Gods Among Us (IC|Superhero|Open)

[Union Princes]

Holiday

With her treatment of Blink out of the way, Maria looked around to see if there are other patients running to her in dire need. When there wasn't, most likely because they were de-limbed form the explosion are already taken in by the medical personnel, she thought of returning to Hans to spend the rest of the day with. However, a voice from Gauss interrupted her train of thought.

"Jawhol, Oberkommando der Ubermenschen." the blondie replied in jest to the vampire as she turned to meet up with her, "What will we be talking about?"

[Dyelli Beybi]

Imogen Vaughan and William Brookes
(Cowritten by Dyelli Beybi and Kingdom of Irkh)

WIlliam Brookes

...

"Other than the obvious part that I can do magic, it is far better to you if you know my list of weaknesses. Which is: I am just a boring human, I am not possessed by any being that give me magic and resistance, wings or that kind of thing that makes TIAMA looks good in the news. Let's just work together and we'll get acquainted with how well we work, but I'll have your back.

Even when you join the demolition squad. Though I don't think we'll be a match, y'know..."

Imogen gave a dry laugh at the last comment, "Don't think we'll be a match? What are you saying? I wasn't trying for TIAMA Tinder... though saying 'I can do magic' is about as vague as you can get. I can do magic -" abruptly her arms lit up with ethereal, otherworldly light that flicked like flames from her palms, licking up her forearms. She glanced down, watching her hands for a second, then abruptly closed her hands and the display stopped. She looked up, " - but I suspect your magic is totally different. You can keep your secrets. That's fine, but until I can be sure you can do more than pull a rabbit out of a hat I'm going to have to run solo."

There was something about Imogen's acidic humor that made Brookes laugh a little bit louder than the usual. She was clearly irritated with the call for another travel due to another chaos apparently created by the more... destructive members of the alliance they were a part of, "A match to whatever they did this time, Ms. Imogen... Hell, using Tinder is shameful even for a mage in my standards... See, I don't mind you running solo, not at all, as I am a firm believer in individual liberty but this would lead to a giant paperwork and group dynamics..."

Pulling a lighter out of his suit's inner pocket, he flicked it a few times before the flame finally appeared. Running a hand over it, the flame seemingly jumped to his right hand... rubbing them both, it slowly spread to his other hand, before it went out with a clap that swallowed the flames. Spinning the lighter in his hand, he displayed the rune etched on it to Imogen, "Recognize this?"

She shook her head, "Nope. Should I?"

Placing the lighter inside his pocket once more, Brookes turned to Imogen, "It's a rune. An easier way to cast something or produce a certain magical effect... A way to translate magic into actions quicker and wasting less energy. Since my mysterious manner of describing my abilities didn't satisfy you, I can say that it is one of my specialties.

There you go, now I've proven that I can do more than pull a rabbit out of a hat. Which in fact I cannot do, but I can do tricks with cards. My good deed for the day is done, I suppose. Satisfied?"

Imogen gave a short, but genuine laugh, running her hands through her hair as she drew it back behind her neck so that she could tie it back in a ponytail. Whatever was going to happen next, she probably wouldn't benefit from hair in her face, "I'm never satisfied, Mage Brookes, though that will do for now."

"That certainly explains why you aren't here for a TIAMA tinder, then!"

Imogen flashed a brief, bright smile, "And see, wasn't that hard, was it? Now I know I'm going to be the one at the front and you'll be the one in the background scribbling stuff... though if you accidentally send me to another dimension, I'll be very unhappy."

As the Condor got nearer and nearer to the Bronx, he took a moment to admire the landscape and appreciate the tranquility of flight, "You could say that. Though background scribbler is certainly less glamorous than 'supporting mage'. And no worries, if I send you to a dimension, it's because I actually meant it, so no worries regarding the accident part. Oh, seems we are close to the landing site..."

"You know you'd miss my acerbic comments if you dumped me on some other world," Imogen raised an eyebrow, smiling slightly, though the smile faded as she looked out of the craft at the landing zone they were closing in on. It was the quietest she'd ever seen New York, "It looks like a ghost town down there. Surprisingly little of the block is destroyed... though I'm sure we can fix that!"

"Love your optimism, Ms. Imogen... though my degree wasn't exactly directed to reconstructing neighborhoods."

Gauss's speech hit them all hard and fair. Clearly lots of bodies would be found today, and William seemed a little bit shook by it. The tags that classified the bodies seemed a brutal yet effective way to classify the victims of a disaster they weren't even witnesses to had its method, but it didn't make it a little bit more kind. Her speech was urgent, hurried, with the urgency of a soldier locked in a trench as the bullets flew above her head.

However... as her description finally reached the less urgent ones, Brookes had an idea. Something he knew he could do, and certainly faster with an extra pair of hand.

'Ms. Gauss, I'll excuse myself of this work to save the paramedics of some work. Ms. Imogen, follow me to the nearest court, please... We will have some work to do."

"We do?" unlike Brookes, Imogen seemed completely unphased by the corpses and viscera. It didn't take much to realise she'd seen things like this before, enough that she had become completely desensitised, "Alright, lay on Macduff, I'm here to help.. provided you stop calling me 'Ms. Imogen'."

"Alright, alright... Imogen, is that fine? We need to find a court, a small park, a big space to allocate the least wounded ones. I can cast a healing circle to help them and relieve the effort of the paramedics, but we'll need some space. I'll write the runes and you'll just draw them in a pattern... I doubt we can lift the blocks of stone that buried the gravely injured ones, so we'll work on the other end. Think you can keep up, Imogen?"

"Of course I can keep up," Imogen replied, tossing her head, "So you mean a basketball court, right..." her first instinct was to use google maps. She reached in her pocket for her phone, though the search seemed to be running glacially slowly, which was when Imogen realised that the network was probably overloaded with people trying to reach loved ones... "Is there any way we can draw the circle around the triage centre?" she asked, "It seems like it might be easier than trying to move the wounded."

"We can" - he quickly answered - "but not the entire centre. We will need to clear some space and then do it, otherwise I don't know how this spell will work... Let's follow up with your line of thought then."

As if he drew in the air, his finger let out a small light that started to form symbols, yet merely representative of the display he would make inside the circle.

"These are the runes I'll be using... And please, don't mix up the order or we'll have an incident here."

Imogen took a quick snap of the image with her phone, "Wouldn't want to get the details wrong, would we," she offered by way of explanation.

"Is there any way we can temporarily clear some space in here?" she called loudly, hoping to attract the attention of whomever was in charge.

[Aserais]

Collab between Aserais, Segral, Revlona, and Europa Undivided

Skye Cross, AKA Synapse
Minutes after the explosion
Bronx, New York City

Synapse nodded at Patriot as he greeted them, raising a hand and tapping their ear to indicate that they were still waiting on a response from dispatch--though, as time went on, they were beginning to think that they weren't going to get a response. They took the time to scan their surroundings, fury building in their breast as they saw the senseless destruction that the villain had wrought on their city. The air was full of dust and smoke, the cries and groans of injured people occasionally interrupted the crackling of flame, and the smell of sulfur and burning flesh filled the air in a way that nearly drove them to throw up. The shriek of ambulance and police sirens, as well as the sharp, grating honks of fire engines began to grow louder as the first responders tried to pick their way through the demolished streets and heavy amount of debris that clogged the roadways.

All of this was accentuated by the anxiety they felt from the status update they had gotten from Hannah, saying that she and Blink were both wounded. Hannah hated any displays of weakness, and had since they were kids. For her to admit an injury, it had to be serious, and Synapse was brought back to the months that they had spent apart while Hannah had been deployed in the Middle East. She had been out of contact for the entire time, and Skye knew the reputation of TIAMA ME. Metas in the region tended to have a short shelf life, and her nightmares had been plagued by images of Gauss torn to shreds by an IED.

Skye released a breath they hadn't realized they were holding when they heard Hannah's voice call out from the building that Patriot had just broken into, one hand covering their heart as they felt the organ begin to return to normal for them--which was still much faster than a normal person's.

"Synapse! Find the three banded motherfucker and restrain him! If you need back up actually ask for once."

Synapse looked up as they saw their friend's armored form step out of the rubble and smiled in relief, giving her a thumbs up. "You got it, boss. One armadillo man, comin' up hot," they assured their friend before their chevrons lit up and they dashed off, already forming the map of the area in their head.

If he set this off, he was probably outside of the blast zone when it happened unless he was a monumental dumbass--and if that was the case, there probably wouldn't be much left for the speedster to find anyways. They very sincerely hoped that wasn't the case, because they had a bit of anxiety and agression to work out from thinking that their best friend had been killed, and he seemed like a very punchable target. So that gave them a twenty-block search radius from the explosion's epicenter... which they were already in the process of systematically searching.

The armadillo man in question was blissfully unaware of Synapse's efforts to search for him. There was little that he was aware of as he blindly crashed through wall after wall in a mad, furious dash southwest, moving in the opposite direction of the explosion's path. Even the care for pedestrians he had shown early on in his rampage had disappeared, forcing any onlookers that had gathered around the edge of the blast's radius to scramble out of the way before they were trampled underfoot. Thankfully, the number forced to run remained small, as, for some strange reason, he seemed intent on staying away from the open streets, moving through the Bronx by using his massive strength to breach through the walls of the buildings in his path, treating the structures as cover as he grew closer and closer to his target, his stairway to heaven. Aside from a few fleeting moments spent dashing through the alleyways between buildings, or the occasional glimpse through a window that had been shattered by the sheer force of the blast, his presence was practically invisible to the outside world, his existence only confirmed by the panicked looters that sprinted out of the front doors of the nearest stores, babbling tales of a blood-covered, seven-foot armadillo running wild inside the building. Nobody knew where he was running to, and even if they asked, they were unlikely to receive an answer; aside from haphazard groans and a few strangled, mush-mouthed roars, not a single sound had erupted from the beasts' mouth, let alone a decipherable sentence.

One of those buildings was a short, free-standing strip mall, bearing a massive, ragged hole in the center of one end's outside wall, accompanied by long gouges in the ground and surrounding wallspace that were eerily reminiscent of the armadillo's claws. A bakery, a salon, and a half-rate dentist's office had already been laid to waste and abandoned by their terrified residents, leaving a small convenience store as the next target of his wrath. Specifically, the narrow back stockroom of the store, lying just behind the glass freezers that formed the back wall of the store. Any potential bystander had fled from the building moments before, leaving the entire space all but abandoned, aside from the lone ravager himself. He was currently in the process of dragging the bent, twisted remains of a dental chair into place to barricade the hole leading to the stockroom, having freshly ripped the structure from the floor. Within seconds, the chair was tipped and pushed into position, with the actual chair itself blocking off the bottom half of the entryway, and the chair's crooked instruments and lamps covering the top. Still, it seemingly wasn't enough, as the beast saw fit to grab a large shelf stocked to the brim with boxes and valiantly shove it to block off the hole from his side. After some tugging and scraping, the shelf slid crookedly into place, leaving his hideout completely inaccessible from the outside hole. The only way to enter through the place was through the front door, which was perfectly within his line of sight if he was to peer through the frosted glass of the freezer doors.

However, other things could be seen in the glass' surface, including his own reflection. His eyes caught the slight image forming on the glass, slowing and stopping for the first time since the massive blast as he turned and shuffled towards the pseudo-mirror, holding his claws up to lightly trace his own form. The face of the former proud, devious orator that was likely plastered across every single social media platform had been replaced by a brutal, violent visage. His face was coated in blood and dust, including two thick streams flowing from his nostrils, and more seeping from the edge of his scalp thanks to a small piece of rubble that had embedded itself in the skin. The scales of his body, once glimmering, were raw, red, and badly scratched in all areas, most notably on his forearm, where the scales had broken to reveal a thin laceration. A chunk of his shell had broken away, leaving a ragged crack that spouted even longer, thinner cracks across the rest of his back. He couldn't see the breaks, but he could feel them with his claws, were chipped and coated with soot. All the man could do at the sight was let out another harsh, strangled cry, slumping over against the thick glass. His shoulder against the side wall as he crouched down, his entire body leaning forward into the corner formed by it and the freezers. The only thing keeping him from falling into the ground and curling over was two shaky arms, bracing his body upright.

Henry had left the armadillo man alone sometime after the explosion. He wasn’t quite sure when he had left him, he wasn’t quite sure of anything after the explosion really. It was much larger than he had intended, a blast that could have come from hundreds of his bombs had resulted from only twenty. Had he hit a gas line? Could be.

Henry hurried away from the area he and the armadillo had come out of the shaft from, dust and ash covered his body, thrown onto him by the explosive power of his bombs. To any outside observer he looked like the lucky survivor of the explosion, his blank emotionless gaze fitting in with most peoples images of survivors, especially of the survivors of events like which had just occurred.

Luckily for the speedster, New York City was built on a grid system, making the systematic search of the twenty block radius around the explosion fairly simple. It took a minute or two to search the north and eastern grids of the disaster zone, but the southern grid yielded paydirt. The first clue they had as to the location of their quarry was an irregularly shaped hole in the side of a building, which led to another similarly sized opening, and continued through the brickwork of several buildings.

"Gotcha, motherfucker," they whispered to themselves as they sped through the holes left by what they hoped was the perpetrator. Synapse cleared the holes in mere seconds, making sure to step around the debris littered on the other side of each portal, until they stepped out into a street and saw the man that they had been searching for. He presented a somewhat pitiful visage: heavily injured and bleeding from several areas, most notably a massive chunk of his armadillo-like shell that was missing and surrounded by cracks and slowly leaking blood. If it wasn't for the fact that he'd just killed hundreds of people and placed their friend in mortal danger, they would almost feel bad for him.

Unfortunately for him, he had done just that.

Synapse raced around the abandoned strip mall in a fraction of a second, ensuring that the two of them were truly alone, before they turned their furious gaze back onto the villain that had just attacked their city. The brunette raced up to him and raised their fist, pausing in front of him just long enough for their form to resolve itself into a solid image before they jabbed at the Armadillo's jaw. The punch sounded like a gunshot as their fist broke the sound barrier, a small pressure cone forming and breaking around their knuckles as the punch connected and rocked the villain's world. They weren't sure if his anatomy allowed for the "button" theory to work, but they still aimed at the tip of his chin with their fist as they delivered a second jab before following it up with a right cross to his cheekbone, sending the terrorist reeling from the force of the blow.

They stepped back and began bouncing on their toes, both of their fists raised in a standard boxer's guard as they stared down the man who'd almost killed their best friend.

"I'm giving you one chance to surrender, or we're gonna do this the hard way," they warned, tightening their fist until they could feel the skin over their knuckles stretching and their nails bite into the skin of their palm. "Personally, I hope you try to resist."

The man was too busy staggering backwards at the force of the brutal punch to respond, teetering for several seconds on both legs before eventually listing over to the side and going down hip-first with a mighty crash. However, instead of a pained scream or cry of agony warbling out from his mouth, the only noise he made was a short grunt of surprise as he struck the ground and flopped over onto his back, before going dead silent altogether. Despite the odd tilt formed by the bulge of his tail being pinned down underneath his massive bulk, he looked rather peaceful in this state, his limbs somewhat spread-eagle across the ground, his now-broken jaw hanging slack from his face, eyes glassy and dull. Squint a little, and the blood on his scalp almost looked like a crown of thorns. If it wasn't for the noticeable rise and fall of his chest, combined with a few heavy panting sounds, odd snuffles and light, rumbling purrs from his throat that made it sound like he was struggling to breathe, one would have every right to assume the man had been struck dead by the blow. It seemed that even in his deranged, ravaged state, he was still the finest of gentlemen, refusing to speak over or interrupt another's speech.

Unfortunately, even gentlemen sometimes grew angry.

Unbeknowst to Synapse, the short tail that had been pressed underneath his torso had begun coiling and tensing against the ground, ready to pop at a moment's notice. The light purr suddenly burst into an ear-splitting screech as Armadillo leapt forward barely a second after the word "resist" had died on the air, using his bent tail and whatever purchase he could get with his feet and forearms to roll forward into a crouch and dive forward, shoulder bearing down and aiming directly for Synapse's chest. It was clear that he had no desire in the world to surrender, and it was very unclear if he had even understood a single one of the speedster's words.

Synapse narrowed their eyes as they heard the light wheezing sound coming from the man they had just hit. He had escaped that blast relatively unscathed, considering the damage that it had done to the non-metas and buildings that had been caught in it, and run straight through several dozen stone walls in his mad dash to freedom. Three punches from them, no matter how damaging, shouldn't be enough to lay him out flat like that. When he let out the screech, Synapse's chevrons began to glow a bright yellow as they channeled the extradimensional energy through their body once more, slowing the world down so that by the time the villain was just about to hit them, the world was reduced to a slow crawl. Their left foot slid back and to the left, followed quickly by the rest of their body as they let the armadillo man pass them by.

If he had been facing down anyone else, that might have been enough to catch them off guard--well, that's not fair. Gauss would have caught him and body slammed him so hard his ancestors would have felt it.

As it was, Skye brought their fist down and back, twisting their upper body and keeping their elbow tight in to engage all the muscles in their back as they delivered a supersonic uppercut aimed at the villain's chin as he passed.

A sickening crunch filled the air as the man was practically flung into the ceiling, making almost no noise as he bounced shell-first off of the ceiling hard enough to punch a ragged, gaping hole in the surface, with dust, rubble, and even a few tiles beginning to rain down in thin sheets. One would think that the combination of such a vicious blow to the head, combined with such a tremendous impact, would be enough to strike the beast unconscious if not outright kill him. Instead, it only seemed to shake him. Perhaps the shell had something to do with it; the thick, slightly chipped layer of plates coating his back had begun to fold over his body, preventing his neck from whipping back from the force of the punch and cushioning his body as he rebounded off of the fragile ceiling.

The shell didn't stop folding over from there. Thanks to the ceiling doing a fine job of killing his own body's momentum, he fell in a comparatively slow swan-dive to the ground, giving him ample time to fold his body further into its armored ball before he struck the ground back-first. His tail whipped the ground furiously, causing the ball to begin rolling and bouncing at a rapid pace towards the same corner he had been kneeling in just seconds earlier. It took a similar amount of seconds for the eventual "CRASH!" to occur, the sound splitting the air as his slammed into the T-shaped junction formed by both the shared wall between the convenience store and the dentist's office, as well as the supporting wall of freezers. An explosion of plaster, drywall, broken glass, and god-knows-what-else burst out from the corner, far milder than the explosion that had forced this losing war in the first place, but a ferocious blast nonetheless, and more than powerful enough to cause the ceiling to shriek and groan with stress. It was a soldier not suited for the horror and death of war, crying pitifully as it bled a cloudy mixture of tile, rock, and dust all over the stockroom floor.

The dust was not even given the courtesy of being able to clear before the curled-up form of the armadillo began to rev up again, his mouth and nose forming a familiar snuffling noise in an attempt to cast out for the speedster's smell among the dust and grime. He seemed to find it soon enough, as his feet quickly began to slightly protrude from the shell to gain the initial push-off, and his tail quickly began to snake out to nestle underneath a rather large fragment of one of the ceiling's beams. With a sudden flick of both appendages, the armadillo man kicked off with his legs and jerked up with his tail, throwing the beam in the general direction of Synapse in a desperate attempt to catch them off-guard while simultaneously beginning to pick up speed in a deadly roll towards the hero's legs and lower torso. If they were able to dive out of harm's way, harm would strike the opposite corner of the room. If they weren't, they would be crushed, struck down, or both.

This time, Skye didn't bother slowing down their perception as they moved to avoid the ceiling collapsing where the armadillo had been launched into it. They could see him move and let out a mild scoff, offended that he had the audacity to keep moving even after a solid punch like that. They were going to need to chow down after this, they could feel their stomach protesting as they burned through the store of calories that kept them mobile, and the longer this fight dragged on the more they were going to need to eat. Still, they weren't in danger yet, and it was easy to weave around the falling rubble.

Synapse followed him through the hole he made in the wall, their visor protecting their eyes from the dangers of the particulates in the air as they raced through the dust and debris to make sure they were out of the danger zone of the collapsing wall and ceiling, all the while keeping their eyes on the curled-up form of the mutated meta-human that had just carried out the worst terror attack on New York since 9/11. They saw the moment he oriented his rolled-up form towards them and pushed off, his body seeming to move at a ridiculously slow pace compared to Skye's perception and ability to react. Skye looked behind them and frowned at the realization that if they moved out of the way, he would plow through the wall and probably bring this section of the strip mall down, and they were already doing more damage than they wanted to do. Synapse's brow furrowed as they turned back to the slowly-rolling ball of villainy and raised their fists, determined to stop the man here and now, before he could do any more damage to their city.

Moving at Mach speeds was fantastically freeing and profoundly dangerous--even a light tap against someone moving at that speed could prove devastating to flesh and bone. Synapse took care to never put too much speed into a punch, or else they could break something--or worse, break someone. Luckily, this time, they had no such compunctions. All they had to do was make sure they didn't kill this guy.

Synapse lashed out with a flurry of jabs and crosses, so quick that the air filled with a sound akin to automatic gunfire as they laid into the terrorist's armored shell at speeds approaching the muzzle velocity of an AR-15. They could feel the impact bruising their skin through the gloves of the protective suit they wore, but they didn't bother stopping. They did make sure to avoid punching places where the shell was cracked--without his armor, they were pretty certain that the punches could prove deadly--but other than that, Skye didn't bother holding back. This asshole had blown up their city, killed hundreds, and put their best friend in mortal danger.

Skye stepped to the side, making sure of their angle, before they raised their leg and delivered a supersonic roundhouse kick to the villainous ball, aimed to launch him out of the building and into the parking lot of the empty strip mall.

The force of the kick was enough to send the man's curled-up form rocketing through the wall of freezers, an eardrum-shattering CRAAAAAAAAAASH erupting as his body was sent flying right through the thick layers of glass and metal. His shell had dented, cracked, and broken in multiple places, and so had the structure of the wall; the sheer impact of the rough-skinned, three-hundred-pound-heavy cannonball on the surface was enough to cause the whole barrier to begin crumbling down. After all, it wasn't exactly long to begin with, and between the holes in both the front corner and side wall of the stockroom, it was bound to come down at some point. It wasn't just the wall coming down either. As any carpenter or mason worth their salt could tell you, those freezers were more than just a convenient grocery appliance, they were also an important load-bearing wall for the convenience store's roof. When a load-bearing wall couldn't bear its load anymore, there was only one direction for the mass to go: down.

By the time the man's body had touched back down upon the ground, the ceiling was in the process of completely caving in, the vinyl boards splitting and cracking over like a thin, fragile eggshell before dumping their precious yolk with a groaning, screeching vomit; a thick stream of stone and metal that rained down on the building floor, transforming the ground into a thick, muddy swamp of wreckage. It was thick enough to cause his arc of trajectory to slow and eventually deteriorate, the debris from the ceiling quickly pushing his form back to Earth. He only rolled and skittered for a few feet before sliding to a dead stop just inches away from the glass doors that made up the store's front entrance, the tracks left behind on the tile floor soon covered up by alternating pieces of falling vinyl, metal, and lumber.

For most, a blow that vicious and a flight ending in such a furious crash would've been a fatal scrape. Perhaps it would be fatal for Synapse. However, it seemed as if it wouldn't be as such for Armadillo. As he slowly unfurled from his shell, rocking back and forth with a slight moan and a vacant stare towards the ceiling, his body slowly began to reveal itself, and along with it, the endless damage he had sustained. His face had been pulverized to the point where it was unrecognizable, a splotch of relatively clean skin marred by congealed blood and swollen eyes, bookended at the top by a pair of small, crooked ears gushing two watery, thin streams of blood, and at the bottom by a jaw that had been crushed and battered to an unrecognizable pulp, nothing more than a stubby, gory pile of shredded meat punctuated only by the occasional fracture poking through the skin. His chest, stomach, and limbs had largely been spared in comparison, bearing nothing but a few assorted scrapes, scuffs, and lacerations, but the battle hadn't been as kind to his back and shell, which was pockmarked with gaping, jagged, blood-edged holes, entire chunks at the edges having been torn away and thinner cracks spreading to and circling the center. But he was alive. Weak, fragile, barely standing, but alive. He was pushing at the rubble that had fallen over his upper torso and chest, scratching and tugging and scrabbling in a formidable attempt to free himself, but seemed confused in the process, frantically tossing his head this way and that way, light snorts and pants erupting from his nose at a rapid pace. His ears were a major target for his aimless scratching, his hands constantly moving up to the top of his head to brush and feel the short, bleeding appendages. Something was clearly troubling him, but it was anyone's guess as to what it was.

Once again, it was Skye's enhanced perception that saved them from the consequences of physics--something that they were having more and more trouble with recently. The speedster ran behind the fast-moving ball that they had launched through the wall, stopping only for a fraction of a second to look up at the ceiling that was caving in even as Armadillo went through the load-bearing wall. It was coming down, no doubt about that, and this was probably gonna cost TIAMA a pretty penny in insurance payout... but this was extenuating circumstances. And after all, it wasn't as if they had done all this work themselves--most of the damage had been done by the villain.

Still, they needed to get out of the way. Synapse stepped just outside the range of the collapsing ceiling, following their target's trajectory until he came to a rest just short of the door, half-buried in rubble and pawing desperately at his ears. He was probably dealing with the after-effects of the sonic booms that their fists had generated. Their suit had noise cancellation and ear protection that activated when they were channeling the extradimensional energy that allowed them to move at that speed, connected to the radio earpieces that were nested in each of their ears. After all, they couldn't understand anyone when they were moving, so there was really no point in being able to hear anything except for the communications.

Synapse undid a velcro pouch on the back of their suit and retrieved the steel cuffs that they carried with them for occasions such as this and, faster than most anyone could even perceive, slapped them around the armadillo's wrists and pressed their knee into the armadillo's chest. His arms were crossed and pressed between their knee and his chest, and their left hand was closed tightly into a fist, ready to deliver another punch at the first indication of resistance, before they brought their right hand up to their ear and activated the radio as they stopped channeling the energy that allowed them to move at speeds that most humans would never even approach.

"This is Synapse to dispatch, I have the suspect in custody. I need a prisoner transport at my location ASAP," they said, keeping their eyes trained on the armadillo the entire time.

It would be at this very moment of apparent triumph that the haunting chant of ghosts would resonate in the broken ruins of Eastchester. Or, at least just this part of the place. It sounded like an undead chorus of children, singing a melancholy chord from the afterlife.

Their voices heralded the one who was to come; the Angel of Vengeance. Synapse had been so focused on the Armadillo, so relentless in their undying pursuit of retribution for this disaster that they hadn't noticed another foe stalking the ruins. Simikiel waded across the corpses of the dead and destroyed debris, his ears listening for any sign of enemy approach.

And now, they were alone.

Simikiel looked upon the broken Armadillo from a distance, his eyes glowing with a shifting technolor from behind his mask. It really looked like that the human-animal hybrid got himself absolutely annihilated in combat against the speedster. Now, he was in cuffs, and in apparent danger of being captured, brought into custody, questioned, and God forbid, dissected.

An emerald chain shot forward from Simikiel's right hand, moving in a completely silent approach towards the Armadillo. When the words 'ASAP' had left Synapse's lips, the Chain of Vengeance had attached itself to Armadillo's body and quickly transformed into a grappling hook.

The chorus of the dead still kept ringing in a low hum as the chain pulled Armadillo towards Simikiel with a frightening speed. Perhaps he will not be captured today, after all.

Synapse's eyes widened as they heard the low chants that heralded the second villain's arrival and began frantically scanning the area for the source. That was when they saw the chain, and their mouth opened in a wordless cry as they reached out and began channeling the energy that allowed their powers to work. They were mere fractions of an inch away from grabbing the ethereal chains before the grapple sunk into the Armadillo's body and he vanished, causing their knee to drop through the space that the villain had occupied only a moment before and onto the cuffs that had just been restraining him. Their outstretched hand slammed into the ground at speed, creating a small divot in the asphalt and a shock of pain to travel up Synapse's arm as they failed to stop their quarry from being dragged away.

"Fuck! Dispatch, this is Synapse, suspect was just taken by Simikiel, I saw his fucking chain! I need eyes in the sky, someone with thermal sight, the fucker can't have gotten far," they spat out as they stopped channeling their powers, their face twisted into a frustrated scowl as they looked towards the direction that the chain had come from. "We're still in Eastchester, on the corner of Main and Mill road!"

[Anowa]

Holiday
"Jawhol, Oberkommando der Ubermenschen." the blondie replied in jest to the vampire as she turned to meet up with her, "What will we be talking about?"

Gauss' eye twitched, just a little bit. Not enough to be noticed beyond a coincidence, but it was a decent indicator of her opinion regarding what the native German had called her. "Holiday, I need you to start separating your blood and plasma into IV bags and syringes, ask the EMTs for help if you need it, or at least ask if they have any spare IV bags. Only hand it out to those with a red tag. I don't want you to repeat what you did with Blink." her mind drifted a bit to the hole in her neck, arm and abdomen, "Most certainly not with me."

Dwayne Okafor
"What's up, Boss?"

The man did an odd hand shuffle as he approached, likely in an attempt to do something, anything. Gauss, looked at the man, dead in the eye. He'd seen death, he'd had a very long career with gangs over in California, and he made good music. At the very least, what Gauss was going to ask might've been a good exposure to write a song... maybe.

Her emerald green eyes took on a notable palor of distaste and sorrow, for what she was about to ask the man to do, more than what "I want you to make sure anyone still alive with a black tag goes peacefully." a pause from the woman, "Do you think you can handle that? Mentally, I mean?"

---

"We're still in Eastchester, on the corner of Main and Mill road!"

The only response was that of a ungodly crack, as an object moving almost as fast as Synapse's average plowed through the ground and into the sewer, sending more than a small amount of both debris and sewer water raining upon the area. The object was Hussar, fully armed and armored, the sword in his hand was glowing from the hebrew lettering carved into it. His eyes taking on an ethereal golden glow as he started at the supposedly imperceptible form of Armadillo and Simikiel, the rage in his eyes was palpable, yet his voice was even toned and calm, "I will give you a singular chance to leave this place alive. Submit to authority or I will end your lives."

---

"Is there any way we can temporarily clear some space in here?" she called loudly, hoping to attract the attention of whomever was in charge.

One of the firefighters gave a thumbs up, in response to Imogen. Beckoning to a few of his compatriots as they proceeded to start breaking into cars. Most shifted into neutral and were unceremoniously pushed out of the way. Other had to be hefted by a number of people and shuffled sideways. While the area around Imogen and Brookes was cleared first, eventually the whole of the parking lot was cleared, the vehicles occupying it taken by their owners to act as transport for the wounded or commandeered by good samaritans.

It was then wounded started to trickle in, mostly red, or black. Although a significant number of green and yellow started arriving under their own power or with assistance from others. Ambulances already began to depart, filled to capacity as they rushed those in critical condition away.

[Europa Undivided]

Simikiel | What the Kurwa

"Oh, look at that, gringo.", Simikiel said as Hussar stared into him and Armadillo. He was holding the massive shell bound man by the leg, the apparent weight of the armadillo-human hybrid inconsequential to him due to the fact that they were both in an incorporeal state.

Too bad. Simikiel took one look at Hussar, and knew that this was the end of the road, for now. The Eagle of Poland was one that could see souls, and could strike them directly if he wished. To go through all this trouble to save the Armadillo from capture only to suffer the same fate... this was terrible. However, Simikiel was incredibly patient, for he has lived a long live. Ten or so years in a prison will not stop him. Not for long. Perhaps this was a good opportunity to get in the inside, too.

Simikiel did not leave his incorporeal state, for he knew Hussar can see both of them. "W porządku. Poddaję się."

A pause. "Just so we're clear, I'm only doing this for the paycheck."

[Scotatrova]

Mateo Serrano
Lower East Side, New York City

Today was yet another episode in the same old series that Mateo had to deal with everyday. It was the end of a long, mundane day at his shop and it was about 5 minutes past closing when a customer knocked at the door. Mateo was sweeping as he looked up and saw the woman, as he couldn't hear from the music playing over his earphones. He gave a slight smile as he internally cussed the woman out.

"What is it with people not reading the 'closed' sign?" Mateo walked over to the door and before he even finished opening it, the woman just made her way in. "Come on in I guess" he thought to himself as he asked "Ma'am, I'm closed for the night, but what is it that I can do for you?" She looked around the shop in awe, so many plants and flowers that she had never even seen before. From Amaryllis to to Calla Lilys, Mateo had practically everything. The woman then explained her situation. "Well the thing is, I'm looking for a remedy that could help my son deal with his chronic nosebleeds. I know you're probably thinking I could just go to a doctor or something, but the thing is I don't trust all that practical medicine, they say its not safe! I'm more of an essential oils and natural remedy girl myself y'kno?"

As the woman kept on blathering, Mateo just kept his thoughts to himself. "Wow, so she's one of these types." By the time she finished, Mateo gave her a smile as he walked to the shelf furthest to the back of his shop. "Sounds like you need nelumbo nucifera, or if you don't like to have fun, some lotus." He grabbed about three lotus flowers from the plant on the shelf as he walked back behind the counter. He pulled out a mason jar and he put the flowers inside and gave them to the woman. "Have him eat the leaves, they can be used to help treat his nosebleed." The woman began to start pulling out her wallet to pay before Mateo put a hand up to stop her and handed her the jar. "It's on the house, don't worry about it." She smiled as she put the jar in her purse "Thank you so much!" As she walked out the door, Mateo let out a deep breath as he went to lock the door and head upstairs to his loft. Just as he approached the stairs, he stopped and grunted in pain. His amulet began to glow a light blue, and soon the veins in his neck turned dark. He held on to the railing before he looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes also shining the bright blue. "Eager to come out and play?" The amulet dimmed as the veins in his neck returned to normal and his eyes retained their color, and Mateo let out another sigh before continuing back up the stairs. "I hate Mondays."

[Aserais]

Skye Cross, AKA Synapse

The only response was that of a ungodly crack, as an object moving almost as fast as Synapse's average plowed through the ground and into the sewer, sending more than a small amount of both debris and sewer water raining upon the area.

The crack of a sonic boom caused Synapse to flinch and begin channeling energy, just in time for their enhanced perception to pick up the armored form of the Winged Hussar crashing into the asphalt and sending a plume of dust and debris into the air as he went down into the sewers. Synapse didn't think twice before they followed him, racing to get down into the hole he had left. They pulled up beside him with raised fists as he began talking to... well, it looked like the old man was talking to nothing but thin air, but he could obviously see their quarry.

"Uh--yeah, what he said!" they called out, eyes scanning the empty sewer in the direction that the Hussar was pointing his sword, waiting for the cowardly villains to reappear.

---

Taela M'reen, AKA Miss Majestic

The air was heavy with smoke and dust, and all around her the alien could hear the crackle of flame and the cries of rescue workers as they rushed to help those that could still be helped. The amount of senseless destruction reminded her of the last days of the war, before her father put her in her ship and told her to run as far and fast as she could. There was nothing she could've done then, one more soldier wouldn't have prevented the never-ending tide of Lorissians from swarming over their defenses--but now was a different story.

Taela's hands pressed into a massive slab of reinforced concrete, her fingertips turning the stone into powder and pressing in until she had a firm grip on two pieces of rebar, and lifted the multi-ton slab away from the opening that it had been covering. Inside, a woman looked at her with wide eyes and a soot-covered face, holding tightly to a small, wailing bundle. The woman's face was so covered in soot and blood from a cut on her forehead that it was impossible to say what her original skin color was, and Taela gave her a reassuring smile as she put the slab of concrete down to the side.

"Do not worry miss, I am here to help. I have two more here," she called out loudly, turning to make sure that the nearby paramedic was walking over to treat the woman, before she turned to look out over the burning wreckage that had been left in the wake of this terrorist attack. It reminded her of 9/11, and the hours she and others had spent sifting through the debris, hoping against hope that they would find survivors and pulling out nothing but mangled corpse after corpse. This had been better than that, but only marginally, in that they were finding survivors and there seemed to be less victims overall.

Taela flew up once the medic began treating the woman and looked down at the wreckage with a frown. The hero began to scan the wreckage slowly until she found a group of firemen desperately cutting at a large concrete pillar, obviously trying to break it into small pieces so that they could get at something underneath it, and flew down to them, hoping that this one wasn't a corpse. It looked like none of them were getting sleep any time soon.

[Europa Undivided]

Surrendering in the Sewers

Simikiel scowled behind his Guy Fawkes mask as he reappeared back into the fabric of space and time, abandoning the incorporeal transformation that he achieved literally a few seconds ago after trying to take the Armadillo away from a potentially grisly fate that would involve being dissected. The thought of needles and scalpels greatly disgusted the Angel of Vengeance, as he poked to oblivion with such torturous tools of science in the name of progress and research; in his mind's eye, these objects were the quintessence of human cruelty and evil... which was quite an ironic thing to say, considering that he maims Neo-Nazis and then writes on walls using their blood.

Someone didn't agree on his surrender, though. Ana didn't like that he was giving up so easily, and was immediately speaking to him again. "Why are you giving up, big brother? I thought you said... never again?"

"This is only for a time.", Simikiel answered rather simply as he held out both of his hands. "I surrender. Just like the French."

---

[Mandicoria]

Immortal and Ophiuchia's Tag Team Power Hour
Collaboration post by Cybernetic Socialist Republics and Mandicoria

Immortal could only feel sad holding the pitiful little kraut in her arms. It was like holding a fully grown baby having a panic attack, and honestly they could relate. They wish they could be so lucky to a literal freak-out without getting whacked and told to snap out of it. Thoughts races across their head, entangling their mind. Yet it didn't take long for them to snap out of it. With the lovely sight and sounds of Gauss chucking a fucking SUV out of the way of emergency workers being quite hard to ignore. With the priceless expressions of the Police, their coworkers, and emergency workers sealing the moment further.

Looking down at the German panicking in their arms, they knew they had to set him down so they could get on with their job. After all can't save anyone with some babbling bundle of emotions in your arms the whole time. Luckily they managed to find just a nice spot out of everyone's way, but in a safe spot. After setting the crying Kraut down, they turned over to the others. Letting out a shockingly loud cough and gesturing to Hans. "Uh, hey, this guy uh... He's kinda panicking right now so I'm, uh, gonna leave him here..."

Turning their attention immediately from the others they immediately noticed another TIAMA member a short distance away. This one clearly in advanced gear. Possibly Ophiuchia? God that would be great. Since in all honesty it would be much better to go with another person who had advanced hardware. After all that body heat scanner on Immortal's shoulder could only do so much in an environment where there were still burning fires. Immediately rushing over to who they assumed to be Ophiuchia, they began waving over. "Oh, hey! Um, Ophiuchia I assume?" Immortal called over, a shocking lack of awkwardness in their voice.

Ophiuchia hadn't landed by the Condors for long before Blink had headed off in search of Maria in order to get some regenerative medical help. Now came for Ophiuchia to help with the rescue effort. Rescue's weren't exactly her favorite things to do, particularly when it wasn't happening in front of a media presence. Ophiuchia was very much a big picture person and the individual gratitude of those she rescued one by one wasn't all that rewarding. She much rather be hunting down those responsible for the bombing, or making the case for what might relieve the context in which this bombing was even possible.

However, in the absence of having anything else to do, if nothing else, being seen as working hard to save lives alongside the rest TIAMA would be important for how her co-workers would see her. It wouldn't be the greatest look to go out in front of cameras and then not get her hands metaphorically dirty.

Speaking of her co-workers, Ophiuchia heard her name called. Immediately her sensors pinpointed the direction of the call, projecting an image of the source on to her contacts, which lined up with her actual vision as she turned to look at Immortal. Their voice was notably confident, immediately she knew that she was speaking to someone that likely had plenty of experience, or at least self assured. Additionally, they were wearing some rather impressive power armor that Aethelind would be working on analyzing, though without the use of active scanning.

"Yes, I'm Ophiuchia, and you go by Immortal, correct?" Ophiuchia answered with a very small smile and a friendly voice, making sure not to sound cheerful, as the expectation was that one would be saddened and/or angered by the circumstance they were in. She also reached out for a handshake.

Reaching their hand out and meeting Ophiuchia's hand in a shockingly firm shake, Immortal nodded. "Ah, erm, yes. Wonderful to make your acquaintance. Look, I'm uh, gonna keep this a little blunt." They released their handshake in a slightly awkward manner, before letting out a small cough. "I'm currently down a team Member, and the only other person on my team who has advanced enough equipment is currently... erm... Not even using said equipment... Soooo, I was thinking we could do better with someone like you being able to help with searching. After all I assume your suit's advanced enough to have some good scanners on it?" Their demeanor began to chip away little by little. With their confidence totally beginning to fleet.

They let out another small, yet awkward cough right before their suit's scanner rose up from their should. Audible clicks and beeps coming from their suit as the scanner darted around Immortal's head, looking for body heat signals. "My suit's got a scanner on it for finding body heat, and uh, well. You know that can only do so much when there's a buncha fires going on." An awkward chuckle escaped from them, Immortal clearly trying to come across as more personable.

Ophiuchia felt that you could tell a bit about someone on first impression through a handshake and Immortal wasn't likely to be an exception. Their handshake was a firm one, but perhaps too firm. As Ophiuchia further traced the tone of Immortal's voice and their mannerisms, it seemed increasingly likely the handshake had been a case of them attempting to put up a confident front and overdoing it. As for their request to work together, Ophiuchia was open to it. With Blink having gone off on his own and Gauss angrily barking at emergency services for their stubbornness, Ophiuchia figured it wouldn't hurt to work with and get to know a colleague that she hadn't really met before.

"Sure I'll work with you, I've got some ground penetrating sensors along with thermal imaging among other tools. Though definitely the fires will make things a bit difficult. I'd say that we could just work alongside the firefighters, but I think Gauss is pretty firmly in control of that. Perhaps we can focus on the places that are not on fire but at risk of collapse?" Ophiuchia kept her tone friendly and open, despite Immortal potentially showing cracks in their confidence, she felt this really wasn't the time for mind games.

As for how to help, Ophiuchia wasn't about to put herself into a position to be bossed around again nor did she feel arguing about the specifics of how to rescue people was something she felt would be worth it, if she could avoid Gauss for the time being, that would be for the best.

A calming cool wave washed over Immortal when hearing such a response, their fears of rejection finally subsided. This reflected in them actually managing to make eye contact with Ophiuchia, and their posture looking a lot more relaxed. "Ah, good, yes. Uh, that's actually a really good idea in all honesty. Much more likely to find some survivors, or at least help find some dead..." They looked over to some buildings nearby, scorched ones, but the flames subsided. "In all honesty I'd like to stay out of the way out of the firefighters and let them do their job, and then just cover the areas out of their reach. Since, well, I don't know about you but I'd rather not get in, er, Gauss's way."

For Immortal, their helmets HUD was lighting up with all sorts of weak signals in the rubble around. Most of them not body shaped, and some were... Well, not very nice to look at if the outlines were to be trusted. Visible shivers coming from Immortal as they looked around. "I say we should totally prioritize the buildings that are more... Unstable? Since we could go in and out quickly and find as many as we can."

As Ophiuchia spoke with Immortal it became clearer to her, for whatever reason, Immortal was growing more comfortable and less rigid. That was good, the carnage that surrounded them would do enough to disturb an empathetic person, of which Immortal clearly was, judging by their reaction as they surveyed the scene.

"Yes, we should prioritize those buildings. Particularly those that have partially collapsed already. As unfortunate as it is to say, the circumstances of those in already completely collapsed buildings isn't going to be worsened overtime quite to the degree of those in buildings that have yet to, as such we should focus our efforts there, where we can use our sensors to locate people before they're buried even more." Ophiuchia hoped that her calculating attitude to saving lives wouldn't leave her coming across as callous, but she felt what she said as accurate and worth saving regardless of how it sounded.

"I think we'll want to focus on rescuing people who are likely to end up with life threatening injuries from further collapses, so that we can avoid further stressing our medical resources. Doesn't mean we abandon those already with life threatening injuries. Not particularly interested in retrieving the dead at the moment, though." Ophiuchia continued.

Immortal nodded in agreement, looking back at some scorched buildings more or less fitting their criteria. "Well we oughta, er, get going. Got some lives to save after all!" They actually sounded excited, like they were happy to actually get to work. A little uncanny given the situation, a little creepy even. Buuuuuut they were totally willing to get the job done at least. Honestly this was a far cry away from how they were just moments prior.

"Okay, so, I see some building's over about... Er... there?" They confusingly pointed down to this apartment clearly on its last legs. Prime area to find some survivors, or at least some bodies. Immortal adjusted their helmet, an tightening it. Looking back to Ophiuchia once more, and having a now less confident demeanor. "U-unless you know of a better building."

Ophiuchia found Immortal's sudden enthusiasm a bit jarring. It wasn't that she was bothered by it, so much as she was aware that it was something to be seen odd, particularly seeing as this appeared to be just another part of this individual's small roller-coaster of emotion.

Ophiuchia looked at the building that Immortal pointed out and went to work scanning it's structure. Now obviously couldn't ever be exactly sure when a structure would collapse, that all depend on complex outside effects that one can't exactly predict, however advanced the computer model, but Aethelind's calculations could give good idea of how vulnerable it was to collapse at some point and how it would collapse when it did.

"Sure, I think that building would be a good start, we should make sure we have direct radio contact with each other before we go in, in case we need to split up. Though, I'm not exactly sure how advanced your sensors and computers are, mine can calculate which areas are most vulnerable to collapse and help plot out an emergency exit path when we get in."

Ophiuchia often found herself having to act unilaterally due to her reaction time making it difficult to consult with others in a fast moving emergency. Now it wasn't as though time felt slower for her (not a lot truly bothered her, but one thing that did was the concept of having to live life at the fraction of the pace of others simply due to being able to think faster), but reaction times could only do so much for you in regards to communication. The speed of sound and others capacity to process information was for the most part out of her control.

"I should also inform you, I have superhuman strength and reaction time, in addition to the ability to fly and fire off concussive blasts. Might be a bit to ask this of you, having just met you, but if you see me suddenly clearing a path and blowing my way out of a room, trust me, ok?" For Ophiuchia, it wasn't so much an expected any real trust, this was more or less a subtle warning to Immortal to know when to stay out of her way .

"Speaking of powers, is there anything I should know about yours before we head in? I assume you can handle yourself, I don't want to get in your way." Ophiuchia said, in a friendly tone. One other benefit of giving Immortal partial information about her capabilities, is that it allowed Ophiuchia get some info on Immortal, as there was still very little that she knew about them aside from what could be deduced from passively scanning their power armor. As for not wanting to get in her way, Ophiuchia intended set the groundwork for leaving Immortal to their own devices in the case of a non serious collapse, as it would give her a chance to actively scan as much of Immortal as possible and an excuse for doing so if their suit could detect it. Ophiuchia intentionally avoided using TIAMA databases too much for information on her colleagues to avoid unwanted attention, but it meant that she had to opportunistically gather information by other means.

"Uh, yeah, uh... Can definitely lift a lot... Uh, also-" Right before they finished, a loud crash could be heard from the buildings behind. Immortal's full attention going right to it. "Uh, just know I can definitely handle myself. We gotta get going!" Immediately rushing off while signaling for Ophiuchia to follow. Their running was noticeably fast. Very fast. Well there was another power for Ophi to know of.

It didn't take long for Immortal to even reach the outside of the building, hell, it was actually shocking. They were waving over to Ophiuchia. Their scanner was up, blinking with little clicks. Almost as if it was "blinking" to refresh every now and then. Its light shining into the dusty interior of the building and twitch moving from left to right. With Immortal moving their head around, looking all around the entrance for any heat signatures. None. Then again it's an apartment building so maybe nobody was in the lobby at the time. "Fucking christ..." They sighed to themselves as they stepped through the entrance. Turning their head to make sure Ophiuchia was behind them, and waiting for a good minute.

Whole interior of the lobby was trashed, rubble everywhere and the only visible things through all the dust were flickering lights. It didn't look too unstable, but it wasn't trustworthy inside there in the slightest. Immortal's body language gave off an obvious discomfort. With them sticking close to the entrance proper, just in case a collapse got triggered.

When Immortal took off in the direction in the building, Aethelind kept close note of their acceleration, As Ophiuchia herself decided to quickly follow behind Immortal. She could have ran, but instead opted for quick flight and a hover landing next to Immortal, as Immortal scanned the entrance, Ophiuchia's own scanners went to work. Soon after Immortal stepped through the entrance, Ophiuchia followed after and went in front. The ceiling of the lobby had fallen, creating the rubble, but the lobby staircase was intact and wouldn't be collapsing, under its own, at least.

"The building isn't going to collapse right away, but when it does, the side west of this building is going first. We should start there. I suggest you follow behind me and keep scanning for any life signs, I'll focus on keeping track of the structure of the building." Ophiuchia could do both at the same time and in fact would be, but I'd be nice to have an idea of what Ophiuchia could detect and Immortal couldn't.

Ophiuchia intended to head west along the hallway of the building building on the ground floor, down the hallway. When she reached the end, she'd go up the west staircase to the second floor before turning east to back to the center of the building, before going up the center staircase and heading west along the third floor, repeating this pattern until she reached the top floor.

Immortal could only nod along to Ophiuchia's orders, their head darting around as they followed. Multiple signals of human remains were popping up. Their scanner was going crazier the more they followed behind Ophiuchia. With them finally stopping when they found one of the signatures seemingly moving, causing Immortal to immediately charge into the room the scanner was picking up the signal. Digging furiously through the rubble, and finding someone. Someone alive too, and from the looks of it only roughed up with a possible broken arm. Maybe inhaled some bad shit from all the rubble on top of 'em, but that wasn't a concern for now.

They turned back to notice Ophiuchia was continuing up the building's stairs, of course to be expected. They were just making sure the building was still stable after all. Immortal made quick work to remove the injured person from the chunks of rubble that encased them. Huh, seemed they were sleeping when all this happened. Hell, they still were asleep. Be it from trauma or they're just that heavy a sleeper. Immortal relieved to at least be fortunate enough to find someone put their hand up to their helmet, clicking on their comms. "Hey, Ophi, I got a live one. I'm gonna take him to the triage lot real quick. Scanner's still picking up some other possible survivors..."

After that Immortal lifted up the wounded sleeper with a light grunt, almost effortlessly holding the grown adult over their should. Then immediately breaking into a fast job out the halls and down the stairs. Their speed was sure as hell being useful right now, especially with how they had to run all the way across the street and head right back to find more. Stopping right before the parking lot, they pulled out a green tag and ripped it off to tie around the sleeping individual's arm. Hurriedly setting the wounded man down across the lot, and darting right back across the street at an uncannily high speed. Their scanner immediately going crazy once they returned.

After Immortal stopped following her, Ophiuchia decided that she better speed up her scanning. She quickly hovered through the remaining stairwells and hallways, of the six story building. As long as they weren't reckless, and in the absence of major shocks from the outside, the building would stand while Ophiuchia and Immortal worked to clear it out.


On the top floor, she came across many civilians that had avoided going outside because they had no idea if it was safer outside than.


Even not accounting for the possibility of collapse, leaving the building was far safer, due to the mold and debris that was hanging in the air. Luckily, nobody she came across on the top floor was worthy of more than a green tag, but having quickly scanned as she hovered by, that simply wasn't the case on the lower floors.

She had the residents of the top floor apartments wait by the door frames, while she handed out masks and they wait for further instructions.

In the meanwhile, she radioed Immortal.

"Immortal, I appreciate what you're doing, but think, we can't run in and out of the building 100 plus times, we need to focus on the red tags, I have an idea, though."

As she did, she paid close attention to the conversations that started up, with the help of Aethelind. This let Ophiuchia pick out the residents of the floor that were the most respected. She asked them to help clear out the building. She quickly explained the triage tagging system and provided them with tags and masks.

They were to get the most able bodied of them to escort the less able bodied and children out of the building via the emergency escape stairs on the east side of the building. Those worthy of yellow tags were to be carefully lifted out of the building and she told them to use the east side of the building to do so.

As for the red tags, at the entrance at the west staircase entrance of each floor they needed to have one person who was responsible for reporting which apartment number there were red tags at. Then Ophiuchia and her colleague would carry them out.

"What's he look like?" Asked one of the people chosen to report on the red tags.

"Well, they're shorter than me in and are wearing black armor, not sure about their gender, though, they might not be a he." Replied Ophiuchia.

Ophiuchia radioed Immortal again before the residents went to work.

"Be careful running in and out of the building, the residents are helping empty it out, on the entrance to each floor of the east staircase, there will be someone to tell you where the red tags are."

Ophiuchia reviewed the scanning data about the structure, it would be safe, for now, but once the building was cleared out, the last thing she'd want is for anyone to head back into the building only for it to collapse with them inside at some point in the future.

Immortal could only stop and think to themselves as soon as Ophi radioed over. They felt like a fucking moron for simply just running back and forth over one person. A small shiver traveled up and down their body as they rose their hand up to their helmet, clicking their radio on once more. "Ah, yeah, sorry I uh... " They trembled as they accidentally clicked their radio off before finishing "F-fuck..." They sighed to themselves, looking back to the building. Sighing before their radio chimed again with Ophiuchia's update.

This plan was actually pretty nice, much easier than running back and forth. With the added benefit of Immortal feeling like less of an idiot now that they could strive for something. Clicking on their radio again, with some confidence restored. "A-aye, I'm on my way." They were still a little shaky, but they knew these were important orders. Lives were on the line and they had to move quick.

Entering the building in a rapid manner they looked around, seeing the residents. Their anxiety levels spiking, but they could still let out a peep. "R-red tags. Where are they?"

"Uh, one in apartment 206 and uh another in 211." said the young man, seeing two metahumans in person was a full two more than he had ever expected to see, though he could tell this one was curiously far less confident than the other one.

Meanwhile Ophiuchia was on her way flying back to the apartment building having just dropped off a red tagged elderly woman for the paramedics to treat. She had been flying off from the emergency stairs on the west side of the building to carry away red tags, but it occurred to her that It'd likely be important to inform Immortal, who by their radio responses seemed rather overwhelmed by the situation, some further instructions.

"You should make sure to carry the red tags down the west staircase so that so the residents have the east staircase to use on their own, don't worry about me, I'll just fly."

As Ophiuchia landed, she had one another message to radio Immortal.

"By the way, once we're done here, we're going to get the residents in the nearby buildings to help themselves similarly, we just need to make sure to map out how they'll enter and exit buildings based on the damage to their structures we can detect, then rinse and repeat."

A single nod was given over to the young man, as a form of thanks. With Immortal clicking on their radio to respond "Aye, making my way up the west side right now." Immortal could only try focusing on the situation at hand as a way to keep their stress levels down. Felt good knowing they were getting things accomplished. Making their way up to one of the upper floors they began counting the various door numbers, 206 and 211 should be close to one another. Meaning they could definitely get one out while also making their way easier for the second person.

Immortal rushed by 206 all the way to 211, kicking in the door of the latter. Immediately looking in to find a young lady, torn up but definitely still alive. They ran up to the poor woman, picking them up gently as their scanner immediately began twitching again. Showing off multiple signatures to Immortal, nothing living, some torn up. God that wasn't a mood booster, but they couldn't let they get to them as they hurried out. Rushing over to 206, and kicking down the door. An audible creaking coming from around, but nothing coming from it giving Immortal the green-light to head back down.

The trip down was a careful, but rapid one. With Immortal taking as many safe ways to shorten the distance as possible. This red tagged lady really deserved that classification, they were utterly fucked. Finally running out of the building once more, and making their way out back to the triage lot. The all too familiar burst of adrenaline was there for them, and it filled them with this odd feeling. Their confidence actually returning rapidly as they finally arrived. Dropping off the red tag and waving down a paramedic "WE GOT A RED TAG HERE, NEED ONE OF YOU GUYS PRONTO!" They were shocked at themselves, actually being able to yell like that.

Yet they bolted off immediately again, knowing they couldn't distract themselves with some stupid thoughts of their psyche fucking with them. They had shit to do, and they had to do it fast. Making their way back to the apartment shockingly faster than before, they rushed in, taking the western stairs once more. The climb up the stairs this time was a little unnerving though. As audible creaking could be heard all around them. That Western half of the building was gonna cave in at any second, and they had to hoof it back to 206.

Charging down the hallway and through the open door of 2006, their nerves weren't calming down. That creaking got much louder throughout the area. Looking down on the red tag, their heart sank. It was a child, slightly worse than that lady they pulled out earlier. They were still breathing at least, unconscious like the lady prior. Kneeling down to pick up the child they could feel the ground around them shaking. Audible crashing below. With Immortal closing their eyes and exhaling, right before clicking on their radio. "Ophi, I need a damage report. I'm hearing a lot of shit going down and I need to know if it's safe to head down with this red tag."

They grunted as they lifted up the wounded child in their arms. No radio response yet, but no matter that crashing was a good queue to get the hell out. Immortal checked to see if they were holding the child safely, before immediately rushing out. Loud crashing continuing to be heard below and outside. With Immortal reaching the western staircase, but reaching a screeching halt when they heard more crashing directly below.

Ophiuchia was at the base of the building, near the entrance, when, she immediately noticed that the western side of the building was in the had started to collapse. Just then she received a radio message from Immortal inquiring about it and the fact they were carrying out the last red tagged victim. Luckily, as these were the last ones, the building had been otherwise cleared out of civilians, in fact ensuring that was precisely why Ophiuchia was at the base of the building. Additionally the area at which the residents of the apartment were gathered at was on the east side of the building, precisely due to her concern that the western side was prone to collapse.

Ophiuchia responded to Immortal.

"The building is starting to collapse into a sinkhole, it's not safe to head down by foot, I'll be up in a moment, I can fly them out safely."

Ophiuchia flew back into the building and up the western staircase, but as she did, the staircase, along the rest of that part of the building was continuing to collapse.

Ophiuchia had quickly reached Immortal, finding them holding an infant. Immortal then handed Ophiuchia the injured infant, before Ophiuchia blew out the outside facing wall of the staircase with a concussive blast from her force-field, shielding the baby as she flew out of the building.

A nod was given over to Ophiuchia as a form of acknowledgement, Immortal more than happy to let them take the wounded child away. Now the real challenge was getting the hell out before another collapse. This task was not helped by the fact the blast Ophi unleashed upon the wall destabilized the stairs further. Causing a collapse to trigger as Immortal rushed their way down. Their feet almost shattering the floor as they hoofed it down, riding down rails and making occasional jumps to cut time.

Bits and pieces of rubble impacted Immortal, clanking loudly against RAMSES II and leaving good scratches and dents. Oh how the worst was yet to come, as when Immortal finally reached the lobby they could hear the most stomach churning metal screeches from above. The building was finally giving in above them, and a quick look behind confirmed that the collapse was catching up to them fast. Too fast actually, and it was soon gonna envelop them.

Immortal reached their hand out of the entrance, just barely getting out until they could feel it. A monumental amount of force hit them in the back and launched them ahead. Rubble colliding with them as they were tossed around the street in a cloud of dust and chunks of debris.

Ophiuchia was generally not sentimental about death or injury, so flying off with unconscious and wounded infant wasn't specifically what bothered her. It was more the senselessness of it all, this was only one of many innocents injured and killed in this terror attack. Now, it was very possible that this explosion was unconnected to the Osteo's group. The fact that civilians were being targeted like this meant in some ways it'd make more sense if it was a complete coincidence. It seemed an attack like this would be completely contrary to their goals. However, there was also the possibility those responsible for this bombing simply got carried away in their hatred for non-metas. However that was all something to consider later. Right now, after having brought the child to the paramedics, her next concern would be checking on Immortal. She was entirely aware her exit put Immortal at risk, though they'd probably be fine. At least she hoped so, they still had yellow tags to bring the parking lot.

Upon returning what was left of the building, thankfully, the side of the building the residents were near was intact, she could observe that plenty of debris had been kicked out to the street and among the debris was immortal. This was an opportunity. She quickly radioed Immortal for their status and as she did Ophiuchia landed next to Immortal and quickly actively scanned as much of them as possible while trying to clear debris from the vampire, that probably saw themselves as a her, though there was point in vocalizing that guess at the moment.

Immortal's head poked right out of the debris, looking disoriented and banged up. The more Ophi dug the banged up vampire out, the more detail came on Immortal's Injuries. The suit was miraculously not that banged up, but Immortal's left arm had a good few punctures from metal rods and glass. Not super serious, but definitely not fun to look at.

Loud coughing came from Immortal as their right arm emerged from the rubble. Catching their head as they rubbed off dust from their visor. Wincing as they pulled up their left arm, slowly looking at the punctures before turning over to Ophiuchia. "Next time, I... Oh fuck it, just get me out of here..." They shook their head as they reached their right hand out to get helped out of the pile. "Remind me to just jump out to another roof or something next time... Be more preferable to almost getting crushed to death." Honestly Immortal was shockingly comfortable despite everything that just hit them. A very casual attitude about them, contrasting with that constant lack of confidence throughout the day.

As Ophiuchia pulled Immortal out of the rubble, she began apologizing. "My mistake, I should have been paying more attention to the area around the building, honestly thought it was going to stay upright longer than it did." Ophiuchia switched her comms over to communicate with the rest of her colleagues to update them on her and Immortal's status.

[Segral]

Emma Davis
Eastchester

Emma could feel her face begin to instinctively scrunch up into a confused frown as Jack began to ramble, bringing one hand up to her face to pinch the bridge of her nose and the other to put a palm up in surrender. "OK, wait...stop for one second." she said, taken aback slightly by the sheer influx of information that Jack was dumping on her. For someone who had supposedly had his knee janked and then immediately un-janked, had a rescue operation so bad that "good news" had become "not finding a burnt-out corpse", come knocking on death's door three times that day thanks to a massive explosion, a burning building, and Maria of all people (which was a separate can of vermin entirely), and lost his favorite shirt? No wonder he looked so jaded to it all. She would be jaded too.

Now that she had finally stopped for a moment to take a break, she didn't exactly want to get moving again. In fact, she hadn't really realized how exhausted she truly was, to the point where she practically had to fight to keep her legs from giving out and sending her sprawling in front of an entire army's worth of first responders. It was those same first responders that probably wouldn't look too kindly upon her sitting down and actually taking a break; a TIAMA hero sitting down and having a chat on a curb during the aftermath of a brutal terrorist attack wouldn't exactly look clean in the press. The best alternative was to lean against a nearby lamppost as she folded her arms, giving Jack a concerned look from up above.

"What do you mean, you powers got turned off?" she asked, frowning slightly as she mulled over the thought. "You tried to teleport, and what, it just...didn't work? What do you think happened?"

---

Dwayne Okafor
Status: Turbulence

"Well...shit." was all Dwayne could respond with to Gauss' request. And what a fucking request. All he could do was give a shaky, nervous laugh as he rubbed the back of his head, a laugh that sounded thin even to his own ears. Who the hell did he look like, Jack Kevorkian? Dying with Dignity and all of that bullshit? True, he wasn't killing anyone, he was just making the trip less painful, but that didn't make it any less painful for him. It was a good deed, a good deed for innocent people, and probably the last good deed anybody would ever do for them, and it was selfish to pussy out and say that he "cOuLdN't HaNdLe iT", but by God, he really didn't want to. How could she even ask him to do this shit? He had almost made it, made it through ten good years of community service without ever getting his nose dirty, without ever having to see what he had seen back home, and this was what happened?

Was he able to handle it mentally? Good question. A lump formed in his throat as he tried to find his answer, his eyes darting around to look at practically everything but Gauss' green eyes staring back at his face. Her gaze felt like 9th grade all over again, getting a football to the face whenever he fumbled a catch. Except, there were millions of footballs, all doinking him in between the nose one millisecond after another. He didn't deserve this. He was a good person, a good guy who had made a few mistakes, and this was his punishment. Or maybe this would be his repentance. Probably not all of it though. Maybe some lightning would strike his penthouse tomorrow.

With a deep breath in and out, he nodded slightly, finally bringing up his eyes to meet Gauss'. Her gaze still felt like it was punting into his forehead, but this was more of a tennis ball-flow rather than a football one. Damn, that was a good lyric. He needed to write that one down. But first, he had some shit to sort out.

"Yeah...I can do it. Should I head to the triage, or patrol the streets for any stragglers?"

---

Miguel Castro
Eastchester

A loud groan came from behind Simikiel as Miguel's three-hundred pound form plunked heavily onto the ground. It was a weak, hesitant cry, and oddly stilted too, as if the speaker was a deaf man who had little to no recognition of the sound of his own voice. It wasn't difficult to see why; the thin drainage of blood flowing from his ears was a perfect explanation for it all. With no eyes, no ears, and from the sound of it, little in the way of alert consciousness, the man seemed helpless, sleepily looking about this way and that in a futile attempt to gain his bearings. It was a miracle he could even groan at all, given the broken, bloody mess that coated the bottom half of his face.

Sure, he wasn't officially surrendering, at least not verbally, but exactly what choice he have? His body was in decent condition, his face and bruised back having taken much of the pummeling for the softer, frailer patches of his body, but a blind-deaf man never made it very far before he tripped, got lost, or both. Any attempt at a fight back would lead to him being put down in mere seconds. No, his savior would make the decisions on his behalf, and if his savior chose to surrender, then Armadillo would surrender too. The proverbial ball was no longer in his court. It hadn't been for quite a long time. It was in another court, upstairs and on the opposite side of the stadium, and he was at the mercy of TIAMA's play.

[Lessoni]

"What do you mean, you powers got turned off?" she asked, frowning slightly as she mulled over the thought. "You tried to teleport, and what, it just...didn't work? What do you think happened?"

Jack Dredd

That was a... very good question. And one he hadn’t bothered to think about, at least not until he wasn’t in an area where losing a limb wasn’t out of the question. He stopped to consider it, then realized there was nothing to consider. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened to him that day, unless Maria kept her syringes coated in some power turning off juice.

“Just didn’t work. Blinked like usual, didn’t... do the thing... I probably should’ve thought about this more closely. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. There was that blast, but Gauss and Ophi are fine. Maria stabbed me, but I teleported away before anything got... in... weird. Maybe... I dunno, maybe Maria messed with me somehow. She seemed really angry, before I apologized. Think she can maybe turn off powers, or something? I feel as if that’d be something we’d be made aware of, but maybe... not worth worrying about. They come back, they come back, they don’t, they don’t. Ah, fuck me if they don’t, that would suck. A lot.”

He said it all in a resigned tone, almost bored. Midway through his near monologue, he’d laid down on the sidewalk, staring up at the sky, eyes barely focused.

[Segral]

Emma Davis
Eastchester

"Oh...oh, Jesus Christ, Blink, don't conk out on me!" Emma groaned, dropping down to one knee at Blink's side and grabbing his hand as his eyes began to slide out of focus. What in the living fuck had Maria laced that goddamn bonesaw with? Maybe it wasn't just the bonesaw either. Maybe it was those syringes she kept shooting up with like a heroin-addicted vampire, or those scalpels Emma had seen poking out of her bag. Either way, the thought of it all was enough to drive any question as to why exactly a supposedly ticked-off Maria had decided to stab a literal kid, and replace it with a rising mixture of disgust and anger that began to well up in her chest. Her face and eyes retained their worried look out of sheer effort, but she couldn't prevent a slight twitch from running through her lips, nor could she prevent her free hand from beginning to tremble, forcing her to grab her own thigh to keep it from being noticeable.

"I swear, I'm gonna kill that bitch..." she muttered darkly under her breath with a sidelong glance towards the line of sirens and vehicles just ahead of them. The light was glaring enough to make her reflexively squint, bringing her hand up from her thigh to shield her eyes from the glow as she looked back towards Jack. "Alright, hang in there, buddy. You've had a long day, you've more than earned yourself some rest. Tell you what..." she said, pausing her frantic rant to dig a stack of slightly crumpled triage tags out of her pant pocket, and dangling it aloft in front of his eyes with her best attempt at a reassuring smile. "I'll tie you a green one, and you can use it to check into triage, or get paramedic attention, or whatever, catch a break from all of...this." she explained, gesturing wildly around her with an arm as she spoke. "If they let you go home, figure out a way to get there. If they transfer you to the hospital, even better, that's free transportation. Sound like a plan?"

[Lessoni]

"If they let you go home, figure out a way to get there. If they transfer you to the hospital, even better, that's free transportation. Sound like a plan?"

Jack Dredd

He didn’t want to tell her a lot of things. That he wished he could get out of here, that he was just exhausted in more ways than one, that entirely technically speaking he didn’t have a home to go to. Uncomfortable truths, but ones he figured he could dance around.

“W-what? Nah, I’m fine, just... really tired. Emotionally, more than physically. Just... give me a minute. I’ll be right as rain, probably. Save the triage tag, give it to someone whose injuries are a little more severe than ‘is a little bitch’.”

With an effort that would never show physically but required a significant amount of willpower, he got to his feet, brushing himself off. He shook his leg a little, seeing if his knee was feeling any better, or worse, and was relieved when it turned out to be the same.

“T-thanks, though, for the offer. It was actually very tempting. Now, I’m gonna go... I guess make myself look useful.”

[Union Princes]

Gauss' eye twitched, just a little bit. Not enough to be noticed beyond a coincidence, but it was a decent indicator of her opinion regarding what the native German had called her. "Holiday, I need you to start separating your blood and plasma into IV bags and syringes, ask the EMTs for help if you need it, or at least ask if they have any spare IV bags. Only hand it out to those with a red tag. I don't want you to repeat what you did with Blink." her mind drifted a bit to the hole in her neck, arm and abdomen, "Most certainly not with me."

Maria smiled most devilishly at Gauss's new order while her sapphire pupils followed the stared deep into her irises. "Consider it done." The blondie nodded all too eagerly before turning around to see to her new patients. Skipping towards the EMT personnel, her sudden arrival was quickly followed by immediate demands for them to help gather as much IV bags the ambulances has to offer. Maria pleaded and threatened the emergency probiders to kowtow to her demands as they rushed like ants to get the necessary equipment to gather plasma while she performs bloodletting in herself.

"Do remember that these bags for the patients with red tags attached to them." Maria reminded the response teams while the process has started, "They're the ones that need it the most."

[Anowa]

"I surrender. Just like the French."

Hussar's eyes had a visible flash of anger as he fully processed what the beast in front of him had said, before ripping out a sentence in his own tongue "Potwory takie jak ty zasłużyły na obozy."

Hussar's hand glowed a furious orange then blue,as the sound of snapping tibia's echoed down the sewers. The very next spell putting both criminals under a very deep sleep. The Polish hero turned to Synapse and spoke, "Young Synapse, I leave them in your charge and shall inform the constabulary." a pause as he slowly flapped his way out of the hole, "If they try anything funny, keep striking them until you're pounding wet bone into the brick."

The man subsequently departed, a few minutes later, the hole was veritably swarmed by a mob of cops, who proceeded to drag the duo of terrorists from the hole, and in a scene reminiscent of the spark that caused the LA Riots, proceeded to beat both to an unjust, yet rightly deserved degree. Yet both would live to see the untold horrors that awaited them.

"Yeah...I can do it. Should I head to the triage, or patrol the streets for any stragglers?"

Gauss gave a slight nod, at his acceptance. A part of her earnestly wanted him to say no, just so there wouldn't be another person lined up at a therapist's office. Yet the man seemed to have more to him than a simple reformed criminal on a community service stint, "Stick around the triage area."

From there, Gauss all but disappeared into the wreck and ruin of the small neighborhood of the Bronx. Her mind went blank after the first three screaming people she found. No comforting words, no consoling pats, simply pick them up and get them to paramedics. An inhuman mask to cope with the already packed closet of skeletons and emotional despair the young woman already had.

By the day's end, the Bronx's activity had died down, with those still remaining simply helping with corpse retrieval and clean up. It was the grim fate of anyone in a disaster like this, sometimes no one got to you before you died. After after an hour,m anyone with a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding was likely dead. 8 and it was likely anyone without fresh air had passed out and suffocated. Gauss' thoughts strayed for the whole 18 hours she stayed, to those who had died trapped under tons of rubble, cold, alone, and in the dark. She knew there was no being fast enough, and that fact alone was pure torture for the woman.

When she finally returned to the triage area for the last time, she would count the dead, perhaps out of her own need to confirm just how bad it had been, maybe to assign a head count to the three banded bastard so she could justify executing the grotesque bastard.

Maybe it was just a self destructive need to see more death, to validate her want to leave her mortal coil behind. After all, if so many people died after the efforts of hundred... what use was a single person like her? She would pass out in the shower some 2 hours later, thoughts of dead friends echoing through her mind, and the faces of the day's dead burned into her soul.

---

Sand.

Sand and ruin strewn road for as far as she could see. It was more reminiscent of the Highway of Death than Syria, but for Hannah there was no difference in her mind. Each and every vehicle she passed had a memory, each one she looked at the sight of a dying or dead friend.

A surplus Humvee left behind after the US Withdrawal: Thomas crying for help as he slowly but surely died from the White Phosphorous burning a hole into his skull, Hannah and Mikaela trying in vain to dig the burning chunk of wax out with a knife. His screams were what haunted Hannah, what started as agony and barely restrained thrashing descending into what could only be described as trogolodyte grunting, and autonomous twitching, as the incendiary wax bored through the man's synapses, before haunting silence.

Their unit's first MRAP... or the half of it that still existed: Hannah and Max singing the duet from Opposites Attract before the front half of the vehicle just fucking disappeared, killing half her squad and cutting off the song... one that Hannah couldn't listen to anymore, not without bursting into tears. It was the same incident that ripped her face off and removed her hands and forearms for a good three weeks. Only recently had hannah stopped seeing her have regenerated face staring back in a mirror. The contorted visage of gristle and carbon crusted, transparent skin having burnt into her mind as her own self image for months afterward.

A BTR-80 donated by the Russian Army. It was supposed to be a force multiplier. Instead it only became an echo box as it was turned into a trash compactor by an extremist telekinetic. Hannah ended up killing the fucker,m but not before screams over the radio and the sound of metal and bone crunching in a symphony of horror had burned it's way into her very soul.

Then came a simple bus. The arabic lettering denoting some random city's public transport painted over, once with a massive black block, and again with 'TIAMA' and the UN's insignia. TIAMA ME couldn't afford anything better at that point, not after the losses in Mosul. It was, most definitely, the most impactful event Hannah had lived through, by far. The day a bus full of 60 some people turned into a bus full of 59 some odd skeletons soaked in blood, and Gauss, surrounded by her dead friends and suffering severe barotrauma. A single ultrasound blast had ripped the very flesh from her compatriot's bones, turning it into a fluid before they could even register. hannah? Hannah lived. She wished she didn't.

As the woman walked down the road she had dreamed for nearly every night since she had come back to her home, she reached the end. There, kneeling, was Marcus. But not the Marcus she knew, not the 12 year old she had seen get turned into a human toothpaste tube.

This marcus was older, stretched out, his limbs were too long for a 12 year old, nothing but skin and bone, his raven black hair was longer than hers, even. But he looked up, slowly, and spoke her name, in an ungodly, inhuman moan. Before now, hannah could always handle it, just barely. But this alone, an internal personification of the spectre that loomed over since she was but a child. A time when her biggest worry should have been puberty, was instead mourning her brother.

---

March 24th, 2020
12:13 PM

Hannah awoke on the floor of her home's kitchen, empty bottle of Hapsburg Gold label, 179 proof absinthe. One of the few alcohols that could actually put her under a table, thanks to her fucked metabolism, and natural resistance to alcohol poisoning. As she rubbed her eyes, she sat up, spotting two more bottles of the same liquor resting at her feet. Her head felt like it was actively being split by an axe. Sighing, her nose crumpled instinctively from the smell of damn close to pure alcohol. Standing, a beer bottle fell off her lap and bounced off the floor. Ignoring it, Hannah made her way to one of many bathrooms in the empty and lonely house. Staring in the mirror, she, for a fraction of a second, saw the grisly look of her own IED blasted skull before blinking it away.

She didn't look great. Bloodshot sclera, bags under her eyes, her hair was a fucking nest, and the crust that formed over one's eyes as they slept had come out in force it seemed.she looked to the mirror's left, at the calendar that she usually wrote important shit on. On today's agenda, meeting with Blink so he got put on the course to not be a sack of bones, starting at about 2 PM today, Hannah sighed. She would've put her own workout before that, but last night had other plans.

After a cold ass shower and some self grooming, Hannah got dressed for the occasion, grabbed her gym equipment, keys, and the balf finished bottle of myostatin suppressants from her medicine cabinet. The pills were based off of a synthetic fungus, and fungal spores basically never died, so they had no real shelf live. They were close to 6 years old at this point, and Hannah had used a good 4 other bottles to go from a rather strong but still rather lanky 16 year old into a woman who could squat 4 tonnes, being a dhampir did help on that avenue though.

She thought about making food, but settled on grabbing something on the way.

---

Elsewhere, one Anthony Cross was reading off a figurative mountain of written reports, both medical and after action, of the various TIAMA personnel involved and the ongoing attempts to find a functional prison for the duo of terrorists apprehended two days prior. Right now, it had been settled to just have a duo of M2 Brownings aimed at them in their own seperate cells, with the guns alternating depending on the cycle of guard posting. Magically enchanted HEIAP rounds loaded for the full belt on all of them, just to be doubley sure.

However, it didn't take Anthony long to figure out that the event was just an overblown distraction. A massive hole had been dug up in a swamp near Goldsboro, North Carolina. Normally, not a cause for concern. But Anthony was a properly paranoid man, namely when it came to such random events.

In January of 1961, a B-52 had ended up needing to dump it payload near said swamp. Said payload were two three to four megaton thermonuclear warheads. One of the two was discovered 1 quarter of it's arming sequence away from erasing everything within 8 miles. The other, buried in over 20 feet of swamp muck, was simply safer to leave there. Which is where it remained until Sunday. Needless to say, this was information being held very close to the chest, no one in the US government or TIAMA wanted news of such an event coming to light, the US Army had already filled the hole with mud and written a story about a check up on the dormant bomb.

However, Anthony was now worried. Not for that reason, but because their resident blood cow apparently wasn't as safe as the FDA had thought. Which is why Holiday was being called in to his office in the WTC.

[Lessoni]

Jack Dredd

Training. He wouldn’t say it was his least favorite activity, that would probably be getting shot, but it wasn’t something he often sought out. He wasn’t looking forward to it; he hadn’t slept much at all, since the attack in the Bronx. One, the city seemed a lot louder, and two, there were quite a few more people to compete with for good spots to sleep. “His” alley had been snatched, along with the bag containing his two changes of clothes. Overall? A terrible week for Jack Dredd, though made much better by the 4000 he now had to spend on himself. He’d almost considered crashing in a hotel, but decided against it. Better save it till he found a place. He only hoped Gauss would take it easy that day.

He’d shown up to the training facility early, taking advantage of the showers there. Now he just needed a TIAMA laundromat and he’d be golden. Now he sat, more than a little bored, waiting for Gauss.

[Mandicoria]

JFK International Airport
Kurt Harrington, The Patriot
Uncharacteristically tense...

Patriot twiddle his thumbs as he looked at his phone, an uneasy air about him. Uncharacteristic considering his usual behavior would be much more confident, assured, and outright brutish. Yet this was a different side to him, his face looked uncertain, almost like he was going to panic every time he looked at his phone. Closer examination revealed he kept the same screen up on his phone, the contacts screen. His mother's contact was brought up. It'd been years since he talked to her, back in 2015. He could only feel more uncomfortable as he thought of it all further. He stopped talking to her just because she supported Senator Sanders all that time back. God, he couldn't really bear himself being reminded of this.

A deep sigh as he looked down at his plane ticket, one way trip to Phoenix. He'd be coming home for most of the week, got lucky enough to get his leave of absence approved. Tesla had some temporary handlers, and Patriot himself had this leave approved on the condition he would immediately return if summoned. Good enough deal, even if he also had to leave the armor behind. Yet this leave wasn't for him to have some relaxing vacation in the sun, it was for something else entirely.

A deep sigh came from him as he swapped off his mom's contact. Immediately switching over to his dad, pressing "call" as he rose the phone up to his ear. Sighing as he heard his phone dial.

Harrington Residence, Phoenix Arizona
David and Alicia Harrington
Happily retired...

"David! Could you come down and help with dinner?!" Alicia cried out, tending to frying meats and vegetables on the stove top. Darting over to finish rolling out some homemade tortilla's, readying them for the frying pan. Being all caught up with her cooking up until she heard their TV's speakers kick on, a familiar song beginning to play through the living room and kitchen. A giggle coming from her as she went back to cooking. "David, just what are you doing?~"

David came out, a playful demeanor about him as he danced over to the kitchen. It was stupid, but fun and charming to see. This stupid grin on the shockingly young appearing old man's face. "Oh nothin' dear, just thought we oughta have some music if we're gonna cook together! Lord, it's been how long?" Approaching up to his wife, giving her a warm embrace and kiss on the cheek. He could hear some giggling come from Alicia.

"Still a charmer, as always. By the way, you got some flour on you." She could barely contain even a light laugh the moment David stood back, revealing a massive amount of flour all over his torso and arms. "Could you keep an eye on the meat I have frying? I really have to get these tortilla's rolled out-" She would be cut off by David's phone ringing, of course it was a tacky ringtone he didn't bother to change.

"Sure thing, babe. Just a sec though, gotta check who this is." He pulled out his phone, noticing his son's name was up on the screen. A light chuckle coming from him as he pressed answer, making sure it was on speaker. "Yello?"

"Uh, hey dad." Patriot's voice echoed from his father's phone.

"Ohoho, Kurt! It's been a while big boy, how are ya? Hope you didn't get caught in all that business over in New York. Heard there was a big attack over there, terrible stuff yeah?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm just calling to tell y'all I'm coming over for most of the week. They approved my leave and all."

"Oh that's wonderful! When you expectin' to be at the airport? I can be over to pick you up."

"Sometime tonight I think, I uh, hrm. Look I'm gonna-" Patriot's voice would be cut out by Alicia.

"David! The meat!" She yelled over, gesturing for David to take over the stove.

"Ah, sorry dear. Look, Kurt, I'll be over to get you once you're here in Phoenix. Just send a call or something, buhbye." Immediately hanging up as he darted over to the stove. Looking over to his wife. "You think he's gonna talk to you this time?"

A single tear rolled down her eye, the question obviously being something she didn't wanna hear. Her son hadn't talked to her in years, and even during visits he wouldn't even acknowledge her presence. It was... Heart wrenching to say the least. With her only returning a "no" via a nod.

"Look dear, I'll talk to him. I think maybe this time I can get him to come around..."

[Europa Undivided]

Undisclosed Location

Interrogation

There was a sound of doors being unlocked, and unceremoniously relocked from down the hall. Between Simikiel sitting in a completely empty cell sans a seemingly simple drain, there was nearly 8 meters of open space before two barrel of two seperate fifty caliber machine guns were pointed at him through gun ports in nearly half a foot of bulletproof glass. Everything had a rather odd sheen of plastic to it, regardless of weather it was plastic or not.

Above Simikiel, running the whole length of the room, what looked fire hose nozzles sat embedded into the roof unused and waiting, with no visible pipes feeding them, one could assume it was a simple fire suppression system. Except, every so often one of them dripped, and that little droplet fizzled the whole fall down, not even able to hit the ground before the acid had decayed on contact with the air.

At the first sign that the two heavy machine guns hadn't put the man down, those sprinklers were capable of dumping nearly 3000 gallons of fluoroantimonic acid into the room inside 2 seconds. Filling it and consigning anything and everything within to full on dissolution.

Eventually, the sound of walking reached Simikiel. As a man in a rather neat uniform arrived near a computer console between the two machine guns. Speaking into a microphone, Simikel could hear the man clearly.

"Erik Fregel, under the United States' Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, first and second provisions, you have effectively waived your rights to habeas corpus. The date is Tuesday March 24th, year 2020. I am Detective Johnathan Graves. I am strongly suggesting your cooperation, the longer this goes on the more likely the boys here get tired and accidentally shoot you multiple times."

"First and foremost, what was your role in the attacks on the 22nd, this Sunday?"

Erik coughed as the detective asked him a question, seemingly ignoring him at first. The villain mumbled something in German, something about how 'monster' was a rather strong word to describe him.

Still, he stood up, and leaned on the cell wall. "I was paid by you-know-who to sow chaos in the city.", he simply said, pacing around and round his cell. "I assume that Mr. Castro over there was paid to do the same thing."

He coughed again, a second time. "The explosion wasn't part of the plan."

"Remain sitting at the far end of the cell or I'll fill the room with enough acid to melt the CN tower. First and final warning."

"Hmph." Erik scoffed as he proceeded to sit on the far end of the cell in apparent obedience. "I'm answering all your questions perfectly and yet you threaten me with acid. How fitting for a group that claims to be the humanity's shield."

"Your response has been noted and will be presented in court." a pause, "Please clarify on whom 'You-know-who' would be?"

Erik chuckled. "Oh, kurwa. Of course you know who it is... but I will enlighten you. Who else can it be, but Alexander Carmichael?"

The audio cut out as the man said something, a few moments later the audio cut back in, "Explain your association with Mister Castro."

Erik slightly adjusted his tattered black cloak. "He is not of the Rising Tide like me. Mr. Castro is not someone I know, really. But I do know that... he is someone you humans threw away for being a 'freak'."

A pause. "And for that reason, I sought to keep him from the fate of being a lab rat, the excruciating torture and agony that was wrought upon me for two whole years."

Erik coughed, and leaned his head on the wall. "Your government made monsters, and now you are paying the price."

The audio cut again as he said something, there was a pause, before it cut back in, "What do you mean by 'the explosion wasn't part of the plan'?"

Erik crossed his hands. "Mr. Carmichael never intended for there to be casualties in the massive scale. Truly, he actually didn't want any at all. Someone did their job rather... poorly. I wonder who would that be, so that I could leech their soul from their body for being so, so, sloppy..."

"We know, he told us. Threw you and Mr. Castro under the bus pretty readily." a pause, "So how did you come into contact with Mr. Carmichael?"

"Oh, just a standard phone call. My colleagues didn't like that I was the only one who got the message. He pretty much said to cause a distraction. And a bloody good distraction that was indeed. Worst attack since 9/11."

A short silence followed. "It was August 9th, 1960. I was out, with some friends. We had a good night, the threat of nuclear war notwithstanding. But... some, deranged fool drew a gun on my amigo . I, well, protected him. Wrapped that crank with chains... hmm. Felt good to be a good man. But your government thought that it would be better if goodness was rewarded with evil and suffering. I was drugged in my sleep and dragged to a lab. They poked me with every mortal instrument of knowledge known to man. And I snapped."

Another coughing fit ensued for a few moments, before Erik stopped. His eyes were now a fluorescent green, and his voice was starting to turn to a demonic tone. "You see now, Detective? This is just the beginning. The sins that humanity has committed upon the gifted will return to haunt you in your dreams and waking hours. The monsters you people have created in the labs and the prisons will come for you. Vengeance is at hand."

With that, he sat back on his seat, seemingly calm now. "Your so called heroes are not so great, you know. Some are villains in all except for name."

The detective simply gave an inquisitive look, his mouth opened as if to ask a question, when a gravelly baritone spoke from further down the hall, "You are dismissed, detective." The voice made everyone outside flinch, and notable start sweating in anxiety.

The detective wordlessly almost jogged away, as a massive figure clad in a military battle dress uniform, metal plates attached here and there, with a wedge Shaped helmet strode into view. Simikel's ears would be filled with dull and almost imperceptible whispers from a nearly impossible variety of languages.

The massive man spoke, "Your so called 'gifted' have always been around. You however are to be one of many destined to be forgotten in the annuls of time. For what was your act of lunacy a distraction for, child?"

There was a chuckle. "Oh, of course it is you, One, Destroyer of Worlds. Well, I can say that you people must have already found a hole somewhere. And... oops. Seems there that were a few nuclear weapons in there. Now they're all gone, taken by the man of bone and his lackeys."

A pause. "Being forgotten won't be so bad. We are all but shadows, some less fleeting than others, but still mere specks in an indifferent universe. I won't be forgotten either way, for my name will always be recalled amongst the brothers and sisters of the Rising Tide."

One hummed, before he took a step forward, then another, and another.
Before the glass started cracking and giving way before the man who was not even phased by the foot and a half of solid transparent aluminum. Trench like footsteps were carved into the concrete floor as the force they underwent could not be sustained. Chunks of the glass began sloughing off on the inside of Simikiel's cell. The sheer amount of torque delivered from the man's legs allowing him to wade through the obstacle meant to stop the likes of Ophichiua like it was nothing more than water.

One slowly approached Simikiel, "For what purpose were they taken?"

Simikiel crossed his arms. "As leverage for his demands, I suppose."

"So you do not know?"

Simikiel coughed. "I am not privy to that information... you'll know that I'm telling the truth if you had a telepath."

"Than it seems you are rapidly running out of use." a pause, "What was the phone number you were contacted from?"

"(604) 683-5800.", came the answer.

One didn't even skip a beat, "That's a phone number for a Dominos in Vancouver. If you continue to give me joke answers your head will be used to repaint this cell."

"Hmm.", Erik pondered at the number. "Osteo seems to be a smart man. He probably called from that number to avoid being traced. I tell the truth, One. I never lie. I am many things, but a liar is not one of them."

"You'll find that I don't believe that." a pause, "You will remain here until you are brought to The Hague. If you try to escape, I will know, and I will kill you." with that, the massive man walked away, moving through the massive hole he had left in the cell.

---

Shadowshock | Shadows of the Past

Robert phased through the wall, shutting down all of the nearby lights in the process as his powers went to work. Undeterred by the darkness that he had brought into being, he sought out his target: a terrorist leader by the name of Abdul al' Tafher. If this was just an ordinary terrorist leader similar to the likes of Osama Bin Laden, this would comparatively be a piece of cake to do. But no. This man was different. Very different. Abdul, an extremist, was also a metahuman, one that became stronger whenever he heard the groans and wailing of suffering. He was given the code name of Black Thorn as per the weapon that he always manifested in combat. The IDF and TIAMA had been trying to subdue al' Tafher to little effect; he wasn't alone, as he had fellow extremist metas on his side. They went by the names of Djinn and Hellfire, though the two of them have been defeated by TIAMA ME a few days ago, albeit at great cost. This was truly the worst section of the entire organization to be in.

Now, though, Shadowshock had volunteered for this mission, to rescue a whole battalion of soldiers that were taken by Black Thorn. Their suffering was so profound that their wails could be heard from a kilometer away, but Black Thorn's powers would not let them die. No, they will live, and be his fuel.

Funny. This wasn't even his place of assignment. He was in vacation in Tel Aviv when news of Black Thorn abducting a battalion filtered in, and seeing how TIAMA ME was drawn ever so thin, he volunteered. Never mind that today was rest day.

Ah, yes. There he is. Black Thorn. Now to snap his neck with a well placed shock wave...

---

March 24

Robert stared at the computer screen, seemingly lost in thought. Patrols for him weren't up today, so he was going to update his blog, and perhaps the YouTube channel as well. He was all alone in the house; his parents were both ashes inside jars in the living room, and his sister... well, she has her own life as a hero in her own right in Great Britain. It was a shame though that her former lover had fallen into the dark side of the force...

Ophiuchia is on fire., he thought to himself as he looked at the latest news related to the event in the Bronx. Apparently, some people thought that her suggestions were paramount to turning the United States into a police state. He had always disliked the media, despite being part of it. All too often, things are excessively blown out of proportion... all or the views and publicity. Weird...

Writer's block... of course. He couldn't put any words today. How sad. Either way, his technokinetic uncle was coming home sometime today, so that was something to look forward to. Jacques seemed to not be himself lately. During the aftermath of the Bronx explosion, the grief and awe that Jacques usually expressed to such things were absent. He was a completely different person... whenever he was in that suit...

Maybe. Maybe that entity in that suit was doing something... strange.

[Union Princes]

However, Anthony was now worried. Not for that reason, but because their resident blood cow apparently wasn't as safe as the FDA had thought. Which is why Holiday was being called in to his office in the WTC.

Holiday
After bloodletting several liters (or maybe gallons) of her healing blood yesterday, a new aura of confidence inhabited Maria's mind as she strolled into the WTC like she owned the place. Knowing that she was healing people back to full capacity gave her tummy the feeling of butterflies as she wandered the halls with a blissful look on her face. Ironically, to a stranger, Maria was cute whenever to had a smile on her face but to her comrades already familiar with her, a smile is a sure tale sign that the blondie had just got away with murder. The chainsword strapped to her back and her bloddy handbag seems to confirm any suspicion.

Knocking delicately on Anthony's office door to announce her presence, Maria then peeked her head to grin at her superior. "Need me for something?"

[Cybernetic Socialist Republics]

Late at night in Amalure's apartment, March 23rd.


"You don't suppose that she's a ginger." Amalure said to Aethelind, laying down on her bed, reviewing the video from yesterday through her contacts, she slowing down the recording and focusing in on Gauss' face.

"Highly probably, given her freckles and those eyebrows." Said Aethelind, having just finished using the fridge sized manufactory that Aethelind produced and maintained equipment for Amalure, to produce a pair of shield projecting bracelets for Amalure to wear, recycling the shield projecting gear she used to cheat at bowling days ago in their construction. The bracelets could extend over her forearms and onto her palms when neurally activated. Amalure walked over to the manufactory and retrieved the bracelets. She'd wear these from now on when she wasn't with the sword, always had to be ready for anything.

"Hmm. I feel like having completed our first mission as a team, should show that I care by giving both Blink and Gauss a gift. Blink can get good use a pair of new rugged binoculars, that's easy, it'll help him teleport further and more precisely, I can quickly buy that online. As for Gauss, if that Marauder vehicle and her power armor is anything to go by, it's fair to guess that the redheaded vampire is rather rich; so a homemade gift for her would be ideal. I think , I'll bake her some unique gingerbread cookies." Said Amalure, an idea coming to her.

Ophiuchia first had Aethelind print a sheet of two dozen gingerbreadwoman molds, as she went to work making the dough. Technically all of the cooking could be done by Aethelind, right down to producing ingredients, but it'd take too long to be worth it and it wouldn't have the touches of imperfections that came with homemade cooking. Luckily however, having access to a A.I. such as Aethelind and excellent reflexes made cooking with precision easy enough for Amalure, even though she wasn't an expert by any means.

With the dough prepared, she'd wait overnight for it to chill, and while Amalure slept, Aethelind would continue producing the molds and the packaging for Ophiuchia's gift, and afterward she'd go to work on another project. The events of the day convinced Ophiuchia that i'd make sense to give Aethelind a small drone that could stealthily gather information and even pester villains. So Aethelind would spend the night producing a small drone that looked like a snake and could slowly change its size, color and texture to match different species of snakes. While a fraction as powerful or fast as Ophiuchia when carrying the sword, it would alsp have shield projectors and the ability to hover.

Early next morning, Amalure continued baking. She pressed the dough into the molds and put them in her oven. She soon took the out and went to work decorating them.
She used orange icing for they hair, and green icing for the eye. She have the gingerbreadwoman a cute mouth with small fangs. The body of the gingerbread woman was iced black, segmented with thin grey lines as if defining armor plates. Lastly, the gingerbread mold included a hole right through it, which Amalure sticked a grey colored stick of Liquorice through, surrounded by red icing at the entry point. She did this for all 24 gingerbread women.

She put them all in a compact tin container with slots to neatly fit each gingerbread woman, layered and staggered to save space. She was complete, 24 gingerbread Gauss(es) with candy rebar sticking through them. If nothing else, Amalure was being true to her type of humor. By the time she finished packaging them, Blink's binoculars arrived, she'd just pick them up on her way out. She then put on a nice spring outfit. And prepared to leave.

Amalure put her gift for Gauss in a bag, grabbed an extra bag for Blonk's gift and her own exercise bag, which could be carrying her sword and headed down to her Tesla, picking up the package from the delivery point on her way. Rather than put the bags in the front trunk, she placed them in the seat next to her, before getting in the driver's seat. She then left the parking garage and headed for the Staten Island TIAMA facility.

---

Jack Dredd

Training. He wouldn’t say it was his least favorite activity, that would probably be getting shot, but it wasn’t something he often sought out. He wasn’t looking forward to it; he hadn’t slept much at all, since the attack in the Bronx. One, the city seemed a lot louder, and two, there were quite a few more people to compete with for good spots to sleep. “His” alley had been snatched, along with the bag containing his two changes of clothes. Overall? A terrible week for Jack Dredd, though made much better by the 4000 he now had to spend on himself. He’d almost considered crashing in a hotel, but decided against it. Better save it till he found a place. He only hoped Gauss would take it easy that day.

He’d shown up to the training facility early, taking advantage of the showers there. Now he just needed a TIAMA laundromat and he’d be golden. Now he sat, more than a little bored, waiting for Gauss.

Not long after parking her car and entering the facility, bags over her shoulder Ophiiuchia came across Blink. Notably, he was wearing the same tattered clothing he had at the bronx bombing. While he knew that he had odd habits, combined it didn't take much to put together what she'd observed about him before that there was a good chance he was homeless. This was an annoyance, he had more than enough to find a place to rent with the money he made from TIAMA. he was part of the privileged few with metahuman powers that could get a monthly paycheck like this. It really was a privilege in this moment in time, history being full of suppressed, sidelined minorities that never had the side benefit of also having superpowers. Regardless, it wasn't a good luck for Blink to carry himself around like this with him on her team, so she'd, unfortunately, have to work with him.


"Hey Blink, I've got a gift for you." Said Ophiuchia handing the bag over to him.

"Hey, umm, mind if I ask why you're wearing the same clothing you had at the Bronx bombing?"

[Lessoni]

"Hey Blink, I've got a gift for you." Said Ophiuchia handing the bag over to him.

"Hey, umm, mind if I ask why you're wearing the same clothing you had at the Bronx bombing?"

Jack Dredd

He looked up at Ophi as she spoke to him, not jumping or startling, which he considered an improvement, especially considering he hadn’t slept in a day. Now he just had to control his stutter and he might actually seem like a human being for once. He took the bag, not yet opening it.

“I uh... don’t suppose you’d take fashion statement as an answer? I’m just gonna rip this bandage off quick, I don’t really have a place to stay in the city, I got here like... a week or two back? And holy heck it’s hard to find someone who’ll rent to a seven-eighteen year old... I’ll rip that bandage off to, I’m a 17 year old with no ID, bank account, parents, or co sign, and I can’t even cash my checks so I just carry them around all the time, and I got like 4000 dollars from Chris but I wanted to save it to deposit when I turn eighteen in like two months but- I’m rambling. My bag with my clothes got stolen, and I didn’t feel like buying new ones.”

No stutter, at least. He seemed to notice the bag in his hands again, and opened it, taking the binoculars out and peering through them, half expecting to come back with black shoe polish rims around his eyes. He made the conscious effort not to check as he tilted his head at Ophi once again.

“Oh, uh, thanks, Ophi. These are... alright I’m gonna be honest I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with the- wait, I gotta... look at things to teleport and... okay yeah I get it now. These are actually like really useful. Thanks.”

[Aserais]

Skye Cross, AKA Synapse
In front of Hannah Konig's Apartment

Skye stood at the base of their best friend's building steps, biting their lip as they bounced on their heels and hesitated to climb the steps. They were in a simple denim jacket over a white a-shirt and some jogging pants, their hair swept up and to the side in the eternally windswept look that they seemed to be stuck with for the rest of their life. They held a small frame wrapped in brown paper in one hand, tapping it against the other as they hemmed and hawed about the decision to knock on their best friend's door. Skye hadn't been to Hannah's place since she got back from the Middle East, mostly because she hadn't invited the speedster--and normally, they would respect their friends need for space, but...

Hannah had been caught in that explosion. She was lucky to be alive, and had obviously been compartmentalizing things when Skye had seen her the day before, making sure the immediate situation was dealt with without allowing herself to process what she had been through...

Not that Skye would know about what she had been through. Hannah hadn't told them anything about her time in the Middle East. Hannah hadn't told them much of anything, recently.

Skye let out a deep sigh before they took the steps up to the door of the building two at a time, looking over the solid marble for the doorbell before they pressed it three times in quick succession. It was a code they'd had since they were kids, so that Hannah would know it was them calling. Three knocks, three rings, three kicks--anything to get the other's attention, as long as it was a quick succession of three.

"C'mon, Hannah, answer the freakin' doorbell, no way you're out already," they muttered to themselves, hoping that they were right.

[Anowa]

However, Anthony was now worried. Not for that reason, but because their resident blood cow apparently wasn't as safe as the FDA had thought. Which is why Holiday was being called in to his office in the WTC.

Holiday
After bloodletting several liters (or maybe gallons) of her healing blood yesterday, a new aura of confidence inhabited Maria's mind as she strolled into the WTC like she owned the place. Knowing that she was healing people back to full capacity gave her tummy the feeling of butterflies as she wandered the halls with a blissful look on her face. Ironically, to a stranger, Maria was cute whenever to had a smile on her face but to her comrades already familiar with her, a smile is a sure tale sign that the blondie had just got away with murder. The chainsword strapped to her back and her bloddy handbag seems to confirm any suspicion.

Knocking delicately on Anthony's office door to announce her presence, Maria then peeked her head to grin at her superior. "Need me for something?"

Anthony simply stared at the woman as she entered his office, he was clearly unamused as blood dripped onto the carpet. Thew man sighed, "A few things actually. Firstly, if you show up to work -let alone my office- covered in blood again, I'm terminating your employment. We've had no less than 12 separate complaints from our own personnel complaining about the smell, and I have no doubt in my mind the public are gonna lose their minds if they see you show up to a scene already bloodied." a pause as he finally realized what was slung over her back, "And for fuck sake get a scabbard for that fucking thing before it ends up giving someone tetanus."

"As for why I actually wanted you here, the hospitals that took in casualties from Sunday have found a correlation between your blood and AB- blood types developing immune system failures. Permanent immune system failures." Anthony was a smart man, he looked over the datat both recovered from the hospitals as well as the FDA's own reviewal and testing reports. There wasn't a whole lot that would've caused such a thing, except one... "You didn't separate your blood into plasma and red cells beforehand, did you?"

---

C'mon, Hannah, answer the freakin' doorbell, no way you're out already," they muttered to themselves, hoping that they were right.

Hannah was hit by a wave of dread seeing her only remaining friend through the peep hole. Hannah, of course still cared for Skye, you didn't know someone for nearly a decade and a half and just forget about them. It had been quite a while since they'd earnestly had a conversation, not out of disrespect or a falling out, but because they'd drifted. Hannah couldn't see any of her experienced relating to Skye's anymore. One of them had a social life, actually enjoyed their days, and generally lived their life, the other drank her pain away and was actively suicidal, physically in New York, yet still stuck in Syria. Hannah didn't want to dump her emotional baggage on anyone, really. Especially since it wasn't anything they could relate to, sure, Sunday was brutal, 127 dead, 723 wounded or in critical condition. But they were strangers, random people, and most of the bleeders and corpses were dealt with by first responders a lot faster and a lot more often than the heroes from TIAMA.

There was also the matter of most of her house looking like a bomb had gone off, the only three rooms she mattered to spend time in were the master bedroom, common room down the hall, and basement. Every other room was dusty as all hell, but the rooms she spent time in were full of garbage, empty cans, bottles, a few snapped nooses. There was a rather depressing and large brown, crusted stain on the ceiling of the common room, when Hannah found out a few months back that a shotgun blast under her jaw wouldn't kill her. It had been too high up for her to clean, so now it was a part of the never seen interior of her house. While the part that didn't want to burden her friend was predominant, the shame of living in a veritable ruin also played a major part.

Hannah remained silent, simply staring out the peephole, waiting for Skye to leave. A few minutes passed, and as Skye turned to leave a twang in Hannah's heart immediately shifted that decision.

"Hey Skye."

[Union Princes]

Anthony simply stared at the woman as she entered his office, he was clearly unamused as blood dripped onto the carpet. Thew man sighed, "A few things actually. Firstly, if you show up to work -let alone my office- covered in blood again, I'm terminating your employment. We've had no less than 12 separate complaints from our own personnel complaining about the smell, and I have no doubt in my mind the public are gonna lose their minds if they see you show up to a scene already bloodied." a pause as he finally realized what was slung over her back, "And for fuck sake get a scabbard for that fucking thing before it ends up giving someone tetanus."

"As for why I actually wanted you here, the hospitals that took in casualties from Sunday have found a correlation between your blood and AB- blood types developing immune system failures. Permanent immune system failures." Anthony was a smart man, he looked over the data both recovered from the hospitals as well as the FDA's own reviewal and testing reports. There wasn't a whole lot that would've caused such a thing, except one... "You didn't separate your blood into plasma and red cells beforehand, did you?"

Maria pouted internally when Anthony threatened to fire her but her smile never wavered. It only remained still in reply. She may have to find the people that filed those 12 reports against her and have a little chat with them. The blondie didn't think she smelled, after all, she does take regular baths and showers. Maria didn't stink of death, she wanted to believe she smelled of life. Alarm bells was ringing in her brain when he threatened termination over something as minor as bloodstains. Her sapphire eyes slowly burning with hidden rage and for a brief moment, Maria imagined herself slitting his throat in retaliation.

That would be problematic for TIAMA and herself. Gauss, Patriot, or maybe even Ophi can come in at any moment to grind her bones to dust assuming Anthony wasn't armed and ready himself. Maybe he has a shotgun under his desk that he can use to blow her head off. Or perhaps he has secret powers of his own that he can use to rip her apart limb from limb or stop a scalpel knife from penetrating his eyesocket. When Anthony insulted her beloved chainsword, Maria considered using it on him. Why worry about tetnus? Only an idiot would walk on a chainsaw barefoot. But the notion did inspire her to consider weaponizing tetnus in the future.

After a long period of mute contemplation of murdering the superior before her and being murdered herself in a hundred different ways, Maria broke her silence to answer his question. "Jawhol Mein Fuhrer! I separated my blood and my plasma just as Gauss told me to do!" the blondie saluted with great pride in her voice, like she got a Nobel peace prize, "She didn't want me going around using syringes to transfer my healing blood to the patients so I had to get the help from EMT squads to separate the plasma from my blood."

[Europa Undivided]

Shadowshock - Arrival to the Training Grounds

Robbie wasn't sure why he had come to the training seminar being offered in the TIAMA Training Center. Perhaps it was boredom, or the fact that he had nothing better to do due to the fact that he had already finished all of his other duties at home. He had cleaned every inch of the house, had the obligatory one hour call with his special other, and had phoned to some of the other TIAMA heroes that he personally knew. Apparently, Jacques was not coming along as he was feeling like 'Merde' after yesterday's events, plus the fact that he was just feeling, for the lack of a better term, 'not himself'. His good uncle Nicholas was still having that entry interview, and should come around soon though.

Either way, he slowly rolled down the window of his black painted 1962 Chevrolet Corvette (which he had inherited from his father, who was an avid collector of old cars that he usually never used anyway) to look at the doors of the training facility, checking at who was already there. He spotted a few familiar faces, including some people he had seen with his two good eyes back at the meeting that was concurrent with the Bronx Explosion. He didn't really know them, though. No reason to really speak with them, not when he doesn't have any good conversation topics to begin with anyway.

A few moments passed before he went inside the facility, scanning the perimeter for someone he knew. There was that lady that he had a thing with before but never quite took off. Such a shame, really. They could have been good...

Anyway, it looked like neither Patriot nor Tesla were here yet. He felt bad for being a less than cooperative teammate; such was the behaviour of those who were trained to be the one and final solution to rectify a situation with a dangerous meta or a lord of crime.

And, of course, Patriot isn't so bad, maybe. He may be what in Shadowshock's mind to be the literal incarnation of the flaws of the United States, but people who have anger issues often had something soft underneath. Maybe he should try to be a better ally to that man. Could be a friend, even.

Then of course there was Blink and Ophiuchia... that teenager seemed to still be wearing the same clothes from yesterday. That was slightly concerning, as that was definitely wasn't healthy at all, not with him being as scrawny as that. Ophi was giving him binoculars, though. "The rookie is being pampered it seems." In either case, Blink needed this training. But the prospect of shattered ribs and broken bones seemed to hang over his head every now and then...

There were those he was anxious to see, though. That German called Hans was one of those. His childlike naivety was something that Shadowshock found to be very likeable, though he was unsure if Hans was still afraid of needles. Probably is. Still missing him though.