2365/Gnome Cometh, Redux

Gnome Cometh, Redux
Date of Scene:	07 September 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Voodoo, Grace Choi, Aqualad, Booster Gold

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Voodoo has posed:
Not currently super-secret-agenting, Priscilla is in the Village looking for a special bookstore she heard about from a friend several years ago. Supposedly the place has, sprinkled amongst its many volumes, books and trinkets that contain special knowledge. Some of it may be magical, but all of it is precious. And since Priscilla now knows someone who apparently loves to read and learn - because Priss hates reading - it's worth stopping by to see if she can find the place and something that person would appreciate.

The tall, mocha-skinned woman with long ringlets of ebony hair and deep purple eyes is dressed casually, but not quite summery; she has even added a purple-trimmed black leather biker's jacket, since she just parked her motorcycle two blocks away. Now, where is that store?

Grace Choi has posed:
    It was, probably, a good thing that Grace was so large. Large enough to maybe make people who'd otherwise toss a rib her way about 'where's the tiger' from the photo in the newspaper or something of that nature not do it. Which is probably safer for those people who would rib her, that way, she wouldn't have to threaten them. But, large and, well, in charge (at least of her own affairs) Grace hasn't left to head back to Metropolis, yet. No doubt the regulars in Chaney's will want to hear the story. And, maybe that, in part, is why Grace called and asked for another couple vacation days. But, one thing the village does sport is some fine stores that sell craft beer. And that, presently, is exactly what Grace is drinking right now, one of the bottles opened, in one hand. A small case that used to be a six-pack, and is now five, in her opposite hand.
    She slows a bit, to consider a store, and her eyes find Priss. She recognizes Priss. She's seen Priss, before. At a certain high end club.
    No doubt Priss has also seen Grace. Grace is not really one who blends into a crowd.

Aqualad has posed:
Kaldur's lost.

It's the New York public transportation system at its best; take the F train to 45, and then Station 7 will run you the length of the block over to Blue Line.

Except Fs and Es look a lot alike to an Atlantean, and someone colorblind had aimed him at the Purple Route instead of the Blue.

So Kaldur finds himself a little confused and turned around in the middle of a city of millions, with city blocks that take ten minutes to traverse, and desperately trying to make heads or tails of the phone in his hands. As luck would have it, he's standing quite close to the entrance to Priss' bookstore, and his brow is furrowed heavily in frustrated contemplation.

Voodoo has posed:
Priscilla does not exactly blend in, either. That's probably why Grace can recognize her; Priss is most definitely not dressed at all the way she would have been around MysteriX, after all. In fact, Priss would be a little impressed that Grace recognizes her with her clothes on; a lot of customers wouldn't.

Spotting the towering woman, Priss pauses in her perusal of storefronts and turns, momentarily managing to glance right past Kaldur (he's not as tall) as she says, "Hi. You're ... Grace, right?" Yep, Priss heard Grace's name mentioned, too.

Then Priss picks up Kaldur. As soon as she registers his appearance she wonders how she missed hi the first time; but the honest truth is she recognized him more because of the feeling of that unique - to her - Atlantean mind. Priss takes a step back, glances at the face, and smiles. "Wow. Not a face I expected to see again. Kaldur, right? Watery?" she inquires, curiously. She did remember right, didn't she?

And then Priscilla glances behind her - she got bumped - and spots the store entrance. "There it is!"

Meanwhile, down the street a large box truck pulls into three parking spaces at the side of the road, hazard lights blinking. Inside, a trenchcoat-wearing figure turns towards the glowing screen mounted on the dashboard. "The signal is strong. I am activating the unit. The target lock should be perfect."

A growling voice, more physical vibration than actual sound, snarls back, "See to it this time, Gnome. The Cabal is paying you quite handsomely. I want the Sightchild! Alive, if possible. Dead, if necessary. Fail me, and they may never find your ashes!"

Grace Choi has posed:
    "Yeah. Seen you around." Grace may be a woman who always says what's on her mind, but, she at least has a little bit of tact. She's not going to call Priss out on being an exotic dancer in the middle of a Manthattan street. Priss' choice, Priss' life. Not Grace's. "Anything special bring you up here, from Metropolis? I've just been up, visiting friends," she admits.
    Then, of course, because Priss is talking to the man, she looks towards Kaldur. The 'watery' comment gets a slightly confused look from her, but she nods to Kaldur nevertheless, sizing the man up. Handsome, check. Atheletic, check. "Hey," Grace says, by way of greeting to Kaldur, not noticing the box truck yet.

Aqualad has posed:
Kaldur, much like Priss, has that low-level telepathy; when she 'senses' him, the subtle dialogue of minds alerts him to her awareness and their eyes meet almost simultaneously.

He looks at Priss, then something like a smile flashes across his stern features. Brief, but sincere. "Ah-- yes, I remember you as well," he assures the dancer, his elocution carefully precise and heavy with a strange accent. "Priss, I believe. We had ... bar-be-cue," he says, trying to smooth out the words so he sounds a little less tourist-y. "A fortunate happenstance meeting you, in a city of this size."

He offers Priss a handshake, because that's what surfacers do, and Grace would spot the subtle webbing between his fingers. Combined with the narrow gills just above his collarbone, tucked into the high neck of his leather jacket, he's definitely not baseline human.

He turns to regard Grace with an up and down. Striking as she is, he's less lingering on her features and more checking her for concealed weapons and knuckle calluses. Definitely a fighter, Kaldur is. But he inclines his head to Grace in a practiced half bow, and offers her a hand as well. "Good day to you," he greets her. "Are you a friend of Priss'?"

Voodoo has posed:
"I've seen you, too, at the Club." Which still doesn't say to anyone on the street that Priscilla takes her clothes off for money. But she really doesn't care who knows; she was never ashamed of her work. She just didn't flaunt it too much in folks' faces because it made them uncomfortable.

It's the empath thing.

"Sorry. Grace, this is Kaldur. Kaldur, this is Grace. Cool to see you both again." Priscilla offers, grinning impishly.

However, while the three are getting to know one another, the Gnome puts his plan into action. "Activate the reactor and dump the charge directly into the core." The figure in the trenchcoat climbs out of the truck on the sidewalk side and comes around to the back of the van, whose back is lowering its ramp to the ground. There are some whirrs and thumps from the back of the truck. Then the handles spin and the back doors swing wide open, without Gnome even touching them. Instead, he is using a sort of multi-joystick system hanging around his neck, activating buttons and such.

Then loud metal-crunching steps resound, rapidly, as a huge spider-like technological exoskeleton scampers down the ramp. Dangling inside the exoframe is an odd, twisted biomass of some sort, and the whole frame is visibly festooned in various weapons.

This cannot be good.

Grace Choi has posed:
    If Grace notices the webbed hands, or the gills? She doesn't call attention to it. Instead, she offers Kaldur her hand, her own - curiously - uncalloused. But, despite her smooth skin, the tattoos, the way she's dressed, even the way she carries herself - they all speak to someone that knows the game that Grace is, indeed, a fighter. No weapons on her. Not today. The only weapon she does have was left at home. Too bad, too, because ...

    ... "Are you #*$&ing with me right now?" Grace asks, turning her head at the metal-crunching sound. She doesn't look afraid. She looks -- annoyed? Irritated. Pissed off. Disgruntled. Disbelieving. Ticked. Perturbed. Angry. Among others.
    "Are you -seriously- #*$*ing me right now?"
    Grace seems to forget that Priss, and Kaldur are there. She begins stalking, straight towards the huge, weapon-infested, biomass-infused, spidery death machine of metal. "No. No. No. No." She points at the thing. "You're getting your scrappy metal @*$& back into the #*$&*ing van right #*$&ing now or I am going to #*$$ing #*$&$ you and wrap that #*$&ing thing into a #*$$*ing pretzel and shove it down someone's #*$&ing throat after I rip out their spleen and stuff it up their nose."
    She stands, Vanguard, between the metal monstrosity, and the people on the street, along the sidewalks. Pointing. Infuriated. "So. Get moving."

    Despite this, Grace is not stupid. Oh, she's pissed. Very much so. But she knows the thing -probably= is going to open fire on her. Her muscles are tensed, and ready to dodge at the first twitch of any of those weapons. "You have until the count of #*$* you. I'd suggest you get going."

Aqualad has posed:
Kaldur turns to look at the sound of crunching steel, with a total lack of expression on his features. Cool as a cucumber, this one, and he's about to step forward to intercept the beast ahead of the women--

--but Grace is already charging ahead, swearing up a sulferous storm as she moves to interdict the big monster. Kaldur reaches his hands under his jacket, putting fingertips against the bone-white handles of the Atlantean weapons under his leather jacket.

"She is a courageous one," Kaldur comments, watching the exoskeletal monster moving into position.

Just in case Grace turns out to be more bluff than buff, he puts himself in front of Priss.

Voodoo has posed:
Priscilla is a bit of a potty mouth, too. "F$ck. No weapons. Again." She glances at Kaldur, and then watches him watching Grace, unable to help herself as she smiles at the other woman's sheer chutzpah. She remembers the last time she met Kaldur, in the aftermath of the attack by something in many ways similar to the thing she can see down the block. And again, she has none of her weapons.

"Khaldur, I would take it as a personal favor if you would help Grace? Hopefully you can help blunt that thing's attacks." Priss offers. This time, she's not trying to hide her powers or pretend she has none. She's going to face this ... unarmed. Damnit.

"I'll take care of the civilians." the mulatto dancer offers, as she watches the other two do their work. Meanwhile, she reaches out with her empathy and telepathy, and starts projecting. Somewhere up in Westchester, a bald man in a wheelchair is likely clutching his skull in agony, wondering where the psychic hurricaine came from. ~// "Run away from here. Now. Go. It is not safe here. Take your friends, help those who need it. Get away. Get to safety. GO!" //~

The not-entirely-robotic construct apparently does not respect half-Amazons. More's the pity for it, probably, but it does not slow or stop as it comes down to the concrete and asphalt, weapons systems clearly tracking on Grace. Beam lasers fire, slicing across where her feet stand and around her waist level. This is followed by the hiss-crack launch of several small missiles, each about the size of a large cigar, each packing the punch of a full-sized sidewinder missile. And then the thing starts vibrating at teeth-aching frequencies, as various blades start whirring and spinning.

And the thing starts making its way in a straight line towards Priscilla. It's a pattern Kaldur would likely recognize.

Grace Choi has posed:
    By the time those lasers are moving to focus and the slight 'whir' of them begins, Grace is no longer standing where she was standing. Grace is big. Damn big. True. But she's also fast. She is no Flash. She is no Quicksilver. But she's far more reactive than any normal human ever could be, leaving the lasers to carve into asphalt instead.
    .. and then there's missles.

    ... "...shit."

    There's really very little time to act. So Grace does the only thing she can do. She half-rolls down, lowering her body height and with her bare fingers pries up the manhole cover, and discus throws it directly at those missles. Hopefully, it'll hit one of them, and there'll be a chain reaction. It's what she's counting on.
    Just like she's counting on the explosion to not be so bad it kills her, or Kaldur, or Priss. Or anyone else.

Aqualad has posed:
Kaldur brings his water bearers up in front of him in a cross-bladed shell. He rips water from every nearby source; a firehydrant snaps open, coffee cups blow open, and a public fountain bursts at the dispenser. He gathers it all into a three-quarter sphere around him and Priscilla, but the water is harder than cold steel despite flowing translucence.

What missiles remain batter against the shell, harming nothing but eardrums. The water slips away, reforming into a pair of short, wide-bladed machetes, and Kaldur launches forward to help Grace at Priss' suggestion.

He flings one blade down low while the other flies high, reforming into a buckler to protect his head; the water splatters out in front of the beast in a fifteen foot wide pool, and immediately turns hard and slick as ice. Seems he's learned his lesson from his first fight about denying the big machine mobility.

Voodoo has posed:
That bad guy in Westchester? Hating life. Seriously. But despite it all, it's a good thing. Because all of those civilians turn and run away. They even help each other; no trampling one another, no pushing and shoving. They all turn, grab up those of themselves they can tell won't move quickly enough, and they flee.

While all of this happens? Priscilla stands stock still, hands clenched at her sides, purple eyes glowing with inner light as she projects her will, her thoughts, her feelings outward in waves, compelling the others to go. There's enough force to it that it tugs gently at the minds of her comrades. But she has intentionally excluded them, so it's just a light tug, not waves of compulsion.

The missiles launched are, thankfully, intercepted by the flung discus of steel, which is shredded into lethal shrapnel in every direction, shredding cars and buildings and would shred flesh of the people had not fled. Grace might well not fare so hot. But it won't kill her. Just probably piss her off more.

Did Grace just turn a little green?

The other missiles impact on the watery shell Khaldur created, and their explosions are swallowed up safely. Thank goodness.

The huge machine's pointed spider-like legs punch right into and partially through the ice Khaldur has created, as it lumbers forward, buzzing chainsaw- and circular-saw- -like blades sweeping at those daring to put themselves in its way, swinging with dozens of tons of force. Whether Grace will realize it or not, Khaldur will recognize this as merely the 'get through the obstacles' moves, as a preamble to focusing again on the woman he left behind - because she told him to do it.

Grace Choi has posed:
    Grace had, really, barely healed -- if fully healed -- from getting slammed with one of those Intergang weapons. Her back is still somewhat sore. And now, in her temple, across one of her cheeks, several pieces embedded into her chest, thighs, sharpnel from the sewer grate has shredded both clothing, and flesh. Blood begins to stain, quickly. And if Grace is turning green? She's too busy seeing red to notice. Coincidentally, Gnome is about to get a Christmas Present from Grace to coincide with those colors.
    After the shrapnel causes her to stumble, to bleed, to snarl in pain as she pulls out a piece in her thigh and throws it to the ground, she cracks her knuckles.
    She then starts to move -- and as the spidery death machine is marching to Kaldur?
    Grace takes the moment to recover some, ... in the form of expressing how she REALLY feels about The Gnome. The large delivery truck that the spider crawled out of is tromped towards. it is picked up, over Grace's shoulders.
    "Hey! #*$$face. Got a present for you!" Grace calls.
    That's about all the warning Kaldur and Priss may get, though Grace is taking an angle that the thrown trajectory of the truck won't impact either of the other two. But, thrown it is. Hard. A ton or two of steel, hurtled at the metal monstrosity. Physics at it's best.
    "Guess since you won't go in yourself, I'll just stuff you back in."

Booster Gold has posed:
Kaldur moves with swift assurance. It's certainly superhuman-- no mortal is that agile and deft-- but he has that /certainty/ of motion that only soldiers and supreme athletes can attain.

He vaults over a car with a kick of his foot, clearing the debris on the ground, and breaks into a low, fast sprint as Grace hurls steel and fury at the big monster. She's an able distraction, and Kaldur's encountered one of these big exoskeletons before.

He emerges around a van and lashes out with his water bearer, forming the blade into a long, seeking whip that lashes past the exoskeleton's crude armor and crawls inside with a thousand grasping fingers, trying to attack the beast controlling the giant mechanical monster.

Voodoo has posed:
When the intermediary targets manage to avoid the exoframe's lethal swipes with those blades, the unit redirects itself, no longer impeded, and charges rapidly if choppily across the street towards where Priscilla still stands, eyes glowing, mostly unseeing, guiding - psionically pushing - all of the citizens away from this trouble. She can hear it coming; but her job is their safety in this situation, and so she keeps it up to the last possible moment ...

As such, Priscilla is really saved from being sliced apart by some of those dangerous weapon arms only by the timely intervention of a hurled box truck, slamming down over it, interfering with its movements and hampering its visibility. Priss is thrown back by the impact, tumbling away, as her contact with all of those minds is severed. On the Astral plane, it's a sharp explosive report, a shock atop the staggering noise of her prior activities. There may well be nosebleeds.

The exoframe rips and shreds its way out of the frame of the truck in reasonably short order, and then its sensors sweep the area, finding its target again and refocusing, scampering heavily towards Priscilla once more.

Kaldur's watery tendrils do not register to the exoframe as a threat, and elicit no response. With his care and talent, he is able to direct those tendrils quite effectively, swiveling around the various bits of machinery, hydraulics, panels, hinges, wires and tubes and transfers. And there, at the heart of the spider-like monstrosity, those tendrils can indeed find the sort of grotesque, almost ape-like organism that has literally been fused to the exoframe - or grown around it. Controlling it. Tubes pass in and out, the biological interfaced with the electronic and the mechanical. This line is cut, and tissues are no longer infused with nutrients. This tube is unplugged, and waste products are no longer being passed out to the external filtration systems. Another, and some of the sensors, still quite functional, are now useless, their feedback no longer reaching the pilot.

The robot stops its advance as it now straddles overtop Priscilla's fallen form. Additional armature attachments deploy along its belly, reaching down to seize the fallen woman and pull her up inside its frame.

Grace Choi has posed:
    The box truck, of course, was mostly a delay tactic. To buy Grace time. Time. Time to run towards the exoskeleton while it's attention was on Priss. Time, to grab one of those legs of the spider-like entity of an exoskeleton. "Hey!" Grace calls.
    "You think I'm done with you? I #*$$ing told you..."
    She yanks the thing back, hard. Viciously so.
    "...to..."
    She twists that leg, hard, her lips twisted with effort, as she works to literally rip the leg off the thing, completely.
    "...get. The #*$* ..."
    And, she wrenches hard the opposite way, until the leg pries off, and it's in her hands.
    "...out."

    Grace turns the leg around, swiftly, and using the leg as a weapon, slams the pointed tip of the spider-like creatures leg into it's center core with brutal, deadly force. Force enough to catch an airplane. Force enough to make her point known.

Booster Gold has posed:
Later, on reflection, Grace and Kaldur might discuss the synchronicity of their movements. It's a beautiful thing to a martial expert; she goes high, him low; him on attack, her on the feint. They make a marvelously effective team.

So when Grace grabs at the beast's legs, Kaldur rushes underneath-- trusting the mighty Amazon to hold it aloft and not crush them both-- and slams his short, choppy machete into the heart of the exoskeleton. The strength of water is not that it is powerful, but that it can reach everywhere, and with deadly focus Kaldur wriggles and forces the blade of his water bearer into the heart of the machine until he finds the actuators that are holding Priscilla hostage.

With a grunt and a powerful twist of his hips, Kaldur 'grips' the guts of the machine and rips them out as if he were disembowling it, severing hydraulics and lugnuts alike as Grace works to 'kill' the tortured beast within.

Voodoo has posed:
The metal frame of the exoskeleton is very strong - exceptionally so - but it still has joints and moving parts. There are weaknesses that can be exploited, with hard work and intent. And it seems Grace Choi has the strength, the will, and the intent. Not to mention the desire to spear the thing with its own dismembered leg.

There might be a splort of some white creamy juice when that hits. It does not smell pleasant. At all.

However, sound localization and the incoming leg are enough for the slightly blinded exoframe to locate Grace. And to do so at point blank range. This is likely to be unpleasant, as the buzzsaw arms and rocket launchers and laser canons converge.

Priscilla comes to and finds herself trapped up inside the creature, mostly blinde, and not able to move much at all. She is just starting to scream and really struggle when she feels several sharp pinches. And then darkness descends. Kahldur would feel the presence of her mind dim considerably, almost disappearing into unconsciousness.

Kaldur's efforts manage to sever several connections, creating new problems. A few of the arms holding Priss in place sag, and then start to uncoil themselves to drag along the ground, as the exoframe engages movement to bring more weapons systems to bear on Grace. It's quite a chaotic mess.

Grace Choi has posed:
    As the multiple weapons, upfront blades and buzzsaws, and long distance weapons of lasers and missles all seek to converge on her, Grace realizes she's in a heap of a mess of trouble. The sort of mess that makes the turmoil and feud of the Hatfields and McCoy's look like a formal dinner party in the Queen's Palace in Great Britain by comparison.
    She has one option. And, she need do it fast. The leg is no longer used as a spear to slam into the center of the great mechanical work. Now? Now it's used as a baseball bat, literally. As the weapons converge on her, she begins to rapidly smash the improvised leg-weapon into the mess of weapons, as hard, and as fast as she can. Desperately. Feverishly. Because that? That's going to hurt. And she's far too close to run.

Booster Gold has posed:
Kaldur works as swiftly as he can, too, sensing the monstrous machine-hybrid churning and squealing protest. He jams the blade of his Water Bearer deeper and deeper, the weapon half sword, half channel for water to flow into the heart of the beastly exoskeleton. Grace is close enough to strike hard and fast, and between the strong Amazon and the bulk of the machine, Kaldur trusts she can ablate the worst of the impacts.

But /Priss/ is quite soft and vulnerable to such weapons, and it is for her that he fights and scrapes. Seeing a pnematic line, Kaldur reaches into the heart of the machine and rips out an actuating cylinder the size of his fist, tossing it on the ground with a spray of yellow hydraulic fluid.

"Priss! Priss, do not fade!" he shouts at the woman, reinforcing it telepathically. "Stay alert!"

Voodoo has posed:
The baseball bat solution is, believe it or not, not the worst thing to try in this situation. The crowds have fled, and the area is largely civilian-safe. Not perfect, mind, but safe enough that lasers can slice trenches in asphalt without doing irreparable human harm. There will be some power lines and water mains that may need patching, but that's all doable. The rockets that fire off are going to end up making some very unhappy car insurance companies. Grace's left foot is going to be very upset for a bit, as there's a very heavy, very sharp spider-pincher that ends up driven into her boot. And unfortunately Grace gets peppered with more shrapnel. But at least for the moment, she has managed to avoid worse.

Granted, half the block now looks like an active war zone.

Kaldur can catch the sense that Priscilla did hear him, and she's trying to struggle. But frankly, the drug load is in place, and there's just not a lot she can do. OK, truth is, she could potentially speed up her healing metabolism. But she has only done that like twice, and both times with a lot of meditation. She just can't seem to get that going.

Kaldur's efforts create more havok, and two more of the underlegs stutter and slowly fall away, leaving Priscilla dangling a bit, no longer held firmly against the spider-shaped exoframe's central torso.

But then several large cylindrical shapes deploy out of the exoframe, and blasts of heat and foul smells emanate from them, along with huffing, popping sounds ...

Grace Choi has posed:
    Oh, look. Another leg. This one? Embedded in her foot. Grace snarls in pain, falls onto one knee. And then she's grabbing that leg. She is grabbing that leg, and she is pushing. Pushing up ...
    ... and then the jet engines start to come out. At first, Grace has no idea what they are, and she begins to take grip of the leg as if she's either going to up-end the thing or twist it off, use it as leverage to start a serious curb-stomping can of whoop @$$ on it.
    "... ... ..."
    Suddenly Grace has the feeling like she's in some kind of legendary fight that the Avengers are always touted as fighting as she realizes by the smell of fuel, and the shape of those cylinders that are descending that they're not anything good.
    "Fine."

    Grace pulls her injured body up, swiftly, sharply, using the leg she'd been gripping as leverage to propel herself up, onto the machine proper. As she sails up into the air, she punches, hard, into the center of the machine to pierce metal, glass, or whatever the hell is inside there, because she knows she's going to probably be in for a ride. Feet try to find a foothold on a ledge, a leg, anything.
    It's not the best idea Grace has ever had. But then, Grace is a very reactive fighter, going on instinct, impulse. Hopefully ... this isn't one of those times it doesn't pay off. A mistake? Would be bad.

Booster Gold has posed:
"Careful!" Kaldur barks at Grace-- while she's savagely dismantling the big exoskeleton, he's trying to rescue Priss. Atlanteans are fairly strong, moreso than humans by a fair measure-- but Grace is /mighty/, and she's powered by rage and indignation.

Sensing Grace's temper might be getting the better of her, Kaldur works as fast as he can. A water bearer in one hand is reshaped into a sharpened hook, the 'blade' nearly a single molecule wide thanks to the Atlantean magitek powering it. He guts the machine like he's harvesting organs from a shark, moving fast and efficiently and ripping away detritus with his free hand. Priscilla is his goal; the dark-skinned blonde works with fevershi efficiency, until he finds the last hydraulic compressor and rips it open.

"Ground it!" he shouts at Grace. "We cannot let it fly!"

Voodoo has posed:
The engines that were deployed cough and then sparks to ignite, ramping up intensely as they burn to launch and take off. But Grace and Kaldur have done their job, their damage, and added imbalance and guidance problems. The spider-like exoframe lurches, hovering a foot or two off the ground, unevenly, and then bucks as the jet engines try to compress and push the force.

Kaldur finally manages to rip out the last of the hydraulics, forcing the arms holding Priscilla to release, dropping the precious and sedated package it was trying to steal away.

The weapons systems go more than a bit berserk, trying to get a lead on any of those attacking it, ready to launch, ready to fire!

Grace Choi has posed:
    Grace punches. She grips, tears, even as she holds on for dear life while the unstable contraption shifts, bucks, floats, lurches, Grace holds on like it were a bucking bronco, taking every opportunity to wrench something out, punch some device, to pull it apart.
    She is, by now, a bloodied mess. Impaled with bits of metal all over her flesh. Likely singed in a few other places. A hole, in her foot. The contraption has left it's marks on her ... but she's done more than her fair share to it, with Kaldur's help. And it's not getting away. Not even after depositing Priss.

Aqualad has posed:
Kaldur lunges for Priss' unconscious form, shielding her with his broad shoulders. He summons that shield of water over them both while he grabs around Priss' chest, gripping under her armpit in a swimmer's carry to drag her from the immediate peril of the machine.

"She is clear!" Kaldur shouts at Grace, pushing Priss behind a brick wall and keeping that half-shield up with his left hand. With his right, the water bearer becomes a lashing whip and he snaps a razor-sharp tendril through the air, aiming at a hydraulic line at the back of the beast's exoskeleton. Leaking fluids everywhere, it surely can't keep fighting for long.

"We must end this! Now!"

Voodoo has posed:
The finale of the incident is a rather inglorious one, really. The damage done to hydraulics and subsystems, leaking fuel, shattered pieces of the spider-like exoframe are finally too much. It collapses to the ground, unable to get enough propulsion to launch. And when one of its weapons systems goes off wild, this ignites the splattered pool of viscous, high-energy ignitable fluids.

There's not a terrible lot of warning, but there is some. Enough that someone might be able to get Grace to safety and cover so she doesn't cook with the creature trapped inside that thing.

Grace Choi has posed:
    Grace is still rending, and tearing bits of things off it in an attempt to -prove- to it that it should have, in fact, very much so, turned around and gone home instead of messing with her until the very last moment. She pushes herself off, and falls onto that foot that'd been speared, the whole weight of her. She tumbles back to the ground, momentarily, and then she's trying to roll away from the incoming fire, and heat. This is probably going to hurt. A lot.

Aqualad has posed:
Kaldur makes sure Priss is safely behind cover when the beastly machine goes down-- she's unconscious, but sheltered. Safe.

Grace, however, is not, and Kaldur finds himself preparing to shout at her to leap clear at the flames lapping at oils and burning liquids.

Kaldur might not be as strong as Grace, but he's swift and decisive. When the moment comes, he bursts into a shocking amount of acceleration, the second Grace tumbles instead of vaulting away.

He summons his water bearers to him, but vaults /over/ the shell of the machine with a single leap, whipping his weapons into a hemisphere large enough for two. He lands squarely atop Grace and crouches over her, focusing his will to make the water shields as resolute as steel in the bare moments before the machine behind him explodes.

Voodoo has posed:
The exoframe goes up quite explosively; fuel cells and ammunition inside goes up when the fire hits them. A towering inferno of hellfire and rage rips open the street and sears the fronts of buildings. And then there is the keening, high-pitched screeching outcry of the creature inside that exoframe being incinerated.

It's not pleasant. But it is over after only a minute or so. And Priscilla is throwing up over behind her cover, as the waves of psychic pain lash out at her largely unprotected drugged-out mind.

Grace Choi has posed:
    Grace is pretty okay with - whatever it is - inside the exoskeleton screaming, keening, as it burns alive. She's not going to lose any sleep over it. Really. She's not. Instead, as the shields go up thanks to Kaldur, the bloodied half-Amazon tower of a woman looks up at him, and says, "So, come here often?" And, she grins, sudden and fierce, through the pain.
    When it's all over, she exhales, and mutters, "And here I thought the invisible spiders puppeting the dead was pretty #*$$'d up."

Aqualad has posed:
Kaldur crouchs over Grace (mostly) not being on top of her-- but there's a fair amount of contact, because, well-- she's a fair amount of woman!

He looks down at Grace, and despite his reserved mien, grins back at her. A warrior's expression, exultant with the thrill of battle survived. "Clearly not frequently enough," he quips back, as the fires fade.

When the burning has resolved itself, Kaldur dismisses his water bearers and uses their lash to put out the flames rather effortlessly, keeping it from turning into a total conflagration. Hearing Priss retching and sick, he exchanges a concerned look with Grace, and after offering her a stout wristclasp, moves to check on the injured dancer.

Voodoo has posed:
Priscilla is still mostly out of it, but has rolled onto her side, curling up in a fetal position. With the death of the creature, the lashing waves of its agony end, and so she is no longer convulsing. She is, however, lying in a pool of her own vomit.

How attractive.

The other benefit, which Kaldur has at least seen before, is that the dancer's body heals very rapidly, visibly stitching up wounds. Without a constant supply of the drugs, she is already coming around, groaning.

Grace Choi has posed:
    Grace takes Kaldur's arm and hefts herself up, limping over with him to where Priss lay. That --- well, that doesn't look good. Of course, Grace doesn't look good either. She starts, finally, to pull some of those bits of shrapnel out of herself, bit by bit, tiny pings onto the pavement as she throws them one way or the other. "You alright?" She asks Priss, quietly. "The hell was that thing, anyways?" She exchanges a look with Kaldur, back to Priss.

Aqualad has posed:
Kaldur examines himself-- he's got some scrapes and bruises too, and a few cuts. They're healing, but much less slowly than Priss'. Atlanteans are tough and redoubtable, but she's on a different level.

"She looks as if she'll survive," Kaldur tells Grace, helping to pull some hair back from Priss' face and get her from the worst of her own sick. He summons water to his fingers and rinses her off gently, so at least she won't wake up covered in vomit.

"I know not what that was. Some fusion of beast and metal, but it... I could feel it. Pain. Raging agony," he says, shaking his head and looking at the dead mass of flesh. "We have done it a favor by killing it, I think."

Voodoo has posed:
Rinsed off, wet, the dancer finally rouses a bit. She's still a bit unsteady, but she does accept help and struggle to her feet, eyeing the sick on the ground distastefully. "Ugh."

Priss holds her head for a little bit, clearly working on clearing her mind and cataloging as much as she can of other sensations she had which were drenched in drugs before they could be added to her long term memory.

"It was similar to another exoframe that attacked me a couple months ago. That one seemed better finished, a bit better armed than this one." Priscilla explains. "And that one didn't try to kidnap me. It tried to kill me." And didn't care who else got hurt along the way. Sound familiar? "I'm really sorry, Grace. Are you going to be OK? Do you need help?" Grace clearly got the worst of this, after all.

Meanwhile, with the truck long destroyed and the exoframe failed, the Gnome makes his way around the block and hails a cab, all the while dreading what is to come; there is no way to hide his failure from the Caabal, and they will be sure to make him suffer for this.

Grace Choi has posed:
    "I'll recover," Grace says, flicking the last piece of shrapnel out of her shoulder, exhaling. "Damn. That thing was tough. Whatever it was - or, whoever is sending these things after you? I think you should probably talk to someone. Avengers. Justice League. Someone with some pull. Someone's after you for some damn reason. Glad you're alright, though," she says, half-smiling to Priss.
    Her face twists, marginally, briefly as she puts too mch weight on her injured, bloody foot. "As for you," she says, turning to Kaldur, "Pretty damn impressive."

Aqualad has posed:
"Priscilla, you might need to stay somewhere more secure," Kaldur agrees, nodding at the dancer as Grace speaks. "I can speak with the Titans. We may have some place in the Tower to at least keep you secure during the evenings. Until you determine who is attempting to capture you, then it is best to travel with friends and allies."

He turns to Grace, and another one of those flickering, almost invisible smiles creases his eyes. "You carried the brunt of the battle, my friend," he tells Grace with his usual humility. "But your injuries require treatment too," he advises her. "Is there a medical center nearby?"

Voodoo has posed:
Priss shrugs. She has some ideas, but she doesn't want to pull a lot of other people into the middle of this, lest she be right and they suffer for it. "I have some friends on speed dial, if you will. I thought when we took out the last one that they were done." The dancer shakes her head. "I don't want innocent people hurt. So I'll be calling my friends for a ride out of here."

In short, though she doesn't want to admit it, Priscilla is going to be tapping a certain icon on her phone, and calling SWORD control for a teleport up to Alpha Flight Station. They'll do something to secure her home, and her friends. And help her to track down the source of these attacks.

"Before we were so rudely interrupted, Kaldur, you were looking for something. Maybe we should get Grace to a hospital, and then direct you wherever you were trying to reach, before I hitch a ride out of here?" Priss questions. They can exchange numbers, too. Stay in touch. That could be a good thing.

Grace Choi has posed:
    Between the laser-wound she's still recovering from the last evening and tonights injuries? "Yeah," agrees Grace. "I'll heal, quickly enough. But some bandages will help. I can get myself to a hospital. But, I'll hope to see you back in Metropolis, soon," she tells Priss. "Feel free to drop by Chaney's, sometime. Drinks on me. You too, Kaldur." She lifts a hand. "Don't worry. I'll be fine. I'm a big girl. Can take care of myself." She grins at that, then suggests, "Besides. It's not like today could get any worse."

Aqualad has posed:
Kaldur holds a hand up. "You are both tough and capable women, but a prudent warrior travels nowhere alone," he says, his tone surprisingly firm instead of merely self controlled. "And predators target the wounded and injured. We travel as a group-- Priscilla, let us escort Grace to a hospital. I would like some bandages and salves as well," Kaldur admits, rubbing at singed skin on his bare neck. "Then once Grace is treated, we'll escort /you/ to wherever you feel safe."

"It is better to be a little cautious and be disappointed, than be lax and be surprised," he reminds them.