Futuristic H A D E A N

[CabbageAngel]

» Vicki Vortex

『 TAGGED 』 [ Fate0013 The_Rockening Lord Saethos Sepokku MisoraUni ]

Vic took it all in: the deadly butt maneuver, the fight between Richard and Lilian happening off to the side for some reason she didn't get, and of course, the death metal album cover exploding into a threat display of blood and viscera right in front of her eyes. Ezra mentioned something about leaving, which was probably a good idea, but watching Scourge get manhandled by another flesh tentacle monster made her hesitate. Vic stood there like it was the corner of a party of people she didn't know. As Lilian took her place at her side, Vic looked to her, a troubled crease in her brow hidden behind her heart shaped sunglasses. She didn't know she had a daughter.

She was momentarily distracted by that line of thought from Richard, whose drink thievery inspired a fire in Vic that forgot the enemy it should be directed towards, and was still smoldering there as Ezra's voice buzzed in her ear. She passed him her empty cup in response, slid up her glasses and stepped forward.

"Go pick up your kid," she said, directing her voice over her shoulder to Lilian. She cracked one of her fingers with her thumb as she turned her attention to Scourge. "I'll wrangle the other one."

Lilian and Ezra's hair was blown into a frenzy. She'd disappeared. A cyclone weaved through the battlefield in a snake-like tunnel. The roar of destabilizing force tore past Richard. "Don't talk so fast," whispered on the wind. Richard had stolen her coffee. She was stealing this battlefield.

The tornado SLAMMED into the tentacle monster - the green one. Not stomach mouth. Scourge. His heavy boots slid across the ground before the immense pressure picked him up, sending him spiraling into the air. Whipped around and around, at a velocity that would tear at the flesh of a weaker being, then stopped. Almost two hundred feet in the air above the action. Wind was keeping him up, pushing against his body with just the right speed to keep him in place but not send him up any further... not the most stable platform. Felt like a water bed. The body of Vicki Vortex materialized right beside him, leaning back with her legs and arms folded and looking a lot more comfortable than he was.

"Hey Frankenstud," she greeted. The vibrations on the wind carried her voice to his ears despite the roar of air surrounding them. "Leave this to the lady with the lasers." She swiped down with a finger, like lazily scrolling through a feed on her phone. An invisible spear ripped down, striking the enemy from above to push him to his knees and pin him under a crushing wall of air pressure. A perfectly packaged target for a fuck-off big laser. Vic leaned back and flicked the sunglasses back down, satisfied. "You thrown any ragers while Dadmum's been away or has the lady got you whipped?"

code by @Nano

 

[Sepokku]

​

• The Roof of Yukisa's Apartment March 20th, 2045
• LA Cafe, March 20th, 2045
• Lilian, LA Cafe, March 20th, 2045

• Mould watched with mild disdain as the flesh-blossom tore into his leg. “Like a bad case of athlete's foot,” he grabbed a spear out of the holster on his back and aimed it mid-thigh. The point sliced through his flesh and hit bone. Driving the heel of his free hand into the hilt of the spear provided enough force to snap his femur. Feedback simulating pain flashed across his senses.
  
  The flesh-bloom writhed and burrowed deeper into the severed part of his left leg. “Hope you like it hot.” His thumb moved slightly and primed the payload on the spear he held, with a grunt it slammed into his severed leg and burst into white heat, incinerating the bloom and his left shin.
• Pistolero woke up last, sitting bolt upright while letting out a scream. He grew silent and then looked around, once his eyes found Roja he screamed again, “Ohh god! ...I’m coming down.” Tik and Tok were on either side of him, equally transfixed by the fleshy horror that was blossoming before them.
  
  Fishing into his pocket, he retrieved a rolled cigarette with his vice of choice in it and a lighter. His shaking fingers tried and failed several times to light it, “Could I get a little help?” Tik and Tok continued to ignore him, as he turned his head he noticed a figure clad in purple armor, “Yo!” He continued to be ignored. His eyes followed where he assumed the stranger was directing their gaze. They were starting at an empty rooftop. Whoever they were, they were more out of it than he was.
• Her mind raced as she crunched the numbers: the monster didn’t seem too harmed, but there were nine superhumans here, they could handle it, right? Coldsnap joined the trio and took the chance to ruin the rest of Vicki’s drinks. A cold front blew past and the Ice-Breaker joined him only a few moments after. 'Ten parahumans now.' The iced coffee in her hand was still at least half-full; raising the straw she made sure to noisily slurp down a mouthful of latte while looking pointedly at the man who had so rudely ruined the beverages.
  
  "Appreciate it," He charged into battle.
  
  Pursing her lips together, she let out a low whistle, “Energetic, ain’t he?”
  
  "Go pick up your kid, I'll wrangle the other one." Vicki quickly followed suit in a gust of wind, leaving her alone with…
  
  A predatory look flashed in her eyes as she stared, but more than just looking at the Sýrmakinetic, she listened to him. Now would be the perfect time to retrieve more data, she didn’t even need to capture him if he tried to run, an arm or leg would provide plenty of genomics. The generators in his shoulders practically begged her to rip one out and improve it. Sounds of machinery mixed with biotech seemed to reach a crescendo; voices overlapping with screams, a scarlet bloom of organics, the constant drone of cell phones, a roiling storm.
  
  Her HUD lit up with a warning that Mould had been wounded. With a shake of her head, the voices were relegated to a low hum, ‘Not like I can just leave my other children here.’ Police had begun setting up a perimeter, she could sense the radio chatter not far off; but no parahuman response unit was inbound, save for hers.
  
  “Mould, assessment?”
  
  “Thing’s spreading fast, tendrils are taking root all over the block. It’ll be too big to contain before long.”
  
  That wouldn’t look good on their quarterly reports. If she adjusted the amplitude of the SSFECLA to a Bessel function, she could theoretically scrub the monster from the city with a single blast, but that was easily traced back to the Bodhisattva. A slurry of Latrotoxin and Loxosceles venom would necrotize the flesh efficiently enough to allow for extermination. No, Coldsnap was already too suspicious of her, there’d be no way he wouldn’t lump her in with Scourge if he realized she had powers. This had to be done with the tools already in play. Sparing a glance at the battlefield, inspiration struck.
  
  “Think Fleshflower could survive a nuclear explosion?”
  
  “I hardly think the city will approve of you nuking Santa Monica.“
  
  “We’ll contain the damage, the city will be thanking me.” Her eyes lingered ever so slightly on the blonde stranger as she made her way into the Cafe. There was still a crowd pressed against the window, oblivious to the danger. Thankfully, there was no one behind the counter, she grabbed the microphone that was connected to the PA system and held down the intercom button.
  
  A loud whine crackled from the cafe’s speakers, indoors and out, a second after, every phone in a mile radius received a new message from the Emergency Alert System, it read simply, ‘Evacuate, you’re in the blast range,’ along with displaying a GPS that pointed to safety. The first person in the cafe checked their phone, others quickly followed their example as they yelped and ran out of the emergency exit.
  
  Letting go of the intercom button, she muttered to herself in her own voice, “Just a few steps until punarmrityu you poor bastard.” Her finger depressed the button once more and Emma’s voice spoke with nearly perfect clarity over the speakers, “Immobilize the criminal then take cover, I have a plan.”
  
  Mould’s HUD flashed green and he launched a specialized spear in an arc over the flesh flower. The individual compartments of the projectile opened up, releasing a cloud of finely ground powder into the air. The particles, only nanometers in size, hung in the air, floating lazily in the sky.
  
  “Ms Vortex, if you would, evenly distribute oxygen and powder around the assailant then create a domed vacuum between him and us.” This would definitely be making the evening news. She’d have to release a statement before heading home. “Then the coup de grace is all yours, Sparky, light ‘em up.”

 

[MisoraUni]

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  How she's feeling...

  
  
  
  

  Kicking monster booty. Lol.
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  What she's wearing...

  
  
  
  

  Black fitted crop tank top, black shorts, leather boots.

  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  Where she's at...

  
  
  
  

  Los Angeles, California. March 20th, 2045. Cafe.
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  Mentions/Interactions...

  
  
  
  

  Lord Saethos Fate0013 Sepokku The_Rockening CabbageAngel
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

Yukisa

-----

"Absolutely zero clue who he is, but I'm calling him Roja. Keeps speaking Spanish, and he's clutching a Red Bandana, so..."

“Ah...” Yukisa nods slightly.

Yukisa examines the scene for a few seconds as Richard starts fighting Roja. While doing so she is taking some steps backwards to really take in the reach of this monster.

‘It’s all moving? Every part? Individually of the main part?’ What a strange hunk of writhing flesh this is.

Yukisa looks over to Richard, “Richard, you're are going to need a lot more ice than that….”

Also why is Richard trying to hit the green guy too? Strange. Yukisa disregards the big green man entirely and runs into the action.

Yukisa makes note of the veins going after Richard while he’s dodging away and slices them away from him with her icy arm blades while she quickly approaches Roja.

Yukisa turns to Roja, about 14 feet away at this point. “Hey dimwit! Eat this!”

Yukisa takes a breath that quickly turns icy as her body transforms into solid dry ice. Crackles in her carbon icy form can be heard as she grows exponentially larger than she was before within a matter of seconds. She is now on par with the size of Roja. She takes large quick strides towards the flesh beast until she and it are face to face. Yukisa raises her right hand as it turns into a very large pointy blade and stabs the flesh monster straight in its gaping chest mouth in hopes of having the carbon melt into gas so the monster breathes it in insead of the air. She did this so that it would run out of energy, if only a little bit. Afterwards she backs up and releases her arm and leaves it there, regrowing a new one while simultaneously bringing her leg up to kick Roja straight into the side of his head with an incredible amount of force that slides him about 10 feet across the pavement.

The flesh beast is currently slowed and toppled over onto the pavement as Yukisa turns her head to listen to the voice of Emma through the intercom.

“Immobilize the criminal then take cover, I have a plan.”

'Well, that's already been done….. But it couldn't hurt to do some more damage to this sad sack of shit...'

Yukisa's attention shifts back to Roja. For good measure to immobilize the flesh beast further, Yukisa's fingers turn into large spikes of dry ice and she thrusts all ten of them into various places of Roja, pinning him into the ground.

Quickly afterwards, Yukisa returns to her normal size and dissipates into a blizzard, and begins to lead evacuating civilians past the police barriers along with her snow. She reappears in solid ice form with the people she carried over, they continue running off, further away. Yukisa opts to stay close in case the flesh monster tries any funny business before the blast happens.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[Fate0013]

---

---

It looked like Ezra got his answer finally when Vic suddenly evaporated into a whirlwind, flying over to the meat monster and green giant. She seemed content to stay floating in the air with the big guy.

”Huh, must be a friend of hers.“ He absently tossed Vic’s empty cup in a nearby bin. Can’t be littering now. He’d tag a place with graffiti but littering was just a dick move.
Ezra soon became aware that he was standing with the scary woman that had kept looking at him before. She was apparently taking charge of the situation. Awesome. Someone had a plan and was even making sure the area got evacuated! Still, she made his metal spine crawl. He didn’t really have a good reason to try and get away from her though. His generators were ramping up higher then they had before. Giving a deep droning sound and charging the air around him with energy.

[The Storm began to howl inside. Light glowing through his eyes, mouth and ribcage.]​

The meat monster with tendrils everywhere was being held down by wind and ice now, wasn’t it a bit early for winter? The thing was at least being restrained. Which was good cause Ezra really didn’t feel like having to be connected to that gross thing trying to bind it down with the wire on hand. It wasn’t that he didn’t have enough, he just didn’t want to touch the thing. Gross.

Suddenly, something was fired above the creature that filled the air with some weird powder. Glasses lady told Vic to do some fancy air stuff with it. Vic had some cool powers if she could do all that. Ezra let out a whistle ”Wow, this is pretty cool. If you ignore the horrifying flesh monster that’s growing everywhere.“

Vic looked like she wasn’t amused being told what to do given the double middle fingers she gave. But the air dome was still made. Looked like some kind of hellish snow globe with the monster man, ice and powder swirling inside. Oh yeah, this was definitely cool.

That was when Scary Lady gave him an order. Light it up. Oh . . . OH! The powder was explosive! That’s clever. He liked that a lot. And it was basically giving him permission to blow something up. Ezra bounced on the balls of his feet and cracked his neck in preparation. ”This is gonna be loud.“
He considered his options before coming to the most simple course of action. Direct current was always the most flashy anyway. With no warning, Ezra blitzed forward straight into the dome. He reached out and took hold of whatever of the flesh he could. The only thing going through his mind before Ezra let loose was, Oh god this things so gross!!

[SURGE]​

A blinding flash filed the dome. Powder and air igniting together alongside what was essentially a multiple directed, point blank lightning bolts. The sound was practically deafening. Even the ignition was almost entirely drowned out by the peak of Thunder. Glass in the surrounding area shattered from what of the blast wave escaped the dome while car alarms began going off all around.

Ezra however casually stood at the blasts center. A shroud of magnetism and plasma blanketing him from the devastation he brought on.

[The Storm laughed]​

 

[The_Rockening]

The blow from Roja had sent Scourge stumbling. Pain seared through his vein-throbbed temples, his yellow peepers wide amidst heavily-wrinkled brows.

"GA-HAHAHA!" The jolly green mutant smacked his right fist onto his left palm. "That's what I'm TALKIN' ABOUT'!" He charged across the pavement, his every step an earth-quaking stomp, until-

A violent gust struck him. Cold and loud and strong enough to make his bloated frame as trivial as a feather. The giant flailed and thrashed, his arms striking the air in great, futile haymakers. "What the-... GAAAAAARGH! Who dares?! I'll have you strung up and FU-"

Vicki Vortex appeared beside him, cool as a cucumber. The lines of rage smoothed away from his eyes, transitioned into a cheek-puffing smile, and a guffaw that jiggled his chest. "Gyehe-HEH! Cooper!" He greeted her, then winked for emphasis. He remembered.

"You thrown any ragers while Dadmum's been away or has the lady got you whipped?"

"HA! I'm a free-range gigolo, baby. I make my own fun." Scourge scoffed, chortled, and leaned closer, as if letting her in on a wicked secret. "And what's a party without some good finger food, EH?! Lucky this city has REALLY good Vietnamese." His eyes glimmered with recollection. "I'll have to take you to my favourite joint. Their súp cua óc heo is to DIE for."

Scourge watched the bombardment that ensued from the safety of his wind platform. He whistled, then held a hand up, shielding his eyes from the swathe of wind, light, and sound that enveloped the area with pure power.

"UGH… ain't no way he survived that," Scourge muttered. He leaned forward anyway, fists clenched and eyes peering, ready for anything.

 

[Lord Saethos]

• 1) U.S. Bank Tower, L.A.
• 2) An L.A. Cafe
• 3) Roja
• 4) Argentina: April 1996
• 5) Roja
• 6) Argentina: April 1996
• 7) Roja
• 8) Richard Mackenzie
• 9) The Roof of Yukisa's Apartment March 20th, 2045

• 
  
  
  ​
  US Bank Tower, Los Angeles, California: March 20th, 2045, 7:55am
  
  

  .............................................................................................................
  
  "MOTHER FU-"
  
  .............................................................................................................​

  
  “Agreed. Agent Radovan disobeyed direct orders from his superior to be here; the cascade failure of communication in the agency is due solely to his incompetence.”
  
  Peter cast a blasé look back at Emiri. "Nobody likes a Narc. Also, the Kitsune didn't get away because I disobeyed orders, she got away because you blundered in here like a bunch of Terrorists at a Tea Party."
  
  He scratched at his chin absentmindedly as he rejoined Hudson and Nina. "And honestly, the only reason I'm not supposed to be here, or anywhere for that matter, is because some people are scared of me. Or more specifically: losing their jobs because of me." Peter chuckled to himself.
  

  
  .............................................................................................................
  
  "SON OF A BI-"
  
  .............................................................................................................​

  
  The Task Force Gray agents ignored the banter. They truthfully did not care for who was supposedly to blame. Task Force Gray values results, and the results of today spoke poorly of everyone in the room.
  
  One of the agents had been pushing Avery along, trying to urge her out of the room, along with the others. The Gray agent who seemed to be in charge turned to the subordinate. "Knock it off. We've got better things to deal with." He turned his gaze to Emiri and Avery. "Do what you like. But I'm aware of the situation with the asset you're with. If she escapes, know that it will reflect very, very poorly on all of you. So consider this a chance buff out the scratches today put on your reputation."
  
  

  .............................................................................................................
  
  "RAT BAST-"
  
  .............................................................................................................​

  
  As Moore sauntered back to the entrance of the vault, Emiri seemed to nearly bounce after him, as if all the energy had returned to her. That was certainly reassuring, at a time where he needed it. Moore grinned at her request, letting out a soft sigh, one more of relief. "Actually, I'd already been intending that. She's going to be working under me from now on, and I've been speaking with the Director of SINS about having all of you work under me as well. Jamie would continue to be the one you go through, but I'd be coordinating more missions and projects for you to be doing."
  
  He glanced back at her sisters. "If that's something you're all in favor of."
  
  

  .............................................................................................................
  
  "PIECE OF ABSOLUTE SHI-"
  
  .............................................................................................................
  ​

  A few minutes later, Peter, Hudson, Nina, Moore, Avery, and the Sibyl sisters had all arrived at the main lobby once more, having taken an uncomfortable elevator ride together.
  
  What greeted them, rather than any gratitude, or condemnation, was a room filled with people who looked incredibly frightful, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, looking down, and all hoping the flurry of obscenities that were being hurled around didn't get thrown at them.
  
  "DOES HE HAVE ANY FAMILY? KIDS? I WANT YOU TO FIND OUT, AND DROWN THEM ALL IN THE [REDACTED] POTOMAC RIVER, RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM! I WANT HIM SKINNED ALIVE, FLAYED, DO YOU HEAR ME?"
  
  The shouting was coming from none other than Douglas MacNamara, the Director of National Intelligence. The man in charge of SINS, the CIA, NSA, and a plethora of other intelligence agencies, both known and unknown.
  
  "MOORE!" His attention now rested on the group who'd just arrived.
  
  "ALL OF YOU! WITH ME NOW TO THE BOARDROOM!"
  
  The group quickly escorted the red faced man to yet another elevator, with each person filing in, passing the seething Douglas.
  
  He clasped a hand on Peter's shoulder as he went by.
  
  "Ahh, Peter my boy! Glad you're here and we can start to settle this mess!"
  
  "Oh? And this mess is to do with..."
  
  Douglas pulled out his phone, pulled up a video, and began to play it for the group in the elevator.
  
  He skipped towards the end of the video, images of supers flashing by as he did so.
  
  “And the Armed Forces of the United States of America. We all stand united, from this day, and forever more.” The words came from Victor Novadrak, the Secretary of Defense.
  
  "I'M GOING TO STRANGLE HIM TO DEATH WITH HIS WITH CAPTAIN VALOR'S [REDACTED] CAPE! I'M GONNA WATCH THE LIFE LEAVE THIS MAN'S EYES!!!"
  
  Moore looked with concern to the others in the elevator. "What... Did he do sir?"
  
  Douglas took a moment to breath deeply as he cast a narrow eyed glance between everyone. "This video. That's what he did. A little campaign ad showing all the good work being done by the DoD and DOHA. Those are HIS agencies. Not ONE of my agencies was shown here. None of YOU are being recognized for your work, and neither am I!"
  
  The quiet, unsaid part of all this, was clear to Peter, and becoming clearer to Moore.
  
  Douglas's hatred for Victor was not a particularly old one, nor even his hatred for the DoD or DOHA.
  
  It was the kind of hatred that could only fester when fresh, 'undeserving', competition entered the ring.
  
  The election had only concluded a few months ago, and despite Douglas MacNamara's very enviable position in government now, he was unsettled by the meteoric rise of Victor Novadrak. He was young. Inexperienced. Untested.
  
  But he was already the Secretary of Defense. And if he proved he could do a good job in this role, he'd be fast tracked for even higher positions one day. Positions Douglas was also eyeing up.
  
  The elevator stopped on the top floor, and the group filed out, following the corridors towards the Board Room.
  
  Douglas stopped suddenly and threw his hands in the air. "ARE YOU JOKING!!!"
  
  He turned around and shoved the phone in Moore's face, and then in Peter's.
  
  "We have ANOTHER crisis on our hands? What even IS that thing! [REDACTED] tentacle monster tearing up Santa Monica? Peter, do you know a guy? I swear, I'm gonna MURDER someone before today is over!!!"
  
  Peter looked at the monster shown in the video, is eyes narrowing slightly as they scanned the images back and forth, analyzing it in detail. He plucked his phone from his pocket and nodded. "I know a guy sir, I'll take care of it." He gave a two finger salute and sauntered off.
  
  Douglas led Moore and the others into the boardroom.
  
  

  ......................................................................................................
  ​

  Peter pulled up the video on his phone, and sent it off to a number in his contacts.
  
  "Hey Buddy, how's it going? Listen, I hate to bug you, but there's a little problem going on in Santa Monica. I think we both recognize this, don't we? Get it taken care of. - P."
  
  He looked at the phone again, watching the video of the beast tearing up bits of the street, more veins of flesh piercing up from below. Peter recognized it better than Doug did, but it concerned him what this might mean. This was not going to be an isolated incident.
  
  One last look at the contents of the video however, and his suspicions of something else started to come together.
  
  He recognized the heroes who were fighting the monster.
  
  

  ......................................................................................................​

  
  Moore, the Sibyl Sisters, and Avery were all sat down, while Douglas paced around the room. They group all sat on one side of the table, backs towards the wall, facing the other side of the table, where the DNI paced back and forth, with large windows behind him.
  
  "Listen Moore, I don't expect you to understand everything, but it's VERY important we start taking a more aggressive approach to these incidents. We need good optics. A show of strength."
  
  He stopped pacing and began tapping his foot on the carpeted floor. "I've heard information through my various agencies that something might happen soon. Something big. They're thinking it might be a terrorist attack, and with what's been happening lately here in California lately, I'm partial to believing it."
  
  Doug turned to face the Sibyl Sisters, and specifically Avery.
  
  "Her." He pointed to Avery.
  
  Moore looked to Avery with some confusion, then back to Douglas. "Sir?"
  
  "Moore, I understand there may be a group of unregistered heroes who're connected with some of the latest incidents in California. Don't know who they are, what they want, or anything. That changes today. Your task is to get Miss McCulloch to infiltrate their group, find out who they are, what they want, what their connections are, who they shop with, who does their hair, etc. etc. I want to know EVERYTHING."
  
  The door to the room swung open gently as Peter entered, giving a brief nod to Douglas.
  
  "Any questions before I continue?" Douglas inquired.
• 
  
  
  ​
  
  
  A Cafe, Los Angeles, California: March 20th, 2045, 7:50am
  
  A rush of wind tore past Richard, as he heard "Don't talk so fast," whispered in his ear. He gave a little smirk as he turned to face more of the veins that had been chasing him down. "By all means, take over." Rather than being annoyed, he was actually pleasantly surprised and thankful she'd decided to join the battle. They all had a much better chance of taking this thing down together.
  
  However, his moment of being pleased soon faded as he saw her pick up the green monster from the last 2 battles, and carry him off to the air. What was she doing? Was she just... Sitting there with him? A woosh of wind smacked into Roja and sent him to his knees, followed by Chizuki charging him and piercing him to the ground with ice, and filling his chest with whatever substance it seemed her body was made of now. Was that dry ice or something?
  
  Finally, Emma's words began to fill the air, a warning to evacuate the blast radius. When he saw powder in the air, horror dawned on him.
  
  She was going to fuel-air bomb this guy? In the middle of an L.A. street?
  
  He already knew she had connections to the worst kinds of people, but now he could safely say she was a psycho to boot.
  
  Richard booked it in the direction of a police barrier as fast as he could, allowing his head to be covered in a thin layer of ice that began to form into a crystalline helmet of sorts. Wasn't a good time to let his identity be anything but anonymous.
  
  He cast one final look back at Roja...
• 
  
  
  Roja felt his body pierced from all over, knocked to the ground by the group of supers who'd stepped in to fight him. It dawned on him how naive and misguided they all were. He watched as the sky above him became filled with dust particles, and heard Lilian give her orders.
  
  This woman was smart. But so was Roja. He knew what she was doing, knew she was essentially going to drop a fuel air bomb on him. Maybe he could work this to his advantage. If he could JUST get the veins to grab a wire or something, spark a electric discharge in the air, he might be able to blow it up early.
  
  Of course, if he did that... How many civilians might die?
  
  He looked back to Lilian, his attention now fully diverted to her, and away even from the large green monster.
  
  He'd taken her for some Middle Management pencil pusher. He had been wrong. So very wrong.
  
  Rather than wasting his energy on a counterattack, he invested it elsewhere. He hoped, prayed, that only she died out here today. Just her. It didn't have to be anyone else, but one less of these misanthropic pieces of garbage on Earth would make it even a shred better.
  
  The air began to leave the area around him, someone ran in and grabbed hold of him. He cast one last gaze to the person about to end him, as he felt all the energy and life in his body pouring out.
  
  A tear trickled from his eye.
  
  "Tontos."
• Isla de los Estados, Argentina: April 1996
  
  Beneath the rocky surface of Isla de los Estados runs a deep network on steel and concrete, illuminated brightly by florescent lighting down the sterile, scientific halls. Dimmer, yellow lights kept the maintenance halls light up in patches of light, breaking up the small patches of darkness, sometimes making it harder to make out the two, red letters that made up a reappearing logo.
  
  In one of the facilities labs, two men stood chatting, forms illuminated faintly by the blue glow of old computer screens, scientific instruments, and various containment stations.
  
  "So this is it? The project you've been working on?" A scientist named Dr. Paulson spoke.
  
  "Indeed it is. I'm going to run one last test before we leave to Tierra del Fuego." The man who responded was also a scientist, Dr. Riker.
  
  The specific location they intended to leave to in Tierra Del Fuego was another facility, nestled in a valley near a small mountain range, set between Bahia Sloggett and Bahia Aguirre, part of Argentina's short Southern Coast.
  
  "Alright Riker, so are you gonna tell me then? Tell me what you think exactly it is that The Board is going to be drooling over?" Paulson smirked.
  
  Riker picked up vial filled with a dark, forest green colored liquid in it. "It's called Prion G." He spoke as he admired the vial fondly, almost like a proud father watching his child walk for the first time.
  
  "G? What's the G stand for? And is it really a Prion?"
  
  "Oh that's simple. G for Guerilla. And... It's not exactly a Prion, but that was more or less its original form. We've done some heavy, heavy modification to it."
  
  Paulson nodded along. "Alright, so.. Guerilla? You intend to send this to freedom fighters or something?"
  
  Riker shrugged and nodded from side to side. "Not exactly what it's intended use is. It's part of our 'unconventional warfare' program. I like to think of it as taking the best of both worlds and combining them. It has rapid, mutagenic properties that allow it to produce appendages at an incredible rate. We're talking about forming whole limbs up to 5 or 6 feet in lenght, in a matter of minutes, possibly seconds with some tinkering."
  
  Paulson shook his head. "Yeah, but don't we have stuff like that already?"
  
  Riker beamed. "Oh no... Not at ALL like this. Firstly, it can expand to cover huge areas, consuming whatever it can find to help itself grow. In that way, it's a bit like a Prion, Virus, and Cancer all mixed in together. Very much the basis of how we modified it. However, unlike other products like this, it leaves the host mentally intact, and more importantly, in CONTROL."
  
  A moment passed as Paulson began to come to a realization. "So, can the host conciously control how it operates?"
  
  Another grin on Riker's face as he tapped his temple with his index finger. "Precisely. In other words, operatives can use it to create their own battlefield conditions, and with the new nerves it creates in a body, the user can direct it in a variety of ways. The whole point is for it to basically be millions of independent muscles the user can flex to complete whatever task he has. Hence 'Guerilla'."
  
  Paulson clasped his hands together and leaned forward excitedly.
  
  

  "Alright, so what happens when the host dies?"​
• Roja's body became charred near instantly as pure fire engulfed him, and rocked the street around him. The surface around his body became so hot that the pavement began to warp and melt slightly, all as the sound of laughter filled the storm.
  
  But that laughter was quickly drowned out.
  
  Unlike Roja, Prion Guerilla did not laugh. It did not howl. It did not scream or shout. It's only connection to humanity was severed when the explosion went off. And with that, the only thing controlling it and holding it back.
  
  Prion G was pure consumption.
  
  The entire block burst open as water cascaded into the air, followed by millions of tendrils of veins. Pavement, brick, steel, glass, was scattered in a radius as far as the Police Barriers as the veins sped towards every living thing they could find.
  
  Chunks of writhing flesh peeled themselves off of a much larger form, flinging themselves into the vortex that had been created, the force of which flung them in all manner of directions around the Santa Monica street the battle had begun on.
  
  The cafe itself burst into rubble from the force of yet more flesh emerging from it. The entirity of the building toppled into the area of the bomb's explosion, spreading out the flames and explosive force as a carpet across the street. Steam and smoke billowed into the air, catching the attention of most of L.A. now.
  
  A cop near one of the barricades tried to usher crowds away as fast as possible, a team of heavily armed SWAT already beginning to form up near the chokepoint, ready to open fire at the masses of flesh writhing around in the street. A stray piece of Prion G struck the one officer in the face, and through terrified screams, it began overtaking his body, crawling through his mouth, and devouring him from the inside.
• Isla de los Estados, Argentina: April 1996
  
  "So if the host dies, it keeps going on it's own volition? Can it integrate with another host to use?"
  
  Riker shook his head. "No, we've designed it specifically not to do that. Firstly, the additional chaos that would ensue could be beneficial on the battlefield, so long as others are equipped to deal with it. Along with that, we DO NOT want a new host to bond with it so as to avoid an enemy getting use of its abilities. Instead, any new host will essentially become a puppet of Prion G, and of couse... Food."
• The ground in front of, and below, Lilian had burst open, like a flower violently blooming. Fortunately, the force sent her flying back some feet, barely able to escape the possibility of begin totally enraptured by the flesh.
  
  However, it didn't give up on trying to. Veins from all around spread in her direction, threating to utterly surround her.
  
  The initial blast site remained absent of any of Prion G, but as the surfaces cooled, and fires went out, it slowly began to crawl its way over there too.
  
  The now infected officer's body began to rip and tear in strange and horrifying directions, as the pistol he had had in hand now fired off at his fellow SWAT officers. A firefight was soon ensuing, with other infected gun wielders firing off both at enemies, and in random directions. The chaos sent crowds of civilians fleeing the scene, knocking each other over in the abject chaos.
  
  As others raced to the scene to try and assist, piles of the veiny flesh began coalescing. Not all at once, but in small pockets. Slowly but surely, bidedal forms of writhing flesh began to form. One such form even grabbed onto a powerline that had come loose, absorbing the exposed end into its flesh. It slowly turned to face the direction of the electrified super that had given the finishing blow to its host.
  
  Of course, Prion G was unaware of any of these facts. It did not care. It simply saw the enemy, saw the abilities he weilded, and attempted to process a response.
• 
  
  
  ​
  
  
  A Cafe, Los Angeles, California: March 20th, 2045, 8:00am
  
  Richard watched as all around him, chaos was unleashed. Guns were dropped nearby by fallen officers, of course at a time where the enemy was one Richard could barely use them on.
  
  As he looked out at the veins, the boney spikes, the forming masses of humanoid flesh monsters, he was reminded of the beach.
  
  And then those dreams of falling down that pit, that cave, dark, then hot, and full of fire. He felt his chest tighten and his breathing deepen. Across the street, on the end farther away from him, he could watch as flesh chased down 'Emma'. He looked to the other supers gather, the rifle on the ground, then back to the woman he KNEW he shouldn't trust, should probably have nothing but contempt for...
  
  So he picked up the rifle, and began shouting out his best attempt at a strategy.
  
  "Chizuki! More ice! Freeze the spots I shoot, and give me some more snow to work with! Vic! Whip up some ice and sharp stuff, tear this thing to shreds! But keep it contained!"
  
  Richard charged towards the street, taking potshots at positions where the flesh seemed to be growing the most from, emanating from. The best option here might be to at least slow it until they can try something else. Maybe another fuel-air bomb?
  
  With the bits of water that were around, he froze chunks of flesh in place, and fired off shots to shatter them, or snap them apart. With great effort, he formed bits and pieces of sharpened ice he let hang around across the battlefield, ammo for Vicky.
  
  Finally, he neared Emma, and glaring at her, he froze some of the flesh that sought her in its place, shooting at other bits to clear some room, and hopefully kill it while frozen.
  
  "We need to regroup at a better spot, now." He looked at the buildings, the destroyed street, then back to the barricades. "Can't go higher, gotta go further." He motioned for her to follow him so they could regroup with the others before they turned the street into a blender.
  
  "By the way, I'm not helping you for free. I'm expecting to never see you, or your green friend, again. Hope that's crystal clear." His shoulders slumped a little as he sighed, before continuing to move. Was that annoyance? Anger? Or perhaps disappointment?
• Mould heard a light thud noise next to him, followed by what approaching footsteps.
  
  "Yikes... That looks pretty painful. You know, I could have helped you with that. Probably would have been more sanitary."
  
  The figure stopped at the edge of the apartment building, hands folded behind his back as he looked down at the chaos unfolding at the street down below.
  
  "Nice use of the explosives there by the way. Would have been a lot cooler if it had worked better, but hey, you win some you lose some."
  
  He turned his head to look down at Mould. "Also, who are you supposed to be anyways? You some kinda supe from a private company? Don't think I know who you are." The figure sniffed. "What are your powers anyone? Better be something that lets you regrow limbs." He gave a slight snort in a sardonic laugh.
  
  The figure looked back out at the city and sighed. "Look what you did to my city... Well, not specifically my city, but you know what I mean. Anyways buddy, I need you to call your boss for me. Tell her to get herself, and everyone else in the vicinity down there, out. Maybe put up some ice barriers around the area, wall the whole thing off."
  
  He kneeled down next to Mould and patted him on the shoulder, in a way that was uncomfortably obvious with its patronization. "By the way... YOU are a real hero. Good job today sport. But when it comes to stuff like this?"
  
  The figure stood again, cracking his knuckles for a moment.
  
  "It's best to let Daddy clean up these messes."
  
  Captain Valor flashed Mould a toothy, sarcastic, and bordering on narcissistic, grin.

 

[XianaEvermor]

• An LA Cafe
• Elsewhere in Los Angeles

• 
  Helene tuned out the chaos that was happening below: the creature didn't have any extra-dimensional markers on it, so as long as she wasn't in direct peril then it wasn't her concern. The Mana from the Plume had her undivided attention. Something about it felt strangely familiar, buried deep within the other aspects of the signature.
  
  
  Hey uh... I'm no Rocket Surgeon but... I think we might want to make some space.​
  
  "Yes, just a moment," she replied with a distracted air. She was busy pulling the individual aspects of the signature apart and... there, a familiar shade of [Blue]. She flicked her mismatched eyes to where Achilles' shade was peering over the edge of the rooftop.
  
  
  Stuff is happening down there should I uh...​
  
  "Not unless we're in direct peril," Helene replied in a distracted tone.
  
  
  You know... I'm not really sure we have 'a moment' to be standing around up here... you know, willy-nilly.​
  
  Achilles was using finger quotes in an exaggeratedly sarcastic manner... he probably picked that up from Kindle. Helene exhaled slowly and held her hand out to the Plume... The signature would get de-aspected in her Reservoir talismans and she'd lose the opportunity to examine it further, but she wasn't leaving without it. Without other means to recover her energy, the opportunity to expand her reserves simply could not be passed up. She whispered to the Plume and felt it move... and a tug. She squinted... was it connected to something?
  
  It was suddenly pulled out of reach, and her hand closed reflexively to try and fight it when things started to spiral out of control. She was thrown from her feet, struck by an invisible force that should have been accompanied by a deafening sound. Instead her ears just rang as her vision was occluded by dust, and as she tried to push herself to her feet, the roof gave way. All she could think as she fell with chunks of the building filling her vision from above was... this was such a stupid way to die.
  
  "Oh please," grunted Achilles, as he she felt one of his massive arms materialize around her waist, pressing her tightly into his manifesting chest. "You're so dramatic." They impacted the ground, and the building collapsed on top of them.
  
  Helene felt herself gently lowered in the dusty darkness, and she coughed quietly. Achilles' form loomed over her, his shield the umbrella that kept the rubble from crushing her. She exhaled shakily as Achilles rose to his feet, shifting the rubble off of them as though it were no more than a foam movie prop. The slabs of brick and reinforced concrete slammed heavily to the Earth at his side.
  
  "Were you worried?"
  
  "Disappointed," she replied. "I should have been paying better attention," she admitted. Achilles smirked.
  
  "Does this qualify as 'direct peril?'"
  
  "Unfortunately, it does," she muttered, taking a moment to survey the scene through the clearing dust.
  
  The creature was a little close for comfort, and it wasn't just remaining idle: it was spreading, consuming, replicating like a virus. She made an educated guess that a significant portion of the creature's body had burrowed itself underground. The explosion had done little to slow its spread, though it seemed hesitant to enter the areas still burning from the explosion, and only begun encroaching on her space once the fires had cooled. Across the crater, through the dust she spied a young man... Man?
  
  
  [The Storm crackled, writhing electricity beneath his skin chased by familiar script in unfamiliar patterns. The Storm's head enveloped the skull, trailing tendrils to a point, oversized arms sheathing its limbs and orbited by so much wire.]​
  
  Helene tilted her head. An Astralform? Mr. Beaks fluttered down casually and landed on the man's shoulder, remaining in the [Immaterial] She raised an eyebrow. The tip of a spear lanced past her vision, piercing the torso of a humanoid shaped mass of tendrils and ripping it from the ground. Achilles slammed the creature into a fire, causing it to scream and writhe. Its tendrils reached for Helene, and he flicked it back into the crater. Right... time to pay attention now.
  
  "Ben. Tank. Missy. Nibble," she called quietly. As each name was invoked, a pair of glowing red embers winked into existence in a nearby shadow. Four inky black shapes peeled out of the darkness, sucking the light away as they moved. Pointed ears alert, the massive hounds formed a line in front of her, each more than four feet tall at the shoulder.
  
  "Squid," she called. Nothing. "Where's Squid?" The hounds turned their heads in unison towards the other side of the crater, where one of the hounds was licking a chunk of dry ice enthusiastically with its flamed tongue, sending thick white clouds up into the air rhythmically. She slowly brought her hands up to cover her mouth.
  
  "Nyaaaaaawwww! ...STOP THAT WE'RE CONCENTRATING!" A smile creased the corners of her lips. Squid wasn't very bright, but he tried his hardest. Helene's face settled back into a neutral expression as she pointed at the creature.
  
  "Burn it."
  
  The four hounds bared gleaming ivory fangs as black smoke roiled from their mouths as their bodies each erupted into flame.
  
• 
  Just an ordinary day in Los Angeles at Squint Mobile. Roger's shift was just beginning and he was counting the minutes until his first break when she came through the door. Tall drink of water with sandy blonde hair and gray eyes. The morning chill followed her through the door. They made eye contact and he was captivated. She smiled. His heart fluttered.
  
  "Can I help you, Miss...?"
  
  "Ohai," she chirped, coming over. She chewed her lower lip and clutched at the hem of her skirt's pockets apprehensively. She smelled like cherry blossoms. "I need one of those... temporary? Phones? The kind you put a set amount of service on, and don't have a recurring contract," she explained.
  
  "Oh... a pre-paid phone?"
  
  "Pre-paid. Right, I'm such a ditz," she giggled disarmingly. He couldn't help but smile. "I'm from out of town and I lost mine," she explained.
  
  The easiest sale he ever made. They chatted for what seemed like hours as he set up her device, just a simple thing without any extra features. She told him all about her home and family in Texas. Their chemistry was effortless, she even laughed at his jokes. Her name was Atsushi, which was an unusual name for a Texan. She explained that her parents were fond of Asian culture, and that it meant Warmth and Honesty.
  
  She was about to leave when he finally plucked up the courage...
  
  "Can... I call you on this number? Maybe we can get some coffee?" She paused, and then her ruby lips parted into a smile.
  
  "Of course...," she replied, her fingertips brushing his as she handed him the payment. "Your boss is calling..."
  
  "What?"
  
  "ROGER!!"
  
  He flinched. His boss was snapping his fingers in front of his face.
  
  "Sweet Jesus on a cracker. Are you just going to leave the door open? It's cold as balls. I know it's early but... wake the hell up, man."
  
  Roger blinked as he looked around. The wind had blown the door open. Happens sometimes. He trotted over and closed it with a sigh. Another ordinary day at Squint Mobile in Los Angeles. He went to rub the sleep out of his eyes and nearly pressed a bundle of rolled up leaves into his face. Confused, he opened his hand... he was holding a roll of unusually vibrant red maple leaves.
  

 

[Sepokku]

• LA Cafe, March 20th, 2045

• Rokket’s eyes widened under their helmet. There he was. Standing on the rooftop as if nothing had happened, like millennia hadn’t passed. Rokket felt confused, abandoned, and a little concerned; then they saw his compaion. Achilles was standing next to some girl. Ire filled their body, if it weren’t for the suit they were wearing, certainly they would have reacted with violent haste.
  
  Instead, they turned towards the Peacemakers and Mould’s voice roiled out from the speakers in the suit, “Regroup! We are falling back. That means you, Tik and Tok!” Then they turned back to Achilles and launched into the air, Rokket was getting to the bottom of this one way or another.
  
  Metal on concrete sounded as Rokket landed on the rooftop, standing on the opposite side of the building as Achilles. They cocked their head slightly and drew the spear on their back with one hand, holding it so the crossguard rested against their shoulder. Then with their other hand, they began to remove their helmet. Metal slid into metal as the helmet adjusted itself so that it could be taken off.
  
  The person before Achilles stared into his eyes. He recognized them.

 

[XianaEvermor]

"Someone you know, Achilles?" Asked Helene with a note of amusement.

"Uh..........................................................................."

Don't say "No" with a suspicious uptick...

"No?" He squeaked, and then grimaced. Lying was hard. Helene raised an eyebrow at him, the corners of her lips cracking into a smile. He snorted and giggled quietly before stifling it and looking at her sternly. "It's not funny."

"It kinda is," she teased, then tilted her head towards the cafe, walking to his shield side with little care as his spear wooshed over her head. "Toss me onto that awning. I need some space to work, and you can sign an autograph for your fan."

Achilles rolled his eyes. The dogs had set up a fairly robust perimeter of flame and were pushing towards the creature, tackling anything that tried to breach to the ground with their burning bodies and vomiting flames upon them as their massive jaws clamped down to violently shake the infected creatures. Achilles was sweeping anything that got past the dogs into the flames with his spear. He scooped Helene with his shield and gently lofted her up to the cafe awning, where she landed gracefully.

Helene turned, holding her hand out to the battlefield. The wind picked up as she spoke, and the incantation was a chorus of whispers. Spidery tendrils of black arced from her fingertips as she reached into the Aether. Black mist poured from her palms, coalescing into an enormous shape. Fur bristled out of the darkness, then talon and scale, twin canine heads of the darkest black with burning coals for eyes, a serpents tail, and a crest of wicked obsidian spikes running the length of its spine. It growled, reverberating through the stone. Its saliva was lava, and thick plumes of black smoke curled from its mouths.

"Othrus!" Two pairs of ears flicked back towards her. "Turn it to ash," she commanded. Othrus stepped forward, snapping up a charging Prion tendril as it ran towards Richard and Lillian. The creature stepped past them with surprising care given its enormous size.

"What are you doing here?!" Achilles addressed Rokket tersely through the mounting chaos... though admittedly it was getting more and more difficult to hold a proper conversation through all the barking, flames, smoke, and the shrieks of burning flesh tendril monsters.

 

[Sepokku]

Rokket watched with plaintive silence as the exchange between the strange person and Achilles commenced. They seemed to know each other, and for whatever reason, he was acting... unusual. 'Whatever...' With a huff, their arms crossed and they waited for Achilles to toss the stranger off the roof. A call came in from the team leader, but they silenced it as quickly as it started up, they wanted answers, and only he had them.

"What are you doing here?!"

Outrage struck Rokket's face as they slammed a fist into their palm and repeated in the exact same pitch and cadence, "What are you doing here?!" Their fingers started rapidly signing questions at him, 'Who was that? Where have you been? WHY are you here?' He wasn't catching all of the queries, too absorbed in fighting the abominations back, if he even understood sign language. Rolling their eyes they put the helmet back on and spun their spear in a downward arc, bisecting a creature as the spear cracked into the ground.

A synthesized voice crackled out of the helmet, "Heard about what happened, way back when..." Another thing flung itself forward. Raising their heel, they slammed it into the head of the creature, carrying it to the ground in an axe-kick. Its flesh began to writhe upward and the jet engine on their shins released a thrust of blue-hot flame, incinerating the fleshy mass. "You doing okay?"

 

[XianaEvermor]

Achilles groaned, lazily bouncing a flesh creature with his shield, which gonged near comically as the creature smashed into the undercarriage of the upturned truck, nearly folding it in half.

"Rok... R... I can't. 'Who??' R-... that's too fast. 'Where...?' R-Rok. I can't with the whole... one-handed thing. I'm not smart, and you know this, stop yelling!" Achilles stammered, trying to keep up with Rokket's signing. He set the butt of his spear on the ground and leaned against it with a sigh as he watched Rokket put their helmet back on with that signature note of exasperation.

"Oh is that- are you done with me? Is that what's happening right now? Unbelievable," huffed Achilles, as he planted a hand on his hip stubbornly, though his face softened at the mechanical voice. "I'm... Yeah that whole deal at Troy... was a thing... that happened, and I'm... fulfilling a promise I made a long time ago," he answered sincerely.

 

[Fate0013]

---

---

Man . . . That was really loud, And bright. Very bright. But it was cool! Maybe he could make an explosion like that on his own? Questions for later though.

Ezra took stock of the situation and . . . . Well . . . Ok so things might had gotten worse. The flesh was everywhere and attached to police. Which was already uncomfortable. But when he [squinted] there didn’t seem to be any sign that that any of this was the original monster guy anymore. Cool, so that explosion didn’t just force a man thing to undergo forced asexual division.

Didn’t really explain why the wiggle bits were moving on their own. Maybe getting involved was a bad idea? But it looked like the scary woman’s plan was a good solution! Also, where did all these weird dogs come from? I mean they were fighting the meat things so that was good right? Oooooh no it just set in that this might be on the news and there’s probably going to be pictures of Ezra in places. ”. . . I’m probably gonna get in trouble for this. I just know it.”

This was the kind of scene Widget had explicitly told him NOT to get involved with. And oh geez one of those wiggly meat things was looking at him funny. Or at least he thought it was. ”Oh I am not dealing with this anymore. Your not a person anymore, So I don’t have to feel bad about this.”

Ezra kicked on his Overdrive and zipped forward towards the creature.
With an impulse of energy one of his hands shot out like a tasers barbs, attached to his wrists still by dozens of arcing wires and thread. It grasped at the power line which was somehow connected to the creature and began siphoning the electricity into Ezra with a thought.

[An inhuman shape flickered around Ezra’s galvanized form

This wasn’t even remotely fun anymore. People were getting hurt or dying. A flicker of anger sparked in his chest. Ezra’s [form] shuddered. More wires shot out of his other hand. Coiling through the air like they were alive before punching into the creatures muscly flesh. Ezra didn’t grin this time. There was only annoyance on his face. The energy that engulfed him radiated his growing irritation. Whatever happened after this, he was done with this mess.

”BURN.” Every cell in the creature’s body was then engulfed In malicious, unnatural lightning.

 

[Sepokku]

• LA Cafe March 20th, 2045
• LA rooftop
• Riga Latvia, November 12, 2028
• LA, March 20th, 2045

• Her plan worked perfectly. The powder hung in the air, creating a shroud around the beast. The vacuum that Vicki created ensured there was no medium for the blast to propagate through; except for straight down, where the flower had been spreading. The result was quite spectacular, a white-hot inferno flared into existence, the ground shaking as the shockwave rippled through asphalt and into the sewers below. She averted her eyes from the blinding light. If the main body hadn’t been destroyed, at the very least, it was pruned far enough back to be disposed of.
  
  As quickly as the vacuum bomb went off, it stopped, the oxygen necessary for the reaction to continue having been exhausted all at once. She was done, everyone else could deal with any surviving vestiges, she had more than earned her rest. The ground began to shake, spiderwebbing veins of flesh erupted from the ground, water flooding the streets as they tore through piping and found purchase on the surface. “More of a weed than a flower then.” The tendrils began to tear through the foundation she was standing on. Her footing adjusted on reflex as the building lurched, then it began to come down all at once. A spare piece of rubble hit her across the head as it fell; everything went black.
• Horror spread across Mould’s face as their plan both worked, and backfired spectacularly. In one hurried motion, he loaded the speargun with its next round. He was interrupted by the arrival of a newcomer. Mute surprise took over as the figure spoke to him with a patronizing voice.
  
  "By the way... YOU are a real hero. Good job today, sport.”
  
  No wonder Lilian didn’t like him. Mould had known the man for half a minute and he was already sick of him. Were all heroes like that? It didn’t matter, he supposed, he wasn’t in this business for the sake of heroism. Trying to contact Lilian, his HUD flashed a warning that she was unresponsive.
  
  “Boss lady isn't on comms right now. I’ll start evacuation proceedings in her place.” Several protocols flashed across his HUD and then the evacuation zone widened, another emergency alert going out to update the civilians. He would start retreating as well, but before that, he was eager to see what Captain Valor, the first person he met on Lilian’s list, would do.
• Stifling a giggle, Lilian pulled out a chair and took her seat, “We'll finish this game after dinner, Valdis.” Her brother’s grin widened as he took a seat opposite her. Their mother finished setting the table just as their father joined them.
  
  He leaned forward and gave her mom a kiss before sitting down, “Looks delicious hon.” He started to cut into the beef on his plate and Lilian took it as an invitation to dig in. “How were your studies today my little Lily?”
  
  “Good. Instructor Poklonskaya says I might even be President one day!”
  
  Her father chuckled as he took a bite of the slightly bloody steak, “Keep going at this rate and you’ll unify all of the Balts.” A smug look of pride was evident on his face as he ate.
  
  Lilian moved some of the potatoes on her plate with a fork, she had told Macintosh that she would ask, but truth be told, she was afraid to. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled for half a second then blurted out, “Dad, who is Natalya?”
  
  The room got silent. Valdis looked at her with confusion painted across his face. Her parents were staring at each other, not a word exchanged between them. This continued for a long moment, the only noise in the room came from whispering electronics. Then her mother threw her plate across the room. The terrifying crash made Lilian jump. As if a spell had been broken her parents started screaming.
  
  “You fucking liar!”
  
  “Oh like you do half the things-!”
  
  “You’re a bastard just like Egils!”
  
  Then her father stood up, upending the table as he did. “I want a divorce!”
  
  “You’ve got one!” Her mother walked back into the kitchen. A dinner plate flew into the room, narrowly missing her father’s head, “Get out of my house!” Another dinner plate soared into the wall, then another. Valdis started to cry, frozen in terror as their mother let her ire be known.
  
  Standing up Lilian started to walk over to her little brother, to comfort him, to let him know things would be okay. A stray tea saucer hit her in the head and everything went black.
• ’Consume. Eat. Grow.’ In a haze, Lilian could briefly recall the words of Erwin Schrodinger, ‘Life feeds on negative entropy.’ It had been almost two decades since she felt this way. 'How do I feel?' Warnings flashed across her vision as she thought, the most attention-grabbing of which stated, ‘Nanoweave capacity at one hundred percent. Integrity rapidly failing.’ That didn’t matter. What mattered was how she felt... Hungry.
  
  Her head snapped to attention, arms hanging limp as she noticed the tendrils of biomass trying to encircle her, tendrils of… Food. The technology used to make them lilted to her softly, they sang a familiar song, the sound of consumption ringing in her ears. Nearly endless biomass, fused with her ability to manipulate it as she pleased; they would be infinite, engulfing the world before branching out to the next. It was a pleasant thought, that they could work together. She knew the truth though, it would devour her if she didn’t consume it first.
  
  Pockets of nerve agent began to build up in the polyurethane capsule that sat between her right ulna and radius. A dose of venomous agent X would cause the flesh to paralyze, then she could tear into it at her leisure, taking time to understand and copy the weapon right down to its genome. It felt like she had been sleeping for so long, and upon awakening, a banquet awaited her. An endless meal, one that begged her to fix it, even as it struggled to consume her. Like a snake swallowing its own tail, she and the flesh were truly Ouroboros at this moment. ‘Ah that was it, the thing biotech was trying to tell me. Its new name... Prion Ouroboros.’ Her body tensed, the moment the flesh acted, she would release the toxin and begin to feast.
  
  “…gotta go further."
  
  Someone was... Talking to her? All at once, she snapped back to her senses. The Kinetic Unifier was at capacity, her HUD screaming at her to unload some of the stored energy and regroup with the rest of HELP; Mould had tried hailing her three times. The stranger from before was motioning at her, and without really thinking she followed him.
  
  "By the way, I'm not helping you for free. I'm expecting to never see you, or your green friend, again. Hope that's crystal clear."
  
  She rolled the words about in her head for a moment while she ran, blood seeping down her face. The back of her hand rubbed at the blood, ‘Oh right, a building fell on me.’ With a shake of her head things cleared up slightly, “On the contrary Coldsnap, you cheated during our match and used your powers.” A smug smile crossed her lips, “So I win. You owe me a favor. I don't know what grudge you have with,” She paused for a second while the word seemed to escape her, “Brutus, but drop it. There are bigger fish to fry.”
  

 

[draconicheart]

US Bank Tower, Los Angeles, California: March 20th, 2045, 7:55am​

Reputation? Avery snorted. What reputation?

She totally doesn't fucking care what other people think of her. Her eyes slid over towards the sister standing next to her, and she fought to ignore the feeling of embarassment that coiled in her stomach.

Yeah, she totally doesn't care.

She spun around on her heels, making eye contact with the agent that pushed her forward. She pulled down the skin underneath her left eyelid with her middle finger and stuck her tongue out before flashing a shit-eating grin and turning back around.

Part of her wants to dawdle and mosey at her own pace, but something about the authority with which Moore and the others walked meant buisness she shouldn't skip out on. Avery had to fast walk to keep up, nearly jogging at times when she slacks in the pace. She couldn't help but notice the crisp echo of dress shoes that rose from the group around her that dotted her lower vision with cool tones. In the back of her mind, Avery's reminded of that one scene from Reservior Dogs. Her own beat-up shoes were much quieter in comparison, only emitting the occasional rubbery squeak against the hard floor in protest when she'd have to dig in her heels to slow herself down after jogging to catch up, or try to catch herself before slipping on a corner (the traction was absolutely ruined since she slid to a stop before Radovan earlier; if he wasn't so fucking weird she would demand he owe her a new pair). The annoying noise would cut through the air with a deep autumnal red and she managed to stop herself short from wincing each time it rang out.

She listened in dutifully to Moore and the sister's office banter, although confusion still swirled around her head. She, eventually, dismissed it with a shrug.

Whatever. This might as well happen. Could be worse, I guess.

Avery changed her mind when she found herself inches away from the back of Peter Radovan's suit. Nevermind - this is fucking purgatory.

Elevator music chimed away faintly from above, and Avery had touble seperating the colors swirling about her vision from the muddled reflection in the shiny metal interior walls that echoed the colors of the people crowding in this tight space altogether infinitely, like some shitty mirror maze from a carnival. The man who had strangled her mere minutes prior and showed her visions that she's sure will haunt her worst nightmares for years to come shuffles on his feet casually, forcing Avery to sway with his movement lest she brings herself to his attention once again. She's close enough to smell the cologne Radovan uses. Her elbows are touching the two sisters on either side of her, and if she steps or leans back in any way she would press another into a wall. Avery uses every last molecule of self control in her body to keep as still as possible, willing herself into a living statue. She's practically holding her breath.

... Is he... humming along to the fucking elevator music?

Radovan shifts again - a natural human movement, near imperceptible, but odd for whatever kind of beast he is - and Avery, in her human folley, does not catch it in time. He leans back ever so slightly, enough so that the tip of Avery's nose brushes against his coat. The mundane contact makes her wince.

The ding as the elevator doors slid open was the kindest gift God has ever graced her with, and she every muscle in her body relaxed at the gift of freedom. She lets out the breath she was holding.

... Only to be graced with another awkward elevator ride, this time with an enraged man. Great.

The way everyone else seemed to scatter before this guy, while Moore and even Radovan seemed to bow their heads respectfully - it's clear this guy was The Boss. Just one glance at his beet-red face and being forced to listen to his tantrum, though... He's earned no respect from her. She'll stay out of his way, though. She's gotten in enough trouble as it is.

The elevator dings once more, and they get off at another floor. While they loiter in the hallway, crowded around a phone with its speakers playing aloud some indistinguishable roaring of some kind of disaster that tomato-guy clearly isn't fond of, Avery slips a few feet away to the water cooler. Tomato-guy sends Radovan off (thank God), and Avery shuffles dutifully into the boardroom.

The tension is thick, radiating off of The Boss in waves. Everyone else is seating on the opposite side of a long table, while he paces about. It feels like a parent-teacher conference.

Avery places her paper cup on the table, and reaches out to grab a mint from the tray in the middle of the table. She fumbles with the plastic wrapper on it for a few heavy moments, the silence in-between the Boss-guy's statement broken up by the crinkling of plastic before she just decides to bite it, dragging the mint up with her teeth.

She feels the seal of the wrapper give way and the cool mint hit her tongue right when he points at her. She freezes, empty wrapper hanging between her teeth and her pointer fingers.

"Wha?" She should probably stay off of his radar, but he pointed her out first. The response came reflexively, half-muffled as she finishes ripping the wrapper out of her mouth. Her teeth kept hold of a corner of the flimsy plastic, though, and tore it off when she did so. It remained stuck on her bottom lip for a moment before she could blow it off onto the floor, mint clacking against the inside of her mouth. This was a terrible idea. "Why me?"

Interactions

Sepokku | Lord Saethos

 

[Sepokku]

• US Bank Tower: March 20th, 2045

• He just kept talking. Anima gave a pleading look to Sophia, who steepled her hands together and said a silent prayer to Danielle. Rubbing her knuckles against her forehead, Danielle tried to will away the growing migraine she was experiencing as her sisters fought to nurse the wounds Cadence had left across their psyche.
  
  'Holy shit. Did Douglas always talk this much?' The three sisters exchanged a tired expression as they did their best to tune out the rest of the conversation.
  
  Cadence let a wolfish smile creep across her face. Douglas continued to speak in a frenzy and Emiri patiently waited for the exact right moment to speak. Quietly they ran the scenario over in their head, again and again, adjustments taking shape as new information came into the noosphere, with Douglas as worked up as he was, there would be no second chances at this.
  
  "Any questions before I continue?"
  
  Cadence’s hand shot into the sky, and a relaxed shake of her wrist requested the floor for just a moment. “I’ll go with her.” Emiri and Douglas’s eyes met for a second then she began to disseminate the sound logic that they had spent the last ten minutes creating.
  
  Emiri pulled up several mock-ups she had hastily rendered of what Cadence might look like with several minor adjustments. One of the profiles closely resembled Avery. If they cut her hair just right and bleached it out and then dyed it… After only a minute of alterations, Emiri was able to parse out a perfect alias for her sister.
  
  “Permission to lift Protocol Three for the purpose of expediency?”
  
  “Granted.”
  
  She overlaid her psychic drawings over Cadence's face in a topographical map until the rendering was indistinguishable from reality; she was a dead-ringer for someone who could be Avery’s sister. “We’re already inserting a new agent, might as well double down; It increases our risk of failure by point zero zero zero eight percent and serves to grant us potentially fifteen hundred percent return on investment.”
  
  With a scoff, Cadence took over the presentation, “You want Optics, we'll give you Optics. Our last field test already proved Agent McCulloch displayed brilliant optics." A flash of crimson shuddered across the psychic link; striving to prove its point in a feedback loop of psychic energy. "We just need to coordinate. The icing on the cake, of course... I will be in the unique position to back up agent McCulloch; while also doing away with any redundancies that would usually come up when Sibyl is being let off the leash.”
  
  Avery had led a pretty nondescript life up until this point, it wasn’t hard to falsify documents that she had a younger sister. Emiri pinged Jamie that she had the paperwork ready, he accepted her request; five nauseating seconds later and the McCullochs had always had two daughters.
  
  Emiri tossed a tablet onto the table that sat in front of them all, “Avery and Cadence McCulloch, ready for deep cover infiltration."
  
  "Why me?"

 

[Sepokku]

Rokket’s head cocked as they listened to Achilles remember the whole Apple incident. That bitch Eris really knew how to make a mess of things. Their expression softened at the pain in Achilles voice; it was hard to imagine what exactly he had lost that day. Raising their gauntlet, they fired off a few rounds of energy into the fleshy creatures as they approached. They were fighting a losing battle here. Had Achilles been keeping up his training? If they let him borrow Gae Bulg, could he cast it through the heart of this beast?

Critically, Rokket looked Achilles up and down, his technique was a little sloppy; too reliant on his shield. Before they could ponder the nature of the promise Achilles was fulfilling, Mould’s voice ruined the moment, “Start regrouping or I’m going to forcibly recall the suit.” Rokket didn’t move, their eyes still on Achilles, someone they weren't sure they would ever see again. At the very least they should give him his father’s spear, Chiron had made them promise.

“Not in the mood for your shit today Rokket.” Their HUD flashed red as the word: ‘Recalling’ flashed over and over. The jets around their shins activated as the suit lifted off the ground. They tried to reach for Achilles, tried to outstretch a hand, but the suit was going into lockdown and returning to headquarters.

The bottom portion of the helmet slid open, revealing Rokket’s mouth, “Peleus.” A brilliant spear of Astral Ash materialized and stabbed into the ground next to Achilles. The boosters on the suit’s arms activated and they soared away from the battlefield.

 

[MisoraUni]

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  How she's feeling...

  
  
  
  

  SHATTERING monster booty. Lol.
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  What she's wearing...

  
  
  
  

  Black fitted crop tank top, black shorts, leather boots.

  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  Where she's at...

  
  
  
  

  Los Angeles, California. March 20th, 2045. A messed up af street.
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  Mentions/Interactions...

  
  
  
  

  Lord Saethos Fate0013 Sepokku The_Rockening CabbageAngel
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

Yukisa

-----

"Chizuki! More ice! Freeze the spots I shoot, and give me some more snow to work with! Vic! Whip up some ice and sharp stuff, tear this thing to shreds! But keep it contained!"

Yukisa nods at Richard’s call outs as she currently can not speak. Firstly, she poofs into a snow cloud and releases a blizzard out onto the street for Richard while following him. Then she solidifies to ice and proceeds to fire out ice after each of Richard’s bullets, hitting the exact spots where he’d shot.

After noting that Richard was leaving some ice around for Vic, Yukisa also releases random shards of ice for Vic to use while continuing to help Richard freeze the masses of flesh. It was quite easy for her to come up with more ice.

While Richard goes off to help Emma, one of the flesh creatures writhes up behind Yukisa's leg and trips her while she isn't paying attention. She lands backwards with a crackle of some ice. The flesh attempted to consume her but soon realized it wouldn’t be able to since she wasn’t in her human state.

Her iced body morphs into dry ice and effectively freezes the flesh zombie attached to her leg, Yukisa then sweeps her leg around in an arc above her head and breaks the flesh into pieces as she reverse somersaults and hops back up to a standing position.

"By the way, I'm not helping you for free. I'm expecting to never see you, or your green friend, again. Hope that's crystal clear." Is what Yukisa heard as she caught back up to Richard. She cocked her head slightly to the left. She hasn’t gotten any information on if this Emma is a bad apple yet but Richard for certain isn’t too keen about her.

‘Because of the green guy….?’ She recalled that Richard did in fact try to go after this ‘Brutus’ guy earlier.

Just then Yukisa had a thought. She turned to face the direction of the beach. The ocean wasn’t too far away. They need lots of ice to freeze the rest of the flesh crawling around so….. Why not head for the water?

Yukisa goes up to the two and temporarily un-ices her head so she can speak. “Richard, now’s not the time to pick fights with Brutus and Emma,” she says in a straight deadpanned manner.

“Anyway I was thinking, the ice seems to be working to stop these things so we need a lot more of it, and I mean a lot. An easy way to do that is to lead all this flesh to the beach so we can get to the ocean and freeze this shit once and for all.”

“That sound like a plan?”

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[XianaEvermor]

Achilles held Rokket's eyes for a long time, though he squirmed a bit under their scrutiny when he felt their gaze become critical. Probably thought he had an over-reliance on his shield. And what was wrong with that? A shield was a fantastic defensive weapon! Learn to love the shield, Rokket! Achilles flinched, however, at Rokket's sudden ascent, raising an eyebrow as they reached for him.

"Rok, wait!" Achilles lunged, reaching in return, then sliding to a stop and setting his feet when he saw he wouldn't clear the distance in time. Their departure certainly didn't appear voluntary... was someone controlling their actions? He pulled his arm back to throw his spear, maybe he could disable those boots? Was he accurate enough to do it and not take one of Rokket's legs?

[Peleus]​

The word resonated through the Astral Sea and Achilles froze. The ash spear split the air and embedded in the fractured concrete at his feet. His arm relaxed. Right. He still had a job to do. This spear though... his eyes flicked between it and Helene as one of the creatures leapt towards her. She backpedaled effortlessly, and with a gesture a massive tail flickered into existence for just long enough to swat the creature into somebody's apartment. If she recognized this spear, there was a chance... well. Burn that bridge later. People needed him to be strong right now, and not buckle under the thought of potentially upsetting Helene.

Achilles let go of his spear and shield, and they dissolved into black mist as they clattered to the ground. His helmet and cuirass did the same as he stripped them off, revealing the spiderweb of scars across his chest and back... cruel letters of remorse written to a past of misspent trust. His eyes flashed as he grasped the weapon, and arrays of enchantment and Greek script came alight in shimmering blue flame along the entire length of the weapon, traveling up his arm and down his chest and back. He dislodged the spear's blade with the heel of his buskin and spun it into his grip with a flourish. The air vibrated with tightly restrained brutality around the weapon. He leapt up to the awning next to Helene and opened his mouth to speak, clamping it shut immediately as he caught her gaze up and down on him. She raised an eyebrow, like she were admiring a prime cut of meat, and his cheeks flushed.

"You should take your shirt off more often...," she teased. The corners of her lips curled into an amused smirk.

"UH!" He turned away, unable to maintain eye contact. "I-I have a selfish request to make..."

"Fret not. I saw," she soothed, stretching a hand up towards the departing form of Rokket. "Skittles! [ίχνος]!" The word cut through Astral space, and a bronze beaked bird with rainbow speckled wings peeled out of her shadow, soaring high above the scene for a moment before cutting away to follow Achilles' armored friend from a safe distance.

 

[Fate0013]

---

---

The Wiggling thing seemed to just keep flailing as Ezra fried it without mercy. True be told, it was starting to unerve him a bit how much electricity he had to pump into this thing. Maybe he would need to crack back up to the equivilant of a lightning bolt? Oh he was gonna be so burnt out if he had to keep this all up. Was it more concerning that Ezra was currently trying to carboize some dude's flesh that had morphed into another creature and not finding it all that weird? possibly. Maybe. Potentially even. He was distracted again, even now. He kinda wanted to pet one of those flaming dogs now.

The crackling electricity began resonating. Who knew lightning could sing? It was uncanny, like a funk cover of a classic song. It was so clear he could even hear the words in his head:

Just the two of us
We can make it if we try
Just the two of us
(Just the two of us)
Just the two of us
Building castles in the sky
Just the two of us
You and I​

Wait... Was his pocket vibrating? His phone was ringing. Oh no His Phone was ringing.

In a moment of panic, Ezra released his hold of the power line and retracting his hand and wires. "Excuse me, i need to take this!" Not even checking to see if the wiggly thing was alive or dead, he launched a hand up towards the edge of a nearby rooftop. while quickly digging through his pockets with his free hand.

Asending quickly to his new perch, Ezra took a moment to catch his breath, reduce his [field and energy], and pulled out his blocky tinker phone.

"Hellooooo~?" His voice was about as casul and innocent as it could be. Ezra tried his best to turn away from the ongoing chaos bellow and put his other hand up to try in vain to shield the phones speaker from the unwanted sound. The sharp intake of air, like someone trying to prevent a migrane preceded the response. A jet of flame and lava from the cafe shrieked in the background.

"What are you doing?" he was asked, tersely.

Ezra replied a little too quickly. "Nothing, got the thing you wanted. What are you doing?"

"Oh, that's wonderful," the voice replied in sarcastic monotone. "Keeping a low profile, then? Like we discussed?" Asked the voice, in that rising tone that suggested he already knew the answer.

Oh he was so double dead. "Alright, okay, so . . . . . . I was minding my own business." He began to pace along the rooftop. Widget already knew. of course he did. This whole mess was probably on the news or something. . . that was probably it. that or anytime there was an incident the tinker checked som tracker on him to see if Ezra was somehwere nearby. Wait a minute. He didnt really have the time to continue that thought however.

"You can't see me squinting at you, but I am squinting at you," the Tinker replied in an agitated tone. A news chopper whooshed by overhead. "I am literally squinting at you. We are making eye-contact. Right now. On four of my news feeds from Los Angeles. So. One thing . . . Did you- Two. Three things . . . An indeterminate number of things.," the Tinker rumbled. He had that expression on his face like what he was hearing was physically painful. It came through the Tinker's voice, like that one time Ezra swallowed the "minty magnet."

"Is this a new manifestation of your ability; do you have an escape route, and do I need to drop ordinance on it?"

Ezra began to look anywhere that wasnt at the helicopters or open space. "I didn't want to be on tv today." Ezra grumbled to himself, inwardly shrinking at Widget's tone. Guess he wasn't going back "home" anytime soon. He took the second to look over the edge of the roof to see if things down bellow might have gotten better, despite better judgement. Nope. That "possessed" man just exploded into more meat things. gross.

"So there was a weird meat monster man that was attacking people, actually he was mostly attacking this really Thicc green muscle man, but everyone else with powers was still trying to stop him. there were weird flesh flowers and vein roots too. Also lots of ice. Im pretty sure that was power related but not from the meat man or me. oh right, this scary woman that keeps staring at me occasionally told me to blow up the meat man, there was powder in this cool wind bubble my new . . . friend? we'll call her friend. my new friend made." Ezra took a second to breath before continuing. "So the man blew up and became all these wiggling things and now everything is horrible and i wanted to just go hang out with my potencial new friend, also THIS WEIRD BIRD KEEPS TRYING TO LAND ON ME FOR SOME REASON!? Thats the situation."

"Huh," remarked Widget, like he were looking very closely at something. "Unrelated question: there's not a white-haired person in flamboyant attire laughing maniacally anywhere that you can see, is there?"

"No Widget, Kiran Kingsley isnt here. or at least i'm pretty sure he isn't."

"If you keep invoking his name like that, he's going to be!" Replied Widget, in an annoyed tone.

"Stop being supersticious and get to the point already!" Ezra's aura surged momentarily with his growing frustration.

"Ow! You shocked me! . . . That's concerning," he muttered, as he took a breath.

Ezra held the phone out and inspected it, confused. He hadn't shocked Widget though. He was too far away to possibly do that in the first place. ”You know what, No need for a point. I'm leaving before people start getting arrested." With a huff, the blocky tinkertech phone was snapped shut and shoved back into one of his many pockets. He wasn't really in the mood to be yelled at further if there wasn't going to be any solutions to the situation. And Widget was supposed to be the smart one?

Looking up Ezra noticed Vic was still airborn and had big green and muscley with her. Huh, so thats where he went. In a spur-of-the-moment decision, a pen and scrap paper, probably a reciet, were pulled out and Ezra scribbled down his number.

A Grapple hand was launched, it latched onto one of the big man's legs. Ezra quickly realed himself up to the two floating super's. This did mean that he was now spider monkey-ing himself on the green man. "Sorry dude, also wow you got muscles like steel! hold that thought." Ezra had to yell a bit over the wind Vic was whipping up to keep her and the big man afloat. he ratched out, grabbed one of Vic's hands and put the paper in it. "My number! Call me!"

He gave the two a thumbs up along with his goofy grin before leaping away. While in freefall and picking a direction away from the ongoing chaos, Ezra unspooled his wire and took to swinging from building to building. And this time paying attention so he DIDN'T run into any power lines that suddenly come out of nowhere.

 

[Lord Saethos]

• 1) An L.A. Cafe
• 2) U.S. Bank Tower, L.A.
• 3) Richard Mackenzie
• 4) Captain Valor
• 5) Richard Mackenzie
• 6) Captain Valor
• 7) Richard Mackenzie
• 8) Elsewhere

• 
  
  
  ​
  
  
  A Cafe, Los Angeles, California: March 20th, 2045, 8:00am
  
  Richard cast a bitter glance back at 'Emma', before returning his focus to getting them to escape. The situation had deteriorated fast, but it seemed more help had arrived? A big guy, looked like some kind of warrior from Greece or something, and a strange looking woman who seemed to surround herself with a whole host of nigh demonic looking animals. Fortunately, they all seemed to be on the side of fighting Roja right now.
  
  Ezra had seemingly gotten into a one on one match with a humanoid portion of the fleshy mass, which was taking an unnatural amount of electric shock. Odd, didn't seem like it had resistance to it before...
  
  After it seemed like the thing wasn't dropping, Ezra gave up and began to find higher ground. He seemed a bit... Spooked? Richard wondered what had gotten into him, but no real time to worry about that for now.
  
  "Emma," Richard called back to the other super as they made it closer to the police barricades. "I'm not sure you're in the loop here, but it's 'Brutus' who keeps showing up to attack my team. If you want me to drop any grudge with your friend, he's gonna have to probably stop tryign to attack us every chance he gets."
  
  What Richard did start to worry about was the humanoid Ezra had just been fighting.
  
  Dead bits of flesh peeled away and feel to the ground, quickly being eaten up and recycled (to the best of its ability) by the fleshy veins. As the skin fell away, the reason the creature managed to survive more slowly became apparent.
  
  Its body was covered in a shiny, glittering layer of some kind of silvery metal, tightly woven around its body. And beneath, it appeared there might be a thin layer of rubber, to act as additional absorption.
  
  The thing had woven a Faraday Cage around itself. It turned to face Richard and Emma.
  
  Oh no no no no no-
  
  Richard took a few shots, some of which managed to pierce the cage, but too late with Ezra now distracted. Many of the rounds were getting caught up in the metal weave, making it so this thing was not going to go down easy.
• 
  
  
  ​
  US Bank Tower, Los Angeles, California: March 20th, 2045, 8:03am
  
  Avery's question was immediately met with a nonchalant twist of Doug's head in her direction. "Because you're new. Need to prove yourself. Well, your loyalty rather. But also, you're skilled, and an ideal candidate for this group. You're a rogue, no ties to organized heroics, like this group. You'll enter seamlessly. Now Cadence..." He looked at the Sibyl Sister as he pondered the suggestion.
  
  "Well, you'll help keep Avery in line, but... Moore, I think you and Jamie are going to have to be a lot more hands on with this duo. What we do not need right now is more screwups. I mean we really-" Doug's phone buzzed again.
  
  "ARE YOU [REDACTED] KIDDING ME!!! They just detonated a FUEL AIR BOMB in the Middle of Santa Monica! PETER! Tell me this is under control!"
  
  Peter nodded nonchalantly. "It's in hand Doug, don't worry."
  
  "Right, well in that case, I approve use of Cadence and Avery as a team. But we need better coordination on this, so I'm expecting better out of all of you."
  
  Doug huffed, turning to his phone again to see one final news update. His eyes widened, his hand shaking.
  
  "P-Peter... You DIDN'T!!!"
  
  The agent shrugged and gritted his teeth. "I'm sorry Doug, but I didn't have much of a choice. And before you freak, I assure you: this is IN HAND. He has some... History with this. You don't have to worry."
  
  Douglas groaned in exasperation. "Peter, the OPTICS!!! Of all the people you had to call, WHY CALL -"
• 
  
  
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  A Cafe, Los Angeles, California: March 20th, 2045, 8:03am
  
  Richard and Emma finally caught up with Chizuki, who'd already begun hatching a plan. He looked between her and Emma as he took the whol thing into consideration. "Wait, lead it into the ocean? Can you freeze salt water? And, isn't there a risk of it spreading too fast? We need to consider some other options here at least, try to contain it or some-" Richard went quiet as he noticed Ezra, who'd been up in the air with Vicky Vortex and 'Brutus', swung off into the distance. Well, there goes one more super they needed.
  
  The silence persisted as he saw a figure floating down from some buildings in the distance, descending to the street they were all currently in.
  
  "We've... Gotta leave ASAP..."
  
  He looked at the figure as he drew closer, crowds already having taken notice and the cheers and applause ringing out. The figure suddenly flew high up into the sky at Mach speed, floating thousands of feet above the LA sky. Richard already knew he and The Brave had caught his attention with the recent antics. And now, once again...
  
  He was here...
• The street exploded once more as an incredible force plummeted into the ground, sending water from pipes cascading into the street, throwing concrete and dirt in the air, as well as bits of the fleshy monster that was under it.
  
  Valor hovered over the crater he'd formed, as crowds had gathered, and cheers of his name rang out across the street. Eager, excited, relieved citizens watched as their savior stood confidently over what was about to become his next triumph.
  
  He surveyed the street, taking in the chaos that had ensued, and the multitude of supers and others trying to pick away at this thing. It was no use though, this thing truly WAS like a weed. It needed to be ripped out root and all. His gaze went from all the supers, before landing on Chizuki and Richard.
  
  "Hey! Frosted Flakes!" Was that... An insult from the super? Or was he trying to be 'friendly'?
  
  "You're officially deputized. We need to pull this thing out COMPLETELY. No traces left in the ground. Start making an ice perimeter underground, and get to work freezing the soil. Should be saturated enough now to permafrost it. Windy!" Now he called out to Vicky Vortex.
  
  "Whip up a barrier of air around the perimeter of this area, nothing in, nothing out. Got it?" He flashed a grin and thumbs up in the wind-super's direction.
  
  Finally he turned his gaze to Emma, and then to her crew. Valor sniffed, for a reason perhaps unknown to everyone else. The woman. She had powers, but what they were, he couldn't quite tell. But he could smell it on her.
  
  His gaze then made it's way to another woman, and the companions who accompanied her. The scent that lingered from them... That one was utterly foreign to him. Something about them was entirely different from the others here. That bothered him. People like that were always a liability waiting to happen.
  
  "And the rest of you, get civvies out of here, and get yourselves out of here."
  
  He looked at Emma with a wry grin. "Not a terrible idea with Scorched Earth, but this is MY city you're doing it in. Besides... We're gonna need a MOAB for this."
  
  After he finished, the supers quickly got underway with their work. A barrier of wind began to form around the area, and ice began to seep deep into the soil, both Richard and Yukisa pouring everything they could into turning this thing into a petrified fossil. The easy access to water certainly was helping with that.
  
  With no other immediate enemies in sight, and having been knocked over by the kinetic wave that Captain Valor's entrance had caused, the Faraday Prion G stood once more, and marched in the direction of Valor, its new target.
  
  "Oh buddy, BAD idea." Valor's lips curled up in a viscous grin as his eyes shone red.
  
  A beam of red light moved from the top of the Faraday Prion's 'head' and down through its entire torso, a sizzling steam pouring off of the monster as the red light moved down.
  
  The body fell in two halves to the ground, the fleshy insides now exposed. "VERY BAD IDEA." He grinned from ear to ear as the red light flooded inside of the metallic shell halves, turning the Prion's 'body' into little more than a heap of charred ash.
• 
  
  
  ​
  
  
  A Cafe, Los Angeles, California: March 20th, 2045, 8:03am
  
  Were they seriously helping out Captain Valor with a fight? Richard felt like this was the absolute worst possible scenario, and he didn't imagine George Carlisle was going to be particularly thrilled about this whole scene.
  
  Did bad luck just follow Richard like a chronic illness? In retrospect, it certainly felt like it... Between the Green Guy and crew, the warehouse, the battle with that insect robot, Atlas City, and even then Richard's past. The military, his brother.
  
  The ground began to harden, forming into near rock-like chunks. More and more veins seemed to be scurrying to the surface, seemingly they'd realized that there was no chance of survival by simply going down.
  
  "Valor! Looks like this thing's reached it's limits! What next?"
  
  Valor turned to face Richard, with a look bordering between nonchalance, joy, and rage. "GET OUT OF HERE! EVERYONE GET PAST THE WIND BARRIER NOW!"
  
  The ground burst open once more as the remainder of the flesh desperately grasped for more organics, and a direction of escape.
• Valor gazed over the growing, central form of the Prion G monster. Seemed it was trying to mount a final offense by coalescing into one organism. The Captain smirked, as his job became much easier.
  
  He sauntered up to the beast, both hands gripping onto it's fleshy mass. It desperately tried to coat him, get into his flesh, devour him...
  
  But it was no use.
  
  "Guess this isn't something you people learned from last time, huh?" He was utterly immune.
  
  A sonic boom sounded as Captain Valor took up into the sky, the mass of flesh being carried up with him, leaving behind only tiny little trace amounts of veins.
  
  The air grew thinner and thinner as Valor and the monster climbed kilometers into the sky, the temperature dropping dramatically.
  
  He looked sadistically at the mass of flesh he carried, unsure if it could hear him, or even understand him.
  
  "YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN COLOMBIA!"
  
  The atmosphere gave way, as Captain Valor and Prion G both entered into Outer Space. He figured this would give him enough distance and time. Without another word, he pushed the monster back down towards the Earth, watching as it entered the atmosphere once more, and soon as flames began to flicker around it.
  
  He chased down after if, eyes glowing red once more, and searing the thing till it's dead flesh flaked off like broken charcoal.
  
  The two plummeted towards LA once more, with Valor grabbing onto the deteriorating remains to keep them in one place. Finally, the two connected with the crater from earlier, with an explosion that shattered windows, set off car alarms, shook a portion of the city, and essentially evaporated and remaining bits of Prion G on the ground.
  
  Valor flew out of the crater that the street had become, as the ice and wind seemed to quickly dissipate. He floated up above the street once more, and in the area where the monster had just been, he let loose a streaming of blinding red light. The street was carved through like it was made of butter, with the surface becoming so hot it would melt and warp. Anything that remained of Prion G was bathed in the cleansing red beam of Captain Valor's gaze.
  
  Once it was done, Valor gazed at the smoking husk, quickly cooling down despite what had just occurred to it. Valor floated back down to the surface, and crowds stood by police barriers, silent, patiently awaiting some confirmation of what the outcome was. He took a cursory glance, listened intently, took in a quick breath, and could find no trace of Prion G still being alive.
  
  He brushed dust and rubble from his shoulders, giving a thumbs up to the crowd that had gathered. "It's alright folks, we've got this under control!" The crowds began to erupt into applause and cheers, as he began waving proudly, triumphantly.
  
  "American Now and FOREVER! So long as we have heroes like these, we will keep America safe and FREE!"
  
  With that said and finished, Valor noticed something.
  
  Many of the heroes were now gone. The two ice ones and the windy one for sure. Looking over the remains of the destroyed street, it occurred to him that they might be the heroes who've been running around lately...
  
  Fortunately, some were still left. The woman, Emma, and some big green fellow. They'd come back in to the blast zone for some reason. Something about the woman seemed off too, he couldn't tell exactly what, but... He knew something was not to be trusted there. Valor sauntered over to them, eyeing up the big guy.
  
  "So, who are you supposed to be, Doctor Igor Fucking Frankenstein?" He eyed up Scourge. "Honestly folks, they really do not make heroes like they used to." Valor spoke in an upbeat tone, but the wording was steeped in condescension.
  
  His eyes went up and down the form, before landing on the spot between Scourge's legs. "Huh... Well I guess whoever stitched you together at least had some taste." He muttered, before flicking his attention back to Emma.
  
  "Nice use of incendiaries. You DID get permission to use all that, right?" He smirked as he clasped both Emma and Scourge on the shoulders.
  
  "Seriously though folks, great job today. America wouldn't be safe without you. Oh, by the way, what are your powers anyways?" He inquired of Emma. "I've usually got a pretty good nose for these things, but didn't get to see you in action too much."
  
  Suddenly, he pulled away from them, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his cell, buzzed with a text.
  
  "Huh... Sorry to break this up, but there's someone I despise with every fiber of my being who I've gotta get back to. Would you believe it? Even supers can hate people. Go figure!"
  
  With that, Valor flew off into the distance, typing in a quick response as he soared through the sky.
  
  'Enemy of my enemy isn't some kind of diplomatic immunity. I still haven't forgotten, and I have no qualms putting you in the dirt Radovan. - CV'
• 
  
  
  ​
  
  
  A Side Street, Los Angeles, California: March 20th, 2045, 8:15am
  
  Richard stumbled down a side street several blocks away from the cafe he'd just been a patron at. He felt, in a word, exhausted. Richard had ran about as fast as humanly possible from that scene to avoid any further interactions with Valor, or other supers, but not before warning Chizuki that she should do the same. He reached into his pocket and found her number again, putting a smile on his face as he tucked it into a pocket of his leather jacket.
  
  A Gold and Black version of the Datsun 240z sat there awaiting him, his car that George Carlisle had been kind enough to have shipped here from Canada. He pulled out a black pair of sunglasses, and hopped in the driver seat, getting the engine going as he tried to decide what he should do now.
  
  "What... Just happened." He muttered as he pushed a hand through is hair, sweeping it back. "More zombie supers, flesh monster-men, ancient warriors and whatever that lady was summoning things, Captain Valor..." Richard sighed as he looked up to the rear view mirror, meeting his own eyes. "Who are you saving the world from White Death? Giant monsters? Or a dozen or more puppet masters? Or maybe they're entirely separate from each other."
  
  He sighed bitterly as he turned his gaze back to the street in front of him. "I need another coffee..." His mind drifted to everything at the cafe, to Ezra, Chizuki, and Vicky. Then he remembered too how he'd acted.
  
  "And some friends... Might need to try treating them better..."
  
  The Datsun pulled out onto the street as Richard Mackenzie looked for another cafe. He wondered absentmindedly if that therapist on the Submarine was any good...
• 
  
  
  Elsewhere, Near California...
  
  Fingers rapped the surface of a metal topped desk, as computer screens flickered in the darkness. The images conveyed on them was of Captain Valor destroying a fleshy monster in downtown LA.
  
  "Hoc unum agens amisit domine me paenitet..."
  
  The fingers ceased rapping the desk surface, a moment of silence passed, and then the rapping continued. "Esteban erat calidus. Me miserum hoc facit, hoc praelium elegit, et sibi carissimum constat. Sed non omnia perierunt. Hanc mulierem, et grandem virentem, aequom esse arbitror, quem hospites habeant."
  
  "Quid vis ut faciamus, Masque?"
  
  The red fabric of the seated figure's hood moved, as he turned to face his advisor.
  
  "Progredimur utique ex proposito. Parasiti in lucem trahentur, et vita eorum exstinguetur. Humanitas..."
  
  He paused as he turned back to the screen, taking in the sight of the destruction wrought be the proud and triumphant Valor, but gaze fixated on the woman, the green man, and the boy from earlier with the electricity powers.
  
  "Erit salvus."

 

[MisoraUni]

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  How she's feeling...

  
  
  
  

  What was all of that?
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  What she's wearing...

  
  
  
  

  Comfy in black.

  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  Where she's at...

  
  
  
  

  Los Angeles, California. March 20th, 2045. Street of the former Cafe >> Random Alleyway >> Her apartment >> Icecream time
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  Mentions/Interactions...

  
  
  
  

  Lord Saethos
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

Yukisa

-----

Yukisa had wooshed herself after Richard for a bit but lost him in a crowd of civilians that were also running for cover.

She found herself in an alleyway a decent length away from Captain Valor and the Cafe. She immediately plops into a pile of stacked up cardboard. Yukisa brings up her right hand and wipes some of the sweat off of her forehead.

“Oh fuck, my apartment!” Yukisa jolts herself back up to a standing position, and pirouettes to face the direction of her apartment.

“It should be fine right?"

“It’s a good few blocks away…. By the math it should be relatively okay… I hope.”

Yukisa looks up the side wall of the alley way she’s in, noting some window ledges that lead up to the top of the building. She ices up again and a moment later, she is hopping on the ledges to make her way up. She lets the momentum carry herself across rooftops all the way back to her apartment building.

.
.
.

Her apartment is mostly in one piece, a stray piece of glass here and there from the broken windows are scattered about the floor. Small pieces of rubble from the ceiling can also be seen.

“Well… this is fine. Ha ha…”

She walks in further from the window she entered from. It was silent. Dead silent. Not a single soul was left in the building except for Yukisa. Everyone had all evacuated much earlier.

“It could be worse…” She says while peaking back behind her at the toppled buildings that were closer to the now dilapidated cafe. That was her favorite cafe too… Yukisa shakes her head dejectedly.

A sigh is heard. “Welp. Guess I have some work to do.”

Yukisa whips out her phone from the backpack sitting on her living room couch. She taps in some numbers.

Ring, ring. The other line picks up. “Hello. This is the owner of Taeru Apartment Complex. We’re going to need a great deal of repairs done.”

“Yes, yes it was involved in that… Unfortunately.” Yukisa picks up her backpack by the strap on the top, and walks into her bedroom. She places the backpack on her bed with a thwap sound.

“How long will repairs take?”

“Three weeks? Alright, thank you. Have a nice day.” She ends the call.

“….Well shit. Looks like I won’t be buying anything extravagant for a while.” She sighs again.

Yukisa changes out of her ‘hero’ attire and into something more relaxed, a black fitted T-shirt, and some black sweatpants. She puts on the same sunglasses she had on earlier in the day and her black sneakers.

She opens up her closet then pulls out a large suitcase and starts to place her clothing into it.

Yukisa closes up her suitcase and taps away on her phone, buying the first dent in her wallet, then the next, which is a hotel to stay at for three weeks. She places her backpack onto her back then takes her suitcase off the bed and walks herself out of the door of her apartment.

The upper floors of the building have the most damage, so those tenants will have to also find other places to stay temporarily while the ones closer to the bottom can stay.

More tapping across Yukisa’s phone is heard as she updates the website for Taeru Apartment Complex with an announcement reflecting the damages and how long the upper floor tenants will have to stay out, plus the increase of rent to cover the costs of repairs.

Yukisa trudges across the street to the parking garage next to her building. She doesn’t use it often, but she does have a car, a black Lexus LC Hybrid Convertable, customized with silver racing stripes starting from the hood and ending at the top of the trunk. Yukisa figured it’d be cheaper to take her own transportation for now when she needs to go anywhere since her car is half electric.

She opens up the trunk and places her luggage in. A few minutes later Yukisa is on the road, heading down the coast line for a few minutes before turning to go further inland.

.
.
.

30 minutes later she arrives at the hotel. Thanks to her connections, she managed to haggle the price cheaper because a friend of the boss at her lab owns this particular hotel. Wasn’t much of a discount, but it was at least something.

Yukisa has arrived at the door to her room, she walks in and places her luggage down. Yukisa empties her backpack a tad, but keeps her notepad and pen in, along with her laptop.

As Yukisa was about to sit down upon the bed, she had a hankering for a frozen treat.

Yukisa places her backpack back onto her back and sprints back out to her car. “Ice cream here I come! Thank goodness I at least have enough money for ice cream.”

On the drive to the ice cream parlor, what all had happened finally began to set in. Sitting there at a red light, Yukisa tried not to think about it by distracting herself, however, distractions can only do so much. “What even was that flesh thing anyway?” Just thinking about it gave her the heebie jeebies. It’s fleshy spawns were consuming people… Yukisa did a hell of a great job poker-facing through all that…. But now that she was alone, she was properly shivering from the flashbacks of what that thing was doing to those poor innocent people.

The light turns green and she is brought back to the present for a moment. “Ice cream! Yes, Ice cream. I'm getting ice cream. Ice cream is my comfort food so let's not think about that yeah? Don't worry about what happened. It's all been taken care of after all......"

"Right?” She couldn't help but think what would happen if there was even a slight chance of more of that flesh somehow surviving....

.
.
.

Yukisa parks on the street in front of the place and walks into the ice cream parlor, it’s a fairly small joint. The inside is about as big as a University dorm room.

“Hello, how are you today?! And what would you like to order?” The ice cream server appears to be a high school student, she seems to be a pretty peppy one at that.

“Honestly, I need to just relax and shut my mind off for a bit.”

“Huh?” The girl raises an eyebrow.

Yukisa skims her eyes through all the flavors for a few seconds before settling on one. “I’ll have an orange sherbet cone.”

“Oh, yes coming right up.”

A minute or two later, the server hands Yukisa her ice cream and says “I hope you take it easy!”

“Yeah thanks, I’ll try.”

Yukisa walks back out of the ice cream parlor with her fresh cone, and proceeds to sit in her car while she slowly licks away at it.

The others that were at the scene earlier came into her mind for a moment. She was with Richard before Captain Valor smashed the flesh beast into oblivion, they got split apart after running away from the blast though…

“I hope he and the others are okay.”

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[Sepokku]

• US Bank Tower
• ██████
• Later

• Not one to pass up an opportunity, Cadence picked up the tablet off the table and quietly used the excuse of Douglas’s exasperation to remove herself and her sisters from the meeting. Emiri followed closely behind while the three others lagged a small distance behind.
  
  “Are you sure about this?” It wasn’t the first time Cadence had jumped at the chance to get an assignment that gave her a degree of autonomy, but it was the first time she’d be actually “on her own.” Though SINS would probably never leave the sisters completely alone, Emiri suspected Cadence would be checking in with her handler only the required amount and not a single time more.
  
  Cadence depressed the button that called the elevator to her, “Not at all.” Her eyes met Emiri’s for a brief moment, ‘But we can’t be the only party sitting on our laurels.’ The elevator let out a ding as it arrived and the doors opened. The Sybil sisters stepped inside as Cadence tapped her finger against the button that would take her to the floor of the SINS plastic surgeon.
• The shower ran idly in the background, steam pooling at the top of the room as the mirror slowly fogged. Cadence became aware she could no longer see her face clearly in the mirror, ‘Not that it’s my face anymore…’ She grabbed a hand towel and rubbed a spot on the mirror until it was relatively clear. Her features were more pointed now, her nose just a bit sharper when facing her profile. Tampering with the pigmentation of her hair follicles had rendered them several shades lighter, leaving her a barely strawberry blonde. Even her eyes had been altered slightly, the irises now resembling sea glass more than sea blue. ‘And my cheeks…’ Her fingers lightly touched her cheekbones, the shape and feel of them a foreign sensation.
  
  “That’ll take some getting used to…” Turning around, she moved the shower curtain aside and spent the next half hour letting her worries swirl down the drain with the soap and shampoo that she rinsed off.
  

  ---

  Emiri waited until Cadence had exactly thirty minutes to herself before making telepathic contact, ‘Excited? An uncover assignment is going to necessitate limited contact with our handlers.’ She closed her copy of “The Mask of Dimitrios,” resting it in her lap as she adjusted her position in the wingback chair.
  
  ‘Nervous more than anything… I dont trust Avery.’ Cadence continued to space out, hot water cascading down her legs as she sat on the granite seat built into the shower. ‘Are you going to be able to keep things together without me?’
  
  Emiri put both her hands around the ceramic mug that sat nearby, taking a long drink of the lukewarm honeyed chai that had sat forgotten for the past half hour, ‘We’ll make do, as long as you do the same.’
• Cadence sat in the “uber” that was really just a SINS transfer vehicle, the driver a paid agent that was to keep an eye on her until she joined Agent McCulloch, the cityscape crept by as they drove slowly through the intersection. She gave one final examination of her new passport and California ID. “Cadence McCulloch,” Sybil had been scrubbed from her name, to no surprise. Jamie and Agent Moore were working hand in hand now as well, her handler was both going to be much stricter and far more absent. Her telepathy would be used to relay information secretly back to SINS, assuming everything went according to plan.
  
  The vehicle came to a stop and her driver got out, after a few moments he opened her door and gestured for her to get out. Unclicking her seat belt, she got out of the car and cast an annoyed glance at the man, “Five stars. Very good Jeeves, thanks for the ride.” Reaching into her hoodie, she grabbed her phone and called her new “sister.”

 

[Lord Saethos]

​

• December 19th, 2042 - 8:20am
• December 19th, 2042 - 8:52am
• December 19th, 2042 - 9:03am
• December 19th, 2042 - 9:17am
• December 19th, 2042 - 9:23am

• Tu Nedhé Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada: December 19th, 2042, 8:20am
  
  Tıdeè, Tinde’e, Tu Nedhé, and Tucho. Formerly known as Great Slave Lake, these are the names traditionally used by the respective First Peoples of these lands, and the new official names.
  
  During the warm periods on this frozen landscape, certain areas turned into bogs, the permafrost thawing into millions of pools and ponds, pockmarking the land.
  
  During the cold winter months however, those pockmarks would reverse, creating thousands of bumps in the land, pingos, that dotted the areas around the 10th largest lake on Earth. Seated on the frozen shore of this lake, nestled precariously into some of these pingos, was a disused water treatment and research facility. Once a highly advanced operation, a combination of newer technology, and better locations, led to the plant's closure.
  
  And yet, the lights of the facility shone brightly once more.
  
  At 8:20am, sunrise would be closing in soon, but darkness still enveloped the land, cut through only by the exterior spotlights of the water treatment plant. A snowstorm blew light, dusty flakes of snow across the ground and air, much like sand dunes in the wind. Visibility was precarious, but surprisingly clear as the snow dust largely was blown around on the surface of the ground.
  
  Around the perimeter of the water facility, several figures of the terrorists who’d taken up residence could be seen leaving the building and patrolling the surrounding area. Richard watched across the ledge of an iron sight, eyes narrowing as he watched them.
  
  Atomwaffen. Absolute scum of the Earth. During the briefing for the mission, some seemed confused as to the reasoning of the terror group’s plan. As Richard and others indicated, Great Slave Lake was the 10th largest on Earth in terms of area, and 12th in terms of volume. An absolutely gargantuan quantity of fresh, relatively pure, water.
  
  And these Neo-Nazis intended to poison the whole thing. Fill it with some kind of toxic chemical that would leave the whole thing undrinkable for decades, possibly centuries. Water that could leak into other rivers, lakes, and water systems, leaving potentially hundreds of thousands of kilometers of Canada uninhabitable.
  
  In a world where climate change was still wreaking havoc, this meant even less fresh water to have to meet humanity’s growing need. These men wanted to condemn humanity to life of Hell, all for their pathetic attempt at self-actualization, at feeling important.
  
  "Targets spotted." An English accent called through Richard Mackenzie's ear piece. "Do you copy White Death?"
  
  Richard didn’t respond verbally, instead, covered almost entirely in snow, he opted to respond with a thumbs up. In the darkness, it was nearly imperceptible, but night vision helped with that.
  
  “Simo copies.” A man with a Southern Accent responded, watched the nearly invisible form of the White Death through night vision scope. “How many targets are we looking at Specter?”
  
  “Eight in the exterior. Not sure about interior yet. Daisy… Is our Canadian friend really sure he’s equipped for this?”
  
  Daisy, the Southern man, looked over to where White Death laid, thumb still pointing up. He smirked. “Seems he thinks he is.”
  
  “I thought Canadians were all about politeness, not…”
  
  “Don’t fret Specter, he’s just peachy over there. Trying to live up to his namesake.” Daisy chuckled to himself.
  
  Richard was wielding a Mk. 4 Lee Enfield rifle, with no scope to ensure there would be no glare. Like Simo Häyhä, he’d filled his mouth with snow, and covered his body in it as well. There would be no hot breaths escaping his mouth, or anything else to give off a thermal signature to the Atomwaffen guards. As far as they were concerned, they were dealing with a ghost.
  
  White Death, Daisy, Specter, and several others made up the international special forces team that was going to thwart this operation, but this was by no means going to be an easy one. They had to send in some of the best, to handle some of the most dangerous. This made Specter uncomfortable with Richard’s unorthodox methods, but he had to trust White Death knew what he was doing.
  
  The Atomwaffen member leading this operation was a powerful super. Current intel indicated that, as long as he could physically see a person in front of him, he could take control of their mind and nervous system. His favorite weapon, it seemed, was making his enemies commit suicide. It was difficult to verify all intel on him, but so far it was presumed that his psychic connection only worked when he could see the person he intended to build the connection with. One more reason to be a ghost.
  
  “Ready folks?” Specter spoke apprehensively. “3, 2, 1…”
  
  With the heavy noise of wind, the distance, and the snow covering, Richard’s Lee Enfield fired off slightly more muffled shots. Three Atomwaffen guards were down before they even had time to realize anything had happened, and the other five were now too far away to realize what occurred behind them.
  
  Five more shots, these ones from Daisy, Specter, and a few others. In about five minutes, someone inside was going to realize contact was lost with their outside guards. It was still dark out, but the sky was slowly turning from black, to a navy-blue color. They sat and waited as three more guards eventually exited the facility, searching for their comrades.
  
  By the time they stumbled on the bodies, it was too late. One shot from Richard, one from Daisy, and one from Specter. The three immediately rushed towards the facility now, along with a group of seven others. “Guards down, moving in.”
  
  “Roger that.” Specter radioed.
• When they reached the doors of the water treatment plant, Richard leaned his rifle against the wall and unslung an MP5 from his back.
  
  “JSTF teach you to fight like that White Death?” Specter asked with a slight smirk.
  
  Richard shook his head and grinned. “That part’s self-taught. Sniping is the great Canadian pastime. Keep that in mind if you ever come to invade us.” He turned to Daisy as he made that last remark.
  
  Daisy shrugged to himself. “Don’t fret yourself peaches, this climate isn’t to my liking too much, nor is betraying my friends.”
  
  “Oh we’re friends now hey? That certainly moved fast.” Richard chuckled.
  
  “Oh we’re all among friends here. Anyone who makes a career killing Nazis is a friend of mine.” Daisy drew two hefty looking revolvers from hip holsters, looking like a Navy Seal who loved to play Cowboy.
  
  “Right then, let’s save this lake.” Specter nodded to the others.
• They breached the door and filed into the facility, hugging close to corners and cover. Sunlight finally was beginning to crest the frozen landscape, making it harder to keep themselves in darkness as light poured through different windows dotted in the building.
  
  Richard held to the back, the others having been a little more experienced in close quarters combat, but he was also pretty anxious about the whole ‘Psychic Nazi’ thing. He was their dual objective. Ensure the chemicals couldn’t be released or used, and take out the leader.
  
  As they quickly worked through the facility, they managed to reach an old laboratory first. Strangely, everything so far seemed unguarded, and as they reached the lab, it almost made sense why. They’d found the chemicals, still contained in large, pressurized, stainless steel containers.
  
  “HQ, this is Specter, we’ve found the chemicals. Securing them now.”
  
  A noise from around the outside of the room alerted them to movement. To the left side of the room, there was shutters that covered over observation windows, where flickering of light also confirmed movement on the other side. Richard realized only now why the chemicals weren’t being guarded.
  
  They didn’t care if the chemicals leaked out.
  
  “AMBUSH!” Richard aimed at the shutters and immediately opened fire. Bullets flew back in his direction as well, as both Specter and Daisy dove for the chemical containers, rolling across the floor to hide behind whatever countertops and other cover they could find. Richard took cover at an opposite end of the room, drawing fire his way, trying to keep it away from Daisy and Specter. He signed to them to pullback, and for the rest of the team to provide cover.
  
  They nodded and began to carefully crawl to the other side of the room, cover still being provided by Richard as another teammate joined him in firing back. “Looks like you could use some help White Death?” The voice was a woman’s with a Middle Eastern accent. “Oh no, I’ve got this, go ahead and take a load off, eh?” She smirked before returning more fire. “Uh… Sorry to ask by the way, but what’s your call sign again?”
  
  The girl laughed between reloading. “Enheduanna.”
  
  Richard nodded a little apprehensively. “Not too much of a mouthful?”
  
  She shook her head. “I’m not going to say no to the name of Sargon of Akkad’s daughter. Besides, yours isn’t too short either, Mr. Death.”
  
  Richard shrugged and nodded along. “Fair point Enheduanna. Any plans for this?”
  
  “Sure; shoot down the shutters.”
  
  The two fired on the mechanism over the windows, holding the metal shutters in place, sending the entire thing crashing to the floor, and leaving the now shattered windows wide open.
  
  Enheduanna tossed a grenade through the window, and the ensuing explosion was soon followed by utter silence from the other side. She and Richard were the last two to scatter from the lab, covering the retreat of their teammates.
  
  “So, Peshmerga was it?”
  
  Enheduanna smiled and nodded. "Kurdish Special Forces, that's right."
  
  “So how did you get roped into a job like this?”
  
  She shrugged. "Same as you I guess. Fight bad guys and save the world." She gave a sincere, hopeful smile.
  
  Richard had fallen slightly behind Enheduanna, before another hail of gunfire erupted in front of him, separating him from the rest of the team. Some of his squad mates grabbed a canister of the toxic chemicals from Specter, and began to ease their way out of the facility, as the others tried to return fire.
  
  Richard retreated from the area Enheduanna, Specter, and Daisy were pinned down in, trying to see if he could flank the terrorists. As he moved between rooms, the gunfire died down. He felt his heart sink a little. Had they all been killed? Was he too late? No, he could hear a voice echoing through the halls, mocking them as he spoke.
  
  "Good evening folks. I'm Troy Andersson. But I suspect you all already knew that. How do you feel about being an audience for me for just a sec? I mean, you don't really have a choice." He cackled to himself.
• Richard had come around behind where 'Troy' and his squad mates were, peaking out from behind cover. Troy was currently alone, with a few of his men dead around him, and others it sounded like had rushed outside to take down the other Spec Ops soldiers. Enheduanna, Daisy, and Specter were frozen solid, unable to move. Seemed those psychic powers were the real thing.
  
  "That's some dark tones you've got in your skin for this far up north missy. You do know they call this the Great White North, right?" He cackled again menacingly.
  
  Daisy could be heard noticeably groaning in utter annoyance. "I'm sure you've got quite a lot more in common with the snow around here than you do with any other denizens of our fair Mother Earth."
  
  Troy turned to Daisy with a smirk. "Other than my purity? No, not really. I'm not a snowflake like the rest of you. I'm willing to do what needs to be done." He spat on the ground.
  
  "They wanna talk about 'Culture Wars' cause they think it'll give them better views. No... We're gonna give them real wars, and traitors like you?" He pointed to Daisy. "There's no place for you in the world we create after."
  
  Troy sighed. "In fact, I think I might hate you more than her." He nodded at Enheduanna.
  
  "Hope you know how to ride horseback cowboy, cause you won't be using those knees anymore."
  
  Daisy's eyes went wide as his arms contorted and pulled his revolvers to his legs, barrels pointing at the kneecaps. Beads of sweat trickled down his face as he screamed before being forced to pull the triggers. Enheduanna and Specter sat in shock, with Enheduanna noticeably shaking from the traumatic sight. Daisy's pained, raspy breaths filled the air as he looked up at Troy in utter hatred.
  
  Richard felt his stomach churning as though he were going to throw up. His eyes sparkled a little in the light as they welled up. He forced himself to breath slower, deeper breaths to keep himself from either throwing up, or fainting and falling over. Richard had only known Daisy a short while, but the man had begun to grow on him a little, but even putting that aside, this Neo-Nazi's cruelty would make any half-normal human sick.
  
  "I better go get the other canisters back now... Pity, would be fun to play with you all a little more. Anyways, how about a murder-suicide? Go on folks, all you gotta do is lift up your guns, aim, and-"
  
  "MOVE!"
  
  Before Troy could turn in Richard's direction, several bullets found their mark in the old pipes of the facility, bursting them open and flooding the hallway with steam.
  
  Troy could no longer see Specter, Daisy, or Enheduanna, of whom the first and last quickly rushed to the aid of the second. They wrapped Daisy's arms over their shoulders and dragged him out of the room. He might have attempted to protest, ask them to leave him behind, but he was too weak to muster more than mutterings.
  
  With Troy's attention now in the direction of the gunfire, Richard sprinted away from the hallway, searching desperately for an easy escape as he heard footsteps approaching fast from behind.
  
  As he made his way deeper into the facility, all he found was dead ends, getting himself more or less cornered in a warehouse. He searched for any entrances or exits, but all he was seeing at this point were either barred heavily, or... He suddenly realized how the room was being dimly lit by the sunrise.
  
  Windows. Without a second thought, he opened fire on the windows, shattering them, letting bitterly cold air rush into the room, as he threw himself out to the other side, only narrowly missing the gaze of Troy. Richard continued sprinting, even while nearly out of breath, back to the main entrance the team had initially gone through.
  
  Troy swore as he changed direction to head back to the very same entrance the Spec Ops had been escaping through. The sun was on his side now, there was no running for them.
• As Troy got closer to the entrance, he saw the trail of blood leading outside, a track that would lead him directly to his prey. He grinned ear to ear as he made his way outside, the hobbling forms of his three victims in clear view above the horizon.
  
  "Too little, too late." He muttered to himself. "Now, lay down and-"
  
  The snowy ground behind Troy burst open as snow scattered around him. He started from the suddenness of the snow opening up, and turned around in time to watch as a figure rose up, blue eyes glaring in the most bitter form of hatred Troy had ever seen, and pouncing towards him like a mountain lion.
  
  The last thing Troy saw was the icicles that rushed towards his eyes.
  
  The air was filled with screams of pain as Troy writhed on the ground in pain, clutching his face as sobs and hysterical shouts drained his lungs of nearly every breath he had.
  
  Richard looked down at him in utterly cold, animalistic disdain. He turned away from his victim, picking up his Lee Enfield from the snow and dusting it off.
  
  A scope would not be needed.
  
  He turned back to Troy, slamming his boot into the Neo-Nazi's chest, and forcing him onto his back. Richard planted his foot on the man's chest and pinned him down.
  
  "How's that for irony? Taken out by a Snowflake, wielding pointy snowflakes."
  
  Troy sputtered as best as he could. "P-please! I... I can give you -GAH- Infor... Information! You... Have to arrest me! I deserve a fair trial! And medi -AGH- cal... Attention!"
  
  Richard let out a dismissive, irritated sigh, and raised his rifle's stock to his shoulder, barrel faced at Troy's head.
  
  "You're pathetic."
  
  A single shot rang out, and in the distance, Enheduanna turned back to see Richard's silhouette, standing atop of another figure in the snow, with a wide ring of red spread out across it.

 

[Sepokku]

• H.E.L.P
• LA Apartment Complex, Later

• Mould tried to limp along with Tik and Tok on either side of him, in truth he was mostly being dragged along by Tik who was randomly activating his power in between spitting out a few choice curses that he repeated like a mantra.
  
  “Shit fucking titmouse. Crap on a rye cracker,” Tik sped forward in a two-second burst, dragging Tok and Mould along behind him as they retreated back towards Headquarters, far past the evacuation area. Pistolero lagged a few blocks behind them, not fairing much better.
  
  “E-ego death. I-I’m one with the fresh flesh flower. One with fresh flesh. We are all f-flesh.”
  
  It didn’t matter how far behind he got now that they were out of immediate danger, as long as they knew where he was. Tok wasn’t fairing much better than the druggie. Tik looked towards his brother, who hadn’t said a word since earlier. The two of them did their best to gently set Mould down on the steps outside Headquarters. The three of them looked up to the sky as a sonic boom shook the city and Valor left orbit.
  
  Rokket’s armored form landed nearby, giving Tik something besides the doom and gloom to focus on. It was the first time he had actually seen them close up. More importantly, why was the team Tinker not the one utilizing the only battle suit the agency had? He spared a glance towards Mould’s mangled leg, ‘He definitely could have used it…’ The Tinker wasn’t exactly bleeding though, or entirely human it appeared, irregular drops of blue welled up and fell off the fringes of silvery tendons and bone.
  
  A synthesized voice crackled out of the metal suit, “What’s the big fucking idea Mould?!"
  
  “You can stay and get killed by Valor when you're not wearing my tech. Speaking of... Back to the workshop." The person in the battlesuit raised both their middle fingers at Mould but turned and started toward the building nonetheless.
  
  Pistolero stumbled towards the twins, somehow having procured a white rectangle-shaped pill that he was rolling back and forth between his fingers. “Rough day,” He grunted before swallowing the pill and laying down on the grass in front of their office. The sky was mostly clear, except for the ring of clouds that Valor had left behind as he flew.
  
  Tok finally put a hand on Tik’s shoulder and broke his silence with a quiet mumble, “I think we need to be better heroes.”
• Smoke billowed out of one of a window on the top floor, the blackness roiling out of the glassless panes steadily and rising into the evening sky. It was the second day in a row and Frank was having none of it. “Fucking squatters.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a prepaid tracphone. He tapped out the number of his landlord and reported what he saw.

 

[draconicheart]

US Bank Tower, Los Angeles, California​

The Boss managed to keep his temper under wraps as he answered Avery's kneejerk-question. Still, though, she could sense the invisible axe above her head, ready to drop at a moment's notice if she would refuse to play along to whatever whim suits him.

His attention soon slid off of her, and he resumed his agitated state. Avery bit down onto the mint in her mouth and crunched on it while the Boss guy yelled and beat the desk.

'Optics'... Was that what she wanted? To be the center of attention? She braced her foot against the leg of the desk and tilted her chair back. Whenever people said she was acting out as a teen to get attention, she fucking hated it. It made her want to act out more. But did she actually want that deep down?

How little does she know of herself?

It was only when the sisters began talking again that she tuned back in to whatever was happening in the boardroom. Grotesque mock-ups of an amalgamation of the sisters' face and hers - the chair Avery was propping up onto its hind legs fell to the floor fully with a thud. "Avery and Cadence McCulloch, ready for deep cover infiltration."

The remnants of the mint clinged tackily to her molars, and she had difficulty prying them open. She managed to do so, releasing with a slight click of her tongue. Her mouth felt dry.

"I don't have a sister..." Wow... Was that really all she could say in the moment? Her voice sounded much weaker than she intended. Like a little kid.

Apparently it wasn't convicing to anyone else either. The meeting concluded with a squaring-together of paperwork, suits shuffling, handshakes all around, and - once more - Avery left several steps behind.

---

. . .​

Avery broke up the accidental staring contest she had gotten into with her reflection by throwing her bathtowel over her head and vigorously scrubbing it against her head until her scalp was sufficiently protesting. The steam had long since cleared out of the bathroom, but the air that met her in its stead wasn't as cold as she was used to in early San Fran mornings.

Avery's turntable churned away faithfully, playing side one of Abandoned Luncheonette, track four beginning to thrum through the speakers as she pads over to her new bedroom. Her new digs aren't so bad. Cozy, but it's technically government subsidized so... Whatever.

She eyed the boxes of records, stacks of CDs. None were broken, chipped, or so much as scratched.

Hall & Oates filled her vision with sepia tones, and Avery drifted through her new apartment like a ghost. Her clothes were already put away when she got here. Artwork and posters strung up. Speakers plugged in. It's as if she was already living here of her own volition, some Twilight Zone approximation of her life.

... On second thought, maybe her actual life is the Twilight Zone version at this point.

A phone buzzes on the her sidetable. Definitely bugged. She reaches for it with numb fingers, grits her teeth when she reads the caller I.D.. Her hand hovers over the screen for a second before finally answering it. "... Hello."

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