3699/The Drones Come Home

The Drones Come Home
Date of Scene:	05 October 2020
Location:	Triskelion - New York
Synopsis:	SHIELD faces the might of a full drone army, inside the Triskelion. It attempts to take control of the quantum computers and become unstoppable, but agents faced the drones down and stopped it at the very last few feet.
Cast of Characters:	Nick Fury, Lara Croft, Melinda May, Leopold Fitz, Phil Coulson, Levian

---

Nick Fury has posed:
    Operations is on alert. The ocean sensor net has triggered. A vast array of buoys passively monitoring the coastline of the USA owned and operated by the NAVY but by treaty, accessible by SHIELD. The section leading toward the Triskelion indicates a very large submarine of some kind approaching.

    "I want visuals people," Fury says with a look of displeasure on his face.

    "Sir!," says an Agent as the object starts to surface. A large body of metal with either huge turbines on its corners surfaces. The design is sleek and black and utterly unidentified. That is, until it has fully breached and the turbines hit air. The super sized drone lifts up in to the sky. It's belly opens up and a large fleet of regular sized drones begins to spill from its inside and swarm toward the Triskelion.

    A midst the deployment, a large energy super-weapon lowers from the insides of the drone and a large high-energy warning starts to sound within operations. The drones resemble quad-copters with armor, supe'd up engines and deadly equipment.

    The Triskelion is filled with a klaxon, red alert. This is not a drill, the Triskelion is under attack. Red alert lights most people had never even seen before begin to flash and weapons lockers hidden throughout the facility open up. Every phone and tablet held by an Agent in and near the building flashes up a red alert.

    "This is Director Fury, all agents to battle stations we are under attack," Fury announces over the Triskelion comms.

--+_^&&*#+!@ -- 74RG37 1D3N71F3D: 5H13LD HQ
--+_^&&*#+!@ -- 3N4BL1NG UPGR4D35...
--+_^&&*#+!@ -- UPGRADES ENABLED
--+_^&&*#+!@ -- DEPLOY FLEET
--+_^&&*#+!@ -- DEPLOY SUPER-WEAPON
--+_^&&*#+!@ -- ELIMINATE RESISTANCE
--+_^&&*#+!@ -- CAPTURE QUANTUM COMPUTERS

    Drones begin to latch on to the side of the building. Each one has been specialised in some fashion. The ones on the walls have laser cutters and begin to slice through the cement and steal to create openings in the buildings for more drones to flow through. Other drones move to the bridge and deploy spin up mini-guns firing at the vehicles coming and going. More drones fly straight for the regular entrance way, these ones deploy a long rod, a beam weapon that powers up and fires. Several drones begin to orbit the Triskelion with small satellite dishes relaying the battle field back to the super drone.

    Fury activates S.M.A.R.T (Security: Monitoring, Analysis, Response: Triskelion), an Augmented Reality set of glasses shows him a 3D real time layout of the Triskelion and all its sensors, where all the agents are and all the drones. It analyses the threat and detects a pattern.
    "Agents, the drones are targeting our quantum computers. Defend and if necessary destroy them. These drones do not get my quantum babies," Fury orders. The twin quantum computers live happily in SHIELDs extensive IT infrastructure on the middle floors of the R&D tower. They are a prized possession of SHIELD and are surrounded by an army of regular super computer servers.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara wasn't even supposed to be at the Triskelion today. She'd scheduled a flight for this morning, but the Quinjet she was supposed to leave on was undergoing maintenance longer than expected and her flight was rescheduled for laster this evening.

Thus, when the alarms sound, she's in the training area, specifically at the rock climbing walls, offering guidance and assistance to new Agents who are looking to practice their scaling abilities. Needless to say, all of this is scrapped too when those unsettling klaxons begin to wail...

The climbing wall is abandoned, gear left scattered across the floor as Agents rushed to their specific emergency locations.

Thankfully she had gear stowed in her locker on the training level, and an armory wasn't far away. With a ballistic vest thrown on over her navy blue tanktop, and an array of additional equipment, Lara activates a high-tech combat bow, snapping its limbs in to place and reaching over her shoulder for one of the high tech EMP arrows manufactured by SHIELD for its handful of archer-inclined agents!

Melinda May has posed:
If the drones' ultimate destination is the quantum computing stack, then that's where May is going to take up position. The field leader pelts down halways, away from the nearest armory, a pair of telescoping batons crisscrossed over her shoulders, a pistol in a holster against her ribs, and an energy rifle in her hands. A bandolier with a few 'extras' slaps her torso as she slides beneath a collapsing lockdown door to reach a likely breach point.

The thing about a building like the Trisk is that it's *designed* with impenetrability in mind -- and cover for its agents, should they be put in a position of defending it. Thus, she crouches behind a low halfwall, sets the rifle atop it, and takes up a guard position... waiting.

Leopold Fitz has posed:
There is no denying that Leo Fitz has something of an organized mind. He likes things neat and in their place. He can be more then a little obsessive about how his lab runs and operates and woe to anyone who messes with that need for order in his work place. Even little deviations can get under his skin and make him a little grumpy.

This sort of event? Not a little thing.

Busy in the lab going over some of the results from his most recent mission, Fitz has his face buried in a monitor, going over the streams of data that are being fed back to him from the Egyptian op, muttering to himself about radiation signatures and alien metals. Even when the alarm goes off and begins to pulse in annoying fashion he manages to keep his concentration, staring at the results of his scans. But even the most disciplined of minds have their limits.

Finally pausing that steady stream of scanning data scrolling by on the monitor in front of him, Fitz looks away with a scowl on his face, turning his attention to the console off to the side of him, that chair rolling over to check it out as the young agent spins in his seat. "What do we have this time?" he says to himself, tone exasperated as he scans the details on the flashing display, listening to Fury's announcement with half an ear. He does not immediately go scrambling to retrieve his sidearm or any other equipment. Instead his eyes narrow again and he remains at his console. His greatest weapon will never be the pistol in his hand -- no matter how powerful.

"Oh no you don't," he continues to mutter to himself as the drones outside make a clear beeline towards where SHIELD has it's most advanced computers. HIS computers. He gets just a little possessive about any piece of technology he has worked on. Fingers rapidly flicker over the keyboard in front of him and a moment later electromagnetic fields slam into place, reinforcing the outer walls around that specific section of R&D section of the base. As soon as those barriers are in place he glances at the next monitor over and begins to play with a new set of commands. The enemy isn't the only one that has drones to play with...

Phil Coulson has posed:
Hearing the alarm, Phil Coulson lets out a breath just as he was reaching his desk. He even has a cup of coffee in his hand, until he hears the announcement over the comms. He lets out a deep breath as he places the coffee cup on the desk, hurrying to move to arm himself with a rifle and pistols, before he starts moving in the direction of where the quantum computers are as well, hurrying in that direction to help with the defense of the computers.

Levian has posed:
Standing in a hallway, leaning against the wall of a room while he waits for his interview to start, Levian is texting Daisy.

> I wore a suit.

Because, well, he is wearing a suit today, having managed to acquire a cheap black suit for the job interview, though he still wears his normal red Converse with it.

And then alarms begin to go off, and he's looking around as agents are running past him. The base is under some sort of attack, and certain things don't have context for him, even with the announcement, but he follows the direction that agents are going in, until he reaches a point he has no clearance for and stands in the hall.

The quantum computers aren't far from him, though he doesn't know what those are anyway, so he plants himself in a hallway where attackers will apparently be coming from, and starts drawing magic symbols in the air with fire, forming a single barrier of red-orange flames to protect one hall, but the other direction is left to the agents nearby him. "I'm not sure what's happening." he idly says, but he's bracing himself anyway.

Nick Fury has posed:
Fury shuts those reinforced doors all over the base once he sees his agents getting in to position. Then with the security teams, he begins funnelling the drones. It doesn't quite work. Several drones latch on to the reinforced doors in their way and begin cutting through it with a high powered laser cutter. It's slowing them down at least.

Then there is a loud ~booom~ as the big super-drone energy beam slices through a portion of the quinjet hanger. There's a mass of chatter through the comms. Some people are hurt, agents are responding to fire, more drones are flowing toward the new opening like a flock of death birds.

One of those drones goes *clunk* against the doors to R&D where Fitz is and he can see a pin point of light on his side of the door as the drone starts to cut. Others are flowing through the hallways. Gun fire is being exchanged. Some of the drones are dropping, but so are some of the agents. It's an _army_ of drones.

A drone rounds the corner to Phil and fires a harpoon.. yes a harpoon, even as a second drone comes up behind it and extends a copper rod. It begins to hum as it builds up energy - some sort of beam weapon.

A drone chases after May and lets loose an arrow on a long wire. It hits the floor just behind her and there is a *snap* as it discharges a large voltage meant for her.

A big drone covered in armor almost fills the corridor as it rounds the corner in front of Lara and twin mini-miniguns drop from its sides and spin up, then begin to shoot with earnest. Several trainies dive for cover in adjacent rooms but they are currently unarmed.

A drone floats in to the room with Levian and deploys a dish underneath itself. It's up high and with it, another drone approaches, then one shoots a net at Levian that burns up as it hits his flames barrier. Another drone zips past and interfaces with the fire control alarm on the wall to set off the sprinklers to counter the flames.

An Agent says to Levian, "We'll try and keep you safe Sir, take cover and try not to draw attention to yourself," he says carrying a laser rifle. He aims down the sights as a javelin suddenly launches at him and spears him through the chest. He stumbles back and drops the rifle and his security lanyard.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara had sat at her desk in the WAND offices on her first day at the Triskelion and studied the map of the massive complex. Luckily, she loved maps! But this allowed her to know where the Quantum Computers were stored, even if she didn't really know too much about what a Quantum Computer was either... she watched a Youtube video on it once... but... not her field!

As she's on her way to the point where she knows they're apparently meant to protect, she rounds a corner just as a giant robot with miniguns appears? "F-uu--" Lara is about to say something very bad before she darts back behind the corner to avoid the opening up of minigun fire.

She clutches her bow in her hands, holding up against her body as she tips her head back against the wall, then waits for a chance to notch an EMP Arrow and dip around the corner to fire it off at the metal chest of the monstrosity at the other end of the hall!

Melinda May has posed:
May's finger squeezes that trigger as soon as the drone that fired on her is in her sights. She's no fish, even if the Trisk might be a barrel. The rifle whines, discharging a high powered blue energy blast. A second one follows the first quickly enough that the whine of its discharge creates a stacatto echo of the first.

"Contact outside the stack," she says into comms, just in case the eyes on the cameras throughout the building are distracted. "Electrical discharge projectiles. Damn things think they're Romanoff."

Leopold Fitz has posed:
Well that's just inconvienient isn't it? The electromagnetic shielding might make that core computer area more difficult to access but it's not the sort of thing that can be engaged across the whole of the base. The energy requirements would be immense, not to mention the cost of retrofitting. But funnelling the attacking drone through corridors and natural choke points is a much better alternative to having them cutting willy nilly wherever they please. It does mean however that they might be concentrating on targets they otherwise would have no interest in. Like the Research and Development lab that Fitz happens to be inhabiting.

Fitz is not real keen on guests at the best of times. Murderous robotic guests are waaaaaaaaaay down on his list of potential visitors. So when he first hears -- and then sees the drone trying to cut it's way in thanks to the video survelliance system -- the you agent curses under his breath and continues tapping at his keyboard. A moment later another, heavier door suddenly slams down with a loud clank that echoes through the lab. It's not elecromagnetic shielding -- only specific research chambers off of the main lab can be sealed with those -- but it will at least slow the drone down. He hopes.

The suddenness of the attack, the need to defend the computer core seems to have kept very man if any guards from being deployed in secondary locations like the R&D lab so have bought himself at least a little more time Fitz begins to redirect some of his drones his way. His drones are substantially smaller and lack the heavy weapons being directed at his fellow agents by the hostile flying machines. But they can swarm real nice and do give out some nasty electric discharges. Hopefully it will be enough.

"They're attempting to breach the R&D lab as well. Doors are holding for now," Fitz says with surprising calm as he reports the situation back to central command.

Levian has posed:
"I'm here for a job interview to help humans." Levian explains to the agent, as if that helps, and opens his third eye as if to display that he can help. "So I want to help."

With the water sprinklers, he looks down at himself.

That's problematic.

He starts to growl, crouching down as he starts trying to draw flames in the air, but the sprinklers puts such weak flames right out. Refined fire magic isn't going to work with SHIELD's powerful and actually effective water pressure.

"Hey!" he shouts when the agent gets a javelin through him, Levian's hair standing up like a cat.

He has to act fast. Running to the agent, he crouches over him, trying to see if he's alive. He can't really form a large barrier, but flares thick flames up around them, trying to protect the agent in case he isn't dead. "Are you alive?" he asks, staring at the laser rifle. He's seen people use those on TV, but has no real experience firing actual guns. But sustaining a barrier under this water is difficult, so he grabs the rifle anyway.

He fumbles to figure it out. There's a trigger, you pull that and death comes out.

Focusing his third eye on the heat of the drones, he lowers his barrier and starts firing the rifle, hoping there's not some higher level complexity to it. He's definitely untrained, but he uses his natural strength and enhanced senses to try and compensate for his lack of skill.

"Do humans really do this everyday without dying???" he asks of no one in particular.

Phil Coulson has posed:
Frowning as he starts reaching the corner, Phil dives to the sideas he sees those drones coming in. Thankfully, that made the harpoon hit right where he was standing. "Harpoons? Really?" he mutters to himself, as he hears the sound of the second drown building up energy, and he hurries to lift the rifle to fire off a shot at that second drone, while moving backwards, towards whatever cover he can find. "Got two of them here, one firing harpoons, the other some kind of energy beam," he says into the comms, while still moving to get into cover. Or to take another shot, whichever he can get done first.

Nick Fury has posed:
When Levian shoots that laser rifle, there is a speaker popping on in that hallway addressing him, "Citizen, we appreciate your assistance. You look a little wet." Fury motions with his hands and zooms in on that hallway, then disables the fire suppression system. "You will be safe in the bunkers below," he adds over the comms and returns to the rest of the fight.

The drone following Coulson lets off its beam weapon. It cuts right through his cover, but because it couldn't see him, the drone misses him by _that much_. Another drone approaches and deploys a satellite dish from its belly. The sound of the weapon charging back up is heard but Phil's aim is true and the bullets find their mark. It drops to the ground with a crash. The first drone tries to zip past to collect its javelin but is shot down too.

The miniguns rip through the hallway and there are some cries as agents get shot. Whether lethally or not will have to be determined later. There is a sizzling sound as Lara shoots it with the EMP arrow and then it drops to the ground, its twin barrels still smoking.

The drone after May is suddenly missing a large portion of its matter as the energy rifle cuts through it. It crashes to the ground too. With the door shut down, a drone attachs to it and starts to cut, a point of light can be seen on May's side.

The R&D labs are suddenly quiet with the full shielded LOCKDOWN in place. He's threatened it so many times for petty reasons, but now he's really had to activate it and he's really alone in here - his only company the security feeds, flashing red lights, and the klaxon.

"Agent Fitz, those damn drones want our quantum computers. Let's use them against it. Agent Morse created a profile of the technology in those drones, task the computers will simulating the drone brains so we can predict their movements," Fury orders his currently safest level 5.

Lara Croft has posed:
Seconds after the EMP Arrow sizzles its way into a lovely nestled-in position inside of the drone's body, Lara raises her comm up to her chin. "We need medical in corridor C-12. We have Agents shot." She starts to stride down the hallway and stops to help one of the agents who'd taken a blast to the leg. She's only with them for a moment though, giving them some pointers on what to do while the medical team is on their way, then stands and starts further down the hallway. She steps over the drone, and its smoking guns, then jogs onward toward the computer section where the Quantum machines reside, her senses staying alert as she goes, bow at her side, another EMP Arrow readily held between her half-gloved hand.

Melinda May has posed:
May shuts the energy weapon in her hands off and snaps off her comm. Then she tugs a small sphere off her bandolier. She primes it with a press of a button, and rolls it towards the blast door. By the time that drone has lit its way through the steel, a small emp charge will be going off in its face.

Once that charge has discharged, however, she reactivates both her comm and her rifle, beginning to fire at the inevitable wave of robotic pests that follow it.

At least, they're not magic.

These things she knows how to deal with.

Leopold Fitz has posed:
While he might be cut off from everyone else for the moment, Fitz is not terribly concerned. Not yet at least. Those doors are heavily reinforced. And worse comes to worst he will grab his laptop, lock himself in one of the research cells and turn on that electromagnetic shielding. Just another day in the office, right?

He's pretty sure it won't come to that though. Already the video survelliance outside the lab shows a dozen of his mini-drones swarming of the larger, more heavily armed and armored enemy drone. Bright flashes of electric discharges light up the monitor, making it difficult to see exactly what is going on. Fitz is confident though. If nothing else it should prove a useful distraction.

"Copy that Director," Fitz says over the comm, again shifting his attention back to the console in front of him, fingers practically dancing over the keyboard. He links in all the internal security monitors, pulling up a map of the Triskelion, cross-referencing the location of all the enemy drones on scanner and feeding that info directly to their Quantum computers, letting them go to work analyzing patterns, seeking out the weak spots in the enemy attacks.

With standard computers, the sheer volume of variables that Fitz is piping through the network might bog things down into a quagmire. Not these new supercomputers though. In seconds predictive modelling is being fed back into that electronic map of the base and the young scientist hooks Command back in with the updated, simplified visuals. "Analysis up Director. Our computers will update it live. Dispersing to the agents in the field," he adds as all those portable electronic devices will suddenly chime.

Fitz also sends a quick message to a number of key agents as well, as the devices chime with a little message from him and the location of the latest arms locker. "Armor piercing rounds. These will shred them like swiss cheese. -Fitz". Thank you Agent Danvers and your recovery of the shredder probe that was carving through alien wrecks like their bulkheads were nothing. Thank you Agent Fitz for putting those materials to good use.

Phil Coulson has posed:
"That was a bit too close," Phil mutters, meant for himself, although it goes out over the comms too. Staying within cover right now, he waits for a few moments, observing the drone with the satellite dish, before taking aim for that one and firing. Let's hope that's the last around this corner, so he can move ahead.

Levian has posed:
"I have an..." Levian looks down at the agent, as if trying to remember something. "Agent here, he's hurt." he says to the disembodied voice speaking to him. "I'll try to fight the metal creatures and get him to the bunkers."

He walks over to the downed agent, and hefts his body up, trying to be careful about the javelin. His body also steams up when the water stops, quick-drying himself so that he can properly defend himself again.

Those drones work quickly, so he drops the rifle and starts charging a ball of red-orange fire in his hand, keeping it at the ready rather than thinking of a fancy spell to prepare. "They're fast, unpredictable."

His third eye peers through walls as he's heading toward the bunkers, just in case anyone else needs help. He can only really see magic and fire through the walls, but if the drones are firing, well, that's plenty hot. "Hey, voice! Is anyone else in trouble? When I get this agent to the bunker I can try to help other people. I'm a fire wizard."

Nick Fury has posed:
The sound of the big energy weapon from the super-drone fires again, this time not at the Triskelion but at the helicarrier, which is giving the drones hell. One of the engines of the helicarrier is blown apart and it is slowly starting to sink from the sky losing altitude.

The swarm of small drones causes the bigger drones no end of trouble until an odd looking drone comes around the corner, more spherical than the others. It reaches the smaller drones and detonates its own internal EMP, knocking it and its allies out in that corridor completely, as well as Fitz' mini-drones. For the moment, the hallway to Fitz is quiet.

Phil's shot on the dish drone is easy, it doesn't move or respond or fight back. It starts to fly awkwardly and then drops to the ground with blue smoke coming out of the holes.

Phil and Lara are let through a reinforced door by Fury's S.M.A.R.T. system and there is May, firing almost nonstop through another reinforced door - this one with a large hole cut in it for drones to fly through. She's doing a great job until a heavily armored drone moves through the hole. The laser is hitting it, making dents and melting bits of its armor, but it's not dropping. Two large sword like blades extend below it and they begin to spin up fast as it floats casually toward May.

Every agent wearing augmented reality glasses suddenly gets a tactical view of the drones - where they are in the Triskelion and which way they're moving and what it is they seem to be heading toward. It even shows predictive counter measure movements.

"All Agents, this is Director Fury. You will now surrender to the drones. Lay down all your weapons," says the voice over the comms.. followed quickly by, "Motherfucker. THIS is Director Fury, the drones have control of the internal speaker system. Target the drones with the dishes on them. They're building some kind of high bandwidth network."

A woman in comfortable but business like clothing rounds the corner holding... a wand. She stares at Levian for a moment and then shrugs, "A fire wizard? I'm Agent Westport of W.A.N.D., you can sure as heck help me. We're going to the R&D labs to secure the quantum computers. This way!," she says and moves swiftly through the corridors. A drone lurches out in front of her and she motions with her wand. The drone crumples up in a head and falls to the floor.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara rounds a corner just in time to meet Phil coming from the opposite direction. She now rushes along with him at his side. "Sir." She says in a greeting for him, courteous as a Briton should be. When the door ahead of them opens up, revealing May in full combat action mode, Lara raises her bow and draws back another EMP Arrow to send it down the corridor to insert itself with a squealing-hiss through the air, right into the optical receptors of one of the drones about to fire on them!

When the Director's voice orders them to stand down, Lara shoves her back up against a wall and looks to her superior-ranked Agents with confusion laced across her expression. But its soon replaced with an answer, as she hears-- presumably --the real Nick Fury chime in again.

"Madness." Lara comments, before stepping back out to fire another arrow, this time at the dished drone she spots further down the corridor!

Melinda May has posed:
Yeah, there's no chance May would have listened to the first Fury's words. She's been around the agency too long to accept the idea he'd give up the Trisk that easily. So, when the profanity laden correction comes in, she can't help but snirk. "Nice of you to join me," she comments to Phil and Lara as they appear.

But then there's that big drone with the swords. Oh, look. Her own General Grevious. Seriously, someday, someone's gotta get May a lightsaber and some TK powers.

Given her energy weapon isn't making nearly enough of a dent in the behmoth coming through the gap, she lays it down and steps forward. The batons across her back draw forth. She snaps her wrist and they're instantly electrified and telescoped out to a respectable length. She doesn't bother with the formality of a neutral fighting stance. Instead, she vaults over her protective halfwall to engage the drone directly, spinning and slashing expertly with those batons against those swords. She just hopes the high tech alloys the boys in R&D mixed into making these batons can withstand the drone's speed and strength. If not... she might end up as juilenne fries.

Leopold Fitz has posed:
With the tactical maps now routed to all the agents defending the base Fitz only spares the odd glance, paying more attention to the data streams then the map itself. That is one task down at all. The map does more then just show the current location of each of the enemy drones. It shows the likely goals and paths of those drones so that they can be cut off, ambushed or trapped. SHIELD might not always have the very best toys to play with, but they are pretty damn close.

He does spare a moment to glower at the monitor that shows one of his drone flights being taken out by the portable EMP drone, but at least it secures his hallway for the time being. And without any need to worry about his personal safety he can move on to the next task at hand.

The agents up in command can take care of the more tactical problems, deploying their automated defenses. Fitz doesn't worry about any of that for the moment. Instead he turns his attention towards that high bandwidth connection that they are apparently trying to setup, eyes narrowing as he looks over all the infromation picked up by intenral sensors. "I'm flooding the frequencies used by the dish drones with static. It should keep those frequencies jammed for the next couple of minutes but they will be able to compensate sooner or later. Taking out these units will be a big help," he notes over the comms, sending out highlighted info through the internal map feed, lighting up those units that need to go down immediately to break up their current efforts.

Phil Coulson has posed:
There's a nod in greeting as Phil sees Lara approach, in reply to her greeting. "Let's see if we can take out some more of those, shall we?" he offers, along with a brief half-grin. He lets out a brief breath as he hears the two voices of Fury, nodding as he hears the one with the proper profanity.
"Sorry, got held up along the way," he offers to May as he fires off a shot at one of the drones. As he sees May engage the sword-fighter drone in close combat, he frowns momentarily, as he looks around, firing at yet another of those drones. "We'll keep them off your back," he calls to May.

Levian has posed:
Levian, noting the more urgent matter, sits the agent on his shoulder in what at least seems like a safe corridor. He rips the javelin out of him and pretty immediately cauterizes the wound with fire from his hand. "I'm not a doctor, but you won't bleed if you're alive.

Then he turns back and runs after Agent Westport. "Those metal creatures have a lot of abilities." he observes, forming a large fire shield in each hand. "I'll try to use melee combat unless I have a clear shot, since we're in a closed in space and I don't want to accidentally hurt anyone.

"I'm Levian, 999th Son of an Unknown Demon Lord. I'm here for a job interview." he informs her, since, well, what else does one say while under a drone siege? "I can cover you with fire shields until we get there. You just kill them."

"This place is very chaotic. Is this how it is everyday? I didn't know humans could live like this." He sounds almost in awe, and surprised.

Nick Fury has posed:
"No, it's never like this!," Agent Westport says. "This is what we'd call extreme circumstances." She pauses in confusion at the fake Fury command, and then smiles at the real one. "This way," she says and motions to a heavy looking door. The door disappears as she uses magic on it and she looks back, "Through there," she says and it can be seen Lara, Phil, and May are there.

"Director Coulson!," she says with delight and then blood splatters as a laser cuts through her. She looks down at her body for a moment in disbelief, before she drops to the ground. A menacing looking drone with extra dark metal rounds the corner. It is egg shaped. Four sharp looking legs extend from it and it touches down on the ground. At its mid section, two lasers swivel about covering 360 degrees at a time. One then shoots at Levian and the other at Coulson as it walks in to the room.

Lara's EMP temporarily clears the hallway of the door with the hole in it, but then more drones start to pour in through the corridor again. The tactical goggles indicate they are trying to be a diversion for the egg drone.

The drone with the swords clashes with the batons. Its flight path twitches and the strikes against the batons are fierce, though they don't break. It does not have what would be called 'fighting tactics'. Instead its entire philosophy on May's death is to simply move forward until she is no more. The baton strikes though find it stalled in position - then one of the swords breaks and the end of it flings in to the wall.

The egg drone pauses as the air is filled with static and communications are lost. A series of purple lights flash across its surface and it... speaks, "Assuming direct control."

Lara Croft has posed:
"We ran in to some old friends." Lara grimly quips to May after Coulson offers his own response to her. She watches the hallway get cleared, at least for a moment, by that last shot from her bow, then ducks back just as Westport arrives.

Lara is right there, but unable to do anything about it, as the drone comes out of no where and just... it's horrific, and for a split second, Croft's face shows it. A split second after that and she's lunging at the robotic monster, up close and personal with it she tries to get herself around behind it to mount the thing, draw a vibrodagger from her utility belt and just... go to town on the god damn metal beast that just seemingly murdered an Agent she'd known in-passing since joining the team here earlier this year.

Lara starts slashing, stabbing, and cutting her way at the robot to try to get her revenge for that action!

Levian has posed:
"Lara Croft, and the demon woman!" Levian says as he spots Lara and May as people he recognizes.

But then the drone comes, and he immediately his fire shields up, which is quickly and easily penetrated for one reason or another, piercing through his arm as he releases an inhuman roar of pain.

That's when he bares his fangs, forming a red-orange fire dagger in each hand. He goes running for the drone, leaping forward as he tries to stab his fire daggers, forming new ones after each stab.

Melinda May has posed:
Old friends. Yeah, that's one way to put it. All May really knows is that she trusts both Phil and Lara to have her back, and hardly needs the field director's reassurance on that front. But it's still nice to hear, while she vents her anger on the blades and body of the ginsu droid with a failing strategy.

Beating on May until she's gone rarely, rarely works. She's way too much of a pain in the ass to go down easy.

Even when one sword breaks from it, she doesn't stop her assault. What most people don't realize, since the Incident that changed her from an outgoing prankster into SHIELD's very own ice queen, is just how angry Melinda May is on a daily basis. The best thing about fighting drones? She can give vent to that anger without worrying about harming a human being unnecessarily.

So, she does. Controlled, sharp, quick, and relenless. She does.

Phil Coulson has posed:
Looking to Agent Westport as she speaks his name, Phil frowns as he sees the laser cutting through the woman. But then there's Egg-Drone over there, and the lasers, and he dives out of the way again, moving to roll to the side. He gets his rifle ready to shoot at the thing again, but with the people charging Eggbert there, he holds back his shot, in case it should hit the wrong person. Moving a bit to the side, he mutters. "Might be the Egg-man, but we're not the Egg-men, and certainly not the Walrus." Probably meant mostly to himself as he looks around, to find some cover and take out more of the other drones trying to distract them.

Nick Fury has posed:
May beats that hardened machine, finding its weak points, until it is falling apart in the sky, then it is on the ground, twitching, sparking.. blue smoke pouring out of it.

The egg-shaped drone with legs tries to slice and dice all it sees, but the humans are moving quickly and seem to know what it's thinking. "Adapting," it says as the vibrodagger and fire daggers start to cut and stab in to its hardened shell. It is not going to last.

"Adapting," it says again. a hatch in its side opens up and a football shaped chunk of metal is fired out toward the twin quantum computers terminal, a single USB adaptor on its end. It hits the EM field and wavers through it, course being adjusted and having been computed for, aimed perfectly at the USB port. One last desperate play by the machines to take control of the quantum computers.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara is cast off of the robot, landing on her knees and leaning forward on one hand to brace herself as she snaps her eyes up to see... "Levian?" She asks of him, having met him once, due to... random 'work related stuff'. She doesn't have time to greet him further though as she snatches up her bow and spins around to deliver another arrow at the robot firing toward the Quantum Computers.

She doesn't use an EMP Arrow this time though, as she grabs a plasma tipped arrow, designed to simply go right through objects like ... this robot! As she pulls the 100+ lbs drawstring back on her compound bow, the arrow tip lights up with a molten-hot tip just as she releases it and lets the arrow go, the carbon-shaft whistling through the air, aimed at what she believes to the power motivator inside of the machine!

Melinda May has posed:
As the ginsu droid collapses, May spins as well. She watches the football sized usb stick go launching towards the computer stack. Even while Laura fires her plasma arrow, May whips her batons forward, throwing them at it. If the plasma arrow works, great. Worst that will happen is the batons will discharge electricity into the grounded exterior of the stack. If not? Well, maybe those batons will at least knock off its aim. All they need to do is keep it from thunking home into a usb port, after all.

Leopold Fitz has posed:
Behind the scenes Fitz continues to work away, flooding the drone's frequencies with static and white noise, providing whatever jamming he can to keep their network from coming online and to hinder their ability to work together quite so effectively. Some might not find it as satisfying as making the drone 'splode real good, but it is apparently a satisfactory challenge for one of SHIELD's big brains.

While he might be busy attacking problems of a technological nature, hindering their good operation, he still spares time to check in on the key battles throughout the Triskelion. In particular he focuses on Agent Croft, May and Coulson trying to hold back the drone tides so very close to those critical quantum computers. Like them, he sees the effort to get access to external USB ports. He can't throw anything, can't shoot anything. He does however trigger the security system and a pexiglass cover begins to slide into place to seal those ports away. HIS computers. No touching without permission.

Phil Coulson has posed:
Frowning as he sees the football-sized thing go flying for the USB port, there is one moment when Phil would be tempted to make a run and attempt to get that thing out of the way, but only for a moment, since he knows he won't be able to get there in time. But as he sees others seem to be working on countering that problem, he hurries to aim for more drones. After all, they need to keep the drones off the back of those trying to stop that USB ball.

Levian has posed:
Levian stands up crouched after his attack, forming two balls of fire in his hands when the drone 'adapts'. He almost tosses one ball, but then stops, looking around at where they are.

He doesn't quite understand what they're protecting, but he definitely can't go throwing around exploding balls. "This is very complicated..."

Of course, the others do have the drone handled, hopefully. Levian's inexperience working with, well, literal secret agents is the real problem he's having.

Nick Fury has posed:
The egg shaped drone falls over with a 'clunk' like a stunned droid. The drones engaging on the room don't slow down - if anything, they are coming harder and faster as Phil shoots at them to keep them at bay. It all comes down to that final moment, if the drones gain access to the quantum computers it's game over.

But then, they have expert marksmen in SHIELD and that plasma arrow finds its mark true, burning a hole right through the football. The baton May threw then hits both and knocks them both off course to the ground... as the little cover of the USB port remotely shuts.

The drones floats to a stop in the air and slowly power down, thunking on to the floor all over the Triskelion. The battle in the sky is not over yet, but with the sophisticated communications scrambling Fitz set up, no drones will be getting inside any time soon.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara stands up fromher kneeled position, she watches the football robot land on the ground and seemingly deactivate. She stalks over to it and raises her 1911 sidearm from its holster on her hip and aims down sights right into what it was using to 'see with'. She pulls back the trigger on her gun and just blasts it in its 'eye'.

Her gun is holstered as she scans her eyes around the room, then sweeps her bow around behind her to put it away. She kneels down beside Agent Westport to check her vitals with the fingertips of her right hand...

Levian has posed:
Levian looks around, after all the chaos and insanity. Lara's handling the agent he came in with, then he looks to the others, and then finally raises his hand. "I'm here for a job interview." Looking around himnself again, he adds, "Is that cancelled?"

Melinda May has posed:
It's only now, as the immediate threat passes, that May has a moment to take stock of the damage before her. The downed WAND agent. The shattered pieces of metal. The smell of plasma burns and... Oh, look. The guy who turned up at the farm house looking for Nessa.

Greeeeaaaat.

She crosses wordlessly to retrieve both her batons and, from the halfwall near the stack, her pulse rifle. She spares Levian another glance and then one to Phil to make sure he's in one piece before she grimly joins Lara near Westport. "Who sent these things?" she asks bluntly.

Because the Cavalry doesn't feel like she's done fighting yet. Payback would seem to be in order.

Leopold Fitz has posed:
Well, that was bracing wasn't it? Fitz watches on the security monitors as the last, Hail Mary efforts of the drone army apparently comes to naught, leaning back in his seat and putting hands behind his head, fingers lacing together there as he lets out a long, slow breath. This is a terrible way to science all things considered. So disruptive. So disorderly.

He can't help but wonder if he will get to play with all the remains of the droned drones. Hmmmmm, maybe this job isn't all that bad afterall.

Glancing towards the heavy reinforced security door that secures the lab from the rest of the base, the dark haired young scientist considered leaving them in place -- at least for a little while. But then he gives a sigh and leans forward once more, tapping commands as he returns systems to normal.

Phil Coulson has posed:
Frowning as the drones are coming in, Phil ducks down into cover momentarily. And then, as he moves to take aim again, those drones stop. "Huh..." he begins, looking around at the others, "Everyone okay?" he asks, before adding, "What just happened to them?" He lowers his rifle, before he steps over towards the others. "I don't know," he replies to May's question. Then he hears Levian's words, blinking a few times. "What...?" When he realizes what was just said, he offers a brief smile. "Might need to reschedule, at least by a little," he offers.