LC: Super Scrubs Issue #1

As the building nearby starts to shudder the soldier immeadiatly turns her focus to it, changing her course. Robotic creatures were not quite what she was expecting to come out, but it wasn't the oddest thing she had encountered.

She moves to intercept, throwing a punch at the closest robot, confidant enough in her strength to take out these enemies.

The lead robotic beast, loping towards its target, meets Nocturne head-on!

The lead bus lurches forward then, trying to race past the prowling cats...

It was a thing heroes did, wasn't it? Prioritising the safety of civilians even if their enemies got away or even at great risk to themselves. The thing was that they did so willingly, unthinkingly even. That was the part most alien to Atrophy, unthinkingness. Did he care for them enough to do likewise?

He took off, speeding straight for the bus that had trundled so quickly ahead of all of them. Along the way he zipped near enough to the team to repeat brief instructions: "Nocturne, take care of the jaguars. Arachknight, don't let your bus advance. Sable, northwest, on the slope, don't let that thing get close. I'm going for the runaway bus. Psion, cover me from those drones if they close in."

The second bus has slowed to a near crawl as it waits for the first to make the turn and move off. That makes it an easy target for Arachknight, and when the gliding heroine lands on the roof and then leans over to see who is aboard, she sees that there must be at least fifty occupants in the vehicle's seats. Occupants that appear to be... robots? Labor robots, from the looks of things, that were a few generations old. They might have been from the seventies... maybe the eighties or nineties -- but they looked nothing like the life-like androids that various labs were producing in the 2020s.

Someone has at least taking some care in dressing them up. Their plain, oval faces and skeletal, bare metal bodies are all done up to make them look a little more human. There are wigs, suits, sweater vests, dresses, sandal and black sock combos, backpacks, briefcases, swimwear -- it is a motley collection of artificial people if the spindly-legged super ever saw one.

With that, Atrophy sped off, his cape fluttering aerodynamically for the first time in a while. He had to get to that bus before whatever was on the slope reached it first.

Stopping the bus right when the jaguar-bots are approaching seems like a bad idea, but Atrophy's the boss, so the Arachknight jumps off the bus when it slows down for the turn and webs up the bus' wheels to stop it from moving.

Caping flapping, Atrophy soars overhead as the Arachknight webs up the bus' wheels, bringing the big vehicle to a lurching, shuddering halt. The robot driver mashes the accelerator and works the gear shifter, but the coach's transmission only grinds and slips as the webbing holds. Seconds later, Kai hears a ding from inside the bus as one of the riders pulls the next stop cable. Two side doors suddenly hiss and open -- and the mechanized riders start pouring out onto the road! The eyes of the four monsters jags blaze as they see their primary targets milling around before them....Then, from the trees in the north west, at the bottom of the cliff, the other threat makes its presence known. Looming up from the leaves and boughs and branches is some kind of huge mechanical spider or crab. Massive, armored legs move with an eerie synchronicity as the machine comes to the edge of the base, then levels some sort of long-barreled weapon at the lead bus. An electromagnetic hum fills the air as the weapon charges -- and then fires, rocking the machine backwards as a searing beam lances towards its target.

Too slow and too late to prevent the first attack from hitting the bus! The small mercy was that the vehicle had rumbled to a stop. That made it a sitting duck out in the open, but it allowed Atrophy to finally manoeuvre himself into a position where he would be able to defend the bus against any other weapons aimed at it.

He needed to buy time to move that bus out of the way, and for that he needed to to shut down that mechanical spider. His moniker, Atrophy, came from the fact that he could age things rapidly, just by focussing his concentration on them. Hand outstretched and palm open, he aimed at the tank, attempting to reduce its shiny metal and hydraulic parts into wear and tear and rust, especially the laser.

Atrophy did not hesitate. There was no way he was going to let the spider tank fire off another shot if he could help it. The former villain extended his entropic aura, intending to return the mecha to its orginal state of unformed metal!

The truth was that the frustrating aspect of this entire affair had begun to chafe. Why this absurd test? If JANUS had all these resources to throw at them, they would be better deployed against whatever they were supposed to go up against. Atrophy came with his best behaviour, with restraint, to show he wasn't a villain, that he had left it behind.

But these machines, they were ridiculous. He didn't have to hold back. It had been a long time since he unleashed his full power; around him everything withers and crumbles. Including this one. One inexorable pull of his hand, and the spider tank groaned and creaked as its metal began to buckle, unable to support its own weight. Its chassis began to collapse, its legs splayed. With a crash it flopped onto the cliff face and then started to roll down, but there was no chance for it to become a dangerous object threatening to smash the bus with its momentum. It hit the apron with a resounding slam, and its entire body flew apart into its component parts in a cloud of debris.