Gods Among Us (IC|Superhero|Open)

[Segral]

Dwayne Okafor - Team A/F, White Mountain Research Complex
Status: Damn, Bitch...

The Boss-less elevator suddenly screeched to a halt with enough force to send the weed-dampened hairs on the back of his neck spiking up and nearly enough to send him falling on top of the midget French woman in front of him. This place had become way too damn crowded, even without Boss taking up a massive space near the door, but at the very least, stewing about it all under the influence made the cramped ride down more bearable, took his mind off of the car and whatever black hole it was leading him to. In what felt like a second, the doors were rolling open and the whole bottleneck was pouring out, Dwayne taking up the back (violation of his new rule, but alas, it had to be done) of the the scrum as they poured out into another...mysterious room alongside the rest of the team, sans Boss. This room was on that mysterious shit, action-thriller-Tom-Cruise-ass shit. Massive blast doors, holographs, empty tables, and racks on racks of carefully organized paper with not a single word on them? Yep, this was Tom Cruise shit. Cult-ass motherfuckers. It was silent like a cult too, barely anyone even shifted or coughed or breathed as they waited for Boss to come back, which didn't feel that much longer than the ride down had. He got to thinking about Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible in the meantime, and had barely gotten to Scientology by the time Boss came back with a box and a...a...gun?

The debrief that followed wasn't pretty. Basically, there was only two directions he could go, forward towards a black hole, and backwards away from a black hole. If he wanted to go forward, he could walk inside and die a week later, which...wasn't really a good option, he didn't know who in their right minds would spring for that one. If he wanted to go forward and not die, he could take some weird-ass pills that would apparently make him bleed from every opening in his body and potentially cause every organ in his body to...yeah, nope. Not doing that. If he wanted to move backwards, he could call for a ship and go for a hail mary, save his ass if he got far enough. That was the coward's move, fuck that. Or, if he didn't want to move at all, he could take a gun and...NO! What kind of plan was that?! Every single one of these options was stupid! Fuck this stupid-ass mission, he should have never done coke! What was he supposed to do? Kill himself, undergo literal waking torture, abandon his squad, or kill himself again? He definitely didn't want to kill himself or kill himself, he...he wasn't done. Wasn't done with life, wasn't done with everything, Allah had forgiven him for his mistakes, and wasting that mercy by killing himself? Nope, no way. He was no coward. So that meant the right choice was to stick through it and take the pills, right? Right?

"Th-three." Dwayne mumbled, coughing slightly afterwards before speaking up again in a louder, firmer voice. "Three. I'm sorry Boss, but I..I got kids, family, I can't...I can't do it." he said, voice wavering slightly at the word 'kids'. "1 in 5 is too much for me, it's...it's too much. Good luck, everyone." he finally finished, letting his mouth knit shut to avoid rambling any further as he turned away and slouched towards the elevator along with a skittery looking Alexandria, who took a swan-dive to the floor the second he stepped foot inside the car. He had to resist the urge to yell at him for being a wuss, and had to resist a second urge to punch the elevator's wall in, but he held his fist curled at his side, leaning up against the back wall with a deep sigh.

---

Emma Davis - Team B/E
Bucephalus 2 Platform

"We can hear you, Cross." Emma replied in a monotone voice, quickly springing to her feet and looking about at the surrounding scene as the boat twisted and the row of planes floated away, leaving herself and whoever else was still walking dealing with bullet wounds, a hibernating robot, and maybe even death along the way. Chris was thankfully still kicking, as was Hans to her left, but neither of them were her top priority at the moment. "Ignore Digel, ELISA isn't scrap, she's in...some sort of power-saving mode, said she was leaking coolant fluid and to wake her up when we needed a new VTOL." she said, a bit of annoyance seemingly working itself into her voice at the hyperbole as she cut across the deck at a fast pace, trying not to trip as she made her way over to Rosenrot's motionless form. She wasn't quite sure what she was expecting to find, but the sight was...chilling to look at.

There was no blood, or at least not that much of it. Some of it had begun to pool and thicken over his chest, and a little bit of that pool had spilt onto the metal around him and stained them dark, sprayed onto the barricade behind, but thanks to the massive holes in the grates, there was no thick neck-to-knee deep pool of gore like you saw in movies, with all of the twitching and open eyes. His lids were closed, his mouth was hanging slightly open, and his whole face had gone gray and ashy, as if someone had sucked his soul through his chest, taken his breath with it. Because she couldn't see it misting up, and she couldn't hear it either. His chest was perfectly still. A hand on his chest would've likely elicited some jerk out of sheer pain, but practically slamming hers down onto his torso didn't even elicit so much as a twitch. Two fingers to his neck didn't feel so much as a whisper of a pulse. She could check his pupils too, but there was no need for that, she knew what everything she had learnt so far meant. With a deep, rattling sigh, she took her two fingers and used them to gently push his eyelids fully closed, pulling her radio up to her lips with the other hand once she was done. "Rosenrot's dead, gunshot wounds to the chest. Immortal's being tended to by...Chris." she said, eyes being forced to take a quick scan across the deck to see who it was mashing the green fabric to the massive figure's wound. "Tending to Boaz right now."

With a lingering look back at Rosenrot's body, Emma quickly began to dash back towards the form of Boaz on the other side of the barricade, leaping over a low crate as she followed Hans inside the control room and made her way down over to Boaz's limp form. She could hear the faint sounds of breath rattling through his visor, but besides that, she had no signs of life beyond a now-disappeared Hans' verbal insistence, mostly because of the massive metal coffin he was locked inside. Her fingers immediately moved up to his visor in an attempt to tug it open, but was met with strong resistance from the pins holding his visor up in the process, an immovable object that did all it could to not budge under her very stoppable force. She had to get the helmet off of him, she had to get the entire suit of armor off of him, but how?

Cursing, she felt around his neck and chin, only being met with solid metal resistance until she felt around the slight space between Boaz' face and the armor coating his neck, her hand touching on a piece of stiff, cordy material. A strap. A buckle as well. She didn't want to push his head too far back, but she needed the leverage, and besides, Hans had already let him down on his side, so choking on anything was out of the question. With a gentle push to the man's forehead, Emma titled Boaz' head back, giving her enough room to feel around the thin metal clasp that kept the whole helmet in place and, with slightly trembling fingers, pop it open, gently peeling the helmet off to reveal a grizzled, white-maned face with a red ring of blood around his lips. Shit. Internal bleeding. Probably in his chest somewhere.

She looked up for a second to survey her surroundings, and immediately clapped eyes upon...something through the open doorway. What the hell was that? It looked like an island or something, but it hadn't been there before, she had looked straight out at the water when she had first the submarine ping. And was that a tower? No...more than one tower, a few towers, and more underneath them. A castle. A castle that was still there even after she rubbed her eyes to confirm what she was seeing. "Cross, Cross..." she barked into her radio, trading glances between Hans up near the control room's console, Boaz beside her, and the island floating out and away as she spoke. "What exactly is this shit I'm seeing? It looks like an island with a Medieval fucking castle on top of it...I know we have to stop it, but what the hell is it?!"

[Anowa]

TEAM A/F

As the sound of the conversation behind her reached her ears, Gauss started muttering to herself in Ancient Minoan, "Guess I'm the only fucking adult here who knows what individually means." a spark leaped out of the panel she was rewiring, melting a spot along it's frame, Gauss didn't even flinch, "Surrounded by the inexperienced and the fucking moronic to deal with this shit. Like herding a bunch of cats, half of them want you dead either through malice or incompetence and the other half are fucking scared of mice and fucking birds. Telling the bravest fucking person in this room to run away, doing nothing to comfort the two folks who are clearly fucked up about this whole goddamned situation to the point where they just want to go home."

A power surge ripped through the room, turning the lights of and depowering the door, the elevator with Trauma and Euphoria chimed as it was sent up, Gauss simply shook her head. Jamming her fingers into the crack in the door, she simply slid it open and stepped through. Repeating it again at the opposite side of the airlock.

There were a duo more airlocks to go through, before being faced with a rather odd looking door, an aperture sight but scaled way up, with a retinal scanner to the side. Gauss faceplate swung up as she pressed her eyes into the scanner, a few moments of almost lancing lights followed by a ping, as the doors began opening the scanner chimed, "Welcome back, Consultant Drăculea!" Gauss simply, impassively looked at the scanner after that, the whole 'automated welcoming' was new. And given she had only given her first name to Blink, the machine giving her legal surname was not the preferred outcome.

Suddenly, there was a sound not unlike that of a gunshot as Gauss fist plowed clear through the scanner and into the wall behind it, the scanner pretty much turning into a low yield grenade as bits and pieces scattered across the floor. A look of unbridled fury and barely suppressed rage displayed quite clearly on her face if the snarl and pulsing vein was anything to go by. She yanked her fist from the wall and absolutely mangled scanner and stepped into the elevator, the ocular door parting.

As the others stepped in, the room was notably just wire framework exposing the inside of the shaft as having incredibly tight tolerances. As the elevator started, there was an odd movement as it started tipping, yet the floor was still holding them in place. Gauss simply stood as she was, arms crossed and drumming her fingers on her arm, staring impassively through the wall, the roof, and then the opposite wall as the elevator swivled upside down. Above their heads, another aperture door that opened, revealing a bright light and sterile white. The elevator suddenly moved at a pace that was unexpected, faster than most cars could achieve, yet it felt no worse than a normal elevator. It stopped just as suddenly, though no one flew off or had their knees buckle.

At the top, the wire framework sunk into the floor.

The room they were in was... disorienting. It was the inside of a sphere, with massive raised speedbump looking protrusions which ran the entire circumference of the room, every to meters or so at a skewed angle. Dotted throughout the room looked like parabolic dishes, their surface was reminiscent of solar panels, however they were a nauseating pink instead of the normal navy or black. They were only positioned in the gap between every second belt, alongside similar constructs but wholly reflective. Six massive green bulges took up maybe a 6 meters diameter equidistance at the equator of the room and at the 'top' and 'bottom'. Each of them gave off a glow that gave no illusions as to what they were.

'Above' them, the opposite side of the room was maybe 300 meters away, or at least it would be, if am honest to god blackhole surrounded by levitating glass panels wasn't blocking the view. The singularity wasn't much bigger than a coin at this point, but it was still enough to erase everything in this room. Furthermore, everyone but Fulldive was now tasting metal.

About 50 meters ahead, Chrono stood, tapping away at a console. She spoke, "You probably already know this, but this is a distraction. Which begs the question of why you actually took the bait."

Gauss mind started racing as she started picking apart what was just said, to the point where she didn't even think of responding.

---

TEAM B/E

Cross nearly had a panic attack at Chris' mention of Elisa being scrap, only relieved by Emma's noted contradiction, "Digel. That bot is worth more to me sentimentally than any of your lives, and financially it's worth more than the whole of Amazon's current stock. Call it scrap to me again, and you will never see sunlight again."

Moving on, he spoke to Hans, "There's a big blue button at the center of the console, under a glass case, lift the glass case and hit the button."

As the jets faded out, another source of jet engines approached rapidly, Cross responded to Emma's concern over the... island. "Gimme a second."

The feeling of heat and wind whipped over the platform again as a dull whine reached their ears. Flickers of light and the noted heat wash of jet engines were visible in the center of the platform away from everyone. A crack of metal formed, as a ramp descended from nowhere, and out stepped a suit of armor standing maybe 9 feet tall. Anthony's voice echoed from it as he approached Emma, "That... Uhhhh..." There was a pregnant pause as he simply stared, "That's King Arthur's Avalon."

His head shifted down a few inches, "and that's a submersible aircraft carrier...."

He shook his head as he turned around, "Anyways, this is THe Exiled and Fahcelkel, they'll be tagging along. Right now we need to be in DC. We've lost contact with Teams C and D after they got shot down. So we're gonna see if their alive and or finish their job for them."

---

TEAM C/D

As the elevator rose, the foxgirl was silent, her tail silently swishing too and fro as she had a slight grin on her face, "I'm Yōkai by the way, I guess you could also say I'm new." There was a ping, as the elevator doors opened, revealing the bottom floor of the Washington Monument. Every so often the sound of a heavy rifle report echoing from the top floor.

Stepping out of the elevator, Yōkai's rifle was slung off her shoulder and held properly, as she proceeded to step out of the elevator in a way that made her status as trained either first or second hand by military personnel obvious. "I think we're clear, I don't hear any breathing or heartbeats besides ours... on this floor at least." As they all stepped out, the doors closed rapidly, and the sound of elevators moving again was heard. Likely the subterranean elevator being replaced by the public elevator to the top.

[Lessoni]

TEAM A/F
'Above' them, the opposite side of the room was maybe 300 meters away, or at least it would be, if am honest to god blackhole surrounded by levitating glass panels wasn't blocking the view. The singularity wasn't much bigger than a coin at this point, but it was still enough to erase everything in this room. Furthermore, everyone but Fulldive was now tasting metal.

About 50 meters ahead, Chrono stood, tapping away at a console. She spoke, "You probably already know this, but this is a distraction. Which begs the question of why you actually took the bait."

Jack Dredd

This was insane. He barely understood anything in this room, and this was distinctly not his junior year prom. This was significantly more dangerous, and without a punch bowl. Still, he knew this wasn't a time to nerve out. At the moment, he had to keep it together, if for nothing else than to keep up appearances, though he couldn't quite figure out who he was keeping them up for. He didn't quite think their foe would care too much that he had a brave face on.

Still, telling himself that he's brave wasn't getting much done. Proving it to himself, on the other hand, might get a little more done. He unclipped the baton from his waistband, hesitating for a moment, but steeling himself.

"Let's get it started," he said, an unusual confidence in his voice. Without further ado he swung his baton downwards, seemingly into thin air, before teleporting behind the woman mid swing, the baton coming down on the side of her knee. Maybe they'd get lucky as hell and it'd break; her armor didn't look too thick.

[Cybernetic Socialist Republics]

Ophiuchia (Team A)

---

About 50 meters ahead, Chrono stood, tapping away at a console.

Ophiuchia's first instinct was to ask her A.I. companion, Aethelind, to quickly scan Chrono and the room, though the results she could provide were inclusive to say the least.

"Chrono is one of the less interesting things in the room, to be honest, sure, she's a living cosmic anomaly, but you're in a room full of objects built outside of the three classical dimensions, were even inside of one right now. Not quite sure if it's a danger or if it's protecting us from danger. There's a whole lot to analyze. I worry humanity's technology is looking well beyond what they can Oh and hey did catch your crush's name? Think there's a relation with the Romanian fellow? Do you suppose it's on her father's or mother's side? Vampires are incredible beings, you know, their genetics were very instructive in manufacturing your genes while still keeping you passably human. Oh and you know there's a good chance she's decades maybe centruies, older than you, too? Not as if that'd be the main barrier though, I'd think your altercation with her might have been what ruined your chances"

"Only some of that's relevant. to the task at hand, Aeth."

"That'd be because there isn't much relevant say. yYu'll probably want to wait for Blink to do his thing, he's pulling out his baton, after all. Hopefully he'll distract her enough for you to do some real damage. How is up to you, though."

She spoke, "You probably already know this, but this is a distraction. Which begs the question of why you actually took the bait."

"Well, I'm here to rip the worm off the hook and spill her guts. Maybe you'll last a little longer than the imp I sent home." Said Ophiuchia. Perhaps, Ophi thought, Chrono would assume she was distracting her from whatever Blink would end up doing, which might lead her to paying more attention to that she ought to him and give Ophiuchia the opening she needed.

"Let's get it started," he said, an unusual confidence in his voice. Without further ado he swung his baton downwards, seemingly into thin air, before teleporting behind the woman mid swing, the baton coming down on the side of her knee. Maybe they'd get lucky as hell and it'd break; her armor didn't look too thick.

When Ophiuchia saw Blink begin to swing his baton low, she knew he'd be teleporting a moment later to hit the back of Chrono's knee. While the move was, to Ophiuchia's mind, less than ideal as a distraction, it was something she could work. Before Blink even teleported, Ophiuchia decided what her course of action would be. She wouldn't make a move until Chrono turned her attention to Blink. At which point she'd fly, at full speed, circling around closer to Chrono, but more importantly moving out from what she hoped was her cone of vision.

Then, if Chrono's back was open, Ophiuchia would fly at her and punch her in the kidney. From there, if possible, she'd follow up with further punches and kicks targeted at her back and midsection. Though Ophiuchia was going on the attack, she'd always have to be ready to take evasive maneuvers put distance between them at a moments notice if be. There was also the question of to do if Blink wasn't enough of a distraction, in which case Ophi would have to settle with a shield blast targeted at a lightly armored joint or a thigh, while still flying around to make herself a more difficult target.

[Endem]

Chris Digel

No need to overreact Chris thought to himself as Cross promised to kill him if he once again said that Elisa was scrap, Chris wasn't a engineer, he saw a bot get blasted to oblivion, he called it scrap, simple as that. Chris watched as some robotically looking thing descended down onto the platform, Chris resisted making an iron man joke.

"That's King Arthur's Avalon."

"That would make sense, we did kill some guy that called himself Arthur" Chris mussed at the revelation, not knowing what either Avalon or King Arthur were, he never read the King Arthur mythos. Anthony then told them the nicknames of the two newly arrived heroes, a Dwarf and a girl whose nickname he probably won't be able to pronounce.

Chris picked up Immortal again, hopefully, his bandage of dubious quality would do enough to stop her from bleeding out, and made his way to the invisible VTOL.

---

Elias "Flayed" Sayid

At last, they made it to the Washington Monument, Elias looked down to the floor before doing his best to face Tesla "I think it'd be for the best if you left me here, wouldn't want to slow you down due to my... Condition" he gestured towards his leg, which currently looked like something akin to a twig of bone and muscle.

[Anowa]

//NOW PLAYING TRACK 11//

"Let's get it started,"

Gauss' mind wiped away whatever she was thinking of in response to Chrono's potential bomb drop that the TIAMA team wasn't supposed to be here, and her mouth moved before her mind did, "Blink don't-!" but it was too late.

"Well, I'm here to rip the worm off the hook and spill her guts. Maybe you'll last a little longer than the imp I sent home."

Chrono simply shook her head as she felt a slight tugging on her very essence from her back and to the left. Noticing the young man mid swing, and the woman put 2 and 2 together with startling speed.

Chrono's left boot glowed, and the instant Blink dropped back into real space, he received a horse kick square to the mouth, sending him back a good 5 meters thanks to a sudden gravitational impulse, and knocking out or breaking a few of his teeth.

An instant later, the woman was stepping over the console to, seemingly ignorant of the Amazon flying around behind her, her left hand glowing with a azure orb at the center of it, with an almost imperceptible black speck at it's core. As Ophi drew closer, Chrono all but dropped the orb in a lazy toss backwards, as Ophi closed to maybe 2 meters, suddenly, in a massive blue haze that closed the distance between where Chrono had just been standing and where Silver Shephard, Gauss, and Fulldive stood in a literal instant.

A sudden burst of energy washed over the trio as Chrono shoulder checked Gauss at a perceived relativistic speed. The Vampiric woman was sent plowing through one of the parabolic mirrors and skidding across the ground and rolling over the speedbumps on the floor for a good 15 meters, enough to technically be up the wall. Where Chrono departed, the orb she dropped hit the floor and detonated with the force of 15kg of plastic explosives, rendering the console to shrapnel and shaking the air inside the room, likely catching Ophiuchia in the blast.

Conjuring another blue orb in her hand, she tossed it at Silver Shepard, it was at an angle to reveal it was homing in on the pint sized powerhouse, but not at an exceedingly fast degree. It was dodgable, but god knows what it did.

The woman, then turned to Fulldive, body now wreathed in that same glow, "Why we're supposed to be helping you psychopaths I'll never know."

She then swung her fist at the young man's midsection, there was no doubt it would hurt if it connected.

[Cybernetic Socialist Republics]

Ophiuchia (Team A)

---

Chrono's left boot glowed, and the instant Blink dropped back into real space, he received a horse kick square to the mouth, sending him back a good 5 meters thanks to a sudden gravitational impulse, and knocking out or breaking a few of his teeth.

"Well, can't say he didn't distract her, for a moment."

"If he still had his mask back on, it might have saved him a few teeth."

An instant later, the woman was stepping over the console to, seemingly ignorant of the Amazon flying around behind her, her left hand glowing with a azure orb at the center of it, with an almost imperceptible black speck at it's core. As Ophi drew closer, Chrono all but dropped the orb in a lazy toss backwards, as Ophi closed to maybe 2 meters, suddenly, in a massive blue haze that closed the distance between where Chrono had just been standing and where Silver Shephard, Gauss, and Fulldive stood in a literal instant.

Ophiuchia could tell from the moment Chrono began generating the orb that she was likely aware of Ophi's approach. That didn't mean she wouldn't continue her charge, but it did prepare her to take further evasive action regarding the orb. When Chrono released the orb and burst toward her comrades in what appeared to be instant, Ophiuchia swerved up and away from getting any closer to the orb than the 2 meters away she was when Chrono was when finished charging it. Recognizing that it was an explosive, Aethelind increased Ophiuchia's shielding in the direction of the orb. Still caught in the explosion, Ophiuchia was hurled further upward, putting distance between her and the rest of A/F.

Ophiuchia did her best to keep track of what was going on on the ground as she regained her bearings while she tumbled through the air and her shield recharged, but the explosion had disoriented Ophiuchia long enough that Chrono could move on from sending Gauss up the sphere's wall, to throwing a homing orb in the direction of Silver Shepard. Though Ophi couldn't be sure, she had an inkling that this was the means Chrono had used to put a cop in a coma.

The woman, then turned to Fulldive, body now wreathed in that same glow, "Why we're supposed to be helping you psychopaths I'll never know."

Between Chrono turning to Fulldive, mentioning something about trying to 'help' and starting to swing at Fulldive, Ophi had recovered from her tumble through the air and her shield had largely regenerated. Ophiuchia had seen how Chrono launched at least two of ranged attacks, and her instantaneous charge. Now that Ophiuchia had learned at least a few of Chrono's powers, she returned to flying towards her, this time intending to tackle her away from Fulldive and pin her to the ground.

Cryoconite (Team D)

---

As the elevator rose, the foxgirl was silent, her tail silently swishing too and fro as she had a slight grin on her face, "I'm Yōkai by the way, I guess you could also say I'm new." There was a ping, as the elevator doors opened, revealing the bottom floor of the Washington Monument. Every so often the sound of a heavy rifle report echoing from the top floor.

Stepping out of the elevator, Yōkai's rifle was slung off her shoulder and held properly, as she proceeded to step out of the elevator in a way that made her status as trained either first or second hand by military personnel obvious. "I think we're clear, I don't hear any breathing or heartbeats besides ours... on this floor at least." As they all stepped out, the doors closed rapidly, and the sound of elevators moving again was heard. Likely the subterranean elevator being replaced by the public elevator to the top.

Cryoconite formed her Ice bow with her left hand before she stepped out of the elevator after Yōkai. If the armor the soldiers who had passed them earlier indicated anything, it was best not to bother with her metal arrowheads and to instead stick to arrows made purely out of her magic ice.

"At least we're unlikely to be ambushed. Speaking of ambushes, I can create a portal from here to more or less anywhere in the monument, to allow us to catch Osteo's terrorists by surprise. Last time I opened one for offensive purposes it didn't go to well, so I'll take suggestions before doing it, this time."

[Gudmund]

Fulldive, Team A/F

After entering another, substantially more confusing elevator to reach the singularity generator, Fulldive felt a strange daunting feeling. Trapped so far underground, minutes away from fighting a renowned villain. He certainly didn't expect this while browsing social media a mere five hours ago, in the comfort of his bed. Hell, he'd killed and crippled several terrorists a couple minutes ago, he'd been running on autopilot for ever since Ophi crushed that man's skull.

Leaving the elevator and finally entering the reality defying room, Chrono was there, an outfit reminiscent of Jedi oddly fitting with the sci-fi interior.

About 50 meters ahead, Chrono stood, tapping away at a console. She spoke, "You probably already know this, but this is a distraction. Which begs the question of why you actually took the bait."

"Wha... are you fucking serious," Fulldive hissed, trying not to let the sudden reveal shake him. Then all at once, Blink vanished behind Chrono, baton raised and already swinging only to take a powerful kick to the chin.

Ophiuchia (Team A)

An instant later, the woman was stepping over the console to, seemingly ignorant of the Amazon flying around behind her, her left hand glowing with a azure orb at the center of it, with an almost imperceptible black speck at it's core. As Ophi drew closer, Chrono all but dropped the orb in a lazy toss backwards, as Ophi closed to maybe 2 meters, suddenly, in a massive blue haze that closed the distance between where Chrono had just been standing and where Silver Shephard, Gauss, and Fulldive stood in a literal instant.

Recognizing that it was an explosive, Aethelind increased Ophiuchia's shielding in the direction of the orb. Still caught in the explosion, Ophiuchia was hurled further upward, putting distance between her and the rest of A/F.

Ophiuchia did her best to keep track of what was going on on the ground as she regained her bearings while she tumbled through the air and her shield recharged, but the explosion had disoriented Ophiuchia long enough that Chrono could move on from sending Gauss up the sphere's wall, to throwing a homing orb in the direction of Silver Shepard. Though Ophi couldn't be sure, she had an inkling that this was the means Chrono had used to put a cop in a coma.

The woman, then turned to Fulldive, body now wreathed in that same glow, "Why we're supposed to be helping you psychopaths I'll never know."

Between Chrono turning to Fulldive, mentioning something about trying to 'help' and starting to swing at Fulldive, Ophi had recovered from her tumble through the air and her shield had largely regenerated. Ophiuchia had seen how Chrono launched at least two of ranged attacks, and her instantaneous charge. Now that Ophiuchia had learned at least a few of Chrono's powers, she returned to flying towards her, this time intending to tackle her away from Fulldive and pin her to the ground.

Surprised by the Chrono's speed, Fulldive hastily leapt backwards after she threw a punch, taking full advantage of his superhuman strength-to-weight ratio. As he did so, he pointed his staff towards Ophi, layering their own shield over the Amazon as she charged in. Behind him, his winged-knight summon was already in place to catch him. His other three summons, the skeleton swordsman, archer, and mage stood at the ready. Prepared to charge in if need be.

[Mandicoria]

Patriot and Tesla, Team C/D

Patriot wouldn't bother responding to the team's newfound ally. Instead he focused on lowering Maria from his grip. Who likely should've healed enough to be on her own feet with how much time has passed down in those tunnels. Setting her down in the corner he'd give her a pat on the shoulder. "You alright? Can you walk?" He carried an unusual sense of care in his voice, granted it was probably for show, but even a heartless bastard can care from time to time.

Doctor Tesla on the other hand was much more sociable with the mysterious fox girl. With him freeing up his right hand from holding Elias, and offering a friendly handshake to her. "Yōkai? Well I'm Doctor Victor Tesla. A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Even with these unpleasant circumstances." That usual warm kindness was detectable with his voice, shocking given the current situation having been such a strain on the poor Doctor. "How did you even find-" Before he finished, the elevator gave its audible ding.

Stepping out of the elevator, Yōkai's rifle was slung off her shoulder and held properly, as she proceeded to step out of the elevator in a way that made her status as trained either first or second hand by military personnel obvious. "I think we're clear, I don't hear any breathing or heartbeats besides ours... on this floor at least." As they all stepped out, the doors closed rapidly, and the sound of elevators moving again was heard. Likely the subterranean elevator being replaced by the public elevator to the top.

"We should check the upper levels for any potential enemies. It'd be good to have a vantage point at the top, possibly deal with those snipers they told us about earlier."

Helping Maria out from the elevator, Patriot would gesture at Tesla and the others. "I say you guys go ahead, I can watch the entrance for any bastard that tries coming in. It'd be stupid to not watch our own backs."

"Kurt for once you make a good-"

"Cut the fucking snark, Tesla." Turning his gaze over to Yōkai, the almost soulless visor would peer deep at her. "Before I forget... Thanks for the help."

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Bucephalus 2
The Control Room
Hans

"Blue button, hu? Blue button, blue button, blue button...ah! I found it Herr Cross!"

, Hans wasted absolutely no time in opening and slamming that blue button as hard as he could, possibly jamming it but that wasn't exactly his concern. Everything was done now, the bad people had left, there was no second or third possibly world ending rocket starting and...he was starting to really feel the frostbite as he calmed down.

Sinking down next to the console, opposite of where he had left Boaz, Hans groaned silently in pain. Some parts of his body felt numb...others like they were set on fire...a horribly ticklish fire. God, he'd really need to take a bath or shower or whatever after this...nice and slow and relaxing...he was sure Grandma Toddler would allow him to use her bathtub. With his thoughts on the comforts of a warm bath and an equally warm smile on his face, Hans closed his eyes and let the radio chatter just wash over him as useless background noise to support his fantasy.

---

Bucephalus 2
The Platform
Waldemar

Strutting out of the VTOL right after the robotical monstrosity that was Cross for now came a small humanoid, someone whose nose could end up in Hans' or Boaz' belly button, that was how small he was. However, what he lacked in height he appeared to somewhat compensate in width, broad shoulders and muscled arms on short, almost stubby legs. With a massive, two headed axe resting on his shoulder, he almost looked like a stereotypical dwarf if it wasn't for one notable trait that he lacked completely.

Facial hair. The dwarf's head was entirely clean shaven, no beard, no hair, no eyebrows.

The dwarf ignored most of the people and walked over where ELISA was laying on the floor, depowered and clearly having been dragged for a very short distance. After eyeing the damages for a moment, he pulled out a flask of sorts and downed a gulp before putting it away and calling out to Cross:

"Cut the man some slack Cross. Given the damages sustained, it's no wonder that a layman like him would assume it to be scrap. It'll take a while for you to fix her back up, Cross. And lots of dough if I'm assessing this damage correctly."

Interestingly, Waldemar had so far completely ignored Avalon, always making sure to keep his back to it. He had little interest in interacting with that place, let alone see it. It was...well...suffice to say, a link to a life he had lost and that was, as far as he was aware, quite eager to get him killed if he decided to show his face there again. Quite sure his brother Walberan had made sure to spread the word that he was to be exiled.

[Anowa]

TEAM B/E

"Cut the man some slack Cross. Given the damages sustained, it's no wonder that a layman like him would assume it to be scrap. It'll take a while for you to fix her back up, Cross. And lots of dough if I'm assessing this damage correctly."

Elisa suddenly spoke up from the ground, "Mean time for a repair like this is 27 seconds for a negligible cost." She stood, as the remains of her arm simply disconnected, revealing a somewhat barren socket. She strode towards the landed stealth VTOL and stepped inside, contrary to the exterior, the inside was fully visible, with windows allowing an external view, it was much less utilitarian and much more luxurious than the other VTOL. There was the sound of something metallic hitting the floor as the AI dropped the ruined arm to the deck. At the for of the cargo bat was an odd pod looking assembly, it parted ways for Elisa as she stepped in to it back first. Multiple armatures emerged from the pod and started going through what looked like a very detailed maintenance program on the robot. Being almost wholly disassembled down to her torso's endo skeleton and head. Various parts across her body were being replaced, and a fluid was being pumped into a few select devices in her.

With Hans, a man wearing the Epoch security uniform draped a wool blanket over him, as another drove an auto injector into Boaz's neck. As everyone was more or less herded into the VTOL, another less invisible VTOL was inbound to the platform. This was was labeled as Search and Rescue.

Outside, Anthony's gaze had now gone from Avalon to the pillar of smoke ascending out past the Earth's atmosphere.

His mind wandered, namely as to why such a thing was tacked on to Osteo's plan at the last minute. He mentioned the WMRC as a supposed distraction for the real heavy hitters, Gitmo to bust out Anathema, and the Boneyard for aircraft parts. But this was... sudden, especially given the payload it had. Both of them knew it'd be useless without any form of uplink to a unified command center. Then it broached his train of thought, his gaze turned and he once again was looking out to sea, towards the coast of the US, "He wouldn't." His gaze went back to Avalon, which swiftly winked away in a flash of green. His gaze then shifted back towards the US.

Anthony walked back into the VTOL as everyone was strapping in, and the ramp closed. The whine of engines was no longer able to be heard, Anthony took a seat at the front of the bay, on the floor.

Anthony knew that they had to make a presence in such an event known, if Osteo was well and truly acting in person, TIAMA was supposed to be fed top intel on such things, and they were supposed to already be on top of where Osteo was and where he was going. Their agreement had been slapdash, Osteo was looking to both forward his own plans to weed corruption out of the US system, and make TIAMA look competent, a goal that was somehow backfiring in a prolonged manner. It coincided with Anthony's own goal of making TIAMA out to be a form of shield for the world at large. But there was a level of distrust between them. Anthony, and more publicly, TIAMA, had only been told the half truth. DC and Gitmo were the big two events, that was correct. But what had happened on this platform and Osteo's current location were the real goal in Osteo's sights.

"Hmm." a pause, "Monica."

A voice echoed from the cockpit, "Sir?"

Anthony sighed, "Scratch DC. Make for Raven Rock."

---

TEAM C/D

Yōkai's ears fluttered for a moment as she looked up, she heard electric motors, not industrial ones, rather the ones you'd find on high end RC cars or on tracking cameras. What else she heard was a distinct sound of voices, two men talking back and forth about random things, small talk, every so often a radio burst would echo down as well. Her eyes narrowed, something seemed off, but her innate sense of curiosity had been piqued.

As those going up entered the elevator, and Yōkai did the duty of queuing the observation deck. The 70 second trip was quiet, as were the doors opening. Now on the top floor, and in direct view of one of the windows, Yōkai could see that there was a M82 set up in what looked like a tripod, only the tripod was scanning back and forth, and a loudspeaker was set up alongside it. Four shell casings lay beside it, however the weapon had no magazine, at least not anymore. Slowly turning the corner and making sure not to make much noise, Yōkai once again saw the next window, the exact same set up as before, a few shell casings and a loudspeaker strapped to a Frowning, she turned the next corner to come face to face with nothing more than the others. On the opposite side, another pipe 'gun' and loudspeaker with a red button. At the rear, where they all had regrouped, another M82 with a missing magazine and a few shell casings, loudspeaker attached.

On the back wall of the elevator shaft, was an audio set up with a cassette tape playing. It was the source of the voices Yōkai had heard. She pressed the stop button, and the noise in the room was gone.

However, her ear was filled with radio static, she winced notable as she reached up and massaged her ear, pressing down on her throat mic with her opposite hand. As she tried contacting whoever was on the other side, Cryo, Tesla, and Maria, were left to discuss among themselves.

[Union Princes]

Holiday

---

The day just kept getting more exciting and stranger by the minute. The panic from being hunted, the thrill of seeing Cryo's panic, and the fascination of seeing a set of fox ears and a tail. She was stunned silent upon seeing Yokai, despite being partners with some of the most truly bizarre people, and immediately thought of examination of the fox girl more closely. Muttering a small thank you to Patriot and Tesla, an act of true gratitude, Maria silently latched on to Tesla as she stared straight at the newcomer. If Yokai looked back and saw Maria's cheeky smiling eyes gazing in admiration, she would see deep down the demons looking back. The blonde German already had a syringe gripped tightly in one hand, asi if she was looking for a place to put it.

"I think..." Maria smiled, "We can do another portal...Let's make them regret messing with us..."

[Cybernetic Socialist Republics]

Cryoconite (Team D)

---

Cryo didn't like how things were going on around her. She didn't appreciate the offer to use her portals went unheeded, but still feeling bitten from the consequences of not simply unquestioningly following the directions of anyone that showed up without attempting to kill her (at least Yōkai bothered to introduce her self), she quietly followed her and the rest of the team into the elevator anyway, hoping they weren't going to be shot the pieces the moment the doors opened at the top. Perhaps Yōkai was concealing with them with illusory powers so they'd be safe, she thought, thinking that if she was going to continue to completely neuter her intuition and not act on it she might as well just assume the best as well.

Thankfully when they reached the top, as far as she could tell, they were safe. But what she saw around here presented a weird conundrum. Looking around, if anyone ever was here and firing down into the city with a rifle, they had obviously left, but based on the left behind tape recording, they seemed ever intent on making it appear as though they were, currently, here. What made things even more confusing is despite all the shell cases lying around and the rifle scanning back and forth on a tripod, there was no evidence that this particular gun had been fired and this too, was obvious. Most frustrating of all, absolutely none of this appeared to matter. Whether or not they knew if someone was up here, the team still would want to come up here to stop the shooting that definitely was, at some way or another, at some point in time or another, originating from here. Upon reaching the top and not seeing anyone, all that meant to cryo is they just had to move on. An unfired rifle and and shell cases missing primers were no grand revelation at all, but a waste of time, both for the team and for whoever bothered to set it up, as far as Cryo was concerned.

But, as Cryo had decided earlier, she'd keep her intuition neutered, and just follow along with whatever Yōkai thought they ought to do. Cryo's resigned passivity was partially interrupted when Maria spoke up.

"I think..." Maria smiled, "We can do another portal...Let's make them regret messing with us..."

"I'd like for some payback Maria, but I think we're going to have to stick around here for a bit, it seems someone's made an elaborate effort to make it appear as if this place didn't have snipers that were taking shots a Jager. Unless they're hiding in plain sight--as our kitsune friend shows is very much possible--and about to ambush us, I don't think we'll be having an opportunity for payback just yet." Cryo responded.

"Plus, trying to be proactive hasn't done me any good today, l'm just following along with whatever Yōkai thinks we should do." Cryo said, rather dejectedly, as she held her ice construct augmented arm, which was still healing from being amputated the last time she tried being creative.

[Mandicoria]

Tesla

The hulking frame of Tesla made maneuvering a little difficult for him. Tight spaces were never really his thing, a lesson he's been cruelly reminded of this entire mission. Following awkwardly behind Yōkai, and observing his surroundings. Noticing the first visible firearm in the observation deck, and kneeling beside it. Picking the firearm up and examining it. "I'm not particularly knowledgeable about firearms, but... These seem to be a little, erm, heavy duty for just sniping..." Standing back up, he'd look right out the window where the sniper would've definitely been aiming through. The view of the Mall was stunning, even during all of this fighting. "It doesn't really make any sense that they would be packing heavy weaponry like this..."

Turning around, he'd look over to Yōkai. "Did you happen to notice anything?" he'd ask, before turning over to the others. "I suggest staying away from the windows. If there were snipers in here, then there's definitely some outside. I've had friends who took trips to warzones, and will definitely echo this."

---

Patriot

Standing by the doors, and keeping in cover, Patriot would have his gun drawn. Ready to open fire on anyone who dared to try and take a trip through the front doors. Whatever motherfuckers were out there weren't gonna stop with those tunnels. Hell no. He was ready to fuck someone up. Hell, he didn't even need the goddamn gun. He was fucking ready to eviscerate the first bastard who would walk through those front doors, or come up from the tunnels.

Crouching down for a moment and sighing, he'd think to himself. This day fuckin' sucks for sure, but he's been through worse. It's just the fact he's working with incompetent fuckers. Only ones who haven't been pains are that fox chick. The German girl complicated things, but she's young and unstable. He knew she couldn't really deal with that shit too well. Maybe it was some soft spot he had for other people with a bloodlust, who knew. Looking around he'd try keeping his wits about him, there could be someone planning to jump him as he had this brief calm.

Standing up once again, and looking back between the doors and the elevator. He couldn't help but shake this feeling he had. Like something was off. Possibly the chance of snipers, or enemies being outside keeping him on edge.

---

Charon
Roof of the Smithsonian Castle
He sold it all...

The flicker of a lighter would break through the silence of the disturbingly calm air of the rooftops. With a few puffs of smoke, and a long exhale following. One man laid back on the rooftop, calm as could ever be given the circumstances. A few more clicks would follow up, and the garbled up audio of a cassette player would begin echoing out. The volume being turned down just a little bit, but still being identifiable. The man would take a few more puffs of his cigarette, before racking the bolt of his SVD. Adjusting his sights towards the Washington Monument with a few loud clicks.

Something was up about this man. His skin had an uncanny paleness to it, and every movement he made would have a rigidness to it. Wearing some odd mix of Afghan War military surplus, chechen war equipment, and some godforsaken baseball cap with the words "Women Fear Me, Fish Want Me." Not that his potential targets would really notice these things, but he was definitely there to do some killing.

Letting out a few hacks and wheezes as he watched the monument and adjusted his radio for contacting whoever he was with. Mumbling to himself. "The ferryman of the dead comes for us all. Some sooner than others." His thick Russian accent was apparent, with a slightly robotic layer to it. It wasn't just uncanny. It was alien, mechanical. He'd let out one more chuckle before clicking his radio again. Speaking into his mic "I'm in position. Ready to fire on command."

[Anowa]

TEAM A/F

The projectile fired at Silver Shepherd was a near miss, whizzing past her ear and impacting the ground behind her. The metal plating it struck had a pulse of deep blue, as it buckled upwards. The blue 'mist' hung in the air for a moment before red shifting, and the plate buckled back into the ground with an tremendous bang, no doubt enough to cause serious injury or death in most people.

Between Chrono turning to Fulldive, mentioning something about trying to 'help' and starting to swing at Fulldive, Ophi had recovered from her tumble through the air and her shield had largely regenerated. Ophiuchia had seen how Chrono launched at least two of ranged attacks, and her instantaneous charge. Now that Ophiuchia had learned at least a few of Chrono's powers, she returned to flying towards her, this time intending to tackle her away from Fulldive and pin her to the ground.

Given the lack of care for what became of Ophiuchia, and Chrono's more pressing looks towards Silver Shepherd and Fulldive, it was obvious that Chrono had expected the amazon to be dead. So the tackle hit her, and Chrono had very little time to properly react, being pinned just as Ophiuchia had planned. Though as Chrono was laid seemingly out of the fight, the same blue shimmer that hung around her expanded rapidly, encompassing give or take 5 meters around her. The objects around Chrono were turning into a slurry and sparked ravenously as more and more of said dust was made, the atoms that constituted the floor and plating being rended down and formed into raw materials.

The same was also being done to Ophiuchia's armor, the first sign of such was the synchronized flash of white glass like patterns and red ones sheathing Ophiuchia, both shields collapsing against the attack like wet tissue paper. Layers on layers of Ophiuchia's armor were all but washing off her, being atomically stripped apart. The parts of Ophiuchia in contact with Chrono had been stripped down fast enough that underarmour and skin was already wearing away as blood started to weep. The terror laid not in what the attack was doing, but rather in that fact that it had happened in about half of a second.

Chrono chose that time to taunt the larger woman, "The public opinion of you being a muscle bound bimbo rather than the genius tactician your file says you are is truer than we thought it seems. You're not even using a sword."

Across the room, Gauss stood, generally out of a proper view from the rest of the others, she coughed as she ripped her damaged abdomen plating off, crumpled into her chest, her recently cracked ribs were not fully broken, and she could feel them shifting with every breath she took. But she didn't make a sound as she all but walked around the room to one of the orange caps covering a few dozen tons of irradiated materials. As she took a knee next to the orange cover, she took a deep breath and fished around in her belt for the syringe she grabbed earlier. XETS-41102-71E-MOD. She had no clue what it was, or what it did, but given Epoch's research, it would either kill her or help her in this situation. Either she died, and didn't have to worry about anything anymore, or she wouldn't and would probably be able to help, either way was a win for her.

The Autoinjector was jammed into the last unobstructed port on her armor, and then... nothing. The only thing that changed was that Gauss felt hungry, maybe a bit more aware, and able to breath easier but other than that, nothing. With a dejected sigh, she grabbed the lip to the cover and started unscrewing it.

[Cybernetic Socialist Republics]

Ophiuchia (Team A)

---

Given the lack of care for what became of Ophiuchia, and Chrono's more pressing looks towards Silver Shepherd and Fulldive, it was obvious that Chrono had expected the amazon to be dead. So the tackle hit her, and Chrono had very little time to properly react, being pinned just as Ophiuchia had planned. Though as Chrono was laid seemingly out of the fight, the same blue shimmer that hung around her expanded rapidly, encompassing give or take 5 meters around her. The objects around Chrono were turning into a slurry and sparked ravenously as more and more of said dust was made, the atoms that constituted the floor and plating being rended down and formed into raw materials.

The same was also being done to Ophiuchia's armor, the first sign of such was the synchronized flash of white glass like patterns and red ones sheathing Ophiuchia, both shields collapsing against the attack like wet tissue paper. Layers on layers of Ophiuchia's armor were all but washing off her, being atomically stripped apart. The parts of Ophiuchia in contact with Chrono had been stripped down fast enough that underarmour and skin was already wearing away as blood started to weep. The terror laid not in what the attack was doing, but rather in that fact that it had happened in about half of a second.

Ophiuchia had managed to catch Chrono surprise, tackling and pinning her to the ground, unfortunately, this had resulted in Chrono triggering the powers she had used to atomize the blast doors A/F had seen earlier. Ophiuchia had hoped, based on how Chrono's other powers had worked, that this would have also been directed by from her hands, or at least a limb. Unfortunately, this appeared to simply emanate, making it an unavoidable danger while being close to her. Ophiuchia could have, however very easily pulled back the moment that she recognized Fulldive's shield was breaking. By the time her shield started going down, even a normal human reaction time would be enough to know to try to get away. But she tolerated the atomization of her shields, her armor and her skin, because Ophiuchia had a plan and she was fully intent on executing it.

Starting from immediately after her tackle was successful and continuing within the half of a second Ophiuchia remained on Chrono while she attempted to atomize her, Ophiuchia grabbed Chrono's torso with both hands and squeezed the smaller woman as hard as she could, attempting to crush through her ribs and to her kidneys. Cracking Chrono's ribs and Injuring her kidneys would be a satisfying bonus, but that wasn't the primary goal. Ophiuchia had some leftovers from the copious amounts of blood she took from Maria during their bout days ago. She kept a lot of of it refrigerated within her armor, but a lot of it wasn't, because Ophiuchia was intent on testing out the poisonous properties of the blood on someone and Chrono would be an excellent target. Aethelind had Ophiuchia's armor extend tiny prongs from where she griped Chrono, intended to puncture into her suit, skin and hopefully into her kidneys, while pumping in as much of the poisonous blood as she could.

But as Ophiuchia herself begun to bleed from the atomization, she was forced to lift off from Chrono and pull back to beyond her range, hovering there.

Chrono chose that time to taunt the larger woman, "The public opinion of you being a muscle bound bimbo rather than the genius tactician your file says you are is truer than we thought it seems. You're not even using a sword."

"The Sword, Cape and Skirt is for public purposes. I prefer bludgeoning and strangling people until the lights in their eyes go out. Speaking of which, are you experiencing any shortness of breath?" Ophiuchia said, attempting to sound both enthusiastic and menacing.

[Gudmund]

Ophiuchia (Team A)

---

Given the lack of care for what became of Ophiuchia, and Chrono's more pressing looks towards Silver Shepherd and Fulldive, it was obvious that Chrono had expected the amazon to be dead. So the tackle hit her, and Chrono had very little time to properly react, being pinned just as Ophiuchia had planned. Though as Chrono was laid seemingly out of the fight, the same blue shimmer that hung around her expanded rapidly, encompassing give or take 5 meters around her. The objects around Chrono were turning into a slurry and sparked ravenously as more and more of said dust was made, the atoms that constituted the floor and plating being rended down and formed into raw materials.

The same was also being done to Ophiuchia's armor, the first sign of such was the synchronized flash of white glass like patterns and red ones sheathing Ophiuchia, both shields collapsing against the attack like wet tissue paper. Layers on layers of Ophiuchia's armor were all but washing off her, being atomically stripped apart. The parts of Ophiuchia in contact with Chrono had been stripped down fast enough that underarmour and skin was already wearing away as blood started to weep. The terror laid not in what the attack was doing, but rather in that fact that it had happened in about half of a second.

Ophiuchia had managed to catch Chrono surprise, tackling and pinning her to the ground, unfortunately, this had resulted in Chrono triggering the powers she had used to atomize the blast doors A/F had seen earlier. Ophiuchia had hoped, based on how Chrono's other powers had worked, that this would have also been directed by from her hands, or at least a limb. Unfortunately, this appeared to simply emanate, making it an unavoidable danger while being close to her. Ophiuchia could have, however very easily pulled back the moment that she recognized Fulldive's shield was breaking. By the time her shield started going down, even a normal human reaction time would be enough to know to try to get away. But she tolerated the atomization of her shields, her armor and her skin, because Ophiuchia had a plan and she was fully intent on executing it.

Starting from immediately after her tackle was successful and continuing within the half of a second Ophiuchia remained on Chrono while she attempted to atomize her, Ophiuchia grabbed Chrono's torso with both hands and squeezed the smaller woman as hard as she could, attempting to crush through her ribs and to her kidneys. Cracking Chrono's ribs and Injuring her kidneys would be a satisfying bonus, but that wasn't the primary goal. Ophiuchia had some leftovers from the copious amounts of blood she took from Maria during their bout days ago. She kept a lot of of it refrigerated within her armor, but a lot of it wasn't, because Ophiuchia was intent on testing out the poisonous properties of the blood on someone and Chrono would be an excellent target. Aethelind had Ophiuchia's armor extend tiny prongs from where she griped Chrono, intended to puncture into her suit, skin and hopefully into her kidneys, while pumping in as much of the poisonous blood as she could.

But as Ophiuchia herself begun to bleed from the atomization, she was forced to lift off from Chrono and pull back to beyond her range, hovering there.

Chrono chose that time to taunt the larger woman, "The public opinion of you being a muscle bound bimbo rather than the genius tactician your file says you are is truer than we thought it seems. You're not even using a sword."

"The Sword, Cape and Skirt is for public purposes. I prefer bludgeoning and strangling people until the lights in their eyes go out. Speaking of which, are you experiencing any shortness of breath?" Ophiuchia said, attempting to sound both enthusiastic and menacing.

Fulldive, Team A/F

Watching Ophi's gung-ho tackle, Fulldive eagerly observed their brief clash, spotting some minor limitations in Chono's ability. A sphere of death surrounded Chrono, almost instantly forcing Ophi to distance herself. "What the hell," he thought, astounded by the aura basically ignoring both his and Ophi's shields. It was the perfect counter to his all-in-one barrier solution, she didn't need to overpower it if she could literally disassemble it. Having also seen the destruction Chono's projectiles could do, which had narrowly missed Silver Shephard, he'd opted to spread out his constructs and be thankful she wasn't targeting him. It'd be incredibly pathetic if he died grouped up cowering behind his summons.

As Chrono began her taunt, Fulldive immediately decided to take a shot, sending out a mental command for all his constructs to fire alongside him. Staff raised, he created the densest plasma bolt he could, in hopes Choro's aura wouldn't immediately snuff it out. From what he'd seen, if he the projectile was fast enough, it might actually land a hit. His winged-knight prepared it's own, smaller plasma bolt. His skeleton mage and archer would fire lightning and arrow.

In a barrage that began and launched just as Chrono ended her sentence, two plasma bolts, an almost instant lightning bolt, and a single very useless arrow all flew Chono's way at different speeds.

[Endem]

Chris Digel

The dwarf guy took his side, that's nice, he'd need to remember to thank him once all of this blown over, hopefully it won't be too long now, they only needed to rescue the teams send to DC Washington and could head back for New York for some R&R

"Scratch DC. Make for Raven Rock."

So it won't be that easy, Chris thought, to be honest he had no idea what Raven Rock was anyway, Chris pondered on it for a second as he watched a Search and Rescue VTOL come in sightThey'll mostly find dead bodies'. Chris put Immortal in one of the seats, strapping her so she wouldn't fall out.

"Boss, what's Raven Rock? Sounds like something from a cheap fantasy movie"

---

Elias "Flayed" Sayid

Tesla left him near the elevator, along with Maria and Patriot guarding them and the elevator. Elias, as for some time now, had nothing to do, his leg was still to weak to support him, though it had nearly fully formed to look like a leg and not a couple pieces of meat and ossification cartillage with white lines of neurons dotting it, though truth be told, it didn't look any better either.

[Anowa]

In a barrage that began and launched just as Chrono ended her sentence, two plasma bolts, an almost instant lightning bolt, and a single very useless arrow all flew Chono's way at different speeds.

The two bolts of plasma immediately deformed into a aurora like display. The heavily ionized atmosphere in the chamber forbidding the plasma from holding it's shape, much like trying to throw a handful of water while submerged.

The lightning and arrow however slammed into the wheezing Chrono, dropping her to her knees. For a moment, the wheezing was audible, but muttering was as well.

The whole room was bathed in a field of deep blue, as things traveled in reverse, all the way back to when the team had just entered the room and Chrono was still standing at the terminal. Any and all wounds were healed, and the damage to the room and equipment was gone. Although the only two people who could remember what had transpired seconds ago, were Blink and Gauss. To everyone else, they had just stepped into the room.

Gauss muttered as she looked around, her hand falling to her chest, "Oh fuck."

Chrono spoke, "Let's try that again."

In an instant, Chrono was again across the room at relativistic speeds. A lightspeed shoulder check upon Ophiuchia's midsection felt like getting hit by a train. A fist lashed out and delivered a glancing blow to Gauss, who in turn tried to reciprocate her own strike. Which resulted in contact with Chrono, but the subsequent sound of shattering bone and the crumpled nature of Gauss' left firearm armor signified exactly what melee would get you. A sudden explosive impulse backwards once again threw the woman across the room. A blue ball with a tiny black speck was then tossed at Fulldive, and the same attack as before was aimed at Silver Shepherd. Blink was left to act on his own devices, Chrono either forgetting he was there, or not thinking him a valid threat.

[Cybernetic Socialist Republics]

Ophiuchia (Team A)

---

In a barrage that began and launched just as Chrono ended her sentence, two plasma bolts, an almost instant lightning bolt, and a single very useless arrow all flew Chono's way at different speeds.

The two bolts of plasma immediately deformed into a aurora like display. The heavily ionized atmosphere in the chamber forbidding the plasma from holding it's shape, much like trying to throw a handful of water while submerged.

The lightning and arrow however slammed into the wheezing Chrono, dropping her to her knees. For a moment, the wheezing was audible, but muttering was as well.

The whole room was bathed in a field of deep blue, as things traveled in reverse, all the way back to when the team had just entered the room and Chrono was still standing at the terminal. Any and all wounds were healed, and the damage to the room and equipment was gone. Although the only two people who could remember what had transpired seconds ago, were Blink and Gauss. To everyone else, they had just stepped into the room.

Gauss muttered as she looked around, her hand falling to her chest, "Oh fuck."

Chrono spoke, "Let's try that again."

In an instant, Chrono was again across the room at relativistic speeds. A lightspeed shoulder check upon Ophiuchia's midsection felt like getting hit by a train. A fist lashed out and delivered a glancing blow to Gauss, who in turn tried to reciprocate her own strike. Which resulted in contact with Chrono, but the subsequent sound of shattering bone and the crumpled nature of Gauss' left firearm armor signified exactly what melee would get you. A sudden explosive impulse backwards once again threw the woman across the room. A blue ball with a tiny black speck was then tossed at Fulldive, and the same attack as before was aimed at Silver Shepherd. Blink was left to act on his own devices, Chrono either forgetting he was there, or not thinking him a valid threat.

Ophiuchia went careening across the ground and up the 'wall' of the chamber, the speed of the impact made it impossible for her to react in time to avoid the blow, or manage the impact before it sent her flying. She held her abdomen in pain, even after she lifted off and away from the chamber's 'wall'.

"As long as it's not going to kill me in here, don't bother updating me on the specifics of the damage, need to focus."

"Well good news, the shield was able to absorb a chunk of the contact because of the speed of the tackle and I can start delivering some of the refrigerated blood we drew from Maria to help with your more, severe, injuries. The bad news is, you'll probably want to hold back for a bit, at least until your shield to recharges or you're going to be in a lot more trouble if she hits you like that again. Also, looking at how Gauss' arm just fared punching her, you'll probably want to avoid doing that, I worry we might be dealing with someone incredibly heavy like Lilith, so I have concerns about the effectiveness of shield blasts. Might serve to distract, at least."

"I think now would be a good time to test out Maria's poisonous blood."

While Ophiuchia couldn't do much for now, remaining off the ground and away from any walls would probably guard her from a follow up blow from Chrono. She'd have to wait a good ten seconds for her shield to fully regenerate before engaging Chrono again. After that, she'd try hitting Chrono with a few distraction shield blasts before flying around behind her, going for bearhug and pumping as much of Maria's poisonous blood into Chrono as much as she could. Ophiuchia would just have to hope her team could fare well enough without her in the meantime.

[Lessoni]

Jack Dredd

He could taste the very distinct tinge of blood, as the boot took out more than one of his teeth. In the moment, perhaps the only thing that went through his head was whether TIAMA offered dental, because he was not eager to pay for this kinda work. But then he snapped back to the important stuff, and realized that she was much, much faster than him. Or maybe he was just really predictable. Blink chose to believe the former.

He stood for a moment, ready to strike on more time, though he was very tempted to simply rest for a moment. And then the whole thing reset.

The whole room was bathed in a field of deep blue, as things traveled in reverse, all the way back to when the team had just entered the room and Chrono was still standing at the terminal. Any and all wounds were healed, and the damage to the room and equipment was gone. Although the only two people who could remember what had transpired seconds ago, were Blink and Gauss. To everyone else, they had just stepped into the room.

Gauss muttered as she looked around, her hand falling to her chest, "Oh fuck."

Chrono spoke, "Let's try that again."

Before the half formed "What the fuck" could leave his lips, the action had started once more. He didn't take the time to question it; he'd do that later. Instead, he took advantage of the fact that the woman was ignoring him. He was almost offended, that she didn't think he was worth attacking.

He prepared to teleport once more, this time trying something more reckless, but hopefully more effective. If he landed where he wanted to, he would have his arms around her throat in a messy chokehold, but his plans were very quickly thrown off by Ophi going for the woman from behind. So he adjusted his plan, instead moving forward normally to swing his baton, once more at her knee. He was hoping she wouldn't expect the same trick twice.

[Gudmund]

Fulldive, Team A/F

As Fulldive stepped into the room, none the wiser of timed being rolled back, he immediately saw Chrono by the terminal. Gauss looked around in confusion and cursed. Chrono didn't seem surprised at all, speaking simply,

Chrono spoke, "Let's try that again."

In an instant, Chrono was again across the room at relativistic speeds. A lightspeed shoulder check upon Ophiuchia's midsection felt like getting hit by a train. A fist lashed out and delivered a glancing blow to Gauss, who in turn tried to reciprocate her own strike. Which resulted in contact with Chrono, but the subsequent sound of shattering bone and the crumpled nature of Gauss' left firearm armor signified exactly what melee would get you. A sudden explosive impulse backwards once again threw the woman across the room. A blue ball with a tiny black speck was then tossed at Fulldive, and the same attack as before was aimed at Silver Shepherd. Blink was left to act on his own devices, Chrono either forgetting he was there, or not thinking him a valid threat.

Standing at the forefront of his summons, Fulldive couldn't believe Chrono's speed as she closed the distance between their group in an instant. He could only watch on in abject horror as she knocked both Ophi and Gauss aside with ease. As Chrono tossed two different projectiles at him and Silver Shepard, he snapped back to reality, quickly summoning two shields to catch them out of the air.

Having witnessed Chrono's strength, and fearing she'd punt him across the room if he didn't do something fast, he ordered his summons to attack her. A skeleton swordsman charged the woman from the side while a skeleton archer, mage, and winged-knight readied shots of their own. Once again launching flaming arrow, plasma, and lightning at the woman in short notice.

[Transoxthraxia]

As the taste of metal flooded Silver Shepherd's mouth, her stomach started churning. The room itself was massive, and filled with equipment that was so far beyond the hero's understanding of science that she didn't even bother. She reveled in the fact that the smallest piece of technology in this room was likely worth more than any amount of money that she could ever make.

The combination of her apprehension in going into the room and the sights of the room itself had stopped her from processing what the scanner had said moments before - she had heard what it had said, but hadn't digested it, instead looking at the singularity in the center of the room. A completely black disk, no bigger than a coin was suspended. Shepherd's eyes widened and the marvel, before she was quickly snapped back to reality by their adversary, some fifty meters in front of them.

Before she even had a chance to think about anything, Blink went on the offensive while Ophiuchia said something in her own special, psychotic way. Shepherd sighed. Was it divine punishment that she found herself trapped in a room full of deadly radiation with a teenage go-getter, a mentally-unstable government project, and a psychotic, super-strong "hero"?

But Shepherd's pity party was short. Based off of their opponent's dress and smug sense of satisfaction, she predicted that they were something special, and connected that with the danger Blink could now potentially be in. As Gauss went to protest Blink's over-enthusiastic opening move, it was Chrono that moved first.

Her boot impacted with Blink's would-be trajectory, throwing him back meters. As the team crumbled to dust in their overenthusiasm, Chrono had apparently put both the kid and Ophiuchia out of commission in a matter of seconds, and tossed a similar orb towards Shepherd. It wasn't going incredibly fast, and Shepherd quickly dove sideways. She made sure that she was well out of the way of the blast radius, quickly using the Interdependence to get out of the way and then climb upwards on the wall.

As Shepherd noticed the orb was honing in on her, she grimaced, and continued moving along the wall away from the projectile, hoping its lazy turns would mean it would impact with something aside from her before she had to figure out what it did. Luckily, the orb narrowly missed her, but the impact it had on the metal not too far away from her was terrifying.

As she began to, Shepherd thought the most apt comparison was "digest", Ophiuchia, She took some time to think about their opposition. She couldn't see Gauss, and she saw Ophiuchia and, much to her horror, Blink, prepare a second round of attacks. "You can't just brute force all your problems..." she muttered. But then, suddenly, she heard her opponent say something, and -

---

As the taste of metal flooded Silver Shepherd's mouth, her stomach started churning. The room itself was massive, and filled with equipment that was so far beyond the hero's understanding of science that she didn't even bother. She reveled in the fact that the smallest piece of technology in this room was likely worth more than any amount of money that she could ever make.

The combination of her apprehension in going into the room and the sights of the room itself had stopped her from processing what the scanner had said moments before - she had heard what it had said, but hadn't digested it, instead looking at the singularity in the center of the room. A completely black disk, no bigger than a coin was suspended. Shepherd's eyes widened and the marvel, before she was quickly snapped back to reality by their adversary, who had once been some meters away, but, it seemed that as soon as the team had entered the room, had crossed it in what seemed to be impossible speeds, colliding with Ophiuchia and Gauss.

Chrono crossed the room back towards where she came from in what seemed like an instant, after boasting, "Let's try that again. "My God", Shepherd said. They were clearly dealing with someone who could warp the fabric of reality. But what did that mean? "Let's try that again"? A blue orb had been tossed her way. Not wanting to find out what it would do, she dove out of the way, climbing up the wall. As she did so, her mind raced. Who was this? What could they even do? She looked for Gauss, checking if the woman was alright, cursing her inability to be effective at range. She began mulling over what she could do. With the speed and power of this individual, it felt like there was nothing any single one of them could do to deal with them. It'd have to be a team effort, not just individuals doing their best alone.

Once she had ensured the orb that had been tossed her way was safely far from her, she jumped down towards Gauss, checking to see if she was alright. "We need to coordinate our people", she said, stress in her voice betraying her emotion.

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Bermuda
VTOL
Waldemar

"Assessing damages correctly my ass..."

, Waldemar grumbled as he watched ELISA just get up and leave. Was age getting to him that badly already? Nah, more likely all that precision work in often poor light conditions. He couldn't claim to have taken care of personal health that much. As if to underline that thought, he pulled out a flask of adulterated vodka and took a deep sip from it, grimacing before closing the flask and putting it away again.

"Gonna need to get myself some glasses...should craft some when I get back..."

With all things on this platform clearly already having been dealt with or requiring some regular footsloggers and support personnel, Waldemar just up and left, getting back onto the VTOL they had come with to go and get to wherever they and the rest of the still capable part of these teams would have to help out. DC was supposedly going poorly from what he had heard. Agh, what a mess this entire situation was, what with all these attacks in this short time. The Federal Reserve, the Bronx Terrorist Attack, now an attack on the heart of the US political system and, if he had heard things correctly, likely the elimination of large swathes of its legislative system, not to mention attacks on secret or otherwise extremely important facilities. Heck, even without knowing about the latter, Waldemar was certain that someone would instrumentalize this. Did it matter that this new syndicate had done it? No, not at all. With attacks of such magnitude, politicians across the world would jump on the idea of this being some sort of orchestrated attack by foreign actors. Didn't matter what this Osteo fellow said, whatever political force would be left after this would look to pin blame on the Russians or the Chinese or even the Iranians.

Thinking like that really made him want to take another sip...but he resisted the urge for now. If the US decided to build a fully nationalized superhero unit or whatever and kicked TIAMA out for failing to do fuckall about this, he'd likely have a harder time to get more alcohol. They'd probably experience some budget cuts.

Sitting down in the VTOL, he caught Cross scratching their destination for some Raven Rock instead. Well, whatever, if Cross was of the opinion that DC didn't need the help and could handle things on their own then that was alright. The man wasn't wrong that often so Waldemar figured it'd be alright. Now, there was this youngster, that human asking some interesting questions. If Waldemar remembered correctly, it was the same guy who had previously told Cross that his haughty ass bot got trashed.

"If I remember correctly, it's from some open world fantasy roleplaying game or something like that called Welder's Scroll V, Pacific Rim or something. I think there somewhere is a location settled by...Elves...called Raven Rock. I heard some of the younger interns talk about it once."

He cracked a smile at the human before stretching out his hand, failing to reach across the VTOL however so it hung in the air, a good bit short of meeting the middle of the VTOL and getting in reach of Chris' hand. Clearing his throat he quickly added:

"Don't think we've been introduced. Waldemar. You are?"

[Endem]

Chris Digel
Bucephalus 2

"A video game?, I've heard they've become a thing recently, never played one"

Chris said, he never had the money to play in one of those arcade places when he was a kid, and after getting into gangs and mafia's, the time to do such things had long since passed. The dwarf man then introduced himself as Waldemar, and cracking a smile towards Chris, and extending a hand to shake his hand, Chris shook Waldemar's hand, needing to lean forward just a tiny bit.

"I'm Chris, local ex-mafia turned TIAMA employee"

Chris said, half-jokingly, he tried to treat the past with a light attitude, well, as much as he could, there would always be some people that would make him remember that time they've left him for dead. After shaking Waldemar's hand, Chris leaned back into his seat, for a second he wondered why would anybody name a place after some game, and where it was.