Sinter will try to blind Aqualad since he doesn't want to hurt him. Thus be makes a brilliant flash of light which he tries to shine into Aqualad's eyes.
Reflex save DC 22.
So Tempest is blinded.
Dolnam concentrates for a moment, his greenish glow disappearing, replaced by white with a frosty mist (somehow persisting underwater) emanating from his skin. The Justice League and Manta's men feel a slight chill, but everyone else is chilled to the bone.
I radiate an area of Extreme Cold for 1 mile, but exclude any area my allies (and Manta and his men) and myself occupy.
|
As Aqua girl approaches and starts spinning, turning almost invisible, Imagine taps her chin cutely. 'Hmmm. Nice one. But I'll do you one better,' she thinks and actually turns invisible.
The ten LexSec guards form a screen and fly/swim in pairs against the 5 hammerhead sharks, their armored-and-boosted bodies expertly wielding high-tensile combat knives in an underwater dance of steel and death!
Shark 1:
Shark 1:
Shark 1:
Shark 1:
Shark 1:
DC 26 melee attack
Meanwhile, Imagine calms herself as Dolnam begins a direct attack on the star-parasite that is attached to Aquagirl. She directly targets the same alien, her mind toeing-the-line against the alien mind.
'Okay, b*~&#. You've had an easy run with all these weak-minded fools. But a Luthor is here now. And you know all those fancy saying like "We always pay our debts" or "What is dead may never die"? Well House Luthor has one too:
"We're House Luthor. F#$* you."
Catchy, huh?'
With that Imagine's mind thrusts itself into the enemy with the weight of a holy knight astride a charging steed.
'Just...just pop off the girl and do nothing until someone freezes you.'
Shale makes another rush at the Megalodon, slashing it fiercely before circling more or less to his original position.
Shale strikes swiftly, striking the beast directly upon the nose, and finding so little resistance, continues the cut forward. As the blade flashes free of the giant monster's tail, the entire giant creature splits into two perfectly symmetrical pieces. The two halves disappear briefly in a cloud of red, before sinking down out of the obscuring swirl towards the ocean's murky bottom.
The LexSec boys make quick work of Aquagirl's Hammerhead escort.
As Imagine reaches into the mind of the tiny starfish, she finds she is not the only one there.
There is an alien mind within the Starophyte much larger, much more mind boggling than the mind she was in contact before. It swats away her effort as though she were a toddler.
Having seen her water attack fail, and frustrated by the loss of the hammerhead minions, Aquagirl decides to take a more direct approach to striking down Dolnam.
DC 40 toughness save[/dice]
Panicked by his blindness, Tempest lashes out with everything he's got. His hands come together and unleash a cone of swirling heat and cold. Unfortunately, he catches his wife in the blast.
Dolphin is caught up in the magical attack and knocked unconscious.
At the top of the round, that leaves us with Tempest and Aquagirl still in the fight, Tempest is blinded.
Black Manta: "Excellent work, heroes. I believe you have this handled. Finish them off and let's get to the real problem."
via radio power to Shudder "Can you knock him out? I don't think I can put him down without hurting him permanently. "
|
|
Aterro and his boys all share a wry grin as their olympian-class knife fighting skills are put to work. The high-strength blades plunge in and out rapidly and the shark flesh is churned into a red pulp. Again their personal chatter is busy with calls of congratulations and comparisons to heros of epic legend.
Kara's eyes go wide as her mental attack is batted aside. Her surprise is turned into panic as the fish-face-hugged Aquagirl hits Dolnam with a punch that, shockingly, rocks the aquatic hero to his core.
Seeing that her squad has made quick work of her escort, Kara reacts as she always reacts to panic.
She goes up the ante.
Her eyes narrow and her blood turns cold. The flighty girl that normal resides within her head is replaced by something far deadlier.
And far more effeiceint. With a scientists curiosity.
'Aterro, stop clowning around and put this b#~%* in a vice. We're gonna have to do this the -hard- way.'
The brother-captain represses an internal sigh and relays the order. The ten squaddies move to surround Aquagirl, and screw their courage to the sticking place as all ten focus on a limb and try to clamp down.
rules: Initating a grapple is a to-hit roll. After you hit, then comes an opposed grapple roll. In 2-dimensional fighting, eight can gang up, but this is 3-dimensional. Only 4 total can hold a grapple, with the three others assisting for +2.
The grapple check is opposed, d20+Attack+Strength
|
|
As the LexSec puts the girl in a quadruple-double-nelson, Kara once more unto the breech goes. 'Hellloooooooooooo in theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere. I'm sorry, but that's not how this goes. I was hoping to avoid this part, but since you're being obstinate, you've left me no choice.
Now we're going to give this another go, but I want you know: This is going to hurt me...
...a lot less than it's going to hurt you.
Start. Again.'
Dolnam's chill aura ceases immediately as Aquagirl hits him, but the sea-green glow returns, working its magic on him.
Seeing their newest ally knocked senseless by Aquagirl's latest attack, Shale changes tack and heads for her. Zipping into range and out again only to catch with another pass, and then another, he strikes at the woman with his fists and feet, as opposed to his sword, aiming to disable her, and not to inflict serious injury.
Aquagirl struggles, but cannot resist the maneuvers of so many LexSec piled on.
The alien mind continues to maintain control vs Imagine's attempts to control it.
Aquagirl continues to struggle against the security team, swinging them around like baloons in a hurricane.
Tempest's starrophyte is distracted by the attack on Aquagirl, and the agony of blasting his own wife gives him a moment of clarity.
A mystical blue energy surrounds the starrophyte on Tempest's face, peeling the alien creature off of his face as Tempest releases a scream.
That gets us back to the top of the round:
Seeing one of the aliens clear of victim, Sinter blasts it.
DC 30 toughness.
The Starrophyte burns like a good alien invader should.
Dolnam stays unconscious.
|
|
Like an ephemeral blob of lime green jelly with chunks of pineapple, Imagine's mental attack pours and morphs around the alien mental defenses. A part of her mind spares the effort to be thoroughly impressed with the perfect flawlessness of the barricade.
'Damn,' she thinks.
As she probes, she -thought- she saw a small weakness. Though as she approached, it was gone. But even as it covered itself, it seemed to reveal its pattern.
'The Force is strong on this one. But I have you now! Just pop off the girl and curl into a ball whydon'cha?'
Meanwhile, the LexSec, a guard with a full rear-naked choke on each limb and Captain Aterro himself giving her an all-encompassing bear-hug, struggle mightily to keep the ever-wriggling girl pinned and immobile.
Imagine finally manages to slip through the Starrophyte's defenses and control it. Nevertheless, she continues to feel the powerful resistance of the great alien mind to which it is attached.
|
|
'Yes!' Imagine is elated that she -finally- got through, beating, through proxy, a being more powerful than her through heart, determination, skill...and ten squaddies that she'll never acknowledge.
'Keep her still, boys, I think that I've got my hooks in that thing. I'm gonna try and get it off her face, but hold on all the same.'
Imagine tries to get the thing to let go of Aquagirl and detach, so one the boys can grab it and put it in a box. They can freeze it later.
The Starrophyte peels itself from Aquagirl's face and floats a short distance away. You can see the irises of the young hero shrink to pinpricks before they return to a normal size. She shakes her head, "What, where...Oh. What has happened? There was an attack, Starro. He is below. Atlantis is overrun. He had us excavating something on the ocean floor."
Black Manta signals the Leviathan, sending the construct diving deeper into the ocean like an immense metallic squid.
"You and the Manta Men can get the Atlanteans aboard the sub. My crew will see to them in the infirmary. Now, follow me! Let us end this."
Is it just you, or do the red glowing eyes of Manta's helmet flicker with delight?
The dark armored figure lowers his head and jets downward in the wake of Leviathan.
Sinter follows along in the wake of the Leviathan.
Shale moves quickly, gathering up the injured Atlanteans, and moving them one by one into the Manta sub's airlock. Opening a medical kit, he quickly binds the wounds of the strike team.
Least I can do, considering the sword wounds are mine...
If there is a sickbay, he transports them there, afterwards reporting to the bridge.
|
|
Kara calls out as Manta's cohorts begin to escort the recovering Aquagirl into his sub.
'I need -three- very simple questions answered before we go anywhere. Considering that merely getting that -thing- to voluntarily get off her face is the hardest thing in the universe to do, and we're going to be facing a -city- of them, I think a moment's pause is valid.
Now.
Aquagirl,
1) Is Lord Starro here?
2) What is he looking for?
3) And, most importantly...
HAS HE FOUND IT??'
There is a sickbay. That is where he had the captured Starrophyte in cold storage.
Kara manages to make Shale pause, which is nearly as difficult a task as mentally whammying a Starrophyte.
Aquagirl speaks slowly, as though attempting to sort out which thoughts are hers and which are alien.
"I...I...Lord...Starro. What? Who? Yes, Lord Starro. That is what were were working for. To unearth the Gate. It's down there. A massive ring of metal like nothing you've ever seen. We found the gate, and then Starro sent him out to find the key. Where is the key? Somewhere to the West. Someone was using it.... It's what drew his attention. The key. Reactivated. And now they're both here. By Poseidon's beard. What have we done."
Dolnam awakens with a start moments after the battle ends.
The Tuatha have gifted me with great powers. And a glass jaw, it seems." he remarks to no one in particular.
He goes on the submarine, more out of mistrust for Manta than anything else.
"Where does the Gate go?"
Aquagirl searches her thoughts for a moment, and shrugs:
I'm sorry, I know this doesn't mean anything, but all I've got is "The Star Planet."