[h2]Alessa Heather: Streets of Denver (Storm Drain)[/h2]
The most dangerous weapon in the drain was easily destroyed. The second most dangerous weapon, not so much. And that wasn't even including powers... Messiah heard more combat occurring at the other end of the drainpipe, including at least a couple of gun discharges, and Tulpa's projection continued its rampage against the thugs before grabbing the hostages and running, but even that didn't quite grab her attention so much as the abrupt, strangling sense of fear she felt as Eyeblight transformed to his monstrous, scarecrow-esque state, enough to make her reflexively take a step back in spite of herself before regaining control, reminding herself that it was all in her head, and, taking a page from Margrave's book, averting her gaze slightly, just enough to keep Eyeblight in view without receiving the full effects of his unsettling aura.

Though she was only paralysed briefly, it was more than enough time for Eyeblight to draw his combat knife and begin moving toward Messiah and the rest of her group in probably the most physically awkward manner possible, even doing acrobatics over and around Tulpa's projection, and seeming to aim for Margrave specifically as he drew nearer. The caltrops were worthless against the straw man, of course, but then so were a lot of their other powers, so long as they wouldn't kill him... at best, another burst of light to the eyes might blind him long enough that they could disable him a bit more effectively. So long as that damn knife could be gotten off of him and his speed advantage was disabled, his lowered weight might actually work against him, since his physical strength was no higher than a normal human. He couldn't "lift more", as it were. Though that didn't negate his regular strength...

She was shaken out of her thought processes by Tulpa's question, about whether or not she could reabsorb heat once she'd expulsed it. 'If I touch it again, yeah,' she responded, moving into a fairly standard Krav Maga stance... there was a minor benefit of Eyeblight being made of straw, she admitted: raw physical force couldn't particularly kill him. At least not the sort she might put out. Even so, she figured she ought to go a bit hard on making sure he wasn't a threat; thus, as he passed Margrave's caltrops outright, the light shining from her eyes refocused into full-blown stadium light beams, aimed straight at Eyeblight's face even though she herself kept looking just to one side of him. If nothing else, that ought to render him unable to see the group particularly well, though she might start running low on visible juice if she kept that up for too long...

And then Margrave pulled out a machine gun, and blasted away at Eyeblight with it from near point-blank range. Over the noise of the weapon firing, and the sound of Margrave going on yet another overblown rant, all Messiah could really think was [i]Who the hell brings a weapon like that to a cape fight? At best it's useless, at worst it's LETHAL![/i] It seemed she had been wrong after all about who had the most dangerous weapon... and yet the second most lethal remained a threat, especially if the bullets did as little as she thought they might. With the various distractions in place, Messiah aimed another beam of intense heat toward Eyeblight's knife, this time firing additional beams as needed until she was sure the weapon was destroyed.

[hr]

[h2]Raymond Haywood: Icehouse Building[/h2]
Raymond nodded and thanked the Broker as he walked over to the table, mission proposals in hand. He'd certainly be involved in the mission that involved payment, because why wouldn't he be? Sofia (last name Stein, he noted) immediately went for the envelope containing said mission, and Raymond moved to look over her shoulder as she opened it up and looked at whatever was inside. In the meantime, the androgynous person asked Headhunter- in a rather flirty fashion, evidently- if he'd like to accompany them on the other mission, the so-called "errand" to gather an actual fifth member, a man going by the cape name of "Arsenal"...

'That will be a maybe,' he stated bluntly, 'depending on what time the primary mission takes place.' And looking at the mission itself (rather a dangerous one at that... for anybody in the mission's vicinity, at least), it seemed like it'd be at 2PM... tomorrow. Well, fancy that. He continued reading over everything just to make sure the details were set up in his mind until Love Craft had returned to the room, then stated 'Make that a yes,' to the androgyne, noting the abrupt muscle growth they apparently needed to pick up and carry the body. Coincidentally, their need for five minutes to move the corpse was just enough for Headhunter himself to rush upstairs and dress down a bit - much as he was mildly uncomfortable showing his face in public, what with his reputation as an assassin, and especially to a number of capes who might not necessarily be trustworthy with keeping his appearance a secret, a full-blown army getup was sure to attract far too much suspicion for his liking. No, anonymity trumped disguise any day of the week, when the two couldn't be feasibly combined. That, and there were a few blood splatters on his outfit. Those could do with cleaning off after the fact.

So, with all said and done, and the Broker nowhere in sight, Raymond finally left the hideout, heading up the flights of stairs until he reached his designated room, and using his key to unlock the door into the place. Once he was inside with the door locked behind him, he removed his military gear, replacing it with far more inconspicuous civilian gear, and placed said military gear into the provided washing basket. He was absolutely going to buy a separate basket for that equipment... it needed specialised methods to clean, amongst other things hand washing rather than just throwing it into the washing machine, otherwise the kevlar and/or fabric might shrink (and incidentally, he was grateful that this particular set of body armour hadn't been in any severe fights yet; acquiring new pieces was hellishly difficult, and extraordinarily expensive even for his available funds). Oh, and it'd need to be hidden away somewhere that wouldn't be discovered in the event of a raid on his house, though if things had gotten to that stage, he'd want to have been gone for a very long time before then. Perhaps burn the room down behind him, to minimise DNA presence there. Shame about the rest of the building, if it came to that, but it hardly mattered anyway. Regardless, once he was redressed, he exited the flat again and locked the door behind him, then stowed the key away in a hidden inside pocket of his pants, before heading back downstairs and out the front of the building.