Heroes of Tomorrow Redux [IC | DONE]

[Novia Soviet Socialist Republic]

Kane Davidson/Overkill
United Arab Eremites

Kane Davidson jumped out of the VTOL and took a deep breath, HAR in one hand and his helmet in the other. He was going with the Warden for this mission for it's protection and all purpose design "You know I was going to buy a villa over here, but the lack of good beer and the government having a stick up it's arse kinda stopped me" Kane said aloud to nobody in particular as he plopped the helmet on his head and sighed. HUD system loading...complete. Diagnostics complete. Weapon synchronised: Type 3006 HAR, 35 rnds .30-06 AP loaded. Underslung 40mm Rocket Launcher: 1 rnd Loaded. System ready! Was what went through Kane's vision on his display as the system booted. Kane had his pistols locked and loaded as well as the Bale Fire Launcher on his back ready just in case someone decided they were going to be brave today.

Kane looked at his team mates and the HUD monitored them briefly before putting a green silhouette around them and identifying them as friendly before looking at Ash who was talking. Kane didn't pay too much attention though, something about baby sitting? Kane just shrugged and followed "Oi Ash, is there a pub around here we can go to after? I could demolish a pint right now. Or maybe 5" Kane said aloud, not hearing the part about questions that are stupid will be called stupid.

[Forest State]

Serge "Riot" Easton-Roux

Sand everywhere was a bit of a different environment for someone that was so very used to cities, whether that was New York City or Toronto, two places that were considered different sides of the same coin. One was American and the other was Canadian but they were still very much like each other, and both were places that Serge had a large amount of time spent. Both of them were also completely different from out here, where they were headed into Saudi Arabia, a country that was hardly a tourist destination. Not for a westerner from the big city, anyway. The only real reason Serge had volunteered was that there might be a chance to spend a bit more time in the UAE, which was a bit more attractive to foreigners, before they headed back.

But that was a might, not something that was a sure thing. And the conditions here were worse than what Serge or most of the team had really expected when they volunteered to come here. Were they regretting it? Maybe. It was something different than going to some class or just sitting around and waiting for a chance to actually use the skills they learned, so it had that going for it.

That didn’t make it feel any better, however, to be out in the heat.

“As if we would need a babysitter. Well, as if I would need a babysitter. God knows if you’ve survived being a vigilante for more than a year or so, you’ve already got the right instincts,” Serge said while looking towards the column that they would be traveling on. “The others… I don’t know about them as much.”

Toronto, Ontario

Those who weren’t out in the field in either Missouri or Saudi Arabia had something else to do, and that was a task that was… Considerably less demanding but still somewhat demanding in its own right. The Guardians, of course, had a huge presence as an organization that stretched around the world, and that reputation was held up by a lot of PR work and publicity events as well as their normal work fighting crime. Those who were in the Young Guardians had to learn that, and as such, they had been scheduled to take part in a tour that would happen over the course of multiple weeks, with certain days being set aside for trips to other places to raise publicity.

The ones who were in the field for other things were exempt from this, but everyone else was considered fair game by the Guardians staff. The first stop on the tour was Toronto, where they were scheduled to show up in front of a decent sized crowd to talk to the fans and maybe hand out some merchandise. With Toronto being a place where the Guardians had existed since the earlier days, they had a good following there, and everyone was of course curious about the fact that this was an all new team. Section C had only been recently established and they already had victories to their name, even if it was small victories. They hadn’t showed up in front of the media yet, and this would be their first time doing so.

It was a requirement unless they happened to be in the field already for something else, not something that was simply being requested of them, but for their efforts they would each receive another thousand dollars with their next paycheck, which was already five hundred every two weeks. So, even the most reluctant of Young Guardians would be wise to make the most of this trip and just enjoy it, especially since they would have to deal with this type of thing for sure once they made it to the proverbial big leagues anyway.

“Over here, you can see Lake Ontario,” said Artemis Rivers, who was the one guiding them while they were in Toronto, while pointing to the waterfront that was next to them. “And on my other side, opposite of the waterfront, is the hotel that we’re staying in. This one is five stars, nicer than the accommodations that you have back at the village. Hopefully, that’s enough to calm down anyone who would complain about having to go on this trip.”

This was after they had exited the pair of busses that had taken them this far. Artemis started handing out the keys to each of the ones who were getting off the bus, gesturing towards that hotel. And of course, there was already a crowd outside of the hotel, waiting for them to show up, at least hundreds of people who had to be held back somewhat by the local authorities who had come just because of the arrival of the Guardians. “You should all get checked in,” Artemis told everyone. “You have about forty five minutes until we’re supposed to be in front of a large crowd for the first time of two in the coming few days. Don’t spend too much time hanging around, and be ready to head out again soon.”

Artemis also gave a slight gesture towards the crowd. “And mind the crowd, they can be quite the time sink if they manage to catch up to you. I know from experience. Some of them can also get a little… Crazy.”

[Lunas Legion]

Ashley Bryen

"It's Saudi Arabia, you limey bastard. No alcohol for... A few hundred miles or so, nearest of your smoke dens might be on Cyprus." Ash shouted back, vaguely in the direction of Kane but not really putting that much effort into looking right at him. "Also, stupid question, but I admit I miss my alcohol. Cons of living off of Saudi oil money, but I'd say its worth it."

Ash turned back to face forwards, grunting. He did miss having a piss-up with the rest of his unit.

"And you-" Ash flicked his head back in the direction of Serge. "Don't think you're special or whatever. The Empty Quarter takes no prisoners. Sure, you might be able to handle yourself in a firefight, but we're dealing with someone or a group that was able to make an explosion big enough to make a satellite think it was a nuclear detonation. Or an illusionist luring us out for whatever reason. Or someone who can absorb rads and a hidden nuclear test site. I don't fucking know. Empty Quarter's where villains go to retire when they've had enough if they big enough and bad enough they can't fade back into society."

Ash shrugged as he stopped by the lead Humvee, opening the door so as to climb into the back, but not actually climbing in yet. "Too much effort to find the fuckers out there and they don't give the Saudis a problem, or they pay their war loot to keep them away or something. For all I know it's just some 70s supervillain's hidden base going nuclear after the old shit's bit the dust and his reactor finally failed years later. But a job's a job."

[Durmatagno]

Sage Shields

Sage tightened her grip on the shotgun she was carrying, loaded with slugs. She wasn't the best with guns, partially due to a general lack of experience with them, partially because she just preferred using her own two hands. Regardless of what she preferred, it was better to play it safe and use a gun than it was to charge into melee against partial unknown forces, after all there were plenty of weapons that could pierce her armor down the line. Sage was already fitted in her full armor, with muted and broken colors to keep her from being a great blob of bright colors. Once the VTOL landed, Sage climbed out, weapon at the ready, with no clear hostiles in sight, Sage shifted her focus to listening to the orders. Sage acknowledged the orders, and used her magic, creating a few chest high barriers of rock for the team to use. Nothing could fit more than two people, three of they squeezed, and they were spaced out to keep them from being vulnerable to grenades or other such attacks. Sage didn't really need them, her armor was tougher than any normal rock, and had been tested against higher calibers, it could last in a firefight, and she could fix it. Still, she didn't need to be a big obvious target to attract fire right off the bat, even if she would end up there. So she pressed herself down behind one of the covers, though they were chest high by her standards, so for some of the others they couldn't fire over the barriers, but would have to fire around.

[Forest State]

Lex Reges

What was the worst crime that someone could commit? The simple act of murder? The act of murdering kids? Perhaps betraying the trust of one’s own family and friends? Maybe it was the act of trying to wipe out an entire group of people based on some trait that separated them from everyone else? Most people would say things along those lines when asked about the worst crimes in the world, but for the leader of the Amori clan and one of the most powerful people on the planet, even if most people weren’t aware of that fact, the true biggest crime that someone could commit was abandoning their duty. Duty came before all. Before blood, before morality, before personal desires.

There was room for everything else, but if you had to abandon your duties for them, you were worse than someone who had never cared about their family or about doing good at all. The worst kind of sinner. At least, that was what it was like for someone who had spent her entire life planning on following through with her duty no matter how hard it was. She had never known the ideal of seeking pleasure or anything else before completing the job, she had never understood the concept because it wasn’t something she had lived. Ever since she came out of the womb, she knew one thing. She was completely committed to her task, and anything standing in the way of that had to be dealt with or eliminated completely and without mercy.

And when she saw someone, especially someone that was tied to her in some way, blatantly going off the path that was set for them and abandoning what they had to do, she naturally became much more short tempered and prone to not restraining her aggression or her great power. That was her body language as she walked into the office in Dubai, following yet another flight that had taken her from one city of influence to another as she worked aggressively to do her own job and advance her people.

She sat down, opened up her laptop, and started looking over the things that she had to respond to when her assistant, the one that she simply referred to as Caffery, walked into the room with a bit of an urgent look on his face. “Lord Amori, I’m sorry to inform-”

Cori put her hand up to stop him from talking. She already knew what he was here about. “I know… I will deal with it. I might not be there in body, but you should know better than to think I can’t handle this in spirit. Give me a few minutes to finish up with this and tell Sieg that I’ll take over from here, at least for now.”

---

---

“Very well,” said Caffrey, turning and walking out while reaching for his phone, to notify Cori’s agent back on the ground with Bengal. The one who, despite a ferocious reputation, couldn’t seem to break through and get what they were looking for out of the prisoner that they had went through the effort to kidnap. Not that anyone knew that it was Cori or her faction behind it. Bengal was useful for cover, and everyone on the outside was currently baffled at just why gangsters wanted to attract attention by kidnapping a well known superhero. It seemed suicidal, really, but little did they know those gangsters weren’t working alone or even under their own orders.

She closed the laptop and focused her magic, her eyes glowing somewhat as she worked on transporting herself somewhere else without going there at all. Something that only the most advanced could do as she did, and yet, for her it was something that only took a bit of focusing. When she opened her eyes once again, her double was standing in the dark hallway that she had just pictured, which wasn’t just an image in her head but an actual place, far away from Dubai. It was in Missouri, to be specific, in the place where they were holding the prisoner, Soli. “Sister, why did you have to run?” she muttered lightly. “Now, I have to destroy you. And I never wanted it to come to this.”

Cori clenched her fist, a gesture of frustration, as she started down the hallway and looked for the correct room. “I’m sorry, Soli. But you brought this on yourself,” she said, a bit more audibly, and she stepped into the right room and looked at the girl that was bound to the wall with chains, bleeding from multiple spots where she had been cut. The interrogator, Sieg, took a step back and allowed Cori to approach. “Sister… Since it seems you haven’t responded to the usual methods, I’ll have to make you understand on my own. Let’s go for a little walk, shall we?”

---

Back outdoors, the focus wasn’t on getting info out of the prisoner but on defending the base from the incoming attack by heroes. That had been something that hadn’t been accounted for in the planning stage, but as it turned out, Bengal were sloppier than other villains. And it hadn’t even taken a week for the heroes to find where they were staying. Even if Cori wasn’t concerned with the attack apparently, just about everyone else was, and it only took minutes before foot soldiers armed with AKMs and AR-15s rushed out of the compound, about five of them in total open firing on the group of heroes that had just arrived.

Additionally, they were with the leader of that segment of forces, Shatter. It wasn’t hard to recognize which one was Shatter, not because of some fancy outfit - Shatter was only wearing a plain orange hoodie and a pair of blue jeans - but because of the fact that Shatter was the only one that wasn’t carrying an actual weapon. After all, his weapon was one that could be found in the environment. It also seemed that Shatter had some glass inside of the jacket, which suddenly flew out and hovered around his body as he cracked a smile, looking towards the heroes.

“Well well well, what do we have here?” he asked in a crazed tone, laughing. “Didn’t you see all the signs at the end of the road? Did you? Did you? And you know what it fucking said? No trespassing. Violators… Will be turned into food for the dogs! I might have added that last part, but you… You get the idea, right? Anyway, it’s TIME FOR YOU TO DIE!”

As soon as Shatter finished speaking, the shards of glass, hundreds of them in total, flew up into the sky and went way above the heroes, before firing downwards, flying inaccurately and unaimed but still dangerous because of their downward path and their speed as well as the fact that there were enough of them to hit even if some of them missed. And they wouldn’t stop when they just hit either, but they would dig in. In other words, it would be both painful and distracting, and potentially very damaging to anyone that didn’t get the hell out of the area and avoid the sudden onslaught.

[Lessoni]

Jack Dredd

God damn this guy was edgy. Food for the dogs? Loudly announcing before he attacked? At least Nighthunter stayed quiet before she volleyed crystals at you, like an intelligent human being.

Jack let the glass shatter on his skin, bowing his head to protect his eyes. Secure in his knowledge that Shatter mostly couldn't hit him, he dashed forward, aiming a punch at him that would knock any normal man out.

Brock James

Brock listened to the villain's spiel before ducking under the shield that had been created. Why did villains have to talk so much?

He put the thought out of his head and leveled his revolver, firing 4 times at one of the foot soldiers that had been preparing to fire.

[Lunas Legion]

Ashley Bryen

Seeing no one else was asking anything, he climbed into the passenger side of the Humvee, nodding in acknowledgement towards the driver and glancing briefly into the side mirror and out the window, checking they weren't leaving anyone behind. Not because he cared, but because he'd not be doing his job if he left anyone behind, and he didn't need the Guardians whining he'd done something they disliked again.

Pussies.

He waved his hand forwards and the Humvee's engine roared into life as the convoy moved forwards, out of the airport and driving towards the border.

Hours passed. Thankfully the air conditioning in the Humvee actually worked, always a luxury, as they passed through the featureless sandy landscape of the Arabian Desert. They crossed the border without hassle, his Saudi colleague yelling at the border guards enough that they simply didn't bother checking the convoy's occupants as they drove across, deeper into the desert, the only sign of civilisation a ribbon of concrete road stretching off between the sandy dunes.

They eventually reached the Saudi FOB after a few hours of driving, a large cluster of tents around an airstrip that was currently occupied by several large cargo planes. The place was simply too busy for them to have flown into, seeing as it was the Saudi Army's base for this entire operation.

The convoy pulled to a halt on the outside of the airstrip and Ash got out, quickly shouting out orders. "Don't get comfortable kids, we're not staying here for long. The Saudis have a number of camels for us, already all stocked up with food and water and other supplies. None of us want to be out there for any longer than we have to, so we'll be moving at night. Sleep on the camels if you have to, I don't need sleep from a minor power of mine so I'll be leading the column."

He didn't leave any time for questions, simply leaving the convoy for minutes or two, returning with his pistol holsters filled, a few Saudi Army men having led a cluster of camels over, some saddled, some not but instead carrying large satchels. Ash hopped onto the lead one, his Saudi minder hopping on to the rearmost camel as they waited for the others to mount up, and then they headed off into the desert, following the trail of the vanished Saudi convoy.

The Saudis had made slow progress across the desert, slowed by moving such a large force by modern vehicles unsuited for the desert. They had no such issues, moving on camels and not stopping unless it was for a five minute rest, mainly for the camels rather than their riders.

Eventually, however, Ash raised a fist, visible clearly in the light of the moon on the ridge he and his camel were standing atop before he dismounted with a thud.

"There's something down there." He said. "Not sure what, but it smells... Off." Indeed, the air stank, the smell of blood and charred meat and burning metal and ash. "Normally I'd say wait for daytime for a clearer picture, but time's of the essence and yes you're all probably tired but we have a job to do. Come on kiddos." His silhouette vanished over the dune as he moved to head down.

---

Sophia Anya Rykova a.k.a Euclid

Sophia smiled a small, thin smile. It wasn't a happy smile, but one could almost say it was satisfied or smug. Not that she was really feeling any emotions as she watched a few soldiers dash out, opening fire. She simply crouched behind her wall of distorted space, safe from the bullets unless someone crouched and fired almost straight across the ground at her.

It was the feeling of being useful, of doing something that, well, actually mattered for once in the end really. And then the madman came out laughing, talking. She hated madmen. Idiots. She hated she couldn't just pull out a gun and shoot him in the face. She'd have to let someone else do that.

And then the madman used his power, a rain of glass flying up into the sky to descend down upon them. She shut her eyes and focused, creating a second barrier of twisted space, the sky through it looking like static, slanted to face towards Shatter to catch the glass and scatter it away harmlessly.

This was why they kept her around, after all. She had her uses, despite her physical difficulties.

---

Soli Vanhanen a.k.a Prodigy

"I don't think you're asking." Soli's voice was weak and pained, but still defiant as she looked up at the person who claimed to be her sister, a glimmer of defiance visible in her eyes as she rattled her chains, shifting around and groaning lightly in pain. Oh, it hurt. They'd cut her... Who knows how many times, she'd honestly lost count. Her throat was sore from screaming, she could barely open her eyes to look at her so-called 'sister'. "Not that I could walk anyways." She wasn't going to break. She'd faced things almost as bad, or they'd seemed almost as bad, and she'd survived. She'd survive this too.

She had to. She wasn't letting everything she had be taken away. Not here, not now. Not ever.

[Endem]

Elek Mohave

Shatter speech was really reminiscent of the way the Blue Haired Girl from a week or so earlier talked, this really got on Elek's nerves but he wasn't going to just jump out and run like a crazy man towards the crazy men and getting shredded with bullets, after some time he poked his head out of the barrier made by the girl Sage, five riflemen and Shatter, auto rifle's.

When the gun's silenced, Elek for a brief second stuck his head to the point where he could see and hand with one of the knives and with as much courage as he could have got he got up a bit more and thrown the knife after which he immediately ducked back into the small space of the wall, but a bullet hit his hand as and based on, that no opponent screamed in pain he deduced the knife didn't hit anything

---

Tadeusz Rybicki

He got into the Humvee and chatted with the person beside him, the road wasn't a rough one but definitely not one of most pleasant, when they were given Camels he wanted to say he didn't need one but considering how much he could spend time in Camel form he accepted the Camel for him.

When they reached their destination and Ashley dismounted and went down into the crater with and saying to all of them to go there Tadeusz decided it would have been better for him to know the terrain first and so he transformed before everybody into a Falcon and started flying over the area.

[Lunas Legion]

Ashley Bryen

There wasn't anything to see from the air; it was dark, after all, the only light from the light of the moon and the only thing out of the ordinary the occasional reflection of moonlight off of... Something until a small, flickering light appeared, a strip of cloth aflame, hanging loosely in Ash's hand as he made his way down the dune. It was a risky move, but he needed to see what the hell was making that smell. As he approached slowly, descending down the dune, he smelt the distinct smell of oil from somewhere.

"It's safe you cowards, come down and help me look." He shouted back up the dune before turning around and continuing to descend into the valley between two dunes, the crunch of sand under his feet turning into cracking as he stepped on something far harder. He knelt down to take a look, but found only cracked, coloured glass, coloured in brilliant reds and yellows and oranges. He didn't move, picking up one of the shards to inspect it as he waited for the others to follow him down.

[Endem]

Ashley Bryen

There wasn't anything to see from the air; it was dark, after all, the only light from the light of the moon and the only thing out of the ordinary the occasional reflection of moonlight off of... Something until a small, flickering light appeared, a strip of cloth aflame, hanging loosely in Ash's hand as he made his way down the dune. It was a risky move, but he needed to see what the hell was making that smell. As he approached slowly, descending down the dune, he smelt the distinct smell of oil from somewhere.

"It's safe you cowards, come down and help me look." He shouted back up the dune before turning around and continuing to descend into the valley between two dunes, the crunch of sand under his feet turning into cracking as he stepped on something far harder. He knelt down to take a look, but found only cracked, coloured glass, coloured in brilliant reds and yellows and oranges. He didn't move, picking up one of the shards to inspect it as he waited for the others to follow him down.

Tadeusz Rybicki

He could see nothing and it was only logical to come down he landed near Ashley and transformed into himself and moved along Ashley, he was a little bit behind but close enough to see what the man before him was doing when he picked up something, Tadeusz rushed towards him and picked up one of the glasses himself, a red one.

Tadeusz went a little closer to Ashley and said

"What is this glass doing here, what could generate enough heat to melt sand into glass?"

He asked those questions knowing that the man didn't know answers to them as well but it was nice to speak to somebody then Tadeusz thought about something

"I'm sure the answer is down there"

He said and started walking down the dune once again

[Theyra]

Zekulu Alemu Nazwari

Zenkulu got off of his camel after taking a sip from his canteen. He went to follow Ashley over the dune and stopped atop it. He activated his sight to get a better look at the scene. It got a good view from where he was with his sight zoomed and gave him partly night-vision. Still, it was hard for him to make out what he could see at carter and opted to move closer. Walking down the dune and getting the smell of charred flesh and burnt metal. It was an unpleasant smell, to say the least, and he covered his nose for a moment before got to the bottom. Once at the bottom, Zenkulu had his sight at minimum zoom so he could still use his night vision. "What did this, he thought as he surveyed the site and searched for any track or any clue to what caused this and maybe he could track it down.

[Forest State]

---

Lord Cori Amori & Soli "Prodigy" Vanhanen Amori
Collab with Lunas Legion

“No, I’m not asking,” Cori said firmly and without sympathy, as she placed her hand on her sister’s face. Not to comfort her, but to form the link between the two of them that would let her trap Soli within the place that was the product of her own mind, a place that would obey her laws rather than those of the natural Earth. When she made her touch and focused her mind on the task, they would both be transported to an area that was plain and white, which slowly filled in with the details of a garden and a blue sky, one that Soli and Cori were standing in peacefully.

Soli would also find that her injuries didn’t carry over here. “I decided to offer a gesture of goodwill and not carry over your injuries,” said Cori, starting to walk further into the garden. “With that being said, I’m not happy about your recent… Conduct and attempting to run away from your duties.”

"What duties?" Soli asked, a look of confusion and bewilderment on her face she began to walk, following a few steps behind Cori, walking slowly and warily. "Hell, what conduct and what 'attempting to run away? Before today I didn't even know you existed."

“You may have not known that I existed, but I did send my agent to bring you back and you had a choice to come willingly. You knew that Sieg knew more about all of this than you did, you knew that he was speaking the truth, and yet you wanted to return to your regular life. To abandon your higher calling. To me, that is unacceptable,” said Cori. “I have no respect for someone that disappears from their duties and you didn’t even show the desire to learn what those duties are. So excuse me if my treatment is rather harsh right now.”

"Well excuse me for not wanting to drop everything I've ever fucking known on the word of some mysterious stranger." Soli snarked sarcastically, impatient and rolling her eyes. "Of course I wasn't going to go willingly. Besides, you keep acting like I should care about these 'duties' you keep telling me I have, and of course I don't have any desire to learn whatever the fuck they are. I was pretty comfortable where I was, had no reason to change that, and then all you've done is ordered me tortured. I see no good reason why I should give a shit."

“Not knowing about something doesn’t excuse you from carrying out what’s expected of you. What are you, some kind of fucking child? One of my family’s best and most loyal associates is the one that raised you and you turned out like this anyway? She sure did a bad job…” Cori snapped in a sudden outburst, turning around and getting in Soli’s face as she grabbed her collar in frustration, gritting her teeth before saying anything else. “You may have found a life somewhere else but that doesn’t matter. You are of the Amori bloodline and that bloodline should come before everything else. And if you aren’t going to value that bloodline, you should just kill yourself right now.”

"Why the fuck should I value my bloodline?" Soli shot back, glaring and shaking her head slightly . "What's it ever done for me? Shaitan barely raised me, you all fucking abandoned me... So fuck no I'm not going to 'value' something that I've done fine without my whole damn life and I'm certainly not killing myself over it like some messed-up seppuku thing. As far as I'm concerned I'm not a part of your stupid-fucking-bloodline and I want nothing to do with it."

“If you don’t value your own family and bloodline then how can you be trusted to value anything at all? You should be ashamed of yourself for running from something that is a great honor, the fact that you are a part of this clan. And as long as you’re apart of this clan, you’re expected to do your part and follow whoever is in the lead. If you have a problem with that, there’s only one way to remove yourself from it,” growled Cori, still leaning in Soli’s face as she stared her down, looking down on the shorter girl because of her significantly taller height. “And I believe I’ve already made it clear what that way is.”

"Honour doesn't mean anything out there." Soli didn't flinch back, defiantly glaring up at Cori's face despite the height difference. "Family and bloodline have given me nothing. I've done just fine without them this far. I'll keep doing just fine without them. So fuck your family, your duties, your need to preserve your honour. They're not mine however much you might scream and whine and moan and spin and twist everything. You want me to go and be a good little sister and be your precious pet, you'll have to break me first. I owe you nothing. Maybe if I was that valuable, I shouldn't have been allowed to leave in the first place."

Cori moved her hand to her side and a blade suddenly appeared in it, and she stabbed it straight through Soli with little resistance. The thing was, this was her plane. She controlled the laws of how things worked here, and she was practically a god. Even if what she did here didn’t extend to the real world, she could do what she wanted while she was still inside of it. And she could command how things would go for anyone who was inside with her. She made sure that Soli didn’t die as she drove the blade further, ensuring that it would exit through the back by the time she was done. It would feel just like it would in the real world, but Soli remained lucid through the entire time.

“If you want to make me do this by force, then maybe I will,” she said, tightening her grip on the blade and twisting it as she held Soli’s collar to prevent her from falling backwards. “If you love that life of yours so much, maybe I’ll take it away piece by fucking piece. The Guardians, Ellie, Alyx, all of it. How would you feel knowing you ruined everything for them too? Or maybe I’ll just strike you down right here and now. Which one would hurt more, traitor?”

"Can't betray something you were never loyal to in the first place." Soli gasped out in pain, her teeth grinding together, her eyes still defiant despite the pain. "And it'd hurt... But I'd die with a smirk on my face either way at least because you'll never have me, sister. Not that I should call you that." Her voice grew weaker as she talked from the pain, dying down into a near-whisper. "After all, we're not family."

“Such a child… Who would rather see her friends die slow than fulfill her duties to her family. I see you really do have no loyalties, Soli, either to the people that you claim to love or to the people that gave you the powers which let you reach your current position in the first place,” Cori replied, reaching away from the first blade and summoning a second, smaller one and jabbing it between the ribs. If some pain didn’t do enough, she would stack on more. But more importantly, it was stress relief for her. “Believe me, I’m not happy about being related to you either, but we’re sisters anyway, and as long as you’re my sister, you’re going to do the right thing. Unless you want to take the way out that is death.”

"What do you even want?" Soli's voice was a pained choking now, but even through the pain she was still defiant. "Disown me or what-fucking-ever that gets me out of your way. All you do is talk about these stupid fucking duties but you never explain why or what. Our parents never wanted me so why the fuck do you? "

“Disowning isn’t an option. As long as you’re alive, you’re part of this family, and as my twin, you’re too important to just let you walk off on your wayward course. Ideally, you would be my knight. I already know that you have the potential to be powerful in your own right, so I’m asking you to use that power for the benefit of all of us. Our clan, our people, you know, the ones that you should actually care about instead of the Guardians and the regular world. They aren’t your family. The clan Amori is. The Golden Rose is. All of us… We’re closer than they could ever be, even if you haven’t met us. But since you aren’t suitable for that, it’s something that you’ll have to learn over time. Which means staying with us and not them.”

"Yeah, I'll have to decline." Soli shook her head, slowly. "All you've done is kidnap me, torture me, threaten to murder me and everything I've loved and oh, the tiny matter of none of you ever gave a fucking shit about my life until it suited your own purposes. You've given me literally no reason to join you beyond 'family' which I don't consider you to be and which threw me out and 'duty' which I don't give a flying fuck about either because its meaningless to me. I've seen better sales pitches on commercial TV sis. Try harder."

“Funny. I threaten to take away everything you love and so you decide to go with the option that actually will result in you losing everything you love?” asked Cori, forcing Soli to her knees and driving another blade straight through her, pushing back on this one until it would pin her opponent to the dirt. But she would still be perfectly conscious, and still completely alive. “Fine, then. If you don’t want to go along with my plans… Than we may have to resort to some alternate methods. Let’s see just how many people we have to punish before you have a change of heart, shall we? Let’s go, Soli. When you manage to get yourself unstuck from the ground, you can follow me to the pool over here.”

"And if I choose to just stay here?" Soli gasped out in pain, not making any moves to unimpale herself or even move off the ground. "Making you drag me every last step of the entire way is getting really quite appealing right now. Besides..." Her face formed into a vicious smile. "Why'd you want someone with no loyalties on your side? I might just stab you in the back the first chance I get. Not like I give a fuck about the family continuing either, do I?"

“You’re not going anywhere as long as you don’t move, you know. You just get to sit there. In pain,” said Cori, starting to walk away but stopping when Soli spoke out to her. “And don’t assume that you can do anything in this place that I don’t want you to do. You could try stabbing me, maybe, but it wouldn’t go very well for you. You might even end up hurting yourself.”

As if to demonstrate, she flicked her hand and caused Soli to reach for the dagger that was planted between her ribs, before causing her to pull it out and stab it into her abdomen where the first one, the longer sword, was pinning her to the ground. “But I’d rather have you do it on your own, even if I do have the power to just make you go along. And you know, I don’t have to let you out of this realm until I feel like it,” she continued. “So you better not make me feel like it.”

"You want something from me, you can't just keep me cooped up in here." Soli grunted, reluctantly getting up to her feet. "Not like I can be your 'knight' if I'm stuck in here." She added as she staggered up to stand a short distance behind Cori. "Besides, my point still applies. You said I have no loyalties, so why are you stupid enough to want me anywhere around you? You that naive, sis? You that confident in the mystical invisible powers of 'bloodline, family and duty' to stop me backstabbing you with zero regard for if I survive the aftermath? And if you're that strong, well, you don't need me anyways."

Without even bothering to look at what she was doing, Cori tossed a shuriken over her shoulder after pulling it out of her outfit, continuing to walk as the thing sent ribbons of blood into the air behind her. It had hit Soli squarely in the forehead, and while a shuriken would not be the most dangerous of weapons in the real world, Cori had made sure that it would… Do more of a damaging job than normal. She kept walking afterwards, though, and focused her power on bringing Soli back from the ‘death’ that she had just suffered, which was more of a warning shot in reality. Even if Soli would have experienced the feeling of ‘death’ for a brief bit before Cori revived her.

“As I said, I’m not the happiest either about us sharing a bloodline, but unlike you, I’m adaptable. You may act like a mentally stunted child right now, but some people do at the beginning. With some training, you may be able to not even be a shame to this clan and to do something productive for us. More importantly, you aren’t walking free in the world elsewhere and causing any potential problems. I know what I’m doing. It’s not your place to ask about it.”

Dying was odd. One minute you were there, then you just... Weren't. And then she was back like nothing had happened, the pain as always still there.

"So self-righteous and confident in yourself, jeez." Soli shook her head, rubbing her foreheadd. "Get the stick out of your ass, sis. You'd think nothing else but the clan mattered to you. I'm glad our parents threw me away based on how you've turned out. Have you ever even stopped to ask why the clan's so fucking important? Why I was thrown away like trash? Or are you a blind zealot, going 'oh she's family and she's not following my orders gotta whip her back in line'. I asked earlier, but why now? You all left me alone for twenty two years and I was perfectly fine with that. Wasn't like I was doing anything that bad."

“You would think I was asking something crazy of you. Thing is, I’m not. And you say it’s something bad that I treat my bloodline as everything. The fact of the matter is that it is for me. I care not about my own interests but of advancing the work of everyone before me, not just of my parents and grandparents but my entire line from the beginning, ever since we were sent here with one goal in mind. That goal is my goal. I intend to either complete it, as I was born to do, or further it and leave the sum of our work for my children to carry on with the hopes that they can complete it. And completing that goal will be harder if members of this bloodline feel as if they can walk off on their own and chase their own wishes before their duty,” said Cori, standing next to a large fountain and gesturing towards the water.

Soli just rolled her eyes. "And yet you want the person they sent away, probably for a damn good reason, back in line." She shrugged, stepping closer to the fountain and peering into the water, continuing to talk. "I'll be blunt, I don't think we can ever understand each other. You talk about all this stuff with such... Zealotry and conviction and drive like it should all mean something, but it's all just meaningless words to me. It's everything to you; for all I care, it can burn and wither and rot and I wouldn't blink an eye. You act like I should care as much as you do, but..." She rested her hands on the edge of the fountain. "I see no reason to care. And all you've done by torturing me is give me reasons not to do so."

Cori clenched her fist, turning to face Soli once again. “I don’t know why I would give someone such as you, who would rather run away from what they have to do and from thousands of years of work and progress, any respect or any kindness. Someone like you is the person I despise the most. Only reason you’re not dead right now is because I still have faith that you’ll be reformed. With that being said, I have no qualms with doing that through… Some means that you won’t like,” she said, before turning to the fountain, the water of which was now showing the image of an American city. “Let’s take a look at this city, shall we? Maybe this will change your mind.”

"Let's not." Soli snarked as she looked down at the cityscape. She didn't recognise it, but there were a lot of cities out there. They all looked the same to her, mostly. "And I don't want your respect and kindness. I want to be left alone. I don't see why I should care about thousands of years of 'work and progress' I know nothing about or have any stake in. Maybe it's selfish, sure. But don't accuse me of running away when I didn't know anything about any of this and then you drag me back and stab the everloving shit out of me repeatedly. You and your clan seem to have done fine without me for twenty two years after all."

[Lunas Legion]

Ashley Bryen

"I could." Ashley shrugged nonchalantly as he stood back up, throwing the shard of glass off into the darkness away from him and Tadeusz. "I can set fire to anything, and fire plus sand makes glass." He paused briefly. "Well, heat plus sand is more accurate. You can have heat without fire. Some sort of macro-thermo-kinetic or something, maybe. Or glass transmutation, but if that was the case I'd expect a block, not just the sand. Keep an eye out, whoever did this might very well come back." He added as he moved off into the darkness, holding his small light of fire in front of him as he walked, grass crunching underfoot as he walked.

He nodded towards Zekulu, cursing mentally not bringing his own night vision equipment along, but it was far too late for that now. He'd make do with what he had. As he walked into the darkness, other features emerged; piles of metal slag on the ground, melted, twisted metal pillars sticking out of the ground like pikes, blackened from heat and melted into odd shapes that flickered as his fire caught them from one angle or another.

It was almost surreal, like walking through a painting, wondering what the next haunting thing to loom out of the darkness would be, the smell of burnt flesh and metal and petrol all but overwhelming in its stench.

And then he found the first body. Half of the body was... Oddly serene, under a bar of misshapen metal, still clad in sand-stained brown camouflage, the other half a bloody ruin barely in the shape of a human, a ruin of glass and metal and blackened flesh and bone somehow twisted in all together. He knelt down by it, pushing the piece of metal aside-

And then the body came alive with a bloodcurdling inhuman scream as it lurched upright, a fist of metal and glass smashing into Ashley's face, tearing gashes across it as the glass shattered. Ashley fell back, rolling to his feet as the person rose to his feet, metal screeching in protest and glass cracking and shattering as he also got to his feet, a distinctly confused look now visible on the human part of his face.

[Endem]

Ashley Bryen

"I could." Ashley shrugged nonchalantly as he stood back up, throwing the shard of glass off into the darkness away from him and Tadeusz. "I can set fire to anything, and fire plus sand makes glass." He paused briefly. "Well, heat plus sand is more accurate. You can have heat without fire. Some sort of macro-thermo-kinetic or something, maybe. Or glass transmutation, but if that was the case I'd expect a block, not just the sand. Keep an eye out, whoever did this might very well come back." He added as he moved off into the darkness, holding his small light of fire in front of him as he walked, grass crunching underfoot as he walked.

He nodded towards Zekulu, cursing mentally not bringing his own night vision equipment along, but it was far too late for that now. He'd make do with what he had. As he walked into the darkness, other features emerged; piles of metal slag on the ground, melted, twisted metal pillars sticking out of the ground like pikes, blackened from heat and melted into odd shapes that flickered as his fire caught them from one angle or another.

It was almost surreal, like walking through a painting, wondering what the next haunting thing to loom out of the darkness would be, the smell of burnt flesh and metal and petrol all but overwhelming in its stench.

And then he found the first body. Half of the body was... Oddly serene, under a bar of misshapen metal, still clad in sand-stained brown camouflage, the other half a bloody ruin barely in the shape of a human, a ruin of glass and metal and blackened flesh and bone somehow twisted in all together. He knelt down by it, pushing the piece of metal aside-

And then the body came alive with a bloodcurdling inhuman scream as it lurched upright, a fist of metal and glass smashing into Ashley's face, tearing gashes across it as the glass shattered. Ashley fell back, rolling to his feet as the person rose to his feet, metal screeching in protest and glass cracking and shattering as he also got to his feet, a distinctly confused look now visible on the human part of his face.

Tadeusz Rybicki

Seeing what happened Tadeusz went a little bit closer and transformed into an elephant and with his trunk, he pushed the thing that into a fall then promptly stomped on it ready to crush it whenever Ashley gives the order to do so, he let out a sound of victory from his trunk and directed it onto the figure touching it with it to get a good understanding of how it looked because Tadeusz right now couldn't bow his head to see it

[Forest State]

Serge "Riot" Easton-Roux

Everything was going about as normal as a strange mission like this could be going, and then something sprung up and slammed a fist into Ashley’s face. The thing certainly wasn’t human, either. Or maybe it was human but it was some kind of metahuman that had an altered body. It seemed to be made of… Glass, maybe? It was hard to see in the dark but Serge reacted according to the attack, stepping into a defensive posture and reaching for the .410 shotgun pistol at his side and making sure it was loaded and ready to go before leveling it at the figure.

But he didn’t pull the trigger yet, like some might. There was still something visibly human about the person that was standing in front of them, at least if Serge’s eyes weren’t deceiving him. And when it was night time, in an isolated area like this, it was easy for fights to start even if both sides weren’t necessarily hostile. Had this been some kind of mistake? Serge wouldn’t hesitate to shoot, but before starting to fire shots in the dark, it was important to make sure that this was an intentional attack.

“Identify your-” Serge started to say, before someone else in the group decided to take a much more cavalier approach by transforming into an elephant and stomping on the one who had thrown the punch. Which caused Serge to sigh and turn his attention towards his teammate. “Identify your targets before attacking, dumbass,” he stated in an annoyed tone. It was one of the first things they had learned when surviving on the streets as vigilantes, after all. “We don’t even know who or what that is.”

[Lunas Legion]

Ashley Bryen

"What's more important than who." Ashley snarked as he got back up, drawing one of his own pistols. "Back off from the... Whatever." He waved his shotgun-pistol to one side as he approached, slowly and warily. "The uniform's Saudi. Which makes this-" He tapped a foot against the glassed ground. "What's left of the convoy. Or part of it. Plus-" Ashley paused, motioning for Tadeusz to move away. "Bear in mind that if he understands a language, it'll be Arabic, which no one here but yours truly understands or speaks."

The metal and glass man underneath had shattered into pieces, the glass parts of his body shattering and cracking, falling to the ground. And then there was a strange sound, a loud hissing noise that stopped as pain would flood through Tadeusz, the parts of him touching the half-man figure simply melting away into sludge which vanished just as quickly, vanishing into the half-man's body.

Then there was another strange sound, like metal and bone grinding together against one another, a long, scratching sound that was horrible to hear, but Ashley nodded at it.

"He says to get the fuck away from him. Which was also why he threw me off of him." Ashley supplied helpfully. "And not to touch him unless it's on his human side. His body absorbs any material to repair damage. Or so he thinks, he isn't sure how it all works."

The half-man continued making the scratching noise that was his voice speaking Arabic.

"And he says he thought we were the people who hit the convoy with, and I quote, 'the wrath of God.' I don't imagine his sense of time is very good given he's likely dehydrated and starving on top of having his body reconstructing itself out of available materials. He says his name is Omar and he can speak English, but-" Ashley stopped, as Omar stopped making the scratching sounds, only to continue as Ashley nodded again. "Ah. He needs to reform more of his mouth and voicebox first. He says it shouldn't be long."

[Endem]

Ashley Bryen

"What's more important than who." Ashley snarked as he got back up, drawing one of his own pistols. "Back off from the... Whatever." He waved his shotgun-pistol to one side as he approached, slowly and warily. "The uniform's Saudi. Which makes this-" He tapped a foot against the glassed ground. "What's left of the convoy. Or part of it. Plus-" Ashley paused, motioning for Tadeusz to move away. "Bear in mind that if he understands a language, it'll be Arabic, which no one here but yours truly understands or speaks."

The metal and glass man underneath had shattered into pieces, the glass parts of his body shattering and cracking, falling to the ground. And then there was a strange sound, a loud hissing noise that stopped as pain would flood through Tadeusz, the parts of him touching the half-man figure simply melting away into sludge which vanished just as quickly, vanishing into the half-man's body.

Then there was another strange sound, like metal and bone grinding together against one another, a long, scratching sound that was horrible to hear, but Ashley nodded at it.

"He says to get the fuck away from him. Which was also why he threw me off of him." Ashley supplied helpfully. "And not to touch him unless it's on his human side. His body absorbs any material to repair damage. Or so he thinks, he isn't sure how it all works."

The half-man continued making the scratching noise that was his voice speaking Arabic.

"And he says he thought we were the people who hit the convoy with, and I quote, 'the wrath of God.' I don't imagine his sense of time is very good given he's likely dehydrated and starving on top of having his body reconstructing itself out of available materials. He says his name is Omar and he can speak English, but-" Ashley stopped, as Omar stopped making the scratching sounds, only to continue as Ashley nodded again. "Ah. He needs to reform more of his mouth and voicebox first. He says it shouldn't be long."

Tadeusz Rybicki

The pain was so immense to cause a spontaneous transformation which caused Tadeusz to go back to his human form and then into a spider and with his seven legs he panicked away as his hemolymph quickly sealed the 8th leg, fortunately for Tadeusz what was a melted away was his hand in about a minute he transforms into a cockroach and in another two minutes his injury is repaired enough for Tadeusz to go back to his human form and go back to the place where all happened, he said to Ashley

"give me a flask of water I'll be needing it for rest of the mission"

[Theyra]

Zekulu Alemu Nazwari

Zekulu was searching through the wreckage while using his enhanced sight to see better in the dark. He was lifting the remains of a tire when the half-man had his appearance. Zekulu quickly turned around and un-sling his crossbow and had it at the ready. He focused his sight on the half-man and aimed at him. "What is this", he thought as he was ready to launch a volley of bolts at the half-man's head. "Wait, is that a uniform? He said quietly as he noticed the half-man's uniform then Ashley' started to talk.

"This is the only survivor of the convoy and he thinks that is how his...power works? Thinking to himself, what does that mean he thinks that is how it works, did he not always have this power? He listened more and slowly put away his crossbow. "Wrath of God? That is.... ominous to say the least". Zekulu was uneasy at the long scratching sound that was Omar's current voice but, he hid his discomfort. "So his power was the only thing that saved his life from whatever attacked the convoy I take it. That is impressive considering how much of the convoy was destroyed". He looked around him at the debris, "and if you need water I am willing to spare my canteen". Zekulu unscrewed the lid of his canteen and placed it on the ground just halfway between him and Omar.

[Forest State]

Serge "Riot" Easton-Roux

So this was what the wrath of God looked like. At least, that was what the man was claiming it did. Apparently. Serge couldn’t verify how accurate that was because he didn’t understand the language, but it seemed like their translator knew his shit. So they would have to trust that and go along with it. It also made sense based on what they were looking at right now. Glass, it wasn’t an easy thing to make. There was a reason why glassing planets was a trope from science fiction. In reality, it was hard to hit something with enough power to turn the ground into glass. Anything or anyone who could have done this… Had to be on a level that was far above the Young Guardians that weren’t even done their training.

“If this guy says that something did this, then maybe we should turn back, whether it’s the actual wrath of some god or not,,” said Serge, looking things over again and then looking to the others and to their leadership. Normally, Serge was brash. The kind of person that went into things head first and looked for an adrenaline rush. But Serge also wasn’t stupid. This was different from doing something like climbing a high tower with a chance to fall. No, the odds of them doing well on this mission looked much worse, and there was just… A weird feeling about all of it.

“We’re not even a senior team. The Saudis have enough of a budget of their own to spend on metahumans, why don’t we have them come and check this out? As curious as I am about the wrath of God, I don’t necessarily want to be one of the ones to find out what the hell happened to this convoy if it means running into whatever did it,” he stated, hoping that they could just pass this off to the people that were considered professionals. There were some perks to not having that status yet, after all.

[Durmatagno]

Sage Shields

Sage reacted quickly yo the glass, a large crystal shield forming above her in one hand, and the shotgun leveled at Shatter in the other. Her strength let her maintain control of the thing with one hand, though it did make aiming a bit harder. She fired a trio of quick shots, though she was pretty sure only one of them even had a chance of hitting. Either way, the glass bounced off her shield pretty easily. Her crystals stopped small arms fire, a bunch of glass was no threat to her at all. She knew of some ways it could be turned against her, but it could be worse. Once the hail of glass stopped, for the moment, Sage shifted her grip on her shield and and covered the edges of the shields in spikes. Her arm was good, and her aim had always been better with throwing than with guns. She threw the freshly spiked shield with good aim, and with her strength, good speed, even if it was a bit of a longer throw. She wasn't going to stay an immobile target, so the moment the shield left her hand, she turned and dashed to a different piece of cover, hoping to draw Shatters attention away from the more vulnerable members of the team.

[Forest State]

Lex Reges

By the time the shots fired with the shotgun, there was a layer of glass appearing in the middle of the air in front of Shatter which absorbed the impact and masked the movement as Shatter dove to the left. The glass shield would also be in place when Jack reached Shatter, breaking into pieces upon impact from the punch but ensuring that nothing was actually hit by air. From there, Shatter threw another cluster of glass projectiles into the air and rapidly accelerated them towards Jack, putting more effort into making them hit and aiming for the eyes specifically. There were less projectiles, only about five of them, but less of them meant a focus could go on controlling each one of them and making them more accurate.

The shield throw from Sage, however, would manage to take out two of the five gunmen who were still open firing constantly on the entire group, focusing their fire on the others because Sage was wearing thick armor that would be hard to penetrate. At least, it would be hard to penetrate by conventional weapons. On the top floor of the storeroom, a window opened up and someone aimed what was an older Cold War era weapon but still effective, one of the modernized versions of the Panzerfaust. As soon as Sage stopped moving, the shot was fired. Which was when Kodiak moved into action, turning invisible and firing at the location where the shot had come from, something that wasn’t completely effective at taking out the threat but at least forced the gunman to take cover.

Alyx, after moving behind cover, started to use her power to hopefully reduce the impact of the conventional weaponry. She engulfed the entire area in between the barn, compound, and storehouse in a small storm of sorts, wirth rain and wind coming down and making it hard to hit anything accurately. Every shot would have to be highly adjusted for to have a chance of hitting in these winds, and while it would apply to the heroes too, it would also keep their enemies from simply gunning them down while they were trying to get a foothold to work from. “Don’t focus on Shatter!” she snapped at the others, a bit frustrated from the current strategy. “The guns are more dangerous than the glass, take out those three and then worry about him.”

Of course, that was an order that they maybe should have received from the senior hero that was leading them here, Ainsley. But Ainsley was behind her shield just trying not to get hit, and Alyx felt like ti was best to take the initiative in this situation. If anyone had even heard her. With the winds picking up because of her own power, hearing others even when they were shouting wasn’t the easiest thing. Especially with gunfire happening in the general vicinity.

[Skaldia]

Eamon Donovan

Fury
"great fury, like great whisky, requires long fermentation"

Theme

The ride from humvee to camel was torturous. Eamon was used to such trips of course. How often had he worked in the Middle East after all? Dubai was a blessing for metahuman mercenaries and with Vostova, Eamon had made a literal and figurative killing working for the Arabs. He'd been through the Empty Quarter a few times and knew what to expect so the monotony wasn't the problem.
No.

It was the incessant jawing from the guy next to him had made him grinding his teeth to dust and he had done his best to remain civil. Luckily, the man had been saved from having his skull pulped by generous sips of the 'shine Eamon kept on his person. Eamon had even been able to nod a few times in those sporadic pauses of verbal abuse he was subjected to, clearly evidence at Eamon's magnanimity.

The ride to the FOB came to an end and Eamon's equilibrium was found when he was presented with a particularly large camel, one suited for the equally bigger Irish-Canadian. It was a surly animal that had met Eamon's stare through the aviators with something akin to malice, Eamon was sure of it. Eamon had given the damn thing his middle finger before he had unceremoniously climbed on it's back and tried to make a regal pose from it's saddle. However, that was dashed as soon as they had begun moving, the rolling gait of the camel having Eamon hunkered down and maintaining the same grim visage he had shown in the humvee.

They rode until the sun had fallen behind the horizon. Suddenly, Eamon was happy for the insulation in the tactical vest as the temperature dipped rapidly, the sweat bath he had been stuck perpetually in since setting foot in the UAE, turning his skin to goosebumps as it evaporated in the chilling air.

The stopped at a ridge when Ashley raised his fist. Eamon nodded eagerly as Ashley called out for the ridge to be investigated. Eamon's question of why was soon answered when a gust of wind brought the stench of battle to Eamon's ears. Eamon's light amber eyes narrowed briefly and he slid from the back of the camel. Reaching behind him, he tugged the spear loose and held it in front of him warily. He ignored the pain in his hips, legs, and ass from the ride and held the rear as the metahumans filed down in to the ridge to discover what awaited them.

He caught the smell of burnt oil in the air as Ashley knelt down and Eamon's disquiet deepened. It got worse as the proceeded further down, Eamon bringing up the rear of the party. He was the last to see the figure rise from it's presumed last rest and cursed as members of the group responded individually. While that was happening, Eamon had remained in the rear. He would only muck things up further if he had bumbled forward and, if the thing could survive being crushed by a fucking elephant and go Jumanji on the thing. However, Ashley had the good sense to call off elephant man.

Eamon, along with the rest, listened to the garbled Arabic with something of a frown. Despite what Ashley thought, Eamon understood and even spoke a little Arabic and Farsi. Happened when most of the mercenary jobs you found yourself on took place in Arabia. However, even he couldn't make out what the cooked glassman was saying, only catching the 'wrath of God'. He frowned deeply, stabbing his spear in the ground and leaning slightly on it as his free hand reached for his flask. He went to take a sip of the precious fluid and found it to be empty. A muttered,"Fuck." was enough to get the point across on just how much Eamon's ire had increased.

"I agree with that guy." Eamon mumbled, nodding towards Serge."While I am curious, I'm not going to put my neck in the noose either. This shit's above my paygrade."

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

Park In-hyun

Isn't this fun? They just met with the convoy. Or to be more specific, what remains of the convoy. They got to the location with stocked-up camels. She already drank almost all of her first water canteen. The weather and the thirst didn't do good for her. There aren't many conversations happened here and there. Once they got to the location, it was...not a good visual condition. She went to the remains of the wreckage, inspecting for any signs of evidence. Nothing sure so far, not that she knows what she should looking for.

"What are we looking for again? Beside the remains of the living beings in this wreckage of a convoy." she said, called out to the rest of the team.

[Forest State]

---

Downtown Shanghai
Collab with Lunas Legion and Vanquaria

In the days after the attack on the Klausen event, the goal of the Guardians’ foreign team in China changed. They were still here for a bit, but it was only on the request of Buddy Law who wanted to find some way to right what had went wrong. That was something easier said than done. There was a lot wrong with the current situation. About thirty people dead from the attack, maybe more. More importantly, two of the prototype androids had been stolen by the attackers, which had been their main goal in the first place. Slip in, send the crowd running, and keep the security forces away while taking the prototypes. It sounded cold, but they definitely mattered more than the lives in the crowd. Because in the wrong hands, those androids could kill far more people than just thirty if they were reverse engineered to work for the ones who had taken them.

They didn’t even know who had taken the androids, and Guardians Intelligence had reported back… Well, just about nothing. No leads on where the enemy had went, no leads on who they were. It was like they were ghosts, perfectly suited for slipping into an area and disappearing immediately after, in a country where they would have to sift through a billion people. Assuming they hadn’t already smartly fled the country, with the Chinese authorities also looking for them. This had happened on their soil, after all.

It was night time in Shanghai, but the group was still gathered in the hotel room and looking over photographs of the event that had happened three days ago. “I just don’t get it,” said Ursula Rojas, frustrated. “How can someone just slip off the map completely like this? I don’t… I don’t understand it. There has to be something to use as a lead.”

There wasn't that much Gabriella could do, really. She had no powers that could help in this situation, she hadn't noticed anything useful during their rout... She hated being helpless like that. Never again.

"Maybe there just isn't." Gabriella offered, shrugging helplessly. Maybe it was defeatist. "No one expects us to be the CIA or whatever, we solve things others find for us. Maybe the Chinese will turn something up, it's not like we have much of a presence here to find stuff out."

"There's always a way," said Ursula, slamming her fist down on the table in frustration, her temper obviously coming out right now. She forced herself to breathe in deeply, holding her head in her hands as she picked up one of the evidence pictures again and pondered over it, looking at the grainy image of the face that was barely visible. "This was our mistake and we're going to fix it. Maybe you just need to change your attitude and try harder."

"Try telling that to the guys who were at the Alamo. Didn't do them much good to try their hardest." Gabriella quipped as she hopped up onto a bed, lying back and resting her hands behind her head. "The world doesn't bend to your will just because you try. It helps, sure, but force of will doesn't get you somewhere alone. You've been peering over those for hours, just... Take a break and relax, maybe you'll notice something if you rest a little."

An audible yawn was emitted from Sun's gaping mouth as the back of his head was enveloped in the back of an armchair. "Yeah, relaxing sounds good...," he mumbled, his eyes slowly closing. He wasn't an enthusiast for detective work yet detective work he had been doing for the past days. The thieves had obviously been well trained and well funded given the equipment they had used for the attack. Despite the overarching threat of the stolen androids, the Korean was just satisfied with the simple fact that he had kept Klausen safe. He wouldn't ask for anything more than keeping innocents safe from immediate danger.

"Relaxing may sound good, but we don't have that much time in this country to fix what happened," said Atom, walking back into the room as Ursula sat down once again with a sigh and set the photo down on the table with the others. Jess watched silently but said nothing, not the happiest with the situation but not having a solution to any of it either. Ursula was going to say something else but they were all interrupted when the power to the entire building seemed to shut off at once, the lights flickering for a few moments before going out as well as all of the lights on any of the electronic appliances such as the microwave. The light on the front of the TV also went out, indicating that it was getting no power. And outside, things grew darker too as the buildings around them were affected.

"The hell?" asked Jess, standing up and running to the window to look out of it, seeing that everything was indeed completely dark and that it wasn't just them... This newly cut power, it extended for blocks and it was affecting every kind of building from corner stores to high rise hotels like the one they were staying in right now. Whatever was going on, it didn't look quite right.

"I thought this was China, not North Korea." Gabriella snarked as she sat up, getting off the bed and moving over to the window, looking over the dark city. "Their grid's meant to, well, work. Something's going to go down, I'm calling it now." But something was a very vague term, and it might not even involve them. But they were meant to solve things like that anyways, they were heroes after all.

"Yep, I'm also getting the something's off vibe," Sun opened one of his eyes, the sudden blackout a cause for concern given how widespread it seemed to be, "Well, do we stay put or head out?" He raised a finger and uttered a spell, a second later a tiny flame ignited off it, "My mana's at full charge."

"We're not staying put," Ursula said quickly, reaching for her claws and extending them fully once they were strapped onto her wrists, turning towards the doorway before Atom or Jess could even say anything about the situation. "Something is up, we're going to be the ones to stop it. The people of this city deserve that much after the first fuckup from us. They need to know that the Guardians... That the Guardians are people they can trust to help them when push comes to shove."

"We don't even know what's up." Gabrella replied as she turned away from the window. "But even ignoring that... Staying here seems like a bad idea. A very bad idea." It was an instinct more than anything else, but she'd been on edge since the very start of everything in China. It'd paid off, so she saw no reason not to listen to her instincts.

"We might want to check in with the DRMA agents before we make any moves-" Jess said, but she was cut off before she could finish her thought by Atom, who interjected with his opposition to the idea.

"You want to trust the government of all people? They might be working with us here but they aren't out friends. For all we know, this could be some psyop of theirs and by going to them for help, we could be playing into their hands," Atom argued. Which... Was a rather far fetched argument, but one that he seemed to believe. "We stick together, as members of the same team."

"That's just paranoia." Gabriella waved dismissively. "If they cut power to the whole city they'd cause the mother of all international incidents with the MAB. If anything it might be them spooking us, not our own people. Besides, as much as I want to move, where are we going to move to anyways?"

"I don't care where we go, I just want to get out there and do something. This enemy, whoever they actually are, is one step ahead of us already. This might be the one chance that we have to do something about them. They might be about to do something else and this is the one chance we have to stop it. So we're going to go out there and look around the perimeter and see if we can find anything out of the ordinary to look into or respond to," said Ursula, frustrated. "I'm going either way. You can either come or stay. But I won't consider you much of a hero if you stay."

"And then we just stumble into another ambush if its the same people and not the MAB. Equally, staying here's a really bad idea in case they just level the building with demo charges, so... I guess we can go check the perimeter, and if we find nothing we return." Gabriella shrugged helplessly as she finished. It was better than doing nothing at all, or charging off blindly in search of enemies. "But we really should get in contact with the DRMA."

"Real heroes don't need the feds backing them up," growled Ursula, pushing the door open and stepping out and starting down the hallway while Atom followed after her without another word, stopping to glance at Gabriella but not saying anything else and simply following after the other more experienced hero. Jess sighed, but she went along with it, grabbing her twin blades from near the door and sheathing them on her back as she walked out of the room.

"Real heroes aren't idiots..." Gabriella muttered under her breath as she moved to grab her own weapons her own weapons, fastening her pistol's holster around her waist along with her spare clips before drawing it and following the others out of the room reluctantly.

[The Cross and Davids Star]

Nev Hurn

Biking in the Desert

Obeying Ashley's commands, passing through the security check while constantly assuring that the autocannons on his bike were not loaded while the rest of the team got into the Humvees. After he was given the go-ahead Nev got his bike and drove to meet up with the convoy, he catching up to them rather quickly due to his bike's incredible speed, and the thrill of going fast made the hours seem like minutes to Nev.

Quickly after, Nev was back out in the desert, serving as an early warning patrol as he drove a ways from the camels to not spook them, though those watching Nev could tell he was having plenty of fun as he sent himself soaring over the dunes every now and again, the spotlight on his bike giving him plenty to see as he raced about. He soon saw the camels stop with Boss Ash getting off and inspecting something, so Nev came and shifted to first gear and came over the dune to shine his spotlight on the crater to allow better sight, even more so when the light reflected off the glass like a grounded disco ball.

When the human looking glass monster shot up and attacked the Boss, Nev had his autocannons loaded and ready to pound the freak into shards, even more so when one of the team got his hand melted into sludge, but it seemed that the Boss had everything under control, so Nev took his hand off the trigger, getting off his bike and pulling off the sled attachment that he made prior, and made his way to the half glass man.

"I agree with Serge, we need to take him back and have him explain what happened, call it a metahuman threat and get a better team. We are rookies, and if someone did this to an armed convoy, we need to not be here." Nev said as he held out the metal sled towards the man. "Take this, soldier, it would be best if you weren't as breakable as you are now. That said, if anyone needs more water, go to my bike, I brought a water tank to last us for a while if we get lost out here."