The first thing Sloth realized was the alarming headache she had. It was worse than any migraine she had ever had before, the pain on the edge of making her mind go blank. She managed to pull herself together and open her eyes. She found she was staring up at the ceiling of an old building. She tried to recall what was going on, as tried sitting up. That turned out to be a mistake. She groaned in pain and held her stomach, a deep sensation of pain, similar to the headache she felt, coming from her torso.

She managed to sit herself up despite the agony and looked down for any possible wounds, and found that she only had a few small cuts from a knife. She looked around and found a man laying face down besides her, holding a bloodied knife. She spit on him, assuming it was whatever pain she was feeling was his doing, before turning and kicking him in the side, expect to hear something. She just heard the thud of her foot against the body, and before staring for a few seconds, she turned the body over and found that he was a corpse.

She quickly stood and jumped back, but then quickly collapsed onto one knee, holding her sides in pain. She spoke out loud in a soft, weakened voice "Just what the hell happened here?" She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down, letting the pain slowly but surely subside as she lost herself in thought.

-3 1/2 hours earlier, 11:00 PM Sinners HQ, Chase City-

Sloth was sitting in the computer room, wearing only shorts and a very thin white t-shirt. Most people could see that she was bra-less under it if they stared long enough, but she didn't mind. It was comfortable and covered her adequately enough, and being the lazy person she is, it was just perfect for her. She was handling some of the information that was available to her online through police networks, searching for any possible info that the cops may have known about the upcoming gang fight that would be taking place in the one of the abandoned warehouses of the old industrial district. As much as she searched, she was unable to find anything, so instead of wasting time any further, she felt that she'd done enough work and deserved to relax a little bit before they had to go to the fight that night.

She left the office, finding that her 6 "allies" were all there waiting for her to finish. She gave a listless smile and said "Lady and gentlemen, as you know, tonight's the night we go and establish "The Sinners" as a full fledged gang by participating in the fight." She looked over to Envy, her "right hand man" and said "Get me a smoke and beer please."

She sat in her "throne," a high end leather chair with the word "Sloth" etched in with a white marker. Once envy handed her both the beer and cigarette, she took out her lighter and lit it, taking a small puff before taking a drink of beer as well. She continued "As far as I know, there's gonna be a bunch of other gangs there as well, but for the most part, the big three gangs will be the Reapers, the Emperors, and the Damned. Long story short, we're gonna be siding with the Damned as they have the largest army and access to an underground fire arm ring. All you guys need to do, is not attack anyone wearing a jacket or shirt of a guy wrapped up in chains and flames, that's their logo."

She stretched her arms up above her head before finishing her cigarette and bear and leaned back as the chair folded out into almost a full mattress and she closed her eyes saying "We leave in 2 1/2 hours, so whatever you guys need to do to get ready, do it now. At 1:30 we leave. If we play our cards right, we'll be in the Damned's network, and then we can climb up from there. Envy, wake me up at 1:15."

With that, she dozed off in a matter of seconds, her light voice carrying her soft be audible breathing. She let the members handle whatever it was that they needed to handle.

-2 hours later-

Once Envy woke her up, she nodded and said "I'll be back down in a minute" and left the group to their own. Within 3 minutes she was changed into a pair of jeans, a new t-shirt, and a hoodie. She grinned to her fellow members as she took out a knight's stick, her main weapon of choice, and said "Lets do this shit."

The group left, and arrived just on time, 5 minutes before the fight would start. They found the leader of the Damned, "lucifer" and Sloth approached him, leaving the group to get ready along with the other members of the Damned. After 4 minutes, they returned and Sloth said "Alright, so we'll be going around the back, we're not gonna be doing much other than making sure they can't retreat or try and get more reinforcements. Might not be much of a job, but at least it's something that puts us in their good graces. We do this right, we're on the rise to top of the gang world."

With that said, Sloth lead the group through many back alleys to lead them towards the least known entrance/exit of the warehouse, an old docking bay that was closed off. Under the bay itself was a hidden entrance that the other gangs knew about, the perfect place to sneak more people in through. Once they set up, Sloth leaned herself against the wall near the entrance, taking out another cigarette and lit, breathing the smoke in slowly.

It was about 15 minutes before she started hearing running coming towards them. She grinned and nodded to the other members and said "This is it." As the first person began to run through the exit, Sloth landed her knight stick into his shin, causing him to cry out in pain and trip face first. She delivered several swift blows to his head and back to knock him out cold and turned to the ones behind him, in total, there were about 15 of them. She merely gave a twisted smile and said "Alright boys and girls, eat em up."

With that, the gangs went at it, but it was long before Sloth her a small explosion. She knocked out the last of the remaining thugs and said "Come on, lets get inside and check out what's going on."

She led them inside, but before they could do much, there was a large explosion of black gas, and the blast either launched them back into the wall and knocked them out, or the gas did.

- Current time -

Once Sloth had finished collecting her thoughts, she realized that they needed to get out of there. She found Envy and said woke him up quickly, saying "Envy, hurry up. We need to get the fuck out of here. NOW!" With that, she went to each of the other members and woke them up, and once everyone was awake and able to move, she led them out.

After that, it got a bit fuzzy, but they managed to get themselves back to the base. She made sure everyone sat down and examined each of them, making sure no one had any major wounds. Luckily no one had any fatal ones and then she sat down and said out loud 'What the fuck was that?"

[3 & 1/2 hours pre-incident]

Sloth's house was always a weird place to be for Sam. It was sort of a contrast to what he'd experienced in other gang situations but at the same time, it was ideal for the sinners. The space was compact and only a single floor was occupied by six people whenever they visited. It was a floor filled with computers and guns and all sorts of other things that a budding criminal organisation might need, it just lacked the man power to use it all. As far as Sam knew, none of his fellow sins were particularly tech savvy. He could probably figure it out, given enough time: but Sloth hadn't asked him to yet. The boss wasn't depending on him for this task, which meant that she likely had something in mind.

Despite how lazy she was, Sloth generally had a plan.

While waiting for the boss to show herself from the computer room, Sam had occupied a corner of the room and was mucking around with a handheld games console. He was plinking away at the piece of technology absentmindedly, with his attention only half focused on the inevitable victory of the current level. He’d mentally taken apart his opponent and now it was just a case of tying the victory in a neat little bow. ”Typical of Sloth to take her sweet ass time.”

He started to queue up for another match when Sloth came in from the computer room and slumped onto her little leather chair. She insisted on calling it a throne but Sam hadn’t ever referred to it as anything less than a leather chair. Despite that, she was dressed in not much at all. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t admiring it a little: she was easy on the eyes, to say the least. Not that he’d be dumb enough to try and fuck his boss: don’t eat where you shit, and all that.

She announced that the 7 sins would be leaving in two and a half hours. It annoyed him slightly that he could have spent his time much more productively if Sloth had just bothered to tell him the plan before hand, but she probably thought he’d have gone to a prize fight if he hadn’t been told.

She’d probably have been right.

Sam picked up his backpack as Sloth drifted off to sleep. He’d found it pretty weird calling the girl Sloth, but since she’d not given another name to call her, he had to live with it. So far, he’d not gotten used to people referring to him by his given moniker. Pride was not a name he imagined himself listening too, but he’d started to get used to being called it: if only out of necessity. “I’m going to chill in the arcade for a couple hours then. No point in me taking a beauty nap.”

[1 hour 7 minutes pre-incident]

Sam walked back into Sloth’s apartment with a boxed video games console and a teddy bear as big as himself. Apparently, he’d done well in the arcade. Sloth was gone from her seat, no doubt getting ready, so Sam just dumped his prizes in the corner somewhere. Now all he needed was to win a TV…

Sloth entered the room again a few minutes later, more dressed up than last time and ready to fight, it seemed. Sam was a little surprised to see her with the Nightstick, as he always pictured that he’d be doing the bulk of the fighting. None of the group seemed close to his peer when it came to stepping in the arena: although Sloth had surprised him on a number of occasions, so her with a weapon wasn’t a huge shock. Sam just reached into his bag and pulled out a few things: there was a pair of worn, fingerless rider gloves; a packet of cigarettes, with the lighter inside and a curved knife.

Sloth led the group towards the fight’s location and Sam couldn’t help but notice how…out of place some of the other Sins were. A few of the people were wearing formal attire: shirts and waistcoats and shit like that, while others still looked scrawny and like they’d get in the way. He’d just have to make sure none of the fuckers got past him, it seems. Sam wouldn’t want Sloth to have to find any new crew members this early; far too much effort for her.

Sloth laid out their part in the plan: Don’t break any members of the Damned and don’t let any other fuckers enter or leave. In honesty, Sam was a little disappointed. The job seemed…beneath him. He wasn’t really content with picking up some other gang’s sloppy seconds, but what Sloth was doing made sense: even if it sucked.

Sloth managed to take out the first fucker. These events always managed to get a few chicken shits who couldn’t stomach the violence and either ran or called in back up. Fifteen fuckers stood, and that meant that fifteen fuckers needed to drop to the floor. Sam was feeling less bored now, as the primal pride started to awaken. He had so much to be proud of: his skill and his strength and his speed and his stamina and the way in which he could break a man’s body in more ways than most people had clothes. Sloth may have had the first take down, but Sam was determined to have the most. He surged towards the group with fist raised. He bee-lined for the biggest man there and planted a quick knee into his jaw: knocking him out instantly. Turning to the thirteen remaining fuckers, he wore a savage grin on his face as they looked shocked at Sam. He seemed almost like a different man. Normally so calm and cool, he was suddenly a smiling battle hungry juggernaut. “Come on then, Dickheads. Let’s see who can put a scratch on Pride.” At least three more of the boys dived on Sam, and the fighting really began then and there.

In the chaos of the fighting and the adrenaline and the excitement, Sam lost track of time. There were no landmarks to recognise the passage of time, he only remembered the brief highlights of the fight: A guy whose nose he broke with a thrust of his palm, another guy’s dislocated knee from a quick stamp, the punch to Sam’s jaw that had him tasting blood. All the landmarks were there and Sam was left unaware of how many of the fighters had abandoned the fight with Pride to pursue the other sins. Soon though, the battle was cut short as an explosion caught everyone’s attention. Sam used the opportunity to knock out the last of his opponents with a brutal headbutt: and Sloth knocked took out the last fucker standing. ”She got the first and the last. At least she’s someone worth fighting for, it seems.

Sloth hurried them towards the source of the explosion, and Sam didn’t have time to count the bodies he’d taken out or that anyone else had taken out. He prided himself on the assumption that he had the highest body count though; the fighting shtick was Sam’s forte, for god sake. If some other upstart had knocked out more people than him…

Sam was directly behind Sloth, wanting to lead the way in case the fighting got thicker. Inside the complex was far too quiet for a gang-war though. No one was shouting, no one was fighting, no one was making much noise at all: That was until the explosion of black gas sent people onto their ass. Sam took a heavy blow and was blown backwards towards the wall. He wrapped an arm around his head to stop himself from taking a major blow and when he hit the concrete, he heard an audible ‘snap.’ The pain kept him wide awake, and he saw the black gas creeping in closer. He couldn’t hold his breath as he inhaled sharply from the pain. Black gas filled his lungs and he wanted to choke. His eyes were growing darker.

“Sh…it…”
[Present time]

’Wake up.’ The voice was familiar, but equally not-so. It wasn’t his, wasn’t Sloth’s, wasn’t any of the other Sins either. ’Wake up!’ The voice was getting angrier now. Annoyed at being ignored it seemed. Waking up was harder than it looked: his body felt so heavy. ‘Don’t you have any pride, whelp? Wake the fuck up!’ God he felt hungry. ’At this rate, the others are going to wake up before you.’

“Nnng…” Sam grunted slowly as he stirred from unconsciousness. He wasn’t going to be some undependable schmuck. Fuck that.

The familiar voice of doubt seemed more approving as it grew quieter. Sloth seemed to have heard the grunt of Pride, as she shook him awake next. She told him to wake up while she woke everyone up, Sam touched his should-be-broken right arm: only to feel it as strong as the start of the day. Stronger even, perhaps.

“…The fuck?”

Sloth led the group outside of the complex and somehow, they were back at the base. No one said any major words until Sloth said what everyone was thinking. The fuck, indeed.

“I think…we got set up or some shit. That black shit in the complex…Must have been a hallucinogenic or some crap. I thought I broke my arm in the explosion, but it’s perfect…better than perfect, even.” Looking at his right arm, he noticed something off. The old scar on his knuckle, the one he got when Little C first mugged him, was also gone. He couldn’t find a single old scar on his body.

…The fuck, indeed.

He felt as if the concept of understanding and thinking were just figments of imagination as he felt his entire entity grow numb with pain. His head was throbbing from whatever the hell swarmed the vicinity and the fact that he had been slammed into the wall by the unknown haze. Maybe he was going insane? He asked himself and upon realizing that the pain had subsided slightly, he could hear a familiar voice that seemed almost distraught.

Was he dreaming? I’ve never heard her sound like that before. His body chose not to respond at first but as Ash heard his name being called once more, his eyes flicked open to a blurred world and suddenly an intense pain struck his eye socket, making it seem as though he was writhing in shock. Quickly stopping as once more the pain subsided, he only replied monotonously,” Sloth,” to tell her that he was awake.

With great effort, he slowly dragged his body to a crouching position, his consciousness became distorted again as a great nausea struck him. However, he remained focused on the process of standing up whilst looking at Sloth as a means of mental support. Inspecting himself, he realized he was missing his mask. The scars of the past could be clearly seen, yet luckily all that greeted him was the sight of bodies. He set of trying to find his favourite mask which was fortunately not too difficult to recover as he recalled what had happened before this incident occurred…

---

11:00pm
Although his favourite mask covered almost the entirety of his face, his fellow sinners could see he was intently thinking. Waiting patiently as he cleaned his eye replica, Sloth came strolling in and took her place on her throne. To Ash, it was merely a chair with high quality materials but she could think of it as a horse for all he could care. Upon her command, he quickly slipped they eyeball into his eye socket when no one was looking, took of the gloves handling the eye and headed to the kitchen swiftly.

Opening the fridge, he quickly observed its contents: beer, whisky, vodka, eggs, some vegetables… He’d probably need to go shopping for some food again. Maybe snacks for Emmy too... Quickly retrieving a glass and a chilled can of beer, he poured it's brown,frothy contents, filling the glass to the brim. Taking a lighter and a pack of cigarettes, he walked quickly back towards the living room and gave the queen her supplies. As she took a cigarette to her lips, Ash quickly lit it before sitting down once more. With a sigh, he listened to her speak as he closed his eyes; this was going to be one fuck fest. Sloth had already told him what was going on.

Don’t attack people with a shirt or jacket, chains and flames. Wake Envy at 1:15, got it. I’ll take a snooze myself.

1:00am

Right on the minute, he entered he room. Knowing that Sloth didn't like alarming wake up calls, he left the light off and entered her personal space. Slowly walking up to a bed with an alarming mass of covers, he sat down and quietly shook the pile. At first no reaction took place but as he continued to shake the covers, he said softly, “Sloth…It’s time.” The covers seemed to erupt slowly as her head seemed to pop out. He smiled even though she could not see it and repeated himself, “It’s time.”
Replying back with, “I’ll be back down in a minute,” he left the room and turned on the lights a little so a dim glow lighted the rather messy room. He walked to his own tiny room which he was more than grateful for and got ready. Equipping his modified chain whip and his treasured blade, he joined the sinners in the living room. Leaning against the wall, he waited for Sloth who came very soon afterwards. A comment about the job essentially being shitty before they headed out.

Following Sloth through alley way after alley way, they reached their destination; the backdoor of the warehouse. From there, they waited patiently for the action to get out of the frying pan and into the fire. Whilst the sin, Envy waited patiently, a few thoughts had surfaced. The point of this fight was to gain some respect around the neighborhood by working with a bigger gang. It seemed almost like cheating to Ash but he respected the decisions his leader had made. As quickly as the thought appeared, they soon dissipated and left Ash's mind fresh for the fight.

It was 15 minutes before he heard the sounds of hurried breaths approaching the sinners. He smirked underneath his mask and looked at Sloth to give the command. Watching her execute a sharp hit to the shin of the first unwary person, he took that as the command to begin and he prepared himself. Although there only seemed to be fifteen, he hoped for some variation in weapons and fighting. More experience was needed in this department.

His few thoughts were disrupted as two big-muscled thugs entered his personal space. “Easy,” they commented as they saw an easy weakling to pick on. A flick of his wrist and the sound of wind being cut hurtled at the first assaulter’s eye. The sound of shrieking could be heard as the guy alarmingly screamed his lungs out and then ripped the chain out of his eye. Boy that’s gotta hurt… The man was slightly taller but in terms of the muscle department, he won easily. Pulling the chain making Ash hurtle forward, Ash could only smile as he used the momentum to drive his glinting blade into the guy’s head. As this was happening, the other man came from behind, pulling back Ash’s arms in an attempt to break them. A simple head butt, producing a small concussion made him drop his grip and Ash wrapped his chain around the man’s throat and pulled. His second attacker could only struggle in an attempt to free himself before succumbing to oxygen loss.

Cleaning his blade with a cloth he retrieved from his pocket, he watched as Pride lay waste to the biggest man and then move on to others in quick succession. What came to Ash as confusing was that no one else apart from the fifteen men came from the warehouse. He quickly turned to the warehouse when suddenly the sound of violent explosions were heard from within. Sloth’s voice could be heard as she finished of the last of thugs. "Come on, let’s get inside and check out what's going on."

Following her lead, he thought deeply about the situation. Only fifteen thugs came out… The sound of explosions and then silence… and there’s a weird scent in the air getting stronger and stronger… Looking left to right, he hoped that other sinners realized the strangeness of this. Before he could say anything, a massive plume of black gas erupted from the path in which they were walking on, taking Ash of his feet and slamming him into the wall. He could only react by curling into a ball to prevent the impact. A scream was heard and then… darkness…

Present Time

Readjusting the mask on his face so his scars were once again covered, He watched as Sloth went to the others to wake them up and in a blur of time, they had managed to get everyone back to the house, with only minor injuries. “What the actual fuck just happened…” he muttered to himself. Ash could only barely hold himself conscious as Sloth said almost exactly what he felt. He inspected himself once more to check for injuries he might've overlooked when he realized that his fake eye had gone. Quickly, he readjusted his sitting position so that his hand covered his eye.

A muted television lit up an otherwise darkened room. Slender fingers curled round the door frame. Blue eyes scanned the now deserted living room nervously. The teen smoothed his windbreaker and readjusted his backpack. The bag was sagging from the combined weight of 12 bottles of beer, 5 boxes of assorted pop tarts, 1 large bag of Maltesers and 1 packet of cigarettes. The alcohol and cigarettes came from his dad’s secret stash that only his mom was oblivious of. He was pretty sure that those weren’t considered snacks, but most of the others seem to enjoy them. Joni took a step back. Part of him wanted to go back to his room and sleep till morning. The other remembered that he promised he will be there. He still had no idea why Sloth wanted to meet at this hour. She didn’t seem like the type of girl to like sleepovers.

There was no sign of the other person. As far as he can see. Soft snoring coming room two doors away confirmed that she was already fast asleep. Beathan unbolted the front door and snuck out. Things never seem to go right whenever he tried to be extra careful. The door slammed shut the moment he let go. Instantly he bolted down the empty corridor and ran down the stairs. The boy looked determinedly ahead as he rushed out of the building. Only after boarding a taxi was he able to relax a little. He stifled a yawn. Hopefully no one would noticed he was only wearing a windbreaker over his pajamas and a pair of sneakers. He almost walked out with his bedroom slippers.

[Approximately 1:40 am]

Sloth had to be joking! A fight in the middle of the night? Seriously! Beathan wasn’t sure if it was the sugar high, a sleep induced stupor, the tiny bit of vodka he tried or a combination of all three but he was following the rest of the gang as they trooped after their leader towards their assigned post. He cleared his throat and zipped up his windbreaker. Why was he even doing this? He shouldn’t be here! Still not a word passed through his lips despite the dread he felt. He watched as Sloth and then Pride hurl themselves into the fray. His eyes were suddenly more alert than they were the entire night. Holy shit!

Mere seconds. Just mere seconds later a rival gang member charged towards him with a knife. He stood riveted with almost morbid fascination as the guy slashed at him. He raised his hand a little too late. The edge bit into his skin slicing both his cheek and his palm. Crimson rivulets flowed down his face and palm. He reeled backwards and fell, scrapping his other palm in the process. His current opponent was still bearing down upon him.

“What the hell!”

That was his first and only utterance the entire time. His mind went blank as anger replaced the initial shock he felt. The only thing he remembered afterwards was a loud explosion. Somehow he was still alive and the fight was over. His attacker was nowhere to be seen. How did he even get away from that crazy guy?

The pain returned in full and Joni hissed. He leaned forward to steady himself and the knife slipped from his loose grasp. The sound of metal hitting and clattering on the ground almost made him jump out of his skin. He stared at the knife completely unaware of his bloody hands and the numerous other cuts peeked from underneath the remains of his windbreaker sleeves. Was that his blood? He felt sick.

Shell shocked and confused Wrath allowed himself to be ushered along inside. There was a loud ringing in his ears as some of the seven were sent flying god knows where. He cracked his eyes open and peered from behind his arms which he had lifted to shield his face. Thick acrid smoke was pouring throughout the room. Tears filled his eyes as the black mist enveloped him. He heard coughing and then he knew no more.

[Present, Sinner’s HQ]

The world was starting to spin and the room is getting unbearably warm. Then there was blood almost soaking through. Minor cuts but they won’t stop bleeding. Joni stood up abruptly. He yelled something (which sounded like a garbled version of ‘gotta go’) and he staggered drunkenly towards the door leaving his backpack behind. Nothing was registering in his mind. He couldn’t care less about what the others thought. He just wanted to get home.

He stepped off yet another curb but was forced to retreat as a loud horn sounded. Confused Joni stared at the angry driver glaring at him. Soundless words issuing from the man’s mouth. Without thinking he opened the door and slide in. This was a taxi after all and he had cash. The boy ended sitting next to an elderly couple. He gave them a lop-sided smile and murmured something as he closed the door before passing out for the third time that night. He was very lucky that he was nowhere near the headquarters at that time.

[ Two and Half Hours Pre-Corruption ]

Gluttony made himself at home on one of the couches in the living room. Sloth's orders still vibrated around his head with a surprising intensity; it was one of those occasions when Gluttony decided to slow down his thought processes and analyse everything he could. The mission was simple; leave in two and a half hours, assist the Damned with a raid on some warehouse, and then leave knowing they'd gained a powerful ally. The young man carelessly slung his legs over the opposite arm rest, lying back on the couch. Closing his eyes, he pretended to sleep, retreating to a far off place deep within his mind, saturated with all his secrets and memories. It was the best place to think, and thinking was what Gluttony was best at. Or so he told himself.

He wondered about the Damned; a notorious gang with impressive manpower, the one element that the Sinners appeared to lack. They technically had everything else in terms of weaponry, technology and certain connections in the police network that the authorities hadn't caught onto yet. It was an odd coincidence that for such advantages, only seven Sinners were here to exploit them. Allying with the Damned would give the Sinners a comfortable kick-start up the criminal ladder, so he supposed that it was okay for them to be so few in number. "Power is sweetest in the hands of the few," he thought. But what price would he have to pay for such power? His mind wandered to the uncomfortable topic of the planned fight. Whilst Gluttony was a decent shot and not altogether a coward, he was still concerned for how much he had to gain. He didn't particularly care about imprisonment, since his power within the North family was high enough to bribe a judge within a court case or, in the worst case scenario, hire a lawyer good enough to de-buckle the prosecution. No, imprisonment wasn't an issue. Death, however, was. There was no amount of money that Gluttony could throw at Death's gatekeeper. Perhaps Sloth could... Reconsider? Albeit the fact that Gluttony was a steady source of income for the Sinners, he had to admit that not all the money he stole from his family was going to the gang. Some of it went into his personal account, safe for when disaster struck. "Is this a disaster?"

He dropped his pretence, dull brown eyes gazing at the tie which rested on his chest.Such formal wear for a barbaric gang fight. He almost managed a small chuckle as he recalled some of the weapons the other Sinner's used; Wrath with his knife, Sloth with her nightstick, Pride with his hands and practically anything else he decided to use. Gluttony's eyes wandered upwards to stare at the hand he held in the air, fingers arranged to resemble a gun. He had a good weapon of his own to use. It was a shame he couldn't share it with the others, though. To be honest, he somewhat expected them to have the common sense not to 'bring a knife to a gunfight'. He sighed exhaustively as his hand dropped to cover his now closed eyes, aware of the fact he would have to put in some more work at the fight itself to deal with anybody who had a gun. It simply wouldn't do to let a Sinner die before his own aspirations were complete.

He opened an eye slightly, catching glances at the occasional Sinner passing by his idle form. Lust, Envy, Pride, Greed... Gluttony briefly considered delving deeper into his mind on what to think of them before he thought better of it; he'd make up his mind after the fight.

[ Two and a Half Hours Later: Corruption ]

Gluttony checked how much ammo he had in his magazine. Lucky 7, plus one in the barrel for security. He raised the M1911 handgun up to eye level, clicking his tongue in satisfaction as he checked the iron sight. Spinning the gun loosely in his hand, Gluttony surveyed the other Sinners around him; men and women ready for battle, a look of complete and utter confidence in eyes barely old enough to hit 23 years. He marvelled at such bravery, his grip tightening on the pistol as he held it ready.

The sound of footsteps became clearer and clearer until one of them stopped completely as Sloth struck the first enemy down. "Alright boys and girls, eat 'em up," she said, quickly joining the fray. Cocking his gun, Gluttony sighed in frustration as he raised his arm and swiftly destroyed a young man's shoulder with a speeding bullet. "This is just disgusting," he thought as he quickly ducked behind cover, taking another shot at an unseen gunman about to fire at Envy. Gluttony could feel his frustration welling up inside him. Bloodthirst was good, yes, but logic was fundamental for survival. The sheer lack of it he saw offended him, driving him into a righteous anger. Never mind the Sinners, even the other gangs were fighting without grace. He popped his head above a large crate he crouched behind, ducking just in time for a bullet to whiz above where his ear would have been. Gluttony pinched his ear as if to check that it was indeed still there. Looking up at the dark ceiling for a brief moment, Gluttony took a deep breath. "Fuck this," he proclaimed as he vaulted over the crate and shot two men dead.

By the end of the initial bloodbath Gluttony had a murderous look in his eyes, his tie loosened by the motions of battle. Holding his gun limply by his side, a drop of sweat hanging off the side of his head, he quietly swore under his breath as he made his way back to the other Sinners. They were more or less okay, either shaken by the violence or enthralled by the energies it had instilled upon them. Gluttony, on the other hand, was merely irritated.

"Come on, lets get inside and check out what's going on." Gluttony reluctantly followed his boss, grumbling about something to do with children and knives. His steps were slow and measured, as if he was unsure where he was. They came out into another section of the warehouse which appeared darker than the first. "I don't understand, what is supposed to be here-"

BOOM.

Gluttony could feel the ground shake beneath him. He focused his eyes just as he saw his fellow Sinners being enveloped by a black gas. He watched as Sloth recoiled from the gas, the strange substance working its way into her mouth and skin. He watched as Envy was carried away by the force of the explosion, the gas clutching at his helpless body as he slammed into a wall. He watched as the malevolent cloud approached him.

3 seconds.

Now alert, Gluttony immediately focused on the nature of the cloud. It was thick and bulgy, clearly some kind of compressed gaseous substance which had escaped into the air.

2 seconds.

He instinctively took a step backward, his body flexing to get him out of there as fast as possible. But the explosion was too quick. Still his mind worked faster; was it some kind of nerve-agent? It had to be that, why else would Sloth writhe like her soul was being ripped out of her?

1 second.

Knowing he couldn't escape, Gluttony raised his gun just as the cloud touched his lips. The dark gas swallowed the muzzle flash as if it was a tasty treat, working its way over his tongue. Overcome by the bitter taste, Gluttony fought as hard as possible to stay away. He knew he had merely hundredths of a second before it began to work on his body's innermost mechanisms. The last thing he felt was his brain being consumed by an immense heat, almost as if a volcanic eruption was destroying him from the inside out.

0.

[ Present, After Corruption ]

Harold felt a small hand shaking him by the front of his shirt. "Gluttony, wake up. Come on, wake up!" Gluttony inhaled sharply as Sloth pounded the air out of his lungs, quickly leaving him to wake the other Sinners. Something had happened. He raised himself up uneasily, feeling strangely detached from the sensations his body was giving him. It was like he was there, shivering and sweating in cold terror at the same time as being somewhere else, somewhere distant and dark from which he felt nothing. He looked at his shaking hand, feeling his numb fingers as if this was his first time feeling such a thing. "Sl-Sloth, what the hell happened?" He looked at his leader with desperate eyes, unaware of how pitiful he must have looked. "I don't know," she said, crouching down. "Envy, hurry up. We need to get the fuck out of here. NOW!"

Lifting himself up, Gluttony stretched out his arms to regain his sense of balance. Everything felt wrong, as if his entire understanding of the world had shifted a few decimal points to the right. The solid concrete underneath him felt as if it had the density and texture of wood; the dusty air he breathed travelled down his lungs with a chill that could have only come from another point in his life. Worse of all, when he looked at the Sinners lying on the floor, he no longer felt the safe and distant detachment he held towards them. Instead, he felt the urge to learn, to extract, to exploit, to harvest... To consume.

Shaking his head, Gluttony quickly followed the others back to their base. At one point or another he felt a hand on his shoulder, unsure who it belonged to. Regardless it felt like any other thing lost in the wind. For the first time in his life, Harold North was truly unsure of what would happen next.

11:00 PM (Three and a half hours earlier)

Sloth was seated atop her throne, smoking and drinking away what her little slave Ash had brought her. Once the boy departed from her side, Angel reached out to catch his attention (hoping to score a beer himself), but went completely ignored. He only shrugged at this.

Their leader went on and on, rambling something about some fight with the other gangs. Joining the Damned's side was particularly what stood out to Angel, as many of them, including their leader's right-hand man, were his own patrons for at least sometime before he joined with Sloth's crew. Seeing them again would be something interesting. Surely his presence there would help both gangs to establish some working connections.

And then Sloth dozed off. Just like that. That chick had quite some talent. Angel leaned back in his chair, propping his legs up on the table and bouncing his feet to some rhythm. He thought he'd catch some z's too while they killed time, since both of the girls in their team already seemed preoccupied with something else.

---

1:15 (two hours later)

Seeing as Angel was inept at fighting, he charged in last after the others, scanning the entire area warily. Though Sloth had promised to teach him her fighting prowess, and Harry with at least some knowledge of how to hold guns, he still found himself almost useless with both. If this fight was nothing big, he would have hung back and watched (probably mimicking) Sam's moves; the cockyass lived up to his name of Pride, and Angel would have loved to share it. Rather than sit around or intrude on the others' battles however, he skulked around the back, push daggers in hand. Waiting to knock out an unwary thug, the dirty way.

Another man stalked the shadows, ready to ambush one of the Sinners from behind. Angel was lightfooted however, and crept behind him without notice. "Sorry, buddy." He extended his arms out around the other man and jabbed his double push daggers into his chest, burying them deep. The man collapsed to the floor. Angel ducked after him. As the rest of his team fought amongst the other fourteen thugs among them, Angel instead took to looting the one he had taken out. After all, it was only fair game.

He rose with a new wallet and pocket watch shoved inside his inner suit's pocket, and a smug across his face. Like Gluttony, Greed too bore a suit wherever he went, his outfit distinguished by a white top instead of full on black - but he wasn't afraid to pop himself in disgraceful positions. Sloth then ushered them into the compound, but any further plans were cut short.

The arena rumbled.

An explosion sounded off, and a caustic gas seeped into the room. Naturally Angel would have sniffed out whatever components made this strange caustic gas - it was nothing like smoke plumes from usual fires and explosions, at least from what he had experienced. But the impact alone had sent him careening into a wall. He was knocked out instantly, back propped against the wall and head hanging low.

---

2:30 AM (Present time)

"...the fuck out of here. NOW!"

Angel's head lolled in response to the sudden screaming, disturbed from his sleep. His head pounded with pain. "Not so loud..." Slowly he rolled and rose to his feet before Sloth could get to him, flicking his wrist as she approached. Pride groaned from nearby, catching Sloth's attention to him, while Angel's own turned to someone else: a girl with pinkish hair, having been knocked to the floor face first.

He strode to her at a leisure pace, feeling for the mask behind his head as he walked. The thing was ceramic - he found himself awake against the wall though, knocked out before he could have even realized what had happened. But feeling along its surface alone disturbed him. The artifact appeared to be completely intact, unscathed even. It should have shattered upon impact, another reason why he was not much a fighter.

"Emmy, hey, wake up." Angel gripped her cute little shoulders, nudging her gently but enough to earn a response with one hand. His other clutched the side of his own head. "You all right? We need to get out of here."

Once everyone's lives were secure, Sloth quickly escorted them to their headquarters. Almost sluggishly Angel took to the chair he sat upon earlier, but couldn't even bother to place his feet on the desk before him. He leaned his head back this time, lolling it and blocking out Sloth's indignation. It was... painful, whatever the hell this came from. He hadn't gotten shot, nor was the area on fire when he had awoken. No one else seemed to have a clue either. As the others uttered amongst themselves, Angel rose back to his feet and stumbled towards the kitchen. He was sure to snag Joni's backpack with him. After running his hands through the contents, he plucked out a wallet with the kid's stash of money (probably not much), stuffed it in his pocket, and chucked the bag behind him.

Though he didn't live there with Sloth, Angel still had his own mini chemistry wares - glasses, beakers, raw materials, and all - nestled in a corner on the countertop. Whether Sloth cared about where he left it never occurred to him. Especially not now, when his head buzzed with pain worse than any hangover he had felt. He pulled open a drawer and sifted through packs of ziplock bags, filled with multicolored powders. "Anyone want some ibuprofen?"

She awoke to the sound of voices, incoherent and unfamiliar, whispering so close to her ear it made her shiver. It was no use making out what the voices were saying; there were far too many speaking at once, and their words mixed into unintelligible chatter. Disoriented and still groggy, Emmy tried to rouse, but it was to no avail. She could feel herself laying face down on the concrete, but that was as much as she could glean off from her surroundings. Her eyes felt as though they were stitched shut, and her body refused to move as a dull ache coursed through every part of it. She was already beginning to panic. Where were the others? Was she alone? What happened? She racked her brain, trying to recall what went on before she blacked out, but could pickup only jagged bits and pieces. The Damned. Fighting. A Warehouse. She was with the rest of the Sins, and then--

That's when she heard it, just as loud as the one that had knocked them out hours earlier. An explosion. Emmy was still unable to move from where she lay on the ground, but she fought against the pain and somehow managed to force her arms to move, shielding her head as she braced for the inevitable impact. But it never came. There were only more voices, getting louder and louder until they've drowned out her own thoughts.

< ♥ >
11:11 PM | Three hours, nineteen minutes before 'Mission: Support the Damned'

Emmy loved it best when all the members of the group were together, just like they were now. Okay, so they were together a lot. But during downtimes, the rest of them went off to do their own thing, and she only had Sloth and Envy for company. The two of them would have been perfectly fine, but they tended to leave eighty percent of the conversations to her. Sometimes they'd just let her babble on, and although she doesn't usually notice, she gets upset when she does. They were often busy, as well—Sloth sleeping or otherwise, Ash doing whatever it was Sloth had him do—so she would be left to entertain herself. Luckily, that wasn't the case today.

Sloth had just announced their mission for the night: supporting the Damned in the upcoming fight. There was more to it, but she usually let the others worry about the details. They wouldn't need to leave for two and a half hours, so Emmy thought the group could do some sort of bonding activity. She had a list of things they could do (board games, video games, drinking games; she googled the ‘top ten things to do' so everyone could have some fun), and had been waiting excitedly to be able to do some. Emmy was quick to take a liking to all the other Sins, but she knew the others weren't as comfortable with each other yet and that needed to be fixed. Unfortunately, just as she thought to get out some drinks for the game, she noticed Sloth had already transformed her throne into her royal mattress. Like clockwork, she'd be asleep within minutes. Then, not long after, Sam went off to play at the arcade (even though she protested they had video games there). Ash had his orders, so she knew he'd be focusing on that until he carried it out. Even Angel seemed ready to sleep.

With a childish huff, Emmy plopped down next to Harry on the couch, sitting closer than what the concept of personal boundaries allowed. She could tell he was already putting on his thinking cap and getting ready to go to his mind palace, so she decided to just go with the flow and just take a quick snooze as well. So much for bonding time. Pulling Joni beside her, she all but used the younger boy as a body pillow as she wrapped arms and legs around him.

< ♥ >
Around 1:40 AM | Mission start.

Long hair tied up in a high ponytail and adorned with a bow, and dressed in a short white dress with butterfly patterns and frilled edges, it was safe to say Emmy stood out like a sore thumb. If a passerby were to see her, they'd think she'd have to have been kidnapped. But as out of place as she looked, there was no denying that Emmy acted like she belonged in there. As the fight officially began—initiated by their awesome leader, of course—and the rest of the Sins joined in the fray, Emmy simply stood her ground, head held high and an impossibly sweet smile on her face. Like she expected, no one had gone straight for her, opting instead for the rest of her team. She didn't know whether it was because she knew more than half of the members of each gang (there were even some who greeted her when they thought she was smiling at them), or because anyone who goes to her attack her would be called a pussy, but when they were in fights like these, she usually didn't have to worry.

Still rooted in her spot, Emmy simply cheered excitedly as Sam went through one thug after another, playfully mimicking his moves. She egged on the others who were too afraid to fight their Pride and targeted the other Sins instead, calling them colorful but strange monikers that got them annoyed. It wasn't like the others weren't a force to reckon with, though. Ash and Sloth could handle themselves fine, Harry was all set and trigger-happy, and Angel finished off those who lurked in the shadows.

If anything, it was the young Joni she tended to watch out for, even though he would probably fare better than her. When she saw one with a knife running toward their Wrath, Emmy was quick to rush toward him. But before she could reach him, one of their enemies finally had the gall to approach her. He was at least a head taller and was probably twice her width, and he ran to her with a strangled war cry. It was difficult to see if this was one of the men she knew, disfigured as he was with his broken and bloodied nose and swollen eyes. At least she knew he was obviously one of Sam's victims.

Emmy just laughed, pissing the thug off even more as he charged toward her. "I'll kill you, fucking slut," he yelled.

"That's Lust, silly," she said with feigned innocence, falling into the defensive stance she was taught. Emmy may not be the fighting machine Pride was, but she was surprisingly excellent at defensive and counteractive maneuvers. Even though it didn't work out (and yes, that's an understatement) with the old gang she was with it, she would always be grateful that they taught her Aikido.

Just as the thug swung his fist wildly at her, aiming to get her head, Emmy raised her arm and used it to redirect her assailant's attack. He ended up attacking air instead. Before he could even try to regain his balance, she grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm. She forcibly pushed back on his twisted arm, putting all her weight into it, driving him to the ground face first. The impact was too much for his already bruised and battered face, and he fell unconscious right on contact. Emmy dusted herself off and made a show off patting the felled thug on the head. After quickly checking whether Joni was unharmed, she rejoined the Sinners as they convened in the building.

The group had hardly stepped inside before things went crazy. Kaboom the building went! There was a split second when Emmy was aware of everything. She could see her some of fellow Sin being blasted back by the explosion, some getting engulfed by the strange black gas. Then she felt the impact for herself, and she was helpless as her body was flung against the hard wall.

< ♥ >
2:30 AM | Aftermath

"Emmy, hey, wake up,"

This time, it was a familiar voice that spoke to her. Angel's. She could feel him gently nudging her awake, and she almost felt like crying in relief. At least she knew the others were safe and she wasn't alone. As she slowly reoriented herself, the events leading up to blackout became clearer until she finally shared everyone's sense of urgency. She moved as quickly as she could, keeping a tight grip on Angel all the while, and followed everyone as they all raced back to their base.

Once everyone (minus one, she noticed belatedly) had settled down, it became obvious that no one could make heads or tails of what had just happened. Emmy was uncharacteristically quiet. Wordlessly, she had taken hold of the person nearest her, Harry it turned out, and clung to his arm like a lifeline. There were voices that continued to whisper in her mind, and she didn't know how to make it stop. And now, a wave of insecurity washed over her, like she was dreading the uncertainty that hung in the air. It was a strange sensation, something she'd never felt before.

What was wrong with her?

Sloth had noticed that they were short one member, Wrath, but given his situation it wasn't surprising to find him gone. She sighed and said "Whoever can, get into contact with Wrath as soon as possible. Need to make sure that he isn't fucked up or anything..." She groaned and looked down at her stomach again. The major pain from when she first woke up had subsided, so now she was feeling the pain of the cuts along her torso. She thought them merely to be minor wounds at first, but they were proving to be much more than she previously thought of them.

Without thinking, she removed her jacket and shirt to reveal her chest and abdomen, showing off the array of wounds she had picked up from the fray, including many deep, bleeding stabs. She stood up quickly from her chair and ran into the kitchen, ignoring Angel as she flung cabinet doors open so quickly some of them actually broke and came off the hinges. She found what she needed, a first aid kit, and said to Angel "Alright, you're gonna help me. I need you to get me something to wipe up the blood, and then something else to douse in the cleaning alcohol, go now please."

Once Angel got what she wanted, she said "Wipe the blood away while I get to work." She let him clean her of the blood dripping down her body and then took her nightstick to use as something to bite down on. She then began to clean her cuts with the towel doused in cleaning alcohol, crying out softly as she went to work. Once she finished cleaning, she then took out the needle and some thread and slowly began working on the wounds. It took what felt like hours, but really only lasted ten minutes, of stitching, but she managed to finish.

Once she did, she collapsed onto the floor and laid there for a minute, actually tearing up but just breathing slowly and if someone asked she was fine she would just say "Give me a minute." After she recovered, she slowly stood herself up and then took the bandage roll, wrapping up her wounds slowly. Once she finished, she said "I'll be back in a minute," taking her bloody clothes upstairs and changing into her standard t-shirt and shorts.

She sat back down in her leather seat and leaned back saying "Alright...So from what I know and what happened, I can say this for sure. The Damned didn't set us up. They don't have access to any explosives that are this size. The Reapers and The Emperors on the other hand...Well they might have been behind this, but we can't say for sure. All we know is that we got attacked with bombs and need to be ready for whatever might happen next. Luckily we're still small, so we may not have even been a target for whoever set it up, so we should be safe...I suggest that you all just go back home, get some rest. We'll regroup here at 4 PM tomorrow and figure out what we're doing next. I'm going to bed."

With that, she nodded to the group and went back into the computer room, letting the whirring of the machines carry her off to a pain filled sleep.

“Shit… “He could only mutter to himself as he started to think properly about the dilemma he was in. He was lucky enough to have only be winded and bruised from the explosion but… He didn't know how the members of the Sinners would react to a Cyclops. Not telling anyone might’ve been a bad decision, however he still felt a little sensitive about it and because he didn't know anyone closely, their reactions could be minimal to utterly disgusted. He scanned the living room as his vision returned and realized that Joni had disappeared. Probably shocked to death after being invited to that event…

His thoughts were interrupted as Sloth suddenly removed her clothes to show a series of bloody injuries. His first reaction was to help but seeing Angel on the case, he realized he’d probably get in the way. No need for too many hands. Anyway, he could only use one hand. Unable to think of any other idea how to get out of his awkward position, he put on his hood so that it covered his eyes. The sounds of breaking wood and now small screams to what sounded like an emergency medical procedure sounded from the open door.

I guess everyone’s barely stuck together… Pride seemed to be in the most thoughtful of moments so he decided not to disturb him and Gluttony, he didn’t exactly like the thought of communicating with, if possible. Greed was helping Sloth which only came down to Emmy… However she was holding Gluttony’s arm in shock… It would seem awkward to ask her for her company privately but at this moment in time it seemed as though no one would care..

As Ash was about to get up, his eyes seemed to lock onto Emmy’s eyes and for a moment, an overwhelming instinct almost made him throw up… and then it was gone. Everything seemed to be going wrong today. Was it him or were her eyes a lot more alluring than usual? Deciding it was a trick of the light, he got up from the sofa, walked over to the sofa and poked Emmy lightly on the shoulder. “Do you have a second?” He seemed almost anxious as the words left his mouth but on closer inspection, Emmy seemed out of it. Ash died a little inside.

Not really waiting for a reply, he started to head upstairs to his room, deciding that if she decided to follow or even notice, he would say something otherwise he would wait for another time. This was probably a first if Ash was to ever ask for company inside his room so hopefully Emmy wouldn't take this as a step forward. He leaned on the wall of his bedroom, wondering what was in stock for the group.
Ash's thought's seemed to be scrambled as one thought after the other came bustling into his head and the urge to smash something came to thought. Fighting against the urge with mindless reasoning, he earnestly wished Emmy would come. To think that he would ask for her company was more than embarrassing and different to what he would usually do but he panicked at the start. Tired, aching everywhere Ash decided to simply close his eyes and let the darkness take him; Emmy would wake him up if she wanted to. She had her ways.

Sam was sitting on top of the previously won teddy bear, looking around at the battered, bruised group with a mix of concern and annoyance. This wasn’t supposed to be a difficult job, and his fellow sins shouldn’t have had to get injured. What’s worse was that he seemed to be uninjured and that status of being completely unscathed was as infuriating as it was incomprehensible. He had dived into the fight and taken a couple blows. He should have been sore and bruised and instead it looked like he hadn’t been fighting at all!

“Fuck sake. I need a smoke.”

Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew one of the cigarettes and put it into his mouth before he’d even gotten up. He was fiddling with the old zippo as he made his way to the door and had lit the smoke before he closed the front door. Outside was quiet as he took a deep inhale of the smoke, trying to calm his raging nerves. Everything had gone wrong that evening, and he felt at least partially to blame. He should have insisted Sloth leave some of them behind…Should have taken the lead…Should have at least gotten a fucking war-wound or something.

“Tch, god-damnit.” The smoke wasn’t doing enough. He started to pace as his temper boiled over. Everything had been off thus far. The entire fight should have been easy! He could have probably handled it alone, if Sloth had just told him to deal with it alone, without having to worry about Wrath or Lust or Gluttony or the other two…

“God Damnit!” He shouted out, as he slammed his fist as hard as he could into a nearby wall. The sound of a very painful ‘crunch’ rang both inside his ears and outside them. A part of him wanted to scream: the weak part. He didn’t scream out, but he did grunt in pain. The fingers of his right fist were bent at odd angles and the skin on his knuckles was cracked and bloody. The pain was throbbing and…

…The pain had already subsided. Sam looked down at his fist, only to see something bizarre. A strange black mist was floating out of the open skin: sizzling like a hot plate and smoking like a flame. He was worried his hand might catch on fire and felt his cigarette drop out of his mouth, where his jaw hung open. The wound should have hurt, but instead he just felt itchy and hungry.

After about ten seconds of the strange black smog emanating from his fist, the wounds were completely gone: and his fist was completely repaired. Everything seemed whole again, and if it weren’t for the bloody fist imprint on the wall, he’d believe he was hallucinating.

“Ho-ly-Fuck.”

He reached for his belt and withdrew the unused knife from the fight. It was a keen, curved edge: enough to dice through meat and bone, if enough force was put into it. Curious as to what the fuck was going on, he ran the edge over his knuckle, only to see the black smoke re-emerge: thicker this time. It was closer to sludge and slime and the cut was healed up in a matter of seconds.

“Holy fuck!”

He pushed his way back into the building, stamping the cigarette as he passed over it. He was eager to get inside, and the group would just notice the sight of Sam rushing inside with a strange smile on his face and a slightly bloodied, drawn knife.

“Guys, you need to fucking see this!” He was shouting: Oddly excited by the arcane display of healing. Just how powerful was it? Maybe he hadn’t hallucinated about breaking his arm after all…

…Only one way to find out.

“Seriously, watch this.” Without any further hesitation, Sam lifted the knife in his left hand and suddenly slammed it into his right palm. He clenched his teeth in agony as his hand became a sheath for the knife: but without letting up, he yanked the blade out. Blood dripped on the floor and, for a second: he thought that he was going crazy. A second of agony was enough to cause doubt to spring up in Sam’s mind. ’Am I going mental? Why isn’t this shit healing!?’

The heated sensation from before suddenly filled his arm, and the black smokey sludge exploded from both sides of the wounded hand: like so much oil. It sizzled audibly and Sam felt a sense of hunger and fill the pit of his stomach. Tiredness filled his limbs as his hand re-knit flesh and did away with pain. Three seconds was all it took for Sam’s hand to be fully repaired, and he clenched it into a fist before looking at the sins, a broad smile on his face.

“Has anyone got some food? I’m really hungry, all of a sudden.”

Once the surge of adrenaline had waned, Emmy became all too aware of the bruises that covered her arms and legs and the splitting headache that seemed to get worse by the second. The dress she wore didn't fare well in the explosion, torn and dirtied as it was. But as she tried to dust it off, another barrage of voices blasted in her head. Emmy's grip tightened on Harry as she tried to fight off the pain, but that seemed to only make the voices louder. Emmy was surprised to hear that there was a voice that sounded like Harry's among them. His was even the most prevalent one, and if she focused on singling him out, she could almost pick out distinct words. If it didn't hurt her head to do so, she'd probably get some sentences out of it.

Curiously, she looked up at Harry, to check whether he was actually speaking out loud and her mind was merely addled by the traumatic events. But that wasn't the case at all. The Harry in her head and the Harry next to her were never in sync.

Too exhausted to even try to figure out what was wrong with her (where would she even begin?), she chalked everything up to the head injury she probably sustained and forced herself to think of other things for now. Like Joni. Before Sloth left to get her wounds treated, she told one of them to contact the missing Sin, and Emmy wanted to do so immediately. But It was proving rather difficult to concentrate on other things. She'd been so focused on hushing not-Harry, she'd barely even noticed the strange look Ash was giving her. It wasn't until he'd gotten up and poked her on the shoulder that she realized he was speaking to her. In that second, she thought she heard Ash in her head, too, along with this wave of anxiety that washed over her.

"Be there in a bit," she told him distractedly as he left. "Let me just call Joni."

As her phone was by the table, Emmy had to reluctantly let go of Gluttony's arm. She was glad (and a little bit surprised) to hear the Harry in her head disappear soon after, but there was another thing that worried her more. After she had let go, there was a sudden pang of loneliness that filled her… or was it desperation? It was like it actually hurt to let go.

Whatever it was, it only lasted for a fleeting second, and she thought it was better not to bother. There were too many things to worry about right now. Joni wasn't answering (was she really going crazy or did she hear his phone ringing from the kitchen?), something seemed to be wrong with Ash, and Sam…

Sam had just come in with a strange, almost hysteric look in his face. Before Emmy could even comprehend what was happening, he jammed a knife in his hand without warning. He looked at his wound expectantly, and she could only stare wide eyed. Was this what the explosion did? Make everyone go crazy? She watched helplessly as blood started pooling from his hand, and looked to Harry and Angel for help. Should she wake up Sloth? Get Ash? ...and where the hell was Joni?

Before she could completely unravel in her panic, Emmy caught sight of a familiar-looking black sludge coming out from where Sam's blood oozed. Within seconds, the gaping wound disappeared, and his hand looked as good as new. Oh. Emmy was at a loss for words, but as she reached out and grabbed Sam's hand, to see if the wound really had healed, she felt a sudden wave of exhilaration. She smiled as widely as Sam, sharing his excitement at the miraculous display.

"Sam, that's amazing! You're like a superhero," she exclaimed."You should show Sloth; she'd freak! I'll go call Ash so he can see."

With that, she was off, finally getting around to seeing what Ash had wanted. So many strange things were happening, it was getting hard to keep track. What was with this day? The surge of excitement that enveloped her just moments ago was slowly starting to dissipate, just as the panic from before was slowly returning. That was another thing. Emmy desperately wanted to know why she was being so moody, excited one moment and anxious the next. As if hearing voices wasn't enough of a problem, now she had to tack on moodiness.

"Aaash, what did you want?" she called out as she neared his room.Emmy learned early on that Ash was a private person. That he was personally seeking her out was already as big of a miracle as Sam's healing, and she didn't think he'd go as far as let her in his room. "Ash?"

When he didn't respond, she poked her head in through the slit from the half-opened door, and rushed in when she saw him passed out against the wall. Her brows furrowed in concern. Ash was never one to admit when he was feeling sick. What if he was suffering from a fatal wound and he was just bleeding out without telling anyone? Suddenly worried but unsure of what to do, Emmy gingerly cupped his face with both hands and tapped his cheeks as gently as she could.

"Ash, hey, are you alright?" she asked. "You're not dead, right?"

« Wake up. » Emmy willed him.

The Sinners made their way back to the base, voices hushed by thoughts of dread at what would have happened had the explosion been worse. As they filed through the door and stood in the living room, Harry still felt the strange sense of disorientation that had been building up since the explosion. The things he felt seemed alien and new, and the more he tried to work his head around it the heavier the disorientation seemed to get.

At one point or another Harry was aware that the hand on his shoulder was Emmy. As they all stood in the living room to hear Sloth's debriefing, Gluttony's sense of hunger grew more powerful. He felt an intense need to know; in his mind it felt like the Sinners around him were merely beehives of activity that only he could sense. He glanced at Emmy, his hand tentatively drifting towards her right shoulder.

One touch, that's all I need.

It was after a few moments of looking at the movement of his hand that he took a sharp intake of breath and drew back, as if the attempt was something toxic to him. What was he thinking? Since when did he touch anyone, least of all Emmy, in such a casual, purposeless way? He stared at the barely visible veins beneath his hand, branching from his fingers and across his wrist.

Harry's focused gaze broke when Sam stumbled back into the living room. The fighter was breathing heavily, a look of complete craze in his eyes. For a brief moment, Harry wasn't sure whether he was excited, or something was terribly wrong. "Guys, you need to fucking see this!" Gluttony watched as Pride raised a knife to the air, driving it down hard into his hand. Gluttony could almost feel his right leg breaking from the effort of suppressing his instinct to dash forward and restrain Sam. He barely stopped himself on the last minute revelation that Sam would probably destroy him in seconds if it came down to a fist fight.

Harry took a hesitant step forward. The moment his foot touched the ground he felt the sensation vibrate through his brain. It hit him in waves which gradually increased in strength; torrents upon torrents of unrelenting force that penetrated the very foundations of his senses. A bead of sweat sliced its way down his left temple; he could almost feel his pupils constricting like a vice was being pulled within his eyes. He grimaced, trying to keep a straight face as this battle raged inside him. Harry was clearly suffering somehow, the remainder of Sam's words being registered in his brain as unintelligible droning sounds.

For a single moment Harry was intensely aware of where he was, like a calm in the storm of senses and thoughts which had gone violently wrong. Emmy had left him for some reason, which was probably a good thing considering what he was going through right now. But what he picked up on particularly was the memory of the black liquid pooling around the wound on Sam's hand.

Memory.

Just like that, Harry lost his sense of awareness. He felt a blunt pound as his back slammed into the wall for support. His fingers clutched at his shoulders as if a cold wind was blowing around him. One moment he was there, in the living room of the Sinners, and the next moment he was outside, smoking a cigarette with an intense frustration welling up inside him. He could feel the nicotine in his veins struggling to deal with the surge of anger and disappointment, concepts of being the strongest fighting with concepts of cowardice. Harry felt the bones in his knuckles breaking as he slammed his fist into a wall, only to see the same black liquid coat the injuries to leave behind flawless skin and bone.

Harry crumpled to the floor, gasping for air. A strange smile cracked across his lips as his pupils stretched to their normal size. What the hell was he feeling? It like how he had imagined being high on ecstasy, but far better. This was perfection. He didn't know what had happened there, but what was sure was that for that brief moment, Harry had accessed his insatiable desire; the knowledge behind another human being. He looked at his pale, trembling hands; they were his now, but in that moment, they were Sam's as well. He squinted as he looked at the fighter, his attention clearly focused on something else rather than Harry. The hunger drifted away slightly, still gnawing inside him but finally releasing its hold on Harry's senses. He rubbed his hands exhaustively over his face, trying to restore circulation. The ground felt normal... So did the wall behind him. Everything was back to normal. At least, normal enough.

He blinked several times, trying to clear his blurred vision. Was what happened a hallucination? It certainly felt like it. Harry tried to regain an image of composure as he drew his knees back and rested his arms on them. Weird things were beginning to happen; he needed to be alert and ready for any more hallucinations or freaky occurrences happening around Sam. What was worse was the fact he couldn't get his mind to relax to a state where he could focus. "Dear lord..." he muttered, hiding his face behind his arms. "What the hell is going on..?"

Soon enough Sloth trailed Angel into the kitchen, totally revealing herself to him. He whirled around with an piqued "Hello!" before he could even see her stabs and slices. Ignoring his arousal she quickly ordered him to assist with her injuries. To this Angel saluted her back and fetched what she asked like a dog. "Got your back, Sloth!"

As La Madre departed for her throne, he cringed - the headache pounded harder than ever. To make matters worse another rumble set off, and Angel immediately fell into a readied stance, expecting another explosion to catch everyone off guard. At least until Sam outside start screaming something along the lines of "Holy fuck!"

Then the madman charged inside and stabbed himself!? Angel nearly choked at his irrational action - until Sam's hand healed itself, with some black goop completely sealing up the wound. "What in the...?"

Angel reached for the mask on the back of his head and held it before him. A porcelain, faceless mask bar the two black eye sockets for him to see through. And it was completely unscathed. He glanced back towards Sam, then Harry - who had slammed his back into the wall and crumpled to the floor. slammed his back into the wall and crumpled to the floor. Angel would have taken off to help the latter, until Harry began smiling.

First Sam pretty much impales himself and Harry keels over, grinning and muttering. Angel looked back to Sloth, who continued snoozing away, and the other three sins had already vanished from sight. "Is everyone here psychotic? I couldn't have had that much to drink this morning." Returning to the kitchen, when he was sure no one was looking, Angel propped on his mask.

There must have been something up with that explosion earlier. That or he truly was drunk. After all, his mask should have been shattered when he slammed against a wall from impact. Yet there he was, wearing it, physically. His dizziness almost amplified, and along with that he found himself... craving something. Craving. Needing. Something. Anything. More - he just needed more.

He took a knee, clutching his head once again. Oh it hurt, the pounding and the cravings intermixing all at once, it hurt - but it hurt so good. What on earth was going on? "I could... really use a beer right now. Or vodka. Or Baileys. Anything would be g-"

Something popped out of his pocket and rolled on the floor as he knelt down. Angel lifted his eyes - meeting with a little plastic cube. A die. A four.

While he was used to his dice flopping out from his pockets here and there by accident (typically when he leans over like this), sudden mugs of beer materializing beside them was unheard of. Molded into existence from the same black smoke that emitted from Sam's own hand, Angel reached for the handle - and gripped his hand around it. He jerked it, allowing the liquid inside to slosh around and spill onto his sleeve.

Yep. It was definitely there. His eyes fixated on the die, which pulsated with a faint black aura.

"Oh, God. What the fuck."

Sloth opened her eyes and found herself looking over her sleeping body. She thought to herself ~Trippy...Well whatever, just a dream right?~ She turned her head and looked around the room, noticing all of the shelves of computer hardware and wires. She chuckled to herself mentally, amazed that she was able to recall the computer room so clearly. usually when she dreamed she would be fuzzy on her surroundings and only focus on the events or people appearing in her dreams. She began to move around, noticing that she was much taller and larger then her actual size, even in comparison to her dream. She guessed that this, apparently lucid dream, was her dreaming of being someone (or something) else.

She turned to the door and reached her hand out, noticing that her hand was a large, monstrous looking hand. Pitch black, and instead of fingers more like jagged claws. She shuddered and mouthed "woah" without making a sound, realizing that she had no voice while in this form. She shrugged, still believing that it was simply a dream. Now she reached her hand to the knob, slowly twisting and opening the door slightly. She looked outside too see Pride cutting himself and healing it instantly and then turned back in disgust.

She thought to herself ~Jesus christ...What the hell is going!? wait...Calm down, breathe.~ She took several long, drawn out breaths, and as she calmed herself down, reinforcing the idea of this only being a dream inside her mind. She then turned back to the door, and opened it slowly, looking to everybody that was there. She noticed Wrath was still gone, and that Lust and Envy were also missing, leaving only Greed, Gluttony, and Pride.

(Gonna god mod this for a bit, sorry but I think it's a little necessary to move this along)

Then they all turned to face her, and she was met with blank stares. She waited for someone to say something and when they remained quiet, she took a step towards them, and they all backed away. She reached out towards them and before she even reached any of them, one of them picked something up from the table and smacked her hand away. She didn't feel any sensations of pain, or not even any physical touch. She pulled her hand back in reflex, but she reached out again and this time when one of them went to swat the hand away, it shifted it's shape.

The hand shifted into the form of a blade, cutting the object they swung at her with relative ease. She merely stared at her hand, trying to assess what the hell was going on. While she didn't feel anything, something about this whole situation was off putting, and something in the back of her head was starting to force the idea that this wasn't a simple dream anymore.

« Wake up. »

What the hell? Was all he could think as a feminine voice broke the surface of his thoughts. I better not be imagining girls all of a sudden or something… He was about to withdraw into his deep sleep once more when the palms of a female clasped his face and suddenly his eyes flicked open. “E-Emmy…” he barely managed to say as he quickly backed away, only to slam his head into the wall and he winced in pain.

Looking around, he realized where he had fallen unconscious. Lovely. There was a bed right next to him he could’ve fallen on. Instead, he felt extremely awkward to find himself on the floor with Emmy looking at him with a worried expression on her face. “Hey, hey… Sorry for seeing you in such a state.” He took no notice of how she looked, still feeling self-conscious. He made a sign for them to sit on the bed and he took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to say this but… I want you to keep a secret for me, until later… Could you?” Not being able to hold his panic, he pointed to the closed eye. “I lost my eye when I was younger and my replica got lost in that explosion. I wasn’t sure who to-“he cut himself of when he felt something was going on downstairs. A prickling sensation went down Ash’s spine as his place his hand on Emmy’s shoulder in a protective manner.

“Wait here. Something’s going on.” Without waiting for her to reply or protest, he quickly left the room and crept downstairs. Still, a queer silence; unlike the silence which filled the house before, continued to grow. The sound of something hitting the floor with a clutter was Ash’s cue to dash downstairs into the living room and… “What the fuck…” he said for the second time that day as he was greeted by… a sinister being. He took a deep breath and blinked to check whether it was the trick of the light… What’s more the thing had… a bladed hand. It seemed as though time had frozen in the living room but Ash quickly shook his head and scanned the area. Where the hell was Sloth?! He assumed that she was behind the figure, in the computer room.

The figure bore no resemblance to the human apart from its figure. Made of what looked like… black gunk, it seemed to be similar to the black gas which took them by surprise. This just seemed to cliché to him… Black gas which everyone gets into contact with? Now a black figure? The ‘thing’ didn't seem to show much aggression despite its bladed hand. In any case it seemed confused… What was going on…? Quickly hitting himself on the face, he had one goal at this moment in time; to get to Sloth. Although no hostility was shown, who knew what it could do. This was the first time Ash was completely stumped as to what to do. He hated himself for feeling useless and only waited patiently for an opportunity to arise.

Just as Angel examined his newly formed mug of beer in one hand, with his strangeass die in the other, he heard a door opening and something shuffling just outside of the kitchen. He ran out to meet the other two Sinners, only to freeze in his tracks. A monstrous silhouette stood right before them.

"What. The fuck."

Yeah. Yeah this was definitely a dream, a hallucination. Angel's lightheadedness and everyone else acting like nutcases only helped to reaffirm that thought. This - this couldn't be real, could it? The beer that had materialized tasted real as ever, as with the merciless pounding headache. After his teammates threw some fits, now some shadow monster was invading their HQ? Just what the hell was going on here?

Angel watched in silence as the blackened figure approached the other two teammates, hoping he'd have time to think of a plan. To - to strike? To flash some lights on it? To vacuum it? To shield themselves and drive it back?? God, what was there to--

His thoughts were cut short. The second it reached out for Sam and Harry, Angel intervened on impulse - by chucking his beer mug and completely missing the target. Once it turned to face Angel, he held his breath and flung his die at it as well. Immediately the being shifted the shape of its arm into a blade to knock the die aside - though it landed to the floor, unscathed.

Six.

Suddenly black aura encased the arms of the three Sinners and materialized into the shape of a large and sturdy, but extremely lightweight spiked shield. The shapes solidified themselves, taking in solid colors and textures before finalizing their forms. Meantime the glass shards and spilled beer disintegrated into thin, black vapor, and wafted away into nothingness.

Angel looked to his arm before looking back to the shadowed being. His faceless mask would shield the worry on his face if there was any to begin with, as Angel was a man who simply did not worry even with oddities like this. "Who are you - why are you here - and, uh. Stay back! Before we spike you to death. Uhh... Sam, Harry...?"

Sam was slow to react when the shade came into the room. Sluggish from…from what: exhaustion? Hunger, maybe? He had been fine moments before. Perhaps it was an after effect of the stigmata from before or perhaps he was just coming down hard from the adrenaline of the last few hours. Either way, the world moved faster than he did: as someone threw something at the shadow, only to have it sliced in half.

Sam was staring in disbelief at the creature. It was made of blackness…Something similar to the strange blackness that had dripped from his wounds like so much bile in his blood. On instinct, he raised his dagger and was about to surge forward and attack the thing, sluggishness be damned, when he faltered lightly. He didn’t know what it was, or where it was, or why it stopped him; something had Sam standing stuck to the spot though. For a moment, it felt like he was looking at himself through a mirror or through someone else’s eyes. He was frozen in time: a monolithic pillar in the middle of the room.

…and then he was Sam again. He shook his head and saw Angel acting against the shade. To think that it was him who acted first was almost insulting. Sam didn’t notice what was thrown, it was too small or perhaps his vision was simply too blurry. Either way, he couldn’t ignore what came next. Attached to his arm was a shield. It had appeared from nowhere and it seemed almost weightless to the strong arm of Sam. He stared at Angel, unsure of what to think or say. He heard the man’s words, and at the end: he finished with the magic word.

“…Sam?”

Pride smiled as he stepped towards the shade, knife and shield raised and ready. He was facing up to the shadow, the umbra, the whatever-the-fuck this thing was. Sluggishness was still there, but self-confidence and the knowledge that someone was depending on him was enough to move the tired limbs back into action. He squared up to the shade, unflinching and unafraid of the creature before him.

“I don’t what the fuck you are, but your ass is in the wrong house. This is the Sinner’s house: the house of Sloth and the den of vice.” He was standing at full height. The Asian heritage seemed to bubble away as Six foot four inches of muscle stared down the spirit-thing. “Now get the fuck out.” He lunged forward, shield arm facing the slimy creature while the knife darted forward, aiming for a throat. He wasn’t giving the creature a chance to leave in anything other than a body bag, if he could help it.

"Hey there, sleepyhead." A sigh of relief escaped Emmy's lips when Ash at last opened his eyes, and she greeted him with a small smile. She waited until he reoriented himself, then trailed after him as he made his way to sit on the bed, watching him curiously all the while. With her currently abnormal hypersensitivity to emotions, it wasn't difficult to see that Ash was practically radiating with anxiety. Like he was getting ready to divulge some top secret evil plans with her. She actually thought that's what he was going to do, especially after he just prefaced what he was going to say with a don't-tell-anyone-else warning, and for that split second, she had been wide-eyed with excitement.

Emmy was slightly disappointed when that turned out not to be the case, but a fresh wave of curiosity overcame her after Ash told her about his eye. She stared openly at Ash's face, awe-struck. She'd always wondered what the boy's reasons were for covering his face, but he wouldn't tell her, no matter how much she'd pestered him. Eventually, she decided he just wanted to appear dark and mysterious for Sloth, and left it at that. A hint of enigma did have its appeal, after all.

"Oh," was all she could say in response, so mesmerized she'd forgotten to say some words of reassurance, like she normally would whenever she knew someone was feeling anxious. Instead, Emmy was about to reach out, unable to quell the urge to run her thumb across his closed empty eye (what would it feel like, she wondered). But then Ash suddenly stopped talking. Before she could ask him what was wrong, he put a hand on her shoulder, and she found that she didn't to ask him anymore. Somehow, she knew.

After that, Ash rushed out and headed downstairs, though not before telling her to stay put. Emmy tried her best to do so, she really did. She felt the same foreboding sensation he probably did, given how panicked he was, and even she knew she was better off in his safe room. Dejectedly, she sat back down on his bed, pulled out her phone, and started sifting through her contacts. Ash said he lost his replica during the explosion, didn't he? She scrolled through the hundreds of names in her phone to pass the time, keeping a list of those who wouldn't mind giving up one of theirs if she just asked (which was surprisingly more than a handful). It didn't take long before she got bored, and she ended up walking circuits around the room.

It was a miracle that she even lasted five minutes. She wasn't sure what was happening, but she could tell based on the number of expletives yelled out that it was something very interesting. At first, she figured it was only Sam causing the commotion. Maybe he was testing new ways to hurt himself? That was totally what she'd do if she found out she had super healing powers. But the more the others yelled, the more she was convinced there was more to it than that. Emmy summoned the last of her self-control, but it didn't take. She needed to know. Now.

M'kay, that should be enough waiting, she thought as she made for the door. Equal parts curious and excited, Emmy was practically bounding down the stairs and to the living room. By the time she rejoined her fellow Sins, Sam had just finished a rousing speech that made her grin and swell with pride, no pun intended. She looked at Ash, seemingly dead set on visiting Sloth in her room but not moving, then to Angel who had a strange shield on his arm, and followed their line of sight. Was the intruder so menacing that they're gaping at him like that?

"Soo~ who's stupid enough to break in our… 'den'…"

Emmy faltered when she finally realized that intruder wasn't what she assumed. She thought it would be a giant, muscle-bound, bald man, but she was clearly off the mark. The shadow-like creature Sam was attacking wasn't even human. Instead, it looked like it was made from the same black substance as the explosion. Every anomaly seemed to be harkening back to that explosion, strangely enough. She knew this was a legitimate threat—Sam wouldn't be going all out on the creature's ass otherwise— but she couldn't help but admire the creature a little. Straight out of a comic book. Just like Sam's healing abilities… oh.

"Did your superpower go haywire, Sam?" she asked arbitrarily as Sam went for the creature's throat. She has a habit of focusing on the wrong things sometimes.

It took Harry quite a few moments to properly comprehend the being that had just waltzed into their living room. On a normal day a creeping tide of shock and fear would have rolled through his blood vessels, but for some reason this occasion proved to be quite different. Still in the recovery stage of his "little trip", Harry felt only a mild sense of confusion as the being appeared. His eyes widened slightly as he recognised the substance that the creature was made of; the same substance that had carried the concussive force of the explosion. He glanced at Sam's hand only to see the wound had closed and the substance was no longer leaking from his body.

Gluttony shakily forced himself to his feet again. Resting a hand on the wall, he tried to slip into his mental zone. Come on, damnit... Get a fucking grip.. Slowly he felt the residue of his strange hallucinations slink away from his mind. Harry took a deep breath and took a step back, leaning against the wall as he felt his eyes properly focus. Now he could feel a coherent link between what he was seeing and what he thought about it. Mental systems were now back online.

His line of sight sweeped across the living room. He watched with concentrated interest as Angel threw his dice at the being, only for it to swat it aside. The monster was clearly capable of changing its form to fulfill a purpose... Harry's attention refocused to look at the dice which had fallen on the floor, raising an eyebrow as he noted it was emitting a faint black glow. Whatever the substance had been, it seemed that it had infected the entire house. He felt the hairs on his arm grow cold as a black shield materialised on his right arm. Without question Harry raised it just below his neck bent his knees, ready to charge. Hesitation stopped him as Sam stepped forward, holding an identical shield with a knife in the other hand. That's good, he thought, let Sam deal with the thing.

Harry cast his eye around, remembering that Sloth was not in the living room with them. Did she know that this monster appeared? With that thought Harry quickly spotted Envy, already on the task of getting to Sloth. The young man was waiting for an opportunity to get into the computer room where their master slept. But as long as that monster was there, there was no way of getting to Sloth at the moment. Gluttony repositioned himself nearer to Sam, watching as the fight ensued for a chance to step in and help. He worried that the knife wouldn't do much to something that could change its form at will, but there was something else that concerned him. The alien body moved in such a precise way, almost as if it was trying to conserve its energy. Swatting the dice away seemed like it was a casual flick, almost akin to how a normal person would brush a subject away. Harry furrowed his eyebrows as he thought about that; the being seemed strangely human. Surely if they'd all been affected by the explosion in such a way... Maybe it was possible for a human to change to that form?

Sloth was still staring at her own blade hand in this monstrous form but was broken out of the trance like state when her body moved on it's once, swatting away something. Sloth made it out to be a dice that Angel had thrown, and the next event caught her off guard. Out of a black material, similar to the gas from the explosion, black spiked shields form on the sins standing in front of her. She paused as her sub-conscious mind began putting the pieces together, and she heard Angel questioning her. When she tried to speak, Sloth mentally face palmed herself as she mouthed non-sense, no sound coming out. She had forgotten in the midst of everything happening that she couldn't actually speak in this form.

Before she could work out a way to try and communicate with them, Sam began to speak. She thought to herself ~Ugh...Why can't he save the shit for when we're dealing with something we actually understand?~ Then he lunged at her, the blade he held coming for her throat. Before she had time to react, her body shifted once more, creating an O-shape in her neck, the knife passing through. When his forearm was in the hole, it collapsed on his arm, locking him into place. She decided she would try to stop them and then wake herself up and find out if this were truly a dream or not.

The black body, she realized, was something that she could shape and command, meaning that she could probably do some crazy shit. While Sam while still stuck in the black body, she focused and shifted the form into a chain that wrapped itself around Sam to constrict him. After this, the body reformed, while still keeping the chains around Sam, and began to run back into the computer, leaving a trail of itself to keep the binds on Sam connected to itself, making sure that the binds were still strong around Sam. The black body then violently shook Sloth's body, and then she opened her eyes.

In that instant, the black body, and connecting bonds on Sam, disappeared in an instant. Sloth Sat up so quickly that she actually fell and landed face first on the floor, possibly damaging her nose seriously. She stood up slowly, feeling her nose, and while it wasn't broken, it was bleeding a decent amount. She ignored this for now and left the computer room, seeing Sam on the ground, knife in hand, but more importantly seeing the black shields that were manifested.

She stared for a few moments before saying "Alright...Give me a minute." Before anyone could say anything she said "Just shut the fuck up about what happened. I'm gonna explain everything, or at least what I think is going on right now, but I want to take care of my nose first."

With that, she went back to the kitchen and cleaned her face up. After she had stopped the bleeding, she came back into the living room and looked at everyone once more. She actually chuckled softly, not a happy or even angry chuckle, but a chuckle that borders insanity. Given the situation though, if it weren't for the fact that the black shields were in an actual physical form, she might consider herself insane. After she caught a breath, she said "So...You all saw that black body right? Well...I was sleeping and having a dream. Long story short, I think that the black body you saw was either a form I can take when sleeping, or a separate entity I control when sleeping. If it weren't for the fact that one of you can actually manifested those black shields somehow, I would just pass it off as a weird dream but...I don't think that's the case at all."

She turned and looked out the window, giving a sigh of relief. No one was around to see what happened, and she continued "So...some of us...Some of us seem to have new found abilities, maybe even all of us. What I do know is that the black manifestations that I and someone else can produce are very similar to the black gas from the explosion at the old building...Whatever happened there, we have seemed to gain some special abilities or something..."

She turned back to them and said "So I know I can make that black body when I sleep, someone else can create black manifestations, and Sam can heal his wounds...Have you guys discovered any other abilities?"