[Log] All That Glitters Is Not Nice [1/2]
Who: Impulse, Caithlin Stenger, Jade Belmont, Shane Fitzgerald, Impulse, Radiant Dynamo of Invention, Envy
What: The IPA is called in to investigate a claim-jumping in Gold Rush California, and encounters alien invaders and a crafty shapeshifter.
Where: Just outside Lawton, Californa
When: June 20, 1850
Watch For: Every single one of Impulse's poses, Shane loses another car, Envy is a big jerk.
The Wild West. Rugged, untamed, deadly.
It could very well be a technologically-advanced extension of the South, for what little the Dynamo knows about it. What matters is that it has resources her people need. A few days ago, a miner hit a fresh claim in the Sierra Nevada, just north of a tiny mining town. That claim wasn't his for long, thanks to a nearby gate--he staggered back to town with a crossbow bolt in his shoulder, babbling about machine-spiders and Locust-men.
Since then, the vein has been neatly unearthed, and teams of human miners assisted by spidery Custodians are extracting gold ore from the side of the mountain. They've constructed a nice little tunnel, too; prominent warning glyphs mark its sides: "DANGER: FALLING MATERIAL HAZARD" "DANGER: DARKNESS" "DANGER: SLIPPERY TERRAIN", "DANGER: ACTIVE DRILLING MACHINERY"
The local sherriff hasn't bothered to investigate. That's what the IPA's for.
When the IPA needs investiga-awesome, they call in Caithlin.
Ever the master of blending in with her surroundings, the spy has gone for local colour; she's wearing a cowboy hat and a short-sleeved white dress shirt over rugged jeans and a set of cowboy boots that somehow manage to look femme, and she's swapped her usual pistol for a high-powered revolver. Hooking her thumbs into the loops of her belt, the woman in the delicate glasses takes a moment to survey the scene from the edges, taking a look at what she can see of the setup. The cave seems to be most promising to her. Pursing her lips, she carefully begins to ease forward, murmuring a little to herself.
"Logically the most critical equipment and documents will be inside - and probably the foreman. If I can just get there...."
Tracking the Alchemicals has been something of a secondary priority for her, it's true. But still a priority.
The Wild West means cowboys, and gunfights, and bar brawls, and all that sort of stuff, right? Three guesses as to why Jade's here. No, she didn't know about the little invasion problem going down, but as she had before, she /has/ toted her Birthright along, the giant bow strapped to her backpack with /belts/. The athlete's still pretty much sticking out; at best maybe the locals will mistake her for a boy and not throw her in jail for showing too much leg?
But it's still a distance to town. Or, at least, Jade /thought/ this was the way to town. Instead, she's taken the path towards the excavation. Eventually spotting a person crouched by a rock, the young Scion jogs on up, and calls out, "Hey, how're ya doin'?" This may be loud enough to carry a ways. "Is this the way to town?"
Impulse does not blend into the area at all. Well, at least he gave it a little bit of a try: he's wearing a ten-gallon hat. Aside from that, he's in his usual superhero outfit, with mask goggles and futuristic-fiber full-body suit and all.
Impulse happened to be one of the agents available for this operation - actually he just ran straight to the scene when he heard something was happening, before he actually knew /what/. Impulse tries to lean around Caithlin Stenger and see what's going on over by the cave. Hard to tell what's going on in this situation yet.
At Caithlin's murmur to herself about getting inside, Impulse quickly salutes. "You got it!" The teenage speedster then reduces to a fierce electric blur, rushing past, around the Autochthonian machinery, into the tunnels, and searching around them to find where he's trying to go, somewhere that looks like it has files or somebody who looks like they might be a foreman. Whether he finds anything like that or not, he eventually skids to a stop and ordinary visibility, taps his foot rapidly for a second, and then tears straight back through, around everybody, and to Caithlin. "Um... and then what do I do?"
Subtly? What is subtly? When Shane heard that strange mechanical constructs had taken over a gold mine somewhere out in the wild west, he was finishing up some paperwork. It took a while but eventually he was able to finish up. Changing quickly into worn jeans and a light colored T-shirt, the scion grabbed a tan Stetson on his way out and picked up a Jeep from the impound lot.
The Jeep roars through the gates, kicking up dust and generally making loud noises as he drives his way to the mine. Parking not too far away but on the otherside of where Caithlin's hiding, he vaults out of the vehicle with his rifle in hand. No. Subterfuge is not his strong suit as he simply strides straight up to the cave mouth. "Hey there! Yeh wouldn't happen ta know where I could find some work would yeh?"
Fortunately for the new arrivals, the custodians are paying careful attention to their work--they're shoring up the tunnel with braces, so it doesn't collapse. Impulse speeds by them before they even know he's there, and all the human miners feel is a sudden, stiff breeze caused by his passing. Somewhere deep in the tunnel, the Radiant Dynamo of Invention is carefully tabulating her stolen goods. "An estimated five thousand kilograms of gold, plus an additional--"
ZOOM
The breeze ruffles Dynamo's hair, and stirs her poncho. "What in the Void was /that/?" she demands, casting around in search of the source. She finds nothing.
Shane drives up. The only people at the tunnel mouth at the moment are the four Custodians; one ignores Shane completely, one starts sizing the untruder up...
And one scuttles over to his vehicle, and start efficiently disassembling it with its arc-welders. It starts passing the pieces back to its remaining comrade, which incorporates them into the framework of tunnel supports.
From somewhere inside, a muffled, buzzing voice says, in Old Realm: "Who is it?"
Jade comes out of nowhere and calls to her. Impulse goes racing like Leeroy Jenkins through the dig. And Kay Stenger dies a little inside.
The young woman looks between Jade and Impulse, then sighs and plants her palm against her face in frustration. So much for the subtle approach. "Ugh... I'm alright. More or less." She throws Jade a short glance - definitely not from around here, that girl - then tosses another to Impulse as she hears a familiar voice calling out nearby. "Well, first off, did you hear or see anything important while you were in there?"
Her eyes narrow; she watches for a moment as Shane draws the attention of the gatekeepers. "And second off, it looks as though we might be able to slip in while those guys have their attention on Shane."
Jade's first reaction--well, after staring off after Impulse (woah, fast!)--is to send a rather confused look in Caithlin's direction. "Uh, 'scuse me? Hey, lady, I asked you a--" The athlete's slight annoyance is cut off at the agent's question, and she turns her attention down towards the camp. "...Whaddya mean, 'in there'? What's goin' on?"
She leans forward, the oversize bow rattling slightly against her backpack and the belts, squinting down at the scene below. "Hey, that guy in the truck, what's he doin'?" she says, trying to make out the scene below. She might be a Scion, but her vision is strictly ordinary; at best she's maybe making out some sparks which might be just a trick of the light from here anyway. "...There's a buncha guys down there with 'im, too."
Impulse skids to a halt by Caithlin, looking up to her. He frowns, putting a hand on his chin and trying to think. "Some kind of language I don't understand... robots, and sciency looking guys... bunch of gold... one of the robots was countin' up all the gold they've collected." He pauses. "An' they're busy sticking columns into the tunnels." He pauses, and then grins, knocking a fist into his palm. "I think we can take 'em."
Machines. Shane didn't think this realm had such advanced machinery. He looks faintly puzzled but grins when he gets sized up. That is, until he catches movement and watches one of the Custodians begin to dismantle the Jeep he drove in on, "Hey! Stop that! It ain't mine!" The Impound officers are going to have a fit when he doesn't return the Jeep. Maybe he can write it off as a necessary sacrifice for the job?
His ear twitches slightly as he hears people talking from the little hideout but he gives no indication that he's hearing them. Rather, he seems to respond to the voice that's coming from inside the cave. With a rather earnest expression on his face, he calls out again. "Hello? Anyone there? I heard that there's a minin' operation goin' on and I'm looking fer a job! I'm a hard worker! Great at physical labor! Yeh need an extra hand? Minin's hard work I hear!"
The Custodians continue to disassemble the Jeep. Now it's clear that they're saving the choicest parts for themselves--the parts with precious metals in them, mainly. Undoubtedly the spider-squid-robot-things will give them to Dynamo later.
Meanwhile, the sounds of footsteps emerge from the tunnel. A full squad of Locust troopers--clad in their usual full-body synth-leather e-suits and trenchcoats and carrying crossbows--emerges from the makeshift mine in double-time. They take up a formation, and several level weapons at Shane.
"You are looking for work?" The one in the lead seems to understand English just fine, though his voice carries a harsh accent. "You are not from around here. Get on the ground, and surrender any weapons you may be carrying."
A pause, before the man turns to focus goggle-covered eyes on Impulse, Jade, and Caithlin. "That goes for you, too."
Setting her jaw a little, Kay takes a longer look at Jade; she breathes out slowly. "Listen. This is official IPA business, and I don't want you to be hurt, miss. Please, just keep back and-"
Alas, the Locust troopers interrupt her before she can say anything more. Straightening, the dark-haired woman glares a bit from beneath the brim of her cowboy hat, muscles tensing, but she doesn't move just yet. Either way, it seems as though Shane's gamble has failed.
Taking a couple of steps forward, the agent throws a don't-do-anything-stupid look to Jade - then in the blink of an eye whips her revolver from its side holster. It appears like it would belong in this time period, but really it's a modern and high-powered weapon - as demonstrated as she blasts off a shot towards the crossbow hand of the lead Locust soldier, then leaps to one side, rolling across the ground in search of cover. "Shane, watch yourself!" she calls.
"Uh, robots?" Those are the first words out of Jade's mouth when Impulse reappears. Be glad she doesn't follow comics, kid. "Real, honest-to-god robots? Down there?" A pause. "/Awesome/." She shoots at glance at Kay, though, and says, incredulous, "/You're/ the cops? Here? Oh, gimme a--" There's not much time to protest the point, though, because things have taken a slight turn for the worse...
For a long moment, all Jade can hear after the strange man speaks is the thudding of her own heart in her chest. Reflexively, a hand reaches for the strap on her pack. "No," she says, or rather, shouts, finally. "Hell /no/. There's no way I'm ever gonna give this to you--you'll have to take it from me first!"
Now she /does/ fling the pack off, but it's only so she can crouch, and start working on getting those belts undone. It was a good idea at the time (in regards to toting it), but getting the bow free for impromptu combat, yeah, that's another story. It'll take a minute or two at best.
"Whuh oh." Impulse turns around, watching the personnel emerge with their crossbows. He then grins, and slouches just a bit, settling into an Old West 'draw' position, fingers curling despite having nothing to go for. "Alright then, partner. If'n you're fixin' for a fight..." Impulse raises his hand, gesturing with two fingers inward. "Bring it on."
He has to strain to keep himself still for a time, but Impulse does nothing. Nothing, at least, until the first shot is fired from the Autochthonians. At that point, the kid blasts away in another electric blur, rushing across the field in front of the Locusts. Impulse skids back to a halt where he was standing before, his hands full of two handfuls of arrows, dropping them lightly to the ground. "Too slow! Try it again. You gotta do it faster!"
"A guy's gotta be around here ta get some work?" Shane asks with a grin. Those crossbows look mighty pointy, he thinks to himself as he slowly unshoulders the bolt action rifle he's got slung over one shoulder. "Easy there eh?" He says as he kneels to the ground, acting like he's going to set the rifle down too.
The others get some attention now and Kay's warning is all he needs. The other girl is a voice he doesn't recognize. Impulse blazes by to collect arrows just as the Irishman raises the rifle at eye level. "Sorry lads! Better luck next time!" The rifle roars to life as he fires at the first of the Custodians.
Indeed, as soon as Shane and Caithlin open fire, the Locusts fire back. Unfortunately for them, Impulse is a very good missile interception system, and all they can do is stare as the youth holds up two fistfuls of bolts.
"Grease!" barks the commander, clutching his hand, bleeding and mangled from Cait's bullet. "Now!" The lead Custodian, damaged and sparking from Shane's shotgun blast, turns and spews a stream of industrial oil across the ground. For certain speedsters, it may well make footing very dangerous indeed. Another Custodian charges Shane; the buzz-saw-tipped arms it used to take apart his car are whirring and spinning, and promise to be painful if they connect. The third Custodian scuttles towards Caithlin, lowering a sparking arc-welder in her direction, and the fourth attempts to bring a pincer-clawed foot down on Jade's back as she readies her bow.
"Oh," says the Radiant Dynamo, as she hears the report from the team outside. "And here I thought I wasn't going to get a chance to field-test..."
Behind her, a monstrous assembly of metal comes to life, striding across the cavern floor. The workers start scrambling to get out of its way as it climbs up towards the surface.
Kay pauses for just a second to stare at Impulse in disbelief. "...Geez, you ARE useful to keep around."
She doesn't stop to chat for very long, though. Bounding quickly to her feet, she brings her revolver to bear on another of the custodians, throwing Shane a quick look to see if he's alright - only to find the custodian shambling toward her, arc welder sparking and sizzling in a manner sure to prove quite painful. Grimacing, the dark-haired agent zips backwards, but not quite quickly enough; sparks from the welder scorch along the outside of her forearm, and she lets out a short but sharp cry, the sickening scent of burned skin registering on those with noses.
It's painful - scorch marks run along the outside of her arm, though the heat has outright cauterized the wound - but though she's in pain she's not out of the fight by any stretch of imagination. "Damn it," she mutters, noticing through the pain that Jade's staying to fight. Flipping her gun to her good hand - the right - she fires a shot for where she assumes the neck or head of the Custodian to be, edging sidelong towards the entrance to the cavern. "I really hope there aren't any more giant machines around here!" she calls towards Shane.
Somewhere, someone flashes the Boss Monster Signal.
"Not going so hot for you guys now, is it?" Impulse kicks one of the arrows into the air behind himself idly, giving Caithlin a cocky grin. He sees the buzzsaw coming, and calls out, "Look out! Heads up!" He then peels out again, headed to carry Shane out of the range of danger in an instant, and then move in a trajectory to get the rest out of danger's way as well.
Unfortunately, Impulse isn't too good about navigating slippery surfaces. "Huh? Wut-tut-TUT-TUT-WHOOOOAAAA!" The result is a split-second blur sailing across the industrial grease, flailing arms, body teetering forward and back, going straight past Shane, and in fact unable to even turn around as he's headed to smack straight into the cave wall. Impulse slides down the wall of the cave, head spinning. "Unnhhhh... not S-ranking this one..."
The bow comes free at last, and just in time. As if in warning, the athlete feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Jade glances back over her shoulder to see the clearly robotic menace about to stomp her, and bolts a distance, escaping its clawed foot."Stupid robots!" she growls, whirling on her aggressor, and drawing the bowstring back.
If anyone's watching closely, they'll notice an arrow appear, in an almost nonchalant manner, as if it'd always been there and no one'd been paying attention. Aiming at the pincher-footed robot, Jade opens fire, although what arrows are going to do against machines is a really good question. She's not really sure where to aim--do things like this even have a shiny glowy weakpoint?
"What?" Shane shouts as Impulse dashes towards him. His attention is temporarily diverted to the speedster as he whizzes past just as the buzzing arms near him. "Huh? WOAH!" The scion shouts as he takes a leap backwards, flipping in the air. The buzz-saw slices through his leg pants, creating a shallow cut on his shin. If he had been any slower, it would have taken an leg rather than simply cut it off.
He quickly pulls back the bolt on his rifle, ejecting a cartridge. "Hey! Watch it will yeh?! Yeh almost took me leg off!" He shouts as he aims the rifle at one of the saws. Pulling the trigger, he hopes that it'll do something like damage the saw or knock it off commission or something. He's saving that big spear of his and his legend points for whatever that thing is that's coming from inside the cave.
Caithlin's bullet tears through the Custodian attacking her--the machine lurches, spewing Essence-plasma as a critical junction is destroyed. As it falls to the ground, the Autochthonian troopers take shelter behind its corpse, peeking out just long enough to fire crossbow bolts at Caithlin.
She'd better take cover, too. That's the way it always works in old west movies.
The Custodian punctured by Jade's arrow fares a little better, but beats a hasty retreat back behind a rock outcropping. Likewise, the Custodian attacking Shane loses its buzzsaw arm to the shotgun's blast, and falls back. Obviously, they are just regrouping. Right? Right?
The first sign of danger will come to Impulse. The ground starts to shake, and when he looks up, he will see something that looks much like the angry, battle-hardened big sibling of the machines the others were beating up outside. The humanoid 'robot' identified earlier is jauntily walking along behind it. As an afterthought, the Dynamo gives Alpha Custodian OOX-391 an order. "Squash him." It doesn't even change course as it brings one massive pincer-limb up to try and flatten the superhero.
And with a crumbling of rock, the Alpha Custodian is free of the tunnel. A plate of carapace opens, revealing some sort of menacing glowing energy cannon--spheres of blue light fly out at random in a massive area-attack.
Impulse groans, shaking his head slowly (well, slowly for him) to get his senses back. "What the heck was that?" He rises back to his feet and looks down on the underside of his boot, then down to the trail of grease behind him. "Oh, man! How am I supposed to deal with thaaaa..." Impulse trails off. The ground is shaking, and then he's looking straight up into a colossus of a battle robot, larger and better armed than the robots surrounding them, staring directly down at a cornered Impulse, weapons systems online.
"/Cooooool/."
Still Impulse is stuck standing there, trying to think out what to do. The grease is still around him on the floor, he can't go for his usual streaking out, can he? Maybe they'll throw out another bucket of grease. He'll plummet straight into another wall, and then he'll be a sitting duck. Maybe if he...
Alpha Custodian OOX-391 slams its enormous pincer-claw, crushing downward, and leaving nothing to be found. There's not so much as a blur to be found.
IS there cover? Crossbow bolts whip past Kay, one of them cutting close enough to slice across the outside of her leg, just leaving a cut - nothing too serious. She's better able to evade against these troopers. They're alive enough that she can sense empathically their firing cues and react just a split-second sooner than normal. Breathing out, she bounds to one side and rolls across the ground, coming up on one knee and her right foot behind what's left of Shane's truck. Her cowboy hat peeks over the edge, then her eyes, then the barrel of her gun, as she squeezes off a pair of precise shots towards the troopers hiding behind the dead Custodian.
And then, the Alpha Custodian emerges - and her eyes go wide. (At least it's not Soulsteel.)
The barrage of blue light blasts out towards her, striking the truck she's hiding behind; she is able to leap away in the nick of time, but barely. With a light shriek she throws herself to the ground, the vehicle hurled over her head by the energy blast. Lying on her stomach in the dust, she squints through the debris thrown up by the assault, firing off a couple of reflexive shots towards the source of the fire - the barrel of that exposed cannon.
She manages two shots before the hammer of her revolver hits empty air - out of bullets.
At least Jade damaged it a little, right? Right? But then it retreats behind an outcropping of rock, meaning that shooting at it more right now is a pretty bad idea. Likwise, the young Scion's also dodging back to try and take cover, because those crossbow bolts flying around like that...
The rumbling warning comes too late for Jade. She slips out from behind her shelter, curious as to what the heck's going on, and emerges just in time to see the Alpha Custodian emerge and fire spheres of light. As the blasts come raining down, the athlete does her best to dart out of the way, but ultimately is struck by one, the energies coursing though her body in a manner similar to a powerful electical shock. With a pained cry, she's knocked flat on her back.
Small favors, at least she doesn't get hit again while she's down. Once the dust has settled, and she's reasonably certain she's in one piece, Jade carefully gets up, crouching low. "D-dammit..." she mutters, momentarily brushing at where the blast struck her, before dropping down low again. The size of the bow, though, has its impediments: she can't do much more than drag the longbow after her as she tries to crawl to a better vantage point, hopefully once with cover.
"Hey!" Shane shouts, "Did anyone see where that lad, the really fast one, come to a stop at?!" Anyone? No? The sound of crushing rock from inside the cave plus the Custodians drawing back snaps his attention back to the cave mouth. His eyes open wide as he sees the giant monstrosity rumble out of the cave.
[[Lugh's hand!]] That construct is going to need something with more oomph! The spheres fly out and the Irishman drops to the ground, rolling out of the way of first one sphere and then getting hit by the second. BZZZZ! He roars as he feels a -force- simply course through his veins. Christ, it hurts.
Rising to his feet, he grits his teeth. "Alright! Yeh're going down!" He pulls into his Divine Ichor, wrapping Legend around himself like a cloak. He moves in at normal speeds, it won't be until someone tries to attack him that his Knack will kick in. Bullets fly past him as he leaps upwards and suddenly the Spear of Lugh is in his hand. He spins it over his head and tries to plunge the wide spearhead into some part of the Alpha Custodian.
The Radiant Dynamo looks vaguely suspicious as Impulse disappears--he didn't leave so much as a bloody smear on the floor. Nevertheless, her machine-god is in combat now, and she should do her best to assist it. The Alchemical clears the cave now, reaching for the Flame Pieces belted to her thighs; with a smug little smirk, she loads them with firedust and circles around her 'pet'.
Caithlin's bullets strike the cannon, shattering an Essence focusing array and knocking the assembly out of alignment. The cannon is useless now. It's about to retaliate when Shane activates some sort of (presumably) Essence-based defense, and plunges a spear into its leg-joint. One of the creature's buzzsaw-arms levels with the Scion, slashing towards him at gut-level. Another buzzsaw-arm arcs towards Shane from the other direction; he could be caught between the two if he's not quick!
Caithlin, meanwhile, is treated to more ranged attacks. A port opens on the Custodian's back, and a nozzle extends--its targeting computer locks on to the ESPer, and fires a stream of high-pressure water right at her. Jade is ignored by the monstrous machine, fortunately.
"Fall back!" the Dynamo bellows, in Autochthonian. The troopers do as ordered, retreating to the mine--followed by the remaining Custodians. Two of them are being carried, thanks to Caithlin's bullets.
Eyebrows rise a little as Kay shoots a look towards Shane. He's right - Impulse IS gone. "I can't see him!" she calls back, looking sharply back and forth. Her teeth clench together. Damn it, if she's lost a man, she's never going to forgive herself. She should have kept him in check, somehow.
But she can still save that civilian with the bow and arrows.
She's startled, however, as the Alpha Custodian fires, of all things, water at her. Unable to read its mind - it's a machine - she's caught flat-footed, the spray catching her in the chest and hurling her several yards to skid across the ground and wind up in a puddle. Her cowboy hat's been knocked off, her glasses are caught askew - and she was wearing a white sport-shirt. Wincing, the dripping agent presses her burned left hand against her ribs, pain pulsing through her upper body. Yep, bruised, at least.
Breathing more heavily now, the spy is nevertheless able to keep moving, pivoting and coming to her feet in the puddle; water drips from her limbs and hair, making her look as though she's just climbed out of the pool. With clothes on. Retrieving another clip from her side, she snaps the speedloader into place and bolts forward again, darting to the left and moving back into combat range.
Coming up along the flank of the Custodian, she steadies her gun, screeching to a halt on an angle where she's sure she won't hit him, and fires three shots at the main joint of the buzzsaw arm slicing at Shane's gut. If she's aiming right, she's hoping to hopefully break it off, or at least deflect it. "Steady there, Shane," the wet girl calls. "I've got your back."
It's at some point while Jade's trying to crawl to a safer position that two things occur to her. One, crawling in the dirt like this is stupid: she's going to get shot, stabbed or worse if those robot guys wise up. Two, that cop-lady just got shot with a water cannon, and that's not particularly cool, either. t"Screw this," she mutters, standing.
She sprints to a spot that's good for shooting at the giant machine--although it's really bad for her if it shoots back--and draws back her empty (?) bowstring. "Hey, big guy!" she yells, holding the string taut, "Look over here, gimme something to aim at!" It's arguably not the smartest battle plan, but hey, maybe it's dumb! If it's got something like eyes, she's firing at those. If not, well, blind luck might work too!
When Envy decided to pick on the 'Old West', this wasn't quite what he expected. He was hoping for bushwhackings and scalpings and rural town decimations. The good stuff. What he got, however, was a lack of activity save for Radiant Dynamo's merry band of automail men. Which was well and good, but not quite what the homunculus ordered.
The next time, he's hiring Paul Quantrill personally.
In the meantime, he's managed to amuse himself via other methods. Having poisoned one town with his favorite flesh-to-decay virus, the shapeshifter found his way to where the Alchemicals were having their hoedown. Sneaking his way in was easy, nobody thinks twice of a harmless non-rattling snake slithering his way across the dirt. He'll just keep an eye on things from ground level for now, the better to strike when the opportunity presents itself...
"Neat. Period weapons."
Impulse, standing beside the Radiant Dynamo of Invention, is indistinct and blurry again, despite the fact that this time he's standing still. Well, he's not actually standing still - his body is actually vibrating at a precise high speed quick enough to pass through solid matter, the trick he had to fall back on to avoid being smeared by the Alpha Custodian, the only thing he could think of to get out of it. It's working pretty well here too - Impulse reaches for Dynamo's flame pieces and vibrates them at the same frequency, passing them through her hands to pull them away before he stops vibrating and resolves sharply again. "Black powder, huh?" Impulse aims one piece diagonally into the air away from the fray and fires, whistling as a spear of flame erupts from it. "Cooool. It's like a flamethrower!" He then dumps the firedust out of the other piece onto the ground in a motion so quick it could easily be missed if Dynamo isn't extremely attentive, and hands the pieces back to Dynamo. "Give you a free shot. Betcha can't hit me. Point blank. Whaddaya say?" He takes the time after this taunt to wave cheerfully to the other IPA operatives engaged in fighting the big old war machine.
In Scion world, Legend would indeed equate Essence.
Shane shifts the grip on his spear and suddenly he's a blur of movement as the saws buzz on. He leaps first on top of the implanted spear and then leaps a second time. The spinning razor edges of both saws miss, passing through where he was only moments before. He lands a second time on one of the flailing arms with grace and gives Caithlin a thumbs up, "Thanks Kay!"
He hears Jade cry out her challenge then and tilts his head upwards. "Huh? Hey! Careful there!" he shoots Kay a look. Who -is- that girl? He attempts to run up the arm just as he catches Impulse taunt Dynamo. "Yer back! Yeh alright lad!" He shouts down. Hopefully the Alpha Custodian can bear his weight 'cause he running straight for the head to give it a huge Epic Strength boosted -kick-.
The Alpha Custodian cares not for wet T-shirts, only orders. Its orders are to protect the dig site until told otherwise. Caithlin goes flying back, and this is good--but then she charges right back in, and starts firing at it. Bullets ricochet off the armor-plating on its buzzsaw-arms, and the one the ESPer was aiming at retracts, sparking. Shane jumps up on its head, and gives it a good swift kick, denting the armor and breaking something inside. Fortunately, the controls aren't in the 'head' of the beast--even more so because it gets an arrow through an optic sensor, courtesy of Jade.
There's a whirring noise as carapace-plates slide open, and long, strong wire-tentacles lash out. One moves to separate Shane from his spear, another goes to entwine and hold Caithlin, and the third attempts to relieve Jade of that pesky bow of hers.
"You!" Dynamo roars, as Shane flying-kicks her minion. "What the hell do you think you're doing?! This is a legitimate claim, this gold is /mine/, this--"
And then Impulse comes out of nowhere, yanks both flame pieces out of her hands, fires one, and--
Then has the absolute gall to hand them back. Unfortunately for him, Dynamo doesn't quite play into his trap. Instead of shooting him, she switches her grip on the gun and lashes out with all four dots of strength, trying to pistol-whip the superhero across the face.
There's a low-level pressure building at the back of Kay's mind, but she's not sure what's causing it. She doesn't normally pay attention to random snakes slithering along, particularly when she has giant machine gods to worry about.
The woman flashes a quick salute back to Shane, a smile following - but it vanishes as Jade asserts herself, and foolishly so. Whirling in a twist of dark hair and flung water droplets, she calls sharply towards the woman, "Are you out of your mind?! Run as fast as you can! Don't you realize you could be ki - aah!"
Caught in mid-lecture, Caithlin's snapped up by the Alpha Custodian's wirey tentacles, her arms trapped and pinned at her side, gun gripped in her good hand but pointed uselessly downwards against her thigh. She strains her shoulders, writhing from side to side and tensing against the wires, but she does not have a lot of upper body strength; unless they're fairly weak wires, she probably won't be able to break them.
"Sh...." She swallows the curse-word before it's halfway out. "...Gh...." This is bad. Very bad.
The snake... isn't there anymore. It's heard enough. Its trail in the dust leads towards a cluster of boulders off in the distance. If one looks closely enough, they may even catch a flash of light. Lightning? Perhaps simply a mirage...
Jade used to think she was fast. But from the few moments she's let her eyes wander over to the kid there, in the weird costume, /damn/ that kid's way fast. Talk about an unfair advantage... let's hope he never tries for the Olympics. Then she'd never win!
Despite taking out an 'eye', the machine the young Scion is facing down has a few more surprises. A wire tentacle wraps around her bow even as she's lectured at, and not being gifted with godly strength, she's not able to keep her grip on her Birthright. It's yanked from her grasp, with a few rather colorful swears and a cry of, "Give it back!" from Jade.
Now she's in a pretty bad position. Somehow, kicking the giant robot doesn't sound like a particularly good plan of action, even for an Aztlanti. Instead, she rushes to try and pull at the wires restraining Kay. "Hey, hold on, okay?" she says hurriedly, yanking at them with all her particularly non-divine strength. It'd be no good, even for a cop, to get squeezed to death like that...
Okay, Impulse didn't see that one coming. He's fast enough to start moving out of the way, but he just starts moving too late, so the pistol whip sends the boy skidding across the dirt. "Unghh!" Impulse lies in the dirt for a second, rubbing the side of his face. He's bleeding from the nose. The boy scowls resentfully back at Dynamo. Then a lightbulb goes off in his head. A claim?
And the boy is tearing off, a streak of lightning rushing away once again. And that's that for the presence of Impulse for a little while.
Impulse goes streaking through the nearby frontier town, blasting through saloon doors and checking in record-houses, picking up books and flipping through them faster than an ordinary person could open one up. He's dug through seventy-six of the township's record drawers until he comes up with the relevant document, and tears down the main street of town back for the mining site.
And then, after some time has passed at the battlefield, Impulse screeches back to a halt in front of the Radiant Dynamo (keeping a bit more distance this time). He smiles with satisfaction at his find, and holds out in front of himself a piece of paper, which he proceeds to read in part. "...sovereign township of Lawton, authorized by the territory administration of the United States of America, hereby identifies the mining claim of Floyd Digby over all precious minerals to be found in the land holdings in the western Durham valley between the Squinnipaw and Freeley valleys."
Impulse nods with a smile to punctuate his reading, and then sticks his tongue out at the Dynamo.
It's a boot to the head! Shane grins triumphantly when his boot makes a resounding CLANG. "That's not how I heard it! Local sheriff says some other poor so-!" His little 'lecture' to Dynamo is cut off when wires lash all around and Shane is forced to back off. His spear remains stuck in that leg and there's a mess of cables between himself and the weapon. "Hey!" He begins shouting to Jade, but it looks like she got her weapon confiscated too.
"Head's up Lad!" He shouts as Impulse as he catches the sight of Pistol x Face. But.. nope. The kid goes skidding and then he's back on his feet and running.. somewhere. Shaking his head, the Scion scowls at Dynamo, "Hey! Try someone yer own size!" He launches himself at the Exalted, reaching out to grab her arm. If he manages to grab it, he suddenly plans his feet firmly into the ground and attempts to -swing- Dyanmo around before letting her go. He's effectively attempting to hammerthrow the Alchemical Exalt straight into her 'pet'. And -that- is when Impulse reappears.
"Did someone mention my name?"
From over near the boulders comes one of the numerous colorful locals. A grizzly cantankerous looking fella, stooped over and bow-legged with enough facial hair to line a coat. His overalls are faded and ragged, matching the flannel shirt underneath. His voice matches his persona, very Walter Brennan-ish for those familiar with the genre. He wobbles over towards the group, a pick-axe over his shoulder and a cocked eye aimed directly for the speedster. "I'm Floyd Digby, now what's with all this hootin' and hollerin'? You're impedin' my minin' operation!"
What: The IPA is called in to investigate a claim-jumping in Gold Rush California, and encounters alien invaders and a crafty shapeshifter.
Where: Just outside Lawton, Californa
When: June 20, 1850
Watch For: Every single one of Impulse's poses, Shane loses another car, Envy is a big jerk.
The Wild West. Rugged, untamed, deadly.
It could very well be a technologically-advanced extension of the South, for what little the Dynamo knows about it. What matters is that it has resources her people need. A few days ago, a miner hit a fresh claim in the Sierra Nevada, just north of a tiny mining town. That claim wasn't his for long, thanks to a nearby gate--he staggered back to town with a crossbow bolt in his shoulder, babbling about machine-spiders and Locust-men.
Since then, the vein has been neatly unearthed, and teams of human miners assisted by spidery Custodians are extracting gold ore from the side of the mountain. They've constructed a nice little tunnel, too; prominent warning glyphs mark its sides: "DANGER: FALLING MATERIAL HAZARD" "DANGER: DARKNESS" "DANGER: SLIPPERY TERRAIN", "DANGER: ACTIVE DRILLING MACHINERY"
The local sherriff hasn't bothered to investigate. That's what the IPA's for.
When the IPA needs investiga-awesome, they call in Caithlin.
Ever the master of blending in with her surroundings, the spy has gone for local colour; she's wearing a cowboy hat and a short-sleeved white dress shirt over rugged jeans and a set of cowboy boots that somehow manage to look femme, and she's swapped her usual pistol for a high-powered revolver. Hooking her thumbs into the loops of her belt, the woman in the delicate glasses takes a moment to survey the scene from the edges, taking a look at what she can see of the setup. The cave seems to be most promising to her. Pursing her lips, she carefully begins to ease forward, murmuring a little to herself.
"Logically the most critical equipment and documents will be inside - and probably the foreman. If I can just get there...."
Tracking the Alchemicals has been something of a secondary priority for her, it's true. But still a priority.
The Wild West means cowboys, and gunfights, and bar brawls, and all that sort of stuff, right? Three guesses as to why Jade's here. No, she didn't know about the little invasion problem going down, but as she had before, she /has/ toted her Birthright along, the giant bow strapped to her backpack with /belts/. The athlete's still pretty much sticking out; at best maybe the locals will mistake her for a boy and not throw her in jail for showing too much leg?
But it's still a distance to town. Or, at least, Jade /thought/ this was the way to town. Instead, she's taken the path towards the excavation. Eventually spotting a person crouched by a rock, the young Scion jogs on up, and calls out, "Hey, how're ya doin'?" This may be loud enough to carry a ways. "Is this the way to town?"
Impulse does not blend into the area at all. Well, at least he gave it a little bit of a try: he's wearing a ten-gallon hat. Aside from that, he's in his usual superhero outfit, with mask goggles and futuristic-fiber full-body suit and all.
Impulse happened to be one of the agents available for this operation - actually he just ran straight to the scene when he heard something was happening, before he actually knew /what/. Impulse tries to lean around Caithlin Stenger and see what's going on over by the cave. Hard to tell what's going on in this situation yet.
At Caithlin's murmur to herself about getting inside, Impulse quickly salutes. "You got it!" The teenage speedster then reduces to a fierce electric blur, rushing past, around the Autochthonian machinery, into the tunnels, and searching around them to find where he's trying to go, somewhere that looks like it has files or somebody who looks like they might be a foreman. Whether he finds anything like that or not, he eventually skids to a stop and ordinary visibility, taps his foot rapidly for a second, and then tears straight back through, around everybody, and to Caithlin. "Um... and then what do I do?"
Subtly? What is subtly? When Shane heard that strange mechanical constructs had taken over a gold mine somewhere out in the wild west, he was finishing up some paperwork. It took a while but eventually he was able to finish up. Changing quickly into worn jeans and a light colored T-shirt, the scion grabbed a tan Stetson on his way out and picked up a Jeep from the impound lot.
The Jeep roars through the gates, kicking up dust and generally making loud noises as he drives his way to the mine. Parking not too far away but on the otherside of where Caithlin's hiding, he vaults out of the vehicle with his rifle in hand. No. Subterfuge is not his strong suit as he simply strides straight up to the cave mouth. "Hey there! Yeh wouldn't happen ta know where I could find some work would yeh?"
Fortunately for the new arrivals, the custodians are paying careful attention to their work--they're shoring up the tunnel with braces, so it doesn't collapse. Impulse speeds by them before they even know he's there, and all the human miners feel is a sudden, stiff breeze caused by his passing. Somewhere deep in the tunnel, the Radiant Dynamo of Invention is carefully tabulating her stolen goods. "An estimated five thousand kilograms of gold, plus an additional--"
ZOOM
The breeze ruffles Dynamo's hair, and stirs her poncho. "What in the Void was /that/?" she demands, casting around in search of the source. She finds nothing.
Shane drives up. The only people at the tunnel mouth at the moment are the four Custodians; one ignores Shane completely, one starts sizing the untruder up...
And one scuttles over to his vehicle, and start efficiently disassembling it with its arc-welders. It starts passing the pieces back to its remaining comrade, which incorporates them into the framework of tunnel supports.
From somewhere inside, a muffled, buzzing voice says, in Old Realm: "Who is it?"
Jade comes out of nowhere and calls to her. Impulse goes racing like Leeroy Jenkins through the dig. And Kay Stenger dies a little inside.
The young woman looks between Jade and Impulse, then sighs and plants her palm against her face in frustration. So much for the subtle approach. "Ugh... I'm alright. More or less." She throws Jade a short glance - definitely not from around here, that girl - then tosses another to Impulse as she hears a familiar voice calling out nearby. "Well, first off, did you hear or see anything important while you were in there?"
Her eyes narrow; she watches for a moment as Shane draws the attention of the gatekeepers. "And second off, it looks as though we might be able to slip in while those guys have their attention on Shane."
Jade's first reaction--well, after staring off after Impulse (woah, fast!)--is to send a rather confused look in Caithlin's direction. "Uh, 'scuse me? Hey, lady, I asked you a--" The athlete's slight annoyance is cut off at the agent's question, and she turns her attention down towards the camp. "...Whaddya mean, 'in there'? What's goin' on?"
She leans forward, the oversize bow rattling slightly against her backpack and the belts, squinting down at the scene below. "Hey, that guy in the truck, what's he doin'?" she says, trying to make out the scene below. She might be a Scion, but her vision is strictly ordinary; at best she's maybe making out some sparks which might be just a trick of the light from here anyway. "...There's a buncha guys down there with 'im, too."
Impulse skids to a halt by Caithlin, looking up to her. He frowns, putting a hand on his chin and trying to think. "Some kind of language I don't understand... robots, and sciency looking guys... bunch of gold... one of the robots was countin' up all the gold they've collected." He pauses. "An' they're busy sticking columns into the tunnels." He pauses, and then grins, knocking a fist into his palm. "I think we can take 'em."
Machines. Shane didn't think this realm had such advanced machinery. He looks faintly puzzled but grins when he gets sized up. That is, until he catches movement and watches one of the Custodians begin to dismantle the Jeep he drove in on, "Hey! Stop that! It ain't mine!" The Impound officers are going to have a fit when he doesn't return the Jeep. Maybe he can write it off as a necessary sacrifice for the job?
His ear twitches slightly as he hears people talking from the little hideout but he gives no indication that he's hearing them. Rather, he seems to respond to the voice that's coming from inside the cave. With a rather earnest expression on his face, he calls out again. "Hello? Anyone there? I heard that there's a minin' operation goin' on and I'm looking fer a job! I'm a hard worker! Great at physical labor! Yeh need an extra hand? Minin's hard work I hear!"
The Custodians continue to disassemble the Jeep. Now it's clear that they're saving the choicest parts for themselves--the parts with precious metals in them, mainly. Undoubtedly the spider-squid-robot-things will give them to Dynamo later.
Meanwhile, the sounds of footsteps emerge from the tunnel. A full squad of Locust troopers--clad in their usual full-body synth-leather e-suits and trenchcoats and carrying crossbows--emerges from the makeshift mine in double-time. They take up a formation, and several level weapons at Shane.
"You are looking for work?" The one in the lead seems to understand English just fine, though his voice carries a harsh accent. "You are not from around here. Get on the ground, and surrender any weapons you may be carrying."
A pause, before the man turns to focus goggle-covered eyes on Impulse, Jade, and Caithlin. "That goes for you, too."
Setting her jaw a little, Kay takes a longer look at Jade; she breathes out slowly. "Listen. This is official IPA business, and I don't want you to be hurt, miss. Please, just keep back and-"
Alas, the Locust troopers interrupt her before she can say anything more. Straightening, the dark-haired woman glares a bit from beneath the brim of her cowboy hat, muscles tensing, but she doesn't move just yet. Either way, it seems as though Shane's gamble has failed.
Taking a couple of steps forward, the agent throws a don't-do-anything-stupid look to Jade - then in the blink of an eye whips her revolver from its side holster. It appears like it would belong in this time period, but really it's a modern and high-powered weapon - as demonstrated as she blasts off a shot towards the crossbow hand of the lead Locust soldier, then leaps to one side, rolling across the ground in search of cover. "Shane, watch yourself!" she calls.
"Uh, robots?" Those are the first words out of Jade's mouth when Impulse reappears. Be glad she doesn't follow comics, kid. "Real, honest-to-god robots? Down there?" A pause. "/Awesome/." She shoots at glance at Kay, though, and says, incredulous, "/You're/ the cops? Here? Oh, gimme a--" There's not much time to protest the point, though, because things have taken a slight turn for the worse...
For a long moment, all Jade can hear after the strange man speaks is the thudding of her own heart in her chest. Reflexively, a hand reaches for the strap on her pack. "No," she says, or rather, shouts, finally. "Hell /no/. There's no way I'm ever gonna give this to you--you'll have to take it from me first!"
Now she /does/ fling the pack off, but it's only so she can crouch, and start working on getting those belts undone. It was a good idea at the time (in regards to toting it), but getting the bow free for impromptu combat, yeah, that's another story. It'll take a minute or two at best.
"Whuh oh." Impulse turns around, watching the personnel emerge with their crossbows. He then grins, and slouches just a bit, settling into an Old West 'draw' position, fingers curling despite having nothing to go for. "Alright then, partner. If'n you're fixin' for a fight..." Impulse raises his hand, gesturing with two fingers inward. "Bring it on."
He has to strain to keep himself still for a time, but Impulse does nothing. Nothing, at least, until the first shot is fired from the Autochthonians. At that point, the kid blasts away in another electric blur, rushing across the field in front of the Locusts. Impulse skids back to a halt where he was standing before, his hands full of two handfuls of arrows, dropping them lightly to the ground. "Too slow! Try it again. You gotta do it faster!"
"A guy's gotta be around here ta get some work?" Shane asks with a grin. Those crossbows look mighty pointy, he thinks to himself as he slowly unshoulders the bolt action rifle he's got slung over one shoulder. "Easy there eh?" He says as he kneels to the ground, acting like he's going to set the rifle down too.
The others get some attention now and Kay's warning is all he needs. The other girl is a voice he doesn't recognize. Impulse blazes by to collect arrows just as the Irishman raises the rifle at eye level. "Sorry lads! Better luck next time!" The rifle roars to life as he fires at the first of the Custodians.
Indeed, as soon as Shane and Caithlin open fire, the Locusts fire back. Unfortunately for them, Impulse is a very good missile interception system, and all they can do is stare as the youth holds up two fistfuls of bolts.
"Grease!" barks the commander, clutching his hand, bleeding and mangled from Cait's bullet. "Now!" The lead Custodian, damaged and sparking from Shane's shotgun blast, turns and spews a stream of industrial oil across the ground. For certain speedsters, it may well make footing very dangerous indeed. Another Custodian charges Shane; the buzz-saw-tipped arms it used to take apart his car are whirring and spinning, and promise to be painful if they connect. The third Custodian scuttles towards Caithlin, lowering a sparking arc-welder in her direction, and the fourth attempts to bring a pincer-clawed foot down on Jade's back as she readies her bow.
"Oh," says the Radiant Dynamo, as she hears the report from the team outside. "And here I thought I wasn't going to get a chance to field-test..."
Behind her, a monstrous assembly of metal comes to life, striding across the cavern floor. The workers start scrambling to get out of its way as it climbs up towards the surface.
Kay pauses for just a second to stare at Impulse in disbelief. "...Geez, you ARE useful to keep around."
She doesn't stop to chat for very long, though. Bounding quickly to her feet, she brings her revolver to bear on another of the custodians, throwing Shane a quick look to see if he's alright - only to find the custodian shambling toward her, arc welder sparking and sizzling in a manner sure to prove quite painful. Grimacing, the dark-haired agent zips backwards, but not quite quickly enough; sparks from the welder scorch along the outside of her forearm, and she lets out a short but sharp cry, the sickening scent of burned skin registering on those with noses.
It's painful - scorch marks run along the outside of her arm, though the heat has outright cauterized the wound - but though she's in pain she's not out of the fight by any stretch of imagination. "Damn it," she mutters, noticing through the pain that Jade's staying to fight. Flipping her gun to her good hand - the right - she fires a shot for where she assumes the neck or head of the Custodian to be, edging sidelong towards the entrance to the cavern. "I really hope there aren't any more giant machines around here!" she calls towards Shane.
Somewhere, someone flashes the Boss Monster Signal.
"Not going so hot for you guys now, is it?" Impulse kicks one of the arrows into the air behind himself idly, giving Caithlin a cocky grin. He sees the buzzsaw coming, and calls out, "Look out! Heads up!" He then peels out again, headed to carry Shane out of the range of danger in an instant, and then move in a trajectory to get the rest out of danger's way as well.
Unfortunately, Impulse isn't too good about navigating slippery surfaces. "Huh? Wut-tut-TUT-TUT-WHOOOOAAAA!" The result is a split-second blur sailing across the industrial grease, flailing arms, body teetering forward and back, going straight past Shane, and in fact unable to even turn around as he's headed to smack straight into the cave wall. Impulse slides down the wall of the cave, head spinning. "Unnhhhh... not S-ranking this one..."
The bow comes free at last, and just in time. As if in warning, the athlete feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Jade glances back over her shoulder to see the clearly robotic menace about to stomp her, and bolts a distance, escaping its clawed foot."Stupid robots!" she growls, whirling on her aggressor, and drawing the bowstring back.
If anyone's watching closely, they'll notice an arrow appear, in an almost nonchalant manner, as if it'd always been there and no one'd been paying attention. Aiming at the pincher-footed robot, Jade opens fire, although what arrows are going to do against machines is a really good question. She's not really sure where to aim--do things like this even have a shiny glowy weakpoint?
"What?" Shane shouts as Impulse dashes towards him. His attention is temporarily diverted to the speedster as he whizzes past just as the buzzing arms near him. "Huh? WOAH!" The scion shouts as he takes a leap backwards, flipping in the air. The buzz-saw slices through his leg pants, creating a shallow cut on his shin. If he had been any slower, it would have taken an leg rather than simply cut it off.
He quickly pulls back the bolt on his rifle, ejecting a cartridge. "Hey! Watch it will yeh?! Yeh almost took me leg off!" He shouts as he aims the rifle at one of the saws. Pulling the trigger, he hopes that it'll do something like damage the saw or knock it off commission or something. He's saving that big spear of his and his legend points for whatever that thing is that's coming from inside the cave.
Caithlin's bullet tears through the Custodian attacking her--the machine lurches, spewing Essence-plasma as a critical junction is destroyed. As it falls to the ground, the Autochthonian troopers take shelter behind its corpse, peeking out just long enough to fire crossbow bolts at Caithlin.
She'd better take cover, too. That's the way it always works in old west movies.
The Custodian punctured by Jade's arrow fares a little better, but beats a hasty retreat back behind a rock outcropping. Likewise, the Custodian attacking Shane loses its buzzsaw arm to the shotgun's blast, and falls back. Obviously, they are just regrouping. Right? Right?
The first sign of danger will come to Impulse. The ground starts to shake, and when he looks up, he will see something that looks much like the angry, battle-hardened big sibling of the machines the others were beating up outside. The humanoid 'robot' identified earlier is jauntily walking along behind it. As an afterthought, the Dynamo gives Alpha Custodian OOX-391 an order. "Squash him." It doesn't even change course as it brings one massive pincer-limb up to try and flatten the superhero.
And with a crumbling of rock, the Alpha Custodian is free of the tunnel. A plate of carapace opens, revealing some sort of menacing glowing energy cannon--spheres of blue light fly out at random in a massive area-attack.
Impulse groans, shaking his head slowly (well, slowly for him) to get his senses back. "What the heck was that?" He rises back to his feet and looks down on the underside of his boot, then down to the trail of grease behind him. "Oh, man! How am I supposed to deal with thaaaa..." Impulse trails off. The ground is shaking, and then he's looking straight up into a colossus of a battle robot, larger and better armed than the robots surrounding them, staring directly down at a cornered Impulse, weapons systems online.
"/Cooooool/."
Still Impulse is stuck standing there, trying to think out what to do. The grease is still around him on the floor, he can't go for his usual streaking out, can he? Maybe they'll throw out another bucket of grease. He'll plummet straight into another wall, and then he'll be a sitting duck. Maybe if he...
Alpha Custodian OOX-391 slams its enormous pincer-claw, crushing downward, and leaving nothing to be found. There's not so much as a blur to be found.
IS there cover? Crossbow bolts whip past Kay, one of them cutting close enough to slice across the outside of her leg, just leaving a cut - nothing too serious. She's better able to evade against these troopers. They're alive enough that she can sense empathically their firing cues and react just a split-second sooner than normal. Breathing out, she bounds to one side and rolls across the ground, coming up on one knee and her right foot behind what's left of Shane's truck. Her cowboy hat peeks over the edge, then her eyes, then the barrel of her gun, as she squeezes off a pair of precise shots towards the troopers hiding behind the dead Custodian.
And then, the Alpha Custodian emerges - and her eyes go wide. (At least it's not Soulsteel.)
The barrage of blue light blasts out towards her, striking the truck she's hiding behind; she is able to leap away in the nick of time, but barely. With a light shriek she throws herself to the ground, the vehicle hurled over her head by the energy blast. Lying on her stomach in the dust, she squints through the debris thrown up by the assault, firing off a couple of reflexive shots towards the source of the fire - the barrel of that exposed cannon.
She manages two shots before the hammer of her revolver hits empty air - out of bullets.
At least Jade damaged it a little, right? Right? But then it retreats behind an outcropping of rock, meaning that shooting at it more right now is a pretty bad idea. Likwise, the young Scion's also dodging back to try and take cover, because those crossbow bolts flying around like that...
The rumbling warning comes too late for Jade. She slips out from behind her shelter, curious as to what the heck's going on, and emerges just in time to see the Alpha Custodian emerge and fire spheres of light. As the blasts come raining down, the athlete does her best to dart out of the way, but ultimately is struck by one, the energies coursing though her body in a manner similar to a powerful electical shock. With a pained cry, she's knocked flat on her back.
Small favors, at least she doesn't get hit again while she's down. Once the dust has settled, and she's reasonably certain she's in one piece, Jade carefully gets up, crouching low. "D-dammit..." she mutters, momentarily brushing at where the blast struck her, before dropping down low again. The size of the bow, though, has its impediments: she can't do much more than drag the longbow after her as she tries to crawl to a better vantage point, hopefully once with cover.
"Hey!" Shane shouts, "Did anyone see where that lad, the really fast one, come to a stop at?!" Anyone? No? The sound of crushing rock from inside the cave plus the Custodians drawing back snaps his attention back to the cave mouth. His eyes open wide as he sees the giant monstrosity rumble out of the cave.
[[Lugh's hand!]] That construct is going to need something with more oomph! The spheres fly out and the Irishman drops to the ground, rolling out of the way of first one sphere and then getting hit by the second. BZZZZ! He roars as he feels a -force- simply course through his veins. Christ, it hurts.
Rising to his feet, he grits his teeth. "Alright! Yeh're going down!" He pulls into his Divine Ichor, wrapping Legend around himself like a cloak. He moves in at normal speeds, it won't be until someone tries to attack him that his Knack will kick in. Bullets fly past him as he leaps upwards and suddenly the Spear of Lugh is in his hand. He spins it over his head and tries to plunge the wide spearhead into some part of the Alpha Custodian.
The Radiant Dynamo looks vaguely suspicious as Impulse disappears--he didn't leave so much as a bloody smear on the floor. Nevertheless, her machine-god is in combat now, and she should do her best to assist it. The Alchemical clears the cave now, reaching for the Flame Pieces belted to her thighs; with a smug little smirk, she loads them with firedust and circles around her 'pet'.
Caithlin's bullets strike the cannon, shattering an Essence focusing array and knocking the assembly out of alignment. The cannon is useless now. It's about to retaliate when Shane activates some sort of (presumably) Essence-based defense, and plunges a spear into its leg-joint. One of the creature's buzzsaw-arms levels with the Scion, slashing towards him at gut-level. Another buzzsaw-arm arcs towards Shane from the other direction; he could be caught between the two if he's not quick!
Caithlin, meanwhile, is treated to more ranged attacks. A port opens on the Custodian's back, and a nozzle extends--its targeting computer locks on to the ESPer, and fires a stream of high-pressure water right at her. Jade is ignored by the monstrous machine, fortunately.
"Fall back!" the Dynamo bellows, in Autochthonian. The troopers do as ordered, retreating to the mine--followed by the remaining Custodians. Two of them are being carried, thanks to Caithlin's bullets.
Eyebrows rise a little as Kay shoots a look towards Shane. He's right - Impulse IS gone. "I can't see him!" she calls back, looking sharply back and forth. Her teeth clench together. Damn it, if she's lost a man, she's never going to forgive herself. She should have kept him in check, somehow.
But she can still save that civilian with the bow and arrows.
She's startled, however, as the Alpha Custodian fires, of all things, water at her. Unable to read its mind - it's a machine - she's caught flat-footed, the spray catching her in the chest and hurling her several yards to skid across the ground and wind up in a puddle. Her cowboy hat's been knocked off, her glasses are caught askew - and she was wearing a white sport-shirt. Wincing, the dripping agent presses her burned left hand against her ribs, pain pulsing through her upper body. Yep, bruised, at least.
Breathing more heavily now, the spy is nevertheless able to keep moving, pivoting and coming to her feet in the puddle; water drips from her limbs and hair, making her look as though she's just climbed out of the pool. With clothes on. Retrieving another clip from her side, she snaps the speedloader into place and bolts forward again, darting to the left and moving back into combat range.
Coming up along the flank of the Custodian, she steadies her gun, screeching to a halt on an angle where she's sure she won't hit him, and fires three shots at the main joint of the buzzsaw arm slicing at Shane's gut. If she's aiming right, she's hoping to hopefully break it off, or at least deflect it. "Steady there, Shane," the wet girl calls. "I've got your back."
It's at some point while Jade's trying to crawl to a safer position that two things occur to her. One, crawling in the dirt like this is stupid: she's going to get shot, stabbed or worse if those robot guys wise up. Two, that cop-lady just got shot with a water cannon, and that's not particularly cool, either. t"Screw this," she mutters, standing.
She sprints to a spot that's good for shooting at the giant machine--although it's really bad for her if it shoots back--and draws back her empty (?) bowstring. "Hey, big guy!" she yells, holding the string taut, "Look over here, gimme something to aim at!" It's arguably not the smartest battle plan, but hey, maybe it's dumb! If it's got something like eyes, she's firing at those. If not, well, blind luck might work too!
When Envy decided to pick on the 'Old West', this wasn't quite what he expected. He was hoping for bushwhackings and scalpings and rural town decimations. The good stuff. What he got, however, was a lack of activity save for Radiant Dynamo's merry band of automail men. Which was well and good, but not quite what the homunculus ordered.
The next time, he's hiring Paul Quantrill personally.
In the meantime, he's managed to amuse himself via other methods. Having poisoned one town with his favorite flesh-to-decay virus, the shapeshifter found his way to where the Alchemicals were having their hoedown. Sneaking his way in was easy, nobody thinks twice of a harmless non-rattling snake slithering his way across the dirt. He'll just keep an eye on things from ground level for now, the better to strike when the opportunity presents itself...
"Neat. Period weapons."
Impulse, standing beside the Radiant Dynamo of Invention, is indistinct and blurry again, despite the fact that this time he's standing still. Well, he's not actually standing still - his body is actually vibrating at a precise high speed quick enough to pass through solid matter, the trick he had to fall back on to avoid being smeared by the Alpha Custodian, the only thing he could think of to get out of it. It's working pretty well here too - Impulse reaches for Dynamo's flame pieces and vibrates them at the same frequency, passing them through her hands to pull them away before he stops vibrating and resolves sharply again. "Black powder, huh?" Impulse aims one piece diagonally into the air away from the fray and fires, whistling as a spear of flame erupts from it. "Cooool. It's like a flamethrower!" He then dumps the firedust out of the other piece onto the ground in a motion so quick it could easily be missed if Dynamo isn't extremely attentive, and hands the pieces back to Dynamo. "Give you a free shot. Betcha can't hit me. Point blank. Whaddaya say?" He takes the time after this taunt to wave cheerfully to the other IPA operatives engaged in fighting the big old war machine.
In Scion world, Legend would indeed equate Essence.
Shane shifts the grip on his spear and suddenly he's a blur of movement as the saws buzz on. He leaps first on top of the implanted spear and then leaps a second time. The spinning razor edges of both saws miss, passing through where he was only moments before. He lands a second time on one of the flailing arms with grace and gives Caithlin a thumbs up, "Thanks Kay!"
He hears Jade cry out her challenge then and tilts his head upwards. "Huh? Hey! Careful there!" he shoots Kay a look. Who -is- that girl? He attempts to run up the arm just as he catches Impulse taunt Dynamo. "Yer back! Yeh alright lad!" He shouts down. Hopefully the Alpha Custodian can bear his weight 'cause he running straight for the head to give it a huge Epic Strength boosted -kick-.
The Alpha Custodian cares not for wet T-shirts, only orders. Its orders are to protect the dig site until told otherwise. Caithlin goes flying back, and this is good--but then she charges right back in, and starts firing at it. Bullets ricochet off the armor-plating on its buzzsaw-arms, and the one the ESPer was aiming at retracts, sparking. Shane jumps up on its head, and gives it a good swift kick, denting the armor and breaking something inside. Fortunately, the controls aren't in the 'head' of the beast--even more so because it gets an arrow through an optic sensor, courtesy of Jade.
There's a whirring noise as carapace-plates slide open, and long, strong wire-tentacles lash out. One moves to separate Shane from his spear, another goes to entwine and hold Caithlin, and the third attempts to relieve Jade of that pesky bow of hers.
"You!" Dynamo roars, as Shane flying-kicks her minion. "What the hell do you think you're doing?! This is a legitimate claim, this gold is /mine/, this--"
And then Impulse comes out of nowhere, yanks both flame pieces out of her hands, fires one, and--
Then has the absolute gall to hand them back. Unfortunately for him, Dynamo doesn't quite play into his trap. Instead of shooting him, she switches her grip on the gun and lashes out with all four dots of strength, trying to pistol-whip the superhero across the face.
There's a low-level pressure building at the back of Kay's mind, but she's not sure what's causing it. She doesn't normally pay attention to random snakes slithering along, particularly when she has giant machine gods to worry about.
The woman flashes a quick salute back to Shane, a smile following - but it vanishes as Jade asserts herself, and foolishly so. Whirling in a twist of dark hair and flung water droplets, she calls sharply towards the woman, "Are you out of your mind?! Run as fast as you can! Don't you realize you could be ki - aah!"
Caught in mid-lecture, Caithlin's snapped up by the Alpha Custodian's wirey tentacles, her arms trapped and pinned at her side, gun gripped in her good hand but pointed uselessly downwards against her thigh. She strains her shoulders, writhing from side to side and tensing against the wires, but she does not have a lot of upper body strength; unless they're fairly weak wires, she probably won't be able to break them.
"Sh...." She swallows the curse-word before it's halfway out. "...Gh...." This is bad. Very bad.
The snake... isn't there anymore. It's heard enough. Its trail in the dust leads towards a cluster of boulders off in the distance. If one looks closely enough, they may even catch a flash of light. Lightning? Perhaps simply a mirage...
Jade used to think she was fast. But from the few moments she's let her eyes wander over to the kid there, in the weird costume, /damn/ that kid's way fast. Talk about an unfair advantage... let's hope he never tries for the Olympics. Then she'd never win!
Despite taking out an 'eye', the machine the young Scion is facing down has a few more surprises. A wire tentacle wraps around her bow even as she's lectured at, and not being gifted with godly strength, she's not able to keep her grip on her Birthright. It's yanked from her grasp, with a few rather colorful swears and a cry of, "Give it back!" from Jade.
Now she's in a pretty bad position. Somehow, kicking the giant robot doesn't sound like a particularly good plan of action, even for an Aztlanti. Instead, she rushes to try and pull at the wires restraining Kay. "Hey, hold on, okay?" she says hurriedly, yanking at them with all her particularly non-divine strength. It'd be no good, even for a cop, to get squeezed to death like that...
Okay, Impulse didn't see that one coming. He's fast enough to start moving out of the way, but he just starts moving too late, so the pistol whip sends the boy skidding across the dirt. "Unghh!" Impulse lies in the dirt for a second, rubbing the side of his face. He's bleeding from the nose. The boy scowls resentfully back at Dynamo. Then a lightbulb goes off in his head. A claim?
And the boy is tearing off, a streak of lightning rushing away once again. And that's that for the presence of Impulse for a little while.
Impulse goes streaking through the nearby frontier town, blasting through saloon doors and checking in record-houses, picking up books and flipping through them faster than an ordinary person could open one up. He's dug through seventy-six of the township's record drawers until he comes up with the relevant document, and tears down the main street of town back for the mining site.
And then, after some time has passed at the battlefield, Impulse screeches back to a halt in front of the Radiant Dynamo (keeping a bit more distance this time). He smiles with satisfaction at his find, and holds out in front of himself a piece of paper, which he proceeds to read in part. "...sovereign township of Lawton, authorized by the territory administration of the United States of America, hereby identifies the mining claim of Floyd Digby over all precious minerals to be found in the land holdings in the western Durham valley between the Squinnipaw and Freeley valleys."
Impulse nods with a smile to punctuate his reading, and then sticks his tongue out at the Dynamo.
It's a boot to the head! Shane grins triumphantly when his boot makes a resounding CLANG. "That's not how I heard it! Local sheriff says some other poor so-!" His little 'lecture' to Dynamo is cut off when wires lash all around and Shane is forced to back off. His spear remains stuck in that leg and there's a mess of cables between himself and the weapon. "Hey!" He begins shouting to Jade, but it looks like she got her weapon confiscated too.
"Head's up Lad!" He shouts as Impulse as he catches the sight of Pistol x Face. But.. nope. The kid goes skidding and then he's back on his feet and running.. somewhere. Shaking his head, the Scion scowls at Dynamo, "Hey! Try someone yer own size!" He launches himself at the Exalted, reaching out to grab her arm. If he manages to grab it, he suddenly plans his feet firmly into the ground and attempts to -swing- Dyanmo around before letting her go. He's effectively attempting to hammerthrow the Alchemical Exalt straight into her 'pet'. And -that- is when Impulse reappears.
"Did someone mention my name?"
From over near the boulders comes one of the numerous colorful locals. A grizzly cantankerous looking fella, stooped over and bow-legged with enough facial hair to line a coat. His overalls are faded and ragged, matching the flannel shirt underneath. His voice matches his persona, very Walter Brennan-ish for those familiar with the genre. He wobbles over towards the group, a pick-axe over his shoulder and a cocked eye aimed directly for the speedster. "I'm Floyd Digby, now what's with all this hootin' and hollerin'? You're impedin' my minin' operation!"