11306/Trauma Event

Trauma Event
Date of Scene:	02 June 2022
Location:	A house in Westchester, NY
Synopsis:	Subject: Rebecca Ryker. Status: online.
Cast of Characters:	Rebecca Ryker, Natasha Romanoff, Achilles, Jessica Drew, Robbie Reyes, Leopold Fitz, Nadia Pym-van Dyne

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Rebecca Ryker has posed:
    The date of Harlan Ryker's triump has arrived. The news is full of hype about his release of affordable prosthetics for amputees with biofeedback. If his team of PR agents are to be believed this means the release of equipment that will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of underprivileged people across the world.
    A satellite image of his home is kept monitored. SHIELD has reason to believe that he may be under some kind of threat, and therefore is keeping a reasonable watch. No bugging of his home, but a careful eye is a not-unreasonable precaution.
    Which is well done. As Harlan's limousine arrives at his home, prepared to pick him up, the satellite picks up images of trouble. A warning goes out along with a picture, of what appears to be some form of cyborg arriving at his home. Hostile intent is affirmed, as the driver is pulled out of the vehicle and decapitated on the lawn.
    Harlan's family is out, apparently shopping, but the satellite has picked them up walking home. And Harlan himself is about to exit his house. Speed is of the essence, and the word goes out!
    All hands on deck! Send in anyone available!

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
She had been heading along elsewhere on a tangential Avengers assignment. So when the alert and scramble signature comes in, Natasha Romanoff breaks off her current stakeout, and is going to leap off the place she had setup an impromptu observation post. A quick toggle command is sent in to notify whomever was on monitor duty as she was aborting due to emergency summons.
    Natasha is jumping down, towards where she had stashed a motorcycle for a quick in and out getaway. She's blasting along at high speed now, revving the engine to go as fast as she could towards the emergency rally point.

Achilles has posed:
    Surveillance vans make for long boring shifts acquiring useful intelligence and other data. Anyone without the patience to sit for hours and remaining focused really shouldn't be in this line of work. But it was coming on shift change for the video camera feeds. Angelo has been watching for two hours, and Jessica was monitoring the satellite feeds. Why two hour shifts back and forth on these systems? Simple... to give each agent a break from the current task by doing the other one. It's a good way to keep their minds active and alert.

    "By Hades." mutters Angelo softly as his camera feeds catch the driver losing his head. (Metaphorically -and- literally). "We need to move. It's an attack." Of course, Jessica can see the same thing from her uplink to the satellite feeds... and so Angelo reaches for his P-90 before stepping out the back door and taking point on an approach to the property.

Jessica Drew has posed:
The van smells of pizza and long hours of unexciting surveillance. One advantage is having a good partner - Angelo always has good stories to tell. Trading work off has softened the tedium and allowed the two of them to remain sharp.

Jessica is bent over the satellite monitor, watching the arrival of the limo when a form moves quickly over the lawn toward the house and the murder of the driver ensues.

"Holy hell.." she reaches for her own P-90 and is out the back of the van, aiming at the assailant before the van stops rocking. She gets off two shots.

"Angelo, the family is coming up the driveway. Cover me. I'm going for them."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
Though not technically a SHIELD agent, Robbie's status as an Avenger seems to have been reason enough for him to receive the request for assistance. He's got a specific ringtone for high profile assignments like these; something suitable for the gravity of the situation.

'Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run aroun--' After digging out his phone and seeing where the call originates, he switches off the ringer and slams on the brakes. The Charger screams to a near-stop, fishtailing around with a kick of gravel as he guns it back around the way he came, and heads for the rally point with as much haste as the possessed vehicle is capable of. Which happens to be a lot.

Leopold Fitz has posed:
Man / Machine interface. It's something that is close to Dr Fitz' heart for one major reason, and perhaps a few smaller side reasons. Still, it's a development that Leo's been following on the sidelines, occasionally making notes and circles and little exclamation points on what is considered by the public as 'scholarly'. To him, however?

The writers have a distinct lack of understanding of the topic they're writing about. As a result, lots of guesswork fills in the holes left by the less than stellar reporting, and with assumptions and suppositions and logical leapfrogging, Leo's been watching the unveiling of the prosthetics closely.

There are whispers, (there are always whispers) about high profile attacks, and some have merit while others do not. This case?

Dr Fitz is watching closely, even while working on other things into the evening.. and when there is a call regarding an attack on the household? He's moving quickly, almost hop/dancing around the room, trying to pick up things and shove them into his backpack before running out, leaving others to flatten themselves against corridor walls.

"This is Fitz.. I'm comin'.." Though, it's not like it's The Cavalry, or anyone..

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia Pym-van Dyne is a very busy girl with her fingers in so many pies. Aside from leading a bleeding edge science collective, among other things she has also been consulting for SHIELD since she was sixteen and thanks to her parents both being on the team is basically a junior Avenger, a Young Avenger if you will, the name might need some workshopping.

As a scientist she has also been following the progress of this new bleeding edge prosthetics research, particularly in consideration of the potential applications for some of the other technologies in other fields. That disturbingly similar cyborg attacks have been cropping up has not escaped her notice either.

So it is that when the SOS alerts are triggered she drops what she is doing to respond. The cyborg alone might have been enough but there are so many other interests in play too, besides someone has to make sure Nat doesn't murder too many people.

The Zeta Beam technology GIRL has been working on is still an experimental technology even in the Quantum locked version, using Pym Particles to fold space for a blind jump has barely been tested since the first accident. Nadia however can be rather impetutuous and with time of the essence she attempts to do just that, recreating elements of the original accident that took her family to Rann but on a much smaller scale seeing if she can get to Harlan's house faster. It works, kind of. The good news is her molecules aren't scattered across the Eastern Seaboard, the bad news is she still winds up a couple miles away from the target, but taking to the sky on Bio-Synthetic wings that distance shouldn't take too long to cover.

Rebecca Ryker has posed:
    The P-90 is a gorgeous weapon. Efficient and effective, 90 propels a 1.5 g (23 grain) plastic-core projectile at a muzzle velocity of roughly 850 m/s (2,800 ft/s). It hits the cyborg in the right side, taking it full in the side and in the head.

    It does nothing but attract the thing's attention, the rounds hitting the ground like spitballs. The incoming team needs to hurry, as the cyborg's left eye begins to glow threateningly, and it raises what appears to be some form of weapon, firing a shot toward her. Plasma weapon!

    Which is when Harlan emerges from his house. He's expecting to see his family coming home, ready to go to his unveiling. The sound of motorcycles isn't so odd, but he barely has his head outside the door when the cyborg catches him in the corner of its vision.

    And without an instant's pause, it turns that weapon toward Harlan Ryker, nobel prize contestant and possibly the most loved person on earth at this exact moment.

    And there's no way in hell he's going to be able to move out of the way in time.

    Nadia's molecules not scattering across the known universe is appreciated, but not close enough to handle the first threat. Nor is Fitz or Natasha close enough. Thus it falls upon the others. Will Harlan survive the first minute of this war?

Achilles has posed:
    Following up Jessica's shot, Angelo lets loose a burst of the semi-armor piercing ammo. Four rounds are sent down range. If only to cover for Jessica to approach the family.. and honestly, it's a part of his HERE I AM! COME GET ME! outlook to being the point man.

    That shot made, he surges forward in that weird looking fast-walk that special forces soldiers do to keep their weapon smoothly aimed forward, but their legs moving. It's like some halfway sideways duck walk. Another burst is fired on the move.. to keep attention on him. If those eight rounds do nothing but make sure it knows he is there, he might have to change things up a bit.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
She has the others coming on her HUD and showing thier positions, and Natasha Romanoff is cursing. Even as she's going to leap off the side of her motorcycle on the approach, going to hopefully let it fly over to slam towards the robot from several dozen meters away. She's not expecting the thing to be jarred enough to even mess up it's aim from the impact or noticing it. From there, she's leaping through with two large batons, charged with her Widow's Bite, the twin staves glowing bright red.
    <<Drew, fry that thing with me. Tampabulos, extrac the civilian!>> This said on the SHIELD tac frequency. <<Fitz, give us -something- that can slow that thing down!>> She's focused on the SHIELD tactical frequencies.. Not the Avengers ones.
    They have two, maybe three seconds to work with here before the thing reenages and targets them or the professor. Frying hte systems might.. Annoy it for a micro-second.
    And Natasha still has a -very- long jump and leap to make and definitely won't get there before the thing fires.

Jessica Drew has posed:
The mutant agent is a black form in a SHIELD-issue tac suit and baseball cap; her dark hair snugged under the cap. Jess moves with uncanny speed, her gun still at the ready, outlined by the backdrop of carefully trimmed hedges and immaculate gardens around Harlan's house. She can see three figures moving up the driveway.

Not staying to verify if she had done any damage to her target, Jess sets herself on being a barrier between the incoming innocents and the Cyborg.

<"Agent Romanoff, I'm going for the family who are incoming."> But, Romanoff's order slows her to stop. Then, turning on a dime, stepping backward, she peppers him (it?) with exploding tip bullets while retreating toward the family.

Robbie Reyes has posed:
The sound of Reyes's beast of a vehicle arriving on the scene is accompanied by that distinctive whine of the supercharger. The thing streaks in with a shriek of flaming tires shredding and repairing themselves. Like some demon-possessed comet, it's headed on an intercept course for the cyborg with the weapon pointed at Harlan; the limousine is shouldered out of the way with a crash and horrible wail of metal.

Leopold Fitz has posed:
There is no way that he's going to make it on time, but Agent Romanoff is there. On scene. Fitz is rushing, he is, but he can only go so fast. Instead, given the input he's getting from said Agent, the young doctor is wracking his brain for an answer.

A stammered beginning falls over the com before the good doctor begins to offer up slowly and deliberately, "Agent Romanoff. On your bracelets," Bracelets? Okay.. her own standard loadout. "I've loaded a quick burst, one use ion beam manipulator." He likes playing the 'what if' game, and it's not like they haven't come across energy beams before! "Now, it'll disperse the beam. It'll break the laser so he'll miss whatever it is he's aiming at, but that's all I have until I get there." The lens will melt. "It's the best I have right now."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
This is not the first situation in which her bio-synthetic wings have proved a bit slower than she'd like but Nadia has been working on this problem and testing a few possible upgrades, the simplest of which sits in a small backpack attached to her usual Waspette armor. As she takes to the sky, the wings set in place going rigid as a pair of circular holes open in the pack and miniturized jet engines with afterburners fire to life rocketing her across the sky.

It's still not as instantaneous as she would like, definitely need to refine those Zeta jumps, it's not long at all though until she is above the scene though. Of course the trick then is stopping but she manages to cut the thrust in time that she doesn't overshoot by too much, her wings re-entering their more acrobatic flight mode as she aims her gauntlets down at the cyborg and unleashes a pair of high powered plasma blasts at the thing. Stun mode this is not.

Rebecca Ryker has posed:
    Angelo's shots throw the shot off target, and the left of door that Harlan was standing within vaporizes. Do not get hit by that weapon! He ducks into the house, reflexes good enough to keep him from staying for more of the same.

    The cyborg however shows a remarkable combat sense, spotting Natasha incoming. It raises its weapon arm, about to get off that one shot at Nat when a roaring sound causes it to turn.

    Natasha's Widow's Bite strikes; the Cyborg pauses, systems jarred, just as a vehicle crushes it between itself and the limousine. The sound is horrendous and the damage is astounding. It looks as if the creature is being melted, the fire that coated the oncoming vehicle doing enough to penetrate its shell.

    And everyone sees that under the right half of the creature, where it looked human, is a metal skeleton that reinforced it where it seemed vulnerable. Yes, the vehicle was already on fire.

And that's when it all goes to shit.

    The cyborg glows brighter a moment, and then it explodes. The limousine is thrown away, and a shock wave including shrapnel and concussive force leaves it dramatically. Those in the immediate vicinity have one full second to react, and then they too would be caught in that wave of self-destruct.

    Jessica's move to save the people at the end of the driveway has her moving away from it already, but the wave would catch her from behind. And she slams into the little girl, watching as the mother and son look up, and see the wave coming. And then they don't.

    Nadia, on approach, receives information in the form of a wave of intel. A final squawk of data, everything that the cyborg had learned about fighting these opponents. Sent outward. And something else in the area comes active.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff gets the package from Fitz and just clicks her tongue in affirmative. She might say 'copy' but that would use a precious moment where she has to focus enough to speak. So it's just one click of tongue on comm. Statement heard and understood. Seh's going to leap through the air, her two Widow's Bite staves glowing.. And she goes to slam them over at the thing where Fitz had told her, trying to crack them over to shatter the lens and disable the weapon. All that power shot into it has tos low it down by at -least- a few micro seconds, right?
    Then it all goes ot hell metaphorically. The energy glows and Natasha is caught at near point blank range. She can only yell a warning to the others even as the explosion goes ot kick her backwards and through the air. All Natasha can really do is ball up tightly enough to minimize the exposure she has to the blast zone, let the reinforced padding and lining of her combat uniform take as much as it can.. And hit the ground at as compact an angle as she can to minimize the impact force and try to go close to prone from the detonation to minimize her exposure to shrapnel and the blastwave. There's only so quickly one can maneuver.
    Don't breathe.

Achilles has posed:
    And of course, the closest to the explosion would have been Angelo. After the explosion passes over him, and the giant kaboom finishes its spread across the area, it's something between a Tom & Jerry cartoon, and a charnel house. Most of Angelo's clothing (except for bits and pieces which keep this to the comic book code) have been torn, burned or otherwise blown off of him. Those bracers of his.. the bronze ones he always wears under his outfits... well they appear untouched.

    His blonde hair has been burned mostly away, and much of his flesh in the front appears to be missing. But he's still on his feet. "Nice try." he mutters ... or rather gurgles through a mouth full of blood. The damage is already starting to heal. But he's not stopping. Much like one of the cyborgs, he seems to be reinforced somehow, but the method isn't exactly visible to the naked eye.

    But he turns to look for other targets.. a bronze-tipped spear forming out of nowhere in his hand. It seems his firearm has become so much shrapnel too as it rests in pieces on the ground. Fortunately, his comm earbud is still working. "Anyone got eyes on another target? Drew.... status?" he asks as his eyes catch sight of the place his partner was supposed to be... his feet starting to stagger him in that direction while muscles and tendons regrow on his legs.

Leopold Fitz has posed:
Poor ol' normal Fitz. He's got a company car; at least he doesn't have a driver with him that he has to yell at, to snark at, to exhort in various ways to drive faster in order to get on scene. Right beside him sits his backpack of many things (things that I really should list later).

Fitz has his radio on, full chirp scan, and as he approaches the scene, he's digging out his tablet in anticipation for not only launching his DWARFs, but doing a quick scan to see if the cyborg is being controlled from a remote location. He's paranoid about wide-beam data relays, so why wouldn't everyone else be too?

The arrival would have been cinematically cool to see. Fitz blazing in with his black sedan, doing a quick sliding stop before emerging from the vehicle in a mad rush would have been something to add all the coolness factors. It only half-works, however.

As Fitz pulls up, the blast concussion hits, and the sedan takes it full in the side, pushing the car up and over, causing it to roll over.. and over.. and over, only for it to lie on its top.

*ping*

A soft groan emerges from the driver's side, from an upside down Fitz. Even as he hangs there for a moment, his handheld is acknowledging a data transfer. (Hooray for algorithms!) At the sound, the good doctor begins to struggle from his stays, realizing the broken glass is all around, and the only real way out is through the window. Reaching a scratched hand for his backpack, and handheld, he cuts himself loose and *oofs* as he hits the glass ceiling of the car. Pulling himself out slowly, Fitz looks a little dazed but otherwise unhurt.

*ping*

Oh.. oh yeah!

Robbie Reyes has posed:
The explosion slams into the Charger, bending metal and ripping pieces off it in a storm of detritus. Pieces that begin to reform themselves almost immediately; the tears and buckles in the frame unmake themselves, the side mirror shapes itself again, the windshield reforms with a crackle and hiss of glass.

The driver of the vehicle, having dropped sideways so he's half in the passenger seat, immediately pops the door and climbs out once the shockwave from the blast has settled. Half his face and left shoulder look pulped; they also begin to heal immediately, skin and bone and tendon knitting themselves back together as he yanks a huge shard of glass out of his arm with a hiss of pain.

Hooded eyes narrowed, he leaves the car door open as he moves in to survey the damage-- and check the location of the target.

Jessica Drew has posed:
A wail goes up from the teenager in the trio at the flaming car, passing them at speed. Mother, toddler in her arms, and the teenage daughter stand transfixed at the scene in front of their house.

P-90 slung over her shoulder, arms outflung, the concussive blast propels Jess into the group. They land hard in a heap under the agent; the breath knocked out of them.

What seems like minutes pass before ears ringing, the mutant agent staggers to her feet, <"Bleeding. Bad."> she manages unable to form a coherent sentence.

She then squats next to the mother and child, assessing their condition, pressing her hand to any obvious wounds. <"We need to get them out of here.">

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Too late by half a second, Nadia's arrival is not in time to stop the first cyborg terminator thing from exploding, her plasma bolts simply passing into the giant ball of flame. Yes, First.

Noting who is present as she surveys the scene Nadia keys her broadcast to both SHIELD and Avengers operational frequencies. <<Everyone.>> She doesn't bother identifying herself for expediancy, her IFF signal should do that. <<It's not over, I am detecting two more, one of them has already come online and is approaching while the other remains dormant. They seem to be networked and learning based on the combat experiences of their peers.>>

Even as she relays all of this Nadia is swiveling around in mid-air and changing direction to intercept the incoming threat of Cyborg Number 2 with more plasma bursts.

Rebecca Ryker has posed:
    Trigger warning. Because the normal humans who were in the driveway are not okay. They will never be okay again, and that much becomes obvious very quickly. Anna and Bryan, the mother and son, are torn up very badly. The child is barely breathing, because of all the shrapnel in his entire front side. The mom was saved from some of the damage because she was holding her baby and he absorbed some of the damage.

    She very likely won't get time to grieve, since she has a shard of metal in her throat. Half of her face is missing, and the rest of her body is in no better shape.

    Rebecca was protected from some of the blast by Jessica's body. Being short, she took a fair bit of help from that: her right side is untouched. Her left side is unfortunately not there anymore, aside from shreds and she looks like a horror show, including a portion of her head.

    Nadia's plasma bursts are intercepted mid-air by what appears to be a computer-guided system. It shoots the bolts down with more bolts, causing miniature explosions whenever they meet! If this weren't an awful situation it'd be very cool from a science perspective. But the new cyborg starts to walk out of a building, not far off, and toward the group.

    Harlan picks this time to look out and see his family then. His eyes go wide, and he shrieks! He doesn't even see the car flip over nearby, or Fitz to exit. His eyes are on his family. Who would never make it to a hospital, and are going to die.

    "I can save them! Get them...get them inside! I have the facilities! Someone, anyone, help me!"

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff knows what 'network and adaption' means. In the perhaps under a few minutes the fight had gone on at most, they were already disoriented and injured, and they had enemy reinforcements coming. Natasha goes to pick herself up, two ribs broken. She takes a breath. Not through a lung. She'll function. One arm at a nasty angle, she goes to take her hand up to brutally pop it RIGHT back into place. Both Widow's gauntlets sizzling, still charged and functional. Staves as well.
    <<Evacuate the civilians and get them treatment. We'll hold them off>> That given over to Fitz. Natasha's not heavy on the specifics. They have a few seconds, at most, perhaps, until the next attacker is in range. And as Nadia's plasma bursts fire off, attacker number 2 is there.
    Natasha goes to switch to ehr pistol, and goes to fire at the advancing robot. She's firing quick shots in bursts of three rounds. The shots themselves aren't going to do any damage or slow it. She's targeting even from the range of several hundred meters away cluster points on it. Servos, joints, attachments.. Anywhere that the armor has to be a bit more flexible to permit mobility. If she can hit at least glancing blows within a few centimeters of those spots in succession.. Well.. She can at least knock it off by a few degrees. Which in combat, could be infinite. Little else she has on her is going to do anything to the second Cyborg. And it will definitely not let her get in the range to hit it again with her Widow's Bite. She has to trust that her team can give the others long enough to evacuate the area. If she hadn't been on a stakeout and had some heavier eqiupment with her.. Her own foolishness for not having ito n her at all times. Regrets later.

Achilles has posed:
    Okay. Mostly recovered now, Angelo says into comms, "Drew. Can you move?" He'd been about to go work on the incoming borgs... but when his partner says she's not good, he diverts. He even dismisses the spear so both hands are free.

    And so blasted, scorched... cooked somewhat, and recovering..... he comes around the car and stops, aghast at the sight before him. But he only stops for a moment before he's already bending to scoop up the nearest family member he can get his hands on.. the young girl. He cradles her in his arms and says, "Drew. Can you move? If not, I'll come back after..." And he hears the father's cry to bring them to the house.

    His head jerks that way and he adds, "I'll be right back. If you can move, please help me get them inside. If not, please don't push yourself and make it worse." And then he begins jogging towards the house. No longer staggering. Mostly recovered by the time he gets there. Still scorched though.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Over coms<"I need help here!"> Blood spreads into a pool from under the mother and child. Gasping for breath, Jess drops to her knee, frantically trying to staunch the bleeding. She looks a bit like a cock-eyed armadillo with pieces of metal shrapnel sticking at odd angles from her back and arms.

Ignoring the pain, Jess gathers the child into her arms and staggers back to her feet with a dazed look at Angelo.

<"Can someone get the mother?"> Without another word, she stumbles to the house.

Robbie Reyes has posed:
The notification comes in on his phone, and Robbie doesn't waste time trying to guess who sent it by the identifier displayed. His face, meanwhile, is still busily knitting itself back together over exposed bone and an eyeball briefly missing a socket. Then his hair grows back over his skull, his cell phone is shoved back into his pocket, and he strides toward the second cyborg.

His car is still belching smoke from the rapidly repairing tires; and as he moves, blade-tipped chains manifest in both gloved hands with a CRACK of silver igniting with hellfire. Strange, that this man-machine-thing doesn't register to him as tainted. Not that the Rider's particularly picky. He attacks savagely; one weapon, and then the other in rapid succession.

Leopold Fitz has posed:
'Two more, one of them has already come online'. The rest of the words sound as if who ever had created them had taken a page from a book of..

No.

Fitz shakes his head to dispel any of those thoughts, as well as getting some of the shards of glass out of his hair. He's bruised, bloody, and a little shaken, but otherwise is okay. Even his equipment is rated for shock and vibe, or he'd never bring it out.

Getting to his feet slowly, the good doctor blinks his eyes, listening to the words and having it filter down slowly but definitely. He takes a step, two, as of testing his legs, and begins a jog with his backpack slung over one shoulder and his datapad in the other. He's not a doctor, but the illusion of safety that is a house is kind of nice right now.. and if the man has 'facilities', it might actually be vaguely shielded.

<<I'm going to the doctor t'help his family.>> The soft burr of Scottish accented words is a dead giveaway as to who is speaking. Everyone knows of Dr Leopold Fitz, by reputation if not from meeting and working with him. As he jogs, he's keeping his head low and down; seems like he's obeying orders, heading to the mother and child. "We need t' get them away. The doctor has facilities, an' I understand the technology." Understand? He's actually a //little// farther ahead (like a lot) of the good doc in terms of research and development. Dr Leopold Fitz is simply not allowed to publish. One of the downsides of his chosen career.

Finding that Angelo has already scooped up the child, all that's left is 'mom', and they need to work, and quickly. Not for the first time on a mission does he mutter, "I really wish Jemma were here.."

In the background of Fitz' tumult, a soft, almost insistent *ping* sounds again. There's a touch of residual sonic afters that has his ears ringing, but it's constant and it's background... until Fitz lifts his datapad again.

*ping*

Blue eyes lift to the wife of the good scientist, then to a seemingly broken cellphone lying on the ground, in a pool of the child's blood. The screen is cracked, and the display is almost completely dark, but there's a light.. it lights.. goes out.. lights.. goes out.. pulsating.

"Oh.. no.." is whispered. Reaching for it, Fitz winces in distress and digust.. and.. a whole host of emotions as he looks at it before turning to go get 'mom'. As he closes in on her to take her away, he whispers, "I know," before yelling, "I'm comin'."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
The sight of the carnage in the driveway nearly makes Nadia vomit inside of her helmet. The Red Room tried to train her to be dispassionate, they didn't really succeed before she managed to escape and the sight of a butchered family is a bit beyond the pale, especially considering the fate of her own mother. These things need to be stopped and they need to be stopped now.

With the kid gloves removed, Nadia demonstrates why it has been said she is the natural predator of all things mechanical in a fight. One moment the Waspette is there and the next she seems to vanish from sight, shrinking down to an almost imperceptible size in a microsecond.

Zipping through the intervening space and incredibly agile at tiny size she flies straight at the cyborg like she intends to ram right into it, but instead getting yet smaller she searches for a seam, a gap, an egress, an opening, no matter how well made the machine there is always a way in somewhere if you can just get small enough.

Once inside she retrieves her favorite sticky bombs from storage pockets in her suit and begins moving about with the trained eye of a demolitionist, setting the charges on key structural points and things that look important throughout the cyborg's interior, before making her way out the other side again. At that point it is just a matter of waiting for the delay on the detonation timers to expire.

Rebecca Ryker has posed:
    The family is pulled inside, and what the heroes find there is as beyond the pale as Nadia's situation. But that will wait for a moment.

    With Ghost Rider's strikes landing, left and right, the cyborg reacts like a trained soldier. It moves, evading to try and stay behind cover, and when that doesn't work it tries to catch the incoming FLAMING CHAINS. The fact that it manages it at all is a testament to the engineering and programming behind it, and that only happens after it's taken several hits.

    But as it holds onto a chain, Nadia flits up close to try and enter. And finds that it has something truly amazing. It has nanobot defenses built into its skin, protecting it from exactly this kind of assault. She has no entry point, no way to enter and use those bombs.

    Until Natasha's gunfire slams into it, and one absolutely impossible pinpoint shot hits it perfectly in the eye, giving Nadia an entrance that wasn't there a moment before. And in she goes, and as the man made into machine fights Ghost Rider, it doesn't know that its time is now limited to seconds.

    Inside the house, as this is going on, only Leo has the slightest chance of understanding what they find. It's not 'medical facilities'. It's something that he knows how to do, but nobody has ever, EVER put these machines together in this format before.

    "I can save them," he insists. And he absolutely can. If he's willing to ressurect them from the dead using technology to force them to live, if they want to or not.

    Harlan Ryker made the men who are currently trying to kill him, and they are very likely kept alive against their own will. Which is why Robbie isn't feeling evil. From them.

    And as the people are held there, he insists. "I've never worked with living tissue before, but all of my systems...we can do it!"

    It's not impossible, but this madman is not the man to do it. With some work, it's possible. BUT HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU HAVE?

    The family is bleeding out as you stand there, and the child's breathing stops.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
The second one is taking damage. Natasha knows well what things can be wreaked havoc on from the inside. She fires shot after shot into the thing. Bullets in bunches of three. Aiming for servos, joints, eyes.. Anywhere there is just that level of thinness in the armoring that the damage will add up on. She can tell it's going down. Hopefully shortly. She still hasn't breathed in yet. Gun hitting on empty on the clip, even as she's going to pop a fresh one out and in. Going to take another series of quick shots at it even as it seems to be on the final steps and servos. Another shots aimed at back of knees. It's not down and out yet. Even if it inevitably will be.
    <<There's a third of them. Any update on it's telemetry?>> She speaks to the comm on a closed circuit to Nadia that's filtered through to the others. And then tagged in to the Avengers comm networks shared by Robbie if he's in a position to track them as monitoring catches up and tethers the channels together.
    She's not bothering to ask Fitz and those downstairs saving lives for updates. They'll update them when there's info.

Achilles has posed:
    Placing the girl in his arms onto an examination table table, Angelo doesn't say a word. He merely looks to Jessica, and then to Fitz before turning towards the exit. He's not a paramedic. I mean sure, he's treated a wound here and there over the centuries.

    So what he does, is go into 'last line of defense' mode. His armor forms around his body. Something reminiscent of old Greek style but with some modern lines of it. A large round shield appears on his left arm... and that same bronze headed spear forms in his right hand. He places himself between the wounded, the doctor... and the others. If anything gets past the agents... warriors... -soldiers- out front, he will face that threat personally. You might refer to him as the last real 'reserve'... at least in his mind.

Jessica Drew has posed:
It doesn't take advanced medical training for Jessica to understand the child in her arms is dying. Laying it on another table, she hovers, watching its breathing coming to an abrupt stop. Jess does have field training though she has never worked on a child. She doesn't allow herself to panic - a tiny life is depending on her. Two fingers pinching the child's nose, Jess starts to perform CPR. alternating breaths and chest compressions.

Between breaths she implores someone in the room to help.

Spider sense takes her attention off the child momentarily, she raises her head while pumping the child's chest to see Angelo guarding the door. "Angelo, watch out. Something is coming!"

Robbie Reyes has posed:
Robbie's gut is telling him there's something wrong here, no matter how much the demon is screaming at him to hurt, to burn, to kill. The cyborg takes his chain to the teeth with force far in excess of what would snap a human's neck and put a hole through their skull. Then, as Nadia is doing her thing with the explosives and Natasha is bombarding it with round after round from her guns, he whips the chain around its neck and attempts to rip its head clean off its shoulders with a roar as hot metal melts artificial structures.

He can feel his cell phone buzz again in his pocket, and he digs in his jacket for an earbud, clipping it on so he can pick up the transmissions from Natasha. <<Uh, negative. I got nothin'. You want me to check the house?>>

Leopold Fitz has posed:
Now.. now Fitz understands. As he stands in the entry way, he takes a step in, his head shaking. He //thought// he knew but now he understands. Leading his wife to a couch, he lays her gently down, looking into her eyes. This was her last push to get //him// to stop. "I understand," is murmured before he swings around.

"You can't." Now that Fitz is looking around, he shakes his head, his voice cracking as he yells at the man. "You did this."

Without an ambulance, without medical attention- true, trusted medical attention, there's no helping this. Unless..

His eyes turn towards an ever present whiteboard, and to most, it would seem the most arcane of languages. To Fitz, however, he understands it. He feels it.. and it's very, very close to what he'd done with the Commander's arm. He's studied nanotechnology from its inception, reading all the science fiction stories, reading all the initial literature about it back in the 1980s.. and he shakes his head again.

"Your processes are wrong. All wrong." Fitz feels deeply about it, and moves to find the workbench. "Where is your interface. Programming! Where is it, man?!" He gestures towards the stricken family, "You know.. time is brain."

He's already spotted some of the errors in the processes.. but now? Fitz' teammates used to give him an absurd amount of time in comparison to what he's got here. He has seconds. Literally, seconds.

Snapping his fingers at Angelo, he doesn't know his name, but after the snapping, he waves. "I need you to watch //him//." So he doesn't interfere.

"I am so sorry.." is murmured. His hands are soaked, his body is soaked with his blood and of the others before he sets the retrieved phone on a table. He has to call off the attack.. if he can. Or, does he try and reprogram the nanites?

Or both, one being the byproduct of the other."

The quickest, most expedient? Fitz takes over the computer system.. he doesn't care.. he'll bash heads to get it in, so angry he is at the moment.

Blue eyes search the programs, the language of magic that is science scrolls and with a couple of key strokes from the big Brain of SHIELD, comes one command,

'Stop the attack.' There's more, but it's more personal, from one Dr Leopold Fitz, repeated from what he'd whispered to the dying wife. 'I understand.' Now.. 'Help us.'

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia has moved on from the hopefully doomed cyborg, though keeps enough tabs on it that she can circle back if it somehow isn't destroyed by the enlarging internal explosives.

<<Yeah, there is one more.>> She replies to Natasha and begins transmitting coordinates. It's a pretty safe bet that the destruction of the second will lead to the activation of the third, but with any luck they can pre-empt that.

Even as the data is transmitted, Nadia is already moving into position, heading towards the coordinates. When it comes into view, rather than dancing with it or risking its untimely activation, knowing how it functions internally now having been inside, withdraws an enhanced ECM grenade from within her armor's storage and fires it at the dormant cyborg. The device explodes with a massive burst of electromagnetic interferience attacking both the machines powered components as well as their ability to effectively communicate with each other.

Rebecca Ryker has posed:
    With a wail of tearing metal, Ghost Rider tears the head off of the cyborg he and Natasha are engaging. She lands a shot (mostly ineffective, sorry) and just then the cyborg explodes, knocking them back once more. It appears that they blow up rather dramatically once damaged enough. Not much is left, but in this case Nat, Angelo, and Robbie are mostly left unharmed. A bit of distance and preparation do wonders it seems.

    The Bzz-zap! in the background and the electric fireball show where Nadia has found the remaining cyborg, and the electro-bomb keeps it from becoming a death machine, but a moment later it slips off into the environment, losing itself with the skill of a trained ranger mixed with stealth technology.

    It's possible that someone in the group (NadiacoughNatasha) could have tracked it down, but at least Nadia is pulled into the main room by desperate need.

    It seems that Jessica is doing CPR on a baby, Leo is focusing on programming, and both of them need help right effing now. Systems need to be hooked up, power attached, masks put onto patients, and when Jessica is freed from the ongoing task of breathing for another living person, the complex machinery that takes her place is almost alien looking.

    Ryker flips on the monitors, as nobody's actually stopped him. He's a skllled assistant, though insane to the point where he'd be willing to create zombies in order to perform his experiments. He reaches up to activate the controls so someone can insert replacement parts into whatever's been lost, when Nadia reaches out and stuns him unconscious.

    "Somebody kick him, several times. Please." She is suddenly busy helping save lives, and can't spare the time to stomp on the guy.

    Combat having suddenly come to a quiet, the tension in the operating room is at a height.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff :is taking a fwe moments up above to ensure that the third attacker isn't en route and then goes into the charnel-house. She's in there wordlessly after a few moments, tkaing but a few seconds to evaluate the area, assess, and memorize it for later review. Then she's running in to do what she has to. Helping in whatever way directed or instructed. This is far from the first slaughterhouse she's had to be in, after all.

Achilles has posed:
    Okay. Nobody charged in, ran in, came in, shot in, or any other 'ins' at Angelo. So he turns to regard Fitz. He nods and says, "Of course sir." And then turns to approach Harlan just as Nadia gives him the old sleeper blast.

    Okay. He's seen a lot of things, but itty bitty wasp sized people growing and shooting are somewhat new to him. Thus, he hesitates for a half second before looking to the baby boy... machinery helping him breathe. Then to Fitz. And then just says, "Consider me an extra pair of hands. Direct me as needed." he says to SHIELD's Smarty McBrainy (That's you Fitz).

Jessica Drew has posed:
Freed from her analogue attempts at life saving by the wonders of modern medical science, Jessica steps back from the gravely injured child. The agent keeps a wary eye on Ryker, the man that SHIELD has spent a lot of time and effort to protect. Misplaced resources and time in her opinion if he is the progenitor of the monsters on his doorstep.

The pieces of the puzzle fit when Fitz demands that Ryker be watched and then the strange woman who morphed into existence stuns him.

"Gladly!" Jess stands over Ryker, grimacing as she plucks the pieces of shrapnel in her back that she can reach.

"You can give me a hand, Angelo," she angles her back to him. "Have at it."

Leopold Fitz has posed:
It looks a warzone in the house. The tang smell of iron is pervasive in the room, and not only are the victims covered with it, obviously, but Fitz is as well. His suit, jacket are ruined, his backpack, well.. he'll need a new one eventually.

He's stressed.. and he's not entirely used to something like this. Not outside his lab, not with lives hanging in the balance.

"Will someone please get rid of him. Put him into custody or something!" He can't trust Ryker as an assistant, and can't keep going behind him to make sure that he hasn't done something untoward. The strain is evident in the normally soft brogue. He's yelling.. a lot. Directing to first move equipment around, to pull things from tables.. to set up the IV poles, stands.. and again, not the first or the last time he wishes Jemma were there.

From yelling to murmuring, to talking to himself. "Yes, that.. no. Wha' has he- no, no.. tha's okay.." Minutes to seconds with lives in the balance, and he's sweating, ignoring everyone in the room.

Then, there's how to deploy it. Some research pointed at intranasal.. others point to into the blood stream. And with an IV access?

Does he have the right? And, is there an option?

"I've got it," he murmurs. "Now.."

Time to save lives, or try to.

Soon enough, the dark painted SHIELD medical trucks will arrive and take the patients away, or will they be victims of a man who wanted to do right but did it the wrong way?

Robbie Reyes has posed:
Robbie's diverted from his pursuit of the third cyborg when he sees Nadia make a beeline for the house. There's a moment where he seems torn between the two; and then with a clank of chain being wound around his forearm, he follows along after her.

"Hey," he murmurs to Jessica, "I got this." If she doesn't protest the creepy punk in head to toe leather who smells faintly like brimstone nudging her aside, he'll haul Ryker up one-handed and drag him away from the monitors.

"You want this guy alive?" he enquires gruffly, presumably of anyone willing to give him an answer. He's not SHIELD, he doesn't typically leave his prey breathing.

Rebecca Ryker has posed:
    In the end, it's left up to time and hope. The way that medicine is far too often: no matter how skilled you are, the body has to live on its own.

    Anna Ryker never finds out the fate of her children, though it is revealed that she was the one who called in the hit on her husband. She was meant to still be away, shopping with her children. He had to be stopped, and she had only that resource left. The very monsters that she'd seen him create. Which killed her in the end.

    Bryan Ryker lived another day. He died the next day, clinging to life. It came so close to working, the life that they'd wanted so much. So much effort, and it just...it can't be that way. Yet it does, and the boy slips to sleep one last time. Not in pain, that much he was saved from.

    And perhaps the saddest of all of them, is what happened to Rebecca, the little girl. The swim team star, who had such a quiet life. Who did what she was told, was a good student, and never was allowed to be free. She has the hardest ending of all.

    SUBJECT: REBECCA RYKER: ONLINE. STATUS: ACTIVE. PROCEED WITH AWAKENING?