Surveying the Merchandise (CALLING ALL TITANS)

Alice stood on the other side of a large, steel framed door. Titans Tower, a giant stupid T on a little stupid island. "Well I suppose the rich will always find a way to skyrocket their property value." The figure next to her grunted. The two were about the same height, but the second was more imposing. Perhaps due to the black armor they wore, or the deep voice they had. "Oh, come on now. This'll be like a fun little adventure! Point and click and such, you like that don't you?" The figure turned his head and glared at her.

"I'm not sure what you think this is Arkana, but it's not fun. We're getting in, doing what we need to, and getting out." They then readied themselves and stared at the door, directly ahead. Alice simply sighed. "Darling you are no fun today, I mean that genuinely." She sighed and pocketed a thumb drive before turning to the door, holding out a hand, and pressing it against the door. She whispered to herself for a moment and her eyes flickered to red.

The door glowed for a brief moment, and then transmutated. It morphed in shape and size, then turned to a pile of gravel, which she swiftly sent hurtling harmlessly into the lobby of the tower. "I'm sure no one will even notice us." She chucked, turning to her comrade. "And I am going...?"

The figure sighed and facepalmed as he walked in. "Third floor. Fourth room on the right. Big freakin' door. Turn it into bubbles or whatever." And he readied himself for any incoming defenders of the tower.

What'd they find first was... a number of civilians. They were just all about, with various groups- families or friends probably finding their own little space in the spacious entrance. "Have you heard of knocking?" A male synthetic voice chimed in, shortly before sections of walls, floors, and the ceiling popped out with turrets now emitting red tracking lazers that were all lining up on the pair. And then there would be some lazers on the outside rising up and turning around behind them, and several large security bots trudging up from the island shore. If either of them made an offensive reaction, or did anything that HE would view as an offensive action, like chanting weird words, waving hands about for no reason, there would be lazers. Lots, and lots of them. Assuming neither of them did anything to provoke the lazers, CAP would be waiting for an explanation.

"What the havocking hell is this?!" One of the civilians shouted with a voice naturally made for raising the roof off buildings. He was a man in his fifties. Creased expensive red suit, a little lived in as of late, greying hairs in an angled haircut, and a brush under his nose.

"Who said you could put lasers in here?!" Mitch Masters yelled up at the ceiling. Shouting at the building itself, "We didn't give you no permission for that! You'll have someone's eye out! Ain't the Titans got no decency? Shut it down! Or I'm-" He seemed to notice the door with gone for the first time. Blinking with suspicion at the new arrivals.

The hooded figure stepped forward first, staring down Suzuki. "She looks so young..." He muttered to himself, sighing and getting into a very aggressive stance. Alice however seemed less interested in the situation at this point. "I thought you said the defenses wouldn't work?!" The figure just growled. "They won't. They can arm but they can't do anything to you. Just go upstairs. I'll deal with bright eyes."

Alice sighed and started to conjure her magic, looking up at the ceiling. "Alright, if you say so. Third floor it is." The mage disappeared in a puff of smoke as she concentrated her Aura Arkana, reappearing crammed in an air vent, then on the second floor in a hallway, picking dust and lint out of her hair. "I hate vents." She muttered, starting to walk toward the staircase casually.

Down below, the armored fighter was keeping both hands up, and eyes trained on Suzuki. "Don't jump to any conclusions, kid. I don't wanna hurt you, and it's only gonna benefit you if you let us move forward. Take it while you can."

CAP tried to prime the cannons when he did not get the reaction he wanted. But... found that for some reason, he could not. The restrictions placed on him were interfering. But why? He didn't have time to go back through the network and find out the reason. And he couldn't also shoot at Alice. You can imagine how utterly confused and frustrated he is right now. It wasn't a hack, after Greed he was especially more paranoid about intrusions. But then that would mean...

"WHY CAN'T I SHOOT YOU?" CAP would exclaim to the targets. It had been awhile since he had felt this... angry before. He didn't wait for an answer, he'd make the turrets return to their compartments and move up after Alice. Fortunately (in his mind) some of the droids that patrolled the upper floors spotted Alice for him. It was one of the metal spheres that would unfurl itself, sprouting four spindly legs and a pair of nasty looking blasters along with a barrier cascading around it's body. They weren't restricted like the turrets. He'd transfer a portion of his being into the droids on that floor, attempting to try and pincer Alice as the first droid opened fire at her.

The droids outside on the island would soon be reaching the front door, too bad CAP wasn't using them.

It looked like the armoured interloper and the girl with glowing contacts were about to throw down. Masters threw his arms into an 'x' shape, "Oh no you don't. Wha'd'ya think this is? A Primal Pummeling Ploozaganza? Take your metty drama offa our doorstep. This area is off limits!" At least the AI had listened to him and withdrawn the turrets. And that third woman had sensibly left. If only everyone else could listen to him just as swiftly, there'd be no impetus for destruction and disaster.

The knight sighed, beginning to walk forward toward her. "Arrogant as ever. Very well." He began to walk faster, and faster, before rolling around Masters to one side, where he then awaited the blade swing that Suzuki had readied. The first swing slid harmlessly across the armor, causing a shower of sparks as it did. The second one was caught between his pointer and middle fingers on his left hand. And Suzuki would find it difficult to pry herself free of it. "Darling, it's 'most stupid.' 'Stupidest' is improper English. I know it's not your native tongue, but you know better than that." A deep chuckle could be heard within the cowl before the knight aimed a nice 'THIS. IS. SPARTA.' style kick straight at her gut.

Alice appeared on the second floor and stretched her back out, walking down the hallway as she did. "OK, if I were a set of stairs, where would I be?" She turned a corner and found the rolling droid, which hastily reconfigured itself and began to click itself toward her. Alice jumped a bit in surprise and blinked about 10 feet down the hallway in the other direction with the Step of Shaddock, barely dodging the fire of a second droid as she did so by teleporting around the corner. It was here that she reached into her pocket and pulled out her spellbook. "Oh, this I can deal with." She grinned and a green bolt of matter consuming energy shot from her hand, a witch bolt, destined right for the hinges that held the mech together outside of its ball form.

The commotion was what caused the red, blue and black form to finally stir, two black 'lids' expanding as white eyelets suddenly took everything in, in shock and surprise.

"What...what?!"

That especially witty zinger spat out, the figure went from laying to leaping, landing between the angry woman and the Kicking Knight.

"Hey guys, break it u, wow, look at that armor! Doesn't that start to chafe after a while?"

Even as he spoke he was looking around in surprise, taking in the people, the cramped interior...what was this? Was he dead?

CAP was absolutely not happy right now. But there was no way an energy bolt would get through the shields of- the droid would immediately after the bolt passed through both it's shield AND part of it's chassis, fall over. It wasn't completely out of action, it was still... moving. But it's design left it very hard to aim with no legs.The droid from the opposite side of the hall that she left would then roll up. But then it would only poke out enough for one of it's blasters to shoot at Alice. Clearly neither of them were acting like regular droids, because CAP was in them.

Some heavy footsteps would round the corner behind the... handicapped droid, a bulk cyclops droid would poke it's head out just enough for it's eye to start shining, emitting a menacing ringing sound a second and a half before a red lazer would lance out of it's eye at her.


Meanwhile, downstairs... the bulky battle droids downstairs would finally enter the lobby. Pausing only a moment to receive targeting orders. CAP mentally pinged them "destroy the one in black armor." And they'd try to do just that, as well as machines without free will could try! Some would fire eye lazers, others would charge forward and try using their large claws to smack the target into a wall or something.

Rico heard the droids down the hall in the room in which she was reading a book. She didn't even look up, memorizing the page number before closing it and looking up at the commotion. There was a woman there. She smelled like cigarettes. Rico already didn't like her, and that was before she saw Alice fire a bolt at one of CAP's beloved droids. She rose up, walking stealthily up behind Alice before springing into action, attempting to put an arm around her neck and put her into a hold. If she were successful, she would try to kick the back of Alice's knee to make her lose her footing so she could restrain her properly. Ten seconds on the carotid would put anyone out.

"CAP? What's going on?!"

Suzuki didn't seem to have heard him properly. Many didn't, "Now you listen here-" He flinched as the knight rolled passed him. Spry for a guy stuck in the middle ages. The clash of steel made him reel back appalled, "Don't you have the decency to-" The robots came through the front entrance. They'd done it again. The metahumans had found a way to ruin stability and order. They couldn't even follow the simple agreement of keeping these shenanigans to their own space.

Masters ran from the confrontation. The robots most of all. He was shouting at the civilians, "Evacuate the floor! Get outta here! Scram!" The people took a calming breath, took the level-headed approach of collaborating to move the infirm, and efficiently made their way to- they screamed and bolted in all directions.

The knight stepped forward toward Suzuki, breaking into a sprint, and dashing straight past her to the other side, intercepting one of the beams that had gone off course and toward one of the civilians. The beam reflected off his armor before he turned back on the lot of them. "CAP? What the hell do hats have to do with anything?!" He grabbed one of the civilians by the collar of his shirt and chucked him into the elevator, and away from another blast that was headed his way. He started to run forward, keeping his hands up and deflecting blast after blast before reaching the lot of them, drawing back into a massive punch straight through the head of the unit, sending bits of metal and computer parts everywhere.

"Turn off your stupid robots before someone gets hurt!" One of the robotic limbs came rocketing forward, nailing the knight in the back of the head. He stumbled, looked back, and absolutely rocked that droid with an uppercut, sending it upward about 7 feet into the air before crashing back down. "They aren't exactly effective anyway."


Alice chuckled, quite proud of herself until the massive droid stepped forward, and began to glow and hum. "Well that's ever so mildly concerning." She muttered, clicking her tongue and snapping her fingers. A large green bubble appeared around her just as the laser fired, crashing into it before being fully absorbed by the barrier. "OK, you're done?" Another laser was deflected. "Got that out of your system?" Another beam bombarded her barrier, to no avail. "Just want to make sure..."

Nothing.

"OK good." The barrier lowered itself and a whirlwind of witchbolts was shot forward, putting holes in each and every thing it hit. "Alright, now if I were a server room I would be-" She was cut off as an arm wrapped around her neck, and her knee was kicked out from under her. "Christ, normally I make a woman buy me dinner before I let her choke me." She coughed out before snapping her fingers, and suddenly Rico was only holding on to thin air. Alice was back on the other end of the hallway. "So I do believe..." She massaged her throat and held up a finger for Rico to wait. "That you now owe me some cheap Chinese food, at least. Gimme a ring in about 5 years when it's not creepy, darling." She snapped again, and she disappeared from sight, back to the other side of the floor and looking for those god damned stairs.