[h2]Alessa Heather: Streets of Denver (Storm Drain)[/h2]
At Sonar's command, and the understanding that failure would mean eight more minions of the Patriarch to contend with, Messiah headed down into the storm drain in between Margrave, who seemed eager to do his bit, and Tulpa, who remained slightly behind her for the time being. Certainly, the drain was rather cramped, but the assault team could at least move around reasonably well. At the other end of the drain, Assault Team A would arrive shortly, just on the other side of a small army of human bodies, including eight innocents. It seemed, at least, that they were mostly minions armed with close-range weapons, and in no way paying attention even to Alessa's own facial glow, though she reduced it slightly just in case it was obvious.

The exception, of course, was Eyeblight, armed with what appeared to be higher quality weaponry than his troops, a gun and a knife. Currently in human form, it seemed, but at the present time inspecting his captives... and damn it all, the way they seemed to be angled from the occasional flashes of light meant cutting the bonds round their neck with a laser or seven wouldn't be plausible. With that in mind, she focused next on Eyeblight himself... in an ideal world, he was the very first person to be disabled out of the gang, and the best way to start that off would be to destroy his weapons. Though if she could ensure he couldn't stop her doing that first, that'd be just grand...

In that moment, Sonar warned them to prepare themselves, and the moment after that, Tulpa's projection revealed itself - some reptilian monstrosity which appeared in a flash of light, at which point Tulpa asked Messiah to tell her if anything was coming. Oh, but there was a perfect idea! All but a few gangers, Eyeblight himself included, were now staring in Team B's direction, so if she hit them with a sufficient burst of visible light, chances are they'd all be sent blind for long enough that they could be dealt with. She just needed the right moment - at the other end of the tunnel, Team A was obviously doing work, and she was sure she heard a gunshot from over there, whilst on this end of things, the projection was clearing a path to the hostages, whilst Margrave threw down some metal jacks which then grew into full-size caltrops... nasty things, those. Worse than Lego, anyway.

As he uttered something about luck to himself, Messiah saw her opportunity, and roughly shielding the Margrave's eyes with one hand (not that it was all that necessary), she held out her other hand. In the next moment, the majority of the drain flooded with bright light, as the visible wavelengths (and only visible; briefly blinding people was one thing, irradiating them at all was quite another) extended through the entire drain almost instantly, conveniently dispersing just enough to leave her teammates at the other end able to see well enough to fight (though if only she could make the light stop outright at the appropriate moment), and certainly moreso than the minions that had just been blinded. Just as importantly, as the light began to dim down, it gave her a perfect view of each and every still-blinded ganger in the drain - and a clear shot at both of Eyeblight's weapons. Switching her hand to a pointed index finger (more as a guide than out of any actual need to use her hands to shoot heat), she aimed toward Eyeblight's gun holster, and sent forth a concentrated, invisible beam of heat at a couple of thousand degrees Celsius, strong enough to reasonably melt and disable the weapon at the point of contact (and probably a fair amount of metal around the damage point), though focused enough that aside from the holster itself possibly setting alight, no extra heat would emanate from the beam. She tried the same thing with the knife too, aiming as best she could toward the point just below the hilt instead, in an effort to sever the blade in a way that would render it least useful, if she couldn't simply melt the whole thing into unusable slag.

Beyond that, it seemed there wasn't much else she could do. The caltrops would likely defend Team B as well as anything from the minions - almost surprising, given what she assumed was Margrave's distinct lack of defensive abilities from a distance. And, if she'd succeeded- the distance made it hard to tell- Eyeblight would probably be at his weakest now that he was disarmed. Which didn't particularly help much, given what he could do, but it was better than his having two lethal weapons on him, surely? She'd have to wait and see.

[hr]

[h2]Raymond Haywood: Icehouse Hideout[/h2]
"They said." Clearly, then, his powers were somehow donated to him, rather than merely acquired the way most others got them. Thinking about it, Raymond did seem to recall hearing of a group which could grant people powers without the receiver needing to endure a trigger event, though not the group's name, if it even had one. Was that what the target had been about to say? It didn't particularly matter, at this point. The man had bled out quickly, and his blood was now... gone. Sent to oblivion, for all that it mattered, though it seemed the girl couldn't quite figure out precisely where it was, and when asking if the exsanguinated body wanted to vanish too, the androgynous creature objected, apparently needing it for "research purposes". A scientist, then. Or perhaps a pervert hiding their activities. Either way, Raymond didn't feel any particular need to stop them.

And on the other hand, he'd not yet gotten a response from the Broker about his commission request. And Chatterbox's question about what came next would, presumably, take precedence over his own. Still, he was nothing if not patient. At the very least, he could always repeat his prior statement before going anywhere, even if the man who had hired them forgot or otherwise chose not to address the point. He assumed the Broker was the sort of man who could "get" things people needed, a mob boss at the very least; after all, who else would hire (at great expense to themselves) four people, two of whom were teenagers, to become a street gang with hidden motives?