Montana listened to Toby's words, despite way they struggled to form on his tongue to be pushed out, with the most respectful attention.
Spire was clearly the one who enjoyed and did most of the talking, and expected the conversation to be directed at him. Which is what made engaging the both of them so momentarily important.

He noted reactive way the boys body had moved in near synchronization with own. The casual response of his muscle memory marked him an experienced survivalist to Montana. The stutter implied an uncertainty that ended with his speech patters in the older males point of view. Firearms required distance, and a steady hand. He had one, and there was little doubt he had the other.

"A very long time must be correct if the Knights have shed such trappings. You're more versed in today than I, so I will defer to your opinion." He gave Toby an amicable head nod, then turned his attention to Spire who had, very strongly, turned the focus of the conversation back between them. Montana took a step forward, and turned away from them both, but not before breaching Spire's personal space as he swung his shoulder. An innocuous enough movement, as no physical contact was made as his body shifted. On the surface at least.

He appeared to be scanning the expanse in the distance, as well as the barren remains of what once was a vibrant city around them. Monoliths of a pre-war age. One he remembered from the 'while' Spire mentioned.

"Much of what I have seen is circular. Perhaps I have not seen much at all."

Montana turned his head to face Spire, his body followed, but slowly. He was a bit further away from them now, with his left foot atop the same piece of debris the talkative one had used to open the box. "I can recall time the when the Crown, the Hand, were in their infancy. Just ideas among feverish minds. If that interests you.

When Toby spoke, he reached his first conclusion. If the taller boy could sense what he himself could not see, it indicated a gift for sensing bodies at the very least.

Which told him that Toby had not only sensed him inside the box, but they had traveled into the town for the specific purpose to open it and see who or what was trapped within. Two curious Samaritans, but unlike the stories of old, these travelers had offered neither oil, nor wine.

He didn't turn to look where Toby's attention was focused. Instead, he turned back to the Ashland.

The girl didn't say anything. Vivian's gaze narrowed further and her head tilted to the side as she watched the other. "Look, kid, I don't need to hurt you. You're not Liberty, right?" She had been worried that maybe she was connected the person she just killed for a letter she didn't even intend to open; however, the girl stood there, frozen in fear. It was flattering until Vivian realized that it wasn't fear: it was her Gift. Suddenly, she had no control over her body but she was walked into the wall, a sharp pain running through her face and head--twice.

Dazed, Vivian allowed herself to stumble back and hold her nose as she checked for blood. "Ow, ow, ow," she said, pulling her hand away to scowl at the drops of red. "You brat," she hissed, eyes turning on the figure as she ran away. She only hesitated as she gazed at the city, almost hidden in the Ash. Deciding to conserve some energy, she didn't teleport again. Instead, Vivian followed the girl the old fashioned way with one foot in front of the other.

The unmistakeable whoosh of fire sweeping over dried wood swept through the room, quickly followed by the acrid odor of smoke. Mitch could feel the heat of it against the side of her body peeking out from behind the cabinet, contrasting the waxy cold sweat prickling over her skin. It was by the door. She choked; a quiet, nearly unintelligible sound as her trachea smashed against itself, already parched with Ash-dust.

No way in Hell did Mitch Ingram become a wanted felon and go blind just to suffocate to death on the floor of some Ashland shithole. She popped off another shot.

It clanged against metal before ricocheting to thunk into something to the left of where Mitch had aimed. "Watch the friendly fire," Orion called, though the projectile had not so much as dented his side. He scoffed a bit at the Knight's remark: A shallow attempt to wash her hands of the harm done. Like he and Mitch had a choice.

Before he could pursue her out the door, another figure launched through the window and fired off a round from behind him- closer to Mitch than the Knight had been.

Mitch yelped at the sound and returned fire-- One shot in the vague direction of the shooter just as the scent and sound of water spraying filled the room and silenced the crackle of fire from the door. "Orion!"

Orion turned so that he could see the new threat while keeping the door in his periphery. "Not Eru," he told Mitch, though that did not rule the stranger out as a threat. He squinted as she spoke, taking in her Billy-the-Kid-meets-viva-la-revoluciòn ensemble, and turned back toward the Knight. "I'm pretty sure she could hear that plan, Scarecrow." He rolled one shoulder and made for the wall the Knight had ducked behind. If her plan was to play hide-and-see, she would soon find herself out of cover. There was little to no roof left to risk falling on Mitch.

The cinderblock remains of the wall crumbrled outward toward the Knight as Orion ran and threw his full weight against it, shoulder first.

The fear that Dawn was among Liberty's forces was unnecessary. The girl carried the same haunted, hungry look as any true child of the wastes. Her clothes were terribly mismatched, swallowing up her frame and more. She was haggard.

Of course, given the fact that so many of the faction's agents had learned to adopt the same weary apperance on missions, it could not necessarily be considered proof to some.

She didn't reply to Vivian's question, the sound of it drowned out by the thud of Dawn's footfalls, and the blood thumping hard in her ears. The only thing she knew was that Vivian was a killer and a teleporter- and both were very dangerous breeds. Gritting her teeth, Dawn pushed further, closer to one of the small groups that had found themselves in the city. There were three, and not the most friendly themselves, if what snippets of thoughts she could catch from this distance were any indication.

Nevertheless, turning back now would mean facing her angered tail head-on. Dawn kept running.

Kora pressed her back against the weather-beaten brickwork and listened intently to the sounds of her assailants.

Now this was just getting unsporting.

And even if she hadn't been doing he best to follow any conversation, she'd still not be too keen to go rushing into an area where two enemies had guns. Even though, if the one behind the counter was Ingram, one couldn't see her.
"ORIN. Think I've located both targets. Can you get me a confirm and some data on the third hostile?"

"Get me visual and I can tell you whatever you need to know. Just try not to get shot." was the response.

Kora had no intention of getting shot.

Unfortunately her options became a lot more limited when the wall behind her was suddenly hit by a wrecking ball.

Or at the very least it felt like one when she was pitched forward into the dirt by the force.

Kora rolled with the hit and was able to scramble herself up to face the attacker. A few bruises and a bleeding lip, nothing major. In hindsight, probably should have seen that coming.

"Confirmed. It's Lazos. Ingram won't be far."

As ORIN spoke to affirm her claim, Kora scanned the surroundings. One close range. Two long range. It was far from a fair fight.

"Three on one? See it didn't take you two long to get into the ashland mentality." Kora growled through gritted teeth as she planted her feet firmly into the dusty ground, placing one against a sizeable crack in the old sidewalk so it could not slide back.

What she was about to do had one hell of a kickback.
"Guess I'm going to have to get serious."

For a moment the woman splayed her fingers, and around her hands red, glowing particles began to swirl and crowd together.

Then:

BOOM

She threw her arms up before her and a wave of heat and force burst out of her like a bomb had exploded from the knight's outstretched hands. A wave of superheated air rocketed across the ruined building, tearing up the floor coating, flinging the remains of furniture and tearing fixtures from the walls. The water from the sprinklers was no match for the heat at close range, evaporating into steam as the wave it, filling the air with a thick, hot fog.

The force hit the walls, cracking the brickwork and tearing off the paint. What little glass was left in the windows burst out forcefully in all directions.

Kora stood at the epicentre of this chaos, the ground around her scorched black, and bits of her glove's heat-resistant fabric smouldering faintly in the dusty air.

Well, back to the drawing board on the gloves.

"It does, actually," said Spire, a shade of his artificial pleasantry fading to genuine interest. "Quite a lot."

"Yeah but um," said Toby. "It's the psychic. And the t--teleporter."

The approach of these new enemies added a note of urgency they could not ignore. Spire and Toby wanted to hang around for story time from this ancient sage so unnaturally existing in a young man's body. Spire and Toby also wanted to kill Montana - a process they knew would take longer than usual due to the strange, pensive man's healing factor.

Spire and Toby didn't have time for either.

This Montana had probably taken pure human lives with his own hands. Listening to old stories about the beginning of the Crown and the Hand - the factions - might let Montana incriminate himself. Most of the Gifted generation that could claim that feat was dead. For the Schippers, killing the spawn of the original genocidal murderers was one thing, but executing one of the original guilty party... Granted, Spire was pretty pleased to be doing any of the executing, but that might mean something powerful for Toby.

"We might have to take a rain check on the war stories, old man," said Spire genially. "We may have some hostile greetings coming up."

He and Toby shared a look. It was risky, but all they really needed to do was let the mind manipulator get in sight. Either Toby could shoot them, or Spire could use his power. If she seized control of one of their minds first, well...the other would just have to work fast. The teleporter could be handled afterward. Maybe Montana, inhuman though he was, had enough sense of gratitude to either stay out of the way, or join them.

But Toby forced himself not to think about that. The mind manipulator had to be getting close enough to begin to get a read on their surface thoughts, at least. Though he knew the invasive Curse could dig deep if the user wished, Toby tried to fill his head with the last thing he'd read (something he didn't know verbatim, so that he'd have to think about it) to keep a target off his back...or brain, as it were.

'Do not go gentle into that good night
rage, rage against the dying of the light....'
Nope. There's a line in between there. Something about burning and raging.
'Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have'...something about dancing in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light...'
This is a second-person address encouraging people to rage. Unfortunate choice.
'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.'
....Okay. That's all I got of that one.

The urgency of Toby's squirming told Spire to follow suit on the misdirecting thoughts, though he took a bit of a different tac to turning his mind from violent intentions. Unlike Toby, he mused aloud, directing the comments loosely to Montana.

"This is turning out to be a full day. Got a kid back at our base I've got to get back to," he said, thinking of how Hel's shoes were getting worn out and too small for her, and how he should look in the old broken shops for something she could wear. "Not my kid. But a kid we look after. Telling her we found a very old guy locked in a box might be one of the weirder bits of news I've had the pleasure of reporting to her at bedtime..."

Playing the child card shamelessly, but, to be fair, honestly.

Spire's seemingly genuine interest in what Montana had to say certainly inspired the man to be a touch forthright. Had their meeting remained uninterrupted, Montana planned on answering what questions he could. They had freed him from the box after all, their intentions for him were irrelevant.

Toby's firm warning for Spire set the final peace of the puzzle into place when it came to the identification of the boy's power. Which in essence seemed to be gift identification. That would leave Spire to be, at least from Montana's deduction, the bruiser out of the two. The heavy hitter to compliment the other boys nuanced ability. Or perhaps his was as equally nuanced. Two specialists wandering the Ash.

Either way, a psychic and a teleporter spelled trouble for them both. If the psychic had the aptitude to influence and control the minds of multiple persons they could make quick work of them all. Especially if they were both allies.

The only option was to slay the psychic and lure the teleporter into a repetitive pattern.

Provided Toby was telling the truth,

and providing that these two were hostile to begin with. The nature of his gift meant that rather then strike first, he had the luxury of waiting to see how the situation panned out.

"I trust that you both understand the nature of my power means I would be a staunch ally, or a troublesome foe should I fall under the Psychic's control."

The sound of mortar and block being obliterated rent through the air with a ferocity that rung through the buildings around them, shaking the aging monoliths with such force that a few of the weaker structures collapsed in on themselves, causing small dust clouds to dot up in his peripheral vision. If he hadn't been conversing with Toby and Spire, he would have investigated. Perhaps even gotten in the middle of the conflict if it captured his fancy.

Instead, he'd wait to confront the Psychic.

His hand moved to the inside of his overcoat, where it wrapped around the hilt of a throwing knife nestled snugly in a shoulder holster. The decades had honed his opening throw into a fluid motion that hit it's apex long before most could draw a weapon.

It was a simple precaution, he didn't think to use it unless he felt his body being hijacked.

Vivian slowed as Dawn ran ahead into the ruins. It wasn't uncommon for places like this to be populated to some degree, not necessarily by strong groups but stragglers and nomads. Then suddenly, she stopped, listening to the rumble of the ground and watch smoke rise from the collapse of buildings further off. Suddenly beating the kid senseless in exchange for a bloody nose seemed like a bad idea. It'd be far better to have her as an ally--she could make a strong one.

She sped up again. "Pst, hey," she snapped in hush tone as she suddenly appeared beside Dawn, a hand on the girl's shoulder. "This isn't safe. I won't hurt you--just don't go in my head again." She spoke quickly, wanting to establish that rule as soon as possible for continuing. "Where we go after, I don't care. But I'm getting the feeling that we're not quite alone, kid." If Dawn allowed, she would stop the both of them, occasionally glancing forward and squinting against the ash. Vivian pulled her hand off the girl's arm and instead reached under her jacket as her golden eyes scanned the area.

Hearing the sound of a gunshot ring out from the other side of the restaurant and seeing a bullet plant itself into a wall a few yards away, Eddie whirled around, pulling her gun away from its position aimed at the door and pointing it in the direction from which the shot had come from. To her annoyance, Eddie saw no one. She was about to go investigate further when the metal man called out, seemingly to the shooter, informing them of Eddie's lack of affiliation with the Erubescan people.

Eddie filed the fact that the metal man was working with at least one more person, one with a gun, away in her mind for later, in case their alliance goes south after the Erubescan threat gets taken care of, despite the fact that the person appeared to be a terrible shot.

"It don't matter one bit if she heard-" Eddie began in an impatient tone as she turned herself back to the man, cutting herself off as she watched his shiny metallic body collide with the old walls of the place, opening up a hole to the outside world. More importantly, however, he seemed to have made contact with the Knight, knocking her back a ways, leaving her bare and without cover. Right in Eddie's sights.

Eddie took note of the energy that swirled around the Knight's hands. It seemed as though she was focusing her Gift, getting ready for a powerful attack. However, it appeared to render her defenseless enough for Eddie to make a move. Not wanting to kill the Knight who was bound to have useful information, Eddie aimed for the enemy's left kneecap and pulled the trigger, launching a bullet through the air and into the target, right before a giant blast blew outwards with the Knight at its center.

"Shit!" Eddie shouted, making a run for the window from which she had entered, planning to gracefully hop over it and use the wall as cover. The result was anything but graceful. Just as she reached the window, the explosion caught up with her, propelling her into the waist-high wall below the window, sending her out in a clumsy front flip, ending with her face smashing into the outside of the wall, sounding a loud CRACK as she slid down the wall, toppling over to lay flat on her back.

It didn't take long for Gwen to end up on the scene, standing over the hunched over Eddie, whose hand was on her nose. The horse nudged the woman with her hoof, causing her to look up.

"I think the bitch broke my nose!" she shouted, the anger evident in her voice. "The fuckin' bitch broke my nose!"

Jesus, you're a pussy. It'll heal in a couple weeks. Now, why don't we go get that Eurobescan piece of shit. read the words that appeared on the mare's broad chest. The horse got into a kneeling position, signalling for her partner to climb aboard.

"Yeah yeah, I'm goin'," she replied, pulling herself onto the animal. Its wings stretched out and began flapping, taking the two into the air. Gwen's fur quickly changed to match the color of the gray skies. While she circled the skies for a few moments, Eddie made sure her bright red octagonal shield was tightly fastened to her left arm, before reaching down to her lower leg and pulling a large hunting knife out of its sheath. She peered over the side of her equine friend, waiting patiently until they were both right above the Knight to drop off the side, plummeting at a fast speed toward the warrior, knife outstretched.

@VitoftheVoid@ScoundrelQueen

Orion charged again when he saw the Knight readying some kind of attack, but the blast hit before he could reach her. His feet skidded in the ash, and he was forced back nearly a meter by the concussive force.

Mitch heard the explosion only half a second before she felt it.

She was pitched forward from her hunched squat, her shoulders and neck crashing into the row of metal cabinets in front of her. The counter that had been at her back slammed forward and then collapsed, first pinning and then dragging her feet before crashing down on top of her legs and back. The fire from the blast mostly passed her over, but she had already blacked out from pain by the time it would have hit.

Orion had closed his eyes on instinct as the explosion washed over him, and his vision registered in slow-motion for an instant as he turned to look behind him at the devastated building. And then snapped back to speed all at once.

"Leila!" The Knight may as well have disappeared. Orion raced back to the remains of the restaurant, ground shaking. "Mitch, Mitch? Where are you?" He looked frantically toward where he had left her: Rows of heavy metal counters all bent and thrown into one another; a pileup car accident with her underneath. "Leila? Leila, for God's sake-"

He ran to where he had left her, shoving one of the fixtures back upright. There was blood on the ground. Another piece came up, and there was Mitch: Crumpled and torn like a used wrapper. Her shoes were ripped, part of the leather still stuck to the edge of the cabinet Orion had lifted from her. The fabric of her pants was tattered and soaked through with blood. Where some fabric had been torn away, he could see bone.

"No. God- Leila-" He fumbled with how to lift her for a moment, afraid she may fall apart in his hands. He shifted back to his own body, and paying no heed to the broken shrapnel or sharp edges, took a knee at her side. With shaking hands, he scooped up her body with a tenderness that seemed impossible for someone of his size. "Mitch, baby. Mitch-" His breath came in uneven, shaking gasps. He stood, cradling her to his chest.

She whimpered, but did not move.

"Shh, now. You're alright. I'm- We can fix this. You're gonna be--" Her blood, warm and sticky, soaked through his shirt and laid against his skin. He swallowed hard, and glanced toward the Knight. "You're going to be fine. We just- We gotta go, now. It's okay." Shifting back into steel, he began walking away from the wreckage as quickly as he could afford without jostling her further.

The bullet shot through Kora's knee a split second before she detonated her ability. The impact and the sudden disruption of the integrity of the bones threw the knight off balance and she hit she floor, landing in a sprawled sitting-position a little way from where she'd been stood.

It took a few moments for the pain to fully register itself apart from the impact of the fall, and when it did hit, it was pretty brutal. Kora looked to see the rather quickly-expanding puddle of red round her leg. Bright red. If she was a betting woman she'd probably say a ruptured femoral artery, which would probably give her about five minutes before things became very serious.

For most people that would be the end of that as far as the fight went.

Knight Norrevinter was definitely not most people.

The red-haired woman gritted her teeth and reached her hands, now wrapped in the tattered remains of her gloves, over to tightly grasp the wound at both sides.

This was most certainly going to hurt.

Her hands gave a flash like welding torch. Kora snarled out a curse and the air was filled with the stench of scorched flesh. When she removed her hands the skin was burned and the heavy bleed fused shut, cauterized by her over superheated hands.

There weren't many things aside from fighting her ability was useful for, but that aspect did come in handy from time to time. Particularly when you found yourself always getting shot.

With some effort the Knight rose to her feet, weighing her options. Putting any weight on her leg would hurt like crazy. Unless she turned the red-eye on. But if she did that she was pretty sure none of these people would walk out alive.. and ORIN has definitely specified minimal force.

As it turned out, Kora's options would soon become even less extensive, as she caught a shadow overhead.

Combat training was pretty much muscle memory by that point in Kora's life and within moments she'd pressed her fingers against a pocket on her belt and released a combat knife from its sheath and into her right hand, which she swung up at speed and collided with the blade of her attacker.

Her weight fell back onto her injured leg and Kora snarled in pain and anger.
"Why don't you ashrats ever mind your own damn business?! You have five seconds to get out of here or I'm going to unleash the fury of Odin on your unwashed ass!"

She threw her weight forward in order to force her opponent back and put some distance between them.
Whilst she was attempting to work out her next move, she heard ORIN speak up in her ear.

"Switch to speaker."

"Kind of busy here!"

"And you're about to lose the targets, activate the speaker."

Kora growled irritably but snapped a switch next to her hip with her free hand, activating a speaker hidden somewhere within her combat gear to broadcast the metallic voice of the Erubesco defence system over to the retreating for of Orion.

"Lazos. I'm sure on some level you are aware that Ingram has, at least, and open fracture and that without medical attention she will definitely die. Ultimately the choice is yours. Voluntarily submitting to arrest is likely to win you some leniency at trial. The Wasteland climate and distinct lack of sterile supplies is far less flexible in that regard."

ORIN spoke about the subject dispassionately; even though it was physically impossible for her to do otherwise of course, she felt very little investment on the eventual fate of the programmer.

Back in the control room the woman took a sip of her cup of coffee and scrolled over the surveillance system momentarily whilst she awaited the response.

She was, after all, only returning the favour of indifference.

"Surrender now and I'll dispatch a medic team immediately. Please give the offer proper consideration, in case you regret your choices later."

@ScoundrelQueen
@Framing A Moose

The thoughts of the strangers were clearer by now, caught and held like radio transmissions. It was difficult for Dawn to concentrate fully on them- given the fact that she was currently focused on evasion and not getting herself killed in the long run- but snippets stood out here and there. There was one who seemed to be quoting some kind of...literature? poem? Dawn couldn't quite make it out. The second, on the other hand, was thinking about a child. A little girl.

And the third was waiting for her. For them, pursuer and pursued.

The realization that at least one of them knew what she was, and the sound of destruction some ways off, made Dawn hesitate for a moment- long enough for the teleporter to catch up to her and catch her by the shoulder. She let out a yelp, whirling on her heel, and had begun to tap into her powers again before the woman started to speak. Remarkably calm, given the circumstances. Dawn stared at Vivian for a few seconds, some of the animalistic panic draining from her eyes, although a certain caution remained in them. The mercenary seemed earnest, but...

"I, um..." Dawn swallowed, licking her lips. Her voice was hoarse from lack of proper use. "I don't want to fight. There's...there's other people here. Seven, I think. One of them is waiting for us." Her muscles tensed as Vivian reached into her jacket, and she took a step back, but she didn't bolt. "I don't want to fight."

She didn't trust Vivian. But she didn't trust anyone within the city, either. It would be better trying to leave the place with one less person off her back.

Toby's efforts to control his thoughts waned and then died as he heard Montana speaking freely about the potential danger of a mind manipulator's approach.

Maybe feigning neutral intentions--feigning that they didn't know she was there--in order to lure the mind manipulator into shooting distance was a bad tactic anyway. Wouldn't it just be better to avoid an altercation altogether? He imagined it would be a small percentage of ashlanders - even powerful mentalists - who would intentionally pick a fight with a trio standing ready to kill.

Yeah, okay. Go away. Let's not fight, he thought, all literary distractions falling away from his mind, leaving him to think clearly of the fact that he was, indeed, aware of her, aware of her range of influence, aware of what she could try to do to any one of them, and aware that they were on some level prepared for that possibility.

Unlike his younger brother, Spire rather wished to maintain the charade of innocence; despite the danger of the desire, he wanted the mind manipulator and the teleporter to come close enough. Three of them. Item one, psychic, good to be shot in the head as soon as possible; item two, regenerator, some disassembly required; item three, teleporter, a veritable surprise box - Spire's power could just as soon bury her alive as leave her to fall through a thousand feet of air and go crunch on the ruins.

If Spire's mental distraction hadn't died enough with the slip of his imagination, it did when he answered Montana's warning.

"If that happens, I hope there are no hard feelings if we need to stuff you back in your box for a while, Dracula," he said.

He smiled. Since killing Montana was already on the docket for the day, whether the mind manipulator made him a puppet or not only affected whether they could speak of the old War or not. In his mind, the only real danger was if the mind manipulator was coordinated enough to control all of them at once.

"And, ah... I'd appreciate any force to be of the nonlethal variety if Toby or I suddenly try to take a shot at you," he added.

The hypocrisy of this request was not lost on him.

Dawn, it may be noted, would not find Spire's consciousness a pleasant place to dwell if she chose to thread the tendrils of her mind into his. Even if its fringe hadn't been hosting scenes of gory possibilities at the moment, it was not exactly a warm place.

It was oddly quiet there. Isolated, like some distance muffled and dulled everything outside.

Montana's grip on the hilt of his favoured throwing knife relaxed, but his hand remained lightly toughing the hilt of his weapon. While weary of the mind manipulator and their strength, he believed that their opening play would have left him more then enough time to react, had it been anything short of an aggressive expansionist assault. The mind, as explained to him by a neuroscientist he had befriended in decades past, 'archived memories and experiences' during the sleep process to protect the brain from overloading its neural pathways.

Given the nature of his gift, the scientist explained, synaptic overload/excitotoxicity was an impossibility. Simply put, unless Montana cared to meditate, he was aware that his conscious and subconscious existed in a web of disorder that would take some time for a manipulator to navigate. A particularly powerful user would certainly be able to control his body after a few seconds, but a second equaled an eternity in combat.

Which is why he relaxed. An invasive a power as it was, the user was the intent behind the potential action. He had made his intentions of defense known, and had not been on the receiving end of any retaliation.

This did not mean Montana viewed them as being safe. It simply meant they weren't immediately aggressive. He further tested the waters, by conjuring up images of conflict, and peace in his mind. Something ambient, should they choose to peak into his thoughts

"Of course. I would only be in danger of taking offense to a bullet."

He could hear the muffled sound of a voice come from the direction of the wreckage. It sounded like it was being projected off a mechanical device.

"I am not aware of what else you have in your arsenal. In regards to your ability.

Speaking of bullets, Spire counted the shiny, tipped cylinders in the clip of the 9mm in his belt. (Marksmanship wasn't Spire's game like it was Toby's, but he'd be an idiot not to carry a ranged weapon.)

"Well," Spire said, "the expression 'give them a taste of their own medicine' comes to mind. Just have to get them in my sights. You'll probably be seeing a demonstration soon, here."

...And another, very up-close demonstration later on.

Spire was cautious of showing Montana his entire hand unnecessarily, but they might be allies for a while, and knowing each other's abilities could be strategically critical.

"That's a lot of people," Vivian commented uselessly, though her gaze raised as she considered how she could go about defending herself. They could have any variety of powers, so it was a very loose plan. "You can get in their heads, though. What are they thinking? What are their gifts?" She stepped closer to a building's dusty wall, eyes continuing to flicker about as she waited on the the girl to answer. Under her jacket, her small hand gripped the hilt of her knife, relaxing on and off. "Or where are they? If you think they're gonna be hostile, better to get the drop on them, right?"

As the knives collided, causing a metallic ringing to sound through the air, Eddie fell forward onto her feet so she was face to face with her opponent, knives still pushing against each other. A sudden strong push from the ginger caused Eddie to stumble backwards, leaving a few yards between the two. It took only a second for her to throw the knife back into its sheath and pull back out the six-shooter, still filled with two thirds of its bullets. And that's when she, along with her ally in the sky, heard the message blasting out of the Knight's speaker.

"Ingram?" she said aloud. "As in Dr. Leila Michelld Ingram? Wanted by the Eurobescan government for desertion and shit?" Eddie didn't need to say anything to Gwen. The faint flapping of wings becoming more and more distant was enough to show that the message had been received. Now all Eddie had to do was keep the Knight busy. "Y'know yer doin' somethin' wrong when quitin' is illegal. What do ya do if an older man wants ta retire, huh? There's an old sayin', it goes 'my retirement plan is a shotgun'. Is that just a requirement or somethin'."

Small talk was great, but it wasn't going to keep the disciplined warrior captive for long. As Eddie spoke, time seemed to slow as her brain sped up. What did she know about the redheaded soldier? She had seen her fighting style, which had appeared to be a mix of trained martial arts and brawling, knowledge that would help in the fight to come, but would be useless in getting inside her head. No, she had to look deeper. She could always insult the Eurobescan kingdom, but at this point that would most likely just bounce off of her brain. It had to be something more personal. And that's when she remembered: she had caught a glimpse of a necklace the girl was wearing during their knife standoff. At the time, it seemed to be a random design. But when paired with the recent quote 'I'm going to unleash the fury of Odin', Eddie recognized it from a human book of world religions: It was a symbol of Mjolnir, the hammer wielded by Thor, the Nordic God of Lightning. Both Odin and Thor had been primarily worshiped by the Nordic people, the Celts, and...

'Vikin's.' she thought.

And suddenly, she had a plan. She just hoped to God she was right.

"What're ya doin' workin' for them gene-splicin' fucktards anyway?" she began, verbally getting into an offensive stance. In a way, talking was a lot like fighting. "I can tell yer a source o' chaos rather than order. So what's a born anarchist doin' upholdin' the law?" Her words swung towards the girl, not supposed to hit. That was only meant to be a feint. "You and I are the same. We're both wolves. Only difference is you let them put a collar on you." That was meant to be a slice, but not a fatal one. Just a quick jab. "Y'know, us 'ashrats', as you say, we're this world's pirates. The bandits, the thieves, the pillagers." With that, she readied herself for her final blow. "We're the modern Vikin's. Don't you wanna be part o' that?" And that was it. She let her dialogue plunge forward and bury itself into her opponent. Eddie just needed to make her lose her cool...that was all.

@VitoftheVoid

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It didn't take long for Gwen to find what she was looking for: a large metal man running away with a smaller woman in his arms. Once they were in her sight, Gwen wasted no time in descending, landing next to them, galloping at a slow speed to keep up with them. She let out a loud whinny to get the attention of the conscious one, before nodding to her side. Listen, there's not enough time to explain everything. All you need to know is that I'm a very smart horse, and I can help you two. And lets skip all of that 'How can we trust you' bullshit, because the clock's ticking down. Now, put Dr. Ingram on my back, turn into something lighter and follow the suit, and let's be going. The words upon her side read.

@ScoundrelQueen

Gradually, the light continued to fade from Dawn's eyes, becoming unfocused as she picked at the fringes of the strangers' minds. Not too deeply, of course- she didn't want to completely leave herself open to Vivian, and if one of the parties could sense her, then they would likely be able to feel her digging into their skull. "I can't...get a good read on the other ones. The fight, I mean," she admitted. "They're too far." Dawn went quiet again, prodding cautiously at the surface of one of their thoughts, then stiffened.

One of them, the poet, was speaking to her. Not directly, but enough for her to know just how deep their- his- knowledge ran. "Sensor," Dawn announced. "He, um. He told the others we were coming. Knows what we can do. He doesn't really, uh...could you stop doing that for right now? Please." Her eyes had wandered to Vivian's coat, and the knife concealed beneath it. Perhaps it was simply in preparation for a fight, but given how they had met, it wasn't at all reassuring. Dawn took a few more steps back, distancing herself from the mercenary, then went on.

"The sensor, he doesn't really seem to want to fight. But the other one, um. He...he's, uh." She pressed her lips together. "Really prepared for us. Already planned out how to kill us, I mean. I can't tell what he is. The third one, I..." Dawn wasn't wholly sure about the third. The first had been mild, reasonable enough. Hoping to avoid out and open conflict with them, but not leaving it wholly out of the question. The second had been almost a complete opposite. Quiet. Eager. But, on some level, decipherable- especially when compared to the labyrinth of the third.

She mulled about it for a moment, bewildered, before allowing herself to return to reality. "Regenerator. He doesn't seem like he'll be hostile, but I, uh, wouldn't want to risk it."

Orion hated that voice: It grated against his teeth like icy gravel and called to mind a cold, unfeeling creature that lived more more as a computer than a woman. Mitch stirred, and Orion shifted her weight in his arms.

He stopped, but did not turn to look toward the scene behind him. ORIN was not wrong about Mitch's condition: She was in trouble, and he had neither the expertise nor the supplies to help. The medical team certainly would.

And then, just as certainly, they would carry her off to endure an interrogation. He would be pinned and locked down, unable to help. They would question if she had met anyone out in the Ash; what information she had shared and with whom. She would not know who was asking or where she was, or why she had been turned in. The investigators would not accept an answer until they had a confession that would dehumanize her to the public.

He looked down at her broken body, scanning up from her mangled legs, dangling over his right arm, all the way to where her cheek rested against his shoulder. The scratch on her forehead had bled over her eyelids, and the wound was already crusting in the dry weather.

Mitch's head rose and fell with Orion's sighing breath, and he started again.

Perhaps it was selfish of him, but he could stomach neither the frigid voice behind him, nor the possibility of meeting the woman who made it. Dying in a moment with someone watching over you was a more noble death, he thought, than dying alone in the dark some time away. He did not respond to ORIN.

@VitoftheVoid

...

He did, however, draw up short as a rather large beast alighted a few feet beside him. As someone from a long line of arena showmen, it did not take long to recognize the creature as an Erubescan bastardization. His uncle was a trainer, and his cousin had once nearly died when one spooked at sixty feet in the air.

He tucked Mitch against his body more tightly, and took a turn that would lead deeper into the city, and toward cover.

"Git," he commanded with a quivery voice. He shifted so that his bicep blocked Mitch's face from the animal in case it should nip. Whether the creature was some further trap, a parlor trick, or something in between, he was absolutely not in the mood. "Go to your master. Git."

@Framing A Moose

There was blood everywhere. One the walls, the floor, the mouldering volumes left on the old shelves, everywhere.

Out at the doorway, a silhouette of a man slipped out of the door, spreading a dusty light across the room, and to the body on the floor, a young woman in a dark jacket. She lay on the dusty floor in an expanding pool of arterial blood, watching as the man who had just shot her stroll off into the wastes, with her duffel bag in hand.

The trade had not gone well.

He hadn't even had a very good aim. What she suspected had been intended to hit her head instead hit her in the side of the neck, nicking the carotid artery and causing far more mess than it needed to. Maybe being the one who got shot gave her a bit of personal bias, but some of the last thoughts that flickered though Magdalene Atwood's as she bled out in the ruins of a pre-war bookstore, was that the murder had been a very sloppy one.

---

It was around 48 hours that the corpse of Magdalene Atwood lay in the abandoned bookstore. The blood puddle had begun to become dry and sticky, though no flies or vermin had made any approach upon it.

About 48 hours after she had died, the body gave a sudden spasmodic twitch, the back arching up before pushing back down as she was flung up into a sitting position and let out a sudden gasp for air. Two more desperate intakes of breath before she threw herself onto her knees and violently threw up, splattering the already ruined floor with congealed blood and stomach acid.

However many times it happened, re-animation was still impossible to get used to. Like even the body rejected such a violation of natural laws. Everything had to die. Very few things had made it a two way street.

It took a while, but Magdalene was able to rise onto her feet. Her skull felt like it had been chipped out on the inside with a mason's chisel and her throat was burning with bile. All kind of par for the course, but she was pretty sure she was going to need to find something to drink pretty soon or this was going to get into a really unpleasant cycle.

Clumsily, Magdalene reached round the bookshelves.
She just hoped that bastard hadn't found the-

Her fingers closed round a book.

Got it.

With shaky hands the book opened, revealing the hollowed-out inside and a concealed ID card with its chesspiece symbol sat within.

The motheaten rug in the corner was pulled aside, and the white plastic crates bearing similar chesspiece insignia that had been set into replace the floor beneath were revealed, and the first opened with swipe of the card. LED strips on the inside flared and lit the packages inside.

The bag, with a couple of day's worth of rations stuffed inside, was a decoy. It served its purpose very well. Apparently her trader buddy had completely missed the real prize.

Three crates of Erubesco field unit supplies. Freeze-dried rations, water purifiers, heat packs, medical supplies...all the kinds of things you might miss living out in the ashlands. Also worth their weight in gold.

If anything gold was less important. You couldn't eat gold.

Mags reached round in the interior until her trembling hands seized upon an orange carton, which she cracked and downed near enough in one, but for what she lost when it spilled down her bloodstained shirt.

Electrolyte drink. Should probably at least render some of the negative side effects manageable whilst she moved onto shifting these things to a new hiding place. Now it was known some shifty fuck would eventually end up at the place. Wasn't usually a problem but...

Noise.

The reanimator, sat gracelessly propped up against her crate cache, paused and listened. She'd barely noticed over the crashing inside her own head up until then.

The explosion, following shortly after, shook the building, and the ceiling shed some dust and little bits of loose plaster.

Maybe worth a check before starting the move. Maybe.

Magdalene took a shemagh from the chair by the door, and wrapped it round the sticky neck wound that was still rather evident underneath her jawline, before making her way out into the daylight. The momentum by which she did so overtook her a little, and the woman found herself half stumbling out further than she'd really intended to venture. The sight to greet her when she summoned the wherewithal to look around was...unexpected.. to say the least.

A man, a man who appeared to be made of metal. In his arms appeared to be a badly injured woman. Trotting up alongside him was a winged horse that the metal man appeared to be trying to shoo away. Behind them a little distance, a build was on fire.

Of all the things Mags might have predicted to be out there on her emerging...this would not have ranked too highly on the list.

The natural response, at least perhaps for someone with any wish to thrive in the ashlands, would be to walk straight back in and let this bizarre parade keep going on its merry way. What the once-Liberty member found herself doing, perhaps in part down to years of collectivist mentoring, was call over and show concern.

"Uh..you alright over there?"

Maybe it was a stupid question. For most people it probably was a stupid question, though your perspective changed a little when you were standing half-drenched in your own dry blood with a fair-sized gash left in the side of your neck, but actually feeling relatively alright. It seemed kind of hypocritical not to ask.

----

Kora, still grasping her knife in one hand, was not really in the mood for casual conversation. Not when her target was rapidly getting away from her. As such she took the ashlander's response to her in not the most graceful manner.

"Ignorant hick. You don't know a thing about me, or about my line if you think we're nothing but a bunch of savages."
She was about to speak when ORIN interjected.

"Contemporary accounts that portray the norse people as unusually savage or chaotic can be attributed to a saxon christian perspective, shaped by the adversarial relationship between the two cultures, and the christian disdain for pagan religions. The treaty of Alfred and Guthrum in 876 was-"

"ORIN shut it! We're not here to give a scrub a history lesson."

"I am not here at all. You however are here to pursue the targets, not knife fight with the locals. Disengage."

"You want me to just let her get away with it."

"Yes. Disengage."

Kora cursed under her breath, but complied. She flung her hands downwards and another blast burst out of her hands. It was smaller than before, or possibly reduced by its open area, but in this case it was not meant for offence. Instead what it succeeded in doing was kicking up a great amount of debris into the air. Dust, mud, bits of wood and stone, mixing with steam and ash in order to render the area a cloud of beige and grey.

It was, for both involved, most likely difficult to see.

But only one of them had a computerized system of guidance.

"Turn left, move."