[Exit]

A ghastly familiar hissing sound suddenly came through her helmet filters, past the explosions and the gunfire. It was subtle and it was all the more bone-chilling. In an instant, Alyssa abandoned her position beside a building corner trying to avoid the tank and rocketed upward with all the subtly of an ancient American shuttle headed toward the moon. Brick cracked and fell in her backwash as she arched up over the building and scanned the scene briefly, her helmet locking into friendly figures and enemy units in a sweep. Several friendlies were off to one side. This all took only a few seconds as Alyssa urgently spoke on her radio unit.

"Gas gas gas! BLACK GAS in the area, evacuate NOW! Get clear, repeat get clear NOW!"

Even as she spoke she saw the darkness creeping over the scene, streams of it even reaching up a building off to one side. Alyssa spotted flashes from gunfire and swooped lower, seeing altered and acolytes fighting amongst themselves. She almost loosed her version of a carpet bombing but decided not to, with so many civilians in the mix she'd catch hell from Todo. And that was the only reasons she refrained. Well, that and one of the altered way down low was looked like he might be interesting. He was with some sort of hairy weirdly mutated individual. She zoomed in and unconsciously started going lower. Ignoring the fact that he and his hairy pal were raining hell into the crowd below, they might have been worth chatting up in a bar. Not that she'd been able to go to a bar to just look at the prospects in... ever.

With a start Alyssa notice the blackness reaching up toward her. She was only fifteen feet above the ground. Oh. Shit. Even as she started to fly upward again, the black gas looked like an invisible hand was shaping it upward. She darted back upward with a ground trembling roar, but left a marker on the guy she'd noticed. A moment later she noticed what looked like a sun flying toward her.

"Fuck. me."

It was actually 10 suns. Eight from the hairy man's guns, two from the cute one. All of them blasted right below her as Alyssa dodged them by flying upward.

"Figures that the only cute guy I've seen all day is trying to kill me."

Ignoring the mass of blackness and assuming that her team would take care of itself momentarily, she started raining down beams onto the rooftop the two figures were located.

[Xero]

Chao stared as the black gas stuff filled the area, though still a for-now safe distance away from himself. He heard Alyssa's calls on the radio about "Black Gas", which clued him in that this was the stuff that was supposedly really bad to run into. Judging from everyones reaction, that was accurate. Before he could act one way or the other, however, another call came in informing everyone that Cassidy had gone underground somehow, likely into the sewers.

He briefly tried to determine if he should stay up here and do... something... or attempt to find Cassidy. The conflict was resolved, however, when Jason commanded him to go after the lost potential DMAC member. The asian man nodded sharply in Jason's direction, still somewhat uncertain about leaving his companions admidst the black gas, before placing his hands on the road. A long flash of light later drilled a Chao-sized hole into the ground, before dropping him into the sewer below where he landed on his feet with a heavy thud in foul smelling water.

Looking up, the light from the hole lighting up the sewer slightly, Chao blinked at his good fortune as he spotted his target moving his direction up ahead several dozen feet away. Bracing himself on the off chance some bullshit happened, he called out with a shout that echoed down the sewer tunnels.

"Grayve, I'm here to bring you back with us to DMAC."

- - -

Meanwhile, Anya was staring wide-eyed at the approaching Black Gas, scurrying away from it out into the street. That was the horrible stuff from before she went to seventh! Making sure to stay away from it, and in her distraction missing the various shouts from the other Officers going around, she ended up near Officer Shi just as he knelt down and disappeared into a hole in the ground. Thinking his idea a good one, after all the gas couldn't easily follow, she focused her own powers and took a deep breath.

Shutting her eyes and plugging her nose, looking comically like someone about to jump into a pool, she sunk suddenly into the liquefied asphalt before being deposited roughly onto the sewer floor with liquid asphalt raining down with her, ending up next to a surprised Officer Shi. Getting up, and muttering at being covered in the now-hardened asphalt that was stuck to her hair and the sewer water that had splashed on her clothing, she blinked as she noted the apparent confrontation going on.

"Oh... Uh... Hi?"

[Animus]

Len winced a bit as the radio went off his ear, yelling about the gas, or some such. It was around that point that the corner of the building he was using as cover exploded in a flurry of heat and dust.

"Bloody persistent." The regenerator looked over his should for a brief moment to see the Acolyte emerging from the dust, the wire blades attached to his wrists reeling back in, before taking that moment to get back on the move.

~~~~~~

Cassidy shook his head, listening to Polarity's 'suggestion', "I'm afraid not. I'm not too partial to getting cut in half should those freaks come after me again." He continued moving back, at least until a voice rang echoed from further up the tunnel.

Surprised, Cassidy stopped, looking over his shoulder to see the two people standing further up the tunnel, "What the...?'

[Lathis]

Polarity stared at the pair of unexpected interlopers for a moment, just as surprised at their sudden and unorthodox appearance as his captor was. Rather than waste precious seconds inquiring as to just who these new comers were, Polarity had a much more practical response in mind.

Focusing intensely, the powerful Reclamation member unleashed his aura in a indescribably violent, yet tightly restrained sphere around him. The horrifying sounds of rending flesh and shattering bone echoed down the lengths of the sewer as Cassidy's freakishly transformed hand burst apart in a spray of gore. Bits of bone and blood splattered everywhere, a few smatterings splashing against the two DMAC officers as Cassidy's arm was rent in twain all the way up to the elbow. Not even bothering to retract his aura, even as Cassidy recoiled in agony, Polarity simply extended his aura further, though with far less force than his initial burst.

His follow up attack cratered the floor slightly, but only launched Cassidy across the tunnel with enough force to bounce off of the concrete wall, rather than embed him three feet within it. Polarity didn't even bother watching as the powerful altered collapsed to the ground; conscious or not, it was unlikely he would remain a threat. The two newcomers, on the other hand . . .

Polarity lifted a hand and pointed it at the slack jawed DMAC Officers. "I hope that the two of you thought to make peace with your maker this morning-"

But was stopped from unleashing the brunt of his power by a gentle hand on his shoulder. Somewhat confused, he looked to his side to see Ghost standing there. Smiling softly, she shook her head. "You don't need to do that, Polarity. Why don't you go find Sympathy before he gets totally lost. I'll deal with these two and catch up with ya in a minute."

Polarity looked at her oddly for a moment, then to the DMAC officers, before shrugging. "Fair enough, then. You two did, though completely inadvertently, give me the perfect opening to save myself, so, in a way, I owe you one." Chuckling to himself at the concept of owing a favor to a pair of race traitors, he could only shake his head. "We really shouldn't be fighting anyway; maybe one day I'll have the good fortune of making you realize that."

With that, he turned and began to trek back down the tunnel.

Behind him, Ghost smiled at the male DMAC officer.

"So, little Chao, how have you been doing lately? I don't think I've seen you since that family picnic nearly ten years ago."

This post has been edited by Lathis: 05 November 2009 - 12:21 AM

[Xero]

Chao blinked at the sudden turn of events, and was about to move to help Grayve. However, he paused at a familiar voice addressing him and looked up at the speaker. Even if he hadn't recognized the voice, the words they said would have clued him in on the persons identity. His response could be considered somewhat comical, as he threw up his arms in disgust before responding. "Oh god-fucking-dammit, is everyone but the old man a psychopath these days?"

He sighed inwardly for a moment, before responding in a more direct and calm manner. "So what now, Rei? Gonna start cackling like a hack and go on about some bullshit like Kai did? Going to actually fight instead of run away and try to blow me up? Or did you just want to chit-chat?"

- - -

Anya was completely confused, looking back and forth between the two, with no idea what was going on. Did they know each other?

[Lathis]

Ghost quirked an eyebrow as she regarded her amusing cousin. "Cackle like a mad woman? Seriously? You jack asses slaughtered, like, two dozen altered a few months back and you're calling us psychos? Pfft, as if, Cousin"

The Altered Freedom Fighter could only shake her head sadly. "I just figured I'd do you a nice favor, being family and all." She gestured to the bloody mess crumpled against the far wall. "Polarity didn't kill that guy cuz it'd cause us nothing but headaches, but don't think that's a good thing. We rescued that guy from one of those nutso Acolytes, and even offered to let him walk off, no strings attached, and he still turned on us like a rabid dog."

She took a moment to spit in the fallen criminal's direction before turning her attention back to her cousin. "Piece of advice, just cause I don't wanna have to see our Auntie at your funeral. Just let this psycho die and blame it on us. Otherwise, you might wake up one morning with this psycho eating your spleen."

Her piece said, she turned and began to walk away after Polarity. "So, there ya go then, Cuz. Save the psycho, or try to catch the badguy. I'll check ya later."

- - -

Thermite and Follicle realized, quite quickly, that their element of surprise had worn out its welcome. They were quickly forced to scurry away from the ledge as energy blasts from the armored DMAC officer whom they'd tried to blast out of the air began to rain down around them. Add to that the Infiltrators turning their attention skywards and peppering the face of the building with small arms fire. Then, just for good measure, it looked as if all of the Acolytes still alive and kicking decided that killing altered would be more fun than killing Gate officers.

Follicle turned to Thermite, ". . . Sooo . . . time to go?"

Only to notice that Thermite was already halfway across the roof. Follicle noticed several of the Acolytes using their . . . um . . . Accelerator Suits? to jump up towards the roof. Even as he turned to run himself, he used his personal armory of plasma pistols to lay down cover fire for himself. Most of the Acolytes used their suits to actually change direction in midair, but he managed to knock one or two out of the air. Still, his desperate gambit payed off, as the Acolytes that had dodged had been forced to land on different buildings, buying him a few more seconds to make his escape.

The second he reached the far ledge of the building, he followed his companion's example and leapt off recklessly. His hair helped him descend safely to land right on the back of his waiting motorbike, still idling like he left it. As fast as he could, he threw it into gear and turned the throttle as far as it would go. The squeal of burning rubber filled the alley as he began to blast down the narrow space at breakneck speed.

Boy, he sure hoped that everyone else was still on mission.

- - -

Templer looked around as the black gas began to spread towards them. Tyler was close to his side, but was in no danger from the gas with his useful power. Julie was not far away either, kung fu fighting with an Acolyte. He knew that she could take care of herself, though, and that with her agility and skill, he would only get in her way. Of more interest, though, was the apparent exodus of Acolytes, as a sizable number of them were all leaping up onto one of the distant roofs. Were they trying to escape, or attacking someone else? It was so hard to tell, with so much happening on the battlefield all at once.

There was also a slim chance that, with that many acolytes on the move, that they had located Cassidy, so following them might be useful.

"I'm going after those Acolytes!" he shouted to Julie, before turning and sprinting away from the black gas and towards the nearest building.

As he ran, he began swinging his arm around, focusing on the shield around his arm. Several yards away from the building, he threw his arm up, launching out a weighted thread of pure aura which flew up to hook onto the roof ledge, instantly anchoring itself in place where it touched. A second later, Templer leapt, using the tether to swing himself into the wall, where he formed some small spikes on his feet for traction, and all but ran up the wall, shortening his line as he ascended.

It didn't take him long to climb up onto the roof. He then took a moment to analyze situation up on the rooftops. Alyssa was already up here, flying around and firing blasts at . . . someone, and there were several Acolytes spread around, also homing in towards where Alyssa was blasting. At the very least, she might need some backup.

All he needed to figure out now, was how to get across all the rooftops fast enough to actually catch up with the ridiculously mobile Acolytes . . .

[Xero]

Chao grunted at his cousin's short explanation, ignoring most of it as being unimportant or some bullshit or other he didn't really care about - Literally waving off the attempted bait at "Catch the badguy or save someone". Really, did they think he was as amoral as the rest of his family apparently was? Sure, it had crossed his mind to let the newbie take care of Grayve and give chase, or the other way around, but that wouldn't likely work out to well. However, he blinked as he realized the implication of one particular comment. Unable to let Rei just walk away with saying something like that, he shouted after her in annoyance.

"Hey, I didn't kill anyone, so don't lump me in with that! I stopped some crazy assholes who were actually stupid enough to try to nuke the neighborhood!" He huffed after his short outburst, before turning his attention back to the injured Grayve. He motioned for Anya to help him, kneeling down to him and checking him for where his injuries where and how severe. It was a shame he didn't actually know what he was doing, and was just bullshitting.

Anya just did as she was told, understanding why they were letting the enemy walk away, and really hoping that not every day would be so weird or confusing. Couldn't she have gotten a normal mission to start with? Something a little fun?

[SnaggleR]

Xian was taking pot shots at the acolytes with her shotgun after realizing she was quickly running out of ammo with her previous carpet bombing methods, and was still getting reasonable success.

"Hey, this is almost kinda-" The black gas canister exploded, and all thoughts ended. Her world was only panicked hysteria as the microscopic machines rose from the canister like a legion of demons from hell. And they were after her soul. She let out a bloodcurdling scream of terror and bolted blindly in the opposite direction, doing her best to shrink her aura to her person, but in her panic only succeeded in making it about half size. As the gas spread out to chase whatever auras it detected, a portion broke free from the mass and began to float ominously directly for her. She burst into tears as she fled, stumbling over rocks and cracks in the sidewalk. Never had she felt such fear. With everything she's seen, everything she's felt and understood, nothing has ever had malice at it's core. Nothing's purpose was simply to destroy, except for this 'gas'.

She came to the van, but didn't stop, didn't even think about it. The only thing she could think to do was run.

So run she did.