The scions were gathered at a location of their parents and pantheon representatives’ choosing. The massive theatre hall stood in the downtown area, with a looming arcing chamber overhead for the acoustics. The stage was laid out before them as rows and rows and columns and arrangements of benches and seats were laid out for the spectators of the performance. There was a quiet bustle of people there intentionally to see the theatrics, and the murmur of those who were dragged along with friends, family, or significant others.

Off to one side, they could see that some people had gathered along one of the walls in order to smoke some cigarettes against the rules of the establishment, and security came to apprehend them and douse the flames. Had they no respect for the lungs of others, some asked in quiet to their sides, as the gathering went outside for their last smoke before the first act were to start.

Eventually thing were all in accordance, the hushing of voices came with the dimming of the lights, and the majestic rise and swell of the orchestra’s play as their song paved the way for eyes to befall the stage. Tonight’s performance was Panegyris, a tragedy in three parts. The actors took the stage and began their work, speaking their parts as the masses were quiet and attentive.

Oddly appropriate, the play was, steeped in mythology for the newly awakened demigods. The performance followed a Greek hero, and his attempts to overcome the looming spectre of death, but at every turn his quest to save his family and himself he would lose those around him. He would make great and drastic choices for the greater good, for his goals to save more than he lost, and every time more and more of those he sought to save would be sacrificed for the good, until there were none left but himself.

The intermissions and smoke and bathroom breaks were an enjoyable burst of time between the acts. During the first intermission, however, an argument would be overheard by Liam. A girl smacks her boyfriend’s shoulder when she sees him smoking. It’s not a cigarette, the smell is wrong. The guy had brought pot to the theatre, and she was clearly upset. All he would do is cough and shrug, saying that it made the performance more enjoyable. Poor decision on his part, but they seemed to make up within a couple of minutes as they were soon making out before the break was coming to an end and they would go back in. But there was something wrong at the second intermission. The guy, Liam had noticed him again and this time Nova did too, and he was seeming like he was feeling fairly ill, paler than he had been before.

During the final act, the protagonist was sat at a table with Thanatos, death itself. They were having a chat about everything that had happened, over a game similar to chess. They would take their time back and forth making moves, not from any wager, but symbolic of their match through the play. The hero was losing pieces and making small gains through the entire match, until he was down to only his king, and yet, he still played on, making moves against his disadvantage. Ultimately, it arrived at a stalemate.

The theatre goes dark suddenly, and silent. The play is over, suddenly and jarringly, without a proper conclusion. There was no clapping, the audience had been informed to withhold their applause, and so they had.

It seemed that the purpose of the play was clear, the scions were sent here to be warned about the troubles of fighting death, and making poor choices. They could have just been told this, but this was a far more extravagant way of doing it. Gods loved their theatrics it would seem. In the foyer, it was now apparent to all of the group that the one Nova and Liam had spotted was not doing well. He was looking near passing out. The girlfriend was on the phone, trying to call an ambulance, when the man fell to his knees and began to scream in pain. All eyes were on the two of them, as people were unsure of how to respond, how to react.

How could they know how to react? His body began to seem to bulge, and his skin seemed to begin to rip and he began to bleed. Panic ensued, and people began to quickly try to get away, while others got to a ‘safe distance’ and began to record the events on their phones. Pictures, video, blogging, as the poor man screamed and his body seemingly began to burst. There was a shimmer of light reflecting off his form for a moment, and he fell over quiet. He was obviously sick, but this... this wasn’t a normal sickness.

Well, this was a new experience Nova could add to her list of “things to never do again”. The play had been purposeful, but not half as entertaining as she would’ve hoped. Of course, what was occurring outside of the play was at least unique. The list received a new entry as she witnessed the man writhing in agony. She was like the rest of the crowd for a moment, simply observing the grotesque, until she snapped herself out of it and began to shout for cloth, an ambulance, for people to get off their phones and do something. Nova was pushing her way through the crowd when the man fell silent and began to… shimmer. Clearly the gods weren’t satisfied with one event for the night. Looking around at her surroundings, Nova only began to approach the man when it was clear that most of the crowd was looking to her to act.

“Sir? Sir, can you hear me? Can you speak?” The words “are you alright” almost tripped off her tongue, but luckily she was able to catch the ridiculous question before it diminished her appearance. of having some semblance of what to do.

Liam stood back and watched the theatrics. These were less elucidating than the play had been, but they had the benefit of being more engaging. It was clear to him that something rather unnatural was happening to the man, probably due to the drugs he had taken. Liam had read a story somewhere about tainted drugs causing a person to turn into a worm. Or was it a fly? Some kind of insect. Whatever the case was, it looked like this poor bastard was going to experience it firsthand. Knowing he could do absolutely nothing to help, he simply watched and waited to see what would happen.

People murmured in response to the demands for them to ‘do something’. The girlfriend was already calling an ambulance, and it wasn’t like they could do anything or were hurting anything, right? Regardless, security began to draw the people away, shepherding them outside, “Nothing to see here,” they lied.

Nova upon inspecting the man found him unresponsive, and perhaps most oddly was how his skin was stretched over his form, ill fitting. Beneath it was muscle, but...

No, it wasn’t muscle. The shimmer was moving, fast, a fluid racing across his form. Silver and quick it coated him and hardened. Metal. His skin was pushed aside for metal. It was cold to the touch, and soaked with his blood. Everywhere she would look, just more metal instead of skin.

Jostled by the crowd, Kaya strove to make herself to the front to get a good look at the emergency victim. When the people around her were unresponsive to her nudges, she merely opted to barge her way through by means of brute force, knocking several people to the ground in the process, including the security that was desperately trying to handle the situation.

She quickly took hold of the situation: a woman on the phone, calling for help; another woman, interrogating; and a man, seemingly injured, lying on the floor.

Except that this was by no means an ordinary man. As soon as she saw the metal coating begin to spread across his form, she knew that this was a legendary being, at least in part. The question she would have to ponder was whether or not the man was salvageable amidst the bloody metal carnage.

She moved closer to the scene, and with a controlled, authoritative voice, spoke to the two women around the body. “This is a dangerous situation, I’m going to need to ask you two to move away.” She stretched her arms to either side. “Things may be about to get rough.”

Her words fell on deaf ears as the form began to stir with the groaning of grinding metal. Before the woman on the phone could make a remark, there was a sudden surge of force, a push of force as a thick metal fist swung upwards. Reacting quickly, Nova got in the way of the blow with her guard up. Her feet quickly found themselves lifted from the ground as she rose up into the foyer’s open ceiling chamber.

The assault was met with audible gasps, as people began to flee in a panic from the scene. This was a lot more dangerous for them to be around than a man in trouble. This was them being in trouble. People pushed and shoved each other to make way for their own escape, as the security began to pull out their tasers, a rather ineffectual weapon for the upcoming conflict.

A bit slower on the draw, but definitely prepared for it after the opening uppercut, when the swinging haymaker came, Kaya was able to duck below it, her stance diving safely below the otherwise intimidating fist. Above her, Nova began to plummet after just missing the chandelier.

Taking in the sights still, Liam found himself sensing that more than the demigods he knew were here, were here. There was another divine presence, but it was fleeting. It wasn’t in the theatre, it was outside somewhere. Someone involved in this metal man or was it...

Just then, his mind opened up as his consciousness slipped away. There was in his dreams, a vision. A man, held in a noose but not yet dead, in his sides were spears and at his feet were buckets. Surrounding the buckets, were cups, grails, bowls, filled with water. Surrounding the vessels of water, were candles, arranged evenly about the circle. Almost as sudden as the vision had hit him, Liam was awake again, still yet standing.

Just as she felt herself get in the way of the punch, Nova forced her body to harden and ready for the rapidly incoming hit. Sure, her skin wasn't metal, but it was a lot better than just being a layer of squish. The fact that the man had hit Nova sky high was shocking enough without being near able to touch the vaulted ceiling. Her arms and legs started to wheel as she was now rapidly approaching the ground again. Her eyes were wide and heart slammed against her ribs. What felt like seconds had hardly been half of one, and she reached up to grab at the chandelier, hoping that she could get a purchase on it, and she did.

Liam took a moment to get his mind back to the present. The few visions he’d had so far were all disorienting like that, coming at the strangest of times and leaving him bewildered. He turned his focus to the metal… thing that was assaulting his fellow demigods, and he knew almost instantly that it was a tough beast that could easily demolish mortals. Its metal hide was tough enough to withstand things like bullets from pistols, though a heavy rifle might do the job, and so far as he could sense it was still made of vulnerable flesh and bone underneath the shell. Shelving the vision and the sense of another divine entity waiting outside for the moment, he called out to those fighting the creature. “You’ll need something strong to get through the metal, high calibre rifle or something equivalent, but if you get through it’s soft enough to feel the pain.”

Well, she thought to herself, that was a lot rougher and a lot faster than I was expecting. She was lucky to have dodged that hit, but her ally didn’t seem to have been as fortunate.

This brute, as she had been so kindly informed by the guy who decided to just casually watch them fight, looked like it was going to need a substantial amount of force to break into. Lacking any weapons on her person—having left her gear back home with the RCMP—she opted for a more simple, stalling technique. Hopefully afterwards she’d have some time to go looking for impromptu weapons.

Spinning herself on the ground with her arms, she positioned herself beneath the man with her back on the floor and her legs poised atop her. With a savage push, she planted both feet firmly between the man’s legs and put as much force into them as she could to launch him into the ceiling.

And launch him she did. Higher still than Nova was sent flying with the uppercut. Unfortunately for the foyer, this meant that there was a crash into the ceiling as the metal man bounced off the rafters as they buckled and dust and debris began to fall along with the rather surprised looking guy. Her eyes quickly looking about the room, Kaya would find that there were signs on metal poles, and posts holding velvet ropes for the lines earlier at the most immediate disposal.

The girlfriend had now begun to run, her cellphone dropped and forgotten. There was a look of complete disbelief upon the faces of the security as they mutely and dumbly looked upon just the tip of the iceberg of spectacle. Few people remained within the foyer that weren’t semi-divine themselves, and those that did were not in any way prepared for this, and outside a gathering of people remained at a now extended “yeah, this is probably a safe distance” as people again tried to get a shot at what was going on, on their phones.

One of the guards, a slightly chubby older man, his name tag reading ‘Larry’ looked down at Kaya. He didn’t know who was who or what in this, but as far as his feeble mind could piece together, she just kicked a thrashing scared sick man into the ceiling, and so obviously she was the bad guy here. Larry aimed his taser to fire at Kaya.

In the corner of her eye, Kaya saw movement from one of the security guards. Movement that was notably akin to pointing a weapon to shoot at her. Oh, come on. I am a police officer, and they’re trying to shoot me? With as much speed and force as she could muster, she pushed herself across the floor, and hopefully out of the path of the taser’s aim.

Back by the door from the foyer to theatre, Cora finally recovered from her disbelief and moved into action. She picked up one of the loose velvet carpets; a fancy affair of golds and reds and blacks. Holding it loosely between her two hands, she willed fire to be born from her hands and began moving towards the metallic man.

The carpet began to burn quite readily, the fire spreading across it and the heat licking and scorching Cora’s own hands. The pain was searing and then cool as her skin began to blister from the heat. Such was the major trouble that would befall one who could make fire from their skin, and yet not resist its burn. Of course, there were more problems with making sudden fires inside of a theatre. The security, Larry aside, now have flames and fighting. Arson, as far as they were concerned, right in front of them. One of the security officers began to run to something along the walls, although Cora couldn’t tell what was there exactly. Liam, however, could see it was for a fire alarm. Another security, a black woman, began to pull out her cell phone, no doubt to call for official police support.

Nova pulled herself up along the chandelier, she repositioned herself as her eyes tracked the metallic man. If he was going to launch her, she was going to give him the equal and opposite reaction: drive him into the ground. She timed it as best she could, given that she had never swung on a chandelier towards a very shiny person.. As she swung, whether her attempt was as successful as she would’ve hoped or not, she would pull out a pocket knife and saw at anything non-metallic holding up the light fixture with one hand, and kick at anything she couldn’t cut, always keeping one arm wrapped around the chain to support herself once the fixture fell.

Liam felt a headache coming on as he watched the pandemonium unfold. It was bad enough that there was some metal beast to deal with, but the way his nominal comrades were dealing with it… He sighed and moved to intercept the security officer running for the fire alarm, but figured it would be best to hedge his bets. He sent a message directly into the mind of the officer, in as stern a tone as he could manage: “Halt, do not touch the alarm. The hand of God is at work here, do not interfere.”

The security officer stopped for a moment and turned wildly to see where the voice was coming from. His train of thought was cut short as Larry tried to chase down Kaya only for a tragic series of events to befall him. As the metal man plummeted to the ground, the chandelier that Nova was swinging on was cut loose and fell. The black woman dropped her phone and tried to reach and get Larry out of danger, but she was far out of reach.

“Larry!”

The man turned to look back and his eyes suddenly found themselves wide and in shock as he fell to his knees. There was now a large gash in the back of his head as the wedge of metal man’s foot cracked against his head. Larry didn’t have much time to feel anything next, as his slip to the ground was interrupted with the crashing force of the chandelier, metal and glass crushing him and the metallic being.

The shattered glass struck out, just short of the others in the room, leaving them untouched, but making it rather dangerous for Nova to drop down at this moment. Specially as the other two security officers now look up at her, tears and horror and anger all present on their faces.

By the time Cora noticed the incoming security guard, she had already begun to toss the carpet. Her mind shouted to stop, to take it back, but her burnt hands refused to obey, and the fiery cloth sailed on.

As the guard’s cry faded away, and the last glass shards skittered to a halt, the burning carpet settled almost serenely over the wreckage.

Nova felt her stomach rise into her throat as she heard the chandelier crash just as the security guard rushed beneath her. She knew there wasn’t a single chance that he had survived, and his partners obviously knew as well. That wasn’t supposed to happen. It was just supposed to hit the man that had been trying to harm everyone else… What had she done? Her eyes glazed over with tears as she saw the burning carpet be thrown over the wreckage, her own guilt near crushing her. On top of those awful, awful feelings, Nova was beginning to realize that she was stuck here, as immediately below her was a far from safe landing.

Liam could only watch in bemused horror as the guard died, metal man and chandelier both crashing on his head, and then the flaming carpet to top it off. There was no saving the poor guy, but hopefully the monstrosity had also been killed so his life had not been taken in vain. Rather than trying to bother with physically restraining the remaining guards, Liam sent another message into the mind of the same guard as before, in the same stern and overbearing tone: “Be at ease, Larry is in heaven now. Leave this place now and you will live.” He left the alternative unspoken, though it should be rather obvious even to the emotionally impaired guard.

The guard was wide eyed and grabbed the shoulder of the woman guard, “We need to go. I’ll… I… we’ll talk later. We need to go now.” There was a sense of urgency in his voice and slowly but surely, the two of them just left. Outside there were few people, the exodus having stopped most people from getting near the theatre. Alone now in the foyer, the demigods stood over, or in one case hung over, their victory against the metal man. In the far distance, an ambulance siren blares and will be arriving in a few minutes.

Upon seeing the guards flee, Liam looked to his fellow demigods and motioned toward the doors. “We should probably leave before police arrive. Oh, and I felt another with divine power out there, and I’ve a feeling they’re here for us. It would be rude to not go out and meet them.” However, as Liam said this, he realized that the divine power was now long gone. Strange.

“The front doors?” Cora remarked, the impromptu funeral pyre already justified to herself. “I think we’d be better off heading back through the theatre to find another way out.”

Kaya approached the edge of the rubble, eyeing it anxiously. Holding out her arms to Nova, she motioned for her to swing over. “Quickly, please… We don’t have much time.”

Eager to get off of the ceiling, Nova began to swing herself on the chain until she felt she could fall into the other woman’s arms. Nova had little clue who she was, only that she had enough force to send a man made at least partially out of metal tens of feet into the air. She tried to control her fall, resisting flailing too much.

Catching Nova in her arms, Kaya bent her legs a little to lessen the impact, and gently set her on her feet, patting her on the shoulder amicably. Rushing across the room, she grabbed the nearest pair of metal posts joined together by velvet rope. Slinging one post over her back and holding the other ready in her right hand, she approached the wreckage again. “You guys had better stand back. We can’t know for certain he’s done.”

Gingerly, and ready to leap back at any sign of movement, she used the post aside the debris that covered the metal man. He’d better be dead, she thought to herself.

It was difficult to discern whether or not the metal man was dead, as a being coated in metal it’s not like there would be the most obvious signs of death, as with poor Larry. However, there was definitely a lack of motion, not even breathing but Kaya didn’t know if that meant anything. Did the metal man even need to breathe?

In either case, it wasn’t moving at all.

“Well,” she muttered, “he looks dead to me.”

Taking the two posts, she pulled him off the ground and slipped one beneath him, pulling it up around her and then tying the two of them together. Tugging with as much strength as she could without busting the cord, restrained his arms to his sides. “Anyone got a car?” She paused, thinking. “Or a wheelbarrow?”

Nova nodded, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. “Parked in back. We should all fit nicely. I figure we really need to get going now as the sirens are only getting closer. Do you want help carrying him?” She took a step forward, ready to receive half of the metal man should her help be accepted.

Kaya smiled. “That’d be great.” Hefting up the man between them, Kaya took the head and allowed Nova to take his feet. With a glance back at the dead security guard, she whispered “God bless you” at a level barely perceptible. “Let’s go. Lead the way.”

Liam rolled his eyes at the two carrying the body. “Alright, have it your way. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

Adjusting her grip on metal-man, Nova turned to start walking towards the back of the concert hall. It was easier to not look at Kaya as she reflected on what she had just heard, directly because of what she had just done. That man’s life would always haunt her. In any case, she was soon on her way to her car, making sure she wasn’t moving too fast for Kaya, as dropping the man between them would probably be a very bad idea. “Unless you have a better idea…” She grumbled after a minute, coming out of her own thoughts and realizing the only conscious male had made a comment.

“Well yes, my better idea included not carrying the metallic monstrosity out with us, but it’s a touch late for that.” Liam moved forward to help with getting the thing into the car, grumbling under his breath.

“We can’t just leave him here. We don’t know anything about him,” Kaya pointed out.

“And we don’t need to know anything about him,” Cora argued. “If he wakes up again, we wont have a large glass structure to drop on him.”

Kaya flexed her fists. “We have me. I’ll restrain him.”

“I’m sure punching through metal is one of your many talents,” Cora said as she sat next to the prone man, beginning to tear strips off of his shirt.

Nova merely rolled her eyes then climbed into the driver’s seat, promptly turning the car on then heading out of the parking lot once everyone was mostly seated. She didn’t really have an idea of where to go, but as long as it was away from here it was better than nothing. “Does anyone have any idea of where to go without putting in a snappy retort?”

“Oh, yes, because we’re expected to know where to go after being attacked by a metal man, where exactly one should transport his body. Sure, just head on down to the Metal Monster Melter Emporium down on the highway.” Liam sighed and gestured vaguely east. “Just drive. Who cares where we go? I’m sure some other divine bit of guidance will lead us to wherever we’re actually supposed to be going.”

Nova stepped on the brakes a bit too hard at the next light following Liam’s initial answer. Glancing back at him, she did manage to catch his hand gesture. If nothing else, it was a way to go. Something niggled at the back of her mind about criminals always going west; east did seem to be a better option. At least it was quiet for the moment.

50 miles east, out of town, in a run down gas station. Few cars passed these roads this late at night, and there are no lights on in the decrepit remains of the building. Pulled up behind it and with moonlight bathing them, they were free for now, to do as they needed.

It took them a while to get out here, and all the while the metal man hadn’t made a sound or a movement. Nova had been waiting for it, on the edge of her seat the entire time she was driving. She knew that had he moved, she could’ve had to swerve out of traffic, into a mostly secluded area, then try and not get hit sky high again. That would not have been fun, however necessary. Now that they were alone, the car was in park, and all immediate danger was gone… she let herself take a breath and simply collapse against the steering wheel. The horn honked until she jerked back, realizing that perhaps napping on her steering wheel wasn’t the best move. “Well… Now what?”

Liam stared at her for a solid half a minute before speaking. “You mean you drove us all the way out here without having even the faintest inkling of a plan? Lovely.” He shoved his door open and got out of the car, walking around a bit to stretch his legs whilst thinking aloud. “So here we are, middle of nowhere with the corpse of a monster. Odds are good that the police are aware of what happened, and maybe more than just the local police. Would the FBI or the CIA be the ones to deal with a man spontaneously turning into a metal beast and then being fought off by people with superhuman powers? Maybe the anti-terrorism group for all we know. Anyway, they’d probably like to talk to us and that wouldn’t be good for our health, I think.” He stopped, facing the car, and gestured to the metal man. “We need to get rid of that, somewhere nobody will find it. We should also ditch the car as soon as possible.”

Kaya slung herself out of the car, dragged the body out with her, and slammed the door shut behind her. ”Liam, would it kill you to be nice once in a while?”

“Probably. My lifeblood is sarcasm and snark. I wouldn’t want to test it to find out.”

“Ass,” Kaya muttered under her breath. Throwing the body away from her as a testament to her overall peevedness, she kicked at the ground beneath her. Looking back at the metal remains, she pondered for a moment. “Should we… do an autopsy?”

Liam scratched his head, looking at the metal corpse as well. “I don’t know, maybe? Got anything that can cut the thing open?”

Without responding, Kaya moves off towards the gas station to look for an axe. Whether it was for the corpse or for Liam was hard to tell.

Cora climbed out of the car to join the others, her hands wrapped in what used to be the metal man’s shirt. “Everyone got what they need from the car?” she asked, wincing as she flexed her fingers.

Nova was the last out of the car. She pulled out a large backpack from the trunk, as well the first aid kit she had kept. “Yup.” Falling silent for a moment, she looked around then past the gas station, trying to see if there was anywhere to hide the body. Look at that… from child welfare worker to someone who needed to hide a body. “We should probably bury him off the property line. There’s always a chance someone could choose to rebuild here. I don’t see why an autopsy would be necessary. We can tell he’s not all metal since….” she cleared her throat and gestured to the mutilated body, “we can see bits of him.” Turning to face Liam, she fought a smile. “You mentioned you could… see things. Could you try and see where we’re supposed to go next?”

Grabbing an old napkin from the floor of the car, Cora lit it with her finger and quickly dropped it onto the scraps of shirt left on the car seat that she hadn’t used for bandaging.

Liam glanced from the burning napkin to Cora. “You realize we might still need the car, right? We’re kind of in the middle of nowhere.” He kept his voice monotone and his face blank while saying that, trusting that the message would sink in without the need of thick sarcasm, then turned his attention to Nova. “I can’t control it. If I get a vision of some kind telling us where to go, I’ll be sure to let you all know.”

Nova darted forward when she saw the napkin being dropped, brushing it out of the car. She ground the burning napkin and clothing scraps into the ground, not wanting to cause undue attention. “We should talk things through before we set things on fire. Liam actually has a point. We need some way of getting back to civilization after we… dispose of evidence.”

“Get back to civilization?” Cora scoffed, “You ever heard of security cameras? Cellphones? People just saw us beat up a sick guy, kill a security guard, destroy private property, and maybe burn down a theatre. They’ll have pictures and videos, and someone may have gotten a shot of the car.

“That means the car’s more dangerous than it’s worth, and going to a city will just get us arrested. Our parents want to talk to us?” she continued, “they can do it out in the wilderness.”

"It was hardly my idea to set anything on fire, ma'am. If someone got a shot of the car, we can..." she had to pause to fumble for the proper term, "change license plates, or whatever those television shows display. You're assuming far too much of the crowd to remember what we look like. Most of us were hidden in the crowd, by height, or by a flaming piece of upholstery. You are being far too paranoid. We need to discuss this logically, not just immediately assume the worst and take a scorched earth policy. Why can we not try to make a plan before panicking?"

“How about this for a plan?” Liam held up his right hand with just his index finger extended. “First, no burning the car just yet. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have no idea how close the nearest town or city or whatever is, aside from the one we very much want to avoid that’s about fifty miles back.” He lifted up another finger as he continued. “Second, we find somewhere where we can ditch this thing and acquire a new vehicle. Get a new ride, head out into the middle of nowhere again, torch or just abandon this one, then go on our merry way. That way we’ve always got some transportation.” Liam lifted another finger. “Third and finally, get right the hell out of here and find somewhere far away to lay low and wait for word from our divine pals or maybe for me to get a vision that points us in the right direction, whatever works.” He let his hand fall back down to his side and looked from Cora to Nova and back again as he finished his little speech. “That a sound enough plan for you two?”

“We want to avoid all towns, not just the one we left,” Cora countered, “Information travels faster than we do.” She thought for a moment before continuing, “What if we put the car in a ditch? When someone stops to see what happened, take their car and phone and then find somewhere to lay low.”

“Guys,” Kaya calls out distractedly as she leaves the gas station, looking at something she’s holding her hand. She spoke softly, her voice not exceptionally noticeable amidst all their arguing.

Slung over her shoulder was an empty fire extinguisher, held by her right arm. At her belt, she had stuffed a trusty old fire axe. Her head was bowed, attentively analysing some small item she was holding in her left hand, turning it towards the moonlight, as if to better read it. It was, after all, nighttime, and there was little in the way of strong lights about them.

“Yes, because hoping for a car to happen by the abandoned gas station on a disused road is clearly the best way to handle thing.” Liam ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “It’s simple. We don’t need to ditch the car right this very moment, we just need to avoid the police. Random people on the street won’t be able to identify the car or even know what happened, so who cares if they see us. We don’t want to wreck the damned thing here either, because we don’t know how far away the next town is. Just…” Liam sighed again, shaking his head. “Just leave the planning to the people with functioning brains, okay? We’ll all be better off for it.”

Cora’s blood began to run hot, temper flaring. “Or leave the planning to someone who’s been on the run before, you rich ass?” She began grinding her teeth, “Pushing the car into a ditch isn’t going to wreck the thing. Not everything is made of glass like you. And what if we run into a speed trap? They’ll be told to keep an eye out for us. We can’t go anywhere with this car!”

Liam rolled his eyes at the outburst. “I suppose being an experienced criminal is a good thing in your mind, then? Lovely.” He gestured to the car, then to the road. “This thing doesn’t stand out very much, and we can use back roads. Nobody bothers to put speed traps on the crappy side roads that see little use, only on major roads. So long as we’re smart about it, which I understand will be a challenge for this group that will require my full attention and aid, we can avoid any danger and actually get out of here rather than sitting around hoping for a random passerby, and without walking who the hell knows how far to get to another vehicle as your utterly brilliant original plan of burning the car would have led to.” Liam turned away from Cora dismissively, fishing around in his pockets for something. “As I said, please, leave off the planning. You’re not suited to it.”

Her fist slammed into the back of Liam’s head, the burns screaming in protest. “Shut up, you pompous ass[/s].”

Liam felt the hit coming, but too late to actually get out of the way. He stumbled forward a couple steps with his right hand coming up to clasp the back of his head. There was no blood or obvious breakage, and it only hurt as much as a normal punch should, so he figured Cora hadn’t been intending to kill him at least. Not that that changed things much. He spun back around and glared at the woman. “So you’re stupid [i]and violent? What a fucking surprise.” Liam let go of his head and pointed at Cora. “Keep your hands off me, you damned troglodyte. As distasteful as it is, we’re supposed to be working together here, not killing each other. I would think even a simpleton could understand that much.”

Nova had been too distracted by the item Kaya had brought back. She was obviously holding something else, but she couldn’t get a close enough eye on it. From what she had learned as a social worker, letting Liam and Cora bicker for a bit would probably keep them out of trouble until they either required intervention due to escalation, or until they were calm enough where they would accept help. Hearing the hit, Nova winced and turned to face them both. Pursing her lips together, she strode up to both of them, grabbed each one by an ear, then began to drag them apart. She put Cora closer to the building and Liam against the car. “Shut up both of you! You’re worse than five year olds! I turned my back and one of you can’t keep your hands to yourself while the other mixes his potty mouth with a thesaurus! You both need to just calm down and grumble to yourselves until a conclusion can be reached. Don’t look at each other, don’t talk to each other. Wait ten minutes, by my count, and then we can try talking again.”

After hearing increased level of commotion, Kaya finally looked up from the thing she held in her hand at her companions. The situation having apparently escalated even further, she felt herself start to get notably annoyed again. Thankfully, she had retained control over herself during her search, and managed to keep her nuisance at just that level: minor.

“Guys,” she repeated, more assertively, striding forward to meet up with them. “I found something in the gas station.” Considering the two weapons she now carried, she elaborated. “Something, uh, magical?”

“Magical?” Nova sighed, a bit done with magic for the day. “Magic that’s going to attack us, or magic that we can attack with? Or, heavens forbid, is it a nicer kind of magic?”

Liam, more amused than anything else at Nova’s intervention, decided to go ahead and leave off mocking Cora for the time being. Kaya’s magic thing would serve as a good distraction to save face, so he took the opportunity. “Magical you say? It might be just the kind of guidance we were looking for. What is it?”

”Nothing all too special,” she responded. Depositing the empty canister on the ground beside her and advancing a little closer to the others, Kaya held out her hand to show them. Nestled in her palm is a torn piece of an old newspaper. Seemingly mundane at first, if looked at more attentively, one would be able to distinguish multiple strange symbols—apparently Egyptian hieroglyphs—adorning its surface. And when turned to the moonlight, one might find these symbols to glow.

“A.. magical newspaper scrap?” Liam scratched his chin, staring at the thing. “Well, not very impressive so far as magical objects go, but better than nothing. Anyone have any idea what it says?”

“Well, I sure as hell don’t.” Kaya motioned Liam to take it from her. “I’m just a cop. Speaking of which, I’d like to get to doing that autopsy. I’ll leave the decrypting to you guys.”

Upon mention of an autopsy, Nova scowled and lunged for the axe, determined to keep anymore blood from being shed, even if the blood wasn’t running anymore. Enough was enough for one day. However, she found that instead of grabbing the axe, she overreached., allowing Kaya to grab her wrist and twist it behind Nova’s back, straining the tendons painfully. With a push of her leg, she knocked Nova to her knees beneath her.

“Do not try to take a weapon from me.” She hadn’t wanted to harm the other woman, but she felt her hand forced by her actions. She had been trained to never relinquish a weapon. “I don’t know you, and I can’t trust you. If I need to protect myself from a perceived threat, and you lunging for my axe certainly included, I will restrain you.” That said, Kaya released Nova and stepped back, hand placed cautiously over the axe’s handle.

During this exchange, Kaya had lost hold of the piece of paper, which now floated to the ground by Liam.

Liam bent down and grabbed the paper, laughing at Nova as he did so. “Wow, I thought you might be the reasonable one of the lot after you stopped me and Cora from fighting. Turns out you’re just a different kind of stupid. I love being surrounded by idiots.” The sarcasm in his voice was thick and obvious. Liam turned his attention to the paper, turning it around different ways and trying to figure out what the hell it said, though he could find no rhyme or reason to the symbols. He could feel that there was something other than glowing symbols going on with the paper, some other kind of magic present in it, but he had no idea what that other power might be.

“This thing isn’t just paper with glowing writing. It’s got more magic to it, and I can’t figure it out. I think we need to find someone who knows about this kind of crap and get it looked at.” Liam fiddled with the paper a bit more, then pulled his left hand away with a hissing indrawn breath. “Agh, fuck, papercut. Damned magic paper.”

Nova fell to the ground with a grunt, listening to Kaya’s warning silently before jumping up and brushing herself off. Liam’s comments pushed her too far, though. Glaring at him, Nova stood taller and walked closer to him. Just after he cursed at the paper she was in his face, only her index finger in between their noses. “You will treat me with respect. Your smart mouth isn’t going to get you half as far as you think it will. The next time you part your lips, you better think about what you’re about say to me, otherwise you might find yourself swinging from the ceiling, and it won’t be because you’re swinging from a chandelier.” She kept up against him for a second longer then stepped back and turned to Kaya. “I apologize for trying to take your weapon. I just refuse to mutilate an already deceased body, especially since it was by my hand. I will not see anymore blood tonight…” she paused then glared at Liam, “Aside from what was self imposed. As for the paper, I used to take my children to an art museum over the summer. One of the officials there also works at the state university, and is an expert on hieroglyphics. They not be the best, but they know what they’re doing and they’re not too far from here. Plus, by the way one of us is acting, they won’t think anything of the wiser of me walking in.”

By this time, Kaya was starting to realize at just what level their little impromptu group was horribly put together. It’s as if the Fates were trying to cause problems. They had Cora, a rash and paranoid individual who seemed to think she was allowed to make the decisions of her companions for them. They had Liam, Great Lord of Snark, who couldn’t help but make all their interactions even more grating, even if he seemed to have a pretty useful head on his shoulders. Then there was Nova, who as far as Kaya could tell, seemed to consider herself the voice of reason and maturity amidst a group of children, and acted like it.

And then Kaya herself, who cared little for planning, and suffered from an easily distempered disposition. There’s no way we’re ever going to accomplish anything.

“I still think it’s a good idea to find out as much as we can about that man’s transformation. I know you’ve seen things today you may not have seen before, but you may just have to be used to that.” Sticking a thumb over her shoulder to point back at the body she had thrown aside earlier, Kaya continued. “He’s dead. There’s nothing we can do to change that. Now that body is just a thing, and that thing may be useful. If you don’t want to watch, you don’t have to.”

Cora rubbed at her aching ear. “Do any of us even know enough about the human body to see if something’s wrong?” She asked. “I don’t have a problem with cutting it open, but why bother if we can’t figure it out anyway?”

After struggling and eventually succeeding to contain laughter at Nova’s petulant rant directed at him, Liam chimed in. “Are we really debating this? Go chop the fucking thing up, Nova can go somewhere else while you freaks play with the corpse if she finds it objectionable. This nonsense isn’t important anyway.” He held the newspaper scrap up for them all to see. “This is what we should be focusing on. Now, this hieroglyphics expert is a decent idea, but I doubt some guy who works in a museum would respond well to seeing magic glowing symbols on the paper. Whoever’s best at drawing among us ought to make a mundane copy of the symbols on some normal paper. That way we can try to get the message without drawing undue suspicion, maybe say one of us saw the symbols in an image in a book and wanted to know what they meant.” Liam lowered the paper and gestured to the axe in Kaya’s belt. “So go mangle the corpse if you want, then let’s get going. The sooner we’re off doing something else, the better it’ll be for all of us.”

When it was clear that they would do anything they damn well pleased with the body, Nova went back to her car, climbed into the driver’s seat, and locked herself in. She started the car’s electrics to turn the radio on, and pretend that she didn’t exist for the next few hours, or however long it took the body to be mangled and scrap to be replicated.

Kaya nodded her head in agreement with Liam, and turned to the body. Grabbing its arms, she dragged it over to the side of the gas station. Kaya wasn’t really certain as to what she was looking for—maybe a pod, or a trinket lodged in his body that might explain his sudden transformation. All she knew is that things were going to get messy.

Moving a short distance away from the body, she stripped off all her clothes except her undergarments and the white camisole she’d been wearing under her shirt. Hefting the axe with both hands, she swung it down into the body and began her bloody work.

The first strike nearly rebounded off of the metal with a clang, before the force had it come into with a second smaller crack, as a drumstick vibrating against its pad it was. The second full swing made the initial dent jut in more, the metal ripping from the force, a meatiness behind the blow as well, blood coming out of the wound. A third hit came hard upon it, and with this one the head of the axe made its way to hook under some of the metal skin. It was easy from there for Kaya to pry and rip the metal that was seemingly welded to the muscles and form of the corpse from it. It was sickening sight to behold, and the smell was terrible, causing everyone too close, Kaya included, to retch and lose some of the contents of their stomachs. Whatever had changed the body had left an awful, foul, ancient smell behind as well. More than the death of the body itself, this was an ancient, wrong, rotting smell within the corpse as well.

Keeping as much of the vomit and blood off of her clothes as possible, Kaya continued her gruesome search. In particular, she dissected his stomach and lungs, looking to see if there was anything decidedly unhuman amidst all the rotting flesh.

While there was not yet much rot within the flesh, the ripping and tearing of the metal from the husked form revealed many things that Kaya was able to identify as burns. Very much so, the metal was not just coating, it was as if it had been weld in place. Whatever happened, probably caused the man a great amount of pain. However, that much was apparent already, with all the screaming that preceded the transformation.

It was beginning to be clear that Kaya was likely to not find anything useful from this experience. Her stomach still in knots of discomfort and her nose filled with the putrid smells, she wiped some of the blood off absently upon some of the remaining scraps of clothing that the corpse wore. That’s when she noticed something off, an actual discovery. Rooting around for more of this blood substance, she found that it wasn’t actually blood as human blood from her understanding. It was very close, but it was refusing to be rubbed off and soaked up. It wanted to keep spilling.

While she had no clue what this blood was, it wasn’t human blood. Very likely, it was the blood of some sort of legendary being, and somehow it had gotten inside of this man. However, most questions, when, how, why, what, still escaped her. Regardless, the logical leap of this alien blood within the body was somehow responsible for the man’s sudden transformation sat upon her mind anyway. That’s when she noticed one more thing about the blood. As it remained on her form, it was seemingly active, rippling as it clung to her.

“Aww, shoot.” Looking at the weird blood coating her arms, Kaya decided she didn’t want to wait to see what effects it would have on her skin if left untampered.

Since nobody else had volunteered to do the copying and he had the paper in his possession anyway, Liam headed for the car when Nova did, leaving the corpse to Kaya and Cora. He grabbed his backpack from the back seat and then left the car, leaving Nova to sulk alone. The nearest decent place to sit that he could see was the ground right out front of the abandoned gas station, so he found a decently clear spot and sat down. He pulled a notebook and pencil from his bag, then set things up so he had the notebook on his leg and the paper propped up on the backpack in front of him, making it easy to see. Though he was no great artist, he figured his skills were up to the task and started copying everything from the newspaper piece he could see, just as it appeared on the paper, front and back.

Kaya could be seen rounding the edge of the gas station. Barely clothed, splatters of blood had stained her thin white camisole, her face, and her bare legs, while her arms were practically coated up to the elbows. Striding past Liam impatiently, she made her way towards the entrance to the gas station.

He looked up from his drawing and couldn’t help but laugh at the gore-spattered sight. “You look like you had fun. Remind me not to let you anywhere near my corpse.” Quip delivered, Liam returned to his drawing.

Blushing a little, she avoided looking at Liam and pushed her way inside. Seeing the newspapers where she’d left them, she grabbed a bunch and made her way to the bathrooms. Having already found the taps to no longer give water, she crouched down beside the cleanest toilet bowl, dipped the newspapers in the old water within, and began scrubbing her arms with it as best she could.

This evening was simply full of perfect timing for Nova. Glancing up from her wordsearch, she saw Kaya blushing and walking around Liam in naught but her undergarments, which evoked an image from Carrie at the prom. She shuddered and turned the radio up a little louder as she returned to her wordsearch, locking the car doors immediately afterward. She would hand the violent woman a set of clean clothes through the window if at all at this rate.

Unfortunately, the scrubbing had little effect, only succeeding in getting a little off onto the newspaper. Oddly, however, the blood seemed to be attracted to her, coming back from the newspaper onto her skin. And even more oddly, the blood was slowly making itself up her arm and beneath her camisole. In fact, her camisole was now almost entirely stain-free.

Confused, she pulled out the fabric to look at her chest, and saw that the blood had congregated around her breasts and in her armpits. Interesting.

Exiting the gas station once more, she knelt down beside Liam. “There’s something special about the blood I found in that man’s body,” she muttered to him, ignoring whatever it was he’d been doing before. Showing him her now clean arms, she elaborated. “It appears to be attracted to heat.”

Liam was finished with the copying job and had just compared them side by side to make sure it was accurate. Everything looked good to him, nothing missing or hard to tell what it was supposed to be. He tucked both the copy and the real thing into a pocket as Kaya approached. “Attracted to heat? Hmm.” The answer came to him quickly. “Must be a fire giant’s blood. I don’t think normal giant blood could have caused the metallic wonder to spring forth though. Everything I know about it says it just makes a person go crazy and get stronger, nothing about metal. Someone must’ve done something to give it an extra kick.” Liam tossed his notebook and pencil back into his backpack and pushed himself up off the ground with one hand, the other holding the bag. “Oh, by the way, I hope you didn’t swallow any of the stuff. It’d probably be bad if you went berserk on us.”

“Surprising as it may seem, I’m not an idiot.” Kaya raised herself from the ground alongside Liam. Looking down at herself, she sighed. “Though I would like to get this stuff off of me at some point. We’d better get a move on, see to that note as suggested. Think we should move the body somewhere?” She didn’t know if there was much chance of anyone finding it where it was, anyways.

“Wait, it’s still on you?” Liam thought about it, considering her state of relative undress and where the blood could have gone. He grinned at her. “That must be an interesting feeling. Careful it doesn’t travel south. It might be able to do bad things even if it doesn’t get into your stomach. The body though, sure, I guess it would be best to move it. Might as well toss it into the gas station since we don’t have anything to use to dig a hole.” He swung the backpack around and put his arms through the straps. “I’ll lend a hand, I guess.”

With Liam in tow, Kaya went back around the gas station to retrieve the body. As best as she could, she replaced the man’s guts in his gutholster—yeah, let’s go with gutholster—before taking him up off the ground with Liam’s aid and bringing him into the gas station. For whatever it was worth, she threw some newspapers over him as some kind of wimpy burial. “Thanks,” she muttered sincerely to her companion. “I’m going to go get my clothes, meet you at the car with the others.” She quickly made her way back around the building, slung her abandoned clothes over her shoulder, and rejoined Cora and Nova at the car, tapping on the window to get Nova’s attention.

Liam was already at the car when she arrived, having gone that way when she went to retrieve her clothing. “So, should we get the hell out of here now?”

Nova lifted her head hearing the tap at the window, and wrinkled her nose at the mess that Kaya had made of herself. She shook her head and simply rolled the window down, folding her arms on the door to lean a little closer. “I really would prefer that blood not completely stain the inside of my car, as I assume that’s what is causing the smell. I have spare clothes in the back if you would like them. Anything to get rid of that smell.”

Kaya grinned at the suggestion. “Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to work. The blood’s attracted to my body heat, so I don’t think it’s coming off anytime soon.”

“Lay out across the engine. I’ll turn the car on proper and we can wait a few moments. We need to get moving soon anyhow; this should get everyone in gear.” Reflecting on what she had said, she followed the recommendation with, “And please excuse the pun.”

Her grin quickly faded, replaced with a glare of mild annoyance. “Seriously?” She shifted her gaze over to Liam, and the blush returned. “Ah, whatever,” she muttered, as she turned away from the group and moved over to the front of the car. Dropping the clothes she’d slung over her shoulders to the ground, she pried open the hood of the vehicle in order to give herself access to the engine. Finally stripping off her camisole, bra, and panties, she gingerly climbed up onto the engine and laid herself out, trying to press her breasts near the part that produced the most heat. It was rather uncomfortable, but she figured she’d be alright. Better than going berserk on them. But only barely.

Having taken a few moments to calm herself down, Cora now watched the unfolding scene with a grin on her face. “The strippers are usually on top of the hood,” she called out helpfully. Kaya, helpfully, didn’t respond.

Once she saw that Kaya was settled, Nova turned the car on and politely averted her eyes, wanting to give the woman a semblance of privacy. It may not have been much, especially considering what their companions’ current remarks, and what they typically said.

Liam was not so polite, and he gave Kaya a good ogle as she got on the engine. “I didn’t expect a show, but hey, I’m not complaining.” He left off staring like a creeper and got into the car, wanting to hurry up and get on the road.

The comment left a sour taste in Nova’s mouth, leading immediately to her throwing her puzzle book at Liam’s head once he was settled in the car. “Shut up or walk.”

The book tagged him right on the forehead. “Agh, fuck.” Liam clapped a hand to his head, rubbing where he’d been hit. “I already said my piece and got into the car. I’m not a fucking comedian, I make a quip and that’s the end of it. Get used to it.”

“Definitely not a comedian,” Cora agreed as she got into the shotgun seat.

Kaya could feel the engine heating up beneath her body as Nova activated the ignition. Looking down at herself, she saw the old blood slowly become reactive again, dripping off of her flesh and onto the metal of the engine. I hope this doesn’t rust out on us. Feeling her body slowly warm up, a couple beads of sweat dripped off her forehead and steamed up on contact. As soon as the last of the blood has left her body, she rolled out of the engine onto the road and brushed herself off as she rose to her feet.

Allowing the cold night breeze to blow off the remaining tendrils of steam and cool herself off, she snatched her clothes off the ground and slipped them back on. She decided not to redon her jacket, because the heat was rather stifling. She just wanted to be decent again. Kaya went back out from the vehicle for a moment, retrieving her axe and fire extinguisher from where she’d left them. She placed the tip of the axe onto the engine where she had lain before, and the blood seeped off of it into the dredges of the engine. Finally, she carefully shut and relatched the hood of the car and entered the backseats, reluctantly beside Liam. She didn’t know if he’d looked or not, but the whole situation was embarrassing as all hell, and she ended up blushing again, looking out the window to avoid eye contact. “Let’s go,” she mumbled.

Nova glanced at Kaya through the rear view mirror, but twisted around to see that she was actually beside Liam. She gave Liam a pointed glance, wanting to non-verbally remind him of the threat to walk, then turned around to move the car into drive after such a long wait. “Don’t be afraid to use the axe, Kaya.” She stated after they were on the road. She refrained from adding on a quip about how she hadn’t been afraid to use it on a corpse, and decided it was probably for the best. It took about seven minutes before the group passed another vehicle, and by then the gas station wasn’t even a spot on the horizon.

The group arrived at the edge of university grounds in the late dark of night. There were still quite a few lights out as various dorms hosted parties, and other buildings were lit for the maintenance crews and study sessions. The campus was cloaked in shadow that seemed a tad oppressive between the lights of the lamps and the beams pouring out of windows. Finding a parking space was a bit of a hassle as they were forced to pick between visitor parking and not getting a fine, or parking closer and risking security ticketing them. Granted, given their recent history, any security official looking too long upon their car was cause for alarm, and so they opted for a slightly more anonymous parking job. There was quite a walk from where they were towards the offices of the expert they were here to see, and whether or not he would be there was debateable. That said, there was really only one way for them to find out, and that was to go inside.

Now, patrolling the grounds were a handful of campus security cars, and actual county police. The police seemed more interested in monitoring the dormitory parties in case things got out of hand, and the campus security did a more general browsing of the area for any ne’erdowells. Avoiding drawing their ire would be simple, so long as they didn’t do anything suspicious.

With the car parked and soon locked Nova was eager to get to the professor and leave. She had never had to worry about a police presence before, but now… every time an officer got too close, Nova found herself trying not to look guilty. Honestly, she thought she was doing a bang up job of it too, but she was certain Liam or Cora would still have something to say about it once they were out of earshot of officials - if she was lucky. So far the only luck they had today was that the professor’s office was hardly more than a three minute walk from the parking lot they (she, actually, despite Liam’s protests from the back that any lot would be closer) had chosen.

Following close behind Nova, Kaya looked around herself at the environment in which they wandered. Cops, parties, and most of all, darkness. At such a late point in the night, she highly doubted that they would find the professor lurking in his office, and had no qualms voicing her opinion on the subject. “Is this contact of yours a night owl? Because I see no reason to believe he’ll be waiting for us in there.” Glancing longingly at the dorms, she continued in a more pleading tone. “All I want is sleep. Why don’t we see if we can find somewhere quiet, an abandoned dorm, or a rooftop maybe, to rest for a couple hours, before we track this guy down?”

Liam shrugged and walked quickly to pass Kaya. “We’re already here and making an annoyingly long walk, so we may as well see if Professor Hieroglyphics is present. Couldn’t hurt anything to check, and if he’s not then we can go find somewhere to wait and sleep and whatnot.” As he drew level with Nova, Liam held out the piece of notebook paper that had the copy of the symbols on it. “You’re the one who knows the guy, so you may as well be the one to do the asking.”

“And if the doors are locked?” Cora asked, “I doubt they just leave the buildings open at night.”

“Jet lag does odd things to a man.” Nova muttered at the first comment as she took the notebook paper from Liam and put it in her pocket. “I’m certain he’s awake and in his office. On the oddest chance that he isn’t, we can do exactly as you recommended, Kaya..” Nova simply elected not to respond to Cora, as they were soon at the building in question. She knocked against the glass pane, a smile growing across her face.

Well, Cora certainly thought she was right! The doors looked locked and shit. They weren’t, but they looked it. Unfortunately for the group, there didn’t seem to be anyone at this door at the time. Off down some halls they could see in the nighttime lighting that there was a lone janitor wearing headphones as he mopped the tile floors. He would sometimes plant the mop and spin before catching it, obviously enjoying the music he was listening to, and paying little to no attention to things like our heroes.

“Ugh, I don’t have time for this.” Pushing through the others, Kaya leaned up against the glass and placed her forehead on the pane, alongside her hand. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the light nearest them, and willed it to flicker out for but a moment.

The janitor didn’t stop dancing, as he didn’t seem to notice the light near the door flickering. Her head so close to the glass, Kaya could begin to hear him singing in the distance. He wasn’t that bad, but he should really stop dancing it’s embarrassing.

Now this was just plain irritating. Looking toward Kaya, she pointed to the light right over the janitor. “Can you get that one? Even if the lights are out for us, I can lead us through the building when we’re let in.”

Puffing out some air, Kaya again opened her eyes to look over towards the janitor. “I’ll try.” Again, she concentrated, forcing her will to flicker out the light in the hallway. She hoped to start with the one above the janitor, and then to flicker out the lights leading down the hallway towards them in quick succession. Like some kind of horror film. Kaya grinned. Great way to start a night.

The lights did flicker off, but instead of coming back on, they remained off. First the light directly over the janitor went dark, catching his attention. He looked up at it, a confused expression on his face. Then one of the lights down the hall to the door went out, and he turned in that direction to look at it. As soon as he turned, the other lights began to increase the speed at which they went out until all lights Kaya could see in the building went dark. While it wasn’t entirely obvious what was going on for the janitor, he certainly did feel like he was in trouble, started screaming, and ran into the darkness.

That was the goal, right?

“Shoot.” Kaya turned to the others. “Your turn.”

“Well…” Nova mumbled, rubbing the back of her neck, “We could throw rocks at the office window?” She was definitely running out of ideas.

“I’d rather not do anything illegal,” muttered Kaya.

“Don’t need to,” Cora said before beginning to walk off. “I’ll find someone to let us in. Nova, you should come as well since you know the Prof.”

Liam rolled his eyes at the others and their nonsense. “If you just wanted to get his attention, you could have said something about your intentions. I can talk inside people’s heads, could’ve whispered at him that there are people at the door. I guess trying to make him think he’s in a horror movie is more fun though.” He sighed and shook his head. “Honestly, we might as well just wait until tomorrow and come back. If the place is locked and the janitor is dancing away in there, I bet the place is deserted. This professor is probably at home sleeping right now.”

“Probably isn’t certainly, so let’s actually ask someone who might know,” Cora replied. “You guys keep going in circles around where we’re trying to get to.”

“Whatever, do as you please.” Liam walked up to the door and turned around, leaning his back against it. “I’ll wait here, I guess.”

The door handle turned slowly under Liam’s leaning on it, and the door moved as he stood there. It wasn’t locked.

“Alright, off we go then.” Nova nodded towards Cora, until she saw the door beginning to open. “Who said it was locked?”

Kaya glared at Cora and pushed past the others into the room.

Cora gaped at the door. “You turned off the lights before trying the damn door?”

Liam bent over, hands on knees, laughing at the situation. He tried but failed to get words out.

Nova pushed Liam’s shoulder, hopefully moving him off balance, before walking into the building and straight to the elevator. The dark wasn’t an issue for her. However, as Nova moved past Kaya, she stuck out her arm to grab the dark-seeing individual’s wrist. “Not all of us can see like you.”

Meanwhile, Liam fell from the shove and got all caught up in a bush. His laughter ceased and he started muttering curses at Nova under his breath as he pulled himself out of the annoying shrubbery.

Nova flinched as her wrist was gripped so suddenly, but recognized the problem. “I forgot, my apologies.” She waited for the group to hold onto each other or her as they would, including Liam (though she certainly considered letting him stumble around for a minute or two). Once they were all together, she resumed the short walk to the hopefully lit elevator.

Liam followed along, grumbling and pulling leaves and dirt off of his clothes.

The entire group made their way behind Nova to the elevator. There were no lights, but there were many sounds throughout the halls of the building. Frantic movement seen only by Nova as the janitor tries to get a flashlight on so he can see his keys to get into some room that she can’t exactly make out what it is. It seemed that all his efforts to turn the damned torch on were in vain, although if that was his own fault, or faulty batteries, wasn’t exactly clear.

Pressing the button to call the elevator, there was no indication that it was on its way from a light of the button, just the groaning whir of the shaft as the elevator arrived in pitch darkness, the doors opening to naught but abyss in the eyes of the others. Nova could see that the elevator looked normal enough, but there was an innate wrongness that she couldn’t place her finger on about it without going inside of it. Liam felt the wrongness too, although he could not see it.

“You know what? I think elevators are overrated and we’ve done nothing but sit today. Why don’t we take the stairs?” The feeling sat deep in Nova’s stomach and made her begin to simply resent elevators in general. “Or we can talk with the janitor. He’s still around, seems perfectly nice, and we really ought to apologize for scaring him.” Anything to avoid the elevator…

The janitor seemed to have heard their voices, or something, as with Nova’s little talk, he dropped the keys and the flashlight and just bolted out of there, beyond where she could see. For a moment she had to blink as it seemed as if there was another vague shape moving right behind the janitor, but she couldn’t make it out. Weird. Yet the weirdest thing for Nova, was that she could clearly see the man scream before he turned and ran, and yet she could not hear it. Nor did anyone else.

“And I think I’d rather take the elevator,” Cora said as she groped forward towards where she had heard the doors open.

Entering the elevator, Cora was met with darkness upon darkness, and no sense of how big the car was. It couldn’t be too large, and with enough groping around she would find the walls and the buttons as well. Fortunately, she didn’t accidentally push one just yet, and so the doors remained open.

“The elevator’s already right here,” said Kaya, moving to join Cora. “Might as well take it instead of groping around a staircase.”

“I just have a bad feeling about the elevator. Plus…” Nova paused and took a deep breath, “I could swear I saw something following the janitor. Two odd things happening at once… I really don’t think we should take the elevator.”

“You having a bad feeling doesn’t count as something odd,” Cora said. “What’s odd is that Kaya still hasn’t turned the damn lights back on.”

Neither Nova nor Liam heard Cora say that. Kaya could still hear Cora, however, and vice versa. Nova could see Cora’s mouth move to speak, but no sound came. Instead, her ears were filled with a slow, spine tingling hiss from behind her.

Kaya rolled her eyes, not that anyone could see her. “What makes you think I can?”

Kaya too couldn’t be heard by those outside of the elevator, instead Liam and Nova heard more hissing, slowly wrapping around their ears from all angles. Cora and Kaya couldn’t hear the hissing, however, only each other.

“Well, I thought you just blocked them or something. I don’t know, their not my powers.”

Realizing that something was very wrong indeed, Liam decided to try his telepathy to get through to the women on the elevator. He included Nova for good measure. “Cora, Kaya, we can’t hear you. Get out of the elevator.”

Kaya went to stand half-in half-out of the elevator, hand holding the door and head leaning out. “What’s up?”

It seemed that whatever had been disrupting their communications suddenly stopped at this, the hissing was gone and communications were back, although the lights were still off and gone.

“Kaya’s outside the elevator and I can hear her,” Cora said, exasperated. “Stop dicking around and get in.”

“Nope, fuck that.” Liam took a step back from the elevator to emphasize his point. “I’m not about to fuck around with some mysterious power bullshit. The lights still being out are probably part of it too. I think we should leave and come back in the day when there are people around and whoever the fuck is doing this will be less likely to try it again.”

Nova raised her hand and nodded. “Agreed. Time to leave. Sleeping in the car sounds like a perfect idea now. Liam, you were right. Let’s go.” She started to back away as well. “I’ll take my chances with just Liam if you all won’t listen. I don’t want to watch you guys get hurt because of me.”

“Jesus christ, fine. Then give me the piece of paper and the floor and I’ll do it myself,” Cora said as she began feeling around for the elevator controls.

Seriously? We’re splitting up? Kaya didn’t get what the big deal was. Nova was being paranoid, and Liam was being an idiot. She had darkness powers, not light—what couldn’t people grasp about that? She’d probably broken the breaker or something, nothing to get freaked out over. “If you guys are actually going to quit now of all times, I’m sticking with Cora. No sense in anyone going alone.” Looking around herself in the dark, she sighed in exasperation. “But does anyone have a flashlight?”

The silence was almost as piercing as the darkness.

“Well then, we’ll make due without.” Kaya reentered the elevator. “Let’s go, Cora.” Let’s get this over with.

“Yeah, fuck it, I’m leaving. Have fun getting murdered or whatever.” With that Liam turned and headed back for the entrance, not waiting for anyone to respond or bothering to try to convince the stubborn women.

Cora rubbed at her temple in increasing exasperation, “Nova, leave if you want, but just tell us where we can find this professor of yours. And whoever has the damn paper with the copied symbols on it pass it over.”

Nova shook her head, looking at Cora and Kaya with increasing anxiety. “I’m not sending you guys up somewhere that is giving me a supernatural case of the twitches. Why don’t we just go check on the janitor?” She omitted the part where it was she who held the paper, trying to do any and everything to get the two women away from the elevator.

Kaya’s head perked up. “Supernatural?” she outbursts. “Coulda said so earlier,” she mumbled. Suddenly stern, Kaya continued. “Have you seen anything? If this professor is here late as you claim, he could be in danger. Not to mention the damned janitor.”

And then the door closed. Someone else was probably calling the elevator, but the doors closed on the two within it, as the elevator began to slowly churn and move. What was strange, however, was that it felt like the elevator was going down when they were on the ground floor. Nova, being familiar with the school, would know that that shouldn’t be possible for this elevator. But she wasn’t on it. So no telling the people inside.

They’re probably fine.

The other problem, however, was that Liam was lost. He thought he turned around and headed the right way, but he’d walked far further along than he should have in order to reach the exit. Still bathed in darkness, there wasn’t a lot for him to go on for finding his way around without going to the walls.

So it came to pass that the only one who can fucking see what’s going on, was separated from everyone else, and the hissing noise began to creep back into her ear.

Nova started banging on the elevator doors once they closed. Watching the car go down the shaft, her face paled, not that anyone could see. There wasn't anything below this floor. She pounded on the doors a few more times before realizing firstly, that it was pointless, then secondly that Liam wasn't right behind her anymore. She spun around and began to panic. Sure, he was a pain in the ass smart mouth, but that didn't mean that the... thing she could hear should get to be driven insane as well. "Liam! Liam where are you! Just hold still! Which way did you go?" Things were not supposed to go this way. This was supposed to simple and quick, not result in all of the people she had just met being sent into gods knew how much danger blind.

Kaya Lefèvre, Skirmisher
Combat, darkness, fire, frost.

---

Shit.

Staring at the doors that she could not see—though she knew to be closed—Kaya had the distinct impression that that was not supposed to happen. With Cora still waiting for the paper and Nova's final admittance of some supernatural interference, Kaya was decidedly not looking forward to whatever would happen next.

"Shit," she said, this time aloud. Turning to Cora more out of habit than practicality, Kaya's eyes were wide with shock and worry. "Look, I don't know what's about to happen, but we gotta stick together, alright?" She felt her breath begin to get a bit heavier. Fighting that metal man in broad daylight was one thing. She was used to violence, adrenaline, danger, action of the moment. She had been trained to react automatically, all the decisions planned out before things went bad.

But now she faced darkness.

She faced the unknown.

And worst of all, she had time to think. And she knew she was scared.

And knowing's half the battle, no?

"Aw fuck." Liam stopped where we was as he realized he was lost. Something was clearly screwing with the building, or maybe his perception of the building. He'd walked far enough that he should have gotten to the door already, yet he was still in the dark hallway. Liam had hoped that leaving the elevator and exiting the building would stop this nonsense from happening, but clearly that hope had been in vain. Being a pessimist at heart, he was not truly surprised.

He pulled his pocket knife, a little thing with a blade no more than three inches long. It wasn't quite as good as the Swiss knives with all the gadgets, but this one had two different kinds of screwdrivers, a nail file, and a corkscrew as well, which was enough for him. Liam didn't think it would make for very good protection against supernatural bullshit that could screw with physics or his mind or whatever was going on, but it was better than having no weapon at all. He turned round slowly in the hall, staring at the dark, futilely trying to pierce the blackness of the hall in the direction he'd come from.

After a little bit of worthlessly standing there with his eyes wide open, Liam thought of a better use of his time. He brought the knife to his left hand and cut his palm open, not a very deep cut but enough to cause a rush of blood that dripped to the floor. The drops were not visible to him, but he could feel them falling from his hand and hear them hitting the ground nonetheless. With the requisite sacrifice given, he reached out with his mind to ask the first question he had paid for: Is this darkness being caused by someone or something other than Kaya's power?

Liam felt a response come to his mind, not in words or images, but rather a general sense of the affirmative. The darkness was indeed someone else's creation, though he couldn't know who or what was causing it. He felt that he could still ask some more questions, so he silently asked another: Is the source of this darkness inside the building? Again Liam got another sense of affirmation, and he asked another question. Is the professor we came here to speak to inside the building? Yet again he got the sense that the answer was yes.

That did not bode very well in Liam's mind. He felt like perhaps fate wanted to screw with him, and by extension his companions, so he asked another question that he hoped would draw the first negative response. Is the professor the source of this darkness? Thankfully, the ephemeral feeling in his head did indeed indicate that the answer was no. Liam felt he had a final question left, and he could only think of one last pertinent thing that might be answered with a yes or no, so he asked it. Is the professor in danger right now? The response came in the affirmative, that the professor was indeed in danger. After that his connection with whatever the hell had answered him faded away.

Liam cursed aloud and clenched his cut left hand over his shirt, very shoddily trying to stem the bleeding. He closed the knife with his right hand and then held his arm out as he walked toward where he thought there must be a wall nearby. His intent was to find a wall and followed it back the way he'd come, hopefully to make it back to the elevators and his companions to share this new information, but there was no way of knowing if or when he'd get there with this magical bullshit going on in the building.

Kaya Lefèvre, Skirmisher
Combat, darkness, fire, frost.

---

"Cora?"

Faced with the silence of her companion, Kaya forced her panic aside. I'm not alone, and I won't let us get hurt.

Feeling through the darkness, she grabbed hold of whichever part of Cora she could. There was no way she was letting go, despite her previously less than ideal relationship with the woman. As an officer in the RCMP, you weren't simply taught to serve, you were taught to protect. And most of all, to do good. It isn't shooting criminals that gets you medals; it's saving the innocents.

And until this looming darkness decided to let up, that meant not letting her companion leave her touch. If she had to carry the woman herself, she would.

Cora Soto

---

Cora pulled away from the woman's grasping hand as it tried to latch onto her arm. "Stop- Stop trying to grab me. I'm trying to find the damn open button." Kicking the elevator paneling in frustration, she began running her fingers over the buttons. Not knowing braille, it wasn't very helpful. She began to think that she might need to resort to just hitting random buttons.

As she went to press one, a thought crossed her mind that caused her to stop and kick the wall again. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her cellphone and hit the power button.

Liam's efforts to find a wall seemed to be entirely fruitless, until at long last his fingers did find a solid surface. It was either not-supernatural bullshit as it felt like a normal modern wall, or it was cleverly disguised to feel that way. With a little following it, he eventually stumbled to a source of light, however dim. Trailing past some doors he could finally see the exit, and could quickly surmise that the building hadn't necessarily been changed around him, just his perceptions of it, and simply following the wall intently had brought him out of it.

---

Cora's blind attempts at the buttons did eventually result in the door opening, into an actually lit section of the building. It looked otherwise much the same to how the section below did while lit, but it showed different numbers on the room doors that indicated that they were a... few stories up? Yes, they were on the first and these were clearly third floor numberings. Now, while this area was lit, it was still very poorly so, with only a few flickering lights every so often, although Cora and Kaya could both see that there was a cluster of them not far off, staying on clean and clear, near a room they couldn't see the number of.

---

Nova's panicked sounds were not met by anything normal, instead she she continued to freak the fuck out she could hear the hissing of snakes again. Getting so... very... close.