Sofia continued waiting patiently, making sure to keep an eye on Jason in case she needed to do something, and of course to make sure everything was alright. Fake Broker kept talking and talking. Apparently the Community had a spy here? Sofia wondered who mildly but didn't really care that much, no one else seemed to be very bothered about it either. Sofia resisted the urge to doze off and continued listening dutifully. These things really weren't much fun at all. She started thinking about what she would do if left The Jacks. It'd be nice if she could keep all the stuff Broker had gotten her but... That wasn't very likely. She could take all her money and leave but... Maybe she should just talk to Broker about it? Yeah, if they kept having to do scary stuff she didn't like then, she would just ask him if she could not. Simple. He was pretty scary though...

The news that he wouldn't have to push himself to the point of disability from Decoy was well appreciated. He did the long range teleport again, and was struck by how much the situation had changed in the time he was gone. Slowly, the stone golem buckled, being torn apart by a (seemingly) well coordinated attack by various heroes.

Taking a breath, as pain made it hard to stand, he glanced over at the remaining Rockers. A blink of the eye, and he was outside the containment vehicle. Another blink, and two thugs tumbled into the back of the containment space. "Just stay down. If you move too much, my next teleport might merge your buddies head with your sternum. On accident of course." He wasn't going to teleport into that van again, but it was a good way to keep them still.

The battlefield had shifted again, and now Shatterpoint was here. God damn. The man was an intimidating combat thinker on a bad day. There were more Rocker thugs, but Hermes didn't want to take a pawn when he could mate the king.

Standing, he examined the various players. It could be said that it was only a matter of time until Shatterpoint was captured, but the risk of serious injury was still unreasonably high. Glancing down at his belt, he smiled. It was over. He removed a containment foam grenade, as some creature from the black lagoon looking girl covered the villain's hand in tar. He removed the pin, counting down in his head. "3 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi." He chose a position right behind Shatterpoint, and was now staring at the thinkers back, his hand extended with the grenade held within. He let go, pushing it slightly towards the combat thinker. Here was hoping.

There he was, the big bad co-leader of the Rockers himself. T'was Shatterpoint in the flesh. Mastar admitted, it was pretty cool being around one of the bigger bads in Denver, but only slightly. He was still a bad guy, after all. Given that Ceramix was somewhat handled right now, plush the bigger names of Kyoshi, Outsider, and Sylph working on him, Mastar felt it was just a little better for her to round back up to the PRT and try to receive orders. Now from who, that'd be figured out in a few.

Mastar's body liquified into a complete tar form before it convulsed and shot off of Ceramix's hand, getting a very small amount of air time (just enough for Mastar to be safely in front of Shatterpoint) before it landed and Mastar returned to her standard form, in a running position this time. She was sprinting towards Messiah and Tiger Lily instinctively, probably because if she was to be a Ward, she'd be taking orders from the older of the two girls.

Messiah had to admit, she'd been ecstatic with how things had been turning out until Shatterpoint showed up. Ceramix's golem was crippled and grappled, the Rockers' thugs were being rounded up and coralled with relative ease, Furnace was assisting with her heat ray's ambient effects, and best of all, the civilians had made it out of there apparently unscathed! Things were going great! Then, alas, the second-in-command made his appearance, and a lot of things started to break - suits, guns, Angel's side, Outsider's face, and perhaps a little of Alessa's confidence in how the situation was being handled, especially with Furnace moving out to try and head off the villain. Even Lillian returned to her side, citing her inability to really face off against Shatterpoint properly.

'It's gonna be okay, Lily,' Alessa soothed, pulling her behind some fallen debris and only poking her eyes out from behind it to glance at the situation herself. 'We have so many heroes here, there's no way he can realistically win. It's just a matter of how...' And frankly, her proposal to Inkscape to try and foam Shatterpoint was pretty good indeed. It just needed some expanding upon.

Lo and behold, one of the newer heroes on the block started practically charging towards Alessa and Lillian - Mastar, if she recalled correctly, though the girl in question had just before been a pile of black goo, and furthermore looked nothing like her transformed state. Readying herself, Alessa grabbed Mastar as she rounded the debris pile, spinning her around and ducking her behind the rubble along with Lily and herself.

'Hi there!' she greeted, looking the girl over in quick glances between her and Lily and thinking about the matter of how she could help. She had been put into a leadership position; so far, she felt she hadn't been living up to that. Time to change that aspect of herself, then. She had a decent idea in mind already, but to be sure, she quickly asked 'Do you reckon you have the capacity to do anything to stop or slow down Shatterpoint? Any abilities I may not be aware of that could help here, as it were?'

"....I might be able to hold him for a second in hand-to-hand with my reflexes..." Lillian muttered.

"Well, I can do a lot." Mastar spoke as she sat there for a moment. She was kind of startled by the sudden grabbing of her body and pulling around to the side, but she had to get over that for the time being. She was on the job, even if she wasn't getting paid for it just yet. "I'm certain that I can take a direct blow from Shatter without... well... I guess turning to goop would be a lie there, lovelies." Mastar paused for a brief moment. "Viscera is a much better word."

Mastar glanced to the side to see the thugs she controlled a minute ago now unconscious on the ground, their faces in the tar they threw up. "... I also control people that ingest me, if that helps, luv~."

Oh. Oh oh oh. Okay, she had a bit of a plan forming now. Alright, that could work... yes, if they...

'Okay, here's the plan. Lily, you head out in that direction, make a lot of noise, and distract him for as long as you can without taking a hit,' she began, pointing in one direction. Pointing the other way, she continued 'Mastar, go in that direction until you're on his other side, then flank him, gum him down, try and take control of his body, whatever you can manage. Once you do that, I can trap him in a cage of, uh, sort of like heat sparks, you know?' After all, if she could achieve that with Scarecrow with help, why not Shatterpoint, who was nothing like as flexible?
'And once we've gotten that done,' she concluded, pressing the button on her communicator to talk to the other Protectorate heroes: 'Mastar, Tiger Lily and I have come up with a plan. Once Shatterpoint is in preliminary containment, somebody cover him in containment foam, quick.' Another glance over the pile of debris, though, proved that that suggestion was being taken, ah, pre-emptively?

'Crud. Gogogo!' she insisted, waving Lily and Mastar out to start their phase of the plan, staying put for now in preparation to leap out and perform her part of the combination technique. The moment she felt Mastar had done all she could, she'd create a net of heat sparks around Shatterpoint, hopefully trapping him long enough to deal with him - if whatever that other guy was doing didn't achieve that in its own right.

In an instant, Lillian moved, making a beeline directly for Shatterpoint. She could buy everyone a few seconds, she was sure of it.

I can do this, Lillian thought to herself as she flipped over a fallen table in her way.

As soon as she heard Messiah's eager attempts at command, Mastar darted towards Shatter's flank, only to feel a part of her be displaced by something nearby. Hermes, that quasi-teleporting parahuman, was behind Shatterpoint within an instant, holding one of the containment grenades used to handle threats like this. That certainly shifted the tides of this battle.

Still, she had a command. She couldn't be a Ward if she couldn't listen to commands! Mastar still ran forward, her arms reducing themselves to a tarry-state in preparation for globbing Shatterpoint. Once she got close enough for a clear shot, Mastar unleashed a volley of globbed projectiles towards Shatterpoint, aiming for his head and arms. Of course, the efforts left her armless, but it was a worthy sacrifice in her eyes (especially since she was already beginning to regen due to the loss of enough mass).

---

Kyoshi saw Shatterpoint shoot out of Ceramix's chest. At first, she was kind of scared, since Shatterpoint was a real big threat to the situation, but as everyone kind of converged to help take him down, Kyoshi felt like her duty was more or less to handle Ceramix a bit more before he could repair his goliath of a suit. Jesus that was terrifying as well. Pretty much everything was terrifying to her right now, to be entirely honest, but then again, that was normal.

A large crowd of civilians was moving through the area, seemingly one of the few remaining crowds clearing the area, and unfortunately for them, the Rockers were hot on their tail, trying to cause their brand of havoc. Unfortunately for the rockers and fortunately for the civilians, Kyoshi ran forward towards the crowd and immediately stomped, causing the ground to soften under the feet of the Rockers before it solidified around the legs of the group. They couldn't move with how deep their feet were in the ground, so they were halted. The civilians continued to run forward as their assailants eagerly picked at the ground trying to free themselves.

---

"Sparce. Hey Sparce."

Sparce isn't available right now, please leave a message after the beep.

...

Beeeep.

"Now's not the time for practicing your comedy routine. It's good though."

What's concerning you more now? Healer and Whipstitch freaking out, us not being able to get better powers, or the Community spy?

"Everything, pretty much."

We can make heads and tails of the better powers and Community spy later. Right now you should probably get Healer some attention medically or something. She's bleeding kind of bad.

Farce snapped back into reality from the conversation with Sparce as she looked at Healer. "Healer, go to the bathroom and try to staunch the bleeding." Despite being the impromptu leader here, Farce's voice was more motherly than anything. She really liked Healer, and she didn't want a person like her to die right now. At least, not because of a glass cut that was self-inflicted.

Turning to the group, Farce spoke aloud. "... one vial for Lethal Force, please." There was a sliver of a chance the power would work on the group. A sliver. It was a risk the Twins had to take... or did they?

We aren't drinking it.

"Why? It could give you powers!"

We'll discuss why later. Just know right now it's because there's a very high chance that it won't work.

Sylph watched as the hectic scene continued to unfold, still looking for an opening. Suddenly there was an opening, but it wasn't exactly the one she was looking for. It looked like Outsider had managed to blow a huge hole in the golem, but wait. Someone was inside it!? And that someone had just done something to outsider as the mighty beast's shield shattered, and before even getting a chance to recover a giant stone fist slammed the Outsider sending him flying into a wall. Sylph covered her mouth as she hovered, she had to go see if Outsider was alright. But first there was a massive golem to deal with.

With a quick flap of her wings she flew straight for the back of the stone behemoth, She extended her large clawed feet and crashed into the golems back. The damage the golem took was far less than Silvia had anticipate. Why did rock have to be so hard? She quickly kicked off the giant and started to make some distance, if it felt that bad to hit the golem she couldn't imagine how Outsider felt having been hit by the golem. Silvia caught a glimpse of the other heroes trying to catch the man who'd burst from the golem's chest, and she'd heard about him being the higher priority, but she knew someone had to finish off the stone colossus. She wished the dammed thing wasn't so hard.

Gabriel replied to Affliction's inquiry with a smile, "No. Damien doesn't think things through. He is brash and very arrogant. I don't have that problem." He put out the cigarette and did not pull out another. From the look on his face it would appear he was disgusted with them.

"Who would make a good candidate for a vial do you think? We don't want to give ours to just anybody after all. Perhaps you could make one of your YouTube videos and advertise to the most capable responder?" He asked his acquaintance.

---

---

Leaving The Questioner, Judah drove off to the villain meeting. He was late, but he'd never intended to make it anyway. He had put SpFarce in charge and gave them the authority to make decisions. Hopefully good ones.

The secret meeting had been very informative. The woman's abilities were remarkable and Judah wished he could enlist her help more often. It was sad her gifts were wasted on giving them to whoever could pay. He shook his head to himself.

As Judah got closer to his destination he contemplated his next course of action. Should he enter the meeting late and draw all attention to himself? Wait in the parking lot and see what comes from that? He went with the latter and parked a block from the meeting place. Then he texted SpFarce, How is it going? I'm about a block away parked with good info.

Genevieve looked back at Farce, smiling at her with a nod before she made her way to the restroom. Once she had some privacy within those four walls, she leaned on the clean countertop, using her elbows to keep herself propped up. Genevieve stared at her reflection for an unknown amount of time while her mind was occupied with various thoughts, each one of them bearing no particular relation to the next. But after a while, she straightened up before turning on the faucet to set the water to a mildly warm temperature. Genevieve bit her lip and placed her hand on the running water, her open palm facing down at an angle as to avoid direct contact with the stream.

"Fuck!"

She did her best to stifle a scream, her hand throbbing at the site of wound and the pain slowly spreading. It didn't help that she didn't have her ability anymore, and the self-inflicted injury hurt much worse than some of the more serious ones in the past. Her advantage was gone, and she had to be extra careful from this point forward.

After most of the blood had washed off, Genevieve turned off the faucet and went into one of the stalls, her good hand reaching for some toilet paper to apply to the cut and slow the bleeding. That would have to do until she could get better medical attention, or at least a bandage. She then headed out of the restroom, looking to join Farce once more.

---

At the small 'snub' Chatterbox bit back annoyance and suppressed a scowl. Instead his eye twitched slightly and he took a drink, taking slow, deep, quiet breaths. He had nothing to add, unfortunately, so he kept his mouth shut. He wanted to leave, honestly, he wished he had known this was coming. He would have had one of his adoring fans show up as well, someone with money, someone who could buy a vial. His jaw tightened for a moment before he forced himself to relax again.

Annoying.

Then a thought occured to him and the small smile on his lips became genuine. If someone vulnerable bought a potion...he could simply lift it from them, but not directly. He would have laughed, but that would have been telling.

---

---

If he'd had eyes, they would have widened as his kinetic barrier suddenly shattered. Too shocked to react, Ceramix managed to punch him hard enough in the head for him to feel it through his entire body and be sent flying across the room. He hit the wall, but only barely. It didn't cave in, it didn't spray dust or dirt or debris. Where his human body would have either been dead or full of pain from something lesser, if roughly equivalent, his Second Vessel recovered almost as if it had merely been thrown.

Regenerating and otherwise shaking off the damage—face already repairing—Outsider's sinuous form shifted, head turning towards Ceramix and the ongoing conflict. He was glad no one really had a solid grasp of how his flight worked, not that he could have explained it to someone else. Discarding the thought he focused on the situation at hand, trying to decide how to involve himself.

Seeing the strange projection rushing Ceramix, he waited to see how its involvement played into things.

---

---

Coughing as she accidentally inhaled some of the dust, she felt it as her projection teleported. With the radius of its power increased, it took all the dust in the vicinity of Ceramix as it vanished. There was a rush of air filling the space where it had taken it, jostling those without enough weight or with sufficiently unstable footing. Then the projection reappeared above Evelyn. She held her breath and shut her eyes. In the next moment the projection and all the air around her vanished. It rushed back and she braced herself as the air blew against her. The dust was gone again. No longer feeling her breathing stifled, Evelyn sunk her awareness into her projection.

It acted swiftly, reappearing standing between G4M3R and Shatterpoint, its body coalescing with energy beneath a layer of stone dust and detritus. The moment lasted not even a second as the air that was pressed against its body when it teleported rapidly decompressed. With all of it compressed against the front of its body, it resulted in a powerful gale wind full of choking dust and scathing stone debris.

Evelyn smiled.

---

---

A low laugh resonated through the room as he noted the actions of the projection, but Outsider didn't savor the feeling of joy and amusement that poured through him for long. Instead he flew forwards, accelerating rapidly. With his kinetic blast having been cut off, his body was now full of pent of energy, ready to be released.

"Incoming!" his hollow voice boomed as he rushed Ceramix. However, before he struck the golem, he stopped and whipped out the tendrils of his tail, aiming at the stone behemoth's back in a strike like a whipcrack...if the whip were as thick around as a truck tire. With his shield up it wouldn't even harm him. Worse still however, was the fact that—should his strike land or touch Ceramix at all—Outsider would release all the pent up energy in his Second Vessel in a tremendously focused, incredibly powerful kinetic blast. His aim was to entirely shatter the back and central body of the golem, splitting it in half, thus depriving Ceramix's creation of legs.

---

As the two Independent heroes approached a cloud of dust blew through the hole that used to be the entrance to the bar, a flash of something white being visible for just a moment before vanishing further into the destruction.

Moans and crying echoed around the scene, though there seemed to be only a few serious injuries and even less deaths.

_"help..." a voice at Phantom's feet gurgled around a ruined throat before slumping in a pool of their own blood, face first. Was that.... Yes, a common pistol clattered from their hand into the floor.

Nearby a woman was rocking, holding her stomach as she tried to communicate into a phone on her knee. "... Heroes? I don't.... Know.... She's... Upstairs..."

The devastation was prominent, structural damage leaving the building in shambles. Would the heroes advance in such uncertain, dangerous, conditions?

A crash from behind, and another from above, sounded.

They'd need to decide fast...

Decoy was right, there were more pressing matters, but it seemed a bit dismissive. Maybe Epsilon was becoming too jaded though, after all it was a small thing. Once the citizens were evacuated, she turned her attention to Ceramix. but the situation had changed substantially since she had left the building to help remove civilians. Shatterpoint had been targeted by Hermes, while the heavy hitter of Outsider was targeting Ceramix. It was quite the battle, but it seemed to be over, at least for Shatterpoint. "I don't have the power nullification generator, so I can't do too much to help." She said into her comms. "Also I misreported earlier earlier, it was a master/stranger hybrid. the parahuman appears to be gone, but I can't fully confirm that as I am affected. The power affect made me think that Protean was present, but that's all I know about it."

All the efforts of the heroes looked to be doing in the giant. The thing was being pummeled bit by bit. What looked to be a cleanup job from that point suddenly swung back. Shatterpoint made himself known and started moving from hero to hero taking shots at them. The details of his abilities weren't that clear to Angel right away but she knew he was real bad news. Going up against him was a recipe for disaster. Before even really getting a chance to think about how she would fare against the villain her endurance was put to the test. Her own strength and durability scaled, on a head on fight she could potentially win. But there was more to a fight than brawn.

The shock from the hit to her side knocked her off balance. It hurt, the first real pain she'd felt as Angel. Though to be fair most of what she'd taken on thus far was small. One could only imagine how her body would have turned to jelly had she not been so solid. Crashing to the rubble that was the statue's head she grit her teeth. The strike just proved the point that she was not invulnerable and should be more on guard.

Where she was on the golem wasn't likely to be the best position. She'd dislodged Ceramix and the rest of the golem was likely to go down with how it was being hit, best she get out of the way. Lifting herself up she jumped to the ground. She didn't dare try and fly. Her lighter frame would be broken in an instant by another blow from Shatterpoint.

The concert hall was an absolute madhouse as everyone scrambled in one way or another to apprehend either Ceramix or Shatterpoint. The appearance of the combat thinker had seemingly turned the tide of the battle in favor of the Rockers as he weaved in and out of their formations, breaking combat strategies before they could even be fully implemented, and taking small shots at the heroes. He avoided the biggest threats, like Outsider and Inkscape, and thankfully had avoided the Wards as a whole as well. The villain had just springboarded off of G4M3R's shoulders (breaking them in the process) in order to reach Noble up in the air. For the first time one of the hero strategies worked out in their favor. Just before his fist connected with the gas-hero, hyper-compressed air pushed him back and Noble drifted the opposite direction, narrowly avoiding what could have been a career-ending injury.

"My turn!" Noble cried out, firing containment foam from her compressed air guns. Having just landed, Shatterpoint had no time to run away, but his power proved that a battlefield is a three dimensional space, not two dimensional. Before hitting the floor, Shatter spun in the air and slammed his fist below where he was about to hit. The concert stage cracked into hundreds of pieces for two meters around the point of impact, and Shatterpoint vanished beneath the stage.

"Stay alert, heroes!" Inkscape ordered. "Overlook, we're counting on you here!"

"What can I do, Ink?" asked Protean, already melting down into protein ooze, preparing to change forms.

"Be ready to restrain him wherever he crops up, then we'll trust Messiah's plan. If that fails, I'll end this myself."

What was likely Protean's head at some point nodded in agreement, as the protein mass took form and solidified. He possessed the torso and legs of a gorilla, mixed with the head of a dragonfly for perfect 360 degree visibility, and a mass of writhing tentacles quickly growing out from where he would normally have gorilla arms.

"Help m-ommf!" Overlook called out for help, but before anybody could react the stage beneath him cracked and collapsed, the crippled precog hero falling through. Shatterpoint emerged from down below, ready to continue the fight. He charged straight for Tiger Lily, Messiah, and Mastar as the three girl began to enact their own plan, only to be interrupted by the Protectorate's own personal Maverick.

"3 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi." At this point Hermes appeared directly behind Shatterpoint, casually tossing a grenade of containment foam at the enemy from behind. Shatter barely heard the grenade bounce against the floor before he reacted, turning his head to see what exactly had just happened... And then the grenade erupted in gooey foam, enveloping his body. With no room to move or gain leverage, even a brute like Shatterpoint couldn't break free from this containment and his power to target weaknesses was completely useless.

"SHATTER!" bellowed out the husky, deep voice of Ceramix, the first time he had spoken since crashing the party. But he had his own problems to deal with, as he was getting ganged up on by all the heaviest hitters in the room... But not for long. Just as the chest piece of the golem suit exploded off when Shatterpoint emerged, so too did another piece of the golem break away from the rest. Or rather, two pieces. Ceramix moved through the stone that made up his giant like a fish through water, leaping from his protection, but the giant stone arms came with him, attached to his own arms like comically oversized pillars, like Popeye the sailor man if his already unnatural and grotesque arms had been inflated twenty times over. With the brain of the golem gone, it slumped over harmlessly, and the heroes' attacks struck a completely harmless stone.

"LET GO OF HIM!" With his massive stone arms, Ceramix took hold of a few of his own unconscious men that hadn't yet been cleared from the battlefield. With two in his left hand and one in the right, he clenched them in fists. "Let Shatterpoint go. Now. He is the only person that means a damn to me and I will squeeze these men until they pop if you don't release him. It wouldn't even take much effort."

All the heroes stopped in their tracks, gauging the situation, examining the battlefield. Inkscape in particular looked absolutely furious, his rage quite evident despite having no human features. "Hermes. My orders were crystal clear and this is exactly why. We will talk once this is over."

Ceramix gave just the slightest hint of a squeeze in his right hand, just to prove he wasn't bluffing. A loud crack echoed through the concert hall, but just what bone had broken in the unconscious Rocker thug wasn't clear. "You have five seconds."

Inkscape frowned, then glanced to Protean. "Retrieve Overlook. Make sure he's ok." The dragonfly head nodded and clicked in response, before moving toward the hole Overlook had been pulled through.

"I ain't playin', fools!"

---

---

The tuxedo man smiled and grinned as each of the villain groups agreed to lay claim to their vials. Everything had been progressing swimmingly. The mafia, Sabotage, Reflections, Lethal Force, and the Rockers all agreed to receiving a vial. That was five out of six, and all that remained in the room was Retcon, who had yet to speak up about the matter, and Macavity, who had remained completely silent and to himself the entire meeting, blending into the background and easily forgotten. It didn't look like Macavity was interested in procuring a partner for himself, but still he said nothing.

"I'll have to say that I'm not interested," Retcon spoke with a shrug. "You can say that I'm throwing away a perfect opportunity, but I do what I do at my own whim for the entertainment. I don't need, or want, a partner to watch my back. But I agree the Community needs to be taken down, so you can count on my participation."

The tuxedo man nodded. "Very well, mate. I guess that means we've got another one up for grabs, eh?" Soon as he finished speaking, the lights flickered, but only for a moment. He scrunched his eyes, then looked back at the bartender, gesturing with his hand and making a face that practically screamed, "wtf?" The bartender merely shrugged in response, so the man calling himself Broker sighed and continued to address the villains.

"Who wouldn't mind doubling up, eh? I'd hate to leave here without offloading all my inventory." He held up the briefcase for everyone to see, like a man dangling candy in front of a room full of children. The lights flickered again. "Bloody Hell, someone needs to fix this shit."

"Don't worry, you won't be leaving with any of those vials," Pop! Pop! Pop! A distorted, static-like voice spoke across the room as lights began to overload and bust apart, one by one. "Nobody will be leaving here alive!"

With a crack of thunder deafening the entire room, a bolt of lightning surged from the busted lights and onto the center of the floor. The plasma took form and solidified into the image of a man wearing an ornate headdress with a very Mezoamerican inspiration. There could be no doubt as to this man's identity. This was Xolotl, the Community's number one enforcer. "It would appear that your stolen tinker technology does not affect me, thief. But why would it? I am a God. Above the machines and machinations of pitiful men as yourself. Now prepare to die... Every single one of you!"

Xolotl jumped toward the Broker, but midway through his flight tumbled down awkwardly, as though he were expecting something else entirely to happen. He hit the tile floor hard, skinning some of his exposed skin. "What is this?!" he demanded, pushing up to his knees. Xolotl took the opportunity to adjust his headdress. "Your God demands answers!"

The man set the briefcase aside, back atop the bar where he had it stowed away before, then turned back to Xolotl, a look of superiority plastered across his face. "It's unbecoming of a god to kneel, isn't it? But I digress, I am a man of business and there is no room for faith in commerce. A thousand to whomever knocks this arsehole out first, then have the bartender tie him up. I have... Uses for him."

He took a moment to straighten his tie, then addressed everyone once again with a chipper tone. "Back to business, then? Everyone who has laid claim to a vial can come collect theirs, and we shall hammer out who gets the spare, yes?"

Everyone seemed to go about their methods reasonably peaceably once the kerfuffle with Benito was done with, asking for or declining vials as appropriate. Indeed, it seemed the newly-established parahuman could return the objects he disappeared as handily as disappearing them in the first place. Useful to know - if he ever needed to fight him, of course. Not that he ever would.

And then, with some dramatic forewarning and flickering lights, along came Xolotl, bragging about his superiority, and his plan to steal the vials, and how everyone at the meeting was going to die. This, then, would be the Community’s spy at their meeting- well, one of them, at least. It could easily be he was alone, or perhaps that he had backup for just such an occasion as this. Either way, since he knew he could take the maniac out with contemptuous ease given half a second to direct the shot properly, Raymond drew his weapon from its holster, standing up and moving into the aisle to aim the weapon as Xolotl made a dramatic leap toward “the Broker”...

And promptly fell in an awkward heap in front of the man. Hmm. He’d expected more resistance than that. Then again, when he knew the real Broker’s powers had something to do with manipulating the powers of others almost freely, it wasn’t that surprising after all. He didn’t put his pistol away or sit down, though nor did he shoot, now that he knew his power would be unnecessary to secure the target - no need to risk revealing it by knocking him out with a bullet, after all.

Instead, as the so-called Broker bragged right back at Xolotl (and announced a decent reward for knocking him out), he approached the Meso-American-themed villain from behind slowly, only to sprint the last couple of meters and attempt to crack the would-be God across the back of the head with the gun, an effort to daze rather than directly knock out. If that worked, he’d actually take the odd step of placing his gun behind himself - out of reach of Xolotl, for the time being - as he knelt down and attempted to put the man in a blood choke, ideally leading to a quick and easy knockout, at the same time jerking his head to indicate that the “bartender” ought to bring some rope to tie him up once all was said and done. He focused on being a sniper, true, but it wasn’t like his army training wasn’t still useful in cases like this, even if he was no longer at quite his physical peak.

---

The one who had cut their hand, Healer, left for the bathroom. Sheila privately wondered what this did to her reputation, cutting herself and needing to leave like that before the rest of the villain community. Best not to dwell on it.

The claims were made for the rest of the vials. Sabotage wanted one? Sheila could understand the teams, but the burglar wanted backup, perhaps? If the power was random, it was rather likely the power produced would not result in anything that’d help in a stealthy or fast situation. Though, it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, she supposed and could understand.

One went unspoken for, but Sheila didn’t have time to properly process it before things happened. The flickering lights caused Sheila considerable worry, frowning under her blindfold. Then, the unknown voice. With the sound of a power being used, Creep immediately dove under the table in assumption gunfire would immediately follow, her hands diving into her clothes to retrieve her darts. As a risk she took, she didn’t turn invisible in case the situation was easily handled, but the moment a brawl started she intended to try, power-nullifier or not. But, that wasn’t to be.

Xolotl, enforcer of the Community. Creep took a deep breath under the table, preparing to scuffle. She’d have to act as if everyone here was her ally. Sheila was already making up escape-plans and attack-routes in her head… when Xolotl promptly collapsed. Oh. Suppose that nullifier was activated. Not a clever place to attack, huh. What Sheila immediately thought of was that, perhaps, Patriarch had sent him to be caught? But, no, with his mind-manipulation that shouldn’t be necessary. Hm.

The situation apparently under control, Creep left the darts inside her coat and got back up from under the table to sit down. She had to assume they were taking steps to prevent more incidents? Sheila kept watching all around her for suspicious activity. There was the matter of knocking out Xolotl. While Sheila was capable of doing so with her darts, it’d alert everyone that she had those darts and so on. Better leave it to the Jack’s guy.

Back to the previous point. There was another vial up for grabs. Sheila knew it would likely be her only chance to obtain such an item. That said…

Did the Rockers even have 20,000 dollars?

‘… The Rockers would be interested in the remaining vial, same situation as the first,’ Creep said, despite that unsurety. Worst case scenario, she’d have to do something unsavory to get the money in time, perhaps. Still, it was up to the Broker if he wanted to confide in someone more financially secure, but Sheila at least wanted to put the hands of the Rockers into the mix.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn. It seemed like everything had been going well. Certainly, some were injured, Overlook most notably, but that was rarely not the case when it came to somebody as dangerous as Shatterpoint, and given how exceptionally well Hermes’ plan had turned out, it seemed like Ceramix had wound up being the sole remaining threat.

Which was the problem, now. He was still a threat, and having excised himself of the majority of his golem suit, he now had hostages in hand - literally, in the oversized stone hands still attached to him. If they didn’t free Shatterpoint, people were going to die, and even as Ceramix made his threats, Alessa could not come up with a way for her power to assist there. If she superheated the stone arms to melting point, they’d fall and crush the hostages; burn off Ceramix’s real arms, or just simply burn a hole in his head, same problem; melt the hands, yeah, very funny. Shit, shit, not again, not again, why did she make promises she couldn’t keep-?!

A loud crack of some bone or another brought her back to her senses. No, this wasn’t going to be like the warehouse again. No blood, no gore, no... focus focus focus! She couldn’t help directly; so, she would help the only way she could in this case: buying the others time.

‘I’m going to draw his attention,’ she murmured into her communicator, thanking the stars that she was still hidden behind a barrier of shrapnel. Quiet enough that Ceramix ought not to notice, more than loud enough to hear when projected directly into one’s ear canal by a communication’s device. ‘I’m trusting you guys to come up with something to stop him.’

‘I ain’t playin’, fools!’ They were out of time to react; drawing herself upright, Alessa stepped out from behind cover, calling ‘Wait, wait! We’ll do it, we give up!’, putting as much of her own fear into her voice as she could. She did, after all, really want to make sure the hostages survived, even if they were villains in their own right.

‘We can get him out of the foam, Ceramix,’ she began to explain, subtly moving around him in a way that drew his attention off of the bulk of the other heroes - or that was the thought process, at least. ‘There’s solvent outside the building, and that’ll dissolve what’s got Shatterpoint surrounded. Just please let the hostages live if we go get it, okay? It’ll literally take maybe half a minute. Nobody... nobody has to die,’ she concluded, a bit of sadness in her tone. If her face were visible, she’d be making puppy-dog eyes at Ceramix right now; as it was, she’d just have to hope her voice conveyed her begging sufficiently. Maybe it’d even throw him off his game enough that he’d let them go of his own accord. Either way, she hoped it’d draw his attention long enough to give others a chance to undo his threat.

Genevieve stepped out of the ladies' room just in time to walk into a different kind of chaos. The two instances of flickering lights caught her attention, making her body tense up. Even more so when a booming voice, which soon thereafter manifested into his physical form, announced that everyone currently present there would die.

"Xolotl" Genevieve whispered once she identified him. But the talk didn't match the bark. He too must have had his abilities neutralized as his attempt at anything remotely close to an intimidating offensive attack was quickly shut down. So much for a god, or claiming to have the powers of one anyway. She couldn't help but shake her head as she quietly walked to her table, paying no mind to the new visitor. Everyone probably had the same initial reaction as well, one that diminished just as fast as it started. It was sad, really.

---

Jason had settled in to wait, this.... Bargaining taking over the meeting when the lights started flickering. Given the calm weather, it really only left one explanation.

A Cape. And the best option was -

Yeah, go figure.

Jason rose to his feet, already heading towards the Community villain before he fell and Headhunter swooped in. Jason still closed the distance cautiously, ready to provide backup if necessary.

"Just another example of why that bastard needs taken down." His words were clear through the room, a firm reminder of what was really important here.

---

---

Things were going swimmingly. Their little maneuver didn't even need to be completed thanks to Hermes' quick thinking. She smiled at the hero as she skidded to a stop not horribly far from where she'd started.

And that's when the other shoe dropped.

Ceramix absolutely freaked, taking three of his own men hostage and demanding that Shatterpoint be released within five seconds or he'd paste these guys. They might be criminals, but they didn't deserve that!

Lillian glanced back at Alessa and Inkscape as the villain talked, conflicted over what might be the best course of action. Containment Foam took time to dissolve the solvent after all.

Alessa murmured for a plan, moving to distract the big guy.

At least the civilians were evacuated already....

Lillian glanced back at Ceramix, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood. There had to be something they could do. Just surrendering wasn't an option, was it? There had to be something they could do.

Barely moving her lips, not wanting it to be obvious she was talking while Alessa tried to placate the man, Lillian spoke into her comms as quietly as possible. "We've got two Teleportation Movers. Kyoshi can control rock. We can distract and stall and those three can stop him."

She walked slowly towards Alessa, keeping her front towards Ceramix with her hands up, creating obvious distance from Shatterpoint...

...before she transformed into a form just 8 feet in height, taking a non threatening, but obviously protective, stance around the heroine.

---

Things had been going quite well...and then Xolotl showed up. Chatterbox pushed back out of his seat and onto his feet. As the villain, their enemy by all accounts, began to speak he opened his own mouth...and then the man's world crumbled. A huge, maniacal grin spread across his lips. He swiped his drink from the table and swaggered his way towards the man.

"How wonderful, it seems someone wants to add themselves to the collection, so kind of you to show yourself so we can handle you." He took a drink and then laughed. It was a good chance to add to the reputation of their team, not to mention capturing the man likely meant he'd have a chance to turn him into yet another adoring fan. Perhaps they could even send him back to the Community as an inside agent. How delicious that would be.

His power on full blast, but only focused on Xolotl since he'd started talking, Chatterbox continued, "Perhaps when you wake up you'll be able to tell me if anyone more competent was sent to spy on our little gathering." His smiled widened, showing teeth. He now stood only several feet from the disabled cape as Thunderbolt and Headhunter made sure he stayed that way.

---

---

With Shatterpoint taken out, her projection landed, its feet touching down gently. Evelyn cast her gaze at Ceramix and the projection followed that gaze. Then, despite all odds, the villain broke free of the throng of heroes, tearing from his golem like a rocket with out of proportion arms coming with him. Her eyes shot open wide and the projection seemed to tense subtly, the electricity that conducted through it moving faster, glowing brighter. Evelyn saw the villain grab up his own minions and stop. The projection vanished before Ceramix spoke. This time there was no breeze as it went.

She held her hands out, away from any of her various gear, a gesture of surrender. In the storm of emotion and the sudden silence, Evelyn missed some of what came through her comms, but did manage to hear the tail end of Lillian's statement. --can distract and stall and those three can stop him." A distraction she could do, stalling she could definitely do. That in mind, she began to formulate more of a plan, entirely forgetting to ask for clarification on Lillian's words...something she normally would have done. Oddly, something got in the way of that set of thoughts...snuffing them out.

Considering the situation, Evelyn realized that among those present, only the protectorate heroes really knew how her power worked. Furthermore, no one except for her had a full grasp of her projection's myriad abilities. Her mouth played into a frown, displeasure, fear, worry.

Messiah began her effort to distract Ceramix. They didn't have long.

---

---

He struck the golem, but Ceramix was no longer in it, his attack rendered impotent. Then, with the threats made, Outsider sighed, let the tip of his tail touch the ground and then swapped forms. His feet on the ground, he stumbled from the disorientation, but otherwise didn't move. He noticed the strange creature had vanished. He wondered about that power...how did it work? Who did it belong to?

Turning his eyes back to Ceramix and the assembled heroes he wondered if there was even anything he could contribute to this. He wasn't fast enough to get there before Ceramix crushed the hostages and he didn't really have any range to his abilities. He wasn't designed for this sort of engagement. So he followed Messiah's lead, "Alright, give us some time. No one make any sudden moves. Ceramix, we'll free Shatterpoint." Unlike Messiah, Outsider didn't move from his position at all and he kept his focus on the villain, not even bothering to look to others for a signal.

His powers were useless here.

---

---

Banished from the room, sent outside, high into the air, the figure was rapidly teleporting, compressing more and more air against its body, pushing its own body heat outwards into the air as it teleported more and more of it. While unheard from inside, some of the people on the ground began to experience wind, first light...then after a few seconds, more intensely. It continued to become worse, beginning to whip flags and clothes back and forth. The air heated, more and more, hotter and hotter, against its body, the pressure and its own heat causing the reaction. Continuing to compress the air, heating it, exciting its molecules rapidly, the projection awaited the command.

---

---

Five seconds, with her abilities? With this projection? To prepare a plan, execute it, and save ultimately innocent lives? To stop the maiming or death of people. Internally her emotions writhed, even as she made an effort to project only her worry and fear in her body language and expression. "Help us, help you," Evelyn said, adding to Outsider and Messiah's pleas, but in her mind all she said was 'Now.'

Her projection appeared, but it wasn't a distance away from Ceramix. It didn't charge, it didn't even try to hit him, nor did it attempt to dislodge the stone arms. No, it simply teleported into existence and slammed its open palms together half an inch in front of the villain's face.

Evelyn brought her hands to her ears.

All of the compressed, heated air, released from its hands, directly into eachother and then expanded in less than a second.

A thunderclap was what happened. One from that close would be utterly deafening and disorienting. A physical attack would still give Ceramix time to react and harm the hostages, but an attack on one's senses, one's focus? That was harder to deal with.

Sooooo much talking. Sofia didn't care about the vials or what was going to happen to them. The lights flickered and Sofia only noticed because she had nothing better to do, and also Jason looked at them as well. Some colorful dude appeared with a very loud bang in conjunction with all the lights in the room going out and Sofia tightened her hold on Jason for a moment. However, after a bit of posturing, he just awkwardly fell to the ground and started yelling and looking around confused and Sofia relaxed. Whatever power stopping thingy Broker had done, it worked on him too so there was nothing to worry about. Still, had he really been ready to kill all of them? It seemed like a pretty risky gamble to walk into a room with this many parahumans and take the time to brag. His powers must be really something when they were working.

Mastar stopped her attack and stepped back after Ceramix made his threats. His goal was simple to the tarry hero. Save Shatterpoint and keep the two of them from getting imprisoned by the police. Now, therein lies the issue. By actively fighting for his comrade's safety and freedom, Ceramix had just put the two of them in a very complex and terrible situation from threatening to kill the thugs that Ceramix had grabbed. How delightfully awful indeed.

Mastar couldn't help but falter at the sight.

Her mentality faded slightly as she felt the tension of the situation increase with every passing moment. It wasn't before long that she could feel blackened sweat trickle down her head. She couldn't do anything to help here, so what was she to do? Certainly something was better than nothing! Maybe just trying to get in there and slowly- "Stop."

Mastar's voice was changed, back into what was a familiarly cheery voice. It was barely audible, only able to be heard by Mastar (especially since she didn't have any comms devices), but it served one main purpose. It calmed the hero down, talking to herself. "You can't go in. It'll kill the civilians. You need to stay put, don't move. Check yourself for injuries, in case it gets hairy and you need to try and beat Ceramix."

Glancing down at her arms, Mastar noticed that her entire right arm up to her elbow had vanished. It was used up, and it left nothing behind. Ah, it'd regenerate later. As for the rest of her, Mastar also lost her horns, but everything else was still present on her body. She was still good enough to fight.

The hero raised both of her arms, putting them in front of her cautiously as she went along with the actions of everyone else. She wasn't much good here, so hopefully the others could put their plan into play effectively.

---

"What do you mean by that shit, Sparce?"

I mean there's the risk that neither of us can use the damn vial.

"How? I don't think you got any powers from me. I think you just kind of piggyback off my powers."

Even so, we need to think about this logically.

"What do you mean 'logically?' You died before you got any powers! You can still get the-"

Farce. Hush.

"No! Why can't you see! If one of us gets a better power, we can really make something of ourselves! We ca-"

Even if I got the powers that this vial could give me, I'd only be able to use them half the time, and even then that's a stretch!

"Why won't you agree with me?! It can be so damn nice!"

Because you're digging your nails into your forehead!

Pulling her arms down from her face, Farce noticed that a lot had developed during her conversation with her other half. Specifically, a subdued Community goon and a bit more drama appearing. More notable than that, however, was a recently received text message coming from Mantis. Pulling up her phone, Farce messaged Mantis in response to his question.

< yeah uh i think i need you here. headspace is cloudy >

---

Kyoshi took in the entire scene and began to run towards Ceramix's side, rushing in to try and solve the situation. After about one second of running, the hero completely threw her own concern to the side as she jumped, a stone spike shooting out of the ground behind her in an attempt to propel her forward. Thankfully, that worked to her favor, and Kyoshi found herself flying towards Ceramix.

At the peak of her jump, however, the hero noticed two major things. One, her trajectory was off, and she was flying in front of one of Ceramix's larger arms (the one with two hostages, mind), and two, one of the Wards had intervened with a thunderclap. It was deafening to Kyoshi, but a frame-perfect decision popped into her head as she bared through the pain of the blaring clap.

When she had landed with a heavy stomp, the hero brought her hands both towards the distracting heroes as she manipulated the arm of Ceramix to try and separate it at the wrist, merely trying to take the hand off of the actual arm. The force of the movements that Kyoshi had just performed would hopefully be enough to cause the wrist to give way. If that was successful, the hero would pour all her strength into safely lowering the hand to the ground. Any injuries would have to wait. Whole lives were more important than her legs at this moment.

"Someone get the other arm...!" Kyoshi choked out a few words to the other heroes on the scene, hoping they'd get the idea and give her a hand with the other arm or maybe they could foam up Ceramix? Something had to happen, or things would go sour fast!

Affliction thought carefully regarding Gabriel’s question. It was certainly important, deciding who was to be blessed with superpowers. The wrong decision would have weighty consequences indeed, further exacerbated by how Reflections was more a loose collective at this time, rather than a formal organization.

Finally he responded. “I will have to audit the responses we revive on our videos and messages, and decide from among the most faithful in my cause.”

"Very well." Gabriel replied. Just then the lightning villain made his presence known and was soundly beat and restrained by the gunman. Apparently the power removing device worked on him as well. The Broker was a dangerous man to get on his bad side indeed.

But too find a way to retrieve the other vial would be the real challenge here. The Rockers were their rivals after all. They couldn't let them get the item unacosted.

Gabriel raised his hand to get The Broker's attention and added, "I would like to put in for the extra vial, considering I am not part of any team." Then he glanced were Creep was sitting to make sure she knew he knew.