Blizz

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

Backup had the same idea as him. That wasn’t a surprise, and it made this easier. She had gone ahead and taken a fight to the thugs at the roof, which Wiseman elected to use to his advantage. He scaled the building slowly on purpose, letting Backup soften them into easier beatdowns, before finally hopping up behind the helicopter and drawing his Stasis Blaster. All of them were on Backup, meaning absolutely none of them noticed as the other hero aimed a rifle at their bodies to stun them. Freezing bolts of energy went flying out from behind the helicopter, putting the battered henchmen out of the fight.

And then, just for good measure, Wiseman dropped a few shots into the hammer to scramble its internals. The metal exterior crackled and popped as ice formed over it, breaking up whatever was underneath.

”When we are finished with them, I’ll take the hammer to pieces and find whoever had a hand in this,” Wiseman said aloud, once the fighting stopped. ”Don’t damage it further. It should stop functioning any second no-“

He was cut short as a drone flew overhead and descended on a nearby building. It had some sort of structure it was carrying, which reshaped into a floor-mounted turret remarkably fast. It moved and fired slowly, but only at Backup. Foolish.

Wiseman raised his rifle and fired a shot into the barrel of its weapon first, to weaken it and cause structural damage. A second shot was quickly fired into the base of the turret, where its head met its body, to damage internal components. The Stasis Blaster was a freeze ray, and machines that large which had moving parts didn’t do so well when exposed to biting temperatures. Metal shrunk in on itself, water condensed and seeped into circuity, and cracked could form in materials unable to flex. Electrical capacitors lost their energy as well, and that was why this weapon worked so well against machines.

”We need to reestablish communication with the others. This attack was coordinated by someone clever, they knew we’d be divided today.”

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

Wiseman shut his screens off when both Fallout and Magician stepped out into the waiting room. The self-aggrandizing runecaster disappeared in a puff of smoke, and Wiseman stood up to walk into the office of the doctor. He had gone over answers to this roughly three hundred and seven times in his head during the last five minutes, calculated to give as much of a disarming impression as was possible. This was going to be an uneventful interview, the doctor would think nothing was up. She-

As the lights went out, Wiseman stopped moving towards the chair. These sorts of things were unusual for a building constructed with government funding. There were no routine maintenance checks for the day, he would've known about them beforehand. Nothing within the bounds of the ordinary. So it was no surprise that the doctor fell limp as she touched the door handle. His helmet snapped towards her, as he engaged the IR function of his helmet. No one was in the room with them, the voltage mode showed it was just the handle, another stupid security measure that someone failed to realize worked both ways. Oracle did not mention the possibility of this occurring, so she must not have realized it with her powers.

The TV off to the side began to act up, and Wiseman patiently listened to the unrecognizable voice on the other end. His gaze locked onto the programs and tabs shown on the screen, as if someone didn't take into account the fact that he had a perfect memory. He'd worry about those little glimpses later, when this wasn't the main problem.

"Apologies for the intrusion. I simply need to keep you contained in order to prevent you from interfering with my plans. And also from escaping the range of the signal blocker. Please remain seated. Hey, but at least I got you out of therapy, right? That should count for something."

Ah.

Wiseman flipped through the filters on his helmet and confirmed with his own eye that there was a heavy layer of radio waves flooding this room. Attempting to call for backup would have been useless, and someone clearly had the good sense to broadcast over the TV instead of the computer, lest he find a log and trace his way back. And he couldn't call for Angel-5 to check the doctor for electrical burns.

"...Have you come for me at long last?" He asked no one. Was this karma?

His helmet showed him that there was a strong electrical source several floors up, concentrated around one area, likely the roof. A power signal that strong likely meant the entire building had been blacked out. His best bet was to get out of this room quickly, and group with the others. But even with his Indra Blade, the insulating gloves he wore, the electronically locked door had no way to budge when the security measures were triggered. Someone had taken control of the building, but they could've done better.

"No, you would've killed me already."

He quickly scooped up the unconscious psychologist, and gently laid her behind the wide desk. If someone came in here with grenades or an itchy trigger finger, she'd be fine.

Wiseman walked up to the window, and drew his knife This was why he made a point of always being armed. Safety was an illusion for heroes. He jammed the blade into the window, electrocuted the security lock, and opened it. A helicopter had landed on the roof. By the sounds of things, anyway.

Wiseman jumped on the desk and pried a panel from the ceiling. It left a hole big enough for a person to climb into, but he didn't. He left it there as a red herring.

Whoever it was that was doing this job needed lessons in sabotage. Their work was rough around the edges, it was sloppy. There was still power flowing through the building in some fashion, even if it was just from an auxiliary source, and controlling that to lock Wiseman in here meant that someone had just given him a hint. HERO's digital security was compounded above the average hero company's by the existence of ALISA, who could detect intrusions faster than most personnel, and she hadn't detected this. And yet they transmitted an evil monologue, mentioning a key component of their strategy and the fact that they had further plans. All while they hadn't had the common sense to mask their screen.

Those little details painted a picture for him. They were less experienced, and likely less organized when it came to such things than he was. On a scale of one to ten, he arbitrarily gave them an eight. He was the ten.

Wiseman climbed out of the window, clinging to the outside like a spider. He reached up with one arm to grab it it, then dropped to grab the ledge of the one a floor down. The window was shut completely, and now Wiseman was free.

This was the part where things got tricky.

While most of the heroes had gone deeper into the plant to take out the heart of this, Mire had stayed outside in a fetid puddle of gore that was only growing deeper. They gradually drank up the liquified viscera, faster than the Terrazards could actually damage them, all while erupting in contant boils of enzymous fluid over and over again. The Terrazards that charged Mire on the ground got stuck in the sludge and dissolved into it, the ones that pounced from on high were dissolved more quickly. It was just and endless loop of Mire's body regenerating and exploding like the undying monstrosity they were.

That changed when a gigantic fuckoff monkey man burst out of the plant and started grappling with an even giganticer fuckoff human. Crane, they thought her name was. Someone that big should've had a hang of it, but Mire was in the middle of fighting, so what difference did it make?

They dissolved into hyphae, sinking low into the lake of rotting meat that they had created, giving an impression that they were just hiding from the terrazards.

fungus began to bloom beneath Crane and the Menace, culminating in a long and gaunt hand grabbing at the villain's leg as Mire exhumed their body through cracks in the ground. They could've soaked the Menace with enzymes, but that would've been a bad decision this close to Crane, so they crawled up his leg and to his chest to try and pull him free of the giantess. If Crane started swinging and happened to hit Mire, it wouldn't mean much, since they didn't feel pain.

"Are you the best there is against us, ugly human-thing?" Their four arms grasped at whatever they could to bind the villain's movements, making him an easy target for someone bigger than him.

X-Men: GenetiX

There was something paradoxical about coming from the background Ryder had. Years spent seeing the world through screens, wires and brain waves only to be confined to a hole deep underground. All the nations of the world, she could walk through them by casting her consciousness deep into the endless networks of human civilization. And yet Ryder hadn’t ever ventured outside Umbra for so long.

She learned things she should have, learning the dangers of combat from war and political history that she only touched on for her strategic efforts. Scouring digital libraries for analogies to her plans, Ryder often found that an element of surprise won entire wars. She leveraged that for her breakout, taking advantage of the X-men and the security systems to leave people floored before they could even react. And it had worked. But they’d expect such a trick next time- The unexpected tactics only worked when they weren’t affected by precedent. If she went back to Umbra alone, the chances wouldn’t be skewed so easily in her favor.

”Alright, fine. When they get back, I’ll plan this and all of you can be involved. Sure, whatever. But this is my business,” she stated, firmly. ”I’m not going to be slowed down, stopped or talked out of doing this. Any of you decide you don’t like this? I’m going without you.”

Umbra was going to be eradicated, with or without the X-Men’s help.

”I lived in the underground areas, they had tunnels they thought were hidden from me.” She looked up at Logan, who had been bragging about being similarly vicious. ”And their network is easy to break through. We’ll get to the rest later. Find me a computer you can trust not to be breached, and I’ll log things onto it for this.”

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Interactions: _{ₘₐₖₑ ᵢₜ ₛₜₒₚ}

_{ₘₐₖₑ ᵢₜ ₛₜₒₚ}

---

Amara had pointed her gun at Alizee Vul, but she hadn’t actually planned on shooting the ghost. Ghosts couldn’t be killed, they could just be unpersoned for a while and then they came back. They didn’t stay gone. Thankfully, Amara didn’t have to actually look past her headache that was getting worse right now. Everyone jumped her, Leon went off, Stormy got ready to drop the big one, Sloane went for it. Attack, attack, attack. Good. Amara pointed her gun at the ground while everyone started talking about how the Void Heart had been sealed and what to do with this bitch. Meanwhile, Amara screwed her eyes shut and counted the pulsing throbs of her skull in the hope it could take her mind off the migraine.

Stand vigilant, Soldier.

Shut the fuck up. I don’t need this right now, get back to your post.

God, there were so many noises right now. Everyone was just too loud. Amara could hear her heartbeat thumping in the back of her neck, so firmly it stirred something up in her throat. If she just kept her breathing steady, then it was tolerable.

She brought a hand up to her temple, and felt ice against her head instead of fingers.

Whose voices was she hearing? She knew Sloane was in here, but that didn’t sound like her. Was it Linqian? Fuck, what was it? She needed to get out of here and get some fresh air. She needed to- She…

”... ᴴᵉᵃʳ ᵐᵉ ᵒᵘᵗ! ᵀʰᵉʳᵉ ᵃʳᵉ ˢᵒᵐᵉ ᵖᵉᵒᵖˡᵉ ʷʰᵒ ʷᵒᵘˡᵈ ᵖᵃʸ ᵇⁱᵍ⁻ᵐᵒⁿᵉʸ ᶠᵒʳ ˢᵒᵐᵉ ᶠʳᵉᵃᵏʸ⁻ᵈᵉᵉᵏʸ ᶜʰᵃⁱⁿ ᵇᵒⁿᵈᵃᵍᵉ. ᵂᵉ ᵖⁱᵐᵖ ʸᵒᵘ ᵒᵘᵗ ᵗᵒ ᵗʰᵉᵐ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵐᵃᵏᵉ ᵇᵃⁿᵏ.”

Who are these people?

_{”Shut up already…”} She muttered. It was like she had hooks digging into her neck, like someone was trying to drag her into something frigid. It hurt.

“ʸᵉˢ! ᵂʰᵃᵗ ᵈᵒ ʸᵒᵘ ᵗʰⁱⁿᵏ ᴵ'ᵛᵉ ᵇᵉᵉⁿ ᵈᵒⁱⁿᵍ? ᴸⁱˢᵗᵉⁿ, ᵗʰᵉ ᵀᵉᵐᵖˡᵉ ʰᵃˢ ᵃᵍʳᵉᵉᵈ ᵗᵒ ʳᵉᵗᵘʳⁿ ʷʰᵃᵗ'ˢ ᵇᵉᵉⁿ ˡᵒˢᵗ, ᵇᵘᵗ ᴵ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵗᵒ ᵖʳᵒᵛᵉ ⱽᵒⁱᵈ ʷᵒⁿ'ᵗ ᵍᵒ ᵒⁿ ᵃ ʳᵃᵐᵖᵃᵍᵉ, ᵒʳ ᶜᵒʳʳᵘᵖᵗ ᵐʸ ᵐⁱⁿᵈ, ˡⁱᵏᵉ ʰᵉ ᵈⁱᵈ ᵗᵒ ʸᵒᵘ ⁱⁿ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᵖʳᵉᵛⁱᵒᵘˢ ˡⁱᶠᵉ. ᴵ'ᵐ ʰᵉʳᵉ ᶠⁱˣⁱⁿᵍ ʸᵒᵘʳ ˢⁱⁿˢ, ᴬˡⁱᶻéᵉ. ʸᵒᵘ ʲᵘˢᵗ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵗᵒ ˡᵉᵗ ᵐᵉ ᵈᵒ ᵐʸ ʲᵒᵇ. ᵀʰⁱˢ ⁱˢ ᵗᵉᶜʰⁿⁱᶜᵃˡˡʸ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᶠᵃᵘˡᵗ ʷᵉ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵗᵒ ʷᵃⁱᵗ!”

Where are we?

She was dying, she could feel it. Everything around her was just sloppy watercolor when Amara opened her eyes and white noise when she closed them.

”Please stop talking, I can’t br-“

“A bunch of idiots! There you fucking have it! We gave her her fucking undeserved moment, Jasper!” exploded Sloane, stomping her foot down as she leveled her staff, ready to zap Alizée if she attempted to resist. “And she blew it, so stop projecting your guilt on us. Come on, Britney. Do it.”

Not yet. No, no, no-

Britney?

Why did she know that name? Where did she put it? She left it here somewhere, but the clouds were so thick. She knew a Britney- Britney Wilson? She died, didn’t she?

No. Britney Williams. Amara remembered something: She was alive still.

“RUBY IS FUCKING HIGH AND THOSE TWO ARE CULTISTS!!!”

Sloane Faris

”SHUT THE FUCK UP, ALL OF YOU!!!”

Amara’s gun clattered to the floor as she shrieked at the whole room. Her voice wasn’t her own, it was too many voices to count, layered over each other in sync. Her face was twisted up in pain, Her shoulder were rising and falling with her breathing like she was hyperventilating.

”THIS IS WHY YOU NEVER GET ANYTHING DONE!” They shouted. Her eyes were bloodshot, the room was spinning. ”You just SHOUT and SCREAM AND FIGHT back and forth with each other, and none of us are on the same damn page long enough for it to matter! If we have to- Fuck, fuckfuckfuckfuck…”

Her head swayed, she blinked, and her eyes snapped to Alizee. ”Seal her. Do it.”

SPIRITUM

---

While he dragged the tanker away, the others were doing their own thing. The dead guy in the truck was accounted for, the scene was being investigated. It didn’t seem like anything critical would happen until the ground exploded. Landsharks sprang up and threatened to devour the squad, which was using the mist to communicate. Maybe that was why these things caught wind of them, Morden knew they were sensitive to the astral mist, after all. He could feel the ground beneath his feet start to rumble and crack, just in time for the jaws of one of the landsharks to snap shut around him.

For a brief moment, there was only darkness.

Val demanded an update over the channel, but Morden didn’t immediately react to it. He was too busy being thrashed about in the jaws of a landshark that was trying to bite down on its catch. But alas, his skin and flesh was infused with the mist, so all it could do was fumble. One of its sharp teeth snapped off between Morden’s fingers, and he plunged it into the roof of the beast’s mouth.

Anyone on the outside would watch it cough up blood, more and more as Morden sliced its mouth open. From there, it only got hideous.

The landshark’s blood spewed from its jaws as if it was vomiting chunks of gore. And then Morden’s fist and arm exploded through the skull, holding a bloody tooth the size of a dagger. Skin, flesh and bone parted, and he pried the thing’s bone away from itself to rip himself free.

The last thing the landshark could possibly do was scream, writhe and fall limp. Its head was torn to shreds from the inside out, and Morden crawled through the cavity where it’s brain should have been. He landed on his feet beside the dead animal, soaked in blood and viscera with his new trophy in hand.

One down, he relayed over the telepathic channel. Their toughness is only skin deep. Take advantage of this.

SPIRITUM

---

If Morden was being completely, brutally honest with himself, he did not give a fuck about the interpersonal politics of Vangar’s government. Doves this, Imperialists that- It didn’t matter if they argued until the Astral Mist evaporated into nothingness. While they debated on how to move forward, people were dying every day. The old saying that war is old men taking and young men dying rang true, so they could trade words in Vangarian tribunals all they wanted. It wasn’t Morden’s problem, nor his perogative to listen to such words. It was war.

The crash on the road, however, was a bit more impactful. Etherium was spilling out, and Morden was sensitive enough to the mist that he could tell it was getting bad. This entire road could be a crater any second, one errant spark here or there setting it all off. The others got out, and Morden took off in the other direction. Fifty paces backwards, since he didn’t want to risk anything weird happening. It might not have meant anything, but his magic was awfully mist-hungry.
He inhaled air, and exhaled raw magical power. The mist filled his skin and flesh with strength, the air crackled. And then, he walked back over to the wrecked truck.

Morden jogged back over and stepped around the pool of Etherium. His hands reached for the hitch between the truck and the container, and he snapped it off. He then gripped the steel walls of the tank, and exhumed a loud metal groan from it as he tried to push the thing upright. The damage might’ve been done, but he could stop the puddle from becoming a flood.

The wheels banged against the ground as he got the awkward shape to move. The Etherium sloshed around, but now it wasn’t going to spill further.

I’m moving the tanker. Watch your step, don’t get Etherium on you.

He walked around to the front end of the tanker, and lifted upwards with one hand. From there, it was as simple as dragging it like a wheelbarrow off of the road, out of the way of any vehicles coming and going.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

<Snipped quote by Blizz>

Well shit, now I feel homesick. xD I think I'll give the room a moment to react before responding.

@Estylwen

In my defense it was your rp lmao

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Yeah

He will pull a Rainsinger if he thinks he has too now that you mention it.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Interactions: Everyone

The House on the Hill

---

It was no surprise people had gone off and broken away from the conversation. Jack could not deny that he sounded hypocritical, advocating for her in private and then being so cold in public. He wanted to give Layla a chance, but she took that notion of hope and twisted it until it snapped. Blatantly working against them when they were so close to getting their foot in the door. When she left, Jack took in a deep breath and mellowed himself out. This was fine, he thought. This wouldn't spoil everything, Greyson even had a good follow-up question: Why were they necessary. He'd let him do the talking for that.

But then everything took a sharp turn in a direction he didn't think would be possible.

A portal opened, right in front of him. Not the kind Jack recognized, and he recognized a lot of things. Chains and fog, and from out of them came a woman with white hair, taller than Jack himself. She grabbed him, and the chains wrapped around his ankles.

She spoke of the Void Heart... Her mask glared through him with eyes red as blood. There was something angry about her, and Jack was put on edge. Rather than be caught off guard, his body language gave off the impression he was one impulse away from attacking this woman. Could it be that- No...

He wouldn't.

“Tell me what you did. What happened to Vul? Where. Is. The Void Heart?”

“Who the hell are you?” She demanded.

“Alizée. Alizée Vul.”

His heart sank like a rock. Jack glared through the mask, back into those eyes. The expression he wore gave it away plainly, exactly what he felt. It made sense now, as quickly as she appeared. This was not her. Jack knew it. Death claimed all, and he was the arbiter of the gates to the Dark. The real Alizee had died that night. This was what the Hound didn't collect from her remains, given a shape by ambient rage. It was angry, a product of the Void, the very place he walked like it was home.

The Black Star weighed heavy against him, beneath his shirt, mere inches away from this spirit's grip. Jack reached up and grabbed the wrist holding him with his own inhuman hand, in a grip that threatened to snap it in two. The real Alizee was shorter than him, didn't speak with that wretched tone. In his other hand, a scythe appeared. All around them, shadows danced at the edges of everyone's vision, little shapes that stretched longer than they should have, that they could watch move if they just looked faster.

"You are not Alizee, creature of the Void." He rejected that notion on the spot. "The real Alizee knew we had both seen things worse than you. Rahk-las hreshnik yuul." "You do not scare me," in the Voidtounge. Even now, he just couldn't help but grandstand a little.

"Whatever you are, you don't want to do this." The chains wrapped around Stormy, but he was ready. His Phantombane aura had gone out, but he held it in his hand, ready to cast at a moments notice to ward off the Apparition if things got bad. In his other hand was the Stoic Shell, in case it had a ranged ability.

"Go back the way you came, princess. Right the fuck now," Amara warned, leveling a pistol at Alizee Vul's face. There were know phantoms in the room. But the Army was always watching.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

She could drag him into the Void (which would be a bad idea considering he's the void guy around here getting dragged in by the void girl) but that just puts him in his element. This is gonna be funky