Strain

[Yorgmiester]

Nobody had returned with Richard King to his room that night. No women, no friends. Not even a bottle of wine. He lay in the darkness and stared at the ceiling for several hours as the night grew old. The walls were thick, and so he enjoyed complete quiet. Oddly enough the shades were left open, letting in pale blue light from the city without. Saul counted the seconds. His hands tapped the sheets rhythmically and unceasingly.

His watch beeped and up he shot, out of the bed. Springing to the nearby table, Saul deftly slipped on his pants and shoes, donned his white dress coat and slipped over top of it a bullet-proof vest. He checked his watch, tapped out the remaining seconds, and grabbed up the ivory cane he hated so much.

Right on cue a sniper shot shattered the window and embedded itself in the mattress a foot from where he stood. Bob and Ramses burst through the door, clad in body-guard attire. Nobody spoke as they rushed out the door and down the hall, Saul glancing nervously over his shoulder and keeping his head down as Ramses and Bob directed him through the maze of luxury corridors. They bypassed the elevator and quickly descended the stairs. A shocked group of hotel guests stepped out of the way as they burst onto the bottom floor of the hotel and made for the back exit to the parking garage.

Terrence, Reggie and Sam joined them at the door, armed to the teeth, with two black SUVs waiting. Saul jumped in and off they went, tearing out of the parking garage and down the street towards the highway.

"Beautiful." Saul finally breathed as the skyscrapers and lights began to recede behind them. "Perfectly done. But tell Cal not to aim so well next time, will you?" Raleigh remained silent in the driver's seat, his eyes fixed on the road in his headlights. The long stretch of lonely highway was completely clear as far as his eyes could see.

"Something's wrong." Raleigh muttered. "There should be more cars out here." Saul chewed his lip and nodded in acknowledgment. Ramses turned his gaze out the window and searched the passing darkness. Saul peered out the front windshield curiously for a few moments, then suddenly realized something peculiar; none of the highway's streetlights were on...

Far ahead, around the next curve, came a pair of headlights, and if Saul wasn't mistaken it looked as if they were driving on this side of the road. He immediately tensed, and his fingers began their rhythmic beat on the armrest.

"Two incoming vehicles on our side of the road." Raleigh radioed quickly to the car behind them. "They're coming up fast. Looks li- HOLY SHIT!"

The headlights barely had time to catch the monstrous steel object before it slammed into the road thirty yards ahead of them. An eighteen-wheeled tanker truck fell out of the sky and landed upside-down on the pavement with a horrendous crash. Milliseconds later the gasoline erupted in flame. Raleigh spun the wheel and the SUV squealed sideways, then rolled. There was a thunderous boom as the tanker truck exploded. Glass shattered, and then blackness.

- - -​

Heat. Dull pain. Muffled, distant gunfire. The world was blurry and disorienting. His eyes wouldn't focus. Saul shifted in his seat; his shoulder hurt. Why was he on his side? The seatbelt dug into his neck... there was something course and stinging all over him... sand? No, glass! Blood in his eye. Wouldn't leave.

"Saul!"

Pain in his shoulder again. He feebly swatted at whatever it was. Pressure on his neck. Something was pulling him. What was that out the window? Flames? A dull roar...

"SAUL!"

Saul was finally brought back to his senses by a second deafening explosion. He lurched in his seat and panicked for a second, then clamored as fast as he could out of the wrecked vehicle. Ramses let go of his arm and fired several rounds at something nearby. "Get down, Saul!"

He ducked as he was told and pressed himself against the SUV. "What's happening?"

"They swarmed the highway right after that damned truck fell out of the sky!" Raleigh shouted in between assault rifle bursts.

Saul edged his way to the side of the SUV and peered out. The first thing that caught his eyes was obviously the tanker truck, now a blazing inferno that dominated the highway. The second thing he noticed were the large number of ruffians that were currently leaping over the guard rail onto the highway, all carrying firearms and shooting at the SUVs. They looked like gang members of some sort, and Saul noticed with passing confusion that every single one of them had a plastic snake wrapped around their neck.

He turned away and leaned against the warm metal of the SUV, obsessively slapping the pavement next to him as the firefight continued. He could hear more fighting going on on the other side of the tanker truck.

 

[Sam G]

cannoning in Sam.

Spoiler: OOC

Uh... I'm Sam. The character's called Dyme. And, uh, "cannoning in" sounds a bit like a euphemism... I apologize for my insubordinance.

OOFERGWAHHURTINGOWOWOW- were roughly the thoughts running through Dyme's head as the flying man barreled into him. Dyme was carried 10 feet into the air by the ne'er-do-well vagabond before the momentum tossed him asunder, and he fell hard onto the wooden floor of the bell-tower, landing on his back.

The man stared down at Dyme from above, still baring his fangs in that malevolent grin, and Dyme struggled to push himself up onto his elbows. The hovering ruffian, detecting the movement, shot into Dyme again, this time striking him squarely in the chest with his foot and kicking him clean through the old wood of the floor. Deeming this opponent to be sufficiently taken care of, the man turned his attentions to the other two.

Jeeeeeeeeepers, was the tower this tall a second ago? Time was doing that thing it did when your brain went into ultra-speed, and looking down, Dyme observed that he was definitely going to die if he hit the ground from this height.

He fell 10 feet, leaving another 50 or so to go.

Yep. Definitely going to die.

Another 13 feet. About 35 left.

Well, was he going to do something about it? Typically, when falling to one's death one makes some effort to prevent said death, right? And, since Dyme was one of the powereds, he was a little more qualified to do that than most people, right? So do something!

As Dyme pondered solutions, he fell another 25 feet, leaving only 20 to go. Uh-oh, over halfway there.

Well, now there really wasn't time to do anything major, was there? It'd take about three seconds to travel that last few feet and make a mess of the ground. What sort of song could anyone play in three seconds, for heaven's sakes!? And Dyme still hadn't thought of a song to play; this was really just the worst day to get "Bad Romance" stuck in your head...

10 feet. 10 left.

Dyme summoned his guitar to hand at last and delved into the deepest recesses of his subconscious. This tower... it was kind of like a level in one of those Zelda games Dyme used to play, back when he was a kid; the music in those games was awesome, and it'd get stuck in his head for days after he'd finished playing... he even learned to play some of the ocarina songs on his guitar; in fact, those were some of the first songs he ever learned to play...

8 more feet. Thank God Dyme's original estimate had been off a bit.

His hands moving faster than his mind could follow, Dyme played; six notes [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB_sZA2pJdc&feature=related], all within the same second. He didn't even know what he was thinking when he picked the song; it was just the first thing that popped into his head. Well, here's hoping to God it was a winner...

And, just before he hit the ground, a giant hand caught Dyme, and he found himself looking up at an enormous orange man, holding Dyme safely and securely mere inches above the wooden floor. Dyme stared up at this giant, not knowing what to say or do, and then the giant started to hum; the same six notes Dyme had chosen to save his life. Dyme played those notes back, then nodded upwards at where the fight was ensuing. The giant nodded as well, understanding what he had to do. Then he drew back his hand and flung Dyme, straight upwards, at the ceiling through which he'd come.

Dyme burst through the rotting floorboards, covering his head with his arms, and crashed right into the grinning man, driving him upwards with enough force that they slammed into the ceiling. Dyme dropped first, landing in a crouch with one leg spread out to the side like an awesome ninja, then yelped and rolled out of the way as the scary man followed him down.

 

[Zemalac]

Fuck me.

Then, audibly: "Fuck me!" Christian scrabbled with the lock on the glove compartment for a moment before he managed to release the catch. "Does no one believe in subtlety anymore?"

Four seconds after the man in the suit tore away the door of the clock tower, Christian Factor emerged from his car across the street, .45 in hand, and ran. He was not an extremely fast runner, he knew. He was more about holding his ground no matter what was pounding on him. He was going to be too slow.

There was a quick, muffled shout from the interior of the building. Christian accelerated.

Lobby. Dead doorman on the floor. Neck broken, hand reaching for the emergency buzzer. Christian ignored him. The stairs were just ahead of him now, and crashing sounds from high above indicated that he was already late to the party.

He took the stairs two at a time.

 

[ThreeWords]

Spoiler: @SamG

Fu.. Edits!

"We believe in subtly when it suits us, Mr Factor,"muttered the invisible haze by his car, "but also in using different tools for different jobs" It was talking to itself, of course, but being able to move unseen can do terrible things to the ego

Inside the tower, the suited man dropped like a stone, smashing through the floor again. Everything went quiet, save for a tiny humming of micro-jets beneath the Supers' feet

 

[The Clown]

"Stay calm James, he's seen you, don't give his any reason to turn his attentions to you, when he turns away you have to... do something" were James' thoughts as he stood flat against the wall, his eyes staring un-blinkingly at the intruder.

The floor was close to collapse, and this man was more poweful than anyone James had ever seen, he had to escape. James edged towards the hole, he was behind the suited man, with a flick of his wrist he send two balls of sand over the man's head and back into his eyes with immense speed then leapt into the hole in the floor with his arms by his sides.

James' heart was pumping, he could barely breath and he was falling straight down with increasing speed. As the hard stone floor below approached he split it, the stone sliding away to form a circular hole beneath him which he fell straight through, he did the same with the next few floors until he reached the bottom where he cushioned himself with sand. Looking up the way he came he heard a commotion above, he didn't have long.

 

[ThreeWords]

The sand flew into the man's face, and his eyes closed. This did not, however, seem to stop him; he picked up a table and threw it at Dyme, then dived out the window...

As James looked toward the door by which he would leave, it opened to reveal the suited man, who had overtaken him on the way down. Again, the man 'smiled', but this time he did not attack.

"No one leaves. Return or you will be pacified."

 

[The Clown]

James backed againt the wall, stuttering "Wha-at do you want from me? I have no-othing to do with all of this, I'm just a buisness man,"

James knew this would most likely do little to lighten the situation but he had very few options. After the man did not reply James desided to comply, he loosened a disc of rock from under his feet and used it to elevate himself back to the original room, as he ascended he tucked his fingers into one of his sleeves and pressed a small red button which was strapped to his wrist.

"I have to do something, this guy is too much... I can't fight him, and I can't escape him, at least very easily, where the fuck is Damien" He swung around, looking for Damien who he spotted the stepped over to, "Who is this guy? what does he want with us?" he said to damien, fear in his voice.


Across the city in the basement of a large sky scraper a yellow light began to flash on a monitor. Darius, who was sitting next to the monitor swore as the light flashed and a line of information appeared on the screen.

Location: Byrant park
Ergency: S.A.P
Danger:High(su)

Darius was James' head of security and was James' personal guard, he and a team of 9 other men were his team.

Moments after the light went off and he read the screen Darius rolled smoothly off his chair and slammed a button on the wall which woke the team with a loud siren which echoed eerily through their quarters, they woke and almost immediately began preparing. They armed themselves especially for the task, their weapons were silenced, two of them had infared scoped rifles, they all wore midnight black uniforms and body armour. They got in their van and head off.

 

[Xero Scythe]

Damien spat when he saw the thousands of shards fly towards him. He chuckled as he removed the paneling from his metal wardrobe door and held it in front of him, the hundreds of needles slamming into the sheet metal. He noticed James sidle towards him and whispered back. "Agents. They have locator
tech and apparently power dampeners." As the man walked forward Damien reached under his desk and pulled out a Colt revolver. Fighting the resistance, Damien locked the agent to the floor and fired twice, both shots hitting the man in the shoulder and collarbone.

"I reckon what we have 'ere is an impasse. I can't use my power to its full capacity, and you can't move for fear of me opening a singularity where your heart can be." Damien chuckled at the confused expression. "Suprised? Think the gun was the main show?" Damien's words began to cut now. "I've had six years of practice with my powers. Six goddamn years I've been runnin' 'n fighting. Thanks to your precious Carter-" Damien spat this word out like it was venom. "Putting out that 300 million on me, I've had quite a few sparring partners over the years. And you know what? I'm sick of all the damn Standoffs" Damien loosened his hold on the man and put all his concentration into closing the cartroid artery.The agent would soon suffer a stroke at this rate.

 

[ThreeWords]

The man began to thrash, made choking noises, and finally lay still in the grip of Damien's powers. Immediately, something in his pocket began to beep. At the same time, in the skies, a sound like the sky was tearing in half; something was coming, something small and fast.

Meanwhile, a crowd was forming outside the tower. The people looked on, apparently dumbstruck, as James' troops got out. Darius gestured with his gun for the crowd to move, but they looked at him blankly. He blinked, staggered, then a look of horror crossed his face. He opened fire, but his movements were sluggish; only one man fell before he too stood dumbly alongside his troops. The crowd began to file into the tower.

The soldiers barged past Christian, but before he could react he was swarmed by a crowd of anonymous faces, some shoving past him and some grabbing him, manhandling and restricting him

Darius arrived in the apartment, and moved straight to James. As his soldiers surrounded him, they said nothing. Other people, random civilians, began to enter the room too.

 

[The Clown]

Spoiler: OOC

Turns out this post completely ruined one of 3W's plans so had to be deleted

 

[Zemalac]

So. This was...less than optimal. Time to reevaluate.

"Gerroff!" he grunted at the hands holding him back. "Just what the hell is going on here?"

At least the toughs passed him by, the ones with guns and empty faces. Still, Christian couldn't help but curse himself for his stupidity. If he hadn't paused on the landing just then the mob would never have caught up with him at all.

Okay. Change of plans. There was a side door on the landing, labeled "MAINTENANCE;" he could use it as the start of an escape, at least. He threw off the people restraining him (didn't even have to use his powers, just raw muscle this time) and made a quick dash for the door.

Locked. He kicked it open, slamming the door behind him. The lock was broken, now, but his immovable hand on the knob would keep even the most dedicated individual from opening it. Short of literally breaking the door itself, there was now no way to get at Christian.

Take a breath. Relax. Figure out what's happening.

Someone else had been tracking Lier, that much was painfully obvious. Someone who didn't much care who knew they'd been in the area, someone who was more concerned with results than how they were achieved. They had at least one heavy hitter agent in the building already, which from the sound of things did not bode well for the tower's structural integrity. And unless riotous mobs had started acting perfectly in unison with disturbingly blank faces recently, someone around here had mind-control powers, and plenty of 'em. He'd have to watch his own thoughts, now, which always annoyed him.

In-your-face heavy hitting rarely went with mind-control, so the gent who'd kicked down the clock tower door was probably not the mentalist. That left Lier's mysterious businessman friend, or Dyme (unlikely), or a third party. Any one of those possibilities disturbed Christian. Either way, they knew he was here, which meant it was time to either vanish or think up a convincing lie or two.

Assess. What did he have to hand? A quick glance around the closet he was in revealed little. A few mops and brooms, a bucket, some bottles of soap and other, more chemical cleaning agents, and an electrical box.

Gears began ticking in Christians' mind. It was...what...had to be past ten o'clock. Closer to midnight than not. Dark as it ever got in the city, but the top of the tower would be above all that, with nothing shining directly into the windows...

Someone had changed the game on him. They'd done it twice, now; once by kicking in the door, and once with a controlled mob placed neatly between him and his objective. He didn't particularly care who it was who was fucking with his plans, really. He did, however, care that they be informed of how pissed he was right now.

Time to change the rules of the game again.

Christian broke the lock on the electrical box with the butt of his pistol and began systematically cutting the power, floor by floor, until he reached the very top. Stories above his head, in a room torn to pieces by powered fighting, all the lights went out.

Christian grinned in the darkness.

"G'night, everybody," he said cheerfully, and threw open the closet door onto the now pitch-black stairwell.

 

[ThreeWords]

The squad surrounded James, but they looked stupified and blank. Suddenly, they lunged toward James from all angles, and the mob surged towards Damien and Dyme.

And then the lights went out.

In the darkness, something chuckled. the sound was odd, a quiet noise but multiplied by a hundred mouths at once to be heard above the melee. "Be careful" it whisper-echoed, "The mob still feels pain, even if their bodies are mine. If you call yourself heroes, be careful what you do next..."

--

The voice could be heard in the stairwell too, but nothing else moved; everything was silence.

---

And anyone listening would have realised that the sounds in the sky had stopped...

 

[ThreeWords]

Double update? Keep dreaming...

 

[Yorgmiester]

The firefight continued. The harsh metallic noise of bullets tearing holes in the SUV rang in the men's ears. Reggie jerked backwards suddenly and suppressed a snarl of pain; blood leaked from his upper arm. They continued to fire on lunatics, but were quickly becoming outnumbered. Bob was firing his sniper rifle almost constantly on baddies who were circling around the side to flank them. Saul slapped the pavement religiously.

"Saul, now!" Raleigh yelled.

Saul leaped to his feet and rounded the front of the car, running straight into the hail of bullets. For a split second his instincts told him to duck and cover, but he steeled his nerves and charged forward, towards the center of the crowd of mad killers. A hail of bullets converged on him, but they shattered against his skin. Slamming his foot against the road he flew into the air and came down hard in the center of the mob, his fist to the asphalt.

They all crumpled and burst as if their bodies had hit the bottom of an elevator shaft at ninety miles an hour.

Saul got to his feet and looked around, wiping a splatter of blood from his face. Ramses and the others came out from behind the SUV's, weapons aimed at the sides of the road. There was a shriek from somewhere in the darkness and the sound of running feet, but nothing moved to attack them. They nodded at each other and cautiously headed for the other side of the tanker truck to see what had happened to the two mystery vehicles.

The scene on the other side didn't look much better. One car had been burnt and charred by the explosion, its occupants fried. The other was dismantled and lay in pieces all over the road, along with an assortment of body parts. Just beyond the fire's glow they glimpsed some retreating forms. The crowd of crazies had apparently got what they were looking for.

"Call Cal and get him to come pick us up." Ramses said to Raleigh. "We should get off the road." People would be here soon. Emergency people. Medical people. Inquisitive people. Whatever had happened here, Saul didn't want to be involved with it. It was a mistake for them to have been here, an accident, and he would rather that it never even happened. Hopefully it wasn't too late for that. They grabbed their gear from the destroyed trucks and jogged off into the darkness, disappearing into the cool desert night.

 

[Xero Scythe]

Damien shook his head and yelled at the voice. "Who the hell are you? I'm no goddamn hero- I just want to get on with my fucking life! Is there something so inherently wrong with that? Damn bastard!" He cursed into the night. He noticed all other sounds had stopped and snarled. Damien grabbed James and Dyme, and considering Dyme's power, grabbed his iTouch and jammed it into his pocket. "Still, I hate unneccessary deaths..." He sighed. Damien grinned and tipped back. Right before all three of them hit the floor, it split and gave way before them, bringing the corpse with. To make sure no one could follow, Damien moved the metal doorframe and wedged it into the hole so tightly it would be almost impossible to get out. The trio began to fall towards the ground head first. The ground here too, split in the face of Damien's gravity-spear. Damien slowed their descent and flipped the three over, while the corpse crashed into the sewer water, sending up water.

Damien threw up a barrier, the sludge sliding off. "James!" He barked. "Seal the ground above us- it's your natural element, so it'll be easier for you, and will be far neater, too." He then turned to Dyme. "You get the easy part- Listen to my music. First listen to Devil's Gift by Shaman's Harvest, Another One Bites the Dust by Queen, Life In the Fast Lane by the Eagles, Indestructible by Disturbed, and Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes. I think those would be most important for us. If you see any others you think important, go for it." Damien then squatted down and looked at the body of the agent. "Bye-bye." He said, without glee, sorrow, or any other emotion in his voice. Damien floated the body out of the water, then crushed his hand into a fist. The body crumpled up while no one was looking, until it was the size of a marble. Damien then shot it into the dirt, where it would stop around 6 feet underneath. He made the sign of the cross and looked around. "Ready yet?" He said in general.

 

[Sam G]

"Hm?" Dyme looked up, the buds of the headphones in his ears, and cranked down the volume a notch. Fortunately he'd already heard a couple of the songs Damien had recommended, so his job was a little easier, but it was still a job, dammit - one assigned by Damien Effing Lier, no less - and by God he was going to do it right.

"I'm ready when you are. Lead the way, sir," Dyme said, talking a little louder than usual. As they waited for James to finish, Dyme scrolled through Damien's iTunes library, looking for more songs that may be of use.
"Ooh, Master of Puppets! That sounds cool! And..." Dyme looked up at his hero, fighting to keep a smirk off his face. "It's Raining Men? I'll be sure to keep that one for later..."

 

[The Clown]

James obeyed, his hair ragged and full of wood and mud from the chaos. He looked up then around at the earth around him then closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, he raised his hands and pulled the earth up and over them, the earth knotted up above them.
The new ceiling creaked but as James pulled more earth up to support it, the noise stopped, James opened his eyes and turned to Damien who he could barely see in the blackness. "What now?" he called into the dark. James stared around waiting for a reply, he suddenly saw a flash of white light to his left, he reacted quickly, turning and raising a fist which pulled rock onto it, ready to smash, he halted when he saw that it was Dyme's itouch, "Sorry," he said weakly, he lowered the rock to the ground.

 

[Zemalac]

"Be careful. The mob still feels pain, even if their bodies are mine. If you call yourself heroes, be careful what you do next..."

"Not a hero," Christian grunted, not entirely sure who (or what) he was talking to. "Not even a villain. Though I'm not sure if I could say the same about you, mind-man." He shoved his way contemptuously past the last body between him and the room at the top of the tower, brushing aside human forms like they were cobwebs. This was a perfect opportunity, if only he could seize it--Lier would be focused on the supers-sans-subtlety, which would give Christian a good chance of catching him unawares. No one could see anything up here, anyway. No one would see him coming.

He pushed through the door, and quickly realized his mistake. He couldn't see, either. Oh, he could see people, he had unnaturally good night vision (not part of his powers, or at least he didn't think so), but he couldn't see who was who.

Ah well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained...

He flicked on a small flashlight hanging from his keychain and scanned the room with it. Rubble, metal door set into the floor, broken furniture and walls torn out wholesale. No sign of anyone but empty-faced puppets.

"Fuck," said Christian. He switched the light off and began shoving his way back down the stairs. Damien was a flier, he remembered that now. Christian hated fliers. They offended his sense of what was fair. I have to fight my way back down ten flights of goddamned stairs, but you can just jump out the window and float gently to the ground? Fuck you, Damien Lier. Fuck you and all your flying friends.

 

[Xero Scythe]

After about 10 minutes of walking, Damien and the others came to a point which seemed no different than any other. However, Damien crouched over a stone in the pathway and nodded. He turned the corner and pushed open a turning wall, beckoning the other two inside. There was a ladder, which Damien climbed up with the agility of a monkey. He pushed up the heavy top, dislodging sand as he threw the trapdoor open. They were outside the city, and were able to see the clock tower. Damien turned around and suddenly ducked as a stray bullet passed over his head. He looked to see where it came from and saw a hailstorm of bullets near a crash site. Damien ran towards it, shouting behind him. "Hurry up! We gotta stop the gunfight before the cops come or we'll never escape!" Shit. Damien thought. Bullets mean attention, and attention was something they really did not want right now. Then Damien saw a man run into the hail of hot lead and sped up. It wasn't so strange that the man did this- there were millions of suicidal idiots like that- who else would fight wars? No, what was strange was that the bullets pinged of the man like he was a ten foot thick slab of metal. "Great, a super." Damien cursed. "Now we really have to fix this shit before it hits the ceiling."

 

[The Clown]

James sprinted after Damien, holding two shields of rock on each hand to block the barrage of bullets. He skidded to a halt and turned to his right, one of his shields slid off his arm and onto his back, he held the other one infront of him and send two fist sized rocks hurtling towards two off the men who were shooting. The rocks smashed into them at almost the same time, one just slammed into the first mans hand, knocking the gun out of his hand and sending his flying backwards, the other hit the second mans arm straight on, sending his arm shooting back into his shoulder, there was a loud crack as the man's shoulder shattered and he fell to the ground screaming.

Jame swivelled back and reclaimed the shield on his back and continued to block bullets. "Damien! can you make a gravity field big enough to block the bullets coming from that side?" he said pointing to his left, "I can block the ones on the other side."