Fox

Angry monkey still punch Chitin! Punch good! Melee attack roll: 12! Monkey no punch good! With the crowd sufficiently dispersed, Nocturne's going to drop a Paralyze. It's a great big circle but she should be able to just catch the remaining Monkey Man at one edge and get the goon on the other, given the move actions everyone's taken to spread out. The Monkey Brother makes two reflex saves, against the Area and the Paralyze: 7, 12 Fails the area, fails the Paralyze by 6; he is Paralyzed, and is thus helpless. The last standing flunky attempts the same reflex saves: 9, 22 Doesn't beat the Area check but does beat the Paralyze! How embarrassing, succeeding a check your boss fails. Monkey 6 does not have the skills to make any kind of proper technology checks, and is going to frantically try to make the missiles work. Please work missiles. Please, please work missiles. (The missiles will not work.)

Dragonfly's Sense Motive: 12! Distracted by the science, I guess!

Dragonfly dispersed her wings before entering the laboratory, the plates on her heavy gauntlets already flexing open to deploy a set of small, articulated tools. She wasted no time or apology in using these to gently poke and expose Agent Irons' gunshot - though she was careful not to touch anything that still had power running through it. In her head, she pulled the robot open, a dismantled blueprint with fuzzy spaces where she couldn't immediately see. could be worse "Memory's intact, bullet hit...processing? Should probably isolate it before bullet extraction, repairs; limit risk of damage." She paused, sparing a glance at Keres - there was something there that bothered her, and she took a moment to lean over and eye the ex-Foundry robot's own damage. caliber - penetration relative to differences in armor and material - correlation? "....altercation," she repeated, turning her helmet toward Bonham. "Friendly fire?"

For Mara, for bookkeeping: Knowledge (Technology) DC20: taking 10 gets her this just fine. Civics/Streetwise/Gather Info, DC20: Mara can make the Gather Info side w/ Online Research & taking 10. Notice, DC20: Mental quickness should let her take 20 and make this. Embarrassingly, Mara will have to roll for the higher Knowledge (Technology) DC check, since she's geared more toward the engineering than the pop-culture tech knowledge of what other people engineer. Dragonfly rolls: 36, whew, no shaming herself in front of her frenemy. She is incapable of making that DC30 Notice check.

Well, the attack roll saves me from having to figure out the bonus against the bluff - a 9 wouldn't hit either way.

Nocturne The remaining gave an inarticulate roar of fury, beating his chest and visibly getting...larger? Definitely more monkey-like, at the very least, teeth more pronounced and hair subtly shaggier as he bounded to intercept Chitin. More rage than monkey and more monkey than man, he threw a punch that was too telegraphed to not dodge, but it took a large enough chunk out of the nearest display to tell everyone watching that dodging had definitely been the right choice. Considering Chitin's delightfully lethal display so far, that was all well and good in Nocturne's eyes; she left him to it and turned her attention toward May's would-be one-man firing squad, who was already pivoting to try to find a shot on Chitin. He never got the chance: with his attention elsewhere she made a face, and a gesture, and sent him flying into the nearest concrete pillar. He made a very satisfying noise as he wrapped around it, cracking the plastered surface, and then he stopped making noise at all. A strangled but triumphant cry drew attention to the foe on the missile platform as he punched a big red button - the missiles were released from their clamp, made an ominous humming noise, and then sputtered a few sparks out their back-sides in the tradition of bargain-brand misfiring fireworks. The would-be artillerist made a decent and far less triumphant imitation of that sputter, hitting buttons at random on his console in vain hope. Less attention-drawing had been the other two villains present - one had disappeared into the chaos of the initial panic but the other, a thin man with already-crazed hair, paused near an emergency exit to shout, "IT'S PRONOUNCED, 'JIN'!!" before kicking open the door and fleeing out the back of the building.

Round 3 14: Chitin, 1HP 13: Monkey Brother 2, in melee combat with Chitin 12: Nocturne, 2HP 4: Monkey Gang 6, minion, on missiles. May has been shot in the leg, but seems to be dealing with it. Her shield is unsteady but she's not under fire anymore. Most of the crowd has dispersed well toward the exits. A few stragglers have seen the tide turning and are cheering a bit. Security forces are still down. Chitin's up.

Gang 4 and Gang 5 are KO'd, so no actions from them. Huzzah! Gang 6 turns his missile platform, takes careful aim, and fires! ....nothing happens. Boy that would have been scary if the heroes hadn't realized they were fake missiles!

Nocturne will go ahead and try to take down the guy firing on May, why not. Seems like a problem! Nocturne's ranged attack roll: 16 Barely hits. Gang 5's toughness save, DC23: 17 Fails; he's a minion, so he's KO'd.

Boy, Chitin sure seems dangerous! Monkey Brother 2 is going to close on him, as he closes on Monkey Gang 5! Monkey Brother 2 makes a melee attack roll: 16 I don't believe that hits.

"Old witch?" Wraith hummed, cocking her head to the side; her body flowed together, reshaping into something entirely more humanoid, and even very vaguely female - if still a smooth metal surface and a face featureless beyond three great black eyes. Her feet sunk into the sand a bit more than she liked, but it was worth it to confuse the zombie's terrible opinions...even if he was technically correct. The worst kind of correct. "I am not an expert on the undead. Burning them could work, but could also inflict unnecessary suffering...and I am curious about this witch. You had help to do this? Someone sent you to us, to fail? If they did it once, they could do it again, and simply cause more trouble for us both."

"Of course. We're on our way." Dragonfly had almost had a comment on the wisdom of teleporting injured super-science around, but ultimately kept it to herself; priorities, after all, and she had to assume Voltage knew his abilities and their limits and consequences better than she did. She'd feel bad if there were problems later. She paused only long enough to pull two drones out of her dimensional storage, each the size of her head and dominated by a single, unblinking electronic eye - these she sent to the helipad and laboratory in turn before setting off herself. It never hurt to keep an eye on things. Flying was faster than walking and less disruptive than a burst of short-range teleports, at least where the hallways were wide enough; wings bloomed from her back as she took off, humming her down the corridor toward the laboratory.

Dragonfly's Sense Motive: 17

Monkey Gang 4 attempts a toughness save: 7 Yowza, what a glass jaw on that guy. Monkey Brother 1 tries to save: 9 Chitin's just having none of their nonsense, is he? Tempted to fiat, but he's already bound & helpless; not much to be done for him right now. Fails by 16 and goes down.

"Mmh. Security will be higher priority than last time," Dragonfly agreed. "Don't need Fort Knox, but can't depend on security system of 'the building's full of high-power combatants'. Asking for trouble. Building would be a high-value target in another invasion, or anything like it. Need to be able to try to keep things out. Or in." Tap-tap-tap went a finger against the table; something flickered in the lenses of her helmet, and a couple small single-room proposals wireframed their way into being. "If we're betting on being used by larger community, would probably benefit from an isolated secure lab. Somewhere you go when someone walks in the front door with ominously-glowing spheres. Shielded, armored, that kind of thing. Wouldn't need more than one, hopefully. If we needed more than one, that would be a bad day." She made a sighing noise, like she'd had that day before. "Definitely need to agree on scale, though. Merits to keeping it small, close-knit; merits to being larger. Agreed on some kind of trained physician. Not completely sold on psychologist unless we go very large and need them for general staff support. Wiling to hear a detailed argument," she clarified, "but don't expect anyone to be coming to us for solving soft science problems and we can seek personal therapy on our own time. In exceptional circumstances, can always outsource as needed."

Round 2 14: Chitin, 2HP, loosely grappled 14: Monkey Brother 1, Bound & Helpless 13: Monkey Brother 2, advancing on May & Nocturne 12: Nocturne, 2HP 11: Monkey Gang 4, minion, w/MB1 8: Monkey Gang 5, minion, w/MB2, firing at May. 4: Monkey Gang 6, minion, on missiles. May has been shot in the leg, but seems to be dealing with it. Her apparently-more-than-sound bubble is holding up for now, but is increasingly unsteady. The crowd has started panicking very badly, and with the villains' attention elsewhere they're starting to make their escape. Security forces are still down. Chitin's up.

GM The flunkies had their orders, and the appearance of another hero only reinforced them. One rushed around the display toward Chitin, training his gun - but with the two still grappled together, he couldn't get a clean shot, and seemed to have the level head to not risk it. One rushed toward the more practical missile display, hopping into a small aiming seat and priming what should have been a very deadly weapon indeed. The last, ordered to stop May, aimed to do just that - and literally, bringing his gun to his shoulder and firing several rounds toward her and her mechanical creation. But then, May was no fool - the sound bubble she'd brought back up had apparently come back with somewhat more oomph to it, most bullets stalling in mid-air as if they'd been fired into liquid. As each shot sent ripples through the bubble's surface, though, one lucky bullet just managed to slide through...and directly into May's leg. It was a curious thing, more visible from Chitin's perspective than Nocturne's (however distracted that perspective might have been): that last bullet shifted slightly, angling just so as it passed through to hit her as if deflected instead of stopped, catching May as she stood with her hands at her machinery's controls. At least the angle had been good - that hit would hurt, but it would hardly be fatal, and she'd immediately started tending to the wound.

Nocturne "Rude." In all the commotion, Nocturne had very calmly stood up and walked out of the booth, almost-invisible bubble of gravity forming around her as she curled black-and-gold dust around one hand. "You understand, of course," she said, black and gold motes playing across an upturned hand like dust, "that he's the good cop. He gave you a chance to be good monkeys and sit down. We could have gotten you a banana. I'm sure there's a fruit platter around here somewhere." The simian gangster, already winding up for a punch with his free hand, locked into place as she made a fist and lashed at him with unseen force. His grip on Chitin loosened, making a good but insufficient struggle against a more fundamental power. "I'm the bad cop. Bad monkey, no banana."

GM The masked, besuited gang members were not prepared for Chitin's attack - nor was their boss, at that, though he seemed to recover quickly enough. "....no," he said, turning his oddly-simian head toward Chitin and cocking his neck. It made an awful cracking noise. "I think we did have to do this." Monkey men, it turned out, were very fast. One arm lashed sideways to club Chitin across the helmet, and before he could get his balance back he found both his arms pinned at the wrist in a single long-fingered grip. "If you didn't want anyone hurt," said the villain, "that was real, real dumb of you." His brother growled something inarticulate, but neither slowed nor moved to help - though he did wave one of his flunkies away. "You back my brother up," he growled at one. "You, go find something to shoot at the hero if he gets back up. You, stop the girl before she gets that thing working!"

The three remaining Monkey Gang members split up per orders. One rushes toward Monkey Brother 1 and Chitin, but he can't get a shot so he'll hold his turn there. Monkey Gang isn't paid to shoot their own bosses (and, y'know, Chitin seemed nice. And scary. And nice.). One fires on May. Make me a notice check, Chitin. Nocturne's notice check: 18. One rushes toward the (secretly non-functional) missile display and starts messing with it.

Nocturne's going to stand up from her hiding spot and move far enough forward to see...anything. Force field up! She was going to try to clear some goons too, but, uh. Priorities. Nocturne makes a ranged attack roll against Monkey Brother 1: 27! That'd hit even without grapple penalties. Grapple check: 35 Monkey-Man defends with a grapple check: 21 Monkey Brother 1 is Bound. There's a weird interaction here with chains of grapplers and the Bound condition, but I'm going to rule on descriptors and base mechanics: Monkey Brother 1's grapple requires sustained physical interaction, which he can't do while bound & helpless. Chitin can free himself from the grapple without contest, as long as Monkey Brother 1's still Bound when Chitin's turn comes back around (which seems...likely). That's it for Nocturne's round, though.

Today's monkey fact is that monkeys are really strong. Monkey Brother 1's grapple check: 31 Chitin is Bound. The good news is that Monkey Brother 2's pretty sure his bro has this; he will spend his turn just continuing toward May and take no real actions otherwise.

Monkey Brother 1's having none of that, and goes to attack Chitin. Melee attack roll: 26 If that hits Chitin, please make a toughness save, DC23. Please also make a grapple check.

They are extremely unlikely to make that, but let's find out: Toughness Saves vs. Chitin, DC25: 3#1d20+6 12 8 20 Down they go!

"Terms and conditions may apply," Dragonfly dryly quipped. She'd been largely quiet since the meeting started, outside of the usual minor pleasantries - Miss Americana had always been the better diplomat, and that wasn't a field in which Mara saw fit to compete. "Secret identities are not in danger regardless - even the original Lab had people here as heroes and not civilians." She was proof enough of that - even now she was in full armor, as anonymous as ever, metal-plated hands folded on the table in front of her. "Anyone who wants spotlights can probably do better than this, or doesn't deserve spotlights. The Lab did some fundraisers, meet-and-greets...bad for personal glory, though. Science for public good, no individual profit, no personal good. Other than helping people and promoting good science." That turned her attention back to earlier comments, tilting her head Terrifica's way. "Definitely worth having perspective about our work," she agreed. "Staff would help, but uncertain it needs to come from non-scientists, non-engineers. If you have enough people, enough priorities, enough methodologies, we can keep each other in check. Usually more practical than experimental, anyway."