[STORY THREAD] Manifest Destiny

[Exile_Jeane]

The two novas were greeted with a dry, empty lakebed devoid of water and life. Well, with one exception.

 

Grace cut off her, she strongly suspected after several minutes of silence from the other end, futile report with Carson and his people when she saw two strangers appear from thin air in the corner of her vision. Nerves keyed up for a confrontation, the blonde juggernaut's fingers flitted down to her waist to grab a marble from a, nonexistent, pouch. Gray eyes narrowed at remembering the item was back in her apartment. She turned on one heel to face the strangers, kicking a clod of nuclear-baked mud up and into her hand.

 

A small surge of quantum charged it with just enough of a window of invulnerability to turn it into a Goliath-slaying projectile in her hands, gold flashing through her veins.

 

The faintest of breezes fluttered her waist cape, padded bodyglove fading from white to blue around her collarbone, a dramatic 'A' in red framed on her chest like her mountainous Nova namesake. Apex remained on guard, holding out her clod of dirt like the deadly weapon it could be if they answered her next question wrong. The suits threw off her ability to identify the two heavily-suited figures, not helped by the anger burning skin deep below her focus. Expression severe and voice flat, she called out, "Friend or foe?"

 

Spoiler

Attune a clod of dirt, lol.

  

[Shameless]

A familiar male baritone answered.   "Friend.   It's good to see you again, though the circumstances are terrible.  Clad in their environmental suits, he sighed.  Showing off they were immune to radiation wasn't Something Ryan himself would do, but here Grace was, doing so.   It was better to be cautious, as he knew Deezy didn't have their enhanced levels of resistance.   

"We came as soon as we could, to help however I could."   Already, Ryan's enhanced senses were reaching out mapping every feature of the terrain.   His enhanced mind working to reconstruct the blast, and possibly turn up some piece of whatever device was used, so Deezy could better determine just what sort of device had been used here.

"I'm glad you're unharmed."  Clearly, Grace wasn't Okay, but then no one would be if their home had almost been nuked.

[Exile_Jeane]

"We were lucky Sean is as amazing as she is or else we'd be having this conversation after pulling me out of the bottom of a crater at the center of Chicago," Grace responded flatly, allowing herself a small snort at her own presumption before reverting to seriousness again, "It's good to see you two."

 

She looked over the lifeless scene, sighing slightly in disappointment at the lack of attackers on scene. The blonde juggernaut wanted to hit the people responsible for this attack on her and hers as hard as she could, over and over, until they stopped moving. It would make her feel better at least. Maybe.

 

"I don't suppose your people saw who was responsible for this? Full honesty? Our contact in the government recently asked what we thought about getting involved over in Ukraine if the Russians deployed *their* greatest Novas, but I don't think that would justify or explain... This. At least so quickly. Haven't heard of any one Nova with this kind of power."  

[Nina]

Elsewhere…

 

The room was dark, lit only by a dozen or so screens which showed various locations around the globe. The consoles before the screens were sophisticated, futuristic, beyond what could be found in your local best buy by leaps and bounds. The light from the screens played across the faces of the men and women monitoring them casting them in eerie frames of light and shadow.

 

Most of the monitoring was done in silence, but at one set activity could be found…activity which would have bearing on the future of everything.

 

“I have one approaching ground-zero.” A woman age indeterminate, said as she watched her assigned screen her eyes hidden by a 3-d visor.

 

“Identity?” That question came from a supervisor who stepped from the deeper shadows to stand near the monitors. He glanced at the adjacent screens each showing the same scene from different angles.

 

“Indexing… It is 99.4% certain the Aberrant is Apex.” the monitor replied.

 

“Any sign of the other two?

 

A monitor several screens down spoke up. “We have them here, sir. They were heading to GZ but they turned back and are going into the city.”

 

Before the supervisor could respond another monitor reported. “Detecting formation of a Quantum Wormhole at GZ. “

 

The supervisor rushed to that screen just intime to see two radiation suited forms step through. “Do we know who?”

 

“Quantum signature identified as Aberrant Horizon.”

 

“Ok then the other is most likely Genesis. We will split the Combat Mods, send two to intercept the Aberrants heading into the city and send the AP to GZ,” the supervisor directed.

 

“No.”

 

That single word soft as it was carried to every monitor and supervisor in the vast control room. “I wish to limit the collateral damage. Send the AP to the bomb site, hold the remainder in reserve. I wish to see what these three can do. The other two may return as well. It is an opportunity to increase our data.”

 

The Supervisor turned and looked in to the dark recesses of the room. “Sir, with all due respect, sending the Mods through with Genesis present risks our techkno…”

 

“Which is a forgone inevitability. This will help us to determine the reach of the Aberrant’s unique abilities. Continue with the test please.”

 

“As you wish.”

[SalmonMax]

"Hey Apex," Deezy chirped. "No idea yet. Hang on."

 

She was wearing her usual exoskeleton rig, though with a modified version of the radiation suit she'd made for Horizon inside it. A sensor cluster on the machine rotated, ticking as it went, and data from what it was detecting appeared on the inside of her HUD. Deezy 'hmmmed' at that, and started moving around the blasted wasteland of the lakebed crater. She waved a gauntleted hand back and forth through the air, then leaned over and scooped her fingers through the dry earth at their feet.

 

Then she pulled her hand back, and a large rectangular hold appeared in the soil, going down a good ten feet or more into the lakebed, revealing layers of sediment. All as dry and dead as the one they were standing atop. She stood up again.

 

"Okay!" said Deezy brightly. "This is...pretty neat. First, your question. What nova has this kind of power? Uncertain, but irrelevant. This..." she held up a finger, "...was not the work of a nova. If it was, there'd be byproducts present. Exotic particles and their decay products. A kind of signature. Nothing like that here."

 

"What we DO have is a mystery." She said the words with visible relish. Despite the destruction involved, a conundrum this complicated was a genuine pleasure for her. Few puzzles survived more than minutes in her mind.

 

"The satellite early warning system measured an energy release consistent with a nuclear blast of several megatons BUT conditions here do not reflect that. In fact, the residual radiation and ground displacement suggest a yield of no more than a thousand kilograms, and that's accounting for the effect of detonating what was underwater at the time. Plus there's an absolutely WILD amount of magnetic disruption in the area, and the little problem of the entire lake's water being evaporated...including underground. And all the...the goop. You know, algae and aquatic plants...animal remains...all of that, it's all gone. Just like the water."

 

"So! Working theory is that the water and organic compounds of the lake were somehow...catalyzed in some kind of as-yet-unknown fashion to create a very powerful burst of energy that was tightly focused up away from the lake. The focusing mechanism could be related to the magnetic disruption and EMP effect. So the intensity of the explosion at ground zero seems smaller than it was, because most of the energy was directed away, like a shaped charge."

 

"Meanwhile, the satellites were essentially looking down the barrel of a huge gun going off, so they registered the intensity as being much GREATER than it was. The energy was then guided to strike the city."

 

She paused then, and frowned. "The residual radiation is oddly centralized as well. Almost like the opposite of an explosion. Compression? You know...I wonder..."

 

"If you had the technology, or...other ability...to create gravitational fields of arbitrary strength, you could cause an area to implode, superheating it. Make it strong enough, you might get a sort of quick and dirty fusion reaction from the hydrogen atoms in the water and organic material. Nothing self-sustaining, but...it could be enough to pump a graser. And you could use gravitational lensing to bend the beam to hit a target."

[Shameless]

Meanwhile Ryan was doing his own thing, trying to Reconstruct the blast, and it its source, and failing.   It was simply at the edge of his grasp, and even pushing his powers, short out maxing out, wasn't enough to get to accomplish what he wanted to do.   It was frustrating, but thankfully, he wasn't alone in his efforts, and Deezy of course was on the case as well.   

He listened quietly to her theory, likely based on her own findings and preliminary scanning.   "So not an actual bomb.   That's good in a way, and bad in a host of others."  he said quietly.   

[Exile_Jeane]

Drumming her fingers on her elbow and trying not to think about how glad she was it wasn't an evil version of Sean behind this attack, Grace exhaled and looked over the desolation of lakebed crater. She didn't like it. Something like this would be trumpted to the heavens, she'd be sure, one hell of a space exploration tool. If the people using it intended to, or only could, use it as a weapon... Wait a second...

 

"So not nova executed, but very possibly nova developed before being conventionally build," she concluded with a deep frown, "We've fought people who used blackhole-like technology to, and I swear I'm not lying, rob banks. Nearly blew up the city back then. Can't recall off the top of my head where they were getting those tools from, but... Different scale, same tools, Deezy?"

[SalmonMax]

"Maybe at the heart of it, but this goes way past just making a black hole," Deezy says. "This is controlled! A black hole would just suck stuff in, and then it'd be gone until it radiated away. Can't harness that. No, this was more like...pull all the matter in, but not into a singularity. It superheats around the center, and the rising energy rips the molecules apart. It all separates out, the heavier stuff falling to the center, leaving the hydrogen in a layer AROUND it all. Hydrogen fuses, releases a ton of energy in a flash. As it does, they release lasing rods into the reaction....converting a fraction of the fusion energy into high intensity coherent gamma rays."

 

"Then...FOOMP. The hydrogen's gone, and since there's nothing left maybe at THAT point they let it collapse to singularity too, leaving no physical evidence behind."

 

"But that goes waaaaaaaaaay past just spawning a singularity. A ton of control. Incredible, planck-scale timing. Manipulation of gravity over a long range to guide the resulting gamma-ray laser to its target."

 

Deezy shakes her head. "Order of magnitude more complex. And that's assuming my speculation is correct! Could be even weirder!"

[Asarasa]

Sean caught up with Brigit on Southside, Englewood she pretty sure. Even with the blackout, the area was darker than The Loop or Northside. There were fewer cars running on the street. Flickering candles and pale flashlights were hidden behind heavy curtains and shut doors.

Shouts and cries broke the silence of the neighborhood, and with her enhanced senses, Sean heard even more. The rising tension, furtive footsteps, the distant breaking of class, muffled voices behind the walls. Nostrils flared as she sniffed the air, catching the exhaust from cars that failed their emission tests, the whiff of gunpowder, she estimated was from yesterday.

It was a powder keg just waiting for a spark to blow. A frown graced Sean's luscious lips as an unseen pulse emanated from her, gravity in an ever increasing ring about her subtly intensifying, spreading throughout Englewood and beyond. It was hardly noticeable to Brigit's powerful shoulders, but it lent an oppressive weight to the atmosphere, seeking to smother the incipient riot that was brewing. 

Sean landed to the side and behind Brigit, wedge heels crunching faintly on the cracked asphalt. With her heels and height, she had a head on Brigit. She glided up to her girlfriend, reaching an arm around her deliciously, awesomely broad shoulders to knead an inhumanly taut trapezius muscle. Brigit's coruscating aura had faded to a barely discernible luminescence dancing just above her skin, but her hands were still balled into fists, and her expression was grim.

It was an expression that Sean was seeing too often on Brigit's face lately. As if she was never satisfied.

Sean sighed, resting her cheek on the top of Brigit's head as she gave the crook of her neck another squeeze. "What's wrong, babe? Why are you so angry?"

... All the time? At me? It wasn't said, but Sean didn't mean at them being attacked. Sean was still angry about that too, even if she didn't seem it. That was completely reasonable, especially in Grace's case with son only being out of the way due to luck. 

[Nina]

Dauntless looked are Sean, the powerfully built shorter woman's eyes glowed with Quantum Fire and the intensity shocked Sean. "My City, My responsibility."

 

And then with a flick of her head her body shot upwards higher and higher her body wreathed in her Quantum glow. Ten thousand feet, twenty thousand, thirty. At thirty she stopped and her glow changed from the blue white to yellow gold and concentrating Briget put all of her will into her power.

 

Dauntless turned night into Day.

 

A star erupted over Chicago, it didn't bring heat, but it bathed the whole of the city in a golden light like a new dawn. The mobs which had been forming, the gangs who had set out in the dark like the cowards they were were exposed. The people barricaded inside their homes by fear opened curtains and looked upward. 

 

Sean had floated up not sure if she should follow but then she saw the mob and they saw her. Sheepishly the crowds began to disperse, the gangs which had had bloodletting on their minds thought better the light was inescapable and floating over the streets a warning that the city was not unprotected at all.

 

On 12/7/2022 at 5:37 PM, SalmonMax said:

Deezy shakes her head. "Order of magnitude more complex. And that's assuming my speculation is correct! Could be even weirder!"

 

As if on que, the sky to the west suddenly lit up and a small sun seemed to burn over Chicago bathing the darkened powerless city in light.

 

The three Nova's looked at the small star wondering and none of them noticed the warp above them until Ryan felt the echo of spatial disruption. He turned his head up just in time to shout a warning as a monstrous machine dropped from the sky.

 

 

Spoiler

heroes go! any questions ask in discord

 

[Exile_Jeane]

The roar of retrorockets bringing who knew how many tons of giant robot to a safe landing on the hard-baked mud made Grace whip her head around, hair and waist cape fluttering away from the displaced air. It took most of her superhuman reserve to not let her jaw drop as she looked up and up and up and up at the towering creation. Even Konami's kaiju form had been less imposing, something regrettably familiar based on her experiences from the Storm. Still, she WAS human and let slip an uncharacteristic curse as her brain processed the sight.

 

"Damn," she exhaled, glancing over at the radsuit-clad super genius, "This one of yours, Deezy?"

 

The other woman, eyes slightly glazed over in the focus of someone using more-than-human senses to take in what they were saying managed a soft noise of negation. Okay then. Grace, no, Apex took a few steps forward and put up her guard, grey eyes focused on the towering construct before them. This thing was Definitely Much Bigger than anything Echidna had spawned for itself, so, for once in her post Storm life, the blonde juggernaut couldn't say she'd killed bigger. And with the sound of choppers in the distance they were about to have potential victims for whatever collateral damage might follow. Still, just because she'd been spoiling for a fight...

 

"Friend or Foe?!?" she shouted, clutching her quantum-attuned shard of mud in her dominant hand, scanning for anything that might be a weakness if this thing wasn't an ally. 

 

[Shameless]

Ryan watched the metal behemoth descend, and thought Someone's played too much Front Mission and Metal Gear.    In parallel, he took note of the machine's arrival by spatial disturbance, but it didn't feel like the same sort created when he used his own abilities, nor could he sense the origin point.  There was Not enough to go on, but something he'd follow up on later, likely with both Deezy and Sean. 
 

"Doesn't matter.  After what's happened, Ready up anyway, if it opens fire, take it down, hard."   He frowned, and did the same, feeling the familiar surge of energies as he prepared to use his own energy blasts.

He faced the titanic machine.   "This isn't one of ours.  We don't make weapons of war."   There was a sense that were it left to him, they never would.

Edited December 27, 2022 by Shameless

[Asarasa]

On 12/27/2022 at 10:01 AM, Nina said:

"My City, My responsibility."

 

"Not yours alone, luv," Sean breathed, following Brigit into the sky for two dozen feet. Then she exhaled in a soft gasp, luminous eyes narrowing as Dauntless turned into a miniature sun above the darkened city, bathing Chicago in an early dawn. Her enticing lips curved wryly. "But that certainly helps."

Dauntless' light bent around the subliminal event horizon of Centerpoint's protective gravitic field, intensifying and limning her unmistakable hourglass figure, and turning her metallic rose-gold hair incandescent. Sean slowly spun around in the air, hands on her flaring hips as she leveled her lambent gaze on those who eyes were inexorably drawn to her.

As a man, Sean had been a shy and reticent public speaker. As one of the most beautiful and captivating woman in the world for over the last two years, she reveled in being the center of attention. Nothing she could do could make her soprano less sultry, but she had learned how to project her voice.

"When it's darkest, remember you aren't alone," Centerpoint proclaimed, smiling as a hand lifted from a hip to point upward at the brilliant star above them. "When the worse happens, Chicago rebuilds, stronger and taller than before. And the Chicago 3 are here to help as you help each other." A warning tone entered her voice as she added while floating higher, withdrawing the oppressing increase in gravity after deepening it for an instant. "And hinder those who mean harm."

[Nina]

The Apex Predator landed its four wide foot pads crumbling the dry lake bed, Targeting lasers emitted from various lens scanning the three Novas present before all coalescing on Apex. Guns and other weapons spun, reoriented and opened fire!

 

Shells form auto-cannon, missiles from rocket packs, and particle beams flashed at the Nova with deadly accuracy! Apex was caught in the whitering fire as Ryan and Deezy dove for cover!

 

Back in Chicago Bridget suddenly felt a flood of guilt as she took in what Sean was saying but suddenly her sense registered the sounds and fury of distant batle! She spun in place and her vision intensified and brought the scene at the lake into view.

 

"Sean Grace is under attack by a giant robot! And more are coming!"

 

Spoiler

I need a defense roll from Apex - she is being targeted by the big robot. Ryan detects two more wormholes opening at the edge of the lakebed each one has a biped robot transiting but they are not through yet.

 

[Exile_Jeane]

Spoiler

Warning: Unexpected character at 5 - end of command was ignored "7e10"

# 34
Details:[7d10t7e10 (6 8 8 6 2 2 2)] Two Successes on dodge.

Gets hit a lot but no damage inflicted due to scale.

rolling to quantum leap at the behemoth's face and anchor herself in place for a pummeling next round.

[7d10] Roll: [10, 8, 8, 7, 4, 4, 2] 4 successes, one exploding 10...

[1d10] Roll: [8] Another success for a grand total of 5.

 

 

Maybe she was a little out of practice fighting kaiju-scale threats. Or fighting in general if she were honest. Then again, even at its worst, Enchidna hadn't unleashed quite as impressive a volley of firepower as this steel behemoth. Missiles. Lasers. Bullet after bullet after bullet. Shells on the verge of small artillery scale. All of it pounding the bone-dry earth around her and on her, vibrations rattlings through the soles of her feet. She tried jinking forward and left, arms up and protecting her head so that she could steal another second of hearing, seeing, smelling where the giant robot was if it was carrying weapons capable of hurting her. For all her toughness, if she was hurt, she'd need time to heal and, in a life, or death brawl, that time could be fatal to allies if not to herself. Every edge mattered.

 

 Impact. Impact. Impact. Burning. Thrown. Impact. Burning. Impact. Tak tak tak tak tak tak. Thrown again. Tak tak tak tak... 

 

Grace smiled in the small very violent space of slowed-heartbeats she found herself. Impacts but no pain. Burning but no damage. Thrown but hitting the ground rolling to a halt again. The tak of bullets like memories of small hailstones from a visit to Texas friend of the family. Whoever had built this war machine didn't quite have her number yet. And she one very important reason to deny them that chance if there was even the ghost of a chance the same ones behind this machine were behind the attack on Chicago.

 

The tak of bullets slowed for a heartbeat, and she looked up through the swirling dust and smoke of her surroundings to spot the outline of the behemoth war machine. To the region where it's 'head' should be. She chuckled grimly and let her veins flush gold as she channeled power into her legs, clump of attuned dirt lost somewhere in the chaos. Didn't matter though. She was going to get so much worse than biblical on this thing. She exploded into linear flight with the crack of a sonic boom that cleared the dust cloud from around her, waist cape fluttering, one hand extended before her. No mercy in her gaze.

 

Apex hit the 'Apex Predator' machine with that hand on its face right in front of its 'eyes', one arm embedding itself forearm deep in the armor and the other pulling back to ready glowing punch or three or four until she found it's heart to rip out.    

Edited January 28, 2023 by Exile_Jeane
Missed a Thing.

[SalmonMax]

Deezy, for her part, welcomed their new robot overlords. Well, kind of. Her eyes widened, and a big old grin spread across her face.

 

"NOW we're talkin'!" she said, and quickly got back to give Apex some space where she wouldn't need to worry about accidentally reducing her to paste while tusslin'. That also gave her a bit of an opening that she used to focus her awareness on the gigantic machine...break it down in her mind to its component elements and compounds, seeing how they fit into the materials that made it up, into the machinery that made it work.

 

Then, with the agility of mind that she was infamous for around the lab, she quickly shifted gears to the information age, the pulse of the robot's internal systems. The programming it worked under, the communication of electronic and optical components. Removing its ability to interact with its weapon systems seemed like...a wise precaution. At least until she had a moment to devise countermeasures!

 

(2 successes + scale on Detect composition test, 3 successes + scale on Digital Manipulation!)

[Shameless]

"We have at least two more incoming."   Ryan called out, even as he moved to engage them.    The same disc-like blasts of destructive quantum energy formed as they had in so many practice sessions since he'd first used the attack, and his enhanced mind computed trajectories to attack the closest of the newly emerging duo, as soon as it came through these new spatial distortions.   The fact that they weren't like his own warps, well that concerned him.   Perhaps someone had gotten their hands on alien tech.  He was something of an expert on abilities like his own, and yet this very clearly wasn't the same.

(4 successes to attack closest of the newly emerged bots)

[Nina]

The giant robot staggered under Apex's assaults' and a hum and vibration could be felt under the Novas feet.

 

Two disc denoting the  additional wormholes coalesced in the air above and to the sides of the giant robot. Ryan shouted his warning and concentrated on the closer of the two. His sense could tell him that these portals led to somewhere but the destination and the tunnels themselves where blurry and ill-defined to his spatial senses. His power didn't let him grab them as he had sought to do and in the end (a split second decision) he opted to open hsi own portal to catch the incoming intruder and send them else where.

 

Things didn't quite work out that way.

 

The portal Ryan created drew the invading portal like a vacuum sucking dirt. The two portals touched and twisted, whipping about like a whiplash, Ryans spatial senses where turned inside out as his warp and the invaders merged and melted collapsing with a thunderous bang.

 

At the same time this was happening over at the other new portal a second robot, smaller and bipedal, dropped onto our world.

 

Spoiler

ryan needs to make a resilience defense roll, Apex can act and dauntless and centerpoint will arrive at the end of this round.

 

[Exile_Jeane]

Bracing her feet against the vibrating hull of the behemoth, Grace grinned as it failed to unleash its weapons in a second volley or attempt any sort of maneuver to eject her from its face. The way her fingers dug through the steel plate to anchor in the comparatively soft material made her doubt its ability to do so, barring some sort of miraculous intervention from Deezy's own talents. Whoever had built this wasn't using anything scaled to threaten a Brute of her caliber, although she shuddered to think what it might do dropped into the middle of an unprepared city. Best to prevent said makers from having this deadly sci fi toy any longer than she had a say in it.

 

She arched back as far she could in her spider-like stance, before slamming her fist down with all the force she can muster, storm-grey eyes hard and driven as she struck, staring it dead in the massive slit that she'd call eyes on anything less massive and inhumane.

 

Spoiler

Might + Close Combat...

Exile_Jeane Request: [8d10] Roll: [10, 9, 8, 8, 6, 4, 4, 3] Result: 52

Exile_Jeane — Today at 7:23 PM
one exploding dice...
Exile_Jeane Request: [1d10] Roll: [7] Result: 7 

5 successes Plus 4 from Scale... Nine Total. Converting all of it I can into damage... That'll do, lol.

   

[Asarasa]

Sean didn't think Grace would have to worry about a robot, no matter how giant it might be, but there was definite urgency in Brigit's voice. With a salute and a wave to the people in the street, Sean soared up into the sky in a tight spin.

When she got well above the roofline of the surrounding buildings, if not nearly so high as Brigit, she could just barely make out the flashes of light, could faintly hear the clang and thumps at the distant lake bed. Sean couldn't discern what was going on with the same level of acuity as Brigit could, but that she could make anything out at this distance spoke volumes.

"Keep the lights on, babe," Sean answered Brigit over her comm unit. "I'll help Grace out." With her heightened senses, Brigit could see Sean blowing her a kiss, could hear the puckering of her lips over the come. "Though feel free to join us if it looks like we aren't handling ourselves."

Centerpoint altered the composition of her gravitic field, then accelerated almost instantly to full speed as she fly/fell towards the confrontation. The g-force generated would have killed a human, but she felt nothing. Mere seconds later, she was at the scene.

She pursed her lips. Seemingly blasé in anyone else, for her, it was an expression of surprise. Ryan and Deezy were there. And 'giant' robot was a remarkable understatement. Sean was an architect, even if she didn't professionally practice anymore. It wasn't quite the same, but she had some idea how long it took to construct big structures. She would consider the robot a megastructure. Even with powers and technical wizardry like Deezy's, Sean thought it would take at least as much time as when the Storm happened to make one of these things. The damn thing seemed like the mech equivalent of a Star Destroyer.

And there were two of them. At least two of them.

Grace was clinging to the 'face' of one of them, her fists wrecking destruction despite her comparatively minuscule size. The robots were much too massive for her to gravitokinetically lift or restrain. That left smashy-smashy with force equivalent to that of an orbital mass-driver.

"Sorry I'm late, guys," Sean called out as she refocused her gravitic prowess for a full strength strike - this was not the situation for restraint. "I didn't see my invite in the mail."

 

Spoiler

I am assuming it took Sean's turn to arrive on scene. She does have her Gravitic Shield running. Gravitational Collapse (Warp) is still offline.

 

[Shameless]

Spatial backlash.   It was definitely a new feeling, an odd one, and in truth, it felt, wrong to Ryan.   The method they were using wasn't quantum or psionic in nature, hell if he had to hazard a guess, it could well have been alien tech.   He noted that he couldn't determine where it came from, which was even stranger to him, as he had a natural knack for that sort of thing.

"Deezy, I've got some more info for you to parse later, but I do NOT want to do what I just did again.   It can very easily go bad."


As Sean arrived, he chuckled.   "Well they didn't send it through us, you know we'd have gotten it there.   Glad you could make it though.   "I stopped one from coming through, but that's not to say they won't try again.   Be on your guard, and do not try to counter the emergence wormhole unless you have to."

[SalmonMax]

Deezy sighed and nodded and glanced over at Ryan.

 

"Yeah, this is...well it's theater, really. They're not trying to really kill us; they're seeing what we can do. Oh, uh, the big one here? First one through? It's on our side now. Don't kill it yet."

 

"Annnd I guess be ready for escalation, in case they decide they've seen enough and start actually trying."

[Nina]

Spoiler

Big bot has 2 levels of damage and Apex is tearing up its 'head'. 

One of the portals twisted in upon itself ripping the traversing robot into its constituent molecules and slamming shut with a thunderous crash. The remain portal drops its payload, a Bipedal robot about 16 feet tall. 

 

Ryan's Warp was like wise twisted into nothing with a quantum back lash that whips around the lake bed/crater.

 

The new robot slams into the ground absorbing the impact on its two let its 'head' swivels taking in the situation and it immediately drops to all fours and flattens itself to the ground digging its digits into the earth.

 

The hum from the main robot reaches a crescendo and suddenly all of the loose dirt on the lake bed hops into the air and hovers. Centerpoint, preparing a massive strike, detects a surging build up of gravity emanating from the giant robot but before she can shout a warning, the robot fires its weapon!

 

The gravity bomb unleashes a field of intense gravity with a diameter of over a hundred yards. Inside the field the gravity jumps from an earth normal of 1G to a painful 28 gravities in an instant, crushing everything and everybody that can't resist flat to the ground! and inthe next instant the direction of the gravitic pull is reversed hurling everything into the sky at 28 gravities of acceleration!.

 

Spoiler

robot got 14 sux with its gravity attack. y'all need to defend. Good luck

 

 

[Shameless]

In the instant the gravity increased geometrically, Ryan's quantum-powered body reacted on instinct.   Quantum energies surged through his body, reinforcing it against the extreme effects of gravity.  He did stagger slightly as he adjusted to the changes,  his body was literally crackling with Quantum energy, as he bore up under the incredible force.   In the next instant, the gravity was completely reversed, his quantum infused flesh resisted the sudden change, though it did rock him up onto one foot, before he brought it back down.  
 

An almost feral sneer curled the corners of his opened mouth, and his eyes flashed with a dark fury.  Sure, he was fine, but if that had been done inside a city, the damage would have been incredible.
 

"Take it down before it tries that again on a bigger scale."
 

 With those words, Ryan unleashed a veritable torrent of energy discs at the behemoth machine, careful of course to avoid hitting anyone else.   He knew it wasn't the most destructive of attacks, but it was definitely flashy, which he hoped would buy the others time to recover, and of course, they still had the smaller robot to deal with.

 

Spoiler

Ryan spends 3 quantum to activate adaptation to nullify the effects of the attack, and then attacks with quantum weapon

 

Shameless Request: [8d10] Roll: [10, 8, 5, 5, 4, 4, 1, 1] Result: 38
Shameless Request: [1d10] Roll: [2] Result: 2

2 rolled, +3 enhancement +1 for mega dex 6 total to attack

scale 4 damage, with -4 armor rating thanks to piercing and destructive

 

[Exile_Jeane]

Excluded from the effect of the gravity bomb by virtue of being on the source of the esoteric attack, Grace was unaware of the cataclysmic output of energy until she saw stones and dirt rising and slamming back down. She paused in her destructive rampage along the robot's head, having failed to find both any sort of pilot (which she had expected) or access hatch (less so and quite disappointing). The bigger the target, the bigger the weak spots, right? Not in mind of the madmen who built this at least. At least so far.

 

Oh, well. More ripping and tearing it was. If she kept working her way down and in she'd find this things' power source eventually. She chuckled darkly, relishing the chance to ignore her world of cardboard limitations on a genuine monster.

 

Spoiler

Rip and Tear Until It's Done. Might + Close Combat...

[9d10] Roll: [8, 6, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1] Well. One Success. +4 for Scale, gives me five at least.