A late summer chill spread through the night outside of the old Sky Labs. The large crowd of people, who had been there earlier, had long dispersed save a few stragglers. From a lone truck, parked on the streets nearby, the Watcher observed the scene through the eyes of his elder biotechie. Hilda was her name. Hilda tapped her fingers on the steering wheel impatiently. The Watcher could feel her impatience growing stronger by the second. It was the nicotine, The Watcher knew. Unconsciously, The Watcher sent a signal her way causing her to pull out a spare cigarette and light it. It wasn’t long after that all the tension, which the Watcher felt building up in Hilda, simply vanished.

It wasn’t long ago that the Watcher received a status report from Jake notifying him of two girls who had been taken away for questioning. One of which who seemed to match the description the Watcher had given of Emily. Last he heard, they had been dragged into Building C and locked away in the storage closet. Chances were they were being questioned perhaps by barbaric means.

Hilda took one last puff of her cigarette before tossing it out the window and grumbling something about aching bones and too little sleep. Where is he? wondered the Watcher. He had been unable to get ahold of Blink ever since he entered the Rift Room. The Walls were too thick. The signal cut off. The Watcher hadn’t counted on that…

Hilda sighed as she pulled out a second cigarette. “To cancer.” She grumbled half-heartedly while lighting it up. It was then that an ear piercing shriek reached Hilda’s ear. It seemed to come from inside Building A. Hilda sighed as the Watcher had her put out the cigarette using the inside of the Truck. Another sheik reached Hilda’s ears; this time from the East. The sound was inhuman and unsettling to the common. The Watcher knew this sound. It wasn’t a good sound. A third shriek from the west. The Hybrids were coming. The Patriarch was making a risky move here. What exactly had happened in there to push him to this point?

---

The Patriarch could sense them. The hybrids, his children, were coming to his aid. He could feel them crying out to their brethren hungry for blood. For that moment he felt like he could conquer the world. The hybrids excitement combined with the Rift’s whispers and promises of power, was overwhelming. And for a second, just a second, he entertained the thought of unleashing the hybrids upon the entire city.

He began to call out to the rest of his hybrids, ready to unleash them all. Lucky, he caught himself and quickly came back to his senses. The Rifts whispers grew louder. Beckoning him on. Seducing him! Taunting him! No! He thought. Not yet… Not yet... The whispers softened then, as if hearing his thoughts. The Patriarch only needed to summon a handful of Hybrids. Not the whole lot. That mime fellow had just taken out his protection in one go. He had to act now! He didn't feel comfortable without protection.

The Patriarch felt his temper rising from the Mime's betrayal. He wanted to kill the man, but the Patriarchs current situation called for a slightly different action. Lowering his gun a little he said, “It seems I’m outnumbered.” He took a quick glance to the right. “In that case...” The Patriarch swung the gun way off the to right and fired. A hiss emitted from a nearby machine and then… Then came the rhythmic, organic hum of the AS field firing back up.

The Patriarch cringed as the AS field washed over him. And then... Then he ran. Ran toward the exit. Protection. He needed protection. He fired five more shots behind him. Where was Shade when he needed her?

Mime ducked as the Patriarch started firing and felt the powers he had taken begin to fade into nothing and his strength return to its normal level... which wasn't much in complete and utter honesty. It wasn't a while until the Patriarch left the room and was obviously making a hasty retreat, however he didn't care about that he was here at the rift which is what had been asked of him. If he could help Bisk enough he could leave and head elswhere in the world with a fresh identity. No-one would need to know who he was or what he was and he could live a normal life, make his own identity and live in peace and happiness something as a street urchin he had never really had. He turned around to face the rift and was about to take out a small device Bisk had given him only to find it broken in his skirmish against the hybrids.
Swearing under his breathe he turned to group of people. He nodded slightly to Blink, he liked that guys powers. "Strange that I only recognise one of the Watchers lackies, I'm guessing the rest didn't last as long. Good to see you again Blink. Should we get going before this building becomes swarming with Hybrids?"

Ace.

Well things had certainly gone to shit in the last few minutes, she wasn't sure what had happened but apparently there were supers in the room, not a wholly pleasant notion, so before anything more could happen and she could 'get to work' disrupting it a gun had been drawn and. Well things went a bit foggy then, she remembered hearing a shot fire out, she remembered seeing some guy move rather quickly, too quickly, out of the way and then she remembered a dull thud followed by a searing pain shoot through her hip. Then she was looking at the ceiling, it wasn't a brilliant sight really, it was kind of disgusting actually and for a moment things went black.

Next she heard was some more shots followed by voices muttering about getting the hell out of here. Great, so she was going to be left to die? Were those supers or people? Either way it was rather typical of them, too busy caring about their own skin, not that she could blame them. Blinking away the fog from her eyes she turned her gaze about to find her duffle bag. Her head swam but she ignored that in favour of grabbing the bag with her left arm and with a sound between what would have been a scream had she not bitten her lip and a grunt she rolled up onto her good leg. The pain was astonishing and it was all she could do not to faint again but she'd come here with a goal in mind and she planned to fulfill that goal, she didn't have any clue if the rift had had any affect on her and honestly she didn't care, right now Ace was all about survival.

There were warped monsters on the floor of the room and she hoped, she prayed that her friend Michelle wasn't among them, hobbling up to her feet and biting back a scream of disgust as one of these monsters long tongues unfurled and slapped across her boot she shivered and shuffled to a control panel. Wrenching open her bag she pulled out a foot long fat but cylindrical device. Those in the know would know it to be a pipe bomb, though this one was modified enough to, with luck, destroy the rooms contents but leave most of the surrounding area intact.

Briefly Ace found her gaze pulled to the rift, to the shapes dancing within it and to a whispering she couldn't quite hear. Shaking her head she finished the set up and with a flick of a switch the little device was counting down silently to the time it was going to blow up. "Well gents." She grunted over the noise in the room, wincing as she fast hobbled to slap them both on the shoulder. "I recommend catching up about...oh...fifty feet that way as soon as its convenient to you." Despite the pain she flashed an award winning, cheesy grin before wincing and all but doubling over, clutching at her hip which was already soaked through with blood. "Your choice though." She uttered, a whimper from the pain escaping into her otherwise jovial sounding tone and then, with bag slung back onto her shoulder she started to hobble to the door she'd been lead in through.

Blink had been unable to remove the AS vest in time to stop the Patriarch from firing his gun at Ace, watching her get hit out of the corner of his eye with the vest over his head. Needless to say, it pissed him off, and he dropped the vest at his side. He witnessed Mime taking care of the unfortunate ones, and made as if to go after the old man when he was distracted. Unfortunately, the Patriarch had other ideas and Blink instinctively ducked when the old man swung his gun around. The mutations that had just came back once again left Blink as the AS field was turned back on, the back and forth transformations unsettling him.

The Patriarch took off toward the only exit, and since Blink didn't have his power, he picked up the vest and threw it at the old man in an effort to knock him down to the floor and hopefully make him lose the gun. The man wasn't paying any attention behind him when he fired of a few shots, so they hit nothing, and Blink took off running after him in the hopes that the vest would reach and do its new job. If it worked, he would pin the Patriarch to the ground, snap his shooting arm, and proceed to knock him out with a few quick blows to the head.

Sarah looked around in the room. Her mind racing. This was bad she had seen something she clearly wasn't ment to see and then been to slow to escape. Now she was stuck here with this unconcious girl in a small room waiting for she didn't know what. Probably an interogation. Hopefully it wouldn't be to bad. She was part of the group after all. She just had to tell them that she would keep quiet and things would solve them selves. right?
The blonde girl tried to relax taing deep breaths and rolling her shoulders. But it didn't help much it was a bit to many things at once and now she was in trouble for things she knew nothing about.

-redundant-

Tracking down the kid and the other woman that was captured turned out easier than Jake thought it would be. Although it was more difficult than it should have been fending off the remaining guards due to his injured arm, he was able to get away along with the information of the captive’s whereabouts from one of the guard’s loud walkie-talkie radio. After relaying the information to the Watcher, Jake quickly made his way towards building C.

~.~.~

“You got to be kidding me.” Jake said with a sigh as he exited the building and saw two guards stationed the front of the northern entrance. Seeing one raise up their gun to shoot at Jake while the other was reaching towards his mic to alert the other guards, Jake quickly raised both hands to get a grip of the man’s gun with his ability. A hiss of pain escaped his lips as a sharp pain emitted from his left arm as he almost lost his grip but instead he gritted his teeth together and quickly forced the gun towards the guard’s head, knocking him out. Luckily that was enough for the other man to pause his attempt in calling for back up as he watched his comrade fall to the ground with a look of concern written on his face. Guessing that the young man was newer, Jake decided to play up the situation in hope that he could cut short his time and avoid unneeded pain to his gunshot wound.

Lowering his left arm, he kept his grip of the gun and turned it towards the second guard as he slowly walked towards the man. Although in pain and unsure how the man would respond, Jake kept the persona of someone with complete confidence of the situation as he hoped that his bluff would hold through. “Listen, let’s not make this any harder on yourself. There is no doubt in my mind that you and your men are completely outmatched. I bet you’ve heard of people like me. You know, those people that can set a tree on fire by glaring at it or render your senses useless by clouding it with illusions. Did you hear over your receiver about the staircase collapsing,” Jake said nodding towards the building behind him as he stopped about ten feet in front of the man. “That’s just child play, wait until you see what I really can do.” A small smile crept on his face as he saw the man step back, obviously taking the bait. “Listen, let’s just make things easier for all of us. I’m hurt and am ready to go home now but I can’t leave without the kid. Give me her and the woman too or I will kill both you and your partner.”

“I-I can’t do that.” The man said nervously pointing his gun towards Jake as he glanced between Jake and the unconscious man.

“Come on, your life is on the line. Just say that your superiors want them moved or something and I’ll handle the rest. Jake said slowly bringing the gun closer to the man. “And while you’re at it, why don’t lower your weapon. We don’t want any unneeded accidents while we’re at it. My ability is set so that if you shoot or kill me, the gun will go off which would be quite unfortunate for you.” Jake said, glad that his bluff was holding up nicely.

“Nah, they wouldn’t give the orders to a rookie like me. T-they would immediately know it’s a lie.” The man said as he lowered his weapon.

Nodding in response, Jake knew he needed to act soon. He couldn’t stay out in the open for long in case another guard came. “Alright, I want you to slowly drop your weapon and then I want you to turn around.” As the man followed orders carefully, Jake carefully lifted his left and up severed the wires within the man’s mic in case he tried to use it. Wincing in pain, he was glad that the man was too distracted to look at his face. “Alright, put both your hands behind you.” As the man did so, Jake lowered the gun beside him and grabbed the unconscious man’s handcuffs and bound the man’s hand before giving the man a slight push towards the door. Although his actions were not on par with the superheroes he read about when he was a child in comic books, he hoped that using the man as a hostage would work out for him. “Take me to the two are and don’t think about trying to mess with me.” Jake said as he entered the building. Although the hall in front of him was clear, he could hear voices not too far away heading towards the two. His focus was momentarily adverted as a loud shriek reached him. Things were going to get tricky soon. He hoped that he could reach the two before that happened though. “Come on, let’s get going.” Jake said as the two rushed up western staircase, however not quickly enough as he heard raised voices rushing towards the staircase below.

Shade stared vacantly at her damaged left hand as it dripped blood onto the tiled floor in front of her. Shards of glass still were sticking out of the palm of her hand every which way. It hurt, and yet it didn’t. It was a weird feeling to Shade. Whenever she felt pain these days, no matter how severe, it always felt faint and distant. She felt detached from her real self. She felt as though her mind and body were separate. This world only held pain for her. For what reason should she ever care what became of her?

That was the way Shade felt as she sat, expressionless, inside the northern confession room of Building C. She sat there motionlessly as her father's followers carefully plucked out each shard of glass in an attempt to patch her up.

Shade was alone in this world. There was no one here for her. Nobody… except for her father. The man who hit her when she did something wrong. The man when who blamed her when things didn’t go as plan. The man who would starve her whenever she had not lived up to his expectations. Her father. The one… the one who saved her life. The one who dug her free from the rubble. The one who use to read her stories before she went to bed at night. Her father. The man she could never bring herself to hate no matter how terrible he had become.

The Patriarch’s followers pulled out the final piece of glass from Shade’s hand and had begun wrapping it with bandages. That was when she heard the distant shriek. Slowly Shade raised her head. She knew that sound, but the followers did not. Most of them just stared at one another with a confused look. Another shriek was heard as if answering to the last. Some of the followers were moving to the windows now. The person bandaging Shade’s hand turned her head somewhat distracted. “What was that?” one of the followers ask out loud.

Something was wrong , Shade knew. Her father wouldn’t ever call upon his Hybrids unless he was in trouble. Shade stood up just as the follower finished tying the bandage. A third shriek. Her father. She needed to get to her father. He needed her! He need her help! Silently Shade attempted to form a shadow. With difficultly she managed to pull one together before it dissipated on her. The AS-dart’s effects must have started to wear off. Her powers weren’t fully back, but this would have to do. Shade made her way out of the room.

---

“Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.” Tsked a Divine as he entered storage closet of Building C. The man went by the name Aaron in public. In private he preferred the name Torment.

“Sooo young. Sooo beautiful.” Continued Torment as he casually began walking over to the girl. He pulled out a lighter and began flicking it on and off. “Could have gone far. You showed potential” Torment began circling Sarah and decided to leave the lighter on. “So let me explain how this is going to work. The faster you tell me what I want to know, the less pain you’ll have to endure.”

A few faint shrieks could be heard from the distance. The sound made Torment smile. He was familiar with The Patriarch’s power. “That sound, you just heard, will be your screams in a few seconds.”

Torment stopped his circling in front of Sarah. “So let’s start the subject of our questioning with this girl here.” He continued while touching the lighter’s flame with his right hand. “Tell me.” He said as the flames consumed his hand… no… not consume. The flames became it. Torment raised his hand as if to strike. “WHO IS SHE?!” He yelled, his voice becoming a demonic roar. His eyes turned red. His hand of fire lunged forward.

---

The Patriarch ran as fast as he could. Shade! He needed Shade! Why hadn’t she returned to him yet? As these questions crossed his mind, he felt something hit his feet. It caused him to stumble but he managed to stop himself from falling. Too close.

The patriarch picked up his pace again before finally making it out of the rift room. He could sense his children again. They were closing on his location. Good. Now he just needed protection. DAMN IT! WHERE WAS SHADE?!

Wraith.

Things were certainly getting interesting, he hardly had to do a thing and this entire place was coming undone at the seams, he watched the Patriarch on the cameras as he ran from the rift room like a cockroach running from light. For this alone the job had been worth taking, a messiah indeed. A man could label themselves a lot of things but if they elevated themselves to demi-godhood they ought to have expected some tests in that area, mind you if it were not for his rather deranged little girl he'd likely not have survived this long, such a weak creature, it was a shame in some ways to allow him to live and potentially continue to weaken the gene pool. Of course if everyone was a genius of his calibre he'd be ought of work and surely the shame and despair the Patriarch was feeling was reward enough for now. "System, begin download of all archive data." He uttered plugging a USB stick into the drive, his employer would no doubt be quite happy to have the data that Patriarch had been hoarding like the little goblin he was.

Stretching upon his chair he watched the chaos ensue. "Begin lock down procedure and be ready to blow the core." He uttered rubbing at his neck briefly. The system fired back the need for a password and Wraith waited a few long moments, watching as the Divines chased and tortured various little mutants such as himself. Well, some of them would no doubt make it out but there was no need to make it easy for them. "Password Zero Zero Five Zero Eight Delta Epsilon Whiskey Nine." There was a whirring of something and a heavy clunk as something slipped into place and Wraith stood from his chair and glanced briefly about his office. It would be a shame to leave all of this behind, worse still to blow it up but orders were orders, at least he had the back ups saved to that USB stick. 'Transfer Complete', the system echoed at him and Wraith removed his little USB Drive and placed it into his pocket.

With little haste but a clearly determined path Wraith left the little room and as the door fell shut behind him the sound of the automatic locking system resounded heavily behind him, the lock down would take a few minutes and a minute or two after that the whole place would blow, it was far too easy with a system so reliant on electrical power and the stability of a very unstable artifact. Of course, Wraith had planned for this to eventually happen and as such had already pre-planned his escape route having the doors and elevators he'd need to get out to be one of the last to lock down. As he made his way into the first lift he began to whistle quietly, everything was going according to plan, better even, he had thought he'd need to sneak out and blow the place remotely while no one was looking but delicious chaos had given him the perfect chance to set his plan into motion. His boss would be pleased, a slight grimace briefly affected his lightly smiling visage before he dropped into a more natural semi-scowl.

Below he could hear and feel the generators kicking in, it was so easy to break a machine all one had to do was tip the power slightly and boom the first low sound of things starting to go wrong and he was back to whistling, glancing to the numbers on the lift as they flashed by.

Void

Well weren't things getting wonderfully interesting, she watched, perhaps lurked was a better word for it, in the rift's split as the Patriarch did his spiel and then set to turning the little gathering into monsters, only some of them didn't change at all. Then there was gun fire and fighting and she positively howled with laughter, all but hanging form the rift's opening as the Patriarch beat a hasty retreat. She watched as some blonde haired critter deposited what looked like a pipe on the side and listened as it was announced that this bomb -really, it didn't much look how she imagined them- was going to blow in a few minutes and they all should probably scram. Of course, a bomb was unlikely to affect the rift much, if at all and so Void wasn't too worried about escaping as quickly as one could.

Of course, the explosions force might enter the rift and she was uncertain how the denizens in the fog would respond to that kind of...attack. So for the time leaving the rift seemed the safer of options, she'd seen those things riled before, only once and it had been enough to have her lose her mind and her nerve, the latter she got back -with added caution- but the former had never recovered. Even now just thinking of those beasts caused a shiver down her spine and forced her to retreat to a safer distance, with a hop, skip and a twirl she broke a hole in the rift, away from the already existing tear, and stepped on out into the fresh sunlight.

With a sigh she shrugged and began to half dance and half skip to the main gate, this close to the rifts tear it was always quite uncertain where one would end up which was why she often tried not to be too close to the rift itself. Once outside the gates and down the path she took to leaning against a tree, the shadows dancing across her frame and distracting her from the fireworks she was stalling here to see.

Sarah looked at the man as he entered. Her hope of this solving it self faded as he began flicking the lighter making her nervous. Trying not to look after him as he walked around her. The sudden shrieking sound made her flinch. Her face getting quite pale from Aaron's words. She began shaking and tearing up.

This was not becoming a talk to resolve the problem she was not treated as one of the group. This was an interogation and he was about to torture her.
"I DON*T KNOW!" she yelled out in response closing her eyes. A discharge of energy flowing allong her hair making the lights in the room and the corridor outside flicker. The energy emiting was enough to fry a nomral human alive if they touched her skin at that moment.

"I just walked by the patriarchs office to leave my report when i saw her on the floor the next moment Shade attacked me. I don't know anything more i swear" As she spoke the air in the room was filled with static. And some of her veins had a faint glow about them. Her powers surging as she was close to panic.

“Crap!” Jake exclaimed as he reached the top of the stair case and came face to face with one of the guards that was stationed on the second floor. Thrusting his uninjured hand forwards, Jake grasped the guard’s gun with his power and shoved the man hard against the wall behind the guard. He was glad to see that the guard was unconscious, although at the cost of being heard. With the guards from the first floor quickly climbing the stairs to investigate the sound, Jake knew he needed to act quickly. "You know, when I agreed to help you out I didn’t sign up for this.” The man said into his mic with frustration as he grabbed the guard he had as hostage by his collar and started to move towards the storage room.

However he didn’t get too far before he heard a gun go off behind him. “Seriously?” Jake said turning around with the hostage in front of him. The two guards had their guns pointed at him and Jake knew that he wouldn’t be able to talk this situation away as he did earlier.

“Step away from the hostage.” Another voice said from the other end of the hall where there was one more guard stationed in front of the storage room.

He was pinned and knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop all three before one of them tried to take a shot at him. He was trapped. He needed to find a solution and quickly because things would become more difficult if he waited too long and more guards showed up. If he attacked the two guards by the stairs, he would be open to an attack by only one guard but he would still have to deal with that one guard. On the other hand, he could attack the single guard by the door and risk two shooters but be able to make it into the storage room and jam the door behind him so that the two guards wouldn’t be able to get in. However he knew that it would leave him open to whatever could be behind the door. “Alright Watcher let’s hope this will work out, because if it doesn’t my ghost will find you and haunt and somehow find a way to haunt you.”

Shoving the hostage towards the two guards, Jake sprinted towards the single guard as the light started to flicker uncontrollably. Using that to his advantage, Jake shoved the gun hard towards the man, knocking him back hard against the door. As he sprinted the rest of the way towards the door, Jake aimed the gun down the hallway towards the three guards with shaky hands and started shooting, making the gun bob around in the middle of the air without aim. Luckily, the gun ran out of ammunition by the time he made it to the door and quickly slammed the door shut behind him. With his focus still towards the door, Jake quickly jammed toe doorknob so that it would be hard for the guards to enter the room.