The thrust was good: fast even. It would have killed any normal person without a second thought and that would have been the end of whatever dumb-fuck had broken into the house. Sam was still unsure what this ungodly weakness was in the pit of his stomach: he still felt sluggish compared to normal, full power, ass-kicking-asian Sam, but it was still enough to deal with one guy.

Or it would have been, had it just been one, normal, human guy.

The transformation was more rapid than he dared think plausible as a hole opened up in the slimey-fucker’s throat. His knife passed through it helplessly and suddenly Sam’s arm was hanging limply in the air, useless and vulnerable. ”Shit.” He raised the shield in between the creature’s bladed arm and his own exposed limb, but quickly the slime’s intention was made otherwise obvious; it clamped down around his arm: sticky and wet and solid at the same time.

He tried to pry his arm free, but the creature’s lock on his limb was pretty strong. He made a few inches of lee-way as he raised his knee to slam into its gut. The blow hung limply in the air as suddenly black chains erupted from the bestial slime’s body and wrapped around his body. Soon enough, the monster had him hogtied and unable to freely move. Sam grunted in protest as the chains held him, squelching against his every protesting movement. Sam expected a counter attack: and was ready to throw a vicious kick at the creature: if it lashed out.

Instead, it backed off…

…No, worse than that. It was heading for the computer room and for the unconscious Sloth within.

His muscles groaned in protest as he exerted the upper limits of his strength. The chains were strong, but even they lightly budged under the exertion of might. He was taking too long, why was no one else going to help Sloth? He pushed himself harder: face reddening under the strain. The slimy chains stretched: loosening on the joints as they seemed to weaken.

Then they vanished into non-existence. Sam dropped to one knee in a fit of strain as his muscles protested the violent effort they had been forced to undergo. He allowed them little rest, and was on his feet within a few seconds. He stumbled towards the computer room when suddenly, Sloth emerged from the room, unharmed except for a slightly bleeding nose.

Sam was speechless. In shock, even. He had been so worried and struggled so much against the slime and Sloth just sauntered out of the room, as if the creature didn’t exist? Something was way out of line here. He clenched his fist as he felt a wave of nausea and light-headed-ness overtake his weakened form.

Sloth began a tirade of telling people to shut the fuck up before she stormed off to the kitchen again. Sam noticed a few wounds on his body: Lacerations where his flesh had been cut into by the chains. They may not have been metal, but the exertion he’d used to try and break free of them had sliced into him all the same. He wondered why the wounds hurt so much, when slowly the black ooze returned to begin the now-expected healing process.

Something clicked as he saw the black ooze seeping from his wounds, and at the same time as Sloth walked back into the room, clearly able to see the wounds on his arms reknitting themselves, truth that Sloth had seemingly reached already dawned upon him.

Motherfucker. We must all have gotten some sort of magic voodoo shit from the smoke.”

Listening to Sloth talk was enough to make his head-spin. Not because she was saying anything complicated, but because his stomach protested at its emptiness. He couldn’t deal with concentrating on conversation while he was this famished. He slowly got up and brushed past Emmy and Sloth on his way to the kitchen. ”So fucking hungry. I could just about anything.” He stormed into the kitchen and began raiding cupboards and the fridge. Anything not nailed down was plucked up, and Sam walked back into the room with arms full of whatever chips, cold meats and beer he had managed to liberate from the kitchen.

Angel watched with an expression between gusto and disgust as the shadowy figure morphed its neck, causing Sam's attack to completely miss its mark, before locking his arm in place. His expression only amplified when the figure trembled and suddenly buzzed off to where Sloth had been sleeping. Not that his shock was apparent to anyone else, considering the nature of his mask. Though he understood as much as everyone else there that this could not be good.

Next thing they knew, Sloth came bursting out of wherever she had been sleeping with her nose totally red. Angel stalked after the shadow slowly so as to not trigger any other traps or ambushes, though he jumped back towards everyone else upon Sloth's arrival. Before he could question if she's been attacked or dealt with the attacker, she shot down his and everyone else's voiced concerns to take off again for her bleeding nostrils.

When she came back, she mentioned the shields. Only then did it finally hit Angel as well. "Oh! The shields! My die, it must have..." He jumped back to where his die had fallen and knelt down to retrieve it.

Low and behold, the die he had previously chucked at the silhouette was pulsing with a black aura. Considering its earlier flub, and the sudden manifestation and evaporation of that mug of beer earlier, then the shields... not to mention Sam's showoff earlier, and Sloth's theory... and then the return of Sam's black rejuvenating goo.

"Hah! Hahaha!" Angel laughed loudly. "Duh! No wonder we didn't burn to death after that explosion. It infected us with some black, smokey shit. Some hocus-pocus witchcraft. Hah! And here I thought I was just drunk."

Drunk - well, despite everything that was going on, it still certainly felt that way. He still couldn't figure a reasonable explanation behind his headache. Then again Sam was burned into starvation as he charged into the kitchen. Angel paused for a second, watching Sam return with a load of food in his arms, before bringing his hands to his mask and removing it. "Give me a sec..."

Immediately the shields disintegrated into black vapor, soon wafting off into nothing. The aura around his die disappeared as well - but still his headache remained. Goddammit. "Well, that explains that. Now it's my turn for the kitchen. 'scuse me, lovely."

He passed by Emmy, purposefully nudging against her arm (damn, she had such a lovely physique) as he made his way back where Sam had just emerged. Fetching some more meds and a hefty glass of actual water was probably what he needed most at this point.

Emmy took everything Sloth said in stride, barely batting an eyelash at the arguably ludicrous assertions she'd made. If anything, she found that it actually all made sense. She's had flights of fancy more unrealistic than that, and besides, Sam's magic show from earlier was the only proof she needed. Any doubts she might have had were eradicated the moment Pride remained unscathed after outright stabbing himself. It was rather fitting that Sloth turned out to be the amazing black creature, as well—anything less than a nigh indestructible, creepy shadow thing would not have done the lady boss justice.

Suddenly restless, Emmy waited in rapt attention for the next superpower reveal, mouth agape and eyes shining in anticipation. She spied some more black ooze coming from Sam's wounds as his healing process started to kick in (how awesome did that sound?), and wondered arbitrarily whether everyone had only one sort of ability. That was usually how it went, wasn't it? Anyway, Emmy was concerned that Sam looked rather dazed. She wondered whether fighting creature!Sloth had some unknown repercussions, or if the eventful day was just taking its toll on Sam. She regarded him curiously as he wordlessly and sluggishly got up, about to ask him what was wrong but he beat her to it. [i]So fucking hungry,[i] she heard him say as he passed by her, making her giggle in relief.

"Grab me some chips, too!" she called after him, although she wasn't sure if he'd even heard her, distracted as he was.

Emmy turned back to the group when Angel suddenly burst out in laughter. He was holding onto a die, which possessed remnants of the black smoke from the explosion, not unlike Sam's wounds or Sloth's other body. Emmy didn't understand what the die had to do with the strange shields around their arm, but they were apparently correlated somehow. Angel's mask seemed to be part of his abilities as well, and Emmy was "oohing" when the magically conjured shields disappeared after he'd taken the mask off.

Like Sam, Angel didn't offer any explanations or theories about his ability, and opted to go to the kitchen instead, leaving Emmy to endlessly wonder. He passed by her on his way, and she could have sworn she heard him mutter some quick words of flattery, like he was wont to do. She smiled at him, but it faltered suddenly as she felt something akin to a massive headache come and go, as fleeting as Angel's touch had been. It seemed like she was reverting to the moody state she'd been in earlier, and she was reminded of the familiar voices that permeated through her thoughts. She already had a Harry in her head, didn't she? Even a Sam and an Ash and—hold up.

In that moment, it finally occurred to her that she was affected by the explosion as well. And that meant she should hypothetically have awesome abilities as well, right? Experimentally, Emmy waved her arms about, opening and closing her palm, fully expecting something to come out of it. Like fire or ice or that black substance that was involved in the others' abilities. She did it a couple of times just to be thorough, but nothing spectacular happened.

Emmy had also entertained the possibility of possessing telepathy or telekinesis, but she'd been trying it on Sam for a while now, and nothing seemed to be happening. She was forcefully willing him to feed her some chips, but he didn't even budge an inch. Out of ideas of what abilities she may possess, she threw her hands in exasperation.

"Aw. Sloth, how come I don't have any powers?" she asked with a slight childish pout, clinging to their leader just for the hell of it. "That's unfair, isn't it? I was right behind Joni when we went in that building and…"

Oh, crap. After everything that happened, it slipped her mind that there were only six out of seven sins currently in the base. She was supposed to get in contact with the missing Wrath, but she had been too easily distracted. Gently tugging on Sloth's arm, all traces of playfulness left her face as her brows knitted in concern.

"Joni's not here!" she said, pointing out the obvious.