So I feel the need to preface this next bit.
I am not an excitable person. Easily irked, yes. Quick to jump to curses and yelling, yes.
But in terms of allowing the excitement of the moment to overtake me, to the point where I am even briefly overcome enough to forget my situation? Almost never. Sure, I've had times where I was pleased enough to utter a solemn hell yeah, like when I cast my first spell. But I rarely lose my shit.
So when I burst through the window of that building, tucked into a roll and came up ready to rumble with Soph at my back, I need it to be understood that I had never been more amped up in my life.
Sure, I had been out in costume before, but I would hesitate to call any of those occasions a mission, and more so, I wasn't really needed at either of them. I was running on what I could cobble together, and prayer. I had felt distinctly incomplete and useless at the time.
Now I felt like a fucking superhero. I hadn't even done anything yet, and I was already mentally adding a sound system to my list of preferred upgrades so that I could blast music while fighting.
No that wasn't a good idea.
Yes, I was probably going to do it anyway.
I was returned from my foray into heroic daydreaming by the sound of a bullet plinking off my helmet and pushing me back slightly from the impact.
Here's the thing to understand about Starfinder armor. The total amount of coverage it gave, and how well armored the actual armor was only made up a small portion of its defensive properties. In the core game, there were sets of heavy armor that consisted of nothing more than a stylized breastplate - that nonetheless constituted a full body defense against kinetic and laser weaponry.
I originally chalked this up to game rules and aesthetic, then moved on with my life.
Now that I was relying on the stuff to help me keep my life, things were a bit different.
I had come to realize while working on my Mining Jack that part of the crafting process for it included a bunch of circuits attached to the armoring that created a sort of hardening effect in all the materials it was touching. This effect made it so that my glass dome helmet was capable of taking small arms fire without cracking, and I say 'sort of' because despite improving the overall durability of the materials, they retained their flexibility and other characteristics.
Of course, this effect could only go so far. Multiplying the durability of a steel plate and the durability of a piece of tissue paper obviously produced two very different outcomes, and so higher-level armor included not only better materials but more advanced versions of the circuit. It would also cost me a small fortune to assemble, even before considering all the exotic materials I would have to fabricate because they didn't exist on Earth Bet.
It was all really quite fascinating, but also, entirely secondary to the fact that someone had just tried to shoot me in the face. Something that would have absolutely killed me a week ago.
The jolt of primal fear that caused me was enough to get me to pull my head out of my ass, and force me to actually respond to the situation I had sprinted headfirst into.
The room I was in could charitably be called a lounge. The building, while abandoned, had obviously been retrofitted to give the thugs stationed here places to relax while they guarded whatever was stashed inside. There were two couches situated opposite each other around a center table, and six people in the room with us. Four men and two women, all of whom had lurched up and away from us as we crashed through the window.
'Pay fucking attention!' Soph yelled at me over our link as she ghosted to one side, ducked, and fired her Mercy Pistol clean through two of the men's lower bodies.
'Right. Fuck, sorry. Keep an eye out for Alabaster or any other Cape. I give the Protectorate ten minutes to get here, five if they actually give a shit about recruiting us later.' I fired off, turning to the opposite side of the room from the one Shadow Stalker was on, lowering my shoulder, and punching my jump jets again. This had the interesting effect of jerking me forward the ten feet required to reach the three people behind the couch.
It also caused me to shatter the couch.
My impact was enough to send the middle guy sprawling against the wall, but I didn't bother to pay him too much attention, instead, I swung my hand out and fired a frost ray at the gun that had immediately come up to point at me on the left. I could only cast one spell at a time, so I couldn't do anything about the gun the woman on my right levied at me besides curl my arm against my torso to protect it, but it served its purpose. Guns are finicky tools. Flash freezing all the ammo in one is pretty much guaranteed to make the thing useless.
I felt a firm impact against my side as the woman unloaded on me and I grunted in mild pain at the impact as the force of the shots was dispersed against my entire right side.
Activating my Jump Jets again, I launched myself sideways, shoulder checking the woman into the wall behind her, then taking the opportunity while she was stunned and injured to yank the gun from her hands. I had a moment where I considered throwing the thing, then remembered that throwing a loaded gun is stupid, and instead stepped away from her to click the safety on and dropped it.
None of the three of my opponents were down and out. The guy I had body-checked across the room was slowly getting his bearings again, the girl seemed like she still had some fight left in her, and the guy whose gun I had frozen was still uninjured.
This was my major problem presently. I could hurt these people sure, I think I had demonstrated that handily, but to make them completely stop fighting, I wasn't sure I could hurt them without also nearly killing them.
Pondering the problem, I fired another frost ray at the gun the first guy was just now holding up, but missed and ended up freezing part of his upper arm instead. He immediately howled with pain and dropped the weapon, which I capitolized on by stomping forward and punching the only still standing one of my combatants in the side of the head. I wasn't an expert fighter or anything, but this armor weighed a hell of a lot, and I didn't really need to know what I was doing to throw a blind punch.
The strike caught the man in the side of the head, causing his knees to buckle, and I was going to try and drop him with one more attack to the back of his head, when a weight on my back reminded me that the girl was still here, and she had probably just jumped on my back.
Once more, I made use of my Jump Jets, slamming my back into the ceiling and then falling back down to punch my first target out. When it looked like neither was going to get back up, I turned to the last guy, who was still screaming, just in time to catch the lance of white hot energy that arced through the air and into his crotch with pinpoint accuracy, instantly knocking him unconscious.
'Seriously?' I asked, turning to Sophia who was standing by the door to the room and peering out already.
'You were taking too long. Go see how many of them are out there.' She ordered seriously, going shadowy a split second before a bullet slammed into the wall behind her, traveling directly through her to get there.
I seriously had no idea how she did that. Human reflexes couldn't account for how perfectly she could manage to avoid those kinds of attacks. Clockblocker did the same thing with his power, always managing to freeze his costume just in time to avoid imminent death, even though nothing about his power indicated he had any kind of advanced sense of timing. I'd probably chalk it up to required secondary powers if I didn't already know it was probably their shards subtly helping them.
I realized that I had been pondering the thought too long when Sophia's ghostly head turned to glare at me.
'I'm going, I'm going.' I placated her, sprinting out into the hall only to be immediately peppered with gunfire from both directions.
Again, this still kind of hurt. Not 'kicked in the chest by a mule' hurt, but sort of like getting punched lightly anywhere a bullet hit me. It wasn't pleasant, and some of these would definitely bruise.
'Two at the bottom of the stairs, three up the hallway on the right. No sign of Alabaster.' I commented, charging down the stairs and flinging a Daze spell at one of the attackers so they would stop shooting at me for a second.
'I'll take up here.' Soph answered, and I quickly began to hear anguished cries of pain from behind me as I slammed into the guy at the bottom of the stairs who I had Dazed. His compatriot had moved out of the way the minute he saw me coming, but I ignored him for the moment to bludgeon my current target unconscious.
I tried super hard not to think about every youtube video I had ever watched explaining why Hollywood unconsciousness was bullshit, and why you really shouldn't repeatedly punch people in the head.
Once my current target was down - note to self, situational awareness - I stood to try and figure out what else was going on in the room, just in time to catch a slug in the chest that made an audible crunching noise as it overmatched the resilience of my armor. Readouts on the inside of my helmet indicated I would probably need to spend some time buffing out the new dent in the front of the harness, but I wasn't paying much attention to that.
Because I had found Alabaster, and counter to my expectations that he would be easy to handle, he was carrying around the biggest meanest looking handcannon I had ever seen in my life.
See, Alabaster had one power and one power only. He couldn't really die or be injured. Every four seconds, his body, his clothes, and everything he was holding reset to perfect condition. A weird side effect of that, is that he has a weird sort of albinism that leaves him completely white. Like... eggshell white. White hair, white skin, white eyes that lack pupils, etc, etc.
I would have considered him a negligible threat on a normal day, but I had apparently forgotten one very important thing.
He didn't need to reload.
He didn't need to reload, which meant he was free to do things like fire a pistol with enough kick to break his arm and kill an elephant.
He didn't need to reload, which meant-
"Fuck!" I yelled as the albino man fired at me again, sending a spider web of cracks shooting across my helmet.
I immediately activated my jets again, throwing myself back up the stairs and ignoring the smaller shots from the other gangsters in the room. I just wanted to break line of sight with Alabaster.
'Found Alabaster! He has a big fucking gun!'I quickly informed Soph, spooling up a Daze spell and aiming it at Alabaster as he jumped into view at the bottom of the stairs.
Like I'd expected from a Parahuman, it barely even effected him, causing him merely to blink once before taking aim at me again.
Not that I was dumb enough to just stand there and let him shoot at me, having dashed out of the way and into an empty room around the same time as I had cast my spell.
'There's no one else up here. What's the plan?'Sophia informed me, having ghosted through a wall and moved into a crouch next to me as I waited for Alabaster to come up the stairs. He was already half way up, and the only reason he probably hadn't turned to shoot me yet was that the Mindlink Circlet made our communication silent.
'Can you distract him for a minute?'I asked worriedly, a plan coming to mind that would work, but only temporarily.
'What do you think?'She fired back, and it took me a couple of seconds to realize that she was actually asking a question and not just being sarcastic.
'He can't feel pain so I don't think your weapon will do anything to him. I just need him distracted for a minute.'I put forth just as Alabaster made it to the top of the stairs.
'Easy.'Soph half crooned at me, moving away and then diving through a wall to fire a bolt of energy through Alabaster that I don't think he even noticed.
Taking the opportunity for what it was, I turned and rocketed out another window and back out onto the street below, eyes scanning the ground until I found what I was looking for.
When I did, I ran towards it, dropping to my knees and fumbling stupidly at the manhole cover with my hands until it dawned on me that I literally couldn't get the leverage I would need without a crowbar or something.
Looking around frantically, I turned back to the building we had met the Wards on to see them just standing there, staring at me.
"A little help Vista?!" I yelled up at her desperately, gesturing at the manhole. Vista - being ten or I guess, eleven possibly - practically jumped to it, and suddenly the tiny gap at the lip of the cover expanded enough to get my hand into, and I immediately dropped down to get a grip on it, pulling it up with some difficulty and sliding it aside. When I was sure I was clear, I dropped it, then spun and headed back inside.
'Is he still upstairs?'I asked as I exploded through the front door of the building with my jets.
Sophia didn't answer me telepathically, but an irate screech from upstairs followed by a malicious laughter told me all I needed to know. I ignored the one or two stragglers who were hiding from the Cape fight downstairs to launch myself up towards Sophia. I was starting to run out of juice to fuel the things, and would need to recharge them when I got home.
When I made it to the landing on the second floor, it was to find Sophia jumping in and out of cover, unleashing a barrage of attacks on Alabaster, who for the most part was acting like he didn't even feel them - because he probably couldn't.
With all the grace of a boulder, I oriented on the man, then rocketed into him, grabbing him in a bear hug and scrabbling at his arms to keep him from firing his gun at me at point blank range.
He looked strangely amused by my efforts, which was just fine by me, because I wasn't done yet.
I fired my Jump Jets two more times in succession, yanking us sideways into another room, and then out the broken window present there.
Then with great effort, dragged Alabaster towards the open manhole cover and threw him down it, catching another round to the side for my troubles that I think might have gone partially through my armor, because I suddenly felt a hot flash of pain there.
I didn't have time to think about that though, because I was already throwing the manhole cover back over the hole I had thrown the man into, fired up my Energy Ray spell, and started welding the cover in place while I stood ontop of it.
When I was done, I stepped back, listening to the screams of outrage and annoyance from the man I had trapped in the sewers. Gunshots rang out, creating a metallic ringing as they bounced off the cover, and I allowed myself a snort of amusement before I remembered that I had been shot.
'Kay, I got the dickhead trapped. Gimme a sec to get back inside.'I sent to Soph, pulling my arms free from the arms of my suit and fumbling around in the widened chest cavity of the armor until I got ahold of one of my three Gems of Mystic Cure. I cast the spell on myself and was immediately rewarded with the cessation of pain from my side, along with the crunch of the Gem vaporizing under the magical output.
'No one left in here. Pussies.'Sophia complained. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd guess she was feeling sort of blue balled by Alabaster, since they functionally couldn't hurt eachother.
Eh. She'd get over it.
"Are you okay? Do you need medical attention?" An urgent voice reached my ears, cus me to jump slightly when Gallant and Vista just kind of appeared in front of me.
"Jesus fuck!" I yelled, stepping away from them.
"Star Finder. Do you need medical attention." Gallant reiterated while Vista scooted over to the manhole Alabaster was in and did... something... that had the man below burst out in irate screams.
I glanced down at my side, wondering why only now the guy was choosing to get involved, but then saw the huge red stain where I had been shot, and the clear hole in my armor where the bullet had entered.
"No, I'm good." I said flatly, not wanting to say anything damning about my healing gems, but not having a better way to cover up than just not saying anything at all.
"Are you sure? The PRT is fully staffed with some of the best Doctors in-" he started to try and convince me.
"Dude, I'm good. Seriously. Whats she doing?" I asked, gesturing to Vista.
"I'm making it so he cant just run a block that way and come up through another sewer hole." She said distractedly.
"I thought you had to be able to see what you were doing though?" I asked quizzically.
"I made myself an eyehole. See?" She replied, and suddenly the vision in my left I was overtaken by the sight of Alabaster violently struggling against the walls of the hole he was in, which had expanded to trap him in place and stop him from moving or aiming his gun.
I blinked and the vision was gone.
"Damn. You are one scary little girl." I mused aloud.
Both Gallant and Vista sent me weird looks at that, but I ignored them, turning to jog back into the stash house.
'This place better have some cash in it because I suddenly have to fix a whooooole bunch of shit.'I complained to Sophia as I entered, finding the building populated entirely by unconscious mooks.
'There's a safe in the basement full of stuff. Mostly drugs, but some cash too. We waiting for the PRT again?'She asked me. There was a subtle edge to her tone that said she had a preference, and that I had better notice it.
'Nah, better they take credit for this one. No use pissing the Empire off more than we have to.'I replied, making my way to the basement and unlocking the outer chest area of my armor so that Soph could start piling the cash she had found into the storage compartment there.
Things went pretty smoothly after that. By the time we got back outside, Velocity was there, and Vista and Gallant were standing rigidly to one side, probably having just been yelled at for getting involved at all.
The man did an admirable job at trying to both berate and congratulate me and Soph, and looked more than a little distressed at the obvious wound in my side. Like I had with Gallant, I just told him it would be fine and nothing else, before leaving with Sophia.
On the one hand, I'd be willing to bet the Protectorate were probably going to reason out that I could heal myself. There wasn't much I could do about that short of letting myself bleed out, and I still wasn't sure I actually wanted to get involved with New Wave, so a trip to see Panacea wasn't exactly in the cards for me.
Wait, no, Amy hadn't triggered yet. Fuck, I swear I was going to go insane trying to keep track of this shit.
On the other, the take from hitting that stash house should be enough to pay Mr.Laborn for next month, and keep me tinkering for a while yet.
So, overall, not great, but not bad either.
If there was one good thing about this outing, it was that I was finally level three, and that could only mean one thing.
Upgrades.