4963/Bad Cassie III, Titans Tower

Bad Cassie III, Titans Tower
Date of Scene:	01 February 2021
Location:	Main Room - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	DoppleCassie assaults Titan's Tower with the help of Diesel and an army of gross zombie things. Together, the team is able to rush the real Cassie to safety despite various attacks on her person, capture Diesel (armed with the this-universe copy of the Silent Armor) and drive off Cassie a second time. Now, with information from her apparent lover, and with a copy of the armor to study, they will surely be well-armed for the final confrontation and the rescue of Helena Sandsmark.
Cast of Characters:	Cassie Sandsmark, Terry O'Neil, Heather Danielson, Siobhan Smythe, Vivian Vision, Victor Stone, Donna Troy, Mary Bromfield

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Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
It's been a difficult few weeks for the Titans. The strength of the team, above all else, has always been the bonds of friendship and trust amongst its large roster of unique members: trust that has been dangerously undermined by the presence the so called Dopplegangers, mad alternate universe duplicates from a world ravaged by a powerful alien being. Several have already attacked their counterparts, to various results. In the case of Cassandra Sandsmark, those results have been very bad: in possession of a suit of parasitic living armor utterly unknown on this world, she put Wonder Woman herself in a coma. Meanwhile, the real version of Cassie remains powerless to fight her double, her powers revoked by her mother Helena, who was tricked and kidnapped by the doppleganger.

Since then, Cassie's friend, Amazon sister, and Titans veteran Donna Troy has coordinated efforts to try and end this threat, one that threatens the team, her loved ones, and the honor of her people all at once. The real Cassie has remained under guard in the Tower, but that information has been leaked through the media to lure out her copy. Since her world has no true equivalent, the hope is that her limited knowledge of the team will make her underestimate its defenses. The downside is that it means sitting and waiting for Cassie and shifts guarding the Tower for everyone else. No one knows when, or even if, the doppleganger will return.

'Fortunately,' these questions get an answer when the Tower's airspace alarms start blaring. Unfortunately, they give only moments of warning as first one, then maybe a dozen other objects drop out of the sky at high speed, suddenly filling the air above and around the tower. The first one impacts into the retractable hangar rooftop and then keep going, as the evil-armored demigoddesss tears open those doors, then breaches the hangar tarmac, and so on, down through various layers of reinforcement, smashing her way toward the heart of the tower. Seconds later, other alarms show multiple smaller contacts- seemingly scaling over the sides of the building from various angles.

And this all happens as Real Cassie is helping clean up the dishes from dinner. "Oh shi-"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry has been hard at work since losing his powers. Training with Harley in the School Of Ditry Fighting, getting chased by hyenas in the world's craziest version of extreme cardio... and ransacking Caitlin's spices over by the kitchen.

Caitlin is not here. That's why Terry is doing this. On the counter there are at least a fozen little cannisters, the kind that are designed to break away on impact. All of them are chock-full of powder made out of the right combination of spices- the kind of stuff designed to itch like a m---- and, if inhaled, sneeze like one, too. Because depowered squishy humans need gadgets, it's the Robin and Hawkeye lesson.

"I'll buy you all the ice cream in the world if you don't rat on me," Terry tells Cassie as he starts scooping the cannisters up into the several pockets of his jacket.

And then... boom.

"Fuck--!" he looks up, at the sound, eyes growing wide. "We're under-'

Heather Danielson has posed:
    Ever have one of -those- days? Where you were in the wrong place at the wrong time for everything that happened? Heather was just finishing up her shower after an intense workout. She needs to actually maintain muscle tone and shape. Her powers don't do that for her after all. So when the alarms start to blare, she grabs her clothes and pulls them on roughly even as she calls over comms, "Knockout. On my way to the hangar from the gym!"
    Basically, it's a pair of worn jeans, and a Chickenfoot band teeshirt that is dark gray in color. But she is moving at full speed on the way to the indicated point of incursion.

Siobhan Smythe has posed:
Casually playing guitar, Siobhan was in her room quietly mind her own business when this whole thing started to go down. She was not as involved in the security portion of the show at the moment. Honestly, she was lacking a lot of interest in anything as of late. Having gone through a lot, she wasn't even sure what she was going to do in the future.

Everything was fine till the alarms started going off and she turned to look in the direction of the various sounds. She started to twist her head left and right as she heard several sounds that could be intruderes or the like but for now, she angled for the biggest target and in a moment, she was a skull faced monster known as the Silver Banshee. A moment later and she was teleporting to put herself in the path of the incoming armored Amazon which just so happens to put her in the Main room of the tower.

"Gettin' real sick and tired of people from utter worlds actin' out and t'inkin' dey can do whatever dey want." The skulled being says with a hazy, otherwordly voice.

Vivian Vision has posed:
Despite only being a Prospect Vivian Vision is still rather handy to have around when trouble starts. For a start she can carry out monitoring duty from just about anywhere /and/ watch every camera and monitor every sensor at the same time. That means she can help out with tidying up (there is always something in the Tower that needs cleaning) and keep a look out.

Still no matter how well informed she is or how fast her reactions might be there's not a whole lot of advance notice she can provide when the building gets hit by a demi-god shaped missile.

What she can do is wrap Cassie and Terry up in a holographic disguise field and fire off a rapid series of T-comm alerts indicating which parts of the Tower are being attack.

Her disguise should make the Titans currently lacking in powers a little less likely to be instantly targetted. In theory. Who knows when it comes to otherworld god artifacts and magic!

Victor Stone has posed:
When the alarm goes off, Vic is sitting on the couch in front of the TV, one of the disc-shaped drones in his roomba army belly-up in his lap like a puppy expecting scritches. He's not scritching, of course; he's soldering, which is the sort of smell everyone is sure to appreciate in their common space. But since he got back from walkabout after the Lost in Space episode, he has been a little more restless and pacey than many might recall. He used to be able to spend days on end barely leaving the labs. Now he'll stroll around with his projects: bedroom, lab, kitchen, hangar, even sitting on a park bench outside or on the roof. Still focused, still hard to snap out of the fugue state of technical work -- but now, he's a wanderer at those times.

He barely has time to snap the ventral access panel shut on the drone before the ceiling above is cracking. They're all on edge, though, and his reflexes have always been good, so he has bolted almost to the kitchen where Cassie is standing by the time the area is actually breached. He bends at the knees and projects a violet-gray barrier between the cracking ceiling and the kitchen, wide enough to shelter both the Amazon and Terry's craft project from rubble or instant attack. That said, under the level of punishment a focused Amazon could deliver, the shield is a delaying tactic, not an impregnable bunker. But a delaying tactic will give a chance for more reinforcements to arrive and anyone taken unawares to prepare to fight.

With a thought, he uses his built-in T-Com to respond to the contacts outside. There's a distinctive harsh blat of noise from a digital siren -- one recognizable to Titans as the "clear the outside of the building" signal -- and with no further warning, the windows all over the building are lit by massive crimson beams of roasting laser light, raking back and forth inches from the Tower's surface like Satan's own windshield wipers. His artificial eye glowing, his face lit by sweeps of bloody light from the nearest window, Vic grits his teeth and says, "That's Red Alert, folks."

Donna Troy has posed:
    As soon as the alarms go off, Donna is dragging Cassie away from the dishes, which she is probably not exactly reluctant to be dragged away from, and pushing her towards the elevator with instructions to head to the secure room prepared for her in the evidence lockers below. This she may be less eager to do. However there is a compensation waiting for her there, because as a last line of defense there is a very shiny suit of armor waiting for her down there. While the rest of the Titans engage Cassie's doppelganger, Cassie is under orders to put on Diana's Golden Eagle armor. Surely she won't turn down the opportunity!

    Donna is armored herself, a rare sight in recent months. Her regular suit of armor was damaged beyond repair during the Warzoon invasion, and since arriving back from her sojourn in space she hasn't done anything about a replacement. The situation seems to call for it though, so in the last few days she has been wearing her spare suit, that has spent the previous five years in the memorial rooms, where replica costumes of every Titan past and present are displayed. She is armed with a sword and /two/ lassos, which is one weapon too many for anyone with only two arms, and two too many for anyone aiming for efficiency rather than drama. She straps on her shield and readies one of the lassos.

    "Main room, not hanger, Knockout. Vivian, what have you got for those extra targets, can you id them yet? Everyone - defensive ring in the middle of the room, don't let yourself get isolated, but keep your spacing. Avoid Doppel-Cassie's lasso, and do not let her get close to you. Remember, the aim is to knock her down and tie her up."

Mary Bromfield has posed:
This is a really good time of day to be relaxing. Or, well, it was, at least, up until a few moments ago. And that's what Mary was doing -- that or studying -- up in her room. Right up until things start falling out of the sky and sirens start blaring and everything starts going straight to the H-word. That's a good sign that homework can wait until some later date. So she takes the obvious and sensible course: she jumps out the window.

That way, when she exclaims "Shazam!" a moment later, the building doesn't get /further/ damaged by an oncoming lightning bolt. And (she's judged this carefully) it strikes her only a few dozen yards into her fall, transforming her into a newly white-clad heroic version of herself, who can then fly *down* into the empty elevator shaft and *up* into the main room, where she lands while scanning the whole area for -- "Oh, my gosh!" she exclaims when she sees the situation.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
As the dust and rubble clears in the main room, the red-suited, golden-armored and masked form of the Doppleganger Wonder Girl rises from a landing crouch, scanning the space. Her lariat is clutched looped in one gauntlet, with the end of the cord winding back up her forearm before seemingly disappearing into the armor, one set of spikes lost among... a lot more spikes. The thin visor-slit of the mask turns toward where her counterpart has landed after dodging some debris, a pile of dishes now scattered and broken around her on the floor. Even without her powers, the real Cassie's Amazon training remains, and she reacts with resolve rather than panic, tapping on her communicator: "She's here! It's go-time!"

Initially, Cassie starts to run (or get dragged by Donna), even as the armored version of her turns to track her and then casts the lasso in her direction. It would be a good throw, if she didn't blink out of sight not a moment too soon, and it goes slightly wide. Moving with Donna for the elevator, she does some Themysciran parkour to leap the kitchen island and then starts sprinting, keeping roughly apace of her sister.

Vivian will several of the intruders crawling over the tower surface are on the exterior of the women's dorm wing. Whether they know where her room is or not isn't clear, but it marks another incursion into the tower.

Well, until Victor FIRES UP THE LAZORS. A number of the exterior signals vanish instantly, though it seems a couple may have smashed their way inside just fast enough to avoid being fried.

Meanwhile, several other forms (identical to those outside, the cameras reveal) rise among the rubble behind their doppleganger leader, as if anticipating interference from other angles. Each has a mask that looks somewhat similar to that of the main Silent Armor, and perhaps a few other bits of armor, over what looks like a skinless humanoid body. It's kind of gross.

"So, funny thing," declares the armored figure, in a voice eerily cheery, so much like the real Cassie's. "After I took down Wonderbitch, I had a thought: if this Cassie doesn't have the armor, I think- hey, it must still be where I found it on this world, right?" As she says this, she and the others move into action, attacking those in the main room with them: of course she lunges right for Donna, seemingly able to figure out their position through the cloak after a moment of adjustment, tossing the lasso first and then charging in right behind it.

Heather Danielson has posed:
    "Right. Main room." mutters Heather into her comms. "Elevator arriving in three, two, one..." *DING!* And she comes charging out as the doors open, almost tripping over the Amazons before her. Her eyes go wide, and she dive-rolls out of the way. "Shit. Um, need me to safeguard our Cass?" she asks as she looks forward and eyes the intruder. Every instinct she has tells her to charge forward and make herself a target but... she is no Amazon. If she can take the pressure off Donna, then maybe Donna can cut loose and NOT be worrying about Cassie.
    She clenches her jaw and holds a hand out to Cassie, "Come on. Let's get you someplace safe." she mutters as she turns to head back into the elevator.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Oh shut /up/!" Terry shouts, jumping onto the counter and throwing one of the canisters with as much precision as he can muster. It's a long shot, but if he could get the Doppelganger on the head or anywhere in that area, the itching powder might actually do something.

Or it might not because it might just turn out Amazons are immune to itching- he doesn't know. What he does know, however, is that he now has to account for the walking dead, and he has no weapons.

Jumping off the counter, he reaches for Caitlin's world-class, precious pans... because if they're good enough a weapon for Tika Waylan, there were sure good enough for him.

"Hey pals, It's your friend Kathy here! Let me tell you all about the properties of red copper!" He will attempt to use the pans to bludgeon anyone from Cassie's Thriller Revival Gang that dares to get near him. It's, really, all he can do, because he knows itching powder is totally useless on Zombies, right?

Siobhan Smythe has posed:
One could say that Silver Banshee was frowning if there was an easy way to see that on the face of the Silver Banshee. The bone face wasn't really good for things like frowns or smiles or scowls. It's clear she isn't happy, though, by the fact that her eyes flare up a little at the sight of this other Cassie and then her compatriots. No no, not the good Cassie. The other one, the one with the weird armor. Yeah, that one. Siobhan notes Donna dealing with the main threat and so she immediately rushes to the side of the others. The gross ones.

"Are dese your friends from de utter world, C*** Cassie." Yes, she went there. She's not happy. She's rated R. And then Siobhan tilts her head, "Dey seem weak." And she unleashes a horrifically powerful scream, not looking to play nice at all after her run in with Dopple-Kara. Sometimes, you just gotta fight innappropriate force with innappropriate force.

Vivian Vision has posed:
"We have breaches in the Womans dorm wing. Directions included on T-comms," Vivian calls out over the T-comms. No need for her to speak out loud. She doesn't even stop doing the washing up, not yet anyway, hopefully the disdain will upset Evil-Cassie and her minions enough to draw their ire away from Donna and the real Cassie.

And if it doesn't? Well then there's always laser eyes. Which she fires into the cannister Terry just threw. Synthezoid timing allowing her to helpfully air-detontate it on Terrys behalf at the point guaranteed to provide maximum coverage.

"I am afraid to say I find this Cassie far less charming than the real version." Her mental subdivisions handling security trigger as many blast doors and other passive security systems to block, delay and generally corral the intruders into areas the team can respond to them.

Victor Stone has posed:
"Far be it from me to dispute the Amazons' ancient tactical secrets, Donna, but the shield wall doesn't work if you run out from behind it!" Vic grumble-hollers. (The grumble-holler technique being an ancient secret peculiar to the Stone family. Even Siobhan might be able to learn a thing or two.) Fortunately, with his center of gravity lowered in preparation for an assault that never came, he's in a perfect position to leap forward, legs pistoning in a practiced, powerful rhythm as he charges toward Alternacassie from a flank angle.

If he can tackle her with his projected barrier while she's distracted by her typical female chauvinist focus on Donna, he can drive her away from the group, toward and maybe even through the windows, where the melty doom of the death-beams still raking the building's exterior will make her very unhappy indeed.

He might be trying to sneak up on her, but the simple fact is that some superheroic tropes refuse to be denied, so as the moment of impact approaches, he yells, "Cassie doesn't need a DARKER, EDGIER REBOOT!"

Mary Bromfield has posed:
All of sudden things have gone from alarming to completely out of control. There's not just /one/ threat, there's a whole /crowd/ of them. It just keeps getting worse and worse. One of doppelCassie's hench ... things focuses on Mary almost as soon as she's out of the elevator shaft, launching itself bodily at her in a flying tackle that sends the pair of them flying through a couch before skidding to a stop against the floor.

From there it's a struggle between it trying to add more spikey punctures to the ones its opening move has already inflicted on Mary, and Mary trying to overcome her surprise enough to get a grip on it. Unlikely though it might be, there could be a something in there that doesn't deserve to get punched all the way to Greenland.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna gives Knockout a nod as Cassie heads to the elevator with her, and she turns to bar the way, placing herself firmly between Cassie and DoppelCassie, shield upraised and lasso of Hestia at the ready.

    "Funny thing," she retorts to DoppelCassie. "Our Cassie is better advised than to touch that armor. You have any idea what our magic-sensitives have picked up from it? I don't think so, or you wouldn't be using it. Our Cassie has friends who care about her, not people who are using her for their own ends." Something Donna knows, or just trying to instill a touch of doubt?"

    Donna leaps high over DoppelCassie's lasso, her own lasso whipping down in a sharp, sinuous motion - not targetting her opponent, but targeting DoppelCassie's lasso, to entangle it and pull it tight, so it can't be swung around. She lands, and charges forwards, shield first. "Our Cassie has lots of things you don't. Friends and /sisters/, like me. There's a Diana in your world too, but you don't know me."

    It might be expected that someone with a shield and weapon would use the weapon to attack and the shield to defend, but this isn't Donna's approach right now. With her lasso used to hold DoppelCassie's for the moment, she smashes out with her shield, swinging it not to impact directly on DoppelCassie, but to strike a shoulder spike edge-on, using the rigidity of her armor as leverage to spin her around.

    She brings the sheild back for more smashing buffets, each time aiming not at DoppelCassie's body, but the protrusions of her armor, to try to keep her spinning and off balance, and to force an opening to press against a less spiky portion of the armor and shove her into Victor's charge.

    "And she has the Titans!"

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"She's here, she's not in her room!" EvilCassie shouts as she sails toward Donna. It's not clear who she's talking to.

Heather steps out of the elevator and promptly intervenes in the imminent combat that is Evil Wonder Girl vs. Wonder Girl and Wonder Girl who isn't Wonder Girl a.k.a. Troia, which turns the whole thing into a pretty big cluster you-know-what (and that's before Victor shows up!). The armored Cassie is fast, highly aggressive, and seemingly fearless. She's too fast for the can to hit, though it explodes near her when lasered. Heather's sudden appearance puts her in the line of fire for the evil lasso, already in fight, but fortunately Donna has her covered as she snags lasso with lasso. Lasso fight! Which lets Heather duck under and grab Cassie, getting them into the car. Meanwhile, Marry emerges from the open shaft beside them, but is cut off from joining the fray as several of the mask-goons leap on her.

Siobhan, meanwhile turns into the rest of the mask brigade and screams: inappropriate force, it turns out, is actually pretty effective. A pair of them are charging/leaping for her, and then suddenly they're blasted backwards, flung like meaty ragdolls into the far wall, crashing with a bit of a satisfying *SQUISH*. Stil, there's a few of them, and a couple take flanking routes, one leaping onto her from a different direction. Another makes it to Terry, who hits it in the head with a pan. It's head swings sideways- but then jerks back, as it reaches with one hand to snatch the pan, the motions appropriately jerky and zombie-like for his earlier references. Its other hand promptly lashes out with a bracer-spike, refusing to meet humor with humor and merely trying to gut the poor fellow.

In the lasso-fight, Bad Cassie shows some surprise as the lassos entangle, and a moment later, the two are pulled into each other with a resounding metallic THUNK as the armored woman hits the shield. It rattles her, but she's rather tough, and a second later grabs onto the upper rim of the shield, jerking it sideways out of the way as she tries to headbutt Donna with a helmet spike. Which would probably be really gross if it worked. Except just then, Victor impacts the melee. Suddenly the two of them are flying sideways, though the Evil Cassie manages to arrest her momentum with her own flight before she goes out a window, while at the same time, her lasso - far more 'alive' in its movements than the rope versions - slithers backwards as it retracts toward the armor, getting loose of the bind. Up close, she pucnhes at Victor once, twice, and again, hitting a forcefield, and then hitting it again, the second one causing a warning light to flash on Cyborg's HUD: POWER LIMITS AT CRITICAL.

And here, Donna might have an opportunity, rejoining and making the fight 2 vs 1, except where a new figure bursts through the closed security door above the women's dorm staircase, hitting her from behind and tackling her into the ground. It looks across the space at where EvilCassie is pounding on Victor's shields: "Hey babe."

"Mmm, hey lover," echoes the golden armor, in a far too sultry tone.

And then, just before the elevator doors close, Real Cassie speaks up: "Oh god I just threw up in my mouth."

Heather Danielson has posed:
    Okay. Heather is almost in a panic. She makes sure to push Cassie into the elevator car first, following behind in case of last moment attacks. "Okay. Got Cassie in the elevator. Where do I take her?" she asks on comms. She looks towards the ceiling of the car and inclines her head. "We have incursions in the dorms too?" She asks with a shake of her head. So now she is basically planning to protect Cassie with her own body however she can. "Cassie." she says to her real friend. "If you gotta vomit, do it. But do me a big favor. If things go more to shit, stay behind me. Do not attack. I can take it, okay?" she asks.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
It's Terry's double-wielding that saves him, as he reacts with his other hand just in time to deviate the bracer spike with a pan collision of his own. That's when he gets the idea of holding on to the pan that is still in the masked mook's hand and wail at him with the /other/ pan. If he gets the dead guy to hold onto both pans with that death grip, he can let go and grab Caitlin's toaster oven to throw at him to cause some more damage.

Hopefully Caitlin won't do the same to him when she takes stock of her goods, post-fight.

Siobhan Smythe has posed:
It is indeed satisfying to have the enemy slam into the wall from her scream. However, then more of them leap at her and she reaches out to catch one with one hand while the other lands on her back. She growls out an angry thing and then she spins around quickly to try to slam one in to the other before she notes that there's more happening and shakes her haed, "I'm gonna try to pull some out of here!" Siobhan calls out and then rushes for an already breached area with those on her and she then attempts to slam into another on her way out. If she can, Siobhan will drag several of the nasty creatures outside and then start trying to turn on others.

"I cannae understand how dese tings are even actin' but lets see if I can't shut dem down permanently." She is then outside, fighting and trying to finish off these so she can stop more.

Vivian Vision has posed:
"Your armour is also visually very unattractive. Perhaps it was used to serve cheese and olives at very bad parties?" Vivian chimes in helpfully. She is new to superhero trash talk but Janet is always making hurtful remarks about peoples attire so it must be very effective, right? "It also makes you look very heavy."

Elsewhere in the building more security doors slam shut and a steady stream of updates are sent to Heather & Cassie advising them of the safest routes to take. Although really they are more of a delaying tactic and possibly not a very good one given how quickly re-enforcements have arrived.

"Vorpal please feel free to use me as cover." She notes, cranking her density to fifty tons and unleashing more pulses of laser energy. Mostly aiming for the minions, which are almost certainly not alive people (fingers crossed) and so wouldn't cause her any ethical concerns, more specifically the vulnerable joints. Scything beams of energy that can cut steel through the odd skinless limbs and necks.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Fortunately, the masked meat puppets are... well about as creative as one would expect for something that could be described that way. After being parried away by the second pan (see? dual wielding is always cool!), it grabs for it and... a second later it's head is IN a large toaster oven, stumbling around. This makes it somewhat easy pickings as Siobhan sweeps outward, carrying not only the several on her, but the toaster'd one and and a few more in her path out into the open air. Where several of them simply fall to their meaty doom.

"Security locker." Cassie hits the button when Heather esitates, and the elevator starts dropping. "No, I'm OK," she continues, on her apparent nausea. "I just, ugh. Hearing yourself hit on some gross dude is kinda..." She makes a 'bleh' face. The elevator drops a bit further, plan going as planned, until there's suddenly a metallic snap above them, then a screeching sound as the safety breaks engage, the car briefling accelerating downward and then halting just as abruptly. Cassie, without powers, ends up on the floor. There's a couple thunks a moment later, of weight landing on the top of the car, before the emergency hatch is flung open and one of the masked goons leaps down onto Heather.

"We got some in the car!" Cassie calls on her comms.

Back up top, Vivian's eye lasers, now turned up to lethal and unleashed on something more than a can of itching powder, slice through the last of the goons not taken out by Siobhan with little difficulty. Considering the way they keep weirdly moving on the ground until the armor finally melts off them and... starts slithering back toward the two armored figures in little liquid-metal rivulets suggests that they are very much not 'alive' by normal means. Ethical concerns definitely alleviated.

Victor Stone has posed:
The force barrier was never meant to be a permanent fixture, but it has allowed Vic to move Cassie away from the cluster of appliances and countertops in the middle of the room, out to the more spacious entertainment area. Without those bottlenecks and tight quarters, the Titans' numbers advantage can be used to full effect. Vic lowers the barrier suddenly, of his own accord, and sends a metal punch flying at the Cassie knockoff the moment it's down.

Whether or not it really lands, he's going to use the attack to break away from the scrum and start blasting away with the sonic cannon in his palm, putting him at medium range fire support while Donna handles the up close, personal fighting. It also gives him the range to open fire on the new combatant who enters the fight. Picking up on Viv's energy, if not exactly her delivery, he points with the fingerts of his free hand and shouts: "Hey everybody, look! This guy's wearing BOOB ARMOR."

There are, in fact, two distinct pectoral bulges on his metal breastplate, with a structurally unsound cleavage trough directly between them. It's that trough that Vic aims and fires at with the heavy laser cannon that suddenly sprouts from his back. Nonlethal sonics for the close-range fight Donna is embroiled with, to prevent friendly fire, but that idiot is a wide-open target begging for the big guns.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna mentally curses for letting herself get caught out by this new attacker, but she can find time for self-recriminations later. She rolls her shoulders and jerks her arm backwards to smash the edge of her shield towards Diesel's neck, and follows the wild blow up by forcing the shield between them and shoving backwards, hard.

    Some slight readjustments to the plan has to be made - Vic shouldn't be facing DoppelCassie alone. "Thunderbolt!" she yells. "Help Vic!" Highlighting his plight is the best she can do for the moment though, because she has an opponent of her own to deal with.

    A sleezy, edgy opponent. One with armor that has been designed by some deranged armorer who thinks spikes are cool and doesn't give much thought to practicality, like covering up dramatic flowing locks,

    Donna leaps suddenly up, flipping over Diesel's back, and grabbing hold of that fancy flowing hair, then demonstrates that Cassie and Diana aren't the only Amazons who can fly on this world by flying up towards the ceiling.

    Donna doesn't know that the armor grants Diesel the power of flight too, but then it'll take him a moment to react - and for now, she's giving Vic a really clear shot straight at the edgy idiot with his sonic cannon.

    "Oh another thing our Cassie has that you don't?" she calls out. "TASTE."

Heather Danielson has posed:
    There is a tiny part of Heather's mind that thinks . . o o O O (This is more like it!) But she is protecting someone, not just fighting. She executes a cheerleading high kick to catch the first one right between its descending legs as hard as she can. She's no Amazon, but ten tons of lifting strength, a lot from the legs... can do a lot of damage to meat puppet sausage links.
    Her plan is to hopefully knock the thing back up out of the hatch so she can get up on top of the car and fight them there.
    In fact, she jumps and pushes off of the handrail in the elevator, to shove herself up and through the hatch, slamming bodily into another of the goons. By the time she gets up there, she's been struck in the stomach, face, neck... and shoulder. She just doesn't care.
    "Is that all you got?" She asks as she spits blood at them and then she plants herself over the hatchway, legs braced as she starts to fight for real. Hands flailing in practiced strikes. She doesn't really bother -defending- herself at all. Just trying to do as much harm as she can, as fast as she can. Her blood splashes down atop the car and seeps through the hatch that she shuts when she has a half a moment to do so. "Try to get the brakes unlocked and the car moving down again if you can get'em on comms to do that!" she calls out.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
One goon becomes two, two goons become a whole pack of them, and abruptly, Mary, for all her strength, speed, and endurance, is on the defensive, and not merely on the defensive, but full-on retreating, because it's very hard to hit one of these masked goons -- or block one of their attacks -- without getting punctured, and while that's, for the most part, more painful and frustrating than actually life-threatening, it means dealing with a pack of them is a serious problem.

And then, just as she's about backed up against the proverbial (and actual) wall, Mary gets a bright idea. The next time one of them goes for her, she grabs it by the wrist -- teeth gritting as the armor stabs into her hand -- and /holds on/. She does more than hold on. She starts swinging the unfortunate goon at his nearby compatriots like a makeshift broom. *WHAM* *WHAM* *WHAM* It's possible some of her restraint may have deserted her.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"That oven made the best bagels..." Terry says mournfully. He had ducked behind Vivian as directed, but there is no time to lose as Sio buys them precious time. "Thanks Viv. Now I'm gonna pay the favor forward!"

He leaps over the kitchen aisle and grabs a hold of the fire extinguisher. Running over to Mary, he proceeds to make like a fireman and tries to empty the contents of the extinguisher into the faces of the zombies assailing her- hopefully to cause them enough inconvenience that she can wail at them with abandon.

Of course, his ploy is absolutely useless if those glowing eyes are just for show and the effers don't actually need them to /see/. In which case, he might be in 'Save Me, Mighty Mouse', danger.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
In the center of the tower living room, Victor and the armored doppleganger have room to brawl freely, and promptly get down to business, starting with the armor getting punched square in the face, the sudden shield drop taking her off guard. Indeed, it's one thing that becomes more and more apparent as they fight, that for whatever raw power in her blood and armor, this Cassie is pretty terrible at actual combat tactics. Shows what happens when you have those powers and -don't- get Amazon training on how to use them.

And while his fist does little damage to the armor, the woman's head inside it, divine or not, still feels the rattle of the forceful impact, and staggers back to a distance where Victor can turn the cannons on her, each blast knocking her back a step further.

At the same time, Diesel's (ugh) entrance secures a very momentary triumph that is quickly reversed. "Ah, you bitch!" he screams as Donna pulls on his hair, and while he lashes back at her with everything from punches to kicks (all spikey), it doesn't matter too much as he's air-juggled into Victor's big gun. "They are not boob-"

ZZZZZZZZZOTTTT.

Well, so much for that. However, Cassie does a little better, taking the moment where Victor is shooting at both of them to launch a counter attack, tossing her lasso around the cannon arm and both pulling him forward while charging forward on attack.

In the meantime, both Heather and Mary do a pretty good job sweeping up the remaining goons, in Mary's case with the venerable 'hit a dude with another dude' technique. It's painful, with the spike in her, but those spikes also do damage as they hit each other, making quite a mess of them. Heather, meanwhile, merely brawls her way up to the top of the car. There, after pounding the small bunch that managed their way onto it, she can see the damaged cable and where the safety breaks have engaged. "I can't get it to move, must be damaged!" Cassie calls from inside, if it was even necessary. On the comms, then: "We're stuck in the shaft."

Vivian Vision has posed:
"Confirmed," Vivian's voice chimes out from the elevator control panel. "I'll be there shortly. Mary I believe you are needed on the upper floor." Her mental subdivisions try and restart the elevator, although the readouts indicate it's physically damaged, while she dashes the short distance from kitchen to elevator door. With her actual voice she calls out "Vorpal please stay out of trouble until I can return."

She clearly does not know her team-mates very well yet..

Then the synthezoid teenager phases through the door as if it was thin air and plummets down the shaft like an anvil. There's no need to fight anything enroute though. Indeed that isn't even the plan. She just snags Heather and Cassie and phases them through the elevator floor with her.

Falling is a much quicker way of getting down to the floor you want! Thankfully Viv is also able to make sure the landing isn't fatal for any of them. Although she can't do anything about possible urges to throw up or emotional trauma.

Victor Stone has posed:
Just after Donna turns the new arrival into a clay for a skeet shoot, Vic's shoulder cannon seamlessly swivels to fire on Cassie-from-a-world-less-classy. When she lassos and yanks on his arm, though, that throws his shot wide, and it carves a molten line in the plate windows behind her. She drags him forward for a couple of meters, but he rides that momentum toward her, using it to fuel his own counter-charge.

Metal arms bent back in a W formation, he rushes straight at her like a tight end charging a receiver, then slams his fists forward simultaneously: a full-on flying rocket punch, fueled not only by his own momentum, but boosters built into his elbows. He's not fully invulnerable to the vampiric blight of her jagged armor, but so long as he keeps the metal between him and her, he doesn't have to be. If they break apart or she falls back from the strike, he's fully ready to follow up with another shoulder-cannon salvo.

Heather Danielson has posed:
    "Urk!" calls out Heather as she is grabbed and phased down through the elevator's top. "God that scared me!" she calls out as she is dragged into the car. She's already mostly healed, but her shirt is trashed. Her jeans are more like halfway to the Daisy Dukes status too.
    But either way, she goes with and says, "You good Cass?" as she goes.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Once Diesel has been thoroughly ZZZZZOTTTed, Donna yanks him upwards, jams her fingers under the armpit of his armor, and with a wordless yell of effort that rings out over the noise of battle, rips the chest plate from his body.

    She shakes him like a rag-doll, snarling "You were totally wearing boob plate, moron, but don't worry I fixed that for you." The chest plate falls to the ground with a clang, and Donna wrenches away the shoulder pieces, letting them drop too, before releasing him to fall to the ground beside them.

    She pulls back her lasso and swings it around, tangling his legs, then hauls up to drag him off the ground again as she flies up to the ceiling. Another wrench on the lasso sends him swinging upwards to crash into the structural metal and wrap him around a hexagonal support. With a flick of her wrist she frees the lasso, leaving him suspended there, and drops back to the ground.

    With Diesel dealt with, she straightens her shield, readies her lasso, and leaps towards badCassie, ready to support Vic and rejoin the fray.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
Mary sends one goon rocketing through a window -- oh dear, more property damage -- by swinging his comrade like a softball bat. Then Terry's right at hand, making sure that the enemy don't have time to get their bearings back, and she even makes the time to flash him a bright grin and a thumbs-up -- the cheerfulness of the latter only slightly marred by the bloody hole in her hand making her look like she's gunning for Catholic sainthood. "Thanks!"

Then, on the communicator, there's Vivian calling for her: "I'll be right there!" She throws her goon at two of the others, telling Terry, "I think that'll hold them for a while! Be right back!" before she's gone in the blink of an eye, though fortunately /not/ fast enough to further deafen everyone with a sonic boom.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
As Vivian and the rest head out to follow the fight by means of conveyace far less clumsy than his ordinary one, Terry looks around at the scene of destruction and chaos that is the main room. Broken glass, dishes, things scattered every which way like a house in the wake of the worst fraternity party on Earth. Or the best, depending on who you ask.

"... sure, where would I go?" he says, mostly to himself. He glances down at the floor and notices one of his canisters laying on the floor, having somehow failed to break away. He nudges it with his sneaker, and at that moment it decides to collapse, coating the front of it with the itchy contents. He hastily shakes his shoe, and looks around. There wasn't much that he could do to help the actual fight, so he might as well make himself useful. He bends down and starts picking up the dishes that /aren't/ shattered so he can put them on the counter. "Funny," he mutters to himself, "This is almost exactly where I was a year ago." Ordinary, and standing in the wings, watching and reporting. Which wouldn't be so bad, but for having had a sample of other things. "It kind of fucking sucks!" He taps his comm and listens in to hear how things play out. He secretly prays for Donna to kick the ever-loving snot out of this Doppelganger.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Victor hits BadCassie hard, sending her flying back, now bound to him with the lasso/armor-tendril. Yet the head-to-head brawl is what this version of Cassie seems to crave, as it fits her untrained but vicious mindset. And the truth is, with the armor, she's extremely dangerous like that, Wonder Woman having gone down in exactly the same way. The strange metal seems capable of regeneration, damage to the suit ultimately repairing itself, nevermind the durability of woman underneath it. So while they trade blows, trade damage, for every bang or bruise they each suffer, or worse, every slice of those spikes, Victor's injuries are adding up, piling onto one another, while hers... not as much. And somewhere in the flying brawl, as the lasso finds nothing to drain on his canon arm, but Cassie feels the rush when her blades accidentally nick some of his fleshy spots, she finally does think up at least one good battle tactic, and jams one hard blow of a quickly-formed fist-spike into his flesh.

The good news is that aside from all of that, as focused on tearing him apart as she is, she allows the power of his thrusters to carry them both away from fight - and indeed, eventually toward the windows of the tower.

At the same time, Diesel's armor is torn free. Donna is wise to throw it aside almost as quickly as she pulls them loose, as the metal seems to have little loyalty or allegiance, a few biting tendrils reaching for her, offering to let the victor claim the spoils, claim the armor for herself.

"DIESEL!" shouts the other Cassie, some sympathetic connection between the Silent Armors of two dimensions allowing her to realize what's happened. But it serves as another distraction, and her and Victor hit the window a moment later, shattering the glass. Even as the man is at the verge of consciousness, the computer parts of Cyborg still control the lasers, and make sure the split-second timing is perfect enough so they sweep over the armor without hitting him (at least too much!) causing Cassie to scream, twist, and wrench loose, throwing Victor back toward the side of the building even as the gold metal melts around her. In the last moment, his Cyberbrain still has enough control to fire his OWN lasers as well, and the shoulder cannon blasts her again. As in the fight with Wonder Woman, where it was the Invisible Plane's plasma cannons doing the work, the smoking wreck of the armor seems capable of sustaining them both and with so much damage, promptly turns to retreat at full flight speed.

The others meet up at the bottom of the elevator shaft, where Vivian has deposited Cassie and Heather, the former definitely looking a bit woozy, as her stamina is fully human right now. "Ugh, now I really MIGHT be sick. But thanks Viv, I-"

There's a creaking sound above, where apparently one of the armor-puppets was able to regenerate enough to start pulling apart the breaks. There's a metallic creak, and then the car comes loose, and starts to plummet toward those at the bottom of the shaft. Which might be a concern, if there wasn't a certain MARVELous young lady joining them, for whom the weight of the elevator is unlikely to pose any challenge.

Heather Danielson has posed:
    Kicking at the maintenance hatch, Heather shoves Cassie into it. "Go go go!" She calls out, "Viv. I think they need you up there. We got this." she says. She figures she has a bit of time before the car crashes down into them. She missed any details of Mary being on her way. She rolls her neck and turns to try to catch the car herself. She takes a deep breath, a second one... then murmurs to herself, "This is why you've been strength training Heather. You got this. You can do this.... you hear me? No, no doubting. You got this." Yeah, she's trying to convince herself she can do it. Though... the odds are even if she does, it'll be really REALLY painful for her. Again, no idea she has more help coming. And truth be told, she wants to see if she -can- do this. She wants to find out if she can be more than the 'face'. What? She has a bit of an inferiority complex where super strength is concerned. But that'd be the case for -anyone- on a team with Amazons -and- a Marvel. It doesn't stop her from desperately seeking to prove herself.
    The funny part is, she likely won't have the chance. THANKS MARY!

Mary Bromfield has posed:
At almost any other time, Mary might be at least /tempted/ to wait until the very last second before stopping the elevator, just for dramatic effect. She probably still wouldn't -- that would be mean! -- but she'd at least be /tempted/. This is not, however, one of those times, and that's why the elevator doesn't plummet more than a dozen meters or so before it starts to slow. Can't just grab it and pull it to a stop or something might tear off. There's the creak and scream of protesting metal before it comes to a stop in midair. "Hey," comes Mary's disembodied voice from the far side, "um, I don't want to put you to any trouble or anything, but my hands really hurt, so if you could get out of the elevator shaft so I can put this down? That would be super fantastic."

Vivian Vision has posed:
Hopefully Cassie and Heather wanted to go to the basement. Because it's much easier for Viv to stop on a solid surface than to hang in mid-air while holding two organics. And it's far too risky to try unphase into another elevator car. Who knows what damage those things could have done to the cables.

The landing is bumpy and not exactly elegant. But it's also a lot better than falling who knows how far or being savaged by killer monsters. What's less great though? The look of pleasant surprise on Vivians face after she lands. "I have never done anything like that before. I am glad it worked as predicted.." A pause as she puts Heather and Cassie down. "You do both still retain all your vital organs? No unexpected injury or lumps that could be elevator parts? If so I will urgently escort you to the medical facilities."

She doesn't seem bothered by the possible falling elevator. Even if no-one catches it she can just re-phase Cassie and Heather! Although that will likely be much worse for the building itself. "According to the information I have from Tower sensors the worst of the attack has now likely passed."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna is /not/ letting BadCassie get away. No chance. A second or so after Victor and BadCassie exit the building, she follows them out as the laser sweep gives an opening that means she won't get too badly zapped on her way through.

    She whirls her lasso, ready to throw, but the two keep accelerating away, and the blast of his shoulder cannon drives BadCassie further out of range. She continues her pursuit, closing the distance as BadCassie hurls Victor away and takes flight.

    Donna /is/ letting BadCassie get away. She stops short in mid-air, and with a growl of frustration as the golden-armored figure flies into the distance, she turns back to fly to Victor, and catch him should he bounce from the side of the tower and need a pickup. "VIC!" she calls out with concern, "Are you okay?"

    BadCassie would no doubt consider this a weakness, that her enemies /care/ for each other, but on this Earth it's a strength. Here there are team-mates, and Donna's not going to let a team-mate fall just to pursue an enemy.

Heather Danielson has posed:
    And then.. the elevator stops. Heather tries to play it off as unimportant. "Right. Yeah. Let's keep moving, eh?" She asks Viv. "I'm fine, and I think we're gonna be good."

Victor Stone has posed:
Vic crashes back in through the windows, some distance from his exit point, and skids to a halt on his back. He's panting and gasping, skin ashen and bloodlessly pale. The metal of his limbs has been relentlessly battered, and as he tries to sit up, its clear that many of his joints aren't functioning properly anymore. He drops prone again, his organic eye rolling back as he fights to stay conscious.

Still, his implants were designed for life support long before they were rebuilt for superheroics, and they still perform beyond admirably in that role. Even as peripherals like weapons and combat scanners power down, internal systems are enriching his blood and stimulating his body's flagging systems. The little Roomba drone he was working on earlier trundles over, buzzing internally, and then noses forward to bump against Vic's arm, nudging him back to consciousness again.

"Guh... great," he croaks, in respone to Donna's query.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Once the elevator is stopped, and with help from Heather and Vivian, they can probably get either a door or hatch at the bottom open for everyone to exit (to spare Cassie's puny mortal body any more unecessary and apparently UNTESTED phasing) so that Mary can finally put down the car. On the far side, she just kind of flops down on the metal floor against the wall, taking a deep breath. While unaware of whatever is going on above, she knows well enough that her friends have saved her bacon in numerous ways, from her alter ego's initial assault, to the puppets in the elevator, to the... actual elevator almost falling on them. What can she really say?

"Thanks guys."

Above, Diesel remains out for the count, with the puppets seemingly losing power when both his armor fails and the other armor gets too far from the tower. This leaves them with the young man in their custody, and the armor to... very carefully get into the lab for containment.