Against the Stars (IC, Open)

[The Republic of Atria]

OOC, App here first!

Jason walked around in one of the overcrowded mega cities that made up Haven. It was one of the few decent places to be post war, but even then in the golden days, it would've been considered a crap hole. How things had changed. He could see the looks on people's eyes. Even the Collective units that couldn't emote looked tired and scared. He could see why. Stores barely had enough amenities for everyone, everyone who had a job was overworked and underpaid. He managed to snag a good deal acting as a bouncer for a night club. He was lucky enough to be a large man, and that was before he told the owner that he was a high level tank super. There wasn't even an interview, the owner just told him to stand at the door, look intimidating, and keep fights from breaking out or prevent them from getting worse. Alcohol was being drank more often than water. Given the state of the city, he couldn't blame anyone. He never drank because he wasn't sure how his power would react to it. Thankfully most everyone was too miserable and busy drowning out their sorrows to have more than an occasional shouting match with each other.

Things went pretty smoothly for the next few weeks. The owner was actually making a substantial amount of money and paid Jason enough to actually afford a place to stay that wasn't the inside of his ship. There was one fight that he had to break up, but once his power activated, everyone immediately got quiet and stopped. Jason didn't even do anything other than give an irritated look and everyone immediately knew what was up when an immolated dragon to glaring at you. After that, he did have to explain to his boss that his power doesn't function consciously. And about the scorch marks on the floor from his pyrokinesis. "Sorry about the tile... I don't exactly get to switch my powers on and off." He explained sheepishly to his boss, Jack. Fortunately Jack didn't seem to care.

"Don't even worry about it. Word's getting out that I got a fucking super guarding my place. Ain't too many people that can say that. To make things even sweeter, people are flocking here even more since they heard I got good security. Sucks that you can't change on the fly." He said sitting down in his chair.

"Yeah. I tried for awhile. Otherwise I'd just stay changed during work. Maybe on a fireproof mat or something." He joked, and his boss chuckled a bit. "Anyways... I want to ask you about something. It's not about a raise. You pay me plenty. But you've been listening to the rumors, right? About The 9? Some people are talking about those psychos coming here..." Jason said. "This planet is already on the verge of falling apart at the seems. If they actually do show up..."

"Relax." Jack said. "I've heard 'em. Probably started by some jackass who just wants to scare people." He said dismissively. "That being said, keep an eye on the news. If those psychos do show up. I need to close up shop. And. I promise, that if you take those psychos on, I'm tripling your pay. Also, seriously, I've got a super good camera. I'm recording that fight." Jack said half jokingly and showed Jason the camera. "That being said. Don't go fight those super psychos, man. Lay low and just let them do their thing. They'll get bored and leave. I'm your boss, but I think we're friends. And I don't want my friend getting his ass eaten alive by those monstrous fuck faces." Jack explained. "Alright. Glad we could have this chat. Now get back to work! Remind me to order new chairs. People keep wearing those damn things out. Gonna put fucking plastic on them." He yelled with a grin, but Jason knew that he wasn't super serious about it.

He left Jack's office and headed back down to the entrance, which had a good view of the TV, which the bartender had switched to the news at Jack's command. So far, there wasn't anything unusual. Just some shuttle crashes, which were commonplace. It amazed Jason that despite how advanced technology had gotten, people still couldn't pay attention to where they were flying their ships. A few hours passed, and the club was about to close for the night, or rather, day. It was like 7 in the morning with the sun just peaking over the horizon of the metal city. Jason was about to head out when the TV blared a loud alarm with made Jason jump, his power activating instinctively at Jason's fear. Already armored scales were covering his chest and limbs. He didn't want to look at the TV, he felt like he knew what it was.

"We are receiving reports of sightings of The 9. We recommend returning to your homes as soon as possible and locking the-" The signal was disrupted and replaced with a new stream Of the leader of The 9: Nathan. "The news is always so negative these days, isn't it?" Came the cool and collected voice. "This thing is working right?" He asked and a "yes" came from off screen. "Oh yeah, I see it. Anyways. I thought we'd make today a little more interesting. I know you've got some supers in this city. Math dictates that it's a certainty! Show them what we're doing cameraman!" Nathan said and led him through a few hallways that were filled the brim with the bodies of Collective machines and people. "This is the reactor that keeps all of the mega cities running. Dark energy or something, and here's my ultimatum: If want allllllllll of your supers that are watching this, to come and try to stop me. If you don't. Well. It's not hard for a half decent builder to make this place go up in smoke. Not sure what a dark energy reactor explosion looks like, but we'll find out! You've got, put the timer up."

A few seconds later, a timer, counting down from 12 hours appeared on screen. And then flicked back to Jack. "No! Keep the timer on! But make sure they can hear me." It flicked back to the timer. "Sorry about that. Technical difficulties. Technology huh? Anyways, In 12 hours I'm gonna make this reactor go up in a big ass kaboom." Nathan said. "Unless we're stopped of course. We'll be waiting!"

The timer said 11:59:32. The 9. They were going to wipe out billions of people as a joke? Why?! What was the point of that? The galaxy had suffered enough. It didn't need more madness. It needed someone to look up to. Jack ran down the stairs and saw Jason staring at the TV. "Jason... Dude. No. That's what those psychos want. They want a bunch of people to try and stop them, so they can kill them in front of the galaxy. If you go after them, they're going to kill you." Jason looked at his boss and back to the timer. 11:58:46.

"If someone doesn't get them away from that reactor, it's going to take half the damn planet with it when it goes off. Look... I'm sick and tired of... This. Sick and tired of being on edge just in case those psychos show up. No one's ever stood up to them."

"Because no one ever fucking lives when they do! Or fucking hell man, the shit that Scar chick will do to you. Fuck that, that's worse than dying. Please don't go throw your life away."

Jason hesitated for a moment and ran out the door to where his ship was parked. Jack came running after him just as Jason's ship lifted into the air a few feet. He opened the door and yelled at Jack. "If, no, when I come back." Jason said, half smiling. "I want that raise." And like that, Jason's ship shot off towards the power plant. His power was already covering his entire body, giving him the visage of a dragon. He was able to keep his fire in check. It took a bit of focus, and given the insanity that was about to unleash in the next few hours, he needed his head start. Normally there was a speed limit: 400 KPH. Jason was pushing 2000. In just a minute, he had already lost most of his sense of touch to his armor. That was good. He should've slowed down and let his armor boost up a little more, but holding back the flames was like holding back a huge sneeze. It was going to come out soon. The plant was in sight and he slowed. The entire travel time was little more than 2 minutes.

There were news ships and several Collective enforcers surrounding the plant. Jason's ship slammed into the ground between them and the plant, bouncing and crashing along the ground. It was wrecked, but he popped out of the mangled hunk of metal completely unscathed and wreathed in flames. He looked at the crowd and heard the voice of Nathan behind him. A group of 7 people were walking out of the power plant. Jason got into a defensive position ready for The 9's attack.

"Wow! Not even 5 minutes and we've already got our first victim. And he's a big one! Before you say anything. I know. We've only got seven people, so why are we calling ourselves the Nine? Well, membership growth has been slow these past few months. People are so damn fickle. What's your name kid?" Nathan asked him.

Jason waited just a few more seconds for the flames to get just a little hotter. A little more intense. "My name? Jason. I'd ask yours, but I already know. Ashes." He said and let loose a massive wave of bright orange fire at the group of mass murderers from his hands. With each passing second, the flames getting hotter and flowing out with more and more pressure. The next thing he knew, was Nathan slamming his hand into his face, sending Jason skidding across the ground, and into the Enforcer ship, crushing it and sliding it back for about 20 feet. Jason climbed out of the ship and saw Nathan slowly clapping, with the rest of the gang unscathed by his flames. "Really? The slow, sarcastic clap?"

"I felt it was appropriate. You've piqued my interest. Most people stay down after a blow like that. Or explode into a mess."

Jason took a step towards Nathan who didn't so much as flinch. It was then that he felt two sharp pains in his shoulders. He grunted and fell to his knees assuming Nathan was doing something to him, but after a few seconds, large wings forced themselves through his back. "Huh... Those are new." He smiled a bit and charged towards Nathan, awkwardly flapping his wings as hard as he could. Jason jumped forward in order to give himself some thrust and charged right at Nathan. Jason wreathed himself in so much fire that it was hard to see him as anything more than an 8 foot long fireball.

Nathan didn't even bother trying to stop the flaming dragon and took three steps to the side. Jason swiped at him, but there was a good few feet between his hand and Nathan. Which only increased when he slammed into and through the wall to the power plant. Nathan replied with letting out a whistle. "I'm sensing that you're not very good at the whole flying thing. Also, you've officially done more damage to the power plant than I have. Certainly hope you've got more tricks up your sleeve than that. If you don't, that's fine. I'm content with watching you flail around randomly for the next few hours."

[Zhaas123]

Jonathan was currently sitting down in his private corridors on the Argonaut reading the reports from his subordinates and enjoying a small drink. He was just finishing reading a request from the builders for more funding when Shannon Lewis his second in command contacted him through the ship's private systems.

"Yes Lewis what is it?" he said not looking up from his reports. "Captain we received word from Haven we have permission to dock." Lewis said, the captain finished his drink and and replied "Good have us land immediately". The line dropped and Jonathan closed his reports and entered the elevator, he pressed the button to take his to the main deck. The Captain walked into the command center on the main deck and turned on the intercoms and began to speak

"Fleet this is captain Jonathan speaking, soon we are going to dock on the planet Haven, crews will be cycled through for shore leave. As always consult your superiors as to when you can take your shore leave, Jonathan out." He sat down in the captain's chair and began to read the news from the planet as the fleet prepared to began docking with the shipyards when something took over the news feed.

A man the leader of the Nine showed up on the screen he talked about making things more fun and relieved the counter that was counting down the hours till they would destroy the Dark Energy reactor. Jonathan also saw the bodies of Collective personal. He knew if they destroyed the reactor it would take out most of the city. Jonathan got up from his seat and turned on the intercom again and began to speak.

"Everyone this is Jonathan we have a class 1 emergency here, the Nine are on the planet and are threatening to blow up the city in 12 hours. This means shore leave is cancelled. Squads three and ten suit up and meet me in Hangar One, and bring the heavy guns, Hanger One prepare two shuttles. Executive Officer Lewis is in charge until I return." He sprinted to his private armory and got his equipment standard issue battle armor, the AR-60 Tactical Hunters Rifle, and a Jaw revolver.

In the armory he called Lewis on a private connection "Lewis it's Jonathan if I don't come back in 10 hours, take as many people as you can and leave the system." he told her "Captain I can't" Lewis tried to say but Jonathan cut her off "It's an order Lewis." "Yes sir". was all she replied with before the connection cut. Jonathan made his way to Hangar One and meet with the men assembled, he passed them by and saluted them before getting on one of the shuttles.

"Men" he shouted "I won't lie to this is going to be a tough one. The people were up against are some of the most dangerous people in the galaxy. That's why it's going to be even more impressive when we take the sons of bitches down! Remember your training and we'll make it out of this. Move out!" the captain ended his small speech and entered the shuttle. When both of them were full they launched, he ordered them to fly low to avoid detecting.

The shuttles being some of the few to be modified by the builders were quick to reach the plant where Jonathan and his men saw the leader of the Nine fighting what looked to be some kind of demon from hell. Must be a super Jonathan thought. Jonathan looked at the battle before them, "Ok here's the plan me and squad ten are going to land and engage the leader of the Nine, squad three you are to stay in your shuttles and run strafing runs on the other members of the nine".

The men and women respond with an unison "Yes sir" Jonathan and his men landed and watched the other shuttle began to fly higher up towards the group of six he assumed were apart of the Nine. "Three round burst and control your fire I don't know who red over there is but he's fighting them so assume friendly." With that the Captain and squad began to advance and opened fire.

[New Neros]

Mark Nemo
Pax Denali System

"So, you think you're strong?" Outside of the rustic tavern, Mark Nemo stood firmly before three raider pirates who eyed him with hunger, the leader of the group quizzing him intently. "Because I think you're a bitch and you're going down in the second or third round." Mark gave a quick laugh and tossed his head to the side, knowing the raiders were gauging his reaction to the insult. The thought crossed his mind about just giving each one an embolism and walking away, but he needed the money and they had the connections to get in.

"I can hold my own against the best of them. Bet against me and you're losing every penny, feel me?" Nemo said, offering no other reason for believing except his words. "And if you think I'm a push over, then we see who winds up on the floor right now." As Mark spoke, the insulting raider pulled out an energy pistol and aimed it directly at Mark's exposed head. Mark lifted his hand and mentally ripped the gun from the man's hand, placing it in his own. "Go ahead and pull out the other one. Or the knife. Whatever you think it'll take to handle me, I can assure it that it won't be enough."

The raider laughed, grabbing his belly heartily, "Alright, kid, you're in." He said, scribbling down Mark's name on a piece of paper. "Head to the pits, you're registered, and you're fighting in the next few minutes." Nemo nodded, walking away from the wooden building and heading to the raiders' secluded fighting arena. "Keep the pistol. You'll probably need it, kid, if things get too dodgy." Mark waved him off, making the raider grin widely, knowing that the pit was fixed and Mark was walking into a death trap. Hilariously, Mark knew that too, and was going to use his powers to just level his opponents.

Mark found the arena sandwiched between two mountain ranges on the desert world, closed off on each side of the valley with massive walls of metal, rock, and wood, along with whatever else they could find. Inside, it was just a massive open air pit. In here, it seems that the raiding group had no set structure for the fights, it was a simple free for all, last man standing type of deal, and as Mark strolled in, it was very clear that he was unlike the other contestants. Each one seemed to be some huge hulking pirate or an assassin by trade, but he looked like some long-haired badass normal in a factory-made power suit. All eyes looked at him for a moment then went elsewhere, writing him off in a heartbeat.

Some of the other fighter spoke amongst themselves, hammering out makeshift alliances before the battle began, while Mark stood off on his own, brooding in his own section of wall, feeling the psionic energies of his opponents and being ready for the signal to begin, sighing loudly as he waited. After a few minutes, the announcers gave their final warning to the contestants, and began a countdown. It was around fifty people, give or take, and they all took positions equal distance from each other alongside the rocky and metallic arena wall. A giant horn blew in the distance, and the entire mass of people began to move. Mark shot forth a telekinetic blast to pin the man directly across from him hard against the metal, bending it in and rendering the man unconscious, but had to quickly dodge a knife-wielding maniac slashing at him from the side.

Rather than fight the man, Nemo hit him with a burst of psionic energy as well, sending him flying and skidding across the ground. Nemo grabbed a hold of him mentally, and used him like a slingshot to slam into another person, taking them both out due to the sheer force of the impact. From his actions, he immediately gained a lot of attention, and rather than continuously run the gauntlet against another forty hardened killers and thieves, Mark Nemo unleashed a sea of telekinetic energy, grabbing all the contestants by their feet and lifting them up over their heads, before slamming them against the hard enough with enough force to incapacitate them all. Less than five minutes for a shitshow of a super abusing a bunch of lowlifes in front of their lowlife friends, to say that the crowd was booing with enthusiasm was an understatement.

"Absolute bullshit!" One of the organizers cried, "Who the fuck are you? Why are you on the list?" He said, getting right into Mark's face, stepping over and even on some of the other competitors on his way over. "Answer me, shitstain."

"I'm Mark Nemo and I took everyone out, where's my money?"

"Up your fucking ass, you freak, get the fuck out of here before I have my rowdy boys tear open your asshole." The organizer said, turning and walking away from Mark, "I ought to break your fucking neck."

"Where's my money?" Nemo yelled, mentally grabbing the man and bringing him back to face the music. "You're either going to pay... In money, your life... Or your body." Mark said, giving his lip a sinister lick. Mark dropped the organizer onto the ground, watching him panic and fumble around a bit, digging through his pockets. "Going for a weapon? Go ahead, it isn't like I'll just grab it from you before you can use it." Much to Nemo's surprise, however, the organizer pulled out a set of ship keys. "The hell?"

"Here! Take 'em, it's my ship, the Black Racer, that's enough of a prize for you, right? Just get the fuck out of here and leave us alone, fuck boy."

"Does it have any money on it?"

"A couple thousand in the safe."

"Good enough, I will not be seeing any of you later." Mark Nemo said, levitating the keys into his own hands. "You are all poor sports and I could have finished all of you off in even less time if I cared enough. Just be glad I'm not a hero and ready to bust open your skulls. Ta!" He said, walking casually out of the arena, stepping over his defeated competitors as he exited the building. Some ways away was an old, blackish-gray freighter ship labelled Black Racer, that seems to be have been suped up to run blockades and armed to board other vessels. Mark Nemo boarded the ship and was about to crank it up, but placed his hand on a wall, scanning through the ship for any anomalies.

Mark smirked, walking back towards the engine room and stumbling upon a big black box with wires haphazardly connected to the main engines and fuel converter. "Start it up, big boom, one less super to worry about in the world. I wonder how many people you managed to get doing this kind of shit." Nemo said to himself, ripping the makeshift bomb out of it's connections, tugging it along with him back to the control room, tinkering with it for a moment. In his fumbling with the technology, Mark seemed to trigger a back-up timer, which was set to blow in the next two minutes. "Fuck." He declared, starting up the main engines and preparing for lift off. He rushed down the cargo bay and set the bomb dead in the center, rushing back to the control center to pilot the ship.

Taking off, Mark did a circle around the landscape for a moment, swinging in low into a valley that looked all too familiar. As a hunk of metal became clear on the other end of the crevice, Nemo opened his cargo bay and delivered the explosive payload meant to kill him. He accelerated and fled the scene as the bomb torn apart one of the make-shift walls of the arena, the Parahuman youth laughing wild as he pulled into low orbit. As exited the atmosphere, a pre-programmed flight was initiated, putting Mark Nemo and the Black Racer on path to Haven, one of the bastions of humanity in the post-war galaxy. Having never been, the young superhuman decided to have make use of the impromptu vacation.

[Parcia]

Mother of Invention
Outer edges of the Haven System

"So, Athena, what your saying is that if a meta-human does not stop them, their willing to collapse the containment field on a class 3 dark matter collider, just to...for a joke?" The Holographic projection of the women stood off to the left of his chair. "Indeed, master Morrs." He suppressed a giggle at the English accent.

"Have the local security forces noticed us yet?" The women shook her head. "Our range and the fact we are running dark means we are practically invisible." He sighed and set the cup of Coco on the arm rest of the command chair. "We'er likely to go down their, aren't we?" The women nodded. "To my knowledge, your the only one in the surrounding 38...39 systems who qualifies to stabilize a class 3 dark matter core." He raised an eye brow. "You paused?"

She blinked. "Running dark has made me partition off certain sections of my subroutines, I had to double check my storage on hand." He nodded and got up from his chair. "Well, might as well be off then, go ahead and take us up to full power, if the cops pings you tell them your a bulk hauler and make up some bogus reason to keep them out of visual range." The Women nodded.

He walked back from the chair, across the sparsely decorated command deck. Most of the interior of the Mother of Invention was like this, roomy, bare, and utilitarian. That was mainly due to the fact that roughly 80% of the ship was taken up by Data banks, storage, and technical equipment, especially for the Nano Forge, or rather the star ship size one hooked directly in to the class 4 anti matter core that could have powered all of Haven for close to a 1000 years (and be far, far less vulnerable) that also produced literally everything he could have thought off.

Despite that, their were only 2 people on the ship, not counting the AI who ran most of the systems. "Alice." He called up the blond haired girl, a holographic window appeared in front of his face, revealing the girl, face smugged with what he guessed to be engine grease, looked at him quizzically. "What, i'm knee deep in thruster guts." "Heh, is the Cougar ready to fly?"

The girl smiled, showing off those pretty pearly whites. Her face was angelic, her eyes and icy blue and her stark blond hair tied up in a pony tail. She reached up and brushed off some metal shavings off from the top of her tank top. "She can be in the time it takes you to get down here, I take it were taking a trip down to Haven?" He nodded. "The 9 have popped up, threatened to let the planetary power core to critical if they didn't get a good fight." She frowned, "A class 3 core?" He nodded. "Damn, I take it we'll need to pack heat?" He nodded. "Alright, i'll load up the combat gear."


Hanger bay.

The hanger it self was mostly barren, but one corner was littered with star ship parts. Engine manifolds, thruster lines, deactivated power cores and dissembled laser cannons. The thing that drew his attention, and the thing that Alice just finished putting back together, was a sleek, black, all together scary looking star fighter. The FA-70 Panther II was a product of the Lockheed company, a Galaxy renown company for their small ship production.

This particular one was bought privately, stripped of the usual military markings, and over the course of 3 months, refit by the girl. She had taken to mechanics since that first day, something that made him both laugh and shudder at the prospect of letting her have unlimited access to the Nanoforge.

He had started research in to creating a home grown house mate around his 13th birthday. He found a DNA template online, after some digging in to some classified mil-tech files he probably wasn't supposed to look in to, and built a growth chamber from scratch, long division and some quick reading over lunch. The problem with creating her, came with trying to program a personality in to her. Since he only had a DNA template, and not a full set of blueprints, he had to model her brain structure after his own, which meant she was just as smart as he was and also resistant to telepathy.

In the end, and by that it was some half hour before she woke up, that he just left it open. She was "born" like all others, screaming in to the world. He pushed the memory out of his mind as she walked up to him in her combat gear. "So, the Cougar is ready to go, you going in that?" He nodded.

She was, by all accounts, a drop dead knock out. Granted she had the body of an 20 years old, she had the mental state of a 16 year old, one who could put together a super advanced space/atmospheric superiority fighter by her self and also shoot to kill with inhuman accuracy and speed. He had left some of the combat programming installed, seeing as he was still shit with a rifle. Well, he had been practicing.

"You been paying attention?" She asked him, her head tilted in curiosity. "Yes." She gave him a sly smile. "Keep your eyes forward, egg head, your riding passenger." She tapped the side panel on the ship and the latter popped out, the canopy opening as well. The two climbed in and as soon as he was belted in, she called up from the Pilots seat in front of him. "You ready for this, egghead?" Her voice came through the radio built in to his helmet and hers. "Yea, just don't gun it." She hummed to her self as she flicked certain switches and pushed certain buttons, the hanger doors opening and the energy field buzzing to life, keeping the atmosphere in the hanger.

She grabbed the stick and spoke up, "Hmm, what was that?" She gunned the throttle and the two shot out of the hanger towards the marble that was Haven.

[New Rob Halfordia]

As the news broadcast at the power plant played and Nathan spoke, calling out to all heroes, Germayne watched from inside his garage, pouring diesel into his super suit. He had never tested it on a real threat, only his Bastion units, so this would be it's trial run. If it succeeded, he would probably win. If it failed, well, a predictable outcome would occur. As the last of the fuel poured in, he approached the front of the suit. Lifting the key, he turned over the starter. After a few seconds, the engine made a low chugging sound, eventually revving up to stable RPMs, creating a guttural diesel alongside a distinctive turbo whistle. He slowly opened the front side of the armor, crawling in and attaching his arms and legs to the metal clamps. As it closed he slowly raised his arms, causing the RPMs to slightly increase, and took a step forward. It was working at peak capacity.

Germayne walked over to the far wall of his garage, each step creating a booming metallic clank of heavily reinforced steel alloy against concrete. He slammed his hand into a button opening the roof to his workspace. From a hole in the floor, a small ship raising from the floor. Walking towards ship he grabbed a railgun and a belt of tungsten slugs off the wall, wrapping the belt to his waist and attaching the railgun to his left hand. Germayne boarded the ship, quickly taking off and making his way to the power plant.

As he closed in, he saw battling on the ground, some kind of dragon fighting the leader of the nine, and very poorly so. Setting his ship to auto hover, he opened the cargo bay. Each thunderous footstep towards the air filled his blood with more and more adrenaline. This is what he had been waiting for. The chance to test not only his own limits, but his technological limits. Finally, he had a real threat.

Jumping out of the ship, he descended quickly before slamming into the ground, black smoke billowing from his shoulders and the diesel engine on his back roaring. He slowly rose, cracking his neck before locking onto Nathan before speaking in a deep robotic tone, "You must be the man I'm looking for. The snarky asshole with a deathwish? That one on the news? The one about to get a metal fist shoved up his ass? Sound about right?"

[Turmenista]

<c/g.I._RunProgram("Wake_Up_Sleeping_Children.exe") - exe:
0100100100100000011000010111000001110000011100100110010101100011 01101001 01100001 01110100 011001010010000001111001011011110111010100100000011010010110011000100000011110010110111101110101001000000111010001110010011000010110111001110011011011000110000101110100011001010110010000100000011101000110100001101001011100110010000001101100011011110110110000100000001011010010000001010100011101010111001001101101
Executing program..... 0%___________________________

---

The interior of the ship was more or less vacant, as if it had never been touched in years. Which was the case, as a matter of fact. Dust and cobwebs covered the various consoles and computers onboard the ship as a foggy white haze crept into the only room that was lit onboard the ship: the cryo stasis bay. The mist filled the room as the dim blue lights suddenly flashed brighter than before, filling the room with light once more as the hum of the ship's systems and engines began to overtake the deathly silence of space. Once the room's lights abruptly flicked on, metallic thumps accompanied the sounds of even more lights flickering on above the rows of cryogenic stasis pods, notably empty of any individuals.

That was the case, except for one particular pod, however.

The one pod which kept an occupant inside turned on the last, the lights inside revealing the sole individual still asleep inside the storage. The entrance to the pod, in the form of a large, full body window of the occupant, suddenly experienced a drop in temperature as the tiny icicles accumulating on the sides of the window began to melt. Wisps of fog filled the stasis pod as the lights slowly brightened inside, simultaneous to the sudden activation of the dust-covered control console on the front of the pod. As lines of code and command prompts ran down the dusty black screen, another hissing sound was heard from the pod, this time, the sound of the pod depressurizing and unlocking.

The warm lights turning on indicated that the pod had been successfully unlocked, with the individual inside expected to show some signs of life soon. One question remained, however.

Who had opened the pod, and who was inside of it?

---

Unspecified Naval Corvette, Orbit of Planet ???
Lieutenant Mira-696

"<Good morning, Lieutenant Mira. Please sit up, take a deep breath, and feel free to cough, if needed. Take it slow, please.>"

Lieutenant Mira-696 awoke to a dull blue light filling her blurry vision. She felt something lodged in her throat as she suddenly sat upright, her upper body peeling off of the form-fitting gel bedding as she peered out the entrance of the pod,. To her left, the dog tags of an individual designated "MIRA" on one tag, with the numbers "696" on the other caught her attention briefly. She took the tags, clenching them in her hand as she attempted to lift herself out of her pod, only to double down back into the pod as he legs refused to work for a moment. I need to take it slow getting out of this pod, she reminded herself, taking her exit more slowly as she pushed herself up, hands gripping the side of the pod as she clumsily climbed out. More wisps of fog crept into her pod as she stepped out, wearily walking over to the nearby bench, where she promptly took a seat on the deathly cold wood. Following the instructions from the voice, Mira tried to inhale, only to inhale more substance in her throat as she doubled over, entering into a coughing fit for a couple of moment before she recovered, looking up at the ceiling. It was then that Lieutenant Mira realized how alone she was, as every other pod in the cryo stasis bay was labeled "VACANT", save for her own.

She took the tags and put them on promptly, stepping off of the bench as she began searching around the room for the source of the voice. The sound of her bare feet pressing against the floor produced occasional and light thump-thumps, as she searched around the room for any sort of life still onboard. "Hello?" She asked aloud, to no one in particular. Preferably, this ship had an A.I., so it could answer her questions rather quickly. "NAV, has someone boarded the ship and woke me up? Are we under attack?"

"<Negative, Lieutenant.>" Came the calm, disembodied female voice from earlier - the shipboard A.I. replied. "<Status: Ship running on reserve power. No attack from Hyperium forces logged on record. Standard wake-up procedure dictates that highest commanding Naval Officer is to wake up and assess incoming information of new planet. We have been drifting in normal space as per your orders, and the ship has been kept in as best condition as it was before you went to sleep.>"

"And how long have we been drifting for?" Mira asked.

"<Eighteen years, one month, and nine days."> NAV replied. "<Again, as per wake-up protocol, the highest commanding officer has been given a report of the planet in question our ship is on approach to, located in the bridge.">

"I'll take a look at it when I'm done. Thank you.," Mira replied.

"<You're welcome, Lieutenant. Welcome back.>" after the A.I. gave its statement of understanding, it ceased communication for now, leaving only Mira and her own thoughts to keep herself company for now. She let out a sigh as she continued searching around the room, looking for anything important in particular. This also gave her time to think. Where exactly had they ended up? On the outer colonies, desecrated and destroyed by the Hyperium? On the Inner Colonies, where anarchy, strife, and piracy ran rampant? And why did she pick a corvette again? This ship wouldn't last long in space action against a Hyperium ship, let alone a pirate one. Mira should've brought an escort, but the problem was, she was effectively AWOL. AWOL, in the sense, that the military had destroyed itself from the inside out and she was the only sane one left. She just didn't understand what she was thinking now - why she had done this alone, before she remembered. All of her friends were dead, lost, or otherwise betrayed and turned into self-imposed villains. There was no more military, no more heroes, and, for the most part, no more hope.

Fuck. So much for a happy ending, she thought to herself, before exiting the cryo stasis pod area of the floor. She needed to get the answers to those questions, and the only way she was going to do so was to get the information was on the bridge. The only problem was that she was definitely in no presentable form to move to the bridge - let alone, not even clothed for the event - especially after 18 years of staying in that freezer-casket.

Lieutenant Mira knew the regulations like the back of her hand, anyways. Standard wake-up protocol dictated that she personally inspect the rest of the crew, and, for the most part, the ship, to make sure no one had any problems in waking up. The only problem with this was that she basically was the only crew, besides NAV, eliminating that possibility. She instead turned to the equipment and exited the sleep chamber, gazing around the room parallel to it, dubbed the "wake-up room". Rows of lockers and showers, as well as a medical bed all lay empty, save for her own. She hadn't even remembered where she put her stuff the last time she was in here, so she just assumed that anything left behind was in the Armory or someplace similar. While Mira took a look around the wake-up room for a few moments longer, she paused, her gaze diverting over to the mirror now to the left of her. A young, slender woman with matted strands of short, blonde hair, along with intelligent gray eyes, stared back at the Lieutenant in the mirror. Her attention wasn't so much focused on the woman, as it was on the long, ugly scar down her back that had apparently had a hard time healing whilst in her sleep, but had already shown signs of lightening up now. Before she moved on, Mira gave herself a mental note to remind herself about how sleeping like could have possibly had an effect on her healing factor, just in advance. Now wasn't the time to be thinking about that, though. That came later.

---

The planet in question was named "Haven", situated in a system of the same name, for the most part. The system had a rather pathetic single sun and, for as long as she could see, didn't seem to house any other planets. Mira sighed as she placed her M41X MAWs onto her side holster situated on her Gecko suit. The suit allowed her to make no sound as she entered the pod bay area, assessing the information she had received on the bridge minutes prior. "To be clear, we're scuttling the ship?" She asked NAV.

"<Affirmative.>"

"What will happen to you?" She asked.

"<As per standard scuttling procedure, any ship incapable of further operation even without repair is to be scuttled. Current power signature suggests that this ship has: 30 minutes of life left, before reserve power is de-activated and the ship is effectively disabled. Abandoning ship and scuttling it to prevent it from entering enemy hands is of the utmost importance, along with getting you down to the planet, Lieutenant.>"

"And for me?" She continued, clambering into the cramped drop pod as the door promptly closed shut on her. The pod was lowered down further to a staging area, where Mira could clearly see the surface of the planet, along with the planned route the pod was expected to take down planetside. Apparently, a firefight between the locals and a few terrorists was playing out near a power station, where Mira could directly head right into the action, if she needed to. Remembering to keep her Gecko armor's Flak jacket at the ready, Mira held on to the pod, waiting for the lamp at the front of the door to change from red, to green.

"<As per standard protocol, a distress beacon will be sent out on your position to alert any nearby naval or army units about the abandoned ship.>" To this, Mira frowned. "Why set a distress beacon if there's no military to send the beacon to?"

"<Noted, Lieutenant.>" NAV said. "<The light is green, and you have the stick, ma'am. It has been an honor serving under your command. Drop begins in in 5.>"

Mira counted to 5 in her head, holding on as tightly as she could as the drop pod suddenly lurched downwards, and out of the ship. She experienced a brief second of weightlessness before the pod returned to its gravity state, flames licking its sides as it began its descent down into the planet's atmosphere. Above, Mira could a flash of blinding light before an explosion filled the sky, replacing the Corvette that once lay in space with only a mere field of ash and some debris left over by the explosion. Following this, her communications line with the ship abruptly ceased, leaving her completely alone, once more.

Now was no time to panic or cry, however, as there was work to be done. This whole "terrorist" situation planetside, with all "The 9's" supposed antics, would be only the beginning. Mira would have to find a team to properly lead, along with anyone else willing to join in on her mission to save the world as she knew it. She would've taken this mission on alone, but the call for support was too dire for her to stand around and act like the Lone Wolf for so long.

It was time for her to step up, and that took the form of her pod slamming into the ground at a controlled, slowed-down speed right next to the action taking place at Haven's power plant. While the alarms blaring inside the pod would've normally made someone go insane, they did the exact opposite for Mira, filling her with morale as the familiar sound filled her ears. The front door of the pod flew off at a disturbingly high force, so much so that the door slammed into the side of one of the wrecked ships nearby with a loud, metallic thump, sure to draw attention to what lay inside the pod. Most everyone wasn't expecting, however, the blonde-haired soldier to step out of the weapon, bringing up the box-like M41X MAWS rifle to her side as the weapon let out satisfying metallic clicks and pops. The barrel stored inside of the blocky gun popped out upon taking it out, along with a convenient pistol grip, stock, ammo counter, and optical sight, all built into the weapon's frame. Mira, holding the weapon, stepped forward alongside what appeared to be a large man in a home made battlesuit, currently ranting on about something to one of the members of The 9. Holding out her hand to the man as if to keep him back, Mira stepped forward, narrowing her eyes at the handsome, yet equally menacing man in front of her.

"Step aside, civilian," She addressed the man in armor, whom she assumed to be friendly. "The cavalry has arrived."

[New Rob Halfordia]

snip

As the women raised her arm to Germayne, he suddenly lifted his weapon to her on a twitch reflex, the magnetic rails lighting up, ready to fire a tungsten slug at 1% the speed of light toward its intended target. However, as he realized she was not a foe, he lowered his railgun. He could recognize the insignia of a lieutenant on her uniform, so he decided to address himself, given that the women seemed to have some sort of military association, perhaps she would know who he was if he properly identified himself.

"My name, Lieutenant, is Germayne Lockjaw. I was one of the chief engineers of the Naval Forces in the war. I probably had a hand in the creation of most of your weaponry.", he said, somewhat annoyed by his identification as a civilian, "So sorry for the inconvenience, but I'm not going to walk away just because some grunt asked me to."

The hulking armored man walked forward towards Nathan, ignoring the woman's outstretched arm. Lifting his railgun towards the leader of the Nine, he activated the magnetic coils, revving the engine of his armor and winding the high power alternator at high speed. He had waited too long to test his armor, and he wasn't going to let anyone get in the way of that.

"So, Mr. Nine, or whatever your name is," Germayne said, his red eye locking in on the man, the exhaust valves on his shoulder spewing puffs of black sooty smoke, "Let's see how you fare against someone who knows how to fight back."

[The V O I D]

Unknown Location
Haven
Haven System

Jacqueline Lafayette, better known as Jack or the Mistress to most of the underworld, was walking through a bar. Not just any bar, no; this was some sort of club with an illegal gambling ring. What made this gambling illegal? Well, something to do with the bets sometimes including ownership of slaves and such, might do the trick. Jack was wearing her full black armored garb, underneath that armor being matching black clothing. Her hair was in its usual style, her bright green eyes glowing - quite literally - as they usually did. Jack noted some of the men staring at her; some of them were part of slaver gangs, others were simply here for the gambling. They seemed to either recognize her and look away, or continue staring. Jack smiled slightly to herself, beginning to sashay her walk; this inspired some cat-calls and such from the men. She chuckled. So predictable. Jack stopped when she arrived at a table, and looked at one of the men sitting.

The man she looked at - called himself Killswitch or some such stupid bountyhunter name - got up, staring back at her. Jack smiled, feeling his barriers break down as she slowly slithered into his mind. Jack felt him lose his grip, and when he did, she took control. Jack nodded away, and Killswitch moved to leave the bar. Jack then took his seat, next to the other two men present. Jack raised one leg, sitting so one knee was over the other, folding her hands on the table. Jack raised a brow at the men, and when no one spoke, she sighed. Why did she always have to start these damned conversations? Although, at least they seemed to recognize her. Jack's bright-green eyes and their gaze turned to look around the bar one last time, before returning to gaze upon the men present.

“Mm. Hello, Eobard. Mulaney.”, she recited the first man's first name and second man's last name (easy to figure out if you're a telepath), “I believe you know who I am. And I know who you are. You serve the Eden'in Karanlığı, right?”, she finally asked. The Eden'in Karanlığı - literally translated from Old Earth Turkish to 'Eden's Darkness'; alternatively, could sometimes be called the 'Dusk of Eden' - was the capital vessel of the Nox Clan, a small pirate clan. 'Twas a little known fact that some of its members, when given shore leave by Captain Demirci (some Turkish fellow), enjoyed going to planets and gambling. Even Haven, a supposed paradise, was filled to the brim with its own form of corruption and illegal activity. Why some Turkish pirate would hire some English speaking fellows, she had no idea. Maybe the Captain was only nominally Turkish and didn't know anything beyond the ship's name in the language. She grunted at the possibility.

“What's it to you, Jack?”, Mulaney asked. Jack smiled at him, scooting closer in the booth to him, inching her face towards his. With a whisper, she responded: “I'm just wondering if Demirci is hiring, that's all. Besides, can't a woman have some fun?” As she finished speaking, Jack moved closer, brushing her lips against the man's face. She kissed his cheek lightly, before seemingly giggling in delight as she pulled away. Mulaney looked dumbstruck. Jack's giggling turned into a bit of laughter at his expense. Oh, how fun it was to use the predictable nature of people against them. Mulaney cleared his throat, glaring. Jack stopped her laugh, but kept her eyes staring into his, her eyes still filled with laughter. Or maybe that was just the constant murder in her eyes of some form. Who knows.

“Uh- well. I dunno if the Capt'n's hirin'. I... s'pose I can set up a meeting for you, yeah?”, Mulaney finally said. Jack grinned and nodded. Eobard had remained silent the whole time, but decided to get up and leave. Jack wanted to laugh; her slow, but sure, indoctrination was already taking its grip on Mulaney. Sure, the physical manipulation wasn't necessary, but like she'd said; why can't a woman have some fun? Jack watched as Mulaney got up to get onto comms. And that's when the broadcast came through. The Nine were here, it seemed. Jack cursed mentally; of course they were. Jack got up from her seat; walking over to Mulaney. Mulaney turned to her, eyes widening slightly when she moved in and kissed him right on the lips. Jack knew her lips were soft, gentle and... well, from experience, she knew how to kiss. It was rare that she enjoyed it, and this wasn't one of those times. Jack faked it though, and it seemed to convince Mulaney when she pulled away.

“There's more of that later, if you could be a doll and tell any other men of yours on-planet to make sure the Nine don't stop me from getting off-world.”, she said, smiling at the man, “Do a good enough job and get me a meeting with your boss... and, well. I promise you will be... awarded.” Jack finished her suggestive command with a seductive tone. Mulaney's eyes looked her body up and down, before he nodded quickly and went to leave the bar. Jack rolled her eyes. All too easy. Now she had to get back to her ship; a small freighter that went by the name Dollface. Okay, so maybe it wasn't hers, but not like a dead guy is going to complain. Jack left the bar, beginning to head through the building; hoping to find a way out of the building and towards the hangar/docking bays where ships could take off from the planet. It was time to get out of here.

[The Republic of Atria]

Nathan snickered as a man in large power armor argued with a much smaller younger looking woman. And then proceeded to threaten him with a suppository hammer. "Stronger people have threatened me with worse. I'm honestly more impressed that you made a suit of power armor that runs on fossil fuels. Like. We've got more efficient power sources nowadays. That being said, you can't beat the smell of diesel. SCAR! Have you fed Beast yet?" He called out and out came a petite woman wearing a child's dress riding a shuttle sized, six legged monster with parts of Collective grunts hanging loosely out of his mouth. "You shouldn't let him eat Collective crap. Gives him gas and I don't want him stinking up the ship!"

"I know! But I forgot the spritzer." She replied and saw the group of people either gearing up to watch the fight, or attempt to stop them. One of whom looked like a Collective unit made of scrap and running on gas. "Why would you make a suit of armor that runs on gas? That's dumb. BEAST! LUNCH!" She said and the giant monster leaped at Germayne landing between him and jack. Scar fell off right after he jumped. "Hey, you big dummy! I was on your back!" She called back.

"Sooorrrry." Came the gurgling response. Both Nathan and Scar mentioned that the large metal thing with a railgun was in fact not a Collective grunt. But rather a man in power armor. Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside!

"Well this is going much better than I expected. Just a few minutes and we've already got... Three? I think three. And some half decent ones at that. Makes me sad that it takes threatening the lives of billions to get someone's attention nowadays. Anyways. Lunch time, Beast!"

[Kaledoria]

Star Ship Theia

"Captain, you should see this, personal frequency!"
Captain Egio plugged her com in - she was not usually wearing it on board of her ship but when one of the analysts found something that she did not want to put on the main monitor for everyone to see, she plugged it in.
They forwarded Nathan's news interruption with an additional evaluation: High psionic threat.

"Gullveig," the Captain addressed the Vanladian Navigatrix, "course to the Haven system, maximum speed." - "Aye, plotting FTL jump, the system is quite close, we can do this in a single jump."
Selene Egio nodded, then opened a collective call over the ship's com to all leading officers and all crewmen and other personal with the "Super" gene, to meet in the larger conference room in 10 minutes. She also gave out individual tasks to prepare some information.

10 minutes later

"Welcome!" the Captain greeted attendees, specifically including those that were not de facto part of her chain of command: The Navigatrix's disciple, Klangg, the unofficial leader of the Theodicians who insisted on having the Tank Superpower and Prokhor Koenig, the most powerful psion on the ship.
"I called you because the terrorist group calling themselves "The Nine" is attacking Haven. We are nearby and will aid in the defense. Haven is the best resemblance of a stable political power. If we score points with their government, we might have a backbone for a new interstellar alliance. If we fail and they decent any further, this goal will be all the harder. I assume you are familiar with "The Nine"?"
Some of the attendees shock their heads and Selene ordered Andawnu Tactican XA34 to give the detailed report.

"The Nine are a vicious group of murderers, combining extraordinary powers with deranged minds. Their prime motivation seam to be to get infamy although individual members are prone to greet, power-fantasies or lust for revenge, too. The main player in this group however is their leader, Nathan. His driving force is a massive superiority complex overshadowing even his considerable supernatural powers," the collective robot could not help but throw a glance at their very own egomaniac psion, which Prokhor noticed. With a smile and a thick, Russian accent he threw in: "Dear Andawnu, you forget, that my superiority complex is kept well in check by my spineless opportunism." Prokhor was generally not getting along well with Collective members, but idealists like the 2nd Commander especially ticked him off.
Commander Andawnu continued: "Besides him, most notable is a woman called Scar. She is a biokinetic and can thus be considered a force multiplier for the rest of the group. But the main target has to be Nathan. Their coherence and ability to attract new members stands and falls with him."
He gave a quick summary of the other known members and pointed out that the remainder to nine was unknown, so the crew should be prepared for all eventualities.

Captain Egio gave the word to Kain Engineer 01FFS, describing the current threat.
"They have seized control of the dark energy reactor of Haven, which is remarkable, the security there is supposed to be really strong but anyway, now they threaten to blow the plant up!" He looked to the Captain and remembered, what he was supposed to report on. "I simulated the scenario, the problem is not the dark energy, this kind of energy is really big but it usually passed thought al kinds of matter, that's why it's called dark, the problem is the contamination fields used to harvest said dark energy. In order to make them interact, they have to be powered by a HUGE charge and short-circuiting that, well, the initial fire column would probably be a kilometer or so wide, the secondary fire-wave would take out everything in a radius of several hundreds of kilometers, maybe a thousand. The shockwave would likely also cause massive tsunamis along most coasts of the planet and the permanent effects on the planets atmosphere and the tectonic stability are rather chaotic but probably not good. And given, that their main power source is gone, the secondary casualties would probably exceed the billion or something that would die right away."

"This is stupid," Klangg of the Theodicians added. "Why would they put their whole planetary energy supply in the hands of a single reactor, one that is such an obvious mark for terrorism on top of it? It does not make sense!" Kain was eager to answer: "As I said, you need to put huge amounts of power into the containment field. At low scale, this needs more power than what it generates, only if you scale it up, through the square-cube law, you get..." - but his technical explanation was cut short be the Captain. "Not the point right now. What options do we have? Gullveig, when will we arrive in the system and how long are we likely going to spend with sub-light drives?" The navigatrix smiled: "Haven is booming with life and emotion, the echos of the struggling souls of the planet beckon through the Aether like a lighthouse. Under those conditions, I can probably jump right into the atmosphere."
"No! A high orbit is good enough," the Captain answered. Sometimes she forgot, how great it was to have a Vanladian navigator although at other times she wasn't sure, whether the Alien was joking or not.

"What about the reactor, how do we stop it from blowing up?" Kain Engineer answered again: "The system is quite well protected from outside intrusion, we will have to send a team in. Luckily, a manipulation that causes an almost instant detonation is quite different from one that will overload the power plant with a little delay and hopefully, the terrorist do not plan on blowing themselves up, so with a bit of luck, we might be able to find an access to the computer system an initiate a save shut down faster, than they can cause an overload."
"What if they prepare both options, after all, if there is nine of them, maybe two of them Super-Builders, then they may have prepared a delayed explosion as plan A and an immediate one as backup plan" 1st Commander Yuri Kù brought himself into the discussion. The Engineer did not answer aloud, but a small gesture of a big explosion was all answer the others needed.

"What about direct confrontation," the Captain asked. She looked to Tactican Andawnu and Prokhor Koenig. The collective commander answered: "From the challenge issued, I assume, the Nine will meet challengers outside the power plant. This can give us opportunity to bring the ship's weapons into play. I would suggest to prepare some guided torpedoes with reduced charged in order to not level the whole area and cause the power plant to go up ourselves. In addition we could use the main laser arrays but we should dip deep into the atmosphere for that or otherwise the energy would disperse when passing through the atmosphere and could - again - endanger the power plant." The Commander looked over to their Helmswoman, Lt. Commander Mbasha, who nodded respectfully at the idea of dipping deep into the atmosphere but then signaled, that she was well up to the task. She had never done this with the Theia before but the ship was not that much bigger, then regular planetary landers with which she had landed on much heavier planets.
The Psion, Koenig, was less positive about the situation: "Unlike you, I don't have a death wish. From what I hear about that Nathan guy, he might even be a greater Psion than I! And even if he is not, he still has his associates. I will not attack him, you are not paying me enough for something like that." Captain Egio rolled her eyes. In the last two years, this had become one of Koenig's signature lines, mostly because they were basically not paying him. They continued his old contract, but the money was almost entirely devaluated due to the war and post-war inflation.

"Fine, we need you on a less dangerous spot anyway. You will go down with an infiltration team into the plant. You will be equipped with signal scramblers, so they can't remote-trigger their bomb, or whatever they use to blow up the plant, but there is still the possibility they use a psionic signal to trigger it. Kù, Andawnu, Kain you assign the rest of the team, full shuttle, 11 men plus Koenig. Everybody else, on your post."

[The Republic of Atria]

Nathan backed up as Beast jumped between him and the large power armored man. "Have fun you two!" He mused and then turned back to the group of Collective enforcers who had gathered to try and stop him. Just as he was about to blow them all up, a fighter craft flew by overhead. Far too close for it to just be making rounds. "Scar. Keep our precautionary measure close at hand. I'm going to start making preparations." He said, swapping his superhuman strength for weather control, and amplifying it by picking it in place of the other two powers. It took seconds for the clouds in the sky to turn dark and stormy. With rain starting to fall, steadily getting harder. He used the lightning produced by the cloud to strike at the craft that was flying around. "If you think I won't make a tornado, you're wrong!" He boasted.

Jason waited for Nathan to get distracted by everyone else and hoped that the heavy rain would mask his movement. He stepped out, only for his intense body temperature to make the pools of water make a loud hissing noise as it was turned to steam. Nathan immediately turned to face him as he had stepped out of the power plant. "Don't think I forgot about you, Smaug." He said and just as Jason was about to jump at him, several bolts of lightning struck him, making Jason land face first not 10 feet from where he leaped. He staggered to his feet and bolt after bolt of lightning struck him again and again. It wasn't the heat that did damage. It was the electricity frying his central nervous system that made it borderline impossible to stand up. "I can't hear you! I forgot lightning makes thunder!" He shouted with his ears ringing from the sound. "You look like you're in pain, so I'll leave you to it!"

His plan was coming along swimmingly. No pun intended.

[New Rob Halfordia]

snip

As the beast jumped in front of Germayne, he sized up his opponent. The grotesque creatures jaws seemed to be powerful to an extreme degree, meaning they could probably do some serious damage to his armor. He'd have to stay quick. Suddenly, his armor revved up, and he made a full charge towards the creature. Each step released a thunderous bang as he drew closer, his railgun lighting up. Beast opened his jaws as Germayne closed in, prepared to enjoy his next meal. However, as Germayne got within range, he cut the driveshaft's in his legs, diverting all power to his arms. Dropping into a slide he used his right arm to throw a 20,000 horsepower into the lower section of the monster's jaw, not only slamming it's mouth shut, but causing it to sever it's tongue and shatter it's lower and upper jaw as he jammed his railgun into it's stomach. As he pulled the trigger, the humming of electrical current began to emanate from the weapon, before it suddenly and abruptly fired.

As the slug ripped and tore through Beast, the recoil slammed Germayne into the ground with enough impact to create a small crater, pieces of rubble firing out from all directions. The round fired out through the creature's back, blood and flesh sprayed all over the ground and parts of the power plant. The force of it's movement not only pushing all the surrounding aircraft to the side, but momentarily created a perfect circle of blue sky in the gray stormy clouds. Germayne quickly activated the driveshafts in his legs, slapping another slug into the weapon as he prepared to make his next move.

However, before he could, the beast suddenly gripped Germayne's shoulders with it's small frontal arms, lifting the blood soaked armor clad man in front of it's face. As the creature squeezed Germayne's head, he could feel the pressure through the armor. Beast spoke in a slow slurred tone, struggling to vocalize after having most of it's head shattered, "Is that all?"

"I'm only just getting started.", Germayne struggled to get out, as he suddenly diverted power to his legs, lifting them to the monster's borderline annihilated head. While Germayne attempted to extend them, the whistle from his suit suddenly grew louder, as one of the additional turbos kicked in. As soon as it did, Beast's arms made a distinct popping sound, coming out of their sockets, before ripping them entirely off the monster's body. Germayne landed on his feet several yards away, quickly equalizing his suit's power and pulling the arms off of his body. Lifting his railgun, he noticed something however. It was overheating. The coolant had spilled all over the ground under the beast.

"Fuck.", Germayne muttered under his breath as he looked up to see the monster had completely regenerated it's jaw. "Double fuck."

This time, it charged him, it's head low to the ground to prevent Germayne from pulling the same move. Lifting the railgun slowly, the armored man raised his right foot. The beast got ever closer, preparing to take it's chomp out of him. This would have to be timed perfectly. The monster wasn't even feet away when Germayne slammed his foot down on it's lower jaw, holding the upper portion of it's mouth open with his right arm. The pressure coming from it's mouth was immense, it took all the armor's 25,000 horsepower to keep it open, revving at nearly 5000 revolutions per minutes, spraying black smoke from his shoulder. He pulled the trigger of the railgun, and instead of firing, the blue power core suddenly turned red. Germayne detached it from his hand, cocking his arm back. With one motion he stuffed it down the creature's throat, quickly releasing it's jaws and jumping backwards about ten yards.

Beast swallowed the weapon, as there was a sudden muffled blast, and it fell to the ground, it's legs outstretched. Smoke and blood poured from it's mouth as it just lay there, the rain slowly carrying the pool of blood across the asphalt. Germayne smiled inside his suit of armor and chuckled, "Too easy."

As he was about to turn his attention to the leader, the creature suddenly began working its way to it's feet. Blood was still pouring from it's mouth like a waterfall of crimson liquid, it's teeth shattered from the blast. Germayne sighed and cracked his neck, "Way too easy."

[Turmenista]

Fight club

Haven City Power Plant
Lieutenant Mira

Watching the fight before her was like fighting in a battle that the Air Force was already winning. Mira knew that she could do something to help those guys fighting on the ground, but, just... could'nt.. She aimed her M41X MAWS downrage at Nathan, who was busy frying the nerves of the Dragon-like beast struggling to stand up by the power plant to even notice. She gritted her teeth as the weapon's holographic sights lined up on the head of The 9 ringleader, when she stopped.

No. I have to play this right. And smart. She thought to herself, shouldering the rifle in its portable form as she took out a multi-purpose grenade from her chest rig. As she broke into a sprint towards Nathan, she cycled the smart grenade from its FRAGMENTATION function to its STUN function, before pulling its pin and tossing it towards the 9's handsome leader. Looking away herself, Mira clenched her eyes shut as her vision, even with the eyes closed, was filled briefly with a flash of light almost rivaling the brightness of the sun. She leaped up, opening her eyes, as she aimed for a downwards kick towards the handsome man. The disorienting effect of the grenade should have worked well enough to stun Nathan, but, evidently, the leader was a tank, and quick, easily dodging the incoming attack.

Not as quick as Mira, though.

As soon as she landed on the floor, she sprung onto her hands and performed what appeared to be a bicycle kick, producing a satisfying clap as her leg slammed into Nathan's face. The leader of the 9 was effectively separated from Jason, being launched a couple feet away as the commando landed on her side. Knowing how quickly Nathan would recover, Mira quickly brought up her rifle and fired off a 20 round burst downrange towards her target. She noticed Nathan sigh, watching him as he only brought up a single hand and.. yawned?

She blinked her eyes, not from the rain, but from what she was just witnessing a few dozen feet in front of her. Nathan was... swatting away the blue projectiles of the energy weapon like they were flies..? As this happened, another hand still kept the beast known as Jason subdued on the floor with continuous bolts of lightning, which she would not stand for. Literally. She widened her eyes as she saw the bolts of energy sail back into his now glowing palm, his hand shaping into a finger gun afterwards as he fired them back at Mira, in rapid succession. As he made playful "bang, bang!" noises with his new attack, Mira quickly shouldered her rifle into its portable variant and sprung forwards, turning her frontwards spring into several backwards somersaults as she updated her tactic. She preformed this maneuver up the steps leading to the power plant, and, subsequently, landed besides Nathan, who suddenly stopped, blowing the comical smoke from his index finger as if it were the barrel of the gun, smiling.

How was he doing this? Was he actually having this much fun with millions - if not billions of lives, on the line?

Lieutenant Mira landed awkwardly on her sides, just now noticing the now burning hole in the flak jacket part of her Gecko suit from Nathan's counter attack. She decided to just shred the heavier external armor off for now, along with her chest rig, that was just adding to her weight. There was no more than 10 meters between herself Nathan now, and with all her external armor and weight off, she had near perfect movement and agility. She would not miss this time.

"You got something better than that, soldier girl?" She thought she heard Nathan say through the rain, motioning for Mira to come closer with a hand motion. "This guy here is getting boring, but I think you might provide something more of a challenge to me. Don't you think?"

Mira balled her first, barely containing her anger as she assumed a fighting stance. "You're no better than the Hyperium, you terrorists. Why don't you pick on someone your own size?!"

The floor of the plant practically shattered under her feet as she launched off towards Nathan at full speed. Aiming for a kick to his neck, Mira leaped up and twirled her body, sending her leg out towards the 9 Leader's neck. As he simply evaded her attack, Mira used her ability to land on her palms from an otherwise impossible maneuver, where she immediately moved into another kick, this time, right on his cheek. While she landed on her feet this time, Nathan turned back to her and frowned, giving her his full attention as he brought his other palm away from Jason. Notably, she noticed that the rain had decreased in intensity for now, going over the possibilities in her mind while she evaded the incoming punches and kicks.

He was just now having lightning hit that.. thing back there, but before I saw him launch the thing into the plant like it was nothing. Now, the rain's died down, but what's he doing now?

He controls the weather, he's strong, but the rain's slowed down and he deflected my rifle fire before sending it back.. how many powers does this guy have?

Seeing an opening, Mira brought her fist towards Nathan's side, who grunted as he took the brunt of the damage, but still kept fighting. Mira followed this up by evading another punch incoming, responding with two jabs to his chest and a roundhouse kick, which he shrugged off, once more..

Mira sent another punch towards him, quickly realizing his mistake as Nathan grabbed her arm. She suddenly saw stars as Nathan forcefully slammed his head into Mira's as he pushed her fist away, keeping a vice grip on her fist as she slipped backwards onto the floor. Mira let out a cry of pain as Nathan still kept squeezing, ultimately severing her arm from her forearm up to her hand in a colorful array of blood, and bone.

She fell back onto the floor, clenching the end of the forearm that she still had in pain while she desperately tried to focus on recovering her dominant hand. Nathan shook his head in disappointment as he stepped over the wounded soldier, who looked up at him with spite in her eyes. "What's your name, uhh.. Sergeant? It's kinda hard to tell your rank on your uniform of yours since your arm is kinda busted."

"That's Lieutenant to you, Lieutenant Mira-696." Mira retorted.

"Well, Lieutenant, I have to admit, it was hard having to deal with two of you at once, but you were fun while it lasted! It's a shame that someone with such potential, such as a little lady like you, isn't on our team. Just consider the offer.."

"I'm Never joining your group. You can take that offer and shove it up your ass."

Nathan laughed off her threat and walked away, turning back to Jason. "Well, you'll be fine with just sitting there and dying, right?"

[Parcia]

Haven Power plant

"Bloody fuck do you have to go 4 times the speed of sound?!" His voice rang out over the cockpit radio as they zoomed towards the power plant at mach 4. Was scarred him was that this was only 60% of the engines power output. "No, but I figure we had little time, oh." She paused. "You see that TACCOM, yea, patch in to the global satellite grid and get a visual in on the plant, getting weird reports of a battle going down."

He did so, using the small holographic interface to tap in to and bring up a live feed from a local satellite. "Ok, we have...confirmed members of the 9, a...either a robot or some guy in a mech suit, and...that looks like a dragon." He paused when he saw the image of a blond haired women. "Alive, you remember when I said I got your DNA template from some Mil-tech files, right?" "Um...yea?" He frowned.

"Well, one of the original batch is here, in military gear." She was silent. "Alright then, guess it was bound to happen." She dropped to just above tree top level and flicked the master switch for the weapons, currently a set of 30mm plasma cannons, on. "Coming in hot, think we should strafe them?"

He shook his head. "Too close for that, might as well take us down so we can deal with this on our own." She sighed and disarmed the cannons. She flew them right over the combat zone, a slight swooosh fallowed by a loud screech as the sound of the plane caught up with the fighter as it slowed down.

She brought them up and around the zone, slowing down to 200 mph and switching the Panther in to landing mode, the VTOL jets taking over. She brought the plan down a bit rough, some 30 yards from the fight. The cockpit opened up and the both of them jumped out. She turned and hit a button on the side of the craft, and the small cargo bay opened to reveal the stash of gear they had. They both grabbed a plasma rifle, of his own
design, she fitted a set of tactical gear to her self, adding ammo pouches, a combat knife, a military grade armor plate vest. a pair of HE grenades and a small medkit.

He chose to simply pack a rifle, a few extra magazines, and another device of his own: A personal shield array. Still in it's prototype stage, it was rated to stop multiple hits from 12.7mm bullets or a few direct hits from energy weapons up to the 2 megawatts range. They both shouldered their weapons and made their way towards the fight. "Alright, we slip past them, deal with those we find inside, get tot he core and lock it down."

With a nod they set off towards the fight.

[Kaledoria]

Star Ship Theia

On their way from the conference room to the bridge, Captain Egio had another task for Commander Kú: "Yuri, take some computer specialists that are not directly needed to keep us combat-ready. I want to know, how those Scoundrels managed to hack themselves into the news network. I want to be able to take him off the air if this could grand us an advantage. Maybe replace their life feet with a fake one, that we direct."

As they arrived on the bridge, Navigatrix Gullveig (who was already waiting) reported: "One minute until normal space." The replacement Helmsman added, that Haven authority had granted them permission for the FTL jump so unusually close to the planet due to the current crisis. He then left the seat for Lt. Commander Mbasha.

The Theia fell out of FTL and the sensors confirmed, that they were less then 700,000 km away from the planets surface. They accelerated to the continent, where the power plant was located and ejected the shuttle. It hit the atmosphere as if the air was solid. The human members of the away team were brought to the edge of what g-forces their bodies could handle and the shuttle's shield were running at full power to ward of the heat of friction. But it was fast! They were soon able to make out the larger points of orientation in the landscape, like the huge dome at the center of the power plant. The auxiliary screen zoomed in 200-folt and they could also make out people fighting on one side of the dome. Lt. Dorika Marine ZB901, who lead the Team ordered the pilot: "Take us in in a low curve from over there, so that they don't spot us. Ideally we will not need our weapons today. They landed on the off-side of the main building and got out in formation: Four scouts, two assault marines, Dorika, Koenig, three engineers and computer specialists and a rearguard. A scout opened a small tube and drew a large circle on the wall. Zapping the gel with his phaser, it burned an entrance for the team, creating no sound but a small hiss. "Were going in, Dorika signing off!" the Lieutenant sent to his ship. The disadvantage of using full frequency blockers was, that they would be unable to communicate with their ship either. They were on their own."


On board the Theia

The Captain got a report of the battle below. "The terrorist named Nathan is engaged by two Supers, it seams. That beastlike terrorist is down, two more on the open along with an armored Super.
They are not coordinating their attacks well and Nathan has the upper hand. There was also another signature of what probably was a cloaked shuttle closing in on them but we lost track of it."
"It seams, the 'Heroes' are pilling up," Selene Egio summarized, "together, they might have a change but if The Nine realize that and stop toying around, they could possibly neutralize each Hero, as he comes. Commander Kù, the diversion we spoke about?"

Commander Kù was not looking up from his screen and reported while continuing to organize the data incoming from the team he had collected for the task: "We have tracked the Virus in the News Network servers and can neutralize to turn it on command. We have prepared footage of the camera panning back to the countdown and we can create some convincing footage of the battle as we want it, soon. Still working on the textures. It won't fool a thorough analysis but should convince the live watchers on the screens."
"Okay, do it, pan to the timer. Prepare a battle, where the Heroes disengage and both parties recover their breath. If we make it boring, we might enrage him enough to loose his attention but we should not deliver a conclusion for the battle, that could make him snap and blow the power plant up, his own gang including. And try to get into their system, possibly their camera."


On the surface

Nathan cracked his knuckles are was about to unleash some pain on Jason when his cameraman shouted: "Hey boss, there is some bitch calling herself Captain Egio on the screen of our camera and she claims, she has taken over our broadcast!"

Nathan jumped at the screen: "Who do you think you are?"
"Egio," the Captain answered stoic, "but that's not the matter. What I want is the matter. And. What you want. Now you could blow up a considerable chunk of a nice planet here but is that really what you want? I could, on the other hand make the people see, how you lost against the Supers around you, ran away and killed millions out of a tantrum. But that is definitely not, what I want. I want the People of Haven save and you could make that happen by initiating a save shutdown. Than I would gladly give you back your audience and you could, with a galaxy to witness destroy those heroes that come to stop you and in 11 and a half hours spare the civilians out of generosity. Nobody would need to know, that the life of hundreds of millions was only on the line for the first half of an hour. And so, we both would get what we really want."

Selene leaned back suppressing any signs of fear. She had the weaker hand and she knew it. Still, she needed to talk to Nathan in Order to learn more about him, be able to evaluate him. She really believed in her offer and should Nathan agree to it against all odds, she was willing to make the deal. The planet would probably not do great with much of it's power cut of but at least the essential parts of the infrastructure like hospitals would have backup power generation, so the losses would be minimal.
In case Nathan was unwilling to negotiate? Well, although it was a standard procedure to deny terrorists a platform, considering the circumstances, she was willing to throw the by-the-book course of action out of the window but at least she could play for time, giving the heroes on the ground some time to organize a joined attack - as well as giving her infiltration team time, too.

[The Republic of Atria]

"I mean... That's pretty much what I'm trying to do." Nathan replied to Egio. "But you must think that I've come here without a plan B. What would a leader be if he didn't plan for every outcome?" He asked with a sly grin and walked to the side. "I was perfectly content with letting everyone watch the show from the safety of their homes. But since you're being such a spoil sport, I think I'll bring the show to the WHOLE CITY!" He chuckled, swapping one of his powers for telepathy. "Scar, go ahead and deploy our parting gift!" He instructed to her. "Alright Miss Egio. And don't tell me it's Missus and break my heart. Since you want to play like that. I'll play by your rules. Oh, and for the record. I don't like the word terrorist." He explained. "That implies that I have some political idea that I'm trying to get across. And I really hate politics. I want you to know that what happens next is on you. You're pretty smart, so I'm going to assume you know what Agnosia is?" He asked.

Meanwhile, Scar was watching the fight between Beast and Germayne. To her annoyance, the giant man in the power armor actually managed to do serious damage to Beast. "You big dumb lizard! Don't let him hurt you that bad!" She shouted while stomping her feet like a child with a temper tantrum until she received the telepathic message from Nathan, giving her the go ahead to use their secret weapon. Pulling a vial with a red substance, she threw it on the ground, shattering it. Using the water from the rainstorm Nathan summoned earlier as a catalyzing agent, the red substance exploded not with force, but with a thick red smoke that quickly began to spread to every place that has water. A cloud of Agnosia. Agnosia being a mental condition that effects sensory input of the human brain, rendering the victims unable to understand exactly what they were seeing or hearing. Deciphering friend from foe was going to be a nightmare for any living beings.

The red cloud quickly filled the air of the room that Nathan and Captain Egio were standing in. "And now comes the fun part! I'm immune to it, courtesy of Scar. Dunno about you and the rest of the multi million people in the city. Wonder how it's gonna go down when no one can tell who's who?" He snickered. "Ooooooh. And that Tank. The one that looks like a dragon. Poor kid. Wonder how many people he's gonna kill. You can probably find a way to stop him. Or me. You'll probably fail either way. And it will be hilarious." He said slipping out of the room.

[Parcia]

Haven Global Power Plant
Sean and Alice

They both made their way down the hallway. They were close, so close. They had cleared their way through the complex, dispatching the minions they found on the way with a few well placed plasma bolts. They turned a corner just as Nathan left the room, a door some 40 feet down the hallway. Both of them raised their rifles and fired off bursts but the slippery snake of a man slipped away from them.

Sean saw the red gas first and put his hand out. "Gas, unknown compound. Doesn't appear acidic, scanning now." The optics in his glasses would scan the particles in the air floating out of the door, reading hits baser chemical structure and compounds. "Damn, not one I recognize, but the elements suggest mental tampering, at the vary least it's effect should be marginal on us."

He motioned forward and the two of them stacked up on the door. "1, 2, 3." Alice counted out before breaching the door to be greeted by the Captain and her team, standing in the midst of the red fog.

"Shit, we have civies in the gas." The agent was definitely strong enough to effect the two, though only in the form of a slight haze, something that they could deal with. How it effected on the Lt. and her team was yet to be seen.


In orbit
Mother of Invention

An ode to the ships stealth tech was needed, as a seemingly random star ship came out of FTL right across her bow with out so much as a sensor scan. As soon as it stabilized, Athena sent the ship in to full powered mode, deactivating its stealth tech and arming its weapons, shields, and engines.

To all those watching, their would suddenly be a vary large, vary well armed, and altogether angry looking warship appearing out of no were, one that while would give a Local system security tag, wouldn't match any known type of ship in record.

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

James Jameson of the Warhawk
Somewhere in Haven

James wasn't really felt lucky lately. After all, the exact origin of the disease that affected him was unknown, further difficulties to looked for the cure of his...condition. The fact that the suit is the only thing that keeps him from the death isn't a guarantee either. He was very frustrated with it, and when you tried to find the cure at the same time the evilness brought the world to its knees you know you are pretty much doomed, either not saving the world at the same time or saving the world but giving himself a more risks on his suit. Fixing the suit is going to be hard, but his engineering background should come to a handy.

Meaning at some point, with enough resources, he would able to crafted a better system for the suit, provided that he's willing to.

As he made his way inside one of the many cities in Haven, he came across a broadcast calling for all heroes and the appearance of the 9. He had heard of them before, bunch of superhumans with evil intentions. Not the best combination out here, but the world's tragedy has its darker shades. His logical was defeated with his rationality as he flew to the scene to observed the situation and hopefully able to lend some aid.

As he attempted to made a point of entry, suddenly a red colored cloud was formed from the plant, and spread outward. However, because of his suit and the healing technology (which has the oxygen system), he was able to survived...sort of. It didn't affected him or anything, though, so he thought that there should be an effect if it affected human beings, right?

Meanwhile, Scar was watching the fight between Beast and Germayne. To her annoyance, the giant man in the power armor actually managed to do serious damage to Beast. "You big dumb lizard! Don't let him hurt you that bad!" She shouted while stomping her feet like a child with a temper tantrum until she received the telepathic message from Nathan, giving her the go ahead to use their secret weapon. Pulling a vial with a red substance, she threw it on the ground, shattering it. Using the water from the rainstorm Nathan summoned earlier as a catalyzing agent, the red substance exploded not with force, but with a thick red smoke that quickly began to spread to every place that has water. A cloud of Agnosia. Agnosia being a mental condition that effects sensory input of the human brain, rendering the victims unable to understand exactly what they were seeing or hearing. Deciphering friend from foe was going to be a nightmare for any living beings.

James pulled out his laser pistol, and firing few shots from the sky into a some sort of creature, who's currently fighting someone inside the power armor. He wouldn't jump first without some more observation.

[The Republic of Atria]

Nathan slipped out of the power plant, wondering what Captain Egio would do when faced with several armed soldiers. As he was leaving, the red fog had begun to blanket the entire city. He caught sight of the Dragon super he had smacked around a few minutes ago. Suddenly he started getting an even more devilish scheme. All it took was a little reading of the young man's mind to formulate what he was going to do. "Jason!" Nathan called. "You fucking awesome dumbass!" He shouted, mimicking the speech patterns of Jason's friend and boss: Jack.

Jason had staggered back to his feet. Lightning strikes hurt. Gotta find Nathan. Gotta step on him and... Ugggh. What did he look like? I just saw him. What the hell is this red stuff? Acid maybe? No... I almost don't want to know what it does... He though to himself and snapped back to reality when he heard a voice calling his name. The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on who it belonged to. It took a second, but then when he tried to remember someone, anyone, he was drawing a blank on their appearance and voice. "Who's there? You'd better get out of here!" He shouted in response to the man talking to him.

"It's Jack you dumbass! Holy fuck dude, I actually can't believe that you went up against the fucking NINE! I mean. Sure you kinda got your ass kicked, but you're still alive! Which is more than most people can say." Nathan said.

Was it Jack? It couldn't be right? Could it? He didn't get punched into the ground so it couldn't be Nathan. Could it? He was starting to get frustrated and his power responded by having his flames cover his body. "Jack? If that's you, you need to get out of here. The Nine are here and if they catch you... Even if you're not Jack, you really should get as far away from here as possible. I don't know what this red fog is doing, but I can't remember what anyone looks or sounds like. Like I know who they are, but not anything about them if that makes sense."

"This red fart cloud must only work on supers. I can see you just fine. You got the silver body and fire and shit. Look man, you made it this far against the fuckin' Nine, and I figured that I need to do what I can. Since this shit doesn't effect me, I'll like be your eyes and shit. Point out those psycho motherfuckers in this crap and you maul 'em! We'll be a fucking awesome team!" Nathan said to encourage him. It seemed to work. "Holy fuck!" He whispered. "I see that Nathan fucker! I don't think he sees me. He's right there." He pointed to the power armored man, Germayne. "That's him alright. Goatee and everything."

"You sure?" He asked. "Looks a bit big to be him." Jason replied quietly.

"Must be that red shit cloud messing with your head. Cause all I see is his fuckin' smug ass face. A smug ass face you need to clobber. Quick! Before he sees us!" He said. "I'll hide until you've grassed his ass. Go get that fucker!" Nathan told him and Jason hesitated for a moment, but he took off running and jumped at the man, aiming to pounce on him and go from there.

[Kaledoria]

Captain Egio
Star Ship Theia

At least Nathan was bragging about his backup plan, giving the Captain time to react. She cut her transmission to the Nine's camera, and ordered Gullveig: "Project to Lt. Dorika and tell him to phaser the humans of the team, if this really is so potent that it can effect the entire capital, those at Ground Zero will probably go mad if conscious. Also, they should make sure, the terrorists haven't left a remote detonation device or program, but not power the plant down down."


On the Surface

As the psionic projection of the ship's Navigatrix relayed the new orders, the human crewman were not thrilled. But still, they obeyed, sat down and shot themselves with maximum stun setting. Prokhor Koenig however disagreed: "A sufficiently powerful mind can withstand this, I will rely on..." he fell unconscious into the arms of Lt. Dorika behind him. His powers are peculiar, the Collective Marine thought, Maybe he can resist the unknown psychoactive substance but we can't risk it given his damage potential. Luckily, he has no power that fortifies him against a surprise shot in the back.
"Engineers," he ordered "cut through the wall to the main command room to access the central control cluster from behind, just in case the door is booby trapped. Keep a low profile, in case there are still bad guys around. The rest of you, carry the unconscious to the shuttle. As he wanted to leave, he saw Sean and Alice from the fact, that they did not come in guns blazing, he reckoned them to be on the same side. "Lt. Dorika ZB901. We're here to secure the plant's systems and disable and remote control mechanisms." He summed up his orders.


In orbit

"Captain to Dr. Kaushalya. Jayesh what would you give to treat Agnosia and can we deliver it as a counter-agent via torpedo into the atmosphere?" The ships first medical officer's answered over the com: "Against Agnosia? Pimavanserin, eventually combined with Clozapine in severe cases. And no, you don't just spray this into the air, you administer very specific doses to your patients not "as much as hits him". Besides, if it's artificially induced, you would only fight the symptom. If you know, what causes it, you can deliver a much saver antidote."
Captain Egio confirmed and added the shuttle pilot to the conference: "Shuttle, can you sent us a scan of the gas?" - "Sending spectrographic and molecular scan, sadly this ship does not have a full chemical analysis."
In his lab, Dr. Kaushalya read the scan on his monitor: "This still leaves us with hundreds of structural variants and many more foldings, that could take hours or days to test all possibilities."

Captain Egio nodded and a hint of a smile appeared in her face. "Commander Kù, sent the data with an emergency urgency message to all mayor ships in orbit as well as any surface hospitals and medical labs, and then send a communication protocol for distributed analysis."
The Commander confirmed, and Captain Egio was about to close the call, when 2nd Commander Andawnu had something to add: "By the way, would it help to have a sample from someone who has been immunized against the substance?" The main monitor on the bridge zoomed in onto the battleground in front of the plant. As it adjusted the atmospheric filter to see through the clouds, puddles of the Nine-Beast's blood mixing with the rain.


On the Surface, behind the plant

Lt. Dorika and his two Collective Marines just placed the six humans of their team into shuttle when the new orders came. "Back in. Fast!" he ordered, "Maybe we can get some help from those two Humans in there. As far as I got it, the blood sample we are seeking is in a rather dangerous spot and we have to move fast, or the rain will wash it all away."

[Parcia]

Haven Global power plant
Sean and Alice


"Lt. Dorika ZB901. We're here to secure the plant's systems and disable and remote control mechanisms."

The two lowered their rifles at the droid's statement. "Dr. Morrs, this is Alice." he turned to were the engineers had cut a whole in the wall leading to the control room. One scan of the door with his glasses showed that it wasn't booby trapped and a rather simple worm transmitted from the implant in his brain was more then enough to disengage the lock.

He strolled over and swung the door open, With Alice going in to secure the room. "And while I do thank you for your offer of assistance, trust me when I say your science staff would be more of a...hindrance to my work." He nodded to the droid and went in after his companion, slinging the rifle.

His face morphed in to a scowl at the sight of the core through the view ports of the control room that deepened when he saw the bright red "EMERGENCY LOCK OUT" on the various view screens. he sighed and motioned for Alice to come over. As he leaned over the console and began to slice in to the system controls, he spoke softly to her. "Watch them, I don't trust government types and they will do more harm then good if they mess with my work."

The blond nodded and turned around to face the door. She could help him, but she knew the look in his eye as he typed on the console, he was in his zone and outside help would only make the situation worse.

[New Rob Halfordia]

snip

As the red mist covered the Germayne looked around, praying that the filtration system in his suit wouldn't malfunction. Thankfully, after a few moments, he could still feel all his senses. That meant that it was probably working. That's when he heard footsteps. Very loud footsteps. Almost louder than his own. He only caught a glimpse of Jason before bolting out of the way, using to high tension springs in his legs to propel a jump to about ten yards away. As he turned his head to look at the spot where he had been, he saw a cloud of dust where the dragon had been standing. From inside, red fire glowed bright as the beast prepared to attack.

Germayne's armor suddenly emitted a low guttural rev, before an incredibly loud whistle occurred, like that of a jet. The armor spoke in a female voice through speakers inside and outside the helmet, "Turbo 1: Operating at 40 PSI. Turbo 2: Operating at 45 PSI. Turbo 3: Now engaged, operating at 25 PSI and climbing. Turbo 4: Now engaged, operating at 30 PSI and climbing."

Germayne took a single sideways step turn around, his foot slamming into the ground with a sound that can only be described as what it sounds like to drop an aircraft carrier. The armored behemoth didn't waste a moment, accelerating into a jump towards Jason, the ground underneath him nearly shattering, kicking up an incredible amount of dust and rubble. As he came in towards the dragon, he through a punch that, combined with the movement speed he was currently at, would strike with nearly 55,000 horsepower.

[Indo-pasif archipelago]

It began as a normal day for me. I was working in the lab on morning and visiting the homeless kids on the afternoon. The road was horrible as usual, the radio blared the same horrendous songs, and the news still reminded us of our crapsack world. Today is different though. It was the day when the 9 came.

I've been hearing rumours way before today. There is not​ one convincing story, and often the stories contradict each other. All of them though, tells the story that a group of psychopathic supers would come and wreck havoc on Haven. Supposedly there are none of them, which is the reason why they are called as The 9, and all of them possess powers far beyond any individuals. There are tales of them massacred a whole brigade of soldiers, other tells the incident where they destroyed an entire city. They spell only one thing for me: trouble. And that trouble had come to Haven.

I was driving my way home when the screen on my dashboard flickered and an emergency report appeared. Minutes afterwards it was replaced by the announcement for any supers to defend the dark energy generator. Trouble indeed. As any sane man would do, I didn't choose to go there. Well, not willingly. My focus was to get back home as soon as I could and hoping for the best. Such a shame my plan had to go. Mia is one of my friends that helps me working with a bunch of homeless kids just south of the city. We teach them the little things, like reading and counting and some other stuffs. I had just visited them three hours ago. Funny how a few hours can make a huge difference. Mia sent me a text message about a 'red gas' or something that was affecting everyone. The kids were all panicking right at the moment and everyone seemed to be in state of chaos. My condition was nowhere better, but I had to do something. I couldn't even see the towering scarlet fumes approaching from the distance. The timers for the explosion had stopped, but I didn't know if that was a good thing or not.

I texted Mia back, asking her to brought the kids to a nearby riverside. She is a Collective, and I was betting on her people's immunity to most gas to deliver the kids to safety. After a while I arrived at our meeting spot and met them. They were scared and depressed. I didn't know the true nature of the gas yet, but I could see clearly its damage.

Everyone here? I signed to Mia. Her motion processor deciphered my gesture before sending it to her motherboard and replied me.

"Yes," she said in her monotonous voice. She could alter her voice to be more humane, but there are times where she simply doesn't have time for such trivial problems. With the Niners around, it didn't surprised me much. "Where to bring them? Most area by now is covered. Soon it will arrive here. We nee to act fast."

I sighed. You are right, I tapped my feet looking for some solution. The City Centre. Is it safe? Liam might have something on his bunker.

Mia nodded. "You're right. We could go there. I'll return with them tomorrow. Are you coming with us?"

Sorry, I shook my head, I need to do something about this. I know I couldn't do much, but I'll give my best. Mia then quickly gathered the confused kids and led them to her small ship. I clapped my hands, sort of my equivalent for shouting, and clapped it once more to call Mia. Can I talk to Giselle for a minute?

Mia understood my gesture and sent the little girl right to me. "Alex? Is that you? What happened? Why everything is so blurry?" I touched her hand, she won't be able to comprehend my signs this way, but she could still know my touch. "Alex, it is you!" I nodded my head, at least she still could understand that. I've always treated her like my little sister, and I was angry at what the 9 did to her, however indirectly they did it. My mind traced her emotions, a maelstrom of fear and despair. Through my hand I seeped her fears and anxiety. This is one aspect of my power that I have mastered greatly. I might not be a very good fighter, but I don't want to fight for the person I love. I want to heal them, to be by their side when they need me. But there are times where I need to fight for them.

This is one of those time. Not long after I had completely absorbed Giselle's negative emotions, the red gas arrived through the river. Everyone quickly got into their respective vehicles, and I swiftly drove towards the generator. I went straight through the mist with a wisp of it seeped lightly from the car's windows. It didn't affect me much, but I had already afflicted by mild agnosia. I finally understood what happened. The gas apparently affected the brain, crippling the neural pathways and twisting the input to our brain. Inside the car, I'm relatively safe but the same thing couldn't be said for the outside. The thickness and coloration of the gas wasn't helping either.

When I arrived, the place looked like it had been in a very intense fight. A lot of people already there, but nobody looked like winning. There were an armored man fighting a dragon, a young woman fallen on the dirt, and also a bunch of other stuffs. I'm I wasn't sure which among them are the 9, but it didn't take me long. A woman and a man walked towards me. Their gait and postures showed that they weren't affected by the gas. Either they are robots, or they are the ones who let the gas out. After one of them broke the front window and pulled me out, I'm sure they are part of the Niners.

The man, lanky and slender, mocked me as his hands pulled me harder. "Look what we have here Jean! A super is hiding in her fancy car! Why don't you come out and join the party?" My left arm sent a punch to his face, not the best punch out there, but enough to shock him and letting me go. I lifted myself after get stumbled, and the two Niners looked at me with disapproving looks. Well, what I thought as disapproving looks, since I slowly succumbed to the effect of the gas. I could barely see them, and their voices sounded like​ far echos. One of them spoke, I didn't know which, and not long after an invisible rope had tied itself around my body. A maniacal laughter fading in and out of my ears from one of the discernible humanoid silhouette. The grip on my body was tightened and I my lung was pushed against my chest. I needed to do something. I tried to focusing the fear I had absorbed on the Niners, but either their minds were too strong of the agnosia is tampering with my ability. I had to go the other way. Using my last gasp of breath I tried conjure up my other ability. From my mouth a torrent of glowing liquid burst rapidly towards the blurry shadows. It struck one of them with such force that their grip on me was released. Not so long though, a mass of squirming insects flew behind me and stabbed me with its two human hand. The azure liquid stopped it from hurting me but now from close I could see that the slender fingers are composed of moths and botflies. I reached out my hand, commanding the fluid to entrap the Niners on their feet. I tried to feel their emotions, but what I could briefly understand from them shocked me. They felt intense joy, almost as if their minds were mocking me, they didn't treat me as an enemy. They treated me as a toy.

When I was still startled from it, one of the silhouette had released itself from my home by turning itself to an eclipse of moths, materializing just in time to punched me hard in the face. I was knocked of my feet and thrown across the concrete field. A combination of actual head trauma and the gas forced me to stay on the ground long enough for the duo to come for me. Now, the fear that is within me is not just came from the one I absorbed.

[The Republic of Atria]

Something wasn't right. It looked like the man he was after was in power armor. But Jack said that it was Nathan. Did the cloud only effect supers? It made sense. If they couldn't tell who was who, then it would be perfect to make an escape without much resistance. So having someone who could see for him would make things much easier. It had to be Nathan. There wasn't anyway that anyone could move in power armor that fast. And there weren't too many power armors that could hit as hard as what he felt. Jason felt the wind leave his lungs and there was audible crunching as his ribs cracked and his body flew across the ground, bouncing and bashing through one, two, three buildings before finally stopping after hitting what felt like some sort of vault. He fell out of the crater he made on the door and clutched his chest. He could feel the bones slipping back into place as his healing factor started to relieve the pain.

Jason didn't have a perfect idea on how his powers worked, but he knew that he got stronger the longer he was transformed. Vaults tended to be heavy and extremely tough. He grabbed a hold of the door, pulling with all of his might until the thing pulled free, and he held it awkwardly and dropped it. "Hope everything in this thing is insured..." He muttered to himself and picked it up over his head. His strength was increasing more and more. It was not like holding a large cardboard box over his head instead of massive vault which presumably belonged to a bank. For a brief moment, he considered flying but didn't think that his wings would support the increased weight. That, and he barely could maintain a straight line when he tried it the first time. Jumping on the other hand was very much a thing he could do. He took a deep breath and winced a bit. His ribs were still healing, but the pain was a fraction of what it was when he first got slammed.

Jason ran through the wall, which might as well have been made of tissue for all it did to stop him, but the second he got back into the street, he could see the man who punched him. "Alright you psychotic jackass. Let's see you shrug this off." Jason bent his legs and with every bit of his newfound might, jumped with such force that the ground beneath his feet cracked and shattered as he took to the air. Once he was close to his target, he slammed the gigantic vault down on top of him.

[Kaledoria]

Haven Global power plant
Sean and Alice
....

Lt. Dorika and her men returned inside the plant , after the hallway, they could see, the door to the main control room was open, even though his men were still outside, two of them plugged into the computer system through a hole in the wall. The third reported: "The human went into the machine as well. Tamaha and Joven are currently just observing and scanning files and periphery firmware for Worms and Viruses left by the Nine. The human's technological equipment is superior to all commonly commercially available products, even better than our own devices of similar size. However this causes him to believe, that there is no unknown technology superior to his, so he does not even consider reasonable safety procedures besides relying on his stuff. Which would normally just be dumb but since he is not just gambling his own life but that of millions of people, it's highly hazardous! But I do not think he is going to step away from the terminal with just asking."

Dorika looked to the door. The engineer had spoken in low voice and the man in the lab coat was busy anyway but the woman at the door was watching out. Didn't Supers have really sharp senses? They had to be supers, when they ignored the gas like that, he hoped, she had not heard him. He nodded to his man and told him to continue, then walked over to Alice and addressed her in place of the two of them: "Ma'am, I think that my men can handle the situation here. The more urgent matter is the outside. In order to produce an antiserum for the population quickly, we should try to gather a blood sample from one of the Nine. And we could really need your help there."