Mei ran after Ashlynn, towards the gunfire. Towards gunfire. Surely that is completely safe. By the time she got there, she noticed Dark maintaining an orb of dark energy around who she would assume was being shot at. Meanwhile, Jade had the assumed attackers suspended in the air, looking as if she were set to drown them. Instead of asking her favorite question, she decided to let everything play out in front of her.

---

Caist propelled himself towards the sound of the gunfire. Three subjects were in a bubble of dark magic, protected. The other two, the attackers, were slowly being drowned. They were scared, likely striking out in terrified self-defense. He started to approach the girl who was controlling the orbs of water. "What the hell are you doing?! They're scared! Just set them down, now!"

Kyo relinquished his treatment of Raphael and sat back with relief as Kent took over. Raphael, who had clearly not been expecting the bullet, was very lucky to be alive. If the man's aim had been better, no amount of white magic could have healed him.

"She's going to kill them!" said Raphael sharply, eyes shut tightly as Kent sealed the wound.

"What?" exclaimed Kyo harshly, scrambling back up to his feet and pushing through Dark's barrier to see what was going on.

Jade, in a remarkably skillful display of black magic, had suspended the gunmen in the air and seemed as if she was going to drown them. Was this her own vicious streak, or was it Ivy's influence?

"STOP!" he roared at her.

Aphrodite breaks through Jade's barriers and the group becomes drench from the sudden waterfall. The men spit and gasp for air, and start going in shock from the unhealed wound and trauma they just suffered, as Aphrodite gently lays them the on the ground.

"Kent quickly!"

Kent finishes up with Raphael and immediately rushes over to the gunmen beginning the healing process.

"Jade!" Dark shouts as he hovers over to her. "We want to subdue the men not kill them, they were frightened from what happened earlier so they only shot out of fear and confusion. Keep a calm head next time before you decide to kill someone."

"Dark under the circumstances you must understand, she's been in two attacks, helped out after the sudden attack at the mall, then she hears gunshots, I don't think her reaction was too crazy. Everyone is on edge right now, let's all calm down." says Kent calmly as he prevents the men from dying on him. Their breathing returns to normal and they start to calm down, with their wounds healed.

"That should do it."

Jade shot Caist a glare for a quick second and tightened the spheres, but stopped when she heard Kyo. She frowned slightly as her anger subdued, allowing Aphrodite to free the gunmen. She looked at Dark dead in the eye as he scolded her, biting her tongue to not say anything back. She knew he had a point, but she still felt it wasnt right to let them go.
As Kent spoke for her, she sighed of relief and wiped the tears that were beginning to form. "Thank you." Her voice was quiet as she thanked Kent, her arms crossed and eyes on everyone that were helping the others on the ground.

Caist threw a quick barrier of psychic energy over his head, watching the torrent of water bounce off harmlessly. He dropped the barrier, calmly walking towards the two gunmen, letting the others take care of their errant friend. He smiled calmly at them, as calm as he could for shooting at students, and tried to extend this calm feeling to their own minds. "Stay still. My name is Caist Arad. I'm a detective. I'd like to ask the two of you some questions about what happened here tonight." He kept his metaphorical fingers crossed, hoping the calm would take hold.

---

Mei had watched the entire scene with both fear and fascination. These guys were good. It was now that she had realized many of them probably had more practical application of their powers than most students at the Academy. Even still, that was dangerous. Her approach towards the group forming around Jade was halted by an overhead deluge of water, soaking Mei to the bone. She shivered, pushing her soaked bangs to the side, glaring at no one in particular.

Kyo watched the tears slide down Jade's face with a biting sense of melancholy. Had he been too aggressive in his demands to stop? No, as unfortunate as it was, it was justified. These humans being subjected to such powerful magic could have killed them even without the drowning. The fear and shock could have produced a heart attack, especially in the frail-looking gunman. Then again, who was he to command others to not kill when he had done so himself?
That was different, these people were just scared. he assured himself.

"I would really not tempt fate, buddy." said Raphael, watching Caistlin with apprehension.

"What will it take to get you monsters to leave us alone?!" yelled the older of the men in front of Caist. "You've already done enough damage here. My family and my friends are dead thanks to you and your kind. We don't need your help or your fake sympathy, just fuck off!"

Kent, Dark and Aphrodite look at the perturbed elder man. He has every right to be mad at the Wanderer who did this. However, it hurts when the humans judges their entire species on the actions of one person.

"Nothing I can say will make them come back, however can you tell us what you saw please?" Kent asks calmly as he rises to his feet. "It's the only request I wish, after that we'll go on our way."

#23

Jacob smiled at his young companion when he noticed Charon, who had been bringing injured folks to him. "Damn, kid, that's a crazy-useful summon. Creepy as all hell, but...woulda saved me a lot of trouble if I had something like that." Moving on to the next patient, Jacob sighed. "I'm sorry....this is going to hurt." Jerking the woman's arm violently to the side, an audible cracking sound was nearly instantly drowned out by her screaming. "Had to set the bone. Times like these I'm real glad the Army teaches ya this kinda basic stuff." Forcing a smile as he started to heal the damaged bone, he sighed and laid her down. "My apologies again, but do not, under any circumstances barring an immediate threat to your life, move from this position. The bone is properly set, but I don't have the materials to make a splint. I'd heal it fully, but I can't afford to do so just yet. I'll be back to you in a little bit, don't worry. You'll be alright, just follow your friendly neighborhood field medic's orders and you got nothing to worry about."

A hail of gunfire broke his concentration on the next patient, and Jacob was up and running before the fourth shot was off. His rucksack at his side and open now, a large combat knife appeared from the bag as Jack approached the gunfire, ready for a fight. When he got there, the fight was already done. The gunmen were suspended in the air in a pair of bubbles that were filled with water. Sighing, he stashed the knife away and looked around. He had three choices:
A. Comfort Jade, the girl he realized he'd healed from the massive ice javelin, and who had given him the advice to get away from the murder scene recently.
B. Take over healing the gunshot victim. However, there was little reason to do so. His experience wasn't necessary here, any half-baked healer could take care of that.
C. Confront the shooters and try to prevent something like this from happening again. On a second glance, that seemed to be getting done as is. Progress was definitely slow, but at least the gunshots stopped.

His decision was made for him, then.

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he walked over to Jade and gently tapped her shoulder. "Hey. Listen, if it means anything, I get why you did that. I can tell you this: given the circumstances...I probably would have done the same thing. They were a threat, and that threat had to be taken care of. Maybe your methods were a bit harsh in hindsight, MAYBE, but nobody else got hurt, and when the time came, you stopped. That's important. I knew a guy..." A scene of a desert, smoke and fire in the background, repeated in his mind. "Correction: I served with a guy. We....the Army Rangers are the guys they send in to handle serious messes. We make very, very difficult decisions under very, very difficult circumstances. I still lose sleep over what we did plenty of the time. Can't get over it, probably never will. But you don't gotta go down that road. It's okay. It's okay. You did what you had to do, and nothing more. You didn't kill them, even if you felt like you wanted to. They tried to murder that guy. They were scared, but that doesn't make what they did okay." Sighing, he shook his head. "Was that a bit too much? I can never tell in this kinda situation."

"No, that wasn't too much." Jade finally turned towards him after he had made his speech. "My brother served as a ranger, then transferred to be a sniper in the marines." She pulled out her brothers dog tags and held them momentarily. She put them back in her hoodie and sighed. "I've heard worse, and seen worse.... I didn't kill them because I was distracted." She crossed her arms once more and returned her gaze towards the others. "I know you're trying to be nice, but if I wanted this pep talk, I would've called someone with more years to back their shit up." She felt the anger grow once more, her words coming out cold and emotionless. She didn't mean for them to sound like that, nor did she mean to word her sentences like that, but she couldn't help it. Jade didn't bother to look at Jacob's reaction afterwards, the tears still streaming down her cheeks.

Shrugging, Jacob sighed, then laughed a little. "Just trying to repay ya the favor, but if you don't want it..." his voice turned flat to mirror her cold words. "I got more important crap to take care of." Going back to the injured people, he went to the woman whose arm he set. "Hi, I'm back." His voice was still coming out cold and flat, but he didn't bother to change it. "I'll take care of your arm right now, just hold still." Grabbing the spot where the bone had broken, he let a surge of energy flow into the wound, magically repairing her arm. "That there should do you good. It's not back to 100%, so you should still get it checked out later by a real doctor, but it'll move and work proper."

Moving on to the next patient, Jacob silently wondered why he'd even bothered. Guess I still feel like I gotta help people or some crap like that. Oh well, the therapists said it'd pass at some point. Long as I ain't drinking the pain away every night, I'd say I'm doin' pretty damn good.

Caist did not look back at Kent as he began to speak to the others. The old man's words stung, but he was after something far more important. "He's right...we're not the bad guys here. In fact, we're trying to find out who did this. Having someone out there giving our kind a bad name does no good for Wanderers or humans, let alone ending so many innocent lives. Please, let us help you. Just think back, before you wound up here, what happened?" Even if the man wouldn't say anything, it was almost guaranteed his current thoughts would go through those last few moments leading up to the explosion. He wouldn't have to harm the man to get his information.

---

Mei threw off her hoodie, heavy with water. It had soaked through to her tank top. Wonderful. She watched the hobbling young man who had been speaking to Jade pass her, wondering where he got off giving sagely advice to someone who was obviously dealing with something dark in her head. Now was one of those times Mei wished her family was a bunch of famous psions and not white mages. She stood beside Jade, saying nothing to her, watching the others try to speak to the two very wet victims.

Ashlynn flicked her wrist and beckoned several of the firearms to come to her. She grabbed hold of one while the rest floated ominously around her. Walking toward the gunmen, she shoved Caist aside.

"Going too slow, Inspector!"

She crouched down on one knee, and in irony, pointed the guns at the gunmen. "I'm just gonna give it to you straight. You humes shouldn't be talking about 'doing damage'. I was a fucking science experiment. I know someone who's named after a goddamn malignant tumor who was a science experiment. I had my throat ripped out, that girl over there had a fucking javelin shoved through her windpipe, and the dude over there got his fucking face bitten off", she said angrily, pointing to her friends with her free hand.

"You're gonna help me understand what happened, okay? And if any of you try anything funny.. Well, I'll be sure to have the last laugh."

Ashlynn put her free hand onto the man's face. "This will only hurt for a moment", she said with a bit of malice.

She began to charge through the man's mind forcibly, going through his most recent memories to get to the bottom of the latest 'incident'.

Raphael got back up to his feet, shakily, and grasped Kent's arm in both of his hands.
"Thanks, Kent." he said, with a grateful smile.
He watched glumly as Jacob's attempt to pacify Jade was met harshly and wondered whether or not it was worth trying to console her. She had displayed abject viciousness and could possibly be a danger to them all. On the other hand, her tears seemed to suggest an innocence behind the steely mask. His mind worked furiously on some magical combination of words that would bring her back to them and it seemed as if Mei was undergoing the same difficulty.

Without waiting to consult the full breadth of his mental faculties, Kyo rushed forward at the sounds of the man's horrific cries of pain and grabbed Ashlynn firmly by the elbow. He forcefully pulled her away from the human and shoved her hard, completely beside himself.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!" he screamed at her as the group of humans began to retreat.

Aphrodite was going to pry into the humans mind to see what they saw, but Ashlynn was a step ahead of her. Though a little extreme, it proved to be effective. As she watches the men run off in the night, she wonders just how much of an impact these attackers did to everyone. Everything was normal, they were going to school, training, shopping, enjoying life then twelve maniacs decide they want to ruin all of that, humans and wanderers alike.

Kent sighs as the men run off. Trying his best to be civil and show that there are nice wanderers in this world flew out the window the moment Ashlynn intervened.

"Well, I guess now is a good time to discuss what Ashlynn saw."

Jade said nothing as Mei stood next to her. She was somewhat glad that the girl decided to do so, making her feel like not everyone was mad at her. Jade kept quiet though, watching the others try to get information out of the men. "They're not gonna get anything out of them." She muttered, shaking her head. When Ashlynn took charge, Jade suppressed a smirk, keeping her face serious. At least now they knew what was going on.

"Getting answers", Ashlynn said, Kyo's reflection in her visor. She pointed the gun at the man running away into the distance and thought better of it, mentally disassembling all of the firearms into a heap of metal blocks, frames, and pins.

The man she just mind-read sweat and cried profusely, and now her hand was.. Well, wet with fear and despair. She wiped her hand on her coat. "Ugh. Gross."

Ashlynn then turned to look at everyone. "He was too far away to see anything useful, but I could tell it was this huge bomb of Dark Magic. And guess who we all know was recently kidnapped and used Dark Magic extensively?"

"Yeah. It's bad."

There was a long silence after Ashlynn's stunning revelation. Kyo looked back over at Jade and opened his mouth to say something but evidently thought better of it. Ivy and Jade's training sessions in the Gardens had been witnessed by many, including him, and he knew that she would be devastated to hear that Ivy's power was part of what caused this. Even worse, the chances of her being alive were growing increasingly slim.

"We need to leave, guys. Now." said Raphael in a concerned tone, worried that the strange, buzzing sensation in his mind was being caused by a massive influx of humans, most likely some form of military.

"I'll see you guys soon then."

Kent dashes off before taking off into the night towards the residential area of Ceteris.

Dark and Aphrodite agree with Raphael and they take off in separate directions. Dark heading back to the Slums and Aphrodite heading to the Academy.

-Kent, Dark and Aphrodite left the scenario-

Jade listened closely to what they spoke about, her eyes meeting Kyo's as he turned and seemed like he was going to tell her something. She lifted an eyebrow as he turned away and she bit her tongue, saving the question for later. "I'll see y'all around." She turned on her heal, making an about face and pushing herself off the ground, flying the opposite direction of the academy.

/Jade has left scenario 23/

"Don't bite off more than you can chew, Kent, you've already done too much today." advised Raphael, giving his new friend an amiable smile.
"He makes a fair point." agreed Kyo, shrugging at the huddled trio. "We'll make our own way back, see you guys at the academy. Be careful out there, huh?"
And with that, Kyo and Raphael shot off into the distance and towards the Academy where trouble was surely brewing...

-Kyo and Raphael have left Scenario 23-