Hoods & Capes | IC

[KatSea]

Jethro Carver




Did Murphy's Law have a fucking vendetta against him? What the fuck? No, Carver couldn't have contained a scene properly, watching the clusterfuck go off without a hitch. But, no. These sons of bitches had to fucking stroll into the vicinity and contaminate his goddamn jurisdiction. To say Carver was beyond pissed would be an understatement. Fucking supers are gonna go in and save the day...guess who has to deal with any fucking casualties on their fucking record...us. Not to mention these people are gonna fucking lose their lives because they wanted to see the people who promised to save them...Christ.

Carver's gun was securely in his hand the moment he noticed the security at the front of the stage pull out their suitcase. Without any further though, he found himself approaching the stage, weapon in hand, aiming above the crowd of now horrified folk. Christ, they are gonna stampede themselves if they don't get shot down first...Fucking hell, if now was a time to have Juliet barking orders, it would be now.

With a swift observation of his area, and knowing that there was a very slim probability of startling anyone after the gunshots had already begun, he rose his own weapon and took a shot at the first man he could see. Not quite a headshot (too much paperwork), but he managed to nail him right in the chest, hopefully ripping apart a rib or two in the process. He raised his gun again, only to see the woman he had greeted earlier pummel a row full of gunmen with...someone's frozen arm. Ouch, lady. Not bad. Lowering his gun, for the moment believing the pile of heroes that invaded his senses suddenly had this all under control, he lowered his arm and felt the very distinct buzz of his phone slam against his hip. Fucking A...Jules...

A very distinct, ear shattering crack burst through the air around him, and wide eyed he turned to realize the building beside him had...it's like fucking Oklahoma all together again isn't it...

Watching the Snowflake from earlier pounce off the stage and towards the mayhem was even more of a confusing sight for the officer, watching the woman goddamn limp towards...

She's gonna get herself fucking killed, isn't she...shit. Okay, fuck, Jules...fuck I need you right now Jules, fucking A...

Breath hitching in the back of his throat, he managed to retrieve his phone with one hand and raise his coat hood over his head with the other. "Juliet? Fucking hell are you okay?"

"Jethro! Jesus Christ, it's like fucking ground zero here...I tried to get as many people away from the fray as I could...I'm still working...fuck..." Jethro had never heard Juliet curse this much since she came to his apartment one night, slamming her hands on his chest in sorrow of the capture of her husband. "Location?"

"You see where the building is collapsing? Heading there now, gonna try and evacuate..."

"Carver, okay...Christ...be careful, I'm waiting for instructions to bring in SWAT. I'm gonna try and get as many people down before they come in...Oh Christ Im gonna be sick."

"Hey, Juliet...Get the fuck down. Stay safe. I love you." Carver didn't tend to throw this sentiment around Juliet very openly, but it became engraved into his routine for whenever he suspected possible harm to either himself or her. It was a sort of good luck for the partners, something Juliet started nearly a year ago and had kept both of them safe since. Much to Juliet's protest, Carver's thumb came to slam against the dismiss call, his breath catching in his throat. "God, it's me, I don't talk to you much, but please...Keep Juliet out of fucking trouble while I go and do this absolutely dumbass thing." He mumbled under his breath, readjusting his hood as he ducked behind the stampeding crowd of people.

---

Beast Tamer

God, that felt so much fucking better. Having skimmed his fingertips across the fabric of his uniform, cloaking it in the illusion of his costume, Tamer found solace in having been able to hide himself so easily amongst the horde. Serene? Serene? Where the hell are you at? I can feel you around but I don't exactly know where...Lovely? You alright?

Behind you, lovely. Remaining cloaked for the moment. Finding himself stopped in place by a ginger grasp that looped around his shoulders, a gentle inhale of relief slammed through his lungs.

Lovely, go handle the gunmen, stay down, though. I don't need the good guys trying to shoot at you. Not that they would...but you know how empty headed people can be able those that chose to help them.

Understood. If you need me, you know what to do. I will give you as much of my energy as possible if it comes down to it, Lovely.

Lovely, keep it. Believe me, they are gonna need you a lot more than they need me. I'm going to go try and evacuate what I can...that and it seems to be a villain that needs their fucking ass whooped.

If you die today I will bring you back from the brink and kill you all over again, Jethro Marcus Carver.

Ah, not the full name today lovely. Makes me feel like I am in trouble.

You only will be if you hurt yourself, lovely.

A full claw encased Tamer's hood, leaving him smile behind the mirage of darkness, a familiar wave of peace flooding through his nerves. Before he even had a chance to scold Serene for depositing excess energy into him, he noted the sudden decline in the destruction of the building before him. Fucking hell, did Snow Queen manage to hold her own? Not bad, Elsa. Oh...fuck...okay that's not good.

Seeing her deflate suddenly, seeming to choke on her own spit behind the balaclava, he raced towards her, flinging his arms around her waist and tugging her back several feet, much to her squeak of surprise and dismay.

"Gah!"

"Hey...I mean...I know there's such a thing as extreme sports and shit, but I don't think approaching an exploding building should be considered one...that's how you win yourself a goddamn Darwin award." Tamer greeted cheekily, his grin unbeknownst to the heroine in front of him. She quickly brushed him off, which he respectfully understood, raising his hands in apology before their banter was stalled to a screeching halt.

Ser...serene? The hell? He told her to remain cloaked, and even as she began going through gunman after gunman, horror travelled through him. Serene? What the hell are you doing?

Lovely...you are seeing this??? That' not me....that's not me...

Where the hell are you?

In the next moment, an invisible force thrust a gunman from the stage to the ground beneath him, ripping the rifle from his hands and snapping it damn near in half. Tamer blinked. Good Girl.

 

[Seductress]

Is it normal to hear music even when you're stuck in the darkness?

Calling it music really couldn't fit into Conner's personal definition of the word, however. All he could hear was fairly tasteful, drawn out notes coming from what might have been a harmonica. It was too far away to tell. Conner defined music as an assembly of instruments working together to create various harmonies. That was a debate he's had with Perry plenty of times, but neither of them could truly come to a conclusion that would meet in the middle.

The harmonica was getting closer and closer. Conner felt like he was in some cowboy film, sitting around the fire with Richard Boone and Charles Bronson, playing the harmonica under the stars with only a bottle of whisky and the aforementioned fire to keep the three of them warm. It's weird; while the world had turned pitch black and Conner's body went cold, it felt like he was laying on their camp fire.

Did I land on my back or something?

The world sprang back to life once more, and Conner's brain finally came back to fruition. The harmonica was joined with the energetic styling of some sort of Volbeat rip-off band as Conner soared through the sky. His arms were spread eagle out like a tee. He looked down, seeing that the world below him was nothing but a raging fire, burning bright like a hospital parking garage. Conner let out a big belly laugh, his life officially complete because he could finally fly. No more jumping over large, burning holes for him.

Get up.

Peach? Apple? Cherry? Pumpkin? It didn't matter what flavor, because as Conner looked back up to the sky, and it was a damn near dream come true. They were like a flock of birds...no, an alien fleet commencing an invasion. The sky was nearly completely blanketed in a dark shadow as the freshly baked, flaky pies continued their flight over top of the Con Man.

The smell was almost like walking into a bakery, but it was dedicated to only pie. The entire world would have been dropping their weapons and hugging each other as the pies flew over top of them. It's funny; just thirty seconds ago the forces of the world were shooting at each other and massacring everyone who wasn't them. Now that the pie was bringing them back together, everyone fell in love with each other. The pie was the key to world peace, and Conner finally realized that.

The shadow lightened up at the pies descended ever so slightly to surround Conner with their loving aroma. He felt one nudge against his hand, which caused his smile to burn bright. Conner realized something; the pies weren't flying around randomly. They were leading him somewhere. Was there going to be a fight? Did he have to crack some skulls? What was going on here?

What is the biggest pie you've ever seen? Would a pie the size of a dump truck be considered the biggest pie ever? Compared to a pie the size of a sky scraper, or a football field, it probably wouldn't be considered the biggest. Either way, the pies were leading Conner toward the biggest fuckin' pie he had ever seen. It was probably the size of a dump truck, so, yeah, it was by far the biggest he had ever seen in his life. It was just floating there, hanging out like some sort of space station in the air.

There was someone standing on the pie.

No, it looked like it was two someones...somebodies...Some people? Fuck it, you get the point.

Conner could recognize that hair anywhere; fading ember red with brunette showing through the roots. That baby faced jaw structure that looked like genetics were half way through chiseling but stopped half way through to leave a smooth, baby like face. The hourglass figure with legs that could go on for days. The thing that made Conner realize it was exactly who he thought it was; the bright smile she delivered to Conner as his own smile lit up.

Who was the second person? Wait, where did she go?

The Con Man had to do a double take as he realized the second person was standing beside the first, holding her hand. She was no older than seven years old. I guess she would be ten by now, considering Conner hadn't seen her in three years. She had her mother's brunette hair, and her father's hazel eyes. As she gave Conner a smile, he could see that almost all of her baby teeth had fallen out, and were replacing themselves with adult teeth.

As his feet touched the top of the pastry, he could feel his feet wanting to sink into the surface. He tried to take a step forward; that was his downfall. His feet sank into the pie, the filling burning his legs like magma. He tried to reach out for the two women, but they were just barely out of his reach. Why were they just standing there, smiling? They should be trying to help him. As he looked down, he saw that he was already knee deep.

It started off one by one, and then after about five seconds it turned into two by two, until it was happening to all of them. The pies began to implode on themselves, turning into sparkling stars as the sky began to turn red. As the pie consumed Conner to his hips, the red hair woman finally spoke.

"Conner, you know what you have to do. So go do it, you'll be with us soon."

As soon as she finished speaking, the fire appeared from behind the two of them and pulled the women into it's raging embrace.

Please. Get up!

Hoods & Capes

The Team Has Assembled​

The Night Watcher's eyes burst open in time to see Finn's blade plummeting toward him. Quickly, Conner rolled himself over so that his back was pressed against the stage and he allowed Finn to land on the ground beside him, his sword sinking into the ground. The Night Watcher brought his knee up and cracked it against the sword, breaking it in half. Quickly, he jumped up to his feet.

Before Finn had a chance to react, The Night Watcher stepped to the side and pressed his hand against the back of Finn's head, slamming it down against the stage, before standing Finn upright once more and grabbing him by the neck. With ease, he threw the man back up on top of the stage. Like a highly coordinated cat Finn landed on his feet. but not before The Night Watcher found his way beside him.

It was almost as if all of the Watcher's thoughts had connected themselves, like dots. His mind always felt like a hive of bees, buzzing around in different directions. Right now, when he truly needed to focus, those bees were finally working with him as opposed to working against him (for once).

The startled Finn attempted to throw a straight jab at him, but he swerved out of the way and gave Finn a solid karate chop to the side, before hitting him with an open palm strike to the head. Even though Finn had to collect himself, he still tried to throw another punch, but it didn't stick as The Night Watcher knocked him down to his back with a roundhouse kick to the side of the head. Now he had time to actually access the situation. The elephant in the room was the building across the street that was currently blowing up.

[FONT=Marcellus, serif]The Night Watcher realized how lucky he was to be on the good side. His little make shift team was incredible, everything from the way Snowfall made him break character and chuckle when she cursed at his "bamboozled" comment, all the way to how fast Transfer acted. As soon as shit started hitting the fan, Pearson was getting ready to bring Mr.Kringle out of retirement. The whole commotion brought him back to the days where he'd grab his villains by the throat and utter a one liner before knocking their lights out. Through the years, after many broken noses and battered bruises, the hero work began to take it's toll on his poor, old body. Retirement happened for a reason, and Pearson wasn't ready to make his body go through even more pain.

The sense of responsibility had left Pearson for a split second. As soon as the secret service turned their guns toward them, he was ready to pounce. Pearson didn't even get to finish cracking his knuckles before Transfer had put a plan into action. He eagerly listened to what Transfer said, and then dramatically dropped to his back in his best attempt to play possum. Honestly, Joe didn't really feel the sense of urgency everyone else had. Mr.Kringle had literally defused a nuclear bomb in the middle of the white house once, so a little attack like this didn't really make him worry. There was always that sense of "what if they can't stop the bad guys", but between the heroes who gathered on the stage, the supers who were starting to gather around like Tamer and Sunspot, and Perry's unit, he knew there wasn't a whole lot to worry about.

Seeing the supers running around and stressing out almost made him want to crack a smile. Pearson had to remind himself that dead people don't smile, no matter how familiar the situation was to them. In order to be a dead man, you gotta think like a dead man.

The Night Watcher's attention turned toward the explosion, where Snowfall was attempting to take care of business. That's the same building that Anarchy nearly fell off of; she jostled toward the edge of the roof, but managed to grab a firm hold of the side and flip herself back up on. She had to take a second to admire the fact that all of those exercises and work outs had improved her upper body strength greatly, despite all of the hoagies she constantly ate. All of a sudden the kid she was harassing earlier was gone; she couldn't find him.

There was more noise being added to the shit show that was happening. As per usual, an attack such as this was going to be broadcast across all mainstream media and emergency news outlets. Coming in from the North, South East and West came four news helicopters, barreling through the air to try and catch the best shots of the action going on around them. Anarchy was still unaware of Bomber Dude's full powers, still trying to understand to what extent he could make shit blow up at. Tossing what was left of her staff to the side, she brought her hands up to try and signal to the them. She needed to get those helicopters as far away from here as possible.

In the blink of an eye, Conspiracy was off the building and in Synergizer's hands. "Whatever you do," She said as she looked down toward the ground. "Make sure you stick the landing." Once he let her out of his hands, she fumbled through her pockets looking for her smoke pellets. This is the farthest from what I signed up for. I gotta get out of here. Though, all she could hear was Conner's voice shouting about how lady justice would be ashamed of her, and how she should be cracking skulls like the rest of them. Why could she hear his voice in her head? Only god knew the answer to that question. But maybe for once, he was right.

"I got your back." She called to Anselle as she raised he fists, getting ready to back his attack up. Before the colourful hero could reach the terrorist, Bomber Man raised both of his hands up toward one of the helicopters, letting out a burly scream as the chopper's tail combusted into a rather large trail of flames. She watched in near shock as it started to spiral out of control, heading toward where Snowfall and her friend, Tamer (?) were standing. The woman knew she couldn't do much to stop the crash, but she was certain of the fact that she could help the people inside. Or, at least, die trying.

Making a sprint for a pickup truck that had been abandoned fairly close to them, she jumped up on the hood and launched herself up in the air, grabbing on to a traffic light that jutted outward. She built up momentum by swinging back and forth a few times, and then launched herself up in the air. The world around her slowed to a near halt, as the beautiful opening to R.Kelly's R&B hit classic I Believe I Can Fly echoed through her ears. The wind of the autumn air blasted against her cheeks, but she didn't care about that. She always believed she could fly, and now she was. Without interruption or anything bad happening to her, she used that precision of blind, dumb luck to enter the chopper through the side window where the camera man usually video taped from.

The pilot had already taken off his seat belt and was attempting to bail from the falling wreckage, but not before this strange, leather clad blonde blur grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him out of the other side of the helicopter, her arm wrapped around the camera man. She didn't land in some picture perfect power pose, but she did manage to land on top of a random uniformed police officer, who started screaming and cursing as soon as he realized what had happened.

The large news chopper hit the ground and actually bounced, spinning before completely blowing up in mid air and hitting the ground in a blazing fury. Conspiracy noticed that Anselle had managed to hit Bomber Man with a few concrete dart things, which gave her an idea. As the buffed out bad guy screamed out in anger, he reached both arms back, an aura of translucent kinetic energy forming around his hands. As he brought his hands back in front of him, it was obvious that something was about to blow up.

Conspiracy popped up out of no where, wrapping her legs around his hands like hand cuffs. She pulled herself into a handstand, attempting to pull him to the ground. Those muscles must have weighed quite a bit, because he wouldn't budge.

Since everything else seemed like it was under control (or at least, as under control as an attack such as this could be) Conner turned back toward Finn. He had to come up with a strategy. As Finn made his way toward The Night Watcher, he realized that his new found focus was just another asset in his arsenal of attacks. Thinking quickly, he intercepted Finn's next punch with a low kick to the side of his knee, following up with a punch to the ribs.

Finn brought his elbow down against Conner's shoulder, and then followed that up with a good ole "one-two-combo" to try and get The Night Watcher back to his brain damaged, disoriented self. The two of them landed punches that had extreme aggression and passion behind

them. It was almost as if they had a score to settle; this wasn't just some paramilitary operation. It was personal. Putting his high school wrestling knowledge to good use, The Night Watcher managed to get beside the finned moron, wrapping both of his hands around his leg, and finishing the single leg take down by tossing him down to the ground.

As Finn landed, he noticed that he hit the ground right beside a strange box that couldn't be any smaller than five feet high. As he landed beside it, it shuffled itself away from him a few steps. There were eye holes cut into it. Before Finn could investigate it, he watched as it tipped backward, and was followed by strange scratching sounds, and frantic breathing.

"Alright Finn, I know it's been a while," Conner called out as he grabbed the microphone from the podium, wrapping part of the cord around his hand. "But I'd say we should probably wrap this one up." As Finn shot up to try and avoid the attack, Conner launched the microphone toward him. Just like a tether ball, it wrapped around his neck until it had a tight grip around him, allowing The Night Watcher to pull him over in his direction. [/FONT]

As soon as the first blast had hit, both Wayne and Perry found their way behind the nearest car parked off to the side. Wayne poked his head around the corner to assess the threat, as Perry fished through the pocket of his coat to find his cell phone. "This isn't the time to send out a tweet." Wayne called over his shoulder as he flicked off the safety on his Beretta.

With nothing more than the gesture of his middle finger, Perry hit speed dial on Jules' number and held his phone up to his ear. He didn't have time to quip right now; this was exactly what he had planned ahead for. "Jules," Perry barked into his phone as soon as he was patched through to her. "I need you to get down to first and grand and make sure that S.W.A.T. team has a clear path into the shit show. I'm going to try and keep the shooters secluded to the stage, so I need you and the team to cut them off and pin them down before they can open fire on everyone else."

"Alright, you ready to move?"

Wayne pulled his McDonalds cup up to his lips, but dropped it in a frustrated motion as a bullet tore through it. As the liquid inside poured like a waterfall, Wayne was already moving into the fray. He was like Steven Seagal coming out of retirement from some special forces to avenge the death of his wife, or whatever loved one was killed in that specific film. He threw all protocol out of the window; standing up straight, his gun arm extended out in front of him as he fired off rounds.

The best thing either of them could do was make it to the stage. With hordes of people running and screaming, cars abandoned on the side of the road, neither Perry or Wayne had the best positions for firing. As Perry tried to blend in with the crowd, keeping his weapon down at his side, he felt the wind that a helicopter would cause. He looked up, seeing a second gunship coming in hot. A new handful of men rappelled into the middle of the crowd, and then the ship moved to hover in front of the stage, sending the rest of the men as backup jumping directly on to the stage.

If Perry had learned anything about direct confrontation with supers and terrorists (a combination he had respectfully deemed super-terrorists) is that, in order to properly intercept them, he needed to identify their goal. To an outsider the goal would be quite obvious; there is a collection of the highest ranked political figures collected. For someone like Perry and anyone who works under his unit, they would know to figure out what the don't know. Was it an assassination? A kidnapping? Who exactly was the main target? Secondary target? Is there a secondary objective? Who or what was it?

Reinforcements had dropped in the crowd; distraction? The first line of offense started in front of the stage, turning their guns on the president and the supers; possible target-Taffer. Three villains; Big Bad Bomber Guy, the dime store Green Goblin, and Finn. Target one was across the street creating chaos opposite to the stage; boxing the heroes and civilians in to establish the fighting grounds? It was obvious that Finn would be targeting someone specific - if his target was someone political he wouldn't be fighting with The Night Watcher. What was Sound Waves' job supposed to be?

Through Sound Waves' helmet, he could hear the pilot's voice ringing through his ears. Secondary assault team, activate objective 2.0. Sound Wave turned his attention to the side of the stage what the reinforcements were loading out of the gunship. This was his chance to show the boss that he wasn't just some B grade villain like everyone kept treating him like. They recruited him from New York, so he never really had a chance to show what he could do in the big leagues yet.

Holding his arms out toward Nellie, he could feel the tingling sensation of his genetics working. As it built up, he could feel the "tumor" in his vocal chords warming up, before sending the shrieking shock wave of sound through his bones and out through his gauntlets. The large sound wave would have blasted toward Iron Head, before he jumped up into the air, bringing his right hand toward the ground to send off another sound wave that caused him to do a flip further into the air.

The villain landed a few steps away from Iron Head, raising his gauntlet directly toward her. Even though he felt the buzz of his powers working to power up, the blast never hit Nellie. Perry appeared, seemingly out of no where, and grabbed a hold of Shock Waves' arm. He pulled the arm away from Nellie, and accidentally caused The Night Watcher to get shock waved off the stage and into a near by building. The detective rested his hands on the back of his head in surprise as he looked over at Sound Wave, who was looking at Perry with just as much surprise.

With their moment of "holy fuck, that was cool" out of the way, Perry had to get back down to business. Turning around, Perry gave Sound Wave a punch that rang through his body, sending him stumbling backward toward Iron Head. Giving Nellie a quick thumbs up to make sure she could handle him, Perry turned his attention toward the team of gunmen who were swarming the stage. That S.W.A.T. van should be getting there any second now.

With Pearson playing dead thanks to Transfer's smart thinking, Perry could rule out that Pearson was the target. Before he could realize it, Chore was being pulled out from the wing of the stage, his hands in cuffs behind him. Taffer was in the same situation; handcuffed and being pulled toward the ship. Anarchy noticed, and that was all Perry had to see.

Getting a running start, the purple crayon dropped to her knees and let her momentum carry her into the collection of men escorting the political figures. As she got in the middle of the group, she leaned backwards and posted her hands down beside her head, flipping herself back up to her feet. Not many people could pull off a move like that in heels, which caused Anarchy's ego to boost itself even further. She reached behind her cape, pulling the two batons she had hidden behind her.

[FONT=Marcellus, serif]Anarchy was directly beside two men; one of them she used her mind to disarm, throwing the gun off into the distance before wrapping her arm around his head and slamming him to the ground. Quickly she spun around, slamming one baton into the next guy's head and finishing him off with a swift kick to the family jewels. She tossed her baton up in the air before extending her arm out, sending it flying into the dome of the gunman who held Taffer's cuffs. Unfortunately, she got surrounded before she could free Chore, and he was escorted on to the gunship. The ship took off, circling around the scene for some strange reason. That was enough to tell Perry that there was another step to their attack. He just couldn't exactly figure it out.

Perry looked up to the ship, attempting to identify any movements that could give away what they were attempting to do next. There was a sharp, burning pain in his hip. As Perry looked down, he saw blood pouring from a small hole where he felt the pain. "Well...Fuck. I'm getting too old for this shi-" He couldn't finish his words before the next bullet tore through his shoulder, sending him plummeting off the stage and down to the ground below.

Being boxed in by a handful of bad guys was exactly what Anarchy lived for. With one baton left, and two throwing knives tucked into her boot, she was ready. The first attacker lunged toward her, which she easily deflected by closing her eyes, and picturing a large hand appearing behind him to slam him against the stage. The biggest thing about using her telekinesis is that she had to picture everything; her imagination was a big part of her powers. With the man brought down, she quickly kicked him in the chin before spinning around to crack her baton against the next man who lunged at her. She dug it into the stomach of the next, and tossed him over her shoulder. Sweat started to bead down her chest, but she was far from getting tired.

The emotional response Conner gave when he saw that weird, finned samurai guy was strange. This was the same man who helped her find her kidnapped brother and took a bullet for her. If there was something so significant that it caused Conner Lockheart of all people to go speechless, then she figured he would have told her.

Whoever it was, he wasn't using The Night Watcher's recent vacation into the deli across the street as a reason to stop his attack. It seemed that Finn had his sights on Nellie now, and he had rallied his troops to start their assault on her - despite the fact that Sound Wave was already occupying her time. The last thing Iron Head needed was to get caught with her back turned, so it was time for Anarchy to step up to the plate.

"I don't know where you think you're going," Anarchy called out as she stepped between Finn and Iron Head, cutting his path off. "But it's never polite to interrupt a woman when she's already delivering an ass whooping."

Finn didn't need to say anything; Anarchy was the last person he wanted to deal with. He was pretty much forced to handle her as two of his men fell to the ground with knives sticking out of their chest. She proved to truly be a pain in the ass; Finn blinked and Anarchy was in his face, her heel flying toward him. He grabbed a hold of her ankle, and slammed his palm into her stomach as he threw her to the side. He pulled his second sword out as a security measure, and scanned his eyes up and down, his gaze focused on Iron Head. There had to have been some way to shut that suit down.

The focus Finn had built up broke as Anarchy came from behind him, grasping him by the shoulders and pulling him backward. She was going to karate chop him in the throat or something, but he managed to swing his legs up and into a rolling flip, landing behind her. Anarchy just barely managed to move her head in time to dodge his elbow, instinctively slamming her heel against his foot. The heel of her shoe snapped off due to the shank of steel that protected his feet. Now that really pissed her off. She charged at him, but he extended his arm and smothered her forehead with his hand, holding her at a distance.

"I'm getting tired of being here. Boys, get that tin can, and let's get the fuck out of here."

 

[Ragamoofin]

Synergizer | Location: Press Conference (ground) Interactions: Conspiracy, Bomber Man, Snowfall, Beast Tamer, NPC civilians. | Status: Bilocated

Synergizer felt the air begin to vibrate; it traveled through his armor, sinking into the boy surrounded by the strange metal. His helm snapped to the sky when his other senses caught up with the chaos, eyes going wide under his face shield at the helicopters that were beginning to circle the area. The news, Anselle reasoned, recognizing the symbols on the sides of them as ones he saw nearly every night. Of course, why wouldn't they be here? It seemed like an unnecessary risk, but Anselle couldn't remember a conflict involving supes that wasn't a televised event.

Anselle felt the vibrations flow through him again, armor shifting subtly over his flesh when those waves erupted in an explosion, high in the sky - oh, no.

Synergizer watched the helicopter's tail burst into flames, it's plummet was a terrifying, paralyzing thing to watch - Anselle froze, Synergizer locked in place. He had to act, he had to move - Conspiracy was a blur past him, Synergizer watching her jump into the fray, literally, and land on an unsuspecting officer. Synergizer was left blinking at the strange sight, even the helicopter crash wasn't enough to stir him out of his reverie. "Whoa, what the-"

Crack.

Synergizer jumped, turning back towards Bomber Man, hands already engulfed in his fervent aura - but the shirtless, injured man wasn't the cause of the awful noise. No, that was the building he'd effortlessly destroyed, crumbling under its distablized weight quickly, a landslide of glass and concrete and- ice? Glassy, growing quickly, but still failing to support it completely. Wait...ice!

"It's gotta be her!" Snowfall, she was the only super Anselle knew that could've, would've done that. The building, it had to have people left inside, and she was trying to save them. Trying, at least, but her ice wasn't strong enough, but it just needed to hold so whoever was still inside could make it out. Synergizer's head snapped around on his shoulders, trying to spot the woman, his heart jumping into his throat when all he could see was the fiery wreckage of the - thankfully - empty helicopter. She had to be nearby if she'd been able to conjure ice onto the building, she had to be.

[Anselle...!] ​

Anselle's neck almost hurt with how fast Syn made his neck turn back to the Bomber Man, Synergizer's flaming hands coming up to shield his face from the impending explosion the man was obviously charging up, Anselle could practically see the veins race across his bare pecs as a visible aura appeared around his absolutely jacked arms.

Okay, that was enough ogling the murderous terrorist.

Eyes closed and body tensed for the explosion he was half-expecting to outright blow him to kingdom come, Synergizer's senses didn't detect another for a few seconds. Anselle slowly opened his eyes, going as big as saucers when he saw how Conspiracy had Bomber Man in a very...effective position. Well, she was certainly flexible, but evidently not strong enough to get the man off his feet. She needed help.

The building needed securing.

They needed Snowfall.

Synergizer took a rushing step towards Conspiracy and her distracted baddie, his other foot went towards the flaming helicopter; Synergizer's voice came out warped, split between two different voices.

"I gotta find her!"

"We have to help her!"​

They couldn't do both- but they couldn't leave either of them on their own. Synergizer took another wide step, feet still going in two different directions, even his arms began to reach out, stretching and straining against himself. Again, his distorted voice came from his helm.

"She's going to be blow to pieces!"

"They're gonna be buried alive!" ​

It was a vicious struggle, the armor seemed to warp under the stress, but it didn't stop the hero from pulling against himself - even when an audible crack came from his armor; a jagged split that ran down his helm, violet light spilling like sunlight from the gash, only exacerbated by the internal tug-of-war Synergizer was experiencing. Harder, one half of the hero pulled from the other, hands reaching towards Conspiracy and Bomber Man, the other towards the site of the crash. The crack spread, reaching down to his hips on this go. Synergizer pulled again, looking ready to break in half.

Then he did.

It came with a burst of light, but the most eagle-eyed of witnesses would've actually seen the hero snap in two. The light transcended the typical hue of the hero's aura, burning white hot like a bomb had gone off where he once stood. Like always, the light returned to the hero...only this time, it was divided. Fuschia broke away from lavender, two distinct figures forming from the blinding colors, breaking away from each other with a final release of light.

The force of the split was enough to send the bodies reeling away from each other, pushing each of them closer to their desired location, and in turn, that left Synergizer looking back at...Synergizer.

Synergizer stared.

So did Synergizer.

"What the-"

"-fuck?!" ​

Anselle looked down at his hands, thinly armored and flexing of his own accord. "Oh, God, what's-" Anselle's eyes blinked behind his new visor - where did that come from? - seeing the world in a rosy hue, but most importantly, he saw Synergizer staring down at him. "-happening!?" Anselle ended up screaming, though the chaos of their surroundings made his outburst look small compared to the rain of gunfire that came not a few dozen feet from where they were standing.

The two were starkly different from each other; one was as tall as Synergizer usually stood, appearance unchanged, the other...not so much. Anselle's visor was an iridescent pink, shielding his identity down to his lips. Just how the visor was on him was a question all it's own, it seemed to blend into Anselle's hair, which had become loose around him, nearly like a sheet that dipped to his waist with how it'd kept together by a visible sheen of his aura. From the shoulders down, Anselle's armor was tight to his body, light enough to keep his mobility, his joints unarmored but covered by a flexible rosy material that shone in the light.

To put it plainly, there was a big, purple Synergizer and a much smaller, pink one. Was that confusing? Yes. But life went on, and the gunfire did, too.

Synergizer's helm shook, and it was a stiff, inhuman movement, like they were unused to not having someone within the armor. "I'm...I'm not sure." Synergizer turned on their heels, facing towards Conspiracy and her trapped villain. "It seems we've been met with a unique opportunity," Synergizer uttered before their aura flared around them, a royal purple that soaked into their armor, bursting from the gaps like plumes of flame. "Best not waste it." With that, Synergizer was gone in a burst of speed, the resulting wake of force leaving Anselle covering his face with his arms, eyes closed and teeth gritting at the sensation of pulverized concrete hitting his visor.

Synergizer drew closer to Bomber Man with every second, their speed bordering on superhuman, nothing more than a fiery armor charging towards the living blast zone with every intention of ending his explosion spree. As they ran, Synergizer's upper half dropped low, hands close enough to the ground to drag through it, their light transforming the ground as their fingers tore through it like tissue.

Molding, warping to make bulky, blunt gauntlets around their arms, Synergizer was a mere breath away from Bomber Man when they clasped their gargantuan hands together, swinging up under Bomber Man's chin with everything they had.

Anselle had since taken off running into the crowd, all the while trying to figure out just what the fuck was going on. Where were all these people with guns coming from? What kind of plane was that, it looked like something out of...Halo, or something - he didn't play a lot of games and knew shit about the military, sue him.

Someone had came in from the sky in a ball of light, but she immediately got to work on the gunmen, so Anselle hoped she was on their side. Anselle just barely caught the sight of someone going soaring away from the stage, making a horribly loud crash into a building, wincing at the sight and the audible boom that came from the perpetrator's odd gauntlets. Another villain? Just their luck.

The stage was under siege, more of the gun-toting people dropping in and making things way more difficult and confusing than they had to be. "Oh, God, why couldn't this just be a normal day?" Would that had been so much to ask for? Apparently so.

Anselle gulped at the sight of people fleeing, shoving against each other, taking one look at him and veering around him like he was some sort of plague; He was almost thankful, it let him make a beeline through the chaos, and he needed to find Snowfall as quickly as possible.

He wasn't prepared for the bodies lying too still on the ground, some barely breathing, some...he couldn't look too long, his stomach had already begun to turn. Blood littered the ground, splashes everywhere he looked, pooling around bodies, staining clothes, the concrete, the firelight of the crash bathing the area in a lurid glow. Anselle swallowed hard, tasting bile at the back of his throat, slowing his run to observe the bodies more closely, as much as everything in him told him to run.

He couldn't leave them.

He wouldn't.

He had to do something.

Anselle reached for one of the bodies, the closest to him - a woman lying too still, her blue eyes going dull, facing the sky but not truly seeing; shock, Anselle recognized, her hand was still clutching the bleeding wound over her stomach, a deathly slow draw of breath over her lips. Anselle closed his eyes, held over her hand with his, and hoped. "Please, please, please-" Anselle begged, unable to fight the prickle of tears that swelled and spilled over his cheeks, not seeing but certainly feeling his power surge forward, heat filling his veins as he channeled it into the woman.

It was a terrifying split instance of nothing, and then, she gasped. It was a desperate, startled noise that surprised even Anselle, but not enough for him to take his hand away from her stomach. Anselle's eyes snapped opening, staring over the woman's face as light returned to her eyes, flashing the color of his healing aura before they returned to blue - they went to him, getting bigger as her mouth fell open. "I-I'm-" She began, Anselle cutting her off by taking her by the wrist, tugging her to her feet.

"Yes, you are!" Anselle shoved the woman away, urging her to run. "Get out of here!" Anselle ordered, the woman still clutching her stomach, only in disbelief at the lack of pain there.

She shook her head, looking around herself, feeling her back, hands coming back soaked in blood, but painlessly. "You saved me?" Her voice was still faroff, the shock likely still lingering, Anselle could imagine it was disorienting coming back from the brink of death.

"Yes! Now, go!" Anselle yelled again, the woman blinking a second longer before she went into a hobbling walk, then began to run in earnest, catching up with the fleeing crowd. Anselle watched her run off, as if to convince himself that she was really there, that he'd...saved her. But there were more, so many more. So, he ran, keeping his eyes peeled to the ground, watching for signs of movements. It didn't matter how small, if they moved, he would be there - he would try.

Light filled his veins, and he would let that light travel through the wounded, watching the light return to their eyes, beg them to get up and run. And they would, one after another, the citizens that were lying flat were up, running with the ground.

"Get up!" Anselle had lost count of how many times he'd said that, but he meant it everytime. His hands went on the latest of the discovered bodies, his brown eyes open, but his chest had yet to move. Anselle waited, hot tears still running down his face, eyes huge and hoping.

He didn't move.

Anselle's breath broke through his teeth with a hiss, but his hand didn't leave them, he tried again. The pulse of his aura ran down his own in a visible flood of energy, transfering into the body - and coming back to him immediately. Anselle's hand fell from the man's chest, a brutal sob on his lips. "I'm sorry," Anselle whispered, voice coming out broken, tears falling past the reach of his visor, lips trembling on the words. "I'm so fucking sorry." Anselle stood upright and ran, his eyes on the wreckage.

Snowfall. He had to find her, they had to end this before anyone else got killed.

Anselle stared into the wild flames of the helicopter, its fuel tank making sure it kept burning high. Anselle leapt into the chaos, jumping over the helicopter and closing his eyes, his aura expanding far enough to surround the ruined helicopter. Anselle imagined the flames rising higher, oxygen consumed faster, growing wild and hotter around him. Anselle didn't feel the flames, not really. He felt the heat, felt it soak into him, drawn into his body harmlessly. Anselle felt the process, his body transforming the fire, the heat into something else, something that Anselle could fill charging him up - that strange reserve of power that every last one of his cells drank in, kept down to the cellular level.

The helicopter's extraordinary flames were extinguished by the time Anselle landed on the other side of the helicopter, his aura shrinking back to his body. Anselle's head snapped up, eyes growing wide behind his visor at the sight of two heroes: Snowfall and-

"Tamer?!" Anselle's voice rose into an incredulous tone, staring at the hooded man. "What are you doing here?!" It wasn't safe, for anyone, especially not Carver. Anselle didn't see Serene anywhere, she might've been cloaked, or just out of sight, he wasn't sure but she wasn't with Tamer. That made him vulnerable, just like anyone else caught in the crossfire. "Whatever, it doesn't matter-" He didn't have time to put too much thought into it, not when Snowfall was right there. "I need you!"

Anselle dashed to clear what little space separated him from his long awaited target, hand outstretched, aura blooming to life at his fingertips. "Freeze the building, freeze the building, freeze the building!" It was a panicked, hastily uttered mantra that preceded Anselle placing his hand on Snowfall's arm, every ounce, every iota of power he had stored away in his cells rushing out of him. Anselle's eyes closed from the rush, feeling lightheaded when the energy flowed out of him and into Snowfall.

Anselle staggered back, his aura dipping back down into his skin, mouth working around a dizzied groan. "Whoa, I think that was-" Anselle's balance lost him, falling flat on his backside, a harsh breath leaving him. "A little too much."

 

[Mobley Eats]

Nellie King "Iron Head" | Interactions: Sound Wave & Finn's Men | Location: Conference (Stage)

​

"Oh, fuck." Iron Head predicted the sound wave coming, but that didn't help her in the slightest when it came to dodging. The ripples were just centimeters away when she hissed out between gritted teeth, "My life!" An earthquake, that was the best way she could describe the vibrations wreaking havoc through her body as she took the impact straight to her chest. The metal clad avenger was sent sprawling on her back, hitting the stage so hard that wood creaked underneath her. Jesus Christ. Even if her nerves were numbed, feeling them quake like that was far from pleasant. Iron Head cracked her eyes open just in time to see Sound Wave land, significantly closer now, and raising his gauntlets to unleash another blast.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!

Iron Head tried to scramble out of range, but she knew deep in her gut that her slow ass didn't stand a chance--

Until the surprise assist. And from some... grizzly looking dude, at that. Who in the hell was he? Fuck it, it didn't matter. Groaning, she rolled over to palm wildly at the floor until her fingers snagged the gun. She shot to her feet, barrel raised in preparation to riddle this fucking elf with bullet holes... Well, until she saw poor Night Watcher go flying. Again.

Why in the hell did that always happen to him?

Again--whatever.

The moment she saw Sound Wave stumbling towards her, she pulled the trigger this time around, only to grimace when he punched both fists to the ground and launched skyward, splinters exploding under him. Iron Head whipped her aim in an arc overhead, but he moved too damn fast for her to lock on target. He landed behind her and ducked a backhand swing that could've cracked his skull, then jammed a fist into Iron Head's vulnerable abdomen. The split second whir coursing through his bones stuttered right before another blast released, but the power behind it was weaker than the last.

Didn't stop Iron Head from wheezing in shock.

Sound Wave didn't let up. Taking advantage of her stunned state, he cranked up with another tremor from his throat, braced himself, and double palmed the hero. Whatever grip she had on the gun was completely lost now and disappeared into the throng of panicking citizens as she skidded across stage. "Gonna kill 'em... g-gonna fucking kill 'em," she growled while struggling to sit up, a hand resting over her throbbing chest. Even with the metal protection, these attacks were literally shaking her up inside out. She was trying her damn hardest to think, to figure out a way to combat this sound bullshit, but Sound Wave refused to give her a single moment of reprieve.

His boots slammed into gravel, standing over her with his gauntlets poised. Again, the whirring resounded... and Iron Head squinted. Wait a fucking minute--

Twin jets screeched and just narrowly missed Iron Head as she cracked a fist into the back of his knee, making his balance give. Waves ripped a long trench through the street and parted the sea of citizens who fled from the destruction. Holy shit. That was the strongest blast yet.

So Iron Head was right. The more time he had to charge up, the more devastating the attack, and vise versa. So how in the hell would she use that to her advantage? She shot a hand forth to wrap it around Sound Wave's throat and flipped their positions, slamming him into rubble. She reared her fist back--

Ting! Ting ting!

Fuck!

Rather than knocking Sound Wave's lights out, she was forced to use that same arm as a shield when a hail of gunfire came her way. Some faceless lackies, as far as she was concerned, but definitely a nuisance. She looked back down when a vibration coursed through the hand holding down Sound Wave, then ate a mouthful of energy so violent that her head snapped back. Despite the double vision tilting her world side to side, she rolled off the villain just as another wave shot out and staggered to her feet, glaring at the opposition surrounding her.

Three men. One elf.

"Santa's gonna be damn mad when I take your ass out, Jingle Bells," she growled, her glower slicing through the visor. Ignoring her taunt, Sound Wave looked to the others. A pause. The air froze. Then, he nodded.

They all descended at once.

Blood rushed from her arms. Fuck it, her reserves had plenty to spare, but it all boiled down to hashing out concentration with a sleep-depraved mind. Iron Head crouched low and crossed both arms over her, gunfire bouncing off her suit. The assault never once let up and the lackies closed in more and more as their rifles drove piping hot dents into her suit. At the same time, a streak of blood flattened and widened into a disc sharper than barb wire and with a sweep of her leg, it sliced deep gashes into the back of their heels. The men crumbled alongside the attachment of their Achilles. Iron Head carried the momentum with her to rocket the disc at Sound Wave like a deadly dart.

Just as she thought, another blast shattered her construct and he jumped into her personal space before she could blink. A series of hooks clashed cleanly into her temple, then the jaw, working all the way down to her steel-plated stomach. Iron Head's calves and thigh muscles clenched, bearing down on each hit and taking them full on. He was nowhere near as physically strong as the sound waves; whatever reason he had for bypassing another them, it didn't matter. She had to capitalize before he decided to fall back on old tricks.

Another punch cracked into her helmet.

Iron Head snapped forward to bash her forehead against Sound Wave's in kind. He stumbled back, but Iron Head didn't let him get away. She clenched him by the shoulders, "Get over here!" And smashed a metal knee deep into the villain's gut. He coughed from the blow and all but choked on oxygen when an elbow snapped into the nape of his skull, white lights exploding behind his eyes. He flopped face first like a sack of potatoes.

"Fucking banshee asshole..." Grumbling, she peered over him, making sure that he was down for good--

Fwooom!

Sound Wave rocketed upwards like a goblin torpedo and smashed his back into Iron Head. Both of them fell hard and rolled away from one another, aches wracking both of their bodies. This... dude... is fucking... persistent! "Ch-Christ..." Okay. Alright. She was over this bullshit. She had a goddamn president to get back to. Snarling, the bloodbender stood at the same time Sound Wave did, sweat collecting under her armor by the gallon and her breathing labored. Sound Wave didn't appear to be in much better condition. One look, just a moment of locked gazes between them as mass hysteria unfolded around, told them everything they needed to know.

This was the final stand. Win or lose.

Sound Wave extended both arms, the air around them wavering with the onset of blasts so powerful that Iron Head would feel it for weeks.

A twitch of the wrist. Blood snaked over to the puddles leaking from the lackies' heels and curled around it like a ladle, trapping them in a compact crimson ball. She flung the globe towards the sound waves. As the villain this, a triumphant smirk appeared under his mask... only to falter with confusion as the ball peeled itself open, flinging globules of blood towards him. The hell was she doing? Her abilities were null and void against his sound...

And then it clicked a second too late.

A decoy.

As the non-sentient blood dispersed into a harmless mist against his attack, Iron Head's own blood circled around into Sound Wave's defenses and he flailed into a rushed block. They were too close. He had nowhere near enough time to wind up a blast strong enough to shield himself. One construct looped around his gauntlets like a lasso and forcefully snapped them together like handcuffs, while the other jabbed forth--

Crack!

Sound Wave wheezed, something warm dribbling down his chin. Hairline cracks spread across the plates over his throat, before crumbling completely to expose heinously bruised skin. He slumped onto his knees, struggling to pull in oxygen.

Panting heavily while cradling her aching abdomen, Iron Head jogged in the opposite direction of Sound Wave, heading back for the stage. There were plenty more assholes with guns waiting for her, but the person beyond them was what mattered.

She had to retrieve and secure President Taffer.

Heh, but still... she felt kinda cool. Bruised, but cool.

 

[Seductress]

Nagoya, Japan
Undisclosed Corporate Building
​

The room was generally well lit, with bright rays of light beaming directly on the board room table. The only thing lighting up the large, sprawling room was the images broadcast all the way from America that were displayed on the large 75 inch television, and the reflections from laptops.

"Look at that, right there," Came an unidentified subordinate as he lunged at the TV, pressing his finger against the screen as the news broadcast showed Iron Head fall on her back as Sound Wave landed. The sleeves of his blue silk shirt had been rolled up into cuffs.He sucked back on the cigarette that sat between his lips. "The suit took a hit strong enough to knock the wearer down, but was able to protect the person inside so perfectly that they got right back up."

Another unnamed man sat at the table, behind his laptop, a cell phone pressed to his ear. "I have a buyer from Germany offering us thirty thousand in US currency for that suit. Bidding has gone through the roof since this attack began."

"South Korea is willing to double...wait..triple that offer." Analytic and engineering specialists crowded the room. Each man, save for the big boss sitting at the foot of the large table, the two men that sat at either side of him, and the woman behind him, were glued to their electronic devices. They couldn't put their phones down; they were in the middle of a bidding war. They couldn't put their laptops down; every move Iron Head made was being put into a theoretical reverse engineering software program that attempted to break down the technology that made everything Nellie did possible [currently to no avail].

As Sound Wave managed to get behind her, a whole new set of doors were opened; each door coming complete with an entirely new set of questions. The first man, the one with the silk button up shirt, attempted to act as a translator behind everything he saw on the screen.

"Notice that movement subject 37 did," He called out as he mimicked the arch like motion. "It's almost as if the suit has a weapons system, or a target locking system. Sound Wave was never known for his speed stats, and the fact that 37 couldn't keep up with him long enough for him to get behind...I think the suit is incredibly heavy to maneuver, hard to react with."

The boss sat silently at the end of the table. He twiddled an unlit cigarette between his thumb and index finger, and occasionally tapped the end with exposed tobacco against the glossy table in thought. All of this commotion could make it fairly difficult to think, but not for this spoiler free, unnamed piece of focused foreshadowing.

The man's eyes watched intently as Iron Head continued to absorb hit after hit. Either the suit did a very top notch job at protecting the person piloting it, or they were just naturally a tough son-of-a-bitch. Soon, Iron Head was dealt a new hand that allowed her to play on the offensive, and was proving to be able to stand on her own without being forced to use her powers. Now this entire charade was beginning to peak Mr.Plot Device's interest.

"Okay, here comes the team the Amerikahito promised were effective."

While the two men at his side looked down at the boss for a reaction, his eyes stayed stuck on the television. His cigarette was being tapped faster and faster, as his play by play narrator told him what he already noticed; the suit was bullet proof. At least to an extent they hadn't seen yet.

With his patience thinning, the boss looked up at the man to his left, and then shook his head slowly from side to side, before moving his eyes back to the television. The narrator's excited cries went from praising Iron Head's overall super powers, to the choked sound of blood bubbling in his throat.

In the blink of an eye, the tanto knife left the boot of the left hand man and found itself sticking out of both sides of the talkative man's throat. Before Iron Head began the final assault on Sound Wave, the man was dead. On the ground, limp with his hand grasping the blade. The entire time, the main boss never took his eyes off of Iron Head's image on the TV

Now that was just outstanding.

With only a tad bit of trouble [to be expected] Subject 37 manage to take down a group of highly trained, paramilitary gunmen, on top of villain with orders to execute her.

What was most impressive was the sense of urgency that 37 had. There was more than just Iron Head's life on the line, and the way that the target acted, reacted and stayed on her toes proved that the suit isn't the only valuable asset to the company. He was going to get Iron Head for himself, whether he had to pay the Amerikahito extra money or not.

"Get Finn on the phone," The boss finally spoke, lighting his cigarette.

"Tell him that his objective includes Subject 37 herself, and not just her suit. Alive, breathing."

 

[Elle Joyner]

Sabine​

---

There was something about watching your ticket out of hell getting accidentally blasted halfway across the universe by some invisible concussive force that was just, frankly, disheartening. When the hero known as Night Watcher had pulled out a last minute feint on the Fin-headed weirdo, Sabine had been so sure... So so sure that she'd done something of value. The fight had turned, and the walking slab of muscles and hair seemed to find his stride, but before he could send Jaws off to the flaming fishbowl, the chaos downstage rather suddenly became their problem.

And as Night Watcher went sailing like a meat kite into the side of a building, Sabine could feel the last vestiges of hope shriveling inside her chest. Tension wound tight, like a rubber band around an egg, cracks like crevasses forming in her resolve. She could go back. Pray she somehow made it. Pray the bad guys would give up.

Rapid pattering overhead shifted her focus upward and uttering an unladylike word in her native tongue, Sabine stared in horror at the sudden arrival of the black ships of doom. Mounted turrets spun towards the stage and scrambling to her feet, Sabine raced towards the curtains as a burst of automatic ammunition skittered into the wooden dais, splintering it to shreds. Ducking backstage, she twisted in helpless circles, looking for an out. Sudden light pierced the darkened space as the bullets ripped through the thick navy velvet, and with a scream she dropped into a crouch, arms over her head like the world's most useless turtle shell. Something burned across the left arm, white-hot pain briefly rippling upward into her shoulder. There wasn't enough lithium in the world to make this anything but terrifying...

Another beam of light pierced her visuals and to her right she could see the wide rectangle of incandescent salvation growing more narrow... A door. The one they had come through earlier, to avoid the crowds. Her arms dropped with a small cry of pain, warmth like slick paint sluicing down to her elbow from the agonizing graze along her bicep. Right palm slapping over the wound, she sucked in a breath and legs braced, she forced herself upright, before making a mad dash for the door. Her hip smashed painfully into the release bar and light flooded around her. Squinting, she tumbled down the small staircase and landed like a drunk baby giraffe on the concrete at the base. Ignoring how much that hurt, while silently praying no one saw her, she straightened and bolted, heels clacking violently beneath her, for the man-sized cave in across the street.

"Please, please, please..." She gasped, reaching the hole. Screeching to a stop, narrowly avoiding another adorable display of coordination failure, she traversed the carnage of bricks and glass, locating what looked to be a human meteor sticking out of the side of the deli, "Hey! Hey Monsieur! Are you alive??"

---

TAGS || @Seductress

Amelia​

---

It occurred to Amy, as her bestial form ran like a bull through gunman after gunman that there was an oddly imbalanced weight to her... In the flurry of motion, it hadn't really clicked that Benny had taken her order literally. The adorable bean of a man was sticking with her, alright. He'd scrambled right up her back and clung like a baby sloth and it took everything not to squeal like a little girl in the pet store at the darling image (which might, admittedly, have been a rather terrifying sound in her current form)... Presently, though, there were more pressing matters, and not the least of which were the dark shapes filling the brilliant blue skied overhead. Not rain clouds, but they'd bring a torrent none of them needed...

Seemed unfair to Amy, bringing this much firepower. And she didn't care much for unfair... Her tracks continued towards the stage, as she whipped another black-clad meanie across the sea of asphalt and concentrating, she tried to tell Benny to hold on, but released only an odd guttural noise that made two more gunmen look as if they momentarily regretted their choice of occupation, before the weapons were ripped free of the grasp and they were unceremoniously tossed left and right. One of them struck the side of a news van rather violently, and Amy made a mental note to apologize later.

Knees buckling slightly, she reached a clawed hand to grip Baby Sloth Benny's arms before springing up, onto the stage, landing with a clatter in the midst of several more gunmen, surrounding a wicked cosplay of robocop.

More of that unfair advantage... Golly these boys needed a lesson in honorable fighting. Tipping her head back, she tried to tell Benny to get to cover, but the sound coming out was more of that oddly piercing growling... Oops. She'd just have to hope he got the message, anyhow.

In the meantime, barreling swiftly forward into a spray of gunfire, her talon-like fingers gripped one of the bullies up off his feet and hurtled him over her head, off the stage entirely. Pink oozed from pock marked holes in her white flesh, but Amy was ignorant to any damage as she turned on the next gunman, whipping her arm like a Louisville Slugger to send him flying.

---

TAGS || @Mobley Eats, @KatSea

 

[KatSea]

Serene - Status - Hangry

Serene hadn't anticipated for her morning to include sinking her claws into a screaming gunman as he clambered to reach for his weapon. Nor had she anticipated for the rifle to snap so easily in her claws, the crackling of the compressed muzzle somewhat satisfying against her scaly skin. The image of this man beneath her screaming bloody murder at the invisible force pinning him to the concrete was more than humorous to her. The illusion flooded from her, beginning at the tips of her horns and peeling away to reveal the carbon copy image of the creature stampeding across the stage. Had Serene not been so hungry, so mind bogglingly furious at the man now foaming and choking upon his own fear, she would have been spellbound at her doppleganger. Her attention snapped back into focus as the sudden wave of starvation rocked through her stomach.

It hadn't been too difficult to clutch her talons around the gunman's ankle and rip him off the stage, slamming him skull first into the ground below and snapping his weapon in the process. What had been difficult, however, was recognizing the fear that clouded his eyes to the point of primitivity. Bile coated Serene's throat, guilt threatening to consume her from the inside out. The lingering memory of him, however, aiming his weapon towards the crowd and releasing a haze of bullets..

The thin layer of flesh uncoiled from her muzzle, revealing a thin, pink stretch of lips that parted wide. The skin slithered past her mouth, drooping past her chin and bobbing against the struggling man's cheek.With the revelation came the rows of shattered teeth, fangs that were once carved by flesh and bone, and a spooling purple tongue that dangled above the man's forehead. "Sorry." She hissed, the voice that slipped past her circling tongue crackling and dry. The mere vibration stung miserably in her throat. Saliva coated the roof of her mouth, bubbling and sizzling with monstrous desire. A droplet of gleaming, thick spittle trickled past her maw and cascaded into the man's rapidly blinking eye. Licking at her patched lips, she lowered herself gingerly and sunk her shards of teeth into the man's shoulder.

Serene never enjoyed the sensation of energy flowing from her victim to replenish her own storage. She absolutely adored it. And that's why the process horrified her, the euphoria that rippled underneath her skin overwhelming and disgusting all at once. An array of fireworks and pleasure shot through her with the intensity of her own roar, cloudy yellow eyes rolling back into her skull to reveal a milky white. Catharsis. That was the best way to describe the warmth that encased her body, trickling from her horns to her talons, embracing her torso in a ripples and tremors of excitement. The best way she could describe it was an electrical shock, one that coursed through her arteries and wrapped her in a cocoon of safety and ecstasy. And for that, she absolutely hated it.

Raising her head from the victim beneath her, her breath hitched against the excitement soaring through her throat. It was similar to that of nausea as it churned and morphed, growing in magnitude and pulsing like a heartbeat. The thrumming in her veins drew to a close, and as she peered down at the victim pinned beneath her torso, she noted the ghastly pale tint to his skin, his mouth agape in a silent scream as his eyes glazed over. She pulled herself from him, anxiously raking her hooked claws against the crack of her antler. She didn't have time to squander much more of her time, noting her double made quick work of the gummen on stage.

She had to admit. She was very proud of her friend for having the courage to take on her form and rise to the occasion, but the deep concerned still roared in her stomach. How in hell can she shapeshift?

Hopping back from her haunches, she lunged herself back onto the stage and collided with another gunman, ripping their weapon from their grip and using the momentum to smash the butt of the gun into the gunman beside her. The flesh of her maw slithering back to her jaw once more, she released a roar that had been deeply buried in her chest. Eyes darting in their sockets for her next line of attack, she leapt towards the end of the stage where another attacker lied. Slamming the heels of her hind claws into his shoulders, she managed to send him speeding down the staircase, using him as a board to slide down effortlessly. Each bob of his head against the repeating stairs made an unsavory crack, but Serene didn't have time to note this as she swiftly hopped over his crumbled, unconscious body.

Lowering herself to her haunches, she found herself face to face with a woman whose dress had been tattered by the gunshots that rippled through her. Serene's two hearts stopped in their tracks, and for a moment, she found herself wanting to get up and leave the fallen girl. That is...until she saw moment. Her chest heaved, slowly...barely, just barely. Slowly crawling towards her, Serene placed her clawed hand against the woman's heart. Closing her eyes, she focused, knowing fully well the horror the woman would endure the moment she woke up to find this abomination looming over her.

 

[Sail]

Begin Log. Project Aleph, Test Number Seven

Conditions: Temperature set to 62 degrees. Moisture level at 43%. Fully depolarized. Cosmospear set to fire at full power, directed at a surface comprised of 10% graphite, 33% iron, 57% copper.

Hypothesis: A portal to Alpha Centauri will open, bringing a [DATA EXPUNGED] into the chamber.

Experiment Log: Cosmospear triggered at 1704 Universal Standard Time. Beam was focused at the center of the surface.

A portal of yellow-green color was ripped open, identical to the prior experiments(see Test Numbers Two, Four and Five.) [/FONT]

Seven gripped the metal bar above it's head. Grey semi-fluid spilled over it before solidifying; it splashed down onto the pavement below, nearly invisible with a passing gaze. They made a soft coo, a brief splash of red filling what would be the cheeks before they continued to climb upward. Of course, "climb" was a subjective word. "Climb" typically requires lifting one's entire bodyweight-Seven was not doing this. No, Seven had coined a new term, a new word once realizing the limitations of the English language; "glosh".

They gloshed and gloshed all the way to the precipice of the apartment building, humming an out-of-key rendition of "God Bless America." Oftentimes their notes went a bit too high(even higher than a normal human); the lows sounded almost computer generated. Just a bit…

A sudden, searing heat washed across Seven's back-they snapped their neck backwards to see what was going on-more waves of heat as a large building three blocks away was torn apart by explosions. "Des is brought upon these crucios. Sij akiis donan! No, no...first the transmission device, then donaniis."

Higher, higher; people watched from their office windows as the grey creature scaled their office building. They pointed outside, shouting. Seven pressed it's ear-like structure to the glass, listening close.

"Is that Plasma?"

"No you fool, Plasma is purple. That...thing is grey. It doesn't even look human." Three letters were brightly stitched above this man's left breast pocket.

"But…"

"Get back to work." Those three letters: NBC.

"I'm on my lunch-"

"Get back to work. Lunch can come later. We've got an A-H-D in the broadcast room. Something about..." The voices faded as the two men left the office, leaving Seven alone once again.

Another explosion. Seven did not turn around to see this one. They continued the climb, making sure to not misplace one of their hands. Falling would mean starting again, something they did not have time for. Falling would mean failure, a word Seven barely understood. The closest picture they could drum up was a memory...distant, not just in time but in location. A memory from before earth. Not before earth existed, but before the concept of earth existed in Seven's mind....

Ten feet til the top. The two ran across the Junaak, leaping from sharp rock to sharp rock. Lightning cascaded around them, a heavy smell of burnt ozone filling the air. Onward, to the Great Ujis… Five feet til the top. The memories floated into their mind, a fine salve for the boredom of climbing. A searing pain deep within their chest. And then, the presence was gone. All that was left to do, now unfinished. Aethia had not lost a part of its salvation in that moment-it instead had bought stocks that would come to be paid off in the distant days ahead.

A spike made of polished aluminum rose thirty feet into the air, various black panels flashing numbers and words dotting it like the craters dotting the moon's surface. Seven pressed their hands into one near the base. A grey goop began to seep through the cracks, flowing into the electronics. Atoms buzzed, acknowledging the new element-Atheriam, Am, something between Antimony and Tin but yet neither one.

Seven focused upon the negative ions within the tower. One by one, connections were made in their mind, trees were constructed that would soon be paths for-
Plasma. Tendrils of lightning scaled the tower; those were the very outer branches of Seven's lightning tree. Sparks exploded from the initial impact. Then, the rest of the tree came into being, tearing the transmission tower apart from the inside. Flames licked the rooftop; Seven's mission was done. They had already leapt from the building and deployed their specially designed parachute as the tower was turned to ash.

Two city blocks away, Seven found a television store. They had shifted to the purple of their "Plasma" persona-half of them now showed static; half of the display TVs now displayed a screen that read "We are experiencing technical difficulties." The others displayed a playback of the fight at the superhero press conference.

A man spoke, "The current whereabouts of the President, Vice President, and Clifford Chore, the congressman from the day before are unknown. It is believed the current target of the attack was the President, but investigations are still underway to determine the true culprit and their motives." The video had made it to the point where Syn had split into two. Seven grinned, turning away from the television. "At this time, we will broadcast a message from the Emergency Alert System."

"Iinys, I'm coming." They had to find a way to join the Hoods and Capes, no matter what it took.

 

[Mobley Eats]

Benny Law "Echo" | Interactions: Amy @Elle Joyner & Gun Goons | Location: Conference (Everywhere... You'll See) | Status: Clean Up Duty


Benny always knew he was, like, part spider monkey. Even Angie agreed. He couldn't put it into words, but there was something awesome about clambering onto someone and clinging on, that level of physical connection bathing him in content like warm sunlight. The best feeling. Ever.

Except he couldn't really focus on that. Not right now. There was too much chaos and blood and people dying and roars--

"Whoooooa! Roar, Amy, roar! Get 'emmm!!!" As Amy's monstrous form swept through the enemy with one mighty swing at a time, Benny maintained position on her shoulders and pointed onward like a baby faced Napoleon Bonaparte. Wasn't Napoleon already baby faced? Who was Napoleon? Benny forgot.

...Wait why was he up here? Eh, didn't matter. This was fun!

Well, until the Gun Goonies started blasting them with bullets. Brow furrowed, Benny glanced down to see bloody crates oozing on Amy's hide... Well that was mean. Which ones did that? Oh--yeah. Those ones with, ya know, the guns. And murdering people. "Hmm... Mmkay. Amy!" He nuzzled the top of her head, then beamed. "Be back in like, ten seconds! Kay? Bye!" Angie's gonna be so ticked when she finds out... Without waiting for a response, Benny hopped off his friend and disappeared into her shadow.

Then popped up behind one of the gunmen.

At first, the man didn't recognize his presence, so Benny tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, hello! I'm Benny!" Visibly jolting and unleashing a short string of curses, her spun around to riddle the teen's face with bullets--

Thwack!

With a stiff jab of the heel of his palm, he knocked the barrel aside, letting ammo crack harmlessly into concrete.

"Ah, bummer! Try again?" Benny innocently cocked his head like a puppy.

"..." The gunmen blinked, then allowed a snarl to stretch across his masked face, "Your funeral, kid!" Another pull of the trigger--

Smack!

Same result as before.

"Wha...?" Baffled, the man stared at his rifle, wondering if the damn thing was a dud. What in the actual hell was going on?

"One more time. Swear I won't move. On my honor!" For extra emphasis, Benny slapped a hand over his heart and raised the other, lips pursed into a comically serious expression. Moments before, the gunman would've had a field day wiping that dumb look off his face but now... cold sweat rolled down the back of his next. He may or may not have been questioning his reality at the moment. Was he just dreaming after tossing back one beer too many last night? Was that it? Surely, it had to be.

Uncertain, he slowly raised his gun, eyes never leaving Benny. Paused. "..." Leveled his aim at the teen's chest. Another pause for extra measure. "...?" Benny didn't move a muscle. Confident that there was absolutely no way he could miss this time, gunshots fired and before he could blink, his target melted into the floor of his own shadow. Flashing white lights and an intense ringing exploded in his right ear, before the most intense wave of vertigo throttled his senses. Vomit threatened to crawl up his throat, but he didn't have a moment to even consider doing so.

After smashing a stiff knuckle into the man's ear, Benny then ensnared both sides of the gunman's head, his arm muscles tensing to snap his ne--

Whoops. None of that! At the last moment, his intentions shifted and he pulled his target into a hip toss.

But he didn't hit the ground.

Mid-flip, they both melded into the shadows and appeared in front of another goon who was in the process of reloading. Benny chucked one fellow crook into the other, beaming as a whopping smack resounded upon impact. Both laid bruised and unconscious. Promptly, he turned his attention to a third armed crook who was about to advance on Amy from her blindspot. Oh man... Rude. Once again, he leapt into his shadow.

So close now.

The horrific monster and all of the pathetic civilians would be six feet under soon. He would start from the bottom up, turning the creature into crimson swiss cheese by the time he was done with it.

Of course, that was what the masked killer thought... until something yanked him from behind, darkness overcame him vision, and chills coursed through his system. Suspension. That was the only way he could describe the terrifying phenomena and although it seemed to have lasted for an eternity, only a moment passed.

Then he was dangling over the edge of an open window. Twenty floors above ground.

A shrill scream ripped from his lungs. "AHHHHHH!! HOLY SHIT! OH SHIT! OH MY GOD WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!" Frantically, he glanced over his shoulder to see some smiley dope swinging him around by the back of his collar, perched on the window sill and... enjoying the view? The hell?! "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!"

Benny glanced down at the long drop. Then back at his victim. Down again. Up again. "..." He smiled wide, flashing pearly whites. "Buh bye!" The gunman's eyes widened with horror.

"W-wait! Wait, let's talk about thi--!"

He dropped, his shriek echoing for anyone miles away to hear, especially for Benny. Knees raised and resting his chin on them, he watched the man plummet at dangerously high speeds, his descent growing faster and faster. Wow... that was definitely death. "Welp!" The teen assassin stood, brushing off the grime from his pants (Angie bought these for him), he then fell backwards into the block of shadows inside the building.

Then reappeared on the fifth floor. Like a deadly serpent, he sprinted over to another window and kicked off the sill, soaring through the skies to catch his hostage before he splattered into asphalt. They phased into the stretched inkiness of a mailbox. And just like that, they were back in the thick of conference chaos, one man held bridal style in the arms of the other.

Who of which fainted from shock and... after a whiff, Benny could confirm that poo was in his undies. Yeesh. That sucked.

Without a word, Benny placed the man down next to his fallen brethen, then teleported back over to Amy, reclaiming his rightful place on her shoulders. "Mmkay, back!"

 

[Sail]

Interactions: [/COLOR] Finn and Pearson @Seductress


"Looking back on this day, I have made a realization. Many do not understand what it truly feels like to be surrounded on all sides by smoke. Many also do not understand what it feels like to hear the howls of pain of people dying from gunfire and being unable to stop it from happening; they don't even understand what it feels like to see someone die. But, the very action of watching death occur takes something from you. I know it took something from me."...would likely be what a movie starring Transfer would say if it began with this event.

But, of course, it did not begin with this event. It began with a very different one-the day he snapped. At that time, he did not know what had happened, and he wouldn't until two weeks ago in an abandoned warehouse, when confronted with Death himself. But, that's a digression from what is really important. What's really important is what happened after he fired that first blank into the air.

"Pearson!" The exclamation was not a shout based one, but a loud whisper. "Crawl on your stomach off the stage. I'm going to fire some more…" Transfer hoped and prayed to whatever gods existed, if any did, that the sounds of "rata-tat-tat" muffled what he was to say now.
"Run behind the stage. I hope to reunite with you there."

One. The smell of burning plastic filled his nostrils. His hand shook as he prepared to fire the next blank.

Two.

Three. "Pearson, I sure do hope you are still alive."

Four. He still couldn't see out of the smoke bomb's cloud-it seemed that the wind was almost non-existent.

Five. The gun had been fully unloaded of blanks. He rummaged into his pocket, searching for the two unused bullets from the day before. While rummaging around, he tried to picture the battlefield-"Battlefield, huh. Never thought a press conference would turn into one of those". -from before he set the smoke bomb off. Of course, he assumed the building across the way had collapsed, but what threats were there? "Wasn't there some very muscled guy right in front of the stage? I'll check and see."

He ran out of the cloud of smoke. Air caught in his throat when he saw Night Watcher dozens of feet from his original position, very obviously injured; furthermore, he felt his heart stop as his gaze fell upon the crumbling tower. Flashes of purple, unnatural vibrations in the air, shadows dancing across the ground, a herald of some super-hyper looking individual, a monster that looked straight out of an H. P. Lovecraft story, ramming into people who were in the employ of the enemy.

Transfer swung his arm toward Finn, still locked into combat with Anarchy. He shakily lined up the sights with Finn's face plate and fired both bullets.

He tossed the gun into the smoke and then fell to the ground, bracing for what he assumed might kill him. A hand on a mushy corpse to use it as a battery of pain-his consciousness drifted into the signal-less body.

 

[Seductress]

Silence.

Once again. Silence.

Darkness.

Once again. Darkness.

How many more times was Conner going to have to be immobilized before people stopped dying.

This was his watch. He was supposed to be the guardian, the leader. The watcher in the darkness. It was only now, in his comatose state, that he realized that revenge had blinded him. The need for revenge against the man who killed...he...that fucking guy took everything from him, and he let that get in the way of his true goal.

The reason Conner Lockheart put on the hood and the cape wasn't to chase after revenge. There's a quote that Conner needs to listen to, and listen to it now if he wants to save the lives he cares about so much; in certain, extreme situations, the law is inadequate. In order to shame it's inadequacy, it is necessary to act outside the law. To pursue natural justice. This is not vengeance. Revenge is not a valid motive, it is an emotional response. No, not vengeance. Punishment.

People were being shot; torn to pieces by rapid fire weaponry. The same outstanding citizens who decided to put their gifts to good use in the name of Lady Justice were getting their asses kicked, and it's Conner's fault. He could have ended it quickly, but he wanted Finn to feel the same pain he did that night. No, this has to stop. It has to end right here, right now. It's time to get up, Conman. It's time for you to open up your eyes, put on your big boy pants, and kick some ass.

Call it a miracle of god, call it the love of Lady Justice. But Conner's eyes fluttered open. He wasn't even in pain. He was on fire. Not literally. Conner could feel the fire start in the pit of his stomach, and burn all the way up his chest and into the opening of his esophagus.

One step. Then another. Conner pulled himself from his little crater, wiping a piece of German salami off of his shoulder. The dots had connected themselves once again, but why? Or rather, how. That's when he saw her. She glowed like a beacon in the corner of his peripheral. Sabine. "It was you, wasn't it?" He asked, making his way over to her. Gently, he took her arm, inspecting the wound. Anger welled up inside his eyes, the fire feeding itself to burn even brighter than it had a second ago.

"I need you to take cover there, behind that counter," he said, placing his hands gently on either side of her head. Whenever Hannah had a bad dream, or showed signs of the family link to depression, or just had an over all sour mood, he'd lovingly place his hands on the exact same position, calming her nerves better than any way he could have imagined. Removing his hands, he looked outside at the fucking mess that was going on around them. "Here," He handed her his pack of cigarettes, and took off the vintage cloak and hood that he wore back in the original days of night watching, draping the hood over her face as Sabine lost his attention. "Don't lose those. That cape is worth more than my mortgage, to the right collector."

Music maestro,can I get some day saving music please?

"
​

Finn really didn't feel like letting up, not even in the slightest. Even though he had just engaged, it felt as if Anarchy had to dodge a myriad of attacks already. Attacking was a lot different from playing the defense. Instead of using martial arts training, the woman had to think back to her time in dance and gymnastic.

1; Step back, left foot.

2.; Step back, right foot.

1; Step back, left foot.

2; Step back, right foot,

3; Left knee bent, right foot extended, swing body, lead in with hips, follow through with shoulders.

Anarchy spun out of the way of a wicked side swing, bending her back and throwing her hands to help her body pull off a smooth flip backwards. He was already back in her face, and it was starting to get tiresome. She had no sleep, no time to breath, and hadn't had a thing to eat yet. The blade came back down toward her, causing Anarchy to drop down low into a bit of a Spider-man pose; one knee bent, her leg extended once again, her rear hovering inches against the ground. Finn attempted to bring his boot against her face, but Anarchy brought her hands together in a Tai-Chi like motion, a great ball of telekinetic energy shooting from the palms of her hands.

The would be terminator stumbled back just enough steps to give Anarchy the smallest chance to breath. She had to think; powers. Telekinesis. How can she use this to her advantage? She rolled to her shoulder, popping herself back to her feel as she finished her professional looking somersault and already had a visualization in mind. She flung her left hand forward, her hand bending downward, her knuckles aimed toward the ground. A prism of kinetic energy launched, hitting Finn in the right shoulder, and then she mimicked the same motion with her right hand, aiming at his left. She was forcing him to take steps back as she closed in on him.

This was just the break she needed (thank god).

Transfer continued to prove to Joe that whatever he lacked in fighting ability, he made up for in...creative exit strategies. No, the kid had ideas. Good ideas. Something a team could for sure benefit from. "This is exactly why you're the hero, kid." Pearson said with a smile, and a half chuckle. Like a member of the army, the bulky man crawled on his belly to take himself back toward the same form of exit that Sabine used, posting his hands down and pulling himself back up to his feet, instantly booking it for the back door.

He might have ran as fast as those beefcake legs could take him. Apparently one of the gunships spotted him, because he had bullets on his heels instantly. Luckily for Pearson, right in front of the deli sat a beautiful looking manhole cover. He grunted as he plucked it out of the ground, throwing it like a disk and causing sparks to fly and paint to chip. Pearson had just enough time to take cover as the ship tipped upward, obscuring the view of the Vice President. "Yeah, that hurt." He grumbled as he tied to shake the pain out of his wrist.

Spotting the strange hole in the side of the deli shape like a Night Watcher star fish, Pearson made his way in, running to safety. The last thing he thought he'd see as he ducked behind the counter was Sabine. Letting out a brief, startled cry, he fell backwards, sliding down the wall and on to his rear end. "All of you kids are going to cause my blood pressure to rise...how did you get here?"

The Night Watcher stepped outside, inhaling deeply. Not much air managed to get into his nose, though. That damn mask, always getting in the way. His cathartic breath was interrupted as an armed gunmen came flying past him, with special thanks to the large, kind of friendly looking monster. Was the creature one of the good guys? Duh, come on Conner. If the "beast" was an opponent, he'd probably already be knocked into yet another building. Hopefully this time a bakery so he could lick some pie filling off of his costume. He cracked his knuckles, swinging his arm up to give the monster a dramatic, Sonic style thumbs up, following it up with a small, confused wave to the passenger who had suck a ride. Okay Lockheart, focus. Squatting down, Conner focused all of his power into his legs, pushing off the ground and into a rather cool looking jump into the air. Hulk style. "Hm hm hm hm hm, 82nd all the waaaay. Into the fire hm hm a hero to be hm hm hm 1980 something 223."

Anarchy was doing good for herself; she managed to push Finn back far enough to push herself into a one handed stand, launching a psychic bolt at him once more, before pushing herself up into a spinning flip, landing with another bolt, this time throwing it the same way Zeus would throw a bolt of lightning. It was unfortunate that the super soldier heard the gunshots before Anarchy did, but the moment she heard it, everything went downhill. "Transfer!" She called to him. "Get away!"

Finn had spun, his sword at just the right angle to deflect the first bullet, and slice through the second with the tip of his sword. Smirking behind his mask, his focus had shifted. "Whatcha doing down there?" He called into the smoke. "Taking a nap? Don't worry, I'll help you get to sleep." Finn raised his sword over his head with both hands. Normally he liked to look his prey in the eyes, but the smoke made that a bit more difficult to do. He brought the sword down with great force, but felt it stop half way through. Conner had landed in front of him, his legs in a squat, wrists crossed over each other and his fingers curled inward to his palms. The blade had cut through the suit and slid through the flesh down to the bone. Blood dripped, but Conner, bleeding or not, was still Conner.

"How you doing back there, kid?" Conner called over his shoulder. "You should help with clean up, Go take out the trash, and help hold them off until the police get here, or there's probably more room in the deli somewhere." With his bloody arm, Conner easily threw Finn's arms to the side, quickly latching on to his right arm and pulling the mercenary across the face of his body, spinning him so that his back faced Conner. "Hm hm hm hm hm hm, death from above what they now say." Conner hummed happily to himself, bringing a heavy elbow down against the back of Finn's head, before slamming his knee against his hip. Spinning Finn around, The Night Watcher chopped the hard part of his hand against his opponent's wrist, causing the weapon to dislodge from his grasp.

The Night Watcher was pretty much forced to stop fighting, as he saw Iron Head take care of her target with, what seemed like, ease. She made it look pretty much easy, but then again, he wasn't paying attention through the fight. "Alright!" The Night Watcher called, his arm around Finn's neck, keeping him in a head lock. "Way to go Nellie! Uh, oh fuck. No, you're not supposed to say he name." Conner let go of Finn, punching him in the face once as he expressed his frustration. "Stupid Night Watcher," and then another punch. "Stupid Night Watcher," and then one last strike to nail the point. "Stupid Night Watcher".

Normally, it would be Conner having both of his ass cheeks handed to him on a silver platter with a ten dollar hankie. It was this focus, these stars connected like dots in his brain. What started off as nothing but pie turned into concentrated strategies that continued to keep him on his toes. I spin kick here, a jab there, a choke slam everywhere. Soon's Finn's visor snapped and popped into shard of glass, cutting gashes across the mans face. The Night Watcher placed both of his hands together, smashing them into the dirt bags stomach hard enough for him to start tasking the lunch that he had the day before. Before he knew it, Finn was on the ground, wiggling his toes and fingers to try and keep motion going. The shadow of justice loomed over him; his judgement was coming.

"There ya go, then," Finn coughed out. "You finally have the chance to execute your families' killer. Go, do it."

Resting one knee on the concrete, Conner reached over with both hands to grab Finn's helmet like mask. His blood continued to gush from the wound on his arm, drizzling on Finn's suit. The mask quickly came off, and The Night Watcher looked over the brand new scars across the man's face. He ran a gloved finger across the stubble that covered his chin. "It's quite cathartic, isn't it? Being able to finally look the man who took everything away from you in the eye without a mask." With one hand holding Finn's face protection, Conner reached up and pulled his own mask, the world around him beginning to not matter as much as it once did. His brunette hair fell in waves, a strand sticking to the bloody gash that tingled on his lip. "You've never had anything to lose though, have you, Earnest Clay? Who could love a man who makes his living trading the lives of others for a little bit of paper? You have absolutely nothing to lose. The only people who will miss you are warlords, mobsters, the only thing that makes them less like gutter trash than you, is they're too scared to pull the trigger."

"There's the Conner I know." Finn couldn't help but to laugh, but instantly found a cough choked in his through. Everything hurt. There wasn't a square inch of the mercenaries body that wasn't in pain from the beat down he had just gotten. "Who put you on that high horse? I know who you are, Conner. I know where you come from, I know that your father shot your mother dead, in cold blood. He unloaded an entire clip from a submachine gun into her chest, right? And then he ran away, never to bother anyone else again. As it seems, I'm going to be locked up in Ben Verick's, so you know whee to find me if you want to know how you really are. Assuming you don't ki-"

"No, I'm not going to kill you." Conner said as he slid his mask back on. He picked up Finn's gear once more, and looked him dead in the eyes once more. "But if you ever dare talk about Julia, or Hannah, or my parents ever again, I will kill you. And then I'm going to find your family tree, and I'll slaughter each and every single one of them."

"Haven't heard from you in quite some time, Arse-" And just like that, his own helmet was slammed against his chin, the lights fading out from his eyes ad leaving him unconscious. The Night Watcher stood up, looking down as how peaceful he actually looked just laying there. If anyone were to ask why Conner gave him an extra kick in the head, it's because Finn looked at him funny.

"Nasty business, that one." Wayne made his way over, approaching slowly with his gun drawn in one hand, and his handcuffs in the other. He smelled like tea and booze, or booze infused tea. Conner really didn't care.

"You going to take care of him for me?"

"Yeah, I'm the one with the handcuffs, remembers?"

"I've got a pair or two at home. I don't get to use them too often, though." Conrad turned around, watching as Anarchy hopped off the stage. "How much juice you got left in ya?"

"Enough to get me through the rest of this shit show. Why, did you have something in mind?"

The Night Watcher looked up to the sky, the blinding sun was starting to be blocked by [FONT=Marcellus, serif]nimbostratus clouds. It wasn't strange, it was closing in on cold weather season, and the temperature had dropped significantly. The Conman just didn't exactly notice until he had some time to stop moving. He pointed up at the gunship that he was certain housed Chore. "Think you can get us up there?"

"Oh, please. Team up?" Anarchy was the only person that Conner had ever met who could go from sarcastic sass, to complete and utter enthusiasm in the exact same sentence. It was fairly concerning, in all honesty.

"Team up." The Night Watcher retorted, a smirk appearing behind his mask. He readied his legs once more, widening his base as he took off into the air once more. It would be cool to fly, yeah, but jumping had a pretty good feeling behind it.

As the Purple Crayon prepared to take flight, she felt her feet leave the ground until she heard it. A voice, a whisper almost. It sounded like a man's voice, but it was too distorted. Ever watch one of those movies where humans are trying to decipher an alien transition? That's exactly what is sounded like. The woman looked over her shoulder, catching Wayne just standing there, his eyes locked on target with hers. The next ten seconds of her life were absolutely horrid; her entire body felt like she was thrown into a blender filled with glass. Her vision was filled with psychedelic patterns of mandalas that shifted and contorted into strange colours she'd never seen before. The shapes would squeeze in on themselves, squirting into new patterns in the same was a citrus fruit's juices oozing out.

White gloves reached out, attempting to close the gap between the body it belonged to, and the wide open hatch of the gunship. Conner was so close, but couldn't reach. He didn't want to look down and he had to focus on not lo-he looked down. That pie he had earlier tried to come up when he realized how high up he was, and instantly the doubts that he was invulnerable filled his body. "Yup. Bamboozled again."

Instead of plummeting toward the Earth, he was boosted up just high enough to aim his weight toward the landing inside of the ship. There were five men armed with rifles on either side, and a handcuffed Chore sitting in the corner. "Night Watcher!" He called out in delight, lacking absolutely no fear. The men stood from their seats faster than soldiers shifting to attention when their commanding officer entered the room. The man to Conner's left was the first to start shooting, but The Night Watcher aimed the barrel of the man's weapon beside Chore, bullet's cracking through the soldiers chest before Conner gave him a tug toward the edge, the floating Anarchy finished it by extending her arm, pulling him off.

The Crayon's heels cluttered against the metal grate flooring as she took her spot beside The Night Watcher. He lunged forward, elbowing a rifle out of a target's hand and nailed his head off the wall. Anarchy pulled a rifle from the next would-be shooter's hands, flinging it at Conner. The Night Watcher quickly grabbed it, unloading a burst on him. He threw the weapon up, catching it by the stock and cracking a gunman's vertabrae in three spots by using it like a baseball bat. As soon as the goons were taken care of, The Night Watcher ran over to Chore, yanking the chain of the cuff to break them apart.

"Are we ready?" Conner asked as he looked over at his partner. She was looking down at her shoes, or something. Her hair was in her face, and she seemed far from normal. Her hand raised up to him first, and then her head. It was as if her eyes had glossed over. They were absolutely white; no pupil or anything. The Night Watcher sighed. "Bamboozled. Again."

That was the last two words he could get out before he and Chore were pushed over the edge, into the air.

 

[Zerofighter]

Screams filled the air, the scent of blood flooded her nose, gunfire echoed through the streets. Liz knew something like this was out of her league, that this was something way bigger than her. Before she was just a high school girl trying to help people. Now she was defending civilians from automatic gunfire. Cursing as she dived in front of a small family, protecting them with her Sun-Field. She can do this. She can save them. SHe can save EVERYONE!
"Get out of here!" She snapped at the civilians who left in a hurry, hoping they wouldnt caught in the crossfire. Though, their hopes were crushed, as they would be met with a flurry of bullets. Liz felt everything around her stopped. As if all time was frozen, nothing existed except her, and seeing those Her eyes swell up in tears, watching the family turn to swiss cheese.

"T-they were running away...how could you? Y-you bastards!" She screamed out tackling one of the gunmen. Slamming her fist square into his face, cracking the visor on his mask. His partner instantly unloaded his rifle at her. Turning back to face him, she laughed "Don't you know that doesnt work by now!" She could kill them both right now. End their live, snap their necks and be done with it. The family would be avenged, it would be so easy.
Just.

One.

Little .

Twist.

No, no she wouldn't do that. Dropping the gunman to the ground, her entire body shaking. Glaring at the gunman, she simply said "Take your friend and leave…"

Liz flew up in the air before the man could have the chance to respond. Chaos was still happening around her, her senses were overwhelmed. Everything happening at once. The young girl didnt expect her life to become like this. The once small time hero, was now in the midst of what looked like a small warzone!

It would be so easy, to leave. To fly home in the blink of an eye, throw away her costume, and forget this dreaful night. Never to don her costume again. Just be college student Liz again, struggling through life with her mom and dad. Collect a few comics, get married, have a kid, and be a mother. This all could end.

But what kind of person would she be to let this people die?

This is what she wanted isn't it? To be part of the action, be the dashing hero everyone loves. She had to get a hold of herself. She wasn't a scared little girl anymore. She wasn't the nerd who relied on her parents.
No, she was SUNSPOT! The Bright hero, who is always smiling. Whose rays of light can illuminate any darkness. No evil can overpower her light.

"Relax….y-you can do this….you can do this."
"Now stop talking and Do it!" She snapped at herself, her eyes darted up to the massive gunships. Then something heading towards it. Was it a man?!

"WHat the hell does that guy think he is doing?"
Was he flying? No….it looked like jumping. Doing her best to dodge fire from the gunships, watching the one the man flew into. After a few minutes two figures fell out of it!

"Oh shit!" Darting over, moving faster than ever went before Liz was barely able to catch the two men. Her trademark wide smile on her face, her golden aura covering her body.
"Gentlemen, nice of you to drop by!" It wasn't time for jokes though, as she cursed at the weight of them both. Damn for two guys, it felt like they weighed a ton! Or maybe it was because her power was fading.
Her bright aura was slowly fading. She used too much energy. The Sun-Field's golden aura barely covered them all. It looked as if it was dampening more, and more. It looked as if the poor girl was exerting herself just to use her aura to protect them.
"Sorry we might have to end out flight ea-holy shit! You're Night Watcher! Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod! I'm a huge fan I-" But before she could answer, the sound of more bullets heading towards them. "Umm…..I should probably get us someplace safe huh?"

Knowing the answer already, Liz cursed strafing from the bullets. The faster she tried to move, the more her aura began fading. "Umm any of you got a plan, because once my aura vanishes, were turning to swiss cheese!"

 

[Seductress]

Emergency Services:
En Route
​

Paramedic Jessica Hoyt

Meta Activity Unit Detective
Vihaan Sankar

This was the second major attack within two days. If Jessica thought something strange was going on after last night's festivities, then there was a sure-fire sign that there was some vile fuckery afoot. Of course, Jess would never describe it as that outside of the confines of her own mind. The woman's partner barreled down the road; sirens blaring and lights flashing. They weren't alone though; they were only the first in a convoy of six ambulances being lead by sergeant Vihaan Sankar, the second most powerful man of Perry Simmons' Meta Activity unit. This was exactly what the Bangalore born detective was waiting for. There were profiles to be filed, paperwork to be filled and discoveries to be made.

The hospital was boring and empty for hours until the press conference. The paramedics gathered around to watch everything going down on the news before the calls to dispatch filled up the servers and destroyed and sense of peace and quiet. All of the paramedics who were idly available were already loading up in their vehicles the moment the news started to cover the near massacre downtown. Of course, there were heroes. Of course, they sprung into action. Of course, the unfortunate part in the entire thing was that people were still dying despite the best efforts of those placed on this Earth to protect humanities' well being.

Jessica had been there last night. She was at Inova Fairfax, seemingly too late. The fire had gone on long enough to destroy most of the building's foundation, and most of the people who inhabited the hospital had enough time to be slaughtered. Why had all of the phones been quiet? Why did no fire alarms go off? Why is it nobody knew about what was going on? That was the first sign to Hoyt that there was something a bit bigger going on, and she really didn't enjoy this. It felt like a mystery film and she was in charge of finding suspects, motivations, and intercepting the perp before s/he got the chance to strike again. Except...it wasn't Jessica's job. She was the woman who showed up behind the scenes, crime scene by crime scene, cleaning up the messes left behind by the true stars of the show. She had no place among the heroes. She helped people, sure, but it wasn't exactly her job to save the day.

"Have you ever had to respond to something like this?" Jess' partner, Terry Seaward, a third year transfer from Virginia, asked as he struggled to keep the ambulance going straight. His nerves were quite literally shot, his arms shaking harder than a hairless cat who got stuck in a meat freezer.

"Not something this big," Jess grumbled behind the clip board she shoved in her face. She had her legs crossed on her seat casually, and her eyes soaked up all of the information on the reported wounds and fatalities that had been spotted. The stack of paperwork was thick, more papers than she had been used to at once. "I've dealt with smaller stuff, like dismemberment and burn victims. I've never had to deal with a body count of over four when it comes to meta-humans [which was a track record that ended 24 hours ago], and I didn't really want to change that. There's just something about running into a super villain who can fill your lungs with smoke using nothing but his mind that isn't super appealing to me, at least not as appealing as it used to be."

"Do you think the villains are still going to be there?"

Jessica couldn't help but look up from her paperwork and let out a bit of a laugh. "This is an active war zone, dude. You're no longer a paramedic," Jess sat up, unfolding her legs and placing the clipboard on the dash. "You've been promoted to active combat medic, so expect to be shot at."

With every word that came from the woman's mouth, Terry's skin turned visibly more pale until he looked like a seasick subterranean mole-man who had just seen the sun for the first time. "You shouldn't have asked," Jessica said to him as she pulled he reading glasses from the bridge of her nose. "It's always better to have someone try to kill you when you don't know they're going to try and kill you."

As the convoy appeared out of the neutral zone, it looked exactly like Jessica had pictured it. There was fire; lots of fire. At the same time, there was a lot of ice. That's not different. Not at all. The bullets were still fiercely tearing through the unsuspecting and undeserving, but the rate they were firing at began to subside. The heroes were at work, and they were working swiftly. This might have provided them enough cover to be able to examine the wounded, and inevitably pronounce more people as dead than they would have liked to.

Vihaan's F-150 Responder, complete with

the police decals and identifying markings, skidded to a halt near the stage. Jessica's ambulance had broken off from the convoy and followed Vihaan with an extreme interest in what he had planned. As Sergeant Sankar ejected from his car, he had his Beretta drawn already, firing a round into the leg of a stray gunman who had gotten too close to the newly dictated "medical zone".

He spotted that Wayne had recently been pinned down; three gunmen, one Wayne stuck behind a car. It wasn't fair. But, when the detective took over the equation; three gunmen and one Vihaan, the odds shifted away from their favor. For each step he took, he fired a shot. For every two accurately fired shots, one gunman fell to the ground with two bullets in his legs. Luckily the weapon held seven rounds, meaning he ran out of projectiles to fire off right as the last man was going down. He never once aimed for the kill shot, because that's not what the police should be doing.

"You okay over there, chief?" Vihaan asked as he loaded the fresh clip into his weapon.

"Jolly good," Wayne groaned as he stood upright. "I had that one under control, I guess."

"I don't know how you guys do it back in Britain, but in both India and the states we wouldn't consider being trapped behind a Ford PoS by three men with superior firepower to be under control."

"I see your gums flapping, but I don't hear any useful information coming out of it. These guys, I want to know their names, their powers, where they go for lunch, how often they take a shit, their mothers, their fathers, their enemies. Leave nothing out."

The two B lined back toward Jessica's ambulance, where her and Terry were going through the motions of opening the back doors to their ambulance. It was a routine of setting up a mobile medical station, something that was becoming more and more common with all of these high profile, massive meta attacks.

"The blue bag of fun who was having a tango with the resident patron saint, The Night Watcher, his name is Earnest Clay, or Finn. They call him that, on account of the fin on top of his head. He's a heavy hitter within high profile mercenary rings. According to reputation, he can steal anything, and kill anyone. He's a jack of all trades. His buddy, the shirtless beefcake, who probably couldn't bench more than myself, is Sergeant Bradley Copeland, more commonly refereed to as "Dead Man". He has the gift of volatile force manipulation, meaning he's pretty much a walking dead man switch. He was part of a top secret, government sanctioned black operations team consisting of telekinetic users, and a super soldier named Arsenal. All of a sudden, on a mission in Guatemala they turned their back on their country, wounding Arsenal with a split open head and leaving him for dead. Nobody has seen them since."

"And who the fuck," Wayne pointed up as he watched Sunspot take off, collecting The Night Watcher and the Congressman. "Is that, then?"

 

[KatSea]

Snowfall

"I know it's scary, snow angel. I know you don't want this to happen, but you have to embrace it now...just breathe with me, you aren't dying. You see that on your arm? This is a sign of your strength...how special you are. Not just to me, but to the world around you. You are a marvel...a marvel to the scientific community and you are a miracle to me. I am so proud of you...just focus on it, okay? It'll go away far faster than it will spread. One day, I want you to let it consume you, but never to control. This power is yours, you are not it's host. See...all the ice is gone now. It's okay snow angel...your uncle's got you. I am so proud of you."

Blair's arms were completely coated in ice by the time that Tamer released her. Jagged shards of ice coiled around her forearm and spiked about her shoulders. She hadn't even been fully aware of this development until a prickle against her skin caught her off guard, nearly forcing the young hero out of her knee-length boots. She couldn't tell if this was due to Tamer's beast tearing through villains(as impressed as she was) or if it was the mere magnitude of nerves. She felt herself freeze in place, jaw firmly set, sweat trickling against her neck and soon coming to freeze at her back. She considered that the shock had finally drained from her veins and reality was beginning to strike at the base of her skull. "Hey! Snowflake! I need you a fucking second!" Blair whipped around at Tamer's bark. A frosty breath coated her lips, prickling an intricate weave against her skin. Whatever Tamer had called out for, Blair already knew it was gonna be worthy of the academy award clusterfuck.

Before her, the Combustion man, restrained by...Conspiracy's legs? Snowfall blinked. Once. Twice. She wasn't sure what to be more concerned over. An explosive, shirtless man being restrained by well crafted thighs, the bumbling teenager that slid over and began spewing concern, or third, the fucking helicopter that threatened to crash straight into Snowfall, Tamer, and the neon flare. She was gonna go with the shirtless man being restrained by leather bound thighs.

"What the fuck are you even doing here?" Tamer hissed, his shoulders tense underneath his jacket. Blair had never heard this layer of concern in the man's voice, and for a moment she wanted to pipe up, to scream at them, get them to move. Both of them seemed oblivious to the danger ahead, and this caused frustration to boil in her blood. How in the actual fuck did they not see the goddamn helicopter? Rose colored glasses? A solid chunk of brain underdeveloped? A suicide wish? Being blinded with horror movie logic? Good Christ this was gonna turn into a blood and gore fest in a couple of seconds if...

"I need you! Freeze the building!" The neon cladded hero called for her, his thin frame almost bewildering to Blair in the midst of all this chaos. She didn't have much time to take him in as he grasped her, a sudden flow of warmth and energy flooding her system. Eyes rolling back into her head, the shards of frost began to thicken around her arms, creating sturdy pads of armor. The ice crawled against her collar bone, jagged down her stomach before encasing the hero entirely. The newly fallen snow began to gleam against the sheets of armor, a light pillow of clouds beginning to roll over the fresh blue sky. Raising her hand, bright blue and glistening with hardened, slick ice, Blair focused on the helicopter swarming overhead. With ease, a ray of frost shot forth from the palm of her hand, crackling with the force and power this new energy granted her. Frost rippled through the air, swift, concentrated and cruel, encasing the incoming helicopter. Closing her eyes, she flicked her wrist and sent the helicopter spiraling into the concrete below, being sure that it did not hit any civilians nor did it collide with any buildings. She turned her attention past a flabbergasted Tamer, whose eyes only now came in contact with the wreck of the helicopter.

"Holy shit I didn't think you could fuckin' do that."

"I-I didn't either..." She stammered, finding no exhaustion layering her tone. She felt...empowered. Alive. Ready to kick ass because goddamn it, she ran out of gum. Turning towards the building she had attempted to uphold, she easily snapped her fingers, watching a swirl of frost slither up the foundation. Which each level the serpent like ray crawled, a frosty coating shedded from its skin and stuck to crumbling structure. When it got to the top of the building, it eased to the roof, where it flattened and thickened, a gleaming barrier now ensuring its shape for the mean time. "K-kid, what...t-t-thank you. Thank you..."

"Hey, I love corny fucking meetings as much as the next asshole, but we still got one minor detail that needs to be taken into account." Tamer jested, jamming his thumb in the direction of Conspiracy and the Bomber Man. One hand hung lazily at his hip, almost expectant for Blair, but a moment of hesitation seemed to jostle him. "I gotta feeling she's about to be torn to bits, human popsicle, think you can-"

"He might hurt her though..." Blair realized, the revelation sudden but carefully crafted. "Hey, Beast Boy, think you can go ghost and grab her? See if you can incapacitate him...I only need a few seconds for wiggle room and I think I can make this work."

"The fuck you thinking there Frozone?" This puzzled question only brought upon a crack against the frosty mask that coated Blair's demeanor.

"You'll see, beastie."

Tamer didn't bother to question further, snapping his fingers and cloaking himself the way his beast had done previously. Blair stiffened for a moment, feeling a slight, invisible flick towards the back of her frozen ear that caused her to jump. A stifled chuckle tickled against her cheek, causing her to shiver. He's having too much fun with this...isn't he...Shaking the thought from her head, she kept her eyes glued to the enemy before her, energy spiraling down her fingertips as the air besides her began to freeze.

She had never felt in her element this much before. She never really found her powers to be anything more than accessory up until this point, up until the point she could feel it bound against her skin, woven into her chest, a true part of her that she could embrace. Well, in this case, she needed to expel it as soon as possible before Conspiracy became nothing more than a splatter on the ground. Tamer had been far more efficient than Blair could have hoped for, watching as an invisible force delivered a swift and crackling kick to the back of Bomber Man's knees, sending him buckling forward. Instantly, the force solidified back into Tamer, hefting the leather cladded hero from her handstand to his shoulder.

"Sorry, owe you dinner." He quipped, apologetic. Securing the woman over his shoulder, he hopped back in time to see the cloud of mist that curled around Snowfall's feet. Jagged rows of shards coursed beneath her, slamming into a circular formation around the Bomber man. Once Blair was able to establish this foundation, she brought her hands over her head and clamped them tightly together. A thick sheet of ice enveloped him, curving and expanding to a narrow, compact dome. Swiftly gliding across the icy lane she created with a flick of the wrist, she propelled herself into the dome. Slamming the heels of her shoes into the dome, she sent spikes spiraling in towards Bomber man. Using the momentum of her kick, she launched herself to the top of the dome and send two more punches, cratering an imprint into the dome and sending two more spikes inward. Hopping off, she used frost to slam herself in the air, shakily balancing herself as she felt her breath catch in her throat. She felt as if another hero had possessed her body, making her the Snowfall she always imagined herself to be, but could never quite achieve. But it didn't quite feel like her, even as some of the excess energy began to spew from her hands.

She whirled herself far from the dome, now managing to land back on her feet as she created a curved barrier between herself and the dome. Seeing Conspiracy and Tamer besides themselves, she quickly did the same for them, before remembering the neon flare. She pushed herself and the barrier forward slightly, being sure to grab him by his arm and place him under the protection of the handcrafted shield. "Thanks kid." She grinned, surprised to note her armor was still fully intact despite the heavy amount of energy that spilled from her fingertips. "Woo, mama is gonna need some wine after this..."

 

[Elle Joyner]

Liam & Caroline​

---

"I told you we should've brought them..." Rolling closer to the curly haired brunette, Liam heaved a deep sigh as he braced his hands on his knees, squeezing, despite the knowledge that he'd never feel it. The wheel on the left was squeaking again. Doctor Harris told him a little WD-40 would do the trick, but the sound reminded him of Hitchcock's Rear Window, so he let it be. That, and he knew it would never bother Caroline... No matter how much he wished she'd smack him in the back of the head and tell him to grease it up, he knew she'd never hear it.

Her fingers moved in a flurry beside him, and concentrating, Liam smirked dryly at the words his sister signed. He could almost hear the hiss of disappointed irritation lacing her tone.

"We have to be careful, Liam." She signed, silent words driven by no less passion than the bespoken, "Putting them on every chance we get just makes it easier for Quantum to find us..."

"So? I say let them find us. Bastards deserve a good beat down, after what they--"

Like a shout, her hands bore down, "Stop it! You think I don't know how you feel? You think I don't want justice, too? But now isn't the time for petty revenge. We have to do this right, or we are no better than them."

"Sheesh... Fine, Car... I get it, alright? Just... Aren't you sick of sitting around while chumps like this wreck our city?" Gesturing, his own gaze returned to the television set in the diner where they'd been watching the conference explode (quite literally) into chaos. As hero and villain clashed, captured by the reckless crew of news reporters, the other patrons of the diner were engrossed in their own panicked conversations. They were fine. They were all fine. Miles from the devastation, the worst thing they'd experience would be traffic. Yet their eyes were flooded with fear, the snippets of chatter he could pick up centered around their own safety, rather than the hundreds of people being railed on as they spoke... Typical. Self-centered was a condition of the people - selfishness a disease. Innocent masses were dying but so long as it didn't effect them, all would be well...

And it sickened him enough that he regretted the tomato soup and grilled cheese he'd polished off twenty minutes prior. Worse than the feeling of these fools in the diner, breathing sighs of relief that their own lives weren't being threatened was the knowledge that he could be out there... Doing something about it. He understood Caroline's hesitation. They were, by all intents and purposes, stolen.... The suits. But he had a hard time believing the citizens of DC would care if their saviors had the proper patenting or not.

"We should be there..." He repeated, a slick oil of bitterness crawling up the back of his tongue. Caroline turned to him and he prepared himself for the cathartic lesson of the day... Instead, her fingers curved around his hand and fixing him with a small smile, Caroline shook her head, pointing with her free hand to the television, the news camera having zoomed in on the hero known as Snowfall, flames surrounding her frosty figure, a magnificent dance between elements... Another hero beside her, dark as she was light, and in the distance, flashes, heliotrope brilliance...

The scroll across the bottom read Masked heroes turn the tide in terrorist attack at Presidential conference...

It wasn't much, but it was the reminder that Liam found he needed more and more often. They weren't alone. Not really.

Palm covering her hand, he needed, "Thanks, Car..."

Amelia​

---

There was something to say... For the spectacular performance Benny put on as he danced between shadow, the gunmen dropping, almost as if of their own accord. She wasn't a fan of violence. It was ugliness in motion, and she always preferred other methods, but sometimes, it was necessary... And today was one of those days. But if she had to ride the waves of ugliness, at least she got to experience a little beauty, too.

With a thrust of her palm, the last of the gunmen in her vicinity plummeted backwards off the stage and landed beside another fallen man. This one was not wearing the black uniform and deep crimson had pooled breath him...

With a sudden burst of scarlet and white, the beast was gone, and the ginger girl nearly dove off the stage, skidding to a halt beside the prone figure and kneeling down, "I don't know if you can hear me, sir… But if you're awake, try not to move. I'm gonna see if I can stop this bleeding, but I need to you to lay nice and still…" Biting her lip, she sank back, fingers pinching the buttons of her cardigan. It was one of her favorites… Moji had gotten it for her for Christmas the year prior…

But there was a dying man who needed it a lot more than she did… Pulling it free, she struggled with one of the sleeves, managing to rip it free. This, she balled up, securing it against the man's hip. This appeared to be the more pressing of the two wounds - the bullet having remained trapped inside… The shoulder was likely to sting, and he'd definitely need some stitching, but it wouldn't require quite the attention the other wound would. Unfortunately there was little more she could do but stabilize him, either way...

When the remainder of the sweater, she tied it around his hip and secured it as tightly as she could manage. His color, decidedly, was the more disconcerting issue… The pallid tone of his skin, that slight waxiness that suggested lowering blood pressure… Blood could be replenished and infections could be avoided… but if the man went into shock…

"Benny!" She called over her shoulder, suddenly, "Benny! I think I might need you, here, sweetie! If it's not too much trouble…"

TAGS || @Mobley Eats, @Seductress

---

Sabine​

---

Adrenaline had robbed the gunshot graze of its fury, but as the man in the wall stirred, Sabine could feel a conscious ringing in her ears that suggested something far more frightening. Her medicine was wearing thin… and pretty soon, too soon, she was going to be feeling the weight of quite literally everything, crashing down around her. She'd pushed too far - kept the thread tied too long, and it had its cost. But if it meant that Night Watcher could do his job, well…

Maybe it as the notion that it would piss off her father… or maybe she was genuinely concerned for the people in the city. Whatever the reason, she'd risk her own sanity time and time again to ensure these monsters were put down by the right people.

For a moment, his words were a muffled garble in her ears, but as his calloused hand came to rest against her cheek, there was a clarity in her mind that quite literally staggered the girl… Eyes widening, she stared up at the haggard man before her, and dumbfounded, she took his cape and the cigarettes without so much as a word.

Throat tight, she watched as he turned away, eyes fogging over, even as the pulsing headache spiked behind her temples, "S'il vous plaît...Be careful…" She whispered, then swiftly, she clambered over the ruined wall and ducking inside, crouched down behind the counter. Her fingers curled tighter around the cape, the cigarettes placed down on the ground beside her.

Squeezing her eyes shut, her lips parted as the words came of their own volition, the song pure memory… pure instinct, these days. In French, the old Bobby Darin song sounded entirely magical, and not just because it was the best memory she had of her mother, crouched by her bedside in the hospital, the words a gentle ministration to her comatose daughter… The quivered, whispered melody, however haunting it might have been to anyone else, was the only thing, in that moment, in all moments, that could bring her a sense of peace.

Motion stirred suddenly, and eyes snapping open, Sabine looked up in time to see an all too familiar figure skittering around the corner of the counter. Staring up at the man, she swore softly, "...Monsieur Pearson! You are alright? I… The… Night Watcher, he… he told me to stay here… To hold his… his things… Is my father… is he… Have you seen him?"

@TAGS || @Seductress

 

[Mobley Eats]

Nellie King "Iron Head" | Location: Conference (Nearing the Deli, but not there) | Status: Conflicted, Agonized, Almost Down for the Count


Iron Head nearly lost track of President Taffer, now that she was properly scoping out the stage. He wasn't where she'd left him, which she couldn't blame the diplomat for. Knowing the fuck wipes overrunning this place, they likely could've gotten their hands on him... Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. One job. She had on goddamn objective given to her by Night Watcher and suddenly she couldn't even do that right. "Where'd he go... where'd the fucker go...?" she rasped under her breath, each inhale and exhale the equivalent of daggers ripping her lungs to shreds. A shrill and aching buzz coursed through her bloodstream, warning her--no, begging for a moment of reprieve to replenish.

But she couldn't stop.

And then she spotted him. Making his way towards some sort of deli that was wrecked by Night Watcher's grand entrance. Damn; that was much further than the stage, but it didn't really matter, now did it? Gritting her teeth, Iron Head shoved her way past frantic civilians, hurdled over piles of fallen bodies, innocent and criminal alike, doing everything her waning strength could muster to make it by the president's side.

Overhead and unbeknownst to Iron Head, the aircraft's metal belly peeled and three combat drones dropped. Twin projectiles were suspended from their hangars as they swept the crowd from up above, their scanners sifting through the collection of subjects until...

There.

With a round of confirmation beeps and clicks, six mini missiles jetted from their placeholders and rocketed towards Iron Head.

She wasn't able to pinpoint the odd noise in time. Stomach twisting into knots, the iron clad hero whipped around and cursed as two missiles came within feet of descending. "FUCK!" It was muscle reaction more than anything else, but if she hadn't conjured a blood shield as quickly as she had, the explosion would've knocked her unconscious right on the spot. Regardless, her barrier didn't hold. The sheet of crimson boiled and bubbled from the overwhelming heat, before sizzling into a miss of burnt iron and plasma.

Four more missiles incoming.

"Move! Get out of the way!" she barked while summoning thin whips of blood, her insides absolutely burning and hollow from overexertion. She felt like a well holding a few ounces of water and even that amount was dwindling--fast. Hands shaky, she swept them outwards and horizontally, forcefully pushing citizens out of range of the inevitable attack--

Another touched gravel.

Boom!

Bits of gravel and concrete and fire licked Iron Head's side as she leapt away from the explosion, rolling to a stop several feet away. She barely had a chance to recover when the fourth missile came from behind. A desperate jump forward, but nowhere near far enough to avoid damage. Heat ripped through the thick metal hide of her suit and burned the back of her calves; it was only by the grace of numbed nerves that she hadn't crumbled from the pain and continued to pump her legs. Two more projectiles. Barely enough blood left to use without falling unconscious.

Fuck! Of course I'd die like a human baked potato! No better way to go. Really.

With a clumsy dive, she slid into cover around the corner of a building, crossing her arms over her head as the fifth explosion ripped away a massive chunk of bricks. Her ears were ringing. Sweat building. Nausea and fatigue rapidly rising. Energy depleting. And there was still one more honed and locked onto her location like a technological bloodhound.

Shit.

Gritting her teeth, Iron Head pulled on her very last globule of sentient blood and ejected it through the crevices of her metal palms. They formed spindling legs like that of a giant spider and pierced either sides of a large dumpster. Like an oversized, bloody crane, she heaved a guttural grunt and launched the dumpster into the line of trajectory behind her and the very last missile. A monstrous collision of garbage and fire filled the air, before the crate's metal body heaved a loud groan. The center of it caved from the impact and its back caved outwards like a bubble.

Then it burst.

Piping hot shrapnel showered Iron Head. Although most of it grazed her suit harmlessly, a handful sliced into the revealed lower half of her face. She flopped just as unceremoniously as the dumpster did, her chest heaving with gasping pants. Her heart pumped fretfully, though it barely had enough blood to properly pump through her veins. The world switched back and forth between blurs and doubles, struggling to right her mind. K... keep moving... you f-fucking pansy... The worst motivational speech known to man, but enough to force Iron Head onto her hands and knees. Bile crawled up the back of her throat, then slithered back down with a stubborn gulp.

Not now. Definitely not now.

She had to get to President Taffer--

Sharp. Clarity. A clearness that struck her so abruptly and violently that time stopped. Nellie's gaze snapped up as she peered out into the heart of discord. Among the throng of panicking citizens was a single small figure. One that she recognized from this morning.

Cole.

The little mute boy looked to and fro frantically, as if look for someone while wiping fruitlessly at the mess of tears streaking his face. The motions were frazzled, but Nellie could decipher those signs from miles away. Mom. He was calling out for his mom. However, his search slammed to a halt when another gunmen loomed over him and raised a rifle, preparing to rip holes through the boy...

"No... n-no. No, no, no--No!" Frantic, Nellie pushed off her feet and stumbled in the boy's direction--

But the president. If he was left unguarded a moment longer, then there was no telling--

But Cole. She had to get to Cole!

Eyes stinging behind the visor, Nellie glanced back at President Taffer, who was still fleeing his way to the Deli. He had a bit of a ways to go, even with more heroes there waiting for him, and plenty more threats stood between him and his destination. Then to Cole again.

Taffer.

Cole.

Taffer.

Cole.

Ta...

Nellie tackled the gunman. They wrestled over possession of the rifle until she cracked the butt of it into his nose, eliciting a sickening crunch. Blood gushed from underneath the man's mask and with another solid hit, his skull met the ground, completely out cold. Without pause, Nellie reached out to Cole, who at first tried to pull away from her out of blind fright. "No! It's okay! I-I'm... Look," In a flourish, she signed "Hero" to him and he immediately deflated in relief, silent hiccups and sobs making his little shoulders shake. "I've got you." She pulled the boy close to her with a hand raised, prepared to lay any and all hostiles flat on their asses...

But it was all a bluff.

Nellie was wiped clean. If a breeze blew hard enough, she could crumble unconscious. Will power alone kept her on her feet.

Her crimson-stained teeth clenched and formed a vicious snarl. "I've got you, Millie!"

I'll never leave you again. Not while I'm breathing.

 

[Ragamoofin]

[Synergizer²]

Press Conference (Ice Age Epicenter > Moving Towards Deli)

Interactions: Beast Tamer, Snowfall. @KatSea Iron Head, Cole. @Mobley Eats

Status: At Wit's End.​

Synergizer's heavy fists struck Bomber Man's chin with a bone-rattling force, a blow that would've been crippling on its own was made all the more debilitating by the- hooded man appearing from thin air, one Synergizer recognized. It's response was almost...human, too quick, too honest in that strange hollow voice of theirs. "Tamer?" Synergizer uttered, disbelief an eerie echo in it's helm. Synergizer's weight had them spinning on their heel, heavy gauntlets crashing again into the Bomber Man's rippling torso, knocking more than the breath out the terrorist. Their focus, however, was solely on the familiar hero.

"Where did you-" Synergizer realized their words' logic, delivering a punishing roundhouse to Bomber Man's head, jets issuing from their sole to send the terrorist's head lolling towards the ground with a crack. "Forgive me, it's been a while." Synergizer's helm flicked to the ground, shifting their boot in the quickly spreading ice. "What in the..."

Synergizer's helm moved in a peculiar manner, their senses narrowing to a single point, honing their world to that overextended strand that went beyond the rummage of the conference. On the other side of that strong, but straining thread, was Anselle. And he was -

Synergizer's boot cracked and shattered from the grip of ice, a noise of annoyance in the armor's helm. The ice quickly traveled, more of their body consumed, their light fading and they were seemingly fine with that, just obviously irritated. "Carver, I'd suggest you move quickly." Synergizer warned, the last of their body up to their throat in ice, helm next, quickly glossing over. "I believe Anselle's showing of-" With the surge of force through the ice, Synergizer shattered, nothing more than purple shrapnel, bent to the will of the embodiment of frozen wrath.

Synergizer, of course, was not destroyed - displaced, perhaps, but that was a moment's discomfort. That thread, guiding and endless, all it took was a tug to send it reeling back to their host. Never truly gone, stretched away, but it would never leave him. It just...took a moment to get back. Anselle would be fine.

Anselle was...wiped. He'd instantly regretted not staying on his feet, but that transfer of power - he hadn't been kidding when he'd tried to put his all into it, but God, if he hadn't gone overboard...

His hands had gone numb the moment he hit the ground; it'd been frozen the moment he touched Snowfall, her power working in overdrive before his very eyes. He'd watched, hands being buried under a thick sheet of eye as the woman literally froze over, doning glacial armor before she'd unleashed her power upon the falling helicopter. She'd caught it. It sounded - insane, fuck, what do you think it looked like? She caught it, and threw it. Like it was nothing. It was nothing, now anyway. His...superboost? It'd done something to her, made her stronger, gave her more power than she knew what to do with.

But, hey. She thanked him, that was something. Anselle sat there, hands frozen under the ice, feeling more like they were about to fall by the second. He kept on staring, visor doing nothing to hide how gobsmacked he was by the sight of the icy super. "Uhhh...y-y-you're w-welcome!" Anselle finally stuttered out, the cold making his teeth chatter in his gums. Anselle looked up, around them, at what the woman had done with ease. "Y-yo-you're really blowin' my mind here, though. I-I-I didn't k-know I could make someone d-do this!" Anselle struggled to pull his hands free, pulling on the dregs of power he still had in his cells to warm his hands enough to squeeze out the melting pockets.

As Anselle got to his feet, he wore a small smile on his lips, visor's tip not low enough to cover his toothy grin. "I w-wonder wh-what else you c-can do..." Excuse him for being curious, but Snowfall barely looked like she was tired, and she'd frozen nearly every problem thrown her way. Everything except- Anselle winced at the echo of gunfire, far less now, but there still the occasional burst fire. Anselle's fists curled at his sides, teeth gritting in the direction of the gunshots. He went to dart, but something - someone stopped him. Anselle drew back, collecting himself with a slow breath.

"Almost all the civilians are cleared, but there's still a few injured who haven't been able to make it out." Anselle's eyes shut under his visor, taking a deep breath. His aura flared around him, features, body lost to the rising flames. The light died back to his armored self, the purple, towering image restored. Synergizer's head tilted to the side, paying close attention to the wail of ambulance sirens. "As long as those gunmen are running around, the medics are gonna have a really hard time."

There was still the evacuation of the nearby buildings to worry about, but they had to get a clear shot to the ambulances first. That meant whoever was still toting a gun had to be stopped, there wasn't any other way around it now. "I'm not sure how long that power will last, but, hey." Synergizer said, shooting the frozen woman a finger gun. "You'll look pretty cool in the meantime," Synergizer joked, turning away as light built on his heel. "I'll see myself away." With a tremendous force at his feet, Synergizer went soaring, up, up into the air. While he waited for gravity to take hold, Synergizer let his heavy, armored arms droop. "Oh, my God, I think I'm gonna fuckin' die."

[Not yet, Anselle.]​

Synergizer's helm snapped down below, eyes narrowing behind his face shield at the few crooks still walking around the conference, loaded guns aiming at anything that still moved. From way up high, he could see a recognizable suit of armor, cradling someone...

Anselle landed with a gentleness that was ill-fitting for someone of his size. No matter how he landed, getting the attention of the surrounding goons was easy enough. Several barrels aimed at him, Synergizer took a passing glance at the goons. "That's right! That's right..." Inside, Anselle took a hard gulp when more of those barrels aimed his way. Away from the bloodied, blasted armor cradling what was very obviously a child. Good, if it took the heat off of them, all the better. "Bigger they are, y'know?"

Synergizer looked around again, attention snapping back towards a burly mook, finger inching closer to his trigger. Synergizer's shoulders gave a loose roll, voice coming out as a huff. "Well, somebody shoot firs-" Pow. Synergizer felt the shot strike his armor, right where Anselle assumed the goons thought his shoulder was. He assumed they expected it to go through, maybe draw blood.

They'd be sorely disappointed; the bullet struck Synergizer, and fell off his armor. The aftermath was a ripple of violet where the bullet hit.

Synergizer brushed the spot off, not even a scuff to the sleek armor. "Okay, this time with feelin-"

Pow, pow. Brrrrrrrr-tat!

Synergizer stumbled forward, fell backwards with the hit of the bullets. A show, one that was working. The goons seemed eager to empty their clips into him, bullets clinking into a rolling pile at the hero's feet.

Click click, click. Synergizer tutted his tongue, the sound louder, more taunting in the goons' ears. "Out of bullets?" Ah, that sucks." Synergizer's shoulders tensed, and with a burst of speed and light swirling about him like fire - pow. Synergizer's fist found its way into the body armor of one of the gunmen; the one that had fired at him first, in fact. The gunman's breath was knocked from him as he went skidding across the pavement, his associate standing next to him - buckled, Synergizer's fist slamming into his temple, eyes rolling in the back of his head, sent flying by the force of the hit. Synergizer launched himself off the ground, hands outstretched towards the weapon of his next target.

Synergizer's hands clasped the muzzle of the rifle, his aura leaping the instant his hands touched it, razing through it and transforming it- Synergizer's feet planted before the crook a moment before his grip adjusted on the newly forged mace, taking it by the muzzle-turned-handle and swinging it at the goon's chin.

The splash of saliva, blood and teeth in his aura was...satisfying. The goon's soaring, limp form even more so, especially when it crashed at the feet of last gun-wielding terrorist. The man, mask be damned, looked terrified in body language alone. Synergizer stood stalwart, his helm seemingly narrowing in, his aura flashing through his mace, the handle flashing, segments opening and the heavy head dropping to the ground as the handle extended.

The crook got the idea, and turned to run. Synergizer's arm snapped towards the fleeing goon, a secondary flash of his fiery light traveling through the lengthy cord, the air crackling around it, sounding very bit as violent as Anselle would've hoped. Synergizer watched the traveling flame reach the bulky head of the mace, ending up just behind the crook as it swelled, a visible surge of energy that burst at the goon's back. Synergizer took pride in launching the baddie, face planting on the concrete and skidding along a fair bit. It was a cruel pride, one Anselle tried not to think too much on.

The mace's handle glowed in Synergizer's clutch, length cord withdrawing, light consuming its reverting form. Synergizer took the restored rifle in hand, snapping it over his knee in a swift motion. Tossing the pieces to the side, Synergizer found the armored woman, looking no worse for wear than when he'd last laid eyes on her. She really was cradling someone, a little boy, by the looks of it. "Looks like you've been through the ringer," Synergizer said to her, a weak attempt to put her and her protected company at ease. "These guys don't know when to quit..." Synergizer approached her slowly, showing his heads to display that he wasn't a threat. "Is he hurt?" Synergizer asked, tone turning serious, helm craning towards the little boy, trying to see any injuries from afar. "Are you?"

Without any extra movement, Synergizer's bared palms lit up, a gentle flame that just barely rose away from his armor. "You're Iron Head, right?" Synergizer snuck closer while he asked. "Hey. Big fan of the suit. I'm Synergizer. Know you probably don't know me, but I'm kinda good in situations like this." Synergizer stopped, keeping a fair amount of space between himself and the woman. "If he's hurt, I can heal him, but you've gotta give him to me." Synergizer took another step forward, testing the tension between them. "Please."

Synergizer didn't need to rely on his senses to know the danger was palpable between them, his fear for the boy in the woman's arms, outweighed his concern for himself. And out of that fear, Anselle awaited the woman's next move. The heartbeat in his chest rattled around him, thunderous and...buzzing? Synergizer's head tipped up, eyes narrowing underneath his face shield at the dark cloud sweeping in from above. Dark, diverging above the conference and still buzzing.

"What the f-"

 

[Ragamoofin]

[Queen Bee]

[Location: Conference(Airspace), Frozen Building.]

[Interactions: Ambulances, Medics, Injured. @Seductress Night Watcher, Chore. @Zerofighter Sunspot]

[Status: All Systems Buzzing.]​

So, it was another attack. The media painted a very clear, stark picture of just what the press conference had become; it'd been a horrific sight to see the event begin, and quickly go south before the eyes of millions, likely more with how the attack had gone - still going. The winds whipped hard around her suit as she flew, the myriad flap of wings, united in a fearsome buzz around her - her Hivepod continued to produce more, drones popping from the ports on the mechanical marvel she wore on her back.

At all sides, the striking heroine was surrounded by her creations; a dense, shifting cloud around her. The larger bodies of her Builders flew beside her, a heavy wall between her and the outer layer of her Attackers, the air already smelling of ozone from their arcing mandibles. At the forefront of the formation, linking around her and projecting her honey-colored barrier, were her Shields.

Breathing easier as her shield deployed, Queen Bee kept her eye on the small screen in the corner of her veil; a live footage from the press conference, her eyes going wide at the latest development across the rapidly moving screen. The icy hero, made into a living popsicle when that neon newcomer dashed before her. The resulting display of power, a mesmerizing dance of strength that saw the explosive villain encased in frost. "Hmm," Queen Bee hummed, her fingers working subtly, the feed freezing - her fingers pinched the air, zooming in on the frozen feed.

"Just who are you wearing?" Queen Bee closely eyed the frozen shape of the icy heroine, spending a moment longer on the neon clad one that had something to do with the woman's showing. The feed had shown the armored hero split in two, one running off to confront the explosive villain, the other raising the fallen. She was interested, no, she was fascinated. How were they doing that?

It had Bea humming under her veil, she would've stroked her chin had it allowed the action. She turned her eyes towards the front of her swarm, peering over the rooftops, the first glint of firelight and the glacial formations of ice across the ground, looking a blown to bits mess even from the air. Queen Bee's arms swept out, her swarm beginning to break apart, hands working over the air, a digital interface assigning tasks to her descending swarm.

For the remaining people below, the sight buzzing in from above would've been somewhat alarming. Wave after buzzing wave of drones swam in from the air, the largest of the swarm breaking off and flocking towards the iced over building. The drones landed with some difficulty on the frost, their legs breaking through the ice with an adjustment of their internal pistons. Settling over the building like a colorful skin, their mandibles opening up, light escaping their mouths en masse; the Builders' were linked by the hub of Queen Bee's Hivepod, and over her veil, the heroine saw the building's scanned measurements unfolding before her eyes. Her index finger flicked, a silent order that had the Builders crawling about the building, crawling into windows, borrowing through the ice to make exits.

Builders landed at the opened windows, their multitude of arms working in tandem with the emitted material from their flexing mandibles, a foundation webbing up and used for the Builders to begin making what a very obviously a bridge. More and more the Builders flocked to the task, joining in seamlessly, more and more of the sturdy, wax-colored bridges protruded from the windows, meeting the ground and secured by thick layers of hardening nanites.

At the opened windows, bubbles began rising up and away; Shield drones, their field's altered to support the prone bodies' of the injured, too hurt to escape the frozen building on their own. The shields were stable, careful and encompassing for the injured, who began to leave the building in a swarm of their own, the drones heading towards the parked ambulances.

Honey light spread through the air, a dome beginning to form around the number of ambulances, further securing the space as a safe zone. A buzz accompanied the dome settling dome, close around the mobile lifesavers. The airborne drones began to arrive, merging through the honeycomb field around the ambulances, hovering low to the ground. The drones emitted a rhythmic beat; a heartbeat, monitored and amplified by the drone. It would allow the medics to know who were in worst shape.

Floating above the settling chaos, Queen Bee cleared her throat, a pinky activating the live mic to her drones. "I'm going to be escorting the rest of the civilians to this area soon, please stay within range of my drones!" With that Queen Bee's voice was replaced the monitored beat of the injured hearts.

Back at the frozen building, the bridges were purposed into slides, the civilians who could move skidding down the oddly pliable constructs. Some were unwilling, they were aggressively persuaded to reconsider. The Attack drones snagged onto the civilians' clothes, easing them around the icy terrain, their lethal hands pointing towards any downed gunman that even looked like he was going to move. The frozen building was quickly being emptied out, and at the same time, the builders were working to repair it from the inside out. They crawled over the rubble, feeding on it, fuel for their nanites. Piece by piece, the debris over the ground was cleared away, the builders filling in the craters over the concrete. The building was next, the foundation being rebuilt as the swarm of drones reconstructed the levels that had been blown apart. It was a fascinating process, in her opinion.

One by one, the civilians would be taken to the shielded ambulances, the Attack drones leaving them to guard the area, layer upon striped layer of the offensive drones surrounding the medics and their patients.

The live feeds of the helicopters circling the area gave Queen Bee a good look at the area, she crossed her arms, observing the progress of her builders, already finishing up the collapsed building, heading off the wrecked deli that was apparently seeing a lot of traffic.

Queen Bee's feeds cut off from her veil, looking up at the ships flying in, narrowing her eyes at the commotion that ended in two figures being launched from the ship - then a glowing body came soaring in for their rescue. The glow, Queen Bee noticed with an enraptured stare, was beginning to fade out. Queen Bee's fingers dragged across the air, her Hivepod giving a meaningful whirl of activity before a burst of drones flew from her, shield drones lead by dutiful attackers.

Queen Bee's voice came through the drones, their shields deploying around Sunspot and her cumbersome, very plainly hurt cargo. "Need a hand?" Remarked the drones, Queen Bee's chuckle coming through the feed. "Let's get you landed. Follow me to the safe zone!" Soaring ahead, numerous and swarming, the attackers led the charge towards the ambulances.

 

[Zerofighter]

Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god! Theyre gonna die! Her literal FIRST day doing a major mission, and she was gonna die hanging onto her idol, and some other man. Her golden aura was fading more and more, the young woman exerting more and more effort to hold them both, and keep up the aura. Was this it? Was the shining beacon of Justice going to die here? And taking Nightwatcher with her! Hero idol, was aboutt o die because of her!

What else could go wrong?

Mom, Dad! Im sorry! I just wanted to be a hero! I wanted to help people!

"I can do this...I can do this….I just gotta hang on.." Not realizing that she was talking to herself in front of these two men. Not that it mattered as they were about to shot at as soon as her Sun-Field vanished. Why did it always seem like she had bad luck? She meets her hero idol, and now she is about to die carrying him!

Her eyes saw these weird drones heading towards them. "Oh come on give me a break!" She groaned out, expecting the drove to shoot them down with some weird laser weapon, or rocket. Much to her surprise they went behind her blocking the fire. "What the hell? Theyre on our side. Well looks like were safe for now..."

A woman's voice spoke through them,biting her lip. Could she trust this person?
Well they did just save your life, and if anything goes south.
You have NightWatcher as back up! Maybe I should stop thinking, and follow these things."

"Uh yea whatever you say weird voice...." Seeing a good area to land, it seemed to be a good safe spot for the time being. But then her eyes widened seeing the attackers head toward the ambulances! They had to do something! These monsters would attack innocent people who cant even defend themself! Biting her lip, she dived down much faster now. Pushing her speed to its limit!

"Brace yourselves! This is gonna be a rough landing!" She said, closing her eyes as the three hit the ground. The last bit of her Sun-Field held on long enough to cushion their fall. Though, Liz herself smacked into a taxi. The passenger side was dented inward, and the rear wheel came off. The poor hero looked to be in a daze, and her nose was bleeding. If one was to see it without context, it was quite funny.

"Thank you for flying Air-Sunspot. I hope you enjoyed your flight. We promise never to fly again ever.."

Cursing, as she couldn't activate her sunfield. While she didn't need it for Super Strength and her durability. It did allow her to fly, and it was just extra protection. Looking at Nightwatcher, she decided to ask. "Umm….any idea who that voice was? Sorry….I dont know many heroes. To be honest this is my first REAL job...before I just stopped cars, and small time robbers. But this...this is an entirely different level."

As she looked around the part of the city they were in, it started to look familiar. The buildings, the signs, but most of all the diner on the corner. It was destroyed, the attackers decimated the building. Windows were destroyed and the interior was unrecognizeable.
I know this place...wait….thats Tony's diner. Which means…..this is nearby where dad works!

At this point the other civilians didnt matter now. None of them mattered to her now. What mattered was the safety of her family! She can do this, she kept telling herself.

SHE CAN SAVE EVERYONE!

"W-we gotta find my dad! That's the restaurant where he works!" Pushing past Nightwatcher, Liz ran inside, bodies of patrons and staff were inside. She recognized the faces well. Regulars who visited the diner sense she was a kid. Mr.O'Maley, who started her love of superheroes. Miss Prince, the nice old woman who tutored her. Sally, she would sneak her a piece of cheesecake when she visited her dad.

Liz went into the kitchen, and froze at the sight. Her scream could be heard from outside. "Daddy...no no no…" Seeing her father dead on the ground, a bloody meat cleaver and kitchen knife in his hand. One of the attackers was next to him dead. Her dad must've ambushed one of them, but they outnumbered him. Easily killing him with their assault rifles.

"I-Im sorry….daddy....I thought I could save everyone.."

 

[Seductress]

"Night Watcher, you've been at this for almost two decades, have you ever seen anything like this before?"

The camera followed The Night Watcher as he sat on the side of a beaten, broken, and very battered stage. Blood was dribbling from a cut that still hadn't stopped bleeding, but he had hopes that he could finally stop moving and focus on stopping any more life force from spilling out of his veins. "An attack this big...uh...No, not really. Yeah, can't say I have."

"Is there anything you'd like to say to the people of Washington? Anything you'd like to address?"

The Night Watcher's interest had slowly been losing itself from the little interview. While it was the first time he had been on live television, he never imagined a new interviewer would be so...excited? In the end, Channel 7 News was the first on the scene, and the first to score an interview that day with a hero, but people had died. Old wounds had been torn open, people had gotten hurt, and even worse, The Night Watcher's years of theorizing had been proven right. This wasn't exactly a situation to be happy about.

With his boot now off, and his sock peeled off his foot, the camera zoomed up on The Night Watcher's foot as he stretched it up to rest on his knee. His foot had been bruised heavily around the joints of his toes, and his big toe had split down the middle all the way to the skin. As he heard the question, The Night Watcher stood up, putting his boot beside him on the stage as he attempted to keep pressure off of his right foot.

"Whether you lock your doors at night, sleep with a gun under your pillow, or look over your shoulder when you're walking alone. Just know; we are here. Through the unity of Lady Justice's hand held embrace, it is our job to protect each and every one of you. We might not be some kind of Avengers, and we for sure aren't the X-Men, but what we are, is the people who will give our lives to keep you safe...Man, I need pie."

About Ten Minutes Earlier
(Give or Take)​

"That lovely overgrown metal goblin who just stood up to the tin can is Sound Wave. What he doesn't realize is that going up against Iron Head means that you're going to be knocked down," Vihaan continued, ignoring the question about Sunspot. Vihaan had dedicated his life (or, his twelve year career as a uniformed officer) to researching and cataloging supers and beings with meta-level powers. He didn't have time to talk about the lesser known; the chief had to know who the key players leading the assault were before the defenders. "We still haven't figured out what the connection to last night's bombardment is. We have speculations, considering Mr.Chore was at Inova Fairfax when the men dressed similar to these thugs with rifles showed up. We don't have any solid information to back up any conjecture, but if we can just find some sort of proof to connect the dots, then we're in business."

Suddenly the air grew thin as the temperature began to rapidly drop. Vihaan extended his arm as the hairs began to creep up. He could feel the temperature dropping. It wasn't one of those "it got colder" things. The man could feel the beginning to drain of what heat the autumn air had held. Slowly draining and filling up with a certain cold, a cold devoid of all things warm and hopeful. Apparently the weather didn't properly mimic the tone that was truly being created here.

As Wayne pointed toward the culmination of ice and clouds, and the furies flurries flying faintly in the distance in a bit of a "okay, what the fuck is this now" motion, the focus shifted away from the two cops. There was a woman, a blonde woman, who didn't get out much. This might have been the first time in about....give or take two months or so. She locked to lock herself up in her crappy little apartment, with her stained mattress and computer setup, away from all of this. If she didn't respect Conner so much, she never would have accepted his request to help keep an eye on the shindig. If she didn't respect Conner so much, her arms wouldn't be threatening to give out. If she didn't respect Conner so much, she would't have a man who could probably blow her up struggling to remove himself from her thighs. Of all the moves she decided to pull, why did she have to attack with this one?

The woman huffed at the ground, feeling the pebbles that had merged in with the concrete digging into her palm. One call for help quite clearly wasn't enough. Rolling her eyes, she inhaled a great gasp of air. It filled her lungs and threatened to escape as she found the word she wanted to use to gain everyone's attention. The blonde's eyes welded themselves shut as she visualized the word in her head. She felt the release tingling at her vocal chords, until suddenly it was gone. All of her air was gone. She couldn't breath, yet couldn't gasp for air. She opened on eye, and she was looking at the ground again. This time it was different, though. She was over someone's shoulder (which she could feel digging into her stomach) as he got her back out of harm's reach.

"You could buy me a hoagie, for starters." Her eyes watered at the though of pile sitting under the rubble that consisted of pickles and salami, and everything else she could fit under Italian bread. Conspiracy was only able to get a couple of bites out of it before her lunch break was interrupted by the group's mystical savior. It was a wonderful display of powers that she could have sworn she's seen before...she might have been a normal person until recently but she still kept up with all of the meta-related activity. And conspiracies. God there was nothing better than a juicy conspiracy. Anyway, digressing. There she was, on a very well fit man's shoulder, being carried away from the blast zone. And...oh my was this ever something to behold.

Too bad Conspiracy couldn't see what was going on. Okay, he put her down, not she could see why it was so cold all of a - oh, okay. Yeah, that isn't cool at all. Conspiracy grasped the bottom of her leather jacket, where you'd normally connect the zipper. The smile on her face was wide as the construction of the dome reflected off of her eyes. The structure was perfect; built beautifully to surround the Snow Queen's opponent, as some sort of attack surely knocked him around. There was no blood spilled, but blood vessels near the surface of his skin were beginning to break open. The blood bruises under his skin covered everywhere that he was hit, and were starting to piss him off.

It's unfortunate that his rage would go to waste as defeat rolled across for his tongue to taste.

The image before Conspiracy was a thing of true beauty; it brought her back to when she was only eight years old. She could remember sitting on the curb as some drunk teenager -who had been driving on the wrong side of the road for six miles- had crashed into some poor families' house. The girl and the family were okay, and the entire neighborhood were evacuated from their homes the moment someone smelled gas. Eight years old. Conspiracy was only eight when she witnessed her first explosion, and she fell in love instantly. First the car erupted into a ball of fire, which then ignited the first house. One by one, eight houses puffed into a burst of smoke and beauty.

It might have helped Conspiracy to do her job because she could do one specific thing. She couldn't fly, or manipulate colours and other weird stuff she didn't understand. She couldn't manipulate ice, or blood or control giant monster things. No, she had a very special super power; she understood. She knew what it meant to want to watch the world burn. She could never love any man the way she loved explosions, creating a sinister, cynical set of ethics within her jaded heart. She brought her hands to her face as she watched the ensuing snowstorm that surrounded then, touching the tips of her fingers to her cheeks.

The capabilities this thing could possess; it could destroy the world in a blanket of freezing atmosphere and create a barren wasteland. While at the same time, it could cure the world. This one woman who seemingly struggled to match the intensity of her powers to her want to do good in this world, she could easily be the key to the protection of mankind. Conspiracy managed to pull her eyes away from the dome, and shifted her focus over toward Blair, who seamlessly did what she does best.

You've caught my attention, snow queen. The blonde thought to herself, a smile crossing her lips that she had to bite down against in order to stop it. You have definitely caught my attention.

"That's probably just Snowfall," Vihaan addressed Wayne's confusion with nothing but a shrug. Wayne scurried behind the hulking man as he walked behind Jessica and her partner. "She just recently surfaced not too long ago, along with a handful of these metas who showed up tonight. They don't directly possess any threat to mankind,"

"But if they did," Wayne cut in, finally seeing what's going on here. "You're the man we call to eradicate them and eliminate the threat. That's why it's your job to learn everything you can about them; everything from their strengths to their weaknesses, to building up theories behind their addresses and secret identities."

Vihaan's smile was soft and gentle as he stopped to learn against Jessica's ambulance. "How did you guess?"

"Because we had a guy just like you back in the Manchester division." Wayne placed his hand against his gun, having to crane his neck to look up at this large, well built man.

"And? Does he hunt rogue supers and retire them when they attempt to turn evil?"

Wayne chuckled as he shook his head. It was only a soft, subtle chuckle, but the smile was wide and bright. A huge step up from Vihaan's slightly cocky, smug grin that always painted itself on his face. "One of the strongest psychs I've ever seen flooded his lungs with liquid before causing his heart to explode in his chest. This was the first rogue he went after too, mind you." A true captain Ahab in his natural surroundings; nothing but a man who had found himself focusing his life around the one obsession that would ultimately consume him. Superhero, police officer, paramedic, congressman or president, every person was still a human, and every human had to die at some point.

"I could use a guy like you," Wayne claimed as he peered behind the ambulance, letting Vihaan scratch his mustache in thought of the story he had just been told. "I need to have someone on my unit who can identify a super just by looking at the texture of their cape. You seem useful enough to let me know what I'm sending my men into before I send them. So you're not fired."

There was too much going on. At least, that's how Jessica felt as her head swam in confusion as she tried to identify the hot zones, and spots she could flag the rest of the convoy toward. Once the ambulances were out of the way, then the pursuing police escorts could touch down and start to a strategy to box in the remaining gunmen. It felt like victory was within the grasp of the good guys, but it was still looking too far away at the same time.

[FONT=Marcellus, serif]For the cities emergency response divisions, their job had only just started. Sure, the war zone was beginning to clear down a little bit, but the cleanup and medical treatments were going to take days before they were ready to say that the day was saved. Neutralizing the threat was only the first step in a long process of behind the scenes operations that are hardly ever reported on. There was still someone who was fairly unaccounted for, however; President Taffer.

Running.

He was always running; running for president, running to raise money for cancer, and now he was running for his life. Could he really blame the heroes, though? There was too much to take into account, how could anyone keep track of everything that was going on at once. Still, he didn't imagine he would have to stick close to a brick wall after having his entire security detail try to kill him. It really wasn't a good day.

Taffer noticed his vice president had taken cover inside a small Deli hidden between the cookie cutter building, and realized that it might have just been the perfect hiding spot. Iron Head was even standing guard, which gave him enough security to slow down to catch his breath. His knees were starting to buckle under him, and his lungs gasped and stretched out for air. Maybe eating that fourth plate of the wife's homemade pork belly wasn't so much of a good idea. He could feel his heavy lunch rattling around, weighing him down like he had devoured a bag of bricks like a glutton devouring pie after pie. Taffer swore to himself; if he made it out of this fucking circus alive, he was going to cut back on the amount of food he ingested. Maybe even go vegan - but that would be pushing it, just a little.

"I'm okay, don't worry," Pearson said as he continued to inspect the wound Sabine obtained. He shook his head, scolding himself for getting so worried about something that seemed so small. "Your father was...I could have sworn I saw him, but everything kind of just happened so quickly." Letting go of the girl's arm, he peered over the counter, seeing Taffer nearing the man-made entrance that everyone had been using. A spark of happiness - and relief had burst through the vice president's chest. He didn't need the president's name spearheading the list of obituaries today. Maybe another day, when the man could choke on some broccoli, or fall down some stairs the wrong way, or even just die of some cause that Mr.Kringle himself couldn't have stopped.

"You stay right here," His smile was weak, and his voice was filling with desperation. He wanted to stay and keep Sabine safe until they could find her father, but the man had glory days. His glory days were begging to be relived in the form of making sure his president was secure and safe with the rest of them. "You keep The Night Watcher's stuff safe, I'll be back in ten seconds with Mr.Taffer, and then we can find your father." He offered one last smile, before forcing his old bones to shoot him back to his feet. The sounds of everything happening all at once was enough to shake a person down to their very core; but not Pearson.

Iron Head had a choice she had to make; a choice that if Taffer had a say, he would have pushed for the ladder. He hadn't even noticed the drones heading straight for Iron Head, focusing their sights specifically on her. If they were after him, he would have been toast by now. It was almost as if they had saved their last attack for their real target, but that thought hadn't crossed the president's mind. As Nellie had taken the ladder, and lunged for the young boy who required immediate saving, a stray missile threatened to tear through Taffer. It came to his attention that no amount of pork belly, mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables could help cause an explosive projectile to bounce off like a blubbery trampoline.

Time seemingly stopped. The sands of the hourglass moved apparently at half a grain at a time, and as most of us know, like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives. As Pearson tried to plant his feet firmly in the ground to reach his arm to Taffer, the jolly president attempted to extend his arm, his fingers just barely locking with his. If ever there was time for a super with such incredible gifts that they could manipulate the space/time continuum into a frozen state long enough to redirect the missile, now was that time. Where was The Night Watcher? He could throw a car at the rocket, or hit it with a street light, or something.

It must have been a universal feeling; time slowing to only allow seconds to pass with the deceptive feeling of hours. Perry had no idea how long he had been face down against the pavement for. He had no idea how many pints of blood he had lost; for all he knew he could only have lost a few millimeters of it. The puddle had formed under him, and he could feel his good shirt soaking through. Water. He could really use some water, but like the desert, it felt non existent.

A quick run of the google search engine would provide the knowledge that nocturnal lagophthalmos is the most common symptom for sleeping with your eyes open. Perry had never been diagnosed with something like that before, but here he was, feeling as though his body was limp and shut down, while his brain remained active in the form of pumping dreams through his subconscious. He was brought back to Conner's wedding day. Conner cleaned up a lot better than Perry had; Conner went so far as to iron his stain free shirt, so compared to Perry's suit that just recently took a dip in a coffee bath - a mixture of reckless driving and bumpy roads - Conner's suit looked like a million bucks. Perry remembered turning his head. She looked as beautiful as always, an angel among sheep that brought a radiant light everywhere she went. That Conner was a lucky fella, finding someone like Ju-

He was being rolled over. It wasn't rough, or forceful. The hands of the woman who decided to tend to his wounds were actually very soft and devoid of any malicious intentions. The detective had grown up with the man who would soon become one of the most active superheroes of his generation, and had faced off personally with the man who had killed his family. Perry had quickly learned what the hands of someone with a heart of gold, versus someone who used their hands to take lives felt like. He was safe. The sound of Perry's heartbeat echoing through his ears drowned out the sounds of gunfire, and emergency response teams communicating through the fray.

The girl's face came into view. Was it her face? Perry never realized what was causing her face to turn into nothing but a blur, but it turned out to be tears. Every time the detective didn't have booze in his system, his brain finally began to process how everything happened. It tried to replay the mental footage it took at Conner's wedding, with little Hannah in her sweet little dress and basket of flowers. The salty beads of liquid always began to build up when his brain tried to piece together the events leading to Christmas Morning three years ago. That's when it happened. When the liquor bottle was opened and emptied.

Lady, I can't hear you he wanted to bellow out. Her words were nothing more than a hum behind the thumping in his ears, creating a backdrop for the ambient soundscape that served as the soundtrack to his demise. You're going to have to speak up if you want me to hear you, because my heart insists on reminding me that I'm not dead yet. So if you could please just speak the fu- Was she touching him? Wrapping something around his body? The feeling he got reminded him of trying to press his fingers together when his hand had fallen asleep. There was nothing but pins and needles throughout the entirety of his body. It was moving through him like waves, to the point where he couldn't even identify where her hands were.

Finally, Perry let out the only semblance of emotion he could. His brows twitched downward; a natural reflex his body forced him into portraying so that she knew he was in pain. Perry couldn't tell he was in pain. The wounds hurt at first, fuck, even the nose dive off the edge of the stage had stained his body with pain for a little bit.

​

It was quite interesting, actually. The wounds turned into a distant burning sensation; just close enough to let the detective know that he had been shot twice. As his soul took the form of a bird and soared across the landscapes created by his subconscious. There was vibrant imagery of swirling rivers and trembling fields of grass, each tremor and twitch causing a different colour of the rainbow to take the form and rub out the imprint of the last. Great rays of light lit the pathway for the soaring soul-hawk as it indulged in the scenery of a thousand acid trips. The man's conscious thoughts had been shut down, so he couldn't even stop to consider whether these visions had been the cause of a super or not.

The pain was something Perry could taste. It was like battery acid burning against his tongue, until it burst into a collection of citruses and iron. The wounds spiraled into a numb sensation that took him away from agony, and closer to bliss. It was a euphoric sentiment that he felt like he could die complete, knowing that this feeling was possible. He felt like he could die now. Yeah, that was a good idea. Perry decided he was going to let his eyes close and-

"How long ago has he been shot?" [FONT=Marcellus, serif]Jessica asked as she perched beside Amy, looking over her shoulder as Terry struggled to keep up with the gurney. "Good job," She directed toward Amy, just as she had with Iron Head the night before. "He could have died without anybody knowing he was even down there, so, good job." As much as she wanted to drape her face with a smile, she couldn't. Jessica had to be stern with her game face. She had to keep focused, and only break character when it truly mattered. Some people didn't need hoods and capes to be a hero. They didn't even need to use their powers to save a life. All it takes is one concerned Samaritan to change the course of destiny.

Jessica attempted to feel for his slowing pulse. He was starting to fall into a problematic heart rate, which was obvious given his condition. As she removed her hand, she noticed the blood that stained the latex gloves that covered the surface of her palm. Her stomach churned and knotted, and she had to choke back a sob. A man, whom she never met before, was dying in front of her, in front of Terry, in front of the woman who had focused her attention toward saving him. He had never done anything to deserve the life ending shots, and yet still, here he was. Even without knowing the story behind the circumstances that put him at the wrong place at the wrong time, Jess knew she owed him to at least try and retain his life.

"Help me out, would ya?" She asked as she slid her hands under Perry's shoulders, bending at her knees to help push her back up as she shifted the slightly over weight man to rest on the surface of the gurney. "You're going to be okay, pal," okay, it was more of a 90/10 gamble to decide if she was lying to him or not. But judging by the lack of expression on his face, her voice was going in one ear and out the other. "When you wake up, you're going to have to send some flowers to the actual person who just saved your life." The stretcher was lifted up into the back of the ambulance. Terry ran toward the front of the large vehicle, turning the engine over frantically with shaking hands. "Okay, we're out of here," Jess called over to Vihaan as she shut the back of the ambulance. "You know how to find me on the radio if you need us."

"Wait, was that-"

"It was." Wayne chimed in. "He's not even out of retirement yet, and already he's getting shot up."

"Sweet Jesus, okay. We're really going to need to clean this mess up before any more cops in my unit get shot. Has anyone seen The-"

Night Watcher felt the gravity grabbing on to the pit of his stomach as his back aimed toward the ground below. His eyes slowly fluttered open to see Anarchy poking her head over the edge of the gunship, watching the two men. Suddenly, reality kicked in and he could hear Chore's screams. They were frantic, high pitched and not something he'd want to be remembered for as his own last words. That sort of shit happens to the best of us, though. Conner never imagined that he'd be killed by one of the few people he trusted, so life really does take unexpected turns from time to time.

This isn't the time for self-reflection, Conner. You can die at any time you want, except for when you have someone to save. Look to your left.

Conner did exactly just that. He peered over his left shoulder and found the source of the prepubescent girl screams. The Night Watcher couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of Chore's flailing arms, and his tie fluttering against his face.

Okay, good. Now, I need you to spin yourself around and face the other way. You're not going to be able to save anyone until you straighten yourself up.

Listening to the voice of Lady Justice as she echoed through his head, Conner put all of his might into spinning himself around. It was actually quite mind blowing that he could pull off such a sick barrel roll. Well, I'm sure it's not as cool to outside eyes as it was in Conner's head. He felt like a majestic eagle, preparing to grab his -

Conner, I need you to focus for the first time in your life. Thirty seconds of focus, that's all you need.

Nodding his head, The Night Watcher pulled his own game face on under his mask. He leaned to his left, spreading his arms out like a bad ass eagle to he can wrap them around Chore. He decided to roll once again, holding his back toward the pavement below so that Mr. Congressman didn't have to see the impact coming before it happened.

Okay, I've done everything you've told me to do. Chore is still in danger.

You do not get to question me, Conner Lockheart. Your job here is going to be done in 10,

9,

8,

The countdown in his head made no sense. Maybe it was the countdown until his heroic sacrifice came to fruition? Oh well, here goes nothing. Conner let his eyes drift shut, and his grip on the politician weakened. His body went limp and limber as he prepared himself for fate to take it's grasp upon him.

7,

6,

5,

The Conman had never considered himself a Martyr before. Maybe this is how it happened. A sacrifice for the greater good of humanity. The amount of pie he could have consumed during the time he was out trying to keep everyone safe - the family that had been killed because of his secret identity, everything could have happened a lot differently if he had just sat by idly and let the world send itself straight to hell. In the end, there's always a bigger hero. A stronger hero. There's always someone who's smarter, and more competent.

4,

3,

2,

He could have watched football on Sundays. He could have come home to Julia from his job selling games of mini put and brought the cat food home she wanted him to grab. A normal life where he could have watched his daughter grow up. A life where the laughter of children and embrace of love wasn't replaced with silence, and a blanket of depression being pulled up to his chin followed by the kiss on loneliness on the forehead of his mental health. The Night Watcher didn't have to happen. He could have just been regular ole' Conner Lockheart.

1.

There was the sensation of impact as Lady Justice finished her countdown. He didn't feel like he had been turned into a stain on the side of the road, and he suddenly felt like he was going up. Conner's eyes were forced open by the radiant light that reflected off of this new heroes'....well, it just kind of emanated off of her. It was bright. Very bright. Conrad felt her arms securing the two men tightly as she took the role of the majestic eagle.

"Son of a bitch," Conner whispered to himself with a smile. "Lady Justice, I'm never questioning you again." Conner understood a quick little quip here or there - obviously even he did it - but his savior continued to talk to someone who apparently was never listening. She just continued to talk, and talk, and talk. "You need to shut up," The Night Watcher called up to Sunspot. "And focus. This isn't the time for self-reflection. You have people to save." It sounded a hell of a lot sexier when Lady Justice said it, but still, she wouldn't have said it to Conner if it wasn't the best advice to follow at the time. Conner's philosophy on advice was that it's like an heirloom; it gets passed down.

So, apparently, there was two set of drones; one collection that had just come from the direction they were just falling from - the gunship - and were heading straight for Nellie, and the others were leading the way for Naive McTalksToHerSelf to touchdown for a soft landing. "You doing okay?" Conner asked, looking down toward Chore.

"That wasn't part of your plan, was it?" Chore laughed nervously. "I'm doing better now that we aren't-"

Falling again. The men were falling again. This time, they were much closer to the ground. Chore slid against the pavement hard enough to physically feel his tailbone obtain a crack. Just thinking about that gives Lady Justice the willies. Conner aimed his head toward the ground, holding his arm out and tucking it in so that his shoulder could absorb the impact. He rolled and then flipped himself to his feet, taking a step so that he could stand over Chore.

Once the politician had gotten his wits together, Conner extended his arm out, helping him back to his feet. Clifford dusted off the pants to his suit, and damn near dropped to his hands and knees and started kissing the ground. "I guess I should thank you, then," Conner said as he turned toward Sunspot, extending his arm out toward her. "That was some damn good wo-"

She pushed past him.

Conner, don't. You need to take a deep breath and calm down.

Nobody pushes past The Night Watcher. He had half a mind to reach out and grab her by the hair and throw her all the way to China with one throw. Even with Lady Justice barking up his tree to make sure he didn't retaliate against a subconscious act that was only natural. Fuck it. He stepped forward and prepared himself to reach forward, his eyes locking on to the teenager's hair. That's when he heard it.

Missiles. They're targeting one of your friends.

"Nellie." Conner borderline growled to himself. He hadn't exactly thought of her as his friend yet, but if Lady Justice is calling her a friend, then a friend she must be. He readied himself to jump, realizing finally how much his body was aching. His thighs burned, his muscles felt strained and he was read for a nap. "Well, Lady Justice, I'd say it's time to go save the day."

Again.

"

"
​

As Conner saw the world fly past him from the air, he noticed something. The building that was attacked had been repaired, Bomber Guy (Or, Dead Man, as he's actually named supposedly) had been defeated and knocked the fuck out, and citizens were being directed toward the flock of ambulances that managed to arrive just in the nick of time. And would you look at that, Jules had arrived with the cavalry just as Perry had directed her to.

She held on to the back of the S.W.A.T. van, a bullet proof vest wrapped around her, a 416 in hand and aviator sunglasses draped across her face. She was ready to kick ass with the special weapons and tactics force. As they made their way through the crowd, legions of police cruisers sealed off a perimeter. With a strong fighting force of officers and the S.W.A.T. team (and yes, Juliet), they created a heavily armed box that trapped the opposing gunmen in and caused them to drop their weapons in submission. All of the villains had been seemingly defeated. The good guys won. Chalk that up as another triumphant victory for the people of America.

There was just one, tiny, unaddressed detail to get back to.

The stray rocket gingerly poked against Taffer's leg, triggering the explosion. Luckily it wasn't a full sized rocket, and only severed the president's leg at the knee. The blood stained the sidewalk below him, and his expensive pants caught fire. His scream echoed out as Pearson struggled to keep a hold on him, but eventually managed to pull him into the Deli as Conner landed inches away. He pulled his knuckles up

against his palm and squeezed, causing his knuckles to crack loudly.

"Now's a great time for you to come up with a plan." He called up to Lady Justice, who was more active today than she usually was. He watched as the three drones turned away, setting their sights back to Nellie. Conrad didn't give Lady Justice time to come up with a strategy. Instead he ran over toward the idle S.W.A.T. van, preparing for what had to have been the move of his life. This is going to look so cool.

The Night Watcher's aching and tired legs helped him waddle all the way toward his target; the van. He took a step forward, and buckled his right leg back. He stepped into the swing, kicking his foot against the back of the van. While it managed to fly through the air long enough to mash a drone into nothing but fire and spare circuitry, Conner could hear an audible crack. He couldn't just hear it, he could feel it rattling through his bones. He could even taste it. His entire foot suddenly grew cold as he hopped up and down, allowing a myriad of "Fuck fuck fuck fuck" slip out of his mouth. He couldn't help it; his foot had to have been broken.

See, this is why you listen to me, instead of acting on your own like a useless tool.

"I," Conner managed to spit out. "Am a tool for your bidding, Lady Justice."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just finish off those last two drones so that you can do the one liner thing and then reward yourself with pie.

Conner nodded. Pie was something he could do. Using a manhole cover like a Frisbee, he managed to destroy both of the drones in one go. He managed to get the perfect angle -despite not being great at trigonometry- and boom. "I guess you can say that that the good guys get to bring home yet another win." Conner placed his hands on his hips and beamed at the now secure conference.