UNDERGROUND KINGS ◑ IC Thread ◐ Open

[Segral]

Roxanne Buswell

Roxanne snapped back to attention as she heard another voice directed towards her, a male's. Looking up, she saw another, older looking guy sitting across from her, kind of thick black hair, a few moles, kind of Italian-American-Joey Tribbiani vibe coming off from him. And he was a fellow Bosterner!

A small smile across her face, Roxanne responded with a casual smirk. "As amazing as it would be to blast them away with an epic rendition of 'Tommy the Cat', unfortunately, my bass doesn't do that. It's still pretty cool though, makes a lot of vibrations and throwback waves, can toss people around with it, fun times. Makes a few heads roll." she explained, her own accent, albeit much weaker, rolling through her words.

Suddenly however, their little conversation was interrupted by the apparent demise of the plan. Because Alpha couldn't get their shit together and blew the cover. Beautiful, just perfect. With a small "I told you so" glance in Scarlett's direction, stemming from their little chat in the gym some time ago, Roxy clambered out of the van, rushing as quickly possible to the front of the building. Only to watch as Corpus butchered and tore apart a pedestrian, before literally suiting up in his corpse. Blood still gushing out of his neck. It was hard not to vomit at the sight, the man's cries still ringing in her ears. But she couldn't hurl, this was what reality was gonna be, and she had to harden her heart...and stomach if she was gonna survive.

Instead of charging through the front, Roxanne took aim at a window to the side, bass floating beside her. With a might ring, a single note blared out of the guitar, smashing the large bay window into dust, before leaping inside with acrobatic prowess into what looked like an office with a single man inside, writhing in his chair from the shower of broken glass. The noise of the glass smashing, along with the man's cries, slowly faded in volume, as a solid, shining blue knife formed in Roxanne's hand. The man, having fallen to the ground, attempted to crawl under his desk and run, but Roxy was quicker, backhanding the man as he emerged from the other side of the bureau, before slashing his throat open with one, fluid movement, blood and choked breath soon gasping out, bending the knife slightly.

Her bass floating to her side, she flung open the partially open door to see Bravo storming into the lobby of the building, gunshots ringing and people dropping left and right. With a shout, Roxanne fired a volley of vibration shots, knocking several people all over the room, and hopefully disorienting them. The noise and Octavia's wild screaming gave enough noise to form a solid javelin in her hand, simple yet deadly, as she followed Octavia's trail of blood, javelin and bass guitar ready for anything.

[Union Princes]

Maria Ludwig

The poison gas had as much effect on Maria as a bowl of onions paced near her face. If anything, it was more of a smoke screen for Maria as she ran towards Sherkov with tears forming around her eyes. She then dropped her bag and quickly pulled out her machine-pistol and her Bowie knife. Pulling out a vial of poison blood and a syringe, Maria poured some of the expired blood on the blade of her Bowie knife before inserting the rest of it into the syringe. Putting the empty vial and syringe back to her side pocket, she picked up her smg and poisoned blade and prepared to fight the opposing heroes.

[Barthaander]

Warwick

Hearing Loki's words, Anne thought bitterly, There he goes again with his lies. She did always hate those that skulked in the darkness, a natural residence of the weak, unable to fight but always willing to deceive. It reminded Anne of her family, a putrid cesspool of cowards and curs. The lie crafted by Loki could work, but she was apathetic to the pathetic attempt to shift blame. Anne's entire role in the crisis was that of a good Samaritan if one looked at it under that light. In the end, even if punishment came, so as long it did not harm her main goal, Anne would live through it -- much as she has done for her entire life. As the creature lay paralyzed, Anne used this time to express her thoughts. "Do as you like, I don't care." Looking back at the creature, her expression grew darker. "Someone alert the staff, this is not my problem anymore."

[Forest State]

“We could just kill the snitch, delete the footage, and put the blame on him since he’s not going to be around to tell the tale of what happened, but alright,” Jay said, nodding and looking from the blob on the ground to the others standing around it. “You heard him, I guess. We have to get to Foley faster than Nev does, so it’s in everyone’s best interests to hurry up and beat him there. And he has a head start, which isn’t great for us-”

He stopped when he saw that Nev had returned. “Or we can just cap him right now while he’s talking to Rachel, and get rid of that problem. Fits with the first plan I mentioned.”

But meanwhile, the blob on the ground wasn’t really frozen at all, and it was continuing to expand and seep under the doorway as much as it could. It was slowed down by the fact that there was only a small space between the door and the ground, but it was still moving nonetheless. Because Jenny’s attack wouldn’t work on an object that wasn’t alive in the first place, probably. Still, getting through the door limited the movement of it to a slower pace, and everyone would have some time to think.

***

Inside the building, hell broke loose. Sherkov missed every shot by virtue of not being able to see much through the cloud of gas that was sitting in the lobby and dissipating, and that cloud gave the heroes somewhere to regroup. Dash and Werpspeer moved next to Willem, taking up defensive positions and waiting for the smoke to clear. Havik, on the other hand, flew right through the gas and emerged on the other side in only a second or two, his natural flight ability boosted by rockets strapped to his back, increasing his speed and momentum.

Havik flew over Sherkov and fired one shotgun blast down towards his head, before landing behind him and targeting Roxy and Candace, who were entering through the front door. He fired one shotgun after another and was able to get off a few shots before needing to reload. But the spray would likely hit them at some level even if they weren’t within the effective range of the weapons just yet. At the same time, Damage, who was staying behind the group entering the building and looking in from the outside, picked up the radio to transmit a message. “Remember… We’re here to take Summer, not get in a prolonged fight. They have the defender’s advantage, so let’s get her and get out of here ASAP,” he warned.

Zara ran into the building with he katana drawn, and turned her attention to Candace and Roxy and anyone else by the entrance. “I can hold them up for a bit, someone make a dash for Summer and I’ll-” she started, but she stopped when she saw what was happening. In her uncontrollable state, Candace was attacking the nearest person rather than the enemy, and Zara watched as she tried to tackle the other girl and claw at her face. She picked up her own radio. “Bravo, keep in mind that Operative Sasaki, or Predator, is currently out of control and hostile to allies… Keep your distance.”

[The Cross and Davids Star]

Nev

"It's not a very good idea to talk about killing a person when said person is within earshot." Nev shot back, having one hand on his jacket, ready to pull his pistol and fire away if necessary. "Its funny to watch as the guilty try to pin the blame on a scapegoat." He thought, keeping an eye on the guy, just in case he might try something.

It was obvious that several people here wanted him dead, and he knew it. Which also meant that he needed allies.

"Besides, haven't you heard the phrase, curiosity killed th-." He stopped, noticing the man's costume. It was that of a cat, in which the irony made Nev smile a bit.
"Never mind, I'm sure you heard of it, it does make sense. Anyway, anyone have an idea to contain this thing?" He finished, referring to the metal slime thing.

[Stattr]

Jenny

Jenny lowered her gun slightly to pay more attention to the conversation. Gabriel kept an eye on the metallic slime as it moved between the door and floor, struggling as it was apparent the space was not very big. Jenny took notice and averted her attention to Nev and Jay arguing. She sighed internally why do they have to argue about blaming someone. This thing is literally trying to est us.

Jenny cleared her throat again this time not so much to try and clear it but get attention. “Why don't instead of playing the blame game we deal with the problem. Do we want to tell the headmaster or do we want to try and deal with this ourselves. It's already slowed enough for us to and I don't feel like wasting more bullets to keep it like that while we argue.” Despite her raspy voice this message was clear. Jenny wanted this problem dealt with as quickly as possible as much as Nev and Jay and everyone else did in the group. Her tone was serious and her expressions just as cold. Inside she was fuming but looked completely neutral to the situation.

Jenny thought back to Vesid. He had gone on the mission along with most of the others. He had wanted to help her and even asked for her trust. Inside, deep inside her mind she missed him slightly. She was hoping he was okay. She didn't know much about him or his abilities. So it was hard for her to actually distinguish one feeling from another she had. So she focused on just missing talking to him.

[Union Princes]

Maria Ludwig

Wasting no time to think of who to attack first, Maria quickly scanned for anything that can get her close to deal damage until her eyes fell on the unconscious body of summer. Seeing how the canister was still emitting CR gas, Maria holstered her smg over her shoulder and ran towards it. Her eyes stung a bit as she picked it up with one hand. With the gas cloud thick around her, Maria charged at Summer's location. Placing her Bowie blade flat against her teeth, she dropped the gas canister, letting it roll down the stairs, and she grabbed the sleeping Summer by the shoulders. Grunting, Maria did her best pulling her down the stairs and into the clouds of CR gas. Eyes watering and teeth jittering from the heavy blade, she finally reached the entrance and breath in the fresh clean air.

When she reached the exit, Maria doubled her efforts in one last pull and got her through the doors. Leaving the heroes to be distracted by Team Bravo, Maria took out her Bowie knife from her mouth and placed next to Summer before reached into her pocket to pull out a empty syringe. She then did a quick poke with the needle on tip of Summer's nose in hopes of waking her up.

[Segral]

Roxanne Buswell

A boom.

That was all that she heard before the bullets wedged into her leg.

With a small cry of surprise, she felt her right leg suddenly collapse underneath her, pain exploding through it. She could already see beads of blood beginning to ooze out of the holes in her trouser leg, wetting the edges of the holes. She didn't feel any pain, but...it was tingly, like she was poked. And wet, and kind of warm. But no pain but for small stinging.

Then, the pain came in.

It began to almost spread throughout her leg, building up and up until it felt like her leg was on fire, fiery knives being stabbed into her all at the same time. She was gritting her teeth, grinding them to keep from crying out, black spots dancing in front of her tear-filled eyes, tears of pain. Was this it? Was she done, did she let her ego get the best of her? Was she gonna die, right here, by some flying freak?

No, she couldn't let that happen. She was going to finish this mission, she wasn't going to walk, er...crawl out of here like a failure. No more fucking running away.

Her javelin had clattered to the floor a few feet away, still in place, rolling side to side. Leaning over, she managed to grasp the javelin, planting the flat end into the ground as a makeshift cane. Pushing on it, she managed to pull herself up somewhat, to see the oncoming cloud of what looked like tear gas oozing towards her. Luckily, it was still at the back, so she had time and unobscured vision to burn. And plenty noise was still coming, mostly from that fliers' shotgun. That guy needed to go down.

Concentrating, while dragging up the dwindling supply energy still remaining in her bones, the noise of gunfire began to sharply decrease in volume, as a string of blue light began to shimmer from Roxy's palm. Soon enough, it formed a thick tendril, almost like a rope, with what looked like a hook at the end of it. She was now sunk against the javelin, relying on it to stay upright. The shotgun guy was now circling back around to somewhere else, and his attention wasn't focused on her. Now was her chance.

As he passed closest to her, she flung the chain at him, hoping to catch his arm or neck with the hook. However, the hook was a little short and to the right, and missed its mark, instead snagging on the gunner's ankle. It would do. Falling back with the tendril still in her palms, she tautened the rope, attempting to drag down the flier, and if not pull him down, keep him in place long enough for an attack.

Here went nothing.

[Forest State]

Maria was successful in her attempt at bringing Summer towards the entrance, but before she could do much else, she would find one of the heroes charging towards her. Particularly, it was Werpspeer, who was suited up in mechanical armor that was equipped with filtering for the gas. The armored hero went through the cloud and charged towards Maria with his javelin raised, and if she didn’t move out of the way quickly, he would drive the tip of the javelin into her chest and pierce it easily. After all, the tip of the javelin could cut through armor that was much stronger than human skin and the human rib cage. Even if the tip of the javelin didn’t hit, the heavy armor would be enough to knock Maria back easily if she allowed herself to get hit by it at all.

***

“I say the most efficient plan is to get rid of the footage that could get us in trouble, and then get the hell out of here. They fit the thing into a box, so it can be contained somehow. But I don’t think we’re going to be the ones that figure out just how to do it,” Margot suggested, looking to Jenny. “Of course, the footage is probably going to incriminate Jay more than us, if it incriminates us at all. But I don’t think the Brixton Bruiser is the right person to snitch on, no? But Loki is the only one that has a realistic shot at deleting the footage from the cameras inside the room and in the hallway, so… He’s the one you should talk to.”

Meanwhile, Jay didn’t laugh at Nev’s joke, and he simply approached the boy slowly, not flinching. Because he knew that his armament wasn’t enough to pierce his armor, and while Nev was large and muscular, raw strength could only carry someone so much. Nev hadn’t been training in combat for near as long as Jay, and if they got into a fight, he was confident that he could take Nev within the first minute. He also reached out with his power to the metallic floor, causing the floor to bend upwards and clamp down on Nev’s feet, keeping him from going anywhere unless Nev either convinced him to move it back or unless he was strong enough to bend solid metal.

He flexed his knuckles to flash the blades embedded on them, a part of his armor, and pointed towards Nev’s neck. “How many of you are in favor of my idea?” he asked. “Of putting this on the snitch and taking down the cameras before any staff show up. Or deleting the footage. Either way works, but if he’s not around to explain what happened… Well, I think that would help all of us.”

[Stattr]

Jenny

Jenny shrugged slightly at Margot. "Getting rid of the footage is advisable yes. But how are we gonna explain the chemical damage?" Suddenly Gabriel nicked Jenny's neck as she looked over and down to see Nevs feet basically infused with the floor and Jay with knives to his throat. She motioned to Gabriel and Gabriel flew to the other side and his eyes turned purple as did Jenny's. She usually wouldn't do this around others but she wasn't in the mood for hormones raging. "Jay back off. This is no time to kill someone. Nev, shut it with the snitching or you'll both be frozen in place and I don't feel like getting on Rachel's bad side or your bad side jay. If you want to help go with Loki to help with the tapes at least."

Jenny didn't move her sniper to withers shadow but kept it on the glob. She whistled and Gabriel flew away and down the hallway. Jenny was looking to see if anyone was coming. She couldn't see in front of her but could see what Gabriel saw of the hallways. No one was really there but there were a few kingsman and guards walking around. Gabriel came back and both of there eyes changed to normal. He landed on her shoulder and she adjusted her glasses slightly, watching the two men and the glob.

[Higher Japan]

Octavia Isel

Seeing that Maria was about to get hit, she withdrew from her destruction of the base as she threw the cross up, red blood like liquid running into it as chains sped outwards in an attempt to hold Werpspeer. With her remaining concentration, she launched the swords forward ahead of both of them as it spun furiously to the point where it was almost going to break, the swords actually glowing from the amount of heat it was generating just from it spinning. In one hand, she held her fifth sword now as she broke it down, creating an incomplete spear which she threw from the back towards Werpspeer.

[Auphelia]

Witch Doctor

Nope.

Nope nope nope nope nope.

Their cover was blown, gas canisters filled with who knows what was flying everywhere, Summer and her escort were down, all of the heroes were here, Bravo team was taking too long, and one of those swords her classmate was wielding had nearly hit her. This was not what she would have called a safe work environment. She could have joined the battle, perhaps helped get Summer out, but there were more important things to tend to.

If all of the heroes were out here, or rather, she thought she saw all of the heroes out here, then there would be no one guarding their computers. And if in the heat of the moment the computers had not been logged out of, she might be able to download some of the heroes files. True identities, floor plans and locations of their bases, current missions, what kind of intel that had on the Kings; everything they needed to know. More than Summer might have been able to tell, if she survived the next few minutes. Carefully skirting the battle, she began to subtly head for where the heroes had come from, where she could presumably find their offices and devices.

[The Cyberiad Council]

Loki

"I think Nev will be more useful alive. If I can get him into the server room, he could delete the files much faster than I could. And If I go with him, I can make sure that he doesn't decide to turn it on us." Carter looked at Nev and winked. "What do ya say, pall? Want to work together to get in the good graces of the higher-ups?"

"Right now, he is far more useful dead than alive," Carter said turning back to Jay.

---

Corpus

It was time for Corpus to do what he did best, close-range engagements. When he saw Werpspeer come under fire from Octavia, Corpus decided to focus fire. He charged, raising his meat-clan arms to protect his head from instantly fatal damage, relying on his canabalistic healing to close any stray bullet wounds. He flanked behind the armor-clad hero and lept at him from the back. He had sharpened the hilt of his ax and rib-sword to spikes and brought them down, adding downward thrust in addition to his jumping momentum.

If he managed to land the blow aimed at the neck/shoulder joints of the armor, he was going to take control of his bones and use Werpspeer's vertebrae to slice his spinal cord into 23 little tiny pieces...

[Union Princes]

Maria Ludwig

Summer wasn't waking up fast enough from that poke and Maria was beginning to wonder if the CR gas got her. She quickly looked up and saw an enemy opponent with power armor and equipped with a javelin charging to impale her. Quickly sidestepping to the right of the entrance, Maria was managed to avoid the spear ripping a hole in her belly by Werpspeer. Octavia and Corpus immediately made their presence know to the hero as they rushed in to engage him in combat. Maria then grabbed Summer by the arms and began to drag her to the van, hoping that one of her teammates would help her.

[The Cross and Davids Star]

Nev

"Are you serious? I'm not giving up the chance to hack something on this damned airship!" Nev replied, gaining an excited look on his face. Finally, a situation that called for Nev's expertise, it was time to show them what he could do. He couldn't contain his eagerness, and as he wanted to get to it right away, pulled his right leg up, breaking past the steel that binded his foot, before doing the same with his other leg, involuntairly escaping from his restraints. Perhaps the fact that he could actually to the one thing he's best at after several weeks of inactivity gave him the extra strength, who knows? In any case, now that he was out of the floor, he was raring to get going, although there was the one person he needed the OK from, Rachel.

[The Empire of Tau]

Being shot is always a painful and bad experience, a exception no different for Sherkov. Luckily for the Russian man, he has soft body armor covering his chest and legs. However as for his face, that’s a different story. A whole total of two shotgun pallets manages to hit the head of Sherkov, damaging the gas mask and landing into the right check. Feeling a wholesome dose of pain to his body, Sherkov quickly uses the dissipating gas to hide his movements, getting into cover. Once in the safe, Sherkov pulls off his punctured gas mask, getting Maria’s vital of blood from his suit afterwards. Popping of the vital cap, Sherkov daps the blood on his cheek wound. Waiting for a few seconds, Sherkov’s cheek wounds beings to heal with the magical bullshit that is Maria’s blood. With that out of the way, Sherkov places away his gas mask and makes way towards the front office. Arriving, he sees the shitshow that was B-Team getting into combat with the heros. Wasting no time, Sherkov lays his eyes on Maria, who just dodged a power armor wearing hero along with carrying Summer. Sherkov then dashes his ass towards Maria, assisting in carrying the knockout women back to the van.

[Forest State]

Under the advice or threats of the others, Jay retracted his blades and caused the floor to move back, allowing Nev to move again. “If I hear as much as a word from him, he’s getting smoked,” he stated, turning to look at Loki. It wasn’t the preferable outcome to him, but he was outnumbered here, so he’d have to listen to the others and trust that Nev wouldn’t just change his mind and backstab him later. Which he didn’t have too much faith in, but what else could be done? There were too many witnesses around right now.

***

Corpus’ plan depended on his flanking being unnoticed and on the enemy not being able to move out of the way in time. And that wasn’t that good of a plan considering he wasn’t exactly subtle in appearance or movements at the moment. Werpseer ducked down and to the right and went into a roll that, while slowed down by the heavy armor, was still somewhat effective. And the roll would put him out of the path of Corpus entirely, instead sending Corpus towards Maria as she turned and ran. The attack would hit her instead unless redirected quickly enough. Additionally, ducking to avoid Corpus would also have the effect of dodging Octavia’s attack, possibly causing it to hit Corpus instead.

And Roxanne, who had success in her attack, didn’t think it through entirely. She was able to hook her chain to Havik, but what she didn’t think about was what the flying hero would do next. Havik flew just outside the front entrance and the thrust coming from his power and the added boosters was far stronger than anything Roxanne could muster. So she was being dragged up as Havik reached twelve yards, and then twenty four, and then forty eight, and so on. The hero kept rising, the chain still attached, but Roxanne was being dragged with him and had no way of getting down safely other than hoping that the hero had mercy on her. It was a sticky situation indeed.

[Calabrana]

The Kitchen

Felisa Guevera made her way to the kitchen, bringing only her old trench knife, hidden carefully in its sheath as she felt her stomach growl. She went on this airship on an empty stomach. She sighed, grunting at her hunger. She never was this hungry back in Spain. Now that she was here, thanks to them saving her from an attempted suicide because of her hard time adjusting to life in Columbia, she just wanted this over with. Food. Yeah, that could work.

She stepped in and tried to look for the fridge. Or at least some fruits lying around.

[Caruolinda]

Vesid "Prion" Bazhunaishvili
Riot control gone wrong

Unsurprisingly, it all had gone downhill. Although Vesid this wasn't going to go well from the very moment he threw the canister, he didn't assume it was going to be that bad. Nonetheless, he had gained what he wanted: a distraction. That distraction prevented him from engaging in a battle he could not win, and had also provided him with a way to increase the distance like he'd done. The heroes seemed a bit relucant at the start, despite the idiot who literally flew through the riot control gas.

He remained behind the nearest piece of cover he could find. Eventually, Prion spotted Maria trying to go for the hostage. Sure, she had that blood... thing... right? Vesid couldn't remember exactly what she could do, but unless she was some sort of irrational being he assumed Maria probably had her own protection against that.

Being somehow near the front entrance but still in the building, Vesid noticed the hero who started dragging Roxanne, as well as the random girl who was attacking. Well, what could he do? Clearly, the solution couldn't be more obvious: sit and wait this thing to be over. He didn't have his shotgun, he didn't have lewisite, sarin, anything. He was also completely incapable of causing long-term damage to any of the heroes due to his momentary lack of biological agents or toxins. Under the cover of chaotic combat and the remnants of the gas, he looked for the first piece of solid cover and concealed himself behind it, watching the fight and holding the last canister he had.

[The Cyberiad Council]

Loki

"Don't worry, Jay. I'll keep my eye on him." Carter said with a wolfish smile as he started walking off, motioning for Nev to follow. Once they were well out of earshot of Jay, Carter glanced at Nev. "Sorry for my little explosion earlier. I had a plan and you alerting Foley before it was time threw a wrench into everything. I needed to buy some time or at the very least try to change your mind. I'll admit, that little trick you pulled with the growth spurt was impressive, but I'm a shapeshifter, so..."

He chuckled and changed into a member of the Kings Staff. "We need to nab a uniform. I can disguise us to get in the room, but we need a uniform to slip past the other crew members. Then you can go to work and perform your magic." Carter stopped at a storeroom and used his altered thumbprint to open the lock. He nabbed the largest uniform he could and beckoned Nev in. "Heres the plan. I can mold myself around you and disguise us as a member of the staff. But you are a bit buff. If you can hold your small form for a few minutes, we can slip in undetected."

Carter's skin started to turn pale and he started to loosen himself up. "Ready?"

[Stattr]

Jenny

Jenny shot another of her paralyzing rounds into the blob to keep it somewhat stunned still. She lowered her gun and looked at Nev and Loki as they walked off. She looked to Jay. He was an interesting fellow and very dangerous. Get on his bad side and bam dead. Nev had seemed to do that quickly; or Jay was just hot tempered. She cleared her throat.

“Hey I'm gonna head to the cafeteria, Gabriel is hungry. Did you guys want anything to eat? I won't be gone longer than 30 minutes.”

Offering food to get food for people she didn't know, another amazing step. Gabriel was very happy to hear about food as he loved human food more than his bird seed Jenny gives him. He flew up and around and cawed at Jenny to basically hurry up. She eyed him and shrugged her shoulders. “No we can't leave now Gabriel….don't you raise your voice…..you're already spoiled as is with how much bird feed I give you…” Talking to Gabriel may have just confused some people but Jenny didn't care. Once they got to know her she talked to Gabriel a lot. At the responses he cawed louder and flew away, clearly having a temper. Jenny merely stood there. Tapping her foot and muttering numbers. “1...2…3...4...5...6” she was counting seconds. After about 3 you heard louder cawing down the hallway and pecking. At 10 you'd hear more cawing and at 15 Jenny could hear him coming back. He always did this, charged at her from behind. She sighed and turned around and jumped slightly, catching Gabriel in her arms as he snuggled against her. She knew he couldn't stay away for long. He stayed in her arms and she didn't move him anywhere else.

Jennys mind travelled to Vesid. She imagined doing that thing called a kiss with him and it didn't go well in her head. She figured as much. She’d have to ask him what it was like. But did she want him touching her like that. She already had a breakdown from just touching his finger tips. Was it her or was it just something about him. She looked outside and was hoping he would come back and she could ask him.

[Union Princes]

Almost there! thought Maria as she and Sherkov made their way to the van. Unfortunately, Maria caught a glimpse of Corpus charging in her direction. "Quick, Sherkov!" she called out to him, signaling him to take over. As he handled the rest of the trip, Maria jumped to the side to void being impaled by Corpus's attack. But life was unfair at that moment as Maria's feet tripped over each other causing her to fall hard onto the pavement. The impacted struck her skull but it was far better than the potential damage from Corpus. Flipping over to get her self up, Maria first drew her glance at Sherkov before redirecting it at Corpus.

"Thanks for nearly disemboweling me! You need my help in taking this guy down since you disrupted our attempt of extraction?!"

[Dyelli Beybi]

***

And Roxanne, who had success in her attack, didn’t think it through entirely. She was able to hook her chain to Havik, but what she didn’t think about was what the flying hero would do next. Havik flew just outside the front entrance and the thrust coming from his power and the added boosters was far stronger than anything Roxanne could muster. So she was being dragged up as Havik reached twelve yards, and then twenty four, and then forty eight, and so on. The hero kept rising, the chain still attached, but Roxanne was being dragged with him and had no way of getting down safely other than hoping that the hero had mercy on her. It was a sticky situation indeed.

Things had gone... predictably badly. How long would it be until enemy reinforcements showed up? Probably not all that long. Scatlett was not feeling particularly enthusiastic about this fight, but she supposed she ought to join in. Might look bad if she sat about at the back and didn't do anything. Particularly when most of your classmates were raving psychopaths. She did not want to be at the receiving end of their ire...

She jogged back a few yards, trying to get the best run up possible to get into the building, which was when the guy wit the jet-pack came bursting out, trailing Roxanne, attached to a chain. Huh. He was going skywards, which was probably going to, sooner or later, result in an unpleasantly quick journey to the ground for Roxanne. Scarlett reached for a weapon... but of course all she had were melee weapons and explosives, neither of which were going to be particularly useful in trying to make someone with a jet-pack make an emergency landing.

Crap... "Hey! Hey!" she called, "Bird-man! Over here! Any chance for a parlay?"

She held her hands up in what was (hopefully) the universal gesture for 'don't shoot', though she was tensed to make a leap for cover if there was the slightest hint he was planning to fire on her. If he did turn around and agree to talk she had literally no idea what she was going to do to get him to put Roxanne down safely... she'd think something up. Hopefully it would work.

[Lunas Legion]

Gabriella Sara Bianchi-Costa

It hurt to watch Candace charge off like that. It hurt more to realise why she'd run off. She'd originally thought that Candace had run off simply to protect her and Nike from the daemon, but as her projection watched Candace enter the building, keeping its distance with a slow walk but making sure that Candace's mind, distinctive in its chaos and rage, remained within range of her telepathy and if possible her sight.

And that? That had led her to realise Candace had run off, not out of fear for her, but of hate for herself. Guilt, hate, rage. A nasty cocktail of emotions at the best of times, worsened when it was directed towards one's self, and made even worse by that it was directed at something specific in terms of action. Most of the time emotion was simply there, but if enough was directed a specific direction, especially if it was a mix of emotions, she could see where it led, what it was directed at, rather than simply relying on her own intuition.

And here? All that guilt, rage, self-hate, that was all being directed by a mad conductor on a course to suicide. Candace had rushed off on a banzai charge to get herself killed, and...

No. There was no way in hell that she was going to let that happen. Damn that she wasn't a fighter, that she'd probably get herself killed for this, but she wasn't going to let Candace kill herself over this. And so she turned to Nike with a glare. "If you leave without both of us I swear to God I *will* haunt you." Without waiting for a response, she kicked the door open and charged around the van and into the building. Candace wasn't up anymore; some time between her dropping her projection and her reaching the lobby she'd dropped out of her daemon form and was currently sprawled out on the floor, still breathing from the rise and fall of her chest.

She sighed in relief as she knelt down beside Candace's prone form. She was fine. Unconscious, but fine nonetheless. And so she grabbed Candace around the waist and hauled her limp form up onto her shoulder before standing up and sprinting back for the van. There were far more important people to go after than her. And so she made it back to the van without incident, pulling open the door and climbing in, laying Candace's prone form down on one of the benches before shutting the door behind her. She sighed, sitting down on one of the benches next to Candace's head and pulled her body closer, resting Candace's head on her lap. She'd need to talk with her when she woke up. If she wanted to talk at all.

[Segral]

Roxanne Buswell

Well, she had royally fucked up.

The mission was quickly starting to deteriorate, with smoke everywhere, gunshots, and Roxanne being dragged high into the sky. She had been hoping to fix him in place long enough for someone else to take the offensive and strike him down, but, it had instead ended up with no striking down, and Roxanne going noticeably up. The street was growing smaller and smaller, as this hero guy flew higher and higher. She was stuck, at his mercy, this was not at all what she had planned.

What could she do? She had no strength to climb up, and even if she could get up and attack him, it would end in a speedy trip to Valhalla to both. Same went for the bass guitar and knife. There was no way to get out of here just by herself, she would need a teammate. Scarlett was trying to get attention from down at ground-level, but she couldn't really do anything. She needed to make a signal for help. But it wasn't like she had a flare, what was she supposed to do, scream? Wait...scream. She still had her mic, it was strapped to her thigh. And did she really have a choice by this point? What else could she do?

Fumbling slightly, she managed to extract the mic from its holster, and lifted it to her mouth, beginning to amplify the decibels. She could still wind up dead, but again, it wasn't like she had a choice here.

And so she let out a scream, mic amplifying it to the sound of an air raid siren, perfect for a warning flare. She could see that even the pedestrians could hear it as well, but with all the gunfire, it remained to be seen if her comrades down below could also hear....