"No idea if they work, we haven't managed to hit one to find out. Feel free to try them, though hitting Hellhound herself with them might have a better chance of success."

A minute later, half a dozen hostages stumble out the front door.

"Why are they letting them go, is this just how they're communicating their demands or something?"

As the hostages stumble forward, a flood of black smoke emerges from the bank and heads towards the wards.

A furrow streaks out from Lucien, splitting in two to dig a trench in the way of the approaching cloud, providing a moat that begins to fill with the smoke.

"You have a way to see what's going on in there?"

"Through - no, nothing, it's not even letting radar through."

"Nothing for me either," reports Gallant.

In that case there won't be any warning before a gigantic mutant dog comes bounding out of the darkness and over the trench, headed straight towards Lucien.

The nearest robot fires a tranq at it. Lorica steps in front of Lucien.

The tranq doesn't seem to have any effect and a moment later several hundred pounds of angry dog slams into Lorica.

She's braced for it, and certainly holds up better than Lucien would; she aims a kick square at its oncoming nose and hits it with another dose poking out of her knee compartment.

A third doses comes from one of Shadow Stalker's crossbow bolts.

Still, it seems to have enough energy to try and bite into Lorica.

Scale mail screeches under its teeth and holds. She digs a gauntlet into the beast's tongue and rips.

It jerks it's head when she does so, trying to toss her away.

She does actually have flight working; when it tosses her she stops in midair and will either re-engage or not depending on whether Lucien is out of the way or defensively fortified or whatever.

Lucien has backed up but hasn't done anything else to defend himself, he's torn on whether to deal with the property damage of another moat.

Meanwhile, another dog has left the fence with two people on it's back, heading towards Gallant and Shadow Stalker.

"Lucien will you kindly seek cover from the giant dogs." Shadow Stalker can handle herself. Gallant she's less confident about - who's aboard -

There really isn't all that much cover! He can arrange himself behind Clockblocker who the dogs are avoiding.

Aboard the dog is Hellhound and a muscular guy who is now shooting the same black smoke as before at her and her surroundings. 

Lorica does not want to be hit by the smoke stuff! If she can see the guy, though, so can her bots, and so can their tranquilizer dart trajectory calculations.

Muscular guy slumps unconscious - his fog sticking around but at least it's no longer growing.

That's when bugs started pouring out from the smoke, swarms of them heading towards Clockblocker and Lorica.

Well, Lorica herself doesn't need to be scared of bugs, at least not unless they find all her air intakes, forcing them to close, and then she can't clear them out of the vent apertures. What kinds of bugs are we talking about here?

Quite a few sorts - mostly flies and wasps but a few spiders seem to have been carried into the air and dropped on her as well, several of which are now exploring all her vent apertutes.

Lucien attempts to dig a path through the swarm approaching Clockblocker, but they aren't pushed densely enough for his power to have much of any effect. 

Vents close when bugs that are small enough to enter them land, and Lorica pinches them dead between the fingers of her gauntlets when she has a moment of attention to spare.

Who has the money. It's a bank robbery, somebody's got to be carrying the money. If it were her she'd give it to Darkness Guy, who is conveniently unconscious, has he got it?

Nope!

Lucien manages to disengage from the fighting long enough to touch the smoke obscuring the front entrance of the bank, his power parting it to clear a path.

"Gallant, are there more hostages in there?"