1909/War of the Worlds - Part 2a

War of the Worlds - Part 2a
Date of Scene:	31 May 2020
Location:	1909 Metropolis - The Dreadnought
Synopsis:	While the battle rages in Metropolis beyond, the Titans take the battle to the enemy, boarding one of the attacking Dreadnoughts and capturing it.
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Samuel Morgan, Naomi McDuffie, Damian Wayne, Kate Bishop, Kian, Kara Danvers, Kyani Kohanna, Terry O'Neil, Rachel Roth, Victor Stone, Caitlin Fairchild

---

Donna Troy has posed:
    Yesterday, long range scans of the Sol System alerted Earth to an invasion fleet commanded by Mongul aboard the planetoid Warworld entering just beyond Pluto. A group of heroes flew out to Jupiter to meet this force and attempt to stop it before it ever reaches the planet.

    The mission was a mixed success.

    The particle weapon, able to destory planets by draining energy from the storm fronts of the nearby gas giant, was destoryed by a combined efforts of the Champions of Shazam and Thor, but the Prince of Asgard was rendered unconscious in the process.

    Power Girl disappeared into the planetoid to fight Mongul and communications were lost, while Superman, attempting to protect his cousin from the dreadnought flagship of the invasion force.. was intercepted by the true mastermind behind this menace:

General Zod.

    With two Kryptonians unaccounted for, Warworld has ventured closer to Earth. Sending drop ships full of Warzoon and armored behemoths of war. The Heroes of Earth have amassed in Metropolis, the target of the invasion, to hold the line.

    With the omenous presence of Warworld hovering in Space like a second moon and thousands of alien soldiers flooding into the streets, the citizens of the city are in a panic...

    Atop the Titans Tower, the T-Jet stands ready, perched on its launch platform. The air shimmers from the heat of the vertical jets, fired up and ready for launch. Less than a mile away, out over the bay, the dark shape of the alien dreadnought squats ominously, surrounded by a faint orange glow that crackles where it touches the cresting waves beneath. Attempts have been made to attack the dreadnought with fighter jets already, but they've failed - missiles just impact harmlessly against the orange force field.

    "Okay everyone, this is it. Time to prove we are Titans," Donna calls out as the Titans board the T-Jet. "Given how many soldiers have left that ship, it's probably not too well defended, so long as we can get aboard. We need to take over that ship and commandeer the force-field generators to make a safe path out of the city."

    "Team A, with me, will be leading the assault on the ship's defenders. Robin will lead Team B to infiltrate and get to the force-field generators while we are keeping them busy."

    When the last of the Titans is on board, Donna gives a nod to Vic in the pilot seat. "Over to you Vic," she says. Then, to herself, "This better work."

    She draws her sword and holds it out towards the dreadnought. "Let's go! TITANS TOGETHER!"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    A few hours is not enough warning for a proper formulated plan. No matter how well thought out the response might be, in a few hours the best you can do is scramble. And that is exactly what Sam had done, spending most of the time allotted before deployment in the labs, methodically working out a way to board an alien dreadnaught. That something that size could have gotten so close with so little warning is yet another example of how laughably unprepared Earth seems to be for extra-terrestrial threats.

    The final ten minutes he spent suiting up, and throwing together as many tools and improvised weapons as he could scrounge into a holdall. He'd have given his left arm for access to his old armory... but you go to war with the tools you have, not the tools you want.

    Seals engage and metal clanks on metal as the General Assault and Utility Suit System powers up, the three lenses set in an inverted triangle on the blank face plate coming to life. Silently, eerily so, Techno looks around the room to make sure he has everything, hoists the holdall over his shoulder and sets off at a run to the launch platform.

    For a suit that looks this bulky, it hops into the T-Jet without any kind of obvious difficulty, and moments later he's strapped into the flight engineer's seat. "Reminds me of Independence Day. You know, without the Hollywood hacking missile." The Three Switches are duly flipped, and the targeting system for the T-Beam brought online. "Red Six to Red Leader, scope lighting up. Using the force and staying on target. Bit bigger than a womp rat, you can't miss it."

    Wit. Of all the times he could have been serious, Sam resorts to wit.

Naomi McDuffie has posed:
    A look over at the others and Naomi hmms a little as she looks over at this new arrival. "This is happening so soon after that shadow creature thing." She looks to the others before she raises up off the ground as a burst of light engulfs her. Then she's in her armor, floating there with her hands clenched, "What is with this? We leave out some kind of food that assholes really like or something?" She shakes her head and then looks to the others.

    "I'll fly along side the jet. As soon as we get in, I'm punching us a hole they didn't expect right through that thing. I'm not even in the mood for a fight. Was hoping to go see a movie today!" She declares and then looks forward, "It's summer, dammit!" She then lands right atop the jet and waits.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Robin had arrived, ready to talk the fight to the Dreadnought, equipped with all he needs, fully stocked utility belt, two katanas, and enough smoke pellets and other bat tech to make a decent run for Wayne Tower if need be.

  "Infiltration is the objective people, silence is going to be key. Getting through undetected is the goal, but be ready for a fight. Switch to sub-vocal comms as we approach."

  Damian had done the same with his sword, raising it to the sky, its razor sharp point aimed at the incoming dreadnought. "Alliteration is an underrated device." He says to Donna.

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate is definitely a little squicked out by this whole situation. This is REAL. Like really REAL. Not robot spiders. Not even the shadow demons in Metropolis.

This is like Space Opera scruffy nerf herders against the Empire real.

While looking of pictures of the approaching Warworld she mutters to everyone "That is no moon." mutters Kate to Sam, deflecting the severe nerves making her stomach sour with worry about how deadly serious this all is with sarcasm and wit. Even now.

Still Kate is determined, and head strong, and stubborn. She has dedicated herself to helping people as a superhero and this is her Team. So she pulled on her big girl quiver, fills it with explosive and deadly trick arrows, and joined the team to finalize the plan and get on the way with them into a potential lethal situation for all of them.

Kian has posed:
    Jets are for when you need to carry something too large to fly with... or when you need to get somewhere too far or just faster than you can fly.  So, given the apparent urgency of the situation, Kían accepts the need of the T-jet, although he doesn't like it.  He asks Vic, in a tone way too innocent for the question, "Iss another dik-hed?"
    What he's been told, is that energy weapons will probably be brought to bear on them, even though he can't really fathom why anyone would attack unprovoked.  Actually, he can't really fathom attacking, provoked or otherwise.  But, at least disabling, damping, and otherwise dissipating incoming energy fire is something he can both comprehend... and *do*.
    "Hwy iss not tal'k to them?  Iss alien, I am alien, may be I can tal'k with them?"  It seems a sensible question.  To him, anyway.

Kara Danvers has posed:
Supergirl was last seen rocketing away from the battle amidst the Jovian moons dragging an unconscious Thor behind her. Unable to find her cousin, she'd responded to the call from the Titans and arrived atop the Tower. She's obviously been through the wringer - her hair is a mess, her cape is shredded, and parts of her tunic and skirt are both frayed and charged. Beyond that she looks no worse for wear though.

"Please be careful," she announces to the team over the communicator, ready to take to the air alongside the jet rather than needlessly occupy space within it, "The forces of Mongul are enough to worry even my cousin. And my ... and Power Girl has not come back from the surface of War World, yes." Or at least, she hadn't seen her. That was a weird sense of anxiety she neither expected nor wanted.

When the battle cry is given - the second in so short a span of time - she balls her fists at her sides and narrows her eyes in the direction of the Dreadnaught.

"They brought a weapon to destroy the Earth. Thor destroyed it, but that does not mean they cannot still harm us."

Kyani Kohanna has posed:
    Kyani has been hanging out at the Tower and honestly has been training a lot lately, he also has been training to pilot though it's been horrible, still there is a learning curve. Still when the team is requested to meet up on the roof, once the information is given, he rushes and changes clothes and is back wearing dark blue and black hoodie and pants and a new set of Jordans or are they?

He gets on the jet and begins listening as they are going to be seperated in Teams. He didn't know which one he was going to be on, he looks to Troia, "Which teams are we being divided into to Troia?" he asks.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"They're beyond talking, Kian," The Cheshire cat says in response to his befuddled team-mate. He has a bit of an inkling on Kian's point of view, and the pacifist bird has some... ideas about the world. It's the Cheshire cat's role to ruin them. "They've abandoned reason and will not listen. If you don't stop them, they will kill people."

Infiltration being the name of the game, he's dressed in a black jumpsuit that covers as much of his colorful fur as it can. The end result being that he is uncomfortably warm- but what can you do when you happen to be technicolor.

"Just for the record, if we need to bail in a hurry, I /can/ open up a Rabbit Hole at large distances, but I'll need time to focus. So if the place is blowing up and we have to escape a certain death, just make sure there's nobody trying to kick my head in while I'm doing the focus thing," he says to Robin. Sharing tactical details like that is important, before an event of this kind.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Hands in her pockets, Raven is standing adjacent to Donna throughout the whole of the explanation- Eerily, because she's always eerie, silent. She has no comfort zone, at the moment- because her mind is running through all of the ways that this can go wrong. All of the ways that the Titans can fail. Still, though, she's made no attempt to keep them out of it. They have to be tested, and she's going to be here for it.

    Despite this, Raven's wings are extended, in the metaphysical sense. Her soul-self is outstretched, wrapped around the walls of the T-jet, resting under the feet of the Titans present. The jet itself is a fantastic piece of technology, and is in some way essential to their ingress and egress, yet Raven is inherently mistrustful of anything that can be destroyed. The jet seems so... Fragile, despite its incredible construction. She knows this is paranoia- but the jet could be made of adamantium, be just one large star spangled shield, and she'd still be just as ready to teleport every Titan from it on a quarter-moment's notice.

    It doesn't help that very few people present will understand or predict her anxiety, and those who can are left to simply assume its presence, rather than be clued in... Because Raven isn't expressing it at all.

    "He's right. You haven't said who is team A and who is team B."

Victor Stone has posed:
Given just a few hours of warning, Cyborg and a small team of tech- and science-inclined Titans had to throw together an improvised system to get them aboard the approaching dreadnought. The first step was burrowing through their energy shields -- a tall order even for superpowered individuals, if you want the hole to last more than a few seconds. Fortunately, they won't have to rely on superpowers: taking a cue from the old Star Trek trick of shunting high-energy particles through the deflector dish, Cyborg's group devised a ground-based beam that could fire off through the Tower's defensive systems. This doesn't mean the shield WILL fall for longer than a few seconds, of course. That would be too easy. Instead, the idea is to fling the entire team, loaded onto the T-Jet, through the breach while it lasts.

Cyborg, in the pilot's seat, calls out, "Make sure that spotter beam stays locked onto the shield dead ahead of us! It's not going to do us any good to smack into a wall with an open window thirty meters to the left." He watches the numbers on the rangefinder tick down, lips moving just perceptibly, and finally jams a finger into the console to his left. "Beam firing!" He stares ahead as a purplish patch of distortion appears on the shield, wavering closer and closer. Plasma flak bursts all around them as the dreadnought tries to batter them aside. Finally, the barrier dissolves -- mere instants before the Jet would have crashed into it. "Boo-yah!" Cyborg shouts, one fist pumping the air as the other manipulates the flight controls.

The T-Jet slews around, shaking slightly from nearby explosions, and slides surprisingly neatly into the nearest docking bay. The anti-air guns can't track them here, so the ship stabilizes, hatches popping open to allow the young heroes to deploy as quickly as possible. "Titans, go!"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"You worry about flying the plane!" Caitlin calls back at Vic, her voice high and a little tight with controlled anxiety. Fingers fly over the controls. Trying to handle all the systems at once *and* account for variables is enough to challenge even Victor's mighty brain; Caitlin's pulling up the slack and making sure the vessel and the payload of infiltrators and fighters gets there in one piece.

"Oh crap!" she startles-- then, relaxes. "No, wait, I did turn the oven off," she remarks, and with a relieved sigh goes back to her piloting duties.

"Clear route to to breach point," she tells Victor, then flips on the 'all' channel. "<Everyone remember to grab their life support pack before we scatter for the objectives," Caitlin says over the intercom. "Two hours of oxygen, medical gear, and a locator beacon. Sorry the cookies weren't done in time; ration bars will have to do>."

"<For the new folks, communication is key. Don't get separated, and don't think that a solo act is what makes you a hero. Ask Nightwing about that incident on the cruise ship, he'll tell you>," she says with a wry grin none of them can see.

The ship looms closer; she coordinates the particle cannon's impact with Victor's planned trajector. "Impact imminent, brace brace brace!" she calls over the comms net.

Once they hit the deck Caitlin braces hard against the console; she's up and moving the second the vehicle stops, grabbing an oversized backpack and slinging it tight so it doesn't affect her balance. It looks and sounds mostly like tools.

"Tankie tankers," Caitlin sing-songs, and offers Victor a fistbump as the Titans form up into groups. The older ones have done this so many times it's just routine for them to fall into ranks.

Donna Troy has posed:
    As the Titans enter the docking bay, they come under almost immediate assault from a squadron of Wazoon soldiers. The T-jet's armor crackles and fizzes as laser energy from the soldier's rifles bursts against it. Troia puts a hand on Robin's shoulder, and nods to him. "Control will probably be near the power core. We'll cause as much chaos as possible. You know what to do. When you, Techno and Vorp find the shield generator, see if you can displace the force bubble to cover Gateway Bridge, so we have a secure evacuation route for the civilians."

    A mighty voice booms out through Metropolis that momentarily silences the firing, giving the Titans a brief pause. "People of EARTH! I have come here at the head of a machine of war.. your ability to fight me is meager, at best, and your defeat assured... but I am not a harsh ruler or a malevolent dictator. If you surrender, your life will be spared.. and you can serve out the rest of your days beneath your new ruler? Come, Terrans... KNEEL before Zod!"

    "Yeah, let's not do that," Troia says. She is in a similar state to Supergirl, though she does seem to have found time to brush her hair, because Comics. Her armor is scorched, and looks like it's held together at the back with rapidly applied patches, the result of a close encounter with a missile out in space. She may need new armor after this fight is done. "Kyani, you're with me. Robin's team knows who they are, everyone else is with me. Supergirl, please try to keep your focus. We stick together if possible. "Hawkeye, try to keep them grouped. Reserve your explosive arrows for now. Naomi, I don't want us channeled through a doorway - make us another." The rear door of the T-Jet opens, letting the Titans exit with the cover of the T-jet. "Raven, try to shield the infiltration team so they can get moving. Kian, see if you can disable their lasers so we can engage close-quarters. Cait, Supergirl, with me as the front line. Cy and Nitro, winnow out the flanks. Everyone, do /not/ hold back. Metropolis is counting on us. The world is counting on us. Keep yourselves safe, but do not hesitate!"

    Contrary to her word, Donna hesitates, just a moment. She rests a hand briefly on Raven's arm, and catches her eye, holding her gaze for a moment before giving her a smile. Then she launches herself like a maniac from the T-Jet, and leaps into battle.

    Lasers pepper Donna's shield as she charges, head lowered, into the mass of soldiers. She bellows "FOR THEMYSCIRA! FOR METROPOLIS! FOR THE TITANS!" as she crashes into their ranks. Her sword rises and falls in a silvery blur. She's not holding back.

    Sirens blare. Already more soldiers are flooding into the landing bay!

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    'There comes the siren that warns of the air raid, there comes the sound of the guns sending flak...' the opening line follows the guitar riff in Techno's helmet as 'Aces High' starts to play over his personal comms. Everyone is nervous on a deployment like this, and those who claim not to be are liars. But it doesn't do to show it, that's part of the unspoken pact. So with calm professional gestures, Techno keeps an eye on the jet's systems and keeping the guidance beam on target, aided as usual by some inspirational music.

    "Good flying kid, don't get cocky." comes Sam's voice over the comms when the jet manages to slice through the shields, guided unerringly by an ace pilot. He could have used the external comms system, but this was not the time for an impersonal, distorted voice. Now his system checks start to include another inventory check for what he knows is going to be a hot drop. "In case it comes up, hide behind me if you have to. This suit is built to take incoming fire." Something he'd tested empirically not too long ago.

    As soon as the T-Jet touches down, he hits the quick release on his harness and rises from his seat in a motion that is too fluid not to have been practiced over the course of several years. No hesitation, no eye for distractions as he slings the holdall over his shoulder and pounds down the ramp into the alien docking bay. Team B, that means he breaks right immediately on exit, scanning his surroundings the moment his armored boots hit the alien deck, keeping low to obscure his profile.

    This is bandit country, and Sam has gone into hunting mode. The air is thick with laser fire, and he's already calculating a way through. A hand gesture to Robin, one that Sam is sure he'll understand, and Techno is off, taking an oblique route.

Naomi McDuffie has posed:
    Naomi watches as they approach, prepared for the worst but then they get through that shield. She smirks as they burst through and then find a docking bay. Well, that's just sad. She was hoping to make a docking bay but then, eh. Plenty to still destroy. She stays on top of the ship until they finally land and then she hears the order and she is already flying off the top.

    "Already on it." She grins as she races away from the ship right for a nearby wall. She slams right into it with as much force and energy as she can muster in a single hit, not really caring if she over does it. She then spins around once through and turns around to fly back out.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Donna's guidelines are understood. "We will succeed." He says, firmly. An assassin will complete his mission. Damian had given a nod, and a look back to his team. "Vorpal, give us a discreet exit over there." He asks, motioning to a corridor away from the main hubbub.

  "See you on the other side, Techno." With that, he places a helm on his head, and activates the camouflage on his suit, blending into nothingness. "When you are ready, Vorpal."

Kara Danvers has posed:
The order flung in Kara's direction causes her brow to furrow for a moment, and she turns her head to look at the other gathered Titans. Her eyes are already glowing an ominous red as she lands alongside the T-Jet, a rippling heat haze momentarily distorting her features. When the hole into the neighboring bay is torn open, the glow in her eyes fades and she glances sidelong towards Naomi.

"Good! Let's get them!"

Despite the obvious threat the Warzoons pose, Supergirl doesn't immediately tear into them. The soldiers that close on her are thrown back handily, but the fact that they are not red smudges on the bulkheads suggest that the blonde superheroine is not pulling out all the stops just yet. Her eyes flash with beams of crimson energy, searing through rifles even as they're leveled at her to fire.

Kian has posed:
    Kían flits out of the T-jet with great relief -- and hangar bays are generally sensibly sized, even when built by non-avian species.  So he goes high, and concentrates on the energy weapons, absorbing their output where necessary, draining them into uselessness where possible.  Lasers at least are easy -- plain old electromagnetic radiation -- and battery packs that power them are also pretty straightforward.
    He has no military background. His worlds have no military. But protecting his friends, that's something he understands.

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate buckles up into the seat and sits there with her foot tapping as she tries to focus on the problems ahead and not the flight to get there while she can't do anything about flying the jet except stay calm.

The reminder to get her life support pack and everything sorted is timely though and she gets thngs fixed and secures everything she needs to. Just waiting now.

When they make it through the shield "Thank christ." is muttered and she is up once they land pulling out her bow and selecting some arrows, moving to follow Damian and Sam. She knows she isn't on tanky distraction team right.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"<Language!>" comes a piping voice over the commset. Propriety and professionalism always apply, after all!

Rachel Roth has posed:
    The hand on her arm garners a response from Raven. "If you die out there, I will kill you." she responds, primarily, to Donna- but others are free to take the threat personally if it helps motivate. Frowning deeply, Raven takes a few steps forward as the doors of the Jet open. "Spend a year away and you forget the battle cry."

    Raven floats into the air, and when she speaks, it is at her normal volume- yet it seems to echo into the ship beyond, reaching every Titan as a booming call. "Titans. TOGETHER!" she calls, as a shadow leaps from her form, and begins consuming Warzoons, nebulous mouths and tendrils leap from it, and in a sight almost akin to something Lovecraftian, Raven's soul-self seems to literally eat these warbeasts, halting their approach to the Jet to preserve their escape, and shielding others from flanking Warzoons. Raven is seemingly omnipresent, taking the role of protector remotely- it limits, in a way, the amount of damage she can do: And yet, there is one subtle influence that the Titans can 'feel', in a way.

    The lack of Fear. Raven rips it from the minds of those present, and redirects it, leaving only the barest needed for caution. Quite suddenly the ship full of alien soldiers finds themselves quite suddenly terrified of the Titans.

    Raven's eyes have disappeared, consumed by deep pools of obsidian, outlined but a corona of white light, like an eclipsed sun.

Victor Stone has posed:
Vic grins tightly, but doesn't take the moment that would be needed to volley back Sam's movie quote -- as soon as they've landed, he hits the release on his flight harness and leaps into action, breaking into a loping run to the nearest egress hatch. His boot-jets fire as he leaps clear, allowing a longer jump and gentler landing than would have otherwise been possible. No sooner has he returned Cait's Titans Tank fist bump than the Warzoon shower him with incoming fire. One hit glances off his plating before he can get a shimmering blue force grid between himself and the attackers.

"We wouldn't be here if they were in any mood to talk, Kian," he says over the comm channel. He really doesn't want the poor bird guy to get cut down trying to reason with the kind of invading army that lives on a thing called a War World.

His mentorly diligence seen to, he turns to another duty: mobile artillery. The way Supergirl looked when she got back gave him an idea of what they were in for, so he loaded up the meanest limbs he had before they left the tower. From one shoulder, he launches a volley of grenades in an arc over his own shield, giving Raven's blanket of fear some serious teeth and scattering the Warzoons from their attack so that they can be picked off one by one.

Kyani Kohanna has posed:
    Kyani nods his head and as the orders are given, "Alright, I'm right behind you." Another big mission but now he's with people he knows and have guidance. He takes a few deep breaths and as they fly through the shields, Kyani...Nitro drops out of the ship and begins moving with the others, keeping close to Troia and his team. He takes a gulp and nods his head when he is told to outflank their group, he looks to Cys. "Looks like we're working together." he says.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
There's a trick to being a tank.

It goes beyond merely 'go get shot at'. You have to convince the enemy to ignore the much more potent threats floating in the background, the archers and the spell slingers, the ones who can't shrug off a few laser bolts. And do so in such a way that their attention is *entirely* focused on the much more immediate threat of the giant redhead charging down on them.

Caitlin's response is controlled chaos. The soft-spoken redhead borrows Vic's cover until she's close enough to break into a leap of her own, and she does so with a positively earsplitting battle cry that tears from her throat.

And she goes right for the bigget Warzoon, crashing full into him instead of using retrorockets to slow her fall. With a series of swift blows that chop him down to size. Lasers leave scorch marks on her uniform, tearing pinhole burns in it. The redhead more or less shrugs them off and grabs a bulkhead that must weigh a few thousand pounds, and without much effort bowls it at a tightly clustered squad of Warzoons.

She's beset upon by no less than six of their warriors, howling with blood lust as the try to strike her with blades and energeized weapons; the redhead tap-dances skillfully to keep them tripping over one another, making a big show of presenting herself as the highest priority threat in the area.

All the better to set the other Titans up for a proper hat trick.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The Cheshire cat's eyes fixate on the point, and he nods slowly, "On it." He doesn't need special concentration to operate the Rabbit Holes within line-of-sight, but it certainly doesn't hurt to take a moment.

~Dear mom,

If you read this, it means I am probably not coming back...~

Terry had hastily written that note earlier, scrawled in handwriting that looked like he was being electrocuted. It was very distinctive. He had Rabbit Holes the note onto his kitchen table, aware that if he should go missing, his mother would most likely serach the apartment like a good P.I.

"And..."

The Rabbit Hole opens up, the size is enough to allow its intended passengers through, but not large enough to call attention. Well, as much as a hole in the fabric of reality could be discreet, "Go!"


~There are some things I need to tell you about myself first. I'm sorry you have to learn about them like this.~

He leaps through the hole, following Robin.

Donna Troy has posed:
    The main entrance-way to the landing bay acts as a bottle-neck for the incoming forces, as Wazoon soldiers queue up to enter the fray. They pile in as best they can, the front rows dropping to their knees to lay down covering fire - but their beams fizzle into ineffective clouds of plasma inches from the barrel as Kian disrupts the lasers. Supergirl's heat-ray vision destroys the rifles of the second rank, and soon the soldiers are thrown into chaos.

    Naomi tears open the side wall, exposing a second docking bay beyond. A dozen more Wazoon soldiers are taken by surprise, looking on in astonishment.

    Troia and Cailtin lead the charge directly into the mass of soldiers, and soon bodies are flying everywhere. The two fight closely together, fists and sword covering each other's actions and holding the attention of the mass of fighters as the others winnow them away from the sides, relatively untargeted.

     The numbers actually seem to be thinning. Cyborg's volley of grenades arc over the front lines and into the corridor beyond, carving a void behind them. Then the shadowy form of Raven's soul-self enters the fray; the fear was already beginning to grow in these Wazoon from the sheer ferocity of the onslaught is multiplied ten-fold. A waver of panic seems to shudder through the soldiers, and within moments it turns into a full scale rout. Wazoon from both docking bays climb over each other in panic to escape from the Titans.

    Vorpal's Rabbit Hole brings the infiltration team out onto a service corridor that connects to the walkway around the docking bay. Ahead the corridor branches. Power conduits run down the left-hand branch. On the right, a pair of Wazoon engineers work frantically at what appears to be a heavy-duty circuit breaker box of some kind. So far they have not spotted the infiltration team.

    The corridors and docking bay echo to the sound of a female voice coming over the ship's PA. At first it barks orders in an unfamiliar language, but then it switches to English. "Brave little humans," the voice sneers. "And so utterly stupid. There will be no mercy for you. Let's see how you like a little taste of your own medicine?

    "Now, while they are retreating! Supergirl, Raven, with me," Troia calls out as she heads for the corridor beyond. "Cait, Cy and the rest, through the other docking bay. Attack them from both sides!"

    As the Titans burst out of the docking bays, they find there is little to attack from both sides. The corridors are relatively empty, just a dozen or so of the braver Wazoon standing there to block their way - or to buy time?

    Further down the corridor comes a snuffling, and a beastly roar. A pair of heavily armed Wazoon each lead an animal towards the Titans. The beasts are about seven feet tall, covered in white fur but for small, scaly red heads. The creates thrash and flail around angrily, and their handlers prod them with electric prods. With some goading, the beasts focus their attention on the attacking Titans. Their eyes glow red.

    For each of the attacking titans on the assault team, the ship seems to fade away. Everything goes misty, and then the mist seems to resolve itself. For each Titan, it resolves itself into something different - the thing they fear most.

    For Troia, it is Themyscira. Not Themyscira the way it had been when she last saw it, but a Themyscira in ruins. The great palace is little more than a mount of rubble; the library is in flames; the statues of gods and goddesses are toppled. All across the ground lie the bodies of dead Amazons. There are no signs of life. Troia is alone, last of the Amazons.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    A good distraction is worth half a tactical advantage, and usually professionalism will provide the other half. Techno doesn't quite disappear like Robin, and he can't hop between places like Vorpal, but... he slinks, finding blind spots in the vision of the soldiers focusing on the heavy hitters, slipping in past the edge of their vision, and moving on, like an armored shadow in the midday sun. There's rallying cries, there's orders being given, there's noise and fury aplenty, but none of it penetrates into the bubble of methodical progress that Techno seems to have wrapped around him, moving at a jog, nearly six hundred pounds of metal moving silently.

    It's enough speed to drop and perform a sliding takedown on the soldier that is unlucky enough to just step out in front of him from around a corner, helped to the ground by a gauntlet gripping his tunic while an armored boot takes his legs out from under him. Face meets decking. Once, twice, three times, until Sam is reasonably certain that this soldier is both down, and unable to pass on the message that someone is there. Then face meets decking again, just to be sure.

    By the time he rolls to his feet to keep his rendezvous with Robin, Techno has helped himself to the soldier's rifle, having lost no appreciable time in obtaining it.

    <<For someone so sure of themselves, this Zod is relying entirely too much on a war machine. Bad idea. Worse idea if you didn't take out the city's technopath first.>> At the opening of the corridor Robin had indicated, Techno goes prone, rifle braced on his armored left forearm, in a classic sniper pose. The engineers are shot without mercy or hesitation, and before they hit the ground, Sam's voice comes over the infiltration team's comms "Overwatch in place. Go for advance."

Naomi McDuffie has posed:
    Naomi, for her part, is doing her level best to play overwatch. She turns to look at those that are surprised in the other bay and fires off a blast in their direction to try to give them pause about what the best course of action is before she turns back to the assault by the others and she flies down to grab a hunk of the ship she broke and tosses it into a group to scatter/crush them. She figures these guys think they're tough enough to fight the Titans, then they're tough enough to deal with a hunk of space ship.

    Things are going smoothly right up until the world starts to fade and then go weird. She bliks as the world around her alters and then she spots Raven. She blinks at that Raven she spotted and realizes she doesn't look right...it's...it's sad Raven? She's crying. Well, that at least checks out but...it seems off.

    "Hey, what are you doing, here? What is here?" And then sad Raven looks up and shakes her head and says, "You shouldn't be back here..." And then Naomi is confused and she turns around to see herself back in that field. That field in Raven's mind. The demons are swarming again. Then she spots the other Titans, fighting their best and she stares as Kate is the first to be overwhelmed.

    "No!" She crashes in that direction, flying faster than teh speed of sound only to burst apart the demons and find...Kate. She's...

    And then a scream and she turns in time see Caitlin pushed over the edge of the island they are on. Then Kian flies up into the sky only to be swarmed.

    Then he's gone...

    Naomi screams and races into the crowd, firing blast after blast even as one by one the others start to fall...

Donna Troy has posed:
    As the Titans struggle with their own inner demons, the ship's Captain, the woman who's voice had been heard earlier, marches down the corridor, flanked by a pair of elite Wazoon guards. She has come to gloat. Lips curled into a sneer, she looks over the troubled Titans one by one, until her eyes fall on Supergirl.

    To the symbol on her uniform.

    <<That one,>> she tells the handlers of the beasts. <<Free her. She is MINE>>

    The psychic attack had barely begun to take its hold on Supergirl before it fades. <<You,>> the woman snarls. Her language has changed again. Not Wazoon, not English. She's speaking Kryptonian. <<You dare to come here, onto /my/ ship, wearing /that/ symbol? I am Ursa-Zod. And you are DEAD!"

    Ursa rises up into the air, eyes glowing red, and hurtles bodily at Supergirl!

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian had snuck through the Rabbit hole, easy enough, while the rest of the infiltration team made their way through the halls. <<Advancing.>> He says, moving down the left hallway. There were too many power conduits going this way for it not the be the correct area. All they needed to do was shut down the field generator.

  <<Techno, analysis on that panel.>> He asks, continuing to move down the hallway, and shutting off the camouflage. He would need to save that battery.

Kara Danvers has posed:
The psionic attack moves through Supergirl's defenses like they were nothing, her Kryptonian invulnerability providing no resistance to such an insidious and intangible assault. She floats above the Earth, high enough to see the curvature of it. Suddenly, cracks begin to form. Great gulfs in the crust that glow from within with a sickly, green glow. Her blue eyes widen, her mouth opens into a silent scream and -

Zod.

The nightmare is gone as quickly as it came, and Kara has only a moment to fathom just what is happening. The Kryptonian words find her ears, and she would almost feel hopeful if it weren't for what they're saying. She shakes herself free of her stupor just in time to be struck by Ursa, their connection enough to cause an ear-splitting crack and rend the deck plates beneath them.

The two Kryptonians tumble backwards at speeds approaching that of sound itself, head over heel through bulkhead after bulkhead into the interior of the Dreadnaught.

<<House ... Zod ... are ... criminals!>> Supergirl shouts back in Kryptonian, pushing back against Ursa with all her strength in an effort to stop their momentum, <<And murderers!>>

Kian has posed:
    The unfortunate thing about Kían's telepathy is that on his world, there really is no reason to cultivate mental defenses.  They don't live in large numbers, the people one is most often around are friends and family.  So even though the attack is psychic, the birdman is not accustomed to the idea of having to defend his own mind.  Close it down to prevent intruding on another's, yes.  Prevent another's from invading his, not so much.
    And what he 'sees' happening is the space around him solidifying, closing in, enveloping him in a smaller and smaller cocoon.  Never mind that he's still flying, that he shouldn't be able to fly encased in walls that KEEP MOVING CLOSER...!
    He screams.  It's partly a human(oid) scream.  It's also partly a desperate hawk's keening.
    A wave of raw and untamed energy blasts out in front of him, not aimed, not directed, not even really controlled, just a mindless and panicky need to /make the walls go away/ as quickly as possible.
    He keens again, no less desperately.

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate follows close after Damian and Sam turning her back to the two of them as they make there way through and walking along backwards. She has her head on a swivel right now, even if part of her line of thought is that holy shit they are on an actual alien spaceship way too high up above the earth right now and this is totally not good if something goes wrong.

Thank god Vorpal is here.

Which is also disconcerting right. Who thinks that. J/k

Still turns out it is pretty good that she is keeping an eye on the back because there is the noise of a bow being loosed and an arrow hitting a very meaty target as one of said aliens gets an arrow right in the front of their throat, silencing them and definitely preventing them from doing anything remotely like raising an alarm. >>Tick tok guys>> she mutters over the comms. There is a thud as the dead alien hits the ground.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
For Caitlin, the psychic intrusion is nothing. No nightmares like she has when she's actually asleep-- bubbles churning through incubation tanks, VR constructs fizzling in and out of existence. Agonizing medical experimentation. The terrifying shame of public humility. A fear of being truly lost and alone, stranded.

No, Cait's mind just goes blank at that intrusion. Which is kind of nice, for Caitlin.

It's a problem for the other Titans, though. Caitlin grabs a lunging Warzoon and simply slaps it with one open palm. The blow lands with enough force to ring off the walls, and snaps the creature's neck. Another tries to stab at her; she takes the weapon away from it with an utterly blank expression, and impales the Warzoon with its own weapon.

And then she faces Cyborg and charges at him! She barrels forward with both hands to grapple for his forearms and chassis with the intention to start ripping those cybernetic limbs off with the immense strength in her bare phalanges. All the while her face is impassive as if she were indeed asleep, save for her eyes being open and vaguely out of focus.

Vic gains a momentary reprieve as Kian's blast wave washes over them both, and Caitlin goes flying sideways. She tucks into a ball and fetches hard against a wall; with an uncharacterisitc precision she unfolds and lands on toes and fingers, staring hard at Victor, and grabs a thousand-pound steel bulkhead and hurls it at him like a torpedo.

Victor Stone has posed:
Cyborg charges shield-first through the breach Naomi punched in the bulkhead and strafes what targets he can get a bead on with sonic blaster fire from his right palm. Kicking the wreckage that Naomi just flung hard enough to leave dents in whatever alien alloy it's made out of, he positions it like a barrier to provide cover his teammates can use to hold the ground they've gained. He is just sighting along one arm over this barrier, preparing longer-range laser shots for whatever strange beasts the Warzoon are bringing out next, when the unexpected psychic assault melts through his mind.

Without warning, it's nine years ago, and he's blind and burning. Skin and muscles and nerves become ash and stinking vapor. He tries to shut his eyes against the blast but one of them is just... gone. There's no eyelid, and anyway nothing for it to protect. He's tumbling, and he wonders what he tripped on, but he didn't trip -- it's just his legs /not being there/ anymore. Shards of metal tear through his chest and it should be over in an instant but it keeps going for an impossibly long time. More and more of him is tearing and burning and falling away and somehow he is watching it happen, watching the nothing where his body used to be claim more and more of the territory that used to be his -- used to be /him./

He's completely lost in this nightmare, deaf to the groaning metal as Caitlin starts to tear his prosthetics apart, blind to her terrifyingly blank expression staring at him, unfeeling as Kian's shot sends him crashing through his own improvised cover.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    A psychic wave washes over the ship, and Raven stands among it as if it were mere flotsam on the shores of a quiet beach. Still back at the Jet, Raven's eyes return to normal for a moment. They narrow, slightly.

    "Cute." she responds- Before shadows leap up to envelop her, and she is gone- taking to the battlefield more directly, and quite suddenly appearing in the bridge of the ship, floating in the sky... Almost regally.

    "Enough." she declares to the psychic beasts assaulting her teammates, diving her presence into that assaulting mind with a second, calm statement. "Nobody traumatizes the Titans but ME."

    For the others, the end of the psychic assault comes as quickly as it had begun. Raven unweaves the influence, and uses it to create a mental link between herself and the tormentors- turning that psychic outreach into a mental riptide, dragging the psychics' consciousnesses and their own primal minds into Raven's own.

    It is a place that none should ever tread, and in no place else is Raven more exposed as an impossible thing. Between dimensions, and inhuman at her very core.

    Raven floats there, motionless, as the battle in the mind takes place- but already, she is looking to be faring altogether better than her opponents, who, dragged out of their own minds, drop to the floor as if made of nothing but cartilage and excellently pureed jam. Their eyes roll back into their heads, and foam begins to seep from their mouths.

    Were it not for the immaterial nature of their battle, others would see how brutal Raven is being- as if, for some reason, she has taken this tactic very, very personally.

    The fight, however, is not over- not yet, anyways, and Raven is no longer eating fear, nor is she protecting her teammates.

Kyani Kohanna has posed:
    Kyani runs through having been given his orders, when a whole is blown through the wall, Kyani rushes in, yellow lightning streaking behind him as he moves into the docking bay. He is able to perceive things pretty quickly, so when the psychic attack hits him, Kyani stops suddenly.

    Kyani remembers himself back in juivie, he really didn't have anything bad happen to him, but he was being asked about his parents by one of the admin. She wasn't really asking she was basically hititng him with low blows talking about his family gave him up because they already knew he was going to turn out like this. This is something that did bother him but not enough, he still stops because that was a time he was lost and didn't know what he was going to do with his life. It stalls him.

Donna Troy has posed:
    The fall of Themyscira; a return to Raven's nightmare landscape; the Earth, shattered; the walls closing in; Kyani's abandonment; Victor's near-death experience; Caitlin's... Caitlin possibly trying to recreate Victor's nightmare outside his psychic dreamworld. Each Titan plunged into their own worst nightmare, with the sure knowledge that it is absolute, irrevocable, final...

    And then it is no more. The Titans return to normality, but normality is not quite what they had left behind. The walls of the corridor are blasted back, exposing rooms beyond, and the final vestiges of the blue glow of Kian's Rhy'thar crackle and ground themselves across the bulkheads. A hole has been punched through the ship in roughly the shape that would be made by a pair of Kryptonians tumbling together as they wrestle. The two beasts lay on the ground, whimpering, their hands covering their heads as their minds struggle with Raven's, and their handlers are laid out, unmoving, blasted by the wave of psychic pressure. The corridor lights are out. Further away, lights flicker. The quiet is interrupted by the sudden booming of Cyborg's sonic canon, as he instinctively lashes out at the bulkhead hurtling towards him.

    "Gods!" Donna swears. "We're supposed to be taking the ship, not destroying it. We need that forcefield!" She steps up to the edge of the hole that had been ploughed by Supergirl and Ursa, peering into the bowels of the ship. "Supergirl! Can you hear me? Rae? Where did you go" she calls into her intercom.

    Robin and Hawkeye stand guard, taking out the occasional passing Wazoon as Techno's senses feel out the panel. The circuitry is complicated, deeply unfamiliar. Electricity seems to dance through crystal lattices, and there are organic elements to the circuitry, there are nodes of highly distributed computing that he feels fading out into the distance, beyond the range of his power It seems impossible to understand at first...

    But there's always a way. There are powerful currents being shunted around, don't worry about the complicated circuitry, follow the current. The ship is hovering - that must take quite a lot of power. The ship is projecting a force field - that too. The rest is much smaller scale stuff. Trace the lines of force, feel the magnetic fields. One way he can sense something deep and pulsing, full of energetic force. The engines? The other, draining huge amounts of power into something more subtle, like the rhythmic pulsing of a crystal oscillator on a vast scale. That must be it! He traces the routing. Down a level. A little to the north. He knows where to go.

    Donna checks her T-Com, looking at the position locators. "Nitro! Run down there, fast as you can." She points towards the hole in the bulkheads. "See if you can find Supergirl. Do NOT engage. Report when you see anything. Cyborg, follow after and cover him, your best judgement when you figure out what's going on." Then she points down the corridor. "The rest of us this way - Rae is somewhere ahead. Looks like our way is relatively clear towards the bridge. Get moving!"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Technology is technology. It came as a surprise to Sam too when he encountered his first bit of alien tech, and found it to be just as familiar as the technology he was used to. Whatever the reason, and even Techno doesn't pretend to understand it fully, the origin of the tech doesn't matter, in the same way the forge of an alloy doesn't matter to a magnetokinetic, and the makeup of an object is irrelevant to a telekinetic. To the technokinetic, to the technopath, all technology is technology.

    That means when Sam gets close enough to the control panel, the whole ship opens up to him in a way that is impossible to describe to a mere five or even six senses. Power flows. And power always flows somewhere.

    For a few moments, Techno seems to stand still, utterly oblivious to the corridor, until the rifle snaps up into his shoulder and he's moving with purpose back to the group. "One level down, north. If that's not the shield generators, I'll eat my helmet."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Robin gives a nod to Techno as he explains the situation. "Alright, let's move." He says, taking the corridor to a nearby stairwell. As he moves, he constantly is on alert, peeking down hallways tactically, and moving down the hall with two birdarangs ready to throw, always looking where he is going.

  As the trio make their way down the level and to their objective, a small mirror is produced and sweeped around and watching the situation inside. To which Robin turns to the others and starts to relay instructions. "There are more of those engineers around the generators. And soldiers guarding them up above. Techno and I will go first to draw fire, during which we need to pacify those engineers. Hawkeye will have clear shots to the soldiers who will be distracted." He offers up the mirror for anyone to take a look for themselves, to get the lay of the land.

  "Weapons hot. Loud and proud." He comments, setting up his hands with three batarangs and his sword. Robin goes in first, with a battlecry that echoes through the large room, making enough noise to be noticed. Dodging as much fire as he can before he throws two of the sharpened batarangs at two engineers, striking at their heads.

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate bobs her head in acknowledgement to what Sam says <<Roger Roger>> sticking with the Star Wars line they have been using on this whole mission so far, it is a total vibe.

She continues to ease along letting the boys keep the front and sides clear while she watches for tails as they start to make their way down a level and then north towards the shield generators.

There is only one more incident of alien murder by Kate's hands on the way down there, arrow in the knee through an armored joint and then a follow up right through an eye slit in a helmet before an alarm can be raised as someone steps around a corner into view as she is trailing through the intersection after the boys.

Somewhere along the way Kate must have made a decision that much like Old Man Hawkeye, Alien Invaders like Demons just get arrows lethally. There isn't an abundance of goo arrows, just armor piercing alloy arrows right now.

She listens very closely to Robin when he lays out the plan, it seems really solid. She gives a nod and switches out arrows now drawing a small handful and holding them ready to fire rapidly. She forgoes doing the trick she has been practicing. As awesome as it would be to do the Amazonian quick shot trick, doing it for the first time in the field with explosive arrows might be the wrong time and place. So she is going in on the slightly slower fast way to queue up arrows.

Once Robin takes th charge she waits a few moments for Sam to join him then follows in eyes to the catwalks. With surgical precision Kate lets loose arrow, after arrow, sending them flying at the catwalks supports where they EXPLODE with a lot of boom and destruction.

Hard to be effective guards when you can't fly and have a good distance to fall.

Robin did say weapons hot loud and proud right. This is certainly Loud and faster than any normal arrows.

Kara Danvers has posed:
"I have this under control," Supergirl calls through the communicator, sounding thoroughly unconvinced as she flings Ursa bodily through one of the few remaining fighters still parked in the landing bay, "I can handle it!"

The clash of the two Kryptonians is (fittingly) titanic. As Ursa rises from the wreckage, she lunges at Kara with her eyes aglow and her teeth bared. The woman drives a fist into Supergirl's midsection with an ear-splitting crack, driving the air from her and sending her sprawling back across the deck. But no matter the strength of the hit, the Maiden of Might returns. Both hands clasped together, she brings her hands upwards in a swinging motion to send her toppling through another bulkhead and deeper into the ship.

Throughout the dreadnaught, klaxons wail, and machinery screams in protest as the two Kryptonians tear through it in the course of the battle. From time to time, Kara can be heard shouting in the Kryptonian language through her communicator, occasionally cut off by static or the sound of a blow striking home.

Victor Stone has posed:
Vic's awareness snaps back to reality a fraction of a second before the flung bulkhead's impact. For all his defensive systems, he's too disoriented and surprised to do more than lift his metal limbs up to shield his face and fire off a wild sonic shot -- the wall is slowed but not deflected, and hits his upraised limbs edge-on and at speed with a shriek of sheared alloys. He's knocked back hard, skidding across the deck on his back before finally coming to rest with the wall on top of him. After a still second, there's a series of powerful clangs and he manages to punch it aside, but it looks like his right hand has been nearly severed at mid-forearm, and is dangling uselessly by bent metal and bundled tubing. His left fared better, but has still been deeply dented across the forearm and hand. Furthermore, his left leg was partially crushed, and lost much of its articulation. He manages to force himself upright, but nearly topples again as the damaged leg refuses to bend when he needs it to.

"ShiiiIIIIIIT!" he blurts out, wobbling, but old instincts from physical therapy take over and he stays standing. Shaking his head in relief that there's at least a reprieve in the Warzoons' offense, he hobbles back toward the group. "You heard her, Kyani, get a move on. But I might need some help following..." He glances around, then locks eyes with Caitlin and raises his brows expectantly. "You mind giving me a hand?" he asks her, raising his newly sheared-off one. "You kinda owe me that much."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
When the psychic pressure abates, Caitlin drops in her tracks like a puppet with the cords cut. She pratfalls facefirst into the hull with a loud *thud*. It takes her a groggy few seconds to get to her feet, and the first thing she sees is the badly damaged Victor ahead of her. Donna's battlecry cuts through the fog and Caitlin fumbles to her hands and knees. "Oh, crabapples! Vic, are you okay?" she asks with a dismayed expression. "Did... did I do this?!" She grabs her hair in both hands and looks almost nauseated.

There's another loud cry and Caitlin turns, then grabs her backpack off her shoulders and fishes in it. "Press on, Donna, we're on your heels!" she shouts, and pulls out a welding torch.

The path to the bridge is relatively clear; it doesn't take the little pack of Titans long to press forward. By the time they near the door, Caitlin comes barreling up behind them at a shocking sprint. Coming to a halt is a big exercise in skidding feet and flailing arms, finally ending with her sitting briefly on her rear and hopping to a standing position again. Her backpack's been gutted and Victor's chassis has been duct-taped to the frame. Where one of his hands were is now an energy projector, crudely connected directly to his primary power systems.

"Remind me to pick up Vic's feet on the way back," Caitlin tells the others, and hefts what looks like a ship-mounted blaster cannon onto her hip. "We ready to rock?"

Kian has posed:
    Kían looks more than a little weirded out, righting himself in midair.  "Hwat hap-pen?" he asks, first in his own language and then correcting himself and using English.  He shakes his head clear.  "I saw wall, iss gone now.  I am not see more dik-hed's moving."  Vic has a lot to answer for, in what he's taught the birdman.  "I am need di-rec-tion, p'lease."

Victor Stone has posed:
Thumping around on Caitlin's back as she runs -- in just the most extremely dignified way you can imagine -- Vic forces himself to think. "Okay, Kyani, if we're going to force a Kryptonian off this ship, we're going to need to use their own tech to do it," he says into his T-Comm, waving his new blaster hand over his hand as he struggles to stay level in the improvised harness. "So... scouting. Point your Comm-cam at anything that's being fed with especially big power cables, OK? I'm gonna launch a little swarm of drones from the jet and hopefully they can catch up to you."

Kyani Kohanna has posed:
    <<Copy that.>> is said after a long few minutes, he seems to come out of whatever had happened to him. Shaking his head and catching the comm chatter. <<Yeah, give me a sec...head....>> he says as he shakes his head again and now as he looks around he sees the hole that is indicated. He looks at the bulkhead, and in a blur, he is gone, moving down, running fast enough to run along the walls going down. Looking around making sure to have his T-Comm camera seeing whatever he is looking at. <<I hope you're able to see what I'm seeing Cyborg.>> he says as he continues to look for Supergirl.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Kyani's scouting doesn't need him to get very close to the action before he's found Supergirl's struggle with Ursa. The two Kryptonians are doing a good job of demolishing a sizeable portion of the ship, and the noise draws him there. With his speed he's able to scout the location out and get out of the way before he's spotted. He's able to guide Vic's drone, and Vic picks up on something interesting. Close to where the Kryptonians are battling are powerful gravitic generators - probably some kind of tractor beam or docking system.

    "Don't blame yourself Caitlin," Donna says as she winces at Vic sympathetically. "You guys catch up as soon as you can. Kian, Naomi, with me. You see anything that looks vaguely like a weapon, blast it." The next few minutes pass as a blur of action for the Titans. They fight their way through the corridors of the ship getting ever closer to the bridge. Energy blasts from Naomi and Kian deal with the bulk of the mechanical defenses, while Troia - soon joined by Caitlin - cuts a furrow of destruction through the soldiers. Cyborg covers their backs (in Caitlin's case quite literally) with canon fire. Before long they stand before the bulkhead door to the bridge. The corridor all around them is strewn fallen Wazoon.

    Superman had heard the Titans over the great distance, even while in battle with Zod above Metropolis, and it was one amongst them that he suddenly hovers beside. "Donna... We need to move the mass of Mongul's army away from Metropolis.. we have a magician back at the memorial, but I need Raven's assistance here. Create a portal big enough to move the bulk of this army /outside/ of the city..." The Man of Steel is blooded, split lip that's starting to heal but still has a trail of blood running down his cheek and his costume in tattered from the fight with Zod. Most of the upper portion torn or burnt away with massive bruises visible on both flanks?

    Donna nods her head to Superman. "Give us a few minutes and you'll have the force-field and the portal. She considers for a fraction of a second warning her about his cousin and her battle below, but decides it would be better not to distract him. Though he might already be aware, he /is/ Superman. "Good luck, Kal."

    With her response, he's gone, back to coordinate with the other at the memorial. Donna points in the direction of the bridge. "You heard the man. Let's finish this!"

    In the force field generator room, the attack is as loud and proud as Damian had promised. After the first two engineers fall to Damian's batarangs, the rest pull laser pistols out and try to engage the two assassins. The battle is short and deadly. It would have been considerably less quick if the soldiers above had a chance to bring their heavy rifles, and their combat training, to bear. Perhaps it would not have ended in the favor of the Titans - these are elite guards.

    Unfortunately for the elite guards, they cannot fly. Hawkeye slips in a little behind the two assassins and unleashes a volley of arrows. Three arrows fired in quick succession; three targets hit perfectly; three crisp explosions that collapse the support pillars and bring the elite guards tumbling to the ground.

    The Generator room is in the hands of the Titans.

    Back at the bridge, Raven is still forcing down the minds of the two psychic beasts. She's winning the battle. However she has drawn the attention of the last remaining Wazoon defenders, and they approach her cautiously, wearing psychic shields to protect themselves from her empathic projection, glowing force barriers ahead of them, laser pistols drawn and ready to blast the sorceress.

    With a sudden crashing, the door to the bridge flies inwards, knocking the approaching Wazoon flying. Donna stands on the theshhold, her sword dripping with Wazoon blood, fire in her eyes. She glares at them, and leaps...

Donna Troy has posed:
It's over - apart from Ursa, still fighting with Supergirl, and the psychic beasts, still just holding out against Raven, the ship belongs to the Titans. "Rae, got another job for you when you can manage. Everyone, report in!"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Loud and proud. It's not Sam's usual tactic, preferring the stealthy approach over the dynamic entry, but the word is given. After acquainting himself with the layout through the mirror, Techno nods and waits for his cue. That is, exactly half a second behind Robin.

    The first volley is suppressive fire, aimed at the soldiers on the top catwalks. Shooting to miss is a strange concept when trying to explain it to those unfamiliar with room clear tactics, but that's exactly what he does, making his obviously armored and armed self the primary target for any return fire, and firing a few more shots in the general direction of the soldiers for good measure.

    His shots to the engineers are far more precise, center mass and head for each. Until the catwalks come down, he hadn't really appreciated the versatility of arrows, but once the dust settles, the shriek of rending metal has abated and the room is cleared, Techno's helmet turns to face Kate, the three lenses pulsing green. Lowering the rifle, he offers a fist for a bump first to Kate and then to Robin, in acknowledgement of a job well done. And then? Then it's down to business.

    "Cover me, I need to be between the generators to do this." which means, open and exposed. Granted, open and exposed while encased in armor designed to shrug off incoming fire, but still... it's not a position a professional likes to be in.

    <<Techno, all systems nominal.>> comes Sam's voice over the comms, followed by a slight pause. <<Forcefields being redirected now.>> Kneeling, his awareness expands to its fullest, taking in the generators, the power conduits, the energy being generated and used... With infinite care, the bubble is redirected, creating a safe zone around the Gateway Bridge. Should have killed the technopath first, Zod...

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian, Hawkeye, and Techno have done a great amount of cleaning up, the assassins and the archer standing amongst the bodies of the now cleared engineering room. After the fracas, Damian stands, sword bloodied by the engineers, some spatter on his face as he approaches the other two. He bumps the fist as offered, and takes the rifle as it was lowered. <<Robin, we are in control of Engineering.>>

Taking a moment to get acquainted with the weapon, he charges, and makes sure everything is fresh and ready to go. "Hawkeye, on the other hallway, fry any hostiles coming in." He, as always was very short and to the point, he was not enraptured by the novelty of the situation, being on an alien battleship. But this was why it was a good thing to have him on the team, he gets the job done, and everyone comes home. He aims down the barrel of the rifle, ready to fire.

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate will return the fist dap, careful to not point any explosive tipped arrows at the incoming fist bump.

The one arrow she didn't use of that variety is returned to the quiver and she draws out a normal murder arrow and pivots around. "Will do.. " moving to find cover and not be out in the open but also with a clear line of sight on the door they came in and the entry points that fed those catwalks.

Sans speedster or teleporter she figures that they can deal with rushing reinforcements and not be caught out like the engineers and soldiers were moments ago.

She hopes.

Also yes, arrows can be surprisingly versatile. I mean Hawkeye also carries a mean looking sword and a couple of escrima sticks too of course. No one has seen yet if her aim with a gun is anything like her aim with a bow either. Spoiler alert, it is. She still hasn't used them in her hero career yet though.

She focuses on the hallway Robin told her to cover primarily.

Victor Stone has posed:
Between firing at pursuing Warzoon and Kyani's speed, Vic nearly misses the heavy machinery that flashes across the T-Comm screen, but not quite. "There!" he calls out, tapping a button (against his nose) to tag the location. The droneswarm from the jet home in and are there shortly. "Next to the airlock. See that? It's a gravitic clamp. That thing has to be powerful enough to hold entire starships in place when they're too big for the docking bay. Pop the access panel up top, would you?" Once that's done, the largest drone is going to unfurl a scomp link and plug into the alien system. "I'm going to crosswire it to accelerate instead of decelerate, and project into the body of the ship. I need you to use the targeting controls to aim it at the Kryptonians. Then just pull the trigger -- it should send one or both of them about a mile eastward in a second or two." He glances to the side for a second, a trifle guiltily, then adds, "Uh, brace yourself, Supergirl."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Catilin removes her backpack and tapes Victor to what passes for a chair. "Sorry," she mouths again, apologetically, and examines the controls. She follows Victor's muttered instructions to the letter, being his hands while he directs the operation via voice and drone.

He gets a smile and an encouraging squeeze of the shoulder, and then Caitlin's eying another control panel nearby. Weapons targeting systems? It'd be easy to take them offline temporarily, but then again... they are left running, and the targeting systems have a clearly indicated 'manual override'.

The redhead makes a few adjustments and aims the targeting parameters at the various other nearby warships. Ever the gentle heart, she aims for generators and engines. The ships will neither be able to land or escape, and will float inert in orbit until someone can come along and take care of them. But the machine's immense weaponry makes it nothing at all to tear down the opposing fleet in a matter of minutes.

"Uh, Team Ninja," Janet says into her headset. "Once you're done with Vic's thing, route all power back into the central regulator interlocks," she says, touching her ear. "I'm going to set an escape orbit course. I don't want this ship crashing or detonating in midair, goodness knows what sort of dangerous space fission system is powering it," she advises them.

"<Fairchild to grounds assets, all allies all nets, we have control of the objective. Assuming high orbit posture and disabling all primary systems,>" she advises their allies on the ground.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven's hands slowly slide out of her pockets. The two beasts do not recover- and their consciousnesses never return to them. Whether those psyches even exist anymore to be recovered is a mystery, but the outlook is relatively grim.

    The handlers have already been incapacitated by Kian, and Raven detects new threats approaching her. She turns, silently, and regards the helmeted aliens coldly. Her eyes sheathe themselves in shadow once more. Her hands sprout spheres of shadow and, within them, her hands are outlined in white.

    "Those helmets will not save you." There is, a pause. "They will only make this more painful." Raven's shields raise, just as the bolts of laser fire erupt from the rifles. They impact a growing sphere of Raven's influence, the blackness turning into a shell from which she begins to assault them.

    When the others burst through the door, Raven is an unmoving turret. Seated in a sphere that shows some cracks in its surface, likely slowly shattering glass, she nevertheless remains utterly calm at its center, firing bolts of black energy that move through the sphere harmlessly, striking soldiers in the chest. Their return fire batters the shield, but it does not break. The arrival of the others diverts attention, and with less aggression on the shield, the cracks begin to mend.

    "As you can see, I'm a little busy, Troia. What is it?"

Kian has posed:
    Right now, Kían's nerves are on edge that he's ready to depower anything pointed in anyone's direction, weapon or otherwise.  With an effort, he forces a semblance of calm (or at least calm/er/) on himself, and swoops down to near Donna.
    'Calm' is a relative term regardless -- as usually happens when he's agitated, he's glowing blue again.  At least defense is something he can deal with.
    Mostly.
    "Will not be-lieve me, if I am get home," he says with a rueful shake of his head, ignoring a laser bolt that should have put a charred hole clean through him, then pulling every last erg of energy out of the offending weapon.
    He is, if nothing else, beginning to really appreciate his /rhy'thar/... or at least what it keeps him safe from.

Kyani Kohanna has posed:
    <<Copy that.>> he says as he crouches and speeds off. Nitro runs heading towards the area indicated, he sees the drones and seeing Supergirl and Ursa is fighting. He's not seen anything like this ever, but he has a job to do and damnit he was going to do it. He makes it to the controls. <<Alright, aiming at Ursa, let's get this done.>> he calls as he moves the targeting reticles over Ursa, trying to make sure that he doesn't stray not an inch. "Come on stay still." he says more to himself.

Kara Danvers has posed:
<<Welp! You may tower over these ants but you are nothing to a true Kryptonian of the Military Guild! A pitiful creature of science who let our planet be destroyed rather than look up from their dithering and their books!>>

Ursa stands over Supergirl now, fist clenched, jaw bloodied. Despite her injuries, Kara seems to have come off worse. She lies propped up on the deck by one elbow, the right side of her face swollen, and the top of her blue tunic scorched an angry black-and-red from a heat vision salvo.

<<I will crush you, House of E->>

It's then that the beam activates, there's a deafening roar as the gravitic force catches the pair of them and sweeps them up in their wake. Ursa lets out a shout of fury, while Supergirl gasps and tries to regain her equilibrium.

"No!" comes the shout from Kara, righting herself once they're free of the dreadnaught and flying at Ursa with fist reared back, "You will not!"

The strikes catches the other Kryptonian across her jaw, sending her spinning wildly towards the city below. Supergirl gives chase, but pauses once Ursa seems to right herself and press a hand to her ear. A moment later the erstwhile captain of the dreadnaught turns, speeding off in the opposite direction.

"I think they are regrouping!" Kara calls over the Titans communicator, turning to look back towards the ship.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Out on Gateway bridge, Gar leads a group of Titans who hadn't come on the mission, holding out against a force of Wazoon as they keep the bridge open and the flow of citizens fleeing the city safe. In the sky above, those Titans see the fleet's other dreadnought light up and burn.

    As Techno lets his senses spread through the system and figure out its working, Robin and Hawkeye hold the engineering room - but the attackers are few and far between. Of the few remaining Wazoon on the dreadnought, most are abandoning ship.

    The battle between the two Kryptonians continues in the docking bay, and it takes all of Kyani's speed to slip in past them and get Vic's drone to the control system of the gravitic clamp, but in a flash the drone is wired up and Operation Kryptopult is in operation.

    In the city beyond, the invasion falters. Mongul has retreated, to regroup. The other Dreadnought is downed by Captain Marvel's assault. SHIELD and assembled heroes fight back the army. Superman's battle with Zod continues.

    The force of Titans on the bridge has been keeping things relatively safe there, but their efforts have not gone unnoticed. A large assault force, lead by a pair of behemoths, approaches the bridge to cut it off. A mobile plasma cannon hovers into place on the west end of the bridge, and the barrel lowers its elevation to target the Titans. Things are looking grim.

    On the bridge of the dreadnought, the elite guards attempting to blast through Raven's shield find their laser weapons disabled by Kian. Then they find things blurring around them and a sudden sense of rapid motion, and the next thing they can make sense of is the waters of the Delaware rapidly approaching them as a furious Donna hurls them from the ship.

    Caitlin's fingers dance across the controls. The dreadnought rises up to a thrust-stabilized low orbit above Metropolis, and the mighty cannons make short work of a dozen fighters and a frigate that attempt to engage it.

    Back down on Gateway bridge, four columns of brilliant actinic energy crash down from the ship, targeting the behemoths and the plasma cannon. Moments later a shimmering field of orange energy spreads out across the bridge, creating a safe corridor the invader's attacks cannot penetrate. Cheers rise up across the bridge, and the Titans there can breath a sigh of relief.

    "Supergirl! Good to hear you're okay," Donna says over the Comms. "Time for us to regroup too, please return to the Dreadnought for now." She arrives back at the bridge, hurrying over to check that Raven is unharmed. "Rae, Superman has a plan. He's going to need to you do a mass teleporting. There's another sorcerer down there to help out, and we'll get Vorpal on it too. He wants to get the army moved out of the city where we can target them more safely. Are you feeling up to it? This battle is far from over yet."

TO BE CONTINUED...