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Aiolos smiled, and kept playing. He took a breath, and let out a quick, "Duck!" He didn't want Gambion to get sucked into the tornado, but he really didn't want to hit him with any debris.

The knickknacks were moving now, getting sucked into the growing vortex like a giant vaccum. The zombie's grip on the floor would have to get tighter if they wanted to stay on the ground... Unless that metal was heavier than Aiolos thought.

Jacknife backed away from the tornado, pressing himself against the wall next to the door to the outside. "Worry about yourself, I've got me covered." He yelled over the roaring wind at Aiolos. He raised his left arm and bent it at the elbow, crossing it over his brow to protect him from any stray objects or dust that would try to bash him in the face or eyes.

With his other hand he reached behind his back for a knife. Flicking the ten inch knife with a four inch handle and a six inch blade out from behind his back, he threw it forward. He wasn't expecting a thrown knife to do much damage to a robotic zombie, but he wasn't leaving things up to chance.

That knife was directed by a bunch of telekinetic force. It was aiming to hit the thing with enough of a punch to knock it backwards and into the tornado with the other one. Since the blade was careening forward with more force than most small arms ammunition, that seemed like a decent possibility.

He just hoped he could get it back sometime. It would suck to lose that knife.

Things weren't looking good for the wrecking ball attachment. The zombies would scar the ball, and heavily damage the chain. The LIFTER's CPU decided that there was too much risk flailing a heavy ball around with a damaged chain, thus it jettisoned the arm. The bulky winch attachment fell to the ground and the regular LIFTER arm folded out. So much for that money. Still the lifer would take a few tentative steps back towards Joseph. Protect the master and all that.

"I think Sam and Kael are still out there Allen." Joseph spoke into his wrist, "Same with Ray and company, Bryant just ran off, and I haven't even heard from our other gunner. You command the skies here, do what you can."

Now he could fire his gun, and unleash the marvels of indirect attacking. With another bloop the M79 arced another HE grenade into the zombies. He was trying to maximize the blast radius, but he'd likely lose some of it by aiming too close to the front lines.

About this time his ammo crate fell from the air.

The fall from the Dome's upper reaches had been effectively mitigated. Two hundred feet, instead of being enough to let a man reach their maximum velocity, merely lead to a very uncomfortable landing.

Caesar, at least, made it intact; although considerably confused about where to go and what to do now that he was here. The siege was clearly visible on the way down, and the Ascended Way was not large enough to keep them too distant from it. The noise of the robots-- friend and foe-- would be impossible to not hear.

He was momentarily far too dazed to comment on the situation, instead bending over and focusing entirely on trying to maintain his footing.

"So..." Jacknife said, pressing back against the wind with all his might and holding onto the doorknob with his left hand now to support himself. "What are we going to do about them now?" Then he had an idea. It would not get rid of the zombies, but it might cause enough havoc to be worthwhile.

He yanked the door open and shouted over the wind to Aiolos, "Send them out to the rest of the pack!" It would get the zombies out of the way and the tornado might even wreak some havoc on the zombies outside the mansion. "Then we can hole up in here and have a better chance against their numbers."

He had no idea there was a crate of grenades outside. Those could be useful.

Firstly, the other two crates fell down. With a swift kick and a slam on the nav-wrist the two floating droids emerged from the boxes and synced up to Joseph's commands. They were still cycling through startup procedures thus couldn't fire yet.

Then the three arrivals (As Psycho is on stealth).

"Lah, Ray, New Guy!" Joseph yelled out the minute he spotted them, "Get in the house, fighting them out here in the open is a lost cause! I've got a plan though!"

Quickly the CEO scooped up the box of grenades and looked at the now swarmed LIFTER.

"Sorry big guy, seems you're the time buyer in this case. Looks like I'll have to fix you when we get out of this."

Joseph would make a dash for the front door himself, not closing the door till the other bunch would get in. Despite being reenforced by his fortify command he didn't expect the front door to last long, thus came part two of his brilliant plan. He dropped the box of grenades to the ground and prepared to reload. The M79 snapped open, the spent casing fell out, then he drew another grenade from his bandolier. This one was marked GLU. A snap as he finished loading, then he waited.

Meanwhile outside the LIFTER was making it's last stand. Plates were getting pierced and torn, but the A~E construction was made of tough stuff. It was swinging both arms, closing it's crushing "hands" over zombie heads, and stomping anything that went underfoot. The dogpile was too much though, first a skeleton got into one of the shoulder joints, making one lifting arm fall uselessly to one side. Then the legs took too much damage to even move. It was just the lifter there wailing away on robots with one arm.

Then they got into the chest. An armour plate was removed and it wasn't long until wires and parts were being pulled out en masses. The signal faded from Joseph's nav-wrist. All that was left was a motionless hulk, that the skeletons would swarm over.

Over Joseph's watch, another call would come from Allen.

"Hey, Joe, do you have any idea where our missing people would even be? All I've found is more death and destruction."

((Where'd everyone go?))