Scene #6707: SiaT: Faultlines Followup

Owner	Pose
Septette Arcubielle	Staren's golem plan goes even more smoothly than he might expect: the miners have little psychic potential, as one might expect, but they're remarkably quick at learning to put it to work powering his constructs. Maybe it's their cognitive safety training; maybe it's something to do with the environment. Regardless, the barrelbots are off to the races in no time at all. As long as they stick near the paths taken by Septette's automated mining equipment, they're relatively safe- if they take shortcuts in returning, they might stumble across tunnels where the Erchius crystals spark with chromatic aberrations and where half-formed crystal limbs reach and scrabble from the walls. It's not the most efficient means of siphoning water, but- as long as the bots aren't followed, or noticed by anything with an actual brain- it's remarkably surreptitious. The attrition rate on the sturdy barrelbots from NEOs and hazardous terrain is pretty low, all things considered. The second-in-command manages to scrounge up someone who was rescued from the Rehabilitation Facility to volunteer as bait for the Orderly, if that's the route that the Elites want to take. He seems pretty nervous about the whole thing, but resolute. If they take him on, he'll accompany them wearing the first exosuit Gideon provided- after hesitantly asking either him or one of the T-Dolls for some pointers on how to, you know, use it. That's the primary question facing the Elites before heading into the Sewer Level is whether they want to use the escaped miner for bait. There's the chance that Staren's presence alone will be sufficient to get the Orderly to show up, but if the Orderly is a no-show, tracking it down will be difficult- and without the data it holds, Martin seems likely to die or worse. On the other hand, bringing the miner (even with a high-tech exosuit) risks him being injured, killed or captured... and a second Rehab Facility rescue is unlikely to be as easy as the first. Most of the miners seem on-the-fence about risking one of their own like that. The Understudy is personally in favor, and the volunteer faces his potential mission with anxious stoicism unless a better alternative is found.
Android 17	"The problem is if we leave the Orderly alone, any operation we have may go up in smoke, or worse, it may eventually find it's way here. We're already in danger from doing what we're doing, but that thing is likely to make our odds even worse," Seventeen says, though he doesn't feel great about having someone else have to be bait. "Staren MIGHT be enough, but at the same time, we can't be sure. Better to not take any chances on this one and to take down a major threat," A beat, "And if worse comes to worst I can protect you." Seventeen demonstrates this by activating the Android barrier and letting them have a few cracks at it if they want to test it. "I mean unless someone here can make disguises or something. Illusions or something like that we could use as bait to draw it out."
August Kohler	"We need to take down the Orderly." August says, clearly enough, as he prepares, knife, gun, and mirror bracelet at the ready. "And there's no guarantee Staren's enough. So, yeah...bait is the only way we can do this. As he said, don't worry, we'll protect you. We're both resilient enough, and I can focus the Orderly down in combat." The question about disguises and illusions gets a shake of the head. Instead, August moves to check any maps of the sewer level they might have, and look for chokepoints, cover, ambush spots, and anything they can use in case a fight breaks out. He's going to help lead offense while 17's likely to lead defense, Watch-wise.
Starbound Flotilla	The Fuelworks are what one would expect when they imagine something the Starbound Flotilla would make to send fuel all throughout the station. Traversing it is exactly as difficult as one would expect them to make it. Gideon has been working on this for a time. It's well-mapped now, with the miner faction now quite capable of offering up a well-mapped set of alerts. Automated defenses have been subtly disabled and many of the electrified hazard zones are defused. It's now OSHA compliant, at the very least, through the removal of security. Deep pits, honestly, just can't be removed. Sorry! But something important has happened. Some of the alerts that Gideon tapped into have shown that the Orderly is on the move in the lower Fuelworks. Perhaps it was drawn by the sound and light? Perhaps it just picked up on interest there? Maybe it simply wanders? Is there an unnerving possibility it knows where the group is intending to act? No matter what, though, it still patrols towards the sabotaged fuel tanks. Whether it can identify such sabotage is probably not relevant. But it's in that approximate area; perhaps it will recognize Staren's voice, since it heard him? Perhaps it will recognize an... illness, on the air? It's up to the group to set their approach, and then to deal with the danger that comes down the pipe.
Septette Arcubielle	Karl the portly bearded guy takes a couple of tentative thwacks at 17's energy barrier with a claw hammer, then nods in that way that home-grown engineers nod when they're satisfied with something. "Yep, that sure is a tough wall, alright." As for "disguises", the best that anyone can offer is putting one of Martin's hi-vis jackets and helmets on a broomstick, scarecrow-style. That probably isn't going to fool the Orderly in any way, shape, or form, especially with its high-intensity sensor-cone. The volunteer nods, his jaw set firmly- he does relax a little bit at the display of 17's power, and though he hasn't seen a demonstration of August's, he relaxes somewhat at the reassurance that he'll be there too. "I'll stick close to you," he says as if he might consider anything else, his voice coming out a little too high-pitched and raspy for his size.
Staren	It's actually Staren's first time trying to use others' energy like this -- He knows the theory, but hasn't practiced. It goes far smoother than he expected, though! He's brought some defense golems as well, to protect the barrelbots: Simple quadrupeds that, if they reared up, would stand as tall as a short human. But they're solid metal animated by magic, so they interpose themselves between threats and softer targets. Regarding the Orderly: "Yeah, I can try being bait. Lemme put the same armor on I was wearing when it scanned me." He also offers to put Martin in stasis to stop/slow his deterioration, if people wish. Once Staren's suited up, he makes his way down the Fuelworks. One way or another, he stays in contact with the others -- through a trail of tiny radio repeaters if need be. Just because, he uses his matter manipulator to connect the platforms the captains left, so that one day the miners can traverse this area safely when they control it. He calls out to the Orderly: "Boy, I sure am morally conflicted about this whole mess! Also I still have my instinctive fear responses! If only there were some kind of roving psychological testing robot to help me!"
Android 17	When at the fuel station, Seventeen presses himself against a wall to watch the Orderly and staying near the miner. Things were about to get rough, maybe Staren is enough, he hopes he is, and the miner can stay out of sight while they handle the Orderly. Likely, however, Seventeen will need to stay on support while covering the Miner. Seventeen nods towards August and then watches Staren try and draw out the Orderly. Really, all that there is to do is wait and hope, and then of course trash a robot better at home in Silent Hill than this station. Unless this station's real name is also Silent Hill. This might actually be a thing.
Gideon Kaspar	Gideon is absolutely A-OK with using live bait. The T-Dolls disagree with sending a human into harm's way, but he eventually wins them over, with the compromise that he'll be held in reserve further back just to see if the Orderly decides to smash Staren into a pulp first. With some comminique he takes to a private area to discuss for whatever reason, four additional T-Dolls join the group with an extra link, though the A-R team themselves don't deploy immediately to the front lines. The 404 are less a matching colour coded set as a mistfit assortment of more informally and darkly dressed nobodies striking an image somewhere around sporty and fashionably slav. They spend time under the apparent direction of a DOll in a distinctive black and yellow getup, bright yellow eyes, long grey-brown hair, and an apparent scar on her face over the left eye, setting up micro cameras, disguising mines, placing tripwires around blind corners, ceiling cables tied to pins, moving junk into strategic positions to cover with tarps and hide under/behind, and other prepatory guerilla warfare nonsense. The leader has a small jammer pack mounted on the back of her exo. The short one in the frumpy layers of many half-on clothes and the long silver hair promptly sneaks off and has a nap. Gideon doesn't have to tell the guy much on how to work the exo. The frame largely exists at the back of the legs, the outside of the arms, and up the spine, fixed around the waist, ankles, wrists, and shoulders. It's a very light model --a T-Type optimized for movement amplification-- so it just makes him very, very fast by turning the effort of little hops into 10 meter jumps and a casual jog into an olympic sprint. It's not the best for doing really fine work, due to having to be even more precise with his hands, but that's not the point. The 404 lurk in ambush for the Orderly to show up, spaced at various pointsdown gridways of halls, monitoring the area with direct feeds from the cameras. "That thing better show up soon. We're not getting paid by the hour." "Yeah my butt's getting sore from sitting here. What our status, Forty Five~?" "You don't need to ask questions. Just follow my orders like always." snoring noises
Septette Arcubielle	It remains to be seen if "being put in stasis" will actually be enough to halt Martin's deterioration- logically it ought to unless this is something really weird, but the whole situation qualifies as "really weird". Regardless, the Understudy seems extremely hopeful about the idea, and even tries to help him (with dubious expertise) in getting it set up. In the sewers, the volunteer tries to stay just ahead of (but close to) 17 and August, but a bit behind Staren, just in case the catman's "aggro-pulling" is strong enough to grab the Orderly's attention by himself. He fidgets anxiously with the gadgets on the exosuit as he looks around at the 404 team's rapid preparations, accidentally deploying and then frantically re-docking its built-in scouting drone a few times, before busying himself by scouting ahead with it and watching its vision. "You know, I only saw that thing once back at the Facility, but it still gave me the creeps," he says, talking to himself as much as anything else. "You see what it did to the mood-monitors? Just withered up and died, man. 'Gentle guardian' my ass."
Starbound Flotilla	A distant noise echoes from northish, before Staren finishes his first sentence. Before it's finished, there's a tinny, howling sound, echoed through a dozen tunnels. And then, silence. Nothing. No more sound. It's about thirty seconds before something else shows up. Rats. That's the first unnerving sign. Rats. Even on space stations, there's rats! These are scampering as fast as they can, squealing. They run through the tunnel from the north, then squeak their way on south. The next sign that something is coming is the scrapes. The noise of metal dragging over metal and space-grade concrete. Slow, low drags, interspersed with noises of brutal rushing. A grate is ripped off its hinges somewhere further on. Scan lights. Bright red. They flick around at the end of one tunnel, then after a rush of motion it seems like they're closer, and closer. It'll be tearing down that hall in seconds. It doesn't see very well, though, despite that scanning apparatus. It stops, briefly, at several of the ambush points of the 404. With a very abrupt crash, it's right next to one of the side hallways, jerking its head around, a shining red spotlight flicking over the fuelworks walls. Going to need to be /particularly/ hidden from it at that point. And Android 17 is much the same, a deja-vu situation where its sweeping vision threatens to sight him ahead of time if he doesn't move fast. August has found good cover as well, if he chooses to use it; ironically, the map finds that the best point to lay in wait for him will be below. If he can hold onto the underside of a grate, just above some concerningly glowing fuel sloshing about below, he can be in the perfect place to strike unseen, but he'll have to be perfectly, perfectly silent while the great black robotic humanoid drags its large axe-like weapon above him. He'll have to not make a single noise, not even breathe heavily, as it passes near enough to touch, sweeping its bright red single eye around to try to find someone. It can Sense a patient nearby. It's searching so hard. If all groups can avoid being seen, its sensor will fall upon Staren, and turn into a laser pointer. What happens next depends on if the ex-patient is visible or not. If he is, it approaches slowly. If he isn't, Staren will need to contend with something that is suddenly rushing down the hallway at him at unthinkable speed, leaping in huge crushing stomps, axe-first. Good time to try that ambush.
Android 17	Seventeen looks at the Miner oddly, "Any idea what the black means anyway?" However, this conversation is likely interrupted by Orderly. Seventeen had agreed to keep the man out of sight until Staren was known to not be good enough bait. As Staren's bait potential was good enough, he waved the man back, telling him to either get out of here and get back to the hideout or to stay out of the way until they could take care of this. As the Orderly scans, Seventeen once more uses that surprising speed to stay one step ahead of the scanners and take to cover, aiming to keep out of sight. Once it started approaching Staren, Seventeen waited. It would be going at a full charge at this point...so if he could aim his blast just right, right as it fully committed... As it gets dangerously close, Seventeen comes out of hiding. Both hands pointing forward as energy that seems overcharged with electricity builds upon his hands. A basketball-sized ball of energy flies from his hands right at the Orderly who was charging, aiming to try and blast those hateful optics as it was charging Staren.
Staren	The Understudy gets a long explanation about how Staren can't actually stop time, but 'medical stasis' is a term for using nanomachines and drugs to slow someone's metabolism, small-scale repair their body to slow deterioration, and keep them unconscious. This probably results in Staren adding a tube to the field hospital that they can load Martin into. Now, in the sewer level: "Geeze." Staren mutters at the howl. He readies an assault rifle of some kind, and waits for... rats. Okay. Staren passes the volunteer one of the SMGs if he doesn't already have one. This one has an underbarrel AP micromissile launcher. And then, for his own part, he waits. And waits. Did they make it slow just to try and wrack peoples' nerves more, Staren wonders. Probably. Once the Orderly comes into sight, Staren levels his rifle at it, and waits for the others to intervene. And then when they do, he fires. Controlled bursts, aimed at the center of the Orderly's torso. Every single 'bullet' is a miniaturized anti-tank warhead. Staren's expensing this as a weapons development fieldtest.
August Kohler	As the rats move, August has moved to his cover. He's holding to the underside of the grate, which is new to him, but not hard - he has a superhumanly strong grip, and skill in parkour. Holding isn't a problem. The problem is keeping quiet. His nerves start to get to him as the Orderly approaches. He almost breathes too loudly, but forces himself quiet. He's on edge. But he has to keep still. He forces himself not solely because of his willpower, which wouldn't be enough, but because of the cause. If August fails here, a man dies. He already killed Joshua Grimes. He can't be the cause of another death. Luckily, August's concentration on this is enough. The Orderly passes by him, spots Staren, and charges to strike. August quickly leaps out through the grate, pushing against a wall to pull up, and fires a single shot into the Orderly's back from the revolver he quickly draws. Then, glancing into the revolver's side, he shouts out. "Persona!" Dietrich is summoned quickly, and strikes just as quickly. Whereas the bullet was just a warning, the massive sword coming down on the Orderly's head is a true threat, with heroic strength behind it, that comparable to stories past. "Alright, guys! It's time for an All-Out Attack!"
Gideon Kaspar	"Ah, there it is!" "Finally. Eleven, wake up." snoring noises "I said get your ass up! thud "Owww! What'd I do? Is it time yet? Where are we?" "Eleven is ready." "Good. It's taken the first bait option. We're going with plan Alpha." "Roger that~ click" There's a quick series of beebeebeeps from right under the Orderly's stride just as it gets into its extreme speed lunge at Staren, and a pair of mines detonate under it in quick succession. One immediately gouges a gigantic hole in the floor and walls as the anti-tank mine goes off, creating a straight drop to the tubes below, with the other mine releasing a massive burst of electrostatic interference, blinding the scanner cone. 5 and 45 throw off the tarps and their stealth cloaks underneath, 5 bursting out from a side passage and 45 rounding the corner from behind where the Orderly had tread. 5 begins emptying fully automatic fire into the Orderly's front, aiming especially for its head with a precisely controlled, high volume spray, shooting the clock around its optics to force it to shield them instead of dodge them. 5 triggers a remote mine from the ceiling and drops a massive pile of rubble on top of the Orderly as well, after the floor has already given out.
Septette Arcubielle	At 17's insistence, the ex-patient eases up a few paces, dropping to a safe distance behind him instead of walking in front. "But I thought... uh, he's gonna be okay, isn't he?" That makes all the difference a few moments later when the rats rush past him, locking him in wordless fear for a moment until his scouting-drone catches sight of the Orderly's scanning-lights from further in. He gets to cover just as all hell breaks loose, ducking behind a corner a few feet away from Android 17 and covering his ears as the anti-tank mine goes off- which means that the Orderly doesn't see him, and goes straight for Staren instead! "Holy shit," he says, a little too loudly. He's already fidgeting anxiously with the hacking-knife on the exosuit, trying to get a feel for its weight and how to deploy it- somebody might need to talk him down if they want to hold him in reserve!
Starbound Flotilla	Now that there are fewer reasons to hold back -- fewer lesser allies to hold back for the sake of, less reason to be stealthy -- the gloves can come off and the monster can be taken on directly. It is, still, not going to be easy. The optics are blasted by Android 17, and the wave flashes through the whole tunnel, kicking up a sloshing shockwave of fuel in the area below. The single-eyed sensor goes out, flickering, as the being roars. It loses its longer-range vision. Harder to respond. But it doesn't stop. It seems, in its own way, entirely single-minded. No attack against him yet, but it hasn't slowed down or reeled from pain. Instead, it lets out another screech, one that seems... odd. Less aggressive. Maybe a call for reinforcement of some kind? But it's a rogue agent of sorts, isn't it?
Starbound Flotilla	It goes for where it thought Staren was. It can't dodge. Not that its armor is made for that kind of thing. Warheads burst in it, ripping off outer ablating layers of armor, and eventually beginning to dent the superstructure, but this thing is /insanely/ resilient. For a moment, just a moment, he might recognize the sound it makes. The sound of something crackling strangely, and failing to break, under explosive damage that should be otherwise shattering it. It's familiar. It's /familiar/. He's heard it somewhere before. But it's not going to be obvious until he manages just the right guess, or searches just the right audio files. That's for later though. For now, he has to deal with the thing utterly refusing to stop its charge. It's just about to break into a terribly high speed when it's interrupted. Partially. Not enough, though. We'll get to that in just a moment.
Starbound Flotilla	A shot from August catches its attention. The sword slamming into its head catches its rage. It impacts it hard, and there's a jolt, a rattling impact inside as something comes loose. August and his mechanic's intuition can surely recognize a machine that needs to be briefly shut down to restart safely. He's struck it hard enough that, under many circumstances, even a monster such as this would have to shut down for quite a time! It is not shutting down. The sword-strike to the head has jarred it badly, nearly blinding it, and it would be stunned for a moment if it weren't for its rage. As said before, so long ago: At this state, its hazard is doubled. It'll take two shut-down shots to get it knocked out for a moment; the first is done now, but the next is a necessity. It responds in kind. The axe swings hard, trying to smash its dragged axe against Dietrich, causing its brutally sharp end to open up and mechanically latch around the creature's torso, so that the Orderly can /drag/ the entire Persona behind and keep it from continuing to attack, as it makes a further vengeful push towards Staren.
Septette Arcubielle	The Orderly might not be coordinating with Nessos's forces anymore, but they're still coordinating with it. The familiar quadrupedal pastel zapper-drones announce their presence with a tap-tapping of spidery limbs on concrete and metal, distant at first, but approaching remarkably quickly. The good news is that, all the way down here, without a pre-planned marshalling, there's only three or four of them, and they're no beefier than before. The bad news is that the bright purple lines along their vertices announce that they're properly 'piloted' by Septette, and they act like it. Immediately after scurrying out of grates or vents, they take up proper positions behind cover where they have a variety of angles on the team and start firing off lethally precise concrete-shattering lances of blue energy from their leg-tips, focusing on 17, August, and members of the 404 team in turn. They're still not very tough, but they're coordinated and accurate enough to snipe projectiles aimed at each other out of the air, limited only by their low rate of fire and the microscopic speed-of-light lag between them and whatever processing hub they're using! Mercifully, they don't seem to have spotted the ex-patient's hiding spot just yet, but unless they're taken down it seems like a matter of time. He's desperately trying to figure out how to activate the digital-camo feature.
Starbound Flotilla	This leaves both in a slightly precarious position when it begins to surge over mines. One blasts underfoot. The Orderly rages, stumbling for just a moment, before it slams its foot into the ground, roaring and deciding that if the floor is going to give way, the Orderly is going to be the one to destroy it, and in the process detonate all the mines. It continues its pursuit through rubble, its shouts only barely drowned out by explosions. That's when the rubble falls on it from above. It moves with incredibly practiced precision, as if it has navigated just such a threat before. It refuses to be buried. With wide, sweeping strikes, it slams rubble away, slowing down enough to be rendered vulnerable to another strike, but not enough to keep it away from Staren. The 404's brave efforts create a chance to strike, but not protection! This means it's going to come down on Staren. Now we get to what happens in that regard.
Starbound Flotilla	Despite rubble, floors giving out, despite limited optics and a brutally damaged headcase, the Orderly bears down on Staren and, most likely, will shortly reach melee range. Its scream turns to something pained, a sort of a wail; its axe may be taken up already, but it intends to grab at Staren either way, battered and brutalized by the warheads. The drones are here, and they're focusing on everything but Staren, ideally meaning... Staren will be left without backup. Left alone with the Orderly. It snatches for his neck, trying to bring him in close to a flickering, flashing red eye, as the thing roars. It's likely an attempt to grip him strongly enough to injure, but it's not meant to kill. Not yet. It's an effort to lift him close to its face. And it makes an unnerving noise. One that... almost sounds like speech. It's hard to make it out in the warped audio and painful digital distortion, but it's as though it says... "#######. PATIENTS #### RETURN TO ##### ROOMS AFTER CURFEW." It tries to hold Staren in an increasingly crushing, demanding grip, as if expecting that he'll simply produce the lost patients from his Matter Manipulator after receiving the warped, poorly-articulated demand.
Staren	That sound... where has he heard it before? SOMETHING weird is going on. Mega-diamond armor, maybe? Use of erchius to reinforce armor? He'll have to think of another way to neutralize it, and, almost immediately, he does. Today has been a good day for Staren ideas. Staren flits out the the Orderly's path before it can touch him. He can fly, and he's got cameras all over his armor feeding a mental HUD that helps him do things like 'fly and land on a narrow platform behind him.' Anyway, Staren's plan is simple: To land on one of the walkways he just built, shoot the Orderly to keep its attention, fly out of the way again, then blast the walkway so the Orderly falls into one of those deep pits! Staren doesn't expect it to finish it off that easily, of course, but he does hope it'll slow the thing down.
Android 17	Drones. Oh, and they're being DIRECTLY CONTROLLED by the MCP. Well, they knew this was going to be a troublesome situation, but he held out hope that it wouldn't be /this/ troublesome. Seventeen only has a few moments to dodge. Of course, he doesn't. Instead, he attempts to grab the drone that attempts to DRILL HIM, by using the Android Barrier, to try and blunt the blow, and then dropping it to try and grab the drone as it's drill would dig into his flesh as it bypassed him. If he obtains the grip, he spins the drone, aiming to slam it into the drone attacking August, attempting to free him up from the drone to help Staren. This means that Seventeen is all for having to fight two drones. He follows the flying drone with a shot of energy from his hands, trying to blow one or the other up. "I got this, August," he, perhaps cockily, tells him.
Gideon Kaspar	"Annoying! This thing's so tough! It's like a military T-Doll on steroids!" "Quit whining and stick to the plan." "Eleven, are you still in position." "Yeah . . . do you need me to move?" "No, stay right where you are. That was just the first round." The 404 doesn't focus on saving Staren at all. Why? Because 45 hadn't ordered them to. It's a far cry from the A-R Team. Instead, they move swiftly to the second stage of their guerilla plan, with drone interference being one of the variables factored in by the leader. 416 makes her appearance, from the level below that'd been breached by the mines, optimally placed to blast the Orderly as it fell through in the A case, or to launch indirect fire from a concealed position in the B case. Behind a whole layer of asteroid and shielded metal, she a smoking grenade hard against the rubble, which pings straight up into the air, tips into a shallow arc, and rolls out into the corridor, immediately blasting it full of that sensor reflective chaff smoke. While it's at its thickest, she launches a pair of low tech dumbfire underbarrel grenades with plastic shells into the drone formation in the same fashion. Number five, being directly in front of the Orderly and behind Staren, yells "Hey stupid! I've got your patient right here!" and then fires a burst of ammo that looks like it's going to hit Staren in the back, before it turns out to skim him by centimeters and slam all over the Orderly's Dietrich damaged frame. She flashes a picture of their bait from a holographic display, live from a camera drone, and then books it around the corner. A corner where some of the previously subverted electric mesh is waiting for the Orderly to step on it instead of her, and an automatic gun placed with 200 round still in it and no hesitation. Elsewhere, 45 settles into a new position with the cloud of smoke still going, revving up her jamming pack while sensors are still going to be shit. Gideon contacts their man over the radio in a reassuringly unconcerned voice. "Everything's going according to plan. Just stay right where you are. All you have to do is move when I give you the signal, and it'll all play out." Is that actually the case? Who knows.
Septette Arcubielle	The drones' cagey, chip-for-chip fighting style doesn't hold up well to a tougher opponent's rushdown- the one tries to backpedal away from 17 as he lunges at it, but it's not fast enough. Instantly, the other drones pivot to take shots at him to free their grappled ally, though it's unlikely to suffice against his beefy barrier. 17's and August's drones are smashed together with a clattering-cracking of plastic that rips off two of their limbs and fatally dents one's 'torso' despite their instantaneous physics-exploiting defensive maneuvers; there's only so much that plastic and metal can do against strength like that. When he throws it, it perfectly tracks his energy-blast and wordlessly snap-fires a shot of its own directly into the hadouken, weakening it somewhat. The one he peeled off August fires another shot at the side of his energy blast near-simultaneously, knocking the weakened projectile far enough off-course to force it to only graze the first drone. They land next to each other, much worse for wear but still functioning. In a split second they cannibalize each other, disassembling, repairing, and reassembling into a single shape- a crude polygonal biped, about five feet tall and with a blade of jagged scrap-metal extending from its forearm. It shrieks an electric challenge to 17, flicker-extending its armblade in an extremely familiar way. VERSUS: KNOCKOFF WALMART SEPTETTE
Starbound Flotilla	Not megadiamond. Not erchius. It's something else. What else could it be? A leap away. Staren had better leap fast, because the Orderly is already slamming over the walkway the moment he lands. It crashes through the handrail with brutal force -- it's well possible that it may /still/ be dragging Dietrich if it managed to snatch the thing, which would be doubly impressive. "#######. ######## MUST ###### TO THEIR ##### AFTER CURFEW." It barely manages to screech as it rushes him. He'll barely get a foot free from an attempt to grab him. He tries to take the walkway out, and it works! The walkway falls out from under it! It falls directly into one of the deeper pit areas. "##############################" It emits a painful blast of static scream, crushing parts of the high-density cement that make up the ledge as it pulls itself up. It's a little too agile for that to kill it, though that puts it in the perfect position to be drawn in by Five's claim. Staren's going to need to expect more agility, but he got it pulled away from the drone backup, at least.
Septette Arcubielle	The ex-patient's visage appears to flicker on the 404 squad's taunting hologram- not an error of the hologram itself, but rather, him finally figuring out how to toggle the digital camouflage. He disappears from cameraview just as the dronefight spills perilously close to his hiding spot, tosses down a smoke grenade, and repositions himself somewhere less horrible. "A-alright," he says to Gideon. "I'll just..." He visibly flinches at the shrieking, and hazards poking his head out of cover for a moment before ducking back down, cradling the hacking-knife like it's a lifeline. "Shit! Are you sure everything's alright out there? I- I ought to... right. The plan." The poor guy has absolutely no idea what the plan is, but he's audibly comforted just by the idea that somebody has one.
Starbound Flotilla	The Orderly rushes Five so fast she'll barely escape getting her hair yanked by one massive hand. It still can't see well after what Android 17 did, and it's still half-there after August Kohler's heavy strike, meaning that it's drawn into place on the subverted electromesh, and swiftly electrocuted. Arcing lightning dances up and down its body, and it shudders, almost vulnerable. The heavy automatic gun blasts away at it, and smoke obfuscates its sensors. It begins to rattle painfully. It's close to shutting down -- at least long enough for a fast Zener intrusion -- but it needs a last, heavy attack to really jostle it all the way into a safe-mode reboot. And the 404 are likely to wind up needing to fend off the drones a bit too much to deliver it themselves! Does anyone else have a chance to do it?
Staren	"Aah!" Staren doesn't get to land properly on the walkway and adjusting his path sends him past and below it and the Orderly ALLLMOST grabs him. That was too close! He recovers control of his flight and flies over the hole, firing a quick burst at its hands in hope that will do something then deciding to book it, flying after Number Five to keep close to an ally while leading it... wherever she's trying to lead it! "Thanks for the help!"
August Kohler	Dietrich is hooked, and dragged along. Armor is torn into, rended, and the Persona is damaged. But it doesn't try to break free. Not yet. August makes a sprint, and leaps onto Dietrich's back, grabbing onto the handrails, after a moment of freezing in pain and clutching his stomach after the axe strike. The armor starts to repair itself. As Dietrich is dragged along, it suddenly stops. Stops being dragged, that is, because it plants its feet into the ground /really/ hard when the Orderly will least expect it, using its superhuman strength to force recoil into the robot, and then moving both hands to try and break the hook off its stomach, damaging the hook if necessary. The sword is picked back up, and suddenly, darkness awashes over it. August doesn't have to worry much about the drones, even as one's lasers nearly impacts with him, thanks to 17's intercept, though the rubble from the explosion damages August directly, causing him to groan as he's bloodied. The sword goes down. "Let's see what you're made of!" And as it impacts into the headcase, something...happens. Darkness moves through the headcase, and tries to corrode it to nothing. Can the Orderly survive without a head, if this works? Or will the energy of destruction have consequences? August isn't sure, but he thinks something Weird will happen, hopefully in his favor.
Gideon Kaspar	The order of operations would usually be that the 404 gunfights the drones after the hallway clears the drones, someone else finishes off the Orderly, and then the hacking starts. Instead, what happens the second the chaff clears, is: "Beginning Zener Protocol uplink. Switching to consciousness level 1. You girls know what to do." "Good luck!" "By the way, if your neural cloud gets fried, I'm leaving you behind." A cable wire is pulled, a counterweight is pulled to its hook with a quiet rasp of braided steel, a pin plinks out of its fitting and scatters across the floor, and EMP-style pulse washes through the corridor, not so much designed to fry electronics as to completely obliterate outgoing and incoming signals for a short while. Everything except on the proprietary secret bullshit wavelength a certain company had installed as a black box without saying anything back in the day. 45 jacks the Zener probe directly into the two non-mimic drones during the brief period Septette can't be transmitting to them. The circuit board tactical map and and chibi movement overlays are thus ideally bereft of a big boss encounter on the control node, allowing 45 to plough a route through just the drone's factory standard security measures (yoinked from the manufactury core the A-R Team had stolen for Gideon earlier) and get into its central processor. Specifically, this more or less injects 45's core consciousness into the code; quite possibly this is the one time that's an upside rather than a risk, given the things run on Erchius that reacts to thoughts. With the EMP as the Signal, number Eleven, with the very tip of her rifle barrel poking out from under her carefully constructed nest of clutter, sights for the Orderly at a right angle elbow hall to where it's been electrocuted, and cracks off a rapid pulsed series of sniper shots, aiming to pierce and impale its motive joints with supersonic tungsten flechettes from her kraut magic rifle, putting clusters of five into each spot. "Aaaand now! While it's down! Go for 'under the chin', where all the data has to travel from its sensors." Gideon says to the former patient.
Starbound Flotilla	August Kohler acts. The sword comes down. It shuts the machine down, briefly. It begins to slowly start rebooting, the process by which it will surely restore itself and begin its assault anew. Right about now is the good time for the Zener intrusion. But August doesn't stop there. Dietrich digs in, and he begins to properly push the destruction of this machine to the limit. Sparks fly. Oil flies. There is a light stream of blood running down the body. The free arm not holding the axe begins to rattle. With a jerky motion, it suddenly rises, lashing out for Dietrich's wrist and lifting. He's cut a deep gash into the headcase. There are only a few things visible inside it. The first is brain matter -- which the blade has only barely missed, still encased as it is in a clear megadiamond protective casing. The second is the mechanisms deep inside, full of an array of blinking lights. Some portions of the brain are shut off entirely. Some are full of activity. It... pulses, in ways a brain ought not pulse. Something inside the machine growls a hateful synthetic growl. No scream. Just a soft, dominating hatred. It is a demand to back off. An insistence, in wordless sound, that it be allowed to pursue the ones it wants to protect. It's also, in this sense, distracted. Get in and out of that network fast. Despite the armor restarting, despite the motors being inactive, it still /moves/, somehow trying to grip Dietrich's wrist hard enough to wrench the blade away just enough to keep it from carving away any more of the braincase, and seeing any more of the true nature of the Orderly. And to get the drones to help more.
Android 17	Seventeen walks slowly towards the Knockoff Walmart Septette, things were happening, and right now the best chance they had was to hold her attention right here and now as they handled the other problem. With his attention focused squarely on her. There is a flash of movement, he simply stops being where he was walking. He appears right in front of her crouched, as he attempts to smash his hand right into the center of mass of the drone. He willingly takes any counter-attack this will trigger... Because the first was covered in a ball of energy that he attempts to release into the center of mass of the two drones. There are no words exchanged, there does not need to be any. Not that he thinks she could anyway. Her way of thinking versus his, and settled in the oldest fashion known to man. Second to only dance fighting.
Septette Arcubielle	Without Septette's instructions or even a backup manufactory-based AI to guide them, the non-mimic drones just freeze in place when the blackout grenades go off, maintaining their balance rigidly but not doing anything else of use. In the time it takes for the shell of jamming transmissions to expand at lightspeed and reach the mimic-drone, Septette has already composed a queue of blindfired actions to bridge the gap and shoved it into the humanoid shell's memory: even as the purple lights fade, it pulls up a grate from the floor and uses it as an impromptu shield against 17's mighty punch. The grate, and its left arm, are essentially destroyed on contact, sending it skidding across the room on its heels in a shower of sparks... The ex-patient is off like a gunshot as soon as he gets Gideon's order, leaping out of his cover with exosuit-enhanced agility and sprinting the gap during the momentary pause in the drones' blaster-fire. The futuristic hacking-knife deploys into his hand, yet he hesitates for just a second in front of the Orderly: even now, immobilized and mangled, it has some kind of hold over him. But whatever hold it has, it's not enough to stop him from plunging the hacking-knife into the Orderly's neck, just above where its collarbone ought to be. "I think I got it! Is that right? Is it working?" ... And the one-armed bipedal drone, still operating on its blind queue of actions, skates in behind him while surfing the momentum of 17's punch and skewers him in the back, right next to the kidney. It shouldn't be immediately life-threatening, but you wouldn't guess from the way he screams and lurches forward to pull himself off the blade. The purple lights in the biped's vertices flicker back on, and it turns to face 17 again, dramatically flicking the blood off its armblade. It's still not a match for him, but it doesn't need to be.
August Kohler	August manages to destroy some of the headcase - and reveals the brain inside. He blanches, but forces himself to keep moving as the Orderly moves to wrench his sword away. In August's distraction, it succeeds partially, blade not being brought into its hand but clattering to the ground in a way that grabbing it would force August into a point of weakness. But he's still super strong, and Dietrich has fists. They start pounding into the Orderly's stomach, and then move around its waist to grab it into a hold. The patient begins his hacking. "I'll hold it still. If the drones attack me, I'll handle it. Get back, now!" August shouts to the patient. And then - the drone skewers him. August's eyes widen, and anger washes over his face. "Septette Arcubielle. I know you can hear me. I want to kill you." Even as he says such, his feelings are mixed, due to their friendship...but the message is clear. He's not going to hold back against Septette, even as he doesn't have enough time to get back to the patient or any skill in saving him.
Android 17	Son of a bitch..! Seventeen can't react in time, she expertly planned that, but why in the hell is the civilian ou...goddamn it! Before it could even get the flick off, Seventeen was already on it, attempting to grab it by the 'throat' or whatever counted as a throat and attempted to beat it into the nearest wall. Not just once, not just twice, but repeatedly, even if it lashes out at him. Even if it tears pieces of him off. There is a real red hot anger as he repeatedly beats the thing into the wall. Again, no words. He will let his actions speak for him.
Starbound Flotilla	The hackknife does the trick. But not for any very good reason. When it plunges in, there's not a lot going on in here. Mostly firmware for the armor. Some fried networking for the broken rehabilitation facility. A large bunch of old sensor data. Enough Zener data to maybe get something. And with August holding it tight and punching it repeatedly in the stomach, it's not in a place to load in preserved anti-intrusion hardlines. But the moment the man is skewered, the matter changes. A patient has been harmed in the battle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9VMfdG873E An "alarm" starts again. The armor boots back up almost instantly, despite several subsystems overloading to do that. The Orderly is screaming a combination of rage and despair. It doesn't care about August and Dietrich now. It doesn't even care about Staren. All it cares about is the volunteer. Grabbing them and leaving with them. It wrenches the arms that hold it, tearing the enemy body away. The force with which it strikes August's Persona is enough to send it through at least two of the heavy, thick Fuelworks walls if it lands. It ignores the electricity, the gunfire. Its wail is the sound of despair at failure. A treasured, important thing is being lost. It needs, more than anything in the world, to protect this wounded one. The hackknife is flooded with data about important centers of treatment and stockpiles of key medication, as well as the sources for vast stores of information about Nessos-unique medical conditions. Mission accomplished. It is trying to grab up the volunteer firmly but tenderly in both hands. The sound it is making is almost mournful, like a mother tending to a wounded child. It's not attacking anyone in the group. The only thing it cares about, despite a knife sticking out of its head, its own blood dripping down its body, and its head torn open to the brain, is getting this person to a hospital as soon as possible, and it'll do everything it can to do that unless it's stopped, with unthinkably intense determination.
Gideon Kaspar	The two compromised drones, taken in the moment Septette didn't have direct control, and couldn't particularly fire accurate orders preemptively with 45 not even being in the area and only demonstrating hacking ability after it went dark, twitch and jerk, wiggle their legs, and then turn on the pastel origami Septette, firing their turbo lasers with pinpoint accuracy. "I got the shot. Just like you wanted. Now can I go back to sleep?" "Ah, that's it! We've registered the data! Beginning drive retrieval~" "But wasn't that human injured just now?" "The choice to ignore things like that is something give only to us 'rogue T-Dolls'. It's not our problem. We have a job." "Ah . . . what does Forty Five think?" "She's still on consciousness level 1. Just follow her orders like usual. Fort Five never leads us astray, remember?" "Highly arguable." Number 5 dashes for the Orderly at extreme, military android, exo-enhanced, bullet dodging speed, vaulting up over its back, snatching the knife by the handle, turning on her heel when landing and sprinting off down the elbow corridor while the Orderly has its hands busy. When it gets up, 11 fires straight between its legs at the first possible instant to squeeze kraut wizard flechetts through a couple of centimeters of clearance and nail the walmart Yggdroid in both ankles before it can actually get a visual on her, with her having been behind the Orderly and low to the ground the entire time. 416 leaps up from the broken flooring, stands atop the pile of rubble in the tunnel below, props just her rifle over the edge, using the remote cameras in the hall to sight, and lets off a roar of heavy calibre gunfire from the opposite direction, the rifle rattling against the ground as she fires off another underbarrel grenade simultaneously, generally filling the surrounding area with so much hazard fire that a droid with compromised mobility can't dodge it, using the Orderly's back as a shield against friendly fire on the patient.
August Kohler	August moves to grab the hacking knife, if no one else does. In the process, Dietrich gets hit. Dietrich goes flying through two of the walls, into a heap, crushing August on its back. He'll be fine - he's regenerating rapidly, even as he spits out blood - but he won't be fast enough to save the patient, as he argues with Septette over the radio. Instead, as the Orderly starts to escape, August pushes Dietrich forward, slowly, and tries to return to grab his sword. He won't make it in time to attack again (though he could grab the miner if he's freed from the Orderly's grip), but...hopefully one of the others can do so. Speaking of which, August speaks over his radio as his bones start to knit themselves back together from where they cracked. <"Grab him, quickly! We can't let the Orderly escape with our miner!">
Septette Arcubielle	The knockoff Septette doesn't stand a chance against 17 and the subverted drones' assault. Even with "perfect play", its body doesn't have the agility to avoid his charge or the strength to withstand it. So when it moves, it doesn't move like an animal ought to, scrambling for self-preservation- it acts like a weapon, taking its pound of flesh for spite. Its remaining arm comes up to intercept the energy blasts from the two subverted drones, the limb getting ashed in exchange for protecting its torso for a split second longer. That buys it the time to bring both of its legs up against 17's chest, 'feet' glowing with stark light, and fire a double-barreled blast right into his chest just as he crushes its body and destroys it. The ex-patient doesn't have a hope of squirming out of the Orderly's grip, even with his exoskeletally-enhanced strength, but he does think quickly enough to do one thing: rip out some of his exouit's own vital components before it can be captured and analyzed. That mental training really does come in handy. Up ahead, there's a clattering, skittering sound as more drones finally arrive to the fight, taking up positions around the Orderly's predicted path and laying down suppressing fire against Staren and anybody else who pursues. There aren't enough of them to seriously threaten a group like this, but when coordinated by Septette, they're enough to make for a nasty roadblock.
Staren	Static. That was an EMP! Fortunately, as Staren ducks around the corner with Five, he has a moment to get out a spare radio, plug it into a jack on his armor, and slip it into his belt. Then he hears a scream, and peers around the corner... Oh. Radio drama ensues. Staren is not going to attempt to finish off the Orderly on his own. He's not sure he should, and he's not sure he could. He doesn't take orders from August. It's not like the poor volunteer is in life-threatening danger, he's being rushed to a hospital, for crying out loud. So, it comes down to Seventeen and the T-Dolls. If Staren judges that the Orderly will be taken out anyway, he may act to hasten its mercy-killing.
Android 17	Seventeen was far too angry and careless. His anger gets the better of him, as Walmart Septette gets the better of his grip, and just as he final hit comes, shoots him square in the chest. He staggers from the blow, the air knocked out of him as he drops to a knee. Ragged breaths come from him as he tries to steady himself, but it's not going to be very helpful in tending to the Orderly. Right now a nasty burn mark and the smell of burning skin is the only thing coming from Seventeen right now.
Starbound Flotilla	The knife is retrieved. It is full to the brim of just the data they need, perhaps, to save Martin and to understand what's happening. The Orderly twists its head just enough to understand that it is not being interfered with. It does not stop the removal of crucial exosuit pieces, because that's not its priority. It doesn't stop the others from recovering. The only thing it does is map the exact shortest path from here to the nearest center of medical treatment. In fact, it even holographically projects a stylish line in a quick burst. And before August can act, with the others thankfully seeming to not interfere, its shining red scanner turns just slightly more blue, signaling a reduction in its haunting, predatory rage. Perhaps it'll be less aggressive next time. /Perhaps/. At the very least, this incident tonight hasn't escalated its aggression that much more. It takes off at unthinkably fast speed, as fast as it can go without the speed injuring its passenger, held in a grip that keeps them as safe as possible.