Without hesitating, Atsuko moved the start point of her tendrils, throwing everything they could grab into building up a higher barricade. She wasn't afraid of getting hurt - in the end, very few things kept her down for long. She was considerably more concerned about bullets going through walls and hitting innocents.
"Violence is not the answer here. I'd really rather not have to hurt you." she said quietly.
The doctor tries to look inconspicuous while readying himself to back up Atsuko.
Darkstorm takes a defensive stance in the air, getting ready for a fight
C'mon Felix! This can't more difficult than that time Mother tied you to the chandelier during dinner.
On his way up to the nearest elevator door, cracked half open, Felix finds his foot caught in one of the cords, trapped in place, however, he does so very stealthily, and the two armed thugs in that floor fail to notice him.
Boss didn't have this planned. One muttered.
No. Must be the capes. Said the other.
Phantom's been gone for a while. Could be his sidekicks or that new team.
Or both, looking to get revenge.
The two thugs raise their weapons and unleash a salvo in tandem against the Darkstorm.
Maybe it was the choice of Atsuko's words, maybe it was the writhing storm of eldritch tentacles, but you see the thugs, all of them, begin shaking in their boots.
Ravager rushes forward, leaping mid-way through her dash and swiping accuratly at one of the Thugs below her. When she lands on the other side, she leaves her back 'open' for them to retaliate against her, hoping to draw fire away from Atsuko and Apocalypse.
"I suggest you lie down on the floor if you don't want to be hurt." Atsuko added, allowing the dozens of tendrils to retract into the shadows. She wasn't a master of fear like the Caped Crusader was, but she had no objection to using the emotion if it would help protect people. She looked at the thug Masumi hadn't charged and focused her will for a few moments. People like this tended to freak if they couldn't even understand how they were being hurt.
Given that the others were subduing the thug, the doctor continues, using his kinetic blast to attempt to knock another unconscious. "We have other engagements to get to, so nighty-night"
Dark storm recoils from the shock of a bullet hitting home, but realizes it did nothing. He quickly blasts a ray of bio energy at one of the thugs.
Not wanting to lose a leg anytime soon, Felix quickly frees himself, and whispers into his coms.
"I've got eyes on the Cardinal's room. Lots of big guys, may need back up if things get busy. Will wait for a development. ."
As Felix walks, he hears a whistle.
Behind him, a familiar skull mask armed with a sword. You again? He said.
Rounding the hall in front of Felix comes the two armed thugs, weapons raised. Surrounded in one side by guns, and the other by the Taskmaster. This time ya ain't gonna get away untouched.
The first thug is sent flying into the fountain in the centre of the lobby, making quite the splash on impact.
The next spasms with the mind blast and falls face-first onto the ground, the weapon in his hand discharging harmlessly into the now-empty bistro.
The kinetic blast smacks the last thug straight into the face, breaking his nose, but leaving him relatively unharmed.
Darkstorm's Bio energy connects, staggering one of the thugs but failing to knock him unconscious. They aim once more and unleash a new salvo.
Almost at a loss for how quickly they handled that situation, she quickly regains her bearings. Masumi Stands up and turns around proper, and starts to sign in hopes that the doctor would understand her. "Please ask him where he's at."
Felix blinks. For someone with extraordinary luck, sometimes it really bit him on the ass.
"You call getting shot untouched?" Felix says as he swiftly pulls out a couple throwing blades and launches them at the thugs hoping to incapacitate one. He then moves away from Taskmaster and towards the thugs.
Before trying to communicate in the middle of a fight, Masumi launches herself at the last man standing. Unnatural instinct momentarily takes over, and she finds herself elongating her jar and chomping down on his poor shoulder.
If Masumi does not take down the leader of the goons, the then Doctor will lend his telekinetic fist to encourage him to sleep.
It looked like the others had the few remaining foes under control, and Atsuko relaxed her mental focus instead of continuing to bombard the men. No need for excessive force, after all... and the had other matters to deal with. "Any sign of movement up above?" she murmured into the mic.
The cleanup crew, standing over one group of thugs, then plays witness to a duo of armed criminals being whupped by three Media's, surgically disarming the two and incapacitating them.
One of the Media's, the one dressed as a Hipster, says. Felix's got his hands full upstairs, and The Darkstorm's fighting off his own problems. She said. I can aid probably one of them. There are quite a few of me out there pulling civilians out of hiding and out the door. It's a little... Straining, to say the least.
The throwing knife plants itself under the shoulder of one of the armed thugs, where he immediately grabs and falls to the ground, his gun flying out of his hand.
The other fires, futily, each shot passing by Felix, two grazing the clothes he was wearing, but leaving his body completely untouched.
These shots pass over to the Taskmaster, the bullets passing by him in a similar matter. You've got an interesting set o' abilities, buddy. I enjoyed watchin 'em. He said, dashing in and slashing with his sword.
[oo]Was hard to tell for sure in the end, good to know It's all cleared up then![/ooc]
She tries to gesture to the other two, hoping that someone would ask him just which floor he happens to be on. 'Curse these damn, stupid... useless vocal cords! How was anyone ever supposed to communicate like this? It doesn't make a lot of sense!'
The Doctor turns to Masumi and signs, %What was that again? I needed to pull sign language from archived storage.%
The bullet bits into Dark storm, his eyes widening. He flies into the floor, fading into it before the goons eyes.
If she could blink in surprise, she would. Mental database? That didn't make much sense to her, but at least he can understand her. She repeats her question, % Ask him which floor so I can go up there please. %
Atsuko nodded slightly, then simply stepped in a direction most people didn't know existed to reappear a floor above, on her way towards Darkstorm's location - although she needed to know exactly where he was in order to quickly get close to him. The last thing anyone - but especially Darkstorm - needed was to believe they would be fighting alone when the chips went down.
Felix spasms as the blade connects.
"What floor is Felix on?" he asks Media. "We do need to keep moving."
DAMAGEA successful attack with a Damage effect requires the target to make a Toughness resistance check.
DAMAGE RESISTANCE CHECK
Toughness vs. [Damage rank + 15]
Success : The damage has no effect.
Failure (one degree): The target has a –1 circumstance penalty to further resistance checks against damage.
Failure (two degrees): The target is dazed until the end of their next turn and has a –1 circumstance penalty to further checks against damage.
Failure (three degrees): The target is staggered and has a -1 circumstance penalty to further checks against damage. If the target is staggered again (three degrees of failure on a Damage resistance check), apply the fourth degree of effect. The staggered condition remains until the target recovers (see Recovery, following).
Failure (four degrees): The target is incapacitated .
The circumstance penalties to Toughness checks are cumulative, so a target who fails three resistance checks against Damage, each with one degree of failure, has a total –3 penalty.
If an incapacitated target fails a resistance check against Damage, the target’s condition shifts to dying. A dying target who fails a resistance check against Damage is dead.
The -uh... The floor with the gunshots. Media answers the Doctor. We're tracking him up near the top. No exacts. One of me is halfway there, combing for civilians, how are you going to get there?
Atsuko reappears and hears, faintly, a few gunshots from the hall in front of her, where Darkstorm must be.
'I'm going to run up the stairs.' She thinks, as if in response to media. Upon that declaration, she decided to simply play it by ear and makes her way to the stairwell. She'll use a combination of wall climbing and her own speed to scale the tower, hopefully encountering Felix at a reasonable rate. She didn't know where Atsuko vanished too, but she assumes it was to go and help Darkstorm.
Felix focuses on taking out the other gunman with another thrown blade, and then switches to Immunity Parry as he closes in on Taskmaster.
"I'd have to say, I think we'd make great sparring partners," Felix says as he runs in to face Taskmaster. "I'm not exactly a "good guy" per se. Wanna meet at a gym or something?."
"There aren't many places I can't get to." Atsuko answered, aiming to jump all the way up to the roof. From there, it ought to be much easier to locate Darkstorm's position and jump down to join him.
The Doctor will also fly up the stairwell. Elevators are useless in a crisis.
Sounds tempting, but I only spar when I'm payed for it. Taskmaster said, grabbing the throwing knife from the air and throwing it to his feet. Tell ya what, manage to beat me, and I'l give ya a discount.
Atsuko finds a hurt Darkstorm confronted by a man with a submachine gun, looking like this could go either way.
"Enough." Atsuko said as she confronted the gunman - and an aura of fear slammed down over his position as she brought part of her will to bear on him. Unlike her all-out mental assault, the fear she created in things was a truly physical one - and seeing a friend hurt had made her genuinely angry. "You can't win this, so don't make it any worse for yourself."
Felix slips on the floor and almost performs the splits as Taskmaster's swrod swings through the space where his head was. He recovers quickly and throws another knife at the gunman still remaining.
The goon is knocked out to the floor, his gun firing wildly into the ceiling.
Just you and me, then. Taskmaster says, raising his shield. Fun thing, though. I don't know what your powers are, exactly, but I'm noticing... Something. It's not a stance change, but a change of posture. Yer doing something to make yourself not get hit, aintcha?
The thig shrieks at the unspeakable mental assault it is put through, then faints before he can get in another shot.
Masumi continues to move up the stairwell at breakneck pace. She just heard shot go off, so she knows she's close...
"Something like that." Felix confirms, and he weaves and dodges Taskmaster's attacks while jutting out with his own. "I gotta say, as we run into each other I become more impressed. Have you thought about teaching classes?"
He was beginning to enjoy the conversation/duel. He smiled as he flicked another knife into his hand and focused on fighting as close as possible to Taskmaster.
Atsuko moved over to the thug, then nudged their weapon away with her foot, careful to avoid actually touching it - she didn't want to contaminate the evidence when this was inevitably investigated. "Are you all right?" she asked, looking over at Darkstorm.
I may have been hit... Pretty badly
Darkstorm says smiling. Should be up shortly I think.
Felix misses the blow, parried by Taskmaster buckler.
What? You haven't seen my ads? For the affordable price of 50k, I can whip up any soft-bodied wimp like you into Captain America strength.
Then Masumi burst into the scene. Oh... Aw damn... This is above my paygrade. He said, the look on his face saying it all. This is goinna suck.
Adding onto that, good ol' Doctor Apocalypse flies in behind her.
Uh... Oh God damn it. He raises a fighting stance. I'll roll with it. Immediately, he breaks free from Felix and charges in at the Ravager.
Ravager reels back from the unexpected strike, which nearly launches her onto her back. Luckily she's made of sterner stuff at the moment, and just a single well aimed blow isn't enough to knock her out entirely. He notices that despite the fact she already seems to be recovering from the blow, she's still clearly off center. Another good strike might take her out before she get's the chance to do some real damage.
Her stance changes, covering her face as she swipes her claws at the taskmaster! If they hit, he'll notice that for some reason she only lightly scratched him...
Atsuko nodded at Darkstorm's words. She was fairly certain her book had some healing ability in it somewhere, but there might have been side-effects to go with it... and frankly, she worried a little about exposing other people to things like that.
She took up a guarding position a moment later, trying to ensure Darkstorm got the time he needed to patch himself up.
Ravager's claws tear off a piece of Taskmaster's suit and run along his skin, his defenses notably weakening, and his shield-arm actually lowering for just a moment.
What are you, freak? Taskmaster said, readying his blade for another strike.
Felix is probably even more surprised than Taskmaster as the large monster breaks into the scene, so much so he isn't to capitalize on Taskmaster's switching of targets. With him somewhat sandwiched, Felix goes for a throw.
Taskmaster takes a knife to the back shoulder, putting him to a knee, but with his sword-hand still ready, slashing an uppercut towards the Ravager.
'I don't know! She tortuously replies in thought as the experienced villain slashes a sick gash across her chest, causing a spray of green blood to erupt. Normally agile enough like this to catch blades with ease, she's still very caught off guard by how skilled the Taskmaster is with a blade. She's still clearly reeling from his initial charge, but she doesn't seem like she'll be going down just yet.
Darkstorm stands up with a casual grin. I am going to head up, He tells Atsuko. See you there!
With the Darkstorm Flies through the up to the second floor, arriving next to Felix. How are you doing gu-- he says realizing what he flew into.
Then Masumi burst into the scene. Oh... Aw damn... This is above my paygrade. He said, the look on his face saying it all. This is goinna suck.
Adding onto that, good ol' Doctor Apocalypse flies in behind her.