Reluctant Heroes

[LadyBlueMoon]

Mirage

Was Dollar as confused as everyone else?

Why were they not given answers?

In frustration, Mirage stormed out of the room, not even noting the metamorpasis of her form, once again the Warrior Princess. She followed Weaver....

Let's see what he's got, she thought to herslef.

 

[Dark Warrior]

Weaver

After receiving no response from the others, Weaver turned and left the room without a word. He made his way towards where he had been pointed, the direction of the training center. As he came to the door, he stopped and turned, catching Mirage in the corner of his eye.
"You want to train as well, huh? Great." he said, nodding to her momentarily before entering the room, the woman just behind him.
At the moment, the room had white walls, roof, and floor, and no windows, and was completely unfurnished, but for a large computer at the other end of the room. He strode over and tried to work out how to use the thing, before resorting to pushing random buttons.
"How does this thing work?" he asked, as much to himself as anyone else.

 

[LadyBlueMoon]

Mirage

"Beats me," she replied. "Maybe if you just punch some buttons something will happen."

She smiled at him but remained by the door, unsure as to what might spring from his button-pushing.

 

[Lacewing]

smoldering

Blazer was bored. She went out wishing she could do something like.. eat.. but she didn't feel hungry and didn't even have the inclination to eat other than the passing fancy of something from being bored and wanting to do something. She saw the Mirage lady standing by a door then walked over seeing the demon dude pressing buttons...

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Bloodwynd

I followed Mirage out of the transformation chamber and down a hallway to the training room. Weaver was attempting to operate something across the room, with Mirage, & soon thereafter the fire lady watching over him.
Since I had not gotten her name I thought I would ask.

* Excuse me, but I don't know yet how to "knock" and ask permission to contact you telepathically. I was wondering what you would like to be known as, and if you would like me to tell anyone anything else. *

I then took a step back & looked at her, waiting for a response.

 

[BadForm]

Narration

In response to the presses, the training room sprang into action. Various attackers, each designed to play on expressed fears as well as the skills of the attackers, appeared. Some demonic, some robotic, some more subtle, aimed at exploiting fear alone. A voice, robotic, spoke over the sound of impending attack.

"Here you will find all you need, from the telepathic to the psychopathic. Brainwave monitoring will ensure that the training you receive is tailored to your needs. Enjoy, and try to stay alive."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Bloodwynd

"Here you will find all you need, from the telepathic to the psychopathic. Brainwave monitoring will ensure that the training you receive is tailored to your needs. Enjoy, and try to stay alive."

Oh Crap!

I leap straight up 12' as tentacles shoot under where I was. The ground underneath Blazer exploded in a white cloud, chemical-retardant from what I could guess. As for weaver & Mirage, I couldn't tell what happened to them because the damn things changed direction and came at me again. I manifested my blade and started slicing tentacles. Sparks and smoke soon surrounded me as I continue slicing the tentacles coming at me.
Eventually I missed one, & I was grabbed around my arm and thrown into a wall. My breath exploded from my body, and my vision blurred with the impact. Then something snapped inside my head. With a cry of rage I reach out with my mind, ripping the tenticles from the wall and shredding them in the air. A block from the ceiling then falls to me, but I catch it like it was a childs toy and throw it into the wall, burying it completely into the wall.
After that the walls begin to shake, and the entire room groans as my rage grows, and my power begins to go out of control
“BLOODWYND!!!! Get ahold of yourself!!!!”

I finally realize what I was doing, and stop before I pulled the room down upon us.

 

[Lacewing]

:Blazer: she told Mirage, but oviously she forgot to tell the others. Telepaths didn't bother her, rather wished she gotten a touch of it herself.

She paused a moment when ehr visioned blurred. Twinged with red and fire then she fell back before something came tearing out of hte room. She stood and waited wondering what was going on as she tried to clear her eyes.

 

[LadyBlueMoon]

Mirage

Seeing Bloodwynd go berserk was a greater threat than any of the "mand made" challenges the room presented. Without thinking, Mirage began to project feelings of calm towards him. Would it even affect one as powerful as he?

As she saw Bloodwynd calm, from her doing or not, she could not know, Mirage looked around her for Blazer and Weaver. Were they all right? Did they withstand the unleashing of Bloodwynd's powers?

She noticed the room had not fared too well....

 

[The GrandMage]

Claude

He sat, rubbing his arm. He looked up, the doctor was looking over some charts. He sighed, and swung his legs over the bed and stood up. "It's gone thank's for the shot."

"It's okay. Like I said, you're physically healthy, but all the disease left from your body on your clothes were too much for your immune system. It's fine now. You are going to die soon, but the rate and absolute end are unable to be determined. Until I can get some more information about what's happened to you, staying in bed will only hurt you. You can't take the training room built for the others, but there are exercise rooms around the base, and we know where to find you. Your room has been 'cleaned', as it were. You're free to return there."

Claude nodded, and walked out. He looked around, and sat, back against the wall as he stared down the hall. "Now what?"

 

[airborne92]

Demon

I watch the others enter the training room for some practice with their powers. As a group and as individuals we are not yet ready for what lays ahead. Our powers are still too new to us, we aren't yet a team, and we still don't know what we are up against. I watch as Bloodwynd almost loses complete control of his powers. The training room is going to need some serious repairs.

Already two of the team members have been injured in some manner by whoever or whatever is behind all of this. Now there are only five of us left completely healthy, if you can call it that.

 

[Lacewing]

Blazer sat in the lab as people went over her stats she stared through a smoky haze trying to make out figures from the shadowed items around her.

"Seems the fire has seared the back of her eyes. She's blind"
"How fair will this go on these changes and the damage from her fire?"
"We don't know. We knew there would be causualties"
"There are only 5 healthy ones left in this group. We lost Plague can we afford to loose this one too?"


She tuned them out and turned to lay on her side her skin hot tot eh touch. So, she wouldn't die in baddle but because she slowly burned herself from the inside out.

Lovely.

 

[LadyBlueMoon]

Mirage

The damage to the lab was extensive, but nothing that could not be quickly repaired, of that she was confident. Mirage decided there was nothing to be done here until the repairs were made. "Ought to check on Blazer," she thought.

As she exited the room, she brushed past Demon. She stopped for a moment and told him "With Wayfarer out, this group needs a leader, someone to whip us into shape so that we don't have a repeat of the Cave Incident. I think that job falls to you." She smiled, projecting trust and confidence, then continued down the hall to the lab.

"She's blind," she heard one say. The girl was lying on the examining table, on her side, oblivious to those around her. Mirage approached, the Mother image transforming her. She reached out to touch the girl but pulled back from the heat.

'She's burning herself out' Mirage realized.

Softly she whispered, "Blazer, honey, can you hear me?" At the same time, she projected subconsciously feelings of empathy towards the girl.

"Perhaps those who didn't make it are the lucky ones. Are we left to destroy ourselves? Your powers, concentrate, you can control them. We need you, dear, I need you. Please. Try?"

 

[Lacewing]

Blazer heard a vioce, took her a moment to place it as the woman she just shrugged :what happens happens: she signed into the air. Her face nuteral.

After it was decided there was nothing else to do for her Blazer got up off the bed and went back twords her room :I'll be around for the fight: she signed if the other lady was still behind her small stumbling form, unable to have aid because no one had anything to be able to touch the hot skin. She left the glasses back in the lab, since there was no other need for them.

 

[BadForm]

Shinto/Dollar

In the laboratory, equipment was failing. It was only the continual reprogramming which was designed into the computers of the Worldgov that ensured their code was continuing to function. Lights flickered and went out before being brought back online. And at a bench, the agent Shinto was working hard with his team to crack the secrets of the white cube which had been brought to them.

"Any luck?"

Dollar's voice sounded from the VAS system.

Shinto nodded. "Yes, very much so. We have determined this is a non-Earth device, at least, it is of a technology that seems to be significantly different from our own. It appears to tap the entropy of the universe, causing chaotic functioning in the area around it. It also seems to have some broadcast/receive functionality which would account for the transmission of the numerical data we have received."

"Safety mechanisms?"

"Indeed. This entropic channelling appears to be able to twist and corrupt scientific, particularly electronic, devices nearby. I believe, if receiving a controlled instruction, it could also alter mutant genetic coding: thus the effects against Wayfarer and Plague. If we can work a little longer, I believe we can turn this to our advantage. So far, there appears to be no anti-tamper protection beyond that lis..."

The box flared suddenly as one of his team attempted to crack the box open, draining the electricity from the lab for a second. As things came back to normal, Shinto cursed. The display now read "VIII:VIII".

The earthquake was felt even here, and all around the world. At once, both Dollar and Shinto turned their attention to the monitoring satellite Worldgov kept in Earth orbit and were shocked at what was seen. Cracks were appearing across the Indo-Australian plate, focusing throughout and around the island continent. The land split, under the power of the most powerful earthquake ever, crumbling beneath measurements the richter scale could never manage. Lava bubbled and seethed across the great land of Australia as bit by bit the land began to fall into the ocean. They had predicted that the beings doing this would exploit an already existing faultline. To create another across such an area was a whole magnitude of difference.

"We must tell the changed..." said Dollar in horror as he turned off the machines in the training room. "They have a right to know what just happened..."

 

[Lacewing]

Blazer fell with a startled bellow of a forge. She fell to her knees her hand landing on a wall which imidiately ignited then the fire alarm sounded and the sprinkler system turned on. She glared blindly up at the water as it steamed before even touching her skin.

What happen? It felt like an earthquake.

Oh yea, the wanna be revelationists. She was really getting tired of these poeple. Angry she didn't see or even feel when her hair sprung to life as flame. Flame that did not burn her skin or hurt her in anyway, only flamed like it was hair spiked and on constant movement.

 

[airborne92]

Demon

I see Blazer stumble as the ground trembles. The next part of the Apocalypse was starting. How bad was it for the rest of the world? I walk over to Blazer and help her back to her feet. The heat created by her mutation has no effect on me whatsoever.

"Are you alright Blazer?" I ask her as I help her up.

 

[Lacewing]

She felt someone touch her, her blazing hair brushing her features and his. :I'm ok: she signed and stumbled again when the aftershocks came rippling acrossed the land.
:Wonder were they will send us this time: she signed blindly.

 

[BadForm]

Dollar

As the flames were extinguished, Dollar's voice came over the VAS into the smokey room.

"I know you all felt that. Unfortunately, our experiments with the box, while yielding important results, have failed to stop the next in the sequence of disasters. I am afraid that rather than the San-Andreas faultline, they have managed to open a fault around and throughout Australia. Demon... I am sorry... I believe you are from Australia..? I'm sorry. There is no easy way to say this. Australia has been destroyed."

 

[airborne92]

Demon

"No, I'm from Germany" I say to the VAS.

"Well Blazer, I think we might be heading for Australia" I say to Blazer as I think about what Mirage said to me just a few moments ago.

"We need to sit down as a team and start thinking as a team. Would you mind coming with me to find the others?" I ask Blazer.

 

[Lacewing]

Blazer got slowly back to her feet careful not to touch anything and nodded, she laid her hand on Demon's arm hoping he wouldn't mind her silent plee for aid. She hated to admit it, but she never would make it anyware without help.

 

[BadForm]

Dollar

"I am sorry, Gunther... there was a misfile in our database, probably caused by the effects of the box we're examining. I should have said Weaver is from Australia. My apologies," Dollar sounded very concerned, almost defeated by the shock of what had happened.

"And I am afraid there is no Australia to go to any more. From our information, the faultlines were opened so badly that it has been levelled beneath the ocean. All that remains now is a tidal wave, growing from the force of Australia's destruction..."

His voice trailed off. In truth, Dollar no longer knew what to say, nor what to do. How could anyone oppose this level of power?

 

[airborne92]

Demon

"Are you sure you are all right Blazer?" I ask her as I feel her put her hand on my arm. I know that the aftershocks are very strong still, but she shouldn't need my assistance for those. Something else has to be wrong.

I start leading her back towards the training room and sick bay. The others should be there still.

 

[Lacewing]

She stumbled blindly along beside Demon as he walked on and then she fell as a mix of aftershocka nd him walking too fast.

It was becoming more ovious that she could not see

 

[airborne92]

Demon

I catch Blazer as she stumbles. She wasn't keeping up with my pace, which seemed slow to me as I had shortened my stride.

"Okay Blazer, what is the problem?" I ask as I help her to her feet again. That is when I noticed she wasn't looking at me when I spoke to her. I slowly move a hand in front of her face, going from side to side. There was no response from her.

"When did you lose your sight?" I ask her with a bit of shock in my voice.