Adapted and edited from live roleplay.

The call for help had gotten his attention in a hurry, as soon as the dragon had gone hurtling through the room...which he'd just managed to get out of the way of. He wasn't sure what was going on, but as soon as that one word had reached his ears, he'd been committed.

And so it was out the back door he went, into the alleyway. Reaching into the coat he wears, he brushes his finger across a seam just so, triggering the process...

It's instantaneous, the reaction. Instantly the black cloth is gone, sucked away to reveal a light skeletal frame that contracts to his frame as he raises his arms to the sides, his legs parting just slightly. In a moment the fram has wrapped around his torso, arms and legs, almost seeming to unfolded itself in thin layers. Anyone watching this would see the process that looks impossible to behold, as out of that skeletal frame unfolds and extrudes layer after layer of monomolecular black and silver plates, starting at the spine and torso and swiftly working out along his arms and legs to completely cover his frame.

At the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet, as the armor closes around them, show directed energy ports, which light up with a sudden whine much like an old camera flash as stored energy flows into them. A moment later those plates flow up over his head and close. Brilliant triangular slits mark his eyes, which serve as viewports should he ever lose power...but only rarely does that happen.

The entire process takes just over ten seconds. To an outside observer the transformation would, in this light, look almost organic rather than mechanical, it happens so fast and fluidly.

And as soon as it's done, the armored figure looks up. With a sudden upward-cycling whine and a flare of thrust from the energy ports, he rockets into the sky above the Inn. The sound barrier breaks a hundred feet above the buildings below, and he holds it for just a minute before cutting the engines and flipping upside down, his head snapping up to look down on the scene for the split-second he has, assessing things. The HUD already has a hi-res image, highlighting the participants, the vital signs of the injured, the apparent assaulter, a young punk-looking dude with what his targeting sensors reads as a .357.

You've gotta be kidding. Right"

Already he can feel gravity claiming him again, just as the body is being hurled into the alleyway. Which tells him exactly where he's going to be going. As fast as thought, those thrusters fire, propelling him downwards. At the last second, he flips feet down, firing hard...

There is the roaring, sudden sound of thrusters firing above, tossing a brilliant flare of light on the scene out front for a moment before a black-and-silvered armored figure drops out of nowhere to land on the stones of the street with a metallic CLANG! in a crouch facing the combatants. There is the faint whine of some kind of servos as he gets to his feet, brilliant slits of light marking his gaze.

This particular model is something he's been working on, a rapid-deployment version of his standard armor. It doesn't have all of the weapons of the complete modular system, but for situations like this, he finds, it's not an absolute necessity.

So long as nothing malfunctions. This is actually the first field test, but at the moment there's no reason to let anyone else know that.

Everything seems to be working just fine for the moment, and keeping the outside comms off, he starts looking around. "Diana, do you have a feed?"

The female voice comes back right away. "Yes, sir. I'm currently uploaded and monitoring. This is not a very good idea, you know."

He's hard pressed not to laugh. "We can discuss it later. I'm busy."

"Quite so, sir."

He looks back and forth, trying to get a feel for the situation. He's seen the dragon before - Icer, he recalls her name, something of a celebrity - gboing after the punk with the gun, who is...leaping from wall to wall like a monkey. Pretty impressive, he has to say, for what appears to be an unaugmented human.

But then the girl starts screaming for Icer to stop, and things start getting a bit confusing. Without knowing who is who or what?s what, he does the only logical thing - heads for the cowboy lying lifeless in the alleyway. A quick scan shows the man is still alive - impressive for a man shot by the handheld version of a cannon The question being asked by the girl gets an answer on two fronts. The voice that comes out from the armor as he turns on the external comms is low, deep, unaccented...and synthesized. Trying to keep it in the realm of human while not being too much like his own voice. "He's alive."

The other man kneels by the cowboy's side, chambering a bullet with both hands, and once his left is freed he's checking vitals the old-fashioned way. "Alive, but unconscious." Checking his eyes, then his wounds. "Taneth....get some pressure on his chest."

He turns partially to the side at this point, cutting the external comms for a moment. "Diana, monitor this man's vitals."

"Yes, sir. He appears to have lost a lot of blood, and that is a .357 wound in his chest. I recommend that he receive medical attention as soon as possible."

"Yeah, I figured that out already."

At that point the other man is motioning to the nearby redhead. "You. Can you call for help" Find a doctor, a healer?"

He takes a moment to look at the man. The heads-up display shows a few details from his home files - Alain DeMeur, local businessman, a Baron of some realm north of Rhy'din, and other things besides. He remembers reading the file over and had been by equal turns intrigued and impressed, particularly by the laws of the Barony the man led. Someone to talk to at some point. When there isn't someone shooting in their direction.

Still monitoring the vitals of the victim for the moment, he turns and positions himself between the others and the guy doing the shooting, the luminous gaze fixed. Standing near to seven feet tall, thanks to the armor's bulk, he makes a pretty decent shield.

Watching, keeping the bulk of himself between the wounded cowboy and the guy still aiming the gun in that direction, he watches for a clean shot. And if not for the girl, he might have one, but she appears to be trying to deal with whoever this maniac is, pulling a knife as she goes to confront him.

Whatever they're saying is lost to him as the redhead goes running off to find help, until the girl calls back to the rest of them. "Is Reap Still alive?"

So the cowboy's name is Reap" Good to know.

With Taneth applying pressure, Alain stays between the fight and Taneth. Still crouching near them, but his finger's curled around the trigger, just in case. "Yeah, but he's hurt bad!" he calls over to the girl. "He needs help, fast!"

Continued in next post.

"Sir, I have something you should look at. As you were leaving the area of the Inn the other night, following your 'field test,' I managed to pick up and record a bit of the remaining confrontation. It seems that things were not completely over when we departed."

He's working in an alcove, looking over an earlier model of his armor thoughtfully. A wireframe hovers over it, and as the golden holographic girl watches he makes a subtle alteration to the helmet area before he speaks. "Yeah' What's so important about it' As I understand it the punk let the girl go shortly after that." As he speaks he 'pulls' the wireframe away from the alcove and out into the open and, with a gesture, starts it spinning slowly. Another gesture removes pieces of the torso, the arms, the legs.

"Yes, sir. That's not what I'm referring to. I thought you should take a look at one of the parties that became involved as we were departing."

That gets his attention, and he turns to the construct, finally, arching an eyebrow. "Huh. All right. Show me."

The girl turns to the wall next to the recessed alcove and projects the feed on it.

The feed shows the alleyway from an angle that seems to be moving away and up, a little shaky from the turbulence that the pulse generators create but still keeping fairly steady. He can see the girl held hostage - by her own choice, as he remembers, but the kid had let her go for some reason - and another girl confronting the pair. As it gets more distant, the camera pans up just slightly - just in time to see a lone, human figure dropping from the skies into the shadows of the alleyway.

There it freezes. For a long moment he stands there, his hand rubbing at his chin, thoughtful.

"Your thoughts, sir?"

Right. She knows damn well. "I'm thinking of the report of the drunk guy that just happened to show up in that alley right in time to help distract that kid. Remember that' They said he kinda just came out of nowhere, then disappeared into the Inn?"

He swears he hears a hint of smugness in her tone. "Yes, sir. You think this flying figure is connected to that?"

"Diana, quit playing stupid."

The projection disappears from the wall and the holographic girl appears again, her perfectly proportioned figure again displayed prettily by her businesslike pose.

"My apologies, sir."

He waves it off, thinking again. This time of other things he had heard, little things, disconnected whispers.

Or maybe they only seemed to be disconnected, random. Maybe the 'random acts' were really the acts of the same person.

(Adapted from live RP.)

It had all been going so well.

A red-hot redhead, maybe a couple drinks, and there was the possibility of an actual date.

But no.

Someone has to go and screw it all up.

He'd seen the kid - despite knowing he's dealing with a vampire, he has a hard time thinking of him as anything other than a kid, thanks to his appearance - as he was walking up, and had hoped - fervently - that maybe he was just scoping the place, that there wouldn't be any trouble. He'd even gotten a good ways into a flirtatious conversation with the lovely red-haired lady before he got an inkling that things were going south.

The vampire leveling the gun at the girl that had gone to confront him is what decides him.

Giving the girl a swift apology and a rather impulsive kiss on the cheek, he slips into the shadows, triggering the suit as soon as he reaches their cover.

He'd taken the time to perform a bit of fine-tuning after the other night, and this time the process is faster, the deployment time shaved off by two seconds. As the HUD comes online, he hears the synthesized female voice in his ear. "Ready and monitoring, sir."

He makes no reply, all business now as he arches his back, pointing his palms down. A swift command is processed and a moment later the dark, armored figure is airborne.

Reaching the apex of his flight, he hears the young man that had come out to help the girl speak up. "Don't worry about it, luv. He doesn't have the guts to stare someone down for a fair fight."

He grins behind his helmet's face, approving. Brave words, son, even more because they're true.

The vampire reacts by sending his bike flying at the diminutive blond - Taneth, he registers her name as - missing her by inches. Flying past the girl, the bike's trajectory and speed seems to be sure to carry it into the Inn through the wall... ...until, without warning, out of the sky itself, drops a large, black-and-silver mass that lands on the road right in front of the path the bike is taking with the sound of metal meeting rock, revealing itself to be a crouching figure of a man clad in armor, silver and black, silvery-blue triangles of lights marking its eyes. As it gets to its feet, facing the flying motorcycle, one hand raises, palm out, a pulsing, brilliant point of light at its center, leveled at the bike. There's a sudden, upward cycling whine as that light brightens just before he lets loose a blast of kinetic energy at the hurtling mass.

The result is instantaneous - the bike crumples as though it's been punched in midair, sheer momentum keeping it flying towards him. Rather than ducking it he turns and, bringing both arms up, catches it just at it is about to impact his chest. The weight of impact knocks the breath from his lungs for a moment, making him grunt under the mask and making him fall back a step as he absorbs the weight and kinetic energy, the suit's inertial dampers working overtime just as the system converts the absorbed combined energies to power for the suit itself. "Hey, punk!" he shouts before stepping into a spin, whirling once before letting the hot mass of metal, rubber and plastic fly back at the vampire. "CATCH!"

Even as the mass of metal, rubber and plastic goes hurtling his way, though, the vampire is already moving with unbelievable speed. Out of the way and behind the girl that he'd been having the shouting match with, the barrel of his gun presses into the back of the girl's neck. Even over the crash of the kid's motorcycle returning to earth, his audio sensors pick up the distinctive click of a hammer being thumbed back.

Under the mask, he curses. His HUD zooms in on the pair, trying for targeting options that will enable him to hit the vampire without harming the girl. Too far away from anything standing he can use against him, and covering himself in such a way with the girl's body that there is no clean shot...

Didn't we play this game the other night"

He moves in closer, stepping subtly to one side as he does, trying for a clearer shot. Powering up the pulse blasters in his palms, he tries for a warning, even though he knows it's most likely going to be ignored. "Let the girl go."

The girl makes his demand an impossibility by her next move - the knife in her hand is flipped around and stabbed backwards into the kid holding her. He watches as the vampire, rather than try to get out of the way of this painful-looking impalement, instead pulls the girl closer as he leans into the pigsticker and wraps his gun arm around her, the barrel of the pistol jammed now up under her chin.

One arm comes up and levels, the point of light brightening with a sudden up-cycling whine into a pulsing point of white brilliance, just waiting for the smallest of openings. He doesn't realize the external communications are active as he speaks softly to himself.

"Twitch. Just a little. Please."

The vampire starts backing away, dragging his prisoner with him. He knows the look on the kid's face - weighing options, looking for moves. Steadily, he keeps pace, listening as the girl tries to talk the vampire down, tries to smooth the situation over.

Cutting the external comms, he addresses his AI. "Diana, any suggestions?"

"No, sir. He is remarkably fast, efficient, and most likely psychotic. He is too far from any significant structures to use the terrain against him. It might simply be best to incapacitate both of them for the moment."

No sooner has the AI finished that statement than it all starts going to hell at once.

He's vaguely aware of the young man that had come out of the Inn - Jono, the elfess had called him - thumbing the hammer back on his own gun as he faces off with the vampire. In the same moment the vampire opens a mouth full of teeth that vaguely reminds the man under the armor of a shark and bites into the girl's neck.

As the blood begins to flow, he curses under the mask. A split-second decision is made as he accesses the suit's systems and switches the energy output from kinetic to electrical. The whine suddenly cycles up out of hearing range as the armored figure opens its palm wide and lets loose a shock of electrical energy this time strong enough to knock out a mid-sized bear.

It couldn't have been timed better - in that same instant the girl screams, yanking her knife free of the vampire and twisting in his grasp to hack at him with the blade, just as the vampire is pushing her away from him. No sooner has the pair parted than the sizzling electrical bolt whizzes in and connects directly with the berserk bloodsucker's torso.

Caught unawares, the bolt's energy lifts the vampire up off his feet and sends him flying into the alleyway. The crash of a body meeting metal is heard as he connects with the same dumpster the cowboy had encountered the night before.

(Continued in next post.)

(The following is taken and modified from live RP. Thanks to Non Ludius and everyone else involved for a great RP!)

He's glad he'd thought to take the precaution of linking the suit's automatic triggers to his myriad sensors and listening devices - it's what saves his life.

Audio sensors, coupled with a high-frequency pulse generator-receiver, have been activated within a half mile of his location at all times, essentially mapping the environment around him in real-time. As with the audio sensors, the translated images are relayed back to the central server, creating a three-dimensional ultrasonic map of every public are within a half mile.

So when the bullet exits of the barrel of the gun outside the Inn, the sensors - already programmed to watch for events of this type - automatically send an alert to the activation triggers of the suit.

What comes next seems to be as much a surprise to him as to everyone else - even as the bullet is entering the Inn it looks as if the coat has suddenly turned inside out and whipped around him in a fury of black strips and silver unfolding metallic framework. His head and torso are covered in an eyeblink, the arms only seconds later, until what stands in his place is a figure that looks as if he's made of some hardened, black mass of artificial muscle, save for the silver wrappings that peek through in places, and the faceplate made of the same reflective steely material.

The bullet smacks into his head, making it snap back as if he's just been swatted upside the head with a club. Under the helmet it feels as if someone's just thumped his skull with a rubber mallet. "You have got to be f*cking joking." Shaking his head to clear it, he looks towards the front of the Inn. "You couldn't have waited until I was leaving, really?"

The HUD inside his helmet shows him the trajectory the bullet came into the Inn on, and he's no sooner about to move that direction when bullets begin spraying in through the broken window. There's no time to look and see if anyone else is hurt - he has to get outside and fast, try to stop the spray of lead before someone gets seriously hurt. Without another though he's running for the window, bullets bouncing off the armor the whole way, powering through the stream of lead pouring through the window and leaping, giving the thrusters a kick of power to propel him through the shattered window and out into the street.

He lands on the ground outside with the solid, bell-like tone of metal meeting stone, looking around. It's not difficult to spy the source of the automatic fire - it tends to draw attention to itself - and as the second source opens up he's split in two directions. At least the hail is focused on him now, and through the storm of incoming fire he jumps up and the thrusters fire, shoving him into the air above the two sources.

The suit's sensors calculated the trajectory of the sniper's shot and the bullet's speed as it impacted his helmet, highlighting a section of the roof around one of the automatic weapons tracking towards him. As the barrels are coming up, he aims at that point, pointing the a pulse generator in that direction. The whine of the pulse generator powering up is followed immediately by a blast of kinetic energy at the flashes from the gun.

The energy bolt crashes into the rooftop next to the flashes, lighting up the area in a flare of light and exposing the shooter as he goes skidding across the roof's surface towards the alley on the back side. Whatever the man was using to trigger the other weapon must have been destroyed in the impact, because the gunfire from both automatic weapons ceases right away.

Kicking power to the thrusters, he flips up and over to land agilely on the roof the shooter is on. Glowing points of light can be seen in the armored figure's hands now, that subtle whine cycling in the air as he approaches the would-be assassin. "I see Howe's not wasting any time." As the masked figure tries to crawl away, he shakes his head. "Ah ah ah." Walking over to the now-crawling figure, he leans down and grabs a leg, making as if to hoist him into the air.

At that moment the would-be assassin pulls out a pistol-sized crossbow and aims at his midsection, pulling the trigger. The armor stands up fantastically to high-speed ballistic impacts, but the razor-sharp head of the bolt manages at this range to slip between the bands wrapping around his body, which manage to bring it to a stop but not before the head pierces his skin and lodges against a rib. A flesh wound, really, but distracting enough that it makes him lose his grip on the leg.

That was all the sniper needed. Close enough to the edge, he simply rolled back off the roof. With a curse he pulls the bolt out of the armor, moving to the edge of just as his sensors read a sudden energy surge below of unidentifiable origin.

Looking over, he sees nothing. No body, no retreating footsteps...like whoever it was had just vanished.

Another curse escapes him as he turns away, stopping to pick up a clue left behind by the hitman. Even if no one else inside the Inn had noticed the armor deploying automatically in their confusion, it's a safe bet that Howe's going to know in short order.

One of these days, he's going to have a normal day.

One where he doesn't feel the need to keep his head on a swivel, even if he doesn't look particularly alert. He'd been aware of being shadowed lately, though by who is still a mystery to him. Whoever they were, they did a good job of going unnoticed, never seen but their presence definitely felt as a palpable thing. Never oppressive, simply...watching. Waiting.

He can feel them out there as he makes his way to the Inn. He's not anything special, really, no psychic powers or any of that garbage - despite some of the things he's seen since coming here, he's not a believer in magic. Everything that anyone can do or is capable of can, in his mind, in some way, be explained by scientific reasoning. Those so-called psychics and magicians, he's found, all seem to be able to control the energies around them with the power of their minds alone, a process which mystifies him but is explainable by physics, science and reasoning.

He's contemplating this, in fact, as he's approaching the Inn. It's the distinctive, metallic sound of a sword being pulled from its sheath that cuts (no pun intended) into his thoughts, and he looks up in time to see the cloaked figure charging towards him, sword drawn and ready for a swing, yelling a single word in an oddly synthetic-sounding voice as it comes. "Slllllice!"

So much for the casual stroll. Without hesitating he's diving out of the way, a surprised "Whoa!" escaping him. One hand slips under the coat to stroke the trigger sensor, and suddenly the dark coat comes alive with whiplike flaps of material snapping out and around him, covering from head to toe as he comes to his feet. The whiplike bands of material settle against his skin, the strangely cool, slick-feeling material comfortable despite its snug fit, and then there's a strange illusory sensation of weight spreading across his skin as the SHIELD plates begin unfolding from around his back lightning fast, covering his frame with hardened plates of black and silver. Under the mask the AR display comes alive, and he hears the upcycling whine of power humming through the suit as the plates polarize, ready for action as he turns to face this new attacker.

"Diana."

That one word is all it takes, and he hears the cool, sultry female voice in his ears. "Monitoring, sir."

He looks over his assailant, a slender figure under the cloak, though he can't make out the exact shape or face under it - there seems to be some sort of interference preventing his enhanced sensors from seeing into that darkness beneath the cowl. The long sword it holds has a wicked serrated double-edge designed to rip and tear; to make a damn mess out of anything that was made from soft, succulent flesh. "....It's about time we meet." The voice comes out synthesized, neither male nor female, a computerized hiss. "I've been dying to meet you."

"Really." The voice that comes from under that eerily blank-looking mask has the obviously deadened tone of computer filtering, no accent to speak of, but distinctly male. His right hand balls into a fist and from the back of the gauntlet springs a slender blade with a metallic sound, perhaps two feet long and glowing white-hot, sleek and straight and wickedly sharp-looking. "You might want to rephrase that."

"Ohhhhhh..." Maybe, you will want to eat those words....When I tear that head off from your shoulders, and rip off that mask!!!" The cloaked figure darted forward, bringing up the sword's wicked edge upwards in a long arc from foot to head, looking to give the Dark Ranger a nasty surprise that no man ought to experience. A ball-splitting soon to be head-splitting attack as the blade became littered in glowing, magical runes, causing the blade to vibrate, creating a gentle, low-droned hum.

It might have been enough to cleave an ordinary man in two. Probably more than a few extraordinary men, too. He doesn't move to block, instead leaning back - WAY back, flexing at the knees until most of his body is bent backwards and near parallel to the ground, fast enough that he has to retract the blade to catch himself from falling onto his back. The other hand comes up, and the whine cycles up a second before he releases a powerful blast from the palm-mounted pulse generator at the cloaked figure's chest, simultaneously pushing up and back with his feet to push himself away from the cloaked figure, adding a split-second pulse from the thrusters in his boots to bring him up and around in a flip, landing neatly on his feet in a crouch and looking up just in time to see the cloaked figure go plowing through a wall, the sword it had been swinging clattering to the ground.

Looking up at the hole, he frowns under the mask, zooming in on the darkened hole in the wall. No movement registers there, and he moves forward cautiously, watching that hole. "You have to be kidding."

A part of him is just reflecting that maybe he should have used a lower-power pulse when that hissing, synthesized voice gets picked up by his audio sensors. "It....Works..." A dark, serpentine-synthed laughter screamed from the building, as from within the darkness of that hole, a glowing purple visor came into view.

"I have to say, I had my doubts about this little project but it seems I was entirely wrong. To think, it is only half complete..." The feminine form, wrapped up entirely in a black, skin-tight bodysuit stepped out from the hole she had made. There was no armor present. Just the fabric-underlay it would seem, accompanied by that helm, and its single purple visor. The gas-like nozzle at the front glowed as she spoke, "So tell me, how does it feel, to have inspired this incomplete shell" Oh, don't be too disheartened, it isn't quite complete yet. I just wanted to test out three aspects. And I have to say, so far, two out of three has thus far been met. Please indulge me, in the final experiment, won't you?"

Under the mask, he can feel his jaw drop a little, a mass of confusing thoughts running through his head. That sleek feminine shape is certainly enticing, clad as it is in that bodysuit, but beyond that is the thought that whoever this was had specifically chosen him to model and test their own personal armor out on. That certainly can't bode well...but whoever it is doesn't have his technology. That much he's sure of.

(Continued in next post.)

He's being a bit more cautious now, not at all eager to close the distance. He doesn't look at the spectator at all, focused on this new threat. "You really shouldn't be out here."

Cutting the comms to the outside, he speaks to the AI. "Talk to me, Diana."

As always she comes back right away, her voice cool and calm. "It would seem that her suit relies on some kind of crystalline technology combined with nanomachinery, which can absorb ambient energy and redirect it. Judging by the damage you've caused her, however, it appears her suit lacks the inertia-negating properties of yours, suggesting that this material and technology she's using is incomplete at best."

He grumbles at the AI under the suit. He can feel blood trickling from a slip lip inside the mask, as well as some serious pain from the side of his face that had been smashed into the pavement and a sharp throbbing in the area of his sternum that suggests yet another cracked rib or three. "Great. So you're saying I should pound her to death. Not many ways of doing that without getting close, you know."

His assailant is still up against the wall, which gives him an idea. Configuring the pulse emitters for a low-frequency, high-power resonant sonic pulse, he raises both hands, the pulse generators in his hands not glowing now, but quite suddenly there's a high-pitched whine again, followed by the subtlest distortion of the air as the concussive sonic pulse is delivered to either side of that slender shape, smacking into the wall behind her and making it tremble almost convulsively, a split second before a whole section of it begins to collapse on top of her.

As the rush of air passed her, she turned her head subtly to one side, to gaze behind her at the falling wall that was folding and cracking over the top of her. The powered fabric-suit turned, raising a hand to push a section of the wall aside, while a knee lifted up to smash another into several hundred different kinds of stones and shards. A hand lifted to clench at her chest, as she stumbled over the debris, "Is that all you got' With your power in my veins....I can...AHHHHH!"

Quite suddenly, as he watches, arcing bolts of electricity begin to crackle around and along her body, sending her to stumble down onto her knees. "....W-What, what?" She stood, stumbling forward. "...What-what did....What did you do"! What did you do you bastard"!" She moved a hand out to send a blast of some kind of energy his way, but whatever she was trying to do backfires as more arcing sparks jump between her fingers and surge up her arm, back into her body. Steam rolled out from her, as she swayed back and fore. "....No. No, no....No..."

Well, now, this is certainly interesting. Cutting the outside comms once more, he consults his AI. "Diana" What's happening to her?"

"It would appear she's experiencing an overload of her suit's circuitry. Without knowing how the suit operates it is impossible to say, but it would seem she does not have your energy management systems or storage capacity."

He cuts the outside comms back on, unable to hide his amusement. This is what fools get for rushing in. "Did you hold onto something maybe a little too long?" Despite the computer filtering overlaying the voice, there's a clear tone of amusement that can be heard through it.

"...How dare you mock me, how dare you- ah-" She coiled onto the ground, her fingers clawing at the cobbled stone. "Daughters....No- HOWE!" She screamed, "Goddamit....You fat bastard..." As he watches the visor turns red, her body rocking with her pain, as she stands. "HOWE! Please..." Despite the synthesized voice, he can hear the pain she's in, the torment. Electricity arcing through your body is never fun - he can attest to that. Her synthesized voice turned, dark, low, losing the hissing quality to become growling, almost comically so. "I will kill you. I will have your power." He watches as the visor goes blank and she falls down onto her knees, and then down onto the ground.

Howe. I ought to have known. Yet another of his little stooges.

The armored figure watches this, making no outward display of emotion as he steps closer. "Not today, you won't." Measured steps bring him closer to the inert form. "Next time, you should..."

And out of nowhere the fat man appears, less than a foot away from the woman laying on the ground. Beady eyes roam over those gathered, pause on Aunty M and he obviously pales. For a moment he seems frozen in place. Then, as if coming back to himself, he turns and kneels beside the woman on the street. "What the fu....How in the hell..." He can't seem to finish his sentences today. He reaches out to gather the woman up into his arms.

Whatever he was going to say, be it glib or otherwise, comes to a halt as the short fat man appears next to the feminine form and picks her up. "Maybe you should figure out who it is you're f*cking with before you come after them."

"Oh, hell you don't!" He'd almost forgotten about the portly woman on the porch as she suddenly surges off of it and heads directly for Howe. "Get your hands off her, you dog! She's with that guy!" she screams at the man, pointing a figure back the Ranger's way. "And you think I am gonna stand here and let you....what? Rescue her"! Give her to him, give her to HIM NOW!

He can see the feminine shape moving in the fat man's arms, albeit weakly, and for some reason he feels an irrational surge of relief. He squashes it before it can become anything more...lest we forget, she just stated her intent to kill him.

Howe looks from the woman addressing him to the one she's calling Robot Man and sneers at the pair of them. "Back the f*ck off, NOW!"

One of those palms comes up to point at Howe, blazing with held energy as that whining can be heard again, the helmed head bowing slightly, taking on a menacing posture. Not that he's pissed or anything, save perhaps a smidge. Yet another of Howe's agents, coming after him, and she'd almost been killed for it. He's not sure whose idea the suit was, but it wouldn't surprise him in the least to find out that it was Howe who'd rushed and pushed whoever it was inside it to try, even if it wasn't ready for the task it was built for yet. "You should watch who you're talking to that way."

The woman - who clearly knows Howe - looks like she's about to wind up for another go at him as she starts to speak. "You better give that woman over Howe, or I am gonna..."

Howe cuts her off. "Shut up, M!" Cradling the woman close to him, he nods down to her. "Yes, we'll take care of...ah' Later, sweetheart. In a flicker of dark imploding on light, the pair are simply gone.

The woman left behind turns to him and starts screaming at him. "What just happened"! He just took off with your girlfriend! You let him take off with your girlfriend! Get them back!"

He looks at her, an eyebrow arching under the mask And just how do you want me to do that' I don't even know where they went, let alone how they did...that. Waving her away, he can feel the fight taking its toll, and he sighs under the mask. "Let him go. And he can take his little toy with him."

"What do you mean let them go' Are you crazy!?"?" That was my dog!!!!" She looks pissed, glaring at him as she looks him over, growling audibly at him before she spins on a heel and stalks away, presumably to find Howe and whoever it was he 'rescued.'

He watches her go, shaking his head as he speaks half to himself. "Not my girlfriend, lady."

He can feel the adrenaline wearing off, and knows it's time to go. As he puts power to his thrusters he talks to the AI. "Diana, I'm on my way home. Advise Kyle of the situation and have him meet me at the manor."

(The preceding three posts thanks to an awesome live RP scene with Shell of Vindication, Aunty M, Mr. Howe, and Henrietta Crystal.)

"Tempting. But I'm in a mood to experiment." The light shines brighter in his palm for a moment, the whine cycling up beyond hearing range as he sets it to overcharge, an instant later flaring brightly as he releases the omnidirectional EMP burst, strong enough to knock out anything electronic that is unshielded against it within a two mile range.

"Sssounds sexy, my dear..." Her words were cut short, however as the electromagnetic pulse washed over her body, and subsequently her hand. Within moments, her suit flared into life, the outlined circuit-like lines pulsing with a strange blue light. But that too all but died away, as, without warning the purple visor of her helm became a pitch, dark black, as if deactivating.

He feels a moment of triumph as she stumbles forward a step, until the visor returns to its familiar purple glow. The circuit-like lines along her suit resume their odd glowing powered-up shade as she bolted forward, her hand outstretched towards his own.

Damn. Well, that's one more thing I've found out.

He doesn't even bother to get his hand out of her reach - in fact, as soon as she's grabbed it he twists his wrist and closes his open hand around her wrist, pivoting at the waist, using her momentum against her as he pulls hard, stepping to the side. There's a soft whining sound as the musculature of the suit works overtime, putting significant force behind the maneuver, but he doesn't let go as she's passing him - instead he maintains his grip, continuing the turn almost like they're dancing, swiveling in a circular motion to whirl her around, swinging her off of her feet.

He's about halfway through a full circle when Diana's voice pipes up again, her alarming message delivered as always in that cool, unemotional tone. "Sir, she's attempting to access the suit again. I am detecting nanites infiltrating past the outer layer of armor, giving off electromagnetic pulses. It would appear she's trying to shut the suit down from the inside."

which might have worked, if his suit operated off of conventional electronics. Cutting the outside comms, he yells back at her, his voice almost a snarl. "What the hell are you telling me this for? Shut them down!"

Her response goes unheard as quite suddenly he's changing the direction of momentum - from a circular whirling he pivots at the waist so his arm is brought back and she is behind him, then with a vicious yank he hurls her up and over his shoulder, holding on as she's brought up over his head, then down into the roof with enough strength to send her crashing through.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" The movement causes her to scream, the twisted serpentine vocals hushed by her body smashing through the Inn's roof and down into the commons below as she loses her grip. The sound of her crashing through the rafters and the splintering sound of her smashing into furniture below has him moving towards the hole she'd created.

He's just about to look down into that hole when she pops up and her knee impacts his chin, knocking him up and backwards off his feet to land on his back. The optic sensors in the helmet go dark for an instant as he's flying through the air, the safety systems inside the suit tripping to cut off the nanofiber musculature from the power surge to protect him from injury resulting from overpowered movement. The systems reset, his optic sensors and AR display flickering back to life as he skids to a halt at the edge of the roof.

He's just about to try sitting up when suddenly the sleek female shape lands atop him in a straddling stance, the serrated blade coming to press the air between the edge and the Dark Ranger's neck, her helm pushing close to his.

"I was wrong." The visor retracted back into the helm, revealing soft, gentle red colored eyes. He hadn't expected that - despite the sleek, curving lines of the skintight suit, he'd envisioned something harsher, deadlier under that opaque faceplate.

"It's not the technology." The helm continued to retract away from her lips, and then she's touching them, pressing them almost tenderly against the ebon shell of his own helm, right around where his lips would be. "It's the man I really want."

Despite the temptation, he keeps his own helmet closed for the moment. Not to disguise his identity - given their last encounter, she knows whose face it is under the mask - but rather for his own protection. He knows from experience that a moment of weakness can be deadly.

Even with that blade and the extraordinary woman wielding it under that suit she's wearing, there's no fear. There never is - just a simple exhilaration.

Still, he can't resist a touch, despite the fact that she had just tried - again - to get inside his armored skin. One hand comes up, palm open, to press against her torso, right around the area of her solar plexus. Not hard enough to push her away, just pressing there as though to hold her steady, the pulse generator staying dark and silent. As he expected, there's an enticing firmness there that is suggestive of toned muscle, and despite his position - or maybe because of it - he can feel himself becoming slightly aroused, mentally as well as figuratively.

"If that's what you wanted, there are other ways." There's the odd sound of a computer-filtered chuckle from him. "Although I will admit, few that would be as entertaining."

(Concluded in next post.)