12174/Trail of the Technovore!

Trail of the Technovore!
Date of Scene:	14 September 2020
Location:	Stark Station. Space.
Synopsis:	Action! Adventure! Animatronics! Bucky blows up some stuff! Hawkeye gets goop everywhere! Everyone else is there too!
Cast of Characters:	Iron Man, Phantasm (Drago), Winter Soldier, Wild Rose, Hawkeye (Barton), Lex Luthor

---

Iron Man has posed:
"Okay everyone, we're approaching the station. Time for final equipment checks. Make sure you're strapped in tight, because, funny story, I've never actually done a manual shuttle dock before."

The man who used to be Iron Man pulls back on the controls, adjusting the shuttle's nose to match the approach angle indicated on the holographic display in front of him.

It's been a smooth ride, for the maiden voyage of a prototype repulsor-powered shuttlecraft.

Tony knew it would work.

Strapped into his chair, Tony is confined inside one of the spacesuits that he hasn't quite gotten around to selling to NASA yet. A vast improvement over traditional pressurized suits, these 'hardsuits' allow for greater durability and mobility, incorporating pneumatic musculature, magnetizeable boots, and repulsor jetpacks in addition to a built in array of multipurpose tools.

Including some that cut and shoot.

Lots of Iron Tech, but not an Iron Man armor...

"Everyone good? Remember, if you need a bathroom break, the suits only have urine collection. So uh... no twosies, please."

"And whoever's kicking my seat back there... QUIT IT, I'm trying to pull off a heroic spaceship maneuver!"

Phantasm (Drago) has posed:
With his hair pulled back and secured into a neat ponytail. Nick is not really channeling the wild hair of his stage persona right now. With the special suit in place, he's kind of just trying to make sure the hair doesn't fly around every which way. With the exception of the suit, he's packed pretty light. He's not a fan of guns so that was a nope. And he's not very much a techie. So... Yeah. He's packed light. Things that maintain life light. Even that Nokia of his is locked away back on earth. Sorry Wade.

So it leaves Nick with an observation and something that is puzzling him. How long ago did Tony piece together that the bird and Nick were the same person and... when is he going to learn to say 'no' when asked to do something exceptionally stupid?

His head turns, looking curiously to see who is sitting behind Tony.

Winter Soldier has posed:
    It's surprisingly hard to refuse a summons by Stark. As much as Bucky has joked in the past that all he ever seems to do is bail out Starks, he can't refuse a call for aid from the son of someone who used to be a comrade... if not in arms, then at least in spirit. But why do these calls always happen when he's sleeping?

    Regardless, the Winter Soldier finds himself strapped into a seat of the high tech spacecraft, wondering for a moment just why he hasn't seen this in SHIELD inventory yet, and then quickly withdraws the mental process after the inevitable conclusion that the thing isn't quite finished yet. Let's not focus on the potential imminent death through to equipment malfunction. Equipment either works or it doesn't, and this piece of kit has been designed, built and is being operated by the smartest man he knows.

    Alas that this thought isn't more comforting, given that the smartest man he knows also happens to be Tony.

    But no force in this world (or, so it seems, outside of it) can remove Bucky from his favorite weapons. A BRNO PSD pistol, because who doesn't like a magnum 7mm round, and his own custom load-out long arm in 5.56 NATO. A satchel secured on the back of the seat in front of him contains a few more surprises... the most final of all surprises.

    "Stark, if you're going to do a three point landing, my back is going to hate you for at least ten minutes. Me? Probably a bit longer."

Wild Rose has posed:
     Mutants. In. SPAAAAAAAACE!

     Who would've thought it? This was not a call one Riana Mackenzie would ever have expected in a million years. When she had made her mad dash down the stairs to set off the EMP pulse some weeks ago, that had been that. There had been no word, no contact since. Life had gone on as usual. Work. Tang soo do classes. The search for a location for her own dojo. Wonderful times spent with Remy and their one-eyed, scruffy doggo, Jack. It was not as if she ever made herself unavailable or difficult to contact. It was just that, other than Remy or her student, Snake Eyes, nobody would really bother.

     She could not have been more wrong.

     One wild call out of the blue, one wild ride, and here she was. In space. At least Remy had a message waiting for him, and she'd ensured Jack would be looked after while she was gone. But this was something she had to do. After all, it had been by her hand that Stark was left without J. A. R. V. I. S., anyways. She owed it to him to see this through.

     So it was that the red-headed martial arts instructor found herself here on the shuttle, along with the rest, a collapsible version of her bo staff in hand should a weapon be needed. None of the others really looked familiar, so they each got a nod of greeting.

     Plus, her feet finally go still, and Tony has some peace in the pilot's chair.

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Looking quite uncomfortable in which is probably an extra expensive suit over which he managed to equip his quiver and bow among the plethora of gadgets, Hawkeye ain't real excited about this all. But hey, it beats shooting at cockroaches in his hole of an appartment.

Gadgets the archer doubts would be of great use, most of them probably just thingies that Tony wants to shine in order to get a better price for them.

*Man, we're just in and Shell-Head' already complainin'. It's gonna be such a drag..."

The archer looks around at the /team/, and grins, *Might be fun, too.*

Iron Man has posed:
"No worries, Jimmy! This landing is going to be textbook. Who better to fly an eight billion dollar spaceship than the guy who built it, right?"

It would be more reassuring if Tony's arms weren't shaking so much.

"SKREEEEEEEEE---"

"KLOOONG!!!!"

The sound of metal scraping metal fills the cabin, followed by the sound of metal colliding with metal. Tony holds onto the controls with stiff arms, clearly more nervous about the docking than he let on.

But after the 'Klong!', there's a 'Klutchunk!' that accompanies the shuttle's docking mechanisms latching on to the station's port. Made it after all.

As he places the shuttle in standby mode, Tony looks back at the assembled crew, his face visible behind the helmet's domed glass. There's a smile beneath his bristling mustache.

"Nailed it."

He unfastens himself from the cockpit chair, and makes his way through the small cabin to the airlock door. The display near the door reads green, so they should be able to safely enter the station...

"Air's normal... gravity's normal..."

"Here goes... be prepared for anything, ladies and gentlemen. If the Technovore is onboard, there's no telling what we might be walking into. Let's fan out, establish a perimeter around the shuttle airlock, and see what we can learn. We've got to shut it down permanently this time, preferably after I download its data so I can rebuild J.A.R.V.I.S."

First through the door, Tony holds his standard issue Stark S41 Station Defender rifle. It's low-powered enough not to rip a hole through the station's hull.

Unless he turns up the volume on it...

Getting behind some cover, his rifle pointed down the corridor, Tony does his best to look tactical. The corridor leading to the airlocks is long and narrow, not much room to maneuver. The station is in low power mode, with only emergency lighting on, leaving more shadow than glow.

Perfect place for an ambush...

"I don't see shit. But uh... welcome to Stark Station. Hope you survive the experience."

Phantasm (Drago) has posed:
Nick glances over to Clint at the mention of things being fun. "The words are promising but the tone, not so much."

As the sounds of the landing come into play, Nick glances to make sure his restraints are indeed secure. He is quiet for the duration of the landing. Looking over to the mustachioed pilot as he proclaims his victory with the 'nailed it' line.

"I'm not sure you're supposed to use the ship as a hammer though." He murmurs, from behind the helmet, undoing the restraints before starting to follow. "Hey, uh. Just in case. Just based from past interactions... Does anyone else know how to fly this thing?"

Winter Soldier has posed:
    "Right..."

    Bucky does a remarkable job of looking utterly non-plussed when metal begins to scrape metal, in a sound that, on earth, would indicate something not going quite right. But he knows next to nothing about space, so in space this might be normal. Let's give Tony the benefit of the doubt, while also looking sternly disapproving.

    Once docked, he's out of his seat so quickly it's as if he's expecting to take ground fire immediately, snatching the satchel and bringing his rifle to the ready in the space of moments, chambering the first round now that the mission is on.

    He's next out the door and double-times it to a niche, kneeling down and sighting down the corridor with Tony at his back, trusting the man clearly that much.

    "Clear to move up."

    "So, what does a nanite look like anyway? A rat? A pigeon? Cockroach?" Ehm... who brought the luddite?

Wild Rose has posed:
     Moving as silently as she can, with measured steps, Riana moves towards the door....

     ...and stops, dead in her tracks. She reaches out for Tony, in a bid to pull him back towards the doorway, her other arm out in an attempt to hold back anybody who might be moving past her. "Hold on. Something's moving around out there." Pause. "Several somethings."

     On full alert now, she slips just ahead of the group, her head cocked slightly to one side as she listens, otherwise keeping silent, to see what she can hear and further assess the situation....

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Hawkeye follows last, his bow at the ready - he'd rather be dead than use a bloody riffle - and dead he might just become. That expectation never stopped him before, and it won't today either.

Feeling more comfortable at a distance, and also having a better sense of the general surrounding, he stays behind, keeping an eye on his team mates as he positions himself, standing, at the ready, by the door. "What you get, Ri?" he asks, trying to locate anything she might have heard.

Iron Man has posed:
Stopping dead in his tracks when Riana grabs him, Tony holds up his forearm and activates the suit's holographic display. A scan commences, and Tony looks concerned behind his transparent helmet.

"You're right, Ri. I'm reading a transmission... very faint, but it looks like something is about to power up!"

Holding his forearm up in front of his face, Tony reads the infodump that's coming in through his display. Sure enough, looks like a power surge. Nearby, something begins sparking in the dark.

"W-w-w-w-welcome t-t-to S-stark Station!" A staticky, prerecorded voice suddenly cuts through the gloom. Slowly, lights begin to flicker on, revealing that the corridor houses an animatronic figure. A dapper, well-dressed animatronic figure, slightly larger than life, based on a male in his later years. Black suit, gray mustache, but with a youthful vigor that was probably a bit of an exaggeration.

"Oh crud! I forgot about dad's creepy theme park robot... this station was the last thing he was able to finish before he died, so he wanted to leave part of himself behind I guess. I usually leave his display powered off."

"Which means..."

"Does anyone else hear that?"

At the far end of the corridor, one of the stations bulkheads begins to loudly creak open.

The hand is the first thing that's visible, a spacesuit glove. Followed by the rest of the suit, including a domed transparent helmet.

A helmet with no head inside its transparent dome.

And the suit begins walking down the corridor, followed by others.

"Shit! Shit shit shit SHIT! They got into all the old suits! Don't let them get near you or you'll get infected!"

Tony quickly sets his rifle's safety to 'Off.'

Phantasm (Drago) has posed:
Nick pauses as Riana's already warning of something carrying on nearby. He sighs, taking a deep breath, shifting over. There's no scar exposed to notify of something happening but he, and the very outfit he wears changes over with him.

As stated before, Nick does not have a rifle. But he does have a very specific set of skills. Once that could prove to be quite problematic for some. He's just not sure if it applies to these. He hops up, trying to peek over the taller people to see what's going on.

Winter Soldier has posed:
    A bead is drawn on the robot even before it speaks, until the timbre of the voice gets through to Bucky. "That's..." and when Tony confirms it, the Winter Soldier shakes his head. "Damn Howard, you aged horribly."

    Now the sense of deja-vu is even stronger, but the rifle doesn't waver from its point of aim. "So anything that's a robot is a valid target, right?". If there's a response to that question, he never gets it, glancing around to look for the things Riana has picked up on, expecting contact.

    And getting it, in the form of space-suit zombies.

    Immediately, his rifle speaks, a loud -CRACK- that echoes down the corridor, shattering the domed helmet of the first suit to heave into view. Unsurprisingly, it walks on.

    "So that's what a nanite looks like?" Bucky has no eyes for what's behind him, only to the targets in front, loosing a three round burst into the chest of the nearest. Should he be firing proper jacketed rounds in what is essentially a pressurised can?

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
On the unexpectated appearance of creepy Ol' Man Stark, the archer automatically aims at the figure, but relaxes just slightly at Tony's explanation. "Figures," he mumbles under his breath. Fingers already selecting another arrow, Hawkeye aims at the closest of the suits that are slowly moving closer, ready to shoot.

Winty's shot didn't do any visible damage, this is going to be tricky. Clint glances a split-second over at Tony.

"Hey, you think they'd like a lil' bit of instant hardening polymer? I can give them some, they'd be stuck." he asks him."

Wild Rose has posed:
     With the loss of sounds that indicate life from Nick, Riana just looks over at him, shaking her head. "That's just damn creepy," she mutters. But there is no time to speak further, with the advance of the suits upon our intrepid heroes. There is a grumble, with the martial artist bringing her rifle to bear, preferring not to let those nanite-ridden suits get too close. A few shots fired, one at each suit....

     ...and hopefully at least a few of the shots connect with their designated targets!

Lex Luthor has posed:
And then, there were the sounds of energy projection fire. For Tony, it's familiar, yet not.

The blue lance of energy in the distance out of nowhere down the corridor looks almost like repulsor fire... but not.

There's a brief glimpse of something green and purple that /flies/ across the hallway from one room, before disappearing into another room, followed by yet more energy discharges.

Iron Man has posed:
"We gotta split up! Clint! Riana! I need you two to hold this position! Shoot anything that isn't us! It's our only way back home! Unless Lockjaw shows up again..."

Tony seems to think that dealing with Lockjaw would be more of a hassle than fighting a mob of advancing spacesuit zombies. And who knows? Maybe he's right.

"Birdman, you're with me! We have to get to the command section and download the station's data! So uh... summon your crows, or uh... your magic... things. We can't let them touch us!"

"And Jimmy, you already know what you've got to do..." There's an ominous tone to Tony's voice, as if he's given Bucky the most crucial assignment. Or possibly the most dangerous.

As the Empty Suits get closer to the Howard Stark animatronic, it crackles and fizzes, coming to life once again. Reaching out, it tries to grab anything nearby.

Fortunately, it's on a base, and not a mobile display...

Still, it looks pretty rabid.

Moving forward, Tony fires off a bunch of suppressing rounds in order to try and keep the Spacesuit Zombies from getting inside his personal space bubble. He's a big fan of keeping some solid distance between him and them.

On his way out the corridor's bulkhead, Tony finds himself surrounded by Quite A Lot of Technovore-Infested contraptions. Old suits, but lots of the hardware has also been repurposed, conglomerated, and otherwise turned into A Big Solid Technovore.

Fortunately, there's someone here already who's brightly-colored and can distract the monster.

"Huh. It's that thing that showed up last time the Technovore came by. What are the odds that HE'S secretly the Technovore?"

"Nah... that'd be too easy, and this isn't the 90's anymore."

Phantasm (Drago) has posed:
Getting a glimps of Riana looking back in his general direction as he drifts over to where he can see around Bucky and Clint. He tilts his head, returning a charmingly innocent look through the helmet. "What?"

Hearing the call for Birdman, he looks around before. "...Oh." He shakes his head, turning to run over to Tony, hoping up. His body flips forward, condensing smaller, suit and all to the purplish black avian Tony has seen before. Landing upon Tony's shoulder to loan out his ability to him, "Alright. 101. If You want to go through it, don't look at it. And you can still hit things. Gun might not work though."

Winter Soldier has posed:
    It's rabid. It's a valid target. Bucky puts a round through animatronic Howard's head with just the ghost of a smile that he hopes nobody can see. That may have been a long time coming, it may have been some kind of secret fantasy. At any rate, James Barnes seems to feel a whole lot better for it.

    He gives Tony a far more serious look, and nods just once. "Understood. Keep my seat warm for me, but don't hang around if you don't need to."

    Firing as he goes, like some sort of mobile turret, Bucky steps into the corridor, turns down another passage and disappears from view.

    For a few seconds, there's the continued sound of gunfire and then...

    ... Silence.

    In the access corridor, a normally sealed bulkhead panel is quietly being put back into place.

Wild Rose has posed:
     "Okay, that's even more creepy. Handy, but creepy."

     Riana grins at Nick for a moment, just shaking her head. Some things she would just never understand. But some things were a lot simpler.

     Like keeping the landing pad clear so everyone could make their escape.

     One or two of the suits get a little bit too close to Riana. Too bad for them. She lets fly with a front kick a la Sparta to send one flying away from her at considerable speed. "Okay, you wanna dance?"

     "Let's dance."

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Might as well try these fluid polymer arowheads, which releases the fluid over a large area and hardens on contact. Anything caught under that hardened polymer should be incapable of freeing itself from it. Shooting at one of the suits, it would create a nice mannequin-like. Zombie-like mannequin. Theorically, that is.

Aim. Shoot. There, let's see what happens. On contact, the arrow easily pierces the suit, and in a moment, the suit stops moving. It seems to work.

"Right, I'll stay here and mannequize these suits, I always hated suits," he grins. "Don't have many of these heads, so you better move it, Shell-Head."

Lex Luthor has posed:
A couple of the Suit Zombies suddenly crash against the wall, torn to shreds by something, before that blue energy lances through the heads of both.

Then, that green and purple Whatever is floating through the air, thrusters keeping it stable and halted as it looks to the suits... then, the helmet of the thing looks in their direction.

It's the groups first closeup of the warsuit at this range... and Tony will be able to instantly recognize a powered armor shell when he sees it.

A synthetic voice can be heard from it, "Stark. Your mistake is spreading. What are you doing about it?" The pilot asks, even as it raises a hand and the projector in his palm aims for yet more of the Technovore Zombies, keeping them back.

"Cleaning up your mess was not on my schedule."

Iron Man has posed:
Looking at the floating green and purple, vaguely man-shaped powersuit, Tony's mustache bristles while his eyebrow arches. Both are easily visible through his transparent helmet, as he's not wearing any powersuit of his own.

"Huh. I thought my dad only left ONE message for me here... but don't worry Howard-Bot, I'm going to make sure to clean up after myself..."

The slightly queasy feeling of intangibility sets over Tony's Spacesuit, and then he's off!

Through the swarm, through any remaining Empty Suits, past the Big Growing Technovore-Bot, and through the next bulkhead. Immediately he runs a scan, and passes on the info to the Rest Of The Team.

"The Technovore swarm apparently hasn't managed to infect the command section yet, which is just awesome. Give me two shakes of a martini and I'll be right back."

Off the mike, he mutters to himself. "I hope..."

The Horde of Empty Spacesuits continues to advance. However, they've been thinned dramatically. And as a Surprise Bonus, the suits that are polymerized seem to become incapable of infecting anyone else with Technovore Swarm. Apparently it gums them up too bad, though whether that's permanent remains to be seen (not likely).

Back in the command center, Tony pulls opens a panel on his hardsuit's chest, and pulls out something that looks kind of like a solid black shard of... some kind of rock, maybe? Whatever it is, it looks like a spike.

Approaching the command center's control station, a glowing filament extends out of his arm and snakes its way to the computer.

"Unphase me, Birdman. I'm gonna need to get tactile up in here."

The filament jams into the computer, powering it up and turning it on.

All through the station, the Technovore Swarm takes notice and utters a migraine-causing scream. The station is coming back online!

Lights flicker, then glow solidly.

Everything is up and running.

But the Technovore Swarm is locked out of the Control Station.

"Any minute now...

Phantasm (Drago) has posed:
The bird looks down to Tony, not hopping off. "Uh, you can still interact with things. It's just it's harder to jump through things when you're looking right at it." But still, he hops off, giving Tony his senses back. Giving a glance towards the door.

Winter Soldier has posed:
    Getting somewhere unobserved is an art. A black art, often, in that there's few legitimate reasons to learn it. There's being sneaky, there's being stealthy, and then there's being a ghost. Right now, Bucky is being a particularly sneaky ghost. Step one, make sure even your team doesn't know what route you're going to be taking.

    Through the crawlspaces the Winter Soldier ventures, rifle strapped tightly to his chest to stop it from snagging on anything as he squeezes his way through cable runs, along important looking pipes and convection stacks twice the height of a man. On and on, relentlessly, stopping whenever any sound whatsoever filters through into his hidden domain.

    Fingers encased in flexible gloves grasp the edges of the bulkhead and lower it a fraction, slowly, allowing Bucky to look into the room he's aiming to breach. A slow scan, with held breath, looking for anything that might be on guard or seeking intruders. At length, the panel is lowered slowly to the ground, and the Winter Soldier drops lithely to the floor (in a three point hero landing, despite his comments to Tony earlier) making not so much as a whisper of a sound. A final glance around, and then the grin.

    Two quick blips on the comm net, a signal unintelligible to anyone but Tony. He's in.

Wild Rose has posed:
     Riana just shakes her head. "The fuck... that's just weird." Dropping to the ground in a crouch, one leg sweeps out to catch the ankles of another zombie suit as it approaches, sweeping to the side and hopefully throwing it off balance.

     "You guys might wanna hurry, they REALLY don't want us leaving here!"

     At least her staff wasn't technology. Technically speaking. Maybe they'd leave that alone. She comes up from her crouch, right in the middle of the area near the landing pad, something held in her right hand. A flick of her thumb, and it extends out a few feet in either direction to form a thin, light, but very strong bo staff.

     This could either go very well, or very badly....

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Aim. Shoot. Again... then oh shit. Hawkeye groans as he just exhausted the last of the polymer arrowheadss. Finger hits another button, and yet another arrow is ready.

Noticing Riana doing a great job, he grins and warns her, "Keep your head down a sec, that bolo should take care of a couple of them."

The arrow flies right between a couple of non-yet-mannequized suits, the metallic rope quickly tightening around them. Falling on the floor, they won't be a direct threat for now.

Lex Luthor has posed:
"Classic deflection. At least he's consistant." The synthetic voice half notes, half gripes, before he starts floating back down the corridor, keeping out of Technovore Zombie hands. All the while, those palm projectors continue to batter the suits into so much compressed paste.

"This is like stomping on ants." The voice grumbles. Then, the thrusters all over ramp up power and the suit charges down the corridor, heading deeper into the station, all the while firing off energy blasts at anything Techvore Zombie related.

"Got to be a source for these things..."

Iron Man has posed:
As if in answer to Lex's prayers, something More Challenging appears. The Big Technovore Bot has finally coalesced enough technological matter to be an imposing, legitimately scary-looking threat. From blasters to coffee makers, it's absorbing anything that it can find use for, and digesting anything useless into its base components to add to its bulk.

Within moments, the coalesced Technovore will be large enough to break free from the station.

But right now it's got its cameras trained on Lex. It's cameras and its blasters. And it quickly starts using both.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Technovore is a fairly capable combatant, especially with its shapeshifting abilities and adjustable mass.

"If the Technovore gets much bigger it might be able to survive in space long enough to infect Earth! But now that I've got access to the panel I'll be able to shut it down for good!"

The Giant Technovore screams, and the suits suddenly fall empty.

Apparently the rest of the Technovore Swarm is no longer interested in anything else, and is focused solely on stopping... whatever it is that Tony's about to type in, or... code?

Tapping away at the console, still jacked in via the glowing cable, Tony seems to be typing/coding quite a bit. The cable dumps code into the computer system, while Tony edits it almost faster than the human eye can follow.

Or is it the other way around?

The bulkhead suddenly gets smashed down, and there is the bulk of the Technovore Swarm, ready to peel the suit and the flesh off of Tony like a plague of cybernetic locusts.

But they don't attack Tony directly. Instead, they pour into the computer system, thinking logically that this will fix their problem more efficiently.

"Classic Misdirection! Get ready to book it, everyone! They took the bait!"

Tony slams the black spike into the computer screen, a spray of sparks showering around him.

All through the station, the Technovore screams.

"Dump it, Bucky! And book it back to the shuttle! I'm right behind... everyone!"

Phantasm (Drago) has posed:
With Tony finishing up his task and turning around, the raven's three foot wingspan extends. Flying up, he sets back on Tony's shoulder so they can just run back without any barriers. FLY! FLY! ... Well, more run without bothering with doors. But Move quickly now!

Winter Soldier has posed:
    With nobody looking like they're going to come breaking down the door, Bucky moves as swiftly as he can, assessing the room for ... something. Honestly, his instructions were vague at this particular point, and being in a room surrounded by high tech gadgetry that looks even more advanced than the occasional sci-fi comics he read in the late thirties makes him feel particularly confused. But one part of the job is simple enough, and that's one that he can do blindfolded. Literally.

    The target, at least, is perfectly obvious. A large sphere surrounded by thick cables and covered in enough dire warnings to make even licensed engineers afraid to get too close to it. But Bucky isn't a licensed engineer, and deploys the power of ignorance to do what needs to be done. From the satchel come several brown, malleable packages, one after the other. With some care, they are attached through the simple expedient of adhesive to the shell of the sphere, connected electrically to a single power source with plugs that look like they can survive being driven over by a tank.

    And it's the memory of such an incident that gives James his inspiration for how to do this (relatively) safely. And that's using a trick he hasn't used in decades, so old, so classic that it was an old trick even when Bucky was still young. The fancy electronic switch it dumped for a simple pull ring switch, and a length of strong steel cable, one end of which is attached to the ring, the other to a solid looking bracket near the exit door. It's painted a solid red, and clearly intended for emergency use.

    Taking a final look at his handiwork, Bucky hurries to the bulkhead door, steps through and closes it behind him, using the manual locking wheel to bolt it shut. With yet another smile, he rips the safety cover off the emergency section release panel, and pulls the solid looking lever inside.

    Explosive bolts fire, atmosphere vents explosively from the module, hurtling it back from the station. The power flickers. Lights go out. Orbital mechanics do the rest. As it lags behind, it slows, and pulls further from the station. The steel cable spools out, slowly...

    "On my way back, hang on to something."

    The cable reaches the end of its play. The ring is pulled from the switch. The circuit completes.

    "Quote the raven, power core."

    A bright light grows in space as the plastic explosives detonate, breaching the station core's shielding and shattering the containment vessel. In an instant, the core is vaporized.

    On earth, for a moment, a bright new star appears in the night sky.

Wild Rose has posed:
     With the detonation of the station's core, and whatever trickery Tony's pulling (eat your heart out, Loki!), the techno-zombies that had been converging on the landing zone took off to go do their thing elsewhere, leaving Riana in a three-point crouch,, with her left hand on the ground, and her right extended to the side holding her bo staff, having just been about to face one of the zombies.

     "The hell...?"

     Well, she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth! Rising to her feet, she flicks her thumb on the side of her staff, and it collapses back down to just barely a foot in length.

     "We're all clear, kids! Now let's blow this thing and go home!"

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
You won't have to tell him twice! Waiting to see his teammates make it back to the shuttle, Hawkeye gets ready to call it a night. Oh what a night. He glances one more time at one of the mannequized-suits, as if hesitating for a second. Grinning, he shakes his head. Naw.

The sudden explosion convinces him that now is time to run back into the shuttle. Although at this time, the team's safety is far from being certainty in his mind, as Tony will probably be /piloting/ again.

Lex Luthor has posed:
More like nightmares.

"I was just going to take one of them..." The voice has a bit of a smile to it, "but a central swarm? Even better."

Somewhere, off in the distance to the others, the sounds of massive amounts of energy being discharged can be heard as the warsuit engages the gigantic swarm bot at near point blank range, his shield gauntlet activating as he uses it to deflect any attempts to attack him directly.

Then, the power goes out... giving Lex a perfect opportunity he briefly considered coming up here, discarded as very unlikely to be a good idea... but now was possible.

A containment vessel plugged onto his back opens, and with a quick on-off activation of his plasma blade, cuts off a small sample of the bot nanites, before he flies them into the vessel, and seals it.

One sample of Technovore, ready for countermeasure testing.

"Time to be deactivated." The voice coldly notes as the suit flies off in the direction of the airlock he came in through...

Iron Man has posed:
Putting the Black Shard back into his armor panel, and patting it gently, Stark smiles beneath his slightly unkempt mustache.

"Don't worry, buddy. I'm going to get you ba-AAACK! There goes the gravity!"

Tony was trying to spring in his hardsuit, but that suddenly becomes impossible as the power to the station gets cut. But he only bicycle kicks in the air for a few seconds before magnetizing his boots. Thank goodness for that feature.

It cost extra.

Still sprinting, Tony realizes with a sudden sinking feeling that he's not going to be able to make it in time to catch the shuttle before the airlocks backups fail.

"Wait a minute? The futz am I running for? I have a jetpack!"

Boots demagnetized. Thrusters engaged!

He nearly slams into the wall, quickly enters the airlock's code, and enters the ship. It's the work of only a few seconds for him to get in his seat, and get strapped in.

Strange rays start beaming throughout the shuttle's cabin, almost as if zapping everyone inside. However, it doesn't actually go beneath the surface of the armor.

"Shuttle says we're all clear of Technovore infection! Let's book it, Avengers!"

"And Nick."

"And Riana."

"And... hey! Where did that green and purple guy go?"

As everyone boards, and reads clear of infection, the shuttle doors seal tight, and the Backup Sequence begins!

"SKKKRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!"

Don't worry, he'll get the hang of it before the planetary reentry...

Phantasm (Drago) has posed:
Hearing the comment over the comm, the raven's beak twists into a big grin. "How Poe-etic."

Once Tony is safely inside the vehicle, the bird hopes off, shifting back to the space suited form of Nick. Stretching his arms out, he gives a yawn, turning before flopping back into his designated seat and buckling in. Well, he's definitely earned that suit.

He grimaces as the sounds bother even him and glances back to Riana momentarily.

The ride back is mostly free of commentary from him as he eventually falls asleep.

Wild Rose has posed:
     "Ha. Not an Avenger. But flattered to be included in the same sentence." Riana snaps a quick two-fingered salute to Tony and the rest as they rocket away from the station. Somehow, they came. They saw. They kicked the technovore's collective ass.

     Glancing over at Nick, she laughs. "That's still creepy. Especially since I can hear their tell-tale hearts beating when I focus."

     This was going to make one hell of a story to tell Remy when she got back home....

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
More nervous now, really, that Tony is pilotting, Clint buckles up. Now is really the stressing part, but man, was it worth it! But there's a nagging question in his mind. Yeah, there was a bomb, duh. But what really happened in there, with that computer?

The archer stretches his legs, yawning, then asks:

"So, Shell-Head, what exactly did you do in there? Ask 'em for a date?!"

Lex Luthor has posed:
The airlock... simply battered down. This station is about to be annihilated, no need to be subtle. The module left within locks into place with shifting parts reforming onto the suit, and Lex batters his way /out/ of the outer airlock, no doubt venting most of the station in the process.

Thrusters engage as Lex uses his sensor suite and his own mind to calculate the exact requirement of what he's about to do. It doesn't take long. He had, after all, made all the calculations beforehand when he had made up his mind to use his orbital flight module for the warsuit.

He flies to the exact position against the station he needs... and activates his strength amplifier to max, and his thrusters are programmed for the series of adjustments required.

Within minutes, the stations orbit will destabilize enough to start moving out of orbit with a trajectory to make it look like the power core detonation was at fault.

Within hours, the station itself will re-enter the atmosphere... with Lex right behind it, using it and the space flight module he's using as a heat shield.