“We really need to make sure the Queen is taken care of, ELMO.” Johnny added. “Directions to the throne room and archive would be a really big help.”

"Archive? If you mean the medical logs, those would be kept in the sickbay. The medical robot there is really nice! Although he's offline right now for some reason... maybe he's asleep! But if you mean the science archives... ooh, they're offline right now too... The whole laboratory's down! Wow, it must be due to the big emergency! You'd be better off just asking the Flame Witch what you want to know! Just go to the main stairwell, and then go right!"

Flash smiled, ready now to charge headlong and recklessly into whatever danger was beyond 'the main stairwell, and then go right'.

While the other two had been dealing with the computer contraptions, Flash had sequestered himself to the corner of the room, where he'd pulled out his Medkit and begun attending to his wounds in the most basic ways:  namely, using the 'wound sealant spray' to bandage the burns and open flesh.
- rolled 8 using 2d6+1 with rolls of 3,4.  using Insight+Medkit.

(Flash gets 5 points of health back.)

By the time that Johnny and Buzz were ready to leave, Flash was feeling better for his own tender ministrations.

And if they let him, he'd take 'point'; and lead the way ... back 'to the main stairwell, and then go right!'

Buzz is content to let Flash lead the charge.  She was always more comfortable firing at the enemy from behind a barrier.

“ELMO, we’re going to take care of the evacuation,” Johnny said falling in with Flash and Buzz. “You get those coordinates set on the transporter and we’ll get everyone to them so they can get out safely”

Unlocking the door, and with his Ray Gun in his lower right hand, Flash lead the team from the room.
Unless intercepted, he was headed back 'to the main stairwell, and then go right!'

The door in question that supposedly leads to the Flame Witch-- a large, heavy door-- is opened. Revealing...

...An empty twenty-by-twenty-foot room, and another large, heavy door on the opposite side.

There's a sign on the wall warning that explains that to preserve hangar bay integrity, this next door will not open until the door the agents just opened is closed first.

In other words, it's an airlock. Well, that makes sense, if it leads to a hangar bay... So the Flame Witch is in there, eh...?

- rolled 6 using 2d6 with rolls of 5,1.  Insightful to find any clues.

Reckless and lost in the hunt, Flash grinned as he sensed his quarry close.
"Let's go", he said to his companions, as he headed for the far door.

Buzz followed, taking a flanking position by the opposite door for when it opened while scanning the room for dangers and traps.

Johnny may be dead, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable rushing headlong into the Flame Witch’s hangar.  Being shot in the face by a notorious gangster had imbued him with a certain sense of his own mortality and, even though he was technically dead, he was finding it a bit difficult to ignore the feeling that this could go badly. Once bitten twice shy...

Walking along with the others, he kept his eye open for any clue pointing to what they might expect beyond that heavy door.  Normally an airlock was meant to give space to prepare for a change in atmosphere or pressure, but this empty space did nothing to betray its purpose.  The detective asked himself ... why there would be an airlock here?  What was the ill defined threat to the hangar bay that required the air lock?  Most importantly, how could they use this to their advantage?

Lacking any better idea or clue indicating how the team of intrepid adventurers might prepare themselves for the next challenge, Johnny began to dematerialize hoping to perform a bit of spectral reconnaissance and get a peek beyond the door.

Rolls if necessary:
09:23, Today: Juan (Johnny) Gonsalvez rolled 11 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 6,3. Insightful... +1 Investigation if it applies...
09:24, Today: Juan (Johnny) Gonsalvez rolled 9 using 2d6-1 with rolls of 6,4.  Spirit.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:13, Fri 17 Apr 2020.

"Damn!" said Johnny. "It's a trap!"

The opening door showed quite a few cultployees, a LOT of robots, all ready to deal with the three Danger Patrol agents.

Johnny leapt to try to close the door again, but a wall of intense flame appeared at the back of the airlock, and pushed the agents out of it. Johnny felt that even he might have been harmed by it, and so he leapt forward out of the airlock with the pilot and the Titanian.

A large robot by the airlock door closed it and locked it.

"So! You have finally arrived!" said the Flame Witch, a human woman at the back of the hangar bay with a red-and-orange dress and strawberry-blonde hair. "You're just in time to die!"

"Hey guys," said Dr. Cagliostro, held up by her wrist from a rope hanging from the front nose of a nearby parked spaceship. "I got captured. Sorry I couldn't warn you..."

"Any amusing last words before I kill you?" the Flame Witch asks.

The Danger Patrol handbook is extremely clear on this type of situation: All agents in such situations are to neither give up nor surrender, under any circumstances.

(I mean, if terms of surrender aren't offered. That's a whole other situation from "Villain/Villainess, Impending Threat of Seemingly-Certain Death, Offering.")

Buzz, while not thrilled to be surrounded by weapon-toting enemies, did find one aspect of the situation encouraging.  She was now in the presences of machines she could pilot and attack said enemies with!

Seizing the opportunity to act before the Flame Witch was even finished speaking, Buzz bolted for the nearest mech suit and started clambering up the exoskeleton.  The plan was to fire the driver's ejection seat and take over.  Ideally, the armor would last long enough for her to start firing the mini-rail-gun and give cover to her team.

"Keep talking, lady.  I'm happy to provide some hot lead for you to swallow," she said through gritted teeth.

As Buzz split left, Flash went right ... then darted forward, and left then around to the right.

His many years of team athletics were kicking in.  This was just like playing Scrapball in the major leagues: and Flash was an AWESOME Scrapball player.
He'd played many positions over the years, but by far the best was Centre Blitz.  Sometimes, he'd had made a run right down the centre of the field, into the opposing teams territory, before they'd even realised that he had those big brass balls.

And as the trap, here and now, snapped shut around them, Flash realised that there was just one way to end this.
CID had shown him a game, not long ago.  Called Chess.  It was a terran made strategy game ... and the only way to win was to 'take the kind'.
And that is exactly what Flash intended to do.
Take the Flame-Witch, and this would be over.

And so, channelling his college years Scrapball self, he forcefully shoved and shoulder-charged his way through the cluttered room, making use of the enemies overcrowding against itself, sending opposing team members spinning and cartwheeling out of his way
      ... headed for 'the king'.

- rolled 7 using 2d6+4 with rolls of 1,2.  + Alien Training.
Wow, I'm glad I threw in that 'Alien Training'

(Buzz Corey rolled 7 using 2d6+3 with rolls of 1,3.  Agile + RP,RT to commandeer the big guns.)

A big robot grabs Buzz and tosses her aside as she tries to climb up a mecha-suit.

Then it raises its big foot to stomp on her...

Welp, that's it, she's dead.

...EXCEPT...

Then the big robot spins on its ankle (because its ankles allow it to do that) and it punches ANOTHER big robot.

After a second's pause, that robot sweeps its arm and knocks down a bunch of cultployees and average-size robots.

Then all those robots get up... and start punching everyone around them, friend or foe!

A cultployee points at Buzz, who is not remotely at all a red smear on the floor, despite how it looked like things were going to go 12 seconds earlier. "It's her!" he yells. "It's the Silver Plague! She's got it-- she's a carrier--OWWWWW!" he adds, because a robot has just punched him in the face.

In less than 30 seconds, everything is mayhem. The Danger Patrol agents are still in, well, danger, because the robots are still attacking them-- it's just that the robots are all now also attacking everyone-- other robots, cultployees, Danger Patrol agents, the Flame Witch, in what I guess is... kind of a four-way fight suddenly? (Well, except that the Flame Witch and the cultployees are trying not to attack each other, but it's not easy, because the Flame Witch's fire magic or pyrokinesis or whatever the hell she's using isn't really geared for fine control, it's geared more for FIERY MOVING WALL OF DEATH, and since the combatants nearest to her are cultployees and robots, it's not going great for the robots, but it's not going great for her cultployees, either.)

The cultployees, now in danger of being outnumbered, are ignoring the Danger Patrol agents and focusing more on the robots.

Flash is knocked over to the side by a big robot, away from the Flame Witch... on the other hand, he doesn't take any important new damage so far as a result.

Specifically, he's knocked over near Johnny, who was just about to try to get Dr. Cagliostro down. "Hey, big fella," Johnny says to the Titan. "How high can you jump? I can't literally float... you think you can get her down faster than me? If not, I'll do it, but I think one of us should play defense for whoever's trying..."

(I'm narrating Johnny, and, if we get 'er free, Dr. Cagliostro. So:

--Will Flash try to free the Doc, or play defense for Johnny while he does it, or wil he do something else?

--Buzz got knocked down, but she's probably standing again by now... There's fighting going on all around her, but no one is SPECIFICALLY trying to stop her from doing anything yet... Will she fight, or try the mecha-suit again, or something else?)

"Jump?   Man, nobody jumps like the Green Machine.
But why?" he asked.
And drawing his Ray Gun with machismo ease, he spun it on his finger, and ...
       - rolled 11 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 6,3.
... masterfully let off a shot that severed the ropes holding Doc C aloft.

And, just to prove how awesomely cool and heroic he was (cos thats why the fans loved him), he somersaulted between the legs of a nearby marauding robot, and caught Cagliostro in his muscular arms before she hit the ground.
With a smile, he said, "I gotcha, ma'am".


Now THAT is what I'm talking about
Boo-fricking-Yah!

A crazed robot rolls quickly toward Flash, Johnny, and Dr. Cagliostro.

"Untie me!" the doc yells. "I can do a lot to help with this-- but only if I'm untied!"

Johnny starts untying the doc... looks like it's up to Flash to defend...

Meanwhile, closer to the airlock, Buzz tries again to climb up into the mech's frame... A crazed robot punches at her-- but she swings out of the way just in time, and gets safely into the pilot's seat! She fires her raygun-- and nearly takes the robot's head off! That's more than enough to incapacitate that model...!

(Now what?)

In an effort to protect his allies from the beating down on them, Flash charged the metal threat, aiming to tackle it to the ground as forcefully as he could.
- rolled 8 using 2d6+3 with rolls of 1,4.  FORCEFULly take out the robot .

Buzz tries to make the best use of her refuge by firing at the Flame Witch.

Flash knocks down the robot, although he goes down with it. Flash does take 2 new points of damage in the process, though...

On the other hand, the doc is free, and she's doing something with gadgets... Johnny is watching over her now, firing on anyone who comes near her, so Flash can
--carry on trying to disable the robot he knocked over,
--try to get away from the robot and go back to his original plan of reaching the Flame Witch, or
--something else...

---

Buzz manages to hit the Flame Witch on her arm.

She screams in rage and pain, but isn't able to tell who did fired the shot. Still, she sweeps all robots-- and a couple of cultployees-- away from her in her fiery fury, her eyes scanning the hanger for who she should punish next.

(The Flame Witch is injured, but incensed. A mech suit will probably not be enough to fully protect anyone who hits her again, now that the hanger-battlefield has been somewhat cleared...)
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:27, Sun 03 May 2020.

Realizing that her cover will be blown with her next shot, Buzz decides to make it count.  She does what she can to use the mech suit's weapon fire at the Flame Witch.  Hopefully, the virus doesn't impede the function of the suit's offensive capabilities.

The Flame Witch is hit again, this time in the leg... but she sees who it is that shot her. A rushing wall of flame roars toward Buzz...

(Buzz is about to take...

11:16, Today: The GM rolled 4 using 2d4 ((3,1)).

Buzz takes 4 new damage.

Flash, you're in the wall's path as well-- roll Agile to try to dodge it!)

Flash continued his combat roll off the tackled robot, with the intent of using his momentum to continue a run towards the Flame Witch.

But then, the wall of fire came rolling his way.    In a minor, controlled panic, Flash dove to the left to avoid the heatwave, hoping to get behind an abandoned forklift there.
     - rolled 9 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 2,5.  Agility to avoid fire wall.