The shooting had finally ended. The sound of the gunshots was still ringing in Eddy's ears. When he got up from behind a now destroyed computer console, he found Ms. Parker shouting at someone in her radio. She was very angry with whoever she was speaking to. He figured it was now safe so he took off the helmet of the suit. He also saw the young girl assisting Ms.Parker behind another piece of now destroyed machinery. But something looked strange, metal debris was floating above her. He watched as she formed the same shield which he accidentally triggered around himself. But suddenly, the shield collapsed and the debris fell on top of the young woman.
" Omigod!"
Eddy quickly ran over and leaped, and by maybe an inch or less managed to push her out of the way of the debris. He had forgotten though that his helmet was not on and the debris crushed his head, turning his world to darkness.
[ QUOTE ]
The metal, of course, collapsed.
[/ QUOTE ]
Kashaye had just tossed the radio to Clarisa, when she heard a creaking sound behind her. A shot-to-shreds instrument cabinet was canted at an extreme angle... supported by some kind of force field.
And inside the force field... was Mallory.
"Oh CRAP!"
Just as Kashaye started to run towards the cabinet, the forcefield collapsed, and the cabinet fell on top of Mallory, knocking her insensate and pinning her down.
Kashaye wedged herself underneath the fallen cabinet, and tried to repel it off her assistant.
The repel field failed to manifest.
'Not now, not another secondary mutation!' she thought.
Still no field.
Her commlink buzzed.
"Gwen! About time you got here!"
"What's going on? I heard shooting... you hollering for an extraction..."
"Gwen, Mallory's hurt. She's pinned under a cabinet, and .... and I can't repel it off."
"What do you mean you can't repel it off? You've always been able to repel things, Shay."
"Not now. It's like I forgot how! First my flight, and now this!"
She felt a growing rage building inside (( game terms: Vengeance activated!)), and strength born of desperation fueled her. She lifted... she pushed... she fired off Inertial Reduction to help add power... and she managed to lever the cabinet up just a hair.
Mallory was still out... and her leg was pinned as well.
And something else in Kashaye went -ping!- as she... saw... how Mallory and the universe were connected. She could... sense... some sort of n-th dimensional web tied to Mallory, leading off into directions that would twist most people's brains to even theorize about them.
Consciously she didn't know what it all meant, but her subconscious was already making connections, deciphering puzzles, and as a result... with a flash Mallory faded from view under the cabinet and reappeared at the feet of the still-undamaged Eddy "Makavell" Ramirez.
The cabinet crashed to the floor.
Kashaye dropped to one knee and shook her head... how? what? her mind was swinning with questions, and coupled with the stress of the situation, her rage at losing her precious lab and prototypes, she slumped to the ground.
The intercom beeped again. "Shay, what happened? SHAY!!"
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
Admist all the confusion and chaos, Clarisa stood back and observed. She had faith that the armor wouldn't be pierced, and guessed that Kashaye would be safe enough. But Mallory was a different matter. New to learning her powers, she must not have been able to keep her shield up. For that, Clarisa was geniunely sorry she had let this hand play out.
She immediately hit the "panic" button on her access card. It sealed the room shut and chilled the interior temperature to an uncomfortable level. Then a gas hissed out. No ill effects save a headache would be felt but she winced. It would dull everyones senses and make them slow to react. This method was reverse-engineered from another hero...a friend of hers. In any event, she had no choice ...she needed to get the situation in this room under control.
Then she grabbed a first aid kit and made her way to Mallory and Eddy as fast as the gas would allow.
Clarisa shouted to Kashaye over her shoulder, "We should expect incoming (meaning Legion)!"
[url="http://celestialguardians.guildportal.com"]Celestial Guardians SG[/url]: Chris Mas Snow 50 Ice/Storm Ctl, Li Zhou 42 MA/Rgn Scrp, Dui Zhou 32 Ice/FF Ctl, TinyTaxi 35 Emp/Psi Def
[url="http://tinyurl.com/y66drr"]UnAlliance VG[/url]: Shar Chi 37 Nin/Drk MM, La Vida Loca 16 Pl/Psi Dom
[ QUOTE ]
(( Wow... a lot can happen while you are at work... ))
[/ QUOTE ]
((Whew...I hear ya...I'm gone for a few hours and the sky starts falling...lol))
[url="http://celestialguardians.guildportal.com"]Celestial Guardians SG[/url]: Chris Mas Snow 50 Ice/Storm Ctl, Li Zhou 42 MA/Rgn Scrp, Dui Zhou 32 Ice/FF Ctl, TinyTaxi 35 Emp/Psi Def
[url="http://tinyurl.com/y66drr"]UnAlliance VG[/url]: Shar Chi 37 Nin/Drk MM, La Vida Loca 16 Pl/Psi Dom
[ QUOTE ]
Clarisa shouted to Kashaye over her shoulder, "We should expect incoming!"
[/ QUOTE ]
There was no reply. Soul Train had passed out from the shock, and lay crumpled in a heap on the floor.
Her comlink was still active... and the woman on the other end was getting increasingly insistent. "SHAY! Anybody! What happened? OK, fine, I'm coming in there, I don't care what kind of crazy experiment is going on!"
There was a brite flash, and Lady Gwen appeared out of nowhere. She immediately shivered and put her hand to her temple. What the....?
Then she saw her friend Kashaye. "SHAY! Oh by Merlin's gray beard, NO!" Gwen rushed over and attempted to revive her. Kashaye didn't appear to be wounded... yet she was clearly out cold.
Inexplicably, none of Gwen's magicks seemed to work.
She turned. Others were hurt too. Mallory was out, and the young man in the suit looked dazed and was holding a hand to the back of his head. Lady Gwen immediately went to his side, and flooded him with healing magicks... he still insisted on holding his temples, but at least he wasn't bleeding.
Gwen turned to Mallory, who chose that moment to start to wake up. She groaned, loudly, and rolled over on her side and started dry-heaving from the pain. Gwen applied more spells... these seemed to be effective, as Mallory was able to weakly sit up after a couple of seconds.
At this point, no one appeared injured. The headache was still driving Gwen nuts...
"You're Clarisa Feynman, aren't you?"
"Yes. And you are...?"
"Lady Gwenivere. Consort to King Arthur... and more recently, temporally displaced heroine. Kashaye's my roommate, and as close a friend as I have in this timeline. She asked me if I'd be interested in working for you... as her protection... instead of the riot squad over there." She made a dismissive gesture to the soldiers, who were too busy shivering and trying to deal with splitting migraines to notice.
"What happened?"
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
Around the globe conflicts erupted between Crey's security forces and those of Legion. In many cases, Legion simply overwhelmed the forces of Crey and blatantly seized many laboratories and supply facilities. However, there were also a significant number of 'battles' where Legion forces were thrown back to their own bases and were resigned to a desperate defense.
Paragon was a unique situation altogether. It wasn't an easy win or loss for anyone. Many sections of the city were now engulfed in what appeared to be urban combat, the kind usually only seen in third world nations on the nightly news. It was utter chaos. Legion soldiers (following their secretive protocols, codes, commandments, and what-not) were forced to spend much of their time protecting and evacuating the 'innocents,' as they called them, that got too close to the fighting. This led to Crey's forces gaining the upper hand against Legion (for Crey's forces simply didn't give a damn).
Casualties were mounting, the lion's share being suffered by Legion. Forces were scrambling back and forth between the Legion compound and Physiks as they received conflicting orders. Panic had gripped the neck of Legion's chain-of-command, and snapped it. Crey was nearly upon both Legion and Physiks. Countess Crey was probably having a field day.
'Killing two birds with one stone...'
Cold...
Mallory slowly returned to consciousness. The first thing she felt was the chill in the lab. Then she felt the pain. She still couldn't hear very well, but she didn't really notice. As her vision cleared up and was once again made blurry by tears, she saw only two people standing up, both of whom were hurredly moving about, although Mallory couldn't tell what they were doing.
Her body, reacting to the pain of being nearly crushed, went into a minor siezure. This went on for a moment until one of the figures came over to her and did a short chant. Almost at once, most of the pain went away. Sore muscles and a few minor cuts and bruises quickly faded. Her stomach also stopped burning and she could breathe a little easier. The pain in the lower right area of her abdomen also lessed, but persisted. When the spell was over, she felt a stab of pain in her right leg.
Still sobbing softly, she slowly pulled herself up against a wall and sat up. She couldn't feel her right foot at all, and her leg was swelling and turning purple about 6 inches above her ankle. She was also developing a massive headache.
Still unable to hear and barely able to see, Mallory watched drousily as the two blurry figures moved slowly about the room. Near her, she could see two others who she recognized even through her dulled senses.
She tried to yell out, "Ms. Parker, are you okay?!" but her jaw wasn't working very well and she only managed to get through "Ms. Pa..." before pain forced her to stop. She tried to crawl forward to make sure everything was okay, but found that with her now useless right leg, she couldn't make any progress. Instead, she lay back down on the ground and succumbed to the powerful urge to sleep.
Inside the miraculously undamaged pouch hanging from the left side of her waist, a small green LED started flashing.
(( EDITED for Mallory's post.. sorry, you and I filed at the same time!)))
Gwen realized that time was not on their side at all. She reported what she'd seen to Clarisa. "Legion swept down on that Crey facility like an avalanche. And the Countess won't take that sort of thing lying down. She's probably going to ditch whatever surveillance she has on... on US.. in favor of an all-out rush."
She surveyed the bunker. It was trashed.
"We have to get out of here. Um... Mr. Armor, sorry, don't know your name..."
"Eddy Ramirez, ma'am. Also known as Makavell."
"Right, Makavell. What's your forte? Aside from your head, you look undamaged. Can you hold off any alpha rush if they break the door down?"
Makavell looked uncertain.
"OK, well do what you can. Clarisa, you're with me, alright? I don't want my potential boss getting offed by a stray round. Mallory?" She glanced at Mallory. Oh great. She whispered a spell, and a brilliant green and blue field surrounded Mallory, waking her up and infusing her with vitality. "Mallory! I need you up and around, kid. Stay with Clarisa once we get to the roof, alright?"
Mallory nodded slowly... her leg still hurt, but she felt like she'd had two cups of coffee poured directly into her bloodstream. She braced herself against the wall and slowly stood on her good leg.
Gwen turned to the soldiers.
"OK. Heads up! I sure hope you guys have spare magazines, because Crey is going to try and take this place because someone went and spit in the Countess' coffee. I've a score to settle with your commander, Agent Martel, but until he and I meet up, you guys are still supposed to defend Physiks. So defend it. Don't lose your heads, don't go nuts."
With that, she activated Kashaye's medical transponder, and as her friend faded out of view, she also vanished. Soon after, so did Clarisa, Mallory, and Makavell. The soldiers all activated their communications links, and one by one they too vanished from the room.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
((Before I contribute more to the story, I need to ask Mataromos a question...In your last post you said:
[ QUOTE ]
Casualties were mounting, the lion's share being suffered by Legion. Forces were scrambling back and forth between the Legion compound and Physiks as they received conflicting orders. Panic had gripped the neck of Legion's chain-of-command, and snapped it. Crey was nearly upon both Legion and Physiks. Countess Crey was probably having a field day. 'Killing two birds with one stone...'
[/ QUOTE ]
Should we take that to mean that Crey is visibly attacking Physiks? Or is Crey eliminating Legion knowing that leaves Physiks vunerable? Also, I'm not sure if Crey was triggered by a particular event? I thought the chaos in the lab was triggered by Eddy's armor, so this Crey attack is from the larger storyline of Crey sniffing around Physiks earlier. Maybe Crey took advantage of the incident in the lab which distracted Legion to attack them? I'm asking here rather than PM in case others want to know too. 
))
[url="http://celestialguardians.guildportal.com"]Celestial Guardians SG[/url]: Chris Mas Snow 50 Ice/Storm Ctl, Li Zhou 42 MA/Rgn Scrp, Dui Zhou 32 Ice/FF Ctl, TinyTaxi 35 Emp/Psi Def
[url="http://tinyurl.com/y66drr"]UnAlliance VG[/url]: Shar Chi 37 Nin/Drk MM, La Vida Loca 16 Pl/Psi Dom
(( as I understand it, the 'lab incident' escalated and caused major problems in Legion chain of command. Some of Legion's units interpreted the chaos as a Crey attack of some kind, and took it upon themselves to respond appropriately. This is how a 'cold war' escalates into a shooting war, folks... one little misstep and all the cards come down.))
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
((Exactly. Crey, using Legion's aggression as an excuse, counter-attacked. Many of Crey's facilities around the globe were successfully seized by Legion, but in several key areas Legion was failing, especially as a result from the chaos in the chain-of-command, most notably, in Paragon. They are now decending upon both Legion and Physiks, seeing as Legion's forces are defending Physiks, Crey has lumped them in with Legion as an open enemy.
But, who knows, perhaps the lab chaos WAS orchestrated by a Crey agent, maybe, maybe not...maybe it was just a misshap that started a war... 
))
(( the question then becomes... is this endgame? because the characters I'm writing are levels 26 and 30... one has nowhere near enough power/expertise to take on all but the lowest-tier Crey agents, and the other, well, she's an empath/archery defender.
Legion has lots of assets... but right now they're completely disorganized. So... what do we have?))
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
(A savior in red and gold...)
(Although he's only level 20 in the game, lol! I didn't necessarily think we were following our game chars (in terms of power) EXACTLY...I'm sure we can have some leeway...if not...um...er...we're all screwed? Heh heh... 
)
Edit: (Plus, Martel is still out there with the "Death Legion", so there's some reinforcements right there...elite ones...with artillery...and tanks...>_o; )
(( Tanks and artillery? "We had to burn the village in order to save the village"?? ))
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
((Did we forget? This is LEGION we're talking about! ))
(( I sure HOPE we aren't done... I don't even have POWERS yet! ))
((Let the games begin!))
Outside the Physiks building in the Northern point of Steel Canyon, a fire began. Whether it was the result of cross-fire between Legion and Crey or if it was purposely set from within remained unknown. Some heroes had even responded, grabbing estinguishers from the Fire Chief and helping dowse the flames.
Everyone in Physiks employ who was able to respond was called to the main HQ or to key branch locations. DEFEND ONLY was the order.
Clarisa cursed loudly and uncharacteristically lost her composure. "What the ---- is going on? How can we be expected to 'Defend Only'!" She shouted to the heroes within earshot.
"Let's head to the largest concentration of Crey forces and shut them down!" She unsheathed her claws in one swift motion and looked around to see who was with her.
[url="http://celestialguardians.guildportal.com"]Celestial Guardians SG[/url]: Chris Mas Snow 50 Ice/Storm Ctl, Li Zhou 42 MA/Rgn Scrp, Dui Zhou 32 Ice/FF Ctl, TinyTaxi 35 Emp/Psi Def
[url="http://tinyurl.com/y66drr"]UnAlliance VG[/url]: Shar Chi 37 Nin/Drk MM, La Vida Loca 16 Pl/Psi Dom
Kashaye heard .. noises... from far away, odd beeping sounds, interspersed with bell-like tones. She felt... different. More in tune with her surroundings. She expanded her awareness and got a sense of where she was. Hospital. She opened her eyes. The blinding white glare of flourescent lamps caused her to wince momentarily... but she felt fine.
She swung her legs off the recovery bed, found her outfit and her equipment, and got dressed. Then she picked up her commlink. "Gwen, you copy?"
-----------------------------
[ QUOTE ]
"Let's head to the largest concentration of Crey forces and shut them down!" She unsheathed her claws in one swift motion and looked around to see who was with her.
[/ QUOTE ]
Lady Gwen nodded grimly. "Ms. Feynman... Clarisa... I see you're more than I expected. All the better." She strung her bow, and looked at Makavell. "Stick by my side, kid. This is where you get to test that suit of yours." At that point her commlink buzzed, and she heard three words that sent hope soaring again.
"Gwen, you copy?"
"SHAY! What happened to you?"
"I don't know. Last thing I remember was in the lab, after it got trashed. Remind me to kick Martel in the crotch for what his men did."
"Get in line, sister, get in line. You feeling better?"
"Yeah. I think so. I feel different... but it's not bad different. Good different. I think. Where are you?"
"We're about to launch an attack on Crey. Your boss is.. wow... let's just say I'm looking forward to fighting with her."
"Clarisa?? Wait... she's a heroine too??"
"You better believe it. Get over here, we got a score to settle."
"Hang on one sec. Switching channels... if we're up against Crey, we might need some backup."
--------------------------------------------------
Kashaye switched channels as she ran full tilt out of the hospital entrance. "Soul Train to any and all S.H.E. members, this is a priority alert. I repeat, a priority alert. I need assistance in Steel Canyon, ASAP!!"
Several replies were heard, and in ones, twos, and ultimately tens, groups of spike-booted heroines converged on Steel Canyon. They were of varied archetypes and security levels, but, a sister had called and so they came. They all gathered on the rooftop next to where Soul Train had teleported in to meet Lady Gwenivere, Mallory, Makavell, and Clarisa.
"Stilettos! Crey Tech and Legion have gone to war, and Physiks Tech is in the crossfire! What we need are sisters willing to bloody Crey's nose but good! You know our credo: we put the spiked heel to the throat of crime... well... Crey is one big criminal cartel hiding behind a facade. So lets TAKE THEM DOWN!"
The resulting roar of affirmation shook windows for blocks.
Soul took time out to give Mallory a hug. "You OK? You look a bit scared. Hell you always look scared, but now more than ever. I've seen what you can do... and I believe in you. And, I need your help. Now more than I did when we met on the street. Much more. And ... I think you need this too. For yourself."
She regarded the young woman. "But it's your choice. It always has been."
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
Kate paced back and forth in front of the living room television, which was showing scenes from the battle in the Hollows and various other sites around the world. Normally she wouldn't be too bothered by something like this, but Eastgate was only a mile from the apartment. Another thing was that some of the armed men shown were dressed in the same uniform as the three guys that had invaded her apartment just hours before, and Mallory had yet to explain that incident. Also, dinnertime was approaching quickly and she and Mallory usually cooked dinner together; if something was going to be holding Mallory up, she would have called and let Kate know.
As skirmishes broke out in Blyde Square between Legion troops and Crey Paragon Protectors and Revenants, Positron turned to his partner Valkyrie.
"I don't get it. They're STILL all grey to me. Whata I gotta do, exemplar down to get in on all this XP?"
Valkyrie shrugged. "I guess. You still up for bowling on Saturday?"
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
Kate, was sitting on the couch staring at the television screen. She could not believe her eyes. The camera was filming a building top. Could she have been dreaming? There was Mallory in the midsts of so many of the superheroes from the city. Kate just couldn't get a grasp of what was happening around her, and more importantly that Mallory was in some way a part of it. That just wasn't fair to Kate, she couldn't let Mallory have all the fun. She had to get down there fast, real fast.
Ms. Parker, dressed in her Soul Train outfit, came to a stop on top of the roof that Lady Gwenivere had deposited the group. She was rallying her SG. The noise, and hearing her voice again, stirred Mallory back into consciousness. The pain was still in her leg, which looked worse then ever, but her headache was gone and the pain in her abdomen was bearable.
When she'd finished rallying her friends, Soul Train walked over to Mallory and gave her a hug. After a few words, Soul Train stood back up.
Mallory was shocked by what Soul Train had just said to her. She... believed in her. Mallory had only known this woman for a few hours, and had made several mistakes right in front of her, but she had just said that she believed in her abilities. And this was coming from a hero! Mallory felt amazing! No one had ever had so much confidence in her. To have someone care that much and trust her so fully raised her own confidence higher than it'd ever been.
In her head, the new emotion set off some more pulses in her head that Mallory would never understand. While fear or stress had caused the personal sheild to materialize, the deep trust that had been shown caused another effect. While Mallory was looking at Soul Train with so much admiration, a barely visible bluish sphere appeared around her. At first, Mallory was afraid that she'd done something to hurt Soul Train, or something otherwise detrimental. But Soul Train was excited.
"Look what you've done! I'm so proud of you!" And jumped away.
Hoping that what she'd done had been good, she started trying to replicate the effect on others. At first she was having trouble, but after the first two or three heroes, it became easier and more natural with each person.
Most jumped away before she could do anything, but Mallory was able to affect Soul Train, Lady Gwen, Ms. Feynman, Eddy, and several others. With the exertion she'd put on her body trying to protect so many people caused her to fall unconscious again... a much deeper sleep than several minutes ago.
(( Woo! Powers! ))
"This is Lorraine Chan, reporting for KSCN, Channel 8 News, Steel Canyon. What we see here is an assemblage... of heroes... make that heroINES... that so far has been unprecedented. We see our super-powered community rally for threats such as Luska or the Clockwork Paladin... but it's usually a free for all. These ladies look like they mean business.
We suspect that it is related to the fighting that has broken out everywhere between Crey Industries and a heretofore-unknown paramilitary group called Legion. This is the same organization that, under the guise of 'protection', shelled Eastgate to rubble earlier this morning. Inquiries have already been filed with federal officials as to the nature of this organization, but details are not forthcoming at this time.
In any event, THIS organization has also appeared, seemingly from nowhere."
"Lorraine, they seem to all be wearing similar uniforms."
"Yes, Chester. The predominant style is tall or stiletto heels and decidedly bold costume choices. Wait... they're all now wearing the same colors. Red and black, with a lightning symbol. This appears to be a shadow organization of some kind, one we've not heard of before."
"Well, they all look like folks you'd rather have at your back than against you, that's certain."
"Yes. They do. We'll continue coverage of this developing story as it happens. Lorrain Chan, Channel 8 news, back to you in the studio, Chester."
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
As the group was busy preparing themselves, a lone figure approached. ((Kate, this is you.))
Lady Gwen intercepted the girl. "Whoa, miss... this isn't a peace rally. We're about to get into some major fighting."
"I know! And I want to help!"
A bemused look. "What can you do?"
In reply, the girl whipped through a kata series of martial arts moves, almost too fast to see. At the end she stood in a defensive posture, and slowly extended her hand and made a 'bring it on' gesture. "I think I can take on a few not-so-nice people."
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
(( Wow... a lot can happen while you are at work... ))
Mallory was finally starting to get a hang of the twisting corridors of the Physiks lab building. Ms. Parker had finally given her a tour of the lab faciliites and had gone through, in detail, exactly what her responsibilities would be. Just an hour later, they had begun their tests. Mallory was fairly incompetent with a computer, but she did have basic skills, and she caught on to the commands and directions she was supposed to give the computer to make it do this or do that. Ms. Parker had even shown her what to do in the unlikely case of an emergency.
The first several tests had gone exacly according to plan. Mallory was to stand behind some special glass and instruct the computer to basically destroy a car. At first, she was terribly frightened by the prospect of crashing a car indoors, but after the first few runs, she was becoming more and more confident about herself and what she was doing. That was to change, however.
A woman and a boy, the same two she'd seen in the lobby earlier, came into the lab after one of the more spectacular runs. Ms. Parker introduced Ms. Feynman, who in turn introduced Eddy, a boy who had come to her trying to sell some inventions. Mallory thought that this kid looked familiar, but she couldn't quite place him, and quickly gave up trying.
After a demonstration of the new fields that Ms. Parker had been working on, Eddy said that he had some inventions that he wanted to show off. While he was putting on a set of armor that he had made, he caused a minor glitch in one of the sensitive apparatus that was crammed into the room. Immediately, safety protocalls went into effect and sealed the lab. There were alarms, but Ms. Parker was calm as she instructed Mallory to check for problems and to clear the error. At first, Mallory had forgotten what to do, but after only a second of thinking, she typed in the correct command. Unfortunately, the suit of armor that Eddy was wearing was now coated in the same field they'd been putting on the cars, and none of the usual methods could clear it. Mallory assumed that this probably had something to do with the fact that he had bumped into the generator and the field wasn't calibrated anymore.
Ms. Parker was working on a solution to the problem when several of Martel's soldiers busted into the lab, taking cover behind anything they could find and levelling their (frighteningly large) weapons at Eddy. Some jumped down behind the console Mallory was using and pulled her to the ground. One said, "Stay down, we'll handle that... thing." Mallory hardly understood his whisper through his heavy accent.
Mallory was practically shaking in fear now, more because of the sheer number of guns in the room now than anything else. She willed the protective effect that had saved her from the car and the robot to come back on, but try as she might, she couldn't get it to happen.
It was at that point that the man who had told her to stay down levelled his gun at the armored figure and took a test-shot. The bullet, deflected by the kinetic shield that was attached to the armor, ricocheted at an odd angle, and tore a large gash into one of the sensors mounted on a far wall. The sound of the shot, so close and personal, made Mallory jump to her feat and dive behind another piece of machinery. It was at this point that her shield DID come up.
After the first shot, more and more of the men tried the effectiveness of their own weapons. Soon enough, there was a firestorm of lead flying throughout the laboratory, causing sensitive machinery throughout to be literally ripped to shreds. Mallory was crouched up in a corner between the wall and a large piece of equipment, her hands to her ears, trying to block out some part of the tremendous sound echoing through the room. She was crying now, and every time a stray bullet came to a stop mere inches from her body, she let out another cry of fear and ducked a little bit lower. By the time the shooting had stopped, she could see through some sections of the equipment she had hoped would provide cover. Still afraid that more bullets would sail through the air, she did not get up, and continued crying silently. The ringing in her ears was so loud that she did not hear Ms. Parker screaming into the radio.
The machinery behind which Mallory was crouched had taken more bullets than most of the surrounding area. As such, its stability was severely weakened. Before Mallory had gotten up, it started to tilt backward very slowly, with a low creaking sound that was barely audible, even less so because of the ring still plaguing Mallory's ears. By the time she noticed that the large chuck of metal was falling toward her, it was far too late to jump out of the way. Her "shield" was still in place, however, and the debris came to rest directly above her head.
The gluons which composed Mallory's protective layer had undergone a lot of stress during the shooting. In all, 10 bullets had been stopped completely, and countless more had been deflected. Unfortunately, after such a stress test, the continued force of so much metal resting on the "surface" of the shield was enough to destroy the spherical structure, forcing the particles back out of this universe.
The metal, of course, collapsed.