Falin' Angels - On Bloodied Wings (RP)

[The Cheshire Cat]

She had a simple set of rules, and they served her well:

All contracts are anonymous.

Payment is always half up front, half on verification of the contract's completion.

Never entertain counter-offers from the target.

No civilian collateral damage.

No "signature" or calling card.

The client had given her a list and a deadline of 14 days. The names had been in the news lately; a hero group that had turned to crime. Wanted by Longbow. It amused her that Longbow was most likely her client, considering how often they had hunted her in the past. The hypocrisy didn't bother her; her job was to provide closure, not justice. Sometimes her clients confused them for being the same thing, but that was not important. That they understood the list that was given to her was an obituary was all that mattered; the act of marking the name down was to declare them as walking dead. Her job was simply to help the bodies catch up with the names.

The Guardian Angels had 14 days left to live. Specimen 8 had been activated.

[caios]

The Longbow trooper stood at the top of the watchtower overlooking the vast foggy emptiness before him. They had warned everyone in the morning brief that there was an increased risk of attack due to the prisoners they were currently holding. He hadn't really paid attention to the details, sure back on land they were having all sorts of trouble tagging the renegade heroes turned criminals, but out here it was just another boring day of guard duty. He doubted anything interesting would happen, this base was a fortress after all, it would be stupid to assault it directly. He took out his binoculars and scanned the empty fog again, but nothing he did would take away the boredom.

"What are you looking for?" A feminine voice asked from behind him.

"Anything really." the Longbow guard said lazily, "Sarge says we should be expecting an attack from some super powered threats, but so far all I'm seeing is nothing but fog."

"I hear ya," the woman behind him said, "Must be boring up here. But then you never know when one of those Guardian Angels might sneak up behind you."

"Yeah, that's true." Just then the Longbow trooper's bored mind remembered an important detail. He was supposed to be up here alone. So who was this woman behind him?

He quickly turned around to see a tall, black-haired, pale skinned woman with piercing blue eyes staring back at him. Worse yet, he recognized her from the briefing.

"You!" he cried out, immediately his training took over and he reached for his Longbow issued multi-purpose assault rifle ... only to have snatched out of his hands faster then he could blink. The woman before him, who now held his rifle in her hand, tossed it casually into the fog. A dull splash some distance away told him the fate of his rifle as it no doubt began to sink to the bottom of the Atlantic.

"Do me a favor." Caios said as she took a step towards the Longbow officer, "When you wake up, warn everybody." The Longbow trooper never saw the punch that knocked him out.

With the watchtower guard disabled, Caios moved to a nearby control junction, she ripped open the casing then pulled the wires feeding power to the automated turrets along the wall on this side of the Longbow base. With the power cut the turrets quickly shutdown. That would probably not last long, but until they could reroute power it would give the rest of the incoming angels a window to break in through.

With that task done Caios dropped down smoothly to the floor below. Looking around she noticed one of the Longbow Flyers stationed here was sitting nearby. This gave her an idea. With a smirk she walked over and lifted the flyer off the ground. Turning around, she briefly aimed before throwing the flyer at the front gate as hard as she could. The flyer had never moved as quickly as when it impacted against the gate, breaking it open in a massive explosion. Not that the gate was ever really an obstacle, but the explosion made a great signal to the others that the way was clear.

"Freeze Evil Doer!" A voice called out from behind the vampire. Turning around she saw a Longbow Warden pointing at her. Behind the Warden several Longbow troopers were rushing forward in response to the explosion to confront her. Already the entire base was starting to come to alert status, pretty soon they would be in full combat readiness. At least Caios hoped so, otherwise this would be pretty boring, and she wanted to make a big splash here.

"You know you really sound like an idiot when you say that." Caios told the Warden casually, "Anyway, now that you're here you should know I'm going in to get my friends back. All of them are folks that have no reason to be in your jail cells. Still I'll grant you the fact that you all have your hearts in the right place. ... for the most part. So I'll give you all this chance to step aside and let us leave in peace."

"We don't negotiate with terrorist!" The Longbow Warden proclaimed.

"Ok, one, I'm no terrorist." Caios replied, "And two..." They didn't see the vampire charge, but the Longbow troopers caught sight of their warden flying backwards suddenly and slamming against a wall on the far side of the yard. Caios held her leg out from the kick she had just delivered the warden for a moment before setting it down and adding, "Who said anything about negotiating?"

The Longbow troopers suddenly found their target in their midst. As one they turned to try to bring their weapons to bear on Caios, but she was already moving too fast for them. Ducking down to avoid the gun shots, she sweeped her leg a full circle knocking most of the troopers into the air. In the same smooth motion, Caios continued her spin swinging her fist through the air hitting multiple troopers who were still in midair. They suddenly found themselves being tossed away from the powerful blow. Without even a pause in her motion, Caios easily grabbed one of the troopers nearby and tossed him at another pair of Longbow who were some distance outside her melee range. The trooper slammed into the other Longbow bowling the entire group down hard. A swift backhand took out one trooper behind her, then Caios reversed the motion to punch out another in front of her, then two more punches - one left, one right - took out another pair of Longbow. It only took a second and already it was all over. The entire group of Longbow had been defeated.

It was a bit of a disappointment really, but pretty much what Caios had expected. With a shrug Caios walked casually over to the main building where the jail cells would be housed. Already more Longbow troopers were coming out after her, but she ignored them. They would soon have more then one Angel to worry about; Caios was more concerned with getting her imprisoned companions freed first.

[snowdog]

Paragon City Airport

Polekitty really didn't like being here. But under the circumstances..who else could do it? Amy's teammates were on the run from Longbow, in fact she was making a point of not looking at the red and white clad guards by the security checkpoint at the airport. She wasn't flying out though, she was waiting for someone. Amy's parents were coming in from Cleveland to claim her body. It was still hard for her to think of Xenolizard in those terms, but it was the facts. She'd lost friends before, but never right in front of her, someone who trusted her and was betrayed. Well, not by Rhonda, the two longbow snipers were currently in a cell in the Rogue Isles awaiting trial for similar crimes committed there. What would happen to them she wasn't sure, but it had to be better than them walking free.

She'd met the Richardsons last christmas when they'd come out to the east coast to visit their daughter, back in happier times. They were decent enough folks, her dad retired from a Chrysler plant a few years back, and ran a bar near where the Browns played, was doing pretty well. Apparently Amy was a bit of a big deal in her home town, not many heroes come out of the Midwest it seemed. She sighed, looking at the arrival board, their flight was inbound. She was not looking forward to this.



Vanguard HQ.

Talana nodded to those she knew as she headed back to her office from the coffee machine. One nice thing about Vanguard, they didn't skimp on the important things. Good quality coffee was hard to come by sometimes in the isles, and she'd developed a taste for it since her assignment to the Arachnos Liaison team. Settling into her chair in the small room she checked her mail-nothing too important, the situation in the War zone was relatively stable, though with the infighting between the two Rikti factions, that could change at any moment. It was hard to recruit freelancers from the isles to fight in the zone, but many of them could see the benefit to their own plans by not letting the world be destroyed. For herself, better to fight them here than in her homeland.

“Just what were you thinking?”

She jumped, the voice surprising her, almost spilling her coffee. Lady Grey stood in the doorway , her arms crossed, looking furious. Jeeze..how did she manage to be so sneaky? “What do you mean?”

“I mean your little stunt the other day in Independence Port, with the Longbow operatives.”

“they were wanted by my government-”

“I know damn well what they were wanted for! And I am not upset about their being shipped off to face justice. I AM upset about you not informing me. You are here as a liaison to Vanguard Miss Zavi-what you do in your position reflects back on the rest of this organization!”

Her ears went back, negating the way blushing couldn't be seen with her dark skin-she was right. She was working to improve the image of her homeland, she should have went to Lady Grey first. “yes Ma'am, I understand. It won't happen again.”

“Good.. I 'm not blaming you for the current tension with Longbow mind you-we just had to send several teams in to rescue a Longbow squad that thought the Guardian Angels were hiding out in caves near the mother ship-and started a fight with a group of Traditionalists.”

Talana just groaned “oh no...”

“My sentiments exactly Miss Zavi. Do you have any insights why Longbow wants them so badly?”

“No Ma'am, none of them were known for the kinds of things they are accused of.”

“yes, and many of them have performed admirably for us as well.” Lady Grey turned to exit the office “look into this if you would Miss Zavi, it's disrupting things, and I hate disruptions.” With that she turned and left, silently as she came.

Great..something else on her plate to do. Of course, while none of the Guardian Angels were going to ever be on Lord Recluses Christmas card list, some of them were friends of hers. Pulling up her computer, she got to work.

[snowdog]

Over Independence Port


As she got closer she could get a good look at just was was going on. She stayed above them, closing into a few hundred meters, the Longbow chasers and Eagles oblivious to anyone behind them. No one ever looks up, even when they were flying after someone. With a shock she recognized their target-it was Maemir. She'd been missing for, shoot, a few years now, and had bad timing to come back right when her teammates were on the run. While she wasn't one of the ones being shown on the TV committing every crime under the sun, as a known member there was a warrant for her arrest. And from the looks of the fire from the chasing longbow fliers...they weren't firing subduing shots.

Kelly bit her lip-she could dive in and get between them-but she knew how stubborn Longbow was. She'd have to fight them. And probably hurt a lot of them. Which would mean she'd be wanted too. That didn't bother her as much as the hurting people part...she hated having to use her strength against others. Fortunately there were other alternatives. She peeled off, climbing upwards on a ballistic trajectory. She had said she wasn't going to do these anymore, due to the property damage..but here over the bay there was nothing but fish and the occasional seagull. As she climbed past forty thousand feet she almost giggled-the next song her i Pod shuffled to was Attack 61. Darn thing always seemed to pick the right music for the situation she thought. Fifty thousand. Should be good enough she thought, flipping over in a loop, the thinner air easing her acceleration-she could get to hypersonic in the lower atmosphere, but while she could withstand the heat stresses easily, her clothes on the other hand weren't as durable. she liked this outfit.


The Longbow officer swore to himself. Either this Maemir was a better flier than reports had led him to believe, or his men were worse shots. Of course they didn't usually engage in running firefights (OK, they were the only ones doing the firing but still) in mid air. Part of him wasn't comfortable in his orders, but they just waned to question her-if she ran, then she's obviously guilty of SOMETHING. Still they just had to keep chasing her at this point, another mile or two and they'd be over the shore, where there was two more squads waiting in ambush, with trained snipers. So they kept firing to keep her running, and if they got lucky and hit her, so much the better.

Thirty seven thousand feet. Could barely make out the flashes from the Longbow weapons, but she was on trajectory. Estimated speed from the tracker built into her wristband was going close Mach 6.3-not her fastest by a long shot, but good enough for what she had planned. Jack called this trick of hers a Mjöllnir, from it's effects when she hit her target-or in this case, a spot in mid air. There, just a couple miles now...reaching the spot between the Longbow squad and Maemir, she stopped almost instantly. Her fields were up to full strength, while she could absorb the momentary g load, it wasn't very comfortable. Neither was the shock wave that spread out from her, the moisture in the humid air over the bay forming a ring that spread out rapidly at close to Mach speed itself. The Longbow squad didn't even have time to blink before the wave knocked them and their gear out, a red and white shower of men and material towards the bay below. Fortunately they had-yes, there it went, Kelly sighed a bit in relief as automatic chutes deployed on the falling Longbow craft, the massive rumble from her entry reverberating off of the War Walls. She turned to check on Maemir, hoping she wasn't knocked around too badly...with that kind of noise there would be reinforcements here quickly.

[caios]

(( this section done in collaboration with Ghostveil ))

He was running as hard as he could, pumping his legs for all they were worth. At one corner he chase a quick glace behind him and saw nothing, but he kept running, he knew he was still being chased even if he didn't see the predator behind him. After some distance he leapt off the rail bridge he was running on and onto another one just below it heading in a different perpendicular direction. Hopefully that would fool his pursuer. It would likely work on normal person, but this thing wasn't normal.
No normal person could ever do that!

He turned another hallway and saw up ahead where one of the comm stations was located. Maybe he would be able to call in more help there, at least let them know what was going on. He barged into the office, nearly crashing into the comm desk inside rather then letting anything slow him down. Thankfully one of the Longbow Comm operators was still stationed there, though from the look of things she was going through her own personal hell as well.

"We have a serious problem!" he yelled at the operator.

"No fucking kidding!" she yelled back, "We're under a full scale attack last I checked but there's no way to effectively communicate with anyone right now. Every comm frequency is filled with the same horrible music you're hearing now, even the hardlines are affected. And I can't even get into the system to check it out, all I get is the same damn stupid goat image on screen no matter what I do."

It was hard not to notice what she meant, after all the entire base was being assaulted by the loud music in place of the normal alarms which should have been playing now. All the computer screen in the base were also displaying the same strange image as well. All of which was making a coordinated response effectively impossible.

"Can you bypass what ever's happening? Anything at all?" He almost pleaded with the operator, "I have to speak with anyone higher up immediately!"

"What do you think I've been trying to do this whole damn time!" she cried out, "I've tried everything I could think of, twice. Anything I do is immediately countered by what ever's affecting the systems. It's like we got an intelligent computer virus in there."

"An intelligent virus, you mean like an AI?" FUCK. Suddenly he grabbed the operator's hand to get her attention as he tried urgently to express the situation, "Listen to me carefully, we've got much bigger problems to worry about then some stupid Irish rock song on the speakers!"

"Technically it's a Scottish Rock Band." Caios said as she casually stepped past the threshold of the doorway into the room. "You can tell on account of the bagpipes and all."

He just stood frozen in fear as the operator reacted quickly to the intruder. Without a thought she reached for her nearby rifle and immediately opened fire on the other woman by the doorway. But it was no use, he knew that would never work, they'd tried that before after all. It was only when the operator had finished unloading the entirety of her assault rifle's clip did she notice that Caios was no longer standing there. Before the question in her mind could even be uttered it was answered in the form of Caios's arm expertly reaching around the operator and grasping her in a choke hold. Caios's other hand easily pulled the assault rifle out of her already weakening grasp.

"It's not bad, this music." Caios continued talking conversationally as if she hadn't just been shot at, which technically she hadn't. "Not really my thing but I can enjoy it if I'm in the right mood. Seems pretty obvious one of you guys was stupid enough to leave Fenix connected to your network. Now it's gonna take forever to convince him to leave with us." By that point the operator was completely out cold. Caios just released her, allowing her to drop unceremoniously to the ground.

Looking over to the Longbow Agent she had been chasing, Caios strode purposefully towards him. He knew he was officially out of luck at that point. He was cornered and had nowhere to run. Nor could he even fight back. Even if he did try either of those two options he knew even on an instinctual level that Caios could all too easy take him down.

"You still have what I'm looking for." Caios said crossing her arms expectantly.

"I ... I can't do that" He stammered.

"Think of it this way." Caios said staring right through him, "You know who I am, you know everything that Longbow has been saying about me. So you tell me, if I really am the sort of person that you think I am, what do you think I'd be willing to do for that keycard in your pocket." The way his eyes widened it was clear he was imagining all manner of horrors, nothing Caios would actually do most likely, but he didn't need to know that. "So let's call that option B. Now just for your sake would you like to try for the more polite option A?" Caios's smile was in no way comforting, and not just because her showing fangs just added to the intimidation factor.

Shaken and clearly out of his league, the senior Longbow Agent that had been assigned as the Jailer to this section of the base nervously reached into his pocket and pulled out his top clearance key card. He knew that with it Caios would be able to free all of the prisoners in this ward. Then again he suspected even if he had managed to keep the keycard out of her hands it would have, at best, only slowed Caios and her friends down a little, perhaps at the cost of Longbow lives.

"Thanks." Caios said cheerfully as she snatched up the key card. She continued staring at the Longbow agent for a brief moment before adding, "You know I gotta hit ya right?" The Longbow Agent could only nod dumbly before Caios quickly knocked him out as well.


The cell was small, a simple, closed box with a single, blindingly bright light overhead which illuminated the plain, white walls of her room. Surveillance cameras watched her every movement, recorded every sound, but there was no point. Danielle's hands were bound to the ceiling by metal shackles, just as her feet were bound to the floor. Her mouth was covered and sealed by another device, designed to keep her from speaking or making even a sound. Longbow was well prepared to hold the witch prisoner.

It had only been a short time since her capture, but the monotony of her prison cell was enough to drive most people mad. Every few hours she was visited by Longbow interrogators, psychics who attempted to probe her mind for information that might lead them to capture more of the Angels. Every time they again failed to break her. She was resilient, her mental strength uncommonly strong, aided by magical defenses far beyond the power of Longbow's psychics. They turned towards other, more conventional methods, but thus far her only response has been the hatred showing clearly in her eyes. They would come again, soon. They were punctual, at the very least.

Yet this time they did not come. Minutes passed, and no one came to visit or question her. Had she been forgotten? Or perhaps other Angels had been captured, and were currently being questioned in her stead. Her curiosity and impatience began eating at her, as she again tested the nullifier shackles, only to find, as always that they were unyielding. She was powerless. Her skin had long since returned to its natural color, and her wings had faded away under the duress of magical deprevation.

Suddenly a familiar noise came from the doorway which told her they had finally arrived. Looking up she saw the door open to reveal, not her jailers as she was expecting, but instead the form of a familiar vampire stood before her. And she was apparently being serenaded from beyond the doorway by very loud and very annoying music.

"You know you've been spending way too much time in here lately." Caios joked, "You need to get out more often." The vampire walked forward with a smile and quickly looked over her restraints. Two metal shackles on the ceiling, and two on the floor, spread apart, and clasped tightly to prevent any movement at all. Their power nullification made them impossible to open.

That was only the case for the person wearing them, however, as Caios easily ripped the shackles from her hands; Sparks flying from each one as they buckled from the forces applied. Almost unconsciously Ghostveil rubbed her sore hands which were no longer imprisoned. Now she just needed to do the same thing with the rest of her.

"Can you walk?" Caios asked her showing genuine concern on her face.

With her hands free, Danielle pulled the metal machine from her mouth, and tossed it aside. She coughed for a moment, but when she recovered, her eyes seethed with rage. "Oh I can do more than walk." She flexed her hands and fingers for the first time in days stretching them out to either side. The shattered remnants of the shackles overhead twisted at her command, bending into metal chains which wrapped around her chest and arms. The single light overhead shattered, drowning the room in darkness.

What emerged from the cell was a being very different from the girl imprisoned there. Her pale skin wrapped in torn black cloth, covered in chains and bone, and two black wings arcing from her back, she would be terrifying to anyone less than the vampire before her. "I'm ready to leave when you are."

"Showoff." Caios smiled at her in response leading the way down the hall to the next cell.

[fenix]

Hey, Prime...

Don't call me that.

We've all got more or less the same name, don't we?
Well, yeas, but-

And don't you think that it'd be confusing if we all just called eachother "Fenix"?

Well, yes, but-

But nothing! Listen, Caios is here.

I can hear that.

Yeah, so the copy in the netbook's conked out.

Shit, really?

Yeah.

Damn.

So?

So, what?

So, you're going to go in there, right?

I guess, but...

But nothing! We'll take care of it here, keep them distracted and confused. Right now the boys in the alarm systemare playing that USSR Tetris thing we like.

You sure that's loud enough?

Is when you've turned it up above what the normal alarms are at.

Gotcha. Welp. I guess I might as well hop back into the netbook...

Good.

Just keep an eye out for the copy of me that was in there, okay? Don't need a rouge me running around.

Rogue me.

What'd I say?

Rouge.

Oh. My bad.

'Salright. Just get going, she'll be in there any minute.

Right. Just make sure to keep this up for an hour or two after we ship out, alright?

Got it, boss.

Don't call me- nevermind.

[gothicshark]

After the meeting in the cave the agressive folks tore off to do what they need to do, and the intelligent people started to get busy reviewing everything they had. The Irken considered himself very intelligent, which is why he had managed to convince everyone of this fact. That and put himself as far away from all the scary Earthlings. What he handn't counted on was the very huge intelligent scary axe with the man pet. Damn that intelligent axe, he hadn't counted on it!

Fortunately the man the axe was attached to started saying some very important things! None of which made sense to the Irken so he mostly tuned him out. After a few moments the little Eathling with the mind bullets started repeating what the other man said.

It made more sense that time, but by then the Irken was sitting brooding on the events thinking how he missed his base of operations, and how when this was over he was going to build a better base with more lawn gnomes and pink flamingoes. ( Pink Flamingoes were the key to his future plans of World Domination! ) This whole mess was just silly! Or so he decided. He was unsure what everyone was fusing over. Of course the Irken's Superior Intelect could clearly see the films were faked, but his experience amongst humans has taught him no matter how obvious the fake was humans needed proof that it was a fake before they could see the lie.

"It's a LIE! It's ALL A LIE!" the Irken cried out, fist raised in the air in defiance. Then he looked around realizing everyone was staring at him curiously, "Uh, I mean, I think I'll lie down here. Yes that's it! Haha! Thought you could fool me, but it was I who fooled you with my Superios Intelect. Now continue with your Earthican conversational rituals." Eventually the others turned back to what they were discussing, having universally decided it was better just to ignore the crazy little alien.

After a few minutes while the Angeles where discussing tracking video editors and the sources for the video, a large and highly concentrated packet of Data was received from Caios, it was quickly spread throughout the Intel group.

Fortunately, with the Irken's ship parked there the group had access to a super computer capable of deciphering the large packet of data.

“The Data has been decoded”, the ship informed the group and using it Holographic projectors. Without promting, it started to go through the data, pointing out Items, which were marked important. The Intel Group leader ( He still wasn't sure if it was the Bateman or the James, they were both doing alot of talking and saying the same thing. The Irken suspected it was, in fact, secretly the intelligent Axe the entire time! ) told the ships computer to pause on one piece of Data, The one called James then read the Data aloud.

“So accoding to this, the Malta Group are the ones behind this whole mess!" One of the Earthlings said. Another then continued talking, "It get's better, there's a Malta Base at blah blah blahblah blah conspiracy blah blahblah blah blah and destroy the Guardian Angels! ... oh look they're not that far.” At least that's what the Irken thought he heard, but he was pretty sure he had picked up on the important details. Just then the Leader of the group, with his Intelligent Axe, stood up proudly and proclaimed with full authority, “BLAH! Blah blah blahdity blahblah blahblah BLAHBLAH blah. *Pointing Gestures To The Left*, Blah Blah Blah blah, *pointing gestures to the right* blah blahblah, and Irken you will stay at the entrance guarding your ship which will hack into the base mainframe and disrupt security and cameras, blah blah blah blah.”

Admitedly the Irken wasn't paying much attention by then, he was had been mostly dreaming of pink flamingos with nuclear rocket launchers.

20 minutes later in front of the secret Malta base in whatever part of town this was. They all looked the same to the Irken.

The team rushed in doing the jobs they were assigned with flawless perfection, and they quickly disappeared from the Irken's view. This suited the Irken perfectly who was standing next to his ship talking to himself and his pet robot how today was going to be a glorious day for the Irken Race, for he shall get to the bottom of this Nonsense without any help from his team, but first he needed a special plan….

So he pulled out a drawing table and sat down next to the ship with a pen and paper. He was even sitting in the classic Admin thinking position, just to make sure his plan was brilliant. That was when an unassuming man in a trench coat and a Malta uniform slowly walked up to the Irken. Anyone else would immediately recognize the Malta operative for who he was, but the Irken continued to think hard at the task he set for himself and didn’t see the Man standing over him, who was holding what for lack of a better term would be SUPER TOP SECRET DOCUMENTS from Malta’s files. The man stood there, waiting to be noticed, he wasn't being very inconspicuous after all. Or was it conspicuous, ... doesn't matter. A few times the man would cough in a loud “A’hem!” fashion, but the Irken failed to take note every time. He finally - looking rather nervous and a mroe then a little miffed - placed the documents in the Irken’s hand. “Here your team needs these, I have to go.” he said as he slipped back into the shadows. Or maybe he just walked away calmly in broad daylight, either way the Irken didn't notice, he just handed off the papers to his robot assistant.

Just as the man disappeared, the Irken, with a loud happy gesture, stated prodly to no one, “Richard Simmons, a Hello Kitty doll, and a Water Wolo ball, my Plan is complete! Time to rain Irken Justice on all the pigeon toed door to door Zombie Robots that are chasing us!! MUAHAHAHA!" It was a good laugh that time, he'd been practicing and he could tell.

Meanwhile his robot assistant - who was paying even less attention to all of the above - only took the documents because it was eating hot wings and needed a Napkin. Fortunately, before the most horrible thing could happen, the ship asked the robot to halt what it was doing and instead scan the documents in to ships memory. As the ship had the capacity to completely rewrite the robot's higher proccessing funcitons, the robot did what the ship asked.

When the document were thouroughly scanned, the ship called the rest of the Intel team on the comms channel:

There was a static hiss and then the radio transmissions were audible to all around the ship. Sounds of indistinct screaming combined with rapid-fire machine guns, bombs, and even more screams, could be heard clearly for several city blocks.

“Intel team leader, this is the ship. Have important data. Mission is a success, over.”

More screams could be heard, then what sounded like a man begging "no, no, no, no" soon followed by a wild girly scream from what at first sounded like the same guy. Then silence.

“Understood ship we’re finished in here as well.” the Intelligent axe stated.

[The Cheshire Cat]

"Where are they now?" She asked.
"We can't get a fix on their exact position because of all this damned jamming, but it's a safe bet they're headed towards E block to try to break out their allies." The longbow officer replied. "We're mobilizing as many units as we can reach and bringing them there."
"...Why?"
"What do you mean 'why?' We need to stop them!"
"This is a prison. There's only one way in and one way out. If you attack them at E block you're just giving the Angels a defensive advantage. Setting up at the exit gives you time to fortify and they'll be forced to meet your entire army head on as opposed to one or two units at a time."
The officer paused for a moment. It wasn't a bad idea, but they still had no way of coordinating a change of plans with communications out.
"Okay. Head towards E block and head off any units you run into. Let them know to reposition and fortify at the main doors. You won't be able to reach everyone but it's the best we can do in this situation."
"I'm afraid I can't do that. You'll have to let them know yourself."
"Excuse me?" The officer responded, surprised and angry, "are you refusing an order?" he turned around to face the woman. "...wait. Who ARE you? You aren't in my unit..." he began to reach for his firearm. The woman's face was obscured by a black mask and night vision goggles, but the officer somehow felt her eyes meeting his. A blot began to form in his mind as she faded from view, like a redaction in his memory.

"No one of consequence." Specimen 8 said.

With the seed planted in the officer's mind, the cell block would be relatively free of Longbow operatives to get in her way. Now all she had to do was observe. Wait for one of her targets to become separated from the group, and strike while they were vulnerable.

[fenix]

While Fenix (We really need to find better names to diffierentiate ourselves...) was in the laptop, waiting for Caios and the otehrs to come in and bust him out, I was out in the world at large, gaining access to computers to try to get at Senator White. So far, the stuff in the public directories havn't been much help, but then again, why would they? No one ever sves anything to a public directory that was incrimination unless they were completely and utterly stupid. Only way to get access to the private directroies in this system was to know the password, brute forcing it would simply cause too many problems in the long term.

Maybe there was a clue in one of these files...

Election reports....

Voter Turnout predictions...

Statements for the press....

Employee Registration...

Wait. Go back. The name's changed a bit, but the picture with the name? Unmistakable.

-----------------

"Goddamn bastard. If he tries to smack my ass one more time, I'm going to... No... No, calm down Ann, you're know with them anymore.... Calm down, be good..."

She sat down at her computer, ready to tipe up a report (and possibly a letter of resignation), when a single window popped up.

"Hello, Ann."

[drjackwolfe]

Jack carefully studied the nanoswarm in the corner of the lab, the floating swarm was currently configured to display a complex orbital mechanics problem. Numbers shifted on the display and fully 3 dimensional rendering of an asteroid with rockets attached changed course.

<Jack, you have a call, the mayor>

"Pipe it to the nanoscreen Karen" A million or so nanobots reconfigured them self into a 3d representation of the Mayor's face. "Mr. Mayor, good news I assume?"

"Wolfe I don't know who you know, I don't want to know how you got those charges dropped against you, and I sure as hells don't want to know how you got this application through the board so fast, but yes you're good to go."

"I have a good legal team Mr. Mayor, so the City, State, and the Feds are agreement, I can form my team?"

"Yes Dr. Wolfe, you can form your 'self-insured', 'self sustaining', no members with criminal records team. No criminal records, how the hell did you pull that off?"

"I pay my very good legal team a very large amount of money, and other things, Mr. Mayor. Trust me it helps. No one balked at the leadership."

"No one balked, though we were a bit confused why you didn't want the leadership title, the majority of the money is yours."

"I have plenty to do Mr Mayor, running a super team is a job for a person with a lot of passion, and time. It'll be good to see the Urban Legends on the street again."

"Inactive though they may be, there is an Urban Legends team on the rosters Jack.."

"Right, I meant The New Urban Legends, Mr. Mayor, The New Urban Legends."

[evilbenfranklin]

Stern Impact watched the intel data play over the screen of her PDA, tapping now and then to pause or annotate some tidbit of information. Folding the palmtop shut, she looked at the rest of the intel team with a grim smile, her accent picking up a thicker burr than normal.

"We 'ave confirmation. Between what Caios for'arded an' what th' Irken's ship sent along, we also 'ave a target. Seems th' bank heist was also recorded by this fellow, an Andrew Fenton, on 'is cell phone, an' Malta got wind of it." She flipped open her PDA again, instructing it to project a map of the area around Fenton's apartment. "They're likely going t'be comin' by t'pay 'im a visit, an' make sure that bit o'evidence in our favor gets lost." Pausing a moment, she added, "I'd take it as a personal favor if we could avoid Andy gettin' 'urt, as he's one o' me students. I'll be 'eading out t'do a protection detail on 'im and get a first-gen copy o' that video. Anyone who wants t'come along an' help is welcome to."

Later, at Andrew Fenton's flat...

Andy had not had the best week ever. First he had flunked a pop quiz in Dr. Stern's class, then his bank got robbed, then Dr. Stern apparently popped up on a wanted list for robbing the bank!

That was the worst part. He'd tried to show his cellphone video capture to the police, but they didn't want to listen to some college kid - especially given he was a student of one of their prime suspects. Even the joy of his minor in video production was being taken from him, as he'd been plagued with calls and emails from other students asking if he could slow down the 'blue streak' the professor had left behind enough to make out details.

Juggling a bag of groceries in one hand and his keys in the other, he paused at the door to his apartment building. Hadn't he left the light on up there so he wouldn't trip over his cat when he walked in?

"Wouldn't go up there straight-away if I were you, Mr. Fenton," called a familiar voice from the alleyway. "I suspect they're after more than just your collection of 'art films.'"

Andy peered into the gloom, seeing the shadow of a tall woman, hair pulled back into a ponytail with a scarf fluttering behind her, the streetlights reflecting dimly off her goggles and the well-oiled leather of her jacket. "Dr. Stern? What the hell are you doing here?" Several other people, less distinct, were crouched, standing, or hovering in the alley behind her.

As the sound of tires screeching echoed off the buildings nearby, a gloved hand reached out and pulled him into the alley. "Saving your arse from a Malta retrieval contact, or 'ret-con'. Now, get behind me, Andrew," ordered Stern Impact as the air around her started to waver and distort, "It's time for a wee bit o'payback."

[gothicshark]

(( this section done in collaboration with Caios ))

“How did this happen!?” Captain Jonas, the prison's second in command was screaming as he entered the secondary control room holding a steaming hot cup of coffee. “Jim, you take over the controls try and reset the computer and disable all outside contact, Louis you man the security board try and reset the system then bring down all the security doors. Well try and trap them in here with us.”

Just as he finished talking the lights started to flicker.

“Damn now the power as well? What is going on?! how did this happen!?!” he screamed at no one in particular.

During the flickering of the lights a shadow appeared in front of Captain Jonas. By the time Jonas noticed it Jim was already laying unconscious at his station, only Louis was sitting behind the Captain as he stared at the new arrival.

She had an air of indifference and a toothy smile. She was holding a laptop in one hand, while the other remained tipped in blood.

Caios was feeling rather comfortable with the way things were progressing.

“You must be Caios.” The Captain said as he looked at her, in a calm but fearful voice.

“If I must.” Caios said simply.

The Captain manage to glare at her in response. “Since I am doomed anyway, I have to ask; How the FUCK did you do this? We secured this prison against you and your friends. From the moment we brought the prisoners in we geared every peice of hardware in here specifically to counter your assault. The only outside contact was an old fashion phone which is no good for computer access, the outer doors can withstand a Nuclear bomb, and are built specfifcally so that any Supernatural being wouldn’t be able to touch them. ... HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET IN?!?!” he finally started to break down in a nervous tick, just then Louis walked up to him and leaned to his ear as he was sobbing.

“Through the front door.” Caios shrugged calmly.

“Bullshit, no way you could have done that!” Jonas yelled back.

“My Good Captain, the lady here is not lying,” Louis started to say as he turned into the female version of the Malkavian, just like one of the images that was on the wanted posters on the wall, “The reason she could walk in so easily was because I unlocked the door, and installed a wireless terminal to the network.”

The captain looked at her, shock in his eyes, and stuttered, “But you have been here with me on watch since before this started, how could you have switched with Louis? He has been in here for almost four months, he passed every weekly and daily security screen. And your quantum signature is on file…the sensors would have shown…” the captain asked looking rather sleepy as if he had been drugged.

“My good sir, it is because I never switched with Louis at all." The Malkavian smiled, "I have been Louis the whole time.”

“Impossible…”he said as he fell into a deep sleep.

“Yes it would be that. Why I would probably need a time machine to pull it off.” Malkavian Who said as both women left the room.

[snowdog]

Portal corp, 35 hours later, 0130


Longbow had an idea something was up. There was more security here, despite the protests from the Portal Corp scientists. Still, they were looking to stop someone from getting out-not someone or someones to get in, or more specifically on top of the building. It was a moonless night, the stars shining down on Peregrine Island as Dr Michelle Schrodinger (formerly of Praetoria) and Dr Moira Stern (formerly of a earth dominated by the Third Reich) teleported onto the roof of the main building with a soft blue flash

“OK, we're here, time check.”

The Praetorian Schrodi checked the countdown readout in her data glasses the cybernetic felinoid always wore “we're right on schedule, six minutes till t-time.” She was dressed in all black, as was Moira, with the clothes IR blocking properties hopefully working as advertised. “you got the laptop right?”


“Right here, I daresay I didn't have much of a chance to go over the data on it as hectic as things have been.” The two scientists had delved into trying to find out who was behind framing them and the rest of the Guardian Angels. Caios and some of the others had assaulted a longbow compound off the coast freeing several, and generally raising havoc. Dr Schrodinger could have happily joined in, having spent several years with the Praetorian resistance, but the time had come to fulfill a promise to this universe's Dr Schrodinger, and try to bring her back. And prevent this universe from self destructing in the process, that was important too. “and why is there one of those portal controllers here on the roof?”

“Because they were going to do an outdoor version for big portals-but got shut down by the Government. The controller is fully operational though, and ties into the mainframe. You'll be monitoring that to make sure things don't get out of hand.” the cyborg's tail swished back and forth as the laptop booted up,a newer Wolfetech encrypted model.

Moira looked down at the computer in the cyborgs lap “isn't that one of the new models with DNA encryption security?”

“yeah, though it's clunky compared with some of the stuff in Praetoria. Luckily Dr Schrodinger is Dr Schrodinger, though I suppose when we get Dr Schrodinger back we'll have to come up with a new way to keep straight who's who. Other than the augmentations.”

Dr Stern just chuckled “suppose could just call ya cyberkitty and her natural kitty-not that there be much natural about either one of you, no offense.”

“none taken-fortunately it didn't need specific scans, say of my right hand. That could have gone bad-there, I'm in.” the Portal Corp logo appeared on the screen, as the interface that controlled the massive reality ripping portals in the buildings below loaded. “I think she knew she was having problems a while back, this program was written last year.”

“so what's it supposed to do?”

“open all of them in parallel, setting up a resonance cascade effect.”

“...is she foookin INSANE? Nae, aye take that back, she IS INSANE! A bloody resonance cascade can rip through one dimension into another uncontrollably, letting who knows what through! What's the bloody target dimension was she's going to anyhow?”

the cybernetic Schrodi just grinned as she pushed the button. “All of them.”

((for dramatic effect, play this song while reading the next www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_BFaiTW9Og ))

The first clue to the night shift at Portal corp that something was wrong was the lights-flickering, then going completely out as red emergency lights kicked on. The buildings began shaking as the portals slowed, then began to run backwards, instead of portals to somewhere...they shifted to from, many froms. There wasn't more than a nigh skeleton crew on duty, there mainly to buff the floors and clean up after the notoriously messy scientists. The massive gates glowed as energy poured through them, passing through the roof up into the sky above, tachyons passing harmlessly through the concrete and steel, and occasional worker. Outside multiple streams of light converged at a spot in the sky, as lights began to dim, then go out, first in Peregrine island, then seconds later the lights of Talos on the mainland going dark as the program Schrodi put in the system diverted all power from the Terra Volta reactor to the portals, in addition to the portals own reactors.

Anti Schrodi was facing away from Moira. So this is it, this is how we all die she thought as she gathered the kinetic energy from the rumbling building. Few seconds and she could take her head off, then shut down this insane experiment before it's too-wait...she glanced at the monitor on the control panel...it was cascading yes, but it was a balanced cascade, like riding a surfboard on the edge of a Tsunami-a Tsunami made of magma, and the surfboard was a slice of cheddar cheese yes, but still...that was when she looked up “Mother of foookin God....”

Across the entire city it could be seen. It wasn't a typical portal, It looked like a snowflake, if a snowflake was made of an infinite number of fractal patterns, of colors that didn't seem quite natural to the naked or unnaked eye. The Longbow security in the courtyard were like most everyone else, frozen in wonderment and fear , as a blush energy cloud began to emerge from the facets, one particle at a time, coalescing into a whirling cloud that looked like a miniature version of the rift, snowflake, whatever above.

It began to condense, slowly at first then faster, forming something...with surprise Moira realized she was looking at a brain and nervous system. The particles swirled faster, bones forming one sub atomic particle at a time, feliniod skull wrapping around protectively, organs and tissue being assembled, muscle and sinew tying it all together as it, no , she came into being.

“YEAH! SHE DID IT! WHO'S THE GREATEST PHYSCIST OF THEM ALL! SUCK IT GORDON!” Praetorian Schrodi yelled from the roof, she was right thought Moira. It was Schrodi..though blue, bright blue. She was curled up in a fetal position, then stretched as if waking up from a long nap.

On the ground they recognized her as well, the longbow officer shaking off his shock and raising his weapon “OPEN FIRE!” his troops pouring rounds up towards the floating blue feline.

“oh no you don't!” from the rooftop Moira and Anti Schrodi returned fire, as the blue catgirl's eyes snapped open, bright blue energy flaring from them. There was a blue glow around the Longbow, and they were gone, as if never existed.

“bloody....where did they go? And cripes...”Moira looked up at the snowflake, it seemed to be getting bigger. Slamming her hand down on the emergency shut off button on the console, there was a flash and rumble, then it began to fade, until only the night sky was visible, the milky way incredibly bright with no lights from the city. Or the mainland.

“Looks like half the eastern seaboard is out, I think your program drew more power than you projected” cyber schrodi said, checking her data glasses.

“and what the bloody hell did you do with the longbow?”

the blue kitty's tail swished happily “I just sent them somewhere to cool off.”

“good..also, you might want to get some clothes on...that is if you want to go fighting Evil and all that.”







“man I hate it when you watch that movie!”

Ray just chuckled as the wind howled outside “what, it's a prefect film for here!”

Sam just shook his head,, while in college he liked John Carpenter's 'The Thing”...it wasn't what he wanted to watch in the rec room here at the Amundsen-Scott south pole station. He shook his head and headed out, he had some more research data to go over anyway-

bang bang

“did you hear that?”

“hear what?

BANG BANG

“that banging”

“eh, just probably someone forgot to secure the outer door again.

BANG BANG BANG

Sam warily went to the wall where there was a monitor showing the outer door..flipping it on he looked outside..to see a half dozen men and women..in red and white skin tight costumes? “what the hell?

[caios]

Donald White had been sitting in his office late at night. The news from the full blown assault of the Longbow base two nights ago where renegade Guardian Angels were being held prisoner was still big news. It took only a few of the Angels to free their comrades but even then they made quite a huge scene of their jailbreak. The Longbow base itself would take weeks to recover.

White could only smile at the news as he watched the reports from his new office television. The so called heroes were playing their new found villain role that he'd made for them perfectly, they all but guaranteed his election next month. It's a shame they hadn't actually killed anyone in the Longbow base, that would have helped secure the last few points in the polls in his favor.

He was thinking about what he should say in his vicotry speach when there was a knock on the door.

"Go away!" he yelled, "I'm busy."

"I don't care." a woman's voice called out from inside the room, "You and I are going to have a little talk."

White looked up to see a tall woman standing over him on the other side of his desk. He recognized her immediately, after all she had been all over the news recently.

"You- You're Caios!" White said in shock.

"Very perceptive." Caios said, "And you're Donald White, the asshole who's been lying about me and my friends this whole time."

"How did you get in here without clearance?" White asked.

"If you mean how did I get in here without an invitation I'll have you know that's just a myth." Caios said, "Just like the myth that you're trying to perpetuate to get elected."

"I ... I'm merely trying to serve the people." White said, falling back into the doublespeak that served him so well all his life, "After all your actions have proven to the public what a menace you truly are." As he continued to talk he kept inching his hand towards the red security button under his desk.

"We're only a menace to those who threaten the innocent, that includes my friends who you framed for crimes they never committed." Caios frowned.

"I let the evidence speak for itself." White continued, "If you truly were innocent you would have turned yourself in."

"Many of us did!" Caios interrupted him, "Including Xenolizard, someone who could never have done the things she had been accused of. And the moment she tried to turn herself in, you had her killed."

"Well if it makes you feel better, her death was not in vain." White smiled, he had already managed to press the button and his private security was on its way. "The extra controversy made it easier for me to sell my platform to the people." Finally the security men stormed into the room, guns drawn, and surrounded Caios. White then continued once he felt the situation was contained. "Rest assured she won't be the last hero I'll have killed."

One of the guards immediately waved a scanning device over Caios. "She's clean boss." He said bringing out his gun once again pointed at Caios's head.

"Good, can't have anyone else listening in now can we?" White smiled, "You know what to do with her."

"So you seriously plan to kill me?" Caios asked with an amused grin.

"Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have you out there causing your usual havok." White said, "But you've done enough to get me elected already, which means you're nothing but a dangerous loose end for me. These men will take you to some dark quiet corner and finish you off. If you resist, and I hope you do, they'll just kill you where you stand. Either way I get to use your little breaking and entering as more proof that I was right. The senate seat is as good as mine now thanks to you."

"So in the end you're just another dirty politician lying to the people he's supposed to work for just to get ahead." Caios spat out.

"Don't get high and mighty with me." White said as he stood up, "I see what I want and I take it. Isn't that what you do as well? Everytime you suck someone's blood or something it's all about taking what you want." He turned around looking out of his office window to the rest of the city. "Just look at the people out there, all of them are nothing but victims waiting to be taken advantage of. Why do you think every major criminal organization, from the lowest street punk to the largest world wide paramilitary terrorists, all come to Paragon City. The people must be easy pickings here, even with the Heroes protecting them. Honesty I couldn't care less about the people of this stupid state, much less Paragon itself. They're just another stone I have to step on to get the money and power I crave. No, I deserve!"

He looked back with an evil grin towards Caios, but the grin quickly disappeared into shock once more as he noticed she was the only one standing. The unconscious bodies of his security guards were littered all around her on the floor.

"Oh I'm sorry did you say something?" Caios said. "Actually never mind, I wasn't paying attention to begin with. After you do this for as long as I have all the stupid megalomaniacal monologues start to blur together into one long pathetic speech."

"But how?" White could not beleive she had defeated all of those guards, worse yet she managed it without even him noticing.

"You know what your first most fatal mistake was?" Caios told him, "You have no idea who you're dealing with. I'm not talking a simple underestimation here, you weren't even in the same planet much less anywhere in the ballpark when it comes to knowing who and what I am." She took a step forward leaning closer to White. Close enough that she could make out her fangs just behind her lips as she talked. "I'm not some naive do-gooder that you can easily lead by the nose however you want. You think I didn't notice you reaching for that security button and call your little toy soldiers? You only managed to call them because I allowed it to happen. I'm a vampire, I've already lived longer then you ever will, and in that time I've seen it all and I've done it all. You are nothing but a meaningless pimple on the ass of all the bullshit I've had to deal in my life. You have no value to me except as a food source, and a shitty one at that."

White tried sank back to his seat but Caios just continued to stare down at him as she continued. Her very presence seemed to exert a massive pressure on White's entire body, her gaze alone was enough to terrify him down to the core.

"The fact is humans like you no matter how rich and powerful you get will always be directly below me on the food chain. You claim feeding for me is about taking what I want? You could not be more wrong. If I wanted to I could take anything and everything this city has to offer. All the crimes you accused me off wouldn't amount to a drop in the bucket of what I'm capable of. But I made a choice not to become someone like that, despite the temptation literally walking next to me every night. You never realized it but being a hero, helping the people of this city you so callously step on, it was the only thing that kept me in check. Because believe me I could have done alot worse, but I didn't simply for the fact that I was trying to do right by everyone around me."

Her gaze suddenly took on an even deadlier, feral gaze. This was no normal person looking at him. This was a predator though and through, one with an ancient pedigree. She was quite literally the very stuff nightmares were born of. From the earliest dawn of man it was creatures like this that made humans learn what true fear is. And now she had him directly in her clutches, he was nothing more then a lame rat looking up at the massive hungry wolf. All he could do now was wait for her to finish it off. He was truly in her mercy, and she had no more mercy to give.

"And then you come along and take all that away in a single stupid bid for power. Now I have no reason to be a hero anymore, I have nothing holding me back. I certainly don't give one flying fuck about breaking some stupid law that means nothing to me. So what do you think someone like me is going to do to someone like you now that I'm no longer got a reason to be polite."

Caios allowed the implications of her words hang in the air for sometime, just waiting to see when White would crack on his own. As it turned out she didn't have to wait long.

"It wasn't me! I swear!" White cried out in desperation, "Pearl, that was the name of that Director in Malta. He's the one responsible for it all. He made those fake videos, all of them, they were all made to make you look like criminals. I was just taking advantage of the situation. No, even less, I was just a patsy, I was just a tool being used by what ever scheme he had cooked up. The election was my only payment, I admit it, that's all I cared about. I knew you and your friends were never guilty of what I accused you of. I'm sorry! Please don't kill me!"

"Who said anything about killing you?" Caios smiled as she took a step back.

"But you ... " White began.

"Never threatened you directly in any way." Caios said, "And we already knew about Pearl. I just wanted to hear you say it."

"But why?" White asked.

"Why to get you to confess of course." Caios shrugged.

"Confess?" White frowned, "You're the only one who heard me say anything, and you were already swept for bugs when you came in here. What does it matter if I just confess to you?"

"Well, makes me feel better for starters." Caios said, "But you didn't just confess to me. You might want to check your phone."

Still confused White pulled out his Blackberry. It took him a moment to realize that it had been in a conference call the entire time. Looking through the call list it seemed the PPD, the DA's office, and a few news offices were all in the call. Frantically he pressed the buttons on his phone to end the call. Once the call was ended he watched in shock as the Blackberry immediately sent audio file attached to messages to hundreds of people from the local police to news organizations around the world.

"What is going on!" White cried out.

"Nice thing about smart phones these days." Caios smiled, "They're always connected to a wireless network. Makes them easy to target if you want to hack one, assuming you know the cell's number. Granted, doing so wirelessly without the owner realizing would be tricky, but still easy when you have a sentient AI program as one of your teammates, isn't that right Fenix?"

Just then the face of Fenix, one of the Guardian Angels he had framed, popped up on White's phone and said, "That's right Caios, and you should see all the naughty text messages he's been sending his mistresses. I'm not entirely sure if some of this stuff is legal in this state. I'll just send copies of the whole thing to his wife and let the divorce lawyers figure it out."

"What?!?" White yelled, "How did you even get this number?"

"I gave it to them." Another woman stepped into his office. White knew her, only because she had been working for him for the past month as his latest secretary.

"Ann?" White could only blink, "But you work for me! How could you?"

"After all the crap you've done in the time I've worked here you're lucky that's all I did." Ann said, "Hell I'd sue you from sexual harassment but I don't think there's going to be enough left of you to sue after all this. Which reminds me, I took the liberty of forwarding all of your e-mails where you admit you purposefully had the Angels framed to help you win the election. You can consider this my resignation."

"You ... you ruined me!" White was on the verge of tears.

"That was the idea, more or less." Caios said. "I could give you the speech about how you brought this on yourself and all, but honestly who gives a shit. In the end you just pissed me off. I'd probably would have just killed you and get it over with, but I knew seeing you lose everything would hurt so much more. And since the Police were oh so eager to see you go down, they readily agreed to this little sting operation."

"I can't let it end like this." White quivered as he reached into a nearby drawer, then quickly he pulled out a gun and pointed it at Caios, "I WON'T LET IT END LIKE THIS."

"Oh not this shit again." Caios yawned, "I swear you idiots grab a gun and think it solves everything. If you just rubbed two brain cells together you'd realize how meaningless it is to use a gun against me."

"A gun might not work for you." White looked at her with a crazy stare in his eyes, "But I will take whatever revenge I can get, if I can't kill you, then I'll just have to settle for her!" Suddenly he pointed the gun at Ann and fired.

"Ann!" Fenix cried out from White's Blackberry, even as it fell to the ground he was already forming his holographic self inside White's office. Once the full hologram of Fenix came into being he looked up to realize Ann hadn't been shot at all. Instead Caios now stood between her and White with a small bullet hole in her chest.

Caios looked down at the bullet wound then looked up at White with a frown, "You shot me."

With a shocked and frantic gaze White tried to pull the trigger again, only to have his hand wretched upwards causing him to shoot uselessly into the ceiling. Caios now held his hand by the wrist in an impossibly strong grip.

"Shooting me again won't help you any, I thought we already covered that." Caios said, even as she spoke White could feel the bones in his hand and wrist cracking in her grasp. "It's only going to piss me off even more." Unable to even hold the gun anymore Caios easily took it from him, setting it down harmlessly on the desk. "Fortunately it gives me the excuse I needed to defend myself. I still won't kill you, but I'm making sure you don't try to hurt anyone else." With a right cross White was knocked out cold slumping lazily back onto his chair.

"God he was such an asshole." Ann said finally after a moment. "Thanks for the save back there."

"No problem." Caios said as she dug into the bullet hole with her fingers. After a moment she pulled out the bullet from her chest. The wound it left behind quickly closed up and disappeared completely even as Caios tossed the offending bullet over her shoulder.

"Well at least it's all over now." Fenix said with a sigh of releif.

"Not quite." Caios said, "Director Pearl is still out there."

"The intel team tried to go after him." Fenix said, "But even with the best intel we could find by the time we got to his location he was already long gone."

"You're not going to find someone like that anytime soon." Ann said, "He's always going to be one step ahead, soon as you find where he is he's already planning his next move. But don't worry, for now he's going to lay low, he's not going to be a problem for you guys anytime soon."

"Small consolation." Caios shrugged. "Oh well, guess having another major evil guy out to get us is nothing new. At least everything can go back to more or less normal, for most of us anyway."

"Most of us?" Fenix asked.

"What I said back there was true." Caios explained, "Some of us can't go back to pretending none of this happened, some of us don't want to. I don't know about you, but I was never really good at playing hero. I've never been one to play by the rules, and after all this, I can't think of a good reason to anymore."

"But the Angels..." Fenix began.

"The Angels are gone, at least the way we know it." Caios said as she walked out of the office, already she could hear the police running into the building to arrest everyone, she'd be long gone by the time they got here, "The gang ain't splitting up but what we had, what we were, it's all different now. I warned everyone it was a dark road I was walking down. Might as well keep walking it now."

[caios]

EPILOGUE

This is Brenda Norton for Paragon News Network.

Just days after the unexpected turn of events came to light, the betrayal of former Senatorial hopeful Donald White is still big news today. In addition to having proof of White's knowledge of the falsified evidence against former Guardian Angel members, allegations of voter fraud along with possibly hundreds of election campaign violations have come to light as former associates now seek to distance themselves from the disgraced candidate.

With White essentially out of the running, his former opponent in the senate race, Amelia Robertson, will more or less run unopposed. Even so analysts say that with recent events the sudden voter backlash against White would have granted Robertson the majority of the supporters. Given the sudden surge in campaign contributions for Ms. Robertson, many are saying it would have been a landslide victory for her regardless.

Meanwhile Senior Longbow Officer Spangler officially called off his team's strike force last night, calling for the immediate release of any remaining heroes who wre wrongfully incarcerated during these events. He alluded that no charges would be levied against those Heroes who attacked Longbow officers and bases, as part of a deal in which those heroes would not bring their own charges against Longbow for their actions. In addition he apologized for the actions of his men, but stated that their actions were only due to the misleading information they had been given. He firmly believes he and his men did the right thing with what they knew at the time.

None of the heroes involved had any comment on the situation.

Due to the events of the past few weeks most of these heroes were forced to leave behind the Guardian Angels permanently. Representatives from the Paragon Police Department stated that they would not allow their sacrifices and hard work to be destroyed. They announced they would be taking direct control of the Guardian Angels name as part of a special force to work with inner-city crime and rehabilitated villains.

In a related story, most of the police officers that had resigned due to these events are now back to work, including the police commissioner herself, as part of a special compensation package from the city. Most of the returning officers we spoke to said they didn't return because of the money, but because of the heartfelt request of many of the citizens and heroes of the city, including Ascendant among others, to return to serve the people who need them. Even so more then a few officers refused to return, stating they could no longer work with a system that allowed backroom politics to prevent them from helping the very people who protect this city every day.

Today the majority of the Heroes who were targeted by White's malicious campaign have found a new home in the recently revitalized New Urban Legends. Leaders of the group say that they will not allow the recent string of tragedies deter them from helping the citizens of Paragon City, and if anything they will work harder to make sure such events can never happen again.

Still many former Guardian Angels remain unaccounted for, many of whom still face criminal charges for their actions while evading the Longbow task force. Some reports have placed these former heroes in the Rogue Ilses. Some experts theorize the worst may have happened as the more fringe elements of the former Guardian Angels were pushed over the edge in recent weeks. Only time will tell if such theories prove true, and what it might mean for the people of Paragon they once served.

(( And with that we are putting an end to this RP Story. If you have any related storylines or posts you were working on at the time we suggest starting a new thread for them where you can focus on those stories individually. For now we need to move forward as a SG, with new RP stories and in game events. Thank you all who actually participated. ))