---

They'd almost been out, with the others retreating as well, and then the entire situation turned from troublesome into a topsy turvey mess! It was disorienting, for one moment him and Sophia had been about to escape and the next they were dragged by an unseen force and somehow deposited back in the warehouse. His stomach lurched, but he managed to keep his previous meal down. Making sure his and Sophia's hands were still very much touching, he spoke. "Do not, under any circumstances, let go or open your eyes, if you do we'll be in for a world of trouble."

That said, they were still in for what appeared to be a hellish time. Taking deep breaths in and out he worked his jaw and made subtle humming noises for a few moments, stretching his vocal cords. That done, he pulled Sophia and his own hand up, covering her ear—while using his free hand to cover the other one. Then he started yelling, his communicator off, "SO IT SEEMS WE'VE ALL BEEN HAD. THIS IS A FIRST. FOR US THAT IS. I WAGER YOU HEROES HAVE SUFFERED THIS KIND OF HUMILIATION AND SURPRISE BEFORE." His voice echoed out and bounced around within the building's marvelous acoustics. He felt for each person he was effecting, noting that the amount was steadily increasing as the clones were created.

He started mentally tuning out the clones—though he remained aware of them—till he found the person who had built more influence than the other 'copies,' and was continuing to do so while each subsequent wave of clones had less influence built up in them comparatively. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath, focusing in on the Wards and the PRT soldiers, their rough locations and the influence he'd accrued on them as well.

However, as he opened his mouth to speak, a bellowing, dissonant rour resonated through his body and the warehouse as well. His gaze shot over to the stranger of the two behemoths that they were faced with. As he looked it over again...his eyes widened.

---

---

Eyes wide, tears at their edges—despite the anger beneath the surface—Evelyn had stopped in her tracks as she'd heard the arrival of Dean. After a moment she gritted her teeth, recovering enough to clamp down hard on her emotions and move forwards. As she regained her composure and continued towards the warehouse, so too did her projection move.

The Beast roared and then charged forth making a beeline for Overrun and his swarm of clones. Barrels, crates(metal and otherwise) were in its way, but it didn't stop. Instead, the beast charged into and through them, yet...nothing was damaged. Instead its body seemed to envelope whatever it touched and release the material/objects out the otherside when it had passed. It was such a seamless process that the beast appeared almost to be phasing right through solid matter.

Of course it only moved unimpeded for a brief time until it encountered the clones of their ex-teammate Dean.

Evelyn's eye twitched in response to his presence once more before her awareness shifted back to her projection. In response to the throng of bodies—particularly due to the permission they'd been given by Decoy—the Beast reared up and then body slammed down on at least two dozen of them. Somehow the Beast sank lower than it should have, its body intersecting in part with the floor. It rose back up and some of the concrete that made up the floor of the warehouse was just...gone. There was an indentation in the exact shape of the projection's form. A moment later the beast shook itself and expelled a veritable hailstorm of pebble-sized concrete detritus from its body as it got rid of excess matter.

It continued moving, attempting do harry the clones and perhaps the actual Dean as much as it possibly could in the process. Meanwhile, Evelyn debated on whether or not she should actually enter the warehouse herself while also trying to keep track of how long she kept her projection manifested. She had to admit that it was very tempting to demanifest it soon, take stock of all the powers, and then manifest her projection in a state better equipped to deal with someone like Dean's power.

Rrrgh...Dean. Thinking about him hurt, but what was worse was the fact that he'd turned on them. He was an example of the worst thing about people, Evelyn thought, and he needed to be stopped....

Perhaps at any cost.

Suddenly a spy plane crashes into Zach Kozel's remains.

With no small amount of pride the Margrave watched his rubber bullets bounce off a number of the criminal scumbags, diverting their focus and thwarting their machinations with painful stings. In mere moments the Community dogs' formation broke apart, perhaps in some small part because of the rampaging dinosaur, and they appeared to be in full retreat. Pulling his free arm around behind his head with his elbow pointing straight up, he leaned back as he blew nonexistent smoke from the barrel of his MAC-10. “Hmmhmm!” he sneered, ”You scatter like leaves. Looks like my darkness was darker than yours!” After his count reached five, he unposed himself and took another look around. Considering the significant threat posed by metas with unknown powers, this situation could scarcely have gone better. ”This situation could scarcely have gone better,” he remarked aloud, poignant and thoughtful. The very next instant, a new voice resounded through the warehouse—female, and oozing with malice. After her initial greeting, he pressed himself against cover while he scratched his head. He could have sworn that he'd heard that voice before, but he could not for the life of him place the source. No matter; if he couldn't remember, it couldn't have mattered.

What did matter was what Troll said next. Maniacal, she spoke of an unknown Father, the prospect of soul-destroying suffering, and -most vilely- families of rats somewhere in the warehouse. Yech. Hate those things. Despite his unflappably cool demeanor, he did in fact jump a little as the doors to the building closed themselves in an abrupt and startling manner, which annoyed him. Hmph. Naturally, the Margrave's body is so trained for survival that it moves of its own accord when confronted with any thread. Steeling himself for some kind of emerging threat, the Margrave awaited what this unknown enemy had in store. In short order she revealed that it wasn't she who would be going on the offensive, but someone else.

The slam of another door drew the Margrave's attention, and he zeroed in on the source. Out onto an elevated catwalk strode an indescribable figure in black, who began to speak without delay. He addressed the Wards in particular, his manner akin to a storied rival's, which struck the Margrave as hilarious as it was inappropriate since now was the first time he could ever remember encountering this villain. Most peculiarly, he picked out Elliot by name, which might have been perturbing had someone by the name of Elliot been present and alive. Unfortunately for this masked menace, there was only the Margrave, and following the word 'edgy' the Margrave's own manner turned critical.

Clones appeared to the tune of wild laughter, and the stranger began his assault. Emerging from his hiding spot into the open, the Margrave extended his whole arm to drive his index finger like a lance toward the vagabond's heart. A contemptuous smile on his face, he opened his mouth wide to heap disdain upon his unworthy foe.

Unfortunately, his words were utterly quashed by those of Chatterbox.

Tapping his foot, the Margrave waited patiently for the irritating man to cease his thundering. A couple clones charge his position, but an almost-indifferent spray of rubber bullets from the Margrave's firearm told them that this land belonged to him. All the while, he kept his arm out, the finger temporarily held in the upright 'wait' position. When at last Chatterbox fell silent, the floor became the Margrave's once more.

With renewed passion he thrust his pointer at 'Overrun'. ”Whoever the hell you are, you reek of a desperate and pathetic need for attention! You think you look threatening, but I'm more worried about what Hot Topic is gonna do now that some tryhard's bought up all their stock!” At about the same time as that sentence concluded, Tulpa's monstrous projection gave a bloodcurdling roar. Shaking his head, the Margrave raised his voice a couple more notches and bellowed on. ”Normally a great hero such as I wouldn't bother giving such a lowlife the time of day, but seeing as you came all this way, I'll dole you out a fresh serving of justice before you scurry back to your mommy's basement!” The clones were getting closer, and way more numerous, so he wasted no time reaching into his coat to pull out a small metal object. Flicking it up and catching it like a coin, he reeled back like a pitcher preparing to throw a fastball. Decoy's approval of lethal means came about then, which coaxed from the Margrave a wry smile. ”I'm three steps ahead of you, Decoy,” he muttered before raising his voice again. ”Choke on this, wannabe! Rush Hour!”

Every ounce of the Margrave's strength hurled the tiny object at the swarm of approaching clones. For a split second it was no more than a blur. Then it returned to full size, becoming a scrapyard junk car flying into the clone brigade at sixty miles per hour.

@AngelofOctober@Spiffy



He wasn’t so sure about this Swarm guy, he hoped that Art-Affliction was still keeping his guard up. Though he may be their key to the city, is that what Affliction saw? He wondered about that. How could someone as foul mouth and clearly not looking for any allies be their window of opportunity? Hope to god Affliction had a good plan.

“Everything is exciting in Denver,” HemoGoblin said with a laugh, “Levitating cars. Buildings blowing up. Fights breaking the windows. Like an 80s action flick. What would that make us, unlikely heroes? Or villains?”

Though they really haven’t done anything villainous yet. He was waiting. He was anticipating it to come. What were they doing? Couldn’t follow this Swarm guy around this whole entire fucking time, they had their own goals and plans.

“Not to cut to the point,” he says with a laugh, “But you see, we’re looking to party here in the city. Mind telling us where you like to party? Looking for a good flashy rave. One that gets you a name, but not one that gets you arrested. Does that make sense, Swarm?”

Sofia flinched as she felt something other than Chatterhead pull her back. Nononono, she was supposed to be safe! There was an overwhelming urge to open her eyes, but just as she was about to do so Chatterhead spoke up. Don't open your eyes. Don't open your eyes. She didn't want to be here anymore. They had gotten the thing they should just leave. Something had brought them back though. Sofia tightened her hold on Chatterbox, an unusual fear gripping her. She had always been able to trust her power to keep her safe. To keep everything far away. Now, her power had failed to keep her safe twice in rapid succession. Without her power... How could she be safe? The sense of vulnerability that she was now keenly aware was something far too familiar from times she'd done her best to forget. Where was Thunderbird...




Like a well oiled machine Bladedancer's immediately stopped her movement and dashed in the opposite direction, forcing Mantis to choose which of them he wanted to fire at. Her arm extended and a shuriken no larger than her hand whirled forward like a striking shadow towards Mantis's face, while her other hand tossed the kitchen knife into the air where it twirled end over end. Regardless of what Mantis did in response to the Shuriken(unless he tried shooting it) Bladedancer would teleport into the air, the shuriken now spinning in place around one of her fingers. With her free hand Bladedancer retrieved a steak knife and hurled it directly at Mantis's thigh, directly at his femoral artery. The next instant she was gone back to the Kitchen knife. Mantis however had already managed to track and fire a burst of shots off. Barely a moment more than that she was outside next to the shuriken she had placed before entering the warehouse. And of course; throwing up. The chained teleporation, with the last target not even being in her field of view had done a number on her system. If you asked her how she'd done it, she'd hardly even be able to answer you. Oh and there was also the small matter of the bullet that had gone through her arm.

Magna Carta on the other hand, continued moving forward but on her next step she leaned forward and she moved forward with an un-natural speed throwing off any attempts to fire at her and skating out of the warehouse with her unknown method of propulsion. A few seconds out she turned around to make sure Bladedancer had gotten out as well. She saw Bladedancer pop into exsistence and promptly empty her stomach onto the ground. Magna Carta felt a bit queasy herself at the sight but hurried over and grabbed Bladedancer arm, "Come on, come on, we gotta go remember?"

Bladedancer yelped at the touch but stumbled to her feet, making sure all her blades were accounted, save the last one she had thrown at Mantis and began running with Magna Carta, doing her best to keep with her woozy head and bleeding arm. Not satisfied with this Magna Carta carefully swooped Bladedancerup bridal style and began dashing away with that odd movement of hers, moving with Bladedancer faster than an average person ran. Of course she didn't look up and this didn't notice Angel above her. Given she was uninterrupted, the pair would make their way back to Bladedancer's apartment.

---

Jason had just barely cleared the building when he was forced back into it. Some woman was talking crazy, probably a Community leader of some sort given the craziness of the entire situation. A kid was making copies that weren't copies, and some seemed like they had powers themselves that wasn't making copies? Hell, even some were girls.

A quick look around and Jason noticed Sofia and Chatterbox nearby. His brow furrowed under his mask at that. How had they been pulled back? While the chaos was kicking up, Jason jogged closer and went to lay a hand on Sofia's shoulder before remembering. Yeah, ignoring. Duh.

"You two stay safe. Maybe collect Heartless and Heads and try and skedaddle? I can worry about keeping everything off ya until you escape, then I'll grab the last exit strategy." he said hesitantly after Chatterbox had finished speaking and the tryhard kid had been talking.

Turning back, Jason saw that freaky projection thing crashing through stuff like everything was a hologram. That thing still confused him, he had to admit, and he did not want to deal with it. He watched as it seemed to absorb the floor and a fair number of clones before expelling the concrete out like a bouncing betty might.

Yeah, he didn't want to tango with that dancer.

Then that tryhard threw something, and Jason nearly laughed before a fucking car smashed through the crowd.

Maybe these kids weren't entirely pathetic... They obviously had permission to go lethal, they hadn't displayed such force moments ago, and Jason wasn't about to disagree. Nor was he about to be outclassed by some kids.

Placing his hands on a train engine, Jason channelled his power before straight lifting the thing onto his shoulder. Walking forward, he swung it into the edge of the crowd, sending bodies flying away from his teammates. Blood soaked the floor in front of him, and dripped from the engine. A few more swings, and then he lifted the engine above his head, pulling back, and whoosh! the engine went flying, perpendicular to the path the car had just taken.

"Now that's how you throw something!" he hollered with a laugh.

---

---

Lillian climbed to her feet, her tail knocking boxes around. A crescendo of emotions were crashing through her, ones she was all too familiar with. That man..... He cut straight through her already shallow defenses. The woman on the speaker wasn't much better, Lillian decided.

Worthless, ugly, stupid, pathetic, brat. She let her transformation go, her body shaking from the cold of the evening in a place that felt like death. She fell to her knees as the cut she'd gotten proved to be more than her regular form could put weight on.

Why couldn't she have just died that night? Why did she have to get powers instead? It didn't help. She was just as useless and pathetic and small and insignificant and ugly and -

She just wanted to stop being a burden. She wanted released from this prison around her. She didn't have it in her anymore after being torn apart again.

"What are these freaks on about?" Damien thought to the others, "They actually want to work together, ahahahaha!

"...That is exactly what we need..Let's take them to our place. Despite us being greater then one, we can always use more help. Let's see what they can offer us, and what we can do for them."

"..Very well. But if anything goes wrong I'm blaming you."

Swarm waved outside the alley for Hemoglobin and Affliction to follow, "I know just the place. Come." Without another word he began striding down the alleyway. Being near the Minutemen made Swarm wary of revealing himself too openly. Using his telekinesis, he was able to make a trail of smoke from the cigarette for the duo to follow. He was in a hurry after all.

Some time later they would find themselves at their car. A beat up GMC Buick. He had taken off his mask to reveal a pleasant smile. He offered them a ride with an open hand, "Please, get in. I will take you somewhere we can discuss things away from prying eyes." His voice was much different from before. It had a very stately rhythm about it. Calming. A starch contrast from the irritable, gruff one from before. Even his body language oozed a gregarious feeling. Most interesting however, was the cigarette was safely stored in the ash tray half smoked.

There wasn’t much Alessa could do to help Lillian until she got out of Epsilon’s nullification field. By the time she had, the dinosaur-girl was already being… thrown? Nay, hurled bodily a fairly large distance, somehow!

‘Tiger Lily!’ Messiah called, eyes wide with shock beneath her mask of light. Whoever was doing that, whoever had hurled the crate earlier and Tiger Lily now, was clearly extremely strong in some way - which rather implied something of an Alexandria package, did it not? And if that was the case… hell. She was going to need a bit more firepower than she’d normally be comfortable using.

Or she would, if Lieutenant Reynolds hadn’t made it clear that the other villains here were starting to make an escape. ‘Thanks for the heads-up, Lieutenant!’ she called, starting to make a dash for the other side of the warehouse. She should have more faith in her allies, shouldn’t she? Reynolds and Johnson were both well-armed, and Lillian was- well, incredible! They’d handle this guy, no problem!

Or they would, if Troll hadn’t made herself known to the people in the station. The parahuman’s mocking voice had Alessa’s eyes widening all over again, and she came to a halt not halfway across the warehouse’s width. Shit… shit shit shit, they’d been set up the whole time. Of course they’d have a backup plan…

But of all people, why did that back-up plan have to be Dean? No, no, no, when did they get to him? This wasn’t right, this wasn’t fair, he couldn’t have just... fuuuuuck! Damn it, damn it, if she’d seen the signs of his departure a couple of weeks back, she could have stopped this, she could have...

God damn it. Who said she couldn’t still fix this? Chatterbox was right, they’d been had good and proper, but there was still hope! Surely there was somebody, somewhere, who could cure Dean’s apparent madness? No way such a person didn’t exist! They HAD to! Which meant she had to get to Dean and… and snap him out of it? No, that wouldn’t work, not looking at how he was acting right now. She’d have to knock him out, then.

Orders first, though. She was a leader, damn it. ‘Lieutenant, Corporal, Private! OPEN FIRE!’ she yelled, followed by ‘Wards, regroup, we’re safer together than apart!’ They couldn’t hope to defeat so many versions of Dean, not the way things were going. Not unless her plan worked...

It was difficult to keep track of him through the swarms of clones he began producing, but not impossible. She knew roughly where he was; she just had to reach him… muttering a mild apology to the empty bodies coming for them, she activated her power for only the second time since she’d gotten here. Not now was she restricting herself to just the one beam; her fingers fired off rays of light that cut through flesh like butter, slicing one clone apart here, decapitating another there, piercing two over here…

Urgh. Oh God, this was awful. No worse than… than her Trigger event… she was barely keeping her guts inside her. But no, she had to keep going. They were fake, they didn’t really exist, regardless of blood spilled, what mattered was Dean - and not being killed herself. Tulpa’s projection was doing a lot of work, apparently absorbing both the Dean clones and the various materials within the warehouse; from his yell and the subsequent death of many clones, it sounded like Margrave had just thrown a car at them.

He was promptly one-upped by who else but the thrower from earlier: an entire train engine was tossed into the crowd, splattering gore and blood everywhere, blocking the original Dean from view as it skidded through the crowd. She… she wasn’t used to this much… Christ, why did nobody ever tell her how horrifically visceral death by crushing was? They just turned into goop and bits… but it was okay. It was fine. She just had to try and stop breathing so quickly and heavily. The smell was what was getting to her, not the sight of so many dead people. Besides, the mass of already-unliving bodies being killed meant the original Dean, or likely the original Dean, was now in view again!

And then, with the sound of an impossibly loud gun being fired, he died.

---

From the way she phrased her message, Raymond gathered that the person speaking to the two groups was the self-proclaimed Master Baiter. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t heard about her… only, he’d hoped he’d have been able to kill the bitch personally, on the grounds that her ability was a tad ridiculous. He was pretty sure the Protectorate wouldn’t have faulted him for that. Besides, she was already getting on his nerves.

Of course, that would have to wait another time. Right now, he had to get pulled back into the warehouse instead of cutting open one of the wire gates with a knife. Bollocks. But, at least that put everybody in roughly the same spot… now, what was most important? Ensuring he wasn’t swarmed with the clones of this “Overrun”, or ensuring Troll didn’t somehow talk them all into committing suicide?

According to the small mass of bodies running at him, he figured the former. At their current distance, he could spray them with rounds, and be certain that they’d go down so long as he roughly aimed at them; sure enough, by the time he’d emptied the FN P90’s clip and reloaded, he was, at least momentarily, safe. Which gave him a moment to think… there’d been an original, had there not? Perhaps if he slew the original, the rest… yes, yes, that ought to work nicely. And if it didn’t, perhaps he’d still succeed to preventing any more from being produced.

A number of loud crashes, indicating large objects slaughtering masses of Overrun’s clones, gave him time to set up. The gun switched forms, becoming the oversized anti-materiel rifle he used for a lot of his targets before joining the Jacks; he pointed the weapon in the approximate direction he believed this Overrun to be in, based on where he’d dropped down before, then laid it on the ground with its tripod up, laying down behind it and taking up the appropriate sniping position. And finally, he scoped in.

Target: Overrun, the version who started this battle alone. Aim for upper thorax, obliterate heart and lungs. Kill any other clones in path, avoid harm to other Jacks if possible. Shoot.

There. Perfect. And as for the rest… well, they were not vanishing. Of course the asshole managed to ensure the rest lived on. Maybe it had something to do with other, similar clones? Or maybe the whole idea was based on flawed logic to begin with. Either way, there were still clones to take out, and a fight to win. Switching to the morphgun’s M16A4 form, he brought the gun up to a firing position and scoped in again.

Targets: Clones, one at a time. Headshot, kill as quickly as possible, then move to the next clone nearest to former clone’s position. Shoot. Aim. Shoot. Aim. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.

---

It took Alessa a few seconds to recover from the tinnitus of what sounded like a cannon being fired. It took her a while longer to process... human bodies did not explode like that. They did not suddenly turn into limbs and a head without a torso. They didn’t turn to cinders either. That wasn’t how they worked. They were. They. The.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Jesus fuck Dean was DEAD. She’d failed to save him. She’d failed him. She.. he...

‘Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.’

For a moment, she just sort of stood there, engulfed in a ball of heat hot enough to boil the flesh of any clones that dared to approach. Dean was dead. Dean was dead. Fucking fuck fuck fuck fuck.

And the clones were still coming. Lead your people, Messiah. You can mourn later.

I said lead you self-pitying bitch. Use the. The communicator. Do it.

‘Wards, soldiers, find anyone who’s missing and form up! We’re getting out of here as soon as possible!’

Okay, good start. She almost didn’t sound like she was distraught, too. If she looked through the clones as she cut them down, she could see… who was there, she could see Epsilon, Margrave, Tulpa was probably at the van still. Lieutenant Reynolds and Corporal Johnson were with their respective Wards. Where was Private Skeetz? She couldn’t see him, where was he?

...

Where is the dinosaur. There was a giant dinosaur, and now there is no such dinosaur.

Oh, fuck.

‘Lily! TIGER LILY! Where are you?’

Now she was angry. Their Dean, her Dean, was dead. The rest of them didn’t matter. If they’d hurt one of her charges, then so help her, she’d vaporise them all. As it was, she was merely cutting a swath through them. She couldn’t see Lillian, where was she… shit, what if she accidentally hurt her with her beams? Crap, she- okay, she wasn’t tall. Just… cut off the heads of the clones. That’d leave Lillian alive even if she was on her tiptoes.

Yes, just. Cut through them. Cut through the mass of human but not human bodies. You’ll find her eventually.

The sun was still high in the sky as Visage departed from the Rocker's headquarters. So much work done in one day, without so much as a second wasted. It was a very refreshing feeling, though she had no time to revel in it. That would ruin her streak after all.

She moved, drifting from one alley to the next, as she retraced her steps. Ducking down after a few minutes, she made sure she was alone before she continued. Hidden where two buildings meet was a black canvas bag, sharp bits of rough clothing visible from where they poked against its edges. It was slightly damp on the bottom from where she had stuffed her jeans. Again, Visage glanced around, before slinging it over her back, and continuing her walk though the Rocker's territory.

She wanted to laugh, to giggle and hug herself, it was just so damn exciting. Restraint had been so difficult, the urge to plant a node on Furnace, on Protean, on anyone and everyone ever present. But no, she had to do this right. A master power demanded control, not just of others, but of one's self as well. Detecting if someone had been compromised by a master power was just too easy, as the precaution taken by Director Kens had proven, but there was an out. Dormant master powers were very hard to detect, and weeding candidates that were compromised by that sort of power out of potential missions was near impossible to preform with 100% certainty.

Her power could turn into a virus, with compromised individuals unknowingly spreading nodes. It was a bit of a giveaway that they couldn't see while she was preforming her limited clairvoyance, but it was still a useful tool. For a major amount of time, she had considered countering perfect responses to her powers, assuming that a full swat team would be going against her, equipped with tinker-assisted vision.

That wasn't the standard fight however. She would slowly become a known entity as her career continued, leading to more and better responses to her presence at any given fight. That's where the importance of misinformation came from, investing in security by obscurity. From the simple stuff, like keeping information about her powers off parahumans online, to interfering with Watchdog.

The city had melted around her, her thoughts consuming her. Steps and countersteps ran parallel tracks in her head. In all honesty, her minute predictions weren't very accurate. Visage was willing to accept that too, but her broader insights weren't particularly bad. She knew, for a fact, that caution would help her more than recklessness. If the specifics escaped her, so be it.

Thinking about it, the Vegas capes were the ones to emulate, with all the ones worth noting being largely poorly understood. Fighting unknown entities was very difficult, and so she had to adapt to that lifestyle. The largest disadvantage villain groups had were resources. When push came to shove, it was easy for the hero side to ask for favors. From the villain side, letting fellow teams lose encounters also meant less competition, and a good chance of gaining territory.

Nora reviewed her knowledge of Purge, from the many message boards she had visited. He had a mafia aesthetic, but it wasn't 100% confirmed he was from any actual mafia family. At least not personally confirmed. Taking information found online with a grain of salt was important. The amount of salt she had to take to weigh against information about his power was very small, however. His power seemed to be a thinker, specializing in hiding his presence at a crime scene. Any crime that was known to be associated with his gang lacked any and all evidence. Gone without a trace, every time. The lack of evidence lead to a lot of speculation, with the most popular theory agreeing with Nora's current view at the time. All-in-all he was a careful B-lister at best. Then again, many people might call the Rocker's B-listers. It'd be hard for Nora to make a counter-argument to that, honestly.

The world filtered back into focus as the bar loomed in front of her. Mask still clinging tightly to her face, she walked forward, already having planned out her entrance. The street was clear of cars when she crossed it, sprawling out into dinghy streets in both directions. She opened the door swiftly, letting it close from its own weight behind her. The bar had few people this early in the day. The place looked barren, the thin chairs scattered around the tables not helping that aesthetic. There were seven tables, by Visage's count, and not a single person sat at any of them. The bar held two people, gruff, strong men. Their clothes were nicer than the shitty beer in front of them. Probably old vices, like the menthols one of them smoked.

She stuck out, plain and simple. She sat next to the one on the right, and only her confidence stopped them from trying to sate their curiousity about her immedietly. She orderer a martini, and the bartender couldn't be hassled to ID her. She turned towards the men, eyeing them directly. "Are you Purge's lieutenants?" Visage aeked, her voice steady.


An audible groan escaped Herme's lips as Protean made his quip. Pushing forward, he took a step before teleporting to two of the most active guards. He grabbed their sleeves, and focused on one of the cells. Pushing past the mental barrier, he teleported again, and stayed suspended for longer than he expected. Just as he wondered how far he had actually pushed himself, he appeared in the stark white cell.

That was farther than he remembered.

He teleported again, as soon as he could, choosing the safe position he had watched from before. It seemed to take less time on this one, but he tried to ignore this fluctuation in his power. He reappeared, and again focusd on the room. One had been trying to escape in his direction, but the mover grabbed him by the collar. Dragging him back, he threw him against a wall, before kicking him in the face. Out cold. He walked forward, looking nonchalantly upon Protean's work.


Everything was happening so fast, Epsilon was feeling overwhelmed. It was Martyr, she was sure, The Community had twisted him, and she felt a similar grief to losing Sonar in the field. Everyone fought back so damn readily though, working together while she just watched from afar. She shut off her nullification field, gazing over the large number of Deans. Then something caught her eye, a Dean surviving a car being thrown at him, as if he had a different power than the rest. She pulled out her goggles, the white noise of everyone around her getting louder and less intelligible. A sea of green met her, every Dean glowing as brightly as. . . Messiah. As Protean. That wasn't right though, the goggles didn't react to squirrels, it didn't react to rocks, it shouldn't react to Master minions.

Epsilon collapsed onto her knees, bile burning her throat.That doesn't make sense, that doesn't-they're meat mush, they're-they're not. She remembered a passing moment, talking to Dean about his power. He was so uncomfortable throughout, and when she proposed testing the clones he seemed appalled at the idea. The noise was reaching a crescendo, and Epsilon was struggling for breath now.

""They're people." She mumbled, her voice too low for the live mic to pick up.

Farce had an angry face as she walked over to the office and grabbed the intel she needed to get. Was it worth it...? Probably not, at this point.

Walking outside of the room, she found the corpse of a headless Zach Kozel and simply stared. He was really dead. Sparce couldn't add anything to the situation and Farce didn't know what to do. This would be confusing enough to explain as it was already. Hell, the explanation to his parents would be even tougher to talk about.

As much of an idiot as Zach was... still... she'd miss him. He was a good team member. Sure, he was impulsive and a shut-away, but he had something not a lot of people had. A good heart. He was genuine with his actions and never had realized the negatives until it was too late. He went through life like that. At least, that's what the Twins knew of him. They didn't know him for very long, but they weren't going to shrug off the death.

"Sorry to see you go like this, bud."

---

Overlook sat near the warehouse, in a car trying to patch into the feed of the Eye from his laptop. It always had a spare camera, and he needed to see how the situation was developing for the Wards.

The driver of the car, a PRT employee named Smith, simply looked to his right at the boy. "Aren't you going to get out, Overlook?"

"No. I can hardly move on this metal leg, let alone fight on it." Overlook's eyes lit up with joy, then rage at the sight. That man... that was Martyr... or it looked like him. He was attacking the Wards with all he had, and it was... it wasn't a good sight. Hell, the Jacks didn't even seem like the Wards were a problem now.

What could Overlook even do, though? He wasn't a combatant, he was a support!

Though... the supports do need to help sometimes... and the angle the car was at right now WAS perfect to avoid friendly casualties.

"Smith. I'm going to sound dumb as hell here, but I need you to ram this car right into THAT wall."

"WHAT? Are you fucking crazy?"

"No. The wall we are facing is right behind a series of hostiles and out of range of the Wards. We'll survive." Overlook's voice changed to his public-appearance voice as he readied his gun.

"... I swear to god... okay..."

The car jetted forward from the street, Overlook holding onto his seat for dear life as the car slammed right through the wall, landing on a series of different Overruns and potentially killing them. The car was dented, and Smith was scared as hell, but it did put a giant hole in the wall for people to run out of.

Smith was gone from the car, having taken a chance to just leap from the door of the car and save his own skin. He was now running away from the fight as quickly as he could, not interested in fighting the super powered capes in there.

A gunshot rang out as Overlook got a headshot on one Overrun to his right, though, his head did lock onto looking at the aura coming from an individual, and the color of that aura was a definite bright-pink. "Shit, this isn't good."

The bullets whizzed downwards narrowly missing Magna Carta as she weaved in and out of the line of fire. Bladedancer went on the offensive however. She caught Mantis completely by surprise with her teleportation ability. With ninja like reflexes she appeared directly in front of him with her thrown shuriken and tossed her steak knife at his thigh.

Mantis turned to fire upon her with great speed, but as he got his shot off she teleported again! The knife struck true directly at the intended target. It sliced through his leg getting stuck halfway down the blade. Mantis felt the sharp burst of pain, but his adrenalin and rage kept him going. He scanned for Bladedancer through clenched teeth and horrible pain. She had reappeared down below. With careful aim he fired off a final burst of his weapon as the magazine clicked; indicating those were his last rounds.

The bullet managed to strike her arm before she teleported away. Mantis struggled to move toward the window he had entered through earlier on the catwalk. He got about halfway when his adrenalin was no match for his massive blood loss. Mantis fell upon the steel grating. "Get back here...I'm not finished with you yet..." he thought. Then he began to crawl on his hands in knees towards the window.

His eyes began to go dark as he collapsed once more. Mantis struggled to maintain consciousness. He had no more fight left in him. Blood poured from his thigh in large gobs. His artery had been punctured causing him to bleed out. The blood dripped from the catwalk above upon the floor down below.

Mantis looked down over the walkway at Zach's lifeless body one last time. With tears in his eyes he whispered, "Zach...I'm...sorry..." before finally blacking out.

Shit went down hard to say the least. Heartless was in the middle of escaping when something pulled him out of the ground. First off, that shouldn't have been physically possible. Second off, there was a rush of clones looking to trample him and the rest of the Jacks, so that was bad. One of the Wards called out a kill order, which was a silver lining to this absolute shit situation at the very least. A knife slid out of Heartless's sleeve and began carving into various clones, every time one of them took a swing at him their fists would phase right through his chest and they would be gurgling blood as his knife passed right through their soft fleshy throats. It was surprisingly easy to kill a man Heartless concluded, almost disturbingly so. The area was engulfed in chaos, a car was tossed around at one point, Thunderbolt tossed train engine, hopefully not the one with the guards locked in it.

As he carved his way through the enemies, he noticed something small out of the corner of his eye. Jesus christ the kid is still here, why is the kid still here. Why isn't she a dinosaur, why hasn't she run away, why was she just curled up on the floor like someone waiting to die. "God fucking damnit, of all the times for me to choose not to be a human shit stain." Heartless mumbled to himself as he decided on his course of action. He pushed his way to Lillian, capitalizing on his immaterial form to make his way to her position. He became solid and reached out for her, grabbing her and lifting her up to her feet as gently as he could in the middle of a battlefield. She was cut, it looked pretty bad for someone of her size and age. Hell it would've looked pretty bad for someone of his size and age.

"Alright, let's get a move on. You're pretty fucking lucky you just happened to be on my way out." This was complete and utter bullshit, but not even he was apathetic enough to let an 8 year old die. Not when he could do something about it. A loud gunshot rang out or was that his ears ringing? Probably Headhunter's work, not many people had guns that loud. Or at least he hoped not many people had guns that loud. As he was distracted by his thoughts a clone ran up to him and managed to get a solid punch in, fucking rattled his brain. He almost dropped Lillian, but he caught her at the last second. "I am either the biggest idiot I know or a goddamn saint." He growled as his knife flashed through the air, planting itself in the head of the clone who punched him nearly 4 inches deep. Another knife dropped into his hand from the other sleeve as he staggered out of the warehouse with Lillian slung over one shoulder, fuck this kid was heavy.

This... explosive jackass sat there without explaining the answers to anyone's questions. The apartment was a wreck and everything was... it wasn't good. Kirb's on the floor dying, Kyoshi got the one phone call she never wanted to hear, and to make it all worse, she was out of her one job. The one job she liked was now gone.

She was... she was furious, to say the least.

"Outsider... if you're willing to give him hell... g-gimme a second..." Kyoshi choked her words out as the mascara on her face bled, leaving clear tear-tracks down her face. Within an instant, the floor between her and the jackass was cleared of near everything, save the materials Kyoshi couldn't move with her powers.

The fighter ran forward, clocking the jackass in the jaw with a mighty uppercut and sending him hurtling into the air, a large pillar of solid concrete shooting up from under him. They owned the building, they could do what they wanted with it. Some... renovations... were in order. A long slab of concrete flew up from under Kyoshi and launched her up into the air, a partition splitting in it as soon as she got up to the jackass' altitude, ignoring her hand currently bleeding onto the surface of her platform.

As he landed on the concrete, the teen simply stared him down as she stomped, an incredibly sharp spike shooting out of the slab and puncturing his hand, causing the blood to trickle down the stone. The crimson blood of his hand reminded her of her first encounter with the Minutemen. The first time she sparred. That was all going away.

His screams were unable to be heard by the cape closest to him, though.

The floor split below him, dropping him down from the sky and towards what remained of the HQ building. Kyoshi tapped into her communicator to speak to Outsider.

"J.K., try not to kill him. It'd be bad for PR."

The situation was growing increasingly dire by the second. Even though Tulpa's projection was capable of taking out the copies en masse, Messiah could slaughter with impunity, and everyone else wasn't too shabby either, the number of copies being made still grew faster than they could kill them. By the 30 second mark the Wards received the final piece of evidence they needed to confirm once and for all that this Overrun was in fact their friend and comrade, Dean. The earliest surviving clones began to melt away into a horrifying puddle of flesh-goop. There could no longer be any doubt. Overrun was Martyr.

A number of the Deans found themselves crushed beneath the car cleverly used by Margrave. Not to be outdone Thunderbolt tossed a train engine, killing the greatest number of the copies in a single strike thus far, yet it still wasn't enough. The train engine completely stopped its motion as soon as it came into contact with the outstretched palm of a clone. All motion, all momentum, ceased in an instant with no natural deceleration. "Alright, a brute! Let's see who's stronger, shall we?" He shoved the train engine right back toward Thunderbolt, moving about 60 mph. Something was off about it. The air around the train engine rippled, like it wasn't just the engine he affected, but the entire space that the engine occupied.

A great many copies died to Heartless's knife skills, naively attempting to punch the shadow man and getting naught but sliced arteries for their troubles. That is until another one stepped up to the plate, a good ten feet away still. The female clone that had pulled Heartless, and everyone else, back into range. "Pathetic child!" she spat at Lillian, turning back to face Heartless. "You waste your time with compassion. Should've just kept running, and maybe I'd have forgotten about you." As before she performed a tugging motion, like pulling an invisible rope, and yanked Heartless despite his incorporeal form. What's more this time it went a step further. Somehow she pulled him out of his shadow form. Still about five feet from her, Heartless was now very much an easy target for the stampede of duplicates.

Another copy stood nearby observing the massive damaging Tulpa's projection was causing. He looked and observed, as though analyzing the monstrous behemoth before striking. Pointing a single finger at the creature, he fired out some sort of beam which struck its form. The creature did not experience any harm, but for Tulpa observing through her psychic connection the effect was very clear. The projection's personal timeline had been accelerated. It couldn't move any faster, but it was experiencing time at a greatly accelerated rate, which was only getting faster and faster. Twice as fast, three times, six, ten, twenty, yes about twenty times faster than normal was where it had maxed out. What was only a handful of seconds in reality had become several minutes for the creature. Then the copy of Dean that blasted the tulpa melted into goo, and the effect ceased, the projection was back to normal... 7 minutes into its relative future.

<"Epsilon you need to listen to me!"> Ira's communicator beeped on in a private link with Decoy, speaking Japanese. Nobody else could hear this line. <"I know what you must have seen with your goggles. It's terrible I know, and I will explain everything to you, but it is important you do not tell the others! They need to believe the copies are not real, or they may hesitate! Do you understand Epsilon? Please, for everyone's safety, they have to believe they aren't killing anybody!">

Then a massive gunshot rang out. Dean, the Wards' friend and colleague, was no more. His torso exploded into a mist of blood and bone fragment. A life ended by the massive gun of Headhunter. "You FUCKING ASSHOLE!" echoed Troll's response, a reflexive rage. However that wasn't the end of things. No, far from it. For anybody expecting the swarming clones to end, they would be sorely disappointed. Not even the Wards were ever made aware of the specifics of Dean's power, but as the "original" had died, the power transferred to the first one created still alive. The one that most closely resembled the Dean that started it all. So more clones kept coming, more waves of enemies, each one growing more unique and bizarre from the last and more and more beginning to display their own superpowers. Sure the oldest ones were melting into flesh gunk, but that just meant they could be replaced by fresher, more dangerous soldiers. Things were getting bad and fast.

"Trying to leave?" An especially tall clone asked of Chatterbox and Sofia. He snapped his fingers and suddenly there were two Chatterboxes. Two Sofias.

"Wow, I knew I looked good, but damn I didn't realize how good!" the new Chatterbox said. His words weaved into their heads like a small trickling stream beginning to take root. Maybe Sofia wouldn't realize it, but subtle or not Chatterbox would recognize his own power being used on him.

Meanwhile, amidst the ever increasing chaos, a single unique copy of Dean slinked away around the corner. He had existed for more than fifty seconds yet hadn't melted away, and neither was he the new anchorpoint of the power. Something was different about this one, but nobody would find out what just yet. He pressed a button on his belt turning his entire body translucent, and stepped through the wall. Out of sight, out of mind, out of the entire scene.

"Pathetic child!" Oh god fucking damnit. Heartless didn't even bother turning to see who was yelling in his direction, taking the opportunity to keep moving as far as possible before something bad happened. Then something bad happened less than a second later. "You waste your time with compassion. Should've just kept running, and maybe I'd have forgotten about you." At that Heartless couldn't help himself and he actually did turn himself around.

"Alright for one, that's a goddamn lie and you know it." The clone began to pull Heartless towards herself just like she did earlier, he could feel himself get ripped out of his shadow form as he fought to stay anchored in place, he was losing that fight though. "And for two..." Heartless threw the knife in his hand at her chest, fully expecting her to dodge as he reached into his jacket. "FUCK YOU!" A gunshot echoed through the warehouse followed by the clattering of a gun onto the concrete as Heartless fought his natural instinct to grab his wrist which was very much in pain. Probably a sprain, never fire a gun with one hand. He aimed for the chest, so he had a room for error at the very least, but he needed to get the fuck out of there before some other asshat decided to go for him and the kid.

"Kid, if you don't put this shit into your stupid report I swear to god... Just remember that Heartless saved your ass from dying a pathetic death in a warehouse full of fucking flesh puddles on my fucking boot." Heartless seethed as accidentally stepped into a gross puddle of what appeared to be flesh. Absolutely disgusting.

---

So much was going on, so many noises. A voice in her ear. The screech, the cracks, the loud roar of a large object displacing air. Bodies crunching, squishing, breaking. The near deafening explosion before Messiah yelled. So much yelling. She barely felt herself be picked up, but she felt the nails and the hands and the fists as they connected with her in an attempt at reaching her... Savior?

She recognized his voice. That metallic robot beneath the helmet. Shadow guy. He hated her. Why was he -

Ah, yes, obviously he wanted to throw her away like the trash she was. Somehow. Couldn't have just killed her, he had to prove how pathetic and worthless and dumb she really was.

Her face was wet. Why was it wet? Why -

She felt a tug, and then the hard impact of the floor. Words. A gunshot that hurt her ears it was so close. Words. Yelling. A sickening goop under around her. On her. Making her uglier. Smellier.

Worthless. Left behind. Stupid. Give up. Pathetic. She felt a sharp pain in her side as a foot collided with her ribs. Pathetic child.

Why. Couldn't. She. Just. Die?!
Why didn't she just go through with it before? She could've. But no. She had to be stupid. Why bring down everyone around her with her ugly, pathetic, stupid little excuse of a life?

WHY???

Lillian staggered to her feet, shaking as tears streamed down her face.

"If you won't just kill me, I'll make you kill me!" she screamed, her voice cracking from the force behind the noise. She'd make them kill her. Be a big threat, she could do that. Be so big they had to just kill her. End her. End this pathetic, useless, excuse of an ugly life!

---

---

Jason dove to the side as the train engine stopped. That can't be good! he thought in surprise, moments before the engine came whizzing by his face.

That would've killed him. He was sure of it.

So much chaos, so many bodies. Wow, just wow. He was in surprise at how quickly everything was deteriorating, even with the mass amount of damage the Jacks and Wards were putting out. The bodies just kept coming. And some of them were showing powers.

"Headhunter! That kid that just threw the engine back at me, I need him dead. We need to evacuate, maybe find a way to drop the roofbut- this is a lost fight." he said through the comms. Looking around, he found the wreckage of the car the Ward had thrown, plowing through the clones in his way. Reaching the crumpled vehicle, he activated his power before using the car as a battering ram and fan to clear the way for....

"Fuck..." Jason growled as his eyes landed on two Chatterbox's and Sofia's.

And as if to signal the situation was getting productively worse, he heard the yell of the Dino girl, followed by the deepest, loudest, pants-shitting primal roar of the night.

---

Lillian made the largest transformation she had managed in her short time as a cape. Nearly twenty feet long, her claws were as long as her forearms normally were, her teeth the size of her normal chest.

Be as big a target as she could be. Force everyone to have to kill her.

She roared, the sound tearing through the air.

A Suicide mission, really. They would kill her. It only made sense to.

Her jaws clamped shut around the clones swarming Heartless, tearing into them with a viscousness few could match.

A low rumble signaled that Heartless would do best to vacate before she turned on him, her tail swinging over his head as she leaned forward and snapped her powerful jaws shut, separating herself further from her teammates.

And just as quickly as she had started, the giant dinosaur just...Stopped.

Gone, vanished.

She'd made herself a target, and now she presented the flimsiest Target she could:
Herself.

"Do it! I - I dare you!" she yelled at the sea of clones. "I'm sorry..." she choked out over the comms.

---

Between Hermes and his pulling people into different locations, and Protean's terrorizing of the goons, it wasn't long before they were moving forward into the next area. Protean had changed forms, taking on one not unlike the form he had pulled back during the Wards' training session. A Minotaur.

With a small grunt he forced open the door across from where they had entered, showing...

Inkscape.

"What took you so long?" he asked as Protean looked around him.

"You cleared.... Huh. Always that fast, Ink?"

"Ha ha ha," Inkscape replied, the sarcasm dripping from his voice. He pointed at a door with a Management sign on it. "Intel should be in there...

---

---

"Eh? Who wants to know?" One of the men asked with a grin as he took in Nora. "Ah, one of them powered wierdoes, eh? Yeah, yeah, I can send ya to someone who can help ya. They'll sort ya out, cause I ain't dealing with ya and ya drama."

With a jerk of his head, the man motioned towards a set of rickety stairs over in the corner beside the bar counter. "Benito'll take care of ya."

---

It seemed as if a little too much time had passed, enough for Genevieve to pull herself to her feet as she scanned her surroundings in search of the rest of her team. By pure luck, she spotted Judah one flight above her, and from the quick glance she'd managed to get, he din't look too good.

Fuck...

Genevieve rushed to the stairs, but not before stopping by one of the thugs who was only half conscious. She wasted no time climbing on his back and pushing his head against the ground to keep it there. There was no movement at first, but then the thug started struggling. He was struggling and then he started to scream as his neck slowly started to develop a wound. Blood pooled underneath him, and Genevieve locked her elbows to keep him in place as she delivered the last few bits of negative energy.

"Thanks for that," she whispered, getting off the dead man as she hurried up the stairs and over to Judah. Genevieve nearly lost her footing as she crouched down next to him. The knife still lodged into his leg was somewhat of an issue, and she only hoped he wouldn't hate her for it.

"This might hurt..." she whispered, firmly using one hand to hold down his leg while her free one wrapped around the handle of the knife to pull it out in one quick motion. But as she did so, more blood started to pour out. Genevieve was quick to address the wound as she pressed both hands against it, yet the sight of so much blood made her lose focus, and as Judah's wound started to heal, a small scratch started to form on her leg. She grit her teeth and worked through the pain up until up until there was no sign of damage except for the hole in Judah's pants and the blood surrounding it.

As Genevieve removed the blade from his leg, Judah's eyes popped open as he grunted in pain. His blood loss was apparent. Judah turned to see his savior in the process of healing his leg, "How long have I been out?" he thought to hinself. From the look of the situation around them, not very long. His submachine gun laid nearby, barrel still smoking.

As the wound closed Judah felt the pain subside. It was a real miracle. His femoral artery had completely closed up and been repaired like nothing had happened. Everything except for his blood loss problem he found, after he nearly blacked out again. He shook himself awake and muttered, "Thanks. I thought I was dead." Then he struggled to get back on his feet. Unfortunately, he did not have the strength to do so and only managed to fall against the railing.

Genevieve gave Judah some space for him to get back up on his feet. "Don't worry, you're far from dead right now-"

At that moment, his legs couldn't hold him up and he crashed against the railing, making Genevieve act purely on instinct as she scolded him.

"Hey, you got up too quick! You have to be careful!" She did her best to get him to sit comfortably on the ground, but their weight difference combined with the cut in her leg made the job a little harder than she imagined. "Sit tight for a few minutes to get some of your energy back, you need it. The rest can wait; I don't think we're in any immediate danger at this point."

Genevieve felt the warmth of the blood soaking around her wound. It wasn't as bad as Judah's, but it was deep enough for it to bleed. To ease some of the discomfort, Genevieve transferred all her weight to her other leg, looking around as she did so.

"Sorry, he replied, "I don't usually sit still.." The whole situation was bad. The loss of a fellow member and friend made everything hard. Judah couldn't wait until they got out of that place.

While resting he was contemplating a plan even in his weak state, "Genevieve ..we need to get out before the first responders show up.." Judah was wary of Whipstitch in their situation, but perhaps Farce could talk some sense into her.

Just then, Axel bounded over to Judah and whimpered. All the yelling and Judah's emotions had made him cower in fear. Fortunately he was alright. Axel nuzzled Judah's hand as he sat. Judah patted him softly. Glad that he was still around to see his best friend. Then the kind canine brushed against Genevieve as if to say, "Thanks for saving him."

"Aww, well aren't you adorable." Genevieve leaned forward to softly scratch the area behind the dog's ear. "Don't you worry about a thing, okay? We're all alright."

Her half-hearted smile was an indicator that she wasn't terribly confident backing up her own statement, but it's not like she had to explain herself to the dog. "And yes, I'm afraid you're right," she changed the subject, looking down at Judah, "I'll help you up, but you have to do slowly, that's all. Can't have the both of us needing help."

Stretching out an arm, Genevieve motioned for Judah to get on his feet.

Judah strapped his MP5 to his back. Then slowly, cautiously, Judah reached out with one arm and clasped Genevieve's wrist and with the other pulled up on the handrail. With her help he was able to get back on his feet. Once there, he wrapped an arm around Genevieve's shoulder for support. With the other he continued to hold on that handrail.

Together they made their way down the stairs of the warehouse to the ground level. Bodies littered the floor, dead, unconscious, or groaning. They had only been there for a few minutes, but the carnage that they had wrought and received was astounding. Their ally...dead from a freakish parahuman hit. They would both get what was coming to the-no! Revenge was not their objective right now. That would come later. For now they would get the intel and get out.

Axel followed behind, happy to see his master up and about. Judah motioned to Farce and asked, "Did you find the intel?" He waited for a reply and stated, "Let's roll out before more freaks show up or worse, the cops," he gave off a slight smirk . Considering he was former law enforcement, now FBI agent, the irony was not lost on him.

Judah contemplated taking Zach's body with them, but considering he was a parahuman, the duo responsible for his death would be on the PRT's most wanted list. If they were apprehended, Lethal Force wouldn't even have to go after them. That is, if the PRT found everything out. He could only hope..

---

As the Beast continued to make mincemeat of the many clones, Evelyn made her way into the warehouse proper and--noticing that Lillian was no longer in her changer form--immediately tried to locate her. Her efforts were to no avail as even with the Beast’s prodigious senses she couldn’t pick out the girl in the tide of clones and the chaos of combat.

A sharp crack ringing out causing her to cover her ears, Evelyn scanned the room, using her projection’s senses to locate the origin of the sound. As she did another boom--the firing of a gun she realized--echoed through the warehouse. Wincing, her ears ringing, Evelyn drew her modified bo-staff from its place and extended it. Dean’s clones were closing in and she needed a way to defend herself while she used the Beast to reduce the number of clones and hopefully find Lillian.

Springing into motion she struck a Dean across the face, and spun the staff, warding a number of them off before feinting a thrust, swinging as she retracted and then extended one side of the staff. It struck two Deans in succession, knocking them out. She used their prostrate bodies as platforms, jumping into the space to strike of the clones. She had to fend them off, but god was this terrifying….

Meanwhile, the Beast had made its way to the center of the throng of bodies and was carving a bloody path through everything in its way. There was blood, stone, wood, and metallic detritus all over the floor, and in some cases, protruding from clones--living or otherwise.

As she made her way in the direction she’d last heard Margrave and his gun--fighting through the throng of clones--something strange happened. The connection to her projection warped, then thinned, then faded as if into the distance. Spinning her staff she created distance around her, before stumbling slightly as her head throbbed. The nausea lasted less than a second, and she managed to ward off the Deans and climb onto a crate to continue towards Margrave and get a better view of the warehouse.

However, her thoughts were totally interrupted when a deafening roar echoed through the building, hurting her ears once more. Even worse however was the lurching feeling as the Beast turned all at once in the direction of the roar’s source, crouched--absorbing a sizable portion of the concrete floor and the bloody, mushy leavings of the clones into itself--before launching itself in a powerful, floor cratering, lunge.

Reaching out for the projection, she tried to force it to demanifest itself, only to encounter a crazed cacophony of psychic noise, scrabbling her thoughts and causing her to teeter in place and fall to one knee.

She reached again, but this time on top of the noise there was a resistance, a thick muddy mental mire that she had to get through. Like trying to wade through tar to hit a switch, but the tar enveloped her completely. Wrenching her mind from it, she almost threw up, but instead swallowed hard and screamed at the top of her lungs--desperation writ in her words.

“LILY, NO!!!!!!”

The Beast struck Lillian’s form, likely head first, essentially bludgeoning its head directly into her side with the entire weight and strength of its body. Such was the force that it made an audible CRACK on impact. A hollow feeling descended on Evelyn, her mouth agape as the tears that had welled up in her eyes spilled over.

In complete shock, she didn’t even notice as a not inconsiderable number of Deans clambered atop the crates after her and attacked, punching and kicking her. She toppled to the crate, calling out in pain, before curling herself into a tight ball, covering her head with her arms.

As Lillian was moving away from her allies and the original group of Parahuman villains they had encountered, something very solid, and very hard, collided with her skull. Crashing to the ground, crushing a dozen clones beneath her mass, everything went dark.

The Dino quickly disappeared, leaving the unconscious form of Lillian on the ground in its place. Her leg, still cut, began bleeding steadily. If anything, it seemed worse than earlier.

Further worse than that was the large mess of colors that was the right side of her face and neck, as bruising quickly began to form from the impact of the Beast.

Several moments passed, the Dean army ignoring the limp body, before Lillian coughed, struggling to turn to a sitting position. She looked around in a rather detached way, a hand coming up to touch her face as a look of horror and pain stretched across it.

”Why…?” she murmured before something clicked in her head. ”... They just won't… Do it…” she grunted, fishing around her uniform. No, nothing she could use for this. Nothing that would end it.

With a groan, Lillian pulled herself to her feet after several attempts at standing failed, moving towards the clones that had noticed her again. They had powers. One of them would end this for her, she was sure of it.

Messiah was barely paying attention to most of what was happening. Relatively little was getting through to her outside of her reckless path of death through the horde of clones about her - a couple of crashes, signifying the arrival of Overlook and the hurling back of Thunderbolt’s train respectively, were most of her external perception, the rest of her being focused on not noticing how much gore was strewn about her, how many dead and dissolved versions of her deceased friend were giving her trouble gripping the floor, right up until the moment she spied the villain called Heartless picking up Lillian.

Making contact with her. Touching her. How dare he.

HOW DARE HE.

Go to him. Make sure he pays for his sins. Those about you are not of the choir; they matter not. They. Just. Kill them. They aren’t alive, but kill them.

More and more clones fell to her onslaught. She was a veritable whirlwind of burning light and heat and radiation, and she was draining herself rapidly in the process. Surely, she couldn’t keep up such an effort for much longer... but she had to, for the good of her Wards, and for the good of Denver itself, starting with this maniac’s end.

Finally, she drew close, just as he began an assault against another, female, fake Dean. And with rather little coherency, she all but screamed at him: ‘LEAVE MY TEAM ALONE!’ In fact, she’d have done far more, but it was at that stage that Lillian transformed into... well, a much larger version of her transformed state than she normally would. And her roar was a rival to the gunshot that had.

The shot. Alessa very nearly threw up on the spot.

Before she could recover, a small horde of Deans descended upon her, planting multiple fists and feet into her frame before she emitted a pulse of heat enough to boil their flesh. By then, Lillian had rampaged a distance away, leaving a path of dead Deans in her wake.

And then the projection lunged. It smashed into Lillian, and toppled her, and knocked her unconscious.

The red mist that covered Alessa’s thoughts as a result made all those corpses seem briefly less horrifying. Tulpa was being attacked, and was unable to control it, which meant it was a threat.

It was hurting her team. It had to die.

With a scream of blood-soaked fury, Alessa aimed both hands, and fired an intense orb of white light and heat and UV radiation toward it from mere meters away. Wood and steel and concrete vaporized in its nigh-instantaneous wake, set alight by its passage, and at least one stack of boxes began to topple as it was destabilised; bodies melted as it passed through them, and even those not in its direct path felt but a fraction of the intense heat it emitted. It struck the Beast, and kept burrowing into it as it melted and disintegrated its form, and all but exploded within its frame as a result. In what amounted to mere milliseconds, the Beast went from whole to practically limbs and a head.

All but destroyed, the projection turned murderous, alien eyes on Messiah, took a step and then finally demanifested. But Tulpa. Evelyn. She was still. They were.

With a snarl of only somewhat lessened anger, Alessa’s attention turned to the remaining clones, and a swipe of her hand sent a wave of burning light across the warehouse, setting alight a great many more mindless clones, including most of those attacking Tulpa, and otherwise leaving a wake of rapidly-spreading fire wherever it passed. How dare they. She hadn’t hurt anyone else with it, thank God, but how DARE those clones hurt her friends. There was more death where that came from for them.

Except there wasn’t. The orb of death had taken most of Alessa’s remaining energy reserves, and that last beam had taken whatever was left, save the little being absorbed and near-instantly spewed out to maintain her disguise. In other words, Alessa was essentially powerless, in a burning warehouse full of corpses. And meat. And blood. And. Foes. And Dean.

‘Oops,’ she quietly murmured. She had but a fraction of a second to process her error before realising, hell on Earth, WHY was Lillian still trying to get herself killed?! Charging toward her younger ally, she grabbed one of the girl’s hands and began to run toward the back of the warehouse, as that direction seemed to have the least number of clones. Now was the time for her krav maga training to kick in, if ever...!

As it happened, events transpired to suit her plan. Lieutenant Reynolds, seeing an obvious issue with his charge falling to her knees in the middle of a fight, had practically dragged Epsilon back up to her feet, bringing her with him as he fired toward whichever Dean clones seemed appropriate to knock them out - first those few who were still assaulting Tulpa, and then some of those in the path of Messiah and Tiger Lily as they made their escape attempt.

‘Tulpa, are you okay?’ Reynolds asked, concerned for her well-being, but nonetheless quite stern. ‘I need you to get up, we’re getting you and the other Wards out of here. Johnson, Skeetz, status report!’ she yelled into the comms unit, demanding her fellow soldiers’ attention.

‘Sir, I haven’t heard a response from Skeetz for a while!’ came Johnson’s reply. ‘I… I fear he may-’

‘Bullshit! Find him, then get him and Margrave out of here alive!’ The Lieutenant was understandably short with his orders - a dead soldier on what was supposed to be a routine mission was an entirely unacceptable loss, and failure here would not be tolerated.

‘Understood,’ Johnson murmured into her comms, before turning to her transformative charge. ‘Come on, Margrave, we’re finding Skeetz and making a retreat. Please don’t make a big deal out of this order, too.‘ With that said, she pushed on, deliberately trying to press the Margrave forward ahead of her to try and make sure he didn’t fall behind - she lacked the patience, and with the warehouse starting to burn, they both lacked the time. She made her effort to head toward the back of the warehouse, where she suspected she’d find Skeetz in short order; if not… well, that would be a bridge to cross when she got to it.

Lillian nearly sighed with relief as she felt a hand close around her, before realizing she was being led away from death.

For a moment, she was angry.

And then her eyes caught who had her, and she let it happen. ”I'm sorry…” she whispered, feeling even lower, more conflicted. What would her death do to Alessa?

Her gaze caught a clone raising his hands at them, and Lillian simply reacted. As a shotgun of oddly shaped, undefinable matter ejected from nowhere at them, Lillian shoved Alessa whole bodily, tumbling with the older girl. She felt a stabbing pain in her back where a piece of... whatever that was had sliced through her side.

”Not you. You're not…. Allowed to hurt…” Lillian grumbled. ”Should've just… Let me…”

Lillian was upset. Saddening, but necessary. She couldn't die. Not like. Not-

Suddenly, she was pushed to the ground. Something lodged in her arm, through the kevlar, dripping blood, but the pain unnoticed for adrenaline. And in exchange...

NO.

And she was still insisting she

Blood

Dying

Nonononono not another one

She wouldn't let

Not

She wanted to kill the clones. She couldn't, so she wouldn't let Lillian die instead. Next best thing. Messiah kept moving.

---

Absolute chaos.

These were perhaps the two best words he could think to describe the utter mess that their mission had become. Hand firmly gripping Sofia's even as the carnage of the strange monstrosity continued. Even as the many clones of, what had it been, Overrun, spread throughout the warehouse. A frown had knit his brow and it only deepened as Headhunter managed to take out what he presumed was the original Overrun, for the tide of clones did not cease in the slightest. Several times he opened his mouth only to find that he had nothing of value to add, even despite his power.

Then a tall clone approached them and something inexplicable happened, he found himself face-to-face with a devil as handsome as himself. Blinking twice, he squeezed Sofia's hand slightly, tapping a code out to his adoring fans.

One of them spoke through comms directly to Sofia, "If you are separated from Chatterbox, the code to make sure it's the real him is 'Purple Venom.' If he responds with anything but 'Green Fever,' it's not the real Chatterbox." The message was then relayed to the other Jacks purely as a safety precaution. Taking several steps back, dragging Sofia with him as he did, the performer drew his gun once more as he felt what could only be the tug of his power.... How strange and disconcerting it was to be on the receiving end.

Taking a deep breath, despite the clash of titans, he raised his gun and aimed it directly at the tall Dean's head. If the heroes were fighting with lethal intent, then so could he. A smile worked its way onto his face as he fired the gun, aimed first at the knees—two shots—then at centermass. He would wait a moment before aiming at the head—provided he could do so from the Dean's new position—before firing.

Hopefully this would demanifest whatever his copy was. If not, his eyes would—for the briefest moment—fill with fear as he laid them upon his doppelganger, before becoming once more unreadable.

"You cannot be allowed to live," he would say regardless.

Fear continued to creep its way into his body, clawing at his mind. Meanwhile, several cars began making their way towards the facility, one from each cardinal direction. Anything that they could ram through to get onto the property, they did.

---

---

Each strike was an additional blow that she felt to her emotions. Tears began to run down her face behind the mask. She swallowed hard and wailed quietly with each strike. Then something far more painful than anything had any right to be burned through her mind before becoming a stinging discordant buzz. The world went white, her thoughts blanked out and she tried to scream, but couldn't. A hoarse squeak came out instead. Slowly, too slowly, she felt the pain recede and it was only then that she knew that her projection had demanifested...and that the clones had stopped hammering at her body. She ached everywhere, like that's all she was made of. She opened her eyes, and breathed in—both hurt. Slamming her eyes shut again, a booming voice rang out. It took her a whole five seconds to realize that it was Reynolds and—furthermore—that he had told her she had to get up.

Trying to push herself up, she winced and then cried out in a small yelp of pain, stifling the sound at the end as she clenched her jaw shut. Instinctually she reached out to her projection, its existence coming into focus for her. Its silver light surrounded her for the briefest moment...and then she recoiled as hot pain shot through her skull.

She blacked out for a few seconds, waking up again to Reynolds pulling her to her feet. She gripped his shoulder and managed to force words out. "I...I can walk. Just, stay with me, okay?"

The man nodded, face hard. He was clearly intent on getting all of them out of this safely. Using him as support, Evelyn managed to pick up her staff and use it as a crutch while they made their way from the warehouse.

Testing the link between herself and her projection, all she felt on the other end was a burning, electrical sensation. Her head throbbed as the memory of what her projection had done to Lillian resurfaced. She let out a quiet sob at the mental image and ceased trying to even guide her projection, withdrawing her mind from her link to the apparition. She didn't want to think about it, she didn't want anything to do with it. She wished she could make it go away.

As she limped her way towards the warehouse's exit with Reynolds a deep numbness set in, the cold detached feeling only interrupted by the throbbing of her various wounds.

Two missions.

Two failures.

That was what she was, huh?

A failure.

A guilty, ugly, evil...failure.

"Fuck," she swore quietly.

---

---

Gathering his wits, Outsider turned slightly, though it was not required for him to keep track of the cape's location due to his form's various senses. With Kyoshi's actions taken—and a car flung at some point apparently—Outsider moved. The small figure was falling down towards the building their ransacked HQ was in. Feeling irritation rush through him, then anger, for a moment, he very briefly considered outright ramming into the villain. However, hearing Kyoshi's words brought him back from that point. Instead, before he hit the villain he released a series of small, weak pulses as he extended a single tendril vertically upwards from his similarly vertical form—as he was flying straight up. The tendril passed the cape by and, upon releasing the pulses, rapidly slowed his fall. Then Outsider dodged to the side and used one of his arms to catch the villain, tightening his grip.

To decrease the chance that the cape could use his power, he began channeling energy into the hand that clutched the cape. However, before he could release the energy a small explosion buffered his shield and his fingers opened. The kid, while roughed up, was weirdly unblemished considering what had been—in some cases—quite literally thrown at him.

Then, another explosion rocked him, this time a bigger one, on his 'head.' The shield projected him from the heat and the pressure, but fucking hell that was loud. Wincing internally, his body reacted, tendrils shooting out towards the kid, but he moved, propelling himself with explosions to reposition.

"Slippery, but not enough," his hollow voice said in a low roar. A brief flash of anger followed by realization hit him as he realized what it meant that the kid wasn't more thoroughly damaged.

He had some kind of resistance to damage...and for Outsider, that was more pro than con. Twisting in the air, tendrils splaying out in an instant, all four arms extending out to his side, he released pent up energy in a powerful shockwave. The kid was blown away and while normally he may have recovered swiftly and retaliated, he found himself unable as the massive alien serpant of the hero's second vessel slammed directly into his stomach.

Outsider noted the electrical signals from the cape's body alter, and similarly felt some of his momentum countered by what he could only describe as a series of micro explosions.

On striking the villainous cape, Outsider released an additional blast of force from his body, pulling up abruptly as he did so. The villain was thus blasted downwards at pavement at a particularly high speed.

Body hovering midair, several stories above the villain, Outsider kept his senses tuned onto the kid. He was definitely still alive, which was good. Hopefully he was out of commission though. He didn't want to do damage to any infastracture in fighting him after all.