[u]Ivan and Dr.Wright[/u] 

"Sparingly," Dr.Wright replied to the Dreadnaught comment. Ivan had mentioned them before, but he seemed to be a little...hesitant to talk about the private military company, and so Wright never really asked "No, he's not a geneticist. He's a nuclear chemistry professor. We just happened to meet not long ago." As the waitress walked off to get Ivan another beer, he looked up and remembered that he was in the middle of a conversation. 

"Yeah. The departments were working together on a metahuman case." Ivan said mundanely as the third beer arrived. 

"It was really quite interesting." Wright began "There was a meta who was causing things that they touched to explode, and we managed to isolate the gene that caused the issue and Ivan invented a spray-on chemical that with the genome reconstruction nullifies the power so well that they can now touch things and not worrying about them exploding. It was the first time that a process like that one had ever been achieved. We won several awards a-"

"Engine run-on again, Toby." Ivan said, turning to Baron "If the Skulls and the Vanguard are about to throw down, then it's going to get bad. Think Levant, but with superpowers." 

[u]Skeleton[/u] 

Skeleton eyes Reiko and listened intently. Her words were true, there were others that could do the job better, but she was one of the strongest metas around and Titus was still missing (Damian claimed that he had no idea where the lug went off to, but Skeleton highly doubted that). Reiko would be the best choice, and he doubted a blind woman would be able to put her in enough mortal peril to cause her any kind of long-term harm. Damian walked across the bar and stopped next to Skeleton, finally getting a good look at the challenger. 

"You sure about this?" Damian whispered "I don't like the smugness of this chick." 

"Absolutely certain." Skeleton replied " I think you're the best choice for this, Reiko, and I trust you the most. We need to give miss...what'd you say your name was?" Damian rolled his eyes and, walking to the other side of Skeleton, patted Reiko on the shoulder and whispered in her ear "Don't worry. You know me and Skully will keep you safe." 

[u]The Vanguard v. Titus [/u] 

Luckily enough, Titus turned his head to look at Cass' antics just in time for Rabbit's bottle to collide with the side of his head. He released a barbaric yelp as the shards of glass sliced his flesh like razorblades, and felt the hot blood roll down his face. He swung at Whisper, and she rolled out of the way. His fist kept going and it crashed through a wall, leaving a massive dent the size of a Christmas ham. Emilio fired a strand of yellowish venom and hit Titus square between the eyes. The venom burned and Titus' skin became discolored as the venom killed his skin cells. By this time, his head had finished repairing itself, and he swung a bar stool at Emilio. Emilio grabbed the stool and, getting a firm grip on it, wrenched it from Titus' hands, tearing the base of the stool off in the process. He then persisted to smash Titus in the face with the barstool seat, sending the large man stumbling backwards. Titus kicked hard at Emilio, and just barely grazed the reptilian man's shoulder. Emilio stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, doubled over in pain as the flesh of his arm instantly bruised. He felt his arm, but there was no bone breakage. He was a lucky bastard. Whisper rematerialized and kicked Titus in the back of the head. He fell through the bar's glass double doors and stumbled into the hallway, where he fell on Johnny, killing him instantly. All that remained was a pair of star-shaped sunglasses. Titus turned around to find a blade in his face. He cried out as Whisper sliced his left eye clean in two, and crashed into the wall, his eye gushing blood. Passersby ran for their lives to the stairs, knowing that the elevators would be too slow to let them escape. 

...The elevator. There was an idea. Whisper looked over at Emilio, and then at the elevator. Emilio, in exchange, looked to Nick.

"Nick!" he yelled "The elevator doors! Can you open them?" Taylor, meanwhile, darted under the bar counter, where she sat holding her knees against her chest and listening to the fight. 

---

Tara twisted and twirled through the crowds, attempting to hide herself from Samson, who was in hot pursuit (pardon the pun). She crossed the street and dodged a roaring taxi before turning down a side alley and pulling a small contraption out of her pocket. It was a black rectangle, about three inches long and two wide, with a tripwire bundled around it like a cord. She quickly unstrung the tripwire and attached it to the alley walls with suction cups before covering the box with a few pieces of trash. If the wire was tripped (it was very thin and hard to see), the box would explode and throw a smoke cloud into the air, thick enough to blind even the most highly-trained hunter. She set the machine up and then took off down the alley, the soles of her shoes glowing as she ran supernaturally fast towards the street and then turned right towards the parking garage next to the art museum.