RPIII-Division [INVITE ONLY]

[NPC]

Now we tumble down a hill to a fire with a crowd
The flicker becomes thicker as we bottom out
The residents don’t even notice the sudden shouts
-Silversun Pickups, “The Pit”

It started with a mild concern. Everything seemed fine. There was plenty of food. Whatever famine there had been was gone now. And that the important thing, right? They could all eat, their families were well off, just as they had been, the poor were still poor, the middle class was the same, the upper class continued to do as it wished; whatever Moynahan had set up to help them had worked more than effectively. Everything was fine.

But… shouldn’t have they been told about it? They were American citizens and residents, their administration had promised transparency and bipartisanship, but there still seemed to be some things that were being hidden from them. It should not have taken a criminal trial for them to learn of the danger they had all faced.

That was the thought of some people. Others felt the government had done the right thing. Had the people known about it, there would have been rioting in the streets. People stealing food, people killing each other for it, violence and blood everywhere. That was not what the United States of America were about. They stood for understanding and camaraderie, not rioting.

There was rioting anyway.

The rich found that, unless their homes were perfectly secured, they were invaded, robbed, and, in some cases, murdered in front of their families. The middle class turned on itself, the government supporters finding themselves beset by those who were angry, and there were fights everywhere, often ending in bloodshed. The poor just fought themselves. They had lacked in food anyway; why not steal it from each other? Or from one of the other classes?

There were often explosions or other phenomenons as well. Specials who felt either way often made it known by using their abilities. No one dared to fly, and even driving was hazardous. Anyone who lived in a large city was subject to being wiped out at any moment.

There were exceptions. For his role in exposing the famine, Christian remained safe, but he watched his neighbors’ houses fall apart around him. Ark itself was another story. For their roles in the cholera outbreak, the Kilvaynes’ main property was left alone. Similarly, Khalidah Rahal was left untouched. The Jung Facility was left alone purely for fear of an outbreak; the workers’ homes were less lucky. Everyone else… well, they played with chance.

The government tried its best to calm the madness, but they found themselves at the center of violence as well. They moved to a temporary shelter at an unknown location, and tried their best from there. But, as with many of these things - and as it had been before - it was not simply the government who brought everyone down from a fever pitch. Heroes emerged from the hysteria - some expected, and some, again, from unlikely places.

[Maurelle Lacroix]

I am not for what's right
I am not for what's wrong
I am just making my way and I'm gone

It was playing out exactly as she had thought it was going to, the minute that Christian had change of course. She did not even have to use her faltering abilities to know exactly how it was going to happen, it was so evident to anyone with half a brain. They were all damned to hell, all going together in the same hand basket, with flames ablaze all around them. Maurelle wondered if anyone else had made preparations for this eventuality or if they had all been too foolish to. Some might have but she suspected that they were all hoping for the good will of being the whistle blowers to cover their asses, fools.

Her main residence was safe, it was isolated away from the public and only a handful of people knew where it was. If she had desired to, she could have sat safe in her glass house and wait for the carnage to play itself out. It was what some might have deemed the wise and prudent choice, given the volatile nature of the mobs out en force around the country. Some places where doing better than others, a few cities and regions were still showing something of sensibility. That however was lost on the whole of the continent, especially the east coast and southern California.

Maurelle was heading up her strike teams as they moved swiftly through the major cities in Texas, pacifying the problem areas as they arose. First the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, as it was the nearest to her home and thus the one that put herself in the most relative danger. After it was pacified, it was on to San Antonio, to keep the mobs out of the all too many military bases there and preventing the military from making the case worse. It was there that she was glad she had a pair of empaths in her employ, without them she was not sure she could have talked down either side.

Houston was next, if only to stabilize the economy in the region. The ports of Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi, and Brownesville all needed to stay open and without disruption or else the price of everything from gas to toilet paper was going to skyrocket in Texas, the southwest, and parts of the Gulf. Luckily most of the rioting there was being kept to the inner city and though a few buildings did get razed, they were able to keep the city from completely being put to the torch. She expected martial law would go into effect once they left, but that was not her concern now that her team had done its mission.

Last but not least was Austin, as the capital was under siege from the youth from the university. They were young, bright minds that were meant to be guiding the future and yet they were kept in the dark about all of this. While not anywhere near as violent as the situations in Houston or San Antonio, it was still full on tension. Yet it was resolved after several hours of talking and the free pizza seemed to help as well.

As she retired to her home, she knew that her work had only been a dent in the greater scope of things. Yet Texas was more or less pacified and if any more major problems arose, her teams were on the ready. She was tired though, mentally drained from having had to talk down thousands upon thousands of rioters, military, and politicians. It seemed ironic to be living in a glass house when the house of cards that made up the nation was tumbling. She had not even bothered to check on her properties and assets, she knew it would be in vain as her losses were going to be high.

And it was just not buildings or money but people as well. How many of her employees, her normal, everyday employees were now dead because of this event? She had promised to protect them all, each and every single one of them, to the very best of her abilities. She had failed them, she had failed her own ambitions, she had failed everything she had set out to achieve because of this. It would be a long time before she could even hope to set things right, her will just was not there to do so...

[Sophie Nyström]

Sophie was not in the mood for any of this crap that was going on. She had a wedding to planned and Goddesses help anyone who damned thought it was a good idea to come strolling down her alley. If there was anything that the barbarian was good for it was security and it seemed that was rather needed at the moment. All this because there were a few secrets kept by the government to prevent just what was happening, way to validate their motives Sophie thought. As her time as the mastermind behind the Empire, there were plenty of secrets kept, people were just touchy these days.

Sophie however felt a bit of pity for the unfortunate victims of the mobs and rioters. Those who had nothing to do with the government or these hooligans intent on causing havoc just because there was a reason to now. While she never strayed too far from their home, every evening around sunset Sophie would leave the residence in her urban combat suit and patrol the streets of San Diego. She was not out there fighting crime or even attempting to stop the mobs from their stupidity, yet she was healing those that she came into contact with.

A few people tried to stop her and the world was absent a half dozen rioters as a result. Just because she was not actively involving herself in their little game of burn the country down, did not mean she would take lightly to being told to "fuck off". Then they had the bright idea to come at her with weapons, silly mortals thought a knife or gun made them invincible. She was a goddess, they were puny mortals who were only given life because the gods were bored and wanted subject. It was never going to end well for them.

And every morning before the sunrise she was back in her home, washed of the blood and filth of the city. If Sayeva or Brogan knew or objected to what she was doing, then she did not hear of it, though she had a habit of tuning Brogan out on a good day. If he said something to that effect, she likely tuned him out just like she so often did. It was none of their business what she did with her free time or powers, she could use them as she saw fit.

And this time she had decided to play the nurse, at least until all the mortals got tired of this latest game of insanity.

[Hatire Carrington]

"I dare say chaps, this is a rather unsporting venture that you have decided upon. Pillaging the city of all its affluent businesses and plundering your way through streets as if you were Greeks just inside the gates of Troy fresh from your inglorious horse." Why the behavior was simply juvenile and quite absurd, to think this was coming from the same patrons of the coffee shops that Hatire visited. It was just dreadful, where was their manners? "I dare say, you were far better as colonists. The Crown would have never allowed this disorderly conduct to take root, you shame your countries heritage."

Hatire had gone against all caution and gone out to get some breakfast during the riots. "Come now, let us not be the underfoot of society and degrade ourselves with this barbaric behavior. Let us talk this over a bit of brunch, with some scones and tea. I think we would all be the better for it. A full belly does a content man make." However it just seemed that these vagabonds were having none of it and retaining their course of causing as much havoc as simply humanly possible. How disappointing for Hatire, as it seemed he would have to resort to their level after all.

He dismissed the trio of fellows with relative ease, leaving them bruised, bloody, and with black eyes for their troubles. For all their bravado, they lacked discipline, form, and any sort of combat technique that could have prevented his strikes from landing. His speed burst through their pitiful defenses and his fists did the all the talking for him. "See, a bit of brunch would have been a much preferable course rather than this. Let that be a lesson to you bunch of malcontents, manners and gentlemanly conduct is the way forward."

They would not be the only ones Hatire fought along his way to the store and back home. The riots were simply an annoyance that he had to navigate and to teach all these dissidents the proper order of things. It was unbecoming of everyone to act in such an extraordinary uncivilized manner, as if the entire world was crumbling down. A few bad things happened and a group of people swooped in to save the day while the government dilly dallied. Big freaking deal, it was not as if a group of people decided to confiscate a company's ship and ruin all their product to set off a revolution.

"Silly colonials, can not even live up to their own standards."

[Helena Rahal]

I'll stop the whole world
From turning into a monster
Eating us alive

Who was Helena Rahal? That was what she had to ask herself as she sat and stared at the mirror as the news filtered in about the growing unrest. Was she a hero, was she someone who sat by the sidelines, was she someone who allowed evil things to happen? That was all it took for evil to thrive, for the good to do nothing. Yet was she good, did her ideas line up with what one could consider for a good person? Could a hero be so full of self doubt, so lacking the confidence within themselves to the grandest of things?

Helena was not a hero, she was just a traitor collecting the victims as they grew stronger and stronger. A traitor to her former self, a traitor to the people that she had loved and left, a traitor to the organization she worked for, a traitor to the nation that she called home. All of her treasons were her badges of honor, her bloody black eyes as marks of experience. It was everything that she had crafted herself to be through her years of life and living, through the trials and tribulations of a life lived out in the open.

New York needed its traitor and Helena needed to do something or once again not be able to look at herself in the mirror with any sense of pride. Dressed in combat boots, leather pants, a black shirt with a large white cross across the chest, and a leather jacket she left the house on a mission. While she could not stop all of the rioting going on in the state or much less the city itself, she sure as hell was going to put a stop to it wherever she went.

The city was ablaze in the red and oranges of fire as she made her way in, fires raged across the sky as if it were a set from a movie. This was real, this was the weapon of fear and mistrust in action, the volatility of chaos being brought to bare. Even as she got out of Ruth, there people coming at her with knives primed to strike. Acting on instinct and training that the company gave her, she brought her forearm up to block the strike.

The blade however was embedded into her skin but that did not matter, it had missed all the vital veins and arteries. Instead a flick of the wrist and a thought later, the air around her assailant was crackling as she set the atoms into a kinetic frenzy. Seconds later, the man was passed out as the electrocution did its job. Another one of the group attempted to attack her, this one was a special, throwing a fireball at her. They should have known better to attempt to attack her with anything elemental, that was her playground to rule.

She caught the attack in her palm and quickly worked her powers over it, as she let the energy flow up her arm and over her shoulders down the other twisting her way towards the attacker as she did. By the time the energy had passed down her other arm, she was right next the the special and the fireball had been elongated and turned into a spear, which she plowed right into the chest of the attacker. It was not a fatal blow, she had missed the heart and lungs but he was incapacitated.

This city was hers to sort out, perhaps she would get some assistance while she was at it. Yet this was her duty, this was how she could make a difference, this was where she could put all those years of promise to use. Whatever might be coming next for her, for her family, and for the nation, she would be able to say she helped bring order back, block by block in the nation's financial capital. A step to back to normalcy and peace... however long that peace could last.

[Christian Moynahan]

I really love a lot
I really love a lot
I really love a lot
I really love a lot
But I fight the ones that fight me
-M.I.A., “Lovalot”

He was a diplomat and mediator above all else.

By day, Christian tried to gather people together to listen to him. As the person who had essentially saved them from the famine (on the face of things), the people did tend to listen. He had actually been able to calm a good many people that way. He set up safe zones after that; places that people could gather without fear of being harmed, and with ample food and water. That, of course, had been after he had secured the Ark Industries headquarters. There were things in there that required just the wrong tip to set them up. So he’d had a powerful ergokinetic create a metaphysical, constant boundary around the building, stopping all interlopers and molotov cocktails anyone might think of throwing, and the like.

Gabriel, of course, had offered safety in Hawaii to his friends, where everything was still quiet. As for Christian’s home, it seemed to be untouchable property. Since everyone knew where he lived anyway, his home, so far, had been spared. He wasn’t too worried about it; Áine could be rebuilt. Ark couldn’t.

Most of Ark’s security still patrolled the grounds. Others had come with Christian. They were slowly being stationed at the safe zones. Many of them were powerful Specials, and Christian positioned them where he saw the best fit. Some safe zones were churches, others were houses, office buildings, and, in the worst cases, hospitals. The Jung Facility had begun taking in medical patients with its emergency medical wing, but Christian had no fears on that count; he knew Marshall Quatrevaux had that building well secured standing alone, much less with its guards.

As such, much of Los Angeles’ rioting was stopped peaceably. Much. He argued that the nation was safe, and well in hand, if not in its government, in those of its own citizens. He gave the residents of the city hope and reassured them. He kept them safe rather than leaving them to fight for their lives and that of their families. He told them to trust in whatever higher power they believed in and keep that wrapped around themselves as their own solace.

He never said he wouldn’t cause any harm on his own.

He was a diplomat and a mediator by day. Christian Moynahan tended to disappear during the night. What did appear was a figure in black, his hood drawn tight, covering a narrow, sharp face. The dark never fed so well as during those riot nights.

There was something that very few people knew about him but that was demonstrated during these nights. He had studied many disciplines of self-defense - many, meaning he was not proficient in any of them, but he was passable, meaning that those who knew only street fighting usually got their asses handed to them.

He had never taken a life before those riots began; or, at least, he had never taken a life that he had not given back later. And still, he tried his best to knock out rather than to take out completely. But they kept coming at him, and the dark was creeping up closer, slowly, bubbling to the surface. Non-lethal force became kicks and falls, blunt force trauma, silent knives, unseen slashes, faint psionic blades that were there and then weren’t. But they cut deep, and left no trace; bodies littered the ground behind him, and the nights fell a little more quiet, and Los Angeles became that much safer for his efforts both day and night.

He might have been the biggest hypocrite in history. He didn’t quite care. Los Angeles was his city now, and he would do anything he needed to keep it safe.

[Nell Booker]

The news was all over the place, trying to cover as much as it possibly could to document another historic day in the world. For Nell, the rioting caused by the shocking discovery that the government had tried to conceal a country-wide bout with famine shortly after the outbreak of cholera was nothing short of unexpected. It wasn't an unsurprising reveal though, the government covering something up wasn't exactly unheard of. Nell never knew the details for herself, but she was sure that the government had been hiding the existence of specials in some fashion for years before the incident in 2010. To hide something on that scale was tremendous. Hiding a famine that affected a single nation, while still horrible and a real show of power on the government's part, wasn't as shocking as it should have been for Nell. She read the signs, saw it all happening before her in the news, in the way people talked. No one trusted the government anymore, not in this day and age. The way things were going, Nell might have even felt sorry for the people who had to make the decision of covering the famine up. Only someone crazy would reveal something like that to the world, right? The rational part of her brain said yes. Revealing something like that, even after everything was fine, seemed wrong and it certainly wouldn't help anyone. It might even actively hurt people, if the rioting was any indication. That other part of her brain though, the one that knew the people had a right to know what was going on in their nation, decided to drown out the rational part of her brain. It was sick and awful, the things she saw on the news, but it was a natural reaction. It was instinct to some of these people. A famine was terrible and starving citizens weren't lawful citizens, but even starving people wouldn't be rioting the way they were tonight if they had just been told the truth. They had food in their stomachs, most of them Nell was sure, but they had been lied to too many times.

"So what you're telling me here is that the rioters have actually taken hostages in the building?" Nell sat in the passenger seat of her unlikely companion's car. The pale skinned woman from the other night convinced her to go to New York. She didn't mention until the day they left that there would be driving involved. Luckily, the trip would only be a few hours. "Yes, they've taken hostages in what we've been told is some sort of motel along I-80 East a few miles outside of Clearfield."

Nell could sense the woman, Daria, tensing up as the two of them both realized they would be driving near the incident very shortly. Nell tensed up as well, but most likely for a different reason.

"You want to stop, don't you?" Daria kept her eyes on the road, upset with the fact that she didn't see something like the riots coming. If she had, she would have stayed in Punxsutawney. She doubted there would be much rioting there, but once the two of them were on the interstate, there was no going back or stopping for the night. The traffic was, for now, still moving, but the sheer amount of bad luck that had to have gone into the decision to leave tonight rather than tomorrow was staggering.

"We need to help those people if we can, Miss Gottschalk."

"Call me Daria or I'll tear off your fingers. You're making me feel old." Despite the threat, Nell could tell she was wearing Daria down. Whoever she was or whatever reputation she believed she had was fading away slowly. "I'm never going to understand you heroes. These people owe you nothing, they're not important, they don't have any way to help you. There's absolutely no point to doing this."

"That's why we have to help them then. They need help, they're in danger. That's the only reason we need to help these people."

"You say that like we need to help them, as though the police don't have everything covered on their own."

"Now the rioters," She could hear the radio cutting into their conversation. "You're saying they're a mix of normal people and Specials?" Nell couldn't help but smirk considering she knew what that meant for the two of them. "Oh for fuck's sake." Daria crossed a few lanes and took the nearest exit. It wasn't hard to find the motel if they followed the sirens.

A few minutes later, Nell and Daria stood in the middle of a small crowd of onlookers. The rioting in the area must have lulled slightly, but the police were still urging people to get back into their cars and leave. "Please, avoid any neighborhoods you don't know, any gas stations if you don't need to fuel up, and anyone asking for help! Your safety should be of the utmost importance to you tonight. Please just get back into your cars and get moving."

"Yeah? And why should we!?" Nell felt Daria's hand on hers as the older woman dragged her to a nearby treeline. She motioned for her to watch what happened next. Almost as if the older woman expected it, a fight broke out between the police and the crowd. Nell couldn't tell how she saw that coming, but she was sure she'd say.

"The policeman in the front, he had an FBI jacket on."

"How could that be enough to set them off like that?"

"I don't know, but these officers clearly can't handle the crowd and the hostage situation. You wanted to help," Daria shoved her towards the motel. "Go help." She wrapped her scarf around her face before diving into the crowd and pulling the FBI agent out with a friendly tentacle.

Nell could tell Daria was intentionally putting herself in harm's way and couldn't waste the opportunity she'd been given. If what she had heard on the radio were true, the rioters/hostage takers were Specials, armed with supernatural abilities, and some ordinary folk with a few guns. Nothing major, no sniper rifles or assault shotguns. Just normal people, scared, angry, and lashing out. She didn't know who the hostages were, but knowing they were in danger was enough for her.

Despite her understanding of the situation, Nell half hoped that Daria would be able to help her soon. She knew fighting better than Nell ever would, at least in Nell's mind she did. Talking to people and calming them down was something Nell was good at. Daria didn't really strike her as the talking type, not in the way Nell was. Nell spoke with compassion and conviction. Daria spoke with... disdain? However she talked, it was different from Nell. They were doing each other's jobs, as far as Nell was concerned.

"Stay the fuck in your rooms!" She had gotten to the manager's office for the motel and heard screaming and sounds of people tearing up the building, just as she expected. "I better get some God damned money for all of this." The group of rioters had been piling up all of the TVs and computers in the motel, probably planning to steal and pawn them off after all of the other looting died down. For the most part though, it seemed that the group was beginning to question their actions.

"Come on man, why are we doing this anymore? I get we're pissed at the government, but shouldn't we think about all of this?" One voice of reason in the group, that was good to see.

"Shut. The. HELL. UP!" Before Nell could react a gunshot rang out through the entrance into the front of the motel. She dove down to the ground and crawled behind the front desk.

"You shot me, you fuckin' animal!" Not sure if things were about to erupt any further, Nell stood up from behind the desk and lobbed a light bomb at the two men. Getting the expected result of seeing them absolutely dazed, she ran forward and grabbed their guns away from them. Though her fingers were unskilled, she fumbled the magazines out of the guns and any remaining bullets, and tossed them all away from one another.

"WHAT THE SHIT WAS THAT!?" The voice of the man who shot first was loud given the effects of the bomb. Deciding to not let them walk around, Nell made a rod of light and cracked it down on the heads of the two men. They crumpled to the ground unconsciously and she hoped they would be out of it for the next few hours or at least the next few minutes.

Stepping passed the unconscious men, Nell looked passed the front desk and down a hallway. She couldn't see anyone, but knowing that she was dealing with Specials was enough to keep her wary. There could easily be dozens of men and women hiding in front of her and she would never know it. All things considered though, she doubted that would be the case and kept moving down the hallway.

"You know what I could do to your skin with just my finger? Hm? Tumors, cancer. Sickness, plain and simple." She heard the faint whispers of a woman from a room near the end of the hall. She could hear the sound of whimpering coming from the same room, possibly from the person being clearly tormented. "Just like that. Pop." The whimpering quickly turned into screaming and Nell decided taking it slow was a bad idea. She blasted the door open with a concentrated light bomb and tackled what looked like the woman who had been threatening someone. She was dazed and clearly didn't expect getting cold clocked so quickly after being disoriented, which Nell took full advantage of. A few punches later and the woman was out cold like her buddies in the front of the motel.

"Are you people alright?" Nell asked once she saw that there wasn't one person, but a whole family who had been being tormented by the stranger. "She didn't hurt any of you, did she?"

"No, no, we're fine... I think she was actually just bluffing about having whatever power she said she had." The man, most likely the father, rubbed his arm where Nell only guessed he had been touched before she burst into the room. "If she really could make me sick like she said, I think I would feel it by now."

As Nell calmed the family down, a man slowly edged his way towards the room, an orb of energy in his hand. He waited a moment and then lunged into the room, sending the orb flying directly at Nell's face. Reacting purely on instinct, a spike of light formed in Nell's hand and she clumsily knocked the orb out of her face and through a nearby window. A puff of air fluttered over her cheek as the orb exploded harmlessly away from anyone. Within the same moment, Nell tossed the spike at the man and pinned him to the wall behind him. He yelped loudly from the pain. Nell hadn't just pinned him to the wall, but stabbed him through the shoulder as well.

"Oh shit! I just wanted to get you by the jacket! Oh God!" Not willing to do anymore damage than she had intended, Nell caused the spike to dissipate quickly and the man slumped to the floor.

"You bitch!" The rioter held his shoulder tightly from the pain. Nell looked around for a moment to see if there was anymore danger, but the appearance of Daria and emergency workers quelled her fears.

"It's time for us to leave." Daria grabbed her hand and they were back in the car before anyone had a moment to stop them. Nell got a look at the crowd and saw that it had thinned out quite a bit. The FBI agents who were now fully in control of the situation at the motel seemed a little shaken up, but good nonetheless. More police cruisers and even a SWAT van had managed to make it to the scene, despite the sheer amount of calls Nell was sure the police were receiving.

Daria drove out of the area before they could be asked any questions. They got back onto the interstate heading towards New York. Not even five minutes into their drive, the men on the radio were talking again about the motel incident.

"So you're saying two women, two Special women just came in and handled the situation there at the motel?" Nell smiled to herself a little. "That's what we're saying. We're getting a few conflicting reports, but what they all agree on is that two women came in with some of those powers and took control of the situation and gave it to the police on the scene. We're being told that there could have been numerous deaths if the two had not intervened. Unfortunately we couldn't talk to them, they happened to drive off before anyone there had a chance to."

"Well now that's good to hear, good to hear. Glad they solved the problem. You see, the interesting thing is that we're the only station reporting about the motel, far as we know, so in the off chance that you ladies are listening, we've got more reports of problems like that one all along the interstate."

A hush fell over the car. Not knowing when to quit, Nell smiled to herself again, knowing what Daria's reaction would be to hearing the radio host speak to them directly.

"Let me guess." Daria said as she almost seemed to hear Nell smile. "You want to stop and help, don't you?"

"Yes, I do." Firm, resolute, but still a bit happy, despite the situation.

"I knew you were going to be a pain." Daria pulled off of the interstate again, following the sirens once more.

[Alice Taylor]

After Christian's trial, after exposing the government for the mistake they made, and a group of well-meaning specials mitigated, Alice knew that a storm was on its way. The young blonde just didn't know it would have been so big and so fast. In a society where athletes and celebrities earned too much for contributing far too little, they were prime targets for being blamed regarding all of America's problems. Alice had friends from Hollywood being assaulted on the streets, some with their cars and houses trashed, daily death threats, and even a couple that were sent to the hospital. A lot of people in the entertainment circle had been sending Alice contacts for this security company and that guard service, but she paid little attention. Her abilities were the best deterrent for anyone foolish enough to mess with her and her family.

What Alice failed to realize was the rioters were not all civilians...

They came in the dead of night, with a good dozen men. A group of extremists forged in the riots throughout the nation, their goal was to specifically target those that live in luxury through celebrity fame, earning what hard-working citizens could never dream of. Alice's apartment building was a very secured place, but just a few sympathizers in one unit, and an underpaid building security guard with money problems meant the group could literally waltz through the lobby and gain access to her floor with no issues.

Alice was used to being up in ungodly hours, catering her schedule to baby Sharon's. She has just finished feeding the happy child, and gently placed her back into the crib. She smiled, thankful for the little bundle of joy. Just a second later, her grin was gone, and her expression was filled with much worry. At such a late hour, she could hear many things around her apartment. The elevator arrived on her floor, and she heard people shuffling out to the hallway. They were talking to each other in hushed tones. Then, the other elevator arrived with more people. Immediately, her telepathy tracked down the men heading for her front door, their thoughts filled with righteous violence. A few of them, however, had seen a few of Alice's movies, and their sexually-deviated thoughts on what they wanted to do to her made Alice gasp. They were armed with baseball bats and pipes, and they knew perfectly well what they were about to face. The terrorists knew Alice could kill them all with a thought, but they weren't afraid. Wait, they had a secret weapon. What is it?

At this point, Alice's telepathy cut out, and the sound of glass breaking filled her ears, soon followed by a fire axe hacking away at her door. Quickly, she took the blanket from her bed and covered Sharon's crib before bolting out to the living room. The couch was far heavier than Alice anticipated while she tried to push it over to block the door, now that her telekinesis was also nullified by an unknown source. Not good! The men were inside.

The single mother rued the day she decided she had no more use for her Company-provided equipments, including a pistol, her trusty chain-knife, and the resourceful utility belt. Everything was back in the Company headquarters, hung up inside her locker. How could she have been so stupid? To think that her powers were more than enough for anything and everything that threatened her and Sharon? Grabbing for her phone, she was dismayed to hear no dial tone at all. Where was her cell phone?? Too late, it was on the other side of the apartment! In a panic, Alice grabbed a nearby flower vase and broke it on the wall beside her. She would book it for the kitchen for a knife, but she needed to stand between the assailants climbing in, and the bedroom where Sharon hid in a pretty bad spot.

"Take what you want, and go." Alice declared, holding the business side of the broken vase out to the closest attacker.

"Unlike you... we are not here to simply take, to consume and indulge while the rest faces poverty, famine, and disease." A tall man pushed his way through the splinters around the hole in Alice's door and walked calmly to the front of the group. He was bald with a full bushy beard, dressed in biker attires. The rest of the assailants were dressed in various styles, and came in different shapes and sizes. "Wondering why your powers are not working? That would be because of me, using my ability for the people. The people, who work hard to build America all their lives and die penniless, and not for entertainers that make enough to feed hundreds of starving families a year. The scourge of society must be abolished, and you, Miss Taylor, stands to be one of the most generous to the poor and troubled."

Alice was confused, but she didn't let her guard down. "If I was charitable and generous, wouldn't that defeat your case? We are not all selfish."

"Ah, but that is exactly it. The greedy ones continue to use your good nature as a shield, hiding behind the generosity of the few like you. Through your existence, it validated them, that they truly deserved what they possess because you alone gave back to society. The truth is, singers, bands, athletes, and actors like you deserve no more than the minimum wage the lower class gets, and we will not stop what we do until they all stop their greedy ways, and give the millions they've taken from the people back to the people before retiring forever, shutting down the entertainment industry once and for all. We the people must show them all that there is no tolerance whatsoever, not even a kind, gentle soul such as you. A message must be sent. I am truly sorry, Miss Taylor." With a wave of his hand, more of his gang moved up, surrounding Alice in her spot in front of her bedroom. "Boys, you know what to do."

Before even the first one got close, Alice pounced into action. Taking one huge stride, she kicked the raised pipe out of a guy wearing sunglasses indoors' hand before twisting around to send him flying back with a side kick. Even without her powers, the well-trained former child-weapon of the Company was deadly, dodging a baseball bat swing aiming for her skull before jamming the jagged end of the vase into the neck of the man with faded green jeans, the blood splattering over Alice's face and blue silk bathrobe as she pulled her improvised weapon out. She launched a kick behind her, the back of her heel rising up and connecting with the testicles of the fool that dared to intrude on her, right between his purple sweat pants. While the man screamed in a high-pitched tone and fell over, the other attackers were getting very close. Alice slashed at the next closest man's eyes, taking him painfully out of commission before she was tackled to the floor by a man built like a football player. Alice felt a few of her ribs crack upon impact, but the adrenaline of fighting, plus the rage of a mother defending her baby overcame the scorching pain. While the footballer was still on top of her, Alice reached her hands out swiftly for the back of the man's head and his chin, giving his head a good twist to the right and pushed his limp and lifeless body aside. Just as she sat up, an aluminium bat that was swung like a golf club struck the right side of Alice's head. At this point, everything was beginning to blur, with her consciousness fading. She was kicked and beaten with boots and weapons from all sides, and thrown into the centre of her apartment, where the other men had cleared off her furniture to the walls to make more space for this execution. She held her arms up to cover her injured skull, but the relentless assault continued. Alice felt hands grabbing at her right arm, peeling away her only defence. Alice tried to pull back but she was getting weaker every passing second.

"... please..." Alice begged, voice faint and shaky. It did not stop the savages from stretching out her arm and breaking it anyway with another baseball bat strike, right at the elbow. Another stomp from a big boot snapped her left ankle while she tried to crawl towards her bedroom. The intruders were congratulating each other now, with cheers and high-fives while spitting on her. Some were stealing her belongings while others destroyed her home. Alice was stabbed a couple of times, and one especially sadistic bastard held her leg down and put deep cuts into her thigh, just to hear the actress scream. There were a few "I've waited so long for this" followed by very faint sounds of pants unzipping. The half-alive blonde felt an obese and sweaty body getting on top of her, his stubby fingers reaching into her robe, his hot and terrible breath exhaled onto her bloody face. As all of this was happening, all Alice could focus on was the soft, muffled crying of Sharon in the bedroom, scared by the noises outside.

Suddenly, a scream of"ARRRGH!!! MY EYE!!!!" pierced through the chaos. Seemingly biding her time, Monarch, the clever and very agile kitten, leaped for the gang leader's face, scratching his eye before jumping away again, bolting for the broken front door before going out of sight.

Instantly, Alice felt a surge of energy returning. It appeared that the biker leader's power of negation was not passive, and while distracted, Alice's telepathy quickly homed in on where he was standing, and with another thought, promptly threw him telekinetically through the apartment's giant glass window and let him plummet twenty floors to his death, screaming as he went. Still lying broken on the floor, the fat man that was about to defile Alice was sent out the window, and then a few chairs, and a few more of the gang that just realized their secret weapon was gone. Everything in the apartment, save for those in the bedroom and Alice herself, were being sucked through a telekinetic vortex outside the gap left where the giant pane of glass used to be, be it furniture or bodies, living or dead.



Sharon, still very scared from the noise and bawling her eyes out, started to calm down when she heard her mother's voice cooing softly in her tiny mind...

Hush, little baby, don't say a word,
Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird.

And if that mockingbird won't sing,
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring.

And if that diamond ring turns brass,
Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass.

And if that looking glass gets broke,
Mama's gonna buy you a billy goat,

And if that billy goat don't pull,
Mama's gonna buy you a cart and bull.

And if that cart and bull turn over,
Mama's gonna buy you a dog named Rover.

And if that dog named Rover won't bark,
Mama's gonna buy you a horse and cart.


And if that horse and cart fall down,
You'll still be the sweetest little baby in town.

The moment Sharon fell asleep again at the end of the lullaby, Alice's body finally gave out from her wounds, and as she slipped slowly into the darkness, she could hear voices ringing in her head.

"Oh my God! What happened here?"

"Alice? Alice, please stay with us! Mary, call 911, quick!"

"There's blood everywhere, Jimmy..."

"Her daughter, where is Sharon??"

"Is she safe?"

"I found the baby. She's safe and sleeping in her crib, covered up by a blanket."

"Does anyone know CPR???"

"I do, move aside, hurry!"

((Note: Yeah... this got a little dark. It happens sometimes when I write in the wintertime. Alice is now in critical condition, Monarch ran away, and Sharon needs someone to take care of.))

[Christian Moynahan]

Midnight hour
Cobblestone passages, forgotten savages
Forgotten savages
-MS MR, “Bones”

"Oh my God! What happened here?"

"Alice? Alice, please stay with us! Mary, call 911, quick!"

"There's blood everywhere, Jimmy..."

"Her daughter, where is Sharon??"

"Is she safe?"

"I found the baby. She's safe and sleeping in her crib, covered up by a blanket."

"Does anyone know CPR???"

"I do, move aside, hurry!”

Idiots.

Apparently a group of her neighbors had heard the commotion and arrived too late, or had simply chosen not to arrive. He didn’t really care about them. He stepped past them, and they fell aside. He must have cut an imposing figure - tall, slender, dressed in all black, his face completely hidden behind a hood.

“Thank you for your concern. Get out, now.” When none of the neighbors moved, instead of raising his voice, he raised his hand, and the gathering disappeared in a teleported blur. He moved his hand again, and the door was now sealed.

He leaned over Alice, scanning her for injuries. Broken ribs, as he had expected. CPR would have been the last thing she needed. Concussion to the side of her head. Various fractures and bruises. Nothing that he could heal.

“Alain.”

The teleporter appeared once again.

“We’re going to the nearest hospital. Bring Sharon and as much of her personal equipment as you can. Do not wake her.” Untying the strings that held his hood in place, he let the hood fall away, and very carefully placed his hand on Alice's.

“I said I would look out for you.” He’d had his own security guard posted at Alice’s building, but, as no one knew where he had been, it had taken a while for anyone to find him; finally, a call to Gabriel had solved that problem. Just too late.

This of course, was his fault, whether directly or indirectly. He would take responsibility for it. Not only for what could have happened to Alice, but for what the country had fallen into. He was doing his best, but sometimes that just wasn’t good enough, it seemed.

“I’m proud of you, Alice,” he said softly, then looked up at Alain and nodded to him.

They appeared in the intensive care unit of the nearest safe hospital. He knew it was safe because he was the one who had secured it. Once at the hospital, he removed his black coat completely, revealing a dark red dress shirt. He and Alain breezed past any and all nurses who impeded their progress toward their intended destination. Baby Sharon was in Alain’s arms; Christian did not want to risk the dark infecting the child, just as a precaution.

One of the lead doctors finally stopped them. Of course, he recognized Christian Moynahan immediately. “This is Alice Taylor. You will keep her in your most comfortable and secure suites and treat her there. Her baby, Sharon, is unharmed. You will keep her that way. As for Alice’s progress, you will send me a text message every fifteen minutes or as often as your work allows it.” His voice was as low and calm as usual, but he spoke in a tone that brooked no argument. “Fail to follow these instructions, or fail to save her, and I will blacklist every single person involved. Do you understand?”

The doctor nodded. “Loud and clear, Mr. Moynahan.”

“Good. Keep me updated.” He watched the doctors and attendants wheel Alice into the room, and Alain handed Sharon to one of the women. They would find Sharon’s effects in the room already.

Once they were gone, Christian nodded, and he and Alain disappeared, the latter to his job, the former into the bleakness and anonymity of the Los Angeles night, his hood pulled tight over his face.

[Sparrow Akiyama]

Everything was smoking. Sparrow guessed a pyrokinetic had decided to make their opinion known. Or maybe there had simply been too many bombs or Molotov cocktails thrown. She was not sure. All she knew was that she needed to get to safety. That was difficult enough. When you had a face as prolific as Sparrow's, you tended to be a target. and although she had not made her position on the matter of the famine known, everyone seemed to have made heir own assumptions. So she had taken to wearing a face mask much as the others had, but only to go from place to place, never to harm others.

As she made her way from the store back home with as many groceries and necessities she could carry, she felt something jagged slash her face. Turning around, she saw a young woman with the rest of a beer bottle in her hand. ”How’s that, Little Miss Princess?” the woman taunted. “Think that’ll scar over nicely, don’t you?”

Sparrow gently touched the cut on her face. It ran deep, and blood was pouring from it, even into her eyes.

“Let’s see if you can fight as well as you do with all that CGI.” The woman lunged at her; Sparrow jumped out of her path. The woman found nothing but air. Sparrow sent a spinning kick into the woman’s back, knocking her down, and then tried to run with the groceries.

“Hey.” A group of gangster-type people were in her path now. “I don’t think you’ll be getting too far with those, Sunshine.”

Sparrow hugged the groceries tight. She’d had to duck and avoid hard to get what she had. “This isn’t yours.”

“It is now.” One brandished a baseball bat. Sparrow tilted her head slightly.

Dropping the bags, she jumped up and let her feet catch the side of the wall, effectively dropkicking the closest man in the jaw. He fell into the next man, and the man with the bat tried to shove them away, forgetting that he had a bat in his hand, which only bashed the other man in the head. From there, Sparrow slammed the heel of her foot into the first man’s eyes, flipped to land her feet in the face of the second, and flipped again to gouge out the eyes of the third. “Any more takers?”

The rest of the group had run away. They must have underestimated her due to her size, or maybe her fame, Sparrow decided. Turning back toward her grocery bags, she found that they were gone, being carried away by the first woman, the one she had kicked before.

“Aw, c’mon!”

[Fallon Daugherty]

Glory and gore go hand in hand
That’s why we’re making headlines!
-Lorde, “Glory and Gore”

All of Dominion Airlines’ flights were grounded and the airplanes secured. Her father had barricaded his home and was safe. Her mother had been in Washington and, well, Fallon had not heard from her. The First Family had gone into its bunker, and Fallon half-hoped that Nadine had made it there somehow.

As for Fallon, she was still alive, at least. Christian had barricaded Ark’s headquarters, so that was where she was. It was the safest place she knew. Hatire had insisted on staying home with Sir Pounce-A-Lot, so Fallon had left him to it, extending the invitation to join her at Ark’s headquarters as long as Christian was not on the premises.

Which he had not been in some time. Fallon figured he was going to die. Something about trying to help the people, he had said. Something about causing this mess. Whatever. Fallon really hoped she was wrong; she couldn’t endure another CEO change so quickly. Besides, she kind of liked having Christian around. Not that she would ever admit to it.

Sometimes, Fallon flew over the city, looking down on the happenings. It actually did seem cleaner and less dramatic than the others she had seen on the news. Maybe that had been Christian’s work, maybe not. But reports were that safe houses were being made, and that anyone who only meant the best for the people - i.e. no one planning to go full crazy on the occupants - was welcome to them. That did have Christian’s mark on it. He did have a way of reading people.

Sometimes she got stir-crazy, when she wasn’t flying. Business was hard to come by these days. But a call, exceedingly rare these days, came in some time as the riots began to cool down, particularly in Los Angeles. She gave her usual smile as she answered the call - perky smile, perky response - but her jaw slowly began to drop as the caller began to explain his intentions. Or, rather, his institution’s intentions.

The call was from Time Magazine.

“He’s the who’s the what now?”

[Sayeva Reardon]

Silently, Sayeva took stock of everyone she knew. Brogan was home, relatively of course, surely dealing havoc to those who provoked him. As had been the case for some time now, she did not know where Sera was. The Kilvaynes were likely safe from harm, either by the public’s doing or through their own volition. The Constants were in Hawaii, and had invited all of their friends to avoid the rioting by staying with them, an offer which Jordan Mercer had accepted. Dakari and the other Johessmans were in the Dominion of Jamaica, safe from the rioting, but not out of the watchful eye of the United Nations. They were all safe.

As for Sophie, Sayeva knew damn well what Sophie was doing with her nights. She also understood that Sophie did not want to talk about it. And why not? Unlike many others, she was going out and healing - rather than causing more pain. Whether that was helping, Sayeva was unsure. Healing others was beautiful, but what if those people only went on to cause more trouble? It was a flipped coin, a roll of dice. Chance. Some would repay the favor, pay it forward; others would not. But how many on each side?

It was not a thought Sayeva liked to dwell on. For herself, she spent most of her time at home, which was not unusual. A few nights had passed in which some looters had made an attempt on her lands only to find a fearsome warrior and a patrol hyena covering the premises. That was enough to keep the local populace at bay.

And as for her sister, she hardly worried about Sophie. The woman knew how to handle herself. Besides, they were sisters, as close as sisters could get, and if she found herself in trouble, she would find a tiger or a lion right next to her.

[Adele D'Alteau]

Why should I care if they hurt you
Somehow it matters more to me
Than if I were hurting myself
Save you
Save you . . .
I'll save you

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

Valley Baptist Medical Centre
Brownsville, Texas

Hollow words.

For the third time in as many hours, she'd needed to tell a family that they'd lost one of their loved ones. The first had been a toddler who'd been stabbed through the heart during a home invasion following the recent outbreaks of riots. The child was dead on arrival, but it was still in her instincts as a medical professional to provide care no matter what the patient's physical state happened to be. The second victim was an older man who'd suffered a traumatic head injury after being hit and run over by a car in a parking lot as both the car and its occupants made a hasty retreat from a supermarket that was being raided. She still wore the blood from her last patient on her gloves as she listened to the heart monitor droning in a monotone noise which signified death.

There were six other doctors and surgeons and a handful of nurses and medical assistants crowded into the operating suite attempting to save the life of a young woman whose abdomen had been slashed so severely it had punctured her bowels. Unfortunately the blow had been powerful enough to cut her clear through to her abdominal aorta and they'd been unable to save her from bleeding out internally.

“I'm calling it.” She glanced up at the clock behind the operating table to record the time of death. “Three twenty-seven PM. I'll inform her family.” She peeled the bloody gloves from her hands and discarded them in a red biohazard bin, returned to the washroom next to the operating suite, and washed her hands before she pulled off the mask and grabbed the large lip of the metal sink. Staring into its depths, she felt the heat rising to the back of her throat before she nearly buckled to her knees as grief struck her to the core. There were no words she could use that could possibly soften the devastating blow that no family member ever wanted to hear.

She felt a warm hand resting comfortingly on her shoulder as she fought to hold back the tears. “It's truly unfortunate that even in our profession, where we are trained to heal the ill and mend grievous wounds, that we cannot save every patient.” Dr. Sanjay Anjari was an older man—possibly around her father's age—who was an incredible surgeon and doctor. Throughout his working life in the medical profession, he'd lost a handful of patients as well and had a better understanding of how to report sorrowful news. Having lost both of his parents at a relatively young age, loss was not an unfamiliar emotion to his heart.

“I can't bring myself to do it a third time today. Once was difficult enough. I will not be able to hold my emotions together and tell that young woman's mother and father that I quite literally let her life slip through my fingers.” Realistically, she knew from the instant the young woman arrived, having been life-flighted from a sister hospital that was currently at capacity, that there would be no coming back from the injury she'd sustained. But even knowing that did nothing to ease her current state. Also in the back of her mind was the thought that how could she sleep at night knowing that she'd inflicted the very same pain on countless other families? The men and women she'd quite literally torn limb from limb when she thought that she'd lost Ryan; she hadn't considered the impact it would have on their own families—nor did she particularly care, at the time.

But she'd had several years to ruminate on her actions. If presented with the same circumstances today, she would have reacted in much the same manner. Nothing else mattered when her family was in danger.

He didn't want to tell her that they'd all been doing as much as they could within the scope of their abilities to save the lives of each patient who walked through their doors. That wouldn't help anything and it sounded patronising. Every surgeon worked under the premise of saving lives. He patted her shoulder reassuringly and stepped away, assuming she needed a moment or several to mull things over. “I can handle this one. Why don't you head to the lounge and call your husband? I'm sure you would welcome his presence.” From what he'd seen of the couple, they appeared to have a balancing effect on one another. Ryan's sometime juvenile and reckless nature was countered by Adele's maturity and logical approach to life and its vicissitudes.

She heard his footsteps as he exited the surgical suite and left her alone with her thoughts. Before the body could be swept away to the morgue, she thought that the least she could do was clean the body of the blood that had been spilt and return it to a more natural looking form. Turning away from the sink, she walked back to the surgical table, abandoned by its attendants but for the prostrate, bloody figure of a women laying on top of it. Just so she could go about her work undisturbed, she locked the door to the now empty operating room from the inside. By now she assumed the morgue had been notified to make room for yet another body, though this one she wasn't so keen to part with. Perhaps it was because she and the woman before her appeared to be so closely linked in age or because she knew the young woman's parents were on the receiving end of the worst news that they would hear in their lives; the least she could do was offer them comfort by returning their daughter to what she would have looked like in life.

Giving in to the effects of her ability, Adele found her place cleaning the body of the dead woman. Her gloves were unnecessary now, as the woman had been screened for blood-borne diseases prior to her arrival. Placing her hands upon the young woman's midsection, she siphoned the blood away and forced it to coalesce into a solid sphere which she nestled into the young woman's abdomen.

As much as she tried, she couldn't prevent the tears from falling. “Je suis désolé, je ne pouvais pas vous sauver.” She cleared the excess blood from the young woman's torso and dispersed it into the numerous blood vessels of the now-corpse's face, giving her an almost lifelike complexion, as if she were sleeping.

“Je suis désolé que je n'étais pas capable de vous sauver de l'horreur de l'humanité.” She could only imagine the parents' pain as they viewed the body of their once-living daughter and silently vowed vengeance for the anonymous patient she'd been unable to bring back from the brink. “Mon seul espoir est que vous me pardonnerez.”

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

† Word count: 1248
۵ Mood: Wistful.
† Outfit: Surgical scrubs
۵ Lyrics / Quote: Give Unto Me, Evanescence. Aside from their 'popular' hits, I think they're an incredible band.
† Illustrations: Included in post.
۵ Comment / Informational links: None.

[Reggie Sawyer]

For once, Reggie was with her family. That was because she had to be. As in, required to be. As part of the First Family, she had been forced to move into the secret bunker that had been developed for occasions like this one. If it was the government the people wanted, then there would most definitely be an attack on Washington soon.

The bunker wasn’t so bad. Underground sucked, accommodations did not. The President had to live well. Even in the face of danger. Reggie still had her moments of rebellion, but for the most part, she was quiet and withdrawn, quite unlike the Reggie the others had known.

Reggie was still unsure what was happening to her. Was she growing up? Did this happen to everyone? She didn’t dare ask. Some part of her knew this was not natural. She should have maybe started sneaking off with boys. Well, she kind of was, but that kind if sneaking off did not really count, did it?

It was kind of nice to spend time with her family. At the same time, it felt… strange that they should be in here, chilling, while the rest of the country fell to its own rioting. They kept track of the news, of course, what little news there was to be had at least. Some of it was good; Los Angeles, parts of Texas, Atlanta, and a few other pockets were calmed down, or close enough. Washington was not out of danger, however.

“How long?” Reggie murmured to herself. Not long enough, came the immediate thought. Reggie pushed it away. “How much longer will everyone keep fighting each other?” She wished she could do something to stop it all… but her powers did not have anything good in them, only bad, and she alone was only one girl. She couldn’t do anything.

So she sat in the bunker, mostly quiet, mostly lost in her thoughts, waiting and hoping, praying that the people would see themselves to people.

Because they were right. The government was helpless.

[Marcus Rodgers]

Seattle!

That was one upside to having moved quarters. From what they had heard, Los Angeles was well in hand. Seattle, however, was another matter. There were kids in ripped up clothes, unshaven, breaking everything they could break, mostly because they could break it. Older men and women, plundering, finding food for their families, and killing each other over it. A city awash in blood. A heart burst, sanguine, seeping out red.

There would be no peacekeeping here. This city belonged to the Elite. They hardly worked together in this - that might have given away the secret arm of the Company - but everyone expected the wife and husband to go into battle together, and so they did. There was no remorse. No second-thinking, no double-guessing. These people were hurting others and they had to be stopped. And the only way to do that was by using their own weapons against them.

She was graceful, balancing atop one car to jump onto the hood of another, chasing down a man who had just put a bullet through a shop’s window, killing the shopkeeper. His role was next, he knew. But he couldn’t help but admire her skill for a moment. One kick and the criminal was down, a spin of the man’s body and his movements were arrested, a toss into the air and the man went flying, quite smoothly, into a dump truck they were filling with bodies, some dead, but most alive. All crooks who would face judgment one way or another.

He was brutal. While she took out the shooter, he moved into the shop, checked it for other interlopers, and found some at the cash register. Sometimes he let them go if they seemed to be looking for items for their families. This group, though, they had shot a man to get to his cash. No mercy here. Not even a drop of pause.

Two shots rang out, both from behind the register. Dead men didn’t fire shots. He ducked behind an aisle of soups and then slipped around it to fire back the moment a target appeared. Head shot. He didn’t stop to celebrate; he had made enough of those in his career that they hardly merited recognition. He counted the number of shooters. Two more behind the counter, and… rhythm. He felt it. Heartbeats, footsteps. Where? To his right, he decided, and approaching from his rear. He couldn’t turn his back on the counter, though. He’d have to think quickly.

He moved to the next aisle and sent a bullet to the counter, with no intention to hit. That would fool the shooters into thinking he didn’t know the others were approaching him from behind. Then, spinning around, he took out the first one behind him, then pushed against the aisle, sending bags of chips everywhere, making a clear shot impossible as he turned back to the counter. He took out another, leaving one last behind the counter, and the two more behind -

She came from out of nowhere, spinning into one of the men behind him, then grabbing him by the neck and flipping him over to snap his neck out of place. She stopped with her back to her husband, slipping his off hand pistol out of its holster, and firing on the remaining shooters who had meant to creep up on him while he cleared the counter. Once the store was done, she leaned across his shoulder, and he planted a kiss on her lips.

“One civilian casualty,” Marcus said quietly. “Another one to report.”

Mira nodded. “And the rest for the dump truck.”

[Marshall Quatrevaux]

There were a few worst-case scenarios, primarily in Los Angeles. Prison breaks, of course. Labs blowing up. Specials losing control. The city was large and, in many was, very important, and it could not be allowed to be erased from the map like Phoenix or Hell.

There were safeguards put in place. The prisons had been heavily secured, he had been told. The CEO of Ark had warded his labs. And Marshall had the Jung Facility prepared for anything.

They were taking in victims, and had extended grief counseling in some cases. To Marshall, it felt much like the cholera scare had. But then again, he was in his own little bubble. He hardly ventured off the grounds. He could hardly tell Jessica what to do, but he preferred her to stay at Jung, and she likely knew of that preference. Sammie, however, was going to reside at Jung for however long it took the rioting to pass.

Fortunately, the streets seemed to be calming down quickly. There had been one incident in which a large group had decided it would be fun to see what would happen if Jung had a break-out. It would not have been the first in Jung’s history. They were prepared.

The hooligans might have been surprised to see not only some of the guards, but a group of the workers themselves coming out to defend Jung.

Marshall himself could have turned them all to ashes with a thought. However, he figured this would be more fun. “You know,” he said to the front line of them, “I actually want to see you try to get past us. I would find that entertaining.”

They did not get the hint.

Before going out to meet the would-be attackers, the group had decided on non-lethal force. There was no reason to add more death to the streets, anyway. So when the group ran at them, Marshall simply shifted the ground beneath the left line’s feet into a sinkhole. It hadn’t even required a lift of his finger.

Something similar happened two people down from him. Crystalynn bent down and created a small black portal, which the first couple of mooks ran into unwittingly. The next couple stopped short and ran. “The Sahara,” Crys explained before anyone could ask.

There were a few more me and women there still, staring. “Well,” Marshall said, “want to try your luck?”

(Left it open for other Jung peeps to jump in on the fun.)

[Christian Moynahan]

Albuquerque, New Mexico

At times, Christian’s public relations team was a pain in his ass. At others, they were a boon. Every last one of them knew how to speak to others, every last one of them knew when to assure someone or play the devil’s advocate, and every last one of them could handle a room, even a hostile one. There were three he trusted the most. One he sent on a northern path across the States. The second he sent across a middle path. The third, Fallon, remained behind to facilitate communication among the three of them, as a sort of command center, and also to keep them apprised of the situation in Los Angeles, in which the rioting had now been nearly completely quelled, with a few incidents here and there, not much unlike its usual ways.

The state of California, exactly like the other contiguous states aside from the one district, had become subject to martial law, which was the exact opposite of what Christian wanted. Martial law inspired fear and could be brutal, and was very likely to undo much of his work and that of others. His aim was to keep the peace by choice; the military’s aim was to keep the peace by force.

Christian checked on San Diego first. That city seemed to have been spared the worst of it. Christian suspected this had much to do with its residents, primarily the four he knew personally. They all had their ways of handling matters. Although Sayeva’s property was just outside the city limits, Christian still would not have tried to cross them. He paid them a visit along the way, and was glad to see none of them were any worse for the wear.

All three of the travelers - all acting independently of Ark, on Christian’s orders only, and as volunteers - were traveling via teleportation. Every other method was far too risky, even for the most powerful of them. Alain, of course, remained with Christian. As for Los Angeles, Christian had left the rest of his security team in charge of it. He would need Alain himself for most of the duration of this trip.

He paid a visit to Phoenix next, in a manner of speaking. The city was still off-limits, and likely would be for the rest of time. It was closed in and encircled in a manner that kept the radiation from spilling out. Looking out on it only gave him a sense of gloom and despair, something like what Maurelle had explained to him, but - he hoped- not nearly one as terrifying as Phoenix.

Their next major stop was Albuquerque. Santa Fe would be next, of course. There, they treated the city much as they had Los Angeles, setting up safe houses for those who wanted and needed them, providing them with comfort, and quelling the violence by aiding the authorities… and, as before, sometimes engaging in the violence itself. But it seemed to work, and, after leaving a small group of trained security - not Ark’s security this time, but a band of veterans and volunteers - to train the rest of the authority in riot control and keeping the peace, he and Alain continued to make their way across the continent.

[Devon Ridgeman]

Luigi, hello! Welcome to my hut!
I'm Professor E. Gadd--... stop scratching your butt!
This mansion appeared in a big puff of doom. And it's dusty as shit! Here, take this vacuum.
Your brother gets a World and a Land and a mouse. He gets a Galaxy, you get a fucking house.
By the way, he's here and he's feeling sad!
He's stuck in a painting, which is suddenly bad.
______________________________Brent "Brentalfloss" Black - "Luigi's Mansion"

Both the television and the radio had been ablaze with cautionary tales and insistent warnings over the past few of days. Normally, Devon never took any stock in what the glorified autocue recitals had to say. With how corporate-focused the western world was - and had been for decades - it was his belief that the news was perpetually spun to focus on someone's underlying agenda. Fox News was, of course, the most prominent example; their bigoted demonisation of just about everything that wasn't in lockstep with a hard-line right-wing agenda inflating to the point of rendering the whole organisation a laughable shell to be mocked whenever Bill O'Reilly mistimed a transfer to a bass player from the eighties.

But, after Christian Moynahan's court case, even he had been somewhat cognizant of the general sense of unease which had gripped the nation. After all, the prospect of famine was nothing to take lightly, especially in one of the most powerful nations on the planet. People had been forced to act; to put measures in place which had speedily rectified the problem. Whether it had been the government or other charitable souls acting in their stead was largely irrelevant and, much to the government's chagrin, the fixing of the problem simply wasn't enough, To many, the ordeal had instilled feelings of betrayal in the back of their minds, blinding them to what had actually taken place.

After the news had broken about the famine, some form of protest was inevitable. Normally, when something undesirable riled up the general populace, they ended up marching upon a building which represented the people responsible. When Ark Industries had decided to hold a press conference at the university in Los Angeles, protesters had followed in their wake. Some of the people bemoaning the corporation's recent track record had been university students, while others had been members of the public who had masqueraded as members of the audience in order to gain entry to the university grounds. But, this time around, the problem had been one which had affected the country as a whole.

The fact that the famine once had the potential to bring the whole country to its knees and threaten the lives of its inhabitants had been enough to tip the more vocal members of the community over the edge, causing them to lash out in many large cities. The prevalence of social media allowed the compulsion to cause havoc to gradually spread across the country like a virus and, once the first instances of property damage had occurred in Los Angeles and Seattle, cases of such disorder were taking place in New York in a matter of days. In spite of the televised warnings, however, Amalia had nevertheless insisted that she needed to venture out to the shops in order to procure a few supplies that the Cazenovia estate had been missing. With the destination in question making his girlfriend's total trip a little over a couple of miles, Devon had been gently reassured and told to remain at home.

But then, everything changed when the rioters attacked.

With the small-scale department store containing a well-stocked supermarket, the probability of it being a target was moderately high. The riots had started because of the unveiling of an impending famine which meant that, in their state of angered panic, the rioters would be somewhat predisposed to stealing staple food supplies in large quantities rather than expensive electronic goods. With the television off in their bedroom and the nearest radio being in the kitchen, well out of earshot, Devon was only spurred into action after a frantic phonecall reached his cellphone. Amidst the panicked screaming, he could hear Amalia's voice as she yelled down the phone, explaining something about rioters who had used bombs in the lobby. It was enough of a reason for him to dash out of the confines of the colossal house and retrace his girlfriend's steps.

Having been dragged there before, Devon knew precisely where Amalia had gone and, within moments, he was standing on the driveway at the front of the estate. While he was tempted to steal the Bitchmobile - the affectionate name he gave to Felicia's lime gree hearse in his mind - and use that to get to the department store, the fact that he hadn't taken a single lesson eventually made him settle on running there instead. The rioting had brought a few of the main thoroughfares to a standstill and, as he rushed his way along the sidewalk, he passed one group of rioters after another, kicking their way through the glass façades of small stores in order to get at the products lying within.

When he reached the department store, the first thing he noticed was that his girlfriend hadn't been exaggerating. Even before the building came into view, he could hear the cacophonous ringing of the fire alarm as it alerted people to what had transpired. As if their intent to steal hadn't been enough, a few of the rioters had fashioned firebombs from stolen odds and ends and tossed them at the lobby in order to disperse the security forces. The windows were full of holes and some of the garden verges inside and out were scorched and burning. In an attempt to delay the rioters' advance, the security officials had lowered the shutters over the entrance but, after a great deal of brute force, even they hadn't been enough.

By bending it at the corner, the rioters created an opening through which they could gradually trickle inside. While Devon could have easily followed them, the last thing he wanted was to put himself and Amalia in danger any more than they potentially were. Instead, he made his way around to the side of the building. With maps frequently posted on noticeboards around the complex, he was able to gauge his position relative to the shops situated within. Having a relatively good idea what his girlfriend had ventured out to buy, he stopped at where he hoped the ladies fashion store resided. It had been so long since he had last used his ability, he reminded himself as he planted his palms flat against the department store's outer wall. With all the grief it had brought him - and the people around him - thus far, he had tried his best to avoid even thinking about the fact he possessed the capability to bore through solid matter through little more than touch and willpower.

But this was different. He was doing this to save someone he cared about. Closing his eyes, Devon could visualise the molecular structure of the stone wall, taking note of the atoms and the forces which kept them so tightly packed together. While, in reality, the vast majority of an atom was empty space, he had found it easier to manipulate and decay the component parts of objects if he imagined the binding forces as a series of strings tied between the billions of nuclei. From there, all he had to do was sever them. With each surge of exertion, the veins in his hands pulsated a sickening dark purple and, as the energy required to tear the wall apart grew, the discolouration spread along his arms towards his torso. With wiring and air conditioning systems being embedded in the walls, the lights on the other side of the wall began to waver and flicker as he tore through the circuit before being extinguished entirely. It hadn't reduced the entire store to mere natural light, but the malfunctioning bulbs were certainly noticeable.

"Amalia!!" His clothes covered in dust and remnants of the wall through which he'd just forced himself, Devon called out, hoping he was at least close to where his girlfriend had holed up. It took a short while for the discolouration in his veins to subside. He didn't want to imagine what the bystanders must have thought if they'd seen him like this.

[Christian Moynahan]

Nashville, Tennessee

There were a few major cities that made Christian’s list. Oklahoma City was one. Memphis was another. With Texas under Maurelle’s control, he had felt little need to stop there, just has he had not felt it necessary to stop in Las Vegas. A couple of the Johessmans and their allies had brought Atlanta and the rest of the area - that is to say, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina - to a cooling point, making Christian’s work that much easier.

Nashville was a bit of a challenge. The routine was the same, but the violence more steady, making many residents wary of leaving their homes. And in some cases, they really were better off at home. In other cases, not so much. Those living in standalone housing found themselves more open to being victimized, and Christian was not as able to stem the violence there. Nashville took more of his time than he had intended. Finally, having set up as many safe houses as he could, he left another team of volunteers to help with the effort, and, very warily leaving the city in the hands of its National Guard, moved on.

[Ryan D'Alteau]

Yhtenä iltana paljon jos viiniä jois...
Yhtenä iltana unohtaa pelkonsa vois.
Yhtenä iltana kuoleman pyörteestä pois...
______________________________Sara - "Yhtenä Iltana"

Like in many states across the country, the rioting and general chaos brought about by Christian Moynahan's court case had managed to spread to Texas. Although the outcry at the government for keeping the famine under wraps for as long as they did was understandable, the tangible, physical reaction exhibited by certain elements of the populace definitely wasn't. While the worst of the famine was now over - the Ark CEO having forced the Sawyer administration's hand on the subject - the looting sprees perpetrated by individuals and gangs alike were certainly not helping and, once the rioting had reached the southern tip of the Lone Star State, it wasn't long before it would spread across the Queen Isabella Causeway and set about infecting the tiny strip of land nestled just above the Mexican border.

Although they had been trained in the use of firearms during their time under the Company's employ, Ryan had never thought it necessary to purchase a gun to keep around the home. With his ability - especially if used in tandem with that of his fiancé - potentially being vastly more powerful than any weapon, being able to bring one to bear had simply seemed superfluous. Another reason which had halted his decision on the matter was the legality of the whole affair. While it was legal in America to purchase, wield and fire guns, provided the correct legal channels were followed, he wasn't entirely sure if his training was enough to render him legally qualified to use one.

On any other day, the subject of firearms was almost a non-issue at the condo. It was simply one of those things they felt they didn't need and, with Vincent's near-unerring prescience on their side, he and Adele had a decent chance of knowing when this need would change. Today, however, things had been different. In response to the violence, medical staff had been drafted in to help tend to the wounded and, much to Ryan's dismay, this included Adele. She had been stuck at the hospital in Brownsville for the better part of the past two days and, honestly, he was feeling lonely. There was only so much he could do to entertain himself without the attractive doctor around. But as he made his out of the condo and down to the parking area sat beneath it, a flurry of voices momentarily gave him pause.

"...one step away from starving on the streets and you see this."
"Rich bastards. You think having one Ferrari'd be enough."
"Y'know, we should show 'em what it's like to live like the rest of us."

They were lucky Adele wasn't here. If she had been present to hear this trio of college-age Jersey Shore lookalikes contemplate trashing the two Italian hypercars sitting beneath her condo, she wouldn't have thought twice about killing them and dumping their bodies in the Gulf. Ryan, however, was more merciful. "Hey." He didn't need to raise his voice particularly much. The acoustics took care of that for him. In unison, the probably inebriated trio glanced over in his direction, just in time to see him descend the last of the stairs, navigate his way through the gate and begin the stroll over to where they were standing. He might have been taller than one of the students - the other two nearer his brother in terms of height - but he was a noticeably more slender twenty-something man. The three men "admiring" his car each looked to have been involved in one sport or another.

Normally, if a fight broke out, there wouldn't have been a single person on the planet who would have bet on Ryan. But, unbeknownst to them, Ryan had gleaned various insights and lessons from a number of people, ranging from criminals to hardened former soldiers. He wasn't a man to take lightly. "Hey, man." The largest member of the group - a footballer, by the looks of it - was the first to respond. "These yours?" Of course they were going to be polite, now that they knew he was in earshot. But it was already too late. He'd already heard their intent.

All Ryan was waiting for was a half-decent excuse. "One of 'em, yeah." He didn't bother to regale them with the story of how the two cars had been a gift from Faustino Saraiva. It wasn't important and they likely wouldn't have cared. "An' I'll tell you this: you don't wanna smash 'em. Trust me."

One of the men flanking the footballer scoffed, unable to hide his incredulity. Who did this scrawny kid think he was, making threats like this? There were three of them and only one of him. "We don't?" The guy's voice reminded Ryan of the guy playing the lead role in Chuck; Zachary Levi or whatever the hell his name was. Unfortunately, Ryan had long since stopped being afraid of people who were bigger than him. Aside from being a rarity, he also knew that there weren't many situations in which he'd lose. "And what happens if we decide we want to, your Majesty?"

Really? He'd really gone there? It was annoying, but it wasn't the excuse he was looking for. "You deal with me."

"Is that so?", came the response, the man boldly striding forward. Little did he know that Ryan's wheels were already in motion. Just not the ones controlling his legs. If they had to beat up one of the owners of these cars in order to trash them, then so be it. "You do realise there's three of us and only o--.." The third member of the group, who had remained silent until this point, had taken the opportunity to stride out from where he'd been hiding and, with a sudden swing, plant a haymaker between the mouthy sportsman's shoulderblades. There had been a reason why Ryan's responses had been blunt and to the point. He'd been concentrating.

After stopping himself from crashing fully onto the ground, the man sprang back up and whirled around, enraged by the "betrayal" that had just taken place. "What the fuck was that?!" The silent man had a picture of stunned shock on his face as he snapped back to his senses. He'd seen what he'd done, just as everyone else had. But he'd had absolutely no control over it. It was a reflexive action to walk up and punch his friend in the back of the neck. "What's wrong with you, man?!"

"I-.. It wasn't me! I swear!!"

"Bullshit, it wasn't! We all saw you do it!"

The assaulted man took another step closer. He was on the verge of wanting to pummel someone's face in. The one who had taken the first shot seemed like as good a target as any. "Wait, wait! Listen! Something made my arm move!" Frantically trying to explain oneself must have been difficult, Ryan thought. Especially when they had no idea what was going on. "It was like someone else was doing the th-... oh, shit..."

"Ah, don't mind me," Ryan said, stepping forward. As he did, one of the evenly spaced lights fixed to the ceiling illuminated his face and, sitting beneath the shock of dark blonde hair, was a set of eerie blue eyes; scleras and all. And, as one of them spotted what was amiss, so did the rest of them. "Y'were gettin' interesting just then." As he shifted forward, the trio shifted back, obviously scared by what they were seeing. "Please... continue."

"He's.. o-one of those... guys with powers!" Wasn't that cute? Had they ever seen someone with abilities before?

"Yeah, but he can't use 'em on us all!"

Letting out a "defeated" sigh, Ryan allowed the oceanic tint in his eyes to subside. "Yeah, you're right..." The one thing people never seemed to get through their heads was that a person with an ability such as his should never be underestimated or overlooked. The Company had failed to take heed of this so many times and, right now, these three idiots were no exception. His shoulders slouching, he slowly ambled his way over to where the seemingly fearless sportsman was standing. "I ain't that good, yet. But..." His voice was suddenly cut off as a sickening crack echoed around the parking area. Drunk or not, the sportsmen were about as dense as a bag of hammers and, after falling into a false sense of security, Ryan's left fist suddenly lashed out, slamming hard against the side of his adversary's face. And, all of a sudden, Ryan went from underestimated to down right scary.

"About fifty metres that way..." Ryan explained, pointing towards the Gulf of Mexico. "...is a cliff leadin' down t'th'beach. 'S about a sixty-foot drop, if y'don't use the stairs." What made his condo so convenient was that the nearest stairway leading down to the beach was less than ten metres from their front porch, nestled down an alleyway of sorts which bordered the house and the one next door. "Now, right now, you're lucky. I can't be bothered to beat the shit out of all three o'ya. So think o'that bruise you're gonna get as a warning. If any of you try anything, I'll--..."

With a shred of defiance still in him, the downed man swept his leg around in a rapid arc, kicking Ryan's feet out from under him. Were the other two not already afraid by what the owner of the expensive car could potentially do, the man's command to kick his ass! might not have fallen on deaf ears. But they were. And, as Ryan rose to his feet, the fight - if that was what it could be called - had gone from three-on-one to something much more unfair.

"You two. Watch this." One man. Against Ryan. He didn't need his ability to make them comply. Right now, his ability was going to be used to set an example. "As for you..." Once again, Ryan set his inhuman gaze upon the man who had wronged him. The condo, being his home, had become some sort of beacon in the astral plane. Whenever he projected - which had been a woeful rarity as of late - the walls of the home he shared with Adele shone almost like a blazing, house-shaped fireball against the Texas coastline. It was the equivalent of fighting a vampire in a blood bank. He was stronger here. And this pathetic excuse of a man was going to know about it. "Get up."

An hour later...

The sound of squealing tyres heralded his arrival at the clinic in downtown Brownsville. After blasting the horn a couple of times to get the attention of the orderlies inside, Ryan undid the seatbelt and clambered over the driver's side door of his Zonda Roadster. As the automated doors slid open, the medical staff were able to take in the sight of the semi-conscious figure in the passenger seat. To say he was a wreck was an understatement. Later on, the doctors would find that the man - a local senior-year college student with an ice hockey scholarship - had suffered half a dozen cracked ribs, a broken wrist, a broken nose and a series of hairline cracks along his jaw, left eye socket and right shin.

Ryan had expediently regaled them with the tale of how he'd come across him, mentioning that he'd spotted him lying on the floor a couple of blocks from a local nightclub. The rioting meant that the orderlies had no reason to dispute the man's account and, with the sizeable gap in the patient's short-term memory - no doubt as a result of the savage beating he'd received - neither would he. With any evidence left behind in Ryan's car being circumstantial, the police weren't going to be involved. The guy had alcohol in his system, there was rioting throughout the country and Ryan lived nearly thirty miles away. Conveniently, the investigation would be beset by nothing more than dead ends.

"Hey," Ryan said, regarding the nurse behind the reception desk with a smile. Keeping his hands, and bruised knuckles, out of sight, he acted completely naturally. "Could you tell me where Doctor Adele Couteau's workin' tonight? I'm her husband."

[Christian Moynahan]

The primary reason Christian was in Virginia was to look at Richmond as well as at Raleigh, North Carolina. Between those cities, however, lay Roanoke. And while the smaller cities did not usually gain his attention - he always hoped they would go with the changes their larger sisters made - he could not help but stop there. Reason told him not to; logic said there was no reason to; even his heart said it wouldn’t be able to handle it. He chose to stop there anyway.

Roanoke was his hometown.

It had not seen much violence, thankfully, and his family was safe. It had been years since he had seen them - they had grey hair now, and Cameron was fully grown up. He had figured as much, but seeing them all was unreal. Cami was still wary around him; once this was over, if he could, he would make the time to talk to her. To ask for her forgiveness, rather. Whatever the case, they needed to talk.

He spent only a day in Roanoke, having very little purpose aside from the personal and also because he had lost time in Nashville. Following Roanoke, of course, was Richmond. That city he treated just as the others, doing what he could, leaving volunteers, and hoping the National Guard would follow his lead rather than, in some cases, their governor’s - and ventured on.

His next stop would be his last stop.

[Lucius Kilvayne]

Prick your finger it is done
The moon has now eclipsed the sun
The angel has spread its wings
The time has come for bitter things



Lucius had given the orders. His people were cleaning up Manhattan, and he knew Christian was hard at work all over the country doing important work in his own way. The surging chaos, the onset of anarchy, soon it would be replaced with a glorious new order. For now, Lucius enjoyed the devastation and the battling between various mobs and vigilantes. He watched as police were assisted by his men. He watched it all from his penthouse window, from the balcony. He was untouchable here, as he had done much for the people already. He did not fear them, in any case. His power protected him. He was this city, and they knew that deep down inside. They could burn the edifices of it to the ground, but he would see his vision arise from the ashes.

He drank wine, as the Battle of New York raged around him. He had been expecting this all, of course. Crisis, salvation, crisis, salvation, crisis, salvation. Repeat until the idea takes hold. The Redeemers of this world were named Lucius Kilvayne, Gabriel Constant, and Christian Moynahan.

And I don't want you and I don't need you
Don't bother to resist, or I'll beat you
It's not your fault that you're always wrong
The weak ones are there to justify the strong

Colonel Marcus Grant was having a hell of a good time in the streets of Manhattan, as his new boss had just ordered him to lead a patrol of the borough. His more immediate supervisors, Ezra Stone and Dorian Black, had also been sent out. Armed with tear gas, and bean bag shotguns, the order was to nonviolently subdue the rioters, and discourage the vigilante types as much as possible. The professionals were on the scene.

"Colonel Grant," Ezra said, " You can take your patrol to secure the New York Stock Exchange. Dorian is leading his team to a crowd near Central Park, and I am heading to City Hall."

The Colonel nodded, and signaled his team to move out. This was going to be a long night.

"No rest for old soldiers, right?"

Dorian smiled, " Old soldiers? We're still fit to fight, 'til we die."

"Yeah, that's right." The Colonel said, joining his men as they traveled to their destination.


In a world beyond controlling
Are you gonna deny the savior
In front of your eyes?
Stare into the night!

Trevor had a lot to figure out. But that wasn't his concern at the moment. His concern was Seattle, and the fact that some of his team were still fighting the good fight. He was not going to let them go it alone. He had donned his vigilante's uniform, and became Lazarus the hero. He had been a Dark Lazarus recently, and he was taking steps to control that side of him. And he was going to reclaim his name. He stepped out into the night, and into the fray.

People coming at him from everywhere, but he could handle the fight. He saw Mira and Marcus in their dance of death, and he was moving toward their position, slowly. His body was alight with the white hot aura of life-force taken from those he fought. They grew weaker, as he grew in strength. He was an indestructible vessel of destruction, and they were a never ceasing horde of zombies. That was how he percieved this battle. Tossing aside his assailants, he found a clear path to where the couple stood.

Their embrace and kiss he could not rightly interrupt, but when they done, he would make his presence known.

“One civilian casualty,”

Trevor frowned.

“And the rest for the dump truck.”

"Maybe if you waited for me, there would be no civilian casualties."

Trevor smiled, and looked at the two calmly, " But I am here now, and our work is far from done."

Oh, Superman, where are you now?
When everything's gone wrong somehow?
The men of steel, these men of power
Are losing control by the hour

Marcus Grant was fucking pissed. Las Vegas was burning. Company agents had become hard to get a hold of lately, and so here he was on his own. The decision to split the Company's resources between New York and Las Vegas was looking less like a good idea right now. It couldn't be helped though. He just hoped his compatriots on the East Coast were doing well in all the madness.

He was running down the strip with a special shotgun in his hand, designed for putting tasers into people. Designed for these kind of situations. Marcus was hitting looters, and rioters, and all sorts of nasty ne'er-do-well types. It was a bit like shooting fish in a barrel for the most part. Except when he encountered the Specials with bad habits. They made for a challenge. Still, he was a soldier, and this was a war.

"I hate the government as much as the next guy, but y'all are fuckin' batshit crazy," He said to the looter he had just subdued, " An' I got plenty of reason to be pissed at the powers that be, too. But I am more pissed at fuckers who think they need to raise hell in my city."



I'm one with the warrior inside
My dominance can't be denied
Your entire world will turn
Into a battlefield tonight

Brogan had two priorities, and both were handled with ease. First, he had made it clear that his home was not a place to threaten. That first night, the crowds had been thick that first night, thinking the house to be easy pickings. Within an hour, they learned how wrong that assessment had been. His sword had tasted the flesh of many men intent on getting what valuables Brogan and his family had in their home. Sophie was out taking a more proactive role in things, and Say was with Adrianna. Both women could handle themselves, and Brogan was going to make sure they didn't have to regardless. He wanted them to relax, and he had told them as such. They were to spend their evenings as if nothing were unusual at all. Unless Sayeva wanted to go out and help people, anyway. That was her call, in the end.

Brogan was more interested in securing his family and livelihood above all else. When he had scattered the hordes of petty thugs and rioters near his home, and in his neighborhood, he made his way to the docks and warehouses he oversaw. Sure enough, a gang had come hoping to find untended goods.

They found Brogan's blade instead. He took their heads, a hammer and a couple of stakes out to the entrance of the complex. He pounded the stakes in, and then proceeded to pound their heads down the stakes. A third stake was fixed with a sign, reading "Trespassers Will Be Punished With Extreme Prejudice".

On the way home, he stopped at a convenience store to pick up some snacks and such things.

We're as stubborn as mules
With our blood on fire
When we ain't at Sunday mass
We'll look any man straight in his eyes and say
Kiss my Irish ass!
You better kiss my Irish ass!

Ronan had closed shop, and told his family to stay at home. He put on his old vigilante clothes, and became Kinesis again. Just like the old days, he mused. New York was one hell of a place to be when all Hell was breaking loose. Millions of people, so much potential carnage. He had heard the news that the police were getting help from a private security contractor, but he didn't care. He had heard the announcement not to do what he knew he had to do, but he didn't care. They could all kiss his ass, he figured. He was a hero, and that came with certain responsibilities.

He fought in the streets, using his abilities to swiftly move from area to area. He swiftly subdued wrongdoers he came upon, and moved from burrough to burrough all through the night. He had always relied on his being too fast to worry about getting hit. By the time any foe knew there was a fight, he was already hitting them too hard and too fast for them to fight back.

He was approached by a gang of mercenaries eventually. They were not too happy about his activities, it seemed. They were lead by a grizzled old man with an accent that sounded a bit too country to have originated in New York.

"Sir," Their leader said, " I advise you to return home and cease all vigilante activities at once. Failure to comply will result in your arrest."

"Kiss my ass!" Ronan said, before speeding off into the night. They weren't about to stop him.

"Damn it," Colonel Grant said, " A fucking speedster. Move out, nothing we can do. He better hope he don't run into Ezra..."

Break apart and Divide!
You might say that I'm the last man standing now,
And though you'll try, you'll never find a way to break me!
You might say that I'm sick of being lost in the crowd,
I hear the sirens but they're never gonna take me!

Adrian Kilvayne was loving every moment of this. War, rioting, chaos. Madness and mayhem in every city. Death and destruction, Apocalypse Now. It was so beautiful, it could make a grown man cry. He had a part in it, however most of it was due to the revelations provided by none other than Christian Moynahan at his trial. The famine, the government had hidden it. The man who had worked to fight it was tried. It was making all the pent up tension boil over. People tired of a government that lied and cover things up, a government that oppressed and controlled. A government that used a politics of fear to wage mental war on the masses. A government that had proven to be no longer desired nor necessary.

Anarchy was the rule of the day, and the way of the night. People were working to restore order, yes. But that meant many things to many people. One thing was sure, things were not going to be going well for the government here on out. They were facing a transition, they were on their way...

Out.

Adrian smiled, as he hit the send button on the text message he was typing.

"And now, War is declared," He said to no one, before erupting in mad laughter.

[Frank Rook]

”Yes honey, everything is going to be fine. Stay at the hospital, I’ll be there to get you as soon as I can,” Frank said into the phone. His daughter on the other end, at work at one of the largest ERs in the city of Las Angeles, was scared. He didn’t doubt that she would be safe there. In addition to a hospital being neutral territory in a disaster like this, there was also a large police presence that he had augmented by sending a dozen agents. He’d sent agents to every hospital he could, deeming them the largest priority in need of protection. Every Company outpost in the country was doing the same, with smaller outposts that weren’t dealing with this level of problem being diverted to larger cities.

Currently, he was in New York, among eleven more agents that were gearing up to get out into the thick of things as well. All of them were on their own phones, something he hadn’t begrudged them. Some of them may not make it home, and he was doing his best to ensure that everyone at least got to say goodbye to their loved ones. Just in case…

”I love you. I’ll be there for you soon,” he said. His daughter told him she loved him too, and that she had to go. The hospital was overloaded with patients. They both hung up silently, the only thing they needed to say having been said. He slipped the phone into his pocket and continued to get ready in silence. As the minutes ticked off the clock, more of the agents started to hang up their own phones. When the last was done, Frank turned to them.

”Rules of engagement. Our primary objective is any rouge special. Rouge civilians come secondary. The preservation of any innocents is the primary mission, no matter what. Take all measures to ensure that you can take someone alive, but if it doesn’t work, use of lethal force is authorized. Questions?” he asked. There was a few seconds of silence, and he gave everyone a nod.

”We’ll be in groups of four. Give every street a pass, branching out to the edge of the city. We have a long night ahead of us. Make sure you each grab a chest. If we run out of supplies, we’re fucked,” he said. Each person grabbed what looked like a large tool box, two feet wide, a foot deep, and a foot tall. It was packed to the brim with magazines, cartridges, grenades, medical supplies, and spare communication equipment. Everyone was loaded down with fifty pounds of gear as well. Armor, weapons, ammo, and more medical supplies. He looked at everyone, and he could see a range of emotions. Fear, sorrow, adrenaline-fueled excitement. They all knew what their mission was. And he knew all of them were ready to die for it.

”I’ve trained every single one of you. And I’ve never been more proud. Move out,” he said. Nothing more needed to be said.

They moved in groups of four, each group to its own SUV, also stocked with supplies that they may need. They each got into a seat, each pulled out of the garage, and each started in their assigned route. The radio in each vehicle was tuned to the local police band, while their personal radios were tuned to a private channel. It didn’t take long for the police radio to come to life with a call for help. As luck, or misfortune, would have it a call for backup came over the police radio. Frank’s car was the closest to the scene.

”Alpha to Bravo and Charlie. We’ll take this call. Continue on the assigned route,” he said into his radio. He got an affirmative from the other teams and directed the driver where to go with the GPS panel in the vehicle. It only took a few minutes for them to reach the scene, and less time to see what the problem was.

Flames danced through the air, pinning several cops behind a car as they did their best to aim and fire through the inferno. It was hard to see, but Frank could spot the figure in the middle of the blaze, waving their arms in wild patterns to stoke the flames higher.

”Pyro. Fuentes, you’re up,” he said. The car stopped, and he was the first one out to draw the attention away from the rest of the group. In an instant, flames were shooting toward him and licking away at his gear. Luckily, everything was fire resistant. He could already feel the fire start to rob him of oxygen when everything stopped. The fire died out like it had all been an illusion, and Frank eyed the perpetrator through a misty haze. Frozen solid, steam pouring off the ice as Fuentes’s hands were covered in the same ice, doing her best to keep the rouge special under control.

”Let up,” Frank ordered as he aimed his shotgun. Fuentes did, and as soon as the ice was thinned enough, Frank fired. A shell exited, the probe of the electric round penetrated, and the pyrokinetic started to seize under the influence of the electricity. In a second, another agent was on them to slap an inhibitor bracelet on the perpetrator. Next came a pair of cuffs, and then nothing. The two cops were shaken up, both by what they had went through and what they saw from their rescuers. They clearly hadn’t been expecting specials to turn on one another.

”Get him to a holding cell somewhere. We’ll be there to collect him as soon as we can. Don’t remove the bracelet,” Frank instructed. And just like that, the agents were gone. They had a lot of mayhem to sort through and not a lot of time to do it.

[Christian Moynahan]

Washington was sparse. Good. A subtle call ahead of time had warned the authorities there that an attack was imminent. That call, indirectly, had been Christian’s doing. He had hoped that they would clear the city as best they could, hopefully discouraging the attackers, but his contact within that cell said that the plan would still proceed. It wasn’t about the people, then, Christian decided. It was the statement.

He and Alain appeared with a small contingent of volunteers left from the rest of their travels. Christian directed each of them to separate parts of the city, leaving himself and Alain. “And the plan now, boss?” Alain asked, in what the man clearly meant as a humorous tone, but that had worry woven through it.

It was as though the man knew exactly what was about to be asked of him, Christian thought. Alain certainly knew him well enough by now. Christian slipped a tiny device into his own right palm; it had been hidden in the sleeve of his long black coat. He pressed it once; Alain’s cell phone buzzed. “Go to Ark and monitor the news. One buzz means everything is fine. Two buzzes, cover the shadow. Three buzzes, protect the princesses. Four buzzes, call a complete lockdown at Ark and follow the safety procedures.”

Alain nodded solemnly. “That could be done by one of the others. We have another teleporter.”

“We do.” Christian nodded towards the north. “This is something I have to do on my own.”

With a small sigh, Alain extended his hand. After slipping the device back up his sleeve, Christian took Alain’s hand and shook it tightly. They parted without a word. Alain disappeared, and Christian turned away.

He was walking north across the National Mall. If he was right, the person he sought would meet him in the middle of it. From there… Christian had a number of plans. He always did. It was simply a matter of choosing which one suited the situation the best. And choosing correctly.

He felt as though he were walking toward his own death. And why not? He had seen his family; they had wished him well, and might mourn him, but they had survived for years without him, and would survive again. Maurelle hated him. Lucius and Gabriel would curse him for doing this alone. But Christian was the one who had set off this mess. It was time to set it right - and he would not allow his families - either of them, the Moynahans or the Kilvaynes - to be harmed in the crossfire.

Was there pride there was well? Maurelle had always seemed to think so, and perhaps she was right. If he managed to pull this off, then he could say he had made a difference, a positive one this time. If he didn’t… well, that was not pride. That was self-sacrifice. Martyrdom.

He had tried to explain to everyone he had met that while the government had to answer for itself, violence against it - and among their own neighbors - was not the answer. This, he hoped, would prove it. He had never said anything about harming anyone, not at his trial, not before, not after; but if he could keep their capital from becoming yet another disaster zone, then maybe they would finally understand.

He was tired of it, in truth. Tired of the violence, of being accused of starting it and being short-sighted, of trying his best but falling just short of being good enough. He had been built for greatness; his mind simply did not work out falsities. He refused to recognize failure as an option. He rejected that notion. And as he crossed the Mall, he reminded himself of that again.

With his hands tucked into his pockets and his collar pulled up around his neck, he watched the arrival of his would-be nemesis.

[Adrian Kilvayne]

Post-Traumatic War Machines, The Pessimists still won't believe
Throw away my past mistakes, It's all I can to feel
Let my weapons be your Children, Let my armies be your Damned.
Try to suffer on in silence- Try to stop me if you can.

The order had been given, as per the text he had just received. The bomb was ready, it was a very simple device really. He had constructed it with the sorts of materials that could be readily purchased at hardware stores and electronics retailers, with a few household chemicals to provide the explosive element. He had prepared it in his briefcase, and was walking through a desolate District of Columbia. He knew the place would be abandoned, and he was told to do it anyway. He hoped it wouldn't happen after all. But it had, and now he had to choose. Do, or die. He knew the people behind this would surely kill him if he didn't do it.

The clock was already ticking, as he strode down Pennsylvania Avenue South. He turned at the corner, and made his way onto Constitution Avenue. Tick, tock, tick tock. He was nervous, but the Washington Monument was in sight, and he knew there was no point in coming this far and not doing it. As had been made clear to him, he was pretty much shit out of luck either way.

If he was foiled, he was dead. If he backed out, he was dead. If he succeeded, he was dead. All choices lead to that one single road. He knew what he was getting into when he joined the cell. He knew the risks. But up until now he had merely procured and constructed. Others had done the placing of the bombs. This time they called on him to do it all. He was the last guy left in DC, after all. The Rogue Society had become something of a loose affiliation of cells rather than the former glorious brotherhood it had been under Kiros Monroe and his various lieutenants. The leadership, whoever that was, had been unhappy with the decision he had been informed. The man was an asset to the organization, and they didn't want to risk him unnecessarily. So they said. They said a lot of things. James Drake figured they had another tecnopath or someone with technical skills equivalent to that so they decided they could dispose of him now.

He knew too much, and he was too far from the center of the organization's power. So he was picked to be the sacrificial lamb for the war. It was what he believed in, anyway. To do whatever was needed to take the world over in the interests of his kind. Supremacy. That had seemed impossible, once. Still, very far away. But he had to fight, that was known from the start.

He entered the National Mall, looking at the awe inspiring site of the Washington Monument. This was a symbol of a revolutionary's legacy. How fitting that this be near the site of a revolution's opening salvo? James smiled, glad for his role in what was to come.

He pressed on toward the center of the park, and came to the street and stood adjacent to the World War II memorial. This was the spot. His bomb had initially meant to be a simple IED, but close to the end of construction he was brought a package by a courier, that contained some plutonium. He had made a nuke, in order to increase the impact of the statement. He knelt down, knowing no one was going to stop him from finishing this. He had been told to walk here, and to set it for the exact time that would take plus...thirty seconds.

"It's a good day to die," the man said, proud that he had gone this far. Many had hinted he wouldn't even activate the weapon.