronim (Elerya's brother. Melee damage focused psion, decently tanky, hits really, really hard with his psionic abilities in CQC; like just melts things he gets into scraps with and crits out the ass. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters, especially Elerya whom he gains a twin bonus with.)
[x]: Warpath (Megatank Autobot, extremely durable, great firepower, incredible strength and hard hitting prowess. Not very fast, but gives a command bonus to whatever squad he deploys with and works great with autobots.)
Priorities:
[1]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
[2]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
[3]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
Teams that are under eight will try to pick up local characters to push their numbers up to eight. While this process is random and does mean they'll be understrength until they reach the max. it can expand your friend circle.
Team 1:
[x] Samus Aran (Mandatory Duodecimarch, generalist, slightly more agility weighted.)
[x] Arne Skjoldr (Mandatory Duodecimarch, generalist, slightly more close combat weighted)
[x} Agatha Sokolova (Mandatory Duodecimarch, generalist, slightly more tanking weighted)
[x] Sevrin Agard (Mandatory, generalist, slightly more support oriented)
[x]: Alyrsero (Eldar Craftworld Warlock, direct damage oriented Warpborn abilities. Extreme damage capabilities but relatively weaker defence and support. Strong cooperative bonus with Arne, great with the other duodecimarchs)
[x]: Vista (Masterforce mover, very good support, devastating offensive capabilities against robotic enemies. Strong cooperative bonuses with Arne.)
Team 2
[x]: Ormothin (Exodite Eldar jade mage, best heals and supports, makes your booboos go away very quickly while he's on the field, can make plants into allies and empower allies with the strength of life itself. Okayish at melee.)
[x]: Idaliryn (Lumineth Swordknight, close quarters blender with a mix of offensive and support magic but limited crowd control. Cooperative bonus with all Eldar.
[x]: Clarioli (Ithilyani factor-mage, crafter, has a lot of robots, will get random crafting ideas from deployment, very tanky and good at most ranges, great against tech based foes. Bonus with all Eldar)
[x]: Kid Win (Masterforce tinker, highly generalistic, good at dealing with tech based enemies. Strong cooperative bonuses with Samus.)
[x]: Clockblocker (Parahuman striker, with enhancements and explorer suit is quite durable, versatile, and fast and is able to remove select combatants from the fight temporarily or lethally clothesline them with his cables.)
[x]: Silverbolt (Autobot aerialbot, aerial focused melee and ranged combatant; very effective against organic enemies. Good cooperative bonus with Samus)
Priorities (Teams 1 and 2):
[1]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
[2]: Denial (Prevent the enemy from seizing certain points or items of interest)
[3]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
Team 3
[x]: Bumblebee (Autobot Scout master, reconnaissance and infiltration focused CQC combatant, broadly effective against anything lighter than superheavy. Very good cooperative bonuses with non-adult characters)
[x]: Kaeliyae (Eldar Harlequin Shadowseer, Illusionist and extremely agile close range combatant, very good at turning large numbers of enemies against themselves. Gains a cooperative bonus if deployed with Alyrsero, and a lesser one for all other Eldar characters. )
[x]: Elendria (Aesvaul mage-knight, best tank among the Eldar, very good at stopping squishies from getting hit, hits hard herself especially in close combat, can get ideas for stuff to forge from the encounter.)
[x]: Nightcaster (Debuff and ranged damage focused shadow sorcerer. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters.)
[x]: Eudaimonica (Demon-summoning sorceress, all rounder minion focused character, has supports and ranged damage too. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters.)
[x]: Windblade (Flying autobot focused on CQC and aerial combat, general purpose combatant and psychic. Works great with bumblebee)
Team 4
[x]: Korlanil (Ynnari death mage, very good at making things dead, makes bad jokes, can also stop or reverse death with some effort, gets power from people dying near him. Bonus with all Eldar.)
[x]: Elerya (Yurye Psionic Dominator, masterful crowd control capabilities and incredibly destructive all range combatant though reliant on crowd control for defence. Strong cooperative bonus with Samus, great with the other duodecimarchs.)
[x]: Aronim (Elerya's brother. Melee damage focused psion, decently tanky, hits really, really hard with his psionic abilities in CQC; like just melts things he gets into scraps with and crits out the ass. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters, especially Elerya whom he gains a twin bonus with.)
[x]: Dinomax (Metahuman mastermind, summoning, melee damage, and support focused. On one hand, no cooperative bonuses. On the other: D I N O S A U R S)
[x]: Lelithax (Ex-Druchii Sorceress, somewhat racist. Heavily debuff and malediction focused caster character who has pretty good defences of her own and can handle herself a bit in melee. Strong cooperative bonus with Alyrsero for being twin siblings. Cooperative bonus with all other eldar characters.)
[x]: Warpath (Megatank Autobot, extremely durable, great firepower, incredible strength and hard hitting prowess. Not very fast, but gives a command bonus to whatever squad he deploys with and works great with autobots.)
Priorities (Teams 3 and 4):
[1]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
[2]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
[3]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
[X] Team SuperWarMetroids-Wormzilla 47,000 (Mark II: Electric Boogaloo Deluxe Platinum Addition X)
Team 1:
[x] Samus Aran (Mandatory Duodecimarch, generalist, slightly more agility weighted.)
[x] Arne Skjoldr (Mandatory Duodecimarch, generalist, slightly more close combat weighted)
[x} Agatha Sokolova (Mandatory Duodecimarch, generalist, slightly more tanking weighted)
[x] Sevrin Agard (Mandatory, generalist, slightly more support oriented)
[x]: Alyrsero (Eldar Craftworld Warlock, direct damage oriented Warpborn abilities. Extreme damage capabilities but relatively weaker defence and support. Strong cooperative bonus with Arne, great with the other duodecimarchs)
[x]: Vista (Masterforce mover, very good support, devastating offensive capabilities against robotic enemies. Strong cooperative bonuses with Arne.)
Team 2
[x]: Ormothin (Exodite Eldar jade mage, best heals and supports, makes your booboos go away very quickly while he's on the field, can make plants into allies and empower allies with the strength of life itself. Okayish at melee.)
[x]: Idaliryn (Lumineth Swordknight, close quarters blender with a mix of offensive and support magic but limited crowd control. Cooperative bonus with all Eldar.
[x]: Clarioli (Ithilyani factor-mage, crafter, has a lot of robots, will get random crafting ideas from deployment, very tanky and good at most ranges, great against tech based foes. Bonus with all Eldar)
[x]: Clockblocker (Parahuman striker, with enhancements and explorer suit is quite durable, versatile, and fast and is able to remove select combatants from the fight temporarily or lethally clothesline them with his cables.)
[x]: Silverbolt (Autobot aerialbot, aerial focused melee and ranged combatant; very effective against organic enemies. Good cooperative bonus with Samus)
[x]: Korlanil (Ynnari death mage, very good at making things dead, makes bad jokes, can also stop or reverse death with some effort, gets power from people dying near him. Bonus with all Eldar.)
Priorities:
[1]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
[2]: Denial (Prevent the enemy from seizing certain points or items of interest)
[3]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
Team 3
[x]: Bumblebee (Autobot Scout master, reconnaissance and infiltration focused CQC combatant, broadly effective against anything lighter than superheavy. Very good cooperative bonuses with non-adult characters)
[x]: Kaeliyae (Eldar Harlequin Shadowseer, Illusionist and extremely agile close range combatant, very good at turning large numbers of enemies against themselves. Gains a cooperative bonus if deployed with Alyrsero, and a lesser one for all other Eldar characters. )
[x]: Elendria (Aesvaul mage-knight, best tank among the Eldar, very good at stopping squishies from getting hit, hits hard herself especially in close combat, can get ideas for stuff to forge from the encounter.)
[x]: Nightcaster (Debuff and ranged damage focused shadow sorcerer. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters.)
[x]: Eudaimonica (Demon-summoning sorceress, all rounder minion focused character, has supports and ranged damage too. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters.)
[x]: Windblade (Flying autobot focused on CQC and aerial combat, general purpose combatant and psychic. Works great with bumblebee)
Priorities:
[1]: Commando Ops (Seize important locations or take out important enemy strongpoints such as leaders or vital infrastructure, favours sneakier teams)
[2]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
[3]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
Team 4
[x]: Dinomax (Metahuman mastermind, summoning, melee damage, and support focused. On one hand, no cooperative bonuses. On the other: D I N O S A U R S)
[x]: Elerya (Yurye Psionic Dominator, masterful crowd control capabilities and incredibly destructive all range combatant though reliant on crowd control for defence. Strong cooperative bonus with Samus, great with the other duodecimarchs.)
[x]: Aronim (Elerya's brother. Melee damage focused psion, decently tanky, hits really, really hard with his psionic abilities in CQC; like just melts things he gets into scraps with and crits out the ass. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters, especially Elerya whom he gains a twin bonus with.)
[x]: Kid Win (Masterforce tinker, highly generalistic, good at dealing with tech based enemies. Strong cooperative bonuses with Samus.)
[x]: Lelithax (Ex-Druchii Sorceress, somewhat racist. Heavily debuff and malediction focused caster character who has pretty good defences of her own and can handle herself a bit in melee. Strong cooperative bonus with Alyrsero for being twin siblings. Cooperative bonus with all other eldar characters.)
[x]: Warpath (Megatank Autobot, extremely durable, great firepower, incredible strength and hard hitting prowess. Not very fast, but gives a command bonus to whatever squad he deploys with and works great with autobots.)
Priorities:
[1]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
[2]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
[3]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage
A Schwarzkopf Tank was the pinnacle of American tank technology, a behemoth with a hundred and fifty-five millimetre electrothermal chemical smoothbore gun that could blow straight through the front of an Abrams like cardboard. Seventy-five tons of composite armour, with a powerful pintle-mounted heavy machine gun and a coaxial GPMG and multi-purpose grenade barrage launchers as well as layered defences including an active defence laser and frag-launchers, explosive reactive armour, multi-layered composites designed with inputs from tinkers and thinkers a powerful turbine engine that could run on anything that could burn with no loss in efficiency or longevity that offered it nearly five thousand horsepower to drive as fast as a car if it wanted to. Secondary features included demolition rope, MANPADs attached to the pintle mounted machine gun to make nosy aircraft find someone else to bother, secretive materials technology to reduce radar and thermal visibility without reducing effectiveness or comfort, and an advanced communications system for its crew of three; Commander, Driver, and Gunner and an impressive twelve degrees of gun depression and fifty of elevation letting it dominate hill fighting. It was a world-beater, the pride of general dynamics, the new wave of the U.S Army's way of doing war, the dream of everyone in the tank corps to drive, the armoured fist of capitalism and liberal democracy and the unstoppable behemoth of the armies of the screaming eagle.
It was now flying end over end after an impact from a Rikti "Negotiator" Hover Tank's fusion cannon detonated a small and shaped thermonuclear reaction on its hull that sent a cataclysmic lance of plasma into its hull and then lifted it upwards with the bow-wave from the secondary blast as a small sun was born and then died in an eyeblink; the front half of the vehicle simply gone, the rest busy boiling away or melting and the crew scattered ions and electrons spread across the trail of ejecta as the shattered remnants of the vehicle rained in pieces down the street. Its platoon mates were broken beyond recognition, obliterated by the blast which had also reduced their infantry escort to less than dust. Their weapons fire had simply been stripped of its kinetic energy by the elongated saucer shaped hover tank's shielding, its cylindrical and spined cannon humming while the craft floated forwards gently; particle lances emerging from an emitter on top to spear through infantry that sought to ambush it with rocket launchers.
Rikti headmen in their distinctive power armour shrugged off direct impacts from grenade launchers and reduced the offending soldiers to dust with their return fire; green globules of plasma leaving nothing but ash and vapour on impact and skeletonising or burning men nearby who were exposed to the all-consuming radiant heat. A Humvee driving towards one of the dark blue and green armoured hybrids was simply grabbed by the front with an outstretched hand and flung like a softball into a line of soldiers who had annoyed the troopers of the lineage of war, the gesture as easy as flinging a frisbee and done without any apparent effort.
"-Human Presence: Collapsing. Advance: Swift. Neighbourhood: Ninety per cent under control.-" One of the Rikti Soldiers reported through the telepathic network as an Apache hovered nearby, rising from a line of houses and releasing a burst of hellfire missiles that succeeded only in knocking the Rikti around somewhat with the thunderous detonations. A Rikti Drone zipped to the side, dodging the missile aimed towards it and spat forth laser spite that blasted the Chopper in half from the front, the torso sized nautuloid quickly scything down the other choppers in the squadron while the infantry squad picked itself up or dusted itself off; setting their weapons to rapid fire and torching their way through a line of sandbags and machine guns that offered no obstacle or challenge.
"Metahuman Presence: Detectible via extradimensional link signatures. Recommendation: Isolate and destroy. Samples: No longer necessary. Root Cause: Extradimensional parasites." One of the commanders said before she flinched slightly at a rock thrown at it by a small child pulled out of the way by a desperate mother.
"Recommendation: Cease nuisance activities." The Rikti said simply to the mother, ignoring her until she pulled a Car up in front of the path of a rocket propelled grenade to shield her from the shrapnel, forming and then casting a fusion grenade back at the offending squad. "Your Status: Under Rikti control. Your Life: Guaranteed." She growled before signalling to her jump troopers to advance into the street where the fire had come from, power blades sizzling through soldiers and psionic prowess causing many to simply drop their weapons or stare and drool like idiots as they were rendered catatonic.
The remainder of the national guardsmen in the immediate area collapsed as an effective fighting force as soon as one of the cigar shaped Rikti drop ships floated overhead; a hundred meters long not counting the long, antennae like tail protrusions from behind it. Its rippling waves of direct energy weapons simply deleting the sections of line as soon as they were picked up; laser fire so pinpoint precise that even individual shells and missiles were fried out of the sky until surrenders had been offered; teleporting Rikti troopers setting up containment pens to push the defeated soldiers into before locking them in stasis fields to free up troopers from the need to hold them in place.
A necessary effort, for the horde was already on them. A warbling shriek and a heavy bass drop announced their arrival followed by the sounds of an endless tide of metallic feet and treads. Threat detectors pinged with a notice of an overwhelming number of threats as a wave of machinery pushed through every alleyway like water through cracks in the wall, surging from the sewers or depositing themselves out of clawed drop pods fired by high flying machines designed in the manner of old spy-planes; collapsing into a metal sea all around the Rikti.
Aggressors by their millions swarmed the Rikti with hand like seekers and crab like Malacostratas accompanying their limitless tide; rapid fire plasma weapons tearing through them like so much tissue paper but seemingly utterly oblivious to the severity of their losses. Strobing energy bullets pinged off of the shields of the Rikti who quickly deployed their power blades to hack through the waves of machines in hewing sweeps; letting plasma torch equipped assault Rikti engulf the swarm with a gout of eerie green-blue hellfire that burned at temperatures that would instantly vaporise tungsten, reducing the purple waves to atoms.
The hover tanks fired again and again while the Dropship's thunderous bombardment tore apart whole sections of street in sheets of fusion ejecta to try and burn the protectorate to the last nanite. But the Infinite Army would not be stopped by pinpricks in its ocean of metal. Psions let out storms of the energy of their minds, telekinetic waves pulling, twisting and shredding them apart and technopathy forcing their forms to destroy themselves or each other; electricity coiling through their massive hords and making machine after machine explode into dead nanite shards.
It was not enough, the Protectorate was already moving in their larger war forms; triangular tanks gladly letting themselves be pulverised into scrap by sweeps of Rikti aircraft while the war-clouds of nanite formed combat bodies lobbed themselves at advanced saucers and starbirds; many releasing suicidal EMP bursts or exploding in plasma containment vents to little by little drag their adversaries down. Behemothic tanks fitted with triple barelled rotary guns that released strange explosions that collapsed dimensional states into strange values that brought other laws of physics crashing down onto the targeted area; battering at the shielding of the Rikti in twisting explosions of weird energies; others instead expanding the scope of string-dimensions into macroscopic sizes in devastating form; simply making enemies expand into many new dimensions and twisting their bodies apart before collapsing back into a horrid squelching mess; though at the very least the strength of the binding energy of an object would resist these twisted effects.
Apparently being avid fans of Doctor Who; Dalek like Exterminators endlessly chanting the war cry of the famed pepper shakers of doom outfitted with twin heavy arm cannons hovered into the fray on the salient of Rikti as they teleported in further forces including large tear drop shaped heavy assault suits packing mighty twin arm cannons. Fractal cannon beams twisted and shattered out of the openings of the exterminators, causing reality's laws to crack like glass while the cones of impossible colours expanded outwards, ignoring most forms of conventional material strength and pulling more of its impossible energy through the cracks to deal more harm as they propagated further.
Many rikti were forced to mediport out, dealt unnatural wounds and injuries when their shields and armour failed before the bizarre weapons of the Protectorate given to them by their disturbing patron. A Dropship swarmed by millions of gremlins; bat-winged aggressors; all constantly self destructing on it, crashed to the ground with its crew having to teleport out one by one as the machines began to eat their way inside to consume both hull and crew.
The destroyer however, would not be ignored, its unearthly shrieking and roaring calling to attention both alien and mechanical minds as the biological monstrosity formed from a swarm of little crabs that had violently devoured the flesh in their way, Oxygen Destroyer power flashing white, green, and purple as larger forms of the old horror built themselves into being. All sharing only a vaguely crustacean and certainly demonic countenance in common as they let loose streams of micro-oxygen into the fray, others energising their horns and claws for deadly swings and swipes.
Thermal Displacers and Coherent Perfect Absorbers were fired from the Rikti and Protectorate lines respectively; the former shoving the heat in the area out to create incendiary waves in one place and the bitterest cold in another to ice over or incinerate the scuttling horror; the latter reducing temperatures to absolute zero for a brief moment by absorbing all thermal energy in the contact area into a tiny dot; the sudden snap freezing shattering many other destroyers. But they broke apart into other forms and adjusted their tactics, many taking on flying shapes while others emphasised ranged combat power, lobbing forth coherent cutting beams of their horn energy or volleys of bullet spikes or bio-plasma.
Others still pulled themselves together into shuddering colossi that walked on too many legs or flew on too many wings or into carapaced pseudo-plants that built fortified positions in moments, demonic staring eyes guiding the formation of crab-cannons and vents for the evil that had given them their current form to lash at their foe where grabbing segmented pincer tails or birthing swarms of microscopic hungering crab things would not.
Even at the smallest of levels, Protectorate Nanites were battling with Destroyah microbes and Rikti Molec-Drones under the monstrous green light of a sky twisted by the battle fury of three inhuman armies. While at the same time, titanic Rikti Walkers wrestled with protectorate Multipods and colossal kaiju scale Destroyer Forms, levelling buildings caught in their wake while the capes of Los Angeles did what they could to move the innocent out of the way. The skies writhed and twisted with monstrous and strange shapes and glowing energies of countless makes until the wings of the air force could not be seen any longer as the United States Military began to reconsolidate and reconsider its options in the face of such an unprecedented situation, officers asking generals for orders in the hopes of answers to a situation they could not even begin to make sense of while the sky was split with unearthly noises and bestial roars.
This was War, not as humans knew it, but in its rawest form, divested of thoughts of mercy or quarter. A simple, brute contest to annihilate the other totally and utterly. But this war would not have to be fought by mere mortals, for this Earth had its own gods and heroes who would answer the call of facing an impossible threat as all three of the Triumvirate made themselves known with a carpet of monstrous dead or defeated foes, Alexandria slamming a dropship through the chest of an aggregate destroyer, Legend scourging dozens of blocks of protectorate with his twisting and contorting lasers, and Eidolon an endlessly shifting array of powers that tore through war machines and biobeasts alike to rally the Parahumans to the fray.
The City of Angels would not be allowed to fall without a fight.
Samus' Notes for Date: I'm so glad I wasn't asked to sit in on this. I would have been sooooooo bored listening to all the empty speeches. And can we be sure that they're ready for conflict on this sort of scale? I don't think we should be letting them deal with fights like this when most of them are so weak.
Oh they're not, they're worthless garbage, but they're what you have rather than the actually useful army you want. As we now know, sometimes you have to work with that even if you don't want to, because there won't be a convenient extraversal army coming to save you...
Arne's Notes for Date: The important question is whether this will be able to hold when the situation gets dire. The governments of this era have so little connection to the actual populace that I'm not convinced they won't fall apart over their conflicting interests once pushed.
Agafya's Notes for Date: None of these people are genuinely interested in mutual defence and half of them are probably already dupes for the invaders to come. All they want is access to more advanced technology and information to sell to their overlords.
Sevrin's Notes: Bah, do not concern me with the going ons of scoundrels who endlessly contort their words for small favours in the name of power. I would rather face the hordes of the final night on my own than sit through the bickering of professional liars and power mongers.
Then just leave lmao. Nothing's keeping you lot here, and the Nightbringer is genociding something like a galaxy a day back in your home universe, so it's not like this is an optimal thing you have to do for the sake of morality, loads of people need help, a lot of them far more than any Earth.
Then again I guess it'd be a very different Quest if they took me up on that.
Classified as Aberrant Tinkers due to unusual patterns of extreme consistency in the manifestations of the abilities and a lack of any apparent trigger events beyond strange dreams and an interest in paranormal phenomenon relating to other realities. With none of the usual circumstances that lead to the onset of Tinker abilities, these individuals are still possessed of an immense drive to begin building nanotechnology of a degree of sophistication far beyond any noted technical skills those who express the condition have. These machines always clump into a ramshackle form of mechanical humanoid that will seek to leave the domicile of the creator at some point to parts unknown. Commentary from Dawnchild, Duskguard, Sunburst, and Moonshade of the Autobots is that this is a manifestation of some sort of extraversal phenomenon, and Autobot Commander Warpath has recommended destroying them. However, many have escaped the attempted purge of the machines and have disappeared into parts unknown.
Funnily enough, not the first time Bet has had to deal with nearly this exact situation. The Blasphemies aren't quite as big an issue as the Electrical Protectorate, though.
Read: There is no resistance. The local villains are the Elite, mostly more corporate mastermind types rather than facepunchers, and the capes here...
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Of the people who haven't been enhanced by a non-Shard source in some capacity, the only properly relevant US capes are, at best, the Protectorate's top 11, the big names who form the classic v-pose on the posters. And even of those 11 I'd probably drop Armsmaster, Cinereal, Exalt, Rime, and Chevalier right off the bat unless they've been enhanced somehow, so that's nearly half, leaving only the Triumvirate, Dragon (who at this point can only command one suit at a time unless someone's loosened her restrictions), Myrddin, and Narwhal.
Luckily actually useful people are here. Like us! Speaking of:
[X] Team SuperWarMetroids-Wormzilla 47,000 (Mark II: Electric Boogaloo Deluxe Platinum Addition X)
War is a terrible place for a small child to be in.
Cherish Brown tried to run through the smoke-filled streets as monsters roared behind her and a carpet of carapaced flesh began to advance ever closer towards her. The hideous, unearthly noise of pseudo-arthropod beasts born of an ecosystem that had long been extinguished and then twisted by humanity's desire for an ever more destructive weapon than before into monsters who existed solely to destroy everything beyond their unified mind.
A row of Rikti firing into the masses of creatures materialised from nowhere; sizzling plasma tearing through their bodies while they sought to develop stronger and better armour to resist such heat; humming fields manifesting around their bodies beneath the dusty green skies while they reeled backwards.
She looked back for a moment and realised her mistake as she saw that one of the creatures crawling on a dozen legs with six more stabbing limbs emerging from it turned to meet her gaze. A circular mouth splitting open and letting out a hideous roar before its offices emerging from below its scythed limbs began to spasm and spit out bioferrous projectiles sheathed in crackling acids; only a Rikti Shield trooper's advance stopping the spines that were sizzling entire cares into chunks from killing her.
The smell was something strange, like laughing gas at the dentist, like the smell of fluorescent lights or heavily chlorinated linoleum. It partly reminded her of a pool that had just been cleaned too, but there was another odor behind it, the metal stench of blood, human blood. Broken down and absorbed into their biologies with the stolen oxygen launched back as micro-oxygen projectiles at great speeds, knocking many rikti off of their feet and tearing them apart in a cloud of charged particles once their shields cracked from overlapping mist-beams.
She yelped, shouting out a call for her mother, for a hero, for anyone who could help. The bark of a dog called her attention as her retriever called to her, trying to get her to run. The things were building into another form, a scuttling beetle-tank beast with large pincers and a limb that could bend at too many angles to serve as a turret while the primary head stared forwards with hate; letting out unearthly calls while the tank thing smashed through a road of houses, ruby energy destroying a Rikti hover tank that had rolled into view before a wave of locust like protectorate gunships swooped overhead; gatling guns spraying the field with PK incendieries that forced combustive chemical reactions on what they touched to create strange purple flames.
The heat was beyond obscene, her feet felt like they were going to melt, her clothes were half sweat by body weight and only the sudden sight of her parents could give her the energy to keep pushing forward. They called to her, her brother almost catatonic as he tried to hide behind the husk of a PRT armoured car. Rex let out a howl as the creature that had spotted her before earlier crawled over a bus turned onto its side, the metal of the vehicle crumpling beneath the rhinoceros weight of the skittering beast; many of its fellows dying in retrospectrum pulsar bursts from flying eye-like protectorate drones before others took aerial form and slammed into the airborne pests.
She turned to see the howling thing, its eyes full of malevolence and its breath bearing that horrid chlorine smell of death while it began to zero in, the bursts of fire it made at surviving PRT Officers who popped out of cover to try and fire cryo-rounds confirming that it was taking its time. It could kill her whenever it wanted.
She felt like she was going to vomit, her body rebelled at the thought of trying to escape the thing, its eyes boring into her soul as she could feel a fraction of its killing rage against the ecosystem its body was unable to coexist with while the air buzzed with tiny shapes. She managed to get close to her parents, making the final journey as the beast flicked a car between it and her in half, its roar sounding more like a laugh and its body given an eerie, haunting lighting by the green glow in the sky and the purple radiance from the flame, swirling with red flecked dust.
It charged its horn and Rex tried to push them out of the way, a valiant sacrifice by a loyal friend.
The destroyah shifted and brought its lowermost scythe limbs in uppercutting motions and struck home.
The wet squelch of her parents' last breath wormed its way into her ears as they shuddered, convulsed. Trying to say something as they began to bubble and boil. Their bodies blackening, steaming, and crumbling into base elements before they could finish their last words and extinguished her final hopes.
The thing gave an almost sick laugh of satisfaction, joy at the thought of death. The hated ones no longer present to offend it, to besmirch its existence with their life or to enrage some primordial killing instinct against those that were not part of its laughing consciousness. It felt for a moment, the pain they died in, the realisation that this was the end. And as always, it gave the demon from an archaean era a sense of pride and joy. The glorious extermination of something it couldn't stand.
But the small one. The mind pulsed and understood, this one had a long life ahead of it, the furred thing a shorter one. A life that would be spent proliferating the other ecology, the one that it could not live with, the one that squeezed it out of its abode and sought to limit it, contain it, imprison it. A promise of a future for something it would never desire any form of togetherness with.
A virus.
It rose its claw and prepared to strike and Cherish wept her last as she sank to her knees, holding her dog and preparing to die while her Brother babbled mantras of futile calm.
The creature almost seemed to smile, laughing its monstrous cackle that ululated upon itself, having both deep and bassy and high and screechy components as if it were speaking out of many throats, its whole form seeming to crackle with an obscene power before it prepared to swing down to crush her.
She hoped she'd see her family in heaven.
But the final blow never came, the creature was frozen stock still, and a metallic skeleton with a blue hood towered over her, surrounded by guards who all had that strange witchfire green set of robotic eyes. Some just one, most two, a handful more; many humanoid, some less so, but more constrained, robots.
"Oh would you just look at this mess." The machine said with a hint of resigned dignity and arrogant disdain as his inviolable strike force had apparently cleared out the monsters in the local area.
"Ah, poor thing of flesh. You may call me Trazyn the infinite, but this is where our meeting ends for now." He said, letting a little metal spider crawl on the three and then flash them away with a green burst of energy before these spiders returned to him.
"Well handled as always, my liege." One of the one-eyed ones said with a bow.
"Thank you but we have work more important than flattery to do. History is at stake, and you all know how much I love the preservation of that noble story." He said, bidding his small strike force to keep going. He could have swept the planet with vast armies yes, but he had friends who would frown on such things and it would be brutishly over the top to simply smash his way in with a vast army. A minuscule commando force would be all he needed, in and out with no one the wiser.
...
Trazyn the Infinite walked quite calmly through the bedlam consuming swathes of California, humming a jaunty tune as the Supreme Grand Overlord and self-proclaimed Great Phaeron of the Charnovokh set his optics on his latest acquisition, idly swatting at a protectorate eradicator that sought to jump at him with his empathic obliterator staff; green energies coruscating between various nanite bodies and causing them to crumple and disintegrate in sympathetic death that lashed out at the core mind collective itself.
Humming as a MOAB fell onto the battlefield and failed to even break his stride while he and his court guard; all mighty overlords and high crypteks in their own right, not so much as fought their way through a swarm of Destroyah Humanoid forms as they walked through with a large number of frozen corpses left behind while he continued to mime a Sunday stroll down the battleworn streets of the city of Hollywood. Lower Overlords, Lords, Lychguards, Crypteks, and Immortals accompanied him; he had no desire or want for the flayed ones or the destroyers to make a mess of things and at this point the menial warriors could hardly be considered people anymore than the canopteks could.
The detachment he had come with was small, based on the games he sometimes played with his nemesors to pass the time he wagered that it'd be worth maybe twenty thousand points all things considered. Heavily concentrated into more elite infantry and powerful canopteks as well as cloaked phase-shifting air transports ready to extract them once his business was done or to swat away nuisances who had proven themselves to be a bother. He was aware that he probably should inform the Blood Ravens of his presence here, due to his dynasty being part of the Last Alliance, but he had a bit of a competition to run with regards to who could secure more of this novel era of Earth's history's heritage.
The automatic doors of the Hollywood Museum opened with a thought as his systems easily sliced through the hopelessly primitive computer systems of the world, the terrified security guards unsure of whether they should leave their posts without permission or risk getting fired and not having a source of income when everything was over quickly frozen in time with a casual stasis burst from a Chronotek. Destroyer forms behind them were frozen and shattered by the energy absorbing powers of Necron frigidax weapons before the absorbed heat was compounded, magnified, and then channelled into searing thermal rays that collapsed atoms into quark soup; swept over the pseudo-arthropod lines behind Trazyn while he took a moment to study the museum.
"What dreadful disregard for historical curiosities. So many things simply left to rot in open air. Such a shame, fortunately, they will have a new home shortly." He said, one of his High Nemesors nodding in acknowledgement while his Vargard Marshal made sure that every step he took was guarded at all times by a phalanx of inviolable unliving metal thrumming with shield power and unusual quantum states.
"Move swiftly. Ensure that no harm comes to the collectibles. It will be too late by the time the Astartes arrive to save much of this city's heritage, and we lack the time to explain to the natives why we are relieving them of the duty of caring for such historical artefacts. Of course, not that most of them would be willing to hear us out without someone less...intimidating to their sensibilities to vouch for us." He said, Canoptek gatherers slithering out or compiling themselves from nano-scarabs to start moving the most delicate objects into safe-keeping first while the aircraft stood vigil, ready to take the entire building if Trazyn wished it.
"If it would not be remiss for me to speak on such matters, my liege, I would wish to ask a question." The Vargard Marshal said, her frame sheathed in heavy armour constructed to immaculate standards over a powerful skeletal metallic body designed for the purpose of singular combat over nearly any other duty save keeping the dynasty master safe.
"You hardly need my permission to speak, Zakanta." Trazyn said wryly as a Rikti Hover tank was ripped inside out by Canoptek Acranthites that had pulled themselves from the shadows and strobed it to death with physics twisting degrees of heat and stabbing phase claws, a sight which he gave no regard even as the other Vargards studied it closely.
"Why bother with such simple curiosos?" She asked as she noticed Trazyn studying the Marilyn Monroe exhibition intently for a few moments, the sounds of disintegrating monsters in the background dying down while a Protectorate teleporting murder squad was given a single, swift cut from a Vargard Warscythe that left a fracture line in reality itself before the Vargard returned to ready position.
"What value does the story of some pre-spacefaring era actress have to the preservation of history?"
"Culture and art is an underappreciated aspect of history in our focus on war, heroes, politics, or monuments. They will save their doomsday weapons and vital infrastructure themselves. Something like this though? Things like this are so often the first to burn and the last to be extinguished." He replied somberly, rubbing at his metallic chin and letting himself be drawn into his thoughts.
"Besides, I don't have one yet." As good a reason as any other in his opinion.
"My lord." One of the Vargards spoke up, snapping Trazyn's emerald gaze towards him.
"Yes, Imentok?" He asked.
"The children have arrived." They replied.
"Best work quickly then, we should not be enemies, but I shan't bet on the rationality of children when they see skeletal robots making off with historical relics when culture such as this is at stake." He commanded, the Chronoteks nodding and making sure the work could be done swiftly while the Tenebroteks worked to make sure it was done silently and invisibly.
"Do you think the children's caretakers would approve of your hobbies?" The Cryptek, the first who spoke up earlier said; Saarthak, once a great and wise woman, now a master of the study of energy itself.
"Oh if the things that Anrakyr have said are of any indication I think we would have a grand old time getting along. I can always appreciate a fellow archaeologist, especially another who cultivates such passions at such a young age." He replied with a hint of satisfaction in his voice while a drop ship exploded in the background after being strafed by a single squadron Necron interceptors for a single pass.
The Human Rikti were advanced yes, but Trazyn never left the acquisition of his exhibitions to chance when such delicacies were on the line, his optics looking carefully over the displayed props and costumes from films of bygone eras, resisting the urge to touch them and instead simply drinking in the stories the exhibits told and the data that was provided.
"A shame that humanity so often fails to appreciate its own record, these poor curiosos shan't languish in this funding-starved mausoleum for much longer. A much grander home awaits them. One that will be safe from the Storm to come, when I shall once again have to play the hero." He said, almost speaking to the treasures as if they were abused pets to take home.
of Course he would enter into a warzone to collect stuff. Good to see Trazyn is doing as he does and making off with seemingly random yet interesting things.
People are going to be confused where the exhibit went after this battle is done. Well if we succeed anyway, if we fail they will be dead
of Course he would enter into a warzone to collect stuff. Good to see Trazyn is doing as he does and making off with seemingly random yet interesting things.
People are going to be confused where the exhibit went after this battle is done. Well if we succeed anyway, if we fail they will be dead
Official theme of Trazyn looting Los Angeles, whistling and walking with the pace of a brisk Saturday morning stroll while the war of the worlds is raging in the background
Arc 1: Fourfold Endeavour: Act 1: Crisis Mission (3): Battle of Los Angeles (Part 2)
((As a note: incarnate slot improvements don't cost research slots, just resources. So I went and plonked down core agility for the whole group, the elementally appropriate judgements; Paralytic Interface for Arne, Tenebrous Interface for Agafya, Cryogenic Interface for Samus, and Energetic Interface for Sevrin.
Also still working on the final form of the new stat system. So the freeform will continue for a bit longer. Probably for this mission.))
Arne
So far your fights had been either small scale or kept thoroughly out of the sight of the general populace. Rarely were non-combatants in direct danger unless you failed. Which was of course, hardly a nice feeling but you could manage that. You just had to not lose or at least do a good enough job with containing the threat.
This though? This was a mess.
People were going to die no matter what you did, and it was a work of serious effort to shut out the voices of the dead and the dying. The sight of Souls gained from the Nexus that these people didn't really know they had shorn from bodies to be dragged to whatever fate awaited them, and from the look your warp and incarnate visor and your developing second sight gave you; they were generally quite surprised with where they were going. Towards a gnawing amethyst pit with twelve thrones facing three larger ones which faced apart from each other surrounding a single great throne; a pattern repeated nine times. Only half of the smaller thrones being attached to any occupants. A place where you could sometimes get an inkling of some great war for the realm of Death as the unprotected were drawn towards the courts of spectral things waiting for their arrival.
Not something you wanted to think about. Not now, when the living still needed you. Could you do it? You weren't sure, you hadn't been in combat situations of this scale very often. In the absolute mess involving Trace, Weavel, a Homogenising swarm, and an encounter with Kanden you didn't want to repeat anytime soon and a few other incidents; but they were always stressful and anxiety inducing. You could feel some part of you though that enjoyed the fighting, that loved being at war in challenging situations. But that part of you scared you and you tried to shove it down, deep down into the black void of your mind where you tried to keep your most painful memories and ego-shattering truths. With much of your recollections of Cylosis and when you first started seeing Sylux in your dreams, your future appariti-
Huh? Where were you. You blanked for a second.
Right.
You looked at the situation and checked your energy storage. You had forty energy tanks and twenty reserve tanks, enough missiles that you didn't really bother to count them since your ammo regenerators restored them faster than you emptied them, and the combined benefits of about ten different armour body upgrades and a host of weapons that would have exceeded the list of options available to entire army sized formations. That should be enough...
You hoped.
Samus tapped you on the shoulder as the Dormach approached its drop off point; the city below you wreathed in flames of many colours and full of broken structures. You tried to not think about how many were already lost, some might have drawn on that for anger, but all it would bring you would be sadness. There would be a time to cry later, or if you asked Zurvduat; never; but you needed to keep your head clear. Some people could rely on rage, but your anger ranged between either the cold or the completely uncontrollable. You just weren't a berserker the way Samus was.
You were drifting again...right...what was it...
"Arne, are you ready?" She asked, her voice soft and gentle and making you feel calm and safe. It was relaxing...soothing. You could do this.
"Yeah. I'm ready." You said, looking out of your more knight like visor now. You had redesigned your helmet to better fit your ideals of knighthood without abandoning all the insectile traits. A mouthguard suggestive of both mandibles and a faceplate was now fitted over your jaw, the third eye above your shallow V-shaped visor was still styled in the traditional Alimbic staring cyclops style, and you retained the tri-prong crest. With the addition of more inheritors it was felt needed to stick to more traditional colour schemes to better stand out at a glance, and your indigo pauldrons gave the impression of scissor blades emerging from your shoulders while your purple visor stared ahead at the scene below.
Samus' orange limb armour was a bit bulkier than the initial varia suit, the armour more dramatic with the attachments, more sturdy looking, broader pauldrons, a more decorated helm with small wings attached to its sides, a translucent green cape from her back just like the indigo one from yours or the dark blue on Agafya's or the Chartreuse on Sevrin's.
Samus was breathing a bit hard, and you held her a little closer, an arm around her as you approached the bottom exit of the gunship. She was worried too, and you felt a need to at least be there for her even if you never thought of yourself as someone who was the picture of bravery. You could at least be scared together.
Agafya though seemed to be almost beatific, her energy positively glowing in your othersight as she brimmed with confident power, her stance primal and ready to leap out like some animal while she tensed in her wait for the word to pounce. She needed nothing else than that there was a fight with enemies that needed to be fought. Besides, she found this all so much fun and enjoyment, hardly something to shy away from.
Sevrin seemed to take a very different approach from yours. Righteousness of cause and surety of justification were filling his heart like water in a cup, he held his head high, he filled himself with the conviction that what he was doing was needed and that he was ideal for the task and opened his eyes with a look of determination. He had a duty to do and a purpose to honour and he would fulfill that with every ounce of his heart.
Samus tapped into anger and compassion. The anger at the people being hurt, the compassion to help them in their time of need. The rage that people would be growing up as orphans, and the desire to see no more eyes tear up with grief. Kindness and fury would mingle together into holy purpose, and she was ready. Compassion and rage were a potent mix, and she thought she could mingle them into direction.
You though, you focused on the objective. A task that had to be done, a goal that needed to be met in order to better the lives of the populace and bring about the change needed for a kinder world. The suffering of the people could only be abated by completing the checkboxes forming in your head, contain, eliminate, protect, mitigate, escort, and disrupt. You latched onto the purpose of being expected to finish a task, and exhaled.
Alyrsero clutched his staff and shook slightly, his upgraded suit tensing around his body. He was in years, so much older than you, but in maturity scarcely seemed anywhere outside of your peer group. He was just a boy who had rarely seen bedlam on this scale, and he had to focus multiple times to calm the maelstrom in his mind, reaching mentally to you and to a lesser degree; the others for reassurance.
Vista was the most afraid. She also looked to you; the others too; but mostly to you. You were her knight in shining armour in her eyes, who could do anything and defeat anyone. She believed in you, in all of you. There was not a doubt in her mind that you could accomplish this, but she was scared for herself and whether she'd be able to keep up. You offered her reassurance too, you'd make it. You had to.
The signal was green, you blinked out of the ship to surprise anyone who might have thought you were merely jumping out of the bottom. You extended your sword and lashed out at the nearest target; carving open the hull of a tri-barelled super tank and letting the cutting force propagate and split the entire vehicle into pieces; Vista and Alyrsero at the centre of your formation while Agafya formed up a purple shield and Sevrin let his chartreuse barrier flare to life. Vista looked to you and felt some of the fear of being in the middle of the strangest warzone on Earth melt away briefly.
You were in as they say; a target rich environment with the enemy charging in from all sides in a menagerie of shapes, the Protectorate's mechanical hordes shuddering and pivoting towards the new target without a moment's hesitation. If they were the slightest bit worried about your appearance, they didn't show it.
The Protectorate screamed in a massive burst of data packed with a debilitating basilisk signal meant to cause catatonic states in humans who heard it; you were of course immune, Alyrsero wasn't even human, and Vista's suit blocked out the basilisk shriek as the loping war-machines streamed towards you, climbing atop the mount of rubble the six of you had teleported onto the top of with weapons already ablaze.
Screamer Jets are a light weight and low cost form of Electrical Protectorate ground attack craft. Flying overhead via means of repulsor drives, Screamers mount a pair of variable weapon modules as well as basilisk signal emitters that are keyed to disrupt human neurology, rendering targets stunned and dazed and vulnerable to being swept aside by their other weapons. Cheap to make, Screamers are also fragile and will fall to any of your weapons, and lack the firepower to pose a threat to the user without overwhelming numbers and with high grade modules. However, note that all protectorate units have a gravitic field to attract fire towards less valuable units that is more effective in numbers, allowing Screamers to function as animate ablative armour for other aircraft. Like all Protectorate Units, the machine is a nanite collective shaped into a more traditionally robotic form and simply serves as a platform for a governing Core Mind Synthetic Consciousness that is operating under extremely disturbed hyper-emotional parameters often being fed data corresponding to entirely alien laws of physics. Due to their low individual military capability, Screamers are most often used against Infantry or in terror attacks against civilians.
Samus' Notes: What made these machines this way? Who even made these machines to begin with? Their conversational datastreams are so full of weird gibberish and...and...enjoyment? They enjoy this?! Do they even know they're hurting people!?!
Arne's Notes: The Core Mind Collective is being shielded against electronic subversion by something huge I can't get access to. So it seems like reprogramming them will have to wait. I just hope I'm ready for something like this.
Agafya's Notes: Hrm, from what I can see they're able to use some sort of pockets of warped time to instantly assemble their units as long as they have resources. Excellent, I won't be running out of opponents then. I do have to ask though, how is it that this planet didn't notice the build up sooner? How many people are already in their thrall?
Sevrin's Notes: By the Radiance this is terrible! Such monstrous things inflicting such horrors on these poor people. I won't let this abomination stand, and if these creatures want a fight then here I am to give it to them!
Agafya
You were in your element, the sound and noise of warfare and battle feeling like an old friend. The explosive action of your muscles as you moved them at speeds that transcended the mere supersonic, your fist smashing into the head of a machine that took on the shape of a tentacled triangle with a light-bulb dome head; splintering its spacewarp shielding with a single blow; something that should have been outright impossible; and then continuing to reduce the entire thing to subatomic scrap.
Your cannon spooled up and let rip with the rapid-fire shredder cannon, forming and then rotating barrels within at speeds that probably violated more than a few laws of physics, the shredder projectiles making wave after wave of Protectorate Aggressors and Malacostratas spark apart into tiny pieces. The swarms of seekers and other tiny swarming machines following suit as the projectiles pierced through multiple targets and detonated, shadow energy seeping at their integrity and leaving only broken dust.
You angled your shield on your other hand, excitement rising in your chest as you bounced the cone of widening energy back to the rubbish bin shaped machine and its friends, reality cracking open and breaking and seeming to shatter the robots like brittle glass into endlessly broken smaller pieces.
This was what you lived for, this is what you wanted.
This
Was
Fun
Battle is your poison of choice, your sugar of preference, your spice of life. Samus might be more spiritually linked to war than yourself, but you didn't fight with rage in your heart like she did. You fought for the hell of it. It's an electricity in your veins and an injection of cold steel into your muscles, its a surge in your stomach and a flutter in your heart, its a rush to your head, a thunder in your mind. Let the cranky old wizards pontificate about how violence should be a last resort, or how one should approach the task of necessary battle somberly and without enjoyment lest it be sought out for its own sake. They're a bunch of nerds who haven't felt how good it is to throw a punch into the face of a metallic giant and watch it shatter into a trillion pieces as its Eiffel tower sized body breaks into countless pieces.
You weaved and dodged not because you needed to, you could simply ignore most of what was being fired at you, but because it was a delicious dance and test of your agility, reflexes, and foresight. You responded to the callouts and strategems being made not because you had to, but because it was like an exciting puzzle to figure out all the best combinations for the most stylish way to defeat an enemy. You charged your weapons for bigger booms not because you needed the fire power, for you were often using these charge shots on simple mobs of infantry, but because it was really, really sweet to watch the detonations.
You were actually disappointed when Vista blueballed you by making the swarm of machines that had surrounded you seize up and then explode into countless harmless shards with only a bit of focus.
"I was...what's the term..." You were mad, your eyes snapping towards Vista with venom beneath your eyepieces.
"In the zone!" You were hurt that someone would just take you out of this period of ecstatic enjoyment without warning. You don't ask for much, just some carnage to bask in every once in a while.
"This isn't a vacation! We have people to rescue!" She shouted back at you, her tone one of disbelief.
"Are you...having fun?" She said, tilting her head while Samus yanked a screaming owl like craft the size of a building from the air to slam into the ground fatally with a minor tug from her grapple beam.
"Yes. I love this. This is my life. War, battle, destruction! This is what I was made for! What they put all this in me and around me to do!" You said proudly as you looked for something to smash, something to stop the crash you felt when the adrenaline of battle started to wear off. You needed to keep fighting, you weren't satisfied yet.
"I cannot believe you! How are you friends with these people? You're a fucking psychopath in power armour!" She shouted while, without even looking, having a protectorate airship squadron twist and contort themselves into Oblivion while Arne tested his fulmination and let the warp lightning dance through a great host of war machines large and small, seeming to almost surprise himself when everything from lumbering multipods to atomic nanites fell apart as a result.
"Vista, madame, let us save the philosophy for later no?" Sevrin said as politely as he could manage while Alyrsero cast forth the raging vortex of the Eldritch Storm to engulf the thicket of small machines that were pushing their way through the bursts of fire that the Solar Paladin was making to take down larger machines pushing their way past crumbling apartment blocks; his beams jumping between whole formations of them and letting them crumble into so much vapour and plasma.
And he wasn't even saving enough for you.
Sevrin
You weren't really the leader of the group but sometimes you felt like the most sane person in it. Arne was a nervous wreck, handsome, but a nervous wreck, his confidence shattered and easily broken further, his mind haunted by things he refuses to speak of but eat away at his demeanour and produce all manner of pain behind his smile and you suspected "Sylux" was more than just a terrible outcome for his future. Samus was cheerful, beautiful, strong, intelligent, easy to love...and consumed by a deep rage you were worried that could eat her alive from the inside out if she weren't careful with it, her fury was terrifying to behold and unnervingly easy to set off with the right stressors and she was consumed by the need to prove something to at least herself.
Agafya was a hedonist and thrill junkie who was so bored by her guardians' shadow realm that she rarely considered there ever being such a thing as "enough" when she wanted to indulge herself, she was brilliant and lovely of course, with a great heart and kindness beneath it all; but she couldn't slow down for anything. You well, you were you. You tried to think of yourself objectively without pride, you tried to present yourself as the brave and dependable one who was always there for them but you were afraid that one day they'd see that beneath it all was someone who wasn't sure he belonged here, you were doing the right thing against creatures of evil but were you really the friend they needed?
"Sevrin, cast your attentions forward and look upon those Rikti Pylons." Alyrsero's reverbing Elven voice snapped you to attention, your eyes following his finger to a series of mottled green and turqoise pylons humming with energy, bubbled shielding glowing bright while the Power Armour clad hybrids hacked down wave after wave of Destroyah organisms to secure a greater foothold. Such fiends, daring to lay their three-fingered hands upon this place. Whatever the circumstances were behind their decision to bring their war here, everyone who had chosen to partake in this endeavour would be made to pay for it.
" We will need to disable them to make this Rikti Bunker vulnerable to assault from our allies. While the Pylons remain, most of our teams lack the means to force their way through the shields, but as Samus and I have found; your blades can open a breach." Alyrsero said, a nod coming from you as you let "Vengeur solaire" loose from its zero point state. Samus preferred a gallowglass named Moralltach; the great blade, Arne an ulfbehrt named Himmelskjærer; Heaven Cutter;, Agafya a Sashka named Nochsmert, Night Death, but your blade was a gleaming chartreuse rapier that shone with beam energy and glowed with the attached runes before you studied the shield.
It was a marvellous thing, but the weakness was apparent. Your blade would cut through, and you sliced it into the skeins of the bubble barrier and felt brief resistance before you slashed downwards and then upwards to widen the hole, pulling it the rest of the way open with what you knew of the warp; Hysh's energies glowing from you and working with Alyrsero to open the locality dominating dome. You pushed the screech of the energy reacting to your own to the back of your mind, ignoring how unpleasant the sound was and instead focusing on creating the breach; letting your drain systems suck in additional energy that you fed into a power missile that swept aside Rikti teleporting strike teams the moment they manifested, predicting where they'd appear without a hitch.
A bit too easy, but what could you expect from those who so willingly embraced the road of conquest of beings they deemed to be lesser? Certainly not the humility to realise they were outmatched by your friends and yourself.
Vista breathed in and then out and then twisted the swarm of Rikti drones that had flown in like war-wasps responding to a disturbance at their nest in a cloud like thicket into scrap metal, preventing them from laying down their barrages of thermal displacer fire and prompting you to give her a thumbs up.
"Good work madame! Can you deal with the Pylon?" You said, taking a quick look at its guards and then back to the shortest person in your group.
"I think so. It's mechanical right?" She asked.
"Yes." You responded, Samus and the others scything down the Rikti teleporting in as they arrived, giving her the space to work while Alyrsero tore open a gate to some realm of fire and let it engulf an ominously approaching wing of gunships, allowing them to broil into oblivion andleaving you with the taste of cinnamon in your mouth from his pyromancies.
She probed at the pylon, feeling that it didn't have enough organic life nearby to interfere with her abilities and that with its shields briefly flickering out from your draining, she could compress it until it ceased functioning; squeezing her hand until it crumpled upon itself into a much smaller shape; a deformed ball that dropped to the ground, white hot and heavy.
"See, you can do it!" You said with a smile beneath your helmet.
Samus
The landing zone was almost clear, your ice beam making keening piercing sounds every time it fired as one Destroyer form after the other was left an icy husk and then shattered shortly afterwards. You could feel an overwhelming malice from the Destroyer Mind, an inability to process what lay beyond it and a refusal to accept coexistence with it. Something beyond your ability to change. You felt bad, to have no option but to fight it out for now until you gained tools to fix the problem at the root. But you couldn't let that stop you, not when this city was crawling with people trying to flee the flames.
The panicked distress calls of soldiers being overwhelmed, civilians trying to raise someone, anyone who could help them, confusion ruling the air waves at every moment. Could you do this? Avoid falling into the pit of memories you couldn't allow to linger in your mind. To not see K-2L amidst the ruin and carnage of this place. To not see his winged form amidst the flames. You felt a weakness in your gut, the tinge of fear, not just of the flashbacks, but of what would happen if you stumbled.
You had to avoid looking at the dead. The ones you couldn't do anything to help right now. You didn't want to see the faces of those you had let down. You had to do this, you just had to; to clear out this scuttling terror of nightmare things from an ecosystem that was no longer viable.
The Destroyah Swarm is a Category Zayin type War-Ecosystem of the "mutation" type, seemingly the product of accidental mutation via the exposure of anaerobic pseudo-arthropods to oxygen disassociating agents. This has resulted in a hive mind that responds with extreme hostility to any biosphere or ecology that it deems incompatible, such as anything that metabolises oxygen. Soldier forms are created to wage infantry scale combat and primarily make use of weapons that launch hungry mini-forms seeking to devour and absorb the mass of what they impact, while as well as micro-oxygen or oxygen destroying attacks. Some may instead focus on their capacity to project and create intense thermo-electromagnetic energy in the form of their "laser horns". At close range they primarily make use of sharp cutting limbs and brute crushing power along with their energy field effects. Like all Destroyahs, they are vulnerable to the extremes of temperature, with a greater vulnerability to extreme cold than heat. However, they can also break up or combine into other forms or to accelerate their self-repair capabilities. Wide area attacks are recommended to ensure gestalt death.
Samus' Notes: An entire ecosystem that exists to do nothing but wage war...how could something like that come into being? Just through accidental mutation? Why does so much of life seek to destroy itself?
Arne's Notes: How does an Oxygen decoupler mutate a non-respirating pseudo-arthropod into that? When did anything like this exist in Earth's fossil record? According to the genetics this thing last shared a common ancestor with any known Earth-based biota three and a half billion years ago. Something's not right here...I'm missing something.
Agafya's Notes: If it has no hesitation to kill and destroy everything else, then I have no hesitation to put an end to its ecosystem. If there's a better way, sure I'll take it. But for now, I will deal with this and whomever made the mistake of allowing this to happen in the first place.
Sevrin's Notes: If there is no other way then I shall pursue its vanquishment without pause of hesitation. For the people and the righteous cause.
They came at you in a thicket driven by singular purpose, seeking to test their strength against yours. Their teeming multitudes against your band of six.
They fought like animals and they died like animals, their corpses littering the streets in an ever-growing pile of dust and ash. A laser horn seized by your hand and then shattered with a twist before you tore the creature in twain, letting the electrical field of your suit start to burn it away while your every touch imparted a bit of ice into your enemy, your movements dancing around the swarm.
You made sure to move in tune with Vista's space alterations; making use of your blink pack every now and then, freezing time on occasion or slowing it down to leave whole streets filled with nothing but dead beasts.
But the swarm seemed to understand that you posed a particularly unique threat to it that it wavered before, instead turning towards sources of mass to absorb to try and bulk up. You felt a pulse on the skeins of fate, and your eyes widened. They were heading towards a series of thermal signatures you recognised as human body heat huddled for safety in an earthquake shelter.
No no no no NO.
You broke from the group, barely hearing Arne shout your name as you launched yourself into the screw attack and sawed through the midsection of some crustacean beast as it had developed pincers to get ready to pry open a barrier meant to keep an endbringer at bay for at least enough time for the occupants to move underground to a new shelter space.
The beast looked down at its sudden hole in its midsection before it fell apart, the Screw Attack shredding its particle-waves apart with a force like subatomic torsion; literally screwing it into a soup of disjointed particles. Its companions followed suit, but with a creature like this it only ever took a few missed particles.
A micro-crab to slip through a small crack in the ventilation to find fresh meat and material. All while you were tearing through creatures in a sound barrier cracking battle on both sides as a warrior goddess in the making battled against an ecology mutated for the sole purpose of destruction. The pre-cambrian mind of this hive of hate looking upon you with a dreadful malignance it afforded to almost nothing else, it saw you, it felt you, it knew you. And it deduced that you were a threat. A danger, something it afforded only to a scarce few. Not food, not mass to reshape. A rival predator. It could not understand the idea that you wanted to protect these people, the idea of protecting something beyond one's own thought space was as alien to it as being a unitary being with so many bodies was to you. But it wouldn't let you steal its prey from it.
This was a distraction, you realised, as you remembered that every cell of this creature was all part of a vast, singular body all under the control of the Destroyer Mind.
"No." You whispered, realising you had been deceived with the obvious threat. From what it had seen of you, it knew you were a slayer of monsters, always looking for the biggest thing to destroy to spread hope.
And the signals on the other side had already begun to change as the creature's destroyer cells multiplied and the burst of heat told you it had already started to break apart oxygen from its molecules. The people inside were already doomed.
Your heart felt like it had stopped and you trembled with outrage, letting time freeze again, phasing through the door and finding the swarm already cloud thick. You let your beam splinter into its endless sub-projectiles, bouncing, multiplying, splitting, spreading, detonating. A cataclysm of blue-white and the bitterest cold of neutralised energy.
Time resumed, the shards fell and broke around you. Half the people had been consumed already, fizzled into steaming baser elements and half-born destroyer cells you had killed.
You wanted to cry, and you barely noticed how the people inside seemed to be almost as afraid of you as the creature that had come to devour them. Here you were, a thing of metal and war, were you another harbinger of death? You as you shuddered and heaved. Failure, not strong enough, too weak, people are dying, they will die and die and die because you can't help them because...
"Samus!" Arne said, grabbing onto your shoulder; looking at the corpses with a saddened stare before inhaling and then turning to you.
"...We need to keep going...the landing zone is clear...we need to figure out what to do." He said. He was right, he, they needed you. You needed to be strong.
"Okay..." You hissed, making your visor opaque so no one could see your tears.
You looked at the monitors. The Autobots and Vanguard were trying to hold the southernmost quadrant of the city, the Rikti were in the shoreside quadrant, the Destroyers from the landside quadrant, and the Protectorate was primarily pushing down from the North. Pockets were spread throughout the cities, either of resistance or of cells of one enemy army in another's territory. Evacuation systems were in place, Vanguard helping to pull Los Angelites through to Primal Earth or Autobots to their bases; but the city's infrastructure was taking a heavy hammering.
And still, you didn't know what the enemy was even trying to do.
Group Status:
Samus Aran: Health (Shield/Armour/Zero Shield/Zero Suit/Glove Shield/Bodyglove/Personal Shield/Body): 100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%. Morale: Slightly shaken; 97%. Stress: 10. Mood: Angry. Status Effects: Possible Trauma trigger exposure.
Arne Skjoldr: Health: 100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%. Morale: 98%. Stress: 5. Mood: Upset. Status Effects: Self-Doubt
Agafya Sokolova: Health: 100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%. Morale: 100+%. Stress: 0 Mood: Ecstatic. Status Effects: Revelling (Does not gain stress and morale is unbreakable)
Sevrin Agard: Health: 100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%. Morale: 99%. Stress: 0. Mood: Neutral. Status Effects: None.
Vista: 100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100% (No personal shielding). Morale: 95%. Stress: 5. Mood: Neutral. Status Effects: None.
Alyrsero Ardanesh: Health: 100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100%/100% Morale: 100%. Stress: 0. Mood: Neutral. Status Effects: Fatewatch (Makes positive events more likely)
Cooperative Strength: Great
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:
Write in specific tactics for the team to try such as ordering gunship bombing runs, attempting tandem warp attacks, certain patterns of attack the team should try out like the duodecimarchs clearing out organics to let Vista wreck mechanical foes or vista stretching space to let Alyrsero's casting reach farther than it should.
Then write in one specific action for each of the six characters such as say: Arne should comfort Samus' anxieties, Vista should keep close to Arne so he can meatshield for her, Sevrin should try to rein in Agafya's combat high, Alyrsero should try to scry enemy intentions or show Samus some tricks in the warp to learn how to divine foes better, Samus should try to slice into Rikti comm channels, or Agafya should go kill some big units. You could also try to use their smarts to set up some sort of device or cunning trick.
Other Team Priorities: (Same as last post's)
(Order priorities for the team on a per team basis. 1 will be pursued unless impossible, 2 will be pursued unless it contradicts 1, 3 will only be pursued when there is nothing else to do or if it would not distract from 1 and 2. If applicable, such as with Annihilation, state enemies in order of preference to focus on.)
[]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
[]: Denial (Prevent the enemy from seizing certain points or items of interest)
[]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
[]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
[]: Commando Ops (Seize important locations or take out important enemy strongpoints such as leaders or vital infrastructure, favours sneakier teams)
[]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
For all Teams: Write in who to focus on the most between the Rikti, the Protectorate, and the Destroyahs. This is on a per team basis. 1 being the top priority for that team and 3 being the smallest.
Team 1:
[x] Samus Aran (Mandatory Duodecimarch, generalist, slightly more agility weighted.)
[x] Arne Skjoldr (Mandatory Duodecimarch, generalist, slightly more close combat weighted)
[x} Agatha Sokolova (Mandatory Duodecimarch, generalist, slightly more tanking weighted)
[x] Sevrin Agard (Mandatory, generalist, slightly more support oriented)
[x]: Alyrsero (Eldar Craftworld Warlock, direct damage oriented Warpborn abilities. Extreme damage capabilities but relatively weaker defence and support. Strong cooperative bonus with Arne, great with the other duodecimarchs)
[x]: Vista (Masterforce mover, very good support, devastating offensive capabilities against robotic enemies. Strong cooperative bonuses with Arne.)
[2]: Civilian Defence (Defend civilians at the line of battle)
[3]: Reconnaissance (find out where the foe is and what they're doing)
[1]: Ally assistance (try to shore up the efforts of friendly military forces and pick up more team members to get eight people)
[5]: HQ elimination (look for and kill important enemy characters, units, and structures to weaken their overall efforts)
[4]: 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)
Team Tactics:
- Order a Gunship Bomb run on the landside quadrant to weaken the Destroyah.
- Vista, Arne and Alyrsero will use their abilities in tandem, with Vista stretching space to allow Alyrsero's spells to reach further and to bring foes to Arne's reach faster and as a surprise.
- Try to use a hit and run style of attack on enemy forces, using the faster characters to strike at at the enemy and lead them to a ambush with the slower characters having prepared a trap for the weakened forces.
Character Actions:
- Samus: Create a device to scramble the systems of the Electrical Protectorate, just enough to make them easier to kill
- Arne: Comfort Samus' anxieties
- Agatha: Go hunting for big Destroyah units
- Sevrin: Try to get a connection to the Electrical Protectorate data stream to find out their targets
- Alyrsero: Try to Scry major points of conflict with the Destroyah
- Vista: Try to comfort Arne about his self doubt
Team 2
[x]: Ormothin (Exodite Eldar jade mage, best heals and supports, makes your booboos go away very quickly while he's on the field, can make plants into allies and empower allies with the strength of life itself. Okayish at melee.)
[x]: Idaliryn (Lumineth Swordknight, close quarters blender with a mix of offensive and support magic but limited crowd control. Cooperative bonus with all Eldar.
[x]: Clarioli (Ithilyani factor-mage, crafter, has a lot of robots, will get random crafting ideas from deployment, very tanky and good at most ranges, great against tech based foes. Bonus with all Eldar)
[x]: Clockblocker (Parahuman striker, with enhancements and explorer suit is quite durable, versatile, and fast and is able to remove select combatants from the fight temporarily or lethally clothesline them with his cables.)
[x]: Silverbolt (Autobot aerialbot, aerial focused melee and ranged combatant; very effective against organic enemies. Good cooperative bonus with Samus)
[x]: Korlanil (Ynnari death mage, very good at making things dead, makes bad jokes, can also stop or reverse death with some effort, gets power from people dying near him. Bonus with all Eldar.)
Priorities:
[1]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
[2]: Denial (Prevent the enemy from seizing certain points or items of interest)
[3]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
Team 3
[x]: Bumblebee (Autobot Scout master, reconnaissance and infiltration focused CQC combatant, broadly effective against anything lighter than superheavy. Very good cooperative bonuses with non-adult characters)
[x]: Kaeliyae (Eldar Harlequin Shadowseer, Illusionist and extremely agile close range combatant, very good at turning large numbers of enemies against themselves. Gains a cooperative bonus if deployed with Alyrsero, and a lesser one for all other Eldar characters. )
[x]: Elendria (Aesvaul mage-knight, best tank among the Eldar, very good at stopping squishies from getting hit, hits hard herself especially in close combat, can get ideas for stuff to forge from the encounter.)
[x]: Nightcaster (Debuff and ranged damage focused shadow sorcerer. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters.)
[x]: Eudaimonica (Demon-summoning sorceress, all rounder minion focused character, has supports and ranged damage too. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters.)
[x]: Windblade (Flying autobot focused on CQC and aerial combat, general purpose combatant and psychic. Works great with bumblebee)
Priorities:
[1]: Commando Ops (Seize important locations or take out important enemy strongpoints such as leaders or vital infrastructure, favours sneakier teams)
[2]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
[3]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
[x]: Dinomax (Metahuman mastermind, summoning, melee damage, and support focused. On one hand, no cooperative bonuses. On the other: D I N O S A U R S)
[x]: Elerya (Yurye Psionic Dominator, masterful crowd control capabilities and incredibly destructive all range combatant though reliant on crowd control for defence. Strong cooperative bonus with Samus, great with the other duodecimarchs.)
[x]: Aronim (Elerya's brother. Melee damage focused psion, decently tanky, hits really, really hard with his psionic abilities in CQC; like just melts things he gets into scraps with and crits out the ass. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters, especially Elerya whom he gains a twin bonus with.)
[x]: Kid Win (Masterforce tinker, highly generalistic, good at dealing with tech based enemies. Strong cooperative bonuses with Samus.)
[x]: Lelithax (Ex-Druchii Sorceress, somewhat racist. Heavily debuff and malediction focused caster character who has pretty good defences of her own and can handle herself a bit in melee. Strong cooperative bonus with Alyrsero for being twin siblings. Cooperative bonus with all other eldar characters.)
[x]: Warpath (Megatank Autobot, extremely durable, great firepower, incredible strength and hard hitting prowess. Not very fast, but gives a command bonus to whatever squad he deploys with and works great with autobots.)
Priorities:
[1]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
[2]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
[3]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage
Team Strategy: Pick five priorities and set from greatest to least.
-[X]: Civilian Defence (Defend civilians at the line of battle)
-[X]: Fire Break (Contain any enemy advances and eliminate these pockets of advance to keep frontlines stable
-[X]: 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)
-[X]: Search and Rescue (Find civilians trapped in enemy territory and save them)
-[X]: Force annihilation (destroy as much of the foe as possible)
Team Tactics:
- Order a Gunship Bomb run on the landside quadrant to weaken the Destroyah.
- Vista, Arne and Alyrsero will use their abilities in tandem, with Vista stretching space to allow Alyrsero's spells to reach further and to bring foes to Arne's reach faster and as a surprise.
- Try to use a hit and run style of attack on enemy forces, using the faster characters to strike at at the enemy and lead them to a ambush with the slower characters having prepared a trap for the weakened forces.
Character Actions:
-[X] Arne should comfort Samus' anxieties
-[X] Vista should keep close to Arne so he can meatshield for her
-[X] Sevrin should try to rein in Agafya's combat high
-[X] Alyrsero should try to scry enemy intentions
-[X] Samus should try to slice into Rikti comm channels
-[X] Agafya should go kill some big units
Team 2:
[x]: Ormothin (Exodite Eldar jade mage, best heals and supports, makes your booboos go away very quickly while he's on the field, can make plants into allies and empower allies with the strength of life itself. Okayish at melee.)
[x]: Idaliryn (Lumineth Swordknight, close quarters blender with a mix of offensive and support magic but limited crowd control. Cooperative bonus with all Eldar.
[x]: Clarioli (Ithilyani factor-mage, crafter, has a lot of robots, will get random crafting ideas from deployment, very tanky and good at most ranges, great against tech based foes. Bonus with all Eldar)
[x]: Clockblocker (Parahuman striker, with enhancements and explorer suit is quite durable, versatile, and fast and is able to remove select combatants from the fight temporarily or lethally clothesline them with his cables.)
[x]: Silverbolt (Autobot aerialbot, aerial focused melee and ranged combatant; very effective against organic enemies. Good cooperative bonus with Samus)
[x]: Korlanil (Ynnari death mage, very good at making things dead, makes bad jokes, can also stop or reverse death with some effort, gets power from people dying near him. Bonus with all Eldar.)
-[1]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[2]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
-[3]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
Team 3:
[x]: Bumblebee (Autobot Scout master, reconnaissance and infiltration focused CQC combatant, broadly effective against anything lighter than superheavy. Very good cooperative bonuses with non-adult characters)
[x]: Kaeliyae (Eldar Harlequin Shadowseer, Illusionist and extremely agile close range combatant, very good at turning large numbers of enemies against themselves. Gains a cooperative bonus if deployed with Alyrsero, and a lesser one for all other Eldar characters. )
[x]: Elendria (Aesvaul mage-knight, best tank among the Eldar, very good at stopping squishies from getting hit, hits hard herself especially in close combat, can get ideas for stuff to forge from the encounter.)
[x]: Nightcaster (Debuff and ranged damage focused shadow sorcerer. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters.)
[x]: Eudaimonica (Demon-summoning sorceress, all rounder minion focused character, has supports and ranged damage too. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters.)
[x]: Windblade (Flying autobot focused on CQC and aerial combat, general purpose combatant and psychic. Works great with bumblebee)
-[1]: Commando Ops (Seize important locations or take out important enemy strongpoints such as leaders or vital infrastructure, favours sneakier teams)
-[2]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
-[3]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
Team 4:
[x]: Dinomax (Metahuman mastermind, summoning, melee damage, and support focused. On one hand, no cooperative bonuses. On the other: D I N O S A U R S)
[x]: Elerya (Yurye Psionic Dominator, masterful crowd control capabilities and incredibly destructive all range combatant though reliant on crowd control for defence. Strong cooperative bonus with Samus, great with the other duodecimarchs.)
[x]: Aronim (Elerya's brother. Melee damage focused psion, decently tanky, hits really, really hard with his psionic abilities in CQC; like just melts things he gets into scraps with and crits out the ass. Strong cooperative bonus with other starsetters, especially Elerya whom he gains a twin bonus with.)
[x]: Kid Win (Masterforce tinker, highly generalistic, good at dealing with tech based enemies. Strong cooperative bonuses with Samus.)
[x]: Lelithax (Ex-Druchii Sorceress, somewhat racist. Heavily debuff and malediction focused caster character who has pretty good defences of her own and can handle herself a bit in melee. Strong cooperative bonus with Alyrsero for being twin siblings. Cooperative bonus with all other eldar characters.)
[x]: Warpath (Megatank Autobot, extremely durable, great firepower, incredible strength and hard hitting prowess. Not very fast, but gives a command bonus to whatever squad he deploys with and works great with autobots.)
Priorities:
-[1]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
-[2]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[3]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
