[quote=@Tatterdemalion]
POTENTIAL 0

Please. This isn’t Space Invaders. In Space Invaders, you shoot a dinky little bullet up from your dinky little ship against wave after wave, moving around desperately.

@SARAHPHIM has [i]all[/i] the bullets, and she doesn’t need to scurry around the bottom of the screen. She unleashes her bullet curtain, rising upwards, and lets the goons worry about dodging. They can dodge in three dimensions, right? Right?

Hahahahahahaha.

Though, it must be noted, this is taking 100% of her concentration and then some. Please do not distract her while she turns the sky above the school into a bullet hell zone.

[[b]8[/b] on Defend Others, clearing Showboat because... I mean... just look at what’s going on up there... and exposing Sara to more danger.][/quote]

There is only one place in the rainbow hell that isn't ablaze with glory. And that's the dirt at your feet. An appropriate place for your enemies, wah-ha-ha-ha!! But also a serious problem because you're holding up the sky here and there a dozen Spiral troopers are crawling on their stomachs towards you. It's going to be all well and good until they get to your ankles and put their grubby fingers all over your designer shoes. You'd better hope that someone saves you.

[quote=@Phoe]"Hats?" she asks, "Never thought about them. A friend of mine gave me a tiara recently, if that counts. But I could... you know, give them a try. Expand my horizons, I guess."

She halts. Her mouth falls slack as her brain forcibly reboots. 

"Wait! [i]You[/i] wear hats?"[/quote]

As you're watching Sabrem's moves you start to pick up on something that's been in the back of your mind for a while now. She doesn't move like a human being.

Ordinarily, when a punch is thrown it's a full body thing - the torso twists, the shoulder rotates, hips to lean into the blow. When expanded by augmented limbs it results in enough power to throw someone across the room. Sabrem, however, is doing the opposite of those things and it [i]should [/i]be simply terrible form. She fires her pistol one handed and unbraced, she tosses the sword with just a rotation of her elbow while keeping her back perfectly still. She's cutting every single possible corner and letting her augs pick up the slack - it's not sloth, it's a ruthless, unbelievable level of optimization, almost like a martial art for aliens. She's not chasing the maximum of her augs - she's cutting to the [i]minimum[/i]. A minimum force slap is enough to daze a human like a solid punch from a regular person might, and so that slap is all she needs, especially when she's using that same motion to spray semi auto pistol fire with hands strong enough to ignore any recoil.

"Hnn. Course I wear hats. It rains three hundred days a year here, don't know why they're not in style. I use one of those... big red ones, like Carmen Sandiego mostly. Had a femme fatale fashion phase. Others too. Depends on the outfit. Anyway. Go save your girl."

[quote=@Balmas]
[Yeah, that's a 13 on Take a Powerful Blow. I'll take Lose Control of Yourself for 500 points, please.]
[/quote]

You dodge the slag. You dodge the car. You dodge the TAG wreckage. You dodge the gas canister. You don't dodge the gas.

Your vision swims as the orange gas surrounds you on all sides. The Spiral Commander lands alongside you and places her hand on your forehead and into your empty head new orders flow like water. You are but a vessel, a puppet, and you have only one objective: to capture Angel-IKA.


[b]Angel-IKA![/b]

"Hey," you say. Mouth dry. This is the first time you've seen her, you know? You remember that she's got some sort of hypnotism perfume so should probably pull back a bit, you know, in case. "Uh. Hi. I'm Angelic - uh, -IKA. Angel-IKA."

"I know who you are," said Dominus, walking forwards into what was probably the hypnotism danger zone. You take a couple of steps backwards. "You're why I came here."

"M-me?" you squeak. You squeak again when your back hits a wall. She doesn't stop coming closer. "What could you possibly want with me?"

"That's a good question," Dominus said. A lock of tangled black hair was stuck to her face with rain and sweat and you could see your own fearful outline in the reflection in her eyes. "Why don't you tell me? What are you good for?"

"I-I-I-uh," okay this is definitely the hypnotism perfume, there's no other reason you'd be blushing this hard. "I'm, um, I'm not good at anything -"

"Pathetic," she says, but you can tell that's not what she means. Her face gets closer. Her lips get closer. "You don't even recognize how beautif-"

"HELLO" said some kind of robot, appearing out of nowhere right besides you.

"AAAAAAAH!" you say in greeting.

"OH COME ON BODE!" you hear Locker yell from across the room.

"Bode!?!" said Dominus, aiming a pistol at him with one hand and straightening her hair with the other.

"Brainstorm is in trouble and I noticed that you were the only two who weren't busy. You need to help me save him!" said Bode brightly.

"Why," hissed Dominus, "didn't [i]you [/i]do something about it?"

Bode tilted his head to the side. Glowing eye lenses blinked.

"I thought you would both appreciate the opportunity to be heroes," he said.

[quote=@eldest]"Look, lady. Humanity, collectively, is the most stubborn, idiotic, and illogical bunch of animals that you will ever meet. You are currently wearing so many different layers, in exactly such a fashion, because that is how things are done, including the makeup coating your face and nails. You just yelled at probably the most powerful tool you have access to and threatened to destroy it out of pique, because that made you feel good. You all, collectively, keep threatening your own cities and doing terrible things to each other and then go [b]right back to where you were at the start.[/b] You. Are. Idiots." She takes a deep breath. "That's not, however, a bad thing. Out of the sheer, stubborn idiotic decisions, you decide, generally, to care about each other. To help in spite of the society built to make you care about yourself first. You want to be the ruler of the world and you're expecting to get [b]respect[/b] for it? The one possible position where you can get blamed for everything that goes wrong, and every single hero will be after you for vengeance, for freedom, for whatever, and every single villain will be after your spot. It's not the smart thing for them to do, no, but it's the dumb thing to do and that makes it the human thing to do."[/quote]

Your words had an impact. She stands there for a moment, hands clenching and unclenching. There are a lot of questions in her life that she doesn't know the answer to and as you watch she systematically fills them in with pure rage. Rage doesn't need answers. The only way around those questions is to decide that questions are stupid and that anyone who asks or answers them is stupid. 

[Marking [b]Angry[/b]]

"Idiots, huh? Then I'm going to send a message that even an idiot can understand," she said. "Guards. Take her out of my sight - no. Put her on the rocket, next to the other one. Granddad was right. I need to talk to the public on [i]their [/i]level."