There he was, the big bad co-leader of the Rockers himself. T'was Shatterpoint in the flesh. Mastar admitted, it was pretty cool being around one of the bigger bads in Denver, but only slightly. He was still a bad guy, after all. Given that Ceramix was somewhat handled right now, plush the bigger names of Kyoshi, Outsider, and Sylph working on him, Mastar felt it was just a little better for her to round back up to the PRT and try to receive orders. Now from who, that'd be figured out in a few.
Mastar's body liquified into a complete tar form before it convulsed and shot off of Ceramix's hand, getting a very small amount of air time (just enough for Mastar to be
safely in front of Shatterpoint) before it landed and Mastar returned to her standard form, in a running position this time. She was sprinting towards Messiah and Tiger Lily instinctively, probably because if she was to be a Ward, she'd be taking orders from the older of the two girls.
Messiah had to admit, she'd been ecstatic with how things had been turning out until Shatterpoint showed up. Ceramix's golem was crippled and grappled, the Rockers' thugs were being rounded up and coralled with relative ease, Furnace was assisting with her heat ray's ambient effects, and best of all, the civilians had made it out of there apparently unscathed! Things were going great! Then, alas, the second-in-command made his appearance, and a
lot of things started to break - suits, guns, Angel's side, Outsider's face, and perhaps a little of Alessa's confidence in how the situation was being handled, especially with Furnace moving out to try and head off the villain. Even Lillian returned to her side, citing her inability to really face off against Shatterpoint properly.
'It's gonna be okay, Lily,' Alessa soothed, pulling her behind some fallen debris and only poking her eyes out from behind it to glance at the situation herself. 'We have so many heroes here, there's no way he can realistically win. It's just a matter of how...' And frankly, her proposal to Inkscape to try and foam Shatterpoint was pretty good indeed. It just needed some expanding upon.
Lo and behold, one of the newer heroes on the block started practically charging towards Alessa and Lillian - Mastar, if she recalled correctly, though the girl in question had just before been a pile of black goo, and furthermore looked nothing like her transformed state. Readying herself, Alessa grabbed Mastar as she rounded the debris pile, spinning her around and ducking her behind the rubble along with Lily and herself.
'Hi there!' she greeted, looking the girl over in quick glances between her and Lily and thinking about the matter of how she could help. She had been put into a leadership position; so far, she felt she hadn't been living up to that. Time to change that aspect of herself, then. She had a decent idea in mind already, but to be sure, she quickly asked 'Do you reckon you have the capacity to do anything to stop or slow down Shatterpoint? Any abilities I may not be aware of that could help here, as it were?'
"....I might be able to hold him for a second in hand-to-hand with my reflexes..." Lillian muttered.
"Well, I can do a lot." Mastar spoke as she sat there for a moment. She was kind of startled by the sudden grabbing of her body and pulling around to the side, but she had to get over that for the time being. She was on the job, even if she wasn't getting paid for it just yet.
"I'm certain that I can take a direct blow from Shatter without... well... I guess turning to goop would be a lie there, lovelies." Mastar paused for a brief moment.
"Viscera is a much better word."Mastar glanced to the side to see the thugs she controlled a minute ago now unconscious on the ground, their faces in the tar they threw up.
"... I also control people that ingest me, if that helps, luv~."Oh. Oh oh oh. Okay, she had a bit of a plan forming now. Alright, that could work... yes, if they...
'Okay, here's the plan. Lily, you head out in that direction, make a lot of noise, and distract him for as long as you can without taking a hit,' she began, pointing in one direction. Pointing the other way, she continued 'Mastar, go in that direction until you're on his other side, then flank him, gum him down, try and take control of his body, whatever you can manage. Once you do that, I can trap him in a cage of, uh, sort of like heat sparks, you know?' After all, if she could achieve that with Scarecrow with help, why not Shatterpoint, who was nothing like as flexible?
'And once we've gotten that done,' she concluded, pressing the button on her communicator to talk to the other Protectorate heroes: 'Mastar, Tiger Lily and I have come up with a plan. Once Shatterpoint is in preliminary containment, somebody cover him in containment foam, quick.' Another glance over the pile of debris, though, proved that that suggestion was being taken, ah, pre-emptively?
'Crud. Gogogo!' she insisted, waving Lily and Mastar out to start their phase of the plan, staying put for now in preparation to leap out and perform her part of the combination technique. The moment she felt Mastar had done all she could, she'd create a net of heat sparks around Shatterpoint, hopefully trapping him long enough to deal with him - if whatever that other guy was doing didn't achieve that in its own right.
In an instant, Lillian
moved, making a beeline directly for Shatterpoint. She could buy everyone a few seconds, she was sure of it.
I can do this, Lillian thought to herself as she flipped over a fallen table in her way.
As soon as she heard Messiah's eager attempts at command, Mastar darted towards Shatter's flank, only to feel a part of her be displaced by something nearby. Hermes, that quasi-teleporting parahuman, was behind Shatterpoint within an instant, holding one of the containment grenades used to handle threats like this. That certainly shifted the tides of this battle.
Still, she had a command. She couldn't be a Ward if she couldn't listen to commands! Mastar still ran forward, her arms reducing themselves to a tarry-state in preparation for globbing Shatterpoint. Once she got close enough for a clear shot, Mastar unleashed a volley of globbed projectiles towards Shatterpoint, aiming for his head and arms. Of course, the efforts left her armless, but it was a worthy sacrifice in her eyes (especially since she was already beginning to regen due to the loss of enough mass).
Civilian Protection
Kyoshi saw Shatterpoint shoot out of Ceramix's chest. At first, she was kind of scared, since Shatterpoint was a real big threat to the situation, but as everyone kind of converged to help take him down, Kyoshi felt like her duty was more or less to handle Ceramix a bit more before he could repair his goliath of a suit. Jesus that was terrifying as well. Pretty much everything was terrifying to her right now, to be entirely honest, but then again, that was normal.
A large crowd of civilians was moving through the area, seemingly one of the few remaining crowds clearing the area, and unfortunately for them, the Rockers were hot on their tail, trying to cause their brand of havoc. Unfortunately for the rockers and fortunately for the civilians, Kyoshi ran forward towards the crowd and immediately stomped, causing the ground to soften under the feet of the Rockers before it solidified around the legs of the group. They couldn't move with how deep their feet were in the ground, so they were halted. The civilians continued to run forward as their assailants eagerly picked at the ground trying to free themselves.
Troubling Developments
...
Beeeep."Now's not the time for practicing your comedy routine. It's good though."What's concerning you more now? Healer and Whipstitch freaking out, us not being able to get better powers, or the Community spy?"Everything, pretty much."We can make heads and tails of the better powers and Community spy later. Right now you should probably get Healer some attention medically or something. She's bleeding kind of bad.Farce snapped back into reality from the conversation with Sparce as she looked at Healer.
"Healer, go to the bathroom and try to staunch the bleeding." Despite being the impromptu leader here, Farce's voice was more motherly than anything. She really liked Healer, and she didn't want a person like her to die right now. At least, not because of a glass cut that was self-inflicted.
Turning to the group, Farce spoke aloud.
"... one vial for Lethal Force, please." There was a sliver of a chance the power would work on the group. A sliver. It was a risk the Twins had to take... or did they?
We aren't drinking it."Why? It could give you powers!"We'll discuss why later. Just know right now it's because there's a very high chance that it won't work.
