13 continues to maintain what she is doing keeping the portal open and randomly teleporting to make sure nothing gets a lock on her.

Schism once again blasts into the corridor, but this time the sound is different. The mist Blue Crossfire sent out is sucked away into some sort of vent, and everyone can clearly see what faces them. 4 more heavily armored version of the Sky Pirate robot, having some sort of arm-mounted energy shield before them. Moving slowly forward as his blasts fill the corridor, but not being destroyed.

This allows for the small horde of robots behind the shield wielders. Safe from Schism's destructive blasts, but not able to fire at the heroes due to the wall of energy being projected by the defenders.

All the while Kel's voice was being projected out of them. All in unison.

"I AM GOING TO KILL YOU, MAX! YOU AND ALL THOSE SUBHUMAN FREAKS!"

Even as this happens, Star Hair manages to finally move the last set of boxes through the portal.

Blue Crossfire turns to the robots and smiles at them. "Lovely doing business with you, Kel. Have your people contact my people and we can set up another meeting." He makes the 'call me' sign with his finger and thumb, and then leaps through the now accessible portal.

OOC-Heroes are up. Do you really want to stick around?

 After Star Hair gets all the boxes through she says," Ok everyone through the portal is clear." Star Hair will make sure everyone gets through then she uses her move action to go through the portal and gets ready to defend against anyone else trying to come through after them.

13 holds preparing to be the last through the portal.  She plans once last person is through to jump through if it is safe and close it.  If it is not she will close it and use her personal teleport to get away and join the group.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:36, Sun 10 Dec 2023.

Flicking away the last dregs of the shimmering energy that clung to his fingers as the shield-wall cleared the smoke and made it clear his blasts were no longer buying time, Schism turned and dashed for the portal.  The chorus of Kel's irate voice chased him those last few feet as he jumped through to join the re-stolen materials.  Rising from his crouch on the other side of the gate, the psychic let his signal spill out, sweeping the area for any sign of the infected as he took stock of their next move.

OOC: Through the portal and then scanning with Neural Field (Senses 5): Accurate 2r, Acute 1r, Detect (Minds) 2r, Quirk (Psychic Ringing) -1f, Penetrates Concealment +4r, Sustained +0; 8PP

Running through the portal, you find all the cargo on the rooftop roughly 250' away from Kel's tower. You are all now outside the haze obstructed building, and all of you feel more or less normal. Maybe portal teleportation is far safe than reconstruction one's atoms inside a haze cloud.

Even at this distance, you can see the Sky Pirates starting to leave Kel's building. Doing a search for you in order to get the madman's property back...and get his revenge.

"I am opening a portal but this will take focus and I will be mostly vulnerable."  13 says as she starts to focus on opening the portal to get them out of there.

 Star Hair smiled, she turned and looked at the Sky Pirates they were in range barely but she wouldn't give away their position. " Ok 13 you open the portal, and I will use my hair to get everything through fast then I will stay at the portal protecting it until everyone is safe."

"I'll provide some cover fire." Schism offered, focus on the growing swarm of enemies around the tower as he let his signal suffuse his thoughts.  Selecting a Pirate at the opposite edge of the formation from their spot, he directed the flows of his power to converge around it.

OOC:  Blasting one of the Pirates at the opposite end of the swarm to see if he can mislead them a bit.  Signal Collapse (Damage 8; T-DC 23): Increased Range (Perception) +2/r, Penetrating VIII +8f

Schism manages to explode one robot among its group, with no obvious source where the attack came from. Granted Schism's team sees the glow around his head as he does so, but that was not in the Robot's view.

At least not right away. Suddenly, every robot screams out in Kel's voice...highly amplified.

"MAX! COME BACK HERE MAAAAAAX!" They all bellow. It was then that those with various super senses discover why. Other than Kel is totally out of his mind. The noise is drawing the infected to the robots-who are now heading straight for the team. They seem to be broadcasting Kel's voice in order to direct the oncoming horde.

You don't have much time.

OOC-Star Hair must use a standard action to move half the boxes through the portal. 13 must concentrate on the portal, however, she may take other actions. Schism may act-but is noticing the oncoming swarm of robots and the even larger horde of infected coming up the stairs to the building they are now on via his telepathy.

13 after being ready starts to randomly teleport around to at least defend herself.  If called upon though she is prepared to jump and teleport someone out of the way although she is tiring and everyone is likely above her weight limit.  But she does push herself to the brink of exhaustion to increase the size of the portal.

(OOC - While she can act most of her anything else is in the array she is using.  Leaving her the personal teleport and cling to walls.)
This message was last edited by the player at 03:10, Fri 22 Dec 2023.

 Star Hair sees 13 open the portal wider, Star Haor quickly began moving all the boxes as fast as she could, to move all the boxes through the portal in one round. Her hair was moving and lifting as she stood by the portal. Star Hair pushed herself to get them all through in one round, but she is quite tired now.

(OOC: Used Extra effort, do second standard action for move action, no hero point so Star Hair is Fatigued.)

Seeing that any chance of subtlety has gone out the window as the Pirate's begin to shriek, Schism tries to track the oncoming fronts of both threats, as an ever increasing number of infected minds begin to rush into his range.  Glancing back to check on the girls' progress and finding the portal not only torn wider than before, but being pushed to capacity by a whirldwind of movement from Starhair, he realized that they were seconds from completion.  Steeping forward to get a better angle, the psychic lifted his hands and let his signal flow free again, a continuous swathes of space inundated with discordant force.

OOC: Extra Effort for Alternate Effect - Signal Torrent (Damage 8; T-DC 23): Area (Cone 60ft) +1/r, Duration (Concentration) +1/r, Penetrating VIII +8f Aiming it to cover the approach path of the incoming horde.

The archer now slingshot user launches an orb at the incoming horde of robots. It explodes, along with the cone of tk force shredding the bots, and leaps through the portal once all the cargo is through. He makes sure to send a middle finger at more incoming bots-knowing that Kel could see it by the screams of rage coming out of the robot's speakers.

Sure enough, the cone of force combined with the explosion gives the heroes more than enough cover to leap through the portal. The four of them find themselves at the campsite were they first arrived. 30 miles from the city, and they can see distant explosions and even one of the buildings collapsing. No doubt the building they had been on seconds ago.

Blue Crossfire breathes heavily, and sits on the ground.

 Once through the portal Star Hair will make sure everyone was ok and then look at the explosion and the building collapsing in the distance. Star Hair was fatigued but she was ok, she then said," Ok that was close, now lets get these supplies back to base and I need a shower." Star Hair then took a seat on one of the crates and waited to see what was next.

13 through and closing the portal takes a moment, "Yessss goods ideas.  Backs home."  Her exhaustion extreme and as such she just sits down on the ground a bit loopy.  "Just let me know if you need me again."  She says slowly getting 'comfy' on the ground.

OOC-Waiting for Schism so I can move you guys along.

Arms still extended as he maintained the storm of psionic energy that tore the air above him into iridescent fractals, Schism took a few hesitant steps back as the edges of his vision fritzed, static bleeding inward as his hold on his power took its toll.  It was more than he could maintain, but the explosion of one of Crossfire's bombs bought him seconds to glance back and catch sight of the last of the goods slipping through the gate.  Releasing his hold on his signal with a gasp, the psychic turned on his heel and staggered for the portal, the storm of destruction he'd left behind fading slowly as the power began to dissipate.  Passing through Thirteen's creation brought a dizzying shift as he went from stories in the air down to ground level in an instant, but far more comfortingly finally cut off the outpouring of malevolence as the air sealed shut and separated them from the encroaching horde of infected.  Slumping down beside one of the larger boxes as he caught his breath, Schism nodded tacit agreement as the other chimed in.  "God yes."  He murmurred, the idea of a shower and a place to finally relax the vigilance being outside the shields required almost as welcoming.  Reaching back to slip the transponder from his belt so he could signal their evac.

Blue Crossfire also leans against the cargo, panting. "I can't believe I made it out of that city! Thank you guys so much! At least you have Thinkmaster's cargo ready to go. Tell her she is welcome...and the answer to joining the Freebooters is still no."


Blue Crossfire checks his wrist, and types on a hidden keypad on it. "Now that I am free of Kel's jamming, I can call my ride outta here." He explains. Sure enough, a motorcycle-looking hover vehicle files from the lake itself. Instead of two wheels, it has two helicopter like fans allowing it to fly. Each set of blades covered by a metal structure housing the entire mechanism in a wheel-like form. While in flight, the fan blades flatten, acting as helicopter. When the device lands, the 'wheels' turn and the entire thing looks more like a standard motorcycle.

Hero climbs on his ride. He nods at the others, and turns to Schism. "Ya done good kid. I know Iron Tiger would be proud. That being said, here is some free advice. I know what Thinkmaster was like before all this...madness. Just be careful about trusting her. I am not saying she is a enemy, but I am not saying she is a friend ether. If you need me, you can take this. Just don't let her erase your memory of it." He hands Schism a blue bolt, seemingly more a communications device than ammo for a crossbow.

He revs the bike's engine, and he zips off down the road away from the campsite. Until he vanishes from line of sight.

OOC-I am going to assume you will all sleep and get pick up. I will leave this thread open for a day in case you want to make any final posts.

Schism's signal for pickup now active, the team knows they have to go to sleep before they can be transported to the Freebooter base.

 Cindy waved at Blue Crossfire and said," Good luck and you are very welcome." Cindy then feeling fatigued anyways, laid against a crate and then fell asleep waiting for pickup.

13 on the ground half waves and says "Byeeee!"  She makes her best effort to look up but one can see in her eyes she is barely keeping her eyes open.

Assuming all are in agreement, sleep manages to come somehow. Schism rather suspects it was forced on the team in order to get a secret transport. So secret even the team cannot know how it is done.

OOC-Everybody gets 5 xp! Moving on to team Starmind debrief!