DragonRage

"Hm. You have lost your muse? Would I be correct in assuming that you speak of a physical object or being, rather than in metaphorical terms? If you describe it to me, I may be able to help you retrieve it."

Combat Commences! Auto-Support Activates! Symmetra and Hikari get +6 resistance for 3 rounds, and Kagari and Bridgett get +6 to their main attacking stat for 3 rounds. The Shoggoth Wrengler shows Hikari some baby shoggoth pictures! “Ent she a beaut?” It gurgles at the disgusted Mahou Shojo, “I wrengled this adorable li’l shiela last week, an’ she been growin’ up big an’ strong.” Hikari is paralyzed by horror, disgust, and confusion until the Wrengler’s next turn. Bastion 327 transforms and doesn’t roll out, because Vulcan Gatling gun turrets don’t have wheels. They do have a very scary gun, though. Venus shoots Bastion 861 with Whisper, dealing 4 damage as his pistol round barely penetrates the possessed omnic’s heavy armor! Bob grabs a chili dog out of his halo of ballpark food and baseballs, takes a bite out of it, and throws it at the Shoggoth Wrengler! It hovers above him, dripping chili at irregular intervals. “I sense much hunger within you. Have a frank.” LOTUS supplies tactical advice from his previous studies of Bastion designs, granting all attacks made on Bastion 327 a crit chance! Symmetra places a sentry turret on Hikari. “Aligning defenses. Turret online.” Shield Generator is charging… The Mutant Meka fires a mass of tentacles at Wyvis, reducing his Strength by 5 as they grapple him! It then releases a radial blast of static that makes the world bubble and ripple for a few seconds, dealing 12 pure damage to its enemies and sucking something from them into itself. Kagari hurls herself bodily at Bastion 327, slamming dents into the possessed omnic’s armor with her butt and dealing a total of 38 damage (no crits). As she nurses her sore butt, it occurs to her that without the Tarukaja boost she might not have been able to penetrate the robot’s heavy armor. Sachi applies some boot to the Shoggoth Wrengler, removing him from Hikari’s vicinity, and attempts to comfort the very disturbed girl while protecting her from enemies. Unfortunately, she reacted too late to stop the Trespasser from sharing far more information than any mortal wants to see. Sachi then regenerates 5 HP. Hikari is paralyzed with disgust and incredulousness! And also trying to decipher the Shoggoth Wrengler’s ridiculous accent. Wyvis powers through the tentacles and takes a swing at the Shoggoth Wrengler, dealing 3 damage and gaining 6 blood points. The tentacles pulling at his limbs and sapping his strength seem to have weakened the blow, as did a jet of chili from the orbiting hot dog that struck his glaive as he swung it. That tentacle cowboy barely took any of the force of the blow. The Mutant Meka eats a dark, energy-coated projectile Zarya fired to try to support you. No Graviton Surge for you! Friedhold attempts to freeze the Meka’s armor, making it susceptible to damage. Not of This World activates! Intelligence Check (40) vs Constutution Check (19) freezes the Meka’s armor solid, causing it to crack whenever the Trespasser moves. The Meka will take 50% more damage from all sources for the next 6 rounds. The extra damage is cold damage. Bridgett begins charging Mithral Buster! Bastion 861 beeps in an annoyed fashion. Then, it shoots Venus right back, dealing 11 damage. Status: Initiative:

"Ah, a fellow lover of the fine arts," Alexandria greets the sculptor warmly, "This piece looks to be shaping up splendidly, though you seem to have hit... something of a snag?"

"Wait, we gave him his payment before we got out safely? Why?" Lexiel grouses, "Ugh, doesn't matter. I'll start axing a hole in the floor. We should go down a few levels and look for an elevator shaft or stairwell for rapid descent. I'm fairly sure I don't need to breathe, so the gas is unlikely to bother me much. It'll seriously hamper some of my summons, unfortunately. Hope any fighting we have to do is somewhere well-ventilated." >>>>>>>Play Eye of the Tiger and give it a training montage! Teach it to use 80s magic! That way the censors will prohibit it from killing people outside of feature films.

Taylor looks down at the Meditite with the exact same expression he looks at everything, but his tone of voice is friendly. "Hello. I am Taylor. I hope we shall have a long and prosperous relationship," The trainer pauses a moment to hear what his new Pokemon has to say, before continuing. "Hm, I believe I shall call you Jet." The Meditite seems a little surprised, but rather pleased about that.

"Marisa! I thought something in the castle smelled of tea and cheap hair dye," Lexiel growls, quietly but out loud, apparently irritated enough by the memory of the woman to forget about the communication device, "Yeah, I know her. Scooped her up for drunken disorderly at an underground Rakdos rave my unit raided on Ravnica call it six years ago. She was no doubt sauced to the gills and it still took most of an hour to pin her down. She escaped before the Azorius got their claws on her? Can't blame her for that; there's justice, and then there's Azorius procedure. Proof that you can have too much of a good thing," And then she sighs heavily, "But I cannot rely on you. Ugh, that sounds bad. Even so, I cannot allow myself to burden another. I have to stand above. Like Guildmaster Pira'kor. She was always a paragon of virtue and inspiration; she always said that she had to be, so she wouldn't let down the... memory of Agrus Kos... who helped her overcome the mistakes... that led... to her dishonor..." Lexiel goes utterly, inhumanly still for just long enough to draw attention to it. She isn't even breathing. "Parun Razia got eaten by shapeshifting worms and nearly crashed the Parahelion. Aurelia is a bitch. Iona failed to keep the other Zendikari angels from being blinded by Kozilek. Avacyn was locked away in her own vault for centuries. How did I miss this? Angels make mistakes all the time; the good ones just don't make the same ones often. Well, that's one mistake I'll have to keep from making again. Urza's bones, how did I miss that?"

The Trespassers look up, probably startled, as Wyvis charges forward, a battle cry on his lips, over Symmetra's protest of "But my rig isn't big enough to make a superweapon! I can't- Oh, forget it," She groans before drawing a compact, three-pronged sidearm and following him, "We'll just have to improvise this time." She says improvise like most people say 'shovelling horse crap'. The rest of the group follows Wyvis' initiation with varying degrees of enthusiasm; Sombra promptly vanishes, as many of you probably suspected she would. The three Trespassers grab a pair of Bastion units and peel off to defend their army's flanks, tentacles twitching, beer cans orbiting, and spurs jingling. Initiative: Status:

Having completed her new helmet, Alexandria puts it on. She then gathers some more green eco and bottles it for later experimentation, as it seems the most useful kind by far, and heads back to town to see if there's anything else to do.

"Well, I doubt we have time to go over everything in detail, but I'll try my hand at the short version. I was born on the plane of Ravnica, the City of Guilds, the most urbanized world that exists, to a very poor family. After numerous... misadventures, I tried to pick the pocket of a member of the Izzet guild. Rather than being angry, he was most impressed by the spell I had invented, all by myself, to do the deed. Instead of having me arrested, he offered me an apprenticeship. I was quite happy with the Izzet; they made me who I am today. I stayed with them until a lab accident awakened my Planeswalker spark and I exited the plane rather than dying in the explosion. From there, well, what could the mysteries of one plane do to compete to exploring the entire multiverse? I soon learned that being willing to move things from one plane to another for payment was wildly profitable, and that's what I did until my 'vacation' on Bant. Since then, I haven't been able to turn a good cause down, no matter how hopeless. I helped lose the fight to purify Mirrodin of Phyrexian corruption, was blinded and crippled on Zendikar after doing exactly nothing to help the Gatewatch defeat the Eldrazi, only survived my encounter with Reaper and the Widowmaker on Omnia with a lot of help from Overwatch agents, and failed to keep that backstabbing bitch Aurelia from ousting Guildmaster Pira'kor of the Boros. That is the right word? I heard Lucio use it once, and it certainly fits that traitorous, propaganda-spewing hypocrite Aurelia better than anything else I can think of," Lexiel shakes her head, "But for all that... Those kids I saved went on to become great knights and battlemages. I met one years later; he said he was inspired by my example, and that without me he wouldn't have been able to improvise enough to survive the Alaran Conflux catastrophe. The word is out among the Planeswalker community about Phyrexia. The Eldrazi are dead, even if Jace was the primary researcher for the spells that defeated them. Urza's bones, I hate that smug bastard, but he did good work. Reaper apparently took months to pull himself back together after I bought Zarya enough time to throw a black hole at him by blocking shotgun rounds with my chest. And Guildmaster Pira'kor is still alive. I- I suppose they did turn out for the better for my involvement, but that isn't good enough. Angels are perfect. The purest expression of white mana, the magic of law, order, community, and protection, shaped by an immaculate, unbreakable will. They- We have to be a shining beacon of hope and justice. Succeed, or be martyred in the trying. Archangels even more so. And I... I cannot live up to the standard required of me. I should be dead. I can't even properly die a hero. I do not know why the oil would suddenly become more influential, unless my- Greater good. Izumi told me to abandon my principles for the greater good. She had a very convincing argument, too. Savra's saggy, maggot-infested tits!" Lexiel's reassuring, uplifting presence explodes back in full effect, even stronger than it was before, bringing with it a sense of almost tangible possibility. Which clashes spectacularly with her oaths. "What kind of archangel gives up on justice because of some honeyed words? Or ignores the possibility of redemption? I certainly needed that second chance. ...Maybe that oil was affecting me more than I thought. I can be flexible. I can pursue alternatives. I will bend, but I shall not break. Here I stand," She slides off Visrii's back to stand, shaky at first, but then with steady strength, walking alongside the group. A subtle, soft, white glow begins surrounding her, as her halo flares with light. "I can do nothing less, for those I have lost, and those I have yet to lose. I should also probably start researching that spell Izumi used. If there is a way to extract Phyrexian oil, which was thought impossible to remove, the Mirran survivors might have a chance to live! We could evacuate them with the castle and cure their corruption!"

"With most likely an APB out on our heads after Halley's and my own mistakes, we decided that we had to move quickly, and breached the arcology by crashing my dragon summon into it. I do not know which floor we entered on, but it was unfortunately high, as our objective is in the basement. I used an axe modified to produce lava to melt a hole in the floor for us to descend with. However, shots were fired, and we were assaulted by a group of guards. We defended ourselves well enough, despite being separated somewhat in the chaos. I think I may have been hit with a spell with mental effects, though Izumi seems to have purged it alongside some other things. However, the guards had called for reinforcements, we were not progressing downwards quickly enough, and I decided to call down a comet storm to expedite our descent. You have to understand, if I had known there were civilians in the line of fire, I would never have... Urza's bones, I hope I wouldn't have done that," Lexiel states with a detached tone, "I heard an army approaching, and attempted to fire on it. I do not believe I was entirely in my right mind at the time. Those people might have been cultists working to bring about the end of their world, but... they still deserved a chance to surrender, and I did not give it to them. I- It had to be the oil. It couldn't have been anything else. Three years ago, I visited a fantastic world called Mirrodin, an entire plane of metal. It was a fascinating, incredible place. It also no longer exists. The golden oil is the life-blood of Phyrexia, the scourge of worlds, a force that would be far more dangerous than any Trespasser if it could move between planes without extreme amounts of time, effort, and knowledge they no longer possess. The Phyrexians flooded the plane with their foul oil, corrupting and destroying everything until the land itself oozed with it. All but the barest few survivors were... compleated into Phyrexian creatures, and they begged myself and the other survivors from the task force of Planeswalkers who attempted to save their world to leave. To live on and spread warning of Phyrexia's return, and to remind the multiverse that Mirrodin once existed. Planeswalkers like myself, beings who can travel between worlds without a machine like that castle of yours, are supposed to be immune to the oil's corruptive influence. But beings of metal or pure mana, with restrictions on their will and less adaptable bodies, succumb more swiftly and completely to the oil than people of flesh, and require a much smaller dose to be corrupted. It is likely that my nature allowed the oil to influence me despite my Planeswalker spark. I suspect it has been since I fled Mirrodin. But until now, I never considered, even for a moment, the slaughter of noncombatants to be justifiable," She continues in a quiet, lost, yet still even cadence. "I think there is something very wrong with me, Edmond. I- heh- I was never meant to be an angel, did you know that? I was once just as human as you, a simple task mage and researcher keeping food in her stomach by being an inter-planar courier, mercenary, and thief. Eventually, I saved enough gold for a vacation on the world of Bant. Because my luck is nonexistent, the town I chose was attacked by a demon. I could have left, but... school was in session. The demon wanted the kids. I gave it the finest display of spellwork I've ever cast instead. We both fell. Except it turns out that moral, honorable people who die doing a good deed on Bant come back as angels. The purest of heart come back as archangels. And while I might've committed a lot of crimes in my life, I never did them on Bant, so the planar magic couldn't see that. And ever since then, I haven't been able to turn a good cause down. Haven't won a good cause either. Even if we destroy the book, after what I did this mission cannot be a victory. I may need your assistance procuring a list of the deceased, Edmond. I think my litany of names just got far longer. I hope today is not the day that I have finally failed more people than I can remember, but... I think it may be so." >>>>>>>>>Lightning solves everything! 50 million volts of obedience training ought to teach George that lab techs are not chew toys, and that he should keep to the red-shirted security guards supplied specifically for this purpose.

Curious, Taylor accepts the Aether Ball closest to him, and after verifying that there is in fact a Pokemon inside, carefully opens the ball.

"Huh. Magic radio. Why weren't we using these before?" Lexiel wonders, "Could have saved a lot of lives and pain. Yes, I can hear you."

"It is more than that. To access my bonds with the land requires a certain mindset, one in line with the color of mana provided," Lexiel states, "Freed of my delusions, no doubt brought on by the oil, I am no longer certain I have that mindset." The idea that it was all the Phyrexian oil's fault is rather comforting to the angel, reassuring her at least a bit. It's also very, very wrong, but more repression and denial at this point is a drop in the ocean.

"I- I can't draw mana," Lexiel admits, sounding absolutely exhausted, "The lands I have bonded to weep, and... with how much Phyrexian oil Izumi extracted from me it's a wonder it took me this long to go crazy, even with my resistance to the stuff. I won't have any magic until I can adjust my spells for my changed state of mind. But I can still shoot things, as long as you aren't expecting sharp shooting."

Alexandria takes the metalhead corpse, samples of each color of eco, and the 10 precursor metal orbs she has, as well as every scrap of usable material she can collect in a reasonable amount of time. She then attempts to use this to create an Integrated Systems armor piece or bauble that will ideally grant her some form of self-sustain. She's always going to be dependent on mechanics for support to some extent, but it's best to lighten their load whenever possible.

Izumi's magazine fills with a soft, golden substance, making the device feel oily, as though whatever is contained inside is trying to seep through. However, the darkness leaches from Lexiel's halo and somewhat from her wings. Though she still trembles uncontrollably, too much to walk far unassisted, she is able to focus enough to notice the magazine full of oil. "Oh, no. You need to burn that! Burn it now! I- I had that inside me? That doesn't make any sense. I'm supposed to be immune. Venser said I would be immune!" >>>>>>>Laugh maniacally! Much like applying more dakka, or picking Reinhardt on defense, it's always a good choice.

"What- city? I-" Lexiel takes a moment to actually listen, and under the tramp of marching, angry feet, there is a rather lot of screaming going on. "No. No. No." She mutters in a monotone, gaze distant and face blank under her halo. Which, by the way, has turned pitch black and started radiating red vapor. Her feathers and hair have similarly darkened to an edgy black and red color scheme, as has her 'makeup', but even if she could still see, she'd never notice. Her mind's eye is elsewhere, even as she falls from the sky like a sparrow blasted with bird shot. "Ghalma, Kemba, Martrel, Partuk, Koth, Samhail, Kord, Arba," She recites in a faint, numb tone. Fields of living corpses, flayed alive. Skin is the bastion of the heretic; the sanctum of the unclean. Blinkmoths, tyrannex, humans, leonin, driven to extinction to grease the gears. Works of art, milennia of culture, gone within a month. "Venser, Kalma, Huyin, Melira, Karmine, Bastei, Rakon." Endless expanses of dry, white dust, still holding the shape of the people and lands it once was, until touched by a breath or a breeze. Still air, dead as the land. Complete disregard; her greatest spells less than pinpricks, and then darkness, darkness forevermore. "Siltek, Camden, Duriel, Yotta, Wildorn, Ambriel, Jori En." The litany of names continues, unceasing, the angel never needing to pause for breath. A greasy, gritty sensation fills the air, surrounding everyone near her, like trekking through a swamp for a few days with no chance to cleanse oneself. Suddenly, her presence isn't nearly so comforting.

"They're all guilty! All of them!" The archangel rants, as another wave of wrong and fear and hide your savings pulses through her aura. "If I have to kill them all to keep this world safe from their insanity, then they'll all die!" Lexiel casts another comet storm, performing an elegant aileron roll as she gestures to the spell's targets, a mostly indiscriminate circle of falling stars that will actually completely miss her allies this time. "Die. Die! DIE!"

"Ahahahahaha! That was great! Come on, you sorry sons of whores! I'll take you all on!" Lexiel declares at the top of her lungs, rising off the ground to hover on wings that look noticably more red and black than they did before, triple-toned hair whirling about her like a second halo, "You want to do human sacrifice? You'll serve better as target practice!" While her everything else is aggressive, her aura remains calming and peaceful, gradually healing her wounded allies.

Friedhold finds no convenient barrels of explosives. Really, who leaves those lying around? He has no way of discerning which buildings are empty from his current position. There are plenty of ways to retreat back into the city, though this battle seems to be taking place in an open, formerly forested area that probably used to be a rather nice park before it was shot up. A few ledges and overhangs offer potential high ground, though anyone who went up there would be exposed to enemy fire. And there isn't much in the way of cover; the only reason the group hasn't been spotted yet is that the enemy operators are rather preoccupied with the Overwatch team.

"I'm a psychic. Telekinesis and telepathy. My base powers are kind of weak, but I can boost them by drawing upon this entity called the Phoenix Force," Samantha states, "But pulling immense, cosmic power through a psychic mind designed to lift pencils without touching them... isn't exactly optimal. If I draw too much power, it burns me from the inside out."

Symmetra sets up her teleporter, and you all pile through it, back to Lucio's main base. From there, it's a short walk to the location of the Overwatch locator beacons. LOTUS leads the way, using his mapping tools to keep the group on-course. Symmetra tags along willingly, Sombra probably less so, though the hacker doesn't make a break for it. When the group arrives, they come across a somewhat alarming sight. The Overwatch strike team, consisting of Lucio, Zarya, McCree, Soldier 76, a gorilla with a lightning gun, Genji, and a humanoid robot who is somehow levitating, are slowly falling back before a horde of what look sort of like Bastion units, if said units were painted in Vishkar's signature purple and white, then covered in slime and tentacles. The Overwatch agents are giving a good accounting of themselves, but are clearly outnumbered and outgunned. Making matters worse, there are three distinctly different entities standing behind the hordes of corrupted Bastions. A tank-like mech suit apparently made entirely out of teeth and eyeballs fires volleys of bullets at the strike team, and occaisonally sprouts a gigantic mouth to eat a particularly dangerous-looking projectile. A velociraptor skeleton hovering in a grotesque parody of the Overwatch team's omnic ally surrounded by an orbiting halo of baseballs and beer cans belts objects from its halo at them. A beer hat with the word "Bob" on it sits on his head. And a bizarre mass of tentacles stuffed into cowboy cosplay for some reason tosses grenades and silverware at the Overwatch agents with the force of a railgun. Whenever the Overwatch team looks to be rallying, these heavier units double down, keeping them busy long enough for the Bastions to gain the upper hand again. If you could somehow engage these obvious Trespassers' attention or significantly thin out the Bastions with a surprise attack, the battle could quickly turn in your favor.

Seeing as that rock didn't make much of an impact, Alexandria figures that this 'metalhead' probably has some solid armor. So she deploys her heavy pulse gatling and sends a barrage of armor-disintegrating pulse bolts down-range at the creature.

"Healing food? Well, that's not the strangest thing I've seen today. I suppose I ought to apologize for some things I said when you weren't around and I was under the impression I'd been forgotten. So, thank you, Gozer was it?" Samantha digs in, and sighs with relief as her wounds start to fade. "And thank you, ma'am, for helping me get this far. Uh, did you give your name? I'm Samantha Grey. Pleasure to meet you."

We need to go deeper, she's got all this mana it would be a real shame to waste, and any damage to this building is good damage, Lexiel reasons. After all, she might get lucky and destroy the mission objective. "Hahahahahahaha! It's boom time," She crows, raising her arms to the sky. Blue light blazes from the mysterious vials and tanks strapped to her body, and lightning crackles around her Izzet mana gauntlet. Then she brings her arms down, gesturing at the floor a debatably safe distance from the group. "Overloaded Comet Storm!"