Exigency: The Old Guard

The civilian model has poor security protocols: within seconds of transmission, the navigation virus has the car rising off the ground and turning to face a randomly selected alleyway. The car will soon get itself lost in the city's labyrinthine streets, hopefully serving as an excellent decoy to frustrate any pursuers.

The traffic in the wider city is negligible, which isn't surprising considering Valon's current circumstances. The cab rarely has to pause or reconsider its path as it expediently follows the simple direction of "flee the scene of the Diamond Cavern".

The party hears a humming sound as the cab slows to take a corner. It's indistinct at first, easily missed. By the time anyone realises they're hearing a plasma cannon charge up it's already too late: a red lance of heat flashes out from a rooftop and wipes away the drone car's bonnet in a wisp of fire and crumpled metal. It falls like a stone, fiery as a meteor and just as hot.

Modern cars have reinforced blast-shielded chambers to house passengers (otherwise having such high-energy engines so close to living humans would be a huge liability). But they can only do so much. The sudden descent and impact rattles bones and wobbles organs, leaving the party disorientated and nauseated.

Hostiles take up positions. More Mercenaries, but these ones are wearing burgundy armour and have pointedly removed their unit numbers. They must be with the coup-plotting rogues you've heard so much about. Three on the allotment, one on the craggy roof of a nearby ruined building, and half-a-dozen armed recon drones in support. Standard Merc practise: let the machines confirm the kill, don't take any unnecessary risks.



Everyone make a VIT check to determine action order. Darghibous can include his +1 bonus to Initiative from his aspects. The elites have an Initiative score of 10: and of course you can go ahead and post your action before I post theirs if you beat that 10 with your own roll.
The building that #4 is standing atop of counts as a hazardous tile: if you fail a DC13 Mobility check when moving into it, it counts double for the purposes of moving and you'll be Slowed, missing a minor action in your next turn.

Yeah, the car counts as heavy cover (+4 to defence and to armour), BUT it has a limited number of HP, i.e., you cannot use it indefinitely.
Albi: if you want to edit your post to include an attack, I'd be happy to let you spend a free Empower on that move (as normal for a critical), which you could use to deduct 1HP from the enemy.

Serana's leap startles the plasma gunner, who clearly didn't expect anyone to close the distance with such ease. She lurches out of the way of Serana's overhead slash, narrowly avoiding bifurcation. She pulls back the slider on her cannon, and it starts to hum as it prepares another charged shot.
The drones are small and agile, but even with their advantage of flight they struggle to evade the living whirlwind that is Wilhelm. Two of the machines are split in half, chunks of plate and circuitboard scattering across the lot.
The other three Mercs don't seem particularly bothered that a jumping cyborg is assaulting their heavy weapons specialist. They calmly level their rifles and pour all their fire at Darghibous, who has only just emerged from the wreckage and hasn't had the chance to take cover.

#4 is down 1 HP thanks to Serana's critical: she's at 5/6 HP. She's preparing another attack, as her heavy plasma can only fire once every other turn.
The drones don't get to act until Darghi and Pudge take their turns.
Darghibous is due to take 5 Hit Points worth of damage! Might've been even more, but the elites don't have a talent rank high enough to deliver more than 2 hits each. Or he could blow an Edge point (on the Shield power) and describe how, miraculously, he somehow finds a way to avoid the attacks.

Darghibous' pistol isn't anything special, but it's still enough to strike the rogue Mercenary's shoulder armour with enough force to sprawl them in the dirt. The man is baffled that Darghibous managed to land a hit: he was barely visible behind the concrete bollard, but Darghibous saw a smidgeon of burgundy plate poking out over the edge and made the shot.

Even though we're flavouring it as being down to the ring you still parted with an Edge point mechanically, so I didn't think you needed to use an action on that.
#2 is down 1HP, 4/5. He's also Exposed, meaning everyone can ignore his cover even though he's currently occupying a tile with it: at least until he spends a move action to shake the status off.

The four remaining drones attempt to catch Wilhelm in an enclosing pincer movement, strafing the ground with photon pulses. It does not go well for them.

The drones just rolled an Exploit! Kenny can narrate exactly how they managed to screw up so bad. This passively grants +2 to-hit and to damage against them or you can spend their Exploit status effect to maximize a dice roll (but doing so won't count as a critical).

The cannoneer aims at Serana and pulls the trigger, only for the weapon to discharge blowtorch-sized flames from its innumerable vents. Serana resolutely fails to be blown in half. Realising her weapon has been hacked, the heavy weapons specialist curses under her breath, deploys a grapple from her harness, and swings to the adjacent building. Or tries to.

She rolled an Exploit! Happening a lot recently. Serana can explain exactly what went wrong and how she took advantage of it.

Serana's ferocious assault startles the gunner, who is forced to discard the unwieldy cannon, drawing and firing a pistol with one smooth movement. Serana keeps advancing, unfazed as the gunshot zips past her, swinging her sword with every step.

The drones bounce off each other, ricocheting wildly out of control. Wilhelm waits for the perfect opportunity and unleashes a barrage of swipes at the drunkenly wobbling mechs. Scintillating, sparking shards of machinery rain down from on high. And at the centre of it all, somehow avoiding the hail of parts, Wilhelm plants the haft of his scythe on the ground and turns to the rogue Mercenaries.

One of them puts his hand to his ear and falls back to cover. There's a nervous crack in his voice. "HQ, this is team 4. Encountering extremely heavy resistance, requesting reinforcements."

The other Merc is made of sterner stuff. He deliberately rushes forward, grenade in hand, preparing to fling it at the still-smoking wreck of the car.



The drones are defeated!
Specialist (#4) takes 3 Hits, 2/6 HP remaining. #2 is still at 4/5 HP, but has spent a move action to shake off the Exposed status Darghibous applied to him.
Pudge can attempt to hack the Merc's communication channel with a minor action and a DC11 Tech+KNO check if he so wishes.
Number 3 stepped up to throw a grenade, and somehow he has ALSO rolled an Exploit. This is getting ridiculous.