Stuart Grosse

System Supervillain, Chapter 188 (Patreon)

Published:

2026-07-30 22:21:50

Imported:

2026-07

Tags:

System Supervillain

Content

This one took a bit longer than expected, but I think it is worth it.

Chapter 188 – Backup

Getting through the stairs was easy, thanks to Web Mistress overriding the door locks. Otherwise, cutting through the blast doors would have been a pain. The place was designed to hold of attacking supers while critical information and personnel were transported off-site, followed by a general evacuation. With the teleporters currently lacking power, however, the doors were just an obstacle that was delaying my inevitable confrontation with the Director.

I thought about taking the stairs all the way down to the bottom, and going straight for the director, but quickly shelved that idea. Leaving live enemies behind me was not smart, especially since the aura effects wouldn’t touch the troopers if I was too far away from them. If I let this get to a long-range fight, then… well, their weapons still probably wouldn’t do anything to me, but giving them enough time to coordinate meant that they might be able to work out the ‘coordinated attacks’ rules in the System, and that would be bad for me. Coordinating attacks was possible, but difficult unless you had training in it, but if you pulled it off you had a higher chance of stunning the target. And stunning me would turn off all my sustained powers, like the auras and my Frost Armor. Which would be even more of a problem.

So, no. I was not going to bypass the troopers and skip to desert. They were going to have to die, so that I could do the job safely and properly.

That said, the hallway I emerged into was not exactly a defensible position. This floor was for offices. Eleven of them, six on one side, five on the other, plus the reception area I was standing in, where both the stairs and the elevators emerged. Three troopers were kneeling behind the receptionist desk, and I could see others in each of the doorways. Creating a nice ‘fatal funnel’, if a normal person tried to attack.

I was not a normal person.

Before the guards could fire, I had moved to the side of the desk away from the hallway, restricting the number of guns on me. Blade flashed, and a trooper fell. Again, this much was like bullying, but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Stopping, in this situation, would only invite death.

There was no point in going through the play by play of the battle, because it was the simple rinse and repeat of move, slash, find the next target. In the first twelve seconds of the fight, six of fifteen were down, and the only issue was how quickly I was blowing through my END. 4 END per attack, and moving at more than half speed cost 2 END per phase. I only had 50 END, and a REC of 12. And taking an ‘active recovery’ would mean turning off my sustained powers, which wasn’t an option.

Another reminder of why I normally did hit-and-run tactics, instead of frontal assaults. I simply did not have the stamina for this kind of brutal continuous action. If these guys had been anyone more powerful, or competent, I would have had to rethink my actions. I was already reconsidering how I wanted to approach the Sentinels. They were an unknown. I did not like fighting unknowns. That tended to—

“GET DOWN!”

I didn’t question Web Mistress when she shouted her warning, I just dived for cover. By some stroke of luck, I ended up diving into one of the offices that wasn’t facing the open area where the Sentinels were. Which is why the purple armored fist the size of a small car didn’t get me when it punched through the wall. The remaining troopers were not so lucky.

“Right. That’s enough for fair play,” I said. Taking a knee with at least one wall between me and the giant death robots, I did two things to change the calculus of this fight. The first was changing my powers.

Frost Armor stayed, because I wasn’t an idiot. I very much enjoyed not getting killed, and more armor was essential for that. So, 24 points of my Variable Power Pool tied up, but that left me 64 to play with.

Brittle Aura became Brittle Blast, upped the Armor drain to 2 1/2 d6, Reduced END 0, Ranged, Continuous, for 75 active points. Restrainable, Cannot Use Targeting, and Beam restrictions dropped it to 30 real cost, so 34 left. The benefit was that I could shoot one of the robots and just leave it, without needing to stay within a set range. Shoot all of them, and then the armor will eventually degrade enough for attacks to do real damage.

Then, I set a Ranged Killing Attack hitting ED that I called Creeping Frost. 2d6 BODY damage, Continuous, Penetrating, Costs END Only to Activate, Cannot Use Targeting, No Knockback, Beam, and Restrainable. 82 Active Points, and 30 Real Cost, leaving 4 points free in my pool. Like Brittle Blast, I could shoot it and forget it. Probably wouldn’t do much, especially with the Sentinels likely being armored up, but it would add up, especially once the Brittle Blast had time to work.

Finally, a simple Ice Slide power, done as Gliding, with 9m of movement, Restrainable and Physical Manifestation, for 9 Active Points and 4 Real Cost, taking up the last of my pool. Because I wasn’t going to take the time to wall-crawl when giant robots were trying to kill me, and if they could punch through walls, I did not want to be trapped in an enclosed area where they knew exactly where I’d be, with no room to maneuver. That was just a fancy way of committing suicide.

That was the first thing I did to change the odds in my favor. It was important to do it first, because the auras I’d had up were indiscriminate, and that was a problem for the second part. After all, no one said I had to do this alone.

“Web Mistress, tell the girls I want them. Stolen Victory, Titania, Pyra, and Foxtrot. You, FX, Serafina, and the others in reserve. I am through playing Mister Nice Villain.”

“He says, having carved through dozens of helpless thugs.”

“They all died quick. That is me being nice. You’re just upset because they were smart enough to try and protect against you.”

“Hmph. The girls are coming.”

The next instant four flashes of light, each a slightly different color depending on the person, appeared around me. This was the Master’s Call power I’d given each of my pets. The ability to teleport to my side, from anywhere within 30k kilometers. Since the Earth had a diameter of only 12742 km, and Low Earth Orbit capped out at 2k km above sea level, that meant I could call them from a space station on one side of the Earth to another space station on the exact opposite side of the planet. An order of magnitude or so too small to bring them to the moon, but I had a space ship for moon stuff, if I really needed to go there.

“Ladies,” I said, smiling at them. Stolen Victory and Pyra were in their costumes. Titania was already in her mechagirl form. And Foxtrot was rubbing against me in her yokai form. All of them ready for action. “We have three giant robots designed to hunt supers, prototypes, from what Web Mistress says. I want them to be failed prototypes Understand me?”

Stolen Victory looked confused. “And you didn’t want to bring Web Mistress in to just take them over? Not that I’m complaining, but I would have thought you’d go for having them shoot each other.”

I shook my head. “I’m sure that there is some kind of encryption on the things, designed to slow down hackers, even ones as advanced as Web Mistress. The more time she spends finding the ‘right’ way to hack these things, the more time they have to waste her. And that’s assuming they haven’t loaded the things up with malware and viruses designed specifically to attack technopaths. It is what I would have done.”

Foxtrot frowned at me. “You really think they’d do something like that?”

“I always assume that I am not the smartest person in the room, Foxtrot. If I can think of a plan, then someone else can think of it, too. Granted, most people aren’t aware of how mundane computer viruses can affect Web Mistress, but they’d still be useful in hindering or even tracking normal hackers who manage to get into those systems. Anyone who assumes that their defenses are perfect is begging to be proven wrong, and these people have already shown that they’ve considered fail states for some of the other defenses on site.”

Pyra grinned. “So, what’s the plan, Master?”

I pulled her down as one of the robots poked its purple head up to the giant hole it had made, and red eye beams blasted through the space where she had been standing moments before, and causing part of the floor to collapse. “Three big-ass robots, five of us. No clue what weaknesses they have. Foxtrot and I will work on debilitating them. I grabbed an Armor drain power, and Foxtrot has her BODY drain power. No clue if that’ll work on them, but it is better than nothing. The rest of you? Hit them as hard as you can. Remember, there’s no people in those hunks of junk, and they don’t discriminate between heroes and villains, so go wild.”

Titania laughed, and said, “This is the first time since the lizard Emperor that we’ve really gotten to go all out. Even when helping you take out planetary governments and set up new Local Administrators, we still had to keep things controlled, because we didn’t want collateral. But there’s no collateral here, and no innocents to get in the way!”

“And you say I never give you anything.” I chuckled, and looked the girls in the eye. They were loose. They were ready. Which meant it was time to party. “Time to kick some robot ass, ladies.”

Turn Order

Segment

Turns

Iceblade, Stolen Victory, Pyra, Titania, Foxtrot, Sentinels

Segment 2:

Iceblade uses CSLs to add +2 to DCV (DCV 12).

Stolen Victory uses CSLs to add +2 to OCV with HTH combat (OCV 15).

Pyra uses CSLs to add +2 to DCV with Ranged combat (DCV 15).

Titania uses CSLs to add +2 to DCV (DCV 12).

Foxtrot uses CSLs to add +2 to DCV and +2 to OCV (OCV 12, DCV 12).

Sentinels use CSLs to add +2 to OCV (OCV 12).

Iceblade’s attack roll (Sentinel 1), OCV 10: 3d6 = 8 (Hits DCV 13) (Hit)

Brittle Blast: 2 1/2 d6 = 11 (11 AP removed from Armor)

Sentinel 1: Armor 79/90 Active Points, 8 rPD/8 rED

Stolen Victory uses Martial Strike (+0 OCV, +2 DCV, +2 DC strike) (DCV 15)

Stolen Victory’s attack roll (Sentinel 2), OCV 15: 3d6 = 11 (Hits DCV 15) (Hit)

Sword of Victory: 5d6-1 = 21 BODY (10 rPD after AP)

Stun Multiplier: Immune to Stun

Stolen Victory: 56/60 END

Sentinel 2: 29/40 BODY

Pyra’s attack roll (Sentinel 1), OCV 13: 3d6 = 6 (Hits DCV 18) (Hit)

Clinging Flames: 3d6-1 = 8 BODY (18 rED) (2 Penetrating)

Pyra: 40/50 END

Sentinel 1: 38/40 BODY

Titania uses Martial Strike (+0 OCV, +2 DCV, +2 DC strike) (DCV 14)

Titania’s attack roll (Sentinel 3), OCV 10: 3d6 = 5 (Hits DCV 16) (Hit)

Mechasaber: 7d6 = 23 BODY (10 rPD after AP)

Titania: 75/80 END

Sentinel 3: 27/40 BODY

Foxtrot’s attack roll (Sentinel 3), OCV 12: 3d6 = 14 (Hits DCV 9) (Hits)

Wounding Touch: 4d6 = 15 (15 AP removed from BODY)

Foxtrot: 59/70 END

Sentinel 3: BODY 65/80 Active Points (32 Max BODY)

Sentinel 3: 19/32 BODY

Sentinel 1’s attack roll (Pyra), OCV 12: 3d6 = 11 (Hits DCV 12) (Miss)

Sentinel 1: 115/120 END

Sentinel 2’s attack roll (Stolen Victory), OCV 12: 3d6 = 13 (Hits DCV 13) (Miss)

Sentinel 2: 111/120 END

Sentinel 3’s attack roll (Titania), OCV 12: 3d6 = 7 (Hits DCV 16) (Hit)

Seismic Punch: 5d6+1 = 16 BODY (25 rPD) (4 Penetrating)

Stun Multiplier: 1d6-1 = 3 (48 STUN) (25 rPD)

Sentinel 3: 111/120 END

Titania: 36/40 BODY

Titania: 47/70 STUN

Knockback Damage: 13d6 = 43 STUN (14 BODY) (35 PD)

Titania: 39/70 STUN

I slid into action as the Ice Slide started carrying me down and around the Sentinel in the middle. Brittle Blast hit home, but an energy shield flared in front of the Sentinel as it passed through. “Energy Shield! It won’t be affected by my armor draining! Looks like it only covers the front half of the thing, though!”

“I’ll hit left flank!” Stolen Victory called out, flying forward. She stabbed at the automaton’s metal head, and her blade cut deep, but not as deeply as it would have if the energy shield hadn’t slowed the attack just a little. “Shields affect melee and ranged!”

Pyra was already launching a ball of what looked like napalm with an attitude problem at the Sentinel I’d hit, striking it in the chest, despite the flames. As she flew up, into the room, she grinned. “Even if the shields and armor keep the flames from doing too much at first, they still cut through!”

Titania’s rocket boosters sent her hurtling towards the third Sentinel, her Mechasaber held overhead. She brought it down in a mighty two-handed chop, connecting with the joint where the robot’s massive head met the shoulders, and the blade cut deep. “They’re tough, but we can take them! Just need to keep them busy long enough for everything to work.”

Foxtrot disappeared in a puff of smoke, and reappeared at the third Sentinel’s foot. She thrust her hand at the creature, and said, “Wither and decay, creature of metal! Wounding Touch!” And the next thing I saw, the Sentinel’s metal seemed to be corroding, though I knew it was only temporary. But if the drain lasted until we killed it, that was all that mattered.

“MULTIPLE TARGET SIGNATURES! ENGAGING MULTI-RESPONSE PROTOCOLS!” The three Sentinels boomed out together, which would have been touching, if the monotone roar wasn’t obviously devoid of actual will or personality.

An eyeblast sailed harmlessly by Pyra, and Stolen Victory made her Sentinel’s punch look like a child playing at war, but the third one managed to catch Titania, who, to be fair, was more used to dodging fists that were, well, fist-sized, instead of car-sized. She flew back, implanting herself in the wall. However, despite the punch, and the impact, she was still conscious.

“Note to group: Giant robot fists pack a punch.”