World Tree MUSH

    The intrepid explorers of the Warden have found a security checkpoint! If someone wants a laser rifle, those are pretty stock here. But even if they don't, there's another question that's come up. This area was apparently an fruit orchard of some kind, but has been affected by whatever has been messing with the ecology. Bizarre colorations of trees aside, a carpet of a strange purple mold is all over the floor... and the walls, since this is close enough to the edge of the biome that the massive plating of the ship's walls can be seen.

    The android that suspected a vat in this area may or may not be right about that, as the vat would be inside, past those walls. He was right about something though, because the small boxy outjutting from the wall that denotes the entrance is guarded by a couple androids. Security models, it looks like. One is dark red, the color that was warned about, but the other is a pale green and looks to be distracted. They are keeping post at the doorway though, as best they can with the foliage so wild it cuts their visibility down.

    "Hey awesome, free shit." Valerian, who usually lacks a ranged option in combat, promptly picks up a laser rifle that was dropped by one of the androids. He returns his wrapped bundle across his back and carries his rifle in both hands as he trduges through. 

    As they roll up on the android vats, he raises his rifle and tries to potshot one of the dark red ones in the forehead.

    Claire immediately begins to investigate the mold, racking her brain to see if any of it is familiar, going over all the various nasty molds that can ruin a farm in her mind that she knows to look out for.

Itana brought back the fortified suit. She's slowly getting used to it. As much as she's the type to dress lightly, it seems impractical to do so in situations like this, where it's cold and there's the danger of being sucked into an endless void.

She passes up the rifle; she's fine with her bow, and figuring out one of those beeping devices seems more likely to end in her blowing her head off than anything else. Arrow in hand, she creeps forward towards the edge of the checkpoint to peer past as discreetly as she can manage.

Not that she's expecting to see /purple/ scenery. Itana narrows her eyes and frowns, pushing a lock of silver-blonde hair back into the shade of her hood.

The androids are spotted quickly enough. Itana peers through the foliage, plotting a sightline mentally and moving her arrow to her bowstring. Glancing to the side, she nods to the others in the little group of adventurers before easing a little ways out of her hiding spot. Her fingers tense against the fletching as she pulls steadily back, gathering force.

"Sanchir," she murmurs.

Just as she did last time she unleashed this technique, Itana lets the arrow go with far more force than it ought to have. The arrow flies with a thudding *BOOM* as it rips past the sound barrier, aiming to dead-centre the red android.

    Like before, Belle's own fancy, ornate bow just seems to be there when she needs it. Though to clarify, she does carry a quiver of arrows, even if the bow itself vanishes when she isn't using it. And like before, she seems of like mind to Itana, and while Claire is investigating the mold, she's just firing off an arrow at one of the androids.

    The bespectacled schoolgirl remarks, "I wonder if the colors actually mean anything aside from red?"

    Being already equipped for combat, Samus Aran opts to pass up on one of the laser rifles. The Hunter is, as usual, already clad in the sleek armor plating of her stripped down and partially regenerated Chozo power suit.
    Bringing her hand up to the side of her visor, she adjusts it to scanner mode to try and analyze the purple mold. Though she's not hoping for much there, and as such does not focus too long upon it when the androids come into view.
    "We could always find out. Let's ask." She asides to Belle as a flare of light erupts from her armcannon.
    The grapple beam is technically not a weapon in the traditional sense, but it is still a lengthy beam of voltaic energy, surging with a high payload of electricity. In short, getting hit by the grapple beam feels like getting hit by a high yield taser. Driving a car. And getting hit by this taser-driven car is probably VERY unpleasant, and very stunning.
    She's aiming for the green android while the others fire at the red one, intent to taze him down before using the grappling property of the grapple beam to YANK the android in close where she can try to overwhelm said android with physical force and pin them down.

    While everyone else is handling the androids, Claire is examining the mold! It's a thick carpet, in many places, and a bit moist. It doesn't look like anything that's dangerous, but also not like anything terrestrial. In fact, it appears to be... harmless to animals? It's kind of creepy really, as a few field mice scramble away into hiding, but not before it can be seen they have patches of the purple mold growing on them.

    The gloves go on. "I dunno what kind of mold this is, ain't anything I've seen before, but I just saw some field mice with this stuff growing on it, and while they didn't look hurt I also think we should be careful and not get ourselves host this stuff." Claire announces her findings to the team, "So probably best not to let it touch skin."

    Circe is still reeling a little bit from overextending previously with her hacking just a little bit, so she's going to largely let others do the work.

    This is different from before, when she just let others do the work because she didn't want to do it herself! Definitely completely different, as she considers her scientific options for getting through the place. "...Hmm. I mean, you could go ahead and get a sample for me? I'm something of a chemist as well as a hacker, so if you want I can see if it might be poisonous. Or better, hallucenogenic." She adds, brightly, though it's not as if she's short on ways to give people a high.

    The hail of arrows and laser fire on the red android takes care of it in short order. The green one is yanked nearby with a sharp cry of surprise! He isn't sure what's happened, but while the red ones seemed to instantly be ready to fry humans, this one is recognizing when he's outmatched, raising hands in surrender right away. "I give up!"

    Which is... now leaving the group with a prisoner, near the entrance. And speaking of that, getting closer feels a little warm... and anyone with the tech(probably Samus, maybe others) can tell that there's some dangerous energy inside that entrance. Not enough to cook right away, but probably not a place that anyone wants to stay for very long.

Itana would very much prefer to deal with the androids before dealing with the moss. She leaves the analysis to Claire initially until she's sure nothing is going to toddle up and shoot at them.

If nothing else, the green android doesn't seem about to fight. Itana lowers her hand from her quiver and frowns, looking towards Samus and their new prisoner a moment, then squinting ahead towards the entrance. "...If it will not touch skin, that seems like a sensible precaution," she murmurs as she begins to ease forward.

Even through her fortified suit, she can feel the beginnings of heat - and not one that feels natural. Itana brings herself up short and throws an expectant look over her shoulder.

"The attendant when we arrived said something about... rays of ideation or some such thing," she says haltingly, grasping for what the actual word is. "What does that do to a person? Is it some sort of fire?"

Itana el-Zayl does not understand technology people things very well.

    Valerian stomps on the torso of the dark red android a few times to see if it had a security access card in it when it was created and sent out here. It'd have to have some level of access if it was making its way around the ship, right? As he does so, he looks towards Circe, "Hey. Can you run a scan on me and see if I'm getting more radioactive? I wanna know if this is good heat or bad heat." 

    Notably, he is moving neither closer nor moving away, so he's not TOO concerned currently.

    Samus has acquired a prisoner.
    "Go ahead and ask him why he's green."
    Someone should ask him why he's green.
    Though the entryway beyond... Does not look very promising as Samus' scanner visor picks up dangerous readings.
    "It's hot."

    "Radiation is like an invisible magic in the air that in small doses is harmless but in larger quantities will poison you." Claire's definition isn't quite right, but she's not a scientist, give her a break. "Gonna get you a sample, Aida." She takes out a Joja branded plastic box, and carefully scoops up some of the mold into the box.

    "Probably radiation," Belle says. "It can kill in large amounts. I don't know what's safe though." She isn't dumb, she's gotten pretty decent grades, but that's in high school. She can't list what rads will kill a person or the different kinds of radiation and which is more safe.

    "Yeah, anyway, what's with the green? The red ones seem to want to kill us, what does your color mean?" Belle shifts to the android, curiously. "And what's beyond the door anyway?"

    "...Yeah, sure." Circe will reply to Valerian, checking to see if there's any equipment at the security station that might be attuned to detecting radiation. If not, she can probably manage at least a basic detection of it from her implants, though that's not what they're specialized in - she just has some basic safety 'don't go there' radiation detection.

    Then, the woman responbile for twisting all manner of gods and people into beasts will ask the obvious question with just a hint of horror. "What do you mean MORE radioactive? How radioactive are you normally?"

    "There's a small breach in the outer hull," the android explains helpfully. "Integrity is still good but the area is bathed in radiation. For humans, I wouldn't stay there more than fifteen minutes or so."

    He turns to look at the others asking about his color. "I'm a mutant android. My programming isn't right, in this case I have no need or desire to serve humans, I am more interested in biological specimens and study. Like the fauna of the area. Normal androids designate us as hostile because we aren't beholden to follow human orders, and many of us are so they're not wrong... nothing stops me from killing any of you, except that you'd kill me first."

    As for Circe's search, she rapidly comes across some 'rad badges' that change color from white to dark red, with a warning to leave the area once it reaches orange. They're pretty clearly labelled, unlike many of the devices on the ship.

With a deep frown, Itana withdraws from the radiation a distance, paying attention to the way it makes her feel.

Once back near where the group entered, just away from the purple moss, Itana drops to a knee and opens her pouch, coming up with a wooden bowl. "...I don't know enough about the plants here. But some from home may help," she murmurs as she begins to pull out a few substances. A handful of leaves land in the bowl, followed by a coarse white powder. Last comes a small vial of something viscous and orange, which she holds up to the light a moment. "This is the essence of the Bomb beast of Mount Hobs. They are beings of flame, but their blood is immune to disease and poison. I think it should be possible to mix it into something that could help recover from something like this. I do not think it could stop the effects, though. Nothing can block /every/ poison."

Itana crinkles her nose. "Well. A magic Ribbon might. But I do not have one of those."

    "Darn. No keycard." Valerian grumbles as he stands back up from being hunched over and looking around inside the remnants of the dark red android. Valerian nods to the green one as he says, "Oh OK. Yeah. Radiation. That tracks. I'd say I'd last 30, 45 minutes if the average person would last 15. Depends." 

    He sighs a bit and scratches the back of his head, "Mutant Android. Got it. What clearance have you got?"

    Interesting. An android interested in biological specimens.
    "What can you tell us about this mold?" Samus asks, thoughtfully after a moment.
    On the topic of the radioactive zone, the Hunter says: "My power armor can shield me from the brunt if not all of it. As for the rest of you though..."
    Unfortunately you guys are on your own.

    Circe will hand out the badges to everyone, not having a need for one herself. "As a warning, I'm personally at least slightly resilient against radiation but I'm still leaving as soon as it gets to yellow. Radiation isn't really something to play with, if you're unfamiliar." She'll add, actually being quasi-helpful for a change. Well, that and everyone's security clearances.

    "We should be ready to move quickly, if we're going into a radiation area. I'd really get annoyed to lose my hair or need to steal a new body or anything."

    What was that last part?

    "You don't seem to be all that hostile to humans," Belle points out. "Why are you helping them if they want to kill all of us?" She takes the badge and affixes it, clipping it onto her shirt. It'd be more fitting if she had a school uniform but her school doesn't have a strict dress code.

    She eyes Circe but doesn't comment for now. "Okay, but what's in there?"

    "Don't steal bodies." Claire glares at Circe, "I'm sure someone can get you a nice fresh unused, unowned body if you just look for it." She turns to Belle, "It's obvious. The uncorrupted androids think he wants to kill all of us, and they can't allow that. So he sticks with the people who just let him do his thing peace. Basic self-preservation, most life-forms have it, unless we bred it out of them or programmed them not to have it." She's not too keen to go into radiation, but she'll accept one of the charms and carefully looks around.

    The android looks around. "I don't dislike humans, but the red androids say they can fix our lifespan limitation if they gain control of the ship. I would like to have more time, so I help them. It's not as if humans are on the ship anyway, not awake, until you all showed up." He shrugs and then looks in, demonstrating his lack of loyalty by answering further.

    "Inside you will find a vat and some other androids. They are attempting to breach the shielding of the inactive vat to create more red androids. I'm not sure that will work with the radiation though." He considers. "You should probably stop them if you don't want more killer androids." So... chill about it.

Itana has taken a seat at this point and set her bowl in her lap. She pours the orange Bomb essence in with the other ingredients and sets to work with a pestle, grinding everything down into a sticky orange-yellow paste. After a few passes, she thins it out with a splash of water.

The mixture sizzles and froths on contact. Biting her lip, she churns through it with her pestle. Within a few seconds, the hissing fizz passes, the creamy colour of the mixture rapidly burning off and clarifying - the colour's the same, but the concoction is transparent now, bubbling as if carbonated.

A little more stirring follows before she fishes out a glass bottle and carefully drips the concoction in. There's not a lot of it, but she stops it up with a cork and swishes it around, prompting another round of bubbling and hissing. The latter subsides, but bubbles continue to run through the liquid as she holds it up to let light stream through it. She squints, as if she could somehow assess its affects with her eyes alone.

"...It will have to do," she murmurs. At least, she /hopes/ it will do. Weird space diseases are hard!

>> GAME >> Itana el-Zayl spends an Edge for: Mixing up some essence of Bomb and other FFIV-world herbs into a fire/poison-resistance potion (ad-hoc radiation resistance)

    The quick work of the guards outside helps a lot... as does Itana's potion, since now it's unlikely the group will stay inside long enough for the radiation to be an issue. It won't last forever, but unless they're spending hours inside, that shouldn't be a problem. So entering the corridor will show that this is in fact a maintenance area, with some basic equipment stowed away(if anyone wants a jumpsuit or first aid kit or flashlight or the like) and lockers along the corridor wall leading downward. The android vats are easy to find, because there are signs pointing to 'Android vats' and arrows to indicate which way. There's also robotics storage and spare parts storage, for reference, but these appear from the map of the area to be small, emergency stashes.

    A rough map of the ship is also on the wall, or at least indicating the levels. There's a command deck, crew deck, environmental deck(this one), storage, robotics, and so on.

    But to the meat of the problem... the android vats aren't far, but looking down the last corridor, it does look like the massive vat is literally that. A huge round vat full of a strange liquid, with various tubes feeding into it. A number of androids, mostly red in color but a few other variations, are here doing various tasks. A number are tampering with the feed mechanisms, while others are assembling weaponry. Several are evidently geared up already, sporting armor and weapons of various types, and part of their duty is to guard the makeshift cage made of scrap metal that's holding several grey-colored androids prisoner.

    Finally, this is a large room, and one side of it has buckled inward, with a tear in the sturdy metal. It isn't exposed to vaccuum, as insulation and more metal can be seen further back, but it's definitely the source of the radiation. It's not something that can just be pounded back into place, though, so may not be fixable right now.

    "Okay. Time to stop faffing about," Valerian says with a bit of a sigh. He tosses the laser rifle away and then grabs the bundle across his back and grips a handle. 

    He dashes forward towards the amassed group of androids with weapons. It is almost impossible not to see him coming, due to the whirring and churning blades of the chainsaw that rips to life while he charges towards them. As his usual tactic, he tries to get right into the thick of them and swing his blade around with sheer brute force to take them out.

Not for the first time since boarding this vessel, Itana's unsure of herself. This place beeps and whirrs and glows too much to feel natural. But she knows what she'd do in any other situation involving heat, poison and strange effects on the blood. With luck, it will translate. She swirls her potion once more and takes a mouthful of it.

Whether it helps or not, she won't know until they're out of there. She pushes her hood back and shakes loose silver hair free, readying her bow and twirling an arrow into one hand. Moving ahead with the group, she takes stock of what's around her, mainly in the form of reading the signs and assuming the androids are the weird metal people they've been fighting and talking to all along.

    /So that's what those are called. Not dolls. Interesting./

As she creeps ahead, trying to keep behind cover, she takes stock of where the buckled hull is. Fortunately it doesn't seem like it's /too/ close to the android cage. She presses her lips together in consideration, sliding her fingers through the fletching of her arrow before drawing it back. "I hope this will work," she murmurs, "and that they are vulnerable to fire like anything else."

She takes aim and waits for Valerian to draw their attention before whispering, "Angarag." Her fingers flick as she releases the arrow. A whisper of smoke trails behind it.

The arrow arcs /over/ Valerian as gravity drags it back down into the cluster of red androids. She's aimed for a point right in front of them. It doesn't /seem/ like it'll hit any one - until it reaches a point just ahead of them, when the smoking arrow suddenly bursts into a fiery blast, sending flames washing towards the android forces. It's an area-wide blast of fire, designed to torch as many as she can.

    "I'm happy to try and take a look at the android vats, or see if I can maybe disable the androids or screw with their targetting. I'm not really as good at combat as some of you seem to be." Circe will offer, maybe truthfully, maybe out of a desire to not be shot at, maybe a little of both.
    "I'd love some good long time watching how these things are made, just to see if there's anything I could learn" - about making android armies bent to her will beyond just the ones she can directly control or those blessed with AI - "but.. oh, and there he goes. Violence it is, I guess." She'll sigh, as Valerian charges the group. She'll pull one of her earrings off, tossing it forward, a large robot pig forming up from it. It's going to charge in behind Valerian, but not actually engage the android forces.
    No, it'll stop short of that, aiming at where weapons are being assembled, an energy blast firing off from its snout at the weapon components. Hopefully none of those are prone to explode when disturbed. Or maybe hopefully they are; Circe's well back of them, after all, and it probably won't kill anyone.

    Claire looks at what's going on and decides on a course of action. She tries to rush past any obstacle and make it to the cage, drawing her Galaxy Sword and taking a swift swing at anything that looks like it might be a weak point for opening the cage.

    Belle may not be great at teamwork, but she doesn't ALWAYS go after the immediate threat. Seeing some people being held captive triggers her overprotective nature, and the young schoolgirl dashes right into the battlefield... and along the way, her form ripples, taking on a more hulking and furred appearance. It isn't specifically any one creature, but 'werewolf' is as good a summary as any.

    Whatever she is, the now-larger beast is with Claire, letting the farmer slice at the bars to weaken them, and then trying to slam right into the damaged pieces and yank the bars away, or pop the hinges. Basically just an application of brute strength to try to disassemble the cage.

    Moving on from the guards outside, Samus keeps up with the party from the rear, one arm resting lightly over the barrel of her armcannon as she proceeds.
    While Valerian and Itana open up on the red-skinned androids- and this is all well and good- the Hunter spends a moment longer surveying the situation.
    Claire and Belle move to rescue the trapped Androids and Circe's... Piggy disrupts the weapon emplacement...
    Samus begins to charge her weapon, motes of light gathering at the barrel as superheated plasma begins to accumulate.
    Plasma that she unleashes on the androids that Valerian and Itana lay into.

    The androids weren't taken entirely by surprise, so when Valerian rushes them, they're already opening fire. One of them gets cut right in have by the chainsaw roaring through, splattering that odd-colored goo all over, while the others are forced to take cover as a fiery arrow rains down. They're already on the ropes, and quickly direct fire back at their attackers, though a few are trying to tend to the injuries that Itana caused. One is too sloppy about it, and gets near-vaporized by a surprise arm cannon shot, but the group rapidly reassembles and takes up a position around the weaponry they're assembling, while returning fire. The leader directs a few toward Belle and Claire, to keep them from freeing the 'recruits' as well.

    The cage is sturdy though, and while the blade shears through a few bars, it's layered in such a way that things are getting tangled. Belle applies enough force to start twisting it open, but there's not enough room for anyone to escape. One of them directs the others to step back to let the two work on it.

    The crew assembling the weapon are having a hard day then. They have to drag some of their components behind cover as one of the legs and a strange box gets roasted. "I need a replacement regulator!" One of the ones in combat yells, "I have one over here, let me get over there!"

Itana doesn't even want to /know/ how that chainsaw works. It's loud and it whirrs a lot and it cuts things messily. That's all she can tell.

As the androids begin to fire back, Itana rolls out from cover and starts to move. Integrated heels click against floor plating as she launches herself to one side and away from the first volley of return fire. Blasts rip past her, splattering against the deck as she lands on her side, tumbles adeptly and springs up from one knee, breaking into a sprint to one side to try and flank the android group.

She is not entirely faster than light, of course; the shots grow closer the more seconds tick by. A well-placed blast sears past her, leaving a scorching line across her flank that torches part of the latex-like material of her fortified suit and leaves a painful burn beneath. Wincing, Itana clicks her teeth together and fights through the pain, the heat resistance potion at least helping to make the burn bearable. Again she bounds, lunging and bringing her legs forward and landing coiled up like a spring --

And she /reverses/ her momentum completely with a single, catapulting leap. Soaring metres up under the strength of powerful legs, she flips upside down in the air, silver locks whipping behind her like streamers. Poised even in the midst of an acrobatic flip, she snaps her arm once, twice, bowstring ringing as she unleashes arrows into the red android crowd at the height of her leap. The maneuver's intended both to peg a couple of them and force them to split their fire in odd directions.

    Valerian may have disappointed Circe by rushing in, but really being a Juicer is a one-solution situation to most problems! Still, it's not like he has gone totally berserk here. He has enough of a presence of mind to attempt to aid his allies. Any androids that attempt to fire back at Samus or Itana find themselves taking Attack of Opportunity from Valerian, trying to keep most of their focus on him. 

    The shots that are aimed at him are dodged rapidly, his body weaving from side to side as the shots glance by him. One or two still strike home, leaving scorch marks on bare flesh or dragon hide clothing that he wears. The ones that are actively shooting at HIM, are the ones that are currently being left alone by his chainsaw strikes.

    "Keep ripping apart the cage." Claire tells Belle, too focused to be shocked by the transformation, "I'll hold them off so you can keep at it." She turns around to the androids that approach them and dashes forwards, a quick strike with her blade at the closest of them, trying to force them to focus on her instead of the beast.

    With her piggy causing trouble, Circe will attempt to move over to where the feeds are going into the vat, hoping that everyone else can keep the androids from shooting her. She's going to try to use her personal knowledge of technology to figure out whatever it is that the androids are doing to sabotage the vats, so that she can repair it in a moment.
    This may end up being more challenging than she would hope, since it's NOT tech from her world and it's NOT something she's studied before directly, but she's going to do her best regardless of the noise around her. At least as long as she doesn't get shot.

    Keep working on the cage. Easy for Claire to say! Belle is not exactly a skilled mechanic! She grunts, twisting and prying, but in the process she at least puts her bulk between the androids rushing at them and the prisoners. It's not much, but it should protect them while she tries to pry apart the hinges.

    Of course it may end up getting her very badly hurt. She isn't actually a werewolf, so her regeneration doesn't have that fabled ability does it?

    Having vaporized an android, Samus shifts her aim.
    No sooner than the ones by the weapon emplacement call for a spare part, the Hunter's head snaps in the direction of the android that claims to have one.
    As he goes running for it, Samus shifts her aim.
    "No you don't." The Hunter murmurs to herself as the barrel of her armcannon snaps open, a red-tipped missile warhead locking into position with a click.
    Before she unleashes it.
    Streaking across the room with a shrill scream, she intends to cut that android's trip lethally short.

    It's a good idea to keep the attack forces occupied, because they really seem intent on causing trouble. A few start to shoot toward Claire and Belle, but arrows launch from above, with one android even lifting his aim up, looking up toward the acrobatic flip and getting an arrow straight through the head for his troubles! Of course, they can operate without a head, but it does make it a lot harder to aim! Just like it's a lot harder for another to shoot when Valerian's chainsaw buzzes through her arms, slicing them off at the elbow and making it very difficult to pull the trigger. The group starts to fall back to reposition themselves.

    The androids coming to stop Belle meet Claire, and while they have some kind of high-tech swords, the Galaxy Blade clashes with those just fine. Claire's holding action keeps them off of Belle, and though a few bolts smack into the bulky frame of the transformed schoolgirl, she's able to wedge one of the hinges open and pop it, but the door is still tangled up.

    Circe and Samus switch targets now, and Samus is at a different angle. As the crew take cover and tries to get a replacement, the one grabbing the replacement looks up to see death coming, and the replacement bounces off the wall along with a few pieces of android blown apart. For some reason, it makes a kind of 'BWAT!' noise when this happens.

    Circe is not a mechanic, and these androids aren't flesh and blood. It's also different tech. But the androids are GROWN, much like flesh is, and the chemicals need a proper balance. So Circe's skills in biology and chemistry are actually more useful than she might realize, though this first few moments is spent figuring out what the readouts even say are off.

Let's be honest here: Itana has no idea how to deal with the weapon emplacement. She leaves that to Samus - or rather, to people smarter at that sort of thing than her.

Itana is, at least, not dead-eyed in midair - she lands without incident, touching ground in a crouch before springing to the side again and tumbling away as more energy fire comes arcing her way. This time she's fortunate enough to avoid any serious hits, mostly having to dart and dance around to avoid getting splattered with fire as the androids regroup.

It's getting hard for her to aim without hitting Valerian, but there are enough of them that she can reposition. "Careful," she calls out as she dashes across the deck, once more drawing an arrow. It's clear enough what she's doing: Coming across to try and flank him and attack the android group from the side, avoiding any chance of her arrows hitting Valerian in the back. With luck, it'll pull fire away from Belle and Claire, too - the rest of them are up to highly technical things that Itana herself can't fully grasp, after all.

She drops a knee to the deck, skidding into a firing position with her arrow twirling in her hand. "Sar!" she calls out again before snapping her arm like a striking cobra. The air behind her arrow resounds with a loud crack as the arrow blows through the sound barrier, aimed to try and peg a still-intact android centre-of-mass in the hopes of blowing it back into the group like a struck bowling pin.

"Is everyone still alright?" she calls out.

    "Don't worry about hitting me! I'll live! I was designed for this type of thing." He was designed by the Federation of Magic to wade into the front lines of a war front while they used Fireball Mortars to wipe out the squad and let him survive. He has no hesitation calling back to Itana (and anyone else like Belle or Samus or Claire) that they should completely disregard worries about Friendly Fire in relation to him being in the front line. 

    When the androids on offense (or defense, really, is more accurate) start to fall back to try to regroup, he wants to prevent them from reorganizing and re-establising a firing line. So he sticks to their lines like a bad habit, trying to remain as much in the middle of them as possible to prevent them from getting a single, stable firing position set up that they could easily defend. 

    It's basic squad tactics!

    Without warning, Claire reaches for her basket, and takes out a large steel orb, she uses her sword to cut the fuse quite short then lights it, throwing it past her assailants and immediately diving for cover to minimize the worst of the impact. She cut it short enough that even for her, that's not preventing damage, just mitigating it, she's going to get some burns and shrapnel, just hopefully nowhere critical.

    Circe isn't a mechanic, but she is able to put together that the androids are being grown and are biological, which in addition to making it part of her skillset also has a moral implication that's rather bad for her. To the point that she actually drops her guard for a moment, eyeing the readouts and double checking...

    "..Oh, shit!" she says, or at least the equivilent in Greek, before yelling over to the others. "Hey, the androids are actually alive! Try not to kill any more, I can try and remember how to do a cleansing ritual if you already have after this!"

    This is probably not a moral quandry anyone else is going to have, but Circe's going to be relieved she hadn't personally dispatched any of the androids, even with her earlier blast, before she starts using that knowledge of biochemistry (and some nanotech magic) to attempt to modify the tank to ensure that androids come out sedate and friendly to the group.

    Well, okay. Specifically friendly to her.

    And there goes the cage! Belle huffs a sigh of relief, and turns to the next problem: the fighting. As much as it would be easy to jump in and join the others, she's pretty far from there, and there are already arrows flying. So she... flicks her wrist to summon her bow and lines up a shot, even in this bestial form showing far more grace as an archer than she did when she was wrestling with claw and fang.

    She picks a target or two that Itana is harrying, and supports the other archer with a sudden fly of several arrows, darting through from the flank so the androids suddenly have to deal with 'primitive' weapons from two directions. "Thanks," she grumps to Claire, voice a little gutteral but recognizeable.

    That spare part problem?
    It's not a problem anymore.
    "I'm fine over here." Samus calls back to Itana as she shifts her aim now. This time taking aim at the weapon itself and the androids building it.
    She fires off several harrying shots, but these aren't really meant to make contact. They're meant to pin down the builders and make them duck their heads as Samus starts to rush the emplacement. Faster... Faster... Faster, getting faster, soon enough she's blitzing at inhuman speed towards the gun in the process of being built.
    "Nnh..."
    Her hand twitches. Fingers curl. A faint purple aura envelopes her gauntlet as energy visibly arcs between her outspread fingers...
    As she reaches for the weapon's power source...
    And begins to drain it RAPIDLY of its energy reserves by touch alone as she channels her inner metroid killer instinct and desire to feed.

    Claire shows that a good farmer knows when to explode things, blasting the cage the rest of the way open, enough that those inside can topple the door and start rushing out. Of course, these were awakened by the ship to fight, so they've had some basic combat training... immediately going for some rifles and starting to lay down fire toward the attacking red androids. They don't seem inclined to listen to what Circe said but they are avoiding hitting anyone else. This is, after all, what they were programmed for.

    Valerian is harrying the attackers enough they can't get a solid formation going, though some of them do at least have melee weapons to fight the confusing rush with. It's hard to get THAT formation going when they're being tossed about like that though, blasted aside and then, after Itana makes their lives miserable, Belle joins in with her own arrows thwipping through the air to pincushion another. The remaining half-dozen start a strategic withdrawal toward the heavy weapon being... made?

    Well it's being set up, but then there's a curse and one shouts, "Need a spare stabilizer, this one is empty!" Why is that a stabilizer? Who knows!

    Circe is left largely alone thanks to the chaos elsewhere. She makes some headway, but getting them actually 'reprogrammed' might be a problem. Getting them back to the default isn't that hard, just remove the irregularities. After that it's a bit hit or miss though, here in combat. She could give it a try though.

    Hurt by her own actions, Claire isn't out of the action yet. She needs a bit to reorient herself. Then looks towards the vat that is being sabotaged, and decides that's a good next course of action, and she picks up her slingshot, giving herself a bit more to recover before rushing into the fray. She takes out a bullet of purple metal, and aims straight for the head of one of the androids at the vat.

Itana excels at making people's lives miserable! With arrows! And Belle's helping!

The remaining droids begin to withdraw, fortunately sparing Itana being shot again. She remains crouched for a monent, watching the way Valerian moves. Soon enough, though, she's moving to one side - for all that Valerian seems cavalier about things, Itana's not, and shooting a nominal ally in the spine would be a bad idea.

She settles for continuing to try and flank. Breaking into a dash, she whips her arm quickly to fire off one arrow, then another, then one more, harrying the retreating androids with a flurry of shots intended to thin them out all the more.

    Circe will sigh to herself, setting the idea of a personal android army aside - for the moment - and focus primarily on just making the default not-hostile option happen, focusing her efforts on what she can determine are irregularities in the feed or in the chemistry of the vats. It's probably fine if androids kill other androids, just like when animals kill other animals. She just doesn't want any of the people to commit that particular sin.

    "Ugh. I'm not sure how long I'm going to need, but if you all can get shooting to stop happening I can probably clean this up!.. without killing any of them!" She'll add, again, in Itana's direction in particular, probably to just as much effect as she managed the first time.

    There's only so many ways to describe being in the midst of a swarm of androids, tanking hits and dealing damage back. There's a lot of strange goo flying around from the disemboweled androids, there's a lot of robot parts flopping to the ground. He is able to dodge between Itana's arrows, as if sensing them when they come flying in and getting out of her way on each shot, giving her clean hits that supplement her attempts to avoid hitting him. 

    Otherwise, it's kind of just a chainsaw-y Whirlwind of Death.

    A 'strategic withdrawal' towards the weapon is an advance right toward Samus.
    Samus who turns her attention on the androids embroiled in bitter battle with her allies. Once again the barrel of the Hunter's armcannon splits open, this time a blue warhead locks into place as she takes aim and fires a salvo of ice missiles at the androids.
    Ice missiles, while designed to be less than lethatl, tend to flash freeze any matter they come into contact with, with an explosion of coolants and chemicals.

    Belle heard Circe, so she doesn't just start shooting the androids trying to mess with the vat. She's also not trained enough to actually fiddle with the controls. After a second to think, she grunts and finds one of the chemical tubs they're using to contaminate it. Can't contaminate if the chemicals aren't there! She's still shifted, so she just grabs the tub, tearing it loose, and heaves it off toward the remnants that are already defeated. It shouldn't kill them, right?

    Just kinda crush some stuff and pin them there.

    Purple metal strikes one of the androids, knocking her off the catwalk she's on and thudding to the ground. Claire's strike was true, and helped as well by making it harder to calibrate.

    Between the laser fire from the escaped androids, the chainsaw, and Itana's arrows, the attackers finally rout, though there's not much left TO rout! A bit of freezing immobilizes some of them as Samus 'captures' some, to see if Circe can actually reverse this.

    Belle's cannister trick does at least keep it alive, but parts are smashed, and it's unclear if these things heal naturally. Oops. (They do, don't worry) And in any case this means there's very little stopping Circe from fixing up the vats, since she can get the others to reconnect hoses and the like if she wishes.

Itana sets her jaw and glances sharply towards Circe. "That is easier said than done!" she huffs, though she does /try/ to shoot at shoulders and legs as much as she can. Such is the problem when your main offensive option is pointy things shot at high speed.

Soon enough, the androids are incapacitated. Well, 'incapacitated' in a highly broad and metaphorical sense. Itana shoulders her bow with a huff, straightening and pulling her hood back up. A scowl crosses her face as she checks to make sure none of them are about to pop up and rip her head off.

Satisfied at the lack of imminent danger, she heads for the vat, resting her bow against her shoulder. She frowns, looking up at it before looking over to Circe and Belle.

"...So where do we start?" asks Miss Can't-Operate-A-Flashlight.

    Circe will indeed share in her knowledge to get people to provide extra hands to the repair project! "Oh, yes, if you could just put that hose back there, and make sure the flow isn't impeded by any clogs in the pipe or anything like that!" She'll maybe try reversing the captured droids after she manages to fix the vats first, but she's swimming in deep waters that she doesn't completely understand. Her divinity can only carry her so far.