Reroll

There's a dozen police cars pulled up in the yard and on the street, with yellow tape around the property.  We can't exactly read it from the ship, but… pretty good odds it's crime scene tape - you know, that “Police Line – Do Not Cross” stuff. I can also see several seemingly identical meat mountains in police uniforms walking around with cameras and suitcases, placing little yellow plastic numbers on things, taking pictures, and putting things in bags.

Betty’s in shock, “They're raiding our house.  Let's go stop them.  I want our house back.”

I raise an eyebrow, “It doesn't have power or water. It's not our house, we were just squatting there because we didn't have any better options.”

Joe looks at me like I'm nuts, “You have a luxury flying spaceship… with an AI pilot.  How do you not have better options?”

Two, actually, but I'm not saying that, “Virtual Intelligence, not Artificial Intelligence; there's a difference… technicalities aside, the ship is new.  We didn't have it yesterday.”

“But they're…” Betty continues.

“Give it a rest,” Ed interrupts, “regardless of how they figured it out, now that they know about it, it's not a safe place to rest anymore.  Besides, we keep all of our gear with us,” Ed smirks, still focused on Betty, “It's not like *YOU* or *I* left anything valuable behind.”

That cools Betty down, and she winks at Ed, “True… nothing *OF MINE* is there.  Oh, by the way, Kenny… is that your car?”

Betty points, and I look: In addition to all the police cars, there's also a flatbed tow truck… and six "police officers” are loading my car onto it.

“Oh it is ON.” I said that out loud, didn't I?

Betty is smirking now, “Let’s go clean those idiots out of our house, then, shall we?”

“Lead the way…” Ed shakes his head as I head to the cargo bay door.

I give some orders, “Ship, please open the bay door, close it when we leave, and open it again when we approach. Stay in place, stay hidden.”

“Acknowledged,” the ship obeys as the doors start to open.  In the meantime, I shift into my animal companion's natural tiger form, and use Create Reality on ‘myself’ for my own pair of leathery wings, letting my current meatsuit go so she can fight on her own. I am fully cognizant of the fact that Starfinder's guns and grenades are far more efficient… I'll use those. My pet can have fun with teeth and claws.

Because they're stealing my car.

Betty summons her bonded mount (she went with a griffon), and we both spam wings all around for everyone that needs them.  Ed casts Air Walk on himself and turns into a thirty foot long bipedal dinosaur with teeth and claws - an Allosaurus; it’s a great Wild Shape form… and Betty makes us all invisible as she hides our magical auras. I, of course,  going into the fight naked and incorporeal.

Joe just stands there in shock as we prepare, “You do realize these are the police, right?”

Betty shakes her head, “They really aren't. They're dressed as cops, yes, but they're a different government agency tasked with hunting down people like us: They deserve a beatdown.”

“So… plan?” Ed asks while Joe just blinks at us.

I shrug, not that anyone can see, “You guys and the valued companions keep the brutes busy, I'll locate the controllers and terminate them.  And remember: Decapitation if they seem to be recovering quickly.”

“Works for me,” Betty quips.

“Sure…” Ed dives down.

Me? I run.

I spare a moment to look at the fight every now and again as I search, just long enough to get a short snapshot and make sure the fight is going OK: My tiger, fluffy, covered in blood; Betty dropping a grenade in a nice ‘Death from above’ moment; Ed swallowing a Guardian’s head; and others.

But I have my own part to play.  Yes, we CAN keep the Guardians down directly. But it's actually rather difficult to remove a head even when the victim is helpless, and the Guardians are both very tough and healing really fast. We heal too, but not nearly as quickly… and the Guardians don't seem equipped to keep us down.

So why aren't there any vans?  This is a big op.  The controllers have to be somewhere.

Wait… why does it have to be vans? They're mostly tech based. Any sufficiently large space will do.  It still needs to be portable, though.  Hmm….

Changing my mental search parameters, I look around… there.

A ‘big rig’ with two trailers… and why would a trailer need antennas?  No markings… and the engine is running, even though it is parked. That'll be it.

I get closer to check; the rear trailer is basically empty, it just has a bunch of bars mounted on the walls and ceiling via supports that connect every two feet… reminds me of the grab bars in busses, really.

The front trailer, though? It's leaded.  I can't see through it, but I can hear eight distinct voices giving various orders… “head to the front,” “shoot at the blurry spot over the roof,” “look UP,” and the like.

My friends won't die, so I take a moment to think.  Okay, so… the cab's engine is running, so they probably have a generator in there.  So… I go to the doors of the “command unit” and use a few shadow points to create a lock keeping them closed. I then go into the cab, and shut down the engine.

Oh, those panicked sounds are sweet music to my ears.

I then make two grenades, and roll them both onto the top of the command trailer, setting them thirty feet apart, watching them explode, sending a zillion little bullets through the roof and walls into the occupants inside.

And then, all is quiet.

I summon my armor and get on the comm with the party's ship, “Ship, how's the battle going?”

“The enemy combatants all just dropped dead,” the ship informs me, “they don't appear to be breathing anymore.”

I smile, acknowledge with, “Thank you,” and go into the wreck to loot it.  There's no time constraints now, after all.

I harvest every corpses’ wallet and phone, dropping them all into Warp Storage. Each also has a detective's badge and a sidearm, which I also loot.  Then there's the Guardian collapsed dead by the outer door, and I take his weapons, wallet, glasses, and badge as well… because while I can fake being a non-caster via the Use Magic Device skill, I can't get around that badge.

Loot in storage, I head back to my ‘family’, and meet them at the house where I see Betty is busy looting the fallen Guardians.  A few of the animals are down and busy regenerating…. I go ahead and speed that up with some healing. Hmm… it might have actually been possible for us to lose this; enough damage to make us unconscious, followed by choking out or capture… that's bad.

We should really fix that.

I chat with Betty, “So how'd it go?”

She cringes slightly, “We were better armed and hard to spot, but outnumbered.  When they did spot one of us, they focused fire, and while most missed… those bullets hurt.  They were winning slowly right up until they dropped dead.”

About what I figured.  “I have some ideas for fixing that… I imagine we'll level up tonight. We'll want to discuss that as a group. Have you seen Ed?”

She crinkles her nose, “I think he went around back?”

I consider, “Let’s go find him.”

We walk around back… well… he's still alive.  He's unconscious… I think being a Huge dinosaur made him easily spotted, and he took a lot of hits.  He's lying in a puddle of his own blood… lots of it.  He's still breathing, though: The Regeneration kept him alive.  I start casting Healing spells until he gets back on his feet.

He looks around, and shifts back to normal, “Oh… not dead.  That's good. Not dead is good.”

I consider, “Yeah… I have some ideas about that… how do you feel about retiring our current characters for far more durable ones tweaked up like mine?”

Betty tilts her head, “I'm not sure I'd want to be invisible full time….”

I giggle… it comes out a bit too girly for my tastes, but oh well, “I'm hardly constantly invisible… and of course, I have a visible body whenever I want.  But that is something that's easy to address," along with the 'always nude' thing.

Ed considers, “Well… your build does seem better than mine right now, but that could just be tactics used….”

Betty giggles, “The distraction is on the pointy end of a fight, but Kenny has better Stealth than the rest of us.”

I nod, “Yes… but I have a lot more flexibility than most. Come on; let's discuss it aboard the ship.  I'll park my car in a hold.”

They both nod, I hop into my animal companion, enable my social form, then hop into my car and fly it up to the ship as they direct their animals to do the same.  We go in, I park my ‘car’ and tie it down (a hold is not a proper garage), and head over to the others to discuss builds while the ship heads into orbit.