Rebel_Scum

"Of course he'd be resistant to that, what in the hell was I thinking...', Ildela muttered irritably to herself. All the big bad guys were resistant to that one, it only ever worked on the low-ranking mooks. Indeed, what in the hell was she thinking. She wasn't sure, but she was clearly thinking it hard enough that she didn't notice the man flinging his... collar? at her. She noticed well enough when it bounced off her ever-present energy shields, causing a bright bluish-white flicker at the impact point. "Well ok, that was new", she commented. "Props for being original, at least."

Of course, that was where the originality ended as the man pulled a rifle and started possibly literally spraying and praying into the crowd. "Way to waste ammo there, buddy", the stalker said with a smirk before quite suddenly launching herself at him, going from a standing start to her top flight speed all but instantly. A couple of bullets pinged off her shields to no effect as she flew in. One even got through and struck her in the shoulder, but though she flinched briefly in pain she seemed more annoyed than injured.

But her intent was not to stab him like she said before, oh no. He'd just deflect that with that shield of his. Rather she attempted to tackle him to the ground. Even if he blocked and unless he had a really strong arm, the sheer physical force of her hitting him at over fifty miles an hour should be more than enough to knock him flat on his back with her at least on top of him if not holding him down exactly. She was hardly a large woman, in fact some would consider her short. He could probably throw her off easily.

But not before she did what she came in there to do, though. That is, to briefly invert the energy field that powered her shields, causing it to drain his energy instead and quite likely leave him gasping for breath. As she did so the wound in her shoulder healed, the drained energy used to restore her own reserves and repair her form.

(( Fyi, Energy Drain ingame is autohit. Just so you know. ))

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"Hell, make it do that without the whole mindcontrol bit and they'd probably thank you for it", Ildela commented. Possibly her senses were better than she let on, if she heard that.

"Alrighty then...", Ildela replied, not moving from where she was. She was smart enough to realise an attempt to lure the enemy closer before attacking or taking a hostage to use as a shield. Quietly flickering back into sight she instead raised her arms, wisps of purplish-orange energy seeming to flow down her arms to gather in her hands before she quite casually threw them at him.

Should they land (And they quite likely would, even if he jumped aside they'd track him to some extent.) they'd wrap themselves around his arms and legs and lift him helpless into the air, unable to act to save himself from the robot about to blow his brains out with that oversized rifle. Being a religious man, he may in fact recognise the unholy nature of the attack - those things she was throwing were fragments of souls, possibly her own but more likely someone else's.

(( Soul Storm, epic hold from the soul mastery patron pool. ))

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"Those are out too, possibly even moreso than the others", Ildela interrupted. "People around here take really badly to being mindcontrolled, and then we go straight back to that whole arrest you and throw you jail for several years thing."

Ildela couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that, even though they probably couldn't see her do so. "See, I was going to go with 'on the authority given to me by this city as one of its registered protectors', or some such, but I guess that works too."

She turned back to the gunman, apparently some sort of religious fanatic by the way he was talking. The worst kind of fanatic, just her luck. "Putting it bluntly, dude. Stop shooting people or I'm going to stab you. Repeatedly as necessary."

Ildela listened silently to the police chatter for a moment, making sure it was really what it sounded like at first... yeah, it was. "'scuse me", she said to the others, before turning and without another word lifting off the ground and flying away under no visible or detectable power. At about roof height she faded from sight entirely, barring enhanced senses or high-tech sensors or whatever, and headed in the direction of the smoke she could see in the distance.

The gunman the police were chattering about wasn't hard to find. She simply followed the trail of blood, fire, smoke and corpses right to him. He would likely hear the soft thump of her landing behind him, though unless he possessed the aforementioned enhanced senses or high-tech scanners or equivalent then all he would see if he turned around would be thin air. Thin air that was apparently capable of speaking, as her voice came from nowhere. "Stand down. You're not getting a second warning." And nor would he, if he didn't do as she said and stop shooting people.

Ildela looked around as she heard the familiar voice. "Oh hey, I wondered where you guys went." She actually hadn't, but one must be polite to alien visitors, lest they become alien invaders after you annoy them. "They're right though... giant monsters, rampaging ones especially, are an everyday occurance in this city. Most of the buildings around here are built to withstand it, it's why building in Paragon is so damned expensive." Of course she was assuming things of this version of Paragon that were based on her own. But given the rampaging giant monster and assortment of somewhat questionably heroic heroes that arrived within moments to stop it, she figured that was a safe enough bet.

"Come to think of it though..." She turned to look at the aliens. "How do you guys know so much about us, anyway? No offense meant, just seems you know more than you logically should."

Ildela actually laughed at that. "Oh, I'm sure we can do a little better than just being warm and bug free." She walked over and put a hand on the guy's shoulder. "Maybe we can score a hot and equally radiation free meal, and all", she added with a friendly smirk. She had a pretty good idea which dimension this guy was from, now.

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"Portal Corp is exactly what it sounds like", Ildela answered just very faintly sarcastically. "A Corporation specialising in Portals. Specifically, portals to other dimensions. Huge things they are, too. Three or four stories high, though most of that's cables. Anyway, to get you through... probably two things. Find out which dimension is your home dimension, easier said than done most of the time. And prove you can be trusted near such things without trying to blow up the compound or poison all the staff or some such. They're a little paranoid like that sometimes."

She paused, thinking for a moment. "And given how we both arrived through randomly appeared rifts between worlds... somehow I doubt that's an isolated incident, so they might be a little busy just at the moment."

Technically not the same - Barrage used to be weaker than Energy Punch before it was changed, while Broadsword and Katana have had it I'm pretty sure since the game first launched.

Only if the Malta sapper rifle is one of the available obtions, either by default or by killing x malta. Possibly x sappers specifically. But dammit I want that gun available in game somehow!

"You seem to be under the impression that we're all actually a team", Ildela pointed out. "I don't even know any of these people." As she said it, she took a look around to see if there was anyone she actually did know... nope, there wasn't. Oh well.

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"Most plagues around here are either eradicated all but entirely, or so vicious that no amount of seperation is going to save you", Ildela answered, shrugging. "The latter usually helped along by the more nefarious types. And yeah, the tram stations are in every major area of the city. Well, except Peregrine Island. It's too far out for it to be cost effective to build one there or some such, as far as I know. That's where we're going, by the way. We'll catch a ferry there from the docks in Talos." She took a seat at the side of the tram car and looked out the window, catching sight of a crablike giant monster in the process of exploding. "Huh", she commented, as if such things were normal and to be expected.

And was promptly hit just shy of directly on the glowing weakpoint by a sizable bolt of dark energy that fell out of the sky from a nearby rooftop. Mirel was lucky to not be hit, moving into almost the same spot as it struck. The one who fired it, however, was immediately distracted by someone bursting out of the door on a nearby rooftop and jumping across to the one she currently stood at the edge of. "Huh. Nice jump."

"Huh? What's not good?", Ildela asked, a little confused. What was so bad about a bunch of supers taking down an obviously hostile giant monster? They'd even managed to keep the collateral damage to a minimum thus far.

Someone else plays this game from New Zealand? GASP! Clearly the world is ending tomorrow, I hope you've all made your peace.

Ildela looked around, having been about to go into the station and board the train to Talos Island. Assuming they'd merged the lines in this dimension too, she'd have to check. "Huh? Oh... police drone. They teleport criminals that get close directly to the Zig... the city's prison. And don't ask how they know who's a criminal and who isn't cause I don't know, though I'd presume they target anyone with an outstanding warrant for their arrest or anyone displaying suspicious behaviour. All I know is they're ridiculously expensive to make so the PPD only has a few of them. They deploy them around the train stations to keep people from interfering with the city's main public transport service."

She turned away from the drone and headed into the station itself, intending on checking the route map to make sure they had in fact been merged in this dimension like they had in the one she came from. And then on boarding the train to Talos, obviously. "Come on, we're going to have to wait for the next train if we don't move."

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Meanwhile, on the other side of Kings Row...

Ildela was bored. The guy was just standing there! Well... ok, maybe she was just easily bored. Still, either way the fact remained that she quietly turned and flew up and away, entirely out of sight of the guy who seemed to be ignoring her anyway. He didn't even have the decency to even act surprised at the whole voice from nowhere bit.

So, off to bigger, better and less boring things. Like a certain robot crab that the robot had been babbling about before it got booted away. Which should be... She spun in midair, orienting herself while at the same time managing to look completely lost before flying off in a seemingly random direction - incidentally directly toward where the giant robot crab and those fighting it happened to be. Convenient, that.

Landing on a nearby rooftop where she could see the action, incidentally quite possibly the same building the Outsider was currently ascending, she paused to take stock of the- Was that a transformer? Seriously? "Ok, that's kickass and awesome", she muttered to herself. As she watched, it turned one of its arms into some kind of railgun and opened fire on the crab. "Yup, definitely a transformer", she added. "Good idea, too..." Taking her cue from the giant robot with the sniper rifle, she quietly settled into a sniper stance of her own, bracing one arm with the other as she gathered a sizable amount of some sort of dark energy around her fist. Holding it there and gathering more until her arm was shaking from the effort of containing it, she pointed it at the crab and let it fly.

The act of firing of course disrupted her invisbility, leaving her perfectly visible for all to see. With the tail of her trenchcoat flapping in the sudden dramatic wind from her blast as well. Should anyone trace back the path of the bolt of darkness that came screaming down from above trailing shadows after it, it'd be immediately obvious who it came from. But that couldn't be helped.

(( In case it isn't obvious, she's using Moonbeam from the stalker soul mastery patron pool. Crits from hide and all, ***** of a chargeup time though. ))

She seemed somewhat surprised by this, but not disappointed. Meant she could go as fast as she could - which was somewhat faster than she'd gone up to here, but still.

"The ionization might be me, sorry", Ildela replied, gesturing to the lightning-like aura still trailing from her legs. "It's not technically electricity but it behaves about the same sometimes. The rest, I dunno. Though I'd point out the city rests on a ley line nexus, and has the dubious honor of being the only place in the world where metahumans outnumber normal humans. Not exactly the most average of places, I'm just saying."

Ildela actually laughed at that. "This is Kings Row, it's the closest thing to slums this city has. The buildings here are built for functionality and low cost, not aesthetics. Anyway, come on. Train's this way." And with that she promptly turned and flew off in the direction of the train station, looking back every now and then to make sure he was still with her.

But none of us US players got to participate! So unfair! At present though I don't think it's technically 'world-affecting'. Whole of Paragon in this whatever universe it is, certainly. But I don't think anyone's plopped themselves down outside Paragon yet. Considering how many heroic and villainous acts go on every day, I'm not sure a dozen or so people dropping out of dimensional rifts and beating up a giant robocrab is so out of the ordinary. By Paragon standards that's probably more or less a normal day, if it wasn't a giant crab it'd be Praetorians, or Nemesis, or whatever crazy the Isles spat out today.

*quietly pees on the lawn, makes a rude gesture and walks off*


Disclaimer: It is 4:19am. I'm even less sane right now than usual.

Edit: And I need to stop using that .

......