Basilisk let out a monstrous bellow that could be heard above the rattling sound of gunfire and the battling capes behind him, he could feel each of the slugs as they hit his solid hide, welting or penetrating depending on where they struck him. Glancing blows leaving streaks of angry greenish red flesh in their wake and the shots that he could feel sinking slugs into his arms and torso spattered blood forcefully with each reckless swing of his trunk like limbs. Fallen soldiers were laid down with strikes of his palms, struck senseless and his heavy steps destroying their dropped weapons under stomps that fractured bone and gunmetal alike. One unlucky bastard would feel the spikes on the behemoth’s tail growing back as it wrapped around their torso, small but sharp, before being lifted and used as a bludgeon to strike down others who were caught with empty clips.

By the time the gunfire stopped Basilisk could already feel his body pushing out the first couple of slugs from his lungs and gut, blood dripped from his jaw where the back of his throat had caught a few more bullets and he coughed. It was always the worst wounds that were tended to first by his power, stitching his flesh together with a feeling of writhing serpents beneath his thick hide, all so he could bleed freely. These Fallen thugs wouldn’t be rising again any time soon as he stood among them, already able to feel the tacky and quickly drying blood on his skin starting to evaporate into a thick cloying green smoke. He didn’t pity the Fallen, monsters one and all, but he acknowledged that they were going to be miserable for a good long time before they were able to raise a weapon against another person. There was satisfaction to that, and with his body wafting that green smoke he turned to the rest of the powered combatants. His power may have come with healing, but that was just a perk. Basilisk's true power needed him to bleed and the bullets had given him ample opportunity to do so.

The dinosaur was gone, the woman that it had been sheltering was on her knees and burning. He heard the blast of a weapon, tinker made it seemed and firing a projectile that seemed like a massive ball of slime. The tentacled bastard seemed intent on keeping away from it and that seemed like something Basilisk could take advantage of, with the sound of tearing metal he ripped a bumper free of one of the Fallen’s vehicles and readied a throw while the focus was off of himself. He had to wait until there wasn’t a chance the bumper would slam into the two ladies, but the moment he had his shot he hurled it lengthwise, sending it spinning through the air, spinning like a massive blunt propeller towards Transcendent. Basilisk’s entire upper body strength put into the throw.



Calvin rejoiced as the older hero beside her launched his own attack towards the anchor cluster of wires, the sounds of high tension wires snapping was a good thing...right? Well, not really. A groan of metal and the shift of the shadow above them of the precariously hung helicopter was all the warning that they had before the massive vehicle snapped free of its last few reaching restraints and plummeted down towards the street.

“Heads up!” She yelled as she took off as fast as she could towards a safer part of the street. There wasn't a chance of being crushed, they hadn’t been been directly underneath the helicopter when it had fallen but the risk of getting clipped by something hanging off the chopper or a stray wire stuck into her mind and Calvin went sprinting for the side of the building as fast as she could. She could hear the sound of voices over her radio, something about Spindle and the hostages, but her mind was in a small panic. Why hadn’t she considered that perhaps the biggest mass of wires had been what was holding up the biggest suspended object!? The wires suspending the other hostages were probably a part of that mass as well and she had put them all at risk just trying to remove the possibility of a threat. What if she had gotten someone killed!? All these thoughts were running through her head as she reached the shadow of the alleyway and ducked into it, she could taste the grit of the kicked up debris on her teeth and tongue and took a moment to spit and try and collect her thoughts.

She had risked her own life with that choice, risked her team and the hostages, destroyed a helicopter that was probably worth more than she would make working for the Jr. Guard for a decade, all as her literal first move in the public eye. Then she ran, and that thought hit her hard. Here she was, having stopped running a few dozen yards from where everyone else had, hiding in an alleyway. She should get back out there, she should help! But what if she just made things worse again, what if she got someone hurt? Her lense covered eyes turned to her palms and she took a gamble, between them a second simple red sphere appeared in her hands and she reflexively slumped as she realized what it meant. Even her own power was calling her weak, something no more useful than a light breeze.

---

Edith sat behind her cloud of steam taking the temporary reprieve to gauge just how much Transcendents power was affecting her. Her limbs were feeling many times heavier than normal and without her enhanced strength, she'd no doubt be unable to move. Suddenly Transcendent zipped right past her but this time he'd not launched any tendrils at her, Edith quickly looked back to where he'd come from only to see a flying glob of glue heading straight at her. Edith's eyes went wide as she attempted to weave out of the way of the projectile, but Transcendents power had mad her far too slow to fully avoid the glob of 'glue' which caught her right forearm. "Shit!"

The helicopter crashed to the ground. Whatever control Spindle had was lost. Her concentration divided between so many things had taken its toll. SWAT's powers accentuated her already precarious situation. Her failure to hold the chopper in place would be her undoing.

Their orders were to regard Spindle as a secondary priority. Saving the hostages were primary. However, for SWAT, in order for him to save the primary, he had to deal with the secondary.

SWAT jumped to his feet and began running toward the kidnapper. He waved his arms in the air and shouted with an intense urgency, "SPINDLE!!! LET THEM GO BEFORE THERE IS NO ONE LEFT TO SAVE!!!"

As he spoke, SWAT bombarded her with all the intense emotion and desire he could conjure up. The closer he ran the more she would be manipulated by it. He would run until he was about 10 feet away. His power wasn't just a feeling at this point. At this distance, and this potency, his power had now snatched her with a death grip. An immense need for her to release the hostages safety, implanted themselves into the depths of her brain. More than her lungs needed oxygen, more than the allies she fought for, she had to get those hostages to safety. Or die trying.

Judah hoped that the trust he had built since the beginning of their encounter would be enough to "seal the deal." If not...it would get messy. His bluish shield still shimmered around him as if to confirm his own thoughts.

With each swing and each thought that fit itself neatly into place, Presidio began to realize just how different their circumstances might be from what they had initially been led to believe. Swallowing, she steeled her nerves, knowing that--truly--they would have to take some immediate and drastic actions to resolve things well on their end.

She began generating ever more shields, arranging another limb for her current array, but she found that it was getting difficult to manage so much all at once, if only because if she made the slightest mistake with her climb that she would fall...perhaps to a very sudden and grisly death if she didn’t react immediately. Fortunately, she hadn’t reached a crisis point such as that just yet. However, she had reached the edge of the building she’d initially began climbing and it was time to cross.

Gauging the distance precisely, with the use of intuited measurements and her extensive array of forcefields, the heroine set one of her limbs ahead and above her as she moved, and then released the others--pushing off backwards as she did and using the momentum of the swinging limbs to drastically increase her momentum. It was perhaps one of the most intensely dangerous things she had ever used her power for, yet it was also one of the most exhilarating and deeply engaging moments she had ever experienced. She held her breath as the incredible inertia of her movement pressed her back against the forcefields behind her, then at the point of greatest upwards and forwards thrust, she released her hold on the building, rocketing herself and the array of forcefields up and forwards. Immediately the limbs swiveled into their places, outer forcefields hit the building, rebounded, shattered, and were replaced, and then with the sensory knowledge she gained from that she caught onto the building with one, then two of the shield constructs before the other limbs swiftly began to move her further along.

Kari’s heart was in her throat and she found that for a brief moment she hadn’t breathed at all. Slowly she let out the breath she’d been holding, sweat beading and running down her skin here and there from the mental exertion of keeping all of the moving parts in smooth synchrony. Knowing now--on some intuitive level--the mechanics of going between buildings, Presidio knew she could do it again with similar finesse and less risk.

She did so and this time she managed not to lose her train of thought or hold her breath. Drawing on her memory, Presidio recalled the positions and rough distances between everything before it had all been hidden on the wayside of the buildings she was using to traverse their field of battle unobserved. All that in mind she knew that she was now roughly in line with the villainess’ location, if not at the exact same elevation.

That needed to change.

She began to ascend, abandoning forward momentum to focus on scaling the side of the huge skyscraper instead. However, after ascending a floor or two she heard several resounding snaps from somewhere past the buildings and she felt a brief flash of alarm as the noises became far more violent.

‘Her web is collapsing,’ she realized even though she had no idea why that would be the case. What was going on? Huffing out a breath, her jaw clenched as the tension and severity of the situation ratcheted up, Presidio called to her mind the rough elevation of the woman, related it to her own position. She realized that even if she got to the other side of the building within thirty seconds, that there was nothing she could do for anyone at the distance she’d be at. Thus, she kept climbing. Seconds later a terrible noise echoed past her and she swallowed. That could only have been the helicopter.

It was only after the noise quieted down that she realized she’d received orders from HQ. The shift in the nature of the encounter didn’t really change her course of action, but it did make her feel somewhat justified as she reached a point that she’d estimated was at least two stories higher than the villain’s position had been.

From there she clambered around to the side of the building, all the while her auxiliary shields applying pressure to various wires from different directions impeding their ability to get at her with any accuracy if the woman tried to stop her. SHe was poised to act, but as she saw the carnage of the helicopter’s fall to the street, got a bird’s eye view of everything, and considered her new orders she realized what was off.

Most people in situations like this would either lose their cool and do something truly rash or would have some kind of strategy--a plan--to turn the tables in their favor. Yet...this woman, this villain had had the upper hand from the beginning and she had not just squandered it, she had almost actively kept from doing anything further. Truly, like a spider in its web, she had waited for their arrival before saying or doing anything further. None of the woman’s actions had even attempted to harm, entrap, or further elevate her position, in fact...those few things she had done seemed to be ploys to delay. Even her most destructive act--destroying all the glass, vehicles, and other property on the street after their arrival--had been aimed so as not to touch anyone. It was a show of power, but not a show of willingness to truly enter hostilities.

The woman might be insane, but given their orders...no.

“Fuck,” she whispered. It was in that moment that SWAT made his move, crossing the distance between himself and their target. “Fuck,” she exclaimed. Swiftly her eyes went to the hostages suspended in the air. Barely registering her own plan of action consciously, Presidio’s construct opened on one side, the shield levering itself out of her way.

She raised both her arms, aiming at two separate locations, then accounting for drag and distance, before the constructs encasing her arms unfurled into mechanisms resembling crossbows. They were loaded in the next half second, and fired in the moment after that, the shields behind her bracing her against the force of their release.

Neither bolt came anywhere near Spindle or SWAT, no they weren’t important. SWAT was acting against the instigator of this conflict and if she was buying for time and her power had been compromised--as it very well might be, considering SWAT’s suite of powers--she might act and in doing so unwittingly injure the people that they had come here to protect.

Presidio could not allow that. The two projectiles sailed each on their own trajectories, with a small lead of interlocked forcefields spooling out behind them, attaching back to the mechanisms on her arms. The open space at the front of her construct closed partially, leaving only enough opening so as not to catch the thread-thin constructions. The first of the arrows missed its target by several meters and then got tangled in a wider web of cord and wire, but she didn’t despair as she cut the connection and readied another. Meanwhile, the second projectile passed its mark by several feet and she triggered it. In a moment it unfolded and got caught in the net, this time intentionally. Immediately, forcefields began to appear from its form until they created a tenuous area under her control. Then, swiftly, more popped into existence, coming between the hostage and the many wires that held them aloft. Individually none of them could hope to hold the individual aloft, and even together they could hardly levitate them down to safety, but they didn’t have to. More formed, locked into others and binding many many wires in place as they did so.

Presidio moved, her larger array of weightless, mobile armor rounding the side of the building where it would loom ominously over the woman’s position. She fired another of her projectiles, guiding its flight a bit more this time now that she was in a better position, this time it went where she wanted and got caught as it tried to unfurl. Shields sprang up and began to do what she had done before. The limbs of her construct tensed, folding closer towards the building, pulling her with them.

Whatever happened, she hoped her efforts would be enough.