Heroes: Shadows over Millenium

[Cynical Cat]

Blackheart rushed towards Janos, brilliant beams of blue light flashing from his eyes to sever the sword blade at the hilt.

[B4UTRUST]

Janos was moving again when Blackheart charged at him. Blackheart's flash vision struck the blade. It wasn't exactly where he aimed but it was close. The blade began to color as it was heated.

Janos snarled, the skin pulling tight at the corners of his mouth. The light reflected off pearly white fangs. He moved to meet Blackheart's charge, covering the distance in two massive strides. The sword thrust forward towards Blackheart's chest as he rushed forward.

[Cynical Cat]

Blackheart's flash vision would have sliced easily through the toughest steel known to modern science. Obviously, the blade was better than that either through its own properties or the extension of the freak's powers. Blackheart preferred not to kill whenever possible, but he did not hesitate to do so when necessary. He had more than enough ghosts to keep him company even without the monster in his chest offering chemical rewards each time he killed.

The freak was too fast and too damn good for games. He was also trying to run him through with a sword. Their was no decision to be made. His flash vision painted the duelist with harsh blue light as Blackheart parried the flat of the sword with his left arm, forcing it further to the left as he dodged right. Brilliant lances of light shot from his eyes, striking at the Freak's throat.

[B4UTRUST]

Janos' fingers uncurled from their grip around the sword hilt as his hands clutched uselessly at his throat. A hole had been burned through the flesh, depriving him of precious air. Blood flowed freely from the severed jugular veins. His eyes grew wider and darker then they were previously as what little color there was to his skin faded out. He gurgled, trying to draw breath that would not come.

He fell to his knees, his weight shaking the ground. He looked over at Blackheart and swung out with his long arm before he fell over dead. Dust and dirt filled the air as the massive body collapsed.

[LadyTevar]

The shadow dragon emerged back at the conference room, pausing just long enough to explain the situation to Ghost and Hotfoot. "Subway tunnel. One very large opponent, with a sword as big as Blackheart. Very little light."

Then she teleported, bringing them out into the darkness before Hotfoot's heart beat a fourth time. The fight was in full swing, although about to be quickly ended. "There may be others..." Argent warned as she slipped inside one of the shadows, leaving nothing but her silver eyes. "The fight will draw attention."

Then she left Hotfoot and Ghost to make their own choices. The tunnel did not have room for more than one or two people to attack the Freak at the same time. In her experience there was never just one guard, and she swam through the shadows and darkness to make sure no other Freaks would get a warning to the Legion.

[Dark Silver]

The flash of energy from Blasts blinded Saibot, the nightvision scanners intensifying the light a thousand fold for a brief second, which made him see stars, putting him effectively out of the fight until his vision cleared.

When it finally did clear, he saw Janos dead, Blackheart and company had arrived....he hadn't called for them.

Which only meant one thing, they had reacted to the fact he got in a fight...

A fight he could have handled if it wouldn't have been for Blast's lightshow...

He moved towards them, keeping his voice low, the life support field's glow brighter to give off enough of the blue light to allow them to see, if everything was oddly blueshifted.

"What are all of you donig here? I didn't give the signal to teleport." His voice was gruff, as he sheathed his sword to his lower back.

[SirNitram]

"Argent thought we were needed. We seriously need a telepath if we weren't supposed to be here yet." Gravitas shook his head. He hadn't found himself needed in the fight with Janos, so he closed his eyes and extended his senses. "Nice friend you had there, though."

[Charon]

It was several more minutes before nurses realized something had happened to their patient. They ran into the room, Dr. Zhan not far behind them. Quickly they began examining the charts in depth as Zhan ran up to her patient, using the equipment she had on hand she checked her patient, feeling around his chest. Dr. Zhan stopped in confusion, then felt around again. Shaking her head in disbelief she looked up at one of the orderlies.

"Get the patient to the X-ray room stat." With that Dr. Zhan rushed out of the room, grabbing the paper trails of the event as she rushed down the hallway, the paper trail fluttering behind her. A few minutes later Legacies was wheeled out of the room, still strapped down tightly even though the patient seemed unconscious.

[Dark Silver]

We're no where near the location of the Freak's hideout...the kid's lightshow just blinded me after your teleport in, and Blackheart here just killed a potential source of information!" his voice, while not shouting, expressed the fact he wanted to.

"I was keeping radio silence for a reason, approach was to be stealthy, so we could get in the best possible position for the assault, and now...SNAFU. You should have known better Blackheart." Saibot was facing Blackheart, all but putting a finger in the man's chest.

Fucking buncha amatuers.. he thought to himself, starting to move away, stopping for a moment by Janos' body, and laying a heavy kick into the corpse, one that nearly threw the body into the wall.

"Do me a favour...stay back until I break radio silence....we might be able to salvage something out of this steaming pile...."

With that, the life support field winked out, and a faint breeze rushed through the group to fill in the place where he once stood, as Saibot speed off towards the Legion's hideout.

[LadyTevar]

In the first blush of passion, couples are blind to the flaws, waving them away as something that can be worked around, fixed in one way or another. As passion cools, those flaws grow into warts, then into great gaps. A Yin-aspect person is often said to have no passion, being placid water instead of burning fire. But they're wrong: a Yin does have passion, and it is very cold indeed.

Garth's first hint of this was the sad, cold disapproval that trickled down the link between them. Had he not ran away so quickly, there may have been more said.

The silver eyes appeared on the wall near Blackheart. They did not look back at the vanished Saibot. "I've sensed no other Freaks in the immediate area, and the tunnell seems to split ahead," Argent said calmly, passionlessly. "I did not go down them far enough to see which leads where."

[frigidmagi]

Blast rolled his eyes at Saibot's little temper tantrum. Impressed he was not and frankly he figured Saibot had bitched at his mother coming out of the womb telling the poor women she was doing it all wrong. With a shrug he turnned to Blackheart.

"What you wanna do boss?" He asked.

[Cynical Cat]

"We're in the dark and we have a shadow master-empath," said Blackheart. "I think Argent's talents are called for." He turned to the woman. "Can you guide us?"

[SirNitram]

"A dividing in the path..." Gravitas considered. "Would it be worthwhile trying to cut their power? I could grab Blast and Ghost and head in the appropriate direction, then gate back to the rest of the group."

[Hotfoot]

This trip through the shadows was oddly the same as before, despite the changes in his perception of the passage of time. The sensation of being engulfed in shadows while surrounded by his burning light offered a layer of seperation from the previous sensation, but not enough to be completely unaffected by the disturbing aspect of the trip between shadows. Feeling protected yet vulnerable...it wasn't a new sensation in itself, but the way it was inflicted left him more on edge than usual when he was like this.

As the battle started, he stayed back, looking down the corridors for any signs of more trouble, seeing that Blast, Gravitas, and Blackheart had the meta well in hand. The bickering outside of the fight wasn't important, but the planning caught his ear.

"If Argent scouts ahead, I can stay with her in the event we find trouble."


((Edited for better accuracy))

[Cynical Cat]

"It's an idea with merit," Blackheart told Gravitas. "It will let them know we're on to them and radio communication down here is likely to be problematic. Still, it would be very useful, as long as the timing's right. Argent can you act as relay? Perhaps sending an emotional surge through your links as timing signal?"

[LadyTevar]

"We're in the dark and we have a shadow master-empath," said Blackheart. "I think Argent's talents are called for." He turned to the woman. "Can you guide us?"

There was always a warm feeling when talents are appreciated. The silver eyes seem to glow a little brighter for a moment as Argent allowed herself to enjoy the feeling privately. She heard Gravitus' suggestion and approved the idea, even before Blackheart turned to her again.

"Argent can you act as relay? Perhaps sending an emotional surge through your links as timing signal?"

"Yes... I've done that before on another job," Argent answered truthfully. Of course, that was a break-in to steal some very nice artwork that had needed split-second timing to cut the power, nab the painting, and have the power back on before the generators cut in to sound the alarm, but only Blackheart would frown about that little detail from her past.

((Editted for Hotfoot's comment))
The silver eyes glance to Hotfoot at his suggestion. "That ... will not work like you think, Hotfoot." How to explain? "I am not teleporting now, so I am not able to carry another with me." At least, she'd never been able to before. "The best way to say it is I'm swimming through the shadow patches."

[Cynical Cat]

"Argent won't be going far," said Blackheart. "And she can send panic back to us if she's in trouble. Unlike sword boy, she's very good at hiding." Interrogate one of the Freaks? In the field with only a small amount of time and no telepath? Saibot must have watched one too many episodes of 24 if he thought that was going to work. Fucking amateurs. You don't get instant, reliable answers and subjects are even less likely to cooperate when they know they only have to hold out a little while longer. "Don't bother chasing after Jack Bauer junior. The hissy fit he's likely to throw is far more likely to compromise the op than his blundering around playing lone wolf."

[Dark Silver]

Saibot didn't go far, just far enough to be out of their sight. He listened to the voices echoing down the tunnel, and his eyes narrowed.

Whiney bitch eh?

Well....he would have a few things to say about that.....well, not say.

He kept his emotions in check, staying perfectly calm, beyond his low thread of ever present anger, before starting again, quietly, down the tunnel, towards where he knew the legion where hiding.

[SirNitram]

"He has a personal history with these folks. His emotions will get the better of him." Gravitas said simply as he glanced to Blackheart. As much as he deferred on operational commands, he could see where Saibot was on this. "But torture will require precious seconds, even if I thought I could listen in when they start praying for it to end. I'll take... Blast, and Ghost. One stealth, one teleporter, one specialist. We'll see if we can find their HQ's central power feed and cut the lines. Might be harder to knock out internal generators, but."

[LadyTevar]

Argent listened carefully, both to Blackheart and Gravitus, and to the feelings twisting down the link between herself and Saibot. He wasn't as far away as they thought, and he was trying hard to keep his emotions from touching her. He wasn't masking them completely: she could tell he was angry, especially with the spike over the 'whiney bitch' comment.

She felt him slink off, still 'muttering' to himself emotionally, but did not think Blackheart needed to know. Saibot's problems were their business, not Ultima's.

[frigidmagi]

I'll take... Blast, and Ghost. One stealth, one teleporter, one specialist. We'll see if we can find their HQ's central power feed and cut the lines. Might be harder to knock out internal generators, but."

Blast grinned. Generators, heh.

"Not to brag man but... Betcha if you can get me close enough to the generators, or even a wire running into them, I can wreck them or dry them dry. What do you say?" Blast asked.

[LadyTevar]

"While you're making final plans," Argent said quietly, "I'll start looking for traces of them."

As she'd done before in the Astronomer's lair, Argent reached out with her Empathy, looking for groups of people gathered together, placing them on an internal map to make it easier to teleport close to them.

[Charon]

Dr. Zhan rubbed her eyes slowly as she looked over the X-Rays again, looking out the mirror at her conscious patient and wondering just what he had done. Standing up she slipped the scans over the lights again. Sure enough, the broken bones were almost completely mended. Scratching her head she stepped out of the room and towards her patient.

The silver head turned to look at the doctor. "Well?"

Dr. Zhan taped her index finger on her chin for a few seconds before responding. "The best we can think of is that all the damage you've sustained recently has jump started a, for lack of a better word, evolution in your symbiote. In laymen's terms, you have acquired a healing factor."

Legacies seemed slightly startled at this. "Interesting. So when will you be releasing us?"

Carol Zhan looked over at the machines that were monitering Legacies, then back at him. "We need to run a few more tests to see what exactly is going on, but assuming all goes well, within the hour."

A slow grin appeared on the silver figure's face.

[Cynical Cat]

"Okay," said Blackheart. Gravitas had acquired is arrogance the hard way, Blast was smart, and Ghost was an experienced operator. He had no doubts they could take care of any reasonable problem and were smart enough to call in help or book if things went sideways. As for him, well, a black operator and a professional thief should be able to manage some stealth if one of them wasn't a shadowmancer. As for Hotfoot, for a kid he didn't much know he seemed to be handling himself pretty well. Of course, you never really knew until the trial by fire and that was probably going to happen really soon.

[Dark Silver]

He arrived at the fork, while they still talked.

It had been easy to reach this part, after he left the others, and with the miniature display in his helmet guiding him with a subway map, and GPS coordinates, he knew the exact turn to make.

The others weren't going to wait on him, they abandoned the plan, even though it had been a perfectly good plan - and still was. Well, let them abandon it, he would remain true to it.

Still, he would provide them assistance, he wouldn't leave them stumbling completely in the dark.

His sword was out in a flash, the metal slicing into the stone of the subway tunnel walls. The sound echoed in the tunnel, sounding not unlike nails on a chalkboard. The mark took only a second or two to make, the sounds reverberating only a few seconds longer.

He stepped back, re sheathed the sword, and continued on, a carved out arrow on the stone marking the way he went.