LC: Super Scrubs Issue #1

"Don’t try it!" Sable says, as the thing leaps at her! She brings her laser sword up and swings, all the while wincing at the thought of what the bulk of the thing would do if she could dissuade it from attacking!

A drone? That's the best they can do? Psion flicks a shield up to defend himself, dismissing the attack entirely.

He had suffered the combined small arms fire of the soldiers while maintaining his grip on the bus, whose engine flames continued to lick at him. Reaching the end zone, Atrophy barely set down the bus, but had no time to deal with the incoming rocket. But he sure wasn't going to let it blow up the vehicle he so dearly risked himself to protect, even for a test. He moved to stand between the bus and the missile, and braced for the impact of the explosion.

Sable and Arachknight both fight off the quadruped mecha attacking them. The young saber-wielder sizzlingly scores the big cat's armor in several places as she drives it back; the reserved, green-clad heroine knocks the other machine's head off with a powerful blow.

Two cats remain on the prowl... both heavily damaged.

In the air nearby, Psion might cackle as streams of bullets bounce and ricochet off his telekinetic shield, leaving him completely unharmed.

---

At the other end of the base, Atrophy sets the bus down and sees the inbound missile. He races to intercept it with his body, taking the hit -- but he is too slow! The resulting explosion drives the hero back, blowing the bus to pieces and showering the safe zone with flaming robot civilian parts! A dozen of the bots are blasted to bits outright, but another half dozen run silently screaming from the flaming wreckage. Without assistant, they will burn to death!

This is a stupid exercise, he thinks to himself and probably broadcasts across the connection. Real civilians would have been easily forced to stay on the bus.

He again decides on less subtlety, and hurls one mechajaguar at its remaining partner.

"Come now," he sends over the link, unaware that the explosion they all heard was not actually the sound of success. "Let's not let Atrophy win all the acclaim."

Atrophy could feel the disdain for the test rising within him even as he failed to intercept this last rocket. The objective was to escort the bus safely past the finish line, and yet the attack had still followed through, and there were still 'civilians' on fire to rescue.

"Your rules, not mine." He called out to Baker and the rest of the audience who were presumably watching this from their feeds as he began to rise into the air again, once again surveying the various skirmishes he left behind. "You sure you'd prefer all possible enemies utterly destroyed before you end this test?"

"Barnette said it's not a test of powers and capabilities. It's a test of who we are." Atrophy said this through mindspeak, so that the brass couldn't hear it.

Nearby, the webbed-up bus revs its engine and spins it tires, trying to break free of the sticky strands... but the vehicle just rocks and lurches, held fast.

As Arachknight herds one group of robots back onto the webbed-up bus, another group of five machines pause and shutter and spark as some old programming blocks shake free and they return to their original modes of operation...

Eyes red, the five formerly innocent robot civilians glare at Arachknight, Sable, Nocturne and Psion.

"ELIMINATE!" one of them cries robotically.

"ELMINATE!" the other four cry in unison!

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THE TEST: ROUND FOUR

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Behind Atrophy, the six burning robots stumble and keel over silently, eliminated from the scenario -- the scenario that is beginning to anger more than one team member!

With the Mechajags taken out, two groups of enemies remain -- the trio of drones, and a squad of what look like soldiers or troopers occupying buildings near the center of the abandoned base.